Merck to Buy Schering-Plough for $41 Billion

Abstract: A drug deal that is mainly about the drugs. That was many analysts’ assessment Monday of Merck ’s agreement to pay $41.1 billion in cash and stock for Schering-Plough . The merger would join pharmaceutical companies that had combined sales of $46.9 billion last year. Mega-mergers of this sort have been widely expected ever since Pfizer began the consolidation race in January by agreeing to pay $68 billion for Wyeth . And others are likely to follow, as many of the same factors — like expiring patents and soaring development costs — propel drug makers into one another’s arms. But if Pfizer-Wyeth was driven in part by desperation, analysts said, for Merck the Schering deal may actually be a good opportunity to restock its medicine chest. Merck’s former blockbuster bone drug Fosamax has gone generic, and in a few years the same thing will happen to its best-selling allergy and asthma drug Singulair. The merger gives it access to successful brand-name Schering products with much longer patents, like the prescription allergy spray Nasonex. And Merck could capitalize on Schering’s investments in promising biotechnology drugs. “It’s better than the other deal,” Robert Hazlett, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets, said of the Merck-Schering merger. “I’m not enamored of Pfizer-Wyeth.” Among other measures, he said that Pfizer had said it would slash its second-quarter dividend in half — to 16 cents — when it agreed to buy Wyeth, while on Monday Merck told shareholders it would not change its 38-cent quarterly dividend. Still, like any marriage of convenience, this one has potential dissenters who are unlikely to forever hold their peace. One likely controversy involves the cholesterol drugs Zetia and Vytorin, which the companies already jointly market and which last year had combined sales of $4.6 billion. But sales have been plummeting in the wake of studies that raised questions about Vytorin’s effectiveness and safety. On Monday, Senator Charles E. Schumer , Democrat of New York, criticized the companies over Vytorin and raised concerns about their planned merger. “The last time these two companies teamed up, it was to aggressively market a brand-name drug that may not have provided any additional benefits over existing generics,” he said in an e-mail statement. “That incident left a sour taste in the mouths of a lot of people, and may have cost the government a lot of money.” The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has also been investigating the safety and efficacy of Vytorin. Merck executives said Monday they were confident that a broader, longer-term Vytorin study, set to conclude in 2012, would prove the drug to be safe and effective for lowering bad cholesterol. Schering would also provide Merck with popular consumer brands like Coppertone and Dr. Scholl’s, as well as a strong international presence — 70 percent of Schering revenue comes from outside the United States — that would extend Merck’s global reach. And much more than Merck, Schering has been investing in developing biologics — biotechnology drugs derived from living cells, which are much harder for potential generic makers to copy than the small-molecule chemical compounds on which the big pharmaceutical companies have traditionally based their businesses. In 2007, Schering paid $14.4 billion for Organon, a biotechnology company that has several novel drugs, including a fertility treatment, under late development. Fred Hassan , the chief executive of Schering-Plough, described the new company as a juggernaut of drug innovation and development that would have 18 drugs in phase 3 clinical trials — the late-stage human studies that are required before new drugs can gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration . “Eighteen phase 3 projects will make this the most effective and strongest R.& D. machine in the industry,” Mr. Hassan said. By 2011, the merger should generate $3.5 billion in annual cost savings by consolidating research, manufacturing, administration and marketing, Merck’s chief executive, Richard T. Clark, said in a conference call with analysts. The new company could reduce the current work force of more than 100,000 by up to 15 percent with the cuts coming mainly from staffing outside of the United States, Mr. Clark said. Further details of the merger are to be made public later in the week, he said. There is at least one big question that hangs over the proposed merger: What happens with Remicade , a rheumatoid arthritis drug that represented $2.1 billion in sales for Schering last year. Schering markets Remicade outside the United States in an agreement with Johnson & Johnson , which sells the drug in this country. Under a termination clause in that agreement, the rights to Remicade and another drug under development could revert to Johnson & Johnson if control or ownership of Schering changes. Hoping to avoid a challenge from Johnson & Johnson over the change-in-control clause, Merck devised an unusual strategy called a reverse-merger agreement. Under it, Schering’s ownership will not change, at least on paper. Instead, even though Merck is putting up the money to buy Schering, and Mr. Clark of Merck would run the combined companies, Merck would technically become a subsidiary of Schering. In turn, Schering would be renamed Merck, Bruce N. Kuhlik, Merck’s general counsel, said in an interview Monday. “We are very confident in our belief that this will not be a change in control,” Mr. Kuhlik said. Any dispute from Johnson & Johnson would go to arbitration, he said. Johnson & Johnson declined to comment on the deal. Mr. Clark of Merck said that even if the merged companies somehow lost rights to sell Remicade, that would not diminish Schering’s allure as a partner. But Jason Napodano, an analyst with Zacks Investment Research, disagreed. “I think that is a lot of malarkey,” he said. “You don’t take out around 20 percent of a company’s revenue and their core international growth driver and say it is not worth anything.” David S. Moskowitz, an analyst with Caris & Company, said that the uncertainty over Remicade puts Schering shareholders at a disadvantage. One response, he said, would be for Johnson & Johnson to make a higher bid for Schering. Like some other analysts, he said that the $41.1 billion price tag for Schering was too low. “It’s the right move, but we don’t believe it’s the right price,” Mr. Moskowitz said. “We valued the deal at $50 billion.” The deal values Schering at $23.61 a share, a premium of 34 percent over its closing price Friday. For each share of Schering, shareholders will receive 0.5767 shares in the new company plus $10.50 in cash. Shares of Schering rose 14.18 percent, to $20.13 Monday. Shares of Merck were down 7.7 percent, to $20.99. The stock prices of all big drug companies have plummeted over the last decade, in light of increasing competition and drug price pressures from generics and the high cost of developing new drugs. But the drug giants remain relatively cash rich, and the terms of this deal indicate that, even in a tight corporate credit market, financing is available under certain circumstances. Merck will use $9.8 billion of its own cash for the purchase plus $8.5 billion in short-term financing, Mr. Clark said in a conference call with investment analysts on Monday. The companies expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval. Mr. Moskowitz of Caris predicted that the Merck-Schering deal would not be the last big drug merger of 2009. He cited Bristol-Myers Squibb , a company comparable in size to Schering with an attractive product pipeline. “We think Bristol-Myers is the next on the block,” Mr. Moskowitz said.

Pharmaceuticals
Mergers and Acquisitions
Schering Plough


Chinese Curb Cyberattacks on U.S. Interests, Report Finds

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Nine months after President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China agreed to a broad crackdown on cyberespionage aimed at curbing the theft of intellectual property, the first detailed study of Chinese hacking has found a sharp drop-off in almost daily raids on Silicon Valley firms, military contractors and other commercial targets. But the study , conducted by the iSight intelligence unit of FireEye, a company that manages large network breaches, also concluded that the drop-off began a year before Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi announced their accord in the White House Rose Garden. In a conclusion that is largely echoed by American intelligence officials, the study said the change is part of Mr. Xi’s broad effort to bring the Chinese military, which is considered one of the main sponsors of the attacks, further under his control. As a result, the same political forces that may be alleviating the theft of data from American companies are also responsible for Mr. Xi’s stunningly swift crackdown on the Chinese media, bloggers and others who could challenge the Communist Party. “It’s a mixed bag,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder of Mandiant, now part of FireEye, which first detailed the activities of a People’s Liberation Army cyber-arm, called Unit 61398, that had been responsible for some of the most highly publicized thefts of American technology. “We still see semiconductor companies and aerospace firms attacked.” But the daily barrage of attacks has diminished, which Mr. Mandia attributed to “public pressure” from, among others, the Justice Department’s decision to indict five members of the P.L.A. unit about a year after its activities were exposed. Today, Unit 61398 appears to be largely out of business, its hackers dispersed to other military, private and intelligence units. Many China scholars and legal experts remain skeptical that the Chinese are deterred by American indictments, since the P.L.A. officers are unlikely to see the inside of an American courtroom. But John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, said the report validated his strategy. “The lesson is that when you figure out who has done this kind of theft, don’t fear making it public,” he said. “This is a slow process, but we are beginning to make people realize that even in cyberspace, laws and norms are applicable.” Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi drew up their agreement narrowly. It covers intellectual property theft — Chinese cybercriminals have stolen everything from designs for the F-35 fighter jet to the design of gas distribution networks — but not ordinary espionage against government targets. So, for example, the administration has not publicly talked about penalizing China for the theft of personal data on roughly 22 million Americans, whose security-clearance information was taken from the Office of Personnel Management. In fact, the administration has never publicly blamed China for that theft, although the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., did talk about China’s role once, before he was told by the administration not to refer to any specific country. As recently as last week, senior administration officials were in Beijing trying to flesh out the agreement between the two presidents. Participants say that among the points of discussion was how to set up a hotline through which the two countries can alert each other to malicious software they have detected in global networks, with the expectation that Chinese and American investigators would work to find its source. Establishing such norms of behavior is far more likely to be effective than attempting to negotiate a treaty, according to outside experts who have been trying to devise the cyberequivalent of arms-control agreements. “Treaties are not verifiable in the cyberarena,” said Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor known for his studies of how nations use “soft power,” who in recent years has turned to the problem of regulating activity in cyberspace. “The same code can be benign or a weapon depending on the user’s intent,” he said. For example, a six-digit code that unlocks a cellphone is a protection for the user — and a potential weapon for a hacker. “So instead of focusing on the weapons, you have to focus on targets,” Mr. Nye said. “You start by saying that you don’t target something that has a clearly civilian use, like a power grid.” Mr. Nye and Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, who now runs a private firm that is deeply involved in cybersecurity, were among the lead authors of a report to be published on Tuesday by the Global Commission on Internet Governance that will describe those norms to the United Nations and other groups. Just how fundamentally the Chinese are changing is a matter of debate. There is some evidence, American intelligence officials say, that while the People’s Liberation Army is not stealing as much on behalf of Chinese state-owned firms, much of the hacking activity has been shifted to the intelligence agencies, which can make the case that they are stealing national security secrets, not commercial information. Often, the difference is blurry, especially when the target is, say, the design of a satellite or a ship. Even after Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi announced their agreement last fall, American officials have said they have discovered malware in power grids, cellphone networks and other purely civilian targets. But it is unclear whether that malicious software is intended to collect information about users, shut the system down or both. The FireEye study concluded that as early as 2014, around the time of the indictment of the P.L.A.’s officers and hackers, the Chinese government had already been modifying its approach to cyberoperations. The study of 72 Chinese hacking groups showed a sharp drop-off in the volume of attacks. But as recently as March, FireEye saw efforts to obtain information on American military projects by stealing access credentials to a contractor, and there has been continual theft of personal information from health care providers. The Chinese hacking groups have also focused on non-American targets, including Russia, South Korea and Vietnam, and have sometimes aimed at targets related to the disputes over Chinese claims in the South China Sea. The report concludes that Chinese attacks have decreased in volume, but increased in sophistication. The result is that Chinese hackers are now acting more like Russian hackers: They pick their targets more carefully, and cover their tracks. “We see a threat that is less voluminous but more focused, calculated, and still successful in compromising corporate networks,” the report said.

Xi Jinping
China
Intellectual property
FireEye
Cyberwarfare
Computer security
People's Liberation Army
Barack Obama


Georgia Elects New President, but Real Power Will Rest With Next Premier

Abstract: TBILISI, Georgia — Georgian voters chose a new president on Sunday, but with billionaire Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili planning to step down shortly in favor of an unnamed successor, it remained unclear who would hold the prime minister’s post, now the most powerful political office in the country. In balloting to replace President Mikheil Saakashvili, who catapulted to fame as leader of the peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003, Mr. Ivanishvili’s handpicked candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili, a former deputy prime minister and education minister, was headed to a decisive victory, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls commissioned by the country’s two main television stations. “We have shown to the world that we can elect leadership in a free way,” Mr. Margvelashvili told exuberant supporters waving blue and yellow flags at a victory celebration outside the headquarters of Mr. Ivanishvili’s party Georgia Dream. Calling Mr. Ivanishvili “my friend forever,” he said, “I and the team who helped me win are ready to serve the people.” The larger question focused on who Mr. Ivanishvili might name as his successor, given his plan to leave office after just one year and instead seek to influence the country’s future as a private citizen, albeit one who commands a personal fortune of more than $5 billion — equal to roughly one-third of the entire country’s annual economic output. Under constitutional changes that take effect with the inauguration of the new president, the prime minister, who is chosen by Parliament, becomes the head of the government with full executive authority over domestic and foreign policy. The president remains head of state and commander in chief, but cannot introduce legislation or propose the state budget. Mr. Ivanishvili tapped his fortune to make a forceful entry into politics last year, creating Georgian Dream, an alliance of minor opposition parties, to compete in parliamentary elections with the main goal of dislodging Mr. Saakashvili. He pulled off an upset victory prompted partly by the disclosure of videos showing abuse of prison inmates. Mr. Saakashvili was widely acclaimed abroad as a leading champion of democracy in the ex-Soviet Union, winning numerous fans, including Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, with his gregarious personality. But he was increasingly unpopular at home, accused of allowing human rights violations by overly aggressive security services in a nation that the West has cultivated as a bulwark of democracy in the post-Soviet space. The loss in the parliamentary elections by his party, United National Movement, left Mr. Saakashvili to serve his final year in office in the awkward role of an opposition figure. Still, his decision to accept the results and to respect a constitutional limit of two terms in office made for a peaceful, democratic transfer of power, a rarity in the ex-Soviet Union. United National Movement’s presidential candidate, the leader of its minority faction in Parliament, David Bakradze, finished second in Sunday’s balloting, according to the exit polls. He was followed by Nino Burjanadze, a former speaker of Parliament. Image Surrounded by members of the news media, Mr. Margvelashvili embraced his daughter after voting at a Tbilisi polling station. Credit Justyna Mielnikiewicz for The New York Times In interviews on Sunday, many voters said that they were content to cast their vote for Mr. Margvelashvili, who they said appeared to be a well-intentioned public official without the outsized personality of Mr. Saakashvili or Mr. Ivanishvili. “He is a normal person,” said Bondo Pankvelashvili, 75, a retired driver, outside polling station 19 in the Vera neighborhood of Tbilisi, the capital. “This is a problem with society. They are looking for a messiah and waiting for him to do something. Until we have a strong civil society, nothing will change. This is what we got from Soviet times.” Nana Gamcemlidze, 51, an elementary school teacher who voted in the middle-class neighborhood of Saburtalo, praised Mr. Margvelashvili as education minister for making schoolbooks free for children. “He has a clean slate, has never played political games,” Ms. Gamcemligze said. “He does not have the attitude of someone who is power hungry.” Giorgi Kipiani, 51, a small-business owner who came to vote pushing his 6-month-old grandson, also Giorgi, in a stroller, said that he was comfortable with Mr. Ivanishvili stepping down. “He doesn’t give up that he is responsible,” Mr. Kipiani said, adding that if one had as much money as Mr. Ivanishvili, “Would you really want to stay in the Georgian government?” Election officials said that turnout was relatively low, 46.6 percent, compared with 61 percent in parliamentary balloting a year ago, but several voters praised the atmosphere of tranquillity. That was a marked departure from last year, when many predicted that the parliamentary elections would end with violent protests or even a civil war. Merab Koiava, 80, a retired geologist in a state agency, voted for Mr. Bakradze even as he lamented the way that Mr. Saakashvili’s tenure had ended on sour notes. “In the beginning he was so great.” Mr. Koiava said. “I have no idea why he started to make mistakes. Maybe it was the people who were around him.” Like many Georgians, Mr. Koiava said Mr. Saakaskhvili deserved credit for transforming a country that was largely in political and economic chaos. “Georgia started looking like a state,” he said, “and this town started looking like a capital.” Since losing power, numerous officials who served in Mr. Saakashvili’s administration have been arrested and charged with crimes. Critics of Mr. Ivanishvili say that the cases are nothing more than ruthless political retribution, while members of the current government say they are intended to hold former officials accountable for corruption and abuse of authority, and to answer demands by the public for justice. Mr. Ivanishvili in a speech to supporters on Sunday said that the presidential election showed that Georgia had joined “European civilization.” An announcement about his successor as prime minister is expected this week. Speculation has focused on the minister of labor, health and social affairs, David Sergeenko, and the minister of interior affairs, Irakli Garibashvili, a close ally of Mr. Ivanishvili’s. Maia Goksadze-Osmanagoglu, 33, who works for a cellphone company, said she voted for Mr. Bakradze because she wanted the president and prime minister to be members of different parties. “I want them to be under constant scrutiny,” she said, “because we know when it is only about one opinion, it leads to bad consequences.”

Election
Bidzina Ivanishvili
Mikheil Saakashvili
Giorgi Margvelashvili
Georgia country


Longer Flights From La Guardia Might Be Mixed Blessing for Passengers

Abstract: A PROPOSAL is under review that would make La Guardia Airport far more attractive to business travelers by adding domestic long-haul and coast-to-coast trips. So when I got off a short-haul flight at a teeming La Guardia last week, I wondered what this might portend. “Less squalor at La Guardia, one would hope,” said David White, a technology consultant from Britain who had just returned to New York from Chicago and was waiting in a long taxi line, on an afternoon as gray and dismal as the terminal he had just left. Mr. White seemed to have chosen the noun with some thought, since La Guardia is often derided for its overcrowding, limited and dingy amenities, and all-around ... well, squalor. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently put a rather fine point on all of this when he said that La Guardia resembled an airport in “ some third world country. ” Mayor Bill de Blasio understandably called the wisecrack “inappropriate.” So you could say that La Guardia gets no respect — but that would be overlooking its appeal as the New York-area airport that is most convenient to Manhattan, and as such the airport of choice for many business travelers on domestic flights. “Passengers have a love-hate relationship with La Guardia,” said Jason Rabinowitz, the data research manager at Routehappy, an air travel research company. “We hate being at La Guardia and waiting for a flight, but most New Yorkers also love the fact that they can get to La Guardia in a relatively short period of time.” There are no weekday nonstop coast-to-coast flights at La Guardia, but that would change under a proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, to drop a so-called perimeter rule that limits flights Sundays through Fridays at La Guardia to a distance of 1,500 miles. The rule has a long history, starting in the 1950s with a 2,000-mile limit to encourage long-haul and international growth at Idlewild (later Kennedy), then a fledgling airport. In the 1980s, the limit was changed to 1,500 miles as a way to also manage mounting congestion. (There is one exemption — for flights to and from Denver, which is about 1,600 miles away.) All three major New York airports — Kennedy, Newark and La Guardia — are operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey , which says it is studying the issue and will eventually schedule public discussions on the proposal. The Port Authority is also managing difficulties with a long-delayed project to replace the aging 1964 Central Terminal Building at La Guardia (known as Terminal B) with a bigger, more appealing structure. That project is about six years from its estimated completion. “We think there is going to be a robust debate” over the perimeter rule, Patrick J. Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority, said after the agency’s board meeting last week. Those involved in the debate will certainly include the airlines that would stand to benefit from the possible change — mainly American and Delta, which already have about two-thirds of the available flight slots at La Guardia — and those like United and JetBlue, which have strong transcontinental and long-haul domestic positions at Kennedy, as well as Newark. Hotels and other travel businesses will also be heard from in the debate, as will business travel organizations and, of course, neighborhood groups concerned about potentially increased noise and congestion at La Guardia. Discussions about changing the perimeter rule will occur within a looming donnybrook over a separate but related issue: strict federal allocations of flight-schedule slots — in airspace that is the most heavily congested in the country — first put into effect in 2008 to address chronic delays at all three New York airports. Current caps on flight slots expire on Oct. 29, 2016, and the Federal Aviation Administration says it hopes to then revise the way slots are bought and sold. Over all, the Port Authority’s job with the airports it runs is to “operate them as a system,” said Kevin Mitchell, the chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, which represents corporate travel managers. Any basic changes to La Guardia operations would also require accommodating airlines and passengers at Kennedy and Newark, he pointed out. Any change would also come against this background: All air-travel planning in the United States occurs today within the context of airlines’ carefully designed, and manifestly profitable, strategies. For years, as I frequently point out here, airlines have steadily reduced service that uses smaller airplanes at midsize and small airports to focus more on feeding business travelers into far more profitable long-haul flying, including connections to international flights at major airports. Opening La Guardia to nonstop coast-to-coast and other long-haul domestic nonstop flights would mean reducing the current number of regional flights of 1,500 miles or less, many of them to smaller airports in the East and Midwest, because airlines would use their limited number of gates and strictly limited flight slots for longer trips at higher yields per mile flown. “La Guardia is kind of unique in the New York area in that it serves a lot of smaller regional airports simply because of that 1,500-mile perimeter limit,” Mr. Rabinowitz said. “So if the perimeter rule were lifted, there would definitely be cuts in regional flights.”

Business travel
Port Authority
LaGuardia Airport Queens NY
Airlines,airplanes


Young Afghans and NATO Troops Killed in Taliban Attacks

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban attacks in eastern Afghanistan on Monday killed 2 American soldiers and 17 Afghans, including at least 11 children, adding to a particularly deadly season for civilians this year. Early Monday, a roadside bomb destroyed a small truck, killing a family of seven — including two children — on their way home from collecting firewood in Mehtarlam, the capital of Laghman Province, officials said. A second attack, apparently aimed at American forces in a remote district of Paktia Province, killed two soldiers, an Afghan policeman and at least nine children when a suicide attacker on a motorcycle set off his bomb near a boys’ school. The deaths were immediately condemned by humanitarian organizations, the coalition forces and President Hamid Karzai. “Civilian massacre, particularly of our innocent children, is an unforgivable crime whose perpetrators will eventually pay the price and be held into account not only before the Almighty but also before our proud and suffering nation,” Mr. Karzai said in a statement. Image A suicide bomber targeted American forces in a remote district of Paktia Province, killing two soldiers, an Afghan policeman and at least nine children. Credit Ihsanullah Majroh/Associated Press In this year’s fighting season, Afghan civilians — always the hardest hit by war violence — have borne an even heavier toll than usual. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said that in the past two weeks, conflict-related violence had killed 125 civilians and injured an additional 274, a 24 percent increase from the period a year before. Insurgents were responsible for 84 percent of the deaths, the agency said. “These attacks resulted in a high number of civilian casualties, with minimal impact on their purported military targets,” Jan Kubis, the United Nations secretary general’s special representative and the head of Unama, said in a statement. The Taliban issued no statement about the attacks. Although the coalition forces have in recent months mostly stopped reporting statistics about violence — just a year before the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan is scheduled to end — officials have become more diligent in pointing out civilian deaths inflicted by the Taliban. In general, civilian fatalities caused by Western forces, particularly in airstrikes, seem to cause more outrage in the public than insurgent-caused deaths — even though the estimated toll from Taliban violence has far outstripped other causes of death for Afghan civilians throughout the war. But some analysts here believe that most Afghans resent the presence of foreigners even more . “One of the main reasons that despite heavy civilian casualties people support the Taliban is the presence of the foreign forces in the country,” said Wahid Mujdah, an analyst in Kabul. “People indeed blame the foreigners for everything that happens in Afghanistan because they believe that if it was not for the foreigners the Taliban would not have killed civilians.”

Taliban
Afghanistan
Civilian casualties
Afghanistan War
Terrorism


Jets (2-2) at Falcons (1-3)

Abstract: 8:40 p.m., Ch. 11, ESPN Matchup to Watch Geno Smith vs. Learning Curve The Jets are growing impatient with Smith’s turnovers — 11 in four games, including four in last week’s 38-13 loss in Tennessee — and have demanded immediate improvement. They placed what Smith called “a little extra emphasis” on ball security during practice last week: keeping two hands on the ball, running with it high and tight, and getting rid of the ball more quickly. His test comes Monday night. Image Julio Jones has picked up 231 yards after making receptions. Credit Scott Cunningham/Getty Images Number to Watch 481 That is how many yards Julio Jones has gained on his 33 receptions, the most in the N.F.L. entering the weekend, with nearly half — 231 — coming after the catch. Jets Coach Rex Ryan said he had enough faith in Antonio Cromartie to put him in man-to-man coverage on Jones, who is Matt Ryan’s favorite option. Not even double coverage has neutralized Jones this season, Rex Ryan said, adding, “I don’t see a flaw in his game.” Quotation of the Week ‘That’s got to change. That part’s got to change.’ MARTY MORNHINWEG, Jets offensive coordinator, referring to the team’s 30 penalties in the last two weeks. BEN SHPIGEL


Finding Scandal in New York and New Jersey, but No Shame

Abstract: From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up. In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge. Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work. The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed. Image Bill Baroni, a former Port Authority official who was indicted in the George Washington Bridge scandal, said, “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this.” Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans . The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam. The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees. It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination. Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts. That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician. Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company. Image Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Chris Christie. Her lawyer said she would strongly rebut the charges. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent. THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.” The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges. Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days. That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son. Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.

New York
New Jersey
Chris Christie
Bill Baroni
Adam Skelos
Long Island
Bridget Anne Kelly
Dean G Skelos
GW Bridge


Campaign Spotlight: Goodbye, Gourmet; Hello, Food Fanatics

Abstract: Newsweek has decided to end its print edition, and other publications like Gourmet, PC Magazine, SmartMoney and U.S. News & World Report are now only in digital formats. So it is perhaps not surprising that a new print magazine is being brought out by a company that specializes in food service products rather than journalism. The magazine, a quarterly named Food Fanatics, is being introduced with a 64-page fall issue by US Foods , formerly known as U.S. Foodservice. US Foods, which is owned by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, wants the magazine to serve as a marketing vehicle to help increase sales for its more than 350,000 products as well as to help burnish the US Foods corporate brand image. Food Fanatics is a custom publication with a controlled circulation, to use publishing industry parlance, rather than a traditional magazine meant to be bought by the general public. The intended audience for the 120,000 copies of the debut issue is primarily restaurant owners and operators; US Foods says its customers total more than 250,000. US Foods, which competes with food service companies like Sysco, hired a custom publishing company called Imagination , based in Chicago, to edit and publish Food Fanatics. US Foods will spend several hundred thousand dollars each year to sponsor the magazine. Still, Food Fanatics looks very much like a magazine that would be found on newsstands. The articles and photographs are far more evocative of a traditional magazine than an advertorial or infomercial. For example, the first issue includes articles about sustainable seafood, the popularity of doughnuts, meals that restaurants serve to their staff members and a look at places to eat in Minneapolis. There are also recipes for dishes like Filipino-style roasted chicken and arctic char with whole bean and artichoke giardiniera as well as a “Trend Tracker” and question-and-answer features with chefs. Food Fanatics also offers readers something they will find in many mainstream consumer magazines: cute headlines replete with puns and plays on words. For instance, the article about doughnuts is described as “paying homage to our homeyness” and the article on sustainable seafood, which is the cover article, has the headline “Get Schooled.” Another way Food Fanatics resembles a traditional magazine is that it is has advertising from outside marketers as well as for US Foods products like Cross Valley Farms and Rykoff Sexton. The initial issue includes ad pages from brands like T-Mobile, Truvia and Verizon. The ad revenue is meant to offset some of the costs for US Foods in sponsoring the magazine. And Food Fanatics is just as abreast of the changes in the print media as more conventional magazines. It has a Web site , is available as a PDF and will soon be available as an iPad app. The magazine also has a social media presence the way traditional magazines do, on Facebook and Twitter . US Foods is coming out with Food Fanatics just over a year after the rebranding that changed its name from U.S. Foodservice, says Marshall Warkentin, vice president for US Foods in Rosemont, Ill. “Our goal is to be known as a great food company,” he adds, and “we’ve made a concerted effort to focus on innovative food ideas and ways to help our customers be more successful.” For instance, US Foods has teamed up with a butcher, Pat LaFrieda, to market meat products under the Chef’s Line brand sold by US Foods, Mr. Warkentin says. “We introduced 75 products like that, that are exclusive and differentiated,” he says. The goal then became to convey all that to customers and potential customers in a way that “combines food celebrities, food ideas and food insights with the business side of food,” Mr. Warkentin says. “It’s a gap that needed to be filled,” he adds, “and the magazine is a key catalyst in connecting.” The best method to reach the intended audience is to focus on “the ingredient that ties them all together,” Mr. Warkentin says, no pun intended, which is “a love and passion for food.” “If you’re in the business, you have to have a passion for it,” he adds, or in other words, be “fanatical about food.” In a twist on distribution, about 80 percent of the 120,000 copies of each issue of Food Fanatics will be hand-delivered to the target readers by the estimated 6,000 members of the US Foods sales force, Mr. Warkentin says. “I call it a supercharged U.S. Postal Service,” he adds. (The remaining copies will be mailed and given away at industry events.) Because the magazine will give the sales staff of US Foods another reason to interact with current and potential customers, it makes sense to have a print edition, Mr. Warkentin says. “We spent a lot of time talking about” the challenges facing print publications, he adds, but the target audience “told us print is still the primary way they keep up with” what is going on in the industry. At the same time, “if we were going to do a magazine that would be providing deeper insight in the business,” Mr. Warkentin says, “we did not want it to be perceived as a glorified advertisement for US Foods, or a glorified brochure.” Enter Imagination, a company that produces custom publications for marketers in fields like banking and health care. “Credibility” is paramount, says Laura Yee, the content director for Imagination. She has the same title at Food Fanatics, and says she wants the magazine to take “a completely objective approach.” For instance, some people interviewed for articles are customers of US Foods, she adds, and some are not. US Foods is “leading the charge in selling the advertising” to food industry marketers in addition to the ads it runs for its own brands, Ms. Yee says, while Imagination is handling the ad sales for the categories outside the food service industry like telecommunications. “When I had the opportunity to work on this magazine, I jumped on it,” Ms. Yee says, because of her background as a former journalist, which includes 10 years of writing about food and serving as the food editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. Ms. Yee also had a public relations and marketing business, she says, with restaurants as clients. And to bring food even closer to home, “my husband’s a chef,” she adds. If you like In Advertising, be sure to read the Advertising column that runs Monday through Friday in the Business Day section of The New York Times print edition and on nytimes.com . And read coverage anytime of advertising, marketing, television, print, movies and new media on the Media Decoder blog at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com .

Food
Magazines
Advertising and Marketing
Cooking and Cookbooks


A Public Slur in ’38 Revealed Baseball’s Racism

Abstract: The National Baseball Hall of Fame recently updated Jackie Robinson’s plaque to reflect the courage and poise he showed in integrating baseball in 1947. No plaque or distinction will ever be accorded Jake Powell — nor should they — but his racist comment 70 years ago broke the conspiracy of silence that protected segregated baseball. During a pregame interview at Comiskey Park in Chicago on July 29, 1938, the WGN Radio announcer Bob Elson asked Powell, a Yankees outfielder, what he did during the off-season. Powell replied that he was a policeman in Dayton, Ohio. When Elson asked him how he stayed in shape, Powell, using a common racial slur, replied that he cracked blacks over the head with his nightstick. Hundreds of outraged listeners called the station. Others called the Chicago office of the baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Before the next day’s game, a delegation of black leaders presented a petition to umpires demanding that Powell be barred from baseball for life. Although Major League Baseball had turned a deaf ear to criticism of its color line, it could neither dismiss nor deny the outcry over Powell’s slur. Landis suspended him for 10 days. The Sporting News reported that it was the first time that a major league ballplayer had been suspended for a racist remark. L’affaire Jake Powell, as it was called, revealed the hypocrisy of segregated baseball. Landis punished a racist player, yet Landis and the baseball establishment had long practiced racial discrimination against black players. This was not the story’s only twist. In 1936, the Washington Senators traded Powell to the Yankees for the virulent racist Ben Chapman. Powell never worked as a police officer in Dayton or anywhere else, as he had contended, though, as it turned out, he died in a police station a decade later. The Powell incident unified those who had begun calling for the end of segregated baseball, and it put the game’s establishment on the defensive. It is doubtful whether Landis, known derisively in the black press as the Great White Father because he blocked attempts to integrate baseball, would have suspended Powell without outside pressure. Alvin Jacob Powell was born in Silver Spring, Md., on July 15, 1908. He was known as a hustler — on and off the field. During a trip with the minor league Dayton Ducks, Powell tried to leave his hotel room with a circular fan, the drapes and a bedspread. “He probably would have taken the mattress if he could have got it in his suitcase,” Ducks Manager Howard E. Holmes said at the time. Powell and his wife made their home in Dayton. He talked about joining the police department, and friends said his remark about blacks was his idea of a joke, according to The Dayton Daily News. In Powell’s first full season with the Senators, in 1935, he hit .312 and had 98 runs batted in. But by the next year, the Senators wanted to trade him. The unpopular Powell deliberately collided with Detroit first baseman Hank Greenberg, who was Jewish, breaking Greenberg’s wrist and ending his 1936 season after 12 games. In addition, Powell’s creditors had threatened to sue the Senators to settle his gambling debts. The Yankees had also had enough of Chapman, who taunted Jewish spectators at Yankee Stadium with Nazi salutes and anti-Semitic epithets. Powell hit .302 in 87 games with the Yankees in 1936, then led the team in hitting and runs during the World Series — the first of four straight championships for the Yankees. Powell’s playing time was reduced during the 1937 and 1938 seasons. To most white sportswriters, who were silent about the color line, Powell’s words were harmless and unintentional. The columnist Dan Daniel, the longtime president of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, said Powell could have been more careful, but “he is a hustling player, aggressive, and always getting into a jam.” Black journalists, however, railed against Powell and the baseball establishment. They urged their readers to boycott Yankees games and the corporate sponsors of the team’s radio broadcasts. The Yankees, the most powerful team in baseball, were forced to apologize and ask what they could do to improve relations with the black community. Black leaders kept up the pressure, demanding that the Yankees trade or release Powell. When Powell returned to the field during a game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, spectators threw bottles at him. The Yankees kept Powell for two more seasons but played him sparingly. He was released in 1941. Powell spent time in the minor leagues before joining the Senators, who then traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1945, his final season in the majors. The Phillies’ manager was Chapman, whose managerial career was best remembered for his vitriolic race-baiting of Jackie Robinson during Robinson’s rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Shortly after Powell’s career in professional baseball ended in the minors in 1948, he was arrested for passing bad checks. While being questioned in a police station, Powell shot himself to death. “He died in Washington, D.C.,” Powell’s obituary in The Dayton Daily News read, “not as a cop as he often dreamed of being, but as a man arrested on a bad-check charge, the last of a series of his madcap adventures.”

Baseball
Major League Baseball
Discrimination
Race
Powell Jake
New York Yankees


Olmert and Omar: Talking Baseball

Abstract: Some people go to Israel and see their grandchildren. Omar Minaya went to Israel last week and met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , President Shimon Peres, the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the famed Russian refusenik Natan Sharansky, a former member of the Israeli cabinet and parliament. But the most intriguing moment of Minaya’s trip came in a meeting he didn’t attend. Two days after Minaya, the Mets ’ general manager, and other members of his traveling group met with Olmert, President Bush met with Olmert. The trip was Bush’s first visit to Israel as president. “O says hello,” Olmert told Bush, among other things more critical to Middle East peace. Minaya, known to co-workers in past years as O, explained by relating part of his conversation with Olmert. “He said if he wasn’t the prime minister he wanted to be the owner of a soccer team,” Minaya said. “I told him I was general manager of a baseball team. He said, ‘That’s a game I don’t understand.’ I said: ‘Come to America and come to a baseball game and be my guest. I’d love to explain it to you.’ ” Then Minaya said he added: “If you want anyone to explain baseball to you, the guy who can really explain it and who loves the game as much as I do is the president. He’ll talk to you about baseball. I worked for him, and he really understands baseball. You can tell him that O told you that.”  Minaya said Olmert replied that he was going to tell Bush, “I’m going to tell him I spoke to you, and tell him you told me that.” One more thing Minaya said he told Olmert: “He doesn’t call me Omar. He calls me O. Tell him you talked about baseball with O and he’ll know what you’re talking about.” So Olmert did precisely that, and Bush, the former managing partner of the Texas Rangers, knew exactly whom Olmert meant. Arn Tellem, a player agent who put together the travel group and the itinerary, said Olmert called him the day after he met with Bush. “He said he mentioned the group to Bush and told him one of his ex-employees, O, said hello,” Tellem said. “Oh, you mean Omar?” Bush replied, Olmert told Tellem. His relationship with Bush, however, carried no weight when they were in Israel. Minaya and his group had to vacate their hotel in Jerusalem because Bush and his contingent were coming. “The original plan was we were going to be in Jerusalem one more day,” Minaya said. “But they kicked us out because the president was coming.” Last winter Minaya was part of a group that made a good-will trip to Ghana. In part, the trip was designed to promote baseball in Ghana, where a baseball field is under construction. Minaya was the lone baseball official on the trip to Israel, an excursion Tellem said he puts together periodically. “Every couple years,” he said, “I take a group of sports and business people to Israel to gain a perspective and appreciation of Israel and to learn about the country and the people and to have a greater understanding of the issues in the area.” He said he also used sports to bring together Israeli and Palestinian children in an effort “to change the attitude of the next generation,” adding that he believed sports was “an effective tool of bringing kids together.” On this trip, the group attended a basketball clinic conducted by B. J. Armstrong, a former N.B.A. player and a client of Tellem’s, in Jerusalem, in which Israeli and Palestinian children from the West Bank participated. In Ghana, Minaya visited a facility where slaves were once housed before they were taken to the new world. In Israel, the group visited Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. “That’s powerful stuff,” Minaya said. There were meetings with Olmert and the other high-ranking officials, as well as the former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, the former chief of the secret service, the mayor of Jerusalem, the rabbi of the country’s holy sites and the director of the Palestinian human-rights monitor group. Minaya’s group, which also included Steve Greenberg, the former deputy baseball commissioner and Tellem’s former partner, also visited the Western Wall and toured the Christian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.  Minaya also met with people who are involved with youth baseball. “We have to find a way to help baseball there,” he said. “I’ve worked on building four or five baseball fields in the Dominican Republic. We have to do something in Israel to bring baseball there and give the kids the opportunity to play baseball. I told Arn we have to get it done.” Minaya did not ignore his day job while he was in Israel. He had his cellphone with him and talked with other general managers daily. But just in case he forgot that he had a job to do, Mets fans were there to remind him. “I can happily report there were Mets fans in Israel,” he said. “People came up to me in the airport and said, ‘Go Mets.’ They also said, ‘Have a good year, but get more pitching.’ ” Minaya, however, did not bring a pitcher home with him.

Baseball
Israel
Minaya Omar
Olmert Ehud
Netanyahu Benjamin
New York Mets


State Department Cautions Americans Considering Travel to Iran

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Obama administration hopes that the nuclear deal it negotiated with Iran may one day lead to broader cooperation. But the State Department has some cautionary words for Americans who think the reconciliation is already underway. “This deal over Iran’s nuclear program does not alter the United States’ assessment of the risks of travel to Iran for U.S. citizens,” says a travel warning the agency issued on Wednesday. “Dual national Iranian-American citizens may encounter difficulty in departing Iran,” it says. Advisories for Americans who travel abroad are regularly published by the State Department. The latest entry on Iran follows a warning in January, and it was made public the day President Obama defended the nuclear accord in a major speech at American University in Washington. While many United States citizens, including Iranian-Americans, travel to and from Iran without problems, there have been some notable exceptions. Iran is currently holding three Americans of Iranian descent : Jason Rezaian, a reporter for The Washington Post; Amir Hekmati, a Marine veteran from Flint, Mich.; and Saeed Abedini, of Boise, Idaho, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for establishing a private network of churches. A fourth American, Robert A. Levinson, vanished there eight years ago. Secretary of State John Kerry, who traveled here for a regional meeting on security issues, and other senior United States officials urged Iran to free the Americans in discussions with their Iranian counterparts on the margins of the nuclear talks. In a television appearance last month, Mr. Kerry said he was “very hopeful” that Iran would “do the right thing.” As much as the administration hopes at least some of the Americans will be released in the wake of the nuclear accord, the State Department warning reflects concerns that Iran could detain other visitors, particularly Iranian-Americans, on false charges or make it hard for them to leave. “Since 2009, Iranian authorities have prevented the departure, in some cases for several months, of a number of Iranian-American citizens, including journalists and academics, who traveled to Iran for personal or professional reasons,” the warning says, repeating language from the January notification. “Iranian authorities also have unjustly detained or imprisoned U.S. citizens on various charges, including espionage and posing a threat to national security.” With no formal diplomatic relations, the United States relies on the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to provide services to traveling Americans. But there is a catch, the State Department notes. “The Iranian government does not recognize dual citizenship and will not allow the Swiss to provide protective services for U.S. citizens who are also Iranian nationals,” it says.

State Department
Iran
Travel Warnings
Jason Rezaian
Nuclear weapon
Travel,Tourism
Americans Abroad
US Foreign Policy
Amir Mirzaei Hekmati
Robert Levinson


In Two Starts, Tanaka Has Made It Look Easy

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — It is only two starts, and it is only spring training, but like a developing piece of film, a clearer image of Masahiro Tanaka is emerging, and it continues to dazzle. Tanaka faced a mostly major league lineup in his start on Sunday against the Atlanta Braves and encountered few problems through four and a third innings, striking out six while allowing one run and three hits in a 7-4 Yankees win. It was not just that Tanaka got outs with seeming ease, but also that he continued to get swing-and-miss strikes against established major league hitters. “That’s what I like to see,” catcher Brian McCann said. “When you have swing-and-miss stuff and you can attack the zone with four pitches, it’s special. There aren’t many guys who can get their pitches to move like that.” McCann was held back at the last minute from heading to Panama with a Yankees split-squad team that played two weekend games against the Miami Marlins, mostly so he could work with Tanaka, whom the Yankees signed in the off-season to a seven-year, $155 million contract. It was also a chance for McCann to play against the Braves, his former team, whom he left in the off-season via free agency. “I was really excited coming to the park and seeing a lot of guys I spent a lot of years with,” he said. But the guy he saw from behind the plate is what he — and the Yankees — is most excited about. Tanaka went 24-0 with a 1.27 earned run average last year in Japan, pitching for the Rakuten Golden Eagles. It was impressive, but would it translate to the major leagues? So far, in his two starts and three outings this spring, Tanaka has pitched nine and a third innings, yielding seven hits, two earned runs and two walks. He has struck out 10. Against the Braves, he faced a lineup that included both Upton brothers — B. J. and Justin — Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, Dan Uggla, Andrelton Simmons and Ryan Doumit. Only the prospect Tommy La Stella did any damage, hitting a run-scoring double off the left-field wall in the fourth inning. Other than that, Tanaka gave up only two singles, one a bunt. “I wanted to keep the number of pitches a little lower,” said Tanaka, who threw 74, which is a bit high for less than five innings. “But the result of just giving up one run, I’m satisfied with that.” High pitch counts are usually the residue of high strikeout tallies, which Tanaka is getting even though his top velocity continues to hover in the low-90-mile-per-hour range. “He gets outs on every pitch he has,” McCann said. “He’s really good at setting up hitters. He knows what he’s doing out there.” When reminded that Tanaka is coming from another country and is only 25 and already showing such mound savvy, McCann nodded his head. “It beyond surprises me,” he said. “But it shows you the experience he has. To be only 25 years old and understand how to maneuver through a lineup is really impressive.” Tanaka is next scheduled to pitch Saturday against the Minnesota Twins, and the Yankees expect more of the same. “He’s handled everything with ease, as if he’s done it before,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “It feels like he’s always been a part of this team and this organization. The transition has been transitionless.” The only negative for the Yankees on Sunday was that center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, signed in the off-season to a seven-year, $153 million contract, was scratched before the game with tightness in his right calf. He will also sit out Monday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton, Fla. That puts Ellsbury in line to play again Tuesday, which happens to be when the Yankees host his former team, the Boston Red Sox. “I really haven’t thought about it,” Ellsbury said. He added that had Sunday’s game against the Braves been a regular-season game, the tightness he felt in his calf would not have prevented him from playing. “He wanted to play and he could’ve played, except we wanted to make sure we knock this thing out before anything serious happened,” said the third-base coach Rob Thomson, who is filling in for Joe Girardi as the manager while Girardi and the rest of the team are in Panama. INSIDE PITCH The left-hander Manny Banuelos, who returned this spring from Tommy John elbow surgery, was optioned to Class A Tampa. In two spring outings, Banuelos allowed four hits, seven runs, three walks and a home run. ... Shortstop Brendan Ryan, slowed this spring with a sore lower back, hit off a tee and took grounders Sunday. He had been swinging a broomstick. Rob Thomson said Ryan was close to playing in a spring game. ... Russ Canzler, who is nursing a sore left hip, has improved but still has not taken part in any on-field work. ... Ichiro Suzuki collected two solid hits, one of them a double, while also drawing a walk in four plate appearances.


French Journalist Is Detained at U.N. War Crimes Tribunal

Abstract: THE HAGUE — Shortly before the announcement of a genocide verdict on Thursday for Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, security guards at the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia received an extraordinary order from the court presidency: They were told to arrest a French journalist, Florence Hartmann, who could be found outside the tribunal gates with survivors of the Bosnian war. They did arrest her, assisted by the Dutch police, who pushed back onlookers and Bosnian war victims who tried to protect her. Since then, Ms. Hartmann, a former correspondent for Le Monde, has been locked up at the tribunal prison on the outskirts of The Hague to serve a pending seven-day sentence for a contempt of court conviction from 2009. She is in an isolated section of the jail, said Guénaël Mettraux, her lawyer. “The idea is that she cannot mingle with anyone, either war crimes suspects or convicts, even if she wanted to,” he said. Ms. Hartmann is being kept on a suicide watch, which means that the light must stay on 24 hours a day so that guards can check on her every 15 minutes, Mr. Mettraux said. These are standard operating procedures for arriving war criminals, but the lawyer said treating a journalist this way was “incomprehensible.” Ms. Hartmann’s case has baffled tribunal lawyers for some time. She reported on the 1990s war in Yugoslavia for Le Monde and then served as the spokeswoman for the tribunal prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte. After leaving her job, she wrote a book, titled “Peace and Punishment,” and an article, parts of which angered several judges. Ms. Hartmann was convicted of contempt of court in 2009 for writing about how tribunal judges had agreed that sensitive records provided by Serbia could be used in closed sessions of the court but kept out of the public eye. She said that she had not revealed the contents of the records, but that the victims had a right to know about the deal that kept them confidential. Other journalists and Mrs. Del Ponte have also written about the negotiations over these records, which involve the minutes of the wartime meetings of the Supreme Defense Council led by Slobodan Milosevic, who was the Serbian president at the time. The records, which were much coveted by the tribunal prosecutors, offered insight into Serbia’s role in the Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995. Unlike the others, Ms. Hartmann was prosecuted and convicted of contempt of court because of her references to the judges’ confidential decisions. She was originally fined 7,000 euros, but the sentence was converted to seven days in prison. She says she stole no tribunal records and obtained her information from sources in Serbia.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia


Two Rulings May Curb Lawsuits Over Patents

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In a pair of unanimous decisions, the Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for the winning side in patent cases to recover its legal fees from the loser. The decisions were welcomed by some technology companies, which said the rulings would help address what they say are abusive and coercive lawsuits brought by “patent trolls,” or companies that buy patents not to use them but to collect royalties and damages. The first case, Octane Fitness v. Icon Health & Fitness , No. 12-1184, was brought by a maker of exercise equipment against a smaller competitor, accusing it of violating a patent. The smaller company, Octane Fitness, won after paying $1.3 million in legal fees. It asked lower courts to order the larger company, Icon Health & Fitness, to reimburse it. Federal patent law allows such fee shifting in “exceptional cases.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized court in Washington that hears patent cases, interpreted that to set a high bar. Fees may be awarded, it has said , if the suit in question was tainted by misconduct or was “brought in subjective bad faith” and “is objectively baseless.” That standard was “unduly rigid,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the Supreme Court. All that the winning side need show to be awarded fees, she said, was that the case was exceptional in the sense that it “stands out from others” given the strength of the losing side’s position or its conduct in the litigation. Justice Sotomayor wrote that the Federal Circuit had erred in other ways, too. Winners should not always be required to prove both that their adversaries had acted in subjective bad faith and that the losing side’s claims were objectively baseless. And winners, she added, should not be required to prove their entitlement to fees by “clear and convincing” evidence, a demanding level of proof. The Supreme Court returned the case to the lower courts for application of the new standards. In a footnote reproducing emails from Icon officials, Justice Sotomayor suggested that they might have acted with subjective bad faith. Justice Sotomayor also wrote for the court in the second case, Highmark v. Allcare Health Management System , No. 12-1163. She said appeals courts should not lightly second-guess trial court decisions awarding legal fees in patent disputes. The New York Times Company submitted a supporting brief in the cases. It urged the court to make it easier to obtain fee awards, saying that would protect innovation.

Lawsuits
Inventions and Patents
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
Price


Fund-Raising for Cuomo Going Strong

Abstract: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has been raising money at a pace of $1 million per month this year, an impressive haul that fortifies his standing as he looks toward a re-election bid next year. In campaign finance disclosures on Friday, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, reported a balance of $27.8 million in his campaign account, up from $22.5 million in January. The growth reinforces his reputation as a formidable fund-raiser, an important credential should he seek to run for president in 2016 . Most of Mr. Cuomo’s fund-raising has come from deep-pocketed donors, including many real estate developers and Wall Street figures. Among the contributors were several billionaires: Kenneth G. Langone, a prominent Republican donor, gave $50,000; Carl C. Icahn contributed $25,000; and Ronald O. Perelman donated $50,000. Another billionaire, John A. Catsimatidis, the supermarket magnate who is running for mayor of New York City as a Republican, donated $19,000. His wife, Margo, donated $60,000 but also received a refund from the Cuomo campaign of $13,603.79. Mr. Cuomo received $125,000 in contributions from the real estate developer Leonard Litwin, who has given him $625,000 since December 2010, according to an analysis by Bill Mahoney, research coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group. Mr. Cuomo has also helped raise a significant amount of money for the State Democratic Party, which reported contributions of more than $6 million over the last six months. The hedge fund billionaire James H. Simons donated $1 million, and George Soros contributed $750,000. Mr. Cuomo has spent relatively sparingly this year, but has benefited from spending by the state party, which spent most of the money it raised on television advertising supporting the governor’s legislative agenda. Mr. Cuomo, although lower in the polls than he once was, remains popular. The State Republican Party has sharpened its criticism of the governor in recent months, but has thus far not been able to recruit a prominent challenger, and Mr. Cuomo’s large campaign account will make that task difficult. One Republican who has talked about running for governor, Steven F. McLaughlin, an assemblyman from the capital region, reported $20,102.77 in his campaign account — less than one-tenth of 1 percent of Mr. Cuomo’s balance. The finance disclosures came three weeks after this year’s legislative session ended without action on proposals to overhaul the state’s often-criticized campaign finance system, which permits contributions significantly larger than those allowed in many other states and New York City. Mr. Cuomo had said that changing the system was a priority, although some liberals viewed his effort as late and lackluster. Meanwhile, Mr. Cuomo is continuing to raise large sums. On Friday, he hosted a fund-raiser in Syracuse where donors were invited to consider giving $25,000 or more. According to the YNN cable network, he arrived at the event with Joanne M. Mahoney, the Onondaga County executive; last week, Mr. Cuomo named Ms. Mahoney to a commission to investigate public corruption among elected officials.

Campaign finance
Democrats
New York
Andrew Cuomo
Gubernatorial races


Gao Zhisheng, Missing Chinese Lawyer, Gets New Prison Term

Abstract: BEIJING — China ’s official news agency reported on Friday that Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human rights lawyer who has been missing for more than 20 months, will serve the next three years in prison because he repeatedly violated his probation. The brief statement from a Beijing court provoked fresh outrage among human rights advocates who characterize Mr. Gao’s case as a leading example of abuse of dissidents in China. Although said to be free on probation for the past five years, Mr. Gao has been missing for much of the time since he was sentenced in 2006 for inciting subversion of state power. His older brother, Gao Zhiyi, told the group China Human Rights Defenders that the court’s announcement proves that Mr. Gao has been in police custody even though the public security authorities have insisted that they had no knowledge of his whereabouts. Gao Zhiyi said he last saw his brother in April 2010 in the custody of public security officers; he is worried that his brother may be dead. Renee Xia, one of the directors of the human rights group, said that the court’s declaration “is the clearest acknowledgement to date by the Chinese government that it has secretly detained Gao for the last 20 months despite its repeated denials.” Human rights advocates say secret detentions and disappearances have become a common tactic for Chinese authorities to suppress dissidents, especially since February, when the government began to fear that the Arab Spring uprisings would spread to China. The government is currently considering revising its criminal procedure law in a manner that human rights lawyers say would effectively legalize secret detentions. Western governments and the United Nations have persistently pressed China to release Mr. Gao, 47, who once defended practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious group banned in China. In March, a United Nations working group on arbitrary detention said Mr. Gao’s unexplained disappearance amounted to punishment for his defense of human rights. Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the announcement did not alleviate concerns about Mr. Gao’s treatment or whereabouts. “The people who saw him more than 20 months ago described him as a ghost,” Mr. Bequelin said. “We have absolutely no details about his condition now.” Amnesty International said in a statement that Mr. Gao had already been held captive for much longer than his original three-year prison term that had supposedly been suspended. Jerome A. Cohen, a specialist on the Chinese legal system, said Mr. Gao was clearly a victim of “extra-legal punishment.” He said in an e-mail: “I have used the case repeatedly as a leading example of a disturbing trend of lawlessness on the part of China’s police. Now they have belatedly found the figleaf.” Mr. Gao was known for taking on politically sensitive cases. He was sentenced to probation in December 2006, and subsequently disappeared three times. During the short periods when he resurfaced, he told reporters that he had been tortured. At various points, he said, he was beaten with electric batons and handguns, forced to wear a hood over his head, tied up with belts, made to sit motionless for up to 16 hours and threatened with death. He said one guard told him: “You must forget you are human. You are a beast.” After her husband’s 2006 conviction, Mr. Gao’s wife fled to the United States, where she now lives with his daughter. According to one supporter’s account, Mr. Gao may have also tried to escape but was caught.

Human Rights and Human Rights Violations


Japan Takes Step Toward Reviving Nuclear Industry as It Restarts Reactor

Abstract: TOKYO — For more than four years since the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima in 2011, Japan has been debating whether it should permanently abandon a technology that went so disastrously wrong but that for years was seen as essential to its economy. Governments have offered differing answers. The public has sent confusing signals. But on Tuesday, the country took what appeared to be a decisive step toward resurrecting the nuclear industry and ending a de facto freeze on the use of atomic power, as an electric utility restarted one of dozens of reactors that were taken offline after the Fukushima disaster . The reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, in Kagoshima Prefecture, was the first to return to service since government regulators introduced upgraded safety standards two years ago. Most of Japan’s 48 operable commercial nuclear reactors were shut down soon after the meltdowns at Fukushima, and none have operated since 2013. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe supports restarting idled reactors that meet the enhanced safety standards, arguing that Japan’s economy depends on the low-cost power they provide. Japan has few domestic energy sources, and it imports virtually all the fossil fuels it uses to power its homes and factories. Electricity prices in the country have increased 20 percent or more since the Fukushima disaster, squeezing households and businesses and obstructing efforts by Mr. Abe to stimulate the economy. Emissions of greenhouse gases have risen sharply, too. The public remains skeptical about the plants’ safety, however, with surveys consistently showing that most Japanese favor closing the idled reactors permanently. A group of 150 to 200 protesters, including a former prime minister who turned against nuclear power after Fukushima, gathered outside the Sendai plant on Tuesday as the police stood guard, the Japanese news media reported. “By moving ahead with restarts, the Abe administration is leading a doomed country,” the former prime minister, Naoto Kan, was quoted as saying. Image A demonstration against restarting a reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant on the Japanese island of Kyushu on Tuesday. Credit Jiji Press, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Kan was in office in 2011 during the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which occurred after a huge tsunami struck the site in northeastern Japan and knocked out its cooling systems, setting off meltdowns at three of its six reactors and spreading contamination across a wide area. More than 100,000 people were evacuated, and many have yet to return home . But public opposition to nuclear power has not translated into victories for antinuclear politicians like Mr. Kan. Not long after the Fukushima accident, his government announced a policy of gradually phasing out nuclear power, but that foundered after his center-left party was defeated in an election in 2012. The more conservative, pro-nuclear party that replaced it , led by Mr. Abe, has won two subsequent parliamentary elections, despite its unpopular stance on nuclear energy. Its support has recently slipped, however, amid a separate and equally contentious political battle over defense policy , so the reactivation of a nuclear plant comes at a delicate time. “Abe has kept his focus on the economy, and the opposition is weak, so he has managed to win people’s support in spite of the fact that most don’t like his defense and nuclear policies,” Shinichi Nishikawa, a professor at Meiji University, said. “But the limits of that approach are starting to show.” The government and power companies have certainly tried to move cautiously. Plans to restart Sendai and other reactors have been in place since the revised safety regulations were introduced more than two years ago. The plants need to be retrofitted with new ventilation systems and other protections, and operators have needed to court local political leaders for endorsements to switch them back on. The Sendai plant was declared safe by regulators nearly a year ago, in September 2014. How extensive Japan’s nuclear revival will ultimately be remains unclear. Some of the 48 operable reactors around the country are considered too old to be worth the cost of retrofitting to meet the new safety standards. Concerns about earthquake faults found under or near others have kept them from winning approval from the government regulatory body, which was reorganized and given more independence after the Fukushima disaster. Power companies have applied for safety certification for about half the 48 units. So far only five, including the one restarted at Sendai, have been declared safe. The utility that owns the Sendai plant, Kyushu Electric Power, said it removed control rods from the core of the reactor at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, initiating the atomic reaction that will eventually produce electricity. It plans to start producing and transmitting electricity for its customers next month. The national broadcaster NHK aired video of workers in the plant’s control room as they restarted the reactor. Tomomitsu Sakata, a spokesman for Kyushu Electric Power, said the reactor had been put back online without any problems.

Japan
Shinzo Abe
Nuclear energy
Kyushu Electric Power
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster
Japan Earthquake Tsunami


With Cano Negotiations Looming, Yankees Are Bound to Like Pedroia’s Reported Deal

Abstract: ARLINGTON, Tex. — Ordinarily, when a division rival locks up a star player with a contract extension, it is not reason to celebrate. But there had to be a few smiles at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday when word came that Dustin Pedroia, the Boston Red Sox second baseman, had agreed to a seven-year, $100 million contract, according to several published reports. The development is intriguing to the Yankees because their own second baseman, Robinson Cano, will be a free agent after the season and is thought to be seeking a contract that could be more than twice the value of Pedroia’s. He may even pursue a deal worth as much as Alex Rodriguez’s 10-year, $275 million deal. Cano has been in contract talks with the Yankees since they made an offer in spring training. While Cano is not bound to take a deal comparable to Pedroia’s, the fact that a star player has set the bar for top second basemen at $14.29 million per year could hurt Cano’s leverage in negotiations. But if he gets to free agency, all it takes is one team to make a gargantuan offer. Cano has significantly more power than Pedroia, which counts for a lot. Cano has 198 home runs and 353 doubles in nine seasons, compared to Pedroia’s 96 homers and 270 doubles in eight seasons. Otherwise, they are similar. Pedroia will turn 30 on Aug. 17. Cano will turn 31 on Oct. 22. Pedroia has a career .303 batting average, a .371 on-base percentage and a .457 slugging percentage. Cano’s line is .308/.354/.505. Both play very well defensively, although with considerably different styles. Cano, with his relaxed approach, is arguably the most gifted second baseman in baseball. Pedroia is more about hustle and grit, but he gets the job done and is considered a team leader, while Cano is more content to remain in the background. They share something else: each has won a championship. HAFNER SITS Travis Hafner, who has not hit a home run in almost a month, was left out of Tuesday’s lineup as his confounding slump shows no sign of ending. Image Dustin Pedroia, making a play Tuesday, has a new seven-year, $100 million deal with the Red Sox, according to reports. Credit Jim Rogash/Getty Images Hafner, a left-handed hitter, usually plays against right-handed pitchers. But even with the right-handed Alexi Ogando throwing for the Texas Rangers, Hafner sat. Manager Joe Girardi said the move was not a permanent demotion, but a chance to give Hafner a day to breathe and to get Melky Mesa in the game in left field. Girardi said that with Phil Hughes starting for the Yankees, he wanted Mesa’s defense for the fly balls that Hughes often gives up. Girardi also said he wanted to keep Vernon Wells in the lineup as the designated hitter because he has had good at-bats lately. “Hitting is tough,” Girardi said. “It kept us all up at night during some point in our careers, thinking about it, because it’s difficult. But I’m not giving up on him. He’s not playing today, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on him.” Since hitting .318 with six home runs the first month of the season, Hafner has batted .172 with six homers and 59 strikeouts in 50 games. Hafner was signed on the eve of spring training to a one-year, $2 million contract to help replace Raul Ibanez, who signed with the Seattle Mariners. Since a shoulder injury earlier this year, Hafner has been tinkering with his swing, but said the injury had cleared up and had not been a factor in his slump. He said he understood the decision to leave him out of the lineup, but said the lack of hits had taken its toll mentally. “It definitely wears on you a little bit,” Hafner said. GARZA TO PITCH Matt Garza, whom the Rangers acquired from the Chicago Cubs on Monday, is scheduled to pitch on Wednesday against the Yankees. Garza, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays from 2006 until 2010, is 1-4 against the Yankees with a 4.48 earned run average in 11 starts. “It’s been a few years, but we’ve seen a lot of him and he’s a pitcher that’s had success pretty much anywhere he’s been,” Joe Girardi said. “He’s got very good stuff, he seems pretty durable. He’s pitched in the American League East, which is not the easiest place to pitch. He’s pitched in pennant races. So, you’d expect it to be a good acquisition for the Rangers.” JETER TAKES B.P. Derek Jeter took batting practice for the first time since his quadriceps injury July 11 , took ground balls and ran sprints in the outfield without problems. He is eligible to come off the disabled list Saturday and still believes he can make that date. ... Luis Cruz, who injured his knee Monday night while sliding to catch a ball, was sore on Tuesday and not in the starting lineup. Brent Lillibridge took his place at third.

Yankees
Dustin Pedroia
Red Sox
Robinson Cano
Free agent
Baseball


Quarterly Profits Climb for Colgate and Procter & Gamble

Abstract: CINCINNATI, Oct. 30 (AP) — Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive reported big jumps in quarterly profits Tuesday. But the two consumer product companies’ stocks headed in opposite directions after P.& G. issued a cautious outlook in the face of rising commodity costs and consumer uncertainty. Shares of Colgate, based in New York, rose 1.4 percent after the company, the maker of Colgate toothpaste, Palmolive dishwashing liquid and Irish Spring soap, posted a 22 percent increase in profit for the third quarter. Shares of P.& G., Colgate’s bigger Cincinnati-based competitor, whose brands include Tide detergent, Gillette shavers and Crest toothpaste, dropped by 4 percent after P.& G. reported a 14 percent profit rise for its first fiscal quarter. Colgate’s earnings climbed to $420.1 million, or 77 cents a share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 from $344.1 million, or 63 cents a share, the previous year. Excluding charges, including some for reorganization, earnings totaled $466.4 million, or 86 cents a share, compared with $402.6 million, or 73 cents a share, a year earlier. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected net income of 85 cents a share on sales of $3.48 billion. Quarterly revenue rose 12 percent to $3.53 billion, from $3.14 billion in the prior year, Colgate said. P.& G. said its net income grew to $3.08 billion, or 92 cents a share, from $2.7 billion, or 79 cents a share, a year ago. Excluding a German tax benefit of 2 cents a share, the company earned 90 cents a share in the latest period, a penny more than analysts had expected. Sales rose 8 percent to $20.2 billion, from $18.79 billion a year ago. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected revenue of $20.23 billion. P.& G. expects margins to be lower temporarily because of higher commodity and energy costs and investments in concentrated formulas of Tide and other liquid detergents. P.& G. plans to pass along some of its rising costs for oil and raw materials by raising prices on products including Pampers diapers, Charmin toilet paper and Olay and Ivory personal cleansing products. Both companies reported broad-based growth and strong overseas sales, helped by the weaker dollar. P.& G. shares were down $2.88 to $68.95. Colgate shares rose $1, to $75.26.

Company Reports
Colgate-Palmolive Company
Procter & Gamble Co
Stocks and Bonds


Scores Are Killed in Iraqi Violence

Abstract: BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed at least 51 Shiite pilgrims who were crossing a bridge in Baghdad in the deadliest of several attacks in Iraq on Saturday, the police said. All told, the attacks claimed at least 80 lives, officials said. The bridge connects the two largest neighborhoods of Baghdad, Kadhimiya, a largely Shiite area, and Adhamiya, a mainly Sunni area. The Shiite pilgrims were headed to Kadhimiya on the eve of the anniversary of the death of one of their imams. The blast also wounded 109 people, the Interior Ministry said. “This has been happening with us for the last 10 years, and they don’t learn that we have faith in our imams and we will never stop,” said one of the wounded pilgrims, Hassan al-Zargani. “We will be happy to die for our imams.” In other attacks, a suicide bomber killed 16 people and wounded at least 30 in a cafe in Balad, north of Baghdad; a bomb left in a cafe in Baya, a neighborhood of Baghdad, killed three people and wounded 15; a bomb killed three members of the Awakening movement in Yusufiya, south of Baghdad; a gunman killed two television journalists in Mosul, in northern Iraq; and in separate episodes in Mosul, assailants killed two civilians and a police officer, and a bomb killed two soldiers. The police and medical workers confirmed the toll. The slain journalists worked for the Iraqi television channel Al Sharqiya News, which is often critical of the government. No group immediately claimed responsibility for any of Saturday’s attacks.

Iraq
Baghdad
Bombs
Shiite
Mosul
Iraq War
Terrorism
Fatalities,casualties
Pilgrimage


Magnet Schools Find a Renewed Embrace in Cities

Abstract: MIAMI — Nearly five decades ago, as racial tension raged in cities, magnet schools were introduced here and elsewhere as an alternative to court-ordered busing in the hope that specialized theme schools would slow white flight and offer options to racial minorities zoned for low-performing schools. Magnet schools never quite delivered on that desegregation promise, and in the past couple of decades they have largely fallen off the radar. But in this multiracial city — and, increasingly, in other urban districts including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Newark and Washington — public school leaders are refocusing on the idea as traditional public schools come under increasing pressure from charter schools and vouchers for private schools. The number of children in Miami-Dade County attending magnet programs — which admit students from anywhere in the district and focus on themes like art, law or technology — has grown by 35 percent in the past four years. These children now account for about one in six students in the district. The pattern is similar across the country. There are now about 2.8 million students attending magnet schools — more than the nearly 2.6 million enrolled in charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. Magnets have “become kind of a go-to alternative as a way to incorporate some of the popular elements of choice while keeping the choice constrained more explicitly within the traditional district,” said Jeffrey R. Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University. “It’s a recognition on the part of districts that at least some of the enthusiasm and popularity of charters is a resistance to the notion of a one-size-fits-all school.” Because magnets are fully part of public school systems — their teachers are unionized and they follow district rules, while charters are run by private entities and are typically not unionized — reviving them is seen as part of an effort to save public schools. Still, critics worry that magnets, like charter schools and vouchers, could drain zoned neighborhood schools of the most motivated students and increase racial segregation. “With completely unregulated choice, there are people who choose and those who choose not to choose,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “So the most unmotivated parents will just get assigned to a school, and motivated parents will eyeball a school racially and ethnically to see if their child will ‘fit in.’ ” Although students in Miami can still attend zoned schools, scores of parents entered their children last month in a lottery for admission to one of the county’s 363 magnet programs. On the last day to submit paperwork, Susette Holder stood in line in a hallway at the district office downtown to apply for high-school spots for her 13-year-old twins. “I did not want to send them to the neighborhood school,” Ms. Holder said. “One wants to go into law enforcement and the other wants music, and our area does not provide that.” The federal government awards grants to districts to open or expand magnet schools with the explicit aim of increasing diversity, but charter schools receive about four times as much federal money and are not required to meet integration goals. The recent push in Miami was spurred in part by growing competition from charters, which have increased enrollment by 48 percent in the past four years. But proponents of magnet schools also say that when students are engaged in classes that reflect their interests, they are more likely to attend school, avoid disciplinary problems and graduate. Alberto M. Carvalho, superintendent of schools in Miami-Dade County, said it made less and less sense to put students “through the same 7:30 to 2:30, bell-to-bell instruction without allowing them some degree of individuality.” Three years ago, Mr. Carvalho founded a magnet school called iPreparatory Academy, in which students spend much of their time working independently, often lounging with laptops on Ikea sofas and beanbag chairs. The district has added similar programs on nine campuses around the district. Supporters of magnet schools say that to increase diversity, districts must make a concerted effort to inform all parents of their options. In some communities, said Scott Thomas, executive director of Magnet Schools of America , “you have to know the secret handshake to even get the application,” a situation that tends to favor the most educated and assertive parents. In Miami-Dade County — where close to three-quarters of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches and more than two-thirds of students are Hispanic, many with parents who speak little or no English — principals and recruiters from magnet schools attend numerous fairs, talking to families and distributing glossy brochures. Last year, said Robert Strickland, director of school choice in the district, officials produced video spots that ran in movie theaters and made robocalls to families at home. Teachers unions argue that districts need to prioritize community-based schools. “I think if every one of the schools in a system are good, the vast majority of people will stay in their neighborhood,” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union. Miami-Dade County is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, so many students opt for their neighborhood school simply because some magnets are so far away. Public transportation is sparse and the school district does not guarantee bus seats for students who select magnet programs, although it has started to replicate the most popular magnet themes across the county. Most of the magnets admit students through a lottery, but most arts programs require auditions or portfolio submissions, and many schools set prerequisites such as specific math or science courses or a minimum grade point average. Some of the most coveted magnets, which receive far more applications than they have seats, do not represent the demographics of the district. At Coral Reef Senior High School, a prestigious magnet that includes programs in the arts, engineering and an International Baccalaureate track, less than half of the 3,229 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, and close to a fifth are white, compared with just 7.7 percent of the district. African-American students, who represent close to a quarter of the district, are only 13.5 percent of the student body at Coral Reef. Long-held perceptions can affect who applies to some magnets in the first place. Patrisha Hedgemond, an 18-year-old senior at Coral Reef, said she had applied to the school’s legal academy because she wanted to leave her neighborhood peers. “Some of those students don’t have the oomph to want to strive,” Ms. Hedgemond said. Most of her friends from middle school did not even apply to Coral Reef: “They didn’t believe they could get in,” she said. Some parents see magnets as a way to give their children advantages they never had. Dollie West, a legal secretary, helped her son, Javon Alexander, 14, apply to magnet high schools. He is currently a freshman at a school that opened in the fall on a campus of Florida International University. The program, modeled on the popular Maritime and Science Technology magnet school in the elite community of Key Biscayne, focuses on marine science and biology and will eventually allow students to enroll in college courses. Ms. West believes that attending school with peers who have similar academic interests will keep Javon motivated. “For me, as a parent of a young black male, and with statistics in the society being against him, I can prove the statistics wrong,” she said. Javon said he chose the new academy because he enjoyed watching programs about marine science on the Discovery Channel. One morning last month, he was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with “3LC” that he and his friends had designed. “It’s the 3 Life Crew,” Javon said during a biology class, where students were learning about the major lobes of the brain. “It’s a group of kids who do well in school.”

Magnet school
Miami
K-12 Education
Race and Ethnicity


Wyoming’s Chugwater Soda Fountain Collects Artifacts as Well as Customers

Abstract: Wyoming’s symbol is the bucking cowboy, but the tumbling tumbleweed works, too, especially in thinking about the strange journey of the Chugwater Soda Fountain . Pieces of the place — the wood bar, the soda-making machinery, who knows, maybe even Wendell the Elk up there mounted on the wall — all drifted in and got lodged, as though caught by a windbreak in this wisp of a town of 244, about 45 miles north of Cheyenne. Who and what stays put in Chugwater, out of stubbornness or inertia, is the dynamic that rules everything in a place that, like so many other dots on the map, might have faded to black but somehow did not. The soda equipment? Said to be the oldest in Wyoming, it is from a now-defunct railroad town called Rock Creek, Wyo., which died in the 1920s and sold off its parts as scrap. The bar? From England, or so it says on the menu. Customers? They drift in, too, off the interstate, mostly in summer. “Lots of people who stop in say they have been driving by Chugwater for years and always wanted to stop,” said Amber Dayton, 23, who was standing behind the counter on a recent gray day, waiting for business. In high-season summer, malts and shakes — house favorites — glisten on the five-stool bar. But some things have not held. The generically named Steak House across the street, which even had live music, closed last summer. There’s been talk of new buyers, but Ms. Dayton, who works for her grandmother, the soda shop’s owner, is skeptical. Wendell the Elk, though, is anchored. A town petition some years back required that he stay mounted where he is, so long as the soda fountain shall stand firm. KIRK JOHNSON