Health Care Law Spurs Merger Talks for Insurers

Abstract: President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act more than five years ago. At the time, members of the health care industry — hospitals, doctors and insurers — were anxious about what it would do to the business. Everyone had an opinion, but nobody knew for sure. We’re now beginning to see the answer: consolidation on a huge scale. Just in the last couple of weeks, the nation’s five largest health insurers began a round robin of merger talks — some still semiprivate, others now out in the open — that could whittle their number to three. Anthem made a bid for Cigna; Aetna approached Humana; and the UnitedHealth Group made overtures to Aetna. Those potential deals come on the heels of a spate of hospital mergers over the last couple of years — and speculation about another round of such deals. All of this deal-making is largely the result of the Affordable Care Act, which in effect constrains the amount of profit hospitals and insurers can generate, leading both to seek additional scale in hopes of generating higher margins by squeezing additional savings out of a broader customer base. To some degree, consolidation among hospitals and insurers was part of the design of the law, which sought to provide health care for the uninsured and help push down health care costs. That led health care companies to find efficiencies. That, in turn, meant deals. In 2011, the Aetna chief executive, Mark T. Bertolini, responded matter-of-factly to an analyst’s question about possible mergers: “I expect and we expect that consolidation will continue going forward here as health reform shakes out winners and losers in the process.” The question, of course, remains whether the savings that might come from consolidation will trickle down to the consumer or will simply wind up in the pocket of shareholders. The prevailing view is not promising. “Seldom does consolidation result in reduced costs for consumers. Bigger insurance companies mean increased leverage and unfair power over negotiating rates with hospitals and physicians,” the American Academy of Family Physicians wrote in a letter earlier this month to the Federal Trade Commission, urging that it block the latest series of deals. “More often than not, consolidation increases costs and reduces options for consumers, and we believe this would hold true in the health insurance market.” Perhaps more striking, Cigna, in its rejection of Anthem’s $47 billion takeover bid, cited the risk of antitrust suits that have ensnared Anthem as the largest member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. That association has been accused of cartel-like practices, deliberately preventing competition so as to increase prices for hospitals and patients. Cigna’s rejection of Anthem and its highlighting of antitrust risks, just to be clear, was not aimed at ending merger talks. Oddly enough, people involved in the negotiations suggested it was simply a tactic to press Anthem to pay more, in part to compensate Cigna shareholders for the possibility that a deal could be blocked. Of course, regulators will most likely look hard at any large deals among insurers. But it would be ironic if the administration, after helping to get the law passed with the support of the insurance industry, then prevented insurers from merging. So far, regulators have looked favorably at big hospital mergers, persuaded by the efficiencies argument. “The fear that mergers curtail competition, leading to higher prices for medical care, reflects an old way of thinking that doesn’t account for the introduction of population-health management,” Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, the chief executive of Mount Sinai Health System, wrote persuasively in The Wall Street Journal. “This line of thought ignores the fact that health care delivery has become more efficient. Health care has changed, too: Medical advances mean that people recover from serious illness and injury faster and live longer, healthier lives.” Nonetheless, regulators would have good reason to consider ways to try to maintain competition among the largest insurers. In one of the few studies conducted on the impact of consolidation in the insurance industry on premiums, academics looked at the effect of the 2007 merger of the UnitedHealth Group and Sierra Health Services on consumers in Nevada. The results were striking. “If there were any benefits to consumers realized from the merger, we could not observe them, and we can infer that they did not come in the form of lower premiums,” the authors wrote in the journal Health Management, Policy and Innovation. “On the contrary, the evidence suggests that large health insurer mergers are anticompetitive and cause injury to consumers through an increase in the price of health insurance services.” The authors said that they found “premiums in Nevada markets increased by 13.7 percent after the merger relative to the control group.” They added, “Our findings suggest that the merging parties exploited the market power gained from the merger.” Based on the high-flying stock prices of the big health insurers right now, investors must be convinced that bigger profits are in the offing. The chief executives are also expecting big paydays. Virtually every one of them has planned large golden parachutes in anticipation that their companies could be taken over. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Mr. Bertolini of Aetna stands to make $131.3 million in a takeover if he were pushed out; David Cordani of Cigna would make $58.7 million; and Bruce D. Broussard of Humana would receive $26.1 million. Mr. Bertolini was probably right about winners and losers. The big health insurers could win. Their shareholders could win. Their executives could win. On the other side, however, may very well be the consumers.

Health Insurance
Anthem
CIGNA
Aetna
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
Mergers and Acquisitions
FTC
Mark T Bertolini


G.O.P. Fight Moves to Super Tuesday BattlegroundsG.O.P. Fight Moves to Super Tuesday Battlegrounds

Abstract: Having dodged political calamity with a victory on Tuesday night in his home state of Michigan , Mitt Romney quickly shifted his attention to Ohio on Wednesday morning as his chief rival vowed an aggressive, nationwide fight for the Republican nomination in the weeks ahead. At a rally in Toledo, Mr. Romney hammered President Obama ’s leadership and argued that the Republican Party must nominate someone with the experience and the economic know-how to turn around a nation at risk of losing its way. “This president has made some promises that he couldn’t keep,” Mr. Romney said. “He’s out of ideas, he’s out of excuses, and in 2012 we are going to make sure he’s out of office.” Speaking at American Posts, a small, family-owned factory that makes fence posts, Mr. Romney largely ignored his chief rival, Rick Santorum , as he argued that Mr. Obama has stood in the way of economic recovery during the past three years. Mr. Romney pledged across-the-board tax cuts, tougher trade policy and broad spending cuts. “On Day 1, I will declare China a currency manipulator, allowing me to put tariffs on products where they are stealing American jobs unfairly,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m going to insist that China plays by the same rules.” Mr. Romney’s twin victories over Mr. Santorum in Arizona and Michigan have quieted — for now — what had been growing questions about his command of the Republican field and his ability to appeal to the conservative base of his party. The victories earned him about three-quarters of the delegates at play Tuesday night, extending his numerical lead over his opponents. Mr. Romney won all 29 of Arizona’s delegates and about half of those in Michigan, where the final allocation was still being worked out. But the difficulty winning what was expected to be an easy contest in Michigan underscored how the Republican contest has become a slow, state-by-state slog. In addition to Ohio, nine other states will cast ballots in the Republican primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday next week. After that, primaries and caucuses continue through June. Mr. Santorum spent the day campaigning in Tennessee , which is among the states holding primaries next week. Mr. Santorum’s failure to capitalize on his momentum threatened to undermine his argument that Mr. Romney will not be an ineffective nominee against Mr. Obama in the fall. But in radio interviews on Wednesday morning, Mr. Santorum said he felt “very good” about what his campaign accomplished and promised a vigorous campaign in the Super Tuesday states. “We feel very, very good in the campaign that we waged,” Mr. Santorum said. “We’re doing very good. We sustained ourselves. We think we are going to have a very, very good Super Tuesday.” Mr. Santorum complained that Mr. Romney and his allies outspent him “6 or 12 to one” in the Michigan contest. But he predicted a more fair fight in the Super Tuesday states thanks to a surge in recent contributions to his campaign in February. “I’d be stunned if we didn’t out-raise Romney this month,” Mr. Santorum said, estimating that his campaign raised as much as $9 million in the last 28 days. That would be a huge boost in financial support for a campaign that just weeks ago was running on fumes. Mr. Santorum also pointed out that Mr. Romney made an appeal for donations during his victory speech in Michigan on Tuesday night, an indication, Mr. Santorum said, that money might be a concern for Mr. Romney’s campaign. “He is increasingly relying and will be relying, on his big, megasuper donors,” Mr. Santorum said, noting that two-third of his own donors have contributed less than $100 each, which means they can be tapped further without hitting contribution limits. “That to me is a potential advantage for us going forward.” During his swing on Wednesday through Tennessee, Mr. Santorum was scheduled to appear at events in Powell and Nashville . Tennessee is one of three states that Mr. Santorum said he expected to do well in on Tuesday. The other two, he said, are Ohio and Oklahoma . But much of the focus will be on Ohio, a must-win state for Republicans in the general election and an important test for Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum as they try to prove that they can expand their bases of support. In their victory speeches Tuesday night, neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Santorum mentioned each other, choosing instead to focus their rhetoric on the economy and Mr. Obama even as the Republican contest moves to Ohio. “We need a recovery from this recovery,” Mr. Romney said, a message squarely aimed at the struggling middle class. Mr. Santorum echoed that theme, saying that “it’s getting harder for people to make ends meet because we have a government that is crushing us every single day.” Mr. Romney is campaigning on Thursday in North Dakota , a Super Tuesday state, and Washington State , which will caucus on Friday, but will return to Ohio on Friday for events there. Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum are also scheduled to tape appearances on Mike Huckabee ’s weekend program on Fox News. Also on Mr. Huckabee’s program will be Newt Gingrich , who placed a distant fourth in Arizona and Michigan on Tuesday night after skipping both contests to focus on several Southern states that will vote next Tuesday. Ron Paul , who came in third in both states Tuesday night, spent the evening in Virginia , where he will be the only challenger to Mr. Romney on Tuesday. Neither Mr. Gingrich, nor Mr. Santorum, qualified for the ballot in Virginia.

Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
2012 Presidential Election


Los Angeles Sees Raids Over Ties to Cartels

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Federal agents conducted a series of raids on Wednesday morning across this city’s fashion district, sweeping more than 70 locations, arresting nine people, and seizing at least $65 million in cash and assets from organizations with ties to Mexican cartels, law enforcement officials said. Justice Department officials said that the sum was only a piece of the money cartels were laundering through Los Angeles businesses, many of them clothing wholesalers. “Los Angeles has become the epicenter of narco-dollar money laundering, with couriers regularly bringing duffel bags and suitcases full of cash to many of these businesses,” said Robert E. Dugdale, the assistant United States attorney in charge of federal criminal prosecutions here. Mr. Dugdale said that the cartels had long laundered money through businesses on both sides of the border, but that the practice had expanded since Mexico restricted deposits of American dollars in 2010, forcing the cartels to convert dollars into pesos. Instead of trucking cash across the border in the trunks of cars, he said, the cartels have come to rely on paying American companies with business partners in Mexico to help move the money in ways that appear legitimate. The drug money can offer a windfall for businesses in the garment district here. At one business, $35 million that the authorities said was drug money had been neatly stashed in bank boxes, with $1 million in each one. At a home in the affluent Bel Air neighborhood with ties to a business in the fashion district, officials reported finding $10 million stuffed into duffel bags. In one laundering scheme, the authorities said, the Sinaloa cartel used a fashion district business to move ransom money to Mexico from the United States. After 100 kilograms, or about 220 pounds, of cocaine was seized in the United States, the cartel kidnapped the man who had been responsible for distributing the cocaine and held him hostage in Mexico, where he was tortured — beaten, electrocuted, waterboarded and shot — until his family north of the border paid a $140,000 ransom. That ransom money was taken to a company called Q.T. Fashion here. Then it was distributed in smaller amounts to 17 other businesses throughout the fashion district, which moved it to business partners in Mexico and ultimately to the cartel. Kamala D. Harris, the attorney general of California, said the state had long served as a gateway for Mexican cartels to gain access to the rest of the country. She said the money seized on Wednesday was a “historic take” from the cartels and would put a “huge hole” in their operations.

Los Angeles
Justice Department
Money laundering
Mexico
Sinaloa Cartel
California
Drug cartel


S. African Jews Relent on Bar Mitzvah

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG — Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who had said threatened protests at his grandson’s bar mitzvah would keep him from attending , has reached an agreement with Jewish groups here that will allow him to go to the ceremony after all. “I am delighted that I will be able to attend the bar mitzvah,” the judge said in an e-mail message on Saturday. A day earlier, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies , which represents most of the country’s synagogues, issued a statement that outlined something like a quid pro quo: a promise of no protests on the bar mitzvah boy’s big day, in exchange for a meeting between the judge and leaders of the South African Zionist Federation and other Jewish organizations. Judge Goldstone, a former member of this country’s highest court, led a United Nations investigation into Israel’s invasion of Gaza that concluded that Israel and Hamas had taken actions amounting to war crimes. Though the findings rebuked both sides, the sharper criticism was aimed at Israel. The Israeli government disputed the conclusions, and many Jewish groups argued that the report was not only wrongheaded but that it was also part of vicious international efforts to defame Israel and deny its legitimacy. In South Africa , as elsewhere, Jewish opinion was divided. Some lauded Mr. Goldstone as a man of principle while others called him a traitor to his people. At least one organization, identified by the judge as the South African Zionist Federation, warned that Mr. Goldstone’s attendance at the bar mitzvah next month would be met with protests. But the announcement by the board of deputies on Friday said there had been “consultation with all parties involved” and now the bar mitzvah would “be returned to the privacy and dignity it deserves.” However joyous the young man’s ceremony at a suburban Johannesburg synagogue may be, the promised meeting is likely to be rancorous. The Zionist federation has contended that the Goldstone Report was “unequivocally hostile to Israel while being little more than fallacious propaganda.” Last week, Warren Goldstein, the chief rabbi of South Africa and a persistent critic of the report, wrote in the newspaper Business Day that the judge should be allowed to attend the bar mitzvah because every synagogue “should welcome in a tolerant and nonjudgmental way all who seek to enter and join in our service and pray to God.” But Rabbi Goldstein also renewed his criticism of the judge, saying his report “has unfairly done enormous damage to the reputation and safety of the State of Israel and her citizens.” In a letter to the editor published the next day, Judge Goldstone wrote that he was “dismayed that the chief rabbi would so brazenly politicize the occasion of my 13-year-old grandson’s bar mitzvah to engage in further personal attacks on me.” He added that Rabbi Goldstein’s “rhetoric” about tolerance “simply does not coincide with how my family and I have been treated.”

South Africa
Goldstone Richard
Gaza Strip
Palestinians
Jews and Judaism


United Methodist Church to Reassess Rules on Gays and Marriage

Abstract: After 44 years of debating sexuality issues, the United Methodist Church voted by a narrow margin on Wednesday to allow bishops to appoint a commission to re-evaluate rules on gay, lesbian and transgender clergy and marriage. The 428-to-405 vote by the delegates to the church’s quadrennial conference in Portland, Ore., was seen by many as a last-ditch effort to save the church from schism. It was celebrated by L.G.B.T. Methodists and their supporters as a way to buy time and avoid church discipline against more than 100 clergy and clergy candidates who came out as gay in advance of the conference. But it disappointed many conservatives who were exasperated that their church is still arguing over what they see as clear church teachings that prohibit openly gay and transgender clergy, and same-sex marriage. The church’s Book of Discipline, its governing document, says that the “practice of homosexuality” is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” During the debate on the convention floor, Marquice Hobbs, a young delegate from Texas, urged church members to “lay aside all the political jargon, take a stand,” and “do not be afraid to break.” But George Howard, the delegate from Ohio who proposed the measure, responded, “I am not afraid.” He said, “I believe that our leaders are ready, willing and able to lead this church to discover a new way forward for us all.” The United Methodist Church is the third-largest religious body in the United States, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, with about seven million members, including Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush. It has 12 million worldwide. Its membership ranges from theological liberals to conservative evangelicals. While many mainline Protestant churches, like the Presbyterian Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, have moved to permit gay clergy and same-sex marriages, the Methodist church has remained opposed. That is mainly because it includes branches in Africa and Asia that are growing rapidly and are theologically conservative while the American branch has had declines. The church’s liberals had hoped that growing acceptance of gay people and gay marriage in the United States would provide momentum. But faced with likely rejection, they embraced a proposal to ask the church’s Council of Bishops to find a way forward. The council is made up of all active and retired bishops from the church’s 46 areas in the United States and 20 outside. The bishops’ council proposed that the conference defer all votes on sexuality measures; more than 100 such measures were sent to the 10-day meeting. The bishops proposed that they appoint a representative commission to undertake a “complete examination and possible revision of every paragraph in our Book of Discipline regarding human sexuality.” The bishops’ statement said that they heard from many members that the rules had language that was “contradictory, unnecessarily hurtful and inadequate” for a diverse and global church.

Methodists
Christianity
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Transgender,Gender Dysphoria
Gay and Lesbian LGBT


Intel Details Broader Role in Indian PC's

Abstract: BANGALORE, India, May 23 — The world's largest chip maker, Intel, said Tuesday that it would introduce a low-cost computer in India, one of the world's fastest-growing technology markets, in an effort to gain greater market share. Intel announced the Indian computer project as part of a wider global strategy to promote the use of technology in emerging markets. The computer will have a processor, chip set and software designed by Intel and will be produced by Indian hardware makers. In a statement released during a visit to the country by Intel's chief executive, Paul S. Otellini, the company said that "systems will be priced 20 percent less than the lowest-priced Intel-based PC's in India with similar configurations." Mr. Otellini told reporters here that Intel intended to make personal computers more cost-effective. The cheaper PC's will be available in a couple of months and will be sold by Indian computer makers including Wipro, HCL Infosystems and Zenith Computers. Intel has linked with Icici Bank, one of India's largest lenders, to help consumers finance their computers. The cheapest computers in India now cost about 10,000 rupees, or $220. But with many rural Indians living on less than $1 a day, computers are a luxury for great numbers of people. Despite the spread of worldwide technology outsourcing in Indian cities like Bangalore, only 2 percent of people in this country have access to computers. Intel said it would introduce inexpensive notebook computers early in 2007 aimed at students and academic institutions. Mr. Otellini said those would sell for just under $400. Intel, which is under siege by rival chip makers, proposes to bridge the digital divide between the advanced and developing economies by spending $1 billion in developing markets and providing people with high-speed wireless Internet access. Among other advocates of efforts to narrow the digital divide have been Google, the M.I.T. Media Laboratory and the Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. Intel said it would provide free training in computer technology for 800,000 Indian teachers over the next five years. And it is collaborating with Internet service providers to make broadband connectivity more widely available. Intel has joined with the Indian Internet service provider VSNL to offer broadband at Indian rail station cafes.

India
Intel Corporation
Computers and the Internet


Jaguar Land Rover Threatened by Potential Strike

Abstract: LONDON — A potential strike by workers that the logistics company DHL provides to Jaguar Land Rover’s factories could threaten to derail the automaker’s fast growth. Unite, a big British trade union, said this week that DHL workers in Halewood, where Jaguar Land Rover’s best-selling Range Rover Evoque is made, had authorized a strike by an 86 percent vote. DHL staff at the company’s two other plants at Solihull and Castle Bromwich in the Midlands had previously voted for action by around 70 percent, according to Ciaran Naidoo, a spokesman for the union. Mr. Naidoo said that a strike, if it occurred, was probably weeks away. He said the union workers, who seek higher pay, were “open for negotiation.” The workers, who number about 2,000, are crucial to the plants’ efficient functioning. Among other tasks, they whisk components from logistics centers at the factories to the assembly lines in small electric carts. Jaguar Land Rover has been key to the revival of the British auto industry in recent years. Since being rescued through a $2.3 billion purchase from Ford Motor by Tata Motors of India in 2008, Jaguar Land Rover has experienced a sharp turnaround with the output of vehicles doubling since 2009, to almost 360,000 last year. For the fiscal year that ended in March, the unit earned £1.7 billion, or $2.5 billion, on sales of £15.8 billion. More than 80 percent of the vehicles are exported. China and the United States are the largest markets. Britain is one of the few countries in economically stagnant Europe where car production has been growing. The potential labor disruption also highlights tensions over outside companies providing staff at factories, an increasingly common practice in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The workers that Unite has balloted so far are full-time employees of DHL Supply Chain, a division of DHL. The union also plans to ballot temporary workers supplied by DHL through two agencies. “We are extremely disappointed that Unite has rejected our very generous offer and voted in favor of industrial action,” DHL said in a statement. DHL said it had offered its workers a 4.5 percent pay increase for 2013, along with a one-time 1.7 percent cash payment. The company said that this would put its drivers who deliver the parts to the Jaguar factories in the trucking industry’s upper quartile and the workers who distribute the parts within those plants in the top 10 percent for the British logistics industry. DHL says Unite is asking for a 20.6 percent increase for drivers and 12.8 percent for other workers. Mr. Naidoo of Unite said what was at issue was “pay terms and work conditions” but declined to go into details. The union contends its workers are not treated as well as the 14,500 Jaguar Land Rover manufacturing employees. Jaguar Land Rover said it would “put several measures into place to minimize the impact of any potential industrial action upon our production schedule and ultimately our customers.”


Teenager Who Used ‘Affluenza’ Defense Is Sentenced to Jail

Abstract: FORT WORTH — Ethan Couch, the teenager who used an “affluenza” defense in a drunken-driving crash that killed four people and then violated probation by traveling to Mexico with his mother, was sentenced on Wednesday to nearly two years in jail. Mr. Couch, who turned 19 on Monday, had previously avoided a harsher punishment because he was sentenced in juvenile court, where the emphasis is on rehabilitation. But after his foray to Mexico last year, prosecutors moved the case to adult court. On Wednesday, a district court judge, Wayne F. Salvant, ruled that Mr. Couch must spend 720 days in Tarrant County Jail — 180 days for each count of intoxication manslaughter. The judge said the court would reconvene in two weeks to consider modifying the terms after each side submitted additional written arguments. “Nothing I do is in stone, so I might reconsider,” Judge Salvant said. Mr. Couch showed no emotion as the sentence was read. He will remain in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for his protection, Dee Anderson, Tarrant County’s sheriff told reporters after the hearing. Family members of those who were killed or injured in the accident and who were in the courtroom declined to comment. Ethan’s father, Fred Couch, who was in court, also declined to comment. Judge Salvant has imposed a gag order, preventing prosecutors and defense lawyers from discussing the case outside the courtroom. Sheriff Anderson said Mr. Couch had created “zero issues” since he was placed in Tarrant County Jail in January. “I do believe Ethan Couch is not the same person he was when he came to jail,” he said. “The time he’s spent, it’s a rude awakening for anyone.” If the case had remained in juvenile court, Mr. Couch’s probation would have ended on his 19th birthday. The case dates from June 15, 2013, when Mr. Couch, who was 16 at the time, and a group of friends stole beer from a store, had a party at his parents’ house and then went for a drive. Mr. Couch, who was behind the wheel, hit four people on the side of a road outside Burleson, a suburb of Fort Worth, killing them. A passenger in Mr. Couch’s vehicle was paralyzed and suffered brain damage. Hours after his arrest, Mr. Couch had a blood alcohol level of 0.24, three times the legal limit for drivers in Texas. Mr. Couch’s case received widespread attention after a defense witness argued that Mr. Couch suffered from “affluenza,” a term used to describe psychological problems that can afflict children of privilege. A juvenile court judge, Jean Boyd, subsequently declined to give him the punishment sought by Tarrant County prosecutors — 20 years in prison — and ordered him to be placed in a long-term treatment facility while on 10-year probation. The decision angered the families of those Mr. Couch killed and injured. Others questioned whether a teenager with a less affluent background would have received similar leniency. In December, prosecutors began investigating whether Mr. Couch had violated his probation after a video posted online appeared to show him at a party where alcohol was being consumed. Then Mr. Couch vanished. He later turned up with his mother, Tonya Couch, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they were arrested. Ms. Couch has been charged with hindering apprehension. Because he had fled, Mr. Couch was placed in juvenile detention after being brought back to Texas. But prosecutors did not pursue a specific penalty in juvenile court for a probation violation because Mr. Couch would have aged out of the system once he turned 19. Instead, Mr. Couch’s case was moved to adult court, which led to Wednesday’s hearing. Once he serves his jail sentence, Mr. Couch will have probation conditions similar to those imposed on him when he was a juvenile, Judge Salvant said on Wednesday. Under the conditions, he will be prohibited from leaving the Fort Worth area without approval from probation or court officials. Mr. Couch will not be allowed to drive or to consume alcohol and must look for a job. Judge Salvant said that Mr. Couch would also be required to perform community service, but that he had not yet determined how many hours the teenager should perform.

Ethan Couch
Texas
Driving Under the Influence DUI
Fort Worth TX
Tarrant County TX


Concern Grows Over Top Military Officers’ Ethics

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Along with a steady diet of books on leadership and management, the reading list at military “charm schools” that groom officers for ascending to general or admiral includes an essay, “The Bathsheba Syndrome: The Ethical Failure of Successful Leaders,” that recalls the moral failure of the Old Testament’s King David, who ordered a soldier on a mission of certain death — solely for the chance to take his wife, Bathsheba. The not-so-subtle message: Be careful out there, and act better. Despite the warnings, a worrisomely large number of senior officers have been investigated and even fired for poor judgment, malfeasance and sexual improprieties or sexual violence — and that is just in the last year. Gen. William Ward of the Army, known as Kip, the first officer to open the new Africa Command, came under scrutiny for allegations of misusing tens of thousands of government dollars for travel and lodging. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, a former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan, is confronting the military equivalent of a grand jury to decide whether he should stand trial for adultery, sexual misconduct and forcible sodomy, stemming from relationships with five women. James H. Johnson III, a former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, was expelled from the Army, fined and reduced in rank to lieutenant colonel from colonel after being convicted of bigamy and fraud stemming from an improper relationship with an Iraqi woman and business dealings with her family. The Air Force is struggling to recover from a scandal at its basic training center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where six male instructors were charged with crimes including rape and adultery after female recruits told of sexual harassment and sexual assault. In the Navy, Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette was relieved of command of the Stennis aircraft carrier strike group — remarkably while the task force was deployed in the Middle East. Officials said that the move was ordered after “inappropriate leadership judgment.” No other details were given. While there is no evidence that David H. Petraeus had an extramarital affair while serving as one of the nation’s most celebrated generals, his resignation last week as director of the Central Intelligence Agency — a job President Obama said he could take only if he left the Army — was a sobering reminder of the kind of inappropriate behavior that has cast a shadow over the military’s highest ranks. Those concerns were only heightened on Tuesday when it was revealed that Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is under investigation for what a senior defense official said was “inappropriate communication” with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen as a rival for Mr. Petraeus’s attentions by Paula Broadwell, who had an extramarital affair with Mr. Petraeus. The episodes have prompted concern that something may be broken, or at least fractured, across the military’s culture of leadership. Some wonder whether its top officers have forgotten the lessons of Bathsheba: The crown of command should not be worn with arrogance, and while rank has its privileges, remember that infallibility and entitlement are not among them. David S. Maxwell , a retired Army colonel now serving as associate director for security studies at Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, said that the instances of failed or flawed leadership “are tragic and serious,” but that he doubts there are more today, on a relative scale, than in the past. Mr. Maxwell noted that Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both wartime presidents, fired many more generals than Presidents George W. Bush or Obama. “These general and flag officers are humans,” he said. “Faced with stress, and a very complex combat environment, people make mistakes. These incidents do not represent the vast majority of our senior leaders.” Like the troops, wartime commanders are separated from family for long periods, and the weight of responsibility — in a business where the metric of failure is a body bag, not the bottom line — bears heavily. Still, with drivers and staff, private quarters and guaranteed hot meals, the lifestyle of the top echelon of commanders on the battlefield offers a significant buffer from the hourly rigors of frontline combat endured by the troops. So explanations differ for the lapses. Paul V. Kane, a Marine Corps Reserve gunnery sergeant who is an Iraq veteran and former fellow of Harvard University’s International Security Program, believes the military is not the only institution facing a problem. “The country is suffering a crisis of leadership — in politics, in business and in the church, as well as in the military,” he said. “We have lots of leaders, but we have a national deficit in true leadership.” He acknowledged that the post-9/11 stress on the military, from enlisted personnel to commanders, has fractured the very souls of people in uniform. “When you pull people out of family life, repeatedly, over the course of a decade, you are going to fray their most basic relationships with spouses, with children, with their own personal code,” Mr. Kane said. Other national security experts warn that a decade of conflict shouldered by an all-volunteer force has separated those in uniform — about 1 percent of society — from the rest of the citizenry. Such a “military apart” is not healthy for the nation because the fighting force may begin to believe it operates under rules that are different from those the rest of civilian society follows, and perhaps with a separate set of benefits, as well. “Our military is holding itself to a higher standard than the rest of American society,” said Kori N. Schake, an associate professor at West Point who has held senior policy positions at the Departments of State and Defense. “That is beautiful and noble,” she added. “But it’s also disconcerting. Sometimes military people talk about being a Praetorian Guard at our national bacchanal. That’s actually quite dangerous for them to consider themselves different and better.” In extreme cases, say some military officers and Pentagon officials, the result of this “military apart” is that commanders may come to view their sacrifice as earning them the right to disregard rules of conduct. They note that if anything positive emerges from an era of increased scrutiny of misbehavior, it will be an invigorated effort to hold the officer corps to account for the way troops are led in combat, for the way the treasury is spent, for the way military leaders wear the mask of command. And they warn that the problem may get worse before it gets better. While most of the more notable improprieties have been alleged against officers of the ground forces, the Navy, which has not been the fulcrum of the wars of the last decade, is also showing strain. A study by the Navy Times found more than 20 commanding officers were fired this year for inappropriate behavior and misconduct. “The Navy’s time in the stress tester is coming,” said Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University. “The number of ships is dropping. The number of tours will increase. Reliance on the Navy instead of the Army to back up foreign policy will become greater over the next decade than the last. If the Navy is cracking under a past decade of strain, what will it mean for the Navy when it is in the hot seat?”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Grandson of China’s Most-Hated Landlord Challenges Communist Lore

Abstract: ANREN, China — To many Chinese, Liu Wencai is the archetype of the despotic landlord from pre-Communist days, one who exploited his tenants, tortured those who fell behind on rent in a “water dungeon” and forced new mothers to breast-feed him as a longevity therapy. But his grandson Liu Xiaofei, 70, has spent the past two decades trying to prove that his grandfather was not only a good man, but actually aided the Communist forces in Sichuan Province. “The ruling party has no integrity, so I have to tell the truth,” Mr. Liu said in an interview. He said he was not seeking his grandfather’s formal rehabilitation but simply trying to establish that the government fabricated stories to advance its political goals. “By inciting hatred through propaganda, they turned humans into beasts,” he said. “I want to tell the truth so our nation won’t repeat these mistakes.” Mr. Liu, a retired oil-well construction worker, spends his days at a computer in his apartment in Longchang, in southern Sichuan, working on a book based on research that includes more than 1,000 interviews. When he travels to the town of Anren, where his grandfather’s manor was turned into a museum in 1959 to showcase evil deeds he is reported to have committed, Mr. Liu gives impassioned speeches to visitors, pointing out which exhibits — essentially, all of them, he says — are fake. Image Liu Wencai, right, standing in front of Wencai Middle School, which he built in 1942. With him is Gao Shuyuan, the school’s first principal. Credit Wu Hongyuan Mr. Liu said it was a single sentence his mother uttered in the late 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, that sent him on his journey, a one-man battle even family members consider doomed in a tightening political climate. “The underground Communists’ command headquarters was right in our manor,” he said she told him. “Those words were engraved in my heart.” On a misty morning, Mr. Liu walked past cafes, bars and design stores lining the streets of Anren, now a tourist destination known as the township of museums, for the Liu family manors and other cultural sites. A luxury hotel has been built for vacationers and parents visiting their children at the Confucius International School , which promises to prepare pupils for top foreign universities and boasts of being housed in a school that Liu Wencai built in 1942, where tuition fees were waived for poor but talented pupils. Many residents seem to remember Liu Wencai favorably. “If you ask if people here think Liu Wencai was good, that goes without saying,” said Dai Rongyao, 89, who was selling embroidered handicrafts. Liu Wencai, born in 1887, amassed huge wealth in the 1920s in the Yangtze River port of Yibin, dominating lucrative businesses including the opium and weapons trades under the wing of his younger brother, Liu Wenhui, a Nationalist warlord. In 1933, Liu Wenhui retreated to the Tibetan region of Kham, after losing a battle to a warlord nephew, and Liu Wencai returned to his hometown, Anren, and sponsored road, water and electricity projects as well as the school. In 1942, Liu Wenhui, long at odds with the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, met with Zhou Enlai and began clandestinely cooperating with his Communists. Image The life-size sculptures that make up Rent Collection Yard depict Liu Wencai as a despotic landlord exploiting destitute peasants. Credit Wu Hongyuan In 1946, at the start of the Chinese civil war, Liu Wencai financed a Communist guerrilla force of around 50 people while allowing its command headquarters to be set up in his manor, said Mr. Liu, who said he learned this from a close aide to Liu Wencai who has since died. (A provincial government history says that underground Communists took advantage of Liu Wencai’s conflict with a rival to secure weapons from him.) Liu Wencai died in October 1949, the same month that Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic. In December, his brother Liu Wenhui openly joined forces with the Communists, and the Nationalists retreated from Sichuan to Taiwan. The Liu family, like many wealthy Chinese, considered fleeing to Hong Kong, fearing what might happen under the new Communist government, Mr. Liu said. But Liu Wenhui urged them to stay, insisting the family would be treated well as the party’s friend. Instead, the family’s property was seized and its members attacked in a series of political campaigns. In 1958, local officials eager to demonstrate their fervor for Maoist class struggle presented Liu Wencai as the prototype of the exploiting landlord. His coffin was dug up, and his remains were scattered. In 1959, the landlord’s residence was turned into a museum, featuring a “water dungeon,” an underground space half-filled with water. A woman who claimed to be the dungeon’s sole survivor described it as filled with human bones. By the early 1960s, Liu Wencai was nationally notorious as the “chief representative of the landlord class for 3,000 years.” His brother Liu Wenhui, who in 1959 became forestry minister and escaped persecution under Zhou Enlai’s protection, was powerless to reverse the propaganda campaign, though he was secretly upset. “What the hell are they talking about?” was his private comment on one newspaper article about Liu Wencai, according to his grandson Liu Shizhao. Image Liu Wenhui, the younger brother of Liu Wencai and a Nationalist warlord in Sichuan Province who later allied with the Communists. Credit Liu Xiaofei In 1965, the Sichuan authorities commissioned more than 100 life-size clay sculptures that the museum installed as the Rent Collection Courtyard, which purported to show how Liu Wencai and his lackeys bullied peasants to extract rents. Replicas of the statues were exhibited in Beijing later that year, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors. In 1966, just before the onset of the Cultural Revolution, a documentary about Liu Wencai was released, and stories of his crimes were subsequently included in textbooks. Denunciations of the landlord and the evil he ostensibly personified surged during the Cultural Revolution. Family members came under attack. A cousin of Mr. Liu who fled to Xinjiang was murdered along with his wife and children, as were many other people in China branded as “landlords.” The frenzy subsided only in the 1980s, when liberal voices were tolerated to some extent. In 1988, the provincial authorities admitted that the water dungeon was an invention, and it was drained. But these beginnings of a re-evaluation stalled after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown as the party tightened its grip, Mr. Liu said. In the museum, Mr. Liu pointed out items he said never belonged to his family. A visitor asked, “This is your family?” “I’m Liu Wencai’s grandson,” Mr. Liu said. “Can we take a picture with you?” the man shouted excitedly, pointing at his friends. Mr. Liu became the group’s tour guide, and the man, a railway official from Guizhou who said he had visited the museum on a school tour in the 1970s, was startled when Mr. Liu said that nearly everything on display was fake. Xiao Shu, the pen name of Chen Min, who in 1999 published “The Truth About Liu Wencai,” a book that was soon banned, said the party would be reluctant to restore to respectability a villain of its own making. His book was accused of “negating the legitimacy of the new democratic revolution,” when the party persecuted landlords and distributed their property to poor peasants, he said. “This is the basis of the regime’s legitimacy, so they don’t dare face the truth.” Wu Hongyuan, 60, a retired county propaganda official who served as the museum’s director in the 1990s, said the process of restoring the truth could not be rushed. “The museum is too sensitive, and Liu Wencai is too famous,” he said. Mr. Wu said he tried to recast the museum to more accurately present Liu Wencai’s life, but anytime he altered something, he said, former underground Communists in Anren would protest to the authorities. Li Weijia, 98, was one of those protesters. “He never protected party members!” insisted Mr. Li, in a hospital ward reserved for senior officials in Chengdu. “That’s confusing black and white!’’ At the end of his trip to Anren, Mr. Liu visited Chen Fahong, 86, a former worker in Liu Wencai’s manor. “We had rice and meat to eat then. He was kind,” Mr. Chen said of Liu Wencai in his modest yard amid onion fields. “After liberation” in 1949, he said, “we had only bran and grass to eat.” Mr. Liu said that, looking back, the family regretted having trusted the Communists. He recalled a song sung in his family after Liu Wenhui sided with the Communists, envisioning a paradise under the party’s rule. “There is a good place beyond the mountains,” it goes. “There, rich and poor are equal.”

China
Landlord
Liu Wencai
Liu Xiaofei
Cultural Revolution
Liu Family Manor


Gingrich Will Be Back in the ‘Crossfire’ on CNN

Abstract: ARLINGTON, Va. — In defeat, the 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls have mostly faded from view, in ways that seem true to type. Mitt Romney is a contented grandfather. Rick Santorum leads a Christian movie company. Michele Bachmann is retiring from the House, although her pants-on-fire oratory is likely to find a new home. And what of the 2012 contender with a slashing debate style, who prolonged his primary run seemingly to remain in the media spotlight? Newt Gingrich has also earned his just deserts: he has been named a host of CNN’s revived “Crossfire,” the granddaddy of political debate shows. The appointment will ensure that he remains the most prominent Republican from the presidential class of 2012 to retain influence in the national conversation. Mr. Gingrich gleefully criticized “the media elite” as a candidate, but now he is unquestionably a member. “Yes,” he agreed. “And I hope to move it to the right.” Eight years after the original “Crossfire” was canceled, its revival is a bet by CNN that there is an audience for an evenly matched, left-right debate show five times a week, in contrast to the partisan conformity that prevails at other cable outlets. Besides Mr. Gingrich, the hosts will include S. E. Cupp, a conservative columnist and commentator; and the liberals Van Jones, a former adviser to President Obama; and Stephanie Cutter, a deputy manager of Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. The new show, which will start on Sept. 16 at 6:30 p.m. and which is already being heavily promoted by the cable network, will feature two of the four hosts nightly, plus two guests. They will debate one topic for 30 minutes — a counterintuitive gamble in an age of hummingbird attention spans. Mr. Gingrich, 70, is the marquee attraction. Reviving “Crossfire” with him as a host was one of the first ideas that Jeff Zucker floated on becoming president of CNN Worldwide in January, said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. Mr. Gingrich may be the only Republican in America who believed the 20 primary debates in the 2012 campaign were too few. Twice he brought his candidacy back from the dead through debate performances, most memorably in winning the South Carolina primary by attacking the moderators for daring to question him about a) insensitivity to black Americans and b) his second wife’s statement that he asked for an open marriage. It was all quite calculated. “Particularly in a Republican primary, taking on the media immediately resonated with almost half the primary voters,” Mr. Gingrich said. That is a section of voters that CNN is eager to engage. During an onstage interview at the Brainstorm TECH conference in July, Mr. Zucker said: “Newt is an incredibly smart, intellectual thinker. I think, frankly, one of the criticisms of CNN that it didn’t have enough conservative points of view on the air was probably a valid criticism.” The renewed “Crossfire,” which will displace the final 30 minutes of “The Situation Room,” is also an attempt to jump-start CNN’s evening ratings. According to Nielsen, “The Situation Room” averaged 621,000 viewers, compared with 2.1 million viewers for “Special Report with Bret Baier” on Fox News and 565,000 for “PoliticsNation” on MSNBC. CNN did proportionately better among the prized demographic, viewers aged 25 to 54 in the same hour. The numbers were 205,000 for CNN, 329,000 for Fox News and 132,000 for MSNBC. Before he entered the 2012 race, Mr. Gingrich was a paid contributor to Fox News, which chose not to bring him back after the election. “I think they were shocked by the results,” he said of Fox News, which was widely seen as openly cheerleading for Mr. Romney last year. “I think their audience was shocked. I think they’ve been trying to reassess how they’re going to rebuild their programs.” As a candidate who peddled his books at stump speeches, Mr. Gingrich was accused of running primarily to polish his brand for future book and television deals. “If people want to think about that as a business decision, it would have been utterly irrational,” he said in an interview at Gingrich Productions, in an office building in Arlington, Va. Image From left, James Carville, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on the original “Crossfire” in 2002. Credit John Harrington/CNN, via Reuters His 2010 income, disclosed during the campaign, was $3.1 million from speeches, books and consulting through a web of enterprises informally known as Newt Inc. As a candidate, his earnings “basically collapsed to almost zero,” he said. “We’ve very gradually begun to rebuild.” His suite of offices is relatively spare, with photographs on glass shelves and a library where books are arranged by height, not author. In a small personal office hangs a large photo of Mr. Gingrich’s third wife, Callista, riding a burro, and on his desk is a textbook, “Zoo Animal Welfare.” To some, Mr. Gingrich is an object of semi-affectionate satire for his quirky interests in zoos and futuristic technology, and his prolific authorship that includes pulpy historical fiction. A recent Onion headline declared, “J. K. Rowling Revealed to Be Pseudonym for Newt Gingrich.” In the last gasps of his primary run, journalists on his campaign bus wove his life and themes into parody songs such as “Rocket Newt”and “Sympathy for the Gingrich.” (Sample lyric: “But what’s puzzling me is the failure of my campaign.”) In the 1980s and ’90s he was one of the most frequent guests on “Crossfire.” “Why did he get asked back over and over? Because he was very good at it,” Mr. Feist said. But it was another guest, Jon Stewart, whose 2004 appearance may be the best remembered. He accused the “Crossfire”hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala of being “partisan hacks,” adding that the show’s bickering format was “hurting America.” The attack reverberated online. Three months later Mr. Stewart’s critique was cited by CNN’s president in his decision to cancel the show. Mr. Gingrich had a different assessment of why the original show, which began in 1982, lost its way. At first, he said, it had well-informed guests who squarely engaged one another but later it devolved into head-butting for its own sake. “It became more of a talking-points yelling match between people who thought the job was to be smarmy.” Another reason was that audiences were decamping for more one-sided politics, seeking the ideological comfort zones of Fox News and later its liberal opposite, MSNBC. Mr. Gingrich, as architect of the 1994 Republican takeover of the House, who forced a government shutdown, helped to shape the modern age of hyper-partisanship. “Despite the polarization we’ve seen in America,” Mr. Feist maintained, “there are tens of millions of Americans of all political stripes who actually don’t want to hear a television network tell them how to think.” Mr. Gingrich has long enjoyed discussing his intellectual influences — Fredrich Hayek, Adam Smith, Alvin Toffler. His view of modern media is shaped by Snooki, the “Jersey Shore” star. Last year, he appeared with her on Jay Leno, “which required me to become acquainted” with the long-running MTV hit, he said. He realized that television had evolved so that niche shows could succeed by attracting just a sliver of the overall audience, he said. The new “Crossfire” can succeed with just 1 percent of American viewers, he said. That may explain the screen saver on his iPhone: Mr. Gingrich, his wife and Snooki at the Leno show. Asked the inevitable question, whether he would use the CNN perch as a springboard to another campaign, he invoked the unpredictability of life. “In a planet where things happen the way they do nowadays, who knows? If you’d have said three years ago, CNN is going to relaunch ‘Crossfire’ and get Gingrich to co-host it, who’d have guessed? Things evolve.”

CNN
Republicans
Newt Gingrich
Appointments and Executive Changes
TV
US Politics


After a Crushing Defeat, Realizing What Was Lost

Abstract: Manager Willie Randolph stood near the six televisions hanging from the ceiling in the center of the Mets ’ clubhouse yesterday, giving a speech he never dreamed he would have to give. The Mets had just lost to the Florida Marlins, 8-1, just added a depressing exclamation point to a monumental collapse. The search for words as he addressed his team was emotional. Randolph was no longer able to push or prod his players, so he told them that they had allowed a terrific chance to vanish. He told the players to remember how they felt at that precise moment, to remember how much losing this opportunity hurt. Then Randolph cried. Two Mets who witnessed Randolph’s five-minute speech said his eyes became moist and his voice weakened when he talked about what the team had destroyed by playing listlessly for two and a half weeks. The Mets guaranteed that it would be a long, lonely, questioned-filled off-season. “He was very emotional with us,” said Billy Wagner, the team’s closer. “I’m sure if he had his way during this, he would have kicked the heck out of all of us.” When Randolph finished addressing his players, he made the 30-second walk to a conference room to speak to reporters. His white jersey was unbuttoned, he was carrying a bottle of water and he looked sad. Actually, Randolph looked like someone who had just finished wiping away the tears shed over a lost season. Randolph said the Mets had learned “a tough life lesson in baseball,” his euphemism for what a team finds out when it cannot protect a seven-game lead in the middle of September. The stunning finish of 12 losses in 17 games will consign the 2007 Mets to baseball infamy. “I told my players this is a life lesson in baseball and in how to become champions,” Randolph said. “And, when you get to that road, you have to seize it because you never know when it’s going to come again.” While Randolph has six World Series rings from his career as a player and a coach with the Yankees, his glitzy résumé has a serious blemish. Randolph was the man in charge of these Mets, who now sit beside the 1964 Phillies, the 1951 Dodgers and the 1978 Red Sox as clubs that will be remembered for what they did not do. Wagner said the Mets knew they were not as talented as they were in 2006, something that should have led them to become more focused. Instead, Wagner said the players lost focus and behaved as if they expected to reach the playoffs. It is part of Randolph’s responsibility to make sure the Mets stay focused. But David Wright and Wagner absolved Randolph and said the players were culpable. “To hear words like collapsing and choking associated with you, that’s tough for Willie to take,” Wagner said. “Willie’s been a winner. He couldn’t play for us, but I’m sure he wishes he could have. We didn’t show up.” But after this ending, speculation about Randolph’s job security will intensify. Some fans chanted, “Fire Willie! Fire Willie!” in the ninth inning, but Randolph has two years left on his contract and does not appear to be in danger of being dismissed. General Manager Omar Minaya lauded Randolph by saying that Randolph “turned our franchise around” and that he and Randolph are a “team together.” Still, Minaya left a smidgen of doubt about Randolph’s future by saying he has to discuss all organizational issues with ownership. Randolph called himself “a big boy” who takes “full responsibility” for the collapse. That includes six losses in the last seven home games. That includes not being able to get José Reyes out of his funk. Still, Randolph said he was not concerned about losing his job. “I’m here to teach these guys to play winning baseball,” Randolph said. “When I don’t do that, obviously, they’re going to get rid of me, or whatever. So I don’t have any qualms, any problems or any worries about stuff like that.” Before the game, a clubhouse attendant asked Randolph about collecting his luggage for a potential trip to Philadelphia. If the Mets and Phillies had each won or each lost yesterday, they would have had a playoff game at Citizens Bank Park today. Randolph told the young man he had a small bag and added, “I’m not planning on going anywhere.” Randolph is not going anywhere, but it is not for the reasons that he had envisioned. He is not going anywhere because he and the Mets went home. It was a perplexing ending to a shocking season. It was enough to make Randolph cry.

Baseball
New York Mets
Randolph Willie
Athletics and Sports


Garbage Incinerators Make Comeback, Kindling Both Garbage and Debate

Abstract: WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Rising from a denuded landscape not far from this area’s famed beaches, the nation’s first new commercial garbage incinerator in 20 years is about to be fired up, ready to blast up to 3,000 tons of trash a day into electricity for thousands of houses. With landfills shunned, recycling programs stalled and the country’s record-setting trash output unyielding, new waste-to-energy plants are being eyed as a path to salvation. Facilities similar to the $670 million incinerator here, common in Europe, are under consideration in Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia, Wisconsin and elsewhere. Americans produce 4.4 pounds of trash per person per day, the most in the world, and the talk of returning to incineration, industry experts say, is an acknowledgment of defeat in the effort to reduce output and step up recycling. “People said 30 years ago there wouldn’t be a need to have waste-to-energy sites,” said Ted Michaels, president of the Energy Recovery Council, a trade association, recalling optimism over garbage reduction and vast increases in recycling. Today, few other options are available. But while the Environmental Protection Agency has given its seal of approval by classifying the new plants as renewable energy — akin to solar and wind power — the facilities are an expensive and perhaps risky gamble. Environmental groups oppose them, saying that although cleaner than the incinerators of the past, waste-to-energy plants still emit mercury, lead, dioxins and a variety of other toxic substances. And the history of incineration offers a cautionary tale, producing alarm among some who live nearby. In the Curtis Bay neighborhood of Baltimore, for example, a waste-to-energy plant is being built at an expected cost of $1 billion, and concerns about its viability and health risks are mounting. Video Students from Benjamin Franklin high school in Baltimore, Md., are fighting the construction of a proposed waste-to-energy incinerator plant in their already highly toxic neighborhood, Curtis Bay. Credit Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times Maryland officials say that because it is privately financed, the facility is avoiding the financial risks that pushed cities including Detroit , Camden, N.J. , and Harrisburg, Pa. , toward insolvency after they built expensive incinerators designed to generate revenue through fees for handling garbage. But while the plant received approval from Maryland and the blessings of Gov. Martin O’Malley and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the operator, Energy Answers of Albany, has had difficulty raising the money, and the plant is at least three years away from completion, said Patrick F. Mahoney, the company’s chief executive. The plant will be even larger than the one about to open in West Palm Beach, able to combust 4,000 tons of material per day processed from residential garbage, wood, tires and the remains of automobiles. The problem is that Curtis Bay already hosts a 200-acre coal pier that produces black dust that collects on local streets and drifts inside windows, a fertilizer plant reeking of fresh manure, one of the nation’s largest medical waste incinerators, chemical plants, fuel depots, and an open-air composting site. In 2009, the Curtis Bay ZIP code ranked among the top nationally for the release of toxic emissions — more than 13.6 million pounds, according to the E.P.A. And Baltimore, according to a 2013 report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment, had the highest emissions-related mortality rate of 5,695 American cities studied. The M.I.T. report found that 130 of every 100,000 Baltimore residents “likely die in a given year due to long-term exposure to air pollution.” The proposed facility would be allowed to emit up to 240 pounds of mercury and 1,000 pounds of lead annually in a neighborhood with three schools and high rates of cancer and asthma. Donna Harrison, 51, who bought a $64,000 house in Curtis Bay with her husband in 2010, said she often saw dead birds on the street. And she spoke of a smell she described as being “like road kill all blended up and someone took the lid off.” “We thought about selling our house, but it’s not feasible,” she said. “And now an incinerator? For the love of God. And not just an incinerator but the biggest damn incinerator in the United States. I feel I’ve taken my $64,000 and burned it.” Image In West Palm Beach, Fla., a new garbage-to-energy plant is opening soon. It is to burn 3,000 tons of a trash a day. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times Other residents say they are eager for the plant to be built, in part because Energy Answers has pledged to create jobs and signed an agreement promising at least $50,000 a year to be used for job training, low-interest home loans, G.E.D. courses and new recreational facilities once the plant opens. The agreement includes a provision that would require Energy Answers to pay a fine directly to the community if emission standards were exceeded. Andy Dize, president of the Community of Curtis Bay Association, said the plant would be a clear boon to the neighborhood, given the agreement and the promised jobs. “There’s always got to be some give and take, and Curtis Bay will be worse off if this isn’t built,” he said. The Florida plant, topped by an 80-foot smokestack, has encountered far less opposition, though there has been dissent over a plan to accept trash from outside Palm Beach County for at least eight years, until the county’s population catches up with the incinerator’s capacity. Some residents have said the plant — and the garbage trucks going back and forth along Jog Road — could besmirch the area’s reputation and harm tourism. “Do we really want to be the trash capital of South Florida?” asked Donald E. Gundermann, a West Palm Beach resident. He said he did not object to the incinerator, but did oppose importing garbage from outside the county. Mark Hammond, executive director of the county’s Solid Waste Authority, said the incinerator was the best available way to dispose of waste — and a far better solution than placing a new landfill near the Everglades, which was the county’s original plan. “This will be the cleanest waste-to-energy plant in the United States,” Mr. Hammond said. The need to burn trash, say supporters, is underlined in the data: Recycling rates have barely budged over the past decade — the current level for recycling and composting is about 34 percent, according to the E.P.A. Image In Baltimore, members of the high school group Free Your Voice canvassed the Curtis Bay neighborhood to stop a proposed waste-to-energy plant. The community already has a lot of industry. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times Though recycling rose steadily during the 1990s — the national recycling and composting rate jumped to 31.4 percent in 2005 from 16 percent in 1990 — curbside recycling has more recently been deemed an expensive luxury by a number of municipalities. Thomas Kinnaman , who studies the economics of solid waste and recycling at Bucknell University, said public enthusiasm about recycling, once viewed as fashionable, had cooled. States, he said, now favor cheaper, easier options, which typically amount to either burying or burning garbage. “Some parts of the country realized it was costlier than they’d anticipated,” he said, “and it really comes down to economies of scale. The more people who take part, the less expensive it becomes.” Cities have adopted disparate policies, with Ocean City, Md. , having recently dispensed with curbside recycling altogether. Instead, it trucks everything — including plastic, glass, paper and other recyclables — to an incinerator. The city says eliminating recycling has saved it $500,000 a year. Indianapolis contracts with a company that charges a fee for curbside recycling, and the city incinerates most of the rest. The recycling rate is just 10 percent. Portland , Ore., which recycles about 60 percent of its garbage, collects household garbage just twice each month, but picks up recyclables and food scraps weekly. San Francisco , which mandates both recycling and composting, says it diverts 80 percent of waste, and Seattle , which recycles about 60 percent of its garbage, voted in September to impose fines on residents who fail to compost food waste. Baltimore and Palm Beach County each have recycling rates of about 30 percent. If, as expected, the national rates continue to lag, new incinerators will probably be part of the solution. “We’ve been building plants around the world, so the technology is there,” said Larry A. Hiner, a manager with Babcock & Wilcox, the North Carolina-based company building the Florida plant. “I think with education the public’s perception of waste-to-energy will change. Time is on our side.”

West Palm Beach
Recycling
Environment
Renewable energy
Baltimore
Air pollution
Waste management
Electric power


Two Sexual Assaults Are Reported at Yale

Abstract: The Yale University Police Department has received anonymous reports that two undergraduate students were sexually assaulted at an off-campus party this month, the university said on Friday night. In a campuswide email alert earlier on Friday, Chief Ronnell A. Higgins said the department had received separate reports — one on Wednesday, the other on Friday — that a student was sexually assaulted by another student on Feb. 8 at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house one block from campus. The two students knew their alleged attackers, he said. It was not clear how many assailants may have been involved. The police did not say whether they had identified or spoken with the two students or whether they had any suspects. There were no signs of activity at the fraternity house on Friday night, and no one answered the door when a reporter knocked. The reports of sexual assault follow efforts at Yale to shed its reputation for having what a 2011 federal complaint called “a hostile sexual environment on campus.” Since then, officials have increased efforts to clarify the meaning and penalties of sexual misconduct. In the 2011 complaint filed with the United States Department of Education, students and graduates said Yale was violating Title IX, the federal gender-equality law, and laid out a range of transgressions against women, including taunts to assaults, over several years. Yale committed to make reforms, and the Education Department dropped its inquiry. One of the changes was the issuing of semiannual reports of sexual complaints made to the university, covering accusations from harassment to rape, and how Yale had handled them. In response to complaints that aggressors had been punished too lightly and that rules on what merited suspension or expulsion were unclear, Yale released sketches last year illustrating hypothetical situations of consensual and nonconsensual sex and spelling out the penalties for violations.


Syrian War Takes Heavy Toll at a Crossroad of Cultures

Abstract: PALMYRA, Syria — The imposing stone colonnades still stand, below stark hills dotted with tombs. They still glow peach-pink in the afternoon sun, impassive, as if unimpressed by what is, after all, not their first war. At the first-century Temple of Bel, one of the best-preserved buildings in the ancient city of Palmyra , a prominent column bears a new scar. A mortar shell left a telltale splash mark on the stone, without budging a structure that has stood for 2,000 years. Elsewhere, two other columns have collapsed, officials said, and bullets have pockmarked walls. But compared with the wholesale destruction that was feared, the damage, for now, is minimal. Yet the war has left deeper, less obvious wounds. Illegal digging, long a problem at the many sprawling archaeological sites in Syria, has accelerated during three years of conflict. Grave robbers, some crude, others professional, have stolen numerous objects from Palmyra’s tombs, museum officials say, sometimes sawing funeral friezes in two to make them easier to carry. Another casualty is the town of Tadmur, a jumble of concrete skirting the skeleton of the grander ancient city. Its tourist economy has shut down. And for local people, who consider themselves custodians of one of the world’s most magnificent ancient sites, there is a greater, if less tangible, pain. They yearn for the days when Palmyra showed visitors from around the globe a vision of Syria that transcended the region’s modern-day strife, as a crossroad of Greek, Roman, Persian and Islamic cultures. Archaeologists who worked among the ruins, now closed under military guard, still draw salaries. But they live bereft of an experience that had filled their days with beauty and meaning: excavating at dawn as the sunrise slowly lit the stones with gold. “I feel as if I’m dead,” said Khalil al-Hariri, an archaeologist and the director of the Palmyra Museum, near the ruins. He spends his time waiting for government permission to resume his early-morning explorations, and worrying about the plundering, which he says is “destroying culture, destroying civilization.” Officials at Unesco, the United Nations agency that works to protect historic places, have classified as endangered all six of Syria’s World Heritage sites, including Palmyra. But conflict keeps them from assessing the damage in person. In recent weeks, as the government consolidated control of the desert highway to Tadmur from the city of Homs, it allowed journalists to visit, among the first outsiders to arrive since armed revolt spread to the region in late 2011. Image A street vendor in Tadmur, near Palmyra. Although the fighting has not damaged the ruins as much as feared, specialists have not yet been able to gain access to the site. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Fighting came relatively late to this quiet desert town — after protesters were fired on and a prominent army officer fell out with the government, residents say — and flared sporadically for about a year. Many insurgents were locals who hid in the orchards of an oasis adjoining the ruins, residents and security officials said. Shelling and gunfire disrupted harvests and damaged trees. Insurgents occupied the Temple of Bel, museum officials said, and looted a modern guesthouse there. The Hotel Zenobia, built in 1900 among the ruins, where visitors like Agatha Christie woke up to the sunrise striking the columns, stands burned and wrecked. Now it is the Syrian Army using the ruins for military purposes. A 16th-century hilltop castle is off limits because, security officials said, “the army is there,” raising concerns among residents that heavy equipment could damage it. Unesco says that artillery pieces and tanks have been positioned at the site. Palmyra has escaped the catastrophic destruction visited upon the Old City of Aleppo , a battleground since the summer of 2012. Shelling gutted medieval covered markets after insurgents took refuge there, and government troops are positioned in its 13th-century citadel. Fighting has also damaged the Crac des Chevaliers , one of the world’s best-preserved Crusader castles, long occupied by insurgents and retaken last month by the government. Image Temples have stood in Palmyra for thousands of years, and human habitation dates back much further. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Nada al-Hassan, chief of Unesco’s Arab states unit, said the biggest danger to Palmyra and other more remote sites was illegal digging by armed “international mafias” and, officials suspect, by insurgent and government fighters. She said that Unesco was working with Interpol, ordinary Syrians and the “committed, technocratic” staff of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria to track damage and recover stolen artifacts. Officials have intercepted hundreds of smuggled Syrian antiquities in Beirut, Lebanon, including dozens from Palmyra, and leading auction houses, like Sotheby’s, are cooperating to increase vigilance. Unesco is looking into Syrian government claims on a cache of medieval Islamic coins proposed for sale by VCoin, an online auctioneer, Ms. Hassan said. But the United Nations Security Council has yet to act on Unesco’s recommendation to ban all trade in Syrian artifacts, as it did with those from Iraq during the war there. “Now is not the time to sell Syrian objects,” Ms. Hassan said. “Anything Syrian that is being sold now is suspicious.” Syria’s 32 archaeological museums have packed away their collections, but objects have been looted from at least three. In Raqqa, controlled by foreign-led Islamist groups, some objects appear to have been destroyed out of religious objections to their pagan provenance or depiction of living creatures, said Ahmad Deeb, the director of museums at the Ministry of Culture. Image Now the ruins are mostly empty, except for soldiers perched on the stones. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Antiquities have sometimes fared better in areas under the control of local Syrian insurgents, who are more likely to understand and value them, officials said. (One Bedouin insurgent who grew up in Palmyra’s ruins, tending camels, said he and his comrades left town to avoid damaging them.) And in Maarat al-Noaman, where rebels occupy a museum full of renowned mosaics, Ms. Hassan said, the government pays the fighters to preserve them. “There are all sorts of deals,” she said. Temples have stood in Palmyra for thousands of years, and human habitation dates back much further. Successive civilizations included the brief third-century rule of Queen Zenobia, who revolted against the Romans. Many residents, including Muslims, see that history as continuous with their own. “Inside us there is something very ancient and old,” said Sheikh Ahmed Dagher Abu Ali, a member of Parliament, leading visitors through the otherwise empty museum to admire statues of Palmyra’s female deity Allat and her Greek equivalent Athena. Protecting that heritage from extremist insurgents less than 20 miles to the east is “on our shoulders,” he added. “We are responsible on behalf of all the world’s civilizations.” Now the Bedouins and camels are gone, the ruins empty but for soldiers perched on the stones, smoking cigarettes. In the museum, a security official in an unmarked army-green uniform sat silently at the desk of the director, Mr. Hariri, who sat to the side. Mr. Hariri showed off four first-century sculptures recently confiscated from thieves. Next, he pointed to friezes of bejeweled women hanging on the wall, his favorites, he said. Asked why, he answered, “Because they are beautiful.”

Syria
Archaeology
Arts and Antiquities Looting
Arab Spring
Historic preservation
Palmyra Syria


Poll Suggests Opportunities for Both Parties

Abstract: Republicans are heading into the general election phase of the midterm campaign backed by two powerful currents: the highest proportion of voters in two decades say it is time for their own member of Congress to be replaced, and Americans are expressing widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama ’s leadership. But the latest New York Times/CBS News poll also finds that while voters rate the performance of Democrats negatively, they view Republicans as even worse, providing a potential opening for Democrats to make a last-ditch case for keeping their hold on power. The poll represents a snapshot of the country’s political mood as the campaign pivots from primary contests that have revealed deep divisions among Republicans into the general election, where the parties deliver their competing arguments to a wider audience. The findings suggest that there are opportunities and vulnerabilities for both parties as they proceed into the final seven weeks of the campaign. A case for Republicans: Voters are remarkably open to change, even if they are not sure where Republicans will lead them. Most Americans, including one-third of those in the coalition that elected Mr. Obama, now say he does not have a clear plan to solve the nation’s problems or create jobs. Democrats remain highly vulnerable on the economy. A case for Democrats: They are seen as having better ideas for solving the country’s problems. The public steadfastly supports the president’s proposal to let tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans. And far more people still blame Wall Street and the Bush administration than blame Mr. Obama for the country’s economic problems. Voters have a darker view of Congressional Republicans than of Democrats, with 63 percent disapproving of Democrats and 73 percent disapproving of Republicans. But with less than two months remaining until Election Day, there are few signs that Democrats have made gains persuading Americans that they should keep control of Congress. “I really think we need to get some new blood in there,” said Kathy Beckman, 44, an optometrist from Lodi, Calif., who spoke in an interview after participating in the poll. “Get them all out.” The mood of the country is similar in many respects to the fall of 1994, when Republicans swept control of Congress. There is an overall low Congressional approval, large numbers of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track and soaring discontent among voters with their own representative. It is that particular finding in the poll that underscores the true depths of the disgruntlement among the public and is an ominous sign for Democrats, who have a 39-seat majority in the House and a 10-seat majority in the Senate. In many election cycles, voters readily acknowledge that they are dissatisfied with government or Congress in general, but they tend to have a stronger connection toward their own representative. That is not the case this year, with 55 percent of voters saying it is time for new leadership and only 34 percent saying their lawmaker deserves re-election. It is a historic high for a question asked in each midterm election year since 1990. The economic climate is also worse this year, with 8 in 10 Americans rating the economy negatively and 4 in 10 saying that their family’s financial situation is worse than it was two years ago. In September 1994, two months before Democrats lost their majorities in the House and Senate, more than half of people said the condition of the national economy was good. The economy and jobs are increasingly and overwhelmingly cited by Americans as the most important problems facing the country, while the federal budget deficit barely registers as a topic of concern when survey respondents were asked to volunteer their worries. The national telephone poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday, the day that primary contests unfolded in seven states. The survey included 990 adults, of whom 881 were registered voters. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Voters do not perceive Republicans as having better ideas and disagree with them on the biggest economic issue of the campaign — whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy — a sign the party has no real advantage on key pieces of their agenda, which makes it more necessary to run as a generic alternative to the party in power. The Tea Party movement , which showed its strength in Republican primaries in Delaware and New York, has yet to be fully defined for many Americans. Nearly half of voters say they are undecided or have not heard enough about the Tea Party to form an opinion, a sign that offers an opportunity for the movement to define itself to many voters and help shape their views of it before Election Day. Nearly half of all Republican voters say they have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party. But the view of the movement among independent voters grew more negative since a Times/CBS poll was conducted in April. Now, 30 percent of independent voters have an unfavorable view of the Tea Party, with 18 percent holding a favorable view and more than half offering no opinion. The president’s overall job approval rating is 45 percent, with 47 percent disapproving. On the economy, his rating is worse, with 41 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving. When asked whether Mr. Obama has a clear plan for solving the nation’s problems, 57 percent responded that he did not, yet twice as many give him more credit than Republicans for having a plan. “He had a lot of plans and he’s not really sticking to them like he said he would,” Tammy Danley, 38, an independent voter from Louisburg, Kan., said in an interview after participating in the poll. “It seems like a lot of talk and not a lot of action.” With the Democratic majority on the line, and the outcome of the election seen as a referendum on the president, 45 percent of voters said Mr. Obama would not be a factor in their vote in November, while 23 percent said their vote would be for Mr. Obama and 25 percent said it would be against him. The poll found that the public has an increasingly negative opinion of Sarah Palin , the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, with nearly half now holding an unfavorable view of her. Her favorable rating is down nine percentage points since April. Since then, she has increased her presence in the midterm election campaign, endorsing dozens of Republican candidates across the country, most of whom were also backed by Tea Party activists. Two-thirds of Americans think that Ms. Palin’s primary motivation is staying in the public eye, rather than helping conservative candidates get elected. “I think she is trying to be more in the public eye for her own benefit,” said Kathy Allen, 51, an unemployed worker from Idaho Falls, Idaho , who spoke in an interview after participating in the poll, “whether it be or financial purposes or in order to run for something again.”

Polls
Republicans
Election
Democrats
Senate
US Politics
Barack Obama
House of Representatives