Built on Brotherhood, Club Lives Up to Name

Abstract: BUCHAREST — Aime Lema arrived first. It was earlier than Lema — the coach of A.S.F. Fratia Bucharest, a middle-of-the-pack team in the Romanian fifth division — would normally arrive for a game. But this day was different; it was his first day in charge. He stood alone in the middle of the bumpy, ruined field at the team’s stadium. On one side was a long-defunct crane and the reddish, decomposing remains of the once-thriving Vulcan metal works, located on the outskirts of Bucharest. On the other side, open, marshy fields disappeared in the distance. A shepherd urged forward a flock of sheep. A wire pen with hens, a rooster and a baby goat shared the grounds with a collapsing blue metal stand and a rundown clubhouse without electricity. Lema, 45, poked at the bald patches in the grass with his foot as he spoke to his players on his cellphone. It was a chilly morning, and they would rather spend Florii, Palm Sunday in the Romanian Orthodox Church, with their families. “Please come,” Lema asked softly. “Today is an important day for Fratia. It’s an important day for me.” Fratia, which means brotherhood in Romanian, is special in that it is the only club in the league run on the principles of equality and nondiscrimination. Age, race, religion, ethnicity and disability are not barriers to making its roster; determination and a little talent are all that is needed. Take, for instance, Lema, who is the first and only black coach in Romanian soccer. Then there is the goalkeeper, who was born with one hand, and the owner, who doubles as the team’s groundskeeper. The team’s midfield general is a balding, paunchy 46-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair. And many of Fratia’s players are Roma, a group that has been maligned in Romania, as well as in other parts of Europe. On this Sunday, Tudorel Mihailescu, the 47-year-old goalkeeper, who has a left arm that does not extend beyond the elbow, was the first player to arrive. “I always dreamed of being a goalkeeper,” he said. “I always liked controlling the pitch and telling others what to do.” Mihailescu was quicker over the ground than other goalkeepers, had better distribution with his feet and taught himself how to throw the ball with precision and power with his right arm. But under the Communist government, which fell in 1989, authorities barred him from playing because of his disability. “I had to go to the doctors to allow me to play,” he said. “It took a year to get permission. It was almost impossible to play football then with one arm.” Mihailescu has found a home at Fratia. The club has three teams: one in the fourth division, one in the fifth and a seniors team. Mihailescu is the substitute goalkeeper for the fourth-division team and starts for the other two. Lema said of the club, “We are the brotherhood, which is why the players have come because we have been playing for years and are friends.” Lema was born in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and went to Romania in 1991, after the collapse of Communism, to study industrial chemistry. He married a local woman, started a family, learned the language and stayed. “The problem here was the Communist era, when the country was closed,” Lema said when asked why there was only one black coach in Romania. “There hasn’t been any discrimination because I was black. They had a different mentality because they didn’t grow up like others did.” Image Tudorel Mihailescu, the team's 47-year-old goalkeeper, has a left arm that does not extend beyond the elbow. “I always dreamed of being a goalkeeper,” he said. Credit Cristian Movila for The New York Times Romanian soccer has been clouded by corruption scandals. Last month, one of the country’s most famous players, the former Barcelona captain Gheorghe Popescu, was sentenced to more than three years in prison for money laundering and tax evasion. His conviction kept him from being elected president of the Romanian Football Federation, a position he had been widely expected to take on. Seven other soccer executives and agents were also sentenced to prison as part of the case. Gigi Becali, the owner of Steaua Bucharest, is in prison in an unrelated case. At Fratia, there is little money, no TV cameras and only a few fans. The team’s founder and owner is Constantin Zamfir, a 50-year-old former player who once rose as high as the Romanian second division. He pays the players 150 lei (about $46) a game, not an inconsiderable sum in a country that pays its newly qualified doctors little more than $200 a month. Zamfir pays the 1,000 euros (roughly $1,400) a month it costs to run the club. He also dug the well that provides the (cold) water for the showers, leveled the field with sand and planted the seed for the grass that covers (most) of the pitch. “I wanted to start a team to prove that you could succeed with the best example possible, that our door is open to everyone no matter of race, age or handicap,” he said. He said he hoped the fourth-division team could reach the third, or even the second, division. “I will prove we can do something positive,” he said. “Not by stealing and by beating, but by being brothers.” Many of the players have little money, and even food is a luxury. “That is why I keep the chickens and goats,” Zamfir said, pointing to their homemade pen. “I raise them and give them to the players at the end of the season when they are hungry. This is what Fratia is about — sharing the bread.” Zamfir established the club in 2001 and bought the land in 2003, when the Vulcan factory — which, among other things, made pumps for oil wells — was privatized and left virtually abandoned. Zamfir mortgaged his house, and he uses the proceeds from his grocery shop, as well as the money from his night job as a wedding singer, to pay for the club’s costs. Right before kickoff against Stefimar that Sunday, Zamfir fixed the holes in the goal nets, filled an old machine with powder and painted the fading white lines on the field. “It costs too much to get someone else to do it,” he said as he maneuvered the rattling machine. The 22 players lined up in the center of the field 15 minutes later than planned: Zamfir’s goat had escaped its pen and rampaged around the field before being caught. Stefimar’s players looked younger and fitter, and the game did not start well for Fratia. Within a few moments, Fratia was trailing, 1-0, as a low shot eluded Mihailescu. Lema stayed silent on the sideline; Stefimar’s coach screamed at his players as if they had fallen behind. But the goal galvanized Fratia, whose forwards went on the attack. When Stefimar pushed forward, Mihailescu was impenetrable, stopping everything that came his way. He made a stellar one-handed save on a free kick. When a corner kick came into the penalty box, he punched the ball out with his fist. Such is the team’s faith in Mihailescu that, by the end of the second half, Fratia was playing with only one player on defense. In the last minute, the team broke through. Stefimar’s goalkeeper clipped the leg of Fratia’s Nita Soare, who leapt upward. A penalty kick was awarded, and Iulian Moga blasted the ball into the back of the net. The match ended with the score 1-1. Lema was not happy with his first game in charge. “I should have played myself today,” he said. “I would have scored three goals, maybe four.” But Zamfir was happy. He started a barbecue, cooking chicken and herring for his players. The brotherhood ate and planned for its next match. Mihailescu had other worries. The starting goalkeeper from Fratia’s fourth-division team was injured. The next week, Mihailescu would replace him. “I will train the entire week,” he said excitedly, sipping a beer as his kit bag and gloves hung off his partial arm. “It is a dream just to be on the field. This is where I belong, with the brotherhood.”


North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile From Submarine, South Says

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired what was believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile off its east coast on Saturday, according to the South Korean military. The missile flew only 19 miles, a flight too short to be called a successful launch, South Korea’s Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Still, the test provided the latest evidence that North Korea was building a submarine-launched ballistic missile in defiance of a United Nations ban on the country for developing such weapons. The United States’ North American Aerospace Defense Command also confirmed the North Korean missile launch from a submarine, saying it did not pose a threat to North America. On Sunday, North Korea claimed that it had successfully conducted the missile test. The country’s official news agency said the test was to confirm the stability of a solid-fuel ballistic missile launched from a submarine and “the working accuracy of a nuclear detonating device of a warhead” at a designated altitude. North Korea “is now capable of hitting the heads of South Korean puppet forces and the U.S. imperialists anytime as it pleases, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was quoted as saying while watching the launch, according to the state news agency. The test took place at 6:30 p.m. in waters northeast of the port city of Sinpo, South Korea’s statement said. North Korea’s naval base at Sinpo is a center for the isolated country’s efforts to develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which would add to the range, secrecy and flexibility of its missile systems. In November, the South’s intelligence service said that North Korea had conducted a test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile that ended in failure . On Saturday, the South Korean military said that North Korea tried the same test in December but again failed. On April 15, the North carried out what American and South Korean officials said was a failed launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Musudan.

North Korea
South Korea
Kim Jong-un
Missiles and Missile Defense
Nuclear weapons testing


Sold Back to Its Founder, Frommer’s to Publish Anew

Abstract: When Google bought the Frommer’s brand of travel guides last August, it was an unlikely union of old and new, of paper and pixels. It didn’t last long. Arthur Frommer, the 83-year-old founder of the company, announced in April that he had bought the brand back from Google, which did not publish any Frommer’s guidebooks. Now he is moving quickly to release his first batch of books in October under a new name, FrommerMedia. Image Arthur Frommer, left, the founder of Frommer’s Travel Guides, and David Steinberger, the chief of Perseus Books Group. Credit Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times In an interview on Friday, Mr. Frommer said he had struck a deal with Publishers Group West, a member of the Perseus Books Group, to distribute and help market and promote the books, a major step in reviving the publishing machine of one of the most renowned brands in the travel industry. “I feel like I’m starting all over again,” Mr. Frommer said. “I’m working hard to bring them back to what they were.” Mr. Frommer, often considered the father of the travel-guide business, wrote and published his first guide, “The G.I.’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” when he was a young Army corporal living in Berlin. That guide, turned into a book called “Europe on $5 a Day,” became a huge success. Several years later, after a brief career practicing law, Mr. Frommer began publishing more travel books, building a business to be a leader in the industry. For many years, Mr. Frommer said, the Frommer’s books made up close to 25 percent of all the travel guides sold in the United States. He has not had direct control over the Frommer’s guides for decades. In 1977, Frommer’s was sold to Simon & Schuster and later acquired by John Wiley & Sons. (Mr. Frommer remained involved as a consultant.) Last year, Google paid about $23 million for the brand, saying that it would incorporate the Frommer’s content from its books, mobile apps and Web site into local reviews. This year, it sold the brand back to Mr. Frommer for an undisclosed price. By the end of 2014, Mr. Frommer expects to release as many as 80 books. Mr. Frommer and his daughter, Pauline, will be co-presidents of the company. A new series, called EasyGuides, are an answer to the increasingly lengthy travel guides on the market that Mr. Frommer said were too long to be practical. Image Google bought Frommer’s last year and sold it in April. Credit Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency The Frommers are restarting the publication of the guides at a difficult time in the travel-book business. Sales of travel guides have been in decline for years, publishers said, under pressure from free Web sites like TripAdvisor, VirtualTourist and Yelp. “There’s the availability of free information on the Internet, and there’s the fewer number of brick-and-mortar stores,” said David Steinberger, the chief executive of Perseus Books Group. “But you can still have a very successful business if you have the right brand and the right content.” Travel guides have also failed to pick up the e-book sales that could compensate for print losses; reference books are still lagging far behind most other categories, especially fiction, in e-book sales. Mr. Frommer said he believed that in a time in which user-generated content is pervasive, there is also a demand for carefully edited information by a trusted source. “I think there’s been a reaction to the user generation source of travel information,” he said. Most of the newly issued Frommer’s guides will be written by freelancers who live in the cities they are reviewing — unlike online reviews elsewhere, which might be written by “people who have been to one hotel in Paris in their lives.”

Frommers
Publishing
Google
Arthur Frommer
Books
Travel,Tourism


Domestic Dispute Leads to Test of Federal Power

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A lurid domestic dispute provided the unlikely backdrop for a major test of federal power on Tuesday at the Supreme Court, one a government lawyer said could affect the eradication of chemical weapons in Syria. The case featured a rematch between the lawyers who argued the challenge to President Obama’s health care law, and again the issue was whether Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority. The new case added treaties to the mix, and the question for the justices was whether a domestic law enacted to carry out a treaty must itself be authorized by one of the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. A majority of the justices seemed inclined to impose limits on Congress’s ability to enact such laws when they concern matters ordinarily left to the states. The case arose from the actions of a Pennsylvania woman, Carol A. Bond, when she learned that her husband was the father of her best friend’s child. Ms. Bond, a microbiologist, spread harmful chemicals on the friend’s car, mailbox and doorknob in late 2006 and early 2007, inflicting a minor injury on the friend. After local authorities decided not to pursue the matter, federal prosecutors charged Ms. Bond with using unconventional weapons in violation of a law based on the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty concerned with terrorists and rogue states. There seemed little dispute among the justices that the decision to press the chemical weapons charges against Ms. Bond was misguided. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy told Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. that it “seems unimaginable that you would bring this prosecution.” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that “if you told ordinary people that you were going to prosecute Ms. Bond for using a chemical weapon, they would be flabbergasted.” Later, Justice Alito said he might recently have violated the same law. “Would it shock you if I told you that a few days ago my wife and I distributed toxic chemicals to a great number of children?” he asked. The occasion was Halloween, he explained, adding that chocolate can be poisonous to dogs. But the question before the court was not the wisdom of a particular prosecution; it was the source of Congress’s power to enact the law. Mr. Verrilli said it followed from the federal government’s power to enter into treaties. No additional constitutional authority was required, he said. A 1920 Supreme Court decision, Missouri v. Holland , seemed to say as much. “If the treaty is valid, there can be no dispute about the validity of the statute” enacted to fulfill it, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote for the court. But Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for Ms. Bond, said that principle was too broad. “If the statute at issue here really does reach every malicious use of chemicals anywhere in the nation, as the government insists, then it clearly exceeds Congress’s limited and enumerated powers,” Mr. Clement said. The court’s more liberal members, with the possible exception of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, seemed prepared to side with an expansive interpretation of federal power. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan said it was significant that the language of the law closely tracked that of the treaty, the validity of which was undisputed by the parties. But several of the court’s more conservative members said there must be limits on what may be accomplished domestically by a law carrying out obligations among nations. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Alito said that in recent decades treaties had dealt with all manner of things, a development that the framers of the Constitution could not have anticipated. They added that it was hard to believe that any other signatory to the chemical weapons treaty would care whether Ms. Bond was prosecuted or not. Mr. Clement agreed. “I don’t think any one of our treaty partners said: ‘Oh, my goodness. There’s been a deployment of chemical weapons in Norristown, Pa. I sure hope the United States steps up to its treaty obligations and prosecutes this horrible deployment of chemical weapons.’ ” The case, Bond v. United States, No. 12-158, was making a return appearance at the court. In 2011, the court unanimously ruled that Ms. Bond had suffered the sort of concrete injury — a six-year prison sentence — that gave her standing to sue. On Tuesday, Mr. Clement offered the justices a way to decide the case in his favor that did not require a major constitutional ruling. The law does not apply, he said, to the use of chemicals for a “peaceful purpose.” That phrase, he continued, could be interpreted to mean nonwarlike activities, exempting Ms. Bond’s conduct. “I would analogize it to a situation where two scientists in Antarctica get in a fistfight,” he said. “O.K., that’s not conduct we condone, but I don’t think we’ve violated our pledge to reserve Antarctica for only peaceful purposes.” Mr. Verrilli, to the seeming surprise of some justices, strongly urged the court not to adopt such a narrow ruling based on the text of the law, though his position made a broader loss on constitutional grounds more likely. “One of the very things we are trying to sort out right now in Syria under the Chemical Weapons Convention is where the line is between peaceful uses and warlike uses,” Mr. Verrilli said, adding that “it would be terribly unfortunate” for the Supreme Court to complicate matters by offering a definition.

Federalism
Congress
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
House of Representatives
Legislation


Peterson Misses Rushing Record, but Vikings Win Berth

Abstract: MINNEAPOLIS — Adrian Peterson ran onto the field at the Metrodome on Sunday with two goals: break Eric Dickerson’s N.F.L. single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards and help the Minnesota Vikings clinch an N.F.C. wild-card berth. “I’d be satisfied with both,” he said last week. Given that Peterson had already fulfilled two improbable vows — recovering from two torn left knee ligaments in time for the season opener, then churning out yardage as if he had never been injured — it made little sense to doubt his resolve. The record eluded Peterson — barely — but the postseason did not. Fast-starting Minnesota scored the game’s first 13 points before Green Bay , behind quarterback Aaron Rodgers’s four touchdown passes, rallied to tie it with less than three minutes to play. Then the Minnesota rookie Blair Walsh, selected to the Pro Bowl last week, kicked a 29-yard field goal as time expired for a 37-34 victory. Peterson ran for 199 yards on 34 carries to finish with 2,097 yards this season, 8 short of Dickerson’s record but the second most in N.F.L. history. Peterson’s 26-yard run on his final carry moved the ball to the Green Bay 11, prompting a chant of “M-V-P!” from the crowd, announced at 64,134, and setting up Walsh’s winner on the next play. “It’s a bittersweet feeling inside,” Peterson said. “It wasn’t made to happen. I’m not going to say it doesn’t hurt because it does. But ultimately we came in here and accomplished the ultimate goal — getting the win and punching our ticket to the playoffs.” Minnesota (10-6) qualified by winning its fourth straight game since a crushing 23-14 loss at Green Bay on Dec. 2. The Packers (11-5) had already clinched the N.F.C. North title but lost out on a first-round bye. A chance at payback comes quickly; the teams meet next week at Lambeau Field. “We’re disappointed we lost today,” Packers Coach Mike McCarthy said. “But at the end of the day, there are six N.F.C. teams left, and we’re going to line up and play at Lambeau Field in front of our crowd. That’s what we’re excited about.” Chicago’s 26-24 victory over Detroit earlier in the day eliminated any back-in possibilities for the Vikings, who responded by scoring on their first three possessions and throttling the Packers on defense, at least temporarily. Minnesota grabbed a 13-0 lead, on a Peterson run of 7 yards and Walsh field goals of 54 and 37 yards, before the Packers could make a first down. But Green Bay, which had won 12 consecutive divisional games since 2010, started rolling in the second quarter. Rodgers passed for 365 yards even though Randall Cobb, Green Bay’s top receiver and kick returner, missed the game with a sprained ankle. Rodgers found Greg Jennings for a 3-yard touchdown with 4 minutes 1 second left in the half, the first of six Packers scores on their final seven possessions. Minnesota quarterback Christian Ponder, whose two interceptions contributed to the loss in Green Bay, tied his career best with three touchdown passes while throwing for 234 yards. But in the end, this was Peterson’s day. He started with 68 yards in the first quarter, 22 on a tackle-breaking burst to the right on the drive in which he scored. Green Bay closed to 20-17 in the third quarter, and with Minnesota facing a second-and-27 after a taunting penalty on tackle Phil Loadholt, Peterson quick-stepped for 28 yards and a first down at the Green Bay 7. Peterson caught a 2-yard pass from Ponder for the score. And after Rodgers’s final touchdown pass, a 2-yarder to Jordy Nelson with 2:54 to play, tied the game, Peterson followed his blocking for his last big run. “He is without question the best running back in our game, and truly in our mind the most valuable player in our league,” Vikings Coach Leslie Frazier said. “We don’t win this game today without the effort of Adrian Peterson. He’s special in every way.” Just not quite the record-holder. “I know Eric Dickerson is probably stoked,” Peterson said. “God willing I’ll get it next year, or at least make it close.”

Minnesota Vikings
Football
Peterson Adrian
Green Bay Packers
Rodgers Aaron


John Edwards’s Heart Surgery Forces a Delay in His Trial

Abstract: GREENSBORO, N.C. — The criminal trial of former Senator John Edwards has been delayed until at least March because he has a life-threatening heart ailment that requires surgery, a federal judge said Friday. Judge Catherine C. Eagles of the United States District Court here said Mr. Edwards’s recovery from the unspecified ailment could be threatened if he stands trial this month on charges of campaign finance violations. The judge said she was postponing the trial at the request of Mr. Edwards’s cardiologist. The trial was set to begin Jan. 30. Mr. Edwards, 58, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, is accused of illegally using donations from two wealthy supporters to pay his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, during his 2008 presidential campaign. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. Mr. Edwards will have surgery in February and is taking heart medication, Judge Eagles said. Mr. Edwards, who appeared at the courthouse, did not discuss his health and showed no obvious signs of being ill. The delay was the latest twist in a case that has inched through the legal system since June, when Mr. Edwards was indicted on six counts, including conspiracy, illegal use of campaign contributions and making false statements. Originally scheduled for October, the trial has been delayed two other times. The defense lawyers have said that they need more time to review the tens of thousands of pages of evidence in the government’s case. On Monday, the judge rejected that argument. Prosecutors have accused the defense of dragging its feet. “The public has an interest in a speedy trial,” Judge Eagles said. “Ordinarily, I would try to manage something like this. But clearly there are some limitations on Mr. Edwards due to real and serious health issues.” The judge said she had to trust the cardiologist’s written statements about the severity of Mr. Edwards’s condition. The doctor requested that Mr. Edwards avoid travel, including trips to the courthouse, the judge said. His medical files are sealed. Federal prosecutors are building their case against Mr. Edwards around a two-year Justice Department investigation that found he spent nearly $1 million trying to keep secret his mistress and their baby. Mr. Edwards’s lawyers say his conviction would set a dangerous precedent, leaving it unclear when private donations are distinguished from campaign contributions. Mr. Edwards is also involved in a civil trial. “There’s no question that I have done wrong. I take full responsibility,” Mr. Edwards said in his last public statement, in June. “But I didn’t break any law and I never, ever thought I was breaking the law.”

Campaign Finance
Edwards John
Presidential Election of 2008
Fines (Penalties)


Behind the Black Flag: The Recruitment of an ISIS Killer

Abstract: Hassan Aboud’s practiced baritone belied the malevolence in his words. “Oh Darraji!” he sang. “Our state provided us ammunition and sent us to assassinate you.” That state is the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, the terrorist group that controls territory in Syria and Iraq and has recently projected violence to Ankara, Beirut, Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. A soft-spoken double-amputee sometimes carried to meetings by fellow gunmen, Mr. Aboud is an Islamic State commander who also directs a network of assassins, including those who killed Darraji, a former subordinate, with bullets and flame. The recording of his singing circulated among past associates this year. A taunting dark requiem, it serves as evidence and confession. Mr. Aboud, who defected from Syria’s rebels to the terrorist group in 2014, was admitting to previously unsolved killings of former friends. “We plucked Adeeb Abbas’s head,” he continued, naming another of his one-time deputies, blasted from a motorcycle by a roadside bomb. “We spilled his filthy blood.” He then vowed to kill more, as a male chorus chanted to those marked to die: “We will liquidate every traitor.” Since rising to prominence as an international menace, the Islamic State has tried to glorify its members, describing them as religious warriors who raised arms to protect fellow Sunni Muslims and serve their understanding of God. But the journey of Mr. Aboud, and his recruitment by ISIS, including with cash, departs from scripts emphasizing piety or civil defense. It is the chronicle of an underground fighter maimed and darkened by his long fight, the biography — replete with rivalries and fratricide — of a proven and once popular Islamist commander whose actions turned more violent and vengeful as he moved into the Islamic State’s orbit. Mr. Aboud, his former neighbors and associates say, abandoned the defense of his hometown for money, power and the license for viciousness that came with joining the Islamic State. His path resembled not the airbrushed arcs laid out in jihadist propaganda mills but a Middle Eastern mafia tale set against the corrupting effects of war. The journey from jihadist rank-and-file to feared underground figure was shaped by multiple forces. These include the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the oppression of a border-straddling Sunni Muslim population by governments in Damascus and Baghdad. It was further stoked by the indiscriminate killing of civilians by Syrian security forces since 2011, then channeled by the patient plotting of a jihadist organization, once shattered, that revived itself to eclipse Al Qaeda. Ultimately, his courtship by ISIS offers an unusually detailed look at how the group has selected commanders from a region that has produced uncountable militants since 2003. These chosen men, seduced by gifts and the Islamic State’s gloomy prestige, hold the terrain it needs to support its claim of being a caliphate. Video The crucible of irregular war in Syria allowed Hassan Aboud to flourish as a rebel leader, and eventually become a commander for ISIS. He was killed in March 2016. Journalists for The New York Times met Mr. Aboud in Syria in 2013 , as he led sieges around isolated army positions that were shelling the civilian population nearby; it was a fight he and the several hundred rebels he led, known as the Dawood Brigade, eventually won. Sarmin, the town in the lowlands of Idlib Province where he headquartered his brigade, was itself under frequent shelling, and he was moving and accepting meetings with much more caution than many rebel commanders. The interview was arranged by the son-in-law of his boss, but Mr. Aboud’s supporters had everyone wait in the basement of a mosque for part of the afternoon before leading the group to an abandoned building in the partially evacuated, battle-scarred town. Mr. Aboud was rushed in from the outside by those who carried him. He had lost fighters in battle the previous day and seemed weary and suspicious of guests. His gray pants had been folded to hide his lower-leg stumps, which he crossed in front of himself as he sat on a cushion. He opened the conversation in a quiet voice, and threatened to kill the journalists if he were misquoted. Abu Ayman, a bomb-maker who helped carry him into the room, spoke more than Mr. Aboud, who chose his words with care, even when repeating Islamist boilerplate. He complained about the activities of many secular rebels, describing them as opportunists and profiteers. “There are Free Syrian Army brigades,” Mr. Aboud said, that get weapons and “sell them in trade.” He asserted, again speaking softly, that Syria was being plunged into sectarian war by Iran and those it underwrites, including the Syrian government and Hezbollah. “Iran is seeking to re-establish the Persian empire, to get control over the whole Middle East,” he said. Immediately after the conversation, he was picked up, carried swiftly outside and set on the front passenger seat of a muddy S.U.V., which sped away. The Times returned to the Turkish-Syrian border after his defection and vendetta killings to interview those who worked with him closely. Today Mr. Aboud, in his mid-30s, is an exile from Sarmin, where he had lived most of his adult life. Past associates refer to him as either an ISIS wali or emir, titles conveying authority or military power that the Islamic State bestows on governors and its middle rank. They note that he did not simply drift to ISIS; he has had a relationship with the original underground Sunni insurgents in Iraq’s Anbar Province, part of the crucible where ISIS formed , reaching back more than a decade. Mr. Aboud and one of his brothers fought American forces there in 2004 and 2005, several townspeople said. Some suggested that the pair returned to Syria as a sleeper cell tied to Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and after his death in 2006 eventually became ISIS. In the nearly year and a half since Mr. Aboud publicly joined the Islamic State, taking with him most of his fighters and many powerful weapons, he has been credited with, or blamed for, a sprawling mix of battlefield action and crime. Those who know him contend he led the capture of Palmyra , the town and ancient heritage site that ISIS defiled. For all of Mr. Aboud’s activity, however, his story suggests limits to advancement within the group, which analysts say to a large degree remains led by Iraqis, including many connected to the dismantled Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein . Hassan al-Dugheim, a rebel cleric who said he had observed Mr. Aboud since 2011, said his tactical skill and ruthlessness were beyond question. He bluntly added, however, that he considered Mr. Aboud stupid, and that the Islamic State had found in him a man who could be flattered, bought, then used. “Syrians are for fighting,” he said, and those who had joined ISIS recently faced a glass ceiling inside. “They are like animals to be ridden, like a horse or a mule.” Crucible of Sunni Militancy Image American Marines went house to house in 2005 in Husayba, Iraq. Mr. Aboud and one of his brothers fought American forces in Anbar in 2004 and 2005, several of their townspeople said. Credit Johan Spanner for The New York Times Hassan Aboud was among the earliest of his townspeople to experience war on what would become the Islamic State’s turf. In 2004, he and a brother, known as Abu Shadi, traveled to Iraq to join the fight against the American military around Falluja and Ramadi, according to residents of Sarmin. Mr. Aboud, a stoneworker, was in his 20s, entering freshly colonized turf in a militant underworld. Accounts of his Iraq time vary. Some confusion, his townspeople say, is because Mr. Aboud was circumspect about his activities — an unsurprising behavior considering concerns in Syria’s Alawite-led government that those aligned with Sunni militants in Iraq could rekindle unrest in the Sunni population at home. Mr. Aboud’s associates said he returned in 2005. A relative, who asked for anonymity so as not to draw his wrath, said that while away Mr. Aboud swore allegiance, or bayat, to his militant leaders. “It was known Hassan Aboud was Al Qaeda,” he said. Another man, an activist from Sarmin who worked with the Dawood Brigade, said he had seen a video from 2005 of Mr. Aboud with Mr. Zarqawi. A proponent of terrorism, deliberate savagery and management by fear, Mr. Zarqawi helped push Iraq into sectarian war, inspired a generation of jihadists and became one of the world’s most wanted men before American bombs killed him in 2006 . His group later rebuffed top Qaeda leaders to form ISIS. Mr. Dugheim, the cleric, said he doubted Mr. Aboud was a Qaeda member, noting that he concerned himself solely with local battles and was opposed to the Nusra Front, Syria’s official Qaeda franchise, as it gathered strength. “I exclude the possibility that he really gave bayat,” he said. Others noted, however, that the Nusra Front and the Islamic State were competitors who became foes, and Mr. Aboud’s connections were not with the central Qaeda leadership that gave the Nusra Front its jihadist authority but with the Iraq wing. Opposition to the Nusra Front, by this view, did not exclude allegiance to the faction that became ISIS. Image Insurgents in 2004 in Anbar Province, part of the Sunni-dominated area from which the Islamic State emerged. Credit Mohamed Messara/European Pressphoto Agency Whatever the inner loyalties, Mr. Aboud’s life as a fighter once appeared to end. His return home was noteworthy. The activist who worked with him said he knew five men from Sarmin who fought in Iraq. Two died as suicide bombers. Mr. Aboud dodged that fate, and resumed an unassuming life: He owned a Kia truck and earned wages delivering cement and rebar. By 2007 he and his brothers owned a workshop, made cinder blocks, sold decorative and patio stone and hired out for contracts. “I used to see him at a lot of houses under construction, and he had laborers working for him, five or six at a time,” the activist said. Roughly two years before the uprising, Syrian security forces raided Sarmin, cracking down on Sunni networks. One of Mr. Aboud’s brothers was caught. “Abu Shadi was detained in the street, and taken to Sednaya prison,” the activist said, referring to the infamous jail near Damascus where the government warehoused those it considered Sunni extremists. In the interview with The Times in 2013, Mr. Aboud confirmed the arrest, but gave a minimal explanation, suggesting his brother had been punished for his faith. “My brother was sent to jail because of his beard,” he said. He described Syria’s government as an oppressive weight. “They can fight you for an idea you carry in your mind, because of your beard, the way you pray or you dress,” he said. “It is like a siege on your emotions and your beliefs.” Mr. Aboud seemed to elude the attention of intelligence services. Neighbors said he was conservative and religious, but not overtly so. He wore a beard, but kept it trimmed. Sometimes he smoked, although descriptions of him tend to center on his clean living. He and his wife were raising a family. His night life consisted of staying up late, drinking tea. “He had a good reputation, nothing bad,” said a doctor in Sarmin who said he often met Mr. Aboud, but asked not to be named for his safety. Image By late 2011, Mr. Aboud's Dawood Brigade joined the Sham Falcons brigade, a Syrian rebel group shown here fighting government forces in 2013. Mr. Aboud established training regimens that even his critics say led to success against the army. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times Return to War In early 2011, after popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, protests erupted in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Aboud went underground, beginning his long campaign. “When it started in Tunisia, we were optimistic,” he told The Times. “We started to arrange and coordinate with people we trusted.” The government fired on protesters in Dara’a that March, killing at least three. Mr. Aboud said bloodshed triggered action. “A day later we joined the revolution, beginning with demonstrations out of the mosques,” he said. Syria was on a path to war. Mr. Aboud’s former allies recall his clear sense of the steps to take at each stage — skills they suspect he learned in Iraq. Protest organizers left their homes to sleep in fields and among the trees, dodging security forces. Sarmin’s quiet stoneworker, they learned, was more ready than most. “Hassan Aboud would bring us bread and canned food,” said Ahmed al-Aasi, an activist with Ahrar al-Sham, a large Islamist fighting group. He was quick to violence. As Syria deployed its army, Mr. Aboud was among the first armed rebels in a landscape that would eventually be awash in them. In June 2011, while Syrian protesters appealed for international support, Mr. Aboud participated in the ambush of an army convoy near Jisr al-Shoughour, four associates said. The little band in which he fought with a friend, Dawood al-Sheikh, had only seven or eight rifles. It was a quixotic clash. Mr. Sheikh was killed. The road remained open. Crackdowns continued apace. It also provided a glimpse of the future: Mr. Aboud soon formed a fighting group, named it the Dawood Brigade and left protests behind. His brigade started small. But it set up a guerrilla base among olive groves and caves, where it trained, manufactured weapons and extended its fight. By late 2011, it joined Suqour al-Sham, or Sham Falcons brigade, an Islamist group founded by Ahmed Abu Issa, a former prisoner in Sednaya. Many early rebel groups lacked experience, money, training and cohesion. The Dawood Brigade was different, Mr. Aboud’s townspeople said. It tended to details necessary to become a fighting force. Mr. Aboud’s brother, released from Sednaya, organized logistics, including medical care and convalescence in Turkey for wounded fighters. Mr. Aboud established training regimens that even his critics say produced results. “Hassan Aboud has a mean heart, and he is fierce, and he tells his fighters to be hard and fierce in battle,” said the activist who used to work with him. “No other group in Idlib had this ferocity, and he made them like this because of his training.” “They had constant and continuous training,” the doctor said, in tactics, weapons and sports. Mr. Aboud gained access to funders from the Persian Gulf, and more support from Abu Issa. “Sham Falcons gave them a big share of the money and resources because they had results,” said Abu Ameen, another activist who worked with rebel commanders. In 2012, the brigade had drawn in hundreds of local men, amassed weapons and paid salaries of $140 a month. “This was at a time when other rebel groups could not offer their fighters lunch,” said another activist, Mohyeddin Abdulrazzaq, who otherwise spoke harshly of Mr. Aboud. The brigade also mastered a staple of militant war: the use of improvised bombs, with which it punished Syrian forces and controlled roads. “They had sophisticated bombing operations in the beginning, when no one else did it,” Abu Ameen said. Other rebel units caught up to this tactic, and together shifted the nature of the war, forcing the Syrian Army to withdraw to outposts and bases. One result was the creation of marginally governed territory into which foreign fighters flowed, and where ISIS would eventually assert a place. In the short term, Mr. Aboud achieved a degree of local popularity. “Hassan Aboud was sacred among his fighters,” Mr. Abdulrazzaq said. “When you mouthed bad words among his fighters, it was as if you mouthed bad words against God.” ISIS’ Territory Shrank in Syria and Iraq This Year The Islamic State has lost 14 percent of the territory it held in January, according to a new analysis. As Mr. Aboud gained power his activities sometimes turned sinister. Mr. Aasi said he became involved in the abductions of Alawites, and sought ransoms for their release. Other rebel leaders once intervened to stop the Dawood Brigade from executing civilians near Fuoa, a government-controlled town, Mr. Aasi said; among the detainees were women and a child. “He had a criminal tendency,” he said. “He became a dictator even before we had an ISIS.” His affinity for irregular war almost led to his death. From its bases, the army increased the shelling of Sunni towns, setting in motion waves of refugees. The brigade’s arms-makers started producing rockets, which they fired at the soldiers concentrated at government positions. “We targeted their camps with lots of rockets,” Mr. Aboud told The Times in 2013. “It was good, accepted.” In late 2012, the brigade was filming a video for a Qatari funder, an activist said, when a rocket exploded prematurely, gravely wounding several rebels, including Mr. Aboud, whose lower legs were mangled. Mr. Aboud survived the ride to a clinic, where both his feet were amputated. The doctor recalled being surprised by his demeanor. “For someone who had just had his feet removed, he had high morale,” he said. “He was joking.” When Mr. Aboud was interviewed months later by The Times, he mentioned the mishap only when asked. “One time we were launching a rocket and it exploded and that’s how I lost my legs,” he said, and changed the subject. “Now we have improved rockets,” he added. “More safe. More effective. Bigger.” Frustration and Recruitment By 2013 the Dawood Brigade had established more bases, expanded training, participated in prominent battles and captured many more weapons. By some counts Mr. Aboud possessed nine tanks, four B.M.P. fighting vehicles and a fleet of trucks carrying 14.5-millimeter machine guns. A tactical powerhouse, he was in demand on Arabic-language news stations. With rebel prestige came rivalries, the office politics of war. Mr. Aboud, those who know him said, believed his successes had not been adequately rewarded or gained him autonomy. “Dawood Brigade is the one who participated in the battles and made the gains, but all the support and money went to Abu Issa and the Sham Falcons,” his relative said. Mr. Dugheim said that in 2013, as Islamist rebel groups discussed merging into a united front, Mr. Aboud wanted equal billing with the Falcons. Abu Issa rejected the proposal. Mr. Aboud seethed. Distance from rebel leadership grew. “His funds went down with the loss of support, and he was in trouble,” Mr. Dugheim said. It was then that ISIS made its move. A shadowy presence compared to now, it sought to lure him into its ranks. People who know Mr. Aboud describe a series of meetings with Islamic State leaders from Iraq, including with Abu Ali al-Anbari , a former Iraqi military officer who moved outside the city of Aleppo with a security contingent and a mission to recruit local commanders. Abu Ameen described a “secret operational phase” by ISIS in 2013 that targeted rebel and activist networks. Its timing aligned with Mr. Aboud’s disputes, he said, “and Dawood Brigade is one of the groups that was infiltrated.” At one point, activists said, Abu Ali called a meeting of rebel leaders in Idlib Province to discuss relationships with ISIS. He also sent ISIS agents to Sarmin to woo Mr. Aboud, who had begun to noticeably fall under the Islamic State’s sway. Mr. Dugheim said he mediated between Abu Issa and Mr. Aboud at the time. ISIS, he said, was flattering the brigade with attention and gifts. “ISIS offered Hassan Aboud a big amount of money — $2 million — when Hassan Aboud actually had nothing in hand,” Mr. Dugheim said. “They gave him weapons and money and food.” This sum could not be independently confirmed. Abu Ameen said Abu Ali’s calculated strategy won over many fighters. “Some joined ISIS publicly, but some joined ISIS but remained within the same group they were part of,” he said. “With money and promises, ISIS got control of hearts and minds.” Even before the public defection, hints of extremist influence appeared in his brigade. Through 2013, associates said, the brigade had not been linked to suicide bombings. Mr. Aboud, they said, did not use his fighters, mostly local men, that way. But a video of brigade training, posted online in October 2013, shows recruits being lectured in suicide tactics by a middle-aged man with closely cropped hair and a long beard. The Dawood logo is superimposed on the scene. An American military official who analyzes ISIS said the recruitment and changes fit a pattern. “It was a successful intelligence operation,” she said. “They were able to go in, find people who were vulnerable and could be flipped, flip them, and turn it into what they perceive as a state.” Mr. Dugheim said by then Mr. Aboud parroted the Islamic State’s style, sometimes behaving like a takfiri, one who labels other Muslims as insufficiently religious, and thus impure. The change in persona, Mr. Dugheim said, indicated a man out of his depth. “One of the problems in human nature is when you have a hero who is stupid,” he said. “And Hassan Aboud is a hero who is stupid.” “He misread the situation,” he added. Image Mr. Aboud in a video posted on YouTube. His former neighbors and associates said that he abandoned the Syrian rebel cause for the money and power that came with joining the Islamic State. Defection and Fratricide The killings began before the Dawood Brigade drove out of Sarmin. Mr. Aboud was turning on his own. Among the first victims were Darraji and Bassim Abdulrazzaq, brothers who had joined the brigade in 2012. The pair had formed a smaller rebel group that occasionally collaborated with its old boss. In December 2013, they joined the brigade in a battle against a Syrian checkpoint, according to Mohyeddin Abdulrazzaq, a second cousin of the men. The checkpoint fell. But one brother was wounded, several fighters were killed and a heavy machine gun they relied on was destroyed. Shaken, they asked Mr. Aboud for a 14.5-millimeter machine gun to cover their loss. He refused. In January 2014, Mohyeddin Abdulrazzaq said, the brothers asked again. They visited Mr. Aboud, were cheered when he consented and drove off with their new weapon. They did not make it far. “A few hours later came news to the town of a vehicle burned on the road,” he said. “It held Darraji and his brother. Aboud gave them the machine gun, and then had them killed.” It was not just that Mr. Aboud did not like being asked twice. Darraji had publicly spoken against ISIS in the fall, when it had kidnapped workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross near Sarmin. Mr. Aboud appeared for the funeral and paid respects. Not long after, Mr. Aboud announced he was joining a new group, Jaish al-Sham. Throughout early 2014 the group seemed a symbol of infighting and dysfunction, repeatedly clashing with other rebels. Mr. Aboud’s associates said that sometimes he expressed allegiance to the Islamic State, and that other times he renounced it. Abu Ameen said, in hindsight, that Mr. Aboud was following new masters. “Getting instructions from ISIS,” he said. Residents said they suspected Mr. Aboud of organizing hits, including on a Dawood commander, nicknamed Hyena, and Abu Abbas, the brigade’s Shariah instructor. But there was no clear proof, and the brigade’s brooding presence created disincentives to inquiry. Mr. Aboud’s affiliation finally became explicit in July, when he formed his brigade into a convoy, ostensibly bound for Aleppo and yet another fight. “Only those close to him knew the real plan,” his relative said. Short of Aleppo, Mr. Aboud stopped and announced that he was a servant of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi , the Islamic State’s leader, and was heading to Raqqa , its operational hub, to join the caliphate. “Hassan told them that he had given bayat to Abu Bakr, and those who wanted to stay with him could stay and those who wanted to go were free,” the activist who worked with him said. How many members were present is a matter of dispute. Several former associates said a few hundred. (News reports claimed as many as 1,000; an exaggeration, residents of Sarmin say.) About 100 fighters declined, and returned home with the news. The brigade’s departure deepened the troubles of an already beleaguered town. Its defenses were weakened, residents said, because Mr. Aboud took a large fraction of the area’s weapons, forsaking those he had vowed to protect. Video How has ISIS, a 21st-century terrorist organization with a retrograde religious philosophy, spread from Iraq to Syria, Libya and beyond? Behind the Black Banner Since Mr. Aboud arrived in Raqqa, his associates said, they have had only occasional insight into his militant life. ISIS, they note, is a such a closed system that little is known even of Mr. Baghdadi and the nature of his power. Mr. Aboud and his brigade, once he defected, dialed back their social media presence and interviews. His activities, they said, have been assembled piecemeal. Mr. Dugheim was among the last to speak with him before his defection. ISIS had just swept across part of Iraq, capturing Mosul and Tikrit. Mr. Aboud appeared smitten, as if it were 2004 again. “I said to him, ‘Why do you like ISIS?’” Mr. Dugheim said. The reply had little to do with Syria’s revolution: “Because ISIS is being fought by the U.S.A.” The American military analyst said that today Mr. Aboud appeared to be “of midlevel stature,” and that “ISIL-core will exploit his quote-unquote ‘talents’” while seeing him as “disposable, expendable.” This matched what his townspeople described — the Dawood Brigade’s movement across the Islamic State’s Syrian territory on a range of shifting missions. Based on where his fighters have been killed, they said, Mr. Aboud has fought in Kobani, Aleppo, near Raqqa, near Homs and for the Shaer gas field and the capture of Palmyra . The brigade has also been accused, without public evidence, of assassinating the leadership of Ahrar al-Sham , and of holding the abducted journalist James Foley before turning him over to ISIS. (ISIS beheaded Mr. Foley in 2014. Claims of a Dawood Brigade role in his detention, made in news reports and echoed on social media, do not align with facts known of his case.) Image Mr. Aboud and his brigade are said to have fought in the Islamic State's capture of Palmyra, in central Syria. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times One sighting of Mr. Aboud occurred in June in Palmyra. Khaled al-Homsi, an activist, said he was briefly imprisoned there, and Mr. Aboud toured the jail on crutches. “He met me privately in a room,” he said, “to convince me to pledge allegiance.” After the Islamic State consolidated control in Palmyra, he added, some of the staff in the courts were from the Dawood Brigade, suggesting Mr. Aboud was trying to govern. Efforts to reach Mr. Aboud this fall were unsuccessful. But former associates said they expected he would fail at such aspirations. Mr. Aasi said Mr. Aboud’s role was obvious — as an enforcer, an instrument of purposeful violence to help ISIS gain territory and rule by fear. “With ISIS there are no limits, and you can abduct and kill whomever you like,” he said. “Hassan Aboud does not have a problem with killing. He likes it.” The rebels’ former ally, he said, “is sick in his mind.” Mr. Dugheim, the cleric, said Mr. Aboud left Sham Falcons for an even more complicated game, and had peaked. “Regardless of his title, he cannot make a decision,” he said, because ISIS limits the authority of its Syrian commanders. Another American military official who analyzes ISIS said that under the pressure of airstrikes and internal strife, members with titles like emir and wali now gain rank through attrition, not design. “We watch the deck shuffle constantly, as they attempt to determine who will fit a role that has been vacated,” he said, “vacated” being a euphemism for “killed.” Whatever Mr. Aboud’s eventual fate, his relative said, much of the legacy was already known. The recording of Mr. Aboud singing — coolly in tune as he described killing old friends — was a marker of a man lost to crime, a revolution soured and a people betrayed. “His violence, his assassinations, his killing people — he is really behind this,” he said. “It is a mess now. Everything we have is a mess.”

Hassan Aboud
Terrorism
Syria
Al Qaeda
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Iraq War
Abu Musab al- Zarqawi


Kent State Professor Investigated for Possible Ties to ISIS

Abstract: An associate professor at Kent State University in Ohio is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over possible involvement with the Islamic State. The inquiry came to light as federal agents arrived at the campus this week to interview students and professors about Julio Pino, an educator in the history department known for making incendiary remarks on Israel. Emily Mills, a journalism student who was questioned on Tuesday, said the agents told her they began scrutinizing Dr. Pino more than a year ago. “They were looking into Professor Pino allegedly having ties to the Islamic State and recruiting students to join on campus,” she said. Ms. Mills said she was asked about her encounters with Dr. Pino as she reported articles about him for The Kent Stater, a student newspaper where she serves as editor. The F.B.I. confirmed the investigation on Wednesday but said it could not comment further. Dr. Pino, who is tenured, has denied wrongdoing. “My commitment is to my students and my passions reserved for my family. I have no ties no any political organization and wish only, in the words of the prophet Micah, ‘to act justly and love mercy,’ ” he said in an email message, citing the biblical figure. Dr. Pino, a Muslim convert, has courted controversy time and again since joining the Kent State faculty in 1992. He wrote a column for The Daily Kent Stater in 2002 that eulogized a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. In 2011, he shouted “death to Israel” during a lecture at the university by a former Israeli diplomat. In August 2014, he fired off a caustic open letter to an academic publication that inveighed against what he saw as its pro-Israel tilt. “I curse you more than the Israelis, for while The Chosen drain the blood of innocents without apologies you hide behind the mask of academic objectivity,” he wrote in part. He finished with a rallying cry: “Jihad until victory!” In a message to the campus community on Wednesday, Beverly Warren, the university president, said, “We are cooperating with the F.B.I., and we have been assured that there is no indication of a threat to campus.” She added: “We continue to find Julio Pino’s comments reprehensible and counter to our core values of civil discourse and respect. As a university, we do not defend his views, and he does not speak on behalf of Kent State or members of our community.” Dr. Pino earned his doctorate in history from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1991, and began teaching at Kent State shortly thereafter, according to his résumé . He has specialized in Latin American history and the third world and he is teaching two courses this semester. Ms. Warren told Kentwired.com on Wednesday that Dr. Pino would be allowed to carry on instructing students during the investigation. He has not been charged or found guilty of a crime, she said. “And so at this point, we do not feel that removing Professor Pino is the right course of action.”

Kent State
Julio Pino
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
FBI


Facebook Takes Steps Against ‘Click Bait’ Articles

Abstract: Facebook announced on Monday that it had adjusted the way users see articles on its site to reduce what it called “click bait” — items that tempt readers with a beguiling headline, but don’t deliver much more. The move, announced on Facebook’s news blog , is the latest development in a battle between the company, which can drive an enormous amount of traffic to news sites, and those sites, which try to use the Facebook algorithm that ranks articles to their advantage. “Click bait” headlines were once favored by the algorithm, wrote Khalid El-Arini a research scientist at Facebook, and Joyce Tang, a product specialist, simply because people tended to click on the links. But when the company surveyed readers, it found that 80 percent “preferred headlines that helped them decide if they wanted to read the full article before they had to click through.” Facebook says its algorithm will now consider how long users spend reading an article as a way of judging the importance. The company will also examine how many users discuss or share an article. Facebook, which has 829 million daily active users worldwide, has the power to make or break some sites with such seemingly minor changes. A previous switch in its algorithm dried up traffic to some so-called viral sites, which specialize in lists, and in online memes.

Facebook
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
News media,journalism


Assange, WikiLeaks Founder, Is Jailed in Britain

Abstract: LONDON — After months of posting troves of classified American documents on the Internet, Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks Web site, surrendered to British authorities and was jailed on Tuesday after a judge reviewing a Swedish extradition request found him to be a flight risk and denied him bail. For Mr. Assange and his supporters, as well as for those who have condemned him for the brazen leak of American secrets, there was a bizarre twist in the fast-moving events at a London courthouse. Instead of being arrested for punching a gaping hole in the secret worlds of American military and diplomatic power, an outcome he has long predicted, Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, found himself ensnared in allegations stemming from brief sexual encounters this summer with two young Swedish women. What lies ahead, beyond a new court appearance on Dec. 14, when Mr. Assange’s bail bid will be renewed, is a legal battle that could last weeks, or much longer. That contest will focus on whether the Swedish request for Mr. Assange’s extradition to face questioning on charges of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion” is unrelated to WikiLeaks, as Swedish prosecutors and the women themselves say — or whether they are linked, in what Mr. Assange has called a smear campaign to punish him for his WikiLeaks activity. The reaction among those Mr. Assange has made his adversaries was predictably enthusiastic. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was in Afghanistan, reacted to the arrest by saying, “I hadn’t heard that, but it sounds like good news to me.” But how Mr. Assange’s arrest on the Swedish charges might affect the Obama administration’s continuing deliberations about how — or whether — to charge him for publicizing leaks of classified information remains uncertain. It is also unclear whether Mr. Assange will follow through on his past threats to retaliate for an arrest by releasing new batches of secret information, possibly in a less measured way than the organization has to date. Officers from Scotland Yard arrested Mr. Assange after he went to a central London police station by agreement with the authorities. In a packed courtroom hearing lasting nearly an hour, Gemma Lindfield, a lawyer acting for the Swedish government, outlined some of the detailed allegations made by the Swedish women, both WikiLeaks volunteers. They involved three incidents in August, including one in which Mr. Assange was alleged to have had unprotected sex with one of his accusers as she was asleep. Mr. Assange has denied wrongdoing, saying that he had consensual relations with the two women, whom he met during a trip to Sweden that he made in a bid to establish a haven for himself and WikiLeaks under Sweden’s broad press freedoms. Outside court, Mark Stephens, Mr. Assange’s lead lawyer, described the allegations of sexual impropriety as “very thin indeed,” and predicted the case would “go viral” as the argument for its being a political vendetta was pressed. Mr. Assange, in a dark blue suit and flanked by two uniformed security officials, was characteristically defiant in court. When he was arrested Tuesday morning, the hearing was told, he refused requests that he submit to a photograph, a DNA swab and fingerprinting, standard procedures for all those arrested in Britain . In court, proceedings were interrupted when, having confirmed his name and date of birth, he refused to give a current address, giving first a post office box, then an address in Parkville in the Australian state of Victoria, where he lived before adopting a nomadic lifestyle since founding WikiLeaks in 2006. The exchange appeared to have weighed against his bid for bail, which his lawyers had initially seemed confident of securing. The bid was supported by financial guarantees of more than $150,000 from a cast of well-known supporters who appeared in court, including the filmmaker Ken Loach and Jemima Khan, a socialite and political activist. There was audible dismay as the judge, Howard Riddle, agreed with Ms. Lindfield that there were “significant grounds” for thinking Mr. Assange posed a flight risk, because of his “nomadic lifestyle,” his lack of ties in Britain, his network of international contacts and his access to substantial sums donated by WikiLeaks supporters. As Mr. Assange was loaded into an armored police truck in the bitterly cold afternoon and driven to Wandsworth prison in south London, one sure thing was that his long months as a self-described refugee were over. Accustomed to a life in the shadows, staying with friends, paying cash and communicating mainly by Twitter, he has added a sense of mystery to the celebrity — or notoriety — that has developed around him. The passions he has aroused among followers were evident as dozens chased the police truck as it pulled into traffic, banging on its sides and shouting, “We love you, Julian!” Now the authorities he has reveled in provoking will have a new degree of control over his movements, though not necessarily over WikiLeaks. In a reaction to the events in court, a message on the WikiLeaks Twitter feed said the group was “let down by the U.K. justice system’s bizarre decision to refuse bail” to its founder, but added that the releases of secret State Department cables that began last week would “continue as planned.” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on Monday that American officials were conducting “a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature” into the WikiLeaks releases, a position the Obama administration has held for months, since WikiLeaks began releasing secret Pentagon documents on the Afghan and Iraq wars in summer. But the London arrest could complicate matters for Washington, backing up any criminal case it might begin against Mr. Assange behind the Swedish investigation. Sweden and Britain have extradition treaties with the United States, but both allow extradition rulings to be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Of more immediate concern to Washington, Mr. Assange had threatened for weeks to respond to legal action by speeding the release of secret documents. He had warned that “over 100,000 people” worldwide had downloaded an encrypted version of the 251,287 State Department documents the group holds, a small fraction of which has been released, and that “if something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically.” That warning appeared to be suspended, with one of Mr. Assange’s closest aides, Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic journalist, saying outside the court that the organization had no plans to mount a retaliatory release. Mr. Stephens, the lawyer, also said there would be no change in WikiLeaks’s scheduled releases. “WikiLeaks will continue, WikiLeaks is many thousands of journalists around the world,” Mr. Stephens told a crush of reporters on the courthouse steps. He added, “I am sure justice will out, and Mr. Assange will be vindicated in due course.” In an interview with The New York Times in October, Mr. Assange seemed prepared for an eventual arrest, saying he occasionally savored the prospect of imprisonment on the basis that he “might be able to spend a day reading a book” away from the stresses of his WikiLeaks life. But, he said, no legal action would deter him. “Retiring on some sunlit upland for some 15 years is not in my nature,” he said.

Wikileaks
Sweden
Assange Julian P
Sex Crimes
Great Britain


Steps to Take to Reduce the Anxiety of Paying Online

Abstract: Last year, 92 million people bought things online using credit cards, debit cards and services like PayPal and Google Checkout. Millions of others paid bills and wired money electronically from bank accounts with just a few clicks. Despite the apparent popularity of all these services, they still cause nagging anxiety for many of us. We wonder, how secure are these payment systems? Will I be out the money if someone steals my account numbers and goes on a wild shopping spree or bleeds my savings dry? Deciding which online payment method to use would seem to be a simple matter of picking whichever offers higher security. But the wise consumer also weighs the legal protections in the case of theft: the best security and the lowest liability don’t necessarily go together. Here’s the lowdown on the risks associated with the most popular ways to pay online: CREDIT CARDS After you hear some of the horror stories, using a credit card online may seem as risky as Russian roulette. Crooks can and frequently do capture card numbers by sneaking malware onto home computers or by tricking people into revealing numbers in “phishing” schemes in which people unwittingly type in the numbers on fake sites. Some thieves hack shopping sites. There are a few precautions everyone should take. First, look for signs of quality security at sites you use, like logos, or seals, from security providers like VeriSign and McAfee , said Aleksandr Yampolskiy, director of security at the luxury shopping site Gilt Groupe. To check that a seal is legitimate, click on it to make sure it takes you to the verification page of the security service. Also make sure that “https” appears in the address bar, because that indicates that digital transmissions from the site are being encrypted, Mr. Yampolskiy said. Security seals, however, are just a starting point, not a guarantee a site is secure. They affirm only that it has met specific criteria set by that security service. And the lack of a seal doesn’t necessarily mean a site is risky. So use common sense when deciding which merchants to do business with. For instance, it isn’t wise to shop at a site you reached by clicking on a spam e-mail. If you’re suspicious of a site, run its name through a search engine and see if there are complaints from other shoppers. SSL encryption, which is indicated by the “s” in “https” in the address bar and a padlock icon in the lower right-hand corner of the browser, is your best insurance against theft of your data while it’s being transmitted. Sending your personal data across a network is a key moment of vulnerability, said Robert Zigweid, a senior security consultant at IOActive, which helps companies secure their sites and networks. Responsible sites will automatically use “https” on pages where sensitive information is sent and received. If you get a pop-up or other warning that something is wrong with a site’s SSL certificate, “back away,” said Tim Callan, vice president at VeriSign. Professional, well-put-together sites do not tend to have certificates that are expired or have other problems. And since shady sites can use encryption, too, also check the address bar for a bit of green or the site owner’s name written in green. (Recent versions of major browsers all now use green in some way to indicate the existence of another layer of security called an extended validation SSL certificate). It indicates that the site you’re visiting has been vetted and belongs to a legitimate company; it is not a phishing site. You will certainly see green on larger e-commerce sites and on bank sites. None of this encryption will help you if you’re infected with malware known as a keylogger. It captures your keystrokes and images from your screen and then sends them to hackers. Your only real line of defense is to use security software and install all the updates from that software and all the other software you use. Password-management software can also help. This stores your login information and, typically, the personal data used in Web forms in an encrypted place on your computer. You can then enter this sensitive data onto Web site forms without retyping it. Now that you are frightened enough, here’s the good news about online payments: There is little to worry about using credit cards online, because the risk of loss from unauthorized charges, by law, is almost nil. “The strongest protections are when you pay by credit card,” says Carole Reynolds, a senior lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission. Under the Truth in Lending Act, consumers’ maximum liability for unauthorized use of their credit card is only $50, and when a card is used online, it’s zero. If you report fraud quickly, banks will typically reverse the charges rapidly and without much fuss, though in these tight times banks are scrutinizing fraud claims more closely, says Avivah Litan, a payment-fraud expert at research firm Gartner. For extra protection against having your card number stolen, consider using one-time credit card numbers for online purchases, which you can often set up with your card provider. DEBIT CARDS Using debit cards online is a bit riskier. These transactions, which draw directly from your bank account, are subject to a different federal law, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. This law provides considerable protection from liability, but the level of protection diminishes as time passes. If you report unauthorized charges on a debit card within two business days of discovering the problem, your liability is limited to $50 offline and zero for online transactions, Ms. Reynolds says. If you neglect to do that, but report the loss within 60 days of the date your bank sent the statement listing the bogus transactions, your liability is capped at $500 for offline transactions and remains zero online. If you miss those deadlines, however, you could end up in a bigger mess. Ms. Reynolds warned that your liability could be unlimited. (See a related blog post at nyti.ms/6VEItV for other information.) PAYMENT SERVICES AND BILL PAYMENT Shopping online using services like PayPal, Google Checkout and BillMeLater offer some useful additional security because you entrust your sensitive account information to one company and not to every online store you may buy something from. This can be a good idea, especially if you frequently buy from little-known merchants that may not have top-notch Web defenses. But Ms. Litan warns that if your PayPal account is used fraudulently, it may be harder to get your money back than if you use a credit card. For those who pay bills online, note that, like debit cards, online bank accounts — savings, checking and other personal “asset accounts” — are covered by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, so your responsibility for unauthorized transactions is limited depending on when you discover and report fraud. So even if your computer becomes infected with a malicious program and thieves are able to steal your password and plunder your bank account, you will get your money back if you catch it quickly. Ms. Litan says it’s a good idea to set up automatic bill payments with your bank, as opposed to individual billers like the gas company or the day care provider, because banks and their payment processors are generally better at protecting data than merchants.

E-Commerce
Frauds and Swindling
Computers and the Internet


Jeffries’s Injury Further Complicates Knicks’ Plans

Abstract: SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Jared Jeffries is on crutches, Eddy Curry is under virtual quarantine and Danilo Gallinari has been glued to a stationary bike for four days. The Knicks have had worse weeks, to be sure, but they reasonably hoped for sunnier days under their new coach, Mike D’Antoni. They will, however, break training camp Saturday with nagging doubts about three significant players. The absences of Curry (bacterial infection) and Gallinari (back injury) were manageable, in part because Jeffries was quickly blossoming under D’Antoni, and was on track to claim a starting job. Then he cracked his left fibula Thursday afternoon. He may not return until late November. So the Knicks will head home with an unsettled frontcourt and a sizable medical bill. D’Antoni tried his best to find a silver lining Friday morning. “Somebody’s misery is somebody’s good luck,” he said, “so somebody’s going to get more time.” The first to benefit will be forward Zach Randolph, who had been playing mostly with the second team. He is now the obvious candidate to join David Lee in the starting frontcourt for Wednesday’s preseason opener in Toronto. Wilson Chandler will also get more time at power forward. But losing Jeffries hurts the Knicks on many levels. His court smarts and athleticism seem a perfect fit for D’Antoni’s up-tempo system. He is probably the Knicks’ best interior defender, and their most versatile player. “He showed us a lot,” D’Antoni said. “I was really excited.” Still looking for the upside, D’Antoni quipped, “We’ll still be in the playoff hunt when he comes back.” D’Antoni has compared Jeffries to Boris Diaw, another lanky, multiskilled big man, who thrived in D’Antoni’s offense in Phoenix. After watching an occasionally sloppy afternoon scrimmage, D’Antoni said that Jeffries’s absence was obvious. The Knicks have estimated that Jeffries will miss six to eight weeks, a timetable that will wipe out a minimum of nine regular-season games and perhaps as many as 15. It poses one more obstacle to a team that is trying to gain traction with a new coach and a new system. Jeffries remained upbeat Friday, joking with Malik Rose and smiling through interviews as he leaned on his crutches. He will be fitted with a walking boot but will not need a cast. And said he had plans to return sooner than the doctors were projecting. Jeffries said he planned to follow the lead of Terrell Owens, the Dallas Cowboys receiver, who credited a hyperbaric chamber with accelerating his recovery from a broken leg four years ago. Jeffries and Owens became friends through their affiliation with Brand Jordan. “I talked to T.O.,” Jeffries said. “He got a hyperbaric chamber, man, so I’m going to get a hyperbaric chamber.” Jeffries is not entirely sure about when or how he broke his leg. He said he felt as if someone kicked him while going for a rebound in Thursday afternoon’s scrimmage. But the pain did not become unbearable until much later, after he jumped hard to block a shot. This will be the second time in three years that Jeffries has missed the start of the season. He broke his left wrist during the 2006 preseason. “It’s bad luck,” Jeffries said. “I’m disappointed for myself, disappointed for the team. I felt like I was really going to be able to help the team, and I put in a lot of work, a lot of effort, to get to this point.” The reward for Jeffries was a shot at the starting center job. The incumbent, Curry, is in questionable shape and has missed a week of twice-a-day practices. The Knicks had also hoped that Gallinari could play multiple frontcourt positions, but he may not be ready to start the season. “I don’t make anything out of it,” said Donnie Walsh, the team president, of the ailing threesome. “I wasn’t sure what to make of it when we got here. We need to grow into it, see who can fit into what Mike’s trying to do. Jared could do that. So that kind of hurt. I think Eddy can do it. I think there are other players out here that can do it.” REBOUNDS Stephon Marbury, his role still vague, played with the starting unit for the first time this week. In a three-guard set during the afternoon scrimmage, he joined Jamal Crawford and Chris Duhon, who could supplant Marbury as the starting point guard. “We’ll go back to that and experiment with it a little bit,” Mike D’Antoni said. “I don’t know if it will work or not.” He added, “We’re just trying to look for different combinations of those 8, 9 or 10 guys that will be playing.” Danilo Gallinari gently jogged around the court Friday morning, providing the first visible sign that he is on the mend from a nagging back injury. “It’s encouraging,” D’Antoni said. “It wasn’t real fast. He’s got a ways to go yet.” Gallinari said he felt “good — not perfect, but good.”

Jeffries Jared
New York Knicks
Sports Medicine
Basketball


Obama and G.O.P. Senators Meet on Filling Scalia’s Seat, to No Avail

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The two Republican senators sat together on one couch, while the Democratic senators sat a few feet away on another, but the gap between them in Tuesday’s meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office could hardly have been bigger. After the discussions about choosing a nominee for the Supreme Court seat left vacant when Justice Antonin Scalia died, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont emerged and quickly denounced their Republican colleagues before a bank of TV cameras set up outside the West Wing of the White House. “They think they are going to wait and see what President Trump will do, I guess, as far as the nomination is concerned,” Mr. Reid said, referring to Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner. Mr. Reid said the meeting was brief. “We killed a lot of time talking about basketball and other stuff,” he said. Mr. Reid described the Republicans as implacable and said there was nothing to suggest that they might budge. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, waited to talk about the meeting until they returned to Capitol Hill. “Mr. Grassley and I made it clear that we don’t intend to take up a nominee or to have hearings,” Mr. McConnell said at a news conference at the Capitol. He added, “We will look forward to the American people deciding who they want to make this appointment through their own vote.” Mr. Obama called the senators and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the White House to take part in a consultation that he has determined was essential to his deliberations in choosing a successor for Justice Scalia. He asked both Republicans if they had names they would like to submit for consideration because that was how the process would normally work. But Republicans have made clear that during an election year, and with the balance of the Supreme Court potentially at risk for decades to come, they would not treat this nomination the way it had historically been treated throughout American history. So neither Republican offered any suggestion for Mr. Obama’s consideration. “Whether everybody in the meeting today wanted to admit it, we all know that considering a nomination in the middle of a heated presidential campaign is bad for the nominee, bad for the court, bad for the process, and ultimately bad for the nation,” Mr. Grassley said. Scalia’s Supreme Court Seat Has Been Vacant For More Than 400 Days Since 1900, the Senate has voted on eight Supreme Court nominees during an election year. Six were confirmed. Like Mr. McConnell, Mr. Grassley said that the American people should decide on the nature of the next nominee by voting in November’s presidential election. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, responded that the American people had already made their views known. “We had that debate in 2012, and that was a debate that the president won,” Mr. Earnest said. “He was not elected to a term of three years and one month. He was elected to a full four-year term.” Mr. Reid said he thought Mr. McConnell was pleased with the way the process was playing out. “I think he feels comfortable with doing something that has never been done before, never in the history of the country,” Mr. Reid said. Mr. Obama and other Democrats argue that the Constitution requires the president to nominate someone and the Senate to hold hearings on that nomination and vote on whether to confirm that person. “The Constitution makes it very clear that the president shall nominate and the Senate shall provide advice and consent,” Mr. Leahy said. “The president is ready to fulfill his constitutional duty. The Senate should fulfill theirs.” Mr. Earnest said the White House was disappointed that the two Republicans refused to engage in a discussion about a Supreme Court nominee. “We certainly would have liked Republicans to have handled the meeting differently,” he said. But he said the president would agree to meet again with them if they decided to change their minds. “The offer was not a one-time-only offer,” Mr. Earnest said. “The president is serious about this consultation.” The president will continue to study his list of potential nominees, Mr. Earnest said. In a speech on the Senate floor on Monday, Mr. Reid heaped abuse on Mr. Grassley, saying he was abandoning his oath of office and abdicating his constitutional responsibilities. “The chairman has turned the impartial reputation of the judiciary committee into an extension of the Trump campaign,” Mr. Reid said. Mr. Grassley fired back: “It’s another day and another tantrum from the minority leader. But it doesn’t matter how much he jumps up and down and stomps his feet, we aren’t going to let the far left get away with denying the American people the opportunity to be heard.”

Antonin Scalia
Harry Reid
Mitch McConnell
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
US
Barack Obama
Charles E Grassley
Appointments and Executive Changes


U.N. Climate Panel Chief Quits Amid Harassment Case

Abstract: The head of the United Nations panel on climate science resigned on Tuesday after allegations of sexual harassment were filed against him in India , where he lives and works. Rajendra K. Pachauri, whose 13 years as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had made him one of the world’s most important voices on the risks of global warming , had been scheduled to leave the post in October. But he tendered his resignation early after news that a woman employed at an institute that he heads in India had accused him of unwanted text messages, emails and other contact . The accuser, 29, has not been publicly identified. Lawyers for Dr. Pachauri, 74, have said in court filings that his computer and phone were hacked and that the unwanted messages were sent by someone else to make him look bad. The police in India are investigating, as is an internal-complaints committee at the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi. The allegations could take years to resolve in India’s slow-moving justice system. “The I.P.C.C. needs strong leadership and dedication of time and full attention by the chair in the immediate future, which under the current circumstances I may be unable to provide,” Dr. Pachauri wrote in his resignation letter. The panel is a worldwide committee of thousands of scientists and other experts, appointed by the United Nations and its member governments, who review and periodically summarize the findings of climate research. The chairman’s role is largely organizational and ceremonial. The group’s increasingly urgent warnings about the risks of unchecked greenhouse-gas emissions have galvanized a worldwide effort — costing hundreds of billions of dollars a year, but so far largely unsuccessful — to bring them under control. Image Rajendra K. Pachauri, shown last year in Berlin, resigned as the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Tuesday. Credit Stefanie Loos/Reuters Under Dr. Pachauri’s leadership, the panel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with Al Gore, for its efforts to warn the public about the risks of climate change, and Dr. Pachauri accepted the prize on its behalf at a ceremony that year in Oslo. But that moment of triumph was followed by several black eyes for the panel, including the finding that one of its reports had exaggerated the rate of melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. Dr. Pachauri resisted calls in 2010 for his resignation. His efforts in recent years included trying to tighten the panel’s review procedures. The resignation came as a meeting of the I.P.C.C. was starting in Nairobi, Kenya. The panel, which completed its fifth major assessment of climate science last fall at a meeting in Copenhagen, is debating how to organize its future efforts. In a statement that included no substantive discussion of the allegations against Dr. Pachauri, the panel said that its vice chairman, Ismail El Gizouli , would serve as interim chairman until a new leader was elected in October. The I.P.C.C. has long been a target of criticism for opponents of the scientific consensus on climate change, and they issued new denunciations of both Dr. Pachauri and the panel over the past week as details of the harassment allegations emerged in India. Donna Laframboise, author of a critical book about the I.P.C.C., pointed out in a blog post that Dr. Pachauri’s resignation letter included no apology to his colleagues on the panel. “What’s missing from this letter is any suggestion of remorse,” she wrote. “Where are his words of apology to the thousands of I.P.C.C.-linked scientists whose honor is now eternally tarnished by their association with him?”


Code Words Hint of Race in Campaign, Paterson Says

Abstract: Gov. David A. Paterson said on Tuesday that he detected “overtones of potential racial coding” in the presidential campaign, drawing a sharp retort from the campaign of Senator John McCain , the Republican candidate. At a breakfast forum in New York City, Mr. Paterson, a Democrat and the fourth black governor in American history, was asked whether racism would harm the presidential bid of the Democratic candidate, Senator Barack Obama , who is the first black nominee of a major party. Mr. Paterson replied that he thought enough voters were focused on issues like housing and unemployment to elect Mr. Obama regardless of his race. But he added, “I think the Republican Party is too smart to call Barack Obama black in a sense that would be a negative. But you can take something about his life, which I noticed they did at the Republican convention — a ‘community organizer.’ They kept saying it, they kept laughing, like, ‘What does this mean?’ ” Mr. Paterson did not quite accuse Mr. McCain of playing on racial fears to defeat Mr. Obama, and in a news conference later, he elaborated that “for me to really think it is happening there would have to be a pattern — and I don’t see a pattern coming out of the Republican campaign in that regard.” But Mr. McCain’s campaign quickly issued a news release accusing Mr. Paterson of launching “accusations of racism,” a topic that has surfaced before during this presidential race. At a campaign stop in Missouri in July, Mr. Obama paraphrased the Republican’s argument against him by saying, “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.” At the time, Mr. McCain’s manager, Rick Davis, charged that Mr. Obama had “played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck.” The campaign took a similar tack on Tuesday. A McCain spokesman, Peter Feldman, said in a statement that criticisms of Mr. Obama’s early work as a community organizer by Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, were well within the bounds of respectable political debate. “Governor Palin’s remark about Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer was in response to the Obama campaign’s belittling of her executive experience,” Mr. Feldman said. “There is certainly a place for community activism, as demonstrated by Sarah Palin’s own record of civic involvement. But Barack Obama’s role as a community organizer pales in comparison to Governor Palin’s demonstrated experience.” Mr. Paterson on Tuesday seemed to bristle at such attacks. Defining what a community organizer was, Mr. Paterson said: “It means that an individual who could have gone to Wall Street and made a lot of money — and then run for office because he can buy media time — chose to go back and work in programs in neighborhoods where he thought he can make a difference and became an elected official based on his involvement right in his own community.”

Race
Presidential Election of 2008
Paterson David A
McCain John
Obama Barack


For Boehner, Surprise Ending to a Wrenching Day

Abstract: WASHINGTON — After two hours of impassioned debate, the Capitol was braced for the grand finale of Speaker John A. Boehner ’s days of strong-arming members on the most important vote of his Congressional career. Suddenly, with no warning and just minutes from a vote Thursday evening, the conversation on the House floor turned to naming post offices. Thus began the great pizza seduction. One after another, recalcitrant Republicans were marched into Mr. Boehner’s office, where he begged, implored and, when that failed, berated them in a desperate effort to win support for his proposal to resolve the debt crisis. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House whip, bought a pile of pizzas, and asked those members who were against the bill to come on over for a slice, and some haranguing. The speaker was forced to delay the vote on Thursday on his debt ceiling bill, when it became clear that his Republican members were not going to put him over the top. Some of those who left Mr. Boehner’s office looked stricken, but said they were unyielding. Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas emerged, saying he was “a bloody, beaten-down no.” Other Republicans who had agreed to vote yes went gallivanting through the Capitol — in red spike heels in the case of Representative Nan Hayworth of New York — to get before their colleagues or television cameras and help the speaker seal the deal. The pulling of the bill was an unexpected twist in a chaotic day in which staff members for Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate slid from desk to desk around Capitol Hill asserting that the outcome of the debt debate would end in their party’s favor. Earlier Thursday, it seemed as though Mr. Boehner was indeed picking up support for his bill, which cuts spending, raises the debt ceiling and gives his members their coveted balanced-budget amendment. But in the waning hours of debate on the bill, the math appeared to turn against the speaker. Some key lawmakers, like Representative Tim Scott of South Carolina, a member of the freshman leadership team, said he would join the other freshmen from his state and vote no. In the final minutes of the two-hour debate of the bill, right after Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, offered her closing remarks, Representative Steven C. LaTourette, an Ohio Republican who was serving as the presiding officer, announced that the House would turn to other business. For more than an hour, lawmakers in a nearly empty chamber talked about naming post offices: one in Peoria, Ill., in honor of Charles Lawrence Chan, a Sept. 11 victim; one in Iuka, Miss., honoring Sgt. Jason W. Vaughn, who was killed in Iraq; even one in Guam, honoring John Pangelinan Gerber, a Vietnam veteran. The whipping effort had begun early in the week, and included pizza parties and one-on-one meetings with freshmen, cellphone calls and text messages from Representative Eric Cantor, the majority leader, and nice dinners over wine. On Thursday, Mr. Boehner and his leadership team continued to press their case long before the bill was pulled, Mr. Boehner emerged from his ceremonial office to a sea of reporters, whom he met with a mild curse, grabbed members from the floor and marched them through the speaker’s lobby in full view of their colleagues for a talking-to back in his den. When Representative Chuck Fleischmann, Republican of Tennessee, came out, he did not look as though he had been picnicking. This continued well into the night, after the bill was yanked. Mo Brooks of Alabama, Jeff Flake and Trent Franks of Arizona, and two freshmen from Illinois, Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh all met with members of the leadership team. On Thursday night, Mr. Walsh said he was still a no vote. After leaving Mr. Boehner’s office, Mr. Gohmert told reporters his objections to the bill. “Why are we compromising with ourselves?” he asked. “The Senate has passed nothing.” The freshmen, many of them associated with the Tea Party before the Republican party, appeared to be putting up the highest walls, though some more senior members were also invited to see Mr. McCarthy and his plates of pizza. “It is the most refreshing thing in the world to see what is going on in there,” said Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona, an ardent foe of earmarks, the pet projects of lawmakers. “This kind of negotiation a few years ago would have cost $20 billion” in pork barrel projects. Mr. Flake would not say whether the quality of the pizza had moved his vote, as he continued to ponder his final move. Members said they agonized. “I am trying to find a way to vote for this bill,” said Representative Bill Huizenga of Michigan. “This is a step in the right direction. I wish it were a bigger step.” (At the last minute, Mr. Huizenga, who brought his 12-year-old son Garrett to the Capitol for inspiration, assured leaders that they had his vote.) Some men from the South Carolina freshman delegation, a tight-knit group of conservatives, repaired to the House chapel on Thursday to pray. “I am a no at the end of the day,” Mr. Scott said. “I was leaning no. Now I am a no.” In a parallel, reverse-whip universe on Twitter, Freedom Works, a Tea Party group, began at midday to send messages pressuring members who were on the fence, urging people at home to call the members and tell them to vote no. Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska also got in the game, posting an ominous warning to freshmen about contested primaries on Facebook. Amid the frenzy of arm-twisting, debate and reporters swarming like bees in a sunflower garden, Representative David Wu, the Oregon Democrat who resigned this week amid a sex scandal, sat peacefully on the balcony off the speaker’s lobby, awaiting the last votes of his career and pulling on a stogie.

Republican Party
National Debt (US)
Boehner John A
House of Representatives
United States Politics and Government