4th Brooklyn Man Is Charged in Plot to Join ISIS

Abstract: A defendant has been added in the case of a group of Brooklyn men charged with trying to support the Islamic State. Dilkhayot Kasimov, 26, was named in a court document filed on Monday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. He is named along with Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, Akhror Saidakhmetov and Abror Habibov, young men from Brooklyn who were arrested and charged in February with trying to join the terrorist group, also known as ISIS. Under watch by a government informant, Mr. Juraboev and Mr. Saidakhmetov had spoken admiringly of the Islamic State, and had purchased tickets to travel to Turkey. Prosecutors said they planned to slip into Syria and enlist with the group. Mr. Habibov, who owned cellphone repair kiosks at which Mr. Saidakhmetov worked, helped finance and arrange the travel, prosecutors said. Mr. Kasimov, an Uzbek citizen who lived in Brooklyn, worked alongside Mr. Habibov to raise money for Mr. Saidakhmetov’s travels, prosecutors said on Monday. They raised about $1,600 from several people, and Mr. Kasimov delivered the money to Mr. Saidakhmetov at Kennedy International Airport just before Mr. Saidakhmetov was to fly to Turkey. Mr. Kasimov is to be arraigned on Wednesday.

Brooklyn
Dilkhayot Kasimov
Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev
Akhror Saidakhmetov
Abror Habibov
NYC
Terrorism
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


A Beloved Recording Studio May Be Priced Out of SoHo

Abstract: Inside the Magic Shop recording studio in SoHo, next to some decommissioned tape decks and a pair of giant echo plates, boxes of old tape reels were piled nearly to the ceiling. The names scrawled on their spines attested to the Magic Shop’s rich, 27-year history: Thurston Moore, Soul Asylum, Suzanne Vega, Blonde Redhead, Norah Jones ... Steve Rosenthal, the studio’s founder, said that lately he had been nudging his former clients to retrieve their forgotten tapes. “If you want, we’ll digitize ’em for you,” he recalled telling them. “If not, we’ll wipe ’em.” The not-so-hidden message behind Mr. Rosenthal’s proposition is that the Magic Shop might not be around much longer. Opened in 1988 in a windowless warren beneath an apartment building on Crosby Street, the small studio has attained near-legendary status as a haven for vintage recording gear, attracting generations of finicky musicians from Lou Reed to Arcade Fire. David Bowie recently spent two years in secret there for his album “The Next Day,” and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters featured the Magic Shop in “ Sonic Highways ,” his musical travelogue series for HBO. “Some studios are too clinical — every time you go in there they have some new piece of equipment,” said Tony Visconti, Mr. Bowie’s longtime producer, who was at the helm for “The Next Day.” “Steve has never buckled to that. The Magic Shop is far from sterile. It’s dark and atmospheric. It’s a fantastic vintage studio in good working order.” Image Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters at the Magic Shop during an episode of the HBO show “Sonic Highways.” Credit Roswell Films Now the Magic Shop has become a victim of both a changing music industry and the heated Manhattan real-estate market. At a time when a band can make a decent-sounding recording on an iPad, bookings at the $1,300-a-day studio are slow. And after Mr. Rosenthal failed to buy the property — an attempt financed by Mr. Grohl — the Magic Shop is at an impasse with its landlord, and may soon be forced to move, or close altogether. “We thought, wouldn’t it be great if this studio was around for the next rock band that is going to change the world?” Mr. Grohl said in an interview. “Because this is the kind of place where it’s going to happen, not on some TV contest.” INSIDE THE MAGIC SHOP, time seems to stand still. Grainy snapshots from old sessions curl on the walls, and despite the glow of computer monitors, much of the sound is processed through a prized — and totally analog — 1970 Neve console , which had once been at the BBC. On a tour of the studio, Mr. Rosenthal, a four-time Grammy winner, proudly showed off two wooden “amp closets” the studio built to contain the guitar thunder of Sonic Youth, and on the lower level is the equipment he uses for the Magic Shop’s growing business in restoring archival recordings by the likes of Woody Guthrie, Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones. “There are so many variables in what makes a studio great, and many of them are completely mysterious,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “There’s no way I could recreate this.” Yet over the past three decades, the cobblestone block outside has been transformed from a crime-ridden back street to a showcase for the rich. At the studio’s opening party, Mr. Rosenthal said, his family’s car was broken into. Now this block of Crosby Street between Spring and Broome Streets is home to a Bloomingdale’s and a “ hipster synagogue ,” while a condo building under construction across the street is offering parking spaces for $1 million apiece . The Magic Shop’s Greatest Hits A Spotify playlist of some of the notable songs recorded at the venerable New York studio. Once a pioneer of the neighborhood, Mr. Rosenthal, who was born in the Bronx and early in his career drove a cab to get by, now cannot afford it — an increasingly common lament in an age of hyper-gentrification. “Sometimes I feel like a guy who owns a gorgeous horse-and-buggy business in 1899,” said Mr. Rosenthal, 62, who has an untamed mop of gray hair and likes to keep Neil Young songs cued up on his phone. In recent years New York City’s once-extensive network of recording studios has been nearly dismantled, with the loss of places like the Hit Factory and Sony Music Studios. Last month the owners of Avatar Studios announced that they intend to sell their building on West 53rd Street, putting the future of one of the city’s last large-scale recording facilities in doubt. According to a study published this year by the Center for an Urban Future, music production employment in the city declined by 28 percent from 2003 to 2013. BEHIND THE FAMOUS names on the Magic Shop’s client list is a struggling family business. Along with his wife, Jennifer Gilson, Mr. Rosenthal also owns the Living Room, an artist-friendly club that opened on a corner of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1998 and before long was putting on regular gigs by a young singer named Norah Jones. “When I played there, something clicked,” Ms. Jones recalled recently. “It was the first time I played in a place like that, where people were actually there to listen to me.” Image From left, Tony Visconti, David Bowie and Brian Thorn at the studio. Credit Kabir Hermon/The Magic Shop Ms. Jones is also an example of the cross-pollination between the two businesses: In addition to performing at the Living Room, she has recorded at the Magic Shop, most recently for a 2013 album of Everly Brothers covers she did with Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Sometimes Mr. Rosenthal records new musicians from the club “on spec” — which often means free. “Maybe that’s not smart business,” he said. “But it’s good art.” The Living Room moved around the corner to Ludlow Street in 2003, and then last year, after being priced out of Manhattan, it relocated to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The venue is spacious, but business so far has been light. Straitened finances mean fewer employees to help share the load, and Ms. Gilson and Mr. Rosenthal, who live in Chelsea with their three young children, described a frenzied joint workday: Rising at 6:30 a.m. to get the children out the door and deal with a barrage of “you owe me money” emails, and then shuttling between the Magic Shop and the Living Room for the rest of the day and much of the night. Occasionally, Ms. Gilson said, she slips away from the bar to put the children to bed via FaceTime. “There’s no room for failure anymore,” said Ms. Gilson, who started out as a waitress and talent booker at Sin-é, the East Village boîte known for giving an early stage to Jeff Buckley . “For art to succeed there has to be room for peaks and valleys, but it’s all about paying the bills here. There’s no way to just try something out over the next few months, see if it will work.” To stabilize both businesses, Mr. Rosenthal tried to buy the two floors the Magic Shop occupies in its building, with help from Mr. Grohl. In December 2014, just as the Magic Shop’s episode of “Sonic Highways” was broadcast, Mr. Grohl lent the studio $50,000 to help cover its back rent, and he agreed to finance Mr. Rosenthal’s attempt this spring to exercise a purchase option on the studio’s lease, for just less than $3 million. Image Steve Rosenthal, owner of the Magic Shop, with his wife, Jennifer Gilson. Credit Christian Hansen for The New York Times The studio, Mr. Grohl said, “represents something more than wires and tubes and knobs — it’s a big part of the history of New York.” The purchase was rejected by the building’s co-op board, and Mr. Rosenthal said that a later attempt to negotiate with one of his landlords, Henry Schwartz, to buy out the remaining two years on his lease came to no avail. Mr. Rosenthal, embittered by the experience, believes the reason is simply the lure of bigger money. His rent is currently $12,500 a month, but a study that he and Mr. Grohl’s advisers commissioned estimated the studio space could go for as much as $45,000 a month on the open market. Through his lawyer, Mr. Schwartz declined to comment for this article. The purchase plan with Mr. Grohl had seemed so promising, Mr. Rosenthal said, that he had no backup strategy. “That was Plan A, B, C, D, E and F, to be honest,” he said. “What will probably happen is, I will have to close the studio, and I will move my archiving business to Bushwick or somewhere.” That archiving business was in full swing on a recent afternoon, when it was sunny and crisp outside but dark and musty as ever inside the Magic Shop. In one room an engineer was fulfilling an order from Sony to digitize dozens of 1970s tapes from Philadelphia International Records, the home of Gamble & Huff’s sweet funk. Down the hall, more old tapes were being “baked” — prepared for transfer — in modified convection ovens, while some 80 reels from Natalie Merchant stood on deck. But these archiving projects do not bring in enough money to cover the studio’s overhead, Mr. Rosenthal said, so it was doubtful that the Magic Shop could make it through its lease. “Maybe I’m a complete anachronism,” Mr. Rosenthal added. “But what happened here was valid, and the experiences were real, and the music that was created here was worthwhile.”

Magic Shop
Steve Rosenthal
Music
Relocation
Audio Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
SoHo Manhattan
Rock music
Commercial Real Estate


U.S. and Iran Agree to Speed Talks to Defuse Nuclear Issue

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The long-fractured relationship between the United States and Iran took a significant turn on Friday when President Obama and President Hassan Rouhani became the first leaders of their countries to speak since the Tehran hostage crisis more than three decades ago. In a hurriedly arranged telephone call, Mr. Obama reached Mr. Rouhani as the Iranian leader was headed to the airport to leave New York after a whirlwind news media and diplomatic blitz. The two agreed to accelerate talks aimed at defusing the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and afterward expressed optimism at the prospect of a rapprochement that would transform the Middle East. “Resolving this issue, obviously, could also serve as a major step forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, one based on mutual interests and mutual respect,” Mr. Obama, referring to Tehran’s nuclear program, told reporters at the White House after the 15-minute phone call. “It would also help facilitate a better relationship between Iran and the international community, as well as others in the region.” A Twitter account in Mr. Rouhani’s name later stated, “In regards to nuclear issue, with political will, there is a way to rapidly solve the matter.” The account added that Mr. Rouhani had told Mr. Obama, “We’re hopeful about what we will see from” the United States and other major powers “in coming weeks and months.” The conversation was the first between Iranian and American leaders since 1979 when President Jimmy Carter spoke by telephone with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi shortly before the shah left the country, according to Iran experts. The Islamic Revolution that toppled the shah’s government led to the seizure of the American Embassy and a 444-day hostage crisis that have left the two countries at odds with each other ever since. Although both Republican and Democratic presidents have reached out to Tehran in the interim, contact had been reserved to letters or lower-level officials. The call came just days after Mr. Obama had hoped to encounter Mr. Rouhani at a luncheon at the United Nations and expected to shake hands. Mr. Rouhani skipped the luncheon and later indicated it was premature to meet Mr. Obama. But a meeting on Thursday between Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran was described as constructive and led Iranian officials to contact the White House on Friday to suggest the phone call, according to American officials. A senior Obama administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said the White House had expressed the president’s interest in meeting Mr. Rouhani to the Iranians this week but was surprised when they suggested the phone call. Mr. Obama placed the call from the Oval Office around 2:30 p.m., joined by aides and a translator. Image President Obama announced having a phone conversation with President Hassan Rouhani. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times He opened by congratulating Mr. Rouhani on his election in June and noted the history of mistrust between the two nations, but also what he called the constructive statements Mr. Rouhani had made during his stay in New York, according to the official. The bulk of the call focused on the nuclear dispute, and Mr. Obama repeated that he respected Iran’s right to develop civilian nuclear energy, but insisted on concessions to prevent development of weapons. Mr. Obama also raised the cases of three Americans in Iran, one missing and two others detained. In a lighter moment, he apologized for New York traffic. The call ended on a polite note, according to the official and Mr. Rouhani’s Twitter account. “Have a nice day,” Mr. Rouhani said in English. “Thank you,” Mr. Obama replied, and then tried a Persian farewell. “Khodahafez.” By talking on the phone instead of in person, Mr. Rouhani avoided a politically problematic photo of himself with Mr. Obama, which could have inflamed hard-liners in Iran who were already wary of his outreach to the United States. As it was, conservative elements in Tehran tried to reinterpret his statements acknowledging the Holocaust while he was in New York. The state news channel, the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, had not mentioned the phone call with Mr. Obama as of midnight Friday after word of it broke, and the original messages on Mr. Rouhani’s Twitter account were deleted and replaced with more anodyne comments. But Mr. Rouhani’s office announced the call in a statement carried by the Iranian state news agency. “This voice contact has for now replaced the actual shaking of hands, but this is clearly the start of a process that could in the future lead to a face-to-face meeting between both leaders,” said Amir Mohebbian, a political adviser close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Abbas Milani, an Iranian scholar at Stanford University, said Mr. Rouhani wanted to avoid looking as if he was making concessions. “The U.S. and the West have wisely decided to allow the regime to make its claims of victory at home, so long as they play earnest ball in meetings abroad,” Mr. Milani said. A call to a leader on the way to the airport may not be normal protocol, he added, but “in this case it was adroit policy for both sides.” American advocates of closer relations between the two countries were optimistic. “The phone call wasn’t just history,” said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an arms control group, who attended a dinner with Mr. Rouhani in New York. “It helped fundamentally change the course of Iranian-U.S. relations. We’re on a very different trajectory than we were even at the beginning of the week.” But others expressed caution, arguing that Iran was reaching out only because of the sanctions that have strangled its economy. “The economic pain now is sufficient to oblige a telephone call, though not a face-to-face meeting,” said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which supports stronger sanctions against Iran. “We will see whether the pain is sufficient for the Iranians to shut the heavy-water plant at Arak and reverse Iran’s path to a rapid breakout capacity with enriched uranium.” Image President Hassan Rouhani of Iran at a news conference Friday at a hotel near the United Nations. He then headed to the airport. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader, criticized Mr. Obama for not pressing Iran to halt what he said was its support for terrorism and for Syria’s government. “It is particularly unfortunate that President Obama would recognize the Iranian people’s right to nuclear energy but not stand up for their right to freedom, human rights or democracy,” he said. In announcing the call with Mr. Rouhani, Mr. Obama said that only “meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions” on the nuclear program could “bring relief” from sanctions. “A path to a meaningful agreement will be difficult, and at this point, both sides have significant concerns that will have to be overcome,” he said. “But I believe we’ve got a responsibility to pursue diplomacy, and that we have a unique opportunity to make progress with the new leadership in Tehran.” Recognizing the delicacy of the outreach effort, Mr. Obama made a point of trying to reassure Israel that he would not jeopardize an ally’s security. “Throughout this process, we’ll stay in close touch with our friends and allies in the region, including Israel,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is scheduled to visit Mr. Obama at the White House on Monday. Before leaving New York, Mr. Rouhani said his government would present a plan in three weeks on how to resolve the nuclear standoff. “I expect this trip will be the first step and the beginning of constructive relations with countries of the world,” he said at a news conference. He went on to say that he hoped the visit would also improve relations “between two great nations, Iran and the United States,” adding that the trip had exceeded his expectations. Mr. Rouhani and his aides have been on an extraordinarily energetic campaign to prove that they are moderate and reasonable partners and to draw a stark contrast with his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Mr. Rouhani has yet to propose anything concrete to suggest how different the Iranians really are in their approach. The first glimpse of that is due to come on Oct. 15 and 16, when Iran plans to present its own road map in Geneva. Mr. Rouhani emphasized that his government had the authority and the will to reach a nuclear settlement within what he called “a short period of time.” But he was visibly irritated when asked whether his diplomatic blitz was merely designed to buy time with his Western interlocutors. “We have never chosen deceit as a path,” he said. “We have never chosen secrecy.”

Iran
Hassan Rouhani
US Foreign Policy
Barack Obama
Nuclear weapon


Empty Nest? In Slovakia, It May Begin When the Child Is 35

Abstract: BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Jozef Izso, sitting on a small platform bed beside his desk while his mother busily puttered around in an adjoining room, said that there were definitely pluses and minuses to living with your parents when you are 29 years old. “It’s very comfortable here,” he said. “Especially now that my sister has moved out.” With no rent to pay, he saves money and gets to live near his computer programming jobs in the expensive city center. “But they do treat you like a child,” he said in a near whisper. For instance, when he returns to his room a few minutes after hanging up his clothes, he notices that they have been rearranged the way his mother prefers. “It’s quite annoying,” he said. “But not enough to make me move out.” The recent rise in the number of adult children still living at home with their parents is a trend not confined to the former Communist states of Eastern Europe, but they do seem to have perfected it. Last year a United States Census study drew considerable attention when it revealed that 15 percent of adults 25 to 34 were living with their parents. And a recent Office of National Statistics study in Britain also inspired much hand-wringing when it revealed a similar figure. But that’s nothing. In Slovakia, 74 percent of adults 18 to 34 years old — regardless of employment or marital status — still live with their parents, European Commission statistics show. And among older adults — those 25 to 34 — 57 percent reside at what is referred to here as “Hotel Mama.” In Bulgaria, it is 51 percent; in Romania 46 percent; in Serbia 54 percent; and in Croatia a chart-topping 59 percent. Social scientists and government officials say there is no single cause for the phenomenon. Certainly the recent financial crisis and persistently high youth unemployment have played critical roles, as they have in other nations. But there is something extraordinary, and revealing, about the way the trend has taken root in so many countries that have, until fairly recently, lived under Communism. The lingering effects of central planning, combined with long-term shortages of housing, especially rentals, have limited the options for many young people in Central and Eastern Europe. When Communism collapsed, for instance, residents of state-owned housing in many Communist nations were given the opportunity to buy their apartments at generously low prices, a sweet deal that their children now find they cannot duplicate. For some, the question has become, Why bother? The conservative culture here and in other traditional nations not only encourages young people to stay under their parents’ protection until marriage, but also attaches no stigma in doing so. “It is just a traditional thing to do here in Slovakia,” said Katarina Izsova, Mr. Izso’s mother, as she scraped out the remnants of a pot of tomato sauce into the sink. “It is not unusual. Family members help each other.” Social scientists caution that, while there is no doubt that the level of adults living with their parents is exceptionally high in Slovakia, the exact numbers may be lower than the official record. “Going through the process of changing the registration of your permanent residence is a problem,” said Boris Vano, an analyst at the Demographic Research Center at the Institute of Informatics and Statistics in Bratislava, the capital. “For many people, it’s not worth going through the bureaucratic hassle. It is illegal, but there are no fines.” At the same time, a few other European countries hit hard by the 2008 recession and the ensuing euro crisis also have high percentages of adults living with their parents — 53 percent in Greece, for instance, and 49 percent in Italy. In Central and Eastern Europe, the trend is going up. From 2007 to 2013, the number of young adults living at home in Hungary shot up by 40 percent, and by 10 percent in Slovakia. In the two and a half decades since the fall of Communism, a fresh generation of Eastern Europeans has eagerly adopted many of the social fashions of the West — cohabiting, marrying later, delaying children. From 1993 to 2013, the median age of marriage in Slovakia increased to 29 from 23 for women and to 31 from 25 for men, Mr. Vano said. Over the same period, the average age of a woman having her first child rose to 27 from 22, and about a third of mothers now give birth outside of marriage, from 6 percent in the 1990s. “In all post-Communist countries, the situation is similar,” Mr. Vano said. The countries they live in do not yet have the housing infrastructure, the wage levels or the financial wherewithal to sustain the Western lifestyle today’s young adults crave. And with a dearth of rental housing — less than 6 percent of all housing in Slovakia is available for rent, compared with 50 percent in Germany — young adults have little choice but to save up for years in order to afford to buy a place of their own. “There is a very strong relationship between the number of dwellings per 1,000 people and the share of young people living with parents,” said Zuzana Kusa, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In the poorer sections of eastern Slovakia, small rental apartments, if they can be found, go for about $300 a month. In Bratislava, it is often double that. But the average salaries for young people, if they can find a job, are often just $550 to $650 a month. Zuzana Majernikova, 24, teaches primary school in Trebisov, a town in far eastern Slovakia, and on her salary of $542 a month cannot afford to move out of the home where she grew up, much as she would like to. “I really miss my freedom,” she said of her student days in a shared apartment. Saving up the money to buy her own home will take years, she said. But such a long wait is not unusual in Slovakia, even for her parents’ generation. In the 1980s, newlyweds normally had to wait about two years for the government to provide them with their first apartment, during which time they were forced, as Ms. Kusa put it, to submit to “the mother-in-law’s preference for organizing the kitchen.” If anything, it is easier today, she said. “Current parents are much more liberal than the previous generation,” Ms. Kusa said. “Before, it was quite difficult to live with your parents. Lots of rules. Strict, traditional households.” Her own 30-year-old daughter still lives with her, Ms. Kusa said, while her other daughter, eager to get a place of her own, saved and bought an apartment and now must work 10-hour days to pay for it. Still, not everyone sees the family apartment as a comfortable, easier alternative. Peter Hudec, 35, a lanky and pony-tailed Web developer for a small Bratislava company, said it was turning out to be a lot harder than he had anticipated to move back into his 61-year-old mother’s four-room apartment after five years of struggling to pay for his own place. “My mother doesn’t work,” he said. “She just watches TV all day, every day. When you want to read, all you can hear are my mother’s television programs. It is depressing.” Mr. Hudec is not sure how much longer he and his girlfriend can take it. They are thinking of moving, perhaps to nearby Vienna, where renting is the norm. “In Slovakia, our mentality is different,” he said. “You have to own everything. In Vienna, people rent, they buy on credit. The two cities are so close, but they are different places.”

Slovakia
Eastern Europe
Youth
Housing
Family
Real Estate
Social Trends


McCain Rejects Broad U.S. Aid on Mortgages

Abstract: SANTA ANA, Calif. — Drawing a sharp distinction between himself and the two Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona warned Tuesday against vigorous government action to solve the deepening mortgage crisis and the market turmoil it has caused, saying that “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.” Mr. McCain’s comments came a day after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York called for direct federal intervention to help affected homeowners, including a $30 billion fund for states and communities to assist those at risk of foreclosure. Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, has similarly called for greater federal involvement, including creation of a $10 billion relief package to prevent foreclosures. As the foreclosure crisis has rippled across the economy, it has thrust itself to the forefront of the presidential race, with Democrats seizing on the issue in urging forceful government steps to alleviate the crisis. Mr. McCain’s remarks Tuesday, to a group of Hispanic businessmen here, signaled a sharpening divide between the two parties’ candidates, with the senator warning against quick, costly government fixes to a crises rooted in the private sector. “Rampant speculation” on both sides is the root cause of the crisis, Mr. McCain said. He placed part of the responsibility for the mortgage mess on lenders, who he said had grown “complacent” in a rising market and as a result acquired a “false sense of security” that caused them to “lower their lending standards.” But in a departure from Democrats, who have focused on the lending industry’s role in the crisis, Mr. McCain suggested that some homeowners had also engaged in dangerous practices, including borrowing too much in hopes that a rising market would cover their mortgages. Mr. McCain has often addressed the mortgage crisis in general terms on the campaign trail, but in Tuesday’s remarks he offered a more comprehensive look at the challenge facing the nation — and the roots of the problem. He blamed a profusion of complicated and recently devised financial instruments “that weren’t particularly well understood by even the most sophisticated banks, lenders and hedge funds.” Mr. McCain appeared to be trying to confront questions about his dexterity in dealing with the economy, a subject that he has admitted is not his strongest suit. But his remarks drew a quick, pointed rebuke from Mrs. Clinton, who criticized Mr. McCain’s hands-off, market-oriented approach, saying it would lead to “a downward spiral that would cause tremendous economic pain and loss” for Americans. “It sounds remarkably like Herbert Hoover, and I don’t think that’s good economic policy,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Greensburg, Pa. “The government has a number of tools at its disposal. I think that inaction has contributed to the problems we face today, and I believe further inaction would exacerbate those problems.” In addition to urging $30 billion in federal aid to states to help homeowners, Mrs. Clinton on Monday also endorsed federal legislation to expand the government’s ability to guarantee restructured mortgages, which she believes would lead more banks and other private entities to buy and resell mortgages. Mr. Obama’s plan emphasizes making it easier to convert subprime loans to fixed-rate, 30-year loans, while requiring that borrowers have access to better data on loan costs and requiring greater scrutiny of lenders. On Tuesday, he said, “It’s deeply troubling that John McCain is suggesting that the best way to address the housing crisis is to sit back and watch it happen.” While Mr. McCain left himself some room to support financial assistance for homeowners, saying he is “prepared to examine proposals” along those lines, his recommendations shied away from the large-scale relief that leading Democrats favor. “Some Americans bought homes they couldn’t afford, betting that rising prices would make it easier to refinance later at more affordable rates,” he said. Later he added that “any assistance must be temporary and must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren’t.” In place of large-scale government assistance, Mr. McCain recommended two immediate but limited measures. He said that accountants should meet to review the system by which real estate and related assets are valued, and he urged mortgage lenders to step forward voluntarily to help credit-worthy borrowers who may be strapped for cash at the moment. “They have been asking the government to help them out,” he said. “I’m now calling upon them to help their customers and their nation out.” Overall, the approach Mr. McCain suggested is even more cautious about federal intervention than that of President Bush. The Bush administration is looking to lower down payment requirements, at least temporarily. Mr. McCain said that he opposed reducing the down payment required for mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration, a step meant to revitalize slumping housing sales. The housing crisis has emerged as a dominant topic in the campaign amid a steady drumbeat of worrisome economic data. A survey released Tuesday showed consumer expectations for the future at their lowest levels in more than 30 years, and polls show the economy has increasingly overshadowed issues like the Iraq war. Mr. McCain spoke at some length about the problems caused by lenders and by Wall Street, which bundled mortgages into securities that were chopped into pieces and resold to investors in the United States and abroad. But he did not call for any kind of legislative or regulatory measures to fix those problems, other than to say that the government should eliminate obstacles to the ability of financial institutions to raise more capital. Mr. McCain said he favored government intervention only when standing by would produce “catastrophic effects” to the economy. Asked if the Federal Reserve had gone too far last week in moving to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns, he replied that it was “a close call, but I don’t think so,” because of the impact that the investment bank’s disappearance would have had on Wall Street and throughout the economy. His approach drew a rebuke from economic policy experts aligned with Democrats. “He’s not only far behind what either Clinton or Obama have proposed, he’s six months behind what the administration has already been doing,” said Andrew Jakabovics, associate director for the Economic Mobility Program at the Center for American Progress, a Democrat-leaning research group in Washington. Mr. Jakabovics was an early champion of programs like those now being discussed by Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, to have the government either buy up or refinance millions of troubled loans.

Mortgages
Foreclosures
Housing
McCain John
United States Economy
Presidential Election of 2008
Banks and Banking
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Obama Barack


Justice Dept. Blocks Texas Law on Photo ID for Voting

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday blocked Texas from enforcing a new law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls, contending that the law would disproportionately suppress turnout among eligible Hispanic voters. The decision, which follows a similar move in December blocking a law in South Carolina , brought the Obama administration deeper into the politically and racially charged fight over a wave of new voting restrictions, enacted largely by Republicans in the name of combating voter fraud. In a letter to the Texas state government, Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the state had failed to meet its requirement, under the Voting Rights Act , to show that the measure would not disproportionately disenfranchise registered minority voters. “Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver’s license or a personal identification card,” Mr. Perez wrote, “and that disparity is statistically significant.” Texas has roughly 12.8 million registered voters, of whom about 2.8 million are Hispanic. The state had supplied two sets of data comparing its voter rolls with a list of people who had valid state-issued photo identification cards — one from September and the other from January — showing that Hispanic voters were 46.5 percent to 120 percent more likely to lack such identification than were non-Hispanics. Under the Voting Rights Act, jurisdictions that have a history of suppressing minority voting — like Texas — must show that any proposed change to voting rules would not have a disproportionate effect on minority voters, even if there is no evidence of discriminatory intent. Such “pre-clearance” can be granted either by the Justice Department or by a panel of federal judges. Texas officials had argued that they would take sufficient steps to mitigate any impact of the law, including giving free identification cards to voters who lacked them. But the department said the proposed efforts were not enough, citing the bureaucratic difficulties and cost of obtaining birth certificates or other documents necessary to get the cards. In anticipation that the administration might not clear the law, Texas officials had already asked a panel of judges to allow them to enforce the law. A hearing in that case is scheduled for this week. Benjamin Todd Jealous , the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , praised the decision, saying the state law “would have blocked hundreds of thousands of Hispanic voters from the polls just because they lack a state-issued photo ID.” But Gov. Rick Perry called the decision “yet another example of the Obama administration’s continuing and pervasive federal overreach.” He argued that there was “no valid reason” for rejecting the law since it required “nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane.” Under the state’s existing system, voters are issued certificates when they register that enable them to vote. But last year, Mr. Perry signed a law that would replace that system with one requiring voters to present one of several photographic cards at their polling station. The approved documents include a state-issued driver’s license or identification, a license to carry a concealed gun, or several forms of federal identification. Student identification cards would not count. The measure was part of a wave of new voting restrictions passed around the country, mostly by Republicans, after their sweeping victories in the 2010 elections. More than a dozen states tightened election rules, including eight that passed variations of a photo identification rule. Supporters argue that such restrictions are necessary to prevent fraud. In a statement, Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, said state prosecutors had won about 50 convictions related to various kinds of election fraud over the past decade, and he listed several that appeared to involve in-person voter impersonation — the kind addressed by photo ID requirements. Critics say there is no evidence of significant amounts of in-person voter impersonation fraud and contend the restrictions are a veiled effort to suppress turnout by legitimate voters who tend to vote for Democrats, including students, the indigent and minorities. “We note that the state’s submission did not include evidence of significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by the state’s existing laws,” Mr. Perez wrote. The analysis of the Texas law was complicated because the state submitted two sets of data that had conflicting numbers, showing that either 603,892 or 795,955 registered voters lacked a driver’s license or state-issued identification card. But the Justice Department concluded that there was a statistically significant disparity either way: in the first data set, 4.3 percent of non-Hispanic voters lacked the required identification, versus 6.3 of Hispanic voters. In the second set, 4.9 percent of non-Hispanic voters lacked it, as compared with 10.8 percent of Hispanic voters. The section of the Voting Rights Act at issue does not apply to jurisdictions that do not have a discriminatory past, giving the Justice Department less power to intervene in some states that have enacted such laws. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that a similar Indiana law did not violate the United States Constitution, but that case did not involve the higher standards of the Voting Rights Act or presentation of statistical evidence about any disparate impact. Still, on Monday, a judge in Dane County, Wis., blocked that state’s new photo identification voting law, ruling that it was unconstitutional under Wisconsin ’s charter.

Texas
Justice Department
Voter registration
Hispanic Americans


Despite Talk of Taming Partisanship, a Show of It for President’s Remarks

Abstract: WASHINGTON — It was, for a moment, Bizzaro World, with Republicans giving the president of the United States a standing ovation, while Democrats, in large part, remained firmly fixed in their seats as he expressed his desire for new trade agreements. And it was a brief respite for Representative Eric Cantor , the Virginia Republican and majority leader. He had spent much of the day talking about the need for conciliation, but had, for the previous 20 minutes, become more and more agitated as the speech went on, furiously taking notes as President Obama ticked off a list of tax cuts and programs he claimed that Republicans had supported. For all the talk about the need to tame partisanship, both chambers of Congress put on a relatively full display of it Thursday night, with Democrats hooting and clapping at Mr. Obama’s remarks about taxes, entitlement programs and teachers, and Republicans leading the charge when the talk turned to veterans and regulations. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was first into the chamber, wearing a lavender tie, tan and bright white smile. He was followed by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who was immediately set upon by a freshman Democrat, followed by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, who stood with his hands folded in front of him, pensive, speaking to few. Unlike the State of the Union, when Democrats and Republicans sat together to show good will and cheer, members sat largely by party this time, as the room braced with anticipation for the speech. Oddly, former Representative David Wu of Oregon, a Democratic who resigned under the cloud of scandal before the August recess, sat with a young girl toward the back of the chamber, as others more or less avoided him. Republicans were divided between those who criticized the president before he had uttered a word and those who reached with tentative hands toward an olive branch, citing the exhaustion of the American public with perpetual partisanship. After the speech, Mr. Cantor said he liked some of the president’s proposals, including one to provide tax relief to small businesses, and would try to “peel off” such elements and pass them separately. However, Mr. Cantor criticized Mr. Obama for not specifying how he would pay for the new initiatives. He also complained that the president had offered his proposals on a “take it or leave it” basis, presumably referring to Mr. Obama’s pledge to take his case “to every corner of this country,” beginning with Mr. Cantor’s hometown, Richmond, on Friday. Representative Emanuel Cleaver II, Democrat of Missouri and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, hailed that part of the speech, saying it would “energize the base” of the Democratic Party and enhance the president’s prospects for re-election. Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also had election plans in mind on Thursday, but with a different twist. Mr. Sessions sent a plan to all Republican House candidates, declaring the start of the 2012 campaign season and encouraging them to criticize the president often. A handful of House and Senate Republicans decided the president’s speech did not merit their attendance at all, even though Speaker John A. Boehner discouraged boycotts. “I have encouraged my colleagues to come tonight and to listen to the president,” Mr. Boehner told reporters. “He is the president of the United States and I believe that all members ought to be here to do this. Doesn’t mean they’re going to.” There were some notable guests on hand though, many of them corporate chief executives — the presumed creators of jobs. Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, invited Henry Juszkiewicz, the chief executive of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, to highlight the fact that two Gibson work sites had been raided by federal agents apparently in search of illegal, partly finished, wooden guitar fingerboard blanks from India. Since the visit, Mr. Juszkiewicz has become a walking, breathing, Republican talking point against excessive regulation. The first lady, Michelle Obama, invited her own business people including Kenneth I. Chenault, the chairman of American Express. The Republicans presented no official response to the president’s speech, with Mr. Boehner suggesting that his party did not want to get in the way of the desire of many Americans to watch the first game of the N.F.L season rather than be “forced to watch some politician they don’t want to listen to.” Mr. Reid had scheduled a post-speech vote on a Republican resolution to disapprove the increase to the debt limit . It failed on its first procedural vote, with 52 Democrats opposed. The inconvenient vote had an icing-on-the-cake quality for Mr. Reid, as it forced Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, to stay in Washington rather than flee to his home state to watch the Saints-Packers N.F.L. season opener, as he had said he would.

Senate
Democratic Party
Obama Barack
Federal Taxes (US)
House of Representatives
Speeches and Statements
United States Economy
Republican Party
United States Politics and Government
Cantor Eric


After a Devastating Fire in Their Apartment, a Family Starts Over

Abstract: They were the precious fittings of Magdalena Cepeda’s hard-won life: books for school; tenderly arranged jeans and shoes; DVDs and a computer; photos of her children, growing older from one frame to the next. All gone — soaked, smoke-damaged or heaped with ashes and debris — in one night in late May. “My daughter — she’s really, really organized — she collapsed when she saw what happened to her stuff,” Ms. Cepeda, 36, said, her cheerful countenance dissolving in tears. “Since that happened, I’ve been living for today, because I don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow. I can’t believe it was just a regular day.” Ms. Cepeda, who followed her mother from the Dominican Republic to New York two decades ago, lavished years of effort on the Bronx apartment where she was raising a her daughter, Kimberly, now 18, and son, Lindsey, 13. Mirrors and paintings of angels hang on the walls. Two intricately carved sofas from the furniture store around the corner dominate the living room. If she had not carefully wrapped them in plastic covers last year, they, too, might have been ruined in the fire and flooding that destroyed many of her family’s belongings. On May 28, Ms. Cepeda came home from her job at a custom photo album company in Brooklyn, and her apartment’s lights would not come on. She called the superintendent, who could not identify the cause. But soon, smoke seeped through the closets in her neighbors’ apartments. Firefighters eventually traced the source to her fifth-floor unit and evacuated her family. They tore out walls and ceilings to find the fire, and hosed down the rooms. When she got back inside, all she could do was gasp. Her daughter’s bedroom — Kimberly’s precious and lovingly ordered nook — had a ripped-out ceiling, a ripped-out wall, mounds of gray ash where her bed and dresser used to stand and water on the floor that was deep enough to wade in. There was extensive smoke damage, and the small room they used as a dining room and as storage space for Lindsey was ruined, too. “Todo, todo,” Ms. Cepeda said in Spanish. “Everything completely destroyed.” She earns $9.80 an hour making 300 photo albums a week for other families: birthdays, graduations, holidays. Now her own beloved photos were gone. Neighbors worked until 4 a.m. helping her clear the apartment. Water had risen so high in some parts — halfway up Ms. Cepeda’s calf — that they had to scoop it out with buckets. She caught one lucky break: The landlord had an empty apartment on the first floor of the same building. Dragging mattresses from their bedrooms to the ground floor, Ms. Cepeda and her children moved in. It would be their home for the next two months. The Neediest Cases The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund provides direct assistance to struggling New Yorkers. Tap for information about how to donate. “Thank God,” Ms. Cepeda said of the vacant apartment, “because I was afraid of taking my kids to a shelter.” While their apartment’s walls and floors were being refurbished, Ms. Cepeda tried to make a semblance of a life on the first floor. She climbed the stairs for supplies when she had to cook. For a while, Kimberly slept in a sleeping bag on the floor; then she and her mother switched. Ms. Cepeda receives assistance from the Family Rewards program, operated jointly by the Children’s Aid Society and the Center for Economic Opportunity, which the family joined in 2011. The program provided cash awards based on Kimberly’s school attendance, grades and other measures. Ms. Cepeda makes about $20,000 a year at her job and pays $873 a month in rent. She receives $339 in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program . Family Rewards was supportive after the fire, and in June, the Children’s Aid Society, one of the seven organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, drew $400 from the fund for gift cards to Old Navy, Payless Shoes and Target, so the family could begin replacing some of the necessities it lost. “Kimberly actually ran to the office,” recalled Yazmin Kelly, their social worker at the Family Rewards program, chuckling. “I think she said ‘For real?’ like 10 times.” Even with the aid, however, many things needed replacing. Their dining table. Kimberly’s bed and dresser. When the family moved back upstairs, Ms. Cepeda requested $750 for the furniture, but when she told Children’s Aid that Kimberly needed a hypoallergenic mattress, the agency contributed an additional $1,100 from the fund to cover the furniture’s full cost. Ms. Cepeda painted Kimberly’s room: the back wall in deep purple, another in mint green. What had been a wreck of rubble and exposed wiring was cozy and neat. “Even if you get things back, you don’t recover; nothing is the same,” Ms. Cepeda said. “When something happens like that, you’re never going to forget it.” Goose bumps prickled on her skin as she talked about how her daughter could have been in the room at the time. Thank God, she said, it was “just material stuff.”

Bronx
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Children's Aid Society
Philanthropy


Tom Rothman’s High-Wire Act at Sony Pictures

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Most movie studio chiefs get a year or two to find their balance after taking the job. Tom Rothman is enjoying no such grace period. Mr. Rothman was appointed chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment motion picture group in February, after Amy Pascal resigned under pressure after an embarrassing email hacking scandal. He now finds himself running Sony’s entire movie operation, a rapid expansion of responsibility from his previous post as head of the company’s TriStar Productions, where he was charged with creating an ambitious brand that emphasized big names, master filmmakers and low budgets. Mr. Rothman’s acumen as a picture picker will be on full display this year, as Sony releases the first three of six films he has approved since joining TriStar in 2013. His success or failure will determine whether Sony can finally move beyond the lingering effects of the hackers’ attack , which has continued to air its internal dealings and dirty laundry, and turn its focus to reorienting to a changing movie market. All of this is happening as Mr. Rothman is integrating TriStar into a strategy to rebuild Sony around brands that include the Screen Gems genre unit, the Sony Pictures Classics art film operation, the independently financed Studio 8, and an enduring major label, Columbia Pictures, which will increasingly focus on blockbusters. Both Mr. Rothman, who was once a co-chairman at Fox, and Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, declined to discuss that effort, with a spokeswoman noting that it was still at an early stage. The first TriStar movies with Mr. Rothman’s imprint include Jonathan Demme’s “Ricki and the Flash,” in which Meryl Streep plays an aging rocker , set for release on Aug. 7, and Nicholas Hytner’s “The Lady in the Van,” a cross-generational dramedy starring James Corden and Maggie Smith, which will come out in early December. Most eyes, however, will be trained on October’s “The Walk,” which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and tells the story of Philippe Petit’s famed tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. Image Tom Rothman, chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment motion picture group. Credit Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Afi A special-effects-laden passion project directed by Robert Zemeckis, “ The Walk ” originated with Mr. Zemeckis’s ImageMovers company at Walt Disney years ago. It was subsequently turned down by many in Hollywood, including Mr. Rothman when he was still at Fox. In developing the film, Mr. Zemeckis created what several viewers described as a two-hour “animatic” version: It was something between a primitive animation and an elaborate moving storyboard. On seeing it several years ago, Mr. Rothman, according to a person briefed on his response, was fascinated, and he had already worked happily with Mr. Zemeckis on “Cast Away” and “What Lies Beneath.” But he was also intimidated by the demands of a reality-based story that would depend on computer effects to recreate the World Trade Center buildings. The enthusiastic reception for “Gravity,” with its similar blend of reality and effects, at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013 changed Mr. Rothman’s mind. By then at TriStar, he brought “The Walk” to Sony under a deal that will keep its cost below a $50 million cap envisioned for any TriStar project. The project was helped along by Imax, which, as with “Gravity,” signed on to show a large-screen, 3-D version. “I already told him I want to do the movie; we’re in,” Greg Foster, the chief executive of Imax Entertainment, recalled telling Mr. Rothman of Mr. Zemeckis and his film, which he had seen in the animatic version. The reception “The Walk” receives will gauge whether Mr. Rothman and Mr. Lynton are correct in betting that older viewers, whose per capita ticket-buying edged up on a declining youth market last year, can be drawn to films that are sufficiently bold in casting, as with Ms. Streep’s electric guitar-playing turn in “Ricki and the Flash,” or in execution, as with Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” The latter film, a military story based on a critically acclaimed book and set for release next year, is being shot in 3-D at an ultrahigh 120 frames a second, with the goal of creating a radically immersive viewing experience. Mr. Rothman, according to people briefed on his dealings, retains a financial interest in the films he approved at TriStar, but he will not hold a stake in future TriStar projects and he will not take a producing credit on any of the films. His slate also includes “Money Monster,” directed by Jodie Foster and with George Clooney and Julia Roberts in starring roles, and “Baby Driver,” directed by Edgar Wright, with Ansel Elgort in the lead — and with the potential of a younger audience. Whether a revamped array of film labels will revitalize Sony is a core question. Historically, the mere name of a film studio tends to draw viewers only when it has a sharply defined reputation, like Walt Disney with its family films or Pixar with its computer-animation movies. Image “Ricki and the Flash,” in which Meryl Streep plays an aging rocker, is set for release on Aug. 7. Credit TriStar Pictures “If you can create a brand personality as distinct as that, I think there’s some value in it,” said Dennis Rice, a film marketer who has worked at Disney and at Miramax Films with its Dimension unit, now part of the Weinstein Company, known for commercially oriented genre films like the comic-horror “Scream” series and the “Spy Kids” family action films. Still, he noted, branding can help focus a studio internally on its own aims and market niches — something Mr. Rothman and Mr. Lynton clearly intend. Studio 8, backed by funds from China’s Fosun International, will thus have an eye on projects that can play well both at home and in Asian markets. That company has two dozen employees, about 20 projects in development, and a shared stake with TriStar in Mr. Lee’s film, which stars Vin Diesel and Kristen Stewart. Sanford Panitch, who worked with Mr. Rothman at Fox, last month joined Sony as president of an international film and television operation whose focus on foreign co-productions could add to Sony’s growing list of brands. Whether a new chief will be hired for the unit is yet to be settled. According to people briefed on the matter, Mr. Rothman recently failed in an attempt, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, to lure Elizabeth Gabler to TriStar from her post in charge of Fox 2000, a similarly distinct brand at 20th Century Fox. The challenge for Sony’s various units will be to carve out identities without piling up staff and overhead expense. In the past, cost became an issue at TriStar, which evolved from an independent company formed by Columbia Pictures, HBO and CBS in 1982 to become a full-blown sister studio to Columbia under Sony’s ownership. In TriStar’s heyday under Mike Medavoy, who ran it for Sony in the 1990s, the unit was known for sophisticated, star-driven films like “Bugsy,” “Philadelphia” and “Sleepless in Seattle.” But TriStar was ultimately stripped of its major studio status under a low-cost strategy that found it focused, among other things, on smaller, faith-based productions like the coming “War Room,” a holdover from the pre-Rothman era. While TriStar has begun edging back toward a broad adult audience under Mr. Rothman, it will most likely remain a small operation. It has only about 10 employees, and Sony’s overall motion picture group continues to market and distribute the unit’s movies. Those will have to be as striking as TriStar’s winged horse logo — or as Mr. Zemeckis’s dizzying walk in the clouds — if the studio is to become identified as a surefire crowd pleaser. Otherwise, Mr. Rice said, “I just don’t think the consumer cares.”

Sony Pictures
Movies
Amy Pascal
TriStar Productions
Thomas E. Rothman
Hacker (computer security)
Appointments and Executive Changes


Carmakers Trim Discounts as Supply and Demand Lift Prices

Abstract: DETROIT — The average price for a new car in the United States is edging toward $30,000, as automakers remain stingy with discounts and there just are not enough of the most popular vehicles available. Though the average price remains below historic highs when adjusted for inflation, nominally it has never been so high, according to the auto-research site TrueCar.com . That concerns some car company executives, who fear that the industry’s recent comeback could be stalled if buyers start experiencing sticker shock. And early sales data for this month are not encouraging: Retail sales of new vehicles are projected to total about 850,000 in May, according to J. D. Power & Associates. That translates to an annual seasonally adjusted selling rate of about 9.6 million units, a significant drop-off from the 10.7 million rate achieved from January through April. The data exclude sales to rental car and other fleets. “You’ve got to figure out that sweet spot where you offer just enough incentives to get people to buy your cars without sacrificing profitability,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends at TrueCar. Several factors account for the rising prices. Because there are more new models on the market than in recent years, automakers need fewer incentives to lure consumers into the showrooms. The earthquake in Japan has also caused shortages of some cars and crossover vehicles built there by Toyota, Honda and Nissan, which has driven the prices up on the limited inventory in stock. Car companies are also commanding better prices for their small cars because of added features like entertainment systems and heated seats. Consumers are increasingly paying more to get upscale options on smaller cars that were once primarily bare-bones purchases. “On a dollar basis, they’re paying more, but they’re getting a whole lot more car than in the past,” said Mr. Toprak. The average transaction price for a new vehicle in the United States, including rebates and other incentives, reached $29,602 in April, according to TrueCar.com. That figure represented an increase of $324 over March. But automakers are not necessarily getting greedy, industry analysts said. Some of the increases are going toward covering higher material costs, and the companies are also taking advantage of strong demand. General Motors, for example, is running short on supply of its Chevrolet Cruze compact car, and the Ford Motor Company is low on inventories of its Focus sedan and Explorer S.U.V. Some of the biggest year-over-year price increases are found on revamped, hot-selling models like Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and Honda’s Odyssey minivan. “The pricing is more of a symptom of lack of supply than anything else,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s head of global sales marketing. “But it is affecting the industry’s volumes.” Ford and Toyota announced across-the-board price increases this year on their 2011 models. Ford said it would raise prices by an average of $117, or 0.4 percent, while Toyota said it would lift prices by about 1.7 percent on many of its Toyota, Lexus and Scion models. G.M. has said it will charge more for many of its vehicles, by an average of $123. But the increases are only part of the equation. Overall discounts and sales incentives fell to their lowest levels in five years in April, according to the automotive site Edmunds.com . Incentives averaged about $2,320 per vehicle in April, a $370 reduction from the period a year earlier. Some of the reduction is attributed to sales programs that expired and were not renewed. Japanese carmakers have also pulled back incentives because of the earthquake-related shortages, and the American companies have followed suit. “Our incentive strategy is based on the competitive environment,” said Mr. Farley. “There’s been a drastic change because stocks have been depleted and we’re launching a lot of new products that don’t require incentives to sell.” Automakers always try to balance the need for incentives against consumers’ demand. But if companies pull back too far on discounts, some potential shoppers will simply wait until the next deals are announced. The American automakers are not as reliant on heavy incentives as in years past, mostly because the companies closed dozens of factories to bring their production in better balance with their market shares. They also have little reason to pile on discounts when their Japanese competitors have cut incentives so drastically. “Putting incentives on cars you don’t have doesn’t make sense,” said Neale A. Kuperman, president of Rockland Toyota in Blauvelt, N.Y. Mr. Kuperman said he usually sold up to 20 Prius gas-electric hybrid cars each month, but so far in May has only sold six. His overall dealership sales volumes are down about 50 percent because of inventory shortages. There are no discounts available on many models because of supply constraints, he said. “As much as everybody likes to think that we set the prices, the market dictates it,” said Mr. Kuperman. “When there’s less of a supply, the prices tend to go up. When there’s more, the prices go down.” J. D. Powers’s executive director of forecasting, Jeff Schuster, said the lower sales so far in May could be attributed partly to higher transaction prices, as well as rising fuel costs and inventory shortages. With fleet sales included, the annual selling rate for May so far is about 11.9 million vehicles, compared with a 13.2 million rate for the previous four months combined. Even with the sales drop, Mr. Schuster said that vehicle prices, without incentives, had risen about 1.6 percent in May from April. “It makes for better margins for the automakers, but on potentially lower volumes,” he said.

Automobiles
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


Seahawks Are Seeded 6th, but Invoking Fear Like a No. 1

Abstract: The Seahawks have finished the season as the sixth and lowest seed in the N.F.C. playoffs ; they must travel to Minnesota for the first round, and will not get a home game no matter how far they advance. But looking past their lowly seeding, the Seahawks have the potential to be an extremely dangerous team. Seattle stumbled out of the gate at 2-4 this season. But two of the losses came in overtime, and the others were by 4 and 10 points. Image Credit Ted S. Warren/Associated Press Since then they are 8-2, capped by a 36-6 blowout of the second-seeded Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. Seattle’s numbers do not look like those of a typical sixth seed. Russell Wilson finished the year with the top passer rating in the league, and continues to be an elite rusher. Doug Baldwin caught 14 touchdown passes to tie for the league lead. The third-round pick Tyler Lockett led in combined return yards. (Though he is out for the season with a broken ankle, the undrafted rookie running back Thomas Rawls also ranked first in the league in yards per rush.) As a team , Seattle was fourth in the league in net yards per pass attempt and fifth in yards per play. The possible return of the star back Marshawn Lynch from injury should only make the Seahawks more formidable in the playoffs. The defense, with a league-leading five Pro Bowlers — end Michael Bennett, linebacker Bobby Wagner, cornerback Richard Sherman and safeties Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas — may be even better: It ranked first in points allowed, and second in yards allowed per play. Computer rankings love the Seahawks. Jeff Sagarin ranks them first in the N.F.L. , while the Simple Rating System at pro-football-reference.com has them second behind the Cardinals, whom they just routed. In the first round, the Seahawks must travel to Minnesota, who at 11-5 won one more game than Seattle. Yet as of Monday, the Seahawks are a 5 ½-point favorite on Sunday, the biggest spread of the round . Oddsmakers are bullish on all of the lower seeds this weekend. The sixth-seeded Steelers, who needed help from the Jets to sneak into the playoffs, are favored by 2 ½ points over the Bengals, who won the A.F.C. North by two games. The main reason is the uncertainty over Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton’s thumb injury. The fifth-seeded Chiefs, who ripped off 10 straight wins after starting the season 1-5, are 3-point favorites on the road against the Texans, who won the A.F.C. South with a 9-7 record. The Packers are only 1-point underdogs at Washington, which also won a weak division at 9-7. Though playing at home is a clear advantage in the N.F.L., as in all sports, home teams have not dominated the wild-card round in the playoffs: Their record during the past 10 years is just 23-17. One factor is that many wild cards, who must play on the road, are substantially better than the weaker division winners that they visit, like the Texans and the Redskins this year. Despite the oddsmakers’ love for the Seahawks, they are still only the fourth or fifth favorite to win the Super Bowl, because winning three road games is a lot harder path than the two home games potentially facing the Panthers and the Broncos. Still, with its potent offense and stingy defense, Seattle is clearly the one team no higher-seeded team wants to face this year.

Seahawks
Playoffs
Russell Wilson
Doug Baldwin
Richard Sherman
Football


Emerson Etem’s Hockey Odyssey Comes Full Circle in Kings-Ducks Series

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — While most hockey players have childhood tales of skating on icy ponds and frozen toes, Anaheim Ducks forward Emerson Etem reminisces about surfing along sandy beaches and wolfing down In-N-Out burgers. Etem’s hockey odyssey took him from his native Long Beach, Calif., to Minnesota, Michigan, Alberta and Virginia and then back to Southern California. He is the only player from that region in the playoff series between his Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings, the teams’ first. “I feel like I’ve represented California wherever I go,” said Etem, 21, who grew up following the Kings’ Adam Deadmarsh and Ziggy Palffy. “I grew up a Kings fan. It’s actually a dream come true playing them in a series.” Etem is also one of the few African-American players in the N.H.L. this season. His father, Rick, who is white, and his mother, Pat, who is black, were collegiate rowers, and Pat qualified for two United States Olympic teams, competing at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. But their son found his purpose at rinks, in-line skating at a Y.M.C.A. at age 3 and then switching to ice hockey a couple of years later. At 13, he met Eustace King, his agent and mentor and a former collegiate hockey player and N.H.L. executive, and the Venice Beach fitness guru T. R. Goodman. Etem’s journey to Goodman’s three-hour workouts was almost as long and grueling as the training sessions themselves. Before he could skate from blue line to red line to blue line, he had to transfer from the blue-line train to the green-line train to the big blue bus in Los Angeles’s public transportation system. There were also several miles of in-line skating packed into the trip, which took more than two hours each way. Still, Etem quickly found himself moving past his peers and working alongside N.H.L. All-Stars like Rob Blake and Chris Chelios. At 14, Etem left home for Shattuck-St. Mary’s School, about 50 miles south of Minneapolis, where stars like Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and Zach Parise cut their teeth. Etem then went to Ann Arbor, Mich., to play with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. After one year there, Etem left to pursue an even higher level of competition in the Western Hockey League, in which he had a league-leading 61 goals in 65 games in his final season (2011-12). He drew the attention of the Ducks, who selected him 29th over all in the 2010 draft, which was held, fittingly, at Staples Center in Los Angeles. King, Etem’s agent, said he relocated to Los Angeles to take advantage of a growing, widely overlooked pool of hockey talent. Image When he was younger, Etem skated at a rink in Lakewood, Calif., where Ernesto Corrales operated a Zamboni recently. Credit Alex Goodlett for The New York Times “The players are getting better,” King said. “They’re developing here, and because some of them are leaving Southern Cal and going to Shattuck or major junior, they’ve been able to be viewed in different formats — that allowed for the masses to see them.” Another of King’s California-grown talents, Beau Bennett, went nine spots ahead of Etem in the draft, making him the highest-picked player from the state in N.H.L. history. He had a goal and four assists for the Pittsburgh Penguins this postseason entering Wednesday. The next year, 2011, Etem’s childhood friend Matt Nieto, a Mexican-American from Long Beach, was drafted in the second round by the San Jose Sharks. Etem and Nieto met on the roller rink at age 3 and began excelling on a national stage together later in their childhood. “There were tournaments in Chicago and Minneapolis, all these hockey cities,” said Nieto, who had two goals and three assists in San Jose’s first-round series against the Kings. “People didn’t know about us at all, and I’m sure they were thinking, ‘Who the hell is this team from California?’ “We had a great team with a lot of guys that are still playing today. We kind of took everybody by surprise because we’d to go these tournaments and win.” Etem gained prominence as a rookie last season in Anaheim’s first-round loss to the Detroit Red Wings. Over the series, he earned increased playing time and Coach Bruce Boudreau’s trust, to the point that he was on the ice as Anaheim pressed to send Game 7 into overtime. In the process, Etem impressed fans and teammates with his speed and creativity. “When Emmer takes off, he can be four or five strides behind the guy and just push right by him,” said Ottawa Senators forward Bobby Ryan, who trains in Los Angeles and played with Anaheim last season. “He’s so explosive. I haven’t seen anybody that quick.” Etem, a victim of the Ducks’ formidable depth, spent most of this season with the American Hockey League’s Norfolk Admirals. But he has emerged again during the postseason. He plays on a line with Nick Bonino and his longtime friend Devante Smith-Pelly. They were together for Game 2, except for a stretch in the third period when Etem was promoted to the top line, alongside the 2011 Hart Trophy winner, Corey Perry, and the 2014 Hart finalist Ryan Getzlaf. The Ducks, the top seed in the Western Conference, trail the Kings, two games to none, with the series moving to Los Angeles on Thursday for Game 3. Anaheim is trying to match its run to the Stanley Cup in 2007, when Getzlaf and Perry were young players. “You look at how they stepped up in those certain moments, that gives us confidence as young guys, just knowing they were in the same position and what they’re doing now,” Etem said.

Emerson Etem
Anaheim Ducks
Los Angeles Kings
Ice hockey


After Standing by N.H.L., NBC and Versus Agree to 10-Year Deal

Abstract: Six years ago, the N.H.L. was emerging from a season-long lockout and looked like a bit like a TV orphan. It was spurned by ESPN as a sport that was losing its value and its zest. NBC was its broadcast partner, but instead of paying cash, it was sharing revenue with the league. The Versus channel, owned by Comcast, was paying close to $70 million annually, just over half of what ESPN had paid during the five years before the lockout. Both NBC and Versus stuck by the league and renewed their initial deals — and recently were bonded to each other through Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal . The merger turned out to be fortunate for the league. On Tuesday, the networks announced a 10-year deal to pay the league $1.9 billion, the bulk of which will be paid by Versus, which gets most of its revenue from subscriber fees. NBC will pay the league a cash fee for the first time. Gary Bettman , the N.H.L. commissioner, said that as he watched Comcast take over NBC Universal, he felt that his league “could perhaps be the single biggest beneficiary of the synergies of that these two great companies could bring together — the 20 networks, the 40 digital platforms.” At an average $190 million annually, the N.H.L. is more than doubling what Versus paid this season. The bidding also attracted to varying degrees Turner Sports, Fox (a former rights-holder), and ESPN — which offered about 15 to 20 percent less than NBC and Versus. The interest reflected the league’s attractiveness to young males; an 84 percent increase in national ratings the past four seasons; a 17 percent jump in Versus’s ratings this regular season and last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs being the most watched ever. ‘They’ve done a lot of good and smart things, like the Winter Classic, and their experimentation with the All-Star Game,” said John Skipper, the executive vice president for content at ESPN. “We think the value has appreciated and the sport has done very well. We like the people over there.” The NBC-Versus unification under Comcast — the country’s largest cable operator and the parent of numerous regional sports networks, the Golf Channel, and others — seems to have eased concerns that the N.H.L. had to find its way to back to ESPN, where it could be featured more often on “SportsCenter.” Bettman said, “I think everybody has enormous respect for ESPN but six years ago we decided to go in a different direction for a variety of reasons and we believe it’s worked out well for us.” To help the package pay off, Versus will carry 90 games exclusively in the regular season, up from about 50. Exclusive games are worth more to advertisers. And up to 24 of the possible 28 conference semifinal games will now be exclusive to Versus, ending their availability on regional sports networks like MSG. The other four games will be on NBC. “We have the market power we need, for Madison Avenue for advertising,” said Dick Ebersol, the chairman of the NBC Sports Group. If there are scheduling conflicts, some playoff games before the Stanley Cup finals could be seen on other networks within the NBC Sports Group. Ebersol would not say which channels are being considered. The N.H.L. deal comes about six weeks before networks will gather in Lausanne, Switzerland, to bid for the media rights to the Olympics beyond 2012. Networks can bid on two or four Olympics. Under General Electric ownership, NBC became the dominant Olympic network. It has carried every Summer and Winter Games since 2000; it lost $223 million on the broadcast of its most recent Olympics, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Now, with new ownership, NBC is facing competition that includes ESPN and Fox, which it faced in 2003 when it outspent them for the rights to broadcast the 2010 Winter and 2012 Summer games. While not commenting on the coming Olympic bid, Ebersol said Brian Roberts, the chief executive of Comcast, and Stephen B. Burke, the chief executive of NBC Universal, “are looking to make sure that every aspect has been evaluated, that we’re going to make money. I don’t ever believe that I’m ever going to be let out of the building unless we can show them we’re going to make money.” Versus will be a part of the group of networks in NBC’s Olympic bid. By the time the bidding starts, Versus might have a new name that will almost certainly include NBC in it. That will be the channel’s latest name; once the Outdoor Life Network, it became OLN, which became Versus.

Versus
NBC Universal
Television
National Hockey League
National Broadcasting Co
Hockey Ice
Cable Television
Bettman Gary


Akin Refuses to Step Down, Defying Party

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Representative Todd Akin on Tuesday ignored a deadline to abandon Missouri’s Senate race and vowed to remain the Republican nominee in defiance of his party’s leaders, including the presidential standard-bearer, Mitt Romney. “I believe the defense of the unborn and a deep respect for life, which underlie all of America, those are important parts of who we are. And they’re not things to run away from,” Mr. Akin said on the radio program hosted by Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor. Mr. Akin touched off a firestorm of criticism after he said in a television interview on Sunday that in instances of what he called “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies somehow blocked an unwanted pregnancy. The congressman’s decision to remain in the race against Claire McCaskill, the incumbent Democratic senator, came the same day the Republican Party ’s platform committee endorsed a constitutional ban on abortion that does not include an explicit exception for rape. Less than a week before the national party gathers in Tampa, Fla., to formally nominate Mr. Romney as its presidential candidate, the national conversation has turned sharply to the kind of social issues the party has tried to avoid. Mr. Akin is no stranger to incendiary comments. “We can’t run from our shadows every time someone says ‘abortion,’ ” he told Dana Loesch, a conservative talk radio host, on Tuesday. For months, Mr. Romney has struggled to stay focused on the economy while trying to narrow a deficit that polls show he has with women in the presidential race. But the week’s events have set back that effort and ensured a media spotlight for Mr. Akin and his ardent supporters in the social conservative movement. The Akin showdown has raised fears among Republicans that they could fall short of winning control of the Senate and has magnified the schism within the party between activists nationwide still driven by core conservative values and party leaders in Washington, who are wooing independents and Democrats concerned about the struggling economy. While virtually the entire party apparatus in Washington and a lineup of former Republican senators from Missouri turned on him, Mr. Akin rallied support among grass-roots voters, and he said that would propel him to victory. Ione Dines, 72, from Marshfield, Mo., a Republican activist for 45 years and a Missouri state committee member since about 2006, said she was “just devastated” by her party’s actions. “I am so disappointed in our national and our state committee when we throw our own under the bus,” she said. Party leaders remained just as resolute in their demands for Mr. Akin to leave the race. Mr. Romney ramped up his appeal, saying, “Today, his fellow Missourians urged him to step aside, and I think he should accept their counsel and exit the Senate race.” Both Karl Rove, co-founder of the deep-pocketed Republican group Crossroads GPS, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee made clear they would withhold support for his candidacy, even though a loss in Missouri could jeopardize any chance Republicans had for capturing the Senate. “By staying in this race, Congressman Akin is putting at great risk many of the issues that he and others in the Republican Party are fighting for,” said Brian Walsh, a Senate campaign committee spokesman. The political repercussions of Mr. Akin’s decision are still unclear, but a race that Republicans need to win and thought they had sewn up had clearly shifted. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday flatly declared Mr. Akin “unelectable.” But the Rothenberg Political Report , also nonpartisan, was more cautious, moving its evaluation of the race from tilting Republican to a pure tossup. The Rothenberg report had been prepared to declare the race firmly leaning Republican, had one of Mr. Akin’s rivals in the Aug. 7 primary, former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman and John Brunner, a businessman, won the nomination, said Stuart Rothenberg, the report’s editor. Mr. Rothenberg said Mr. Akin would have trouble raising campaign money and appealing to swing voters. But “more than anything else, we thought, ‘We’re in the middle of firestorm.’ We want to wait to see what it looks like in a couple of weeks.” Mr. Akin found support among anti-abortion activists and Christian conservatives, in Missouri and around the country. “Missouri Right to Life supports Congressman Akin’s defense of the life of an innocent unborn child conceived by rape,” declared Pam Fichter, president of the group’s political action committee. “No one is speaking up on his behalf — this is a travesty,” said Rick Mathes, executive director of the Mission Gate Prison Ministry in Chesterfield, Mo., and an acquaintance of Mr. Akin’s. “With all this negative publicity, it’ll have a reverse spin, just watch. More people will be getting out to vote for him.” In the radio interview with Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Akin cast himself as “Braveheart,” pilloried for “one word and one sentence on one day” by a cowardly establishment. But for an increasing number of Republicans, that one word — “legitimate” — in that one sentence, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” was too much to bear. Roy Blunt, Missouri’s Republican senator, spoke personally with Mr. Akin. Then when his appeals got nowhere, he helped organize a joint statement from himself and four former Missouri Republican senators: John Ashcroft, John C. Danforth, Christopher S. Bond and Jim Talent. “We do not believe it serves the national interest for Congressman Todd Akin to stay in this race,” it said. “The issues at stake are too big, and this election is simply too important.” More Republicans piled on, including several senators Mr. Akin hopes to join as colleagues: Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine all called for him to step aside. But the national party’s public pressure campaign rankled some Republicans in Missouri. Violet Corbett, chair of the Johnson County Republican Central Committee and a member of the Republican State Committee, said she surveyed her county’s central committee on Monday night. The outcome: 31 people wanted Mr. Akin to leave the race; 2 wanted him to stay. But by Tuesday, she had begun getting phone calls from fellow Republicans in the state who seemed put off by so much pressure from Washington. “They don’t know why we should be letting national tell us what to do here in Missouri,” she said. Mr. Akin also received some support from his Democratic opponent, Ms. McCaskill, who used a round of advertisements in the last days of the Republican primary campaign to attack his opponents and boost his image. Amid the calls for him to step aside, she told a St. Louis television station it would be a “radical thing” for the national party “to try to force someone who had won an election honestly off the ballot just because you think you want to pick another candidate.” Mr. Akin released an advertisement asking the voters of Missouri to forgive him for saying “legitimate rape” does not lead to pregnancy. “Rape is an evil act,” the congressman said, speaking directly to the camera. “I used the wrong words in the wrong way, and for that I apologize.” Republican Party officials had hoped to push Mr. Akin out by the first deadline, set by Missouri law, at 5 p.m. on Tuesday but it passed with him taking no action. The candidate can still take his name off the ballot up to Sept. 25, but the withdrawal could be contested by Missouri’s secretary of state, a Democrat, or any election authority in the state, even one at the city or county level. That is a fight Republicans want to avoid.

Missouri
Senate
Republican Party
Abortion
Akin Todd
Sex Crimes