Gaps in F.B.I. Data Undercut Background Checks for Guns

Abstract: CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Nearly two decades after lawmakers began requiring background checks for gun buyers, significant gaps in the F.B.I. ’s database of criminal and mental health records allow thousands of people to buy firearms every year who should be barred from doing so. The database is incomplete because many states have not provided federal authorities with comprehensive records of people involuntarily committed or otherwise ruled mentally ill. Records are also spotty for several other categories of prohibited buyers, including those who have tested positive for illegal drugs or have a history of domestic violence. While some states, including New York, have submitted more than 100,000 names of mentally ill people to the F.B.I. database, 19 — including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maryland and Maine — have submitted fewer than 100 records and Rhode Island has submitted none, according to federal data compiled by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. That suggests that millions of names are missing from the federal database, gun control advocates and law enforcement officials say. “Until it has all the records of people out there in the country who have been deemed too dangerous to own a firearm, the background check system still looks like Swiss cheese,” said Mark Glaze, director of the group. The gaps exist because the system is voluntary; the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the federal government cannot force state officials to participate in the federal background check system. As a result, when a gun dealer asks the F.B.I. to check a buyer’s history, the bureau sometimes allows the sale to proceed, even though the purchaser should have been prohibited from acquiring a weapon, because its database is missing the relevant records. While the database flaws do not appear to have been a factor in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, they have been linked to other attacks, including the Virginia Tech mass murder in 2007. In that case, a Virginia state judge had declared the gunman mentally ill, but the record of that proceeding was not submitted to the F.B.I. He was able to pass a background check and buy the weapons he used to kill 32 people and wound 17 others. Since then, Virginia has increased its submissions to the F.B.I. But other states have not taken similar steps because of lack of political will, technical obstacles and state privacy laws, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which conducted a survey of states last year about their compliance. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York is a co-chairman of the group. A July report by the Government Accountability Office , the nonpartisan Congressional watchdog, found that the total number of mental health records submitted by states to the background check system increased to 1.2 million from about 126,000 between 2004 and 2011, but that the increase largely reflected the efforts of just 12 states. And, it found, 30 states were not making noncriminal records — like positive drug test results for people on probation — available to the system. Charles H. Ramsey, the police commissioner in Philadelphia, said the system needed to be strengthened immediately. “There is a lot of data sitting in different places, and we need to be able to access it in a timely fashion,” he said. “It ought to be a top priority now.” The gaps in the database have exacerbated the effect of a loophole that results in violent felons, fugitives and the mentally ill being able to buy firearms when the F.B.I. cannot determine the person’s history during a three-day waiting period. Roughly 97 percent of the time, specialists said, the F.B.I. can provide an instant answer, but sometimes an ambiguity — an arrest record that does not say whether someone was convicted, or a common name — requires calling local courthouses to track down the information. That can cause delays as local officials search through records, some of which are not yet digitized, law enforcement officials said. If the F.B.I. investigation is not completed within the waiting period, would-be gun buyers are permitted to go ahead. Since 2005, 22,162 firearms — including nearly 3,000 this year — have been bought after the waiting period by people later determined to have been disqualified because of their criminal and mental histories, according to an examination of F.B.I. data. Some of the weapons were used in violent crimes, including a fatal drive-by shooting, but it is not clear how many were linked to criminal acts, because authorities are barred by Congress from tracking such information. Many of the guns were not swiftly confiscated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives , as federal law requires, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials and government documents. It could take weeks or months to collect them, if ever, the officials said, because the agency is too thinly stretched to make retrieval a high priority. The bureau and several of its agents said in interviews that they focused on trying to recover firearms from felons who had recently committed a violent crime or were under a restraining order. But Scot Thomasson, a former chief of the A.T.F.’s firearms operations division who retired this year, said that Congress, facing pressure from gun lobbyists, had made it hard for the agency to do its job by restricting its funding, forcing tough decisions. “If you are an agent and are hot on the trail of a guy who killed a lot of people,” he said, “you are not going to turn around and work on one of these cases.” Some gun shops say they sell to buyers who have not been cleared in the three-day window, including Bass Pro Shops, which has 58 stores in the United States. “We follow the law,” said Larry L. Whiteley, a spokesman. But if a buyer is “jittery or acting funny,” he said, “we won’t sell them the firearm.” Other businesses — including the country’s largest gun dealer, Walmart — say they do not sell firearms to buyers if the F.B.I. has not responded in the three-day window. Dennis Pratte, owner of the NOVA weapons store in Falls Church, Va., said, “We are just as concerned about firearms getting into the wrong hands as the state police or the F.B.I.” After the school shooting in Newtown , in which 20 first graders and six adults were killed, pressure has mounted on President Obama and lawmakers to strengthen federal gun laws. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. would lead a task force to propose ways to limit sales of assault weapons and close loopholes. That probably will focus attention on the F.B.I.’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system, which was required by the 1993 Brady background-check law. At an office building in Clarksburg, W.Va., servers and backup drives hum in a huge basement. Upstairs, workers with headsets sit in cubicles, taking calls from gun dealers across the country. In 2012, about 17 million background checks have been done through the F.B.I.’s system. The background check requirements apply only to licensed dealers, not the private sellers who account for an estimated 40 percent of sales. Restrictions imposed by Congress on government tracking of firearms make it hard to know exactly how many weapons are sold each year, but according to the A.T.F. , more than five million firearms are manufactured each year for sale in the United States, and about three million more such weapons are imported. Those numbers do not account for the sale of used guns. After the Virginia Tech shooting, Congress enacted a law designed to improve the background check system, including directing federal agencies to share relevant data with the F.B.I. and setting up a special grant program to encourage states to share more information with the federal government. But only states that also set up a system for people to petition to get their gun purchasing rights restored were eligible under the law — a key concession to the National Rifle Association — which proved to be an extra hurdle many states have not yet overcome. While the law also allowed the Justice Department to withhold some general law enforcement grant money from states that did not submit their records to the system, the department has not imposed any such penalties, the G.A.O. found. After the January 2011 mass shooting in Tucson that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords seriously wounded, the Justice Department developed a blueprint to close the holes in the background check system , including steps that could be taken by executive order and not require Congressional action. But the recommendations were largely shelved at the time because the political atmosphere was deeply hostile to new gun control steps. Lawmakers and groups for gun control have pushed a bill called the Fix Gun Checks Act , co-sponsored by Representative Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Charles E. Schumer, both New York Democrats, to resolve many of the problems. Their proposals, however, have faced stiff opposition from gun rights advocates. This week, Ms. McCarthy, whose husband died in a mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road 19 years ago, called for her legislation to move, saying the Newtown schoolchildren massacre had changed the political environment . “There’s always sadness after a mass shooting — there’s public mourning,” she said. “But this time I’m also seeing a lot of anger. Anger from people fed up with gun violence in America. Anger from people fed up with the gun lobby’s tactics in Washington. And anger from people fed up with the lack of courage that too many of the politicians here have.”

Firearms
Gun Control
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Mental Health and Disorders
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms
Tucson Shooting (2011)
Newtown Conn Shooting (2012)
Law and Legislation


Home Sales Fell Sharply in November

Abstract: Home sales plunged last month, and housing prices fell at their fastest rate in 40 years, the latest indication that America’s battered housing market will continue to struggle in a rapidly deteriorating economy. Sales of previously owned homes, which make up most of the market, declined 8.6 percent in November, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.49 million, according to the National Association of Realtors , a trade group. The median price of a home fell 13 percent in November, to $181,300 from $208,800 a year ago, its lowest point since February 2004. “It’s probably the largest price drop since the Great Depression ,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. The troubles plaguing the housing market, which are at the heart of America’s financial crisis , are only multiplying as the recession deepens and a spiral of rising unemployment, lower wages and economic uncertainty gathers force. “Housing dragged down the markets this summer,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. “Now it’s the economy and financial markets that are dragging down housing.” Sales of single-family homes dropped 8 percent from October to November while the sales of condominiums and co-operatives fell even more, 13 percent, the Realtors association reported. Home sales declined across the country, but were the steepest in the Northeast, where they dropped 12 percent in November. The pool of unsold homes grew slightly to 4.2 million last month. At the current sales rate, it would take 11.2 months to sell the excess inventory, an increase from the 10.3 months of supply in October. Housing values have plummeted since the peak of the market in July 2006, when the median home price hit $230,200. The median price in November was down 21 percent from the 2006 level as sales declined, credit dried up and a flood of foreclosed homes hit the market. Economists expected home values to decline through the first six months of 2009. Joshua Shapiro, the chief United States economist at MFR, said some parts of the country might be only halfway through a retrenchment. “Home sales haven’t come down to prices that clear the market, given the size of the bubble that preceded this,” Mr. Shapiro said. “You need to have a correction, you need to have an adjustment.” The Federal Reserve has tried to bolster housing by lowering its interest rate target to record lows and promising to buy billions of dollars of mortgage-backed debt. Mortgage rates have fallen as a result, but economists said that many buyers might not get back into the market until the rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage drop to 4.5 percent from the current 5.3 percent. The Commerce Department also reported Tuesday that new-home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 407,000 in November, from a downwardly revised rate of 419,000 in October. The median price of a new home sold in November was $220,400, down 11.5 percent from the period a year ago. Many homes that were sold were done so by owners forced to sell. Mr. Yun, the economist with the Realtors association, said that about 45 percent of all sales in November were distressed sales in which the sellers faced foreclosure or had to sell their homes for less than the value of the mortgage. Those sales were especially pronounced in regions hit hardest by the housing collapse. In parts of Southern California, more than half of all houses sold in November had gone through foreclosure at some point in the last 12 months, according to MDA DataQuick, a real estate research firm. In the Las Vegas metropolitan area, that figure was 71 percent. “Outside of distressed properties, the market is nonexistent almost,” Frederick Cannon, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said of the California market. “You don’t want to sell into it. Most people are saying, ‘I’ll just stay in this house.’ ” A real estate agent in Riverside County in California, Gary Crutchley, said that he had sold six homes in the last four months. Three were foreclosure sales, two were “short sales,” in which homeowners sold to avoid foreclosure, and one was a traditional sale — to a couple that had saved their money and were looking to buy into a distressed market. “They’re few and far between,” Mr. Crutchley said. Investors who seemed to initially take Tuesday’s economic news in stride sold late in the day. Stock markets closed lower ahead of a shortened trading session on Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 100.28 points, or 1.2 percent, to 8,419.49, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 8.47 points, or 0.97 percent, to 863.16. The Nasdaq composite index declined 10.81 points, to 1,521.54. On Tuesday, the Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product , the broadest measure of the economy, declined at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter as corporate profits fell 1.2 percent. And the Reuters/University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment rose to 60.1 in December, up from 55.3 in November. The Treasury’s 10-year note fell 15/32, to 113 31/32. The yield, which moves in the opposite direction from the price, was unchanged at 2.17 percent. Following are the results of Tuesday’s Treasury auction of four-week bills and five-year notes:

Mortgages
United States Economy
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Consumer Behavior
National Assn of Realtors


More Arrows Seen Pointing to a Recession

Abstract: The American economy expanded more slowly than expected from April to June, the government reported Thursday, while numbers for the last three months of 2007 were revised downward to show a contraction — the first official slide backward since the last recession in 2001. Economists construed the tepid growth in the second quarter, combined with a surge in claims for unemployment benefits, as a clear indication that the economy remains mired in the weeds of a downturn. Many said the data increased the likelihood that a recession began late last year. The next major piece of data comes Friday, when the government is to release its monthly snapshot of the job market. Analysts expect the report to show a loss of 75,000 jobs, signifying the seventh straight month of declines. “We already knew the economy was weak, and now you have both a negative growth number coupled with job losses,” said Dean Baker, a director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. “There’s a lot of real bad times to come.” President Bush zeroed in on the positive growth in the second quarter — a 1.9 percent annual rate of expansion, compared with an anticipated 2.3 percent rate. That follows growth of 0.9 percent in the first quarter. He claimed success for the $100 billion in tax rebates sent out by the government this year in a bid to spur spending, along with $52 billion in tax cuts for businesses. “We got some positive news today,” the president said in West Virginia, addressing a coal industry trade association. “It’s not as good as we’d like it to be but I want to remind you a few months ago, there were predictions, and — that the economy would shrink this quarter, not grow.” But the snapshot of disappointing economic growth released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday morning provided no comfort to Wall Street, where a broad sell-off commenced. By the end of business, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 206 points to close at 11,378, a drop of nearly 2 percent. The rout may have been explained in part by significant changes the government made to historical data on the profitability of American businesses. According to the revised numbers, corporate profits earned in the United States by American companies rose much more swiftly than previously recorded from 2005 through 2007, making the recent decline appear much steeper. That the economy grew at all this spring is a testament to two bright spots — increased consumer spending fueled by the tax rebates, and the continuing expansion of American exports. Consumer spending, which amounts to 70 percent of the economy, grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate between April and June, after growing at a meager 0.9 percent clip in the previous quarter. “Clearly the tax rebates did give some oomph to the economy,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG. Exports expanded at a 9.2 percent annual pace in the second quarter, up from 5.1 percent in the first three months of the year. Foreign sales have been lubricated by the weak dollar, which makes American-made goods cheaper on world markets. Adding to the improving trade picture, imports dropped by 6.6 percent, as Americans tightened their spending. Imports are subtracted from economic growth, so the effect was positive. Over all, trade added 2.42 percentage points to the growth rate from April to June. Without that contribution, the economy would have contracted. But many economists are dubious that consumer spending and exports can keep growing robustly in the face of substantial challenges that are now entrenched in the United States and are gathering force in many other major economies. Japan and much of Europe appear headed into downturns, damping demand for American-made products. “The trade improvement doesn’t look sustainable,” said Jan Hatzius, an economist at Goldman Sachs in New York. “In an environment where the global economy is clearly slowing, you’re not being able to get that export growth in future quarters.” Economists said the sharp drop in imports was largely a function of retailers delaying wholesale purchases in the midst of acute fears about declining American spending power — a dynamic that will eventually give way to new spending. “This reflects sheer panic by retailers about what the next Christmas buying season is going to look like,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com . The tax rebates have mostly been distributed. While the checks appear to have bolstered spending, they have failed to generate activity that is likely to carry on even after the cash has cycled through the economy, say economists. “They slowed the downturn, but it’s clear they didn’t really provide any spark,” Mr. Baker said. Employers have not hired much, even as shopping has picked up, cognizant that the rebate checks are a one-time event. Businesses have not shelled out for new machinery. Indeed, investment for equipment fell 3.4 percent in the spring months, dropping for the second consecutive quarter. Rather than stockpile more goods, businesses generally tried to sell what they already had on hand. Business inventories declined in the second quarter by $62 billion, a factor that shaved nearly 2 percent off the overall rate of economic growth. As the impact of the rebate checks continues to wear off in the coming weeks, households will be left confronting the same set of troubles that have been dragging on the economy for many months: a deteriorating job market, rising prices for food and gas and plummeting housing values. Tens of millions of Americans have in recent years borrowed aggressively against the value of their homes to finance trips to the mall, dinners out, vacations and new cars. As housing values continue to fall, that artery of finance is rapidly constricting. Since last summer, when the mortgage crisis provoked panic on Wall Street and many Americans saw access to credit diminish, consumer spending on so-called durable goods like appliances, cars and furniture has been sliding. This spending barely grew in the last three months of 2007, fell at a 4.3 percent clip in the first three months of this year and dropped at a 3 percent pace in the second quarter. Meanwhile, joblessness is growing, with new unemployment claims filed in the week that ended July 26 swelling to 448,000 — up 44,000 from the previous week. And the purchasing power of wages is being eroded by higher prices for food and energy. Prices paid for goods by Americans surged at a 4.2 percent annual rate in the second quarter, after climbing at a 3.5 percent annual clip over the first three months of the year, according to the report on Thursday. Higher prices, fewer paychecks and less household wealth: It is not a recipe for free-spending abandon. “Now, consumers have to sing for their supper,” said Alan D. Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price Associates in Baltimore. “Spending growth is slowing and income growth is slowing.” Democrats in Congress have begun devising a second package of measures to stimulate the economy, centered on aid to struggling states. But the Bush administration has resisted such proposals, and the political stakes of a presidential election year make compromise especially tricky. The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates in recent months to encourage businesses to invest and households to spend. But with concern growing about high prices — a trend fueled by lower interest rates — the Fed may not be able to deliver another round, even if growth slows further. “Looking forward, I don’t think there’s anything to change the lousy trend for the domestic economy,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief domestic economist at MFR, a research firm. With the last three months of 2007 now officially revised down — from an initial 0.6 percent annual rate of growth to a 0.2 percent decline — many economists expect that these tough times will officially be declared a recession. That label is affixed by a panel of economists at a private research institution, the National Bureau of Economic Research, though typically well after the fact. President Bush derided such characterizations, along with the academic discipline known as the dismal science. “You can listen to these economists,” Mr. Bush said in West Virginia. “On the one hand, they’ll say, and then on the other hand. If they had three hands, it would be on the one hand, the second hand and the third hand.” But for many, the old debate about whether this is a recession has become purely academic, and eclipsed by the troubles at hand. “All my cousins already know it’s a recession,” said Mr. Barbera, the ITG economist. “They have the luxury of not having Ph.D.’s. The auto companies are in dire straits, the airlines have been shutting down flights and firing pilots. The truckers are in near hysteria because of the price of diesel. If you round up the usual suspects, this is a bad circumstance. And the word we usually use for a bad circumstance is a recession.”

United States Economy
Gross Domestic Product
Economic Conditions and Trends
Recession and Depression


Amid a Storm, Texas A&M Manages Expectations

Abstract: COLLEGE STATION, Tex. — The five-star quarterbacks are gone, replaced at Texas A&M by a graduate transfer student looking for a second chance. The hotshot young coordinator is out. A seasoned veteran assistant is now running Texas A&M’s offense. On the recruiting trail, yet another five-star passer has taken a pass on the Aggies, and the reaction one A&M assistant had to the news last week only made matters worse for Coach Kevin Sumlin’s program. The Aggies have lost some of the swagger that followed when Johnny Manziel took the Southeastern Conference by storm, Sumlin became a $5 million-per-year head coach and Texas A&M looked as if it could be a perennial threat to Alabama. Maybe that is good for a program and a coach in need of a trajectory change after three straight seasons of not being able to break .500 in conference play. Expectations will be modest for the Aggies in 2016, and that, more than anything else, might be what is needed in College Station. “Whatever that perception is, what is it compared to?” Sumlin said. “Because 36 in four years is the most anybody’s won here in 20 years. From a sheer numbers standpoint, the things that you quantify where your program’s headed, by the numbers, there’s no questions this program’s in better shape than when I took over. “Is it where we want it to be? No. But is it better based on the fact that we’re winning right at 70 percent of our games, and from 2000 to 2012 it was 50 percent?” Wins and losses seemed to be the least of Sumlin’s problems last December. In a matter of weeks, two former elite quarterback recruits — Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray — decided to transfer. Add in Kenny Hill, who left after the 2014 season, and three likely starting quarterbacks transferred out of A&M in less than a year. Image Texas A&M quarterbacks Kyle Allen (10) and Kenny Hill during the 2014 season. Both players have since transferred. Credit David J. Phillip/Associated Press “We’re not in the business of trying to run people out of here,” Sumlin said. The Aggies had to play a third-string quarterback, Jake Hubenak, in a loss to Louisville in the Music City Bowl. A few days later, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Jake Spavital was fired. Spavital was 27 when Sumlin hired him in 2013. It seemed as if a tempest was sweeping through Texas A&M football. On a warm, overcast April day in College Station, between meetings and spring practice, Sumlin said the winter upheaval had not been nearly as sudden as it had appeared from the outside. “The assessment of the program internally is probably different than what some people have,” Sumlin said. “And it’s always been that way here. Whether it’s the first year that I got here or this year.” High-powered offenses have followed Sumlin as he climbed the career ladder from co-offensive coordinator at Oklahoma to head coach at Houston and then Texas A&M. In 2012, Sumlin’s first season, the Aggies were second in the Football Bowl Subdivision in yards per play with Manziel, the Heisman Trophy winner, at quarterback. The next season, Texas A&M ranked fourth in the F.B.S. in yards per play. Manziel left after the 2013 season. The next season, A&M was 27th in yards per play, and last season, it ranked 69th. Sumlin turned to an old friend to help turn things around, hiring the U.C.L.A. offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone. Mazzone, 59, and Sumlin had worked together at Minnesota in the 1990s. Sumlin also brought back the offensive-line coach Jim Turner for a second stint at A&M. Sumlin used the word “experience” eight times when explaining why he had chosen Mazzone and Turner. “Better experience than old,” Mazzone said. “Kevin and I really grew up in this one-back world, and then he was the one that really turned me on to that tempo stuff. There was no doubt that it was an easy transition for him and I to be on the same page as far as what we want to be offensively.” Sumlin wants a more efficient and consistent running game. And he needs Trevor Knight, an Oklahoma transfer, to fill the void at quarterback. Knight looked like a potential star when he led the Sooners to a Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama in 2014. But he never had sustained success, throwing 17 interceptions in 490 career passes. Knight showed Sumlin and Mazzone enough in the spring to be named the starting quarterback over Hubenak. “Trevor, who has been a very mature guy, came in and really defused any notion about we’re in a so-called quarterback crisis,” Mazzone said. But the quarterback drama never seems to end at Texas A&M. The latest social media storm came last week when Tate Martell, a highly regarded recruit from Las Vegas, announced that he was backing away from a verbal commitment to the Aggies. What followed was a series of tweets from the A&M receivers coach Aaron Moorehead about a lack of loyalty and accountability that did not mention Martell but still prompted an apology the next day. Sumlin still even finds himself answering for his handling of Manziel as the quarterback deals with legal and personal problems as a pro. “All I know is that personally, and as a university and as a program, we did a lot to help Johnny Manziel,” Sumlin said. The 2016 Aggies will very likely be pegged to finish near the bottom of the SEC West. A 36-16 record does not bring much job security in the SEC, and some Aggies fans are wondering if the university was too quick after the 2013 season to hand Sumlin a six-year contract that pays him $5 million annually. Sumlin dismisses the idea that this is pivotal season for him. “He who listens to the fans soon sits with them,” he said, smiling.


A Drop of Blood, a Flood of Memories

Abstract: ONE of the most recent times I got tested for H.I.V., two Octobers ago, I was given the choice of having my saliva screened or giving a sample of blood from a pinprick. This wasn’t the old test, said the young, nose-pierced counselor at the Chelsea clinic where I had gone. No more tapping a forearm to find a vein. No more requests to make a fist. Most important, no more two-week wait, which was an insufferably long amount of time to judge yourself and bargain with destiny. Now I’d learn my status in 20 minutes. The test had advanced so much that a single drop of blood could determine whether I had H.I.V. antibodies, just as diabetics check their glucose levels. My counselor insisted that the pinprick test was accurate. The clinic had used this test to screen more than 4,000 patients, he said as he swabbed my index finger. The puncture was quick and painless. He grabbed what looked like a needle and placed its large eye on the bead of blood to fill it. Dropping the needle with the blood into a plastic vial, he turned to me and said: “The next 20 minutes are yours. You can step outside if you like; just be back in 20.” In the clinic waiting room, I gazed out the window at the gray Manhattan sky. Carlo, the Filipino photographer I’d been seeing, lived on the next street. We’d agreed to get tested so that we could feel safer as we took more liberties in the bedroom. As responsible as we seemed, the counselor warned that a single test wasn’t precaution enough — but it is a risk that too many of us are willing to take. On the waiting room wall, a poster announced a vaccine trial program at Columbia University: “Imagine a world without AIDS. Here’s your chance to help — and become part of history.” At 35, having come of age during the AIDS crisis, I could not imagine a world where the disease didn’t exist. The next 20 minutes may have been mine, but the last 20 years had belonged to fear and survivor’s guilt. I remembered one night 13 years earlier in south Texas at a place called Tenth Avenue, the only gay bar for miles around, when my cousin Juan came up to me and said, “Mito, I just wanna tell you one thing. ...” My cousin wore tight jeans and laughed easily and loud. He was often cashier of the month at the grocery store where he worked. He was also the kind of nice guy who took care of the younger members of the family. That night at Tenth Avenue was the first time Juan and I had seen each other “out” in public, and when he said “be careful,” he was looking out for me. I shrugged off his words, like the know-it-all 22-year-old I was. I figured out what he was trying to say only a few months later when my mother called to tell me that Juan had hanged himself with an electrical cord. He was 26. He had been H.I.V. positive, infected by the man who was then his boyfriend, and he had begun to have symptoms. Desperate, he must have thought it easier to kill himself than to endure the slow death of living in the macho Mexican-American culture in which we’d been raised, a place of borderline panic where people believed that you could get AIDS from infected straight pins rumored to be imbedded in the seats at the local movie theater. Be careful, he’d said, and I have been, especially in a city as wild, casual and anonymous as New York. When I moved here in 1993, at the age of 23, I’m ashamed to say, I turned my eyes away each time I spotted yet another gaunt-faced man, his cheekbones swollen into exaggerated relief. I couldn’t bear to look at billboards that advertised H.I.V. medications as casually as the new season lineup on television. I GOT tested as often as twice a year, despite the pain of the needles and the two-week wait. I’ve been tested so many times that I feel as if I will forever be pulling the shrapnel of hypodermics from my arms. I was careful to the point that I dropped lovers, even the man who I felt was the love of my life, if they were cruising parks at midnight, and not taking care of themselves and, in turn, me. Recently, my first boyfriend announced that he had become H.I.V. positive. And just this past spring, when that love of my life, now living in New Mexico, passed through town and we met up at a dinner party in the West Village, he told me he too was H.I.V.-positive. That day at the clinic in Chelsea — a year before it would be reported that blacks and Latinos made up 81 percent of new H.I.V. cases in New York and two years before a report showing that H.I.V. infections among New York men under 30 were up 33 percent in the past six years — the counselor called me into his office and told me that my test had come back negative. Thanks to how careful I’d been, I wasn’t surprised. Afterward, at a lunch place around the corner, as I listened to the song playing from the overhead speakers, I recognized the voice of Kelly Clarkson. All that summer I’d sung along to her pop hit “Since U Been Gone,” and I hummed the refrain of this new song, “Because of You.” But as I stared out the window, I wasn’t thinking of Carlo. Instead, in the dim reflection of the glass, I saw myself, and beyond me I saw my cousin Juan in his tight jeans. Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don’t get hurt As I listened, tears stung my eyes. The Chelsea boys around me must have thought that I was mourning a lover from my romantic past.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
New York City


Killings and Rumors Unsettle Benghazi, Libya

Abstract: BENGHAZI, Libya — Three weeks ago, a traveler spotted a man’s body in the farmland on this city’s outskirts, shot twice in the head with his hands and feet bound. He had disappeared earlier that day, after visiting a market. Ten days later, near the same spot, a shepherd stumbled upon the body of a second man, killed with a single bullet to the forehead. Masked, armed men had taken him from his home the night before, without giving a reason, his wife said. The dead men, Nasser al-Sirmany and Hussein Ghaith, had both worked as interrogators for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi ’s internal security services, known for their brutality against domestic dissidents. The killings, still unsolved, appeared to be rooted in revenge, the families said, and have raised the specter of a death squad stalking former Qaddafi officials in Benghazi, the opposition stronghold. The killings have unsettled an already paranoid city, where rebel authorities have spent weeks trying to round up people suspected of being Qaddafi loyalists — members of a fifth column who they say are trying to overthrow the rebels. If the violence continues, it will pose a stern challenge to a movement trying to present a vision of a new country committed to the rule of law, while potentially undermining hopes for a peaceful transition if Colonel Qaddafi surrenders power. The rebels say their security forces are not responsible for the killings. Prosecutors here say they are investigating at least four attacks, including another murder in March, and they are exploring the possible involvement of Islamists who were imprisoned by the Qaddafi government and are now settling old scores. “It’s our responsibility to protect people,” said Jamal Benour, the justice coordinator for the opposition in Benghazi. “It’s important the killers are punished. The law is most important.” But some here dismiss talk of Islamists, saying they believe the killings are being carried out by an armed group allied with the rebels, or possibly Qaddafi loyalists pretending to be. Last week, about a dozen men wearing balaclavas and carrying guns arrived at the house of Youssef al-Tobouli in three pickup trucks. At the time, Mr. Tobouli, a former internal security prison guard who had defected to the rebel side, was at the store. His terrified relatives called friends, and in the gunfight that followed, the room Mr. Tobouli shared with his wife and three children was destroyed by fire. The attackers were eventually routed, and though they did not identify themselves, they left behind a Mitsubishi pickup truck with “February 17th” — the day Colonel Qaddafi’s opponents mark as the beginning of their revolt — painted on the side, Mr. Tobouli’s cousin said. “I am very sorry to say that,” said the cousin, Eissa al-Tobouli, referring to the markings on the truck. He added that his cousin was part of a group of former Qaddafi officials who registered their names with rebel officials in Benghazi, on orders from the new authorities to make their defections official. “He paid the price for being in internal security,” the cousin said. There may have been other attacks. Dr. Omar Khalid, a forensic pathologist at Jalaa Hospital in Benghazi, said the hospital had received at least a dozen bodies of executed men, though it was not clear whether they had worked for the government. The authorities are also investigating the executions of Qaddafi soldiers, said Ali Wanis, the Benghazi district attorney. One victim, whose throat was slashed, has been in the morgue at Jalaa Hospital since mid-April, unidentified. When his body was found in the Guwarsha area outside Benghazi — near where the bodies of Mr. Sirmany and Mr. Ghaith were found — his feet and hands were bound with rope, the morgue’s manager said. The killings in Benghazi are taking place in a city that otherwise seems safer with each passing day. Police stations burned in February have reopened. Legions of young volunteers have recently taken to the streets, to sweep and pick up the trash. The rebel authorities are contemplating reopening schools this month, given the improved security. In the midst of a war, the crime rate in Benghazi is lower than it was before the fighting started, many residents say. Even on calmer streets, the fear of betrayal has led to deadly episodes. Last week, rebel fighters in pickup trucks rushed to the city’s radio station, after an apparently false report that it had been occupied by Qaddafi loyalists. Guns were fired, and a bystander was accidentally killed when a rifle fell off a fighter’s shoulder and went off. “This is a war of rumors,” said Col. Fawzi Omami, who works as a security guard at the radio station. “People are very edgy.” Some elements of the rebel security forces have contributed to the discomfort. Mr. Benour, the justice coordinator, said that his office was investigating abuses, including thefts, by the Force for the Protection of the Feb. 17th Revolution, which has official responsibility for arresting Qaddafi loyalists. He said the leader of the force had been suspended. He said there was no evidence that rebel security forces were implicated in the killings, but admitted the crimes were still a mystery. Salah al-Hami, who was tortured by Colonel Qaddafi’s security agents in the 1990s, said friends had told him he was suspected in the murders of the former Qaddafi officials. Years ago, members of the Hami family were repeatedly jailed as security agents searched for Mr. Hami’s brother Mohamed, a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the 1990s. An uncle and three of his brothers, including Mohamed, were killed by the security services or died in Colonel Qaddafi’s prisons, he said. Many people here remember the killing of Mohamed al-Hami, on a Benghazi street in 1996. Afterward, the security forces reportedly crucified him before parading his body around Benghazi in the back of a pickup truck. Mr. Hami denied any involvement in the recent killings. “ Never ,” he said. “Everybody is going to have a fair trial. I’m against any person who would take matters into their own hands and execute people.” It was unclear whether Mr. Sirmany and Mr. Ghaith were minor functionaries or senior officers. Mr. Sirmany served in Libya ’s special forces and was an interrogator, but he never talked about his work, his brother said. Mr. Ghaith’s family said he simply recorded the interrogations and was happy to join the revolution. In a mourning tent outside Mr. Ghaith’s house, his wife, Mariam al-Abdali, said: “He didn’t have any enemies. He joined the revolution 20 days after it started.” His son, Abdulrahman Ghaith, said that after his father was abducted, they searched the city until a call came the next day from the hospital. His father had cuts on his head, and on his left hand, which Dr. Khalid, the forensic pathologist, said was a defensive wound. “His clothes were ripped,” his son said, revealing details that his sisters had not heard before. “It looked like he resisted,” he said.

Benghazi
Libya
Murders
Arab Spring
Muammar Kaddafi


World Cup Break Is a Welcome Timeout for the Red Bulls

Abstract: For the first time in its history, Major League Soccer will take a two-week break during the World Cup — a respite that the Red Bulls may wish came sooner. The Red Bulls began the season with four victories in their first five league games, but then lost three straight while being outscored by 8-1. The club will have played eight games in May after Saturday’s match at New England and will have two more to play before the players scatter for a 10-day break that begins June 7. Sprinkled in with the league games during the busy period are three games in the U.S. Open Cup (the third is scheduled for Wednesday night against visiting Colorado) and Sunday’s surprising 3-1 victory over Juventus of Italy in an exhibition game. “These friendlies and the game against Colorado have not come at the best time,” Red Bulls Coach Hans Backe said after Sunday’s game. “But you have to cope. It’s a busy time until we get to the break.” Backe added: “Mentally, it will be very good to take a rest, relax and take a week off. I don’t really talk much with the players about the World Cup. I’ll sit and watch the games, but what they do during the tournament is up to them.” Backe and the Red Bulls (5-4) have met the challenge of a busy schedule and dodged serious injuries by playing two different teams — one in M.L.S. games and another, composed mostly of the Red Bulls’ promising young players, in Open Cup games. Still, after having played through the World Cups in 1998 (France), 2002 (South Korea and Japan) and 2006 (Germany) — one of the few leagues in the world to play on — M.L.S. has gotten with the program. “The past few weeks have been a strain,” said midfielder Seth Stammler, who plans to spend time at home in Ohio during the break. “I think taking a break is good for American soccer. This is the biggest event in our sport, and it’s a good thing to set aside a few weeks to honor and appreciate our game.” After their match on June 5 against visiting Chivas USA, the Red Bulls will not play another M.L.S. game until June 26 at Kansas City. AROUND THE LEAGUE Columbus (6-0-2) remained one of two unbeaten teams in M.L.S. when Emilio Renteria came off the bench in the 59th minute Sunday at Kansas City and scored the game’s only goal five minutes later. It was the second time in four days that Renteria, 25, a striker from Venezuela, scored after coming on as a substitute (he also scored in Thursday’s 3-1 win over the Red Bulls). The Crew is tied for the league lead with five goals in the final 15 minutes of games. ... Los Angeles (8-0-2) also maintained its unbeaten record ahead of its showdown against the Crew on Saturday in Ohio, with a 1-0 win at F.C. Dallas last Thursday. The Galaxy played without Landon Donovan (who leads M.L.S. with nine assists) and Edson Buddle (the league’s leading goal scorer with nine), who were training with the United States national team in Princeton, N.J. Mike Magee scored his first goal of the season, and Donovan Ricketts (0.22 goals against average) recorded his seventh shutout. Defender Chris Wingert, a Long Island native who played in college at St. John’s, scored his first goal in 146 M.L.S. games when defending champion Real Salt Lake (5-3-1) tied a franchise record of four straight wins, defeating Chivas USA, 2-1. Each team was missing two players on national team duty: Salt Lake’s Robbie Findley, and Sacha Kljestan and Jonathan Bornstein of Chivas USA are with the United States national team; and Salt Lake’s Will Johnson was with Canada for Monday’s friendly in Argentina. ... Toronto (4-4-1), unbeaten in its past five games, continued its perfect form on the new grass surface at BMO Field (4-0) when a goal by Chad Barrett beat New England, 1-0. . Revolution midfielder Shalrie Joseph returned after missing six games to receive treatment in the league’s substance abuse and behavioral health program. Notes ¶Sirius XM satellite radio will carry all 64 games of the World Cup, picking up the ESPN Radio feed with commentary by J. P. Dellacamera and Tommy Smyth. ¶José Mourinho coached Inter Milan to the UEFA Champions League title Saturday, and he appears headed for a new job with Real Madrid, but there will be at least one detour. “Special 1 TV,” the popular cult puppet show that had been carried by Setanta, will be rebroadcast on BBC3 TV from a “studio” in South Africa, just in time for the World Cup. Episodes that feature the Special One and his pals (the embedded Wayne Rooney and Sven-Goran Eriksson, and Nelson Mandela) will be available on the BBC’s Web site. TUESDAY Exhibition, Czech Republic at United States, 7:30 p.m., ESPN THURSDAY M.L.S., Dallas at Chicago, 8 p.m., ESPN2/ESPN Deportes SATURDAY England, League 1 final, Millwall vs. Swindon, 10 a.m., Fox Soccer Plus Exhibition, Turkey at United States, 1:30 p.m., ESPN2 M.L.S., Red Bulls at New England, 8 p.m., MSG/Galavision M.L.S., Philadelphia at Houston, 8 p.m., FSC SUNDAY Exhibition, Japan at England, 8 a.m., FSC W.P.S., Philadelphia at Washington, 6 p.m., FSC Exhibition, A.C. Milan at Chicago, 8 p.m., FSC All times Eastern.

Major League Soccer
World Cup (Soccer)
New York Red Bulls
United States Open Cup (Soccer)


GlaxoSmithKline Leads In Getting Drugs to Poor

Abstract: For the fourth time, GlaxoSmithKline has led all other pharmaceutical companies on an influential list ranking companies by how effectively they help the world’s poor get needed medicines. The list, the Access to Medicine Index , has been published every other year since 2008 by a group in the Netherlands financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the British and Dutch governments. It published the current rankings last month. Novo Nordisk rose to second place, while Sanofi, based in France, dropped to eighth place from third and Pfizer fell to 16th from 11th. One Japanese company, Eisai, beat many American and European companies to reach 11th place. The index has been refined over time. For example, the current edition includes access to drugs to treat schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. The earliest versions focused on infectious and tropical diseases. In one important development, the index’s authors said, more than half the companies monitored are developing pediatric formulations of important drugs. Eighteen of the 20 companies in the index have settled or been convicted of unethical marketing, unfair competition or bribery in the last two years. “The global health community and society as a whole have increased expectations of the private sector and are looking for more conscious capitalism,” said Wim Leereveld, the index’s founder and chief executive. The index itself is highly ranked. It recently rose to No. 3 on the “sustainability index” created by the GlobeScan/SustainAbility Survey , which looks at the criteria that rankers use and at how transparent they are. Among the others the index competed against were the Carbon Disclosure Project and Fortune magazine’s “ Most Admired Companies ” list.

GlaxoSmithKline
Pharmaceuticals
Third World


Exoneration Using DNA Brings Change in Legal System

Abstract: State lawmakers across the country are adopting broad changes to criminal justice procedures as a response to the exoneration of more than 200 convicts through the use of DNA evidence. All but eight states now give inmates varying degrees of access to DNA evidence that might not have been available at the time of their convictions. Many states are also overhauling the way witnesses identify suspects, crime labs handle evidence and informants are used. At least six states have created commissions to expedite cases of those wrongfully convicted or to consider changes to criminal justice procedures. One of them, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, will hold a hearing this month on remedies for people who have been wrongfully convicted. Laws in several states, including Illinois, New Jersey and North Carolina, have bipartisan backing, with many Democrats supportive on civil rights grounds and Republicans generally hoping that tighter procedures will lead to fewer challenges of convictions. “Technology has made a big difference,” said Margaret Berger, a DNA legal expert who is on a National Academy of Sciences panel that is looking into the changing needs of forensic scientists. “We see that there are new techniques for ascertaining the truth.” Maryland, North Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia passed legislation this year to create tougher standards for the identification of suspects by witnesses, one of the most trouble-ridden procedures. Nationwide, misidentification by witnesses led to wrongful convictions in 75 percent of the 207 instances in which prisoners have been exonerated over the last decade, according to the Innocence Project, a group in New York that investigates wrongful convictions. Legislatures considered 25 witness identification bills in 17 states this year, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers reported. Five states approved bills, while five states defeated them. Bills are pending in seven states. “It’s become clear that eyewitnesses are fallible,” said Lt. Kenneth A. Patenaude, a police commander in Northampton, Mass., who is an expert on witness identification techniques. Two states, Vermont and Maryland, passed laws this year to improve crime lab oversight to eliminate errors and omissions. Maryland recently passed a law that will hold its crime labs to the same standards as clinical labs, a much more rigorous requirement. Other legislative changes to crime lab oversight are pending in 21 states, including New York. More than 500 local and state jurisdictions, including Alaska, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia have adopted polices that require the recording of interrogations to help prevent false confessions, according to the Innocence Project. The California Legislature also passed a bill this year that requires informant testimony to be corroborated before it can be heard by a jury. Critics say such testimony can be unreliable, especially when it is offered by convicts or suspects in return for leniency. The bill awaits approval by the governor. Advocates of efforts to use DNA to exonerate those wrongfully convicted say the changes in the state laws are welcome and long overdue. “The legislative reform movement as a result of these DNA exonerations is probably the single greatest criminal justice reform effort in the last 40 years,” said Peter J. Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project. But some law enforcement officials oppose some of the changes, saying they create legal minefields for the police and prosecutors. Any deviation from the new standards, no matter how minor, could be taken up by defense lawyers in an appeal, the critics say. The California State Sheriffs’ Association is fighting two bills there that would mandate electronic recording of interrogations and corroboration of informant testimony. The bills have been passed by the Legislature and are awaiting final approval by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. “Simply put, these two bills create loopholes for defendants to get an edge in court on technicalities,” according to a letter from the sheriffs’ organization to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. The association also opposed a state bill that would create guidelines for suspect lineups. Even some proponents of the new standards balk at making them state law, insisting they are better dealt with by local law enforcement agencies. “I’m not fond of legislation,” said Lieutenant Patenaude, the Massachusetts police commander. “I’ve been asked to review bills in several states, and I haven’t seen one that mirrors the best practices that we’ve put out here. I’d like to see police agencies mold the procedures instead of legislatures or courts.” Studies of wrongful convictions suggest that there are thousands more innocent people in jails and prisons. The Innocence Project, the nation’s most prominent organization devoted to proving wrongful convictions, is pursuing 250 cases and at any given time is reviewing 6,000 to 10,000 additional cases for legal action. Approximately 1 percent of those cases will be accepted, and half of those accepted cases are closed because evidence has been lost or destroyed. Other smaller efforts to overturn wrongful convictions also receive thousands of letters from inmates. In a 2005 study, a University of Michigan Law School professor, Samuel R. Gross, estimated that 340 prisoners sentenced from 1989 to 2003 had been exonerated. Of those, 205 were convicted of murder and 121 of rape. Half of the wrongful murder convictions and 88 percent of the wrongful rape convictions included false eyewitness identification, the study found. DNA evidence was used to exonerate 144 of those inmates. In a 2007 study, Professor Gross analyzed 3,792 death sentences imposed from 1973 to 1989 and found that 86 death row inmates, or 2.3 percent, had been exonerated through 2004 Professor Gross said the total number of innocent prisoners was likely to be far higher. In his view, well-documented wrongful convictions in capital cases provided a window on systemic problems, with even larger numbers of convictions for less serious and less publicized convictions. “Of the 340 exonerations I looked at” in the 2005 study, Professor Gross said, “96 percent are for rape and murder.” He added: “Does that mean nobody was wrongfully convicted for drug possession, or drunk driving or burglary? Chances are there are many, many more false convictions for lesser crimes.” The most recent prisoner to be exonerated by DNA evidence was Dwayne Allen Dail, who served 18 years in North Carolina for a false conviction of child rape. Prosecutors had used the victim’s identification of Mr. Dail and hair found at the crime scene to convict him. Years later, after repeated inquires from defense lawyers, the police found a box of additional evidence in the case that contained the victim’s semen-stained nightgown. DNA analysis ruled out Mr. Dail and implicated another man. Mr. Dail was released from prison in August. The proposed laws on witness identification are intended to reduce cases like Mr. Dail’s by requiring things like sequential photo lineups of suspects, in which police officers show witnesses photographs of one suspect at a time. Studies have shown that witnesses tend to compare photos when they are shown them simultaneously, a tendency that can lead to errors. The legislation would also create “double blind” systems so that the police officers administering the photo lineups are unaware of the suspects’ identities in order to avoid influencing witnesses. The North Carolina legislature adopted both lineup procedures this year. Crimes labs are also getting additional scrutiny in some states. William E. Marbaker, president of the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, an independent accreditation body, said the group had accredited more than 300 crime labs. But some law enforcement agencies are finding that even more oversight is needed. A two-year review of the Houston Police Department’s crime lab called into question more than 600 cases. The review was initiated after a court found in 2005 that faulty forensic evidence led to the conviction of George Rodriguez in 1987 for kidnapping and assaulting a child. Mr. Rodriguez served 17 years of a 60-year sentence before his release two years ago. Houston crime lab officials erroneously concluded that hair found at the crime scene belonged to Mr. Rodriguez. The crime lab also failed to rule out Mr. Rodriguez as a suspect after finding that semen collected from the scene matched that of another man. Eight states — Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming — do not have laws that give inmates access to DNA evidence. Advocacy groups, including the Innocence Project, said they intend to lobby for the passage of access laws in those states during the next legislative session.

Law and Legislation
Prisons and Prisoners
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
Laboratories and Scientific Equipment
Capital Punishment
Sentences (Criminal)


Jean-Marie LePen Draws Fire for Apparent Anti-Semitic Pun

Abstract: PARIS — Activists vowed on Monday to file a criminal complaint against the founder of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, after he used an apparently anti-Semitic pun about ovens to dismiss one of his Jewish critics. In a video posted on the National Front’s website and later removed, Mr. Le Pen, 85, lashed out against several of his critics. When questioned about the French singer Patrick Bruel, who is Jewish, Mr. Le Pen said: “We’ll include him in the next batch.” Mr. Le Pen used the French word “fournée,” which refers to a batch of bread to be baked, and was interpreted by his critics to be a reference to Nazi crematories. The National Front, which opposes immigration and the European Union, received more votes than France’s mainstream parties in recent elections for the European Parliament. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, Mr. Le Pen’s daughter, has been seeking to rebrand the party as mainstream, in part by distancing herself from its anti-Semitic past. Mr. Le Pen has several convictions for inciting racial hatred. On Sunday, Ms. Le Pen said that her father had made a “political error,” even as she told the newspaper Le Figaro that the “meaning given to his comments is a malicious interpretation.” Mr. Le Pen said his words contained no anti-Semitic connotation. “If there are people in my camp that have interpreted it in this way, they are nothing but imbeciles,” he told the radio broadcaster France Info. The outcry comes amid growing concerns here about anti-Semitism, fueled by the rise of the far right and recent episodes of violence like an attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in which four people were killed. Aline Le Bail-Kremer, a spokeswoman for SOS Racisme, an anti-racism group, said her group would file a criminal complaint against Mr. Le Pen. “Calling for Jews to be sent to the ovens is not a political mistake,” she said. “It is an incitement and a moral fault of the highest order.” Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress, called for the French authorities to charge Mr. Le Pen with inciting hatred. “Le Pen’s comments demonstrate that they still stand on foundations of hatred, anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” he said in a statement.

Jean-Marie Le Pen
France
Antisemitism
National Front France


Cries of Lax Regulation After U.S.D.A. Ruling on Bluegrass

Abstract: The Agriculture Department has exempted a genetically engineered grass from federal regulation, a decision that some critics say could portend a loosening in oversight of biotech crops. The department said that an herbicide-tolerant Kentucky bluegrass being developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro was not subject to federal regulation because its creation did not entail use of any plant pests. The decision, issued late Friday, frees Scotts to sell the grass, which is meant for lawns, without federal approval. The company also does not need federal permits to conduct field trials, even though a different type of genetically engineered grass escaped from company test plots in the past and established itself in the wild. The genetically engineered bluegrass contains a gene that allows it to tolerate the widely used herbicide Roundup, also known as glyphosate. That allows the chemical to be sprayed to kill weeds without harming the grass. Michael C. Gregoire, who oversees biotechnology crop regulation at the Agriculture Department, said in an interview Wednesday that the ruling did not represent “a change in policy or a relaxing or abandoning of the regulation of G.E. crops.” He said other genetically engineered crops , like a petunia, had been exempted from regulation in the past. Still, the decision shocked some critics of biotechnology crops. “It’s a blatant end-run around regulatory oversight,” said George Kimbrell, senior lawyer at the Center for Food Safety , a Washington advocacy group. Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said other companies might follow the same strategy, putting the Agriculture Department “out of the game of regulation.” The critics say there have been other signs that the Agriculture Department has been looking to weaken regulation, like a proposed pilot project that would let companies provide more input into the environmental assessments of their crops. While some environmental groups say regulation is too lax, some biotechnology executives and academic plant scientists say it is unnecessarily rigorous and slow, impeding development of important new crops. The situation with the Kentucky bluegrass arises because genetically engineered crops are regulated under rules pertaining to plant pests. The rules are really meant for pathogens and parasites, not corn stalks. Still, they could be stretched to cover the crops because most of them contain a snippet of DNA from a plant virus that functions as a genetic on-switch. And the foreign gene is often inserted using a bacterium that can cause a disease in plants. But in creating its bluegrass, Scotts deliberately avoided using any material from plant pests. The herbicide resistance gene and the genetic on-switch came from other plants and were fired into the grass’s DNA with a gene gun, rather than being carried in by a bacterium. The company then sent a letter to the Agriculture Department in September, arguing that the grass was therefore not subject to regulation. The Agriculture Department agreed. It also declined to regulate the bluegrass as a noxious weed, denying a request from the Center for Food Safety. Richard Shank, chief environmental officer at Scotts, said the company’s strategy “wasn’t designed specifically to get around regulations or anything like that. It just made more sense. There was a lot of concern about using plant pest materials in biotechnology and we wanted to get away from that.” Still, the strategy means that the bluegrass will not encounter the regulatory problems that have beset Scotts’s genetically engineered creeping bentgrass, which does contain material from plant pests. That grass, meant for golf courses, is still awaiting approval eight years after the company submitted its application. Scotts was fined $500,000 in 2007 after the bentgrass escaped from field test sites in central Oregon and established itself in the wild. More recently the grass, presumably from a field test in Idaho, was found growing in nearby southern Oregon. Mr. Shank said limited field testing of the Kentucky bluegrass would begin soon but the product would not come to market for years. In a letter to Scotts on Friday, Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, told the company to work with others to make sure that the grass did not spread where it was unwanted, for example, pastures where organic cows graze. Mr. Shank said Scotts would do that. Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said many of the genetically engineered crops now under development did not use viral material so they could conceivably escape regulation. But L. Val Giddings, an industry consultant, disagreed, saying most crops continue to use material from plant pests. Monsanto, the leading developer of genetically engineered crops, said products in its current pipeline would be regulated. Stanley H. Abramson, a Washington lawyer who has represented biotech companies, said that genetically engineered food crops would not be accepted by the market without government approval. So only developers of nonedible plants like grass or flowers might try to exempt themselves from regulation, he said.

Agriculture Department
Genetic Engineering
Scotts Miracle-Gro
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry


North Carolina to Review Death Sentences Reduced Over Race

Abstract: In a pair of decisions that sidestepped landmark questions about capital punishment in North Carolina, the State Supreme Court on Friday ordered a lower court to reconsider rulings that commuted the death sentences of four inmates who had challenged their punishments with claims that racial biases had tainted their trials. The decisions, which came more than 20 months after the court heard oral arguments , were a setback for the defendants, who face more legal proceedings in Cumberland County, and a rebuke of the judge, Gregory A. Weeks, who had decided to change the death sentences to life in prison without parole. Justices ordered the lower court to re-examine the cases, saying that in one instance the judge had failed to give the state “an adequate opportunity to prepare for this unusual and complex proceeding.” In a separate decision, the Supreme Court found that Judge Weeks had improperly combined three cases into an evidentiary hearing. Cassandra Stubbs, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer involved in some of the cases, said the court’s action was “just another small step in this long process of showing what we all know to be true: that race played a role in these cases.” Image Mr. Robinson spoke with Cassandra Stubbs, one of his lawyers, during a Racial Justice Act hearing at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Fayetteville, N.C., in January 2012. Credit James Robinson/The Fayetteville Observer A spokeswoman for the North Carolina attorney general had no comment. Judge Weeks, who is retired, did not respond to a message seeking comment. Before Friday’s decisions, the cases had been considered tests of whether court rulings made under the state’s Racial Justice Act would endure after the measure’s repeal in 2013. The act, which took effect in 2009, allowed death row inmates to seek a change in their sentences to life without parole if they could show that race was “a significant factor” in proceedings. The defendants affected by Friday’s rulings — Quintel Augustine, Tilmon Golphin, Marcus Robinson and Christina Walters — had all filed successful claims . In commuting Mr. Robinson’s sentence, Judge Weeks found that “race was a significant factor in decisions by prosecutors to exercise peremptory strikes” of potential jurors when he was tried for first-degree murder in 1994. Judge Weeks, citing what he called “unmistakable evidence of the prominent role race played in the state’s jury selection strategy,” later changed the sentences of Mr. Augustine, Mr. Golphin and Ms. Walters, all of whom had been convicted of murder. Ms. Stubbs said she did not expect that the inmates would be returned to death row while their cases were under consideration.

North Carolina
Capital punishment
Discrimination
Criminal Sentence
Marcus Reymond Robinson
Gregory A Weeks
ACLU


Okinawa Murder Case Heightens Outcry Over U.S. Military’s Presence

Abstract: OKINAWA, Japan — Memorial Day weekend is normally party time on Gate Street, a seedy strip of bars and clubs outside a giant United States Air Force base here. During this year’s holiday, though, Gate Street was all but deserted, its customers — young Americans from the military installations that blanket much of this southern Japanese island — barred by their superiors from partying in public. The reason: a recent murder that has angered Okinawans and damaged relations between Tokyo and Washington. The killing of the 20-year-old Okinawan woman, whose body was found decomposing in a suitcase last month, has been linked to an American military contractor who is a Marine veteran. The outcry after the man, Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, was arrested on May 19 has been so strong that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe protested publicly to President Obama during the president’s recent trip to Japan. The unusual rebuke over a criminal case by another head of state marred a visit that was otherwise carefully choreographed to celebrate friendly relations and included Mr. Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima. Mr. Abe, at a joint news conference, professed “shock” over the murder and asked Mr. Obama “to understand the feelings of the Japanese people” and strengthen military discipline. Image Peace activists protesting plans to expand an American Marine base, Camp Schwab, on Okinawa. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times Mr. Shinzato has not yet been formally charged, a decision that can take weeks in Japan. His lawyer has declined to comment. Okinawans have complained for years about violence, noise and other problems associated with American bases. But this murder case is threatening to ratchet up opposition to the United States’ large military presence, which dates to the end of World War II. “We’ve heard apologies and promises of prevention hundreds of times, for decades, but it hasn’t had any effect,” said Okinawa’s governor, Takeshi Onaga. Okinawans still bitterly remember a 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl involving two Marines and a Navy sailor, which led to protests, as well as more recent episodes. Mr. Onaga was once the leader of the local chapter of Mr. Abe’s right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party, but he has broken with the prime minister over the issue of America’s military footprint, which he wants greatly reduced. Half of the 50,000 American military personnel in Japan are stationed here, and United States facilities take up one-fifth of Okinawan land. Anger is increasingly reflected in the politics of Okinawa, where local elections are being held on Sunday. Late last month, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly passed a resolution demanding that all United States Marines be removed from the island, its strongest censure of the American military to date. Local elections are being held on Sunday. The spot where the woman’s body was found, in woods beside a golf course, has been covered with hundreds of offerings of flowers, food and drink. The furor is erupting at a sensitive time for Okinawa, and for Japan, and the growing wealth and power of China has sharpened the debate about the island’s future. Mr. Abe is seeking to reinforce its position as a military outpost by building a new but widely contested base for the Marines and expanding Japan’s own military assets. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces began operating a sophisticated new radar station this year on the tiny island of Yonaguni, part of Okinawa Prefecture, to monitor Chinese naval activity in the East China Sea. But at the same time, Asia’s new prosperity is opening up other possibilities. These were on display 40 minutes south of Gate Street in Naha, Okinawa’s capital, where tourists from Taiwan, China and South Korea thronged the city’s shopping streets and hotels. Foreign tourism was up 70 percent last year. Airlines are adding new international flights to the semitropical island, while more Asian cruise lines are docking at Naha’s port. “Okinawa used to be an object of pity in Japan, but now it’s a brand,” said Hiroshi Meguro, a former research fellow at the Institute of Okinawan Studies at Hosei University in Tokyo. Image An Okinawan beach outside apartments that are popular with American military personnel who live off base. Many Okinawans would like to repurpose American bases as tourist destinations. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times The bases never made Okinawans rich: The prefecture has the lowest per-capita income in Japan, one-third below the national average. Now, dependence on them is in decline, Mr. Meguro said, and with it Okinawans’ tolerance for the problems they bring. Some in Okinawa would like to follow the example of the Philippines, which pushed out the American military in the early 1990s and redeveloped a major Navy base, at Subic Bay, into a lucrative resort destination. “When it comes to the economy and tourism, it’s ‘Welcome, China,’” Mr. Meguro said. “Of course, it glosses over the fact that the Philippines has started to invite American forces back because it’s being menaced by China.” Hiroji Yamashiro, a retired local civil servant, said that he wanted Okinawa to become a tourist center, but that the bases stood in the way. He spends most days protesting outside the gates of Camp Schwab, a Marine armory and firing range in the north that the Japanese and American governments want to radically expand by filling in a bay and building a pair of aircraft runways. The plan illustrates the complexities facing Japanese and American policy makers. The expanded base is intended to replace another facility to the south, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which sits in the middle of a crowded city and has been the object of some of the most vigorous complaints by Okinawans. A Marine helicopter crashed just outside its walls in 2004, damaging a university. Image Okinawa can be seen in the distance, on the far right. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times Tokyo and Washington agreed two decades ago to shift much of Futenma’s equipment and personnel to Schwab. But local opposition has blocked the move, and work on the project was frozen before it really began. On a boat ride around the bay, Mr. Yamashiro pointed to nearly uninterrupted beaches surrounding Camp Schwab. A couple of young men with military haircuts and snorkels had a small island inside its perimeter to themselves. Mr. Yamashiro said they should be replaced by far larger numbers of Chinese and Taiwanese tourists. “The future is opening up in front of us, but the Japanese government is blocking it,” Mr. Yamashiro said. Successive Japanese and American governments have struggled to find a satisfactory solution to the Futenma issue. Deadlines to start construction at Schwab have come and gone, holding up a broader reorganization of United States forces in Japan that would move some troops off Okinawa to Guam. But critics of the long-stalled plan, including Mr. Onaga, the governor, are holding out for a more drastic drawdown. “Okinawa is isolated, physically and in people’s minds,” said Susumu Inamine, the mayor of Nago, where Camp Schwab is situated. Image A peace activist holding a sign as vehicles passed Camp Schwab. There is a permanent protest camp here, near the long-stalled expansion project. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times He does not want the base expanded, and has rebuffed offers of subsidies from the government in Tokyo that are contingent on his accepting the plan. “For the government, it’s a faraway place where what happens doesn’t impose any pain on the mainland,” he said. The local authorities have little say over base policy. But they can hold up projects with tactics like withholding construction permits. The prefectural government recently fought Tokyo to a standstill in court over the expansion plan. A judge persuaded both sides to return to the negotiating table in March, but neither has shown signs of retreating. “We’ll keep delaying until 2020, then 2030,” Mr. Inamine said. “The question is, can the U.S. wait that long before looking for another option?” Many Americans in Okinawa feel the military has been unfairly demonized. They point to crime statistics that show United States personnel are arrested at lower rates than locals. Still, some sympathize with Okinawans’ sense that the United States occupation of their island, which formally concluded in 1972, has never truly ended. Part of the problem is that the American military’s presence extends across the whole island, said a retired member of the Air Force who has lived in Japan for three decades and was stationed at various bases across Japan. Today, he manages several businesses in Okinawa, including one that does contract work for the military, and like other Americans with base connections, he requested anonymity to speak. Michio Sakima, the owner of the Sakima Art Museum next to the Futenma base, said Okinawans’ anger over the recent killing reflected pent-up political frustration as much as the brutal nature of the crime. His museum shares a fence with the base, and Futenma’s closing would relieve Mr. Sakima of the noise of jets and helicopters. But he opposes moving the Marines to Camp Schwab, he said, on the grounds that it would entrench the military presence on the island. “We are still a colony,” he said. “When a serious crime happens, that’s when our real feelings come out.”

Military
Japan
Kenneth Franklin Shinzato
Shinzo Abe
Murders and Homicides
Ryukyu Islands
US Military
Military Bases
Barack Obama


Glavine Is Given an Offer by Braves

Abstract: The likelihood that Tom Glavine will finish his career where it began increased yesterday when the Atlanta Braves offered him a contract. Last season, Glavine’s decision to re-sign with the Mets was made easier by the Braves’ inability to make him an offer. But this time Glavine has the option of returning to Atlanta, where his family lives. Gregg Clifton, Glavine’s agent, declined to reveal the terms of the offer, but said he planned to submit a counterproposal last night. He said he would speak to the Mets about their interest at the appropriate time. “The Mets and the Braves are the only two teams he’d consider at this point, at this stage, and in terms of what we’ve discussed about a potential deal to Atlanta, this allows him to think about returning to Atlanta,” Clifton said in a telephone interview. “There’s a greater possibility of that happening than even yesterday.” At this stage of his career, it is unlikely that Glavine, who will turn 42 in March, will receive more than a one-year deal. Out of courtesy to the Mets and Jeff Wilpon, the senior executive vice president with whom Glavine has a close relationship, Clifton would most likely give them an opportunity to match or exceed the Braves’ final offer. Glavine went 13-8 last season, but he was 0-2 with a 14.81 earned run average in his final three starts, including the Sept. 30 debacle against the Marlins in which he could not make it past the first inning. He allowed seven runs in the loss, which knocked the Mets out of postseason contention. Clifton said that Glavine would reach a decision before the winter meetings, which begin Dec. 3 in Nashville, Tenn. METS RE-SIGN CASTRO The Mets announced that they re-signed catcher Ramon Castro to a two-year, $4.6 million deal. Castro, 31, will back up the new starter, Yorvit Torrealba, but is expected to play a larger role next season. YANKEES WAIT FOR ANSWER The Yankees continue to wait for an answer from closer Mariano Rivera on their three-year, $45 million contract offer. Rivera has been in the Dominican Republic all week for his annual Christian-themed baseball clinic, and his return should bring a resolution to the contract issue. “He’s going to be back tomorrow,” Rivera’s agent, Fern Cuza, said last night. “Once he comes back, you’ll see some activity starting to move forward.” The Yankees’ senior vice president, Hank Steinbrenner, has said he would not raise the offer, which would make Rivera baseball’s highest-paid closer by more than $4 million a year. TYLER KEPNER MORE SEATS AT FENWAY The Boston Red Sox are adding more than 800 new seats to Fenway Park as part of improvements planned for the 2008 season. Along with increased standing-room areas, Fenway’s capacity will approach 37,000. The new seats will be added to the third level above home plate. The pavilion area will be extended down the foul lines. The team also plans to install new scoreboards, new stairways and elevators. “For decades, there was a presumption that Fenway Park had outlived its useful life and, sentiment aside, would have to be replaced by a modern facility in another location,” said Larry Lucchino, the Red Sox president. “We are eager to see, in 2012, this ballpark become the first ever to celebrate its 100th anniversary.” (AP)

Atlanta Braves
Baseball
Glavine Tom
Amateur Athletics


Dealing With Recession-Related Stress

Abstract: What are the best ways to deal with the stress that comes from operating in a recession? The following tips could help. CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN A major cause of stress for small-business owners is the inordinate amount of time they spend reacting. A crucial client has a demand that can’t wait. A serious employee problem must be dealt with immediately. A pivotal piece of office equipment decides to take the day off, just when you need it most. Dealing with unexpected problems not of your making is stressful. That is why you should try to get under control the factors that are within your control, argues Glen Ebersole , a consultant. That means you should “maintain a well-organized office,” he writes, commit to “setting aside some time to get away from your desk each day” to take a break, and deal “with employee conflicts in a proactive and timely manner” before the conflicts get worse. Last, he recommends that you keep yourself in good health. YIN AND YANG Writing on her blog , Jan Norman cites two ways of dealing with stress from Steve Davidson, a psychologist in Newport Beach, Calif. The first is the traditional approach of going for a walk or visualizing your favorite place. But the other technique is more intriguing. In it, you treat stress as any other business problem. First, you do a causal analysis. “What’s the source of the stress?” Second, you propose a course of action to solve the problem. Third, you execute your plan, and then, fourth, adjust as necessary. POSITIVE SPIN I Being aware that you are under stress invariably increases your stress level. It gives you one more thing to worry about. But you don’t need to look at it that way, the people at BizHelp.24.com say . . “Stress is a sign our body is preparing us for action. Your body is pumped with chemicals, your heart beats faster, your muscles tense and your mind becomes more focused. These changes allow us to master situations by making that deadline or giving that bad news to an important customer. More clearly, stress helps us complete tasks successfully under times of pressure.” Feel better? POSITIVE SPIN II Here is an approach to dealing with stress that Michael Jackson, chairman of the British venture capital firm Elderstreet Investments, has found effective: Assume the very worst when faced with a problem. “I am often accused of being unduly pessimistic when I use this technique, but it works for me at the outset and provides me with a backup plan. I then feel better, remember it can’t get worse, and I don’t feel totally powerless and out of control.” RULES OF THUMB Writing on BusinessWeek.com , Mallary Tytel, president of Healthy Workplaces, offers these rules of thumb for reducing your employees’ stress. (The tips could also work for you.) ¶Ensure that the workload is in line with workers’ capabilities and resources. ¶Provide opportunities for social interaction. ¶Establish work schedules that are compatible with demands and responsibilities outside the job. LAST CALL Just about everyone agrees that keeping both perspective and your sense of humor can help deal with stress. Larry Wilde, who bills himself as “America’s good humor expert,” tells this story , which addresses both. “The chairman of the board of directors of a Chicago charity called the monthly meeting to order. ‘I have rather a stressful order of business,’ he announced. ‘We’re looking for a treasurer.’ “ ‘But we appointed a treasurer just six months ago.’ “ ‘Yes,’ said the chairman. ‘That’s the treasurer we’re looking for.’ ”

Small Business
Recession and Depression
Stress (Human)
Economic Conditions and Trends


Back on a Motorbike: Old-School Reporting at the Tour de France

Abstract: REVEL, France — Most of the reporters at the Tour de France, including me, don’t see much of the racing through their own eyes. Our daily routine instead involves hanging around at the start for interviews, then jumping into cars and racing ahead to the press room at the finish line to catch the last couple of hours through the all-seeing eye of television. Even the handful of reporters who congregate at the finish line tend to keep their backs to the road to focus on three televisions inside a stuffy tent. But in the decades before the host broadcaster, France Télévisions, developed its elaborate live broadcasting system, many reporters followed the Tour from the back of a motorbike. On Tuesday, I got to experience that bit of the Tour’s past, if not with a cigarette dangling from my lips. Motorbikes never went away for broadcasters and photographers. But after a long absence, the race organizers reintroduced one or two motorbikes a day for print and online reporters. Feeling somewhat out of place wearing a raincoat and long pants on a warm and sunny morning, I headed down to the Escaldes-Engordany district of Andorra. Picture a Times Square for tax-free shopping that features an extraordinary number of perfume shops. There, just ahead of the start line, sat Motorcycle No. 539, whose driver, Gaétan Prime, would take me down the 196 kilometers, or 122 miles, to Revel, France. Image Portugal’s Rui Costa, bottom, broke away on the climb out of Andorra on Tuesday. Credit Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The stage was won, I later learned from television, by Michael Matthews, a sprinter with the Australian Orica-BikeExchange team. Chris Froome, of Britain and Team Sky, retained the yellow jersey of the overall leader. Prime drives a motorcycle for a living, but mostly under much different circumstances. He is a police officer in Toulouse and a member of a rapid response team that relies on two wheels to zip through traffic jams. Given that the armada of vehicles that follow the Tour around is always verging on becoming a traffic jam, he seemed perfectly qualified. The president of a large bicycle club and husband of a seven-time French national track cycling champion, Prime uses his motorbike skills at bike races about 50 days a year. He made it clear that he did not do it for the money. “Passion, it’s passion,” he said as we put on bright green helmets and started up the road just before the riders’ start. There was less than five minutes remaining, but a surprisingly large number of cyclists who had ridden up the route to stretch their legs were now heading back to take their positions. Getting out of Andorra and back into France involved a 22.6-kilometer, or 14-mile, mountain pass climb. As we slowed to a crawl not far up the climb, the Tour’s internal radio system told us that Peter Sagan, the current world champion, had formed a group of breakaway riders. It soon neared our bike, and one of its members attacked and headed toward us in the hope that we would provide him shelter from the wind. Prime’s neck-snapping turn of the Kawasaki 1400 GTR’s throttle swiftly eliminated that prospect. At the summit, I was no longer overdressed. A dense fog cut visibility to about 30 feet, drenched our clothes and made for a chilly entry into France. Except for the gendarmerie’s elite Republican Guard motorcycle corps, a red-jacketed “controller,” who is also on a motorbike, dictates the position of all of the other 70 motorbikes in the race. A seemingly unbreakable code dictated who was allowed to get close to the riders at a given moment. But France Télévisions’ camera bikes appeared free to go pretty much anywhere they wanted, provided that they did not pace or endanger the cyclists. One thing that is rarely caught by cameras but is a frequent sight from a motorbike, is riders’ urinating, either from their saddles or at the side of the road. The climb and the foggy descent fractured the field into more than a half-dozen groups. Desperation was on the faces of the riders at the very back as they rode flat-out at a point in the race where everyone would normally be taking it relatively easy. Image The Tour de France race controller, in red, held back motorcycles along the course on Tuesday. Credit Ian Austen/The New York Times We were in Prime’s home region, and it turned out that he is something of a celebrity there. We stopped for a quick chat with a few of his friends and their two school-age daughters. He slowed to high-five a boy who rides for his bike club. Prime’s name was called out from the side of the road along with those of the Tour favorites. All the while, the radar systems showing motorists their speeds seemed permanently locked on displaying, “Danger!” Our speed through the day seemed to range from a walking pace to about 80 miles an hour, though there were times when the force of the wind was too great for me to lean around for a peek at the speedometer. Some radio reporters did rolling interviews with team directors in their cars. The closest I came to an interview, however, was when we were cursed by a group of riders who were trying to make their way back toward the main field. The increased size of the Tour and the faster pace of the pack in the 21st century make motorbikes less than ideal for watching the racing. Much of the time, I was peering up at it through a forest of team car roof racks, each laden with 10 bikes and a brace of wheels. But with 25 kilometers remaining in the race, I witnessed a key moment up close and unobstructed. Sagan attacked and split the break, leaving behind the 2014 Tour winner, Vincenzo Nibali of Italy. Somewhat cruelly, we pulled away from Nibali at too high a speed to catch the expression on his face. As for the finish, like all vehicles following the Tour, we were turned off the course just short of the finish line. Revel’s maze of roads and race-related blockades, however, made it impossible for us to find our way back to the finish to see Matthews squeeze out Sagan and win the stage. Fortunately, the televisions in the press room had a replay.