V.M.I. Revived by a High-Octane Offense

Abstract: LEXINGTON, Va. — Four rifles with bayonets rest on a rack near the door, and the closets are filled with wool military uniforms. Here in the Virginia Military Institute barracks, the walls of the cadets’ rooms are bare, televisions are forbidden, and there is no carpet on the cold concrete floor. Travis Holmes, a senior forward on the V.M.I. basketball team, was sitting on his thin mattress recently. He was still surprised that he ended up at this 170-year-old post, where reveille sounds before 7 a.m. and taps signals lights out at 11:30 p.m. Where a teammate once had to march for 40 hours because he was caught kissing a girl in the barracks. Where first-year cadets, known as rats, endure a six-month initiation in which they must do push-ups on demand and sit at attention in the mess hall. But Holmes ended up here for the same reason as his twin brother, Chavis. “They wanted both of us to play basketball,” he said quietly as Chavis napped a few feet away. “Most schools would only take one or the other.” With 3,470 career points, Travis and Chavis Holmes are the highest scoring twin brothers in N.C.A.A. Division I history. They have revived a program that has not had a winning season since 1997-98 and has not reached a national postseason tournament since 1976-77. Flaunting a frenzied style that makes the shot clock seem irrelevant, the Keydets are 20-4 over all and 11-2 in the Big South Conference. They are leading the nation in scoring and 3-pointers for the third consecutive season, but for the first time, their intriguing point totals are linked to success. Still, they will probably have to win their conference tournament to receive the program’s first N.C.A.A. tournament berth in 32 years. “The N.C.A.A. tournament has always looked a long way away,” said Duggar Baucom, who is in his fourth season as V.M.I.’s coach. “But this year, we really feel like we can do the unbelievable, the impossible.” For Baucom, 48, the path to Division I basketball was as unconventional as his coaching philosophy. As a former police officer and North Carolina state trooper, he said he ducked behind patrol cars to avoid gunfire, tossed telephones into homes to begin hostage negotiations and went on 120-mile-per-hour car chases. In 1987, the Charlotte, N.C., police assigned Baucom to the North Mecklenburg School District. He talked to students about McGruff the Crime Dog and the dangers of drugs, and he coached junior varsity basketball for one season before becoming a state trooper. His law-enforcement career ended on Dec. 25, 1990, when he had a heart attack and learned he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle. The same condition led to his father’s death at 42. “The leading symptom of my disease is sudden death,” Baucom said. “I was actually very fortunate.” Baucom left one high-stress occupation to pursue another. He enrolled at U.N.C.-Charlotte to study history and returned to North Mecklenburg as a varsity assistant. He spent evenings waiting tables, bartending and figuring out how to wedge himself into college basketball. During summers, he worked at basketball camps from New Jersey to Georgia. He was an instructor at Davidson College’s camp for six weeks, and in 1995, at 35, he became an unpaid administrative assistant for the Wildcats. Baucom coached at Mars Hill College, Northwestern State, Western Carolina and Tusculum College before joining V.M.I. in 2005. “The day I hired him, I told him we still needed recruits,” said Donny White, V.M.I.’s athletic director. “He said there were these two twins he knew about.” Chavis and Travis Holmes, who graduated from Christ School in Asheville, N.C., garnered mild interest from Division I programs. Most coaches were interested in one or the other; Baucom wanted both. The twins started playing basketball when they were 3. They watched instructional videos while other children watched cartoons. They strengthened their legs by jumping over boxes, chairs and log piles. Though they were right-handed, they often dribbled through their neighborhood using their left hands. “They were always looking for an edge,” said their father, Kenneth Holmes. Three days after Baucom was hired at V.M.I., the twins committed to play for the Keydets. The 2005-6 season was forgettable for Baucom. He was to have his pacemaker replaced that winter, but the device’s wires had calcified, making it difficult to remove. The operation led to infections and clotting, and Baucom underwent four more procedures over the next four months until the pacemaker was replaced with a defibrillator. Baucom missed 12 games, and the Keydets went 7-20. The next season, two of the Keydets’ starters were dismissed for violating the V.M.I. code of conduct. The team manager was added to the roster. “I knew we had to do something different,” Baucom said. “So we did it way different.” Baucom installed a catch-your-breath attack that included a quick-fire offense with plenty of 3-point shooting and a frenetic full-court-pressure defense. If his players were in rhythm and in range, they were instructed to shoot immediately. The Keydets set Division I men’s records for 3-pointers made (442) and attempted (1,383), as well as for steals (490). They averaged 100.9 points a game, but they allowed an average of 98.2 and finished 14-19. The Keydets led the nation in scoring again last year but finished 14-15. V.M.I. began this season with a 111-103 win at Kentucky, and it has not stopped shooting since. The roots of the renaissance sprouted last summer when 11 players spent a month in a two-bedroom house about a half-mile from the V.M.I. post. They lifted weights each morning, attended summer classes each day and played pickup games each night. These pickups games, with their overcaffeinated pace, were similar to the Keydets’ practices. “We changed the attitude of the team,” the senior center Willie Bell said. “For the first time, we were a family.” The players brought their mattresses from the barracks and scattered them throughout the house, including in the dining room. Two inflatable chairs and a kitchen table were the only pieces of furniture. “My bed was basically in a broom closet,” Chavis Holmes said. Because the mess hall was closed, the players searched for specials at area restaurants. Most Tuesdays, they went to Salerno’s for spaghetti dinners, and most Wednesdays, they went to Naples for pizza night. Deep into evenings, they talked about the season and realized how their unorthodox attack required so many working parts. But during those late-night chats, unlike when they were on a basketball court, they were in no rush. “We’ve been preparing this since the summer,” Bell said. “So there’s no way another team can prepare for us in a day or two.”

Virginia Military Institute
Basketball
College Athletics


Pact Tightens Russian Ties With Abkhazia

Abstract: MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin signed a treaty on Monday to expand Russia’s authority over Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia, effectively giving the Kremlin a dominant role in military and economic policy and making it easier for residents of Abkhazia to obtain Russian citizenship. The accord comes at a time of deep apprehension in the West over Russia’s expansionist aspirations because of its annexation of Crimea and its support of the violent separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine. The treaty was angrily denounced by Georgia as illegal and a step toward “de facto annexation.” Georgia, like Ukraine, has been moving toward closer political and economic ties with the European Union. Officials in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, said the new accord with Abkhazia was yet another attempt by Russia to thwart the westward ambitions of a former Soviet republic while tightening the Kremlin’s influence. “The signature of the so-called treaty constitutes a deliberate move by Russia in reaction to Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” the Georgian foreign minister, Tamar Beruchashvili, said in a statement. Ms. Beruchashvili said Georgia would appeal to the United Nations, NATO and other international organizations to denounce the accord. It was signed by Mr. Putin and the president of Abkhazia, Raul Khadzhimba, during a meeting in Sochi, the Russian resort city on the Black Sea, which is a short drive from the Russia-Abkhazia border. Drafts of the agreement had been circulating for weeks, and Abkhazia, an impoverished region of 240,000 people that is heavily dependent on Russia for security and economic aid, had virtually no choice but to sign it. Russian troops have been stationed in Abkhazia since it broke from Georgia in the early 1990s, but the agreement signed Monday calls for the formal development of a joint Russian-Abkhazian military force and gives Russia a role in Abkhazia’s foreign affairs, which are constrained because it is not recognized by most of the world. The accord calls for Russia to pay for modernizing Abkhazia’s military and for Abkhazia to integrate its trade laws with the Eurasian Economic Union, the trade bloc that Russia has formed with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia. “Of course,” Mr. Putin told reporters after his meeting with Mr. Khadzhimba, according to a transcript, “the ultimate goal of all of this is to improve people’s lives.” Mr. Khadzhimba, who was elected in August, said, “Partnership relations with Russia create the full scope of guarantees for the safety of our state and extensive opportunities for the social and economic development.” He added, “We are not a big country, but for many long years we have consistently looked to Russia, thus ensuring our common interests.” Russia’s move to tighten its grip on Abkhazia underscored the extent to which it has capitalized on regional territorial disputes, often driven by ethnic, national or religious divisions, to retain influence throughout the old Soviet system. Russia also has extensive influence in South Ossetia, another breakaway region of Georgia, as well as in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova. The Kremlin’s recent moves in Ukraine have been watched with alarm not only in the West but in the Baltics, Belarus, Kazakhstan and throughout Central Asia.

Russia
Abkhazia
Vladimir Putin
International relations


Syria Intensifies Counterinsurgency in Damascus

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — Gunfire and shelling rocked Damascus, Syria , and its suburbs on Wednesday as opponents of President Bashar al-Assad reported a widening campaign by the military to sow fear and death in neighborhoods where the rebels are strong and the government is too weak to assert full control. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights , an opposition group in Britain that maintains a network of contacts in Syria, said the latest government raid on Wednesday morning in Kafar Soussa — with tanks backed by infantry soldiers — left at least 24 people dead. In the Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun, activists said, Syrian forces executed dozens of others. Opposition groups described both as “hit-and-run” assaults. Similar attacks have been reported in several areas ringing the capital in recent weeks, as troops and shelling intensify then fade and as the government kills and leaves. This week, activists reported finding 40 bodies in one suburb; last week, 60 others were discovered in a landfill, many of them believed to be civilians. Analysts said the effort — in which the government invades but does not hold an area — underscores the challenge that Mr. Assad faces as he tries to defeat an insurgency that often slips away, only to resurface. It is an effort that experts describe as the opposite of the “winning hearts and minds” model and is based instead on the Arabic saying “rule is based on awe.” “Terror is the basic approach,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Center for the Middle East . “From the beginning of the uprising the logic was hit and hit hard, punish and scare, and that would be the way to do it.” But he added, “It’s a crazy logic, and it has not served them well.” While the approach worked when the Syrian government suppressed a revolt in Hama in the 1980s, he said, the current effort to intimidate the country into calm is increasingly showing signs of failure. The opposition throughout Syria has not broken; it has scattered and regrouped. In many areas, from north to south, the government has claimed that its mission has been accomplished, or would be quickly, only to have the rebels resurface to fight again with help from local residents. In Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, the government has tried nearly everything, including missile strikes from fighter jets, but while rebel brigades have retreated temporarily from some areas, they have created what amounts to formal rotation schedules in others. They have also completed their own successful hit-and-run ambushes on the military airport that is the main base for government troops, and on the city center, while food and other supplies have been provided by wealthy residents. In the region around the southern city of Dara’a, where the uprising began, the pattern has been similar. On Tuesday, rebel leaders said they were retreating from several areas because of an ammunition shortage, but on Wednesday, they reported reoccupying some of the places they had fled. There are also many areas, more distant from the most concentrated fighting, where the government’s forces have retreated as rebels have made incremental gains. Deir al-Zour is one example. An area deep into the east of the country, about 300 miles from Damascus, it has seen intense fighting at various times during the nearly 18-month-old conflict, but in recent weeks, the battle has taken on what rebels there described as a familiar pattern: government troops based outside the city, and with little knowledge of the area, use air power and shelling, but not much else. “The Assad forces are afraid to enter the towns and villages, so they started with this new strategy of bombardment from long distance and from helicopters,” said Abu Khalaf, 40, a fighter sitting at a rebel base in Deir al-Zour. “We can succeed because we know the land, while the Assad forces are coming from outside the province.” On Wednesday, an activist in another section of Deir al-Zour said rebels had seized two checkpoints near the Iraqi border, taking over government buildings as officials fled. The dynamic, Abu Khalaf said, has changed: the government has become the equivalent of a foreign power. “We are fighting to liberate our country from the Assad occupation army,” he said. “We don’t have a government that runs the country; we have an occupation army.” Deir al-Zour is also where rebels said last week that they had shot down their first fighter jet, using an antiaircraft weapon seized from the military. The fighter who claimed to be responsible, Abu Allawi, has become a hero among the rebels, and he says he has also become a target for the government. His commanders denied requests to make him available for an interview. Another fighter who said he was with Abu Allawi when the jet crashed said that most of the fighters in the area were defectors and that they had been using purloined military weapons — including antiaircraft weapons — to gain an advantage. He described the attack on the fighter jet as a mix of luck and talent. “We deploy these antiaircraft guns around the villages and among trees and houses, so the regime didn’t expect us to use them like we did,” said the fighter, who identified himself with the nickname Abu Mohammed. “The surprise played a key role in downing this MiG fighter, which was flying in low; the pilot was feeling relaxed as he bombed, and when he flew in really low, Abu Allawi shot it and was able to target the body of the plane. That set it on fire.” The Syrian government has contended that the aircraft crashed because of a mechanical problem. The rebels’ account, which is consistent with earlier unverified reports of the downing of the plane, suggests that any strike against Syrian aircraft would not be easy to repeat. Abu Mohammed, 35, said the initial claims that the rebels were on their way to creating their own no-fly zone, without international support, seemed far-fetched, at least until the rebels could seize or buy stronger weapons. He said the fighters were trying to acquire Stinger missiles “from some ‘friends’ in Iraq .” “We hope to get them because that will change everything in our region,” he said.

Syria
Damascus
Bashar al-Assad
Arab Spring


Ukraine: Report Finds War Crimes

Abstract: Both warring sides in eastern Ukraine are perpetrating war crimes almost daily, including torturing prisoners and summarily killing them, Amnesty International said in a report on Friday. Former captives of both Ukrainian government and separatist forces said they faced savage beatings, torture with electric shocks, kicking and stabbings, Amnesty said in statement. Hundreds of Ukrainian troops are believed to have been captured by rebel forces in the yearlong war, which has claimed more than 6,100 lives. Both sides routinely accuse one another of mistreating captives. Under a February peace agreement, all war prisoners had been due for release in early March, but little progress has been achieved. Amnesty says it interviewed 17 captives of the separatists and 16 held by government forces for its report.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


Florida State Football Players Rebuked

Abstract: John Thrasher, Florida State’s president, met with the football team and told players they must start conducting themselves appropriately. Two players were recently charged with punching women; one, the freshman quarterback De’Andre Johnson, was thrown off the team.

John Thrasher
College football
De'Andre Johnson
Florida State University


Secret Service Agents Interview Intruders

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As part of a broadening inquiry into presidential security, Secret Service agents have interviewed the Virginia couple who sneaked into a White House state dinner last week, a senior federal official involved in the investigation said Sunday. The interviews, which took place Friday and Saturday, were conducted in a neutral location, neither the home of the couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, nor the Secret Service’s downtown offices, the official said. He would not comment on the content of the interviews or their length. The Secret Service is also examining its own procedures in light of the security lapse at the White House. The director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, testified in March before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Homeland Security that his agency was adapting to the Obama presidency, but he focused on how President Obama was likely to draw larger crowds than his predecessor. Mr. Sullivan referred obliquely to Mr. Obama as the first African-American president, making note of the “historical significance of the election” as a reason the agency was especially concerned about providing appropriate security. Exactly how the Salahis infiltrated Mr. Obama’s state dinner for the Indian prime minister continued to preoccupy the capital and the country on Sunday, with no substantive details emerging. The Secret Service is still considering bringing charges against the Salahis, the senior federal official said, but the investigation is continuing. “There are more interviews to do,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing inquiry. A former White House press secretary, Dana Perino, predicted a tough time for the White House social office as the holiday parties approached. Ms. Perino, a press secretary in the Bush administration, said on “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace” that once the Salahis were on the White House grounds, the social office might have played a role in processing them through the receiving line. “What will be a concern for, I think, the social office going forward is they have their busiest season coming up,” Ms. Perino said. “It’s the holiday season. They’ll have a lot of people coming through.” Ed Rollins, a Republican political operative, said Sunday that the Salahis should be prosecuted. “They basically trespassed,” Mr. Rollins said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “They had no right to be there. The Secret Service has a tough-enough task without having people dress up and pretend they’re important.” Referring to the Salahis’ reported intention to appear on the reality television show “The Real Housewives of Washington,” Mr. Rollins continued, “These people want a reality TV show, give them one. It’s called ‘Dealing With the Federal Prosecution System of the District of Columbia.’ ” A broader sampling of opinion turned up in posts on Ms. Salahi’s Facebook page, where the couple first posted snapshots of their escapade. There it was hailed as an example of American egalitarianism and excoriated as a low-class stunt. The Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting interviews in the case, and a spokesman for the agency, Jim Mackin, said Sunday that it would be at least Wednesday before the Secret Service would have anything to say. There will be a written report, Mr. Mackin said, “but it probably will not be made public.” “We do have measures in place to handle every type of event that takes place at the White House,” he said. “What we have to do is make sure the measures and protocols we have in place are adhered to every single time.” An independent auditing agency, the office of the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, of which the Secret Service is a part, could also look into the matter, but a department spokesman, Sean Smith, said on Sunday that the department had not asked the inspector general to do so. The inspector general did not reply to a message left at his home. The inspector general’s office prepared a report after The Washington Post in January quoted V.I.P.’s who complained that there were security breaches at Mr. Obama’s inauguration, but by and large the report exonerated the agency.

Secret Service
Reality Television
Salahi Tareq
Salahi Michaele
Security and Warning Systems
White House (Washington DC)


Soccer: Red Bulls Beaten

Abstract: Maykel Galindo scored a goal in each half and Ante Razov added another from the penalty spot as Chivas USA defeated the Red Bulls, 3-0, in Carson, Calif. Chivas USA (12-6-4), unbeaten in its last five games, moved within 2 points of first-place Houston in the Western Conference. The Red Bulls (11-10-3) remain in third place in the East.


Group Reveals Toxic Chemicals in Consumer Products

Abstract: Some tennis balls for dogs, chew toys for cats and women’s plastic handbags were among the common household items found to contain lead and other toxic chemicals in recent tests, a nonprofit environmental group reported on Wednesday. The Ecology Center, a group based in Michigan, announced that it had expanded its online database, healthystuff.org , to reflect 15,000 test results on more than 5,000 common items. But independent toxicity experts expressed uncertainty that the mere presence of a toxic chemical in some objects would pose a clear health danger to people or animals. The products were rated by level of concern from low to high, depending on how much lead, mercury, arsenic or other chemicals known to be hazardous to human and pet health were detected. Jeff Gearhart, the research director for the center, which is known for its investigations on chemicals in children’s toys and cars, said it had decided to expand the database because of intense public demand for information on all types of products. Mr. Gearhart said the center’s announcement was timed to give a lift to current efforts in Congress to introduce legislation to more closely regulate toxic chemicals that end up in so many household products. “Current laws that regulate individual products are stopgap measures,” he said, “Ultimately we need to move to a system that doesn’t regulate the end product but regulates the chemicals themselves.” Still, many experts on public health and toxicology cast doubt on the significance of finding lead in a woman’s handbag, for example, where it had little chance of ending up in a growing child’s digestive system. Dr. Andrew D. Racine, director of the division of general pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, said that any item that contained significant quantities of lead should not be given to children. But in most cases, knowing that a product may contain measurable quantities of a potentially toxic chemical is not helpful, he said. “What does this mean?” he asked. “What’s the impact on our health? Without knowing that, all this does is frighten people.” Some manufacturers echoed his observation that the report did not take into account actual exposure to the chemical. For example, Jerry Sciarini, quality manager for OurPet’s, the manufacturers of the Play-N-Squeak Shake y’r Tail Feather mouse, objected to its being rated with a “high level” of concern. He said the lead was sewn into the toy and further sealed into a layer of plastic to protect the animal. “There are no standards for pets, but retailers see pets as members of the family and ask us to treat them like they are, so we do,” Mr. Sciarini said. Yet Charlotte Brody, the national field director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a Washington group that lobbies for more regulation of toxic chemical manufacturers, said it was useful for the public to have the information. “The honest answer to this report is we do not know how big a deal it is,” she said. “Every year we learn that what we had learned was a safe level of a chemical turns out not to be that safe. “If people are telling you lead is safe, even in small amounts, it isn’t science. It is hubris.”


Rice Has a Record Night, and Rutgers Ends a Skid

Abstract: WEST POINT , N.Y., Nov. 9 (AP) — Ray Rice ran for a Rutgers-record 243 yards and scored two touchdowns Friday night as the Scarlet Knights defeated Army, 41-6, to snap a two-game losing streak. Rice broke the record of 232 yards set by Terrell Willis against Temple in 1994, and set another team mark with his fifth career 200-yard game. Jabu Lovelace scored on two short runs and Colin McEvoy returned a blocked punt 22 yards for another touchdown to help Rutgers (6-4, 2-3 Big East) dominate on a raw, rainy and snowy evening. It was the Black Knights’ first loss in four games at Michie Stadium this season. Army (3-7) entered the game ranked 109th against the run, allowing 212.7 yards a game, and the Scarlet Knights took advantage with Rice carrying 34 times before leaving early in the fourth quarter. Rice, sixth in the nation with an average of 139.7 yards a game, gained 130 yards on 22 carries in the first half as Rutgers held the ball for 23 minutes 42 seconds and built a 24-6 lead. Rutgers held Army to three first downs in the first half. The Black Knights did not pick up their fourth until Ian Smith ran for 12 yards with just under five minutes left in the game. Tiquan Underwood returned the opening kickoff 48 yards to the Army 45 and Rutgers struck quickly. Rice gained 32 yards on four consecutive carries and Lovelace gained another 13 on three tries, scoring on a 3-yard run. Since the start of the 2000 season, Army had turned the ball over 230 times, the fourth-highest total in the country and 10 fewer than the national leader, Rutgers. Army obliged first Friday when tailback Patrick Mealy lost a fumble on the Black Knights’ second play from scrimmage and Devin McCourty recovered for Rutgers at the Army 39. It was only the 11th takeaway of the season for the Scarlet Knights. Mike Teel, who started at quarterback for Rutgers despite a sore thumb, gave the ball right back, throwing his 10th interception of the season two plays later when Josh Mitchell stepped in front of his sideline throw and ran 62 yards for a touchdown. The was just about the lone bright spot for the Black Knights. Adam DeMarco missed wide left on the extra point, Army’s first miss since October 2005. The game began slipping away from the Black Knights the next time they had the ball as McCourty blocked his third punt of the season and McEvoy returned it 22 yards for a touchdown that put Rutgers ahead, 14-6, with 3:23 left in the first quarter.

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey


Sandy Weill’s Wine Country Retirement, With Notes of Rue and Chagrin

Abstract: SONOMA, Calif. — Sanford I. Weill, who built Citigroup into a too-big-to-fail colossus and dominated the New York charity and social circuit more than a decade ago, lately can be found relaxed in jeans attending local wine country social events or riding his John Deere farm utility vehicle across his property to visit the neighbors. Mr. Weill, a quintessential Brooklyn native, and his wife, Joan, have decamped for Sonoma, where the rolling sun-dappled hills are often compared to Italy’s Tuscany region. The Weills spend more than half of their time here now, far from Wall Street’s high-octane environment — and its critical onlookers. Of course, parts of Mr. Weill’s new life still look similar to his old one back East. On the lawn of his 360-acre hilltop estate, named Casa Rosa, sit two stainless steel sculptures of roses, each more than 20 feet tall, by the New York artist Will Ryman. Mr. Weill bought them after noticing them in 2011, when they were part of a public art installation adorning Park Avenue. The couple’s Manhattan-based interior designer, Mica Ertegun, updated the Sonoma estate’s 11,600-square-foot mansion, which they bought in 2010 for $30 million. The property includes a vineyard that produces syrah under the “Weill a Way” label. And Mr. Weill arranged for Breguet, whose $23,600 wristwatches he wears, to become the official timepiece of a concert hall named after the Weills at nearby Sonoma State University, a project he helped finish with a $12 million donation in 2011. “I think he kind of enjoys it out here. Probably he finds it a bit more of a quieter lifestyle than the hustle and bustle of the city,” said Leslie Vadasz, a retired Intel executive whose 200-acre estate is next door to Casa Rosa. The two have become friendly, but there are some topics that are still off limits, it seems. “In a way, he was quite a pioneer on Wall Street,” Mr. Vadasz said in a recent interview, seated in the spacious living room of his own hillside mansion. “But when I mentioned it, either Sandy or Joan said, ‘Look what happened.’ He was not particularly happy about it.” Mr. Weill does not appear to enjoy discussing the topic, Mr. Vadasz added. “There are subjects that I don’t poke at and he doesn’t volunteer.” In an interview in an office he keeps in New York, where he still spends a quarter of his time, Mr. Weill acknowledged that the fate of Citigroup, and the role of giant banks in the financial crisis of 2008, do not get discussed much out West. Explaining the couple’s move, Mr. Weill said, “The two most interesting places in the U.S. are New York City and the Bay Area, and we spent more than 50 years of our married life in New York.” He added that the draws to the San Francisco Bay Area are the exciting innovation and entrepreneurship there, as well as the weather, the food and wine, and the lack of concrete. The Weills signaled their westward shift on April 26 by announcing a $185 million gift to the University of California, San Francisco, to finance a new Weill Institute for Neurosciences. In recent years, the couple has retired from board leadership roles at three New York institutions they continue to back: Weill Cornell medical school, Carnegie Hall and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. But until the latest gift was announced, few New Yorkers familiar with Mr. Weill’s storied Wall Street history knew that they had moved. In his heyday in the 1990s, Mr. Weill was “a Sun King — one of the most powerful and successful financial individuals in New York,” said Roy Smith, a finance professor at New York University business school. Mr. Weill gained that status as a deal maker, with a series of ever-larger mergers culminating with Citicorp and the Travelers Group forming the behemoth Citigroup in 1998. The last deal helped knock down the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated banking from the riskier securities business. But then he and Citigroup suffered a series of setbacks. He stepped down as Citigroup’s chief executive in 2003, a few months after a bruising regulatory probe of biased Wall Street research uncovered his personal efforts to get the star telecommunications analyst Jack Grubman to reconsider a tepid neutral rating on AT&T stock at a time when AT&T’s chief executive was a Citigroup director; though Mr. Weill was not charged, Citigroup paid the largest fine of any Wall Street company. And he and Citigroup were cited as contributors to the 2008 financial crisis by Time magazine and the Oscar-winning documentary “Inside Job.” Knocking down Glass-Steagall helped spawn “swollen banks” that “are now one of the country’s major economic problems,” Time said, noting that Citigroup itself required multiple government rescues costing $45 billion. In 2010 testimony before a congressional panel investigating the meltdown, Mr. Weill minimized the role of Glass-Steagall’s repeal, saying it “had nothing to do with the financial crisis.” When he retired as Citigroup chairman in 2006, Mr. Weill held 16.6 million Citigroup shares, then worth $768 million. At his peak in 2007, Forbes listed his net worth at $1.8 billion. But the stock lost more than 90 percent of its value after his handpicked successor allowed Citigroup to build up a huge exposure to toxic subprime assets. Video Sandy Weill, the former Citigroup chairman, and his wife, Joan, are financing a new center for neuroscience research at the University of California, San Francisco. Credit Credit CNBC Sensitive to his image, cultivated through business success, philanthropy and a penchant for putting the Weill name on buildings and institutions, Mr. Weill “may feel somewhat diminished,” said Mr. Smith of N.Y.U. But Mr. Weill says New York “continues to be very welcoming to us.” And he disputed suggestions advanced by two friends in interviews that the move west was motivated partly to get away from “all the noise around Citi.” Mike Conway, Mr. Weill’s chief of staff, said, “The Weills are not running away from anything. They are just trying to expand their horizons.” Ms. Weill said the couple often enjoyed time they spent on business trips to Carmel, Calif., and once considered buying “a pink house” there but decided it would be “a pain in the neck” to get back and forth while he was still working full time. The idea of the Bay Area came back in mid-2010 during a trip to Napa Valley. She recalls saying, “Gee, it’s really nice here. Maybe we should think about this.” In 2011, Mr. Weill sold his 10-room apartment at 15 Central Park West for $88 million. In 2012, he sold a 200-foot yacht for about $50 million. He has held on to a 12-room mansion in Greenwich, Conn., plus spreads in the Adirondacks and Bahamas. But nowadays, friends say, when he spends the night in Manhattan, he usually stays at a hotel. Sonoma, population 11,000 and situated 40 miles north of San Francisco, stands apart from Silicon Valley to the south, which teems with venture capital investors, start-ups and technology juggernauts like Apple and Facebook. The Weill estate is a few miles to the west of town, reachable via roads dotted with rusting pickup trucks, a Jack in the Box fast-food franchise and a furniture consignment store. Mr. Weill has not lost the thirst for success that helped build Citigroup and its predecessors, with a stock performance that more than doubled the broad market when he was chief executive. His 2012 Weill a Way Exposition 3 Syrah , which retails for about $79, got a 99 score from the wine critic Robert Parker in 2015. Morgan Twain-Peterson, the owner of Bedrock Wine, which produces Weill a Way, said Mr. Weill has suggested increasing margins by raising the price. “He often says, ‘I don’t understand your business model at all.’ He always wants the wine to be priced higher.” He also keeps up with old friends, including Ajay Banga, a Citigroup protégé who now runs MasterCard, which has pledged $15 million to sponsor concerts and a planned outdoor pavilion near the Weill concert hall at Sonoma State. Going to California helped Mr. Weill “restart the clock,” said Mr. Banga, who hosted an informal 83rd birthday celebration for Mr. Weill in March at a New York restaurant. “He’s a good guy. He’s gone through a lot, good and bad. I’ve heard him say you have to go through bad experiences to learn how to handle them and come out of them so you can better deal with the good times.”

Citigroup
Philanthropy
Sanford I Weill
Sonoma County CA
Joan H Weill
Napa CA
College


Union Leaders’ Bid to Levy New Fines Embitters New York Carpenters

Abstract: The union representing New York City carpenters, one of the area’s largest construction trades, continues to be roiled by turmoil after years of investigations into corruption and organized-crime influence and, since 2007, the federal convictions of four shop stewards for fraud, conspiracy or bribetaking. The latest dispute has pitted many carpenters against the union leadership over a plan to withhold quarterly benefits checks from workers who refuse to grant the trustees of their welfare fund a new power to levy fines against them. Leaders of the union, the District Council of Carpenters and Joiners, say the fines are necessary to deter carpenters from working off the books. Many carpenters say they are reluctant to give the union additional, and vaguely outlined, authority to fine workers. The increasingly bitter dispute began last summer, after carpenters, joiners, timber workers and other union members were asked by the welfare fund trustees to sign a deduction-authorization card that would allow fund administrators to levy new but unspecified “fines or penalties” on workers’ accrued vacation pay. The welfare fund provides life insurance, hospitalization, medical care, pension and vacation benefits to union members. Vacation pay is contributed by employers. Workers pay taxes on the money, but they authorize the welfare fund to collect and to disburse it to them four times a year. Union leaders tried to calm the waters in October with a letter explaining that the new fines or penalties were meant to deter “cash hounds” — members who illegally work for cash. Still, many members declined to sign the cards out of distrust of the trustees, a panel that includes employers’ representatives as well as the union’s top elected leadership, carpenters said. “That card was a threat,” said a carpenter who agreed to be interviewed this month only on condition of anonymity because he said he feared retribution. “It was like signing a blank check to let them take out whatever they want, whenever they want.” About 1,000 of the union’s 18,000 or so working members have not signed the card, a lawyer for the union said on Thursday. Many others signed it reluctantly, several union members said, because they needed the thousands of dollars that accrue each quarter. “The average guy in this business has a family; he counts on the income from that vacation fund,” said Michael Power, 37, a carpenter and 19-year union member who has refused to sign. “I talked to a lot of guys who said they feel cornered. They didn’t want to sign the card, but they felt like they had no choice.” The dispute escalated in March, when the union’s welfare fund trustees voted to stop sending vacation-pay disbursements to anyone who had not signed the authorization card, infuriating rank-and-file members. The legal basis for withholding vacation-fund payments is unclear. The fund’s trustees, comprising five union officials and five employer representatives, voted to stop distributing vacation checks without seeking the consent of the fund’s lawyers, said Stuart GraBois, the welfare fund’s executive director. Gary Rothman, a lawyer for the carpenters’ union, said, “Trustees have the authority to make reasonable rules as to the distribution of those benefits.” But Mr. Rothman added that since they voted to withhold the checks, the trustees have asked for a legal opinion, to be given at the next trustees’ meeting, on May 14. Many union members say they have good cause to resist their leaders. Since October 2007, four union officials have been convicted of either taking illegal payments from union employers or cheating their own union’s benefit funds. The carpenters’ union has operated under federal court supervision since 1994. Herman Benson, the founder of the Association for Union Democracy, a nonpartisan advocacy group based in Brooklyn, said the union leadership’s idea to withhold vacation pay was troubling. “There’s something particularly outrageous about it, because the money that they’re withholding is not theirs; it’s the workers’,” Mr. Benson said.


In Second Chance, Pineda Is Named the Yankees’ Fifth Starter

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Michael Pineda had to pause and collect himself as tears welled in his eyes Tuesday. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi had just told him that he had won the competition to be the Yankees’ fifth starter, and now reporters were asking Pineda to express his feelings about it. Two years ago, almost to the day, many of the same reporters were questioning Pineda about a shoulder injury that would later require surgery. The recovery from that operation was long and at times tumultuous, a two-year period that included Pineda’s arrest here for driving under the influence of alcohol. The Yankees had traded for Pineda in January 2012, sending Jesus Montero, then a top hitting prospect, to the Seattle Mariners in a deal that centered on those two players. Barely two months later, Pineda’s injury derailed what the Yankees hoped would be a seamless transition to the American League East, and then his arrest that summer raised more serious questions. Pineda , 25, was asked what he learned then. “Wow, it’s hard,” he said as he put his fingers to his eyes. “I learned a lot of situations that happened with me over the last two years. I learned I’m a professional player and I need a good focus on baseball every day, all the time.” In spring training, the Yankees were apparently satisfied enough that Pineda had corrected all his issues, physical and otherwise, and felt secure to grant him his second chance at the big leagues. Pineda earned the job by throwing 15 strong innings in spring training, with a 1.20 earned run average and 16 strikeouts, and got his fastball velocity back up to 94 miles per hour. “He threw extremely well,” Girardi said. “It was what we wanted to see from him. He improved with each outing, and at times was dominant. We really liked what we saw.” Pineda, a right-hander, beat out David Phelps, who will go to the bullpen, and Adam Warren. Phelps made 23 starts over the last two years, in part because of Pineda’s absence. Asked his preference, whether to be a starter or a reliever, Phelps replied, “My preference is just to help this team win.” Shoulder injuries like Pineda’s, a torn labrum, are difficult to come back from. Pineda did not pitch in 2012 and made 10 starts last year at three levels of the Yankees’ farm system, going 2-1 with a 3.32 E.R.A. in 402/3 innings. In 2011, his only season in the major leagues, he went 9-10 with a 3.74 E.R.A. with the Mariners. The first half of that year earned him an All-Star nod, but in the second half of the season he mysteriously lost velocity on his fastball and struggled, perhaps because of injury. Today, he does not throw as hard, but as Girardi said, he does not have to in order to get outs. He is throwing with confidence and using his secondary pitches, including a tough slider and an improving changeup, to get outs along with his fastball. On Tuesday, after Pineda got the news from Girardi, he called many people, he said. But first he called his mother in the Dominican Republic and told her the news that he was returning to the big leagues. “I’m happy today and proud of myself,” he said. “I’m so happy, man.” INSIDE PITCH Jacoby Ellsbury, who is recovering from a strained right calf, took six at-bats as the designated hitter in a minor league game Tuesday and said he thought he could avoid the disabled list. But until the Yankees are certain Ellsbury is completely healthy, they will limit him to minor league games, offering them the option to backdate his move to the D.L., if necessary. ... Catcher John Ryan Murphy was sent to the minor leagues, and Francisco Cervelli appears to have won the job as Brian McCann’s backup.


France: Militant Jailed Over Syria Link

Abstract: A Frenchman was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday for having joined an Islamist group in Syria, the first such ruling in France, where dozens more returning volunteer fighters are being held pending trial. The man, Flavien Moreau, was convicted of joining the unnamed Islamist group, a terrorism offense, more than a year after he returned from what he said was a 10-day stint in Syria with the group.

France
Syria
Flavien Moreau
Terrorism
Islam


Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web Users

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation. While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention. Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom. “I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.” Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials’ longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court’s permission. “This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority,” he said. “This always requires a court order. None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.” A central element of the F.B.I.’s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems — so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits-all mandate. Image Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, second from left, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in March. Credit Christopher Gregory/The New York Times Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post , and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines — starting at $25,000 a day — it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems. Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either. Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000. Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said. Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users’ information. “We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” Mr. Gidari said. The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working . The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP — calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept. The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said. In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time testified about the “going dark” problem at a House hearing , emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.

FBI
Government Surveillance
Wiretapping Eavesdropping
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
US
Barack Obama
Robert Mueller


Chesapeake Energy to End Chief’s Compensation Plan

Abstract: HOUSTON — Aubrey K. McClendon, Chesapeake Energy ’s audacious chairman and chief executive, has ridden the busts and booms in natural gas like a rodeo cowboy. He became a billionaire as the company he co-founded aggressively outbid competitors for land leases and drilled highly productive wells in virtually every major shale gas field in the country. And he acquired trophy assets like an N.B.A. team and a $12 million antique map collection. But Mr. McClendon also borrowed heavily, with loans currently of $846 million, to finance his participation in an unusual compensation plan that allowed him to invest alongside Chesapeake in every well that it drilled, sharing in both the profits and the expenses. Now Mr. McClendon may be about to tumble off the bucking bronco. Record low natural gas prices are undermining the value of the company’s investments and his own. Chesapeake announced on Thursday that it was phasing out the contentious compensation plan and undertaking a review of Mr. McClendon’s financial relationships with outside parties. And a growing chorus of criticism about Mr. McClendon’s risk-taking management style and his compensation could force further changes at the company, the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas, after Exxon Mobil. The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an informal inquiry into Mr. McClendon’s financial arrangements. Some analysts have called for the company to appoint an independent board chairman. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Chesapeake’s debt further into “junk” territory on Thursday, warning that “turmoil resulting from these developments could hamper Chesapeake’s ability to meet the massive external funding requirements stemming from its currently weak operating cash flow and continuing aggressive capital spending.” Chesapeake shares fell more than 3 percent on Thursday to close at $17.56. Over the last year, the stock price has swooned by 45 percent. The shares of other prominent gas explorers like Encana and Southwestern Energy have also been battered by low prices for the fuel. But Chesapeake, based in Oklahoma City, has come under particular criticism because of Mr. McClendon’s strategy of borrowing vast sums of money to buy land and drill wells and the passive attitude of the company’s board, which has repeatedly deferred to his personal financial interests. The shareholder disapproval reached a peak over the last week after Reuters reported that Mr. McClendon had used his personal stake in Chesapeake wells as collateral for up to $1.1 billion in loans used mostly to pay his share of the costs of Chesapeake wells in which he had invested. “When it comes to disclosure with this guy, there always seems to be something amiss, something in the picture that hasn’t come out,” said Mark Hanson, an energy stock analyst at Morningstar. Most of the loans came from EIG Global Energy Partners, an investment fund that has put money into some Chesapeake assets. The overlapping relationship has led many analysts to say that there was at least the appearance of a conflict of interest since Mr. McClendon could give his lenders a sweetheart deal in exchange for a preferential interest rate on his loans. The company’s top lawyer said last week that “the board of directors is fully aware of the existence of Mr. McClendon’s financing transactions.” But on Thursday, the board appeared to backtrack, saying it “did not review, approve or have knowledge of the specific transactions engaged in by Mr. McClendon or the terms of those transactions.” Board members include former Senator Don Nickles and former Gov. Frank Keating, both prominent Oklahoma Republicans. Philip H. Weiss, an analyst with Argus, said that the latest company statement “tells me that they lied and they didn’t know what is going on.” Chesapeake has emphasized that it would not be responsible for Mr. McClendon’s loans if he could not repay them. It has denied any conflict between Mr. McClendon’s interests and its own. Through a spokesman, Mr. McClendon declined to comment on Thursday. “Litigation is constraining our normal open door policy,” Michael D. Kehs, a company vice president, wrote in an e-mail. The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, a fellow booster of natural gas, defended Mr. McClendon. “It’s hard to be an entrepreneur if you don’t have skin in the game, and Aubrey always has skin in the game,” he said. Chesapeake still produces nearly 10 percent of the country’s natural gas. But as it tries to manage a gaping $10.3 billion debt, it is rapidly selling off assets. In the last month alone, the company has announced $2.6 billion in asset sales. That includes shares in a subsidiary that it sold to an investment group that included EIG, the firm that lent money to Mr. McClendon. The company has announced plans to sell $10 billion to $12 billion in assets this year and another $5 billion in 2013. In recent years, it has tried to move more of its drilling into oil , since prices for crude are still high. But in an indication of Chesapeake’s weakening condition, Mr. McClendon is poised to sell its 1.5 million acres in the West Texas Permian basin, one of the hottest oil drilling spots in the country. Even after the sales, Chesapeake will hold some of the richest positions in American shale fields, sometimes in partnerships with international oil companies. Fadel Gheit, a senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer & Company, called Chesapeake “by far one of the most undervalued energy assets.” Mr. McClendon, who has dismissed environmental concerns about gas extraction techniques like hydraulic fracturing, is no stranger to controversy. Five years ago, he was fined $250,000 by the N.B.A. for bragging that he and his partners did not buy the Seattle SuperSonics to keep it in Seattle — a statement that was at odds with the N.B.A. commissioner’s intentions. The Sonics moved to Oklahoma City anyway for the 2008-9 season. They play in Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mr. McClendon donated millions of dollars to the Sierra Club from 2007 to 2010, money that the environmental group neglected to disclose even as it advocated increased use of natural gas as a replacement for coal . Later, the Sierra Club cut its ties to the natural gas industry as concerns rose over water and air pollution caused by drilling for gas. Criticism of Mr. McClendon has mounted again since the company disclosed late Friday that Mr. McClendon had paid $661 million to the company over a three-year period to finance his share of the special compensation plan, called the Founder Well Participation Program, that will now be phased out. Mr. McClendon had received $351 million in cash from his stakes in the wells, but he was obliged to contribute just over $1 billion in drilling costs. Several analysts say those losses have reminded investors of a previous McClendon debacle. During the 2008 financial crisis, Mr. McClendon was forced to sell more than 30 million Chesapeake shares worth more than half a billion dollars to cover margin calls from brokers who had lent him money. The company’s stock price fell more than a third as Mr. McClendon sold his shares. Chesapeake tried to give him a financial lift with a $75 million bonus and by agreeing to buy his personal map collection. After a shareholder lawsuit, Mr. McClendon agreed to buy back the maps.

Natural Gas
Executive Compensation
Chesapeake Energy Corporation
McClendon Aubrey K


Governor Paterson Will Show First Campaign Ads

Abstract: Seeking to dampen continuing speculation that he will drop his quest for election, Gov. David A. Paterson will run his first television ads on Friday, his campaign announced Thursday. The two ads, each 30 seconds long, highlight his biography and address criticism Mr. Paterson has faced from labor unions and business interests over his proposed cuts to the state budget. Both directly confront what polls say is Mr. Paterson’s central political problem: widespread public skepticism that he has the ability to lead the state effectively. The first, titled “Some Say,” features the governor defending himself. “Some say I shouldn’t be running for governor,” says Mr. Paterson, before defending his record on fiscal issues. “It might have been easier if all I thought about was running for governor. But I think it’s more important to do what’s right for the people of New York.” In the second ad, titled “When,” a narrator describes Mr. Paterson’s educational successes and the burdens of being legally blind, while hinting that the governor has been strengthened by his failures and errors in office. “When you become governor, you learn you will make mistakes,” the narrator says of Mr. Paterson. “But in the depths of an historic recession, you take what you have learned and have the strength to do what’s right for the people of New York.” The governor’s campaign spokeswoman, Tracy Sefl, said the campaign had bought a “substantial, extended and statewide” ad run. She did not give a precise figure, but characterized it as a “multimillion dollar buy.” With many fellow Democrats convinced that he cannot win next year, Mr. Paterson has had difficulty raising money. The two ads also unveil Mr. Paterson’s new campaign slogan, “Governor Paterson: The People First.” Both ads were produced by Murphy Putnam Media , a firm based in Alexandria, Va.

Elections
Paterson David A
Political Advertising
Advertising and Marketing
New York State
Democratic Party


Nets Seek Validation and New Fan Base

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., April 19 - The Nets' prize for winning the Atlantic Division was a No. 3 seeding, but the team they drew in the first round of the playoffs does not seem like much of a reward. The Nets (49-33) will face the sixth-seeded Indiana Pacers when the playoffs start Sunday at 1 p.m. at Continental Arena. The Pacers have beaten the Nets in two of three games this season. Indiana was in the Eastern Conference finals two seasons ago, and was among the favorites in the East this season until Ron Artest was traded. The turmoil surrounding Artest is a thing of the past, and the Pacers are as healthy as they have been all season. The Nets may be facing about as tough a first-round opponent as there is in the East. "Indiana finally has their team together," Coach Lawrence Frank said after the Nets fell, 90-83, to the Knicks in the regular-season finale for both teams. "We have a high level of respect for them. It is now a second season. We are all anxious to get started and we look forward to the challenge." When healthy, the Pacers (41-41) appear to be a formidable opponent. They have Jermaine O'Neal, a perennial All-Star, at center. Stephen Jackson and Peja Stojakovic, a pair of lethal shooters, are on the wings. The Nets need a successful postseason run to prove that their 14-game winning streak late in the season was no fluke, and that their star-packed lineup of Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson is a workable playoff combination. The Nets are also banking on playoff success to attract a fan following from New York City because they are scheduled to move to Brooklyn in 2009. With New York's most popular team, the Knicks, finished playing for about six months, Brett Yormark, the president and chief executive of Nets Sports & Entertainment, sees an opportunity for the Nets to gain marketing momentum. "Hopefully, we can attract new fans, people that didn't tune in to watch us before," he said Wednesday night. "Being the only basketball team in the market that's playing, maybe they will sample us. Maybe they will take a second look at us and they'll see something they like." Going deep into the playoffs may be the best way for the Nets to capitalize on their temporary monopoly of the New York market. Yormark remains hopeful that the Nets are headed in the right direction on and off the court. And he said they would continue to do so regardless of what the Knicks are doing. "I think it's fair to say that the Knicks have a tremendous tradition," he said. "I don't think we'll ever be able to compete with that tradition. All we can do is compete with ourselves and be the best at what we do: encourage sampling, be relevant, be credible, put a good product on the court and, as I'd like to say, let the fans vote with their wallets." REBOUNDS The other first-round matchups in the Eastern Conference will be No. 1 Detroit vs. No. 8 Milwaukee; No. 2 Miami vs. No. 7 Chicago; and No. 4 Cleveland vs. No. 5 Washington.

INDIANA PACERS
BASKETBALL
NEW JERSEY NETS
NEW YORK KNICKERBOCKERS


Brains of Bee Scouts Are Wired for Adventure

Abstract: Some honeybees are known to be thrill-seeking adventurers — the David Blaines of their hive, so to speak. Known as scouts, they fearlessly leave their hives and search for new sources of food and new hive locations for the rest of the colony. Now, a new study suggests that these scouts have genetic brain patterns that set them apart from other bees. “We found massive differences in brain gene expressions between scouts and nonscouts,” said Gene E. Robinson , a geneticist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an author of the study , which appears in the current issue of the journal Science. The scientists also found that by increasing or inhibiting certain chemicals in the brain, they could encourage scouting behavior in otherwise timid bees, and suppress it in the thrill seekers. “By manipulating some neurochemical pathways, we could increase the chances of scouting behavior,” Dr. Robinson said. That behavior, he added, has analogues in human society. Just as human novelty seekers run the gamut from bold leaders to drug takers to enthusiasts for extreme sports like bungee jumping, the new research indicates that scouting bees also have a range of brain variations. “We find this intriguing parallel, and we see these molecular similarities,” Dr. Robinson said. The chemicals that seem to be connected to scouting activity include catecholamine, glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid — all chemicals that are also involved in regulating thrill-seeking behavior in humans and other vertebrates. The researchers think these molecular pathways evolved similarly in bees and humans.

Brain
Bees
Science and Technology
Science (Journal)


Trial in Sweat Lodge Deaths Begins

Abstract: The trial of James A. Ray , a motivational speaker charged with manslaughter in the deaths of three of his followers during a sweat lodge ceremony, opened Tuesday in the central Arizona town of Camp Verde. A prosecutor, Sheila Polk, argued that Mr. Ray’s negligence caused the deaths of Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman in October 2009. She said Mr. Ray conditioned the victims to put aside their inhibitions and trust him as a way of reaching enlightenment. Luis Li, Mr. Ray’s lawyer, called the deaths accidental and said the victims had voluntarily entered the sweat lodge. Mr. Li said that the victims were adults and had made their own decisions and that Mr. Ray held no power over them. Among spectators at the trial, which is expected to last four months, were relatives of the victims, who sobbed as lawyers recounted details of the sweltering endurance exercise, part of Mr. Ray’s “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that cost participants $9,000 each. The case has drawn international attention, largely because of the bizarre circumstances and where the deaths took place — at an unspoiled campground within view of the famous red rocks of Sedona, a well-known New Age gathering place.

Sweat Lodge
Arizona
Ray James Arthur
Saunas


Manhattan: Garden to Provide More Access

Abstract: The owners of Madison Square Garden will modify the arena to provide greater access to people with physical disabilities, federal prosecutors said yesterday. Under the agreement announced by Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, the owners will add 50 wheelchair-accessible seats and make other changes to increase access. In a statement, a Madison Square Garden spokesman, Barry Watkins, said the owners had worked for several years to reach an agreement with the government over how best to modify the arena, which was built in 1968.

Madison Square Garden
Handicapped
Stadiums and Arenas


Countdown to 2014 World Cup in Brazil: Day 75

Abstract: The 2014 World Cup begins on June 12, when Brazil plays Croatia in the opening match. Reporters and editors for The Times will count down to the start of the tournament each day with a short capsule of news and interesting tidbits. FIFA said that more than 2.5 million tickets have been sold for the World Cup, with tickets remaining for only seven games that fans have deemed less than desirable. Of the 64 tournament games, tickets remain for the Greece-Ivory Coast and Uruguay-Costa Rica games (both in Fortaleza); Nigeria-Bosnia and Russia-South Korea (both in Cuiaba); South Korea-Algeria (in Porto Alegre); Honduras-Switzerland (in Manaus); and Bosnia-Iran (in Salvador). The latest online sales period ends in five days with more than 2.5 million tickets having already been sold. All but those seven games have sold out. More than two-thirds of the matches sold out in less than three hours. Tickets for all of Brazil’s games were gone in about an hour, as were those for all of the quarterfinals and nearly all the second-round matchups. FIFA does not provide detailed information on tickets sold for each game, but did say that the Greece-Ivory Coast game June 24 was the only one with “high availability.” Tickets for four games — the opener between Brazil and Croatia in São Paulo, the final at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, and the semifinals in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte — were never put on sale. After the ongoing controversy over the pace of stadium construction and renovation for the tournament, FIFA said Friday that it would provide 50,000 free tickets to construction workers for all first-round games, except the opening match. The tickets will be given to the construction companies, who will distribute them to workers.


U.S. Oil Production Keeps Rising Beyond the Forecasts

Abstract: OIL production in the United States rose by a record 992,000 barrels a day in 2013, the International Energy Agency estimated this week. “We keep raising our forecasts, and we keep underestimating production,” said Lejla Alic, a Paris-based analyst with the agency. The increase left United States production at 7.5 million barrels a day, with both November and December production estimated to have been over eight million barrels a day. American consumption of oil also rose last year, by 390,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 percent, to 18.9 million barrels a day. The agency increased its estimate of American oil use in the final quarter of the year, although it lowered its estimate of the increase in some other countries, including China. Over all, world consumption rose 1.4 percent, making 2013 the first year since 1999 that the use of oil in the United States rose more rapidly than in the rest of the world. The agency said that demand was strong in the petrochemical industry in the United States, which has benefited from the fact that rising supply has left American crude oil prices lower than those in many other countries. The agency estimated that demand for gasoline in the United States rose as a result of increasing consumer confidence and more sales of sport utility vehicles. Despite the 2013 increases, oil use in most developed countries remains well below the levels of 2007, the last pre-recession year. The United States is estimated to have used 8.5 percent less oil in 2013 than it did in 2007, while demand is down by about 25 percent in Italy and Spain, European countries that were hard hit by the euro area’s problems. Germany stands out, with 2013 usage equal to that of 2007. In the developing world, oil use has been rising steadily. Demand in China and Brazil is up more than 30 percent since 2007, and India’s consumption is 17 percent higher. The agency estimates that in 2014, the 34 mostly rich countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will consume less than half the oil used in the world. That would be a first: As recently as 2004, their share was over 60 percent, and in 2013, it was estimated to be 50.5 percent. Over the same period, the United States’ share of the market fell to 21 percent from 25 percent, while China’s share rose to 11 percent from less than 8 percent. But the American share was estimated to have risen slightly in 2013, the first annual increase since 1999. The increase in United States production in 2013 exceeded the increase of 836,000 barrels a day in 2012. The largest increase before that, of 751,000 barrels, was in 1951, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. In percentage terms, the 15.3 percent increase in 2013 was the largest since an 18.9 percent gain in 1940. American oil production fell steadily from the early 1990s through 2008, but has since risen for five consecutive years, largely because of increased production of shale oil. Not since the late 1960s, when production in Texas was peaking and Alaska oil was beginning to come on stream, has there been such a string of annual increases. As a result, United States oil production climbed to the highest level since 1989, although it remains well below the record production of 9.6 million barrels a day, set in 1970. The agency forecast that American production would continue to rise in 2014, adding 782,000 barrels, to 8.3 million barrels a day. If that forecast proves to be accurate, United States oil production will have increased 46 percent over the three years from 2011 to 2014. There has not been a three-year increase that large since the years 1921-24, exactly nine decades earlier.

International trade
Oil and Gasoline
US Economy


Clunker Cash Spurs Ford to Increase Output

Abstract: DEARBORN, Mich. — The government’s cash-for-clunkers program has been so popular with consumers that one automaker, the Ford Motor Company , will increase production to meet the higher demand. Ford said on Thursday that it would add 10,000 vehicles to its production schedule in the third quarter and significantly increase its fourth-quarter output as well. The company now plans to make 570,000 vehicles in its North American plants during the last three months of the year. That would amount to a 33 percent increase compared with production in the period a year earlier, and 15 percent more than Ford had planned before the clunkers program began in late July. “Under the cash-for-clunkers program, the Ford Escape and Focus are flying off dealer lots,” said Mark Fields, who oversees Ford’s operations in the Americas, “and we’re doing all we can to ensure our dealers are well stocked with fuel-efficient vehicles that customers really want.” Ford’s move is the latest indication of the boost that the clunkers program has given to the new car market, which has been mired in its worst slump in 25 years. “The pace of sales is extremely fast,” said George Pipas, Ford’s chief market analyst. “Retail sales are eye-popping compared to a year ago.” The Obama administration’s clunkers program gives consumers up to $4,500 toward trade-ins of older gas guzzlers for newer, more fuel-efficient models. The government’s original $1 billion allocation for the program was exhausted in a week, as dealers submitted 245,000 transactions to federal officials for approval. Most large car companies benefited immediately from the program. In July, industry sales fell just 12 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 32 percent decline for the year to date. And since $2 billion was added to the program last week, the rush to take advantage of it has continued. About $300 million of the $2 billion has already been used, and the funds are drying up quickly, Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, a Ford economist, said. “The appetite is there,” Ms. Hughes-Cromwick said. “This thing could pretty much expire in the next three or four weeks.” While Ford is the only auto company to announce a production increase because of the clunkers program, both General Motors and Chrysler are considering similar moves. G.M. executives said this week that the company might increase production in the fourth quarter. Suppliers to G.M. have been told to expect an increase of at least 50,000 vehicles. Car companies are starting to run short of some models that have been the best sellers as a result of the program. Toyota, for example, said it had less than a two-week inventory for its Prius gas-electric hybrid. Ford said it had an inventory of vehicles that would last about 48 days — a major decline from the 80-day supply it reported earlier this year. The company is planning to add shifts and increase overtime at plants in Michigan and Missouri to raise supplies of the Escape sport utility vehicle and the Focus compact car, two of its most fuel-efficient models. Ford, the only American automaker to have avoided a bankruptcy filing, has generated impressive momentum in the market since the clunkers program started. The company posted a rare 2 percent increase in sales in the United States in July from a year earlier. It was Ford’s first year-over-year increase since 2007, according to company executives. One analyst said that Ford’s improving sales gave another indication that consumers were gravitating to its showrooms at the expense of G.M. and Chrysler, both of which were bailed out by the government this year. “It has become increasingly apparent that consumers are viewing Ford in a different light than its troubled cross-town rivals, which along with strong product, should continue to drive sales for the company,” John Murphy, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a research note to clients. Ford said that its share of the cars sold under the clunkers program was about 16 percent. By contrast, the company’s retail share of the United States market is 13 percent, Mr. Pipas said. Most of the vehicles being bought with clunker cash are smaller sedans and crossover vehicles that rank high in fuel economy. Besides the Escape and the Focus, the top sellers in the first phase of the program were the Honda Civic , Jeep Patriot and Toyota Corolla . Ms. Hughes-Cromwick of Ford said that, based on current clunker trade-ins, participants would save more than $800 a year on gasoline bills. She also estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of the people taking advantage of the program would not have purchased a new vehicle so soon without the clunker cash. “Whether it’s pent-up demand or not,” she said, “the numbers of this program have really been a blockbuster.”

Small Cars (Compact Subcompact and Microcars)


Top Gooner

Abstract: Among the many things I have in common with the Queen of England is this: We are both lunatic fans of Arsenal Football Club. And while Her Majesty may get better seats than I do — last I checked, there were no thrones in the upper deck — I’m guessing that my attendance record has been considerably higher, which is odd given our respective commutes. Buckingham Palace is a carriage ride away from Arsenal’s stadium, whereas I need to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Over the past decade I have made the pilgrimage at least a dozen times, while the queen, a self-proclaimed “Gooner” for 50 years — only a sniveling fan of archrival Tottenham Hotspurs would mention that Fidel Castro and Osama Bin Laden are also proud supporters of our storied club — begged off attending the gala opening of Arsenal’s new stadium last October because of a bad back. A bad back? It would have taken Jack Kevorkian himself to keep me away. But my devotion to Arsenal doesn’t exactly scream mental health. As my teenage daughter put it recently when I interrupted a vacation in Spain to travel six hours for a glimpse of my favorite player, Thierry Henry, who after eight electrifying years at Arsenal had vamoosed to the powerhouse Barcelona club, “Sometimes I think you love Arsenal more than your family.” Nonsense, I told her, I love you both the same. Why would someone who has lived his whole life in New York and once waited two hours after a Mets game to ask Willie Mays for an autograph (he graciously turned me down, saying, “I have no time for that stuff, kid”; only he didn’t say “stuff” and he didn’t say “kid,” either) become besotted with a soccer team from north London? It’s my father’s fault, of course. While he inculcated in me a love of the sport from an early age (he grew up in Europe), he had never revealed his true passion until I was out of college, when he sat me down for The Talk. “There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to stand up for what he believes,” he said to me. “It’s not enough that you play and watch soccer — you need to have a team to call your own.” And so I did what any good son would do: I chose my father’s team. From then on, I’ve pondered life’s dilemmas through the question “Is it good for Arsenal?” This, as you can imagine, has made for some fraught moments. One time in London I started bantering about soccer with my cabdriver. Not a nanosecond after the words “I’m a Gooner” escaped my lips, the car screeched to a halt and the driver said: “Nothing personal, mate, but I think Arsenal are scum. Get out.” As he sped away, I noticed the sticker on the back window: “C’mon you Spurs!” What’s with all this hating on Arsenal? Is it because our manager, Arsène Wenger, is an imperious Frenchman who would sooner have his eyes rubbed with shards of escargot shell than field a team of English players? Or is it because he has transformed the traditional British game of blood and thunder into an audacious foreign cocktail of speed mixed with skill and verve? All I know is that I have never encountered so much schadenfreude as I have this past season. It seemed as if every day some troglodyte who supports Spurs or Manchester United would send me a taunting e-mail message about how we mortgaged our future on the new stadium or how Henry sold his soul for a boatload of paella. Truth to tell, I couldn’t disagree with some of the trash talk, particularly about the new stadium. For 93 years, Arsenal played its home games in an Art Deco abattoir that offered few amenities, unless you liked greasy meat pies and seats that kept your knees in crash position. Who cared about comfort, anyway, when you were winning titles — the Premier League in 2004, the FA Cup in 2003 and 2005, the league and the FA Cup in 1998 and 2002, plus the glorious unbeaten season of 2004? With success, however, came a higher demand for tickets and the realization that Arsenal had outgrown its physical and spiritual home. Taking on a huge debt, the team owners built a $750 million state-of-the-art pleasure dome that nearly doubled capacity and featured upholstered seats with enough legroom for Yao Ming. It is bright, immaculate and luxurious. And I hate it. I don’t know what the queen thinks of the stadium, or how she took the news of Henry’s defection — I’ve yet to hear of any beheadings at the Palace — but as for me and my Gooner posse, we are not amused. Still, with a new season under way, I remain as optimistic and committed as ever. Turns out that Arsenal plays Tottenham on the weekend my daughter leaves for her freshman year at college. I’m sure she’ll understand. .

England
Arsenal Football Club
Soccer
Athletics and Sports
Families and Family Life


Facing Their Scars, and Finding Beauty

Abstract: HOBOKEN, N.J., June 14 — Louise Benoit stepped gingerly into the studio. Before her hung paintings of a proud humanoid race whose limbs and features were sculpted into impossible positions and fantastic shapes. Wild tattoos in no discernible pattern marked their faces. A gnarled knob appeared where the eye expected a hand. Eyelids and ears were partly erased. Hues of blue and green and gold swirled in the pinks and browns of their skin, skin that looked like a moonscape or a field of flame, like anything but the familiar textures of the human body. "Wow," Ms. Benoit said, slowly. "Wow. Wow." She approached a 7-foot-wide portrait of two strangely beautiful young women. One looked as if her skin had been lifted away. The others' eyes looked in different directions; her nose drifted to one side. The women in the painting were Ms. Benoit, 30, and her sister Rebecca. The likenesses, she said, were uncanny, and a bit unsettling. "Sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror," she said, "and maybe subconsciously I make it look like it's not as bad. "But in the picture, when you see that, it's like, the reality." But the reality is what it is, and that is why Ms. Benoit, a doctoral student in psychology who was severely burned in a house fire a decade ago, agreed to take part in an unusual art project. Ten teenagers and young adults, former patients at the Burn Center at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., posed for an artist who seeks to lift the stigma from those whom fire and scars and grafted skin have reshaped into aesthetic outcasts. The painter, Doug Auld, 52, says that if people have a chance to gaze without voyeuristic guilt at the disfigured, they may be more likely to accept them as fellow human beings, rather than as grotesques to be gawked at or turned away from. So go ahead and stare. This is what people with burns look like. There are thousands and thousands of them, and while many shut themselves away, plenty venture out to conduct their lives. As Alvaro Llanos, who nearly died in a dormitory fire at Seton Hall University in 2000, said: "I'd rather people be staring at a painting than at me." Ms. Benoit, who lost five relatives, her right leg, her left forearm and much of her face in the fire, wondered what a person without burns would make of the painting. "Some people will look at it and say 'Ewww,' " she said. "Other people will look at it and see more than scars. Maybe some people will see both — see the scars but also see beyond that." The portraits' roots go back 30 years, to when Mr. Auld was at an outdoor market and felt a quiet commotion sweep the crowd. A girl, perhaps 12 or 13, passed, rushed through by her mother. "I wasn't prepared for it," Mr. Auld said. "She was literally melted — no ears, no nose, just holes. Slits for eyes. Her neck was like a long, drawn thing." The girl looked up at Mr. Auld. He looked at her and found he could not speak. "I did what everybody else did. I turned my head away." Mr. Auld went on to become a reasonably successful portrait painter. The burned girl haunted him. "I wanted to freeze-frame her," he said, "so that I could look, and process, and come out of it and say, 'Good morning.' " In 2003, he suggested a portrait project to officials at Saint Barnabas. They were skeptical but eventually agreed. Now, said Chris Ruhren, director of burn services at the medical center, "when I look at these paintings, I think, 'Oh, my God, how beautiful.' We know the scarring process. We see how far they've come." The hospital is now studying how the portraits affect their subjects' self-images and psychological recovery. The burn center's medical director, E. Hani Mansour, a reconstructive surgeon whose painstaking work is showcased in the paintings, pronounced them "splendid" if somewhat exaggerated. "When you look at these people physically, they don't have this variegation of colors and scars," Dr. Mansour said. "But he did show the disfigurement, the anguish with these scars. I don't know if he will be able to sell them; they are so striking it's unbelievable." Mr. Auld said he "pushed" the colors and patterns he saw in his subjects' flesh, both to strengthen the images and to make sure viewers realized they were looking at paintings, not photographs. As for selling the portraits, collectively called "State of Grace," Mr. Auld hopes someone will buy and display the whole series. He certainly wants them seen by as many people as possible. "I'd like to think I can see all 10 kids on Oprah," he said. "Why not?" Mr. Auld, sensitive to charges of exploitation, likens himself to a war correspondent who is "doing something vital for society, because society needs to see what's happening out there." At the same time, Mr. Auld said, "he's making a living. And he's making a name for himself." The series can be seen online at dougauld.com . One of the paintings, "Shayla," is among 50 chosen in a nationwide competition to hang in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington at a show that opens next month. "State of Grace" is not without precedent. In 2002, the National Portrait Gallery in London mounted a show, "Saving Faces," depicting patients who had undergone radical facial surgeries. Mr. Auld said he was inspired by the 19th-century painter Théodore Géricault's portraits of asylum inmates. (Mr. Llanos, the survivor of the Seton Hall fire, was himself the subject of a series in The Star-Ledger that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography.) There is even a current photography show near Albany with striking parallels to Mr. Auld's work. Last year, an amateur photographer named Steve Lobel attended a conference of burn survivors in Baltimore. He asked if anyone would sit for portraits. Soon dozens of people had lined up in the hotel lobby. The result is "Recognition Beyond Burned," showing at the Exposed Gallery of Art Photography in Delmar, N.Y., through Wednesday. Dan Gropper, who lost both arms and legs and whose face bears the traces of more than a dozen surgeries, wears a huge grin in his photo. "I get a lot of 'Oh, poor Dan,' " said Mr. Gropper, who travels widely and has skydived. "I have a very good life." Dyna Carlisle was so excited when she heard about the show that she drove down from the Adirondacks to insist on having her photo taken, too. "I want people to see us and know we're not freaks," she said. Ms. Benoit's sister Rebecca Benoit, 20, joked recently with another of Mr. Auld's subjects, Jelani Jeffrey, about being at the forefront of a fashion trend. "We were like, 'What if this thing blows up and everybody wants to get burned?" she said. Mr. Jeffrey, 23, visited Mr. Auld's studio with the Benoits and Mr. Llanos to talk about the portraits. He said that while he would not wish his injuries on anyone — they include hands charred to nubs and an amputated leg — the burns were in some ways a blessing. They forced him to be honest. "It doesn't allow you to lie to yourself the way other people are capable of doing," he said. "There's no way to hide it, no way to spin it around or put it off on someone else. Everybody has issues and flaws, and mine happen to be prevalent right from the door."

Art
Skin
Burns
Awards Decorations and Honors
Discrimination


Nuclear Reactor’s Life Is Prolonged in New Jersey

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted Wednesday to allow the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor in South Jersey to operate for another 20 years, rejecting claims made by opponents about risk. The Oyster Creek case had generated intense interest because the plant, in Lacey Township in Ocean County, is the nation’s oldest nuclear reactor, having opened in 1969, and rust had corroded its steel liner. The liner would contain radioactive steam in an emergency and supports hundreds of tons of water in a pool above the reactor during routine refueling. But after extensive repeated examinations by the plant’s operator, now called the Amergen Energy Company, engineers at the regulatory commission concluded that the rust was not progressing and that enough metal remained for safe operation. Since 2000, the commission has allowed extensions of initial 40-year licenses for 51 other reactors in the country. By authorizing its staff to extend the Oyster Creek license, it sent a signal that opponents of renewals at other plants — including Indian Point 2 and 3 in Buchanan, N.Y., and Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt. — may find it hard to prevail. Three of the commission’s four members voted to uphold a ruling by a lower regulatory panel to license the plant and deny an appeal by opponents who wanted the case reopened for discussion. The fourth dissented from part of the majority opinion but said he agreed with much of it. Some commission officials have even discussed the possibility of a second round of extensions that would allow reactors to operate for up to 80 years. The commission’s position is that the initial licenses were limited to 40 years to address antitrust concerns and future economic considerations — not because of the reactors’ physical limits. The prospect of higher prices for competing fuels like oil and natural gas has also been good news for old nuclear reactors lately. Proposals to impose new costs on coal -fired plants for the carbon dioxide they emit, a factor in global warming , have also heartened nuclear operators. Opponents of the Oyster Creek extension had been hopeful that President Obama would appoint new members to the commission who were less friendly to the industry before the decision. (There is one vacancy now, and another may open this summer.)

Nuclear Reactor
New Jersey
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Amergen Energy
Nuclear Energy


Lundqvist Ties Team Win Record as Rangers Top Jets

Abstract: Henrik Lundqvist stopped 30 shots to tie a team record for career wins, and his fellow Swede Carl Hagelin scored three goals to lift the Rangers to a 4-2 road victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Friday night. Lundqvist tied the mark of 301 wins set by the Stanley Cup winner Mike Richter. Lundqvist will have a chance to break the record at home Sunday against San Jose. Chris Kreider also scored for the Rangers (36-28-4). The team went 1-2 on a three-game trip, bouncing back from a 2-1 loss at Minnesota on Thursday. The Rangers took a 1-0 lead on their third shot of the game. Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd scored for the Jets (30-29-9), who have lost six straight and are fighting to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Jets failed to earn a point, as they had in three of the previous five losses. PANTHERS 5, DEVILS 3 Scottie Upshall scored the go-ahead goal, and Florida beat the visiting Devils. Vincent Trocheck, Brad Boyes, Quinton Howden and Brian Campbell also scored for Florida. Roberto Luongo stopped 28 shots. Jonathan Huberdeau had two assists, and Boyes also had an assist. Patrik Elias had a goal and an assist for the Devils, and Bryce Salvador and Jaromir Jagr also scored. Cory Schneider made 17 saves. SHARKS 4, ISLANDERS 3 Matt Nieto and Jason Demers scored first-period goals, and visiting San Jose made the most of 26 shots in a win over the Islanders. Anders Lee, Brock Nelson and Frans Nielsen scored for the Islanders, who lost for the fifth time in six home games. The Islanders’ 9-17-8 home record is the worst in the N.H.L. Evgeni Nabokov stopped 22 shots for the Islanders in his first start against his former team. FLAMES 4, STARS 3 Mike Cammalleri had two goals, Corban Knight scored the winner in a shootout, and Calgary erased a two-goal deficit in the third period to beat host Dallas. RED WINGS 2, OILERS 1 Tomas Tatar scored on Detroit’s third shootout attempt, and Jimmy Howard stopped all three Edmonton attempts to lift the Red Wings to a win at home over the Oilers. CAPITALS 4, CANUCKS 3 Mike Green scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, and Evgeny Kuznetsov had three assists for his first N.H.L. points in Washington’s home victory over Vancouver. PREDATORS 3, BLACKHAWKS 2 Roman Josi had three assists, Ryan Ellis scored in the third period, and Nashville beat host Chicago for its third consecutive win. MEDAL FOR BACKSTROM Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom, who also plays for Sweden, will receive an Olympic silver medal even though he was suspended from the final at the Sochi Games after a positive drug test. The International Olympic Committee found that Backstrom had not intended to enhance his performance.

Henrik Lundqvist
Devils
Islanders
Red Wings
Washington Capitals
Ice hockey
Colorado Avalanche
James Neal
Marian Hossa


North Dakota, a Place to Go for Employment

Abstract: The state job service agency in North Dakota is bursting with openings — a total of more than 9,000 in the public and private sectors. It’s a sign that the recession is not affecting all states equally. Of the 50 states, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate — just 4.2 percent, compared with 9.5 percent nationwide. Why has North Dakota remained relatively unscathed? A balanced economy, including robust energy and agricultural industries, have helped keep the state strong, said Michael Ziesch, research analyst for Job Service North Dakota. It also did not have as much exposure to subprime lending as other states, he said. Just a few years ago, North Dakota’s unemployment rate was so low that officials traveled to other states, trying to convince people to move there. Now officials don’t have to do that; the economy is doing it for them. Included in the influx of job seekers to North Dakota are people from Michigan, which has the highest jobless rate — 15.2 percent — in the nation.

North Dakota
Unemployment
Economic Conditions and Trends
States (US)
Labor