A Bear’s Brain Surgery, Babies’ Consciousness and More

Abstract: You’re up in space — weightless — with a wet washcloth. What will happen when you wring it out? Even on Friday, when everyone was riveted to the manhunt in Boston, an online video from the International Space Station about that question was a suspenseful and intriguing diversion. What happened to the water in microgravity turned out to be “much more interesting than what happens here on earth,” as The Los Angeles Times put it. Before we give you the answer, here’s the context: Canada’s equivalent of NASA held a contest for schoolchildren , asking them to design a simple experiment that the Canadian astronaut aboard the space station could perform using particular household items, office supplies and the like. The list of nearly 50 items included dental floss, nylon running shorts, ketchup, mustard and a magnifying glass. Two 10th-grade girls from Nova Scotia, together with their science teacher, came up with the wet washcloth idea, chosen from nearly 100 entries. So last Tuesday, the commander of the space station, Chris Hadfield , a veteran spacewalker, recorded a video in which, with a microphone bobbing near his mouth, he unfurled a white washcloth, squirted drinking water onto it, then twisted the saturated cloth. In what looked like a magic trick, the water began surrounding the washcloth in a thick layer, then migrated outward. “It’s becoming a tube of water,” Commander Hadfield said, staring intently at the cloth over his signature mustache. “It wrings out of the cloth onto my hands.” Image Chris Hadfield wrung out a wet washcloth while aboard the International Space Station for an experiment designed by two 10th graders in Nova Scotia. Credit NASA Because of the surface tension of the water, he explained, the fluid ran along the exterior of the fabric and onto him, where it stuck, “almost like you had Jell-O on your hand.” He wiped his wet hands and left the washcloth, still twisted, dangling in place. “Great experiment, worked perfectly,” he said. The 10th graders had predicted the outcome spot on. “Their hypothesis that the water would not drip in microgravity but rather remain on the washcloth was proven correct,” as the Canadian Space Agency put it in a news release. “In the absence of gravity to pull the water down, it took a shake or a quick squeeze from Commander Hadfield for the washcloth to release the water.” Or, as one person commented on the video on YouTube, “Everything is cooler in space.” Developments Veterinary Medicine Ursine Neurosurgery In Laos, an Asiatic black bear with hydrocephalus — water on the brain, which causes fierce headaches — underwent laparoscopic surgery, becoming the first bear ever to have a brain operation, National Geographic reported . “Rescued as a cub, Champa stood out from the start,” the magazine said. “She had a protruding forehead and had trouble socializing with the other bears at the sanctuary. Over time, her growth slowed, her behavior became more erratic, and her vision faded.” Euthanizing Champa was not considered an option in the largely Buddhist country, so a British veterinary surgeon, Romain Pizzi , who describes his specialty as “minimally invasive ‘keyhole’ surgery of wildlife,” operated on her, just as he has done on seals, reindeer and jaguars. Six weeks post-op, Champa looked perkier, her caretakers said; she had gained weight and grown chummier with other bears. Health Warding Off Breast Cancer It has long been a thorny topic: Should healthy women take tamoxifen and raloxifene, powerful drugs that can reduce their risk of breast cancer but can also cause life-threatening strokes and blood clots? Some resolution arrived last week, when the United States Preventive Services Task Force — a gold standard among medical experts — recommended that doctors offer to prescribe the drugs for women with higher than average risk of breast cancer and low risks of blood clots and strokes. The drugs work by blocking the effects of estrogen in breast tissue, where it can stimulate the growth of some tumors. “These medicines may have benefits for women who are at increased risk of breast cancer and at low risk for harms from the medicines,” the task force said in a fact sheet , but “women who are not at increased risk for breast cancer should not use tamoxifen or raloxifene to reduce their risk for breast cancer.” Infant Development What Do Babies Know? Five-month-old infants can’t tell you what they are seeing and thinking (though their mothers can, of course). But if you attach electrode caps to their heads — which is harmless, though it looks disturbing — you can get a glimpse of their brain activity. A French neuroscientist did this, plopping infants in their parents’ laps and measuring the neural patterns generated when the babies viewed a face flashed on a screen. In results that seem oddly reassuring, the babies showed the same brain reactions that adults do — a “two-phase pattern that would indicate consciousness,” as the Web site LiveScience put it — but it took them longer to get there. “In 5-month-olds, it took 1.3 seconds for the second flurry of brain activity to show up,” LiveScience noted. “In adults, the timing is closer to three-tenths of a second.” The small study, which was published in Science , adds weight to the argument that very young infants are conscious of their surroundings, meaning that their reactions are not just reflexive. Geology Earth Shakings Two bits of seismic activity news came up last week — totally separate, both startling. One was that the horrific fertilizer plant explosion in West, Tex., which caused at least 14 deaths and left a wide swath of devastation, was so powerful that the United States Geological Survey registered it as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake . And the seismic impact of Hurricane Sandy last October may have been the same or larger: Keith D. Koper , a geophysicist at the University of Utah, and a colleague reported that waves pounding the seafloor generated “microseisms” that were picked up around the country. “There is no magnitude scale for the microseisms generated by Sandy, but Koper says they range from roughly 2 to 3 on a quake magnitude scale,” ScienceDaily , a news Web site, reported. “The conversion is difficult because earthquakes pack a quick punch, while storms unleash their energy for many hours.”

Bear
Brain
Babies
International Space Station
Chris Hadfield
Canadian Space Agency
Breast cancer
Earthquake
Evolution
Outer space


Cardinals Acquire Infielder Wigginton

Abstract: The free-agent infielder Ty Wigginton and the St. Louis Cardinals agreed to a $5 million, two-year contract, General Manager John Mozeliak announced. He said Wigginton, 35, gave the Cardinals a right-handed bat “with punch.”

Baseball
St Louis Cardinals
Wigginton Ty


Energy Company Cancels Planned Webcast on Natural Gas Drilling

Abstract: Shale.TV, an online news program devoted to covering the extraction of natural gas in Texas, had a juicy story about the walloping that the industry has endured amid the economic crisis. Unfortunately, Shale.TV happened to be part of this troubled industry. Last Monday the company that owned it, Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City, canceled the show to cut costs. The program was an unusual attempt by Chesapeake to create its own news product, and the company had hoped to educate people in Fort Worth about the benefits of drilling a mammoth hunk of gas-rich rock below the city known as the Barnett Shale. The show had accumulated several award-winning local journalists before its debut. The price of natural gas, however, has dropped sharply during the economic downturn, and Chesapeake recently announced it would sell some assets. Its chief executive, Aubrey K. McClendon, sold nearly all of his stock this month to meet a margin call. “There is no question that everyone was stunned and everyone was disappointed,” said Olive Talley, a veteran of ABC and NBC who was the executive producer. Some had wondered how the show would make natural gas pipes and industrial equipment watchable. “They had some competent, experienced journalists behind it, but I can’t imagine — other than people directly affected in Fort Worth and nearby areas — that there would be much of an audience at all,” said Ed Bark, a former TV critic who now runs a Web site.

Natural Gas
Chesapeake Energy Corporation
Computers and the Internet
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


The Hustle of Publishing Art News in the Postprint Era

Abstract: Phong Bui, an artist and curator and a founder of the art newspaper The Brooklyn Rail, makes an unlikely media executive. One wall of his studio at the paper’s headquarters in a former warehouse in Sunset Park is taken up with dozens of delicate pencil portraits. (He aims to exhibit them when he gets to more than 500.) Another displays what he calls meditations — pictures he creates by drawing a single line, meditatively, in a swirl. In conversations peppered with aphorisms and anecdotes, he comes across as a philosophical guru more than a publisher. “The challenge has been how to make The Rail into a work of art,” he said, describing the paper, which he helped found in his apartment 15 years ago this month, and its frequent events as a kind of social sculpture made of human activity and connections. It is not a goal often heard in the boardrooms of publishing companies. But The Rail , which reaches about 20,000 readers a month in print and an additional 200,000 online, is among a group of niche publications that have found ways to defy a media industry increasingly preoccupied with greater scale. For these publications, serving small, often highbrow readerships, it is not possible to follow the prevailing model — gathering audiences of millions, or tens of millions, to be sold for pennies to advertisers or converted to subscribers. Instead, money for The Rail’s three full-time staff members and other costs is patched together, often from one month to the next, out of donations from the public and members of its board, along with a limited quantity of advertising, fund-raising drives, grants and occasional art auctions . The next auction will be in association with the Pace Gallery in January. Other publications have similarly raised money from their most dedicated communities. At the end of last month, the London literary magazine The White Review reached a goal to raise more than $25,000 on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. To those who pledged money, it offered incentives like a walk around London with the novelist Will Self and a limited print by the artist Rachel Whiteread . Guernica magazine raised more than $22,000, also last month, and Bomb magazine and McSweeney’s , among others, have succeeded in similar endeavors. The Rail offers those who donate $1,000 on its website dinner with its editors and contributors. Those who give $2,500 also receive one of Mr. Bui’s meditation works. “I think it allows for this space where this cultural dialogue can happen unfettered by a drive for profit,” said Sara Christoph, The Rail’s managing director. “We can publish younger writers and older writers. We can cover controversial things.” “For many years, I was complaining that there was this huge absence of a sense of community of artists, an intellectual discourse, a kind of Bohemia like there used to be in New York City,” said the artist Shirin Neshat , a supporter of The Rail. Mr. Bui, she said, has struggled against the odds to provide that community and connect artists who “don’t see each other anymore except at openings.” Image Maggie Barrett, art director of The Brooklyn Rail, at the art newspaper’s offices in Industry City in Brooklyn on Thursday. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times Mr. Bui, who arrived in the United States from Vietnam in 1980 and became involved with The Rail and its four original editors in 1998, thought of it as a kind of response to the endless debates he was having with friends and other artists in Brooklyn bars. “I was reminded of this Vietnamese proverb: When you argue with an intelligent person, you can’t win. When you argue with a stupid person, you can’t stop,” he said. “I thought, as long as we can kind of get together and transform that energy, it can be something good.” Two years later, he sold a painting for $2,000 and borrowed an additional $500 from a friend, and the paper began printing more formally. It has a policy, Mr. Bui said, of allowing its editors and writers freedom. “We respect individual voices,” Mr. Bui said. “We only edit grammar and occasionally fact-check, not the words. With every single piece, you can kind of figure out what age this person is.” Each issue includes fiction — including translated works from around the world — and features reviews, conversations with artists that may run for pages and essays with titles like “ The Overproduction of Intelligence: The Reshaping of Social Classes in the United States .” It now has two affiliate publications: The Third Rail , in Minneapolis, and The Miami Rail . Mr. Bui lost 25 years’ worth of his own work, and a substantial portion of The Rail’s archives, when his studio flooded during Hurricane Sandy . His response was to help curate a sprawling 2013 show called “Come Together: Surviving Sandy,” centered on artists who had work lost or damaged in the storm. At many moments, the art critic Roberta Smith wrote in a review for The New York Times , “this egalitarian show makes palpable the greatness of New York’s real art world.” His ambition now, he said, is to make sure The Rail is no longer existing month to month but can plan for the future. One of his favorite stories is about the painter Willem de Kooning . “He was so poor that he could not afford to have people to model for him,” Mr. Bui said. “He would wander the streets of the Bowery, the fashion district. One day he found a mannequin, and he was so excited. He took it home, put his coat on it and set it up to paint. But then he started crying out of self-pity.” Poverty, Mr. Bui said, can be profoundly important for creative endeavors. But only to a point.

Art
Phong Bui
Newspaper
The Brooklyn Rail
Brooklyn
News media,journalism


Stephen Harper of Canada, Hoping to Extend Conservatives’ Hold, Calls Elections

Abstract: OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada called federal elections on Sunday, hoping to extend his Conservative Party’s decade-long hold on power despite questions about its ethics and a struggling economy. By law, Mr. Harper had to hold a vote in October. But he broke with Canadian political tradition by formally opening the campaign in the middle of summer during what is a holiday weekend in most of the country. The move appeared designed to give the Conservative Party an edge in campaign spending. The campaign period before the vote on Oct. 19 will be the longest since Canadians all began voting on a single day in 1874. On Sunday, Mr. Harper said that the state of the economy, which his opponents view as his weakness, was the main reason to re-elect his government. “It’s an election about who will protect our economy in a period of ongoing global instability,” Mr. Harper said after asking David Johnston, the governor general, to dissolve Parliament. “Now is not the time for the kind of risky economic schemes that are doing so much damage elsewhere in the world.” Thomas Mulcair, the leader of the New Democratic Party, criticized Mr. Harper for producing eight budget deficits in a row and increasing the federal debt. “Mr. Harper has the worst economic growth record of any prime minister since 1960,” Mr. Mulcair said. “Obviously, Mr. Harper, your plan isn’t working.” Mr. Harper’s Conservative party first took power in 2006 and has won two elections since then, gaining a majority of seats in the House of Commons in 2011. But over the past two years, concerns over the economy and ethics issues have eroded the popularity of Mr. Harper and his party. A collapse in oil prices has severely depressed Canada’s energy industry, which is based in Mr. Harper’s adopted home province of Alberta. And despite a corresponding drop in the value of the Canadian dollar, there has not been a hoped for jump in exports of Canadian goods. Image Thomas Mulcair, leader of the New Democratic Party, in Gatineau, Quebec, on Sunday. Credit Christinne Muschi/Reuters Mr. Harper’s party, which came to power partly because of a spending scandal involving a Liberal government, has also faced criticism over allegations of misspending by members of the unelected Senate, as well as the criminal trial of one of Mr. Harper’s appointees. And a former parliamentary secretary to Mr. Harper was recently sentenced to a month in jail and house arrest and fined for breaking election spending laws. While Mr. Harper has promoted causes that have proved popular with some voters, including a tough-on-crime legislative program and unwavering support for Israel, the electorate may be tiring of him after more than a decade of his being in office. Mr. Harper has a reputation as a micromanager who is intolerant of critics, and critics say he has been overly aggressive with those who cross him, including opposition politicians, environmental groups and even the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. And after facing opposition parties short of cash and with weak leaderships in three previous campaigns, Mr. Harper is facing a newly resurgent opponent this time. After the last federal election, the New Democratic Party, the most left-leaning of Canada’s three mainstream national parties, held the second largest number of seats in the House of Commons, making it the official opposition for the first time. Its profile and credibility grew in May when the party’s branch in Alberta ended four and a half decades of Conservative rule in that province. Recent polls have placed the New Democrats in the lead, slightly ahead of the Conservatives, although the three major parties have been roughly tied over the past few months. In a country where summer can be all too brief, it is rare for politicians to call elections early unless forced to do so. “It’s against all the folklore of Canadian politics to call an election in the summer,” said C.E.S. Franks, a prominent parliamentary scholar and professor emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “Doing that when people are on their docks, not thinking about politics — I can see it being about as welcome as a root canal.” Canadians do not vote directly for prime minister, but will elect local members of Parliament in 338 electoral districts. In addition to the three major parties, the Green Party plans to field a comparatively large number of candidates, while many Quebec voters will also have the option of electing candidates from the Bloc Québécois, a once powerful but now ailing separatist group. Yasmin Dawood, a professor of law and political science at the University of Toronto, said the timing of the elections appeared intended to enable the Conservatives, who overwhelmingly lead in fund-raising, to outspend opponents. Image Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, in a Pride Parade on Sunday in Vancouver, B.C. This will be the first campaign as party leader for both candidates. Credit Ben Nelms/Reuters Election law changes introduced last year set a minimum of 37 days for campaigns but do not impose a maximum. The law means that parties would in theory be able to spend a maximum of about 25 million Canadian dollars, or $19.1 million, for the first 37 days of the election plus an extra 685,185 Canadian dollars for every day afterward. Fund-raising filings up until last month show that, barring a flood of funds for opposition parties, only the Conservatives would have the money to spend the maximum allowed. Cristine de Clercy, a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, said that even if Canadians were put off by a long campaign, it was unlikely to affect how they vote. She said that the defining issue of the campaign would probably be the economy. “It’s not necessarily fair to blame the federal government for the collapse in oil prices, but there are some deeper problems,” Ms. de Clercy said. “Where I live in Southern Ontario, we’ve been shedding manufacturing jobs for the last eight to 10 years.” This will be the first campaign as party leader for both Mr. Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, head of the Liberal Party . While Mr. Mulcair, a lawyer from Quebec, has been widely viewed as an effective opponent of Mr. Harper’s in Parliament, he remains relatively unknown in the rest of the country and is seen as lacking in charisma. Mr. Trudeau, as the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a former prime minister, grew up in the public eye and shares his father’s charisma. Richard Johnston, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver who specializes in polling, said that Mr. Trudeau must overcome two blunders during the campaign. Voters on the center right, he said, were offended when Mr. Trudeau made a joke about Canada’s use of its fighter aircraft against Islamic State targets. And younger voters and center-left voters, Mr. Johnston said, were dismayed by his decision to support sweeping national security legislation introduced by Mr. Harper, although Mr. Trudeau said the Liberals would amend it if they came to power. “It remains to be seen how he will withstand close scrutiny,” Mr. Johnston said. Mr. Franks said that he disagreed with many of Mr. Harper’s positions and methods, but that it would be a mistake to rule out another Conservative victory. “I have an immense respect for Harper because he is just a really canny politician,” Mr. Franks said. “He knows what he wants and he gets it.”

Canada
Election
Justin Trudeau
Stephen J Harper
Campaign finance
Conservative Party Canada
New Democratic Party Canada


Soccer Turns to a Subcommittee to Decide Team Doctor’s Role

Abstract: LONDON — For a small country, Belgium has a remarkable and growing influence on what soccer is today. It was a Belgian player, Jean-Marc Bosman, who 20 years ago convinced a European court that players should have the right to be free agents at the end of their contracts. It swung the balance of power from the clubs to the players. The current group of Belgian players are very good indeed, and the country is among the favorites to win the European Championship next year. Among the stars are: •Eden Hazard, the Chelsea winger who was voted the outstanding player in England’s Premier League last season. •Kevin De Bruyne, who was judged to be the best player in Germany’s Bundesliga last year before he moved from Wolfsburg to Manchester City over the summer in an $85 million deal. •Thibaut Courtois, also of Chelsea, who is one of the finest young goalkeepers in the world. •Vincent Kompany, the captain of Manchester City and of the Belgian national team, who, when healthy, is among the most imposing defenders of this era. Hazard and Kompany are at the center of an issue that should concern every professional player and official in the game today. Both represented Belgium last week as it qualified for the Euro 2016 finals, and both were benched by their club’s coaches when they returned to the Premier League over the weekend. Hazard was unwittingly the player at the center of the Chelsea storm in August after he seemingly was injured during a game against Swansea City. As he lay on the ground, the team’s doctor and physiotherapist ran to treat him on the field near the end of a 2-2 draw. José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, was livid. He called his medical staff naïve and impulsive, and he asserted his right to keep them off his bench. The doctor, Eva Carneiro, has not worked at Chelsea since then and is considering her legal options. FIFA, hamstrung by its own scandals, had to react. It did so in the middle of September when Michel D’Hooghe , the Belgian doctor who heads the FIFA medical committee, led a meeting that decided a new subcommittee was needed to establish rules over how to care for players injured on the field. D’Hooghe, who early in his career helped save the life of a Dutch player who suffered heart failure during a game in Bruges, Belgium, has spent his life involved in sports medicine and FIFA politics. After he led the meeting that was called over how Mourinho effectively banned the team doctor, D’Hooghe said, “The most important thing a doctor faces is that where he or she has to judge on a medical issue, they cannot hesitate.” The doctors, he said, must abide by their oath and intervene when a player needs assistance. However, the subcommittee — which will take time to organize, given how fractured FIFA is right now — will consult with coaches and managers as it makes its decision. “We also need the voice of the coaches when we draw up this code,” D’Hooghe said. “It is important to take into account the fact that the doctors work as part of a group under the coach.” Under the coach? That was a point of contention at Tottenham Hotspur two seasons ago when goalkeeper Hugo Lloris suffered a concussion during a game. André Villas-Boas, then the manager of Tottenham, insisted that it was the manager’s call , not the doctor’s, to decide if the player was O.K. to keep playing. These issues — and this failure to separate the roles of the medical and coaching staffs — are too urgent to wait for the deliberations of a subcommittee, followed by the inevitable approval by the FIFA executive committee. There was a sharp reminder of those risks just a week ago in D’Hooghe’s own backyard. Kompany played almost an hour of Belgium’s final 2016 Euro qualifier, a 3-1 win over Israel in Brussels. Kompany, who has been battling aches and sprains over the past few years, suffered no obvious signs of further injury during the game, but his manager at Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini, was incensed nonetheless. City’s medical staff has been working cautiously on rehabilitating Kompany after he suffered a recurrence of a calf injury five weeks ago. The strength — and the trouble — with Kompany is that he has long regarded himself as a so-called man’s man. He puts the team before himself, and as a big, muscular defender, he boldly soldiers on whenever he is picked to play. After he broke down during a Champions League game against Juventus in September, City’s doctors advised that Kompany be rested so his calf muscle could fully repair. When Kompany was asked to report to his national team, City approved, on the condition that he did not play. The Manchester medical staff advised that Kompany needed a minimum of five days’ intensive training before he should play again. Kompany sat out Belgium’s first qualifier, then played the opening 58 minutes in the second. Belgium Coach Marc Wilmots told reporters, “I don’t need to ask a club if they want it or not. It is not the clubs that influence my decisions. Vincent is my captain, and it’s the last match at home. He is not injured; he’s ready, and when he’s ready, he plays.” After returning to City, he didn’t play. Neither did Sergio Agüero, David Silva or Aleksandar Kolarov, who were injured playing for Argentina, Spain and Serbia, respectively. FIFA rules are skewed in favor of the national associations. But it is the clubs that pay the salaries and medical bills of the players 365 days a year. And all they can do is await a new directive from the subcommittee and a Belgian doctor.

Soccer
Belgium
Sports injury
Chelsea Soccer Team
Eden Hazard
Vincent Kompany


Governors Criticize Gridlock in Congress

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The nation’s governors criticized Congress on Wednesday for the political gridlock that they said had stymied passage of almost every federal initiative most needed by the states, and reiterated their calls for help from Washington. “We are now midway through the 113th Congress, and governors are frustrated,” said Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, a Republican and chairwoman of the National Governors Association , as she delivered the group’s second State of the States address. “Despite the recent budget agreement, partisan gridlock continues to prevent long-term policy solutions,” Ms. Fallin said. “We’re doing our part as governors to create jobs and address the challenges facing our states and this country. But we also believe that now it’s time for our federal partners to do theirs and to take action.” Last January, the governors association came to Washington to lay out a blueprint of what states needed from lawmakers. This year’s list of requests, Ms. Fallin said, is almost identical. “We stand here today with essentially the same to-do list sitting before our Congress,” she said. Ms. Fallin and the vice chairman of the association, Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, delivered the address at the National Press Club a day after meeting with President Obama. The president and his staff asked a lot of questions, Mr. Hickenlooper said, and promised to act on behalf of any governors who felt the federal government was stifling their states’ efforts. In particular, the governors called on Congress and the White House to fix what they said were flaws in the No Child Left Behind Act, to reauthorize the Water Resources Development Act, to restore the 15 percent of cash set aside for states under the Workforce Investment Act, to ensure that each state’s National Guard has enough money to operate effectively, and to give states more flexibility to experiment with new solutions to nagging problems. The rollout of the Affordable Care Act, which has dominated political discussion in Washington in recent months, received barely a mention, an indication of the disagreement among governors on the contentious subject. “It’s a difficult time,” Ms. Fallin said. “Change is hard.” The governors were also keen to point to state efforts to train workers, improve access to education, lower health care costs and address the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, contrasting that to the lack of action in Congress. “States are leading, and we encourage our federal partners to work more closely with us and to take note of and use the policy ideas coming from their state partners,” Ms. Fallin said. “Above all, please do not get in our way.” As the shrinking federal budget, including the automatic cuts known as sequestration, has choked off some of the money that ordinarily flows to statehouses, governors have had to reduce services and scramble to keep programs operating. “It is left to the states to chart their own path and pursue their own policies where partisan gridlock has left Washington unable to address the nation’s serious problems,” Ms. Fallin said. In the future, the governors said, Congress should pay closer attention to the implications of budget cuts and make certain that what appear to be savings at the federal level do not merely push those costs to the states. “In my state of Oklahoma, and in states across the country, the most liberal Democrats and the most conservative Republicans can agree that moving from one crisis to another, without any long-term plan or vision, is a recipe for trouble,” Ms. Fallin said. “Washington’s short-term thinking and continued inaction are hurting state economies, repressing job growth and, ultimately, hurting American families in every state.” The bottom line is that states cannot operate without federal assistance, Mr. Hickenlooper said. “More than 26 percent of most state budgets come from the federal government,” he said. “The politics of fiscal responsibility can no longer be centered around crisis and deadlines. We applaud the recent budget agreement reached by Congress. Now we need to build on that success.” The alternative, he said, is more gridlock. “We don’t want to return a year from now with the same to-do list,” he said.

Governors
US
Mary Fallin
National Governors Association
Federal Budget
US states
John W Hickenlooper


At Least 32 Killed as Truck Explodes at Iraqi Market

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Explosives hidden under fruit and vegetables aboard a delivery truck detonated in a crowded market selling fresh produce north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 32 people and wounding dozens a day after a wave of car bombings convulsed the capital, according to medical and police officials. The dead from Thursday’s bombing in Saadiya, in Diyala Province, included eight women and six children between the ages of 8 and 14, officials said. The driver of the Kia truck asked workers to unload his cargo and then walked away. It exploded shortly afterward. “I went with my mother to get some fruit,” said an 11-year-old boy wounded in the head and arms who was searching for his mother. “I don’t know where she is now, I can’t find her,” said the boy, who gave his name as Ahmed. The fate of his mother was not known. On Wednesday, apparently coordinated bombings hit bakeries and public markets in Baghdad, killing at least 42 people and wounding more than 90, many of them as they rushed to buy supplies during a break in heavy rainstorms, according to the police, residents and medical officials. Those attacks targeted both Shiites and Sunnis, reflecting the protracted sectarian violence that has spiked since the American withdrawal in 2011 and raising concerns that Iraq is facing levels of strife not seen for years. One attack on Wednesday struck Shiite Muslims during religious observances for Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, as they prepared food for the poor, witnesses said. That bombing, in the Karada neighborhood, killed seven people and wounded 19, the police said. Another bomb erupted near a bakery where people were buying bread for breakfast, killing five and wounding 13, officials said. In Adhamiya, a mostly Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad, a bomb in a parked car exploded near another bakery, killing three people. Other car bombs tore through five public markets in other Baghdad neighborhoods, including Sadr City, a Shiite stronghold, killing 22 people. In the evening, a bomb exploded in a cafe in the Shiite neighborhood of Baya where young people gather to smoke hookahs, killing five youths and wounding 10 others, a police official said. Augmenting the sense of lawlessness, gunmen killed Col. Sruit Hama, the head of security for President Jalal Talabani, in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya late Tuesday, security officials said. Mr. Talabani, 80, has been in Germany for medical treatment since December after suffering a stroke. Colonel Hama had been planning to fly there on Wednesday to join him. In a separate episode in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya late Tuesday, Khasim al-Mashhadany, a prominent Sunni cleric, was also shot to death, the officials said. On Thursday, security officials said, unidentified attackers with silenced weapons shot two people to death inside a shop in western Baghdad. The motives behind the killings were unclear. The chaos left by Wednesday’s bombings was compounded by heavy rains and flooding that forced the authorities to declare a public holiday and hampered ambulances trying to reach the sites of the explosions. The car bombs went off between 9 and 10:15 a.m., as families shopped between storms. “I just wanted to get breakfast for my kids,” said Muhsin Muntadhar, 45, who was wounded in his leg and back from an explosion near one of the bakeries. “I never did something bad in my life. What did we do to deserve this? I hope one day I wake up from this nightmare.” No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence, though in the past, the authorities have blamed Sunni militants linked to Al Qaeda for similar attacks. But some Iraqis trace the growing violence to the civil war in neighboring Syria, which has intensified sectarian divisions between Sunnis supporting rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad and Shiites backing his government. In Iraq, major bombings have become almost routine, pushing the levels of violence to the heights of five years ago, according to the United Nations, and reinforcing fears of the kind of sectarian warfare that seized the country in 2006 and 2007. The bloodletting has taken on broader regional overtones, with Shiite backers of Mr. Assad — notably Iran and its ally Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group — drawn into the conflict, while militant Sunnis, some linked to Al Qaeda, have flocked to the rebel cause in Syria, declaring jihad, or holy war, against their enemies. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, weakened during the final years of the American occupation, has rejuvenated and even expanded into Syria. The latest bombings in Baghdad and Saadiya came just days after explosions killed 44 people across Iraq on Sunday, including 20 in a northern Turkmen-dominated city, and wounded more than 100.


Solar Industry Anxious Over Defective Panels

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail. Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues. It was not an isolated incident. Worldwide, testing labs, developers, financiers and insurers are reporting similar problems and say the $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis just as solar panels are on the verge of widespread adoption. No one is sure how pervasive the problem is. There are no industrywide figures about defective solar panels. And when defects are discovered, confidentiality agreements often keep the manufacturer’s identity secret, making accountability in the industry all the more difficult. But at stake are billions of dollars that have financed solar installations, from desert power plants to suburban rooftops, on the premise that solar panels will more than pay for themselves over a quarter century. The quality concerns have emerged just after a surge in solar construction. In the United States, the Solar Energy Industries Association said that solar panel generating capacity exploded from 83 megawatts in 2003 to 7,266 megawatts in 2012 , enough to power more than 1.2 million homes. Nearly half that capacity was installed in 2012 alone, meaning any significant problems may not become apparent for years. “We need to face up to the fact that corners are being cut,” said Conrad Burke, general manager for DuPont’s billion-dollar photovoltaic division , which supplies materials to solar manufacturers. The solar developer Dissigno has had significant solar panel failures at several of its projects, according to Dave Williams, chief executive of the San Francisco-based company. “I don’t want to be alarmist, but I think quality poses a long-term threat,” he said. “The quality across the board is harder to put your finger on now as materials in modules are changing every day and manufacturers are reluctant to share that information.” Most of the concerns over quality center on China, home to the majority of the world’s solar panel manufacturing capacity. After incurring billions of dollars in debt to accelerate production that has sent solar panel prices plunging since 2009, Chinese solar companies are under extreme pressure to cut costs. Chinese banks in March, for instance, forced Suntech into bankruptcy. Until 2012, the company had been the world’s biggest solar manufacturer. Executives at companies that inspect Chinese factories on behalf of developers and financiers said that over the last 18 months they have found that even the most reputable companies are substituting cheaper, untested materials. Other brand-name manufacturers, they said, have shut down production lines and subcontracted the assembly of modules to smaller makers. “We have inspectors in a lot of factories, and it’s not rare to see some big brands being produced in those smaller workshops where they have no control over quality,” said Thibaut Lemoine, general manager of STS Certified , a French-owned testing service. When STS evaluated 215,000 photovoltaic modules at its Shanghai laboratory in 2011 and 2012, it found the defect rate had jumped from 7.8 percent to 13 percent. In one case, an entire batch of modules from one brand-name manufacturer listed on the New York Stock Exchange proved defective, Mr. Lemoine said. He declined to identify the manufacturer, citing confidentiality agreements. “Based on our testing, some manufacturers are absolutely swapping in cheap Chinese materials to save money,” Jenya Meydbray, chief executive of PV Evolution Labs , a Berkeley, Calif., testing service. SolarBuyer , a company based in Marlborough, Mass., discovered defect rates of 5.5 percent to 22 percent during audits of 50 Chinese factories over the last 18 months, said Ian Gregory, the company’s senior marketing director. Some Chinese manufacturers acknowledge that quality has become a problem “There are a lot of shortcuts being taken, and unfortunately it’s by some of the more reputable companies and there’s also been lot of new companies starting up in recent years without the same standards we’ve had at Suntech,” said Stuart Wenham, the chief technology officer of Suntech, which is based in Jiangsu Province in eastern China. Image At PV Evolution Labs, Chad Southard removes a solar panel from a UV test chamber. Quality is increasingly a concern. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times When asked about quality standards, Trina Solar , one of the largest Chinese manufacturers, said in an e-mailed response, “For Trina, quality will not be compromised in our cost-reduction efforts.” The heart of a solar panel is a photovoltaic cell that generates electricity when struck by sunlight. Among the most critical components are a thin film that protects the cell from moisture, and the encapsulant that seals the cell between layers of glass. Mr. Gregory said repeat inspections of factories found some manufacturers had been constantly switching to cheaper materials, including some whose use-by date had expired. “If the materials aren’t good or haven’t been thoroughly tested, they won’t stick together and the solar module will eventually fall apart in the field,” he said. That’s what happened in 2011 at a year-old Australian solar plant, Mr. Meydbray of PV Evolution said. Testing confirmed that substandard materials were causing the Chinese-made modules’ protective coating to degrade, he said. The power plant operator declined to be identified. “I think quality is increasingly a concern, but it’s not a major issue yet,” said Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association , a trade group. “As companies race to cut their costs, some who are on the edge may take short cuts.” The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has studied the performance of solar panels up to 2010, according to Sarah Kurtz, a scientist who manages the laboratory’s photovoltaic reliability group. “The question is whether things are deteriorating rapidly or whether it’s a few isolated companies not doing so well on their quality control,” she said. “I hear a lot of angst, but I haven’t seen a lot of solid information.” All solar panels degrade and gradually generate less electricity over time. But a review of 30,000 installations in Europe by the German solar monitoring firm Meteocontrol found 80 percent were underperforming. Testing of six manufacturers’ solar panels at two Spanish power plants by Enertis Solar in 2010 found defect rates as high as 34.5 percent. Enfinity operates solar installations in Europe and the United States. Bob Hopper, Enfinity’s chief development officer, said his company had stopped buying Chinese modules because of quality concerns. “Even a small amount of unforecasted degradation in electricity production can have significant economic impact on us,” he said. In the Netherlands, René Moerman, chief strategy officer of Solar Insurance and Finance , said claims had risen 15 percent recently. He said an inspection of a solar plant in Britain in March revealed that 12 percent of the newly installed Chinese-made modules had failed. He said confidentiality agreements prevented him from naming the manufacturer. Other solar developers and installers said they had not experienced quality problems. “The systems we installed in 2012 had the best performing year yet,” said Lyndon Rive, chief executive of SolarCity , the largest residential solar installer in the United States and a buyer of panels from China’s Yingli Solar and Trina. Non-Chinese manufacturers have had quality problems as well. The defective panels installed on the Los Angeles area warehouse, for instance, were made by an American manufacturer. A reporter was granted access to the project on the condition that the parties’ identities not be disclosed because of a confidential legal settlement. First Solar , one of the United States’ biggest manufacturers, has set aside $271.2 million to cover the costs of replacing defective modules it made in 2008 and 2009. Nor are all solar developers shunning Chinese manufacturers. The United States subsidiary of Yingli, the world’s largest solar panel maker since 2012, won a contract last year to supply solar panels for a California power plant. “The one thing I can tell you is that Yingli does not cut corners,” said Brian Grenko, vice president for operations at Yingli Americas, adding that only 15 defective modules had been returned to the company out of 2.8 million shipped to the United States since 2009. Still, Yingli executives acknowledge that quality has become a competitive issue. The company now offers a comprehensive insurance policy to customers and has established its own testing laboratory in the San Francisco area. Mr. Wenham, the Suntech executive, said manufacturers needed to be held accountable and advocated creating testing labs not beholden to the industry that would assess quality. “We need to start naming names,” he said.

US
Solar energy
China
PV Evolution Labs
Trina Solar
First Solar
Defective Products


As War Ravages Baghdad, City’s Ambulance Workers Must Pick Up the Pieces

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Each time emergency workers return to the Mansour district ambulance station after a run, they jot notes in a dog-eared logbook that doubles as a grim diary of life here in the capital. Sept. 10, for example: bombing with two dead. Or Sept. 29: woman shot in the abdomen. Oct. 10: man with shrapnel wounds. Ambulance workers have among the clearest views of Baghdad’s descent into chaos. As the city has disintegrated around them, they have been left to pick up the pieces. They are often overwhelmed, and have increasingly become targets themselves. “These three years have been equal to 16 years as a paramedic,” said Ali Jasim, 38, before he set off on a convoy carrying medicine and other supplies to Balad, a town north of the capital that was the site of horrific sectarian bloodletting. Before the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, so-called hot calls, for bombings or shootings, were virtually nonexistent for Baghdad’s emergency workers. Now most of Baghdad’s ambulance calls are hot. A relatively calm 24-hour shift might mean having to wash the blood from their clothes only once, the workers say. In this war-ravaged city of five million people, only about 90 ambulances and crews are typically available on any given day for emergency calls, said Dr. Hashim Jabbar Muhammad, chief of the Health Ministry’s emergency directorate. He said international standards recommended several times that number for a city this size. The city’s emergency dispatch system, the Iraqi equivalent of 911, amounts to a dingy room with 10 phone lines; on a recent visit, three of them were broken. Calls come in at a rate of about one every 10 minutes, although residents often complain that the lines are busy. Each call requires a cumbersome process of calling back to make sure the call is legitimate. The ambulance corps here and elsewhere in Iraq feel each spike in violence. When sectarian assassinations surged after the attack on a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, in February, the Baghdad ambulance drivers who pick up dead bodies were swamped. The capital’s maddening traffic, and the fact that most residents ignore sirens, compound the challenges. Ambulance crews are also treated with suspicion by American troops because militants have been known to use ambulances to transport weapons or bombs. The Americans frequently pull over ambulances in the middle of runs to search them. Emergency workers earn salaries that are often barely enough to live on, as little as $80 a month for new paramedics. Drivers are also held responsible for any damage they incur on their vehicles. “I wish I could quit,” said Muhammad Nerous, 26, who has been a paramedic for six years and works at a station in the Bab Sharji neighborhood. “Every day when I come to work, I pray there will be no explosions because I am fed up with these scenes.” As they rush to bombings now, a secondary blast is often aimed at them. Eleven emergency workers were killed in 2006. Previously, six others had been killed since early 2004, when the department started keeping track. More than 10 percent of Baghdad’s ambulance drivers have resigned in the last three months alone as violence has escalated, said Dr. Muhammad of the Health Ministry. On a typical call last month, a crew from the center in Mansour, a troubled western Baghdad neighborhood, transported a woman who had just gone into labor to the hospital. But after dropping her off, a firefight broke out nearby, and the crew was stuck in the cross-fire. Upon their return, the workers scrawled a new notation in the logbook: “We could have been killed for this assignment. But God’s protection was available.” It was apparently unavailable several months ago when gunmen killed an ambulance driver from Mansour en route to the dangerous southern neighborhood of Dora. As the ambulance was stopped in traffic, two men appeared and sprayed the vehicle with bullets. The driver, Akram Muhammad Sahih, 34, a married father of two, was killed. “I pretended I was dead,” said Ali Jabbar Hatin, 34, who was sitting next to Mr. Sahih in the ambulance. He escaped injury but the other paramedic in the vehicle was wounded. Arkan Ali Hussein, 40, a veteran paramedic who works out of the Mansour center, has an unusual system for keeping in touch with his worried wife throughout his 24-hour shift. She calls his cellphone and hangs up, avoiding a charge. When he calls back and then hangs up, she knows he is alive, he said. The pair exchange missed calls at least a dozen times a day. But he is reluctant to share with her the horror he sees. Two months ago, a man wearing a suicide belt detonated himself at an army recruiting center in western Baghdad. Mr. Hussein was among the first to arrive. “There were pieces of flesh everywhere,” he said. “People were yelling and screaming.” The first man he treated was badly burned, riddled with shrapnel. He shoved a tube into the man’s mouth to establish an airway, then rushed him to the hospital. When he returned, he spotted a severed leg lying on the ground but could not find the body it belonged to, so he left it, moving on to another victim. The gruesome injuries that he sees nowadays, he said, are much worse than anything he witnessed as a medic in the military during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “Back then, there was a bullet in the body or a blast from a mine.” he said, “Now we’re finding flesh everywhere, heads, legs and hands.” Most of the paramedics have only minimal training. As a result, Dr. Muhammad said, their main strategy, rather than treating patients in the field, is to “scoop and run.” Often, however, there is little they can do. Bilal Mehdi, 26; his brother, Hilmi, 23; and their father, Mehdi Hussain Lazim, 54, are part of a small contingent of emergency workers who only pick up the dead. Earlier this year, they helped deliver 800 bodies to the morgue in one month from a single sewage treatment station in the mixed eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Rustamiya. Bilal Mehdi said he took 300 bodies himself. Militia members had been dumping bodies into the sewers nearby, and they would wind up at the station. Mr. Mehdi had to clamber down by rope to retrieve the putrid remains. More recently, he said, he delivered a dozen bodies stacked in his ambulance in one trip from Mahmudiya, south of the capital; some of them decapitated, some without legs. He drove back with his head out the window, because the smell was so overpowering. As the body count in Baghdad continues to mount, Mr. Mehdi says he wishes he could leave his job. But without any other job prospects, he is stuck for now. He knows it is only a matter of time until his next call.

Iraq
Medicine and Health
Terrorism
Bombs and Explosives


Total Solar Eclipse Sweeps Across Indonesia

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — Millions of Indonesians witnessed a rare total solar eclipse early on Wednesday that turned morning into night in some areas and inspired special prayer vigils, cultural dances, live music and observation parties. It was the first total solar eclipse, in which the moon obscures the sun by passing directly between it and Earth, since March 20, 2015. That event was visible only in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Svalbard archipelago of Norway. Video Crowds gathered to witness the rare astronomical event. Credit Credit Beawiharta/Reuters The eclipse on Wednesday, which began at 6:19 a.m. in Jakarta, the capital, was visible in nearly half of Indonesia’s 34 provinces. Partial eclipses could be seen in the region, including in Australia and Singapore; in some Pacific island nations and in Hawaii. Because of the eclipse’s trajectory, the regions of South Sumatra, Indonesian Borneo, Central Sulawesi and Eastern Indonesia got the best shows, with the small town of Ternate in the Maluku Islands deemed the prime viewing location. International scientists were in the Malukus to observe the eclipse, while tens of thousands of Indonesians and foreign tourists flocked to various regions for the event. Image A crowd gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, on Wednesday to observe the total solar eclipse, which was visible in nearly half of the country’s 34 provinces. Credit Mast Irham/European Pressphoto Agency Indonesian television stations broadcast live shots of the eclipse in different stages from four regions across the 3,100-mile archipelago, showing a pitch-black moon with a bright halo. In Palembang, the capital of the province of South Sumatra, the morning sky turned to dusk at the peak of the eclipse, and streetlights were turned on to assist motorists and pedestrians. “It was darker than I expected,” said Jules Brookfield, a Jakarta-based American hotel executive who flew to Palembang for work and to watch the eclipse, which he did from a hotel rooftop. “There was lots of cheering, and it suddenly got cooler out.” He said hotels across the city were booked. “I had no idea it was such an event,” he said. Thousands of mosques across the country held special eclipse prayers. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world. Although Jakarta was not a prime viewing location, clear morning skies there allowed residents to see the eclipse if they donned tinted glasses or improvised using medical X-rays or exposed camera film to block out the sunlight. In residential neighborhoods near the city center, mosque loudspeakers blared prayers and songs as the eclipse reached its peak around 7:20 a.m. The sun was totally obscured in some areas of Indonesia for nearly three minutes, but the morning skies were back to normal within two hours of the eclipse’s start.


For G.M. and Chrysler, Aid Tied to Restrictions

Abstract: DETROIT — The Obama administration will probably extend more short-term aid to General Motors and Chrysler on Monday, but will impose a strict deadline for bondholders and union workers to make concessions that would help the ailing automakers become viable businesses and avert bankruptcy. President Obama ’s auto task force is expected to say that despite its recommendation of more federal assistance for G.M. and Chrysler, bankruptcy could still be a possibility for either company, according to people close to the discussions. The task force was in its final stages Friday of determining how to keep the two Detroit companies afloat. Meanwhile, the automakers were negotiating retiree health care costs with the United Automobile Workers union, and their debt burden with bondholders and lenders. But both immediate and longer-term help will be tied to completing the restructurings that G.M. and Chrysler began after receiving $17.4 billion in federal loans. The administration is expected to set a short deadline — weeks rather than months — to compel the automakers, their lenders and the U.A.W. to reach agreement. Both G.M. and Chrysler are close to exhausting the loans they received since December. Without more aid soon, the companies could run out of cash to run their vast operations, which employ about 140,000 workers in the United States. The Obama administration has concluded that both G.M. and Chrysler still require what the president on Thursday called “drastic” and “painful” actions to fix their businesses. G.M.’s request for up to $16.6 billion more in federal loans will be treated separately from Chrysler’s request for an additional $5 billion, according to administration officials who asked not to be quoted because the deliberations were continuing. So far, neither company has satisfied the requirements of the original loan agreements with the Bush administration — in particular, the substitution of company stock for 50 percent of the cost of funding retiree health care and reducing their unsecured debt levels by two-thirds. Mr. Obama, who has been meeting with his advisers in recent days to reach his decision, is planning a formal announcement on Monday at the White House. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said Friday that the president would not only outline a plan to keep the companies operating in the short term, but would address long-term viability as well. “How do these companies get through the global recession that sees a great decrease in demand for the product?” Mr. Gibbs said. “And how, when we emerge from recession to recovery, how do we have a sustainable path that makes good business decisions not just for one year but for many years?” Mr. Obama met twice on Thursday with Steven Rattner and Ronald Bloom, the former investment bankers who lead the auto task force, but there are still some remaining issues to be resolved before Monday’s announcement, Mr. Gibbs said. Mr. Obama left Friday for Camp David, the presidential retreat, and will make the final decision on his plan there, Mr. Gibbs said. The announcement on Monday will usher in a more intensive period of oversight by the government of G.M. and Chrysler, which lost a combined $38 billion in 2008, when United States vehicle sales fell to their lowest level in more than 25 years. The third Detroit car company, Ford Motor Company, has, so far, not sought direct federal assistance. Ford, which lost more than $14 billion last year, has repeatedly said it had enough cash to finance its own broad restructuring efforts. Mr. Obama and his top auto advisers have stressed that the administration would do everything in its power to prevent a sudden bankruptcy of the big automakers, which could set off cascading failures throughout the industry’s extensive supply chain and dealer networks. “We need to preserve a U.S. auto industry,” the president said Thursday in a town hall event conducted over the Internet. “We will provide them with some help.” But the president’s task force will continue to consider a government-managed bankruptcy as a final resort for both G.M. and Chrysler, according to people familiar with the deliberations. The threat of bankruptcy is intended to accelerate talks between the troubled automakers and their biggest creditors. Under the terms of its original loans, G.M. must substitute company stock for half of the $20 billion it owes to a new health care trust for retired union workers and surviving spouses. G.M. also needs to reduce its $27 billion in unsecured debt by two-thirds. So far, a committee representing some bondholders has balked at an offer estimated at as low as 15 cents on the dollar value of the bonds . The company declined to comment Friday on the talks, except to say they were continuing, according to a G.M. spokeswoman. Chrysler is facing similar terms with its lenders and the union. People familiar with the task force discussions said the Monday announcement would set very specific targets and conditions for G.M. and Chrysler to meet separately. The companies are due to submit their own progress reports on the restructuring plans they initially gave the government last month. G.M., however, may be forced to alter its plan somewhat. The plan currently calls for the elimination of 47,000 jobs worldwide and a significant reduction in brands, models and dealerships. Chrysler has released one plan to exist as a stand-alone company, and an alternative one that includes joining forces with the Italian auto company Fiat. The task force has not ruled out supporting a Fiat alliance for Chrysler but is intent on keeping all options open for the company, including revival of previous merger talks between Chrysler and G.M. at some point. Administration officials have said the bailout of the automakers is at a turning point, and the task force would intensify its oversight of G.M. and Chrysler until talks with the union and bondholders reached a conclusion. Those officials also said the administration had no intention of nationalizing the auto companies or taking direct control of their managements.

United Automobile Workers
Automobiles
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
General Motors Corp
Chrysler LLC
Obama Barack


Recruitment by Military in Schools Is Criticized

Abstract: Military recruiters are frequently given free reign in New York City public schools and allowed into classes in violation of the school system’s regulations, according to a report released yesterday by the Manhattan borough president and the New York Civil Liberties Union . The report, based on surveys of nearly 1,000 students at 45 high schools citywide last spring, said the city’s Department of Education exercised almost no oversight over how much access recruiters had to students at high schools. “There were recruiters who were in the classroom not to talk to students about reading, writing and arithmetic, but to talk to them about how to get a one-way ticket to Iraq and all the benefits you will accrue by that process,” Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, said at a news conference. “This is something that must be stopped. It’s outrageous, and it gives recruiters a captive audience.” Nearly all the speakers at the news conference, including Mr. Stringer, said they were opposed to the war in Iraq. Federal law and city regulations require military recruiters to be given the same kind of access to speak to students as college and trade school recruiters who typically turn up for annual career nights. In a memorandum sent to principals in January, city school officials reminded them that military recruiters should not be “given unfettered access to students in classrooms, cafeterias, gyms or other areas of the school building.” Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the department was reviewing the report. “We’re not aware of any recruitment during school hours,” she said. The report focused primarily on schools with large numbers of black, Latino and low-income students where Mr. Stringer and officials from the New York Civil Liberties Union said they believed the recruiting had been particularly aggressive. The authors conceded that the report was not a scientific study. Adana Austin, a senior at Lafayette High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who was quoted in the report, said in an interview yesterday that she had seen military recruiters in class a few times a month, but had never seen a college recruiter. “They’re the ones talking to us about our futures,” she said of the military recruiters. Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that the city needed to do more to regulate and monitor recruiters in the schools. She said schools should keep track of how often recruiters are allowed in and should make that information available to the public. The Los Angeles and Seattle schools have each set up such a monitoring system, Ms. Lieberman said. “If the Department of Education is so committed to evaluating everything at every turn, they have an obligation to protect our kids from military recruiters coming into our schools,” she said. The federal education law also requires schools to submit student contact information to the military, though it also allows students to have their information withheld. Last year, just 25 percent of those city students surveyed remembered receiving such a form, according to the report. In 2003, the first year of the federal requirement, roughly 54,000 of the city’s 300,000 students asked that their information be kept private. Ms. Feinberg said she could not provide any updated data because it is kept school by school and is not collated by the Education Department.

New York Civil Liberties Union
Education Department
Education and Schools
Draft and Recruitment (Military)


Letters to the Editor

Abstract: Conducive to Abuse TO THE EDITOR: Re “ When Power of Attorney Becomes Power Struggle ” (The New Old Age, May 10): The last several paragraphs were troubling. They described a son taking his mentally impaired mother to a local notary to execute a Wells Fargo power of attorney while he did most of the talking. The scenario described a blueprint for elder abuse. It is a fact pattern well known to the courts and has led to countless seniors being fleeced of their life savings. It is important to note that a high level of mental capacity is required to execute a durable power of attorney. Seniors should obtain powers of attorneys from each financial institution where they hold assets (if the institution so insists) in addition to the New York State power of attorney. Clifford A. Meirowitz New York The writer is an elder law lawyer. Overstated Danger TO THE EDITOR: Re “ Medical Errors May Cause Over 250,000 Deaths a Year ” (In Brief, May 10): Although even one death due to medical error is a tragedy, this article sends the wrong message to the public. It can undermine the public’s confidence in their doctors and could even instigate some to sue their doctors when they or a family member suffers a complication. By focusing just on the number of deaths and not on the total number of hospital admissions in a year, it blows out of proportion the magnitude of the problem and sends a misleading and shocking message. It does a disservice to the public and to physicians. The point is that the American Hospital Association reports that in 2014 there were almost 35,000,000 hospital admissions. That comes to about 250,000 deaths per 35,000,000 admissions to hospitals. Edward Volpintesta, M.D. Bethel, Conn. Worry Not TO THE EDITOR: Re “Worried? You Are Not Alone” (Well, May 10): As a chronic worrier, now that I’m almost 70, I have noticed what psychological research consistently reveals: Worrying is less intense as people get old. One reason is that things we most worried would go wrong, such as failing or losing loved ones, did go wrong — and we survived. When you understand that experiencing your worst worries was less fearsome than you believed, you feel liberated — to take risks; to shed your ego and enjoy the passing scene. You relish your brief time left on earth. And that’s why the best cure for overworrying is to live a long life. Janet Belsky Chicago


New York Adoptee Returns to China and Scores in Paralympic Victory

Abstract: BEIJING (AP) — SuGui Kriss always wanted to return to China to rediscover her roots and perhaps leave her mark on the country. She marched into the Bird’s Nest last weekend for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Paralympics , representing the United States as a member of its sitting volleyball team. Her early life in southern China was that of an abandoned infant who was raised in an orphanage in Kunming until she was adopted at age 8 by the Americans Charles and Marilyn Kriss. “SuGui goes from a forsaken situation to marching into the Bird’s Nest in front of 90,000 fans,” Charles Kriss said. “It’s a great testimony.” If Paralympic organizers were looking for an exemplar among the 4,000 athletes in these games, the 21-year-old SuGui Kriss would be among them. She has overcome her share of problems — and she has a powerful serve. According to her coach and parents, the Paralympics have taken a slightly shy girl and given her confidence, a more outgoing personality and a chance to return with a Paralympic medal to her home in Albany. The United States team finished with a 2-1 record in pool play and will face the Netherlands on Friday in the semifinals. The Americans won the bronze four years ago in Athens, and a victory against the Dutch would put them into the gold medal game — probably against China. The Americans’ only loss was to China, the defending Paralympic champions. In Wednesday’s 25-12, 25-17, 25-11 victory over Latvia, Kriss had 4 points serving, her first of the tournament. In other action Wednesday, Britain won three gold medals in track cycling, solidifying its spot behind China, the leader, in the medal standings. China leads the medal table with 24 gold and 77 over all. Britain has 21 gold and 43 over all, followed by the United States with 15 and 34. Britain has earned 12 gold medals in cycling, the most of any team. Sarah Storey of Britain won the individual pursuit cycling race for her disability class, and the American Barbara Buchan won in her class. Britain’s Anthony Kappes, Barney Storey and Ben Demery won the sprint final, and Darren Kenny, Mark Bristow and Jody Cundy took the team sprint. Of the 12 medal events in swimming, Russia, Britain and the United States each won two gold medals. TWO BARRED FOR DRUGS The German wheelchair basketball player Ahmet Coskun failed a doping test that was conducted before the Games. German officials said Coskun’s urine test on Aug. 23 showed the presence of the banned substance finasteride. The substance is used as a treatment for baldness, but it can mask steroids. Earlier this week, the Pakistani powerlifter Naveed Ahmed Butt was barred for two years after testing positive for steroids.


Bullet Train Failed Once, but It’s Back

Abstract: In 1989, former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes joined a group of investors hoping to develop a bullet train in Texas. The company, Texas T.G.V., planned to build a high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston and then expand to Austin and San Antonio. The project collapsed after four years and more than $70 million in private investments. “I’ll spend the rest of my life asking ‘what if?’ ” Mr. Barnes said. (Ben Barnes has been a major donor to The Texas Tribune.) More than two decades later, Texas Central Railway is trying to revive a part of the earlier project, a privately financed bullet train between Dallas and Houston. As the company prepares to do an environmental impact study and schedule public meetings along the planned route, its leaders say they expect to avoid the pitfalls of the earlier project, namely inadequate financing and intense opposition from Southwest Airlines. Texas T.G.V. (named for Train à Grande Vitesse, the French high-speed line) “had great plans, but there was a lot of things that they were counting on that did not happen,” said Robert Eckels, the president of Texas Central Railway. Many rail advocates have put the blame for the demise of the earlier “supertrain” project on Southwest Airlines, which conducted an aggressive lobbying campaign. Yet the story of the project’s failure is more complicated. Then, as now, supporters are heralding the possibility of travel between Dallas and Houston in less than 90 minutes. The plan would use technology from the Central Japan Railway Company, which handles more than 100 million passengers each year on trains that travel at 200 miles per hour. During the 1990s, Japanese firms were among several foreign companies that considered going into partnership with American firms to bid on a high-speed rail franchise, state records show. The Texas Legislature created the Texas High-Speed Rail Authority in 1989 to explore the potential for such a franchise after a study had found that the region’s generally flat land and fast-growing population made it an ideal location. Lawmakers made clear that the authority could consider only proposals that were privately financed. Two firms — the French-backed Texas T.G.V. and the German-backed Texas FasTrac — paid $500,000 each to apply for the state’s first high-speed rail franchise. Texas T.G.V.’s proposal was especially ambitious. The company envisioned using technology used in France to build a 600-mile network connecting Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio in less than a decade. Company executives predicted they could draw more than nine million riders a year by 2014. Some 70 percent of the project’s $6 billion price tag was to be financed through tax-exempt private bonds, more than federal law allowed a company to borrow using that type of financing. The venture hinged on the company’s changing federal law to ease the restrictions. Texas T.G.V.’s optimism was based in large part in its backers’ confidence that a high-speed rail line would draw thousands of Texans who regularly flew between the state’s major cities for business. The plan was a threat to Southwest Airlines, which had built a large portion of its business on the state’s “super-commuters.” Southwest executives said the Texas project was unlike any other high-speed rail project, in that it was focusing more on taking customers from air travel rather than from cars. Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s chief executive at the time, predicted that the bullet train would force the airline to raise fares on some Texas routes and end service on others. He also warned that the company might move its corporate headquarters to another state. Southwest Airlines declined to comment for this article. (Southwest Airlines is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) “Rail has a romantic appeal, but this case cannot be decided on the basis of nostalgia or even a desire to emulate the rail service of France and Germany,” Southwest Airlines said in a brief filed with the authority in 1991. “The American reality is that high-speed rail will be viable in Texas only by destroying the convenient and inexpensive transportation service the airlines now provide, and only by absorbing huge public subsidies.” The project also drew opposition in rural areas. Farmers raised concerns about the tracks dividing their land and the noise from trains affecting the health of livestock. Residents of cities that were on the train’s proposed route but far from the stations also had trouble seeing the value. Groups called Derail and Citizens Against the Bullet Train soon formed. State officials received petitions signed by thousands of residents opposing the “Texas supertrain.” “I would say generally people didn’t show up to say how much they liked the project,” said Steven Polunsky, who was the research and planning director for the Texas High-Speed Rail Authority. He noted that the project had significant support in urban areas. The authority awarded Texas T.G.V. a 50-year franchise in 1991, an agreement that included requiring that the company meet several financing deadlines. The first major one, at the end of 1992, required the company to show that it had secured $171 million in letters of credit. “There were these milestones installed to make sure we didn’t end up saddled with a half-built project,” said Marc Burns, a former executive director at the authority. After the first deadline passed, Texas T.G.V. acknowledged it had not secured the money. The authority revoked the franchise. A year later, lawmakers abolished the Texas High-Speed Rail Authority. Mr. Barnes said Southwest Airlines killed the project by persuading two crucial officials — Gov. Ann Richards and United States Senator Lloyd Bentsen, who was chairman of the Finance Committee — to offer only tepid public support. That hobbled efforts to change federal law to allow for the firm to borrow the billions in tax-exempt bonds on which its plan hinged, he said. “Our initial investors had to know that there was tax-exempt financing for the remainder of it,” Mr. Barnes said. Others argued that Texas T.G.V.’s financial plan simply never won over enough investors. “I think we ended up not building the train because you couldn’t make the case that money would be there, one way or another,” Mr. Burns said. As Texas Central Railway tries to succeed where Texas T.G.V. failed, company executives have expressed confidence in their financial backing. While tax-exempt private activity bonds are not in the firm’s finance model, Mr. Eckels said he could not rule them out. But he did not foresee the need to change any federal or state laws in order to finance the project. Mr. Barnes, who is consulting for a company affiliated with the project, also expressed confidence that it would not face the same financial challenges that his earlier effort did. “I think I’m going to live to see a high-speed train in Texas,” he said. Mr. Eckels said, “We will take advantage of every tool that is out there that is available to every other corporation.” Southwest Airlines has remained neutral on the project, and Robert Mann, an aviation consultant in New York, said the company’s business had diversified to the point that it would probably view a Texas high-speed rail project less as a threat. “They’ve established a nationwide footprint,” Mr. Mann said. “I think the issue of intrastate high-speed rail within Texas is just not the same sort of destabilizing issue to Southwest that it was 20 years ago.”

Ben Barnes
Texas
Dallas
Houston
Austin
San Antonio
Southwest Airlines
Texas High-Speed Rail Authority
High Speed Rail
State legislature


President Tandja’s Plan to Extend Term Is Protested in Niger

Abstract: NIAMEY, Niger — Stubbornness crops up in harsh environments like that of this desert’s-edge capital, in the stoicism of grilled meat vendors in 110-degree heat or the patience of camels bearing heavy reed mats through the dusty streets. So, too, in the dogged refusal, for more than two months now, of the impoverished citizens to part with a commodity as seemingly fragile as the tenuous greenery here: democracy. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest President Mamadou Tandja’s slow-moving coup d’état, as his critics call it: his plan to stay beyond the legal limit of two terms in his colonial-era palace, a gleaming oasis of whitewashed order amid dilapidated government buildings and mud-brick houses. In his push for a new constitution that would abolish term limits and give him more power after 10 years as president, Mr. Tandja dissolved a high court that ruled against his bid to remain in office; dismissed a fractious Parliament; took steps to muzzle the press, including shutting down a radio and television station; and arrested opposition leaders. Democracy is new here in one of the world’s poorest countries, barely a decade old in this vast land of about 14 million people, most of it desert, bigger in area than France, Spain and Portugal together. Uranium deposits, among the world’s largest, provide the government with revenue, but the citizens here do not have much. Most live on less than a dollar a day, and mortality rates for mothers and children are well above the African average — double in the case of women giving birth. The country ranks fifth from the bottom in the United Nations human development index , and persistent malnutrition stalks rural areas, aid workers say. In the capital, the hugely swollen limbs of insistent beggars testify to the effects of unchecked disease. One thing the people have dearly acquired, though, after decades of coups, military strongmen and weak governments, is a political order that has resembled democracy, albeit with lapses: two successful presidential elections, defeated candidates who go home without causing turmoil, an outspoken opposition and an alert if beleaguered press. The citizens are manifestly unwilling to give up their shaky gains. The street protests have given way to strikes and daily banner headlines in the nongovernment press, like the one last week proclaiming “The Dismantling of Democracy” in the leading opposition newspaper, Le Républicain. In the teeming central market, the mood turns somber and the vendors shout angrily at the mention of Mr. Tandja’s project, known as Tazarché, a Hausa word meaning continuity. Unions and opposition parties have engineered a unified front against it, and are calling for more demonstrations and a boycott of Mr. Tandja’s Aug. 4 referendum on his new constitution for Niger. The country’s constitutional court ruled that he could not hold the referendum; Mr. Tandja’s solution was to dissolve the court and replace its members. “In every other country where democracy is well anchored, what is happening here would be unimaginable,” said Moussa Coulibaly, a lawyer who leads the bar association here, citing the president’s recent seizure of emergency powers for himself. “It’s all the more serious in that 10 years of gains are now threatened.” During a 2005 visit to the White House by Mr. Tandja, President George W. Bush praised his adherence to democratic values. (Shortly afterward, Mr. Tandja went on to deny the existence of a well-documented famine in his country.) Now, Mr. Tandja, a 71-year-old former military man, has engineered “a coup d’état in its first phase,” said the leader of the opposition, Mohamadou Issoufou, a veteran politician here, who was recently arrested in the night and interrogated at police headquarters in Niamey, but later released. Mr. Issoufou warned that the standoff could lead to a “test of strengths.” “I’m extremely worried about the stability of the country,” he said. If it is a coup, it has been concealed in a cloak of legalism, with Mr. Tandja insisting that he has the right to dissolve first one institution, then another, making the protest movement that has engulfed the dun-colored city from top to bottom all the more notable. The citizens are paying close attention. “This isn’t good at all for democracy,” said Adama Abdou, a vendor in the market, as others crowded around and nodded assent. “We don’t want a president for life here. Yes, democracy is in serious, serious trouble.” Another vendor, Hamani Issaka, said, “We don’t want him anymore; he’s got to step down.” Yet another, Abdoulaye Hama, said: “Tazarché is no good. The country doesn’t agree with it. There’s nothing to eat, and there are loads of problems.” In the presidential palace, an airy Moorish-style edifice built for the French governors and well hidden from the road, Mr. Tandja beamed and said he wanted to stay on only because the people were begging him to do so. “The people demand it,” Mr. Tandja said. “My obligation is to never betray the aspirations of the people. It’s the people who asked.” In the great hall outside his office, a giant mural depicted Mr. Tandja, arms raised, in the center of lush fields, surrounded by tiny citizens with arms reaching out to him. Ticking off what he said were his accomplishments — public works projects, improvements in education — the president said, “When you look at all this, it’s normal that the people want to keep you as long as possible.” On Wednesday, Mr. Tandja gave himself the authority to take “restraining measures without warning" against any news outlets that endangered “state security or public order,” the state radio reported. Although the United States and the European Union have condemned Mr. Tandja’s moves, analysts say that because of an oil deal with the Chinese and support from the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, he may be relatively invulnerable to Western pressure, despite the considerable presence of outside aid in Niger’s budget. Mr. Tandja insisted that he had not “violated any act of the Constitution.” A union leader here who also heads the protests angrily disagreed. “Unfortunately, he’s made us miss our entrance into the great court of democratic nations, like Ghana and Mali,” said Issoufou Sidibé, secretary general of the Democratic Confederation of Workers in Niger. “He’s made us totally miss what would have been our triumphant entry. It’s made every Nigerien who is proud of his country very angry.”


House Votes to Tighten Reins on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Abstract: WASHINGTON, May 22 (AP) — Legislation to tighten federal oversight of the two biggest buyers of home mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cleared the House on Tuesday. But the bill could lose the support of the Bush administration because of a provision trimming the authority of federal regulators. The vote in the House was 313 to 104 for the measure providing for stricter federal supervision of the two government-sponsored companies, which together finance or guarantee more than three-quarters of the home mortgages in the country. The legislation would also create a housing aid fund — worth as much as $3 billion — to be financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All 104 opposing votes came from Republicans, who were sharply split. Ninety other Republican lawmakers joined 223 Democrats to sweep the bill to passage. The legislation is the product of a compromise between majority Democrats in the House and the administration. Multibillion-dollar accounting scandals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac brought demands for tighter government supervision and cuts in the companies’ huge mortgage holdings, now worth a combined $1.5 trillion. But in House action last week, the bill was reshaped in a way that reduces the power of the new federal regulator over the companies’ mortgage holdings, compared with an earlier version. An amendment adopted by voice vote puts some restrictions on that authority. The Bush administration has insisted that the new regulator have the discretion and authority to reduce the companies’ mortgage portfolios. White House support is considered crucial to the bill’s prospects in the Senate and for eventual passage, after years of failed efforts to enact such legislation. “I believe our nation needs a stronger regulatory structure and a deeper commitment to meeting the housing needs of the American people,” Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement after the vote. “I am committed to continuing to find common ground to address this important issue in a bipartisan, timely and thoughtful way.” A partisan split was evident in House debate over the bill’s provision creating a housing aid fund. An estimated $500 million to $600 million a year from the companies’ profits would go to the five-year fund, which would be used to build and rehabilitate housing for low-income people. In the first year, the money would go for housing for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Diverting company profits to the housing fund would impose a ”mortgage tax” on every home loan financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Republicans said, thereby making middle-class homeowners pay for the fund.

Fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
Law and Legislation
United States Politics and Government


New Regulator Might Not Oversee Auto Dealers

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The nation’s 18,000 auto dealers appeared likely on Tuesday night to win a legislative triumph that would protect their businesses from oversight by a new consumer protection regulator. Senate Democrats agreed for the first time Tuesday to exclude auto dealers, yielding to the insistence of centrist Democrats in the House. A final deal still was being negotiated Tuesday night; Senate Democrats were pressing to place the industry under some degree of additional scrutiny by other federal agencies. The deal would amount to an outright rejection of the Obama administration’s insistence that auto dealers should be subject to the new regulator, a rare setback for the administration, which has persuaded Democrats to embrace most of its priorities. “The political reality is that those of us who have fought against an auto dealer carve-out can’t prevail,” Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois, said Tuesday. It was the most important development on the fourth day of public negotiations between the chambers on the final text of a bill to overhaul financial regulations . Democrats hope to complete work on the bill by week’s end, before President Obama meets with other leaders in the Group of 20 nations this weekend in Toronto. “While we knew that we’d not win every fight, the president will soon sign into law historic Wall Street reform that includes the strongest consumer protections ever,” said a White House spokeswoman, Amy Brundage. The creation of a consumer protection regulator, with broad authority to write and enforce rules protecting borrowers, is a centerpiece of the financial legislation. Its jurisdiction would include banks, mortgage lenders and other companies whose primary business is making loans to consumers. The two largest exceptions have been won by auto dealers and community banks. Their victories are a classic instance of the maxim that politics are local. Banks and dealerships are important businesses in every Congressional district, and both their concerns and donations have been embraced on Capitol Hill. The National Automobile Dealers Association has spent more than $3.5 million on lobbying since the beginning of 2009, and dealers and their employees made almost $10 million in political contributions during the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. Arranging financing is an important source of profit for many auto dealers. The money comes from a bank or the financing arm of an automaker; the dealer earns a fee. Auto dealers argued that they already were subject to various federal regulations, mostly enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. The administration and allies argued that a car was the second-largest purchase that most families made, and that such a purchase deserved the protection of the new regulator. That position drew support from the Pentagon, which cited what it described as a pattern of abusive auto loans to members of the military. But three of the House Democrats on the conference committee joined with Republicans in rejecting that argument, insisting that the exemption remain in the final bill. “This is a way to restrict access to the automobile,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, who said that restrictions on auto lending would prevent consumers from borrowing the money they needed to buy cars. While agreeing to the exemption, Senate Democrats offered a proposal that would make it easier for the trade commission to impose regulations on dealers. The day was largely devoted to the details of new consumer protections. Democrats agreed to place the new regulator inside the Federal Reserve, as the Senate had proposed, rather than creating a freestanding agency, which was the House proposal. The Fed would provide funding, but the regulator would have considerable autonomy and its head would be a presidential appointee. Democrats rejected Republican arguments that existing banking regulators should retain responsibility for consumer protection, so that those agencies could balance the needs of customers and the health of financial institutions. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and the lead negotiator for the House, was particularly contemptuous of objections from the regulators themselves. “I do not think there is a group with less credibility in this field,” Mr. Frank said after several Republicans referred to statements from regulators. “They are defending their reputations and their turf, to neither one of which they are entitled.”

Consumer Protection
Senate
Automobiles
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Law and Legislation
Banks and Banking
National Automobile Dealers Assn


Justices Decline Cases on Gay Rights and Campaign Finance

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear closely watched cases on gay rights, campaign finance and lethal injections. As is their custom, the justices gave no reasons for turning down the appeals. The gay rights case, Elane Photography v. Willock, No. 13-585, was an appeal from a wedding photographer in New Mexico who asserted a constitutional right to refuse to provide her services to gay and lesbian couples. The issue was broadly similar to one argued before the court last month , over whether companies may refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraception on religious grounds. But the New Mexico case was based not on a claim of religious liberty but on one of free speech. The photographer, Elaine Huguenin, objected to a New Mexico law prohibiting businesses open to the public from discriminating against gay men and lesbians. She said that requiring her to photograph same-sex weddings violated her First Amendment rights because she was forced to say something she did not believe. She rejected a request from Vanessa Willock and Misti Collinsworth to document their commitment ceremony. The women, who hired another photographer, filed a discrimination complaint against Ms. Huguenin’s studio, Elane Photography. The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled for the couple, saying Ms. Huguenin’s “services can be regulated, even though those services include artistic and creative work.” Laws banning discrimination, the court said, apply to “creative or expressive professions.” Justice Richard C. Bosson issued an ambivalent concurrence expressing sympathy for Ms. Huguenin and her husband. “The Huguenins are not trying to prohibit anyone from marrying,” he wrote. “They only want to be left alone to conduct their photography business in a manner consistent with their moral convictions.” Instead, they “are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives,” he added. “Though the rule of law requires it,” Justice Bosson wrote, “the result is sobering.” The justices also declined to hear a campaign finance case, Iowa Right to Life Committee v. Tooker, No. 13-407, which was a challenge to an Iowa law that bans contributions from corporations but allows them from unions. The case was brought by James Bopp Jr., one of the lawyers on the winning side on Wednesday in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission , a major campaign finance case. The McCutcheon decision struck down aggregate contribution limits in federal elections. Mr. Bopp challenged the Iowa law on two grounds. He said distinguishing between corporations and unions violated equal protection principles. In any event, he added, “banning corporate political contributions violates the First Amendment.” The Supreme Court also declined to hear two cases concerning whether death row inmates have a constitutional right to know what chemicals states plan to use to execute them. The challenges said the court’s attention was needed to bring order to a capital justice system in disarray. Drug shortages and boycotts have caused prisons to scramble to find lethal chemicals, raising what opponents of the death penalty say is the possibility of executions so painful that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In January, executions in two states seemed to go awry. An Oklahoma inmate’s last words , 12 seconds after he was injected with lethal chemicals, were: “I feel my whole body burning.” A week later, an Ohio inmate “struggled, made guttural noises, gasped for air and choked for about 10 minutes before succumbing to a new, two-drug execution method,” according to The Columbus Dispatch . One case, Sepulvado v. Jindal, No. 13-892, concerned Christopher Sepulvado, who was convicted of scalding and beating his 6-year-old stepson to death. Mr. Sepulvado’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to decide whether due process “entitles a condemned inmate with timely notice of the method by which he will be executed.” A second case, Zink v. Lombardi, No. 13-8435, was brought by death row inmates in Missouri. It asked the justices to review an appeals court decision that required them to specify an acceptable form of execution in order to challenge the one that the state intended to employ.

Campaign finance
Discrimination
Iowa
Missouri
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Capital punishment
Gay and Lesbian LGBT