Al Meyerhoff, 61, Dies; Legal Voice for Poor

Abstract: Al Meyerhoff, a leading labor, environmental and civil rights lawyer who brought a landmark case to stop sweatshop conditions for 30,000 workers on the Pacific island of Saipan, died on Sunday in Los Angeles, where he lived. He was 61. The cause was complications of leukemia, his wife, Marcia Brandwynne, said. Mr. Meyerhoff, a loud, friendly bear of a man with a thick mane of tousled hair, rose to prominence in several legal fields. As a civil rights litigator, he successfully challenged a California law that prevented illegal immigrant children from attending public school. As an environmental lawyer — he worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council for 17 years — he challenged the continued use of cancer-causing pesticides. As a labor lawyer, he was co-lead counsel in suing Gap, Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren and 20 other retailers, accused of obtaining garments from Saipan factories that used guard dogs and had barbed-wire fences. Many of the workers, some of whom Mr. Meyerhoff said were indentured servants, were immigrants from China who had paid several thousand dollars to work in Saipan and were forced to toil 12 hours a day, seven days a week, often without overtime pay. “Saipan is America’s worst sweatshop,” Mr. Meyerhoff said in an interview with The New York Times in 1999, referring to the island in the Northern Marianas Islands, an American commonwealth near the Philippines. The lawsuit was one of the most ambitious ever brought against sweatshops, sending a signal to sweatshop owners in dozens of countries to improve conditions. As part of the $20 million settlement, the apparel companies agreed to pay back wages, follow a code of workplace conduct and pay for an independent monitor to inspect the Saipan factories. Mr. Meyerhoff waived any fees. Over the decades, Mr. Meyerhoff produced numerous op-ed articles for The Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post Web site, many letters in The New York Times and The Washington Post and articles in law journals and environmental magazines. He also testified 50 times before Congressional committees. “I was meant to do this work,” Mr. Meyerhoff told online magazine of the Cornell University Law School this year. Albert Henry Meyerhoff Jr. was born in Ellington, Conn., on Sept. 20, 1947. He told the Cornell Web magazine that as a boy he was harassed by bullies and that as a result he developed “an active dislike of the abuse of power.” Mr. Meyerhoff graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1969 and from the Cornell law school in 1972. After law school, he turned down a high-paying corporate law job to take a $60-a-week position with California Rural Legal Assistance, which represented migrant workers and the rural poor. In one lawsuit, he challenged the University of California over its underwriting of research on farm mechanization, saying it hurt farm workers and family farms. In 1981 Mr. Meyerhoff joined the Natural Resources Defense Council and became director of its public health program. He helped pressure the chemical industry to adopt tougher standards on pesticides by invoking a rarely used amendment under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act that prohibited the use of animal carcinogens in processed foods. His litigation helped persuade the industry to ban several dozen carcinogenic pesticides. In 1988, he joined Coughlin Stoia, a class action law firm, from which he brought the Saipan lawsuit, sued Enron and challenged Mexican cross-border trucking, asserting that it violated United States health and safety standards. Besides his wife, he is survived by his daughter, Leah, of New York City, his mother, Ruth, of Ellington, Conn., and his brothers, George of Van Nuys, Calif., and Alan of Panama City, Fla. “He was a warrior against the chemical industry,” Frances Beinecke, president of the N.R.D.C., said of Mr. Meyerhoff. “He was a champion of the underserved. He fought long and hard to make the world a safer place for farm workers, for kids, for people working in factories and for people living in poverty who couldn’t represent themselves.”

Sweatshops
Suits and Litigation
Meyerhoff Al
Deaths (Obituaries)


Do Most Flowers Have 5 Petals?

Abstract: Q. Most flowers I see have five petals. Is this generally true, and if so, why? A. Many showy cultivated plants do indeed have four or five petals, said Melanie Sifton, vice president of horticulture at Brooklyn Botanic Garden , but another big plant category, the monocots, often have three petals or multiples of three. Even then, the numbers and arrangements vary widely. For example, grasses, palms and orchids are all monocots, but they can have great diversity in petal structure and flower shape. “Essentially, this is all about sex,” Ms. Sifton said. Most petals are modified leaves that surround a plant’s sexual parts and have evolved in many permutations of color and arrangement to encourage pollination, attract pollinators or both. Image Credit Victoria Roberts For instance, plants with large white petals, like the moonflower Ipomoea alba , are well adapted to attract moths for pollination, Ms. Sifton said. Some flowers have fused petals that look more like funnels or bells, and other flowers have asymmetrically enlarged petals, like orchids. Such arrangements not only attract pollinators visually, they can also act as traps, food mimics and landing pads for pollinators. Other plants, like those in the aster family, might look as if they have hundreds of petals in a circle around a central core, but actually have many small flowers densely arranged around a central disk of even more flowers. “To complicate this matter further, there are other flower parts that might look like petals, but are more accurately identified as sepals or tepals,” Ms. Sifton said. question@nytimes.com

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Flowers and Plants
Gardens and Gardening


Political Newcomer in Georgia Rescinds Demand for President’s Resignation

Abstract: TBILISI, Georgia — The billionaire whose political coalition shocked much of the region by prevailing in this week’s parliamentary elections here , on Wednesday hastily rescinded his demand that President Mikheil Saakashvili resign, and said he was “ready for constructive relations” with him. The surprise winner, Bidzina Ivanishvili, also announced that his first visit after the election would be to Washington, signaling that the electoral upset will not affect Georgia’s close relationship with the United States. He told local television reporters that he would travel to the United States after the presidential elections in November. “We have also made the decision that I will not go to visit any other country yet — my first visit will be to the U.S.,” he said. Both announcements suggest that Mr. Ivanishvili, who is poised to take the powerful post of prime minister, does not intend to drastically reorient Georgia toward a partnership with Russia . Throughout a sometimes poisonous election campaign, Mr. Saakashvili had accused his rival of representing Kremlin interests, offering as evidence the vast wealth he had earned in Russia. Mr. Ivanishvili has little experience in public life and, until he vowed to topple Mr. Saakashvili, lived so reclusively that few people knew what he looked like. American officials have consulted intensively with him in recent weeks, both to take his measure and to urge a peaceful and constitutional transition. During a meandering and sometimes vituperative news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Ivanishvili shocked many by casually saying that Mr. Saakashvili should resign immediately rather than serve out his term, which ends in 2013 — a jarring demand, since the president had just offered a graceful concession speech and offered to work together. Western observers were upset, and Wilfried Martens, of the European People’s Party, released a statement calling the demand “totally unacceptable” and “a direct attack against democracy and the rule of law.” Mr. Ivanishvili officially took it back with a written statement on Wednesday, saying it was only a recommendation. “I reiterate that we do not raise any political ultimatums and, for the well-being of the country, we are ready for dialogue and settlement of state issues with the Georgian president and other representatives of the present government in a working atmosphere,” the statement said. There are dizzying questions about how the two men will share power, after a campaign marked by vicious personal attacks and recrimination. Because of recent changes to the Constitution, Georgia will become a parliamentary republic in 2013, and many executive powers will be transferred to the prime minister. But many months of compromise stretch out before then — a danger in a political culture geared toward obliterating one’s opponent. At his news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Ivanishvili said, jokingly, that American officials had been urging him to reach out to Mr. Saakashvili. “There were attempts — would I agree to call Saakashvili? — which I refused,” he said. “Today, and in the future, there is no need of this. Our ‘big brothers’ from America tried to do something about this and worried a lot about how we will be able to work with the governing party.”

Elections
Georgia (Georgian Republic)
Ivanishvili Bidzina
Saakashvili Mikheil


Two Kickers or Tyree? Giants May Have to Choose

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — At least one and perhaps two difficult decisions are upon the Giants this week as they prepare to play the Eagles in Philadelphia on Sunday night. The decisions could be intertwined. First, they have to decide by 4 p.m. on Wednesday the roster status of David Tyree, the wide receiver and special teams player who made an acrobatic catch during the winning drive in their Super Bowl victory over New England. Tyree has not played this season because of injuries. The Giants (7-1) can either activate Tyree, put him on injured reserve or release him. With his right knee recovered from surgery, Tyree has been practicing with the Giants for the last three weeks. But he had a recent setback with a strained right hamstring. “It’s almost a little bit unfair to them as well because I haven’t been able to be out there on a consistent basis at practice,” Tyree said Monday. Referring to his Giants’ career, Tyree — a native of Montclair, N.J. — said: “It’s been a reciprocal relationship. I’ve been good to them and they’ve been good to me. It’s crunch time. We’ll see what happens.” The other decision involves the place-kickers, John Carney and Lawrence Tynes. Carney took over after Tynes sustained a knee injury in training camp. Tynes has been healthy for almost a month, but Carney has missed no extra points and only one field goal, which was blocked. But Carney’s kickoffs have not been reaching the end zone, often falling around the 10-yard line without much hang time for the coverage team to get downfield. Should Carney be cut, that would open a roster spot for Tyree. Or the Giants could dress both kickers Sunday and scratch someone else. It is unusual for teams to carry two place-kickers. Coach Tom Coughlin was asked Monday whether he might dress two kickers, one for kickoffs, the other for scoring plays. “At this point, no,” he said. MANNING’S MISCUES It is difficult to find too much fault with a quarterback who threw three touchdown passes, as Eli Manning did on Sunday in a 35-14 victory over Dallas. But Manning’s performance was inconsistent. He threw one interception that was run back for a touchdown, lost two fumbles, was sacked three times and was penalized for delay of game. “It was on me, I tried to make everything perfect,” Manning said Monday of the delay of game penalty. At times, it appeared that Manning was taking too much time to make other decisions. Tom Coughlin said that Manning led outstanding drives, but added, “Against a team that rushes the passer as well as they do, you really do have to pay particular attention to the natural clock that is ticking and tells you they are close.” Manning, speaking of his fumbles, said: “One just slipped out of my hand throwing. It wasn’t the pressure. It was just a bad play. The other one, yeah, I just maybe got a little lazy, just held the ball too long.” INJURY UPDATE James Butler, the strong safety, had one of the Giants’ three interceptions but also sustained a knee injury. Tom Coughlin offered few details Monday. “We are doing all the tests on the knee,” Coughlin said. “I don’t have any results back.” Another injury was to tight end Kevin Boss, who has a sprained ankle. “He will be able to practice limited, I think,” Coughlin said. Butler’s backup is Sammy Knight; Boss’s backup is Michael Matthews. QUESTIONABLE CALL Defensive end Justin Tuck appeared to make a clean tackle in the second half against quarterback Brooks Bollinger as he threw, but was called for unnecessary roughness. Asked it if was a legitimate call, Tom Coughlin said: “No, it was not. The guy is attacking the quarterback.” Tuck was told he was flagged for landing with all his weight on Bollinger. “He doesn’t have a checklist that he goes through — ‘Make sure I do this, make sure I do that,’ ” Coughlin said. “It is foolish to continue dialogue about this because it doesn’t settle anything.”


In One Swing, Rodriguez Helps Put Focus Back on the Field

Abstract: Alex Rodriguez arrived at Yankee Stadium on Friday afternoon to a throng of reporters waiting to ask him for a comment. “Tell me what happened,” Rodriguez said, puzzled. He was directed to a television monitor in the clubhouse that was broadcasting Andy Pettitte’s news conference announcing that he would retire at the end of the season. Pettitte and Manager Joe Girardi were making assurances that the weekend, festooned with farewell tributes, would not be a distraction. The sideshow, this time, would not involve Rodriguez, and Rodriguez did not seem to notice the sideshow. But then, of course, his presence would have to be felt this week, wouldn’t it? With all the drama, the pomp and the circumstance. After all, the final nine games could be his valediction, too. And, on cue, Rodriguez reinjected himself into the Yankee conversation in typically marquee fashion. His grand slam in the seventh inning lifted the Yankees past the San Francisco Giants, 5-1, lifting their faint postseason hopes. The grand slam was Rodriguez’s 24th, sending him past Lou Gehrig for first place on the career list. “It’s hard to think about things like that,” Rodriguez said. “We’re really on a sprint to the end here, and every win is huge for us.” The day began with the announcement of Pettitte’s retirement, which, along with the long-awaited ceremonies for Mariano Rivera on Sunday and next week, creates a tricky balancing act for the club. There are still very important games to play. The Yankees, who seem to be constantly reminding themselves not to look ahead, cannot afford to lose focus looking back. Of course, that vacuous middle ground is an uneasy backdrop for this final homestand, straddling the belief that there will be postseason life and the reality that it may be now or never for goodbyes. But if there is one Yankee who seems unencumbered by reality — or the notion of goodbye, for that matter — it would be Rodriguez. While he did not know about Pettitte, he did know that he was in a 1-for-22 skid entering the game. “I’ve been missing balls, hitting high, towering fly balls,” Rodriguez said. “I thought my legs were a little better today.” The Yankees were three and a half games behind in a berth for a wild card coming into the day, with five teams ahead of them fighting for two spots. According to MLB.com, they had a 1 percent probability of making the postseason. “It’s time to go,” starter C. C. Sabathia said. “We need to try to win out.” Sabathia did everything he could, holding the Giants to one run in seven-plus innings. But San Francisco’s starter, Tim Lincecum, was just as effective, even if he is no longer firing mid-90s fastballs as he did in his prime. The Giants had not visited the Bronx since 2002, and Lincecum had never before faced the Yankees. As a Washington native, he said he grew up rooting for Rodriguez when the rising star played for the Mariners. “At a young age, it’s kind of hard not to know about guys like that,” Lincecum said. “It was a little surreal.” Lincecum retired Rodriguez three times earlier in the game. But he got in trouble in the seventh. Eduardo Nunez led off with a single to right and stole second base, putting himself into scoring position with one out. But the Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval made an impressive sliding stop on a grounder down the line by J. R. Murphy, forcing Nunez at third, on Lincecum’s 116th pitch. Five pitches later, Lincecum walked Ichiro Suzuki, loading the bases. Giants Manager Bruce Bochy brought in reliever George Kontos to face Rodriguez. On a 2-1 fastball, Rodriguez sent his home run out to right. “It’s a huge hit,” Girardi said. “I don’t know how many more we can afford to lose, and we’re in a very tight game with C. C. and Lincecum, a very good matchup, and we needed a big hit.” Said Sabathia: “It was vintage. It felt good to be able to see him do that. That was a big moment.” With such monumental importance on each game, the timing of the Pettitte announcement certainly complicated things. A large news media gathering attended Pettitte’s early-afternoon news conference. Some Pettitte highlights were shown on the video board during the game. Girardi said he did not believe the additional hoopla and the buildup for Sunday’s start would deter Pettitte’s routine or the focus of his teammates. “That’s not what he wanted,” Girardi said before the game. “We thought it was important for him, because Andy understands what the fans have meant to his life and his family’s life, and he wanted to say thank you. And we all thought that this was the proper way.” INSIDE PITCH Reliever Boone Logan was available to pitch Friday, according to Joe Girardi. Logan had been out since Sept. 6 with a bone spur in his left elbow, and is expected to need off-season surgery.

Alex Rodriguez
Yankees
Andy Pettitte
San Francisco Giants
Tim Lincecum
Baseball
C C Sabathia


Woman Who Posed as Boy Testifies in Case That Ended in Suicide of 13-Year-Old

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Slumping forward miserably in the witness box, in barely audible tones, a young woman told a federal jury here on Thursday that she had posed as a teenage boy in a series of e-mail messages to a 13-year-old girl that ended in the girl’s expressing suicidal thoughts and hanging herself. “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over,” the woman, Ashley Grills, said the 13-year-old girl, Megan Meier , wrote before taking her own life. Testifying under an immunity agreement with federal prosecutors, Ms. Grills, 20, described how she came up with the idea to create a fake MySpace account with the identity of a cute teenage boy. The goal, she said, was to draw in Megan and learn about her and things she might have been saying about the teenage daughter of Ms. Grills’s friend and employer, Lori Drew. Ms. Drew, who lives in a suburb of St. Louis and was a neighbor of the Meiers, is charged with conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization via interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress. Legal experts believe the trial is an unprecedented use of computer fraud statutes to prosecute a case involving how people use a social networking site. Thomas O’Brien, the United States attorney here, asserted jurisdiction over a matter that local prosecutors in Missouri chose not to pursue — successfully arguing that he had jurisdiction because MySpace is based in Los Angeles, where its servers are housed. In her testimony on the second day of Ms. Drew’s trial, Ms. Grills described how Ms. Drew had become angry with Megan for “spreading lies” about Ms. Drew’s daughter Sarah, and was eager to “expose” her. Ms. Grills, who worked at the Drew home, said she hatched the idea of creating a phony MySpace account, under the name Josh Evans, to communicate with Megan. The original idea, Ms. Grills said, was to lure Megan to make nasty remarks about Sarah, which she and Ms. Drew would then present to Megan’s mother. But the idea morphed into other methods of humiliating the girl — devised by Ms. Drew, she said. Ms. Grills said that she had expressed trepidation about creating a fake account, but that Ms. Drew had told her “that it was fine and that people do it all the time.” She added, “She was like a second mother to me, and I didn’t think she would do anything to get me in trouble.” Things went awry, Ms. Grills said, after she sent an e-mail message with Ms. Drew’s blessing that said, “The world would be a better place without you.” It was an attempt, she said, to get Megan to stop communicating with the made-up Josh so the ruse could end. Megan’s response, the message about suicide, had never been revealed by Ms. Grills until this week. Shortly after sending the message, Megan hanged herself on Oct. 16, 2006. “It was something I didn’t want to remember,” said Ms. Grills, who said she had been hospitalized for depression after the suicide. “I pushed it out of my mind.” As Ms. Grills told her story, Megan’s father, Ronald Meier, listened from the front row of the courtroom, rocking slightly and furiously dabbing at his eyes. Ms. Drew’s defense lawyer, Dean Steward, carefully tried to unravel the credibility of Ms. Grills and others witnesses, including Megan’s mother, Christina Meier, whose testimony continued from Wednesday. “Don’t you kind of have to say stuff they want to hear?” he said to Ms. Grills, motioning to prosecutors in a reference to her immunity agreement. Mr. Steward suggested that Ms. Meier ought to have known better than to leave her daughter alone in her room after a nasty exchange of e-mail banter left the girl distraught. He said the antidepressant drugs her daughter had been taking were known to cause suicidal thoughts in teenagers. “You let her run upstairs to the room alone,” Mr. Steward said to Ms. Meier. The trial has also included testimony about the fallout for Ms. Drew after the case became public. A hairdresser testified about the irate phone calls her salon received for continuing to tend to the hair care of Ms. Drew, and an interior designer detailed both how she sold Ms. Drew blinds to block the hostile approaches of neighbors, while being hectored herself for continuing to advertise her business in a coupon book distributed by Ms. Drew. Mr. O’Brien, the United States attorney, made the highly unusual choice to prosecute the case himself, punctuating his personal interest in the matter. Should he succeed in convicting Ms. Drew, the case, while derided by critics as an overreach, would almost certainly be a game changer in the still-evolving world of social networking. By essentially equating the violation of usage agreements with computer hacking into a computer, a guilty verdict in this case could have widespread implications for future prosecutions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, said Matthew Levine, a former federal prosecutor. Each of the three counts against Ms. Drew carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Meier Megan
Drew Lori
Suicides and Suicide Attempts
MySpace.com
Grills Ashley


JPMorgan Backs Geithner’s Investments With Warburg Pincus

Abstract: Timothy F. Geithner has joined fellow Warburg Pincus partners in securing financing to make personal investments in the private equity firm’s funds. Mr. Geithner, the former Treasury secretary who joined Warburg two years ago as its president, has a line of credit with JPMorgan Chase, according to a December filing with New York State. Warburg’s co-chief executive, Joseph P. Landy, and four managing directors — Christopher C. Gunther, Peter R. Kagan, James W. Wilson and Daniel Zilberman, — also arranged lines of credit with JPMorgan in the last year backed by collateral that includes stakes Warburg funds, according to the filings. The $12 billion Warburg Pincus Private Equity XII fund would be the first main fund the firm has closed since Mr. Geithner joined it. Before being Treasury secretary, he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for six years. The former regulator, who oversaw JPMorgan during his time in government, is now playing his part in a common Wall Street practice. Many executives invest in funds managed by their firms, and for some, it is an executive perk. Outside investors have demanded increasingly large commitments from the partners who manage investment funds in the years since the financial crisis. “They want these people to have a lot of alignment” with the interests of outside investors, said Alan Johnson, a consultant on Wall Street executive pay. A spokeswoman for Warburg declined to comment on Monday. The filing was reported earlier by Bloomberg . Warburg closed the Warburg Pincus Private Equity XII fund in November. It is investing another $800 million of the firm’s money. It said last fall that investors in the fund included pensions, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations and wealthy families, with big interest coming from investors overseas. In late 2014, the firm closed its $4 billion energy fund, which is the companion to an $11 billion general fund it closed in late 2013, just before Mr. Geithner joined the firm. Warburg specializes in investing in five sectors: energy, health care, financial services, industrial and business services and technology, media and telecommunications. Last fall, the holding company for the family of the French billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière acquired a 5 percent passive stake in Warburg, with a pledge to invest as a limited partner in future funds raised by the firm. The filings do not disclose the size of the credit lines, but in some cases disclose which funds are to be used as collateral. Mr. Kagan, for example, who leads Warburg’s energy group, amended his financing agreement in October to add the Warburg Pincus Energy Partners fund. An earlier filing cited a stake in the Warburg Pincus XI Partners fund. Other Warburg Pincus executives who have credit lines outstanding include David B. Krieger and James Neary, who have financing through UBS, according to filings.

Warburg Pincus
Private equity
JPMorgan Chase
Timothy F Geithner
Debt


Under the Big Top, Adopting a Persona With XXL Shoes

Abstract: I WADDLED out of clown alley and into the spotlight leading with my big red glue-on prosthetic nose. The arena floor of the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., was teeming with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus performers and early arriving spectators who had come to mingle with them during the 40-minute “preshow” before the two-hour main event. A juggler smiled at me as he tossed three bowling pins in the air. I wondered what had amused him. Was it my black frock coat with the pink collar? My mismatching pink, green, purple, yellow and black harlequin britches? My oversize checkerboard-patterned shoes? Or was it the red, white and black greasepaint that covered my face? Before I could answer my own absurd questions, I tripped over my oversize shoes and tumbled down onto my knees. My clowning mentor, Tom Dougherty, evidently thought that I had staged the fall with a trick he had taught me in rehearsal. He handed me a red Sharpie pen, beaming through his own greasepaint. “Nice job,” he whispered. A little girl in pigtails rushed up and shoved a circus program under my big red nose. I autographed one of the clown pages in the program. A woman I presumed to be the little girl’s mother crouched in front of us and snapped a photograph. Next thing I knew, I was besieged with wave after wave of children and their camera-toting adult companions. My knees burned and my back ached. But I kept on autographing programs and posing for photographs. Suddenly, I realized that everything I had ever done up to now had led to this moment — my executive pursuit of learning to become a circus clown. I recalled one of Henry Miller’s observations on the art of clowning in the epilogue to his novella “The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder.” “A clown is a poet in action,” Miller wrote. “He is the story which he enacts. It is the same story over and over — adoration, devotion, crucifixion.” I had actually begun transforming myself into a professional buffoon that afternoon when the arena was still empty. Tom Dougherty sat me down at ringside and gestured grandly at the vacant seats. “Drink in the space,” he said. “We have to come in and play with the energy in the arena. That’s the promise of the circus, and we’ve got to fulfill that promise. Our job is to work in conspiracy with the audience to create joy.” At the time, Tom was without makeup, dressed in jeans, a black leather jacket and a black beret. His shaved head, buck teeth and dancing blue eyes made him look like a leering anarchist. He told me he had been born and bred in Brooklyn, where he studied political science at Poly Prep Country Day School and Brooklyn Friends School in the late 1960s and early ’70s. “I wasn’t the class clown, but I was pretty rebellious,” he recalled. Forgoing a conventional university education, in 1978 Tom enrolled in the Ringling Brothers clown college, now defunct. He attended classes 14 hours a day for 10 weeks, studying subjects ranging from juggling, acrobatics and riding a unicycle to pantomime, ballet, prop building and costume making. He eventually became the star clown whose nightly mission is to try to steal control of the circus from the ringmaster. In 2007, the Web site clownalley.net gave him its Felix Award for best solo clown performance of the year. Tom spent nearly three hours tutoring me in the basic tricks of the clowning trade. He showed me how to initiate my movements with various body parts — my nose, my chin, my chest, my feet — so that these “leads” would dictate my acting choices without my having to think about them. He taught me how to take a fake slap to the face by clapping my hands and tilting my head away a split second before his hand reached my cheek. He made me practice tripping myself by hooking the toes of my back foot around the heel of my front foot. Shortly before the preshow, Tom ushered me into the backstage dressing area known as clown alley to decide on my clown persona. In his Ringling Brothers act, Tom plays a “character” clown who is seeking to improve his status in the social hierarchy of the circus. But according to ancient European custom, I had three other archetypes from which to choose: the high status, pompous and often scary “whiteface” clown; the low status “auguste,” who is intent on upsetting the social order of the circus; and the “contre auguste,” who tries to mediate between them. Naturally enough, I chose to be an auguste. As Tom smeared greasepaint on my face, something possessed me to augment my costume with two hats. First, I donned a pink cardboard cone-shaped party hat with an elastic chin strap. Then I covered the party hat with a black felt bowler. Tom nodded with approval, and gave me a last-minute pep talk. “You are part of a great American tradition that’s 138 years old,” he said. “You are a Ringling Brothers circus clown, and you have to uphold that tradition.” “But what exactly am I supposed to do out there?” I asked. “You can’t bring your own agenda into your clowning,” Tom replied. “The first thing is to bring the kids into your space. Kneel down so you don’t tower above them. Don’t touch them until they touch you. Then just see where things take you.” Upon entering the arena and accidentally falling onto my knees before the onrushing waves of children and camera-toting adults, I experienced the adoration Henry Miller predicted. It was ultimately inspirational. After 20 minutes of posing and autographing, I tossed my black felt bowler in the air and tried to spear it with my cone-shaped party hat. Of course, I failed. But the sight of my bowler falling haplessly to the floor prompted sympathetic guffaws from my audience. Pretending to be undaunted, I tried again. Tom immediately came to my rescue. He caught the bowler in midair, and placed it securely atop my cone-shaped party hat. I took a bow. The audience erupted in laughter that melted into applause and apparent devotion. Tom and I repeated our hat trick with improvised variations for the remaining 20 minutes of the preshow. I then suffered what Miller had predicted. It was time to prepare for the main event. I had to stop being a clown, and submit to what circus folk call “the blow off.” Tom literally yanked me by the neck, and escorted me out of the arena as I protested with flailing arms and wailing voice, feeling disgrace piercing my every pore. When we returned to clown alley, Tom helped me remove my greasepaint with baby oil. I saw my reflection in the mirror turn from happy clown to sad clown to supposedly normal person without comic portfolio. Sensing the onset of a post-performance depression, Tom invited me to watch him do his star clown bits. “You need to see how I apply the lessons you’ve learned today,” he said. After grabbing a hamburger and a beer, I found a seat in the grandstands. I watched Tom steal the ringmaster’s hat, igniting the central conflict of the circus. Then I glanced across the aisle and saw the little girl in pigtails who had rushed up to me at the outset of the preshow. To my amazement, the little girl smiled at me and waved. I had lost my costume and my big red nose, but she obviously recognized me as a clown. Though the spotlight shone on Tom and the other performers in the arena, I felt the unique joy of revival that every true buffoon longs to give and receive.

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus


Factoring ‘Walkability’ Into Home Values

Abstract: REAL estate agents often chant the mantra “location, location, location,” which essentially means “find a home in a well-kept neighborhood with good schools and a low crime rate.” Some may cite a fourth factor, “walkability,” a concept supported by self-styled “new urbanists” who advocate denser cities designed for the pedestrian and mass transit as much as for the car. In their ideal neighborhood, you could walk to a bookstore and then to an ice cream shop, and your children could walk to school, probably unescorted. (It sounds like so many movie depictions of America in the 1950s.) They argue that walkability lowers crime — that good people on the streets drive away the bad guys — and that it generally improves life and sharply raises home values. Whether it helps homes retain their value when the market slumps, however, seems a harder question to answer. A study published in August by C.E.O.’s for Cities , a group of urban redevelopment advocates, found that in many ways, the street corner beats the cul de sac. It looked at the sales of 90,000 homes in 15 markets to estimate how much value was associated with something called the Walk Score. Using a 100-point scale, this score rates the number of destinations, including libraries, parks and coffee shops, within walking distance of a home. The scores for America’s 40 largest cities can be found at Walkscore.com by typing in an address. For instance, the White House scores a near-perfect 97: a “walker’s paradise,” the Web site says. Another famous home, the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles, rates a 25. (You can get lost in Walkscore.com for hours; the “Brady Bunch” house , the exemplar of 1970s suburban life, scores an above-average 75.) The study found that houses with above-average Walk Scores commanded a premium. It was as much as $30,000 in cities like Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Sacramento and San Francisco, wrote Joe Cortright, the study’s author and an economist at Impresa , a consulting firm in Portland, Ore. The correlation failed to hold in 2 of the 15 cities studied — Bakersfield, Calif., and Las Vegas, where housing prices decreased in walkable neighborhoods. So far, there is no definitive study concluding that the more walkable neighborhoods hold their value better when the real estate market declines. But Mr. Cortright wrote in a study done a year earlier for the same group that the spike in gasoline prices in 2005 popped the housing bubble. He found that distant suburbs had the largest declines in home values, while prices in “close in” neighborhoods, typically those that were the most walkable, held up or, in a few cases, increased. He cited an example in the Chicago area where a suburban home worth the same as a close-in home in 2006 had declined in price, relative to the city home, by $66,000 in 12 months. More definitive answers may be found in the mountain of data accumulated by new online companies involved in real estate. Academics who once had to choose between stale government data or aggregated sales information from the National Association of Realtors can now sift through detailed neighborhood information almost as soon as a “Sold” sign goes up on the lawn. The Impresa study used data from ZipRealty , an online real estate listing service. Zillow.com, a Web site that tracks home values, is amassing considerable data useful for consumers and researchers alike. For example, it tracks home values by ZIP codes and in some cities — like Seattle, where Zillow is based — by well-defined neighborhoods. Google, whose search query data has been used to track trends and even flu epidemics , is also starting to accumulate real estate sales data. Academics haven’t yet published definitive studies using these new sources of information. But Stan Humphries , Zillow’s chief economist, recently used the firm’s data to show that, in most cities, low-end homes fell in value far more than those on the high end. He also found that high-end homes had fallen prey to foreclosure . MR. HUMPHRIES is also looking for other trends to tease out of the data, taking a stab, for example, at examining how home prices are related to proximity. He can personally relate to this. He lives in Sammamish, an eastern suburb of Seattle with a Walk Score of 29, where average home values are down 21 percent from their peak in 2007. Prices fell 14 percent in the centrally located Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle, with a score of about 89 — a decline comparable to that of other more urban neighborhoods of the city. Using Zillow data, he looked at concentric circles of major metropolitan areas and, with some exceptions, it held true that property values closer to the city center held up. One anomaly is Detroit, where neighborhoods near the city center have been devastated by population loss, which in turn has bred fires, vandalism and crime. Yet the lesson of buying close-in, he said, is becoming pretty clear: “If you are a rational actor trying to maximize your dollar, you may have to pay more.”

Walking
Sales
Housing and Real Estate
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Dr. Daniel Bukantz, 90, a Champion Fencer, Dies

Abstract: Dr. Daniel Bukantz, who was a national champion and Olympic fencer, and a longtime Olympic fencing referee while pursuing a career in dentistry, died Saturday at his home in Forest Hills, Queens. He was 90. The cause was lung cancer, said his son, Jeff, the captain of the 2004 and current United States Olympic fencing teams, continuing a seven-decade family presence in the sport. Dr. Bukantz, a Manhattan native, was a teenager growing up in the Bronx when he joined friends to take up fencing. “It had a ladylike reputation,” he told The New York Times last December, but “we tried it — and couldn’t move for four days. But after that, we became adept.” He went on to win the 1938 Intercollegiate Fencing Association singles championship in the foil as a senior at City College, then attended the New York University dental school. After graduating, Dr. Bukantz was a captain in the Army Dental Corps in World War II, serving in the 87th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. Dr. Bukantz, a member of the United States Fencing Hall of Fame in Shreveport, La., won the national singles championship in the foil four times (1949, ’52, ’53 and ’57). He competed in four consecutive Olympics, beginning with the 1948 London Games, specializing in the foil, and was part of nine national championship teams representing the Fencers Club of New York. He won a gold medal in foil at the 1950 Maccabiah Games in Israel. Dr. Bukantz, who had a dental practice in Manhattan for about 40 years, was one of the head referees at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the close of his Olympic career. In addition to his son, Jeff, of Montville, N.J., a former international fencing competitor and Olympic referee, Dr. Bukantz is survived by his wife, Alice; his brother, Samuel, a retired physician, of Tampa, Fla.; and two grandchildren. The most memorable event of Dr. Bukantz’s fencing career came when he was no longer competing internationally. This time, he was the judge for a semifinal match between the Soviet Union and Poland in the team saber competition at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. “There was animosity from the occupied Poles and there was tremendous tension on the Soviets’ part because if they lost it would have been off to Siberia for them,” Jeff Bukantz said in an interview. “The Soviets went up to the head referee and said, ‘There’s only one referee that we will accept.’ And it happened to be my father, who was a Jew from America, the country they were having a cold war with.” Dr. Bukantz recalled: “I was apprehensive. What if I had to make a close call?” Jeff Bukantz said the match, won by the Soviet Union, the eventual gold-medal team, went off without incident. Nearly two decades later, he said, Mark Rakita, a member of that 1964 Soviet squad, recalling the match with Poland, told him that “your father was the only referee in the world that we could trust.” “I thought that summed up his whole life,” the son said.

Fencers Club of New York
Bukantz Daniel
Fencing (Sport)
Deaths (Obituaries)
Olympic Games
Officiating (Sports)


C.I.A. Case E-Mail May Be Lost

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages, including those pertaining to the C.I.A. leak case, have been taped over and are gone forever. The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it had previously refused to provide. Among the e-mail messages that could be lost are those exchanged by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking to news organizations the identity of Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. officer. Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes “consistent with industry best practices,” according to a sworn statement by Theresa Payton, chief information officer for the White House Office of Administration. Backup tapes are the last line of defense for saving electronic records. The statement also said the White House “does not know if any e-mails were not properly preserved in the archiving process.” If the e-mail messages were not saved, the White House might have violated two laws requiring preservation of federal records or presidential records. Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said, “There is no basis to say that the White House has destroyed any evidence or engaged in any misconduct.” Mr. Fratto said that despite the recycling, some tapes should contain e-mail messages from before October 2003. The recycling of backup tapes by the Bush White House represents a reversal in policy from the final year of the Clinton administration. The Clinton White House halted recycling of backup tapes in March 2000, when it was discovered that some e-mail from the office of Vice President Al Gore had not been preserved.

Central Intelligence Agency
Electronic Mail
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
United States Politics and Government


No Jail for Officers in Harassing of Staten Island Youth

Abstract: Two police officers accused of assaulting a 14-year-old boy they suspected of making Halloween mischief and leaving him half-naked in a desolate Staten Island marsh pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on Wednesday, prosecutors said. The officers, Thomas Elliassen and Richard Danese, both 29, were indicted last March on 33 criminal counts, including 13 felonies, but reached a deal with prosecutors after the boy, Rayshawn Moreno of Staten Island, now 15, refused to testify in court, according to prosecutors. The officers were sentenced in State Supreme Court on Staten Island to conditional discharge for one year, said Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Staten Island district attorney, and will serve no time in jail. But the officers have been assigned to modified duty and are facing departmental charges, a police official said. Officers Elliassen and Danese, who both live on Staten Island, were arrested on Nov. 2, 2007, and charged with unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a minor. Prosecutors said the officers came across Rayshawn on a street corner on Halloween night a few days earlier, and, believing that he had been throwing eggs at passing cars, stopped the boy and placed him in their patrol car. He was driven to an isolated marshy area, where he was pulled from the police car and told to strip to his underwear and lie face down in the roadway, prosecutors said. The officers then kicked and struck him and abandoned him there, prosecutors said. Lawyers for Rayshawn and his family had said the officers, who are white, had used a racial epithet while threatening the teenager, who is black. Salvatore Strazzullo, Officer Danese’s lawyer, maintained his client’s innocence, calling the case a sham. “Basically, the district attorney’s case fell apart,” Mr. Strazzullo said on Wednesday night. “The evidence just didn’t match up.” Mr. Strazzullo said the officers arrested Rayshawn but changed their minds about taking him to the police station, and decided to take him home instead. But when they asked his name, age and address, he refused to tell them, Mr. Strazzullo said. He said that as soon as they let the boy out of the car he took off running. “At the end of the day, the officers did Mr. Moreno a favor,” Mr. Strazzullo said. In a related case, Officer Danese was charged in Brooklyn with unauthorized use of computerized police records in what was described as an attempt to find negative information about Rayshawn and his father. Mr. Donovan said in a statement on Wednesday that Rayshawn’s story was credible. “The victim’s account of the events leading to this prosecution remained consistent,” Mr. Donovan said. But as prosecutors began to prepare for trial, Rayshawn began refusing to cooperate, he said. “While we were prepared to go forward, we believe we could not adequately present our case without the full cooperation of our victim,” Mr. Donovan said.

Assaults
Police Department (NYC)
Staten Island (NYC)


The Sacred and the Profane

Abstract: JERSEY CITY GOOD photography galleries are hard to find. But now Jersey City has the Studio, a working photographer's studio and informal gallery space that represents commercial, fashion and editorial photographers. It is not a gallery, but more a project space in which the working photographer may display arty work. The Studio plans to do three shows a year. The gallery, which opened a year ago, sits on the top floor of a three-floor walk-up in the historic downtown Jersey City marketplace. Two Jersey City artist-photographers, Rikki Reich and Daniel Contrino, are running the space, with Ms. Reich mostly curating the shows and Mr. Contrino designing the exhibitions and managing the technical requirements. The current exhibition is by Lisa Quiñones, a seasoned New York City-based news photographer and editor. She is presenting a collection of photographs taken in 2005 that document the lives of Tibetans, both in Tibet, which is under Chinese rule, and among the Tibetan exiles at Dharamsala in northern India . Dharamsala is the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile and home to the Dalai Lama. Ms. Quiñones hoped to observe and compare the lives of people in both places. Ms. Quiñones's photographs afford, first and foremost, an exotic travelogue — the pictures include breathtaking Himalayan scenery and more intimate (and ultimately more rewarding) portraits of Tibetans at work, prayer and play. But they also show us an ancient land increasingly touched by the modern world, and some of the challenges the Tibetan people face. Several photographs deal with the ever-expanding intrusion of the Chinese way of life in Tibet, which I saw for myself on a visit to the remote mountain realm a few years ago. Throughout Lhasa, the capital, Chinese chain restaurants, businesses and hotels were springing up, while all public signage was in Chinese. You could have sworn you were living in an exclusively Chinese society. In Lhasa, the search for symbols of Tibetan culture eventually leads your gaze upward to the Potala Palace, perched on a rocky hill at the edge of the city. This is Tibet's spiritual and political capital, and one of the architectural wonders of Asia. Ms. Quiñones's photographs reveal that these days it is ringed with Chinese food shops, souvenir stores and gasoline stations. At the same time, when looking at the best of Ms. Quiñones's photographs of the palace, you also feel that somehow the building transcends its surroundings. Majestic and enduring, it becomes the focus of a vague feeling of escape and contact with the true culture of this imperiled civilization. It is a symbol of cultural survival amid the ruins of a once independent state. Other images focus on efforts by Tibetans in exile to maintain their traditions. Ms. Quiñones visited a Tibetan school in Dharamsala, observing and recording the lives of the thousands of children living in exile — many of them born in India. These are probably her strongest photographs, for in them intractable political, social and religious problems are cut down to the scale of individual lives. We all know that these children deserve a better future. "Tibet: A New Reality," the Studio, 196 Morgan Street, Jersey City, through June 30. Gallery hours are limited, so call for information: (201) 946-2434 or on the Web at www.digitalrailroad.net/lisaquinones .

Jersey City
Photography
The Studio
Tibet
India
New Jersey
Quiñones Lisa
China


German Parties to Begin Talks to Revive Coalition

Abstract: BERLIN — Exuding good will, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc and its Social Democratic rivals agreed on Thursday to open formal negotiations next week on reviving the “grand coalition” that led Germany from 2005 to 2009 and that both sides suggested could now steer the biggest European economy into four more prosperous years. After a third round of preliminary talks, it is clear that the rivals “will be able to reach agreement on a significant number of challenges facing Germany in the coming four years, to successfully govern our country,” Ms. Merkel’s campaign manager, Hermann Gröhe, told reporters. The chairman of the Social Democrats, Sigmar Gabriel, said he was also optimistic. The first round of formal talks will take place on Wednesday, a day after the new Parliament convenes. By the glacial pace of Germany’s consensus-driven politics, agreement followed swiftly after the Greens — Ms. Merkel’s only other potential coalition partners — withdrew from negotiations early Wednesday, saying they could not see how a stable government could emerge with the conservatives. Image Chancellor Angela Merkel's only other potential coalition partners, the Greens, withdrew from negotiations early Wednesday. Credit John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their sister party in Bavaria won handily in the elections on Sept. 22. But the victory, a personal triumph for the chancellor, left them five seats short of a majority, forcing the usual search for partners in government. Analysts expect the parties to take several weeks to reach a new coalition agreement, which usually specifies in great detail what the new government wishes to achieve and how to do it. Thursday’s agreement came after an unexpected suggestion from Ms. Merkel’s Bavarian partners that the conservatives could agree to a main Social Democratic demand — for a minimum wage — so long as the center-left committed to no new taxes. “For me, the absolute top priority is no increase in taxes and no new debts,” Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, told the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Social Democrats have insisted on a nationwide minimum wage of 8.50 euros an hour, or about $11.60. The conservatives prefer negotiations between trade unions and leaders in each sphere of economic activity. Image Hermann Gröhe, Ms. Merkel’s campaign manager, on Thursday. Credit John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Some economists and the business lobby have suggested that a nationwide minimum wage would in fact lead companies to cut jobs, particularly in eastern Germany. Almost 24 years after the Berlin Wall came down, wages in the former Communist east are still lower than in the west. On Wednesday, the chancellor gave her first policy speech since the election and also warned of the dangers that a minimum wage could pose for jobs. Germany has an unemployment rate of 5.2 percent, according to Eurostat in Brussels, compared with a 12 percent average among the 17 members of the European Union that use the euro. In her speech, Ms. Merkel gave little hint of any change in policy toward Europe, but said that “Europe should emerge from its crisis stronger than when it went into it,” as she said Germany had after the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. The election was fought largely on domestic issues, with the clearest differences between the two centrist groups emerging over the minimum wage, the definition of family in 21st-century Germany and what that means for everyone: working mothers, children of kindergarten age or gay couples seeking to adopt. There is broad consensus that education and the creaking infrastructure of roads, railways and the Internet need attention, but there are differences over how to pay for the needed improvements. Health care, particularly for older citizens, and pensions are other areas of differences which will now be pored over in detail by both camps.

Angela Merkel
Germany
Politics
Christian Democratic Union Germany
Social Democratic Party Germany


United Is in Talks About Merging With US Airways

Abstract: United Airlines and US Airways are in merger talks that, if successful, would create the nation’s second-biggest airline. It is the third time in a decade that they have tried to make a deal. The negotiations represent the latest efforts to consolidate the struggling airline industry, which lost $60 billion over the last decade as fuel costs soared and the number of travelers fell. Both companies have been vocal in calling for greater partnerships. Southwest Airlines was one of the few United States airlines that turned a profit last year. And analysts have said that despite the steep cuts in capacity by all the airlines in the last couple of years, there are still too many airlines chasing too few travelers. A combination of United and US Airways could help both return to profit faster than they could going it alone. But mergers in the airline industry have been difficult to pull off, in part because complex labor contracts can offset the promised cost savings. The latest combination, involving Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, creating the nation’s largest carrier, took nearly two years to complete. One reason that merger succeeded was that Delta and Northwest negotiated a seniority plan and a new collective bargaining agreement with the pilots, enabling the two companies to integrate their operations faster and more smoothly. Disclosure of the talks could spur other airlines, like Continental and American Airlines, to consider bidding for United or US Airways, analysts said. “The success of the Delta-Northwest merger is reinvigorating consolidation discussions in the industry,” said William S. Swelbar, a research engineer with the International Center for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In contrast, US Airways still has not integrated pilot seniority since its merger with America West in 2005. That has stalled over union infighting. The labor issue could turn out to be the biggest hurdle to overcome in any merger with United. “A tie-up with US Airways is potentially very messy,” Mr. Swelbar said. People briefed on the matter said Wednesday that a transaction involving US Airways and United was not expected to be announced for several weeks. One issue being worked out is the management structure, these people said. They cautioned that the discussions could still collapse. Terms of the deal were not immediately available. Jean Medina, a United spokeswoman, and Andrew Christie, a US Airways spokesman, declined to comment. United’s chief executive, Glenn F. Tilton, has made no secret of his desire to find a partner for the company. In 2008, he held extensive talks to merge with Continental but was rebuffed. “United has been standing at the altar waiting for the bride to show up and just got tired of waiting,” said Mo Garfinkle, a longtime airline industry consultant. “Maybe by flirting with another girl, it can get Continental’s attention again.” A combination of US Airways and United is not a natural fit. The two carriers would end up with a large number of hubs, including United’s operations in Chicago and Denver and at Washington Dulles International Airport. US Airways has hubs in Philadelphia, Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C., and has extensive operations in the Washington area, giving it a strong presence on the East Coast. It has about 34,000 employees and operates about 3,100 flights a day. US Airways is widely viewed as the weakest of the major airlines, with few international routes. At its domestic hub in Phoenix, it competes directly with Southwest. United, which has hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and Washington, operates about 3,300 flights a day on United and United Express. It has 46,000 employees. Both airlines are part of the Star Alliance, the largest global airline alliance. But analysts said Continental would be a much better match for United, providing a strong management team and valuable routes to South America, as well as access to New York, where United is weak. United and US Airways have come close to merging several times over the last decade. In 2000, they announced a $4.3 billion deal, only to withdraw after antitrust concerns from the Justice Department and fierce opposition from their unions. They tried again in 2008 but ended talks after several months of negotiations, that time in the face of opposition from United’s board as well as the pilots’ union. News of the renewed talks caught many analysts off-guard. Shares of both companies rose sharply in after-hours trading. “That’s a surprise,” said Betsy R. Snyder, an industry analyst with Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. “Merger talks had actually died down a bit, and there was some expectation that airlines would focus on their recovery before thinking of combining with a partner.”

US Airways
United Airlines
Airlines and Airplanes
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


U.N. Revives Effort to Finalize Arms Treaty

Abstract: In the shadow of the re-energized gun-control debate in the United States, negotiators at the United Nations will reconvene this week to try to reach a final agreement on a treaty to regulate the global trade in conventional weapons, a lucrative business that rights groups call the main source of illicit arms fueling deadly conflicts around the world. “I am confident that member states will overcome their differences and muster the political will needed to agree on this landmark treaty,” the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Thursday in a statement welcoming the resumed negotiations, which were suspended in disappointment eight months ago. They start again on Monday and are scheduled to conclude on March 28. Proponents regard the treaty effort as the most important United Nations initiative on regulating conventional weapons. It would cover at least eight categories, including not only small arms but also tanks, warships, combat aircraft, missiles and missile launchers. The treaty would require member states to monitor cross-border trade of those weapons and establish what amounts to a universally accepted system of background checks on the recipients. A prime purpose, according to the treaty’s latest draft , is “the need to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade of conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to the illicit market and for unauthorized end use.” Proponents contend that roughly 2,000 people a day die from armed violence abetted by illicitly traded weapons. “Gunrunners continue to operate with impunity on the shady fringes of this deadly trade,” Oxfam, a leading supporter, said in a statement last Tuesday. Lax or nonexistent reporting obligations, Oxfam said, “make it almost impossible to tell in whose hands a gun, shell, bullet or even fighter plane will ultimately end up, or how it got there.” Representatives of the 193 United Nations member states had been on the verge of completing a final draft of the treaty last July after four weeks of talks in New York, having aimed for approval by consensus. But they failed to meet a self-imposed deadline as major weapons exporting countries, led by the United States, raised objections. Some supporters of the treaty, including groups like Amnesty International and Oxfam, called the failure a consequence of political cowardice by the Obama administration, accusing it of worrying more about giving Republican gun-rights advocates an issue ahead of the November presidential election. Administration officials denied the charge, saying they wanted a treaty but needed more time to negotiate it. Image Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general. Credit Martial Trezzini/KEYSTONE, via Associated Press Still, there was enormous pressure on the administration to back away from the treaty, led by groups like the National Rifle Association, which contended that some provisions infringed on the Second Amendment freedoms of American gun owners, a claim disputed by treaty supporters. The N.R.A. and other gun-rights advocates were further emboldened by lawmakers in Congress who warned President Obama that such a treaty would never be ratified. Whether the treaty’s prospects have improved remains to be seen, not only in the United States, which accounts for about 30 percent of the $60 billion to $70 billion annual trade in conventional arms, but also among other major weapons exporters like Russia and China. They have expressed ambivalence about language in the treaty that could be interpreted as banning weapons trade with human rights violators, arguing that such a distinction is subjective. While the American political atmosphere may have shifted in the aftermath of Mr. Obama’s re-election and the antigun outrage generated by the Dec. 14 school massacre in Newtown, Conn., the N.R.A. and other gun-rights groups say the treaty still has what they called fatal flaws. After the United Nations General Assembly voted on Dec. 24 to restart the negotiations in March, which the United States supported, the president of the N.R.A., David Keene, said the Newtown killings had done nothing to change the group’s position on the treaty. “We’re as opposed to it today as we were when it first appeared,” he said in an interview with Reuters. Although the treaty would regulate only international arms trade, the N.R.A. and other gun-rights groups object to the inclusion of small arms and light weapons. The N.R.A. also contends that the requirements of record-keeping open the door to a national registry of guns in the United States, which the group opposes. Treaty supporters have accused the N.R.A. of a misinformation campaign and say that nothing in the treaty infringes on the Second Amendment. Last month, the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights issued a report asserting that the treaty, as currently drafted, did not exceed the scope of American trade statutes that already regulate the import and export of weapons. “U.S. ratification of the treaty would not infringe upon rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment,” the report said. On Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed support for the resumed negotiations, but made clear that American backing of a final draft was not guaranteed. “The United States could only be party to an Arms Trade Treaty that addresses international transfers of conventional arms solely and does not impose any new requirements on the U.S. domestic trade in firearms or on U.S. exporters,” he said in a statement . “We will not support any treaty that would be inconsistent with U.S. law and the rights of American citizens under our Constitution, including the Second Amendment.”


A Calmer Iraq Takes Another Try at the Ballot

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Four years ago, Iraq had its purple finger moment, when voters proudly displayed their ink-stained index fingers as proof that they had participated in the nation’s first free elections in decades. On Saturday Iraqis were going to the polls again, to choose provincial representatives in what many here believe will be a fairer and more widely contested election. The results are expected to mirror more closely the relative numbers and strengths of Iraq’s many ethnic and sectarian groups. Four years ago, balloting took place in nearly all-consuming violence. It was further tainted by a Sunni Arab boycott, which limited the number of voters and office seekers alike. This time around, the ballot is crowded — 14,428 candidates are competing for 440 seats — and the vote comes during Iraq’s most peaceful period since the American invasion in 2003. Instead of purple fingers, the indelible image for this year’s election may well be the tens of thousands of candidates’ posters glued to the nation’s blast walls. (In 2005, it was too dangerous for most candidates to reveal their faces.) The 12-foot-tall walls, built to contain damage by explosives, have now become the primary campaign forum for Iraq’s raw, young democracy. In all, more than 14 million voters are eligible to take part in the elections for local councils in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The balloting for the provincial councils, which are roughly the equivalent of state legislatures, is expected to convey trends for December’s national elections for Parliament. On the eve of the vote, Iraq was at once fascinated by, and weary of, its democratic experiment. Polls show that three-quarters of people plan to cast ballots, but vote-buying appears to be widespread, rivals regularly tear one another’s posters from walls, and women have received death threats for running. At least five candidates have been killed, and there have been many assassination attempts. Among the many questions is whether the religious parties that now hold sway in Iraq will continue to dominate politics, despite widespread displeasure with what voters say are those parties’ ineptitude and corruption. Significant realignments of power are expected in several provinces west and north of Baghdad, which have majority-Sunni populations, but where most Sunnis boycotted the 2005 vote. In heavily Shiite southern Iraq, a majority of seats are expected to be divided between the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is the most influential religious Shiite party, and a coalition headed by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, which has taken a secular approach in campaigning. The Sadrists, a third Shiite group, retain significant influence in southern Iraq and in Baghdad but are not competing as a political entity during the election. Iraqi and American military officials fear that some of the expected power shifts could cause renewed sectarian and ethnic clashes, so a curfew began Friday evening. Airports and borders were closed, and thousands of troops were guarding polling stations. While four years ago there was almost no public campaigning for fear of assassination, this time candidates have gone door to door, given speeches and — contrary to Iraq’s election law — doled out cash, cars, watches, food and blankets, among other items, to win votes.


What the F.A.A. Is Considering on Devices

Abstract: Q. What are the changes that the F.A.A. is considering? A. Passengers will be allowed to use their electronic devices to listen to music or view any digital material like e-books or movies if it was downloaded and stored before they boarded the plane. Once the plane’s doors are closed, all devices must be put into airplane mode, which disables their data transfer capability but keeps the device turned on for viewing. Q. Will phone calls be allowed? A. No. Phone calls will still be banned in flight. But passengers will be able to use their smartphones for other things, like playing video games. Q. Will passengers be able to check e-mails or send messages? A. While in airplane mode, the phone’s cellular functions are turned off, so passengers will have no access to the Internet while on the ground or until the flight reaches 10,000 feet. Q. What about accessing a plane’s Wi-Fi network? A. Once a flight reaches 10,000 feet, airlines typically turn on their Wi-Fi systems. Passengers will then be able to get on the Web, usually for a fee. Q. What devices will this new rule apply to? A. Pretty much all devices. The F.A.A. has recognized it needs to update its policies, particularly with the proliferation of electronics, and the constant innovation in the technology world. The data restrictions will apply to new devices, too, like computerized watches or glasses. Q. When will the new rules start? A. Perhaps by next year, if there are no major hurdles. First, airlines will need to certify that their planes can handle these changes. But that’s not a huge issue since many carriers already verified that when they installed their Wi-Fi systems.

Electronics
Airlines,airplanes
FAA
Regulation and Deregulation
Plane Crashes and Missing Planes
Wireless


Last-Minute Share Rises Cause Trading Suspicions

Abstract: The last five minutes of trading on the last day of the quarter were very good to a significant number of stocks on Tuesday, including battered financial shares. Tuesday’s closing prices were particularly important to money managers who report their performance based on quarterly figures, and suspicions of “painting the tape” — buying shares at the end of the day to drive up the price — have been common during the final minutes of a quarter. This year, with traders no longer allowed to short financial stocks, sharp rises in share prices in the final minute could not be offset by short-sale orders from investors who suspected tape-painting. Part of the answer as to whether tape-painting occurred may come Wednesday morning when shares with the largest moves reopen for trading. Over all, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index registered 7 percent of the day’s gain in the final five minutes, while the index of financial stocks in the group produced 11 percent of the day’s gain in the time period. For many stocks, the final move was striking. Sallie Mae, formally known as SLM, for example, rose 10 percent during those minutes, accounting for more than half the day’s rise. The brokerage firm Charles Schwab and the KeyCorp, a banking company, each leaped 7 percent in the final minutes, moves that accounted for more than one-third of their gains for the day. Old Republic International, an insurance company; XL Capital, another insurance firm; and Janus Capital, a money management firm, all jumped more than 5 percent in the final minutes, moves that accounted for at least 30 percent of their gains for the day. There were cases of the leaps that could not be sustained. Discover Financial Services, a credit card company, did not trade above $13.81 before the final four minutes. But it jumped to $14.26 in the final minute, only to fall to $13.82 at the close.


Islamist Insurgents Seize a Pirate Base in Somalia

Abstract: Radical Islamist insurgents in Somalia seized one of the country’s most notorious pirate dens on Sunday, raising questions about whether rebels with connections to Al Qaeda will now have a pipeline to tens of millions of dollars — and a new ability to threaten global trade. Dozens of insurgents stormed into Xarardheere, a pirate cove on the central Somali coast, around noon, but instead of putting up a fight, the pirates sped off. According to witnesses, several pirate bosses raced out of town in luxury four-by-four trucks, with TVs packed in the back and mattresses strapped on top. Islamist fighters in a fleet of heavily armed pickup trucks then occupied the strategic points in town, including the defunct police station and several crossroads. What will happen next is not clear. Two of Somalia’s biggest problems and its most troubling exports — Islamist extremism and piracy — seem to be crashing into each other. For several years, an intense civil war has raged in the country between a weak United States-backed government and radical Islamist groups that are trying to overthrow it. The ensuing lawlessness has given rise to a thriving piracy trade, in which Somali thugs in small skiffs have commandeered some of the biggest vessels on the sea, including a 1,000-foot-long oil tanker. Maritime experts estimate that Somali pirates have received more than $100 million in ransoms — an enormous sum for a nation with virtually no economy. The pirates prowl the busy Gulf of Aden, one of the most congested shipping lanes in the world, and recently struck as far away as 1,200 miles offshore . The pirates of Xarardheere currently hold several hijacked ships. But before they fled, they sent the ships further out to sea to prevent Islamist insurgents from capturing their hostages — a worrying prospect for Western diplomats and others, who fear the insurgents could exploit the hostages for political ends. An insurgent spokesman implied on Sunday that his movement would shut down Xarardheere’s piracy business. “We have peacefully seized the town and now we will bring Islamic Shariah,” said Sheik Abdinasir Mohamed Afdhuub, a spokesman for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group. But many people fear that the insurgents were actually attracted to Xarardheere because of its criminal enterprise and that different groups of insurgents will now battle for control of the town. “Tension is very high,” said Nor Ahmed, a Xarardheere resident. “People are worried about possible Shabab attacks any time soon.” Hizbul Islam and the Shabab are two of the most powerful insurgent groups in Somalia and were once closely allied. Both espouse a harsh Islamist ideology and have organized public amputations and stonings. American and Somali security officials said that the leaders of both groups have worked closely with wanted terrorists of Al Qaeda. But recently, the two groups seemed to have turned against each other. On Saturday, a deadly bombing at a mosque in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, was believed to have wounded a top Shabab official. On Sunday, another mosque was bombed, this time in the southern port town of Kismayu, where the Shabab drove out Hizbul Islam in a power struggle last year. At least two people were killed and eight wounded, in a neighborhood controlled by the Shabab. Under strict Islamic law, piracy is considered haram (forbidden), and in 2006, during a six-month period when an Islamist movement pacified much of Somalia, the Islamists curtailed piracy significantly. But now that Hizbul Islam and the Shabab desperately need money, the situation may be changing. The insurgents’ draconian rules banning music , television and bras have steadily alienated much of Somali society, making it harder for the insurgents to raise money and find recruits. Additionally, Hizbul Islam lost access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in port taxes when they were kicked out of Kismayu last year and may have needed to find a new source of cash.

Somalia
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
Piracy at Sea
Al-Shabab


‘Among Chimpanzees’ Documents the Many Threats to a Species’ Survival

Abstract: Across the United States, laboratory chimps are being sprung from their cages. Last year, the National Institutes of Health announced that it would be retiring most of its chimpanzees and sending hundreds of its hairy, knuckle-walking charges to live out their lives in sanctuaries. Many news organizations, including this one, chronicled this remarkable turnaround , as one of the world’s premier research agencies acknowledged that chimpanzees are not necessary for most biomedical experiments. But even as the captive chimps made headlines, the plight of their endangered wild cousins largely escaped media attention. Wild chimpanzees are “facing catastrophe,” Dr. Nancy J. Merrick writes in this sobering and cleareyed new book. Dr. Merrick, a physician, briefly studied wild chimps in the 1970s, and when she returned to Africa four decades later, she was horrified to discover that ape populations had plummeted. “Among Chimpanzees” is part memoir, part travelogue and part clarion call to action. “At times, it has been overwhelming to see how imminently threatened chimpanzees are in today’s world,” Dr. Merrick writes. “But to allow a world without chimps is unconscionable — so you and I must get involved or risk losing them forever.” In 1970, when she was a senior in high school, Dr. Merrick saw a film about Jane Goodall , a young woman who had gone into the forests of Tanzania — without sophisticated equipment or even a college degree — and promptly began making significant discoveries about our closest living relatives. The young student was enchanted. “As I sat watching,” she recalls, “I was filled with the desire to be in this woman’s place, studying wild chimpanzees.” And soon after, she was — one of a handful of Stanford students selected to work as a field assistant on Dr. Goodall’s team. For seven months, she trailed chimps through Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, taking meticulous notes on their behavior. The animals were clever and beguiling; the author once watched as a chimp named Mustard used a banana box to trap a pet mongoose that had been terrorizing all of Gombe’s primates — humans and apes alike. “As I witnessed the tremendous intelligence and complexity of the chimps, my human-centered worldview was thrown into disarray,” she writes. It was “the beginning of a lifelong fascination with chimps.” Video Major federal agencies have taken steps toward ending almost all biomedical experimentation on chimpanzees. Credit Credit Leah Nash for The New York Times After her term at Gombe came to a close, she returned to Stanford and worked with captive chimps before ultimately deciding on a career in medicine. She continued to feel a connection to the animals, however, and in 2008, she took her family on an ape-centered African vacation. But during a week they spent volunteering at a chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda, Dr. Merrick began to wonder about the rise of such wildlife refuges. In the 1970s, there had been just a single chimp sanctuary in all of equatorial Africa. Now there were lots of them, each one teeming with apes. Why had such sanctuaries become necessary, and why were so many chimps ending up there? As she traveled around East Africa in search of answers, she discovered that wild chimps, along with many other great apes, were under assault from all sides: hunted for meat, killed for raiding farmers’ fields, trafficked as exotic pets. Their DNA is similar enough to ours that they are vulnerable to many of the same diseases; Ebola , which is currently making a frightening resurgence in West Africa, has devastated ape populations. Chimps can also get diseases — including tuberculosis, polio, scabies, and dysentery — from us, especially as humans and apes have more frequent encounters. But the greatest threat to chimpanzees is the rapid destruction of their habitat. The forests where they live are being rapidly cleared for timber, farming, and mining, particularly for coltan, an ore used in cellphones and other electronics. “Wilderness areas are disappearing at a rate that most of us simply cannot imagine,” Dr. Merrick writes. The losses squeeze chimps into smaller and smaller territories and fragment their habitats, stranding different chimp communities in islands of forests. Cut off from one another, they are susceptible to inbreeding and at risk of being wiped out by a single accident or outbreak. The news is bleak, but Dr. Merrick believes that it is still possible to build a better future for wild apes. To do so, she argues, we’ll need to recognize that the lives of humans and chimpanzees are intertwined and to implement programs that make life better for members of both species. “Great ape conservation is doomed to failure if it doesn’t also address human need,” she writes, “particularly if locals are living in extreme poverty.” For instance, training farmers in sustainable agricultural techniques — and providing them with funding and support — could keep soils fertile longer, boost crop yields, and increase food security, alleviating the need to transform more forest into farmland. Teaching wildlife poachers new kinds of skills, like beekeeping and carpentry, may give them alternative ways to earn a living. And programs that improve human health also lower the odds that we will pass diseases along to great apes. Dr. Merrick can be overly worshipful of the ape advocates she meets, who are, by turn, “gifted,” “inspirational” and “among the planet’s greatest heroes.” But she cares deeply, and she writes with a justified urgency. “It is not too late to save the great apes,” she writes. But soon, it could be.

Among Chimpanzees
Books
Nancy Merrick
Monkeys and Apes
Poaching


Retiring Brett Favre Rooting for Packers to Make Super Bowl

Abstract: You might have noticed that the N.F.L. playoffs so far have been dusted with a little green and gold glitter. It’s the pixie dust that has seemed to follow the Green Bay Packers. Yes, cheese headwear is definitely fashionable again. The team is riding high after two impressive playoff victories and heads into the National Football Conference championship game in Chicago knowing the Bears really wanted to knock them out of the playoffs in the final regular-season game and couldn’t. Aaron Rodgers might be the best quarterback in the playoffs (O.K., so he really only has to beat out Ben Roethlisberger for that distinction) and for the first time in the history of Brett Favre retirements, they really don’t have to care. Nirvana! Yes, the latest installment of Favre’s long-running retirement came Monday, as the league confirmed he filed retirement papers . It did not, however, confirm whether they were filled out in ink. Pencil would raise some suspicions, as would erasable ink or, perhaps, lemon juice. But people do suspect he means it this time, considering he was knocked around like an aging, purple-clad piñata this season. His legacy is a complicated one, writes Jemele Hill on ESPN.com , but he seems concerned enough about it that he let it be known that he’s picking the Packers to win the Super Bowl , which The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Judd Zulgad believes is a pretty transparent attempt to make it up to his former, scorned team. But his former, scorned team is moving on. Its current ill will is saved for the hated rival Bears , although Mike Vandermause writes in The Green Bay Press Gazette that they are using some bitterness left over from the N.F.C. title game loss to the Giants four years ago as motivation, too. They might get a little us versus the world jolt from reading that CBSSports.com’s Clark Judge believes Roethlisberger is the most trustworthy quarterback left in the playoffs, although Judge does acknowledge Rodgers is the hottest and suggests he would not trust Bears quarterback Jay Cutler to hold his pen. If you’re looking for bitterness in the American Football Conference matchup, Jets Coach Rex Ryan is determined to thwart you. Changing up his strategy this week after hurling invective at the Patriots last week, Ryan has decided to smother the Steelers with love, writes Mark Cannizzaro in The New York Post , which is odd considering Ryan’s history as a Baltimore assistant, writes Dan Wetzel on Yahoo.com . There was plenty of rivalry animosity in college basketball Monday night, with No. 5 Pittsburgh toppling No. 3 Syracuse, in an entertaining game, writes Luke Winn on SI.com . It showcased just how impressive the Panthers’ home-court advantage is, writes Gary Parrish on CBSSports.com , but Ron Cook of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was more impressed with how many of Pitt’s players stuck around to play as seniors. In college football, Monday gave us the continuing progression of Auburn players who won’t stick around to be seniors, receiver Darvin Adams joining the parade led by Cam Newton and Nick Fairley. In tennis, most of the big names at the Australian Open will be sticking around for at least another round, with the notable exception of Sam Querrey, whose dispirited first-round loss has Fanhouse.com’s Greg Couch wondering why he seems to care so little. In her first match, No. 3 Kim Clijsters beat the former No. 1 Dinara Safina without dropping a game and felt terrible enough for Safina that she apologized . At least Safina didn’t take it out on her racket the way Agnieszka Radwanska continually did, leading to this bizarre midpoint implosion . Clearly, she’s not a smitten Packers fan. Follow Leading Off on Twitter: twitter.com/zinsernyt

Green Bay Packers
Football
Chicago Bears
Favre Brett
Rodgers Aaron
Roethlisberger Ben
Cutler Jay
Ryan Rex


Voting Restrictions Are Key Variable in Midterm Elections

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Voting in midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress, ends this fall. But it starts in North Carolina this week. On Friday, election officials will begin mailing absentee ballots there, followed soon by Alaska and Georgia — with no excuses required. Iowans can vote in person beginning Sept. 25. After decades of expansion in American voting methods, an estimated one-third of all ballots will be cast before the traditional Election Day on Nov. 4. Yet this year, the trend collides with a Republican-led pushback in some states — for reasons of cost-cutting and election integrity or, as the Obama administration and civil rights groups suggest, crimping turnout by Democrats. Various new restrictions on voting, which range from more stringent identification requirements to fewer registration opportunities to curbs on early voting, have been put in place. A critical election variable is whether the new limits will tilt close races. They might not. New voting restrictions have proven to be mobilizing tools for constituencies that feel threatened by them. In 2012, President Obama won battleground states, such as Florida and New Hampshire, where new limits had taken effect. Midterm elections, however, pose a different test. Traditionally, they draw lower turnout by groups critical to Democratic victories — blacks, Hispanics, young people and single women — that may be especially affected by restrictions. Eight states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, have narrowed early voting times, and three of them feature Senate races crucial to Republican hopes of capturing a majority. In Georgia, where Michelle Nunn, a Democrat, is seeking the Senate seat of the retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss, state officials have cut early voting to 21 days from 45. In West Virginia, where Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, aims to flip the seat of Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election, officials cut it to 10 days from 17. (Democrats control West Virginia’s governorship and Legislature, though the state has backed Republicans in the last four presidential races.) North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat, is seeking re-election, has also shrunk early voting to 10 days from 17. To the chagrin of students, local officials eliminated early voting sites on the campuses of North Carolina State and Appalachian State. A photo identification requirement for voting does not take effect until 2016. “You could be looking at a drop of 5 percent to 10 percent in the early vote,” said Morgan Jackson, a Raleigh-based Democratic strategist. “It could make a big difference.” In 2008, early voting, especially by African-Americans, helped Mr. Obama become the first Democrat in three decades to carry North Carolina in a presidential vote. He lost among those who cast ballots on Election Day. The Senate race in North Carolina joins the issue in an unusually personal way. The Republican candidate — the state House speaker, Thom Tillis — oversaw passage of the new voting law. Ms. Hagan lobbied the Justice Department to fight it in court. “It’s a shame that Thom Tillis has made it much harder for people to exercise their constitutional rights that people fought and died for,” Ms. Hagan said in an interview. She vowed to fight his “voter suppression” with her own turnout campaign. Image Thom Tillis, the House Speaker in North Carolina and Ms. Hagan’s Republican opponent for Senate, oversaw passage of the new voting law. Credit Chuck Burton/Associated Press Mr. Tillis responded, “This is all about restoring confidence” and consistency in elections. Although the new law narrowed the window for early voting, he noted, it maintained the same number of hours for pre-Election Day balloting by adjusting opening and closing times at early voting sites. In siding with the Justice Department against “common sense” changes, Mr. Tillis said, Ms. Hagan has shown that “she’s not in touch with the people of North Carolina.” Determined efforts by campaigns, and by local election officials in some places, can offset new curbs. In 2012, half of the voters in the majority-black DeKalb County, Ga., turned in ballots early — just as they had before Georgia shortened the early voting schedule. “You have to put more facilities out there,” said H. Maxine Daniels, the director of voter registration and elections in DeKalb. “Where people perceive an attempt to restrict their right to vote, it strengthens their resolve to vote,” said Ryan P. Haygood, a lawyer at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. But he pointed to “especially vulnerable” voters, such as poor single mothers, “who can’t get out of harm’s way.” Early voting has grown steadily in recent decades, and often without partisan controversy, as election officials seek higher turnout and greater convenience for harried voters. Two academic researchers, Paul Gronke and Michael McDonald, found that ballots cast before Election Day had risen to 20 percent in 2004 from 4 percent in 1972. Liberal states such as California and Oregon led the growth in no-excuse absentee voting, now available in 27 states and the District of Columbia. Conservative ones such as Tennessee and Texas spearheaded in-person early voting, now available in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The Republican-led backlash followed the Obama campaign’s startling success in mobilizing its majority coalition. Yet the reaction appears unlikely to have more than a marginal effect. “Early voting is here to stay,” the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration concluded early this year. It recommended continued growth in early voting, online registration and no-excuse absentee balloting. Wendy R. Weiser of the Brennan Center said that “overriding trend” had continued in certain states even as restrictions took effect in others. Maryland and Illinois will expand early voting this fall. Colorado — where the Democratic incumbent, Mark Udall, is seeking re-election in another pivotal Senate race — has become the third state offering universal vote-by-mail. Election officials will send out ballots on Oct. 13. Laura Chapin, a Denver-based Democratic consultant, expressed hope that the change would increase turnout among Udall allies. Dick Wadhams, former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, predicted little partisan impact but lamented erosion in “the sanctity of the ballot” as voters mark their choices in front of family members and friends. “We’re losing something in terms of people going into the polling booth and no one knows what they’re doing,” Mr. Wadhams said. “But I think the public has made its decision. That’s what people want.”

North Carolina
Georgia
West Virginia
Shelley Moore Capito
Voter registration
NAACP
Mark Udall
Kay R Hagan
2014 Midterm Elections
Thomas R Tillis