Election in Hungary Tests Nation’s Tilt to the Right

Abstract: BUDAPEST — While Europe was enmeshed in its years of euro crisis, Viktor Orban, Hungary’s popular but controversial prime minister, tilted his country’s politics rightward, to a chorus of foreign and domestic criticism but little censure from the European Union. On Sunday, Hungarians hold elections that will show to what degree they support their prime minister, whose victory is in little doubt, and whether they would like Hungary to veer even further right, embracing more solidly the strains of anti-Semitism and nationalist populism of the Jobbik Party. Mr. Orban, 50, has played a skilled mix of populism and pocketbook in the run-up to Sunday’s elections, combining touches of egoism and extravagance — a new subway line that opened in Budapest has a station where his name is carved in stone on one platform — with feel-good measures like a broad cut in utility bills, a reduction in income taxes and job creation. Opinion polls predict that the current governing coalition of his conservative Fidesz Party and a small Christian Democratic Party will garner 30 percent to 40 percent of the vote. The next closest contenders, Jobbik and a quarrelsome alliance of leftist parties, are predicted to get 10 percent to 20 percent each. Uncertainty over the exact outcome is sizable, given a large number of undecided voters and a move by Mr. Orban that has allowed some 200,000 ethnic Hungarians living beyond the country’s borders — mostly in Romania and Serbia, which have similar rules for their ethnic kin abroad — to claim citizenship and vote by mail. Mr. Orban has laid out no program — beyond himself — but seems confident of victory. “We will continue,” he said in a speech last month. Or rather, “speaking more modestly, we would like to continue the policies started in the last four years.” To his supporters, those policies include ridding Hungary of the corruption of the leftist government that Fidesz trounced in a landslide victory in 2010, winning two-thirds of Parliament’s 386 seats. Public finances have stabilized, and Hungary met the European Union goal of keeping the budget deficit under 3 percent of gross domestic product in 2012 and 2013. To his detractors, Mr. Orban has taken Hungary too far right, espousing nationalism and, while condemning anti-Semitism, condoning commemorations of Miklos Horthy, the admiral who led Hungary during World War II and oversaw the deportation of 437,000 Jews to Nazi death camps. Mired in financial and currency crises, the European Union paid little overt attention to the slide right by Hungary, which joined the union in 2005 with other former Soviet bloc nations. Eventually, in 2012, the European Union did issue sanctions against Hungary, but for its excessive deficit, in a move seen more as rap on the knuckles than an energetic message to Mr. Orban to change course. Independent analysts say that Mr. Orban’s recent economic measures — coupled with redistricting that will reduce Parliament to 199 seats — may well bolster his vote share on Sunday. “If I have to cite one reason for which Fidesz can again win elections, it is the cuts in utility bills,” said Peter Kreko of Political Capital, a nongovernmental Budapest research group. He noted that the prime minister and his party also faced little serious criticism from the news media. State media are under firm government control, and journalists in many private outlets censor themselves for fear of running afoul of pro-Fidesz owners and the government. “They aren’t afraid of a confrontation with the press or society,” Mr. Kreko said. Mr. Orban’s fighting talk in the face of pressure from foreign capital, international media or the European Union has only bolstered his standing, he said. As Mr. Orban told supporters in February: “Let’s show again, in April, that we are strong and united. Let’s show that we are not trying to please anybody. Let’s show that we will go our own way.” By contrast, the leftist alliance appears disunited. “There is a very strong, unifying party on one side, and no strong candidate on the other,” said Julia Lakatos of the Centre for Fair Political Analysis, another independent analysts’ group. “They started very late, teamed up very late and had many internal conflicts.” Attila Mesterhazy of the Hungarian Socialist Party, leader of the leftist alliance, has argued that voters face a choice not just between two parties, but also between two world views. But the leftist grouping has also been hurt by a recent tax evasion scandal around a former Socialist — reminding Hungarians of the widespread corruption under two consecutive Socialist governments before 2010. To critics from Budapest to Brussels, Mr. Orban and his government have used their supermajority in Parliament to curb controls on government by pushing through a new Constitution, and placing party loyalists in the judiciary, the media watchdog and the state audits office. Miklos Ligety, head of legal affairs at Transparency International Hungary, the national branch of the international nongovernmental group, said that Mr. Orban’s government “seeks to make decisions single-handedly and skirt any obstacles to these decisions.” While criticizing the previous leftist government, he also said Fidesz had so many advantages in the election campaign — for example, in terms of favorable media coverage — that the overall effort should be judged “free, but not fair.” Perhaps the biggest worry facing Mr. Orban is that undecided voters may turn to the radical right. Jobbik, which holds 47 seats in Parliament, has earned notoriety because of its paramilitary arm, along with its anti-Roma and anti-Semitic views. Like other far-right parties in Europe, notably Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, Jobbik has curbed its rhetoric recently and shown a more moderate face. Mr. Orban has also sought to blunt Jobbik’s appeal by embracing elements of its program, from special taxes on multinational companies to creation of a day of remembrance for the Treaty of Trianon, the 1920 accord that stripped Hungary of its Hapsburg-era territories and remains a lightning rod for patriotic sentiment. “Fundamentally,” said the analyst Mr. Kreko, “public opinion is less in rage, less radical, than in 2010.” But, he added, “unfortunately, the far right’s ideas and supporter base have remained, and anti-Semitism is an increasing issue.”

Election
Hungary
Euro Crisis
Viktor Orban
Fidesz Party
Jobbik Hungary


City Would Photograph Every Vehicle Entering Manhattan and Sniff Out Radioactivity

Abstract: The Police Department is working on a plan to track every vehicle that enters Manhattan to strengthen the city’s guard against a potential terror attack, the department’s chief spokesman said. The proposal — called Operation Sentinel — relies on integrating layers of technologies, some that are still being perfected. It calls for photographing, and scanning the license plates of, cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels and using sensors to detect the presence of radioactivity. Data on each vehicle — its time-stamped image, license plate imprint and radiological signature — would be sent to a command center in Lower Manhattan, where it would be indexed and stored for at least a month as part of a broad security plan that emphasizes protecting the city’s financial district, the spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said. If it were not linked to a suspicious vehicle or a law enforcement investigation, it would be eliminated, he said. “Our main objective would be to, through intelligence, find out about a plot before it ever got to a stage where a nuclear device or a dirty bomb was coming our way,” Mr. Browne said. “This provides for our defense after a plot has already been launched and a device is on its way.” The proposal is one element of a 36-page plan for security, mainly focused on the site of ground zero, that Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and his counterterrorism bureau commanders have shared with the director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. For months, Mr. Kelly and his command staff have been urging the creation of a London-style surveillance system for the financial district that relies on license plate readers, movable roadblocks and 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, all linked to a coordination center at 55 Broadway. Known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, the center is to open in September. At the same time, a federal Securing the Cities program is going forward: The police are creating links with law enforcement agencies within a 50-mile radius around the city. That plan includes outfitting officers with radiation detectors to stop a nuclear or radiological threat as far from the target as possible. Operation Sentinel would combine strategies from the security initiative and Securing the Cities and use them at choke points into Manhattan. Mr. Browne could not say when the program would be completed, though the Lower Manhattan initiative is expected to be in place by 2010. “This is just a planning document,” he said of the proposal. “It’s a vision of how it will work if all the components come together.” He said he could not predict what the city’s law enforcement leaders would do after the Bloomberg administration leaves at the end of 2009. But he said that Mr. Kelly was concerned that a more robust security system be in place before the World Trade Center area opens for business again. “The importance of protecting the nation’s financial center will remain,” Mr. Browne said. “And the ability to protect an urban center from a dirty bomb or a nuclear device will also remain.” Since early 2007, the police have been using technology to read license plates and to check the information against databases, including one for stolen cars. Similarly, they are using closed-circuit TV and radiation-detection equipment in various counterterrorism operations. For instance, the department owns portable radiation vehicles — known as TRACS, for Tactical Radiation Acquisition and Characterization System — that can detect radiological agents like cesium or cobalt and differentiate between dangerous ones and ones used in products like smoke detectors or medical devices. Operation Sentinel would synchronize the three forms of technology — photographs, license plate readers and radiation detectors — in one system. But there are hurdles. The costs of the project, and its feasibility, have not been fully determined. The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative is a $90 million program; the Securing the Cities program is being paid for with federal money, including $40 million earmarked in the 2008 fiscal year 2008 and $30 million expected the following year. Also, tracking many thousands of vehicles and people every day raises alarm with civil libertarians. However, Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism in Washington, a nonprofit research organization that investigates terror groups worldwide, said that the tactics would not invade people’s privacy and that they were critically important, given plots to attack Lower Manhattan. “It is one tool of ensuring that if there is somebody on a terrorist watch list or someone driving erratically, or if a pattern develops that raises suspicions, it gives them an opportunity to investigate further and — if need be — track down the drivers or the passengers,” he said. “The bottom line is they can’t frisk everybody coming into Manhattan; they cannot wand everyone, as they do at airports. This is a passive collection of data that is not as personally invasive as what they do at airports.” Operation Sentinel calls for the cameras, license plate readers and radiological scanners to be deployed at seven vehicle crossings: the Brooklyn-Battery, Holland, Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, and the George Washington, Henry Hudson and Triborough Bridges. Mr. Browne said the plan was to include every crossing, including the smaller bridges connecting the Bronx and Upper Manhattan like the Willis Avenue and Macombs Dam Bridges. A major challenge is to develop technology to discern the radiological signature of vehicles across several lanes at a toll plaza, where many enter at once, and to have the ability to align that data with the correct closed-circuit image and license plate. “That is the principal challenge they are looking to resolve,” Mr. Browne said.

Automobile Registration and License Plates


Spain Meets Budget Deficit Goal

Abstract: Spain met its 2010 budget deficit target, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said Tuesday, as spending cuts by the central government in Madrid helped offset the missed targets of about half of the country’s regional governments. The budget deficit for last year was about $135.6 billion, amounting to 9.24 percent of gross domestic product, Ms. Salgado said.

Spain
Budgets and Budgeting
Politics and Government


Kyle Busch Stays on a Roll at Bristol Track

Abstract: BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Kyle Busch just cannot lose at Bristol Motor Speedway. Busch beat Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson off pit road after the final stops Sunday, then held them off over the closing 60 laps to win the Nascar Sprint Cup Series race at the 0.533-mile track. It gave Busch a weekend sweep — he won the Nationwide Series race Saturday — and his fifth victory in a row at Bristol dating to a three-race sweep last August. He has five Cup victories here and 11 spanning the three national series. Edwards settled for second and lamented not pushing Busch harder after the final restart with 37 of the 500 laps left. Busch, Edwards and Johnson pulled away from the field, and Edwards had several opportunities to move Busch’s Toyota out of the way. But Edwards figured he would have plenty of chances closer to the finish, so he tried for a clean pass as he and Busch raced side-by-side for several laps. Busch eventually pulled away, and Edwards never had another shot. Johnson finished third. Matt Kenseth, Edwards’s teammate, was fourth, followed by Paul Menard and Kevin Harvick. Kyle Busch’s brother Kurt took the series lead by a point over Edwards. Tony Stewart fell to third from first, 12 points back.

Nascar Sprint Cup Series
Busch Kyle
Automobile Racing


From the Water, City’s Skyline Has a Special Drama

Abstract: Up the Harlem River, past the saltwater marshes of Swindler Cove , beyond the Sherman Creek Nature Trail and the quaint gingerbread boathouse, the bucolic landscape gives way to a sinister hive, where the higher machine species are breeding for their eventual takeover of the earth. That’s how it looks, anyway, as you glide past the dense stack of subway cars in the repair yard at 207th Street. I happened to be doing that aboard a beautiful wooden motor yacht, so while I contemplated the imminent subjugation of the human race, I also contemplated a glass of Champagne. Then the boat followed the river around to the left and we passed under the dramatic arch of a bridge, and all was forgotten. Including the Champagne. It was two hours into one of the city’s newest delights: the Around Manhattan Official NYC Architectural Tour . The Chicago Architecture Foundation’s similar tour has been a popular attraction since 1983, but until now, this city’s closest equivalent was the Circle Line — a very distant second. What took the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects so long? Whatever the answer, its timing is fortuitous. It’s only recently that Manhattan ’s waterfront has become the playfield of outsize architectural ambition. The Manhattan , a Classic Harbor Line vessel modeled on a 1920s commuter yacht, pushes off from Chelsea Piers one afternoon every other weekend and heads south down the Hudson. Just a few years ago, that would have been a good time to advise everyone on the placement and use of flotation devices. But now there is more to say about the area’s flashy architecture — from Frank Gehry ’s IAC building, billowing out at full mast, to Polshek Partnership’s Standard Hotel, standing boldly astride the High Line — than the speed of the boat allows. From there it’s down past the Trump SoHo to Battery Park City. The narration of each cruise — which costs $75 (unless you find an online coupon) and fits 50 people — varies depending on who volunteers to lead. I got Rick Bell, the executive director of the A.I.A.’s New York chapter. Mr. Bell focused on the constant reorientation of the city, by which the luxury enclave of one year could be the slum of the next , and Governors Island, located so close to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island , could be the next Central Park. Beyond Governors Island lay Red Hook, home now to cruise ships that once docked along the Hudson. And in the foreground, an antique schooner sailed by. Continuing on, we passed the long row of hospitals on the East River’s western shore, built when a fresh breeze off the water was the best weapon against contagion. We passed the United Nations , built on what had been slaughterhouses, and waved hello to Carl Schurz Park , sloping gracefully down to meet us. Under the east side of the 125th Street Bridge, you can see the secret shop where police boats are repaired, and beyond that, on the day of my tour, the new section of the Willis Avenue Bridge , just hanging out in the middle of the water waiting to be installed. After the Macombs Dam Bridge, the dense urban landscape gives way to the green thicket of Highbridge Park, and the shores of the Harlem River feel close enough to doggy paddle. Threading such a narrow passage, in an area so unlike the rest of Manhattan, to the left, and the Bronx , to the right, is disorienting. Then the river bends again, past Marble Hill. The Spuyten Duyvil Bridge swings open, and through it you rejoin the mighty Hudson, which looks as wide as an ocean. I dare you not to gasp in awe. The famous architectural boat tours of Chicago snake through the city on the Chicago River, then out onto Lake Michigan, getting right up close to the area’s most famous buildings. A loop around Manhattan — even at 2 ¾ hours — does not allow for that kind of detail. But it offers something different, and in many ways more revelatory: a glimpse into how the city fits together as a whole. Stepping off dry land and heading out onto the water fundamentally alters your perspective on New York. Mr. Bell correctly described the effect as figure-ground reversal — the river your eyes are used to glossing over suddenly comes up all around you, and the buildings you are used to seeing at a pedestrian’s range instead are showcased in their full height on the world’s grandest stage. But even if you don’t care about architectural history, if you don’t care about the city’s foundations, a three-hour boat ride, with lovely snacks and a steady breeze, makes for a great date. So does another new boat ride introduced this summer: sunset ferries to the Statue of Liberty . Even now, as cynical as we all may have good reason to be, it’s still stirring to see descendants of so many different nationalities and styles — old ladies in full chador, overdeveloped 11-year-olds in one-shouldered minidresses — drawn to the same symbol of opportunity. A $36 ticket includes dinner of lobster tail and filet mignon. Am I just a prude? Or does tucking into a ruling-class entree right there below the inscription about huddled masses seem willfully profane? Oh, well, it was a moot point: the night I went, the specials had been downgraded to roast chicken and ribs, and they ran out before I ordered. I opened a plastic clamshell and ate a refrigerated veggie wrap while enjoying a view of the entire world.


Obama Seeks Bigger Role for Religious Groups

Abstract: ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms. “The challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Mr. Obama said outside a community center here. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach.” Some Democrats have previously backed similar efforts, but Mr. Bush’s version, a centerpiece of his first-term agenda, has been a lightning rod for criticism from those concerned about the separation of church and state and those who argued that Mr. Bush had used it to further a conservative political agenda. In embracing the same general approach as Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama ran the political risk of alienating those of his supporters who would prefer that government keep its distance from religion. But Mr. Obama’s plan pointedly departed from the Bush administration’s stance on one fundamental issue: whether religious organizations that get federal money for social services can take faith into account in their hiring. Mr. Bush has said yes. Mr. Obama said no. “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion,” Mr. Obama said. “Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.” Mr. Obama’s position that religious organizations would not be able to consider religion in their hiring for such programs would constitute a deal-breaker for many evangelicals, said several evangelical leaders, who represent a political constituency Mr. Obama has been trying to court. “For those of who us who believe in protecting the integrity of our religious institutions, this is a fundamental right,” said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. “He’s rolling back the Bush protections. That’s extremely disappointing.” Early in his first term, Mr. Bush issued executive orders expressly allowing religion-based groups receiving federal money to consider religion in their employment decisions, although confusion often remains in this area because of conflicting federal, state and local laws. Martha Minow, a professor of law at Harvard University who has written about religion-based initiatives and has advised the Obama campaign on the issue, said Mr. Obama would move to “return the law to what it was before the current administration,” in other words barring the consideration of religion in hiring decisions for such programs that receive federal financing. “I don’t think there’s anything too controversial about that,” Ms. Minow said. “Any religious organization that does not want to comply with that requirement simply doesn’t have to take the money.” But evangelical leaders said not allowing religious groups to hire based on their beliefs would strip them of the very basis for religion-based programs. “If you can’t hire people within your faith community, then you’ve lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based programs exist in the first place,” said Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The idea of augmenting government delivery of social services through community and religious organizations has won varying degrees of support across the ideological spectrum. Although research on the effectiveness of religion-based organizations remains spotty, Mr. Obama said groups would be regularly evaluated on effectiveness. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, who has struggled to overcome wariness from some evangelicals, has stepped up his outreach to evangelicals and is a proponent of religion-based initiatives as well. A McCain campaign spokesman, Brian Rogers, said Mr. McCain “disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight.” Mr. Obama’s plan — his campaign said it would be the “moral center” of his administration — was unfurled against a backdrop freighted with electoral ramifications. Mr. Obama is signaling that he wants to make a push among white evangelical Protestants. By focusing on centrist and more liberal evangelicals, who have been pushing the movement to broaden its agenda beyond traditional social issues, Mr. Obama is hoping to chip away at a margin that has favored Republicans. His campaign selected Ohio to announce the plan, a state where Mr. Bush engaged in a sprawling voter turnout effort among evangelicals. Mr. Obama’s proposal was met with praise from leaders like the Rev. Jim Wallis, a prominent spokesman for more liberal evangelicals. Mr. Wallis applauded the fact that Mr. Obama, as a Democrat, was willing to talk about his Christian faith and “wants a faith-based program that’s even better than the Bush program.” Several former Bush administration officials who had a hand in shaping the current policy, including John J. DiIulio Jr., director of Mr. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001, also applauded Mr. Obama’s proposal. Though the program is widely associated with Mr. Bush, similar ideas have been supported by Democrats. “His plan reminds me of much that was best in both then-Vice President Al Gore’s and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s respective first speeches on the subject in 1999,” Mr. DiIulio said. But the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Mr. Obama’s support of a program that Mr. Lynn said had undermined civil liberties and civil rights. “I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to continue a failed policy of the Bush administration,” Mr. Lynn said. “It ought to be shut down, not continued.” In one example of how he would use the approach to carry out a policy goal, Mr. Obama proposed $500 million per year to provide summer education for one million poor children, with a goal of closing the achievement gaps between wealthy students and poorer ones. The campaign did not provide a cost proposal for the full program, but said the educational piece could be financed by reducing the growth in the federal travel budget and streamlining the management of surplus government property. If elected, Mr. Obama said, he would call for a pre-inauguration review of all executive orders pertaining to the religion-based program, particularly those dealing with hiring. The program would “be central to our White House mission,” he said, and would consider elevating the director of his Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to a cabinet-level post. As he announced his proposal on Tuesday, standing outside the Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Mr. Obama harked back to his early days as a community organizer in Chicago, where Roman Catholic charities financed his programs. David Kuo, who was deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under Mr. Bush but eventually grew disenchanted and left, said the Obama plan seemed to address some of the shortcomings with the Bush administration’s efforts, making, for example, religion-based initiatives part of the domestic policy structure. Mr. Kuo, who has criticized the Bush effort as getting bogged down in partisan politics, was asked by the Obama campaign to review its proposal. “I think it is a bold, smart, engaging attempt to use religious organizations to help the poor and to do for the faith community what the Bush administration could not,” Mr. Kuo said. “But I’m concerned that his position on hiring rights will bog down this initiative just like Bush’s position on the other side did the same thing.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Religion and Churches
Obama Barack
Federal Aid (US)
Church-State Relations
Bush George W
Evangelical Movement


August’s Weather Is Too Nice to Complain About

Abstract: New Yorkers are a hard bunch to please, but they have had little reason to complain about the weather this month. After a hotter-than-average June and July that had New Yorkers running for their air-conditioners and beach sandals, August has turned out to be just right. Well, 1.7 degrees below average, to be precise. According to the National Weather Service, the thermometer hit 90 degrees once this month in Central Park: on Aug. 1. Last August, there were four days when it reached 90 and two others when the mercury touched 89. So far this month, the temperature has been below average on 18 days, compared with 10 in August last year. Rain has fallen on nine days this month, only once more than an inch. Weather forecasters, the bogeymen on bad days, are suddenly popular again. “You live for these good months,” said Dave Price, the weatherman on “The Early Show” on Channel 2. “I usually hide when the blizzards and heat waves hit. Personally, you really like to deliver good news.” The allure of August was a big turnaround from early June, when a heat wave with four straight days of temperatures of 93 or above led to power blackouts. The average temperature in June was 2.8 degrees above normal, and everyone, it seemed, was bracing for a long, hot summer. July included a six-day stretch of 90 degrees or higher; temperatures overall were 1.9 degrees above normal for the month. Con Edison provided a record amount of electricity in July, more than Alaska uses in an entire year. Then came the alleged dog days of August, and the humidity, rain and heat disappeared. The unexpected climatic good fortune was welcome news for cafes, tour buses and power companies, and a downer for stores selling air-conditioners, frozen ices and parasols. It seemed like early fall. “Because of the warmer weather in June and July, people acclimate to the higher temperatures, so when the cold front comes through, it seems a lot cooler than it is,” said Joe Pollina, a meteorologist at the Weather Service in Upton on Long Island. “But temperatures are still in the low 80s and upper 70s, so it’s pretty warm.” Blame the mild weather for lower attendance at the city’s beaches; it fell 34 percent this summer compared with last, and 5.6 percent at city pools. “This is the gentlest August anyone can remember,” said Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the city parks department. “Beach attendance is completely tied to the weather. When it’s cool in Manhattan, it’s 10 degrees cooler at the beach.” Tours of the city’s parks, though, are up 55 percent compared with last year, and the number of tennis permits issued has risen 10 percent. The Bronx Zoo had one of its busiest days ever last week, the commissioner said. New York’s weather is tied to the shifts of the jet stream. This year, New York has been bathed by winds from central and eastern Canada, instead of being blasted by warm air from the Gulf Coast and the western Atlantic Ocean. Professional weather-watchers often have a hard time explaining why the winds blew this way and not that way. But Mr. Price noted that temperate weather in one part of the country — the Northeast this summer — often means bad weather elsewhere. He pointed to the hurricanes and tropical storms churning in the South, and the tornadoes in the Midwest. The weather’s fickle nature has scientific neophytes wondering whether global warming has been delayed. There is no reason to rush to judgment, experts say. “You can’t infer from a week or even a month or two about long-term patterns,” said Brian Wimer, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com . One of Mr. Wimer’s colleagues is predicting a colder start to the winter season in the Northeast. Forecasters at the Weather Service, however, say there is a 40 percent chance that the fall will be warmer than average. Regardless of what’s ahead, the crews at Con Edison can breathe a little more easily now. The utility, which provides electricity to 3.2 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, prepares all year for the few days when temperatures rise above 90 and air-conditioners burn long and hard, straining the electrical grid. Though Con Edison was prepared to provide up to 13,775 megawatts of power this summer, the demand has not topped 13,000 megawatts so far, according to Brian Daly, a senior planning analyst at the utility. Typically between May and September, there are 18 days of weather above 90 degrees. This year, there have been 11 (compared with 10 last summer). No distinct pattern emerges from data from the past two decades. In 2004, the temperature rose above 90 degrees on two days between May and September, the fewest since 1902, Mr. Daly said. In 2002, there were 32 days when it was that hot. In 1991 and 1993, there were 39 days each. As forecasters like Mr. Price have learned, the large shifts year to year mean their fortunes can rise and fall swiftly. “When you’re a weatherman, it’s all about what have you done for me lately,” he said.

Weather
New York City
Seasons and Months


Heat Routs Magic, 96-70

Abstract: MIAMI — The basketball changed hands in seconds, from Chris Bosh to LeBron James to Dwyane Wade. By the time Wade crashed it into the rim, the lucky piece of leather spent time with 17 All-Star selections, 2 N.B.A. most valuable players, 2 scoring champions and a finals M.V.P. This is why Miami cheered and the N.B.A. cringed in July. “This is what we envisioned,” a smiling and content James said after the Heat ’s 96-70 rout of the Orlando Magic in their home opener at American Airlines Arena. The development of a rivalry between the state-sharing teams will have to wait. For all of Miami’s offensive powers, the Heat dominated defensively and transformed a narrow game at halftime into a blowout. Wade followed James’s 3-pointer with two of his own, and Miami’s 6-point halftime lead ballooned to 15 points. “Backbreakers,” Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy called them. By the end of the quarter, the Heat led, 79-55, and Miami flexed the starpower muscle it had attracted over the summer to an adoring crowd that wore T-Shirts with the slogan “I was there” and the date on them. Wade is gaining his legs after missing nearly the entire off-season with a strained hamstring and had 26 points. “I’m feeling a little more comfortable, but I’m still a ways away of where I want to be physically,” he said. James added 15 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds. Those were modest numbers in Cleveland. In Miami, next to Wade’s huge performances, they will transform close games into blowouts. Dwight Howard displayed his summer’s work with a renovated jumper and scored a game-high 19 points in the first half. Saddled by foul trouble, he did not score in the second half and fouled out midway through the fourth quarter. The rest of Orlando’s scorers were kept eerily silent. The starting forwards Rashard Lewis, who also fouled out, and Quentin Richardson did not make any of their 14 shots. The guards Jameer Nelson and Vince Carter went only 4 for 16. Carter played less than 14 minutes and left with a back injury. Orlando opened the season with a victory against Washington on Thursday and shot only 30.4 percent in that game. Friday’s loss will not end the Magic’s season, but it does leave a dent. Van Gundy spent a dozen years with the organization as an assistant to Pat Riley. He succeeded Riley as head coach, leading the Heat to the Eastern Conference finals in 2005. Van Gundy abruptly left near the beginning of the 2005-6 season, Riley resumed coaching and the Heat eventually won the finals over the Mavericks. Van Gundy said that Bosh trailed Wade like a “lapdog” over the summer. Otis Smith, Orlando’s general manager, criticized James’s competitiveness after he signed with Miami. James said he was aware of everyone who criticized his decision to leave Cleveland. “I think it is,” he said when asked if the game held more significance. “For us, it’s a division rival, it’s an in-state rival and we heard everything Orlando said about us in the off-season.” If anyone needed a reminder, the arena played James’s new Nike commercial between the first and second quarters, in which he challenges skeptics. James reflected his mentality through the arena’s loudspeakers with the playing of his adopted favorite song, “Hate Me Now,” by Nas, and even from his mouth by wearing a mouth guard with fangs. James may draw a fine for wearing them. “Happy Halloween,” he said when asked why he chose them. Much of Friday, he also showed it through his play. He connected with Wade on a long alley-oop in the first half. In the third quarter, he connected on three jumpers in the first three minutes that distanced Miami. REBOUNDS Commissioner David Stern attended the game and said that the league had retained outside counsel to investigate a Yahoo Sports report that a Knicks scout conducted illegal predraft workouts. Stern did not say how long the inquiry would last.

Basketball
Orlando Magic
Miami Heat
Florida


New Jersey Ties Graduation to Tests Aligned With Common Core Standards

Abstract: The New Jersey Board of Education voted on Wednesday to require high school students to pass tests aligned with contentious standards, even as other states have moved away from these assessments. Beginning in 2021, in order to graduate, students will have to pass the Algebra 1 exam and the 10th-grade English exam given as part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or Parcc, tests. This year, just 44 percent of students statewide passed that English exam and 41 percent passed Algebra 1. Under the new rules, those who do not pass can still graduate if a portfolio review of other work is approved. The Parcc test was one of two main assessments designed to align with the Common Core standards, a group of learning goals for students devised to ensure they were being adequately prepared for college. The standards were adopted across the country starting in 2010, encouraged by money from the Obama administration, but they have faced a strong backlash. Many states have stepped away from the tests, or from the standards altogether. New Jersey is moving in the opposite direction. “We believe Parcc is the best test out there and that it is aligned in the best way to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards in math and language arts,” said Mark W. Biedron , president of the board. “It gives you a great measure of college and career readiness.” Students in New Jersey have taken some form of standardized test in order to graduate for more than 30 years, according to the State Education Department. Students can currently use a passing grade on close to a dozen tests in math and English to get a diploma; Parcc would replace them. There has been resistance to the Parcc graduation requirements, according to The Record, a North Jersey newspaper, from educators, parents and activists who are concerned that schools are focusing too much on the tests, or that more students may end up dropping out. Last year, the state saw a rebellion against Parcc, as tens of thousands of students refused to take the test. But this year, the tests were 90 minutes shorter, with fewer testing sessions, and the number of families refusing to have their children take them appears to have fallen significantly. The State Education Department said 66,000 more students took the math Parcc tests this year and 57,000 more sat for the English assessments than in 2015. In New York, by contrast, the movement to refuse has not been diluted by a shortening of the Common Core aligned exams — students in New York do not take Parcc. About 20 percent of eligible students in New York opted out of the exams this year for third through eighth graders, a figure roughly unchanged from last year. In New Jersey, the Parcc is generally given to students in third through 11th grade. The New Jersey Board of Education also voted to give more local control back to the City of Newark, whose schools have been controlled by the state since 1995. The state has been returning control to the city in phases, and on Wednesday gave the city more power to make personnel decisions.

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers Parcc


Mystery of China’s Missing Crime Fighter Deepens

Abstract: BEIJING — In the latest twist of an increasingly bizarre story, China announced Thursday that a top Communist Party official spent a full day in the United States consulate in the western city of Chengdu. The official Xinhua news agency issued a bulletin Thursday night saying that Wang Lijun, once China’s most famous crime fighter, entered the consulate on Monday “and left after staying one day.” China’s social media networks had exploded with unconfirmed reports on Wednesday that Mr. Wang had tried to defect. Later that day, the United States State Department spokeswoman played down those reports, saying he entered the consulate but left “of his own volition.” The official Chinese report does not contradict this but implies that something very unusual happened in the consulate. Senior Chinese officials rarely make visits of any length to a consulate or embassy. Mr. Wang was a right-hand man to Bo Xilai, the party secretary in Chongqing and one of China’s most charismatic and polarizing leaders. A former commerce minister, Mr. Bo is one of the leading candidates to join the nine-man Standing Committee of the party’s Politburo, which would make him one of the handful of men who run China. Mr. Bo has championed high-profile drives against corruption coupled with a glorification of the Maoist era. Mr. Wang won renown for fighting gangs in Chongqing, a metropolis of 29 million people, and his success bolstered Mr. Bo’s political fortunes. Officially, Mr. Wang is on medical leave but credible reports put him in Beijing, where he is said to be under interrogation. The uproar comes as China’s presumptive next leader, Xi Jinping , is due to make a visit to Washington.

China
Wang Lijun
Xi Jinping
Communist Party of China
United States International Relations
Politics and Government


Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Defense: He Didn’t Know Prostitutes Were at the Orgies

Abstract: LILLE, France — There was testimony about lavish sex parties with high-flying power brokers and prostitutes. There were questions about whether certain sex acts were entirely consensual, and the finer points of libertinage. For good measure, topless protesters threw themselves at the car carrying the chief defendant, a man once expected to be president of France , Dominique Strauss-Kahn . Yet the burlesque-like atmosphere at his trial, and that of 13 others accused of pimping and abetting prostitution, in the northern city of Lille on Tuesday was perhaps topped only by the silver-haired Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s defense: Lust is no crime. “When you read the criminal complaint, you get the impression it was this unbridled activity,” Mr. Strauss-Kahn told the court, “but it was four times a year.” The rest of the time, he was too busy trying to save the global economy as head of the International Monetary Fund, he said. In any case, his lawyers argued publicly before the trial, everyone looks the same without clothes, and who can really tell the difference between a prostitute and a naked socialite at an orgy? If Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 65, who has sought to remake his image in pursuit of public redemption, had hoped that the spectacle surrounding his legal troubles and lifestyle would have receded since the allegations against him first broke in 2011 , it was not to be. The trial, which began last week and is expected to last three weeks, is only the latest legal challenge for Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who scaled the heights of the French establishment and of international banking before a series of scandals sent his political career crashing. In 2011, he resigned as head of the I.M.F. after he was accused of sexually assaulting a housekeeper at a hotel in New York. The charges were later dropped , and a lawsuit was settled . The case has titillated France, exposing trans-Atlantic orgies from Lille to Paris to Washington, attended by judges, lawyers, journalists and police officials. And in a country where the privacy of public figures has long been considered sacrosanct, some have cringed along with Mr. Strauss-Kahn as details of his sexual predilections, described as “animal” during testimony on Tuesday by a prostitute identified only as Mounia, have been dissected in front of the global news media. Others, however, have applauded the trial for challenging a culture in which men can behave badly, as long as it remains behind closed doors. Image Mr. Strauss-Kahn departed after testifying in court. Credit iTele, via Associated Press Not least in France, where sex with prostitutes is not illegal but soliciting and pimping are, the case has generated questions about whether the laws against prostitution should be updated. Some argue that the country should adopt Sweden’s practice of prosecuting the clients of prostitution rather than the prostitutes themselves, some of whom can be victims of abuse, coercion or trafficking. At the opening of the trial, Judge Bernard Lemaire said that the court was not an arbiter of public morality but was adjudicating whether laws had been broken. If convicted, Mr. Strauss-Kahn could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of more than 1.5 million euros, or $1.7 million. Mr. Strauss-Kahn acknowledged being present at sex parties. But he said he had played no part in organizing them, and he insisted that he had not been aware that some of the women at the parties were prostitutes. Given his position at the I.M.F., and his political ambitions, he said he would never have attended had he been aware of that fact. “It would’ve been far too dangerous,” he said, noting that prostitutes could have been susceptible to “pressures.” Mr. Strauss-Kahn characterized the sex parties as libertinage, or freewheeling sex and pleasure among multiple and consensual partners, an age-old and legal practice in France dating from the 16th century. He said the festive nature of libertinage would have been sullied had he known that the women were being paid for sex. Supporting his case, Fabrice Paszkowski, a businessman accused of being one of the main organizers of the orgies, told the court on Tuesday that he had never told Mr. Strauss-Kahn that the women had been paid. “I dare you to distinguish between a prostitute and a naked socialite,” Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told Europe 1 radio after the accusations against his client emerged in 2011. But Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s professed ignorance prompted Judge Lemaire to ask Tuesday, with more than a hint of sardonic doubt, whether he was naïve. Video A lawyer representing some of the prostitutes in the trial of Dominique Strauss-Kahn argued that the former I.M.F. chief must have known their profession when he met them. Credit Credit Reuters Mounia, a prostitute who met Mr. Strauss-Kahn at a sex party in 2010 at the chic Murano hotel in Paris, told the court that it had been obvious that those at the party were prostitutes, even though she acknowledged that money was never spoken of. She said she had not been dressed revealingly and that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had forced her to engage in a “brutal” act. He denied that, saying that “no” meant “no.” Judge Lemaire said: “In libertinage, there are consensual relations and pleasure. Were there consensual relations and pleasure?” “No, that was not the case,” she answered. “I felt like an object.” Jade, another prostitute at the Murano hotel party, said she had been engaged in prostitution, not libertinage. “I was not a person, but a thing that was supposed to complete a task,” she told the court. She said she had also been paid 2,000 euros to meet Mr. Strauss-Kahn in Washington. She said she had not realized that Mr. Strauss-Kahn was famous “until I saw him on television with his clothes on.” Mr. Strauss-Kahn, while confident and resolved, has seemed a much diminished figure in court. Dressed in a dark suit, he has appeared alongside a cast of defendants, including a former Lille police chief, several local businessmen and Dominique Alderweireld, a sex club owner known as Dodo la Saumure, all of whom are accused of facilitating the hiring of prostitutes for the sex parties. Mr. Alderweireld named one of his clubs the DSK, though he has since closed it. (Mr. Strauss-Kahn has sued him for using his initials, but Mr. Alderweireld contends that DSK stands for Dodo Sex Klub.) At the center of the trial is the Carlton Hotel in Lille, which, with its faded glamour, palatial suites, marble statues, plastic flowers and ornate furniture in the style of Louis XVI, was a nexus for some of the orgies. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who has been trying to resurrect his career by advising foreign countries like Serbia as well as companies in Russia, Latin America and Africa, has repeatedly said he never set foot in the hotel. Just steps from the main square, the hotel has become synonymous with a sex scandal that has brought notoriety to this picturesque city, not far from the Belgian border. The timing of the case, which came to light when Mr. Strauss-Kahn was being spoken of as a leading candidate for the 2012 presidential election, has also raised questions. Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s defense team has argued that the pimping accusations were a result of illegal tapping of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s telephone to try to ensnare him in a scandal and upend his political ambitions. While conspiracy theories have swirled, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s defense has been supported by the fact that the Lille prosecutor recommended in 2013 that the charges be dropped, indicating that the evidence was feeble, at best. But the magistrates investigating the case overruled the prosecutor and decided to proceed to trial.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Prostitution
France


De Blasio Balancing His Promises With Reality

Abstract: Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday issued a broadside to national Democrats, urging the party to embrace liberal values and attributing its midterm losses to a lack of fidelity to the progressive cause. But at home, things are more complicated. This week, Mr. de Blasio frustrated some liberal advocates by failing to brief them beforehand on changes to the Police Department’s enforcement of marijuana laws — an effort that was subsequently dismissed as a “sugar pill” by Cornel West and others who said the overhaul did not go far enough in addressing the concerns of black and Hispanic New Yorkers. Now, Mr. de Blasio is having to grapple with the same coalition of police critics whose cause he embraced during the mayoral campaign. He has concerns about legislation to be introduced in the City Council on Thursday that would set strict new rules for officers, including a requirement that they receive explicit consent to search suspects in some instances, a move sure to anger the department’s rank and file. And in a sign of the critics’ growing frustration with their onetime champion, an influential police reform group recently cut ties with a public affairs firm that is closely identified with Mr. de Blasio, seeking to be unconstrained from exerting greater pressure on his administration. It is an intriguing moment for a mayor determined to be a beacon of the new left, but who must balance bold rhetoric with the realities of bringing reform in the complex city he governs. On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio, who swept into office promising to reduce income inequality and promote racial equity, published an op-ed article urging Democrats around the country — many in far more conservative environs than New York City — to adopt his own policy priorities for the 2016 elections. “This year, too many Democratic candidates lost sight of those core principles, opting instead to clip their progressive wings,” Mr. de Blasio wrote. The essay , on The Huffington Post, was part of a daylong tour of news media outlets favored by the mayor’s liberal base: He was interviewed by the left-leaning MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes, and he called in to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show, saying Democrats should “be forceful” about endorsing progressive ideas. That is the very advice Mr. de Blasio is hearing from some liberals in New York, who say they are disappointed at what they call an incremental approach to the police reforms he campaigned on. “Have race relations improved? I can’t say, to be perfectly honest,” said Antonio Reynoso, a city councilman from Brooklyn who said he wanted faster change at the Police Department. For Mr. de Blasio, who points to an emphasis on training and a reduction in police stops as evidence he is changing the Police Department, pressure from the left is to be expected. “There’s always going to be voices, advocates, activists calling for you to do more on a whole host of issues,” he said, “and always be people who say everything you do is going too far.” The mayor, whose poll numbers have stayed generally high, would be likely to lose support from some centrists if he fully adopted measures that advocates like Mr. Reynoso are proposing, which could drastically alter the rules of engagement for police officers. Mr. Reynoso is co-sponsoring a bill that would require officers to explain that searches can be refused without a warrant or probable cause. Officers would have to identify themselves, provide a phone number for a citizens’ complaint board and get “objective proof” of consent before searching any person “when there is no legal justification.” The sponsors say the measure would reduce police intimidation, especially among minorities. But the bill has caught the ire of police unions, and Mr. de Blasio said on Wednesday that he was reluctant to support it. “I certainly have concerns,” the mayor said at a news conference in Lower Manhattan. “We obviously have to protect the rights of our people, but we also have to make sure we are not in any way undermining the ability of law enforcement to do its job.” Those remarks are in keeping with Mr. de Blasio’s more moderate approach to changes at the Police Department, where he has defended the “broken windows” approach — stopping small crimes to prevent big ones — despite criticism that it disproportionately hurts minorities. Mr. de Blasio kept up his balancing act this week, when he said that low-level marijuana possession would merit a ticket, not an arrest . The move drew criticism from left and right: Police unions said he was going soft on crime; liberals said the change would not keep minorities from being given more tickets than whites. “We’re going to continue to see serious problems and serious racial disparities,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, director of Communities United for Police Reform, which led efforts against stopping and frisking. “It would have been good to see him do something really sweeping,” said Gabriel Sayegh, a managing director at the Drug Policy Alliance, which seeks to ease marijuana laws. Mr. Sayegh’s group was one of several that consulted with city officials about the policy but complained they were not told that an announcement was imminent. On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio said he “could not be more proud” with his administration’s work on police reform. “I would say to any of my critics, with respect, those who think we have not been fast enough,” he said: “Look at any other 10-month time frame in New York City government history and tell me where you see more movement in terms of real progress in police-community relations.” Liberals still want to wait and see. Christina Greer, a professor at Fordham, has criticized Mr. de Blasio for moving slowly on addressing concerns about the police and race. On Wednesday, she said his movement on marijuana regulations was a positive sign. “He’s not going to please everyone; that’s also the job of mayor,” she said. “At least he can say, ‘I’m moving the needle.’ ”

Bill de Blasio
Democrats
Huffington Post
MSNBC
NYC
Liberalism US
NYPD
Drug Abuse


Budget Woes at the Andrus Planetarium in Yonkers

Abstract: YONKERS Even in the heavens, they’re feeling the budget crunch. Venus is broken, there’s a gap in the Milky Way, and the moon is two and a half days ahead of schedule, but no one has the $3,500 it would take to get an engineer from Germany to come in and realign the stars. Mark Meretzky, a 53-year-old lecturer, regularly explains all of this with humor and some evident irritation when he gives his presentations at the Andrus Planetarium at the Hudson River Museum here. “And this is where Venus would be if it wasn’t broken,” Mr. Meretzky says as he waves his laser pointer halfway up the dome and to the audience’s right during his presentation , “The Sky Tonight: Brilliant Winter Skies.” Venus’s light still shines; it’s just that the projector, which was installed in 1986, is pointing her in the wrong direction. “It’s humiliating, because Venus is the queen of the night,” Mr. Meretzky said after the show on Saturday. “It’ll be around for weeks — face southwest at 6 o’clock and it’s the brightest thing out there.” Mr. Meretzky is a celebrity in these parts, a familiar face to the thousands of schoolchildren who traipse through the planetarium every year. Kids like him for his corny jokes about how Orion looks like SpongeBob SquarePants. Adults appreciate Mr. Meretzky for the strain of dark humor that permeates his presentation — he snipes about the popularity of big-budget planetarium video shows narrated by disembodied voices and riffs about his vintage equipment. “Isn’t it ridiculous that there’s no off button?” he asked the audience on Saturday, as he waited for a slow, clunky device to clear an image from the dome. Six months ago, the planetarium show at the Andrus might have been perceived as having a charming retro feel, with none of the glossy production values that so many New Yorkers have been accustomed to seeing at, say, the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History. These days — an era when dial-up Internet access is seeing a revival, because it’s cheaper than a high-speed connection — low-tech suddenly feels of the moment. PEOPLE say time is money, but those with too much time on their hands right now might wonder why anyone ever thought that was true. Progress — now that costs money, and when it comes to science, it sometimes produces money, too. “Do you want Harry Hairspray science or real science?” Mr. Meretzky demanded of the audience on Saturday. “Real science!” a boy cried out. Mr. Meretzky approved. “That’s good, because that’s what’s going to pull us out of this slump.” Mr. Meretzky, an astronomy buff who teaches computer science at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, loves the effects-driven shows that are so popular at the Rose Center. But he said they don’t capitalize on the advantages of a planetarium dome — the way it can capture, he said, “spatial relations, like rotation, revolution, and points of view, angles you just can’t see on a video screen.” Big-budget productions convey a sense of wonder and scale. He appreciates that, but he would like to see a little more elementary science thrown in. “Ask the audience afterward a simple question,” Mr. Meretzky said, “like, ‘Does the sun ever shine from the north in the Northern Hemisphere?’ That’s knowledge that they’re not going to pick up.” (The answer, for the star-struck reader, is yes.) If there was ever a time to shift national priorities from entertainment to education, it might be now. But why should one preclude the other? Maybe some part of the stimulus package should be devoted to identifying more science teachers who have Mr. Meretzky’s gift for both. “He kept the audience entertained more than you thought possible in a planetarium,” said Isaiah Riesman-Tremonte, 12, from Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. “I definitely remembered what to look for that night in the sky.” Mr. Meretzky, who now lives near N.Y.U., grew up in Yonkers, and he loves the way his job returns him to his childhood home, and to a childhood passion. He used to drag his parents to Trevor Mansion, still part of the Hudson River Museum, where he would listen to a sky show in a small planetarium that fit inside what is now the dining room. He is still amazed that he gets to be the person who dims the lights and turns on the projector that illuminates those awe-inspiring stars. “I love operating that thing,” Mr. Meretzky said. “It adds a little texture that you sometimes push a button and nothing happens.”

Hudson River Museum
Museums
Yonkers (NY)
Stars and Galaxies


Andrews Bolsters Giants’ Offensive Line

Abstract: Over the last few days, Shawn Andrews had his audition with the Giants . He dined with General Manager Jerry Reese and had a half-hour meeting with Coach Tom Coughlin. Then Andrews got on the field to work out. Andrews proved to the Giants that he was healthy and ready to return from a back injury that stalled his promising career. In need of depth on the offensive line, the Giants signed him early Friday morning in a surprising move that bolstered a banged-up unit at the conclusion of training camp in Albany. Andrews, 27, was a first-round draft pick and a two-time Pro Bowl guard with the Philadelphia Eagles, but he has played only two games in the last two seasons — none in 2009 — because of a back injury. The Eagles released him after he failed a physical in March. “Our personnel staff has been monitoring Shawn’s progress for a while now,” Reese said Friday in a statement. “He looks great and had a very good workout for us yesterday.” The Giants’ offensive line has struggled to stay healthy. Chris Snee, the right guard, has been limited with swelling in his left knee. Rich Seubert, the left guard, has missed time with a broken left hand. Neither will play against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday at New Meadowlands Stadium. As a result of the injuries, players on the offensive line had to be shuffled in training camp. The Giants have used Guy Whimper at right guard and moved David Diehl to left guard, from left tackle. William Beatty has played left tackle. Coughlin dismissed the suggestion that Andrews, who is 6 feet 4 inches and 330 pounds, was signed because of injury concerns on the line. “He’s just another quality football player that helps us,” Coughlin told reporters in Albany. If Andrews is healthy, he is very talented and versatile enough to play guard or tackle. Andrews signed a six-year contract, his agent, Rich Moran, said in an e-mail. The deal is likely to be full of performance-based incentives, which would mean the Giants took little financial risk signing Andrews. (To make room on the roster, the Giants waived offensive lineman Cliff Louis.) “I’ve put myself through various tests,” Andrews said, “and the only test for football really is getting on the field and just kind of going slow — a few plays here, see how the back holds up. I’m laying it all on the line.” The Eagles drafted Andrews in the first round in 2004, and his career in Philadelphia was equally decorated and injury-riddled. He broke his right leg in the season opener as a rookie, then missed the rest of the season. His agility and quickness off the ball helped earn him trips to the Pro Bowl in 2006 and 2007. Before the 2008 season, however, Andrews did not show up for the start of training camp. Later, he said he was suffering from depression . He sought counseling and took antidepressant medication. “My head is in the game,” Andrews said. “It’s always been in the game.” Perhaps the bigger issue in Andrews’s career has been the back problems that have nagged him since he rejoined the Eagles in 2008. He started the first two games that year, then the Eagles placed him on injured reserve. He reinjured his back last summer and spent another year on injured reserve. For the last 10 months, Andrews has been rehabilitating in Los Angeles after his second back operation. “The past is the past,” Andrews said. “The only time I look in the rearview is for the cops, and I don’t speed.”

Football
Andrews Shawn
New York Giants
Free Agents (Sports)
Sports Injuries


Detroit to Cut City Workers’ Pay and Benefits

Abstract: Over the objections of union leaders and a majority of City Council members, the City of Detroit is cutting the pay and toughening work rules for many of its unionized workers, Mayor Dave Bing said on Wednesday. The move, aimed at saving $102 million a year in a city so financially troubled that its leaders announced this year that it was at risk of running out of cash entirely, is perhaps the most significant result so far of Detroit’s reluctant decision to allow formal state oversight of its finances. Under a deal that the city entered into in April in order to prevent an outside, emergency manager from taking control of the city, sharp cuts in new contracts for workers were permitted, with or without union approval. “This is a tough day for me, a tough day for city workers and a tough day for all of Detroit,” Mayor Bing said, announcing 10 percent wage cuts that will affect many of the city’s nearly 50 unions. Among the city’s financial problems — which include long-term debts of $12 billion — was its annually spending $150 million beyond its means, then borrowing millions more to cover the shortfall, Mr. Bing said. “Without action, the city will shut down,” he said. For City Council members, the result was a sign of their newfound weakness: The Council voted 5-to-4 on Tuesday to reject the cuts to workers’ pay and benefits, but the rejection was trumped by approval from the administration and an advisory board, appointed by state and city officials as part of Michigan’s broad oversight powers. Union leaders, many of whom had negotiated with Mr. Bing’s administration months ago and said they had reached tentative deals, including sacrifices from workers in pay and benefits, only to have them swept aside, were furious. According to Mr. Bing’s office, city employees face pay cuts, a shift from rules of seniority for transfers and promotions, a reduction in additional pay for afternoon and nighttime shift work, an end to supplemental unemployment benefits beyond legal requirements, and more. About 11,000 people work for the City of Detroit, a number that officials expect to cut by nearly 1,000 by the end of 2012. “This isn’t about all this other stuff they’re saying — it all goes to one goal,” said Ed McNeil, a local council official for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees . “The real goal is to get rid of union employees, to gut the union contracts.”

Finances
Detroit (Mich)
Bing Dave
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Wages and Salaries
Organized Labor


Yahoo Will Enter Daily Fantasy Sports Market

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Even as legalized gambling has spread nationwide to include lotteries, casinos and just about every imaginable type of slot machine, the notion of betting on sports has remained, outside of Las Vegas, largely in the shadows. But on Wednesday, Yahoo took the boldest step yet to bring what amounts to legalized betting on sports to the mainstream. The Silicon Valley company, which has been broadening its range of sports content, said it would host daily and one-week fantasy sports games played for money, starting with Major League Baseball and expanding to other professional sports as their seasons begin. As any viewer of ESPN would know, the fantasy sports industry has been growing rapidly, with ubiquitous ads proclaiming that hundreds of thousands of dollars can be won on sites like DraftKings and FanDuel. But none of those companies, all start-ups, have the vast reach of Yahoo and the ability to entice tens of millions of young men — a coveted audience — to bet on the performance of their favorite players. Yahoo’s move further legitimizes a pastime that closely resembles gambling, particularly with the daily fantasy games. Players can bet against a single opponent or within a small group, and the quick results can simulate the adrenaline rush and financial stakes of traditional sports betting. Fantasy sports operate under an exemption to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 , which outlawed online poker and sports betting. Lobbyists from the National Football League , as well as from other professional leagues, successfully pushed to have fantasy sports deemed a “game of skill.” Most states permit the games, but the betting is illegal in five: Arizona, Montana, Louisiana, Iowa and Washington. Ken Fuchs, Yahoo’s vice president for publisher products, said that fantasy sports were different from gambling because they relied on the skills of the player. Yahoo already runs cash leagues for fantasy sports that last the length of a season, and the daily games are no different. “We stay very close to the laws,” Mr. Fuchs said. “We certainly encourage people to play responsibly.” Playing fantasy sports is one of the most popular pastimes for Internet users, with an estimated 57 million people in the United States and Canada participating this year, according to research conducted by Ipsos for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. Fans assemble rosters of real football, baseball or basketball players to create dream sports teams, then earn points based on how well those players perform in real games. Participants tend to be avid, spending an average of $465 a year on contest fees and materials, according to the Ipsos research. The N.F.L., National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball — traditionally ferocious opponents of betting on their sports — were the first to embrace gambling on fantasy sports, aware that the passion for it is crucial to their bottom lines. ESPN, CBS and Yahoo, among others, have since built season-long fantasy sports into a major business by hosting leagues, with contests that stretch out over months. Different flavors of fantasy sports have sprouted up, with daily fantasy sports growing rapidly over the last two years, fueled partly by the instant gratification they provide players who can win money daily. Entry fees for contests range from 25 cents to $1,000, and total prize pools range from $54 to $100,000, with some tournaments offering pots of $1 million or more. Eilers Research, which studies the industry, estimates that daily games will generate around $2.6 billion in entry fees this year and grow 41 percent annually, reaching $14.4 billion in 2020. Like other companies in the industry, Yahoo will keep about 10 percent of the fees as revenue and distribute the rest as winnings. If Yahoo got just a slice of that, its profits could mount quickly. Yahoo said tens of millions of people already play Yahoo Fantasy Sports, spending an average of 500 minutes a month at the site, and many of those people have been playing daily games elsewhere. Image With its new daily and one-week fantasy sports games, Yahoo is entering a fast-growing market that could bring it hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times In addition to revenue from entry fees, Yahoo might sell sponsorships or ads around the contests. Yahoo has been hosting fantasy sports for over 16 years, and it operates a leading sports news site. Last month, Yahoo said it had struck an exclusive deal with the N.F.L. to host the first free, live global webcast of a regular season game, between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars in October. For now, Yahoo is offering the daily fantasy games only in the United States. Players can play on desktop computers, a mobile website or an iPhone app. The company is initially offering $6,500 cash prizes in some games that are free to enter. It is also guaranteeing to pay prizes in some games, even if too few players pay the entry fee to cover the pot. Kathy Savitt, Yahoo’s chief marketing officer, said that adding daily fantasy games was a logical extension of the company’s longstanding commitment to serving sports fans. “We try to use the sports fans as a compass,” she said. “We’re focused on what do sports fans want and how do we delight them.” Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, had hinted in April that she was planning an expansion into daily play. “We believe this is an area where Yahoo can and should compete,” Ms. Mayer told investors in a conference call regarding the financial results of the company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. FanDuel and DraftKings, which dominate the daily sports niche, have drawn the interest of big investors. FanDuel, the market leader, has raised $88 million from investors like Comcast, NBC, KKR and Shamrock Ventures. DraftKings has raised about $76 million from investors like Atlas Venture and Redpoint Ventures. The N.B.A. has a stake in FanDuel, and the site has signed exclusive multiyear deals with 13 basketball teams and CBS Sports. Major League Baseball has thrown in with DraftKings, which now has an exclusive deal with ESPN. Both companies have been valued at $1 billion, though neither has turned a profit. And both have pursued high-profile sponsorships: Floyd Mayweather wore a FanDuel logo on his trunks in May when he defeated Manny Pacquiao . Last month, DraftKings sponsored the Belmont Stakes , where American Pharoah became the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. “Last year, the two combined to spend $100 million,” said Adam Krejcik, a managing director at Eilers Research. “This year, each will spend that amount on marketing and advertising. They are spending absolutely crazy.” Michael Rathburn, who tracks the industry for Rotowire.com, said Yahoo’s entry into daily games would attract new players to the market. “Its existing base is massive, and Yahoo is making it easy for them to play daily,” he said. “It isn’t like people are going to abandon DraftKings and FanDuel. They just have another outlet.” Fantasy sports place a premium on data, and technological and statistical advances have made a nearly infinite amount of information available instantly and for sale. “The leagues are poised to profit from daily fantasy in so many ways,” said Daniel L. Wallach, a sports and gambling lawyer at Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “They can sell their data to fans, sell more advertising and signage in and out of their arenas and command more for television rights.”

Fantasy sport
Gambling
Baseball
Yahoo!
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


A Red Sox Lineup of Less Power, but More Patience

Abstract: BOSTON There is a good chance that Terry Francona the player could not have played for Terry Francona the manager. As a player, Francona had 1,826 plate appearances in the major leagues and only 65 walks. He could not work the count, and he did not try. “I knew I couldn’t do it,” Francona said Tuesday. “If a pitcher threw a ball where I could handle it, I could get a hit. I couldn’t sit there and differentiate between this and this. I knew that. That was not a good feeling.” As the manager of the Boston Red Sox , Francona believes in a lineup that makes pitchers work. Every team seeks that, to some degree, but it is ingrained in the Red Sox’ philosophy. With their offense in transition, they believe it can remain a guiding principle. The Red Sox lost Jason Bay to the Mets last winter after Bay led the team in home runs, with 36. ( David Ortiz was next, with 28.) They added Mike Cameron to their outfield and revamped the left side of their infield with third baseman Adrian Beltre and shortstop Marco Scutaro. The emphasis was on run prevention, not run production. So far, the Red Sox’ hitters have seemed fine. They forced A. J. Burnett to throw 94 pitches in five innings Tuesday before the Yankees stymied them in a 6-4 loss. On opening night Sunday, the Red Sox battered the Yankees in a 9-7 victory . Francona joked Tuesday that if Boston had been shut out, he would have had to defend its offense. The Red Sox are used to doing that after losing Bay. “We’ve still got some pretty good players here,” the Boston hitting coach Dave Magadan said. “We don’t have anybody back on this team that hit 30 home runs last year. I guess if David had hit two more home runs, nobody would have said anything, but he hit 28. It’s semantics, man. I’ll take our lineup. We’ve got a nice, balanced lineup. Just like any other team, we’re going to hit some rough spots.” Magadan was a much more patient hitter than Francona, with a .390 on-base percentage across 16 seasons. (Francona’s was .300.) According to Baseball-Reference.com , Magadan averaged 4.11 pitches per plate appearance, well above the major league average during his career, 3.68. Cameron, Scutaro and Beltre have also averaged more pitches per plate appearance than the league average in their careers. Beltre is considered more of a free swinger, but generally, the newcomers fit the Red Sox mold. “We have a lot of talent in this room and a lot of talent in our lineup,” Cameron said. “We may not have the best lineup, so to speak, but we’ve got some guys in here who know how to hit the ball. You see it pretty much with the at-bats the guys are having up there. They battle you. That kind of sets it in my body a little bit, kind of creates that type of mentality: you go up there and start to grind a little bit more.” Magadan explained that when a pitcher does not fear a lineup, he will challenge hitters with fastballs to get ahead in the count. When he respects a lineup, he will pitch to the corners, reducing his margin for error and increasing his chances of falling behind. After losing a 5-1 lead in the opener, the Yankees’ C. C. Sabathia said he nibbled too much instead of attacking the bottom of the Boston lineup. That part of the order is improved from last season — catcher Jason Varitek is on the bench, and Scutaro has stabilized shortstop — and Sabathia showed that pitchers might fear it more now. “They’ve got a lot of veteran hitters that make you put the ball over the plate,” Sabathia said. “They make you throw strikes. I’m throwing changeups and I feel like they’re pretty good, and they’re taking them.” Last year, the Red Sox saw an average of 3.94 pitches per plate appearance, above the league average of 3.84. They also ranked second to the Yankees in walks . Like Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, who starts on Wednesday, lamented the way the Red Sox still take or foul off good pitches. “It’s like, all right, now where do I go, because that was supposed to be my pitch,” Pettitte said. “Stuff like that is what makes it tough.” Magadan said he never encourages hitters to draw more walks, stressing the need to understand what pitches each hitter can drive and to look for those pitches before reaching two strikes. That approach has served the Red Sox well, and they believe it will continue. “We’re going to fight,” Dustin Pedroia said. “When you look one through nine, we’re going to put good at-bats together. Everyone’s going to go up there and grind. If we do that consistently, we’re going to be a real good offensive team.”

Boston Red Sox
Baseball
Francona Terry
Bay Jason
Ortiz David


Heartland of Thailand, Still Angry and Divided

Abstract: UDON THANI, Thailand — “Hello, Abhisit!” shouted a young man, holding an imaginary telephone with an imaginary connection to the prime minister. “Thank you for giving us stupid buffaloes this train! Too bad you killed us!” As the sun rose over the familiar rice fields of home after an overnight train ride paid for by the government, another man banged a plastic jug against the back of a seat and chanted, “We are in the red zone, we are in the red zone.” After two months in the stifling urban canyon of central Bangkok, and two days after a military crackdown in which 15 people were killed, the antigovernment protesters known as the red shirts were arriving home to a world they had helped change, an increasingly hardened, divided and angry society. Udon Thani Province, a rural area that is considered the heartland of the opposition, sent thousands of its sons and daughters to confront the government in Bangkok, and the people who returned home aboard Train 133 on Friday morning sounded a militant note. “I think the red shirt movement has gotten stronger,” said Yongyut Phasue, 40, a farmer who had spent two months on the protest barricades with a slingshot. “The shooting actually makes the red movement grow. There are still no winners or losers. But more will happen. I don’t know what it will be.” The protesters were demanding that the government step down, but their broader call was for what they called fairness and equality. “Everywhere in the world, development has arrived,” Mr. Yongyut said. “The problem is we are slower, and we remain behind.” On Wednesday, the day Bangkok burned as department stores, the stock exchange and bank buildings were set on fire, Udon Thani, the province’s capital city, burned too. It was one of four cities in northeastern Thailand , an area of hard-core red shirt support, where crowds set fire to their city halls. The protesters returned with horrifying videos of the violence in Bangkok prepared by protest organizers. Rumors swelled that hundreds, or even thousands, had died in the streets, fueling talk of revenge. In Bangkok, meanwhile, middle-class residents gathered Sunday in the abandoned protest areas with mops and brooms, lavatory brushes and even toothbrushes, scrubbing the streets and sidewalks and gutters and walls to reclaim their city. Here in Udon Thani, local leaders rejected the healing words of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva , their anger and determination still raw. “I don’t think we should use the words compromise and reconciliation,” said Natthayot Phajuang, a local protest leader, who was planning to turn himself in for questioning by security officials concerning his role in the demonstrations. “We stay where we are; you stay where you are,” he said. “Compromise is finished, and the land of smiles will not exist.” He was speaking late Friday evening with friends in what he said was a solid red zone of the city, a neighborhood named Vaesine, the Thai spelling of Versailles. “No, no, no, no more smiles!” said Cheewanant Chandabao, a homemaker, who wore a freshly ironed red T-shirt. She said she would never think of asking to borrow fish sauce from a neighbor who supported the government — the people known as the yellow shirts. The reds, some of whom live in comfortable brick houses and own motorcycles and even cars, said they were looked down on as uneducated “buffaloes” by the well-fed, yellow-shirt elite. “We walk in a different way,” Mr. Natthayot said. “The way of thinking is different. The way of living is different. The yellow look at us as lower class, not smart.” From now on, said Prayad Pimpa, an announcer on a community radio station, red shirts will smile only with red shirts, and yellows only with yellows. “The first consideration when you talk to people is, ‘Who are you, are you red or yellow?’ ” he said. “This is the first priority. Then once the conversation has started, you will know who to hate. It’s happening in Udon, and it seems like it’s spreading around the whole country.” There are 1.5 million people in Udon Thani Province, but the capital city has the feel of a small town, a town where everybody knows your color. A driver ticked off the businesses as he slowly cruised the main shopping street: If-off Videos (red), Somsak Pharmacy (yellow), Tangthea Whisky Shop (red), Beautiful Optical Shop (yellow), D’Arte Shoeshop (red), Tulip Bedding (red), Superware Kitchenware (red), Hotel Napuali (yellow), Hia Guang Rice Soup (red). How does he know all this, the driver, a university professor, was asked. “I live here,” he said. At a small private school near the center of the city, several locally prominent yellow shirts said they saw the reds as underprivileged people who had been manipulated into class hatred by the propaganda of their leaders. “What we have to accept is that most of them are from the countryside, less educated, and abandoned by the government for so long,” said Naengnoi Yanwaree, a professor of education. “They are fed by community radio with wrong information, hate, anger, hatred of the yellows, hatred of the monarchy,” she said. Among some red shirts here, there was remarkably open talk about the role of the monarchy, a taboo with teeth: a potential 15-year prison term for insulting the king or the royal family that chokes off most discussion of the subject. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 82, has not spoken out to calm the violence, as he has at past moments of crisis, and some of the red shirts say they believe that he — or at least his courtiers — supports the yellow movement and the traditional establishment it represents. “Deep inside, we are worried that the palace supports them, but we cannot talk about this,” Mr. Prayad, the radio announcer, said. “It seems that the king is on the opposite side of the reds. Or that could be wrong.” While presenting his words as the feelings of others, Mr. Prayad went so far as to use a phrase that means “overthrow the monarchy,” and he talked about the possibility of a republican future without a monarchy. He added: “We feel like we’ve been attacked, so from now on we’ll go underground, and we’ll come up stronger. It’s endless. It’s not finished yet.” On the day Udon Thani burned, Lt. Col. Kositpong Nin-ake of the army said, he was unable to stop the protesters without using an unacceptable level of force. “They are not my enemy,” he said. “Whatever the color of their shirt, they are not my enemy.” But he acknowledged that his nation’s crisis would not be easily resolved. The solution he said he hoped for was not a military or even a political one. “We are all Thais, and we have a feeling here that there could be a miracle,” he said. “Something good could happen. It could be goodness. A miracle could happen.”

Thailand
Abhisit Vejjajiva
Demonstrations and Riots
Economic Conditions and Trends
Politics and Government
Bangkok (Thailand)


U.S. Moves Against Top Mexican Drug Cartel

Abstract: PHOENIX — Calling Mexican drug trafficking organizations “a national security threat,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced Wednesday that federal authorities had mounted their biggest assault against one of Mexico ’s most powerful drug cartels. More than 750 people nationwide have been arrested, tons of cocaine and marijuana have been seized and the distribution of drugs has been disrupted through a series of raids and arrests as part of an investigation begun under the Bush administration 21 months ago, Mr. Holder said. The operation comes at a time of rising concern over Mexico’s drug violence and the reach of trafficking organizations into the United States. It has focused on the Sinaloa cartel and culminated with a wave of arrests, unsealed indictments and seizures on Tuesday and early Wednesday in California, Maryland and Minnesota. The Sinaloa organization, based in Sinaloa State in northwest Mexico, is one of the oldest cartels and has been blamed for a large share of the spiraling violence in the country that has left more than 6,000 people dead in the past year amid turf wars and a government crackdown on their operations. “From Washington to Maine, we have disrupted this cartel’s domestic operations,” Michele M. Leonhart, the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a statement before a news conference in Washington with Mr. Holder. The investigation, known as Operation Xcellerator, included the arrest of 755 people, among them leaders of the cartel’s cells based in the United States that helped transport and distribute drugs, Ms. Leonhart said. She said the arrests had also “seriously impacted” the cartel’s Canadian operations. The authorities said they seized $59.1 million in cash, more than 13 tons of cocaine, 8 tons of marijuana, more than a half-ton of methamphetamine and lesser amounts of other illicit drugs. Agents confiscated 149 vehicles, 3 aircraft, 3 vessels and 169 weapons, the officials said. In the crackdown announced Wednesday, federal authorities said the Sinaloa cartel had established “an enterprise of distribution cells” in the United States and Canada. It was unclear how many of those arrested were considered members of the cartel, but officials said they all played a role, some of them vital, in distributing its drugs. They were charged with offenses including money laundering, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to import controlled substances. Mr. Holder pledged more crackdowns on the Sinaloa cartel and others, in cooperation with Mexican law enforcement agencies. “International drug-trafficking organizations pose a sustained, serious threat to the safety and security of our communities,” he said, adding, “They are a national security threat.” The announcement came a day after Mr. Holder met with Mexico’s attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora, who has expressed frustration with the flow of cash and guns, including military-style rifles, to Mexico from the United States, including a significant amount from Arizona. Other Mexican officials have also complained that their country pays the price for the worldwide demand for illegal drugs, with the United States the largest market. In the past year, local and federal officials have grown increasingly worried about the drug war in Mexico and its repercussions in the United States. A federal report in December said the cartels’ distribution network had reached 230 United States cities and towns, several far from the border. There is growing worry among border states that the bloodshed in Mexico, including beheadings and mutilations of drug war combatants and police and military officers, will cross into the United States. Officials in Arizona this week said a gun battle last November in Nogales, Sonora, just across the border in Mexico, left the police there running out of ammunition. A top police official was also killed there that month one day after attending a cross-border law enforcement conference in Tucson, while Ciudad Juárez, just across from El Paso, has emerged as one of that country’s bloodiest towns.

Cartels
Mexico
Drug Abuse and Traffic
United States Armament and Defense
Holder Eric H Jr


For the Love of Soccer and a Lasting Sisterhood

Abstract: Tzaneen, South Africa About 1:45 p.m. Sunday afternoon, a caravan of luxury cars and sport utility vehicles roared into the park where hundreds of supporters had been waiting. President Jacob Zuma had arrived. The president was in this town, about 260 miles northeast of Johannesburg, to commemorate the life of Peter Mokaba, an antiapartheid activist. Five days before the start of the World Cup, the stars of the celebration were a soccer team — a group of 35 women ages 49 to 84. After the speeches and ceremonies, the team, Vakhegula Vakhegula (Grannies Grannies), would play an exhibition game. Beka Ntsanwisi founded Vakhegula Vakhegula five years ago as a way of providing inspiration for older women. The team usually plays its league games on Saturdays, but this was a special day with the president coming. And Ntsanwisi wanted to have a word with the president. From the team’s meager beginning, Vakhegula Vakhegula have become well known in the region, and news of the team has spread to the United States. The team received an invitation to compete in the Veterans Cup , a tournament for teams with players 30 or older, next month in Lancaster, Mass. But the Grannies need additional money to take the trip. Ntsanwisi said she wanted to ask the president to support the fund-raising effort to send Vakhegula Vakhegula to the United States. “Because the president is coming, we just want to go straight to him and cry before him that ‘Hey, here we are, we need money. We voted for you and now we need your support because we are representing South Africa,’ ” she said. Zuma apparently left without seeing Vakhegula Vakhegula earn an 8-0 victory over a newcomer to the grannies’ game, the Waterfall Grannie Soccer team. The grandmothers will not be mistaken for a national team; they play at a deliberate but purposeful pace and with plenty of passion. They play on a modest park field, a world away from the new stadium, named after Mokaba, in nearby Polokwane, which is hosting four first-round World Cup games. Ntsanwisi’s decision to found the team came out of her own sense of personal challenge. In 2003, she learned she had colon cancer; by 2005, she was using a wheelchair. In the process of her treatment, Ntsanwisi visited a number of public hospitals and was disturbed by the level of treatment of elderly patients, especially women. Many were despondent or confused. She thought that regular exercise would be beneficial. That exercise evolved into soccer. When they were girls, playing sports was not a realistic option. “In my generation, it was not like it is today,” Ntsanwisi said. “When you played soccer, you were a little bit afraid. Our culture was like that. Our culture would tell you that a woman has to be home cooking for the husband or cooking for the family.” The team’s leading scorer is Beatrice Tshabala, a relative baby at 49. Her nickname on the team is Lionel Messi , after the Argentine star. She recalled how she saw the team practicing on her way home from work. She stopped the car and went to talk to the players. She asked what they were doing and if she could join. When Tshabala’s husband died in 2005, the Grannies became her extended family to share the grief and sorrow. “Even if we’re not playing, I go to their house, we talk and pray and whatever,” Tshabala said. “So at church I’m busy, at work and then with the grannies, I don’t have time to sit down and mourn every day.” For Onica Ndzhovela, the Grannies helped her spirit from being broken. She had 12 children; 8 of them died. “People were saying I was mad,” Ndzhovela said. “I was not mad; I had a lot of stress. It’s not easy to lose eight.” The Grannies became her family; the soccer competition became an emotional outlet. Ntsanwisi wants to spread the word of eternal sisterhood that ages but never dies. With the World Cup in South Africa, the timing for spreading the word could not be better. Her cancer is in remission, but she stays focused on her legacy. “I’m hoping for the best, but even if I die, I just want to leave a legacy, something that people will remember me by,” she said. “Even if I’m not here, somebody will say, ‘Beka started this.’ ”

Soccer
South Africa
Elderly
World Cup 2010 (Soccer)
Women and Girls
Zuma Jacob G
Messi Lionel


Pilgrims’ Long Journey, Even Before No. 5 Train

Abstract: The Pequeño family from Spring, Tex., on the final leg of their pilgrimage to see Pope Benedict XVI , arrived in New York City this weekend ready for another test of faith. They were not ready for the subway system. Saturday was the seventh day of the Pequeños’ journey to Washington and New York, and the family — Ricardo and his wife, Maria, and their children, Ricky, 17, Andrea, 11, Rachel, 8, and Emily, 3 — had gotten up at 5:30 a.m. in the Bronx to cheer the pontiff on his way to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Mass. With 73 fellow Roman Catholic Texans, all followers of an exuberant early Christian revival movement, the Neocatechumenal Way, they struggled with the ticketing machines and turnstiles at the station at 149th Street and Third Avenue and then waited for a southbound train to Manhattan. When a No. 5 arrived, they surged aboard in a tide of strollers, banners, guitars, tambourines and drums. Then someone yelled in Spanish, “It’s not the train!” Many of the Texans doubled back out to the platform, where someone else yelled, “It is, get on!” Back in they started, until the cry came: “No!” “Yes!” The doors closed, and the train started off. Mr. Pequeño looked around and panicked: No Mrs. Pequeño. No Emily. They were in the next car, close to tears themselves. But soon the group, happily reunited, was spread along Fifth Avenue, lining the barricades and cheering yet another Benedict-sighting on the last leg of their trip before beginning the 2,000-mile drive home late Saturday. “I saw him for the fourth time!” squealed Rachel. Four hours later, with the Pequeños and their fellow pilgrims still singing and dancing behind the barricades, Benedict passed again, this time northbound in the Popemobile, and Rachel, although jostled by the crowd, caught it on video. “That was one of the best, but he turned away,” said Ricky, already a connoisseur of papal processions. He was the only member of the family with a ticket to any of the official events — he attended the Mass on Thursday in Nationals Park in Washington — and he said it had left him with deepened faith, although he remained undecided on whether to become a priest. “When I get home I’m going to sit down and think about it,” Ricky said. But seeing the pope was less important than letting him see them, said Rosalind Alvarez, one of the pilgrims from Houston. “I want the pope to see I am supporting him, so he will know there are people willing to follow him,” Ms. Alvarez said. The Pequeños, who say that as followers of the Neocatechumenal Way they are obligated to spread the word of God, perform church missions and sacrifice to aid the needy, have found their pilgrimage fittingly demanding. Just as they had gotten lost at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday finding their way into Washington, they got lost in the Bronx, arriving at 3 a.m. on Friday at the Church of St. Rita of Cascia in the Mott Haven section, where they and the other Texas pilgrims had arranged to be housed, the women sleeping on the gym floor and the men in the classrooms. But even at that hour, the Rev. Jose Gutierrez was waiting with hot soup. After a few hours’ sleep and a church breakfast of coffee and doughnuts, they set off, guided by Dario Rincon, a Texas colleague and onetime New Jersey resident who is familiar with the city. They took the subway to Grand Central Station and walked to the United Nations, hoping to catch a glimpse of the pope leaving after his speech. But they missed him. Instead, the group walked, singing, to St. Patrick’s where Mr. Pequeño seemed doubtful that the chaotic scene could be tamed in time for the papal Mass the next day. Inside, the family marveled at the soaring apse and stained glass, snapped photos, and spent a moment in a pew in quiet prayer. On the street the group passed men with wires coming out of their ears, and one of the teenagers stopped to ask one, “Are you part of the Secret Service?” “Yes, I am,” he said. The boy could not resist wisecracking: “Well, it won’t be secret no more.” Later, in fulfillment of other obligations of the pilgrimage, Mr. Rincon led the group to the A train and a ride to Washington Heights and the shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, known as Mother Cabrini, the first American citizen to be canonized. Saturday evening, the Pequeños in their S.U.V. and 12 neighbors in a van followed chartered buses carrying the rest of the Texas contingent to the Prudential Center in Newark for a large Mass with other Neocatechumenal followers. Then the Pequeños set off for home. “I know I’ll miss this,” said Ricky, a high school junior who did not much mind a week out of school. “I wish it never stopped. Pilgrimages don’t necessarily have to be the pope. I could just do pilgrimages.” Mr. Pequeño admitted to having had a moment of doubt and to considering cutting the trip short after Washington. “I was thinking I might as well go back and save myself time, the kids time — the pilgrimage is almost over,” he said. But he said: “I’m glad I didn’t go back, because I saw something the next day that was a gift from the Lord. I had an experience that touched my heart.” Asked what it was, Mr. Pequeño shook his head. “I want to keep it for myself,” he said.

Popes
Benedict XVI
New York City
Subways
Roman Catholic Church
Families and Family Life
Pequeño Ricardo