5 Die in Fire That Destroys 3 Homes in New Jersey

Abstract: EAST ORANGE, N.J. — Five people, including a 6-week-old girl, died in a fire Sunday morning in East Orange, N.J., that also left three houses uninhabitable, the Essex County prosecutor’s office said. A woman was rescued from a ledge on the third story of the house where the blaze started at 16 North 17th Street, local officials said. The fire spread quickly to the houses on either side — all wood-frame, vinyl-sided 19th-century structures that were built fewer than two feet apart. One neighboring house was vacant, and the only person in the other escaped with no injuries. The prosecutor’s office identified the victims as Alice Horton, 79; Ronnie Horton, 60; Randy Horton, 56; Breiona Love, 20; and Lanore Carter-Love, the infant. The woman who was rescued and the person who escaped were not identified. The fire was reported at 6:08 a.m., drawing about 80 firefighters from seven districts, said Connie Jackson, a spokeswoman for the East Orange mayor’s office. On Sunday afternoon, as about a dozen firefighters continued to battle the fire, a group of neighbors huddled together in the cold on the corner. A few were in tears. Others hugged, their shoulders hunched. Strong winds blew up the block, bringing the smell of smoke with it. “This is one of the most serious fires we’ve had in several years,” said Christopher Weiss, the deputy chief of the East Orange Fire Department, noting that the homes on the block, built in the 1880s and 1890s, are some of the oldest in East Orange, a working-class city near Newark. “That’s 130 years for the wood to dry and age, which just makes it much more of a tinderbox.” The prosecutor’s office is investigating the cause, but Mr. Weiss and Ms. Jackson said the heavy wind helped drive the fire. Shaun Vasquez, who lives about half a block from the house where the fire started, recalled waking to screams of “Before Christmas! Not before Christmas!” Fire trucks had filled the street, Mr. Vasquez said, and orange flames and smoke leapt above the roof of the house. Other neighbors had been awakened around 5 a.m. by what sounded like an explosion, said Sherese Moore, 48, who lives across the street from the scene of the fire and had spoken to residents of her building who heard the explosion. Image A firefighter inspecting the second floor of the home. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times When Ms. Moore went outside, emergency workers were trying to restrain a crying man who was shouting that he wanted to go into the burning house to rescue the infant. “It’s my baby,” she said he screamed. “That’s my baby in that house.” Ms. Moore said she knew about the family who lived in the home from her aunt, a friend of the family. Randy Horton worked as a mechanic and, along with his brother, Ronnie, cared for their mother, Alice, who was bedridden, Ms. Moore said. The family had recently bought a house in Georgia and had planned to move there soon, Ms. Moore said. Much of the main house was a blackened shell on Sunday afternoon, charred and shredded by the fire. Its top floor was nearly gutted, as was its back. Neighboring houses had not fared much better: The back of one, and part of another, had collapsed into a smoldering heap of debris and belongings. “The house is finished, demolished,” Ms. Moore said. “It’s just standing on its last legs. It’s just really sad.”

Fires
Fatalities,casualties
East Orange NJ


Sharing the Wealth at MTV

Abstract: A WEEK before Viacom announced that it would make video content available online through a site called Joost, the Viacom-owned MTV Networks said that it would soon allow other Web sites to embed video clips from its own sites: MTV.com, VH1.com, Comedycentral.com , BET.com and others. “We need to open up our Web sites and content both for consumers and for other companies,” Mika Salmi, MTV Networks’ president of global digital media, told Reuters, which said the move was “part of a strategy to bring Viacom’s Web sites up to ‘Web 2.0’ standards.” If so, it is a new strategy. For most of its history, the MTV sites have been anything but open. Until recently, clips from Comedy Central were available only to those using the Internet Explorer browser, and Macintosh users who wanted to watch a video on VH1’s VSpot broadband service were out of luck. And even now, trying to find a clip from, say, “The Daily Show” often requires an infuriating amount of searching and drilling down through several clicks. And forget about sending your friend a link directly to the video — it cannot be done. Still, the sites have improved. And GigaOM’s Om Malik praised the MTV Networks decision to let users embed videos, writing this week that it served as evidence that the people at Viacom “seem to be correcting themselves on many fronts” ( gigaom.com ). And it could make up for much of the promotional boost Viacom lost when it pulled its content from YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Google. The Joost deal may improve things, depending largely on how user-friendly the site is. Unlike YouTube, Joost will feature clips and entire episodes, complete with commercials. And it does not allow users to upload videos. It is just TV on the Internet, so there are no depictions of teenagers re-enacting their favorite 50 Cent videos. Viacom’s decision to drop YouTube and hook up with Joost has drawn vitriol from the “big media must be toppled” crowd. Viacom will be sorry, wrote Stan Schroeder on his blog at Frantic Industries, because “big media companies are not giving the people what they want.” “They’re giving them what they, the companies, think they should have.” Of course, Viacom’s problem with YouTube arose because so many people want precisely what big media gives them: “The Daily Show,” “South Park,” music videos, “American Gangster.” As ever, the sticking point was money. Some are saying that Viacom may yet come to terms with YouTube, and the Joost deal may be, at least in part, a negotiating tactic. It will, writes “Mike” on TechDirt, allow Viacom to “go back to the folks at Google/YouTube and say “look, Joost is willing to pay us money!” in the hopes that it will convince YouTube to pay out as well.” Hot-Dog Defiance It seems only fitting: The first Chicago institution to be cited for circumventing the city’s new ban on foie gras is a Northwest Side hot-dog joint. But Hot Doug’s isn’t quite the standard under-the-el-tracks Chicago doggery ( hotdougs.com ). The dish that got the owner, Doug Sohn, busted was a “Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage With Truffle Sauce Moutarde and Armagnac-Truffle Chicken Mousse,” according to The Chicago Sun-Times. The price was $6.50. The Health Department hit Mr. Sohn with a $250 fine. “People are actually dying from the cold, and I’m getting hassled because of some sausage,” he told The Sun-Times on a day when the temperature hovered around zero. Mr. Sohn, who calls Hot Doug’s an “encased-meat emporium,” is an outspoken opponent of the ordinance. Those Pesky Allergies Jessica Simpson, a spokeswoman for Pizza Hut, has said that she is allergic to cheese, tomatoes and wheat, according to an article in Elle magazine. “You know,” writes Meghann Marco of The Consumerist, “it’s not that we require that every celebrity constantly use the product they’re shilling for, but we’d like to think that the spokesperson is able to eat the food without getting sick”. DAN MITCHELL

Joost
MTV Networks
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
Viacom Incorporated
Computers and the Internet


Vatican’s Celestial Eye, Seeking Not Angels but Data

Abstract: MOUNT GRAHAM, Ariz. — Fauré’s “Requiem” is playing in the background, followed by the Kronos Quartet. Every so often the music is interrupted by an electromechanical arpeggio — like a jazz riff on a clarinet — as the motors guiding the telescope spin up and down. A night of galaxy gazing is about to begin at the Vatican ’s observatory on Mount Graham. “Got it. O.K., it’s happy,” says Christopher J. Corbally, the Jesuit priest who is vice director of the Vatican Observatory Research Group, as he sits in the control room making adjustments. The idea is not to watch for omens or angels but to do workmanlike astronomy that fights the perception that science and Catholicism necessarily conflict. Last year, in an opening address at a conference in Rome, called “Science 400 Years After Galileo Galilei,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state of the Vatican, praised the church’s old antagonist as “a man of faith who saw nature as a book written by God.” In May, as part of the International Year of Astronomy, a Jesuit cultural center in Florence conducted “a historical, philosophical and theological re-examination” of the Galileo affair. But in the effort to rehabilitate the church’s image, nothing speaks louder than a paper by a Vatican astronomer in, say, The Astrophysical Journal or The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. On a clear spring night in Arizona, the focus is not on theology but on the long list of mundane tasks that bring a telescope to life. As it tracks the sky, the massive instrument glides on a ring of pressurized oil. Pumps must be activated, gauges checked, computers rebooted. The telescope’s electronic sensor, similar to the one in a digital camera, must be cooled with liquid nitrogen to keep the megapixels from fuzzing with quantum noise. As Dr. Corbally rushes from station to station flicking switches and turning dials, he seems less like a priest or even an astronomer than a maintenance engineer. Finally when everything is ready, starlight scooped up by the six-foot mirror is chopped into electronic bits, which are reconstituted as light on his video screen. “Much of observing these days is watching monitors and playing with computers,” Dr. Corbally says. “People say, ‘Oh, that must be so beautiful being out there looking at the sky.’ I tell them it’s great if you like watching TV.” Dressed in blue jeans and a work shirt, he is not a man who wears his religion on his sleeve. No grace is offered before a quick casserole dinner in the observatory kitchen. In fact, the only sign that the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope is fundamentally different from the others on Mount Graham, the home of an international astronomical complex operated by the University of Arizona, is a dedication plaque outside the door. “This new tower for studying the stars has been erected on this peaceful site,” it says in Latin. “May whoever searches here night and day the far reaches of space use it joyfully with the help of God.” At that point, religion leaves off and science begins. The Roman Catholic Church’s interest in the stars began with purely practical concerns when in the 16th century Pope Gregory XIII called on astronomy to correct for the fact that the Julian calendar had fallen out of sync with the sky. In 1789, the Vatican opened an observatory in the Tower of the Winds, which it later relocated to a hill behind St. Peter’s Dome. In the 1930s, church astronomers moved to Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s summer residence. As Rome’s illumination, the electrical kind, spread to the countryside, the church began looking for a mountaintop in a dark corner of Arizona. Building on Mount Graham was a struggle. Apaches said the observatory was an affront to the mountain spirits. Environmentalists said it was a menace to a subspecies of red squirrel. There were protests and threats of sabotage. It wasn’t until 1995, three years after the edict of Inquisition was lifted against Galileo, that the Vatican’s new telescope made its first scientific observations. The target tonight is three spiral galaxies — Nos. 3165, 3166, 3169 in the New General Catalog — lying about 60 million light-years from Earth , a little south of the constellation Leo. Sitting at a desk near Dr. Corbally is Aileen O’Donoghue, an astronomer from St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., who is interested in how these gravitational masses tug at one another, creating the stellar equivalent of tides. “Exposing, 30 minutes,” she says. As Celtic ballads play in the control room, data is sucked up by hard drives, and a column of numbers scrolls down her computer screen. Dr. O’Donoghue, who was raised Roman Catholic, is the author of “The Sky Is Not a Ceiling: An Astronomer’s Faith,” in which she describes how she lost and then rediscovered God “in the vastness, the weirdness, the abundance, the seeming nonsensicalness, and even the violence of this incredible universe.” In person she’s not nearly so intense. While waiting for an image to gel, she steps out on a balcony for a look at the unprocessed sky. The Beehive Cluster, one of the first things Galileo saw with his telescope, is sparkling in the constellation Cancer . Next to it is Leo, where Dr. O’Donoghue is looking for the gravitational tides. “It’s the real sky that matters,” she says. She describes how she makes her undergraduate students go outside and look at the Big Dipper at different times of the night. “They come back and say, ‘It moves!’ ” — words Galileo legendarily muttered after he was forced to recant. “You can tell students that the Earth rotates, but until they see that with their eyeballs, they’re not doing science,” she said. “You might as well be teaching theology and Scripture.” Back inside the control room she explains how the gravitational tides she is studying might be stellar nurseries. As one galaxy brushes by another, clouds of gas are stirred so violently that they give birth to stars. In the Vatican Observatory’s annual report, at the point where a corporation might describe its business strategy, is a section delineating the difference between creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing) and creatio continua: “the fact that at every instant, the continued existence of the universe itself is deliberately willed by God, who in this way is continually causing the universe to remain created.” Theologians call these “primary causes,” those that flow from the unmoved mover. Sitting atop this eternal platform is another layer, the “secondary causes,” which can be safely left to science. Dr. Corbally and Dr. O’Donoghue continue working through the night, collecting data on secondary causes — galactic tides, stellar birth. Sleep will wait until morning, and thoughts about primary causes for another time.

Roman Catholic Church
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Telescopes and Observatories
Science and Technology


When Victory Is Impossible: Reconciliation

Abstract: NEW YORK — Reconciliation, such a hopeful word, and in the affairs of men and women it has sometimes come about — witness Nelson Mandela’s efforts to seek it between black and white South Africans. word is being spoken again these days in a very different context, in connection with reports that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan , encouraged by Pakistan, wants to effect a reconciliation with the Taliban for the apparent purpose of reaching a sort of separate peace. “Very frankly, my view is that with regards to reconciliation,” Leon E. Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said over the weekend, referring to the Taliban, “unless they’re convinced that the United States is going to win and that they’re going to be defeated, I think it’s very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that’s going to be meaningful.” In general, history would seem to be on Mr. Panetta’s skeptical side, in particular the history of past U.S. efforts to effect reconciliation between weak governments and their rebellious opponents in previous Asian civil wars. The lesson would seem to be that former mortal enemies can be brought together, but usually only when both sides feel that victory can no longer be achieved. “Reconciliation grows out of stalemate,” said Andrew Nathan, a professor of political science at Columbia University in New York. “It’s not undertaken to help the other guy get out of a corner, but when one’s own options have run out at the same time as the other guy’s have.” “It’s been said that in politics there are no permanent friends,” Mr. Nathan continued, “and by the same token there are no permanent enemies.” The most conspicuous past attempt at effecting a peace between warring parties came in China just before and just after World War II, when a succession of U.S. mediators tried, entirely unsuccessfully, to bring the ruling Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek into a coalition government with the Communists under Mao Zedong. To be sure, the situation was very different from that of Afghanistan today, since all three parties at the time, the Nationalists, the Communists and the Americans, had a common adversary in Japan, and, indeed, the main initial goal of U.S. policy was to get the Chinese parties to cooperate so they could carry more of the burden of the anti-Japanese fight. Moreover, the Nationalists and the Communists were formally joined in what was called a United Front, so theoretically at least they had some basis on which to build a coalition government that would last after the war. Still, the mediation was a fiasco, especially that part of it conducted by the first of the U.S. mediators, an Oklahoman named Patrick J. Hurley, who arrived in the Communists’ wartime headquarters in remote Yenan in November 1944 sure that peace between the two Chinese parties was at hand. “Don’t worry,” he told one member of his staff, “I’ll bring these sides together. That’s what I’m here for” — this comment courtesy of Hannah Pakula in her book “The Last Empress,” a biography of Chiang Kai-shek’s wife. Hurley presented a coalition plan to Mao that he said was authorized by Chiang and whose terms were actually favorable to the Communists. The problem was that Chiang did not support the plan at all, whereupon Hurley gave unconditional support to the Nationalists even as he tried to persuade the Communists to go along. In the end, there was no reconciliation, and the Nationalists were kicked from power even as U.S. support for Chiang destroyed any hope that a working relationship could be built with Mao. A witness to the failure was Hurley’s interpreter, David D. Barrett, who was also the head of a U.S. observer group stationed at Yenan. His memoirs include a description of Hurley trying to persuade Mao to accept the minimal offer that Chiang was making, which, Hurley was arguing, gave the Communists a foot in the door. “Mao countered by saying that a foot in the door meant nothing if one’s hands were tied behind one’s back,” Barrett recalled. Despite efforts to get some Taliban to defect in current-day Afghanistan, no U.S. mediator striving to bring about reconciliation between the Taliban and Mr. Karzai, since the goal is to destroy the Taliban, not to incorporate it into the government. And yet, there are some striking similarities. As in China more than 60 years ago, the United States finds itself tied to a corrupt regime unpopular with many of its own people and facing a very determined and even enterprising foe. But the main similarity may lie in what would seem to be Mr. Panetta’s accurate appraisal of the Taliban and in the absence of any sign that it would want reconciliation and power-sharing just as things seem to be going well militarily for it. The Chinese precedent may be instructive here too. Mao, feeling that his power was growing and that the future belonged to him, cooperated in U.S.-sponsored reconciliation efforts not because he wanted them to succeed but because they helped him in his ultimate goal of total victory — by deterring the Americans from coming into the war even more forcefully on Chiang’s side. Chiang himself, it should be noted, understood Mao’s strategy perfectly well, which was why he had to be dragged unwillingly into the entire mediation attempt. He knew that in China ultimately it would be a fight to the finish, no matter how much Washington yearned for both sides to make nice. It’s possible of course that Mr. Karzai’s stated interest in an Afghan reconciliation is also just a tactic, in this instance part of an effort to put pressure on the United States and its coalition partners to step up their effort. Here, too, there’s an echo of the China case. As Ms. Pakula wrote in her biography of Madame Chiang, a senior Nationalist official, pressing for U.S. loans on favorable terms, hinted that the Japanese had recently made “some very good offers.” In other words, pay up or we’ll switch sides. But in reality there was no possibility for the Nationalists to switch sides and survive; one wonders if there is for Mr. Karzai.

Afghanistan
China
Karzai Hamid
World War II (1939-45)


Anna Fenninger Looks Forward to Facing Lindsey Vonn at Alpine Championships

Abstract: BOSTON — When the defending women’s overall champion is on the slopes during World Cup races, fans can expect to see the flash of a cheetah whiz by, too. For Anna Fenninger, the cheetah is her totem animal, one she has patterned on her helmet. It is an apt fit for Fenninger, a 25-year-old Austrian, who also won the Olympic gold medal in super-G last year. With an affinity for the world’s fastest mammal, Fenninger became an ambassador for the Cheetah Conservation Fund in 2013. “In one moment, they are so peaceful,” she said in November in Beaver Creek, Colo. “In the next, they are a killer.” Fenninger, quiet and solitary off the slopes, is a pure predator when it comes to skiing — graceful, agile, aggressive, and one of the fastest women in ski racing. Last February, Fenninger won gold in super-G and silver in giant slalom at the Olympics in Sochi, Russia. A little over a month later, she captured the World Cup giant slalom and overall titles, firmly establishing herself as one of the sport’s most dominant women. Fenninger’s best season to date came at a time when Lindsey Vonn, the American who on Monday became the winningest female World Cup ski racer with her 63rd victory , was sidelined with a knee injury. Fenninger is eager to prove that her 2014 success was not facilitated by Vonn’s absence. “It’s good for the whole ski circuit that Lindsey is back,” Fenninger said. “But I think there are about four to five girls, including me, who can beat her. Nobody is unbeatable.” Instead of linking her success to Vonn’s absence, Fenninger credits her failed 2010 Olympic bid. Going into the Vancouver Games, Fenninger, then 20, was a rising star on the Austrian team. She had placed fourth in super-G at the 2009 world championships in Val d’Isère, France, and was eager to prove herself on the global stage. But in Whistler, British Columbia, where the Olympic Alpine skiing events were held, she had trouble with the snow conditions, the news media frenzy and the pressure to perform. She walked away from the 2010 Games with 16th-place finishes in super-G and super combined, a 25th-place finish in downhill and a steely determination to redeem herself after her defeat. “I was really disappointed,” Fenninger said. “It was a bad experience for me. Then you have to wait four years.” Between the 2010 and 2014 Winter Games, Fenninger focused on one thing: Olympic glory. She hired a new service man, revamped her fitness routine, tested hundreds of skis and learned everything she could about her equipment. “It was like a new start,” she said. “It worked from the first day.” In February 2011, Fenninger won gold in super-G at the Alpine world championships in Garmisch, Germany, which helped her rediscover her faith in herself and her skiing. “I was world champion, but I hadn’t skied at my limit,” she said. “I knew there could be so much more. That was a really big step. Then every year, I got better and better, and I got my confidence back.” She moved up in the overall standings, from 12th in 2011 to fifth in 2012 to third in 2013 and finally to No. 1 in 2014, a year in which she collected two World Cup titles, two Olympic medals and redemption. “I had to learn a lot in those years between Vancouver and Sochi, and they were very important for my win in Sochi,” she said. Going into this weekend’s races in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Fenninger has five podium finishes this season, including one win, and is second in the overall standings, 331 points behind Tina Maze of Slovenia. Fenninger leads the super-G rankings after finishing second to Vonn on Monday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Although she is skiing well, Fenninger has struggled with delivering consistent results across all disciplines. “What is missing at the moment is the total consistency to be at the very top in every race,” said Meinhard Tatschl, a coach for the Austrian women’s team. Although Fenninger will not say so, there is something else in her way: Vonn. With five top-three finishes in the season’s eight speed events, Vonn has demonstrated that she is back in prime form after missing nearly two seasons because of an injured right knee. “I concentrate on my performance, and I always give my best,” Fenninger said. “I’m not thinking about the performance of others.” However, she said she looked forward to the matchup with Vonn at the Alpine world championships in Beaver Creek beginning Feb. 2. “I think the world champs could be very good for me,” Fenninger said. “It’s a very technical course, and I like the American snow. We’ll see what the world championships bring. Everything is possible.”

Anna Fenninger
Cheetah Conservation Fund
World Cup Skiing
Alpine skiing
Austria


Moves to Strengthen Disabled Access Law

Abstract: Peekskill ON a Saturday afternoon here in her hometown, Lisa Tarricone wants a cup of coffee from her local coffee shop. For Ms. Tarricone, a director at Westchester Independent Living Center who uses a wheelchair, that everyday wish brings a series of maneuvers. First is a call to the shop to ask that a rudimentary wooden ramp be positioned atop a deep step; then a request to an employee to prop open the door so Ms. Tarricone can use both arms to wheel herself up the nonregulation ramp (no handles; improper pitch); finally, the navigation of a crowd of customers that is complicated on this day by a performer stationed near the door. It is time-consuming and cumbersome “and all of it in front of an audience of people who are staring while you’re trying to get inside, maybe annoyed that you’re letting the air-conditioning out — just for the sake of a latte,” she said several days later. Life in a wheelchair is a series of carefully calculated moves, Ms. Tarricone said, and some of the obstacles are not merely inconvenient — they are also a violation of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, enacted 18 years ago last month. Advocates for people with disabilities hope such incidents of noncompliance will diminish with recent changes to state law that allow for a new level of enforcement of existing A.D.A. law, said Michael Hellmann, a Westchester lawyer specializing in disability law. “Westchester businesses are filled with A.D.A. violations,” he said. “Now that it’s part of New York law, they run a much greater risk of having legal action taken against them.” Federal law prohibits discrimination against anyone with a disability, which it defines as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. There are 50 million Americans with a disability, according to the United States Department of Justice based on the 2000 census. About 147,000 live in Westchester, based on figures compiled at the same time by the county. Until now, legal recourse for anyone encountering a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act was limited to filing a complaint with the federal Justice Department, which had a backlog of cases, or pursuing a federal lawsuit, Mr. Hellmann said. In January, the New York State Division of Human Rights incorporated a section of the federal A.D.A. covering businesses or places of public accommodation. That allows state enforcement of the part of the A.D.A. requiring “places of public accommodation to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices and procedures when providing access for a person with a disability,” said John P. Herrion, director of disability rights for the State Division of Human Rights. The law not only provides an additional resource for bringing a complaint, but also provides a broader definition of a disability, protecting individuals who were previously excluded from the federal definition, he said. Mr. Herrion stressed that the division is sensitive to the costs to businesses and pointed to considerations within the Americans With Disabilities Act that are intended to prevent “undue burden” or “fundamentally alter the nature of the public accommodation,” he said. But determining that discretion can be difficult, particularly as misinformation and confusion over A.D.A. compliance are commonplace — even among lawmakers and business advocates. James Lorr, a co-owner of the Peekskill Coffee House where Ms. Tarricone occasionally ventures for coffee, said his operation complied with the A.D.A, pointing to remodeling the bathroom as one change. He also pointed to the wooden ramp that sits inside the cafe for use whenever wheelchair accessibility is needed, calling it a reasonable accommodation given the building’s historic status. BUT Mr. Hellmann dismissed the use of a temporary ramp by any business, pointing to requirements in the A.D.A. about the pitch and stability of access ramps. He said that businesses often fail to go far enough in adhering to A.D.A., part of what he described as the myths of complying with the law. The biggest myth, by far, he said regards the so-called grandfather clause. “Unlike building codes, the A.D.A. does not have a grandfather clause,” Mr. Hellmann said. “No matter how old a building, it is not totally excused from complying with the A.D.A.” Some of the education for businesses is being provided on the county level. Westchester’s Office for the Disabled regularly dispatches staff members to investigate businesses that may not be complying with the A.D.A. The purpose, said Evan Latainer, the director of the office, is to help businesses understand what they must do to avoid a next step of possible litigation. On a recent weekday morning, Anna M. Masopust and Andrea Sadowski of the county’s Office for the Disabled spoke with staff members at a local gym about the use of an elevator designated for people with a disability. Frank Sessa, 84, a Yonkers retiree who frequents the club, paused from exercising in the pool to describe his aggravation when gym employees continuously misplaced the elevator key. He said he relies on the key for access to the pool and locker room, adding, “The custodian finally duplicated the key for me.” Having his own key has brought only partial satisfaction, he said, because the elevator is regularly used to transport freight. “It’s illegal to use this lift for anything other than a person with a disability,” Ms. Masopust said, pointing to a plaque on the adjoining wall that states what she was saying. Besides changes in state law, changes by the county have added resources for disability claims. Last month, the county Human Rights Commission used county government support to achieve countywide jurisdiction over its human rights law, said Delores Scott Brathwaite, director of the division. Previously, the commission jurisdiction was excluded from municipalities like White Plains, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Mamaroneck, Larchmont, New Rochelle and Peekskill. Advocates for the disabled say the recent changes in state and county law are important in educating the public on what is guaranteed under the federal law. Ms. Tarricone and others stressed how changes in law address not only the logistical rights of access, but also help transform society’s views about a segment of the population they say has been historically overlooked. “There are millions of physically or mentally disabled people who deserve something better,” said Howard W. Rasher, a retired lawyer and disability advocate from Briarcliff Manor. “Now, we can put meaningful teeth into the existing laws.”

Americans With Disabilities Act
Westchester County (NY)
Handicapped


Persevering Despite Muggers and a Nighttime Commute

Abstract: To get to her night-shift factory job, Laura Pinto, 67, leaves her Bronx apartment and shuffles five blocks to the Grand Concourse, where she boards a No. 1 bus. She takes it to 205th Street, gingerly disembarks, walks two crosstown blocks and gets on another, the No. 20, which takes her to Yonkers. For the two-and-a-half-hour trip, Ms. Pinto chooses from one of seven canes and walkers of varying height and durability, making her selection according to what is hurting most. After eight hours of cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors, and handling machines that make plastic makeup compacts, Ms. Pinto begins the trip back, now sharing the sidewalks and buses with commuters keeping daytime hours. Once home, she heats chicken soup, a foundation for the fistful of pills she takes before going to bed: Vytorin for high cholesterol, allopurinol and colchicine for gout. There’s Cozaar, amlodipine and felodipine to lower her blood pressure, and gabapentin for diabetes. The metoprolol is for hypertension, the Ultram for chronic pain. Loratadine helps with allergies, Nexium with heartburn, clonidine with nerve pain. She swallows in stages. Ms. Pinto does not talk of physical privations or fatigue. She does express concern about thieves who take advantage of her circumstances: an older immigrant with health problems who speaks no English, negotiating a nighttime commute alone, a long way from her native Ecuador. “If something really bad happened to me, no one would know,” she says. One man stopped her on the street and, realizing she did not understand him, took the initiative. Rummaging through her bag, he settled on a coin purse containing $3 and two photographs of her grandchildren. Another man took her MetroCard. With rent consuming about $600 of Ms. Pinto’s $880 monthly take-home pay, and no savings to speak of, there is little room for muggings. In January when a third man pulled from her purse a blank $598.50 money order intended for rent, it was a financial blow from which she could not recover. “I try my hardest not to owe anyone, but I can’t pay rent twice in one month,” Ms. Pinto says. “I barely earn enough to live.” Her landlord did not evict her, but the theft put Ms. Pinto in the red for months. Even after suspending monthly wires of $20 to her daughter in Ecuador, there was little chance of climbing her way out. With $598.50 from the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies and $27.14 from the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, two of seven charitable organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund , Ms. Pinto paid off her rental arrears and an outstanding phone bill. She is now out of debt and, with an additional $300 monthly subsidy from the Protestant agency’s stipend program, she can more reasonably hope to meet her expenses, buy groceries, send $20 a month home to Ecuador and, perhaps, set something aside. She also hopes to buy back a gold chain she pawned for $180 a while back. It had belonged to her brother Miguel, the only one of her five siblings who came to the United States with her two decades ago. He died of cancer last summer. “This will be my first Christmas without him,” she says. Now her closest relatives are the 52 framed photographs on her wall: her daughter in Ecuador; her son in Spain; her son in Ecuador; her many grandchildren, most of whom she has never met; her godson; her nieces; her nephews; her dead sister; her living sister; Miguel when they first arrived in New York, in 1984; Miguel last New Year’s Eve; her brother in Spain; and a group shot of her daughter with two of her grandchildren. “I would go back to Ecuador,” she says, “but there’s nothing there. At least here there is work. If I can save, I will bring them here.” Also on the wall are holiday decorations she got from a charity in her neighborhood. Santa Claus dolls are pinned to one side, a felt tree with trimmings to the other. Strings of little white lights border the room. None of it was put up recently, though. She hung the decorations a few years ago and decided to leave them up year round. She motions to a tinsel garland from which hangs a row of glass ornaments. “It’s Christmas every day,” she says.

New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Families and Family Life
Philanthropy


Business Owners Take Aim At Proposed Antismoking Laws At Hearing

Abstract: Small-business owners took aim on Thursday at the New York City Council’s package of antismoking legislation, including a proposal to raise the minimum age to purchase cigarettes to 21 . Representatives of bodegas and convenience stores complained at a Council hearing in Lower Manhattan that the proposals would make cigarettes so hard to get from legitimate businesses that they would drive customers into the arms of bootleg distributors, including organized crime. “This is bad for New York,” Chong Sik Lee, president of the Korean-American Grocers Association of New York, said at the hearing. Referring to the many immigrant retailers in his organization, he added, “How may they build up business they can pass on to their children?” The Council is considering legislation that would make it illegal for stores to sell cigarettes to anyone under 21, up from 18. But smoking or possessing cigarettes under that age would not be illegal. It is also considering barring retailers from openly displaying cigarettes and other tobacco products; raising penalties when retailers are found in possession of illegal cigarettes; setting a minimum price of $10.50 per pack of cigarettes or little cigars and barring discounts of tobacco products. Thursday’s hearing was the first chance for opponents of the proposed laws to be heard since Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker and a Democratic mayoral candidate, announced the proposed age minimum. Ms. Quinn, however, left before opponents had a chance to speak. Robert S. Bookman, a lawyer for the N.Y.C. Newsstand Operators Association, a 25-year-old trade group, said that hiding cigarettes behind a curtain or a wall in stores would just backfire, because retailers would plaster the walls with advertising. “You think they’re going to be empty, blank?” Mr. Bookman said of the cabinets and other places where cigarettes would be concealed. “So we should do that next,” retorted Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, a Bronx Democrat who leads the Council’s health committee. “Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your position, we do have something called the First Amendment in this country,” Mr. Bookman said. Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, told the Council hearing that several years after the town of Needham, Mass., increased the age for buying cigarettes to 21, the number of high school students who reported smoking in the past month had declined to 5.5 percent from 12.9 percent. Ramon Murphy, president of the Bodega Association of the United States, complained that cigarette taxes were already so high in New York that people would rather pay $6 a pack on the black market than $12 retail. Dr. Farley acknowledged that high cigarette taxes had made the city an attractive destination for bootleggers, costing the city an estimated $250 million to $600 million a year in unpaid taxes. He said the answer to the problem was to crack down on trafficking and tax evasion.

New York City Council
Legislation
Convenience store
Smoking
Small business
Christine C Quinn
Thomas A Farley
NYC


In India, an App for Chats and for Keeping Secrets

Abstract: BANGALORE, India — Naitik Gohain, 17, has a secret. As he prepares to enter engineering school, he is living in a hostel in Hyderabad. Like many young Indians who have left home for the first time, Mr. Gohain has been expanding his social horizons beyond the radar of his family in Guwahati, 1,500 miles to the northeast. While they do not even know he has a girlfriend, his friends in Hyderabad know all about her, from the breezy status updates he posts using an instant messaging application in his phone, often in the form of confessions about what he was doing the evening before. Users like Mr. Gohain are flocking to use the app, called Hike, for just that reason: It can keep a secret. In June the free service, which is less than two years old, surpassed 20 million users, making it by far the most popular Indian-made instant messaging system. Hike’s selling point is that it lets users filter the information they transmit in sophisticated ways — and, more to the point, cloak aspects of their social lives from their parents. Mr. Gohain hides the “last seen” timer that reveals to contacts when he has last logged in, so his parents believe him when he says he is busy studying. He keeps delicate one-to-one chats in “hidden” mode, and stores selected contacts in a concealed, password-accessible mode, so that someone picking up his phone will see only a list of innocuous contacts. “One of the reasons Hike is trending is that young people crave control, and this app lets you have control,” Mr. Gohain said. Like WeChat in China, Line in Japan and KakaoTalk in South Korea, in its home country Hike has started to outdo bigger global rivals like WhatsApp . It is tailored to attract the rapidly growing under-25 age group, in a society where the young are shedding conservatism. Indians commonly live with their parents well into their 30s, and it is not unusual for middle-class families in smaller towns to share a single smartphone because of the cost, making privacy still more complicated. Hike’s developers knew those challenges because they had also faced them. “We focused on built-for-India features when we realized that free messaging apps are becoming red hot, but hardly any were tailored to the needs of the market,” said Kavin Bharti Mittal, Hike’s chief of product and strategy. In a first for messaging apps, Hike allows its users to send free text messages to people who use “feature phones” —low-end devices that lack a smartphone’s ability to download apps — and to people who usually keep their phones’ Internet connection turned off to save money. It allows chats within groups of up to 100 people, and transfer of large files, a useful ability for students exchanging homework files. India is the third-largest smartphone market by sales, after China and the United States, and since the end of last year it has been the fastest growing. Mr. Mittal calls it the “last frontier” for smartphone makers, as large numbers of feature phone users make the transition to more capable devices. The proliferation of smartphones has fueled the explosive growth in messaging-app use. People are “going mad” over the free apps, said B. Kumaresh, who works at the Mobile Store, a retail chain outlet in Mysore. Mr. Mittal — whose father founded Bharti Enterprises , the parent of India’s largest cellphone service provider — said his team was working on many more privacy and secrecy features. Kriti Gupta, 21, a graduate student in Rohtak, in the northern state of Haryana, recently used Hike to conspire with classmates and throw a surprise party for a friend. She said messaging apps had become “part and parcel of life” for her generation. Mr. Kumaresh, the salesman in Mysore, said that even though he had been selling phones for eight years, children only 10 or 11 often knew much more about messaging apps than he did. “Parents give phones to teenagers to keep tabs on them, but by using the secrecy features, the kids are neatly turning the tables on the older generation.”

India
Instant messaging
Hike
Parenting
Smartphone
Mobile Apps
Motherhood
Fatherhood
Youth


Who Pays for Efficiency?

Abstract: SAVING money can be expensive. Indeed, the quest to save dollars in the nation’s $2.1 trillion annual health care bill is becoming a lucrative market of its own. Thousands of companies, large and small, are pitching cost-saving ideas that range from electronic patient records to new medical devices. It’s not all marketing hype. Experts in health policy agree that there is a real opportunity to curb health spending, which last year was the equivalent of $7,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. Studies predict a gain of as much as 30 percent in efficiency, mostly through reducing unnecessary tests and prescriptions, paperwork and medical mistakes. Such streamlining would not cut the nation’s total medical spending, as long as there is a growing aging population with ever-increasing health needs. But certain measures are expected to help keep costs from spiraling. Every cost-saving product or service requires an upfront investment, which bets that it will produce overall savings. And so the paradox kicks in. “There is money to be saved, but it is not going to be cheap,” said David M. Cutler, a health economist at Harvard University. The path to saving can be particularly uncertain in the United States’ fragmented health care economy — a mix of risk, regulation and profit in which the incentives are often contradictory. A physician, for example, may try new approaches to trim the costs of providing care, but the results usually benefit insurers more than doctors. Strides in efficiency may be good for society, though there may be scant financial motivation for the doctors themselves. The experience of Dr. Richard Baron, who practices with three other physicians in an office in Philadelphia, provides a glimpse into the predicament. In 2004, Dr. Baron and his colleagues made the transition from ink and paper to computers and electronic health records. They were doing what health care reformers had been advocating for years. But the arithmetic of investing in health-information technology is daunting, especially for small practices like Dr. Baron’s. His office spent $140,000 on personal computers, including tablet PCs, servers, software and installation. The office’s annual technology costs, he said, were about $50,000, including maintenance and technical support, and he plans to upgrade the three-year-old computers at a cost of $54,000. Those costs do not include the lost productivity in the first year, when the staff was learning to use the new technology. Dr. Baron’s office has saved money — in transcribing medical reports, for example — and his practice now handles its 6,000 patients with three fewer office employees. He described other benefits, mainly the ability to find information quickly for patients, hospitals, insurers and labs with a few keystrokes. The technology, Dr. Baron said, has also helped make him become a more adept physician. But it has not yet paid off in dollars and cents: the savings in salaries is less than the costs entailed in computerization. “It is a high-risk venture,” he said, “and you do it at your own financial peril.” Today, an estimated one-fourth of primary-care doctors use electronic health records, but only 5 percent of them are in offices with five doctors or fewer — where about half of all doctors practice. Dr. Anne Wilson has her own internal-medicine practice in Rockville, Md., and has felt the pinch of reimbursement cutbacks from Medicare and other insurers. Buying computers and software for electronic health records, Dr. Wilson said, would mean a big cost with no clear payoff. “I can’t capture the economics of scale as a sole practitioner,” she said. “Electronic health records may well be a good thing, as a collective good, but why should I make the investment if I don’t get any of the gains?” Physicians get only about 11 percent of the savings from electronic health records; the real benefit goes mainly to private and public insurers because, for one, they are paying for fewer unnecessary tests, and automated record-handling is a big cost saving for the payers, according to a study by the Center for Technology Leadership, a medical research group. “The doctors bear all the costs, and others reap most of the benefit,” said Dr. David J. Brailer, who was the national health information technology coordinator in the Bush administration from 2004 to 2006. “The incentives are totally awry.” In recent years, another well-promoted effort to try to cut costs while improving care has been the use of specialty cardiac hospitals. Specialty hospitals, in theory, should be able to achieve quality and efficiency by focusing on a single part of the body. Yet a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in March found that in regions where cardiac hospitals had opened, the overall rates of angioplasty and open-heart surgery more than doubled after four years, compared with regions without specialty hospitals. This is another example of the paradox, with the lure of saving money undermined by marketplace realities. In the nation’s fee-for-service system of medical payments, the more procedures that are done, the more money a specialist or a hospital receives. New technology also tends to increase the number of procedures. Cardiac treatment has been revolutionized by angioplasty and stents , meshlike tubes often put in heart arteries to keep them open after blockages have been cleared. Stenting, which became common in the late 1990s, costs less, is not as invasive as open-heart surgery and involves shorter recovery times. So the number of open-heart, coronary-bypass surgeries each year has dropped by more than 100,000 since the mid-1990s, but more than a million stent procedures are now performed each year. “The trigger for intervention is lower and the pool of treatable patients is larger,” said Dr. John D. Birkmeyer, director of surgical outcomes research at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the journal article. “These are institutions with an incentive to increase the supply of surgically treatable disease. It’s a matter of if you build it, they will come.” Questions in the last year about the long-term safety and effectiveness of stents are causing some patients to think twice about them. Nevertheless, the stent-first approach to heart disease in the last decade has meant that the patients who later require bypass surgery are often older and less healthy than the typical open-heart patient years ago. One consequence is that the rate of postsurgery kidney failure has increased sharply, a costly and life-threatening complication. Once again, entrepreneurs are ready. The answer to the kidney problem, say engineers at Design Medical, a start-up company in Pelham, N.H., is a new pump for the heart-lung machines used during surgery. With the better blood flow resulting from the new pump, aging kidneys and other organs will come through open-heart surgery in better shape, potentially saving up to $2 billion in hospitalization and treatment costs, said Doug Vincent, president of Design Medical. The catch is that the new pump will cost $2,000, about 10 times more than conventional pumps. “Yes, it would be more expensive,” Mr. Vincent said. “But if we’re right it would save a lot of money.” The best way to improve health care and contain costs is to take a new approach, said Dr. Dean Ornish, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a leading proponent of preventive medicine. Medicine is currently practiced, he said, as part of a “disease care system” geared to reacting to the consequences of bad health instead of treating the underlying causes. More than 90 percent of heart disease, Dr. Ornish insists, is preventable. Over the years, Dr. Ornish has led several projects showing that fundamental changes in diet , exercise and stress management can stop and even reverse heart disease. Preventive programs cost money upfront, but can cut overall treatment costs to insurers by 30 percent or more, yet few insurers pay for preventive care. A third of people with health coverage switch insurers every year, so insurers reason that their investment in preventive health measures could become another company’s gain. That attitude may be changing, though. Last year, Medicare agreed to cover a dietary program designed by Dr. Ornish. “Given the failures of high-tech medicine, these low-tech approaches are starting to get the attention they deserve,” Dr. Ornish said. But high-tech remains in favor, despite recent studies raising doubts about the value to many patients of widely used medical devices like heart defibrillators . The lucrative medical-device market in the United States is a favorite of venture capitalists these days. “The medical technology race is a promise that we will continue to try to do everything we can,” said David Cassak, an editor at In Vivo, which covers the medical-device industry. That may be a noble goal. But it is hardly a prescription for controlling costs. Health care reformers say that treatments are justified when there is evidence of sound science and financial logic. That threshold, it seems, is not the standard today. Studies done by researchers at Dartmouth College show large differences in treatment, and costs, for elderly patients in their last few years of life in different parts of the country. And, they found, more aggressive and expensive treatment does not prolong life — and may even shorten it. “You need to move toward well-defined clinical guidelines based on medical evidence and better information throughout the health care system,” said Jonathan S. Skinner, an economist at Dartmouth. “But that’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to be fraught with difficult choices.”

Doctors
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Finances
Medicine and Health


Disrupting N.F.L.’s Careful Order, Richard Sherman Speaks His Mind

Abstract: PHOENIX — The charm of the N.F.L. is that every once in a while, in its utterly controlled and contrived fashion, it goes so wonderfully meta that it folds in on itself. So we have the Super Bowl media day, which marries the American love of carnivals with its adoration of marketing. Everyone is a prop, as players and coaches sit, swami style, in separate purple booths as the hoi polloi gather round. Everyone chats simultaneously and says little. “I don’t have to answer your question,” Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski explained, amiably. “I can deflect it. That’s how we’re trained.” Or so it usually goes. Except the Seattle Seahawks , a looser agglomeration of public personalities than the New England Patriots, jumped the tracks. (“I embrace media day because I don’t care what you think, honestly,” Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett told reporters. On the possibility of beating Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in consecutive Super Bowls, “It’s like Madonna and Marilyn Monroe.”) The Seahawks’ most glorious smack talk came on the subject of footballs deflated below the league standard. The Patriots were found to possess 11 such footballs in their A.F.C. championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. Quarterback Tom Brady has a stated preference for softer footballs. The N.F.L. has investigated this allegation, after its desultory fashion. Its lead investigator says it could be weeks before the investigation concludes. Or peters out, as the case may be. Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman gained a national reputation after he issued a chest-thumping diatribe following a big victory a year ago. He is in fact a thoughtful man, and he pieced two and two together this past Sunday. He noted that Robert K. Kraft, the wealthy owner of the Patriots, is a close and reliable ally of Roger Goodell, the wealthy commissioner of the N.F.L. “Will they be punished?” Sherman asked of the Patriots. “Probably not. Not as long as Robert Kraft and Goodell are still taking pictures at their respective homes. I think he was just at Kraft’s house last week for the A.F.C. championship. Talk about conflict of interest.” Sherman’s desire to connect the dots of wealth and influence did not please Kraft. He deplaned in Phoenix on Monday and unburdened himself. Like his coach, Bill Belichick — who showed up for media day in rime-of-the-ancient-beachcomber wear, with old jeans, an old sweatshirt, and old flip-flops — Kraft portrayed himself as a man of science, talking of his careful study of the physics of ball inflation. Then the owner tossed down. Many, he said, have made “scarring accusations against our coach, quarterback and staff.” If the league is “not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs,” Kraft said, “I would expect and hope that the league would apologize to our entire team and in particular, Coach Belichick and Tom Brady.” Kraft’s statement rewarded the inner deconstructionist, not the least his use of “definitively.” That sets a high adjectival bar. It is possible that league investigators, an indefatigable lot, will locate a video of Belichick and Brady chuckling and holding footballs up to the light as they insert pins and deflate each one. Anything short of that standard, however, and Kraft wants that league apology gift-wrapped. Fox Sports reported recently that league investigators had focused on a “person of interest” — a lone ball boy in the Patriots’ employ. He was seen, we’re told by sources unknown, taking the footballs into the men’s room. Perhaps the league has unearthed the most assertive ball boy in history. But it sounds akin to federal prosecutors focusing intently on the Gambino crime family before targeting the kid who delivers pizza pies to the crime headquarters. Image Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman showing off his dance moves Tuesday during the Super Bowl’s media day at US Airways Center in Phoenix. Seattle is set to play New England on Sunday. 1 / 12 Fortunately, we can turn again to Richard Sherman. He sat in his purple booth on media day and returned to the question of those buddies Kraft and Goodell. “Did all these people come out and support him after the Ray Rice thing? Or was it Robert Kraft?” Sherman asked. “Who was the first person to call him and support him? Give it to me.” Kraft, in fact, was one of the very first owners to offer comfort to Goodell through his many dark nights last year. In the autumn, Kraft sat for an interview with the CBS anchor Charlie Rose. Rose, who is a painfully accommodating fellow, lauded Kraft — who was identified as the Master Kraftsman — for having a team valued at $2.6 billion. Their chitchat then detoured to that video of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice delivering his left hook to the head of his fiancée in an elevator. Don’t blame Goodell, Kraft told Rose. “He had no knowledge of this video.” A subsequent and no doubt definitive — because the league says so — N.F.L. investigation determined that Goodell had not seen the video. Kraft showed up at media day and poked at Sherman, accusing him — the nerve! — of engaging in personal marketing. It’s important to realize that as the N.F.L. brands itself across the collective forehead of America, it is intent on stamping out the personality of individual players, from banning end zone dances to post-quarterback sack boogaloos to stomping on the power of the players union. Sherman didn’t much seem to care Tuesday. “I kind of go to the beat of my own drum,” he noted. That day ended on a curious note. The N.F.L. quickly transcribes and disseminates highlights from all of the various players in their various booths. So with expectation I turned to the Sherman transcript. It included his quote about the beat of his own drum. I did not find his comments on Kraft and Goodell. Maybe the N.F.L. wasn’t so meta after all.

Richard Sherman
Super Bowl
Patriots
Seahawks
Football
Robert K Kraft


Miranda Warning Need Tied to Age by Supreme Court

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court issued four decisions in criminal cases on Thursday, including one ruling that a suspect’s age must be taken into consideration in deciding whether to issue Miranda warnings. The court split 5-to-4 on that question, with the majority saying that greater care must be taken when children are questioned by the police. The case involved a 13-year-old middle school student in Chapel Hill, N.C. The student, identified only by his initials in the court’s decision, confessed to two home break-ins after he was removed from class and questioned for more than half an hour in a school conference room by police officers and school administrators. People in police custody must be given the familiar warnings based on Miranda v. Arizona before questioning if their answers are to be used against them in court. The question in Thursday’s case, J.D.B. v. North Carolina , No. 09-11121, was how to determine if the student was indeed in custody. Judges generally make that determination by asking whether a “reasonable person” in the circumstances would have felt free to leave. The North Carolina Supreme Court, refusing to suppress the student’s confession, ruled that consideration of a juvenile suspect’s age did not figure in that reasonable-person analysis. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said that a 13-year-old would surely feel less free to leave a school conference room “than, say, a parent volunteer on school grounds to chaperone an event, or an adult from the community on school grounds to attend a basketball game.” “In short,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age. They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.” The court did not decide whether the student had in fact been in police custody, returning the case to the lower courts for further examination of the question in light of its ruling. Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion. In dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the majority had injected uncertainty into what had been a clear approach. “Personal characteristics of suspects have consistently been rejected or ignored as irrelevant under a one-size-fits-all reasonable-person standard,” Justice Alito wrote, adding, “There is no denying that, by incorporating age into its analysis, the court is embarking on a new expansion of the established custody standard.” Justice Alito wrote that the majority had failed to explain how age is different from other personal characteristics that are ignored under the usual analysis, like intelligence and education. “Bit by bit,” he wrote of the majority’s approach, “Miranda will lose the clarity and ease of application that has long been viewed as one of its chief justifications.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent. FEDERAL POWER In a second decision, the court unanimously ruled that a woman convicted of poisoning a former friend is free to argue that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority in enacting the law under which she was charged. The decision addressed only the woman’s standing to make the argument and left open the question of whether her argument was correct. Still, the decision in the case, Bond v. United States , No. 09-1227, will be closely scrutinized by lawyers involved in challenges to the recent health care law. In sometimes soaring language, Justice Kennedy, writing for the court, affirmed the value of dual state and federal sovereignty. “By denying any one government complete jurisdiction over all the concerns of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “When government acts in excess of its lawful powers, that liberty is at stake.” The case at hand arose from a domestic dispute. Carol A. Bond, a Pennsylvania woman, grew enraged on learning that her husband was the father of her best friend’s child and retaliated by spreading harmful chemicals on the friend’s car, mailbox and doorknob. Such matters are usually handled by the local police and prosecutors. In Ms. Bond’s case, though, federal prosecutors charged her with using unconventional weapons in violation of a law based on the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, a treaty concerned with terrorists and rogue states. Ms. Bond argued that Congress did not have the constitutional power to authorize her prosecution under the law. She cited the 10th Amendment, which says that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” But an appeals court ruled that only states can invoke the amendment, a decision the Supreme Court reversed. EXCLUSIONARY RULE In a 7-to-2 decision, the court ruled that evidence obtained from a search that was lawful when it was conducted need not be suppressed if the Supreme Court later determines that searches of that sort violate the Fourth Amendment. Justice Alito, writing for the court in Davis v. United States , No. 09-11328, said the purposes of the exclusionary rule, which can require the suppression of evidence obtained through police misconduct, would not be served by applying the new decision retroactively to suppress evidence. “About all that exclusion would deter in this case is conscientious police work,” he wrote. “It is one thing for the criminal ‘to go free because the constable has blundered,’ ” Justice Alito went on, quoting Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo’s famous formulation. “It is quite another to set the criminal free because the constable has scrupulously adhered to governing law.” Justice Breyer, in a dissent joined by Justice Ginsburg, said the majority opinion was part of a trend to “undermine the exclusionary rule.” SENTENCING The court also ruled that federal judges may not impose longer prison sentences in order to promote rehabilitation. The decision in the case, Tapia v. United States , No. 10-5400, was unanimous. Justice Kagan, writing for the court, said the relevant federal law, which instructed judges that “imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation,” dictated the result. CLASS ACTIONS The court issued a fifth decision, Smith v. Bayer Corp ., No. 09-1205, concerning the application of the Anti-Injunction Act to dueling class actions. Justice Kagan summarized the decision from the bench, explaining that a federal judge had erred in blocking a state court action. Before she started, Justice Kagan apologized for the complexity of the decision. It would help, she told visitors to the Supreme Court seeking to follow what she was about to say, to have a law degree and a cup of coffee.

Miranda v Arizona (Supreme Court Decision)


Q. and A. on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Abstract: The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has left investigators, aviation experts and the authorities in several countries at a loss to explain what happened. And the few slender clues that have emerged only seem to lead to more questions. As the search broadens and the international inquiries continue, Matthew L. Wald, a correspondent for The New York Times, answers some basic questions: Q. The Times has reported that Malaysian military radar systems saw the plane climb and dive. Does this indicate that a hijacker was at the controls? A. Not necessarily. Aerodynamics experts say that if an airplane is set up to fly a straight path at a given altitude, it will eventually vary from that altitude, for two reasons. First, it will burn off fuel, and a lot of that fuel is stored in the tanks at the jet’s wingtips, which are behind the airplane’s center of gravity. As the back of the plane gets lighter, the tail will rise and the nose will fall. As the plane dives, it will pick up speed. But with more speed there will be more lift and the nose will rise. The aircraft will then climb until speed decreases and the nose will point down again, repeating the cycle in an oscillation. Second, if the plane flies close to the speed of sound, then the center of pressure and the center of lift will move toward the back of the aircraft, pushing the nose down. Other factors at play include the accuracy of the military radar in estimating altitude. The Malaysian military has not described its radar’s capabilities, so if the plane were recorded at 45,000 feet, what is the range of uncertainty in that measurement? Turns would be much harder to explain without human intervention, but a plane that encounters certain natural weather phenomena can turn. Q. How easy is it to switch off the communications equipment on the plane? A. You have to know what you are looking for, but it is not that difficult. Just about everything on the plane has a circuit breaker, which is accessible to the pilots. The equipment could be legitimately shut off for several reasons. One reason is that if the equipment stops working, the solution often involves powering down the equipment and then powering it up again, the way someone would do with a frozen computer. Also, if a component has a short circuit and overheats or catches fire, there has to be a way to turn it off. This is why transponders (most planes carry more than one) can easily be switched off from the cockpit. Q. If the communications equipment has been switched off, is there anything else onboard that could still send a signal? A. The plane is built to communicate with satellites and there is a second system, not easily controlled from the cockpit, to accomplish that. Even when it is not in use, the system goes through a “handshake” procedure with satellites, about once an hour. This procedure is akin to a cellphone that trades messages with the nearest cell tower, even though it never leaves the user’s pocket, so the cell system knows where to find it should a call come in. That handshake does not include data, experts say, but it does offer a way to establish the approximate location of the plane once an hour. American experts say they knew little about this system until this week, when it yielded a clue, albeit a weak one, to the Malaysian plane’s location. Q. Will we ever know what happened? A. Some investigators are warning that we may never know what happened. The cockpit voice recorder, which would be crucial in determining if the crash were the result of a hijacking or some other criminal act, captures just two hours of sound, continuously recording over earlier information. But this flight apparently lasted six hours and the period that matters most probably was not within the final two hours. Recovering the voice recorder also presumes that searchers locate the wreckage of the plane. The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder (which has a 25-hour loop) have battery-powered “pingers” attached, which emit a sound that can travel several miles through the water. Their batteries only last an average of 30 days. Searchers in other crashes have found the boxes without the help of “pingers,” but it is much more difficult. Q. How could a Boeing 777 simply vanish? Aren’t they always tracked by radar or satellites? A. Radar coverage is not universal, especially over water. In areas without radar, pilots are generally required to radio in their positions at fixed intervals, mostly to assure that air traffic controllers can keep aircraft out of one another’s way. Between intervals, something could go wrong. Planes like the 777 also have automatic systems that send out data on engine performance and other technical functions. Those signals go to a maintenance base, not to air traffic control. Air France used those signals to help determine what happened when its Flight 447 disappeared over the equatorial Atlantic, and the satellite system installed on the Malaysia Airlines jet has yielded clues about where to look for it, though not its precise location. Q. Plane crashes most often happen on landing or takeoff, but this flight vanished almost an hour after takeoff, when it was cruising. What could cause a plane to crash at that point in a flight? A. In three crashes at sea in the last few years, the aircraft’s speed-sensing systems have malfunctioned. In two of those cases, crews failed to diagnose and cope with the problem. (In the third, there was probably nothing they could have done.) A deliberate act by a pilot, terrorism or an attack in the cockpit could be other causes. Q. Why would the authorities not have found debris from the plane after so many days of searching? A. One reason is that much of the searching was done in what authorities now believe were the wrong places. In the first days, the focus was on the waters of the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, close to where the plane was when ground controllers last heard from the pilots or saw signals from its transponders. Military radar data then emerged showing that the plane had turned far off course and flown westward toward the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea, so some searchers were shifted there. Then satellite signals indicated that the plane had kept flying for hours more, hugely expanding the possible search area. By the time the primary focus narrowed again to the southern Indian Ocean, nearly two weeks had gone by, time in which the elements could have scattered or sunk some debris that might have been visible immediately after the crash. Image A member of the military looked out of a helicopter during a search-and-rescue mission off the Tho Chu Islands of Vietnam on Monday. Credit Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters Q. How far from its last known location could the aircraft have strayed? A. While we know fairly precisely where the plane was when contact was lost, we have only inferences from radar and satellite data about how long it remained in the air afterward or which way it flew, so it is hard to say with certainty. The plane had enough fuel on board to complete its scheduled journey to Beijing, 2,500 miles from Kuala Lumpur, so it conceivably could have kept flying for seven hours or more. Q. Are there any signs that terrorism might have been involved? A. No group is known to have claimed to have destroyed the plane. Beyond that, not enough is known to speculate. Q. If the plane had a major malfunction, wouldn’t the pilots have called for help and sent distress signals? A. Pilots have a mantra for setting priorities in an emergency: aviate, navigate, communicate. The first priority is to fly the airplane. Telling air traffic controllers on the ground what is going on comes third, since doing so is unlikely to instantly yield any help with the crisis in the cockpit, whatever it may be. If the pilots are fighting to keep the plane aloft, they may not have time to use the radio. Q. Could one of the pilots have crashed the plane deliberately? A. It’s been known to happen: The crashes of an EgyptAir flight from Kennedy International Airport in 1999 and a SilkAir flight in Indonesia in 1997 were attributed to intentional acts by cockpit crew members. But nothing is yet known publicly to suggest that that happened on the Malaysia Airlines flight. Image Debris from Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean. Credit Brazil's Air Force, via Associated Press Q. Have other planes disappeared in this way in recent years? A. There is no record of big planes simply disappearing, though they may take some time to find. A few pieces of debris from Air France Flight 447 were spotted floating in the Atlantic the day after the plane crashed in June 2009, but it took five days to find most of the wreckage. Small aircraft may be missing for much longer if they go down in remote areas. Steve Fossett, the daredevil adventurer who flew around the world solo in a plane and set records in a balloon, took off in his private plane in Nevada on Sept. 3, 2007, and his remains were found in October 2008.

Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Kuala Lumpur
Indonesia
Plane Crashes and Missing Planes
Airlines,airplanes


I.B.M. Inch Closer on Quantum Computer

Abstract: I.B.M. is jumping into an area of computing that has, until now, been primarily the province of academia: the quest to build a quantum computer. A computer that took advantage of the oddities of quantum physics could solve in seconds certain problems that would occupy present-day computers for billions of years. But for now, it is impossible to build such a computer because the bits of information it would need for the calculations fall apart before a calculation can be completed. The problem is, in essence, like trying to knit a sweater with yarn that unravels before the first purl. On Tuesday, I.B.M. researchers will present experimental results that they say put them close to solving this problem, both by lengthening the lifetime of the quantum bits of information and by quickening the pace of computation. The presentation will take place at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Boston. “In the past, people have said, maybe it’s 50 years away, it’s a dream, maybe it’ll happen sometime,” said Mark B. Ketchen, manager of the physics of information group at I.B.M.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. “I used to think it was 50. Now I’m thinking like it’s 15 or a little more. It’s within reach. It’s within our lifetime. It’s going to happen.” Many university researchers have done good work solving the basic science problems, Dr. Ketchen said, but “it’s going take an I.B.M. in the end to put it together.” It’s still too early for I.B.M. to have a commercial product in mind, but computer scientists are encouraged that the company is paying attention. Scott Aaronson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called I.B.M.’s work “a cause for cautious optimism” in the development of quantum computers. “It looks very interesting,” Dr. Aaronson said of the I.B.M. research. “Basically, it’s another step in continuing progress.” While a working quantum computer is still quite a few years away, there have been a number of advances over the last couple of years, and the I.B.M. one is just among the most recent. These days, the path to the future now looks more like a series of very hard engineering problems rather than an uphill fight against physics. Current computers perform their calculations using 1’s and 0’s, with each binary digit called a “bit” of information. In quantum mechanics, multiple possibilities exist at once, and a quantum bit — qubit, for short — is not necessarily a “1” or a “0” but a combination of both. By stringing together qubits, a quantum computer could perform a multitude of calculations simultaneously. For certain problems like searching databases or factoring very large numbers — the basis of today’s encryption techniques — quantum computers could produce an answer in days or maybe even seconds, whereas the fastest conventional computer would take longer than 13.7 billion years. The I.B.M. researchers are building quantum computer components out of electronic circuits containing superconductors, materials that carry electricity without electrical resistance. When cooled to a hundredth of a degree above absolute zero, the circuits act as qubits. The problem is that a qubit becomes scrambled in short order, and the information it carries turns into gibberish. When physicists started experiments a little more than a decade ago, a qubit lasted only a few billionths of a second. (An alternate approach, trapping ions in electric and magnetic fields, can produce longer-lived qubits. But the superconducting circuit approach takes advantage of current computer chip technologies.) In the latest I.B.M. results, which build on a technique developed by Robert J. Schoelkopf, a physics professor at Yale, a qubit lasted as long as one-10,000th of a second. Even though that is still not long enough for perfect calculations, it is almost good enough for error correction algorithms to detect and fix any mistakes. “We’re just crossing this threshold,” Dr. Ketchen said, “which is a big morale booster that says, gee, this is becoming doable.” Below the threshold, generating reliable answers is impossible. “No matter how many qubits you had, you couldn’t even get one effectively good one because of the error rates being too high,” he said. The progress is promising enough that it is time to start thinking about related challenges, such as how to program a quantum computer or how to extract the answer that a quantum computer has calculated.

International Business Machines Corporation


Notre Dame Bounces Back to Eliminate Seton Hall

Abstract: The coaching philosophy of Notre Dame ’s Mike Brey once revolved around scoring 100 points. But an injury to the star forward Luke Harangody nearly a month ago forced the Irish to have an extreme makeover. The results have been remarkable. Notre Dame has won five consecutive games, and the fighting Irish essentially eliminated any doubt about their place in the N.C.A.A. tournament by beating Seton Hall , 68-56, on Wednesday in the second round of the Big East Conference tournament at Madison Square Garden. The Irish will play No. 2 Pitt on Thursday night. The loss most likely puts Seton Hall (19-12) on the wrong side of the N.C.A.A. bubble. Seton Hall has a bizarre résumé that includes no bad losses, few good wins and a Ratings Percentage Index that will end up in the mid-50s. Notre Dame appeared destined for the National Invitation Tournament until Harangody was hurt against Seton Hall on Feb. 11. The Irish lost that game and their next two. From there, they decided to dedicate themselves to a more methodical offense and tougher defense. On Wednesday, the Irish showed how Harangody, never known as a particularly interested or ardent defender, can fit in with the new philosophy. With Harangody on the bench, Notre Dame was blitzed at the start. The Irish trailed by 11-2 with five minutes gone in the first half, but Harangody gave them a jolt when he entered the game. He scored 15 of his 20 points in the first half, and the Irish defense only gave up 21 first-half points after yielding 11 in the first five minutes. The play that best epitomized Notre Dame’s effort was a full-body dive out of bounds by the senior point guard Tory Jackson in the first half that led to a breakaway layup by Harangody. That passion and energy have been the hallmark of this Irish makeover. And it has bred a confidence that has Notre Dame believing it can keep on winning in New York.

University of Notre Dame
Seton Hall University
College Athletics
Basketball


How Does It Feel, Chief Justice Roberts, to Hone a Dylan Quote?

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia loved opera, but he also had a soft spot for Bob Dylan. In a 2010 dissent , for instance, he chastised the majority for refusing to answer key questions in a case about sexually explicit text messages because technology was evolving so fast. “The-times-they-are-a-changin’ is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty,” he wrote. Justice Scalia was in good company. Mr. Dylan has long been the most cited songwriter in judicial opinions, said Alex B. Long , a law professor at the University of Tennessee and the author of a 2012 study, “The Freewheelin’ Judiciary: A Bob Dylan Anthology,” published in the Fordham Urban Law Journal . It was a 2008 dissent from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that really opened the floodgates, Professor Long said. “Judges’ inclination to go to Dylan has actually increased in the past few years, probably as a result of Roberts’s dissent in that case,” he said. Dylan citations are booming in other fields as well. A study last year found 213 references to his lyrics in medical papers. (One was called “ Nitric Oxide and Inflammation: The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind .”) But a few Dylan fans frowned when they read the chief justice’s 2008 dissent. His quotation, from “Like a Rolling Stone,” was not a faithful reflection of what Mr. Dylan had sung. Though the justices occasionally correct their opinions long after they are first issued , the quotation has remained unchanged and incomplete. Almost eight years later, Chief Justice Roberts this month finally broke his public silence on the matter during an interview at a law school in Boston, explaining why and how he had chosen to quote the lyric. In the process, he illuminated the special role Mr. Dylan plays in American jurisprudence. The 2008 case concerned standing — the requirement that parties have a direct, personal stake in a litigation. The chief justice argued that the plaintiffs in the case before him, who were collection agencies for pay-phone companies, lacked standing. His analysis was tightly reasoned and characteristically lucid. Then he put the Dylan lyric in a spot usually reserved for a citation to legal precedent: “‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).” What Mr. Dylan actually sings, of course, is, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” In the interview on Feb. 3, Dean John F. O’Brien of New England Law, Boston, probed the matter, starting with a general question. “What was your objective in quoting Bob Dylan?” Chief Justice Roberts, a little defensively, said there was a place for a bit of levity and license in legal writing. “An intelligent layperson appreciates Bob Dylan’s poetry, if not his music,” he said. “It was, after all, in a dissent, so you have a little bit more leeway there.” “Bob Dylan captured the whole notion behind standing,” he added. “In that case, the party didn’t have anything at stake in the case and had nothing to lose, and the case should have been thrown out on that basis.” “I know Bob Dylan would have agreed with that,” Chief Justice Roberts said, to laughter. Then Professor O’Brien asked about the missing word. “That is as performed,” Chief Justice Roberts responded. “The liner notes show that it doesn’t have the ‘ain’t’ in it.” It is true that Mr. Dylan’s own website reproduces the lyric as Chief Justice Roberts had. (The liner notes on “Highway 61 Revisited,” though, did not set out the lyrics. The back cover was instead devoted to an extended surrealistic poem from Mr. Dylan that seemed aimed at confounding the intelligent layperson.) Why did Chief Justice Roberts use the published version? “I’m a bit of a textualist,” he said, to laughter. Professor O’Brien, who seemed to think the song as sung was the superior source, had a quick retort. “If not an originalist,” he said. There is a reason Mr. Dylan is so popular among judges, Professor Long said: His lyrics are pithy, memorable and pointed. “They’re great lines on their own,” he said, “and they’re also really useful to convey to the legal concept they’re trying to get across.” The most cited Dylan lyric, he said, came from “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” When judges want to reject expert testimony about an obvious point, say, they are apt to remind readers that “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Mr. Dylan will not maintain his exalted stature forever. “The Beatles and Springsteen are still up there,” Professor Long said. “Billy Joel is making his move. As the bench gets a little bit younger, you see guys like Billy Joel pop in there.” The youngest member of the Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan, 55, has already moved on to the music of the 1980s. In a 2013 case concerning signs on trucks, Justice Kagan gave a hypothetical example of one: “How am I driving? Call 213-867-5309.” That was a reference to “867-5309/Jenny,” Tommy Tutone’s indelible 1981 hit, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and will still get people of a certain age onto the dance floor at college reunions. Still, it will be hard to displace Mr. Dylan. The day after the Supreme Court established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage last year, Justice Scalia sang a song to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was that same Dylan favorite: “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”

Justice Roberts
Antonin Scalia
Bob Dylan
Music
Supreme Court,SCOTUS


Veto Halts Bill for Jury Duty by Noncitizens in California

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Breaking with Democrats in the State Legislature, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill on Monday that would have made California the first state to allow immigrants who are not citizens to serve on juries, saying that the responsibility should come only with citizenship. As leader of a state with 3.5 million noncitizens who are legal permanent residents, Mr. Brown in recent weeks had signed into law numerous measures that put California at the vanguard of expanding immigrant rights, including granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. On Saturday, he signed several such bills, most prominently legislation stopping local law officers from detaining immigrants and transferring them to federal authorities unless they have committed certain serious crimes. And he agreed in August to let noncitizens monitor polls for elections. But the governor drew the line at allowing legal immigrants to serve on juries. “Jury service, like voting, is quintessentially a prerogative and responsibility of citizenship,” Mr. Brown said in a brief veto message . “This bill would permit lawful permanent residents who are not citizens to serve on a jury. I don’t think that’s right.” Some legal scholars had said that the measure raised profound questions about what rights and responsibilities belonged to citizens alone, and a number of newspapers published editorials urging the governor to veto the bill after the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed it, with most Republicans opposing it. It “calls into question the very meaning of citizenship,” The Sacramento Bee wrote in August, saying the legislation would provide an incentive to immigrants to avoid becoming citizens. “Why should green-card holders become citizens if they can enjoy the rights of citizenship?” Supporters said the measure would make it easier to assemble jury pools and grant legal immigrants a jury of their peers. While Mr. Brown faced pressure from fellow Democrats and advocates to sign the other bills giving immigrants new rights, there was no such campaign to convince him that allowing noncitizens to serve on juries was a pressing matter. By contrast, immigrants’ rights groups held rallies and letter-writing campaigns urging Mr. Brown to sign the bill stopping local law enforcement agencies from detaining immigrants and transferring them to federal authorities unless they had committed certain serious crimes. Mr. Brown had vetoed similar legislation before, but his staff worked with immigrant advocates to devise a compromise that expands the kinds of crimes that would allow local authorities to hold on to arrested immigrants, like felony domestic violence and D.U.I. convictions. Under the new law, known as the Trust Act, unless immigrants have committed certain serious crimes, they cannot be detained past when they would otherwise become eligible for release. “While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,” Mr. Brown said in a statement announcing his approval of the law on Saturday. “I’m not waiting.” The batch of new laws also included one that would allow immigrants without legal status to be admitted to the state bar and practice law in California. There was little outcry about the governor’s veto from immigrants’ rights groups on Monday. Instead, they praised Mr. Brown for signing bills that they said amounted to “enormous momentum for immigrants.” “We have really created a counterweight to other states like Arizona, that’s really the story,” said Jon Rodney, a spokesman for the California Immigrant Policy Center. Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, a Democrat from the Bay Area and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which wrote the bill, said he did not plan to ask the Legislature to override the veto, but would introduce similar legislation next year. “I hope and believe this is just a temporary mistake,” Mr. Wieckowski said of the veto. “He has shown some enlightened thinking — he has just signed a bill that says even if you’re undocumented you can go in front of a jury, so I hope he gets some more thoughts from constitutionally enlightened people around the country, and is convinced this is the right thing to do.” Mr. Wieckowski said he still believed barring immigrants from jury duty was a sign of prejudice, particularly in a state where legal permanent residents make up nearly 10 percent of the population. He had believed Mr. Brown would sign the bill, he said, because the governor approved legislation allowing legal permanent residents to serve as poll workers. Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, a Republican from San Diego and the most vocal opponent of the jury duty bill, praised the governor for stopping a bill that “attempted to solve a problem that did not exist.” “The debate over this bill attempted to create a social wedge in our communities over our justice system,” he said in a statement. “The phrase ‘jury of your peers’ still means something in our criminal justice system.”

Jury
California
Legislation
Jerry Brown
Immigration
Citizenship


Missouri Governor Will Not Seek 2nd Term

Abstract: CHICAGO — Matt Blunt, the governor of Missouri and a Republican, announced late Tuesday that he would not seek re-election this fall, a decision that stunned many in the state’s political circles and threw the anticipated alignment of Missouri’s election into disarray. Mr. Blunt, who had been widely expected to seek a second term, released a video address in which, seated beside his wife, Melanie, he told state residents that he had completed his promised agenda for the state. “The habit of politicians is to remain in office and the desire to prove oneself in the next election is strong,” Mr. Blunt said. “After a great deal of thought and prayer, and with the knowledge that we have achieved virtually everything I set out to accomplish, and more, I will not seek a second term in the upcoming election. Because I feel we have changed what I wanted to change in the first term there is not the same sense of mission for a second.” Mr. Blunt had been expected to face a difficult re-election bid, appearing headed for a battle with Jay Nixon, a Democrat, the state’s attorney general. Before Tuesday, the showdown between the two seemed to have already begun: both were aggressively raising money and regularly clashing publicly on state issues. Mr. Blunt’s announcement leaves the Republican Party with no certain nominee in the race. “His approval ratings had been weak and there had been several open sores within his administration,” said Dave Robertson, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. “The combination of that and the economic outlook that has really deteriorated in just a few weeks — any incumbent governor is going to have a very difficult time dealing with that.” Mr. Nixon, in a statement released late Tuesday, wished Mr. Blunt well. “I will continue to focus on changing the direction of our state so that more Missourians have access to health care, more Missourians can find good-paying jobs and more Missouri children can get the quality education they deserve,” Mr. Nixon said. Mr. Blunt, 37, had been among the state’s youngest governors when he was elected and had been expected by many to pursue a long political career in the state; the son of Representative Roy Blunt, he came from a family of political leaders. The governor has taken credit for repairing the state’s Medicaid program and balancing the state budget, but he has also wrestled with several problems, including what Mr. Robertson described as a mini-scandal. A former state lawyer, Scott Eckersley, has filed a lawsuit against the governor’s office that involves the destruction of official e-mail messages. Mr. Eckersley says he was fired after he pointed out that the destruction of the messages violated the state’s open records laws.

Missouri
Elections
Blunt Matt
United States Politics and Government


Olympic Track Star Part of U.S. Bobsled Team

Abstract: Lolo Jones , a two-time Olympic hurdler, was one of 24 athletes named to this season’s United States bobsled team. She will have the chance to compete for a spot on the World Cup circuit this winter and, possibly, in the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia. Tianna Madison, part of the world-record-setting 4x100-meter relay team in London, also made the team.

Olympic Games (2014)
Bobsledding
Jones Lolo


Intel Profits Fall as PC Slump Cuts Demand for Chips

Abstract: Intel, the world’s largest computer chip maker, reported a sharp decline in its quarterly profits on Tuesday as its financial performance follows the fading fortunes of the personal computer industry. The earnings decline points to the challenges facing the big chip maker as it struggles to make the transition beyond its lucrative stronghold as the leading supplier of the chips that power PCs. As people do more and more of their computing on tablets and smartphones, personal computer sales are falling. The company reported net income to $2.05 billion , a decline of 25 percent from $2.74 billion in the period a year earlier. Intel’s earnings fell to 40 cents a share, compared with 53 cents a share a year ago. The quarter’s performance was just below Wall Street’s average estimate of 41 cents a share, as compiled by Thomson Reuters. Revenue in the first quarter slipped to $12.58 billion, down from $12.91 billion in the first quarter of 2012. That was in line with analysts’ forecast of $12.6 billion. In after-hours trading, Intel shares were flat. In the regular trading session, the company’s shares added 54 cents a share, or 2.5 percent, to close at $21.92. In a conference call to discuss the results, Intel executives were more optimistic about the rest of the year. Stacy J. Smith, the chief financial officer, said the company should return to growth in the second half, with “low single-digit growth” for the year. An improving economy should help, as well as new products like its Haswell chips, a power-saving processor that supports touch-screen computing on ultrabook computers, which are hybrids of notebooks and tablets. Haswell chips, Mr. Smith said, will be in products that will begin to ship this quarter. A year ago, Intel was not positioned to follow demand into higher-growing markets like hybrid and tablet computers, said Paul S. Otellini, the chief executive, who plans to retire in May. Now it is, he said. “Never before has our ability to compete across the spectrum of computing been greater,” Mr. Otellini said. Intel’s business of selling high-end chips to power the server computers in data centers is growing. Its data center group reported a 7 percent increase in revenue in the quarter, to $2.6 billion. But strength elsewhere is not enough to offset Intel’s dependence on the personal computer market. In 2012, the company’s PC chip division accounted for 64 percent of Intel’s total revenue and 89 percent of its operating income. Last week, the research firm IDC reported that worldwide personal computer shipments declined by nearly 14 percent in the first quarter of this year, the biggest drop since the research firm began tracking quarterly PC sales in 1994.

Intel
Computer Chip
Smartphone
Tablet computer
Earnings Reports