Cavaliers End a Losing Streak and Extend the Thunder’s

Abstract: Kyrie Irving scored 14 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter to help the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 114-104, on Wednesday night, giving the Thunder their third straight loss since the All-Star break. Jarrett Jack scored 21 points, Spencer Hawes had 19 and Tristan Thompson added 11 points and 11 rebounds for the Cavaliers, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Cleveland shot 14 for 21 from the field in the fourth quarter against the Thunder, the leaders in the Western Conference. Kevin Durant had 28 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists; Russell Westbrook had 24 points and 9 assists; and Serge Ibaka added 16 points and 13 rebounds for the Thunder. Oklahoma City is 0-3 since Westbrook returned from his latest knee surgery. In the closing seconds of the first half, Westbrook dribbled as the clock wound down, then pulled up in front of Irving and drained a 3-pointer to give the Thunder a 52-51 lead at the break. Durant’s 3-pointer gave the Thunder a 97-95 lead with 4 minutes 35 seconds left in the game, but the Cavaliers responded with an 8-0 run, highlighted by 3-pointers from Jack and Irving, and they controlled the game from there. MAVERICKS 108, PELICANS 89 Dirk Nowitzki shook off an early shoulder problem to finish with 18 points, the New Orleans All-Star Anthony Davis was knocked out of the game with a similar injury, and Dallas beat the visiting Pelicans. Davis, the leading scorer and rebounder for the Pelicans, sprained his left shoulder and did not return after leaving with 4:13 left in the first half. BULLS 103, WARRIORS 83 Taj Gibson scored 21 points, Carlos Boozer added 15 points and 13 rebounds, and host Chicago used a big third-quarter run to win for the seventh time in eight games, pounding Golden State. GRIZZLIES 108, LAKERS 103 Courtney Lee scored 18 points, Marc Gasol had 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Memphis overcame a late 3-point shooting display by visiting Los Angeles to win. Tony Allen added 17 points for Memphis. SPURS 120, PISTONS 110 Marco Belinelli had 20 points to lead eight San Antonio players in double figures, and the Spurs worked through a lethargic start to beat visiting Detroit. Kawhi Leonard had 15 points in his return from a 14-game absence because of a broken finger. JAZZ 109, SUNS 86 Gordon Hayward had 17 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists to lead a balanced Utah offense over visiting Phoenix. The Jazz had seven players with 10 points or more in Utah’s second-largest margin of victory this year. CELTICS 115, HAWKS 104 Jerryd Bayless scored a season-high 29 points in a rare start, and Rajon Rondo added 22 points and 11 assists to help Boston break a five-game losing streak with a win over visiting Atlanta. MAGIC 101, 76ERS 90 Jameer Nelson scored 12 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, and Nik Vucevic had 21 points and 13 rebounds to help Orlando snap a 16-game road losing streak with a win over Philadelphia.

Basketball
Miami Heat
Knicks
LeBron James


In Harlem, Minister Serves Those Who No Longer Can

Abstract: It was about 20 minutes after lunch at the Northern Manhattan Nursing Home on 125th Street in Harlem, and the sounds of feet shuffling and wheelchairs squeaking in a ninth-floor hallway seemed to fade as the Rev. Olevia Stewart-Smith began to read aloud the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father,” she read, her voice rising, filling a large room at the end of the hall. In little more than a whisper, Florence Berry, a 96-year-old deacon at Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church of Christ, with side-swept gray hair and a sweater the color of cotton candy, mouthed along, “who art in Heaven.” It is a staple of pastoral work: visiting the sick or the shut-in. And there are scores of ministers and church elders throughout Harlem who have been doing it for decades. But across the years, when the ministers and elders themselves have taken ill, they have often been neglected. Ms. Stewart-Smith, day by day, visit by visit, works to prevent such isolation, becoming, in a sense, the caregiver to Harlem’s caregivers. As the chairwoman of the sick and shut-in committee of the Baptist Ministers’ Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity, she visits ill members of the 111-year-old fellowship, made up mostly of black clergy members and church elders from Harlem. She offers prayer and Holy Communion, flowers, cards and candy, anything to show them, she said, that they are not forgotten. “God didn’t call me to be in the pulpit,” said Ms. Stewart-Smith, 66, a member of Canaan Baptist who attended the seminary after a career as a social worker with the city’s Department of Aging. “He called me to be in nursing homes and the hospitals and bedsides.” Since joining the committee in 2001, Ms. Stewart-Smith has fought through her own health issues while making the two or three visits a week. She has battled cancer, asthma and a bad hip. She has had knee replacement surgery and a hysterectomy. “But after all I’m going through,” she said, “I still got joy.” One of the conference’s ministers had been bouncing for more than a year between a hospital, a nursing home and a rehabilitation facility. For a while, Ms. Stewart-Smith would visit and had good news to report back, that the man was full of spirit and gaining his health and strength. But he ultimately died, perhaps more peacefully for her companionship. “I was with him through it all,” said Ms. Stewart-Smith, sitting on a bench in a dim corridor at the nursing home, her head down and voice hushed, as it seems to get when she is not praying or preaching. “It’s hard sometimes. It makes me think about my own mortality.” But there are uplifting moments as well. “I can see the reward of my labor when someone calls and says, ‘I’m better,’ or, ‘Thank you for the calls, thank you for the visits,’ ” she said. Long before joining the ministry, Ms. Stewart-Smith, a divorced mother of three and grandmother of two, was the inheritor of humble roots dug deep in the rural South. She is the niece and sister of preachers and the daughter of sharecroppers from Wisner, La. She tended to them in the winter of their lives and held close the religiosity they shared. The basics mostly, the kind that had been preached one Sunday a month at Holly Grove Baptist Church in their small town by preachers who traveled town to town because there were not enough ministers to go around. She was baptized in that little church at 12, and recalls it being the kind of place where families worshiped their whole lives, and when they died, they were buried in the cemetery out back. She was struck by seeing the ministers from her childhood often die in loneliness, with few comforts other than the Bible. “I feel that sometimes they are the ones that are forgotten,” Ms. Stewart-Smith said. As she said her goodbyes to Ms. Berry that day, she dug into her black roller bag filled with the tools of her trade: among other things, a Bible, scriptural material and the sacraments for Communion. She searched for a gift that had been sent along to Ms. Berry by another church member. After a few moments her hand emerged with a little lace sack with a few Hershey’s Kisses wrapped in gold foil. As she peeled them slowly for the older woman, she said with pride that Ms. Berry was the first woman to be made a deacon at their church. Ms. Stewart-Smith then laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder as she passed through the threshold of the room and promised to return soon. And as she ambled down the hall toward an elevator — a cane in one hand and toting her roller bag in the other — she greeted several patients by name, her voice rising and falling, and melting into the sounds of feet shuffling and wheelchairs squeaking.

Nursing Homes
Baptist Churches
Elder Care
Harlem (NYC)


New Jersey Remains Are Linked to Harlem Girl

Abstract: The skeletal remains were discovered in 2005 in a wooded area in central New Jersey. They belonged to a girl of grade-school age, a girl who had probably died three years or so before she was found. But there was little else for investigators to go on; her case, unlike some that were called Baby Hope or Baby Faith, was simply referred to as Baby Bones. Seven years later, investigators finally put a real name to the girl. Her name was Jon-Niece Jones, prosecutors in Monmouth County said Wednesday, as they charged the girl’s own family in New York City with dumping her body in the wooded area off the New Jersey Turnpike in Upper Freehold before trying to cover their tracks with fire. Officials said Jon-Niece’s sister told them this summer that she had been killed in 2002 by their mother, who died the same year. The girl’s uncle and aunt, and the aunt’s boyfriend, were charged with hindering apprehension, tampering with physical evidence, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. But even as prosecutors attached answers to the long-anonymous bones, another mystery opened up: How could a little girl disappear for so long without anyone noticing she was gone? New Jersey prosecutors said she had suffered years of neglect and abuse by her mother, Elisha Jones. But the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City said no file existed for the girl. The Police Department had no record of any missing-person report for her. And her name did not appear in the city’s public school records. Hurting for leads, the New Jersey State Police turned to national television in 2009, via a segment on “America’s Most Wanted.” A facial reconstruction artist recreated a bust of Baby Bones, which appeared on fliers around the state. “Have you seen this girl?” they asked. No one had. A break in the case came to the Administration for Children’s Services this summer — 10 years after the girl’s death — in the form of a tip from her sister, Iyonna Jones, according to law enforcement officials. Ms. Jones, 21, told child welfare authorities that her sister had been killed in 2002, officials said. The agency’s own investigators, many of them retired New York police detectives, were able to connect a name to the bones. She eventually told the police, the authorities said, that the bones belonged to Jon-Niece, who she said had been killed by their mother, stuffed into kitchen garbage bags and driven out of Manhattan, with the assistance of the others. The remains were discovered by a deer hunter; he found little more than a partly buried skull and jawbone. Detectives later discovered a small black Nike shoe nearby and, after digging, a complete skeleton. DNA was extracted from the bones, but it sat in a Texas lab for years until Ms. Jones came forward. The authorities obtained DNA samples from her, and sent them to the same lab at the University of North Texas for comparison, known as kinship analysis. The DNA evidence gave the authorities genetic proof that Baby Bones was tied to Iyonna Jones’s family, the police said. Prosecutors said that an investigation had determined that the girl, who was 9 at the time, had died on Aug. 15, 2002, in her aunt’s Harlem apartment. “Whenever you find remains, especially that of a child, you want to break the case,” said Christopher J. Gramiccioni, the acting prosecutor in Monmouth County. “And we’re glad we did.” On Wednesday, county prosecutors charged two members of the family, Likisha Jones, the girl’s 39-year-old aunt, and her uncle, James Jones, 35, along with the aunt’s boyfriend, Godfrey Gibson, 48, with several counts of obstructing justice in connection with disposing of Jon-Niece’s body. The State Police have labeled the death a homicide, but the case is still being investigated. Any new charges related to her killing would probably come from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, whose officials did not comment, citing a continuing inquiry. Around the East River Houses, a Harlem housing project where prosecutors said Jon-Niece had died, most residents who were interviewed said they did not remember the family. The few who said they did remembered that “they were nice.” One neighbor recalled that one of the women had been sick and had died some time ago. The authorities confirmed that Jon-Niece’s mother died of a medical condition in December 2002, a few months after her daughter’s body was buried. At the Chinatown apartment where her aunt and her aunt’s boyfriend currently care for 13 children, no one seemed to recall Jon-Niece. “We don’t know any cousin,” said Tayana Jones, 20, the second-oldest child there. She added that the arrests had come as a shock. The three defendants appeared briefly in a New Jersey court on Wednesday; a judge set bail at $40,000 for Likisha Jones and James Jones, and $75,000 for Godfrey Gibson. Inspector Kim Y. Royster of the New York Police Department said the mother was the main suspect in the case, but added, “We still don’t know the cause of death.”

Administration for Children's Services (NYC)


Wristwatches That Help Screen Your Messages, and More

Abstract: I’VE been looking at my wrist a lot lately — and not just to see what time it is. I’ve been trying out some of the new watches that display caller IDs, text messages, Twitter and news feeds, and the weather, too — all beamed from a nearby companion smartphone. The watches are intended for those times when it is inconvenient to pull a smartphone out of a backpack or a pocket to check messages. Instead, you just check your quietly vibrating wristwatch. So if you’re riding your bike when your boss sends a text, or carrying a big bag of groceries when your mother-in-law fires off an e-mail, the snippet displayed on the watch face might help you decide whether to pay attention. Some of these new watches are already on the market; others are in prototype. Sony ’s SmartWatch, which sells for $149.99 at Sony stores and at the company Web site , is optimized to work with Sony’s Xperia line of phones, said Stephen Sneeden, the United States product marketing manager for Sony Mobile. But it is also compatible with most Android -based phones running version 2.1 and above, he said. A list of smartphone models that work with the watch will be posted at the Web site. THE SmartWatch has a sleek color touch screen that works by way of swipes, taps and the occasional two-fingered pinch. There is only one actual button — the on/off one tucked discreetly into the side. A rubbery black band comes with the watch; bands in five other shades cost $19.99 each. The Sony watch has its limitations. If you’ve wandered off on an errand and left your smartphone behind, don’t expect the phone to relay messages to your wrist from afar. The range for Bluetooth wireless communication between watch and phone is about 30 feet, Mr. Sneeden said. The touch screen has deep, attractive colors indoors but fades in direct sunlight. The watch has no voice capabilities built into it, and you cannot type replies on it, though you can send canned, prewritten responses like “Busy now.” Gmail is the main e-mail program it uses; attachments can’t be read. But you may find that the watch has advantages, too. Vibrations on your wrist to notify you of messages are far harder to miss than fainter ones coming from a phone stashed in a coat pocket. And there are many times — say, when you’re sitting in a meeting, supposedly paying attention — when the wrist is a discreet spot to check Facebook updates along with the time. The SmartWatch requires two apps for setup — LiveWare Manager and SmartWatch — both free on Google Play. Most Xperia phones have LiveWare preloaded, Mr. Sneeden said. Another Android-based smart watch, the WIMM One, was created primarily for developers who will incorporate it into mobile electronic products, said Tim Twerdahl, vice president for product marketing at WIMM Labs in Los Altos, Calif. The watch is also available on Amazon for $199. The WIMM One, a bit chunkier than the Sony SmartWatch, has a lot of built-in processing power, and two wireless communication modes — Bluetooth and Wi-Fi — so that it can work through a home network. “It will sync via Wi-Fi to your home office network and run all the apps without being paired to a phone,” Mr. Twerdahl said. This allows a user to read news feeds and to check messages on the watch face even if the phone isn’t near. The watch has a touch screen with two display modes. A power-saving black-and-white display turns the backlight off and uses ambient light to illuminate the screen. But holding a finger down on the watch face for a second brings a full-color screen to life. WIMM One typically lasts about 30 hours on a single charge, Mr. Twerdahl said. The watch comes preloaded with six apps. Other apps, all free, are at the WIMM Micro App Store Beta . More smart watches are on the way, including the Pebble , now in prototype, which will display information from Android phones and iPhones. It has a black-and-white e-paper display and buttons, rather than a touch screen. Many apps for the new watches can help owners with a range of practical tasks. One coming app for WINN One, Mr. Twerdahl said, will let a user draw a finger forward or back across the watch to change slides during a presentation. Another app may be handy in shopping. With a few swipes,” he said, “you can check your credit card balance” to see if you are exceeding your limit.

Watches and Clocks
Sony Corporation
WIMM Labs Inc
Mobile Applications
New Models Design and Products


Racing the Small but Mighty Tether Car Endures on Long Island

Abstract: SEAFORD ROGER PHILLIPS was beckoned to tether car racing when, as a youngster living in East Meadow in the late 1940s, he heard the distinctive cicada song of miniature cars blistering around a track at 100 miles per hour coming through his bedroom window. “I asked my father to take me to where the noise was coming from,” said Mr. Phillips, 67, a retired machinist. His father took him to a track where they saw gasoline-powered cars no more than two feet long, attached to a cable and circling a small track at unbelievable speeds. Tether car racing nearly died out after World War II, but it can still be found on Long Island, at one of three tracks for the cars in the country. Cars are typically a foot to two and a half feet long and weigh between two and six pounds. The size of the cars belies their capabilities: The largest model, a world-class 10-cubic-centimeter-engine car, can exceed 200 miles per hour. Nick Tucci, 48, a Great Neck dentist, is, like Mr. Phillips, a member of the Nassau County Miniature Car Racing Association, the only tether car club on the East Coast. He can hardly remember life without tether cars. Dr. Tucci’s grandfather embraced the sport after seeing a demonstration of footlong cars going 30 to 40 m.p.h. at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Tucci family trips to meets in Pennsylvania, Indiana and California in the 1970s deepened the bond between Dr. Tucci and his grandfather. “By the time I was in my teens, the spark was lit,” Dr. Tucci said. Eddie Fischman, 45, of Wantagh, had been flying model airplanes when he first saw the cars seven years ago. He said he was willing to work with depth gauges, torque wrenches and cleaning fluids to set up his five-pound tether car hoping to make 170 m.p.h. on a single run for one reason: “I’m a gearhead,” Mr. Fischman said. The Nassau County club, which has about 15 members, has a track at the back of Nassau County’s Cedar Creek Park here. The only other tracks in the country are in Whittier Narrows, Calif., and Anderson, Ind. Tether car races are run on a flat, circular concrete track, 66 feet in diameter, in individual time trials, and winners are decided on the basis of the average speed of eight laps totaling about 500 meters. These are not remote-control cars. Instead, the car is attached to a center post by a 33-foot steel cable. After the racer pushes the car to start it, someone at the center post, called a horser, uses the cable to guide the car around the circle until its fuel kicks in. At about 80 m.p.h., centrifugal force keeps the cable off the ground, and the horser steps up onto a platform. A racer listens to the sound to hear whether the engine is running rich or lean, and, when the car is thought to be at maximum speed, starts timing the eight laps. Tether car racing was born in 1937 on a vacant lot in Los Angeles. By 1948, there were 2,500 to 3,000 United States racers. “At the height of the sport, there were 440 tether tracks nationwide, some professionally built, some not,” said John Ellis, 57, a retired mold and tool maker from Cranford, N.J., who races tether cars and builds cars, gear boxes and engine parts for other racers across the country and around the world. Tracks were lost to postwar development, and the lure of less time-intensive hobbies badly hurt the sport by the 1980s. Today the American Miniature Racing Car Association has only 150 members. Tether car racing has a solid following in Australia and Europe, especially in former Soviet bloc countries where racing was a government-sanctioned sport. The Nassau club endures, however. In September, it hosted its sixth major competition since its inception in 1997, a grand prix race combining the United States nationals with a world-class meet. Sixty-six cars were entered in 10 classes, with racers from as far away as Australia and Estonia. The club holds races every two weeks from late April through late October. In the end, it’s the love for speed that binds the club. “I’m always amused to see people when they come down to the track for the first time,” said Doug Phillips, 39, Roger’s son and a racer himself. “At first, they have their noses pressed up to the fence as if this is a casual thing, and then, when the car takes off, they jump back 10 feet, amazed at how fast they really do go.”


DreamWorks Animation Cuts Its Staff and Output

Abstract: DreamWorks Animation said on Thursday that it would reduce its movie output and lay off 500 employees, or roughly 19 percent of its staff, a retrenchment that follows a string of box-office misfires and two failed merger attempts. The struggling studio, already one of Hollywood’s smallest, said the moves were necessary to “ensure the consistent and profitable delivery” of films. Rather than trying to release three movies in a single year, as it did in 2014, DreamWorks will release one film this year and two annually after that. Three films a year “was just too ambitious and has led to inconsistent performance,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, the company’s chief executive, said in a conference call with analysts. “Getting the feature film business back on track is our top priority.” Mr. Katzenberg added that he would refocus his attention on film production. In recent years, Mr. Katzenberg has stepped away from movies to focus on expanding fledgling television and consumer products businesses. The problem is that a successful consumer products unit, in particular, depends upon successful movies. The studio said it would take a $290 million restructuring charge and close an animation facility in Northern California. The studio’s shares rose slightly in after-hours trading, to $22. Additionally, DreamWorks will part ways with three senior executives: Dawn Taubin, chief marketing officer; Mark Zoradi, chief operating officer; and Lewis W. Coleman, vice chairman. Mr. Coleman, who is retiring, will also leave the board. “We were top-heavy,” Mr. Katzenberg said. Bill Damaschke, the studio’s chief creative officer, stepped down this month after some movies failed to meet box-office projections or required write-downs, including “Turbo,” “Rise of the Guardians,” “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” and “Penguins of Madagascar.” “How to Train Your Dragon 2” was a hit, particularly overseas, but missed expectations in North America. Taking Mr. Damaschke’s place are Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria, who will be co-presidents of feature animation. They will oversee a movie pipeline that begins with “Home,” set for release on March 27 by 20th Century Fox. After that, the studio will deliver one original film and one sequel annually. Mr. Katzenberg declined to comment on unsuccessful merger talks late last year with the Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank and Hasbro. But he indicated that DreamWorks had refocused on going it alone.


A Wild Card for the Playoffs: Heinz Field

Abstract: PITTSBURGH — The good news for Jacksonville Jaguars running back Fred Taylor: The forecast for Saturday night’s wild-card game against the Steelers calls for a low of 38 degrees and only a 20 percent chance of rain or snow. The bad news: The game is being played at Heinz Field. “That field is terrible,” Taylor said. “That is a lawsuit pending. That’s ridiculous. You’re up there where it rains a lot, it snows. Maybe they should try investing in FieldTurf next year.” Taylor ran for 147 yards in the snow during the Jaguars’ 29-22 victory in Pittsburgh three weeks ago, and he probably saw — as the rest of the nation did in November — what happens when water mixes with Heinz Field. In a Monday night game after Thanksgiving weekend against Miami, biblical rain flooded a layer of new sod to create what was called the Bog Bowl, a telegenic if not pristine game that was 17 seconds from going into overtime with a scoreless tie before the Steelers won, 3-0. The N.F.L. has romantically embraced the elements’ impact on its sport — Adam Vinatieri’s field goal for New England against Oakland in a blizzard is an iconic moment, and last weekend was the 40th anniversary of the Ice Bowl — but the Monday night muck produced more derision for a field that was already so disrespected that in a 2006 poll N.F.L. players voted it the worst grass field in the league. The Steelers have complained about the field, but they also almost universally insist they do not want artificial turf. Fans do not seem to mind the muck, either. The ratings for that Monday night game grew as the night, and the mud, wore on. “That made everybody think twice,” Art Rooney II, the Steelers’ president, said. “Some people thought it was the greatest thing they ever saw. It certainly evoked strong feelings.” Heinz Field is not the only cold-weather stadium with natural grass. Lambeau Field in Green Bay will play host to a divisional playoff game next weekend on its grass field, and Chicago, Kansas City, Denver and Cleveland, among others, also have grass. The difference is that Heinz Field is heavily used. On the Friday before the Bog Bowl (at what The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette christened Four Rivers Stadium), it played host to four high school playoff games. That might sound outlandish until you consider how popular football is in western Pennsylvania. The next day, the University of Pittsburgh played South Florida at the stadium. The N.F.L. usually avoids scheduling a Steelers game on the weekend of the high school playoffs, but this season, the Steelers got stuck. So they tried laying a new batch of sod on top of the existing grass — the league endorsed the idea, which had not been tried before — instead of digging up the worn sod and replacing it. The surface at Heinz Field, called DDGrassmaster, has synthetic grass injected to strengthen the roots and grows 10 inches deep, making a quick dig nearly impossible. Everything was fine until 1.31 inches of rain fell after the grass was laid Sunday night before the Miami game. The rain even seeped through the seams of the tarps that were laid over the grass. The grass never had a chance to knit together as it did at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, where new sod was laid over the field nearly two weeks before another game was played on it. In Pittsburgh, it came apart in chunks. At one point, a punted ball landed point up, stuck in the mud. Even the N.F.L. called the conditions unacceptable. Since then, the field has improved. When the Jaguars played here in mid-December, it snowed heavily, but the field remained intact. The high school and college football seasons are over here, providing reassurance that Heinz Field should be O.K. for playoff games, no matter the conditions. “I think we’ll be fine for the playoffs,” Rooney said. “It will be a typical grass field for this time of year.” Northern teams have wrestled with their playing fields for years. When the Patriots first built Gillette Stadium, it had grass but, like Heinz Field, Gillette is used for multiple events, including Major League Soccer games and concerts. By November, the natural grass had turned to natural dirt. The Patriots gave up and installed turf in the middle of the 2006 season. The Jets and the Giants struggled with a system of trays of natural grass at Giants Stadium for three years — at a total cost of about $6 million, according to Bill Squires, the president of the stadium managers association — until finally installing FieldTurf. It receives rave reviews, even from Taylor. “I think every one of us would love to have natural grass for N.F.L. games, but it’s so difficult,” Squires said. “Cold won’t allow you to regenerate. Grass is not stupid — it hibernates in winter. Now you throw in rain or snow during the course of play and you’ve got issues.” The Steelers certainly do. Steelers executives spent their last three road games walking around with their heads down. Not in shame, but in inspection of the turf fields at Gillette Stadium, the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis and M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. The Rooneys, whose team is celebrating its 75th season this season, are traditionalists, and in their hearts, they want to stick with grass. They contend that the surface, until the Dolphins debacle, had been the best it has ever been. They are also adamant that they will not ask the high school playoff games to leave Heinz Field. So this off-season, the Steelers will consider installing artificial turf. But they may receive some unlikely support for doing things the old-fashioned way this weekend. “I love the grass,” said Jaguars Coach Jack Del Rio, who was an N.F.L. linebacker from 1985 to 1995. “Mud and dirt and snow and torn up, I like it. It just reminds me of football when I was growing up when everybody had grass.”

Jacksonville Jaguars
Football
Weather
Pittsburgh Steelers
Taylor Fred
National Football League


Penalties in Hit on Referee

Abstract: Texas high school sports officials showed leniency Thursday after a former assistant football coach denied ordering two players to blindside a referee but acknowledged making comments that might have unintentionally instigated the hit. In issuing final penalties for the Sept. 4 incident, the University Interscholastic League suspended the former assistant, Mack Breed of John Jay High School in San Antonio, for the rest of the school year and placed him on two years of probation. Breed could have been suspended for up to three years, but officials said his willingness to testify helped reduce the sanctions. Coach Gary Gutierrez was given a public reprimand and two years of probation, and the two players involved were suspended from all sports and other extracurricular activities for the rest of the academic year.

Referee
Football
Mack Breed
San Antonio
Victor Rojas
K-12 Education
Assault


No Immigration Charges Filed Against Jose Antonio Vargas in Traffic Stop

Abstract: Federal immigration officials said on Monday that they had decided not to detain a prominent immigrant rights advocate after his arrest in Minnesota last week on a traffic violation because he did not present a risk to public safety. The immigrants’ advocate, Jose Antonio Vargas, was stopped Friday morning on a highway south of Minneapolis because he was driving with headphones on, his lawyers said. The Minnesota State Police officers arrested him after a check of his driver’s license revealed that it had been revoked by the authorities in Washington State, said Debra Schneider, a lawyer for Mr. Vargas. Mr. Vargas, an immigrant from the Philippines and a former reporter for The Washington Post, has been an activist since he revealed in June 2011 that he had been living in this country illegally for years. After the traffic stop, he was taken to the Hennepin County jail, where he was questioned by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement , the federal agency known as ICE. He was released Friday afternoon with no immigration charges being filed. “Mr. Vargas was not arrested by ICE nor did the agency issue a detainer,” said Gillian Christensen, an agency spokeswoman. “ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of public safety threats, recent border crossers and egregious immigration law violators, such as those who have been previously removed from the United States.” Agents determined that Mr. Vargas did not fit any of those priority categories for detention, Ms. Schneider said. Mr. Vargas was driving a rental car on his way to give a lecture at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. He missed the lecture. Mr. Vargas disclosed his illegal immigration status in a June 2011 article in The New York Times Magazine. In that article, he revealed that he had obtained a driver’s license using a false address. Shortly afterward, officials in Washington State revoked his license. Mr. Vargas will be arraigned in Minneapolis on Oct. 18 on charges of driving without a license, Ms. Schneider said. Speaking by telephone Monday, Mr. Vargas said he could not comment in detail because the case was still open. “I am grateful to have made it home Friday night,” said Mr. Vargas, who lives in New York. The Obama administration’s policy of steering away from detaining illegal immigrants who have not been convicted of crimes has been strongly criticized by Republicans in Congress and by some immigration agents, who say ICE is failing to enforce the law and creating a de facto amnesty. Rights groups have protested that the administration’s enforcement programs still sweep up many immigrants for minor infractions like traffic violations. In June 2012, Mr. Vargas appeared on the cover of Time magazine with an article about young people living illegally in the United States. The next day, President Obama announced a reprieve from deportation for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants. At 31, Mr. Vargas is too old to qualify for that program.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US)


Typhoon Wreaks Havoc on Philippines

Abstract: MANILA (Reuters) — Nearly 60 people were killed, Manila was blacked out and airline flights were suspended on Saturday as a powerful typhoon battered the main Philippine island of Luzon, disaster officials said. Television footage showed houses swept away by swollen rivers and people on rooftops waving for help as the storm packing winds of 60 miles per hour dumped more than 13 inches of rain in about six hours. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in a televised message, appealed for donations of clothes, blankets, food and water as hundreds of families were awaiting rescue. At least 47 people were killed, mostly by drowning, in Rizal Province, east of Manila, the local governor was quoted as saying on the radio. Eleven more people were killed by collapsing walls and rising floodwaters in the capital area, disaster officials said.


Orphan Drugs for Rare Diseases Gain Popularity With Pharmaceutical Companies

Abstract: BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Drug companies are fond of saying that every patient counts, but in the world of orphan diseases, entire business plans are built around the idea. That is why Andrew E. Jablonski, a 26-year-old from Lincoln, Neb., was a guest of honor this month at NPS Pharmaceuticals , a small New Jersey company that is about to begin selling Gattex, its only approved drug. Mr. Jablonski, who was born missing most of his intestines and has a condition known as short bowel syndrome, is central to the company’s mission to win over the tiny pool of patients — fewer than 5,000 nationwide — that the drug is intended to treat. Over the last two years, NPS has carefully tended its relationship with Mr. Jablonski, helping to finance his nonprofit, the Short Bowel Syndrome Foundation , and flying company leaders to visit him in Lincoln. On Jan. 15, he met with the chief executive and strategized with marketing employees about how to promote Gattex to his social network of 1,000 patients and caregivers. “It’s a nice, close relationship,” Mr. Jablonski said. “I’m an asset to them, as they are an asset to me.” NPS hopes that Gattex will ultimately bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales and help establish the company in the increasingly hot orphan drug market, where companies can charge premium prices to treat overlooked diseases with little or no competition. NPS expects to charge about $300,000 a year for Gattex, a breathtaking price tag that is nonetheless on par with other ultra-orphan drugs on the market. Development of these drugs is increasingly attractive to pharmaceutical companies, which are searching for new sources of revenue as sales of more traditional, mass-market drugs have been lost to generic competition. The orphan drug market was worth more than $50 billion in 2011 and turns out blockbusters at the same rate as the broader industry, according to a recent Thomson Reuters analysis . Pfizer opened a rare disease unit in 2010, and in 2011, Sanofi acquired the biotech company Genzyme , considered one of the pioneers of the orphan drug industry. Image Andrew Jablonski, 26, who has short bowel syndrome, founded an advocacy group for people with the condition. Credit Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times As orphan drugs have become increasingly popular, companies have honed their marketing techniques, knowing that they cannot afford to lose a single patient. Following in the footsteps of drug makers like Vertex, which makes the cystic fibrosis drug Kalydeco, NPS has formed close bonds with advocates like Mr. Jablonski and hired so-called patient care coordinators who will do everything from making sure that Gattex is delivered to patients’ doorsteps to writing appeal letters if an insurer refuses to pay for it. Much is riding on the drug’s success: Gattex is the centerpiece of a comeback plan for NPS, which nearly folded six years ago after a previous drug, to treat osteoporosis, failed to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration. After that setback, the company closed its Utah office and laid off nearly all of its more than 400 employees. NPS has since shifted its focus to orphan drugs and now employs about 140 people, including 27 new sales representatives hired to sell Gattex. If Gattex succeeds, NPS predicts the drug could bring in more than $350 million a year, which would significantly improve the company’s fortunes. NPS had $101.6 million in revenue in 2011, mostly from royalty payments on drugs that were licensed to other companies. It had an estimated $133 million in revenue in 2012, according to a report by the investment bank Canaccord Genuity. To make Gattex a success, however, NPS will need to rely on people like Mr. Jablonski, who founded his group in 2011 to bring together the diverse group of patients who have short bowel syndrome. People with the condition have lost part of their intestines for a variety of reasons, like car accidents, cancer and complications of diseases like Crohn’s. Many patients cannot absorb enough nutrients through food and require an intravenous feeding line to survive. Gattex is designed to decrease their reliance on such lines, improving their quality of life and lowering their risk for life-threatening complications like infections. During Mr. Jablonski’s visit to NPS, employees briefed him on nearly every aspect of the drug and its rollout, from common questions that members of his foundation may ask to how they can get help paying for the drug. Mr. Jablonski, who is not on intravenous nutrition, said he had formed a close relationship with NPS because patients with short bowel syndrome were desperate for an effective treatment. He said he did not see a conflict between his role as an advocate for patients and his collaboration with NPS. “Our mission, our goals and values, they closely align,” he said. In clinical trials, about two-thirds of patients saw at least a 20 percent decrease in the volume of intravenous nutrition they required per week. Patients on the drug are believed to be at a higher risk for cancer and other conditions. Image Gattex was developed to treat fewer than 5,000 patients. Credit Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times Many patients have heard stories like that of Devera Marshall, who participated in clinical trials and has been able to stop using intravenous nutrition altogether. “I saw pretty instant, miraculous effects,” said Ms. Marshall, a mother of three from San Diego who said she had returned to playing tennis for the first time since losing most of her intestines after complications from surgery five years ago. But she gasped when a reporter told her the price of Gattex, which she is receiving free because she is participating in a long-term trial. “Wow — I’m a little floored,” she said. “Does this mean I get on the horn with my insurance company and start begging and pleading?” Despite the high cost of the drug, NPS executives say few, if any, patients will have to pay much for it. The company will cover out-of-pocket expenses for patients who are privately insured if the costs exceed $10 a month, and nonprofit foundations that receive financing from NPS will pay the expenses for people insured by Medicaid and Medicare. NPS will cover the full cost of Gattex for those who do not have any insurance. The company said it surveyed major insurers before setting its price and was told the drug would most likely be covered. NPS executives point out that the cost of intravenous nutrition is more than $100,000 a year, and expenses like home health aides and hospitalizations can drive even higher the cost of caring for patients with the condition. Taking a page from other companies that have recently introduced profitable orphan drugs, NPS will put every person who is prescribed Gattex in touch with a dedicated care coordinator who will walk the patient through the insurance reimbursement process and answer questions about the drug. NPS said that it had identified about 1,000 eligible patients through partnerships with five home infusion companies that provide care to patients with short bowel syndrome, and that it expected 200 to 300 patients to be using the drug by the end of the year. Karen Galambos, one of the coordinators, said she expected to get to know each of her patients on a first-name basis, exchanging photos, perhaps, or calling just to check in. “My goal is to hold the patient’s hand through the whole process,” she said. “We’re not going to let go of the ball.”

Pharmaceuticals
NPS Pharmaceuticals
Short Bowel Syndrome Foundation
Andrew E Jablonski


Amid Storm Over Slurs, Fire Chief Plans Exit

Abstract: A fire chief in Westchester County whose firefighters disclosed that on several occasions he had used anti-Semitic slurs to deride a town supervisor has decided to retire at the end of the year. Anthony LoGiudice, the chief of the Fairview Fire District, one of three independent fire regions in the town of Greenburgh, told reporters after a meeting of the district’s fire commission Thursday evening that the controversy had nothing to do with his decision, but he did not elaborate. Nevertheless, the pressure on him to leave his post seemed insurmountable. Although he personally apologized to the town supervisor, Paul J. Feiner, the editorial board of a Westchester newspaper, The Journal News, called on him to resign, and the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League said the incident raised “questions about whether the problem is bigger than Chief LoGiudice.” Mr. Feiner, who was first elected supervisor in 1991, has no authority over Mr. LoGiudice, but he seemed to anger the chief by pressing voters for a consolidation of two of the fire districts, Hartsdale and Fairview, as a way of saving taxpayer money. Mr. Feiner has argued that because of high salaries — Mr. LoGiudice alone earns over $200,000 annually, according to Mr. Feiner — the fire district, with a force of 45 professionals and 18 volunteers, has an exorbitant budget. “It costs almost the same to run a fire district that serves less than one-third of the town than it costs to run the entire town government — with many services,” Mr. Feiner wrote in an email. Mr. LoGiudice’s decision was made public by the Fairview fire commissioners at a meeting at which they considered a proposal to add another deputy chief to the department, at a salary of $160,000. The commissioners turned down the proposal. Mr. LoGiudice’s use of anti-Semitic slurs to refer to Mr. Feiner emerged in an age-discrimination lawsuit brought by a volunteer firefighter who was seeking a paid job with the Fairview force. Other firefighters said they had heard similar derogatory remarks over the years. Mr. LoGiudice, who has been a firefighter for more than 30 years, did not return a message Friday left on his voice mail. In the days after his words about Mr. Feiner became public, he walked into the supervisor’s office, said he was sorry and asked him to read a letter of apology. In the letter, Mr. LoGiudice said that when he saw his words repeated in a local newspaper and understood that friends and neighbors “of the Jewish faith were reading those words, I was horrified.” Mr. Feiner said that he was “hurt, sad and offended” by the chief’s remarks and that the apology was a positive step. But he called on Mr. LoGiudice to visit a Holocaust museum in the company of a survivor, “so he will have a better appreciation of why so many people are distressed by his remarks.”

Fires
Anthony LoGiudice
Antisemitism
Paul J Feiner
Fire Department NYC
Greenburgh NY


Gems in the Back of a Closet

Abstract: To ordinary people, the end of the year brings holiday gatherings, gift-giving and New Year’s resolutions. To a technology critic, though, the year’s end also brings a sobering realization: no matter how hard you try, no matter how many columns and blog entries you write, you can’t review everything. A look inside Pogue’s Technology Closet is all the proof you need. Here are four shelves of products, sitting forlornly in their shipping boxes, still unreviewed, wearing little stainless-steel expressions that seem to say, “When is it our turn?” Today, my little electronic friends. Today. Herewith, minireviews of products that, for one reason or another, never saw the light of day in this column. Who knows? Some of them might actually make great last-minute, unexpected Christmas presents. Chargepod ($50). On paper, it sounds O.K.: a little round hub with six short spokes, each of which can charge one of your mobile gadgets. That is, the Chargepod can charge a cellphone, iPod , Game Boy, Bluetooth earpiece, Palm organizer and BlackBerry simultaneously. In practice, it’s even better. First, you don’t need a power strip to charge all your gadgets, just a single outlet. Second, you’ve eliminated six hideous, snarling black cables and transformers. Third, this thing is the size of a drink coaster; you can slip it into its carrying case and leave your six individual adapters at home. The bad news: Since the electronics industry idiotically insists on inventing incompatible, noninterchangeable connectors for every new gadget, you have to order the appropriate Chargepod spokes (actually short black cables) individually, at $10 apiece. Callpod, the company that makes Chargepod, offers dozens of them for individual cellphone models, iPods and so on at www.callpod.com . Ten bucks each for four-inch cables is borderline outrageous; they’re not even labeled. Still, though — you’ll use and get pleasure from this invention every single day. LightScoop ($30). If you’ve paid $500 or more for a digital S.L.R. camera, you deserve to get photographic results that put pocket cameras to shame. And you do — except when you use the built-in flash. At close range, an S.L.R. can turn a face into featureless whiteness just as well as a $200 junker. This clever mirror attachment slides onto your S.L.R.’s flash (at lightscoop.com , you order the model that corresponds to your camera brand). When you take a flash picture, the mirror bounces the light off the ceiling. The result: your subject is illuminated by diffuse light, just as if you had used one of those reflector umbrellas that the pros use. The LightScoop also eliminates red-eye and the “cave effect,” where the room background comes out looking black. The LightScoop requires a ceiling or light-colored wall, so it’s useless outdoors. But it produces nuanced, natural, flattering light on your subject; the before-after difference is incredible. PhotoFidd le . One morning, Mr. FedEx dropped off a mysterious package that looked for all the world as if it contained a painting. It did: a stunning interpretive painting of my two children hugging, by the seashore at sunset. Oil on canvas, stretched across a 16-x-20-inch frame. It was awesome — and sneaky. It had been sent by PhotoFiddle.com , a company that turns your digital photos into actual paint-on-canvas originals, in any of dozens of art styles (modern, abstract, Warhol, sketch and so on). They’d found the photo on my own Web site, run it through their computerized painting machines, and sent it, unsolicited, in hopes of piquing my interest. My editor said I was welcome to write about it — but I couldn’t keep it unless I paid for it. Which I did ($140). There are other companies that turn photos into canvas paintings, by the way; Google can find them for you, and they make incredible gifts. But not many of them offer a choice of painter styles the way PhotoFiddle does. Evolve wireless speakers ($300). This speaker system is more a magic trick than a product. It looks sensational: two 5.5-inch cube speakers sit on a 16-inch brushed-metal platform. You slip your iPod into the center slot (or connect some type of source to the input jacks) and use the tiny remote to control playback and volume. But here’s the “wow” part: those speaker cubes aren’t attached to anything, not even wires. Even while they’re playing, you can pick them up and park them on a shelf, a piano, in the bedroom, on the patio or anywhere within 100 to 150 feet. Talk about stereo separation! You don’t have to remember which is the left and right speaker; just setting them back on the platform, which is a recharger, changes their identities. In fact, if your friends bring their cubes over, they can set them briefly on the platform; those cubes become part of your system, broadcasting the same music. There’s not much in the way of thumping bass. But speakers that recharge and play wirelessly — how cool is that? George iPod speaker system ($500). Yes, it’s another wireless iPod speaker system. This time, though, it’s not the speakers that are wireless; it’s the control panel. When you pull this panel away from the tabletop speaker system, it becomes a full-blown wireless remote. Unlike the bare-bones remotes for most iPod speakers, this one displays everything you’d see on the iPod — playlists, songs, and so on. Using the knob, you can scroll through your collection as if you were using the iPod itself. The George sounds great, although even with its little internal subwoofer, the bass doesn’t rattle your ribs. There’s also AM and FM radio, plus a gloriously smart alarm clock. Here’s a first: It wakes you with the iPod track and volume level that were in effect when you set the alarm, even if the George has played other stuff, at other volumes, in the meantime. Eye-Fi wireless SD card ($100). Now $100 is a lot to pay for a 2-gigabyte memory card for your camera. But this one ( www.eye.fi ) has a stealth feature: incredibly, it has a built-in Wi-Fi transmitter. Whenever your camera is turned on and in your home wireless network, it begins beaming your full-size photos back to your computer and to your choice of 17 photo Web sites (Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and so on). Automatically and effortlessly. There are downsides. You have to set up the wireless network ahead of time, so you can’t spontaneously use someone else’s network. You can’t use the Eye-Fi at commercial hot spots. The uploading is slow (about 45 seconds a photo). The card sends only JPEG files, not movies or RAW files. You have to erase the card manually after the transfer. You can’t choose which photos to upload, either. The card sends everything, always. And you don’t get any indication of when the uploading is finished. You have to walk over to the computer, inspect the new arrivals and compare them with what’s on the camera; otherwise, you risk shutting off the camera too soon and preventing some photos from escaping. Still, what a stunt: You come home, take off your coat, turn on the camera and walk away, confident that your photos will shortly be safely on the computer and online. At a party, you can set up a live slide show, where photos of your guests appear on your PC or TV within seconds of your snapping them. So there you have it: a purging of my closet and my conscience. Now, having done my columnar duty, I can finally get these babies packed up and sent back to their manufacturers. After all: don’t gadgets deserve to be home for the holidays, too?


The Tall and the Small

Abstract: Q. Among dogs, small breeds often live longer than larger ones. Is there any evidence that life expectancy for taller humans is also briefer? A. Though there has long been a popular assumption that taller people are healthier and therefore likely to live longer, a large body of evidence from recent studies suggests that the opposite may be true. “Findings based on millions of deaths suggest that shorter, smaller bodies have lower death rates and fewer diet-related chronic diseases, especially past middle age,” researchers concluded in a 2003 review article in the journal Life Sciences. “Shorter people also appear to have longer average life spans.” For just one example, a 2012 study of hundreds of military conscripts from a village in Sardinia from 1866 to 1915 found that the shorter recruits tended to live longer, and by the age of 70, their life expectancy was two years greater. There is no single proven cause-and-effect mechanism, however, and there are also substantial studies finding taller stature to be associated with greater longevity, especially in the distant past, when causes of death were different. A 2001 study of centuries of skeletal remains in an English churchyard, published in The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found that longer bones were associated with greater age at death. question@nytimes.com


Persecuted in Africa, Finding Refuge in New York

Abstract: Pape Mbaye gets a lot of attention. Even in jaded New York, people watch the way he walks (his style defines the word sashay) and scrutinize his outfits, which on a recent afternoon featured white, low-slung capris, a black purse, eyeliner and diamond-studded jewelry. And he likes it. “I’m fabulous,” he said. “I feel good.” Mr. Mbaye, 24, is an entertainer from Dakar, Senegal , known there for his dancing, singing and storytelling. But while his flamboyance may be celebrated in New York, he attracted the wrong kind of attention in West Africa this year, and it nearly cost him his life. In February, a Senegalese magazine published photographs of what was reported to be an underground gay marriage and said that Mr. Mbaye, who appeared in the photos and is gay himself, had organized the event. In the ensuing six months, Mr. Mbaye said, he was harassed by the police, attacked by armed mobs, driven from his home, maligned in the national media and forced to live on the run across West Africa. In July, the United States government gave him refugee status, one of the rare instances when such protection has been granted to a foreigner facing persecution based on sexual orientation. A month later, Mr. Mbaye arrived in New York, eventually moving into a small furnished room in the Bronx that rents for $150 per week. It has a bed, air-conditioner, television, cat and pink walls. “There’s security, there’s independence, there’s peace,” he said of his new country. But even as he has begun looking for work, with the help of a few Senegalese immigrants he knows from Dakar, Mr. Mbaye is largely avoiding the mainstream Senegalese community, fearing that the same prejudices that drove him out of Africa may dog him here. One recent evening, while visiting close family friends from Dakar who live in Harlem, he recalled a shopping trip to 116th Street, where many Senegalese work and live. There, he said, he was harassed by a Senegalese man who ridiculed Mr. Mbaye’s outfit and threatened him. “He said, ‘If you were in Senegal, I would kill you,’ ” Mr. Mbaye said, gesturing with his arms, his voice rising. “I have my freedom now, and that man wanted to take it.” The United States does not track how often it grants refuge to people fleeing anti-gay persecution. But Christopher Nugent, an immigration lawyer with Holland & Knight, a Washington law firm where he is a senior pro bono counsel specializing in refugee and asylum cases, said that in the past decade he has heard of only a handful. The government also does not track the number of persecuted gay men and lesbians who are granted asylum, but experts in the field say the number is higher than those granted refugee status. (Asylum is granted to people already in the United States, while people outside the country must seek refugee status.) Mr. Mbaye’s case was exceptional because his fame made his situation particularly perilous, said Mr. Nugent, who represented Mr. Mbaye in his petition. “He was vilified in the Senegalese media as being the face of the sinful homosexual, and he had scars to show,” he said. For the past few years, anti-gay hysteria has been sweeping across swaths of Africa, fueled by sensationalist media reports of open homosexuality among public figures and sustained by deep and abiding taboos that have made even the most hateful speech about gays not just acceptable but almost required. Gay men and women have recently been arrested in Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda and Ghana, among other countries. “In most countries there is poverty and instability, and usually homosexuality is used as a way of shifting the attention from the actual problem to this thing that is not really the problem but can distract the public,” said Joel Nana, who is from Cameroon and who works for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Pape Mbaye (pronounced POP mm-BYE) had been living the Senegalese version of the high life for some time. He worked principally as a griot — a singer and storyteller invited to weddings, birthday parties and other events to perform traditional songs, dance and tell stories. By West African standards, it earned him a good living. He had performed at parties for wealthy and famous Senegalese, had two cars and a driver, an overflowing wardrobe and an apartment in a fashionable neighborhood decked out with rococo gold-leaf-encrusted furniture. Mr. Mbaye, who said he had known he was gay from a young age, seldom tried to hide his sexuality, often wearing makeup and jewelry in public. Though Senegal passed an antisodomy law in 1965 that forbids “an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex,” homosexuality has traditionally been quietly tolerated in Senegal, particularly among the creative class of musicians and artists that is so central to Senegalese culture. But the publication of the gay wedding photos on Feb. 1 dovetailed with a recent surge in anti-gay sentiment, a trend partly fueled by some conservative Islamic leaders, sending Mr. Mbaye on his harrowing odyssey. On the morning after the article’s publication, Mr. Mbaye and several gay friends were arrested by the police , who held them for four days. During his detention, Mr. Mbaye said, he was questioned about his participation in the marriage ceremony, which he asserted was a party, not a wedding. Under diplomatic pressure from the Netherlands and Denmark, the Senegalese authorities released Mr. Mbaye and his friends. The singer said the police told him and his friends that they should go into hiding. “The police cannot guarantee your security because the entire society will be out to get you,” a police official said, according to testimony that Mr. Mbaye would later give to Human Rights Watch . While he was in detention, his apartment was looted and anti-gay graffiti was scrawled on the wall of the building, he said. He and several gay friends fled to Ziguinchor in south Senegal, but in mid-February, a mob wielding broken bottles, forks and other weapons stormed the house and beat them, Mr. Mbaye said. Mr. Mbaye spent the next several weeks moving from one safe house to another before fleeing to Gambia on May 11. Several days later, President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia vowed to behead all homosexuals in his country. Mr. Mbaye immediately returned to Dakar. But he was discovered and chased by a crowd, as local news media reported his return. He sought sanctuary at the offices of Raddho, a human rights organization based in Dakar, which put him in the care of Human Rights Watch. “I am like a hunted animal,” Mr. Mbaye said during an interview while he hid out in a Dakar hotel. Human Rights Watch helped Mr. Mbaye assemble his refugee application and get to Ghana, where he sought help from the American Embassy in Accra, the country’s capital. While in Ghana, Mr. Mbaye said, he was attacked again, this time by knife-wielding Senegalese expatriates who had discovered he was there. The assault, which left him with wounds, probably accelerated the review process for his application, Mr. Nugent said. (Confidentiality regulations forbid United States immigration officials from discussing the case.) Mr. Mbaye received his refugee status on July 31, and he arrived at Kennedy Airport on Aug. 18 carrying several suitcases and a Chanel handbag. A few weeks later, he received his Social Security card and work authorization permit. He hopes to resume his career, though he acknowledges that until he improves his English, he will have to perform in French and Wolof, an African language. He also dreams of getting a modeling contract. In the meantime, he said, he will do just about anything. “I would like a job in a restaurant or a hotel or a club or in perfume or in makeup,” he said. “But no bricklaying.” Mr. Nugent has been posting notices on Internet mailing lists serving the gay community in search of sponsors to help Mr. Mbaye find work, including in gay nightclubs. Mr. Mbaye seems undaunted. At his friends’ home in Harlem, he celebrated his newfound freedom. “I want to live with the gays!” he said as his hosts laughed. “Pape Mbaye is American!”

Senegal
Homosexuality
Immigration and Refugees
New York City


Russians’ Anxiety Swells as Oil Prices Collapse

Abstract: KRASNODAR, Russia — Last year was bad enough financially for Sergei and Victoria Titov, both music teachers getting along in years. Her government salary was slashed by one third, and rampant inflation put some basic groceries like eggplant and cucumbers out of reach. Then came Jan. 1, and the abrupt decision by the regional government here in Krasnodar, the capital of Russia ’s southern agricultural heartland, to chop transportation subsidies for older Russians, forcing the couple to limit their trolley rides. Indignant and fearing worse amid Russia’s accelerating economic problems, Sergei joined an unauthorized demonstration last week by hundreds of older Russians who gathered under the bronze statue of a Cossack horseman on the main square here and chanted, “Return our benefits!” They were not alone, neither in Krasnodar nor across this vast nation, where illegal protests and wildcat strikes are erupting with increasing frequency by truckers , teachers, factory workers and all sorts of Russians facing steep government cutbacks because of plummeting revenue from oil and gas . The global collapse in oil prices is reordering economic relations around the world, but the change is particularly daunting for Russia, which relies on energy exports for 50 percent of its federal budget . Image Sergei Titov, 64, outside the Krasnodar regional administration building in southern Russia, where he recently took part in a demonstration against cuts in income for Russian pensioners. Credit James Hill for The New York Times In December, President Vladimir V. Putin told the nation that the worst of the recession — the economy shrank 3.9 percent and inflation hit 12.9 percent in 2015 — was over and that modest growth would return in 2016. He has been pushing the oil collapse as an “opportunity” that will wean Russia off energy imports and diversify the economy. Then in January oil fell below $30 per barrel, with no bottom in sight, and the ruble hit a record low of nearly 85 to the dollar before recovering slightly. The last time oil prices dropped so low and stayed there, in the 1980s, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Steadily rising prices since 2000 have lifted Russia out of poverty and economic chaos, buoying the prosperity of many Russians with it. Mr. Putin was lucky enough to be president for much of that period, but he now faces an extended decline, with real incomes shrinking. With the federal budget approved in December based on oil at $50 a barrel, Anton Siluanov, the finance minister, announced that the country faced a budget deficit of about $40 billion, and ministries were ordered to cut spending 10 percent. Budgets were similarly guillotined last year . In Krasnodar, Mr. Titov, 64, braced for harder times. “I do not know what they will cut, but I know it will affect us,” he said. “We are watching all this with alarm. It is clear that the government lacks the necessary resources to give us a normal life.” In Krasnodar, a city of about 800,000 people, retirees register a kind of sticker shock when discussing food prices , yelling out items as they remember newly high prices. “Apples!” one shouted, noting that the cost had nearly doubled. Then “Zucchini!” Then “Smoked sausages!” Video Some restaurants are turning sanctions into an opportunity to celebrate traditional food. Credit Credit Sergei Chirikov/European Pressphoto Agency Food prices rose 20 percent last year, according to official statistics, but often Russians say their grocery tab is up by a third or more, thanks in part to sanctions Moscow slapped on Western food imports in retaliation for sanctions the West imposed over Ukraine. Sergei Galustian, 65, a retired police officer, lives on a downtown street with just 27 houses, their proximity making it easy to assess change. “Nobody is starving yet, but incomes are definitely down,” he said, noting that homes are colder, that neighbors turn on just two lamps after dark where they once used five and that people have stopped buying new clothes. Retail sales across Russia were down by 13.1 percent for the year ending in November, according to official statistics, with car sales off nearly 40 percent. The 100 or so workers at the giant Seydin Machine Tool Factory, once the pride of the city during the Soviet era, have not seen a paycheck for a year and recently received layoff notices. They, too, have on occasion gathered in the main square to demand their back pay. The workers “have to take to the streets!” they wrote in an open letter to Mr. Putin. In a tradition dating from Soviet times, most firms, and especially state-run companies, tend to cut hours or stop paying salaries rather than fire people to diminish the chances for social unrest. In Moscow on Wednesday, about 15 employees of Sbarro, the pizza chain based in Ohio, stood in the brutal cold outside one franchise holding signs saying, “Give us our money.” Several said they had not been paid for at least three months. Oil Prices: What to Make of the Volatility Over the last two and a half years, the oil industry experienced its deepest downturn since at least the 1990s. “They just tell us they have problems,” said Sergei Yudichev, 50, a driver for the chain for more than two years. Albeit poorer, Russia remains a petro state, so there are pockets of plenty. Rolls-Royce reported a 5 percent jump in sales last year, the rich splurging as the value of their assets nose-dived. Others just seemed oblivious. Moscow’s City Hall advertised for tenders for its banquets, noting that menu items should include foie gras and Parma ham (which is banned elsewhere in Russia because of sanctions). Social media erupted in mocking resentment. One Russian quoted a famous line by the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovski from the 1917 revolution, “Eat pineapples, munch your grouse!” and left unstated the second line, “Your last day is coming, bourgeois!” Russia pumped record amounts of oil last year, nearly 11 million barrels per day, but that pace will not save it in the current global glut. The main government strategy so far seems to be to cut spending and to rely on its reserves until oil prices improve. Russia has around $360 billion in foreign currency reserves and some $120 billion in two rainy day funds, down from just under $160 billion a year ago. At current spending rates, however, the two funds are expected to last only 18 months. It might also sell significant stakes in state-run companies like the oil giant Rosneft or Sberbank, and it will not increase military spending. Image Sbarro workers protesting in Moscow. Russia’s economy is dependent on oil, so revenue falls in tandem with oil prices. Credit James Hill for The New York Times Mr. Titov, a veteran organizer for the Communist Party, said he felt the economic problems were contributing to a corrosive sense of drift. “Russia always lived with some manner of national idea, a goal: We were building socialism and communism,” he said. “But there is no national idea. Now, we just go with the flow and it is not clear in what direction.” Russian involvement in wars in Ukraine and Syria has swelled the general whirlpool of anxiety, with the possibility of a global war discussed on state-run television. Some analysts accuse the Kremlin of deliberately seeking overseas adventures to distract people from domestic economic woes. “People are more alarmed and more tense, because now we are speaking not only about their well-being, but their lives in general,” said Valery Fedorov, director general of the government-owned Russia Public Opinion Research Center, known by its Russian initials, Vciom. Many analysts expect people to do what Russians always do in hard times — hunker down, tend to their vegetable plots and wait it out. Others say that Russians have gotten used to a higher standard of living and that they will protest losing it. The government allows street protests over issues like lost wages, but its distinctly authoritarian edge emerges in the face of political action. So far, local governments have reacted lightly to the protests. The governor of the Krasnodar Region restored transportation passes for the older Russians receiving the lowest pensions. Some residents, like Mr. Titov, groused that the wealth was being wasted on prestige projects rather than helping ordinary people. Still, he does not expect Russians to sour on Mr. Putin any time soon. In nearby Sochi, Russia spent around $50 billion to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, and a similar construction juggernaut is building stadiums nationwide for the 2018 World Cup. “The Russian people got what they wanted, a czar ruling the country,” he said of Mr. Putin. “What we need is an effective manager, but what we got is the Olympics, soccer and war.”

Russia
Economy
Layoffs
Oil and Gasoline
Civil Unrest
Strikes Labor
Jobs
Wages and salaries
Labor Unions
Embargoes Sanctions


American Missionary Among the Dead in Burkina Faso Siege

Abstract: Qaeda militants killed one American in an attack on two hotels and a cafe in the capital of Burkina Faso that left at least 28 people dead and 56 injured on Friday and Saturday, the State Department said on Saturday night. A State Department spokesman, John Kirby, identified the victim as Michael James Riddering. Mr. Kirby said that Mr. Riddering was killed during the course of the attack on two hotels, the Splendid and the Yibi, and a restaurant, Cappuccino Cafe, that sparked a 15-hour standoff in the heart of Ouagadougou, the capital. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this difficult time, as they are with all those affected by this brutality,” Mr. Kirby said. Mr. Riddering, 45, was a missionary who worked at the Les Ailes de Refuge Orphanage in the town of Yako, 70 miles from the capital, according to a statement from the organization that runs the orphanage, Sheltering Wings. It said that he moved to Burkina Faso from Florida, where he sold boats, in 2011 with his wife, Amy, and daughter Delaney to do missionary work. “Heaven has gained a warrior!” Amy Riddering wrote on Facebook on Saturday in memory of her husband. “I know God has a purpose in all things but sometimes it is a complete mystery to me.” “My heart is so heavy and I am having trouble believing he is gone,” she added. “Mike was an example in the way he lived and loved. God be glorified!” On Saturday, the missionary organization provided a detailed account of Mr. Riddering’s trip to Ouagadougou. It said he went to the capital on Friday with a co-worker, identified only as Pastor Valentin, to meet a group of missionaries who had just arrived from the United States. They arrived in the city before their scheduled meeting and stopped at the Cappuccino Cafe, which came under attack from the militants while they were inside. Ms. Riddering received a phone call from the pastor during the assault “urgently requesting prayer,” the group said, but the phone quickly cut out. In a post on Facebook, she said the call had come from her husband’s phone. “It appears that Pastor Valentin was somehow separated from Mike during the attack and hid somewhere in the Cappuccino Cafe,” the missionary group said. The pastor was later rescued by security forces but did not know what had happened to Mr. Riddering, and for many hours it was unclear. Another missionary, Philip Matheny, found his body on Saturday in a morgue. Sheltering Wings said that in addition to his wife and daughter Delaney, Mr. Riddering is survived by three other children Haley, Biba and Moise. Addressing her husband in her Facebook eulogy, Ms. Riddering wrote: “You left quite a legacy here. I can only imagine the adventures you are having now.”

Burkina Faso
Michael James Riddering
Terrorism
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb


New York City Council to Look at School Segregation

Abstract: Members of the New York City Council will introduce a package of legislation on Wednesday to draw attention to what they described as a lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity in the city’s public schools, which by some measures are among the most segregated school districts in the country. “We claim to be clear on the values of diversity for our kids and the necessity of not having a segregated system,” said Brad Lander, a Democratic councilman from Brooklyn and the main sponsor of one of the bills. “Unfortunately, the reality is we have a deeply segregated school system that doesn’t deliver the benefits of diversity to most public school kids.” The package contains three parts. Mr. Lander’s bill would require the city’s Education Department to publicly report raw numbers for various measures of diversity in city schools. Some of the specific measures, which will be added to the bill before a hearing in November, may include race and socioeconomic level, but also the number of students in temporary housing, their place of birth and the number of students with disabilities. The two other pieces of legislation are nonbinding resolutions. One of them, sponsored by Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, calls on the Education Department to officially declare school diversity a policy goal. The other resolution, sponsored by Inez Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat, urges the State Legislature to rewrite a law that requires the city’s specialized high schools, an elite group that includes Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School, to admit students based on the results of a single test. Only 12 percent of the open seats this year were offered to black and Hispanic students, even though 70 percent of the city’s public school students are black or Hispanic. There has been little support in Albany for changing the admissions practice, but it has been challenged by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other civil rights organizations in a complaint with the federal Education Department, which is investigating. That the city’s Education Department “has an officially neutral stance on diversity is incompatible with Brown v. the Board of Education,” Mr. Torres said. “Our purpose is to force the Department of Education to rediscover diversity as a civic good.” Devora Kaye, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said the de Blasio administration recognized “the critical value that a diverse student body brings to our schools” and was looking forward to reviewing the legislation. Though the City Council has very limited power over public schools, the bill’s sponsors say they do have the ability to increase the volume of the conversation. Where the conversation becomes conspicuously hushed is when the issues of school zones are raised. Some advocates say that a significant driver behind school segregation is the practice of deciding admissions based on where students live, a system the city uses for many of its elementary schools. In many parts of the city, including in Mr. Lander’s district, which covers Park Slope, many people make their housing decisions based on popular school zones — and pay a significant premium to do so — so the political climate is extremely inhospitable to any change. “I think there are steps we can take in the direction of diversity and confronting segregation that builds on the school system we have, and don’t rely on turning the whole thing upside down,” Mr. Lander said. But eliminating elementary school zones in favor of letting parents choose schools, as is the case with many middle and high schools, is not a panacea, advocates say, and if not done carefully it can even make the situation worse. Clara Hemphill, the founding editor of Insideschools.org , a website based at the New School, said “the most motivated, organized parents tend to get their kids into the best schools” when there is school choice. Though the New York City system as a whole is diverse, a report this year by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that city schools have grown more segregated since 2000. In 2010, it said, 19 of the city’s 32 school districts had 10 percent or fewer white students, including every district in the Bronx and two-thirds of the districts in Brooklyn. John Kucsera, a senior researcher at the Civil Rights Project and one of the study’s authors, said that was a result of an increase in school choice without diversity policies like setting aside seats for students from particular groups or doing targeted recruitment. In the elementary schools, however, he said levels of diversity were even lower, in part because they were so closely tied to housing and where people chose, and could afford, to live.

New York City Council
Segregation
K-12 Education
Minorities
NYC
NYC Department of Education


Nigeria Turns Over Disputed Land to Cameroon

Abstract: LAGOS, Nigeria — After 15 years of political debate and periodic violence, the Nigerian government officially handed over the potentially oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon on Thursday in a ceremony overseen by senior politicians, United Nations officials and a heavy military presence. The peninsula is a 1,200-square-mile stretch of marshland between the countries in western Africa, with waters that are a fishing hub and may hold unexplored oil deposits. Nigeria and Cameroon nearly went to war over the peninsula and its potential riches several times. Bakassi has been in diplomatic limbo since Cameroon filed suit over the territory with the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 1994. The court awarded the land to Cameroon in 2002, but the transfer was delayed by arguments within Nigeria’s government and by several violent clashes led by militant groups claiming that the land belonged to Nigeria. “This handing-over process, as painful as it is for everyone, including the president, is a commitment we have made to the international community, and we have a responsibility to keep it,” Olusegun Adeniyi, spokesman for Nigeria’s president, Umaru Yar’Adua, told reporters this week. Because of concerns that the transfer would provoke attacks by armed groups unhappy with the deal, the official flag-exchange ceremony was moved from a village in the region to the more secure city of Calabar, Nigeria, about 120 miles away. “Even though there’s pain in our hearts and minds, we have fielded the trauma, and we are thankful for a peaceful handover,” said Savior Nyong, chairman of the Bakassi local government. The waters off the peninsula are thought to hold significant oil deposits, though no oil has been extracted. The region is home to 200,000 to 300,000 people, a vast majority of whom are Nigerian fishermen. According to local residents, nearly 100,000 people have already been displaced with the transfer of land to Cameroon. Some have filed suit for $3.3 billion in compensation, but Nigeria has offered only to resettle them.

Nigeria
Cameroon
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
International Relations


Reforming the Criminal Justice System Is Not Assured

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The most interesting political meeting this week may be the one between Valerie Jarrett, the closest confidante of President Obama, and Mark Holden, the general counsel for Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by the anti-Obama Koch brothers. This will be their fourth meeting. They correspond regularly and have developed a mutual respect while working on the most sweeping reform of the American criminal justice system in decades. Addressing the economic and social cost of the huge prison problem — 2.4 million people are incarcerated in America, a higher share of the population than almost anywhere else — is a priority for the White House and the Kochs. The effort is advancing in both houses of Congress; Speaker Paul D. Ryan of the House of Representatives and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, are committed to bringing legislation to the floor. The measures are the product of alliances rarely seen in today’s polarized politics: Senators Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont; and Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and John Conyers Jr., a liberal Democrat of Michigan. The effort is spearheaded by the U.S. Justice Action Network, a coalition of leading groups that assembles on the left, the American Civil Liberties Union and the N.A.A.C.P., and on the right, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Americans for Tax Reform. The broad measures would overhaul some of the mandatory minimum sentences enacted in the 1970s and 1980s that have partly caused the prison population to increase 400 percent. The changes would give judges more leeway in sentencing and make it easier to release inmates who aren’t convicted of violent crimes or repeat offenders. And in an effort to address the exceedingly high recidivism rate, there will most likely be a re-entry provision offering more assistance and incentives for employers to hire former prisoners. The Jarrett-Holden relationship got off to a good start in their first meeting last spring, when the Koch counsel told the top White House aide that he was with her on “ban the box,” a campaign to persuade employers not to require applicants to check a box if they have a criminal record. Still, this isn’t a done deal. All sides agree that action is essential by early next year or the issue will get ensnared in presidential politics. The Republican contenders Ted Cruz and Donald J. Trump already warn about the risk of sending criminals back to the streets. And there is a split over toughening the so-called mens rea, or criminal intent, requirement in criminal law. Some conservatives and business groups want to insert a provision that critics, including the Obama administration, say would make it much harder to go after corporate polluters by forcing prosecutors to prove intent. The change isn’t in the bill the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared with a big bipartisan vote in October. But the House committee is moving several separate bills, which might be combined on the floor, including the mens rea legislation. Liberals such as Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, said this would be a poison pill dooming the overall measure. Others suspect that this is the real motive for the Kochs; their company has faced a number of charges and pleaded guilty to a major environmental offense, paying a stiff fine. But, in an interview, Mr. Holden said that while the criminal-intent change would be good policy, “it’s not do or die” for the Kochs, who still would support legislation that omits it. “Our primary focus is to change an indefensible two-tier system where the wealthy and connected get much better treatment than the poor,” he said. “And the result is a cycle of incarceration and poverty.” Most of those on both sides, from Ms. Jarrett to lawmakers, say Mr. Holden’s commitment is authentic. “No single person has pushed conservatives more on this issue than Mark Holden,” says Holly Harris, the executive director of the U.S. Justice Action Network. “There is no more influential voice for prison reform.”

Valerie Jarrett
Mark Holden
Koch Industries
Prison
Criminal Sentence
House Committee on the Judiciary
Senate Committee on the Judiciary


Setback in Push to Exonerate Man Convicted in 1990 Manhattan Killing

Abstract: Efforts to exonerate a man convicted in the murder of Brian Watkins , a killing that galvanized public outrage over violent crime in the early 1990s, were dealt a setback on Friday, as the Manhattan district attorney’s office indicated that its review of the case found “no credible newly discovered evidence.” “When we looked at the facts, the facts took us in a different direction,” William Darrow, an assistant district attorney, said during a hearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Mr. Darrow, chief of the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Program , submitted a 53-page memorandum to the judge casting doubt on the truth of affidavits from the convicted man, Johnny Hincapie, and from other witnesses who claim Mr. Hincapie was not on the subway platform where Mr. Watkins was stabbed to death while trying to defend his mother from a gang of muggers. Mr. Hincapie had confessed to participating with six others in the attack on Mr. Watkins and his family, who were visiting New York from Utah. But in his motion for a new trial, filed in November, Mr. Hincapie claims that a detective coerced him into confessing, physically abusing him and telling him precisely what to say. His lawyers also have an affidavit from Luis Montero, another man present in the subway station that night, who said that when the attack took place on a subway platform, Mr. Hincapie was with him near the turnstiles a floor above. In addition, another man convicted in the attack, Anthony Anderson, said in a 2009 affidavit that Mr. Hincapie was not among the six people he recalled taking part in the mugging. Mr. Hincapie was one of seven men convicted of felony murder in two separate trials under a state law making everyone who takes part in a mugging responsible if the victim is killed. Mr. Hincapie has served 23 years in prison and is eligible for parole in two years. All seven defendants were sentenced to 25 years to life. Mr. Hincapie’s lawyer, Ron Kuby, has been urging Justice Eduardo Padro for six months to hold a hearing on the new statements. But the judge put off a hearing to give the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Program time to investigate the case and submit its findings. On Friday, Mr. Kuby said that the investigation was a ploy to avoid a hearing at which Mr. Montero and Mr. Anderson would testify. “I never requested that they do an investigation,” he told the judge. “I knew what the outcome would be.” The memo, signed by District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said Mr. Hincapie’s “newly minted claims of alibi and false confession are demonstrably false.” “Those claims are completely at odds with Hincapie’s numerous prior statements,” the memo continued. Prosecutors say Mr. Hincapie never made the claim he was on the turnstile level when he spoke to the police. He also neglected to offer that alibi at his sentencing, to a probation officer after conviction and in his petition to the district attorney’s office in 2007. The prosecutors also said Mr. Montero’s new account of the crime did not mesh with things he previously said. They say Mr. Montero could not have had time, given the sequence of events, to have a long conversation with Mr. Hincapie before the mugging, as he now claims. Mr. Vance and his assistants also discount Mr. Anderson’s new statement, noting that he did not know Mr. Hincapie when the attack happened, and that he was in the center of the chaotic melee on the platform. “For Anderson to say he did not see Hincapie does not establish that Hincapie was not present,” the memo said. The muggers had been among about 30 teenagers and young people from Queens who poured off the train just before 10 p.m. on Sept. 2, 1990, on their way to a dance at the Roseland Ballroom. Lacking money for the cover charge, several remained in the station and surrounded the Watkins family as they entered the subway on their way downtown, according to testimony at the two trials. Sherwin Watkins was slashed with a box-cutter as one man went for his wallet; his wife, Karen, was kicked in the chest and face. Brian Watkins jumped in to protect his mother, and Yull Gary Morales, an 18-year-old from Queens, stuck a knife in his chest.

Murders
Brian Watkins
Johnny Hincapie
Mugging
Confessions
NYC
Criminal Sentence
False arrest


Japan’s Negative Interest Rates Explained

Abstract: TOKYO — Japan’s central bank is reviewing its economic policies, asking why they have failed to kick-start growth, as intended. Its much-anticipated report is due on Wednesday. One target is negative interest rates — an unconventional tactic adopted in Japan and Europe that turns the usual rules of borrowing and lending upside down. What are negative interest rates? Negative interest rates mean depositors pay money to save their money, a reversal of the normal rules of economics. In this case, the depositors are banks. Like regular people keeping accounts at a local bank, lenders hold their unused cash at central banks like the United States Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan. Normally, they receive a small amount of interest in return. But with negative rates, central banks charge a fee instead. The idea is to encourage banks to put their money to more productive use, lending it to households and businesses. Negative rates are supposed to then ripple through economies by lowering the cost of borrowing for everyone — something that should encourage economic growth. What sort of countries have negative rates? Those with ultra-low inflation or deflation, meaning falling prices associated with weak economic growth. The European Central Bank, which oversees monetary policy for countries that use the euro, introduced negative rates in 2014. Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, which are not part of the eurozone, also have negative rates. Japan’s central bank followed in January, announcing that it would charge commercial banks a fee of 0.1 percent on a portion of their reserves that they keep with it. What does the Bank of Japan hope to accomplish? The bank is trying to lift consumer prices, which have been sliding for most of the past 20 years. Falling consumer prices hurt corporate revenues, keeping companies from raising wages or spending on new projects. But the bank’s efforts are foundering. Its main tool has been an extensive bond-buying program, similar to policies adopted by the Federal Reserve in the United States and the European Central Bank. Bond-buying injects money into a country’s financial system. From there, it is supposed to flow to the rest of the economy. It worked for a while, but recently the effect has faded. Prices are falling again, and the bank needed to try something new. Are negative rates working? Money was already cheap in Japan, and negative rates have succeeded in making it even cheaper. The yield on 10-year government bonds, for instance, fell below zero in February , meaning investors are lending the government money knowing that they will not be repaid in full. Yet deflation has not vanished: Core consumer prices fell 0.5 percent in July. Nor has there been an explosion of new bank lending, as businesses say they can’t find enough profitable uses for funding, even if the money is cheap. And deflation itself undermines the effectiveness of negative rates. If corporate revenues are shrinking because of falling prices, companies will find that even the most generous loan becomes harder to repay. Many potential borrowers are still telling bankers, “No thanks. Keep your cash.” Still, people must be happy that money is cheap, right? Not the bankers. Between the new fees they are paying the central bank and a general decline in lending income, profits at commercial banks are being squeezed by negative rates. Some analysts also think negative rates hurt broader public confidence. Policy makers are trying to show creativity in finding ways to revitalize their economies — but out-there tactics like negative interest rates risk looking more like desperation.

Japan
Interest rate
Bank of Japan
Deflation