Goldman Sachs Names Elisha Wiesel Chief Information Officer

Abstract: The son of the Holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel , Elisha Wiesel, is taking over the top technology job at Goldman Sachs. Goldman announced on Monday that Mr. Wiesel would become the chief information officer, taking over from R. Martin Chavez, a prominent executive who pushed to make Goldman more of a forward-looking technology firm. Mr. Chavez was recently elevated to become Goldman’s chief financial officer after one of the firm’s top executives, Gary Cohn, left to join Donald J. Trump’s administration. Mr. Chavez will step into that role this spring, succeeding Harvey Schwartz, who has been named one of two co-presidents of the bank. Within Goldman’s traditionally button-down culture, Mr. Chavez is known for openly talking about how his personal life — as a Latino and gay man — played into his work. Mr. Wiesel, 44, is also best known for his life outside of Goldman, as the only child of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of “Night,” who died last summer. The younger Mr. Wiesel said in an interview last year that early on his father gave him one rule that grew out of his desire to see the Jewish people continue on after the Holocaust: marry Jewish. “I remember I came home from college with a purple mohawk my freshman year, and my dad was not fazed,” Mr. Wiesel said in the interview. “He said: ‘I love you, and I would walk down the street with you any time, anywhere. I am not embarrassed. I would take you to shul like this and out to dinner. I love you. You are my son. You can do anything you want as long as you marry Jewish.’ ” Mr. Wiesel came to Goldman as a result of his love of programming computer games, he said in an internal event at Goldman. While at Goldman, Mr. Wiesel has been the organizer of a vast, after-hours scavenger hunt that raised millions of dollars for charity. Mr. Wiesel joined Goldman in 1994, in the same division where Mr. Chavez and the firm’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, once worked, the J. Aron trading division. Most recently, he has been the chief risk officer in the firm’s overall trading division. In his new job, Mr. Wiesel will report to Mr. Chavez, who has been a longtime mentor. Goldman also announced on Monday that the longtime head of the technology division, Don Duet, is retiring from the firm. He will be replaced by two younger executives, John Madsen and Umesh Subramanian.

R. Martin Chavez
Appointments and Executive Changes
Goldman Sachs Group
Lloyd C Blankfein
Harvey M Schwartz
Donald Trump


Perry Raises Question About G.O.P. Debate Calendar

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Gov. Rick Perry ’s suggestion that he might skip some of the Republican presidential debates has raised a question that few candidates would eagerly bring up: Are there too many of them? The eight televised gatherings so far have overshadowed more traditional campaigning in the 2012 primary contest, driving poll numbers and fund-raising up or down. But Mr. Perry’s strategists said this week that future debates — more than a dozen in the next 90 days — would conflict with his campaign schedule. Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, has called his participation in previous debates “a mistake.” And his aides have strongly hinted that he will not participate in many more. “The candidates need to spend time in Iowa doing those town halls and spending a lot more time with the voters, who oftentimes have the best questions and press the candidates the hardest,” Ray Sullivan, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said on CNN . The decision is a recognition that the debates have been mostly unkind to Mr. Perry , whose lackluster performances have dragged his campaign down. But it is also a commentary on the broadcast and cable networks’ explosion of interest in the forums. They are relatively inexpensive to produce, and with slick opening sequences and theme songs that would be right at home at professional basketball games, they have earned much higher ratings than they did four years ago. For some candidates, though, the debates are a huge intrusion. They require preparation and travel, which interrupts fund-raising and keeps the candidates away from the handshaking and stumping in the states that matter now: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. And every debate offers the risk of a costly political mistake. Mitt Romney’s advisers declined to discuss their strategy regarding debates. But Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, may, like Mr. Perry, decide that news organizations should not be able to determine so much of his schedule. In the space of a single week in November, for example, three debates are planned: first in Michigan, then in South Carolina three days later and in Washington, D.C., three days after that. There are also three debates in a 10-day stretch in December. And in January, candidates are being asked to participate in an ABC News debate on a Saturday night, only to wake up the next morning for a “Meet the Press” debate on NBC. The New Hampshire primary is two days later. “These debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates,” Mr. Perry told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News on Tuesday. “So, you know, if there was a mistake made, it was probably ever doing” a debate. When running for re-election last year, Mr. Perry managed to avoid debating his Democratic rival, Bill White, by refusing to set a date until Mr. White, a former mayor of Houston, released more financial information. Mr. White accused Mr. Perry of being afraid to debate. In the presidential campaign, Mr. Perry has begun to lay the groundwork for a similar back and forth. He has asked Mr. Romney to release his personal tax returns, something that Mr. Romney has not done. Asked whether Mr. Perry might refuse to debate until Mr. Romney releases his returns, Mark Miner, a spokesman, declined to say. “Debates are not the issue here,” he said. “Mitt Romney should follow Governor Perry’s lead and release his tax returns. What does he have to hide?” Skipping debates could come at a steep political cost. By refusing to participate now — after being criticized for his previous performances — Mr. Perry opens himself to charges that he is trying to avoid them. “I thought Texas governors were supposed to be tough,” said Hogan Gidley, a senior adviser to Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania. “How can Governor Perry expect anyone to trust he can take on Obama and the Democratic machine when he thinks debating his fellow Republicans is too tough?” Erick Erickson, the editor of the Red State blog , wrote on Twitter that he did not “blame any of the candidates for wanting to skip some of the debates, but if Perry skips the Heritage/A.E.I. debate, game over,” referring to the conservative public policy groups the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, whose debate is Nov. 15. A spokeswoman for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said the congresswoman had “no plans” to skip any debates. “While they present challenges in terms of scheduling, debates are an important part of the primary process,” said Alice Stewart, the spokeswoman. For candidates like Ms. Bachmann and Mr. Santorum, the debates are a rare opportunity to reach a national audience, especially because they — and Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker — do not have money for television advertisements. Two candidates — Herman Cain, the former pizza executive, and Representative Ron Paul of Texas — have used their podium time to elbow their way into the political fight between Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry. Mr. Cain remains at the top of many national polls after his debate performances, which he has used to promote his “9-9-9” tax plan. But even for them, the current schedule is grueling. And it seems to be getting worse, with the regular addition of new dates. In the spring, the Republican National Committee floated the idea of stepping in to manage the process. Under that proposal, the committee would have picked dates — one a month — for debates sponsored by the news media. But the idea was rejected by representatives of candidates who were considering the race. As for the television networks, they continue to plan and cross their fingers. “The candidates are aware of our two debates planned for January 2012, and the reach of the NBC broadcast audience,” said Erika Masonhall, the director of NBC News communications. “We feel confident in our plans.”

Presidential Election of 2012
Debates (Political)
Perry Rick
Republican Party


Shiffrin, 17, Becomes World Champion in Slalom

Abstract: One day after the American Ted Ligety became the first man in 45 years to win three events at one world championship, his 17-year-old teammate Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest female world champion in 28 years with a come-from-behind victory in the slalom. Shiffrin was in third place after the first of two runs on Saturday in Schladming, Austria. Then, with a crowd of 30,000 roaring during her second run, she chased down her more veteran rivals to become the third-youngest women’s slalom world champion. “I can’t process it yet — it’s just amazing and emotional,” Shiffrin said in a conference call with reporters. “It was a challenge, and I had some nerves, but I couldn’t be happier with the result. I’m so grateful to everyone who’s helped me.” Shiffrin’s winning time, 1 minute 39.85 seconds, was 0.22 of a second better than that of the second-place finisher, Michaela Kirchgasser of Austria. Frida Hansdotter of Sweden was third, 0.26 of a second behind Shiffrin. The victory, along with her three World Cup slalom victories this season, will emphatically install Shiffrin as the favorite for the slalom gold medal at next year’s Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Shiffrin acknowledged that she would be in the spotlight but said it was not the foremost thought on her mind. Image Mikaela Shiffrin finished in a combined time of 1 minute 39.85 seconds to beat Michaela Kirchgasser of Austria by 0.22. Credit Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “Everyone keeps bringing up Sochi to me,” she said. “But it is a long way away, even if it will come up quick. I’m focused on right now.” For the United States team, it was the fourth gold medal and fifth medal over all at these world championships, more than any other country’s team. Julia Mancuso won a bronze medal in the super-G. Shiffrin’s parents and her brother, Taylor, were at the race Saturday, cheering her on and hugging in celebration afterward. “It was great getting to the bottom and seeing them there,” said Shiffrin, who is a senior at the Burke Mountain ski academy in Vermont. “It’s something I’ll never forget. They’re such a big part of my heart.” Shiffrin, at 17 years 340 days, is the youngest female world champion in any discipline since the American Diann Roffe-Steinrotter, who was 21 days younger when she won the giant slalom title in 1985. The only slalom world champions younger than Shiffrin were Hanni Wenzel of Liechtenstein in 1974 and Esmé Mackinnon of Britain in 1931. CANADIAN VICTORY IN BOBSLED Lyndon Rush of Canada won his first two-man bobsled World Cup overall title after finishing fourth in the season-ending race in Sochi. Rush, a runner-up last season at the world championships, won two titles and had two more top-three results this season with the brakeman Jesse Lumsden. (AP)

Mikaela Shiffrin
Skiing
World Cup Skiing


With Move Across London, U.S. Embassy Can’t Please Everyone

Abstract: LONDON — One neighbor, a countess named Anca Vidaeff, staged a hunger strike to protest it. Another neighbor, the chairwoman of a local residents’ group, said it made people “very, very nervous” about bomb threats and suggested it find a new home. They are about to get their wish. The United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square, a Modernist concrete building in the heart of Mayfair, London’s most exclusive neighborhood, has been a potential terrorist target for years, creating anxiety for both employees and neighbors. “It didn’t matter whether they lived in an 18th-century house or on a 20th-century street corner,” said Lois Peltz, the head of the neighborhood group — actually, the Residents’ Society of Mayfair and St. James’s — who has lived for 50 years in one of the many fine Georgian townhouses that line the square. “They knew that if a bomb went off, they would’ve had it.” Ten years ago, embassy officials insisted they would stay in Grosvenor Square until the lease ran out — in 2953 — and in 2007, Washington spent $15 million on security enhancements. But even after the upgrade, and the British government’s blocking off streets and pathways, the embassy, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1955, remained vulnerable to terrorist attacks. So a new embassy is under construction for a move by 2017, and the residents of Mayfair are relieved. But this being Britain, the new embassy has become the object of debate and, in some quarters, ridicule. One big problem, as critics see it, is an old one in real estate: its location, in the gritty district of Nine Elms on the South Bank of the Thames in a former railyard surrounded by luxury residential buildings, most of which stand empty. “It seems sad that the U.S. Embassy is relocating from a beautiful historic square in Mayfair to a fortified bunker in former railyards on the far side of the river,” Peter Rees, the City of London’s former head of planning, wrote in an email. “It’s like moving from New York’s Upper East Side to New Jersey.” He described the area around the new embassy as “a high-value ghost town.” State Department officials say the new embassy will be safer, big enough to accommodate the 1,000 employees now crammed into a building meant for 800, and equipped with all the modern communications and environmental features. And local officials are hopeful that the embassy will stimulate development in the area. Moving to the new site, no matter how grim it may look now, makes perfect sense, American officials say. Renovating the existing building would have cost $730 million and still would not have provided state-of-the-art security, said Lydia Muniz, director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations at the State Department. “It did not have the appropriate setback,” she said. “There are some things you just can’t modify.” The new embassy is expected to cost about $1 billion, financed entirely by the sales of the existing embassy to Qatar’s Sovereign Wealth Fund and a nearby former Navy building to other property developers, Ms. Muniz said in an interview. The new site is not well served by public transportation, but plans for two new Tube stations are underway, and possibly a footbridge from Pimlico, a residential district across the Thames. At first glance, the new embassy grounds appear even more exposed, absent metal posts, high perimeter fences or concrete flower beds to block unwanted vehicles. Instead, the security measures will be camouflaged. Image The current embassy received a security upgrade in 2007 but is still considered vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times The 4.9-acre site will have a public plaza featuring a pond, walkways connecting to the planned Tube stations and seating. Metal barriers will be replaced by grass berms, low garden walls and benches. Two small meadows on one side of the chancery will serve as a setback, as will the pond, essentially a moat, euphemistically described by American officials as a “water feature.” Not surprisingly, given the churning debate over all major new buildings in London, the chancery has faced criticism in the British press. Twelve stories high and made of blastproof glass and solar cells, it has been dismissed as a “corporate office block” or “the Ice Cube.” That, too, is dismissed by American officials, and the design has its defenders among the intelligentsia. One of them, Jane Loeffler, a historian and author of “The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies,” said the new project was a refreshing break from previous embassy designs. Designed by KieranTimberlake , the chancery will be covered on three sides with pillowlike panels of ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene, a type of polymer, that contain photovoltaic cells to harvest solar energy . The north facade was engineered to help cool the building. The embassy also engages the city, Mrs. Loeffler said. Traditionally, United States embassies have “been in the middle of nowhere, which has always been a problem,” she said. But the new embassy displays “big changes in that it is trying to address the fact that diplomats need to be part of the community.” The change reflects a push by the Obama administration to make embassy design part of America’s soft power, she said, even if some critics at home say embassies should follow a “standard embassy design” put in effect after the 1998 bombings in East Africa and reinforced after Sept. 11, 2001. Over the years, the bunker-style compounds came to symbolize American defensiveness and militarism. Even Secretary of State John Kerry, as a senator in 2009, said he cringed at the sight of United States embassies. “We are building some of the ugliest embassies I’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’re building fortresses around the world. We’re separating ourselves from people in these countries.” James Timberlake, one of the architects of the new embassy, said it had “changed the post-9/11 discourse.” Still, he told an architecture journal last year, it “took a lot” to persuade the State Department to give over a third of the site to public space. But if the embassy’s design is intended to project America’s “transparency, openness and equality,” as the architects claim, the British are not convinced. Jonathan Glancey, architecture critic for the newspaper The Guardian, wrote that the design was “cool, remote and superficially transparent,” reflecting the American political process — “nominally open to all and yet, in practice, tightly controlled.” Two leading British architects, Richard Rogers and Peter Palumbo, who were on a jury to select the design, reportedly submitted a minority report to the State Department that rejected KieranTimberlake’s design as boring . They could not be reached for comment. The American connection to Grosvenor Square dates back to 1785-87, when John Adams, the first American envoy to the royal court, lived a few blocks away. Fittingly, in view of that long history, after 2017 the United States will maintain a presence in the square, popularly known as “Little America” ever since Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower occupied one side to command the Allied forces in Europe. The embassy’s facade, with its iconic 35-foot gilded aluminum eagle, will remain, after a decision by the British government to grant it landmark status in 2009. For many, though, the move from Grosvenor Square is inevitably painful. Raymond G. H. Seitz, the American ambassador to Britain from 1991 to 1994, said the relocation was equivalent to centuries of shared memories and history being “tossed aside.” “We in the U.S. don’t pay much attention to tradition,” he said in an interview. “We tend to be overly dismissive of the importance of that, and that’s a real pity, because these things can only be acquired with time.”

London
Mayfair
Security
Architecture
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates
US
Great Britain
Terrorism
US Politics


Evangelicals Are Joining Obama on Immigration Overhaul

Abstract: At a time when the prospects for immigration overhaul seem most dim, supporters have unleashed a secret weapon: a group of influential evangelical Christian leaders. Normally on the opposite side of political issues backed by the Obama White House, these leaders are aligning with the president to support an overhaul that would include some path to legalization for illegal immigrants already here. They are preaching from pulpits, conducting conference calls with pastors and testifying in Washington — as they did last Wednesday. “I am a Christian and I am a conservative and I am a Republican, in that order,” said Matthew D. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious law firm. “There is very little I agree with regarding President Barack Obama . On the other hand, I’m not going to let politicized rhetoric or party affiliation trump my values, and if he’s right on this issue, I will support him on this issue.” When President Obama gave a major address pushing immigration overhaul this month, he was introduced by a prominent evangelical, the Rev. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois. Three other evangelical pastors were in the audience, front and center. Their presence was a testament, in part, to the work of politically active Hispanic evangelical pastors, who have forged friendships with non-Hispanic pastors in recent years while working in coalitions to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage . The Hispanics made a concerted effort to convince their brethren that immigration reform should be a moral and practical priority. Hispanic storefront churches are popping up in strip malls, and Spanish-speaking congregations are renting space in other churches. Some pastors, like Mr. Hybels, lead churches that include growing numbers of Hispanics. Several evangelical leaders said they were convinced that Hispanics are the key to growth not only for the evangelical movement, but also for the social conservative movement. “Hispanics are religious, family-oriented, pro-life, entrepreneurial,” said the Rev. Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm. “They are hard-wired social conservatives, unless they’re driven away. “I’ve had some older conservative leaders say: ‘Richard, stop this. You’re going to split the conservative coalition,’ ” Dr. Land continued. “I say it might split the old conservative coalition, but it won’t split the new one. And if the new one is going to be a governing coalition, it’s going to have to have a lot of Hispanics in it. And you don’t get a lot of Hispanics in your coalition by engaging in anti-Hispanic anti-immigration rhetoric.” Congress is unlikely to pass an immigration law this year. Republicans and Democrats who face re-election in November are skittish about the issue, given the broad public support for Arizona’s new law aiming to crack down on illegal immigration. The support of evangelical leaders is not yet enough to change the equation. But they could mobilize a potentially large constituency of religious conservatives, an important part of the Republican base better known for lobbying against abortion and same-sex marriage. They already threaten the party’s near unity on immigration. “These cross-cutting clusters are just splinter groups, so far,” said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Support for the Arizona law is so strong within the G.O.P. that it will be difficult for the comprehensive-immigration-reform evangelicals to have much short-term impact.” But some evangelical leaders said their latest strategy was to push a handful of lame-duck Republicans to join Democrats — probably after the midterms — to pass an immigration bill on the ground that it is morally right. Although other religious leaders have long favored immigration overhaul — including Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Jews and Muslims — the evangelicals are crucial because they have the relationships and the pull with Republicans. “My message to Republican leaders,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the evangelical National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and one of the leaders who engaged his non-Hispanic peers, “is if you’re anti-immigration reform, you’re anti-Latino, and if you’re anti-Latino, you are anti-Christian church in America, and you are anti-evangelical.” About 70 percent of Hispanics in the United States are Catholic, but some 15 percent are evangelicals, and they are far more likely than the Catholics to identify themselves as conservative and Republican. Evangelicals at the grass-roots level are divided on immigration, just as the nation is. But among the leaders, recent interviews suggest that those in favor of an immigration overhaul are far more vocal and more organized than those who oppose it. Each side draws on Scripture for support. Those who oppose comprehensive immigration overhaul cite Romans 13, which says to submit to the government’s laws. Supporters cite Leviticus 19: treat the stranger as you would yourself. Both sides agree that security at the nation’s borders needs to be strengthened. The biggest point of contention is what to do about the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. Advocates of a comprehensive new immigration law want to establish a path to citizenship that would allow illegal immigrants to register with the government, pay a fine, undergo a background check, prove they can speak English and only then get in line to apply for permanent legal residency. Those not interested in permanent residency could become legal temporary workers. Opponents call this approach amnesty. “I think there’s a need to reform the system, but I don’t support amnesty,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative public interest law firm that plans to file an amicus brief in support of Arizona’s immigration law. Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the American Family Association, a national conservative Christian organization in Tupelo, Miss., said, “What my evangelical friends are arguing is that illegal aliens should essentially be rewarded for breaking the law. “I think it’s extremely problematic from a Judeo-Christian standpoint to grant citizenship to people whose first act on American soil was to break an American law,” said Mr. Fischer, who hosts a daily radio show on which immigration is a frequent topic. Taking the lead for immigration overhaul is the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents more than 40 denominations. Last year the association passed a resolution calling for comprehensive immigration overhaul, and this year reform is one of its top three policy priorities, along with reducing abortions and studying the impact of climate change on the poor. The association’s president, the Rev. Leith Anderson, was in the front row for Mr. Obama’s address, along with Dr. Land and Mr. Rodriguez. One of the more recent converts to overhaul is Mr. Staver. He said that deporting illegal immigrants violated the biblical imperative to welcome the stranger. “We’re going to break up families,” Mr. Staver said, “and I don’t see how you could claim to be pro-family and condone the separation of families.” (To which Mr. Fischer responded, “We don’t want to break up families, so let’s help them all return to their country of origin.”) Mr. Staver was one of six evangelical leaders, including two prominent black evangelicals, who issued a statement last month advocating a comprehensive new law. One, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican candidate for Ohio governor in 2006 and now a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, said he expected more evangelical leaders to come on board. But Mr. Blackwell said the whole effort could implode if the final legislation extended family reunification provisions to same-sex couples where one spouse did not have legal status. For evangelicals, he said, “That would be a deal-breaker.”

Illegal Immigrants
Evangelical Movement
Immigration and Emigration
Obama Barack
United States Politics and Government


Worcester, Mass., Police Lash Out at Telegram & Gazette

Abstract: As feuds go, this is not the biggest or most easily understood, but when a government agency uses phrases like “hyperbole, fiction and innuendo,” “dark, dirty and poorly lit newsroom” and “dying medium” to describe a newspaper, it is bound to get attention. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts has been at odds with that city’s Police Department over, among other things, access to records of police disciplinary investigations; the paper’s reporting on the overtime earned by the police chief’s brother, a department officer; and, most recently, its critique of the academic credentials that officers cite to increase their pay. (The Telegram & Gazette is owned by The New York Times Company.) Last Monday, the department issued a news release declaring that it was “compelled to alter the existing media policy,” in part by “getting relevant information in a timelier manner” to radio and television stations. But most of the release was a lengthy criticism of The Telegram & Gazette, which it said “now places a premium on hyperbole over reality, fiction over fact, and innuendo over truth” — and was, to some extent, a swipe at newspapers generally. The paper reported that the release meant the department was shutting out The Telegram & Gazette. In fact, the release said nothing about what would change, if anything, in the treatment of the paper or other news organizations. The release was written in the first person singular, but it did not state who the writer was. The police chief, Gary J. Gemme, was quoted in local news media as saying that in fact there was no new policy and that the release was meant as a criticism of the paper. Apparently, the paper had not been shut out. But there was a change in practice: all information for reporters had to go through Sgt. Kerry Hazelhurst, a department spokesman. Late last week, Sergeant Hazelhurst was out, and the department told a reporter that Chief Gemme was not taking calls on the matter and that no one else there could discuss it. The Telegram & Gazette would not comment beyond a statement by Leah M. Lamson, the editor, that the paper was pleased that the department would “provide access to all media.” RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Police
Newspapers
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Massachusetts
News and News Media


AT&T Revises Limits for Unlimited Data Users

Abstract: Sometimes, all-you-can-eat does not mean all you can eat. Smartphone users who try to get the most out of their devices are learning exactly what that means, even while paying for plans that promise unlimited consumption. Some of the nation’s largest wireless phone companies are getting around those plans by slowing down a smartphone’s Internet transfer speeds for heavy users. The practice serves as a backdoor limit of data by making some downloads impossible. The wireless companies say they are trying to find a fair way to manage the swelling demand for mobile data, but consumers are feeling cheated and suspect some carriers are trying to lure them into higher-cost data plans. “It’s like taking a Ferrari into a dealer, and you get it back, and it only goes 45 miles per hour, and you say, ‘What the heck, dude?’ ” said Matt Spaccarelli, who recently found his phone slowed. “And they say, ‘You’re going 100 miles per hour, and it’s too dangerous for you, but if you pay us more, we’ll let you go fast again.’ ” AT&T on Thursday clarified the limits of its unlimited data plan. It published a Web page describing what kind of data use might lead to customers’ data connections being slowed — or throttled , as the practice is known. Previously, AT&T said customers with unlimited data plans who were in the top 5 percent of data users in a given area could be subject to throttling, but it did not give any specific limits. Now the company says that customers with smartphones on unlimited plans for its third-generation network are in the top 5 percent if they download three gigabytes of data in a month. Three gigabytes are enough to stream more than 1,500 minutes of video or receive 150,000 e-mails, according to AT&T . AT&T also said customers with newer 4G smartphones who used more than 5 GB of data in a month would be in the top 5 percent of its heaviest data users and would be subject to slower speeds. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile said they had not changed their policies in reaction to AT&T’s. Those three carriers all have some form of a throttling policy, which, they say, helps clear congestion of cellular networks as millions of customers switch from traditional cellphones to data-guzzling smartphones. But to some customers, AT&T’s throttling seems to be a move to push them to pay more. Mr. Spaccarelli, 39, a student from Simi Valley, Calif., was streaming an episode of “The Office” to his iPhone late last year when he received a text message from AT&T. “Your data usage is among the top 5 percent of users,” the message said. “Data speeds for the rest of your current bill cycle may be reduced.” The playback became so slow that the show was unwatchable, Mr. Spaccarelli said, so he shut off the phone and went to bed. For several days afterward, the data speeds on Mr. Spaccarelli’s iPhone were so slow that checking e-mail, Web browsing and using apps that required an Internet connection were impossible. Unhappy, he sued AT&T in small-claims court in Simi Valley, where he argued that AT&T could not sell him an unlimited data plan while significantly limiting its speeds. A judge ruled in his favor last Friday, and he won $850. AT&T has said it will appeal the judge’s ruling. Parul Desai, policy counsel for telecommunications at Consumers Union, an advocacy group, said carriers had not shown evidence for how and when their networks needed to be throttled. “Is this an issue of where you’re trying to squeeze consumers into limited data plans?” she said. “Are you just trying to move people over to higher-priced plans?” AT&T, the nation’s No. 2 carrier after Verizon, appears to be getting the most heat. The company disclosed its throttling policy in July , but only recently have some customers begun receiving notices that their connections were being slowed. AT&T stopped offering unlimited data plans to new subscribers in 2010. But those who already owned a smartphone with an unlimited data plan were allowed to continue. AT&T’s policy states that customers whose phones are throttled will have reduced speeds until the next billing cycle. Adam Varsano, 49, who lives in New York, said he was informed his phone was being throttled one day into his new billing cycle. AT&T’s throttling also kicks in for the heaviest unlimited data users who are in areas with congested cell sites, said Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman. But those customers are throttled until the next billing cycle, regardless of the state of the network for the remaining time period. AT&T is cautious when discussing the topic of throttling. The company declined multiple requests for an interview with an executive, but provided a prepared statement. “AT&T, like other wireless companies, must take steps to manage the exploding demand for mobile data as fairly and as effectively as possible,” the company said. The company also took the opportunity to push its agenda in Washington. “To meet that demand, we need wireless spectrum, a very scarce resource,” it said. “We have been doing everything we can to get more spectrum through federal government auctions and other means.” Verizon, which calls its throttling method “ network optimization ,” said it throttled the top 5 percent of data users on an unlimited data plan only when the network in their area was overloaded. “Once you are no longer connected to a congested site, your speed will return to normal,” said Brenda Raney, a Verizon spokeswoman. “This could mean a matter of seconds or hours, depending on your location and time of day.” Sprint Nextel, the nation’s No. 3 carrier, does not throttle its unlimited data customers — a benefit the company is aggressively marketing in its effort to lure customers away from rivals. Not everybody is convinced that throttling certain customers is the best solution for network traffic. John Aalbers, chief executive of Volubill, a London-based company that advises wireless companies on charging policies, said a problem with data throttling was that it upset customers. “The connotation is that you’re being punitive and you’re punishing the user when what you really want them to do is have them use more and more of your service,” Mr. Aalbers said. He said that carriers could create separate types of data plans for customers with specific types of usage patterns. For instance, carriers could charge people who watch a lot of Netflix videos on their smartphones a little extra — streaming video is one of the most taxing activities on a wireless network. In exchange the carriers could give those customers priority in gaining access to the higher network speeds so they would get a consistently good connection when watching videos. That way, customers on normal data plans would still be able to enjoy fast Internet speeds, stream the occasional video or play a game and not be throttled either. David Isenberg, who worked at AT&T Labs Research for 12 years before leaving to start an independent telecom consulting firm, said that carriers could reduce network speeds based on the states of their networks, not specific customer usage. He said carriers could measure their networks in real time to know when there was congestion and when throttling was necessary. “That would be a slightly less stupid way of managing their capacity,” he said. While defining unlimited is difficult, AT&T does know how to define one thing clearly. The company’s terms-of-service agreement, to which every wireless customer must agree to use its products, forbids people from filing class-action lawsuits against it, so disgruntled customers have to fight the carrier one by one. To help them, Mr. Spaccarelli created a Web site, taporc.com , containing the documentation he presented to the judge. “I don’t want people to think this dude just got lucky,” he said.

Smartphones
Throttling
Computers and the Internet
AT&T Inc
Verizon Communications Inc


Charity Founded by Sandusky Makes Plans to Fold

Abstract: STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The local charity founded by Jerry Sandusky , the former Penn State defensive coordinator who earlier this month was charged with 40 counts of sexually abusing young boys, is preparing to fold as it tries to reconstruct what it knew, and did, about any suspicions or allegations against Sandusky over the years. David Woodle, the interim chief executive of the charity, known as the Second Mile, said in an interview Friday that the foundation was seeking to transfer its programs to other nonprofit organizations. The Second Mile’s leaders are looking at organizations that could, and would, carry forward the foundation’s work with disadvantaged youths. He would not say which organizations would be candidates. In a subsequent telephone interview, after an earlier version of this article was posted on The Times’s Web site, Woodle said he was talking to donors and soliciting feedback about whether it was possible to save the organization in some form, but failing that, was moving to shutter it in a way that ensures some continuity for the programs. “We’re working hard to figure out how the programs can survive this event,” Woodle said. “We aren’t protective of this organization that it survives at all costs.” The Pennsylvania attorney general has said that Sandusky used the Second Mile to prey on young boys, and that Sandusky met each of the eight boys he has formally been accused of raping or otherwise assaulting through the foundation. Thousands of children passed through the foundation, which was formed by Sandusky in 1977 and offered mentoring, sleep-away summer camps and other services. On Sunday, the charity’s board of directors authorized the hiring of Lynne M. Abraham and the law firm Archer & Greiner to conduct an independent investigation into the Second Mile. The investigation will seek to discover the extent of contact Sandusky had with children who went through the program, when the program learned about various allegations against Sandusky, and how it handled them. According to testimony given before a grand jury in Harrisburg, Pa., Penn State’s athletic director, Tim Curley, informed the charity’s chief executive in 2002 that Sandusky had been directed not to bring youngsters onto the Penn State campus after a graduate assistant reported that Sandusky had engaged in inappropriate conduct with a boy in a shower. (The graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, testified that he was far more specific and told administrators that he saw Sandusky raping the boy.) Woodle declined to answer questions about what, if anything, was done after that. Nor would he say if the charity took steps to limit or monitor Sandusky’s interactions with the program’s youths after Sandusky himself informed the Second Mile in 2008 that he was under investigation for a separate incident involving inappropriate behavior. Woodle said that those were matters that fall under the scope of Abraham’s investigation. He said the board would publicly address those issues and others, but not before she finishes her inquiry, which he said he expected to take until the end of the year. “The board agrees that these are good questions,” said Woodle, the board’s vice chairman. Abraham served as the district attorney for Philadelphia from 1991 until last year. A tough-minded prosecutor who frequently sought the death penalty, she earned the nicknames Deadliest D.A. and Queen of Death. Abraham, now a partner at Archer & Greiner, led a five-year investigation into sexual abuse by priests in Philadelphia. Sandusky has maintained his innocence in the case, but since a televised interview on Monday night he has remained out of the public eye. His lawyer said in a television interview that Sandusky was fearful that he would not be able to lead a normal life, noting that Sandusky’s home in State College was vandalized Thursday night for the second time in the past week. Woodle said he heard from numerous people who had called to express hope that the Second Mile’s programs would continue, but he added that a number of donors said they could no longer support the foundation, which had roughly $9 million in assets in the year ending Aug. 31, 2010. The Second Mile reached thousands of children through educational outreach and mentoring programs. Several board members have expressed dismay that the allegations against Sandusky were minimized whenever they were brought up, according to people on the board. They are also concerned that after they were told that Sandusky would not be at the Second Mile’s events, he nonetheless appeared at the annual golf fund-raiser in June. While declining to go into detail about complaints the charity has received, Woodle said it was natural for people to ask, “How come I didn’t know about this earlier?” noting, “That’s a sentiment that exists across the country right now.” Woodle took over as the head of the foundation this week after Jack Raykovitz resigned after 28 years as chief executive. The closing of the charity would be the latest casualty in a scandal that has led to the departures of Joe Paterno , the longtime football coach at Penn State, and the university’s president, Graham B. Spanier .

Jerry Sandusky
Penn State
Second Mile
Rape
Football
Child Abuse
College Sports
Philanthropy


With Heath Miller

Abstract: The rookie Heath Miller, a first-round draft pick from Virginia, was the first Atlantic Coast Conference player to win the John Mackey Award as college football's best tight end. He was the Steelers' second-leading receiver, behind Hines Ward, with 39 catches for 459 yards and 6 touchdowns. In the playoffs, he caught 7 passes for 107 yards and a touchdown. CARL NELSON LAST BOOK READ -- "The Da Vinci Code," by Dan Brown. FAVORITE FILM -- "Gladiator." MUSIC ON iPOD -- A wide range, from classical to rock 'n' roll. FAVORITE SUPER BOWL MOMENT GROWING UP -- The food at the parties. 30 Seconds

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE
FOOTBALL
SUPER BOWL
PITTSBURGH STEELERS
MILLER HEATH


With Laos Disappearance, Signs of a Liberalization in Backslide

Abstract: VIENTIANE, Laos — He was last seen driving home in his old, rusty jeep. And then he vanished. The disappearance nearly one month ago of Sombath Somphone, a United States-trained agriculture specialist who led one of the most successful nonprofit organizations in Laos, has baffled his family and friends and raised alarms that a nascent liberalization of the Communist-ruled country could be sliding backward. Mr. Sombath, 60, who won many awards for his public service, was known to be nonconfrontational and adept at forging compromises with the authoritarian government of Laos. “We have no malice against the government,” said Ng Shui Meng, Mr. Sombath’s wife, who is from Singapore and met Mr. Sombath while they both studied in the United States. “We want to live our lives quietly.” The disappearance has set off an enormous campaign by Mr. Sombath’s large network of friends and aid workers across Southeast Asia who know him from his development work. The campaign has put Laos, an obscure country run by an opaque Communist party, under increasing pressure to provide answers. The country has taken halting steps to modernize its one-party system in recent years but has also cracked down on dissent, and its security services have been linked to a series of politically motivated assassinations in neighboring Thailand. Paradoxically for the Lao government, it is a network of cameras that the municipal police installed over the past three years to monitor “anti-social behavior” that have pointed to signs of the government’s involvement in Mr. Sombath’s disappearance. Helpful workers at a local police station initially showed the family images of Mr. Sombath’s jeep stopped at a police checkpoint on the evening of Dec. 15. Mr. Sombath then appeared to be driven off in a white vehicle. Family members had the presence of mind to record the footage with their own digital devices — crucial because the government now refuses to let them view the video again despite pleas by diplomats who would like to analyze it for clues like license plates. ( The video is now circulating on YouTube and is also available at sombath.org , a site put up by Mr. Sombath’s friends and dedicated to tracing his whereabouts). Since the search for Mr. Sombath began, the Lao government has issued only short statements that suggest, without offering details, that he may have been involved in a personal dispute. But those following the case closely remain unconvinced. “The bottom line is that we haven’t heard anything beyond a brief statement that doesn’t clarify anything,” Karen B. Stewart, the U.S. ambassador to Laos, said in an interview. “There’s been no full report about the status of the investigation or whatever is going on.” A mountainous and landlocked country of six million, Laos is often portrayed in guidebooks and tourist brochures as a gentle land of stilt houses along the Mekong River, smiling and easygoing rice farmers, Buddhist monks and village silk weavers. But the contrast to these placid images is a Communist party, formally called the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, that crushes anything deemed to be a threat to its monopoly on power. “There’s a nostalgic picture of women in their wraparound skirts, a beautiful country with tourist attractions,” said Adisorn Semyaem, an expert on Laos at the Mekong Studies Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “That’s not the total picture. There’s also another side of the coin.” A precise accounting of repression in Laos is difficult to obtain because the news media are controlled by the government and communication is poor across the impoverished countryside. But one measure of politically related violence can be found when it spills over into the country’s freewheeling neighbor, Thailand, where it is recorded by the police and reported in the news media. Mr. Adisorn, who has researched Lao politics for the past two decades, has compiled a list of more than 20 Lao citizens assassinated in Thailand over what appear to be political reasons, including a Buddhist monk who opposed the government and a member of the former Lao royal family. The crimes all remain unresolved. Inside Laos, the government periodically arrests members of Protestant Christian religious groups, farmers who complain that their land had been taken away and anyone else whom they judge to “have political agendas,” Mr. Adisorn said. Mr. Adisorn has an extensive network of contacts inside the Lao government and has been asking about Mr. Sombath’s case. “I assume that he is still alive but that the government is finding it very difficult to find a way out of the situation,” he said. An official who answered the telephone at the Lao Foreign Ministry advised a reporter to monitor the Lao press for updates on the case and said a spokesperson was not available. There is a troubling precedent for a politically linked disappearance. In 2007, Sompawn Khantisouk, the manager of an ecotourism guesthouse who was outspoken in his criticism of Chinese-owned plantations in the north of the country, disappeared and has not been seen since. If Laos has avoided the same level of scrutiny of other authoritarian countries in the region, it is partly because the political oppression is hardly visible to outsiders when they visit. The center of Vientiane has lively, outdoor restaurants and countless small hotels and tourist shops. The country received a record 3.1 million foreign visitors last year — equivalent to half the population — according to the government, which promoted 2012 as Visit Laos Year under the slogan “Simply Beautiful.” Tourists come for the mountain scenery, spicy Lao food, the charms of towns like Luang Prabang and the cultural legacies of the French colonial years — ocher buildings and nearly tax-free French wine. But as the country opens up and embraces capitalism more vigorously, there are tensions between the old and new Laos, between a more transparent government and the more cloistered system that fought off U.S.-backed militias during what is known as the Secret War of the 1960s and 1970s. “There’s not total, 100 percent agreement or understanding about how to manage a market economy, a more globally oriented rule-of-law state and yet maintain the kind of political system they have,” said Ms. Stewart, the U.S. ambassador. The country’s National Assembly has taken a more assertive role in debating government policies that were previously dictated by the top leaders. Last year, Laos completed negotiations to join the World Trade Organization and was the host of a major meeting between the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the grouping of 10 countries in which Laos is seeking a more active role. At the same time, the Lao government cracked down on budding signs of free expression. In January 2012, the authorities shut down a radio program that discussed the issue of land seizures — a hot topic with the increasing number of projects in rural areas led by Chinese and Vietnamese companies. The host of that radio program, Ounkeo Souksavanh, said that farmers who appeared on the program were arrested several months later. In December, the government expelled Anne-Sophie Gindroz, the head of the Lao chapter of the Swiss charity Helvetas , citing her “explicit rejection” of the Lao political system. As for Mr. Sombath’s case, the possible motives for his disappearance remain unclear. He retired last year from his organization, the Participatory Development Training Center , but continued to be engaged with nonprofit organizations in Laos. Some speculate that going after such a high-profile personality was a warning to other private groups. “To this day I am baffled,” Mr. Sombath’s wife said. She rejects the term “activist” that many news organizations have used in describing him. “We have lived here for a long time, during periods when Laos was less open than now, when people were afraid to talk openly. We survived that period without something like this happening.” Mr. Sombath’s U.S. connections may have made some old-guard officials suspicious, friends and old acquaintances say. He was an exchange student in Wisconsin in high school and went to college in Hawaii. But his farming roots — both his parents were rice farmers in Laos — and his three decades of carrying out programs to help the poor won over many people. In 2005, he was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, which honors public service in Asia. Ms. Ng frets for her husband’s health and safety at the couple’s home overlooking the Mekong River. Mr. Sombath has a prostate condition and had been prescribed daily medication. “I don’t know where he is,” she said. “I hope he is safe.” Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Vientiane and Bangkok.

Laos
Sombath Somphone
Civil Rights
Lao People's Revolutionary Party
Missing person


Public Outcry in Utah After Four Men Are Accused of Raping 9-Year-Old

Abstract: Four men accused of a vicious rape. A victim who is just 9 years old. And a mother who had left her alone so she could smoke methamphetamine nearby. As the police described the case of a rape at a northeastern Utah home, its horrifying details have shaken the small city where the attack unfolded and have reverberated far beyond, with some even calling for vigilante justice. According to the Uintah County Sheriff’s Department , the girl had fallen asleep on a couch at the house of her mother’s friend on March 27 in Vernal, a city of about 9,000 people about 170 miles from Salt Lake City. As the girl’s mother was in the garage smoking drugs, four men at the house took the girl into another room and raped her, the authorities said. In the days that followed, Larson RonDeau, 36; Josiah RonDeau, 20; Jerry Flatlip, 29; and Randall Flatlip, 26, were arrested one by one and locked up in the county jail. The men made their first appearance in district court on Tuesday on charges of felony rape and sodomy of a child, G. Mark Thomas, the county attorney, said in an emailed statement. They did not enter a plea, but each has maintained his innocence in statements to investigators. Local news reports about the case generated a furious outcry, leading the sheriff’s department to take the unusual step of appealing for calm as some people on social media suggested ways for the men to be killed. “The interest and concern over the case of victimization of a nine-year-old girl in our county has been overwhelming and unprecedented,” the department said in a statement on its Facebook page . “Occasionally there are incidents that we face that are shocking to the conscience, and this case has certainly been one of those for us all.” “It has not been our intent to ‘try the case’ in the media or fuel hateful speech or actions,” the sheriff’s department added. “Again, we thank you for your amazing compassion and concern, and we understand the outrage felt as a community, and as human beings.” Mr. Thomas, who was in court on Tuesday, said the four men were held pending bail hearings. If found guilty, they could face minimum 25-year mandatory prison sentences for each count, with an additional five years for acting with two or more persons. The maximum sentence is life in prison. “We are deeply bothered anytime a child is abused,” Mr. Thomas said. “This case is particularly troublesome because the allegation is that the child was abused by multiple adults simultaneously. Our office will work to pursue some form of justice.” The girl was taken into state custody after the attack, the authorities said. According to court documents, the girl’s mother said she had gone to the house of a friend, whom she had become acquainted with in jail, to spend Easter weekend. After disappearing into the garage with her for about 30 minutes, the mother returned to find her daughter “upset,” with her dress “pulled up past her waist.” The mother told investigators that she called a taxi and returned with the girl to their apartment. The next day, after her daughter told her about the rape and that one of the men threatened to kill her if she told anyone, the woman called the police. The girl told investigators that the men had taken turns raping her twice, holding her down by her hands, before putting her back on the couch, the statement said. A Facebook statement by the sheriff’s department on April 3 became an outlet for public rage over the case, drawing more than 2,000 comments. Some called for the girl’s mother to be charged and for the men to be publicly hanged, castrated, thrown into a pit to “suffer,” or to be shot by firing squad. “I say let them loose and let the community handle them,” one person wrote. “Even the death penalty is too tame for them. They need to feel pain.” On Sunday, Fox 13, a news channel in Salt Lake City, interviewed the grandmother of the girl, giving only her first name to protect the child’s identity. “I want hard-core punishment for what they have done to this child, because that shouldn’t happen to anybody,” the grandmother, Elizabeth, said.

Rape
Vernal
Larson RonDeau
Josiah RonDeau
Jerry Flatlip
Randall Flatlip
Child Abuse


N.B.A. Draft: Cavaliers Choose Kyrie Irving With Top Pick

Abstract: NEWARK — For one night, talk in the N.B.A. turned from the league’s labor woes to its future stars as Duke’s Kyrie Irving led the way as the first pick in what is regarded as a thin 2011 draft class. The Cleveland Cavaliers , owners of the first and fourth picks, decided Thursday night that Irving’s potential to be a star outweighed his lack of college experience. Inevitable comparisons to LeBron James, whom Cleveland took with the No. 1 pick in 2003, will likely haunt Irving as a pass-first guard. Those comparisons are largely unfair as Irving, at 6-foot-4, lacks James’s size and has yet to show a scoring ability on James’s level. “I’m really not looking to replace LeBron honestly, just trying to be Kyrie Irving and just contribute to the Cleveland organization as much as I can,” Irving said. Irving was the consensus top pick mostly by default. None of the draftees are expected to have the immediate impact of a James or a John Wall. The questions surrounding Irving center around his single season at Duke, where he played only 11 games because of a toe injury that he says is completely healed. Irving seemed prepared for the inevitable questions, saying, “No. 1 picks, they have a lot of expectations on them and I plan on exceeding them.” With the No. 4 pick, the Cavaliers chose Tristan Thompson, a 20-year-old forward from the University of Texas. Irving and Thompson will join a team that struggled greatly after losing James to free agency, but Irving seemed visibly excited to have Thompson joining him as he stopped to watch the selection during his news conference. “Tristan is a great friend of mine, and just having another fellow freshman being drafted to Cleveland, I’m really looking forward to it,” Irving said. “Having somebody alongside you that will go through the rookie ups and downs with you, it will make the transition into the N.B.A. that much easier.” Possibly the most N.B.A.-ready player in the draft, Arizona’s Derrick Williams, went second to the Minnesota Timberwolves. A 6-9 power forward, it will be interesting to see what corresponding moves Minnesota makes, as the team already has an established star, Kevin Love, at power forward and is committed financially to Darko Milicic at center. Regardless, Williams’s combination of size, athleticism and his proven finishing ability in college made him a logical pick for a team that suddenly has an intriguing amount of talent, also including the small forward Michael Beasley and the point guard Ricky Rubio, who is finally expected to join the team after being drafted with the No. 5 pick in 2009. “I think that with everybody being so young on the team, I think you can push each other,” Williams said. “Everybody has young, fresh legs. I’m just going to look forward to them pushing me, and me pushing them as well.” One of the great unknowns of the draft is Enes Kanter, the 6-11 center from Turkey who was selected No. 3 by the Utah Jazz. Kanter, 19, was recruited to play at Kentucky, but was ruled ineligible when it came to light that he had been overly compensated during his time with the Turkish team Fenerbahce Ulker. Considered a legitimate N.B.A. center at 260 pounds, and possessing unusual range as a shooter for a player of his size, Kanter would seem to be the player representing the biggest possible reward, even if it does come with a great deal of risk. At No. 10, the Milwaukee Bucks selected the fan favorite Jimmer Fredette, the Brigham Young point guard, though he was later moved to the Sacramento Kings in a three-team trade. Inspiring what many called Jimmer-mania with his 3-pointers and passing ability, Fredette, the pride of Glens Falls, N.Y ., led the Cougars to the Round of 16 in the N.C.A.A. tournament during his senior season. The questions about Fredette’s athleticism and ability to play defense at the N.B.A. level have brought comparisons to J. J. Redick, the Duke guard who faced similar questions before he was drafted by the Orlando Magic in 2006. While Redick carved out a niche for himself as a shooter and surprisingly adept defender, it remains to be seen whether Fredette can do the same. A trade between the Kings, the Bucks and the Charlotte Bobcats resulted in the Kings receiving Fredette and swingman John Salmons. The Bucks received Stephen Jackson, Beno Udrih, Shaun Livingston and the No. 19 pick, Tobias Harris of Tennessee. The Bobcats received Corey Maggette and Bismack Biyombo, the No. 7 pick. Biyombo and Maggette will be joined in Charlotte by Kemba Walker, the Connecticut point guard who has drawn comparisons to the former All-Star Tim Hardaway because of his quickness, his crossover dribble and his scoring ability. Described as a player the Bobcats’ owner Michael Jordan would love, the 6-foot-1 Walker, who led UConn to the national championship, did not back down from that praise. “I’m a winner,” said Walker, who was selected with the ninth pick. “He was a winner. He had a lot of heart when he played, and I’m all about heart. I go out there, I compete every night, and you know, I’m not going to go down without a fight.” REBOUNDS Cleveland was the first team with two of the top four picks since 1983, when Houston selected Ralph Sampson and Rodney McCray with the first and fourth picks. ... Markieff and Marcus Morris, twin forwards from Kansas, went back to back with the 13th (Suns) and 14th (Rockets) picks. ... Six of the first seven picks were born outside the United States, including Kyrie Irving, who was born in Australia while his father, Drederick Irving, played there professionally, and Tristan Thompson, the first Canadian-born player selected since 1985. ... According to multiple reports, Minnesota was involved in at least three deals that would have it acquiring the veteran center Brad Miller from the Houston Rockets along with at least three players from this year’s draft, a future first-round pick of the Memphis Grizzlies, a future second-round pick of the Miami Heat and cash considerations. ... A proposed trade has the Denver Nuggets sending Raymond Felton to the Portland Trail Blazers for point guard Andre Miller.

Cleveland Cavaliers
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
Basketball
Irving Kyrie
Kanter Enes


New Jersey Keeps Its Execution Chamber ‘on Standby’

Abstract: TRENTON, Dec. 7 — Once a week, the execution chamber at the New Jersey State Prison is inspected, searched and cleaned. “It’s on standby,” explained Capt. W. J. Moleins of the New Jersey Department of Corrections. Those grim formalities are about all the excitement the chamber might ever see. The state has not executed anyone since Jan. 22, 1963, when Ralph Hudson died in the electric chair for stabbing his estranged wife. In effect, the eight men confined to the Capital Sentence Unit are just like any other prisoners sentenced to life. But the state goes to great lengths to ensure that they are treated distinctly. They live in their own wing, where there are two floors of cells but only enough inmates to occupy part of the first floor. They never interact with inmates in other parts of the prison. Each time a prisoner leaves his cell, two corrections officers must be there to escort him. When a prisoner leaves to attend a court hearing, there must be five guards, an armored vehicle to transport the prisoner and second vehicle to follow. General population prisoners, however, are typically moved in a van five at a time. The same motions are carried out in the courts. Prosecutors still seek death sentences. The office of the public defender now has 19 clients on trial or awaiting trial in capital cases. And there are at least three more capital case defendants in New Jersey who are being represented by private lawyers, a spokesman for the public defender said. Even if prosecutors persuaded a jury to impose a death sentence and a defendant exhausted the appeals process, the state would not be able to execute anyone. The Department of Corrections has not had the necessary regulations in place to carry out an execution since 2004, and it has no plans to write new ones.

New Jersey State Prison
Prisons and Prisoners
Capital Punishment


With Credibility on Line, World Cup Turns to Technology

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — The man from the goal-line-technology company left no margin for error, which was probably a good thing given his line of work. The man, a gray-haired German entrepreneur named Dirk Broichhausen, is the chief executive of GoalControl, and his company was selected in 2013 to install the system of cameras and software that, during the next month, will try to ensure, for the first time at a World Cup, that every goal scored has actually crossed the line — and that no ball near the line is incorrectly declared a goal if it has not. But after a half-hour of questioning under the blistering sun at Estádio do Maracanã about potential technical issues, weather concerns and even if the technology will, in fact, be in use for every game, Broichhausen had had enough. Waving off the next question with a good-natured smile, he set the bar for success as high as he could: at perfection. Image Referees will be notified on digital watches when high-speed cameras determine that a goal has been scored. Credit Oliver Weiken/European Pressphoto Agency “Let’s not talk about technical questions,” he said confidently. “It will work perfect. Final word.” He can only hope so. Goal-line technology has been common in American sports for years, but soccer has been slow to embrace it, seeing it instead as an unneeded intrusion of technology into a human game. As recently as four years ago, Sepp Blatter, the head of soccer’s governing body, FIFA, said that he was vehemently opposed to any technological aids for officiating games. But an obvious mistake at the 2010 World Cup, when England’s Frank Lampard was denied a goal against Germany, forced change on the sport. “Although I’m German,” the FIFA executive Johannes Holzmüller deadpanned as a clip of the Lampard shot played Monday, “I’ll have to admit that the ball has probably crossed the line .” Spurred, in part, by that episode, the British-dominated body that oversees the laws of the game, the International Football Association Board, recommended in 2012 that FIFA experiment with the technology for possible use at the World Cup and other tournaments. That led to submissions by companies promoting various technologies — balls with chips in them or stickers on them, as well as light curtains and laser beams — and in 2013, FIFA chose GoalControl. GoalControl’s system works with a set of 14 cameras, with seven arrayed in a semicircle on the catwalks above, watching each goal. The cameras capture up to 500 frames per second from multiple vantage points to track the continuous position of the ball within a centimeter or so. If it crosses the goal line, a digital watch worn by the referee, his two linesmen and the fourth official at midfield flashes the word “GOAL” within a second. GoalControl has installed the system at the 12 World Cup stadiums and conducted what it and FIFA said were about 2,400 tests — in wind, in rain and with one or multiple cameras blocked by players or the goalkeeper. On Monday, they said that they had yet to have an incorrect decision. The question remains, however, if every game will be watched. FIFA and GoalControl acknowledged Monday that the final decision on whether to use the technology rested with the match referee. All the World Cup officials were given a demonstration of the system last week, which included a series of pregame tests to ensure the watches were registering the ball’s position correctly. Those tests will take place at least an hour before each game. “The referee decides if he would like to use it or not,” Holzmüller said. “The point is, if he would say, ‘I don’t want to use it because I’m not sure if it’s really working,’ then, of course, both teams will be informed immediately. That means the players will be aware that the system is not in use.” A FIFA official said later that was unlikely, and that the news media would also be informed if the system was not in use. Asked about that possibility, Broichhausen guaranteed that the concern was not real, that the system would work, as he said, “perfect.” His confidence is not new — in an interview at the company’s offices in Würselen, Germany, in April 2013, he predicted the system could one day be used to judge everything from offside decisions to hand balls . But it could be years before the technology gains widespread installation. In the United States, Major League Soccer has long favored goal-line technology. But at a cost of about $500,000 per stadium to install a camera-based system like Hawk-Eye — about $10 million for a 20-team league — it may take a while. For minor leagues and poorer countries, the system, while useful, could be cost prohibitive. But to officials like Peter Walton, the former Premier League referee who now oversees training and assignments for the United States and Canada as the head of the Professional Referee Organization , it cannot happen soon enough. “The reward or not for winning games are so immense nowadays that anything that will assist a referee in getting decisions correct has got to be looked at,” Walton said. “The right decision has to be made.”

Referee
Soccer
Sepp Blatter
FIFA
Frank Lampard
2014 World Cup


After Thrill of Angels’ Game 5 Victory, a Rush of Relief

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — If it was going to end, this was not the way the Los Angeles Angels wanted it to. Not with Manager Mike Scioscia wondering if he had handled a pitching change like Grady Little. Not with John Lackey seething about a strike that the plate umpire said was not. And not with the bullpen blowing a four-run lead in the blink of an eye. And so with all of that on his shoulders — and with two outs and the count full — Brian Fuentes looked around at the loaded bases, broke from the stretch and delivered a fastball to Nick Swisher. “It’s the biggest moment you could possibly have in the game,” Fuentes said, his left shoulder wrapped in ice. “It was a big moment for Nick and me, too. The moment itself didn’t seem that big at the time. I knew what I had to do. I knew the consequences, but doing what I do, I guess you just shuffle that to the back and say, make this pitch.” Swisher swung and hit a towering pop-up that shortstop Erick Aybar squeezed with both hands. With that the Angels secured a 7-6 victory that not only earned them another game, narrowing the Yankees ’ edge in the American League Championship Series to 3-2, but also spared them a long winter of remorse. “That was a hair-pulling experience,” said Jered Weaver, after making the second relief appearance of his career. “I’ve got a headache,” said Torii Hunter, who came off the field after the Yankees scored six runs in the seventh inning and slammed his glove in the dugout. “I got gray hair, if I let my hair grow out.” Of course, Hunter wore a huge smile, too, one that was shared around the clubhouse. It was one of relief, exhilaration and thanksgiving — that Vladimir Guerrero and Kendry Morales delivered two-out hits to tie the score and then get the Angels the lead again, and that Fuentes held on to it after two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases with two outs. “I can’t say enough about the hitters coming back and scoring runs after that rough inning,” said Lackey, who has at times criticized the Angels’ lack of offense in the playoffs. “They could have easily checked it in right there. We showed a lot about who we are.” Scioscia is considered one of the best managers in baseball, and the Angels’ owner, Arte Moreno, thought enough of Scioscia to sign him a 10-year contract extension to manage the team through the 2018 season. But if the Angels had lost Thursday, it would have been the second consecutive season that ended after one of Scioscia’s decisions backfired. A year ago, he called for a suicide squeeze in the ninth inning of a tied Game 4 against Boston, but Aybar whiffed on the bunt and Reggie Willits was an easy out. The Red Sox scored in the bottom of the inning to win the series. Scioscia could have expected similar second-guessing when he removed Lackey with two outs, the bases loaded and the Angels holding a 4-0 lead in the seventh. Lackey had spent the evening burnishing his reputation as a big-game pitcher by using his curveball early in the count and then finishing off the Yankees with fastballs. “I thought I had plenty left,” Lackey said. But Scioscia preferred to have the left-hander Darren Oliver, who had not allowed a run in six innings of relief in the playoffs, face the switch-hitting Mark Teixeira. The results were disastrous. Teixeira ripped a bases-clearing double, and after Oliver intentionally walked Alex Rodriguez, he allowed a single to Hideki Matsui that tied the score at 4-4. Kevin Jepsen relieved Oliver and served up a two-run triple to Robinson Cano. “I just with my heart said, ‘Hey, leave John in.’ ” Scioscia said. “My head said, ‘Let’s try to turn Tex around and get out of that inning right there.’ ” I just have a lot of confidence in John. He might have had enough to get in there and get Tex out, but I though to turn him around at that point was the move. Obviously, it didn’t work.” Hunter, who will answer almost any question, would not touch one about the pitching change. “That’s a hot tamale right there,” he said, shaking his head. “I just work here.” Lackey, for his part, was seething — not so much about being pulled as about a 3-2 pitch he threw to Jorge Posada in the seventh inning that was called a ball by the plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth. Lackey flinched and then threw his arms out at Culbreth, asking where the pitch was. Culbreth threw his arms out back at Lackey. “That’s a pretty big spot,” Lackey said in explaining his displeasure. Lackey was given a rousing ovation as he walked off the field, and tipped his cap to the crowd, a rare show of emotion from the West Texas native. Might his gesture have been an acknowledgment that, as an impending free agent, Thursday could have been his last game as an Angel? “I’m not going to go there,” said Lackey, who had plenty of company around the clubhouse in not wanting to consider what might have been.

Los Angeles Angels
Baseball
Scioscia Mike
Playoff Games
Fuentes Brian
New York Yankees


In the N.B.A., ‘Flagrant’ Is a Matter of Interpretation

Abstract: A nagging question is dominating the N.B.A. playoffs, and it has nothing to do with who will win the championship. When is a flagrant foul not a flagrant foul? The answer: When it is changed the next day. Referees have called 16 flagrant fouls this spring. Seven were downgraded by the commissioner’s office. Seven others were issued retroactively — long after the final buzzers sounded and the arenas emptied. Technical fouls, too, have been subject to revision, sometimes disappearing after the fact, by edict of Stu Jackson, the N.B.A.’s executive vice president of basketball operations. The stated goal is to get the calls right, but that high-minded policy has been met with frustration and confusion. Players are not sure what constitutes a flagrant foul. Coaches go to sleep wondering if their player might be suspended the next day, even if no infraction was called during the game. When everything is reviewable, no call seems final. “It’s tough, because the game is never what it is,” said J. R. Smith, a guard for the Denver Nuggets . “It’s always something’s going to be changed the next day, and it’s something we got to live with and try to play through.” A wide range of N.B.A. voices — the Los Angeles Lakers ’ Kobe Bryant , the Houston Rockets ’ Shane Battier, and the broadcaster and former coach Jeff Van Gundy — have echoed those concerns. The consensus is that the N.B.A. is reviewing and revising more than ever. “I think it’s something that must be addressed in the off-season, because it’s just all over the place,” Bryant said last month. It could become an unwanted subplot in the N.B.A. finals between the Lakers and the Orlando Magic . The series opens Thursday in Los Angeles . League officials say they are employing the same review process they have used for years. But complaints are on the rise and, relatively speaking, so are the number of calls being changed. According to a four-year analysis compiled by the N.B.A. for this article, 14 flagrant calls have been upgraded, downgraded or issued retroactively in 80 playoff games this spring. That is a 75 percent increase over last year (8 changed calls in 86 games, including the finals) and double the amount changed in 2007 (7 calls in 79 games). However, this year’s total reflects only a slight increase from 2006, when 12 calls were changed in 89 games. League officials are sensitive to the perceptions. “Unfortunately, we’re accustomed to some of our most prolific players and coaches complaining about rules and how we approach them,” said Joel Litvin, the N.B.A.’s president of league and basketball operations. “We would like to keep everybody happy, but that’s never going to happen. So the best we can do is act decisively and act as consistently as best we can.” The N.B.A. instituted its flagrant-foul system in 1993 and with it, the video review to ensure the consistency and legitimacy of the calls. Hard fouls are reviewed throughout the season and during the playoffs to see if they should be reclassified as flagrant, and flagrant fouls are subject to upgrading or downgrading, as a penalty-1 or penalty-2 call. (A penalty-1 call results in two free throws and possession of the ball by the team that was fouled, a penalty-2 call adds ejection of the player who committed the foul.) Jackson, a onetime coach of the Knicks , is behind much of the Monday-morning quarterbacking. Jackson and a staff of three typically rehash the play at the league’s office in New York. They evaluate the questioned calls with the aid of an index classifying past hard fouls, technicals and flagrants 1s and 2s. If the debated call deals with a player being pushed while in midair, they can compare similar plays from the past. With his staff’s conclusion, Jackson presents his recommendation to Litvin. Together, they make the final call. Some plays can be decided quickly; others can take hours. “At the end of the day, they’re all judgment calls,” Litvin said. Generally, referees have been accepting of the next-day second-guessing. “Everyone’s quest is to get it right, the N.B.A. executives and the officials,” said Lamell McMorris, the referee association’s spokesman and lead negotiator. Several plays have drawn extra scrutiny this postseason, perhaps none more than Boston guard Rajon Rondo’s last-second rake across the face of Chicago ’s Brad Miller in the first round. It was ruled a simple foul during the game and was not upgraded to a flagrant foul, despite some howls of protest. The play was the first that anyone on Jackson’s staff could recall when a borderline flagrant foul had occurred in a playoff game’s final play, and with the outcome still in the balance. The staff ultimately decided that Rondo had tried to make a play on the ball before bloodying Miller. The process is thorough, Litvin and Jackson said, to ensure that emotional games do not get out of hand and that the punishment is consistent. The same approach applies to technical fouls. Nine have been rescinded in the playoffs, out of 135 called. A player is permitted six technical fouls in the playoffs or three flagrant-foul points before drawing an automatic suspension. So getting a call downgraded or rescinded can be critical to staying in the game. Dwight Howard , the Magic’s star center, had a technical foul rescinded during the Eastern Conference finals, moving his postseason total back to five. But he remains perilously close to a suspension. Howard’s teammate Anthony Johnson also was the beneficiary of a changed call. His flagrant foul, for elbowing Cleveland ’s Mo Williams, was later taken away when it was ruled unintentional. “It’s a tough situation,” Johnson said. “Sometimes you can find yourself on one side of it and then the next night, on the other side of it.” The constant reviewing and altering of calls has also created a degree of cynicism. Some players contend that plays highlighted by the news media are more likely to be reviewed, and that star players are getting more deference. “They do it for the right people,” said Denver ’s Smith. “Everybody don’t get the same calls.” The Nuggets were upset because guard Dahntay Jones was twice issued retroactive flagrant fouls, for shoving Bryant in one game and for tripping him in another. But Denver’s Kenyon Martin was a beneficiary of the review process — he had three technical fouls rescinded during the playoffs. The other problem, Van Gundy and others point out, is that fixing a call retroactively might help a player, but it leaves the game appearing tainted. When a team scores on a technical-foul free throw, or gets an extra possession for a flagrant-foul 2, those points are permanent, regardless of what edict comes down the next day. Some longtime observers, such as the ESPN analyst Mark Jackson , contend that the N.B.A. has overreached in its efforts to tamp down violent play. Van Gundy, Jackson’s broadcast partner, said the key words used to define flagrant fouls — unnecessary (flagrant 1) and excessive (flagrant 2) — are “nebulous in nature and very much open to interpretation.” “But I think everybody who’s ever watched, coached or played basketball knows the difference between dirty play and hard play,” Van Gundy said. Indeed, flagrant is in the eye of the beholder, which, given the speed of the N.B.A. game, puts referees at a distinct disadvantage when they make calls in real time. So the replays and the second guesses, the upgrades and the downgrades will continue. So will the debate. “I think it’s unfortunate about all the focus being on technicals, flagrants, suspensions, one team wants another guy to be suspended to improve their chances in the playoffs,” said Stan Van Gundy, the Magic’s coach. “The basketball in these playoffs has been outstanding and I wish people would focus more on that.”


Paterson Calls Governing ‘Mission in Which God Placed Me’

Abstract: Speaking before a church congregation in Brooklyn, Gov. David A. Paterson declared on Sunday that he was the victim of innuendo and lies and that he would finish his term to “fulfill the mission in which God placed me.” Talking for 15 minutes to a sympathetic and largely black audience at the Cornerstone Baptist Church , Mr. Paterson energetically defended his record as governor and fiscal steward, telling the congregation he had tried to look out for “those who live below the line” even while grappling with the need to cut billions of dollars in state spending. Mr. Paterson said that the state’s fiscal crisis demanded steady leadership and that he had no intention of resigning. He has faced allegations that his administration intervened in a domestic violence case against one of his top aides, David W. Johnson, and he has asked Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo to investigate. Separately, Mr. Cuomo and the Albany district attorney’s office are investigating whether Mr. Paterson perjured himself during an investigation by a state ethics commission into how he obtained tickets for a World Series game at Yankee Stadium. “I will keep governing to the end of the year, in the spirit of making the tough decisions and trying as hard as I can to fulfill the mission in which God placed me,” Mr. Paterson said. After Mr. Paterson spoke, the Rev. Lawrence E. Aker III, Cornerstone’s senior pastor, invited anyone present who was “facing circumstances that are overwhelming” to go up to the altar. The governor came forward and placed both hands on the altar, followed by more than two dozen other worshipers, some of whom laid their hands on Mr. Paterson’s back as he prayed. Much of what the governor said concerned news coverage of accusations against him. “In the last couple of months, I’ve been the victim of rumor and innuendo, gossip and absolute lies,” Mr. Paterson said. “The term ‘unsubstantiated reports’ used to mean you couldn’t print it. Now it means they put it on the front page.” He criticized the use of anonymous sources by the news media, which have reported on efforts by members of his administration, including the commander of the governor’s State Police protective detail, to reach out to Mr. Johnson’s ex-companion, Sherr-una Booker . Ms. Booker had sought a protective order against Mr. Johnson after a dispute last October. She stopped pursuing the matter a day after speaking with Mr. Paterson, though the contents of that and other contacts between the administration and her have been in dispute. Mr. Paterson’s supporters have urged him to respond to those reports with his own side of the story. But on Sunday, he said it would be inappropriate to explain himself publicly. “People are placed in very difficult positions. But I will do what’s right,” Mr. Paterson said. “And what’s right is that when I do any talking about the circumstances in which I’ve been involved, I will be talking to the investigation, not to the media.” In his remarks, Mr. Paterson cast his struggles in religious terms. “I shouldn’t be listening to the god of the media,” he said. “I shouldn’t be listening to the god of polls. I shouldn’t be listening to the god of popularity. I shouldn’t be listening to people who are going in a path, rather than leading a path. I should be listening to my own heart.” He added, “If you know the truth, and you want to serve God, then stand before him no matter what happens.” Mr. Paterson, who is Roman Catholic, rarely makes public appearances at churches, a Sunday ritual for many other elected officials. His visit to the politically influential Cornerstone congregation, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, will be followed Monday by a town hall meeting in Downtown Brooklyn to discuss the state budget gap. Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Cornerstone parishioner who attended the Sunday service, said, “I think during difficult times, many individuals turn to the church to be strengthened while in the middle of the storm.” Of Mr. Paterson, he said: “He was both reflective and resolute, in my view, and seemed firmly committed to the opportunity to serve out the rest of his term as the investigation moves forward.” Since the allegations surfaced, a number of officials have called for Mr. Paterson to resign. But many others, including some leading black officials and ministers, have urged him to stay on. His supporters say the governor deserves a presumption of innocence.

Ethics
Paterson David A
Booker Sheer-una
Jeffries Hakeem


Parks Bill Includes Negro Leagues Stadium

Abstract: One of the final remaining stadiums where Negro leagues baseball was played may soon become part of a national park. The Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure Friday that would add Hinchliffe Stadium to Great Falls National Historical Park in Paterson, N.J. The measure, one of several parks bills that were attached to a defense policy bill, now heads to President Obama’s desk. The stadium opened in 1932 and was home to several Negro leagues teams, including the New York Black Yankees and the New York Cubans.

Negro League
Baseball
Black People,African-Americans
Stadiums Arenas
Great Falls Park
National Parks and National Monuments
Historic preservation
Paterson NJ
New Jersey


Note the Moment, Not the Man

Abstract: The blessing and curse of progress is that you cannot choose your heroes, no matter how long you wait for them to emerge. Such is the case for the movement of gays in sports — more specifically, openly gay men in major North American team sports. There had not been any, until a few weeks ago, and suddenly there are two. Sort of. Finding meaning in the big picture is easy — it is progress, and it is moving fast. But if you insist on finding that singular moment, that Jackie-Robinson-breaks-the-color-barrier-moment, this cause is not for you. Whatever movie gets made years from now will be far more complicated than “42.” Some advocates might have wished for one big-name athlete to make the bold pronouncement and open the doors for all others to walk through with little fanfare. Instead, progress — while coming faster than anyone could have predicted only a year ago — is moving in incremental, hopscotch spurts. On Sunday night, the soccer player Robbie Rogers became the first openly gay male athlete to play a major (sort of) North American team sport. Rogers, 26, took the field as a substitute for Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy, more than three months after coming out , and received a hearty standing ovation. He played the final 13 minutes in the Galaxy’s 4-0 victory over the Seattle Sounders. Just a few weeks earlier, in an essay in Sports Illustrated , the N.B.A. veteran Jason Collins became the first active (sort of) athlete in a major North American team sport to declare that he was gay. The N.B.A. is decidedly more major than Major League Soccer, but it is not certain that Collins, 34, will play again. He will be a free agent this summer and hopes to make a roster in the fall. Rogers and Collins deserve all the plaudits that they will continue to receive for taking a brave plunge into the unknown. Pioneering is not for the timid. For other men who remain agonizingly unsure if they can be themselves, from millionaire athletes to confused teenagers, Rogers and Collins are showing them a path toward openness and acceptance. But most people who do not closely follow soccer or basketball have never heard of Robbie Rogers or Jason Collins. That takes nothing away from the athletes, but it probably takes something away from these moments. Image Rogers, left, plays in a league that remains off the radar screen of many U.S. sports fans. Credit Danny Moloshok/Reuters Rogers plays in a sports league that might be the fifth-most popular in the United States, one that sits at least a rung below the best soccer leagues in the world. Collins is eight years past his best season, statistically, when he averaged 6.4 points and 6.1 rebounds for the Nets. There are roughly 400 active N.B.A. players, and he may not play among them next season. A little more than two years ago, a conversation with Cyd Zeigler and Jim Buzinski, the co-founders of Outsports, a Web site with a focus on gays in sports, led to a playful debate. If you could choose any N.F.L. player to be the first to come out, whom would it be? One said Peyton Manning; with his vast popularity, such a revelation would be as attention-grabbing as anything imaginable. The other said linebacker James Harrison, then with the Steelers, because his perceived ferociousness would batter stereotypes. The more likely situation, all admitted, would involve someone with far less name recognition. You cannot choose your heroes. The moment chooses them. It turned out that the first did not come from the N.F.L., after all, despite its having more players than any other league, dozens of whom are likely to be gay, if societal statistics can be applied to football players. Baseball? Hockey? Not yet. They, too, will come. Those who have responded to the announcements of Collins and Rogers by saying that their sexuality is no big deal, that it should be kept a secret and not be news at all, do not understand. It is a big deal — to the men declaring it, to the people who love them, to the countless masses who instantly, if silently, feel a swell of pride and little less fear and worry. It is why so many have recently declared that Collins and Rogers are their favorite players, even if they have never watched them play. Unless you are one of those people, you cannot fully appreciate the significance. But even significance is a matter of degrees. What is the next step worthy of widespread attention, the kind afforded to Collins and Rogers and those who come before them, in retirement but early in life, like the football player David Kopay and the basketball player John Amaechi ? There will be the first openly gay active players in Major League Baseball, the N.F.L. and the N.H.L. There will be more in the N.B.A., M.LS. and other professional leagues. The question will be how much it matters whether they are third-stringers or All-Stars, backup catchers or Super Bowl quarterbacks. Has the biggest news been made? To those brave enough to make such a declaration, it does not matter what sport they play and at what level they play it. But, to the rest of us, it probably does. Such is the way of this particular kind of progress.

Soccer
Robbie Rogers
Los Angeles Galaxy
Jason Collins
Basketball
Homosexuality


China Jails Australian Businessman, Matthew Ng, for 13 Years

Abstract: BEIJING — An Australian businessman whose business dealings with a state-owned Chinese company soured last year has been sentenced by a Chinese court to 13 years in prison on bribery and fraud charges, his lawyer and Australian officials said Tuesday. Two associates of the Chinese-born businessman, Matthew Ng, were also sentenced to 16 and 3.5 years in prison, Mr. Ng’s lawyer, Chen Youxi, said in a telephone interview. The sentences, which Australian news reports called unusually harsh, were also totally unexpected. Mr. Chen said he had not attended Tuesday’s hearing, in which prosecutors had been scheduled to present oral evidence in the case. Mr. Chen said Mr. Ng would appeal the verdict and sentence. “My client is innocent,” he said. “The court does not have either enough evidence or legal basis for the sentence.” The lawyer was quoted in an August interview calling the bribery charge “ridiculous,” noting that the payment in question was both publicly reported and taxed, and suggesting that his client had been framed. He declined comment on Tuesday, directing an interviewer instead to a Chinese-language Web site that presents a defense against the charges. Mr. Ng was detained in November 2010 amid a dispute between a travel company he founded, Et- China , and Chinese buyers led by Lingnan Group, a hotel and travel conglomerate owned by the Guangzhou municipal government. According to Et-China’s Web site and news reports, Lingnan had earlier sold Et-China a controlling stake in a subsidiary, GZL , that runs Guangzhou’s largest chain of travel agencies, for a reported $10 million. In June 2010, a Swiss firm, Kuoni Group, agreed to buy Et-China in a deal that valued the company at about $125 million — including a multifold profit on its stake in GZL. Lingnan officials then demanded to buy the GZL shares back at their original selling price, news reports state, but Mr. Ng refused. Between September and November 2010, Guangzhou authorities detained Mr. Ng; Et-China’s chairman, Zheng Hong, and its accountant, Kitty Yang. Mr. Hong was sentenced to 16 years, and Ms. Yang to 3.5 years, at Tuesday’s hearing. In sentencing Mr. Ng., the Guangzhou Intermediate Court ruled that he was guilty of embezzlement, bribery, corruption and falsifying records. Kuoni has since backed out of the purchase of Et-China. Australia ’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, expressed concern about the charges in April during a meeting with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Australian diplomats had raised questions about the case with top Communist Party officials in Guangzhou, and sought without success to open the trial to news coverage and move it to a larger courtroom. Mr. Ng’s case is one of several involving Chinese-born Australians that some critics say underscore the risks confronting foreign business executives in a legal system controlled by the same Communist Party that controls governments and many corporations. Stern Hu, the Chinese-born Australian who negotiated iron-ore sales to Chinese steel mills for Australia’s Rio Tinto Group, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on bribery and espionage charges in 2010 after an especially bruising round of negotiations. Another Chinese-born Australian, Charlotte Chou, has been in Guangzhou jails for two years after becoming embroiled in a business dispute involving an educational institute she had founded. Australian officials also are reported to have raised that case with Chinese authorities without results. An Australian Embassy official in Beijing did not return a call on Tuesday requesting comment.

China
Australia
Bribery and Kickbacks
Decisions and Verdicts
Frauds and Swindling
Ng Matthew


Portugal: Investigators Reopen Case of Missing British Child

Abstract: Portuguese prosecutors on Thursday reopened an investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from her British parents’ hotel room six years ago, when she was 3. The case, one of the most notorious recent child-abduction cases in Europe, was formally closed in 2008. But after a campaign by the girl’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, British and Portuguese investigators began reviewing the evidence two years ago and independently uncovered new leads. In July, British officials opened a formal investigation, and now Portugal has followed suit. Portuguese investigators did not specify what the new leads were, but according to the police in London they are separate from the ones being followed in Britain. Teams from both countries met a week ago to compare notes and to brief the McCanns on the progress. Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007, from an apartment in a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while her parents were having dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Portugal
Madeleine McCann
Great Britain
Kidnapping