E.P.A. Issues Scaled-Back Emissions Rules for Boilers

Abstract: Responding to a changed political climate and a court-ordered deadline, the Obama administration issued significantly revised new air pollution rules on Wednesday that will make it easier for operators of thousands of industrial boilers and incinerators to meet federal air quality standards. The new regulations represent a major step back from more demanding and costly rules proposed last spring that provoked an outcry from members of Congress from both parties and from thousands of affected businesses. One industry-financed study said the proposed standard would cost businesses $20 billion to comply and cause the loss of more than 300,000 jobs. E.P.A. officials said on Wednesday that the altered rule would cost half as much as the previous proposal while achieving virtually the same health benefits. The agency pegged compliance costs for the new version of the rule at $2.1 billion a year and said it would generate more than 2,000 new jobs. Gina McCarthy, director of the E.P.A.’s air and radiation office, said that the pollution reductions would save from 2,600 to 6,600 lives per year by 2014 and avert 4,100 heart attacks and 42,000 asthma attacks annually. “These health protections will save between $23 billion and $56 billion in health-related costs,” Ms. McCarthy said in a conference call for reporters. “They are realistic, they are achievable, and they are reasonable, and they come at roughly half the cost to comply compared to that in the proposed rule in May 2010.” The E.P.A. withdrew the earlier rule in December, saying it needed another 15 months to refashion the rule to respond to complaints and new data. A federal judge rejected the extension, saying the agency had already spent three years developing the regulation, and ordered it to produce a new rule by this week. The agency grudgingly met the deadline but said it would remain open to comments and proposals for changes from lawmakers, businesses and citizens. Agency officials said the new rule was consistent with an executive order issued by President Obama in January calling for a broad review of environmental, health, safety and financial regulations to ensure that they were not imposing too heavy a cost on the economy. Changes to the boiler rule could foreshadow a less muscular approach to air pollution rules due for power plants next month and a series of regulations of greenhouse gases to be rolled out over the next several years. The power plant rules are currently being scrubbed by the White House Office of Management and Budget . The rule issued on Wednesday affects roughly 200,000 boilers, small power plants and incinerators operated by factories, chemical plants, municipalities, universities, churches and commercial buildings. About 187,000 of these are relatively small sources of the target pollutants — lead, mercury, soot and toxic gases — and will have to do little more than perform routine “tune-ups” every year or two to meet the new standard. They will be allowed to achieve the cuts using readily available control technology at what the E.P.A. said was a reasonable cost. The agency said the earlier version, which would have required boiler operators to apply “maximum achievable control technology,” set too high a bar. “The original standards for these have been dramatically refined and updated to ensure maximum flexibility for these sources,” the agency said in a press release. The 13,800 larger facilities, including refineries, chemical plants and large factories, will have to meet numerical targets for pollution reduction, although the agency said it had narrowed the standards to lower compliance costs. The government will provide technical assistance in meeting the new standards and grant incentives for switching to cleaner-burning fuels such as natural gas and biomass. Bob Bessette, president of the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners , said it appeared that the E.P.A. had provided some relief for operators of smaller units but nonetheless called it a “terrible disappointment” because it was not clear that its standards could be met at a reasonable cost. He noted that because the new rule was so different from the previous version, E.P.A. would immediately reopen it to comment. “This is a good plan given our nation’s current economic challenges,” Mr. Bessette said. “It makes much more sense for E.P.A. and all stakeholders to revisit key challenges, take additional time and get the rule right.”

Air pollution
EPA
Manufacturing
Environment


Closely Watched Fight Over California Teacher Tenure Moves to Appeals Court

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — A fierce battle over the future of teacher tenure in California moved to an appeals court here on Thursday. Lawyers for student plaintiffs argued that the state’s ironclad job protections for teachers deprived students of a quality education, while teachers unions and the state said the system helped recruit and retain teachers. Two years ago, in a landmark ruling, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge struck down five state statutes dealing with the awarding of tenure, as well as rules governing teacher dismissals and the requirement that seniority be used to determine layoffs. In a strongly worded ruling, the judge, Rolf Treu, said the statutes violated the students’ rights to an equal education under the California Constitution by allowing poor-performing teachers to stay in classrooms indefinitely. Judge Treu said the evidence presented by the plaintiffs in the 2014 case, Vergara v. California, “shocks the conscience” because poor and minority students were disproportionately affected by the state laws and the placement of ineffective teachers. The nine plaintiffs, then in high school, are backed by Students Matter, a group financed by a Silicon Valley business magnate, David Welch. With states around the country overhauling tenure laws, the Vergara case has been closely watched by teachers unions and education advocates. A New York-based group, Partnership for Education Justice, has brought a similar case in New York and is working with plaintiffs in other states to mount parallel cases challenging tenure protections for teachers. The partnership is backed by the foundations of the Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad and the Walton family, founders of Walmart — philanthropists deeply involved in the overhauling of America’s public schools. The former high school students in the case in California, where teachers can be granted tenure after just two years in the classroom and where procedures to dismiss ineffective teachers can cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollars, argue that too often, incompetent teachers end up in classrooms with disadvantaged children, and that the laws make it all but impossible to remove the teachers. In Thursday’s hearing before a three-judge panel, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., the lawyer for Students Matter, described what experts called “the dance of the lemons,” in which underperforming teachers were shuffled around from school to school, ultimately ending up in communities with a high concentration of poor and minority students, where there were the most openings for teaching jobs. At one point during the hearing, when lawyers focused largely on case-law precedent rather than the emotional testimony of teachers and students that characterized the initial trial, Associate Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt said the plaintiffs’ logic seemed circular. In response to arguments by the state that the contested laws did not lead to underperforming teachers, presiding Justice Roger W. Boren said, “There’s probably nobody in this room who didn’t have a bad teacher at some point.” Lawyers for the state and teachers unions said it was not the laws that led to ineffective teachers’ staying in classrooms, but school district administrators’ inappropriately granting tenure or not following procedures to remove them. “The statutes don’t cause underperformers to be in the classroom or to remain in the classroom,” Michael Rubin, a lawyer representing the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, said in an interview. “That’s a function of district decisions.” During the hearing, Mr. Rubin repeatedly held up the example of Long Beach, where he said 95 percent of the teachers the district tries to fire are forced out — usually because they choose to resign voluntarily, rather than risk a dismissal, which remains on their record. In a brief filed before Thursday’s hearing, the teachers unions argued that during a time of teacher shortages , overturning the statutes could harm students by driving more teachers away. “When we talk about tenure issues or start talking about poor-performing teachers, I think that this may have the unintended consequence of causing people to not want to stay in the profession,” said Preston Green, a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut, who signed on to support the teachers union brief. The lawyers for both sides staged dueling news conferences outside the courthouse, each group insisting the arguments had gone their way. Brandon DeBose, a plaintiff who has since graduated from high school, was also at the news conference. He said he had endured “teachers who wore us down and told us we wouldn’t amount to anything, teachers who moved us back instead of forward.” “The Vergara case is no longer about me or changing my future,” he added. “It’s about changing the future generations of California students coming up in the public school system behind me.” A decision is expected within 90 days. The case could be appealed to the State Supreme Court.

California
Teachers
Los Angeles
California Teachers Association
K-12 Education
Academic Tenure
Lawsuits
Labor Unions


Blackhawks Stand Behind Corey Crawford as Their Goalie

Abstract: CHICAGO — On the ice at Boston’s TD Garden, minutes after he had won his first Stanley Cup last year, Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford was approached by a local television host for an interview. He had been one of Crawford’s fiercest critics during the season and through the playoffs, repeatedly questioning whether Crawford was a championship-caliber goalie. Crawford grabbed the interviewer by his suit lapels and told him he had been watching his reports. But, according to the television host, Crawford smiled and said, “It’s cool now, because I’m a Stanley Cup champion.” A year later, the Blackhawks are again streaking through the postseason, with Crawford a key contributor. For all the praise Henrik Lundqvist has received for leading the Rangers toward the Stanley Cup finals, Crawford has been as good — if not better. His goals against average during the playoffs is 1.90 and his save percentage is .933 compared with Lundqvist’s 1.93 and .934. After a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, Chicago is seven wins from its third Stanley Cup title in five years. Game 2 is Wednesday night at United Center. Still, while Lundqvist is seen as a King Henrik in New York, Crawford cannot seem to shake a sense that he is the beneficiary of a roster loaded with talent, that somehow he is riding the coattails of his star teammates such as Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. The narrative is stuck in quicksand. After a Chicago practice Tuesday defenseman Brent Seabrook was asked whether he thought Crawford was underappreciated. Seabrook responded curtly. “I don’t know,” Seabrook said. “Why do you think he’s underappreciated? I think he’s great.” Forward Patrick Sharp said: “The last couple of seasons I’ve been answering questions about Corey and saying the same thing over and over and over again. It was annoying for a while, but now it’s just ridiculous that people keep questioning him.” Crawford, a second-round pick of the Blackhawks in 2003, spent five seasons toiling in the American Hockey League, unable to crack Chicago’s roster. When the Blackhawks were champions in 2010 with Antti Niemi in net, Crawford was a member of the Rockford Icehogs. “He wasn’t someone you saw and immediately thought he was going to be an N.H.L. superstar,” said Frantz Jean, who coached Crawford in a junior league in Quebec. That his rise to the N.H.L. took longer than expected could have planted the first doubts about whether Crawford could be among the elite goalies, as could his style, understated rather than flashy. “He’s quiet and he’s a worker,” said Mike Haviland, who coached Crawford in the A.H.L. and the N.H.L. and was recently hired by Colorado College. “We told him he would have to work, and he did, but just like in the N.H.L., it didn’t always come easy.” Crawford’s goals against average was near 3.00 in his first season in the A.H.L. at Norfolk. But he worked on his body, adding weight and strength, and he improved his stick handling to complement his impressive technique. “He was stiff,” Jean said. “But he learned how to relax and play looser. You can see that now.” In Crawford’s first taste of the playoffs in 2011, the Blackhawks lost to the Vancouver Canucks in seven games. The next season, Crawford was less than stellar as the Blackhawks were ousted in six games by the Phoenix Coyotes. Those memories were sharp as the Blackhawks readied for last year’s playoff run. But those concerns faded when he posted a 1.84 goals against average and .932 save percentage during last year’s playoffs. “I’ve apologized to him,” the reformed TV host David Kaplan said. “The debate should be over. He’s elite.” But even when Crawford signed a six-year, $36 million extension last year, there were rumblings that the Blackhawks had overpaid. And after the St. Louis Blues beat the Blackhawks in the first two games of their first-round series on two overtime goals, the whispers were back again. But Crawford and the Blackhawks stormed back, clinching the series in four straight games. In Game 1 against the Minnesota Wild in the second round, he stopped 17 shots in the second period of a Blackhawks win. In the second period of Game 1 against the Kings , he made 16 saves. The backup goalie Antti Raanta described one of the stops as like a “soccer goalie.” Seabrook called Crawford the backbone of the team. “I think the only way to get better is making mistakes and learning from it,” Crawford said. “First two playoff experiences were first-round losses, so I just looked at that, looked at things I did wrong and tried to improve on it.” As for those pesky doubters? “It’s just talk,” Crawford said. “I’m not playing to decide who’s right or wrong. I’m playing to win hockey games. I’m trying to win a childhood dream.”

Corey Crawford
Ice hockey
Chicago Blackhawks


Judge Attacks Merrill Pre-Merger Bonuses

Abstract: Reigniting a major controversy over Wall Street pay, a federal judge on Monday sharply criticized the bonuses that Merrill Lynch hurriedly paid out before it was acquired by Bank of America last year and pointedly questioned a federal settlement that had seemed to put the issue to rest. A week after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had settled the matter, Judge Jed S. Rakoff questioned whether the $33 million agreement with Bank of America was adequate. He refused to approve the deal, saying too many questions remained unanswered, including who knew what and when about the controversial payouts. His ruling prolongs what has become a major embarrassment for Bank of America and its chief executive, Kenneth D. Lewis , and also deals a stinging blow to the S.E.C., which needs Judge Rakoff’s approval of its deal with the bank. Judge Rakoff ordered the bank and the commission to submit more information to him within two weeks. During a hearing in New York that was heated at times, the judge was scathing about the settlement, in which the S.E.C. accused Bank of America of misleading its shareholders. Bank of America neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, Judge Rakoff said, “effectively lied to their shareholders.” The $3.6 billion in bonuses paid by Merrill as the ailing brokerage giant was taken over by the bank was effectively “from Uncle Sam.” The Merrill bonuses, which were the subject of a state investigation and prompted an outcry in Congress, were paid even though Merrill Lynch lost $27 billion last year. Its deepening red ink later forced Bank of America to seek a second taxpayer-financed bailout “Do Wall Street people expect to be paid large bonuses in years when their company lost $27 billion?” the judge asked. Judge Rakoff, who took an active role in the S.E.C.’s case against WorldCom, is yet another voice in a growing chorus of critics of the Bank of America-Merrill deal, which was forged in the heat of the financial crisis last fall. Both the S.E.C. and Bank of America defended the settlement. The bank’s fine, however, represented a small fraction of the bonuses paid out by Merrill Lynch, a fact the judge and other critics seized on. In fact, at least one individual at Merrill Lynch collected a bonus totaling more than that amount. The judge characterized the $33 million fine as “strangely askew” given the accusations made, the magnitude of Merrill’s losses and the subsequent bailout for Bank of America. The judge questioned the role of top executives at the companies, in particular Mr. Lewis and John A. Thain, the former chief executive of Merrill Lynch, both of whom signed off on a proxy statement to investors. “Was there some sort of ghost that performed those actions?” Judge Rakoff said. The S.E.C.’s complaint focused on a document that detailed the bonuses, but which was not included in the merger agreement or proxy statement that was sent to the companies’ shareholders, who voted to approve the merger on Dec. 5. The S.E.C.’s lawyer, David Rosenfeld, said repeatedly during the hearing Monday that the agency had chosen not to make allegations against individuals in the case. Mr. Rosenfeld spoke softly and was called up to the microphone after Judge Rakoff criticized the S.E.C. for the evidence it had presented — or failed to. The judge said the commission was remiss for not determining who at the companies decided not to disclose the bonus agreement. And he suggested that they should have interviewed the external lawyers for both companies. “You filed a rather uninformative, bare-bones complaint,” Judge Rakoff said. Lewis J. Liman, a lawyer representing Bank of America, told the judge, when prodded, that the bank believed it had not wronged its shareholders. Mr. Liman, son of Arthur L. Liman, the lawyer who led the Iran-contra investigation in the Senate, seemed at times dismissive, saying at one point: “My God! Bonuses on Wall Street? It is not a matter of surprise.” Merrill had little choice but to pay many of the bonuses, Mr. Liman said. Of the $3.6 billion, Merrill had committed $850 million in the form of guaranteed bonuses. Mr. Liman said the rest of the money was shared among 39,000 workers who received average payments of $91,000 — though he did not mention that there were 696 people at Merrill who made more than $1 million in bonuses. “I’m glad you think that $91,000 is not a lot of money,” the judge said. “I wish the average American was making $91,000.” Mr. Liman agreed that $91,000 was quite a lot. Judge Rakoff said he might hold another hearing to consider evidence of whether the bonuses were needed. He said he might want to know if Merrill’s management studied how many of the roughly 39,000 bonus recipients would have left had they not received their payouts. Mr. Liman said the bank could prove in litigation that there were a number of companies that might have hired Merrill’s employees. Mr. Rosenfeld of the S.E.C. said he had based the fine in part on a case the agency filed against Wachovia over disclosure issues in 2001. That case involved disclosure of a stock buyback program that cost $500 million. The lawyer for Bank of America periodically whispered what appeared to be suggestions to Mr. Rosenfeld. One point that Mr. Liman emphasized was that the $3.6 billion was paid with funds other than the federal bailout money, and he said that if the bonuses were a problem simply because of the bank received aid, other banks that had received bailouts might face similar allegations. The judge was unmoved. “Money is money, the last time I checked,” Judge Rakoff responded.

Bonuses
Securities and Exchange Commission
Merrill Lynch & Co
Executive Compensation
Rakoff Jed S
Lewis Kenneth D


Grenada: Assailant Kills U.S. Tourist

Abstract: A machete-wielding man attacked an American tourist couple as they walked along a remote beach on Grenada, killing the woman, the police said Tuesday. The woman, Jessica Lewis Colker, 39, of Atlanta, was found dead after her husband ran to get help after the attack, which occurred around noon Sunday, said Sylvan McIntyre, an assistant superintendent with the Royal Grenada Police Force. A suspect is in custody. The motive for the attack is unknown. Ms. Colker’s husband, Brian Van Melito, told the police that he fought with the suspect, then managed to get away and call for help. The police and local residents found Ms. Colker’s body later in the woods. An autopsy found that she died of an extensive skull fracture and asphyxia.

Grenada
Jessica Lewis Colker
Murders and Homicides
US


Cost of Being Mayor? $650 Million, if He’s Rich

Abstract: Michael R. Bloomberg loves tropical fish. So when he was elected mayor, he installed two giant aquariums in City Hall. The cost to him for having the tanks cleaned out every week for the past 12 years: around $62,400. The mayor likes to nosh, too. So he paid to feed his staff daily a light breakfast (coffee, bagels, yogurt) and a modest lunch (tuna salad, PB&J, sliced fruit). The bill for his entire mayoralty: about $890,000. Mr. Bloomberg, above all, enjoys hassle-free travel. When he took his aides anywhere, from Albany to Athens, it was by private plane. The price tag for all that jetting around: roughly $6 million. When Mr. Bloomberg leaves office at midnight Tuesday, he will bequeath a litany of record-shattering statistics on crime reduction, sidewalk safety and skyline-altering construction. But perhaps the most staggering figure is the amount of his own money that he devoted, day in and day out, to being mayor — much of it unseen by the public. An analysis by The New York Times shows that Mr. Bloomberg has doled out at least $650 million on a wide variety of perks and bonuses , political campaigns and advocacy work, charitable giving and social causes, not to mention travel and lodging, connected to his time and role as mayor. (His estimated tab for a multiday trip to China, with aides and security in tow: $500,000.) In the process, he has entirely upended the financial dynamics surrounding New York’s top job. In the past, the city paid its mayor; Mr. Bloomberg paid to be the city’s mayor. In moves that would make a financial planner’s head spin, he rejected the $2.7 million worth of salary to which he was entitled (accepting just $1 a year) and, starting in 2001, turned on a spigot of cash that has never stopped gushing. He poured at least $268 million of his personal funds into three campaigns for mayor . He donated at least another $263 million to New York arts, civic, health and cultural groups, personally and through his company, Bloomberg LP. Campaign donations? He handed out about $23 million of them. He even chipped in $5 million to renovate an official mayoral residence that he never inhabited. (He preferred the familiar privacy of his own nearby mansion.) “A modern Medici” is how Mark Green, the former public advocate, described him, reaching back to 15th-century Italy for any kind of precedent. Mr. Bloomberg’s all-expense-paid mayoralty was, depending on the vantage point, exhilarating (for his aides), infuriating (for his rivals) cost-saving (for his constituents) or selfless (for the beneficiaries of his largess). But for anyone who interacted with the billionaire, his gilded approach to governing was a breathtaking thing to behold. Guy V. Molinari, the former Staten Island borough president, recalled the time Mr. Bloomberg invited him to see the new commuter ferries that would bear Mr. Molinari’s name. Mr. Molinari had assumed that the invitation would mean visiting the boats in the humble waters of Staten Island. Mr. Bloomberg had a grander plan: He whisked Mr. Molinari to Wisconsin on his pristine private plane to view the factory where the ships were being built. “It’s a beautiful plane,” Mr. Molinari said, “and I remember asking him, ‘What does it cost, a plane like this?’ ” The mayor’s reply: $28 million. “I thought to myself,” Mr. Molinari said, “how many people could just take $28 million out of your bank account to buy a plane?” In the eyes of Chris McNickle, a historian who has written about the city’s mayors, Mr. Bloomberg’s financial might made him the most potent mayor since the birth of modern New York City in late 1800s. Because he was largely liberated from the demands of campaign donors, interest groups or political parties, “his power was both intensified and expanded,” Mr. McNickle said. To calculate Mr. Bloomberg’s spending, The Times relied on public documents, travel records, philanthropy databases, conversations with vendors and interviews with his government employees. The $650 million minimum estimate is undoubtedly low. Up-to-date annual reports were not available for several Bloomberg-financed organizations and a wide range of expenses were impossible to firmly establish, like the dinner parties he hosted at his townhouse, meals he bought for government aides and landing fees paid at foreign airports. Still, the data suggest that Mr. Bloomberg’s fortune has left few corners of the city untouched, from the biggest cultural institutions to the smallest theater troupes. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has received over $30 million from the mayor since 2002, Mr. Bloomberg has paid for audio guides and wireless Internet, reaching “everyone who walks through our doors,” said Harold Holzer, a senior vice president there. At the Queens Theater in the Park , Mr. Bloomberg’s annual gifts of $100,000, delivered anonymously starting the year he took office, amounted to a financial life raft that seemed to drop from the sky. “It was beyond our realm of comprehension,” the theater’s former director, Jeffrey Rosenstock, recalled of the windfall. The common touch has long eluded the mayor as an orator, but down-and-out New Yorkers were a recurring focus of his financial outlays. He wrote a $30 million check to create a city program to improve the lives of disadvantaged black and Latino men. Mr. Bloomberg’s opponents complained that his free-spending ways purchased political acquiescence, access to ballot lines and a national platform. In moments of candor, his own advisers conceded that without his money, he probably would never have won the office, let alone secured a controversial third term. But from the perspective of City Hall, his fortune brought benefits far beyond Mr. Bloomberg’s electoral success, encouraging gun control ($7 million), immigration reform ($5.7 million) and volunteerism ($6.2 million). On this, New Yorkers remain divided: In a poll conducted in August by The Times, 30 percent said Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth had made him a better mayor; 27 percent said it had made him a worse mayor; and 35 percent said it had made no difference. Mr. Bloomberg loathes discussion of his wealth. His office declined to comment for this article or on the analysis of his spending. Mr. Green, who felt the full force of Mr. Bloomberg’s money during his mayoral bid 12 years ago, once tried broaching the wealth issue with him a year after the election. Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign had just plowed through $73 million to defeat him — four times what Mr. Green had spent. “Yeah, well, it was expensive,” he recalled the mayor telling him. And that, more or less, was that. As the Bloomberg era winds down, placing the future of those fish tanks in doubt, there is a widespread sense that making the city’s richest man its leader was a kind of grand experiment: novel and momentous, sometimes heady, other times unsettling, but unlikely to be repeated. “We’ve never had anybody like him before,” Mr. Molinari said. “And we are never going to see anybody like this again.”

Mayor
Philanthropy
Mike Bloomberg
Finance
NYC
Campaign finance


Woods Family to Grow by One

Abstract: Tiger Woods ’s 2008 has so far been “a year of contrasts,” in his words, with his June performance in winning the United States Open mitigated by the disappointment of season-ending knee surgery days later. But the news Woods announced Tuesday on his Web site was cause only for celebration in the Woods household, which also includes his wife, Elin, and daughter, Sam. “Sam is going to be a big sister; Elin and I are proud to announce that we are expecting our second child in late winter,” Woods wrote. He said he did not know the gender of the child. LARRY DORMAN


Gay Judge’s Ruling Upheld in Proposition 8 Case

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Tuesday upheld the ruling that struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage , asserting that the judge’s 10-year relationship with another man did not disqualify him from deciding the case. In the court’s decision, Chief Judge James Ware of Federal District Court for the Northern District of California determined that there was no evidence that Judge Vaughn Walker intended to marry his longtime partner, thus he had no obligation to disclose his relationship. “The single characteristic that Judge Walker shares with the plaintiffs, albeit one that might not have been shared with the majority of Californians, gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits than would exist for any other judge or citizen,” Judge Ware wrote. He called the case the first in which a judge’s same-sex relationship led to an effort to disqualify him. However, he cited other decisions that allowed female judges to rule on gender discrimination cases. Theodore Boutrous Jr., part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs in the case, called the decision a major victory for gays and lesbians in the judiciary. “This decision is in line with decisions in the areas of gender, race and ethnicity and religious background,” Mr. Boutrous said. “This is a powerful statement about gays and lesbians deciding gay cases.” News reports about Judge Walker’s relationship surfaced in February, after he retired from the bench. Lawyers for supporters of the ban, known as Proposition 8 , argued that Judge Walker should have removed himself from the case, or at least disclosed his decadelong relationship, not because of his sexual orientation, but because he stood to benefit from the decision. But to require Judge Walker to remove himself, Judge Ware wrote, “merely based on the fact that the presiding judge is engaged in a long-term same-sex relationship, is to place an inordinate burden on minority judges.” Members of a minority group, he wrote, have no greater stake than any other citizens in ensuring equal rights for everyone. The ProtectMarriage.com legal team, representing supporters of Proposition 8, vowed to appeal Judge Ware’s decision. Still, the battle over the ban remains far from over. The case has been appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is considering whether Judge Walker properly decided the gay-marriage ban was unconstitutional.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships


Miami’s Wade Gets Traction, Literally, on Court

Abstract: Dwyane Wade’s greatest foe on the court cannot be seen, touched, quantified or eradicated. It does not wear a jersey. There may not be a defender alive who can stop a rocking, shifting, exploding Wade in the open court, unless Wade cannot get the traction to rock, shift and explode. When the pregame fireworks go off and when the talcum clouds disperse, millions of tiny particles descend, getting between Wade’s shoes and the hardwood. And Wade shudders. “My game is about traction,” he said. “If I don’t have that ground underneath me, it changes the way I play.” Slippage is the scourge of basketball players at every level, and the consequences are greatest for the elite. Wade, a seven-time All-Star for the Miami Heat , believes he has found the answer. This week, he helped promote Court Grip , an acetone-based solution that is designed to clean sneaker soles and restore their tackiness. The product was developed by Mission Athletecare, which brought in Wade as a partner. Wade tested Court Grip during practices and games last season and was so pleased that he agreed to join the enterprise. “I first tried it in Milwaukee, and I felt the difference immediately,” said Wade, who called the product “something that can change the game.” Wade helped design the applicator, which looks like a cross between roll-on deodorant and shoe polish. The effects are said to last up to 15 minutes (depending on individual activity and playing style), which means the average player will need to apply it three or four times a game. The Court Grip formula is based on the same technology used on racecar tires and sticky notes, said Mark French, the product’s inventor and the president of Mission Basketball. The quick-drying solution does not make the shoe sticky but merely increases adhesion with the floor, allowing for better traction. The company has a licensing arrangement with the N.B.A. and intends to have Court Grip available in every arena this season (providing, of course, there is one). It will be up to individual trainers and players to decide whether to use it. Company executives are also trying to attract college programs. In doing so, Athletecare is challenging the virtual monopoly of another company, Slipp-Nott , whose sticky yellow pads have been a staple of N.B.A. sidelines for more than a decade. It is rare that anyone takes the court without first stamping on the Slipp-Nott pad. But Wade said the effects are short-lived (“a couple of seconds”), frustrating players. The other most common solution — which can also be seen every game — is players licking or spitting into their hands, then rubbing their soles. “It’s disgusting,” Wade said. “And this is like: You know what, we need to come up with something different.” Wade believes Athletecare found the answer. And executives at Athletecare boldly predict that Court Grip will push Slipp-Nott out of N.B.A. arenas. “My opinion: it will take probably six to 12 months for people to realize that it’s obsolete,” said Josh Shaw, Athletecare’s founder and president. “And I think spitting will be obsolete as well.” Jorge Julian, the president of Slipp-Nott, politely disagreed, saying, “The only way Slipp-Nott can become obsolete is if you get rid of dirt.” As for Wade’s contention that Slipp-Nott lasts for only a few seconds, Julian said it can last from 3 to 20 minutes depending on the court’s condition. Julian said his adhesive pads remained a player’s best option — they are placed near the scorer’s table, right in a player’s path to the court — and do not require any forethought. “You have to clean the bottom of the shoe one way or another,” Julian said. “The name of the game is to be able to do it quickly.” The battle for the soles of the N.B.A. is on.

Basketball
Miami Heat
Wade Dwyane
Shoes and Boots


Antonina Pirozhkova, Engineer and Widow of Isaac Babel, Dies at 101

Abstract: Antonina Pirozhkova, who as the widow of the renowned short-story writer Isaac Babel campaigned for more than half a century to keep his literary legacy alive after his execution by Stalin’s N.K.V.D., and who wrote a memoir about the last seven years of his life, died on Sept. 12 at her home in Sarasota, Fla. She was 101. The death was confirmed by her grandson, Andrei Malaev Babel. Ms. Pirozhkova, a rising young engineer, met her future husband shortly after she began working at the State Institute for Metallurgical Design in Moscow in 1932. She was 23. He was 38 and separated from his first wife, Yevgenia Gronfein. The two began living together in 1934, and in 1937 she gave birth to a daughter, Lidiya. After her husband’s arrest in 1939, Ms. Pirozhkova (pronounced peer-ush-KOVE-uh) was advised by a N.K.V.D. interrogator to forget the matter. “Regulate your life,” she was told. Instead she spent the next 15 years trying to discover her husband’s fate. In 1954 she received his death certificate. It bore the false date of March 17, 1941, implying that he had died during World War II. Ms. Pirozhkova then successfully lobbied for Babel’s official rehabilitation, which was granted later in 1954. Not until the mid-1990s did accurate information emerge about Babel’s date of execution, Jan. 27, 1940, and about the 20-minute trial that took place the day before he was shot. He had been charged with belonging to an anti-Soviet Trotskyite organization and with spying for France and Austria. During and after her life with Babel, Ms. Pirozhkova continued her engineering career. At the Metroproekt Institute, which she joined in 1934 and where she rose to chief designer, she helped plan the crown jewels of the Moscow subway system: the Mayakovsky, Pavelets, Kiev, Arbat and Revolutionary Square stations. For many years she was the only woman employed as a subway engineer in the Soviet Union. After retiring in 1965, she devoted her life to reclaiming her husband’s legacy, fighting with the authorities for permission to publish his works, organizing public memorials and commemorations of his birth and helping scholars do research in her personal archives, stored in her apartment in Moscow. She was particularly concerned with securing the return of unpublished manuscripts seized by the N.K.V.D. Their fate remains unknown. In 1972 she compiled and published, in Russian, “I. Babel Recalled by His Contemporaries,” a collection of firsthand biographical material. Babel’s “1920 Diary,” which she transcribed, presented the raw material that the author drew on for “Red Cavalry,” his most celebrated work. The diary was published in the United States by Yale University Press in 1995. The two-volume collection of Babel’s works that Ms. Pirozhkova compiled and edited remains the most complete edition in Russian. It was published in 1990. Her memoir, “At His Side: The Last Years of Isaac Babel,” was published in the United States by Steerforth Press in 1996 and in 2001 appeared in a Russian edition. Sharply written and full of insights about Babel’s character and life under Stalin, the book was well received. “Babel would have enjoyed Ms. Pirozhkova’s book, concise and full of bright incident,” Richard Lourie wrote in The New York Times Book Review. Ms. Pirozhkova recalled Babel’s dismay at her haphazard reading habits, which he tried to correct by drawing up a list of the “hundred books that every educated person needs to read.” It included a volume titled “The Instincts and Morals of Insects.” She recounted evenings spent with Soviet cultural giants like the film director Sergei M. Eisenstein and visits by foreign luminaries like André Gide and André Malraux. But her most telling lines concerned Babel, portrayed as generous, shrewdly observant, subversively witty and, despite the shadow of the executioner’s ax, coolly fascinated by the secret police. She recalled riding to the Lubyanka, the N.K.V.D. headquarters, in a car with two N.K.V.D. thugs on the night of Babel’s arrest. “I could not say a single word,” she wrote. “Babel asked the secret policeman sitting next to him, ‘So, I guess you don’t get much sleep, do you?’ And he even laughed.” Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova was born on July 1, 1909, in Krasny Yar, a village in Siberia. Her father died when she was 14, and she supported the family by tutoring students in math. Her high school diploma noted her “outstanding abilities” in mathematics, physics and literature, and in 1926 she entered Tomsk Technological Institute, where she studied construction and engineering. After graduating with an advanced degree in engineering in 1930, she was assigned to one of the Soviet Union’s prize industrial projects: Kuznetskstroi, a large metallurgical plant being built near Novokuznetsk. After working on the Moscow subway, she was assigned to the Moscow Institute of Transportation Engineers, where, as a teacher in the Bridges and Tunnels Department, she trained subway designers and wrote two sections for the standard textbook “Tunnels and Subways.” In 1996 she moved with her daughter to the Washington suburbs to be near her grandson and his wife. In addition to her daughter, of Sarasota, she is survived by her grandson and a great-grandson. When Ms. Pirozhkova arrived with Babel at the Lubyanka, she and her husband kissed. He told her, “Someday we’ll see each other,” and walked into the building without looking back. “I turned to stone, and I could not even cry,” Ms. Pirozhkova wrote. “For some reason I kept thinking, ‘Will they at least give him a glass of hot tea? He can’t start the day without it.’ ”

Pirozhkova Antonina Nikolaevna
Books and Literature
Deaths (Obituaries)
Babel Isaac


Ericsson Posts Loss, but Sales Increase

Abstract: BERLIN — Ericsson, the world’s biggest maker of mobile telephone network equipment, said Thursday that its sales and profit grew faster than expected in the fourth quarter as phone operators in the United States and Canada spent heavily to upgrade wireless networks. The company booked a net loss during the quarter as it wrote down the value of ST-Ericsson, an unprofitable smartphone component venture with the French chip maker ST Microelectronics. But investors apparently looked past that to focus on the underlying growth. Shares of Ericsson, based in Stockholm, rose almost 10 percent after the earnings report, which showed that demand from North America had helped lift Ericsson’s global sales of network equipment, the company’s main business, by 6 percent from a year earlier. Ericsson’s sales of equipment, software and services in the three months through December rose 5 percent to 66.9 billion kronor, or $10.5 billion. “This suggests the declining sales of network equipment we have seen for some time has finally begun to turn around,” said Hakan Wranne, an analyst at Swedbank in Stockholm. In North America, Ericsson said sales of mobile broadband and other network gear to U.S. and Canadian operators surged 86 percent to 9.4 billion kronor in the quarter from a year earlier, without providing a comparative figure. Sales of equipment rose 10 percent in Western Europe and 38 percent in India. The increase followed four quarters of declining global network sales. “We continue to believe the long-term fundamentals of this industry are attractive,” said Hans Vestberg, the Ericsson chief executive. “I think it is clear that society will be using mobile broadband and the cloud much more than they are now.” Ericsson said it took a charge of 8.6 billion kronor against earnings in the period for ST-Ericsson, which is based in Geneva and has generated about $2.8 billion in losses since February 2009. The charge caused Ericsson to report a loss of 6.3 billion kronor for the fourth quarter. Ericsson had warned investors of the charge on Dec. 20. ST-Ericsson employs 5,090 workers and makes processor modules and modems for some Samsung, Motorola and Sony smartphones. Mr. Vestberg said he had no new information on the future of ST-Ericsson, which reported a $71 million loss in the quarter on unchanged sales of $358 million. Last month, STMicroelectronics announced plans to leave the venture, and Ericsson said it had no intention of buying its partner’s stake. “We continue to believe that the modern technology in this venture is of strategic importance to the industry,” Mr. Vestberg said. “We are now in a discussion among the shareholders about our options going forward. We don’t exclude anything at this point.” Mr. Wranne, the Swedbank analyst, said he thought it was possible that Ericsson might simply resort to shutting down the joint venture sometime this year. “Both parents have essentially turned their back on the company, and what I think they have done is essentially killed it,” Mr. Wranne said. “At this point, it is not certain whether the venture will be operating six months from now.” With the charge against earnings, Ericsson has written off the entire value of its investment in ST-Ericsson, said Jan Frykhammar, the Ericsson chief financial officer. The business began to deteriorate after Nokia, its biggest client, announced plans in 2011 to halt its Symbian smartphone line, which had used many ST-Ericsson components. Ericsson’s main network equipment business, which made up 53 percent of its sales in the quarter, more than made up for the ST-Ericsson write-off. Sales of Ericsson’s equipment, software and services in North America rose 51 percent to 17 billion kronor. Excluding the ST-Ericsson charges, Ericsson’s operating profit in the quarter rose by 17 percent to 4.8 billion kronor. Sales in the quarter rose on an annual basis in all regions except Scandinavia, the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, China, the Middle East and Latin America. The gains are a harbinger a new phase of purchasing by global phone operators, Mr. Vestberg said, as they compete to sell mobile broadband services to the rapidly expanding ranks of smartphone users. Ericsson expects the number of mobile broadband users around the world to rise 40 percent to 2.1 billion by the end of this year from 1.5 billion in 2012. By the end of this year, 3 in 10 cellphone users around the world will be operating smartphones and subscribing to mobile broadband service, Ericsson predicted. Demand for fast wireless Internet will in turn lift demand for Ericsson’s networks, Mr. Vestberg said. In the past quarter, he said, 40 percent of all cellphones sold worldwide were smartphones. Operators, recognizing the strong consumer interest in mobile broadband, are stepping up their orders for new data networks that can handle the heavy traffic demands on their grids. “Operators and customers are focusing now on mobile broadband,” Mr. Vestberg said. “We are clearly seeing a change in their behavior.”

Smartphone
Earnings Reports
Nokia
Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson
Telecommunication
Mobile phone


Army Officer Reaches Deal in Private Chen’s Suicide

Abstract: The only officer to be implicated in the death of Pvt. Danny Chen , the Chinese-American infantryman from New York City who killed himself last year while he was deployed in Afghanistan , will avoid a trial but be thrown out of the military under a deal with prosecutors, the Army said Monday. The deal was requested by the officer, First Lt. Daniel L. Schwartz , and agreed to by prosecutors, who consulted with Private Chen’s parents at a meeting in the city two weeks ago, officials said. The case was the last of eight to stem from the death of Private Chen, 19, who killed himself in October 2011 while on guard duty on a military base in Afghanistan. Prosecutors contended that other soldiers had subjected him to a campaign of brutal hazing , including racial taunts and a physical attack, eventually driving him to suicide. The death resonated with Asians around the country, leading some to question whether a pattern of discrimination against Asians existed in the military and highlighting the somewhat ambivalent relationship between the armed forces and Asians, who have historically enlisted at lower rates than other ethnic groups. Private Chen’s death and the resulting uproar also compelled the Army to re-examine its policies against hazing and, officials said, double its efforts to eradicate the practice from its ranks. Lieutenant Schwartz, who was Private Chen’s platoon leader, was accused of dereliction of duty for failing “to foster a climate in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect, regardless of race” and “failing to prevent his subordinates from maltreating and engaging in racially abusive language,” according to the charging documents. He was also accused of failing to report two soldiers for consuming alcohol in violation of military rules and failing to report one of those soldiers for “recklessly” detonating a hand grenade near their base. Officials, citing confidentiality rules, did not reveal the full terms of the plea agreement. The courts-martial in the Chen case began in July with the trial of Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, who was found guilty of maltreatment and assault. The jury, however, acquitted him of the most serious charges. Sergeant Holcomb was sentenced to 30 days in prison, demoted a rank and forced to forfeit one month’s pay. He had faced a sentence of up to two years in prison and a punitive discharge. Four other soldiers received demotions and prison sentences for their treatment of Private Chen, and two received demotions but avoided prison time. Elizabeth R. OuYang, president of the New York chapter of OCA , a civil-rights group that has advocated on behalf of the Chen family, expressed her disappointment. “These light sentences do not give justice to the life of Pvt. Danny Chen,” she said. Private Chen’s parents, both Chinese immigrants who do not speak English, attended five of the trials, held at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. They were accompanied by supporters. “It’s been very long, very difficult on the family,” Ms. OuYang said. “I hope people can appreciate a monolingual immigrant family having to sit through so many of these trials and hearing what was done to their son.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Grandson of Modern Iran’s Founder Seeks to Join Council That Picks Supreme Leader

Abstract: TEHRAN — A moderate Iranian cleric, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, registered on Friday as a candidate in elections for the council charged with picking the country’s next supreme leader, whenever that time comes. The cleric, Hassan Khomeini, 43, whose grandfather Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution, told reporters that he was entering the elections for the council, the Assembly of Experts, as an independent candidate. The vote will take place on Feb. 26. His candidacy has upset Iran ’s conservatives, who fear he will use his powerful family name to attract votes. While hard-liners revere Ayatollah Khomeini, they have long criticized his grandchildren for being too close to the country’s reformist wing. “Some groups welcomed my candidacy, others criticized my candidacy,” Mr. Khomeini told the news agency ISNA after registering at the Interior Ministry. “And some regard it as a rift in the society’s atmosphere. They are wrong.” His candidacy is subject to the approval of the powerful Guardian Council, a 12-member group dominated by political opponents of Mr. Khomeini. Hard-line news outlets have already said that Mr. Khomeini, who is not an ayatollah, lacks the theological credentials for the 86-member Assembly of Experts. The conservative newspaper Kayhan said that the only support Mr. Khomeini would find would be in the foreign news media. More moderate Iranian news outlets have said that Mr. Khomeini is likely to attract a large number of votes if he is allowed to run, and that he could emerge as the symbolic leader of the factions opposing the hard-liners. A disqualification would be politically delicate, as it would distance the Khomeini family from the establishment. Mr. Khomeini and his son Ahmad are both on Instagram and each have around 180,000 followers. Their images show a family closely intertwined with the political leadership around President Hassan Rouhani that has promised more personal freedom and better relations with the outside world. Last week, Mr. Khomeini posted old pictures of himself and others being embraced by Ayatollah Khomeini , who died in 1989. There are also images of Mr. Khomeini sitting by a campfire, and selfies with his children. “If he is elected, it will mean the reformists will get more influence,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a journalist close to the reformist camp. “Now, we must wait and see if he will be qualified.”

Iran
Hassan Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini
Assembly of Experts
Hassan Rouhani
Guardian Council Iran


Seizing Moment, de Blasio Gains Attention From Fight Over Hospital Closing

Abstract: In the dog days of summer, as mayoral candidates sweat their way through meet-and-greets at subway stops or attend yet another forum, it can be hard for them to get noticed. Many voters are away on vacation, or too heat-addled to summon much interest in story lines that do not involve sex scandals. So when a candidate sees an opportunity to break out, he or she is likely to seize it. In the most dramatic example this month, the public advocate, Bill de Blasio, who has been lagging in polls of the Democratic primary field, has grabbed onto the fight over the pending closing of Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, in a move that political analysts say has reinforced his liberal activist credentials, while giving him much media attention. “It’s very good for him,” said Kenneth Sherrill, an emeritus professor of political science at Hunter College. “It gets him positive news at a time when most of the coverage is about his campaign lagging, and it depicts him as an energetic person who will stand up for the little guy.” The hospital, which serves Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights and other nearby neighborhoods, has been losing money for years. In 2011, it was acquired by the State University of New York, which hoped to turn it around. But in February, the SUNY board voted to close the hospital, leading to protests and a lawsuit by the hospital’s doctors and two health care unions, the New York State Nurses Association and 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East . Mr. de Blasio did not become deeply involved in the fight until this month, when he wrote Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, calling on him to keep the hospital open, then joined a protest outside the SUNY chancellor’s office in Manhattan, where he was arrested. At another protest last Thursday, he and several other elected officials marched into the hospital and demanded to meet with the interim chief operating officer, James Karkenny. (Mr. Karkenny refused to see them.) On Friday, as the State Health Department was in the process of approving important steps in the hospital’s closing, Mr. de Blasio successfully petitioned a State Supreme Court justice for a temporary restraining order, then delivered it by hand to the hospital’s administrators. On Monday, an appellate judge affirmed the temporary restraining order and ruled that the hospital had to restore the level of service that existed on Friday afternoon. Image Mr. de Blasio was arrested on July 10 outside the SUNY chancellor’s office. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Late Monday afternoon, as a steady rain fell, Mr. de Blasio emerged from the courthouse in Brooklyn Heights and brandished the judge’s order before several television cameras, saying, “This is a victory for our cause.” His office said that its lawyers would be back in court on Thursday, seeking an injunction to keep the hospital open until a lawsuit Mr. de Blasio has filed is fully resolved. Other Democratic mayoral candidates have also weighed in on the hospital closing. But Mr. de Blasio has become the most prominent face of the fight, with news channels running footage of him in handcuffs or delivering the restraining order to the hospital, providing priceless news media attention for a candidate struggling to break out. Debates over hospital closings can become highly emotional local issues, both because hospitals are major sources of union jobs and because neighborhood residents fear having to go to a hospital farther away in an emergency. Critics of Christine C. Quinn, another Democratic candidate in the mayoral primary, accuse her of not doing enough to save St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan in Greenwich Village, which closed in 2010 because it was deeply in debt, and have referred to the hospital’s closing in attack ads against her. Bruce F. Berg, a political-science professor at Fordham University, said that the Long Island College Hospital closing was a good issue for Mr. de Blasio, because Mr. de Blasio had a record of speaking out in favor of union jobs and health care access. “These are issues on which he’s had longstanding positions,” Dr. Berg said. As for the current fight, he continued: “Is it something that he took advantage of? Yes, but that’s something that’s the nature of a campaign.” Other candidates in this year’s election have shown a talent for seizing the moment. Last week, when an 18-year-old City Council intern fainted during a news conference Ms. Quinn was holding in Brooklyn, and an ambulance failed to arrive for 31 minutes, Ms. Quinn expressed concern about the city’s emergency response system, saying, “This cannot be the standard in New York City.” The episode received more coverage than Ms. Quinn’s event probably would have otherwise, and many of the articles featured Ms. Quinn sitting on the ground, with her legs crossed, comforting the young woman and looking maternal. “I think Quinn handled the immediate moment really admirably,” Mr. Sherrill said of the fainting episode. “But we have yet to see whether de Blasio can turn hospital closing into an issue that has legs during the campaign, and we’ve yet to hear anybody really turn emergency services into something that will be a continuing subject of discussion.”

Closings
Bill de Blasio
Long Island College Hospital
Brooklyn
SUNY
Mayoral races
NYC


At 150 Edgars Lane, Changing the Idea of Home

Abstract: HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - The handsome Tudor-style home at 150 Edgars Lane, built for less than $10,000 in 1925 on a hillside in this Hudson River town, never seemed to change much through all of its previous owners. Each family updated the house, but in modest ways until Tom and Julie Hirschfeld came along. The Hirschfelds purchased the two-story house with its gabled roof and stucco-and-wood-beam exterior for $890,000 in the fall of 2002. Good schools, safe streets, a picturesque community, like-minded neighbors, a relatively short commute to New York -- all these drew the family, just as they drew the previous owners. But as home prices have soared in recent years, houses like this one have become not just nice places to live but remarkably valuable investments as well. Responding to this newly embedded wealth, the Hirschfelds, like hundreds of thousands of other families living in suburbs of cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, have transformed their homes into something grander and more personal. Tracing the history of the house at 150 Edgars Lane through the decades shows how the Hirschfelds have broken with the past -- and how the idea of what a house means to a family has changed. Eight different families have lived in this house for at least a year. Most were middle-income earners in their day: a high school principal, a typographer, a civil engineer, a psychiatrist, an environmentalist, small businessmen. In contrast to the previous owners, the Hirschfelds have poured many thousands of dollars into renovation, making their home more comfortable and well-appointed than the earlier owners considered necessary. And more so than the others, they can certainly afford it. As the chief operating officer of a hedge fund, Mr. Hirschfeld has plenty of income to sink into renovation without going into debt. The couple has not held back. Lifting the house to their standards has become so important to them that between the purchase price and the outlays for improvements, Mr. Hirschfeld says, the investment exceeds his home's current market value, estimated at $1.2 million. Juliet B. Schor, a Boston College sociologist and the author of "The Overspent American," classifies the burst of spending on home improvement in recent years as "competitive consumption going on in the top 20 percent of the income distribution." But many home owners, the Hirschfelds among them, insist that quite apart from status and comfort, what was once mainly a dwelling in a compatible suburb now assumes even greater personal importance in an age when families increasingly focus on themselves. "Community is still very important," said William M. Rohe, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "But homeowners today pay greater attention to the house itself as an expression of themselves and as a haven for family life." For the Hirschfelds, a spacious new kitchen wing that juts into the backyard of their property embodies their sense of how they want their home to enhance their lives. Finished a year ago, the kitchen has become a gathering place not just for cooking and meals, but for homework, games, art projects, reading and conversation with the Hirschfelds' children, Ben, 12, and Leila, 8. "We didn't build this kitchen for any trophy motivation or to achieve any level of luxury," Mr. Hirschfeld said, pointing out that the appliances, including the refrigerator and stove, are ordinary off-the-floor models, not state-of-the-art extravaganzas. "We did it to make our family life more free-flowing and warm." The yard was not suitable for the new kitchen wing, however. So a stone retaining wall went up to carve more flat space from the sloping land -- unexpectedly adding thousands of dollars to renovation costs. The Hirschfelds also spent more than planned to reverse the deterioration of their 80-year-old house -- one of the tens of thousands built during the nation's first great suburban housing boom, before the Depression. "We really bought this to be our family home," Mrs. Hirschfeld said, "and we made an error in judgment in not knowing what it would cost to deal with the deterioration." But the basement, she added, which "was wet for 40 years, is no longer wet." Before the Hirschfelds, each of the previous owners made incremental improvements, spreading renovation over their years in residence rather than bunching it at the beginning. Mostly those earlier owners lived with the house's shortcomings, including the cramped kitchen, now converted into a mud room. Wealthy Buyers Move In The Hirschfelds, in their early 40's, were less constrained by income, an increasingly common characteristic of the households engaged in home improvement. Those with at least $120,000 in annual income accounted for 32 percent of all the spending on home renovation in 2003, the latest year for which data is available. That is up from 21 percent in 1995, adjusted for inflation, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. The spending itself reached $233 billion in 2003, a rise of 52 percent from 1995. For decades, a home in the suburbs was a family haven for the middle class, "a kind of anchor in the heavy seas of urban life," as Kenneth T. Jackson, a Columbia University historian, put it in his 1985 book "Crabgrass Frontier." That was true of the owners of 150 Edgars Lane. But with the surge in home prices, the big side yard took on a new dimension as a potentially valuable building plot. It was no longer cherished as the colorful, terraced flower garden nurtured by several former owners and written up admiringly in the local newspaper. The objections of neighbors stopped the owner of the house in 2001, a woman who had received it in a divorce settlement, from obtaining a zoning variance so that she could split off the old flower garden and sell the property as two lots for more than the $819,000 that she finally received. With that sale, the house moved out of the reach of middle-income buyers. The buyer, Matthew Stover, came from Wall Street, and he soon sold the house to Mr. Hirschfeld, also from Wall Street. Still, the Stovers and the Hirschfelds, like nearly all of the owners before them, came to Hastings from apartments in New York City, choosing the town in part because it offered a demographic mix greater than many other suburbs, as well as neighbors who were often artists, writers and academics. The intellectual aura was particularly present on Edgars Lane. Margaret Sanger, an early leader of the birth control movement, lived across the street from 150, and Lewis Hine, the famous photographer of industrial realism, owned the house two doors up. They are long gone, but the Hirschfelds, who received graduate degrees from Oxford after going to college in the United States, are proud of this legacy. "We really wanted to live in Hastings," Mr. Hirschfeld said. Suburban Diversity The homes that made this town a suburb went up in the woody hills above Broadway. Below that dividing street, blue-collar workers, many of them Polish and Italian immigrants, occupied the apartments and row houses near the waterfront, close to the chemical plant and the copper mill that employed them, until the last factory closed in 1975. The children of those workers went to school with the children in the hills and "there is still a feeling that the diversity continues to exist -- more a feeling than a reality," David W. McCullough, a local historian, said. As a community, Hastings tries to resist the trappings of affluence that are spreading through so many suburbs. The downtown is still a collection of mostly older stores and restaurants -- reflecting "a certain pride that we have in the shabbiness," as Mr. McCullough put it. Very few of the upscale stores and restaurants evident elsewhere have arrived here yet. But almost certainly they will as rising home prices, which limit eligible newcomers to families like the Hirschfelds, gradually squeeze out lower-income families. The Hirschfelds, adding even greater value to their home, have installed air conditioning, expanded the master bathroom and more than doubled the size of Leila's bedroom, by constructing a second story on top of the kitchen wing. They rebuilt the basement, spending far more than they intended to get rid of mold and wetness, and took down the wall between the living room and the dining room, creating what Mr. Hirschfeld described as "a flowing space so we can have a conversation from the kitchen with someone who is two rooms away in the living room." New windows are next. "You can't live in this day and age with drafty windows," Mrs. Hirschfeld said. "Either you pump your furnace for all it's worth all winter, or you have double-glazed windows." Drafty windows did not bother Ralph Breiling, who designed and built this house in 1925 on land he had purchased three years earlier, spending less than $10,000 in all, or about $111,000 adjusted for inflation. Mr. Breiling was an architect, but in the severe recession after World War I, he shifted to teaching school, later rising to assistant principal and then principal of Brooklyn Technical High School. A group of teachers had purchased land in Hastings, and Mr. Breiling joined them, buying one of the lots. "He loved the Hudson Valley and when the leaves were off the trees, we had a view of the river and the Palisades," Robert, one of his sons, remembered. For years, "he commuted an hour and a half each way to his job." When the Breiling family moved to Edgars Lane, the exterior was finished -- it looked then much as it looks today -- but the interior walls were mostly unfinished plaster. From then on, until he sold the house in 1950, Mr. Breiling renovated, with his own hands. A Love for the Hudson Valley He built the one-car garage that is still there, and the room above it, which became a children's playroom. He enclosed a patio, incorporating it into the living room. When his third child, Clover, was born, he expanded a small sewing room into the fourth bedroom, building out over the front door. "He spread the work out; he could not afford to do it all at once," said Robert Breiling, 83, now a retired engineer. "The Depression hit him hard. The New York City schools cut pay in half. They said they would make it up after the war, which they didn't. My mother started a nursery school in the dining room. She had a bunch of little tables and chairs; made a schoolroom out of it. I thought she liked doing it. But looking back it was for need." The Breilings' lasting legacy was the garden in the big side yard, which Mr. Breiling's wife, Leila, tended. In a 1933 article on "beautiful gardens of Hastings," the weekly Hastings News had this to say about the Breilings' place: "From the stone retaining wall along the street with its dense privet hedge up to the children's terrace that now backs against the farm wall on the garden's highest level, one passes, terrace by terrace, through grassy greensward, flowering shrubs, long borders aglow with a hundred blossoms." From that garden came the holly that Duncan Wilson fashioned into wreaths and sold at Christmas. His parents, Byron and Jane Wilson, purchased 150 Edgars Lane in 1951 for $25,000, the equivalent of a little less than $190,000 in today's dollars, moving from a smaller home in nearby Dobbs Ferry when their third child was still young. "My mother decided that the family needed more space," Duncan Wilson, now 69, recalls. The Wilsons put energy into maintaining the elaborate garden, but they did little to the house itself. They were square dancers, so they fixed up the basement, refinishing the walls and tiling the floor, Mr. Duncan said. Like the Breilings, they sold the house after their youngest child finished high school, in 1963. The next four owners either moved on quickly, to new jobs in other cities, or stayed to raise children. The turnover helps to explain why the typical American family owns a home for five or six years, a tenure unchanged going back decades. Jerome and Carolyn Zinn stayed for eight years, having purchased the house in 1964 from a psychiatrist who lived in it only 18 months. The Zinns paid $40,000 -- roughly $250,000 adjusted for inflation -- coming from a city apartment with eight-week-old twin boys. "I knew that you raised children in a house," Mrs. Zinn said. "I didn't know anything about Hastings or anyone in the community. We started out looking in Yonkers and we wandered into Hastings and we liked the hilliness and the trees." Mr. Zinn had started as a linotype operator, and his wife taught school, saving enough from her salary for the $11,000 down payment. The remaining $29,000 was the amount still owed on the psychiatrist's mortgage, which the Zinns took over -- a common practice in those days. Before coming to Hastings, Mr. Zinn had gone from printer to owner of a small typography shop. It flourished, and in 1982 the Zinns built a bigger home in Irvington, a neighboring town. "I kept thinking I wanted to do this to the house and that to the house," Mrs. Zinn said, "and then I said, if there are so many things I want to do we should buy a house, or build one." In 1974, the Zinns sold 150 Edgars Lane for $67,500 -- adjusted for inflation, not that much more than they had paid -- to Gerald Franz, a specialist in environmental issues then employed by the New York City Planning Commission, and his wife, Susan, a public school math teacher. They had been married five years, hoping to have children -- they later adopted two daughters -- and the purchase price was a stretch for them. "My expectation was to be married forever and to live there forever," Mrs. Franz said. What Was Once a Garden The Zinns agreed to let the Franzes postpone payment for the side yard, and they waited nearly a decade before they purchased that portion of their property for $17,000. By then, with neither family caring for the garden, it had gone to seed and Mr. Zinn, in any event, was thinking of its value as a building plot. "I had always hoped in the back of my mind to get the variance to build," he said. Divorce interrupted those plans. Mrs. Franz, who recently remarried and is now Susan Franz Ledley, got the house in the 1996 settlement. By then, it was valued at $500,000. As a school teacher, she could barely afford the upkeep and in 2001, while her youngest daughter was a high school senior, she sold it for $819,000 -- about $900,000 in today's dollars -- to Mr. Stover, a stock analyst for Citigroup, and his wife, Jeanine. The Stovers were in their 30's and planning a family, like the Franzes nearly 30 years earlier. Unlike the Franzes, however, and all the other earlier owners, they began to plan renovations, hiring an architect. "Just as we were starting to get some steam, we were called to Boston," Mr. Stover said. He took a better job in that city. Now that housing prices are subsiding, the future monetary payoff from owning 150 Edgars Lane is clouded. But for the Hirschfelds the pleasures of indulging themselves count for more. Julie Hirschfeld points to the new bathroom sinks, for example, which resemble 19th-century wash bowls, and the "ridiculously expensive" border tiles in the master bathroom. "Once we started," she said, "because we had to do so much, it seemed we should make the choices about how we wanted it to look."


Ray Tomkinson and Alvaro Gallego in a Trans-Atlantic Taxi Swap

Abstract: Clanking through the crowded city streets one recent afternoon, the old New York Checker cab provoked looks of disbelief, and not just because the well-loved, almost comically bulky car disappeared from commercial use long ago. For a New Yorker, the cab was traveling on the wrong side of the road. In fact, it was on the wrong side of the Atlantic. More than a decade after the last Checker cab was taken out of service in New York City, a small collection of the unmistakably boxy yellow cars, complete with mechanical meters, rate information decals and left-side steering wheels are now seen on the streets of London. And just as some Checkers motor on abroad, a collection of antique London black cabs, with the conservative, even dowdy styling reminiscent of an old tuxedo, have found a home in New York. Behind these cab-out-of-water foreign fleets is the relationship between two men with overlapping personal and business interests, identical yet inverse automotive niches and a friendship that spans 3,500 miles. For more than a decade, the two men, Ray Tomkinson of Manchester, England, and Alvaro Gallego of Queens, both taxi entrepreneurs with a love of vintage vehicles, have swapped these signature vehicles of their homelands — along with modern models, parts and other taxi paraphernalia — across the Atlantic Ocean, typically on barter. “Basically no cash changes hands,” Mr. Tomkinson said. “We were just paying for each other’s shipping, and the cabs were going across the Atlantic backward and forward.” Mr. Tomkinson, who took over his family taxi company in Manchester in the early 1970s, has amassed a large collection of antique cabs from around the world. Mr. Gallego, a Colombian immigrant and a former cab driver, has run a company that specializes in taxi meter repairs for 38 years, collecting vehicles on the side. In addition to bolstering personal collections, their cars are rented out for film shoots and promotional campaigns — like when British Airways hired one of Mr. Tomkinson’s Checker cabs to drive around London and one of Mr. Gallego’s black cabs to drive around New York to advertise flights between the two cities. The two men have done business for about 12 years but have never met. For all the cabs they have shipped across the ocean — more than two dozen — neither man has ever made the trip himself. “I consider him my friend,” Mr. Gallego said. “We’ve been so long together talking about taxis, business. We have a passion for what we do.” There is something fitting that in the world of intercontinental antique vehicle swapping, it would be these two models passing each other at sea. The designs of both the Checker and black cabs — largely unchanged since the 1950s — have come to symbolize their home cities, their distinctive curves adorning all manner of gift-shop knickknacks. And both were made explicitly to be taxis — purpose-built, according to the industry lingo — with roomy back seats large enough to comfortably hold five people thanks to the rear-facing, flip-down jump seats. But the bulk that made the cars so endearing to generations of riders also drove up costs and drove down fuel efficiency . Once the most common taxi model in New York, the Checker ended production in 1982 after it proved unable to compete with converted passenger vehicles like the now-ubiquitous Ford Crown Victoria. The final Checker retired from service in New York 17 years later . The black cab still accounts for an overwhelming majority of the London taxi fleet, though it too has been pressed by new models, stoking the fear that it could go the way of the Checker. Fans say the cabs have timeless qualities. “Both are strong and good cars,” Mr. Gallego said. “They’ve been doing what they’ve been supposed to be doing for so many years, moving people from A to B in a safe way, in a roomy way.” He and Mr. Tomkinson developed an interest in antique taxis by starting with their own domestic variety. After years of acquiring and restoring old British cars at his garage in Manchester Mr. Tomkinson, now 62, began renting them out for period movies and television shows. About 15 years ago, a producer asked him for a New York cab. “So I diversified,” he said. Mr. Gallego, 64, had nurtured an interest in old taxis since first sitting behind the wheel of a cab four decades ago when he was still new to America. His skill at tracking down old parts and models for other collectors led him to start a second business, Taxidepot , renting old cabs and antique car equipment to movie and television producers. Eventually Mr. Tomkinson was introduced to Mr. Gallego as someone who could handle his business in the United States. At first, Mr. Tomkinson paid cash for the vehicles that Mr. Gallego helped procure. That work led to Mr. Gallego inquiring about the feasibility of sending London cabs to New York. Soon they were working out trades. “I would get a taxi, he would get a taxi,” Mr. Gallego said. “He’d say: ‘Get me four Crown Victorias in nice condition; you get a London cab.’ ” Each speaks with pride about the cabs they have traded for. “It’s good to see these old cabs not retire,” Mr. Tomkinson said. “They’re still earning a living somehow.”

Checker
Taxicabs and Taxicab Drivers
Tomkinson Ray
Gallego Alvaro


Preparation Pays Off for an American Lifter

Abstract: BEIJING — The coach for the weight lifter Melanie Roach noticed she had been unusually quiet the past two weeks, even as her long Olympic quest was nearing its end. She was staring into space, appearing to be deep in thought. Roach said she spent that time thinking back on the past 14 years — on her husband’s rise in Washington State politics, on their autistic son and two other children, on the family’s gymnastics business, on her back troubles, on her comeback, and on how her smiling image had ended up on a McDonald’s cup. “No wonder she didn’t say much,” her coach, John Thrush, said. Thrush said he never doubted that Roach would end up here, at the Beijing Olympics, where she finished sixth in the 53-kilogram (117-pound) weight class and set an American record with a combined lift of 193 kilograms, or about 425 pounds. Even when back pain forced Roach into bed for days, even after she had helped build a family, even after she had nearly retired, her coach never doubted her. He could feel this day, this moment, deep inside. So many had sacrificed for her to be here, and many of them sat in the stands at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Gymnasium, wearing light-blue Team Roach T-shirts. Roach’s husband, Dan, clung to a pair of binoculars. Her oldest son, Ethan, wore his lucky beaded necklace. Several others sat behind — Roach’s mother, mother-in-law, coach, chiropractor, lifting partner. Even a friend from Zimbabwe’s swim team, who trained near Roach in the Seattle area, stopped by to say hello. Roach spent the past two weeks away from her family, more time than she ever had before. She needed “kid time” on Saturday, so she summoned Dan and Ethan to the athletes’ village, where they spent a few hours simply hanging out. Finally, she was ready. Thrush had sent an e-mail message to a reporter earlier in the week, noting: “She IS SO prepared it’s unreal.” Dan and Ethan had visited a part of China near Chengdu, an area crushed by the recent earthquake. Their mission demonstrated the art of balance long perfected by the Roach family. They went with friends from Children’s Hope International and saw entire villages torn apart. The devastation hit Dan Roach in ways he never imagined. “A life-changing trip,” he said. Followed by a life-changing event Sunday. Over the years, Roach has gone from a fast-rising weight-lifting star to the first American woman to lift double her body weight to a lifter with severe back trouble to a success story. Her chiropractor, Greg Summers, called her back problems the worst he had seen. Then came an experimental operation, followed by the comeback, followed by more attention than any family from a small town in Washington could reasonably expect. Roach garnered national attention — and that McDonald’s cup — with her story. Thousands of e-mail messages poured in. They came from people with back pain, from parents with autistic children, from the owners of small businesses who struggled to manage their time. Each offered inspiration. By Sunday, all that was left to do was lift. Roach made all six of her attempts spread over two events — the snatch and the clean-and-jerk. She set a personal competition record with an 83-kilogram snatch (about 183 pounds). After that, her husband stood, pumped his fist and asked rhetorically, “Great place to do a personal record, huh?” After each lift, Roach threw down the bar in elation and sauntered off the stage with a fist-pumping swagger. “It was the culmination of 14 years,” she said. “Definitely worth the wait.” The question now is where she will go from here. The family recently moved the gymnastics business to a 10,700-square-foot palace. Dan, an incumbent Republican state representative, is up for re-election in November. Thrush and the rest of the Team Roach coaches continue to remind her that she had only recently experienced uninterrupted training for the first time and had just broken almost all of her personal records. Imagine what she could do, Thrush wondered, in the next year. Roach recently set off alarms by telling her husband she wanted to take all the children with her to the next Olympics. Immediately, he turned to her with a look that said, “You’re considering another Olympics?” “It’s funny,” Roach said. “I’m just finally now making personal records, but I have a husband and kids to think of. I’ve been a pretty selfish mom and a very unselfish athlete for years now, and it’s time to put my family first.” She will consider it, though, despite being the third-oldest women’s weight lifter here, at 33. First, the family will visit the Great Wall and an orphanage, where Dan said he hoped his wife would not “get any ideas.” Then they will return to the organized chaos of their life and the craziness of election season. “I’m still absorbing, trying to get a handle on if all this is really happening,” Dan Roach said. “When we finally get some time alone, I’m going to give her a big hug and tell her: ‘You did it. We did it. We all did it.’ ” Someone suggested Dan should run for governor soon. “My wife,” he said, “would be the logical choice.”


Dictator’s Link to Prize Puts Unesco in Odd Spot

Abstract: PARIS — A new international prize for scientific achievement lavishly financed by one of Africa’s most infamous dictators has placed Unesco and its new director general in a delicate bind. The Unesco-Obiang prize, tentatively scheduled to be awarded by the end of the month, has been roundly criticized by scientists and human rights organizations as little more than a clumsy effort to burnish the reputation of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea . Mr. Obiang has been accused by rights groups and anticorruption activists of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from his tiny oil-rich West African state, while most of its people scrape by in dire poverty. The irony of having Mr. Obiang’s name attached to a prize that honors achievements that “improve the quality of human life” is not lost on critics, who say Unesco — the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — is undermining its own credibility by awarding it. With the first prize to be announced soon, efforts to delay, abandon or modify it have gained urgency. But at a meeting in April, Unesco’s 58-nation executive board dismissed concerns that the award would damage the organization, and Unesco officials say that African countries on the board have maintained their unanimous backing for the prize. The United States, France and other members that opposed the prize when it was approved in 2008 voiced no objections at the April meeting. Wary of appearing anti-African or colonialist, Western diplomats said that any initiative to alter or drop the award would have to come from the board’s African members. That leaves the agency’s new director general, Irina Bokova , who is obligated to follow the wishes of the executive board, in the awkward position of trying to appeal to African leaders to rebuff one of their own for the good of the agency. She declined to be interviewed for this article, but Unesco’s spokeswoman, Sue Williams, said that Ms. Bokova had raised the issue with the board. “The director general has expressed her serious concern over Unesco’s prestige and has urged member states to live up to their responsibilities and discuss the future of the prize,” Ms. Williams said. “She is for continuing consultations with member states to find a solution to the difficulties being encountered with this prize.” In addition to having to navigate touchy regional and historical minefields, Ms. Bokova finds herself objecting to what, on its face, is a generous gift for a worthy cause. Mr. Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979, has committed $3 million a year for five years; half the money is to go to five awardees, who receive $300,000 grants, and half to cover the costs of selecting the winners. The administrative budget of $1.5 million a year struck some Unesco diplomats, who asked not to be identified because of the delicacy of the issue, as ripe for the kind of corruption that has often marked Unesco programs. But the larger concern is Mr. Obiang himself. “It’s shameful that Unesco ever agreed to honor one of the world’s worst dictators with a prize in his name,” said Lisa Misol, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization. “President Obiang’s record of human rights abuse and corruption contradicts everything Unesco is supposed to stand for.” Steven Ekovich, a professor at the American University of Paris, said on Radio France International, “If an African dictator wants to improve the lives of people, he should improve the lives of his own people first.” According to the African Economic Outlook, 77 percent of Equatorial Guinea’s population fell below the poverty line in 2006. The country has one of the highest infant-mortality rates in the world and an average life expectancy of 62. It ranks among the bottom 13 countries on Transparency International’s corruption index, and ninth on the Freedom House list of the world’s most repressive countries. In March, a group of exiled citizens of Equatorial Guinea wrote to Ms. Bokova urging her to abolish the prize and use the money instead to buy school supplies for the country. Last month, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on the Department of State and Foreign Operations, wrote Ms. Bokova seeking clarification and expressing his concern “that by sponsoring this prize, Unesco is associating itself with a dictator who has spent 30 years doing little more than consolidating his power and enriching himself and his family.” Mr. Leahy said that “there are credible reports that President Obiang and his family have stolen large sums, possibly billions of dollars, from the people of Equatorial Guinea, one of the largest oil-producing countries in Africa with a per capita G.D.P. of over $30,000, but which ranks at or near the bottom of most health, education and human rights indicators.” The United States is the largest contributor to Unesco, responsible for about a fifth of its budget. Mr. Leahy’s committee is considering a roughly $84 million appropriation for Unesco for fiscal year 2011. But Mr. Obiang’s adviser for international organizations, Agapito Mba-Mokuy, contends that critics are unfairly singling out Equatorial Guinea for scrutiny. The tactic of opponents “to this African prize,” he said in a recent interview with the magazine Afrique-Asie, is “to add an endless list of criteria” about human rights and discrimination. “There are around 30 prizes in Unesco,” he said. “Why is it that so many additional criteria are added only to this first, and so far only, scientific donation of this kind from an African member state?” Scientific grants, he said, benefit everyone. “Africa needs science even more so than developed countries,” he said. “Without science, the continent will only clean the train that is taking others to the technological age of tomorrow.” The prize jury met in late May but has not announced a decision, Ms. Williams, the agency spokeswoman, said. A diplomat said that one juror from Hong Kong resigned in protest, and the jury advised Ms. Bokova to consult with member states on how to proceed. The diplomatic effort now, diplomats and officials said, is to find a way to persuade African states of the potential damage to Unesco and to agree to change the structure of the prize, without appearing to concede on questions of principle to the non-African world. The board meets again on June 15.

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization


Uncaging the Cage Fighter Within

Abstract: ALTHOUGH New York still bans live professional mixed martial arts competitions , that regulation has no bearing on training. And this year the Ultimate Fighting Championship — the sport’s biggest promoter — opened its first gym in New York City. On a recent evening, I headed to the new UFC Gym in Lower Manhattan to try out a class. Mixed martial arts, known as M.M.A., blends over a dozen combat sports, including boxing, kickboxing and Brazilian jujitsu. The gym also offers these disciplines individually, in classes that focus on either technique or conditioning. The one I attended featured conditioning. Each of about 20 students (with an even split of men and women) stood near one of the large black punching bags hanging in rows from red scaffolding. The teacher, Ramzey Prentiss, 31, who is also an owner, started out with a warm-up that included jumping jacks, squats, imaginary rope jumping, push-ups and shadowboxing. Then we moved on to the second part of class, bag work. “Put those gloves on and get your hands up!” Mr. Prentiss bellowed above the loud, high-energy music. For the next 30 minutes, he had us practice combinations on the bags in a way similar to that of a fitness boxing class I took last year. The difference was the much broader range of moves. One routine ran the gamut, with a double jab and then an elbow strike, followed by a roundhouse kick and a knee strike. We dropped into a “sprawl” position as defense against a double-leg takedown, then sprang right back up, fists flying. We also practiced kicking the bag from the floor before standing to throw another kick and two punches. In front of me, a young woman wearing a shirt that said, “Fight me,” punched, kicked, elbowed and kneed her bag so fiercely that I did not want to take her up on her dare. In boot camp fashion, Mr. Prentiss worked in bursts of conditioning, ordering us to do squats, push-ups, burpees or mountain climbers. Later, we revisited these exercises with greater intensity in the third and final leg of the 60-minute class, which Mr. Prentiss said would burn 800 to 1,000 calories. Completely worn out, I gave it one last push on the home stretch as we did crunches and leg raises that elicited a fair amount of groaning. “Stay strong! Stay strong!” he told the group. Afterward, Mr. Prentiss, who has competed in amateur boxing, Thai kickboxing and Brazilian jujitsu, explained that because mixed martial arts is a full-body sport, he had chosen the conditioning regimen accordingly. My full-body soreness for the next few days was a testament to that. Josh Eldridge, 25, who works in artist management and lives nearby, recalled how tough it was when he first showed up right after the gym opened in April. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God — I’m dying,’ ” he said. “It’s one of the most grueling hours that you can spend.” Now he is in “100 times better shape,” he said. He visits the gym six days a week and also takes the technique-focused class, which includes sparring and grappling, as well as private lessons. Another participant, Brittany Miller, a 28-year-old social media executive who lives on the Upper East Side, said she enjoyed taking out her irritations on the bag, which leaves her feeling calm. Her face was bright red from the exertion. “I’ve never actually wanted to go to the gym,” she said. “But this class makes me come back, because I want to keep challenging myself.”


North Carolina: C.I.A. Contractor Is Sentenced

Abstract: A former contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison for beating an Afghan detainee who later died. The contractor, David A. Passaro, left, was accused of hitting the detainee, Abdul Wali, with a flashlight and kicking him in the groin during a two-day interrogation in July 2003. Mr. Wali died within 48 hours. Mr. Passaro, 40, was the first American civilian charged with mistreating a detainee in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Central Intelligence Agency
Passaro David A


Nobel Laureates Urge Congress Not to Cut Research Budget

Abstract: More than 50 Nobel laureates are urging Congress to spare the federal science establishment from the looming budget cuts known as the sequester, saying that research has endured years of budget reductions and that additional cuts could endanger “the innovation engine that is essential to our economy.” The open letter was written by Burton Richter, a 1976 Nobel laureate in physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California, and organized by the Federation of American Scientists , a private group in Washington. The group is making the letter public on Wednesday. The Nobel laureates said their concern was not for themselves, since they would have the upper hand in any competition for scarce federal dollars, but for younger scientists who might be poised to produce the breakthroughs of tomorrow. “We urge you,” they wrote Congress, “to keep the budgets of the agencies that support science at a level that will keep the pipelines full.” The next generation, they added, will determine “our economic vitality” in the future. Washington is the pre-eminent sponsor of basic research in the United States, disbursing billions of dollars to universities, contractors and federal centers. The Defense Department receives the largest share of the overall research financing, followed by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Energy Department. Between 2009 and 2012, the federal financing of research and development dropped 18 percent, to $140.6 billion from $172.5 billion, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science . The science association says the budget cuts would lower this year’s research and development budget an additional 6 percent, to about $131 billion. The letter from Dr. Richter and the other laureates gave no budget numbers but said the overall federal science budget “has steadily fallen over the years, while our rivals in Europe and Asia invest more.” It added that traditional partisans in Washington had agreed on the importance of federal financing of long-term scientific research. President Obama stressed this importance in his State of the Union address, the letter said, adding that Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader, emphasized it in a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute. “The agreement exists,” the letter said, “because of recognition that this sort of research fuels the innovation engine that is essential to our economy.”

American Assn for the Advancement of Science


Favor Hamilton’s Name Is Off Big Ten Award

Abstract: The Big Ten female athlete of the year award no longer is named for Suzy Favor Hamilton, the conference said. Favor Hamilton, the Olympic track star from Wisconsin, acknowledged last year that she had worked as a prostitute. Amanda Kessel, a Minnesota hockey player, was named the winner of the award last week.

Awards
Suzy Favor Hamilton
Amanda Kessel
College Sports
Big Ten Conference