Tensions Over New York’s Homeless Shelters Explode After Disputed Rape Accusation

Abstract: The missives began in earnest late last month after the killing of a former teacher at a Harlem shelter: 11 letters between state and city officials over conditions and violence in New York City’s homeless shelter system. The letters generally followed a pattern, with the state pointing out some flaw in the system and the city responding in clipped but polite fashion. That changed on Friday, after the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which has oversight of homeless shelter systems across New York State, wrote of a reported gang rape that, the police determined over the weekend, never took place. In a letter sent on Monday, the city’s top official in charge of homelessness, Steven Banks, accused state officials of engaging in a “political media hit” by writing their letter before the alleged rape could be investigated and then “immediately” releasing it to The New York Post . Mr. Banks stopped short of declaring the actions a violation of state law, but he observed in his letter that “New York law prohibits making gratuitous reports to law enforcement, including initiating or circulating a false report.” The spat provided a small window into how deeply the poisoned relations between the administrations of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo can reach into government bureaucracies, even on issues — like the rise in the city’s homeless population — that the two elected officials, both Democrats, profess a keen interest in solving. A spokesman for Mr. Banks, commissioner of the Human Resources Administration, said the letters spoke for themselves. Alphonso David, the governor’s chief counsel, said in a telephone interview that while he had not reviewed Mr. Banks’s latest letter, “the state has an obligation to protect shelter residents and that’s what we did,” adding that state officials “did everything according to the book — our obligation is to the residents.” The letter that upset Mr. Banks contained the accusation that, during a state inspection of the Bellevue men’s shelter on Feb. 18, inspectors heard from a security guard that a male resident had been “hogtied” and “gang raped” at the shelter “a few weeks ago.” “O.T.D.A. was not informed of this incident, nor was there an incident report on file,” the agency commissioner, Samuel D. Roberts, wrote in directing the city to explain the failure to report the attack, to post additional security at the shelter and to install security cameras “throughout the facility” by the end of March. The city’s response was straightforward and slightly indignant: No rape took place. “The incident of a hogtying rape not only didn’t happen a few weeks ago, we found no evidence that it ever occurred,” said Stephen Davis, the top spokesman for the New York Police Department. The police were informed of the allegation on Friday, and after an investigation found that the only episode similar to the one described was a 2014 robbery at the shelter in which the victim had been tied up. Image Steven Banks speaking at a news conference in December. Mr. Banks, New York City’s top official in charge of homelessness, has accused state officials of engaging in a “political media hit.” Credit John Taggart for The New York Times It appears, police officials said, a shelter security guard may have conflated the robbery with an episode in a laundry room on Feb. 2, in which a shelter resident said to two other men that they should rape a fourth man who was in the room. The episode was disturbing enough that the man reported the episode to shelter staff, and the staff immediately moved him to another shelter, Mr. Davis said, but no sexual assault took place. “It may have been reasonable for you to ask us for information about an incident that an O.T.D.A. inspector may have mistakenly believed occurred,” Mr. Banks wrote on Monday. “However the actions the state took were reckless,” and, combined with the newspaper article, “are harmful to our efforts to bring people in off the streets.” The letters from the state have arrived at Mr. Banks’s agency every few days since Jan. 28, a day after the police said Deven Black, 62, was stabbed to death by his roommate at the Boulevard Homeless Shelter in Harlem. City officials shared the exchanges with The New York Times. “The obvious issue is the city’s failure to provide adequate security at its own facilities,” Kristi Berner, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said in a statement. “The city condemns themselves by now asserting there was no attack,” Ms. Berner said, referring to the alleged rape, “which can only mean their security official is not credible or is incompetent.” The first exchange passed cordially enough, with Sharon Devine, the executive deputy commissioner of the state agency, directing the city’s Homeless Services Department to increase security; Mr. Banks responded via email the next day that those efforts were underway. Two days later, on Jan. 31, a new letter from Ms. Devine regarding a report of a stabbing at a shelter on 53rd Street elicited a response from Mr. Banks detailing the measures taken by shelter security and the Police Department. The state wrote again, on Feb. 4, informing the city that state inspectors would be going through all shelters in the city. “Our plan is to specifically identity unsafe and unhealthy conditions we find in the city’s shelters and ensure that these conditions are fixed or the residents moved to shelters that are safe, clean and well maintained,” Ms. Devine wrote. Mr. Banks responded that the surprise inspections would be better conducted jointly between city and state officials “so that all parties can observe the conditions at issue” and “formulate a plan of correction on the spot.” He also said “it would be helpful” to know what standard the state was applying during its inspections, suggesting that information was not shared with the city. The next correspondence from the state, on Feb. 10, was not a response to that letter from Mr. Banks, but a list of directives for the city after the killing that day of a woman and her two daughters in a Ramada hotel on Staten Island that was used to temporarily house homeless people. “As you know, I called you in the early afternoon yesterday,” Mr. Banks responded the next day. “We were, therefore, surprised to receive your 4:15 p.m. letter ordering the city to do exactly what we had told the state, and had already publicly announced we were doing.”


In a Rebel Camp in Colombia, Marx and Free Love Reign

Abstract: IN THE MOUNTAINS OF COLOMBIA — The rebel camp is a Communist time capsule. An old guerrilla fighter sings songs about Che Guevara on his guitar as a crowd leans in to listen, armed with rifles and grenades. Salaries do not exist here, or even marriage. The fighters believe in free love, saying they are wed only to the revolution. They say life is still possible with Karl Marx in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. “We have prepared for peace, but we are also ready for war,” said Samuel, a 31-year-old fighter who, like many of the rebels, has never set foot in any of Colombia ’s cities. I was invited by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia , known as the FARC, to witness this sprawling jungle hide-out for about 150 fighters during what were supposed to be its last days. The journey took us through rugged mountains on horseback and on foot, requiring us to abandon our satellite phones and any equipment that could be tracked by government soldiers, then place ourselves in the hands of a rebel group infamous for kidnapping civilians and holding them for years. Now, the two sides are negotiating an end to decades of fighting, the longest conflict in modern history. But the end was nowhere in sight that day. Video New York Times reporter Nicholas Casey makes a rare visit to a remote FARC camp as the rebels there await the outcome of peace talks in Havana. Credit Credit Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times It was around 6 p.m. when the communiqué reached the guerrilla camp — and the news was not good. The message, read aloud under a tent, came from Rodrigo Londoño — or Timochenko, as he is called here — the top FARC commander negotiating with the government to lay down arms after so much war. The talks were in a state of collapse, the communiqué warned. The rebels had stormed from the negotiating table in anger. War could be on the horizon once again. “There may be nothing else than to continue with what we came here 50 years ago to do,” the message concluded, as the fighters in the camp gasped and gripped their weapons tighter. The Colombian peace negotiations are supposed to be in their final and most critical stage . The war has killed more than 220,000 people, left 40,000 missing and displaced an estimated 5.7 million. It has stretched on for half a century and stymied two previous truces meant to bring lasting peace. Both sides are saying that the March 23 deadline for a final deal may be missed, leaving little certain now. After the letter was read, a hushed silence fell under the tent. It was broken by a man in a beret with a red star who yelled slogans shouted by guerrillas throughout the ages: “Against imperialism,” he shouted. “For the Fatherland!” the camp roared back. “Against the oligarchy,” he shouted. “For the people!” they replied. Far From Home The day begins here an hour before dawn. At 5:15, the fighters line up for the day’s tasks: guarding outposts, slaughtering a cow. Breakfast is served out of a thatched-roof hut with ovens built into the ground. Image A rebel named Andrea drew on Michael’s shoulder in one of the FARC’s jungle camps. While the guerrillas reject marriage, relationships among them are common. Credit Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times The prospect of peace might be a national question in Colombia, but it is a very personal one in this camp. Will the fighters return to the villages they once knew? Will they reunite with children abandoned years ago, children who are now adults themselves? Samy is 28 now, but she was barely 16 when she became a guerrilla. Like many rebels, who used their first names to keep their families safe, her childhood was filled with memories of deadly campaigns waged against peasants by paramilitary groups searching for guerrillas. She remembers six people shot dead in her small village. She decided that taking up arms was the way to survive. “Here, you form another family,” she said. Since then, Samy has seen her mother only once, during a brief meeting in a safe house when she was 21. The two women talked about what Samy had been like as a child, a distant memory that is almost gone. Samy has no plans to go home if the FARC disarms. The FARC once ruled the Colombian countryside with the profits of the illicit cocaine trade. But resolve from the government, and a $10 billion aid package from the United States, has left the rebels on the run. The group, listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department, once counted some 17,000 fighters in its ranks; now it is down to just 7,000. Many here in the camp are still teenagers. Didier, 15, has barely shot the rifle he was given by the FARC when he joined the group six months ago. He came with two other teenage runaways, ushered away before sunrise on motorcycles by FARC militiamen from a small river port town. He hopes a peace deal will allow him to head home to explain to his father why he left: His family was running out of food. Video Key moments from speeches by representatives from the rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on peace talks with the government and President Juan Manuel Santos. Credit Credit Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times By 1 p.m., it had grown hot. The fighters were washing clothes and swimming in the river. Angela, a girl of about 18 with the nickname “Gunpowder,” stepped out giggling in her underwear to escape a group of young men and teenage boys splashing water at her. She picked up her Kalashnikov and left. While marriage is unknown here, relationships among guerrillas are common. The man asks his commander for permission, just as many rural Colombians would ask the father for a woman’s hand. When the two want to have sex, they tell the commander and then slip off into the woods, with palm fronds for bedding. The relations come and go. “How long did we live together, Andrea?” asked the fighter Samuel, 31. “I don’t even remember,” said Andrea, 26. The two laughed. Both now have children by other partners, civilians living elsewhere in Colombia. They both plan to go raise them if there is a peace deal. Camilo, 19, had a relationship, too, but the woman was killed along with 10 other fighters in an aerial bombing six months ago by the government. “We are in a war, and that is just how it is,” Camilo said. “The things you see in a place like this. A leg over there, a foot across the river, and then an arm in some other place.” Night falls, and marches begin into the forest. One squad of fighters heads to a distant part of the jungle. They sling up hammocks between trees next to large spiders and a few tree frogs. Image Gustavo, a commander, stood at the corner of a formation of FARC guerrillas. Credit Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times Someone whistles, a signal that an airplane is approaching overhead, and the guerrillas turn off their lights so as not to be seen from above. Evolving Hopes For many in the older generation, the graying fighters of the FARC, the future brings the possibility of a political rebirth. They have abandoned any hope that the guerrillas will topple the government one day, as revolutionaries did in Cuba and Nicaragua. The future in Colombia, they say, will come through joining the system that exists. “We will get rid of the arms and become politicians,” said Luisito, the camp’s second in command. “But we will not lose our structure. We will be at the ballot boxes this time.” The FARC is preparing its rank and file for what life will be like after a peace deal. Most mornings, fighters assemble under the tent for “pedagogy.” Leaders explain the agreement being negotiated in Havana and solicit responses from fighters. Hand-painted signs reinforce the new tone: “In principal, we are for peace and not for war,” says one sign hanging above a row of Kalashnikovs. Some fighters want to know where they will live after a peace deal. Can they stay in the camp, simply without weapons? How will life be financed if the FARC can no longer levy its “taxes” in the hinterlands, like the one on the lucrative coca trade? Others want to know if they will even be allowed to live. One fighter with the nom de guerre Teófilo Panclasta said he had gotten out of a Colombian prison this month after serving two years on rebellion charges. In the mid-1980s, he said, he was part of the FARC’s largest experiment in political participation, the Patriotic Union, a party that the guerrillas formed as part of peace talks at the time. The effort brought part of the FARC out of the shadows. Image Samuel walked from the camp to the place where his unit would spend the night. Credit Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times The response of paramilitary groups was brutal. In all, about 3,000 members of the party, from supporters to presidential candidates, were killed in retributive violence. “Don’t think this could not happen all over again,” Mr. Panclasta said. “If we give up our rifles, our grenades, our pistols, we can only defend ourselves with our words.” Enduring Ideas Members of the camp say they came under fire last month when they ran into the Colombian military about 30 miles away. Eight guerrillas were wounded. One commander, Alberto, jumped off a rooftop to take cover. He now hobbles around the camp on crutches. But more often, teachers come with instructions on using Facebook and Twitter — tools the guerrillas see as vital for future electioneering. There is talk of looking for “new models” now that Cuba has reached its own dé tente with the United States. Aldana, a Soviet-educated commander known here as “the Russian,” sat on a hillside and mused that the collapse of Communism had finally reached the camp. He recalled watching that change begin decades ago while he was still a young man backpacking in Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall . “We had no idea what it meant was that socialism was coming to an end,” he said. While the model may be ending, the FARC will remain, he insisted. “We are seeking peace, but we are not demobilizing,” he said. “We’re simply taking a new shape.” Mr. Panclasta hoped for the same. He seemed to feel liberated in the outdoor camp, after his years in a prison cell. He was shouting old slogans, slapping shoulders and pouring coffee for the fighters. He cited a phrase from Marx. “ ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,’ ” he said. “These ideas may be old ones — but they are the ones which have saved us in the forest here, and the ones that will save us through whatever is next.”


G.O.P. Balks at Plan to Add Airwaves for Mobile Internet and Wi-Fi

Abstract: WASHINGTON — House Republicans warned the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday against “giving away” scarce airwaves that they said could produce up to $19 billion in proceeds if they were instead auctioned to telecommunications companies for use in mobile broadband networks. The remarks, which came at a House communications subcommittee hearing, took aim at one of the top priorities of Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman: to make available more unlicensed airwaves, or spectrum, to open congested mobile broadband networks and to use in Wi-Fi hot spots. In September, the F.C.C. proposed freeing 12 to 20 megahertz of spectrum for those unlicensed uses. The unlicensed space on the electromagnetic spectrum would also be used as “guard bands.” Those are areas that border segments of airwaves that are used by cellphone companies, broadcasters and other communications entities; their purpose is to limit interference from transmissions on nearby airwaves. Mr. Genachowski defended the commission’s plans. “Unlicensed spectrum has a powerful record of driving innovation, investment and economic growth — hundreds of billions of dollars of value creation for our economy and consumers,” he told the committee on Wednesday. He pointed to Wi-Fi networks, which operate on unlicensed airwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum, as an example of innovation that has generated “hundreds of billions in tax revenues” and made the United States a leader in the use of unlicensed airwaves. But Representative Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, who is chairman of the panel, said the law that gave the F.C.C. the ability to conduct “incentive auctions” of newly available spectrum required “maximizing the proceeds from the auction.” For the F.C.C. to obtain the highest price for the spectrum it sells, it should limit the size of guard bands, Mr. Walden said; he said the six-megahertz minimum size proposed by the F.C.C. was unnecessarily fat. Up to $7 billion of auction proceeds is earmarked to help build a nationwide public safety communications network for first responders. The spectrum for the auctions is supposed to come from television broadcasters who voluntarily give it up or move their position on the airwaves in exchange for some of the auction proceeds. “I support the use of unlicensed spectrum to foster innovation” for relief of congested broadband, Mr. Walden said. “What I cannot support,” he added, “is the unnecessary expansion of unlicensed spectrum in other bands needed for licensed services, especially at the expense of funding for public safety.” The F.C.C.’s five commissioners, who all testified before the subcommittee on Wednesday, are split 3-2 along party lines over the issue of unlicensed spectrum. Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, a Republican, said it would be premature for the commission to reserve newly available airwaves for unlicensed use. Instead, the commission should set aside the “white spaces” between broadcast television channels for unlicensed use, he said. White spaces are similar, but smaller, guard bands in the part of the spectrum dedicated to broadcast television that are intended to minimize interference between stations. “At this early stage in the incentive auction process,” Mr. McDowell said, “it is not apparent that we should stop the progress well under way in the TV white spaces arena to create a solution for a problem — an alleged shortage of unlicensed spectrum in lower spectrum bands — that may never exist.” The F.C.C.’s plans for unlicensed spectrum received support from Democrats on the subcommittee, including Representative Henry A. Waxman of California. Mr. Waxman said the way unlicensed spectrum would be set aside and used were settled in negotiations on the Public Safety and Spectrum Act, which was enacted this year. “I am troubled by attempts by some to relitigate issues that were resolved earlier this year, when the bill passed Congress with widespread support,” Mr. Waxman said. Republicans on the subcommittee also sparred with Mr. Genachowski over whether the F.C.C. should limit the amount of spectrum any one company could own. That would limit the potential buyers of some spectrum to be auctioned. Supporters of restrictions say they are one of a few ways to give smaller cellphone companies the ability to build nationwide networks. Separately, the F.C.C. said late Wednesday that it had agreed to allow Dish, the satellite television company, to use spectrum that it controled for mobile broadband; previously, the airwaves were to be used only for satellite transmissions. The change, which was expected, greatly expands the value of the spectrum and could allow Dish to enter a mobile broadband partnership with another wireless company.

Federal Communications Commission
United States Politics and Government
Radio Spectrum
Wireless Communications


Shining Path Faction Leader Artemio Is Captured in Peru

Abstract: CARACAS, Venezuela — President Ollanta Humala of Peru announced Sunday that government forces had captured the leader of one of the two remaining factions of the Shining Path , a onetime guerrilla group that has become a major operator in the cocaine trade. The captured leader, Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, who is known as Comrade Artemio, was found hiding in a hut in Puerto Pizana, a small village in the rain forest of north-central Peru. He was captured without resistance in a joint operation by the Peruvian police and armed forces, officials said. Mr. Flores was wounded in a shooting on Thursday, although the details have not been made clear. He fled after being wounded, only to be captured Sunday. Officials in Peru said that Mr. Flores was flown to the capital, Lima, and was undergoing surgery Sunday night at a police hospital. “We have eliminated the head of this terrorist movement,” Mr. Humala said during a televised news conference from the region where Mr. Flores was captured. Mr. Flores is believed to be a member of the inner circle of Abimael Guzmán, the founder of the Shining Path, who has been in prison in Peru since 1992. Terrorism and narcotics experts say there are two factions left of the Shining Path, the largest guerrilla group involved in a bloody war that left about 70,000 Peruvians dead in the 1980s and 1990s. The factions were formed after the main body of the group was defeated, and they have relied on drug trafficking to generate revenue and to continue terrorist attacks aimed at the police, the military and drug eradication efforts. Mr. Flores ran the faction in an area known as the Huallaga, Peru’s second-largest coca producing region. Peruvian authorities said his group was responsible for more than 500 terrorist attacks and 1,000 deaths of police officers and civilians in the last 25 years. Estimates of the number of his group’s members who remain active range from about a dozen to 100. The other major faction of the Shining Path operates in a region of east-central Peru near Ayacucho. That group is believed to have 500 members.

Shining Path
Peru
Terrorism
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
Humala Ollanta
Flores Hala Florindo Eleuterio


At U.N. Assembly, Sri Lankan Leader Aims to Lift Country’s Stature

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — Nine months after he was elected to bridge bitter ethnic divisions at home, Sri Lanka’s president, Maithripala Sirisena , spent the better part of this week in New York trying to reassert his country’s place in the world. On Monday, he offered five infantry battalions for United Nations peacekeeping missions, a gesture that was welcomed at a summit meeting chaired by President Obama. That was in sharp contrast to Sri Lanka’s offer of helicopters when its previous government was under scrutiny for failing to address accusations of atrocities and other human rights abuses during the long, bloody conflict between the Tamil ethnic group and the majority Sinhalese. On Wednesday, in a speech to the General Assembly, Mr. Sirisena promised “a plan of action in Sri Lanka to advance human rights.” On Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that Sri Lanka co-sponsored, signaling its desire to create a credible judicial process to try accused war criminals and involve foreign lawyers and judges in that process. The resolution, adopted by consensus in Geneva, crucially left open the question of exactly what kind of court would be established, but it was enough to win plaudits from the United States and Britain. The president would not say how foreigners would participate. “This is something new to our government and to our people,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s a new experience.” Mr. Sirisena, over tea at his hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon, said the court would be established after what he called careful consultations with religious leaders, politicians and military officials. Setting up a war crimes tribunal, involving foreigners no less, is a highly delicate matter. It follows a report by the United Nations, which concluded that both sides had likely committed war crimes and that an independent judicial process involving foreign judges was needed, with the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, saying bluntly that Sri Lanka is “not currently equipped to conduct an independent and credible investigation.” The report described extrajudicial killings and disappearances, and gave accounts of torture and sexual violence. (Sri Lanka is not a party to the International Criminal Court.) “I took over a country isolated by the international community,” Mr. Sirisena said, after a marathon set of speeches and meetings. “The main challenge I faced was to win over the international community. I believe these efforts have borne fruit.” Asked for evidence, his ambassador to the United States, Prasad Kariyawasam, jumped in to say that the president had been offered a seat at the head table at lunch with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, along with Mr. Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Sirisena said his offer of assistance in peacekeeping efforts had been welcomed. Mr. Sirisena promised to help with more soldiers, including special forces units and experts on clearing unexploded ordnance. It put the onus on the United Nations system to carefully vet those soldiers, and roles they might have played in Sri Lanka’s own war. Mr. Sirisena’s challenges are significant, both politically and legally. He was elected in January, defeating the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapakse, with a promise to heal the wounds from the civil war. In the interview on Wednesday, Mr. Sirisena was unwilling to commit himself to any particular judicial mechanism, saying he would keep an open mind and make sure it was in keeping with Sri Lanka’s Constitution. Sri Lanka does not allow foreign lawyers to practice in its courts, an aide to the president said later, and it was not possible for the country to set up a new international court without amending the Constitution, which would be extremely difficult politically. “The mechanism must be domestic,” Mr. Sirisena said. In a measure of the lingering distrust, Kasippilai Manoharan, the father of one of five students killed by security forces on a beach near the port of Trincomalee in 2006, said he was skeptical of any judicial process that was not truly international. “I trust the international community and the Human Rights Council, but I’ll never trust Sri Lankan courts,” he said in an interview.

Sri Lanka
Maithripala Sirisena
Human Rights
UN
UNCHR
Barack Obama


Convicted Guantánamo Prisoner Files Appeal

Abstract: Lawyers for David Hicks, a former Guantánamo Bay prisoner from Australia, filed an appeal on Tuesday with the United States Court of Military Commission Review, saying his conviction should be thrown out because his confession was coerced. Mr. Hicks, 38, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, said he was suicidal when he pleaded guilty in 2007 to providing material support for terrorism. A plea deal made him the first person convicted in a United States war crimes tribunal since World War II and allowed him to return to Australia to finish his nine-month sentence. A United States appeals court ruled last year that providing material support for terrorism was not recognized as a war crime during the time he was in Afghanistan.

David Hicks
Detainees
Military Tribunals
Guantanamo Bay


Australia Tracks Japan Whaling Fleet

Abstract: CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) — An Australian fisheries ship has begun pursuing Japan ’s whaling fleet near Antarctica to gather evidence for an international court challenge to halt the yearly slaughter, officials said Wednesday. The icebreaker Oceanic Viking, used for customs and fisheries policing, left a base near Perth on Tuesday to track the fleet in the Southern Ocean for up to 20 days, a Home Affairs Ministry spokeswoman said. The vessel has stowed arms below deck to avoid a confrontation, but Australian customs officials on board plan to gather photographic and video evidence of the Japanese kill. Japan’s whaling fleet plans to hunt 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales for research over the Antarctic summer, but recently abandoned plans to hunt 50 humpback whales after international condemnation and a formal diplomatic protest by 31 nations. Australia plans to use patrols by an Airbus jet to follow and photograph the Japanese fleet, intensifying pressure on Japan to end the hunt in future years.


Mrs. Obama’s Wing of White House Is Having Its Share of Transition at Key Time

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The West Wing, where President Obama works, is used to the comings-and-goings of staff members — a never-ending churn that spawns speculation. Now it is the East Wing’s turn. The first lady, Michelle Obama, is losing two key advisers, including Jeremy Bernard, the White House social secretary, who will be leaving his post overseeing the elaborate parties and showy public events at the most famous of Washington addresses. Mr. Bernard will be followed out the door by M. C. González, the first lady’s communications director, who helped shape Mrs. Obama’s everywoman image. The departures come on the heels of an abrupt exit by Laura Dowling, the White House florist, who was reportedly escorted out of the building in February. Sam Kass, the high-profile White House chef who became close friends with the first couple, left last year. And Mr. Obama bemoaned the loss of the White House chief pastry chef, Bill Yosses, in 2014, joking that his pies were so good, they probably had “crack” in them. (Mrs. Obama quickly corrected her husband, saying there had never been any drugs in the White House pastries.) Image Jeremy Bernard, White House social secretary, and M. C. González, Michelle Obama’s communications director, are leaving just as Mrs. Obama is increasing her profile. Credit Charles Dharapak/Associated Press For Mrs. Obama and the East Wing, the departures leave some big holes just as she has been increasing her public profile in the twilight of her husband’s presidency. Last month, she used a solo five-day trip to Asia to promote education for girls and to press for human rights. In the weeks ahead, Mrs. Obama and the president will host another elaborate dinner, this time for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. Mr. Bernard will manage that one before he leaves, and his successor, who has not yet been named, is to oversee a state dinner for the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, later in the year. East Wing officials say the departures are the typical moves of a long-serving staff in the latter days of a presidential term. They said the departures of Mr. Bernard and Ms. González would make way for other trusted staff to move up. In a statement issued by her press staff, Mrs. Obama called Mr. Bernard “a lifelong friend” and said he had “worked tirelessly to open the doors of the White House to as many people as possible and to make each and every event in the White House one to remember, not only for Barack and me, but for the tens of thousands of guests who pass through our doors each year.” Of Ms. González, the first lady said she was “incredibly grateful for her passion, creativity, integrity and leadership.” Ms. González will be replaced by Caroline Adler, her deputy. Image Laura Dowling abruptly left her position as White House florist in February. Credit Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post, via Getty Images The departure of Ms. Dowling was not announced with similar fanfare. The news was first reported by The Washington Post, which cited an administration source in saying that she had been escorted out of the building. East Wing officials declined to comment on the report. But in a statement, the first lady’s office praised Ms. Dowling, saying her “creations were always lively and colorful, reflecting not only the season but the unique and historic rooms which they graced.” The statement thanked her for “her contribution over the years” and wished her well. In a statement, Ms. Dowling said she had resigned her position to “pursue exciting new opportunities and explore my passion for floral artistry and design.” She added, “I will always be grateful for this incredible opportunity.” Mr. Bernard’s departure ends a groundbreaking four years as the first male White House social secretary and the first openly gay person to serve in that position. For most of his tenure, which included overseeing more than 1,000 events at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Bernard shunned the spotlight, earning less notice than Desirée Rogers, the president’s first social secretary, who embraced the news-media-friendly Washington culture. She departed after a reality television couple crashed the president’s first state dinner in 2009. In his own statement, released by the White House, Mr. Bernard showed his trademark pleasantness. “Mrs. Obama has welcomed every guest to the White House with her signature warmth, grace and style,” he said. “I feel so privileged to have worked for such an extraordinary president and first lady.”

White House
First Ladies
Michelle Obama
Jeremy Bernard
Laura Dowling
Barack Obama
MC Gonzalez


Remembering the Lives Lost in a Warehouse Rampage

Abstract: MANCHESTER, Conn. — They were burly men who supported their families with an all-American pursuit: getting kegs and cases of Budweiser from the warehouse to store shelves and saloons. Husbands and fathers, even a grandfather among them, they had collectively held their jobs for well over a century at a family-owned business that had been remarkably stable. They drove trucks and operated forklifts at Hartford Distributors here. A few of them were hanging on for a comfortable retirement, to be cushioned by substantial pensions. Some were still working to cover mortgages and college tuitions to come. All that came to a bloody end on Tuesday morning, when a fellow beer man who had just resigned under pressure started shooting in the company’s warehouse, the police said. The gunman, Omar S. Thornton , shot 10 men, killing 8 of them, before fatally shooting himself, the police said. The rampage left gaping voids in suburbs scattered across New England, where the men were known for their devotion to their families and were remembered for the joy they took in cheering on the sons and daughters of their communities from benches and bleachers and dugouts. Margaret Hudson of South Windsor, Conn., gave voice to a pang felt by many who knew these men as she gestured toward Craig A. Pepin’s nearby house and said, “You can already feel the emptiness of the neighborhood.” Mr. Pepin, who was 60, had driven beer trucks for three decades. But he was better known in South Windsor, his hometown, as a coach of youth sports. “He was a father to every kid in South Windsor,” said another neighbor, Pat Wardwell, as Mr. Pepin’s front yard filled with teenagers and young adults who had once been his charges on the town’s ball fields. In Stamford, Louis J. Felder, a 50-year-old father of three, had been vocal in rooting for his daughter’s basketball team. Mr. Felder was the only member of the company’s management team among those killed. His computer-based systems for managing inventories in warehouses proved so popular with the owners of Hartford Distributors that they hired him as director of operations, according to Reuben Askowitz, a longtime friend who was in Mr. Felder’s wedding party. Once, when Mr. Felder’s vehicle blew a gasket on the two-hour commute from Stamford to Manchester, the Hollander family, the owners of Hartford Distributors, handed him the keys to a nearly new Audi A8 sedan to replace his damaged heap, Mr. Askowitz recalled. But the tale most cherished was the one about a young Mr. Felder, who saw his father trapped under a car when a jack gave way. Mr. Felder, still a teenager, but a big one, lifted the car, saving his father from being crushed, Mr. Askowitz recounted. “That’s why people say he’s Superman,” Mr. Askowitz said. After that feat, he said, who would have imagined that the elder Mr. Felder would attend his son’s funeral. Mr. Felder’s father was among hundreds who attended his funeral at Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford on Wednesday. His brother, best friend and three teenage children described him as a man of large proportions. He was not just large physically; he was gregarious, fiercely competitive and always in charge, they said. “He was always pushing me to be better, which he always did out of love,” said Joel Felder, his brother. “Even when he knocked me out.” Rabbi Elly Krimsky, who led the service, thanked, among others, the politicians and rabbis who had helped return Mr. Felder’s body to his family quickly. On the morning of the shootings, Mr. Felder was with Steve Hollander, an executive vice president, to confront Mr. Thornton with evidence that he had been stealing beer from the company, company and union officials said. After Mr. Thornton agreed to resign, he got two guns that he had brought with him to work and began firing, the police said. Mr. Felder was probably one of his first victims. The others included Bryan Cirigliano, a rugged former driver who was the shop steward at Hartford Distributors and the president of the Teamsters local representing more than 100 workers there. Mr. Cirigliano had escorted Mr. Thornton to the meeting with the managers, a role he had played, formally and informally, many times, according to John Hollis, who preceded him as president of the local. Whenever Mr. Cirigliano, whose father and brother had both worked for the company, heard a manager dressing down one of his members, he would intervene, Mr. Hollis said. “He would immediately stand between the employer and employee and get them to take that issue elsewhere,” he said. “He was very outspoken and very, very sensitive to, as he called them, his union brothers.” Other victims had been contemplating their retirement from the beer business. Victor James, 60, was planning to quit early next year. Douglas Scruton, 56, had two years to go before he could leave with 30 years under his belt, said Gary Hoffman, his brother-in-law. Jerome Rosenstein, 77, who was wounded and was in critical condition Wednesday at Hartford Hospital, was a salesman whose retirement was imminent. Mr. Scruton, who was operating a forklift in the warehouse when he was fatally shot, was so eager to get away that he and his wife had already moved to a house in New Hampshire, where he lived on weekends. During the week, he stayed with a friend in Manchester, Mr. Hoffmann said. But wherever he lived, Mr. Scruton was a rabid fan of the University of Connecticut sports teams, as well as the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots, Mr. Hoffman said. He even had a room dedicated to watching sports in his house; Mr. Hoffman dubbed it the Doug-out. Mr. Scruton was such a fanatic, Mr. Hoffman said, that he would “buy four or five papers each day and just read the sports section and throw the rest away.” Mr. Hoffman said that Mr. Scruton would not have been party to any of the racial discrimination that Mr. Thornton, who was black, complained to friends about. “Dougie’s color-blind,” Mr. Hoffman said. “He could never do a racial thing.” Francis Fazio, another victim, did not live in the suburbs east of Hartford, but about 40 miles away from the warehouse in Bristol, Conn. Mr. Hollis, the former president of the local, said that the only sports Mr. Fazio talked about at work involved his son. Beer ran through Mr. Fazio’s connection to Bristol’s mayor, Arthur Ward. Mr. Ward once was a salesman for another beverage distributor and his brother-in-law works for Hartford Distributors, he said. “He’s a very personable guy, very easy to get to know — in fact, a person you wanted to know,” Mr. Ward said. For Edwin Kennison Jr., another victim, who lived in a top-floor apartment in East Hartford, the sports passion was attached to the New York Yankees. A neighbor, Donna Plenzio, said she had told Mr. Kennison, 49: “I don’t even need to watch the games. I know what’s happening just from the noises you make.” Mr. Kennison, who had a 13-year-old daughter, had intended to get a 2010 Yankees tattoo to add to the two he already had. Like Mr. Kennison, another of the victims, William C. Ackerman, 51, had an imposing figure that masked a gentle nature, according to Mark Sullivan, who described himself as Mr. Ackerman’s lifelong best friend. “He would give you his last two cents and the shirt off his back,” Mr. Sullivan said. “He was a big dude, he was a tough dude, but he was mashed potatoes inside.” Trying to make sense of the collective loss the victims’ families and communities had suffered, the Rev. Daniel J. Sullivan told a crowd of mourners that overflowed St. Margaret Mary Church in South Windsor on Wednesday evening: “Nothing really can prepare us for this. Not education, not experience can prepare us for such a blow.”

Hartford Distributors
Connecticut
Murders and Attempted Murders
Thornton Omar S


Looking to Uplift, With Navajo ‘Rez Metal’

Abstract: FARMINGTON, N.M. — Edmund Yazzie is not the type of guy you expect to see at a heavy metal concert. He is 46, well past the age of youthful angst. As a veteran lawmaker on the Navajo reservation, he is also an integral part of the establishment, known for his starched shirts, polite manner and ardent anti-marijuana stance. Nevertheless, on a recent Saturday, Mr. Yazzie was at a metal show in this small city, standing in a throng of headbangers as a man in black roared into the microphone. But Mr. Yazzie was not there to court voters or counsel against drug use. He was there to play. In the small world of Navajo “Rez Metal,” a cluster of rock bands that perform on and around the tribe’s reservation, Mr. Yazzie is not only a participant, but a leader, hosting concerts on his family’s ranch and touring the region with the four-man band he helped start in 2011, Testify . Although Testify sometimes performs with other bands that have the defiant-sounding names associated with the genre — Skull Fist, Abysmal Dawn and Night Demon, for instance — the message of Testify’s songs is uplifting: Titles include “Move On” and “Live for Something, Die for Nothing.” “People have this perspective of metal: It’s going out to party, get drunk and go home,” Mr. Yazzie said. “But no — for us it’s a positive thing.” Many of Testify’s fans are young Navajos grown disaffected by the reservation’s troubles: poverty, unemployment, domestic violence, Mr. Yazzie said. “They come to us for help.” While he spends his days in meetings with the 23 other delegates who make up the Navajo Nation Council, he spends his nights behind a drum set, slamming out a beat as his son Darius, 22, the frontman, growls about aching souls and native pride. Some fans call the older Mr. Yazzie “the rocker delegate,” while others call him “Pops,” a nickname he rejects with a laugh. “I’m like: I’m not Grandpa, dude,” he said. The band’s formation was inspired, in part, by tragedy. In 2009 and 2010, a wave of suicides shook Mr. Yazzie’s district, and 15 young people took their lives. Two of the dead were friends of Darius. “The message is, ‘Don’t give up on life,’ ” the younger Mr. Yazzie said of the band. “A lot of the youth here, they don’t have that type of encouragement.” Testify is part of a larger Native American heavy metal tradition that exists on reservations around the country. Some bands, but not all, use the term Rez Metal to identify themselves. The genre has been a dominant musical force among young people on reservations since at least the 1990s, along with rap, according to Ellen Bello , a New Yorker who founded the Native American Music Awards in 1998. She has worked extensively with Indian bands of all types and hosts an award show each year; many entries come from metal bands. The popularity of heavy metal, Ms. Bello said, comes from its cathartic nature — making it attractive to young people in depressed regions — as well as its heavy use of drums, a mainstay in native culture. It is played at parties and concerts, while more traditional music is reserved for ceremonies. Some metal bands preach positivity, like Testify, while others are “angry and gritty, to get a message of frustration across,” Ms. Bello said. Video In addition to playing in a heavy metal band with his son, Darius, Edmund Yazzie is also a delegate to the Navajo legislature. The Navajo Nation, with some 300,000 members, has the largest Indian reservation in the United States, a region of deep canyons and towering red rock formations that is about the size of West Virginia. It is also racked by poverty, and the tribe’s government is locked in a fight over who should be its next president. Edmund Yazzie is a former sheriff and a third-term lawmaker whose accomplishments include helping his district acquire a new health clinic. But his dedication to heavy metal is rooted in a conviction that he could have more success helping the tribe as a musician than as a legislator. “My dream is to hit it big and make it in metal music,” he said. “And I tell my people, ‘If Sammy Hagar, Van Halen or Metallica calls,’ I told them, ‘I might just have to step down.’ ” On a recent concert day, the elder Mr. Yazzie spent the morning with constituents. Then he returned home, where he fed the horses. At 4 p.m., the Yazzie family headed out for the metal show: Darius, with his spiky hair; Edmund’s wife, Raedean, 46, with her monopod and video camera; and their daughter, Kalynn, 5, toting pajamas and pink noise blockers meant to protect her eardrums. They traveled more than 100 miles north, over red moonscapes, before arriving at Studio 18, a club at the end of a dirt road that was little more than a box heated by a wood-burning fire. Inside, longhaired men milled about. Darius Yazzie and the two other band members, Sebastian Chaco, 29, and David Kinsel, 21, unloaded equipment. A star-struck fan looked on. “I feel great when I listen to their music,” said Aaron Bennie, 22, wearing a black Testify T-shirt. He cited his favorite song, “Codes of Honor,” which celebrates Navajo men who served in World War II. “It touched me right here in my heart,” he said. Several groups took to the stage, sending musical explosions into the night. Then it was Testify’s turn. Ms. Yazzie moved to the front, clutching her video camera. Edmund Yazzie hit the cymbals, and the band was raging, moving quickly through a five-song set — they sing in English, rather than the Navajo language. Sweat flew from the drummer’s face as his arms moved, his head rocked and his neatly combed hair became increasingly disordered. Darius, who writes most of the band’s songs, rumbled into the microphone. “Insanity keeps on increasing,” he sang. “Decide what is right. Block it out and fight the good fight.” And then as Testify wrapped up and Edmund Yazzie stepped off the stage, a man in the back scribbled his contact information onto a piece of paper destined for the band. The man, Tim Castillo, 46, was a pastor. He wanted to invite Testify to play at his church — he thought parishioners would relate to the group’s aggressive sound and benefit from its you-can-do-it ethos. “Our church is filled with people coming out of addiction, coming out of prison, broken homes, poverty, abuse,” Mr. Castillo said. “There’s not a lot of positive.”

Edmund Yazzie
Native Americans
Music
Navajo Indians
Rock music
New Mexico


Capitals Coach Oates Tackles Next Learning Curve in A.H.L.

Abstract: HERSHEY, Pa. — Adam Oates took a break from his responsibilities as a co-coach of the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears this past weekend and flew to Toronto to be inducted Monday into the Hockey Hall of Fame. “Back Tuesday,” Oates said Saturday night, smiling. Until N.H.L. owners and players reach agreement on a new labor contract, Oates, a former center who was a master at winning face-offs and distributing the puck to his linemates, says he plans to continue coaching in Hershey. This is not exactly why George McPhee hired Oates, 50, in June. McPhee is the general manager of the Washington Capitals , the Bears’ parent team, and his intention was to bring on Oates to be the Capitals’ coach. The lockout changed those plans, and McPhee said he thought that Oates, who was an N.H.L. assistant for three years (two years with the Devils and one year with the Tampa Bay Lightning), would benefit by sharing a job with Mark French, the Bears’ coach. “There’s stuff that seeps into your knowledge, and it’s being involved in hockey,” Oates said. “You’re making decisions you didn’t make last year. You’re growing.” Later, he said: “There have been some frustrations, mostly because I don’t know the personnel of this league. But that’s coming fast, and really, that’s not the goal. So it’s been a good situation.” French, who led the Bears to the Calder Cup in his first season as the coach in 2010, does not seem to have problems with the arrangement, and, to Oates’s knowledge, neither do the Bears, a few of whom would be playing in Washington had there been no lockout. The Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin is in Russia, but Braden Holtby, the 23-year-old goaltender who started 14 playoff games for the Capitals last year, is in Hershey. Holtby had a .945 save percentage in his first five games with Hershey. “It’s not like our performances are going unnoticed,” Holtby said. “Everyone’s still trying to prove himself, and it helps having him here every day. You can’t take a day off because he’ll notice and is making the big decisions. It will keep us all sharp.” Hershey is hardly a backwater team. The Bears lead the A.H.L. in home attendance, with 8,726 coming to Giant Center — next to Hershey Park — on Saturday to watch the Bears’ lackluster 2-1 loss to the St. John’s IceCaps. Oates stood with French behind the Bears’ bench, making line-change calls and giving pointers to his players. Calle Johansson, who was hired to be Oates’s assistant in Washington, has also joined French and his assistant Troy Mann. French said the different personalities made it work. “There’s not a specific area anyone really worries about,” he said. “It’s a collaborative effort. As a group of four, we all learn from each other. I think our players have benefited from the situation, not only having Adam here, but Calle here as well.” Most N.H.L. coaches have dropped in to watch their minor league teams during the lockout. Oates has not played for the Capitals since 2002, and he faced a learning curve: becoming familiar with his new players as he became a coach. It made sense for Oates to come to Hershey. He is staying in a hotel here. His family is in Washington, 130 miles south, and Oates says he has been “bouncing back and forth” to see his family and check in with the main office. French handled the postgame news conference Saturday night, grumbling about the team’s less-than-robust energy and poor execution. Those issues would be addressed, but later. The players dressed and went home. Of Oates, Hershey forward Jon DiSalvatore said: “He’s not going to scream and jump down your throat. He’s going to talk to you, especially during the week. He takes a lot of time with the guys.” DiSalvatore added: “He explains himself very clearly, and that’s to the benefit of the guys who are trying to learn the game. He doesn’t just give you one point and leave it there. He’s going to sit down and work on it with you and give you time to develop.” The Capitals playing in Hershey will benefit from Oates’s being around, Holtby said, because they will be familiar with his system when, and if, the N.H.L. season begins. Oates will know the players in Hershey who can help out if needed in Washington. DiSalvatore, 31, has spent all but six games of his professional career in the minors. He is in his first year with the Bears after spending three years with the Houston Aeros. Maybe Oates will remember him when he coaches the Capitals. “Every day is an audition day, and every day is an opportunity to learn from one of the best players to play the game,” DiSalvatore said. “There’s a lot of learning that’s going on right now. It’s quite an experience to be able to learn from him.” Asked if he was trying to make the best of a glum lockout situation, Oates said: “I think we all are. I’m sure if George thought something was being majorly sacrificed, he’d stop it, but I don’t think Mark feels that way.” Oates laughed as he said, “Hopefully, the players don’t.”

American Hockey League
Hershey Bears
Hockey Hall of Fame
Washington Capitals
Lockouts
Hockey Ice
Oates Adam
Coaches and Managers


Effort to Fight Suicide Focuses on ‘the Help and the Hope’

Abstract: There has been quite a vogue in recent years for what are called random acts of kindness. A new campaign is adding some planning to the mix. The campaign, now under way, supports Samaritans, a nonprofit organization in metropolitan Boston that works to prevent suicides through initiatives that include telephone help lines. The campaign, being created on a pro bono basis by Hill Holliday , carries the theme “Happier Boston” — quite a departure from the typical efforts for an organization like Samaritans. The campaign is meant to generate support from Samaritans in several ways, among them recruiting volunteers, raising funds and increasing corporate sponsorships. The campaign seems to take a page from anti-littering ads decades ago that declared, “A cleaner New York is up to you” by suggesting, in effect, that “A happier Boston is up to you.” The goal of the campaign is taking action before someone becomes depressed, encouraging people to make each other feel better — and more connected to one another — through public gestures of support. That is underlined by the cheerful tone and look of the campaign, as well as its sub-theme, “Your smile shared,” which resonates with additional meaning in an era of social sharing in media like Twitter. For instance, Samaritans, which has a presence on Twitter, has created the hashtag “#HappierBoston” to help promote the campaign. Unlike many pro bono campaigns, which are concentrated in traditional media like television commercials and print advertisements, the “Happier Boston” campaign is primarily experiential — that is, focused on events and other tangible ways to bring the message to life. Many events, which are termed “social experiments,” are reminiscent of the zany antics of flash mobs. Some test runs took place in recent months, to gauge what the responses might be for the events once the campaign started. The activities include mock welcoming committees at train stations, where commuters are greeted as they arrive at their destinations; pun-centric “Orange You Happy” giveaways, where volunteers distribute oranges bearing stickers with humorous phrases like “Peel away stress”; and groups of a cappella singers performing for passengers in elevators in office buildings. The intent of the campaign is explained on the home page of a special Web site, happierboston.org , which is in addition to the regular Samaritans Web site, samaritanshope.org . “Our hypothesis is if you make your voice heard, Boston will be a happier place,” the text on the home page begins. The Happier Boston Web site asks visitors to share photographs and video clips of their “happy spots” and “happy thoughts” and rev up a “Blues Engine,” creating a mock blues song and sharing it online with friends to make “your voice heard.” There are even celebrities getting into the act. Thomas M. Menino, the mayor of Boston, and David Ortiz, the designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox, have recorded their own blues tunes, which will be featured on the special Web site and in radio commercials. “Nothing gets me down except potholes,” Mr. Menino confides. “Can’t stop until I fill them all.” And Mr. Ortiz sings about how he misses “baseball in October,” a nod to the awful season the Red Sox had in 2012. The genesis of the campaign, says Roberta Hurtig, executive director at Samaritans in Boston, was remarks from Vin Capozzi, a Samaritans board member who is also a senior vice president at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Mr. Capozzi advised that “we need to build our capacity,” Ms. Hurtig says, and “double or triple our budget,” now at $1.5 million annually. Executives of Samaritans initially met with executives of Hill Holliday, including Mike Sheehan, the chief executive of the agency, in November 2011, Ms. Hurtig says, and met with the agency again, on Feb. 29, to see what Hill Holliday had in mind for a campaign. “We walked in and saw all these bright colors and smiley faces,” Ms. Hurtig recalls, adding: “We were nervous. You don’t think of suicide prevention and happiness in the same sentence. We were concerned this repositioning would unintentionally diminish the seriousness and importance of our work.” After the second meeting concluded, “we left, I’d have to say, a little unsure,” Ms. Hurtig says. But by the next day, she adds, she decided that an old saying on Madison Avenue may have some salience: “If advertising doesn’t make you a little uncomfortable, it’s not going to work.” “When I first joined Samaritans 10 and a half years ago, my family said, ‘That’s going to be so depressing,’” Ms. Hurtig says, but it turned out to be “the best job ever.” By the same token, the campaign will “change the conversation,” she adds. “Instead of focusing on the sad, it’s focusing on the help and the hope.” “I can’t tell you how happy I am we embraced this,” Ms. Hurtig says, describing the gist of a recent meeting with executives from a corporate sponsor of Samaritans: “They like it. Who doesn’t want to be part of something that creates happiness?” Among the events that preceded the formal kickoff of the campaign was one, High Five in the Fifth, that took place on Sept. 22 at Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox. (“The Red Sox need a lot to be happy about,” Ms. Hurtig says, laughing.) Fans at the game were asked by 50 volunteers wearing T-shirts bearing the happierboston.org Web address, along with the ballpark’s public address announcer, to share high-fives with the fans to their left and right. There was another dry run at a race on Sept. 29, when Mr. Menino helped hand out oranges bearing the Samaritans stickers. The official schedule of events began last week and is to continue with two this week, on Tuesday and Friday. “Starting in January, we want to do at least two to four social experiments a month throughout the year,” Ms. Hurtig says. “We want to surprise people, make them smile, create some buzz.” “We’re using this as a way to call attention to our message, that at times, anyone struggles,” she adds, “and we’re here at Samaritans to lend an ear, to make sure people are not alone.” The employees of Hill Holliday, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, are donating the time they spend working on the campaign, which includes creating the special Web site and the radio commercials. “The knee-jerk reaction would have been to do something that’s depressing, a billboard with someone about to jump off,” says Joe Berkeley , a group creative director at Hill Holliday who is working with Dave Gardiner, also a group creative director, on the campaign. “Suicide has a stigma to it, and we felt a traditional ad campaign wasn’t going to change that,” Mr. Berkeley says. “We wanted to do something powerful that people would notice.” An inspiration came from Andrew Butler, another executive working on the campaign. He is a vice president and planning director who had moved to Boston from Tampa, Fla., to join Hill Holliday. In “thinking about how we could approach this problem,” Mr. Butler writes in an e-mail, he would walk “through downtown, in particular Boston Commons and Beacon Hill” and “nod and/or say hello to people passing me by, something that is common in the South.” “But after about the umpteenth person looking at me like I had three eyes and was grunting, I realized that Bostonians don’t have that expressive happy gene (particularly in the winter),” Mr. Butler says. “From there, we thought it would be interesting to see if we could actually create opportunities that would inspire Bostonians to engage with each other, share their voice and make each other happier,” he adds. The intent, Mr. Berkeley says, is for the events to seem “big, bold, beautiful,” but also have “a grass-roots feel to them” and not be expensive. The Web site, events and radio commercials are all supposed to convey that suicidal thoughts “can happen to anybody,” he adds, “and to get over it you’ve got to talk to people, get out of your shell.” Mr. Berkeley acknowledges the offbeat nature of the campaign and agrees that the concept was not what Ms. Hurting “was expecting at all” from the agency. “I wanted to do something that makes a difference,” he says, adding, “It’s nice to have a white whale on your assignment list.” Ms. Hurtig also acknowledges the campaign’s unconventional aspects. “Don’t we wish it were as easy as a smile,” she says. “But a smile can start a connection. Possibilities and hope are created.” The intent is not to “diminish people’s problems,” Ms. Hurtig says, but rather to declare that “we all have problems, and the nice thing in Boston is we have Samaritans.” It was not intentional that the campaign begin before Christmas, Ms. Hurtig says, adding that there is not a higher suicide rate during the holidays. “But as someone who has staffed a crisis line, I’d say the calls are different” then, she says, in that “you can feel you’re more alone” when “everything is about family and you’re estranged from your family” or how “everything is about buying gifts, and you can’t.” “I answered the phone one New Year’s,” Ms. Hurtig says, “and an elderly woman apologized for calling a suicide hot line but not being suicidal.” The woman “said she was calling from a nursing home, was all alone and wanted to wish someone a happy new year,” she adds. “For those 15 minutes, she wasn’t alone, and that’s the gift Samaritans gives.” *** If you like In Advertising, be sure to read the Advertising column that runs Monday through Friday in the Business Day section of The New York Times print edition and on nytimes.com . And read coverage anytime of advertising, marketing, television, print, movies and new media on the Media Decoder blog at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com .

Advertising and Marketing
Suicides and Suicide Attempts
Volunteers and Community Service
Boston (Mass)


Brooklyn Botanic Garden Defends Decision to Suspend Science Program

Abstract: At Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Science Center, a short walk from the garden’s main campus, inch-wide cracks snake across concrete floors and up walls. Hallway floors rise and fall, in fun-house fashion, and doors no longer fit in doorjambs. “This is where you really get vertigo,” said Scot Medbury, the garden’s president, moving through the stacks in the science library, which is lined with books and journals like “Compendium of Grape Diseases,” “Desert Plants” and “Starter Vegetable Gardens.” The state of the one-story building was at the heart of the botanic garden’s decision last month to suspend its scientific research program and lay off three of the program’s employees, Mr. Medbury said. The move elicited swift and fierce reaction from some of the garden’s supporters, who said it was abandoning one of its key missions. In the first week, a petition calling for the science center’s restoration attracted more than 1,700 signatures. The garden’s leadership, which is usually engaged in the benign business of promoting blooms and seasonal programs, is now on the defensive. In recent days, it has taken pains to explain the circumstances that led to the layoffs and to pledge that the science program will eventually return. And highlighting the state of the science building, at 109 Montgomery Street — which houses the garden’s herbarium of 330,000 plant specimens, laboratories and the library — is Exhibit A in that effort. About eight years ago, the dozen staff members who worked in the 116,000-square-foot building started to notice cracks in the structure, which was renovated in the 1980s and is immediately adjacent to subway tracks that service the shuttle train. “It seems to have accelerated in the past two years,” said the garden’s facilities director, Rudy Rudloff. Engineers have advised the garden that the building should be vacated as soon as possible and demolished. At the same time, the garden faced a $750,000 budget gap for the 2014 fiscal year, a result of generally declining government support over the past decade and rising employee insurance and pension costs. Mr. Medbury said that his budget office exhausted revenue-generating options, and only then pursued layoffs. Given that the science program had to vacate its building anyway, the department was an obvious target. “It was the least damaging choice of no good choices,” he said. But critics have accused the garden of taking the “botanic” out of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, leaving behind a lovely park stripped of scientific depth and rigor. They also point to the $28 million visitor center that the garden opened with fanfare last year, as well as a newly expanded Native Flora Garden that opened this spring. In addition, the garden is in the midst of a successful capital campaign, raising $90 million toward its goal of $100 million. Image Scot Medbury, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Credit Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times “It’s hard to justify spending $28 million on a new visitors center when they say they can’t afford to keep the science staff because of a million-dollar shortfall,” said Chris Kreussling, who maintains a blog called Flatbush Gardener and has given generously to the garden in the past, earning him a spot in the President’s Circle. “This is a hole they have dug for themselves because they have not prioritized science. It’s nice to have those other things, but not at the expense of the actual botanists and field work.” The garden counters that the money raised for the visitor center was specifically for that purpose and could not be diverted to the science program. Likewise, the fund-raising campaign is already dedicated to specific capital improvements, program enhancements and the endowment. Further, garden officials say, plant science informs the extensive education program, which employs 30 and reaches more than 150,000 schoolchildren a year. Despite the skepticism voiced by critics, Mr. Medbury insists that the science program, which in recent years has cataloged much of the flora of the New York region, will return. The garden is now exploring the possibility of teaming up with a developer to use the site of the current building in a way that could subsidize a new science center. He said that a builder could put up a 13-story apartment building on the site without seeking a zoning variance, and that such a project could pay for space on the ground floor for the garden’s science department. “This suspension is a hiatus,” Mr. Medbury said. “We’re at least three years from a new facility on this property. If anything, this has catalyzed a greater commitment to making scientific research an enduring and fundamental part of our mission.” It is not the first time the science program has been interrupted. In the 1950s, the garden built a major scientific research center in Westchester County, but that closed in the 1980s and the program was then moved to its current location. “At several key junctures in our 100-year history, we hit the pause button and rethought what the program was,” Mr. Medbury said, adding that the science program will have a greater focus on plant conservation when it returns. In the meantime, the garden’s immediate concern is moving the hundreds of thousands of dried plant specimens and its library collection into an appropriate storage space, with the proper temperature, humidity and pest-control measures. The New York Botanical Garden has offered assistance with maintaining the herbarium. “We are looking for a low-cost or no-cost option,” Mr. Medbury said. “Fortunately, we have a lot of friends.”

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn
Layoffs
Flowers and Plants
Gardens and Gardening


Export-Import Bank Divides Once-Supportive Republicans

Abstract: GREENVILLE, S.C. — South Carolinians know something about civil wars, but the latest one within the Republican Party over the federal Export-Import Bank has a couple of the state’s Republican brothers in Congress battling each other, reflecting the national party’s deepening divide over the role of government in the economy. Senator Lindsey Graham , a recent entrant into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has taken a lead in Congress to reauthorize the 81-year-old bank, created during the Depression as a lender of last resort for American exporters and their foreign customers, and now copied in most nations competing with the United States. The biggest beneficiaries are two of his state’s biggest employers, Boeing and General Electric. So with the bank’s charter expiring on June 30, absent congressional action, the issue came up quickly when Mr. Graham spoke last week to a friendly coalition of 13 local chambers of commerce. Just as quickly, he identified their enemy. “Conservatives have declared war on the Ex-Im Bank: It’s been ideologically ‘unpure,’ ” said Mr. Graham, himself a conservative by any measure other than the Tea Party ’s. “But until you get the Chinese, the Germans and the French out of the ex-im business, I’m not going to unilaterally disarm,” he added. “It is a bank that makes money,” he said, “and allows us to sell products made in South Carolina to the developing world in a competitive fashion.” After the moderator noted that Mr. Graham was at odds with “people in your own party,” Mr. Graham shot back, to loud applause, “And I’m going to win!” Among those Republicans standing against him, and for free-market principles, is Mr. Graham’s South Carolina colleague Representative Mick Mulvaney. Mr. Mulvaney, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for the bank, recently drew notice for piquantly dismissing the idea that House Republicans would be pressured into following suit if the Senate approved a bill reauthorizing the bank. “Just because the Senate votes” for an unsavory piece of legislation, Mr. Mulvaney told reporters, “doesn’t mean we have to vote for it.” Never has the Ex-Im Bank, as it is commonly known, seen such opposition, certainly not from the party of business — further evidence of Republicans’ populist shift to the right. For decades until this one, Congress’s numerous votes to reauthorize the bank were unanimous or lopsidedly bipartisan. Image Sage Automotive Interiors in Marietta, S.C., a company with 900 employees that exports auto fabric, is one of many smaller businesses that benefits from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Credit Megan Gielow for The New York Times On Friday, House Democrats prevented passage of a free-trade bill backed strongly by President Obama that they said would destroy American jobs. But most Democrats still back the Ex-Im Bank as an institution that supports jobs, while Republicans have splintered with the influx of antigovernment conservatives like Mr. Mulvaney, elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010 and since. This summer’s showdown follows skirmishes within the party in 2012 and 2014, and Tea Party lawmakers and conservative groups backed by the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch have stepped up their campaign against the bank as the epitome of big-government “corporate welfare” and “crony capitalism.” People on both sides of the issue say Congress eventually will reauthorize the bank — a test vote in the Senate last week showed wide support — but not before June 30. After that date, the bank would be unable to provide new loans, insurance or guarantees. Supporters warn that even a temporary interruption would cost sales, prompt foreign rivals to raise doubts about the bank’s future and, at home, promote the sort of economic uncertainty caused in recent years by Congress’s brinkmanship over budgetary issues. Last week, Standard & Poor’s Rating Service cited the standoff as a worrisome development in its otherwise upbeat analysis of fiscal policy. The legislative muddle is extraordinary, especially given the bipartisan support that the bank still enjoys. Confronted by conservatives’ organized opposition, nearly all Republican leaders of Congress and its relevant committees are opposed to reauthorizing the bank, including former supporters like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, and Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, chairman of the Senate banking committee, who faces re-election next year and does not want to provoke Tea Party hostility. The House’s banking committee chairman, Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, is defying Speaker John A. Boehner’s demand to produce a bill to either reform the bank or wind it down, knowing that Congress’s simple inaction would shutter the bank, as he wants. He recently called the debate a defining one for Republicans: “Do we stand for free enterprise interests and its hope, its fairness and its opportunity? Or do we stand for business interests? Because those two are not identical.” Mr. Boehner, in response, has said the House will take up whatever the Senate might pass. Senate approval of a pro-bank measure was all but clinched in late May, when Mr. McConnell promised Mr. Graham and other bank supporters that if they voted that day for a free-trade bill — a McConnell priority and similar to the one later derailed by the House — they could offer a pro-bank amendment to other legislation certain to reach Mr. Obama. A highway finance measure next month is their most likely vehicle. Opponents are faring better with the many Republican presidential contenders coveting conservatives’ votes and the Kochs’ money. Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas recently withdrew his support, leaving Mr. Graham and former Senator Rick Santorum as the bank’s only backers in the 2016 field. The Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, on the other hand, said in 2010, “I’d like to put the Ex-Im Bank on steroids.” Mr. Graham, in remarks here, suggested that his rivals’ opposition could hurt them in South Carolina, which holds an early presidential contest following Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s. “Boeing and G.E. and all their suppliers have changed the economy of South Carolina,” Mr. Graham said. While state leaders for years fought policies promoting trade, led by a protectionist textile industry, now most embrace globalization — and the Ex-Im Bank — including the technologically transformed, export-dependent textile industry. Image Dana Gilbert, a threading trainer at Sage Automotive Interiors, prepares a threading machine. The company has used its line of credit to invest in new machinery and technology to be competitive in the international marketplace. Credit Megan Gielow for The New York Times Greenville is home to a G.E. facility that uses Ex-Im Bank financing to export gas turbines made by several thousand workers. Boeing, in North Charleston, employs about 8,000 people to build its 787 plane; seven out of 10 airplanes are sold with bank help, Mr. Graham said. Local suppliers to Boeing and G.E. also support the bank, along with other small businesses that benefit from the bank’s programs. Jay White is president of Morrison Textile Machinery Company in Fort Lawn, which employs 90 people and, with Ex-Im assistance, exports 90 percent of its products to places including Turkey, Bangladesh, India and Ethiopia. A lifelong Republican, he called opposition to the bank “mind-bending.” “The Tea Party has made Ex-Im sort of a poster child for excessive government. It’s not true,” Mr. White said. Private banks “do not want to take this foreign risk on. They really can’t. Governments all over the world do a certain amount of country risk coverage, and make money at it.” The American bank has returned $6.9 billion to taxpayers over the last 20 years from fees, premiums and interest. Mr. White visited his congressman, Mr. Mulvaney, in March. According to both, Mr. Mulvaney said opponents of the bank would like to help small businesses, which are 90 percent of the bank’s clients, but not giants like Boeing that should be able to get private financing. Mr. White called Mr. Mulvaney’s views unrealistic. “I didn’t get into the broader discussion of what a federal government ought to be doing,” Mr. White said. “That’s what this thing always gets down to is a couple of sound bites instead of the reality of what has to be done in the business world day after day.” But Mr. Mulvaney, in an interview at his Capitol office, said his position was “not a knee-jerk, Tea Party, right-wing, reactionary vote. I’m coming at this as somebody who has studied the issue very, very closely for two and a half years.” His biggest concern, he said, was for taxpayers’ liability, and avoiding bailouts like those after the 2008 financial collapse. He and two other South Carolina conservatives, Representatives Trey Gowdy and Jeff Duncan, also met recently with Dirk R. Pieper, president of Greenville-based Sage Automotive Interiors, which exports fabric for auto seats made by 900 employees at four plants in South Carolina. Mr. Pieper, who is also vice chairman of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, extolled the bank’s help for small exporters. But Mr. Mulvaney said he had countered that such federal aid was unfair to a rival American business that makes the same products but sells only in the United States. Mr. Pieper, a Republican, said the meeting was cordial. But, he added, “From our perspective as businesspeople, it’s a shame when politics gets in the way of business.”

Republicans
Lindsey Graham
Small business
Export-Import Bank of US
US Politics
International trade
Tea Party movement


From Detroit to Jerusalem

Abstract: As a sitting president and a president-elect maneuver over how to bail out Detroit  and ultimately how to convince the Big Three to radically change their ways -- there may be some instructive lessons in the Middle East peace process. The Middle East? At first blush it may seem a bit farfetched. But all complex, intractable negotiations  especially those involving ancient, entrenched interests in which sheer survival is at stake  share something in common. In Jerusalem , as in Detroit, all the parties in their hearts know roughly what the final economic settlement will look like  they just can’t figure out how to get there. In the case of the Israelis and the Palestinians , a political map of a proposed boundaries between Israel and a Palestinian state has been kicking around for nearly a decade; while there are countless arguments about how to divide specific neighborhoods the broad outlines of a deal are well understood. It’s the trust that’s absent. In the case of the Big Three, the map shows of which plants stay open and which close, how many jobs must be eliminated, and what kind of cars need to be produced before Americans will buy them instead of foreign models that are, increasingly, made-in-America. There’s even a widely-discussed two-state solution: GM and Ford , with Chrysler , now privately owned, merging into the surviving parts of GM. The arguments are mostly over how fast it happens  and whether there is still enough time left to strike a deal. Again, there is no trust: the unions believe the companies are trying to break them, the retired think their pensions are under assault, the company executives don’t want lectures about prudence and planning for the future from a Congress that has run up trillions in deficits. The analogy, granted, is imperfect. Already, I hear some skepticism: In the Mideast, the negotiations are all about survival  which is why no one is willing to give ground. But in the Midwest, isn’t there broad agreement about what where the industry needs to head? Maybe so, but that broad agreement has existed for 30 years  and we’re still talking about the same goals. Now we’re running out of time, fast. So I called Dennis Ross , who negotiated arms-control agreements before he tried to negotiate Mideast peace accords, to see if he could diagnose what was going wrong in dealing with the Big Three. “One of the things I find in most negotiations is that even if you can figure out what the ultimate outcome is, the mystery is in how you create conditions to get to that outcome,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s always about convincing people it’s time to move, that there won’t be a better time, and the longer you wait the worse it gets.” In this case, it’s clear that American automakers need to be producing more fuel efficient cars, spewing less carbon into the atmosphere, at costs competitive with Japanese, German and South Korean manufacturers who are operating in the U.S. without the legacy costs of big pensions and health-care benefits. But no one wants to be the first to take the hit. That was clear last week, when the United Auto Workers refused to agree to a plan that would cut their total compensation to the level of workers in the Japanese and German plants in the U.S.  at least until they knew whether the manufacturers, their creditors and their suppliers would also suffer. Isn’t that the negotiation the car czar is supposed conduct, once we get one? Maybe. But imagine what happens when the car czar finally gets the automakers, the unions, the creditors and the suppliers into one room. What happens when he tells the unions how much their compensation will be cut, when he tells the creditors they can expect to 30 cents on the dollar, and when he tells the car companies that they have exactly five years to get their fuel efficiency to 40 miles per gallon and to drastically cut emissions? “As the czar makes each pronouncement,” predicts David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official, “every one of those guys is going to stand up, one by one, and say ‘Excuse me, I have to make a phone call.’ They’ll be dialing back to members of Congress, looking to neutralize everything the czar is doing.” O.K., so how does the czar’s plan turn into law? It’s not easy. If it had become law, the legislation that passed the House but died in the Senate would have allowed the czar to force the companies into bankruptcy court  meaning a judge would be in charge. (It’s harder to make a phone call to turn around a judge  but it’s not unheard of in some jurisdictions.) Of course, everyone hates the idea of bankruptcy  would you buy an SUV from a company in Chapter 11? An alternative would be to give the czar the powers of the military’s base closing commission. The idea of the commission was to take the politics out of the decision over what bases would be abandoned. Congress got the commission’s list and could vote to approve it or disapprove it, but not mess with it. Imagine the same for a plan to bail out the companies in return for specific factory closings, new product standards, energy efficiency and environmental targets. Any other bright ideas out there? There’s one with a lot of appeal: Cash for clunkers. As Alan Blinder, the professor of economics at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve wrote earlier this year, the overall economy, the environment and the carmakers all stand to profit from these programs, which pay drivers ofr truly aging cars  say, more than 15 years old  to get them off the road. One study in California has estimated that cars built before 1995 contribute 75 percent of all the pollution spewed out of America’s tailpipes. The exact number is hard to confirm, other experts say, but the notion is right: If the government could get 5 million old cars off the road, by offering up $5,000 each for cars that may be worth only a few hundred dollars to a wholesaler or junk dealer, it would clean up the air and create some demand for Detroit’s newest offerings. Mr. Blinder estimated that program would cost less than $20 billion, which seemed like an impossibly large number when he proposed it in July, but sounds like the cost of an oil change today. It’s nothing new: Several cities and states have tried versions of the program over the years, meaning there is a lot of experience out there for the Federal government to tap. But there’s no guarantee people will turn in the clunkers, especially if they cannot get financing for the purchase of a new car. And some people are as attached to their cars as they are to their homes  and they won’t bite. I tool around Washington in a 1996 mid-life crisis classic with six figures on the odometer, a dead radio and a Blue Book value that hovers below what the government would probably pay me to crush the thing into a small cube. It’s expensive to run, and more expensive to fix. But I love my clunker, and you can tell the czar I’m not giving it up.


Obama Reassures F.B.I. at Ceremony for New Director

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday assured employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he would fight to keep politics from interfering with their mission as the agency struggles to contend with budget shortfalls. Speaking at the agency’s headquarters at a ceremony recognizing James B. Comey as the new director of the F.B.I., Mr. Obama said it was unfortunate that the broad spending cuts known as sequestration have affected the agency’s resources as it tries to adjust to constantly changing threats. Image Judge John Walker issued a ceremonial oath of office to F.B.I. Director James B. Comey at the bureau's headquarters in Washington on Monday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times “I’ll keep fighting for those resources because our country asks and expects a lot from you,” Mr. Obama said, “and we should make sure you’ve got the resources you need to do the job.” A current hiring freeze at the F.B.I. is projected to leave a few thousand positions vacant by late next year. The agency has also made significant cuts to training and other expenses, including deciding to shutter its offices for about 10 days in the coming year, in the face of shrinking resources. Mr. Obama praised Mr. Comey as a director with broad appeal and experience, having served as a former deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush. John Ashcroft and Michael B. Mukasey, former attorneys general in the Bush administration, attended the ceremony on Monday. “It’s just about impossible to find a matter of justice he has not tackled, and it’s hard to imagine somebody who is more uniquely qualified to lead a bureau that covers all of it — traditional threats like violent and organized crime to the constantly changing threats like terrorism and cybersecurity,” Mr. Obama said. Video The former Justice Department official, named by President Obama to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prosecuted Martha Stewart and stood up to President George W. Bush. Credit Credit Mark Wilson/Getty Images Mr. Comey said that as director he will instruct new agents to visit the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, in addition to continuing to visit the Holocaust Museum, as a way of keeping in mind their unique responsibility. “I think it will serve as a different kind of lesson, one more personal to the bureau, of the dangers in becoming untethered to oversight and accountability,” he said. Mr. Comey was sworn in during a private ceremony on Sept. 4., taking the reins from Robert S. Mueller III. During Mr. Mueller’s 12-year tenure, which began just before the 2001 terrorist attacks, he oversaw the F.B.I.'s shift to intelligence and counterterrorism, including a focus on cybersecurity. Under law, Mr. Comey will serve a 10-year term at the F.B.I. The Senate voted almost unanimously to approve the nomination of Mr. Comey, a Republican, in July. While serving as acting attorney general when his boss, Mr. Ashcroft, was ill in 2004, he notably refused to reauthorize a program of warrantless eavesdropping, an episode that made him a more appealing choice to Democrats.

James B Comey
FBI
US Politics
Federal Budget
Barack Obama


Businesses Report Solid Growth, Indicating Rise in Consumer Spending

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — American service companies grew in February at the fastest pace in a year, buoyed by higher sales, more new orders and solid job growth. The gain suggests higher taxes have yet to slow consumer spending on services. The Institute for Supply Management said on Tuesday that its index of nonmanufacturing activity rose to 56 in February from 55.2 in January. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion. The report measures growth in industries that cover 90 percent of the work force, including retail, construction, health care and financial services. A solid recovery in the housing market helped drive the index higher. Service companies also kept adding jobs last month. A measure of service sector hiring fell only slightly after reaching a nearly seven-year high in January. “This survey does bode well for both activity and employment in the second quarter,” Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients. In the I.S.M. survey, 13 of the 18 industries reported expansion, including construction, real estate, finance and insurance and utilities. The growth suggested that Americans were spending more despite an increase in Social Security taxes that took effect on Jan. 1. The higher payroll taxes cost a household earning $50,000 about $1,000 a year; a household with two highly paid workers will have up to $4,500 less. The companies surveyed by the I.S.M. cover many industries that are closely tied to consumer spending, like retail, hotels and restaurants, and arts and entertainment. And those companies expect consumers to keep spending. Order backlogs grew at the fastest pace in 20 months, a sign that many companies could not keep up with rising sales. Stockpiles also rose strongly. Anthony Nieves, the chairman of the I.S.M. survey committee, said the increases in both categories pointed to higher future sales. “Companies are gearing up for more volume, more activity,” Mr. Nieves said. The report also pointed to continued growth in hiring at service companies last month. Labor Department figures showed that service and construction companies added an average of 195,000 jobs from November through January. The I.S.M. includes construction hiring in its service index; the Labor Department measures those jobs separately from service hiring. The government will release the February employment report on Friday. Economists on average are expecting an increase of 160,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 7.9 percent, according to a survey by Bloomberg News.

Jobs
Institute for Supply Management
Service Industries
US Economy
Consumer behaviour


Dell Throws a Lifeline to EMC Investors

Abstract: Investors in EMC, the data-storage-based tech conglomerate, have received a $67 billion ticket out of trouble. Michael Dell, his company, the private equity firm Silver Lake and others are paying $33.15 a share, by their reckoning, for EMC. Most of the premium on the offer comes as a flaky tracking stock in an EMC subsidiary, VMware. But the deal beats the feasible alternatives. EMC’s businesses, which it calls a “federation,” are a mishmash. Its core enterprise storage unit’s revenue grew 19 percent in 2010. In the most recent quarter, though, the top-line growth was only 1 percent from a year earlier. VMware, the server virtualization company, is doing better, which is why EMC’s stake of roughly 80 percent accounts for almost half its market capitalization. Pivotal, a cloud-software unit, is promising, but young and tiny. Investors including the activist fund Elliott Management have expressed skepticism that EMC’s bosses can run all of these units well, and the company has been plagued by a conglomerate discount. The parts might be worth $35 to $38 a share separately, according to FBR & Company, against an average closing stock price last month of just over $24. That breakup tally is higher than the Dell offer, more so after discounting the headline value for the fall in VMware’s stock price since the headline price was calculated and because a tracking stock, which reflects an indirect interest and raises legal risks, is likely to trade at a discount. But even an offer worth, say, $30 a share would probably compare favorably, given the risks involved in splitting up EMC, which would take months — with success far from assured. It’s also hard to see other companies paying up for EMC. Some have already passed. Meanwhile, Dell’s target has also proved unable to engineer succession at the top, with EMC’s longtime boss, Joseph M. Tucci, still there after postponing his retirement several times. All this presumably explains why Elliott has gone public in support of the sale to Dell. Even if the ersatz VMware paper isn’t worth as much as Dell says, the cash component alone is about equal to EMC’s undisturbed stock price. Throw in the tracking stock, and much of EMC’s conglomerate discount goes away. In a business that’s on the verge of turning down, investors should take the money and run.

Dell
VMware
Mergers and Acquisitions
EMC Corporation
Michael S Dell
Joseph M Tucci


New Dispute in Wisconsin: Is Workers’ Law in Effect?

Abstract: CHICAGO — A law to limit collective bargaining rights for public workers in Wisconsin was unexpectedly published by a state agency on Friday despite a temporary restraining order barring publication, sparking confusion and more animosity among legislators who have fiercely debated the issue for weeks. State officials disagreed over whether publication of the law — a procedural requirement — would allow it to be in force on Saturday. The state’s Legislative Reference Bureau said it is required to publish all laws within 10 days after they are enacted. Gov. Scott Walker , a Republican, signed the bill on March 11, but a county judge issued an order last week blocking the secretary of state from publishing it. The order did not bar the legislative bureau from publishing the law. Democrats argued on Friday that the law would not go into effect on Saturday because it still required official publication by the secretary of state. “This bill has been under a cloud of suspicion since Day 1,” Peter Barca, a Democrat and minority leader of the General Assembly, said in a statement. “Today’s actions and statements are only perpetuating the problem.” But Republicans said they believed the law would take effect on Saturday. Senator Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican and the majority leader, said publishing the law was the right thing to do and the Legislature could now focus on the budget. “I believe, as of this afternoon, it’s published, it’s law, and we can move forward,” Mr. Fitzgerald said in an interview. Governor Walker’s administration said it had been notified that the agency published the bill as required by law. “The administration will carry out the law as required,” the administration said in a statement. The law limits bargaining to matters of wages and limits raises to changes in the Consumer Price Index . It ends the state’s collection of union dues from paychecks and requires most unions to hold annual votes to determine whether workers still wish to be members. Judge Maryann Sumi of Dane County Circuit Court in Madison had issued the temporary restraining order barring publication of the law last week after the county’s Democratic district attorney filed a lawsuit saying that Republican lawmakers violated open meeting requirements when they pushed the bill through the Legislature. Judge Sumi had planned to hold a full hearing this month. On Thursday, a state appeals court declined to weigh in on the issue and suggested the Supreme Court take up the case.

Wisconsin
Collective Bargaining
Law and Legislation
Organized Labor
Government Employees
Walker Scott K
Sumi Maryann


California: Judge Refuses Request for Recusal

Abstract: Opponents of same-sex marriage have dropped their attempts to have a federal appeals court judge recuse himself from considering the constitutionality of Proposition 8 , California’s same-sex marriage ban. Backers of Proposition 8 had asked Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to step down because he is married to Ramona Ripton, head of the Southern California office of the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes Proposition 8. On Thursday, the judge refused to recuse himself from the three-judge panel that will decide whether a lower court was right to strike down Proposition 8. A lawyer for ProtectMarriage.com , the group behind the appeal, says it accepts the judge’s decision that he can rule impartially.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships