The Vatican: Pope Denounces Legalization of Drugs

Abstract: Pope Francis on Friday condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a failed experiment. The pope, speaking to participants at a drug enforcement conference in Rome, said that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs “are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects.” But he said the problems underlying drug use must be addressed, including inequality and the lack of opportunities for young people.

Pope Francis
Rome
Catholic Church
Drug Abuse


Putin’s War of Words

Abstract: Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March, President Vladimir V. Putin has used strong language to inspire nationalist support at home and encourage pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. Here are 10 recent examples. ‘True Sovereignty for Russia Is Absolutely Necessary for Survival’ - Dec. 4, 2014 Video President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia vowed that the country would stay on course with its values, independent foreign policy and economic goals, even as it faced sanctions from the West. Credit Credit Alexander Astafyev/RIA Novosti, via Associated Press In his state of the nation speech, Mr. Putin used the same aggrieved, angry tone he has often adopted in his public pronouncements since the Ukrainian crisis erupted in March. The West reacted to the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine by imposing sanctions, but Mr. Putin said those events were just a pretext. “This is not just a nervous reaction of the United States and its allies to our position with regards to events and the coup in Ukraine,” he said in his 70-minute speech. “If all that had not happened, they would have come up with a different mode to restrain Russia,” Mr. Putin said , accusing the West of pursuing the same policy for “decades if not centuries.” ‘If Europe Does Not Want This to Be Realized, Then It Will Not Be Realized’ - Dec. 1 Image President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, left, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a news conference Monday in the new presidential palace in Ankara, Turkey. Credit Turkish Presidential Press Office, via European Pressphoto Agency Even in retreat, Mr. Putin tries to take the offensive. When a Russian project to build a major pipeline to southern Europe was blocked by Bulgaria, he redirected the project toward Turkey and chastised the Bulgarians . The initial deal was caught up in the political and diplomatic quarrel over Ukraine, as Western powers became determined to resist Mr. Putin’s aggressive policies at every turn. “If Europe does not want this to be realized, then it will not be realized,” he said, calling it “ridiculous” to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the pipeline through Bulgaria only to have to abandon it. “But such is the decision of our European friends,” he said, adding a jab that Bulgaria, by giving in to pressure, had been “deprived of the opportunity to act as a sovereign state.” ‘You Can Do a Lot More With Weapons and Politeness Than Just Politeness’ - Nov. 17 Image President Vladimir V. Putin, center right, welcomes John Tefft, left, the new American ambassador to Moscow, during a ceremony at the Grand Kremlin Palace. Credit Pool photo by Mikhail Klimentyev At an exhibition of armored personnel carriers in Moscow, Mr. Putin observed that “you can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness,” a reference to the “polite” Russian soldiers who appeared in Crimea in early March. When Mr. Putin welcomed the new American ambassador and 14 other diplomats to Moscow a few days later, he seemed to soften his tone, saying the two countries could find avenues of practical cooperation if the partnership were based on “mutual respect and pragmatism.” “We are ready for practical cooperation with our American partners in all different areas, based on the principles of respect for each other’s interests, equality and nonintervention in domestic affairs,” Mr. Putin said. “We take the view that Russia and the United States bear special responsibility for maintaining international security and stability and combating global threats and challenges.” U.S. Backs ‘Neo-Fascists’ and ‘Islamic Radicals’ - Oct. 24 Image Speaking in Sochi, Russia, to a panel of Russia experts, President Vladimir V. Putin, center, blamed the United States for prompting the recent crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. Credit Mikhail Klimentiev/Ria Novosti/Kremlin At an international meeting of Russia experts in the southern resort town of Sochi, Mr. Putin said that American meddling has sparked most of the world’s recent crises, including those in Ukraine and the Middle East. Instead of supporting democracy and sovereign states, Mr. Putin said the United States supports “dubious” groups ranging from “open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.” “Why do they support such people,” he asked at the annual gathering known as the Valdai Club . “They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals, but then burn their fingers and recoil.” ‘All I Have to Do Is Smile’ - Oct. 2 Video President Vladimir V. Putin said Russia remained committed to developing an open market economy despite sanctions. Credit Credit Maxim Shipenkov/European Pressphoto Agency “All I have to do is smile, and show the devil is not as frightening as he seems ,” Mr. Putin told reporters after a speech to Russian business leaders, explaining how he can attract investment to Russia. Appearing relaxed and joking with the financiers who gathered in Moscow for a banking conference, Mr. Putin tried to soothe worries that Russia was headed into a deep recession. I Could ‘Take Kiev in Two Weeks’ - Sept. 1 Image An aide to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not deny a report that Mr. Putin had told José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, “if I want, I will take Kiev in two weeks.” Credit Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti, via Reuters Mr. Putin told the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, that he could “take Kiev in two weeks” if he wanted to, adding a new dimension to the conflict in Ukraine as Russian forces became more involved in the fighting there. ‘The Statehood’ of Southeast Ukraine - Aug. 31 Image In St. Petersburg, Russia, cutting boards displayed likenesses of President Vladimir V. Putin. On Sunday, Mr. Putin veered between veiled threats and demands for negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Credit Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters As unrest continued, Mr. Putin issued a provocative call to begin discussion of “statehood” for Ukraine’s restive southeast. “We must immediately begin substantive, meaningful negotiations, not on technical questions, but about the political organization of society and the statehood of Ukraine’s southeast for the unconditional securing of the legal interests of the people who live there,” he said. In a television interview after his speech, Mr. Putin veered between veiled threats and demands for negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. ‘It Is Clear the Militia Has Achieved a Major Success’ - Aug. 29 In an otherwise mundane statement posted on the Kremlin website , Mr. Putin refers to the “Novorossiya” or New Russia, militia, a pointed reference to rebel fighters in Ukraine who represent the broader New Russia favored by Russian nationalists . “It is clear the militia has achieved a major success in intercepting Kiev’s military operation, which represents a grave danger to the population of Donbass and which has already led to the loss of many lives among peaceful residents,” he said. Behind the message, analysts saw several Kremlin goals: a political order that weakens Kiev’s control in Ukraine, easing of pressure on increasingly beleaguered rebel forces in Luhansk and Donetsk, and possibly a land route to Crimea. ‘We’ll Strangle All of Them Ourselves!’ - April 17 Video President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia addressed the escalating crisis in Ukraine during his annual televised question-and-answer session with the public in Moscow. Credit Credit Alexei Nikolsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “We’ll strangle all of them ourselves! Why are you so afraid?” Mr. Putin responded brazenly when asked in a television question-and-answer session in April how Russia might respond to NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. “We aren’t afraid — neither me nor anyone else. Nobody should be afraid, but we must proceed from reality.” He also reminded viewers that he would authorize the use of force to protect Russian-speaking residents in Ukraine. “We must do everything to help these people to protect their rights and independently determine their own destiny.” ‘Crimea Has Always Been an Inseparable Part of Russia’ - March 18 Video In his speech in Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin defended Russia’s actions in Crimea by pointing out past Western “interventions,” including Libya and Afghanistan, at length. Credit Credit Pool photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko Noting that the United States and its NATO allies “have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs,” Mr. Putin delivered an emotional speech in the Grand Kremlin Palace reclaiming Crimea as part of Russia and reversing what he described as a historic injustice. He cited the threat Russia faced by an expanding NATO presence in Eastern Europe, adding: “Let me note too that we have already heard declarations from Kiev about Ukraine soon joining NATO. What would this have meant for Crimea and Sevastopol in the future? It would have meant that NATO’s navy would be right there in this city of Russia’s military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia.”


Hong Kong Rents Push Out Mom and Pop Stores

Abstract: HONG KONG — Nam Kee Noodles is a typical Hong Kong restaurant: functional, popular and busy. A dozen plastic-topped tables offer room for about 40 patrons. Customers line up outside at lunchtime, waiting to consume spicy noodle soup, dumplings and iced soy milk amid the clatter of plastic bowls and chopsticks. In April, however, the little restaurant, in the heart of Causeway Bay, one of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping districts, nearly had to shut down after the landlord tripled the already-expensive rent. “We were paying around 200,000 dollars a month,” said Au Kei-hong, the shop’s manager, referring to an amount in Hong Kong dollars equivalent to about $25,800. “But the landlord then increased it to 600,000. It was too expensive. We cannot afford that.” After frantic negotiations, Mr. Au agreed to a smaller — though still steep — increase that has allowed him to stay put for an additional year. Image Nam Kee Noodles, center, was able to stay in business in Causeway Bay after negotiating a smaller increase in rent. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The International Herald Tribune Others have not been so lucky. Soaring rents have forced at least three small businesses on the same Causeway Bay street to move or close in the last few months, and similar tales of woe are common among small businesses in other prime areas in the bustling, crowded city. Rapid growth and sweeping economic changes have raised retail rents in many of Asia’s growing metropolises in recent years. But nowhere have they reached the heights of Hong Kong, a banking, logistics and trading hub that many companies see as a testing ground and launching pad for the vastly larger mainland Chinese market. Hong Kong’s residential property prices have fallen from their recent highs mainly because of government measures intended to cool demand — but those measures do not affect retail rents. “It’s a normal phenomenon for small retailers to be squeezed out by high rents. It happens everywhere,” said Joe Lin, executive director of retail services at the real estate services firm CBRE in Hong Kong. Image Au Kei-hong, the manager of Nam Kee Noodles, said his landlord had tried to raise the rent to more than $75,000 a month. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The International Herald Tribune “But in Hong Kong, the pressures have become very severe in the last two to three years — it’s very unhealthy. Luxury and jewelry now dominate 90 percent of the space in prime locations,” Mr. Lin said. “The whole trade mix in some of these areas has changed.” Causeway Bay, where Nam Kee Noodles is struggling to survive among high-end clothing and watch retailers, commands the most expensive retail rents in the world: an average of 1,950 Hong Kong dollars, or $251, per square foot per month, according to figures for the first quarter of 2013 from Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate consulting firm. Two other Hong Kong neighborhoods, Tsim Sha Tsui and Central, also rank among the five most expensive locations in the world — with Fifth Avenue and Times Square in New York — easily topping luxury shopping destinations like the Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Ginza in Tokyo. That has squeezed out many of the colorful mom and pop stores — hardware shops, fruit stalls, herbal medicine vendors, restaurants — that form a large part of Hong Kong’s business ecosystem, changing the face of many neighborhoods in the process. Image Rapidly rising rents have priced some small retailers out of Causeway Bay, one of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping districts. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The International Herald Tribune A few minutes’ walk from Central, which is home to Hong Kong’s financial district, Ngau Kee Food Cafe, which for many years sold traditional Cantonese dishes to diners perched on rickety stools, closed in April after the landlord raised the monthly rent to 120,000 dollars from 49,000. The restaurant’s owner, Mak Ping-kuen, says he hopes to reopen in another part of town but has struggled to find a site. “I hope we can reopen as soon as possible. My customers are getting impatient,” he said. Nearby, two popular bars in the SoHo district have closed in the last few months, again because the owners could not afford big rent increases. And Tsui Yuen Desserts, which sold delicacies like ginger-flavored milk custard and sweet black sesame soup for less than 20 dollars a bowl (about $2.50), had to relocate from Causeway Bay to Wan Chai, a neighborhood more geared to night life than to hungry tourists. Image Ngau Kee Food Cafe, right, in Central, closed after the rent rose to 120,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $15,475, from 49,000. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The International Herald Tribune “Sure, we have some old customers who still come for a bowl of dessert, but it’s a lot quieter now,” said the manager, Mr. Ho, who would give only his last name. “We want to go back to Causeway Bay, but we can’t. Even a small little shop would cost us 200,000 dollars a month. Going back would bankrupt us.” In the wake of the displaced businesses, luxury goods retailers and jewelry and cosmetics shops have flocked en masse to Hong Kong in recent years, seeking to cater to a flood of shoppers from neighboring mainland China. The British clothing retailer Topshop, for example, opened a large store in Central — its first in greater China — in early June, while Apple and the Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo opened huge outlets around the corner from Nam Kee Noodles in the last few months. Taxes on high-end goods are far lower in Hong Kong than in mainland China, so those goods in particular are popular with mainland shoppers. At the same time, the number of visitors from the mainland has soared since travel restrictions for them were loosened in 2003 to help Hong Kong weather the economic blow dealt by an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, that year. In 2002, 6.8 million mainlanders visited Hong Kong. Last year, the number was 35 million. Image Mak Ping-kuen, who owns Ngau Kee Food Cafe, said he hoped to reopen elsewhere in Hong Kong but had not found a site. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The International Herald Tribune The money they have spent has helped drive economic growth in Hong Kong and makes up a sizable part of the economy and the local job market. Chinese visitors spent the equivalent of almost $23 billion in Hong Kong in 2012 — equal to about 9 percent of gross domestic product — and that figure, said Donna Kwok, an economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, is likely to rise to about $60 billion by 2015. Hong Kong’s resulting attractiveness to companies that want to lure those visitors has helped drive up retail and office rents. Shop rents in Causeway Bay, for example, have risen about 80 percent since mid-2010 and have more than doubled since 2007, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Moreover, analysts say, no relief is in sight, although the mainland Chinese economy is cooling. “China’s economy may be slowing, but this does not mean that demand is going to evaporate,” Ms. Kwok said. “Chinese shoppers will keep coming to Hong Kong.” And as long as they do, Mr. Lin of CBRE said, retailers will want to increase their presence in the city, ensuring that shop rents will stay high. Mr. Ho of Tsui Yuen Desserts said: “Ten or 20 percent increases over the years were reasonable. But a 100 percent increase — we can’t pay that. How many bowls would we have to sell just to cover the rent?”

Off Broadway Boutique Manhattan NY Retail Store


Indonesia Plane Crash Witnesses Heard Rumbling, Then ‘Boom’

Abstract: MEDAN, Indonesia — For the past decade, Rudina Simbiring has run a small wooden vegetable stand in a working-class neighborhood in this sprawling metropolis, and she is used to seeing many other local shopkeepers and residents drop by each day to buy her lettuce and tomatoes. On Tuesday, however, Ms. Simbiring, a 60-year-old grandmother, witnessed something she had never seen before — and probably will never forget. As she was sitting on a stool behind the counter around 12:15 p.m., she heard a loud rumbling. Looking up, she saw a giant gray airplane descending toward the low-rise neighborhood in the south of the city, with at least two of its four propellers not turning and thick black smoke billowing from its wing area. Seconds later, she heard a giant crash about 300 feet to her right, and immediately went running for cover into a pharmacy behind her stand. When she and her neighbors had gathered enough courage to venture out a few minutes later, they looked down the street to see the flaming wreckage of an Indonesian military aircraft that had slammed into a row of shop houses inside a gated compound where many traditional Indonesian massage parlors operate. The crash killed all 122 people aboard and possibly dozens more on the ground, according to the Indonesian authorities. The passengers included the 12-member air force crew as well as military personnel and their civilian families on their way to new postings or back to their bases. The military’s chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, said on Wednesday that the aircraft, a Hercules C-130 transport plane purchased in 1964 from the United States, frequently ferried military personnel and their families around the country. He said it had begun its journey on Monday on Java Island and was scheduled to fly to military bases in the Riau Islands and Indonesian Borneo when it went down. At least 21 people on the ground were feared dead in the crash, which rattled the residents of the Djamin Ginting district of Medan, a city of two million on the island of Sumatra. “It was flying very low, and its wings kept tilting from the left to the right just before it crashed,” Ms. Simbiring said. “I was afraid and ran.” Across the street, Jon Pery, a local entrepreneur, was sitting on the porch of his small house when he felt a huge shudder reverberating all around him. “It sounded like the sound of a motorcycle starting — ‘dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum’ — and then ‘boom!’ ” he said. Mr. Pery grabbed his cellphone, ran into the street and took some of the first video footage of the burning wreckage. The aircraft also destroyed several shop houses in the compound, including some that were under construction. Voices on Mr. Pery’s 25-second video were heard screaming to onlookers: “Don’t go near it! Get back, it’s dangerous!” Image Indonesian soldiers on Wednesday near the wreckage of the military transport plane. The crash killed all 122 people aboard and possibly dozens more on the ground. Credit Antara Foto/Reuters On Wednesday, rescue teams continued to scour the rubble of the crash site looking for bodies, as well as body parts, as hundreds of curious local residents watched from behind police barricades or crime-scene tape. Crews using excavators hoisted one of the aircraft’s engines onto a flatbed truck and took it away for examination by military investigators. Sairi Saragih, a spokeswoman for Adam Malik General Hospital in Medan, where bodies were being brought for identification, said that 68 victims had been identified as of Wednesday afternoon. She said it was possible that the total number of victims on the ground could be lowered if forensic teams determined that some recovered body parts belonged to the same person. At a crisis center set up at the hospital, Roliana Hasugian was anxiously awaiting word of her missing 21-year-old nephew, Hary Tongam Padang, a university student and part-time masseur at one of the massage parlors in the compound. “It’s very sad — I’m afraid he’s already dead,” said Ms. Hasugian, who as her nephew’s only immediate family in Medan gave a hair sample to a medical forensics team. The Indonesian Air Force has had five other plane crashes over the past 10 years, with 155 people killed, according to the Aviation Safety Network website . The deadliest before Tuesday was the 2009 crash of a C-130 near the city of Madiun in East Java, which killed 97 passengers and crew members and two people on the ground. That plane hit several houses on its approach to the runway. In addition, there have been several military helicopter accidents, including a crash near the Malaysian border in November 2013 that killed 13 people. While crash investigators had not publicly drawn any conclusion by Wednesday, witness accounts suggested that the aircraft had suffered mechanical problems. After the crash, local news media quoted members of Parliament as saying that the accident showed that Indonesia’s military hardware was outdated and calling for new spending to upgrade and replace existing equipment. Despite having a population of 250 million and being a member of the Group of 20, Indonesia has a defense budget smaller than that of neighboring Singapore, which has five million people, even after Indonesia has more than quadrupled its annual military spending to more than $8 billion since 2004. Juwono Sudarsono, a former Indonesian defense minister, said he suspected that the C-130 might have been carrying too many passengers, in particular military dependents “wanting to hitch cheap rides on flights across four or five different stops over four different bases.” “The Hercules is one of the safest military aircraft,” he said. “My guess is it was very overloaded.” Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at the Indonesian Defense University, said it was too early to speculate that the cause of the crash was anything other than a mechanical problem. “Before we have all the evidence on the table, I think that’s the answer,” he said. At the crisis center, Ms. Hasugian declined to venture an opinion, saying she hoped only that the forensic teams would positively identify the remains of her missing nephew. “They said maybe today, maybe tomorrow. We just don’t know,” she said.

Indonesia
Plane Crash
Military aircraft
Fatalities,casualties


Tests, Near and Far, for Sebastian Coe, Track’s New Chief

Abstract: BEIJING — For a sport in crisis, the world track and field championships that ended in Beijing on Sunday provided some unexpected relief. That relief may prove as temporary as last week’s blue skies over Beijing — a result of restrictions on commuting and industry that were put in place by the Chinese authorities in advance of the coming major military parade. But track and field and its leadership will take fair weather wherever they can find it in these days of doping doom, and with the ever-longer shadow cast by soccer, the planet’s No. 1 sport. Over the past half-century, track and field has gone from mainstream to niche in countries like the United States and has lost momentum in strongholds like Europe. Reversing such trends is as tough a task as outkicking the distance runner Mo Farah on a bell lap, but the nine days in Beijing were a reminder of the entertainment value that track and field still can provide. There were great races galore, among them the men’s 100 meters, where Usain Bolt beat Justin Gatlin by just one-hundredth of a second, and both 4x400 relays, where the Jamaican women and American men prevailed after final-leg lead changes. There were overwhelming victories: Ashton Eaton’s latest world record in the decathlon. There were triumphs of the human spirit: Aries Merritt’s bronze medal in the men’s 110 hurdles just four days before he was to receive a kidney transplant. There was also some levity provided by the Chinese driver of the Segway who crashed Bolt’s victory celebration after the 200 meters, veering out of control and clipping the track star from behind. It could have been disastrous had Bolt come up lame. Instead, it was slapstick, not to mention irresistible content for the new media that the sport’s recently crowned leader, Sebastian Coe, is so eager to leverage. Image Coe, center, with the British runners David Heath and Sarah Louise Read Cayton, faces persistent questions on doping in the sport. Credit Damir Sagolj/Reuters But the cameraman’s gaffe was the exception to the rule for the organizers, who put on a smooth-running show in their underused showplace, the Bird’s Nest stadium, which will take its next star turn as the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The last two world championships, in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011 and in Moscow in 2013, suffered from mediocre attendance. Beijing had buzz and impressive crowds from the start: 34,000 on average in day sessions and 43,000 in the evening. Liu Xiang, the Olympic 110 hurdles champion in 2004 who is now retired, became a celebrity in China, in part because he succeeded in an event traditionally dominated by Western nations. There was similar frisson here when the Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian became the first Asian to qualify for the men’s 100 final; the excitement was reinforced when Su and his teammates ended up with a silver medal in the 4x100 relay. Several of the young Chinese athletes, including the silver medalist high jumper Zhang Guowei, have big personalities and no qualms about communicating their emotions to the crowd. For all of track and field’s obstacles in its traditional markets, generating greater interest in China, the world’s most populous nation, could make up for a lot of ills. Coe, a Briton who was once the world’s best middle-distance runner, took over as president of the International Association of Athletics Federations on Monday. Change at the top was overdue: Lamine Diack, the outgoing president, is 82. “It was getting stagnant,” said Christian Taylor, the American triple jumper who won gold in Beijing. Coe is 58, and as a former top athlete he has deep connections throughout the sport. A gifted speaker, Coe should also be able to communicate more widely and effectively than the French-speaking Diack, who struggled with English and, in his final news conference, with clarity, too, as he rambled on about the eternal elephant in track and field’s room: doping. Diack’s final point was essentially that track and field has been a pioneer in antidoping efforts, not a laggard. There is truth in this, but the scandals and suspicions keep coming. Coe, who once pushed for life bans for major doping violations, understands the landscape better than most. Even his own breakthrough performances in the 1970s forced him to answer some questions. “A kid comes out of a municipal environment in Sheffield and suddenly runs 1:42.4 and it’s the overnight wonder,” Coe said. “They tend to forget, of course, that the overnight wonder is the creation of thousands of miles on moorland and tons of steel in the gym.” Coe added: “What we need to get across is there has to be some proportionality in this. Our sport is not a monologue of blood and urine. It is Jesse Owens and Emil Zatopek and Fanny Blankers-Koen.” Coe has already talked about outsourcing some testing to an entity independent of the I.A.A.F. In an interview in Beijing, Coe said that he intended to start a new committee focused on values and on reaching athletes at an early stage in their careers to educate them about the sport’s history and better prepare them to combat ethical conflicts. “I would love to know what was going on in the lives and influences of some of our athletes from the age of 17 or 18 onwards,” Coe said. On the topic of his own potential ethical conflicts, Coe rejected the notion that he should be obliged to abandon his role as a paid consultant to Nike or his executive chairman’s role with the sport and entertainment marketing agency CSM. The I.A.A.F. presidency is an unpaid post. Coe thinks it should remain so, but said he wanted to maintain his outside income and above all was convinced that he could manage his multiple roles with great transparency and strict adherence to corporate governance rules. “I did not take this on to make money,” Coe said of the I.A.A.F. presidency. “Or to advance my outside interests. These will be ferociously policed. Believe me.” But even with effective policing, minding the gap between perception and reality could still prove a problem. “He is definitely the man for the job,” said Mary Wittenberg, the former chief of the New York City Marathon. “It’s really important that he seizes the moment to lead, to step above all potential conflict. Ditch the Nike and any other consulting arrangements.” At a moment of such clear importance for his sport, the last thing Coe and track and field need is for his own message to get clouded.

International Assn of Athletics Federations


A Craft Rejuvenated, With Added Emphasis on Art

Abstract: Unlike the bold, colorful hand-lettered signs he makes for restaurants, bars and other businesses, Damon Styer, the owner of New Bohemia Signs , is an understated guy. A 1993 graduate of San Francisco Art Institute who began sign painting “on a whim” after a failed marriage and a stint at the San Francisco stock exchange, Mr. Styer emphasizes old-school values — sure-handedness and practice — and plays down the business’s artistic side. But low key or not, Mr. Steyer’s creative cache is definitely on the rise. Five young painters, many of whom flash tattoos and share Mr. Styer’s art school training, churn out hand-painted signs and gold-leaf work for clients as diverse as North Beach’s Stinking Rose restaurant and Facebook. And last year, New Bohemia began participating in gallery exhibitions. “I think, nationally, there’s more of an interest in D.I.Y., maybe partly due to the economic situation,” Mr. Styer said. “People are coming to us saying, ‘We want something authentic.’ ” The company’s latest art show opened last week at Guerrero Gallery in the Mission district. Titled “Sign Your Life Away,” it was an opportunity for New Bohemia workers to apply their professional technique to pieces not done for clients. New Bohemia donated paint but does not profit from the work that is sold. Just like the studio itself, the crowded salon-style hanging at the gallery creates a visual cacophony. Shouting smart-alecky phrases like carnival barkers on a boardwalk (“What’s the sign you’ve been waiting for?” and “You’ve been warned”), the multitude of signs makes an overwhelming yet moving paean to the form. The show also features Jeff Canham, a Bay Area artist who used to work at New Bohemia, and Steven Powers, a high-profile graffiti artist whose colorful text-based work has been influenced from his time working with traditional sign painters. Like silk-screening and letterpress operations, sign painting is benefiting from a general resurgence of interest in hand-done crafts. A documentary about sign painters is to be released in early 2012, and new businesses, like Golden West Sign Arts in Berkeley and Best Dressed Signs in Boston, started by Josh Luke, a New Bohemia alumnus, are hanging up shingles. Mr. Styer said business at New Bohemia had been brisk. Earlier this year, the company moved into a space “at least” double the size of its former studio. Andres Guerrero, proprietor of Guerrero Gallery, used the word “authentic” in describing the exhibition’s appeal — noting as well that fans of sign painting run the gamut from graffiti enthusiasts to typography nerds. “We could all use Photoshop all day and make letters,” Mr. Guerrero said. “Yet there’s this element of hand — your style, how you control things.” Hand-painted signs will probably never go back to the glory days of the 20th century, when itinerant “wall dogs” would go on “sign snapping” trips across the country, drumming up business. But then, 30 years ago, the advent of vinyl sign-cutting technology turned the industry on its head. “Until the 1980s, all outdoor visual communication was done by a person who did it by hand,” said Sam Macon, who is co-directing the film “Sign Painters: Stories from an American Trade” with Faythe Levine. “Vinyl decimated the community.” Wade Swormstedt, editor of Signs of the Times magazine, agreed, saying that in 2010, sign companies that used paint comprised 43 percent of the non-electric sign industry, down from 59 percent in 2000. But Mr. Swormstedt also said he thinks that hand-painted signs “would never go away.” Outside of industry trends, New Bohemia has been cultivating a close-knit community of artist sign-painters, many of whom have garnered success in the fine-art world. When Mr. Styer took over the business in 1999 (it was founded in 1993), he was its sole employee. But through talented apprentices like Tauba Auerbach — a participant in the 2010 Whitney Biennial who worked with Mr. Styer for three years before moving to New York City in 2008 — and Mr. Canham, who is known for his graphic design as well as hand-painted artworks, a new generation was exposed to the craft. Plying the sign-painting trade at New Bohemia has affected their art, the artists said. “It totally changed,” Mr. Canham said, speaking of his mixed-media work. Whereas before he had improvised a technique for his letter-based art, the sign shop instilled a discipline and appreciation for new materials. Ms. Auerbach wrote in an e-mail, “I can’t imagine a more perfect job for me at the time.” She sought out New Bohemia in 2002 and she said the experience helped hone her pursuit of “that illusive sweet spot” between precision and speed. New Bohemia is not currently planning any more gallery shows, but with so much interest in the shop, the staff will begin offering classes this summer. And every month, Mr. Styer said, a steady stream of young people knock on the door, many with artistic aspirations. He counsels patience, saying, “You have to master the craft before you start bending it.”

Art
Sidewalk Cafes
San Francisco (Calif)


Price of Oil Rises Again, Rattling the Markets

Abstract: HOUSTON — A sharp increase in oil prices on Wednesday sent shudders through anxious financial markets already worried about the prospect of a global economic slowdown. Crude oil climbed above $144 a barrel before settling at $143.57, up $2.60 for the day. The Energy Department reported an unexpected decline in inventories, sending oil prices to a record. And now oil slowly is closing in on $150 a barrel, the next psychological milestone to be crossed. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 1.8 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average fell 166.75 points, or 1.5 percent, and is now down nearly 21 percent from its peak in October. A 20 percent drop in major stock indexes is considered the start of a bear market. Shares in energy, materials and industrial companies led the market down. Analysts said the rapid rise in commodity prices had become a problem for both users and producers of raw materials and energy. Since reaching a new high on May 20, energy stocks in the S.& P. 500 have fallen 5 percent as crude oil futures have shot up 11 percent. Recent data on industrial activity and driving habits suggest that higher prices are damping demand for commodities, especially energy, and slowing down the global economy. Shares of General Motors fell 15 percent, to their lowest level since 1954, after an analyst at Merrill Lynch said a bankruptcy filing by the automaker was “not impossible.” Shares of Nucor, a steel maker, fell more than 14 percent as investors worried about weakening demand. “As the energy price spikes higher, it’s crimping global growth further,” said Tobias Levkovich, chief equity strategist at Citigroup. “It’s starting to be a real challenge for global economies.” The automotive group AAA reported that the average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline on Wednesday rose to $4.09, a half-cent higher than the day before, almost 12 cents higher than a month ago, and $1.14 above the price of a year ago. The single largest component in the price of a gallon of gasoline is the price of crude oil. It almost seems like ancient history since a single trader, apparently looking for bragging rights, bid up the price of crude over $100 by buying a small lot on Jan. 2 and then immediately selling it at a small loss. Political unrest, a cold winter and declining oil inventories were singled out as culprits for the jump past $100. Since then, the prices of oil and gasoline have just kept rising. Over the last three months, the average retail price of unleaded regular gasoline was $3.75 a gallon, nearly 65 cents higher than the average price in the first quarter of the year, according to the Oil Price Information Service. The research group has estimated that Americans are now spending $1.6 billion a day on gasoline, which would make July the first month ever when the American gasoline bill would top $50 billion. Tom Kloza, the group’s chief oil analyst, predicted that a barrel of oil would reach $155 by August and that retail prices for gasoline would rise to $4.25 to $4.50 a gallon for unleaded regular. “The firecrackers are going off in the oil market and it will burn the U.S. consumers this holiday weekend,” Mr. Kloza said. He added that truckers stood to suffer most, noting that diesel prices rose 13 cents a gallon Wednesday afternoon in response to the Energy Department report. “Diesel is the bullet with the most acceleration at the moment,” he said. “ You are going to see a lot of bankruptcies in the trucking business.” Pushing up the price of crude are any number of factors, including continued instability in Nigeria, a partial strike at Venezuela’s state oil company and reports that Israel is considering an attack on Iran. Yet another reason for oil’s price climb came with the Energy Department’s weekly statistical bulletin, which showed that crude oil stocks had slipped by nearly 2 million barrels to below 300 million barrels. Analysts say that level is psychologically important because crude oil stocks as recently as last year were above 350 million barrels. The inventory level was the lowest since January, and below what most analysts had expected. The crude oil inventory figure was 54 million barrels below a year ago, and nearly 22 million barrels below the five-year average, according to tabulations by Barclays Capital. There was also some modestly good news in the report. Gasoline inventories rose 2.1 million barrels to 210.9 million barrels, an indication that gasoline demand is slackening a bit as drivers car-pool, buy more efficient cars, and use more mass transit when it is available. But while the Energy Department report showed refineries increasing operations a bit, several experts cautioned that gasoline inventories traditionally come down in July and August. This year should be no different, they said, since refineries are having trouble making a profit on gasoline because gasoline prices have not kept pace with oil prices. Weak profits in the refining business is one reason that energy stocks have been taking a beating, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for Standard & Poor’s Equity Research. Shares in oil refining and marketing companies in the S.& P. 500-stock index are down more than 47 percent for the year. In response to the rising cost of oil and gradually falling gasoline demand, refiners have been cutting their production rates for months. “With the weakness in refinery margins, refiners have had no incentive to build crude oil inventories,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, an energy analyst at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a group backed by the oil industry. “In fact, they have been liquidating crude oil inventories. It means that the system is running on a tight basis.” That tightness means higher gasoline prices even as the national demand for oil is easing for the first time in nearly two decades. The Department of Energy reports that gasoline demand for the week that ended June 27 was down 2.1 percent from the same week a year ago. In comparison, demand for distillate fuels, which include heating oil and diesel, was up nearly 7 percent. “Supply is struggling to grow worldwide and the feeling is prices have to rise to choke off demand growth,” said Aaron F. Brady, an analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm affiliated with IHS Inc. “I don’t see any barriers,” he added, to further price rises. The sentiment for ever higher oil prices was summed up in a headline on a daily energy note written on Wednesday by Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst with Execution, an institutional brokerage firm: “Oil: $300 on the Radar Screen.” Mr. Ruppel says he thinks the $300 price — what he calls “Iran war insurance” — is unlikely. But he said that investors bought nearly 2,000 call option contracts on June 27, permitting them to buy Nymex crude at $300 a barrel for December delivery. “Those buying these options may want to trust Iranian assurances, but without verification they need the insurance,” Mr. Ruppel wrote.

Energy Department
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


Rangers’ Derek Stepan Out 4 to 6 Weeks

Abstract: The Rangers’ top-line center, Derek Stepan, broke his left fibula during conditioning drills Wednesday and will be sidelined four to six weeks, leaving a huge void for the team heading into the season, which begins Oct. 9 in St. Louis. “From my understanding, he took a couple of strides, started to turn and pick it up, and fell down,” Coach Alain Vigneault said. “Now we have to see what some of these young guys can do.” Stepan, 24, had returned to the ice for the first time since Saturday after dealing with a bruised foot he apparently sustained before training camp began last week. He was expected to anchor the top unit, with Rick Nash and Chris Kreider on the wings. The Rangers’ other centers are Derick Brassard, Dominic Moore and 21-year-old J. T. Miller. The newcomers Chris Mueller and Matthew Lombardi are also at training camp, along with the unproven youngsters Oscar Lindberg and Kevin Hayes. “Certain guys are going to get a longer look,” Vigneault said. “Depending on how these guys play, we’ll sort it out.” Moore, 34, returned to the N.H.L. last season, having taken an 18-month sabbatical after the death of his wife, Katie, from cancer. Moore was a key contributor during last season’s run to the Stanley Cup finals when Brassard was injured and Stepan missed a game with a fractured jaw. “Dom was the guy who stepped up,” Vigneault said. “When we did need him last year to pick up some ice time and important minutes, he did that for us. It might be there again this year.” During the summer, the veteran centers Brad Richards and Brian Boyle left the team. Richards’s salary-cap-heavy contract was bought out, and he signed a one-year deal with the Chicago Blackhawks. Boyle, a free agent, signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Stepan was a second-round pick by the Rangers in 2008. He has been durable, missing no regular-season games in his four-season career. He has 73 goals and 124 assists in 294 games, along with 10 goals and 19 assists in 61 playoff games. He missed Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Canadiens after taking a hard hit by his former teammate Brandon Prust that broke his jaw. Stepan returned to the lineup five days later. Stepan, who will be a restricted free agent after the season, had 17 goals and a career-high 40 assists last season. He also had five goals and 10 assists in the playoffs.


Rockets Break Gaza Cease-Fire

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Hours before a 72-hour cease-fire was to expire on Friday, two rockets from Gaza hit southern Israel, the Israeli military said. Shortly afterward, The Associated Press reported that Hamas would not extend the cease-fire after Israel rejected the group’s demands in negotiations in Cairo. During the talks for a more durable truce, the armed wing of Hamas had threatened renewed fighting “until our demands are met.” Israel has promised to respond to any fire with fire, but there was no immediate reaction to the rockets, which Israel said caused no casualties. Diplomats had been trying to extend the pause, due to expire at 8 a.m. Friday, to give the talks more time. But it is unclear whether the Palestinian negotiations team, which includes Hamas representatives, is in line with the armed wing, known as Qassam Brigades, on the ground in Gaza. At a Gaza City rally on Thursday, a Hamas leader declared “victory” for the past month but said it was just a precursor to a bigger victory. “Our demands are purely humanitarian and need no negotiations because it is the right of human beings to live,” a Qassam spokesman said on Hamas’s Al Aqsa television Thursday night.

Israel
Military
Hamas
Palestinians
Gaza Strip


Santorum Woos Ohio as Super Tuesday Looms

Abstract: BLUE ASH, Ohio — Rick Santorum promised this old industrial state on Saturday that as president, he would transform its depressing moniker of “Rust Belt” to the brighter “Stainless Steel Belt.” “This was the industrial heartland of America,” he told a few hundred people here on Saturday morning. He said his economic plan — cutting taxes and unshackling businesses from regulations — would revive manufacturing so that the string of industrial states from Pennsylvania through Wisconsin “can compete with anyone in the world.” It was a blunt aspirational pitch to Ohio’s many blue-collar voters, who will play a central role in the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Super Tuesday this week. But before that, the candidates were facing off on Saturday in the caucuses in Washington State, essentially a nonbinding straw poll unrelated to the more important process of awarding the state’s 43 delegates. Still, whoever wins Washington will declare it a sign of momentum heading into Super Tuesday. All four remaining Republican candidates — Newt Gingrich , Representative Ron Paul , Mitt Romney and Mr. Santorum — have actively campaigned in Washington. Mr. Paul has concentrated his efforts there more than the others and has been drawing huge crowds. A victory could give his libertarian candidacy its first clear-cut win. A victory by Mr. Romney or Mr. Santorum in Washington would provide a psychological boost for either after Mr. Romney barely edged out Mr. Santorum last week in Michigan. Mr. Romney visited Bellevue, Wash., on Friday, in the western, more moderate part of the state, while Mr. Santorum held events on Thursday in Spokane and Pasco, both more conservative areas. Mr. Paul greeted caucusgoers on Saturday in Puyallup. No one really knows what to expect in the Washington caucuses, although officials suggest that fewer than 60,000 people may show up. Reliable polling in such a situation is almost impossible because of the expected low turnout. Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich on Saturday were back in Ohio, the most coveted of the 10 states voting Tuesday. Georgia has more delegates, but Ohio is a major battleground in the fall, while Georgia is all but certain to vote Republican. Besides, Mr. Gingrich, who represented Georgia in Congress, is ahead in most Georgia polls. A victory in Ohio is almost essential for Mr. Santorum, who has said he can beat President Obama in the fall because he can appeal to blue-collar voters in similar swing states. But his one-time lead in the polls here has been evaporating since Mr. Romney won Michigan. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted Wednesday and Thursday shows Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney in a dead heat. Moreover, Mr. Santorum faces delegate issues here. He failed to file full slates in three of Ohio’s 16 Congressional districts, meaning that he is not eligible to compete for all of the state’s 48 bound delegates who are up for grabs. This could foreshadow another fierce delegate fight, as the Santorum camp said Saturday that if Mr. Santorum won the popular vote in a district in which he had no delegates, he would seek to be awarded delegates after the fact. “If he carries a Congressional district, it would be totally unfair for voters of that district to have their will overridden,” Mike DeWine, the state’s attorney general and a Santorum backer, said in an interview. The Romney campaign said Mr. Santorum would not be able to compete for 16 percent of the 391 bound delegates at stake on Super Tuesday, portraying this as incompetence that showed Mr. Santorum was ill equipped to take on Mr. Obama in the fall.

Ohio
Presidential Election of 2012
Primaries and Caucuses
Washington (State)
Santorum Rick
Paul Ron
Romney Mitt
Gingrich Newt


A ‘Dreamer’ Activist Becomes a Citizen, but Her Fight Is Not Over

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Lorella Praeli has not always been happy with President Obama . For years, Ms. Praeli, an undocumented immigrant from Peru, needled the president, publicly and privately, as she became one of the country’s most visible and persistent young activists pressing for Mr. Obama to take executive action on immigration. But on Tuesday, Mr. Obama looked on proudly as Ms. Praeli raised her right hand and became one of the nation’s newest citizens in a ceremony at the National Archives , home to the country’s founding documents. In remarks after the event, Mr. Obama congratulated Ms. Praeli and 30 other newly naturalized citizens, saying: “We are born of immigrants. That’s who we are.” Greeting Ms. Praeli and the others privately before the ceremony, Mr. Obama kissed her on a cheek. “We’re old friends,” he told the surprised group. Video President Obama welcomed recent immigrants to the United States, including some from Syria, Nepal and Iraq, at an event held at the National Archives. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Once a critic who verbally confronted the president for his inaction during more than one meeting at the White House, Ms. Praeli became a fierce supporter of Mr. Obama last year after the president finally assented to the wishes of activists, issuing an order to protect as many as five million undocumented immigrants from deportation, including her mother. Ms. Praeli, 27, who is now working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was in the front row in late 2014 when Mr. Obama announced his executive actions, which have been held up by a legal challenge that is most likely headed to the Supreme Court. She earned the chance to naturalize when she married her boyfriend, a citizen. “My biggest dream is for all of them to get to feel the way I feel today, with pride and joy and gratitude for our country,” Ms. Praeli said in an interview, referring to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. “I feel even more committed to continue to fight.” Ms. Praeli’s parents took her to the United States when she was 3 to receive treatment for injuries she sustained in a car crash that forced doctors to amputate her right leg above the knee. They went back to Peru, but when she was 10, her family returned, eventually settling permanently — and illegally — in New Milford, Conn. Video An empowered movement of young undocumented immigrants seeking a pathway to citizenship is gearing up for the immigration debate in 2013. Credit Credit David Goldman/Associated Press For years as a child, Ms. Praeli was unaware of her status and grew up thinking of herself as an American. When she went to college at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut the difficulties of her situation crystallized. After being selected as a research scholar, Ms. Praeli had to forgo the $6,000 prize because it could be claimed only by a citizen or legal resident. After her graduation in 2011, Ms. Praeli moved to Washington to help push members of Congress to approve the Dream Act, a measure designed to protect undocumented immigrants who had arrived in the United States as young children. When that failed, she and other activists called on Mr. Obama to protect the so-called Dreamers by executive action. He did, in 2012, but Ms. Praeli and others kept pressing for more. Throughout that year, Ms. Praeli was among many young activists who expressed disappointment in Mr. Obama until November 2014 , when he announced his expanded executive actions at a Las Vegas high school. Ms. Praeli said she was proud of having confronted Mr. Obama. But she also said she was proud of him for having taken action. The program he announced in 2012 gave her limited protections from deportation but no ability to become a citizen. Her marriage finally gave her the chance to take the oath. “I’ve always felt like an American,” Ms. Praeli said. “But to finally have the official recognition — it’s a dream come true for me.”

Lorella Praeli
Immigration
Deportation
Citizenship
Dream Act
Barack Obama
Illegal Immigration
Executive Orders
NARA


Democrats Claim to Win Senate Seat on Long Island, but G.O.P. Disagrees

Abstract: Painstaking vote counts. Talk of possible fraud. Suggestions of racism and ageism, and disparaging comments about people with disabilities. And none of it had anything to do with Donald J. Trump. With the presidential election fast receding into the past, there was still campaign drama unfolding on Wednesday on the South Shore of Long Island, where the race for New York State Senate’s Eighth District has been contested with the ardor and election board intrigue of the Bush-Gore contest in Florida in 2000. The race pitted the incumbent, Michael Venditto, a first-term Republican with some family political baggage, against John E. Brooks, a former insurance executive who now seems tantalizingly close to capturing a seat that few Democrats thought was winnable until recently. By late Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Brooks — a longtime Republican running as a Democrat — had declared victory after a count of absentee and affidavit ballots. With more than 130,000 votes now recorded, Mr. Brooks had a razor-thin lead of 41 votes, according to David J. Gugerty, the Democratic commissioner of elections in Nassau County, which makes up the bulk of the district. Mr. Brooks issued a statement announcing himself “humbled and honored,” though state Republican officials did not concede, noting that the validity of 1,000 or so uncounted ballots was being challenged by both sides. “There are still more than a thousand ballots to be examined beginning next week under the supervision of a judge,” Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans, said. “Despite an effort by the Democrats to shut this down prematurely, this race is far from over.” Still, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who leads the Senate Democrats, was confident enough that Mr. Brooks had won to call on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, “to step up and unify the members of his party.” With a victory, Democrats would have a numeric majority in the 63-seat Senate, though Republicans, led by John J. Flanagan of Long Island, have been clinging to power by dint of the continuing defection of Simcha Felder, a Democrat from Brooklyn who sits and votes with the Republicans. “Once again, a majority of our state senators in New York are Democrats, and for some reason there is the mind-boggling question about who controls the Senate,” Ms. Stewart-Cousins said. “At this critical juncture in our nation’s history, it is more important than ever that Democrats stick together to hold the line against expected draconian efforts out of Washington to roll back and prevent progressive achievements.” Ms. Stewart-Cousins’s remarks were echoed by good government and liberal groups, including the Working Families Party, which has had a fraught relationship with the governor. Bill Lipton, the party’s state director, said that Mr. Cuomo should take the lead in turning the Senate Democratic and in offering “a clear progressive alternative.” “If the governor wants to help lead the national opposition to Trump,” Mr. Lipton said, “he can start in his own backyard.” Image Mr. Brooks Credit James Escher/Newsday Mr. Cuomo’s office said on Wednesday that it was monitoring the vote count in the Eighth District. The state Republicans cheered when Mr. Venditto jumped to an early lead of some 400 votes as the count began. In recent days, however, ballots have been counted in more heavily Democratic areas, giving Mr. Brooks’s an advantage. The counting has also led to some unsavory accusations on both sides. Mr. Reif, the Senate Republican spokesman, said on Wednesday that Democratic lawyers monitoring the count at the Nassau County Board of Elections were discriminating against older, infirm Republicans by challenging their ballots. “Democrats are objecting to permanently disabled elderly Republican voters, claiming their signatures don’t match what is in the books,” Mr. Reif said. “This is a new low.” Democrats denied that claim, and leveled an accusation of their own: that lawyers working on behalf of Mr. Venditto had been purposely challenging ballots coming out of heavily black and Latino parts of the district, owing to those groups’ traditional support of Democratic candidates. Mike Murphy, a Democratic spokesman, said the objections were “for almost no reason, except that they are in minority areas.” About two-thirds of the objections came from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats were more confident about their chances of maintaining a lead in the race. “Our objections are legitimate and real,” Mr. Reif said, “and are of much higher quality than the Democrats.” Despite such disputes, the impact of a win for Mr. Brooks was unclear, in large part because of Mr. Felder, who represents a district that is heavily Orthodox Jewish and who confirmed last week that he would continue to conference with the Republicans. Also complicating the math is the seven-member Independent Democratic Conference, led by Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx and Westchester County, who has been working in what he calls a “bipartisan coalition” with Republicans for the past four years. That coalition has repeatedly said it would remain separate from the rest of the elected Democratic senators led by Ms. Stewart-Cousins , who were disappointed by their performance in November. With Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, winning the state easily , Ms. Stewart-Cousins and others in her party had hoped to win enough seats to secure a solid Senate majority. (The State Assembly is dominated by Democrats.) But New York Republicans, who saw Mr. Trump win handily in rural and some suburban areas, actually gained a seat , winning in Buffalo. The race in the Eighth District was an outlier: It had long been thought to be a lock for Mr. Venditto, as the district has typically voted Republican. But in October, Mr. Venditto’s father, John, the town supervisor of Oyster Bay, was arrested on federal corruption charges that also swept up a fellow Republican, Edward P. Mangano, the Nassau County executive. Jay Jacobs, the Nassau County Democratic chairman, said he was confident that Mr. Brooks had enough votes to clinch the Eighth District seat, despite pending challenges, including 727 from Republicans and 346 from Democrats. “Right now our team is projecting a Brooks win by more than 300,” Mr. Jacobs said. “Then again, we projected helping Hillary out on her transition.”

Long Island
New York
Michael Venditto
John E Brooks
State Legislature elections


Peru’s Ocucaje Desert Attracts Fossil Hunters and Smugglers

Abstract: OCUCAJE, Peru — Nestled between the Andes and the Pacific, the sparse desert surrounding this outpost in southern Peru looks like one of the world’s most desolate areas. Barren mountains rise from windswept valleys. Dust devils dance from one dune to the next. But to the bone hunters who stalk the Ocucaje Desert each day, the punishing winds here have exposed a medley of life and evolution: a prehistoric graveyard where sea monsters came to rest 40 million years ago. These parched lands, once washed over by the sea, guard one of the most coveted troves of marine fossils known to paleontology. Discoveries here include gigantic fossilized teeth from the legendary 50-foot shark called the megalodon , the bones of a huge penguin with surprisingly colorful feathers and the fossils of the Leviathan Melvillei , a whale with teeth longer than those of the Tyrannosaurus rex, making it a contender for the largest predator ever to prowl the oceans. “This is perhaps the best area in the world for marine mammals,” said Christian de Muizon, 58, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris who led an expedition here in November. He ranks the Ocucaje (pronounced oh-coo-CAH-heh) and adjacent sections of desert with top fossil areas like Liaoning Province in China, where ashfall famously preserved plumed dinosaurs . But beyond the boon to science, the discoveries here have attracted the attentions of another class of fossil hunters as well: smugglers. Officials in the capital, Lima, say seizures of illegally collected fossils are climbing. Peru is astonishingly rich in archaeological and paleontological sites, so much so that the issue is part of a delicate political debate here. The loss of national treasures to collectors from abroad has set off concerns about sovereignty, perhaps best exemplified by the feud between Peru and Yale University over Inca artifacts taken by Hiram Bingham, the American explorer typically credited with revealing the lost city of Machu Picchu to the outside world a century ago. For now, the Ocucaje remains open to just about anyone who wants to search for fossils here. Peruvian law, while vague, classifies fossils as national patrimony and requires fossils found in the country to remain in Peru, unless special permission is granted. But enforcement and preservation here seems like a distant dream. The government controls the desert but leases parts to mining companies, which could damage or destroy fossils. Looters have already ravaged archaeological burial sites on the desert’s fringes. The police rarely even enter the area. Almost the only four-wheeled vehicles one sees traversing the desert are trucks carrying workers who spend weeks on the coast collecting seaweed. They sell to dealers, who then export it to Asia. “This desert is horrible,” said Yolanda Gutiérrez, 35, a seaweed harvester. “The only things a person sees are dirt and rocks and bones.” An assortment of fossil hunters have their own visions of how the Ocucaje should be managed. One prominent view comes from Roberto Penny Cabrera, 54, a former naval officer who says he is a descendant of Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera, the conquistador who founded the nearby city of Ica in 1563. Mr. Penny Cabrera, who guides both backpackers and paleontologists into the Ocucaje, lives in his aristocratic family’s crumbling yellow mansion on Ica’s square. “I am a patriot, a Peruvian, and where my foot steps that is patrimony,” he said, contending that some of the Ocucaje’s fossils should be left in the ground. Another option, he said, would be to create a museum — not in Lima, much less Berlin or Paris — but in Ica. On the streets of Ica and nearby towns, visitors can already see such fossils — and buy them. Merchants sell fossilized shark teeth, about the size of a man’s hand, at prices from $60 to $100 apiece. They say other fossils are available, at higher prices. “Ocucaje yields many bones,” said one merchant, Marcos Conde, 35. Meanwhile, seizures of illegally obtained fossils are increasing, surpassing 2,200 this year, compared with about 800 last year, largely at Lima’s international airport, said José Apolín of the Ministry of Culture’s office of recovery. Sometimes officials stumble upon large fossils by chance; in 2008 the police found a jawbone thought to be that of a mastodon in the cargo hold of a bus. Recent discoveries elsewhere in Peru are raising interest in the country’s fossils and the potential for more trafficking. Almost 14,000 feet high in the Andes, for instance, a mining company controlled by Australian and Swiss investors announced a startling discovery last year: more than 100 dinosaur footprints embedded in walls of stone. Rodolfo Salas, paleontology curator at Lima’s Natural History Museum, said evidence that his institution obtained, including photos of fossils for sale by private dealers, showed that the Ocucaje was especially vulnerable. He said the trade was supported by huaqueros, or looters of archaeological sites, who turned to fossil hunting. Paleontologists working here fear the robbery of their discoveries. After finding a fossil thought to be a 35-million-year-old whale cranium, the team led by Mr. de Muizon camouflaged the find with burlap before it could be removed to hide it from looters. The fossil hunters sometimes turn on one another, too. In 2008, Mr. Penny Cabrera, who roams the Ocucaje in a battered four-wheel-drive Nissan, pushed for the authorities to arrest Mario Urbina-Schmitt, 48, a well-known researcher for Peru’s Natural History Museum, while he was working with a French paleontologist, Gilles Cuny. Mr. Urbina-Schmitt, who faces time in prison if convicted on charges of illegally removing fossils, said the case against him was absurd, revealing disarray in properly regulating fossil collection. He also said the focus on his case had shifted attention away from other episodes, like a 40-million-year-old whale fossil spirited out of the desert. “My crime is that I do good work,” he said. The debate over trafficking aside, paleontologists say the prized fossils of the Ocucaje remain vulnerable to yet another factor: erosion. “If we leave them in the desert,” Mr. de Muizon said of the Ocucaje fossils, “they will be dead for the second time.”

Peru
Fossils
Paleontology
Archaeology and Anthropology
Smuggling


A Payoff for Syrians: Seats at the Table, at Least

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — For almost three years, Syria has been in the diplomatic doghouse, shunned by the United States, disrespected by France, bombed by Israel and even scolded by its fellow Arab governments for cozying up to Iran. But now, in the post-Annapolis let’s-make-peace-in-the-Middle-East world, the kitchen door may have cracked slightly open to allow Syria back in the house. Bush administration officials, who usually have not been able to mention the word “Syria” without immediately following it up with “state sponsor of terrorism,” have started to sound conciliatory. Israel says it is willing to consider peace talks with Syria over the Golan Heights. And Arab neighbors went to the mat last week to persuade the United States to do everything it could to get Syria to attend the Annapolis peace conference. What has changed? “The event in Annapolis was designed to send one unmistakable message: that Arab-Israeli peace is open for business,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “The pull here is the allure of the second track.” The Sunni Arab states want to woo Syria, with its Sunni Muslim majority, from its alliance with largely Shiite Iran. For the Israelis, one potential benefit would be to play the Palestinians off against the Syrians while trying to negotiate peace with both. And the United States? “Look, a handful in the Arab League were saying they could not attend the conference unless Syria was put on the agenda,” a senior Bush administration official said. “So we put Syria on the agenda. What did it cost us? Nothing.” However, American and Israeli officials said the time was not yet ripe for real peace talks with Syria. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel will have enough to do trying to get skeptics to agree to give up settlements in the West Bank and to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians, compromises Israel will have to make if the peace track with the Palestinians has any chance of working. Trying to get the 12,000 to 15,000 Israeli settlers out of the Golan Heights, in addition, would make an already hard job close to impossible, Israeli officials said, and make it far less likely for Israel to start separate talks with Syria soon. Mr. Olmert echoed that with reporters before he flew home Wednesday night. “Conditions are not yet at the point” for talks with Syria, he said. “There’s enough that we will have to do that will be heartbreaking.” Over the past few months, the American relationship with Syria has been alternating between cold and lukewarm. Officially, the United States considers Syria a state sponsor of terrorism, and the administration has struggled to isolate it as a strategy to have it change its policies. The United States withdrew its ambassador to Syria, Margaret Scobey, in 2005 after the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syria, which had troops in Lebanon at the time, has been implicated in the assassination, but has denied any involvement. This April, the White House sharply criticized the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for visiting Damascus and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, calling the trip “bad behavior,” in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney. But one month later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem of Syria in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, in the first high-level diplomatic contact between Washington and Damascus in two years. Both sides described the 30-minute meeting as cordial, and Ms. Rice asked Mr. Moallem for Syria’s help to contain the flow of foreign fighters traveling through Damascus to Iraq. Just a few months later, on Sept. 6, Israeli jets bombed a site in Syria. About three weeks after that, the United States announced it would invite Syria to the Annapolis conference. When Syrian officials dallied about whether to show up, demanding that the Golan Heights issue be put on the agenda, Arab officials asked Ms. Rice to modify the agenda to something the Syrians could accept. Ms. Rice was on the phone more than 30 times between Nov. 21 and Nov. 25, administration officials said, talking to officials in the Middle East. She had more than 50 phone calls with C. David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. In the end, the United States agreed to formally put the Israel-Syria issue on the conference agenda. And Damascus sent its deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Mekdad, to the conference. He told a closed session that Israel should pull out of the Golan Heights. Sean D. McCormack, the State Department spokesman, sounded downright benign in describing Syria’s role at the conference. “It was positive that they decided to come to Annapolis, and taken as a whole, their comments were constructive,” he said. Bush officials said Syria had gotten better about actively trying to stop the flow of foreign fighters through Damascus to Iraq, a key American demand. Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said the ball was in Syria’s court. “I think for Syria, there is a fundamental choice,” Mr. Hadley said during remarks on Wednesday night at a forum at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “Are they going to make a strategic decision, give up their support for terror, let Lebanon alone, support a new Iraqi government, rather than obstruct it and undermine it, and make a decision for peace?” he asked. “If they do, I think there are opportunities for them in the Golan Heights. “The door is open to them.”

Syria
Palestinians
Arab League
International Relations
Bush George W


Parking Rules

Abstract: On Monday and Tuesday, because of Rosh Hashana, alternate-side street-cleaning regulations will be suspended in New York City. Other regulations will remain in effect.


Promoting Tourism on Beautiful but Violent Tawi-Tawi

Abstract: MANILA — Tawi-Tawi, a remote island province, has white sandy beaches and stunning views, but selling it as a tourist destination has proved challenging for Philippine officials. The island’s pristine waters, prehistoric caves and mountain lookouts, it turns out, lie in the vicinity of fierce battles between rebel groups and the Philippine military. Kidnappings are a recurring problem on Tawi-Tawi, and clan warfare, beheadings and roadside bombs are all too common on the surrounding islands in the southern Philippines . Nonetheless, Gov. Sadikul Sahali and local tourism officials are laying out the welcome mat, with a new promotional campaign aimed at trumpeting the charms of Tawi-Tawi and other nearby isles. National tourism officials are opposed to foreigners visiting the area because of the dangers. A national tourism campaign , with the slogan “It’s More Fun in the Philippines,” has been something of a sensation on the Internet, though, and users have appropriated the slogan in postings on social media sites to celebrate — and mock — what constitutes “fun” in some areas. One such image under the heading “Vacation. It’s More Fun in the Philippines” shows a kidnapped couple flanked by masked, armed men in Mindanao, the easternmost island in the Philippines. “If you are in central and western Mindanao, you should leave immediately,” states a recent travel advisory from the Australian government to its citizens. “If, despite our very strong advice against travel, you decide to visit central or western Mindanao,” it added, “you should put in place robust measures to ensure your personal security, seek professional security advice and take out kidnapping insurance.” The United States, Britain and many other countries have had similar travel warnings for more than a decade. It is no surprise, given the recent history of the area around Tawi-Tawi, that visitors are urged to arrange security along with their tour packages. On nearby Jolo Island in February, Philippine Air Force jets dropped two bombs that killed more than a dozen rebels, including top leaders of a regional terrorist network with links to Al Qaeda, military officials said. A nearby island, Basilan, is a stronghold for the top terrorist organization in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf. Just beyond Basilan, in Zamboanga Sibugay Province, Warren Richard Rodwell, a 53-year-old Australian, has been held captive since his abduction on Dec. 5. In July, a vacationing American, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, her 14-year-old son and her 19-year-old Filipino nephew were kidnapped in a coastal area of Zamboanga City. All three are now free, and Ms. Lunsmann and her son have returned to the United States. No one has confirmed or denied rumors that ransoms were paid. Despite the warnings, two European birdwatchers decided to visit Tawi-Tawi in hopes of seeing the extremely rare Sulu hornbill . They were kidnapped on Feb. 1 and remain in captivity. The violence and kidnappings in the south pose a significant problem for Philippine tourism officials. “The Philippines remains an ideal destination, with foreign individuals and groups continuing to arrive,” the Department of Tourism said in a statement shortly after the birdwatchers were kidnapped. “So far, no cancellations have been made.” In Bongao, on Tawi-Tawi, the desk clerk at the Beachside Inn, Nur Uddin, said by telephone that foreigners continued to arrive, although not very often. “If you come here, you should hire a security guard to make sure you are safe,” he said. Salvacion Pescadera, a provincial tourism officer, said the kidnapping of the birdwatchers was an isolated case that, she said, occurred because they had not sought security clearance from the Tourism Department before visiting a remote area. She said that her office coordinated with the local police to provide security for visitors. “You’ll be in good hands,” she said.

Philippines
Kidnapping
Tawi-Tawi (Philippines)
Travel and Vacations


The Eastern Viewpoint on American Indian Pottery

Abstract: The pottery of the Southwest Pueblo Indians is by far one of the most widely recognized contemporary American Indian art forms. Few people have not seen those polished brown clay pots with geometric designs made by the Hopi, or the now-famous minimal black pottery that comes from Santa Clara and San Ildefonso, two pueblos north of Santa Fe. It is a winning combination of tradition and innovation, and the craftsmanship is generally second to none. But pottery has been just as important, and compelling, as a medium of cultural expression for Indians from other regions of the United States, including those who once occupied the Eastern Woodlands, an area that covers New England and New York as well as parts of the Great Lakes and lower Canada. Their descendants continue to create a variety of clay forms, some of which are on view in a delightful new show at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. “From the Earth: Native Art in Stone and Clay,” organized by Steve Cook, features 50 samples of the still-vibrant pottery and stone art traditions of the Eastern Woodlands region. Most of them are contemporary, but there are some rare historical pieces from the museum’s collection — among them, the remains of a shapely late 17th-century Pequot cooking pot that was recovered during recent archaeological excavations of a Pequot fort on the reservation. The contemporary displays are broadly representative of major pottery movements among artists of the Eastern Woodlands. They are arranged thematically, beginning with a selection of distinctive Aquinnah Wampanoag pottery, made from the richly colored clay deposits of the Aquinnah Cliffs on Martha’s Vineyard. Coils of wet clay are squashed together, then left to dry in the sun (rather than being fired) to preserve the unique colors. The Aquinnah Wampanoag displays range from traditional-looking pots, jars and jugs, some of them dating from the late 19th century, to recent creations — miniature canoes, necklaces and lucky charms — fashioned by contemporary artists to be sold to collectors and summer tourists. Though the artists don’t always appear to have a great feel for aesthetics, the raw simplicity of the sculptured forms, combined with their colorful natural material, heightens their allure and attractiveness. Another exhibit is devoted to the Mohawk pottery revival, which began in the mid 1960s after a group of Mohawk artists on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada, began using modern means to create ceramic vessels based on prehistoric native pot designs. Their creations were popular with collectors and the public, and this new Mohawk pottery subsequently influenced many other New England native artists to begin working in stone and clay. Several of them have pieces on display here. The best of these pieces are simple and poetic, among them a large effigy pot by Peter B. Jones, of Onondaga ancestry. The pot nicely marries the traditional shape and rich earthy tones of Mohawk pottery with unexpected elements — in addition to native geometric patterns, the rim is lightly decorated with small human faces. It is a gorgeous object, perhaps the most beautiful piece of pottery in the exhibition — and proof that Eastern Woodlands craftsmanship does not lag behind that of the Southwest. Other artists have broken away from making clay vessels and begun to create decorative objects like masks and figurines in a variety of materials. Some carve knives, pipes, beads, pendants, figures and decorative objects from different types of stone. Soapstone is especially popular, largely because it is softer but still durable and comes in various colors. Tom Huff, who makes distorted, sometimes surrealistic figurative sculptures, is one of the most talented of several artists working in this medium. Another is Joe Jacobs, of Cayuga descent, who specializes in totems — animals with which Indians believe they have a sacred kinship, and which cannot be harmed by them for fear of misfortune. “Man Totem,” by Mr. Jacobs, bought by the museum in 1998 and probably produced around that time, shows an eagle wrapped around the head of a human figure. Though contemporary art, it is also an expression of the continuation of sacred traditions being passed from one generation to the next.


As Museum Considers Uses for Land, Gardeners Ponder Their Fate

Abstract: FOR more than 20 years, Duncan Whiteside has been growing tomatoes, zucchini and frying peppers in a 20-by-20-foot garden plot at the Leeds Pond Preserve in Plandome Manor. Mr. Whiteside, a 71-year-old Port Washington resident, visits the preserve at least once a week, watching “the ospreys flying over the bay and the lizards scuttling through the leaves.” “I talk to the other gardeners, and we often share things,” he said. “This year, for example, I got seedlings for butternut squash.” Christel McNally, also 71, tends her two plots at the preserve daily, weather permitting. She takes her vegetables to her retirement home in Port Washington to share with other residents. But, after 28 years, the community garden is in jeopardy because the Science Museum of Long Island, which is also housed on the 35-acre preserve overlooking Manhasset Bay, is considering other uses for the land. For 20 gardeners — many of whom are in their 70s — the 30 plots at the preserve are a source of pride and passion. Without any contract or legal provisions, their gardens have coexisted with the museum, which Nassau County has owned since the late 1970s. But the gardeners are now concerned that the community gardening may be phased out because John H. Loret, the museum’s longtime director, has other plans for the property, including a larger parking lot to accommodate expanded educational programs. He has expressed concern that the garden’s fences are a hazard and unattractive, and that the gardens are unregulated. “No one is trying to throw the gardeners out,” Dr. Loret said. “But there are too many communication gaps that must be addressed. We have children as young as 3 ½ years old at the museum, and we don’t even know who most of the gardeners are anymore. We need to develop better organization and compliance with regulations.” Tracy Kay, the county’s deputy parks commissioner, met with representatives from the community gardens and the museum in August to discuss ways the groups could work together. “The museum has legitimate concerns,” he said. “But we recognize the value of community gardens and want to find a way that everybody can work together.” Until 2005, the estate’s caretaker, Stanley Cutler, managed the gardens, and new members were allowed to join. But then Mr. Cutler moved to Florida. Now the gardeners fear that if they move or die, they will no longer be able to pass their plots down to family members and that the gardens will diminish into obscurity. It is true that garden plots may no longer be bequeathed, Dr. Loret said, in part because they have sometimes been handed down to friends, not family, and to nonresidents of the county. “We will allow the gardeners to stay for the remainder of their time, but we have to plan a little bit for the future and need a larger parking lot,” Dr. Loret said. The gardeners have formed a committee to oversee the gardens, assign new gardeners to vacant plots and enforce rules, including that only organic produce be grown and that no pesticides be used. The gardeners also recently contacted a local organization, Grassroots Environmental Education, about donating their excess produce to Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in Port Washington, which serves 65 families a week. “This is a wonderful activity for us, and we are concerned about ecology and helping others,” Mr. Whiteside said. “The county should be pleased with all this.” Glen Anderson, a former grounds caretaker for the museum, was awarded a garden plot several years ago. He said the intended use of the preserve needs to be readdressed. “Nassau County does not have any other community gardens,” he said, “and now that this situation has gotten the county’s attention, I feel optimistic that we will come up with a plan.”

Flowers and Plants
Gardens and Gardening
Long Island (NY)


Unwitting Father Confessor in Flight

Abstract: TRAVELING is just part of the deal if you’re running a business. I’m C.E.O. and founder of Rosenzweig and Company, a global executive search firm, and I have to travel a lot. I don’t like airports, and I don’t really like flying, so I try to be as efficient as possible with scheduling. Like a lot of business travelers, I do like the cocoonlike environment of the aircraft itself. Given the frenetic pace of work, the plane is a buffer zone, allowing me to catch up on work, without interruptions, or sleep, if I need it. I am not looking forward to cellphone use during flight. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I have a feeling my prayers won’t be answered. It’s most likely inevitable that cellphone service will pop up, and all of us will be listening to people’s conversations. I hope it doesn’t happen for a while, since it will definitely take me out of that cocoon I enjoy during flights. What does make me laugh is that, although I enjoy the solitude, there is apparently something about me that causes perfect strangers to tell me their life stories or problems. This always happens at airports or on planes. I am unfailingly polite, and I do enjoy people, but I have to admit it’s kind of weird. I’ve had to listen to a man telling me that he thinks his wife is cheating. He wanted advice and, since I’m happily married, I offered some. I also mediated a dispute between a couple concerning the amount of money the wife spends on grooming their dog. I was traveling to Houston recently, and I started chatting with a woman who wanted to tell me something in confidence. I assumed, wrongly, that it would be a business question. It wasn’t. She wanted advice about a new home she was building in Texas. She started talking about cathedral ceilings and skylights, and I said it was too bad she didn’t have plans with her. She did, as I found out when she went to the overhead and pulled out a long tube. I was in line to use the facilities, and the last thing I expected was that I would be looking at building plans. She even asked me how I would reconfigure her living room. I told her I’m not an architect. It didn’t seem to matter to her since she asked if I could stop by to take a look at her place between my meetings. On a recent flight from my home base in Toronto to New York, where I was to meet with a client, a lovely elderly woman came down the aisle. I enjoy older people, and I was hoping she sat next to me. When she found out I was in the recruiting business, she immediately started talking about her 24-year-old grandson, a budding pianist. He played in high school and college productions, but with school long behind him, work was tough to come by for an amateur. She told me how depressed he was about trying to land gigs. I told her I didn’t place pianists, rather just high-level executives. That didn’t matter. Because she saw pianists in building lobbies, she figured I could talk to an executive who ran some big company, and get her grandson to play in his or her building. I tried to explain that it doesn’t really work that way. She was relentless, as I suppose all grandmothers would be. As we were leaving the plane, she gently grabbed my arm, and asked me if I could call Bill Gates. She heard he likes music.

Rosenzweig and Company
Business travel
Airlines,airplanes
Jay Rosenzweig


Goldman Is Buying Stake in a Troubled Student-Loan Company

Abstract: Goldman Sachs on Friday agreed to buy a $260.5 million stake in the First Marblehead Corporation, shoring up the troubled student-loan company and sending its stock soaring. The investment bank also agreed to extend a $1 billion credit line to First Marblehead, providing a crucial source of financing for the company. Shares of First Marblehead surged 66.4 percent on Friday, their largest one-day gain ever. The sale will give Goldman a 16.7 percent stake in the company, which, along with the student-loan giant Sallie Mae , has been battered by the turmoil in the credit markets. The deal marks a homecoming of sorts for Goldman: the Wall Street bank helped take First Marblehead public in 2003. First Marblehead and other servicers do not lend money to students. Instead, they bundle loans made by universities and banks into securities for sale to investors. Rising default rates and the spreading credit squeeze, however, have made it difficult to repackage these loans, sapping the company’s finances. Even after the surge on Friday, shares of First Marblehead were still down almost 66 percent this year. Sallie Mae’s stock has dropped 59.3 percent. Under the the deal, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, the bank’s private equity arm, will pay $59.8 million to acquire securities that will convert into 5.3 million common shares at $11.24 each. After regulatory clearance, the firm will spend as much as $200.7 million to buy additional securities that will convert to 13.4 million shares at $15 each. The securities will pay no interest. The investment bank will hold no more than 9.9 percent of First Marblehead’s voting shares at any given time, though it will have the right to name a director. Separately, First Marblehead said it would eliminate its dividend after Friday. It also will take a charge of $170 million to $185 million after changing the way it accounts for its service receivables.

Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Student Loans
Goldman Sachs Group Incorporated
First Marblehead Corp
SLM Corp
Wall Street (NYC)


Russia Cancels Agreement With U.S.

Abstract: Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev said Wednesday that Russia would cancel a decade-long agreement with the United States that called for cooperation on law enforcement efforts including drug control and combating human trafficking. Relations between the two countries have been particularly troubled since December, when the United States adopted a law aimed at punishing Russian human rights abusers. Aleksei Pushkov, a Parliament member, said that Russia could afford to fight crime on its own. Russian officials also announced that they would ban certain frozen meat and meat products from the United States because of evidence farmers were using an artificial growth stimulant called ractopamine.

Russia
Human trafficking
Crime
US Foreign Policy
Drug Abuse
Dmitri A Medvedev


Rutgers Defeats Monmouth

Abstract: Dane Miller had 13 points, 11 rebounds, 7 blocked shots and 4 steals to lead host Rutgers to an 81-66 win over Monmouth. The freshman Eli Carter made 8 of 10 shots for a career-high 23 points for Rutgers (5-5). Will Campbell scored 13 for Monmouth (2-9). Monmouth fell to 0-8 in its series against Rutgers. ¶ Chris Gaston scored 16 points and pulled down 15 rebounds, leading Fordham to a 74-59 win at Siena. ... Chris Flores scored 19 points to lead New Jersey Institute of Technology over Division III St. Joseph’s (N.Y.), 78-50. ¶ Syracuse (10-0) jumped two spots to No. 1 in the Associated Press poll after losses this weekend by Kentucky and Ohio State.

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey