Planned Parenthood Won’t Accept Money for Fetal Tissue

Abstract: Trying to quell the controversy over its use of fetal tissue, Planned Parenthood announced Tuesday that it would no longer accept reimbursement for the costs of providing the tissue for medical research. The move comes after months of attacks on the group, beginning with the release in July of undercover videos by anti-abortion groups. The videos seemed to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the procurement of fetal tissue, which led to an unsuccessful Republican effort in Congress to end its federal financing. Planned Parenthood is the target of five different congressional investigations on how it handles fetal tissue after abortions, as well as state inquiries. Of Planned Parenthood’s nearly 700 health centers nationwide, only two — one in California and one in Washington State — supply fetal tissue to researchers, and only the one in California has been getting reimbursed, the organization said. The accusations against the group have also become a rallying cry for Republican presidential candidates including Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The policy change was announced hours before the Democratic candidates’ first debate. Anti-abortion groups hailed the decision not to accept reimbursement as a victory. The Center for Medical Progress, which had made and released the videos, called it “an admission of guilt” that Planned Parenthood had been profiting from the tissue, which would be illegal under federal law. But there was little sign that the decision would do much to cool the intense heat on the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its president, Cecile Richards, who was sharply questioned for five hours last month by Republicans at a congressional hearing. “Significant questions still remain about Planned Parenthood’s finances,” Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the House committee that questioned Ms. Richards, said in a statement. Planned Parenthood said the new policy was not a defeat, but rather a practical approach to getting on with its business while ensuring that women who wanted to donate tissue would still be able to do so. “This is Planned Parenthood standing strong, saying that we are not going to be bullied, even by five congressional committees, into walking away from important research and women’s desire to donate,” said Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the group. “We are not going to stand around getting flogged with false accusation for something that’s never been our motivation to participate in tissue donation.” Since the controversy began in July, many researchers have underscored the value of fetal tissue for scientific research, whether in the development of vaccines or understanding degenerative eye disease. Planned Parenthood’s woes began when the Center for Medical Progress released the videos, which purported to show its officials trying to sell fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood said the videos were heavily edited . But the center accused the group of illegally profiting from the sale of the tissue. The 1993 law that made it illegal to turn a profit on fetal tissue said it was acceptable to be reimbursed for the cost of getting, storing and processing the tissue for research use. After the release of the videos, Republicans in Congress began their effort to cut federal money for Planned Parenthood. Some states, too, moved to take away the organization’s funding under Medicaid , as well as beginning their own investigations into whether Planned Parenthood broke federal law in its handling of fetal tissue. Ms. Laguens, the group’s executive vice president, said reimbursement at the California affiliate came to less than one-tenth of a percent of its annual budget. Over all, in the fiscal year ended in June, the group received about $528 million from federal, state and local sources, about three-quarters of which came from Medicaid, to pay for birth control services and other women’s health care. Mr. Chaffetz said in his statement, “This is a good, tangible result of the collective efforts of the House in investigating Planned Parenthood,” and called the policy change “helpful.” But he added, “This decision does not answer the question as to why a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization reporting approximately $125 million in revenue over expenses annually needs a subsidy from the American taxpayer.” Mr. Chaffetz’s committee has so far reviewed 22,000 pages of documents from Planned Parenthood, the group said, and has not found any wrongdoing. In his statement, Mr. Chaffetz said the committee would continue its inquiry into the organization’s use of federal taxpayer dollars. Representative Diane Black, the Tennessee Republican who helped lead the defunding effort, said the decision not to accept reimbursement was “motivated by optics.” “If Planned Parenthood truly wanted to confront its growing scandal, it would stop aborting more than 327,000 innocent lives each year and fully commit to true women’s health care,” she added. The Center for Medical Progress also questioned the decision. “If the money Planned Parenthood has been receiving for baby body parts were truly legitimate ‘reimbursement,’ why cancel it?” the group said in a statement. “This proves what C.M.P. has been saying all along — Planned Parenthood incurs no actual costs, and the payments for harvested fetal parts have always been an extra profit margin.” In announcing the decision in a letter to the National Institutes of Health , Ms. Richards, the group’s president, said Planned Parenthood will continue to provide fetal tissue for research use. “Planned Parenthood’s policies on fetal tissue donation already exceed the legal requirements,”’ Ms. Richards’s letter said. “Now we’re going even further in order to take away any basis for attacking Planned Parenthood to advance an anti-abortion political agenda.” Fetal tissue is donated only with the consent of the woman having the abortion, Planned Parenthood said. In a press release Tuesday, the group quoted a woman identified only as Kate as saying she had chosen to donate tissue to research after ending her second pregnancy because it gave her “a little bit of closure to know I’m making a difference.”

Planned Parenthood
Abortion
Center for Medical Progress
Cecile Richards
Birth control
NIH


In Budget Process, Warnings of Carnage

Abstract: Here’s how State Representative Jim Pitts interprets the Election Day results: “We’re making huge cuts,” the Waxahachie Republican who heads the House Appropriations Committee told a hometown Tea Party group last week. The legislative session starts in January, but Mr. Pitts and his fellow finance types have been at work for months. Now they’re finding out whether voters really want the cuts they seemed to be demanding when they went to the polls. Mr. Pitts told the crowd that the state was studying Medicaid and other forms of government-run health care with the idea of getting out of it. A man in the audience mentioned a friend on the program and asked whether lawmakers would “throw him out on the street.” “If we did exactly what we’re doing today, we wouldn’t be throwing him out on the street,” Mr. Pitts answered. “But if we have any savings on getting out of Medicaid, we will have to throw some people out in the street. I’m not telling you that your friend would be, but the eligibility to receive state benefits will go down.” “Let me be sure that I said that right,” Mr. Pitts continued. “Fewer people will be on our Medicaid rolls if we get out and have some savings.” The initial budget he and his fellow budget writers will present a few weeks from now will eliminate some state agencies, make large cuts to others — “75 or 80 percent,” Mr. Pitts said — and might include furloughs of state employees. Lawmakers, at least in that first version, will balance the budget without tapping the state’s Rainy Day Fund. A few days after Mr. Pitts’s remarks, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said there was a “silver lining” in the budget problems because they forced the state to go through its finances looking for savings “to find out what programs are not really working, that no longer have the priority that they did when the program was passed.” The message is clear: Carnage is ahead. Mr. Pitts is getting his local folks ready for the impact, laying out specific cuts so people who generally like the idea of smaller government can get a look at which services they and their families and friends and communities would actually have to give up. The state can’t afford to provide the services and programs it currently promises — that’s why there is a shortfall — and voters and the politicians who campaigned for their support for the last year clearly don’t like the idea of new taxes. Cuts are a way out. Mr. Pitts’s comments tee up that solution a couple of months before lawmakers hit Austin to actually write the budget. He makes clear the challenge at the center of the conversation: Less than half of the $182.2 billion biennial state budget is unrestricted, with education and health and human service programs accounting for most of that discretionary spending. In fact, if you put education and health and human services off to one side and cut everything else in state government — from the governor’s office to the Savings and Mortgage Lending Department, from Parks and Wildlife to prisons, from the Department of Transportation to the Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, from courts to the Lottery Commission — you would have pared only $7.3 billion from the discretionary part of the budget. Even the rosiest estimates of the state’s budget shortfall are bigger than that, and the professional doomsayers are talking about a number three times that amount. When they toss those figures around, lawmakers aren’t including federal funds and other monies; they’re just talking about the part they can control. Of the $80.6 billion in those accounts in the current budget, $35.2 billion goes to public education, $13.7 billion goes to higher education, and $24.4 billion goes to health and human services. You simply can’t get to the bottom line without cutting inside those programs. State revenue will grow some — the comptroller will estimate how much as the session starts. But cuts are the order of the day. Mr. Pitts, Mr. Dewhurst and the others have to figure out how to give voters the smaller government they want without killing something they want to keep.

Medicaid
Budgets and Budgeting
Medicine and Health
Health Insurance and Managed Care
United States Politics and Government
House of Representatives
Pitts Jim
Austin (Tex)


OPEC Set to Meet Saturday

Abstract: For the first time in a decade, oil producers are facing a real test of their unity. As the OPEC cartel meets in Cairo on Saturday, exporters are being pummeled by a triple whammy of lower prices, falling demand and declining revenue. The group, whose members account for more than 40 percent of global oil exports, is desperately seeking ways to stop the drop in prices, which have fallen from their summer peaks at a record pace. But the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is increasingly torn between its moderate members, led by Saudi Arabia, which can afford a period of lower oil prices, and countries with high government spending, like Iran and Venezuela, which have become much more dependent on high prices. These two groups have often clashed in the past, and as prices plummet the tensions are once again bubbling to the surface. When oil prices collapsed to $10 a barrel in 1998, OPEC producers managed to set aside their squabbles to push prices back up. Thanks mostly to a growing global economy and tightening supplies, producers saw a sharp rally in oil prices over the last 10 years. But as the global economy sputters, the recent decline in oil prices has been staggering, and producers have been incapable of slowing the slide. After rising above $145 a barrel this summer, oil prices have fallen below $55 a barrel, their lowest level in more than three years. Instead of coasting on growing demand, producers are confronted with a significantly different environment, and must adapt to a world of slowing consumption and overflowing oil supplies. They must also contend with hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue. In the last two months, OPEC agreed to cut its output by two million barrels a day. While analysts say members of the cartel are generally abiding by their pledge, the effect on the market has failed to materialize so far. Since the group’s last meeting a month ago, OPEC’s reference basket price — an average of oil grades sold by producers of the cartel, including Saudi Arab Light and Sahara Blend from Algeria — has fallen by more than half, reaching a low of $42 a barrel last week. The cartel’s traditional hawks have been pushing for a more aggressive cut in production this week, and there is talk of trying to rally non-OPEC producers to help stabilize the market. The oil minister of Venezuela, Rafael Ramirez, suggested the cartel should reduce its production by an additional one million barrels a day, a position that was endorsed by Iran. But a decision is far from certain and some producers are dragging their feet. OPEC’s president, Chakib Khelil, said the group needed to see how well producers were complying with their prior commitments to pare supplies before agreeing to a new cut. The group is scheduled to meet again in Algeria next month. “There are disagreements between producers,” said Greg Priddy, an oil analyst at Eurasia, a political consulting group in Washington. “Some members are below their pain threshold, especially Iran. But the Saudis will not allow themselves to be strong-armed. They want to see how everyone is complying before agreeing to another round of cuts.” Guy F. Caruso, the former administrator of the Energy Information Administration, said the Saudis have been cautious so far, trying to balance their budget requirements with concerns about the global economy. Even if OPEC agreed to a new cut in production, analysts doubt that all the countries would abide by their quotas, and it would fall to Saudi Arabia to shoulder the brunt of the cutbacks. “The Saudis have the longer-term view,” Mr. Caruso said. “They don’t want to be in the situation they were in the 1980s when almost all the burden fell on them to defend the price.” The drop in prices is threatening the economic and political foundations of many oil producers. Iran’s populist president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is expected to run for re-election next year while Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is being contested in local elections at home. Both countries need oil above $90 a barrel to balance their budgets, according to various estimates. “The Iranians, the Russians and the Venezuelans, who had benefited the most from the rise in price, are the ones paying dearly now with the collapse,” said Lawrence Goldstein, a veteran energy analyst. But while different producers have competing agendas, the drop in prices has been so rapid that even moderates are feeling the sting. “Prices have gotten to a point that they are hurting everybody now,” Mr. Goldstein said. “A world of $50 oil or less is in no one’s interest within the organization.” This weekend’s meeting may include proposals to open consultations with producers outside of the cartel, the Iranian envoy has indicated, and could set the contours for a coordinated response between OPEC and non-OPEC producers like Mexico and Russia. In the late 1990s, Norway and Mexico trimmed their production to bolster oil prices after the Asian economic crisis. The Russian energy minister, Sergei Shmatko, on Tuesday suggested that his country might reduce its output in tandem with OPEC. He said that Russia required $95 a barrel next year, otherwise its budget would be strained and its currency would suffer. But with its production already declining this year because of a lack of investments, it is unlikely that Russia will follow through, analysts said. Over the last decade, OPEC has stepped in three times with large production cuts to stop prices from falling — in 2001, 2003 and 2006. Only once, however, did producers fully comply with their pledges to trim their output, according to analysts at Barclays Capital. When prices last fell toward $50 a barrel, at the end of 2006, members of the cartel agreed to cuts totaling 1.7 million barrels a day but they cut only 900,000 barrels a day, according to Barclays. Yet prices rebounded because oil production from non-OPEC producers, like Mexico and Norway, was disappointing and consumption kept rising. Now, even if OPEC agrees to reduce its output further, it is doubtful that oil will rebound soon. In the past, it has typically taken three to six months for oil prices to rise after OPEC trims supplies, according to Deutsche Bank. “In terms of crude oil, we believe downward pressure on prices is likely to persist throughout next year,” according to a report by Deutsche Bank. “OPEC will struggle to cut production as fast as world growth is slowing over the next 12 months.”

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries


Jan. 3 Caucus for Iowa G.O.P.

Abstract: Iowa Republicans last night officially moved their presidential caucus to Jan. 3 from Jan. 14, ensuring that the campaigns and news media hordes will be encamped in the state for New Year’s Day. The move makes Iowa’s caucus the first in the nation. New Hampshire , which by its own law has to hold the nation’s first primary, has yet to pick a date. It could vote Jan. 8 or as early as Dec. 11. The unsettled calendar has left the presidential hopefuls uncertain how to allocate time and resources. Iowa Democrats have not set a date for their caucus, but they are likely to join the Republicans on Jan. 3. That would garner more news attention and give Iowa a united front in 2012, when other states are sure to try to knock Iowa off its first-in-the-nation perch. Various states have moved up their primaries this year in violation of party rules, saying Iowa and New Hampshire have disproportionate influence. Those two states say their small size allows them to scrutinize candidates more closely. Iowa law requires its caucuses be held at least a week before any other state votes. Michigan had moved up to Jan. 15. Democrats do not have to worry about the one-week rule. Thanks to feuding, there is no effective Democratic campaign in Michigan.

Iowa
New Hampshire
United States Politics and Government


Japan Scrambles to Avert Nuclear Meltdowns

Abstract: TOKYO — Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a widening nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors and that they were facing serious cooling problems at three more. The emergency appeared to be the worst involving a nuclear plant since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. The developments at two separate nuclear plants prompted the evacuation of more than 200,000 people. Japanese officials said they had also ordered up the largest mobilization of their Self-Defense Forces since World War II to assist in the relief effort. On Saturday, Japanese officials took the extraordinary step of flooding the crippled No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 170 miles north of Tokyo, with seawater in a last-ditch effort to avoid a nuclear meltdown. Then on Sunday, cooling failed at a second reactor — No. 3 — and core melting was presumed at both, said the top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. Cooling had failed at three reactors at a nuclear complex nearby, Fukushima Daini, although he said conditions there were considered less dire for now. With high pressure inside the reactors at Daiichi hampering efforts to pump in cooling water, plant operators had to release radioactive vapor into the atmosphere. Radiation levels outside the plant, which had retreated overnight, shot up to 1,204 microsieverts per hour, or over twice Japan ’s legal limit, Mr. Edano said. NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, flashed instructions to evacuees: close doors and windows; place a wet towel over the nose and mouth; cover up as much as possible. At a news conference, Mr. Edano called for calm. “If measures can be taken, we will be able to ensure the safety of the reactor,” he said. One result of the venting may have been setting off an explosion, caused by either steam or hydrogen, that tore the outer wall and roof off the building housing reactor No. 1, although the steel containment of the reactor remained in place, officials said. Even before the statement on Sunday by Mr. Edano, it was clear form radioactive materials turning up in trace amounts outside the reactors that fuel damage had occurred. The existence or extent of melting might not be clear until workers can open up the reactors and examine the fuel, which could be months. A meltdown occurs when there is insufficient cooling of the reactor core, and it is the most dangerous kind of a nuclear power accident because of the risk of radiation releases. The radiation levels reported so far by the Japanese authorities are far above normal but still too small to pose a hazard to human health if the exposure continued for a brief period. The fear was that more core damage would bring bigger releases. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that as many as 160 people may have been exposed to radiation around the plant, and Japanese news media said that three workers at the facility were suffering from full-on radiation sickness. Even before the explosion on Saturday, officials said they had detected radioactive cesium, which is created when uranium fuel is split, an indication that some of the nuclear fuel in the reactor was already damaged. How much damage the fuel suffered remained uncertain, though safety officials insisted repeatedly through the day that radiation leaks outside the plant remained small and did not pose a major health risk. However, they also told the International Atomic Energy Agency that they were making preparations to distribute iodine, which helps protect the thyroid gland from radiation exposure, to people living near Daiichi and Daini. Worries about the safety of the two plants worsened on Saturday because executives of the company that runs them, Tokyo Electric Power, and government officials gave confusing accounts of the location and causes of the dramatic midday explosion and the damage it caused. Late Saturday night, officials said that the explosion at Daiichi occurred in a structure housing turbines near its No. 1 reactor at the plant, rather than inside the reactor itself. But photographs of the damage did not make clear that this was the case. They said that the blast, which may have been caused by a sharp buildup of hydrogen when the reactor’s cooling system failed, destroyed the concrete structure surrounding the reactor but did not collapse the critical steel container inside. This pattern of damage cast doubt on the idea that the explosion was in the turbine building. “We’ve confirmed that the reactor container was not damaged,” Mr. Edano said in a news conference on Saturday night. “The explosion didn’t occur inside the reactor container. As such there was no large amount of radiation leakage outside. At this point, there has been no major change to the level of radiation leakage outside, so we’d like everyone to respond calmly.” Japanese nuclear safety officials and international experts said that because of crucial design differences, the release of radiation at Daiichi would most likely be much smaller than at Chernobyl even if the plant had a complete core meltdown, which they said it had not. After a full day of worries about the radiation leaking at Daiichi, Tokyo Electric Power said an explosion occurred “near” the No. 1 reactor at Daiichi around 3:40 p.m. Japan time on Saturday. It said four of its workers were injured in the blast. The decision to flood the reactor core with corrosive seawater, experts said, was an indication that Tokyo Electric Power and Japanese authorities had probably decided to scrap the plant. “This plant is almost 40 years old, and now it’s over for that place,” said Olli Heinonen, the former chief inspector for the I.A.E.A., and now a visiting scholar at Harvard. Mr. Heinonen lived in Japan in the 1980s, monitoring its nuclear industry, and visited the stricken plant many times. Based on the reports he was seeing, he said he believed that the explosion was caused by a hydrogen formation, which could have begun inside the reactor core. “Now, every hour they gain in keeping the reactor cooling down is crucial,” he said. But he was also concerned about the presence of spent nuclear fuel in a pool inside the same reactor building. The pool, too, needs to remain full of water to suppress gamma radiation and prevent the old fuel from melting. If the spent fuel is also exposed — and so far there are only sketchy reports about the condition of that building — it could also pose a significant risk to the workers trying to prevent a meltdown. Both Daiichi and Daini were shut down by Friday’s earthquake, but the loss of power in the area and damage to the plants’ generators from the ensuing tsunami crippled the cooling systems. Those are crucial after a shutdown to cool down the nuclear fuel rods. The malfunctions allowed pressure to build up beyond the design capacity of the reactors. Early Saturday, officials had said that small amounts of radioactive vapor were expected to be released into the atmosphere to prevent damage to the containment systems and that they were evacuating people in the area as a precaution. Those releases apparently did not prevent the buildup of hydrogen inside the plant, which ignited and exploded Saturday afternoon, government officials said. They said the explosion itself did not increase the amount of radioactive material being released into the atmosphere. However, safety officials urged people who were not evacuating but still lived relatively nearby to cover their mouths and stay indoors. David Lochbaum, who worked at three reactors in the United States with designs similar to Daiichi, and who was later hired by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to teach its personnel about that technology, said that judging by photographs of the stricken plant, the explosion appeared to have occurred in the turbine hall, not the reactor vessel or the containment that surrounds the vessel. The Daiichi reactor is a boiling-water reactor. Inside the containment, the reactor sends its steam out to a turbine. The turbine converts the steam’s energy into rotary motion, which turns a generator and makes electricity. But as the water goes through the reactor, some water molecules break up into hydrogen and oxygen. A system in the turbine hall usually scrubs out those gases. Hydrogen is also used in the turbine hall to cool the electric generator. Hydrogen from both sources has sometimes escaped and exploded, Mr. Lochbaum said, but in this case, there is an additional source of hydrogen: interaction of steam with the metal of the fuel rods. Operators may have vented that hydrogen into the turbine hall. Earlier Saturday, before the explosion, a Japanese nuclear safety panel said the radiation levels were 1,000 times above normal in a reactor control room at Daiichi. Some radioactive material had also seeped outside, with radiation levels near the main gate measured at eight times normal levels, NHK quoted nuclear safety officials as saying. The emergency at Daiichi began shortly after the earthquake struck Friday afternoon. Emergency diesel generators, which kicked in to run the cooling system after the electrical power grid failed, shut down about an hour after the earthquake. There was speculation that the tsunami had flooded the generators, knocking them out of service. For some time, the plant was able to operate in a battery-controlled cooling mode. Tokyo Electric Power said that by Saturday morning it had also installed a mobile generator to ensure that the cooling system would continue operating even after reserve battery power was depleted. Even so, the company said it needed to conduct “controlled containment venting” in order to avoid an “uncontrolled rupture and damage” to the containment unit. Why the controlled release of pressure did not succeed in addressing the problem was not immediately explained. Tokyo Electric Power and government nuclear safety officials also did not explain the precise sequence of failures at the plant. Daiichi and other nuclear facilities are designed with extensive backup systems that are supposed to function in emergencies to ensure the plants can be shut down safely.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Japan)

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant (Japan)


N.B.A. Replacement Refs: Comparing 1995 to Maybe Now

Abstract: Labor disputes can create strange alliances and even stranger quotations. Fourteen years ago, the N.B.A. locked out its referees, handed their whistles to an army of wide-eyed substitutes and watched the insanity unfold. The games got messy. The players got antsy. They wanted their old referees back — the same ones who, in any other season, would be the targets of their fury. “They need five of these guys to equal one of the regular refs,” Charles Oakley, the former Knicks bruiser, complained in 1995. He described the replacements in one word: “Terrible.” On the night the regular referees returned , after a 68-day standoff, some players could hardly contain their joy. “The real refs are back?” the Washington Bullets’ Chris Webber said. “Hallelujah.” If history is any guide, Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard may soon be pleading for the return of their favorite nemeses. The league has again locked out its referees because of a breakdown in contract negotiations and will begin training some 60 replacements this weekend. The preseason begins in eight days. The referees union has issued warnings about what lies ahead: more whistles but less control of the game. More fights, more injuries, more confusion. “The integrity of the game will be questioned, because these folks don’t know the rules,” said Lamell McMorris, the union’s chief negotiator. “This is not going to be a pretty scene for fans and players.” Perhaps. But much has changed in 14 years, including — the N.B.A. insists — the quality of replacement referees. In 1995, the N.B.A. assembled a makeshift staff of officials from the Continental Basketball Association and pro-am leagues. The preseason opened with just 41 referees and the league was forced to use two-man crews, instead of the standard three. League officials say they will have a full complement of 60 referees this time, allowing them to deploy three-man crews. The replacements are coming primarily from the N.B.A.’s own pipeline: the Development League and the W.N.B.A. They have been trained by N.B.A. personnel for years, learning N.B.A. mechanics and play-calling expectations, said Joel Litvin, the league’s president for league and basketball operations. “We will have a much stronger replacement staff this time than in ’95,” Litvin said. Referee supervision is more advanced now. The league has observers at every game and a network of managers who regularly evaluate every referee. “And if there is somebody who is not up to the task, that person won’t be scheduled in any more games,” Litvin said. It seems unlikely there will be a repeat of one anecdote from 1995, when a replacement referee told the Warriors’ Chris Mullin that he had just called a game involving Mullin’s brother. Terrence Mullin played in a beer league. The modern replacements will not be amateurs. “Not even close,” Litvin said. The referees union is skeptical. “Look, I think everyone who is honest about basketball will tell you that the level of play in the D League and below is not equal and it’s not the same to the N.B.A.,” McMorris said. “We’ll see what happens. We’ll all know shortly.” When contract negotiations broke down last week, the union quickly distributed a fact sheet highlighting the worst effects of the ‘95 lockout: player suspensions totaling 26 games and fines totaling $202,500 in November alone. Webber missed a month after injuring his shoulder in a preseason fight with Luc Longley — a fight that, some suggested, might have been averted with tighter officiating. Shaquille O’Neal needed surgery for a broken thumb after he was hacked by Matt Geiger. Litvin said the union’s statistics were misleading. Although players were suspended for 29 games during the lockout, which ended in early December, that figure included 16 games of punishment for players who left the bench during a fight, but did not join the fray. Most of those, 14, stemmed from one incident, a Nov. 11 brawl between Indiana and Sacramento. For comparison, the league compiled statistics from the last two months of the 1995-96 season, when the regular referees were in control. Players were suspended for 24 games in that span, Litvin said, and none for leaving the bench. Based on that sample, Litvin said: “There’s no evidence at all that the games were rougher. In fact, there’s evidence to the contrary.” Robert Horry, who played for the Houston Rockets in 1995, said he the replacement referees were “decent, but not at the level we’re used to.” “The thing about when you had those amateurs on the floor, they didn’t know your tendencies,” said Horry, who retired in 2008. “A lot of things move so fast in the N.B.A., and they would assume things.” Horry dismissed suggestions that games became more dangerous during the lockout, or that the injuries to O’Neal and Webber could be blamed on the replacements. “It could be just a freak accident,” he said. “That could have happened with the regular refs.” Derek Fisher, the president of the players union, issued a statement in support of the referees on Tuesday. “Our fans deserve the best product that we can put on the court, and that includes having the best referees,” Fisher said. “Anything less is unacceptable to our union and our members.” Sometimes, the replacements turn out to be pretty good. In fact, 17 of the N.B.A.’s current referees began as replacements. That group that includes some of the league’s most respected referees, as well as some of its most controversial. Joey Crawford joined the N.B.A. during a strike in 1977. Danny Crawford, Ken Mauer, Eddie F. Rush and Derrick Stafford got their start during a lockout in 1983. Twelve others, including Bill Kennedy and Leon Wood, broke into the N.B.A. during the 1995 lockout. “I think it speaks to the fact that our current staff of referees are the 60 best in the world,” Litvin said, “and the referees who will replace them are probably pretty close to being the next best 60 in the world.” The world, it seems, will soon get the chance to judge for itself.

Basketball
National Basketball Assn
Officiating (Sports)
McMorris Lamell


I.O.C. Pledges to Help Balance Vancouver’s Strained Budget

Abstract: The International Olympic Committee has offered to help Vancouver’s organizing committee balance its budget if it finishes the 2010 Winter Games with a deficit. In a statement released Thursday, the Vancouver Organizing Committee said it was having trouble raising money in the economic downturn, and said the “supportive, generous” commitment by the I.O.C. had limits, although it did not specify an amount. “In no way does it guarantee to cover all costs and any deficit at the end of the Games,” Dave Cobb, executive vice president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said in the statement. Vancouver officials have cited lower television revenue and fewer international sponsors as reasons for the projected deficit. The I.O.C. has nine international sponsors out of 11 possible categories, leaving a gap of about $30 million in revenue that the organizing committee had expected to receive. Although the announcement about the new financial arrangement was unusually public, it is not unheard of for the I.O.C. to renegotiate its agreements with host cities, said Michael Payne, who was director of marketing and broadcasting at the I.O.C. until 2004. “It’s not particularly unusual,” Payne said. “The I.O.C. has to ensure the success of the Games.” Payne said he was involved in negotiating similar arrangements before the Atlanta and Salt Lake Games. Given that Vancouver had to submit its plans several years ago, Payne said, it is only natural that as time passes “there is some understandable give and take.”

International Olympic Committee
Budgets and Budgeting
Olympic Games
Vancouver (British Columbia)


Starbucks and Square to Team Up

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Cash moved one small step nearer to its deathbed with the announcement on Wednesday that Square, the mobile payments start-up, would form a partnership with the Starbucks Coffee Company. This fall, Square will begin processing all credit and debit card transactions at Starbucks stores in the United States and eventually customers will be able to order a grande vanilla latte and charge it to their credit cards simply by saying their names. Though smartphone payments have a long way to go before they replace wallets altogether, Starbucks’s adoption of Square will catapult the start-up’s technology onto street corners nationwide, and is the clearest sign yet that mobile payments could become mainstream. “Anyone who’s going to break the mobile payments barrier in the U.S. has to overcome the resistance to try anything new when everything we have works really, really well, even cash, which is very convenient,” said Bill Maurer, director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine. “But if a big merchant jumping into some mobile payment solution signals to other merchants that there is an opportunity here,” he added, “that might change the psychology for other merchants.” Starbucks is also investing $25 million in Square as part of its latest round of financing, which values the company at $3.25 billion , and Howard D. Schultz, Starbucks’s chief executive, will join Square’s board. Starbucks has offered its own mobile payment app since last year and processes more than a million mobile payments a week. Customers will continue to be able to use it, but they will also be able to use Pay With Square, Square’s cellphone app, which eliminates even having to take the phone out of your pocket or sign a receipt. At first, Starbucks customers will need to show the merchant a bar code on their phones. But when Starbucks uses Square’s full GPS technology, the customer’s phone will automatically notify the store that the customer has entered, and the customer’s name and photo will pop up on the cashier’s screen. The customer will give the merchant his or her name, Starbucks will match the photo and the payment will be complete. Even though Square’s app has been well reviewed , it has not caught on with shoppers, which has been Square’s biggest challenge as it tries to expand. That is in large part because of the limited number of merchants that accept payments that way. Most of Square’s users are small businesses, like farm stands or cafes that also use Square’s credit card reader. Starbucks, which will be far and away the largest business using Square, could change that. “Starbucks is one of the largest organizations in the world, taking technology like Square — simple, fast and focused on customer experience — and bringing it to a massive scale,” said Jack Dorsey, Square’s co-founder and chief executive. Square, which was introduced in 2010, is one of many businesses — like Google, PayPal, Sprint and Microsoft and start-ups like Scvngr and GoPago — that are trying to offer mobile payments. But they have been slow to catch on because they require the cooperation of many players, including retailers, credit card companies, banks, cellphone carriers and phone makers. And Americans have been just as happy to pull out their credit cards as their cellphones to make a payment. Denee Carrington, a Forrester analyst who recently wrote a report on mobile payments, said that mobile payment providers would need to offer a compelling, safe and convenient experience for shoppers, and that the applications would have to make good use of their personal data, like spending habits, to offer valuable services. Forrester estimates that 30 percent of American mobile phone owners are interested in using mobile payments, based on a survey polling about 7,600 adults in the United States. It found that younger consumers are the most amenable to using mobile wallets. Still, it predicts that it will take another three to five years before mobile payments reach critical mass in the domestic market. “We are still in the early days of mobile payments specifically, but the market is accelerating, especially the amount of innovation that’s happening in the marketplace,” Ms. Carrington said. Square has so far been most popular in small coffee shops, but Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Schultz said that even though the start-up was now doing business with the nation’s biggest coffee chain, the partnership would benefit those small businesses. More customers will have the app, they said, and it will show small businesses near Starbucks stores. “My hope is that by creating a national footprint for Square technology in all Starbucks stores in the U.S., that it will be a catalyst for Square to get access to tens of thousands of other small business and democratize payments,” Mr. Schultz said.

Start-ups
Smartphones
Mobile Commerce
Square Inc
Starbucks Corporation


Thais to Vote on a Constitution That Would Restore Civilian Rule in Diluted Form

Abstract: BANGKOK, Aug. 17 — Thailand takes another step into its uncertain future on Sunday with a nationwide vote on a new constitution that analysts say is likely to weaken democratic processes and return power to traditional centers of authority. Most opinion polls and analysts predict that the proposed constitution will pass as people vote to move forward from 11 months under a military junta. That would allow the country to proceed with a promised election and a return to civilian rule. Thailand has not yet emerged from a period of turmoil that began months before Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a coup last September. The struggle that is under way for personal power is also a struggle over the nature of Thai government. Illustrating the state of affairs, the voters are going to get a new constitution, presented by the ruling generals, whether they want one or not. If the charter is rejected on Sunday, according to the rules of the referendum, the generals will simply select another from among Thailand’s 17 previous constitutions, amend it to their liking and declare it to be the law of the land. To many analysts, that would be likely to lead to renewed anger and unrest. To ensure a yes vote, the country’s military rulers have mobilized the armed forces to “rally support,” particularly in rural areas of the northeast where allegiance to Mr. Thaksin remains strong. “Before referendum day, troops from special warfare and intelligence units will be dispatched to all communities in the region to block any last-ditch attempts by remnants of the old power clique to sink the draft charter,” an unnamed military source told The Bangkok Post this week, without elaborating. Anticipating the adoption of the constitution and an election as early as November or December, office-seekers are already maneuvering in what has become a fluid and unpredictable political arena. But under the new constitution, the shifts in power will run deeper than the outcomes of political rivalries. Much of the proposed charter is structured as a reaction to Mr. Thaksin’s aggressive accumulation of power during his five years in office. It would weaken the executive and shift dominance from voters and politicians back to the traditional power groups: the elites, the bureaucracy and the military. Thailand would return to the weak, ineffective and short-lived coalition governments of the past, watched over by a potent military. What the proposed constitution presents to Thailand, said Pasuk Phongpaichit, the author of several books on Mr. Thaksin and on the Thai economy, is a form of “managed democracy” that would weaken the role of the public. Half of the Senate as well as the independent commissions that form a check on central power would be appointed, opening the way to patronage and corruption. Constituencies for the lower house would be enlarged, distancing representatives from the voters. The voices of civil society and nongovernment groups that were empowered by the previous constitution, passed at the end of 1997, would lose force, analysts say. The enhanced role of the military — including an amnesty for the coup members — is a widespread concern among critics. There are also concerns over a separate internal security law proposed by the junta giving the military broad independent powers that could override other constitutional provisions. In addition, the leader of the junta, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin, has hinted that he might enter politics. “The already volatile political situation will certainly worsen if Sonthi decides to throw his hat into the ring,” Thepchai Yong, an editor at the newspaper The Nation, wrote last week. The elements of the proposed constitution are a democratic format insulated against mass takeover; military oversight of political activity at all levels; and a campaign for national unity focused on the monarchy, said Ms. Pasuk, a professor of economics at Chulalongkorn University. In a widely quoted talk given last month, she said those elements, which characterized a coup in 1976, would be more difficult to carry out in today’s changed world. “Thailand’s globalized economy is incompatible with military rule,” she said. Already, she said, Thailand has been tilting away from the open and liberal ideals that infused the 1997 Constitution. “The key words of the 2000s have included authoritarianism, exclusion, coup, nominee, security, violence and reconciliation,” she said. This trend away from liberal democracy is likely to continue for some time, said Jon Ungpakorn, a former senator who is part of the democracy movement here. He added: “The main issue is patronage. The system of patronage is entrenched in Thai society. It allowed Thaksin to abuse his power. The coup makers used the patronage system.” But whichever way things go, he said, Thai politics “can change in a minute, like a storm.” Significant changes often come from outside the political process — whether through a coup or a bloody crackdown. “If it reaches a crisis point where there are mass demonstrations and things get violent,” he said, in what appeared to be an optimistic assessment, “there will be dramatic change.”

Constitutions
Thailand
Referendums
Politics and Government
Public Opinion


Report Shows More than 3,000 Deaths for Race Horses in 5 Years

Abstract: Over the past five years, 3,035 thoroughbreds, standardbreds and quarter horses have died at racing facilities, but not all of them on the racetrack or in racing-related accidents, according to statistics provided to a Congressional subcommittee by the Association of Racing Commissioners International. In the wake of the injury and on-track euthanizing of the filly Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby , the numbers provide a snapshot of the peril racehorses face. The R.C.I., a nonprofit trade association, concluded that over that five-year period there were 2,427,561 starters, and the number of deaths amounted to .125 percent. “When you look at the numbers, what they show is that 99.875 percent of the time when a horse starts a race, they walk off safely afterwards,” said Ed Martin, president of the R.C.I., which compiled the data used in the report. “There’s no historical perspective to put them in,” he said. “Some people say things have gotten worse, others say they have gotten better. Right now, it’s largely anecdotal. We’re as curious as Congress about the magnitude of the problem, and support their efforts. We’d like to see a large-scale research project into catastrophic injuries funded as well.” The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection will have a hearing Thursday titled “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Racing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse.” Its chairman, Representative Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois, and ranking minority member, Ed Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky, appear to want to create a central body to govern horse racing, similar to the British Horseracing Authority. Among other materials the subcommittee requested from the individual racing commissions was a breakdown of trainers penalized for medication or performance-enhancing drug infractions in the last five years. Of the approximately 15,000 licensed horse trainers in the United States, 1,335, or 8.9 percent, have been cited for medication violations, Martin said. Of 1,897 individual medication violations during the past five years, slightly more than two-thirds — 67.6 percent — were violations for surpassing allowable levels for therapeutic medications. “There were 167 — or 1.1 percent — of what we consider more severe violations where drugs were used clearly to enhance performance,” Martin said. Spokesmen for the subcommittee, as well as for Whitfield, did not return telephone and e-mail messages. Martin said the subcommittee requested the information in a May 22 letter, and asked that it be compiled and in its office by June 2. He said the short turnaround time and the structure of some state racing commissions made it difficult to separate statistics for individual breeds. The R.C.I. report included numbers from 19 of the 38 racing jurisdictions. Some of the jurisdictions’ individual statistics were quite specific. The New York State Racing and Wagering Board broke down the 637 horse deaths on its harness and thoroughbred tracks over the five-year period: 388 occurred on the track, 60 occurred in training and 189 were nonracing-related deaths that occurred in the backstretch. “The 388 deaths that occurred while racing are out of a total of 521,703 starters (.07 percent),” it reported. In Kentucky, where medication rules are far more lenient than in other states, there were 208 deaths out of 114,668 starters, or .181 percent, the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority said. When the subcommittee announced the hearing last Wednesday, it made it clear that it intended to use the Interstate Horse Racing Act to enforce oversight of the industry. Congress could prohibit the off-track betting that in 2007 accounted for more than 90 percent of the $15.4 billion bet on thoroughbred racing. “The hearing will explore all aspects of the health and well-being of thoroughbred racehorses, including commercial breeding practices that emphasize speed and precocity over durability, the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs and other medications, track surfaces, and maintenance of the tracks,” a news release announcing the hearings said. Questions sent to R.C.I., the Jockey Club and racetrack operators like Churchill Downs, Inc., which hosts the Kentucky Derby, and Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns Pimlico, where the Preakness Stakes is held, indicate the subcommittee is interested in creating an authority that will put in uniform rules. “One of the questions that no doubt will be raised will be, ‘Does the thoroughbred industry have the structure to effect change?’ ” said Alex Waldrop, president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. “We’ll be addressing that.”

Horses
Horse Racing
Breeding of Animals
Eight Belles (Race Horse)


Dr. Robert Neuwirth, a Pioneering Gynecologist, Dies at 80

Abstract: Dr. Robert Neuwirth, a prominent gynecologist who developed minimally invasive techniques that helped many women avoid hysterectomies, died on Dec. 17 in Newark. He was 80. The cause was complications of a stroke, his son Michael said. Dr. Neuwirth, who for much of his career was chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan as well as a professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was both a doctor and a tinkerer. He spent decades inventing, refining and revising his own techniques with the goal of finding simpler, more efficient ways to reduce painful and excessive menstrual bleeding. One of the earliest methods he developed was to remove fibroids, the benign tumors that grow in the wall of the uterus and that can cause excessive bleeding. In the past, surgeons who wanted to remove fibroids did so by removing the entire uterus. That procedure, a hysterectomy, required a large abdominal incision and could carry increased risks of infection and complications, and also meant the woman could not become pregnant. In the late 1960s, Dr. Neuwirth developed an alternative method that used a camera and tiny instruments, inserted through the vagina, to remove fibroids individually, leaving the uterus in place. The recovery time after the procedure, called an operative hysteroscopy, was much shorter, and many women were able to become pregnant afterward. By the 1980s, operative hysteroscopies were becoming common. Hundreds of thousands are now performed in the United States each year, many by doctors first taught by Dr. Neuwirth. His innovations often involved what is known as endometrial ablation, in which the tissue lining the uterus is deliberately reduced or destroyed to combat heavy bleeding, called menorrhagia. Several years after popularizing hysteroscopy, Dr. Neuwirth received a patent for a technique that involves inserting a balloonlike device into the uterus and filling it with hot water to essentially burn away part of the uterine wall. That procedure, which can be done in a doctor’s office, has become commonplace. Image Dr. Robert Neuwirth Credit RCL Photos In recent years he was working on still another method, a chemical treatment that involves applying silver nitrate to parts of the uterine wall. One of his consistent goals was to create treatments that were relatively easy and inexpensive, in part so they could be used in countries with less sophisticated medical care. “He didn’t want to make these complex,” said Dr. Jacques Moritz , a longtime colleague who is director of the gynecology division at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt. “He always wanted to keep it as simple as possible so that more people could do it.” Robert Samuel Neuwirth was born on July 11, 1933, in Floral Park, N.Y., the only child of Phyllis and Abraham, a doctor. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Yale in 1955 and a medical degree from Yale in 1958; he completed his residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in 1962. He was named head of the obstetrics and gynecology department at St. Luke’s in 1974, and he stayed in that position until 1991, well after the hospital had become St. Luke’s-Roosevelt. From 1977 to 2000 he was a professor at Columbia. He served as an examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology from 1982 to 1988. “He was a brilliant physician-scientist, pushing forward new knowledge, but he was also a brilliant physician educator,” said Dr. Frank A. Chervenak , a former student who is chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and at Weill Cornell Medical College. In addition to his son Michael, survivors include four other children, Susan Neuwirth-Guerra, Jessica, Laura and Alexander; and six grandchildren. Dr. Neuwirth was married twice; both marriages ended in divorce. He lived in Tampa, Fla., and had a home in Englewood, N.J. Dr. Neuwirth often did follow-up studies to test the long-term consequences and safety of his techniques. He studied menstrual function in women who had hysteroscopic surgery, and he tested whether ablation techniques could mask cancer. He found that they did not. Dr. Alan DeCherney , the program director for reproductive biology and medicine at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was among several people who emphasized that Dr. Neuwirth was a modest man who was not inclined to professional networking or self-promotion. “He didn’t sell his ideas, he just did his stuff,” Dr. DeCherney said. “People saw it was good and they picked it up.”

Robert Neuwirth
Fibroids
Science and Technology
Obituary
Inventions and Patents


Scavenger of Golf Balls Is Found Stabbed to Death

Abstract: For most golfers, every shank, hook and slice is agony. But for the people who scavenge the ponds and rough edges of golf courses, the little white balls that land out of play are as good as cash. At a public golf course in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, the nation’s oldest, two middle-aged men were a familiar presence near the fences just beyond the fairways. They would come often to search for errant tee shots, collect as many balls as they could find and clean them up before reselling them in bulk. On Thursday night, one of those men was found dead in the woods near the course, stabbed 16 times, according to the police. His shirtless body was discovered at around 7 p.m. by a jogger who was running on a nearby trail. As of Friday afternoon, the police were still searching for his partner. The police said the victim, whom they declined to identify until they could notify his family, had several prior arrests, but they declined to go into detail about the status of the investigation. Employees and players at the club said they knew the man only by his nickname, Cuba. Though there are few known details on the stabbing, the man’s death offered a peek into the world of golf ball recovery and resale. Each year, an estimated 100 million golf balls are scavenged and resold, creating a vast and largely unregulated multimillion-dollar marketplace. Some scavengers are out to make some extra money where they can, while others run elaborate operations that collect tens of thousands of balls. It is a business that has been around for almost as long as modern golfers have been swinging clubs. “Ball hawks will poor-mouth their profession, tell you it is a nickel-and-dime job,” Sports Illustrated wrote in 1969. “It is the swimming they like, or the outdoors, or the independence. That’s what makes it all worthwhile. But a scavenger in North Carolina drives a Porsche and sends his daughter to private school on the profits he makes from operating in 27 states. A man like that can afford to be self-deprecating.” Some of the most ambitious scavengers across the country work the lakes and ponds at clubs, although many courses maintain exclusive relationships with certain people so that they can share in the profits. Scuba Diving magazine reported that scavenging was a multimillion-dollar industry with hardworking divers making $50,000 to $100,000 a year. While new golf balls can cost $3 to $5 on average, a scavenger will resell balls for a fraction of that price, often for less than a dollar. It was not known how much money the victim in the Bronx made from his scavenging, and it was unclear if his murder had anything to do with selling the balls. But one worker on the course, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because he was not given permission to talk to the news media, said the man was a familiar presence. The man, who the police said was in his late 50s or early 60s, had been scavenging balls for at least seven years, according to the employee. “Everybody who plays here or works here has seen him,” the employee said. The man would mainly hang out by the fences, but sometimes he would venture onto the grounds to scrounge around in the rough. Since he was a familiar face and was just doing his job, he was largely tolerated by both players and the management. It seemed to the employee that the man had no other job and made a decent living from selling the balls. Depending on the condition of the ball, he would charge from 25 cents to a dollar and on a good day could make over $150, the employee said. After learning about the murder, he said he was mystified by what might have happened. “It’s odd,” he said.

Golf
Bronx
Murders
NYPD
Van Cortlandt Park Bronx


Fresh Signs Point to Possible European Central Bank Stimulus Plan

Abstract: FRANKFURT — Top officials of the European Central Bank sent strong signals on Wednesday that action to stimulate the economy was all but certain next month. But they also made it clear that the bank was unlikely to make a powerful injection of money into the economy. Such a boost, which the Federal Reserve accomplished in the United States through huge purchases of government bonds, is seen by many analysts as necessary to prevent the euro zone from tipping into a new crisis. At its meeting in June, the E.C.B. is likely to cut the main interest rate to close to zero, begin penalizing banks for hoarding cash by means of negative interest rates and perhaps issue a new round of cheap loans to banks, according to the comments by the central bankers. The E.C.B. could also buy assets like packages of bank loans. Expectations were already high that the bank would do something at its June 5 meeting to promote growth. Mario Draghi, the president of the bank, said last week that there was a consensus on the bank’s 24-member governing council that inflation was too low and that something should be done about it. But the outlook for inflation and the state of the European economy would have to significantly worsen before the central bank would begin buying government bonds wholesale, Peter Praet, a member of the bank’s executive board, told the German newspaper Die Zeit in an interview published on Wednesday. Continued reluctance by the E.C.B. to deploy quantitative easing, or the buying of bonds and other financial instruments to stimulate the economy, will come as a disappointment to many economists, who warn that the euro zone faces the same kind of prolonged stagnation that has gripped Japan. “Any action that is likely to be taken is almost certainly going to be a case of too little, too late,” Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, a consultancy in London, said in an email on Wednesday. With the benchmark interest rate already at a record low of 0.25 percent, the central bank has been struggling to find ways to raise inflation and get banks to lend. The central bank’s main aim in imposing a negative deposit rate would be to lower the value of the euro against the dollar and other major currencies. A negative deposit rate would encourage investors to buy other currencies that pay a better return. Euro zone exporters benefit from a weaker currency because it makes their products cheaper in foreign markets. The bank has expressed concern that the euro is too strong. “Negative deposit rates are a possible part of a combination of measures,” Mr. Praet told Die Zeit. “We are preparing a range of things.” He also said that the central bank could offer long-term loans to banks, with conditions attached to ensure that banks lent the money to businesses and consumers. At 0.7 percent, annual inflation in the euro zone is below the 2 percent level that the central bank considers healthy. When inflation is that low, debtors have more trouble repaying their loans and there is a risk that some kind of shock could lead to deflation, a broad decline in prices that undercuts business investment and can lead to mass unemployment. Such a shock could come from the current tensions in Russia and Ukraine. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is partly financed by the United States, warned on Wednesday that the dispute could have severe economic consequences in Eastern Europe, countries of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. That bank promotes economic development in those regions. “The crisis in Russia and Ukraine is having a severe impact on the economies of the two countries and is threatening to slow down the recovery in the wider E.B.R.D. region — or even bring it to a complete halt,” the bank said on Wednesday. The statements by central bankers showed wide agreement on measures, short of quantitative easing, to combat such risks. The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, signaled that it would not object to more aggressive stimulus measures, which should in turn assure the support of the German public. However, the Bundesbank gave several caveats and remained opposed to the purchase of euro zone government bonds, an action it regards as illegal. Mr. Draghi indicated last week that the bank would announce stimulus measures at its June 5 meeting, assuming that there was no change in the long-term outlook for inflation. “The governing council is not resigned to having low inflation for too long a time,” Mr. Draghi said last week at a news conference in Brussels. “The governing council is comfortable with acting next time.” The euro fell on Tuesday after reports in The Wall Street Journal and several German newspapers that the Bundesbank would support unprecedented stimulus measures. On Wednesday, a person at the Bundesbank who is familiar with the thinking of top policy makers played down the reports. The person said the Bundesbank’s position had not fundamentally changed in recent months. The euro rose slightly on Wednesday to about $1.37. The Bundesbank would not oppose measures like new low-cost loans to banks or negative deposit rates if such measures were deemed necessary, said the person at the bank, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The Bundesbank also would not oppose the purchase of packages of bank loans, the person said, which could make it easier for banks to lend money in troubled countries like Italy and Spain. Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, confirmed on Wednesday that he was open to more stimulus. The Bundesbank first indicated in March that it might consider unusual steps to stimulate the economy. Mr. Weidmann is a vocal member of the European Central Bank’s governing council. He has often split with other members over policy and speaks for a significant number of Germans. His support for stimulus measures would reduce the risk that moves by the central bank to push up inflation would alienate the German public. Mr. Weidmann said he had not dropped his opposition to E.C.B. purchases of euro zone government bonds, which he regards as a violation of the bank’s mandate. Yves Mersch, a member of the E.C.B.'s executive board, appeared to leave the door open to quantitative easing, saying in Berlin on Wednesday that the central bank would not be violating its mandate if it bought government bonds. Mr. Mersch defended the central bank’s promise to buy bonds of troubled countries to keep their borrowing rates under control. The program, which has not been put into effect since its announcement in 2012, has been controversial in Germany and was the subject of a legal challenge in the country’s constitutional court. The German court referred the matter to the European Court of Justice, which is considering it. The E.C.B.'s mandate “includes the possibility of buying, under the appropriate conditions, government bonds on the secondary market,” Mr. Mersch said, according to a prepared text, “should this be necessary from a monetary policy perspective.”

European Central Bank
Europe
Government bond
Inflation
Quantitative easing
Yves Mersch
Banking and Finance


Rats May Be Exonerated in European Plague, Say Scientists With a Gerbil Theory

Abstract: Scientists say they may have solved a centuries-old whodunit: Why did Europe experience outbreaks of bubonic plague over hundreds of years, starting with the Black Death of 1347 to 1353? Maybe you can blame gerbils in Asia. The disease is caused by a bacterium that lives in rodents. The general thought had been that once the germ arrived from Asia to kick off the Black Death, it settled into European rodents and periodically jumped to humans until it disappeared in the early 1800s. But now, scientific sleuths are suggesting that the true source of those periodic outbreaks was Asia. Maritime trade may have inadvertently imported the disease repeatedly from its ultimate reservoir, great gerbils and other small mammals in Asia, they suggest. "I don't think there was any sustainable reservoir in Europe," Nils Stenseth of the University of Oslo said Tuesday in an email. He and his co-authors make their case in an article published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They studied ancient tree rings that preserve fine-grained records of climate in Europe and Asia. Plague jumps from wild rodents to humans in response to climate shifts, and the scientists looked to see if they could match those shifts to the times of regional outbreaks. They found no evidence of a European reservoir for the disease. But climate records from Asia told a different story. The researchers identified 16 possible instances between 1346 and 1837 in which plague might have arrived at a European port from Asia. These events were consistently preceded by climate fluctuations in Asia, as recorded by tree rings from Pakistan, with a lag of about 15 years. Camels, people and fleas in caravans passing through Asia could have picked up the germ and started it on its journey to Europe via trade routes, the researchers said.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


Dockery Doesn't Wait to Save Duke

Abstract: Sean Dockery rescued Duke again. This time, he did not wait until the final buzzer. With the top-ranked Blue Devils' unbeaten record on the line, Dockery made a go-ahead 3-pointer and set up another 3-pointer by Lee Melchionni seconds later last night to help host Duke beat No. 14 North Carolina State, 81-68. J. J. Redick had 28 points and Shelden Williams 21, but it was Dockery's play down the stretch that helped Duke reach 17-0 (5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) for the second time. The other was during a run to the N.C.A.A. title in 1992. The Wolfpack (14-3, 3-2) was never too far away in a game that featured 16 lead changes and 9 ties, the last at 65-65 after a free throw from N.C. State's Gavin Grant. On the other end, Dockery swished a 3-pointer as Tony Bethel slammed into him. When his free throw clanged off the rim, Dockery chased down the rebound and found Melchionni alone at the top of the key. His jumper gave the Blue Devils a 6-point lead, and they were never challenged again. They trailed at halftime for only the second time this season; the other was against Virginia Tech on Dec. 4. That was when Dockery made a 40-foot heave at the buzzer to give Duke the improbable victory. He made sure this one had little drama in the final seconds, as he helped Duke close with a 16-3 run. Cedric Simmons of N.C. State finished with a career-high 28 points, 9 rebounds, 7 blocks and 3 steals. Grant had 13 points for the Wolfpack, but Engin Atsur and Ilian Evtimov each scored 2 points, about 9 below their averages. Williams added nine rebounds, three blocks and five steals for Duke. Redick made four 3-pointers and converted all 10 free throws. Dockery, a sometimes-forgotten senior, had 10 points and 5 assists with no turnovers. FLORIDA 113, SAVANNAH STATE 62 -- Joakim Noah shot 10 for 10 and had 21 points, and No. 2 Florida (17-0) extended the best start and longest winning streak in team history and finished undefeated in nonconference play for the first time in Coach Billy Donovan's 10 seasons. Savannah State (1-18) has lost 18 straight since beating Wilberforce. MEMPHIS 88, TENNESSEE 79 -- Shawne Williams had 21 points and 14 rebounds as No. 4 Memphis (16-2) held off visiting Tennessee (11-3). U.C.L.A. 66, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 45 -- Jordan Farmar scored 11 of his 13 points in the first half for No. 18 U.C.L.A. (15-3, 5-2). Visiting Southern California (12-6, 3-4) scored its fewest points in the series since 1969. OHIO STATE 77, WISCONSIN 67 -- Terence Dials led No. 19 Ohio State (13-2, 3-2) with 15 points as the Buckeyes beat No. 15 Wisconsin (14-3, 4-1). IOWA 76, MINNESOTA 72 -- No. 23 Iowa (14-4, 3-1 Big Ten) made nine straight free throws down the stretch to win the first triple-overtime game played at Carver Hawkeye Arena. Minnesota (9-6, 0-4) missed four straight free throws in the final minute of the second overtime. MARIST 77, MANHATTAN 68 -- Ryan Stilphen had 21 points and 11 rebounds as Marist (9-6, 3-4) handed visiting Manhattan (10-5, 6-1) its first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference loss. MASSACHUSETTS 74, FORDHAM 61 -- Rashaun Freeman had 21 points and 13 rebounds to lead Massachusetts (8-6, 3-1 Atlantic 1o) over visiting Fordham (7-10, 2-2). ST. FRANCIS (N.Y.) 70, L.I.U. 67 -- Allan Sheppard had 22 points and St. Francis of Brooklyn (5-10, 2-4 Northeast Conference) almost blew a 20-point lead to the visiting Blackbirds (4-10, 1-4). Women NORTH CAROLINA 85, GEORGIA TECH 56 -- Erlana Larkins scored 22 points, including 14-for-14 free-throw shooting, as No. 4 North Carolina (17-0, 4-0 A.C.C.) handed visiting Georgia Tech (11-6, 0-4) its fifth straight loss. OKLAHOMA 63, TEXAS TECH 57 -- The freshman center Courtney Paris had her 10th straight double-double (17 points, 19 rebounds) to lead No. 17 Oklahoma (14-4, 4-0 Big 12). Visiting Texas Tech (7-8, 2-2) was without Coach Marsha Sharp, who was hospitalized and released earlier in the day after suffering from flulike symptoms.

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
DUKE UNIVERSITY
BASKETBALL


Better Defense Helps No. 20 Texas Tech Top McNeese State

Abstract: Pat Knight got Texas Tech to buckle down on defense — just in time to avoid a costly loss. Mike Singletary scored 27 points, including two free throws with 18.4 seconds left, as the 20th-ranked Red Raiders rallied for a 76-75 victory against McNeese State on Friday. “These last four games we’re giving up 40-45 points in the first half,” Knight said. “At least this game, I give them credit, we only gave up 31 in the second half. We won because we played defense in the second half.” The Red Raiders (11-2) trailed by 9 in the second half but rallied to take a 74-73 lead on a 3-point play by Nick Okorie. P. J. Alawoya got the lead back for McNeese State but could not convert his opportunity for a 3-point play. Singletary took advantage of the opening, converting two free throws to make the score 76-75. McNeese State had two opportunities to get the win in the final seconds but failed to get a shot off each time. Diego Kapelan scored 20 points for the Cowboys (5-8). “If you look back at our records, we played pretty good at places with these environments,” McNeese State Coach Dave Simmons said. “But I just think it was a challenge and a great opportunity for our basketball team and I told them when we have these opportunities, that’s when greatness happens. And we just come up short tonight.” The Red Raiders were coming off 90-75 loss at New Mexico. And they started slowly. Elbryan Neal made a 3-pointer with three seconds left in the first half to give McNeese State a 44-39 lead. “We just have to get off to a better start, more energy,” Knight said. “It’s pretty much simple stuff. Our body language, kids’ personalities, having an urgency.” Singletary, who also had four steals, thought his teammates played hard in the first half. “But they got too many easy buckets,” he said, referring to McNeese State. “They would air ball a 3, get a rebound and put it back in. Those kind of plays really hurt us in the first half.” Okorie scored 13 points, John Roberson got 12 and David Tairu had 10 for the Red Raiders, who turned McNeese State’s 18 turnovers into 19 points. Texas Tech also went 30 for 41 from the line. NEW MEXICO 68, DAYTON 66 Dairese Gary scored 18 points, including seven free throws in the final two minutes, to help No. 19 New Mexico win at home. Darington Hobson added 15 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists, and Roman Martinez had 17 points and 6 rebounds for New Mexico (14-1). Chris Johnson scored 21 to lead Dayton (10-3), which saw its eight-game winning streak end. Dayton held a brief 37-36 lead early in the second half on London Warren’s breakaway dunk. New Mexico quickly answered as Martinez hit consecutive 3-pointers. GAMECOCKS DISMISS PLAYER South Carolina forward Mike Holmes was kicked off the team for repeatedly violating team rules. The Gamecocks program said in a release that Holmes did not meet the expectations of South Carolina Coach Darrin Horn, but it did not specify what Holmes did. Holmes, who was averaging 11 points and 4.8 rebounds a game, is the second starter the Gamecocks (8-4) have lost this season. The senior Dominique Archie had a season-ending knee injury on Nov. 22. Women U.S.C. 60, ARIZONA STATE 56 Briana Gilbreath scored 16 points and Heather Oliver added 14 as visiting Southern California defeated No. 19 Arizona State in its Pac-10 Conference opener Friday. Oliver, a senior from Victoria, Australia, tied a season-high with four 3-point field goals. The Trojans (7-5) overcame a 9-point deficit in the final minutes. Gilbreath made a layup to give U.S.C. its first lead, 57-56, with 51.2 seconds remaining. Ashley Corral made three free throws in the final 22.4 seconds as the Trojans broke a five-game skid at Wells Fargo Arena. Danielle Orsillo scored 16 points for Arizona State (8-4), which lost for the first time this season to an unranked team. The Sun Devils had won 9 of their previous 11 games against the Trojans.

Basketball
College Athletics
Texas Tech University


In an Indifferent Toronto, the Pan-Am Games Land With a Thud

Abstract: TORONTO — The new mayor is excited about his city’s big moment in the spotlight, but hardly anyone else seems to be. After six years of preparation, construction, marketing campaigns, controversies and snags, the Pan-American Games officially open here on Friday, and some preliminary competition rounds are already in progress. But most Torontonians seem to be greeting the event with a shrug, and Mayor John Tory is so exasperated that he has taken to lecturing them about their attitude. “I think the only sport that we’re not playing in the Pan-Am Games is sort of moaning and groaning,” Mr. Tory told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday. “And Toronto, on a regular basis, would be qualifying for a gold medal in that.” Some residents are annoyed by how much the city has spent to get ready — the total budget is 2.5 billion Canadian dollars, or about $2 billion — and others by the risk of snarled streets. But many seem to be reacting to the arrival of the event in their city this week the way they would to a new tattoo discovered the morning after a wild night. The Pan-Am Games have landed in Toronto, it seems, with a thud. “Other than having to deal with the traffic, I haven’t had any idea that the games are going to be going on,” said George Sakellis, a banker who was out shopping on Monday near a subway stop for the largest competition site, the Canadian National Exhibition fairgrounds. “I haven’t really felt the buzz for the games,” he said. Barring some final work at the fairgrounds, the city was all set logistically. A new express rail link to the airport has been running, an industrial wasteland has been redeveloped and large numbers of enthusiastic volunteers were on hand for orientation and training. But too few spectators seem to care. Only about 800,000 of the 1.4 million available tickets had been sold by Monday afternoon, despite a last-minute discounting program offered by a major bank. Local news media reports found that hotel rooms were still available in abundance. And the public discussion, such as it was, focused not on the events but on the disruption caused by blocking certain lanes on the city’s already congested expressways for the use of official games vehicles and high-occupancy vehicles. “What they haven’t done is capture the hearts and imagination of the country,” said Brian Cooper, the president of the S&E Sponsorship Group, a sports marketing company based in Toronto. “When was the last time you stopped your summer to watch the Pan-Am Games?” Image A flag-raising ceremony for the Pan-American Games was held Thursday at the athletes' village. Credit Ian Willms for The New York Times Canada is a country where winter sports predominate, and the Pan-Am Games have never been of immense interest, not even when they were held in Canada in 1967 and 1999. Toronto’s bid to host this year’s games seemed to have more to do with trying to lure the Summer Olympics than with any interest in uniting the Americas through sports. The bid, mounted in 2009, was largely the work of Bob Richardson, a public relations executive and high-level Liberal Party strategist. Mr. Richardson was a driving force in an unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, and he was a co-chairman of Mr. Tory’s successful mayoral campaign last year, even though Mr. Tory is a Conservative. That campaign bridged party lines to defeat Rob Ford, Mr. Tory’s pugnacious, erratic, scandal-prone predecessor. Mr. Tory and other public officials do their best to avoid answering questions about Toronto’s future Olympic aspirations, but Mr. Cooper and many others said that it was clear that the Pan-Am Games were sold to the Liberal provincial government of Ontario partly as a tryout for the larger event. Once Toronto was chosen, the sparse attention the games attracted mostly involved controversy. Some residents, including the writer Margaret Atwood, were angered by a plan to replace a lawn at the University of Toronto with artificial turf for field hockey, which has a very small following here. More troublesome were news reports that games managers had been both petty (claiming 91 cents in parking fees) and profligate (spending over $900 for drinks at a meeting) with their expense money . That, combined with a controversy over 7 million Canadian dollars promised to executives as bonuses , led to the dismissal of the organizing group’s chief executive at the end of 2013; he was replaced with a senior provincial official. In a country where even minor misuse of public money can be the stuff of scandal, some observers think the Toronto games never got over the black eye. “For the general public, there has been an apathy which is being driven by a dissatisfaction with the management of the games,” said Cheri L. Bradish, who teaches sports marketing at Ryerson University in Toronto. Making matters worse, officials have been issuing early and frequent warnings to adjust travel plans because of the expressway lane closings, resulting in apocalyptic news coverage. “You can’t do that for weeks and then turn around and say: ‘It’s going to be great,’ ” Ms. Bradish said. Image The Pan-American Games officially open in Toronto on Friday, but most residents seem to be greeting the event with a shrug. Credit Ian Willms for The New York Times Some of the sports in the games are popular, like soccer, but many are niche pursuits like archery and roller figure skating, and there is a general absence of celebrity athletes. Even the games’ mascot, Pachi , presents a marketing challenge: In a departure from the usual cute and cuddly, Pachi is a porcupine, with 41 quills representing the participating countries. Talk to Saad Rafi, the chief executive of the organizing committee, and water glasses soon come up in the conversation. “I’m just not a glass-half-empty guy,” he says. He was quick to point out that 100 Pan-Am events had sold out by Monday, including the opening ceremony, which is being staged by Cirque du Soleil. “We’re pleased with where we’re at,” he said. He said the griping in the city was typical of what goes on before any major international sports event, and cited complaints in Vancouver, British Columbia, before the 2010 Winter Olympics, which were widely viewed as a success. But Ms. Bradish, the sports marketing specialist, said she believed that the antipathy in Toronto was much greater than what Vancouver experienced. And she noted that unlike the Winter Olympics, the Pan-Am Games have no events like ice hockey, played by Canada’s best-known athletes, to build good will. One thing the Pan-Am Games are not doing is pulling many visitors from afar. Mr. Rafi estimated that only about 11 percent of ticket holders live outside the Toronto region. That may be a worry for Chris Jones, the floor manager at Paupers Pub in the Annex neighborhood downtown. A chalkboard outside was promoting a drawing for Pan-Am tickets, but “people are not pouring in the doors for it,” he said. “I don’t know of anybody that’s really excited about the games,” Mr. Jones said, as a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game played on the television behind him. “But we’ll see what happens when we actually get people in town. I’m hoping it helps, really.”

Toronto
John Tory
2010 Winter Olympics
Pan American Games
Liberal Party Canada
Conservative Party Canada


Housing Advocates Object to West Side Development Proposal

Abstract: ON a recent Tuesday, thick ropes of rain slashed at the concrete and dripped off car tires in the parking lot of Harborview Terrace, a two-building public housing project on West 55th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. There was little indication that the forlorn lot, and the basketball court next to it, might be the site of a real estate battle. But so it is. The dispute began with a city plan under which a private developer, Atlantic Development Group, would pay the city a minimum of roughly $10 million to erect two buildings comprising 324 apartments. One hundred and twenty-two apartments would be rented out at market rates, and 220 would be restricted to families with incomes between $32,300 and $126,700. The project is meant to fulfill a promise for affordable housing that the city made to the City Council in return for its support of the Hudson Yards rezoning in early 2005. But local officials and activists have objected strongly to the amount of market-rate housing in the Harborview proposal. “What you’ve given us is laughable!” someone called from the audience during an occasionally raucous meeting of Community Board 4 on May 14, when the city and the developer presented their plans. “We want 100 percent affordable housing!” Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who had voted in favor of the Hudson Yards rezoning, declared at the meeting that she would not support the Harborview project in its current guise in the City Council, where it requires approval. But Seth Donlin, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, defended the proposed number of market-rate apartments. “In developing strong neighborhoods in the city, you’re not looking to segregate areas by income,” he said. “Mixed-income communities and buildings are actually a positive.” City officials also point out that the project is expensive, requiring Atlantic to build over Amtrak rail tunnels, and that the New York City Housing Authority, which is facing a budget shortfall of $195 million, requires a substantial return from Atlantic. Besides objecting to the amount of market-rate housing, local residents also dislike the way the 220 income-restricted apartments are apportioned, with two-thirds reserved for the low-income elderly. The city offers developers valuable incentives to build such apartments, but Anna Levin, a community board member, said it was in fact moderate-income housing that the neighborhood needed most. In a statement responding to the local criticism, Chuck Brass of Atlantic Development said the market-rate housing was “essential to making the provision of moderate- and middle-income units feasible.” He added that the city had asked for a proposal for a mixed-income development — “and that is exactly what this plan delivers.”

Housing
Atlantic Development Group
Hell's Kitchen (NYC)


Citing Persecution, Spanish Abortion Clinics Go on Strike

Abstract: MADRID — Private clinics in Spain, which perform most of the country’s abortions, began a five-day strike on Tuesday to protest what they said was persecution by anti-abortion campaigners and government inspectors, who have swept clinics in recent weeks to crack down on illegal terminations. The strike, which involves about 40 clinics, revives a debate about Spain’s abortion rules at an awkward moment for the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which is trying to avoid inflammatory issues before elections in March. The strike could affect as many as 2,000 women, according to Francisca García Gallego, a regional director of the Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics, which organized it. She said striking clinics, which account for a majority of abortions in the country, would accept only emergency cases. The number of abortions in Spain has doubled in the past decade, to about 100,000 a year. Spain decriminalized abortion in 1985, and under current law women can have an abortion during the first 22 weeks of pregnancy if there is a risk of fetal malformation and the first 12 weeks in cases of rape. However, they are allowed to abort at any point if they can demonstrate that their mental or physical health is at risk. Ms. García said the central government had done nothing to protect abortion clinics or patients from a wave of aggressive protests by anti-abortion campaigners and raids by the local authorities that resulted in a dozen arrests in December. In recent weeks, clinics had been vandalized and doctors and nurses insulted and, in one or two cases, hit by protesters, she said. The raids followed the arrest in December of Carlos Morín, a gynecologist who ran a group of clinics in Barcelona and who was secretly filmed by a Danish journalist apparently agreeing to her request for an abortion in her seventh month. Dr. Morín is in jail, according to local news reports. Ms. García said by telephone that cases of illegal abortion were extremely rare and that 90 percent of terminations in Spain happened in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. “There is a cloud of suspicion hanging over us ever since the Barcelona clinic was closed,” she said. “We feel physically threatened, but nobody in the government has come out in our defense.” Dr. Morín’s arrest also set off a flurry of news media reports of “abortion tourism.” They offered macabre details of late-term abortions at clinics in Barcelona and Madrid. One private television producer released a video, said to have been made in a Madrid clinic, that showed an abortion at 21 weeks. In December, prosecutors in the Netherlands said they had arrested a Dutch woman who was accused of having had a late-term abortion in a Spanish clinic. Dutch law allows abortions up to the 24th week and illegal abortions are virtually unknown, according to a report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Abortion-rights advocates say the law should be more flexible, allowing women to terminate a pregnancy before a certain number of weeks on the basis of social or economic pressures, as is the case in many European countries. Critics say existing rules are routinely flouted by doctors. Mr. Zapatero said after the Barcelona arrest that an overhaul of the abortion law would be part of the government’s election campaign, but almost immediately backtracked, saying simply that the law should be reassessed.