Leaders Will Delay Deal on Climate Change

Abstract: SINGAPORE — President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future. At a hastily arranged breakfast on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting on Sunday morning, the leaders, including Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark and the chairman of the climate conference, agreed that in order to salvage Copenhagen they would have to push a fully binding legal agreement down the road, possibly to a second summit meeting in Mexico City later on. “There was an assessment by the leaders that it is unrealistic to expect a full internationally, legally binding agreement could be negotiated between now and Copenhagen, which starts in 22 days,” said Michael Froman, the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. “I don’t think the negotiations have proceeded in such a way that any of the leaders thought it was likely that we were going to achieve a final agreement in Copenhagen, and yet thought that it was important that Copenhagen be an important step forward, including with operational impact.” With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it has, for several months, appeared increasingly unlikely that the climate change negotiations in Denmark would produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming, as its organizers had intended. The agreement on Sunday codifies what negotiators had already accepted as all but inevitable: that representatives of the 192 nations in the talks would not resolve the outstanding issues in time. The gulf between rich and poor countries, and even among the wealthiest nations, was just too wide. Among the chief barriers to a comprehensive deal in Copenhagen was Congress’s inability to enact climate and energy legislation that sets binding targets on greenhouse gases in the United States. Without such a commitment, other nations are loath to make their own pledges. Administration officials and Congressional leaders have said that final legislative action on a climate bill would not occur before the first half of next year. After his breakfast meeting in Singapore, Mr. Obama was scheduled to meet with Asian leaders and to hold a number of one-on-one sessions, including one with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev. After his meeting with Mr. Medvedev, Mr. Obama will attend a symbolically important regional meeting of Southeast Asian nations, in which representatives of Myanmar’s government will also be present. Mr. Obama, who has made a point of his willingness to engage with adversaries, noted that for the first time an American president would be at the table with Myanmar’s military junta. But he has also called on the government to release the leader of the country’s beleaguered democracy movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. APEC summit meetings are not known for accomplishing much that is substantive. The most memorable moments often involve the photo opportunities, in which leaders wear colorful matching shirts. And often communiqués issued on dismantling trade barriers are undermined by the attending countries almost as soon as they are signed. Speaking to world leaders at the APEC summit meeting Sunday morning, Mr. Obama said he would hold the 2011 gathering in Hawaii. “The United States was there at the first meeting of APEC at Blake Island when President Clinton started the tradition of having leaders wear outfits picked out by the host nation,” Mr. Obama said. “And when America hosts APEC in a few years, I look forward to seeing you all decked out in flowered shirts and grass skirts because today I am announcing that my home state of Hawaii will be hosting this forum in 2011.” This year’s meeting promises more of the same, complete with charges and countercharges of protectionism . President Felipe Calderón of Mexico got things going early Saturday when he lashed out at what he called politically driven protectionism in the United States. He complained that Congressional coddling of the Teamsters had prevented the United States from opening its borders to Mexican trucks, which it was supposed to do years ago after it signed Nafta. “Protectionism is killing North American companies,” Mr. Calderón said in Singapore. “The American government is facing political pressure that has not been counteracted.” Mr. Obama is facing high expectations, which may be difficult to meet. For instance, while he has spoken about reducing trade barriers, he also talked during his speech in Tokyo on Saturday of making sure that the United States and Asia did not return to a cycle — which he termed “imbalanced” — in which American consumerism caused Asians to look at the United States as mainly an export market. There are also high hopes among American companies and some Asian countries that the United States will commit to joining a regional trading group called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Although Mr. Obama did open the door during his speech in Tokyo on Asia policy, he did not explicitly say that the United States would join the pact. A formal announcement that the United States is beginning negotiations would undoubtedly kick off criticism from free-trade opponents in the United States and pushback from Congress. Mr. Obama spoke, instead, of “engaging the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries with the goal of shaping a regional agreement that will have broad-based membership and the high standards worthy of a 21st-century trade agreement.” That line left many trade envoys already in Singapore scratching their heads: did Mr. Obama mean that the United States would begin formal talks to join the regional trade pact, which presently includes Singapore, Brunei and New Zealand, and could later include Vietnam — an addition that could lead to more Congressional pressure at home? Many regional officials have been waiting for the United States to join the initiative as a demonstration that Washington will play a more active role in the region. But the Obama administration has yet to establish a firm trade policy, as it is still reviewing its options. White House officials were not much clearer on what Mr. Obama meant when they were pressed on this after the speech. Mr. Froman, the deputy national security adviser, said that what Mr. Obama meant was that he would engage with the initiative “to see if this is something that could prove to be an important platform going further.”

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Far East South and Southeast Asia and Pacific Areas


Coach Tim Cluess Staying at Iona

Abstract: Iona Coach Tim Cluess announced late Saturday that he had “recommitted to coaching the Gaels,” taking himself out of the running for the opening at Hofstra, according to a news release. Cluess, a Long Island native who has led Iona to a 70-34 record and back-to-back N.C.A.A. tournament appearances in three seasons, signed a contract extension in January 2012 to remain with the Gaels through 2016-17. He had been considered the top candidate to replace Mo Cassara, who was fired by Hofstra in March. ¶ Brittney Griner, Baylor’s 6-foot-8 senior, won the Associated Press women’s player of the year award for the second straight season. Notre Dame’s Muffet McGraw was selected women’s coach of the year. (AP)

Tim Cluess
Hofstra
College basketball
Iona College


Aggressive Play on Important Points Lifts Nishikori Over Djokovic

Abstract: The points in Kei Nishikori’s stunning 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-3 victory over Novak Djokovic on Saturday were even, but the timing was not. Djokovic, the top seed, won more points (120 to 117), hit more winners (38 to 37), and made fewer errors (80 to 82). But all points in tennis are not created equal and the 10th-seeded Nishikori did a much better job of gathering the ones that weighed the most. Nishikori played better under pressure and stepped up in the third and fourth sets, reaching out and grabbing his spot in the United States final instead of waiting for it to be handed to him. Nishikori’s forehand, in particular, did a lot of damage, cracking 13 winners, including six in the third set, when the match turned. IBM analytics showed Nishikori hit 253 forehands and 198 backhands for the match, representing 56 percent forehands. Djokovic was more even, hitting 228 forehands and 204 backhands (52 percent forehands). From Ashe to Williams, Rackets of U.S. Open Champions The evolution of the tennis racket from wood to graphite has helped transform the sport into a game of power and spin. Djokovic acknowledged the improvement in Nishikori’s forehand in his post-match interview. “Well, I think he wasn’t using forehand as well as he does now,” Djokovic said. “Really aggressive. He’s very quick.” He added: “Other than the second set, my game today was not even close to what I wanted it to be. A lot of unforced errors, a lot of short balls. Just wasn’t myself.” In the pivotal third set, Nishikori broke Djokovic at 3-4, with the Serb starting the game with a double fault. At 30-30, Nishikori hit a spectacular on-the-run, crosscourt backhand passing shot and broke at 30-40 with a forehand return winner down the line. He served for the set but double faulted at 5-3, 30-40 to hand the break straight back. The third-set tiebreaker was ultimately the key to the match. The first two sets were entertaining but gave few clues as to who was going to move on to Monday’s final. Djokovic played an out-of-character passive third-set tiebreaker. He committed a backhand return error off a good serve on the first point and missed a first-shot backhand after his serve to trail, 0-2. His backhand has always been his rock, but he committed another backhand error on the third point, netting Nishikori’s return. The fourth point was the most bizarre, and clearly showed something was not right with Djokovic. He defended well, but on the fifth shot of the point, he hit a slice forehand with a topspin grip from around the middle of the court right into the bottom of the net. It was as passive as he could be at a time that demanded total aggression. He got back to 2-4, but then double-faulted. Serving at 4-6, he moved awkwardly and sent a forehand wide from well behind the baseline, a shot that a clear mind and quick feet would not miss. The nail in the coffin for Djokovic was the first game of the fourth set. After a meek tiebreaker, one would expect him to come out roaring, but he attempted a drop shot with his first ground stroke and it did not make it over the net. He threw in a double fault at 15-30 and committed a forehand error with his first shot after the serve at 15-40 to be broken. He already looked beaten. Nishikori saved all three break points he faced in the third and would break Djokovic again leading by 5-3 in the fourth to close the match. At 30-40, Djokovic looked resigned to the loss, moving slowly and hitting awkwardly, ultimately hitting a backhand long down the middle of the court. Nishikori’s forehand was the big hammer from the back of the court, dictating the flow of points and pulling the trigger to force errors from Djokovic. Nishikori narrowly edged Djokovic in baseline points won (68 to 61). Djokovic was averaging 58 percent points won on his second serve leading into the semifinal, but Nishikori owned this area with Djokovic only winning 37 percent (17 of 46) Saturday. Djokovic also committed his most forced backhand errors (25) for the tournament, mainly because of the firepower of Nishikori’s bigger forehand.

Kei Nishikori
Novak Djokovic
Tennis
US Open Tennis


Blackburn Rovers, Once an Overachieving Club, Has Fallen

Abstract: BLACKBURN, England — Neil Thornton, enjoying a drink at a restaurant inside Blackburn Rovers’ Ewood Park, smiled when he recalled his wedding reception. It was held at a suite inside the stadium in 1995, and he could glimpse the seat he occupied as a season-ticket holder. “My partner didn’t mind,” Thornton, 47, said. “We needed a venue for a disco.” Asked how his marriage worked out, Thornton chuckled and said, “It didn’t, but I’m still involved with Blackburn Rovers.” Thornton is a die-hard fan of a small-city club. It is hard to walk away, even when times are tough. Gone are the heady days of the mid-1990s, when Blackburn overachieved with the homegrown steel magnate Jack Walker as its owner. Blackburn beat the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool to win English soccer’s most coveted trophy — the Premier League title — in 1995, the year Thornton married. Blackburn remains the only club apart from Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City to capture the title. A statue of Walker stands near the club shop with an inscription that says “Rovers Greatest Supporter.” The fans continue to chant his name. “You can’t compare it with the current setup, which is as dysfunctional as you are ever going to get,” said Thornton, who began supporting Blackburn as a 4-year-old. Everyone in Blackburn, it seems, has an opinion on the team, not surprising given its importance to the community of 113,000 slightly north of Manchester and Liverpool. Stewart Cunliffe, a Blackburn fan for 45 years who runs a bakery at Blackburn Market, called this season in the second tier “disgraceful.” “Every day working on the market, people come to you and say how bad things are going with the club,” Cunliffe said. “Now we’re just a laughingstock.” Such words sometimes come easily to English soccer fans, who can turn on a manager, player or owner with one bad result. But Cunliffe’s description of proceedings at Blackburn, a founding member of the Football League in 1888, might be gentle. How else to describe the last seven months, when Blackburn has used five managers? Gary Bowyer, in charge now as caretaker, is into his second stint and is trying to steer Blackburn away from back-to-back relegations. Infighting has been constant, and for the most part, the owners have remained silent. At his unveiling — for a second time — at the end of March, Bowyer saw the humor in the situation as he addressed a handful of reporters in a chilly press lounge. Has it been a bewildering season for him? “Bewildering is a good word,” said Bowyer, normally the coach of the reserves. “It’s not just me, but it’s everyone who is connected to the club. Even yourselves. You wouldn’t dream this up, would you?” When Venky’s, a poultry company, bought Blackburn for £23 million (now worth $35 million) in 2010 from a trust established by Walker before his death, there was more optimism about the team’s future. With Venky’s being part of the VH Group, described as a $1 billion conglomerate on the Venky’s Web site, Blackburn fans could dream of faring better in the Premier League. Yet suspicions were raised almost immediately. Blackburn fired Manager Sam Allardyce, who had brought stability to both Bolton and Blackburn. The club said the decision to replace him was part of its “wider plans and ambitions.” His job was given to the inexperienced Steve Kean, who was at the helm when Blackburn was relegated last May, ending its 11-year stay in the elite division. He resigned in September when his position became, he said, “untenable.” Reports surfaced that Kean, who made intermittent trips to India to discuss team affairs, was being told whom to play. Blackburn fans never took a liking to Kean, pelting him with tennis balls when Blackburn was officially demoted. The assembly line of managers has since produced Kean’s assistant, Eric Black; Henning Berg; Bowyer; Michael Appleton; and Bowyer again. Appleton was not endorsed by Shebby Singh, an owners’ representative with the ill-defined title of global adviser, and was fired by letter. Singh and the managing director Derek Shaw are at loggerheads, and Shaw, according to the BBC, was told to stay away from the club earlier this month because he was being investigated in relation to compensation owed to Berg. Blackburn issued a denial on its Web site. “It’s been a very, very strange environment for two years,” said Kevin Gallacher, a striker for Blackburn from 1993 to 1999. “Everyone thought the club was going to have an upturn and lift because new owners came and so did new finance. But unfortunately, it hasn’t lived up to the situation at all.” The owners turned down an interview request, and Singh did not reply to phone calls seeking comment. The fans, however, made their views known to the owners in January when they made a rare appearance in Blackburn. They chanted, “We want Venky’s out,” and Jitendra Desai, the husband of the Venky’s chairwoman, Anuradha Desai, was struck in the face by a snowball. In a protest last May, fans released a chicken onto the field. Now, instead of making a quick return to the Premier League, Blackburn is in danger of being demoted to the third tier, where it last played in 1980. Blackburn beat Derby, 2-0, on Saturday to end an 11-game winless streak and escape the relegation zone with three weeks remaining. Still, Blackburn’s average league attendance of 14,715 is 17th among the 24 teams in the League Championship, England’s second-tier league. “The actual number of people who come through the turnstiles now is 7,000 or 8,000,” said Wayne Wild, the co-chairman of Rovers Trust , a group of Blackburn fans seeking to gain full or partial control of the team. The group says it has about 1,000 paid members and the support of major businesses in the region. “I want my club back,” said Thornton, who handles media relations for the group and whose wedding reception at the Blackburn stadium was in a bygone era.

England
Soccer
Gary Bowyer
Steve Kean
Blackburn Rovers Soccer Team England


C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy ? Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior. For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald . The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance. The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role. That concealment has fueled suspicion that Mr. Joannides’s real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about C.I.A. activities. The agency’s deception was first reported in 2001 by Jefferson Morley, who has doggedly pursued the files ever since, represented by James H. Lesar, a Washington lawyer specializing in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. “The C.I.A.’s conduct is maddening,” said Mr. Morley, 51, a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a 2008 biography of a former C.I.A. station chief in Mexico. After years of meticulous reporting on Mr. Joannides, who died at age 68 in 1990, he is convinced that there is more to learn. “I know there’s a story here,” Mr. Morley said. “The confirmation is that the C.I.A. treats these documents as extremely sensitive.” Mr. Morley’s quest has gained prominent supporters, including John R. Tunheim, a federal judge in Minnesota who served in 1994 and 1995 as chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board , created by Congress to unearth documents related to the case. “I think we were probably misled by the agency,” Judge Tunheim said, referring to the Joannides records. “This material should be released.” Gerald Posner, the author of an anti-conspiracy account of the Kennedy assassination, “Case Closed” (Random House, 1993), said the C.I.A.’s withholding such aged documents was “a perfect example of why nobody trusts the agency.” “It feeds the conspiracy theorists who say, ‘You’re hiding something,” ’ Mr. Posner said. After losing an appeals court decision in Mr. Morley’s lawsuit, the C.I.A. released material last year confirming Mr. Joannides’s deep involvement with the anti-Castro Cubans who confronted Oswald. But the agency is withholding 295 specific documents from the 1960s and ’70s, while refusing to confirm or deny the existence of many others, saying their release would cause “extremely grave damage” to national security. “The methods of defeating or deterring covert action in the 1960s and 1970s can still be instructive to the United States’ current enemies,” a C.I.A. official wrote in a court filing. An agency spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said the C.I.A. had opened to Judge Tunheim’s board all files relevant to the assassination and denied that it was trying to avoid embarrassment. “The record doesn’t support that, any more than it supports conspiracy theories, offensive on their face, that the C.I.A. had a hand in President Kennedy’s death,” Mr. Gimigliano said. C.I.A. secrecy has been hotly debated this year, with agency officials protesting the Obama administration’s decision to release legal opinions describing brutal interrogation methods . The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, came under attack from Republicans after she accused the C.I.A. of misleading Congress about waterboarding , adding, “They mislead us all the time.” On the Kennedy assassination, the deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The C.I.A. hid its schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which received $50,000 a month in C.I.A. support during 1963. In August 1963, Oswald visited a New Orleans shop owned by a directorate official, feigning sympathy with the group’s goal of ousting Mr. Castro. A few days later, directorate members found Oswald handing out pro-Castro pamphlets and got into a brawl with him. Later that month, he debated the anti-Castro Cubans on a local radio station. In the years since Oswald was named as the assassin, speculation about who might have been behind him has never ended, with various theories focusing on Mr. Castro, the mob, rogue government agents or myriad combinations of the above. Mr. Morley, one of many writers to become entranced by the story, insists he has no theory and is seeking only the facts. His lawsuit has uncovered the central role in overseeing directorate activities of Mr. Joannides, the deputy director for psychological warfare at the C.I.A.’s Miami station, code-named JM/WAVE. He worked closely with directorate leaders, documents show, corresponding with them under pseudonyms, paying their travel expenses and achieving an “important degree of control” over the group, as a July 1963 agency fitness report put it. Fifteen years later, Mr. Joannides turned up again as the agency’s representative to the House assassinations committee. Dan Hardway, then a law student working for the committee, recalled Mr. Joannides as “a cold fish,” who firmly limited access to documents. Once, Mr. Hardway remembered, “he handed me a thin file and just stood there. I blew up, and he said, ‘This is all you’re going to get.’ ” But neither Mr. Hardway nor the committee’s staff director, G. Robert Blakey, had any idea that Mr. Joannides had played a role in the very anti-Castro activities from 1963 that the panel was scrutinizing. When Mr. Morley first informed him about it a decade ago, Mr. Blakey was flabbergasted. “If I’d known his role in 1963, I would have put Joannides under oath — he would have been a witness, not a facilitator,” said Mr. Blakey, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. “How do we know what he didn’t give us?” After Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “J.F.K.” fed speculation about the Kennedy assassination, Congress created the Assassination Records Review Board to release documents. But because the board, too, was not told of Mr. Joannides’s 1963 work, it did not peruse his records, said Judge Tunheim, the chairman. “If we’d known of his role in Miami in 1963, we would have pressed for all his records,” Judge Tunheim said. No matter what comes of Mr. Morley’s case in Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Tunheim said he might ask the current C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, to release the records, even if the names of people who are still alive must be redacted for privacy. What motive could C.I.A. officials have to bury the details of Mr. Joannides’s work for so long? Did C.I.A. officers or their Cuban contacts know more about Oswald than has been revealed? Or was the agency simply embarrassed by brushes with the future assassin — like the Dallas F.B.I. officials who, after the assassination, destroyed a handwritten note Oswald had previously left for an F.B.I. agent? Or has Mr. Morley spent a decade on a wild goose chase? Max Holland, who is writing a history of the Warren Commission, said the agency might be trying to preserve the principle of secrecy. “If you start going through the files of every C.I.A. officer who had anything to do with anything that touched the assassination, that would have no end,” Mr. Holland said. Mr. Posner, the anti-conspiracy author, said that if there really were something explosive involving the C.I.A. and President Kennedy, it would not be in the files — not even in the documents the C.I.A. has fought to keep secret. “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this,” Mr. Posner said. “But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations


Obama Proposes Capping Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Making Polluters Pay

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Senator Barack Obama presented a plan on Monday to decrease the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and fight global warming by creating an auction system requiring power companies and other industries to pay for their pollution. By the year 2020, he said, emissions would be reduced to levels from 1990. In a speech in New Hampshire, Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois, called for imposing a national cap on carbon emissions, investing $150 billion over 10 years to develop new energy sources and reducing dependence on foreign oil by 35 percent by 2030. “No business will be allowed to emit any greenhouse gases for free,” Mr. Obama said in Portsmouth, N.H. “Businesses don’t own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution.” The energy speech was the latest effort by Mr. Obama to cast himself as a critic of how business has been conducted in Washington. Every president since Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Obama argued, has pledged to curb fossil fuel use, but the United States’ dependence on foreign oil has climbed. He proposed instituting a mandatory “cap and trade” program across the economy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level recommended by top scientists, a figure that he did not specify Monday. Under his plan, businesses would be required to buy allowances to pollute, which would create financial incentives to limit energy use or reduce emissions. Mr. Obama said if he was elected, the government would set a national cap on carbon emissions, which by 2050 would be reduced to 80 percent below the levels in 1990. Though he did not mention his campaign rivals by name, Mr. Obama criticized those who opposed gradual increases in gasoline mileage standards for cars, which included Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. “When they had the chance to stand up and require automakers to raise their fuel standards, they refused,” Mr. Obama said. “When they had multiple chances to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by investing in renewable fuels that we can literally grow right here in America, they said no.” Mr. Obama, who had faced criticism from some environmental groups for supporting the Bush administration’s energy bill in 2005 and for pushing legislation to help Illinois’ coal industry, was praised Monday by the League of Conservation Voters, an independent group. The group’s president, Gene Karpinski, said, “By embracing a mandatory cap-and-trade program, the Obama energy plan would provide incentives to cut production of carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause global warming.” In Iowa, meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton began a “rebuilding the middle class” bus tour on Monday that included a 50-minute speech on economic prosperity with new proposals to benefit unions and homeowners in particular. Speaking in Cedar Rapids, she called for reviewing pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement every five years — not as aggressive a position as John Edwards’s call for renegotiating Nafta or Representative Dennis J. Kucinich’s call for canceling it, but an idea that received applause nonetheless. And she proposed giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac new flexibility to help companies and homeowners replace expiring adjustable-rate mortgages with fixed-rate loans.

Global Warming
Presidential Election of 2008
Obama Barack
Air Pollution
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Environment


Daily Forecast for Divers Calls for Lots of Showers

Abstract: BEIJING — Forget human rights, air pollution and Liu Xiang’s stunning injury. One of the most heated water-cooler debates of this Olympic Games has been about showers and why divers seem obsessed with them. With few exceptions, a diver’s routine goes something like this: Climb to the platform. Dry off. Dive. Get out of the pool. Then, as their scores are being announced over the public-address system, the divers head to a bank of showers a few feet away. The cameras capture every detail as they dunk their heads in the hot water and appear to lather off, even though they do not use soap. “I’ve always wondered why they shower,” Neta Ecker, a 36-year-old from Haifa, Israel, said as she and her daughter headed into the Water Cube to watch the semifinals of the women’s 3-meter springboard Saturday night. “But it looks like they’re having fun.” The answer is actually quite simple. The pool is 79 degrees, and when the divers come out, they are cold. Since there is often a long wait between dives, they shower to keep their muscles warm. “The showers are very hot, and it keeps your body warm,” said Arturo Miranda, a Canadian diver. “You want to be able to keep your body temperature very high, so your muscles are ready to go.” “It becomes a habit,” said Kristin Wingfield, a former competitive diver from Canada who is now a sports-medicine doctor in San Francisco. “You run into the shower to keep your muscles warm.” That rationale received approval from Bengt Saltin, a professor of human physiology at Copenhagen University who is a leading expert on how muscles work. Muscles should be around 104 degrees to perform at their peak, he said. “Passive heating is one way of having warm muscles when you start your performance,” he said. Several divers acknowledged, however, that the showers served a secondary purpose. “It’s really just a mental thing,” said Chris Colwill, an American diver. “I think I would dive just the same if I didn’t take a shower. It just comforts me to be warm and relaxed.” Showering is just one quirk that seems to mystify spectators. Another is the shammies that divers use to dry themselves off, often until the final moments before they plunge into the pool. The shammies come in a variety of colors, and tie-dyeing them is popular. Like the showers, the shammies serve a practical purpose. Divers’ skin must be perfectly dry so they do not lose their grip when they do complicated dives. Kenny Armstrong, a United States diving coach, said that the American Matt Scoggin lost his grip in Barcelona in 1992 while performing a back three-and-a-half somersault and landed on his back in the finals. “There’s nothing worse than slippery,” Armstrong said. Divers develop attachments to shammies, Armstrong said. “They get pretty comfortable with them,” he said. “It’s their buddy for usually their whole career. I’ve seen guys where you can look right through them.” During the finals in the men’s synchronized 3-meter springboard last Wednesday, Miranda used a special purple shammy he purchased at the 2000 Sydney Games. He and his partner took fifth place. “We’re not superstitious,” Miranda said, “but you like to have your shammy with you all the time.”

Diving (Sports Event)
Olympic Games (2008)


Joe Paterno Talks About His Role in Scandal

Abstract: Joe Paterno , who was fired as Penn State ’s football coach on Nov. 9 in the wake of allegations that his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused boys, said in an interview published Saturday that he reported a suspected assault in 2002 to his superiors because he was unsure how to handle the matter. In his first extensive interview since being fired, Paterno shared his side of the 2002 episode. He became a flashpoint for criticism in November because he did not contact the police about the suspected assault, which was reported to him by a graduate assistant. Paterno instead relayed the allegations to the athletic director and another top university official. “I didn’t know exactly how to handle it, and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” Paterno told The Washington Post. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.” The athletic director, Tim Curley, and the university official, Gary Schultz, have been charged with failure to report the 2002 episode to police. They also are charged with lying to a grand jury about their knowledge of the matter. Paterno said that he had “no inkling” that Sandusky, who has been charged with more than 50 counts of sexual abuse against boys, might have been engaged in deviant behavior. Paterno declined to judge Sandusky or his other former Penn State colleagues. The Post portrayed the 85-year-old Paterno, who is recovering from a broken pelvis and also battling lung cancer, as being in poor health. He conducted the interview in a wheelchair and from his bedside. He was hospitalized Friday because of complications from chemotherapy, which has forced him to start wearing a wig.

Washington Post
Paterno Joe
Sandusky Jerry
Child Abuse and Neglect
Sex Crimes
Pennsylvania State University
Football (College)


After the Tony Awards, Broadway Stars Party

Abstract: It was 3 on Monday morning when we found ourselves recumbent on the floor next to the actor and director Joel Grey in a hotel suite that goes for up to $15,000 per night, filled with Broadway luminaries of every stripe, when Nocturnalist finally thought, “Wow, these people do know how to party.” That had been up for debate earlier in the evening at the Tony Awards , held at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side. Celebrities snaked down Amsterdam Avenue along the thronged red carpet, fans held at bay by barricades. The best star-watching was had by the residents of the West 74th Street Home, an assisted-living residence whose entrance happened to be right where the red carpet entered the theater’s back door. Several residents sat in chairs on the pavement waving at the stars and complimenting the outfits of passers-by. “Nice Pucci!” one older woman called to Nocturnalist (it’s our mother’s). Past the adoring elders, the stars were sniffed by Maxwell, an explosives detecting Labrador whose credits include the premiere of “ Sex and the City II.” If the night-life columnists in attendance wondered what the theater world thought of them, our seat assignment was our answer: Shunted to the back row on a balcony, we had to stand if we wanted actually to see the whole stage. But it was the first time Nocturnalist was ever thankful for poor seats. Cocktails were forbidden in the orchestra because of the live telecast, so the balcony bar was packed during every commercial break, with stars skipping out to fortify themselves for the awards show, lasting hours. Slightly dazed by the interminable pageant, and miffed by the amount of Broadway insiders who sniffed at us when we inquired about who was who, we headed to the official afterparty at the Plaza Hotel. It was the largest party we’d ever been to, ranging several floors and so many rooms that attendants handed out maps at the entrance. But not even Chris Rock, Kelsey Grammer or a miniature copy of the theater with cupcakes in the seats — or rumors of Hugh Jackman spotted nearby, naturally — could liven up the staid tone. (One guest may have found it exciting: she fainted and lay in her gown on the carpet while the actress Judith Light spoke animatedly with friends, oblivious of the toppled woman almost at her feet.) We left and at 2 a.m. were in the Empire Suite at the Carlyle on Madison Avenue. The party was held by the public relations group O&M Co. in honor of Mr. Grey, who — among other accomplishments — co-directed “The Normal Heart,” which had just won the Tony for best revival of a play. Bono had just left, we were told, but everyone else seemed to be just arriving. “This suite is the great equalizer,” a young woman told us. Rich and not-so-rich — it blew everyone away. The duplex rooms looked out over the city; one chamber had a bed with a flat-screen television that levitated electronically from a hidden nook in the footboard. Waiters wandered around with shot glasses of pea soup. At a bar, Reeve Carney, star of the much-lampooned “ Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark ,” was diplomatic about his show’s controversy. He refused to say which director he liked better, the ousted Julie Taymor or her replacement, Philip William McKinley. “I come from a family of divorce,” he said, “and you don’t love one of your parents more.” We asked Mr. Grey for a word, and he directed us to the carpeted spiral staircase and plopped across the stairs, compelling Nocturnalist to follow suit. Needless to say, it was hard to digest any of Mr. Grey’s passionate words about the power of his play, a charged look at the AIDS virus — it was 3 a.m. and the man had us lying on the floor while an entire party looked on from below. In a parlor, Matthew Broderick shared an armchair with two other people. He told us he was very disappointed about not winning a fancy watch in the gifting suite. Mr. Jackman and Christie Brinkley did, he said, unfair since they were already so genetically gifted. We reminded him that he used to yell at our childhood friends when they played hooky and sat on his stoop on Charlton Street. He denied it. “I’m very understanding of youngsters, that’s not true — I think,” Mr. Broderick said. “I would never yell at youngsters,” he said. “I would say, ‘Would you like a sandwich?’ ”

Theater
Celebrities
Tony Awards (Theater Awards)
Parties (Social)


U.S. Seeks to Reduce Ship Emissions in Coastal Areas

Abstract: The United States and Canada have asked the International Maritime Organization to designate their coastal regions as areas where oceangoing ships would face strict controls on emissions of sulfur, particulate matter like soot and other pollutants that endanger human health. Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, announced the action Monday at a news conference in Newark. The agency said the maritime organization, the United Nations agency that regulates international shipping, was expected to consider such a designation in July. Approval could come next year, and the limits could go into effect as early as 2012. The proposal calls for a 200-mile buffer zone in which shippers would be required to make large reductions in the pollutants they emit. For example, they would have to cut sulfur emissions 98 percent by 2015, by burning cleaner fuel or through a process of “scrubbing” exhaust gas to remove sulfur. Ms. Jackson said the emission-control areas were “long overdue” and would save many lives. The agency said that oceangoing vessels dock at more than 100 coastal and Great Lakes ports in the United States and that 40 were in metropolitan areas that did not meet federal air quality standards. Environmental groups estimate that 87 million Americans live near ports. Calls and e-mail messages to the International Maritime Organization’s headquarters in London were not returned. On its Web site, the agency said creating the control areas would be unlikely to prompt shippers to divert cargo to ports in other countries because proximity to inland transportation routes in the United States and Canada would be considered more important. Still, Ms. Jackson said discussions intended to bring Mexico into the agreement were under way. Environmental groups applauded the announcement. In a report issued Monday, the Environmental Defense Fund said container ships, tankers and other large oceangoing vessels burning low-grade fuel were a major source of pollution. Andrew H. Darrell, a vice president of the group, called oceangoing ships “floating smokestacks that deliver soot and smog straight into the heart of our most crowded coastal cities.”

Coastal Areas
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Ships and Shipping
Water Pollution


Nigeria: Board of State Oil Company Is Dissolved After Corruption Scandal

Abstract: Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari, on Friday dissolved the board of the state oil company from which billions of dollars is reported to be missing. A statement from the head of the Civil Service, Danladi Kifasi, announced the presidential directive regarding the Nigerian National Petroleum Co., the government agency in charge of nearly all aspects of the country’s oil industry, the seventh largest in the world. Mr. Buhari took office last month promising to halt corruption, and he said this week that Western governments had promised to help recover looted state money. The president’s action came before he has named a cabinet and amid speculation that he may be planning to take charge himself of the petroleum portfolio. A former Central Bank director last year largely blamed the state petroleum company for missing federal revenues of about $20 billion — an amount that the company disputes.

Nigeria
Corruption
Muhammadu Buhari
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
Oil and Gasoline


Gay Supporters Cheer On Quinn

Abstract: Before a backdrop of fluttering rainbow flags and the facade of the Stonewall Inn, the West Village pub known as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, Christine C. Quinn and a slew of her supporters trumpeted the Democratic mayoral candidate’s record at a rally on Friday night and asked “gay New York,” as one speaker put it, to rally behind her as one of their own. There was music: Cheyenne Jackson, of “30 Rock” fame, sang Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” followed by the actor Tituss Burgess, who sang Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time.” And there were not-so-nice words — but on Christopher Street, they were compliments: former state Senator Thomas K. Duane described Ms. Quinn with a derogatory term for a lesbian, to cheers. The comedian Judy Gold called Ms. Quinn a “pushy broad.” She continued: “But what does New York need?” Ms. Gold asked the crowd. “A pushy broad!” Image Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, hosted a boisterous rally at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street on Friday night. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times Edie Windsor, the lesbian widow whose lawsuit led the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act , introduced Ms. Quinn. “She’s gay and I think that’s great,” Ms. Windsor said. “I am, too!” As Ms. Quinn spoke, her words were markedly more tempered than when the campaign began — when she was the front-runner to succeed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Currently in third place according to several polls, she asked voters not to help her win Tuesday’s election, but instead simply to propel her into a run-off election. (New York’s election laws require a runoff in the absence of any candidate getting 40 percent of the vote.) As cheers drowned her out, Ms. Quinn finished her speech: “If we turn everybody here, and everybody you know, and everybody they know out to the polls on Tuesday, people are going to be shocked and surprised.”

Stonewall Inn
Christine C Quinn
Mayoral races
NYC
Homosexuality
West Village Manhattan


For Most Top Premier Clubs, No More Gifts Under the Tree

Abstract: London — Louis van Gaal complained that asking top players to play twice within 48 hours was asking too much of the body. Cesc Fàbregas reckoned that the referee should not sleep at night after denying him a penalty. But the Manchester City coach Manuel Pellegrini must have felt that Christmas is a maddening time to play soccer in England. The words reflect the performances of Sunday’s games. City’s 2-2 home tie against Burnley kept it three points behind Chelsea which also drew, 1-1, at Southampton. Meantime, the third placed side, van Gaal’s Manchester United, neither scored nor conceded in a goalless game away to Tottenham Hotspur. The only leading team that won both its Christmas games was Arsenal, which moved into fifth place after a 2-1 victory at West Ham United. In the aftermath of Sunday’s matches, Chelsea remains at the top of the Premier league, three points ahead of City and 10 points clear of United. Arsenal, with its three new points, is now 13 points behind Chelsea. Of the three games, Manchester City’s was the most entertaining, and the most unpredictable. City led by two goals from David Silva and Fernandinho at halftime. But Burnley, fighting for Premier League survival, preyed on carelessness by the City goalkeeper Joe Hart, with him giving a goal back through George Boyd, and then Burnley scored again, this time a goal of brilliance by Ashley Barnes. So here is the conundrum. Is van Gaal justified in claiming that “it is medically proven that the human body cannot recover for two games in 48 hours”? And that only in England would this happen? If so, why would the underdog sides, clubs with far less resources and less money to stockpile players, find the reserves to come out as equals to the big three at Christmas time? Image West Ham United's English striker Andy Carroll, left, and Arsenal's Laurent Koscielny during Sunday's match. Credit Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images If the suggestion from the Dutchman van Gaal is that too many games in too short a time is harder on the rich and the gifted, it seems an odd claim. Just as odd, perhaps, as José Mourinho’s rant that his team is victimized by referees, by pundits, by fans everywhere. Van Gaal is certainly correct in saying that those who work in England have to accept the culture of the land in which he earns his fortune. His team did not score at Tottenham because the Spurs’ goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was tirelessly defiant — and because Robin van Persie, Radamel Falcao and Wayne Rooney could not convert their opportunities. Chelsea had to score after Southampton’s Senegalese striker Sadio Mané had exposed the sluggishness of the aging John Terry. Dusan Tadic spotted the space behind Terry, Mané then outpaced the big defender, and Mané remained composed enough to lob the ball past the stranded goal keeper Thibaut Courtois. Chelsea then laid siege to the home goal, but scored only once — a beautiful weaving run and sweet shot by Eden Hazard whose swift turns left two defenders sprawling and whose final shot was inch perfect. Thereafter Chelsea poured forward, Southampton stayed compact, resolute and with the Saints’ crowd roaring on such organized defiance Mourinho’s team huffed and it puffed without blowing down the door. Mourinho’s moan? Fàbregas was denied a penalty (indeed he was yellow carded for what the ref saw, erroneously, as a dive). There was that error, but the only conspiracy was Southampton’s refusal to lie down and let Chelsea roll in the goals. Defense is, as Mourinho teams have proved in the past, a legitimate half of the sport. The Saints did it without any sinning. But this is Christmas, and it appears the bigger clubs think the demands of playing every two days is a handicap to them rather than to their lowly opponents. In the sense that soccer players, like leftover turkey, can get stale, perhaps there is some argument that the second time around is harder to be spontaneous. But the fact is that, because of the Champions League demands, the bigger clubs usually recruit more than double to number of players required to win a game, and if their second string players cannot beat the equally tired and equally stretched opponents from lower in the Premier League something is wrong with the coaches. Arsenal’s victory, no doubt, has to do with experience. Louis van Gaal has been at Manchester United a matter of months. Arsène Wenger has been guiding Arsenal through the fixtures congestion for 18 years.

Soccer
Premier League
Arsenal Soccer Team


Mets’ Wright Already Eager to Return; Wagner Nearly Ready

Abstract: Two days after being hit in the head with a fastball and sustaining a concussion, David Wright reappeared Monday and, in a 20-minute news conference, told reporters he was “embarrassed” to find himself on the disabled list, a place where so many of his Mets teammates have spent time this season. At about the same time, one of those injured teammates, Billy Wagner, showed up at Citi Field for the first time this season and said he would be activated from the disabled list Thursday or Friday, after recuperating from reconstructive elbow surgery. So for those keeping score at home in this increasingly bizarre and disappointing season, Wagner will be on the active roster, at least temporarily, and Wright, for the time first time in his six-year career, will not. Wagner is expected to throw a bullpen session Tuesday. Wright, who had to helped off the field after being hit by a Matt Cain fastball Saturday, was discharged from the Hospital for Special Surgery on Sunday morning. He told reporters it was the first time he had spent a night in a hospital. In his brief remarks, under the glare of television cameras, Wright seemed clear-eyed, relaxed and free of any noticeable postconcussion symptoms. He said after he was discharged from the hospital, he tried to convince Jeff Wilpon, the team’s chief operating officer, and General Manager Omar Minaya that he was healthy enough to resume playing and did not need to go on the disabled list. The Mets, however — clearly mindful of the criticism they received last season for the way they handled the second of Ryan Church’s two concussions — did not accede to Wright’s plea. He is out for at least two weeks, perhaps longer in a season in which there is no need to rush him back. “I think that there’s a part of me that never wanted to go on the D.L.,” Wright said. “I think it’s, I’m embarrassed to be on the D.L. But I think that when you look at it, the doctors want what’s best for me, the New York Mets want what’s best for me and I know my family wants what’s best for me.” Wright said doctors had given him a list of symptoms to look out for while recovering from his concussion, including nausea and sensitivity to light. Wright said Church, now with Atlanta, had contacted him and supplied him with the same list. Wright said he had not experienced any symptoms. The only lingering effect, he said, was a headache that had diminished since Saturday. “Each day it seems like it gets better and better,” Wright said. “I feel good.” Wright said that Cain and Giants Manager Bruce Bochy had called him to make sure that he was O.K., and that he did not think there was any intent on Cain’s part to hit him. “I think the scariest thing was not so much getting hit, but seeing the pitch kind of coming towards me,” Wright said. Wright said that when he was eligible to come off the disabled list, he expected to be right back in the starting lineup. That would be in Colorado, where, coincidentally, Church was allowed to travel and pinch-hit last season after his second concussion, despite complaining of dizziness. For that reason alone, the Mets might wait until leaving Colorado before activating Wright, whose first step in returning will be to receive clearance to resume light physical activities. As for Wagner, the 38-year-old closer, it seemed almost improbable that he was back on the team as he nears the end of a four-year, $43 million deal. His time on the team has included saves, blown saves and any number of barbs directed at his teammates. At various times, his targets included Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado, for perceived offenses ranging from not hustling to not being available to answer questions after tough losses. All three have been out with injuries for much of the season, despite optimism that they will return. Somehow, Wagner beat them all back. “I’m a competitor and you want to compete and you really don’t like somebody to tell you your career is over,” Wagner said. Wagner may not be a Met for long. If a contending club wants an unfiltered left-handed reliever for the pennant race, the Mets may oblige. But for now he is a Met, and as his team crumbled against the Giants on Monday, he sat in the dugout next to Wright, two players being reacquainted in the midst of a season-long disaster. INSIDE PITCH For the Mets, it never ends. They announced Monday that shortstop Alex Cora would have surgery to repair ligaments in both thumbs and would miss the remainder of the season. Cora, who hit .251 in 82 games, filled in ably for Jose Reyes, despite playing with at least one torn ligament for much of the season.

Concussions
New York Mets
Wright David
Baseball
Wagner Billy


Rover to Enter Martian Crater

Abstract: NASA ’s Mars rover Opportunity will finally enter a half-mile-wide crater today, after two months besieged by a giant dust storm that blocked the sun and sapped the vehicle’s batteries. The Opportunity has been sitting at the rim of Victoria Crater, which promises to give scientists a deeper, more intriguing look into Mars’s geological past. But then the dust storm engulfed much of the planet, and it appeared that the rover might exhaust its power and die. With Martian skies clearing, mission controllers gave the go-ahead for the Opportunity to do a “toe dip,” to drive over the crater lip and three yards down the crater’s 20-degree slope before backing out. If that goes well, then it will re-enter and begin its exploration.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Dominic J. Baranello, Power Among New York Democrats, Is Dead at 83

Abstract: Dominic J. Baranello, an enduring power in Democratic Party affairs of Suffolk County and New York State since he played a big role in Hugh L. Carey's winning the governorship in 1974, died on Thursday in Smithtown, N.Y. He was 83 and lived in Blue Point, N.Y. The death was announced by Richard H. Schaffer, his successor as leader of the Suffolk Democratic organization. According to his family, the cause was complications of Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Baranello stepped down in 2000 after 34 years as the Suffolk County Democratic chairman, celebrated as the longest-serving Democratic Party leader in the country. He was one of the first New Yorkers consulted by Hillary Rodham Clinton as she started her quest for the Senate. Aside from having seniority as a party elder, he had the reputation of a scrappy strategist who had overcome the Republicans' two-to-one registration advantage in Suffolk to help his party win the county executive's office and three of Suffolk's Congressional seats in the mid-1980's. From the days of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, Democrats seeking an office in Suffolk County usually consulted Mr. Baranello. He buttressed his influence in Democratic politics statewide as an early supporter of Mr. Carey's candidacy for the Statehouse in Albany. After Mr. Carey won the election, he returned the favor by backing Mr. Baranello for the chairmanship of the state Democratic Party. In 1982, Mr. Baranello endorsed Mayor Edward I. Koch for governor over Mario M. Cuomo, then the lieutenant governor, but Mr. Cuomo went on to win and stripped Mr. Baranello of the statewide chairmanship. "It's like betting on a horse," he said at the time. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose." Dominic Joseph Baranello was raised in Medford, N.Y.; his father was a highway laborer and native of Italy. He said he became a convinced Democrat while listening with his father to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats on the radio. He graduated from Brooklyn College and got his law degree at Brooklyn Law School in 1951. In 2000, he accepted a patronage job with Suffolk Off-Track Betting, saying "it was time to do something else," and announced he would not seek an 18th two-year term as county chairman, opening the way for his successor, Mr. Schaffer, a protégé and the town supervisor of Babylon. Mr. Baranello is survived by his wife of 24 years, Patricia Ellis Baranello; two sons, Dominic Jr. of Kings Park, N.Y., and Stephen of Medford; a daughter, Christina Wood of Fort Myers, Fla.; two brothers, Angelo, of Medford, and Daniel, of Yaphank, N.Y.; two sisters, Emily Germano of North Charleston, S.C., and Letitia DeVeau of Hicksville, Ohio; two stepsons, Raymond E. Garafola of Centereach, N.Y., and Ralph Garafola of Ridge, N.Y.; a stepdaughter, Susan Garafola of Centereach; and five grandchildren.

BARANELLO DOMINIC J
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
DEATHS (OBITUARIES)


Welcome to Britain. Our Weather Is Appalling.

Abstract: LONDON — The 100 Years’ War actually lasted 116 years. Pantomime dames tend to be men dressed as women. The hovercraft was invented by Sir Christopher Cockerell. York Minster has very nice stained-glass windows. Margaret Thatcher successfully tamed the unions and turned London into a powerful international financial center by deregulating the financial markets. These and other interesting pieces of information can be found in “Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents,” a revised book issued by the Conservative-led government that, starting in March, will form the basis of the country’s revised immigration test. To pass, applicants who want to become citizens or live here permanently will have to answer 18 of 24 questions correctly. Judging from the sample questions released by the government, the test may end up being relatively easy. But the guidebook, crammed with information, reflects the Conservative view that too many people are trying to immigrate to Britain, and that once they arrive they are failing to appreciate the country properly. “The new book and test will focus on events and people who have contributed to making Britain great,” Mark Harper, the immigration minister, said last weekend. In announcing the revised guidebook, Mr. Harper went out of his way to criticize the old one, “Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship,” which was issued by the rival Labour government in 2007. While it includes some history, the Labour version tends to concentrate less on the excitements of the British past than on the practicalities of the British present. (Plus, in its own partisan contribution, it says that Mrs. Thatcher was a “divisive figure” whose policies might have “caused a massive decline in industry.”) “The new book rightly focuses on values and principles at the heart of being British,” Mr. Harper said. Referring to the old book, he said, “We’ve stripped out mundane information about water meters, how to find train timetables and using the Internet.” Indeed, a chapter called “Everyday Needs” in the old Labour version gives advice on things like what to do if you feel sick (“call your G.P.,” is one possibility); how to rent a house; and, weirdly, how best to refer to garbage. “Refuse is also called waste, or rubbish,” it explains. Roger Helmer, a member of the European Parliament from the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party , said it was about time the old manual was retired. “They’ve taken out a lot of references to New Labour achievements, which is a jolly good thing,” Mr. Helmer said in an interview. But Don Flynn, director of the Migrants’ Rights Network , an interest group, said the new version propagated a snobby, atavistic, superior approach to British culture and history. He singled out as particularly objectionable the historical chapter, called “A Long and Illustrious History,” whose first page depicts a rousing scene from the Battle of Trafalgar. “The chapter which primes applicants’ knowledge about history is permeated with the sort of Whig views of the world-civilizing mission of the British realm which have encouraged generations of Etonians and Harrovians to play their role in the great imperial enterprise,” Mr. Flynn told The Guardian, referring to Eton and Harrow, two elite boarding schools. In the section, would-be immigrants are taken on a speedy 56-page tour of the past 100 centuries, beginning with the Stone Age (“People came and went, following the herds of deer and horses which they hunted”) and ending with a flourish at the climax of the 2010 election. (“The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, became prime minister.”) Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Labour’s most important politician in the past 20 years, gets a paragraph; his successor, Gordon Brown, gets a sentence. The chapter sometimes skates shallowly over contentious issues. Discussing the often bloody, often traumatic shedding of the component parts of the British Empire in the 20th century, for instance, it says happily that there was, “for the most part, an orderly transition from empire to commonwealth, with countries being granted their independence.” As The Guardian pointed out, “There is no mention of the million or more people who died in communal and religious violence at Britain’s withdrawal during the 1947 partition of India.” Britain is actively trying to find ways to tighten its borders. The British news media reported recently that the government, terrified that the lifting next year of European Union restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians living and working here would result in an influx of unwanted people, is considering an advertising campaign pointing out Britain’s bad qualities, like its climate. A spokesman for the Home Office did not deny the reports, but said that officials “are working closely with other government departments to look at the pull factors that may encourage E.U. nationals, including those from Bulgaria and Romania, to come to the U.K.” Mr. Helmer of the U.K. Independence Party scoffed at the government’s attitude. “Rather than simply say, ‘We only want 500 of those people coming in,’ ” he said, choosing a random number and referring to Romanians and Bulgarians, “we have to run an ad campaign saying that it rains in Britain. For heaven’s sake, how ridiculous is that?” The guidebook does its best to promote what the government considers Britain’s best qualities (rain is not among them). But filled as it is with proud references to great kings, great achievements and great prime ministers, it is strangely at odds with the quirky, creative, nonmilitary image Britain presented of itself at last summer’s ecstatic and much-loved Olympics opening ceremony. Keith Vaz, a Labour member of Parliament who is chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, said the Conservatives had taken “a very odd approach” to their guidebook and questioned whether it was right that a government department should unilaterally get to decide how to present British history to the outside world. “This is the kind of work that is best written by people who are not party political,” he said in an interview.

Books
Immigration
Citizenship
European Parliament
Conservative Party
Great Britain


Plan to Curb Beijing Traffic Hits a Snag

Abstract: BEIJING — In Beijing’s newfound enthusiasm to address its smothering traffic jams, it appears that Huang Wei has succeeded too well. Mr. Huang, Beijing’s vice mayor for traffic management, resigned Thursday and was reassigned to remote western China, the exile destination of choice for those out of favor. The demotion followed a record splurge on new-car purchases by Beijingers, who apparently anticipated that the city was about to tackle its traffic jams by limiting registrations of new vehicles. The city did just that on Thursday, announcing that it would issue only 240,000 new license plates next year, a third of this year’s number, in the final version of a traffic-improvement plan that was first issued Dec. 13. The final plan envisions miles of underground highways, higher center-city parking fees, vastly expanded subway and bicycle networks, and a lattice of new downtown streets — as well as a cap on new vehicle registrations — in an attack on traffic that ranks among the world’s worst. Beijingers reacted to hints of a cap on new registrations by rushing to buy cars at a record rate. Last week, the city registered 30,000 new vehicles, the most ever, and 50 percent more than in the preceding week. Mr. Huang’s role in the preparation of the traffic plan was unclear, but the timing and site of his reassignment suggested that higher authorities were displeased with the surge in car buying. In a July poll of commuters in 20 cities, I.B.M. concluded that the most insufferable traffic was in Beijing and Mexico City.

Roads and Traffic
Automobiles
Beijing (China)


BP to Pay Record $50.6 Million Safety Fine for Texas Refinery

Abstract: BP has agreed to pay a record $50.6 million fine to the federal government for safety violations found by regulators last year at its troubled refinery in Texas City, Tex., where 15 workers died in a 2005 explosion. In addition, the oil giant has agreed to take immediate steps to protect those now working at the refinery and to spend at least $500 million on safety efforts there, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration . The fine is unconnected to BP’s April 20 offshore drilling disaster that spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The company faces multiple civil and criminal investigations in that episode, and it has set aside more than $32 billion to pay claims and fines connected to it. But the OSHA penalty does reflect what many critics have said is a corporate culture that has emphasized speed and profits over safety. In agreeing to pay the $50.6 million fine, BP has the dubious distinction of topping the previous record OSHA fine of $21 million that it paid after the 2005 explosion in Texas City. “The size of the penalty rightly reflects BP’s disregard for workplace safety,” said the secretary of labor, Hilda L. Solis , during a news conference announcing the agreement. “However, more importantly, we hope it sends a message to all employers that we will enforce the law so that workers can return home safe at the end of their day.” Last October, OSHA proposed fining BP $87 million, which it later reduced slightly, after it found that the company had failed to correct problems at the Texas City refinery under a settlement reached in 2005, not long after the deadly explosion. BP had originally disputed almost all of the 709 violations found by OSHA during the 2009 inspections. But under the agreement announced Thursday, the company accepted the 270 citations for failing to fix problems as promised in the previous settlement. BP is continuing to contest $30.7 million in proposed penalties for the 439 new safety violations that OSHA inspectors found, most involving failure to fix problems involving pressure relief valves at the refinery. “We disagree with the assertion that we have a disregard for workplace safety,” Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, said. “The extensive efforts that BP has undertaken at Texas City since 2005 demonstrate the importance that BP places on workplace safety.” However, the company said in a statement that it hoped the agreement would provide a “platform to resolve the remaining citations.” In the conference call with reporters, Jordan Barab, the deputy director of OSHA, hailed the agreement, saying that BP had agreed to “an unprecedented level of oversight.” Under the agreement, BP agreed to have the head of the Texas City refinery meet monthly with the top regional OSHA official and to begin performing safety reviews of the equipment at the facility, one of the nation’s largest refineries, according to set schedules. The company also agreed to have independent monitors verify its progress in meeting its safety commitments and to include the United Steelworkers union, which represents the hourly workers at Texas City, in the safety process. “This agreement achieves our goal of protecting workers at the refinery and ensuring that critical safety upgrades are made as quickly as possible,” Ms. Solis said. Asked whether BP admitted wrongdoing in Thursday’s agreement, Mr. Barab said the answer was tantamount to yes. “They have recognized and accepted every citation that we have levied on them” related to their failure to correct violations stemming from the 2005 settlement, he said. “That speaks for itself.” BP officials took issue with Mr. Barab’s depiction, noting that the agreement the company reached with OSHA stated that the company specifically denied the truth of any facts or conduct asserted by OSHA. Still, Iain Conn, BP’s global head of refining and marketing, said that BP respected OSHA’s concerns and had addressed them. “BP and OSHA are jointly committed to workplace safety and a strong relationship with OSHA is of great importance to BP,” he said in a statement. The steelworkers union praised the agreement. “We are very confident that BP will live up to this agreement to resolve its failure to abate previously cited hazardous conditions at its Texas City refinery,” said Gary Beevers, a union vice president, in a statement. “The members will be watching BP’s every move to make sure that the settlement agreement is met and that BP fulfills its obligations.” Mr. Barab said the new agreement was far more detailed and showed less trust than the 2005 settlement with BP over the Texas City explosion. In addition to the intensive monitoring, he said, the new agreement gives OSHA the right to assess new fines against BP if it is found to violate its promises. “We have learned our lesson,” Mr. Barab said. “We have spelled out very clearly how this will proceed and what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable.” Negotiations between OSHA and BP dragged on for months, but Mr. Barab said the troubles that BP faced because of the Deepwater Horizon accident had no bearing on the agreement.

BP
Fines
Texas
Offshore drilling
OSHA
Accidents and Safety
Oil and Gasoline


A 600-Year-Old Money Pit in the Scottish Highlands

Abstract: ISLE OF MULL, Scotland — Anyone who has despaired over home improvement should spare a thought for Sir Lachlan Hector Charles Maclean of Duart and Morvern. The Scottish lord has been repairing his home since he inherited it from his father in 1990, with no end in sight. His is no ordinary house. Rather, it is a crumbling 14th-century castle — with a dungeon — that has collapsed ceilings and rainwater seeping through its 16-foot-thick walls pretty much all of the time — even during summer, which can be exceedingly wet and blustery in Scotland. The cost of repairs? So far, 1.5 million pounds, or $1.94 million, and counting. Located on the Isle of Mull, off the western coast of Scotland, his home, Duart Castle, is the ancestral seat of the Macleans , one of the oldest clans in the Scottish Highlands . The 74-year-old chatelain’s ancestors have been involved in centuries of battles pitting Catholics against Protestants and the Scottish against the English in rivalries that still resonate. “What does one do with a property like this?” Sir Lachlan, the 28th chief of the clan, asked rhetorically one recent afternoon as he sipped tea in his living room, probably one of the snugger parts of the castle where he and his wife, Rosie, have retreated, though it was still mildly damp with a whiff of stale curry. Strong rains lashed against the windows, and the constant buzz of drilling forced him to speak up. The Macleans’ private living room was cluttered with modern bric-a-brac while, just below, tourists tramped about in the stately banquet hall looking at clan paraphernalia and trying to locate a public toilet. There are, in fact, two toilets, but they are both unusable — one put in nearly a century ago, and another 600 years ago. “A lot of people wouldn’t want to live here,” Sir Lachlan said, before proceeding to list, like an overly candid real estate agent, the property’s shortcomings. “It’s cold, it’s never really warm. It’s very windy and it’s very wet — and that’s not a very good combination. Some people must be thinking, ‘What a silly old fool living there.’” Perched on a craggy cliff on an island slightly bigger than New York City, the castle has, at various stages in its history, been invaded, attacked and demolished by rival clans loyal to Scottish kings or by troops fighting on behalf of Oliver Cromwell, the antimonarchist revolutionary. At one point, the castle’s dungeon held Spanish prisoners after a failed attempt to invade England in the 16th century. The clan had lands on the Isles of Mull, Coll, Tiree and Jura — all also along the west coast of Scotland. In modern times, however, Duart Castle has been under assault primarily by Scotland’s relentlessly bad weather. Befitting a modern-day clan chief, whose complete title is Sir Lachlan Hector Charles Maclean of Duart and Morvern, 12th Baronet, Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, Deputy Lieutenant and Eighth Lord Maclean (he goes by Sir Lachlan), his primary job is to defend the castle from decay and, more important, from oblivion. There are 283 days of rainfall on average per year on the Isle of Mull. When winds are particularly strong, he said, the only way to leave the castle, which is surrounded on three sides by water, is by crawling on his hands and knees down the steps of the main entrance. Image A room in Duart Castle. “A lot of people wouldn’t want to live here,” Sir Lachlan said. “It’s cold, it’s never really warm. It’s very windy and it’s very wet — and that’s not a very good combination.” Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times Duart, which means black point in Gaelic, a nod to the black volcanic rock where the castle stands, is one of the last surviving clan castles still privately owned. Maintaining it is a moral responsibility, Sir Lachlan said. “It is a sort of focal point for the clan,” he added, as he carefully descended a narrow staircase that was designed in 1360 to be just wide enough to allow one man wielding a sword. (A sign nonetheless read: “We apologize for any congestion on the stairs.”) The castle receives about 25,000 visitors a year, some of them part of the Maclean diaspora living in the United States, Canada and Australia. The name Maclean can be spelled in at least 15 ways. People are increasingly searching for their heritage and their identity, Sir Lachlan said, leading some to visit Duart Castle. In a globalized world, “people are becoming less sure about themselves,” he said. “And they want to find home.” He recalled meeting one visitor, a Maclean from Australia, who had promised his family back home that he would visit Duart Castle. As the visitor was leaving, he turned to Sir Lachlan and said, “Thank you for looking out for us.” A young woman in Florida, another Maclean, sends monthly donations from her supermarket wages. Image Perched on craggy cliff on an island slightly larger than New York City, the castle has, at various stages in its history, been invaded, attacked and demolished by rival clans loyal to Scottish kings or by troops fighting on behalf of Oliver Cromwell, the antimonarchist. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times But Sir Lachlan is worried that he will be unable to finance repairs to the castle after 2017. In 2013, four ceilings crumbled when water came through the chimneys. Water has also washed away some of the mortar between the stones of the castle’s walls. A year earlier, Sir Lachlan had convened a clan congress, announcing then that the family was no longer able to afford the repairs undertaken at the castle over the past century. Repairs are paid in part by Historic Scotland , a government agency that looks after important monuments. There is the revenue from tourists’ entrance fees, a small cafe and a shop on the castle grounds. But work done in the 1990s by builders advised by the Scottish government turned out to be shoddy, Sir Lachlan said, forcing a new round of repairs. The builders went bankrupt soon after. Now, work on the castle is increasingly dependent on donations from the public. “I really would like to redo the whole thing,” he said. “But is one able to raise that amount of money?” The castle was founded in the 14th century and was well maintained until the 1600s when the Macleans aligned themselves with the House of Stuart, a losing cause, leaving them poor and eventually landless. Duart was seized and sacked by the rival Campbell clan in 1688 and was garrisoned by government troops until 1751. Image A bedroom in Duart Castle. Repairs have cost Sir Lachlan $1.94 million — so far. He says rainwater seeps through the castle’s 16-foot-thick walls, and ceilings in parts of the castle have collapsed. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times The Macleans were monarchists who summoned clan members from France to participate in the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 on the side of the Stuart family against government forces. That culminated in the 1746 Battle of Culloden near Inverness in the Highlands, when the Jacobites were defeated and the Stuart pretender to the throne, Bonnie Prince Charlie, escaped into exile. Duart was restored in 1911 when Sir Lachlan’s great-grandfather, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, bought back the castle, which had been left in ruins for 150 years. The clan animosity with the Campbells is deeply ingrained, possibly the fruit of family disputes, including the failed attempt by the 11th chief of the Macleans, Lachlan Cattanach, to murder his wife, Elizabeth, a Campbell, because she had failed to produce an heir. According to the castle’s history, she was marooned on a rock in seas off Duart Castle and left to drown when the tides rose. She was rescued by fishermen and returned to her family, but not before her husband, thinking she had died, offered his condolences to her father, the Earl of Argyll. In a twist worthy of a telenovela, the earl invited him to dinner at the Campbell castle, where, to the Maclean chief’s astonishment, she was found sitting at the table. He later married twice more, but was eventually murdered by a Campbell around 1523. That rivalry is long gone now, though Sir Lachlan has vowed never to wear a kilt with the Campbell pattern. There is a greater, more urgent matter at hand. “Scotland cannot let this building fall into disrepair because it’s too important for history,” he said. Another uncertainty is whether his eldest son, Malcolm, 43, will move into the castle when he inherits it. “I was brought up here. I love living here,” Sir Lachlan said thoughtfully. “It’s an old building that I’m very fond of.”

Isle of Mull
Scotland
Maclean
Palaces and Castles
Historic preservation
Restoration and Renovation


A. Carl Kotchian, Lockheed Executive, Dies at 94

Abstract: A. Carl Kotchian, a former president of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and a central figure in a bribery scandal that rocked Japan and the Netherlands during the 1970s, died on Dec. 14. He was 94 and lived in Palo Alto, Calif. His son, Robert Kotchian, confirmed his death Monday but declined further comment. Mr. Kotchian, a certified public accountant, joined Lockheed in 1941 and rose to become its president in 1967. One of his first challenges was to help turn the company from the brink of bankruptcy during the early 1970s. The company’s struggles were connected with those of Rolls-Royce, the British engine maker and a major Lockheed supplier, which itself filed for bankruptcy in 1971. To help Lockheed, the Nixon administration pushed through Congress loan guarantees of up to $250 million. Mr. Kotchian became an energetic salesman for Lockheed’s jets, traveling the world to sell them. Eventually, however, these efforts caught up with him. In 1976, appearing before a Senate subcommittee, Mr. Kotchian testified that in an effort to sell its planes in Japan, Lockheed had paid $12.6 million in bribes, fees and commissions to Japanese businessmen and government officials. Mr. Kotchian also testified that in the early 1960s, Lockheed paid $1.1 million — which he described as a “gift” — to a high Dutch official. That official was identified later as Prince Bernhard, the Dutch armed forces’ inspector general and the husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. Under pressure, the prince resigned from his military and business positions in August 1976. He admitted that he had “not been critical enough in my judgment of initiatives presented to me,” but a Dutch government commission found no firm evidence that he had taken bribes. The scandal — also felt in Italy and other countries — continued to ricochet for years in Japan’s political circles. Kakuei Tanaka, the prime minister from 1972-74, was arrested in 1976 and charged with accepting a multimillion-dollar bribe from Lockheed. He was convicted in 1983, though he continued to fight the charges later. Other prominent Japanese figures were also caught up in the scandal. Mr. Kotchian was forced from his position at Lockheed in February 1976, along with Daniel J. Haughton, the company’s chairman and chief executive. The Justice Department elected not to prosecute the two men, and Mr. Kotchian subsequently maintained that his actions had simply reflected the methods of the times. “Lockheed has become the scapegoat for 300 companies that the S.E.C. said were doing the same thing, and Haughton and I are the scapegoats for the scapegoat,” he told The New York Times in 1977. “Some call it gratuities,” he added in the same interview. “Some call them questionable payments. Some call it extortion. Some call it grease. Some call it bribery. I look at these payments as necessary to sell a product. I never felt I was doing anything wrong.” The Lockheed investigation helped lead Congress to pass the antibribery Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977. After being ousted from Lockheed, Mr. Kotchian tended to an alfalfa farm in California and raised money for the Salvation Army. As of 1977, he still had an office at Lockheed. He also wrote a book about his experiences in Japan, titled “Lockheed Sales Mission: 70 Days in Tokyo.” Archibald Carl Kotchian was born in Kermit, N.D., and grew up in Long Beach, Calif. He received his undergraduate degree and M.B.A. from Stanford. His wife, the former Lucy Elizabeth Carr, died in 2002. Besides his son, Robert, he is survived by two grandchildren.

Deaths (Obituaries)
Lockheed Martin
Kotchian A. Carl


Mussina Outduels Weaver and Leads Yanks Past Angels

Abstract: After watching his team throw away its best pitching performance of the homestand on Friday night, Yankees Manager Joe Girardi mused that the Angels knew how to win games in a lot of different ways. On Friday, the Angels used brilliant pitching to edge the Yankees. The night before, they had simply bludgeoned them. So on Saturday, the Yankees took on the Angels on both fronts with an outstanding performance from starter Mike Mussina and a show of offensive power that could make their remaining seven games against the Angels a little easier to bear. “Everybody who put on the uniform thought this was an important game today,” Mussina said. Wilson Betemit, Bobby Abreu, José Molina and Alex Rodriguez homered against Angels starter Jered Weaver in an 8-2 victory, giving the Yankees their first four-homer game since May. With each homer, Weaver’s frustration seemed to bubble a little more as he threw his arms down and wrung his hands when the ball cleared the fence. It was that kind of relentless offense that carried the Yankees through an eight-game winning streak after the All-Star break and got them back into the race in the American League East. But that was before they lost five of six games last week, a spell that culminated with Mariano Rivera’s surrendering the winning run in Friday’s loss to the Angels. After being outclassed by the Angels in the first two games of the series, the Yankees could take Saturday’s victory as a reassuring sign that the Angels — with the majors’ best record and a 37-29 mark against the Yankees since 2002 — are mortal. “We haven’t looked very good for about a week now,” Mussina said. “We needed to win a ballgame. These guys have always given us trouble. They really stuck it to us the first night and then won a tough game the second night, so it was a big deal to go out and win today.” After allowing two runs in the second, Mussina never seemed seriously troubled by the Angels as he coolly defanged their offense. He struck out Chone Figgins to end the second, the first of 16 straight hitters he retired before leaving after the seventh. He gave up two hits and one earned run and struck out five for his 14th victory. “Hey, it just means it’s one more than 13,” he said. “I hope I’m not done yet. I’m going to keep going. I’m not going to stop here because it’s better than last year was.” The 39-year-old Mussina has the most victories on the Yankees’ staff this season. And with the Old-Timers’ Day game scheduled earlier Saturday afternoon, Mussina joked that he was going to start that one, too. “When he was younger and his arm had more velocity, he had great command of all his pitches,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. “That why he was a perennial Cy Young award candidate. He has changed his approach but still has uncanny command, an ability to change speeds and to make his pitches.” Weaver, who had won both of his previous starts at Yankee Stadium, seemed virtually unhittable in the first two innings. With his deceptive off-speed pitches, aided by a generous strike zone, he struck out the first four batters he faced. But by the fourth inning, the Yankees’ offense had found a gear that had all but gone missing over the past week, and saddled Weaver with four runs, six hits and a two-run deficit. The Yankees took the lead in the bottom of the third after Molina, who went 3 for 3, scored on Derek Jeter’s double-play ball. Abreu tacked on a run by crushing a pitch over the fence in right, his fourth homer in four games. Since the All-Star break, Abreu is batting .362 with 5 home runs and 16 runs batted in. Molina chipped in with a homer in the fifth, his first of the season and first in 221 at-bats. “When he hit that home run,” Girardi said, “it seemed like I used to see him do that a lot against us when he was with the Angels.” By then Weaver looked ragged and frustrated, his failings only magnified by Mussina’s effectiveness. After Weaver allowed a home run to Rodriguez and a walk to Jason Giambi, Scioscia went to the bullpen, which gave up two more runs. Meanwhile, the Yankees’ pitching went according to plan. Although Mussina wanted to pitch the eighth, Girardi brought in José Veras, who allowed a walk before striking out the side. Brian Bruney, who was making his first appearance since he injured his foot on April 22 in Chicago, worked the ninth. With a six-run cushion, Bruney made sure that the Yankees’ best game in a week did not go to waste. INSIDE PITCH Robinson Canó was held out of the lineup Saturday with a sore hand he has been nursing for a week. Sitting in the clubhouse with his left hand wrapped, he said he first felt pain during an at-bat in Boston last Sunday, but that it has not bothered him in the field, only at the plate. In his last six games, he is 3 for 26 with no runs batted in. ... Xavier Nady started in left field after missing Friday night’s game because of swelling in his right quadriceps. He said the swelling had gone down. Nady was replaced in the eighth by pinch-hitter Justin Christian. Manager Joe Girardi said it was a precautionary move.

Baseball
New York Yankees
Los Angeles Angels
Mussina Mike
Weaver Jered


Sunrise to Sunset on the Wharf

Abstract: Lou Marcelli, commodore of the Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club, lives in the cupola atop the club, which was founded in 1877. The club, located at Aquatic Park, has more than 1,000 members today. (His words have been edited and condensed.) SUNRISE AT FISHERMAN’S WHARF I get up at 6 and go get coffee at the Starbucks by the F-line stop. That’s where the few fishermen who are left get together. When I got here in 1943, some of the fishermen came from Collinsville, the delta town where I grew up. They all had come from the same town in Italy, San Benedetto. DWINDLING NUMBERS It used to be wall-to-wall Italians on the wharf in San Francisco, but over the years the crowds got thinner and thinner. A lot of the Italians moved out to the suburbs to grow their tomatoes. Now, at 81, I have few friends left. DAILY SWIM For me, Sunday is no different than any other day. I read the paper and look out the window to check which way the tide is going so I can plan my swim. I take my swim at 9:30 or 10. The cold doesn’t bother me. At my age, the only thing I’m concerned about is the waves. If the waves knock you down, it’s hard to get up. QUESTIONS When I’m sitting there reading the paper, people come up and ask me questions. “Commodore” is a fancy word for flunky — I help keep the club running. Ninety percent of the time, whatever I need I can get from someone at the club — electricians, plumbers, carpenters, lawyers, doctors, gangsters. COCKTAIL HOUR In the afternoon, I take a nap. Otherwise, I’m on the job seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. At 5 p.m., I have my martini. Usually I sit and look at the sunset. Every day is different. DINNER TIME My girlfriend, Cynthia Coppi, comes over two or three times a week, and we cook in the club’s kitchen. She loves calamari — it’s my specialty. We’ve been together for 35 years. THE SOUND OF WAVES At 11 p.m., I close up, and when I’m falling asleep, the noises — the surf, the sirens — don’t bother me. I’m used to it. This is the most beautiful city in the world.

Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club
Aquatic Park
San Francisco (Calif)
Marcelli Lou


Panel to Set Terms to End Abusive Reign at Los Angeles County Jail System

Abstract: The Los Angeles County jail system, the nation’s largest, agreed Tuesday to impose sweeping changes, a year after guards were charged with regularly beating prisoners and supervisors in the Sheriff’s Department were accused of seeking to thwart a federal investigation into corruption and violence in the jails. Under the agreement, dozens of new policies will be implemented by a panel that will hold wide sway over the administration of the jails. The three-person panel, appointed by a federal court, will be responsible for curbing a decades-old culture of violence administered by sheriff’s deputies who act as guards in the 15,000-inmate system. During the past year, disclosures about corruption and brutality inside the jails have led to the conviction of seven sheriff’s lieutenants, sergeants and deputies on federal charges, the federal indictment of others, and a number of lawsuits won by inmates. One of the claims in the class action lawsuit that led to Tuesday’s agreement said that a group of deputies, acting as a de facto gang in the county’s jails, wore tattoos on the back of their necks and awarded one another points for breaking prisoners’ bones. That lawsuit was settled on Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to enter into a federal consent decree; the agreement involved neither financial damages nor an admission of wrongdoing by the Sheriff’s Department. Lee Baca, a former sheriff, who oversaw the jails but denied that the system had widespread problems, resigned abruptly in January. He said his decision to step down before completing his fourth four-year term was unrelated to the jail scandal. The current sheriff, Jim McDonnell, who was elected in November, has pledged to reform the department and the jail system. He served on the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence that in 2012 issued a scathing report, finding that jail guards resorted to force against inmates far too often. The group, made up of former federal judges and prosecutors, also concluded that Sheriff Baca had failed to monitor or control the use of force in jails. Image The Los Angeles County jail system agreed Tuesday to impose sweeping changes to curb a decades-old culture of violence administered by guards. Credit Monica Almeida/The New York Times Though the county’s jails have for decades had a reputation for violence by sheriff’s deputies, most of the complaints had come from current or former inmates, whose credibility was challenged by the Sheriff’s Department. But a 2011 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, in which a prison chaplain and others described violence at the hands of deputies, led to the appointment of the civilian commission by the Board of Supervisors. Tuesday’s agreement gave the federal panel the authority to develop a corrective plan and to monitor compliance. Its members, who will visit county jails regularly, were chosen by lawyers for Los Angeles County and representatives of inmates and former inmates. Under the panel’s recommendations, put into effect after the Board of Supervisors’ vote, jail guards will undergo extensive retraining. Those found to have used excessive force will be fired — or will need a written explanation from the Sheriff’s Department explaining why they were not. Each county jail will be required to establish a unit to compile and document inmate grievances and requests. Also on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved a $350,000 payment to Derek Griscavage, a former inmate who said he had been knocked unconscious during a beating by four or five deputies on Christmas Day in 2010. Lawsuits and various reports by watchdog groups into conditions inside the county jails paint a picture of extreme cruelty by guards and a lack of concern by their superiors. Guards, according to the A.C.L.U. report, routinely abused handcuffed or otherwise non-resisting inmates with Tasers or pepper spray, employed chokeholds, punched and kicked prisoners and slammed their heads into walls. Deputies also sought to provoke racial tensions to their advantage, using racial slurs against African-American inmates and encouraging gang members to assault rivals. In one case, guards punished an inmate by calling him gay and forcing him to walk naked down a jail hallway in full view of other prisoners, according to the A.C.L.U. report. The deputies then placed him in a cell with two gang members who beat him and sexually assaulted him for hours, sticking his head into a toilet while they raped him. As the F.B.I. investigated a potential cover-up of abuses inside the jails, two sheriff’s sergeants went to the home of an F.B.I. agent and tried to intimidate her into providing them with details about the inquiry. The sergeants, Scott Craig, 50, and Maricela Long, 46, were sentenced to 33 months and 24 months, respectively, in federal prison for their part in the attempted cover-up.

Los Angeles
Prison
Lawsuits
Lee Baca
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department


Unemployment Hits Record High in Euro Zone

Abstract: LONDON — Unemployment in the euro zone continued its relentless march higher in April, according to official data published Friday , hitting yet another record, amid a prolonged recession and the absence of a coordinated response by policy makers. The jobless rate for the 17 countries that use the common currency rose to 12.2 percent, from 12.1 percent a month earlier, with 19.4 million people out of work, according to Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency. Some analysts said the number of people without jobs could hit 20 million by the end of the year. Despite the rise, most analysts do not expect the European Central Bank to cut interest rates or take other action to stimulate growth when its policy-making council meets in the coming week. Separate data from Eurostat showed that inflation in the euro zone rose to 1.4 percent from 1.2 percent, which could prompt the central bank to wait for clearer signs that there is no risk of higher prices. Analysts said the continued rise in youth unemployment was particularly alarming. Nearly a quarter of job-seekers under age 25 were unemployed across the zone. Youth joblessness reached 62.5 percent in Greece and 56.4 percent in Spain in April, Eurostat said, threatening to become a long-term drag on growth as young people are unable to start their careers. “Youth joblessness at these levels risks permanently entrenched unemployment, lowering the rate of sustainable growth in the future,” Tom Rogers, an economist who advises the consulting firm Ernst & Young, said in an e-mail message. A decision this week by European Union leaders to allow distressed countries more time to cut their government budgets will help, he said, as will a cut in the benchmark interest rate by the central bank last month. But Mr. Rogers added, “Much more remains to be done to stimulate a recovery.” For the moment, though, there is little prospect of major additional stimulus. The central bank remains reluctant to undertake more radical measures like those used by the Federal Reserve in the United States or the Bank of England. The E.C.B. benchmark interest rate is already at a record low of 0.5 percent, and it is unlikely that a further cut would do much to relieve a credit squeeze in countries like Italy. The European Central Bank aims for inflation of about 2 percent, and still has room for additional measures without violating its mandate to maintain price stability. But the uptick in inflation reported Friday, caused primarily by a rise in prices for food, alcohol and tobacco, could quiet those who have argued that the euro zone is in danger of sinking into deflation, a sustained decline in prices that can be even more destructive than inflation because it is so hard to reverse. In one bit of good news, unemployment in Ireland fell to 13.5 percent, down from 13.7 percent in March and from 14.9 percent a year earlier. The improvement is a sign that Ireland is slowly recovering from the banking and debt crisis that began in 2008.