Illinois Fires Coach Tim Beckman One Week Before Season Opener

Abstract: The University of Illinois fired its head football coach on Friday, saying in a statement that he had inappropriately influenced medical decisions and encouraged players to compete despite injuries. Athletic Director Mike Thomas announced the dismissal of the coach, Tim Beckman, after reviewing the preliminary results of an external investigation that the university said had included 200,000 documents and interviews with nearly 100 sources. According to the statement, Thomas said he had “learned of efforts to deter injury reporting and influence medical decisions that pressured players to avoid or postpone medical treatment and continue playing despite injuries.” He also said that some second-semester seniors had been “treated inappropriately” with regard to staying on scholarship. “Both of those findings are unsettling violations of university policy and practice and do not reflect the culture that we wish to create in athletic programs for our young people,” Thomas said. In a statement released to The Associated Press, Beckman called the findings “utterly false” and suggested he might take legal action. Beckman also said that the dismissal had violated his contract and that he would “vigorously defend both my reputation and my legal rights.” Last month, at the Big Ten media days, Beckman dodged questions about the accusations, which came to light this year. “We have doctors,” he said. “We have medical personnel that understand injuries, and we utilize those things. We’re excited about the current young men that we have. But doctors make decisions.” Thomas announced that the team’s offensive coordinator, Bill Cubit, who was not implicated in the investigation’s findings, would serve as the interim head coach. Illinois opens the regular season next Friday with a home game against Kent State. In May, after the former offensive lineman Simon Cvijanovic made allegations against Beckman on Twitter, several players told the university’s student-run newspaper that Beckman had encouraged players to return early after injuries and that he had disciplined others for not doing so. A number of players made similar allegations when Beckman was the coach at Toledo. The football team is not the only program at Illinois under fire. In June, Casey Conine, a former player for the Illinois women’s soccer team, sued the university, charging that the team had ignored concussion policies and had allowed her to play when she should not have. And last month, seven former players for the women’s basketball team also sued Illinois , contending that Coach Matt Bollant and an assistant had segregated practices by race and had treated black players more harshly. An external investigation commissioned by the university found those allegations unfounded . The university said Beckman would not receive the $3.1 million he was owed for the final two years on his five-year contract or the $743,000 required to buy out his contract.

Coaches
Tim Beckman
University of Illinois
College football
College Sports


Ronnie Biggs, Longtime Fugitive After the Great Train Robbery, Dies at 84

Abstract: Ronnie Biggs, a carpenter and petty crook who became an international celebrity for his role in one of Britain’s most famous crimes, the Great Train Robbery of 1963, and for the decades he spent afterward eluding a worldwide manhunt by Scotland Yard, died on Wednesday in London. He was 84. His publicists announced the death but did not give a cause. “Sadly, we lost Ron during the night,” they announced on Twitter. “As always, his timing was perfect to the end.” A long-scheduled two-part television film, “The Great Train Robbery,” began Wednesday night on BBC1 and was to conclude on Thursday night. Imprisoned in England since he returned there voluntarily in 2001, Mr. Biggs was granted compassionate release for health reasons in August 2009 by Jack Straw, the British justice secretary at the time. The decision was a highly public reversal by Mr. Straw, who had earlier denied Mr. Biggs’s application, saying he had shown no remorse for the crime, in which 15 men robbed a Glasgow-to-London mail train of more than $7 million in bank notes. The train’s driver was seriously injured. Mr. Biggs, who had had several strokes and other health problems in recent years, had been serving what remained of his 30-year sentence — and a great deal of it did remain — in Norwich Prison, in eastern England. At his death, Mr. Biggs had been living at a nursing home in the East Barnet neighborhood of north London, the Press Association news agency reported. His last public appearance was in March, when he attended the funeral of Bruce Reynolds , a fellow train robber. Mr. Biggs’s enduring reputation stemmed not so much from the heist itself as from what happened afterward. Tried and convicted, he escaped from prison and became the subject of an international manhunt; spent the next 36 years as a fugitive, much of that time living openly in Rio de Janeiro in defiance of the British authorities; and enjoyed almost preternatural luck in thwarting repeated attempts to bring him to justice, including an instance when he was kidnapped and spirited out of Brazil by yacht. The fact that the robbery happened to take place on Mr. Biggs’s birthday also did not hurt. During his years at large, Mr. Biggs, aided by the British tabloid press, cultivated his image as a working-class Cockney hero. He sold memorabilia to tourists, endorsed products on television and recorded a song (“No One Is Innocent”) with the Sex Pistols. Image Mr. Biggs in Rio de Janeiro in 1994, promoting his memoir. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images As much as anything, Mr. Biggs’s story is about the construction of celebrity and the ways in which celebrity can be sustained as a kind of cottage industry long after the world might reasonably be expected to have lost interest. The supreme paradox is that had he not fled Britain, Mr. Biggs would have served his sentence and been paroled years ago. Mr. Straw’s reversal in 2009 made headlines worldwide and was vigorously debated in print and on the Internet. What seemed certain was that Mr. Biggs, who had said publicly that he wanted nothing more than to walk into a pub and order a pint of bitter before he died, would not live long enough to do so. But shortly after his release, Mr. Biggs confounded expectations by appearing to rally, igniting public speculation that he had managed to con the authorities one last time. (In fact, under the terms of his release, if he recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital he would be transferred to a nursing home.) Ronald Arthur Biggs was born on Aug. 8, 1929, in Lambeth, a south-central borough of London. By his own account, his was a close, warm household. “My mother always made sure that my cap was square on my head and my socks were pulled up,” he told Smithsonian magazine in 1980. During the Blitz in London, Ronnie was evacuated to Cornwall, where he lived with a man he described afterward as a harsh disciplinarian. He later rejoined his family, but after his mother’s death in 1943, Ronnie embarked on a life of petty crime. With time out for service in the Royal Air Force, he was in and out of jail until his early 30s. In 1960, Mr. Biggs married Charmian Powell, a schoolmaster’s daughter he had met on a train. They had two sons, and for the next few years, by his later accounts, Mr. Biggs settled into a happy routine as a husband and father, working as a carpenter. Image Mr. Biggs in 1963 with police officers. He escaped from Wandsworth Prison in London in 1965, after 15 months behind bars. Credit Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images It was hard to make ends meet. In 1963, Mr. Biggs approached Mr. Reynolds, a man he had known in jail, to request a small loan. But Mr. Reynolds had other plans, involving a very unusual Royal Mail train. Running by night and appearing on no printed schedule, it transported vast quantities of cash between provincial bank branches and central banks in London. The money was in the second of 12 cars. The gang Mr. Reynolds assembled included men with intimate knowledge of railroad timetables, signals and switches. Mr. Biggs recruited a retired engineer to drive the train. After midnight on Aug. 8, 1963, the gang turned a signal light along the route to red. The train ground to a halt in the Buckinghamshire countryside at 3:15 a.m. When the engineer, Jack Mills, stepped out of the cab, a waiting gang member bludgeoned him with an iron bar. The gang uncoupled the last 10 cars. Mr. Biggs’s engineer was brought on board but was unable to release the train’s brake. Mr. Mills, bleeding badly, was forced back into the cab and ordered to drive the head cars to a secluded spot down the line. There the robbers stormed the second car, subdued its crew and unloaded 120 mailbags into waiting vehicles. The whole thing was over in about 15 minutes. As was widely reported, Mr. Biggs spent most of that time sitting in a Land Rover near the railway embankment, his failed engineer beside him. The bank notes in the bags came to 2.6 million pounds, or about $7.3 million — roughly $70 million today. Most of the money has never been found. Mr. Mills never fully recovered from his injuries and was unable to work again. He died in 1970. Within a month, Scotland Yard had caught most of the gang, including Mr. Biggs. Convicted in April 1964, he was sent to Wandsworth Prison in London. In July 1965, after serving 15 months, Mr. Biggs scaled the prison wall with a rope ladder and took off in a waiting furniture van. He made his way to the European continent, where he had cosmetic surgery, and eventually to Australia, where his wife and their children joined him. (The couple’s third son was born there.) Image The mail train was robbed of more than $7 million in 1963. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In 1969, as Scotland Yard began to close in, he fled again. By 1970, Mr. Biggs had made his way to Brazil, which then had no extradition treaty with Britain. His marriage to Ms. Powell, who remained in Australia with the children, ended in divorce. Mr. Biggs lived covertly in Rio until 1974, when Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper of Scotland Yard arrived there. Detective Slipper, who had pursued Mr. Biggs around the world for years, was determined to bring him back to Britain, treaty or no treaty. Happily for Mr. Biggs, his Brazilian girlfriend was pregnant: under Brazilian law, no parent of a Brazilian child could be deported. Mr. Biggs’s fourth son, Michael, was born a few months later, and the proud papa remained in Rio, living openly, bibulously and sometimes extravagantly under his own name. In 1981, Mr. Biggs was abducted from a bar by members of a British security concern. Hustled into a yacht, he was taken to Barbados, from which his kidnappers hoped to extradite him to England. But luck was with Mr. Biggs yet again: The Supreme Court of Barbados ruled in his favor, letting him return to Brazil. By this time, Mr. Biggs’s share of the heist, reportedly £150,000, was long gone. For a few years, he managed to live lavishly anyhow, supported by his young son, Michael, who had joined a successful children’s pop group on Brazilian television. In later years, Mr. Biggs held barbecues at his home for paying guests, sold souvenir T-shirts and appeared in TV commercials, including a Brazilian ad for a home security system. In 2001, with his health failing, Mr. Biggs returned to Britain for treatment, although he knew it would also mean prison. He flew from Brazil on a private jet furnished by The Sun, a British tabloid. The next year, Mr. Biggs married Michael’s mother, Raimunda Rothen, in Belmarsh Prison, a maximum-security facility. Mr. Biggs is survived by his wife; their son, Michael; and two sons from his first marriage, Chris and Farley. Another son from his first marriage, Nicky, died at 10 in a car crash in Australia. Detective Slipper, whose white whale Mr. Biggs never ceased to be, died in 2005. Perhaps Mr. Biggs’s most enduring legacy is his own persona. “People say, ‘Oh, Ron, you must really want a pardon more than anything,’ ” he told People magazine in 1988. “But I say: ‘What? Stop being Ronnie Biggs?’ ”

Ronnie Biggs
Robbery
Obituary
Great Britain


Israeli Police Raid Offices for Evidence on Olmert

Abstract: JERUSALEM, Nov. 11 — About 100 police investigators from Israel ’s National Fraud Unit conducted unannounced searches in more than 20 locations around the country on Sunday, seeking materials connected with criminal investigations under way against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert . A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the surprise raids were standard practice, to prevent any removal of data before the police arrive. The searches related to an investigation concerning Mr. Olmert’s purchase of a Jerusalem apartment, and other investigations of his activities when he was trade and industry minister, Mr. Rosenfeld said. They lasted about eight hours and affected government and private offices, including the Jerusalem City Hall, the office of the chief of the Postal Authority, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and at least one law firm. In an unrelated episode, the leader of the Palestinian team working with Israelis to prepare for an international meeting on Middle East peace called off a meeting with his Israeli counterparts on Sunday evening after being stuck at an Israeli checkpoint for 20 minutes, an aide said. The negotiator, Ahmed Qurei , a former Palestinian prime minister, was on his way from the West Bank town of Abu Dis, where he lives, to meet with Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni , and other members of the Israeli and Palestinian working groups in Jerusalem. The teams are charged with drafting a joint statement for the meeting expected to take place in Annapolis, Md., later this month. Mr. Qurei waited in a car at a border police checkpoint on the edge of Jerusalem while the guards checked with their superiors to determine if they should let him through, his aide said. He added that Mr. Qurei had permission to enter Jerusalem and that the Israelis had been informed that he was coming. A spokesman for the Jerusalem police said Sunday that Mr. Qurei had arrived “without coordination,” and that “it took a short while to get permission for him to enter,” adding that the permission came through. The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said that Ms. Livni had spoken to Mr. Qurei by phone and told him that the events would be examined. “We regret the fact that the meeting was canceled,” Mr. Regev said. “There are very important matters on the table, and nothing will be solved by not talking.” Abu Dis borders on Jerusalem but is separated from it by a 25-foot-high concrete wall, part of the West Bank security barrier that Israel says is necessary to prevent suicide bombers. Mr. Qurei has complained about having to take a circuitous route to Jerusalem, through checkpoints, which turns what used to be a 15-minute journey into one of more than an hour. Mr. Qurei’s aide said he expected that the issue would be resolved. Hours earlier, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, hailed the Annapolis gathering as a “historic opportunity to open a new era” in the history of Middle East peace. He was speaking at a rally in Ramallah attended by thousands of Palestinians to mark the third anniversary of the death of Yasir Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader. Mr. Abbas, of Fatah , also denounced the takeover of Gaza by the Islamist group Hamas, and called on Hamas to retreat from its “black coup.” Borrowing phrases from the Koran, he appealed to God to set Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, back on the rightly guided path, to cheers from the crowd. A Fatah spokesman in Gaza said the Hamas police had confiscated thousands of hats, scarves and Arafat posters meant for a memorial rally to be held in Gaza City on Monday. The Hamas police confirmed the raid, saying that the materials had been allowed to pass through a crossing from Israel into Gaza while Israel restricts the entry of food and fuel. In the Israel searches by the Fraud Unit, plainclothes investigators carried off cardboard boxes filled with documents and other materials. Mr. Rosenfeld, the police spokesman, said the searches related to an investigation concerning Mr. Olmert’s purchase of a Jerusalem apartment, and two others focusing on his activities during his term as trade and industry minister, which ended in 2006. Mr. Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, is suspected of having purchased the apartment at a significant discount, possibly in return for helping the contractors obtain special building permits from the city. Mr. Olmert has denied all wrongdoing. His office had no specific comment on Sunday’s raids. The searches were not connected with a police investigation into Mr. Olmert’s role in the sale of a bank, Mr. Rosenfeld said.

Israel
Palestinians
West Bank
Olmert Ehud
Frauds and Swindling
Fatah Al
Qurei Ahmed
Livni Tzipi


Suspicious Fire Kills 3 in Brooklyn Building

Abstract: A suspicious fire tore through a four-story building in Brooklyn on Monday evening, killing three people, two of them children, and seriously injuring another person, Fire Department officials said. The cause of the fire, at 1150 Putnam Avenue in Bushwick, was not immediately known, but Deputy Chief Stephen Moro said that it was being treated as suspicious because it began in the stairwell, not a location where something like a stove or an electrical device would be likely to spark a flame by accident. The fire began around 5:30 p.m., officials said, and took an hour, 12 trucks and about 60 firefighters to subdue. “They were met with heavy fire on the second floor,” Chief Moro said. “Our units made a tremendous push.” When the flames were finally put out, the red brick building was left a shell, with every window broken or blown out and deep, black smudges spread across its facade. Shameeka Hughes, 31, who lives across the street, said she called 911 from her cellphone. Her husband, Joshua Landy, 23, said he saw smoke and flames pouring out of the windows and front door of the four-story house. “I heard a ruckus,” he said, “like screaming.” Police Department officials said that two people, a 62-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl, were found dead on the top floor of the building. A 3-year-old girl was later pronounced dead at Woodhull Medical Center. A 47-year-old man remained in critical condition on Monday night, a Police Department spokesman said. Four other people, including two firefighters, suffered injuries, a Fire Department spokesman said, but they were not considered life-threatening. The entire block on Putnam Avenue, in a residential corner of Bushwick, remained blocked off to cars and pedestrians hours after the flames were extinguished. No information was immediately available on the relationship between the victims, and their names were not released.

Deaths (Fatalities)
Fires and Firefighters
Bushwick (NYC)


In Midwest Floods, a Broad Threat to Crops

Abstract: NEWHALL, Iowa — Here, in some of the best soil in the world, the stunted stalks of Dave Timmerman’s newly planted corn are wilting in what sometimes look more like rice paddies than the plains, the sunshine glinting off of pools of collected water. Although time is running out, he has yet to plant all of his soybean crop because the waterlogged soil cannot support his footsteps, much less heavy machinery. Mr. Timmerman’s small farm has been flooded four times in the past month by the Wildcat Creek, a tributary of the Cedar River which overflowed its banks at a record 31 feet last week, causing catastrophic damage in nearby Cedar Rapids and other eastern Iowa towns and farmsteads. “In the lean years, we had beautiful crops but they weren’t worth much,” Mr. Timmerman said, surveying his farm, which his family has tended since his great-great-grandfather. “Now, with commodity prices sky high, mother nature is throwing us all these curve balls. I’m 42 years old and these are by far the poorest crops I’ve ever seen.” And he added, “It’s going downhill by the day.” As the floodwaters receded in some areas, they rose in others. On Sunday, residents in Iowa City — where the Iowa River was nearing its projected crest and rising downstream — were struggling with the waters, which submerged part of the University of Iowa ’s campus and sent workers scrambling to move books and paintings from the university’s Arts Campus. “Certainly Iowa City has never seen anything like this before,” said Linda Kettner, a university spokeswoman. “A lot of people have been displaced. It’s a very poignant time. And at the University of Iowa, we’ve never faced a challenge like this.” In Cedar Rapids — where the Cedar River crested at 31 feet on Friday — the water receded Sunday, but most of the downtown streets were still flooded. But officials were worried that worse might lie ahead as the rain-gorged tributaries spill into the Mississippi River system, threatening scores of communities. The Mississippi is expected to crest by midweek or days later. For Mr. Timmerman and the thousands of other farmers who have seen their fields turn to floodplains, the rain and flooding could not have struck at a worse time, and their plight extends far beyond the Midwest. Last week, the price of corn rose above $7 a bushel on the commodities market for the first time, and soybeans rose sharply, too, reacting to the harsh weather hampering crop production across the Midwest. In addition to Iowa, the farming states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota have suffered an unusual level of flooding this year. Soaring global demand in addition to the increased use of corn for ethanol, an alternative fuel, have shrunk the worldwide supply of staples that are the core of practically every continent’s diet. Meanwhile, the price of oil has jumped, raising the cost of producing crops and feeding livestock and causing an increase in grocery bills here and abroad, sparking riots and protests in at least two dozen countries. At a moment when corn should be almost waist-high here in Iowa, the country’s top-producing corn state, more than a million acres have been washed out and destroyed. Beyond that, agriculture experts estimate that 2 million acres of soy beans have been lost to water, putting the state’s total grain loss at 20 percent so far, with the threat of more rain to come. “The American farmer, we feed the world,” Mr. Timmerman said. “We’re going to be short on corn and we’re going to be short on soybeans.” He continued, “It’s heart-wrenching.” While Mr. Timmerman feels the weight of the situation on his own bottom line — he had just saved enough to upgrade from a 6-row planter to a 16-row version and splurged on his first new tractor — he also feels the weight of the world as he ponders his output under the wide skies of Benton County, an idyllic landscape that could rival a movie set with its picture-perfect backdrops of big red barns. Jim Fawcett, a crop specialist at the Iowa State University’s agricultural extension service, has been hosting emergency meetings with farmers around the state. With standing water comes concerns about manure storage, pollution, livestock safety, soil erosion, mold and fungus and other plant diseases. “We know there’s going to be less of a crop now than there could have been months ago,” he said. “There will be some fields where there’s no crop. If the flooding continues, we won’t have any growing season to work with. For corn, time has run out.” And the flooding has continued. The rain hardly stops for long. As Mr. Timmerman prepared Saturday to leave his house in suburban Cedar Rapids for his fields in Benton County, a thunderstorm pounded the ground with hail. But before he reached the fields, gray skies gave way to blinding sunshine. The light produced an odd effect on the drenched fields, causing them to shimmer. “What kills me is that it’s beautiful, then it rains, it’s beautiful, then it rains,” said Mr. Timmerman’s wife, Rachelle. “Huge rain drops. Just pouring.” The ground does not have time to dry before more rain adds to the already saturated earth. And unseasonably cool temperatures have not helped. In May, there were some 30-degree nights. Iowa’s growing season is notoriously productive because it is usually long and warm. “Tessa kept asking, ‘When is spring coming, Mommy?’ “ Mrs. Timmerman said, referring to the youngest of her four children. “She’s 4, and she was learning about the seasons, so she wondered where spring was.” The temperatures have finally warmed, but, Mr. Timmerman said, “We’ve been about a month behind in our weather all year.” If the corn sprouts do not mature enough before the deep heat of summer hits, there will be more problems ahead. The bad news keeps on coming. On Wednesday, a burst of high wind, perhaps a tornado, ripped apart one of Mr. Timmerman’s storage sheds, depositing splintery wooden debris over some of his puny soybeans. The bean sprouts should be mid-shin height by now but they barely reach to the top of Mr. Timmerman’s flip-flop. “In years like this, you hope you can pay your bills,” he said. “Our family has roots in farming, and even when times are tough, you stay with it.” They have certainly known the tough times. There were many years when Mr. Timmerman did not make enough money to have to pay income taxes. He used nothing but second-hand farm equipment — some of it decades old — and rented his house. He worked a full-time job off the farm, and still managed to produce bumper crops of hundreds of bushels of corn an acre. “I knew that one day we’d see good times,” he said. Those days began to come just a few years ago. Corn prices inched up, then leaped, and suddenly he had enough money to buy a five-bedroom house, new trucks and a $90,000 combine. Their family grew with another baby, Tessa. But he has had to leave the new 16-row planter next to the barn on what should have been planting days. He is spending two or three times as much on seed, fertilizer and diesel fuel — some $1,500 a month on that alone. And the processing companies where he needs to send 17 truckloads of last year’s stored corn are under water in Cedar Rapids. Mr. Timmerman has five plots of land adding up to 760 acres. He is glad that he diversified his land, but even the land that has not been flooded has soaked up too much rain and the stalks are not anything like what he knows they could be. An optimist at heart and a pragmatist with German roots, Mr. Timmerman grew more dejected as he drove around Benton County from Van Horne to Vinton to Keystone taking a close look at his fields for the first time since the major flooding began. “I’m a little more depressed than I was earlier because I’m seeing dark spots that I know aren’t going to produce,” he said. “This is looking worse than I thought. It really gets to you.” But there are bright moments even at times like this. Mr. Timmerman’s only son John, 7, recently brought home his first-grade journals. “Yesterday, I rode the combine with my dad,” the little boy wrote, Mr. Timmerman said, bursting with pride. He has already outfitted John with miniature versions of all the major farm equipment. “Farmers are optimistic,” Mr. Timmerman said. “We got to be, to go out and plant and rely on mother nature.”

Floods
Iowa
Corn
Soybeans
University of Iowa
Weather
Agriculture


U.N. Security Council Condemns North Korean Missile Launches

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council on Friday strongly condemned four North Korean ballistic missile launches in July and August, calling them “grave violations” of a ban on all ballistic missile activity. A press statement approved by all 15 members of the Council on Friday night deplored the fact that the North’s ballistic missile activities were contributing to the country’s development of nuclear weapon delivery systems and increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the East Asia region. The Council expressed “serious concern” that North Korea carried out the test-fires after six ballistic missile tests between April and June “in flagrant disregard” of the Council’s repeated statements to halt such launches as well as nuclear tests that violate the Council resolutions. It urged member states to redouble efforts to put into effect sanctions against North Korea, including the latest and toughest measures imposed by the Council in March. North Korea said early Saturday that the discussions at the United Nations were a “terrible provocation” and that it was developing nuclear weapons because of “outrageous nuclear intimidation” by the United States.

North Korea
Nuclear weapon
UN Security Council
Missiles and Missile Defense


Etsy’s Shares Tumble After Earnings Disappoint

Abstract: Etsy shares sank almost 14 percent in aftermarket trading after the company’s first earnings report as a publicly traded company showed a hefty quarterly loss because of costs related to restructuring and a tax provision. Its net loss was $36.6 million, or 84 cents a share, for the three months that ended March 31. In the year-ago quarter, the company reported a loss of $463,000. Etsy went public to much fanfare in April, but shares have declined over investor concerns about counterfeit goods. Etsy said if the dollar remained strong, that could hurt buyer behavior outside the United States. At Tuesday’s close, the stock was 31 percent above its $16 debut price, but down 41 percent from its high.


Yuzuru Hanyu Takes Big Lead

Abstract: The Olympic gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu skated a flawless program to take a large lead after the short program at the world championships in Boston. Hanyu scored 110.56 points and led the defending champion, Javier Fernández, by more than 12. Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France led after the short dance as they sought to defend their title.

Yuzuru Hanyu
Javier Fernández
Figure skating


Japanese and North Korean Officials Hold First Talks in 4 Years

Abstract: TOKYO — Government officials from Japan and North Korea held their first talks in four years on Wednesday, amid hopes that the North’s new leader could be trying to reduce tensions with Japan and, by extension, the United States. The meeting at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing between midlevel diplomats was described by Japanese officials as a working-level discussion aimed at shaping an agenda for future higher-level talks. However, Japanese analysts have speculated that the talks could actually be a feeler from North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un , and that he might want improved economic ties with the outside world. The two nations have no diplomatic relations. Official communications were broken off in 2008 amid acrimony over the North’s nuclear program and the North’s failure to fully address Japan’s concerns about abductions of Japanese citizens in decades past. Tokyo believes that the North kidnapped dozens of Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, forcing them to train the North’s spies. North Korea returned five abductees in 2002 and insists that the issue has been resolved. Wednesday’s meeting ended without conclusion, with the diplomats expected to meet again on Thursday. Japanese officials said the main topic was whether Japan would be allowed to retrieve the remains of what Tokyo counts as 21,000 Japanese who died at the end of World War II in the North, when it was a Japanese colony. They said North Korea initially suggested holding the government-level talks earlier this month at a meeting between Red Cross officials from both nations on the retrieval of Japanese remains. But Japan’s negotiator, Keiichi Ono, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Northeast Asia Division, stressed the importance of the abductions, which remain a highly emotional issue among the Japanese public. And the top Japanese government spokesman, Osamu Fujimura, told reporters that future talks would proceed only “with the understanding that the abduction issue will of course be part” of them. Japan will also raise the issue of repatriation of Japanese spouses of North Korean citizens who want to return, and the turning over of Japanese citizens in North Korea wanted for the hijacking of a Japanese airliner in 1970, Japanese news media said.

Japan
North Korea
Kim Jong-un
International Relations


Oil-Services Companies FMC Technologies and Technip Plan Merger

Abstract: LONDON — Two large oil services companies, FMC Technologies and Technip, said on Thursday that they planned to merge in a $13 billion transaction. The deal is a sign of pressures on the oil services industry, which performs much of the oil field work for major energy companies around the world, to reduce costs at a time of lower oil and gas prices. The companies said in a joint statement that they expected at least $400 million in annual cost savings from the all-stock deal by 2019. The deal, if completed, would combine Technip, which is based in Paris and is a major player in the demanding and costly work of developing offshore oil and gas fields, with FMC, a maker of energy equipment based in Houston. The two companies had combined revenue of $20 billion in 2015 and would have more than 49,000 employees in 45 countries, they said in a joint statement. Douglas J. Pferdehirt, president and chief operating officer of FMC, would become chief executive of the new company, which would be called TechnipFMC and would be based in London, where the two companies already have a joint venture. It would have operating offices in Houston and Paris and would be listed on the New York and Paris stock exchanges. Thierry Pilenko, chairman and chief executive of Technip, would serve as executive chairman of the combined company. In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Pferdehirt said that companies like FMC provided equipment for oil projects while outfits like Technip installed it. By joining forces, “we can reduce that complexity,’’ he said. “We can remove unnecessary hardware.” The deal would build on the existing joint venture between the two companies, which involves underwater operations. “We want to take this strategy further and across the full footprint of the two companies,” Mr. Pilenko, of Technip, said in a statement. Oil Prices: What to Make of the Volatility Over the last two and a half years, the oil industry experienced its deepest downturn since at least the 1990s. Analysts say that the move shows how tough things have become for the oil services industry as a result of the plunge in petroleum prices, to just below $50 a barrel from more than $100 a barrel in 2014. The service companies, which do much of the construction and technical work for the industry, have been hit hard as their clients have canceled or postponed projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars, while demanding lower prices from their vendors. Costly, specialized ships for laying undersea pipes and placing equipment on the ocean bottom have been idled, and the prices contractors can charge for products have been cut sharply. Both companies’ recent financial results reflected the industry’s difficulties. Technip’s net income for 2015 fell by about 90 percent compared to a year earlier, to 45 million euros, or about $50.7 million, on €12.2 billion in revenue. FMC’s 2015 income before tax fell more than 50 percent, to about $500 million on $6.4 billion in sales. Both companies are already engaged in cost-reduction programs. Technip said, for example, that it reduced its work force by 4,000 last year, to 34,400 employees. “The sector slowdown is so bad companies must act to achieve further cost-cutting,” with mergers perhaps the only option, Nicholas Green, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in London, wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. Mr. Green said the FMC-Technip merger “raises the bar for all others.” Mr. Green estimated that the merger could help the companies reduce their costs of developing offshore oil and gas fields by 30 percent. But there may be limits to the merger activity. Regulators recently forced two other major oil services companies, Halliburton and Baker Hughes , to drop a merger plan, over fears of reduced competition. FMC and Technip, though, say that their merger is unlikely to encounter regulatory resistance because their businesses are more complementary than competitive. And the $20 billion in combined revenues of Technip and FMC are still well below the $35 billion that Schlumberger, the oil services giant, reported for 2015. Schlumberger recently completed its own takeover — of Cameron, an energy equipment maker, in a deal valued at $12.7 billion.

FMC Technologies
Technip
Oil and Gasoline
Mergers and Acquisitions
Offshore drilling


Daily Report: At Apple, U.S. Jobs That Go Beyond Manufacturing

Abstract: President-elect Donald J. Trump said during the campaign that he would push companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. He named one tech company in particular — Apple — which is the world’s largest public company and makes many of its gadgets overseas. Apple does make one product domestically: The Mac Pro desktop computer is assembled in Austin, Tex., through the contract manufacturer Flex. So Vindu Goel, a New York Times tech reporter, recently visited Austin to see what having tech manufacturing domestically has wrought for Apple and the area. Image What he found was a more nuanced picture showing that manufacturing is far from the only way for a tech company to provide good jobs and career paths for Americans. It turns out Apple has a campus in Austin where the number of jobs has grown rapidly, reaching about 6,000 jobs now, up from around 2,100 seven years ago. The roles that Apple has created there are varied, including fielding tech-support calls, overseeing logistics with suppliers and updating Apple’s Maps software. The average salary of Apple’s Austin employees, including management, is $77,000 a year. The manufacturing jobs at Flex’s Austin location, located about a mile from the Apple campus, are also important, of course. Flex added about 2,000 jobs for the Mac Pro desktop. But clearly, they are not the only kinds of jobs a tech company can now create.

Apple
Jobs
Manufacturing
Austin
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


For Mexican Trucks, a Road Into the U.S.

Abstract: DALLAS, Sept. 8 — Mexican truckers are expected to begin transporting goods throughout the United States in coming days, after a decision Thursday night by the Transportation Department that provisionally lifted restrictions confining them to the border region. The provision opening the United States to Mexican long-haul trucking was called for under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, but it was delayed by resistance from some trucking and environmental groups. Under a one-year pilot program, as many as 100 Mexican trucking companies vetted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration at the Department of Transportation will be allowed to travel beyond the 25-mile commercial border zone. The program also clears American truckers to operate anywhere in Mexico for the first time. Federal officials and some trucking and commerce representatives said the agreement would streamline cross-border trade, reduce pollution and lower prices for consumers. Under the current system, three trucks are usually required to transport one load of goods from either the United States or Mexico through the border region and onward to the final destination. “This long-awaited project will protect public safety on American highways as we work to both save consumers money and help our economy,” John Hill, head of the Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said in a statement. The first two companies cleared to participate in the program are Transportes Olympic, based in Nuevo Leon, near Monterrey, Mexico, and Stagecoach Cartage and Distribution, of El Paso, Tex. The Teamsters, the Sierra Club and other groups said they would continue their legal fight to stop the program because of “serious safety, environmental, smuggling and security concerns.” Leslie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters, said American truckers were most concerned about sharing the roads with potentially unsafe Mexican vehicles, not the potential of increased competition from lower-wage workers. “We have nothing against Mexican truck drivers; it’s the companies that exploit them that we oppose,” she said. “We’re absolutely not ready for this.” A federal appeals court had rejected an emergency motion the groups filed to stop the program. On Friday, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association also petitioned for further review of the program. But not all trucking interests oppose the program. A spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, a national group representing trucking companies, said they had concern over safety standards but thought over all that critics of the program were “exaggerating the dangers.” “They will inspect every Mexican truck every time it goes across the border, which is more than they do for American trucks,” said the spokesman, Clayton Boyce. An inspector general’s report released Thursday cleared the program to proceed but said the federal motor carrier safety agency had not completed plans for checking “every truck, every time” they cross the border as planned. The report also cited concern about state enforcement officials’ testing English proficiency among the drivers, which is required under the pilot program. In recent years, Mexican trucks crossing the border with the United States were no more likely to be taken out of service because of safety or other violations than American trucks, according to preliminary results of a review of thousands of Texas Department of Public Safety inspection reports. The review was conducted by the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas, Austin. “The problem on the interstates is too many trucks,” said Robert Harrison, deputy director of the center, “not too many Mexican trucks. As long as the inspections are adequate and in force, we have little to fear.” In 2006, more than 3.2 million trucks crossed the Mexican border through Texas, more than double the number that passed through California and other states, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Trade with Mexico has quadrupled under Nafta, to $332 billion in 2006 from $81 billion in 1993, according to the United States Chamber of Commerce. “This pilot project is a long overdue step toward reducing congestion and air pollution at the U.S.-Mexico border while promoting growth and jobs,” Thomas J. Donohue, president of the chamber, said in a statement. “The United States promised under Nafta to open its border to Mexican trucks — with full reciprocity for U.S. carriers — and it’s time we kept our word.”

United States
Transportation Department
North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
Mexico
Trucks and Trucking


New Lead in 1909 Killing of a Star Officer

Abstract: It was not long after the turn of the 20th century when Giuseppe Petrosino , the New York Police Department’s most effective weapon against organized crime, was sent to Italy to attack the problem’s roots. He stayed in hotels under an assumed name, and grew a beard to alter his appearance. But his reputation and purpose had preceded him. On the day of his murder, March 12, 1909, Lieutenant Petrosino left his revolver in his hotel room. And as he waited for a trolley in downtown Palermo, Sicily, two assassins approached. Four shots. Three bullet wounds. The only New York City police officer ever killed in the line of duty on foreign soil. The killing would never be solved, the American authorities said at the time . There was a code of silence, the “omerta.” No one would talk. But on Monday, the Italian authorities said, someone finally did . A 28-year-old man, Domenico Palazzotto, was heard on a police wiretap bragging to an associate that his great-uncle, Paolo Palazzotto, carried out the killing on behalf of a the local mafia leader, Don Vito Cascio Ferro. The claim, reported by the Italian news agency ANSA, was not included among the charges against the younger Palazzotto, who was among some 90 suspected members of the mafia arrested Monday in Palermo. Nor did it amount to proof of his elder’s responsibility. What it showed, instead, was the lasting notoriety of the killing that holds currency in the criminal underworld 105 years later. “That guy could just be running his mouth, thinking that if I say my family killed Joe Petrosino, that will give him some cred in the local prison or something,” said Joseph A. Petrosino, a grandnephew of the lieutenant and a retired Brooklyn prosecutor. “Obviously this guy has followed in the family tradition.” Then, reflecting on his own work in law enforcement and that of his son Joseph, a current New York City detective, he added, “It’s a more honorable tradition, I think.” Mr. Petrosino left Padula, in the province of Salerno, Italy, for the United States as a boy, and went by the name Joseph. He helped to transform the Police Department soon after joining in 1883. Known for being good with his fists, despite being 5-foot-3, he took on the organized crime that then plagued the city, catching cases involving crime in the Italian-American community. His career intersected the lives of two presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, who as a New York City police commissioner promoted Officer Petrosino to the top of the homicide division in 1895; and William McKinley, whose 1901 assassination Mr. Petrosino warned of. He helped create the canine unit and the bomb squad, which grew out of what was then known as the Italian Squad. “Who was throwing the bombs in those days?” said Thomas Reppetto, a historian of the Police Department who dedicated his book on the American mafia to Lieutenant Petrosino. The answer, as Lieutenant Petrosino knew, was mostly anarchists and Black Hand extortionists, both largely made up of immigrants from Italy like himself. So when the Police Department decided to send one officer to Italy to attack the crime problem in New York City at what it believed was the source, the choice of Lieutenant Petrosino was obvious. When his body returned to the city in a coffin, as many as 250,000 New Yorkers were said to have come to pay respects. “He was a shining star,” said James C. Lisa, president of the Petrosino Association in America.

Giuseppe Petrosino
Organized crime
Murders
Palermo
Domenico Palazzotto
NYPD
Wiretapping Eavesdropping
Attacks on Police
NYC


Brazil to Step Up Plans for Disaster Preparedness

Abstract: BUENOS AIRES — The Brazilian government said Tuesday that it would accelerate efforts to devise a national system for preventing disasters and alerting the population quickly when they occur, in response to the deadly landslides in the state of Rio de Janeiro last week that killed at least 710 people. President Dilma Rousseff met with ministers and announced the government’s plan to improve its disaster readiness, which will include maps of high-risk areas, better training and improved collection of data on meteorological conditions. The national system will be completely in place in four years, but it is expected to produce results by next year, the government said. The announcement appeared to be a response to news reports that a Brazilian government official had admitted to the United Nations two months ago that a large part of a promised emergency response system was not ready and that the government did not have the ability to verify the efficiency of many existing services. A report sent to the United Nations by Ivone Maria Valente, the national secretary of the National Civil Defense authority, notes that almost one in four cities in Brazil lack a civil defense authority. And where a civil defense authority exists, it does not have a way to measure if it is functioning efficiently, according to the report. An official at a United Nations agency, International Strategy for Disaster Reduction , provided a copy the report, whose content was first reported by the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo. Ms. Valente reported that the small number of municipal authorities created to deal with disasters made it “impossible to measure, in a reliable way,” which cities were prepared for disasters. While the government said it had made advances in disaster preparedness, it also noted that it had not analyzed the readiness of any hospital or school in preparing the report. The lack of a risk-reduction program “will contribute to the increasing occurrence of natural disasters” and to “increasing insecurity in local communities,” Ms. Valente wrote. Disaster experts have contended that Brazil’s lack of disaster-warning systems and a general lack of preparedness was responsible for the deadly scale of the disaster last week, which with its increasing death toll has become the country’s worst natural disaster. In addition to more than 700 people killed, nearly 14,000 are homeless or have abandoned their homes in Teresópolis, Nova Friburgo and Petrópolis — the three hillside towns struck hardest by the heavy rains.

Brazil
Disasters and Emergencies
Landslides and Mudslides


Immigration Program for Haitians Called a Success

Abstract: A year after the devastating earthquake in Haiti , the American government has received more than 53,000 applications from Haitians seeking temporary legal status in the United States, and it has approved the vast majority, a top immigration official said Wednesday. The official, Alejandro Mayorkas, director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services , said his agency’s response to the disaster showed that it could handle a much larger immigrant legalization program like the proposal known as the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants. Tuesday was the deadline for Haitians to apply for the designation, called temporary protected status. The program gives most Haitians who were in the United States on the day of the earthquake the right to stay and work legally for 18 months while Haiti tries to recover. “I think our performance and our execution of the T.P.S. program serves as a model of our ability to execute immigration reform programs,” Mr. Mayorkas said in an interview. “How quickly, effectively and efficiently we responded to the disaster is a standard for us to adhere to.” The special designation is scheduled to expire on July 22, but advocates for Haitian immigrants say they expect that the government will extend the status, as it has for immigrants from other countries crippled by war or natural disaster. At least 46,000 Haitians have been granted the special designation. Immigration officials said that they were still processing applications that arrived before the deadline, and that they expected the total number of approvals to exceed 49,000. That is still lower than the number of people federal officials initially expected might be eligible for the temporary protection. Immigration officials said they had purposely chosen high estimates of the number of Haitians who might have been eligible, to ensure that they had budgeted enough money and manpower to handle the application process. Within several weeks of the announcement, officials said, they revised down to 70,000 to 100,000 their initial estimate of 100,000 to 200,000, after consulting with academics, immigrant advocates and others familiar with the Haitian diaspora. Even now, officials said, since there is no way to count the illegal immigrant population, they do not know how many potentially eligible Haitians decided not to file for the special status. The federal government’s offer was accompanied by a robust outreach effort that included more than 200 public forums, and conference calls between immigration officials and advocacy groups working with Haitians, officials said. Mr. Mayorkas himself led meetings with community leaders and others in New York, Miami and Boston, where large Haitian populations have taken root, and he sent deputies to other locations to explain the program. Officials at Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, also say that improvements to the agency’s paperwork processing, background screening and public information systems have made it more efficient at handling applications. Mr. Mayorkas acknowledged that sweeping immigration legislation like the Dream Act would apply to a much larger population: by some estimates, more than 700,000 young illegal immigrants would be eligible under the act. But he said that the difference was “an issue of scale” and that his agency was prepared to handle the increase in applications that an immigration overhaul would spur. Immigrant advocates and federal officials said that news of the special status seemed to penetrate into the furthest reaches of the diaspora, but some Haitians living in the United States illegally may have decided not to apply because they still feared deportation and did not want to alert the authorities to their whereabouts. Those who did not apply may now be eligible for deportation. The Obama administration suspended deportations to Haiti immediately after the earthquake and even released many Haitians, including some with criminal convictions. Last month, however, immigration officials announced that they would resume deportations of Haitians in mid-January. But they also said they intended to focus their deportation efforts only on those who had been convicted of crimes or who posed a threat to public safety. Haitian leaders in the United States and some public officials have asked the administration to reverse course. On Wednesday, six New York City Council members sent a letter to Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, urging her to suspend deportations once again while Haiti wrestles with its halting reconstruction effort and with fresh political and social unrest. “Removing Haitians at this time would not only put those removed at risk,” the letter said, “but also hamper efforts of Haitians to rebuild their country, homes and lives.”

Citizenship and Immigration Services (US)

Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act


Christie Wants Obama to Push Cuba to Return New Jersey Trooper’s Killer

Abstract: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has asked President Obama to demand that Cuba return a woman convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper 41 years ago, the governor’s office said on Sunday. Mr. Christie made the request in a letter that was sent to the White House on Friday, two days after President Obama announced that he would move to normalize relations with Cuba. The woman, Joanne Chesimard , a leader of the Black Liberation Army who was convicted of murder in the 1973 killing, is believed to be living in Cuba under political asylum. Ms. Chesimard, who goes by the name Assata Shakur, was the first woman ever named to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list. Mr. Christie asked that she be returned to New Jersey before any further consideration is given to restoring diplomatic relations. Ms. Chesimard’s ability to live freely in Cuba is an “affront” to residents of the state and to the New Jersey State Police, he said. Mr. Christie, who is believed to be considering a run for president, made it clear that he disagreed with President Obama’s decision on Cuba. “I do not share your view that restoring diplomatic relations without a clear commitment from the Cuban government of the steps they will take to reverse decades of human rights violations will result in a better and more just Cuba for its people,” Mr. Christie wrote. The American government has said there may be about 70 people hiding in Cuba who are wanted by law enforcement in the United States. After President Obama’s announcement on Cuba, state officials in New Jersey rushed to announce their renewed hope that Ms. Chesimard, one of the most notorious fugitives, would be returned. Her case has remained an “open wound” for the State Police and for the trooper’s family, said Col. Rick Fuentes, the superintendent of the State Police. “You can’t ever rest until a person like this is serving his or her sentence for that crime,” he said. The lawyer who defended Ms. Chesimard in her murder case, Lennox S. Hinds, did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Federal and state officials have offered a reward of up to $2 million for information leading to her apprehension. She was convicted in the death of Werner Foerster, a state trooper who was killed after he and another trooper stopped Ms. Chesimard and two others on the New Jersey Turnpike. The F.B.I. says she and the two accomplices opened fire on the troopers. Trooper Foerster died and the other trooper was injured. In 1979, Ms. Chesimard escaped from a prison in New Jersey, where she was serving a life sentence. She surfaced in Cuba in the 1980s. She has maintained her innocence and called herself the victim of a racist judicial system. She was injured in the gunfire on the turnpike, and her defenders argue she was also a victim in the violence.

Cuba
New Jersey
Chris Christie
Black Liberation Army
Fugitive
Werner Foerster
Joanne Chesimard,Assata Shakur
Attacks on Police
Murders and Homicides
Barack Obama


Finding Lessons in Stumbles, American Aims for the Top Again

Abstract: When the draw for the United States Open was made Thursday, Ryan Harrison’s name again appeared next to that of one of the biggest stars in the sport. This time, it was Rafael Nadal, the No. 2 seed, who comes to New York with a 10-match winning streak and a 15-0 record on hardcourts. It was the latest tough luck of the draw for Harrison, a 21-year-old from Shreveport, La. Thought to be one of the best hopes for the next generation of American men’s tennis, Harrison has yet to make it past the second round in 13 Grand Slam appearances. Within the last two years, Harrison has lost twice in the second round of Grand Slams to No. 1 Novak Djokovic, and once in the first round to Andy Murray. At last year’s United States Open, he fell to the 2009 champion Juan Martín del Potro in the second round. Outside of Grand Slams, he has also had to face Nadal, Roger Federer, David Ferrer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round of prestigious Masters tournaments. Harrison, with his deep, unwaveringly earnest voice and unflinching eye contact, made the roadblocks a positive. “If you look at the bright side of it, I’m 21 years old, and I’ve played everybody on just about every court,” he said. “There’s nothing that’s bad about that.” He added: “I want to play against the best, and that’s why I’m playing. I couldn’t care less if my ranking gets to 54 or 57. I’m trying to get to the top 10, and I’ve got to play those guys.” Last July, Harrison had reached a career-high ranking of No. 43, but 12 months later he had fallen to No. 132. With his ranking no longer guaranteeing direct entry into tour-level events, Harrison has had to occasionally play in qualifying draws or on the Challenger Tour this year. He was given a wild-card entry into the United States Open main draw. When Nadal was asked earlier this month which players he thought would lead the next generation, he first named Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic and Jerzy Janowicz, and then came to Harrison. “Harrison — I thought he was one of these guys,” Nadal said. “The last couple of months, probably he didn’t play his best. But I still believe that he can be in the top in the future if he’s able to reverse the situation.” Image Ryan Harrison, playing in Washington in July, was ranked as high as No. 43 last year. He enters the United States Open ranked No. 97. Credit Stephen Dunn/Getty Images Nadal could relate to the early promise Harrison showed in his career. In Houston in 2008, Harrison became the first man since Nadal in 2002 to win a main-draw match on the ATP Tour as a 15-year-old. As an 18-year-old qualifier at the 2010 United States Open, the 220th-ranked Harrison upset No. 16 Ivan Ljubicic in the first round, then had three match points in his second-round match to Sergiy Stakhovsky, before losing in front of a capacity crowd on the Grandstand court. While it appeared to many to be the emergence of a future American tennis idol, Stakhovsky urged caution. “Even then I said: ‘The guy has yet a lot to work on. Don’t hype him,’ ” Stakhovsky said in a recent interview with Eurosport Russia . “Because that’s how you buried many of your juniors: making a star out of them before they’ve become one.” Harrison continued to rise steadily over the next several years. In July 2011, he cracked the top 100 for the first time and reached the top 50 about a year later. He was among four American men picked to compete in singles for the United States at the London Olympics. While Harrison’s ranking rose, so did criticism of his frequent on-court tantrums, behavior that once led the Tennis Channel commentator Mary Carillo to label Harrison “a brat” and “Mr. Crankypants.” After a loss at the Olympics that included several petulant tosses of his racket, Harrison had to apologize on television for his lack of decorum. Harrison admitted that focusing on controlling his on-court emotions after the Olympics affected his tennis. “To be honest with you, bottling it up, it was tough,” he said. “After that whole thing, I told myself, and I told everyone on national television, that I was not going to be an embarrassment like that anymore. And it was very difficult for me, because I went into almost zombie mode.” But Harrison has a mentor to call on: Andy Roddick, the retired former standard-bearer of American men’s tennis. Harrison often trained with Roddick when the two were based in Austin, Tex. Harrison recently relocated to Boca Raton, Fla., to be closer to other sparring partners, but Roddick’s influence remains strong. “Andy and my dad have been two of my most caring and toughest critics,” Harrison said. “And that’s something to be appreciated.” Roddick said Harrison’s early successes might have left him unprepared for the adversity he recently began to experience. Image Harrison, a 21-year-old American, said he had struggled with controlling his emotions. He ended up apologizing for his on-court tantrums at the Olympics in London last summer. Credit Matthew Stockman/Getty Images “I think he’d always been the best player on any court he’d played on, but now he’s playing against the best players in the world,” Roddick said. “I think he’s finding his way through it. You know, it’s tough when things start going south a little bit and you haven’t actually ever had a slump in your life.” Helping Harrison reverse course is his new coach, Jay Berger, a former top-10 player and current director of men’s tennis for the U.S.T.A., who preaches a singular vision as the only formula for success. “You’re thinking about becoming a better tennis player all day, every day,” Berger said of his philosophy. “Your day revolves around it. And that’s the way the best players in the world do it, and that’s the way they’ve always done it.” Harrison acknowledged that his status as a young, charismatic “next big thing” had brought tempting comforts and perks. “You can obviously have all things you can imagine that come with being a professional athlete at 21 years old,” he said. “Or you can try for more. You can go out there and you can strive for greatness. And if you want that greatness, you can’t be content with the lifestyle of it.” Roddick said increased competition from fellow young Americans like Jack Sock, Denis Kudla, Rhyne Williams and Steve Johnson might motivate Harrison. “Personally, I think it’s good for him that a couple other guys went ahead of him that are young,” Roddick said. “That will push him; he’s not going to like that. There’s nothing wrong with a healthy jealousy, and hopefully these guys can push each other.” At his first event with Berger, Harrison made the semifinals of the BB&T Atlanta Open. He is back into the top 100, at No. 97. Harrison said he believed that his capacity for improvement was greater than it might have been because of his recent struggles. “Maybe I’d still be cruising at 45 and 50 in the world,” he said. “And then maybe I wouldn’t be as professional as I am right now. You know, a lot of times you can see certain guys who get to 40, 50 in the world, and then they just stay there because they’re not doing the right things. Sometimes it really takes you to get knocked on your butt, so to speak, to really understand.”

Ryan Harrison
Tennis
Andy Roddick
Jay Berger
US Open Tennis


Israeli Union Starts a National General Strike

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Israel ’s main labor union began a general strike on Wednesday, shutting airports, government offices, the stock exchange and parts of some hospitals in a dispute over nonunion contract workers. The walkout was Israel’s first general strike in about five years, and it was expected to cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars a day. It began after all-night negotiations failed to produce a compromise between the Finance Ministry and the Histadrut labor federation , the umbrella union for hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers. Israel’s main airport, Ben-Gurion International near Tel Aviv, was shut in the morning, grounding about 4,000 travelers, but it reopened at midday under a court order limiting the strike there. Elsewhere the strike was open-ended, with negotiators expected to return to the table later in the day. Nonetheless, the national labor court summoned the parties to appear on Wednesday afternoon, and it was widely thought that the court would not permit the strike to last very long. The central dispute is the growing use by government agencies of contract workers, especially cleaners and security guards, hired through employment agencies. Those workers earn substantially less than those represented by the Histadrut. The issue of lower-paid contract workers, especially in schools and universities, played a role in last summer’s social justice protests in Israel, in which hundreds of thousands took to the streets. The Histadrut came out in support of that movement, which focused largely on the high cost of housing and other consumer goods but also raised questions about wealth concentration and promoted the belief that too few people were sharing in the country’s growing affluence. Various efforts to block the strike failed. On Tuesday, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce for an injunction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also tried to stop the action, saying the economy was in “a delicate situation” and asserting that a strike would “not solve the problem of contract workers.” He called instead for dialogue. But Ofer Eini, the chairman of the Histadrut, rejected the call. Just before meeting with Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on Tuesday night, Mr. Eini reached agreement with the head of the employers’ association, Shraga Brosh, on transferring some contract workers to direct employment and bolstering the salaries of others. Mr. Steinitz, however, told Mr. Eini that it would be impossible to transfer all contract workers in ministries and government agencies to the state’s payroll because of the cost. He did offer to increase their salaries, improve their benefits and tighten oversight of employment agencies.

Strikes
Israel
Histadrut
Organized Labor
Politics and Government
Temporary Employment


Marlins’ Interim Manager Returns Home Hopeful He’ll Keep Job

Abstract: SAN JUAN, P.R. — When the Florida Marlins arrived at San Juan International Airport on Sunday night, they were met by a group of cheering fans, including the mother of their interim manager, Edwin Rodriguez. On the bus, Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins’ owner, told Rodriguez to lead the team off in his return to the island because, Loria said, it was his moment. When he emerged, the fans chanted: “Edwin! Edwin!” It was indeed a special moment for Rodriguez, the first major league manager from Puerto Rico. But how much longer he will hold the job is uncertain. As Rodriguez prepared to lead the team he took over just five days earlier, the buzz surrounding the team Monday was focused on a different man. That man, the former Mets manager Bobby Valentine, was 1,600 miles away in Connecticut, but even in his absence he hovered over the Marlins’ trip — a three-game series staged here between the Mets team he once managed to the World Series and the Marlins team he was thought to be preparing to lead into the future. Valentine, who recently withdrew his name from consideration for the Baltimore Orioles job, was so close to becoming the Marlins’ manager last week that Loria told him to contact a bench coach. Valentine was scheduled to fly to Miami late last week to interview for the job, but then his visit mysteriously fell through, and the reasons are not generally known. Reports surfaced Sunday that Valentine was no longer under consideration. The team president David Samson was at Hiram Bithorn Stadium on Monday, along with Loria, but neither had an explanation before the Marlins’ 10-3 victory. When asked if Valentine was off the list of potential managerial candidates, Samson chuckled as he walked away and said, “I’ve got nothing on that.” Even as the Mets and the Marlins were preparing to start their series, with Florida as the home team, people in both clubhouses were wondering what happened, and whether Valentine may still get the job. Valentine said Monday that he had no information and that he did not know what was going on with the Marlins’ search. Rodriguez, too, said he had no idea what was in store. He had a formal interview Saturday and came away without a feel for what might happen next. “They haven’t given me any indication whatsoever,” Rodriguez said. “They have a good poker face. No body language, nothing. I don’t even want to speculate.” Rodriguez was hired on an interim basis last Wednesday to replace the fired Fredi Gonzalez after managing for a year and a half at Class AAA New Orleans. He said the uncertainty about the managerial search and about whom the Marlins would eventually hire could potentially be a distraction for his players. He held a brief meeting before Monday’s game to address that. But Rodriguez has also been reveling in the excitement he has generated in Puerto Rico with his historic appointment. “It is a very nice feeling, a very nice sentiment,” he said. “It is hard not to notice the people out there, people that you don’t know who they are and they are saying that they are rooting for you and praying for you. The whole country is feeling good. It’s a good feeling to know that you are giving them fresh news in tough times.” Several Mets players from Puerto Rico were also thrilled to be here. Infielder Alex Cora grew up in Caguas and took the 20-minute drive home Monday to get a home-cooked meal from his mother. Once at the park, he spent more time than usual signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. “Obviously, this is an important series and we came here to win,” Cora said. “But for us Puerto Rican players, it is very important for us to say thank you to the people because it is all about the people. They made this happen for so many of us, and that’s why we want to show our appreciation.” DIAGNOSIS ON MEJIA Pitcher Jenrry Mejia, who was taken out of his minor league start Sunday with soreness in his right shoulder, was examined in Manhattan on Monday. The Mets said he had a posterior cuff strain, which they said was not serious. General Manager Omar Minaya said Mejia would take some time off until the soreness dissipated and would then resume throwing. Minaya was hopeful it would only be a matter of days. The Mets’ ability to make a trade for a top pitcher could depend on Mejia’s health. Teams like the Seattle Mariners, who may try to trade Cliff Lee, would probably want Mejia back in any deal. Mejia was recently sent to Class AA to work on becoming a starter, but he had to leave his start Sunday after throwing 43 pitches. Minaya said he did not think the injury was related to Mejia’s throwing more pitches as a starter than as a reliever.

Florida Marlins
New York Mets
Baseball
Mejia Jenrry


LVMH Circles Its Next Luxury Target, Hermès

Abstract: PARIS IN the rarefied realm of Bernard Arnault, the grand master of the world of luxury, the talk is usually of beautiful things. Of sumptuous things. Of expensive things. It is decidedly not of ugly things. But, last Monday, ugliness intruded into this beau monde, in the form of Mr. Arnault’s star designer at Christian Dior, John Galliano. That day, in his Avenue Montaigne offices here, Mr. Arnault sat stunned as he watched the infamous video of Mr. Galliano’s drunken “I love Hitler” tirade. That video is 42 seconds long. And in 42 seconds, Mr. Arnault and the head of Dior, Sidney Toledano, decided that their star had to go — immediately. In an interview in his headquarters on Tuesday, only hours after Mr. Galliano’s firing was announced publicly, Mr. Arnault expressed confidence that Dior would shake off its Charlie Sheen moment. He declined to comment on Mr. Galliano, who had helped turn Dior into a multibillion-dollar brand, and with whom he has had a close relationship. (According to colleagues at Dior, Mr. Galliano had been under increasing strain since the death in 2007 of his chief assistant and confidant of 20 years, Steven Robinson , the suicide that year of the British stylist Isabella Blow , and then the suicide last year of the British designer Alexander McQueen , who had succeeded Mr. Galliano at Givenchy, another haute couture house that Mr. Arnault controls.) Mr. Arnault, France’s richest man and the force behind the vast LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton empire, is eager to put the Galliano affair behind him. For as jarring as this has been for Dior, Mr. Arnault is grasping at another lustrous pearl: Hermès International. Since October, Mr. Arnault has been — quite publicly — circling Hermès, the 174-year-old family fief whose silk scarves and Kelly and Birkin handbags are coveted near and far. Mr. Arnault says he will not interfere with Hermès’s management or traditions. “We are a totally peaceful investor,” he said in the interview last week. “But as a leader in the best quality products in the world, we believe we can bring a certain savoir-faire to improve the functioning of their business.” To people at Hermès, LVMH — indeed, Mr. Arnault himself — represents everything Hermès is not. He has spent the past three decades acquiring one luxury brand after another and then hiring designers like Mr. Galliano, Mr. McQueen and Marc Jacobs (for Louis Vuitton) to invigorate old labels. That Mr. Galliano was given the keys to Dior only to self-destruct with an anti-Semitic rant at a Paris bar seemed to confirm the worst fears of Hermès executives. “There is a part of our world that is playing on abundance, on glitz and glamour,” Patrick Thomas, the Hermès’s chief executive, said during an interview the week before Mr. Galliano was fired. “And there is another part that is concentrated on refinement, and basically making beautiful objects.” Hermès counts itself among the latter, and it wants to stay that way. “We don’t want to be a part of this financial world which is ruining companies and dealing with people like they are goods or raw materials,” said Mr. Thomas, the first chief executive at Hermès who is not a member of the family. “It’s not a financial fight, because we would lose that. It’s a cultural fight.” AT 62, Bernard Arnault is a trim, willowy man with piercing blue eyes and an easy smile. He speaks only when he has something to say, a quality that can come off as cold or supremely self-confident, depending on which side of the table you’re on. Although Mr. Arnault was born and raised in France, he is, to his detractors here, something of a brassy American in finely tailored Dior. In much of the world, his success in building a wildly profitable, global conglomerate is viewed with envy. But in France, flash, money and wheeling and dealing are still regarded as a bit crass, and Mr. Arnault’s style of business has often ruffled feathers. Few are as wary of Mr. Arnault right now as the Hermès clan, which includes more than 70 members and now comprises three branches: Dumas, Puech and Guerrand. Mr. Arnault says that he believes the family, now in its sixth and seventh generations, will ultimately bend to market forces. The family says it will not. Mr. Arnault says Hermès has nothing to fear. LVMH burnishes the brands it buys, he says. It does not compromise luxury through commercialization. That thinking also applies to Hermès. “I would never diminish the quality of Hermès,” he says. “Hermès can be an even rarer and greater quality business, if they ever wanted to work with us.” For instance, Mr. Arnault would like to see Hermès leave duty-free stores at airports, eliminate all discounts and bring in younger employees. He did away with discounts at Louis Vuitton in an effort to elevate its monogrammed leather handbags and other accessories. In doing so, he imbued those products with an elitist quality and made them must-have items, especially among the rising ranks of the world’s nouveaux riches. The accusation that LVMH is interested only in the mass market clearly rankles Mr. Arnault. “Vuitton and Dior have a culture and a history,” he says. “It’s on that basis that I fought to have the LVMH group. It’s not about making brands commercial or trying to make cheaper products. And Hermès has absolutely nothing to fear from me in that regard.” Those vows have not placated Mr. Thomas: At a press briefing Friday announcing Hermès results, he likened Mr. Arnault's incursion to the rape of a beautiful woman, and called on him to reduce his stake to 10 percent to prove he is peaceful. Mr. Arnault said in the interview that he would not reduce his stake. In the meantime, the Hermès family is rallying to keep its company out of Mr. Arnault’s hands, although the French news media have speculated that some of the younger members might eventually look to sell. Axel Dumas, 40, is a passionate member of the sixth generation at Hermès. He says that, if anything, Mr. Arnault’s uninvited presence has brought even the youngest generations into solidarity with the old. “In a way, this brought all of us closer together,” said Mr. Dumas, who will soon take over as chief operating officer. “There’s always arguments within a family, but the fact is that after the announcement, everybody joined ranks without even discussing it. They want to protect Hermès.” IT was 35 years ago that Bernard Arnault first stormed the French fashion establishment. After a brief stint in the United States, where he tried unsuccessfully to expand his family’s real estate interests, Mr. Arnault returned to France in 1984, at a time when President François Mitterrand was looking to put state companies into private hands. Mr. Arnault’s eye landed on Boussac, a flailing textile company with a hidden gem inside: Christian Dior. What happened next set Mr. Arnault on his course toward LVMH: After buying Boussac, he surprised the government by winding down the textile businesses and eliminating thousands of jobs — to focus on Dior. Not long afterward, Mr. Arnault, still relatively unknown at the time, was invited to buy into LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton by its patriarch, Henry Racamier. Mr. Arnault soon outflanked both Mr. Racamier and Alain Chevalier, the chief of Moët Hennessy, to take control of LVMH in 1990. That bitter battle angered Mr. Racamier and his family and sealed Mr. Arnault’s reputation as a brilliant, American-style corporate raider who ignored the unwritten codes of French business. Over the years, the first families of European luxury fell to LVMH one by one: Céline, whose Étoile blouse was inspired by the star-shaped roads radiating from the Place de l’Étoile in Paris; Guerlain, the maker of Shalimar perfume; Fendi, the Rome fashion house where Karl Lagerfeld is creative director; Château d’Yquem, which produces premier Sauternes wine — the list goes on. Today LVMH has more than 60 brands under its control. Critics say that Mr. Arnault did not just buy out families — but that he broke them, and compromised the artisanal essence of their companies. He has tended to swoop in when a family business is most vulnerable, when it is changing shareholders or when a younger generation is taking over. “It is this capitalistic moment that permits LVMH to take participation,” Mr. Arnault said. “But that has nothing to do with the way afterward that we manage the brand.” He says he has revitalized the souls of tired brands, even if he swept out managers who refused to change with the times. The financial results speak for themselves: Sales at LVMH rose 19 percent last year and, for the first time, exceeded 20 billion euros. Profits soared 73 percent, to 3 billion euros. Revenue from fashion and leather goods, like Louis Vuitton purses, was up 20 percent. “Mr. Arnault is an absolutely wonderful performer when the game is tough,” said Armando Branchini, whose consulting firm, InterCorporate of Milan, advises luxury companies on strategy. “On top of that, he has got this special psychological ability to detect where the vulnerabilities lie, particularly among families and shareholders.” INSIDE Hermès’s soaring, light-filled atelier in the Pantin suburb of Paris, workers take fine cuts of leather, alligator and python skins and transform them with meticulous detail, waxing threads and buffing hides with an agate stone into subtle matte finishes or high, lustrous shines. Many of the employees have worked here for decades. A single Birkin bag, named after the actress Jane Birkin, can take 15 to 23 hours to make, and cost 3,500 to more than 40,000 euros. These traditions stretch back to 1837, when Thierry Hermès began making leather harnesses in his workshop near Le Madeleine in Paris. A century later, Hermès was making high-end leather products for car travel. The first Hermès scarf appeared in 1937. In the 1950s, Hermès christened its Kelly bag, after Grace Kelly, who was photographed carrying one everywhere. Last year, Hermès turned a profit of 421.7 million euros on sales of 2.4 billion euros. One February morning in Pantin, Mr. Dumas pointed to a large Birkin bag that required four Australian marine crocodile skins, instead of the usual three, to obtain a perfectly symmetrical pattern. Such extravagances cost money, but no matter: Hermès artisans never skimp to achieve a lower price point, something they fear that LVMH would press them to do. “We never discuss price,” Mr. Dumas says. “We are never thinking that we can sell X number of bags if we lowered the cost. We don’t need to create a halo effect to sell a purse.” Indeed, one of the family’s biggest worries is that Mr. Arnault seems so comfortable discussing money, a subject that is almost taboo at Hermès. Family members recoil as they recall an LVMH official’s suggestion that Hermès bolster sales by creating a line of lower-priced bags. “It’s exactly what you shouldn’t do,” Mr. Dumas says. “Because you will make a cheap Hermès bag which will sell like hotcakes for three years, and after three years people will say, ‘Hermès is not what it used to be.’ ” Mr. Thomas says: “If you tell me I have to double the profit of Hermès, I will do it tomorrow. But then you’d have no Hermès left in five years.” ONE Saturday last October, Mr. Thomas was riding his bicycle in rural Auvergne, in south-central France, whose rocky peaks form the backbone of the Massif Central. His cellphone buzzed. It was Mr. Arnault, and he had unsettling news: In two hours, LVMH would announce to the world that it had acquired 17 percent of Hermès. And, Mr. Arnault added, LVMH would probably buy more. Mr. Thomas was taken aback by the size of Mr. Arnault’s stake, which has since risen to 20 percent. This was not the way business was done, he thought — not in France, and certainly not among gentlemen. Mr. Arnault had not even had the courtesy to seek an audience with Hermès first. But Mr. Arnault was not asking. He was telling. “We immediately understood that it was a hostile move,” Mr. Thomas said. “We got a stab in the back.” Mr. Arnault had quietly amassed his stake in Hermès not by buying its stock in the open market but by wielding one of the most potent weapons in finance: derivatives . He used instruments called equity swaps that essentially gave him the option to buy a big chunk of Hermès over a certain time. LVMH executives say they had been concerned that another player — perhaps from China, or a private-equity firm, or maybe even Richemont, another French luxury conglomerate — was moving in on Hermès. So, last October, LVMH exercised its option. Mr. Arnault later said he was “surprised” to find himself a large shareholder in Hermès. The Hermès family promptly united against Mr. Arnault. Already protected by a limited partnership, the family, which currently holds 72 percent of Hermès, is now seeking to create a special company to hold more than 50 percent of its shares in the business, in an effort to prevent another incursion. Mr. Arnault has said he will not try to buy more. But his stake is now so large that Hermès is at risk of being delisted from the Paris stock exchange, Mr. Thomas says. Industry insiders say the family was naïve to think that Hermès could remain independent as a publicly traded company, or that anyone would play by the old rules. Hermès sold stock on the Paris bourse in 1993, a move that greatly enriched family members. “If you don’t want to be taken over, don’t put your business in the public market,” Karl Lagerfeld said of Hermès soon after Mr. Arnault announced his investment. That point is not lost on Mr. Thomas. “Yes, we are naïve, but between utopia and naïveté there is a very thin margin,” he said. “I don’t think that the fate of this world is to choose between eating and being eaten.” Both LVMH and Hermès are now hunkering down for a cold war. CROWDS gathered on Friday at the Rodin Museum on the Left Bank for a showing of Dior’s spring ready-to-wear collection. Paris Fashion Week for ready-to-wear runs through Wednesday, but whatever buzz that Dior’s line generates is bound to be drowned out by the fashion world’s collective gasp over John Galliano . Mr. Galliano was supposed to attend Friday’s show for another triumphant trip down the catwalk. He didn’t. After issuing an apology on Wednesday for his anti-Semitic remarks, he reportedly left France and entered a rehab center, at the urging of colleagues and friends like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. Last week, the Paris prosecutor announced that Mr. Galliano would stand trial for racial insults. Instead of Mr. Galliano at fashion week, there was Mr. Toledano of Dior, surrounded by paparazzi and taking center stage because Mr. Arnault did not attend. Mr. Toledano read the following statement: “What has happened over the last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal for all of us. It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer, however brilliant he may be.” He continued: “So now, more than ever, we must publicly recommit ourselves to the values of the House of Dior.” Coco Chanel once said, “Fashion fades; only style remains the same.” That is a sentiment the Hermès family seems to share. Whatever the trend, whatever the market, Hermès remains Hermès. But in the 21st-century business of luxury, time and money are on Mr. Arnault’s side. Even as it works through its problems with Dior, LVMH will wait for Hermès — “one century, or even two centuries,” says Pierre Gode, who has been Mr. Arnault’s right-hand man for 30 years. “If the family ever wants to leave, we believe we’re capable of soothing away all these fears that we’re mass market.” Mr. Dumas at Hermès says his family will never sell. But neither does he expect Mr. Arnault to go away quietly. All the family can do, Mr. Dumas says, is stand firm in what its members see as a battle for the very soul of Hermès. “If it doesn’t destroy us,” Mr. Dumas says, “it will make us stronger.”

Paris Fashion Week
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA
Arnault Bernard
Luxury Goods
Fashion and Apparel
Executives and Management
Hermes International SA
Christian Dior SA
Galliano John


Some TVs Go Directly Online for Streaming Movies

Abstract: For more than a decade, tech and media companies have wrestled with how to deliver digitized movies directly over the Internet to consumers: how do you get the copy-protected files from the computer to the big screen in the living room? The early answers didn’t inspire many couch potatoes to get off the sofa. You could either plug a laptop computer into your TV set (assuming the computer and the television had the right connections) or buy a box, called a media extender, for your home theater that received streaming files from your computer. Media extenders proved obstreperous and confusing: some files wouldn’t play on some extenders, the boxes were awkward to set up and movie downloads were painfully slow. Since then, faster broadband speeds have become more common and companies have figured how to stream videos that start in seconds, inspiring consumer electronics companies to put Internet connections into TVs, Blu-ray disc players and other devices to tap into online-movie services from the likes of Netflix and Blockbuster. It’s an end run around the limited video-on-demand offerings from cable companies and eliminates the need for a separate black box. “This is huge,” says Dan Schinasi, a marketing manager at Samsung Electronics America. “This is what we have been waiting for.” Samsung is doubtless enthusiastic, introducing Internet connectivity on 23 different TVs, starting at $1,600 for a 40-inch LCD model and three Blu-ray players priced from $200 to $350. Indeed, the trend is that such Internet connections will rapidly become standard. According to research analysts at NPD, 12 percent of flat-panel sets sold in September in the United States had networking capabilities, up from less than 1 percent a year ago. There are now Internet-ready models from LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Vizio. The Samsung TVs, for example, access online movie services like Amazon Video On Demand or Blockbuster On Demand using Yahoo’s widgets, small icons that appear on the bottom of the screen and which also include popular Web services like Flickr, eBay and YouTube. Blockbuster’s service offers movie rentals from $2.99 to $3.99, with purchases costing $7.99 to $19.99. At the moment, Blockbuster’s titles can appear in wide screen, but only in standard definition, rather than high definition. It took about 25 seconds to start up the Blockbuster service, which offered new titles like the Jack Black movie “Year One” for purchase at $19.99 and “Unmistaken Child” to rent at $3.99. When you choose a movie, the software does a quick check of your set’s connection speed and then starts playing your selection in under 10 seconds (easily beating cable video-on-demand from Time Warner in my tests). And while the cineaste in me wanted to shun anything less than HD, the standard-definition version of “Watchmen” was just fine, with instant gratification easily trumping any qualms I had about less-than-perfect image details. Amazon Video On Demand was comparable, although it appeared to have a larger library of choices. The company claims to have more than 50,000 titles, with at least 2,000 of those in high definition. “Away We Go” was available to rent in HD for $4.99 (a standard-definition rental was $3.99). HD rentals were sharper and crisper to my eye, although a free stream of an episode of “30 Rock” in HD looked softer than the original live HD broadcast. Other sets also offer Yahoo widgets and streaming movies from the Web. Sony offers the Yahoo feature on some sets and plans to offer Netflix streaming movies by the end of the year. LG Electronics has models that include Yahoo widgets and already include the online-movie services Vudu and Netflix. The former has the largest offering of HD movies to rent or own online and comes the closest in terms of picture quality and sound to true HD (1080p for the techie crowd). Rentals in Vudu’s HDX format have sharper picture details and better sound than other offerings, although I still find the downloads and streaming versions a little darker (and thus less crisp) than HD broadcasts. Known primarily for its by-mail movie subscription business, Netflix has become a digital movie juggernaut by streaming movies to subscribers free of charge. The same $8.99 a month you pay for a by-mail subscription entitles you to watch as many of the company’s 17,000 digitized titles as you want, as often as you want, whenever you want. Its HD offerings lack the visual clarity of Vudu’s, but Netflix is a better value and is available on many different devices in the living room — the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 consoles, a stand-alone box from Roku, and TiVo machines. So if the Netflix option appeals to you, you don’t have to buy a new TV or Blu-ray player to get it. But choice also means confusion: not all services are available on all devices. On some of its flat panels, Panasonic offers its own Internet services, which includes Amazon Video On Demand, but not Netflix or Blockbuster or Vudu. Samsung offers Blockbuster on its sets, but not Netflix. LG offers Netflix on its sets, but not Blockbuster. And even when they do offer the same branded service, not all the devices necessarily give you the same features. Netflix subscribers who use the streaming option on the XBox 360, for example, will find they can add movies to their queue from the TV screen (and they have to pay $50 a year for Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold membership to do so). But if you want to change your streaming movie lineup on the LG or Sony sets, you’ll have to go back to your computer. Buyers will also find that some sets, like those from Panasonic, Samsung and Sony, require a wired Ethernet connection for Web access. (Vizio’s Internet-ready sets, due out this month, will have built-in Wi-Fi.) Samsung dealers offer an optional Wi-Fi adapter (802.11n) for just $80, and there are high-speed adapters that just plug into an electrical outlet. I connected a set using Belkin’s 200 Mbps $100 Powerline AV Starter Kit without entering any codes or doing anything other than plugging the adapters in. But we’re still a long way from being able to order any movie we want to watch whenever we want to watch it. Film studios are loath to release what they perceive will be blockbuster DVDs for digital distribution, for example, until months after release, and there are many more held back by copyright issues and concerns about piracy. And even the movies you can rent digitally from Blockbuster or Amazon are often subject to the dreaded 24-hour window, which means if you don’t finish watching on the same day you started viewing it, you’ll have to pay an additional charge. Still, the option of streaming a movie from anywhere — Netflix, Amazon or whoever — is a major leap forward. It frees viewers from the yoke of the one-store-only approach taken by cable companies and products like Apple TV. Ultimately, it’s a liberating experience — if you think of never having to get off the couch again to pick a movie as liberating.

Movies
Computers and the Internet
Television Sets
Recordings and Downloads (Video)