City Failed to Test for Lead in Water at Day Care Centers, Audit Says

Abstract: The New York City department charged with overseeing day care centers routinely failed to test the centers’ water for lead — and for years falsified reports that the tests had been completed, in order for the centers to receive operating permits — according to a sharply worded audit released on Friday by the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer. The audit found that the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had not tested the water from faucets and fountains in 70 of 119 day care centers — even though the health code mandates that drinking water at day care centers be tested for lead and fixed if the levels are unsatisfactory. Of the 49 day care centers that had been tested, five had “unacceptable” levels of lead, the audit found, though the levels were later brought to acceptable levels. The audit suggested that thousands of children were put at an increased risk of lead exposure. The audit also found that records had been altered to indicate, incorrectly, that satisfactory water test results were logged for the 70 centers that had not been tested. “The fact that the department of health directed its employees to enter false information in an official database is a blatant violation of public trust,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement. The comptroller’s office presented an email from 2011, in which a manager at the Bureau of Child Care, a division of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, instructed a group of staff members to “enter Water Lead Test Negative” in a computerized database “in order to issue permits” on an interim basis. “By falsely recording that lead tests were complete, the agency was able [to] bypass its own system requirements to issue permits for day care centers,” a release from the comptroller’s office said. City Hall officials characterized the findings as misleading and said that no children had been harmed. “It is a blatant mischaracterization to claim the agency systematically falsified documents based on a single email from 2011,” Aja Worthy-Davis, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, said. Ms. Worthy-Davis also pointed to the audit’s relatively small sample size; the department oversees about 2,300 day care facilities. The specifications in the city’s health code for testing water in day care centers do not require that the centers are tested before they open. However, the health department’s database was changed in 2011, to prevent the issuing of permits to centers that had not been tested for lead, Mr. Stringer’s release said. Health department officials described a practice of entering incorrect testing information as a bureaucratic workaround that adhered to the city’s health code. The intent was to give day care centers 60 days to submit lead test results, and not delay issuing permits for “programs that were in good standing.” The comptroller’s office said it did not find evidence that anyone had followed up to test the centers where staff had falsely reported that testing occurred. The report comes amid heightened concerns about lead and other pollutants in drinking water, after national outrage over lead contamination in Flint, Mich., and a public health emergency in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. , after the disclosure that toxic chemicals were found in the water supply there. The outlook was better in New York City, where water has not been a major cause of lead poisoning, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Out of the 840 children under the age of 6 found with elevated lead in their blood in 2014, none tested positive from lead in water, according to the most recent statistics from the department. “We want to be clear: our kids are not at risk,” a health department spokesman, Christopher Miller, said in a statement. Mr. Miller said the city has amended the issues brought up in the audit. All of the day care centers under the city’s purview, including the 70 identified in the audit, have now been tested for lead in the water, he said. The city also said it planned to start posting the results of each location’s water tests online. Ms. Worthy-Davis said that the lack of clarity in terms of lead-testing protocol for day care centers predated the de Blasio administration, and she noted that “a bureaucratic process made testing standards vague beginning in 2011.” This month, the health department proposed a change to the health code that would require lead testing at new centers within 30 days of their opening. They would also be required to undergo testing every five years. But a spokesman from Mr. Stringer’s office said the changes only came about from the results of the auditing process, which were given to the city — and included a response from the health department in the written report — before they were released to the public. “It should not take an audit to ensure that a city agency is doing its job to protect our kids,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement.

Health and Mental Hygiene Department NYC


Accident Leads to Scrutiny of Oil Sand Production

Abstract: CALGARY, Alberta — In the annals of oil well blowouts and pipeline disasters, the 7,400 barrels of oily slush that oozed out of the mossy bogs of the boreal forest in northeast Alberta last summer may seem like a trivial matter. No one was hurt in the accident , which spread across at least 17 acres in the Primrose oil sands field, and the most damage to wildlife came from the killing of about 70 frogs in a lake contaminated by the leak. It has since been drained. But while the accident has so far been overshadowed by the controversy over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline south of the border, it has nevertheless stirred nervous misgivings throughout the oil sands industry and drawn an unusually intense response from Alberta regulators, who have traditionally had a cozy relationship with the oil companies. In a move that has raised eyebrows in the industry, officials of the Alberta Energy Regulator have refused to accept the explanations for the cause of the accident by Canadian Natural Resources, the field’s operator and one of the country’s largest oil companies. In March, the agency also rejected the company’s bid to restart its operation until a complete investigation had been completed. “The circumstances surrounding Primrose are a test case for both the industry and the regulator,” said Andrew Leach, a business professor at the University of Alberta. “The public needs to have confidence in the regulator that it can prevent these kinds of incidents.” The full implications of the Primrose accident are still unclear, as are the causes of the accident. But the regulators’ new interest in what caused it has raised questions, more broadly, about the way oil companies are planning to tap Alberta’s richest deposits. The Primrose well uses high-pressure steam to free the oil from the sands deep underground, allowing it to rise to the top. The technique — known as “huff and puff” — is vaguely similar to fracking, which instead of steam uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and chemicals to unlock the trapped oil and has led to a surge in oil production in the United States. At issue is whether the thick rock that traps the raw oil sands, keeping them from escaping to the surface, was fractured by high steam pressure applied during the production process — as environmentalists say was probable — or whether Canadian Natural Resources is correct in saying that the leak was simply a malfunction. So far the suspension of some operations at the Primrose field has meant a loss of only about 10,000 barrels of daily bitumen production, which roughly translates into 8,000 barrels of crude oil after the bitumen is refined. It is a fraction of the 3.4 million barrels a day produced in Canada. But the losses could become much larger depending on what the provincial regulator determines were the causes of the accident, especially for production in the immediate vicinity. (The regulator in late April approved some renewed production at the Primrose field, but no closer than one kilometer [0.62 mile] from the surface seepage and at low pressure.) Energy experts say the results of the Primrose investigation and the tighter regulations that may follow it could also slow oil sands production in other areas of Alberta or require potentially less efficient drilling techniques. They say that leaks underground can be particularly difficult to control, and can pollute critical aquifers. The provincial regulatory agency in January suspended development in a second large but shallower oil sands field, as officials argued that more research was needed. “We’re trying to be very proactive and trying to get out ahead of this,” said Stephen Smith, the vice president in charge of monitoring steam-pressure operations for the Alberta Energy Regulator. He added that there was “connective tissue” between the January order, the Primrose accident and at least one additional accident in recent years. Mr. Smith said that in the case of Primrose, “We are not going to allow steaming until we understand what caused this accident,” and more generally that there “certainly is a possibility here that there may be areas where we say we cannot accept the risk and would not allow development.” The Primrose incident became public nearly a year ago after a mix of bitumen and water seeped to the surface at four separate sites from drilling operations 1,500 feet below the surface at Canadian Natural Resources’ oil sands project. The seepage came out of large gashes in the ground, polluting an unnamed lake. The company has already spent $60 million on the cleanup and drilling wells to identify the rock pathways from which the seepage emerged. The project injects high-pressure, high-temperature steam to fracture and soften the oil sands deposit so the bitumen can be pumped to the surface. But the company has insisted that the leaks were caused by “mechanical failures” in old oil drilling holes, known as well bores, rather than from unwanted stresses in the rock holding the oil sands reservoir. In an interview, Steve W. Laut, the president of Canadian Natural Resources, said that extensive company testing in the Primrose field showed it was highly improbable that seepage could move through the 500-foot-thick rock that sits 60 feet below the surface without going through the defective old well bores. “I would say the cement jobs were inadequate,” he said. Mr. Laut said that while the company cleaned up the spill, it was running tests on more than 30 test wells in the field for similar problems, making repairs and installing monitoring systems that will enable engineers in the future to stop steaming before seepage can rise to the surface. “We’re making sure it will never happen again,” he added. But Chris Severson-Baker, managing director at the Pembina Institute, a leading Canadian environmental group, said that the accident most likely resulted from oil company injections that placed too much pressure on the rock, producing unwanted fissures. The oily mush that oozed out probably “came to the surface following the path of least resistance,” he said. Most of the growth in Canadian oil output — which industry executives predict will increase from the current 3.4 million barrels a day to 3.9 million barrels a day in 2015 — is driven by projects that rely on steam pressure. For Pembina analysts, the Primrose leak is similar to a handful of accidents that go back to 1988 in projects that use high-pressure steam or a second, lower-pressure steam technique. In that procedure, two well bores are drilled — one to pump steam that loosens the bitumen from surrounding rock and another that pumps it to the surface. In one accident, at the Joslyn Creek project in Alberta, which used the lower-pressure technique and was operated by the French oil giant Total, an apparent steam-induced pressure release in 2006 forced a large, oily leak and created a crater larger than a football field. The project was abandoned. The Joslyn accident alerted the industry and regulators that the questionable strength of the rock that sits on top of the oil sands — described in industry parlance as the caprock integrity — could limit the safety of steam drilling operations. In January, the Alberta Energy Regulator began a review of several projects around Fort McMurray that use lower-pressure steam. One company, Ivanhoe Energy, has suspended work on a project valued at 1.37 billion Canadian dollars, about $1.25 billion. Another, SilverWillow Energy, has put itself up for sale because of delays in a 550-million-Canadian-dollar project. “The implications of caprock integrity is an unknown that could have significant implications,” said David McColl, a senior Morningstar oil equity analyst, “for the small producers and beyond that for the larger producers as well.”

Pipelines
Alberta Energy Regulator
Canadian Natural Resources
Canada
Oil and Gasoline
Accidents and Safety


Chronicle of a Changing City

Abstract: LEVI MEISNER’S SHOFAR SHOP is really the corner of the living room of his third-floor apartment on 12th Avenue, and it is open for browsing for the Hebrew month of Elul. That month leads into Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which this year begins at sundown on Sept. 8. Mr. Meisner, 27, has a full-time office job, but every fall he sells about 100 shofars, the ram’s horns turned into musical instruments that are a signature of High Holy Day services. His customers, often rabbis, come through word of mouth and fliers posted on streets. Mr. Meisner’s horns, purchased from a dealer in Israel, are made under rabbinic supervision — hologram stickers affirm they are kosher — according to biblical and Talmudic law: softened by heating and partially straightened before a hole is drilled in the tip. They range in price from $30 to $300. On Wednesday, Mr. Meisner selected a huge spiral horn from dozens in a Dole banana box and blew a series of long and short blasts that sounded like an operatic ram stuck in a trap. “It’s not an impulse purchase,” he said. THE REFUGEE YOUTH SUMMER ACADEMY does not have the typical cliques of jocks and nerds. It has groups like the 10 students fresh from Burmese refugee camps, with little educational background. It does not have a homecoming queen, but it did elect as class representative a soccer-playing teenager from the Ivory Coast whose high school was burned down in a political conflict. Part of the International Rescue Committee’s Refugee Youth Program, the six-week academy served about 120 recent arrivals, ages 5 to 18, from China, Tibet, Bhutan, Vietnam, Mali, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Guinea and Ivory Coast. They spent mornings on the campus of a public high school in Bushwick learning English and other academic subjects, then turned to sports, art, drama and music in the afternoon. “These students are from conflict zones, and even if they had a school, it is often closed, so that sense of routine is taken away,” said the academy principal, Elizabeth Demchak. “But they still have a very strong sense of resiliency and willingness to be part of the program.”

Rosh Hashanah
Education and Schools
Immigration and Emigration


Pepsi Charity Contest Trips Over Its Own Submission Rules

Abstract: Pepsi is planning to give more than $20 million to charities through a contest called Pepsi Refresh, the most ambitious so far among a number of similar contests that have used social networks on the Internet to raise money and recognition for nonprofit groups and social causes. But, like some of its predecessors, Pepsi Refresh has stumbled over its own rules. The tiny charity currently atop the rankings in one category of the contest accidentally got a little help from Pepsi itself. Materials submitted by the Joyful Heart Foundation, a charity started by Mariska Hargitay, one of the stars of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” to help victims of sexual assault, were updated by the staff at Pepsi after the submission deadline, which is against the contest rules. That upset some of the contestants who wondered whether Pepsi was doing favors for a celebrity. “I can’t edit my own submission, so how did she do it?” said one contestant, who insisted on anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his chances of winning. Just an honest mistake, says Pepsi. “We didn’t follow our guidelines to the letter,” said Jill Beraud, chief marketing officer for the American beverages unit at Pepsi. “The bottom line is that we’ve learned from this and we’re moving on.” The company said it would give away three $250,000 prizes, instead of two as originally planned. The company worked with experts in social media in hopes of avoiding problems other companies have encountered. Ms. Beraud said that so far it had exceeded expectations in terms of the number of people who have voted, the number of submissions and the response from bottlers and employees. A thousand organizations compete for $5,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $250,000 grants in each month at least through the end of the year, using materials and information they must submit before each monthly contest begins. Those materials cannot be edited once the particular contest starts. But a video clip that is embedded in Joyful Heart’s pitch was clearly made after the submission deadline. Featuring Ms. Hargitay and Justine Ezarik, the blogosphere and Twitter phenom, the video incorporates a photo of the Pepsi Refresh Web site , which went up only after the submission deadline had passed. The Joyful Heart submission originally included a link to a video on YouTube, and the Pepsi staff decided it would be simpler for Pepsi Refresh voters to view the video directly on the Pepsi Refresh site. Ms. Beraud said she was certain the video had not given an advantage to Joyful Heart, which had 6 percent more votes than its closest competitor the day before and the day after the video was embedded. (Pepsi does not release vote totals, only rankings.)

Philanthropy
Contests and Prizes
PepsiCo Inc
Social Networking (Internet)


Weather Conditions Challenge Olympic Halfpipe Builders

Abstract: WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The halfpipe is a massive structure, about 550 feet long, with walls 22 feet high. Dangling over the lip, workers pulled snow out of buckets and patted it into pock marks in the chute’s walls. No one better exemplifies the forces of nature bedeviling these Olympics. Warm weather and rain have disrupted the Alpine skiing schedule two hours north at Whistler. Similar conditions have wreaked havoc on the snowboarding site here at Cypress Mountain , where snow had to be delivered by truck and helicopter and nearly 30,000 tickets have been withdrawn because of soggy grounds. The hand-shapers are trying to form a warm-weather halfpipe that lets the snowboarders soar as high as they want (up to 40 feet above the frozen ground) and spin as many times as they want (two flips and three and a half rotations). Some workers stood on the flat deck atop the walls with long-handled flat-blade shovels, looking a bit like pool boys as they dipped their tools into the void below to scrape out imperfections. Some stood in the bottom of the pipe, dwarfed by its scale, holding modified rakes — miniature snow shovels, really, with angry, jagged teeth, perfect for filling potholes and smoothing the arc of the walls. The workers are part of a full-time crew of 14 men under the leadership of Steve Petrie, whose company, Arena Snowpark Construction, is charged with making the Olympic halfpipe. No thanks to warm weather and a dearth of snow, there may be no halfpipe that has faced such a combination of challenge, scrutiny and expectation. Petrie is a genial and young-looking 38, from Pemberton, British Columbia. He and his crew arrived on Jan. 10 to start building the halfpipe. The rain poured the first four days. The month became the warmest January on record at Cypress Mountain. “It’s a cruel joke, you know,” Petrie said. The original plan, he said, was to finish the halfpipe two weeks before the Olympics. Then riders could try it, crews could consistently work on perfecting it, and the men’s competition on Wednesday — followed by the women’s on Thursday — would take place in a mature, immaculate pipe. (The men’s event went off without delay on Wednesday night, with Shaun White the winner.) Instead, a scaffold had to be built at the start, with a staircase of hay bales for the ramp. More bales were used at the bottom of the course as filler underneath snow, some of which was brought by helicopters from higher elevations. Official training, which had been scheduled to begin last Friday, was pushed to last Sunday, and that practice was shortened because of deteriorating conditions in the halfpipe. Reviews were bluntly critical. “Pretty horrible,” Scott Lago of the United States said. Others said the walls were too vertical, rather than appropriately rounded. But Petrie is undeterred. He has been doing this a long time. “I’m confident, with the team of guys I have, that for the finals it’s going to be a really, really good pipe,” he said. “The shape is not the issue. It’s the snow.” Temperatures in January were too warm to make more snow. A few loads from helicopters, part of a last-ditch haul to cover the snowboarding and freestyle-skiing sites at Cypress, were mostly too dirty to use for the pipe, Petrie said. They were used near the start. “We weren’t sure we had enough,” Petrie said. “At first it looked kind of dismal.” The crew — 10 diggers, 4 big-equipment drivers and about 40 volunteers — built one thick wall down what is the entire left side of the pipe. Then the workers carved it back into rounded form. The snow dug out was used to build the right side of the pipe. After each training session this week, snowboarders and coaches offered recommendations. The soft snow at the top of the walls has been gouged by the carving and hard-landing snowboards. A straight rope and blue dye is used to mark the next cut, a few inches back. Workers with chainsaws chop off the excess. Then comes the Zaugg, a halfpipe groomer with a giant arm that precisely carves the arcs up to the top of the walls where the blue dye is. The machine makes three or more passes on each wall. A laser, shooting to a receiver on the machine, makes sure that the bottom of the halfpipe is carved at a steady 18-degree slope. That work has taken most of the night. Then it is time for the diggers, who have been working 12-hour shifts, usually beginning at 8 a.m. While the snowboard cross competition took place nearby on Tuesday, the crew worked quietly, using its assortment of rakes and shovels. As training approached, they sprayed the entire pipe with liquid fertilizer or salt — ingredients that melt the top layer of snow, which then freezes quickly into a harder, smoother surface. But before then, there was more work to do. Slowly and silently, workers crawled around atop the halfpipe. Ken Marler, with a bucket of snow, leaned in and smoothed snow into crevices just below the lip of the pipe. Petrie stood nearby, looking over the pipe that had started from a mound of fake snow a few weeks ago. Anyone ever fall into the pipe? “Not on our crew; other crews,” Petrie said with a wink. He shrugged. “Yeah, people fall in sometimes.”


Fruitful Visit by Obama Ends With a Lecture From Xi

Abstract: BEIJING — The White House pushed very hard for President Xi Jinping to take questions during his news conference with President Obama at the end of their two days of meetings Wednesday. It did not want a repeat of the stilted, scripted encounter Mr. Obama had with Mr. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, in 2009 on his first trip to China as president. What the White House got was Xi Jinping, Unplugged, and that may have been more than it bargained for. Discarding his standard bromides about the importance of new “major-country” relations between the United States and China, the Chinese leader delivered an old-fashioned lecture. He warned foreign governments not to meddle in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and foreign journalists to obey the law in China. Mr. Xi’s thinly concealed anger turned a news conference that should have been a victory lap for two leaders who had just had a productive meeting into a riveting example of why the relationship between the United States and China remains one of the most complicated in the world. The determination to work together belies deep-rooted historical grievances; the happy talk of win-win solutions masks a ferocious rivalry. The cooperation that Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi announced this week is real. Their joint plan to confront climate change could transform negotiations for a new global climate treaty. Their pledge to warn each other’s militaries about exercises could avert a calamitous clash in the treacherous waters of the South and East China Seas. And yet Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi found themselves standing before the news media in the Great Hall of the People, wrestling with the same issues that could have divided Nixon and Mao, or Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin, who jousted with each other in a 1998 news conference, which Mr. Jiang had broadcast live across the country. Wednesday’s session lacked the personal warmth of that exchange. For all their walks and private dinners, here and at the Sunnylands estate in California last year, Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi have fashioned a relationship that is based, above all, on pragmatism. Video When Xi Jinping became the president of China in 2013, New York Times reporters discussed his background. Credit Credit Diego Azubel/European Pressphoto Agency Mr. Obama said his meetings with Mr. Xi had given him the chance to debunk the notion that “our pivot to Asia is about containing China.” Mr. Xi said: “It’s natural that we don’t see eye to eye on every issue. But there have always been more common interests between China and the United States than the differences between us.” There is plenty of evidence that Mr. Xi is right, from concerns about Iran and North Korea to climate change and counterterrorism. But there are countervailing tensions when a rising power flexes its muscles against an established one, and as a Communist empire bristles at the judgments of a powerful democracy. All of this was on vivid display Wednesday. The tensions surfaced after the two leaders finished their opening statements and Mr. Xi seemed to ignore two questions from a reporter for The New York Times — about whether China feared that the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia represented a threat to China, and whether China would ease its refusal to issue visas to foreign correspondents in light of a broader visa agreement with the United States. White House officials said Mr. Obama had called on The Times reporter to make a point. Several of the newspaper’s China correspondents had their visas applications denied by the government, an issue Mr. Obama raised with Mr. Xi in one of their meetings. After first taking an unrelated, clearly scripted, question from a state-owned Chinese paper — which drew a quizzical facial expression from Mr. Obama — Mr. Xi circled back, declaring that the visa problems of the news organizations, including The Times, were of their own making. Mr. Xi insisted that China protected the rights of news media organizations but that they needed to abide by the rules of the country. “When a certain issue is raised as a problem, there must a reason,” he said, evincing no patience for the news media’s concerns about being penalized for unfavorable news coverage of Chinese leaders and their families. The Chinese leader reached for an unexpected metaphor to describe the predicament of The Times and other foreign news organizations, saying they were suffering the equivalent of car trouble. “When a car breaks down on the road,” he said through an interpreter, “perhaps we need to get off the car and see where the problem lies.” “The Chinese say, ‘let he who tied the bell on the tiger take it off,’ ” Mr. Xi added, in a somewhat enigmatic phrase that was not immediately translated into English. It is normally interpreted as “the party which has created the problem should be the one to help resolve it.” Climate Goals Pledged by China and the U.S. Last year’s historic agreement includes a new goal for U.S. carbon emissions and a commitment by China to curb its emissions and rely more heavily on renewable and nuclear sources of energy. Mr. Xi was also dismissive of concerns about a surge of anti-American sentiment in the Chinese news media. One state-owned publication described Mr. Obama’s leadership style as insipid. “I don’t think it’s worth fussing over these different views,” Mr. Xi said. He bluntly warned the United States and other foreign countries not to get involved in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, responding to an earlier question to Mr. Obama about recurring rumors in the Chinese press that the United States was stirring up the unrest there. The Occupy Central movement, he said, is illegal. “Hong Kong affairs are exclusively China’s internal affairs, and foreign countries should not interfere in those affairs in any form or fashion,” Mr. Xi said, reading from notes he had scribbled. Taken together, the statements offered an unvarnished glimpse at China’s president, two years into his term and after his extraordinary consolidation of power. He is neither a garrulous operator like Mr. Jiang nor a colorless party bureaucrat like Mr. Hu. “Xi is in the early years of his term, is a very confident and strong leader, and has a quite focused policy agenda,” said David Shambaugh, the director of the China policy program at George Washington University. Orville Schell, a longtime China observer at the Asia Society in New York, said Mr. Xi’s statements on the foreign news media, the first time he had publicly addressed the issue, were a “dash of cold water.” “We had thought that China might be slowly evolving away from this retrograde notion of the media,” Mr. Schell added. But he noted that in a speech last month, Mr. Xi had echoed Mao’s view that the news media should function as a “necessary handmaiden of the party.” Mr. Obama seemed content to play the straight man to Mr. Xi. He insisted that the United States had nothing to do with the Hong Kong protests, though he voiced support for free expression. And his references to human rights were carefully calibrated — reaffirming, for example, that the United States does not recognize a separate Taiwan or Tibet. As Mr. Obama enters the twilight of his presidency, he appears determined not to let passions get in the way of cooperation with China. Asked about the negative portrayal of him in the Chinese press, he said it came with being a public official, in China or the United States. “I’m a big believer in actions and not words,” he said.

Beijing
Xi Jinping
China
Barack Obama
US Foreign Policy
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation


President of Cyprus Criticizes Bank Chief

Abstract: NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The president of Cyprus chided the nation’s central banker on Sunday, telling him to try to stabilize the bailed-out country’s troubled banking sector rather than acting in ways that catch the government by surprise. President Nicos Anastasiades did not say what the central bank governor, Panicos O. Demetriades, had done to draw his ire. But he suggested that Mr. Demetriades’s actions had led to the resignations on Friday of three central bank board members. Mr. Demetriades, an appointee of the previous left-wing administration, told the Cypriot newspaper Phileleftheros that his cooperation with the government and Parliament was a given in order to deal with the country’s severe financial crisis, but that the central bank’s independence must be respected. Lawmakers have criticized Mr. Demetriades over his role in talks with the country’s euro zone partners and the International Monetary Fund, which culminated in a 23 billion euro ($30 billion) rescue package. The terms of the bailout require Cyprus to raise 13 billion euros of the overall amount by imposing losses on deposits over 100,000 euros in the country’s two largest banks, Bank of Cyprus and Laiki. Laiki experienced heavier losses from bad Greek debt and loans than the larger Bank of Cyprus. Laiki will be broken up in to a “good” bank that will be folded into Bank of Cyprus and a “bad” bank that will be wound down. As part of its bank restructuring, and to prevent a run on its banks, Cypriot authorities have imposed a series of capital controls — the first that any country has applied in the euro zone’s 14-year history — including a daily 300 euro limit on withdrawals. Officials said the restrictions would be lifted gradually until trust in banks is restored. On Sunday, the authorities raised the monthly domestic bank-to-bank transfer limit for individuals to 50,000 euros from 10,000 euros. For businesses, the transfer limit rose to 300,000 euros from 50,000 euros, but documents justifying the transfer must be presented.

Cyprus
Nicos Anastasiades
Bank of Cyprus
Panicos O Demetriades
Euro Crisis
IMF
Banking and Finance


Somali Refugees Are the Target of a Roundup in Kenya

Abstract: The Kenyan government posted a notice in newspapers on Tuesday asking all Somali refugees in the country to report to camps along the Kenya - Somalia border. “The government of Kenya has decided to stop reception, registration and close down all registration centers in the urban areas,” the notice said. Kenyan security forces have blamed ethnic Somalis for a recent spate of fatal grenade attacks and attacks on churches. The attacks began after Kenya sent troops into Somalia last year in the most extensive military operation in Kenya’s history. Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees live in Kenya, many of them concentrated in forlorn camps along the border, but thousands also live in the capital, Nairobi.

Kenya
Somalia
Refugees and Displaced Persons


Troy Davis’s Case Won’t Be Reviewed by Supreme Court

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday turned down what were probably the last set of appeals from Troy Davis, a death row inmate from Georgia who was convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer and whose case has attracted international attention. In 2009, Mr. Davis obtained a new hearing from the Supreme Court by an unusual route, filing an original writ of habeas corpus with the justices rather than appealing from a lower-court ruling. The court responded by ordering a federal trial court in Georgia to consider whether new evidence clearly established Mr. Davis’s innocence. Several witnesses in the case against him had recanted, and some had implicated the prosecution’s main witness as the actual killer. In August, the trial judge, Judge William T. Moore Jr., concluded that Mr. Davis’s evidence was “largely smoke and mirrors.” On Monday, the justices refused to review that ruling. In other action on Monday, the court agreed to decide when schools run by churches are subject to federal antidiscrimination laws. Courts have recognized a “ministerial exception” to such laws grounded in religious freedom. That exception precludes judicial interference with relationships between churches and some employees with religious duties. But the courts have disagreed about the scope of the exception. The case the court agreed to hear, Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, No. 10-553, involves a teacher at a Michigan school run by a Lutheran church who says she was discriminated against based on a disability, narcolepsy, in violation of federal law. The teacher, Cheryl Perich, taught mostly secular subjects but also taught four half-hour religion classes each week and attended chapel with her class. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the ministerial exception did not apply and that the suit could go forward, saying that “Perich’s primary duties were secular.” The church, in urging the Supreme Court to hear the case, said the appeals court had engaged in improper “religious second-guessing.”

Supreme Court
Discrimination
Davis Troy A
Decisions and Verdicts
Capital Punishment
Murders and Attempted Murders
Civil Rights and Liberties


Oil Royalties Bill Ignites Protest and Divides Parts of Brazil

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled this city’s streets on Monday to protest a bill aimed at shifting big portions of oil royalties from petroleum-rich states along Brazil ’s coast to regions across the country. If enacted, the legislation would deal a blow to Rio de Janeiro, the nerve center of Brazil’s expanding oil industry and the host of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics . Attempting to persuade President Dilma Rousseff to veto the bill, which was recently approved in Brazil’s Congress, political leaders here contend that the legislation would cripple Rio de Janeiro’s finances, throwing into doubt its capacity to pull off such major international sporting events. But politicians in other parts of Brazil have adopted a sharply different view, pointing to the struggle over the proceeds from oil production, especially after the “pre-salt” discoveries off the coasts of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where vast amounts of oil have been found under thick deposits of salt, sand and rock. A few coastal oil-producing states, including Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo , estimate that the legislation would cost them about $3 billion a year and damage their capacity to respond to oil spills off their coasts. “Everyone wants the financial part, but no one wants the environmental risk,” said Sônia Sousa Araújo, 52, an administrative assistant in the health department of Campos, a city in Rio de Janeiro State, who spent hours in traffic to arrive at the demonstrations. Elected leaders around the state encouraged public employees to protest against the bill. But officials in states without oil production argue that their relatively meager budgets would receive a much-needed boost from the legislation. “We are having trouble providing the base salary to schoolteachers,” said Luis Stival, the mayor of Nova Veneza in Goiás , a state in central Brazil. “We believe that it’s our right to receive royalties of a good that is produced within national territory.” The bill puts Ms. Rousseff, who has until Nov. 30 to approve it or issue a partial or complete veto, in an awkward spot. She said this month that she hoped to allocate 100 percent of oil royalties for spending on education in an effort to improve Brazil’s dismal public school systems, but such a plan would also be expected to encounter resistance in oil-producing states. Officials in Ms. Rousseff’s government have signaled that a compromise might be reached in which the royalties legislation is enacted but the federal government compensates some states for projected revenue losses. Such a deal could help open the way for long-delayed auctions of oil blocks to proceed next year. At the same time that states are sparring over royalties, concerns are emerging over Brazil’s ability to deliver on the oil-output growth that politicians are expecting. The national oil company, Petrobras , has repeatedly missed production targets and is grappling with delays in procuring oil platforms, as well as losses from policies that prevent it from raising fuel prices. In an editorial this month , the newspaper Folha de São Paulo reflected on the mood now in Brazil over the major oil discoveries made several years ago. “The euphoria has given way to the lethargy derived from state control, political nearsightedness and pure ineptitude,” the newspaper said, “an old and well-known Brazilian disease.”

Royalties
Brazil
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Rousseff Dilma
Law and Legislation


Horse Racing Discovers New Drug Problem, One Linked to Frogs

Abstract: Racing regulators kept hearing the reports: trainers were giving their horses a powerful performance-enhancing potion drawn from the backs of a type of South American frog. But for months postrace testing could not find the substance, a painkiller far more powerful than morphine. Then a lab in the Denver area tweaked its testing procedure, and in recent weeks more than 30 horses from four states have tested positive for the substance, dermorphin, which is suspected of helping horses run faster. No trainer has yet been formally charged, although racing regulators expect that to happen soon. Because of its potency and ability to affect the outcome of a race, the use of dermorphin is considered to be one of the industry’s most serious drug violations. “We hear about some pretty exotic stuff,” said Dr. Steven Barker, who directs the testing laboratory at Louisiana State University . “Frog juice — this is exotic.” The discovery comes as the racing industry is struggling to counter perceptions of a pervasive drug culture. Indeed, dermorphin is the latest in a long list of illegal performance-enhancing drugs that have found their way onto racetracks. Cobra venom has also been used by trainers to deaden pain so that injured horses can race. It functions as a local nerve block, unlike dermorphin, a broader pain suppressant that is 40 times more powerful than morphine, Dr. Barker said. If horses cannot feel their injuries, veterinarians say, they are more likely to run harder than they otherwise would. Craig W. Stevens, a professor of pharmacology at Oklahoma State University who has studied dermorphin, said the substance makes animals “hyper.” “For a racehorse, it would be beneficial,” he said. “The animal wouldn’t feel pain, and it would have feelings of excitation and euphoria.” Mr. Stevens said dermorphin is found on the skin of a frog called Phyllomedusa sauvagei, commonly known as the waxy monkey tree frog, which is native to South America . Dr. Barker said he suspected that most of the dermorphin had been artificially synthesized. “There’s a lot out there, and that would be an awful lot of frogs that would have to be squeezed,” he said, adding, “There are a lot of unemployed chemists out there.” Other performance-enhancing drugs found in racehorses include those used to artificially bulk up cattle and pigs before slaughter. “This is a tough issue,” said Edward J. Martin, president of Racing Commissioners International, a trade association for racing regulators. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game. As soon as you call out dermorphin, they will try something else. That is the daily battle that goes on.” How often dermorphin is used in racing is not known — many states do not have the capability to test for it — but so far laboratories have found it in Louisiana , Oklahoma and New Mexico . Its use is also suspected in Texas . Some of the results were first reported on nola.com , the Web site of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans . “This whole thing has really taken us by surprise,” said Charles A. Gardiner III, executive director of the Louisiana Racing Commission. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time. We’re fighting back federal intervention. We’re under attack and losing our fan base. Fans believe that the sport is dirty, that there is cheating. And here we have an obvious attempt to cheat.” In Louisiana, Mr. Gardiner said, 11 horses, both quarter horses and thoroughbreds, tested positive for dermorphin, though none of them broke down. He said two quarter horses in particular earned big purses. “A lot of money’s got to be given back,” he said. Four thoroughbreds tested positive, with three finishing first and one second, all in races in May. “I’m sure that there are more positives across the country,” Mr. Gardiner said. “It’s not unusual that something isn’t being detected.” Dr. Barker of the Louisiana State lab said 15 horses in Oklahoma had tested positive for dermorphin. Oklahoma officials declined to comment, as did racing regulators in Texas. Vince Mares, executive director of the New Mexico Racing Commission, said Tuesday that a California lab had found dermorphin in six postrace tests in New Mexico. Industrial Laboratories in suburban Denver was the first lab to successfully identify dermorphin in postrace testing. It was not easy. Petra Hartmann, director of direct testing services for the company, said clients relayed tips from racetrack workers that the frog secretion was being used, and later some seized materials turned out to be dermorphin. “We identified dermorphin,” Ms. Hartmann said. “We knew it was out there.” But, she said, the lab’s test could not identify the drug in horses after they raced. After racing regulators kept insisting that the substance was in use, “We went back to the drawing board,” Ms. Hartmann said. Industrial’s chief scientist subsequently developed a more sensitive test, specifically for this compound, she said. “There is no resting in this business,” she said. “You are always chasing something, trying to determine what’s rumor, what’s real.” Ms. Hartmann said she did not believe the use of dermorphin was widespread. “The vast majority of horsemen would never subject their horse to this kind of chemical experimentation,” she said.

Horse racing
Frog
Doping
Horse Jockeys and Trainers


Santander Consumer USA C.E.O. Thomas Dundon Steps Down

Abstract: The chief executive and chairman of Santander Consumer USA, one of the nation’s largest subprime auto lenders, resigned on Thursday amid regulatory issues and a broad overhaul by the company’s Spanish parent of its United States operations. But the chief executive, Thomas Dundon, is not stepping down empty-handed. He will receive more than $900 million as part of his exit. A longtime executive in the auto finance industry, Mr. Dundon in two decades built a small regional lender into a national player that attracted investments from large private equity firms and the Spanish banking giant Banco Santander. But Santander Consumer, which is based in Dallas, has faced regulatory problems, including federal investigations into its packaging and selling of subprime auto loans and a rebuke by the Federal Reserve for making an unauthorized dividend payment. Mr. Dundon was succeeded by the company’s president, Jason A. Kulas, who has been overseeing corporate development and certain regulatory functions, the company announced on Thursday. As part of the transition, Banco Santander will buy out Mr. Dundon’s roughly 9.7 percent stake, which is worth about $928 million. The Spanish bank already owns 59 percent. Mr. Dundon will also receive twice his annual salary and bonus, which totaled $6.4 million in 2014. Analysts expressed surprise at the timing and details of the leadership change. In a call with analysts on Thursday evening, when much of Wall Street had headed home for the Fourth of July holiday, Mr. Kulas said Mr. Dundon’s parting was amicable and unrelated to the company’s “regulatory standing.” “He has positioned this company for success and growth,” Mr. Kulas said. Mr. Dundon, who will continue to serve on the board, said in a statement: “I am proud to have been part of the company’s success and fortunate to have worked with so many outstanding, driven colleagues over the years.” After a largely rocky year in 2014, its first as a publicly traded company, Santander Consumer’s shares have risen 33 percent since the start of the year. But the company has been dogged by concerns about its lending practices. Santander specializes in making high interest rate auto loans to people with shoddy credit. Earlier this year, Santander Consumer reached a $9.35 million settlement with the Justice Department over accusations that it illegally seized cars from members of the military. The deal involves one of the largest sums ever collected by the United States for the illegal repossession of cars. Mr. Dundon helped start the Texas business that would become Santander Consumer in the 1990s, expanding the company, called Drive Financial Services at the time. Drive Financial was known for lending to used-car customers that other lenders rejected because of the default risks. In 2006, Banco Santander, looking to expand in the United States, bought most of Drive Financial Services for $651 million. Mr. Dundon kept about a 10 percent stake and was appointed chief executive of the company, which was renamed Santander Consumer USA. Mr. Dundon’s role in expanding Santander Consumer was described in a front-page article in The New York Times in January. The article, which included a review of dozens of court records and interviews with two dozen borrowers, credit analysts, legal aid lawyers and investors, showed that large players like Santander in the market for packaging and selling auto loans were increasingly enabling people at the extreme financial margins to obtain loans to buy cars. The company said Santander Consumer had a proven record of deftly managing risk. And more recently, analysts have pointed to a decline in the company’s charge-off rates, as a sign that the credit quality of its auto loans has been improving. Since the financial crisis, subprime auto lending has boomed, fueled in part by the kind of securitization deals that Santander Consumer has sold. Santander Consumer’s regulatory issues have gone beyond lending. Last year, Santander Consumer USA paid a dividend — even though such payments had been prohibited by the Federal Reserve after its holding company, Santander Holdings USA, failed its annual stress test. This year, Banco Santander has been moving to overhaul its United States operations, including the appointment of a former JPMorgan Chase banker, Scott Powell, as the chief executive of Santander Holdings.

Car finance
Appointments and Executive Changes
Banco Santander S A


A Book Plumbs Hollande’s Clever Mysteries

Abstract: PARIS — The French have never been passionate about François Hollande , their new president. A professional politician, never a government minister, he has been engaged in the machinations of the Socialist Party for most of his career. He was elected, narrowly, on a platform of change, but in large part because he was not Nicolas Sarkozy. And now the bland Mr. Hollande faces a daunting economic landscape and a euro crisis, and the French wonder if he, or anyone, can really make much difference. But a new book about the inner workings of his campaign suggests that Mr. Hollande is a man of self-mastery and doggedness, with unplumbed depths. According to Laurent Binet, the novelist who wrote the book, Mr. Hollande is “a control freak,” a kind of “war machine” with a mysterious core, who detests Mr. Sarkozy and carefully managed the rivalrous personalities of the Socialist Party. Embedded in the campaign with the understanding that he would publish only after the election, Mr. Binet, 40, whose parents were Communists, said in an interview that he initially favored Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a candidate further to the left. Mr. Binet said he was “seduced” by Mr. Hollande but still found him a mystery, a man who is affable but keeps his real self in reserve. “I noted this in him,” Mr. Binet wrote. “What we take too often for joviality masks a fundamental irony that he only abandons in exceptional circumstances, when the gravity of the moment demands it.” Even in his voice, there is “the indication of a distance from himself and from events that I have not observed in others, like an admission that he is not fooled by all this human comedy, in which he wants nonetheless to play a leading role.” Even Mr. Hollande’s partner, Valérie Trierweiler, tells Mr. Binet that “no one can say that he knows Hollande — not even me.” Mr. Hollande studied the last Socialist president, François Mitterrand, trying to copy his gestures during speeches. “Mitterrand was a mystery, and he was called the Sphinx, and you could see it in his face,” Mr. Binet said. “But with Hollande it was perhaps more clever. He looks like the guy next door, but it’s much more complicated than that.” Malek Boutih, a former leader of an antiracism organization and now a Socialist member of Parliament, says he believes that Mr. Hollande “does not exist,” that “he’s already completely depersonalized himself to embody the job” of president. Mr. Boutih cites with admiration and horror the many Thursday evenings that Mr. Hollande, even in the political wilderness, trudged down to his rural constituency of Corrèze to tend to voters. “Until Sunday!” Mr. Boutih marveled. “Every week!” Mr. Hollande is famous for his “little jokes,” more sarcastic asides than rib splitters. About the prostitution scandals that continued to surround Dominique Strauss-Kahn even after his candidacy was doomed, Mr. Hollande commented, “Decidedly, D.S.K. will have enlivened this campaign until the end!” And once when a television news program said Mr. Hollande was en route to the Socialist Party headquarters, he laughed and said: “Oh, really? They’re better informed than me!” What seemed to animate Mr. Hollande, besides his commitment to winning the presidency, was his distaste for the incumbent, Mr. Sarkozy. According to an extract of the book published in the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Mr. Hollande watched Mr. Sarkozy one time on a long television interview show. When Mr. Sarkozy expressed anger about the Socialist Party leader, Martine Aubry, comparing her to Bernard Madoff, who Mr. Sarkozy said had been sentenced to 183 years in prison, Mr. Hollande commented, “But ... you will too.” And when the National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said he had “passed the baton” to his daughter, Marine Le Pen, Mr. Hollande commented, “The filthy baton, yes,” using a slang word for feces. But one of his few regrets during the long campaign, Mr. Hollande admits, is when he called Mr. Sarkozy a “sale mec,” or a nasty piece of work, a remark in an off-the-record lunch with French journalists that was quickly leaked. Mr. Hollande also said he regretted wasting his time making a trip to London, since foreign policy has little impact on French presidential campaigns. Mr. Binet’s book, “Nothing Goes as Planned,” is to be published here on Wednesday by Grasset. It is similar in intent to a book by the playwright Yasmina Reza, who followed Mr. Sarkozy during his 2007 campaign to write a dreamier and more personal account, “Dawn, Dusk or Night.” Ms. Reza is fascinated by the intelligent adolescent that was Mr. Sarkozy — his vanity and narcissism, his wandering attention span, his openness. Mr. Hollande is a much more careful man, Mr. Binet said. “He’s aware of where he is and who’s around,” he said. Very little was put off the record, he said, mostly insults directed at other Socialist figures, like Ms. Aubry, who is not popular in the Hollande camp . Over time, Mr. Binet said, he was accepted for the most part, considered part of the scenery and referred to sometimes as Yasmino Rezo. By the end, he was one of six nonsecurity people in the airplane taking Mr. Hollande and Ms. Trierweiler from Corrèze to a victory party in Paris, at the Bastille, when the presidency had been won. Ms. Trierweiler asks each of them a “strange question”: Against whom does this victory represent a personal revenge? “One cites an ex-girlfriend, another a former colleague,” Mr. Binet writes. “Hollande says simply, ‘Sarkozy.’ ” Mr. Binet was embedded in the campaign with the help of Ms. Trierweiler, whom he met in 2010, when she interviewed him for Paris Match. His novel about the 1942 assassination in Prague of the Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, called “ HHhH ,” had just won the Prix Goncourt for first novels. The new book was written quickly, and Mr. Binet said he was most fascinated by the harshness of political life and by the way major political events — important speeches, debates, responses to events — are prepared, scripted and built. “Politics is really a job,” he said. “It’s not more evil than I thought, but it is fierce, and you need to be tough and have a bit of cynicism. I discovered a more complicated world than what I expected.” The Socialist Party “lived up to its reputation” for disorganization, he said, citing a major breakthrough when, after 10 months, the campaign finally put a hole in Mr. Hollande’s speaking lectern so his glass of water could not fall over. Did he learn much about France after some eight months of traveling with Mr. Hollande? “I can’t say I understand my country, but I see it better,” Mr. Binet said. “The place of France in Europe and the world has been a question since 1918,” but it is perhaps more urgent now. In office, Mr. Hollande has been given a bad hand: an economy that has zero growth, record unemployment, a high budget deficit, a high trade deficit and slumping industrial competitiveness in a global marketplace. The French voted for change, Mr. Hollande’s slogan, Mr. Binet said, “but any democratic country is hard to change.” Does Mr. Hollande have it in him to make difficult choices? Mr. Binet is not sure. “I don’t know,” he said. “I hope so. I think he’s conscious of what’s at stake.”

Elections
France
Hollande Francois
Books and Literature
Binet Laurent
Nothing Goes as Planned (Book)


Futures Game Managers Chosen

Abstract: The former Reds teammates Tony Perez and Ken Griffey Sr. will be the managers for the All-Star Futures Game at Cincinnati on July 12. Perez played for the Reds from 1964-76 during a 23-season major league career and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2000. Griffey spent 19 seasons in the majors and was with the Reds from 1973-81 and 1988-90. The Futures Game is the start of three days of All-Star activities at Great American Ball Park. ■ The Atlanta Braves optioned the right-hander Mike Foltynewicz to Class AAA Gwinnett after he struggled in his past three starts. Foltynewicz, acquired in the January trade that sent the slugger Evan Gattis to Houston, began the season as the top-rated pitcher in Atlanta’s farm system. After getting called up from Gwinnett on May 1, he went 3-2 with a 5.19 E.R.A. in his first nine career starts.

Reds
Ken Griffey Sr
Braves
Evan Gattis
Baseball


Jury Selection Starts in Corruption Trial of Mayor Who Ran Newark for 20 Years

Abstract: NEWARK — Reviewing the questionnaires filled out on Tuesday by 135 potential jurors in the corruption trial of former Mayor Sharpe James , Judge William J. Martini of United States District Court said he was struck by the unusual number who had checked the box for Question 36. Many, it seemed, thought they might be swayed by racial, religious or ethnic bias, or by “personal sympathy” or “personal dislike” for Mr. James, his co-defendant or the lawyers and witnesses in the case. That should hardly be surprising with a larger-than-life figure like Mr. James, whose outspoken, aggressive, irrepressible personality dominated Newark civic affairs for the two decades he ran City Hall. He is charged with using his power to help a female companion defraud a city program intended to rehabilitate Newark’s ailing neighborhoods, but the trial will also stand as a verdict on the reign of Mr. James, who is alternately seen as a heroic figure in Newark’s recovery from its 1967 riots and as a symbol of the state’s particularly self-serving brand of politics. “We have surveys that show that 53 percent of the public thinks that he’s guilty even though they haven’t heard the evidence,” Thomas R. Ashley, one of Mr. James’s lawyers, said in an interview as jury selection began. Judge Martini expressed concern that so many jurors questioned their ability to be impartial, but noted that some of them also checked “yes” to Question 37, saying they could follow the law according to his instructions. So when Judge Martini starts questioning potential jurors individually on Wednesday, he plans to ask whether the questionnaire was poorly worded or the issues and public officials involved in Mr. James’s trial are truly that divisive. Prosecutors have charged in an indictment that Mr. James, 72, used his connections to allow the companion, Tamika Riley, to purchase steeply discounted parcels of city land that she later sold at a profit of more than $700,000, often without fulfilling her obligation to improve the property. Many Newark residents credit Mr. James with beginning the revitalization of downtown and, in his final years, a boom in residential development that saw hundreds of new houses replace vacant lots and dilapidated slums. As the city’s second black mayor, Mr. James has also been praised as a tireless, occasionally bombastic, advocate for racial justice. But the former mayor’s blunt personality and taste for yachts and luxury cars also made him no shortage of enemies. His administration was investigated in the mid-1990s after hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the Sharpe James Civic Association could not be accounted for, and although Mr. James was never charged, he came to be viewed by many as a symbol of the politician on the take. Because federal court draws potential jurors from across North Jersey, Mr. James’s fate will likely be decided by a cross section of the demographics and divergent opinions found there. “There’s been this dual view,” said Ingrid Reed, policy analyst at the Eagleton Institute of Politics in New Brunswick. “There’s the Sharpe James who fought for the people in Newark when they were being overlooked, and the Sharpe James who seemed like so many other New Jersey politicians and couldn’t control the urge to put self-interest before their constituents.” The charges of fraud, conspiracy and failure to provide the public with honest services strike at the very heart of Mr. James’s legacy — his efforts to rebuild a blighted city. An indictment prepared by the lead prosecutor in the case, Judith H. Germano, charges that Mr. James made extensive efforts to allow Ms. Riley, who had no development experience, to purchase nine vacant city properties at prices far below market value. According to federal agents, she purchased nine lots for $46,000 and sold them for more than $700,000. The indictment also charges that Mr. James, who served one term as a state senator, used his state office to try to win a grant for Ms. Riley, who frequently accompanied Mr. James on trips to Memphis; Sag Harbor, N.Y.; and Boca Chica, Dominican Republic; and to his beach house in Bayville, N.J. Mr. James’s lawyers say that Ms. Riley received the same treatment given hundreds of people who participated in the redevelopment program. They also point out that her purchases were approved by Municipal Council members, including Cory A. Booker, who was elected to succeed Mr. James as mayor after going to court to block some of the cut-rate land sales. “Sharpe James never put any kind of pressure on the department of housing, the city council or anyone else to sell Tamika Riley property for less than others were paying,” said Alan Zegas, another of Mr. James’s lawyers. Because there is no evidence that Mr. James received any financial benefit from Ms. Riley’s profits from the land sales, one key question in the trial will be the nature of their relationship. Prosecutors have argued that Mr. James, who is married, was involved in a romantic affair with Ms. Riley, and have portrayed the land deals as the mayor using city assets to underwrite the expenses of an extramarital affair. Among the evidence they will present are suggestive details of the trips they took together, including receipts that they say show Mr. James paid for body lotion and erotic films during some of their stays in hotels. Mr. Ashley called the notion of a romance “complete nonsense.” The trial may last more than three months, and prosecutors have indicated that they expect to call 50 or more witnesses, including employees of agencies involved with redevelopment and land sales. Some of the most intriguing evidence is likely to be statements already made by Ms. Riley and Mr. James. The judge has agreed to let prosecutors present statements that Ms. Riley, 38, made when she was considering a possible plea bargain on the charges of conspiracy and tax fraud. In court papers, prosecutors say that Ms. Riley acknowledged in an interview having a “phenomenal” and “intimate” relationship with Mr. James, and felt like a $700,000 paramour. They said the statement showed that the land deals were linked to the romance. Ms. Riley’s lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, sought unsuccessfully to have those statements excluded from the trial, saying that they had been coerced. One key piece of evidence against Mr. James is likely to be a speech he made on the floor of the State Senate in 2004 in which he criticized members of the Newark Municipal Council for helping their friends and relatives buy cut-rate city land and asked the Legislature to give the mayor’s office more power over property sales. “We have council people who are saying, I won’t be here forever, but if I can send a million dollars of municipal property to my boyfriend, girlfriend, mama, papa, brother or friend or organization — well, if I want this, I’ll go get it,” he said in the speech, according to the indictment. Mr. James went on to describe such insider deals as “thievery with municipal property,” the indictment said. He also faces a second trial on charges that he improperly billed the city for $58,000 in personal expenses, including trips with Ms. Riley and other women. Wearing a black suit and dark striped tie, Mr. James did not speak during the court hearing Tuesday and declined to talk to reporters outside the courthouse. Since he ended his 20 years as mayor in 2006, and his single term as state senator last month, Mr. James has been spotted at city restaurants or attending New Jersey Devils games in the Prudential Center, an arena that many consider part of his legacy. He also spends much of the workweek in his lawyer’s office, preparing his defense. “He’s a fighter,” Mr. Zegas said. “He’s eager to get on with this and get on with his life.”

James Sharpe
Newark (NJ)
Frauds and Swindling
Politics and Government


Going Contract-Free: Finding a Phone and Plan That Fit

Abstract: Just a few years ago, buying a cellphone without a contract was both unfashionable and largely unfeasible. No-contract options were available but getting your hands on the latest phones and the best data plans usually required a two-year contract. But no-contract plans have been on the rise, especially since March, when T-Mobile abolished annual service contracts from its lineup. Now, the no-contract options are so plentiful and varied that you might want to consider one, especially if your current phone is outside the contract period. There are two big questions to think about before making the switch. Can I save money? And, will I receive the same level of service? The answer to both can be yes, though it depends on your particular circumstances and on doing your research before making any move. Making It Pay In traditional two-year plans, carriers often use a practice called subsidizing. Knowing that you will be locked in, they lower the phone’s price to entice you to agree to a contract. They may, for example, offer an iPhone for $200 instead of the $600 or more that the device costs at full price. The carriers then earn a profit over time from whatever talk, text and data plan you have chosen. And if you decide to leave the plan early they can recoup at least some of the subsidy by collecting an early-termination fee. But the no-contract universe is different. Typically, you pay full price for the phone, buying it outright and without a credit check, and the monthly bill for the service plan is usually less than those available with two-year contracts. That means there is a financial incentive to extend the life of your phone when you have a no-contract plan. The Service When it comes to service, many of the no-contract options are tailored to feel like conventional plans, with unlimited texts, for example. And some providers offer pay-as-you-go plans, where users pay for service in advance — like a certain amount of minutes — and buy refills as needed. Because the options are so numerous, pay attention to the details. When considering a no-contract plan, study network coverage areas, data speeds, pricing and customer service reliability. If the carrier’s network does not cover the area where you live, work and travel, then strike that choice and move on. Many no-contract plans provide smaller coverage areas than standard contract plans on the same network. Also, if you are going to spend a lot on the phone itself, research its network compatibility. Many new phones are compatible on multiple carriers, giving you more flexibility with providers. The underlying technology of a device that runs on AT&T’s network will most likely work on T-Mobile’s network, but not Sprint’s or Verizon’s. The Major Carriers T-Mobile was the first major carrier to do away with standard contracts, and the other carriers have started to offer no-contract plans of their own, either directly or through brands or subsidiaries. But perhaps the best way to see how a no-contract plan works is to compare a T-Mobile plan with a standard contract plan from another major carrier, like AT&T. Say you want a plan with a new iPhone. On T-Mobile , the 16-gigabyte version of the new iPhone 5C is available on T-Mobile for $22 a month for 24 months, with nothing down — a total of $528. AT&T offers the same phone for $100 with a two-year contract. T-Mobile users must then also pay for a monthly talk and data plan. T-Mobile’s monthly plans start at $50 for unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500 megabytes of high-speed data. Meanwhile, AT&T, with its subsidized phone, offers a contract plan for $70 with unlimited talk and text and 300 megabytes of data. In this comparison, the extra $428 spent on the phone at T-Mobile is more than offset by savings of $480 over two years on the plan ($20 a month for 24 months). But you can start to pocket real savings after two years, when the phone is paid off. Among the other options offered by the major carriers is Aio Wireless, a subsidiary of AT&T that opened in May and aims to simplify by offering just three plans. Each comes with unlimited talk, text and data. Unlike the plans from T-Mobile and others, though, the pricing includes taxes and fees. The cheapest Aio plan is for basic phones, at $40 a month, with 250 megabytes of high-speed data, and smartphone plans start at $55, with two gigabytes of high-speed data. The purchase price of some phones can be spread over 12 months and the company uses AT&T’s network, though the coverage area is smaller than it is for AT&T’s contract plans. Sprint offers no-contract offerings with its As You Go plans and through brands like Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile . On Virgin, a $35-a-month plan, Beyond Talk, will get you 300 minutes of talk, unlimited text and data with a high-speed cap of 2.5 gigabytes. And although Virgin and Boost use Sprint’s network, the coverage areas are smaller than for Sprint’s contract customers. Verizon, too, offers no-contract options. The Samsung Intensity III, a basic phone with a slide-out keyboard, was recently $65, and a plan with unlimited talk, text and basic data is $50 a month. Other Options Republic Wireless , a newer option, offers unlimited talk, text and data, all for $19 a month. But there is a catch: you are encouraged to use a Wi-Fi connection when available, even for phone calls. It’s a hybrid approach; when Wi-Fi is not available, your phone connects to Sprint’s network. The other catch is that there’s now only one phone offered, a $99 Motorola Defy XT, a smartphone customized to connect to Wi-Fi hot spots and to hand off calls to cellular when moving off. Ting, like Republic, also offers service on Sprint’s network. New and refurbished phones are available; a refurbished LG Optimus S was recently $68, or you can activate used Sprint phones. Ting bills monthly for what you use, based on separate price tiers for talk, text and data. For example, if you use 500 minutes of talk, 100 text messages and 500 megabytes of data the total is $31 plus taxes and fees. Other sources of no-contract plans include Cricket Wireless , which has a basic plan for $35 that includes unlimited talk, text and data on basic phones, and MetroPCS , which has a $40 smartphone plan (taxes and fees are included) with unlimited talk, text and 500 megabytes of high-speed data. More basic no-contract options, called pay-as-you-go plans, are available at retailers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy. With these options, you buy a phone and then add services as needed. Many of the phones have basic features, with an emphasis on cost savings. Walmart offers basic phones through providers like TracFone, Net10 and Straight Talk. The Net10 Samsung S275G, a flip phone with a camera, is $19.88. A prepaid card with 300 minutes of talk and Web — or 600 text messages — is $29.88 for a 60-day period of service. Breaking free from the shackles of the dreaded two-year contract has never been easier. Still, the fine print is required reading.

Price
AT&T
Smartphone
Mobile phone
T-Mobile US
Sprint Nextel


Judge in Mexico Says El Chapo Can Be Extradited to U.S.

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — A Mexican judge has ruled that the country’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, can be extradited to the United States, where he would face federal charges of drug trafficking and far slimmer chances of escaping prison, as he has done twice in his home country. The ruling essentially creates the basis for the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Mexico to grant the final approval for the extradition of Mr. Guzmán, known as El Chapo, or Shorty, within the next 30 days. “The ball is now in the Foreign Ministry’s court, and they have a month to execute the process or not,” said a spokesman for the judiciary in Mexico who could not be identified because of government policy. “They have been notified and received the file.” Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers were notified of the judge’s decision on Friday night, and Mr. Guzmán was told on Sunday, during his transfer to another prison in Ciudad Juárez, near the border with Texas. “There is nothing, legally speaking that could impede the extradition, from the judicial system point of view,” the judiciary spokesman said. The saga of Mr. Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, has spanned the better part of a decade and a half in Mexico. After a 2001 escape, he was captured in 2014 during a raid by the Mexican Marines. A year later, he escaped again , this time through a mile-long tunnel that ran to the floor of his cell’s shower. The decision to extradite Mr. Guzmán was made shortly after his recapture in January of this year. Having lost him twice, the government decided that rather than risk a third embarrassment, it would hand him over to the United States, where he faces charges in numerous jurisdictions. Convictions would keep him imprisoned for a long time. An American law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the case, said the Mexican authorities had decided to relocate Mr. Guzmán to a prison in Juárez on their own. The official added that an extradition could still be months away. No decision has been made on which federal court in the United States would try him, but the courts in Brooklyn and Chicago are considered strong options.

Mexico
Extradition
Sinaloa
Drug Abuse
Joaquin Guzman Loera,El Chapo
Prison escape


Couple Plead Guilty in Scheme to Swindle Motor Vehicle Dept.

Abstract: A couple who ran a driving school in Brooklyn for more than a decade pleaded guilty on Wednesday to concocting an elaborate scheme to help non-English speakers cheat on written tests to obtain New York State commercial driver’s licenses. The couple, Ying Wai Phillip Ng and his wife, Pui Kuen Ng, naturalized American citizens from Hong Kong, admitted in Federal District Court in Brooklyn that they had conspired to commit mail fraud. According to a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in March, Mr. and Ms. Ng used hidden cameras and secret pagers to coach applicants through the state’s multiple-choice exam. In exchange for their assistance, each applicant paid the Ngs $1,800 and received a Class B permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles, which allows drivers to take a road test. The benches in the gallery were nearly empty as the couple entered the courtroom. Ms. Ng stood before Judge I. Leo Glasser and, in a barely audible voice, acknowledged her guilt with the help of a court interpreter. Her husband spoke a few decibels louder and entered his own guilty plea in English. The Ngs, who will each face up to 20 years in prison when they are sentenced on Jan. 4, agreed to close the driving school, N & Y Professional Service Line, which they had run in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and to pay a total of about $175,000 to the government. After the proceedings, Mr. Ng’s lawyer, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, said: “He is sorry for what he did and is ready to put this chapter of his life behind him. Today was the first step in that process.” As part of the conspiracy, the couple gave applicants a jacket with a small camera hidden in a button on the right cuff, according to the complaint. Then Mr. Ng taught them how to position the coat sleeve so that the camera could capture an image of each question. During the test, images were transmitted to a television screen built into the ceiling of a minivan in the parking lot of the Motor Vehicles Department. From there, Mr. Ng chose the correct answer and triggered a pager that the applicants had been given. The pager buzzed twice if the answer was “A,” four times for “B” and six times for “C.” In this way, the Ngs helped about 500 applicants swindle the Motor Vehicles Department and secure official state permission to drive large buses and trucks, federal prosecutors said. One customer associated with the Ngs’ school was driving a bus that crashed in Virginia in May 2011, killing four people and injuring dozens more. It was unclear how the driver obtained his license. The Ngs’ operation began in January 2001 and was stopped in March this year with the help of an undercover agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cheating
Department of Motor Vehicles
Frauds and Swindling
Drivers Licenses
N&Y Professional Service Line
Ng Ying Wai Phillip
Ng Pui Kuen
Brooklyn (NYC)


An Imaginary Battle Comes to Life at the Hudson River Museum

Abstract: Bonnie Prince Johnnie, flamboyant pharaoh of New York; Francesca, a.k.a. Tisiphone, Native American assassin; Maurits de Wolff, former slave and soldier extraordinaire; Akosua Van Der Zee, wrathful feminist and malicious schemer. These are a few of the characters in a wildly original telling of the fictional Battle of Yonkers in 18th-century New York; their portraits and those of other tattooed warriors, misled rulers and vengeful women are on display at the Hudson River Museum in “Frohawk Two Feathers: Kill Your Best Ideas, The Battle for New York and Its Lifeline, the Hudson River.” The paintings, drawings and giant, double-headed wooden horse in the show are the work of Frohawk Two Feathers , the alias of the Los Angeles-based artist Umar Rashid. “Kill Your Best Ideas” is the fifth and final installment of “The American Proteus: An Invocation and the Wars Between the Rivers,” an alternative account of the colonization of northeastern North America that is both written and visual in form, epic in scope, and built around the imaginary Republic of Frengland (a combination of England, France and Ireland). The wooden horse, a site-specific installation, stands 22 feet tall, its belly an illuminated opening that holds sculptures of soldiers, some black, some white and all made from glass to reflect the fragility of life in war. Titled “One,” the towering animal embodies the artist’s vision of a Trojan horse as a symbol of war’s futility. Image Works in the exhibition include “One,” a 22-foot-tall horse. Credit Oren Eckhaus/Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York “Whenever two armies are fighting, they end up mirroring each other,” Mr. Two Feathers, 38, said. “They become brutal and savage, a single tangled mass of carnage. They become the monster, the Chimera, that both sides sought to end.” The war depicted in “Kill Your Best Ideas” pits contingents from Frengland, fighting alongside members of the Lenape and Huron tribes, against the Batavian (Dutch) army and the Iroquois. Museumgoers will find a whimsical map of the region at the center of the conflict, “Map of the Frenglish Kingdom of Novum Eboracum (New York) (We All Got to Have a Place We Call Home)”; several cartoonish yet violent battle scenarios, two of them painted on deerskin; and more than two dozen portraits, each accompanied by elaborate and entertaining label copy. Bonnie Prince Johnnie, for example, is shown sporting a turquoise khepresh (an ancient Egyptian royal headdress) and a white fur cape over a high-collared yellow jacket. Part of the work’s lengthy title reads: “On losing the love of your life to treachery, fighting a guerrilla war against a numerically superior foe, and still managing to keep your feet on everybody’s neck. It’s magic, baby!” Akosua Van Der Zee’s portrait is called “You can see my anger but you will know my vengeance.” Wearing huge gold earrings and a turban around her hair, she glares sideways from the frame. In her left fist she clasps a golden band etched with the words “Ladies First.” Nearly half the portraits in the exhibition are of women; most of the characters are multiracial. Mr. Two Feathers, who is African-American with Native American ancestry, said he wanted to portray people who he believes are too often overlooked in historical narratives. Speaking of his research, he said: “I never saw myself. That was an impetus for a lot of this work.” Image Portraits of the fictitious characters Bonnie Prince Johnnie and Lucretia Theroux. Credit Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York Working from life or from photographs, on paper or canvas, he completed images as black-and-white drawings before adding paint. “I’m a storyteller first, an illustrator second and a painter last,” he said. While “Kill Your Best Ideas” is set in the past, Mr. Two Feathers adds contemporary references to his work. The base of the wooden horse is scrawled, graffiti-style, with phrases like “Achilles loves Zeus.” In the paintings, women wear modern-day clothing, and warriors clutch bottles of “purple drank,” a hip-hop term for a concoction of cough medicine and soda. Rap lyrics are used in titles. One portrait is called “Shorty, I’m there for you anytime you need me. For real girl it’s me and your world, believe me.” The line comes from “You’re All I Need/I’ll Be There For You,” performed by the rapper Method Man with the singer Mary J. Blige . Interspersed among the works included in “Kill Your Best Ideas” are paintings from another era: four Hudson River School landscapes from the museum’s collection, idyllic scenes of the actual territory that would have provided the backdrop for Mr. Two Feathers’s Battle of Yonkers. “This is the land they were fighting for,” Bartholomew Bland, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs, said. “We are merging the real and the story.” Mr. Two Feathers’s work asks viewers to examine the porous boundary between the two, and to reconsider the truth of recorded history. Among the quotations that adorn the walls of one gallery is Voltaire’s statement: “History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.” “Yes, these are a fictional stories,” Mr. Bland said, “but the larger question is: Is history just an accretion of moments recorded by victors and people with political axes to grind? This is a show about the malleability of history.” It is also about the promise of reinvention. Mr. Two Feathers has conceived his own narrative in place of one he finds untenable. “If I don’t like what I see, I create something different,” he said. “If I don’t like a party, I change the party. If I don’t like a meeting, I change the meeting. If I don’t like a story, I change the story. Most people don’t realize the power they have.”

Hudson River Museum
Art
Yonkers NY
Westchester


Syracuse Falls to Louisville

Abstract: Brandon Radcliff ran for 110 yards and two touchdowns, and Louisville had two interceptions and two safeties in a 28-6 victory over host Syracuse. It was the Orange’s third straight loss. The Cardinals (5-1, 3-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) moved to 4-0 against Syracuse under Coach Bobby Petrino. With a grueling schedule ahead, Syracuse (2-3, 0-1) began A.C.C. play with a thud, getting just two field goals from Cole Murphy, one in each half.

Atlantic Coast Conference
Bobby Petrino
College football
Syracuse University
University of Louisville


Family of Marie Colvin, Slain U.S. Journalist, Sues Syria

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — Relatives of Marie Colvin, a veteran American war reporter who died more than four years ago in an artillery barrage in Syria, have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Syrian government, accusing it of targeting and killing her as part of a systematic strategy to silence civilian journalists and activists covering the war. The civil complaint, filed Saturday in federal court in Washington, contends that high-ranking Syrian officials, including President Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher and other top advisers, worked in concert to locate, track and target foreign journalists and Syrians who had helped them. It lays out new details of the events leading to Ms. Colvin’s death, citing witnesses and government sources and documents uncovered in what the family’s lawyers described as a three-year investigation. Ms. Colvin, a longtime correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, was killed on Feb. 22, 2012, along with a French photojournalist, Rémi Ochlik, when Syrian government forces shelled an apartment building used by journalists. The attack occurred during weeks of bombardment of the rebellious neighborhood of Baba Amr in the city of Homs — the first of many operations in which government forces used siege tactics and indiscriminate shelling against rebel-held areas — and before the emergence of extremist Islamist militant groups like the Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Ms. Colvin’s family and colleagues have long argued that the attack — hours after she had issued a live report accusing the Syrian government of bombarding “cold, starving civilians” — was deliberate. The government has always contended that its attacks have targeted terrorists, and that journalists operating outside government-controlled territory, as Ms. Colvin was, break Syrian law at their own risk. But now the plaintiffs say they will present evidence of what they describe as a murder that resulted from a government policy. Marie Colvin Wrongful-Death Complaint This wrongful death lawsuit was filed on behalf of the journalist Marie Colvin’s sister, Cathleen Colvin, and other surviving family members. The suit claims that Ms. Colvin, who was was killed on February 22, 2012, was intentionally targeted by Syrian forces. It is the first attempt to sue the Syrian government for its war conduct under a statute allowing Americans to sue foreign governments, like Syria’s, that the United States lists as state sponsors of terrorism, said Scott Gilmore, a lawyer in Washington with the Center for Justice and Accountability. Mr. Gilmore led the investigation and helped file the lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses nine Syrian officials, including the intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk and military officers in Homs, of developing and executing the strategy against journalists and activists. It details meetings in which an informant helped officials verify the location of the media center using phone-tracking data. It even contends that a pro-government militia leader, Khaled al-Fares, received “a black luxury car” three days after the deaths, as a reward. Ms. Colvin’s sister, Cathleen Colvin, said in a telephone interview that she aimed not only to “bring her killers to justice” with the lawsuit, but also to help Syrian victims in seeking accountability for atrocities committed by government officials and others. “I’m not the only one who lost a sister,” she said. “I really do hope that all the perpetrators are brought to justice for war crimes, and hopefully this is the first step.” The complaint includes what appears to be a government document shedding light on the response to protests that began in early 2011, the genesis of the war. In the next months, thousands of civilian activists were killed at demonstrations, and many more were arrested. The document is a letter dated Aug. 6, 2011, from the National Security Bureau of the ruling Baath Party to officials in restive provinces, including Homs. It orders them to arrest protest organizers and others who “tarnish the image of Syria in foreign media.” In January 2012, the complaint says, Mr. Mamlouk, the intelligence chief, and a deputy defense minister, Asef Shawkat, told Arab League monitors that foreign journalists were intelligence agents, demanded information on them and said they could “destroy Baba Amr in 10 minutes” if “there were no cameras.” In February, the complaint says, Mr. Mamlouk and a deputy, Rafiq Shehadeh, learned from intelligence contacts in Lebanon that foreign journalists were en route to Baba Amr. On Feb. 21, military intelligence officials intercepted their phone signals, the complaint says, and an informer in Baba Amr contacted Mr. Fares to tell him the media center’s location. Early the next day, artillery attacks on the center killed Ms. Colvin and Mr. Ochlik.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


The Pulse: Transparency, in the Beholder’s Eye

Abstract: Mayor Richard M. Daley often asserts that he is as transparent as any other big-city leader. But testimony in federal court makes it clear that there are times that his answers to questions, or refusal to answer, can leave the public in the dark. The latest example came in the corruption trial of Calvin Boender, a politically connected real estate developer who on Thursday was found guilty of bribing then-Alderman Isaac Carothers (29th Ward) to back Mr. Boender’s West Side land deal. In news conferences over two days in October 2008, the mayor refused to comment on disclosures that Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois, had met with the mayor to help advance Mr. Boender’s development plan. Jacquelyn Heard, the mayor’s press secretary, ultimately sent reporters an e-mail message saying that neither Mr. Daley nor his aides “can recall him meeting with the congressman on this project or anything else except for the city’s legislative agenda” in Washington. Fast forward to the Boender trial. A former city planning commissioner testified that Mr. Daley met with Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Boender about the developer’s project, prompting mayoral aides to acknowledge that evidence of the meeting also appeared on the mayor’s personal calendar. City officials confirmed last week that federal investigators had questioned Mr. Daley about the meeting in March 2008, months before he dodged reporters’ questions. The case reminded some City Hall observers of the mayor’s denials of any connection to the scandal-plagued Hispanic Democratic Organization. Only when Al Sanchez, a former mayoral aide, stood trial on corruption charges last year — for rigging city hiring in favor of Hispanic organization members who campaigned for Mr. Daley and for candidates endorsed by him — did a 1993 fund-raising letter surface describing “the main purpose” of the Hispanic group as helping to improve the mayor’s political fortunes.

Politics and Government
Daley Richard M
Decisions and Verdicts
Suits and Litigation
Chicago (Ill)


Manchester United Tops Stoke

Abstract: Manchester United kept up its resurgent form with a 2-1 home win over Stoke, with Juan Mata’s second-half goal securing United’s fourth straight Premier League victory. Liverpool’s captain, Steven Gerrard, scored in his return to the starting lineup as his team rallied to win at Leicester, 3-1. ■ Real Madrid forward Jesé Rodriguez, who was out for nearly nine months because of a leg injury, scored in his return to round off Real Madrid’s 5-0 home thrashing of third-tier Cornellà in the Copa del Rey. (AP) ■ A goal-bound shot by André-Pierre Gignac was saved with just seconds remaining, and the French league leader, Marseilles, settled for a 1-1 draw at Lorient. ■ Monica Quinteros scored in second-half stoppage time, and visiting Ecuador beat Trinidad and Tobago, 1-0, to secure the final spot in next year’s Women’s World Cup in Canada. Ecuador reached the Women’s World Cup for the first time.

Manchester United
Soccer
Stoke City Soccer Team


An Awkward Alignment of the Flag and Football

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Hours before football games at MetLife Stadium here, the televisions on the concourses and at the concession stands normally show highlights and interviews with players and coaches. About the only people who seem to watch are fans waiting to buy food and drinks, if they bother to look at all. On Sunday, the first full day of N.F.L. play, the televisions were tuned into something far more somber: the memorial service at ground zero in Lower Manhattan, where relatives of those who died in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, read the names of their loved ones. The poignant reminder of the horror of that day was completely at odds with the atmosphere in the stadium, where 78,000 fans were setting aside trauma, controversy and pain by watching the Jets and the Cincinnati Bengals open their season. Arenas and stadiums have long been a sanctuary from daily woes, places where fans can commune and commiserate over their teams, and forget, at least for a few hours, personal challenges and the complex issues facing their communities and the country. Yet the desire to focus just on football seemed especially determined this year, and not just because the accident of the calendar put the first full Sunday of football on the same day as the 15th anniversary of 9/11. Already, a vigorous national debate had arisen over players, led by quarterback Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers, who chose not to stand for the national anthem, to make a point about issues of race and justice. A Kansas City Chiefs player raised his fist during the anthem Sunday, four members of the Miami Dolphins knelt and other actions during the ritual ensured that the discussion would continue. Image Fans at MetLife Stadium as a video message from President Obama played before the Jets’ opener. Credit Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via Reuters In addition, renewed concerns about the sport’s safety flared from the season’s first game, on Thursday, when one of the league’s biggest stars, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, was repeatedly hit in the head with little done about it. On Sunday, the players’ association said it would look into those plays. Looming, too, outside the stadium was the especially heated rhetoric of the presidential election. So a sometimes awkward juxtaposition of football and patriotism was inevitable. The pain of Sept. 11 remains particularly acute in the New York area, and of course there were plenty of official tributes. The N.F.L. long ago learned to align itself closely with the flag, the military and everything else that passes for patriotic these days. The Jets handed out small American flags to fans, some of whom chanted “U-S-A” during the moment of silence for victims of the attacks. Members of Tuesday’s Children, a group that supports youth, families and communities affected by terrorism, were brought on the field to high-five the Jets as they were introduced. The former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani joined police officers and firefighters at the coin toss. Like practically every politician introduced at a game in the New York area, he was booed. So, too, was President Obama, who spoke in a message shown on the stadium’s video screen. Image Titans linebacker Avery Williamson wore 9/11-inspired cleats against the Vikings and risked an N.F.L. fine. Credit Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today Sports Every player on the Jets and Bengals stood when the national anthem was played after a flag the size of the field was unfurled. That was worth noting because Kaepernick had sat while the anthem was played on one occasion at a preseason game and knelt another time. Kaepernick said each action was done to draw attention to racial injustices in the country. The Broncos’ Brandon Marshall took a knee rather than stand for the anthem at Denver’s opener against the visiting Carolina Panthers. There was no widespread follow-up of such acts on Sunday, but players did make their feelings known about the day on the field. In Nashville, Titans linebacker Avery Williamson wore specially designed cleats that read, “Never Forget” and “9/11” even though he risked a fine by the league, which is finicky about its uniforms. (Several police associations in New York and New Jersey volunteered to pay the fine for him.) The Seahawks made their own tribute, standing arm in arm on the sideline in a “demonstration of unity.” On the opposite side of the field in Seattle, four members of the Miami Dolphins knelt during the playing of the anthem. In Kansas City, Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters raised his fist as the anthem played, and two players on the New England Patriots did the same before facing the Cardinals on Sunday night in Glendale, Ariz. The moment the anthem ended at the Jets game, however, it was back to football. By the end of the opening drive, which ended with a sack of Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, the crowd seemed to have found its equilibrium. Spectators celebrated acrobatic catches by Jets receiver Eric Decker and smash-mouth runs by running back Matt Forte, and cheered bone-crunching hits like the one when defensive end Lawrence Thomas leveled the Bengals’ Adam Jones on a kickoff return. When the fans rose to their feet in the fourth quarter to cheer the Jets, the image of the families grieving in Lower Manhattan seemed like a distant memory. Though their focus was on winning the game, the players were well aware of their surroundings. Cincinnati Coach Marvin Lewis said he had taken all the Bengals to the memorial at ground zero right after they arrived on Saturday. Bengals defensive end Margus Hunt, who grew up in Estonia and watched the attacks on television there, said the visit was surreal. He found the debate over the anthem perplexing. During his time in the military in Estonia, he sang the national anthem before bed every night. Eric Winston, an offensive lineman on the Bengals, visited ground zero with his family in December 2001, when he was in high school. The return trip resonated because it put his job, and the N.F.L., in perspective. “I think he wanted us to understand the moment we were playing in,” Winston said of Lewis. “Obviously, we had a job to do today, but we also wanted to see what is important as well.”

Flags
Football
Jets
Colin Kaepernick
National anthem
9/11,Sept 11
Stadiums Arenas