Credit Card Use Falls; Borrowing for Cars and School Rises

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Americans used their credit cards less in July for a second consecutive month, while taking on more debt to buy cars and attend school. The decline in credit card use suggests consumers remain cautious, a trend that could deter economic growth. Consumers increased their borrowing by $10.4 billion in July from June to a record of $2.85 trillion, the Federal Reserve said on Monday. That followed a gain of $11.9 billion in June. A category that includes auto loans and student loans increased $12.3 billion in July to a record $2 trillion. But a measure of consumers’ credit card debt fell by $1.8 billion to roughly $850 billion. That followed a $3.7 billion decline in the credit card category in June. July consumer borrowing illustrated economic trends that have surfaced since the recession: Americans are using credit for their most urgent needs, while forgoing debt for discretionary purchases. Image Credit The New York Times The auto and student loan category was up 8.1 percent from a year earlier and rose in every month but one since May 2010. But credit card debt has barely changed in the last year and was nearly 17 percent below its peak, in July 2008, seven months into the recession. Slow job growth and small wage gains have made many Americans more reluctant to charge goods and services. That could restrain consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. Americans may also be hesitant to take on more high-interest debt because of higher Social Security taxes. At the same time, the weak economy is sending more people back to school. The Federal Reserve’s consumer credit report does not separate student loans and auto loans. But the Federal Reserve Bank of New York quarterly report on consumer credit shows student loan debt has been the biggest factor in borrowing increases since the recession officially ended in June 2009. Economists expressed hope that as the impact of higher Social Security taxes fades, consumer spending will strengthen in the second half of this year. That forecast also counts on steady job growth to bolster income gains and support higher spending. But some forces continue to restrain growth, including thousands of federal furloughs, which depressed income growth in July. And job growth has been weaker than first thought. The Fed’s borrowing report tracks credit card debt, auto loans and student loans but not mortgages, home equity loans or other loans secured by real estate.

Debt
Federal Reserve
Consumer behaviour
US Economy


A Luger Awakens the Italians

Abstract: TURIN, Italy, Feb. 13 - In just under 207 seconds over his four runs the Italian luger Armin Zoeggeler may have done more than win a gold medal; he may have finally awakened Italy to the fact that it is playing host to the Winter Olympics. A little more than 24 hours after Zoeggeler, 32, won the men's singles luge -- his first medal of these Games but his fourth medal and second gold over the past four Winter Olympics -- Italians celebrated Monday at the standing-room-only medals ceremony. Thousands more packed Turin's Piazza Castello and lined the area's portico-covered streets for Italy's first significant moment of triumph three days into the Games. Non-Italians were on hand as well. "It was awesome," Greg Springer, 45, from St. Paul said as he negotiated the crowds with his wife after the ceremony. "It was fun to watch the Italians singing loudly and waving their flags. It was packed with Italians, and they were very, very energetic." Up until this week that had not been the case. In the midst of a brutal yet entertaining national election and with soccer still the sport commanding the most attention, it was up to the citizens of Turin -- not known for their enthusiasm -- to drum up some Olympic buzz. "Italy is prisoner of its own politics, and it was as if there were other things that were more important," said Emanuela Audisio, a sports journalist who is covering the Games for the Italian newspaper La Republica. "They were left like an orphan." But Audisio was quick to add that Italians can turn on a dime, and nothing does it quite like a home-team victory. The Italians have won two bronze medals, in cross-country skiing and in men's 5,000-meter speedskating. The three medals put Italy in seventh place in the overall medal count. "You can have people that are very good at something but don't win and no one will care," Audisio said. "All that counts is that you win. We Italians are made like this, and yes, we are a little vain like this. Remember, the day after Mussolini was assassinated, everyone all of a sudden became anti-Fascist." Organizers still have ample reason to be pleased. Sunshine and unseasonably warm weather have made for consecutive pleasant days in the mountains, and a late surge in ticket sales continued Sunday with organizers expecting to eclipse the 800,000 mark by midweek. Even the Italian news media seems to be doing its part to push the Games. Turin's juggernaut soccer team, Juventus, all but clinched the Italian league championship in Milan on Sunday with a thrilling 2-1 victory over second-place Inter. But the major Italian dailies still gave front-page treatment to Zoeggeler's gold medal. For now, it is Zoeggeler's moment, and he worked the crowd like a rock star with his fur-lined silver coat and a security detail. FORSBERG IS IN, FOR NOW -- Peter Forsberg is going to the Olympics as part of the Swedish hockey team, despite a groin injury that forced him to miss the Philadelphia Flyers' past eight games. But he said he was not certain whether he would play in Turin. "It's still not 100 percent, and I'm going to rest a few more days and see how it goes," Forsberg said yesterday. (AP) LONELY GOALIE SEEKS GEAR -- Dominik Hasek's quest for another Olympic gold medal is off to a rough start. Hasek, the goalie for the Czech Republic hockey team, made the trip from Ottawa to Turin, but his gear got sidetracked. "I don't know where it is," said Hasek, who led the Czechs to the gold in 1998 but had to practice with borrowed gear after arriving in Turin. "It's traveling somewhere in Washington, I believe." (AP)

TURIN (ITALY)
ZOEGGELER ARMIN
OLYMPIC GAMES (2006)


Senator’s Parents Gave Mistress Thousands

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Senator John Ensign ’s wealthy parents gave almost $100,000 to his former lover and her family, ostensibly out of concern for their welfare and as part of a “pattern of generosity,” his lawyer disclosed Thursday. A statement by his lawyer, Paul Coggins, on behalf of the Mr. Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, said that in April 2008 the senator’s parents each gave $12,000 apiece to Cindy Hampton, her husband, Doug, and two of their children in the form of a single check for $96,000. “The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts,” the statement read. Under federal tax regulations, $12,000 is the most that a person can give as a gift without having to declare or pay taxes on it. But despite the assertion that the gifts were above-board, the latest revelation concerning Mr. Ensign’s indiscretion — his first public confirmation that gifts were made to his former lover — is sure to provide grist for political detractors. Shortly after the affair was disclosed, about three weeks ago, Mr. Ensign resigned as the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the Senate. But he has insisted that he has no plans to give up his seat. “I always planned on serving and working hard, working harder than I ever worked,” Mr. Ensign told The Las Vegas Sun, which first reported the $96,000 payment, on Thursday. (The senator’s office did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment on Thursday afternoon.) Mr. Ensign has said he had an affair with Ms. Hampton, a former member of his campaign staff, from December 2007 to August 2008. Thus, the payment to the Hamptons would have been made while the romance was still going on. (The senator’s father, Mike Ensign, made a fortune in the casino business.) “After the senator told his parents about the affair,” the statement issued by Mr. Coggins said, “his parents decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of longtime family friends during a difficult time. The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others. “None of the gifts came from campaign or official funds nor were they related to any campaign or official duties. Senator Ensign has complied with all applicable laws and Senate ethics rules.” The disclosure of the $96,000 gift came a day after Doug Hampton said on a Las Vegas television program that Mr. Ensign had paid Mrs. Hampton more than $25,000 in severance pay. A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called for an investigation into whether the possible payment had violated laws on the use of campaign money.

Senate
Ethics
Adultery
Ensign John
United States Politics and Government


Weighing the Wisdom of Battling an Invader

Abstract: Maurice River Township THE bridge over the Maurice River is low and lightly trafficked, and as Michael Grove drove across it one recent morning, the panoramic view it offered seemed little changed from a century ago: the twisting ribbon of slow water, the tall reeds bending in the breeze. “This is all phrag,” Dr. Grove said, gesturing across the wide marsh. “Wherever it’s taller is phrag.” Phrag is phragmites (frag-MIGHT-eez), the marsh grass that looks as if it belongs here, but doesn’t — a pushy, sharp-elbowed invader that has crowded out native grasses in New Jersey ’s wetlands, especially up in the Meadowlands and down here along the southern coast, where the land gives out and begins to melt into the Delaware Bay. “It’s ridiculously difficult to control,” said Dr. Grove, 41, a biology professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, who has spent the last several years exploring the impact of phragmites on the fiddler crabs that burrow in the mud, aerating saltwater marshes the way worms aerate a healthy patch of grass. “People mow it and burn it and hit it with herbicides, but you really have to do that repeatedly to knock it back.” Phragmites has long been regarded as an evil weed, shouldering aside spartina and other native marsh grasses, growing tall and dense and rampant, choking waterways and making life more difficult for some birds and young fish. It arrived around the start of the 20th century, used as packing material on ships carrying goods to Northeastern ports from Europe and Asia, an invasive variant of a species that is in fact native to North America. It spread, and spread, and spread, covering perhaps 80,000 acres of New Jersey now, despite many efforts to kill it. “When the wind is blowing it’s this nice rush sound,” Dr. Grove said when he stopped a few miles farther south, along the road to Thompsons Beach, to check one of his experiment sites. The stretch of phragmites looked like what most casual observers would imagine a salt marsh should look like: reeds swaying like a seaside wheat field. The tall stalks were brittle and brown, last year’s growth. Dr. Grove squatted among the green shoots of this year’s plants, which had just begun to sprout, and worked his finger into a small hole in the dark mud, digging out a fiddler crab from its burrow. “They do bite, but they’re not very strong, obviously,” he said as the tiny crab nipped at his finger. He and his students from Rowan have been charting the comings and goings of fiddler crabs at this site and several others along the Delaware Bay, trying to determine where Uca minax and Uca pugnax prefer to live: the mud beneath spartina or beneath phragmites. “We got a pretty clear story that got repeated at all the sites,” he said as he set the crab down and it scurried back into its burrow and its job in the tidal ecosystem — bioturbation, churning up the sediment, helping the marsh breathe and grow. The crabs, he found, seemed to prefer the new neighborhood to the old, building more and larger burrows in phragmites than in the short-form spartina that is predominant in New Jersey marshes. “There was a time when there was an all-out war on phrag, and its ecological value was perceived to be zero on a scale of 1 to 10,” said Michael P. Weinstein, a phragmites expert who is president of the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium and director of the New Jersey Sea Grant College Program, which funded Dr. Grove’s research. “I would say we’re now dealing with something in a four, five, even six, range of ecological value.” The world, as scientists well know, is usually more complex than it seems, and the line between enemy and friend can be blurry. So in recent years, as studies like Dr. Grove’s have deepened the understanding of this ubiquitous and much-debated invader, the war against phragmites — especially the spraying of herbicides that has often occasioned protest from environmentalists — has slowed in places. As phragmites has learned to live in New Jersey, at least parts of New Jersey have learned to live with phragmites. In the Meadowlands and the northern harbors, phragmites grows mostly unchallenged now. “In southern New Jersey, especially around the Delaware Bay, the fight is still going on,” said Brian Marsh, a biologist with the New Jersey field office of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which for the last few years has been trying to eradicate about 1,000 acres of phragmites, with herbicide and controlled burning, mostly at sites farther west along the bay from the crabs Dr. Grove has been studying. After changing out of his marsh sneakers, Dr. Grove drove back toward his lab at Rowan, where he keeps the soil samples that await more analysis, and the resin casts he made of the crab burrows, which look like a collection of amber tree roots. This summer, as the phragmites grow toward 12 feet, he will again be out with his students in the marsh — a place where he went to ask some pure questions about the behavior of crabs, but ended up also asking larger questions about the state of New Jersey’s wetlands. With all invasive species, “in many cases the reality of the situation is that you can’t control it,” he said. “You’re going to have to pick your battles.” As he drove up Route 55, he gestured toward the median strip. “That’s all phrag,” he said, pointing toward a long row of familiar tall grass that was making itself right at home.

Grass
New Jersey
Wetlands
Meadowlands (NJ)


From Worst to World Series

Abstract: ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The doubts have smothered the Tampa Bay Rays all season. Through arduous games and demanding tests, the Rays were expected to fade away. Sooner or later, the inspirational Rays would go home. But the Rays are not going home after all. They are going to the World Series for the first time. Matt Garza would not let the Rays fizzle against Boston and would not let their special season evaporate as he powered them to a 3-1 victory in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday night. Garza pitched superbly into the eighth inning and outperformed Jon Lester for the second time in a week. The Red Sox , the resilient defending champions, were unable to complete the type of stylish comeback that has symbolized them. After rallying from a three-games-to-one deficit to even the series, the Red Sox were hoping that Lester could guide them. But Garza and the Rays were better. “You know, we’ve proved doubters wrong this entire time and we just told each other, ‘Keep believing, keep fighting,’ ” Garza said. “Keep playing the way we played all year, and good things are going to happen.” The Rays navigated through a tense eighth to assure themselves of playing host to the Philadelphia Phillies in the opener of the World Series on Wednesday night. David Price, the Rays’ fifth pitcher in the inning, struck out J. D. Drew with a 97-mile-per-hour fastball to leave the bases loaded. Price screamed into his glove after notching the biggest out of the season. Manager Joe Maddon kept Price, a 23-year-old rookie left-hander, on the mound in the ninth. Price had pitched in only five career games before the postseason, but he barreled past the Red Sox, retiring Jed Lowrie for the final out. Price slammed his glove in the grass and waited for catcher Dioner Navarro to leap into his arms. “It’s a tremendous benchmark for us to compete against them and actually win,” Maddon said. The Rays’ family members wore blue sweatshirts with the word “PREVAIL” in silver across the front. Prevail is what the Rays did in engineering one of baseball’s best worst-to-first stories. Only the 1991 Atlanta Braves lost more games in the season before they shockingly rushed into the World Series. The Braves lost 97 games in 1990, one more than the Rays lost a year ago. Garza, who was named the most valuable player of the series, was the one of the primary reasons the Rays silenced the Red Sox. Lester said Garza was a dangerous pitcher because he has such a terrific repertory that he can make hitters look helpless. That is how the Red Sox looked. After Dustin Pedroia homered in the first, Garza held Boston without a run for the next six innings. He gave up one run and two hits, struck out nine, and threw 118 pitches. “I didn’t know if it was my last start of the year or what,” Garza said. “So I just went out there and emptied my tank and said, hey, here goes, we’ll see what happens.” What happened is the Rays won Game 7, meaning they would not be haunted by the number seven. The Rays had a 7-0 cushion in Game 5 and were seven outs away from clinching the A.L.C.S. But the Red Sox scored eight runs to win that game, then won Game 6, too. Because the Rays avoided a collapse and prevailed in Game 7, it is a lucky number for them now. The Red Sox did not come back from a 3-1 deficit in the A.L.C.S., as they did against the Cleveland Indians last season, but Manager Terry Francona still said, “This is probably the funnest couple of months maybe I’ve ever had.” Willie Aybar nearly homered off Lester to start the fifth, belting a shot off the left-field fence for a double. Navarro followed with an infield single to shortstop, which Lester called “a 17,000 hopper.” With runners on first and second and no outs, Rocco Baldelli was in a likely bunting situation. But Baldelli has 13 sacrifice bunts in his career, including only one in the last three seasons. He was not at the plate to bunt. He was there to hit. He was there to possibly be a hero. Baldelli swung and missed, then hit a long foul ball to left to fall behind, 0-2, in the count. At that point, it seemed as if the Rays should have asked Baldelli to bunt. But Baldelli coolly smacked Lester’s next pitch past the shortstop to put the Rays in front, 2-1. For Baldelli, who missed more than four months of the season because of a mitochondrial disorder, it was one of the sweetest hits of his career. In the seventh, Aybar homered on a 3-2 cut fastball from Lester. It was so pretty to Aybar that he stopped for a second and admired it. Yes, the Rays were feeling good about themselves. The ball rocketed deep into the left-field seats and gave Tampa Bay a 3-1 lead. After Garza stopped the Red Sox on one run in six innings in Game 3, it took them until the second batter of the game to score off him. Garza pumped a 95-m.p.h. fastball past Pedroia to start the at-bat, but he did not fool Pedroia with a 1-1 slider that hung in the strike zone. Evan Longoria had a run-scoring double to tie the game in the fourth. Garza jumps over the foul line on his way to the mound and walks with a swagger when he leaves the mound. The Rays needed that swagger on a night when they beat the defending champions. Garza let the Red Sox snatch a 1-0 lead, but he did not let them do anything else. Instead, Garza made sure the Rays, those inspirational Rays, would go to the World Series.

World Series
Tampa Bay Rays
Baseball
Boston Red Sox
Playoff Games


Hey, You Look Familiar. Didn’t You Run for Office Before? Didn’t You Lose?

Abstract: Maybe the voters didn’t mean it. Could be they have reconsidered. It may have been a mistake, or a bunch of them got busy and never made it to the polls. Perhaps they were just as surprised the morning after the elections as the losers were, and maybe now the voters want their former incumbents back. Or maybe it’s just that some candidates need to lose more than once to get the message. It’s already clear, even with time remaining in the candidate filing period, that the 2012 ballot will be stippled with retreads, officeholders who were cast out by voters last election but want to try again. It can work. Representatives Jim Murphy and Borris Miles of Houston, a Republican and a Democrat respectively, are back in the Legislature, after all. So is Bill Zedler, Republican of Arlington. All three lost elections, tried again and won back the seats they’d lost. Candidates leave and return even if the voters haven’t cast them out. Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi served eight years as a Democrat in the Texas House, quit to spend time with his family and his day job, and then returned as a Republican 12 years later. Rene Oliveira, Democrat of Brownsville, served from 1981 to 1987 in the State House, lost a run for State Senate and went home, then rested up and returned to the House four years later. This time, Tommy Merritt is back for Round 2. He lost to a fellow Longview Republican, David Simpson, in 2010. That’s a case in which voters take a look at a candidate, decide to go with someone else, and then get a choice two years later between the new incumbent and the old one. Mr. Miles was like that, beating former Representative Al Edwards, Democrat of Houston, in 2006, losing to him in 2008, then beating him again in 2010. Not every resurrection effort is a rematch. In some, the geography has changed. In others, candidates are hoping voters are in a different mood. The geography shifts result from redistricting. Carol Kent, Democrat of Dallas, served one term in the House before her defeat at the hands of Stefani Carter, a Republican, in November 2010. Now she’s running again, and so is Ms. Carter. But the lines have moved and they won’t face off. Ms. Carter is running for re-election, and Ms. Kent is running — without moving — for an open seat on the new House maps drawn by a panel of federal judges. Ciro Rodriguez has been in Congress, out of Congress, in and out again. A Democrat from San Antonio, he left the statehouse to run successfully for the United States House in 1997. He lost that seat in the 2004 election — after the mid-decade redistricting engineered by Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, and with a Texan running for re-election to the White House. Two years later — the year Rick Perry was re-elected with only 39 percent of the vote — Mr. Rodriguez won in a different Congressional district and held onto it again in 2008. But in the 2010 Republican wave, he lost to Francisco Canseco, Republican of San Antonio. With a new set of maps in place (for now, anyway — the state is trying to block the use of maps drawn last month by a panel of federal judges), Mr. Rodriguez has filed to run for Congress in yet another district. Maybe he’ll win and get his own Trivial Pursuit card: “Name the Texan who served as the representative of three different Congressional districts.” Most of the would-be comeback kids, so far, are Democrats who were drubbed last time around. They include Abel Herrero of Robstown, Solomon Ortiz Jr. of Corpus Christi and two — Chris Turner of Burleson and Paula Pierson of Arlington — who will face each other in the primary instead of the people who knocked them out of office. That leaves Delwin Jones, 87, of Lubbock, who is already a comeback Hall of Famer. He served as a Democrat from 1964 to 1973 before losing his seat in a district he drew himself as chairman of the House Redistricting Committee. He came back in 1989 — as a Republican — but lost in 2010 to Charles Perry, a political newcomer who ran an energetic grass-roots campaign. While Mr. Jones hasn’t filed yet, he’s pondering: Did the voters really mean it?

Elections
Texas
Redistricting and Reapportionment
United States Politics and Government


China Says Mercedes-Benz Violated Antitrust Rules in Pricing

Abstract: HONG KONG — Government investigators in China have found the Mercedes-Benz unit of Daimler, the German automaker, in violation of antitrust price rules, the Chinese state news media reported on Monday. The announcement was the latest in a spate of inquiries over pricing and sales policies that have raised pressure on foreign corporations across China. The price bureau of Jiangsu Province, adjacent to Shanghai, concluded that prices for parts and maintenance for Mercedes vehicles had been set at exorbitant levels that violated China’s antimonopoly law, the China News Service, a state-run agency, reported, citing an official from the bureau. The Jiangsu officials did not announce a fine against Mercedes or the distributors, and the decision does not apply nationwide. But the announcement added to a recent pattern in which carmakers come under antitrust investigation by local regulators, who publicize price-fixing accusations, followed in some cases by the companies cutting prices nationwide. Last week, investigators in Hubei Province in central China announced fines against BMW dealers for illegal pricing , and Daimler’s officers in Shanghai were searched by officials this month. Daimler said two weeks ago that it would cut the price of Mercedes repair parts in China by an average of 15 percent “in response to antimonopoly investigations into the automobile industry” by the National Development and Reform Commission, the central government agency backing many of the local inquiries. Unlike other recent official inquiries, this one in Jiangsu gave some details of the accusations against Mercedes distributors and sales management. “The Mercedes-Benz case is a classic case of a vertical price monopoly, exploiting its dominant position to impose controls on the price for parts and maintenance in the downstream post-sale market,” Zhou Gao, the official from the price bureau, said on Sunday, according to the China News Service. Many imported cars and parts are sold in China at prices many times higher than in other markets, he said. “This is an utterly abnormal phenomenon,” the report quoted Mr. Zhou as saying. In response to the announcement, Senol Bayrak, a company spokesman in Beijing, issued an email saying, “As stated earlier, we are assisting the authorities in their investigation.” But the Jiangsu price agency said its case remained firm. It said the individual parts for a C-Class Mercedes sedan were sold at prices 12 times as high as the parts cost in a new sedan bought whole, a claim also made by the Insurance Association of China, and the China Auto Maintenance and Repair Trade Association. But that comparison did not take into account the high taxes China places on cars, especially imports. Two Mercedes dealers contacted in Jiangsu said they sold Mercedes C-Class sedans after tax for about 350,000 to 542,000 renminbi, or $57,000 to $88,000, depending on the model and extras. If any fines or other penalties are lodged in the Mercedes case, Daimler could appeal through administrative review procedures. But such an appeal would be highly unusual among foreign multinationals, which were wary of goading Chinese regulators. Last week, General Motors said Chinese officials had approached it about an antitrust inquiry, and Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, said investigators in Hubei Province had concluded that its dealers there violated pricing rules. Microsoft, Qualcomm and six makers of infant formula have also come under investigation in the last year. Some groups and experts have criticized the antitrust investigations. Last week, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said that it had “received numerous alarming anecdotal accounts from a number of sectors that administrative intimidation tactics are being used to impel companies to accept punishments and remedies without full hearings.” “Practices such as informing companies not to challenge the investigations, bring lawyers to hearings or involve their respective governments or chambers of commerce are contrary to best practices,” the chamber said. The chamber said that although Chinese companies had also come under scrutiny, “the European business community is also increasingly considering the question of whether foreign companies are being disproportionately targeted.” A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce denied that the investigations could deter foreign companies from investing and said no companies had been unfairly singled out. “Before the antimonopoly law, all enterprises are equal, and there is no such thing as xenophobia,” the spokesman, Shen Danyang, said in a news conference in Beijing, according to Xinhua, another state news agency. “Foreign-funded enterprises won’t be scared back to their own country because of the investigation cases.”

China
Mercedes-Benz
Cars
Competition law
Daimler AG


After 22 Years of Work, Mozambique Is Free of Land Mine Peril

Abstract: Once contaminated with tens of thousands of land mines from a legacy of war, Mozambique was officially declared cleansed of those weapons on Thursday after 22 years of work. The achievement, celebrated at an event in the capital, Maputo, was considered especially remarkable by disarmament advocates. Some had regarded Mozambique as so riddled with land mines that clearing them would perhaps take centuries. A few decades ago, “many doubted that clearance could be completed in a timely fashion — or that it would take hundreds of years,” said Megan Burke, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines — Cluster Munition Coalition , a leading advocacy group. Most of the clearance work was done by the Halo Trust, a Scotland-based international organization that helps former conflict zones cleanse themselves of land mines and other vestiges of war that can kill and maim long after the combat has stopped. Teams are still at work, for example, clearing World War I battlefields of unexploded ordnance. Overall, Halo said in a statemen t, its workers cleared more than 171,000 land mines from Mozambique in a decontamination project that began in 1993, accounting for about 80 percent of the total destroyed. Destruction of the last-known land mine took place Wednesday and was witnessed by Cindy McCain, the chairwoman of Halo U.S.A., the group’s American branch, and the wife of Senator John McCain of Arizona. She said in a statement that the destruction symbolized the end of a dark era for Mozambique, “once strewn with the deadly debris of war.” A former Portuguese colony, Mozambique was consumed by conflict for decades, first in a war of independence and then a civil war that lasted until 1992 and left about a million people dead. While the casualties from leftover land mines in Mozambique have not been calculated, Human Rights Watch said in a 1994 report that more than 10,000 people had been killed or maimed by these weapons in just the first few years of peace. Under an international treaty banning land mines, known as the Ottawa Convention, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines is forbidden. Most countries have accepted the treaty. At least 30 countries have not, including the big powers China, Russia and the United States. In June 2014, the Obama administration put the United States on a course to eventually sign the treaty, announcing steps to reduce the American stockpile and find alternative ways to achieve the tactical military advantages of land mines. The United States has been a leading funder of land mine clearance work, including in Mozambique, which now joins 27 other countries formerly contaminated with them that are regarded as free of mines.

Mozambique
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Cindy McCain
Explosive mine
Arms control
Africa


An Actress Who Prefers the Stage to Red Carpets

Abstract: Amy Morton has a role in “Up in the Air,” one of the year’s most lauded films, sharing the screen — and her character’s wellspring of acerbity — with none other than George Clooney. And yet, as the film and its stars continue to rack up nominations and the Hollywood awards season reaches its frenetic climax, Ms. Morton is 2,000 miles away, directing regional theater and hunkering down against a particularly brutal blast of Midwestern winter weather. She couldn’t be happier. “Am I going to the awards shows?” Ms. Morton, an Oak Park native who played Mr. Clooney’s sister Kara, said, shaking her head as if warding off an incipient nightmare. “No, thank God.” Sitting in an aisle seat in the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, where she is directing the Northlight Theater production of “Awake and Sing!” by Clifford Odets, Ms. Morton is in the thick of previews less than a week from opening night. A longtime ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theater Company, she has come only recently to directing, and one might expect her to be a bit nervous. But she seems quite sanguine about the play; she is far more unsettled by the thought of facing the red carpet gantlet again. She did it for “Up in the Air” at the Toronto Film Festival , and she is not eager to repeat the experience. “I would have paid money to be able to run away,” she said. “I find walking the red carpet to be probably the most nerve-racking experience in the world. I don’t like that much attention unless I’m on stage. I don’t like questions about me, Amy.” Those questions have become increasingly difficult to avoid in recent months, thanks to the success of the movie and a two-year stint in Steppenwolf’s production of “August: Osage County,” the Pulitzer and Tony-winning play by Tracy Letts, an ensemble member. That role, which Ms. Morton describes as emotionally and physically grueling, is an experience she is deeply grateful for but which she hopes never to repeat. “I don’t think I could do it again,” she said of her scathing, vociferous depiction of Barbara Fordham, which earned her a Tony nomination . “If it were a different role in a different play, maybe, but it was just extremely difficult to do it eight times a week.” But if playing Barbara Fordham was the toughest acting job she has had, it also pushed her into the national spotlight. “Osage County” changed things, Ms. Morton said. It got her “Up in the Air,” and that is likely to be only the beginning. “Certain people know who I am now," she said. “So hopefully that will translate into more work that pays good money.” In other words, more film work. Dressed in layers of gray and black, a red scarf her sole concession to color, Ms. Morton is a game, if slightly cagey, interview subject. It is quickly clear that she is not going to provide a wealth of introspective philosophizing or engage in the easy banter many actors have perfected. She is here to answer questions because it is part of her job, and while she is nice about it, she does nothing to dispel the impression there are other things she would rather be doing. Happily, she is usually engaged in one or more of those preferred activities: Acting, directing or teaching the Meisner technique at the School at Steppenwolf. Ms. Morton’s professional destiny was never in question, at least as far as she was concerned. “I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was 6,” she said. After an abortive college career, Ms. Morton trained at the St. Nicholas Theater Company in Chicago, which was founded in 1972 by William H. Macy, Steven Schachter and David Mamet and which is now defunct. At 20, Ms. Morton began a 15-year association with William Petersen’s Remains Theater Company (also now extinct). In 1997, she joined the ensemble at Steppenwolf, where she has appeared in 33 productions and where she was directing Mamet’s “American Buffalo” until it closed last Sunday. Directing two plays at once sounds overwhelming, or at the very least distracting. But Ms. Morton is managing just fine, said Mike Nussbaum, the actor who plays the heartbroken, heartbreaking Jacob in “Awake and Sing!” “Working with her has been a rare experience,” Mr. Nussbaum said. “She has the ability to give the most astute and penetrating notes I’ve ever heard.” BJ Jones, a longtime artistic director at Northlight, has known Ms. Morton for 25 years and marvels at her skill and commitment. “She hurls herself into the process,” Mr. Jones said, whether it is directing or acting. And yet, he added, that state of pitched energy — insistent and relentless — is markedly absent from Ms. Morton’s off-stage presence. “If you walked into a room, and there were a dozen actors and directors in that room, she’d be the last person to catch your eye,” Mr. Jones said, “because she doesn’t radiate the kind of energy that demands attention.” Whether she demands it or not, that attention is likely to follow Ms. Morton for the foreseeable future. And if it nets her a few more film roles, so much the better. But while film pays the bills, the theater remains Ms. Morton’s first love, and she seems eager to tackle her next role, to face her next challenge. Of course, for a workhorse like Ms. Morton, who has made her name as a tireless, wholly unselfish performer, the biggest challenge may look a lot like taking a deep breath. “In my next role,“ she said ruefully, “I’d like to sit in a chair, say something pithy, and then walk off stage.”

Theater
Festivals
Actors and Actresses
Morton Amy
Careers and Professions
Chicago (Ill)
Steppenwolf Theatre Co


Fostering Civility in a Time of Disrespect

Abstract: Just in time for the season of giving, Christine Porath, a Georgetown University management professor, brings us “Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace” (Grand Central), a slender, but compelling, guide to treating others respectfully and protecting oneself from those who don’t. As the subtitle suggests, most of the book’s examples relate to behaviors observed and strategies pursued in the corporate jungle. The focus is on the serious business risk posed by failing to foster a culture of civility. While the nation waits breathlessly for the dawn of the Trump era, however, it is impossible to read this practical volume without wondering about its implications for the functioning of our federal institutions and the comity among nations. “Mastering Civility” begins with a short but powerful synthesis of the academic research relating to the mounting costs and growing prevalence of incivility. It turns out that the stakes are high indeed. The frequently heard dismissive recommendation to “suck it up” in the face of workplace indignities is inconsistent with the overwhelming evidence of just how institutionally damaging such behavior is. The problem isn’t just that ignoring bad behavior allows it to fester and spread throughout the organization. It is that the performance of those who do suck it up declines precipitously. What is more, customers avoid businesses whose employees demonstrate a lack of civility, whether toward them or toward each other. Professor Porath makes a persuasive case that unchecked incivility, even by a relatively small number of individuals, acts “as an infectious pathogen” that radically undermines corporate effectiveness. In response to the observation that plenty of abusive, autocratic thugs manage to rise up the corporate ladder, she asserts that “those people have succeeded despite their incivility.” Based on the range of research findings described, Professor Porath seems on solid ground. The heart of “Mastering Civility” is a practical checklist for assessing institutional and individual civility, on the one hand, and executing a systematic cultural and personal overhaul, on the other. Even in reviewing these detailed and sensible recommendations, one cannot help but be reminded of the stark contrast with the ethos and practices of our soon-to-be president. For instance, Professor Porath has an entire chapter entitled, “Practice E-civility” that includes almost 20 “basic dos and don’ts” of digital etiquette. Although this discussion is preoccupied with emails, the potential applicability to certain scathing late-night Trump tweets is obvious. For instance: ■ If you are in doubt about your humor, sarcasm or criticism, then reread, rethink and resist the temptation. Image “Mastering Civility” arrives on bookshelves in time for the gift-giving season. Credit Grand Central Publishing ■ If you are uncertain about your tone, save the message and review it later with a fresh perspective before sending it. ■ Consider the time of day you send an email message. You can write it now but maybe send it later using delayed delivery. And so on. In considering the possible implications of “Mastering Civility” for a Trumpian Universe, the most thought-provoking section deals with “Handling Incivility if You’re the Target.” What would it mean for the leader of the free world to be chronically uncivil? How would the domestic and international institutions over which he holds sway and with whom he must coexist likely react? Interestingly, one of Professor Porath’s longtime clients is the National Security Agency. Both during the campaign and even more so in the current period leading up to his inauguration, the president-elect has expressed overwhelming disdain for the entire national intelligence gathering and analyzing apparatus, and has appointed a national security adviser who shares that disdain. Most recently, Donald J. Trump’s ire has been directed at the C.I.A. in connection with its assessment of Russia’s apparent attempt to influence the election. Echoing the themes in “Mastering Civility,” George W. Bush’s former C.I.A. director expressed concerns over the demoralizing impact of such comments. Indeed, if the commander in chief suggests a lack of confidence in the intelligence obtained, he said, it would be difficult for a director of the C.I.A. to send “people into harm’s way to get information otherwise unavailable.” Mr. Trump’s contempt for those who he must lead extends to many other corners of the government and the world. In his view, the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite well-documented improvements in recent years, is not just incompetent but the “most corrupt” federal agency. This is tame compared with the views of the transition team vice chairman and unofficial Trump “senior planner” Newt Gingrich, who has accused agency employees of the wanton murder of their charges. Of course, to date Mr. Trump has been nothing if not underestimated. Another important aspect of Professor Porath’s research is the extent to which a leader’s civility engenders respect and admiration. We can hope that our next president’s profound desire for both leads him to embrace civility. Far from being a sign of weakness, civility might be precisely the unexpected tool he needs to achieve the broader influence and veneration he seeks.

Christine Porath
Mastering Civility
Workplace
Books
Etiquette
US Politics
Donald Trump


Confident Obama Knows Wild Cards Can Loom Large

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As President Obama prepares to address the state of the union on Tuesday night, the state of his presidency has been improving lately — thanks to encouraging economic news as well as divisive infighting among Republicans. “I’m absolutely confident we’re going to win this thing,” Mr. Obama told about 50 donors dining at the Manhattan town house of the filmmaker Spike Lee last Thursday evening. While Mr. Obama stressed that his bravado hinged on supporters’ helping him as they did in 2008, the cautious confidence taking root within the White House and at his Chicago campaign headquarters also reflects the clashes cleaving Republicans. On the presidential campaign trail and in Congress, Republicans have turned on one another with a ferocity that distresses party leaders, who fear that it can only benefit Mr. Obama. Democrats are enjoying the show, though mindful that much could change in the nine months before Election Day — as it often has in Mr. Obama’s term, and not for the better. Lawmakers returned for the year’s Congressional session with many House Republicans in a rebellious mood over their leaders’ and Senate Republicans’ past budget compromises with Mr. Obama . Many veteran Republicans counter that the militancy of junior conservatives has driven the party’s and Congress’s public support to among the lowest levels in the history of polling, while Mr. Obama’s ratings have inched up. The party’s disarray is a far cry from a year ago when Republicans, having just won control of the House, were ascendant. More vicious yet is the Republican race for the presidential nomination. After South Carolina ’s primary results on Saturday scrambled the contest, the battling between the two front-runners — former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and former Speaker Newt Gingrich — escalated to full-scale war as the fight shifted to Florida . Yet the Obama circle is full of people, not least the president, who have learned by hard experience to temper their hopes, and to fear the spring for annually bringing headwinds from elsewhere — Europe , the Mideast, Japan , the Gulf of Mexico — just when officials and economists were seeing “green shoots” in the economy. And ultimately the economy is Mr. Obama’s chief adversary. He is running for a second term with an unemployment rate — 8.5 percent in December — that is higher than for any modern president who was able to win re-election. But the trend in the jobless rate has been downward. And in other ways, “U.S. economic data have been on a positive streak,” Jerry Webman, chief economist for Oppenheimer Funds Inc., wrote in his weekly analysis on Monday. “While the economy may not be expanding like gangbusters,” he added, “modest improvement in growth is likely as we move into 2012.” A positive trend is most likely the best that Mr. Obama can hope for before November, and if the ultimate Republican nominee emerges bloodied and weak, he could be helped in making his case to voters to stay the economic course. The president and his advisers are confident their course will lead to a full recovery, though not this year. That long-term prospect has stoked Mr. Obama’s competitive juices, lest a Republican take the White House and with it the eventual credit for economic gains. And his shows of competitiveness, like at last week’s four New York fund-raisers, have heartened Democrats who more often fret that Mr. Obama is too cool, too conciliatory for the fight ahead of him. But for this year, the White House is hardly complacent about the economy. They need only review the fairly bullish State of the Union address that Mr. Obama delivered last year. “We are poised for progress,” he said. “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.” Within months, a tsunami in Japan, a worsening of the European debt crisis and a spike in oil prices amid upheaval in the Mideast all combined to stall the recovery and threaten a relapse to recession. Similarly, White House hopes in late 2009 and early 2010 were dashed that spring by an earlier flare-up of Europe’s woes and, in April, the explosion of a BP rig that had oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico until August, devastating coastal economies. The ups and downs have been reflected in Mr. Obama’s job approval ratings. After they slid through most of 2009 and early 2010, by spring of 2010 his approval rating had broken 50 percent in the New York Times/CBS News polls and others, only to slide again after the oil spill and other events. In 2011, except for a spike at the time of Osama bin Laden ’s killing, Mr. Obama’s approval ratings dipped again as he fought with Congressional Republicans over the budget. They picked up at year’s end as he went on the offensive for a job creation plan, and economic data improved. For a third year, Europe remains a wild card as the continent seems near or in a recession, threatening fallout for export industries here. And of course the outcome of Republicans’ nomination fight will go far in deciding Mr. Obama’s fate, by defining the choice for voters. Democrats consider Mr. Gingrich, given his erratic style and controversial record, as the easier candidate to beat. But Obama advisers continue to believe Mr. Romney will most likely be the nominee given his superior organization, though his drubbing by Mr. Gingrich in South Carolina has raised doubts and left Democrats looking to Florida’s Jan. 31 primary to clarify matters. Many Democrats say the intraparty attacks by Mr. Gingrich especially are certain to weaken Mr. Romney. But some in Mr. Obama’s circle privately caution that the assaults also could strengthen Mr. Romney for a general election fight, by forcing him to improve his debate skills and answer the attacks against him — just as Mr. Obama, his advisers acknowledge, was helped by his long 2008 battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton .

State of the Union,SOTU,State of the Union 2015


Syria Steps Up Crackdown After Failed U.N. Motion

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — The collapse of diplomatic efforts to mediate Syria ’s uprising reverberated across the country Sunday, emboldening a government that pressed on with a crackdown in the capital’s suburbs and the north and prompting rebel leaders to vow that only force would drive President Bashar al-Assad from power. There were few words of optimism in a conflict that may or may not yet be a civil war, but already bears the hallmarks of a prolonged struggle pitting a still relatively cohesive leadership against an opposition that has gained control of territory in some places, while crumbling before the government’s onslaught in others. The violence Sunday, centered in long rebellious areas, including the city of Homs, killed 31 people, according to activists, adding to a death toll that the United Nations set at 5,400 before it stopped compiling figures. Even before the predictions of intensified conflict, the government’s citadels of support — Damascus and Aleppo — had begun, after months of relative quiet, to feel the brunt of a contest that emerged nearly 11 months ago in the countryside. In some of the capital’s suburbs, military forces have recently begun to act like an occupying army, with residents reporting instances of looting and pillaging. And a cancerous sectarianism that wrecked Syria’s neighbors to the east and west, Iraq and Lebanon, has become so pronounced that some military defectors have vowed to attack religious sites. The events this weekend seemed sure to serve as benchmarks in an uprising that now stands as one of the Arab world’s bloodiest. The collapse of the United Nations Security Council ’s effort to pressure Mr. Assad, after vetoes by Russia and China on Saturday, came just hours after the military shelled Homs in what opposition leaders called the deadliest assault since the uprising began in March. They said more than 200 were killed, a toll that Syrian officials flatly denied. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday called the quashing of the Security Council resolution a “travesty” and said the administration would renew efforts to stop the flow of arms to Syria. The Assad government hailed the action by Russia and China as a rejection of intervention in Syria’s conflict, and a state newspaper signaled that the leadership would be more determined than ever to crush the uprising. It promised that the government would “restore what Syrians had enjoyed for decades.” Over all, the domestic media’s coverage of the Security Council’s vote suggested it was seen in Syria as an important sign that the government retained at least some legitimacy in the eyes of the world. That sense of the government’s hand being strengthened by the failure in New York was so pronounced that Human Rights Watch, echoing critiques by Western and Arab diplomats, warned Syria not to use the veto “as a green light for even more violence.” Armed defectors, joined by civilians who have taken up arms, number only in the thousands, diplomats say, but they, too, hinted at a determination to shift from what they saw as their mission months ago — protecting protesters — and toward a more traditional insurgency. That shift has been most visible in Homs and the northern region of Idlib. “Only military options are on the table,” Col. Riad al-Assad, a defector and commander of the Free Syrian Army, said in a telephone interview from his base in Turkey. “The political options have failed. This regime won’t end except through force.” Though Colonel Assad’s control over the defectors remains debatable — many diplomats and residents describe the armed opponents as far more atomized — there seems little question that the opposition is growing more militarized and determined. While it retains a peaceful component, giving rise to a vibrant culture of protest, defectors have steadily gathered numbers and boast of their ability to control many areas of Homs, the central city assaulted on Saturday. An activist in Idlib relayed a recent chant: “Enough for being peaceful, enough whatever, we want weapons and rockets.” As in Iraq, after the American invasion, a debate has ensued over whether to call the conflict a civil war. The argument sometimes masks the real forces at work — a regime bent on exploiting society’s divisions, an opposition so far incapable of providing an alternative, and deepening strife that has drawn in not only the government and defectors, but also gangs and criminals. Whether or not a civil war is fought, many fear those forces will pull apart society, causing rifts that could take years, even a generation, to reconcile. In Homs, many residents say they are reluctant to travel, even by late afternoon. Blackouts lasting hours have made winter feel more severe, and many have resorted to wood-burning stoves. Rival gangs of Sunni Muslims, who are the majority in Syria, and Alawites, a heterodox sect from which Mr. Assad draws much of his leadership, carry out tit-for-tat kidnappings, sometimes imposing hefty ransoms. In the neighborhood of Inshaat, a woman in her 50s, who gave her name as Samah, said that for months she and her husband had refused to leave. “The security forces took my sister’s house because she lives abroad,” she said by phone. “They broke her things and used the chairs and tables as wood to light the fireplace. My husband asked my sons, ‘Do you want this to happen to our house?’ ” On Sunday, she said they had finally decided to leave for Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. “It’s been a month and a half since I’ve seen the street,” she said. As in Aleppo, the second largest city, residents in Damascus say the mood has grown more somber as hardships grow, though they pale before those in Homs. A 35-year-old government employee who gave his name as Hassan said some people could no longer go in to work because the state had begun commandeering buses to transport security services and militiamen. Families say they have begun stockpiling food, medicine and even drinking water. “Damascus has completely changed,” said a 50-year-old man who gave his name as Sharif. “I am not anti-Assad. I want to live in peace with my children and wife. But for the first time, I get the feeling that President Assad is going to fall from power.” So far, though, Syria seems less at a turning point and more mired in a war of attrition, as forces that began emerging in August gather speed. High-level defections have been exceedingly rare, and even as the government cedes territory in places like Homs and Idlib, it still counts on the support of China, Iran, and most importantly, Russia, whose foreign minister and intelligence chief are scheduled to visit Damascus on Tuesday. “What holds the regime together most of all is that the opposition is divided, the Arab League is divided, the international community is divided,” said Peter Harling, an expert on Syria at the International Crisis Group. “Just hanging on there, living another day, is ultimately winning. People may not like the regime, they may not support it, but they’re not convinced the moment has come that the regime is going to fall apart.”

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


Barcelona Widens Leads as Lionel Messi Caps Year With 91st Goal

Abstract: Lionel Messi polished off his record year with his 91st and final goal of 2012 in Barcelona ’s 3-1 victory at Valladolid on Saturday night, while José Mourinho’s decision to bench goalkeeper Iker Casillas backfired as Real Madrid lost at Malága, 3-2, and fell 16 points off the pace in Spain’s top league. Messi fed Jordi Alba, who crossed to Xavi Hernández for the first goal in the 43rd minute, and then dribbled between a defender’s legs before scoring in the 59th, his 35th goal of the 2012-13 season. Expected to win his fourth FIFA Player of the Year award next month, Messi finished 2012 with 79 goals for Barcelona: 59 in the Spanish league, 13 in the Champions League, 5 in the Copa del Rey and 2 in the Spanish Super Cup. He had 12 more for Argentina: five in World Cup qualifiers and seven in exhibition games. Players from both teams wore T-shirts before the game with messages of support for Barcelona Manager Tito Vilanova, who had throat surgery Tuesday to remove a second tumor in two years from a saliva gland. Barcelona was coached by the assistant Jordi Roura, with Vilanova being released from a hospital just moments before the game. He is expected to have about six weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Barcelona (16-0-1) holds a nine-point lead over second-place Atlético Madrid (13-3-1). With its 3-2 loss to Malága, defending champion Real Madrid (10-4-3) faces its biggest deficit in more than a decade. Mourinho, the Madrid manager, said the title race was over already, at least for his club. “The difference with the leader is insurmountable,” he said. At Malága, Mourinho made the startling decision to bench Casillas, voted best goalkeeper in the world in each of the last four seasons, and start Adan Garrido. Casillas, Madrid’s captain, had started 53 of Real’s last 54 league games, all but the finale last season after the title had been clinched. “We hadn’t been playing well in different aspects of the game, including defense,” Mourinho said. “My opinion is the one that matters. I analyzed the players I had available and picked the team to play. You can invent the story you want, but it is a purely technical decision and nothing more.” The decision left Casillas looking alternately glum, nervous and finally anguished in the team’s dugout. At one point he zipped up his sweatshirt to hide his face. “It surprised us; Iker is our captain,” Madrid defender Sergio Ramos said. Real Madrid is 16 points out of first for the first time since Dec. 19, 1999. “Fear for my job?” Mourinho said. “I have never feared for my job.” LATE WINNER FOR CITY Gareth Barry scored in stoppage time to ensure that Manchester City kept the pressure on Manchester United in England’s Premier League with a 1-0 victory over Reading. City, the defending Premier League champion, was being frustrated by last-place Reading until Barry rose over Nicky Shorey to head in David Silva’s cross. “It’s more important to score early on in games,” City Manager Roberto Mancini said. “My heart is not strong for these late goals.” City is three points behind United, which can double that advantage by winning at Swansea on Sunday. Arsenal rose to third in the standings, earning its third consecutive win when Mikel Arteta’s penalty kick clinched a 1-0 victory at Wigan. Elsewhere, Everton rallied for a 2-1 win at West Ham on goals by Victor Anichebe and Steven Pienaar; Tottenham, missing the injured American midfielder Clint Dempsey, was held to a 0-0 tie by Stoke; and Liverpool moved into eighth place with a 4-0 win at home over Fulham. LAZIO VAULTS OVER INTER Lazio won at struggling Sampdoria, 1-0, to jump ahead of Inter into second place in Italy’s Serie A in the final Italian league action before the holiday break. The Brazilian playmaker Hernanes scored in the 31st minute, taking advantage when Sampdoria goalkeeper Sergio Romero was down on the ground. Earlier, Inter needed a tying goal in the 85th minute by Esteban Cambiasso to secure a 1-1 draw at home with Genoa, and in the day’s late match sixth-place Roma took a four-goal lead in a 4-2 win over visiting A.C. Milan at the Stadio Olimpico. The defeat ended Milan’s four-match league winning streak. Erik Lamela scored twice after goals by Nicolas Burdisso and Pablo Osvaldo, before Giampaolo Pazzini converted a penalty kick for seventh-place A.C. Milan in the 87th and Bojan Krkic scored one minute later.

Arsenal (Soccer Team)
English Premier League
Soccer
Barcelona (Soccer Team)
Real Valladolid
Messi Lionel
Records and Achievements
Real Valladolid (Soccer Team)


In 9 Seconds, Rangers Watch Lead, Tie and Game Vanish

Abstract: Nine costly seconds was all it took to scuttle the Rangers on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. In that lightning-quick stretch Tampa Bay scored twice for a 2-1 win. For Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault, what was galling was that he saw the second goal coming from a mile away. “Two simple reads,” Vigneault said ruefully of the decisive goal. Just that morning, he showed his team a video clip of the same play Tampa Bay scored on. “It’s a little bit disappointing, not to say frustrating.” The defeat ended the Rangers’ three-game winning streak and showed again the difficulty they have beating strong opponents. Brad Richards struck for the only goal of the first period, the 12th of the season for the Rangers’ top scorer. But everything changed at the start of the second period, when the Lightning scored the quickest two goals in the club’s 21-season history. The sequence began 29 seconds into the period, when Ryan Callahan was given a high-sticking penalty for accidentally swatting goalie Ben Bishop in the face during a goal-mouth wrestling match with Lightning defenseman Eric Brewer. Brewer’s stick hooked Callahan’s and caused the upward motion that struck Bishop. “It’s tough, but things don’t always go your way,” Callahan said. He said that Brewer apologized to him after the play. On the power play, the 6-foot-6 defenseman Victor Hedman fired a slap shot through a screen that beat Henrik Lundqvist at 1 minute 10 seconds. It was the 26th point of the season for the towering 23-year-old who was somehow left off the Swedish Olympic team, tying his N.H.L. career-best total. Image Henrik Lundqvist could not smother a shot from Nikita Kucherov that put Tampa Bay up, 2-1, as J. T. Brown (23) looked on. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times The teams returned to center ice for the next face-off. The puck went back to Lightning defenseman Radko Gudas, whose sharp pass found Nikita Kucherov breaking between Michael Del Zotto and John Moore at the Rangers’ blue line. Kucherov steamed in on Lundqvist, deked to his forehand and scored to give Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead at 1:19. “It’s something that we talked about this morning and showed on video,” Vigneault said. “They did the exact same play a couple of seconds before, three shifts before, as a matter of fact. We went through it this morning and it just happened a couple of minutes before. “Then they get the breakaway off of that, which is certainly disappointing.” Moore and Del Zotto split too wide, and no forward tried to check Gudas. “There were two mistakes,” Vigneault said. “One of them was the forward going out to the D and giving them time, and our D not picking up that forward. Two simple reads.” Otherwise the Rangers performed well, but they are 6-13-1 when playing against teams above true .500 (as opposed to N.H.L. .500). The loss also dropped the Rangers to .500: 24 wins in regulation, overtime and shootouts, and 24 losses in regulation, overtime and shootouts. They also had the misfortune of running into Bishop, the N.H.L. save percentage leader, who returned after missing four games with a sprained wrist. The 6-7 Bishop was excellent, stoning Chris Kreider on a breakaway, Mats Zuccarello point-blank and Callahan with a flashing glove en route to a 33-save performance. Lundqvist finished with 23 saves. “We played solidly,” Bishop said. “And I felt no rust.” The Lightning were winding up an eight-game trip that took them to all four Western Canadian cities, as well as Washington, Philadelphia and Columbus. They finished the trip 5-3, and improved their record to 28-15-4, good for second place in the Atlantic Division. But they could not have won without those two goals in the blink of an eye early in the second period. “That was a productive nine seconds for us,” Cooper said. SLAP SHOTS In the second period Brian Boyle held up on a collision in the corner with Victor Hedman, who has a history of concussions and whose back was turned to Boyle. Lightning Coach Jon Cooper commended Boyle for his act. “A lot of players would have run him into the ground, and Boyle pulled up and held up,” Cooper said. “I’ve got to give Boyle a lot of credit for being a hockey player in the game and not trying to hurt somebody.” ... The Rangers’ next game is Thursday night at the Garden against the Detroit Red Wings.

Rangers
Henrik Lundqvist
Ice hockey
Tampa Bay Lightning


Newest Policyholders Under Health Law Are Sicker and Costlier to Insurers

Abstract: WASHINGTON — People newly insured under the Affordable Care Act were sicker, used more medical care and had higher medical costs than those who already had coverage, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said Tuesday in a new study of its policyholders. Because insurers’ premiums have to cover their medical expenses, the new report helps explain why Blue Cross plans have sought, and insurance commissioners have approved, substantial rate increases in many states. Another round of rate review is about to begin, with insurers generally required to file rate requests for 2017 in the next two months. The findings are noteworthy because Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans operate across the country and have the largest share of the individual market in many states, giving them an unrivaled source of claims data. In its report, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association examined the use of medical services by people who enrolled in its plans before and after major provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014. One of those provisions essentially required insurers to offer coverage to people who had previously been denied coverage because of their medical problems. People newly enrolled in individual Blue Cross health plans in 2014 and 2015 were found to have higher rates of certain diseases and conditions, including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, coronary artery disease, H.I.V. and hepatitis C, than people who already had coverage. Diabetes was nearly twice as common among newly enrolled consumers as among those previously enrolled, the report said. Hepatitis C was more than twice as common, and H.I.V. was more than three times as common, it said. Likewise, the report said, consumers newly enrolled in Blue Cross plans in 2014-15 used more medical services than those who first bought coverage before 2014. Hospital admission rates were 84 percent higher, it said, and the frequency of visits to doctors and other medical professionals was 26 percent higher. Blue Cross said the study was based on claims for 4.7 million people. About one-third had been continuously enrolled since 2013; the others signed up in 2014 or 2015. Administration officials said the study showed the need for the health care law , signed six years ago by President Obama. “It’s no surprise that people who newly gained access to coverage under the Affordable Care Act needed health care,” said Ben Wakana, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “That’s why they were locked out of coverage before.” Alissa Fox, a senior vice president for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, said the differences in the prevalence of disease could narrow as newly insured consumers receive care and medications to prevent and treat illnesses. Blue Cross companies have programs to help consumers “get healthy faster and stay healthy longer,” she said. New insurance policies are often more generous and comprehensive than individual policies sold before the health care law. The new policies must, for example, cover maternity care and mental health and substance abuse services. Some of the people buying insurance under the health care law come from states’ “high-risk pools,” created specifically for people with cancer, heart disease or other serious medical problems. In rate requests filed with state regulators in the last two years, many insurers said they had been aware of a pent-up demand for health care, but had underestimated how much care their new customers would require. Researchers and health policy experts had predicted that people with higher medical costs would enter the market in the first few years of the public insurance exchanges. And the health care law provided special payments to insurers with unexpectedly high costs. Federal and state officials and consumer advocates said they hoped that premiums would become more stable and predictable in the next couple of years.

Health Insurance
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
Blue Cross and Blue Shield Assn
Personal finance


Basketball Remains a Constant for Jack Ramsay

Abstract: BOSTON — In a dream last week, Jack Ramsay said, his wife returned to him. Jean Ramsay, who died in January, followed her husband to all of his coaching stops during their 60-year marriage, from St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia to the Portland Trail Blazers. She read novels during games to occupy her time. But in this dream, the game mattered to her. “I dreamed I was driving to the basket and Jean was keeping score, which was as far as possible from what she would do,” he said over lunch Monday. “As I was leaving the floor, someone asks, ‘How many did you score, Jack?’ and she said, ‘You had 41.’ ” A small smile creased Ramsay’s face. The dream united two loves: the girl he met at a dance at St. Joe’s who died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease and the sport that still fascinates him at 85. He is old enough to joke that he was the one to suggest cutting out the bottom of James Naismith’s peach basket. Ramsay is ESPN Radio’s lead N.B.A. analyst, working regular-season and playoff games with Jim Durham. “It enables me to stay close to the players and coaches,” Ramsay said. Before Game 4 of the Boston-Orlando Eastern Conference finals Monday, he waited outside the Celtics’ locker room at TD Garden to interview guard Ray Allen in the corridor. Allen is an easy subject: candid, descriptive and analytical. That done, Ramsay strode into Coach Doc Rivers’s office. Ramsay sat on the edge of his seat — an octogenarian version of the way he knelt on the sideline as a coach — and thrust his ESPN Radio microphone at Rivers. Each question — about team chemistry, motivation and team defense — made a listener wonder if Ramsay, who coached Portland to the N.B.A. title in 1977, already knew the answers. “I wanted to hear them,” he said. “I was thinking of our listeners, not me.” As he walked back into the corridor, Ramsay saw Celtics forward Glen Davis. “Same as Game 3 for you,” he said to Davis, who scored 17 in the Celtics’ rout. “Yes, sir,” Davis said quietly. Ramsay is lean and muscular — his biceps bulge from a short-sleeve shirt — the result of swimming a mile a day in the ocean near his home in Naples, Fla., and a regimen of crunches, push-ups, jogging and stretches that he takes from hotel to hotel. “Usually, 100 crunches and 100 push-ups,” said Ramsay, a triathlete until he was 70 and a jump-roper. His fixation on fitness began in the Navy when he was part of an underwater demolition team that trained for the planned invasion of Japan in 1945. “It’s like you had training camp but the season was canceled,” he said of the lost wartime opportunity. But, he said, the training “toughened you, made you value fitness.” The body that Ramsay has preserved so well has endured a lengthy fight against melanoma. The cancer that began in 2004 on his left foot eventually spread to his lungs and brain but is now in remission, his last chemotherapy two and a half months ago. “I’m very fortunate to have gotten past the cancer problem,” he said over a lobster roll. “Well, I shouldn’t say that. But I was not expected to live.” Bill Walton , the center on the Portland championship team, said: “Jean’s death was much tougher on him than the cancer. Guys like Jack are so tough they would do anything to take away someone else’s pain. I don’t think I’ve ever made a rougher call than when I called Jack after Jean died. What do you tell an 85-year-old man whose college sweetheart is no more? She was always there, the gentle one, the quiet one.” Ramsay said he hoped to create a grant program at St. Joseph’s to help women who want to get a degree while raising children. Jean Ramsay raised five children during her husband’s peripatetic career, which included seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, the Buffalo Braves and the Indiana Pacers. “Maybe it should be a coach’s wife,” he said. The bonds that connect old coaches and teammates, in particular those who have seen the best of times like a championship, unite Ramsay and Walton in their concern for Maurice Lucas, 58, , a model power forward who has bladder cancer. “ Dave Twardzik saw him a few weeks ago,” Ramsay said of the former Portland guard who is now an Orlando Magic executive. “He saw him for three hours, and he never got out of bed.” Ramsay, who visited Lucas in December, said: “Since Luke’s been sick, he’s seen life is not always what you want it to be. He’s been humbled by it.” He added: “I need to go see him again. I’ve got to. He’s a great guy, Luke.” Ramsay, called Dr. Jack because of his doctorate in education, still sees himself as a coach and a teacher. His mild-mannered style of analysis is a tutorial in proper basketball, with a few flourishes for entertainment. During the Celtics-Magic series, he said that he had given nuggets of instruction to Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis of Orlando. To Lewis, he suggested a maneuver designed to force Kevin Garnett to foul him. After Game 1, he said that he told Howard to dunk down low rather than attempt the sort of short shots that he was missing. “So the next day, he walks by me, stops and hollers, ‘I took your advice.’ I said, ‘Keep doing it,’ But he didn’t.” He no longer has the authority of a coach, his old intensity, or the famously bushy eyebrows that when combined with a glare led his players to say that he “gave them the brow.” Nowadays, he shaves the eyebrows as closely as what’s left of his hair.

Basketball
ESPN
Ramsay Jack
National Basketball Assn


West Virginia: Former Massey Executive Is Denied Request for Holiday Travel

Abstract: The former chief executive officer of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, who is charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch Mine, will not be allowed to go home for the holidays. A docket entry on Monday showed that a Federal District Court judge, Irene Berger, denied Mr. Blankenship’s motion to travel for the holidays; he has a home in Nevada, though it was unclear if that was where he wanted to go. During his case, Mr. Blankenship’s travel is restricted to southern West Virginia; Pike County, Ky.; and Washington, D.C. The case’s court filings are unavailable to the public under a gag order. A 2010 explosion at Upper Big Branch killed 29 men.

West Virginia
Holidays
Massey Energy
Don Blankenship
Upper Big Branch Mine
Mining
Coal


Thomas Bata, ‘Shoemaker to the World,’ Dies at 93

Abstract: OTTAWA — Thomas J. Bata, who moved his family business to Canada ahead of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and later became, as he put it, “shoemaker to the world,” died in Toronto on Monday. He was 93. Mr. Bata died in a hospital, Leslie Tenenbaum, the general counsel for Bata, said. The family is not disclosing the cause of death, he said. Mr. Bata’s footwear is not well known among fanciers of designer shoes from Manolo Blahnik or fans of the latest sneakers from Nike. But Mr. Bata made the company, which was founded by his father, so pervasive in the developing world that, according to Mr. Tenenbaum, Bata became a generic noun for shoe in some parts of it, particularly in Africa. It is, Mr. Tenenbaum added, a situation that somewhat dismays him in his role as the protector of the company’s trademarks. Mr. Bata, who was born in Prague on Sept. 17, 1914, gradually assumed control of the family business after his father’s death in an airplane crash in 1932. Bata was already a substantial operation at that time. Based in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, the company was then making about 36 million pairs of shoes a year and exporting to the United States and Asia while also operating retail shops in several European countries. With Europe apparently heading toward war in 1938, it was decided that Mr. Bata should establish a North American operation. In his autobiography “Bata, Shoemaker to the World,” written with Sonja Sinclair, Mr. Bata recalled that Canada was picked, at least in part, because of the “romantic tales about the Wild West and about northern explorers” his mother had read to him as a child. To Mr. Bata’s dismay, when he arrived in Canada in 1939 he found its countryside and cities to be rundown and dirty compared with Europe. With Czechoslovakia’s future looking uncertain, the company decided that rather than establish a branch plant in Canada, it would make the new operation an alternative headquarters to Zlin. The plan did not meet an entirely warm reception in Canada, where unemployment was high and many domestic shoemakers were fighting for survival. Mr. Bata had to settle for importing 100 workers and managers from Zlin after the government turned down his request for 250. To house the workers and the new plant, Mr. Bata established a company town southwest of Ottawa complete with a corporate ski hill. Called Batawa (an amalgam of Bata and Ottawa), it became the first of a series of Bata company towns around the world. Mr. Bata fought in the Canadian Army during World War II. The war’s aftermath was devastating for the company. Many of its facilities had been destroyed, and many of those that survived, including Zlin, had been nationalized. A complex holding company structure, however, meant that the Bata family still controlled substantial assets. While the company invested in developing the Canadian business as well as in rebuilding traditional markets in Western Europe, its greatest success came in regions where factory-made shoes had made few inroads. That expansion sometimes brought Mr. Bata into negotiations with infamous political leaders, like Idi Amin in Uganda, and the policies of some countries created public relations and diplomatic headaches for Bata and the government of Canada. Under pressure from the Canadian government, Bata sold its South African operation because of apartheid. While he was opposed to the system, Mr. Bata said in his autobiography, he would have preferred to stay and continue providing employment, health care and educational services. Mr. Bata also made it clear that the company’s move into less-developed markets was primarily motivated by business concerns. “We expanded into Africa in order to sell shoes, not to spread sweetness and light,” he said. His company now employs an estimated 40,000 workers in factories in 25 countries and sells about 300 million pairs of shoes a year. Mr. Bata’s son, Thomas George Bata, became chairman and chief executive of the company in 2001, but the elder Mr. Bata remained active in its operations and carried business cards listing his title as “chief shoe salesman.” At his death, Mr. Bata was planning a tour of the company’s European operations. In addition to his son, Mr. Bata is survived by his wife, Sonja, and three daughters, Christine Bata Schmidt, Monica Pignal and Rosemarie Bata. In Canada, his public profile was somewhat overshadowed by that of his wife, who was the daughter of the Bata family’s corporate lawyer in prewar Europe. She is the founding chairwoman of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. The company is still family owned, but little of it remains in Canada. Its headquarters are now in Lausanne, Switzerland; the company’s Canadian retail chains have been sold or closed; and production stopped in Batawa about eight years ago. Mrs. Bata has bought the community from Bata and started a separate venture to redevelop it as a residential community. She recently donated about $1 million for a ski lift. After the Velvet Revolution, Mr. Bata returned to Czechoslovakia in 1989 at the invitation of President Vaclav Havel. He was greeted by crowds at the airport of his birthplace and later re-established operations in the country that had once nationalized his company. Since then, Mr. Bata made several return trips and established a charitable foundation there.

Retail Stores and Trade
Shoes and Boots
Bata Thomas J.
Deaths (Obituaries)


Setback Highlights New Worries for Barbaro

Abstract: Seven weeks after having a life-saving operation to repair a right hind leg that was shattered in a catastrophic misstep in the opening yards of the Preakness Stakes, Barbaro has had a setback in his recovery. His surgeon, Dr. Dean Richardson, said that meant “tough days” were ahead for Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner. Richardson changed Barbaro’s cast yesterday for the fourth time in the past week. The colt had a fever over the weekend, and on Saturday, Richardson changed the titanium plate and many of the 27 screws that had been inserted into Barbaro’s injured leg on May 21. After the three-hour operation Saturday, Barbaro needed 12 more hours to come out of anesthesia and become comfortable enough to return to his stall in the intensive care unit of the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals in Kennett Square, Pa. “He’s definitely had a setback,” Richardson said yesterday in a telephone interview. “We’re definitely more concerned about him now than we were two weeks ago.” The chief concern among veterinarians at the University of Pennsylvania ’s New Bolton Center is that Barbaro may develop laminitis, a painful condition for horses that is caused by excessive weight bearing on one limb — in this instance, Barbaro’s healthy left hind leg. While horses with laminitis can be saved, and there was no evidence that Barbaro had developed the condition, the prospect of him having to battle the condition could be devastating, Richardson said. The potentially excruciating pain could put stress on Barbaro and impede his healing process, leaving little choice for his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, but to ask the veterinarians to euthanize Barbaro. Richardson said that option had not been discussed. Richardson, the Jacksons and Barbaro’s trainer, Michael Matz, remained hopeful that Barbaro could fully recover. But they said yesterday that Barbaro’s current complications reminded them of the extraordinary measures that had been taken to save the colt and how daunting the coming challenges were. Richardson said Barbaro’s fever had subsided yesterday, that his vital signs were normal and that he had eaten well throughout the day. “I’d say he’s doing all right, but he’s not back to where I’d like him to be,” he said. Before Richardson performed the original five-hour operation, he calculated the chances of Barbaro’s survival at 50-50; and he upped them only slightly to 51-49 in the days after the procedure, when the colt’s convalescence was proceeding smoothly. He warned then and reiterated yesterday that a full recovery would take many months. In 2000, for example, a filly named Dancinginmydreams sustained a similar injury in the Frizette Stakes at Belmont Park. She had her ankle joint fused and spent 13 months at the same hospital as Barbaro. She recovered and is a broodmare. While the Jacksons have been buoyed by Barbaro’s six weeks with virtually no complications, they have prepared themselves for potential downward turns. “We’ve known all along that this was a serious injury and there were possibilities of things like this cropping up,” said Roy Jackson in a phone interview yesterday. “This is not a normal situation, and we’ve braced ourselves for the ups and downs.” Before Barbaro’s bad turn over the weekend, there was plenty to feel good about. X-rays last week showed the colt’s main fracture was healing well. It was the pastern joint, which is above the hoof, that had veterinarians worried. On Friday and Saturday, however, it was clear Barbaro was uncomfortable. The colt had been treated topically for an abscess found on his left foot, had a fever and struggled to put weight on his right foot. “He was sore in both hinds,” said Richardson, who decided to perform the operation late Saturday. “We figured he had an infection, and he did in the pastern joint. We cleaned it out — in both feet — and replaced the plate and performed a more definitive procedure on the pastern.” Unlike the initial operation, when Barbaro recovered energetically, the colt struggled this time to shake off the anesthesia. “He was very difficult to wake up this time,” said Richardson, whose team hoisted Barbaro’s raft out of the recovery pool three separate times. The colt also struggled with the full-length cast Richardson opted to put on his right hind leg as further protection from Barbaro banging it. The post-operative difficulties took a toll on the colt. “He didn’t look good Sunday morning because he was exhausted,” said Matz, who like the Jacksons, has visited Barbaro daily. “He was struggling to get around with the full cast. But he did start looking better as the day went on.” Yesterday morning, Richardson replaced the full cast with a short one and saw much improvement. It was encouraging, but he said it was a small step in the process. “The best-case scenario is he comes through this complication,” Richardson said,, “and then we will have many, many more weeks of anguish and worry for the Jacksons, Michael Matz, myself and anyone who cares about this horse. If we get that, that means Barbaro will spend more time healing.”

Preakness Stakes
Kentucky Derby
University of Pennsylvania
Barbaro (Race Horse)
Horse Racing
Anesthesia and Anesthetics
Medicine and Health


South Dakota: Disposal Begins for Thousands of Cattle

Abstract: Two 20-foot-deep pits opened in western South Dakota on Monday to help dispose of thousands of cattle carcasses piling up since an early October blizzard decimated herds. Up to four feet of snow fell in the Black Hills area, killing 10,000 to 20,000 head of livestock, state officials say. The South Dakota Stockgrowers Association estimated this part of the state lost at least 5 percent of its cattle. The number is likely to rise as more losses are documented. Recent rain added moisture to pastures already saturated by the melting snow, making it hard for ranchers to assess losses and tend to stressed but surviving animals.


Daniel O’Donnell, an Openly Gay Assemblyman, Pushes Same-Sex Marriage in New York

Abstract: ALBANY — Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell wants desperately to persuade his colleagues to legalize gay marriage. Here is how he has pursued Republican Assemblyman Greg Ball’s vote: He stopped Mr. Ball’s parents while they were visiting the Capitol, and asked them to urge their son to back the measure. He cornered Mr. Ball in a statehouse elevator, and taunted him: vote for same-sex marriage , or you won’t get invited to my engagement party. Mr. O’Donnell has even told Mr. Ball, a square-jawed former Air Force captain, that he was “the best looking guy in the Assembly, and he owed it to the gays to vote yes.” “Did I think that overt flirtation was going to get Greg Ball to vote yes?” Mr. O’Donnell recalled. “Didn’t know. But I was going to try.” With the Legislature set to take up the bill to legalize same-sex marriage on Tuesday, Mr. O’Donnell, the gay older brother of the comedian Rosie O’Donnell , has emerged as a tenacious, ingratiating, playful and sometimes prickly leader of the effort to pass the legislation. He has helped gather nearly 90 votes in the 150-member Assembly, which is expected to easily pass the bill. But he is also using the Assembly vote as a way to pressure members of the Senate, where the legislation’s fate will be decided, and demonstrate to wary senators that there is support in their districts for the bill. Mr. O’Donnell’s unsubtle approach has endeared him to some colleagues in the Capitol and rankled others. While using flattery on certain wavering lawmakers, he has been aggressive with others, threatening to withhold support from fellow Democrats, for example, who declined to be listed as sponsors of the measure. “Some might say you get more bees from vinegar, sugar than vinegar, whatever that stupid expression is,” said Mr. O’Donnell, who is from the Upper West Side. He added: “If you want to run for attorney general or for governor or lieutenant governor or senator or congressperson, and you’re not in favor of my equality, then I’m not interesting in helping you. And I’ve made that clear.” The O’Donnell siblings — Mr. O’Donnell, 48, is the second-oldest of five, Ms. O’Donnell, 47, is next in line — say they learned at an early age the importance of persistence and self-sufficiency. Their mother, Roseann, died of cancer when Mr. O’Donnell was 12, and the children had to learn to cook, clean and do for themselves the kinds of domestic tasks that often fall to mothers. Ms. O’Donnell, who recalled in a phone interview that her brother dreamed of going into politics as a boy and filled a corkboard in their home, in Commack in Suffolk County, with campaign buttons, said her siblings all developed a sense that their time here can be frighteningly short. “Your life can be over at 39, so don’t assume you’ll get 89 years,” she said. “That pushes you toward success in a way that wouldn’t be as present if she wouldn’t have died. It was formative.” Ms. O’Donnell, who lives in Nyack with her partner, Kelli Carpenter O’Donnell, has not gotten involved in lobbying New York legislators on same-sex marriage, but she did not rule it out. Of her brother, she said: “He is quite tenacious, that’s for sure. Like a dog with a bone, he holds onto something and doesn’t let go.” Each week, Mr. O’Donnell delivers color-coded spreadsheets to the Assembly speaker’s senior staff — names in green are yes votes, red are no votes, and purple indicates maybe. He has written personalized letters to all 149 of his Assembly colleagues, sometimes adding lines like “Doesn’t your wife want to come to my wedding?” when he thinks it would be helpful. For Mr. O’Donnell, the lobbying is intensely personal. When he has been unable to persuade colleagues to vote yes, he has sent his partner, John Banta, director of special events for the Metropolitan Opera, to try instead. The two men met as freshmen at Catholic University in 1978, began dating two years later and have been together ever since. Mr. O’Donnell frequently brings Mr. Banta along to legislative gatherings, he said, so his colleagues could see what a gay couple looks like. “That wasn’t accidental,” he explained, adding: “I knew if I wanted my colleagues to treat me and treat my community with equality, they would have to see John and I through the prism of a relationship.” He has said that he and his partner face inequities that are sometimes overlooked. It is the tradition of the New York State Legislature, for example, to provide a surviving spouse of a lawmaker who dies in office with the remainder of the lawmaker’s salary through the end of their term. “We don’t get that,” he said. “So if I get hit by a truck tomorrow, he doesn’t get the $150,000.” Being so intensely involved in the issue has had its painful moments. One of his closest friends in the Assembly, Barbara Lifton of Ithaca, said Mr. O’Donnell can become emotionally drained after dealing with colleagues who say they will not vote for same-sex marriage. “He said, ‘How can I help this person who doesn’t see me as a full human being?’ ” Ms. Lifton recalled. “He tried to let go of any anger of that and understand that these are big changes for people.” Mr. O’Donnell, who became the first openly gay man to serve in the Assembly when he was elected in 2002, is now one of four openly gay people in the Legislature. Another, Senator Thomas K. Duane of Manhattan, is sponsoring the same-sex marriage bill in the Senate, where Democrats are still unsure whether they can gather the 32 votes they need for approval. Mr. O’Donnell has made it part of his strategy to recruit Assembly Republicans. So far, he said, he has five Republican supporters, and he is hoping to attract 10 — no easy task, if the reaction of Mr. Ball is any indication. Despite all Mr. O’Donnell’s entreaties, Mr. Ball, the Republican assemblyman, said he would still be voting no on Tuesday. But he added that he hoped that Mr. O’Donnell would not cross him off the invitation list for the engagement party. “I would love to attend, no matter how I vote,” Mr. Ball said.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships


Ex-Aide to Gov. David A. Paterson Takes Fifth Amendment

Abstract: David W. Johnson , the former senior aide to Gov. David A. Paterson whose domestic violence case prompted the governor to abandon his election bid, has invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, refusing to answer questions in the investigation into the matter, according to a person with knowledge of his actions. Mr. Johnson also would not answer questions in a separate state inquiry after he received a subpoena from the Commission on Public Integrity requiring him to testify about his role in securing five World Series tickets from the Yankees for Mr. Paterson and others who went to the game with him last fall, the person said. In early March, the commission issued a report stating that the governor had violated state ethics laws by accepting the tickets and had falsely testified under oath when he told investigators that he had always intended to pay for them. Mr. Johnson’s lawyer, Oscar Michelen, declined to comment on Tuesday about his client’s cooperation with investigators in either inquiry. Regarding the domestic violence matter, last Halloween, Mr. Johnson’s companion at the time, Sherr-una Booker, called New York City police officers to her apartment in the Bronx and said that Mr. Johnson had assaulted her. Ms. Booker went to court days later and obtained an order of protection but told the judge that she had been pressured by the State Police to drop her complaint. The case was dismissed without prejudice a few months later after Ms. Booker, who had appeared at two subsequent hearings in the case, failed to show up for a fourth. The State Police and Mr. Paterson had conversations with her while she was trying to get court protection. Testimony from Mr. Johnson in the inquiry into the Paterson administration’s response to the domestic violence matter would be valuable to investigators in helping them to determine the extent of the governor’s knowledge about the matter and when he first learned about it in any detail. Investigators from the state attorney general’s office, now working for Judith S. Kaye , a former chief judge of the state, are trying to establish the overall nature of Mr. Paterson’s contacts with Ms. Booker. They have been told that the governor enlisted one state worker to persuade Ms. Booker to play down the incident at her Bronx apartment, and that he used his unwitting press secretary to try to get her to sign off on a prepared statement that said there had been no violence on the night of Oct. 31. Soon after the case got under way, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who is now a candidate to succeed Mr. Paterson, a fellow Democrat, recused himself from the inquiry and named Ms. Kaye to lead it. Speaking on behalf of Ms. Kaye on Tuesday, John Milgrim, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s testimony, or lack of it. A spokesman for the Commission on Public Integrity, Walter C. Ayers, also said he would have no comment, noting, “Our investigations are confidential.” The person with knowledge about Mr. Johnson, who insisted on anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said that Mr. Johnson had met separately with investigators in both inquiries and that each time he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against incriminating himself. In April, Mr. Michelen wrote about the Fifth Amendment on his blog , calling it the “safe harbor of the innocent” and “not the refuge of the guilty.” The blog item noted that he had recently represented a well-known R&B singer involved in an incident at a Louis Vuitton store. “The Manhattan D.A. had sought him for questioning and under our advice, he refused to answer any questions,” Mr. Michelen wrote. “The result — he was never arrested, never called to testify and never exposed to prosecution.” He added: “A notorious judge in Suffolk County, N.Y., used to have a huge stuffed fish behind his desk in his chambers. The plaque underneath read, ‘I’d be O.K. if I had just kept my big mouth shut.’ ” This month, Ms. Kaye said that she was “just plugging ahead” with the investigation, but declined to say more. Shortly after it was revealed that the State Police had intervened in Mr. Johnson’s domestic violence case, and that the governor himself had spoken with Ms. Booker, several senior administration officials resigned or retired, Mr. Johnson was suspended and Mr. Paterson ended his effort to win a full term.

Domestic Violence
Ethics
New York City
Johnson David W
Paterson David A
Fifth Amendment (US Constitution)
Government Employees
Kaye Judith S