When the Islanders Call, a Gritty Fourth-Line Wing Delivers

Abstract: UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Missing Kyle Okposo on their top line and scuffling to manufacture goals, the Islanders continue to win with the grit and determination embodied by their fourth line of center Casey Cizikas and wings Matt Martin and Colin McDonald. Two years ago, Cizikas, Martin and McDonald were especially effective for the Islanders in the playoffs against Pittsburgh, driving Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to distraction with their frenetic energy. All three players paid their dues at Bridgeport in the American Hockey League — McDonald again for most of this season — and their collective work ethic was on full display Tuesday against the Edmonton Oilers when Cizikas scored the winning goal after McDonald’s pass — while lying on the ice — to his linemate in front of the net. “He plays the Islander way, the team concept we talk about all the time, which is to bring energy and grind it,” Coach Jack Capuano said of McDonald, 30, a favorite among his teammates. “You do those things, and good things happen.” Positive outcomes have been emerging for the first-place Islanders throughout this renaissance year. Playing their final season at Nassau Coliseum before moving to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Islanders are orchestrating a memorable campaign with 36 victories in their first 55 games. Last season, they won only 34 times over all, finishing last in the Metropolitan Division. What is perhaps most impressive about the Islanders this season is their ability to rebound after several losses and turn the momentum in their favor. The Islanders lost four of their first six games without the injured Okposo, who has been sidelined since the All-Star break. They also faced new injuries to defenseman Calvin de Haan and forwards Michael Grabner and Cal Clutterbuck, a mainstay on the line with Cizikas and Martin before McDonald’s return. Clutterbuck returned against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday but played on a line with Nikolay Kulemin and Brock Nelson. With McDonald finally reinserted into the lineup after his fourth emergency recall from Bridgeport within a week, the Islanders have won three in a row heading into Saturday’s home game against Columbus. Another showdown looms Monday against the Rangers, a rival the Islanders have beaten three straight times this season. “For us, we have to get pucks in deep, grind it out, take the body and create chaos,” said Cizikas, 23, a speedy center who scored again on Thursday as the Islanders beat Toronto, 3-2. Martin, 25, a hard-nosed left wing, perennially leads the team in hits. He has seven goals to go with 82 penalty minutes. His game plan is clear every night. “You have to keep working hard and contributing,” said Martin, who was drafted by the Islanders in the fifth round in 2008. “A lot of what we do doesn’t really get noticed, but all three of us know where we’ll be on the ice. And we’ve had success together before. That really helps a lot.” Capuano even chose the unit to start against Edmonton, a move Martin credits for an extra dose of self-assurance. “Cappy puts a lot of confidence in us, that we can go out there with energy and start games the right way,” Martin said. “As long as we’re winning, that’s all that matters.” McDonald, with two goals and two assists during the three-game winning streak, has been eager to resume his role alongside Martin and Cizikas. After he scored against the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday, he was mobbed by celebrating linemates. The enthusiastic group hug was repeated after McDonald scored early against Edmonton and again in grander fashion when Cizikas netted the winner late in the third. McDonald does not shy away from speaking about how he chose striving instead of sulking when the Islanders waived him, then sent him to the A.H.L. in late October because of a surplus of forwards. McDonald turned his disappointment into productivity. “When they needed a call-up, I wanted to be that guy,” said McDonald, who had 35 points including 14 goals in 40 games with Bridgeport. “I understand my role is to play physical and be smart. I have my mind in the right place, always have, because this is what I love to do at this level or any level.” Amid the unpredictable nature of shifting rosters, McDonald wants to make sure the reunion remains intact with the grind of the stretch run ahead. “I used to take it one day at a time; now I take it one hour at a time,” he said.

Islanders
Casey Cizikas
Matt Martin
Colin McDonald
Ice hockey


Prosecutor Says Bump at Club Led to Shootings

Abstract: BOSTON — Aaron Hernandez, a former tight end for the New England Patriots, murdered two men in the summer of 2012 because one of them had accidentally bumped into him and spilled a drink while dancing in a Boston nightclub, a prosecutor charged Wednesday. Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan said a furious Hernandez soon left the nightclub with an acquaintance, pacing the sidewalk, trying to calm down. The prosecutor told a Suffolk County Superior Court magistrate that Hernandez, 24, thought others were continually “testing, trying or otherwise disrespecting him when he frequented nightclubs in the area.” The latest allegations came during Hernandez’s arraignment on two charges of first-degree murder and five other related charges stemming from the shooting deaths of two Cape Verdean immigrants, Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado, on July 16, 2012. Hernandez, who was in handcuffs for the 15-minute proceeding, pleaded not guilty to all seven charges. He is due in court again June 24. One of Hernandez’s lawyers, Charles Rankin, strongly objected to the prosecutor’s version of events, saying the charges were “wild and extravagant” and threatened to taint the jury pool. The trial magistrate, Gary Wilson, rebuked Rankin, saying readings of the charges were common in arraignments. Hernandez also has been charged with the murder of a former semipro football player, Odin Lloyd, in June 2013. The Patriots released Hernandez on June 26, 2013, the day he was arrested in connection with the Lloyd murder. Prosecutors have not said if the murders are related.

Boston
Aaron
Hernandez
Murders
Daniel Abreu
Safiro Furtado
Football
Odin Lloyd
Massachusetts


Democrats See Advantage in Payroll Tax Debate

Abstract: WASHINGTON — After struggling all year for an economic message that resonates broadly with Americans in hard times, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have settled on one they believe can carry through next year’s election as they use a fight over payroll taxes to portray Republicans as defenders of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. With Mr. Obama leading the charge in Washington and political swing states, Senate Democrats have put proudly antitax Republicans in the position of opposing a tax cut for more than 160 million mostly middle-class Americans because they object that it includes a tax on about 350,000 people, those with more than $1 million in annual taxable income. Votes late on Thursday left the issue at an impasse. The Senate voted 51 to 49 for Democrats’ measure to further reduce Social Security payroll taxes next year for both workers and employers and to impose the surtax, but the tally was short of the 60 votes needed. One moderate Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine , supported it. A Republican alternative, which would have extended the current more modest tax cut and slashed the federal payroll to pay for it, was rejected 78 to 20, with more than half of Republicans opposed. The maneuvering suggests that the parties will agree to some continued relief before the current payroll tax cut expires on Dec. 31. But how much of a cut and how — or if — it will be paid for remain to be settled, with some in both parties saying that the tax break would further weaken the Social Security system’s financing. But politically, Democrats believe that they have already won this latest skirmish in the message wars. And some exasperated Republicans acknowledge that they are losing the exchange; party leaders have worked this week to bring the rank and file in line behind the tax cut. Democrats have concluded from the payroll tax debate that Republicans are vulnerable over their opposition to any new taxes on the wealthy in a way they were not when Democrats proposed such taxes for deficit reduction. So they have reprised an old message — that Democrats fight for the middle class, Republicans for the rich — and are likely to sound it through 2012, in hopes of blunting the headwinds they face as unemployment remains high. “Tonight, Senate Republicans chose to raise taxes on nearly 160 million hard-working Americans because they refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share,” Mr. Obama said in a statement after the first Senate vote. It was the same message he delivered on Wednesday, in anticipation of the Senate action, both in speeches to a crowd in blue-collar Scranton, Pa., and later to affluent donors in New York. In Scranton, speaking as if to Republicans, he asked, “Are you willing to fight as hard for middle-class families as you do for those who are most fortunate? What’s it going to be?” Mr. Obama, in setting this debate in motion in September, when he introduced his job-creation plan, has tapped into the widespread sense of income inequality — fighting for “the 99 percent” — that gave rise to the Occupy Wall Street movement. But Democrats would not be in their current strong position but for the fact that Republicans, for the first time in memory, contested a tax cut and then insisted that the reductions be paid for. “This would have been unheard of even six months ago,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer , Democrat of New York. “But we are changing the debate, and the public is with us.” Mr. Schumer read to reporters from RedState.com , a Web site popular among conservatives, where a blogger, Erick Erickson, wrote, “I never thought I would see the day, but Democrats are outmaneuvering Republicans on a tax cut .” “Like clockwork, the G.O.P. is throwing the ball into the Democrats’ basket for them,” Mr. Erickson said. Republican leaders’ struggle this week to find a strategy that could unite their party reflected the political bind it is in. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans said the policies of Republicans in Congress favored the rich, a New York Times/CBS News poll found in October. In a memo to Senate Democrats last week, the party pollster Geoff Garin cited other recent surveys to argue that concern about income inequality and the perceived decline of the middle class is trumping the antigovernment fervor that defined last year’s Congressional midterm election and allowed Republicans to take control of the House. He said that sets up a 2012 election that is fundamentally different. “There is very broad support in the electorate for having millionaires pay more in taxes to help address the country’s needs,” Mr. Garin said. “The bottom line is, Republicans are on the wrong side of public opinion.” But David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises House leaders, noted that Mr. Obama continued to get low ratings for his handling of the economy. “How does this create jobs and grow the economy?” he said. “That’s the question people want answered. So whatever it is they’re saying, they need to think through, is it answering that question?” The answer is yes in the case of the payroll tax cut, Democrats say, citing economic forecasters. Reducing the employee’s share of payroll taxes from its current 4.2 percent to 3.1 percent — the tax is usually 6.2 percent — and extending it to employers would spur enough new consumer spending to add about 750,000 jobs, according to Moody’s Analytics. That assumes the tax cut is offset by the proposed surtax on millionaires, beginning in 2013. The one-year payroll tax cut and a separate tax credit that Democrats have proposed for small businesses that add workers would cost $265 billion, according to Congressional analysts. The surtax would raise $267.5 billion over 10 years. As the week began, Republicans opposed extending a payroll tax cut, according to Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona , the Senate’s No. 2 Republican leader. “The payroll tax holiday has not stimulated job creation,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We don’t think that is a good way to do it.” But by Tuesday, with some Republicans publicly taking issue with that stance, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky , the Republican leader, said his party would support an extension of the payroll tax cut — but not an expansion or small business credit and definitely not a surtax on millionaires. On Wednesday Republicans proposed to offset the $121.2 billion cost by freezing pay for federal civilian workers through 2015 and cutting the federal work force by 10 percent. “There’s no reason folks should suffer even more than they already are from the president’s failure to turn this jobs crisis around,” Mr. McConnell said. He and other Republicans say the surtax would hurt many “job creators” among small businesses. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner , citing a Treasury study, said less than 1 percent of taxpayers who would pay the surtax were small businesses.

Democrats
Payroll tax
Republicans
Income Inequality
Barack Obama
US Politics
2012 Presidential Election


Mike Davis, 68, Builder of Boats and Dreams, Dies

Abstract: Mike Davis, whose landlubber’s vision of one day gripping an oar and skimming a rowboat through the gentle chop of the Hudson River inspired something of a movement to reclaim New York’s waterways for recreational use, died in Manhattan on Monday. He was 68 and lived in Manhattan. The cause had not been determined, his brother, George, said. It was in March 1994 that Mr. Davis, along with several other rowing enthusiasts, founded the nonprofit group Floating the Apple . With grants from organizations like the Open Space Institute , the rowers began building 25-foot-long wooden replicas of the Whitehall gig, a four-oared craft. They worked in the lobby of the old McGraw-Hill building on West 42nd Street, then loaded their boats — each weighing 300 pounds — on hand-pulled carts and rolled them to the river. Sometimes students from Manhattan schools helped build the boats; sometimes neophyte seafaring families from the neighborhood did. Whitehall gigs are named for the Manhattan street where they were first built more than 250 years ago. George Washington used them to evacuate troops from Brooklyn during the Battle of Long Island, a surreptitious middle-of-the night operation on Aug. 29, 1776, that saved the Continental Army from destruction. Through the 1800s, they served as small ferries plying the harbor. Thirty gigs have been built by Floating the Apple. But Mr. Davis’s dream went far beyond the boats; he wanted to reclaim the Hudson, the Harlem and the East Rivers for, in his phrase, “universal public access.” As late as the 1930s, the Hudson had been dotted by 41 communal boathouses, where anyone could rent a boat. By the 1990s there was only one. In 1993, with pollution abating along the river, the Department of Parks and Recreation began creating launch sites and issuing permits for rowboats, canoes and kayaks. Mr. Davis saw the potential. “Mike had a kind of Johnny Appleseed vision in which Floating the Apple would spawn a series of spinoff boathouses and, in fact, that is pretty much what has happened,” said Rob Buchanan, president of the Village Community Boathouse , at Pier 40 in Hudson River Park, one of the spinoff groups. Others include the East River Crew , on East 96th Street; Rocking the Boat , in the South Bronx; WeeRow , in Weehawken, N.J.; and five others north of New York City. Floating the Apple is now located at Pier 84 in Hudson River Park . In 1998, Mr. Davis told The New York Times that his goal of letting people know that the city’s waterways were for recreation had largely been met. “People don’t ask us, ‘Isn’t the water polluted? Isn’t it dangerous? Aren’t there sea monsters out there?’ ” he said. “We just don’t get those kind of questions anymore.” Michael Kincaid Davis was born in Baltimore on Dec. 6, 1939, one of three children of Harry and Dorothy Feltner Davis. His father was a Coast Guard captain. He is survived by his brother and his mother. It was not his father’s Coast Guard career that sparked Mr. Davis’s nautical interest, but his own work as an anthropologist and archeologist. He graduated from Beloit College in 1964, then earned a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Oklahoma. He later worked with archeological teams from the University of Chicago. For many years, he worked at a dig in Turkey. “We have great water, but no one uses it very much,” Mr. Davis said of New York’s waterways in 1995. “In Istanbul, there are small boats everywhere. Anyone can rent a boat and row on the Bosporus. That’s the way it should be on the Hudson.”


Germany’s Top Court Strikes Down Federal Aid for Home Child Care

Abstract: BERLIN — Germany’s highest court ruled on Tuesday that it was illegal for the federal government to pay parents who chose to care for their toddlers at home, rather than send them to publicly subsidized day care, striking down a program that was touted by conservatives. The benefit, which was a touchstone issue even before it was made law in 2013, was envisioned as a way to encourage parents to remain home and raise their children, ages 15 months to 36 months, once maternity leave benefits expire. About 455,000 parents, mostly mothers, now receive the payments. But critics, who derisively referred to the program as the “stove bonus,” argued that it sent women the wrong signal by rewarding them for staying at home. Many educators also worried that the monthly payments of 150 euros, or $163, were most attractive to poorer, often immigrant, families whose children benefit most from early childhood education. The program was introduced by the Bavaria-only Christian Social Union that, together with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union , forms the conservative bloc in her governing coalition. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that families who care for their toddlers at home are not any more disadvantaged than those who send their toddlers to day care, and therefore could not be eligible for compensation from the federal government. “The child care subsidy was the wrong path because it encouraged families not to take advantage of the publicly supported day care and kept women, especially those with small children, out of the job market,” said Malu Dreyer, governor of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party that has long opposed the subsidy. The court decided, however, that each of the country’s 16 states could offer the payments to their citizens. Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union, vowed that his affluent state would continue to provide the benefit to parents who choose to care for their toddlers at home. “In Bavaria, in any case, we will still have the benefit for parents who stay at home,” Mr. Seehofer said, demanding that the federal government make the funding available to maintain payments. Germany has come a long way in making it easier to work while raising a family, stretching school hours into later in the day, overhauling parental leave and investing millions to expand the number of child care centers across the country. But it still lags behind much of Europe in providing sufficient, affordable child care for parents working outside the home. The Christian Democrats had argued that a subsidy offered parents a choice over how best to care for their children. The Social Democrats had argued that the money spent on the subsidy would be better used to continue expanding and improving public day care facilities. The government had earmarked €900 million to cover the benefit in this year’s budget. Government statics showed that nearly one in five parents who took advantage of the benefit in the first three months of 2015 came from an immigrant family. Educators said it meant that the children who most need exposure to the German language at an early age were not getting it. “This subsidy has clearly served as a false incentive,” Thomas Rauschenbach, an early-childhood education expert, told ARD public television. Among the strongest critics of the subsidy were single parents, who welcomed Tuesday’s ruling. “Single parents do not have any freedom of choice and can’t afford the luxury of staying at home,” said Solveig Schuster, head of the Association of Single Mothers and Fathers. “Instead they must be able to rely on well-funded and well-run day care centers.”

Germany
Child care
Children
Politics
Christian Social Union Germany
Christian Democratic Union Germany
Social Democratic Party Germany


Turkish President Says Women Shouldn’t Be Considered Equals

Abstract: ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday used an international conference on justice and rights for women to declare that women should not be regarded as equal to men and that pregnancy presented an obstacle to equal opportunity in the workplace. Mr. Erdogan also condemned feminists for rejecting motherhood. “You cannot put women and men on an equal footing,” Mr. Erdogan said in an address to the conference here, according to the semiofficial Anadolu news agency. “It is against her nature — because her nature is different, her bodily constitution is different.” The president, a Muslim who as prime minister until recently led the Islamic-inspired Justice and Development Party that controls the government, said that pregnancy and motherhood were sacred in Islam. Some forms of work, he cautioned, are unsuitable for women. “You cannot make women work in every job that a man works at, as in Communist regimes,” he said. “Give her a shovel and make her work — this cannot be. It would primarily be against her delicate nature.” Women’s rights activists stormed social media networks with furious responses to the address. “The Constitution, international agreements have all been crushed,” Fatma Aytac, a member of KA-DER, a women’s group, posted on Twitter. Ozlem Dalkiran, a human rights activist and advocate for gender equality in Turkey, said in an interview: “There is an apparent effort in changes made to the labor law to lock women indoors, and we should be aware of Erdogan’s constant threat against us. “What he misses, though, is that the women’s rights movement in Turkey is a very strong one, and his provocative statements are making us even stronger.” Turkey ranked 125th out of 142 countries in an assessment of gender equality in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2014. In his speech on Monday, Mr. Erdogan asserted that justice rather than equality was what women needed. His remarks reportedly received loud applause from members of the Women and Democracy Association, a conservative nongovernmental organization that sponsored the conference and whose board includes Sumeyye Erdogan, one of his daughters. As prime minister, a post he held until being elected president in August , Mr. Erdogan repeatedly called for Turkish women to bear at least three children. He wanted to limit cesarean sections, arguing that women who give birth that way usually cannot have more than one child. He also sought to abolish most abortions . All of those positions provoked an uproar among the country’s staunchly secular liberals. The president’s remarks on Monday came a week after he claimed that the Americas were discovered by Muslims at least 300 years before Columbus.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Pregnancy
Turkey
Women's rights,Feminism
Women and Girls
Discrimination


ISIS Bomb Aimed at Shiite Pilgrims in Iraq Kills at Least 80

Abstract: ERBIL, Iraq — At least 80 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims on their way home to Iran, were killed on Thursday when an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives at a roadside service station in southern Iraq, local officials said. The devastating attack came two days after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi applauded the security forces for protecting the millions of Shiites who have flowed through southern Iraq in recent days for what many consider the world’s largest religious pilgrimage, larger even than the hajj in Saudi Arabia. In years past, the annual rite known as Arbaeen, a commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a revered seventh-century Shiite figure, was a frequent target of Sunni extremist groups like the Islamic State and its predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq. Until the bombing on Thursday, for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility in a statement, the event had been carried out safely. That was seen as a success for Mr. Abadi and the military, and was hailed as a sign that the government could keep pushing a major offensive against the Islamic State in Mosul, while protecting pilgrims in the south. Thursday’s bombing, in Hilla, a city south of Baghdad, shattered that illusion. The Islamic State clearly remains a potent force, both on the battlefields of Mosul, where fighters are putting up a last stand against Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces in eastern neighborhoods, and in its ability to carry out more traditional guerrilla attacks. For nearly six weeks, tens of thousands of Iraqi security force members have been fighting in northern Iraq to retake Mosul , the country’s second-largest city and the last stronghold of the Islamic State in Iraq. Government forces have found themselves bogged down, fighting house to house in dense urban neighborhoods, and many civilians have been killed. A victory in Mosul could represent the end of the Islamic State’s control of territory in Iraq. But the bombing Thursday was a stark reminder that the group will most likely revert to its roots as a guerrilla insurgency and continue to carry out terrorist attacks across the country. The bombing was the deadliest in Iraq since an explosives-filled truck blew up near a shopping mall in Baghdad in July, killing at least 300 people in the worst terrorist attack in the capital since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. That attack alarmed American officials, who worry that efforts to help the Iraqis defeat the Islamic State in Mosul will be squandered if civilians around the country are terrorized by suicide bombings. In recent months, the United States has rushed intelligence advisers and new drones to Iraq to counter car bomb attacks in Baghdad and the south. Before Thursday’s bombing, there had been a noticeable decline in the numbers of attacks. Falah al-Khafaji, the head of the provincial security committee in Babil Province, where the bombing occurred, said that at least 80 people had been killed and that dozens more had been wounded. Mr. Khafaji said early reports suggested that the bomber had followed a bus of Iranian pilgrims and then detonated his explosives in a crowded parking lot at a gas station-restaurant complex, setting fire to a number of vehicles and fuel tanks. Another local official, Dr. Nowras Abdulrazak, the head of Babil’s health directorate, said on Thursday that his casualty toll was 75 people dead and 25 wounded. That number was likely to rise, he said. Most of the victims were Iranians, officials said, but it was unclear in the immediate aftermath of the attack exactly how many. Iranian state television, however, reported that a majority of the victims were Afghan citizens living in Iran. Iran is the region’s pre-eminent Shiite power, and millions of its citizens annually flock to Iraq, which is also majority Shiite, to visit important religious sites in the cities of Karbala and Najaf. The Islamic State said in a statement released after the attack that one of its fighters, an Iraqi man, had carried out the suicide bombing. The group vowed to spread the “flames” of the battles underway in Mosul to the Shiite-dominated south, according to a translation released by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist statements. The Islamic State considers Shiites apostates, and it has long carried out a campaign of sectarian killings in Iraq. In its statement, it called Shiites “miscreants” and said, “What awaits them in the immediate future, Allah permitting, is more sorrowful and bitter.” One of the people hurt in the bombing, Toma Muhan, 31, said on Thursday that just before the explosion, he parked his car at the service station. He was walking away when he was knocked to the ground. “I felt a strong blast at my back and then severe pain in my leg,” he said from a hospital bed, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds and burns to his neck and legs. “I remember hearing loud screaming, and then I passed out and woke up later at the hospital.” A local police officer, Col. Thamir Jhazala, said that the restaurant and gas station had opened recently, and that security was not good. He cited what he said was a lack of surveillance cameras. Numan al-Jibouri, who works at the station, said that Thursday was a day off for him, but that he had been nearby when the explosion occurred and rushed to the scene. “I heard the sound of a big explosion and saw the blaze rising up to the sky, followed by smoke,” he said. When he got to the scene, Mr. Jibouri said, he saw charred and unrecognizable victims, but he did recognize one: a man who works with him named Mohammed, who was severely burned. He rushed his colleague to the hospital, where he was being treated.

Bombs
Shiite
Iraq
Islam
Pilgrimage
Terrorism
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


Spain Teaches United States a Low-Cost Lesson

Abstract: FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Bob Bradley and the United States national team never made any secret of the fact that Saturday’s exhibition game against Spain was not as important as the game they will play against Canada on Tuesday. That could be a good thing — it will make the loss easier to forget. Spain, the World Cup champion, scored three times in 13 minutes in the first half, added a fourth goal from Fernando Torres after halftime and generally had its way in a 4-0 victory at Gillette Stadium. Despite playing with a lineup missing the playmaker Xavi and several other top players, Spain showed precision and skill that was worthy of its No. 1 ranking. “When you challenge yourself against the best teams, you have to accept that this is the way it’s going to be sometimes,” Bradley said. Spain could have had a half-dozen goals in the first half. It had a goal called back for being offside in the ninth minute, then hit the crossbar and the outside of the right post with shots before the game was 15 minutes old. “You don’t have enough players to mark everybody they throw at you,” goalkeeper Tim Howard said. “That’s why they’re so good. It’s difficult, but some days are like this.” The defeat was the Americans’ worst loss since a 5-0 thrashing against Mexico in the 2009 Gold Cup final. They hope to get back to the final of the Gold Cup, the regional championship, this month. With Saturday’s lesson out of the way, their tournament opener against Canada on Tuesday at Ford Field in Detroit can be their complete focus again. “If you let one game rock the whole boat, then you’re not much of a team,” Howard said. Bradley rested several starters, opting to begin the game with a younger lineup. Landon Donovan (illness) and the veteran defender Carlos Bocanegra did not play, and three other regular starters — Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey and Steve Cherundolo — did not come on until halftime. The Spanish moved the ball effortlessly, repeatedly turning seven or eight one-touch passes into scoring chances while the Americans sometimes needed two or three passes just to clear the ball out of the back line. When Spain had possession, the ball pinballed between the players at full speed until the strikers got it and scissored through the defense, causing havoc. The Americans seemed unable to slow them down. Midway through the first half, the crowd, sensing the Americans had weathered the worst of an early storm, chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!” Then the show really began. David Silva sliced through to the end line in the 28th minute and crossed back into the path of two unmarked teammates at the penalty spot. Santiago Cazorla reached the ball first and drove it past Howard for a 1-0 lead. Four minutes later, midfielder Xabi Alonso lofted a ball down the middle of the field over the head of central defender Oguchi Onyewu. Alvaro Negredo sprinted past Onyewu’s partner, Tim Ream, caught up to the ball outside the area and drilled it past Howard. The third goal was a carbon copy of the first, with Silva, Spain’s most dangerous player Saturday, cutting the ball back for Cazorla at the spot again. Ream was one of four American starters who entered the game with four caps or fewer. The inexperience showed early, and again when Torres slipped behind the defense in the 73rd minute and poked a shot inside the right post. “You learn more from these games than maybe from winning a game like that,” Ream said. “Obviously they’re the top team in the world and they’re going to do things that make you look silly.” The Americans did not take a shot until the 40th minute, when a collision on a header left Robbie Rogers with the ball at his feet in Spain’s penalty area. Suddenly alone, he pulled his left-footed attempt wide. The Americans’ most consistent tactic in the first half — long balls for Jozy Altidore and Juan Agudelo in the general direction of the central defensive pairing of Gerard Piqué and Raúl Albiol — was akin to trying to sneak an 85-mile-per-hour fastball past Alex Rodriguez. Bradley sent on five substitutes at halftime and a sixth after an hour, and they settled the game and won some possession. But Ream and left back Eric Lichaj played the entire match. Bradley praised Ream’s effort, calling it a learning experience. But when the final whistle blew, Ream stood motionless until Howard came over to offer a few words of encouragement. Ream looked as if he could use them.

Spain
United States
Soccer
Bradley Bob
Torres Fernando
Howard Tim


Wisconsin Has Avoided Arms Race in Recruiting

Abstract: INDIANAPOLIS — On Monday night, Wisconsin will face a team with at least eight former McDonald’s all-Americans for the second consecutive game. Asked how Wisconsin, which has zero former McDonald’s all-Americans, might beat Duke in the N.C.A.A. tournament final, as it did Kentucky in a semifinal, guard Josh Gasser referred to his fellow starter Bronson Koenig. “Bronson sent out a tweet a little while ago that said we have seven Wisconsin All-Stars and they don’t have any of those,” Gasser told reporters Sunday. It was a joke that also told the truth. Wisconsin’s success under Coach Bo Ryan — including appearances in the Final Four the last two years and a .742 winning percentage over 14 seasons since his arrival in 2001 — has occurred precisely because Ryan has focused on attracting less-heralded local talent as opposed to the nationally recognized players that the other top programs chase. What makes this remarkable and — to borrow Gasser’s point — a bit funny is that Ryan does not seem to have devised his strategy as a response to trends in college basketball. “I don’t think it’s deliberate,” said Pat Richter, the former Wisconsin athletic director who hired Ryan. “It’s just the way he’s always done it.” The Wisconsin-Kentucky semifinal Saturday night, which Wisconsin won, 71-64 , was billed as a clash of styles: the best offense in college basketball (Wisconsin) against the best defense (Kentucky). But much more significant was the collision between two overarching methods for trying to win championships, a clash that will be replicated when Wisconsin faces Duke. The most obvious way to build the best college basketball team is to recruit the best players, at which Kentucky Coach John Calipari excels. If five current Wildcats are drafted into the N.B.A. in the first round in June, no informed observer will bat an eye. Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski is not quite the recruiter Calipari is, but Duke boasts three freshmen who play significant minutes, two of whom will be high draft picks. National recruiting is a winner-takes-all economy, though. In an interview last month, no less than John Wall — the star guard for the Washington Wizards who, as a highly regarded prospect out of high school, played for Calipari at Kentucky for one season — said the increased prevalence of so-called one-and-dones had damaged parity. Image Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan has a .742 winning percentage over 14 seasons with a program built on less-heralded local talent. Credit Streeter Lecka/Getty Images “My year, you had a lot of teams that would dominate,” he said, referring to the 2009-10 season. “Now you have one dominant team a year, and a couple of others that are just O.K. It’s not the same as it used to be, in my opinion. A lot of guys were not doing one-and-done as much when I came in.” But Wisconsin does not participate in the chase. In Gasser, Wisconsin starts a fifth-year senior. Frank Kaminsky, winner of the Associated Press Player of the Year award, is a senior who steadily improved each year. The star forward Sam Dekker is a junior. Ryan does not run a charity for scrappy, underappreciated players. He wants the best players for his system, but his system favors a certain kind of player: He must be able to play all five positions on offense, or be willing to learn; on defense, he must limit fouls; and he must work on free-throw shooting and fundamentals. In practice, this means players who very likely will stay a few years to develop. These are players with chips on their shoulders. Players who are willing to adapt. It means, in other words, that Ryan is usually not chasing the prospects whom Calipari, Krzyzewski and many other top coaches are. Ryan’s ability to step back from the recruiting arms race and shape recruiting around his program also has the merit of reinforcing his system — the swing offense, his man-to-man defenses — which works because everyone understands that it is bigger than any one player. Otto Puls, 82, the Badgers’ official scorekeeper for 51 years, and Ron Rainey, 79, Ryan’s coach at Chester High School and Wilkes University, were hanging around the locker room Sunday, as if reminding the players that they are part of something much larger and durable. When a reporter suggested that Rainey coached Ryan, who is 67, as many as 40 years ago, Dekker corrected him: “50.” Dekker elaborated on what the system means to the team. “He’s not going to change for one person or one group of people,” Dekker said of Ryan. “He’s going to make you buy into it.” The assistant coach Greg Gard added that the continuity of Ryan’s system — which Gard first learned when he attended Ryan’s summer basketball camps in tiny Platteville in the 1980s — was “huge.” “We understand the culture,” he said. “We understand the philosophy, and we understand what works at Wisconsin.”

Bo Ryan
College basketball
Frank Kaminsky
Sports Drafts and Recruits
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness
NCAA
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Kentucky


Afghan Police Seek to Stop Illicit Trade in Uniforms

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — The police on Saturday ratcheted up enforcement on stores and tailor shops that illegally make and sell military and police uniforms after a string of attacks by insurgents dressed as Afghan service members that have cast suspicion on the country’s security forces. In the Kohan Froshi market, a sprawling open-air bazaar in downtown Kabul, teams of police officers made morning raids through the stalls, confiscating hundreds of uniforms, boots, badges, insignia and other military and police items, said Gen. Mohammad Ayoub Salangi, the police chief of Kabul Province. In addition to confiscating uniforms and equipment, the police issued stern warnings to shop owners, telling them that if they were caught again, they would face arrest. “We warned the people not to sell military uniforms and boots,” General Salangi said. Similar crackdowns were under way or about to start in the volatile southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, officials there said. A thriving trade in military clothing has existed for years. There is ample supply; soldiers and police officers often sell their extra uniforms to supplement their relatively low pay, and deserters also try to cash in. The demand is also high: pieces of contraband uniforms have become something of a fashion statement in a country that has lived with war and violence for decades. The authorities have periodically cracked down on the sales, fearing that some of the uniforms would be worn by militants hoping to impersonate security forces. But shopkeepers have generally waited out the crackdown and then returned to hawking an assortment of olive green and camouflage jackets and pants. Whether the latest round of enforcement will have more lasting effect remains to be seen, and government officials acknowledge that it will require stricter regulations that prohibit service members from selling their uniforms. While it is not certain that all the recent attacks were carried out by impostors in uniform, rather than Taliban who had covertly joined the security forces, NATO officials say that people pretending to be army and police officers are more of a problem than infiltrators. On Saturday, many tailors at the Kohan Froshi market denied that they were selling uniforms, saying that they were merely repairing them. The police crackdown, they said, was robbing them of their livelihoods. “I had eight pair of military uniforms that soldiers brought to me to be fixed, and the police took them,” said Gamaludin, a tailor, who like many Afghans goes by one name. “We’re all dependent on the soldiers,” said another tailor, Ghulam Hassan. “There are 50 or 60 shops here and they’re all breadwinners for their families, and if they get closed, what are they going to do?” A casual stroll through the bazaar an hour after the police operation provided ample evidence of the problem faced by the Afghan and coalition forces. At one stall, military badges and insignia hung at the entrance, and a police uniform and military cap were draped along the wall near the rear. When a reporter walked up, the shop owner quickly pulled down the badges, then insisted that the uniform was for display only. Around the corner, an Afghan Army lieutenant carrying a crisp new duffle bag filled with military clothing hopped from stall to stall. When a reporter caught up to him, he was handing two new military caps to a tailor, though it was unclear if he was trying to sell or buy them. As a reporter started to ask questions, the nervous-looking shop owner first said he was repairing the hats, then said to the lieutenant in Dari, “Tell him you’re buying these.” Asked what he was doing at the market with the duffle bag, the lieutenant said, “Just hanging around.” Several shop owners said soldiers and police officers and even their wives frequently visited the market to sell their new and used uniforms and equipment. “Just hang out in my shop, you’ll see them every day,” said Akhtar Gul, a fabric seller. “They sell their boots for 300 to 1,000 Afghanis, their A.N.A. uniforms for 500 Afghanis, their government-issued coats for 2,000 Afghanis.” The problem, Mr. Gul said, is that the military and the police had no method of accounting for used uniforms. “You should not be able to get a new uniform or boots unless you turn in the old ones,” he said. General Salangi said officers were typically issued three sets of uniforms and were required to turn in their old ones before being issued replacements. Up to now, he said, enforcement of the rules has been lax. “From now on we will make this rule more strict,” he said. Mohammad Akim, the only shop owner in the market licensed to sell and repair army and police uniforms, said that on any given day, 30 or 40 shops in the market sell them. “People steal it from bases, or deserters come in and sell their uniforms,” he said. Even as the crackdown started, seven insurgents wearing Afghan Army uniforms ambushed two police vehicles on Saturday outside Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province. Two police officers were killed and two others were wounded, Afghan officials said. The officers were on their way to Jalalabad from the Dar-e-Noor District to pick up their chief, said Amir Mohammad, a provincial council member. About 30 miles outside the city, they saw what looked like a military checkpoint where vehicles were being stopped. When they rolled up, the men dressed in army uniforms opened fire, Mr. Mohammad said. On April 15, a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform infiltrated the police headquarters in Kandahar and killed the province’s much-revered police chief and two officers. The next day, a bomber in an Afghan Army uniform carried out a similar attack at a military base in Lagham Province, killing five NATO service members, an American contractor and four members of the Afghan security force. And on Monday, a would-be suicide bomber in an Afghan Army uniform opened fire inside the heavily fortified Ministry of Defense headquarters in downtown Kabul, killing two soldiers. He was killed before he could detonate his vest. The attacks have stoked concerns about Taliban infiltration of Afghanistan ’s national security forces just as they are preparing to take over security responsibilities from NATO in several parts of the country this summer, and in all of it by the end of 2014. The Taliban rushed to take credit for the attacks on the government compounds, claiming they had “many youths” already inside the army and the police. But NATO intelligence officials say there is little evidence to suggest widespread infiltration. They believe that, for now, impersonation, which is made possible by the easy availability of equipment and uniforms, poses a more substantial threat. The lesson appears to be taking hold among police officials, who in addition to cracking down on uniform sales have also become more wary of their fellow officers. In Helmand on Friday, the police arrested six people suspected of being insurgents who were driving in an Afghan National Police truck on their way to Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Three of them were wearing police uniforms. The rest were in civilian clothes, said Abdul Hakim Angaar, the provincial police chief. Explosives were also found in the vehicle, Mr. Angaar said. “They were on the way to target officials and people working for foreign institutions in Lashkar Gah,” Mr. Angaar said. “Luckily the terrorists were arrested.”

Police
Uniforms
Afghanistan
Afghanistan War (2001- )
Defense and Military Forces


With Aly Raisman

Abstract: Aly Raisman, the gymnast who won a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics for the floor routine she performed to “Hava Nagila,” was in Jerusalem to light the torch for the July 18 opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games, the international Jewish sporting competition held every four years in Israel. At the London Games, Raisman was the captain of the United States women’s team, which won a gold medal, and she added an individual bronze on the balance beam. She dedicated her individual floor routine to the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches killed by Palestinians at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Raisman became a beloved figure in the Israeli news media. After the Olympics, Raisman, a 19-year-old from Needham, Mass., went on tour with other Olympic and elite gymnasts and competed on “Dancing With the Stars.” ALYZA SEBENIUS Q. How much longer do you expect to compete? A. Hopefully, I’ll be at the next Olympics. I’m going to begin training again in a few weeks, so I’m hoping to be back again next August for the nationals, and that’s how you qualify for the national team and then go on to compete at world championships. Q. After a year without training, are you nervous to start again? A. Of course I’m nervous, because I’ve never had a break from gymnastics. Having the whole year off and doing so many different things and going back into such strict training — I’m excited to get back into the gym, and I know it will be probably even harder than it was last time, if that’s even possible. Q. Was this your first trip to Israel? A. Yes. Q. What were your impressions? A. I think it’s a very beautiful country. I love how every place you go to has a story. I loved being part of the Maccabiah Games and being in the opening ceremonies and being able to light the torch. Image Aly Raisman at the 2012 London Olympics, leading the U.S. team to a gold medal. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Q. What is the best place you have visited there? A. Masada was really cool. The view was unlike anything else. I got to ride a camel two days ago, which was awesome. Q. How did preparing routines for “Dancing With the Stars” compare with preparing gymnastics routines? A. It’s like comparing tennis to ballet. They’re just so different. You have to get used to dancing in heels and dancing with someone else. Every dance has different techniques. Some weeks you’re learning three to four dances a week, so it’s a lot. And it’s also like you want to do a good job for your partner because it’s a reflection on him. Q. Do you have a favorite place to visit? A. I’d say I love my house in Cape Cod. When I was training, I would train all week, and then Saturday afternoon after practice, I would go there for like a day and a half, and that was kind of like my place to just relax and get away. I remember on my 19th birthday, I was there. It was literally the day after I got back from “Dancing With the Stars.” We went right to the Cape. It was the first time in months that I was just relaxed and by myself, not having to deal with paparazzi or being filmed or anything. Q. Which athletes do you look up to? A. I live in Boston, so I love going to Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox and Bruins games. But of course, Michael Phelps, I think he’s absolutely amazing. Usain Bolt. Q. Who else inspires you? A. I love Princess Kate. I met her in London. I think she’s just so beautiful and so amazing. One of my favorite things about her is that she’ll repeat her outfits. It just shows how down to earth she is. Q. Were you ever in the Maccabiah Games? A. No, never. I was going to do it when I was 12, but it conflicted with the U.S.A. competition. Q. Is there anything that has surprised you about the reception you have received in Israel? A. When I was at the Olympics, I never expected to get so much love and support from everyone. I just kind of took it as another competition and just another routine that I’ve done a million times. Even from lighting the torch here, I’ve been recognized a lot more, so it’s really amazing. You know, the Olympics were almost a year ago, so to be recognized, it’s very crazy and I definitely didn’t expect it.

Aly Raisman
Gymnastics
Israel
2012 Summer Olympics


Marco Rubio Casts U.S., and Himself, as Strong Leader

Abstract: Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and a 2016 presidential candidate, offered a robust and muscular foreign policy plan Wednesday, laying out his vision for the use of American power in the 21st century. Mr. Rubio’s plan consists of three main pillars — ensuring American strength; protecting the American economy in a globalized world; and preserving America’s core moral values — and seems designed to distinguish himself as a hawk in a crowded primary field, where foreign policy is certain to play a central role. “The deterioration of our physical and ideological strength has led to a world far more dangerous than when President Obama entered office,” Mr. Rubio said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “Today, as never before, foreign policy is domestic policy.” Mr. Rubio’s stances on a range of issues, from Mr. Obama’s decision to begin normalizing relations with Cuba ( which Mr. Rubio opposes ) to reauthorizing the U.S.A. Patriot Act (which Mr. Rubio supports), seem in part influenced by his experience as the son of Cuban immigrants. In his speech, Mr. Rubio also said he would “adequately fund” and modernize the armed forces; return military spending to the higher levels from the 2012 budget; push for the fast-track trade deal authorization currently before Congress; and call “the source of atrocities in the Middle East by its real name — radical Islam.” What Marco Rubio Would Need to Do to Win Mr. Rubio will try to position himself as a next-generation conservative who can unite the Republican Party. Mr. Rubio, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Intelligence Committees, has used his time in the Senate to burnish his foreign policy credentials. But his hawkish stances could also help endear him to a Republican base that may already be skeptical of Mr. Rubio because of his involvement in a failed attempt to overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. And his foreign policy views could also set him apart from some of his potential 2016 Republican rivals, especially Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has long advocated a more isolationist approach. Lanhee Chen, the policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, said that Mr. Rubio’s robust foreign policy vision is “a great fit for the policy and political environment we are in right now.” During the question-and-answer portion of his remarks, Mr. Rubio said that there was little difference between his view and that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on the threat posed by Iran — except that Mr. Netanyahu “lives a lot closer to them than I do.” And he said he does not believe a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians is realistic. “That’s the ideal outcome, but the conditions for a two-state solution at this moment do not exist,” he said. Who Is Running for President? Donald J. Trump officially accepted the Republican party's nomination on July 22. Hillary Clinton was officially nominated on July 26 at the Democratic Convention. He also attacked the Democratic front-runner for 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton. “We simply cannot afford to elect as our next president one of the leading agents of this administration’s foreign policy — a leader from yesterday whose tenure as Secretary of State was ineffective at best and dangerously negligent at worst,” he said. “She was the chief architect and spokesperson of a foreign policy that will go down in history as a disaster,” he added. Mr. Rubio’s critics, both Democrats and Republicans, say that the Florida senator is simply trying to reinvent himself as a foreign policy hawk for political purposes. American Bridge, the Democratic opposition research group, released a memo Wednesday criticizing Mr. Rubio’s foreign policy experience . “His lackluster foreign policy résumé is a good reminder that Rubio’s shift to ultra-hawk has been sloppy at best,” wrote Brad Woodhouse, the group’s president. In previous years, Mr. Rubio had seemed to be more closely aligned with the Obama administration on some key issues. On Syria, Mr. Rubio originally advocated arming the Syrian rebels. But when a resolution to approve the use of military force against the Syrian regime came before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in late 2013, Mr. Rubio voted against the measure. He argued that the president had led from behind, waiting too long to intervene, and he could not support limited airstrikes from which the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, might emerge even stronger. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in 2012, Mr. Rubio said that when it came to a nuclear Iran, “I don’t want to come across as some sort of saber-rattling person, because I’m not.” “I am in line with what the administration has said, which is ultimately a military option may be necessary if everything else fails,” he said at the time. But this month, Mr. Rubio was one of the administration’s biggest irritants, when he tried to attach a so-called poison pill amendment — which would have required Iran to recognize Israel as a precondition for any nuclear deal — to bipartisan legislation that would have given Congress a voice in any Iran deal. Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, who is advising Mr. Rubio and other Republican presidential hopefuls, said that if Mr. Rubio sounds harsher, it is only because the Obama administration has made more foreign policy missteps. “I would argue that Rubio hasn’t really changed his position that much — the rhetoric is tougher because the failures are clearer,” Mr. Abrams said. “The administration has changed, not Rubio.”

Marco Rubio
Republicans
2016 Presidential Election
US Foreign Policy


Filmmakers Embrace Reality, on the High Seas and Beyond

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Capt. Richard Phillips was bobbing in a boat full of Somali pirates on the Indian Ocean four years ago when Hollywood recognized an Oscar moment. Film producers who were glued to the news sensed the stuff of next-wave nonfiction — an action hero, in a real-life global drama. Things turned out well, from a cinematic point of view: Navy SEALs flew to the rescue, three of the pirates were shot dead, and Captain Phillips was freed unharmed. The resulting movie, “Captain Phillips,” directed by Paul Greengrass, will arrive in October with Tom Hanks in the title role. It is one of a dozen nonfiction narratives that are promising to shake up the coming awards season, and perhaps to reinvent a reality-based movie genre that only a few years ago seemed moribund. While Hollywood still loves the summer escape movie, sophisticated real-life dramas are filling up the latter part of the year, attracting top-flight stars and directors and finding a niche with audiences continually wired into unfolding news events. Almost everybody knows something about the tales behind the new films, giving them a recognition factor that serves as a built-in marketing motor. “The story already exists, everybody around the table says, ‘Yeah!’ ” Mr. Hanks said in an interview, describing the current preference of studio executives as they sift through scripts and proposals. Image “The Fifth Estate,” with Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange. Credit Frank Connor/Dreamworks Studios, via Associated Press Hollywood is quick to adopt a winning formula, and the critical and box office success of films like “The Social Network” and “Moneyball” has proved that reality-based narratives can make money and win awards — something beyond the ability of most blockbusters. At the same time, executives and film historians say, media fragmentation has made studios more wary of jumping into purely fictional drama, because they can no longer rely on best-selling novels, original stage shows, or the even the reputation of master filmmakers to supply a mass audience. “It’s quite possible that we’re in a golden age for this type of film, and we’re just not aware of it yet,” said Robert Birchard, editor of the American Film Institute catalog of feature films. Since long before Gary Cooper played Lou Gehrig in “The Pride of the Yankees” (released in 1942), the nonfiction genre has tended to “come and go,” Mr. Birchard noted. It seemed to be fading in early 2010, when a 3-D fantasy, “Avatar,” was all the rage, and — despite the real underpinnings of fictions like “An Education” and “The Hurt Locker” — only one nonfiction film, “The Blind Side,” figured among 10 best picture nominees at the Academy Awards. But “The Social Network,” which got eight Oscar nominations in 2011, set the film world abuzz with its close examination of Facebook and its founders — even as an old-style historical drama, “The King’s Speech,” took the top honors that year. Then, three inventive, reality-based dramas — “Argo,” “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty”— unexpectedly turned the last Oscar contest into a rousing political brawl. This year, nonfiction is back with a vengeance, beginning Friday with the national release of “Fruitvale Station,” by the Weinstein Company, about the 2009 shooting of a young man by an Oakland transit officer. Some of the more notable entries that follow will focus on events or people still prominent in the public consciousness: “The Fifth Estate,” about the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, from the director Bill Condon; Jobs,” about the Apple founder Steve Jobs, from Open Road; and “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” from the Weinstein Company. Image “Jobs,” with Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs. Credit Sundance Institute, via Associated Press Others examine subjects in both the recent and distant past, including “Rush,” about the Formula One racers Niki Lauda and James Hunt, from Ron Howard; “Twelve Years a Slave,” about the 19th-century abduction of Solomon Northup, by Steve McQueen; and “The Monuments Men,” about those who saved great art from destruction by Hitler, with George Clooney, who directed, in a starring role. Nonfiction is erupting not just because of its marketing power, but also because filmmakers are using reality with increased sophistication. That can involve an unusual amount of original investigation, as with “Zero Dark Thirty,” or a detail-minded approach that might have been jarring before cellphone cameras turned everyday life into one, big documentary. “Captain Phillips” is a case in point. In recent interviews, Mr. Hanks, Mr. Greengrass and the writer of “Captain Phillips,” Billy Ray, described how they turned the complicated, and sometimes controversial, story of the April 2009, pirate attack on the freighter Maersk Alabama into a stripped-down drama. Within days of the first news reports, Captain Phillips, who became a hostage when the pirates backed out of an exchange deal, was safely aboard an American destroyer, and one watchful producer, Dana Brunetti, was off to New York in pursuit of rights. Mr. Brunetti and a business partner, the actor Kevin Spacey, soon cornered the story over dinner with the captain. At Sony Pictures, the pair aligned with Michael De Luca and Scott Rudin, with whom they were then producing “The Social Network.” As the film came together, unusual choices followed, driven largely by Mr. Greengrass’s belief that “the culture thirsts for authenticity.” He decided to cast four unknown Somalis as the pirates, pitting their sheer believability against the star power of Mr. Hanks. The four had showed up together for an open casting call. Image From left, Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in “The Pride of the Yankees” (1942), and Gehrig at bat in 1935. Fact-based movies wax and wane in popularity. Credit RKO/Phtofest; Associated Press “They knew each other,” Mr. Greengrass said. “You’re always more comfortable with your mates.” The hiring choice, he added, was intended to humanize the pirates and their leader, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, who survived but is now serving a prison term in the United States. Bucking a post-Sept. 11 trend, Mr. Ray, meanwhile, argued against telling a political tale, as Mr. Greengrass did with his 2010 film, “The Green Zone,” about the failed hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “I always felt this was in some way a cop story, a crime story that had no politics to it at all,” said Mr. Ray, who put aside Mr. Greengrass’s concern that the SEALs’ final decision to shoot the pirates was less a triumph than a failure of diplomacy. A pending legal dispute involving claims that Captain Phillips had ignored warnings to keep a safer distance from Somalia does not figure directly in the film, which became closely focused on the personal conflict between two very different men, Captain Phillips and the pirate Mr. Muse. By all accounts, it was Mr. Hanks who advised some final surgery that eliminated scenes — portraying media frenzy, and family hand wringing — that audiences might have recognized from one of his earlier films. “I might have said, ‘Are we going to do an ‘Apollo 13’ redux here?’ ” Mr. Hanks recalled. He referred to the 1995 film, directed by Mr. Howard, about the return of a crippled Moon flight. It received nine Oscar nominations but traded on home-front moments that Mr. Hanks thought would be too familiar for viewers in a completely wired world. So none of that appears in “Captain Phillips.” Instead, the final product is an unusually austere action film that peaks with an improvised scene in which a real Navy medic examines Mr. Hanks, exactly as she would any other damaged sailor. “There was lots of blood on him, and feces and urine,” Mr. Hanks said, describing the real Captain Phillips as he was whisked into an exam that Mr. Hanks re-enacted. “Paul’s willingness to do this quite frankly blew me away,” Mr. Hanks said of the impromptu scene.


A Patent Is Worth Having, Right? Well, Maybe Not

Abstract: PATENTS are supposed to give inventors an incentive to create things that spur economic growth. For some companies, especially in the pharmaceutical business, patents do just that by allowing them to pull in billions in profits from brand-name, blockbuster drugs. But for most public companies, patents don’t pay off, say a couple of researchers who have crunched the numbers. “Today, over all, patents don’t work; for the information technology industry especially, they don’t work,” said James Bessen, who became a lecturer at Boston University’s law school after a career in business. In 1983, he created the first computer publishing software with Wysiwyg (an acronym for “what you see is what you get”) printing abilities. He also founded a desktop publishing company, Bestinfo, later acquired by Intergraph. Neither Mr. Bessen nor his company patented anything, in part because his lawyers told him that software couldn’t be patented at the time. He ultimately became interested in whether patents spurred innovation, since the software industry for years innovated steadily without using many patents. He and a colleague, Michael J. Meurer, are readying a book on the topic, “Do Patents Work?,” due in 2008. (A synopsis and sample chapters are at researchoninnovation.org/dopatentswork /.) The two researchers have analyzed data from 1976 to 1999, the most recent year with complete data. They found that starting in the late 1990s, publicly traded companies saw patent litigation costs outstrip patent profits. Specifically, they estimate that about $8.4 billion in global profits came directly from patents held by publicly traded United States companies in 1997, rising to about $9.3 billion in 1999, with two-thirds of the profits going to chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Domestic litigation costs alone, meanwhile, soared to $16 billion in 1999 from $8 billion in 1997. Things have probably become worse since then. For instance, patent litigation is up: there were 2,318 patent-related suits in 1999, and 2,830 in fiscal 2006 (though that’s down from the peak year, 2004, when 3,075 were filed). Mr. Bessen said awards in patent cases also seemed to be up, though he was less confident in that data. Worse, he says, companies doing the most research and development are sued the most. Mr. Bessen’s critique of the patent system does not go so far as that of economists like Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, who argue that the patent system should be abolished ( http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm ). Mr. Bessen said that besides girding the pharmaceutical industry, the system did seem to work reasonably well for small companies and individual inventors. Still, he said that “our finding is that the risk of patent litigation is creating a disincentive for R&D,” especially for information technology companies, and that the system urgently needs change. Mr. Bessen’s data is controversial. John F. Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University, thinks that Mr. Bessen and Mr. Meurer have undervalued the profits made from patented items, though he acknowledged that a vast majority of patents are worthless. Mr. Duffy, who thinks that the patent system remains a powerful innovation engine for the economy, also noted that the data covers only the private value of patents — it does not try to measure the social value of patents, that is, the impact an invention has for society at large. How, for example, might one measure the value of the stability of an airplane, which can be traced to an invention patented by the Wright Brothers? Still, Mr. Duffy does not discount the research. In fact, he has invited Mr. Meurer to present it at a conference later this summer. “The numbers are serious, and they are provocative,” Mr. Duffy said. The data don’t seem out of line to R. Polk Wagner, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He said that other research has established that patents typically are worth less than $10,000. “It’s not any secret that on a cash basis, it doesn’t make sense to file patents, and yet companies do it,” Mr. Wagner said. Some companies are still spending billions on research programs despite the increase in litigation costs. “Whether or not the R&D efforts you make invite litigation in no way relates to whether you do them,” said Bernard S. Meyerson, an I.B.M. fellow who is named on more than 40 patents and is currently chief technologist at its systems and technology group. I.B.M. has one of the corporate world’s largest research budgets, spending some $6 billion a year. And it does make money from its patents, at least on a licensing basis. Of course, I.B.M. also employs 370 corporate patent lawyers who Mr. Meyerson said work “hand in hand” with the company’s inventors, trying to make sure that the company is aware of patent pitfalls that might affect its work. I.B.M. and many other large high-tech companies have hefty patent portfolios, which Mr. Meyerson said deters the companies from suing one another. He said the industry operates under a large intellectual-property umbrella: “you are licensed under mine, I’m licensed under yours, and by declaring peace as opposed to war, you have freedom of action,” Mr. Meyerson said. Even so, he said I.B.M. is concerned that innovation could be choked by patent litigation and would like to see the system reformed. Congress could step in, and there are patent reform bills in the House and the Senate, with many of the provisions aimed at reining in litigation and damage awards. But this marks the third consecutive year that Congress has considered patent reform, and there is enough opposition from large companies to suggest that it will again have to wait until next year. There are other paths to change: the United States Patent and Trademark Office could open patent applications to public comment, which could help patent examiners find applicable previous inventions. The office in June began a yearlong experiment allowing open comment on 250 patent applications ( www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/07-21.htm ). The Web is already ahead of the patent office: a site called wikipatents ( www.wikipatents.com ) has created an open comment process for several years’ worth of patent applications. ANOTHER might be to increase the number of appeals courts that handle patent cases. Right now, there is only one, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, may have helped the system immensely with a ruling in June that should stiffen the standard of “obviousness,” the key criterion in granting a patent. Tougher standards may weed out many bad patents and reduce litigation. But technological inventions are often not obvious, especially when it comes to the esoteric world of software, where it can be unclear even to the inventor what the patent will be good for. Mr. Bessen, for one, is not optimistic. “Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better for the technology industry,” he said. If he’s correct, it will become harder to question his economic analysis of the current patent system.

Inventions and Patents
Computers and the Internet
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)


Facing a Challenge, a Tar Heel Responds

Abstract: PISCATAWAY, N.J. — After two seasons in which Danny Green made only modest contributions, North Carolina Coach Roy Williams figured Green was capable of more. So he challenged Green and told him it was time for him to become a key figure for the Tar Heels. “I told him in the spring and every time I saw him this summer that he had a chance to be extra important to our team and that I hoped he was working hard to make that realistic,” Williams said recently. It appears that Green was listening. Green, who had 12 points in North Carolina’s 93-71 victory against Rutgers on Sunday at the Louis Brown Athletic Center, is among the reasons the Tar Heels are 9-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country. He entered the game averaging 14 points, more than double his 2006-7 average (5.2). He is the Tar Heels’ third-leading scorer. With 11 minutes 42 seconds left in the first half Sunday, Green sustained a gash over his right eye while contesting a layup by Mike Coburn. The cut required stitches, and though Green eventually return to the game, he missed most of the first half. Green, who is from North Babylon, N.Y., on Long Island, has had a breakout season despite some problems affecting his family, which includes his brother Rashad, a freshman guard at Manhattan. Green’s father, Danny Sr., was arrested in 2006 after he was suspected of being part of a cocaine-distribution ring and is still in jail. He has maintained his innocence. “That’s something I’m able to put aside when I play,” Green said. “I don’t think about it. I just play. In the past, it has been a factor and something I thought about. It was fresh in my mind right after it happened. But I’ve gotten over that and got used to the situation. I’ve been able to put it behind me.” Williams said he admired Green for how he had handled the situation. “No one knows what that youngster’s gone through,” he said. “But he’s handled it incredibly well.” Green communicates with his father through letters and has kept him abreast of his season. Before the season began, Williams told Green he needed to work on his shot selection and cut down on the mistakes he had been making on the court. Green has made it work, making 56.3 percent of his shot attempts from the field (he went 5 for 7 on Sunday). Last season, he was a 41.1 percent shooter. He had scored 19 and 20 points in North Carolina’s previous two games, hitting 17 of 23 shots. Green seems to be growing more confident. “It’s a chicken-or-the-egg thing,” Williams said. “Which came first? Last year, the ball didn’t go in the basket as much for him. So, he wasn’t confident. Now is it going in because he’s more confident or is he more confident because he’s playing more?” Still, Green has not worked his way into the starting rotation. He has never started a game at North Carolina. But he is averaging 20.2 minutes and is contributing. Williams said that was what really mattered. “It’s extremely important to play,” Williams said. “It’s not extremely important to have your name introduced. Danny has figured that out.” It was a busy day for the Green brothers. Three hours before the Rutgers-North Carolina game tipped off, Rashad Green was busy playing for Manhattan, a 71-66 winner against Princeton. Green had 16 points and 7 rebounds. He made the 20-mile trip to Piscataway from Princeton in time to watch most of his brother’s game. The game was not close for much of the way. North Carolina had a 47-26 lead at the half and cruised. North Carolina was led by Ty Lawson, who had 26 points. The leading scorer for Rutgers (7-4) was Corey Chandler, who had 23. North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough left the game with 5:47 left after apparently banging his head on a courtside camera after contesting a Hamady Ndiaye dunk attempt. Hansbrough lay on the floor for a few minutes before rising and walking off to the North Carolina locker room. Williams said Hansbrough sustained a concussion. “I was pretty dizzy and still am a little dizzy, but I’ll be fine,” Hansbrough said.

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey


A.I.G. Unit and a French Bank Settle a Lawsuit

Abstract: Crédit Lyonnais, a French bank, will pay $150 million to settle a suit filed by the American International Group ’s SunAmerica unit over its 1993 investment in a California insurance company that the French bank had illegally acquired. AIG Retirement Services, formerly SunAmerica, and Crédit Lyonnais, filed a settlement agreement in federal court in Los Angeles. The A.I.G. unit sued a group of French companies including Crédit Lyonnais in 2005, saying that it was defrauded when it bought a 33 percent stake in the insurer, New California Holdings, because it did not know that the French owners, a group led by MAAF Assurances, were a front for Crédit Lyonnais. At the time, the French bank could not own an insurer under United States law. New California is the restructured successor of Executive Life, which was taken over by the state of California after it had become insolvent and was later sold to the MAAF group. France, on behalf of Credit Lyonnais, paid $600 million to settle claims the bank misled regulators by not disclosing it was the true owner of Executive Life. Credit Agricole SA bought Credit Lyonnais in 2003.

American International Group Inc
Credit Lyonnais Sa
SunAmerica Inc
Suits and Litigation
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


As Europe Moves Aggressively Against Terrorism, New Challenges Emerge

Abstract: BERLIN — After a series of police raids and a deadly gun battle, arrests of terror suspects in Belgium, Germany and France late Thursday and Friday highlighted the scope and complexity of the challenge facing European intelligence agencies and security services in confronting the expanding threat from radical jihadists, many of them battle-hardened in Syria and Iraq. On Friday alone, the Belgian authorities announced that 13 people had been detained nationwide after two men suspected of planning an imminent attack were shot dead by the police in the eastern town of Verviers on Thursday evening. The authorities in France reported 12 detentions, and 250 police officers in Berlin swooped down on 12 locations to detain five Turks — three of whom were later released — on suspicion of recruiting, financing and helping Turkish and Chechen fighters get to Syria. There was no public indication that the raids in Belgium and Germany were directly linked to the attacks last week in Paris, in which 17 people were killed and the three gunmen, all professing allegiance to militant groups, were shot dead by the police. The authorities in Paris said the 12 people detained there overnight might have belonged to a previously undetected cell that supported one of the gunmen in the Paris attacks. The combination of the raids in three countries suggested a new willingness on the part of the authorities across Europe to act more aggressively and pre-emptively to head off potential threats. Just before millions of people gathered to march in France last Sunday in defiance of the attacks, the interior ministers of 11 European countries huddled quietly in Paris to draw up measures to combat potential threats — in particular, officials said, more vigilance against radical material on the Internet and social media; more intense swapping of data among governments, especially no-fly lists; and a crackdown on illegal sales of weapons. “The threat has increased,” said Rob de Wijk, director of The Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands, pointing to the sharp increase in arrests for religion-inspired terrorism, which Europol statistics show rose to 216 arrests in 2013 from 110 in 2009. Even as governments are ramping up their counterterrorism efforts, though, they are igniting a growing debate about whether they are going too far, too fast, and are at risk of sacrificing civil liberties as they scramble to intensify security. The trade-offs are not always easy to discern at a time when there is clear evidence of a threat from a small but potentially dangerous group of residents of their own countries. American intelligence agencies have estimated that 18,000 foreigners, including 3,000 Europeans and other Westerners, have traveled to Syria and Iraq since the fight in the region broke out in 2011. Of those, more than 500 veterans of the fighting are estimated to have returned to Europe, according to research by Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence officer. The three gunmen in the Paris attacks, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, had all been monitored at various points by French law enforcement and intelligence agencies but were nonetheless able to plan and execute attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket . The handling of their cases has prompted widespread debate about whether Europe has adequate resources to track not just citizens traveling to and from Syria but a broader group of radicalized Muslims who could be potential threats to act alone or in loose affiliation with militant groups like the Islamic State and offshoots of Al Qaeda. Security agencies are clamoring for more money and powers to keep up. Germany, which was shocked to learn that Arabs at a Hamburg mosque played a key role in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has so far escaped a major assault. But, as Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday when outlining government moves to avert more terrorism, “we cannot completely rule out an attack on Germany.” The authorities here said Friday that some 600 people had headed from Germany to Syria and Iraq, with at least 180 now returned. At least 30 of those have battle experience, the German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said. Others are “brutalized” by their experience, said Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service. As far as possible, he said, they are watched. Early Friday, the German authorities moved to detain the five Turks in Berlin suspected of abetting terrorism on the grounds that it was too dangerous to leave them at large. “We were afraid that these people will flee and had to rush in,” said Martin Steltner, spokesman for the Berlin state prosecutor’s office. Three of the five were released. All five had ties to a Berlin mosque where one of the two men who remained in custody, a 41-year-old Turk, acted as an “emir” linked to terrorism, the police said. Mr. Steltner said the action had long been prepared and had no link to the Paris attacks. In Belgium, Eric Van Der Sypt of the federal prosecutor’s office said several of the people arrested had been in Syria, but he declined to say whether they included the two people shot to death in Verviers on Thursday. He said the arrests there were to head off “plans to assassinate policemen in the street,” or at a police station. In Verviers, the authorities found several police uniforms, walkie-talkies, radios, falsified documents and weapons including four AK-47s. In Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, on the outskirts of Brussels, the authorities found a firearm, ammunition and a knife. As the sun set over Verviers on Friday evening, heavily armed police officers stood guard on the street where the deadly raid took place in a section of town that borders a relatively well-to-do district. The red brick building where the shootout took place lies in the middle of one of the short slopes that characterize many of the streets in towns in the hilly southeast of Belgium, but its windows were boarded up and its lintels blackened by fire. Martine Renier, the Verviers town councilor for social cohesion and integration, said she mostly blamed the alienation felt by some residents stemming from poverty and unemployment for the appearance of the terrorist cell. Many immigrants and children of immigrants, she said, “are caught between two cultures” — that of Belgium and that of the countries they or their relatives came from. Those people, particularly the young, “are completely ready to be radicalized,” Ms. Renier said, though she emphasized that Islam should not be blamed. In Quimper, France, the prime minister, Manuel Valls, said he did not believe there was a direct connection between the events in Belgium and the carnage in France last week, beyond a common ideology among the militants focused on attacking Western values. “There doesn’t seem to be a link, but we must always remain cautious,” he said. “France must protect itself against this jihadist terrorism, this radical Islam.” Ms. Merkel and other leaders have emphasized there is a place for Muslims and their faith in modern Europe. The vast majority are law-abiding and peaceful, Ms. Merkel said on Thursday, and while they make up some four million of Germany’s population of 80 million, “I don’t see an Islamization of Germany,” as thousands of anti-immigrant marchers in Dresden have alleged at weekly rallies the past three months. Weapons are still relatively hard to obtain in Europe compared with the United States, and it is chilling to most Europeans to hear gunfire echo in the streets, particularly bursts of fire like the military-style assault of the Kouachi brothers on Charlie Hebdo, or the gunfire that erupted when the Belgian police moved in on Thursday in Verviers. Worries have surfaced that a crackdown on violence will spawn more resentment and resistance among Europe’s young Muslims, many of whom say they already feel like outcasts, crowded into areas with high crime and unemployment and bereft of chances to get a good education or climb society’s ladder. But facing plots like the one uncovered in Belgium, said Mr. Maassen of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, “it is important that we are well equipped.” “You can’t fight I.S. with wooden guns,” he said, referring to the Islamic State. However, he told ARD public television this week, “we must be calm and master the situation with a sense of proportion. Panic and hysteria don’t help.” And going after the right information, he said, is crucial. “Separate the wheat from the chaff,” he said.

Europe
Terrorism
Belgium
Germany
France
Syria
Iraq
Charlie Hebdo
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky

Abstract: The future of BP ’s offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been thrown into doubt by the recent drilling disaster and court wrangling over a moratorium. But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters. All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling , including more traditional projects like Shell Oil’s plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort. But BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP. The project has already received its state and federal environmental permits, but BP has yet to file its final application to federal regulators to begin drilling, which it expects to start in the fall. Some scientists and environmentalists say that other factors have helped keep the project moving forward. Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling. The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency’s unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled. “The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre,” one of the federal scientists said. The scientists and other critics say they are worried about a replay of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico because the Liberty project involves a method of drilling called extended reach that experts say is more prone to the types of gas kicks that triggered the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. “It makes no sense,” said Rebecca Noblin, the Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental watchdog group. “BP pushes the envelope in the gulf and ends up causing the moratorium. And now in the Arctic they are forging ahead again with untested technology, and as a result they’re the only ones left being allowed to drill there.” BP has defended the project in its proposal, saying it is safe and environmentally friendly. It declined to respond to requests for further comment. Extended-reach drilling has advantages. Drilling at an angle might be less threatening to sensitive habitats. But engineers say that this type of drilling is riskier and more complicated than traditional drilling because it is relatively new and gas kicks are more frequent and tougher to detect. And because of the distance and angles involved, drilling requires far more powerful machinery, putting extra pressure on pipes and well casings. Several companies have built artificial islands to drill offshore in the Arctic and elsewhere, in part because surging ice floes can destroy conventional floating or metal-legged offshore drilling platforms. Critics say that such islands are so tiny that a large oil spill will quickly flow into the surrounding waters. BP officials say that by accessing the Liberty oil field from far away, the project reduces its environmental impact in the delicate North Shore area. The Liberty field lies about five miles from land under the shallow waters of the Beaufort Sea in an area populated during the winter by seals and polar bears and covered by thick floating ice. During the summer, bowhead whales migrate through the region. “The overall Liberty Project has been planned and designed to minimize adverse effects to biological resources,” BP wrote in 2007 in the development proposal to federal regulators. “Impacts to wetlands have been significantly reduced including shoreline and tundra habitat for birds and caribou.” The project will also involve nearly 400 workers in a region where jobs are scarce, according to BP. But concerns exist about the project’s oversight and critics say the project offers another example of dangerous coziness between industry and regulators. For example, the federal scientists say that BP should never have been allowed to do environmental reviews that are the responsibility of the regulators. And yet, the language of the “environmental consequences” sections of the final 2007 federal assessment and BP’s own assessment submitted earlier the same year are virtually identical. No such overlap existed in the documents for other major projects approved by the same office around the same time, a review of the documents shows. Both assessments concluded that the effects from a large spill potentially could have a major impact on wildlife, but discounted the threat because they judged the likelihood of spill to be very remote. They also asserted that BP’s spill response plan would be able to handle a worst case — which BP estimated as a spill of 20,000 barrels per day. Officials from the minerals agency declined to answer questions about the handling of the BP’s environmental assessment, but they added, “In light of the BP oil spill in the gulf and new safety requirements, we will be reviewing the adequacy of the current version of the Liberty project’s spill plan.” In promotional materials, BP acknowledges that the Liberty project will push boundaries of drilling technology. To reduce weight on the rig, BP has developed a new steel alloy for the drill pipe. So much force is needed to power a drill over such long distances that BP had to invest more than $200 million to have a company build what it describes as the largest land rig in the world. The drill’s top drive is rated at 105,000 foot-pounds of torque, while North Slope rigs are typically rated at 40,000 foot-pounds. “It will take all of this technology that we’ve developed and exploited in Prudhoe Bay and extend it to a new realm,” Gary Christman, BP’s director of Alaska drilling and wells, told Petroleum News in 2007. But engineers say that realm includes greater risk. John Choe, an expert in extended-reach drilling and director of the department of energy resources at Seoul National University, said that it was less safe than conventional types of drilling because gas kicks that can turn into blowouts are tougher to detect as they climb more slowly toward the rig. “So, you may not detect it until it becomes serious,” he said. “In that case, the kick or drilling related problems become too big to be managed easily.” A 2004 study commissioned by the Minerals Management Service came to a similar conclusion. “A gas kick represents probably the most dangerous situation that can occur when drilling a well since it can easily develop to a blowout if it is not controlled promptly,” it said. Extended-reach drilling wells “are more prone to kicks and lost-circulation problems than more conventional and vertical wells, but have some advantages when the well takes a kick because gas migration rates are lower.” Despite these concerns, the Liberty’s 614-page environmental assessment says nothing about how the project would handle the unique risks posed by this type of drilling. Mike Mims, a former owner of a company that specialized in extended-reach drilling, said he believed that the worries about this type of drilling were overblown. “The kicks can occur but they move slower and the bubbles don’t expand as fast,” he said. “It all comes down to personnel,” he added, “If your people understand the risks and handle the work carefully, this drilling is entirely safe.” BP discovered the Liberty oil field in 1997, began construction of a rig there in 2008, and was nearing final preparations this April when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Two weeks after the Obama administration declared a moratorium on offshore drilling on May 27, BP announced that the Liberty project would continue, with drilling scheduled to start in the fall, generating its first oil production by 2011. By 2013, BP estimates, Liberty will yield 40,000 barrels of oil per day. If approved, the Liberty will be the longest horizontal well of its kind in the world. BP’s production plan for the Liberty notes that drilling studies only support horizontal wells up to 8.33 miles. Any horizontal wells longer than that, the plan says, “have not been studied.” State regulators have faulted BP for not being prepared to handle a spill at a similar, though less ambitious project, known as the Northstar field. That project involves vertical drilling and sits on an artificial island six miles northwest of Prudhoe Bay in the Beaufort Sea. The Liberty project will tie into the Endicott pipeline when complete. On April 20, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration warned BP that it was in “probable violation” of federal standards because of corrosion found on its Endicott oil pipeline and a lack of records indicating corrosion protection and monitoring efforts. BP has faced a number of challenges at its Alaska facilities. The company sustained two corrosion-caused leaks in its rigs in Prudhoe Bay in 2006, including a leak of over 200,000 gallons that cost the company around $20 million in fines and restitution. This was the largest spill to have occurred on Alaska’s North Slope.

Alaska
Offshore Drilling and Exploration
BP Plc
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Accidents and Safety


U.S. Pilots Reject Return to Brazil

Abstract: GARDEN CITY, N.Y., Aug. 23 (AP) — Two American pilots facing criminal charges after their executive jet collided with a commercial airliner over the Amazon last year, killing 154 people aboard, are willing to testify in the case but will not return to Brazil next week to do so, their American lawyer said Thursday. The lawyer, Joel R. Weiss, cited the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which he said would allow the pilots to testify about the case from their home country. The pilots, Joseph Lepore of Bay Shore, N.Y., and Jan Paladino of Westhampton Beach, N.Y., are accused of turning off the transponder on their Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet before it collided with a Boeing 737 operated by the airline Gol last September. The pilots deny the charges and say they were flying at an altitude designated by air controllers. The United States National Transportation Safety Board has attributed the crash partly to the cockpit systems’ failure to alert the American crew that the jet’s anticollision equipment had failed.

Pilots
Brazil
Airlines and Airplanes
Accidents and Safety
Courts


Alternative Lenders Turn to Seasoned Insiders for Help

Abstract: Alternative lenders are bracing for a regulatory onslaught. The online lender Avant said on Friday that it had appointed to its board Sheila C. Bair, a former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Plenty of financial tech companies have tapped Wall Street executives to bolster business: SoFi recently brought on Anshu Jain, the former Deutsche Bank co-chief executive, as an adviser. But Avant is the first to snare a watchdog. It makes sense as alternative lenders in particular face growing pressure. As yet, these companies account for less than 5 percent of the markets they operate in, according to Jefferies. But they are growing rapidly. Avant has originated more than $3 billion in loans since it started in 2012. The publicly traded Lending Club has hit $16 billion in nine years – but half of that was last year. One concern that regulators have is pricing. Many borrowers using these new companies find it difficult to get a loan from a traditional bank or want to refinance expensive debt like that from credit cards. As a result, interest rates can be high. Avant, founded by a former payday lender, charges 9.95 percent to 36 percent. It’s a similar story at rivals. Such rates can be justified, but they also raise fears of exploitation, and play into another fear: rising loan defaults. In addition, none of these lenders has experienced a time of rising interest rates. Several have hired seasoned veterans to help. But regulators ought still to ensure that risk processes are up to snuff. Watchdogs are taking their time, though, in part because none has a clear mandate to regulate so-called fintech firms. But they are becoming more active. On Thursday, for example, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published a first stab at a framework for overseeing the sector. Hiring a former watchdog is no guarantee of a smooth relationship with regulators, of course. Ms. Bair was on the board of Banco Santander when it failed the Federal Reserve’s stress test two years in a row. She resigned from the bank last year. But the more insight these new lenders have into Washington’s ways, the better.

Avant
Sheila C Bair
Regulation and Deregulation
Banking and Finance