Montreal Police Face a Storm of Criticism Over Surveillance of a Journalist

Abstract: OTTAWA — Investigators looking into corruption within Montreal’s police force for almost six months focused their attention on one of Quebec’s most prominent journalists even though he had neither reported on the corruption case nor had any strong connection to it. Advocates of press freedom expressed alarm about revelations this week that the police had captured calls and text messages to and from an iPhone belonging to the journalist, Patrick Lagacé, a columnist with the Montreal newspaper La Presse, and were given permission to track his movements by using the phone’s GPS function. In response, legal scholars have questioned the legality of the police action, and journalism organizations and politicians have condemned the police monitoring. On Tuesday, the government promised greater protections for journalists. On Monday, La Presse reported that Mr. Lagacé had been spied on as part of an effort by Montreal’s police force to find the source of leaks to news outlets about an internal inquiry into allegations that members of a drugs and street-gang unit had fabricated evidence. From January to July this year, the police obtained 24 warrants, allowing them to track Mr. Lagacé’s movements by activating the GPS chip on his phone and to record all the numbers associated with texts and calls to and from the device, according to La Presse. Most of the warrants, the newspaper reported, were approved by Josée De Carufel, a justice of the peace who was previously a criminal prosecutor. Mr. Lagacé said he believed that the surveillance was prompted by general concern within the police force over leaks to the media by its members rather than by worries that the leaked information about the drugs and street-gang unit might jeopardize the investigation. He added that most of the articles based on the leaks that concerned the police did not appear in La Presse but in a competing newspaper and on a television network owned by the same corporation. “It’s really a witch hunt disguised as a criminal investigation,” said Mr. Lagacé, who has written articles critical of the police in the past. “There’s a climate of paranoia at the police department and a premium on finding sources. This has led to a stupid decision to spy on a reporter.” Mr. Lagacé said he had heard rumors in recent weeks that he was connected to the police corruption case. That was surprising to him because he had never written about it. Then last Thursday, the police revealed their surveillance program to a lawyer for La Presse. “It seemed too obscene to be true,” Mr. Lagacé said. “As a journalist I was really, really, really mad.” A news conference called hastily on Monday by Phillippe Pichet, the city’s police chief, only appeared to intensify criticism of the force. Chief Pichet confirmed that Mr. Lagacé was never the subject of a criminal investigation and repeatedly emphasized that the department had followed all rules governing surveillance. “The City of Montreal Police Force recognizes freedom of the press,” Chief Pichet said. “But, on the other hand, there were criminal allegations against a police officer.” While the internal investigation that swept up Mr. Lagacé’s phone number led to charges against two police officers, they were not related to the leaking of information to reporters. “The Montreal police haven’t internalized the importance of not looking into journalists,” said Jean-François Lisée, the leader of the opposition Parti Québécois in Quebec’s legislature and a former journalist at La Presse. “They seem just not to get it.” On Tuesday, Philippe Couillard, the province’s premier, said the government would form a three-member committee, including one journalist, to examine police surveillance of reporters. He also said the province would change regulations to make it more difficult for the police to obtain warrants in cases involving journalists. In an open letter published on Tuesday, 10 editors from news outlets in Quebec called for tighter rules for warrants and also demanded that the police disclose details about all surveillance operations they had conducted against reporters. Le Journal de Montréal reported on Monday that three other journalists, including one of its reporters, had been under surveillance by the Montreal police. Chief Pichet said on Tuesday that he was not aware of any other journalists who had been singled out for surveillance. Many experts said that the extent and duration of the surveillance of Mr. Lagacé appeared to be disproportionate. Mr. Lagacé said he understood that the police sought the warrants only because his name and telephone number were found on a cellphone belonging to one of the officers being investigated. While there are now widespread calls for stricter laws, Stéphane Beaulac, a professor of constitutional law at the Université de Montréal, said that several court decisions, including one by the Supreme Court of Canada, had long restricted the police’s ability to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on journalists. “It is extremely unlikely that they warranted such a broad scope,” he said of the warrants in Mr. Lagacé’s case. “This seems to blatantly be a misapplication of the system.” Lawyers for La Presse have asked a court to unseal the applications the police used to obtain those warrants. Mr. Lagacé said he had not had time to consider whether he would file a lawsuit. But, he added, if he did sue and was successful “it would be a great day for press freedom.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Angus Davis of Swipely, on Working Around Flaws

Abstract: This interview with Angus Davis , chief executive of Swipely , which sells customer-related software to merchants, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant . Q. Were you in leadership roles early on? A. I was a bit of a rebel. I didn’t really fit in. I actually went to four high schools in five years. I was thrown out of one because I hacked the phone system at my boarding school. It was the first year that they put the phones into every kid’s room — this was before cellphones, and back when calls were expensive — and we figured out a way to call home free instead of punching in a special code that billed the call to each student’s account. We told our friends about it, and they told their friends about it. By the time the school found out, there were 600 students doing this. They told me to take a leave of absence. My parents didn’t really know what to do with me. In truth, I just was kind of bored, and I needed something to capture my interest. Then I built a website for people to trade Dave Matthews Band tapes. I would call this local Internet company for help, and after a while, I knew more than they did. So they said, “Would you be interested in a part-time job?” So I started going there after school, and it was awesome. It was around 1995, and the web was just becoming a big deal. Q. And then? A. Before I went to college, I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to work for Netscape. When I looked at my college’s course catalog, though, I didn’t really see the path. But I loved my job, and I was learning a lot. So I told my parents I was going to take a year off before going to college. I was building all these websites using the cutting edge of Netscape’s technology, and when I found out that Netscape was putting on its very first developer conference, I just had to go. It was through that experience that I happened to meet this guy who ran a lot of its developer marketing relations. He said to me: “Oh, I see you posting all the time in the news groups. You’re really smart. Would you write articles for us?” I said, “Yes, I will do that.” When he told me he was going to pay me $1,000 an article for this online magazine for developers, I said: “You’re going to pay me? Wow, O.K. I’m on it.” I wrote some articles, and I was writing in all these developer forums, and they said: “Listen, we have created this new program, where you get to be the unpaid ambassador of one of these developer message boards. It’s like an M.V.P. program, and here’s all the things we’re going to do for you that don’t involve paying you.” There were things like a free T-shirt, but at the bottom of this list of 14 things was, “Opportunity to interview for an internship at Netscape.” When I told them that was the only thing I was interested in, they said, “We’ll make it happen.” And so the summer before I was supposed to go to college, I was accepted into the internship program at Netscape. There were 40 other interns who were M.B.A. students, and I was 18 years old. They thought I was like Doogie Howser. At another conference, only for Netscape employees, I met Mike McCue [now the chief executive of Flipboard], who reported to Marc Andreessen [now a venture capitalist]. After I talked with Mike, he said, “What about working for me?” After they gave me the official offer, I said to Mike, “All I care about is sitting close to you.” Q. Because? A. I don’t know who had given me the advice, but somebody had told me, “If you’re going to work with smart people, you want to be as close as possible to them so you can learn from them.” Q. How has your leadership style evolved over time? A. There are some things that each of us are naturally good at, and there are some things that we probably are going to struggle with. I’ve learned the things that I’m not actually good at, and I try to make them not be as negative as they would otherwise be. I can be curt or brash or too quick or too demanding — those can be my weak spots, but they’re also part of who I am, and it’s part of how we get things done. It’s better to find a way to just work around your flaws rather than focusing too much on just trying to correct them. If you’re a great guitar player, it’s silly to focus too much on your piano skills. I’ve also learned to be upfront and frank at our all-hands meetings about: “Here’s what’s going well and here are some things to celebrate. And here are some things that aren’t going well, or here’s a problem we have.” It’s O.K. to tell people there’s a problem, as long as you tell them what we’re doing about it. Q. How do you hire? A. Culture fit is really important. We get a lot of applications for jobs, and one way to cut down a little bit on screening them is to ask people to answer a few questions, some of which are specific to the role. There’s this question at the end, which is, “If you could say any one of these things about your career, which would it be?” And there are options like, “I was a pre-I.P.O. employee at Google,” and “I was a 20-year veteran of IBM,” and “I mastered the four-hour workweek.” And there’s one that says, “I was on the Apollo 13 team.” The right answer is the Apollo 13 team. Some of the other answers could be O.K. But if they answered “pre-I.P.O. employee at Google,” the concern is, “Did they say that because they’re motivated purely by money, or is it because they think Google did something really impressive?” In the interview, I ask them questions to get at what makes them tick. What do they really want? What are they really looking for, and what do they really care about? When you ask that question the first time, you’ll often get predictable answers. So you just have to keep pushing. I might say: “You know what? I would say the exact same thing, and that’s good. So let’s just assume that we got that. Now, what do you really care about?” Once you know how somebody’s wired, then you can kind of tell if it’s going to work out or not in our environment. Q. What career advice do you give to students? A. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. That’s my favorite thing to tell them. What’s the harm in asking? What’s the worst that’s going to happen? Just ask — that’s been the story of my life.

Angus Davis
Swipely
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Management


4 Killed in Explosion and Fire on Pemex Mexican Oil Platform

Abstract: Huge fireballs illuminated the early dawn skies of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday as an explosion and fire killed four people and injured as many as 16 others on a large oil platform in the southeastern Bay of Campeche, Mexican officials said. At least eight fire boats battled the sheets of flame soaring high above the wreckage of the shallow-water Abkatun-Permanente platform in Campeche Sound. The platform’s chief function is to separate gas and oil before it is pumped to onshore refineries. In a statement, Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, which owns the huge oil rig, said that there was no evidence of a major spill, but that the blast had forced the evacuation of more than 300 workers from the rig in seas off the southern state of Tabasco. The platform is part of the Abkatun-Pol-Chuc offshore field, which produced 300,000 barrels per day in 2013. Reports of the explosion came as Pemex, like oil companies and oil-producing states all over the world, has been forced to adjust to the global plunge in petroleum prices. At the same time, Pemex has been trying to lure foreign investment as part of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s effort to bolster the country’s economy through the development of new oil and gas fields. The explosion also raised questions, once again, about the company’s safety record. Only two years ago, a blast at Pemex’s Mexico City headquarters killed 37 people. In 2007, a fire at the Kab 121 rig in Campeche Sound killed 21 workers. Mr. Peña Nieto sent his condolences to the families of the four dead workers and issued orders to conduct a “thorough and appropriate investigation” to establish responsibility and “avoid this type of accident in the future.” An employee of a Pemex contractor who escaped the burning platform in a boat said he had witnessed other workers jumping into the sea “out of desperation and panic,” the local news media reported. The injured workers, two of them in serious condition, were being treated in a nearby hospital at Ciudad del Carmen. Despite the assurances that the fire had not caused a significant spill, environmental organizations issued statements expressing concern. Mexico’s worst oil spill in the Gulf was in 1979, when an explosion of an offshore rig leaked 140 million gallons of oil over nine months.

Explosions
Pemex
Gulf of Mexico
Oil spill
Oil and Gasoline
Enrique Pena Nieto
Fatalities,casualties
Campeche Mexico


Exit Polls Show That Georgia Has Rejected Its President

Abstract: TBILISI, Georgia — Exit polls in Georgia’s hotly contested parliamentary race suggested on Monday that a party backed by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has edged out the party headed by Georgia’s larger-than-life president, Mikheil Saakashvili . A poll by Edison Research broadcast on Georgian television showed that Georgian Dream, Mr. Ivanishvili’s party, had probably won more than half of the popular vote. This result is a sobering verdict on Mr. Saakashvili and his ruling team, who took power in the peaceful Rose Revolution nine years ago. The shift will have a practical effect because next year Georgia’s Parliament will take on many powers that now rest with the president, according to recent changes to the Constitution. But Mr. Saakashvili’s party may retain a majority of parliamentary seats because half the seats are allocated in individual races, rather than by overall party vote. In his years in office, Mr. Saakashvili has restyled Georgia as a bastion of resistance to Russian influence and a laboratory for free-market economic policy. He faced no formidable challenges until the emergence last year of Mr. Ivanishvili, a reclusive philanthropist who has spent years spreading his Russian-earned billions around Georgia’s countryside. Mr. Ivanishvili has tapped into long-simmering grievances over poverty and the heavy-handed ruling style of Mr. Saakashvili and his team. It was a remarkable upset. After the exit polls were released, cars flying Georgian Dream flags screamed down the central artery here, and thousands gathered in Freedom Square. Temur Butikashvili, 52, a filmmaker, said it was the first time Georgia had changed its leadership through an election. “We have done what all our ancestors aspired to. We have calmly, quietly transferred power,” Mr. Butikashvili said. Of Mr. Saakashvili, he said: “We had great hopes when he came in. He studied in America; we thought he had an American mentality. But he turned from a democrat into an autocrat. He turned into an authoritarian.” With Monday’s election, many felt the country was headed for a reckoning. Georgia has a history of chaotic power struggles — the first and second post-Soviet presidents left office before the end of their terms to avoid deepening civil unrest — and Mr. Ivanishvili’s supporters have warned that they will take to the streets rather than accept vote counts that they consider fraudulent. Both sides had grounds to declare victory, but big questions loom. Venomous attacks have marked the campaign, and it is hard to imagine the two leaders collaborating for the remaining year that remains of Mr. Saakashvili’s presidency. The breakdown of parliamentary seats will be disputed. Even without a popular majority, Mr. Saakashvili’s governing party may still command more than half of the 150 seats in Parliament because under Georgia’s complex election rules, 73 are single-mandate, meaning they go to individual candidates who receive the most votes. A party with 76 or more seats will have a chance to elect a prime minister. But more conclusive final results will not be in until Tuesday, and the outcome remains in doubt. Early Tuesday, Mr. Ivanishvili declared that according to his exit polls, his party had won 100 seats. But a leader of the governing party, David Darchiashvili, said his side had at least two-thirds, adding that, “I am confident this majority will be enough to elect our own prime minister.” One of the major differences between Mr. Ivanishvili and Mr. Saakashvili is on Russia; Mr. Ivanishvili has criticized the president for his open hostility toward Russia and suggested that if he takes power, he will take a more conciliatory line and Russian markets will reopen to Georgian produce, wine and mineral water, providing an economic lift. Meanwhile, Mr. Saakashvili has accused his opponent of being a front for the Kremlin. There was palpable tension on Monday in the village of Karaleti, where identical concrete houses hold hundreds of families displaced from their land by the 2008 war with Russia. When activists from Mr. Ivanishvili’s party visited over the summer, they were hounded out of town by residents shouting and waving sticks. Dato Chulkhadze, 38, lounged with a group of brawny men in T-shirts opposite Karaleti’s polling station on Monday, recalling the episode with satisfaction. “People started to shout, ‘You are Russian, you are Russian,’ and they had no answer — even a small child knows they are on Russia’s side,” said Mr. Chulkhadze. Asked about Mr. Ivanishvili’s changes, he said, “I pray to God nothing like this will happen. If it happens, the Russians will return.” But several residents approached a reporter quietly to say that support for Mr. Ivanishvili was higher than it appeared, except people were afraid to say so publicly. One woman, who would not give her name, said she was voting for Mr. Ivanishvili because “we should not be afraid when we talk.” The vote is under extreme scrutiny, and many are waiting for Tuesday’s assessments from 1,400 international observers. In this opposition stronghold, some voters were so alert for fraud that they brought their own pens to make sure they were not given invisible ink. Lawrence Sheets, a South Caucasus specialist with the International Crisis Group, said he was tired but relieved that Monday had passed in relative calm. “Everyone’s been very tired — it’s been a year of this rhetoric and poisonous stuff — but in the end if it doesn’t end in something really unstable, which we feared, it’s a positive step for the country,” he said. “What other post-Soviet country has had this kind of process?”

Elections
Georgia (Georgian Republic)
Saakashvili Mikheil
Ivanishvili Bidzina
Voting and Voters
Politics and Government
Polls and Public Opinion


Loss to Lynx Ends Hammon’s Playing Career

Abstract: Minnesota won at San Antonio, 94-89, to advance to the W.N.B.A.’s Western Conference finals and end the playing career of the Stars’ Becky Hammon, who will join the coaching staff of the N.B.A.’s San Antonio Spurs.

Becky Hammon
Spurs
Basketball
Minnesota Lynx


Chiefs Turn to Inexperienced Passer After Spleen Injury Sidelines Alex Smith

Abstract: Quarterback Alex Smith of the Kansas City Chiefs will miss Sunday’s game against the San Diego Chargers because of a lacerated spleen, he said Friday. Chase Daniel will start in Smith’s place as both teams seek a playoff spot. Smith was most likely hurt on a hit early in the third quarter of the Chiefs’ 20-12 road loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers last weekend, but he did not feel pain at the time. He did not receive a diagnosis until he had a scan Thursday after several days of what felt more like a stomachache than a serious injury. Smith will not need surgery and is expected to fully recover, but he most likely cannot play in a potential first-round playoff game. If the Chargers beat Kansas City, they clinch a postseason berth. The Chiefs need to win and have Baltimore and Houston lose to make the playoffs. In Daniel’s six N.F.L. seasons, he has one start — against the Chargers in last year’s regular-season finale. Daniel went 21 of 30 for 200 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions and rushed seven times for 59 yards in a 27-24 overtime loss that vaulted San Diego into the playoffs. CARDINALS MAKE SWITCH For the Arizona Cardinals, the turbulent quarterback predicament continues. Ryan Lindley is back as the starter, and Drew Stanton was treated for an infection in his sprained right knee, a setback in his attempt to return for the playoffs. Coach Bruce Arians initially said the rookie Logan Thomas would start in Sunday’s regular-season finale at San Francisco. But Arians said Friday that he had changed his mind based on Thomas’s performances in practice. “I was hoping that he was going to be able to handle it,” Arians said, “but it’s not the time right now.” Stanton, who has missed the last two games, experienced swelling in his knee on Wednesday. Arthroscopic surgery was performed Wednesday night. N.F.L. Playoff Simulator There are millions of ways the season could end. Find your team’s path to the playoffs with this interactive simulator. Arizona (11-4) still has an outside chance to win the N.F.C. West, but St. Louis would have to beat the Seahawks in Seattle, while the Cardinals win at San Francisco. ROOKIE TO START FOR BROWNS The rookie quarterback Connor Shaw will come off the practice squad and start the Cleveland Browns’ season finale on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. With Brian Hoyer still slowed by a sore right throwing shoulder, Shaw will be behind center when the Browns (7-8) conclude another disappointing season. The Ravens still have a shot at the playoffs. “I’m excited about it,” Shaw said after practice. “It was a good week of practice. I had a lot of support from coaches and teammates, and I’m confident going into this game with the game plan.” Shaw, an undrafted free agent, is the third quarterback to start for the Browns this season and the 22nd for the franchise since 1999. It is the third straight season and the fourth time in five seasons that Cleveland’s No. 3 quarterback has started the finale. Hoyer started Cleveland’s first 13 games before being benched, and the rookie Johnny Manziel was placed on injured reserve this week after injuring his hamstring last week at Carolina in his second start. Hoyer is listed as doubtful for Sunday’s game, and if he cannot dress, Tyler Thigpen, who was signed this week, will back up Shaw. LYNCH AND OTHERS ARE FINED Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch has been fined $11,050 by the N.F.L. for an inappropriate gesture while scoring a touchdown against Arizona last Sunday night. Lynch appeared to grab at his groin as he leapt into the end zone to cap a 79-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter of Seattle’s 35-6 victory. Oakland’s Justin Tuck and San Francisco’s Joe Staley were each fined $22,050 by the N.F.L. for using “abusive” language toward officials in games last weekend. Staley’s San Francisco teammate Anquan Boldin was docked $10,000 for head-butting Chargers cornerback Shareece Wright. Detroit’s Ziggy Ansah was fined $22,050 for an illegal hit to the head of Chicago quarterback Jimmy Clausen last Sunday.

Alex Smith
Kansas City Chiefs
Chargers
Chase Daniel
Football


East Timor: Opposition Figure Is Named Prime Minister

Abstract: East Timor’s president has chosen an opposition party member, Rui Maria de Araújo, as the nation’s new prime minister, his office announced Wednesday. Mr. Araújo, a former health minister, replaces Xanana Gusmão, who resigned last week ahead of an expected restructuring of the government. Party officials signaled that the cabinet was expected to be reduced to 34 members from 55 and would become more inclusive, with opposition figures among those appointed. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was occupied by Indonesia in 1975. It voted in a referendum backed by the United Nations in 1999 to end the occupation, which left more than 170,000 dead, and it became a sovereign state in 2002. But the country has struggled to develop economically, and nearly half of its 1.2 million people live in poverty.

East Timor
Rui Maria de Araujo
Jose Alexandre Gusmao
Appointments and Executive Changes


A Foreign Policy Gamble by Obama at a Moment of Truth

Abstract: WASHINGTON — On the day he took office, President Obama reached out to America’s enemies, offering in his first inaugural address to “ extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist .” More than six years later, he has arrived at a moment of truth in testing that proposition with one of the nation’s most intransigent adversaries. The framework nuclear agreement he reached with Iran on Thursday did not provide the definitive answer to whether Mr. Obama’s audacious gamble will pay off. The fist Iran has shaken at the so-called Great Satan since 1979 has not completely relaxed. But the fingers are loosening, and the agreement, while still incomplete, held out the prospect that it might yet become a handshake. For a president whose ambitions to remake the world have been repeatedly frustrated, the possibility of a reconciliation after 36 years of hostility between Washington and Tehran now seems tantalizingly within reach, a way to be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize that even he believed was awarded prematurely. Yet the deal remains unfinished and unsigned, and critics worry that he is giving up too much while grasping for the illusion of peace. Video President Obama spoke from the White House on Thursday after a nuclear deal was announced with Iran. Credit Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times “Right now, he has no foreign policy legacy,” said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran specialist who has been tracking the talks as chairman of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. “He’s got a list of foreign policy failures. A deal with Iran and the ensuing transformation of politics in the Middle East would provide one of the more robust foreign policy legacies of any recent presidencies. It’s kind of all in for Obama. He has nothing else. So for him, it’s all or nothing.” As Mr. Obama stepped into the Rose Garden to announce what he called a historic understanding, he seemed both relieved that it had come together and combative with those in Congress who would tear it apart. While its provisions must be translated into writing by June 30, he presented it as a breakthrough that would, if made final, make the world a safer place, the kind of legacy any president would like to leave. “This has been a long time coming,” he said. Mr. Obama cited the same John F. Kennedy quote he referenced earlier in the week when visiting a new institute dedicated to the former president’s brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” The sense of celebration was captured by aides standing nearby in the Colonnade who exchanged fist bumps at the end of the president’s remarks. But Mr. Obama will have a hard time convincing a skeptical Congress, where Republicans and many Democrats are deeply concerned that he has grown so desperate to reach a deal that he is trading away American and Israeli security. As he tries to reach finality with Iran, he will have to fend off legislative efforts, joined even by some of his friends, to force a tougher posture. The Iran Nuclear Deal – A Simple Guide A guide to help you navigate the deal between global powers and Tehran. House Speaker John A. Boehner, who has been traveling in the Middle East in recent days, repeated his insistence that Congress review any deal before sanctions are eased. “My concerns about Iran’s efforts to foment unrest, brutal violence and terror have only grown,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement. “It would be naïve to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear program, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region.” Mr. Obama tried to reverse that argument on Thursday, framing the choice as either accepting his deal or risking war, a binary formulation his critics reject. “Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented, backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?” Mr. Obama asked. If Congress kills the deal, he said, “then it’s the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy.” An agreement with Iran remains the most promising goal left in a foreign policy agenda that has unraveled since Mr. Obama took office. Rather than building a new partnership with Russia, he faces a new cold war. Rather than ending the war in Iraq, he has sent American forces back to fight the Islamic State, though primarily from the air. Rather than defeating Al Qaeda, he finds himself chasing its offshoots. Rather than forging peace in the Middle East, he said recently that is beyond his reach. Mr. Obama still aspires to reorient American foreign policy more toward Asia, and a pending Pacific trade pact could have a lasting impact if he can seal the deal and push it through Congress. He has nudged the world, particularly China, toward more action on climate change. He will count the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba after a half-century of estrangement as a major achievement. Timeline on Iran’s Nuclear Program Whether Iran is racing toward nuclear weapon capabilities is one of the most contentious foreign-policy issues challenging the West. But with so many disappointments, Iran has become something of a holy grail of foreign policy to Mr. Obama, one that could hold the key to a broader reordering of a region that has bedeviled American presidents for generations. Aides say he has spent more time on Iran than any other foreign policy issue except Afghanistan and terrorism. Since the 1979 Iranian revolution that swept out the Washington-supported shah and brought to power an anti-American Islamic leadership, the country has been the most sustained destabilizing force in the Middle East — a sponsor of the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, a supporter of Shiite militias that killed American soldiers in Iraq, a patron of Syria’s government in its bloody civil war, and now a backer of the rebels who pushed out the president of Yemen. A nuclear agreement will not change all of that, or perhaps any of that, a point Mr. Obama’s critics have made repeatedly. But Mr. Obama hopes it can be the start of a new era. An Iran that would “rejoin the community of nations,” as he put it Thursday, may have incentive to stop fomenting so much trouble. Failure as Mr. Obama sees it means more war, more instability. He has been willing to gamble America’s relationship with Israel and his own presidency on that premise. “Obama always saw the Iranian nuclear threat as a major security challenge that would lead to war if not controlled, and further proliferation if not prevented,” said Gary Samore, a former top arms control adviser to Mr. Obama who is now president of the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran. Details of Agreement to Limit Iran’s Nuclear Program Iran and six world powers agreed on key parameters for an accord regarding Tehran’s nuclear program, with the details to be negotiated by June 30. “If we get a nuclear deal, it won’t solve the problem, because the current government in Iran will still be committed to acquiring a nuclear weapons capability,” he added. “But it would give the next president a much stronger basis to manage and delay the threat.” Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former C.I.A. analyst who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said a nuclear accord with Iran was all that remained of Mr. Obama’s dream of transformation. But Mr. Obama, he said, has misjudged Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president, Hassan Rouhani. “A reading of the supreme leader or of Hassan Rouhani in their own words ought to tell you that there is a near-zero chance that an accord will diminish the revolutionary, religious hostility that these two men, the revolutionary elite, have for the United States,” he said. If Mr. Obama does turn out to be right, Mr. Gerecht added, history will reward him. “If he is wrong, however, and this diplomatic process accelerates the nuclearization of the region, throws jet fuel on the war between the Sunnis and the Shia, and puts America into a much worse strategic position in the Middle East,” he said, “then history is likely to be harsh to Mr. Obama.” R. Nicholas Burns, who was President George W. Bush’s lead negotiator on Iran, said Mr. Obama had embraced and enhanced a strategy his predecessor began. “We’ll have to judge him by the final result, but so far, this has been a successful effort,” he said. “A good deal could prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. A bad deal could end up empowering Iran, a defeat for him and the country.” “In terms of legacy,” Mr. Burns added, “this is one of the two or three things that will determine it, for good or bad.”

Iran
US
Nuclear weapon
Barack Obama
US Foreign Policy


Immigrants Released Ahead of Automatic Budget Cuts

Abstract: Federal immigration officials have released hundreds of detainees from detention centers around the country in recent days in a highly unusual effort to save money as automatic budget cuts loom in Washington, officials said Tuesday. The government has not dropped the deportation cases against the immigrants, however. The detainees have been freed on supervised release while their cases continue in court, officials said. But the decision angered many Republicans, including Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia, who said the releases were a political gambit by the Obama administration that undermined the continuing negotiations over comprehensive immigration reform and jeopardized public safety. “It’s abhorrent that President Obama is releasing criminals into our communities to promote his political agenda on sequestration,” said Mr. Goodlatte, who, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is running the House hearings on immigration reform. “By releasing criminal immigrants onto the streets, the administration is needlessly endangering American lives.” A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, said the detainees selected for release were “noncriminals and other low-risk offenders who do not have serious criminal histories.” Officials said the releases, which began last week and continued on Tuesday, were a response to the possibility of automatic governmentwide budget cuts, known as sequestration, which are scheduled to take effect on Friday. “As fiscal uncertainty remains over the continuing resolution and possible sequestration, ICE has reviewed its detained population to ensure detention levels stay within ICE’s current budget,” the agency’s spokeswoman, Gillian M. Christensen, said in a statement. The agency’s budget for custody operations in the current fiscal year is $2.05 billion, officials said, and as of Saturday, ICE was holding 30,773 people in its detention system. Immigration officials said Tuesday that they had no plans to release substantially more detainees this week, though they warned that more releases were still possible depending on the outcome of budget negotiations. They refused to specify exactly how many detainees were released, or where the releases took place. But immigrants’ advocates around the country have reported that detainees were freed in several places, including Hudson County, N.J.; Polk County, Tex.; Broward County, Fla.; New Orleans; and from centers in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia and New York. While immigration officials occasionally free detainees on supervised release, immigration advocates said that the surge of recent releases — so many in such a short span of time — was extraordinary. Video Virginia residents, ahead of President Obama’s visit to Newport News, are getting ready for possible spending cuts. Under supervised release, defendants in immigration cases have to adhere to a strict reporting schedule that might include attending appointments at a regional immigration office as well as wearing electronic monitoring bracelets, officials said. Advocacy groups, citing the cost of detaining immigrants, have for years argued that the federal government should make greater use of less expensive alternatives to detention for low-risk defendants being held on administrative charges. One such group, the National Immigration Forum , estimated last year that it cost from $122 to $164 a day to hold a detainee in the federal immigration system. In contrast, the organization said, alternative forms of detention could cost from 30 cents to $14 a day per immigrant. Among those released in the past week was Anthony Orlando Williams, 52, a Jamaican immigrant who spent nearly three years in a detention center in Georgia. “I’m good, man,” he said. “I’m free.” Mr. Williams, in a telephone interview from Stone Mountain, Ga., said he became an illegal immigrant when he overstayed a visa in 1991. He was detained in 2010 by a sheriff’s deputy in Gwinnett County, Ga., when it was discovered that he had violated probation for a conviction in 2005 of simple assault, simple battery and child abuse, charges that sprung from a domestic dispute with his wife at the time. He was transferred to ICE custody and has been fighting a deportation order with the help of Families for Freedom, an immigrant support group in New York. Mr. Williams was released last Friday. “That was a long, long, long run,” he said of his detention, adding that he has an appointment this Friday at an immigration office in Atlanta at which he expects to receive the terms of his supervised release — “a list of things I have to abide by.” Human Rights First, another advocacy group in New York, which has been pressing for reform of the immigration detention system, said that 96 percent of immigrants enrolled in ICE’s alternatives-to-detention program attended their final hearing in 2011. That figure was up from the year before, in which 93 percent attended their final court hearings, said the group, citing statistics provided by B.I., a private contractor that provides monitoring and supervision services to ICE. Immigrants’ advocates applauded the releases but pressed the Obama administration to do more, including adhering more closely to its declared enforcement priorities and leaving alone immigrants accused of low-level crimes and administrative immigration violations. “It shouldn’t take a manufactured crisis in Washington to prompt our immigration agencies to actually take steps towards using government resources wisely or keeping families together,” said Carolina Canizales, a leader of United We Dream , the nation’s largest group of young illegal immigrants. But Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is also holding immigration hearings, said the releases “lessened the chances” that legislators might reach a bipartisan accord on comprehensive immigration reform. “It is clear the administration is using the sequester as a convenient excuse to bow to political pressure from the amnesty groups,” he said. “With this new action, the administration has further demonstrated that it has no commitment to enforcing the law and cannot be trusted to deliver on any future promises of enforcement.” Other Republicans, however, shrugged off the releases, saying they expected that the administration would use the excuse of sequestration to take attention-grabbing action and that they were prepared for more in the coming days.

Immigration
Illegal immigration
Immigration detention
Immigration and Customs Enforcement,ICE
Federal Budget


European Banking Authority Clarifies Rules on Pay

Abstract: A European banking regulator issued formal guidelines on Wednesday morning instructing banks on how they can pay certain employees and who is affected by a much-debated cap on bonuses. The 119-page document from the regulator, the European Banking Authority, indicated that the bonus cap applies to all bank-owned subsidiaries, including asset managers and insurance groups, if their employees take risks that could affect the overall group’s stability. Many banks appear not to have been applying the bonus cap to these groups, and will now need to do so. The guidelines from the authority, which writes guidelines to interpret European laws, will apply the rules to “institutions on a solo and consolidated basis, including all subsidiaries which are not subject to the CRD IV framework,” a news release accompanying the guidelines said. CRD IV stands for Capital Requirement Directive IV, which is the name of the 2013 law that introduced the bonus cap. The document also cements the authority’s position that banks cannot issue so-called allowances to get around the bonus cap. That cap, which limits bankers to bonuses equal to one or two times their salaries, inspired banks to invent new pay categories that they designated as fixed pay in an attempt to bolster overall pay. Instructed by the European Union to look at the allowances, the authority said in October that they were not fixed pay, but bonuses. “Role-based allowances which are discretionary, not predetermined, not transparent to staff or not permanent should not be considered as fixed but should be classified as variable remuneration, in line with the letter and purpose” of the 2013 law the authority said in October. The guidelines issued on Wednesday kick off a three-month consultation period in which the industry can respond. The authority will then issue a final draft this year, in time to be applied to 2015 pay. (The bonus cap has been in effect since Jan. 1, 2014. The guidelines are meant to clarify what the rule means and how the banks should apply it.) The guidelines elaborate how to identify staff affected by the bonus cap, so-called material risk takers, as well as clarifying fixed and variable compensation. This time, the authority tried to leave little room for banks’ creative interpretation. “Remuneration is either fixed or variable; there is no third category of remuneration,” it said. Fixed pay, it said, includes nondiscretionary payments or benefits that do not depend on performance. Variable pay, it said, “is everything else.” The guidelines offer a laundry list of examples: Health care, child care and “proportionate” pension contributions? Fixed. Long-term incentive plans and retention bonuses? Variable. The banks now have various headaches to contend with (aside from headaches related to conduct and litigation, poor earnings, shrinking investment banks and increased regulation). All the work and expense they put into creating allowances — hiring pay consultants, vetting their versions of them with lawyers — will be nullified and they will be forced to start anew. There are added wrinkles, too, because of the various layers of regulations. It is up to local regulators to comply with European Union rules and banking authority guidelines or explain why they are not complying. Every British regulator, including the Prudential Regulation Authority, disagrees with the bonus cap, and the P.R.A. approved many of the allowances. Iit is up to the P.R.A., as a local regulator, to decide whether the banks violated European laws in paying the allowances. ”Apart from the peer pressure, the only way to force countries to act on allowances would be the commission-led breach of E.U. law procedure, which is highly unlikely,” said Jean-Franςois Gerard, an employment lawyer at Freshfields. Complicating matters are the P.R.A.’s own set of pay requirements. For example, although the European law says that at least 40 percent of variable pay should be deferred for at least three to five years, and 50 percent should be paid out in instruments like shares (and more of both for more senior management), the P.R.A. has added rules saying that bonuses, vested and not, can be clawed back for up to seven years . The European Banking Authority also said it would submit to the European Union a recommendation that waivers be allowed for smaller and simpler organizations whose pay is not based on bonuses. “The E.B.A. is of the view that specific exemptions could be introduced for certain institutions that do not rely extensively on variable remuneration,” the authority said in a news release.

Prudential Regulation Authority Great Britain


Clinton-Trump Presidential Forum Draws 15 Million Viewers, and Many Critics

Abstract: NBC’s prime-time presidential forum on Wednesday with Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump drew nearly 15 million viewers, beating many of the debates held during the primary season, according to Nielsen statistics. The sizable audience is good news for television executives who are anticipating record ratings for this fall’s presidential debates. It may have been bad news for Matt Lauer, the NBC host whose turn as moderator on Wednesday received vitriolic reviews. The forum, broadcast live from the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in Manhattan, aired on MSNBC and NBC broadcast affiliates, and it produced some memorable moments , including Mr. Trump expressing his admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Still, Mr. Lauer’s perceived gaffes — he was accused by critics of sloppiness and unfairness , among other journalistic sins — dominated headlines on Thursday. Mrs. Clinton’s team even emailed a fund-raising solicitation with the subject line “Matt Lauer.” The note described a moment during the forum when Mr. Lauer did not challenge a false assertion by Mr. Trump about his views on the Iraq War. “At this point,” the Clinton note read, “we should understand that we just can’t sit around and wait for fact checkers in the media to keep Trump honest.” As for Mr. Lauer, he was back in his usual gig on the “Today” show on Thursday morning, business as usual. His performance from the previous evening came up, perhaps inadvertently, only during a segment with the comedian Dana Carvey. In character as Mr. Putin, Mr. Carvey complimented Mr. Lauer’s work as moderator, saying, “You have a fan.” Mr. Lauer raised a finger and offered a lopsided smile. “One,” he said.

NBC
Hillary Clinton
Ratings
Matt Lauer
Manhattan
MSNBC
2016 Presidential Election
TV
Donald Trump
Vladimir Putin


Castro Speaks by Telephone With Chávez on TV

Abstract: CARACAS, Venezuela , Oct. 14 — Fidel Castro of Cuba chatted by telephone with Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez , during a live television broadcast on Sunday, with the two leaders going over plans to strengthen economic and political ties. Mr. Chávez’s weekly television program was broadcast from Santa Clara in central Cuba, where the remains of Che Guevara are kept, to mark the death 40 years ago this month of the iconic guerrilla leader. While Mr. Castro, who is 81, did not appear on the program, it was the first time Cubans were given broad access to a live broadcast of the Cuban leader since he went into seclusion for health reasons last year. The program was shown in Cuba and Venezuela. With Mr. Castro’s appearances in the Cuban news media closely controlled, his inclusion in a Venezuelan program points to Mr. Chávez’s prominence in guiding the economic destiny of Cuba, which relies on subsidized imports of Venezuelan oil. Mr. Chávez also showed a short video of a meeting held a day earlier in Havana, in which Mr. Castro, looking frail and speaking with a gravelly voice, accepted as a gift a painting done by Mr. Chávez in prison after the Venezuelan leader’s failed coup attempt in 1992. In the telephone discussion on Sunday, the voice sounded clearer. “The conditions are more favorable than ever to spring forth the ideas and revolution of which Che spoke,” Mr. Castro said. The audience in Santa Clara included Cuba’s vice president, Carlos Lage, dressed in a red polo shirt decorated with a Che logo, and Venezuela’s foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro. Notably absent was Cuba’s acting president and Mr. Castro’s brother, Raúl Castro. Mr. Chávez did most of the talking, highlighting his plans to expand energy subsidies to Cuba to include natural gas exports.

Venezuela
Cuba
Television
Castro Fidel
Chavez Hugo


A Challenge for Churches: Adulthood Takes Its Time

Abstract: At some point during the 20th century, the United States invented adolescence. Where once there had merely been youth, there were now teenagers, with their own dress, music, magazines, books, economy, culture and expected patterns of behavior. It was enough to get organized religion, in the words of the bard, “all shook up.” Now, says a leading sociologist of religion, a similarly “distinct and important stage in life, situated between the teenage years and full-fledged adulthood, has emerged.” It is “reshaping the meaning of self, youth, relationships and life commitments”— and religious leaders had better pay attention. Writing in the November-December issue of Books & Culture, that scholar, Christian Smith, describes what researchers in sociology, psychology and human development are calling “emerging adulthood,” a time between ages 18 and 30 or so, when marriage and parenthood are often delayed, formal schooling is prolonged, job switching is frequent and parental support is extended. “Half a century ago, many young people were anxious to get out of high school, marry, settle down, have children and start a long-term career,” writes Professor Smith, who directs the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Today, many young people spend more than a decade between high school and marriage “exploring life’s many options in unprecedented freedom.” And, it should be added, in great uncertainty. “Studies agree that the transition to adulthood today is more complex, disjointed and confusing than it was in past decades,” Professor Smith writes. It is a transition “marked by immense autonomy, freedom of choice, lack of obligations and focus on the self,” a time also characterized by instability and experimentation, when “hopes and exhilaration recurrently run up against confusion and frustration” and when “ties to the social institutions of civil society, including church, are often weak.” He cites research suggesting that emerging adults seem to slough off almost entirely the religious faith of their upbringing or even of their adolescence. Of course, young people have always tended to drift from religious moorings when they leave home, and then connect with religion again when they marry or have children. But the longer that intervening period becomes — and it may now be 15 or 20 years — the less likely the return. Furthermore, Professor Smith says, “these are crucial years in the formation of personal identity, behavioral patterns and social relationships.” One returns a different person, possibly formed quite independently of any earlier faith, certainly of any participation in a religious community. Robert Wuthnow, another distinguished sociologist of religion, explores much the same territory in “After the Baby Boomers” (Princeton, 2007), a book subtitled “How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion.” He focuses on adults 21 to 45 years old, a group that is not just the harbinger of the future but that already constitutes about half the country’s adult population. Professor Wuthnow too finds that delayed marriage and parenthood, economic instability and the constant blitz of new information and alternative lifestyles present a new challenge to religious institutions, as did the entry of women into the paid work force. Among adults in this age group, regular attendance at worship services has declined markedly in the last three decades, while the proportion never attending at all has increased. The change has occurred almost entirely among the growing numbers who have not married. “Unless religious leaders take younger adults more seriously, the future of American religion is in doubt,” warns Professor Wuthnow, who teaches sociology at Princeton. There are differences between the two accounts. Professor Smith’s is a bold, broadly sketched essay proposing “emerging adulthood” as a life stage that demands powerful responses from organized religion. Professor Wuthnow’s is a data-heavy volume filled with caveats about generalizing; the word “journalist” appears repeatedly in his warning against reports, maybe like this one, announcing some remarkable new development on the religion landscape. The difference manifests itself in how the two scholars deal with sex. Both recognize delay of marriage and child-rearing as a defining feature of the new stage in adulthood. Professor Smith puts “sex, cohabitation and marriage” (in that order) squarely on the table as “key dimensions” of the changed situation. Any emerging adults who want to abide by traditional strictures against premarital sex, he says, “face a very difficult peer culture in which to live.” Professor Wuthnow has a great deal to say about marriage, weddings, marital happiness and parenting, but only a page and a half on premarital sex, mostly devoted to data concerning which young adults consider it right or wrong and what percentage of the unmarried who consider it wrong nonetheless acknowledge having had sexual relations in the last year (answer: 63 percent). His index does not include the word “cohabitation.” The same difference is evident in the two authors’ thoughts about how religious groups might respond. Professor Wuthnow describes modest changes in worship services and programs that might help congregations engage young adults, especially unmarried ones. Professor Smith, writing for a largely evangelical audience, jumps in with the idea that perhaps parents, who already offer their adult offspring considerable financial and caretaking support, should challenge the cultural assumption that marriage ought to await financial independence. Instead, they should provide social and financial support for marriage in the early 20s rather than the late. “Teenage marriage is the best recipe for divorce,” he writes, “but marriage in the 20s itself is not.” He questions whether the current culture of emerging adulthood, with “hooking up” and serial cohabitation, is helpful preparation either for marriage or for real adulthood rather than “mere rationalization for self-indulgence and, at its worst, sheer narcissism.” “A good argument can be made that true, authentic selves are made more than found,” he writes. “It is arguably as much or more by making and keeping promises than by dabbling and deferring that we come to know who we as persons really are and are called to become.” Where the authors converge is on the contrast between the institutional resources that both society and religious bodies have poured into the first two decades of preparing young people for adulthood and the absence of any parallel support once these young adults are launched out on their own. It is high time, they agree, to conceptualize emerging adulthood as a distinct transitional life stage, to understand the social forces generating it and to grapple with its typical characteristics and consequences.


Back at Work, Harlem Shopkeeper Who Unleashed Deadly Shotgun Blasts

Abstract: Charles Augusto Jr. was more than busy when he started working at Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame in 1960 for $75 a week, shuttling between the kitchens of hotels like the Plaza and the sprawling apartments of Astors and Rockefellers to repair their stoves. But lately, restaurants have been closing more than opening. On Thursday, Mr. Augusto sold only one item, a deep fryer, and by 3 p.m. he and his two workers were settling into a sluggish afternoon in Harlem. Four men broke the silence by pushing their way past the scrawled sign that states “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Ignoring Mr. Augusto’s pleas that there was no money around — the one customer had paid by check — the men, one armed with a gun, began to struggle with one of his workers and apparently wrote off Mr. Augusto as an old man not worth their trouble. Left alone, he grabbed a Winchester pump-action shotgun he had kept around since the store was robbed 20 years ago. He was not sure it would even work. It worked, three times. Seconds later, two of the robbers were dead, the other two seriously hurt, and Mr. Augusto was being hailed as a neighborhood hero. He is one of the thousands of workers and residents who stayed put in Harlem through the neighborhood’s most troubled days, its sputtering revival, and the latest downturn. Just two years ago, Mr. Augusto, who became an owner of the company in 1978, and his partner turned down offers to sell their two buildings on West 125th Street, including the one that houses the store, for $9 million, an amount it would be unlikely to fetch today. But Mr. Augusto, who is 72, was back at the store on Friday, in his navy blue work clothes. “I’ve been here 50 years,” he said. “I don’t really want to go nowhere. What do I do then?” he asked. “I’m not going to let these hoodlums run me out of here.” The news of the shootings alarmed many of the business owners, workers and residents who believed that Harlem had left its feeling of constant danger behind. A Citarella gourmet supermarket now does business a block away from Blue Flame. In 2007, Steven Buckwald, owner of Surroundings Flowers and Events, moved his commercial operations from 79th Street to a building around the corner from Mr. Augusto’s store because he thought the neighborhood had become safer. On Friday, he found himself handing over surveillance footage to the police. “It was just developing this safe, changed image,” he said. “I do hope that it’s a very temporary setback.” Adrienne Knox, a 55-year-old school lunch helper, echoed the feeling of many residents — not to mention hundreds of comments on local blogs and newspaper Web sites — when she said that Mr. Augusto’s actions might give some criminals pause. “Even before the recession, there’s always been altercations in Harlem,” she said. “But what he did out there, nobody’s going to come around messing with nobody around here.” While Mr. Augusto, who was born in Yonkers to parents of Dutch, Irish, English and Italian descent, is by no means troubled financially, he described himself as a person whose life had dealt him his share of blows. About 12 years ago, his son committed suicide. Mr. Augusto called his years as a young man in the Coast Guard “the only time I had any fun in my whole life.” He said he has not been able to pay himself since January. Mr. Augusto bought out half of the store in 1978 and kept its name — the actual Kaplan brothers had not owned it for years — to make sure he retained its longtime customers. Twenty years ago, the store was robbed at gunpoint, so his partner, Michael Gluck, got a license for a shotgun and had a gate added in front of the shop entrance. There were other events: a burglar broke in and burned through the safe, the store’s truck was hijacked, an employee was held up on the way to the bank. But Mr. Augusto stayed because he thought the neighborhood was improving. “It’s safer than it used to be during the ’60s,” he said. “Then, there were riots.” He never made the business look desirable to robbers. The untiled floors are littered with cigarette butts. Some of the drawers of Mr. Augusto’s wooden desk are broken. The shelves are filled with dust-covered stove parts like burners, knobs, springs and deep fryers. He keeps a can of Raid and a fly swatter close. Neighbors said Mr. Augusto was known to give young men temporary work loading and unloading trucks. About 17 years ago, he hired a teenager named J. B. Now 35, J. B., who declined to give his full name, earns $25 an hour, though because business is slow, neighbors said, he spends much of his time sitting in front of the shop reading the Bible. On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Augusto said, the four men set upon J. B. after Mr. Augusto told them there was nothing worth stealing. J. B., too, came to work on Friday, fielding calls from friends and from his sister, who asked if he would still move her to Virginia this weekend. “If it weren’t for Gus — ” said J. B. He paused, then alluded to one of the men who had attacked him. “Better him with a tag on his toe than my mother planning a funeral for me.” People from the neighborhood walked by Friday to study the blood and the bullet holes in the glass of the front door. Mr. Augusto received calls from a niece, a Garland Stove company executive and a stranger saying the city should have a parade for him. His wife also called from their home in Irvington, N.Y., in Westchester County, still worried about him. The news of the shooting did not bring him any new business. On Friday, the police identified the two men who died as James Morgan, 29, and Raylin Footmon, 21, both of East Harlem. Bernard Witherspoon, 22, of East Harlem, and Shamel McCloud, 21, of East Elmhurst, Queens, were in stable condition at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. The police said they would be charged with robbery. Despite all the congratulations, Mr. Augusto said he wished that the men had left when he urged them to and that he would not have had to use the shotgun. “I know the pain these people must feel,” he said, referring to the families of the two who were killed. “I don’t know what feels worse, now or when my only son died.”

Augusto Charles Jr
Robberies and Thefts
Crime and Criminals
Police Department (NYC)
Harlem (NYC)


Pakistan Army Finds Taliban Tough to Root Out

Abstract: RAZMAK, Pakistan — On an operating table at a makeshift trauma center at this military base in North Waziristan, a Pakistani soldier lay anesthetized, blood-soaked bandages applied in the field just an hour earlier a testament to a near-fatal wound. The bullet through his neck from a Taliban militant had narrowly missed an artery, and after some minor surgery, the army medics declared the patient, Sepoy Aziz, out of danger. In an offensive nearly two years old, the Pakistani Army has been fighting Taliban militants in the nation’s tribal areas and beyond, and like the United States across the border in Afghanistan, it is finding counterinsurgency warfare tougher, and more costly, than anticipated. Months after declaring victory on several important fronts, including in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley, the army has been forced to reopen campaigns after militants seeped back in. True victory remains elusive. Soldiers like Sepoy Aziz — a sepoy is the rough equivalent of a private — are killed and wounded almost daily. Much like the challenge facing American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, an absence of Pakistani civilian authority has made it nearly impossible to consolidate military gains. While eliminating some Pakistani Taliban insurgents, the long campaign has dispersed many other fighters, forcing the Pakistani Army in effect to chase them from one part of the tribal areas to another. As the campaign drags on, the Pakistani military relies more and more on American-supplied F-16 fighter jets and Cobra helicopter gunships to bomb militants in areas of treacherous terrain, increasing civilian casualties, according to reporters and Pakistani officials in the tribal areas. Many of the Pakistani Taliban fighters organize and rest here in North Waziristan under the protection of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Afghan Taliban leader who runs a network of several thousand fighters of his own. Allied with the Taliban and backed by Al Qaeda, the Haqqani group makes up a significant part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, too, and American officials have pressed the Pakistani Army for an offensive against them. But for now the brunt of the effort against Al Qaeda and the Haqqani fighters is borne by American drone strikes launched with Pakistan ’s acquiescence. The Pakistani Army says it is too overwhelmed tamping down the Taliban on other fronts in the tribal areas to take on a full-blown campaign in North Waziristan. There is truth to the Pakistani concern about being overstretched, American officials said. But there are also deep suspicions that Pakistan’s military and intelligence service use Mr. Haqqani’s force to exert influence in Afghanistan, and keep India at bay. The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has even offered to help broker a deal between the Haqqani group and the Afghan government as part of an Afghanistan peace settlement, according to Pakistani and American officials. Meanwhile, more than 2,000 troops have been killed in the last two years fighting the Pakistani Taliban, the military says. In South Waziristan, Taliban fighters operating in groups of 4 to 15 regularly hit Pakistani soldiers, army officers said. The Taliban use classic guerrilla tactics — sniper fire, roadside bombs, ambushes — and their innate knowledge of the terrain to great advantage, they said. “The terrorists have been raised here; they can find their way around blind,” said Maj. Shahzad Saleem, as small gunfire sounded around the hills near Nawazkot where Sepoy Aziz was shot. More than 120,000 farmers, shopkeepers, women and children who were ordered to leave South Waziristan at the start of the offensive were expected to be back home by now. But the lands here remain devoid of any residents, and the fruit trees laden with summer apricots are untouched. The civilians will be allowed back in stages, starting in about two weeks, and their return will be carried out under the guidance of the army, said Lt. Gen. Asif Yasin Malik, the commander of the army’s 11th Corps. In other parts of the tribal areas to the north, and in the adjacent Swat Valley, which was reclaimed by the army from the Taliban last summer, the Pakistani Army faces similar problems. Two parts of the tribal region that Pakistani Army commanders had said were secure, Bajaur and Mohmand, have come under renewed attacks from the militants in the past month. The Taliban resurfaced in Bajaur, warning the few residents who had returned not to challenge them. In Mohmand, a border post was taken over by the Taliban after 60 Pakistani soldiers of the Frontier Corps ran out of ammunition — and nerve, according to a senior army commander — when several hundred militants operating from Afghanistan attacked. The army has made the most gains in Swat, where bazaars are bustling and some tourist hotels have reopened. But few schools have been rebuilt, and residents complain of slow compensation for reconstruction of ruined homes. Taliban fighters have singled out for assassination key tribal leaders involved in negotiations in Swat for a more permanent political settlement. Civilian casualties have become harder to ignore. In April, the head of the army, General Kayani, in a rare statement of apology, acknowledged that more than 70 tribesmen had been killed after what he said were inadvertent aerial strikes against a house in Khyber belonging to a tribal elder loyal to the government. A senior Pakistani military official said, “There have been no reports of large numbers of civilians who have become casualties.” The Pakistani Army opened what it thought would be its final front against the Taliban in March when it deployed five army battalions backed by F-16 jets in an offensive in Orakzai, a part of the tribal areas that became a refuge for Taliban displaced by the campaign in South Waziristan. It has also become a critical staging ground for the Taliban and other militants groups to penetrate the adjacent Punjab Province. In June, General Kayani visited Orakzai and congratulated the troops at what was reported as a victory ceremony. But since then Pakistani fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery have continued to bomb Orakzai, causing civilian casualties in villages close to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, formerly the North-West Frontier Province, according to local residents. “You can hear bombardments day and night from our house,” a prominent landowner in Hangu said. According to the account of the landowner, who declined to be identified because of fear of repercussions from the military, seven women and children were killed in May during an air attack on the village of Shahu Khel. “There had been firing between the militants and the army and the next day three helicopters were shelling the village,” the landowner said. “There was constant bombardment at about 4 p.m.” The bodies of three women and seven children were taken to the Civil Hospital in Hangu, he said. According to reports that appeared in Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, 226 civilians have been killed in the fighting and aerial bombardment in Orakzai since the campaign started in late March. The United States is satisfied that Pakistan is using the American warplanes and helicopters in an appropriate manner, an American military spokesman said. Washington was pleased that General Kayani apologized for the deaths in Khyber, the spokesman said. “In our view the Pakistani Air Force continues to make a concerted effort to minimize collateral damage and fully understand the impact these kinds of incidents can ultimately have on their counterinsurgency efforts,” he said.

Pakistan
Taliban
Afghanistan War (2001- )
Defense and Military Forces
Waziristan (Pakistan)


Marathon Bombings Trial Will Remain in Boston

Abstract: BOSTON — The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused in the Boston Marathon bombings, will take place in Boston but will be delayed two months and is to start in January. Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. of Federal District Court on Wednesday denied a defense request to move the trial outside Boston, saying that the region was big enough to find 12 jurors who could be impartial. “It is doubtful whether a jury could be selected anywhere in the country whose members were wholly unaware of the marathon bombings,” the judge wrote in a 10-page opinion. “The Constitution does not oblige them to be,” he added, noting that jurors need only be able to set aside impressions and render a verdict based on the evidence presented. The judge did grant the defense’s request to delay the start of the trial, but only by two months, not the 10 months sought by the defense. The judge said the longer delay was not necessary, “given the size and experience of the defense team.” The trial, once scheduled to start Nov. 3, will now start Jan. 5. The decision is likely to set in motion an earlier agreement between the prosecution and defense to assemble the jury. The agreement calls for the court to issue 2,000 summonses to potential jurors about six weeks before the start of the trial that will include extensive questionnaires. Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of planting bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 260 others. Of the 30 counts with which he is charged, 17 carry the death penalty. In ruling to keep the trial in Boston, Judge O’Toole leaned heavily on guidance from the United States Supreme Court in the case of Jeffrey Skilling, a former Enron executive. He had sought to move his trial out of Houston, where Enron was based, but was denied by a district court. In the subsequent appeal, the Supreme Court weighed four factors: the size of the community from which the jury would be drawn; the nature of the media coverage; the passage of time between the crime and the trial; and whether, in hindsight, the jury had been prejudiced. Judge O’Toole noted that the Eastern Division of the District of Massachusetts, from which the jury would be selected, included five million people. As the Supreme Court observed in the Skilling case, he wrote, “It stretches the imagination to suggest that an impartial jury cannot be successfully selected from this large pool of potential jurors.”

Boston
Boston Marathon Bombings
Jury
Dzhokhar A Tsarnaev
George A O'Toole Jr


Skating Event in Jeopardy

Abstract: While international skating officials consider whether to cancel next week’s world figure skating championships in Tokyo because of the nuclear crisis in Japan, Germany said it would not send its team. The United States, Germany and other European countries have advised citizens not to travel to Japan, and the German Ice Skating Union said it would follow that recommendation.

World Figure Skating Championships
Figure Skating
Japan
Ice Skating
Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011)


With New Tablet, Microsoft Faces a Balancing Act

Abstract: Microsoft , the world’s best-known software company, is now in the business of making its own computers. That could get complicated. The delicate balancing act Microsoft must perform was apparent at two events it held on Thursday in New York to introduce two major products. At the first event, it showcased devices made by Samsung, Dell and other hardware partners that run Windows 8, a version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system redesigned to accommodate touch-based devices like tablets. An hour later, in a different area of the same location, a pier on the Hudson River, Microsoft focused entirely on Surface, a Windows tablet of its own design and the first computer the company has made in its 37-year history. The separate events allowed Microsoft to spotlight devices made by others without awkwardly upstaging them with Surface. But executives left little doubt as to which computer was their favorite. At the Surface event, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows division, described the product as the best tablet and laptop he had ever used. (The company is selling a magnetically attached cover for Surface that doubles as a notebook-size keyboard.) “We decided to do Surface because it’s the ultimate expression of Windows,” Mr. Sinofsky said. “It’s a stage.” Microsoft saw a need for a major change in both the design of Windows and its strategy for delivering it to customers after the huge success of Apple in the tablet market. The iPad is already stealing sales from laptop computers, and Apple’s chief executive has predicted that the tablets will one day outsell PCs. But Microsoft’s move into hardware has perturbed many of its traditional partners, with implications that are still unclear. The company was to start selling Surface at midnight on Friday at about 60 Microsoft-operated stores in North America, a move that has annoyed retailers who will be deprived of a high-profile electronics device backed by a big marketing campaign. Prices start at $500. There is grumbling, too, a lot of it private, from Microsoft’s hardware partners about the company competing with them for sales. But there aren’t many compelling software alternatives to which these partners can turn. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, said Windows 8 was too important for the company to leave to its partners, who often churn out uninspired designs. “This is Windows the way Microsoft wants you to see it,” he said of Surface, which has an eye-catching magnesium case. (The first version of Surface will run a variation of Windows 8 called Windows RT that cannot run older Windows applications.) Things could get even trickier in the future. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, has left open the possibility of making more hardware products, with analyst speculation focusing on a possible smartphone. In a rare joint interview on Wednesday, Mr. Ballmer and Michael Dell, the chief executive of Dell, one of Microsoft’s oldest partners in the PC business, played down any fallout from Microsoft’s move into hardware. Mr. Ballmer said Mr. Dell was the first person he showed a Surface device to before announcing the product in June. He said he flew to Chicago with one of the devices to meet Mr. Dell, who was on his way to Lagos, Nigeria. Mr. Ballmer said it was important for him to explain the device to Mr. Dell in person because he expected his initial reaction to be: “What the heck? This is different.” Mr. Dell, for his part, said he did not have a problem with Microsoft making Surface. “As I’ve understood Steve’s plans here, if Surface helps Windows 8 succeed, that’s going to be good for Windows, good for Dell and good for our customers,” he said. Of course, if Surface flops, Microsoft’s partners will probably find it easier to ignore. The company still has to convince customers, including businesses, that the product is as compelling and reliable as Apple’s iPad, which has had several years to develop. Rich Adduci, chief information officer of Boston Scientific, a medical device company, has more than 20,000 PCs at his company using older Windows. But he has also deployed more than 5,500 iPads to sales representatives and other employees. “Candidly, Surface is going to have a long, hard road ahead of it, given the marketplace and how it has matured with iPad and Android devices,” Mr. Adduci said. “There’s a very high bar for Surface that it’s going to have to hit initially for it to have a real chance.”

Microsoft Corporation
Tablet Computers
Computers and the Internet
Windows (Operating System)


Polish City to Give Tom Hanks the Car That Put It on the Auto Map

Abstract: Detroit has its Mustang. Munich has its Bimmer. Bielsko-Biala will always have the Maluch . The Maluch, or little one, is officially the Fiat 126p hatchback. Drab and cramped, it lacks either girth or pretension. But it has a perversely special place in Polish hearts. “The Maluch was the beginning of an automotive revolution in Poland,” said Jacek Krywult, the mayor of Bielsko-Biala, Poland. Before the Maluch appeared, cars meant for ordinary Poles were rare, expensive and difficult to get. That changed in 1973 when the Polish manufacturer FSM began to churn out its version of the Fiat 126 under license from the Italian carmaker. Poles snapped them up, and they were soon exported throughout the Soviet bloc. Image A Fiat 126, which became known as the Maluch, or little one, on display in 1973. Credit Kazimierz Seko/Associated Press “This is a car that has a soul,” said Monika Jaskolska, who runs a clothing store in the city. FSM kept on building and selling the Maluch — 3.3 million in all — before it was finally discontinued in 2000. The car developed a cult following in places as far away as Australia. But even so, city officials were rather stunned recently to stumble across evidence that the humble minicar had attracted an unlikely and highly prominent fan: Twitter posts from Tom Hanks that show him posing beside Maluchs. Delighted, Ms. Jaskolska started a drive to buy a Maluch, put it in good condition and ship it to the actor as a gift. Local companies have kicked in $2,005 for a 1974 model and another $7,250 to spiff it up. When it is finished in about four months, the car will be flown to Mr. Hanks with an invitation to visit Bielsko-Biala. “And I don’t want him to stay in a hotel, either,” Ms. Jaskolska said. “He should have a full Polish experience, and he can stay with my family.” The mayor, Mr. Krywult, finds the whole thing a bit humorous. “I’m happy that Mr. Hanks took a liking to our Maluch,” he said. “But it’s also a sign of the times: Poles now want to drive a Cadillac, and Americans want to drive a Maluch. That’s one crazy turn of events.”


Kidnapping Is Reported

Abstract: Robert Allenby of Australia was kidnapped in Hawaii, beaten and robbed, the Golf Channel reported Saturday. Mick Middlemo, Allenby’s caddie, told the channel that he and another friend were with Allenby in a wine bar near Waikiki but that neither was with Allenby when he was abducted Friday. Allenby, 43, who missed the cut at the PGA Tour’s Sony Open on Friday, sustained significant facial injuries and was robbed of his wallet, cellphone, cash and credit cards, according to the report. Middlemo told the Golf Channel that Allenby woke up groggy and with no memory of what had happened to him. He was picked up in a park. ■ Jimmy Walker one-putted his last 11 holes on his way to an eight-under-par 62, giving him a two-shot lead at the Sony Open in Honolulu and a chance to become the event’s first back-to-back winner since 2004. (AP) ■ Martin Kaymer shot a seven-under-par 65 at the Abu Dhabi Championship in the United Arab Emirates to extend his lead to six strokes, from one. He moved to 20-under 196 — a record-low total through 54 holes at the event. (AP)

Robert Allenby
Hawaii
Golf
Golf Channel
Kidnapping and Hostages
Robbery
Assault


For Many Golfers, Fathers Serve as the Caddies of Life

Abstract: Patrick Wilkes-Krier was warming up on Thursday morning for his United States Open debut next to the defending champion, Jordan Spieth. Suddenly he stopped, leaned his club against his golf bag and, with a few loping strides, appeared at the side of his father, James Krier, who had been wordlessly watching him. Krier nuzzled his father’s neck and gave him a kiss. After a long embrace, he pulled away, retraced his steps and resumed hitting balls. Wilkes-Krier, 32, turned professional in 2006 after a college career at Ball State. He won once as a pro, on the Hooters Tour in 2008. After several years toiling in the sport’s hinterlands, playing in what amounts to its Class AA and AAA circuits, he decided, with his father’s advice, to become a full-time coach at Kendall Academy in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a part-time competitor. ”I’d always dreamed of my dad watching me in a major,” said Wilkes-Krier, who shot 78-72 and missed the cut by four. “And it was devastating to me when I stopped playing full time because I thought that would never happen. I just wanted to make sure he knew I was enjoying it. I just wanted to make sure that he knew I was having a blast and that a big reason I was having such a good time is that he was here with me.” That moment on the range, Wilkes-Krier’s father said, was the mother of all early Father’s Day presents. Golf is a gift fathers and mothers can give their sons and daughters and get back more than they could have imagined. The process is its own reward, each round a half-day exercise in communicating and connecting. It is sport as an antidote to the 140-character world and 40-hour (or more) workweek. Rory McIlroy, who inherited his love for the game from his father, Gerry, secured his first major title on Father’s Day at the 2011 United States Open at Congressional Country Club. His favorite memory from that day, he said, was walking up to the 18th green and spotting his father along the rope line beside the hole. When their eyes met, they communicated all that needed to be said about love and sacrifice and pride. “At least I didn’t have to worry about a Father’s Day present that year,” McIlroy joked, adding, “Didn’t have to go and get a card or anything.” Image Rory McIlroy hugged his father, after winning the 2011 United States Open on Father’s Day. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Golf can strengthen the parent-child relationship, but sometimes it distorts it. Jason Day’s father taught him how to play the game but also to fear falling short of expectations. Day, the world No. 1, described his father, Alvyn, who died when he was 11, as “very abusive.” He said his father would hit him if he failed to reach the target score that was established before the round. “It was brutal,” Day said, adding: “If he was alive still, he’d be the one thing that would be holding me back. He was one of those guys that would be out here on the range every day. He’d have a lot of input into what I was doing. Whether it was good advice or bad advice, it didn’t matter; I’d probably have to listen because he was very strict that way.” Day, 28, insists that he will not raise his 3-year-old son, Dash, the same way. In their relationship, he joked, the son is the one setting the target for the father. “He always says to me before each tournament, ‘On Sunday, make sure you win because I want to kiss the trophy,’ ” Day, a three-time winner in 2016, said, laughing. His dynamic with his son is different from what he had with his father. “We discipline Dash when we need to,” Day said. “I understand that. But I want to be one of those dads who’s fun to hang out with. I’m more of a kid myself when I’m hanging around Dash.” The Days’ me-and-my-best-friend vibe comes across loud and dear in a video commercial made by Day’s equipment sponsor, TaylorMade. The promotional spot, coordinated to air around Father’s Day and casting Dash in a starring role, shows video clips of him hitting golf balls and running onto the green to get swept into his father’s arms. “When I first saw the commercial, especially at the end when he says, ‘I love you, Daddy,’ I just started crying,” Day said, adding, “I replay it over and over and I cry every time.” Some kids have baby albums; Day’s son will have a video scrapbook of his childhood. “It’s so neat,” Day said. “He’s going to have those memories to look back on. We’re going to have that commercial forever, and when he’s my age, he’ll be able to see when he was little he ran out on the greens when I won tournaments.” Image Phil Mickelson talking to his daughter Amanda during the par-3 contest held before the 2016 Masters. Credit Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A rich life is made of such memories. “That’s what it’s all about,” Day said. For Phil Mickelson, the United States Open and fatherhood are inexorably entwined. In 1999, less than 24 hours after he recorded the first of his record six runner-up finishes in the tournament, his wife, Amy, delivered the couple’s first child, their daughter Amanda Brynn. From a swaddling infant, his firstborn has grown into an independent young woman. Mickelson spoke with pride recently of a school-sponsored trip she recently took to a remote mountain village in India to teach impoverished children. “I learn from her,” Mickelson said. “I could go on and on about her.” Three years ago, Mickelson left Merion, site of the 2013 United States Open, to fly across the country to attend Amanda’s eighth-grade graduation in San Diego, returning a few hours before his first-round tee time. On Tuesday, his middle child, Sophia Isabel, graduated from eighth grade, and Mickelson was there. He flew home on Monday after a practice session at Oakmont and returned after the Tuesday night ceremony. He had a private jet at his disposal, which no doubt made the commute more manageable. But one got the feeling from listening to Mickelson that he would have hitchhiked if that were what it took to be there for his daughter (his third child, Evan Samuel, is two years younger than Sophia). “I think any parent would, if they had a chance to be at their child’s eighth-grade graduation,” Mickelson said. “I think that’s a big milestone.” He added, “It’s just important for me to be there for that stuff.” Mickelson, who turned 46 on Thursday, recognizes that traveling three time zones and back in 24 hours is not the ideal preparation for someone trying to complete a career Grand Slam with a victory here. But such is the juggling act that is fatherhood. “Those are the differences that I’ll have, where a lot of the young guys in their 20s don’t really have to think about it yet,” said Mickelson, who missed the cut after the second round. “But it’s also brought me some of the greatest joy in my life.” Wilkes-Krier tried between eight and 10 times, he said, to qualify for the United States Open. He skipped the local qualifier last year because it coincided with the birth of his first child. In his first attempt to qualify as a father, he finally succeeded. A coincidence? Wilkes-Krier thinks not. His wife, Whitney, reminded him of a vow he made last year to their daughter, Azalea. “I picked her up and said, Next year on this day we’ll be at the U.S. Open,” Wilkes-Krier said. With his eyes glistening, he said, “It’s special.”

Golf
Parenting
Fatherhood
Motherhood
US Open Golf
Father's Day
Family


Mets Limp Away From Tigers With Rookie’s Homer as Biggest Highlight

Abstract: There are fine glimpses of the future throughout the Mets’ clubhouse these days, playing roles in wins and losses, producing runs and quality starts, learning and developing. But baseball’s present belongs to teams like the Detroit Tigers, who rumbled into town like a storm and dispatched the Mets in a three-game sweep. The Tigers might not even need to wash their uniforms — they made it look that easy. After the Mets played relatively well on the road, then split two games with the Atlanta Braves, Manager Terry Collins sounded awe-struck about the first-place Tigers after Sunday’s 11-3 loss at Citi Field. “We caught these guys at the wrong time,” Collins said. The Tigers flexed their muscles in a grand showcase of their All Star-laden lineup and playoff-seasoned rotation. In consecutive games, they beat the Mets newcomer Daisuke Matsuzaka; their All-Star ace, Matt Harvey; and their hottest pitcher, Dillon Gee, who allowed four runs in six innings to lose on Sunday for only the second time in 12 starts. Detroit compiled 41 hits, setting a record for the most surrendered by the Mets in a three-game home series that did not have an extra-inning game. “You can’t get them out the same way twice, really,” Gee said. Detroit also held the Mets to 4 runs and 17 hits in the three games, with only two batters reaching scoring position Sunday. Rick Porcello, the Tigers’ fifth starter, allowed four hits and three runs in seven innings. “He pitched us tough,” Collins said. “We certainly didn’t swing the bats as well as we had been or are capable of. But there’s a reason they’re playing the way they’re playing.” And, of course, Detroit unleashed its biggest asset: the slugger Miguel Cabrera, who went 7 for 13 with two homers and five runs batted in during the series. He increased his season totals to 42 home runs, 128 R.B.I. and a .360 batting average. Image Travis d’Arnaud sent a 1-0 fastball from Rick Porcello just beyond the wall in left-center field for a two-run homer to give the Mets a 3-2 lead in the fourth. Credit Ray Stubblebine/Reuters His blast in the first inning Sunday seemed like a remnant of the Home Run Derby held here last month. The thunderous crack of the ball off Cabrera’s bat elicited gasps from the crowd. The ball flew beyond the sixth row of the second deck in left field and into a tunnel leading toward the concourse. The distance was estimated at 429 feet, not including where the ball ultimately came to rest. He added two singles to finish 3 for 4. “He’s the best hitter in baseball, there’s no question,” Collins said. “Nobody does what he does.” Cabrera’s homer gave Detroit (77-53) a 2-0 lead, but the Mets got a run back on an R.B.I. single by Daniel Murphy in the third, and then took a 3-2 lead on a home run by the rookie catcher Travis d’Arnaud in the fourth. It was the first major league home run for d’Arnaud, the team’s highly regarded catching prospect, who had been 1 for 16 in the big leagues. He managed to retrieve the ball from a fan — in return, he exchanged an autographed bat and ball — to add to a growing collection of accomplishments. He gave a curtain call after the hit, after some teammates nudged him to tip his cap. “I didn’t know what was going on,” d’Arnaud said. “It was an unbelievable experience.” The Mets (58-70) had been waiting for d’Arnaud to show signs of the offensive production that helped him rocket up the minors, another potentially big piece to the team’s future core to debut this season, along with Zack Wheeler, Juan Lagares and Wilmer Flores. But the Mets could not carry that wave of excitement for long on Sunday. In the sixth, Gee was bitten again by Detroit’s dangerous offense, giving up a two-run homer to Andy Dirks to right as the Tigers regained the lead. Gee, who had a 1.47 earned run average in his previous eight starts, sounded happy that the damage was not much worse. “I’m glad I was able to go as long as I could today feeling the way I was,” Gee said. “I was throwing a lot of balls and fell behind a lot of these guys — it made it tough. But I was at least able to give us six.” The Mets had the opportunity to tie the score in the eighth, with a runner on third base and two outs, but Tigers reliever Bruce Rondon struck out Marlon Byrd to end the threat. And then in the ninth, Detroit pounded out seven hits and scored seven runs, helped by one walk and two wild pitches, to put the game out of reach. “The Tigers aren’t in the position they’re in without having an outstanding club,” Collins said. “Good pitching and, of course, a dynamic offense. They just pitched great, and we didn’t capitalize on any situations that we had a chance in.”

Mets
Baseball
Detroit Tigers
Miguel Cabrera
Travis d'Arnaud