Arrests Over Satirical Video Lay Bare Emirati Sensitivities

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — The video was undeniably silly: a 20-minute mockumentary about a fictional martial arts school in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where grandmaster Saloom Snake trains combatants to throw sandals, strike with the thin ropes of an Arab headdress and summon help on Twitter for fights that never actually occur. But the authorities in the United Arab Emirates were not amused. In April, the police arrested five men who participated in the video, including an American citizen, Shezanne Cassim, 29, and threw them in jail, where they have been awaiting trial for eight months on charges of threatening national security. The martial arts mocumentary. The case has worried American officials and baffled the defendants’ families, who say the video merely pokes fun at Emirati youth who imitate foreign films and rap videos. But the men have faced a legal process set up for grave crimes. Rights groups say the case is only the most recent example of the extreme sensitivity of Persian Gulf monarchies to the power of social media as a forum for critical — and uncontrollable — social and political discourse. Satire, especially of the political variety spread on social media, is treated as subversive. A number of Persian Gulf countries have laws against so-called cybercrimes, and in recent years a string of people have been jailed for content posted online. But the case is also the latest instance of foreigners in Dubai — a city of extremes, with hard-partying clubs and conservative Emirati norms — getting entangled in the legal system for acts that might seem ordinary in the West, like public drinking or kissing. In July, after a video showing an Emirati man hitting an Indian van driver spread rapidly, the police arrested the Emirati as well as the man who posted the video because he had “shared” images of a potential crime. The case over the martial arts video is likely to embarrass the United Arab Emirates at a time when the country is advertising itself as an international destination for culture. Last week, Dubai won the bid to host the World Expo in 2020 under the slogan “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,” after a lengthy campaign endorsed by Bill Gates . Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, said on Twitter that the Expo would “breathe new life into the ancient role of the Middle East as a melting pot for cultures and creativity.” On Friday, the Dubai International Film Festival begins, with Cate Blanchett and Martin Sheen among the guests . Critics say that jailing residents for online expression contradicts that message of openness. “Dubai’s business model relies on it being able to project an image of progressiveness and stability, and hosting expos and film festivals all fits into this,” said Nicholas McGeehan, Persian Gulf researcher for Human Rights Watch. “But cases likes this seriously undermine that image and reveal it to be nothing more than a public relations artifice.” Emirati officials did not respond to requests for comment. The case has only become public recently, after the family members of Mr. Cassim, the American citizen, decided that their efforts to navigate the Emirati justice system had done them little good. “There seems to be no end in sight,” said Mr. Cassim’s brother, Shervon, who spent nearly three months in the Emirates trying to secure his brother’s release. In a telephone interview from his home in North Carolina, Mr. Cassim said his brother’s detention had become a bitter end to his family’s decades-old relationship with the Emirates. His parents emigrated from Sri Lanka to Dubai in 1976 because it was a land of opportunity “where you could go and make your fortune,” he said. His mother worked for an airline and his father became an advertising executive, part of the large group of expatriates that helped expand the city from a desert backwater into the hypermodern crop of skyscrapers, malls and upscale hotels that it is today. Shezanne Cassim’s two siblings were born there and all three were educated in British private schools, where they had close friends from the Emirates and many other countries, his brother said. “We were so happy to see Dubai boom and we have so much affection for the city and its people, and yet this is how the authorities treat my brother,” he said. The family moved to the United States in the early 2000s and became citizens. But Shezanne Cassim returned to Dubai after graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2006 to do business development for a subsidiary of Emirates airline, his brother said. Three weeks before his arrest, he started a consulting job with PricewaterhouseCoopers. In his free time, Mr. Cassim and his friends made videos spoofing aspects of Dubai life. The videos start with a “Don’t try this at home” warning, then show Mr. Cassim doing things he says are not done in Dubai, like changing lanes on the highway to let faster drivers pass and cleaning up after yourself at McDonalds. In one video, he wears deodorant on public transit, implying that other riders do not. In October 2012, the martial arts mocumentary was posted online, in which a portly grandmaster in a striped robe explains the United Arab Emirates’ key weapons: the sandal, the rope from an Arab headdress and “the Twitter.” In April, after the video had logged thousands of views, the police detained Mr. Cassim and four others who appear in the video. They were later put on trial for national security violations that include endangering public order. Emirati commentators, none of whom wanted to be named in connection with a national security case, guessed that the authorities objected to the video’s stereotyping of Emiratis or thought it implied that the country had gangs. One suggested that the police cracked down to prevent a “snowball effect” of similar videos in the future. The case recalls the fate of the Sudanese rapper Dangour, who was arrested in the Emirates in June 2011 and jailed for two years after he posted a video of himself rapping about drugs and violence. But not all such indiscretions are punished. One month before Dangour’s arrest, the Emirates welcomed the American rapper Snoop Dogg, who greeted the audience in a white robe and Arab headdress to deliver an expletive-filled show. The verdict in Mr. Cassim’s case was expected in September, but it has been delayed numerous times. His family says that he is being held in a desert prison outside Abu Dhabi with the other four defendants and that he has not been allowed to meet privately with his defense lawyer. A State Department official said that the United States was “troubled by the prolonged incarceration” of Mr. Cassim and that American diplomats were working with their counterparts in the United Arab Emirates to “to urge a fair and expedient trial and judgment.” Mr. Cassim’s next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 16.

United Arab Emirates
Social Media
Human Rights Watch


Leach Denies He Mistreated Player With Concussion

Abstract: In his first interview since being fired as coach of Texas Tech , Mike Leach denied reports that he had mistreated the sophomore receiver Adam James after James sustained a concussion. Leach said in a 38-minute phone interview late Thursday that James acted as if he were entitled to special treatment and that he was lazy. He also said the player and his family’s claims of mistreatment were the result of bitterness over a lack of playing time. Leach said that he felt that James’s father, Craig James, tried to leverage his position as an ESPN analyst to get more playing time for his son. It has been widely reported that Leach locked Adam James in a closet or a shed after James sustained a concussion at a practice last month. Leach said he only ordered James to be taken “out of the light” and did not know specifically where he had been taken. “I was busy coaching practice,” Leach said. He added: “There have been several things that have been brought to my attention on the ticker that’s just false,” Leach said, referring to ESPN’s bottom line ticker. “He was never locked anywhere. At no point was he locked anywhere. At no point was there an electrical closet.” Leach described a divisive and tense relationship with Craig James, whom he said he had to deal with more than every other parent on the team combined. He said that James frequently attended practices and called assistant coaches. “I think he used his position at ESPN to try to coerce me into allowing Adam to play more,” said Leach, who said he expected to coach again. “But the thing about it is as the coach, I watch every inch of film. I’m deferring to the judgment of 12 people as we look at the film on who should play and who should play when and then we make our decision based on that. I don’t feel like it’s fair to the other players and I don’t think it’s the right way to do business to allow influence and position to dictate when you play a young man.” When Craig James was asked about those claims, he called them “absurd” and said he would “never go there,” according to Josh Krulewitz, an ESPN spokesman. During an interview on “SportsCenter,” James said the family was feeling pressure from Tech fans. “Absolutely. This isn’t something we asked for,” Craig James said. “We continue to be a victim of something. Our family is going through a lot right now, far more than we ever wanted to go through.” The police in the town north of Dallas where the James family lives have beefed up patrols around the home because of threatening statements made online, The Associated Press has reported. “Nothing has happened at the house, but everybody knows what’s occurred on the blogs over there, so it’s precautionary to the threats being made,” the Celina police chief, Joe Williams, said Thursday. Leach said that Craig James called the assistant coach Lincoln Riley so often to lobby for playing time that they had a meeting with Adam James. They played him two of the messages and asked, “How would you feel if we went in there to the meeting room and we stuck speakers up and we played these two messages for the team?” Leach added: “After that we didn’t get any more phone calls from Craig, but he did proceed to call administrators.” Leach said that Craig James felt his son was not getting a fair shot and threatened to call the administration about it. “He made it clear that he had a business relationship with our chancellor or certainly was in conversation about such things,” Leach said. “He made it clear that he was announcing this game or that. He always felt like we were leaving the best receiver on the team on the bench. It’s inconceivable that we’d ever want to do that or consider doing it.” The Texas Tech head football trainer, Steve Pincock, supported Leach’s claims that he did not mistreat Adam James after his concussion. “Adam was never locked in any facility, and was never placed in an electrical closet or tight space, or instructed to do so,” Pincock said in a statement. Texas Tech said in its statement announcing Leach’s firing on Wednesday that Leach’s actions put James “at risk for additional injury.” But Texas Tech’s team physician, Dr. Michael Phy, said in a statement, “According to the information given to me, no additional risks or harm were imposed on Adam by what he was asked to do.” Pincock said that Adam James showed up at practice after the concussion diagnosis in sunglasses and street clothes and showed a “noncaring” attitude when asked to walk around the field. Pincock said the first place James was placed, which had been reported as a shed, was in fact an equipment garage. The lock on the garage was broken, he said. “I instructed Adam to stay in the garage and out of the sun, so the light would not worsen his condition,” Pincock said. “While in the garage, Adam was walking around, eating ice, sitting on the ground, and, at one point, sleeping.” He added: “Coach Leach asked that Adam be placed in a location where sunlight could not bother him, as he was wearing sunglasses. Two trainers, including myself, monitored Adam at all times.” The second claim of mistreatment of James at practice had been reported as his being locked in a closet, which was a media room that Pincock said was never locked. There is a closet in the room, but James, Pincock said, was not instructed to go in there. “At no time during this practice was Adam ever placed in the electrical closet,” Pincock said. “The door to the media room was never locked, and trainers attending to Adam stated that he was sitting at times during the practice.” Leach said that the release of a series of e-mail messages obtained by The Dallas Morning News proved that the university did not want him around. In one, a booster recommended to Tech administrators, “You should sign a contract that would not cost us too much to fire him.” “It’s shocking to me that there’s people working together that were trying to get me fired last year after an 11-1 regular season,” Leach said. He added: “I believe in everybody working together and that together we could all accomplish great things together, but then I discover that’s not the case and that the very foundation is crumbling out from under me. Betrayal’s really hard.” Leach said he would like the relationships between some Texas Tech regents, university administrators and James to be examined. Reached late Thursday, a Texas Tech spokeswoman, Sally Post, said that the university’s chancellor, Kent Hance, would respond Friday to Leach’s comments.

Football
Leach Mike
Texas Tech University
College Athletics


Editor Describes Pressure After Leaks by Snowden

Abstract: The top editor of the British newspaper The Guardian told Parliament on Tuesday that since it obtained documents on government surveillance from a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, it has met with government agencies in Britain and the United States more than 100 times and has been subjected to measures “designed to intimidate.” The testimony by the editor, Alan Rusbridger, gave a public airing to the debate over how to balance press freedom against national security concerns, an issue that became more acute once The Guardian began publishing material leaked by Mr. Snowden in June. The American and British governments have said the disclosures, which detail how the National Security Agency and its equivalent in Britain, Government Communication Headquarters, gather vast amounts of data, damage national security and help hostile governments. Journalists and transparency advocates have countered that the leak spurred a vital debate on privacy and the role of spy agencies in the Internet age. Mr. Rusbridger said Tuesday that the governments’ measures “include prior restraint,” as well as visits by officials to his office, the enforced destruction of Guardian computer disks with power tools and repeated calls from lawmakers “asking police to prosecute” The Guardian for disclosing the classified material in news articles. As he testified before a Parliamentary committee on national security, he faced aggressive questioning from lawmakers, particularly those of the ruling Conservative Party. Some asserted that The Guardian had handled the material irresponsibly, putting it at risk of interception by hostile governments and others. Others said the paper had jeopardized national security. At one point during the hearing, Mr. Rusbridger was asked, to his evident surprise, whether he loved his country. He answered yes, noting that he valued its democracy and free press. After Mr. Rusbridger’s testimony, a senior British police officer, Cressida Dick, refused to rule out prosecutions as part of an investigation into the matter. Since the revelations, newspapers, particularly those that have dealt with Mr. Snowden’s material, have also had to adjust to a harsh new reporting environment, security experts and journalists said, as governments and others seek secret material held by reporters. “The old model was kind of like your house,” said Marc Frons, the chief information officer of The New York Times. “You locked your front door and windows, but not your desk drawer, even if it had your passport inside. In the new model, you have locks on everything.” The Guardian, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal declined to comment about internal security arrangements. But Mr. Rusbridger told Parliament that the newspaper “went to more precautions over this material than any other story we have ever handled.” Senior Guardian editors were initially skeptical this year when asked to hand over their cellphones before discussing Mr. Snowden’s documents, said a person with knowledge of the reporting process, who did not want to be named discussing confidential security procedures. That soon changed when they reviewed the information Mr. Snowden had supplied, this person said. The documents, they came to realize, would be of intense interest not only to the American and British governments, from which they were taken, but also to other governments like China and Russia seeking an espionage edge and hackers seeking to embarrass either government agencies or the publications reporting on the material. Eventually the same editors insisted that meetings be held in rooms without windows and that any electronic devices nearby be unplugged. Computers that contained the information could never be connected to the Internet. And reporters who needed to consult with colleagues in other countries about the documents had to fly them over physically and meet in person, despite the extra costs. On one occasion, Mr. Rusbridger said, encrypted documents were sent via FedEx. Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, said effective countermeasures for all reporters covering such issues begin with first contact with a source. Devices “leave fingerprints everywhere you go,” he said. “Leave all your high-tech gadgets at home; meet in a public location that’s kind of noisy, and wear a hat so you don’t get caught on camera.” “You have to walk there, because we have this network of license plate readers now,” he said, or buy a transit ticket with cash and dispose of it afterward. As for making first contact with a sensitive source, Mr. Weaver said, “You have to wait for them to contact you.” Communicating with existing sources, said Ashkan Soltani, a security expert and reporter who has worked with The Guardian, The Journal and The Post, should be done on a computer isolated from all other “promiscuous communications” like web browsing and downloading files, to avoid the secret installation of software to monitor activity. “If the computers have malware, no amount of secure email, no amount of encryption is going to help,” he said. The threat is not abstract: Several news organizations have been victimized by hacking in recent years. In 2012, Chinese hackers infiltrated The New York Times’s systems, seeking access to reporters’ inboxes. The United States government, too, seeks access to email information involving news organizations. Several secret subpoenas to companies like Google for data related to accounts linked with WikiLeaks have surfaced. But those briefed on security plans, and several recent reports, suggest that tech companies are also trying to resist the government’s drive for information.

Government Surveillance
Alan Rusbridger
Guardian British Newspaper
News media,journalism
Classified Information
NSA
Edward Snowden


Oaklawn to Offer $5 Million if Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra Race

Abstract: In an attempt to bring Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta together for the first time, Oaklawn Park in Arkansas announced Thursday that it would increase the purse of the April 3 Apple Blossom Invitational to $5 million if the two female stars competed in the race. Neither camp has made a firm commitment to start in the Apple Blossom, but Charles Cella, Oaklawn’s president, said that he had discussed the race with the owners Jerry Moss and Jess Jackson and that both said they were enthusiastic about the idea. “My family and I would love to see her run at Oaklawn Park,” Jackson, the owner of Rachel Alexandra, said in a statement. “If she is in top form and it fits in our schedule, we will be there. Rachel, as you know, likes the track, having won twice there last year.” Moss, who along with his wife, Ann, owns Zenyatta, said this week that he would “love to be there,” when asked about running his champion mare in the Apple Blossom. The $5 million purse would be the richest for a race restricted to female horses. The distance of the race has also been changed, from a mile and a sixteenth to a mile and an eighth. The race was formerly known as the Apple Blossom Handicap, but by making it an invitational, all horses will carry the same weight. If the race remained a handicap, the top horses would have to carry more. And if either Zenyatta or Rachel Alexandra does not start, the Apple Blossom’s purse will revert to $500,000. Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta are widely considered two of the best female horses ever. Neither lost in 2009 and both beat male horses. Rachel Alexandra topped males in the Preakness Stakes , the Haskell Invitational and the Woodward Stakes. Zenyatta concluded her year with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic over males, winning with an electrifying stretch run. But that was not enough for her to wrest the 2009 Horse of the Year title, which went to Rachel Alexandra in a closely contested race that left fans of both horses clamoring for a showdown. The purse, of which $3 million would go to the winner, is not the only reason the Apple Blossom may be a good fit for both horses. Oaklawn is the only racetrack both have competed over, and both won their races there easily, an indication they should have no problem with the track surface. Oaklawn is also a traditional dirt surface, the only type of track Jackson has been willing to run his filly over. Neither horse has started this year, but both are training for their 2010 debuts. Neither owner has said where the horses will race next, but it is likely both will want a prep race before a possible confrontation in the Apple Blossom. The trainer John Shirreffs has said that the March 13 Santa Margarita at Santa Anita could be Zenyatta’s next race. Rachel Alexandra could run the same day at the Fair Grounds in the New Orleans Ladies Stakes. Oaklawn should have no trouble getting additional horses to compete in the Apple Blossom. Though other owners and trainers might be reluctant to race against Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, $500,000 will go to the horse that finishes third, which should be a lucrative incentive.

Zenyatta
Rachel Alexandra (Race Horse)
Horse Racing
Moss Jerry
Jackson Jess


Aid Groups Say Myanmar Food Stolen by Military

Abstract: YANGON, Myanmar — The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country’s army. The United States military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there was a possibility that “a significant tropical cyclone” — a second big storm — would form within 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy Delta, the region that suffered most from the first storm, which struck May 3. Thailand’s prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, flew to Yangon on Wednesday to try to persuade Myanmar’s leaders to allow more foreign aid workers into the country. The members of the military junta told him they were in control of the relief operations and had no need for foreign experts, he told reporters after returning to Bangkok, The Associated Press reported. The government said there were no outbreaks of disease or starvation among the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the cyclone. In Yangon, Mr. Samak met with the prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, The A.P. report said. The aid directors in Myanmar declined to be quoted directly on their concerns about the stolen supplies for fear of angering the ruling junta and jeopardizing their operations, although Marcel Wagner, country director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, confirmed that aid was being diverted by the army. He said the issue would become an increasing problem, although he declined to give further details because of the sensitivity of the situation. International aid shipments continued to arrive Wednesday, including five new air deliveries of relief supplies from the United States. Western diplomats said their representatives at the airport were making sure the cargo was unloaded efficiently and then trucked to staging areas. The fate of the supplies after that, however, remained unknown, because the junta has barred all foreigners, including credentialed diplomats and aid workers, from accompanying any donated aid, tracking its distribution or following up on its delivery. Myanmar state radio reported Wednesday that the death toll from the May 3 cyclone had risen again, to 38,491, Agence France-Presse reported, with 27,838 people still missing. The toll has been increasing daily as more of the missing are identified as dead. The United Nations has estimated that the toll could be more than 60,000. The International Red Cross estimated Wednesday that the cyclone death toll was between 68,833 and 127,990, according to The A.P. There were rumors in Myanmar on Wednesday that special high-energy biscuits donated for distribution in the disaster areas had been replaced by cheaper, off-the-shelf crackers. But Mr. Wagner and the others said they had not heard of high-quality foodstuffs being stolen and replaced by inferior products. Although aid flights are now regularly seen arriving at the Yangon airport, international rescue teams and disaster-relief experts for the most part are being kept away from the country. A small French rescue team has arrived in Yangon, although it was unclear whether it had received official permission. The government said it would allow in 160 relief workers from neighboring countries, including India, China, Bangladesh, and Thailand, The A.P. reported. But diplomats and representatives of aid missions said that visas for overseas experts were still being denied. The United Nations’ top emergency aid official expressed “huge frustration” Wednesday with the Myanmar government’s barring foreign aid workers from the areas most devastated by last week’s cyclone and urged it to make “a radical change” and reverse its decision. John Holmes, the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, said he could report only “small signs of progress.” The United Nations, he said, had raised its estimate of the number of people “severely affected “ by the cyclone and therefore most in need of emergency aid to between 1.6 million and 2.5 million. The earlier estimates were 1.3 million and 1.9 million, respectively. Mr. Wagner said he and his agency’s foreign staff members were now barred from the Irrawaddy Delta, even areas where the group has projects from before the storm. Fortunately, he said, he has Burmese staff members who are permitted to pass through an increasing number of military checkpoints. The Adventist group specializes in rainwater collection, water filtration and sanitation — just the kinds of expertise most needed now — and Mr. Wagner said outside experts were needed to train local people in the proper use of filters, pumps and hygiene. Reports have been mixed about how much aid was actually getting through to the delta. One longtime relief coordinator in Myanmar said Tuesday that 30 percent of the people in the damaged areas had been reached. But other agencies were encouraged about recent improvements in deliveries, especially groups with projects and local staff already in place, and the agencies with established working relationships with the government. The World Health Organization said its supplies were arriving in the country normally, without being diverted, siphoned off or replaced with substandard items. Mr. Wagner said his agency had success in getting its trucks into Labutta, although daily rainstorms were beginning to make road travel more difficult. The monsoon season would make things worse, he said, and he and the World Health Organization experts said they expected to start getting reports from the field soon about malaria, dengue fever and water-borne diseases. Mr. Wagner was careful to point out that these afflictions were not unusual in the delta region, saying, “They happen every year at this time, with or without a cyclone.” Shari Villarosa, the senior diplomat at the United States Embassy in Yangon, said she was encouraged by the military government’s acceptance of aid. “The Burmese will see they’re going to need help getting this aid out, but they’re going to come around way too slow — and too late for many,” Ms. Villarosa said during an interview in her office. A number of countries have offered to bring in aid and deliver it from the south, by ship, but the junta has refused. One of the generals’ most enduring fears is a seaborne invasion by Western powers it calls “foreign saboteurs.” “These guys really believe we are planning an invasion,” Ms. Villarosa said. The United States said this week that several of its military ships were in the area and ready to provide help in Myanmar. “If they hear that a large U.S. ship is off the coast, they don’t receive the message that it’s a genuine humanitarian effort,” she said. A medical officer from the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the presence of corpses in the region’s waters was not a serious health issue. “I know this issue of dead bodies is a worldwide concern, but the dead bodies do not represent any specific additional public health risk,” said Pino Annunziata, a medical officer in the organization’s Department of Emergency Response and Operations. “This is a very negligible risk from a public health standpoint. We have to focus on the survivors.”


It's a 1-2 Finish Once Again for the Dueling Mercedes Duo

Abstract: SPIELBERG, Austria — The Austrian Grand Prix was supposed to be a celebration of the reigning world champion Red Bull team, which is owned by the Austrian energy drink company of the same name and which also owns the track on which the race took place. But it turned out to be a party for the current championship leaders, Mercedes and the Mercedes-powered Williams. After a couple of temporary setbacks, the two Mercedes cars of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton returned to their winning form Sunday, by finishing first and second for the sixth time in the eight races this season. The Mercedes-powered Williams cars of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa finished third and fourth, while three of the Red Bull-owned cars dropped out of the race with technical breakdowns. It was Rosberg’s third victory of the season, after he won the first race, in Australia in March, and the Monaco Grand Prix last month. “It wasn’t the easiest of races, trying to manage certain things which were on the limit on the car,” said Rosberg, referring to small problems both Mercedes had with braking. “But I had a fantastic car again.” Aside from Rosberg’s three victories this season, he has finished all the rest in second, while Hamilton has won four races, dropped out of two with technical problems and finished the others in second. The two drivers were upstaged at the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago, after their cars both had technical problems, and Daniel Ricciardo won the race in a Red Bull car, passing Rosberg with two laps left. The Mercedes cars were then knocked off the first row of the grid in Austria during qualifying on Saturday by the two Williams cars, as Massa qualified first and his teammate at Williams, Bottas, qualified second. Rosberg qualified third, and Hamilton managed only ninth after making a couple of errors. But it took only a couple of laps for the Mercedes drivers to begin an attack that would reward them with the top two spots: Rosberg immediately passed Bottas at the start, before the Finn passed him again, while after two laps Hamilton had shot to fourth position. “It was a good start,” Hamilton said. “One of the best starts I have ever had, the position of the car and correct places. It was damage limitation to get from ninth to second.” It was mostly a routine race from then on as the Williams cars were ultimately no match for the Mercedes, despite the latter having problems with brakes on both cars, and Massa, after a perfect start, lost the lead to Rosberg after his pit stop on Lap 15. The third place for Bottas was his first podium finish in the series since joining last year. “I’m really thankful to the team for giving me this car. It has been such a long way since last year,” Bottas said. “The race was exactly what we needed at this point.” After Hamilton failed to finish in Canada and Rosberg finished second, Rosberg’s victory awarded him another seven points over Hamilton, to lead his teammate by 29 points in the drivers’ series, with 165 points to 136. A victory is worth 25 points. If it was a return to glory for the Mercedes cars, the return of the Austrian Grand Prix after 11 years’ absence was a nightmare for the hosts of the race: The track has been renamed the Red Bull Ring by its owner, the Red Bull energy drink company of Austria, which owns the Red Bull and Toro Rosso teams. The track facilities, situated in the Styrian Alps, were entirely rebuilt with a new pit building and grandstand, although the track layout itself was left as before. There is a giant statue of a Red Bull in the center of the track infield, and Red Bull-sponsored entertainment and sporting events took place throughout the weekend. The Red Bull team has won every drivers’ and constructors’ championship in the past four years with Sebastian Vettel driving. The return of the race to Austria was supposed to be a celebration of the Red Bull teams, but Vettel’s car had technical problems. Starting from only 12th position, Vettel slowed to a stop on the second lap, as he complained of having a complete loss of power. He dropped a lap behind the field before finding his car working again. On Lap 33 while in last position, a lap behind the leaders, and while trying to pass the Sauber of Esteban Gutiérrez, Vettel ran into the rear of the Mexican’s car and broke his front wing. He made a pit stop to change the wing and dropped farther back. Then, on Lap 37, his engineer said to Vettel: “Sebastian, box this lap, we’re going to retire the car.” The two Toro Rosso cars of Daniel Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne, had technical problems and also dropped out of the race, after 10 laps and 61 laps of the 70-lap race. Ricciardo finished eighth, and is third in the series — but with, 83 points, he has half as many as Rosberg. If it was a bad day for the Austrian energy drink company and its owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, whose idea it was to renovate the circuit, it was a historic day for another Austrian. Toto Wolff is a minority share holder of both the Williams team and the Mercedes team, as well as being the executive director of the Mercedes team. In having his four cars finish in the top four spots, he becomes the first team owner to do that since Enzo Ferrari’s four cars finished in the top four spots at the Belgian Grand Prix of 1961. It was also the first time since Ferrari in 1952 that any team has placed its drivers first and second six times in the first eight races of the season. “It’s a great day for the team to take another one-two finish and congratulations, too, to our partners at Williams, who made it four Mercedes Benz engines in the top four this afternoon,” Wolff said.


Lydia Ko Leads U.S. Open With Her Eye on a Third Major Title

Abstract: SAN MARTIN, Calif. — When Lydia Ko first came to a United States Women’s Open four years ago, her hands were shaking out of nerves. Now with two major titles under her belt by age 19, Ko has kept those emotions under control and projected a picture of calmness on the golf course. Ko birdied the 18th hole at CordeValle to cap a two-under-par 70 in the third round Saturday that put her in the lead at the United States Open, bolstering her chance for her third major title in less than a year. “I think nerves are good because it means you’re excited,” Ko said. “You’re ready. It means a lot to you. You’ve got to be able to control it. But a little bit of nerves is always good. It can end up being a little bit of adrenaline.” Whatever Ko is doing is working. She became the youngest woman to win a major at last year’s Evian Championship and then won the ANA Inspiration this spring. Now she is in contention for her first United States Open title after failing to make the top 10 in her first four appearances. Ko had a one-shot lead over Eun Hee Ji, the 2009 winner, and Sung Hyun Park. Brittany Lang and Amy Yang were two shots back at five under, and Angela Stanford was in sixth place at four under. “I’m going to just try and enjoy it, just focus on the shot I have in front of me and not think about what everybody else is doing,” Ko said. “If I think that way, I won’t get too carried away with what position I am at certain parts of the final day.” Ko’s week got off to a somewhat shaky start when she was tied for 52nd after a 73 in the first round. But Ko got into contention with a 66 in the second round and then took sole possession of the lead on the final hole Saturday. Her approach shot spun back about 9 feet from the hole, and she calmly sank the putt. Ko is tied for the fewest putts through three rounds. She made two other long birdies Saturday, a 25-foot downhill putt on No. 3 and then a left-to-right swinging putt on No. 13 that she initially thought she had misread. “That’s what I was doing the majority of the day,” she said. “I said, ‘Oh, man.’ And then I was kind of walking a little bit and then I saw the ball drop. So it kind of took me by surprise. So it was a lucky one.”

Lydia Ko
Golf
US Women's Open Golf
Eun-hee Ji


A Review of Meredith’s New Orleans Cuisine, in Manalapan

Abstract: I ATE hush puppies out of context at Meredith’s New Orleans Cuisine, a boxy little restaurant that shares a foyer with the Twilight Bar and Lounge in Manalapan. They came as an appetizer, and the good news is that they were O.K.: finger-shaking-hot orbs of deep brown, deep-fried bread studded with diced onion and corn. The bad news is that they were sweet when they should not have been, and they begged for everything else that I associate with them: a platter of hot fried catfish, a mound of coleslaw, a picnic table by the river. Quibbling aside, the food at Meredith’s, despite its disjointed approach, can soothe a Southerner’s homesickness while affording anyone else an inkling of what comfort food is really about: deep flavors from low and slow cooking, played against the good crunch that only the frying pan can deliver. Meredith Price, the restaurant’s owner, said in a phone conversation after my visits that she fell for New Orleans food after visiting the city in 2005. But it took a 2010 reorganization at Verizon Wireless, where she had been employed as a project manager, to nudge her into opening the restaurant in August 2011. The executive chef is Lois Gullace, who began her culinary career as a caterer, then worked at the Knob Hill Country Club in Manalapan and the Blue Rooster Bakery and Café in Cranbury before starting at Meredith’s. Outside, the place is hard to spot, its entrance perpendicular to the road. Inside, the tables are spread with cloth and the chairs are comfortable, but many were empty on both weekend visits; I hope that changes. Meredith’s is a refreshing reminder of culinary inspiration beyond New Jersey. As might be expected from a place that would serve hush puppies as an appetizer, Meredith’s does not take a strict approach to food traditions. Witness, for instance, in the appetizers category, a balsamic reduction alongside a leaning tower of fried green tomatoes interspersed with the raw, red version, augmented by roasted red pepper coulis and a scattering of diced red onion. I had never had fried green tomatoes served with raw ones; the result was interesting. Then there was the heart-thudding portion of hot, house-fried potato chips strewed with bacon, cheese sauce and crumbled blue cheese, garlic and scallions. Called voodoo chips, they looked like nachos, and though they were out of place in a white-tablecloth restaurant, they were all consumed. Outside tradition, too, was the ramekin loaded with tender shrimp cooked in a rosemary-beer sauce, called barbecued shrimp. Order it up and use the hot house-made pecan rolls — one of several breads that may be available — to sop the juice (noting that rosemary and pecans are naturals together). Two other appetizers hewed, more or less, to convention, with delicious results: the gumbo (with andouille, tasso ham and chicken) in a rich brown broth that began with roux; and the red beans and rice (with andouille). As for the mains, a table favorite was shrimp, with tender sautéed onion and tricolor sweet-pepper strips, over cheese grits made with Monterey Jack and Cheddar. The étouffée — crawfish when I had it — was tantalizing enough to encourage eating past satiety. The perfectly cooked porterhouse pork chop with rough-chopped and spiced collard greens was devoured, though the corn pudding was cloyingly sweet, rendering it one-dimensional. A few dishes were less successful. The crab cake bites, an appetizer, tasted mostly of fried crunch. Baked catfish with corn salsa and salad seemed self-consciously low-calorie; the corn kernels were starchy, and the salsa was disagreeably chilled. The jambalaya was dry, a brown lump that held its shape. The pan-grilled steak was mushy, and the carrots with it had been steamed to the point of tastelessness; the roasted potatoes offered little redemption. Desserts, most made by Cliff Harvey, the sous-chef, were above average. Winners were a pecan pie from a Gullace family recipe; a French bread pudding served hot with sugared pecans and vanilla ice cream; and a “trinity” consisting of a beignet, a house-made chocolate truffle and more of that bread pudding. As for the Bananas Foster prepared tableside, the server won points for narration but didn’t let the banana slices simmer long enough, thus removing lusciousness — and context — from the dessert. But I’m far, far from New Orleans. I’ll take any Bananas Foster — and hush puppies — I can get. Meredith’s New Orleans Cuisine 339 Route 9 South Manalapan (732) 490-5290 WORTH IT THE SPACE Pleasant dining room seating about 75 people, with New Orleans-style memorabilia on the walls and a wall-mounted screen with a slide show of city photos. Wheelchair accessible. THE CROWD Few tables were occupied on my visits. Servers were chatty. THE BAR Bring your own wine or beer. THE BILL Main dishes, $12 to $23. MasterCard, Visa and Discover cards accepted. WHAT WE LIKE Hush puppies, fried green tomatoes, voodoo chips, barbecued shrimp, gumbo, red beans and rice, shrimp and cheese grits, crawfish étouffée, pork chop with collard greens, bread pudding, pecan pie, trinity of desserts. IF YOU GO Open Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday through Thursday, 4 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Closed Monday. Abundant parking next to the building. Reservations recommended on Friday and Saturday. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother.

Meredith's New Orleans Cuisine (Manalapan NJ Restaurant)

Meredith's New Orleans Cuisine (Manalapan NJ)


Attacks on Politicians in Ukraine Add to Tension Before Parliamentary Elections

Abstract: KIEV, Ukraine — A political activist and candidate for Parliament with the populist Radical Party was jumped outside his home in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, as he returned from a television appearance overnight on Friday. The candidate, Mark Gres, was beaten and stabbed in what party officials called an assassination attempt. Oleksandr Gorin, a candidate from the People’s Front Party, led by the prime minister, was savagely beaten the same night after being ambushed in the foyer of his apartment building in Ukraine’s southern Odessa region. And on Monday, another People’s Front candidate, Volodymyr Borysenko, survived an attempt on his life that included gunfire and a homemade explosive. Officials said he had survived only because of the body armor he had started wearing after receiving threats. In the final stretch before parliamentary elections on Sunday, Ukraine’s always rough and unpredictable politics have taken a new and frightening turn. The attacks have occurred not in the war-stricken east, where government troops have been battling pro-Russian rebels for half a year, but in the heart of the country, in places that for the most part have not directly experienced the fighting. There was no indication that the attacks were connected, let alone proof that they were politically motivated. But the spate of violence highlighted the extraordinary tensions surrounding an election that, for better or worse, stands to alter the course of the country by completing the overhaul of the government that began with the ouster of President Viktor F. Yanukovych in February. The attacks have further marred an election that was already clouded by the expectation that few people in the embattled eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk would be able to participate because of continued fighting and rebel opposition. If the government in Kiev had hoped that parliamentary elections, followed by local elections in December, would help heal the rift in the east as part of a larger effort to grant the area more control, they are now confronted with the reality that rebel leaders plan to block the balloting on Sunday. They also plan to hold their own elections in November. Late Tuesday, the authorities said they had arrested a Russian citizen suspected in the attack against Mr. Borysenko, but said no further information would be made public until Wednesday. And there were warnings of more trouble ahead. Oleh Lyashko, the flamboyant and provocative leader of the Radical Party, who has been one of the most prominent figures in the election, abruptly canceled all campaign events on Tuesday after the state Security Service warned that there was credible evidence of an imminent assassination attempt. “We had information that there was an attempted terrorist attack,” said Viacheslav I. Shaposhnik, another Radical Party leader, apologizing to a crowd that was expecting Mr. Lyashko at a rally in the town of Romny. It was not clear if Mr. Lyashko would appear at any campaign events before Sunday’s vote, which by law will be preceded by a 24-hour quiet period. In a statement on the Radical Party’s website, he indicated a concern that his campaign rallies could be the targets of an attack. “According to the information we get from many reliable sources, terrorist acts are being prepared during my parliamentary campaign, which can result in bloodshed and a number of victims among the innocent people who come to these meetings,” Mr. Lyashko said. The early elections Sunday were called this summer when President Petro O. Poroshenko took steps to dissolve the Parliament, which many Ukrainians viewed as a last vestige of the government of his predecessor, Mr. Yanukovych. Mr. Yanukovych’s ouster preceded Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the birth of a Russia-supported secessionist movement in the east that still threatens to tear Ukraine apart. Fighting has continued despite a truce agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus, in September. And the authorities in Kiev seem largely powerless to carry out parliamentary votes in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which remain partly under the control of the pro-Russian rebels. In a recent statement, rebel leaders boasted that they controlled more than half of the polling stations in the embattled areas. Surveys conducted last month suggested that a coalition party led by Mr. Poroshenko and the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, had a substantial lead in the race. An array of other parties are also expected to exceed the threshold needed to form a coalition in Parliament, including the People’s Front Party of Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk and the Radical Party of Mr. Lyashko. Half of the 450 seats in Parliament are to be filled by direct election. The other half will be chosen from lists drawn up by each party, with seats apportioned according to the percentage of votes each party receives. Mr. Yatsenyuk, in a statement on the People’s Front Party website, said he was certain the attack on Mr. Borysenko had been politically motivated and demanded that the assailants be found. “I think this is exclusively connected with his political actions,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said. Mr. Gres, the Radical Party candidate who was stabbed, said the attack on him might have been connected to his criticism of the leader of a volunteer battalion fighting pro-Russian rebels in the east, which, if true, underscores the internecine rivalries that exist even among groups united in their opposition to the insurrection. A separate fight has emerged between the Kiev government and rebel leaders over the scheduling of local elections. In a law granting “special status” to Donetsk and Luhansk, Parliament had agreed that the two regions could choose their own local officials, but said they would do so on Dec. 7, the same day as other regions throughout Ukraine. Rebel leaders, however, have said they will hold their own elections on Nov. 9.


Wrangling Data From a Huge Variety of Fitness Gadgets

Abstract: The human body is in data overload. Sensors and tracking devices like the Fitbit and the Withings Bluetooth scale and weight-loss apps like MyFitnessPal are enabling us to easily monitor an enormous number of diverse states — including weight, blood pressure, carbon dioxide levels, sleep patterns, movement, steps taken, miles ridden and body fat levels. It’s all part of the so-called quantified self movement. It may be fun to find out all that stuff, but how do you manage the reams of collected data? Who has the time or the inclination to check five apps and strap on three hardware devices, all to make sure you’re functioning as the perfect human specimen you aspire to be? And most important, what do you do with the information once you have it? The first step is to collect the data in one app, so that the weight you’re measuring on the Withings connected scale and the stats on the 30-mile bike ride you tracked using MapMyRide, as well as your blood pressure, all appear in the same app and on the same interface. Which app or website that should be is still up for grabs. A diverse group of fitness and vital-signs device makers, as well as app developers, are trying to figure it out. And the aggregation of monitoring data has turned into a spider’s web of possibilities, with the functions captured on one app or hardware device able to be viewed on scores of others. So now not only can you track Withings’ weight data on Fitbit’s app, but you can track Fitbit’s activity data on Withings’ app. The MyFitnessPal weight-loss app shares information with Fitbit, Runtastic, BodyMedia, Jawbone and the Withings scale, among others. Fitbit shares its information with over 30 partners, including Lose It!, MapMyRun, and SleepDebt, as well as Withings and MyFitnessPal. Visit the site of your favorite fitness and health device or application, and you’ll find similar partnerships. Of course, each of these services also offers the ability to share your data with your social network friends and receive words of encouragement, or jealousy, over your progress. Brian Dolan, editor of MobiHealthNews, an online publication, said the way for fitness data aggregators to differentiate themselves “is to win on the software’s user experience.” He explained, “I may just like the look and feel of one particular user interface.” But bringing in fitness data to one location to make it easily accessible is just the beginning. Once the data is available, the next step would be to make connections between, for example, your sleep history and what you ate the night before. Then, if processing is sophisticated enough, the app would analyze the connections and make suggestions for improving your life, or even predict the possibility of a coming disease. The technology for such analysis is not quite there yet, except for some fledgling efforts. Several additional services, though, say they hope to be able to offer that kind of analysis in the coming months. “It’s very important to do analytics,” said Cédric Hutchings, chief executive of Withings. “We are developing services that will understand the data and provide coaching advice and services.” If you want to get started using an aggregator, a few that get high marks from the fitness industry are CarePass, RunKeeper, Argus and Tictrac. CarePass , developed by the health insurer Aetna, is free. It enables users to connect with more than 20 fitness data providers, including Fitbit, FitSync, iTriage, RunKeeper and Withings. Users set goals, and Aetna offers some templates, like “Fit into my favorite jeans” or “Kickstart my weight loss.” Image Credit Jungyeon Roh Or you can create your own goal, name it anything you wish and set your own parameters, like a pledge to cycle 30 minutes each day. Using Aetna’s iTriage app, users can investigate the likely cause of symptoms, find doctors, make appointments and upload medical information. “We are not the best at manufacturing tools,” said Martha Wofford, an Aetna vice president and head of its CarePass initiative. “CarePass lets you set a goal and then have a third-party app power that goal.” In the coming months, CarePass hopes to add partners that track medication adherence, stress, smoking cessation and metabolic syndrome. CarePass said it was working on ways to analyze the data collected. As Ms. Wofford put it, the service “will use the data to personalize the user’s experience.” “There is a need to communicate with the user, to recommend things that will work for them,” she said. RunKeeper , the popular running monitor, integrates scores of apps on its site and mobile app, monitoring activities like sleep, nutrition and strength building. The data allows users to make educated guesses as to possible correlations between activities and outcomes, or one particular app may call out certain data to the user (“you’ve just gained 10 pounds”). But RunKeeper itself does not currently suggest any connections between activities and outcomes. Argus , from Azumio and available in the Apple app store, uses many of its own apps and a few from third parties to allow a user to track nutrition and exercise, and even add pictures of the foods eaten to share with friends. Holding down one of the honeycomb data cells on its iPhone app expands the information so the user can see not just overall steps for the day, for instance, but steps taken hour by hour, as well as distance traveled and calories burned. Tictrac , a London start-up, is worth watching because it offers some data analysis in addition to linking data from 300 partner apps into its free portal. Through the analysis, Tictrac suggests actions to improve a user’s well-being. Users organize their goals into preformatted “projects” like “time management,” “lose 10 pounds” or “run a marathon.” Users can also create custom plans. Each one asks the user to link to the accounts of the tracking devices and apps that pertain to the goals of that project. For example, the time-management project looks at how many e-mails one has sent and received from Gmail, the time they were sent and the senders’ names, the number of meetings as listed on Google’s calendar, how much television has been watched, stress levels and other data. The fitness project analyzes what one has eaten, calories and nutritional data, and exercises performed. With this micro-information, users can pinpoint what changes they need to make in their daily routines to improve their health and well-being. Tictrac also licenses algorithms to other apps that look at various data and offer suggestions on how to improve performance. For example, runners may be told that they run faster when it’s raining, or even while listening to a certain type of music. That functionality will soon be available directly on the Tictrac platform.

Fitbit
Withings
BodyMedia
Aetna
Mobile Apps
Data Mining,Big Data
Smartphone
Exercise,Fitness
Medicine and Health


N.F.L. Says Millions Will Be Lost if Labor Contract Deadline Passes

Abstract: The N.F.L. and its players stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars if they fail to reach a labor agreement before the current deal expires on March 3, Jeff Pash, the league’s chief negotiator, said Thursday. The league said it would lose $120 million if the deadline in March passed without a deal and $1 billion if no agreement was in place by the start of the regular season in September, as well as $400 million per week during the regular season. Free agents and players owed certain bonuses could forgo hundreds of millions of dollars more if no deal is struck in March, the league said. The N.F.L. released the projections to combat the perception that the players and the league have the luxury of letting the March 3 deadline pass to negotiate through the spring and summer, when no games are played. The N.F.L. wanted to illustrate the need to jump-start talks with the players union. “The uncertainty about a labor agreement will have a clear and cumulative effect on our revenues, and as our revenues are affected in a negative way, it obviously makes it harder, not easier, to reach an agreement,” Pash said. “It makes the work stoppage, if one occurs, more costly, and that’s a cost that will complicate, not ease, the negotiating process.” Pash and other N.F.L. executives said that without a labor deal in place by March, sponsors would be reluctant to renew deals with the league, and season-ticket and suite sales would also suffer. Even if an agreement is reached in the summer, it would take years to recoup the lost revenue, they said. Pash said that talks could be extended past the March 3 deadline, which happened several times during the last round of negotiations in 2006. Though the top leadership of the league and union have met frequently in recent weeks, there have been no full-fledged negotiations since November. With the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl yet to be played, those talks are unlikely to occur until after Feb. 6. In the absence of more complete talks, both sides have tried to amplify their arguments in public. Roger Goodell , the N.F.L.’s commissioner, said that he would take a $1 salary if a new collective bargaining agreement is not in place by the deadline. The players went to Capitol Hill last week to tell lawmakers that they are fighting to increase retiree benefits and oppose a cap on rookie salaries. The N.F.L. wants to add two regular-season games and receive an extra $1 billion in the form of credits that can be deducted from the revenue pool that is now shared with the players. Currently, the owners receive the first $1 billion earned by the league and the players receive nearly 60 percent of the rest of the league’s revenue, which was almost $8 billion last year. The league argues the extra credits would allow the owners to spend more on stadiums and other revenue-producing investments. The union has indicated it would consider the owners’ argument if it could confirm how the money has been used. To do that, the union wants to see the owners’ financial statements so it can verify how the owners have invested their money in the past. “We have no idea what the bottom line is of the teams, what the profits are of the teams, what the capital investments the owners are making in the teams,” said George Atallah, a spokesman for the players union. “What possible justification does the N.F.L. have to lock the players out and wreak havoc upon itself and the businesses that depend upon the game?” Pash dismissed the union’s request, saying that the union has access to all the league’s audited financial records. He was also careful to say that the owners are not pleading poverty. The league and its teams are making money, he said, but they and the players could make even more money if the revenue-sharing agreement was “rebalanced.” The league said that the players could lose a lot in the short term if they do not think about the N.F.L.’s long-term financial health. According to the league’s calculations, at the end of the season, there will be 495 unrestricted free agents, up from roughly 300 in recent years. Without a new labor agreement, none of them will be able to sign new contracts and receive signing bonuses worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In March, 74 players are supposed to receive $143 million in option and roster bonuses and salary advances.

National Football League
Labor and Jobs
Wages and Salaries
Lockouts
Goodell Roger
Cromartie Antonio
Hasselbeck Matt


Conflicting Conclusions Drawn After Officers Enter a Brooklyn Apartment

Abstract: After three police officers without a warrant entered a Brooklyn apartment in March 2013 and questioned those inside, two separate investigations of the matter arrived at starkly different conclusions. The Internal Affairs Bureau of the New York Police Department deemed a complaint — that the officers had conducted an improper search — “unsubstantiated.” The Civilian Complaint Review Board, in contrast, found that the senior officer involved had abused his authority. While investigators for both entities spent months obtaining video evidence, contacting witnesses and compiling files that exceeded 200 pages, records show one notable difference: Those working for the review board questioned all three of the officers; those with Internal Affairs interviewed only one. The review board found that the senior officer, Capt. Stephen Espinoza, a Brooklyn North vice and narcotics commander, had approved entering the apartment without proper justification, then prosecuted him before an administrative law judge. A police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of rules prohibiting the disclosure of personnel matters said last week that Captain Espinoza had been found guilty and disciplined with the loss of an unspecified number of vacation days. Allegations of unlawful searches are a persistent complaint against the city’s police officers, but the March 2013 episode stands out because it was captured by security cameras and occurred in the Crown Heights apartment of a man who, two months earlier, had led a protest outside the 77th Precinct station house, accusing officers assigned there of having attacked him. The man, Jabbar Campbell, later sued the city, saying the officers had assaulted, injured and falsely arrested him. His lawsuit remains active. A lawyer for Mr. Campbell recently asked a State Supreme Court judge to penalize the city for withholding the Internal Affairs and review board reports. Lawyers for the city countered that they were in “substantial compliance with all court ordered discovery,” and turned over the reports. The events at issue began when Mr. Campbell was arrested on Jan. 13, 2013, while he was hosting a gay-pride party. He was charged with attempted assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and possession of marijuana and Ecstasy. The drug charges were later dismissed, and he was acquitted of the other charges in May 2013. Mr. Campbell said officers had beaten him in a building hallway while shouting anti-gay epithets during the arrest. A criminal complaint included a statement from an officer who said Mr. Campbell had pushed a sergeant, Juan Moreno, but the officer later testified that he had not seen that happen. Footage from a security camera attached to the building showed Sergeant Moreno pointing the lens away from the front door before entering. The police returned to Mr. Campbell’s apartment on March 1, 2013, when he was not home and just days before he was to appear in court on the January charges. Cameras in the apartment captured footage of three men wearing jackets labeled “N.Y.P.D.” entering through an open door and collecting identification from more than half a dozen people who were there at the time. Eric Subin, the lawyer for Mr. Campbell, called the March 1 visit by Captain Espinoza, who was accompanied by Detective Matthew Zito and Officer Jonas Bazile, retaliatory. Records show that Detective Zito was named in four federal lawsuits filed in 2013 and 2014 alleging civil rights violations unrelated to the visit to Mr. Campbell’s home. The city settled at least three of the suits for amounts that the Law Department would not disclose. Officer Bazile was named in three such suits from 2009 to 2011, records show. One suit was dismissed. The others were settled for damages of $20,000 and $100,000. The Internal Affairs inquiry found that Brooklyn North narcotics officers had begun surveillance of Mr. Campbell’s apartment soon after his arrest, when an unnamed person said marijuana was being sold in his apartment. Those observations yielded “negative results,” records show. Internal Affairs documents show that memo entries written by Officer Bazile and Detective Zito on March 1, 2013, made note of a smell of marijuana coming from Mr. Campbell’s apartment. Detective Zito wrote that he had seen “marijuana cigars in plain view,” but told investigators during an interview that he had only seen “cigars commonly used for marijuana,” according to records. An Internal Affairs index sheet does not list interviews with Officer Bazile or Captain Espinoza. In December 2013, investigators closed the inquiry, writing that “the investigation was unable to prove or disprove” whether the officers had conducted an improper search. Investigators with the Civilian Complaint Review Board obtained a record of the three officers’ written plans for March 1, 2013, which called for them only to conduct vice enforcement at social clubs and nightclubs that evening. In his interview with the review board, Captain Espinoza said that a lieutenant, Lawrence Hammond, had asked him that night to add observation of Mr. Campbell’s building, connected to the drug investigation. Captain Espinoza said he had entered to familiarize himself with the layout for future undercover work and had gone to Mr. Campbell’s apartment on the second floor after smelling marijuana. Captain Espinoza said he and the other officers had entered the apartment because he saw a person inside smoking marijuana, and because it appeared that the entire group there could have been trespassing. The review board’s investigators determined that the officers did not have the “consent, exigent circumstances or an emergency” to justify entering Mr. Campbell’s apartment. They referred Captain Espinoza to the board’s Administrative Prosecution Unit; it handles cases in which “charges and specifications,” the most serious discipline the panel can render, have been recommended. At his trial in October, at Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan, Captain Espinoza repeated his assertion that a person had been smoking marijuana inside Mr. Campbell’s apartment. He said that before entering he had seen “a gentleman with a lit marijuana cigarette” next to a computer. A prosecutor, Jonathan Fogel, challenged that claim, showing footage from two cameras that included a view of the man at the computer table before and after Captain Espinoza entered. “Would you agree with me, Captain, that during the three minutes of video I played for you, two or three minutes I played for you, at no point in the video does it appear that this gentleman seated by a computer is smoking marijuana?” Mr. Fogel asked. “I would say that based on the angle in the video, I do not see it,” Captain Espinoza replied.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


From Metalwork to Luxury Condos: Century-Old SoHo Shop Ends Its Run

Abstract: In 1907, a metalwork shop opened in Manhattan in what is now a fashionable area called SoHo. The neighborhood was much grittier then, and the shop served the many local manufacturers. When SoHo began attracting a creative class a few decades later, artists and designers on low budgets would come into the shop with sketches and requests, and the De Lorenzos, who owned the shop, would set about building what was needed. Even today, the shop has plenty of work making custom furniture and fittings for the glitzy galleries and expensive lofts and apartments in the area, which is now known for manufacturing high-priced meals and cocktails. But no bending brake or arc welder or cutting torch can alter the hard economic fact that to the De Lorenzos — the third generation is now running the business — the place is worth more closed than open. A developer seeking to put up a luxury condominium building has agreed to buy the De Lorenzos’ one-story building, a 30-foot-by-100-foot structure on Grand Street near West Broadway, said Thomas De Lorenzo, 84, who owns the shop with his son Thomas 2nd. “The only way we were able to stay in business in recent years is that we owned the building,” Mr. De Lorenzo Sr. said. Thursday was the last working day for the century-old shop, and some of the remaining artists and designers in SoHo dropped by to pay their respects. “This place is really the last of its kind in an area that used to have so many manufacturing businesses,” said Robert McDougle, a designer who has worked in SoHo for 30 years. He said he enjoyed and benefited from having a small metal shop with an experienced staff fabricate his designs and suggest methods and materials that expanded his vision as a designer. “They helped many, many artists in SoHo,” he said, as the De Lorenzos and three longtime employees rushed to finish their last few projects. Mr. De Lorenzo Sr.’s father, Anthony, who died in 1974, owned the shop for many years with his older brother, John. Thomas Sr. said he worked at the shop after school as a child and then full time after serving in World War II. He became partners with his father in 1952, when the shop was on Thompson Street. “It used to be all manufacturing down here,” he said, looking out at Grand Street. Next door to the metal shop is an upscale boutique with many magazine clippings in the window. Around the corner is the SoHo Grand Hotel, and one can barely throw a $12 mojito without hitting a fancy cafe or lounge or gallery. Mr. De Lorenzo Sr. said that in 1968, he and his father paid $65,000 for the building — “and that was a lot of money then.” Now, he said, he will retire to his house in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The price he is getting for the building is more than the business ever made in a century, he said, without revealing the amount. Mr. De Lorenzo Sr. said he had had many famous clients. They built a terrace enclosure for Paul Newman’s Upper East Side apartment. They made metal baseboards for fencers who competed in the 1976 Olympics. The actor Fred Gwynne used to come in regularly for metal for his artwork. The shop’s faded sign — “John De Lorenzo and Bro., Iron and Sheet Metal Contractor” — painted blue and white over brick, looks fashionably retro in this area of snazzy signs and storefronts. The shop’s contents seem to make up a history of New York. Mr. De Lorenzo 2nd, 60, showed a bulky metal cutter that he said the family bought in 1915 when it was the first of its kind in the City. He showed an old metal ashcan, used for ashes removed from coal-burning furnaces — made by hand with heavy-duty rivets around the rim. “This was a De Lorenzo ashcan — we used to specialize in them,” said Mr. De Lorenzo 2nd, adding that he would continue to do consulting as a civil engineer. Rolando-Luis Rivera, a union welder who has worked at the shop for more than 20 years, used a blowtorch to repair a tiered rack used to support the different dishes of a restaurant meal. The hardest part of the job, he said, was maintaining concentration when so many fashionable women walked nonstop past the shop’s open garage door in nice weather. “The best part of the job is the women,” he said, adding that he was married and that for that reason, “it’s also the worst part.” He showed some De Lorenzo repairs and creations. There was a small staircase, a stoop, a heavy-duty metal banister. There were tall metal objects with backpack attachments, which he said were custom-made for a puppet theater, to support tall puppets. There were also pieces that no one ever retrieved, including a metal pole with sharp prongs that was ordered as a giant skewer for pig roasts. “We got all kinds of requests over the years,” Mr. De Lorenzo Sr. said. “We didn’t ask questions. We just made it.”

Design
Art
SoHo (NYC)
De Lorenzo Thomas Sr
De Lorenzo Thomas Jr


Evelyn Lieberman, 71, Dies; Aide Moved Lewinsky From White House

Abstract: Evelyn Lieberman, who as the first woman to serve as deputy chief of staff to a president grew concerned about the behavior of the junior aide Monica S. Lewinsky around Bill Clinton and banished her to a job outside the White House, died on Saturday in Washington. She was 71. Her husband, Edward, said the cause was pancreatic cancer. A Brooklyn-born former teacher, Ms. Lieberman also directed the Voice of America and was the first person to serve as under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. “Evelyn,” President Clinton said at her swearing-in at the Voice of America in late 1996, “has a special talent for cutting to the chase and getting to truth.” Ms. Lieberman had a long, sometimes trailblazing résumé in and out of government. Besides serving as deputy chief of staff under Mr. Clinton, she was public affairs director for the National Urban Coalition and the Children’s Defense Fund, where she met Hillary Clinton, a board member; press secretary to Joseph R. Biden Jr., now the vice president, when he was a senator from Delaware; assistant to Mrs. Clinton’s White House chief of staff; chief operating officer of Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign; and, most recently, chief spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution. Colleagues remembered her as a mentor, particularly to women making their way in a male-dominated Washington — one who could provide succor in the form of chicken soup or the discipline of a drill sergeant. Working mostly behind the scenes, Ms. Lieberman had perhaps her most visible moment in the capital during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, which culminated in the president’s impeachment in the House of Representatives in 1998. He was accused of lying under oath about his sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, who was in her early 20s when she worked at the White House. The Senate voted not to convict. In April 1996, some months after the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship had begun but nearly two years before the scandal broke, Ms. Lieberman, then deputy for operations to the chief of staff, Leon E. Panetta, transferred Ms. Lewinsky, a onetime intern, to the Pentagon from her job in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. According to the report issued by Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel in the case, Ms. Lieberman testified before a special grand jury on Jan. 30, 1998, that Ms. Lewinsky had displayed “immature and inappropriate behavior,” was “spending too much time around the West Wing,” and was “always someplace she shouldn’t be.” Image Ms. Lieberman was most recently the chief spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution. Credit Tamara Hoffer “I decided to get rid of her” because of “the appearance that it was creating,” the Starr report quoted Ms. Lieberman as saying. She said she had heard no rumors linking the president and Ms. Lewinsky, but acknowledged that Mr. Clinton “was vulnerable to these kind of rumors” and that this vulnerability was a reason for the transfer. After testifying, Ms. Lieberman said publicly: “I want to make one point clear. I know of no improper relationship between the president, Monica Lewinsky or anyone else, for that matter.” Ms. Lieberman testified to the Starr grand jury that after she transferred Ms. Lewinsky, she had a conversation with Mr. Clinton in which he said he had received a phone call about “an intern you fired.” “She was evidently very upset about it,” Ms. Lieberman recalled. “He said, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Who fired her?’ I said, ‘I did.’ And he said, ‘Oh, O.K.’ ” Marcia Lewis, Ms. Lewinsky’s mother, said she had also confronted Ms. Lieberman about the transfer. She testified that Ms. Lieberman had responded by “saying something about Monica being cursed because she’s so beautiful.” She said she had surmised that Ms. Lieberman “would want to have pretty women moved out” to protect the president. Evelyn Lieberman was born Evelyn May Simonowitz on July 9, 1944, the daughter of Jack Simonowitz and the former Rose Cohen. Her parents separated when she was a child. She graduated from Buffalo State College, part of the State University of New York, with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1966, taught on Long Island, and moved with her first husband to Washington. They divorced. In addition to her second husband, she is survived by a brother, Haskel Simonowitz. In an interview with the Buffalo State alumni magazine last winter, Ms. Lieberman described her work with the Children’s Defense Fund and its founder, Marian Wright Edelman, as transformative. “Here’s this poor girl from Brooklyn who has had extraordinary opportunities and great encouragement from others,” Ms. Lieberman recalled. “And I believe it’s my responsibility to provide that same encouragement to others, especially young women. Marian Edelman said that ‘service is the rent we pay for living.’ I think that says it all.”

Bill Clinton
Monica Lewinsky
Obituary
US Politics
Evelyn S Lieberman


Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Past Reveals Willingness to Play Hardball

Abstract: During the 1986 race for governor of Vermont, Bernie Sanders bristled at the popularity of the Democratic incumbent, Madeleine Kunin. Mr. Sanders, who was running against her as an independent, saw himself as a leader, and viewed Ms. Kunin as a lightweight. “She does very well on television,” he told one interviewer. “She has an excellent press secretary.” But really, he said another time, the governor’s appeal came down to one trait. “Many people are excited because she’s the first woman governor,” he said. “But after that, there ain’t much.” Mr. Sanders has long presented himself as an issues-oriented, plain-speaking politician from rural New England, now seeking the presidency with promise of a political revolution. But his combative side has now emerged as the Democratic race has tightened and Hillary Clinton has sharpened her own rhetoric. The result is a far harsher tone in the Democratic campaign and a transformed Senator Sanders, who is now making the kinds of sharper-edged attacks that some of his advisers regretted he did not deploy sooner. But his aggressiveness also worries some supporters who were powerfully drawn to his positive persona that forswore politics as usual. The senator’s assertiveness was on vivid display in Thursday’s debate with Mrs. Clinton ahead of the high-stakes New York primary on Tuesday, which Mr. Sanders must win big to dent Mrs. Clinton’s strong lead in the delegates needed for the nomination. But he is also seeking to match the vigorous jabs from her aides and allies, who ignored Mr. Sanders for much of last year and are now assailing his policy ideas and leadership abilities on a near-daily basis. His advisers say he is reacting to the New York political environment as well. “Political combat is more restrained in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, but it’s completely different in New York, and Bernie has no problem defending his ideas in a tough way against Secretary Clinton’s,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser for the Sanders campaign. Image Senator Sanders at a rally outside his childhood home in Brooklyn on April 8. The critical New York primary is Tuesday. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times Mrs. Clinton is now trying to hold off Mr. Sanders while not alienating his supporters, whom she would need in the general election. But she is also refusing to back down, and their spiky clashes are suddenly making for a more explosive and unpredictable race. More than anything, the recent Sanders broadsides reflect a political strategy he has carried out in previous campaigns: the use of blunt criticisms, sarcastic asides and a thundering style against his opponents. In the 1986 race, Mr. Sanders argued that he would be a strong feminist and do more for women than Ms. Kunin had. While granting that Ms. Kunin was “not corrupt,” he questioned if she had the same “courage” that he had. He repeatedly challenged her credentials as a fellow progressive, using some of the same language he aims at Mrs. Clinton. In the end, he damaged Ms. Kunin politically, as some Clinton supporters and political analysts think he may do in the current race. “In a tough fight, Bernie is hardly the all-positive, all-substance guy that he claims to be,” said Garrison Nelson, a longtime political science professor at the University of Vermont. Ms. Kunin was not the only foe that Mr. Sanders attacked with insinuations, as opposed to the more overtly negative television ads that Mr. Sanders has forsworn. In his 1990 race for Congress, he frequently laid political bait for his Republican opponent and relished watching him stumble. And in his 2006 Senate campaign, Mr. Sanders relentlessly linked his moderate Republican opponent with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and accused him of running “the most negative, dishonest campaign in the history of the state of Vermont.” While such tactics are not unusual in many campaigns, Mr. Sanders has long tried to claim the high road. Yet if his past opponents remember anything about him, it’s Bernie the brawler. “The way he kept tagging me as a typical rich guy who only cared about rich Republicans — it was very tough, and very effective,” said Richard Tarrant, a software executive who was the Republican Senate nominee in 2006 and ran many aggressive television ads. “Bernie knew that I earned my money myself, that my wealth was first-generation. But that didn’t matter.” In the current race, after days of needling by the Clinton camp about his policies and ability to answer tough questions, Mr. Sanders hit back this month by saying Mrs. Clinton was “not qualified” for the presidency because she had taken money from wealthy donors and supported the war in Iraq and some free-trade agreements. Some Sanders supporters expressed dismay that their candidate was resorting to such sharp exchanges — a Guardian columnist wrote on Tuesday that she felt “betrayed” — while the leading Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, picked up the line of attack. “Bernie Sanders says that Hillary Clinton is unqualified to be president,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter . “Based on her decision making ability, I can go along with that!” Mr. Sanders has started running commercials in New York criticizing Mrs. Clinton for accepting six-figure speaking fees from Wall Street banks but not supporting a federal $15 minimum wage. And in Thursday’s debate, he suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s speaking fees had influenced her to be soft on Wall Street regulation. She quickly dismissed that, saying that she had called out bankers over business practices — drawing a sarcastic response from Mr. Sanders. “Secretary Clinton called them out — oh my goodness, they must have been really crushed by this,” he said. “And was that before or after you received huge sums of money by giving speaking engagements? So they must have been very, very upset by what you did.” While Mr. Sanders has not run ominous-sounding and highly personal ads against Mrs. Clinton — the sort that traditionally characterize a negative campaign — Mrs. Clinton’s advisers accused Mr. Sanders of breaking his word. “At times he does it deftly, but make no mistake, every day Senator Sanders is launching another attack, and that’s not how he said he would run his campaign,” said Joel Benenson, Mr. Clinton’s campaign strategist. Mr. Devine, a longtime strategist for Mr. Sanders, said his candidate’s quips and tone were a far cry from the insult-packed vitriol in the Republican race. He insisted that Mr. Sanders was seeking to reveal substantive differences with Mrs. Clinton, and denied that his candidate fears the Democratic nomination is slipping away. “I think the race is just increasingly engaged,” Mr. Devine said. In Vermont, however, Mr. Sanders was known for belittling opponents at times, rather than merely challenging their ideas. During one debate in the 1986 governor’s race, Mr. Sanders was asked if he viewed Governor Kunin as “the lesser of two evils,” given his descriptions of the Democratic and Republican parties as “Tweedledum” and “Tweedledee,” and if he thought he might contribute to her political “demise.” On the Trail: The Week of April 10 13 Photos View Slide Show › Image Sam Hodgson for The New York Times Mr. Sanders chuckled and then looked at Ms. Kunin, seated a few feet away. “Governor, how does it feel to be the lesser of two evils?” he asked. “I think that really is what this campaign is about.” Ms. Kunin was stone-faced. Toward the end of that campaign, Ms. Kunin said, Mr. Sanders argued at a rally in Burlington, Vt., that he would do far more for women than Ms. Kunin. “Bernie thought I was an empty suit, and insisted that he was the better feminist because he would solve income inequality and that would help women,” Ms. Kunin said in the interview. “He could be sarcastic, but also very subtle.” A supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid, Ms. Kunin said she saw similarities between his treatment of the two women. “He’s not going to say, ‘She’s a woman, she’s not qualified,’” said Ms. Kunin, who was re-elected with 47 percent of the vote after Mr. Sanders siphoned off some support. “But he can paint a very subtle illusion talking about qualifications and judgment.” Mr. Devine, the adviser to Mr. Sanders, said the senator would never make gender-based attacks, in the 1980s or today. “His focus is on issues,” he said. Peter Smith, the Republican candidate for governor in 1986 and the congressman Mr. Sanders ousted in 1990, said that Mr. Sanders used passion to create “a contrast between him and his opponent that may not, in fact, exist.” Mr. Sanders’s aides in the 1990 campaign said they would regularly taunt Mr. Smith about his positions on issues like the minimum wage, which the congressman would dispute, and then Mr. Sanders would come forward and accuse Mr. Smith of dishonesty. As a result, a running theme of that campaign was that Mr. Sanders had integrity and Mr. Smith lacked it. “The tool he uses is his intensity and his belief that, on the major issues he cares about, there is only one right answer,” Mr. Smith said. “And it is his.”

Democrats
Hillary Clinton
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
2016 Presidential Election


N.B.A. Dec. 25 Schedule Grows

Abstract: Oklahoma City will host Orlando, and the Los Angeles Clippers will visit Golden State on Christmas to complete an N.B.A. quintuple-header. Those games were added to the three that were already set when the 2011-12 schedule was originally unveiled: Boston at the Knicks, Miami at Dallas, and Chicago at the Los Angeles Lakers. The Nets and the Knicks will play each other twice in their only preseason games. The games will be Dec. 17 at the Prudential Center and Dec. 21 at Madison Square Garden.

Los Angeles Clippers
Basketball
National Basketball Assn
Orlando Magic
Oklahoma City Thunder
Golden State Warriors


Georgia Defense Uses Approach of Alabama’s Nick Saban

Abstract: ATHENS, Ga. — Todd Grantham stomped down the Georgia sideline toward his second-string defensive players, who were trudging off the field after surrendering a touchdown. He was not going to wait for them to get to the bench. Grantham, the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator, met them out on the numbers on the field and poured venom into the ear holes of their helmets. His cheeks were flushed red, and he shook his fist with fury. None of the players got a chance to make excuses for Georgia Tech’s creeping within 32 points in the fourth quarter of an eventual 42-10 victory last Saturday. “It’s all about the process,” Grantham said this week. “You have young players out there, and they need to be ready to play when called upon.” Alabama Coach Nick Saban could not have said it better. The Process, after all, is the foundation of Saban’s philosophy, which is a regimen to be followed with no pampering allowed. It is Grantham’s philosophy as well. Grantham, 46, was hired away from his alma mater, Virginia Tech, by Saban and worked for him at Michigan State from 1996 to 1998. Grantham was raised in the rolling hills of southwest Virginia, and Saban was raised in the rolling hills of northern West Virginia. They not only speak the same language when it comes to the process but also take the same approach to their defenses. Both use the 3-4, and they believe just as much in size as they do speed. The two men, still friends, will get a chance to reunite Saturday when No. 2 Alabama plays No. 3 Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game. “Our preparation and a lot of things we do here philosophically is from my time from him,” Grantham said. “Systematically, our roots are very similar, or the same as.” Saban and Grantham each use the same maxim when explaining their vision of football: “Big people beat up little people.” Alabama is known for having players who combine size and power, and now Georgia’s defense, in its third season under Grantham, has the size and power to match up with Alabama’s versatile offense. Georgia’s defense, which was without various starters for the first half of the season because of suspensions or injuries, has allowed just 8.3 points per game in the last five games and just 19 total points in its last three SEC games. “I’ve always been really close to Todd professionally and personally,” Saban said. “If you’re going to rank assistants, he’s one of the two or three best I’ve ever had on our staff.” The Bulldogs’ cornerbacks, Damian Swann (5 feet 11 inches) and Sanders Commings (6-2), are considered tall for their position. Defensive tackles John Jenkins and Kwame Geathers weigh 358 and 355 pounds. Outside linebacker Jarvis Jones weighs 241, making him the size of inside linebackers on many teams. Grantham and Saban believe in a balanced defense and leaving their outside linebackers free to pursue the quarterback. In 2010, Grantham’s first season, Georgia was 6-7, but linebacker Justin Houston was second in the SEC with 10 sacks. In 2011, Jones led the conference in sacks with 13 1/2. Jones has 10 1/2 sacks in 10 games this season, the third-highest total in the SEC. In 2008, his first season as the defensive line coach with the Dallas Cowboys, Grantham’s star player, the All-Pro end DeMarcus Ware , had a career-high 20 sacks. “My whole thing is matchups,” Grantham said. “How can we get the mismatch in the rush. You are trying to get your best player on their weakest link on offense.” Georgia and Alabama use two safeties in pass coverage because their front seven defenders are so big and physical that they do not have to commit a safety to run support. Both teams seek to build a wall up front and make the offense try to bounce outside, where plays can be contained. “Little people can’t block big people,” Grantham said. “When you have big people, you don’t have to commit all your defensive backs to the run game. You can play what I call a seven-and-a-half-man box. You got the extra half guy in the secondary because your guys up front can seal off gaps and hold the point. “Big people beat up little people. It’s why there are weight classifications in boxing.” Three years ago, there was a chance Grantham could have become Saban’s defensive coordinator at Alabama. When Georgia made inquiries about hiring Kirby Smart , the Alabama defensive coordinator, who played at Georgia, Saban gauged Grantham’s interest in leaving the Cowboys and coming back to college. “Certainly, I would have considered working for Nick,” Grantham said. “The thing about him is he is a discipline guy, so all you have to do when you are with him is coach. “I learned as much from him in my three years at Michigan State as I did in pro ball.” Grantham has a chance Saturday to show his mentor how far he has come, but also to audition for a number of head coaching jobs that have opened. “At any level, you’re just trying to get out and do your own thing,” Georgia linebacker Christian Robinson said. “But you also remember who taught you and where you came from. I think that this one is big for us and especially for him. Coach Grantham is a very competitive guy. He takes everything really personally. “Coach to coach, I think it’s a huge matchup for him.”

Saban Nick
University of Georgia
University of Alabama
Football (College)
Grantham Todd


Man in the News: Dennis M. Walcott, N.Y.C. Chancellor

Abstract: At the news conference Thursday where Dennis M. Walcott was announced as the nominee to become New York City schools chancellor, he spoke about his luck, his personal history and his goals for the city’s schools. Then, he turned to 16 elementary school students gathered in the room. He asked them about a promise he had made on a recent visit to their school, Public School 10 in Park Slope. “What am I going to make you?” Mr. Walcott asked. “Waffles!” the children screamed, as excitedly as the man who would cook for them. It was a colorful exchange in a choreographed announcement meant to convince the public that Mr. Walcott, 59, had credentials that Cathleen P. Black , who resigned on Thursday, did not. He is a former teacher, with an easy rapport with children; a graduate of the city’s public schools; “a guy from Queens ,” he said, whose parents were raised in Harlem and whose grandparents were immigrants, like many of the city’s 1.1 million students. “To me, the great equalizer in society is ensuring that every child receives a quality education, especially a quality public education,” Mr. Walcott said. Although he has education experience, he is not certified as a school district leader in New York State , so he, like the previous two chancellors, will need a waiver from the state education commissioner. Through most of his nine years as deputy mayor, he has been something of an unknown figure, overseeing several city agencies, though the largest of them, the Department of Education, had its own powerful leader, Joel I. Klein , who answered to the mayor. Some City Council members said privately that they were not sure what his exact role was, though education officials say he quietly and frequently met with them, acting as City Hall’s liaison to the school system. But after Ms. Black won approval, his role changed. Mr. Walcott began exerting more influence on school administration while she struggled to conquer a steep learning curve. He stood by her side in her first televised interview, pitching in when she had trouble with policy questions. He came out to defend the Education Department ’s efforts to mobilize families around political issues. And he started attending Panel for Educational Policy meetings, a rarity in Mr. Klein’s tenure, at times emerging from behind the curtains to talk to her senior aides on the stage. “It was no secret he was running the show,” said James Devor, president of the community education council in Brooklyn ’s District 15. “I just don’t know if he can be independent enough to run the schools.” Apart from official responsibilities, Mr. Walcott, the highest-ranking African-American official at City Hall, has been a sort of ambassador for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg . When the mayor abolished community school boards, it was Mr. Walcott who set out to convince angry parents that the move was not meant to shut them out. When a young bridegroom, Sean Bell , was shot dead by a group of police officers outside a Queens strip club in 2006, he consoled Mr. Bell’s mother at the hospital. In a hard-charging administration focused on measuring progress through numbers in virtually everything it does, he has been a mellow presence, largely accessible to parents and politicians, though not necessarily always responsive. “My experience has been that he does call back and will say, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ but follow-up is wanting,” said one City Council member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to rile the administration. He has close ties to Councilman Robert Jackson, chairman of the Council’s Education Committee, and to Ernest A. Logan, president of the principals’ union. The relationships are bound to be tested under his new post. “He will have to convince principals, parents and teachers that he’s there to support them and not necessarily to defer to certain political interests,” said Eric Nadelstern, a former deputy chancellor who is now a professor of educational leadership at Teachers College. Mr. Walcott still lives in the same neighborhood where he grew up, Cambria Heights, a black middle-class enclave in southeastern Queens. His four children graduated from city public schools, and one of his two grandsons attends them. (The other is still too young.) Mr. Walcott graduated from Francis Lewis High School in Queens, and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut , and a master’s in social work from Fordham . He spent two years as a kindergarten teacher in Queens, and eventually joined the New York Urban League , where he was president and chief executive for 12 years. Arva Rice, the current chief executive, said that Mr. Bloomberg met Mr. Walcott during his first mayoral campaign, and took a liking to him and the apple-shaped pin on his lapel, bearing an equals sign. She relayed a story she said she had heard from Mr. Bloomberg: “Bloomberg asked Dennis, what is that pin? Dennis told him it represents equality for all New Yorkers.” Mr. Bloomberg then inquired if he could wear the pin, and they made a wager. If Bloomberg won the election, “he’d get to keep the pin, but if he lost, he’d have to give it back,” she said. “He ended up not only taking the pin but also the C.E.O. as well.” On Thursday, in a brief address to Education Department staff members, Mr. Walcott reiterated his support of the mayor’s education agenda, including the push to close low-performing schools. “We have a collective responsibility to continue the reforms we’ve started over the last nine years,” he said.

K-12 Education
NYC Department of Education
Dennis M Walcott
NYC
Appointments and Executive Changes