No Runs Allowed, but Still No Wins for Cubs’ Samardzija

Abstract: CHICAGO — What, exactly, does Jeff Samardzija have to do to win a game? Hit home runs? Throw 200 pitches? Rewrite the rule book? Pitching brilliantly is obviously not the answer because Samardzija has done that and still has no wins. In 10 starts for the Cubs this season, his earned run average is 1.46, the best in baseball and a remarkably low figure for any season since 1968. He also has an 0-4 record. On Wednesday, in the brilliant sunshine at Wrigley Field, Samardzija went into the dugout after seven scoreless innings. His team was leading by two runs, and his first win of the season was tantalizingly within reach. But the Yankees rallied for a pair of runs in the ninth inning and eventually won, 4-2, in 13 innings, using every position player and every nonstarting pitcher. The win went to Preston Claiborne, a Yankees reliever who laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt in his first major league at-bat. Claiborne has two victories in relief this season. Samardzija has not won in his last 16 starts dating to Aug. 24. This season, the last-place Cubs have won only one of his 10 starts. Whether snakebit, jinxed or just toiling for one of baseball’s notorious losers, Samardzija can only shrug. “A chain of separate events, I’d say,” he said. But there could be a way out. A trade is a distinct possibility, perhaps even to the Yankees, so Samardzija does not feel his efforts have been wasted. “We’re not wasting anything,” he said. “With modern technology, every game pretty much gets seen and watched. I don’t think it’s any secret with what I’m doing.” Image Derek Jeter, beaten to the base by Anthony Rizzo of the Cubs, was called out after hitting a grounder in the first inning. Credit Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency He did not hide his admiration for the Yankees, a team in dire need of another starting pitcher. “It’s really nice to see how they run things,” he said. “The players and how they play. There’s a certain method to their madness with the guys they pick and the guys they decide to put in pinstripes.” Samardzija can become a free agent after the 2015 season, and the Cubs always seem to be looking to add young talent. Many teams besides the Yankees would be interested in Samardzija, and the price of acquiring him is likely to be steep. He even promised to be better, perhaps indicating to prospective teams that last season’s second half, in which he went 3-4 with a 4.72 E.R.A., would not be repeated. “It’s still early in the season,” he said. “I really look forward to being really strong in the second half,” he added, acknowledging that his second-half numbers last year “weren’t too solid.” Samardzija did not become a full-time starter until 2012. In 75 career starts going into Wednesday, he was 19-33 with a 3.97 E.R.A. Samardzija dominated the Yankees over seven innings with his wide array of pitches, including a precise fastball, a decent slider and a split-fingered fastball he mixes in when he has two strikes on hitters. He held the Yankees to four hits and two walks and struck out three. For the third time in his last four starts, he did not allow a run. But he did not get a win. “I feel bad for him,” Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira said. “A 1.4-something E.R.A. in this day and age is really impressive.” Samardzija was six outs away from victory, but after 95 pitches, Cubs Manager Rick Renteria went to the bullpen. The Yankees scored twice in the ninth off Hector Rondon, thanks in part to a throwing error by Darwin Barney, and the teams trudged into extra innings. Brendan Ryan singled off Jose Veras in the 13th, and Yangervis Solarte walked. Claiborne dropped a bunt that advanced both runners, and with John Ryan Murphy at the plate, Veras threw a wild pitch that allowed Ryan to score. Murphy then singled to right to score Solarte for the insurance run. “That’s pretty good baseball right there,” Ryan said of the bunt. “His first attempt, and a heck of a first at-bat by him.” It was winning baseball, something Samardzija would love to experience. At least once. INSIDE PITCH Derek Jeter, who went 1 for 7, was given a standing ovation in the eighth inning by the fans at Wrigley Field, who presumed it was his last at-bat. They wanted a curtain call, but Jeter did not comply because he was not about to concede the game. He came up three more times and received a standing ovation each time. “The way the fans have been treating me on the road this year has been unbelievable,” he said. “There’s a lot of history here and a lot of tradition with the Cubs and their fans, so it’s much appreciated.” ... Shawn Kelley, who is on the disabled list, felt more pain in his lower back after playing catch Monday and will rest until further evaluation.

Jeff Samardzija
Baseball
Yankees
Derek Jeter
Chicago Cubs


Condoms Approved for Schools in Massachusetts

Abstract: The Boston School Committee on Wednesday approved making condoms available in the district’s high schools. The new policy allows students to obtain condoms, and counseling, from school health centers or trained staff members, unless parents opt them out, and makes sexual education a required part of school health curricula. The district first made condoms available through health centers in some of its schools in the mid-1990s; in the past few years, a coalition of students and community leaders campaigned to broaden access to condoms and sexual health education in the district.

Condom
Massachusetts
Boston
K-12 Education


Prepping Robots to Perform Surgery

Abstract: WHAT do you call a surgeon who operates without scalpels, stitching tools or a powerful headlamp to light the patient’s insides? A better doctor, according to a growing number of surgeons who prefer to hand over much of the blood-and-guts portion of their work to medical robots controlled from computer consoles. Many urologists performing prostate surgery view the precise, tremor-free movements of a robot as the best way to spare nerves crucial to bladder control and sexual potency. A robot’s ability to deftly handle small tools may lead to a less invasive procedure and faster recovery for a patient. Robots also can protect surgeons from physical stress and exposure to X-rays that may force them into premature retirement. A generation ago, the debate in medicine was whether robotics would ever play a role. Today, robots are a fast-growing, diversifying $1 billion segment of the medical device industry. And Wall Street has just two questions for the industry: How far is this going, and how fast? There are no simple answers, of course, but it is remarkable how often Frederic H. Moll comes up in any discussion. Dr. Moll, 56, is a soft-spoken man who can look uncomfortable on stage. Yet his role in founding Intuitive Surgical, the company that now dominates the field, and his current involvement with three other robotics companies, has kept him in the sights of investors, health care providers and fellow entrepreneurs. He’s now best known as chief executive of Hansen Medical, a publicly traded robotics company focused on minimally invasive cardiac care. But he’s also an investor in and a board member of Mako Surgical, an orthopedics robotics company that recently went public, and he is a co-founder and chairman of Restoration Robotics, a start-up company focused on cosmetic surgery. “Anyone who meets Fred will remember him,” says Maurice R. Ferré, the chief executive of Mako, which makes a drill that shuts off if a knee surgeon starts removing too much bone. “He will cut you off to ask technical questions and drives right to what’s important. A lot of people are looking at the Mako story because Fred’s involved.” Despite Wall Street’s growing fondness for medical robotics companies, plenty of health care providers and insurers are cautious. They’re looking for more evidence that robotics improves outcomes for patients at a cost hospitals can absorb. Many still wonder whether it is more about marketing than medical progress. Winifred Hayes, chief executive of Hayes Inc., a health care technology consulting firm in Lansdale, Pa., says that most clinical data doesn’t support contentions that patients fare better with robotic surgery. Most hospitals and clinics are losing money or making poor returns on their robots, she says. “The real story is that this is a technology that has been disseminated fairly widely prematurely,” she says. Even so, interest in robotics remains strong, and the arc of Dr. Moll’s own career has landed him at the intersection of tussles between business and medicine. His parents were both pediatricians, and he sailed through medical school. But during his surgical residency at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle in the early 1980s, he found the ailments of patients less compelling than the shortcomings of the tools that surgeons used to treat them. “I was struck by the size of the incision and injury created just to get inside the body,” Dr. Moll says. “It felt antiquated.” So he obtained a leave of absence to study whether the long slender cutting tools he had seen gynecologists use in sterilization surgery on women could be adapted to gall bladder removal. “We saved the spot for 10 years, but he never came back,” said Dr. John A. Ryan Jr., then head of the surgical training at Virginia Mason. Indeed, Dr. Moll had left Seattle for Silicon Valley, where he spent the next decade creating and selling two medical equipment businesses while getting a graduate degree in management at Stanford. He walked away from the two deals with about $7.5 million. That was modest by the standards of, say, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, the Microsoft founders who were his schoolmates at the exclusive Lakeside School in Seattle in the early 1970s, but Dr. Moll had found his calling. He says his immersion in the entrepreneurial life cost him his marriage; he remembers once telling his wife he was so busy he couldn’t talk to her for a month. But it also set him on a course to become a pioneer in the emerging field of medical robotics. ROBOTS revolutionized manufacturing during the 1980s, on the back of advances in computing, motion controls and software design. Visionaries like Dr. Richard M. Satava, who oversaw federally funded medical robotics research at the time, predicted that robots would eventually be able to operate as precisely as the world’s greatest surgeons and far more tirelessly, perhaps even in remote locations, through satellite links. A project that Dr. Satava’s group financed to build a remotely controlled medical robot for the battlefield caught Dr. Moll’s eye in 1994. Dr. Moll saw scant commercial potential for long-distance surgery, but he became convinced that the technology, being developed by SRI International, a nonprofit contract research firm in Palo Alto, Calif., could be adapted to make routine surgery much less invasive in the hands of civilian surgeons. He took the idea to his employer, Guidant, a medical device company. Guidant decided that robotic surgery was too futuristic and too risky, so Dr. Moll rounded up backers, resigned, and in 1995, founded Intuitive Surgical. A competitor, Computer Motion, had a head start using technology developed for the space program. But Intuitive Surgical had an experienced management team headed by Lonnie M. Smith. Mr. Smith was recruited from Hillenbrand Industries, where he oversaw health care companies, to become chief executive in 1997, leaving Dr. Moll to concentrate on strategic development. Intuitive went public in 2000 at $9 a share. (Dr. Moll’s stake at the time was worth roughly $13.5 million, and he still owns a significant number of shares.) In 2003, it acquired Computer Motion, eliminating both patent wars and the competing design. Since then, soaring sales and profits have laid to rest any Wall Street doubts that robots could be commercially successful. The company earned $144.5 million last year on sales of $600.8 million. Based on first-quarter results that were better than expected, Intuitive forecasts that sales will grow 42 percent this year, to $853.2 million. Its stock, which traded at $42.42 three years ago, closed Friday at $290.03 a share. The company prospered by proving that robots could deftly handle rigid surgical tools like scalpels and sewing needles through small incisions in a patient’s skin. In prostate surgery, it is rapidly becoming unusual for a urologist to operate without using one of Intuitive’s da Vinci robots, which sell for $1.3 million, on average. Each also generates hundreds of thousands of dollars more in annual revenue from service contracts and attachments that must be replaced after each procedure. Intuitive is now marketing the da Vinci to other specialists, including gynecologists and heart surgeons. Intuitive’s success has not put to rest questions about how many hospitals and clinics can afford robots. The da Vinci and the CyberKnife, a precision radiation robot from Accuray to treat tumors, are featured in hospital ads to attract patients, but it is hard for hospitals to get extra reimbursement from insurers for using them. However, hospitals that have been leaders in adopting robotic technology say they are content to just break even for now, because the investment is partly about attracting surgeons who want to be leaders in research and training. “If you are looking at the future, it’s hard to envision a hospital not offering robotics,” said Robert Glenning, chief financial officer at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, which has bought five da Vinci’s and has a sixth on loan from Intuitive Surgical that is used to train visiting doctors. DR. MOLL left Intuitive in 2002 to pursue a more ambitious concept at Hansen Medical: robots that manipulate the tips of thin, flexible catheters that doctors insert deep in the heart. If he succeeds, the Sensei robotic systems from Hansen, costing about $675,000, may become the go-to tools for treating many circulatory problems. Relations between the two companies were rocky in the first year because of disagreements over the breadth of Intuitive’s patents. Eventually, the two signed an intellectual property agreement that gives Intuitive a 3 percent royalty on Hansen sales. With Intuitive expanding into cardiac care, the two may eventually collide in some procedures. Doctors who use catheters generally gain access to the circulatory system through a small incision in the major veins that run through the thigh or arm. Both the makers of rigid tools and the catheter companies are competing in another fast-developing field of “scarless” therapy involving operations performed through the urinary tract and other natural openings. Dr. Moll is betting that flexible tools like those that work with the Sensei will dominate as this movement matures. He took a team of four Hansen employees to India last summer for a series of surgeries testing whether kidney stones could be removed by using a robotic catheter. Dr. Inderbir S. Gill, a urologist from the Cleveland Clinic who led the research, said that Dr. Moll had followed every case for four days. “He was at the console like a mother hen even though he wasn’t allowed to touch it,” said Dr. Gill, who received stock in Hansen for work on the research and is planning a clinical trial. Like Intuitive in its early days, Hansen faces a competitor that got an earlier start. Stereotaxis, based in St. Louis, makes the Niobe, a robot that generates magnetic fields around the patient. By manipulating the magnetic field from Niobe’s computer, doctors can manage the movements inside the patient of its customized magnetic catheters. The Sensei manipulates a Hansen catheter called Artisan, a hollow sheath through which doctors can deploy smaller catheters. Sensei and Artisan were approved by federal regulators last May for use with catheters that map electrical activity in the heart. While mapping is currently the only job for which Hansen can actively market the Sensei, the robot’s real focus is to combine mapping with minimally invasive treatments to halt electrical short circuits in the heart that cause it to beat abnormally. Fans include Dr. Davendra Mehta, chief arrhythmia specialist at Mount Sinai Medical Center, who last fall became the first doctor in New York City to order a Sensei. “This is like power steering versus conventional steering,” said Dr. Mehta during a recent procedure. Using the robot also lets Dr. Mehta avoid spending up to five hours a day wearing a lead vest to limit his exposure to the X-rays when monitoring the catheter’s location in a patient. THE potential appeal of the Sensei may be obvious. But with just 23 systems installed at the end of March, the competition from Stereotaxis and doubts among many health care providers about whether robots are worth the expense, Dr. Moll has plenty of obstacles ahead. Still, he and his team members took Hansen public in November 2006, and received approval from regulators in Europe and the United States to market the Sensei. In April, Hansen raised $39.4 million in a secondary stock offering despite Wall Street’s gloomy outlook on the economy. Hansen also has an agreement with St. Jude Medical, the heart device company that is a leader in 3-D heart mapping systems, for co-marketing of technologies. Dr. Moll said Hansen, based in Mountain View, Calif., should become profitable by the end of next year, two and a half years sooner than Intuitive crossed that threshold. Hansen’s volatile stock, which hit a peak of $39.32 in October before tumbling to $13.48 in March, now trades at $18.54 a share after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results on Thursday. Hansen sold eight new robots in the quarter, producing revenue of $6.2 million, and operating losses narrowed. Even while juggling all of this, Dr. Moll is serving as chairman of Restoration Robotics, a start-up he has financed that aims to apply robotics to hair replacement surgeries for bald men. Dr. Moll says robotics will ultimately advance on still other fronts, largely because it can help doctors of varying ability perform at the level of the world’s top surgeons. “The public has no idea of the extent of difference between top surgeons and bad ones,” he said. “Robots are good at going where they are supposed to, remembering where they are and stopping when required.”

Robots
Doctors
Surgery and Surgeons
Medicine and Health
Hansen Medical Incorporated
Intuitive Surgical Incorporated
Moll Frederic H


Time to Tighten Loose Money

Abstract: The stagflationists are losing the argument. The world is inflating and that’s a worry. But inflation is coming from growth that seems increasingly strong and from money that’s looking far too loose for a reviving world. The risk is that oil and other commodities will soar much higher now, as they did in 2008, only this time the spike may not recede quickly. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, cannot be held responsible for social unrest in developing countries. But there’s a link between ultra-loose money and global asset prices. The Fed has successfully pursued an ultra-loose monetary policy to help avert a second depression. But the $600 billion printing looks like a precautionary overdose whose inflationary influence is widespread. Oil at close to $100 a barrel is injecting inflation into the world economy. Political unrest is a secondary factor. Food and other commodity prices — less sensitive to Middle East unrest — are also surging. Global price increases are now a big risk. The cause? Most Western economies are out of their hole and joining in emerging economies’ growth fest. January’s report from the Institute for Supply Management on the huge services sector of the United States economy showed the strongest figure in six years. There are problems here for both developed and developing economies. As Charles Bean, deputy governor of the Bank of England, said last week, if external inflation is very strong, then the central bank will have little choice but to clamp down harder on domestic sources of inflation, even in a still weakly recovering economy like Britain. The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, talked down expectations of a rate increase, suggesting that energy-driven inflation would be transitory. If the world is indeed gathering steam, he may be wrong. Australia’s central bank has just raised its growth forecast for the coming years. Rates are rising around the globe. China, India and Brazil have tightened. So, too, has Indonesia. The West will have to follow. For inflated asset markets there will be risks. But the shift from ultra-loose to tighter monetary policy is going to have to happen soon. Danaher Dealing Danaher has snatched the medical group Beckman Coulter for $5.8 billion, outbidding buyout firms in the process. The deal shows that despite relatively easy credit, private equity isn’t the only acquirer that can pay up. With private equity for competition, Danaher wasn’t going to nab Beckman on the cheap. Big-name buyout consortiums were involved, including a Blackstone and TPG combo and another team of Apollo and the Carlyle Group. Those people these days can borrow as much as seven times a target company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. That’s why Danaher is paying a 45 percent premium to Beckman’s value back in December. Despite that, though, the deal works — a lesson in how a different kind of buyer can sometimes win auctions. Danaher isn’t quite the traditional strategic player. Over the years, it has collected a big portfolio of companies in all kinds of industries, including network analyzers and makers of microscopes and hand tools. Though all those deals were far smaller than the Beckman deal, it has made more than 50 acquisitions since 2007. That suggests financial engineering skills alongside a strategic interest in Beckman. Here’s how the numbers stack up. With relatively little debt on its balance sheet, Danaher can afford to borrow 60 percent of the enterprise value of the deal. It will pay for the rest with cash and by selling new equity, helping to maintain its credit rating and flexibility. So far, so good. But it’s hard to see how Danaher could have beaten more highly leveraged buyout barons. Cost cuts with the company’s existing businesses make the difference. After tax at Danaher’s recent rate of around 20 percent, these have a present value of around $2 billion. That more than covers the deal premium of about $1.8 billion. Together with a purchase of a company at a lower valuation multiple than its own — roughly eight times forecast Ebitda for Beckman this year, against 11 times for Danaher — that means the buyer will see increased earnings without giving away the farm on price. No wonder investors took the unusual step of giving the acquirer’s shares a boost as well as the target’s. IAN CAMPBELL and LISA LEE

Inflation (Economics)
Interest Rates
Economic Conditions and Trends
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


Body Possibly Shannan Gilbert’s Is Found on Long Island

Abstract: They had planned to gather on Tuesday, on the barren shore along Ocean Parkway on Long Island, to remember the victims of a suspected serial killer, the remains found scattered among the area’s shrouded thickets over the past year. Instead, they paid special respects to the woman whose disappearance unfurled this grim string of mysteries in the first place. Hours before relatives of some of the victims were to hold their vigil, law enforcement officials said they had discovered what they believed to be the “skeletal remains” of Shannan Gilbert, a New Jersey prostitute last seen in May 2010. In their search for Ms. Gilbert, who was 24 then, investigators found the remains of 10 other victims, including 8 women, a toddler and a man wearing women’s clothing, raising the specter of a serial killer of prostitutes. Each victim had a possible connection to the sex trade, said Richard Dormer, the Suffolk County police commissioner. (The toddler, whose body was discovered on April 4, is believed to be the child of a prostitute whose remains were found miles down Ocean Parkway on April 11.) The relatives arranged the anniversary vigil before the prospect of Ms. Gilbert’s discovery was even raised: On Dec. 13 of last year, officials reported the discovery of four bodies in the brush on Jones Beach Island. The authorities have maintained, though, that Ms. Gilbert’s case is not necessarily related to the others. The location of the body believed to be hers, Mr. Dormer said Tuesday, has helped validate his belief that Ms. Gilbert drowned while trying to reach the parkway through the swampland nearby after knocking on a door in Oak Beach. The body was found, Mr. Dormer said, about a quarter mile northeast of where investigators last week retrieved what they believed were Ms. Gilbert’s purse, jeans, shoes and cellphone. “She traveled at least half a mile, three quarters of a mile, on foot through that muck,” Mr. Dormer said at a news conference on Tuesday. “It would be very easy to get exhausted and fall down and not be able to move any further.” Later, Mari Gilbert, Shannan’s mother, appeared at the vigil with a small group of friends and relatives of the other victims. Those gathered released balloons into the air, recited the Lord’s Prayer and, in some cases, hammered crosses into the earth beside the parkway. But Mari Gilbert, who said the authorities contacted her on Tuesday morning with news of the discovery, was unconvinced that the remains were her daughter’s, noting that an autopsy had not been completed. “Until I hear positive confirmation that it’s my daughter, I’m going to believe it’s not,” she said. Ms. Gilbert has also expressed doubts that her daughter’s death was accidental. She spoke on Tuesday of hoping to meet a killer who the authorities are not sure exists. “I want to meet him face to face one day,” she said. “And I just want to ask him: ‘Who hurt you? Who hurt you this badly that you have to hurt others?’ ” Mr. Dormer said areas adjacent to where the remains had been found were drained over the last week to aid in the search. Detectives were traveling through thick brush on an amphibious vehicle, Mr. Dormer added, before noticing “the skeletal remains lying on the surface of the ground.” It is still unclear why Ms. Gilbert might have charted such a dangerous course through the swamp. After leaving a seaside home in the Oak Beach area early on May 1, 2010, Ms. Gilbert banged on the door of a resident, Gus Coletti, shortly before 5 a.m. “She kept saying, ‘Help me,’ ” Mr. Coletti said in an interview last spring. When he dialed 911, she ran. He did not see her again. Since the discovery of the first bodies along Ocean Parkway, on Dec. 11 and Dec. 13 last year, victims’ relatives have forged a unique, if heart-rending, connection, they say. “We’re a family,” said Lorraine Ela, the mother of Megan Waterman, whose body was found last December, “but not by blood.” At one point, Mari Gilbert expressed her grief that, if the remains were not her daughter’s, another victim had been added to the tally. “Nobody truly knows how,” she began, before Ms. Ela completed her thought. “How it feels to have a missing child come up deceased,” Ms. Ela said. Over the past year, Ms. Gilbert seemed to find solace in the notion that her daughter’s disappearance had shined a light on other victims. “Everyone has their destiny,” she said last spring. “Maybe this was hers.”

Gilbert Shannan
Serial Murders
Long Island (NY)
Murders and Attempted Murders


Brooklyn’s Reggie Evans Is a Rebounding Machine

Abstract: CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With his shiny bald head, scraggly beard and Bunyanesque build, Reggie Evans is a physical oddity in the N.B.A., a 6-foot-8 power forward with shoulders rounded like bowling balls and wrists as thick as fire hoses. He has started the last 30 games for the Nets, and the box scores look as striking as his appearance: 115 points, 326 rebounds, 5 blocked shots, 45 turnovers. A case could be argued that no one — at least not since Dennis Rodman roamed the paint — has had the sort of statistical season that Evans is putting together as a one-track rebounding machine with little other quantifiable function. Evans leads the N.B.A. in rebounding rate (24.5 percent of missed shots) and rebounds per 48 minutes (19.8), and he leads his team in rebounds per game (9.4). The Nets are 13-7 this season when he grabs more than 10 boards. He accounts for nearly half (47 percent) of the team’s rebounds nightly when he is on the floor. Yet his essential value to the team, considering his minutes and offensive deficiencies, make him an intriguing specimen. Coach P. J. Carlesimo has been reluctant to criticize players publicly, but his recent openness toward toying with different lineups could be read as at least a partial indictment of Evans’s lack of scoring. “I just want to look at different people,” Carlesimo said, referring to the backup forward Mirza Teletovic. “Some people have had a chance to start games, some people have had a chance to get regular minutes. Mirza hasn’t.” Evans is averaging just 3.4 points on 2.6 shots per game this season. His player efficiency rating (10.89) is ranked 255th in the league and comparable to spare pieces like Miami’s Mike Miller and Chicago’s Richard Hamilton. Before Wednesday’s win over Charlotte, Evans had also committed 13 turnovers in his previous seven games. Yet his rebounding prowess is undeniable, even against teams with some of the tougher frontcourts in the league, like the Indiana Pacers, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Atlanta Hawks. So what is the value of pure rebounding? One Eastern Conference scout said the Nets benefit from having Evans on the floor because he brings the toughness and aggressiveness that is often lacking from their center, Brook Lopez. “He’s tough and hard-nosed and not afraid to go into a scrum for a rebound, and that can be really good for a team identity,” said the scout, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I think that is where he’s underrated. People don’t understand how important that is for a team.” But, the scout added, Evans remains a weak spot for the Nets if he is on the floor too long, particularly in the fourth quarter of close games, when offense is needed to close out wins. “They’re playing four on five on offense, for the most part, and he’s also shooting 50 percent from the foul line,” the scout said. “He becomes a liability.” On Wednesday , Evans supplied the Nets with defensive energy as the team outrebounded the Bobcats, 31-11, in the second half. He finished with a game-high 16 rebounds, the sixth time this season he has posted more than 15 in a game. The Nets are 5-1 in those games. With their rebounding advantage against Charlotte, the Nets controlled the game’s tempo and played the style of offensive basketball they prefer. “Reggie was, I thought, unbelievable not just in rebounding, but the effort on the splits and helping,” Carlesimo said after the game. Asked to assess the team’s play of late, Evans went off on a tangent that led inward. “You’ve got to look at yourself,” he said. “You’ve got to realize, all right, you can’t blame it on the referees, you can’t blame it on the next opponent, nobody. The only thing you can do is look at yourself and see what you’re doing right and see what you can do to help this team.” Meanwhile, Evans continues to construct one of the oddest statistical seasons in recent memory. In the last 20 years, only one other player has averaged at least 9 rebounds per game while scoring fewer than 5 points per game. It was Rodman, who did it twice, in 1994 and 1998. Evans had done that already, averaging 4.9 points with 9.3 rebounds per game in 2004 with Seattle. He is on pace to set a new standard for point-rebound differential. But the question about whether the Nets can thrive with that statistical line remains to be seen.

Reggie Evans
Basketball
Brooklyn Nets
P J Carlesimo


Oklahoma: Abortion Law Delayed for 45 Days

Abstract: A state judge on Monday delayed for 45 days the putting into effect of a law requiring women to undergo an ultrasound and hear a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion. The state attorney general agreed to the delay to give the state more time to prepare a defense of the law, which two abortion providers have challenged as violating the State Constitution’s clauses that protect privacy, equal protection and freedom of speech. The Legislature enacted the law last week over the veto of Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat.


Donald Trump Soured on a Deal, and Hong Kong Partners Became Litigants

Abstract: Donald J. Trump, who has made reversing America’s trade imbalance a pillar of his campaign, often portrays himself as uniquely capable of wringing concessions out of China through hard-nosed business tactics he has honed over the years. In fact, he says, he has a personal track record to back up his boasts. “I beat China all the time,” Mr. Trump declared in a speech the day he announced his candidacy. “I own a big chunk of the Bank of America building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas that I got from China in a war. Very valuable.” Mr. Trump does have an investment in the building, an office tower near Rockefeller Center. But court documents and interviews with people involved in the deal tell a very different story of how he ended up with it. It began when a group of Hong Kong billionaires, including one who has been called the Donald Trump of China, helped rescue Mr. Trump from the verge of bankruptcy by investing in one of his properties in Manhattan. For years, the carefully cultivated relationship between Mr. Trump and his Hong Kong partners proved lucrative for both sides, and stands out as perhaps the closest that Mr. Trump has come to international diplomacy. To strike the deal, Mr. Trump had to attend elaborate dinner parties featuring foreign foods he did not want to eat. He delayed the closing because of Chinese spiritual beliefs and hunted around New York for a “feng shui” master to help with the building décor, instead of indulging his tastes for marble and gold, according to former associates of Mr. Trump who were involved in the deal. But when his Hong Kong partners sold the property without his support, Mr. Trump waged a bitter, long-shot legal battle against them. And far from winning his share of the Bank of America building, according to court documents, he had to settle for it after losing in court. In the end, Mr. Trump’s alliance and eventual rivalry with some of Hong Kong’s richest men proved to be a tale of Mr. Trump at the extremes. It showcased his unflagging confidence in his ability to turn a bad financial situation around. But it also underscored his willingness to destroy a fruitful relationship with aggressive litigation. Their partnership began in 1994, after the collapse of the real estate market left Mr. Trump deeply in debt. He could not afford to make the bank payments on a 77-acre swath of land near Lincoln Center known as Riverside South, let alone to develop the property. Image 1290 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. Mr. Trump has an investment in the building, an office tower near Rockefeller Center. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times In need of cash, he agreed to meet with intermediaries from a consortium of Hong Kong billionaires who were willing to buy the land, assume Mr. Trump’s debts and pay him 30 percent of the profits, as well as fees for helping to manage the development of the site, which they agreed to finance. It was by far the best offer he received. The group included Henry Cheng Kar-shun , one of the world’s richest developers, and Vincent Lo, who is Mr. Trump’s Chinese counterpart in more ways than one. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Lo comes from a wealthy family. He is well known for creating a hip restaurant area in Shanghai called Xintiandi, or “new heaven on earth,” an upscale brand he has replicated across China. His life has been chronicled by tabloids and society pages, especially his divorce from his first wife and his marriage to a beauty pageant winner, Miss Hong Kong of 1977. Despite their similarities, Mr. Trump hesitated when he received an invitation to travel to Hong Kong to negotiate the deal. He does not like to travel, and he feared that negotiating on the Hong Kong developers’ turf would put him at a disadvantage and make him appear weak, said Abe Wallach, Mr. Trump’s executive vice president of acquisitions and finance at the time. But face-to-face meetings are crucial in Chinese business culture, where personal bonds and political connections, collectively known as guanxi, are relied upon to avoid and resolve business disputes, sometimes more than the legal system. Eventually, Mr. Trump’s aides convinced him that he had to make the trip. In Hong Kong, the golf games, dinner parties and intensive talks featured the awkwardness and cultural miscues that can crop up in any high-stakes international negotiation. Mr. Lo and Mr. Cheng invited Mr. Trump to play golf, but Mr. Trump was appalled when they told him they usually bet more than $1,000 on each hole. They ended up betting $100 per hole, and Mr. Trump wound up losing more than he won, Mr. Lo recalled in an interview this month. “He’s a good golfer, but we had the local knowledge — he probably was jet-lagged,” Mr. Lo said. Mr. Lo and Mr. Cheng invited Mr. Trump to dinner at the home of Mr. Cheng’s father, an uncommon honor in Chinese culture. But the evening was a trying experience for Mr. Trump. “He didn’t like the food, and couldn’t use chopsticks,” recalled Mr. Wallach, who was there. “The first course was a whole fish, with the head still on. You could see the face of the fish and the teeth, which really looked grotesque. The servant put the fish in front of Donald. Donald said, ‘The honor belongs to Abe.’ I took my chopsticks and began to pick at it.” Mr. Cheng and Mr. Lo also half-jokingly proposed an informal drinking contest, which Mr. Trump, a teetotaler, declined. The Hong Kong partners were wary of Mr. Trump’s well-earned reputation for litigiousness. But for more than a decade, Mr. Trump avoided conflict with them. Indeed, he often deferred to them. Chase Manhattan Bank, which held Mr. Trump’s mortgage, initially scheduled the closing of the deal during China’s Ghost Month, during which some believe the spirits of the dead roam the earth. Image Henry Cheng Kar-shun, one of the world’s richest developers, at a news conference in 2011 in Hong Kong. Credit Imaginechina, via Associated Press “The Chinese told me that we would have to wait until after the fifteenth of September to close the deal,” Mr. Wallach wrote in a chapter of an unpublished book he is writing about his years with Mr. Trump. “Trump went apoplectic.” But he said that Mr. Trump went along. (Mr. Lo said that any delay had been caused by a need to complete paperwork, and that he and his business partners were not superstitious.) The project proved extremely profitable, as the New York real estate market rebounded. In 2005, the Hong Kong partners sold the development for $1.76 billion. Although it was believed to be the largest residential real estate transaction in the city’s history, Mr. Trump was furious, and contends to this day that his partners did not consult him first. “I said: ‘Why didn’t you come talk to me? Whatever price you got, I could have gotten more money,’” Mr. Trump recalled in an interview this month. Mr. Lo said that Mr. Trump had been informed of the decision, and that in any case it would have been very hard to shop such a large property around without Mr. Trump’s becoming aware of it. Instead of accepting his share of the proceeds, Mr. Trump sued his partners for “staggering breach” of fiduciary duty in a lawsuit that demanded $1 billion in damages. Mr. Lo, who felt that Mr. Trump should have been appreciative of the deal he had received, called the lawsuit “a shock.” And when the Hong Kong partners sought to invest the proceeds from the sale in Bank of America buildings in San Francisco and New York, Mr. Trump sought an injunction to scuttle the deal. The judge ruled against him. Instead of receiving the cash he wanted, Mr. Trump had to accept a 30 percent share in the profits from the two Bank of America buildings, tied up in a partnership that is slated to last until 2044. But today, Mr. Trump counts that legal defeat as a victory. “Through more luck than talent, I ended up much better because the buildings have increased in value,” he said. “In the end, it was fine.” Image Vincent Lo, a businessman whose life has been chronicled by tabloids and society pages, in 2011 in Shanghai. Credit Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Nonetheless, Mr. Trump’s litigation over Riverside South dragged on for at least four years. He forced his partners to produce more than 166,000 pages of documents in court and accused them of various transgressions, including fraud and tax evasion. During the litigation, Mr. Lo was forced to keep his trips to the United States secret, out of concern that Mr. Trump’s lawyers would serve him with court papers that would force him to remain in the United States. Outside court, Mr. Trump’s battle seemed to take the shape of a personal rivalry with Mr. Lo, who had just bankrolled a Chinese reality television show called “Wise Man Takes All.” It loosely resembled Mr. Trump’s show “The Apprentice,” although Mr. Lo appeared just once on the show and handed out start-up capital to the winners instead of jobs. Mr. Trump announced that he was going to take a version of “The Apprentice” to China to compete with Mr. Lo’s show, although Mr. Trump’s show there does not appear to have gotten off the ground. In an interview, Mr. Trump asked a reporter how Mr. Lo’s show had turned out, then answered his question: “Let’s put it this way. It wasn’t ‘The Apprentice,’ which was a big success.” Mr. Lo said his show had met his real goal of promoting entrepreneurship in China. After the lawsuit, the Hong Kong partners moved swiftly to cut all ties to Mr. Trump. Mr. Lo sold his shares in the partnership to the Cheng family, which sold to Vornado Realty Trust, now the owner of a 70 percent interest in the Bank of America buildings. But in the interview, Mr. Trump sounded almost wistful about his former partners, marveling at the money they had made together and at the fact that they no longer spoke. He acknowledged that his former partners might have gotten the best deal possible on Riverside South, after all. “It’s too bad that this happened,” Mr. Trump told a reporter. “If you speak to Vincent and Henry, tell them I think they are fantastic people,” he said. “You let them know that Donald Trump has great respect for them, O.K.?” Eight thousand miles away, in his penthouse office in Hong Kong, Mr. Lo laughed when told of Mr. Trump’s comment. He made clear that he had not forgotten being sued for $1 billion. “Well, that’s him,” Mr. Lo said. “To file a lawsuit is nothing. It’s just like having lunch.”

Donald Trump
Hong Kong
China
Bank of America
Bankruptcy
Lawsuits
Vornado Realty Trust
2016 Presidential Election
Commercial Real Estate
Mergers and Acquisitions


Norton D. Zinder, Researcher in Molecular Biology, Dies at 83

Abstract: Norton D. Zinder, a researcher who helped lay the basis for the new field of molecular biology in the 1950s and ’60s and who played a crucial role in the politics of decoding the human genome, died on Friday in a nursing home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He was 83. The cause was pneumonia after a long illness, his son Stephen said. Dr. Zinder was interested in genes before the structure of DNA had been discovered and studied them in the best system then available, the viruses that infect bacteria. As a graduate student he made the important discovery that viruses could ferry genes from one bacterium to another. He later worked out some of the basic steps in protein synthesis, a principal operation of living cells, by studying viruses that he found used RNA — not DNA, its better-known chemical cousin — as their genetic material. Neck and neck with a competing team led by James D. Watson, Dr. Zinder discovered the universal start signal, the special unit with which all protein molecules begin. Norton David Zinder was born in New York on Nov. 7, 1928. In a brilliant early career, he graduated from the Bronx High School of Science at 15 and from Columbia University at 18. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin under Joshua Lederberg, another leader in the golden age of molecular biology. In 1952, Dr. Zinder moved to Rockefeller University in Manhattan, where he remained for the rest of the career. Through close associations with two eminent scientists, Dr. Lederberg, who later joined him at Rockefeller, and Dr. Watson, the co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, Dr. Zinder became an influential voice in many significant issues of science policy. In 1973 he was chairman of a committee that reined in a National Cancer Institute program that sought to find the viruses that were then believed to be the source of most human cancers. The program, he wrote, had become “a gravy train” for a handful of favored researchers, and only half of their research was worth supporting. In the early 1970s, when researchers with no microbiological training took up the study of animal tumor viruses, Dr. Zinder became concerned about research safety and co-wrote a report warning of the risks. His next concern was about the invention of a method, called the recombinant DNA technique, for transferring genes from one organism to another. He and others wrote a letter, published in Science magazine, asking scientists to hold off using the technique until its risk could be assessed. Though scientists generally dislike any curbs on their research, the letter’s signatories were of such stature that the moratorium was observed until safety rules could be developed. After the early rivalry with Dr. Watson, Dr. Zinder became a close friend of his and a trustee of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a leading center of molecular biology directed by Dr. Watson. “Jim would get excitable, and Norton was the trustee who would calm things down,” said a colleague at Rockefeller University, Jesse H. Ausubel. “They were both prodigies who burst on the scene in the early ’40s as 20-year-olds, clever beyond their years, and for that reason they both had long careers.” With Dr. Watson, Dr. Zinder was deeply involved in initiating the human genome project. Many leading biologists opposed the project, fearing that their federal patron, the National Institutes of Health, would take money out of their research funds to finance it. Dr. Zinder and Dr. Watson persuaded them that the project should proceed. Dr. Watson became director of the institutes’ genome project, setting its strategy and goal of completion in 15 years at a cost of $3 billion. But after Dr. Watson’s resignation in 1992, Dr. Zinder became concerned that the agency was “dawdling” and that its leadership was more interested in ventures that would please Congress, like the genetics of disease, than in the long-term payoff from sequencing the human genome. With the side objective of galvanizing the institutes into more serious action, Dr. Zinder became one of the few establishment scientists to support Craig Venter, a pioneer in DNA sequencing who had started his own genome sequencing company, Celera, in competition. When Dr. Venter developed a better sequencing strategy and seemed likely to humiliate the institutes, Dr. Zinder, a member of Celera’s scientific board, tried to mediate a truce. Though his efforts were not entirely successful, the two sequencing teams agreed long enough to declare a joint victory in June 2000. Dr. Zinder’s influence rested on his being one of a handful of people who were trusted by both of the genome-sequencing camps. “He had trouble keeping his mouth shut, but in some ways that was disarming for people,” Mr. Ausubel said. Dr. Zinder’s wife of 54 years, Marilyn, died before him. In addition to his son Stephen, a microbiologist at Cornell, he is survived by another son, Michael, a lawyer, and five grandsons.

Zinder Norton D
Genetics and Heredity
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
Deaths (Obituaries)
Biology and Biochemistry


Ex-Judge Pleads Guilty in Estate Theft

Abstract: A former state judge in Brooklyn pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge in connection with the theft of $160,000 from his aunt. The former State Supreme Court justice, Michael J. Garson, 63, pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn to possession of a forged document granting him power of attorney over his aunt’s assets. He faces up to a year in jail at sentencing, which is set for July 1. Mr. Garson agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in another investigation after he was charged with grand larceny in 2005. He was accused of dipping into the assets of his aunt to cover losses in the stock market. The aunt, who was in her 90s, has since died. Prosecutors said that Mr. Garson made his final repayment to his aunt’s estate on Tuesday. Mr. Garson is the cousin of Gerald P. Garson , a former State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn who was convicted last year of accepting bribes to manipulate cases.

Decisions and Verdicts
Robberies and Thefts
Crime and Criminals
Garson Gerald P


Japan Celebrates New Home Run King

Abstract: TOKYO — It was a day few thought would arrive. Japan’s single-season home run record had fallen — to a foreigner. On Sunday night, the former major leaguer Wladimir Balentien, an outfielder for the Central League’s Tokyo Yakult Swallows, hit his 56th home run, pushing him past Sadaharu Oh, Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera. When his three-run blast reached the left-field seats at Meiji Jingu Stadium, the announced crowd of 30,319 went into a frenzy. Balentien was not done. In his next at-bat, he hit No. 57. “I am so happy now,” Balentien, 29, a native of Curaçao, said after his team’s 9-0 victory against the Hanshin Tigers. With the record being highly cherished in Japanese sports, foreign challengers have faced unsportsmanlike actions, some of which had links to Oh, perhaps the most popular player in Japanese history. Going into the last game of the 1985 season, the Tigers’ Randy Bass had 54 home runs. But the Yomiuri Giants, then managed by Oh, walked him four times. In 2001, Rhodes, then with the Kintetsu Buffaloes, repeatedly saw pitches out of the strike zone down the stretch against the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, a team that Oh managed, as Rhodes attempted to surpass 55. The next year, Cabrera, with the Seibu Lions, received similar treatment. Over the last few weeks, Japan’s sports newspapers speculated on whether Balentien, who spent three seasons in the majors, with the Seattle Mariners and the Cincinnati Reds, would see any pitches in the strike zone. It proved to be a nonissue. Balentien was challenged repeatedly, not only by the Tigers but also by the Carp during a three-game series earlier last week. Oh congratulated Balentien on breaking his record. “I am looking forward, like all baseball fans, to his final total for the season,” said Oh, as reported by the public broadcaster NHK. Masahiro Tanaka, the right-handed pitcher for the Rakuten Eagles, who on Friday ran his record to 21-0, wrote on Twitter: “Balentien is unbelievable!” Balentien missed the first 12 games of the season after injuring his leg while representing the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic. Since then, he has been knocking balls out of the park about once every other game. Balentien’s progress has been charted with the Coco Meter, a reference to his nickname, on the team’s Web site. Outside the stadium Sunday, fans took photographs in front of a similar meter erected at an entrance. For last-place Yakult, there have been few positives this season. Balentien, who leads the league with a .338 batting average, is the main attraction. After the game, Balentien did a victory lap through the outfield, raising his hands as the crowd roared. Balentien’s mother, Astrid, was among the fans. “I was so glad,” she said after the game. “I was the most glad mom in the world for God blessing me with Balentien, with Coco.” Balentien said he could not have been more pleased. “I think this is the best present I could give her forever,” he said.

Wladimir Balentien
Yakult Swallows
Sadaharu Oh
Baseball


Going Back to College, and Teaching Her Daughters the Value of Education

Abstract: A white Christmas tree and a pair of children’s pink-and-white bicycles lined the entryway of Latisha Hopewell’s apartment in Lower Manhattan, where her two daughters, Shaun, 11, and Shani, 6, were losing their battle against post-holiday malaise minute by minute. Beneath heavy eyelids, the two girls rarely looked away from their mother during a nearly two-hour interview. Ms. Hopewell, 35, is acutely aware that those little eyes, especially those of her older daughter, are always watching her. It is largely what motivated her to go back to college a year and a half ago, despite all that she had to give up: time to herself, sleep and, most of all, hundreds of precious hours with her girls. But of the many traits mothers can pass on to their daughters, determination seems to be the gene that dominates in Ms. Hopewell’s family. “I come from a long line of strong women,” she said. Finding a way is “just something you have to do.” Ms. Hopewell was born in Brooklyn and raised in Harlem and the Bronx. Fathers have not been a major part of her world; like her mother, she is largely raising her daughters alone. And like her mother, she places a high value on education. Ms. Hopewell proudly presented Shaun’s most recent report card: all A’s, save for an 89 in reading. “She’ll get it next time,” Ms. Hopewell said. Like her daughter, Ms. Hopewell said, she also was a good student in grade school. She studied computer science at Buffalo State College between 1997 and 2001, but decided to leave before graduating because of the unpaid tuition she owed. It is not an unfamiliar story. “I thought I would come home, get a job and pay it off,” she said, but then “life happened.” Her mother, who had started college around the same time that Ms. Hopewell enrolled, suffered a stroke, and not long after that Ms. Hopewell learned she was pregnant with Shaun. Although she always worked, Ms. Hopewell struggled to make ends meet. In 2004 she was evicted from the apartment she and Shaun shared, and they spent the next three years in a homeless shelter. In 2007, having qualified for public housing, they moved to the Vladeck Houses, where the family still lives today. The Neediest Cases The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund provides direct assistance to struggling New Yorkers. Tap for information about how to donate. All the while, Ms. Hopewell said, she never lost faith that she would return to school, but kept putting it off. That is, until Shaun began to ask questions about her mother’s college years: “Why did you quit?” “Are you going back?” “Do I have to go?” “How can I tell her, ‘You have to go to college; you have to do this,’ when I’m not doing it and I’m able?” Ms. Hopewell said. She heard about College Access and Success, an adult education program for parents of children in Head Start offered by Educational Alliance, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the seven organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Through that program, Educational Alliance paid her old tuition bills and helped Ms. Hopewell find a college that fit her interests. Inspired by crime television shows like “NCIS” and those on the Investigation Discovery channel, she decided to go to John Jay College of Criminal Justice to study forensic psychology. “It has to be something I love,” she said of her major. “I don’t want another job; I want a career.” College is different this time around. She says she is a better student now that the consequences, as well as the rewards, are more tangible. She wants to give her daughters a better life; a house with a backyard, perhaps in Atlanta, is her current goal. “I get tired. I get overwhelmed,” Ms. Hopewell said. “Sometimes I have to go for a walk and cry, but in the end, I know it’s going to pay off. There’s no doubt in my mind, so that’s just it.” Ms. Hopewell said she is lucky to get four hours of sleep each night. But finances have been the biggest challenge. She earns $1,205 per month, after taxes, from her part-time job as a medical data clerk and receives $150 in child support and $145 in food stamps. Her monthly expenses include $241 for rent, $120 for transportation, $245 for additional food, $60 for Shaun’s tuition at a parochial school for girls from low-income families and $261 for cable, phone and Internet services. Tuition for Ms. Hopewell’s fall semester at John Jay was $3,255, all but $390 of which was covered by federal grants. After hearing about Ms. Hopewell’s struggles, a social worker from Educational Alliance withdrew $1,525 from the Neediest Cases Fund for her: $435 to cover Shaun’s tuition; $390 for Ms. Hopewell’s outstanding tuition; $200 for new school uniforms for Shani; and $500 for a laptop. “It helped a lot, oh my gosh, you have no idea,” Ms. Hopewell said of the assistance, and especially the laptop. Before, she often had to bring her daughters to the library while she completed homework, or leave them with friends and relatives while she stayed late to work on assignments. “I’m so grateful for this program,” she added. Many day-to-day challenges remain, but she feels blessed to be able to go to college now, when her daughters are able to see their mother persevere. “Especially this one,” Ms. Hopewell said, pointing at Shaun. “I just want to set an example for my girls that no matter what, it can be done.”

New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
UJA-Federation of New York
Philanthropy


Last-Minute Defense by Michigan Steals a Win From Michigan State

Abstract: ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — A 10-point lead had slipped away in the final minutes, and it looked as if the best point guard Trey Burke and Michigan could hope for was another chance in overtime. Then Burke decided to gamble, reaching in and knocking the ball away from Michigan State’s Keith Appling with the game on the line. “I take my eyes off it for a second to see their formation, and there’s Trey going down the other end,” Wolverines Coach John Beilein said. Burke’s steal and dunk put Michigan ahead by 2 points with 22 seconds remaining, and the fourth-ranked Wolverines held on for a pulsating 58-57 win over No. 9 Michigan State on Sunday. Burke had 21 points and 8 assists, and he had enough energy left down the stretch to help Michigan to a much-needed victory. The Wolverines avenged a 75-52 loss at Michigan State last month — and they rebounded from Wednesday night’s stunning defeat at Penn State with an inspired performance at home. The Spartans (22-7, 11-5 Big Ten) had the ball with the shot clock off and the score 56-56, but Burke stole the ball from Appling near midcourt and went in alone for the game’s last field goal. Image Trey Burke finished with 21 points and had two steals in the final 30 seconds. Credit Gregory Shamus/Getty Images “I really wasn’t pressuring him as hard as I felt like I could, the whole game,” Burke said. “I tried to turn him as many times as possible. The one time I did turn him, he kept the ball out, so I just went after it. If I was going to miss it, then I was going to be out of the play.” Instead, he ended up with a dunk, giving Michigan (24-5, 11-5) the lead. Michigan State’s Derrick Nix was fouled with 8.8 seconds left, but he missed the first free throw. After he made the second, the Spartans fouled the freshman Mitch McGary, who missed the front end of a one-and-one. Michigan State called a timeout with 4.9 seconds left but never got a shot off. Burke stole a pass by Gary Harris to end the game. The Michigan State loss clinched at least a share of the Big Ten title for Indiana. It was the type of game Michigan did not seem as if it could win. The Wolverines shot 0 for 12 from 3-point range and were left to slug it out inside with the physical Spartans. Michigan State had 19 offensive rebounds, but the Spartans also turned the ball over 18 times. “They’ve got a good team,” Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said. “We did some real good things, but unfortunately, ‘good’ isn’t good enough in this league.” After being beaten by Indiana and Ohio State, the Spartans have now lost three straight. Michigan, maligned for weeks because of shaky defense, was more disruptive Sunday. “Today it was all about grit,” Beilein said. “We just had to get a win, especially after our Wednesday night disappointment.”

Michigan State
Trey Burke
College Sports
Basketball
University of Michigan
College basketball


Another Challenge for Ethical Eating: Plants Want to Live, Too

Abstract: I stopped eating pork about eight years ago, after a scientist happened to mention that the animal whose teeth most closely resemble our own is the pig. Unable to shake the image of a perky little pig flashing me a brilliant George Clooney smile, I decided it was easier to forgo the Christmas ham. A couple of years later, I gave up on all mammalian meat, period. I still eat fish and poultry, however and pour eggnog in my coffee. My dietary decisions are arbitrary and inconsistent, and when friends ask why I’m willing to try the duck but not the lamb, I don’t have a good answer. Food choices are often like that: difficult to articulate yet strongly held. And lately, debates over food choices have flared with particular vehemence. In his new book, “ Eating Animals ,” the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer describes his gradual transformation from omnivorous, oblivious slacker who “waffled among any number of diets” to “committed vegetarian .” Last month, Gary Steiner, a philosopher at Bucknell University, argued on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times that people should strive to be “strict ethical vegans ” like himself, avoiding all products derived from animals, including wool and silk. Killing animals for human food and finery is nothing less than “outright murder,” he said, Isaac Bashevis Singer ’s “eternal Treblinka.” But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze. It’s time for a green revolution, a reseeding of our stubborn animal minds. When plant biologists speak of their subjects, they use active verbs and vivid images. Plants “forage” for resources like light and soil nutrients and “anticipate” rough spots and opportunities. By analyzing the ratio of red light and far red light falling on their leaves, for example, they can sense the presence of other chlorophyllated competitors nearby and try to grow the other way. Their roots ride the underground “rhizosphere” and engage in cross-cultural and microbial trade. “Plants are not static or silly,” said Monika Hilker of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin . “They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk” through chemical signals. Touch, sight, hearing, speech. “These are sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals,” Dr. Hilker said. Plants can’t run away from a threat but they can stand their ground. “They are very good at avoiding getting eaten,” said Linda Walling of the University of California , Riverside. “It’s an unusual situation where insects can overcome those defenses.” At the smallest nip to its leaves, specialized cells on the plant’s surface release chemicals to irritate the predator or sticky goo to entrap it. Genes in the plant’s DNA are activated to wage systemwide chemical warfare, the plant’s version of an immune response . We need terpenes, alkaloids, phenolics — let’s move. “I’m amazed at how fast some of these things happen,” said Consuelo M. De Moraes of Pennsylvania State University . Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues did labeling experiments to clock a plant’s systemic response time and found that, in less than 20 minutes from the moment the caterpillar had begun feeding on its leaves, the plant had plucked carbon from the air and forged defensive compounds from scratch. Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within. Enemies of the plant’s enemies are not the only ones to tune into the emergency broadcast. “Some of these cues, some of these volatiles that are released when a focal plant is damaged,” said Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis , “cause other plants of the same species, or even of another species, to likewise become more resistant to herbivores.” Yes, it’s best to nip trouble in the bud. Dr. Hilker and her colleagues, as well as other research teams, have found that certain plants can sense when insect eggs have been deposited on their leaves and will act immediately to rid themselves of the incubating menace. They may sprout carpets of tumorlike neoplasms to knock the eggs off, or secrete ovicides to kill them, or sound the S O S. Reporting in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Dr. Hilker and her coworkers determined that when a female cabbage butterfly lays her eggs on a brussels sprout plant and attaches her treasures to the leaves with tiny dabs of glue, the vigilant vegetable detects the presence of a simple additive in the glue, benzyl cyanide. Cued by the additive, the plant swiftly alters the chemistry of its leaf surface to beckon female parasitic wasps. Spying the anchored bounty, the female wasps in turn inject their eggs inside, the gestating wasps feed on the gestating butterflies, and the plant’s problem is solved. Here’s the lurid Edgar Allan Poetry of it: that benzyl cyanide tip-off had been donated to the female butterfly by the male during mating. “It’s an anti-aphrodisiac pheromone, so that the female wouldn’t mate anymore,” Dr. Hilker said. “The male is trying to ensure his paternity, but he ends up endangering his own offspring.” Plants eavesdrop on one another benignly and malignly. As they described in Science and other journals, Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues have discovered that seedlings of the dodder plant, a parasitic weed related to morning glory, can detect volatile chemicals released by potential host plants like the tomato. The young dodder then grows inexorably toward the host, until it can encircle the victim’s stem and begin sucking the life phloem right out of it. The parasite can even distinguish between the scents of healthier and weaker tomato plants and then head for the hale one. “Even if you have quite a bit of knowledge about plants,” Dr. De Moraes said, “it’s still surprising to see how sophisticated they can be.” It’s a small daily tragedy that we animals must kill to stay alive. Plants are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the sun. Don’t expect them to boast: they’re too busy fighting to survive.

Vegetarian
Flowers and Plants
Science and Technology


Palins Said to Be Involved in Brawl at Party in Alaska

Abstract: ANCHORAGE — It began as a birthday party that drew local snowmobile racers, construction workers and other longtime Alaskans last Saturday night. It turned into a brawl with members of Sarah Palin’s family in the center of it, according to witnesses at the party. The police are still investigating, and the Palin family is not commenting. But the episode is already adding some more atmospheric notes to the background noise surrounding Mrs. Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate and the former governor of Alaska . Guests said the event began as a birthday party for twin brothers, Matt and Marc McKenna , the latter a well-known snowmobile racer. Most of the party was outside with dancing and a live band. But then things appeared to get out of hand. According to a statement from the Anchorage Police Department, officers responded to “a report of a verbal and physical altercation taking place between multiple subjects outside of a residence located on the 900 block of Harbor Circle.” The report said that a preliminary investigation by the police revealed that “a fight had broken out between multiple subjects outside of the residence.” It said that none of the people involved wanted to press charges, that no arrests were made and that an investigation was continuing. The police chief, Mark T. Mew, said Friday that even if the victims did not decide to press charges, the municipal prosecutor could still file charges. The police statement concluded: “Alcohol was believed to have been a factor in the incident. Some of the Palin family members were in attendance at the party.” But several witnesses said the trouble started when Track Palin, Mrs. Palin’s son, confronted a former boyfriend of his sister Willow and a fight broke out. Before long Mrs. Palin’s husband, Todd, who also races snowmobiles and was also celebrating a birthday (his 50th), was said to have gotten involved in the fighting. Later, according to witnesses, Bristol Palin, one of Mrs. Palin’s daughters, threw several punches at the owner of the house where the party was being held. The result was a brawl said to involve about 20 people. In the end, the Palin family was ordered by the homeowner to leave, witnesses said. Witnesses said the Palin family members climbed back into their stretch Hummer limousine. Before they left, however, Mrs. Palin unleashed several rounds of profanity and Track Palin made a vulgar gesture toward the crowd, according to one participant at the party who declined to be identified out of fear of reprisals. (One participant, Eric Thompson, an employee of the firm whose office manager hosted the party, said he was fired after speaking to ABC News.) The Palin family was not available for comment. But Mrs. Palin, in a Facebook post on Sunday , said that she had been traveling “yesterday” — the day the party was held — so she wanted to post a birthday greeting to her husband one day late. Mrs. Palin made no mention of the party. “It was a really nice, mellow party,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview on Thursday night. “Then it turned into ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’ ”

Alaska
Anchorage
Birthday
Sarah Palin
Assault


College Tuition Offers a Lesson in Sticker Shock

Abstract: Is college really necessary? After a report last week from the College Board on soaring tuition, parents and their teenage children could be forgiven for asking themselves that question. If only the answer were no, these teenagers could save themselves or their parents tens of thousands of dollars. This year, tuition and fees at public universities averaged more than $6,000, and more than $23,000 at private ones. But some stubborn children may claim that they want to go to college to learn new things and meet interesting people. They may contend that they will make more money if they get a degree. Which is why, after the initial grimaces over inflation-outpacing tuition, many families will conclude that yes, college is necessary. There is a bright spot: although college is more expensive than ever, more financial aid than ever (especially from the colleges themselves) is available. That means that deserving families will rarely have to pay list price for that four-year degree.


Conrad Joins Chivas USA

Abstract: Chivas USA signed the former United States national team defender Jimmy Conrad, a 33-year-old who made 28 international appearances and played in two matches at the 2006 World Cup.


I.M.F. Urges U.S. and Europe to Act Decisively on Debt

Abstract: TOKYO — World finance officials called on the United States and Europe to quickly resolve their debt problems, saying on Saturday that more decisive action was needed to restore confidence in the faltering global economy. In a communiqué at the end of a three-day meeting here in Tokyo, the members of the International Monetary Fund warned that global growth was slowing as the persistent debt crises in developed countries dragged down growth in emerging markets. The statement said quick action was needed to “break negative feedback loops and restore the global economy to a path of strong, sustainable and balanced growth.” “There was no objection to the recommendation that we gave to the membership, which was a-c-t,” said the I.M.F. head, Christine Lagarde , spelling out the word for dramatic emphasis. The annual meetings here of the I.M.F. and the World Bank were focused on the harm to the world economy from the sovereign debt crisis in Europe , and the prospect of automatic budget cuts and tax increases in the United States at the end of the year as American political leaders remain deadlocked over how to reduce deficits. The I.M.F. warned that economic stagnation in richer countries hurt poorer ones, which rely on exports to the developed world to lift themselves out of poverty. Its members also cautioned that the slowdown in the West was hurting growth in Asia, now the world’s most dynamic economic region. “Asia alone can’t carry the global economy,” the Australian treasurer, Wayne Swan, was quoted as saying by Reuters. “It is time for the other players to get off the benches and start to pull their weight on global economic growth again.” The I.M.F. meeting was overshadowed at times by a different sort of problem that economists warn could also hurt growth in Asia: the region’s many territorial disputes. The finance minister and the central bank chief of China, Asia’s largest economy, skipped the meetings in a show of displeasure with their host, Japan, with which China is locked in an emotional dispute over control of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The news at the meetings was not all bad. Some I.M.F. members said that global growth prospects were brighter now than six months ago, citing European progress toward containing the Continent’s debt crisis . But the group also said that growth was still slowing, because of the developed world’s debt problems and other lingering effects from the global financial crisis. Much of the discussion at the I.M.F. meeting focused on the risks that the United States, the world’s largest economy, might face if the Obama administration and Congress cannot agree on deficit reduction measures, setting off legally mandated tax increases and federal spending cuts early next year. Hitting that “fiscal cliff” would reduce growth and eliminate jobs at a time when the anemic American economy is still struggling to recover from the 2008 crisis. The scale of America’s fiscal problems was underscored just hours before the meeting in Tokyo, when the Obama administration announced that the budget deficit this year would reach $1.1 trillion, exceeding $1 trillion for a fourth straight year. While that is down from last year, United States deficits had never topped half a trillion dollars before the 2008 financial crisis. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Saturday that the United States had made progress in fixing its debt problems, but still faced a long road ahead. “It is important that we in the U.S. enact a balanced framework to bring down our fiscal deficit and debt over several years, while continuing to provide support for jobs and growth in the short term,” he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

International Monetary Fund
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
International Trade and World Market
Federal Budget (US)


In China, Stomachs Turn at News of 40-Year-Old Meat Peddled by Traders

Abstract: From rat meat masquerading as lamb to tainted milk to exploding watermelons, Chinese consumers have become inured to stomach-churning food scandals. But on Tuesday, countless people were forced to ponder the benefits of vegetarianism after news reports emerged that unscrupulous meat traders had been peddling tons of beef, pork and chicken wings that in some cases had been frozen for 40 years. The Chinese news media announced that the authorities had seized nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of smuggled frozen meat this month across China, some of it dating to the 1970s. The caches of beef, pork and chicken wings, worth up to 3 billion renminbi, or $483 million, were discovered in a nationwide crackdown that spanned 14 provinces and regions, the state news agency Xinhua reported. Typically, the meat was shipped from abroad to Hong Kong and then brought to Vietnam, where traders would smuggle the product across the Chinese border without declaring it to customs officials or going through required inspection and quarantine procedures. From there, criminals would often transport the meat in unrefrigerated trucks to save costs and refreeze it several times before it reached customers. “It was too smelly. A truck full of it. I almost threw up when the door opened,” Zhang Tao, a customs administration official in Changsha, the capital of central Hunan Province, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. The authorities in Changsha seized 800 tons of frozen meat on June 1 and arrested 20 suspected members of two gangs. According to the Changsha Administration of Customs, one-third of the meat on sale at the largest wholesale market in the city was found to be illegally imported. While the origin of the smuggled meat was unclear, a report on the official Hunan propaganda department website said that the contraband had come from the border with Vietnam. In the region of Guangxi, which borders Vietnam, customs officials found that some of the smuggled frozen meat “was more than 40 years old,” according to The China Daily newspaper. Chinese officials did not explain where the meat originated or how it had been stored for almost two generations. After being refrozen, the meat was sold to retailers, supermarkets and restaurants across the country. China Central Television, the state broadcaster, showed workers in the southern city of Shenzhen repackaging the imported meat with Chinese labels, even though imported products, if legal, tend to be more profitable. Some of the meat was sold on the Internet. Many meat retailers have set up profiles on Taobao, the online shopping website owned by Alibaba, offering local and imported meat. Some claim to be selling beef imported from the United States, even though such beef has been barred from the Chinese mainland since 2003, after outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease . Food scandals are a politically sensitive issue in China, where tainted food has sickened huge numbers of people. In 2008, milk powder tainted with melamine , a toxic industrial compound, made 300,000 babies ill and six died. Since then, the country has encountered watermelons that exploded from the misuse of a growth accelerator chemical, pork soaked in a detergent additive, steamed buns tainted with pesticides, and 15,000 dead pigs drifting down the Huangpu River in Shanghai. But the news of 40-year-old frozen meat being sold to consumers has left even the most seasoned experts in shock. Bob Delmore, an expert on meat science at Colorado State University, said that although it was possible for meat to last that long frozen, it would be covered by “a tremendous amount of freezer burn” as the product lost moisture and the flesh degraded. But once it began to thaw, a consumer would immediately know something was wrong. “The dead giveaway would be the odor and the taste,” he said. In China, people turned to social media to complain about the latest scandal, with some considering vegetarianism, or at least a good wine vintage to make the risk go down easier. “A bottle of 1982 Lafite plus a piece of 70s steak and a pair of 80s chicken wings,” wrote one user on the Sina Weibo microblog. “Bon appétit!”

China
Meat
Smuggling
Xinhua
Hong Kong
Vietnam
Alibaba
Food Safety


Turkey: Aid Flotilla Is Planned for Gaza

Abstract: An Islamist charity plans to send a new aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip this year to challenge Israel’s naval blockade there, the group announced Tuesday. The organization — the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known as I.H.H. — said it would also organize demonstrations at sea and in ports worldwide over the next months, and campaign for the opening of a port in Gaza for international marine traffic. A similar effort in 2010 ended with an Israeli raid that killed nine people and strained ties between Turkey and Israel.


Texas: Actress Gets 18-Year Sentence in Ricin Case

Abstract: An actress was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in federal prison for mailing ricin-laced letters in May 2013 to President Obama and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. The actress, Shannon Guess Richardson, 35, pleaded guilty to possession of a toxin for use as a weapon. Prosecutors said Ms. Richardson placed ricin onto letters sent to Mr. Obama, Mr. Bloomberg and Mark Glaze, at the time the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Ms. Richardson, who played a zombie on “The Walking Dead,” among other small roles, had falsely accused her husband of mailing the letters.

Ricin
Shannon Guess Richardson
Mark Glaze
Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Criminal Sentence
Barack Obama
Mike Bloomberg


Attn, Satirist of the Spoiled of Wall Street: Bad Timing, Dude

Abstract: Happy hour in the financial district has its own taxonomy. The other night amid the several sidewalk tables on Stone Street, Amit Chatwani, the 26-year-old behind the satirical Wall Street blog Leveragedsellout.com , broke down the scene within seconds of his arrival. The young woman carrying a canvas “deal bag” with the Goldman Sachs logo was most likely a bank associate, he surmised. The younger-looking man reading the so-counterintuitive-it’s-intuitive business book “The Black Swan” was an analyst with big-picture dreams. And the rest of the tables were filled with tech-support and human-resources staff, he figured. “They have to be back-office, because it’s too early for bankers to be out,” Mr. Chatwani said. “They could be traders, I suppose. Or compliance and risk management, which is basically middle-office that’s treated as back-office.” But Mr. Chatwani would be the first to admit that his assessments of the culture of Wall Street are not, at the moment, holding their value. His book, written under the name Leveraged Sell-Out and entitled “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Banker,” was published by Hyperion in August, giving it a fair claim to some kind of Worst Timing Ever Award. “Basically, I’m making fun of a class of people who most of the world still hates, but it’s just not the same to kick them when they’re down,” he said. The book is a sort of fake how-to guide to understand and join the realm of young investment bankers, as if written by a young investment banker — Mr. Chatwani’s alter ego, Logan, described on the back cover as a 24-year-old financier whose hobbies include mergers and acquisitions, sailing, and “aggressive spending.” He said he didn’t think the book was selling as well as he or his publisher had expected. “But I’m kind of hoping that people will look at it as a sort of historical document, a parody of a world that existed until basically a moment after it came out,” he said. The book is essentially an explication of elites and elitism, and is about everything that matters to financiers: firms, jobs, schools, women, things you can buy, and money, money, money. Of commercial banks with investment-banking divisions (like Wachovia and JPMorgan Chase), our narrator is dismissive: “It’s like taking a Porsche and attaching a huge Maxima decal to the back windshield — it’s disgusting and wrong.” “The hierarchy is now null and void,” Mr. Chatwani conceded. A characteristic observation in the book, parodying the language of the young hot-rods, concerns banker shoes: “I, personally, like my loafers just like I like my women: expensive, fit, and, more often than not, with a bit of bling around their necks.” Mr. Chatwani went to Princeton, and after college he got a job with the consulting division of a technology company, but found himself thoroughly immersed in the young Wall Street milieu. He was sharing a TriBeCa apartment with four investment banker friends from college, and there were four more in the apartment directly upstairs. He said he had been “seriously shocked” by the amount of time some of them put in trying to estimate their year-end bonuses, and began writing up short parodies of — and for — their world. “Bankers talk about everything in financey terms,” Mr. Chatwani said the other night. “The way they talk about girls — a guy will say he’s going to short a girl because, you know, ‘There’s a lot of overvalue here.’ Also, you don’t organize your day, you structure it.” He went live with Leveragedsellout in the fall of 2005. By January 2006, Business Week called him (or rather, his character) “the Borat of Wall Street,” and the site was getting 225,000 unique viewers a month. The book deal came a year later. But instead of assuming the mantle of a populist hero, Mr. Chatwani these days consoles and counsels his friends through these uncertain times. “A bunch of them are applying to business school,” he said. “One guy says that people at his firm are so panicked they just watch TV in the office all day.” One of the most trying aspects for them, Mr. Chatwani explained, was the loss of “perceived prestige” with women. “A lot of my dude friends when they meet a girl in a bar, they’ve stopped talking for once about what they do,” he said. “If you tell a girl you work at an investment bank, that gets you a sympathetic pat on the back. That’s not the response you’re looking for.”

Books and Literature
Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Banks and Banking
Finances
Chatwani Amit
Hyperion Press


Obama to Meet With Iraqi Prime Minister to Discuss ISIS’ Advance

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama will meet on Monday with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq to discuss the military campaign against the Islamic State, White House officials said on Thursday, as the militant group continues to make gains despite an American-led counteroffensive. The two men met at the White House in April, but this will be Mr. Obama’s first opportunity to sit down with Mr. Abadi since the Islamist militants took control of Ramadi , the capital of Anbar Province, raising new questions about the ability of Iraqi forces to counter the Islamic State and prompting pleas from the prime minister for more American help. Iraqi Army Retakes Government Complex in Central Ramadi Efforts to stem the rise of the Islamic State. At a meeting in Paris this week of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State, Mr. Abadi said that the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is stronger, better equipped, more lethal and more organized than ever, and that the United States-led air campaign against it is “not enough.” He said that Iraq needed more intelligence and surveillance from the United States, as well as help obtaining more arms. On Monday in Krün, Germany, Mr. Abadi will join a meeting of the Group of 7 major industrialized democracies for a session on terrorism, Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, said on Thursday. “This is an opportunity for the leaders of some of the key coalition countries to sit down with Prime Minister Abadi to affirm the importance of continuing our efforts to degrade ISIL,” Mr. Rhodes said. Mr. Obama will hold a separate meeting with Mr. Abadi to discuss the campaign, Mr. Rhodes said, adding that the White House did not expect any announcements on help for the Iraqis to come out of the session.

Iraq
Haider al-Abadi
Germany
Terrorism
Barack Obama
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
G8,G7,G-7,Group of Seven


Malaysian Court Delays Rare Earth Plant Again

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR — A Malaysian court Thursday kept Lynas’s license for a controversial rare earth plant on hold by delaying until Oct. 10 a decision on whether to consider judicial reviews to block production permanently. The Australian mining company said the Kuantan High Court’s decision had extended a one-week halt that expired Thursday. The rare earth plant — one of the largest outside China — has been ready to fire up since early May, but the company has been embroiled in environmental and safety disputes with local residents since construction began two years ago. The plant is considered important to breaking China’s grip on the processing of rare earth minerals, which are used in products as varied as smartphones and hybrid cars. Activists linked to the environmental group Save Malaysia Stop Lynas, who had asked for the postponement, want the court to suspend the temporary license until two judges review cases that challenge the government’s right to allow the plant to operate. Shares in the company fell 3.5 percent from the previous close to 0.83 Australian dollar, or about 85 cents, down 8 percent from where they stood before the court decision. “We’re staying optimistic,” Tan Bun Teet, a spokesman for the activist group, said after the court decision. “The court has set an early hearing for Oct. 10, and it looks like they want to resolve it quickly,” he added. The group’s previous attempts to stop the plant failed. Lynas received a temporary operating license for the long-delayed plant, worth $800 million, early in September, enabling it to start production as early as October. Protests over possible radioactive residue have involved thousands of people, and the project has become a hot topic before an election set to be held by early next year.

Malaysia
Rare Earths
Mines and Mining
Decisions and Verdicts
Australia


Former Agent Faces Charges in Drug Case

Abstract: PHOENIX (AP) — A former high-ranking Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was stationed in Mexico before retiring in 2007 was arrested Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States. The man, Richard P. Cramer, was arrested at his home in Green Valley, Ariz., about 25 miles south of Tucson, and appeared before a federal judge, who denied bail. No one answered the phone at Mr. Cramer’s home on Friday, and it was unclear if he had a lawyer. The charges stem from a federal investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration dating to 2006. The authorities say Mr. Cramer helped a large-scale drug trafficking organization move cocaine into the United States, according to a criminal complaint made public Friday. The complaint says Mr. Cramer provided members of a drug smuggling organization with information from confidential law enforcement databases that told them if one of their members was a government informant. The complaint also says that Mr. Cramer and the smuggling organization invested about $400,000 in a 660-pound shipment of cocaine. The cocaine was shipped from Panama and went through the United States en route to Spain, where it was seized in June 2007. An informant told the drug agency that Mr. Cramer had “very powerful friends” among its agents in Mexico and a strong relationship with one particular member of the smuggling group, according to the complaint. The complaint adds that in August 2007, a member of the smuggling organization convinced Mr. Cramer to retire from the customs agency and begin working directly in drug smuggling and money laundering. The authorities say Mr. Cramer will be extradited to Florida, where federal prosecutors say most of the acts occurred. Mr. Cramer is the former resident agent in charge of the customs and immigration office in Nogales in southern Arizona, said an agency spokesman.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US)


Pistons Hire Agent Arn Tellem as a Front Office Executive

Abstract: Arn Tellem, one of the most influential and powerful agents in professional sports, has agreed to become the vice chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, the company that owns the Detroit Pistons. The hiring was announced Friday by Tom Gores, who owns the Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment. Tellem is expected to start in his new role on Aug. 3, after transitioning from his current job as vice chairman of Wasserman Media Group, where he oversees the company’s team sports division. Under Gores, Tellem will be responsible for business strategy, public affairs, planning and development, and will operate as a liaison to the Detroit-area community, the company said in a statement. Tellem will move to Detroit. “It has been a privilege spending so much of my life helping guide the careers of professional athletes,” Tellem said in a statement, “but making a difference to a community gives you a deeper sense of purpose.” With the Pistons, Tellem will be in charge of league-related initiatives as one of the team’s alternates on the N.B.A.’s Board of Governors. Stan Van Gundy, the Pistons’ president and coach, will continue in those roles as the head of basketball operations. “Arn brings a unique perspective that will make our entire organization stronger,” Van Gundy said in a statement. Tellem, who graduated from University of Michigan Law School in 1979, began representing professional baseball and basketball players in the early 1980s — one of the rare agents to become a power broker in both sports. After founding Tellem & Associates in 1989, he joined Wasserman in 2006. At Wasserman, where the basketball division has been led by B. J. Armstrong and Thad Foucher, the company’s list of N.B.A. clients includes Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls, Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies and Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans. Wasserman also represents Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez of the Nets. Since 2008, Tellem and his group have been responsible for $3.5 billion in player contracts, according to the Wasserman website . “Given his experience and all of his success,” Arn could have gone just about anywhere, and he chose Detroit,” Gores said in a statement. “This is a big win for Detroit.”

Pistons
Arn Tellem
Wasserman Media Group
Basketball


Russia: Lower House Passes Public Smoking Ban

Abstract: The lower house of Parliament passed a bill on Tuesday that would ban smoking in public places, a contentious measure in a country with one of the world’s highest smoking rates. The ban is backed by government leaders, who point to the hundreds of thousands of smoking-related deaths a year. The bill must be approved by the upper house and signed by President Vladimir V. Putin. The ban would take effect on June 1.


New Owner to Combine Men’s Magazines

Abstract: Stuff, one of the biggest of the “lad” magazines that took off in the 1990s, is being stuffed into its bigger sibling, Maxim, the publications’ new owners announced yesterday. Alpha Media Group, which is owned primarily by the venture group Quadrangle Capital Partners, will turn Stuff into a section of Maxim, while keeping stuffmagazine.com as a stand-alone Web site. The October issue will be Stuff’s last. Stuff was created in 1998 and quickly built a following among young men with money to spend and a taste for the latest gadgetry. Using a formula pioneered by some British magazines, Stuff projected an irreverent, entitled tone, although it relied a little less on sex and more on consumerism than some of its peers. Stuff has a circulation of more than 1.3 million, but its ad sales — $64 million last year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau — have been less impressive. In recent years, Maxim sold roughly twice as many copies, and had about three times the ad revenue. Quadrangle Capital Partners, a venture of the investment firm Quadrangle Group, also said yesterday that it had closed its deal for the American arm of Dennis Publishing, acquiring Maxim, Stuff and Blender, a music magazine. An investor in the deal is Kent Brownridge, a veteran of Wenner Media, who will serve as chief executive of the new Alpha Media Group.

Magazines
Maxim
Quadrangle Group
Dennis Publishing
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures