Defying Unions, Democrat Gina M. Raimondo Vies to Become Rhode Island’s First Female Governor

Abstract: PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As a high school senior in the late 1980s, Gina M. Raimondo was thrilled to learn she had been accepted at Harvard, but she was also daunted. “Harvard was scary,” Ms. Raimondo, 43, the state treasurer of Rhode Island, recalled thinking. Her father had lost his job at the Bulova watch factory here after 26 years, but her mother told her that if she wanted to attend, the family would scrape together the money. It meant working extra jobs and forgoing vacations, but she and her family made the sacrifices to give her that opportunity. And she graduated as the top economics student in her class. “That was a big deal for me, to realize that I was as good and as smart as anybody else, and it didn’t matter if I didn’t have everything they had,” she said. It was an important realization for Ms. Raimondo, who won a primary on Tuesday to be the Democratic nominee for governor of Rhode Island. That belief, that everyone should have a chance, helped define her, she said, and would shape her priorities if she becomes governor. “If you have the talent, you should have the opportunity,” she said. In interviews over the last week, Ms. Raimondo reflected on her career, her plans if elected governor and the challenges women face in running to be chief executive. As she talked outside an ice-cream parlor, her daughter, Ceci, 10, and son, Tommy, 7, raced around and played games with their father nearby. After graduation from Harvard in 1993, Ms. Raimondo won a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at Oxford, where she met her future husband, Andy Moffit. She earned a law degree at Yale, then started Rhode Island’s first venture capital firm. A newspaper article in 2009 sparked her interest in politics. It said the state’s growing fiscal crisis could mean cuts for libraries. Her paternal grandfather, who had arrived from Italy at the age of 14, had learned English by studying in the Providence Public Library. Outraged, Ms. Raimondo decided to run for state treasurer. Growing up in a Democratic household, she believed in activist government. (Her father had gone to college on the G.I. Bill.) She also thought pension benefits needed to be curbed to save other government services, not to mention the pension system itself. “You can’t be a progressive and be opposed to pension reform,” she told Rhode Island Public Radio at the time. She won in a landslide. The next year, she drew national attention for stepping out ahead of other states and leading Rhode Island through a painful pension restructuring. She orchestrated enough support among the public and the Democratic-controlled legislature to push through drastic changes, like raising the retirement age to 67 from 62 and suspending cost-of-living increases until the system improved. This triggered a ferocious backlash from the state’s public employee unions, which campaigned hard against her in Tuesday’s primary. “If I did a litmus test with her, I’m not sure she’d pass the test so that I could say, ‘Yup, she’s a Democrat,’ ” said Philip Keefe, president of Service Employees International Union Local 580. “Some of her projects, especially what she did with the pension, were more business-friendly and less middle-class-friendly than is my cup of tea.” But the public unions were split between two other primary candidates. And Ms. Raimondo, who was backed by the building trades, spent $5 million on television ads and get-out-the-vote efforts, much more than her opponents. She won 42 percent of the vote, about 10 points higher than had been forecast. In November, she will face Allan W. Fung, the mayor of Cranston, who won the Republican nomination. “This is one of the most convincing examples where taking on the unions did not prove fatal to a Democrat,” said Darrell M. West, a former professor at Brown University here and now an analyst at the Brookings Institution. But there remains tremendous animosity toward Ms. Raimondo from the public unions. How — and whether — she comes to terms with them will likely prove a recurring theme in a Raimondo administration. If she is elected, her first months in office will be dominated by labor’s sweeping legal challenge to her pension plan. As central as the pension issue is to her candidacy, she said she believed she had won the primary because she focused on her plan for creating jobs and revitalizing the lagging Rhode Island economy. She said she would keep that same focus through the fall. But she said she might need to make the link more concrete between the sacrifices she asked for in cutting pensions and what those sacrifices can yield. “I don’t know if I ever effectively communicated that in pension reform,” she said. “But you can’t have well-funded and flourishing public schools and public buses and an underfunded pension system. It’s just not possible. So by asking people to go without a cost-of-living increase in retirement, then you can have better bus service, good streets, safe parks, Head Start and universal pre-K.” One of her goals is to reinvent Rhode Island as a center for industrial design. She wants to invest in other state assets, like the marine technology, food science and tourism industries. Along the way, she wants to rid the state of what she calls its “I know a guy” culture, in which insiders get special deals for their friends. “Historically, we haven’t been kind to outsiders or change agents,” she said. That includes women. Rhode Island has never had a female governor. Gov. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the nation’s only female Democratic governor, said in an interview that Ms. Raimondo was already serving in an executive capacity as state treasurer. That, she said, was the best antidote to any fears about female executives. “The more women serve in executive office, the more confidence they gain in themselves, and that voters gain in them,” Ms. Hassan said. Polls showed Ms. Raimondo initially lagged among women voters, but their support increased after she ran ads that included her family. She said the family ads had shown a more complete picture of her. “I am a mother,” she said. “With kids in the public schools. People should know that. I’m not just some policy maker who’s totally detached from the rest of the community.”

Democrats
Rhode Island
Gina M Raimondo
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Women and Girls
Gubernatorial races
2014 Midterm Elections


An Imax and AMC Venture Will Expand 3-D Theaters

Abstract: LOS ANGELES, Dec. 6 — Imax and AMC Entertainment are teaming up to open 100 Imax theaters, doubling the number of large-format 3-D outlets in the United States and adding momentum to Hollywood’s growing interest in the genre. The deal involves equipping 100 of AMC’s existing auditoriums with next-generation Imax projection systems, which rely on digital images rather than film and are meant to provide an immersive viewing experience. Imax will shoulder the expense of the projectors, which cost about $500,000 each. AMC, one of the world’s largest movie theater chains, will pay to retrofit auditoriums in top-performing movie complexes in 33 cities, reconfiguring the seats and enlarging the screens. The partnership comes as Hollywood rushes to churn out 3-D movies. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have agreed to direct and produce a trilogy of 3-D movies about Tintin, the Belgian comic book hero. DreamWorks Animation recently announced that it would distribute several future movies in 3-D, including “Shrek Goes Forth.” James Cameron’s coming “Avatar” is being prepared in 3-D. In gearing up more theaters, Imax and AMC are chasing different goals. AMC, which is based in Kansas City, Mo., is trying to battle an industrywide slump in attendance while squeezing out more revenue from existing auditoriums. Because Imax tickets cost an extra $2 to $4, the conversion should increase revenue in the converted auditoriums by one third, according to Peter C. Brown, the chief executive of AMC. For Imax, the joint venture carries extra weight. The company, with headquarters in New York and Toronto, has struggled to expand into mainstream movie theaters from its roots in science and history museums. Although it has persuaded some movie studios to release Imax versions of their regular films, Imax has recently suffered loses associated with regulatory inquiries into its accounting methods. In restated filings last month, Imax reported a loss of $16.8 million on revenue of $129.5 million for 2006. Also in 2006, an effort to sell the company faltered when no buyers offered the price Imax was seeking. The deal with AMC, which is expected to add up to $35 million a year in additional cash, will go a long way toward stabilizing the company, said Bradley J. Wechsler, the co-chief executive of Imax. “This is transformational for us from a strategic point of view,” he said. AMC and Imax said they will divide the revenue from the theaters according to a pre-existing formula that they declined to describe. Imax’s digital projection systems are new. Until now, Imax has relied upon equipment that translated film into 3-D projections and was so costly and clunky that it squelched demand. As the technology improves, the movie business is pursuing 3-D as a way to beat competition for leisure time from home theaters, the Internet and video games. The move comes from the cinematic playbook of the past: During the mid-1950s, studios released 3-D films like “House of Wax” and “Bwana Devil” in large part to lure audiences away from the upstart medium of television. Recent results for films exhibited in 3-D have intensified interest. “Beowulf,” a fantasy adaptation of the classic tale, was released on Nov. 16 in three formats: standard, Imax and one called “digital 3-D.” The film sold about $27.5 million in tickets at United States theaters in its opening weekend, according to Media by Numbers. Imax made up $3.6 million of the total, or 13 percent. Imax releases in the past have typically contributed less than 5 percent of the gross. “There is no longer a question about the viability of 3-D,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers. Studios greeted the deal with enthusiasm. “This gives Imax a national footprint they never had before, including in the suburbs, and is great for studios looking to distribute titles in 3-D,” said Dan Fellman, president of theatrical distribution at Warner Brothers. Still, Imax is not home free. As digital projectors arrive at more theaters — about 4,000 screens in the United States are now equipped with the technology — a group of competing 3-D purveyors has sprung up. Most aggressive is Real D, a maker of equipment to upgrade digital projectors to show 3-D film.

AMC
Imax Corp
Imax (Movie Process)
Motion Pictures


‘Mister Rogers’ Still Looms Large in Pittsburgh

Abstract: PITTSBURGH — Nationally, it may seem that in the seven years since Fred Rogers’s death , the legacy of America’s favorite neighbor has waned. After all, two years ago PBS stopped offering his show, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” to its member stations every weekday, offering it just once a week, though it allowed stations to digitally stockpile them for daily viewing. Then, last year, PBS quietly stopped allowing stockpiling, meaning there are no stations showing it daily. “Kids today just don’t know him,” said Tom Dvorak, director of broadcasting for WMVS-TV, a public television station in Milwaukee that in January stopped running its stockpiled shows. But here in Pittsburgh, where he lived and worked most of his life, Mr. Rogers’s legacy seems assured, and not just because everyone over the age of 10 seems to have a story about meeting him. Images of him — and his trademark cardigan sweaters — seem to be everywhere, including displays at Pittsburgh International Airport, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum and the Senator John Heinz History Center , for starters. In October, a 10-foot, $3 million statue of Mr. Rogers tying his sneakers was unveiled along the city’s riverfront to great fanfare, even if it was criticized by some, including Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night talk show host, who thought it looked more like a “mud monster.” In November, WQED, the local public television station here, decided to reinstall the Neighborhood of Make-Believe set at its studio where Mr. Rogers filmed his show from 1968 to 2001. More than 5,000 people took the tour in the first two days. And another statue, this time a wax figure — also of Mr. Rogers tying his sneakers — will be unveiled at the History Center on Saturday on what would have been his 82nd birthday. None of it seems overdone to Pittsburgh residents. “He’s one of our own, you know?” said Sheryl Strobl, 31, who was visiting the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood play area at the Children’s Museum recently with her 3-year-old son, T. J. “Because he’s not on TV every day, it’s hard for my son to associate him with that. But when we come here, the first thing he wants to do is drive the Neighborhood trolley. He still knows who Mr. Rogers is.” Dave Pastorkovich, 49, a remedial-reading specialist from Pittsburgh who is an assistant basketball coach at Carnegie Mellon University here, is also a fan. “I think he’s important because he worked here and played a large part in many people’s childhoods, including my own,” Mr. Pastorkovich said. “I thought it was rather strange they stopped running the show. There’s still goodness for kids in there.” But building a legacy beyond his hometown could be an uphill trolley ride, said Donna Mitroff , a children’s media consultant, educator and author who has worked more than 40 years in the field, including three years with Mr. Rogers at WQED. In the pantheon of children’s television performers and creators, Dr. Mitroff places Mr. Rogers on a short list with figures like Burr Tillstrom, creator of the “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” show in the 1950s, Buffalo Bob Smith, the host of “The Howdy Doody Show” in the 1950s, Shari Lewis , a puppeteer whose show featuring Lamb Chop replaced Howdy Doody in 1960, and Bob Keeshan, whose “Captain Kangaroo” show ran from 1955 to 1984. None of them have any kind of formalized legacy, Dr. Mitroff pointed out. PBS, though, hopes that Mr. Rogers will live on for children — online. Last month, PBS began streaming full-length episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on both its Rogers site and its PBSKids site . “We think about Fred every single day,” said Lesli Rotenberg, senior vice president for children’s media at PBS. “The PBSKids site is based on a philosophy that I think he pioneered of looking at the whole child.” But it is another event that begins on Mr. Rogers’s birthday that may mean the most to his national — and even international — legacy as an advocate for responsible children’s entertainment. Starting Saturday at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh, the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media will host its first conference, called “Fred Forward.” The last two days of the four-day conference will bring together more than 60 experts in children’s media to explore “creative curiosity, new media and learning.” Mr. Rogers grew up in Latrobe and, before he died, he began to create the center as a place for his archives. The trove of scripts, handwritten music, letters and awards gives a detailed view of how he created the 895 episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The $15 million center itself, which opened in 2006, sponsors a fellows program to encourage research, the creation of new screen media and new educational materials that use Mr. Rogers’s approach. It is also creating a Learning Network that will provide online tools for raising and educating children for teachers, families and caregivers. “Fred Rogers was a techie in the 1950s who realized how to use the new technology of his day,” said Maxwell King , a co-director of the Rogers center. “Our challenge here, and at this conference, is to find out how to use our new media for the benefit of children. That will be his legacy.”

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (TV Program)


3 Die in Prison Riot in Haiti

Abstract: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two inmates were shot dead trying to escape from the roof of Haiti ’s quake-damaged national prison Sunday and a third was trampled to death inside during a short-lived riot, authorities said. The United Nations police spokesman, Jean-Francois Vezina, said at least 100 United Nations officers were inside the prison when the uprising occurred. Inmates briefly held seven foreigners hostages before releasing them, he said.


Teamsters Union Defends Its Endorsement of Obama

Abstract: The Teamsters union vigorously denied on Monday that its decision to endorse Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race was in any way tied to Mr. Obama’s statement that federal supervision of the union had run its course. The denial came in response to an article in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, which quoted campaign and union officials as saying that Mr. Obama won the Teamsters’ endorsement in February after he privately told union officials that he supported ending the federal oversight. In fact, union officials said Monday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton , Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, suggested that she might also support ending the union’s consent decree with the federal government when she spoke to the Teamsters’ general executive board last year. “You can’t go around dragging the ball and the chain of the past,” Mrs. Clinton said at the March 27, 2007, board meeting, according to an audio tape that the union made available. “And I think that’s true for anybody, any organization, any individual. And so I would be very open to looking at that, and to saying, ‘What are we trying to accomplish here?,’ and see what the answers were. At some point, you turn the page and go on.” At the same board meeting, Mr. Obama suggested that he, too, would push to end the oversight. Officials with the Teamsters and with the Obama campaign said on Monday that Mr. Obama had also told union officials last summer that he believed the consent decree had run its course. Bret Caldwell, the Teamsters’ communications director, said there was “no link whatsoever” between his union’s endorsement of Mr. Obama and the candidate’s statements about federal supervision. “You’re going to be hard-pressed to find any political figure saying we should be under the consent decree,” Mr. Caldwell said. The decree is a 19-year-old agreement between the union and the federal government, under which government-appointed monitors have worked to root out mob influence from the union. Bill Burton, the Obama campaign’s national press secretary, said that “Obama’s position on this is old news.” “Obama has not said he would take the Teamsters out of the consent decree — he’s said it has run its course,” Mr. Burton added. The Wall Street Journal quoted John Coli, a Teamsters vice president in the Midwest, as saying that Mr. Obama had been “pretty definitive that the time had come to start the beginning of the end” of the three-member government-appointed review board that investigates corruption in the union. Mr. Caldwell, the union’s communications director, said: “We believe there’s only a judicial end to this process. It’s not a political end to this process.” The official who has the power to end the consent decree is Judge Loretta A. Preska of Federal District Court in Manhattan. Mr. Caldwell said the question of whether to petition Judge Preska to end the decree would be decided by anticorruption officials in the Justice Department, not the White House. At the Teamsters’ board meeting last year, a union vice president asked Mrs. Clinton for her views on the consent decree. Her first response was jokingly to call it “the world’s longest consent decree.” “This union has done a tremendous job in turning itself around, and that’s my observation,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And at some point the past has to be over.” Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, Mr. Obama denied that he had made any blanket commitments to ending the consent decree. “The union has done a terrific job cleaning itself in-house,” he said, “and the question is whether they’re going to be able to get treated just like every other union, whether the time has come. That’s something I will absolutely examine when I’m president of the United States.”

Endorsements
Presidential Election of 2008
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Obama Barack
Organized Labor
United States Politics and Government
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Preska Loretta A


$28,000 a Night: Hotels Race to Attract Superrich Clientele

Abstract: In most hotels, luxury is measured by the thread count of the linens (minimum 400, please) or the brand of the bathroom toiletries. But for those at the highest end of the market, where the only restraint on consumption is how conspicuous they want to be, a race to the top has broken out, with hotels outdoing one another to serve this tiny, if highly visible, niche. Take the Jewel Suite by Martin Katz at the New York Palace, one of two recently opened specialty suites. The three-story, 5,000-square-foot space — a sort of penthouse Versailles — itself resembles a jewel box, albeit one with its own private elevator and views of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. It’s hard to imagine Louis XIV being left wanting. The floor in the entryway on the 53rd floor is glittering black marble arranged in a sunburst pattern, while a 20-foot crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The living room sofa is a brilliant sapphire blue and a tufted ivory chaise has a pearlescent sheen. Two floors up, in a second living room next to a vast private terrace, the wet bar (one of two in the suite) and half-bath are swathed in a sparkling wall covering, and an angular lavender sofa calls to mind an amethyst crystal. Iridescent tiles lining the private rooftop hot tub give the impression of sinking into a giant opal. And then there are the jewels themselves: More than a million dollars of the jewelry designer’s work is displayed in five museum-like cases in the entryway, and a boudoir area in the master suite has lighting and floor-to-ceiling mirrors designed specifically for jewelry showings. Such grandeur — or excess, depending on your point of view — is all there for the taking, starting at $25,000 a night. “There is a very narrow market who want nothing less,” said Scott Berman, the United States hospitality and leisure practice leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Price is not an issue. We’re talking about the jet set of the jet sets — high-net-worth individuals, generally foreign travelers in the U.S. who are accustomed to opulence.” “It’s bragging rights,” said Pam Danziger, president of the luxury marketing firm Unity Marketing and author of “Putting the Luxe Back in Luxury," published in 2011. Image The rooftop patio of the Jewel Suite offers views of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times “I think this is just a matter of other brands trying to play catch-up to that. They don’t want to be the only hotel on the block that doesn’t have this super, super high-end offering.” In New York, the race to capture the highest end of the market continues. In November, the Mandarin Oriental, New York, opened a 3,300-square-foot suite that includes floor-to-ceiling windows and a dining room that seats 10; its rate is $28,000 a night. (This suite, as well as the Jewel Suite, was designed by a firm recently bought by HOK.) The Loews Regency Hotel in New York reopened last week after a yearlong, $100 million renovation, and six one-of-a-kind suites will open in April. (Rates haven’t been set yet.) “We want to present an image that’s commensurate with the new product,” said Jonathan Tisch, chairman of Loews Hotels. “By doing six different designs, we can create a sense of luxury in six different ways.” “We’ve seen more and more boutique hotels and the bigger-name hotels making suites that are one-off,” said Kris Fuchs, principal at Suite New York, a furniture showroom involved in the Regency’s suite renovation. “I think it makes it extra special that you’re in a room no one else in the hotel has.” This trend of super-suites had overseas antecedents, with demand driven by a growing cadre of the ultrarich from around the world. “Some of the major European capitals have had this going on in the past few years,” said David Loeb, a senior hotel analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company. Ms. Danziger said the trend started in places like Singapore, London and major Middle Eastern cities. “You find that the new money types are the kinds given to this excessive display, valuing the display of this excessive, over-the-top consumption,” she said. “Subtlety is not appreciated.” In the United States, this luxury race took longer to get going, in part because of the recession and a resistance to overt displays of wealth. But now, any such concerns have given way. It is perhaps most noticeable in New York City’s thriving hotel market, although spaces with similar square footage and amenities (if slightly less stratospheric rates) are surfacing in cities including Las Vegas, Miami and Dallas. Image A bedroom in the Jewel Suite. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times “Development is strong again,” said David Chase, general manager of the New York Palace. After struggling through the aftermath of the recession, luxury hotels are recovering and investing in capital improvements. This week, the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas will open a 5,135-square-foot suite wing, including three adjoining suites and two rooms, for travelers who bring an entourage. “We found this need for this private area,” its general manager, Roberto van Geenen, said. Multiple interconnected spaces make it more convenient to house the phalanx of nannies, assistants, bodyguards, personal chefs and other attendants that the super-wealthy bring with them on trips. “There are more and more hotels in that market, in Miami in particular, that are competing for very high-end leisure travelers,” Mr. Loeb said. “The growth of international travel is affecting many of the major markets in the U.S.” “Without question this will increase the prestige of the hotel,” said John Laclé, general manager of the Hilton Bentley Miami/South Beach in Miami Beach, which opened a 3,000-square-foot penthouse in December. Hotel industry professionals say these over-the-top suites serve a dual purpose. “A large part of what we do is creating an image,” Mr. Tisch said. Super-suites cater to the needs of billionaire travelers as well as the imaginations of middle-class tourists. “This hotel already had a fantastic flow of high-net-worth people using our suites,” Mr. Chase said, listing Saudi diplomats and royalty, as well as Hollywood and sports stars, as regular guests. They also indirectly attract a middle-class, aspirational traveler, Mr. Chase said. “It is the attention — the halo effect — doing a suite like this brings,” he said. Even if they’ll never be able to drop the cost of a new compact car on a night’s stay at a hotel, some travelers want to brush elbows with that level of wealth. Ms. Danziger described it as a “shock and awe” campaign that would help drive bookings of regular rooms. “You’ve got the brand building side and you’ve got where the money is really being made.” In the end, the rich are getting richer, and the hotels are looking to serve them, Mr. Loeb said. “The income stratification is more dramatic and that brings this on,” he said. “That’s what we’re really talking about, highly conspicuous consumption as wealth flows from the broader population to a very small subset.”

Hotels
Luxury Goods
Travel,Tourism
HNWI,Wealth,Billionaires,1 Percent


Weakened South Korean President Allows Parliament to Pick Prime Minister

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye of South Korea on Tuesday asked rival political parties to recommend a new prime minister, making a major political concession in her efforts to defuse an influence-peddling scandal that has crippled her government for weeks. During a meeting with Chung Sye-kyun, the speaker of the National Assembly, Ms. Park made the proposal, essentially retracting the appointmen t, made six days ago, of her own candidate for prime minister. That candidate, Kim Byung-joon, was rejected by the opposition parties who together control a majority in Parliament. Instead, they demanded that Ms. Park cede some of her presidential policy-making power, especially in economic and other domestic issues, to a prime minister recommended by Parliament. (In the meantime, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, whom Ms. Park had wanted to replace with Mr. Kim, remains in office.) The concession was another political blow to Ms. Park, and new evidence of her much-diminished political authority as the scandal continues to unfold. She has tried to regain public trust by reshuffling her cabinet and presidential staff. Despite such efforts, surveys showed that she had become the least-popular president since South Korea moved to democracy in the late 1980s. On recent weekends, tens of thousands took to the streets calling on her to step down. In the past week, prosecutors have arrested Choi Soon-sil , a friend of Ms. Park’s for 40 years, on charges of using her influence with the president to extort $69 million from big businesses in the form of donations to two foundations she controlled. Two former presidential aides of Ms. Park were placed under arrest on charges of helping Ms. Choi with her plans or providing her with confidential government documents for her reviewing. The scandal involving Ms. Choi was particularly inflammatory in South Korea, partly because of her background. She is the daughter of a religious cult leader named Choi Tae-min who befriended Ms. Park in the mid-1970s, when Ms. Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, a military dictator, was still in power. Mr. Choi, a shadowy figure with several pseudonyms, was believed by many to have exercised a Rasputin-like power over Ms. Park and to have used it to collect bribes. He died in 1994. After Ms. Park took office as president in early 2013, rumors persisted that Ms. Choi exerted an undue influence on Ms. Park, who had few relatives or friends she could trust, to meddle in government affairs, installing her associates in the government and helping them win large government contracts. Some of those suspicions seemed to be vindicated on Oct. 25, when Ms. Park acknowledged that she had let Ms. Choi edit some of her most important speeches. Ms. Park later also apologized for letting her guard down on Ms. Choi and failing to prevent what has been alleged to be her influence peddling. Prosecutors said Tuesday that they had raided the offices of Samsung, South Korea’s largest conglomerate, to look for evidence that the business had provided illegal financial support for Ms. Choi’s daughter, who is an equestrian.

South Korea
Park Geun-hye
Hwang Kyo-ahn
Choi Soon-sil
Appointments and Executive Changes
Legislature


Top Olympian Falters

Abstract: The Olympic gold medalist David Rudisha finished third in the 800 meters at the Weltklasse meeting in Zurich on Thursday, behind Nijel Amos of Botswana and Ayanleh Souleiman of Djibouti. Jenny Simpson edged Shannon Rowbury by a hundredth of a second to win the 1,500 in 3 minutes 59.92 seconds.

David Rudisha
Zurich
Nijel Amos
Ayanleh Souleiman
Track and field


For Libraries and Publishers, an E-Book Tug of War

Abstract: LAST year, Christmas was the biggest single day for e-book sales by HarperCollins. And indications are that this year’s Christmas Day total will be even higher, given the extremely strong sales of e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook. Amazon announced on Dec. 15 that it had sold one million of its Kindles in each of the three previous weeks. But we can also guess that the number of visitors to the e-book sections of public libraries’ Web sites is about to set a record, too. And that is a source of great worry for publishers. In their eyes, borrowing an e-book from a library has been too easy. Worried that people will click to borrow an e-book from a library rather than click to buy it, almost all major publishers in the United States now block libraries’ access to the e-book form of either all of their titles or their most recently published ones. Borrowing a printed book from the library imposes an inconvenience upon its patrons. “You have to walk or drive to the library, then walk or drive back to return it,” says Maja Thomas, a senior vice president of the Hachettte Book Group, in charge of its digital division. And print copies don’t last forever; eventually, the ones that are much in demand will have to be replaced. “Selling one copy that could be lent out an infinite number of times with no friction is not a sustainable business model for us,” Ms. Thomas says. Hachette stopped making its e-books available to libraries in 2009. E-lending is not without some friction. Software ensures that only one patron can read an e-book copy at a time, and people who see a long waiting list for a certain title may decide to buy it instead. Explaining Simon & Schuster’s policy — it has never made its e-books available to libraries — Elinor Hirschhorn, executive vice president and chief digital officer, says, “We’re concerned that authors and publishers are made whole by library e-lending and that they aren’t losing sales that they might have made in another channel.” Ms. Hirschhorn says the reason publishers didn’t worry about lost sales from library lending of print books is that buying a book is easier — no return trip is needed to the bookstore — and the buyer has a physical collectible after reading it. (One of my books was published by Simon & Schuster in 2008.) To keep their overall revenue from taking a hit from lost sales to individuals, publishers need to reintroduce more inconvenience for the borrower or raise the price for the library purchaser. If making the books more costly to libraries seems a perverse idea, consider that the paperback edition of a book provides an artificially costly experience for its buyers too, in terms of waiting time. The delay in the paperback’s availability permits the publisher to separate those book buyers willing to pay a premium to read the book earlier from those only willing to pay less for what is essentially the same thing, but later. Ms. Thomas of Hachette says: “We’ve talked with librarians about the various levers we could pull,” such as limiting the number of loans permitted or excluding recently published titles. She adds that “there’s no agreement, however, among librarians about what they would accept.” HarperCollins is the one major publisher that has taken the step of changing the traditional arrangements with libraries. Beginning last March, it stopped selling e-books to libraries for unlimited use, which it had been doing since 2001. Instead, it began licensing use of each e-book copy for a maximum of 26 loans. This affects only the most popular titles and has no practical effect on others. After the limit is reached, the library can repurchase access rights at a lower cost than the original price. The move was prompted, the company said in a statement , by concerns that continuing to sell e-books on the old, unlimited terms would “in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors.” HarperCollins was brave to tamper with the sacrosanct idea that a library can do whatever it wishes with a book it obtains. The publisher’s action arguably benefits the most parties because it gives library patrons access to the latest titles in e-book form while still protecting the financial interests of publishers, authors and booksellers. Robin Nesbitt, technical services director at the Columbus, Ohio, metropolitan library, says she does not object to HarperCollins’s limit. “At least HarperCollins allows me to have access to their titles,” she says. “I don’t mind buying a title and then might have to buy it again — I do that now with print. “I know many libraries are mad because they think the 26 loans is too low — well, how do you know 26 is too low until you try it?” Ms. Nesbitt adds, however, that many of the library’s patrons aren’t aware that other publishers are withholding e-books from it. She says it is hard “to explain to our patrons why we don’t have something.” THE publishers that are holding back are watching for an industrywide approach to gel. But agreement doesn’t seem imminent. David Young, Hachette’s chief executive, says: “Publishers can’t meet to discuss standards because of antitrust concerns. This has had a chilling effect on reaching consensus.” While many major publishers have effectively gone on strike, more than 1,000 smaller publishers, who don’t have best-seller sales that need protection, happily sell e-books to libraries. That means the public library has plenty of e-books available for the asking — no waiting. Making those lesser-known books available to patrons renews libraries’ primary function: offering readers a place for discovery.

Book Trade and Publishing
Libraries and Librarians
E-Books and Readers
HarperCollins Publishers
Simon & Schuster Inc
Hachette Book Group


Russia Sets Limits on Foreign Vote Monitors

Abstract: MOSCOW, Oct. 31 — The system of international monitoring intended to ensure clean elections in the states of the former Soviet Union appeared near collapse on Wednesday after Russia formally declared that it would sharply cut the number of observers for it parliamentary elections in December. Officials in charge of the monitoring mission refused to agree to the change. Russia had already hindered the work of the monitors — part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — by delaying the necessary invitation to them. On Wednesday, the monitoring group announced that it had received an invitation, but that it provided for unprecedented restrictions, including a limit of 70 observers for the Dec. 2 elections. The group sent 400 observers for the parliamentary elections four years ago. Urdur Gunnarsdottir, a representative of the monitoring arm, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said in a statement, “We need to consider the implications of those restrictions, as they may seriously limit the possibility for a meaningful observation according to our standard methodology for full-scale election observation missions.” In Moscow on Wednesday, Russian officials said they were not canceling the mission, merely scaling it back to an appropriate size. “Russia does not need to invite an army of observers because the Russian electoral system is one of the most advanced in the world,” said Igor Borisov, an official of the Central Election Commission. The White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Wednesday that the Bush administration was “concerned and disappointed” by the Russian decision. “Any conditions that are placed on them are of concern to us,” she said, referring to the monitors. “And we will certainly be bringing this up with the Russians.” The move to reduce the presence of monitors reflects the Kremlin’s growing control over the election process under President Vladimir V. Putin. Already, the Kremlin has pushed through changes in the election laws that have made it all but impossible for most opposition politicians to win seats in the next Parliament. Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia, which dominates the government, is expected to win an even greater parliamentary majority in December. Last month, Russia circulated a proposal at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to limit the work of the election observers in the former Soviet Union by reducing the size of missions and preventing them from issuing public statements about electoral conduct in the days after the vote. The monitoring group has regularly dispatched observation teams to elections throughout the states of the former Soviet Union since the collapse of Communism. But in recent years, Russia and other post-Soviet countries have increasingly criticized the monitors’ reports, which often show that voting is marred by fraud and that opposition groups cannot operate freely. Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, said Wednesday that voting officials had determined that large contingents of monitors at earlier elections had themselves caused problems. He added that the monitoring missions needed to be reformed to prevent other governments from actively using them as a tool to influence Russian elections. “The main idea here is that we are not refusing to receive observers from the O.S.C.E., but we want to ensure that their activities are not interfering with the free, democratic process,” he said.


Cuomo Says He Will Push Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Abstract: ALBANY — Fourteen months after the State Senate soundly rejected legislation that would have legalized same-sex marriage , Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is preparing to pursue another vote on the matter in the next few months. Mr. Cuomo, who included legalizing same-sex marriage in his campaign platform, said Wednesday that he intended to ask the Legislature to take up the matter in its current session, which ends in June. “We’ll be working very hard to pass it,” the governor, a Democrat, told reporters after delivering an encore of his budget address at Hofstra University on Long Island. His pledge was greeted warmly by gay-rights activists, who have waited with some uncertainty to see whether Mr. Cuomo, faced with a daunting battle over the budget, would make a charged social issue like legalizing same-sex marriage a priority. Legislation to do that has repeatedly passed the State Assembly, which is dominated by Democrats. But in December 2009, it failed in the State Senate, which was then also controlled by Democrats, by a vote of 38 to 24, an unexpectedly wide margin. It is not immediately obvious how the legislation would fare markedly better this year, given that the composition of the Senate, which is now controlled by Republicans, has not changed significantly since the last vote. But gay-rights advocates point to public-opinion polls that show more New Yorkers than ever support the legalization of same-sex marriage. “This is legislation whose time has come,” said Ross D. Levi, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s leading gay-rights organization. A spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, who is opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage, said Mr. Skelos would not try to block the legislation from coming up for a vote. But the spokesman, Scott Reif, suggested that Senate Republicans saw other matters as more pressing. “At this point, we’re focused on the budget, we’re focused on passing a property-tax cap, dealing with the economic issues facing New York,” Mr. Reif said.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships


Altria Board to Consider a Spinoff Overseas

Abstract: The maker of the world’s most popular cigarette, Marlboro, may decide next week that American consumers are too much trouble. The board of the Altria Group , the parent company of Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International, is meeting on Wednesday to decide whether to spin off the international arm of its cigarette business as part of a restructuring plan to increase shareholder value, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The American business has hindered the stock price because of fears of more litigation, threats of government intervention and declining cigarette sales in the United States, analysts said. Altria officials declined to comment about the potential spinoff of Philip Morris International. But several Wall Street analysts who cover the company said they believed it was inevitable. “This is something that has been in the works for years,” said Bonnie Herzog, an analyst at Citigroup. “To me, it’s a done deal.” By splitting the two companies, Philip Morris International could expand more aggressively abroad, either through innovation or acquisition. Philip Morris USA, meanwhile, would focus on expanding into other tobacco products — like the recent introduction of Marlboro smokeless tobacco — and making its own acquisitions, probably other tobacco companies. “It allows P.M.I. to become much more free to pursue growth opportunities,” Ms. Herzog said. The Altria Group would probably remain as a holding company for Philip Morris USA and the company’s 29 percent stake in SABMiller, the beer company, she said. Marc Greenberg, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, said spinning off the international business would allow shareholders finally to benefit from the company’s robust balance sheet. For instance, he said the company has not repurchased Altria stock in about four years because it was holding back money for such things as litigation risk and legal constraints. “Longer term, it will provide more financial flexibility,” he said of the spinoff. The demand for cigarettes in the United States is in a gradual decline of about 1 or 2 percent a year. Philip Morris USA controls 51 percent of the American cigarette market and generates $18 billion in net revenue. To compensate for the declining smoking market, the company is trying to extend its brand names to new products. For instance, it is now testing a Marlboro smokeless tobacco product, and it also is testing Marlboro snus, which are tobacco packets placed between the cheek and gum that do not generate spit like smokeless tobacco. Snus are geared more toward smokers than aficionados of chewing tobacco. As part of an effort to ramp up its innovation pipeline, Philip Morris USA plans to unveil a $350 million research center in Richmond, Va., that will focus, in part, in developing “reduced harm” tobacco products. “In my opinion, technology will play an incredible role in this industry, particularly reduced risk,” Ms. Herzog said. Outside the United States, the demand for cigarettes is relatively flat. Still, Philip Morris International has much more room for growth because it has only about 15 percent of the international market. Philip Morris International generated $48 billion in net revenue last year. Philip Morris Companies changed its name to the Altria Group in January 2003, a name derived from the Latin word “altus,” which means high. The company said the name was intended to convey the notion of “reaching ever higher” and was meant to differentiate the parent company from Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International and to reflect the fact that the company had evolved beyond tobacco. Some critics say the name was changed to escape the stigma of selling cigarettes. Regardless, Altria’s chairman and chief executive, Louis C. Camilleri, has said for several years that he wants to restructure the company as soon as the litigation environment surrounding tobacco settles down. Last October, citing an improvement, Altria’s board announced that it would spin off Kraft Foods as a first step. Altria shareholders received 0.69 of a share of Kraft for each share of Altria common stock.

Altria Group
Philip Morris Companies Inc
Smoking and Tobacco
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Stocks and Bonds


Russian Athletes Are Suspended for Doping

Abstract: A sting operation conducted over the past 16 months resulted Thursday in the doping suspension of seven female Russian track and field athletes, five of them Olympians, bringing international embarrassment and dealing a potentially severe blow to the country’s medal chances in middle-distance running and field events at the Beijing Games. The women were suspended by track’s world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, which investigated suspicious Russian tests for more than a year and accused the seven athletes of illicitly substituting someone else’s urine for their own in an attempt to subvert antidoping controls. Among those barred were Yelena Soboleva, the world’s top woman this year at 800 and 1,500 meters, and Tatyana Tomashova, who won a silver medal in the 1,500 at the Athens Olympics in 2004. The Russians denied that doping subterfuge had taken place, but unless the barred athletes succeeded on appeal, those chosen to participate at the Beijing Games, which open Aug. 8, would not be allowed to compete. The number of suspensions, and the varied events involved, raised troubling questions about possible ineptitude or corruption in Russian drug-testing procedures and also prompted concerns about whether a deliberate, systematic attempt was made by coaches or officials to undermine drug-testing protocols. If the charges are substantiated, “it raises a flag as to some sort of organized initiative to evade detection,” said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a professor of medicine at New York University who helped develop screening protocols for the World Anti-Doping Agency. The Russian case also illustrates that increasingly sophisticated methods are required to catch violators of drug-testing rules, in particular those athletes who have not failed drug screenings. A track official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the I.A.A.F. had grown suspicious of Russian drug-testing results as far back as 2006. The tests, given out of competition, were so tidily and uniformly negative that “it was almost too good to be true,” the official said. In 2007, from March to July, the I.A.A.F. began to store out-of-competition tests given to Russian athletes. Those tests from 2007 were later compared using DNA analysis to tests given during competitions this year. “They were obviously giving someone else’s samples,” the track official said. The use of substitute urine is a well-known method for trying to manipulate drug screenings. Antidoping monitors are supposed to witness each sample being provided to make sure it is genuine. In order to subvert this vigilance, some athletes have been known to use a catheter to fill their bladders with someone else’s urine, so it appears that they are giving a legitimate sample when they are not. Some women have also inserted condoms filled with clean urine into their vaginas to beat drug tests. Worldwide in 2007, 174,483 drug screenings were given in Olympic-related sports, turning up 3,375 so-called “adverse” or questionable results (1.93 percent), Wadler said. “The low number of violations puts into perspective that most athletes are drug-free,” Wadler said. “But you hear about the celebrated doping cases, and the notion becomes that this is a useless battle. Quite the opposite. I think this is all positive in doping reform.” The other Russian Olympians suspended along with Soboleva and Tomashova were Gulfiya Khanafeyeva (hammer throw); Darya Pishchalnikova (the world’s leading discus thrower); and Yulia Fomenko (1,500 meters). The timing of the suspensions — eight days before the Beijing Games, too late to add substitutes to the Olympic team — seemed aimed to provide maximum humiliation to the Russians by track’s world governing body. Speaking on Russian television, Soboleva called the accusations strange and added: “This thing was so well chosen, there is nothing we can do. We’ve simply been removed and our hands are tied.” Some associates of the suspended athletes asserted that the suspensions were motivated by politics. “Nobody is providing justification for those people who violate the WADA rules,” said Gennady V. Shvets, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee press service. “It is clear that there is some percentage of athletes that do this in spite of everything, and not only in Russia.” In other doping-related news, Chinese officials said that medical supplies produced by a Shanghai company were illegally sold to Greece, leading to positive drug tests earlier this year that resulted in the disqualification of 11 Greek weight lifters from the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese authorities offered few details, other than to say that the Shanghai company, Auspure, had sold the raw ingredients for a “doping formula” to Greek officials. The company’s license has been suspended. USA Track and Field’s chief executive, Doug Logan, said Thursday that he would seek to nullify the American and world record in the men’s 4x400-meter relay, whose validity has been called into question because of drug use. The record of 2 minutes 54.20 seconds was set in 1998 by a relay team that included Antonio Pettigrew, Michael Johnson, Tyree Washington and Jerome Young. In May of this year, Pettigrew admitted engaging in doping activities as far back as 1997. Previously, Young had been banned for life from the sport because of doping violations.

Russia
Doping
World Anti-Doping Agency
Olympic Games (2008)
Steroids


Personal Data’s Value? Facebook Is Set to Find Out

Abstract: Facebook , the vast online social network, is poised to file for a public stock offering on Wednesday that will ultimately value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion, cashing in on the fuel that powers the engine of Internet commerce: personal data. The company has been busily collecting that data for seven years, compiling the information that its more than 800 million users freely share about themselves and their desires. Facebook’s value will be determined by whether it can leverage this commodity to attract advertisers, and how deftly the company can handle privacy concerns raised by its users and government regulators worldwide. As the biggest offering of a social networking company, the sale is the clearest evidence yet that investors believe there is a lot of money to be made from the social Web. Facebook’s dominance in this field has left Google , a Web king from an earlier era — less than a decade ago — racing to catch up. Facebook is considered so valuable because it is more than the sum of its users. More than the world’s largest social network, it is a fast-churning data machine that captures and processes every click and interaction on its platform. Every time a person shares a link, listens to a song, clicks on one of Facebook’s ubiquitous “like” buttons, or changes a relationship status to “engaged,” a morsel of data is added to Facebook’s vast library. It is a siren to advertisers hoping to leverage that information to match their ads with the right audience. Barring an unforeseen event, the Internet giant plans to list a preliminary fund-raising goal of $5 billion, according to people briefed on the matter, smaller than some previous estimates of the offering. But it is essentially a placeholder, a starting point used by companies to generate interest among potential investors. The eventual offering is expected to be the largest for an Internet company, bigger than Google’s in 2004 or Netscape’s nearly a decade before that. Trading of the stock is expected to begin by late May, the people briefed on the matter said. In recent months, Wall Street’s banks have competed fiercely for a top assignment in Facebook’s offering, a coup that comes with millions in fees and valuable bragging rights. The company has hired Morgan Stanley to serve as its top underwriter, while J.P.Morgan and Goldman Sachs will also be co-leads on the deal, according to people with knowledge of the matter who did not want to be identified because the discussions were private. The offering will compel Mark Zuckerberg , Facebook’s 27-year-old founder and chief executive, to do what he has until now preferred to avoid: share information about his company. Facebook, created in 2004 in Mr. Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard , grew from being a quirky site for college students into a remarkably popular platform that is used to sell cars and movies, win over voters in presidential elections and organize protest movements. It jumped from 50 million users in 2007 to 800 million in 2011, according to company figures. It offers advertisers a global platform, with three-fourths of its users outside the United States ; the notable exception is China , where Facebook does not operate. Facebook’s offering is “an American milestone,” said Lawrence H. Summers , the former Treasury secretary, who has been a mentor to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and knows Mr. Zuckerberg. “Many companies provide products that let people do things they’ve done before in better ways. Most important companies, like Ford in its day or I.B.M. in its, are those that open up whole new capabilities and permit whole new connections. Facebook is such a company.” Facebook has deftly kept more and more users on its site for hours every day. Its users can stream music , read the news, play virtual games, check horoscopes or upload family pictures — all without leaving Facebook’s orbit. They reveal to the company not only their names (Facebook prohibits pseudonyms) and hometowns, but also their friends and family members and their tastes on everything from pop music to politics. Facebook offers advertisers a giant basket of information so they can find precisely the audience they covet: a Boston woman who posts that she is “engaged” may be offered an ad for a wedding photographer on her Facebook page, while a Bombay bride-to-be might see ads for wedding saris. Similarly, every press of a “like” button on Facebook signals a consumer’s preferences and shapes the ads that are shown. The Facebook Connect service allows users to log into millions of sites using their Facebook username and password — and it can report back about their activity on those sites, amassing even more data for Facebook’s trove. That this business — a monster tangle of digital connections — could become a global corporate colossus in less than a decade is a testament to the explosive growth of the social Web. The stock offering will come as Facebook’s peers, Google and Amazon, have disappointed investors in their latest quarters with sales growth shy of expectations. “Fifteen years ago, AOL was the Internet to most people, five years ago it was Google, now Facebook is the Internet,” said Lise Buyer, a former Google executive who helped guide the company’s initial public offering in 2004. “Facebook’s I.P.O. will prove that there is an enormous amount of money to be made in the social media space.” Led by Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook has been trying to hang on to its start-up spirit, even as it takes its place among Silicon Valley’s elite. In Menlo Park, Calif., its new headquarters, employees have wrapped the walls with graffiti splatter art. Exposed pipes and air ducts line the ceilings and below, scuffed gray floors resemble a modified racetrack with white lines. Facebook’s biggest stumbling block has been privacy. It has repeatedly alienated users over privacy — as in the case of the 2007 controversy over Beacon, a tool that automatically posted on Facebook what its users did or bought on other sites. It has also faced lawsuits over the use of its members’ “like” endorsements in ads and drawn scrutiny for a facial recognition feature. The company announced a settlement agreement in November with the Federal Trade Commission, which accused the company of having deceived its customers about privacy settings. And the pressure from regulators is likely to grow. Facebook now faces potential rules on privacy in Europe , along with slow-moving privacy legislation in Washington . The company’s flubs in this area reveal a fundamental tension in the way sophisticated ad-supported sites work. Consumers’ time and information are effectively the price they pay for free Web services. Facebook allows its users to keep up with far-flung friends and family, for instance, in exchange for that information. Google allows anyone to search for anything, so long as the company can serve up ads based on those searches. At the moment, the battle is on between those two models of making money from online advertising. If Google’s search engine cast the Internet as an instrument of solitary exploration, Facebook requires its users to share what they do with their Facebook “friends.” In some ways, the Facebook offering is a test of how valuable the social model of the Internet could be. According to comScore , a market research firm, Facebook has become the largest platform for display advertising on the Web in the United States; 28 percent of all display ads come to Facebook, followed by Yahoo , which gets less than half that share. While advertising is its bread and butter, Facebook has sought new sources of income by becoming a place where goods and services are bought and sold, whether it is virtual farm animals or real concert tickets. Analysts expect Facebook to be the driver of more such transactions, using the persuasive power of Facebook “friends.” Company officials use the word “frictionless” to signal that whatever you watch, read, listen to or buy on Facebook or its partner sites can be displayed automatically for the friends of your choosing. Chris Cox, the company’s vice president of product, said in a recent interview that this information hoard was both a blessing and a curse for the company. “The challenge of the information age is what to do with it,” he said.

Facebook
Privacy
Online advertising
IPO
Computers and the Internet
Mark E Zuckerberg


Coveted Player to Train With U.S. Team

Abstract: Julian Green, a young, promising player for Bayern Munich, will train with the United States national team for two days before the Americans travel to Ukraine for an international friendly match on March 5. U.S. Coach Jurgen Klinsmann has been pursuing Green, who holds U.S. and German citizenship, in recent months and had plans to call him up for recent exhibitions against Scotland and Austria only to have the Green, 18, withdraw days before camp began. Now Klinsmann will have a chance to have Green with the team, albeit for training only. “Julian Green will be invited to train with the national team in Frankfurt for two days prior to the team’s departure for the match against Ukraine,” the U.S. Soccer press officer Michael Kammarman said in an email sent Friday night. Green cannot play in the game against Ukraine because he has played for German youth national teams recently. Last October he was part of Germany’s under-19 team in an qualifier for the European championship in that age group, an official FIFA game. Under FIFA rules, dual-national players are permanently tied to a country if they play for that country in an official competition. If a dual-national plays in an official competition with a youth national team, the player is entitled to make a one-time change of association. Green would have to apply to FIFA, and receive the waiver before he could appear for the U.S. In September 2012, Green represented the United States under-18 team in an exhibition tournament and scored against the Netherlands in a 4-2 win. At present, Green appears to be unwilling to petition FIFA, but having him in camp with the U.S. team only months before the World Cup shows he still may have an open mind. “We’ve had talks with him and his parents as well,” Klinsmann said last November. “He’s one of those cases where we show him what we are doing. We follow them. We communicate with them. At the end of the day, down the road, he has to make his decision. If this is before or after the World Cup, whenever he decides, it is totally up to him. But it is important that we have an open line of communication.” “It’s a huge, huge commitment and therefore it’s really up to him,” Klinsmann added. “There is no stress, there is no pressure, there is no rush at all.” Green was born in Tampa, Fla., to an American father and a German mother. He moved to Germany at age 2 when his parents separated, and has lived there since, though he maintains contact with his father in Florida. Green has risen quickly through Bayern Munich’s youth system. This season he has scored 15 goals in 18 games for Munich’s reserve team. He made his first-team debut Champions League in group stage game late last year. Green is the latest German-American pursued by the United States team in recent years. Jermaine Jones and Timothy Chandler made their debuts under the former coach, Bob Bradley. Since Klinsmann was hired in 2011, he has introduced the German-born players Danny Williams, John Brooks, Terrence Boyd and Fabian Johnson into the American program. Klinsmann said that dual-national players face unique challenges, especially those in Germany, which has a strong national team. Playing for a team like the U.S. could be an easier route to the World Cup. Jones and Fabian Johnson each played for Germany’s youth national teams but fell out of consideration for the senior national team. Green, however, has both the United States and Germany interested in his services. Klinsmann said the decision is Green’s to make. “Obviously with the dual citizenship issue, you always have the topic floating around of what country will they choose at the end of the day?” Klinsmann said. “We have the approach where we say that it is totally up to the player and we have to make them as comfortable as possible. Hopefully they choose the United States one day.”

Julian Green
Soccer
US Men's Soccer Team
Bayern Munich Soccer Team


Carly Fiorina Offers Republicans a Pathway to Reach Women

Abstract: With a debate performance that was steely and at times deeply personal, Carly Fiorina appears to have improved her standing in the race to be the Republican nominee. But even if she falls short, she took a big stride toward filling a role her party badly needs: a credible antidote to the gender gap and the Democrats’ claims of a Republican “war on women.” The question, as many Republicans see it, is whether they can seize on the opening. A series of events building on the horizon threatens to feed into efforts by the Democrats to paint the Republican Party as tone-deaf on women’s issues. Republicans in Congress are threatening a government shutdown in a dispute over funding Planned Parenthood. The government’s spending authority expires in less than two weeks, and many conservatives have threatened to vote against a new budget if it includes any money for the organization. In a separate move, Senate Republicans are moving quickly to schedule a vote on legislation that would impose a federal ban on abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy. It would be the most restrictive abortion bill to reach the Senate floor in a decade. Similar laws across the country are facing legal challenges from women’s groups that argue they are unconstitutional. But with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s popularity falling among women as questions about her honesty and integrity continue to shroud her, many Republicans are beginning to see Mrs. Fiorina as someone who, if she is not the presidential nominee, is a much more serious contender for the vice-presidential nomination or a large leadership role of some kind within the party. “If she’s not on the ticket, they would be foolish not to offer her a key role in the next administration,” said Penny Young Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative organization. The Republican Party, she said, has begun to correct its past mistakes of neglecting its female talent. “I think they’re learning their lesson.” Trump Remains Center Stage at 2nd G.O.P. Debate Prompts from the moderators and new combativeness from the other candidates ensured that Donald J. Trump once again led in airtime. At the debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday night, Mrs. Fiorina spoke directly to the women watching in a way that none of the 10 men with her on stage could. And yet she was cautious about embracing the role of the sole female on the stage. At one point, she was the heartbroken mother. Describing how she lost her stepdaughter to drug abuse, she revealed a painful episode that many people watching were unaware of: “My husband Frank and I buried a child to drug addiction.” She said she knew how disgusted women everywhere must have felt when Mr. Trump said — and then later denied saying — that she was too ugly to be president. “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she responded. And as some of the men around her struggled to name a woman who was not an immediate family member to put on the $10 bill, Mrs. Fiorina dismissed the whole exercise as empty symbolism. “I think, honestly, it’s a gesture. I don’t think it helps to change our history,” she said. “We ought to recognize that women are not a special interest group.” Her answer on the $10 bill question, said Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster and author, was instructive in how it revealed Mrs. Fiorina’s discomfort with being seen as someone trying to capitalize on her gender. “She resists that,” Ms. Anderson said, noting that her own research has shown younger women do not find it as important to vote for the first female president as older women do. “It’s older women who are more likely to confess, ‘Yeah, I give Hillary Clinton bonus points because she’s a woman,’ ” Ms. Anderson added, “whereas younger woman say, ‘I know there’s going to be a woman president in my lifetime, so we should just focus on who the most qualified candidate is.’ ” Image Carly Fiorina, center, after Wednesday's debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. Credit Max Whittaker for The New York Times Winning the female vote is challenging for any Republican. Women have traditionally identified strongly with the Democratic Party, while male voters are split between the two parties. The largest gender gap ever was recorded in the 2012 presidential election: 20 percentage points, according to Gallup. Mitt Romney won among men by 8 percentage points while President Obama won women by 12 percentage points over all. But among white women, Mr. Obama lost with just 42 percent to Mr. Romney’s 56 percent. To win the White House in 2016, Republicans would almost certainly need to win more than 56 percent of the white female vote. Many see Mrs. Fiorina as a way to help them do that, either as the nominee or in some other role. “Many Republicans will see her, even if she’s not the nominee, as that magic key that can unlock the gender gap,” said Bruce Haynes, president of Purple Strategies, a Republican consulting firm. “That’s a challenge that many have feared has been set in concrete over time.” But building a credible campaign, Mr. Haynes added, is far more difficult than having a strong debate performance. And keeping that credibility intact could get much harder in a government shutdown. “You don’t control the agenda, and you have to react to the agenda of others — such as congressional Republicans who want to back everybody up against a wall as usual,” he said. For her part, Mrs. Fiorina is siding with the hard-liners in her party who want to see a veto showdown with Mr. Obama, who has said he will reject any attempt to take away Planned Parenthood’s funding. “This is about the character of our nation,” she said emphatically at the debate, receiving some of the most vigorous applause of the night. “And if we will not stand up and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.” Democrats said that voters should not be confused about what Mrs. Fiorina is really saying. “You do that and the government shuts down. Plain and simple,” said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “She is indistinguishable, other than her gender, from her counterparts on that stage.” Democrats quickly exposed a flaw in Mrs. Fiorina’s debate comments about the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood that have led to the calls to eliminate its funding. She dared the president and Mrs. Clinton to watch the tapes, saying, “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” The video that Mrs. Fiorina seems to be referring to does show a still image of a fetus being held outside the womb. But it is not seen squirming as Mrs. Fiorina describes, nor is there any indication that it is about to have its brain removed. With her social and fiscal conservatism, Mrs. Fiorina would seem to be a good fit for a Republican nominating contest. A general election, however, is something some Democrats said they would welcome. “She was Mitt Romney before Mitt Romney was Mitt Romney,” said Mark Mellman, the Democratic pollster who worked on the 2010 Senate race in which Senator Barbara Boxer defeated Mrs. Fiorina by 10 percentage points, in large part by highlighting how as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard she had cut tens of thousands of jobs. Mrs. Fiorina not only lost that race 52 to 42 percent, she lost women too, getting only 39 percent of their votes, according to exit polls.

Republicans
Carleton Fiorina,Carly Fiorina
2016 Presidential Election
Women and Girls
Political Debates


Challenger Wins Special Mayor’s Race in Detroit

Abstract: DETROIT — Voters on Tuesday elected Dave Bing, a former Detroit Pistons basketball star who had never run for political office, as the city’s next mayor. Mr. Bing, the longtime owner of a local auto parts business, will serve the final eight months of former Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick’s second term. Mr. Kilpatrick resigned in September, when he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and agreed to serve three months in jail for attempting, as part of an $8.4 million lawsuit settlement, to cover up an extramarital affair with his chief of staff. Mr. Bing, 65, narrowly defeated the interim mayor, Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr. , who will return to his previous position as City Council president for the rest of the year. Mr. Bing received 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent for Mr. Cockrel. Mr. Bing is expected to be sworn in next week. He will have to begin campaigning to keep his job almost immediately. The regularly scheduled election, for a four-year term, is in November, and the filing deadline for the August nonpartisan primary is next Tuesday. Mr. Cockrel is expected to be among those trying to unseat Mr. Bing in the fall. Mr. Bing enters City Hall during an economic crisis that has left Detroit with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates. He campaigned heavily on his experience as a business owner in Detroit and lack of ties to the city’s previous administration. Stricken, Mayor Loses Race JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The indicted mayor of Mississippi’s largest city lost his bid for re-election Tuesday in a contentious Democratic primary that came a week before his second federal trial. The mayor, Frank Melton, was taken from his home in an ambulance late Tuesday, before final results were known, The Mr. Melton, 60, who has a history of heart problems, faced nine Democratic challengers in the city’s primary. Unofficial results show he came in fourth. A second trial was set to start next week for Mr. Melton and a former bodyguard, who each face federal civil rights charges related to a sledgehammer attack on a duplex on Aug. 26, 2006, that Mr. Melton said was a crackhouse. A judge declared a mistrial in the first case in February after a jury failed to reach a verdict. Harvey Johnson, the former mayor Mr. Melton unseated in 2005, and city Councilman Marshand Crisler advanced to a May 19 runoff.

Mayors
Elections
Detroit (Mich)
Bing Dave
Cockrel Kenneth V Jr


Suffolk Downs Is Put Out to Pasture

Abstract: EAST BOSTON, Mass. — When the track here opened in 1935, it boasted the first concrete grandstand in the country, and a throng of 35,000 gleefully cheered thoroughbred racing to Puritan Massachusetts. It drew legends — like Seabiscuit, who ran here in 1937, and the Beatles, who played here in 1966 — as well as scores of horse trainers, clerks and gamblers who, over time, came to know this place, Suffolk Downs, better than an old pair of slippers. “It’s been every day here for the last 40 years,” said Bernard Bramante, 74, a former commercial fisherman who owns and trains horses that ran here. With a white knitted cap perched atop his head, Mr. Bramante tied a saddle to a horse named Dancing Buki, merrily predicting success for his final race here. The concrete looks dated now, and the expansive dining areas are, more often than not, desolate. But on Saturday, as fog enveloped the track and white slips of paper recalling doomed wagers flitted through the air, some 9,100 people gathered for what was most likely the last day of live racing at Suffolk Downs. The expansion of casino gambling in the United States has made life harder for racetracks that, like this one, lack their own casinos, big purses or the glamour of places like Churchill Downs, in Kentucky, and the Saratoga Race Course, in New York. “As a sporting product, horse racing still does very well on its biggest days, but as a day-to-day gambling product, it has not measured up with the expansion of casino gaming,” said Chip Tuttle, the chief operations officer of Suffolk Downs, who said the track has not been profitable for nearly a decade. Mr. Tuttle hoped the track’s lifeline would come in the form of Massachusetts’ own expanded gambling law, which allowed for three resort-style casinos in the state, one of which will be in the Boston area. Mohegan Sun, the behemoth casino in Connecticut, offered a proposal on the Suffolk Downs grounds that would keep the track in business, but state officials passed it over in favor of a bid by Wynn Resorts in nearby Everett. Video Suffolk Downs, New England’s last thoroughbred racetrack, is closing down after 79 years of service. “We just don’t see any way we can continue to operate,” said Mr. Tuttle. There is a horseman’s group that hopes to race here next year, but their proposal is widely viewed as a long shot. So Saturday was marked as the day to say goodbye. The rows of barns were quiet on Saturday morning, since many horses that were not racing had already left. Ambrose Pascucci, an owner and trainer, had come to pay a visit to his last horse here, Ginger. Mr. Pascucci, 61, looked dejectedly at his empty stalls. He has given decades of his life to this place, and even lost half of his left pinkie finger to a horse’s hoof before a race. “Best that can happen now, drive to Miami, check out what’s going on, and restart,” Mr. Pascucci said. But for now, he said, “I’m going to go up to the races, see if I can bet some winners.” He found many others doing the same. They came in honor of dead relatives who loved this track. Others came for the first time out of curiosity, having realized only because of its impending closure that this time capsule was still open. Some came for a last hurrah with dear friends, and others for a last chance to gaze at hot-blooded horses in the flesh. “It’s kind of really sad,” said Dylana Barilone, 20, a college student in Salem, Mass., who aspires to be a mounted policewoman. “There are over 700 horses here, and this is their job, this is their life, this is what they love to do.” The employees here say the same thing about themselves. The track says there are 325 employees here, and hundreds more contractors who work with thoroughbreds in the state, who will struggle. “Once it gets in your blood, it kind of stays in your blood,” said Paul Ferrari, of Malden, a mutuel clerk who has taken bets here for more than 30 years. On Saturday, he sat upright in the first open window in an endless-looking row, clacking plastic keys on his register and sorting crisp bills into an upright metal shelf. Image Saturday was a time to say goodbye to Suffolk Downs, as 9,100 people gathered for what was most likely the last day of live racing. Credit Jared Wickerham for The New York Times “This is great,” Mr. Ferrari said, looking at the betting lines stretching far beyond his window. “Where you been for the last 20 years?” Heather Gallo, of Sagamore, strode up to the window, clad in a denim jacket from the Breeders’ Cup that had belonged to her father, who died last year. “I just thought I’d come because I can’t believe it’s the last day here,” Ms. Gallo said. “He would have been here — we would have been here together.” Willie Thornton was here to bet, as he has for years, clad in a suit and a waistcoat. “Suffolk Downs has been my mistress,” said Mr. Thornton, 74, a retired member of the military from Dorchester. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve spent,” he added. “It’s astronomical.” And, of course, the horses ran, race after race, nine in all, on the muddy track that left dismounting jockeys looking like they had just been splattered with cement. Horses with names like Queen of Heat, Bo Badger and Restless Rebel claimed their place in Suffolk Downs history in mist so thick that, from the grandstand, it was sometimes difficult to see the racers on the far side of the track. (Mr. Bramante’s horse, Dancing Buki, finished last in his race.) Rain pounded the track after the last race, and Justin Stygles, of Norway, Me., looked at the empty stretch with a tear in his eye. Thoroughbred racing in New England was probably over. He wondered if the region was simply too puritanical to support gambling, or if the success, in recent years, of major sports teams like the Patriots and the Red Sox had diminished interest here. “The sport is changing” said Mr. Stygles, 37, a teacher. “You’re not going back home.”

Massachusetts
Gambling
Casino
Horse racing


Restoring a Wartime Honor Roll

Abstract: Dear Diary: During World War II it was not unusual to see the names of New Yorkers who were called into service listed in the local post office, the neighborhood delicatessen or the community church. It demonstrated the emotional connection New Yorkers had for one another during that era. After the war most of the lists disappeared, but my church in Maspeth, Queens, kept its honor roll hanging in the lobby until the 1990s, the first time I saw it. It included over 100 names, some appended with gold stars, which meant the soldiers died fighting for our country. The honor roll was removed because the church was remodeled. Fast-forward to 2015. Over morning coffee, I read that it was the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and I immediately thought of the honor roll. What better way to recognize our veterans than to hang it back in the church lobby? The church agreed and helped retrieve the old, worn bulletin boards from the rectory basement and arranged to have them restored. They were hanging again by Veterans Day . There was no great fanfare, no public announcements or parties. Just the way many of the soldiers went off to war and served our country: quietly. On Veterans Day, I went to Mass, and afterward, while standing in the lobby, I heard two senior ladies talking. One said, “I remember the honor roll,” and the other one agreed. They looked at the names for a few minutes and left, quietly.


'First' Suburbs Growing Older and Poorer, Report Warns

Abstract: Half a century ago, millions of young white couples left America's central cities for greener places to build homes and rear families. Their move created booming commuter communities and a new way of life. But that idealized picture has been transformed and the future of those pioneering suburbs is in jeopardy, according to a study issued yesterday by the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington. Now home to 52 million people, the early suburbs -- like Nassau and Westchester Counties in New York, Bergen and Hudson Counties in New Jersey and Fairfield County in Connecticut -- are struggling with unexpected and often unrecognized problems that demand new solutions and leadership, the report said. "Neither fully urban nor completely suburban, America's older, inner-ring 'first' suburbs have a unique set of challenges -- such as concentrations of elderly and immigrant populations as well as outmoded housing and commercial buildings -- very different from those of the center city and fast-growing newer places," the report said. Echoing an earlier era's worry that the decline of cities threatened entire regions, the report said, "A recent survey of urban scholars ranked the deterioration of first suburbs as one of the most likely influences on metropolitan America for the next 50 years." Solving the problems will not be easy, said Bruce J. Katz, a vice president of Brookings. "First suburbs are caught in a policy blind spot," ignored by traditional urban assistance for cities. Also hurting them is "the new attention lavished on fast-growing outer suburbs," he said at a forum on the report in Washington. Those newer suburbs include Rockland, Orange and Suffolk Counties in New York, but many of the newer and healthiest suburban communities are in the Sun Belt. The first suburbs once led the nation in population growth. But now the growth of many has slowed to a trickle. Some have even lost population, while newer suburbs are galloping ahead. The traditional married-with-children family now accounts for only 27 percent of the households in the aging suburbs. The average household size was 2.7 people in 2000, down from 3.2 in 1970. Once-youthful suburbanites are graying. On average, they are now older than the rest of the country. The 65-and-over segment in the original suburbs has been growing at nearly double the national rate. The housing they live in is also older now than the national average. The face of the early suburbs, which to some were initially a retreat from increasingly multiracial cities, has also changed. Those suburbs are now more racially diverse than the nation as a whole. From 1980 to 2000, the percentage of minority residents in those suburbs doubled; black, Asian and Hispanic residents now make up a third of the population there. The first suburbs are also drawing more immigrants than the cities, the historic destination for the foreign born, the study said. Those suburbs had 9 million immigrants in 2000, eclipsing the 8.6 million in the adjoining primary cities. "The enormous inflow of foreign-born residents is literally transforming many first-suburban communities," the report said. "First suburbs are just now starting to come to grips with these new trends." By many measures, the older suburbs remain strong -- some are among the nation's richest communities -- with employment, education levels, income and home prices all exceeding national averages. But even those indicators show the older suburbs lagging as the competition catches up, with New York and many other cities in revival mode and newer suburbs flourishing farther out. Median income stagnated in the older suburbs in the 1990's, while rising elsewhere. A troublesome 45 percent of Hispanic students are dropping out of suburban high schools. "Alarming" pockets of poverty have emerged, counter to national trends, the report said. Among all first suburbs, the number of census tracts where 20 percent or more of the residents lived below the poverty line more than tripled from 1970 to 2000. The report, titled "A Fifth of America," focused on 64 counties where suburbs bloomed before and after World War II. They include communities around New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle. "Think the Levittowns or, from television, Robert Petrie's New Rochelle, N.Y.," the report said. Just as city problems prompted urban renewal, the report called for efforts for older suburbs. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Representative Peter T. King of Long Island have introduced a bill for federal assistance of $250 million to older suburbs for economic redevelopment programs. Speaking at Brookings, Mrs. Clinton said, "Most first suburbs don't qualify for existing federal programs." The report urged first suburbs to provide more apartments and assisted living for the elderly, integrate the influx of immigrants, promote business development and combat poverty and blight. Hurdles include the fragmented, parochial and often competing local governments, the report said. Suburban leaders need to cooperate, devise solutions and maximize their political clout, it said. The report praised coalitions like the First Suburbs Development Council in the Cleveland area, state efforts promoting planning in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and multigovernment alliances in Los Angeles. The report also cited the "new suburbia" proposals from the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, who spoke at the forum. He has called for reviving Long Island's small downtowns and creating a high-rise hub in Uniondale. Suburban leaders at the forum agreed that older suburbs need to build housing that more people can afford, a challenge because of diminishing vacant land. Beyond the common problems, the study found that "first suburbs are also often quite different from each other." Immigrants were generally rare in the Midwest but common in California. Suburban Dade County, outside Miami, had the highest Hispanic population, 56 percent. Hudson County, N.J., was next at 47 percent. Nearly half of the Asians in first suburbs were clustered in four California counties. Blacks were 62 percent of the residents of Prince George's County, Md. But the report cautioned seekers of the suburban dream: "The experience of today's minorities in first suburbs may not represent the same upward mobility transitions that it did for whites in earlier decades."

SUBURBS
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
AGED
NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA
KING PETER T
CLINTON HILLARY RODHAM
IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEES
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND TRENDS


Muirfield Golf Club Picks Discrimination Over the British Open

Abstract: Maybe the gentlemen of Muirfield who led the charge against admitting women as members are not misogynists, merely misguided. When they think of women on the links, perhaps their reference point is the 1900 Olympics, where the American Margaret Abbott prevailed in the women’s event. According to the Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, Abbott later told people her path to victory had been paved by an apparent misunderstanding involving her competitors from France, who turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts. The 600-plus all-male members of Muirfield Golf Club who failed to reach a two-thirds majority in their vote to admit women would certainly seem to be stuck in a bygone century, one in which men and women didn’t harmoniously coexist in boardrooms and legislative chambers, much less clubhouses. In the consummation of the marriage between sporting events and corporate sponsors, a host site sacrifices its freedom to maintain its discriminatory membership practices. The R & A was right to remove Muirfield, which has hosted 16 British Opens, from the tournament rotation. If a club wants to close its doors to a sizable segment of the population, that’s its prerogative. But it can’t have its exclusionary practices and also enjoy the high visibility every few years of hosting a major attended by thousands and viewed by millions. The gentlemen of Muirfield who were amenable to change — 64 percent of the 616 members who cast ballots — were thwarted by a group of roughly 30 members, who vigorously dug in their heels. An article in the daily newspaper The Scotsman revealed the contents of a letter distributed by the dissenters that expressed concerns about slow play and making women “feel uncomfortable” as reasons for upholding its all-male membership. The letter added that the club was “quite unique with its fraternity built inter alia, on foursomes play with a round taking only the same time as lunch and leaving enough time for a further round after lunch (even in midwinter). This is one of miracles in modern-day play and is much admired. Our foursomes and speedy play would be endangered.” The Scurvy Thirty’s rationale that women would clog their course is an antiquated ploy. It calls to mind the story told by a friend, an avid golfer, of a round she played with her husband at the Legend at Arrowhead, an Arnold Palmer-designed course in Glendale, Ariz. Image Rory McIlroy putting on the seventh green during the first round of the 2013 British Open at Muirfield Golf Course, which has hosted 16 Opens. Credit Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In the parking lot, two men saw her retrieve her clubs from the trunk and harrumphed that they had better hurry up and get to the first tee lest they get stuck playing behind a dithering woman. They did tee off first, and my friend and her husband spent the round waiting on every shot because the men were so slow. The gentlemen of Muirfield are not completely lacking in chivalry. They will continue to welcome women on the course and in the clubhouse as guests and visitors. Perhaps one of the 397 members who voted for admitting women will host Condoleezza Rice, the former United States national security adviser and secretary of state — and a member at Augusta National — who is known for her fast play. At the PGA Tour stop at Pebble Beach in 2013, she seldom took more than 20 seconds to hit, prompting the professional in her pro-am group, Jason Bohn, to describe her as the perfect partner. “She doesn’t mess around, which is beautiful,” Bohn said. But Rice probably wouldn’t sway any of the Scurvy Thirty with her swiftness. If the gentlemen of Muirfield want to talk about a snail’s pace, how about the fact that it took two years of consultation among themselves to decide, ultimately, not to budge from their 18th-century moorings? Jason Day and Jordan Spieth can be slower than an uphill putt after a rainstorm. Would the gentlemen of Muirfield prefer not to play with the top two male golfers in the world because their foursomes and speedy play would be endangered? Of course, slow play is the excuse the members hide behind so they don’t have to address their slow evolution. Golf’s return to the Olympics this summer after a 112-year absence is rooted in inclusiveness. As Tim Finchem, the PGA Tour commissioner, noted last week, golf’s power brokers showed little interest in joining the Olympic family until they commissioned a study that showed that dozens of countries that invest government money in sports invest only in sports that are in the Olympic program. “We agreed to go into the Olympics primarily focused on growing the game and recognizing that overnight there would be coffers from governments opened up to provide financial support to grow the game,” he said. But it’s duplicitous to expect to expand the game through the biggest multisport spectacle on the planet even as one of the game’s most affluent and influential clubs refuses to expand its membership. It’s like building a new course in the middle of a drought. No matter how impressive the blueprint, if the ground, or base, is arid, the project is doomed.

Muirfield Golf Club
Golf
Clubs
Discrimination
British Open
Women and Girls
Royal and Ancient Golf Club