U.S. Open 2014: Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Sam Stosur Among Best Tennis Strokes

Abstract: Determining the best players in tennis seems a straightforward matter of consulting the rankings and the tournament results. Determining the best strokes in tennis remains a more subjective affair even with the recent growth in statistics and analytics. More than two dozen leading coaches, players and analysts were asked to list at least three top men and women in each category. Extra weight was given to those with firsthand experience. For example, Ivo Karlovic, one of the world’s best servers, seems particularly well qualified to determine top returners. The men who have hoarded Grand Slam titles over the past decade dominated these rankings, and though this is far from Serena Williams’s finest season, she made a strong showing in many categories. The best of the current women’s game by consensus: BEST FOREHAND 1. Serena Williams 2. Petra Kvitova 3. Ana Ivanovic 4. Sam Stosur 5. Svetlana Kuznetsova Intriguingly, Williams’s own coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, did not put her forehand in the top three, selecting Ivanovic, Stosur and Kuznetsova. But those who coach against her did not hesitate, even if the Williams forehand has been a flickering flame in 2014. Wim Fissette, who coaches Simona Halep, and Sam Sumyk, who works with Victoria Azarenka, both ranked Williams first. Kvitova, with memories of her angled winners and her Wimbledon victory fresh, was a surprisingly clear second. Li Na just missed the top five. As for the new wave, only Sloane Stephens was in contention. BEST TWO-HANDED BACKHAND 1. Maria Sharapova 2. Serena Williams 3. Jelena Jankovic 4. Li Na 5. Victoria Azarenka A tight race between Sharapova and Williams, and this time Mouratoglou did rank his own player first. Sharapova’s ability to produce improvisational brilliance off the full stretch with the help of her strong left hand is a point in her favor. Jankovic’s revived down-the-line backhand was a key to last year’s resurgence. She was just ahead of Li and Azarenka, whose coach, Sumyk, got it right: “So many great two-handed backhands on the women’s tour.” Three others belong to Halep, Venus Williams and the year’s breakout talent: Eugenie Bouchard. Image Carla Suárez Navarro has the best one-handed backhand, according to our experts. Credit Paul Chiasson/CP, via Associated Press BEST ONE-HANDED BACKHAND 1. Carla Suárez Navarro 2. Francesca Schiavone 3. Roberta Vinci No room for more than three players in a women’s game where the single-handed drive backhand is flirting with extinction. Several panelists voted for the long-retired Justine Henin out of nostalgia. But Suárez’s one-hander is clearly the most admired in today’s game. Vinci prefers to slice hers. BEST FIRST SERVE 1. Serena Williams 2. Petra Kvitova 3. Sabine Lisicki 4. Coco Vandeweghe 5. Sam Stosur Williams’s first serve is perhaps the best in the history of the women’s game, and no one else received a first-place vote from our panel. Kvitova’s left-handed serve was a clear second, and the slight surprise was that one powerful American youngster, Coco Vandeweghe, made the top five, while Madison Keys did not. Neither — by a slim margin — did Venus Williams. The best first serve not to get a vote? The W.T.A. statistics say it belongs to Karolina Pliskova, who ranks fourth in percentage of first-serve points won this year and is second behind Serena Williams in aces. BEST SECOND SERVE 1. Serena Williams 2. Sam Stosur 3. Petra Kvitova 4. Eugenie Bouchard 5. Madison Keys Less unanimity here but this was still a clear victory for Williams despite the power and kick of Stosur’s second serve. The rest of the chase pack was well back with Bouchard and Keys getting more support than Vandeweghe, Julia Görges, Lisicki or Li. Image Maria Sharapova was voted the No. 1 returner. Credit Andy Lyons/Getty Images BEST RETURN 1. Maria Sharapova 2. Serena Williams 3. Victoria Azarenka 4. Simona Halep 5. Eugenie Bouchard Another major area of strength in the modern women’s game and another close race goes to Sharapova. Williams’s returning numbers are down significantly this year, but she remains an intimidating force and is still converting more than half of her break points. But Halep has the best season-long statistics of any major player and is breaking serve in nearly half of her return games. Bouchard, a particularly aggressive returner, edges out Caroline Wozniacki for fifth. BEST VOLLEY 1. Roberta Vinci 2. Cara Black 3. Martina Hingis 4. Lisa Raymond 5. Sam Stosur Opinion was wide-ranging here with volleys now a peripheral skill in the women’s game, but Vinci still was a clear leader in a category in which 11 players, including Hingis, now a doubles specialist, got first-place votes. Cara Black, who grew up in Zimbabwe volleying at close range and high speed against a wall , is second, just ahead of Hingis and another veteran doubles star, the American Lisa Raymond. BEST OVERHEAD 1. Serena Williams 2. Sam Stosur 3. Venus Williams 4. Roberta Vinci 5. Svetlana Kuznetsova Williams, who has missed some big overheads in her time, has clearly made plenty under pressure, too. She received all but one of the first-place votes in a category that many struggled to analyze for lack of consistent material. BEST PASSING SHOT 1. Simona Halep 2. Agnieszka Radwanska 3. Serena Williams 4. Victoria Azarenka 5. Caroline Wozniacki Another now-exotic skill in the women’s game but when the rare opportunity arises, Halep and Radwanska do it best. BEST TOUCH 1. Agnieszka Radwanska 2. Martina Hingis 3. Roberta Vinci 4. Simona Halep 5. Kirsten Flipkens Radwanska, this generation’s improvisational master, finishes well ahead of Hingis, the last generation’s improvisational master. Outside the top five, Wozniacki also got significant support, as did Sara Errani and Suárez. Image Simona Halep's footwork is the lighter and more consistent than that of Serena Williams. Credit Andy Lyons/Getty Images BEST MOVEMENT 1. Simona Halep 2. Serena Williams 3. Agnieszka Radwanska 4. Caroline Wozniacki 5. Jelena Jankovic Halep and Williams are two very different movers: Halep more fluid, Williams more forceful. But Halep’s footwork is the lighter and more consistent of the two, less prone to midmatch lapses, even if Williams remains in a class of her own at full sprint to a corner. Radwanska’s strength is reading the flow of play. Jankovic’s range and flexibility give her the nod over Dominika Cibulkova, Angelique Kerber and Li. BEST MENTAL GAME 1. Serena Williams 2. Maria Sharapova 3. Simona Halep 4. Eugenie Bouchard 5. Victoria Azarenka Another duel between Williams and Sharapova, both possessed of exceptional mental strength and fighting spirit. But Williams has the edge in the statistic that matters most, leading their head-to-head series, 16-2. BEST ENDURANCE 1. Caroline Wozniacki 2. Maria Sharapova 3. Simona Halep 4. Li Na 5. Alizé Cornet No Grand Slam title yet for Wozniacki, but she clearly has staying power. A natural athlete who is one of the hardest workers in practice, she can run and keep on running. So can Sharapova, whose own staying power was on display as she beat Halep in June in the second-longest French Open women’s final. Image Sara Errani's serve was deemed the second strangest stroke among the women's players. Credit Jonathan Moore/Getty Images STRANGEST STROKE 1. Monica Niculescu, forehand 2. Sara Errani, serve 3. AgnieszkaRadwanska, squat shots 4. Kimiko Date-Krumm, forehand 5. Dominika Cibulkova, serve A two-stroke race with Niculescu’s throwback slice forehand squeaking past Errani’s new and abbreviated service motion. TO PLAY A MATCH FOR YOUR LIFE 1. Serena Williams 2. Maria Sharapova Not even close, despite Williams being vulnerable to upset on the biggest stages this season. She got all but one first-place vote. View the men’s choices here. Votes and input from Jill Craybas (recently retired player); Wim Fissette (coach of Simona Halep and former coach of Kim Clijsters); Patrick Mouratoglou (coach of Serena Williams); Sam Sumyk (coach of Victoria Azarenka); Mahesh Bhupathi (former No.1 doubles player); Rob Koenig (A.T.P. Tour television analyst); Jim Courier (United States Davis Cup captain and former No.1 singles player); Brad Gilbert (ESPN analyst and former player); Justin Gimelstob (Tennis Channel analyst and former player); Amer Delic (former player); Darren Cahill (ESPN analyst and former player); Joel Drucker (Tennis Channel); Steve Flink (tennis historian); Pete Bodo (Tennis.com); Stephen Tignor (tennis.com); Julien Reboullet (L'Équipe); Stephanie Myles (Canadian journalist); Tom Tebbutt (Canadian journalist); Richard Evans (British journalist); Craig Tiley (coach and Australian Open tournament director); as well as other players and coaches who preferred to remain anonymous.

Serena Williams
Maria Sharapova
Tennis
US Open Tennis


Kings to Get Cap Relief for Slava Voynov

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The NHL is giving salary cap relief to the Los Angeles Kings while defenseman Slava Voynov remains suspended indefinitely with pay after being charged with felony spousal abuse. The league announced Friday that Voynov’s salary will no longer count against the Kings’ salary cap. Voynov’s $4.167 million cap hit now may be replaced in the same manner in which players with long-term injuries don’t count against the cap. The Kings had been unable to recall anyone from the minors to replace injured players recently, even forcing them to play with five defensemen at times. Voynov has been suspended for 14 games since his arrest Oct. 20. He is due in court Dec. 1 after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged him Thursday with abusing his wife.

Slava Voynov
Los Angeles Kings
Ice hockey


Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — In moves that will help shape the online future of the music business, Apple said Tuesday that it would remove anticopying restrictions on all of the songs in its popular iTunes Store and allow record companies to set a range of prices for them. Beginning this week, three of the four major music labels — Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group — will begin selling music through iTunes without digital rights management software, or D.R.M., which controls the copying and use of digital files. The fourth, EMI, was already doing so. In return, Apple, whose dominance in online music sales gives it powerful leverage, agreed to a longstanding demand of the music labels and said it would move away from its insistence on pricing all individual song downloads on iTunes at 99 cents. Instead, the majority of songs will drop to 69 cents beginning in April, while the biggest hits and newest songs will go for $1.29. Others that are moderately popular will remain at 99 cents. The music companies are hoping that their eagerly awaited compromise with Apple will give a lift to digital downloads. They will be able to make more money on their best-selling songs and increase the appeal of older ones. And with the copying restrictions removed, people will be able to freely shift the songs they buy on iTunes among computers, phones and other digital devices. Technologically sophisticated fans of digital music complain that D.R.M. imposes unfair restrictions on what they can do with the tracks they have bought. For example, the protected files from iTunes do not work on portable players made by companies other than Apple. “I think the writing was on the wall, both for Apple and the labels, that basically consumers were not going to put up with D.R.M. anymore,” said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, a market research company. Music industry watchers widely applauded the move and said it could help digital music sales, which have shown signs of slowing down just five years after Apple introduced iTunes. In particular, lower prices for some songs could spur consumers “to buy deeper into the catalog, and expand their relationship with digital music,” said Russ Crupnick, an analyst with the NPD Group. The music industry could use a lift. Sales of CDs fell 20 percent last year from 2007. About 2.4 billion songs were bought on iTunes in the last year, aided by Apple’s expansion into international markets. But that was not nearly enough to make up for losses in traditional retail stores. Industry pundits have long pointed to D.R.M. as one culprit for the music companies’ woes, saying it alienated some customers while doing little to slow piracy on file-sharing networks. Apple has been campaigning against D.R.M. at least since February 2007, when the chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, wrote an open letter criticizing the software. Apple reached a deal with EMI that year to offer music without the copying restrictions. But it could never reach the same agreement with EMI’s larger rivals. Sony, Warner and Universal allowed other online music services, like Amazon’s MP3 Store, to sell unprotected music, but they withheld it from Apple. Their goal, industry analysts say, was to try to strengthen online rivals to iTunes, which they viewed as having a dangerous level of control over their business. “Apple definitely wanted to remove D.R.M. from music, but the record labels would not allow them to renegotiate their licensing agreements, because they wanted to help competitors succeed against Apple in the market,” said Bill Rosenblatt, president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, a consulting firm. Apple, for its part, appeared to resist variable pricing, fearing it would amount to a price increase for the most popular tracks on iTunes, which constitute the bulk of sales on the service. It has also said the consistent 99-cent price made things simpler for buyers. It is not clear what broke the impasse, but the deteriorating economy may have put pressure on music companies. “For the major labels, it was clearly time for them to accelerate becoming digital music companies in a macroeconomic environment that is downright frightening,” said Greg Scholl, chief executive of The Orchard, a digital distributor of music from independent labels. The compromise gives the recording industry new leverage over their online music sales, Mr. Scholl added. They can start to sell new tracks at the higher price, then gradually drop prices to keep sales moving. Labels could also experiment with bundled packages of songs and even special editions at higher prices. Harry Wang, director of mobile product research at the consulting company Parks Associates, said, “They aren’t going to get a huge amount of money from this new arrangement, but in an ailing music industry, anything that can provide more money will be better than the status quo.” Apple said customers would be able to pay a one-time fee to strip copying restrictions from music they have already bought on iTunes, at 30 cents a song or 30 percent of the album price. ITunes customers can achieve the same effect by burning all of their music to a CD and then reimporting the music into the iTunes software, although this reduces sound quality somewhat. The company also said that its popular iPhone would be able to download songs from iTunes over wireless data networks like AT&T’s. Previously, iPhone owners had to either attach the phone to a computer or connect to a local Wi-Fi network. Apple reported the changes in iTunes at its keynote presentation at the annual Macworld conference in San Francisco, given by Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide marketing. Mr. Jobs was not at the event, after disclosing this week that he had a treatable hormone problem that had resulted in significant weight loss over the last year.

iTunes
Music
Apple Inc
Recordings and Downloads (Audio)


A Galaxy That Doesn’t Look Far, Far Away

Abstract: A clear, detailed image of the Messier 33 galaxy has been captured by the V.L.T. Survey Telescope in Chile. Messier 33, the second-closest large galaxy to the Milky Way, is packed with bright star clusters and clouds of gas and dust.


Austria Considers Law to Seize Home Where Hitler Was Born

Abstract: BERLIN — The fate of Adolf Hitler’s birthplace in the picturesque Austrian border town of Braunau has been fiercely debated at least since victorious American G.I.s stopped the Nazis from destroying the house at the end of World War II. Now Austria plans to end the dispute, drafting a law that would enable the government to seize the property and decide on its final use. Discussions continue, said Karl-Heinz Grundböck, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Vienna, but a draft law is expected to go to Parliament by summer while a commission of experts considers the building’s fate. The boy who became Hitler was born in Braunau on April 20, 1889, in an apartment rented to his parents above what was a tavern. After moving as a young man to Vienna and failing as an artist, Hitler went to Munich. There, he led a failed coup and spent time in prison before rising to power as head of the Nazi party, then as chancellor of Germany. He committed suicide as Allied troops were seizing Berlin in 1945. Image A stone outside is the only indication of the building’s place in history. The marble memorial says, “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy/Never Again Fascism/Millions of Dead Warn.” Credit Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times Hitler paid no attention to Braunau, preferring instead to amass thousands of works of art and make grandiose plans for a vast museum in his honor in the northern Austrian city of Linz. Yet Martin Bormann, a high-ranking Nazi, acquired and restored the Braunau property, which became something of a place of pilgrimage from 1938 until 1945. The family that had owned the house bought it back after the war. A descendant, Gerlinde Pommer, has refused in recent years to sell the increasingly decrepit building to the Austrian government or to undertake repairs. The last tenant — a workshop for the disabled — moved out in 2011. Mr. Grundböck, reached by telephone on Saturday, said the future of the building was not clear. Historians have pressed for years for an exhibit that would promote peace and dispel any possibility that the site could become a shrine for neo-Nazis. A memorial stone outside the three-story building is the only outward sign of its uniqueness. The marble slab bears an inscription: “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy/Never Again Fascism/Millions of Dead Warn.” The Austrian government and the City of Braunau have rented the building from the owners since 1972, and still pay Ms. Pommer about 5,000 euros, or about $5,700, a month. Mr. Grundböck confirmed a report in Der Spiegel, the German weekly newsmagazine, that Austria’s Interior Ministry was determined that the house should never represent “an affirming memory of National Socialism.”

Austria
Adolf Hitler
World War II
Holocaust and Nazis
Historic preservation


China’s Leader Closes Door to Reform

Abstract: BEIJING, Oct. 15 — President Hu Jintao promised to address social fissures, a degraded environment and rampant corruption during his second term as China’s top leader, but he all but ruled out more than cosmetic political reform in his opening address on Monday at the 17th National Congress of the governing Communist Party. Mr. Hu spoke extensively about his “scientific view of development,” a set of lofty, vague principles supporting harmonious economic, social and political development. The congress will enshrine the phrase “scientific view of development” into the party’s constitution alongside the political slogans of Mao, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, elevating Mr. Hu into the pantheon of leaders as he begins his second and final term as party general secretary, head of state and military chief. This speech kicked off the weeklong event, which is held once every five years to extol past leaders and welcome a roster of younger officials newly elevated to leading roles. Party members have described the leadership contest, conducted in secret, as fractious. But the congress proceedings, which are ceremonial, present a facade of seamless unity and continuity. In the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People, under a giant hammer and sickle, Mr. Hu appeared on a rostrum with all the other members of the Politburo and the Central Committee, arranged in precise hierarchical order. They were joined by party elders, including Mr. Jiang, Mr. Hu’s direct predecessor, and at least two stalwarts of an earlier era, Wan Li and Song Ping, both more than 90 years old. In keeping with tradition, Mr. Hu’s address, which lasted two and half hours, stressed the correctness of the rhetoric and guiding philosophies of the past. Though the text of the speech ran to 64 pages, Mr. Hu discussed few specific government programs and provided only broad hints about what he intended to do between now and 2012, when under party retirement rules he will make way for a new top leader. “China is going through a wide-ranging and deep-going transformation,” Mr. Hu told the 2,200 party delegates and a national television audience. “This brings us unprecedented opportunities as well as unprecedented challenges. On the whole, the opportunities outweigh the challenges.” Mr. Hu revised one well-established goal, the quadrupling of economic output from 2000 to 2020, saying that the party would now aim for a fourfold increase in “per capita G.D.P.” instead of overall gross domestic product over that period. The switch to a per capita target reflects Mr. Hu’s emphasis on populist goals. But China’s population increase — estimated at about 200 million during the 20-year period — makes the goal more ambitious. That suggests that Mr. Hu thinks the economy can outperform what he and his predecessors considered possible — or prudent — at the last party congress in 2002. He called the international situation favorable to China, saying a “trend toward a multipolar world is irreversible.” He offered to hold peace talks with Taiwan, the self-governing island China claims as its territory, as long as the island’s leadership sets aside independence goals. In defining “scientific development,” Mr. Hu discussed the growing gap between rich and poor. He said that the economy relied too much on investment and not enough on consumption, and that the leadership should do more to protect the environment. “We must adopt an enlightened approach to development that results in expanded production, a better life and sound ecological and environmental conditions,” he said. Mr. Hu said the party should become more responsive to the public. He also called for “intraparty democracy,” or allowing more party officials to participate in decision making. Corruption, he said, poses a threat to the party’s survival, a particularly resonant issue after the leadership purged the former Shanghai Party boss, Chen Liangyu, in one of the highest-level corruption scandals in its history. But Mr. Hu advocated only incremental political change. He insisted on maintaining the party’s monopoly on power, saying that it must remain “the core that directs the overall situation and coordinates the efforts of all quarters.” The proceedings got under way even as speculation mounted that the party elite was still negotiating membership in the new Politburo Standing Committee, the top governing body, even though a list of people slated for top posts was submitted to the Central Committee last week, according to people told about the closed-door proceedings. The list called for a nine-man Standing Committee headed by Mr. Hu, with three current members retiring. Two younger leaders, Xi Jinping, party boss of Shanghai, and Li Keqiang, party secretary of Liaoning Province, are expected to join the Standing Committee and inherit top jobs when Mr. Hu steps down, the people told about the meeting said. But over the weekend one of the current Standing Committee members who was expected to retire, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, was appointed secretary general of the congress’s secretariat, a position that historically signals inclusion in the Standing Committee for the coming term. That suggests that Mr. Hu was either awarding an unusual honor to Mr. Zeng, or that the vice president, considered the second most powerful official in the party apparatus after Mr. Hu, may stay on for another term. It also remained unclear whether the Central Committee, which will have the opportunity to vote on the leadership roster, will signal its disapproval of one or more senior leaders. While such dissenting votes are rare, low vote totals can force unpopular officials to step aside. The final lineup will not be known for certain until Sunday, when the new Politburo Standing Committee makes its first joint public appearance to conclude the congress. China Cancels Iran Meeting WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (Reuters) — China, protesting a plan by Congress to honor the Dalai Lama, pulled out of a meeting this week at which world powers were to discuss further action against Iran, the State Department said Monday. The meeting — scheduled for Wednesday in Berlin to discuss the showdown with Iran over its nuclear program — has been postponed, probably until next week, said a State Department official, who spoke on condition he not be identified. “They had indigestion over the presence of certain spiritual leaders” in the United States and at an event with Congress, the official said. The Dalai Lama is regarded by China as a Tibetan separatist. His presence at the Congressional Gold Medal award ceremony at the Capitol is to be the first time he and President Bush appear together in public.


In Mexico, Curbing Violence Before It Is Learned

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — Over the Christmas holidays, Othón Cuevas Córdova, a Mexican congressman, had his life threatened, albeit in jest. His young nephew pointed a toy pistol that he had received as a gift at the lawmaker and said, “Tío, I’m going to kill you.” Mr. Cuevas was not amused. He talked to the boy’s parents about the inappropriateness of giving a child a weapon, even a plastic one, in a country so overrun with violence. And he sped up the introduction in Mexico ’s National Assembly of a legislative ban on the fabrication, importation and sale of toy guns and other warlike toys. “The boy was so young he could barely say the words,” said Mr. Cueva, who is from Mexico’s southern Oaxaca State and represents the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution. “But from infancy, children are learning the culture of violence and we need to do something about it.” Mr. Cuevas’ proposal to ban toy weaponry, introduced on Thursday, is one of a number of legislative proposals aimed at addressing in one way or another the explosion of killings and kidnappings that Mexico is experiencing, much of it tied to narcotics traffickers fighting with the authorities for control of their lucrative transit routes. Lawmakers have suggested legalizing marijuana to reduce traffickers’ profits, bringing back the death penalty for kidnappers and reducing the age at which criminal suspects can be tried as adults to 12 from 18, among other measures. The bills face varying probabilities of success and are in some cases dismissed as irrelevant by security experts. But they show the concern, and even desperation, that many politicians feel toward the state of their crime-racked country. The proposal to legalize marijuana is considered dead. But President Felipe Calderón has put forward his own measure to allow those carrying small amounts of illegal drugs to spend time in treatment centers instead of jail. The overhaul of Mexico’s judicial system — introducing quicker, oral trials instead of the current trials conducted solely by the exchange of legal documents, and making arrests of organized-crime suspects easier — is considered by experts to be among the most important legislative steps taken recently. Substantive proposals are also under consideration to improve intelligence-sharing among law enforcement agencies and to overhaul the security forces to make them less corrupt. One priority of Mr. Calderón’s government is to reduce the number of real guns in Mexico, the vast majority of which are smuggled into Mexico from the United States. That is likely to be high on the agenda when Mr. Calderón meets with President-elect Barack Obama on Monday in Washington. In the case of the toy gun ban, Mr. Cuevas is seeking to add teeth to a measure already on the books. In 2002, Mexico made toy guns that look like the real thing illegal, largely because criminals were using the fake guns to commit crimes and get away with lighter sentences. That ban applied to replicas of assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns and pistols. The only problem with that ban, Mr. Cuevas said, is that it carried no sanctions. Street vendors still sell toy Berettas outside schools. Markets still stock realistic-looking AK-47 toy rifles, which are known in criminal circles as “cuernos de chivo,” or goat horns. The beefed-up measure offered by Mr. Cuevas would fine those who trade in toy weaponry or close down their businesses. The country would be better without those sales, he argued. “The cost we will pay as a society will be more if we do not do something to prevent conduct in children that later will become criminal,” the bill says. Mr. Cuevas acknowledged that wiping out every last plastic pistol, realistic looking tank or replica warplane was not going to make Mexico safe again, a point that security experts make as well. “It’s not a panacea,” he said. “There are many reasons for this violence. But this is something we can do.” Other places have tried a similar approach. Los Angeles, fed up with an explosion of gang-related violence, banned toy gun sales in 1987. In Iraq, the British Army issued a public safety announcement last month asking parents to not allow their children to play with toy guns “in case security forces mistake them for real weapons and open fire.” Airsplat.com , a California company that makes toy guns that look like real ones and fire plastic pellets, warns users not to bring their guns to schools or pull them out in public places. “If you are confronted by a police officer while transporting or playing with your airsoft gun, stay calm and follow their orders to the letter,” the company says on its Web site. “Tell them the gun isn’t real, and ask them what you should do. Don’t make any sudden movements and DO NOT argue with the officers.” Toys are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how violent themes reach children, said Mr. Cuevas, the father of two daughters. There are violent video games and television shows, he said, that expose children to unchildlike behavior. And then there are the violent videos put up on Web sites, sometimes by drug traffickers themselves. On top of all that are news reports, which in Mexico, on any given day, can feature beheadings, bombings and numerous other violent acts. That real-life horror is what concerns José Antonio Ortega, president of the Citizen’s Committee for Public Security and Criminal Justice. He lamented that the role models for many children these days “are drug dealers, kidnappers and others involved in organized crime.”

Mexico
Toys
Firearms
Drug Abuse and Traffic


Russians Sound Off on Firing of Moscow’s Mayor

Abstract: MOSCOW — There were traffic jams, soaring housing costs and cries of nepotism. But there were also allowances paid to pensioners and a cleaner city. All of this, according to some Russians, was the legacy of Yuri M. Luzhkov , who had been mayor of Moscow for 18 years until Russia ’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, fired him on Tuesday . Readers of the Russian-language blog of The New York Times were asked to discuss Mr. Luzhkov’s successes and failures. Here are some responses, as translated by the Moscow bureau of The Times: “I think that the firing was correct because he was so corrupt. But the way that it was done was not right or ethical. The thing is that he was not fired for carrying out his duties poorly or for economic crimes and corruption, but for dissent against the Kremlin and for being a big personality from a very old team, which may get in the way of the present-day team. “Speaking of his achievements, it’s the living standards in Moscow (as far as I understand it), allowances to pensioners and workers in city-financed organizations, cleaner city, encouragement of revival of religious life. As to the shortcomings, it is illegal destruction of historical structures.” avis_avis “His achievements are the allowances paid to pensioners. His shortfalls: all these notorious outdoor markets, and the huge numbers of immigrants staying here without registration, forming whole ethnic neighborhoods, and, of course, his wife’s wealth, gotten from God knows where, or through the abuse of her husband’s position.” rodham “The greatest Luzhkov achievement is the multibillion receipts of the Inteco company (belonging to his wife).” balamutang “Answering your question, whether it was a correct step on the part of Mr. Medvedev to fire Luzhkov, I would say that I find it wrong when presidents turn a blind eye to what is going on right under their noses, and then come to their senses all of a sudden.” romik_g “The worst evil of Luzhkov’s legacy is the $3,000 to $5,000 price for one square meter of housing in practically any Moscow neighborhood. Such prices were in New York near Central Park, but before the financial crisis. For Russia, such prices are nothing but reckless speculation, and Luzhkov keeps Moscow apartments’ doors closed for hundreds of thousands. Thousands of newly built residential houses are standing empty, rotting, waiting for buyers, and Luzhkov and his gang are waiting for God knows what but do not drop the prices.” volodymir_k “It was right to fire him. He has failed to manage the city. Too many systemic problems accumulated in Moscow, from traffic jams to total corruption, which is the problem of the entire establishment, though. “Speaking of achievements, it’s the social service allowances, which, of course, is more of a populist step. Shortcomings: cost of road construction in Moscow has exceeded that in Europe by five to eight times. Inability to cope with traffic jams, arbitrary selection of construction sites accompanied by the destruction of historic buildings. Violations of city construction norms. Nepotism: if the mayor’s wife makes billions legally, an honest mayor has to go. A dishonest mayor like Luzhkov pretends that he has nothing to do with his wife’s business. The list can be continued. “He will not be remembered well. He is just a mediocrity of a mayor so typical of the ruling party representatives.” fstrange


Report of Trial for Bo Xilai Proves to Be False Alarm

Abstract: BEIJING — Jiang Hao, a senior court administrator, seemed genuinely surprised on Monday morning when he arrived to find dozens of journalists huddling outside his courthouse in the southwestern city of Guiyang expecting the “trial of the century” to begin at any moment. “I never thought so many of you would actually come all the way down here,” Mr. Jiang said as reporters and camera operators sighed, stewed or just laughed off the absurdity of having flown more than 1,000 miles from Beijing based on what proved to be a false rumor. Justice for Bo Xilai, the fallen party aristocrat and former Politburo member, would have to wait another day. The episode, prompted by a Hong Kong newspaper report that promised a three-day trial in Guiyang, the provincial capital of Guizhou, highlighted a longstanding quandary facing the Chinese leadership that came to power in November: the disjunction between the Communist Party’s aversion to transparency and the public’s lack of trust in those who run the courts, the news media and every other lever of power. The lack of reliable information is so pervasive that even Xinhua, the state-run news agency, sent reporters to the courthouse in Guiyang. “Turns out we were all fooled,” said Zhan Jiang, a journalism professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. The mad rush to chase a nonexistent trial was partly aggravated by the government’s prolonged silence regarding Mr. Bo, a once-rising political star who has been held incommunicado since his detention last March. But it also reflected the intense interest in one of China’s most lurid scandals in recent memory. After all, not only have the authorities accused Mr. Bo of serial infidelity, “massive bribe taking” and abuse of power, but investigators have been exploring his role in covering up his wife’s killing of a British businessman who she said was out to harm her son. After a one-day trial in August, Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, received a suspended death sentence after she confessed to poisoning the Briton, Neil Heywood, in a hotel room in Chongqing, the southwestern municipality then run by her husband. Just over a month later, Wang Lijun , the police chief under Mr. Bo, was convicted of numerous crimes, including trying to cover up the killing and briefly seeking refuge at the United States Consulate in Chengdu, where, according to information disclosed at his trial, he revealed to diplomats the details of Mr. Bo’s and Ms. Gu’s misdeeds. Analysts say that Mr. Wang’s 15-year sentence, seen as especially lenient, was a reward for cooperating with investigators seeking to build a case against Mr. Bo. Among legal experts, there is little doubt that Mr. Bo will be severely punished; the question is how much party leaders will allow to be made public during what is certain to be a thoroughly stage-managed trial. Image A court official in Guiyang led journalists to a news conference on Monday after a report, which turned out to be false, that the trial of Bo Xilai would begin. Credit Feng Li/Getty Images The initial news about the trial, based on a “usually well-informed source,” was published on Friday by Ta Kung Pao, a party-backed newspaper in Hong Kong that is viewed as a reliable mouthpiece for Beijing’s interests. Professor Zhan and other experts said the government erred by failing to dispel the misinformation once the report had been picked up by domestic social media and foreign publications. “The central government should have responded directly, openly and in a timely manner,” he said. The official silence, and noncommittal statements by the law firm hired to defend Mr. Bo, only helped feed the speculation. Even court employees seemed to waffle, telling reporters on Friday that they had “yet to receive the case,” which some interpreted as a coded acknowledgment that the case could arrive on Monday. The government’s flat-footed response was not unlike the way it handled Internet-fed speculation two years ago that the retired leader Jiang Zemin had died. Only after foreign publications began writing about Mr. Jiang’s rumored demise did the state news media issue a statement that he was still alive. Although the government is required by law to provide at least a three-day public notice before a trial starts — and inform defense lawyers 10 days in advance — many journalists have become accustomed to the party’s favoring its own interests over the niceties of Chinese law. Jerome A. Cohen , an expert on Chinese law at New York University, said that he had tried to warn off those who believed the trial was imminent, but he also said that he understood why so many got caught up in the wild-goose chase to distant Guiyang. “It does show the understandably huge mistrust of the Chinese legal system by experienced reporters and their willingness to believe that, in the biggest political case since the trial of the Gang of Four, the government would openly violate its declared legal procedures before the world,” Professor Cohen said. He was referring to the 1981 show trial in which Mao’s wife and three other party leaders were convicted of persecuting hundreds of thousands during the Cultural Revolution. The only rebuttal of the article appeared on Sunday afternoon in the English-language version of Global Times , a nationalistic tabloid that also cited an anonymous source. By then, however, most reporters were already en route to Guiyang. In its article, Global Times — which did not run the article in its Chinese edition — claimed that the trial would take place in the early spring and would last 10 days. Citing a source “close to the country’s top judicial body,” it cautioned against speculating about Mr. Bo’s day of judgment. “The information in terms of the date and location for the trial will certainly be made public in advance,” it said. On Monday, Mr. Jiang, the court official in Guiyang, tried his best to calm the crowd of journalists. After inviting them into a conference room, he promised to provide adequate notice should the trial in fact take place there — a detail he could not confirm. “We appreciate your hard work, but you don’t need to waste your time here anymore,” he said. “I think it’s better for you all to go home.”

Bo Xilai
Hong Kong
China
Gu Kailai
Neil Heywood
Wang Lijun
News media,journalism
Communist Party of China
Chongqing China


Pipeline on Floor of Baltic Sea Clears Hurdle

Abstract: MOSCOW — A Russian-German plan to build a pipeline on the floor of the Baltic Sea and detour natural gas around the disruptive politics of Eastern Europe cleared a last major hurdle on Friday. A Finnish regulator, the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland, approved the permit needed to begin construction work off the Finnish coast. The pipeline company, Nord Stream, which is primarily owned by German and Russian companies, now has permits for offshore work in all five countries through which the pipeline will pass — Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia and Sweden. The Finnish permit is a “culmination of four years of intensive research, consultation and dialogue with the state officials, experts and society in Finland and the other Baltic region countries,” Matthias Warnig, the chief executive of Nord Stream, said in a statement . In Finland, Nord Stream had hired a former prime minister, Paavo T. Lipponen, to help secure permits. That kept with its practice of hiring prominent former politicians in the West to lobby for a project majority-owned by Gazprom of Russia. The chairman is the former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. Gazprom owns 51 percent of Nord Stream, while BASF and Wintershall of Germany each have 20 percent and Nederlandse Gasunie has 9 percent. Gaz de France has negotiated to join the consortium. Nord Stream said it would begin construction in April and the pipeline was expected to be finished in 2011. The pipeline, which will extend more than 750 miles, is expected to change the equation of energy politics in Europe, largely because it sidesteps several countries to the east. Countries that opposed it, however, had little leverage to object other than by expressing environmental concerns. In Estonia, the foreign ministry issued a statement Friday making clear its objections had never been assuaged. The pipeline remains “definitely an environmental issue for Estonia,” the statement said, citing a threat to the Baltic Sea where the water is shallow and circulates with the open ocean very slowly. Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine had also opposed the pipeline because of concerns that it would enhance Russia’s ability to use energy for political means. Currently, if Russia shuts off the gas to pressure a neighbor, like Ukraine or Belarus, repercussions are felt in the more powerful, wealthier countries to the West. The pipeline, however, will allow uninterrupted supplies to the West during an energy dispute in Eastern Europe. Russia has denied using energy politically. But intensive work on the pipeline began only after the street protests known as the Orange Revolution ushered a pro-Western government into power in Ukraine. Since then, two prominent energy pricing disputes have interrupted natural gas flows to Western Europe, shaking confidence in Gazprom as a reliable supplier. Just days before receiving the final permit for the pipeline, a pro-Russian candidate, Viktor F. Yanukovich, won the presidential election in Ukraine partly on a platform of selling the Ukrainian pipeline system to a consortium of German, Russian and Ukrainian companies to prevent disruptions. This had been the Russian plan before the Orange Revolution, negotiated with Mr. Yanukovich when he served then as prime minister, and before active work on Nord Stream began. Still, Ukraine will retain its ability to be a thorn in Gazprom’s side, despite the changed political landscape, Jonathan P. Stern, the director of natural gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said. Ukraine, for example, could simply run out of money to pay for gas if International Monetary Fund lending was not resumed, forcing a renegotiation of the gas contract.

Pipelines
Baltic Sea
Natural Gas
Nord Stream AG


F.A.A. Rules Would Restrict Helicopter Flights Over Long Island

Abstract: Howard M. Lorber, a businessman who has been flying a helicopter between the Hamptons and the city for a decade, still savors the thrill of the ride: when he flies along the South Shore of Long Island, he rides by Coney Island and checks up on one of his businesses, Nathan’s Famous; when he travels by the North Shore, he gazes at the sprawling estates dotting the Gold Coast. But starting this summer, Mr. Lorber’s view from above might be restricted to the water. The Federal Aviation Administration , at the longtime urging of Senator Charles E. Schumer , intends to adopt regulations to eventually ban most helicopters from flying directly over Long Island, except in emergencies. Under the proposals, which are a response to years of noise complaints, helicopters bound for the Hamptons would be forced to skirt the shoreline. That would keep them away from favored routes over the North or South Shore, or down the center of the island along the railroad tracks. Fliers like Mr. Lorber said the quality of the ride might suffer. And the changes would add about seven or eight minutes to the trip, increasing costs. “Generally, the most direct route is over land,” Mr. Lorber said. “Helicopters are expensive. So it’s going to cost you a little more.” Some fliers suggested that the restrictions could be dangerous. Lorenzo Borghese, a pilot of Italian royal descent who appeared in the ninth season of “The Bachelor” on ABC, recently hopped on a helicopter to the Hamptons to check out an $8.9 million estate he was interested in buying. He said that the skies were clogged enough already. “Imagine taking a four-lane highway and making it smaller,” Mr. Borghese said. “It’s a horrible rule. The whole thing of the helicopters is to make things quicker.” The regulations aim to stop almost 10 years of complaints from Long Island residents over the helicopters hovering endlessly above, especially during summer weekends. Mr. Schumer said that helicopter noise ranked in the top five complaints among his Long Island constituents. “Talk to anyone who lives in scores of communities from Floral Park and Port Washington,” Mr. Schumer said. “It’s an awful disruption when you invested your savings in your home and you can’t enjoy your house or sit in the backyard from Memorial Day to Labor Day.” Long Island residents, who often encounter noise from planes arriving and landing at Kennedy International Airport in addition to the helicopter noise, said they would welcome the change. Mary-Grace Tomecki, a Floral Park resident who lives near the train track route, said that during the summer helicopters passed overhead every five minutes and it sounded like “being in a blender.” She said it made it difficult to tend to the morning glories and tomatoes she grows. “It would be an incredible improvement in quality of life,” Ms. Tomecki, an academic adviser at New York University, said of the ban. “It means actually being able to have a barbecue on Friday night and be able to talk.” Long Island communities and politicians have been trying for years to reduce the noise. In 2008, the F.A.A. introduced voluntary regulations encouraging helicopter pilots to fly along the coast of the North Shore. Mr. Lorber added that local airports had also introduced rules. For example, helicopters at Southampton Heliport can take off only at certain times. Helicopter pilots who violate these rules could face fines and lose flying privileges. Robert Grotell, special adviser to the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, said data showed that helicopter pilots had complied. A study his group conducted during the most recent Fourth of July weekend showed that 93 percent of helicopters followed the requests made by the F.A.A. He added that helicopter pilots had been using the central track route less frequently. “We have been using the North Shore route, and our compliance numbers have been very, very high,” Mr. Grotell said. But Long Island residents disagree and point to the endless racket they still hear above. Sue Auriemma, a stay-at-home mother who lives in Manhasset along the North Shore route, said that shortly after the voluntary rule was introduced, the noise dropped. But now she hears a helicopter pass over her home at 6:45 every morning that makes her windows and dishes vibrate. The helicopters continue through the day, she said, adding that her family tracks them online by the tail number, altitude and destination airport. “It was as though the agreement went out the window,” Ms. Auriemma said. The path to the proposed helicopter flight restrictions has been somewhat indirect. In May 2010, the F.A.A. proposed a rule mandating that helicopters traversing Long Island travel by a northern route and stay at least 2,500 feet in the air along the coastline. Mr. Schumer asked the F.A.A. to add a South Shore option. After the proposals seemed to stall last year, Mr. Schumer tried to include them in an F.A.A. reauthorization bill that passed in the Senate. When that version fell through, Mr. Schumer started working with Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, on an alternative. Last month, the two men agreed that the F.A.A. would complete regulations for the North Shore route by Memorial Day and start enforcement by the Fourth of July weekend; plans for a South Shore route would be started in the coming months. Mr. Schumer said he was confident the regulations would move forward this time. “I have the commitment from the secretary of transportation,” Mr. Schumer said. “He understands the problems.” That decision worries helicopter industry leaders, who fear that the regulations will have national implications. Matt Zuccaro, president of the Helicopter Association International, said that for decades helicopter companies had worked with communities on a voluntary basis. “If this is going to be the model where the F.A.A. is going to be mandated and react to every noise complaint or somebody saying, ‘I don’t like helicopters,’ I don’t know where the end of this is,” Mr. Zuccaro said. “Where are we supposed to fly?”

Helicopters
Federal Aviation Administration
Noise
Schumer Charles E
Long Island (NY)


How to Slice a Global Carbon Pie?

Abstract: STOCKHOLM — It was the middle of the night. In a matter of hours, journalists from around the world would be showing up, expecting details about the latest big United Nations climate report. But behind closed doors here, as the final wording of that document was being worked out, things were not going well. Inside an old brewery converted into a conference center, scientists and diplomats fought off hunger pangs and joked about having their 15th cup of coffee. As the hours dragged by, several countries — with Saudi Arabia and China in the lead — raised one objection after another to a small section of the report. Reto Knutti , a Swiss scientist, spent much of the night in the hot seat, answering questions. The idea he was defending was that scientists should specify a worldwide cap on global emissions of greenhouse gases — “a carbon cap” — that would apply if countries were serious about staying below an internationally agreed upper limit on global warming. It was just a single paragraph, but it had huge implications, and everyone in the room knew it. If it were adopted, it would make starkly clear how far the world remains from having any meaningful policy to tackle climate change. “It was inconveniently simple,” Dr. Knutti would say a few days later. As the questions flew, Dr. Knutti kept a graduate student awake all night at his home institution, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, running computations. In the end, Dr. Knutti and his scientific colleagues prevailed, thanks in part to an intervention from the United States delegation. Dr. Knutti is a key member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , an international committee of several hundred scientists who issue major reports on the issue every five to six years. The report released in Stockholm on Sept. 27 was their fifth since 1990, each finding greater certainty that the earth is warming and greater likelihood that humans are the cause. In its draft form, the fought-over paragraph declared that, to have the best chance of not exceeding the international target for global warming of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, society can burn no more than about 1 trillion tons of carbon, in the form of fossil fuels, and spew the resulting gases into the atmosphere. More than half that carbon budget has been used already. Moreover, the draft made it clear that if countries want to be safe and take account of other gases that are warming the planet, the carbon budget would be even less than a trillion tons. At the rate things are going, we will exceed the budget in 30 years or fewer. The political implication of the statement was that far more ambitious efforts to limit the use of fossil fuels had to begin soon. That did not go over well with the Saudis, with their huge oil reserves, nor with countries like China and Brazil that are burning a lot of carbon as they move up the income scale. The issue was especially sensitive because the countries of the world are in the middle of a big negotiation that is supposed to produce a new global climate treaty by 2015, to take effect in 2020. It is meant to replace the weak Kyoto Protocol, the previous climate treaty. In essence, the scientists were putting a big carbon pie on the table and asking: How are we going to carve this thing up? Huge fights could break out as rich countries tussle with poorer countries over who gets the biggest slice. Suppose countries got a piece proportionate to their share of world population. The United States, with less than 5 percent, would get a sliver. And at our current rate of emissions, our budget would be gone not in 30 years but in something like half the time. (Thanks to Kelly Levin at the World Resources Institute for help with the math, and thanks to four people who were in the room in Stockholm and later described the events.) No American president is going to agree to a deal that would shut down the fossil-fuel industry 15 years from now, of course, much less get such an agreement through Congress. So you can see why the Chinas and Brazils of the world would be nervous. They fear the rich countries will try to muscle them into accepting emission limits that doom their people to lasting poverty. What was the compromise that finally broke the Stockholm deadlock? The scientists had wanted to specify a carbon budget that gave the best chance of keeping temperatures at the 3.6 degree target or below. But many countries felt the question was related to risk — and that the issue of how much risk to take was political, not scientific. The American delegation suggested that the scientists lay out a range of probabilities for staying below the 3.6-degree target, not a single budget, and that is what they finally did. The original budget is in there. But the adopted language gives countries the possibility of a much larger carbon pie, if they are willing to tolerate a greater risk of exceeding the temperature target. It remains to be seen if the carbon cap will become a major negotiating point when climate diplomats convene for their next big meeting this November in Warsaw. At the very least, the scientists have created a new yardstick by which any future foot-dragging on climate can be measured. “It’s another way of saying that we are quickly running out of time,” Dr. Knutti said.

Saudi Arabia
China
Global Warming
Climate Change
Brazil
Carbon dioxide
Greenhouse gas
UNFCCC
International relations
UN


Aiming for Top, Xi Forged Ties Early in China

Abstract: ZHENGDING County, China — Thirty years ago, a young government official with a plum job in Beijing made an odd request: reassignment to a poor rural area. At the time, millions of young people were still clawing their way back to China’s urban centers after being exiled to the countryside in the Mao era. But 30-year-old Xi Jinping bucked the trend, giving up a secure post as adviser to a top military leader to navigate the tumultuous village politics of Zhengding, in Hebei Province. The move offers a window on the political savvy of Mr. Xi, who, despite a recent two-week absence from public view that raised questions about his health, is on the cusp of taking over as China’s supreme leader at a party congress that officials announced Friday would begin Nov. 8. Mr. Xi (his full name is pronounced Shee Jin-ping) gained a measure of credibility to speak for rural Chinese compared with many other well-connected children of the elite. He also realized, according to several inside accounts, that his powerful family stood firmly behind him, ensuring that his stint in the countryside would be a productive and relatively brief exercise in résumé building that could propel him up the Communist Party hierarchy. His powerful father, Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary-era military leader, helped orchestrate his transfer, selecting Zhengding because of its relative proximity to Beijing, and later having Mr. Xi reassigned when he ran into local opposition, Chinese experts who have researched Mr. Xi’s background said. His connections allowed him to take chances in Zhengding. He pushed through market-oriented reforms when they were still considered cutting edge, and sidelined pro-Maoists. His stint in the countryside also helped him form new alliances with other offspring of the elite who would later prove important allies. Even three decades into the country’s rapid industrialization, China’s leadership still pays heed to its heritage as a party of peasants, and it has tended to promote officials who can claim to be deeply rooted in the rural struggle. But it has also tended to favor “princelings,” the privileged offspring of former leaders who had ties to the party’s revolutionary history. After his time in Zhengding, Mr. Xi could check both boxes. “People think of him as being from the new generation of technocrats,” says Jin Zhong, a Hong Kong-based analyst of Chinese political leaders. “But he’s really a continuation of the red bureaucracy of his father’s generation.” Mr. Xi’s trajectory was similar to that of Bo Xilai, another princeling who used stints in the provinces to create an image of a bold reformer and champion of the poor before his career was derailed by a major scandal this year. Mr. Xi’s stay in Zhengding, however, was characteristically more cautious, even as parts of it have entered modern Chinese political lore. When Mr. Xi volunteered for rural duty in 1982, he did so along with two other up-and-coming officials, including Liu Yuan, son of the former head of state under Mao, Liu Shaoqi. The men’s decision to work at the grass roots caught the popular imagination after the author Ke Yunlu wrote a 1986 novel, “New Star,” about a party secretary who takes modern, market ideas to a backward province. The official meets many troubles but manages to triumph. The novel’s hero was a composite character based on Mr. Xi and the other two young officials. The book was soon made into a popular television series and is still widely known as a classic of that early reform era. What Mr. Xi found in Zhengding was less romantic than the novel. He had hoped to be a party secretary with direct authority over a town or county but the conservative provincial party secretary, Gao Yang, blocked that. Disgusted by inexperienced but well-connected princelings like Mr. Xi parachuting into his domain, Mr. Gao made him deputy party secretary of Zhengding. Still, Mr. Xi took on the assignment with gusto. He wore a green army greatcoat from his involuntary service in another rural area under Mao, roaming the town night and day to survey its problems. Wang Youhui, a local official, wrote in a published essay that he recalls seeing Mr. Xi for the first time and being taken aback by his plain style. “I realized that this guy, who from his style of dress made him look like a lad from the canteen crew, was the new deputy party secretary,” Mr. Wang wrote. Mr. Xi’s biggest challenge was managing the county’s roads, which were part of national north-south arteries. They were so bad — strewn with manure, dirt and grain left out to dry — that the county was labeled in government reports as “chaotic, dirty and backward.” Mr. Xi took firm action. According to internal government histories, he held mandatory classes for 43,200 people — 10 percent of the county’s population — on how the roads should be handled. As a member of the county’s Politics and Law Committee he also helped lead a draconian crackdown on crime, part of a nationwide attack on “Spiritual Pollution.” The county began holding show trials of criminals through the summer and autumn of 1983, according to these government accounts. Four people were executed in public on one occasion. Later in 1983, Mr. Xi was promoted to party secretary and kept a firm hand on social issues. Under his leadership the local government strictly enforced the national one-child policy. According to internal government documents, the county sterilized 31,000 women and fit another 30,000 with intrauterine contraceptive devices. Like the crime campaign, the family planning measures were part of a national policy and there is no evidence that Mr. Xi was more zealous than others. But it illustrates a truism for successful Chinese leaders — that social issues have to be dealt with firmly to create political space for market-opening economic measures. It was in economics as well as personal connections that Mr. Xi stood out. Zhengding was a grain-growing center, with peasants forced to grow huge amounts for central granaries. Mr. Xi formed a clever alliance with Maoists and used his family ties in Beijing to cut Zhengding’s grain quota by one-quarter. That freed up farmers to use their land more lucratively, such as for raising fish, geese or cattle. Mr. Xi caused even more of a stir in Zhengding when he tried to make it a center of television filming. State television was filming the classic novel “Dream of Red Mansions,” which is set in a palace and surrounding grounds. Crews had already built an enormous replica of the park in Beijing. But Mr. Xi used his political connections to get the mansion built in Zhengding, meaning the cast had to travel six hours to Zhengding to shoot indoor scenes. Despite local opposition, Mr. Xi pushed through a plan to spend three times the original amount in a bid to make the set permanent. The story of building the television studio is now firmly part of Mr. Xi’s official lore, touted as an example of his visionary economic leadership. In justifying the costs, he said it would help create a tourist attraction, and for many years it was popular because the television series was a huge hit. Several other shows were also filmed there in the 1980s and early 1990s. But what is rarely mentioned is that the Rongguofu mansion now gets few visitors and has not been used as a set for 20 years. It also spawned two spinoffs in Zhengding that are bankrupt, with one torn down and the other shuttered. Despite his clout, and unlike the character in the novel “New Star,” Mr. Xi was not able to vanquish all his enemies. He was never promoted beyond county chief. He was blocked, local residents and biographers say, by Mr. Gao, the provincial party secretary. According to Hu Lili, one of the authors of a new biography published by Mirror Books, Mr. Xi’s family decided that three years in Zhengding was enough. In 1985 his father arranged to have him transferred to China’s wealthier and more reform-minded coast, where he served under a more sympathetic party chief with ties to his father. Yet the time in Zhengding helped Mr. Xi hone his skills, setting a template for his rise. It also cemented his bond with Liu Yuan, who is now a senior leader in the People’s Liberation Army. He also made an ally in Li Zhanshu, who was a local official in Hebei at the same time as Mr. Xi. Mr. Li has now been tapped to take over the party’s nerve center, its General Office. “You can’t separate his accomplishments from his political support,” said Yang Zhongmei, a Xi biographer and lecturer at Yokohama City University. “This is the model you see today: if you have enough political support and money, you can accomplish a lot.”

China
Rural Areas
Xi Jinping
Series
Zhengding (China)
Communist Party of China
Economic Conditions and Trends
Changing of the Guard (Series)


Honeywell, Facing Resistance, Drops Bid for United Technologies

Abstract: What was shaping up to be the first big merger battle of 2016 has ended, at least for now. Honeywell said on Tuesday that it was withdrawing its $90 billion takeover bid for United Technologies after its rival steadfastly argued that a union of the two would be blocked by government regulators. In a statement, issued a day before Honeywell holds an annual presentation for investors, the company argued again that it believed a merger would have posed little antitrust risk. Putting the two companies together would have created a $160 billion titan, with a range of products like thermostats and advanced jet engines. Yet Honeywell’s options for prolonging the fight are limited. The company missed the deadline for nominating candidates for United Technologies’ board, which passed on Jan. 28. And several important customers of the two companies — including Airbus and Boeing — have issued statements expressing varying levels of opposition to a prospective deal. Honeywell’s only remaining option is to persuade its competitor’s shareholders to put pressure on United Technologies management to restart talks. Shares of United Technologies have risen 9.5 percent since it confirmed that the two companies had held merger talks , but Honeywell’s shares have fallen more than 5 percent. “We made a full and fair offer that would have greatly benefited both sets of share owners,” David M. Cote, Honeywell’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement . “However, continuing to try to negotiate with an unwilling partner is inconsistent with our disciplined acquisition process.” In a statement , United Technologies called Honeywell’s retreat “the appropriate outcome given the strong regulatory obstacles, negative customer reaction and the potential for a protracted review process that would have destroyed shareholder value.” Honeywell shares closed 4.5 percent higher, and shares of United Technologies dropped 1.6 percent. The announcement on Tuesday caps nearly a year’s worth of back-and-forth discussions between the two companies. The talks began last April, when United Technologies’ chief executive, Gregory J. Hayes, raised the issue of a potential merger with Mr. Cote. More talks followed over the ensuing months, before United Technologies broke away, arguing that regulators were likely to block the combination. At the same time, United Technologies’ stock price fell, while Honeywell’s shares remained stable. And the two companies disagreed over who would have run the combined business, with each jockeying for control. Yet Mr. Cote and his advisers remained convinced that a merger made sense, calculating that putting the two businesses together would have yielded $3.5 billion worth of cost savings. By late last year, Honeywell offered a new proposal in which it would essentially buy United Technologies even though it had only about two-thirds as much revenue as its rival. Mr. Cote would run the combined company, and his shareholders would have owned 60 percent of the combined business. Last month, Honeywell put forward an offer of $108 a share in stock and cash , which was roughly 22 percent higher than where United Technologies’ shares were trading at the time. In its statement on Tuesday, Honeywell said that during that meeting, executives at Honeywell said that “such a combination would be fabulous” and that they would take the offer “very seriously.” But United Technologies dismissed the bid later that week as unacceptable. Other big deals have hit potentially crippling antitrust hurdles. A proposed merger of Staples and Office Depot has drawn strong opposition from the Federal Trade Commission. And Comcast walked away from its proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable last year as it faced intense regulatory scrutiny. United Technologies’ own antitrust advisers have calculated that a union would lead to at least $10 billion in overlapping sales, or about 10 percent of the two companies’ combined revenue. (Honeywell has argued that less than 5 percent of their target sales overlap.) Among the biggest areas of overlap, analysts have said, are plane components and heating and cooling systems for buildings. The apparent end of merger discussions between the conglomerates is not the first time an attempted union of the two collapsed. United Technologies offered to buy its rival in 2000 , but was outbid by General Electric . Yet the G.E. deal for Honeywell fell apart after European regulators blocked that transaction.

Honeywell
United Technologies
Gregory J. Hayes
Competition law
Mergers and Acquisitions
David M Cote


Game Not Known for Ferocity Claims a Casualty Who Was

Abstract: Christie Moore Freel lost count of the nights her husband, Ryan, arrived home from the ballpark with a tale that added to her growing concern over his health. “I don’t know how many times he would talk about sliding into second or third base and blacking out or seeing stars,” she said Saturday in a telephone interview from her home in Jacksonville, Fla. While his peers and fans praised Freel’s headfirst approach throughout an eight-year career in the major leagues, which he deemed necessary to compensate for being undersize and less talented, the person closest to him became tormented by it. “I cringed that that’s who he was — all-out, full throttle,” she said. “It was very hard to watch.” An accumulation of concussions , as well as mood swings and troubling incidents, left relatives — and Freel himself — apprehensive about his well-being. Still, she was surprised to learn that Freel, 36, was found dead in his Jacksonville residence Dec. 22 . Authorities concluded that the cause was a self-inflicted shotgun wound. “I know a lot of people say they weren’t shocked by it, but I really was,” said Freel, who had been divorced from Ryan Freel since April after 11 years of marriage, and had spoken to him briefly on the eve of his death. “I really thought, at some point, the answer to all of this would come along for him. It just never did.” Now his family will seek answers post-mortem. A spate of suicides and diagnosed cases of dementia involving retired N.F.L. players has prompted research to determine whether there is a correlation between constant blows to the head, which are endemic to football, and a degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy . Testing of brain samples drawn from deceased former players by the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy has found that 33 from the N.F.L., along with 17 who competed at other levels , suffered from C.T.E. With Freel, the center enters the realm of baseball, a sport not usually associated with head trauma . His parents approved the donation of tissue to search for evidence of C.T.E., which might partly explain his decline as a consequence of the injuries. “I’m very hopeful,” Christie Moore Freel said. “We certainly believe there is some sort of connection.” Based on the recollections of the player’s mother and Ryan Freel’s own statements, his stepfather, Clark Vargas, estimated that Freel may have sustained 15 concussions, 10 as a professional ballplayer. “He was a hard driver,” Vargas said by phone. “It was not a career to him. It was a game that he played hard.” That mind-set had roots in Freel’s overly active childhood, according to his mother, Norma Vargas. She remembered him falling off bicycles, tumbling out of a bunk bed and careening into the side of a water slide. Some accidents left bumps on the head or required stitches. “He was always very careless,” she said. “No fear.” By the time he was an adult, a reckless style of play marked by crashes into fences, seats and other players helped Freel gain entry to the majors but may have hastened his exit. He would dive after balls in insignificant spring training games. His former wife witnessed a winter league game in Venezuela in which he smashed through an outfield wall and had to be hospitalized with a concussion. She advised him to exercise more caution. “Some of it was joking: ‘If you are going to play center field, please use a helmet,’ ” said Freel, who had three daughters with him, now ranging in age from 4 to 8. But Ryan Freel knew no other way, even while cognizant that his daredevil ways exacted a price. “He knew he was causing harm to himself,” she said, then quoted his sermons to youngsters aspiring to become big leaguers: “I don’t have the size and the power, but I have the heart. Anybody can have that.” Pleas from his mother to scale back, which might have extended his career, also went for naught. “I asked him: ‘Why do you play like that? Nobody else plays like that,’ ” Norma Vargas said. “He told me: ‘This is the reason I’m playing ball. You don’t understand. I don’t have the size, but I have the energy to play this game. People are not coming to see me play if I change the way I play.’ ” Freel’s former wife said she found no fault with his teams or their medical staffs, concluding that they diagnosed his condition properly and insisted that he abide by the stipulated recovery period. “He used to get angry at them, wanting to come back sooner than what they recommended,” she said. A collision with a Cincinnati Reds teammate resulted in 30 missed games because of a concussion that was accompanied by memory loss . Freel’s last head injury may have occurred early in 2009, his final season, from being struck by a pickoff throw. He was placed on the disabled list and closed out his playing days in the minor leagues. Freel had consulted with doctors and had had examinations, mostly psychological, according to his former wife, and even became aware of the C.T.E. studies. “He sought answers to his problems,” she said. Yet he did so reluctantly, according to his mother. She indicated he would not always heed her advice to seek help from doctors or counselors and was especially reluctant to carry through with follow-up appointments. “It was very difficult to get him to do anything like that,” she said. Freel’s mother dropped by his home on the Friday before Christmas and, noticing that he was not feeling well, urged him to visit a counselor. He agreed to do so the next Monday, she said. His body was discovered the next day. Both women eagerly await the test results for C.T.E. “We want to see if that had something to do with what he was going through,” Vargas said. Christie Moore Freel acknowledged that the head injuries might not fully explain why her former husband took his life. “Ryan had a lot of battles, fought a lot of demons,” she said. He was arrested at least once for drunken driving and on another occasion for disorderly intoxication. Freel was buried Thursday in Jacksonville after a funeral at which the pallbearers wore baseball jerseys.

Concussions
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
Baseball
Freel Ryan
Sports Injuries
Deaths (Fatalities)


Rondo Steadies Celtics Against Knicks’ Disarray

Abstract: BOSTON — When Rajon Rondo continued his layup line into the first quarter, out of breath but full of points, he motioned to Celtics Coach Doc Rivers that he needed a breather. “He was dying — I mean, that’s a hard job, that point-guard job,” said Rivers, who filled that capacity for 13 N.B.A. seasons. “Especially when they’re playing you to drive, they’re trying to force you to shoot, and your most effective way is penetration through trees.” Rondo described the outset of Game 2 as a track meet and finished it in marathon fashion. When the Celtics wavered and failed to close out the Amar’e Stoudemire-less Knicks , Rondo never did, delivering a playoff-career-high 30 points, including 10 layups, in Boston’s 96-93 victory. Before the game, Rivers prophesized about a prevalent series misperception: that the Knicks would try to run and the veteran legs of Boston would try to reel the pace back in and play a halfcourt game. “If we can score easy baskets and get into a transition game on our end, we’re good with that,” Rivers said. “We don’t want them to do that, but we want to run. I think that’s probably something that people are probably wrong a lot when they talk about our team, but we want to run, because in a halfcourt, slower game, it’s easier to help off of Rondo and clog up our offense. But when we’re in transition and the ball’s moving, we’re pretty good.” After two games, Boston has 26 fast-break points to the Knicks’ 6. The difference can nearly all be attributed to Rondo, who scored 14 of Boston’s first 18 points before receiving his well-deserved breather. “I stayed aggressive,” Rondo said. “I tried to expose them because I don’t think they did a great job getting back in transition.” Somewhere along the debate of the N.B.A.’s best point guard, his name dropped from the discussion. Chicago’s Derrick Rose will almost certainly hoist the M.V.P. trophy, Chris Paul has led New Orleans to a Game 1 upset of the defending champion Lakers and the Nets eagerly traded a good parcel of their roster and future for Deron Williams with the hope that he will stick around after they move to Brooklyn. Rondo is not as powerful as Rose, as graceful as Paul or as well-rounded as Williams. He is the only one among them with a championship, but also has a visible weakness — his jump shot. He averaged only 9.5 points this season and finished with his lowest scoring total in two years. Rivers attributed the drop to the difficulties in sustaining aggressiveness over 82 games. Teams sag off Rondo and dare him to shoot. Sometimes he obliges. More often, he carves a serpentine route through the lane, and he did so repeatedly against the Knicks. His play provided a stark contrast to the Knicks, who played in point guard disarray without the veteran presence of the injured Chauncey Billups. Toney Douglas made his first playoff start and presented a different dimension as a shoot-first — and often second — lead guard. He is also a nose-first defender who pressures opposing guards with the ability to shadow Rondo better than Billups. That natural thinking faded, too, once the game began. “It’s a different pace of the game,” Rondo said. “Douglas is more up-tempo style of play. He’s going to try to push it on me, on both misses and makes. Chauncey is kind of more of a steady guy that’s going to run the show. He can get guys in their sets, and also make big shots throughout the game.” Coach Mike D’Antoni put Jared Jeffries on Rondo — a scheme that showed benefits last season — in the second quarter. In the fourth quarter, Carmelo Anthony defended Rondo. Rondo and Douglas again found one another in the closing moments. Rondo answered with three straight baskets when Anthony’s fourth-quarter jumper lifted the Knicks to their first lead since early in the third quarter. Rondo, who had the fourth-most steals this season with 153, helped seal the win with another in poking the ball away from Douglas with 1 minute 28 seconds left in the game. The steal led to Kevin Garnett’s dunk. Jeffries momentarily put the Knicks ahead with 19.3 seconds left, only for Garnett to answer again on a five-foot jumper with 13.3 remaining. He may not be as flashy as his peers, but he knows the direction to a championship. “We escaped another one tonight, but nevertheless, we got the win,” he said.

Basketball
Boston Celtics
Rondo Rajon
New York Knicks
Billups Chauncey
Douglas Toney


Djokovic Stays Unbeaten

Abstract: Novak Djokovic won his 26th straight match to remain unbeaten in singles in 2011, defeating Slovenia’s Blaz Kavcic, 6-3, 6-2, in the Serbia Open quarterfinals in Belgrade. It is the best start to an ATP tour season since Ivan Lendl in 1986. While ahead in the second set, 4-1, Djokovic threatened to quit because he said the lines became too slippery once it started raining.


Immigrant Maids Flee Lives of Abuse in Kuwait

Abstract: KUWAIT — With nowhere else to go, dozens of Nepalese maids who fled from their employers now sleep on the floor in the lobby of their embassy here, next to the visitors’ chairs. In the Philippines Embassy, more than 200 women are packed in a sweltering room, where they sleep on their luggage and pass the time singing along to Filipino crooners on television. So many runaways are sheltering in the Indonesian Embassy that some have left a packed basement and taken over a prayer room. And in the coming weeks, when Ramadan starts, the number of maids seeking protection is expected to grow, perhaps by the hundreds, straining the capacity of the improvised shelters, embassy officials say. With Kuwaiti families staying up into the early hours of the morning, some maids say they cook more, work longer hours and sleep less. Rosflor Armada, who is staying in the Philippines Embassy, said that last year during Ramadan, she cooked all day for the evening meal and was allowed to sleep only about two hours a night. “They said, ‘You will work. You will work.’ ” She said that she left after her employers demanded that she wash the windows at 3 a.m. The existence of the shelters reflects a hard reality here: With few legal protections against employers who choose not to pay servants, who push them too hard, or who abuse them, sometimes there is nothing left to do but run. The laws that do exist tend to err on the side of protecting employers, who often pay more than $2,000 upfront to hire the maids from the agencies that bring the women here. The problems in Kuwait , including a lack of legal protection, are hardly unusual or even regional; this summer, New York became the first state to grant workplace rights to domestic employees in an effort to prevent sexual harassment and other abuses. But human rights groups say the potential for mistreatment is acute in several countries in the Middle East, especially those with large numbers of migrant workers who rely on a sponsorship system that makes employers responsible for the welfare of their workers. That system is particularly entrenched in Kuwait, where oil riches allow many families to have several servants, human rights advocates say. And conditions for some workers here are bad enough that the United States Department of State in a 2010 report singled out Kuwait, along with 12 other countries, for failing to do enough to prevent human trafficking. The report noted that migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, but “upon arrival some are subjected to conditions of forced labor by their sponsors and labor agents, including through such practices as nonpayment of wages, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports.” The informal shelters here are open secrets and touchy subjects. Embassy officials are loath to talk about them and generally do not allow visitors, citing concerns about the privacy of the women and a reluctance to antagonize Kuwaiti officials, whose cooperation they need in order to repatriate many of the women. The government runs a shelter for about 50 women, but few domestic workers know about the place, according to their advocates. Kuwaiti officials say that an overwhelming majority of the country’s approximately 650,000 domestic workers are treated well and are considered part of the families that employ them. Some bristle at the notion that Ramadan is more taxing. Mohammed al-Kandari, under secretary in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, said many maids received extra money from their employers during Ramadan. “They get benefits. Their expenses and food is paid for, and they don’t spend anything,” he said. “They send their salaries to their families. Some work here for 15, 20, 25 years.” But even many of those who are not abused can lead lonely, Spartan lives with little time off. Some employers forbid the women to socialize with friends, and the women themselves are often loath to spend much money in their free time so they can save cash for the families they left behind in their home countries. The perils faced by many domestic workers were brought into sharp focus in recent weeks, when the local news media reported that a Sri Lankan maid who fled to her embassy said she had been imprisoned by her Kuwaiti employers, without pay, for 13 years. The Sri Lankan ambassador, Sarath Dissanayake, refused a request to interview the woman and said hers was an isolated case. Also last month, the news media reported that a Filipino maid was allegedly tortured and killed by her employers, who the media said ran over her body with a car in the desert in order to make her death look like an accident. Human rights advocates say the problem of abuse persists because it is rarely punished. Domestic workers are told to report offenses to the police, but the advocates say some employers quickly file countercharges, accusing the maids of such offenses as stealing. Lawmakers have been discussing new provisions to protect the workers, including a law that would require employers to deposit salaries directly in bank accounts, but they have yet to act. Talk of building a large shelter has circulated for years. For now, the women rely on their embassies for shelter, along with some Kuwaitis and expatriates who risk prosecution to house them. In 2009, embassies in Kuwait received more than 10,000 complaints from domestic workers about unpaid wages, long working hours and physical, sexual and psychological abuse, according to Priyanka Motaparthy of Human Rights Watch, who wrote an as yet unpublished report on the conditions of domestic workers in Kuwait. Workers who flee harsh work conditions face the risk they will be charged with immigration violations and imprisoned, or face prolonged detention or deportation, Ms. Motaparthy said. Alida Ali, a 22-year-old from the Philippines, described a different kind of punishment. She begged her agency to move her from an abusive family, and when her employers found out, she said, they threw her out of a third-floor window, breaking her back. Ms. Ali recently had a metal rod removed from her spine. She has been in the shelter in the Philippines Embassy — which considers her story credible — for 10 months while lawyers pursued a case against the employers. She lost the case, and now she just wants to go home. Bibi Nasser al-Sabah, who runs an organization that advocates for domestic workers, said it would take more than awareness campaigns to change the behavior of employers and agencies. “This does not work,” said Ms. al-Sabah, who is a granddaughter of Kuwait’s emir. “People will not change. It has to be imposed, through proper laws and strict rules — by actions taken by the government.”

Diplomatic Service Embassies and Consulates


Trump Officially Wins Michigan Amid Calls for a Recount

Abstract: Donald J. Trump was officially declared the winner of the presidential election in Michigan on Monday amid calls for a recount there and in two other states. Mr. Trump, a Republican, defeated Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, by 10,704 votes in the state, or less than a quarter of a percentage point, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers announced , nearly three weeks after the Nov. 8 election. Image Donald J. Trump during a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Mich., the night before the presidential election. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times The results, should they hold, bring his Electoral College vote total to 306, well beyond the 270 needed to win. Mrs. Clinton has 232. Michigan contributed 16 electoral votes to Mr. Trump’s total. News of his victory in Michigan came as Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, said she planned to call for a recount there after pursuing recounts in two other states. Wisconsin officials approved a timeline for a recount on Monday, and Ms. Stein is also suing for a recount in Pennsylvania, according to The Associated Press . Mr. Trump won all three states by a combined total of about 100,000 votes.

Hillary Clinton
Voting
Jill Stein
2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump


Episcopalians’ First Openly Gay Bishop Speaks

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — This week, gay-rights advocates at the Episcopal Church convention here chalked up two major victories — moves that both liberals and conservatives agree are probably a turning point in their church’s history. Earlier in the week, the church voted to open the door to ordaining openly gay bishops. And on Thursday the bishops voted to start the process of developing rites for blessing same-sex marriages , and to give the green light to bishops who are already doing so. At the center of all these battles has been Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. He has been something of a human lightning rod ever since the church voted at its convention in 2003 to consent to his consecration as bishop of New Hampshire. Since then, he has been lauded as a gay rights hero and vilified as the cause of schism in both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion , the world’s third largest network of churches. But as a bishop, he has an insider’s seat at the proceedings. What follows is an interview with Bishop Robinson, conducted during a break at the convention: Q: Thank you for making the time. You must have a lot of interview requests. A: Yes, and I’m not doing any interviews, except this one. A lot of requests came in after the bishops’ first vote on Monday (to allow for the consecration of more gay bishops). Of course, the possibility of there being another gay bishop in the House is something I’ve longed for for a long time. But I didn’t feel like talking. I felt very sober. I know that what we’ve done here will be very difficult for a lot of people in that room, and in the Communion. Q: Many conservatives I’ve talked to say they are feeling very isolated at this convention, and even railroaded. A: Progressives stayed around and in the Episcopal Church for 30, 40 years when we were the minority, and our voices weren’t heard, and we were pushed out. I think a lot of them have never felt what it felt like to be in the minority. A bunch of straight white guys are now sitting there and having that experience, which is something I think could be valuable for anyone to experience. Q: But conservatives have been saying for years that the Episcopal Church has been taken over by the liberals. A: The General Convention in 2003 might have looked like that to people, when there was the vote for my consent (to be consecrated as a bishop). The difference there is they were voting on a person. I had been so active in the church, it was really hard for them to say no. What happened yesterday (with the vote to move ahead on blessings for same-sex marriages) is they opened the way for people they don’t know, and that’s a new and significant thing. It felt much more theological and philosophical than being about an individual. Q: Going into this convention you said you had a lot of trepidation because you had recently been feeling a cold shoulder from your fellow bishops, and you anticipated that they were prepared to vote against the gay-related legislation. But on both key resolutions, your side prevailed. What happened? A: The most significant thing that happened was on Tuesday, after the House of Bishops stopped the debate on same-sex blessings and decided to have a smaller group of bishops meet to discuss it further. They said anyone could come, and it turned out it wasn’t a small group at all. There were 25 to 30 of us, and it turned out to be the most significant interaction I’ve had with the bishops since I’ve been elected. It was profound and it was inspiring. People stood up and spoke their own truth, both the pain and the joy. Everyone spoke honestly about what they needed to go home with, what they could live with and what they couldn’t. Q: So how do you explain the vote counts? The bishops passed both of these measures resoundingly, and we are starting to hear of many moderate-to-conservative bishops who voted “yes” on both ordinations and gay blessings. A: Everyone acknowledges they know where this is going, that gay marriage is becoming a reality. But we’re trying to bring our people along. One bishop said to me he voted “no” so he could go home and do this work, as he explained it, “so I can bring my people along.” He used the Nixon in China analogy. This was a bishop who voted “no” on my consent in 2003. Another bishop said that in his diocese he will never have to deal with gay marriage. I told him, you don’t know where this is going. Gay marriage could go to the Supreme Court, it could become the law of the land. Maybe part of your responsibility is to get your people ready for where the country is going. Also among the bishops, there was a real sympathy for those of us in jurisdictions who are faced with this new reality (ie. legalization of gay marriages or same-sex unions). Q: Do you think there will now be an exodus from the church. A: I think it will hold. Now that we’ve done the, quote, unthinkable, the church won’t look much different than before. Opponents of marriage equality predict the end of Western civilization as we know it if gay couples are allowed to marry. And then when it comes, there’s no big whoop. Q: I heard Bishop Bill Love of Albany yesterday saying how pained he was at these actions the church has taken, and the reporters at this news conference really pressed him on whether he would take his diocese out of the Episcopal Church and he said no — that that was not where he felt that God was leading them. A: Bill Love is a faithful Episcopalian, a man of integrity, and I respect him deeply. (Bishop) Edward Little (also a conservative), I would trust my life to him. He is the one I asked to intervene with (Archbishop of Canterbury) Rowan Williams when Rowan told me I could not go to Lambeth (the convention of Anglican bishops held last year in England). I think maybe that’s what people don’t get about the House of Bishops. We have longstanding relationships. We meet several times each year, at length, and relationships build over time. We have a commitment to hang in there with one another, though we have disagreements. The ones that did not have that commitment are gone. The conversation has been a lot less shrill this year because a lot of those shrill voices are gone. It’s given people permission to listen better. Q: So where do you expect to see the next openly gay bishop? A: There are two dioceses that are electing bishops soon, who I think are capable of electing a gay bishop. Minnesota is electing a diocesan bishop, and Los Angeles is electing two suffragan bishops (assistant bishops). But no diocese is going to elect someone because they are gay. Who your bishop is matters too much, affects too many people. Nobody is going to not take the best person. But there’s no question it will happen, because there are just great people out there who would make great bishops. Q: Will Susan Russell (a priest who is the president of Integrity, a church advocacy group for gay people) run in Los Angeles? A: I don’t think so. I think she’s not interested. I think she understands there is a need for people who do what she does, who can have a prophetic voice outside of the episcopate. And there are lots of people who think she’s strident. Q: What has been the fallout of all of this on your own diocese, in New Hampshire? Have you lost many church members? A: Except for one parish in Rochester early on, no. That left about 15 people in that congregation, they met for about a year, and then asked me to close them down because there weren’t enough people to sustain a continued parish. That’s all. That’s it. There’s no one, no priests or parishes associated with the breakaway groups. Our diocese grew by 3 percent last year. Q: And that makes how many church members? A: There are 15,000 people in the diocese of New Hampshire. Q: Who are you pulling in? A: We have received so many Roman Catholics and young families, particularly families who are saying, “We don’t want to raise our daughters in a church that doesn’t value young people in our church.” Q: Which vote that you’ve taken here do you think will have more impact, the one on bishops, or the one on same-sex blessings? A: Blessings. There are a lot of gay and lesbian people out there who are looking for affirmation, who have no desire to be a bishop. I’ve been saying to them, give the Episcopal Church a try, give church another try, and this is the one I wanted to go home with. Were you there after the vote? Q: I had to run off and file my story — it was late and I was missing my deadlines. A: It was amazing. We took the vote, there were closing prayers, and usually somebody says amen and we’re up and out of there. But last night not a person moved, for 10 minutes. There was absolute silence. I think we realized the momentousness of what we’d done. People just sat their quietly praying. It was amazing. It was almost as if we didn’t want to leave each other.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships