Study Finds Gaps in Aid for Non-English Speakers in State Civil Courts

Abstract: When Maythe Ramirez went to Superior Court in Contra Costa, Calif., for a child custody hearing in 2006, she wanted to tell the judge that her husband beat her and should not be allowed broad visitation rights. The court did not provide an interpreter for her, however, and Ms. Ramirez, who speaks almost no English, could not follow the arcane proceeding, much less participate. “It is really as if you are doing nothing in court,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter, “standing still and not being able to explain what’s really happening.” Ms. Ramirez, who came to the United States from Mexico, later divorced her husband and had the visitation rules modified with the help of a lawyer from Bay Area Legal Aid , who got her interpreters for other hearings. The court system can be a bewildering place for anyone, but it can be terrifying for those who do not understand English. Federal law requires civil and criminal courts that receive federal financing to provide free interpreters for those with limited proficiency in English. But while interpreters are commonly offered in criminal cases, many states do not require the services in all civil cases. The state of California, where Ms. Ramirez’s case was heard, provides interpreters in some civil cases and not others. A new study of civil courts, from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University law school, examined the 35 states with the highest immigrant populations and found that interpreter services are not always provided, or not provided well, and are not keeping up with growing demand. Of those states, 46 percent do not require that interpreters be provided in all cases, and 80 percent fail to guarantee that the courts will pay for the interpreter, as the Department of Justice’s view of the law requires. Thirty-seven percent of those states do not require that the interpreters have proper credentials. The result is a national patchwork of varying rights from state to state. “This must change,” the report concluded. “Federal law, principles of fundamental fairness, and our need for equal access to the justice system all demand it.” The disparity in services for non-English speakers between civil and criminal cases makes little sense in light of the high stakes also in civil court, said Richard S. Brown, a state appellate judge in Wisconsin. “Civil cases can involve denial of constitutional property rights, termination of parental rights, statutory rights to be free from harassment and stalking, consumer transactions, foreclosures and a host of other matters,” Judge Brown said. “If a person cannot understand what is happening in the courtroom proceeding, an unfair result might occur. And that is contradictory to what we want our courts to do: administer justice, fairly and impartially.” In family law cases, which deal with issues like divorce, child custody and abuse, the lack of language help “can mean the difference between justice and injustice,” said Purvi Shah, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Women , an organization concerned with domestic violence among South Asians in the United States. “Your testimony on the experience of abuse is what needs to be articulated to be able to access remedies,” Ms. Shah said. States that do not provide interpreters in civil court are violating federal law, said Laura Abel, deputy director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center and the author of the new report. “The law is very clear,” Ms. Abel said, adding that while some states have made progress in the last decade, “the state courts are just slow to comply.” Wanda Romberger, manager of court interpreting services at the National Center for State Courts , said states were trying to rise to the challenge, but were struggling to find enough qualified interpreters. Forty states have joined a consortium that promotes language access to the courts and sets standards for training and testing interpreters. But progress is uneven, Ms. Romberger said, and many states have barely begun. Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, introduced a bill last week to provide $15 million a year in seed money for states to develop or improve their court interpreter programs. The federal requirement to provide interpreters in federally financed programs goes back to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and was underscored by the Clinton administration in an executive order in 2000 requiring agencies to take “reasonable steps to ensure meaningful access” to services. It was followed up with guidelines issued two years later by the Department of Justice. Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights, restated the policy in April at a federal meeting devoted to language skills issues. “Even in tough economic times,” Ms. King said, “assertions of lack of resources will not provide carte blanche for failure to provide language access. Language access is essential and is not to be treated as a ‘frill’ when determining what to cut in a budget.” The states, however, face daunting costs and challenges to bring language aid to their courts. In New York, where state law requires interpreters to be offered in all civil and criminal cases, costs have been rising, from nearly $18 million in the 2004-5 fiscal year to more than $24 million in the 2008-9 fiscal year, with 282,000 hours of interpretation in nearly 90 languages, including Kurdish, Wolof and Cajun French. According to a recent article by Ms. Romberger from the National Center for State Courts, California civil courts provided more than 160,000 days of court interpreter services in 2004-5 in Spanish alone, and provided thousands of days in more than 20 other languages, including Samoan, Romanian and Jhindu. California’s costs for interpreter services have risen 12 percent a year since 2004. Arkansas’s costs have risen by 74 percent a year since 2003, according to the state courts group. Federal court costs are rising as well, with $23 million spent on interpreters in the 2007 fiscal year, up from $18 million in 2004, according to the administrative office of the federal courts. Such figures gall those who oppose permissive immigration policies. “We accommodate for language too much, and that sends a very clear message that it’s O.K. not to learn English,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, a nonprofit group that seeks to limit immigration. “This is an inevitable cost of massive immigration that is never taken into account when making policy.” The idea that immigrants should simply learn English, however, does not sit well with Judge Brown. “I wonder aloud how many immigrants from the 1840s through the 1920s lost their liberty, lost their property, lost their homes, their livelihood, all because they could not yet understand the English language to the fullest,” he said in an e-mail interview. Judge Brown, who is deaf, said, “I think we are a better country because we are now acknowledging what we did not acknowledge in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”

Courts
United States
Brennan Center for Justice
New York University
Sakhi for South Asian Women
Language and Languages
Civil Rights and Liberties
Legal Profession
Kohl Herb


Pandora Shares Plummet as Competition Grows

Abstract: When Apple revealed this week that its new streaming service, Apple Music, had 6.5 million paying users, industry commentators debated whether that was a healthy or disappointing result for a company with such a giant reach. But on Friday, a more telling yardstick emerged as a measurement for Apple’s success: Pandora Media’s stock price. Shares in Pandora, the Internet radio service, fell by 35 percent in one day, wiping away $1.4 billion in the company’s market value. The stock closed at $12.39, its lowest price in more than two years. The plunge in Pandora’s share price was to some degree the market’s judgment on the company’s outlook in the increasingly competitive field of streaming music, as Apple, Spotify and numerous other players spar for customers in a growing market. This week, YouTube introduced a subscription plan including music and video. “The fear from the investor world is that there is going to be a continued battle to fight for users,” said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG Research, “and that will depress what is already is not much cash flow even further.” In a conference call on Thursday discussing the company’s third-quarter financial results, Brian P. McAndrews, Pandora’s chief executive, played down the arrival of Apple Music in June, saying that the new service had only a “muted” impact on Pandora’s popularity. Mr. McAndrews is a director at The New York Times Company. But Pandora also downgraded its financial guidance for the rest of the year on Thursday, saying that it now expected its adjusted earnings to be in the range of $51 million to $56 million, down from the $75 million to $85 million it had predicted three months before. Its expected revenue for the year was lowered by about 2 percent, to a range of $1.153 billion to $1.158 billion. Those revised figures suggested a shrinking ability by Pandora to make money from its listeners, and some analysts reacted with alarm. “We are shocked by guidance implying monetization is hitting a wall,” wrote Robert S. Peck of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, in a research report that decreased his company’s price target for Pandora to $18 a share, from $25. In another report, Barton Crockett of FBR Capital Markets wrote, “We expected a modest impact from the Apple Music launch, but it turned out to be more fundamentally challenging than we thought.” Pandora declined to comment. Pandora has long been the largest Internet radio outlet in terms of users, and it has withstood challenges before, including the introduction of Apple’s iTunes Radio in 2013. Pandora, which makes about 80 percent of its revenue from advertising, has steadily increased the amount of money it makes from each listener. For the third quarter, the company’s revenue per thousand listening hours was $60.52, its highest, according to Mr. McAndrews. But after years of steady growth, Pandora’s lead has begun to erode. It number of active users — those who tune in to the service at least once a month — peaked at 81.5 million at the end of last year, and in its third quarter fell to 78.1 million. At the same time, it is spending more to attract those listeners. Pandora’s sales and marketing expenses grew by 48 percent in its third quarter, compared with the same period last year, and in the conference call on Thursday, Michael S. Herring, the company’s chief financial officer, said that its marketing budget would increase further next year. The issue of competition has intensified as digital music services proliferate and their features overlap. Services like Spotify, Apple Music, Rdio and Google Play let users pick exactly what song to listen to, but also have radiolike features similar to Pandora, letting users listen passively by feeding them songs tailored to their tastes. “Historically, Pandora’s marketing was viral; it marketed itself,” Mr. Greenfield said. “Now because there is so much competition, to generate the same level of revenue, they have to spend more to get there.” Investors have also long been concerned about the cost of music licenses. That cost has gradually declined. But in its third-quarter report, Pandora revealed two significant expenditures. The company said that it had reached a $90 million settlement with the major record labels on royalties for songs from before 1972, an issue that has caused uncertainty for many companies. Pandora also said it was taking a $23.9 million charge for songwriting royalties. One of Pandora’s biggest costs will be set when the Copyright Royalty Board, a panel of federal judges, sets recording royalty rates for the next five years. A decision by the board is expected by the middle of December.

Apple Music
Music
Pandora Media
Spotify
Audio Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Stocks,Bonds


Ex-Senator Vincent L. Leibell III Said to Have Used Contractors for Home at Deep Discount

Abstract: Former State Senator Vincent L. Leibell III, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges late last year, built a $1.7 million home in Putnam County in part using contractors to whom he had awarded lucrative work on publicly financed projects he controlled, prosecutors said in court papers filed last month. At least one of the contractors who worked on the home, a secluded white colonial, provided “deeply discounted services” to Mr. Leibell while receiving payments on jobs performed for a nonprofit organization that Mr. Leibell controlled, according to the court papers. Mr. Leibell, 64, a Republican who served for 28 years — first in the Assembly and then the Senate — also used a senior staff member as his general contractor while that man continued to collect his full-time Senate salary, according to the papers, the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum. The former senator, who represented Putnam County and parts of Westchester and Dutchess Counties, pleaded guilty in December to federal obstruction of justice and tax evasion charges unrelated to the work on the house. He is to be sentenced Friday by Judge Warren W. Eginton in United States District Court in White Plains. In what was widely regarded as a bizarre request, Mr. Leibell wrote to the judge in February and asked to be sentenced to serve as a diplomat in the Middle East in lieu of an 18- to 24-month prison sentence, which he agreed to as part of his plea. No charges have been brought in connection with the work performed on his house, and the government’s sentencing memo does not identify the contractors or detail the nature or value of the work that the prosecutors characterized as “deeply discounted.” The 6,000-square-foot three-story white house with black shutters at 130 Cushman Road in Patterson has a six-car garage, five bedrooms, eight baths, five fireplaces and a distinctive 2,000-square-foot covered porch, according to property records, which say it sits on nearly 16 acres. A swimming pool is tucked into a copse of pine trees along the sweeping driveway. Mr. Leibell said in his letter to the judge that “having lost my ability to earn an income,” the house, where he lives with his wife, grown children and 82-year-old mother-in-law, “must now be let go.” David L. Lewis, Mr. Leibell’s lawyer, said in his written response to the prosecution’s memo that there was nothing improper in the construction of the house and dismissed the assertion that “the contractor gave Mr. Leibell too good a deal.” He also defended Mr. Leibell’s hiring of a staff member to serve as the general contractor, saying, “Who better to trust with something than someone whose work and work ethic you not only know, but have helped develop.” The senior staff member is not named in the memo, but court papers that Mr. Leibell’s lawyer filed in response indicate that he was the former senator’s chief of staff, Raymond Maguire Jr., who earned $108,000 a year in his Senate post until he left in January. It could not be learned what Mr. Leibell paid him, if anything, for the contracting work. Mr. Maguire’s lawyer, Richard Willstatter, would say only that his client had received subpoenas and had complied with them. The prosecution’s 50-page memo, submitted by Assistant United States Attorneys Perry A. Carbone and Jason P. W. Halperin, said the contractors who built the house were among a favored group who received “multiple lucrative contracts” from a nonprofit organization to build housing for senior citizens. When he was a senator, Mr. Leibell controlled the organization, which was financed almost entirely by state money he directed to the group, the memo said. “Leibell was directly involved in selecting the contractors who were hired and paid substantial state funds to build” nonprofit senior housing projects, the memo said. In 2009, one contractor who the prosecutors said provided deeply discounted work received a $5,000 payment from Mr. Leibell. “In reality,” the memo said, the contractor, identified only as Favored Contractor No. 1 or FC No. 1, “had provided services to Leibell valued at many times the amount Leibell actually paid.”

Leibell Vincent L III
State Legislatures
Putnam County (NY)
Corruption in Government
New York State


Adolfo Carrión Jr. Quits Democrats; Mayoral Bid Likely

Abstract: Adolfo Carrión Jr. , a former Bronx borough president and Obama administration official, is all but certain to jump into the 2013 mayor’s race, not as a Democrat, but rather as an independent seeking the Republican nomination, according to his spokesman and others. Should Mr. Carrión, a strong fund-raiser, prevail in a Republican primary, he could pose a credible challenge to whoever emerges from what is expected to be a wide-open and bruising primary for the Democratic nomination. And though Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York City by more than six to one, no Democrat has won the mayoralty since David N. Dinkins in 1989. An adviser to Mr. Carrión, Davidson Goldin, said Mr. Carrión had recently left the Democratic Party and was unaffiliated. Mr. Goldin also said that Mr. Carrión, who would need the blessing of three of the five Republican county leaders to run on their line in the city, had been talking to individual chairmen regularly, and was to meet all of them Wednesday night. Mr. Carrión is also seeking the backing of the Independence Party. Mr. Carrión did not return an e-mail seeking comment. But in a statement, Mr. Goldin said, “Given the yearning for an alternative to the special interests and a leader who can focus on rebuilding and uniting all five boroughs, the coalescing of support around Adolfo Carrión as a candidate for mayor makes complete sense.” In a possible preview of his platform, Mr. Goldin said Mr. Carrión, a former schoolteacher and urban planner, supported Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on two major fronts: education reform and economic development. But he declined to discuss Mr. Carrión’s positions on other contentious issues, like the stop-and-frisk tactics by the police and income inequality . Mr. Carrión, 51, could be an attractive candidate for national Republicans eager to make inroads with Hispanics, especially after the beating the party took in the elections last week. He also has more than $1.1 million in campaign funds that had been collected when he anticipated running for comptroller in 2009. But he opted not to run. Mr. Carrión was elected to the City Council in 1997. In 2001, he and three others, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, were imprisoned for protesting bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Mr. Carrión, a longtime resident of City Island, also comes with some baggage. When he was nominated by the White House in early 2009 to head its Office of Urban Affairs, he was the subject of an investigation in The Daily News for using, in a renovation project on his own home, an architect who was also involved in a major housing development project that required Mr. Carrión’s approval. He was fined $10,000 by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, and acknowledged that he should have disclosed the transaction. Mr. Carrión left the White House in 2010 to be the New York and New Jersey director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and oversaw its response to Hurricane Irene. He left government in January to start his own company. Political analysts say that Mr. Carrión might have had a difficult time in a Democratic primary dominated by labor and liberals. The expected field includes Bill de Blasio, the public advocate; John C. Liu, the comptroller; Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker; Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president; and William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller. By contrast, the only presumed contenders for the Republican nomination are two political neophytes who had been Democrats until recently: Tom Allon , a newspaper publisher, and George T. McDonald, the founder and president of the Doe Fund . Mr. Goldin said Hurricane Sandy influenced his thinking about the need for a new leader. He said that Mr. Carrión would decline any matching funds for which he qualified under the city’s generous campaign financing system, and challenged his rivals to do the same.

New York City
Democratic Party
Carrion Adolfo Jr
Elections Mayors
Bronx (NYC)


Treasury Auctions Set for This Week

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.09 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.13 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.06 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida Department of Transportation, $228.8 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. TUESDAY Alabama, $268.6 million of University of Alabama revenue bonds. Competitive. Kansas Department of Transportation, $153.6 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Dallas, $219.5 million of general obligation refinancing bonds. M.R. Beal. Guam Power Authority, $350 million of revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. Harris County, Tex., $366.8 million of transportation revenue bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, $75 million of homeownership finance bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Nassau County, N.Y., Interim Finance Authority, $313.2 million of sales tax secured bonds. Goldman Sachs. Nassau County, N.Y., Local Economic Assistance Corporation, $131.9 million of revenue bonds. Goldman Sachs. New York City, $888.6 million of general obligation bonds. J.P. Morgan Securities. New York Dormitory Authority, $371.9 million of revenue refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. New York Dormitory Authority, $58 million of Long Island University refinancing debt securities. Piper Jaffray. North Texas Tollway Authority, $135.9 million of system revenue refinancing bonds. J..P. Morgan Securities. Pennsylvania Economic Development Finance Authority, $1.2 billion of unemployment compensation revenue bonds. Bank of America. Pennsylvania Economic Development Finance Authority, $1.4 billion of unemployment compensation debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. Riverside County, Calif., $145 million of debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. San Diego Unified School District, $240 million of tax and revenue anticipation notes. Citigroup Global Markets.

Stocks and Bonds
Banking and Financial Institutions
Tax Credits Deductions and Exemptions


Challenges Await U.S. at Group of 20 Meeting

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Anyone wondering what President Obama will face when he arrives in South Korea on Wednesday for a global financial summit meeting need look no further than an announcement by China ’s leading state-endorsed rating agency, which downgraded the United States ’ credit rating on Tuesday — and provocatively questioned American leadership of the global economy. The agency cited the Federal Reserve ’s decision to pump more money into the United States economy and warned of Washington’s “deteriorating debt repayment capability” and “the serious defects in the United States economic development and management model,” which it predicted would lead to “fundamentally lowering the national solvency.” In the rest of the world, the United States is still the strongest of credit risks, and the Chinese downgrade is not expected to have much real impact. Nonetheless, the sharply worded attack from the country that is buying billions of dollars in American debt each month was just the latest rhetorical assault on the United States, as officials from China to Germany to Brazil suggest that Washington’s addiction to debt has greatly diminished its credibility. But those critics, mostly countries that fear that recent American policy will devalue the dollar and undercut their competitiveness, do not appear poised to offer an alternative to an economic order that has been led by the United States since the end of World War II, or to the role the dollar has played for decades as the de facto world gold standard. The Chinese, who have protested that the Federal Reserve is trying to unilaterally manipulate the dollar for the purpose of creating jobs at home, have been accused of doing exactly that for years — the root of many of the world’s economic tensions today, in the eyes of Mr. Obama and his economic aides. Germany’s blunt-speaking finance minister also accused the United States of Chinese-like currency manipulation. But Germany is one of the few competitive economies in the troubled euro zone, which includes countries like Ireland , Greece and Portugal , that are fighting to stave off national bankruptcy. The euro is hardly poised to become the global alternative to the dollar that many once envisioned. Even if there is no immediate rival to the United States as a monetary power, American officials acknowledge that Mr. Obama is going to have a far more difficult time winning any kind of consensus strategy out of the Group of 20 than he did during the first such meeting of his presidency, in London in 2009. “The world is more divided today than it was in London because nations not facing the prospect of a depression have that luxury,” said Lawrence H. Summers , who leaves the White House next month after two years as the head of the National Economic Council, and as Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser. “Part of a return to normalcy is that nations more strongly and disparately assert their immediate interests.” A senior administration official said that for all the talk of alternatives to the dollar, it remained the currency of choice. “People are still willing to loan money to the United States for 4 percent over 30 years,” the official said. “Investment choices are choices among alternatives and the United States remains a strong choice.” The nations gathering in Seoul , South Korea, this week to discuss global economic issues show few signs of sublimating their own interests to some greater good. “It’s become every country for itself,” said Jeffrey E. Garten of the Yale School of Management, who is participating in a meeting of business leaders in Seoul. “In letting domestic considerations so completely trump international considerations, the U.S. is reinforcing views in France and China, among others, that the entire monetary system is a political toy of a dysfunctional U.S. political system.” One hears versions of that around the world. “It would be more desirable for the U.S. to fix its own industries, fix its structure and become more competitive,” said Cho Gyeong-lyeob, an economist at the Korea Economic Research Institute, a research organization. “Instead, it chose the easy way out.” The “easy way out” he referred to was the Federal Reserve’s decision last week to flood $600 billion into the economy. The Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke , said the technique was the only tool remaining to push down interest rates and try to build demand, and with it the creation of jobs. But abroad, the move looks very different. From Europe to Asia , officials have been arguing that the Fed was simply enabling America’s dependence on debt-fueled growth, this time at the expense of other nations. If the Fed’s action devalues the dollar, as is widely expected, it will make the products of other countries less competitive. The emerging economies have some legitimate worries. If rates fall even further in the United States, investment is expected to flow to markets where returns are higher. Brazil and other nations are already warning of “asset bubbles” — rising prices for real estate and other investments — that could create conditions similar to those that led to the bust in the United States three years ago. They are considering taxes on incoming capital. “I see more risks and possibilities of global excesses in the decisions that have been made by the Fed than benefits,” Jean-Claude Junker, the chairman of a group that represents euro-zone finance ministers, said in Paris . That sentiment appears to be strengthening resistance to the United States as it pushes new solutions to address the financial imbalances that many economists believe threaten the stability of the global economy. Two weeks ago Mr. Obama’s Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner , suggested a new way of reducing the yawning gap between countries that are running huge export surpluses and those, including the United States, that run big deficits. He suggested a numerical target: trade surpluses should not exceed 4 percent of a nation’s gross domestic product. There was a near rebellion. The Chinese rejected a firm target. So did Angela Merkel , the German chancellor, who told The Financial Times on Monday that Mr. Geithner’s plan was “too narrowly conceived” and suggested that the core problem was a lack of competitiveness. “It’s not going to happen,” one senior European diplomat said of Mr. Geithner’s plan on Tuesday, “and the Americans know it.” Mr. Geithner still endorses the idea, but he seems to be scaling back. The lack of alternatives has also led to some novel suggestions, notably from Robert B. Zoellick , the president of the World Bank , who suggested this week that the world go back to tying currencies to gold — nearly 40 years after President Richard M. Nixon ended that linkage. His suggestion, like Mr. Geithner’s, was not exactly welcomed as a solution. Many economists said they suspected more cynical calculations at work in blaming the United States. China has almost certainly managed to deflect criticism away from its own practices; similarly, the Germans may have distracted European nations dissatisfied with how Germany, the largest European economic power, has dealt with its debt-laden, free-spending euro partners. Part of the problem is that as countries go their own way, they are each arguing that they are acting for the greater global good. When Britain slashed its budgets recently, its new government said that was the only way to restart growth and bring back the confidence of investors. Others around Europe are doing the same, arguing that a strong Europe is in the interest of the global economy. The Obama administration has gone in the opposite direction: deficit spending. Mr. Obama argued the other day that his No. 1 priority, for the good of the country and the world, was to restore growth quickly, and that European-style austerity programs would run the risk of putting more people out of work. And the Chinese have refused to let their currency appreciate in value, despite huge trade surpluses, saying they have to worry first about job creation and stability.

China
Federal Reserve
Germany
Angela Merkel
G20
US
US Dollar
US Economy
International trade
Barack Obama


Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army Out of Mosul

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Sunni militants spilling over the border from Syria on Tuesday seized control of the northern city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest, in the most stunning success yet in a rapidly widening insurgency that threatens to drag the region into war. Having consolidated control over Sunni-dominated Nineveh Province, armed gunmen were heading on the main road to Baghdad, Iraqi officials said, and had already taken over parts of Salahuddin Province. Thousands of civilians fled south toward Baghdad and east toward the autonomous region of Kurdistan, where security is maintained by a fiercely loyal army, the pesh merga. The Iraqi Army apparently crumbled in the face of the militant assault, as soldiers dropped their weapons, shed their uniforms for civilian clothes and blended in with the fleeing masses. The militants freed thousands of prisoners and took over military bases, police stations, banks and provincial headquarters, before raising the black flag of the jihadi group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria over public buildings. The bodies of soldiers, police officers and civilians lay scattered in the streets. “They took control of everything, and they are everywhere,” said one soldier who fled the city, and gave only his first name, Haidar. Image Insurgents seized military bases, police stations and provincial offices in Mosul on Tuesday, and soldiers offered little resistance. Credit Reuters The swift capture of large areas of the city by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria represented a climactic moment on a long trajectory of Iraq’s unraveling since the withdrawal of American forces at the end of 2011. The rising insurgency in Iraq seemed likely to add to the foreign policy woes of the Obama administration, which has faced sharp criticism for its swap of five Taliban officers for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and must now answer questions about the death of five Americans by friendly fire in Afghanistan on Monday night. Critics have long warned that America’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq, without leaving even a token force, invited an insurgent revival. The apparent role of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Tuesday’s attack helps vindicate those, among them the former ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, who have called for arming more moderate groups in the Syrian conflict. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered a state of emergency for the entire country and called on friendly governments for help, without mentioning the United States specifically. In Washington, the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statement that the United States was “deeply concerned about the events that have transpired in Mosul,” and that the Obama administration supported a “strong, coordinated response to push back this aggression.” The statement said the administration would provide “all appropriate assistance to the government of Iraq” and called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria “not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region.” Mosul was the last major urban area to be pacified by American troops, and when they left, the United States contended that Iraq was on the path to peace and democracy. Even as insurgents consolidated control of Mosul and surrounding Nineveh Province on Tuesday, they looked to other targets. They cut off a portion of the main highway that links the city with Baghdad, the capital, and secured villages near Kirkuk, a major city that is in dispute between Arabs and Kurds, according to security officials. For more than six months, the militants have maintained control of Falluja , in Iraq’s Sunni-Arab Anbar province, a city where hundreds of Americans died trying to crush an insurgency. While Falluja carries symbolic importance to the United States, the seizure of Mosul, a city of 1.4 million with a mix of ethnicities, sects and religions, is more ominous for the stability of Iraq. Iraqi Army Retakes Government Complex in Central Ramadi Efforts to stem the rise of the Islamic State. “It’s a shock,” said James Jeffrey, a former United States ambassador to Iraq. “It’s extremely serious. It’s far more serious than Falluja.” Mosul is a transportation hub for goods coming from Turkey and elsewhere. An important oil pipeline is nearby, carrying nearly 15 percent of the country’s oil flow to a port on the Turkish coast. The chaos in Mosul also illustrated how the violence in Iraq has increasingly merged with the civil war in Syria, as extremists now operate on both sides of the porous border. On Tuesday, local officials claimed that many of the fighters were jihadists who had come from the lawless frontier that divides Iraq and Syria, a region where they have increasingly operated with impunity even as President Bashar al-Assad has reclaimed ground lost to the insurgents elsewhere in Syria. Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi Parliament speaker, a Sunni from Mosul, called the fighting a “foreign invasion of Iraq, carried out by terrorist groups from different countries.” Image A Kurdish security officer stood guard as families fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul waited at a checkpoint near Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Credit Reuters The rout in Mosul was a humiliating defeat for Iraq’s security forces, led by Prime Minister Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government, and equipped and trained by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars. As the insurgency has gained strength over the last year, Mr. Maliki has been criticized for pursuing security policies that alienated ordinary Sunnis, such as sweeps that rounded up hundreds of men, innocent and guilty alike, and the arrest of the wives of suspected militants. Referring to the security forces in Mosul, Mr. Jeffrey, now a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, “they had lost the support of the people because they had a sectarian policy, and I saw it with my own eyes.” Highlighting the gravity of the situation, some of Iraq’s Shiite religious authorities in the holy city of Najaf issued statements Tuesday in support of the army, which is dominated by Shiites. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite spiritual leader in the world, emphasized his “support to the sons within the security forces.” A representative in Najaf for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, went further, urging Shiites to join the security forces. As audacious as the assault on Mosul was, it was not entirely surprising. Fighting had raged for days there, and in recent years, analysts say, militants had raised millions of dollars a month there through extortion and kidnapping. “ISIS has been targeting Mosul for two years,” said Jessica D. Lewis, research director at the Institute for the Study of War, referring to the militant group. Video Thousands of residents fled Mosul in northern Iraq after the city was seized by militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an extremist group. Credit Credit Uncredited/Associated Press Now, Mosul, which nearly became part of French-controlled Syria after World War I, when the allies redrew the map of the Middle East, could become an even more important base for the group as it pursues its stated goals of erasing the border with Syria and establishing an Islamic state that transcends both. Ayham Kamel, director of the Middle East and North Africa for the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm in Washington, said in an assessment emailed to clients that the militant group would “use cash reserves from Mosul’s banks, military equipment from seized military and police bases and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails to bolster its military and financial capability.” For Mr. Maliki, the violence in Mosul represents a significant political challenge as he tries to secure a third term as prime minister. His coalition won the most seats in Parliament in national elections in April, but not a majority, and he has been negotiating with other factions to form a new government. “This will raise serious questions about Maliki’s leadership,” said Mr. Jeffrey, adding, “The country has to figure out if it wants Maliki to continue as prime minister.” Image Families at a checkpoint west of Erbil, in the autonomous region of Kurdistan. Civilians from Mosul fled east into Kurdistan and south toward the capital, Baghdad, after Tuesday’s attack. Credit Safin Hamed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Mosul assault came in a week when Mr. Maliki’s government has been trying to beat back a surging militant offensive concentrated in central and northern Iraq. In the cities of Samarra and Ramadi, the militants have stormed police stations, government offices and even a university. On Saturday, car bombs killed scores of people across Baghdad in one of the deadliest coordinated attacks in weeks. After militants captured Falluja at the end of last year, the United States rushed guns, ammunition and Hellfire missiles to Iraq, but those seemed to make little difference. In some cases, the weapons were captured by insurgents in Anbar, and on Tuesday, it appeared that more American equipment had fallen into the hands of the militants, including American-made Humvees. The army responded to the rout on Tuesday by bombing at least one military base that had been captured by the militants, but there was no immediate sign of a broader offensive to reclaim the city. Early Tuesday morning, militants stormed the offices of the provincial governor and later in the day, dozens of army and police vehicles were burning in the streets, witnesses said. Residents said militants started moving into the city the night before, taking positions that had been abandoned by the army. Around 1 a.m., one resident, who gave his name as Abu Mustafa, left his home and found militants in sport utility vehicles, some dressed in jeans, others in Afghan-style clothing. Some, he said, spoke Arabic in accents other than Iraqi. “They greeted us, and when they saw that we were scared they said, ‘We are not here to fight you. Just stay away and do not interfere,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘We are here to fight Maliki’s army, not you.’ ” By nightfall on Tuesday, the city was calm, residents said, but there was no electricity, water supplies were running low and there was little fuel to run generators. The bodies of militants had been taken away for burial, but the corpses of security forces still lay in the streets.

Iraq
Mosul
Syria
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki
Terrorism
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


Spending More on Ads to Overcome a Slump

Abstract: Firehouse Subs is a 16-year-old restaurant chain based in Jacksonville, Fla. It emphasizes a firefighter theme and has more than 390 restaurants that serve specialty submarine sandwiches. THE CHALLENGE Facing declining sales throughout its system, the chain sought a new marketing strategy in the depths of the recession. THE BACKGROUND Robin and Chris Sorensen, brothers and former firefighters, opened their first Firehouse Subs restaurant in 1994. They emphasized their firefighter heritage by featuring red furnishings, colorful murals of firefighters in action and sandwiches like the hook-and-ladder sub. By 2001, the chain had grown to 30 company-owned restaurants in Florida and switched to a franchise model to expand into new markets. By early 2008, the company had expanded to 300 locations in 17 states, mostly in the South and Southeast. But then growth fizzled. That March, comparative sales for the entire system declined from the previous March. “In our entire history, we had never had a period like that when our entire system was running negative sales,” said Don Fox, the chief executive. “It was something completely foreign to us.” At the time, in addition to a 6 percent royalty, Firehouse Subs was collecting a 3 percent advertising fee from franchisees, including 2 percent for local advertising. As sales fell, the company’s executives grew dissatisfied with their advertising agency and started groping for a new strategy. But with no answers on hand, Robin Sorensen, the chairman, floated an unconventional suggestion: Why not give the local marketing dollars back to the stores? “Some people thought it was insane to give the money back,” Mr. Sorensen said. “We didn’t have an ego about who has this money. We want results. We could feel the onus on our shoulders. We’re the leadership team, and we’ve got to do something.” In a meeting with franchisees that June, the corporate leadership unveiled the new strategy: franchisees could keep the 2 percent of royalties that normally went to the local marketing fund. In return, franchisees were expected to do their own marketing. The company used the honor system, with no mechanism to verify that the local stores actually did any advertising. “It was something pretty radical,” Mr. Fox said. “I’m not aware of any franchiser ever taking that step, and I’ve been in the business 35 years.” But things only got worse. When the company stopped collecting marketing royalties in July 2008, comparative sales were off 3.4 percent from the previous July. By the end of 2008, systemwide sales were running 6 percent behind the previous year — far below the industry average, which was off 2 percent. “We didn’t feel our brand deserved this kind of disproportionate loss,” Mr. Fox said. In downturns, consumers often trade down to less expensive restaurants, and Firehouse Subs should have been positioned to capture some of these customers. For some reason, the chain was being bypassed. Its executives became convinced the problem stemmed from a lack of brand awareness. THE OPTIONS One option was to continue the local marketing efforts. But Firehouse had tried that for six months. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sorensen estimate that only about a third of their franchisees made meaningful efforts to market themselves. Another option was discounting, a common tactic to increase sales. But the leadership team quickly dismissed that. The chain’s gross margins were already modest compared with those of its competitors — the consequence, the leaders contended, of large portions, more expensive ingredients and low prices. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sorensen also rejected the idea of reducing portion sizes or using cheaper ingredients. So they turned to a new marketing campaign. “I knew our brand was stronger and deserved better than negative 6 percent,” Mr. Fox said. As the experiment with local advertising had failed, Firehouse Subs began looking for a new agency to handle the corporate account. It chose Zimmerman Advertising , which is based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and whose accounts include Papa John’s Pizza and Nissan. In its presentation, the agency promised an 8 percent increase in sales, a bold move in the grim economic climate of early 2009. But it would not come cheaply. To do a proper campaign, Zimmerman insisted that the company not only reclaim the 2 percent local marketing fee but double it, — asking franchisees to pay 4 percent. That would increase the combined royalty and advertising fees to 11 percent from the original 9 percent when most franchisees were struggling. At first, Mr. Sorensen balked. But when the ad agency laid out data showing that some competing chains were spending more on advertising per store, he began to change his mind. Subway franchisees, for example, pay an 8 percent royalty and a 4.5 percent advertising fee; Quiznos franchisees pay a 7 percent royalty and a 4 percent advertising fee, according to those companies. Firehouse hired Zimmerman to do a test campaign in three cities. Zimmerman developed a creative campaign and radio ads that emphasized the food and the portion sizes, but offered no discounts. The agency used the Sorensen brothers as spokesmen. The slogan: “Our way beats their way. If you don’t agree, it’s free.” In June 2009, the corporate executives made the case for “investment spending” at the annual meeting with franchisees. Firehouse and Zimmerman showed results from the three test markets. Augusta, Ga., Jacksonville, and Knoxville, Tenn., had all had double-digit sales increases after the test campaign. Franchisees were allowed to vote on whether to take part in the new marketing program in their markets. About two-thirds of franchisees agreed to pay the 4 percent marketing fee. The ad program ran only in markets where all franchisees agreed. Those who did not agree paid the 2 percent fee. With a new marketing war chest, Firehouse Subs and Zimmerman started an $8 million advertising campaign in September 2009. WHAT OTHER OWNERS SAY Other business owners with similar experiences were asked to comment. Kevin Reddy , chief executive of Noodles & Company , a chain of fast food restaurants based in Broomfield, Colo.: “I would commend Firehouse for investing in their system long-term through a brand-building campaign focused on differentiation, not short-term discounting or reducing food quality. Although I favor the long-term approach, it puts greater pressure on the near-term financial results of the campaign.” Bob Fiddler , founder of the Fiddler Group , a brand development firm in Annapolis, Md.: “The right call? Absolutely. And a brave one, too. It’s not easy to go to your franchisees and ask for more money, especially when times are tough. Most franchisers take the easy road, discounting to drive a little extra traffic and keep their franchisees happy.” Burton D. Cohen , managing director of a franchise consulting firm, a retired senior vice president and chief franchising officer for McDonald’s, and an adjunct professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University: “Allowing the franchisees to do their own local marketing is generally a good idea if there is a monitoring mechanism in place, and if the franchiser provides guidance, expertise and creative support. This did not happen here, and the franchisees were left to fend for themselves. They either didn’t spend the money, or spent it ineffectively. The new advertising agency filled that gap, confirming that Firehouse waited too long to change agencies.” THE RESULTS On the You’re the Boss blog at nytimes.com/boss , you can offer your own thoughts on Firehouse’s strategy. Next week, on the blog and in this space, we will tell you how the strategy has worked out.

Restaurants
Small Business
Advertising and Marketing
Jacksonville (Fla)


In N.F.L Opener, Tom Brady Gets Another Victory, This One on the Field

Abstract: FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Amid all the accusations, innuendo and speculation about Tom Brady and whether he was part of a supposed scheme to deflate footballs in last year’s A.F.C. championship game, few doubted his throwing skills. Brady called the eight-month dispute “mentally draining,” which is not surprising because he had to leave training camp twice to appear in federal court in Manhattan, where a judge ultimately overturned his four-game suspension by the N.F.L. That allowed Brady to face the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night in the season opener and show that despite the distractions, he remains perhaps the best quarterback in the league. Though the New England Patriots ’ offense was rusty in spots, Brady found his groove in the second quarter, throwing two scoring passes to tight end Rob Gronkowski, much to the delight of the sold-out crowd at Gillette Stadium. Image A Patriots fan carrying a sign referring to Commissioner Roger Goodell. Credit Maddie Meyer/Getty Images Brady connected with seven receivers, completing 25 of 32 passes for 288 yards and four touchdowns as the Patriots beat the Steelers, 28-21. Late in the game, Gronkowski capped New England’s scoring with his third touchdown catch. At one point, Brady completed 19 consecutive passes, a franchise record. “It was a pretty special night,” Brady said about the excitement of playing after a rocky off-season. “I love being out there with my teammates playing.” Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, as is his fashion, declined to discuss the emotion of the game. Asked how it felt to have Brady on the field, Belichick said he was happy that the team scored 28 points. The Steelers did not go quietly. Ben Roethlisberger made several spectacular passes to Antonio Brown, who finished with 133 yards, and running back DeAngelo Williams ran for 127 yards on 21 carries. Image The Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger warming up. Credit Charles Krupa/Associated Press But Josh Scobee missed two field goals, and several penalties slowed Steelers drives, including a false start near the Patriots’ goal line on a drive that ended with a field goal. The game and Brady’s sterling performance overshadowed what had transpired over the past eight months. The fiasco included the Patriots’ owner, Robert K. Kraft, lashing out at the league office; the league vowing to appeal the district court judge’s decision; and Brady and Belichick being accused of skirting rules to gain an advantage. The seemingly endless storm led Scott Fujita, the former linebacker who is now a commentator, to write on Twitter , “Serious question: Has the off-field drama in & around the N.F.L. become more interesting to you than actual football?” On Thursday night, the answer seemed to be yes and no. In a normal year, the game would be enough of a marquee matchup to warrant national attention. The Patriots and the Steelers, after all, are two of the most successful N.F.L. teams in the past decade. But with all the scrutiny on the Patriots, the game had an air of the surreal. How would the Patriot celebrate their latest championship? How would Brady perform? Would football fans outside New England continue to question the Patriots’ motives? Everything about the Patriots appeared ripe for mockery. After Gronkowski spiked the ball after scoring one of his touchdowns, fans on Twitter joked that he may have deflated the ball by throwing it to the ground. Suspicions were aroused when reports surfaced during the game that the Steelers’ coaches at one point heard the Patriots’ radio broadcast in their headsets. (The headsets used by the Patriots’ coaches also had problems.) To the legion of Patriots fans who stood by Brady this off-season, the suspicions were merely a plot by detractors jealous of the team’s success. The game was an affirmation of their support. Image Gillette Stadium before the game. Credit Maddie Meyer/Getty Images Many fans rose to their feet about 50 minutes before kickoff, when Brady ran onto the field pumping his fists. They cheered again when Belichick was shown on the stadium’s video board. And they rose to their feet in unison when the team’s four Super Bowl banners and trophies were unveiled on the field before the game. A team spokesman said that had Brady been serving his suspension, the Patriots would have unveiled a Brady banner as well. The fight involving Brady, the Patriots and the N.F.L. turned so toxic that Commissioner Roger Goodell — who traditionally attends the season opener — chose to watch the game at home. Had he been here, he might have bumped into two of Brady’s guests: DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the N.F.L. Players’ Association, and Jeffrey L. Kessler, the lawyer who defended Brady. During the fourth quarter, fans chanted, “Where is Roger?” in reference to Goodell. Patriots fans feel vindicated. Rob Luzzi, who owns Sports and More, a sports memorabilia shop in East Greenwich, R.I., said he had done a brisk business in the off-season selling photos of Brady holding up the Super Bowl trophy. Image Luke and Andrew Sheridan of Hanover, Mass., at a preseason game last week with signs referring to Judge Richard M. Berman, who threw out Tom Brady’s suspension. Credit Stephan Savoia/Associated Press “People here are so defiant and sick of it, they buy it to make a point,” he said. “It makes fans a little more rabid now that football’s back.” Al Michaels, who called the game for NBC Sports, said before the game, “After this whole season of craziness and headlines having very little to do with anything that takes place on the field itself, there almost seems to be, in a wild and wacky way, even more interest in football going into the season, because a lot of people who only tangentially follow the sport want to know what in the world is going on with this thing.” The deflation controversy has inverted the football world so much that some of Brady’s biggest rivals have come to his defense. Richard Sherman, an outspoken cornerback with the Seattle Seahawks, was happy that Brady was back on the field. “It’s just guys getting justice, guys not being persecuted for things they didn’t do, getting a fair trial of sorts,” Sherman said. “A lot of times in this league, it’s guilty until proven innocent sometimes. And it’s good to see guys be able to get a fair trial. Unfortunately, it had to go so long. But it is what it is.” If the Seahawks meet the Patriots again the Super Bowl, Sherman might rethink his support. As it stands, despite all the distractions this off-season, the Patriots remain the team to beat in their division, if not their conference. The Patriots, along with the Packers and the Seahawks, have the best odds to win Super Bowl 50, according to MyTopSportsbooks.com.


An Elusive Line Between ‘Obnoxious’ Dishonesty and the Criminal Kind

Abstract: WASHINGTON In February, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that federal prosecutors had developed an unseemly crush on a particularly vague law, one that had “been invoked to impose criminal penalties upon a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.” Justice Scalia was writing to protest the Supreme Court ’s decision not to hear an appeal from three city officials in Chicago who had been convicted of violating the law, which makes it a crime “to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” If you can make sense of that phrase, you have achieved something that has so far eluded the nation’s appeals courts. “How can the public be expected to know what the statute means when the judges and prosecutors themselves do not know, or must make it up as they go along?” Judge Dennis Jacobs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, asked in a 2003 dissent. The “honest services” law, Justice Scalia explained, says that “officeholders and employees owe a duty to act only in the best interests of their constituents and employers.” Carried to its logical extreme, he said, “it would seemingly cover a salaried employee’s phoning in sick to go to a ballgame.” The Chicago officials had overseen a system that doled out jobs based on patronage and nepotism rather than merit. Such a system is neither ideal nor unusual, and the defendants were not accused of violating state criminal laws or of lining their own pockets in the process. Justice Scalia’s dissent, which was vigorous even by his own muscular standards, seems to have had an impact. In the following months, the Supreme Court agreed to hear not one but two cases exploring the scope of the honest services law. One involves Conrad M. Black , the newspaper executive convicted of defrauding his media company, Hollinger International. The law, as interpreted by many courts, makes it a crime for officials of private companies to put their own interests ahead of those of their employers. (The appeals court decision affirming Mr. Black’s conviction, by Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, contained perhaps the best judicial digression of 2008. Discussing a so-called ostrich jury instruction, Judge Posner paused to say that ostriches do not in fact bury their heads in the sand. “It is pure legend and a canard on a very distinguished bird,” he wrote.) The second case concerns a former Alaska legislator named Bruce Weyhrauch, who failed to disclose that he was soliciting work from a company with business before the Legislature. As in the Chicago case, the conduct may not have been pretty, but it did not violate a state criminal law. Critics of the honest services law say it has two essential flaws. It allows federal prosecutors vast discretion “to go after people they don’t like or people they disagree with politically,” said Julie Rose O’Sullivan, who teaches criminal law at Georgetown. The second problem, said George D. Brown, a specialist in government ethics at Boston College Law School, is that prosecutions of state officials under the federal law may violate fundamental principles of federalism. “It represents a federal judgment that you can’t trust the states,” Professor Brown said. The honest services law is but one example of what Harvey A. Silverglate, a civil liberties lawyer in Boston, calls “an over-criminalization problem.” His new book, “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” argues that the average American professional unwittingly commits several serious crimes each day. “Even the most intelligent and informed citizen (including lawyers and judges, for that matter),” Mr. Silverglate writes, “cannot predict with any reasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinary activities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies.” The Justice Department, of course, sees the matter entirely differently. In its Supreme Court brief in Mr. Black’s case, the government said the honest services law has an important role to play in attacking frauds that do not involve the loss of money or property but something intangible like candor or loyalty. In Mr. Weyhrauch’s case, the government said that requiring proof of a violation of a state law would result in a patchwork of legal standards under a single federal law. Federal appeals courts have tried to impose limiting principles on the law. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, requires proof that a state law was violated before the federal law kicks in. But the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, rejected that limitation in Mr. Weyhrauch’s case. The Seventh Circuit has imposed a different limiting principle. It requires proof of “private gain,” a principle rejected by the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia. But the “private gain” limitation was of no help to the defendants in the Chicago patronage case, who apparently gained nothing. The fact that the people who got jobs gained something was enough. As the Seventh Circuit put it in 2005, “a participant in a scheme to defraud is guilty even if he is an altruist and all the benefits of the fraud accrue to other participants.” The bottom line, Justice Scalia said in February, is that the courts have not been able to define what separates “the criminal breaches, conflicts and misstatements from the obnoxious but lawful ones.” The honest services law, he said, “invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state legislators and corporate C.E.O.’s who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically questionable conduct.” “It seems to me quite irresponsible to let the current chaos prevail,” Justice Scalia wrote. By the end of this term, we should know whether the Supreme Court can straighten things out.

Supreme Court
Politics and Government
Frauds and Swindling
Hollinger Inc
Black Conrad M


Abortion in New York - Easy Access, Complex Everything Else

Abstract: Congratulations, New York City , did you hear the news? Fire-and-brimstone predictions from across the country have been confirmed. This is officially the abortion capital of America. A health department report released last month proves it: about 40 percent of all pregnancies in the city end that way, an average of about 90,000 a year in recent years. No one is exactly celebrating the title. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and a group of multidenominationally horrified clergy condemned the statistics this month. Even abortion rights advocates expressed some concern about the numbers, trying to change the conversation to a broader one on reproductive health. As for ordinary citizens, many just wondered: Really? That many? Abortion is complicated, even in its capital city. Perhaps especially so: New Yorkers seeking to terminate a pregnancy can choose from more kinds of procedures at more kinds of facilities with fewer obstacles — and more ways to pay — than just about any place else. Women can get abortions in private doctors’ offices, at public hospitals or at clinics, some of which do not require an appointment. “They say, ‘I need help,’ ” said a doctor who works at one community health clinic. “ ‘What should I do? Where can you send me?’ And I say, I don’t need to send you anywhere. We can do that here.” Specifically, doctors can administer the combination of pills that, when taken before the ninth week of pregnancy, produce what is known as a medical (rather than a surgical) abortion. Things can move very quickly. Within an hour of her arrival at that doctor’s office, a patient obtaining that procedure might sign a consent form, make arrangements for the $375 fee — covered by most insurance — and take the first dose of medication. She would leave the office with four more pills to be taken later, a prescription for pain medication and the doctor’s personal cellphone number, in case of questions. “I’m old enough to remember pre-Roe-v-Wade days,” the doctor said. “A little bit of inconvenience for me is nothing compared to what people used to go through.” The name of the doctor so committed to her patients? She spoke on the condition it not be mentioned. Nor that of the community health center where she works. Though the clinic advertises its services, it is wary of unwelcome publicity. Abortion is complicated, even in its capital city. New York has always been at the forefront of reproductive choice, from a 19th-century industry of sometimes dubious tinctures to an underground abortion network organized by local clergy in 1967 . It was the home base of Margaret Sanger, the mother of American family planning. Abortion was permitted in New York State long before the 1973 Supreme Court decision — whose anniversary was Saturday — made it legal nationwide. Unlike many other places, New York has not passed laws limiting access to abortions. Patients do not have to return to the clinic on two separate days. They do not have to be told about what the fetus will experience, or have to look at the fetus on a monitor or have the procedure narrated to them in real time. Teenagers do not need parental consent. In many other parts of the country, doctors who want to perform surgical abortions have to go out of their way to learn how. In New York, such training is a standard part of the curriculum for obstetric and gynecological residents. So instead of quarantining abortion into special clinics, many doctors offer it as part of a menu of services. In New York, unlike in most states, Medicaid covers abortion. (In 2009, counselors at Planned Parenthood ’s four clinics across the city helped more than 6,800 patients who were eligible to sign up for that program.) Finally, New York’s public hospitals are unusual for being under the control of the mayor. Just try to get elected mayor of New York without demonstrating clear support for abortion rights. All of these circumstances have combined to make New York something of a magnet — for doctors who wish to practice without restrictions, for women who want to live in an atmosphere of sexual self-determination and even for out-of-towners who want to end a pregnancy without stigma, without hassle or just without bumping into their neighbor on the way into the clinic. In 2009, 8 percent of the abortions performed across the city were for patients who live elsewhere. In addition to everything else, our abortion industry may function as something of a tourist attraction. The vast majority of abortions in New York — 88 percent — take place in the first 12 weeks. All but 2 percent take place in the first 20. After that, women’s options narrow. It’s far too late for pills, and too late for most OB-GYNS. So, many women are referred to specialists like Dr. Robert Berg, who occupy the outer edge of New York’s abortion landscape, terminating pregnancies up to the legal limit of 24 weeks after conception. The procedure costs about $15,000, some of which is typically covered by insurance, and starts in his office, where he dilates the patient’s cervix to approximate the effects of labor. He describes the process as “quite unpleasant.” A day or two later, in an operating room at NYU Langone Medical Center, Dr. Berg removes the fetus, either intact, using his hands, or “destructively,” using medical instruments. Dr. Berg tries to avoid getting emotional about his work. But his patients are in a different position. “An 18-year-old girl who forgets her birth control and comes to you at six or seven weeks of pregnancy is not such an emotional thing,” he said. “The 41-year-old who’s been trying for seven years to get pregnant, then at 21 weeks she finds out she has breast cancer and has to terminate the pregnancy, that’s a much bigger deal.” As a result, Dr. Berg said, some patients seeking late-term abortions are “hostile to me, they’re hostile to my office staff.” “I’m just a punching bag,” he added. “I don’t do well with that. Sometimes they won’t even look at me the day of the procedure; they won’t speak to me. That I despise. I really hate that. “They were referred to me because I do it safely and expeditiously,” the doctor continued. “To be treated like garbage — and my staff — is really very upsetting.” Abortion is complicated, even in New York.


3G Capital, Warren Buffett’s Favorite Partner in Deals Worth Billions

Abstract: Warren E. Buffett has made a habit of criticizing ruthless Wall Street bankers and rapacious private equity firms over the years. As recently as last month, he railed against both in his annual letter to his shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway. Yet for Mr. Buffett, a genteel billionaire who has managed to put a friendly face on big business, one private equity firm stands apart from the rest. 3G Capital, the Brazilian private equity firm co-founded by the billionaire financier Jorge Paulo Lemann, has in recent years emerged as Mr. Buffett’s preferred business partner in striking multibillion-dollar deals. On Wednesday, 3G and Berkshire Hathaway teamed up to orchestrate a merger between Kraft, the big processed food maker, and Heinz, which the two companies own. Combining the companies will create a global food and beverage behemoth worth nearly $100 billion. The deal comes just two years after 3G and Berkshire Hathaway acquired Heinz for $23 billion. And last year, Mr. Buffett lent $3 billion to 3G when another of its companies, Burger King, acquired the Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons. In that case, Mr. Buffett essentially provided the leverage for a leveraged buyout. The success of these deals has resulted in 3G and Mr. Buffett publicly proclaiming their mutual affection for each other. On Wednesday, 3G’s managing partner, Alex Behring, sang the praises of Mr. Buffett while discussing the merger of Heinz and Kraft in a call with investors. “This partnership has been a key driving factor in Heinz’s enormous success to date and will be a key driving factor in the success of the Kraft Heinz Company,” he said. “Berkshire is a name that needs no introduction.” Video Following the merger of Kraft Foods and H. J. Heinz, the billionaire Warren E. Buffett said that the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital would hold on to their investment. Credit Credit CNBC Mr. Buffett, speaking on CNBC on Wednesday, was equally effusive about his Brazilian partners. “I knew they were wonderful going into the Heinz deal,” Mr. Buffett said. “In terms of ability, in terms of integrity, every aspect of it. 3G has been a perfect partner.” Yet in many ways, 3G follows the very private equity playbook that Mr. Buffett derides. 3G is known for its relentless cost-cutting and job elimination when it takes over a company. Shortly after 3G and Berkshire acquired Heinz, 11 of the top 12 managers at Heinz were replaced. Since the deal was completed, 7,000 employees have been dismissed. When 3G took over Burger King, it sold the company jet, scrapped an annual $1 million party at an Italian villa and moved executives at the company’s Miami offices from mahogany suites to an open floor of cubicles. “When they first arrive, it can be pretty ugly for the people working there,” said Cristiane Correa, who wrote a book about 3G called “Dream Big.” “Their mind-set is: If it doesn’t generate any revenue, why are we spending money on that?” What is different about 3G is that like Mr. Buffett, 3G professes to be a long-term owner of the businesses it buys. Since assembling the brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev and acquiring Burger King and Heinz, the Brazilian firm has shown no signs of trying to sell the companies. Instead, they are being used as platforms to strike more deals. “3G aren’t buying things to sell,” Mr. Buffett said. “The other private equity firms, they buy companies with the idea of I.P.O.-ing them or selling them to a competitor.” But with 3G, Mr. Buffett argued, “I don’t think it’s even proper to call them a private equity firm.” Instead, “They’re buying to keep, just like we’re buying to keep,” Mr. Buffett said. “You can’t put them in the same category of the firms that are basically in the category of buying and reselling companies.” Mr. Behring reiterated that 3G was buying with an aim to hold, following a template that has worked for Mr. Buffett in more than 50 years in business. Brazilian Investor 3G Capital’s Big Food Deals With deals involving Burger King, Kraft and the company behind Budweiser, 3G Capital and one of its backers, Jorge Paulo Lemann, have become powerhouses in the world of food brands. “Both Berkshire and 3G Capital are long-term-oriented investors with shared vision and common values,” he said. “Both Berkshire and 3G look for strong, enduring brands, and they seek to build and grow these brands through both meaningful operational improvements and a focus on execution.” For all its trophy assets and its enormous success, 3G remains relatively unknown, even its home country. “They are by far the most successful story in terms of entrepreneurship in Brazil,” Ms. Correa said. “They were not really known in Brazil until five or six years ago. They are really low profile.” Mr. Lemann, a co-founder of the firm, graduated from Harvard in the 1961 and returned to Brazil to begin a career in finance. A former Brazilian tennis champion, he once played at Wimbledon. As a young man, he built a small brokerage firm into Banco de Investimentos Garantia, which emerged as one of Brazil’s largest investment banks. Then, in 1998, he sold the firm to Credit Suisse for about $675 million. (3G is short for “3 from Garantia,” named after Mr. Lemann and the firm’s other two co-founders.) With the proceeds from that sale, Mr. Lemann and his business partners began building up their portfolio of breweries, eventually creating AmBev, which later acquired Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser and other beers. Now 75, Mr. Lemann has handed over daily operations of 3G to a handful of trusted associates, including Mr. Behring. Mr. Buffett met Mr. Lemann decades ago, when the two served together on the board at Gillette. Since then, the two men have grown close. Now, investors and analysts are already looking ahead to the next deal Mr. Buffett and 3G might strike together. “There is no finish line,” Ms. Correa said. “I think there are going to be many more.”

Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway
3G Capital Management
Mergers and Acquisitions


Con Edison and Locked-Out Union to Talk Thursday

Abstract: Consolidated Edison and its biggest union made progress on Monday toward getting back to bargaining, one day after the utility company locked out 8,000 workers and sent managers and contractors into the field to keep electricity flowing throughout sweltering New York City. Representatives of both sides agreed to meet on Thursday with federal mediators in hopes of restarting negotiations on a new contract for Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America. They were urged to reconcile by several elected officials, including the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, just hours after a supervisor burned his head while repairing equipment in a substation in Brooklyn. Union officials quickly cited the accident as the sort of trouble that would inevitably occur with less-experienced people maintaining a sprawling network of cables, switches and wires that serve 3.2 million customers in the city and Westchester County. But a Con Ed spokesman, Michael Clendenin, said the injuries were minor and could have happened to any of its workers. Mr. Clendenin said company representatives hoped on Thursday to persuade the workers to return while negotiations resumed. But he said union officials would have to agree to give warning before walking off the job so the company would not be caught unprepared and be forced to send managers back out to replace them. That demand led to the lockout, about 2 a.m. on Sunday, and still appears to be a sticking point. Local 1-2’s president, Harry Farrell, had stayed at the negotiating table past the midnight expiration of the last four-year contract, instead of immediately calling a strike. “His considered opinion was that they had shown enough progress that he felt that they could get it done,” said John Melia, a spokesman for the local. Two federal mediators attended the talks over the weekend, and the union asked them to come back on Thursday to help clear the obstacles to another round of negotiations, Mr. Melia said. That plan could appease Ms. Quinn and other city officials, like the comptroller, John C. Liu, and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. Without taking sides in the dispute, each of them called on the company and the union to head off widespread problems that could be caused by a lack of manpower. In a letter to Mr. Farrell and Kevin M. Burke, the chief executive of Con Ed, Ms. Quinn called on the company to end the lockout and for the union to agree to provide notice before striking. “As you both know, when the power goes out and air-conditioning and lights go off, it is often the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and chronically ill, that suffer, with often serious consequences,” Ms. Quinn wrote. On Monday, as the heat wave broke, Con Ed’s system had only scattered, small power failures.

New York City
Utility Workers Union of America
Lockouts
Consolidated Edison Inc
Organized Labor
Arbitration Conciliation and Mediation


Fingers Pointed at Dolan and Iger in Disney-Cablevision Talks

Abstract: The distribution spat between The Walt Disney Company and Cablevision started to look more like a spat between two chief executives on Friday, a day before Cablevision’s contract to carry the ABC station in New York City was set to expire. Meanwhile, viewers who faced the prospect of missing the Academy Awards on Sunday seemed to split their scorn in equal portions between the two companies. “Why do we have to be subjected to this fight?” asked Jami Lieberman, a Cablevision subscriber in Searingtown, N. Y. Cablevision serves about three million customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Disney owns ABC. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake in the negotiations over a new contract. Disney wants up to $1 a subscriber a month from Cablevision for programming from the station, WABC, which is available free over the airwaves. Cablevision has offered an undisclosed fraction of that. The current agreement expires late Saturday night. Demands by broadcasters for so-called retransmission payments are becoming more prevalent. But this dispute is becoming especially bitter. As negotiations stalled this week, Cablevision called on Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger , to “stop holding his own viewers hostage” and publicly cited his salary and bonus as evidence that the company was being greedy. Incensed at what they deemed unfair combat, executives at Disney headquarters in Burbank, Calif., grew more resolute. On Friday afternoon, Cablevision again aimed at Mr. Iger, saying in a statement, “We call on Bob Iger to stop holding his own viewers hostage, end his threats to pull the plug on ABC at midnight and instead work with us to reach a fair agreement.” The statement added, “The switch is in Bob Iger’s hands.” A station manager for WABC later issued a statement, calling it an “insult to Cablevision customers” that the cable provider was “personally attacking Disney executives.” The statement pointed to the Cablevision chief executive, James L. Dolan , and his “family dynasty,” saying if they have “any regard at all for the millions of customers who pay hard-earned dollars for their service, they will order their troops to stop slinging mud and start cutting a deal.” Depriving viewers of the Oscars would hurt both companies, of course. Disputes like this one usually come down to the wire, but programming is rarely interrupted. Still, it has created stress for viewers — and opportunity for Cablevision competitors like Verizon and DirecTV, which have put into motion their own aggressive marketing plans to pick up customers. In an interview, Ms. Lieberman said she called Cablevision’s cancellation line repeatedly on Thursday, on different phone lines, and found that her call was either put on hold or disconnected each time. A call to the new-subscriber line was connected immediately, she said.

New York City
WABC
Disney Walt Co
Cablevision Systems Corp
Television
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Iger Robert A
Dolan James L
ABC Inc


Groups Unite to Push for More Conservative G.O.P. Platform at Convention

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A coalition of prominent social conservatives is banding together in an effort to nudge the Republican platform further to the right at the party’s convention next month. The organizations involved include those that have been front and center in the culture wars over abortion and same-sex marriage like the Family Research Council Action , the March for Life and Concerned Women for America . Tony Perkins , president of the Family Research Council and a platform committee delegate from Louisiana, said that while he expects the Republican Party to “remain committed to the core values of life, marriage, family and religious freedom,” there are new questions that need to be addressed because they have arisen in the four years since the platform was last revised. The 2012 platform, many Republicans believe, was one of the most conservative on record. Over the last four years, a number of issues have surfaced that social conservatives say they want to see included in the platform. Those include the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the passage of religious liberty legislation that allows businesses to refuse certain civil rights protections to gay and lesbian couples, as well as the recent debate over transgender rights. Mr. Perkins said he also expects the platform to contain an explicit call to abolish the federal Department of Education. A statement by the members of the newly formed coalition, which will include other platform committee delegates from Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma, said they will have “a strong policy presence in Cleveland to assist and advise delegates who are coalition members on a variety of public policy matters and platform committee procedures.” The platform will be drafted and made final in the week before the July 18-21 Republican convention in Ohio.

Abortion
2016 Presidential Election
Republican National Convention,RNC
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage


What Jab? Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Move Past a Disagreement Over Uber

Abstract: They shared an aside in hushed tones, the mayor bending down to her ear. She wore a blue suit; he wore a bluish tie — a sartorial likeness that made them look as if they were headed to prom. And when Melissa Mark-Viverito, New York’s City Council speaker, went way off message at a news conference Monday — talking about the anatomy of the 94-foot fiberglass model of a whale that hung above — Mayor Bill de Blasio laughed in stride. In short, the two Democrats seemed to have moved past Ms. Mark-Viverito’s public rebuke last week of Mr. de Blasio, whom she accused of trying to “save face at the expense of this Council” after he and his administration backed away from placing a cap on the car-hailing service Uber, while failing to give the Council credit for the negotiations. It was their first public appearance together since Ms. Mark-Viverito’s uncharacteristic jab at the mayor. The news conference, at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, was to announce that more than 400,000 New Yorkers now have municipal identification cards, known as IDNYC cards . The program is intended to give undocumented residents a form of identification with the added perk of one-year memberships to more than 30 cultural institutions, including the museum. But much of the attention on Monday was focused on the state of Mr. de Blasio’s relationships — with Ms. Mark-Viverito and a more persistent foe, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The mayor explained that his friendship with the speaker was very much intact. He sought to differentiate the relationship he has with Ms. Mark-Viverito, which he described as a “respectful, honest relationship,” from the one he has with Mr. Cuomo, which he said “is obviously a very different reality based on different experiences.” “Have you heard of the concept of apples and oranges?” Mr. de Blasio said. Though Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo’s relationship had been fragile, their political partnership appeared to be irreparably damaged last month when the mayor accused the governor of “game-playing” and acting out of revenge. The mayor was frustrated by Mr. Cuomo’s blocking rent-regulation changes and long-term mayoral control of schools. Mr. de Blasio and Ms. Mark-Viverito, who met privately on Friday, were cordial and readily shared their mutual admiration for each other at the news conference on Monday. “We obviously have some very, very similar views of the world,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I think that’s part of why we’ve had such a strong partnership over the last year and a half. So, we talk all the time and I think I’m very proud to say we’ve gotten a lot done together.” Ms. Mark-Viverito said the two had a “good working relationship.” “Effective governance is being able to collaborate and being able to be clear about your positions,” she said. On whether the city had not ruled out a cap on the number of for-hire vehicles Uber operates in New York, as Mr. de Blasio said, the two seemed to agree to disagree. Mr. de Blasio said an agreed-upon four-month study period that will be applied to Uber “means exactly what it says.” “At the end of that study period,” he said, “we can resolve issues amicably and create the kind of balance we need.” He added, “Nothing says that the City Council can’t go back and look at that option if they’re dissatisfied with what happens at the end of that process.” Ms. Mark-Viverito said the Council would “continue to have conversations internally as a Council and explore all options.” The tone was lighter when Ms. Mark-Viverito, apparently distracted by the whale, recalled how the model, suspended from the ceiling in the Hall of Ocean Life, had to have its anatomy corrected years ago. “The belly button area, O.K.?” she said. And when Mr. de Blasio struggled to remember when they met, Ms. Mark-Viverito laughed. “We’ve known each other,” he said, trying to remember the date without finishing his sentence. “Did you run in ’03 originally or ’05? ’03.” After the event, Ms. Mark-Viverito went to an Association for a Better New York luncheon, where Mr. Cuomo, joined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., announced a $4 billion renovation of La Guardia Airport . Mr. de Blasio did not attend. Asked why, Mr. de Blasio said he thought it was an Association for a Better New York event, which he attends only “when I’m speaking.” He said it did not mean he was not invited. “It means that an event like that is the kind of event that I go to when I am doing exactly what the governor will be doing — when I have something to announce.”

Uber
Melissa Mark-Viverito
Bill de Blasio
Museum
NYC
ID
Car Service
Illegal Immigration
Andrew Cuomo


Knicks Get Past the Magic, but It Hurts

Abstract: ORLANDO — The Knicks were not, by all appearances, in a good place when they arrived here to play the Magic on Monday. Before the team’s morning shootaround at Amway Center, Carmelo Anthony talked about quiet conversations with teammates, about players who seemed distracted, about the endless search for solutions. He even used the phrase “mental status” — a new one amid a season that has featured staples like “trying to figure it out” and “I don’t know.” Their season has been a disaster of such cinematic proportions that even their victories are laden with bad breaks. So perhaps it was entirely appropriate that the Knicks would escape with a 103-98 win as two of their starters limped off the court with injuries. Anthony sprained his left ankle early in the third quarter when he landed on Tobias Harris’s foot. Anthony removed himself from the game and briefly sat on the bench before hobbling to the locker room. He sounded optimistic that he would be able to play Wednesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder. “I don’t want to miss that game,” said Anthony, who led the Knicks with 19 points in just 24 minutes. “The good thing is I’m able to walk with a little bit of pain.” Anthony, who missed two games after spraining his left ankle last season, watched the fourth quarter on a television in the locker room. He soon had company. Raymond Felton strained his groin after sitting out six games with an injured hamstring. He said he felt a pop. “Pray for us,” Felton said. “I’m serious.” Anthony and Felton both said they would be re-evaluated Tuesday morning, further congesting the trainer’s room. Pablo Prigioni (toe), Kenyon Martin (strained abdominal) and Metta World Peace, who announced he would be undergoing platelet-rich plasma therapy on his left knee early next month, did not play against the Magic. Mike Woodson looked as if he needed a spa retreat. “We fought today,” he said. “I applaud our guys.” If there was one thing the Knicks (9-18) had going for them before the game, it was their opponent. The Magic (8-20) are young and vulnerable, a soft mattress upon which countless other teams have thrown themselves when they need a break from the rigors of the N.B.A. schedule. Though the Knicks did not win so much as survive — the Magic took a pair of garden shears to the Knicks’ 25-point lead, cutting it to 1 early in the fourth quarter — they did reveal glimpses of atypical play: good passing, decent defense and solid chemistry, at least for a while, at least until Anthony went out. Image Carmelo Anthony had 19 points before being sidelined. Raymond Felton was also injured. Credit John Raoux/Associated Press The Knicks have grown increasingly reliant on Anthony, who has led the team in scoring every game this season. He entered Monday averaging a league-high 41.3 minutes per game, and he has consistently produced for a team in dire need of points, rebounds, group therapy — anything and everything. Monday’s game was another indication of his importance. The Knicks were leading, 72-52, when he left the game, and they looked lost without him. The Magic pounded the ball inside and hacked away at the lead with frightening efficiency, trimming it from 20 to 15, from 10 to 5. “All teams make runs,” Woodson said, “and they made a hell of a run.” After a quiet first half, Andrea Bargnani unearthed his shooting stroke at an opportune time, canning consecutive jumpers. Iman Shumpert followed with a steal and a layup for a 97-91 lead, and later made a terrific defensive play on Glen Davis to prevent an open-court layup. “Huge plays,” Bargnani said. The last time the Knicks faced the Magic, on Dec. 6, they ran away with a 121-83 victory — one night after obliterating the Nets. At the time, it looked as if the Knicks were emerging from the jumbled mess that was their season. It turned out to be a premature assessment. Over the subsequent eight games, the Knicks went 3-5, their flirtation with mediocrity quickly tumbling into a familiar gulf of incompetence. There was a 41-point loss to the Boston Celtics. There was a double-overtime victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, arguably the worst team in the league. And, finally, there was Saturday’s dispiriting loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, a contest waged before boo birds at Madison Square Garden. Over those eight games, the Knicks got scant production from J. R. Smith, who shot 32 percent. He showed signs of emerging from his funk against the Magic, finishing with 18 points and sparking the Knicks in the first half. The Knicks built a huge lead in the second quarter, outscoring the Magic by 36-14. Coincidence or not, the Knicks did their damage with Bargnani on the bench and with Anthony operating at power forward. Late in the quarter, Smith pulled up in transition for a 3-pointer that gave the Knicks a 62-39 lead. “When we get stops and run like that, we’re a tough team to beat,” Smith said. “We had guys feeling good about their offensive game.” Nothing has come easily for the Knicks, though, and they cannot escape injury. Felton was considered a game-time decision, and he collected 13 points and 4 assists before he took a hard fall in the fourth quarter, ending his night. He said his new injury was unrelated to his old ones. “Very disappointed,” he said. “Can’t catch a break.” Anthony said he was optimistic because the ankle injury he had sustained last season was more severe. “No comparison,” he said. As Anthony departed the locker room, a group of fans chanted “Melo! Melo!” He waved, then limped to the bus.


British Airways Jet That Aborted Takeoff Had Multiple Engine Breaches

Abstract: Federal accident investigators said on Thursday that they found multiple breaches in the engine of a British Airways aircraft that was forced to abort its takeoff on Tuesday at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, suggesting the airplane had suffered an uncontained engine failure. The National Transportation Safety Board said that it also found pieces of the high-pressure compressor spool on the runway, and that it planned to take the engine apart to determine what might have caused the failure. British Airways flight 2276, a Boeing 777-200ER, was equipped with two GE90-85B engines. It was headed to Gatwick Airport in London with 157 passengers and 13 crew members. Everyone escaped, with only a few minor injuries, as fire and smoke engulfed the plane at the end of the runway. This type of episode is extremely rare as modern jet engines are designed to prevent internal parts of the engine from breaking out in an accident, lest they rupture fuel lines.

British Airways
Las Vegas
Plane Crash
NTSB
Airlines,airplanes