Israel’s Netanyahu Reopens Door to Palestinian State, but White House Is Unimpressed

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Thursday tried to backtrack from his pre-election declaration that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch, but his new assertions appeared to do nothing to assuage an infuriated Obama administration. In a series of interviews with American broadcasters, Mr. Netanyahu also said he had not been trying to suppress the votes of Arab citizens with an Election Day video warning that they were being bused to polling stations in “droves,” remarks that had also caused outrage at the White House and around the world. Mr. Netanyahu said he had not intended to reverse his endorsement in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but only to say that it was impossible right now. He cited the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and its pact with the militant Islamist Hamas movement, as well as the rise of Islamic terrorism across the region. “I haven’t changed my policy,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an interview with MSNBC , his first since his resounding victory on Tuesday, which handed him a fourth term. “What has changed is the reality.” “I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that, circumstances have to change,” he said. “I was talking about what is achievable and what is not achievable. To make it achievable, then you have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace.” Netanyahu's History on Palestinian Statehood On the eve of the recent Israeli election, the prime minister said that no Palestinian state would be created on his watch. Two days later, he began to backtrack. But Mr. Netanyahu did not say he was ready to return to negotiations or to present any new ideas for achieving peace. President Obama waited nearly two full days before making a congratulatory phone call to Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday evening, as his administration was still seething over the Israeli leader’s pre-election comments. In a striking indication of how bitter tensions remain between the two, Mr. Obama told Mr. Netanyahu directly that the United States would have to “reassess our options” after the prime minister’s “new positions and comments” on the two-state solution, according to a White House official who spoke without authorization to detail the private conversation. During the phone call, the official said, the two also discussed the comments the prime minister had made about Israeli Arabs. The formal White House account of the call made no mention of the criticism, although it noted that Mr. Obama had “reaffirmed the United States’ longstanding commitment to a two-state solution that results in a secure Israel alongside a sovereign and viable Palestine.” The statement also said Mr. Obama reiterated his intention to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear program — another sore point with Mr. Netanyahu, who angered the White House earlier this month by criticizing the negotiations in a speech to Congress. Earlier Thursday, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that regardless of the prime minister’s clarifications, his pre-election statements demonstrated that he was “no longer committed to a two-state solution,” which “means that the United States is in a position to re-evaluate our thinking.” In Netanyahu’s Next Knesset, a More Compatible Coalition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party achieved a surprisingly strong victory in Tuesday’s election. Now, he is likely to build a right-wing coalition of 67 of the 120 members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. A day after other White House officials suggested that the administration might now support a Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a sovereign Palestine roughly along the pre-1967 lines that divided Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, Mr. Earnest said Mr. Netanyahu’s statements “do have consequences for actions that we take at the United Nations and other places.” The standoff showed the lasting damage done to Mr. Netanyahu’s already-strained relationship with Washington during a divisive Israeli campaign. The tensions were worsened when the prime minister spoke to Congress, against White House wishes, about his objections to an Iran nuclear deal. In Israel, Mr. Netanyahu’s apparent reversal regarding a Palestinian state on the eve of an election was largely seen as a blatant, somewhat desperate appeal to take votes from parties on his right flank — which appears to be exactly what happened. Many analysts expected Mr. Netanyahu to backtrack after the ballots were tallied; after all, back in 2009, he refused to explicitly endorse an independent Palestinian state right up until the Bar-Ilan speech in which he did so. But in Washington, many officials have long suspected that Mr. Netanyahu was never serious about making peace with the Palestinians or about the American-brokered negotiations toward such an outcome that collapsed last spring . So when a right-leaning Israeli news site asked him directly on Monday, “If you are prime minister, a Palestinian state will not be established?” and he answered, “Indeed,” they pounced. Mr. Earnest said, “This is not a situation where the prime minister is creating some daylight between himself and President Obama.” Rather, the remarks created some daylight between Mr. Netanyahu and “Democrat and Republican presidents in the United States and every single member of the House of Representatives,” he said, referring to a unanimous House resolution late last year endorsing a two-state solution. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority also seized on Mr. Netanyahu’s original repudiation of a two-state solution to say he would continue his unilateral strategy of seeking full United Nations recognition and using the International Criminal Court to press war-crimes charges against Israelis. Video A look at how inaccurate exit polls contributed to the surprised reaction Wednesday morning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had defeated his main rival decisively. Credit Credit Amir Cohen/Reuters “If these things are true, it means that the Israeli government has no serious intentions to reach a peace agreement that will create two states based on the 1967 borders,” Mr. Abbas said at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “We therefore will not retreat from our position to apply international law, and so it is our right to go anywhere in the world to realize our rights according to international law.” The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, when asked how he would respond if Mr. Netanyahu retracted his statements, said, “I don’t want to engage in wishful thinking.” “Can you imagine Netanyahu standing up and saying, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, but I believe in a two-state solution; I recognize the state of Palestine, I will carry my obligations, I will stop settlement activities’? People will laugh,” Mr. Erekat told reporters at a briefing in East Jerusalem. “If he says that he will stop settlement activities, I’ll go see him now. Now. In his house. I’ve been there before. I’ve known him for 31 years.” After a pre-election blitz of which several commentators observed that Mr. Netanyahu gave more interviews to Israeli news organizations in six days than he had during six years in office, the prime minister turned to international outlets on Thursday. It was a kind of damage-control tour after a campaign of hard-line stances and statements about Israeli Arabs that were widely condemned as race-baiting. “I wasn’t trying to block anyone from voting; I was trying to mobilize my own voters,” Mr. Netanyahu told Steve Inskeep of NPR in a conversation set for broadcast on Friday’s “Morning Edition.” “The Arabs in Israel are the only Arabs that have consistently had the right to participate in elections. That’s sacrosanct.” He also said he was proud to be “prime minister of all of Israel’s citizens, Arabs and Jews alike.” Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to interview requests from The New York Times in the days leading up to Tuesday’s election or on Wednesday or Thursday. In addition to appearing on MSNBC and NPR, he was on Fox News on Thursday, where he said he hoped that White House considerations of supporting a United Nations resolution recognizing Palestine were “not true.” “President Obama has said time and again, as I’ve said, that the only path to a peace agreement is an agreement, a negotiated agreement; you can’t impose it,” he said on Fox. “I think that you can’t force the people of Israel — who have just elected me by a wide margin to bring them peace and security, to secure the State of Israel — to accept terms that would endanger the very survival of the State of Israel. I don’t think that’s the direction of American policy.” Mr. Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that he was “not suggesting that any policy decisions have been made at this point.” But he appeared unmoved by Mr. Netanyahu’s new talking points, saying of the two-state solution that American presidents have backed for decades, “It’s pretty clear that Israel is no longer committed to that outcome, that pursuit.”


Syracuse Stays Calm and Tames Villanova

Abstract: Jim Boeheim stared up in frustration at the Carrier Dome scoreboard, his No. 2 Orange in big trouble against eighth-ranked Villanova (11-1). The Wildcats had started Saturday’s game by hitting four straight 3-point shots and led, 25-7, midway through the first half after a dunk by Josh Hart. Syracuse (12-0) went nearly four minutes without a basket as the Wildcats looked exactly like the team that had already beaten two ranked opponents. “There was no indication we were going to get going,” Boeheim said. If the Orange were frazzled by their largest deficit of the season, it never showed. They responded with a 20-0 run over the next five minutes to take their first lead and never trailed again, winning, 78-62, in a game between two of nine unbeaten teams left in N.C.A.A. Division I. Image Villanova’s JayVaughn Pinkston was double-teamed by Syracuse’s Rakeem Christmas, right, and C. J. Fair. Credit Brett Carlsen/Getty Images KENTUCKY 73, LOUISVILLE 66 Kentucky guards Aaron Harrison and Andrew Harrison combined for 28 points, including 11 during a critical second-half stretch with Julius Randle sidelined by cramps, helping the 18th-ranked Wildcats (10-3) beat No. 6 Louisville in Lexington, Ky. The Harrisons, who are twins, amply filled the void left by Randle, turning a 52-51 deficit with 11 minutes 1 second remaining into a 68-58 lead with four minutes left. Russ Smith scored 19 points for Louisville (11-2). UCONN 82, E. WASHINGTON 65 Shabazz Napier had 15 points and 9 assists to lead 15th-ranked Connecticut (11-1) over Eastern Washington (5-6) in Bridgeport, Conn. Napier led a balanced offense in which five Huskies reached double figures. Ryan Boatright had 14 points and Niels Giffey, making his first start this season, added 13 for UConn. DUKE 82, EASTERN MICHIGAN 59 Jabari Parker scored 23 points and No. 9 Duke (10-2) beat visiting Eastern Michigan. Image Shaq Goodwin had 13 points and 7 rebounds to lead Memphis (9-2) over Jackson State. Credit Danny Johnston/Associated Press Mike Talley scored 20 points to lead the Eagles (7-4). WISCONSIN 80, PRAIRIE VIEW 43 Sam Dekker had 16 points and 11 rebounds for his third career double-double as No. 4 Wisconsin (13-0) cruised past visiting Prairie View (2-10). MICH. ST. 101, N. ORLEANS 48 Keith Appling scored 16 of his career-high tying 27 points in the first half to help No. 5 Michigan State (11-1) pull away and rout visiting New Orleans (3-5). MEMPHIS 75, JACKSON ST. 61 Michael Dixon scored 14 points, Shaq Goodwin had 13 points and 7 rebounds, and No. 17 Memphis (9-2) never trailed against visiting Jackson State (4-8). UMASS 69, PROVIDENCE 67 Derrick Gordon’s put-back with 1.1 seconds left in overtime lifted 23rd-ranked Massachusetts (11-1) to a victory over visiting Providence (10-3). GONZAGA 74, SANTA CLARA 60 David Stockton scored a season-high 21 points as No. 24 Gonzaga (11-2) beat visiting Santa Clara (7-7) in the teams’ West Coast Conference opener. ST. JOHN’S 65, COLUMBIA 59 D’Angelo Harrison scored 15 points and Orlando Sanchez had 12 points and 9 rebounds to lead St. John’s (9-3) to a victory over Columbia in the Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival at Barclays Center. Grant Mullins had 17 points for Columbia (7-6). Image Maryland’s Shatori Walker-Kimbrough scored 17 points, and the Terrapins trounced Wofford, 110-53. Credit Gail Burton/Associated Press HARVARD 94, FORDHAM 86 Siyani Chambers scored 19 points and finished with nine assists as balanced shooting by Harvard (11-1) led to a victory over host Fordham (7-5). GEO. WASH. 69, HOFSTRA 58 Maurice Creek had 17 points and 4 steals to lead George Washington (11-1) to a victory over host Hofstra (3-8). NORTHERN IOWA 90, IONA 78 Seth Tuttle scored 11 points to help Northern Iowa (6-6) hold off visiting Iona (5-6). WOMEN MARYLAND 110, WOFFORD 53 Alyssa Thomas had her second triple-double in three games to lead No. 8 Maryland (11-1) to a rout of visiting Wofford (2-9) in the Terrapin Classic semifinals. BAYLOR 82, MCNEESE STATE 57 Odyssey Sims scored 27 points, and No. 9 Baylor (10-1) beat visiting McNeese State (7-4). STANFORD 86, FRESNO STATE 54 Chiney Ogwumike scored 16 of her 20 points in the first half and No. 4 Stanford (11-1) routed host Fresno State (6-5).

Villanova
Shabazz Napier
College basketball
University of Connecticut
Eastern Washington University
Syracuse University
University of Louisville
University of Kentucky


A Google Friend Is Now Facebook’s

Abstract: In a sign that Google ’s status as the coolest place to work may be waning, the company has lost another high-ranking employee to the social networking site Facebook . Ethan Beard , former director of social media at Google, has joined Facebook as director of business development. The announcement, made last week, came just three weeks after Sheryl Sandberg , Google’s vice president for global online sales and operations, said she was leaving to become Facebook’s chief operations officer. Facebook’s chief financial officer, Gideon Yu , is also a former Google employee. Google’s stock price has dropped by a third since January. Facebook, by contrast, is still private and attracting plenty of investment. ELIZABETH OLSON SAIL AWAY Tom Perkins , the Silicon Valley venture capitalist, is putting his superyacht, the Maltese Falcon, up for sale, just two years after he first set sail on it. Mr. Perkins reportedly spent at least $150 million on building the yacht. He has asked its builder, Perini Navi, to offer it for $181 million, according to Superyachttimes.com . The 288-foot, three-masted clipper, one of the world’s largest sailing yachts, has 11,000 square feet of living space. ELIZABETH OLSON BACKUP PERK The Boeing Company has provided a perk to its chief executive, W. James McNerney Jr. , that he probably hopes he doesn’t have to use. Last year, Boeing spent nearly $90,000 to install a backup generator at Mr. McNerney’s home, according to the company’s annual proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Todd Blecher , a Boeing spokesman, said the generator would allow Mr. McNerney to work at home if there were a power failure. Mr. Blecher said the money covered the cost of the generator, installation and some soundproofing “to meet the neighborhood standards for noise abatement.” But why count this as a perk, which requires disclosure, as opposed to a business expense, which doesn’t? Mr. Blecher said that the company’s lawyers decided that having the generator at Mr. McNerney’s home was a perk because it was both a “personal benefit” and something “not generally available to other employees.” MICHELLE LEDER POWER TO PEROT Public companies engage in all sorts of extracurricular transactions with their senior executives and directors, like property leases and the purchase of legal and consulting services. But Anurag Jain, a vice president who runs two business groups for Perot Systems in Plano, Tex., may be the highest-ranking executive whose family sells electricity to his employer. In its latest proxy statement, Perot Systems, founded by the two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot, disclosed that it started buying electric power in India last year from members of Mr. Jain’s family and a partnership owned and controlled by Mr. Jain and his family members. The company said it paid $200,000 for the electricity and an additional $630,000 to lease property in Chennai, India, from the Jain family last year. PATRICK McGEEHAN RUSSIAN CHARITY The Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman has hired Michael Kenneth Moore , a prominent New Zealander, to run one of his charitable foundations. The move is another sign of the growing international hiring power of the wealthy Russian businessmen known as oligarchs. Mr. Fridman manages an empire in Russia and Eastern Europe whose holdings include oil and mobile phones. He is now going global, riding high oil prices and the strong ruble. And like other Russian oligarchs who are globalizing, he is investing heavily in charity. Mr. Moore, who was prime minister of New Zealand for two months in 1990, is a former director of the World Trade Organization and has held posts at the United Nations. He will become chairman of the Altimo Foundation, the charity associated with the telecom arm of the Alfa Group, Mr. Fridman’s holding company. The foundation will focus on fighting poverty in developing countries, according to a statement. ANDREW E. KRAMER IN HIS SHOES The chief executive of the shoe maker Steve Madden Ltd. has left his job after four consecutive quarters of declines. The company said the executive, Jamieson Karson , 50, had resigned to pursue other opportunities. Edward Rosenfeld , 32, who has been executive vice president for strategic planning and finance, will serve as interim chief executive. As at other shoe companies, sales at Madden have been buffeted by a slowdown in consumer spending. Sales dropped 10 percent during the last quarter of 2007 over the quarter a year earlier. ELIZABETH OLSON

Google Inc
Facebook.com
Executives and Management
Sandberg Sheryl
Beard Ethan
McNerney W James Jr
Rosenfeld Edward


’Enry ’Iggins, Just Waiting for the Curtain to Rise

Abstract: ACCIDENTALLY early for an interview with a veteran stage actor, a reporter is minding her own business, and manners, loitering on an unadorned East Village stoop. Logic dictates it is inadvisable to hit the buzzer and invade an actor’s private space prematurely, particularly when the actor, Jefferson Mays, has only a few rehearsals remaining before his opening night on Broadway in a Roundabout Theater production of “Pygmalion.” His leading lady is Claire Danes , a lovely film actress, sure, but with zero theatrical credentials. Mr. Mays, who won a 2004 Tony for his masterful inhabitation of 36 roles in “I Am My Own Wife,” has got to be doubly antsy. Or perhaps not. Suddenly the outer door to the minuscule sixth-floor walk-up opens wide. Out steps a smooth-shaven, tallish man wearing a pocket watch, a vintage Czechoslovak military beret, and cradling a silver coffee canister. He does a double take when he notices he has company on the stoop. Might this oddly accessorized guy be Mr. Mays, the actor who happily wore a black dress and lace-trimmed panties as the East German transvestite in “Wife” and once played Peter Pan? Of course it is. His canister is empty and he is, or was, on the way to the deli to fill it in case his interviewer drinks coffee. He doesn’t. She doesn’t. Excellent! “Let us ascend the stairs, then; dreadfully sorry about the climb,” says Mr. Mays in a faintly British accent he surely didn’t learn growing up in Clinton, Conn., even if his parents (his father, a retired naval officer, painted maritime scenes; his mother was a librarian) read plays like “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” aloud weekly with fellow members of the Clinton Amateur Theatrical Society. Time to play True Confessions while his wife, Susan Lyons, an Australian actress he met five years ago when she needed a sublet, acts as a semi-silent chaperone in the kitchen. She and Mr. Mays are clearly each other’s touchstones. They don’t go 10 minutes without consulting, correcting or chortling. They married in 2003 and spent their honeymoon in Rome and in London, where he had a small role as a doctor/sexual therapist in the remake of “Alfie.” He got serious about acting at Yale University, where his first role was Malvolio in “Twelfth Night,” and he received a master’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, where his mentor, Anne Bogart, taught her students they had a creative and intellectual responsibility to be more than human props at a director’s disposal. “It does often result in some good fighting,” says Mr. Mays, whose fights with his present director, David Grindley, must be rare. He and Mr. Grindley previously worked together on “Journey’s End,” last year’s Tony winner for best revival. Now Mr. Mays, 42, is putting his own spin on professor Henry Higgins — think of a petulant, brilliant, socially inept Dr. Frankenstein — in the first major Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw ’s 1912 classic in more than two decades. In other words, this show has buzz, and buzz can be dangerous. “The show has been selling like hotcakes; I don’t think I’ve ever been in a show that sold like hotcakes,” he says. “But any time you do a revival, you have this odd trepidation of ‘Good God, will it have any contemporary resonance?’ I’m not sure the class stuff will, but the sexual politics does. I think of Shaw and Mark Twain as two people who could be plunked down in contemporary time and they’d get it; they could have op-ed columns.” As for Higgins, Mr. Mays has a soft spot: “Yes, he is playing God when he takes this girl out of the gutter, but I don’t think he fancies himself a brute. He has a titanic ego, but what redeems him is his enthusiasm.” BRINGING out the boyish aspects Shaw originally intended for Higgins — a character in his 40s and at the height of his career — is key to Mr. Mays’s interpretation. And risky. Mr. Mays portrays Higgins in a manner deliberately unlike Rex Harrison (of the 1964 film, “My Fair Lady”) and unlike Peter O’Toole (of Broadway’s last “Pygmalion” in 1987). “Higgins has tended to be played by elder statesmen of the theater, men who are silver-haired and dignified and all the things I’m not,” Mr. Mays says. He never saw the film version of “My Fair Lady,” missed O’Toole’s “Pygmalion” and still doesn’t own a television. Mr. Mays is the type of guy who retired his rotary phone only because he had to. His Tony? It’s at his agent’s. The skull on his shelf replicates Cro-Magnon man, circa 30,000 years ago. The oil painting of the military chap above the daybed is a likeness of his deceased Uncle Morrie (Susan’s diamond ring belonged to Uncle Morrie’s wife). The walking sticks in the kitchen corner are antique; his mother’s family traces its roots to Thomas Jefferson. “I’m ahead of my time and behind my time all at the same time,” he concludes. On stage? “Theoretically, I want to work until I’m dead; that’s the pleasure of acting. It’s terminal.” Off stage? “I’m shy. At night I scuttle home from the theater like a little rat.”

Theater
Mays Jefferson
Actors and Actresses
Tony Awards (Theater Awards)
Roundabout Theater Co
Shaw George Bernard
Danes Claire


California Governor Signs Legislation Limiting Assault Weapons

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed legislation that would impose new restrictions on assault weapons and regulate the sale of ammunition in California, cementing the state’s reputation for enacting some of the most stringent gun regulations in the country. Propelled by the reaction to mass shootings in San Bernardino, in Southern California, and Orlando, Fla., the gun regulations are the latest example of how this state, where the Legislature is under Democratic control, has been able to enact a legislative agenda on issues that have deadlocked Congress. The legislation in Sacramento was passed with overwhelming Democratic support, and was largely opposed by Republicans who make up a small minority in the Senate and the Assembly. Even as he signed six measures, Mr. Brown, a moderate Democrat with a history of resistance to some measures of gun control, vetoed five others that he described as overly regulative. Among them was a bill that would have restricted gun purchases to no more than one per person in a 30-day period. “My goal in signing these bills is to enhance public safety by tightening our existing laws in a responsible and focused manner, while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Mr. Brown, who himself owns guns, said in his signing message. The enactment of the legislation leaves little doubt to the standing of California, which in 1989 became the first state to ban assault weapons, as a leader in gun control at a moment when Congress has rebuffed such efforts and numerous Republican-led states are moving in the other direction . States like Texas , in the name of promoting safety, have in recent years expanded the locations where people can carry concealed weapons, including bars and college campuses. “This makes California the most anti-gun state in America,” said Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association. In a statement, she called the legislation a “a draconian gun control package that turns California’s law-abiding gun owners into second-class citizens.” “The governor and Legislature exploited a terrorist attack to push these measures through even though the state’s already-restrictive laws did nothing to stop the attack in San Bernardino,” she said. Amanda Wilcox, legislative advocate for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, hailed the governor’s action as a step forward in efforts to curb gun violence. She highlighted one bill sponsored by Senator Kevin de León, the Senate’s Democratic leader, requiring background checks for ammunition purchases as particularly crucial. “It is really far-reaching and bold, and really has the potential to save a lot of lives,” Ms. Wilcox said. “It can give us a handle on who has illegal guns in the state, as well as limiting access to ammunition by dangerous people who may have illegal guns.” The new laws would prohibit the possession of high-capacity magazines — those holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition — for assault weapons. “These so-called high-capacity magazines are not for target shooting or hunting,” said Senator Loni Hancock, a Democrat who sponsored the bill. “Their sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest period of time.” A separate bill banned semiautomatic weapons with “bullet buttons,” which make it easy to quickly remove a magazine and replace it with another. Among the bills Mr. Brown vetoed was one that would have expanded the definition of a firearm. “While I appreciate the author’s intent, the actual wording of the bill is unduly vague and could have far-reaching and unintended consequences,” Mr. Brown wrote in his veto message. Shannon Grove, a Republican Assembly member who spoke out against the bills during the debate, said that none of those signed would reduce gun violence or prevent mass shootings. Instead, she said, the restrictions compromised the rights of California families to protect themselves. “I think it’s death by 1,000 paper cuts for our Second Amendment rights,” she said. “Nowhere in this nation do you give up your rights under any other amendments.” The signing was not the end of gun control measures that might be enacted here in the wake of a wave of violence that has traumatized the world and the nation, including the shooting in San Bernardino that killed 14 people at a holiday party in December. A separate set of gun control measures will appear before voters in November; some of them have been passed by the Legislature, but Mr. Brown vetoed those, saying they should be left to voters to decide. That initiative is being championed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is running for governor after Mr. Brown’s final term ends in 2018. His initiative would, among other things, make firearm theft a felony and require ammunition vendors to report lost or stolen supplies within 48 hours. “Today’s steps in the right direction will grow into a giant leap forward for public safety if voters pass the Safety for All initiative to keep guns and ammo out of the wrong hands,” Mr. Newsom said. Gun death rates fell 56 percent in California from 1993 and 2010, a larger decline than in the nation as a whole, according to a study by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Gun control advocates pointed to that as evidence that such laws were effective. “Gun laws work,” Ms. Wilcox said. “California gun sales are really high. We are not deterring law-abiding people from buying guns. We’re doing a better job of making sure dangerous people don’t have guns.” But Ms. Grove pointed to the ammunition law as an example of a measure that would hurt the interests of gun owners without doing anything to curb gun violence. “Criminals who are not authorized to have firearms in the first place are not going to register to buy ammunition,” she said. “It’s absurd.”

California
Legislation
Jerry Brown
Gun Control
Orlando Shooting


UAL Plans Large Accounting Charges

Abstract: United Airlines ’ parent, the UAL Corporation , said in a regulatory filing Friday that it would record $2.6 billion to $2.7 billion in accounting charges in the second quarter. The largest chunk is a noncash impairment charge of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion, which UAL said amounted to the “entire value of good will on its books,” but company officials were not available to elaborate. UAL also said it expected to record noncash charges of $246 million related to 737’s that are being cut from the company’s fleet, $82 million in charges related to job cuts, and $60 million in charges related to certain unspecified projects that had been stopped or delayed. Separately, United Airlines said on Friday that it had reached a deal with the International Association of Machinists to offer early retirement packages to up to 400 customer service and ramp workers. The carrier had already announced plans to cut about 2,550 jobs, including 950 pilots and 1,600 salaried positions. UAL shares fell 54 cents, or 13 percent, to close at $3.63 as oil prices spiked to a record above $147 a barrel on Friday, caused in part by a drop in the dollar.

United Airlines
UAL Corp
Airlines and Airplanes


Bayonne: Hospital Files for Bankruptcy

Abstract: Bayonne Medical Center has filed for bankruptcy protection but will continue operating normally while it reorganizes its finances, hospital officials said yesterday. The officials said in a brief statement that a voluntary petition had been filed to reorganize under Chapter 11. The medical center, which opened in 1888, has 278 beds. Compiled by John Sullivan


U.S. Body Names Offenders

Abstract: Since 1991, dozens of United States swimming coaches, including a former national team director, have received life bans by the sport’s national body for a range of offenses like sexual misconduct, doping and fraud. Responding to criticism after allegations of abuse were reported earlier this year, USA Swimming released a list this week of 46 people who have been either barred for life or resigned their membership over the last two decades. Among the names on the list was Everett Uchiyama, who resigned as national team director in 2006. USA Swimming had previously refused to release the names of any individuals banned by the organization, but relented after months of complaints and claims they were covering up sex-related cases.

USA Swimming
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations


Commodities Are in Vogue for Fund Investors

Abstract: IN 2005, K. Geert Rouwenhorst and Gary B. Gorton, now finance professors at Yale, published a paper about the investment benefits of an asset class that was then the province of specialists: commodities. Contrary to the prevailing conventional wisdom, the researchers suggested that pork bellies, coffee and crude oil had a place in individual portfolios alongside stocks, bonds and cash. Five years later, commodities have become an investing vogue, and Professor Rouwenhorst has jumped, part time, into money management. As a partner in SummerHaven Investment Management in Stamford, Conn., he helped create the United States Commodity Index fund, an exchange-traded fund that opened to investors in August. SummerHaven manages the fund’s assets for its sponsor, United States Commodity Funds in Alameda, Calif. The new E.T.F. is one of a flurry of commodity offerings that have appeared since the professors published their research. In the intervening years, EPFR Global of Cambridge, Mass., a tracker of mutual fund flows, counts a fivefold increase, to about 200, in the number of commodity funds and commodity E.T.F.’s. And these funds are scooping up money at a time when stocks have often been stumbling along and bonds are offering skimpy yields. This year through September, investors plowed $18.3 billion into commodity offerings, versus $11.9 billion for the first nine months of 2009, EPFR said. Equity funds, by contrast, have had net outflows. An E.T.F. that invests across commodity sectors does not buy actual commodities — that is, barrels of oil or buckets of wheat — but instead purchases derivative securities called futures. Futures give investors exposure to price movements of commodities without forcing them to own and store the products. Despite the current gush of enthusiasm, some investment experts say commodity offerings, particularly indexed E.T.F.’s that are passively managed, haven’t proved that they can provide retail investors with the combination of simplicity and low costs that, say, a stock index fund built around the Standard & Poor’s 500 can. Compared with a simple stock fund, an indexed commodity E.T.F. can be expensive and complex. As for cost, the iShares S.&P. GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust, for example, carries expenses of 0.75 percent of assets, while S.& P. 500 index funds from Fidelity and Vanguard have expense ratios of 0.1 percent. As for complexity, the indexes and approaches of commodity funds and E.T.F.’s, can be hard for average investors to understand. For that reason, Vanguard doesn’t offer them. “Most individual investors don’t get the difference between owning a futures contract and a bar of gold,” said John Ameriks, Vanguard’s head of investment counseling and research. Recently, some indexed commodity E.T.F.’s have not delivered much in the way of performance. “I can’t say that passive investing in commodities won’t have its time,” said Paul Justice, director of North American E.T.F. research at Morningstar. “But it hasn’t worked in the last two to three years.” The broadly diversified commodity mutual funds and E.T.F.’s followed by Morningstar lost an average of about 10 percent, annualized, over the three years through Sept. 30, while the S.& P. 500 lost 7.2 percent, annualized. As Professors Rouwenhorst and Gorton contend, the argument for commodities investing via futures is straightforward: Over the long run, it provides stocklike returns, inflation protection and diversification. The professors’ work has found an audience among investment firms and helped popularize the idea that commodities futures have a place in retail investors’ portfolios. Their findings have not been the only factor in the rising popularity. James B. Rogers Jr., an author and investment manager, has evangelized about commodities’ potential for years. The industrialization of developing economies, like those of China and India, has also brought favorable attention. These countries will have to gorge on raw materials like oil and iron ore to sustain their torrid growth. “China accounts for roughly half the growth in global demand for iron ore,” said Frederick Sturm, manager of the Ivy Global Natural Resources fund. Though the commodity story can captivate, difficulties can arise in executing the strategy. Even the matter of building a commodity index stirs debate. Unlike large-capitalization United States stocks, for which the S.& P. 500 is a de facto standard, the sector hasn’t settled on a benchmark. Investment companies build their funds and E.T.F.’s around different ones, and new indexes continue to arrive. “There’s no clear, dominant index that’s written into pension-plan policies or ingrained in individual investors’ heads,” said Christopher A. Burton, manager of the Credit Suisse Commodity Return Strategy fund. The first index that came into widespread use was the S.& P. GSCI, created by Goldman Sachs and now owned by S.& P. It apportions weight to various commodities based on world production volumes. Critics say it overemphasizes energy, which recently accounted for about 70 percent of the index’s value, and have offered alternatives. The Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index, for example, uses production volume and trading activity to calculate weights. It caps the heft of any single commodity group at 33 percent. The E.T.F. that Professor Rouwenhorst helped create has its own index, the SummerHaven Dynamic Commodity Index. To build it, SummerHaven screens 27 commodities monthly and, from those, picks the 14 that show signs of having the lowest worldwide inventories. These 14 are then equally weighted in the index and, by extension, the E.T.F. Disagreement over basic questions like benchmarking is partly why Morningstar suggests actively managed funds for average investors who want to invest in commodities. “You want a manager who can go long and short and has flexibility to pick whatever commodities and maturities he wants,” Mr. Justice said. Futures, like bonds, come with maturities, and some index funds automatically buy the futures whose maturities are shortest. One actively managed fund that Morningstar recommends is Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy , though Mr. Justice cautions that the expense ratio of its Class A shares, at 1.29 percent, is higher than he likes to see. Campbell R. Harvey, a finance professor at Duke, also argues for active management when venturing into commodities. Like Professors Rouwenhorst and Gorton, he dug into commodity returns before the asset class was fashionable. But he and his co-author, Claude B. Erb, a fund manager at TCW in Los Angeles, arrived at a different conclusion. In a paper published in 2006, they found “no premium for passively investing in commodities” as a group over the long term, Professor Harvey said. And technological change may explain why. When faced with rising prices and shortages, humans find ways to produce and use commodities more efficiently or replace them, he said. As whale oil, for example, became scarce, people replaced it in lamps and candle wax with petroleum-based oils and waxes. Innovation counterbalances the scarcity that would raise prices over time.

Commodities
Mutual Funds
Exchange Traded Funds
Stocks and Bonds


Nancy Zimpher to Resign as SUNY Chancellor in 2017

Abstract: Nancy L. Zimpher, who has been credited with elevating the State University of New York , the nation’s largest public university system, since becoming chancellor seven years ago, is stepping down next year, the university announced on Tuesday. Dr. Zimpher has relentlessly promoted the system, through a strategic plan called “ The Power of SUNY ,” as an engine of economic growth and community development. She has also sought to raise academic standards and has made it easier for students to transfer within SUNY’s sprawling system of 64 campuses, which serves 460,000 full-time and part-time students. Dr. Zimpher, who will turn 70 in October, is also SUNY’s longest-serving chancellor since the mid-1980s. She said in an interview that she would not be retiring but would continue to be active in various state and national initiatives, including teacher preparation. She also said that she wanted to ensure a smooth transition to her successor — something that has hardly been a SUNY hallmark. By announcing now that she will leave on June 30, 2017, she is giving the university’s board more than a year to conduct a national search for a new chancellor. “The State University of New York is the greatest, most impactful system of higher education in the country, and being chancellor of SUNY has been the highlight of my career,” Dr. Zimpher said. She has steered the university during a fraught time for public higher education. Since the 2008 recession, states have slashed per-student spending at public colleges and universities by 17 percent while tuition has increased by 33 percent, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities . SUNY’s situation has been compounded by internal turmoil. In the 15 years before Dr. Zimpher’s arrival, SUNY had seven chancellors or acting chancellors, including a turbulent stretch around the time of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s abrupt resignation, which included the withdrawal of some candidates. “The effectiveness of the SUNY leadership since the early ’90s has not been great,” said Kenneth P. O’Brien, an associate professor of history at the College at Brockport and an editor of “SUNY at Sixty,” an analysis of the university’s history since its founding in 1948. “In some sense we have been gratified that the leadership that Chancellor Zimpher has provided has been rational, and that she has spoken up for the university.” Dr. Zimpher, a native of Ohio, previously served as president of the University of Cincinnati. She was credited with tightening that university’s shaky finances but was perhaps best known for forcing out its popular basketball coach, Bob Huggins , whose program was plagued by problems. Dr. Zimpher, SUNY’s first female chancellor, confronted another basketball scandal not long after she arrived, when she ordered an investigation into the ascendant program at Binghamton University, a SUNY campus, over recruiting violations and players’ off-court troubles. The inquiry concluded that the school’s president and the athletic director had provided lax oversight. Dr. Zimpher, too, has faced criticism. In 2012, the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, a Democrat, questioned why money from a SUNY foundation had been used to pay for a private club membership for her, as well as for alcoholic beverages at events hosted by her office. At the time, a statement from Dr. Zimpher’s office defended those expenses as legitimate but said she had canceled her club membership in 2010. Mr. DiNapoli also faulted SUNY, in another audit , for bad fiscal management of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. State Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, a Manhattan Democrat who is chairwoman of the Higher Education Committee, said Dr. Zimpher had not done enough to promote the individual strengths of some SUNY schools. But over all, Ms. Glick said, Dr. Zimpher deserved much credit for raising SUNY’s reputation. “People have a positive feeling about what the chancellor has wanted to do, and has worked very hard to get,” Ms. Glick said. “She’s done her best to try to stabilize SUNY’s financial footing.”


A Silicon Valley for Drones, in North Dakota

Abstract: FARGO, N.D. — “California and New York want what we’ve got,” said Shawn Muehler, a 30-year-old Fargo resident, gazing at a horizon of empty fields, silos, windbreak trees and hardly any people. A winged craft traces the air, mapping a field with pinpoint accuracy for his start-up, a drone software company called Botlink . “They like drones, but they’ve got a steep learning curve ahead.” For years, entrepreneurs have come here to farm and to drill for oil and natural gas. Now a new, tech-savvy generation is grabbing a piece of the growing market for drone technology and officials want to help them do it here, where there is plenty of open space and — unlike in other sparsely populated states — lots of expertise already in place. Silicon Valley has the big money and know-how, Mr. Muehler and others say, but North Dakota can take unmanned aerial vehicles, as the officials prefer to call drones, from a fast-growing hobby to an industry. And just as Silicon Valley got its start with military contracts, entrepreneurs and cooperative universities, they believe they can do the same with drones. “The potential up here is tremendous,” said Jack Dalrymple, the state’s governor. “It’s not about supporting a company or two; it’s creating the leading edge of an industry.” North Dakota has spent about $34 million fostering the state’s unmanned aerial vehicle business, most notably with a civilian industrial park for drones near Grand Forks Air Force Base. The base, a former Cold War installation, now flies nothing but robot aircraft for the United States military and Customs and Border Protection. Right now, private sector drones are where personal computers were in the 1970s: a hobbyist technology waiting to become mainstream. The technology research firm Gartner says that, barring regulatory hurdles, the United States drone business could be worth $7 billion in a decade. Image Two students, Ethan Voigt, left, and Jake Beaver, at the Northern Plains Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Site at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. The university has a four-year drone program that began in 2009. 1 / 7 Companies are moving fast. Last month, Amazon released a video showing its planned delivery drone, and companies like Google and Facebook are working on big drone projects. DJI, a Chinese company that is the world’s largest maker of small drones, was funded last spring at a valuation of $10 billion. Small drones may bedevil cities with privacy concerns, even landing on the White House lawn , but rural states with farming, oil and rail lines see many practical reasons to put robots in the sky. Infrared imaging can judge crop health. Cameras can spot leaks and cracks in pipelines. Smaller copters can inspect windmill blades. Livestock can be located easily. Judging from Mr. Muehler’s proving grounds, if the occasional experimental craft crashes, it is unlikely to hit much beyond dirt. And with money, expertise and need here, people will keep trying. Grand Forks Air Force Base, 80 miles north of Fargo, has been an all-drone base since 2013. Big Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles, made by Northrop Grumman, fly reconnaissance missions from the Yukon to Venezuela from there. In a smaller brick building in Fargo, Mr. Muehler was once part of a North Dakota Air National Guard unit that flies missions over the Mideast and Afghanistan. Customs and Border Protection uses the Grand Forks field to patrol from Seattle to the Great Lakes with slightly smaller Predator drones. Sometimes those pilots take over from their Customs counterparts in Texas, patrolling the Rio Grande from screens 80 miles south of the Canadian border. Image Inside the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, N.D. Credit Tim Gruber for The New York Times Where B-52 bombers stood ready with nuclear bombs in the Cold War, the country’s first commercial unmanned aerial vehicle industrial park is under construction. Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, the Predator maker, are taking space to train pilots for international sales of the craft. Other businessmen are looking at modifying their craft for things like high-altitude surveillance of railroad tracks and pipelines. Involta, an Iowa-based operator of data centers that has already created a windmill inspection business in Grand Forks, is looking at building facilities specialized in collecting aerial information. A company called Field of View, near the planned site of the industrial park, makes aerial sensing equipment. An outfit called the Unmanned Applications Institute is working with providers away from North Dakota on things like local drone manufacture and warehousing. Nearby, the University of North Dakota, which already trains many of the nation’s commercial pilots and the air traffic controllers of some 18 countries, has 200 students learning to fly drones in a four-year program that started in 2009; 61 students have graduated from it. North Dakota State University, in Fargo, has also started teaching drone courses. Besides military contracts and educational talent, North Dakota also has high-tech talent. In 1999, Amazon purchased an online seller of tools and home improvement gear in Grand Forks, and the company now develops customer service software there. In 2001, Microsoft paid $1.1 billion for Great Plains Software of Fargo, and it now has an office there. The area has thousands of software engineers and not a few millionaires itching to get into the next big thing. A Field Guide to Civilian Drones As consumer and commercial drones increase in popularity, the government is taking more steps to address safety concerns and regulate the aerial vehicles. “Every top engineer in all of Fargo works for Botlink,” Mr. Muehler boasted. “We have the top 10 engineers in town.” Mr. Muehler, who was educated as a pilot at North Dakota State, started on what became Botlink while flying missions from the brick building in Fargo. Governor Dalrymple refers to the military site as “once a well-kept-secret facility,” since its purpose has become common knowledge in the city of about 115,000 people. One night in early 2014, Mr. Muehler saw a report on Fox News about a hobbyist drone that flew into the airspace at La Guardia Airport in New York. That’s when he hit upon the idea for his business. “I figured there has to be some kind of software that can give awareness, let a drone know about things like boundaries and weather,” he said. Alex Kube, a high school friend who was working at the same facility, started making the software. Seven months later, he spoke at a meeting of local entrepreneurs and collected $500,000 in angel funding from local investors. Botlink was formed several months later when Mr. Muehler met Terri Zimmerman, a former chief financial officer at Great Plains who grew up on a farm near the Canadian border. “We want to be the Microsoft of the industry,” said Ms. Zimmerman, who is now Botlink’s chief executive, and runs another company, Packet Digital, involved in low-power semiconductors used for, among other things, military drones. So far, the company has raised $3 million more from private investors. “That’s like $14 million in Silicon Valley,” Ms. Zimmerman said.

Drones
North Dakota
Shawn Muehler
Botlink
Terri Zimmerman
Venture capital
John Dalrymple


Eagles’ Young Is Sharp When It Counts

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. It was Vince Young who started all this Dream Team talk in what became instead a nightmare season for the Philadelphia Eagles . “No comment about that,” Young said late Sunday. “People blew it out of proportion.” Last summer the Eagles shopped for free agents as if it were Christmas in July on QVC. Then plans came unwrapped along with the packages. The signings brought high expectation and exasperatingly low production. A team favored by many to reach the Super Bowl instead lost six of its first nine games. Andy Reid seemed to lose his touch. His defensive coordinator, Juan Castillo, appeared to be in over his head. Michael Vick reverted to his old erratic self. The Eagles’ season fractured along with his ribs. But even when everything seemed lost, there was a reliably soft landing to be found in the Meadowlands. Sunday’s 17-10 victory was Philadelphia ’s fifth in a row at Giants/MetLife Stadium. And it was achieved in the most improbable and thus wounding manner for the home team: Young had not started a game in a calendar year. His only completion this season had been to a guy wearing the uniform of the Washington Redskins . On Sunday night, Young threw three interceptions, but he also tossed touchdown passes to Steve Smith and Riley Cooper, neither of whom had been able to find the end zone this season with MapQuest. In fact, Cooper had not caught a pass. Yet, with the game on the line, Young led the Eagles on a magnificent 80-yard drive that took 18 plays, converted six third downs, drained nearly nine minutes from the clock and exhausted what once seemed a comfortable lead for the Giants in the N.F.C. East. A Philadelphia team that had lost five games in the fourth quarter this season won in the late minutes Sunday by exposing the Giants’ mediocrity, overpowering their offensive and defensive lines and breaking their determination. “Absolutely pathetic,” Brandon Jacobs said after the Giants rushed for 29 yards and, absent many holes, he seemed to be running as if reluctant to step on an escalator. “The worst I have experienced in my seven years.” Meanwhile, the Eagles (4-6) were telling themselves that this might be a spark to ignite the dying embers of a season. Where there had been capitulation so often in the final minutes, Sunday there were faith and resilience. “I’ve been preaching all week to our guys, we have four quarters,” Young said. With Vick ailing, Young had taken all the snaps in practice. His job was to manage Sunday’s game, not so much to win it: make sure the plays got called quickly, get his teammates in and out of the huddle, avoid delay-of-game penalties. Early on, Young seemed inevitably nervous and rusty. His career as a starter had come to a messy end a year ago in Tennessee , when he hurt his thumb, threw his pads into the stands after an overtime loss to Washington and had a verbal confrontation with Titans Coach Jeff Fisher. The Titans released Young in July and the Eagles signed him as a backup upon trading Kevin Kolb to Arizona. Until Sunday, though, Young had participated in only three plays through nine games. It showed in the opening minutes as he badly underthrew receiver DeSean Jackson. What could have been an 89-yard touchdown pass faded into an interception. “It was just a matter of getting settled down and getting back in the swing,” Reid said of Young. “It’s fast. It’s a little different from the scout team.” Jackson, as maddening as he is skilled, further sabotaged the Eagles’ early effort when he nullified a 50-yard reception in the second quarter, tossing the ball at the Giants’ defensive coordinator, Perry Fewell, and drawing a taunting penalty. A week ago, Jackson was deactivated after missing a team meeting, apparently upset at not having his contract renegotiated. Meanwhile, the Eagles lost to lowly Arizona as a fragile season seemed to shatter. “I just really let my team down,” Jackson said. After Sunday’s taunting penalty, Reid spoke to Jackson on the sideline “to make sure we were straight.” It was Jackson’s good fortune that just before halftime, the Giants decided to punt to him in a moment of reckless amnesia . Last season, Jackson’s 65-yard punt return as the clock expired had stunned the Giants, 38-31, in a furious Philadelphia comeback here. Another kick was launched toward him Sunday with similarly consequential results. This time Jackson squirted 51 yards, setting up a 14-yard touchdown pass from Young to Smith on a shallow crossing route, giving the Eagles a 10-0 lead. “I was shocked,” Eagles running back LeSean McCoy said. “I wouldn’t kick to him. I wouldn’t kick to him on a video game.” In the third quarter, Young tossed a moon shot into the end zone toward Cooper for a third interception. But he remained composed later with the game tied, 10-10, and Philadelphia marching 80 yards toward the winning touchdown. This was Vince Young from an earlier time, when his career was new and full of nothing but possibility. This was Vince Young the two-time Pro Bowl player, the quarterback with a 31-17 record as an N.F.L. starter, the player with 13 winning drives in the fourth quarter, the onetime college marvel whose arm and legs lifted Texas over Southern Cal for the 2005 national championship. On third-and-goal at the Giants’ 8 and 2 minutes 50 seconds remaining, the ball left Young’s hand sidearmed, as if he were a shortstop instead of a quarterback. It was a motion fit more for a double play than a touchdown pass. But accuracy mattered, not aesthetics, and the ball found Cooper’s hands on a slant pattern. The Eagles had their 17-10 victory, and perhaps a tinge of regret that winning had not happened more often. “He kept firing, which is what you’ve got to do,” Reid said of Young. “He got a couple turnovers, but he came right back. He didn’t flinch.”


The Chatter for August 11, 2013

Abstract: “In Switzerland, the banks are so organized that they are able to circumvent new rules and laws to continue to enable tax evasion.” Hervé Falciani, a native of Monaco who formerly worked at HSBC. He has been on the run as he leaks data from CD-ROMs that he says contain a list of tens of thousands of accounts in Swiss banks. “We’re trying to track unemployment and disease as if it were a brand.” Robert Kirkpatrick, who leads the United Nations Global Pulse team, which aims to harness technology in new ways — using data from social networks, blogs, cellphones and online commerce to transform economic development and humanitarian aid in poorer nations. “They are not feeling loved right now in Connecticut. We’re delighted to have them.” Alan Clemmons, a state representative in South Carolina, talking about PTR, a maker of assault rifles. He was part of a successful effort to lure the company from its headquarters in Connecticut to his state.

Switzerland
Tax Evasion
Connecticut
Banking and Finance
Guns
PTR Industries
UN
Science and Technology


Hobbled by Illness, Mike Sutton Perseveres at Tennessee Tech

Abstract: COOKEVILLE, Tenn. — Mike Sutton, the Tennessee Tech men’s basketball coach, could not grip a pen for a year, so he could not draw plays. The three months he spent on a ventilator robbed him of a loud voice, so it was difficult for him to command players. His legs were weak from nerve damage, so he could not stalk the referees on the sideline. Some of the tasks vital to a basketball coach were an ordeal for Sutton, so how could he save his career after being struck by Guillain-Barré syndrome , a paralyzing neurological disorder? The answer was obvious in a hotel meeting room at midnight Saturday. Former Tennessee Tech coaches and players were gathered around Sutton, talking the game. Sutton , whose legs are fitted with braces, should have been weary from a day that included practice, a game and an alumni function, but there he was enthusiastically talking basketball. He was the one who turned off the light and pulled the door closed to that meeting room at 1 a.m., after everyone else had gone home. “I have a passion for the game and coaching basketball,” Sutton said. “Along with my wife and my staff, it has seen me through tough times.” Sutton, 53, grew up on Tobacco Road in North Carolina, idolizing Dean Smith. He coached at Kentucky with Tubby Smith. When you have been entwined with those meccas of college basketball, you do not have to explain yourself. Basketball is the essence of who Sutton is and how his career survives. On April 10, 2005, just weeks after he was named coach of the year in the Ohio Valley Conference for leading the Golden Eagles to the regular-season title, Sutton was in Portsmouth, Va., where he found himself stumbling over his luggage in a hotel parking lot. He tried to refresh himself with a bottle of water, but he could not twist open the top. Twenty-four hours later, he lay in a hospital paralyzed and on a ventilator. The diagnosis was Guillain-Barré, which strikes the nervous system and affects one in 100,000 people. Guillain-Barré has been likened to a mild polio, and the recovery can be complete or it can be incomplete, with some people left in wheelchairs and with permanent disabilities. Sutton, who undergoes physical therapy, walks haltingly with a cane. His fingers are crooked and he has little muscle strength in his hands, but at least he has a grip again, on his program and on his pen. He uses a wheelchair on a ramp from the locker room to the court, then walks to the bench with his cane. He has his voice back, which means he can pour dissent into the ears of referees. During a game, Sutton’s legs are Steve Payne, an assistant coach since Sutton took over the Tech program in 2002. Payne is frequently up off the bench, while Sutton will occasionally come off his stool, lean on his cane and chide an official or instruct a player. Scott Taylor, who handles basketball operations, will move Sutton’s stool to the center of the bench at timeouts. Russ Willemsen, an assistant coach, has a hand up behind Sutton if he becomes unsteady. During huddles for 30-second timeouts, Sutton will drape an arm over Payne or another assistant, Tommy Deffebaugh, and lean in close with his players to make a point. “He’s never once said this is too much, I can’t handle it,” Payne said. “He’s strong, he’s the boss man. I’m up a lot, but it’s because we think alike and I know how he wants things done.” Sutton does not claim that basketball saved his life. He reserves that medal for his wife, Karen. She goes with him on overnight recruiting trips and for road games. She had to nurse Sutton back to health and arrange for players and recruits to visit him in the rehabilitation clinic in the fall of 2005. “The first time the kids came to the hospital, they were all terrified when they saw him,” Karen Sutton said. The illness tested the couple’s relationship, particularly in 2006 on one of Sutton’s first long recruiting trips since becoming ill. They flew to Las Vegas and Karen drove a rented van from tournament to tournament in 118-degree heat. Sutton would roll out the door, watch a particular player for 30 minutes, then roll back in, and off they would race to another tournament site. “That trip would have been a reason to get a divorce,” Karen said. For the time being, Sutton sends his assistants to Las Vegas. It is not quite a made-for-Hollywood comeback because Tech has bumped down a few steps since Sutton became ill. The Golden Eagles beat Tennessee State, 61-56, on Saturday to even their record at 10-10 , 4-5 in the conference. They have had two losing seasons in a row. “It has restricted me, and maybe it played a negative part with recruiting a couple of years ago, but I’m evolving and adjusting as a coach, and we’re getting back to where we were,” Sutton said. The junior guard Zac Swansey helped Sutton up the steps to Swansey’s Dunwoody, Ga., home on a recruiting visit in 2006. Swansey signed with Georgia, but when there was a coaching change there in 2009, he remembered Sutton’s toughness and knowledge of the game and transferred to Tech . He will be eligible next season. Mark Wilson, Tennessee Tech’s athletic director, said that after Sutton became ill the university added a year to his contract, which expires after this season. “If we don’t look at the human side, what do we look at?” Wilson said. “He’s been great for this community. He’s never asked for sympathy and that’s a good lesson for all of us.” Sutton can attract rubberneckers, who are accustomed to seeing their ideal of a college basketball coach stamping the floor along the sideline. He just shrugs and says he does not have time to consider the picture of himself. “After what we have been through, there is no need to be self-conscious,” Sutton said. “When you can’t scratch your nose and you are being fed through a tube and you have to train your bowels to work again, you don’t worry how you look with a cane. “What happened to me is just the luck of the draw. Besides, it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it. I’ve been blessed to be able to stay connected to the game.”

Tennessee Tech
Basketball
College Athletics
Sutton Mike


Pennsylvania: Archdiocese Bars Two More Priests From Ministry

Abstract: Two more Roman Catholic priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have been found unsuitable for ministry in an inquiry into the alleged sexual abuse of minors, the archdiocese said Friday. The two priests — the Rev. John Bowe, 64, who worked at the parish of St. Joseph in Warrington from 2005 to 2011, and the Rev. David Givey, 68, who retired in 2006 — were found to have violated a code of behavior that includes a ban on physical contact, but they did not abuse children, the archdiocese said. The priests, who have been removed from ministry and may ultimately be laicized, are among 26 who were placed on administrative leave after a 2011 grand jury report found that several dozen priests accused of abuse were still in active ministry. Five other priests have been found unsuitable for ministry, and 12 others are still under investigation. On June 22, Msgr. William J. Lynn, former secretary for clergy at the archdiocese, was convicted of child endangerment for not acting strongly to keep those suspected of molesting away from children.

Priests
Child Abuse and Neglect
Roman Catholic Church
Philadelphia (Pa)
Bowe John
Sex Crimes
Givey David


The Iraqi Army Was Crumbling Long Before Its Collapse, U.S. Officials Say

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The stunning collapse of Iraq’s army in a string of cities across the north reflects poor leadership, declining troop morale, broken equipment and a sharp decline in training since the last American advisers left the country in 2011, American military and intelligence officials said Thursday. Four of Iraq’s 14 army divisions virtually abandoned their posts, stripped off their uniforms and fled when confronted in cities such as Mosul and Tikrit by militant groups, principally fighters aligned with the radical Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the officials said. The divisions that collapsed were said to be made up of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish troops. Other units made up of mainly Shiite troops and stationed closer to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, were believed to be more loyal to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and would most likely put up greater resistance, according to the officials. Still, Lt. Gen. John N. Bednarek, who heads the office of security cooperation at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, said at a closed hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that some of the Iraqi soldiers who guarded the Green Zone in the capital had come to work wearing civilian clothes under their military uniform, according to one senator. The implication was that the troops were prepared to strip to civilian attire and flee if they came under heavy attack. “That was a surprise to everybody, to have four major divisions fold as quickly as they did without even fighting,” said Senator Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat on the committee. Training the Iraqi Army and other security forces was a seminal mission for United States forces before the last American troops left Iraq in 2011. Despite the expenditure of billions of dollars to defend against the ISIS militancy, that army is failing at a crucial moment. The United States spent about $25 billion to train and equip Iraq’s security forces and provide installations for these forces from the start of the war until September 2012, according to a report by the special inspector general on Iraq. And Iraq has spent billions of dollars of its own money since then to acquire or order F-16 fighter jets, M-1 battle tanks, Apache helicopter gunships, Hellfire missiles and other weapons. Although Iraq’s security forces still vastly outnumber the ISIS insurgents — which total 3,000 to 5,000 fighters, the Pentagon estimates — they have been operating with a number of disadvantages, including limited air power, inadequate training and poor leadership. The rapid gains achieved by ISIS obscure the fact that it has been making steady inroads in Mosul and other regions for months in a campaign including assassinations and a steady supply of suicide bombers from neighboring Syria. Even before the fall of Mosul, the Iraqi forces had had logistical difficulties and been battered in their clash with Islamic extremists. From January through May, six helicopters were shot down and 60 were damaged in battle, an Obama administration official said. In the same period, 28 M-1 tanks were damaged and five tanks sustained full armor penetration by antitank guided missiles. ISIS, the administration official added, appears to have acquired Russian antitank weapons in Syria. A significant number of M-1 tanks have been hobbled by maintenance issues, the official said. “They are crumbling,” said James M. Dubik, a retired American lieutenant general who oversaw the training of Iraqi forces during the so-called surge of thousands of United States troops into Iraq in 2007. “There are pockets of proficiency, but in general, they have been made fragile over the past three to four years, mostly because of the government of Iraq’s policies,” General Dubik said. “They’re losing confidence in themselves and in the government’s ability to win. And the government is losing confidence in them.” The failure of Iraq’s Army and security services to stand up to the Islamist threat also underscores a politicization of the army leadership under Mr. Maliki that has corroded the Iraqi military’s effectiveness at all levels, American officials said. In one instance a few years ago, a leading Sunni general in northern Iraq whom American officers lauded for his operational skills was ousted and replaced by a Shiite officer. And since the last American forces left Iraq, United States officials said the government in Baghdad had failed to finance and maintain the same training missions. “This is not about ISIS strength, but the Iraqi security forces’ weakness,” said a former senior American officer who served in Iraq. “Since the U.S. left in 2011, the training and readiness of the Iraqi security forces has plummeted precipitously.” The retired officer said the militants’ fast-moving advance south was more a reflection of the lack of resistance by Iraqi forces than the effectiveness of ISIS and its confederates. “If the cops abandon a city, the criminals are going to run rampant,” the officer said. The end of the American military presence has also diminished the Iraqi Army’s readiness. The United States has a small office of security cooperation at the American Embassy that focuses on facilitating arms sales but also carries out some limited mentoring of Iraqi forces. But with the withdrawal of American forces in December 2011, American advisers are no longer in the field with Iraqi units and the United States is no longer in a position to influence Mr. Maliki’s choice of commanders. The way the office of security cooperation is structured and staffed, it is “not capable of doing what’s needed,” General Dubik said. “If the Iraqis could solve their problems by themselves, they wouldn’t be in the situation they’re in,” he said. “They need sustained help in both the security and policy areas. This means a concerted diplomatic and security advisory mission.” Senators emerging from the two-hour closed briefing with Pentagon officials and intelligence analysts expressed grave doubts that Mr. Maliki and Iraqi commanders could quickly reverse the lightning gains across the north and west that ISIS and its Islamist allies had achieved in the past few days. Senator Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, singled out the reports of soldiers’ wearing civilian clothes under their uniforms as a particularly foreboding development. “That’s a bad sign,” he said.


Bradley Wright-Phillips Ties Season Scoring Mark as Red Bulls Win

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Bradley Wright-Phillips tied the Major League Soccer record for goals in a season, and the Red Bulls beat Sporting Kansas City, 2-0, in the league’s regular-season finale Sunday night. With his 26th and 27th goals, Wright-Phillips joined Chris Wondolowski (2012) and Roy Lassiter (1996) atop the list. The Red Bulls (13-10-11, 50 points) also overtook Sporting K.C. for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. Sporting K.C. (14-13-7, 49 points) dropped to the fifth spot and will visit the Red Bulls for an immediate rematch in the knockout round Thursday night. Wright-Phillips scored his record-tying goal in the 70th minute. After battling defender Aurelien Collin to win a loose ball, Wright-Phillips dribbled to the middle of the box and cut a right-footed shot back into the left corner of the net. Wright-Phillips finished Eric Alexander’s pass to open the scoring in the 15th minute.

Bradley Wright-Phillips
Soccer
MLS
New York Red Bulls Soccer Team
Sporting Kansas City Soccer Team


Crucial Test for Nokia as Latest Smartphones Arrive

Abstract: BERLIN — When Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia , introduces the company’s first phones bearing Microsoft Windows Phone software Wednesday, he will probably be met with equal parts good will and skepticism. On the one hand, many mobile operators are pulling for Nokia and Microsoft to succeed, creating a credible third smartphone lineup that they can use to leverage better terms from Google and Apple , which in four years have taken over the high-end mobile business. On the other, the partnership with Microsoft was struck while Nokia, the erstwhile market leader, was under duress, undertaking an 18 percent cut to its work force. The company absorbed combined losses of €436 million, or $597 million, in the second and third quarters. Worst of all, since the deal was made in February, Nokia has had to tread water as engineers combined the companies’ smartphone technologies, allowing Google, Apple and Samsung to secure their positions in the pecking order. As a result, Nokia’s share of the global smartphone market has fallen by nearly half, to 15.5 percent in September from 27.5 percent in December, according to International Data Corp., an information technology research firm. “The road back for Nokia is going to be a long one,” said Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst in London for International Data. “There is a risk that they are too late to the party.” At a conference in London on Wednesday, Nokia intends to present at least two new phones, one aimed at high-end users and one for the midrange mass market, people with knowledge of the presentation said. Time is not an ally for Nokia in the fast-moving smartphone segment of the mobile market, which now accounts for more than half of all cellphone sales in North America and Western Europe. For Nokia, the decision to abandon its own Symbian operating system in favor of Windows Phone came at a price. Operators quickly reduced their stocks of all Symbian devices, both smartphones and basic phones, hurting Nokia’s bread-and-butter business. Nokia’s share of the overall global cellphone market fell to 24.5 percent in September from 30.7 percent in December, according to International Data. On Thursday, when the company reported a €68 million loss for the third quarter, which was smaller than some investors had expected, Mr. Elop spoke of the “many important steps ahead in our journey of transformation.” “With each step,” he continued, “you will see us methodically implement our strategy, pursuing steady improvement through a period that has known transition risks, while also dealing with the various unexpected ups and downs that typify the dynamic nature of the industry.” For Mr. Elop, a former Microsoft executive who made the decision to enter the alliance, and for Nokia, the success or failure of the collaboration will be a defining event. Carolina Milanesi, an analyst in London with the technology research firm Gartner, said Mr. Elop so far appeared to be delivering on his promise to turn Nokia around. The company’s upgrades this year of Symbian, Symbian Belle and Symbian Anna were tangible improvements that showed Nokia could innovate on the fly. Nokia released the N9, considered its best smartphone to date and a product of the now-defunct alliance with Intel, to positive reviews. Sales of two new dual-SIM devices, the C2-03 and C2-06, helped Nokia lift sales of basic phones 8 percent in the third quarter. Gartner is predicting that Nokia and Microsoft will succeed, gaining 20 percent share in the smartphone market by 2015. While that would still be below Nokia’s peak, it is a lot better than where it is now. “I am not sure if success is a given,” Ms. Milanesi said. “Their major issue will remain brand and making both Nokia and Microsoft sexy enough for consumers.” Nokia must succeed at the top and middle ends of the smartphone business to reclaim a leadership position, said Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics in Milton Keynes, England. Profit margins for top-end devices, like Apple’s iPhone , are about 36 percent, Mr. Mawston said. For midrange devices, the gains are much smaller, from 1 percent to 15 percent. “The top end is where the biggest revenue and profit pools lie,” Mr. Mawston said. “The volume is at the low- and midtier.” Mobile network operators are hoping that Nokia-Microsoft smartphones will sell well, because that will help them command lower prices from Apple and the makers of Google’s Android phones for their models, Mr. Mawston said. “Apple’s iPhone is widely perceived among operators as being overpriced, but Apple is so popular that operators can’t reduce the price they pay for it by even a small amount,” he said. Nokia is expected to introduce the first new Microsoft devices in places where it already has a relatively strong market share, like Western Europe. It hopes to build momentum and positive reviews and take the devices to the United States, the world’s largest smartphone market. There, Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, is helping Nokia of Finland open doors to the four largest U.S. operators, which control more than 90 percent of all cellphone sales. Nokia’s North American market share in smartphones in the third quarter was only 1.2 percent, according to International Data. Microsoft’s share of the global smartphone software market was not much bigger: 2 percent, globally. While Internet access is rapidly shifting from traditional desktop and laptop PCs to mobile devices, Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, can still fall back for the time being on its dominant Windows licensing business. That is why Nokia, which makes most of its money selling cellphones, has much more at stake in the collaboration than Microsoft, analysts said. But the venture is also crucial to Microsoft, which despite several attempts on its own has largely failed to gain a foothold in the software business for mobile devices. “I think given Microsoft’s dominant position in fixed and portable keyboard computing, Nokia is not their final chance, but it is probably one of their final chances to enter this market,” Mr. Mawston said. “They probably won’t get too many goes after Nokia.”

Smartphones
iPhone
Telephones and Telecommunications
Cellular Telephones
Nokia Oyj
Microsoft Corporation
Apple Incorporated
Google Inc
Android (Operating System)
Gartner Inc


Voices From Burundi

Abstract: Few voters apparently went to the polls in Burundi on Tuesday in a presidential election that is widely expected to give President Pierre Nkurunziza a controversial third term. Since his announcement on April 25 that he would run again, in defiance of international pressure and opposition at home, Burundians have held protests, edured curfews, experienced a local news media blackout and witnessed a failed coup attempt . Nearly 70 people have died and hundreds have been injured, and more than 170,000 people have fled since April to neighboring countries . Before the vote Tuesday, and prior to legislative elections in June, The New York Times asked Burundians how the upheaval has affected them. Following is a selection of experiences, edited and condensed for clarity. Merlo Lokaze, 25, thought he would never participate in any form of political protest. But when he heard the president’s decision to run for a third term, tears started streaming down his face. “I cried when I remembered that one man is ignoring the Constitution and the Arusha Peace agreement that gave us peace for more than 10 years,” he said. So that day, Mr. Lokaze said, he abandoned his plans of going to church and joined the street protests against the president instead. At first, he said the protests were peaceful, although some people threw rocks at the police. But when the police began using tear gas and live rounds, the situation became “horrible.” He said two close friends were killed. “We are angry,” he said. “But we have to continue what we have begun.” Mr. Lokaze, a software engineer, decided not to vote in last month’s parliamentary and local elections , calling them “fake” because nearly every major opposition party announced a boycott of them. The African and European Unions withdrew their observers, and the United States pulled its financial support for the elections. For Mr. Lokaze, the political unrest is a traumatic reminder of the country’s civil war, during which he said his family lost 18 members. “Please pray for us because we don’t know what will happen,” he said. “I know I can be jailed or shot at any moment.” Jean Mugisha, a 40-year-old teacher living in Bujumbura, says that the governing party still has his support and that the turmoil, which he calls a “show,” is just a “play by the opposition” to weaken the government. He blamed protesters for the same intimidation and violence that the governing party’s youth wing, known as the Imbonerakure, has been accused of. “It is about power, and they use the most shady tactics while claiming ‘justice,’” he said of the opposition. He argues that the crisis will be resolved only once the opposition and civil society groups are “honest” about their roles in the unrest gripping the country. Ketty Nivyabandi , 36, a poet, led an all-female street movement in the capital, Bujumbura, after Mr. Nkurunziza announced his plans to run for a third term. “I was worried that the protests would take a violent turn, and as women we could bring something more peaceful and much more powerful,” she said. But on May 13, just before the coup attempt, the police attacked her group using tear gas and water cannons, she said. Ms. Nivyabandi and other activists turned off their phones out of fear that the government was monitoring them. Mobile access to social networks like WhatsApp and Facebook was temporarily blocked . Ms. Nivyabandi said the protesters were in danger of being branded coup supporters. “Anyone who has really spoken against the third mandate has either left the country or is in hiding,” she said from Rwanda, where she recently joined her family. Ms. Nivyabandi also fled Burundi in 1993, when civil war erupted after soldiers from the country’s Tutsi minority assassinated the first president elected from the Hutu majority. That bloody struggle led to some 300,000 deaths before a new Constitution was adopted in 2005. Ms. Nivyabandi is worried that the government is exploiting ethnic tensions, especially among young people. “You very much feel like you are in a war zone,” she said, describing the difficulty of getting to work and school amid a plummeting economy. “There is a wave blowing across Africa where a new generation demands greatness. We want excellence. We want leaders who deliver, and we want our laws to be upholded.” Dennis Karera, 33, is the head of the Imbonerakure, the governing party’s youth wing, which has been accused of much of the brutality surrounding the crisis. “So many things are said about us, but no one verifies the information,” Mr. Karera said after returning from the funeral of a member of his group. He said the member was killed by protesters when they put a burning tire around his neck. “If Imbonerakure had weapons, they would have defended themselves,” Mr. Karera said. Imbonerakure means “those who see far” in Kirundi. Its members are mostly men ages 18 to 35, including demobilized soldiers. Human rights groups have accused them of abuses including intimidation, beatings and unlawful killings. Mr. Karera rejected these allegations. “If an Imbonerakure is found guilty of wrongdoing, he should be held accountable according to the law,” he said. But he questioned how anyone could tell whether it was Imbonerakure members who carried out attacks, saying they had no distinguishing features. Protesters say that members of the Imbonerakure have conducted brutal attacks while dressed as police officers. Mr. Karera called the group’s members “agents of development” and expressed confidence that free and fair elections would take place. Image This week alone, there were grenade attacks in the capital, Bujumbura; the vice president defected to Belgium;, and roughly 200 students sought refuge by crawling under the gates and scaling the walls of the United States Embassy. Credit Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Peter Nsengigumva, 27, is a student protester at the University of Burundi in Bujumbura, where he says the number of demonstrators has dwindled because of fear of police brutality. Life for students of all ages has come to a standstill. “We have fear during day and during night,” he said, mentioning stories of protesters’ being shot and jailed. “If you are protesting and if you meet the police, automatically, he will shoot you.” Mr. Nsengigumva said this was his first time speaking against the president, whose quest for a third term he calls unconstitutional. Supporters of the president, by contrast, argue that Mr. Nkurunziza’s first term does not count toward the constitutional limit because he was installed by Parliament, not by a general election. Like many other protesters, Mr. Nsengigumva does not believe that ethnic tensions are the root of the violence. “We have a solidarity in demonstrating,” he said. His family is seeking a way out but cannot get the necessary papers to leave the country. He fears a massacre will take place during elections. “The population has expressed its emotions through protests,” he said, “so it’s an evolution in the country even if we are going to fail politically.” Teddy Mazina , 43, is a freelance journalist and photographer documenting human rights violations in Burundi. “We know what we are facing,” he said. “It’s about our freedom and democracy.” He added, “If we leave, we’ll abandon the country.” Mr. Mazina described the situation as “very scary” and said he was living in a “local blackout.” “We have government militias that can chase journalists and civil society members, whoever is not with them,” he said. By his estimate, about 70 percent of local journalists have fled. (The Voice of America correspondent Diane Nininahazwe told the Committee to Protect Journalists that a grenade was thrown at her home in the capital on Wednesday, a day after she received an anonymous death threat.) “My biggest frustration is that I can’t go in the field where people are demonstrating or being arrested, because I’m a target as well,” Mr. Mazina said. He pieces together information from a network of people. Like Ms. Nivyabandi, he feels that the government is exploiting ethnic tensions. “Demonstrators are mixed,” he said. “They live together, they eat together, they die together.” “It is very hard for us to stay neutral when you see people die,” he admitted. Mr. Mazina returned to Burundi from Belgium in 2007 to help rebuild the country after the civil war. “Having an independent radios and media for 10 years have educated people about their dignity and rights,” he said. Like many people who oppose the president’s decision to seek a third term, Mr. Mazina mentioned the Arusha peace agreement of 2000, mediated by the former South African president Nelson Mandela to end the civil war. “We cannot accept the last act of Nelson Mandela to be kidnapped by a small group of people and the president, who wants to only remain in power for himself,” he said. A young woman working at a development organization based in the capital spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared retribution for publicly criticizing the government. She described self-imposed neighborhood curfews and an economic paralysis that is affecting her family’s ability to buy food and continue working. “We are emotionally drained,” she said in a phone interview from the capital. “We don’t even know tomorrow if we’ll still be alive.” After the coup attempt, she said, “there was no other choice but to stay home.” Commuting to work became too difficult, and food had to be bought a week or two in advance. Supporters of Mr. Nkurunziza shut down private broadcasters in the capital that were a source of independent news for much of the population. Information about the protests was pieced together from international news outlets and social media. When the government blocked the Internet, the woman used VPN to circumvent it. But she was nervous about how she communicated online because, she said, intimidation by government supporters was widespread. She knew of friends who had been beaten by forces allied with the president for posting unfavorable messages on Twitter and WhatsApp. “How do we survive in such an atmosphere?” she asked. The young woman only recently returned to Burundi, where she has lived on and off with her mother, who lost her entire family in the Rwandan genocide. Her family, she said, has been discreetly giving food to the protesters but has not become involved directly for fear of reprisal by government supporters. When asked if she would flee again, she replied, “How do you survive in Rwanda, and for how long?” Like many others, she said she felt abandoned by the international community, but she welcomed the decision by Belgium, Burundi’s biggest donor, to cut off aid .

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Los Angeles County Moves to Fire 6 Sheriff’s Deputies

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has moved to fire six deputies in connection with an assault on other deputies at a Christmas party last year. The department’s investigation revealed that the six were part of a group that used a gang-like three-fingered hand gesture to signal that they worked on the third floor at the Men’s Central Jail — the biggest jail in the world, with more than 5,000 inmates and a history of violence. At the Christmas party for jail employees, held at an event hall off site, deputies who worked in another part of the jail began to heckle the third-floor deputies about slow work in moving inmates around, officials said. In response, the six deputies assaulted two of the other deputies in the parking lot, punching and kicking them. When a female deputy tried to intervene, she was punched in the face, according to Michael Gennaco, chief attorney for the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review . A department spokesman, Steve Whitmore, would not reveal the names of the deputies involved in the assault, but said the department began termination proceedings last week against all six. The terminations would be the largest set of dismissals stemming from a single incident in at least a decade, Mr. Whitmore said. The district attorney is conducting a criminal investigation of the incident. The department has dealt with the formation of self-identified subsets before. In 1996, it paid more than $7 million to settle claims in which plaintiffs charged that a group of deputies known as the “Lynwood Vikings” acted as a white supremacist group. Mr. Whitmore denied Wednesday that the Lynwood group had racist ties, and said its members included Asian and black deputies. Mr. Gennaco said the department was planning more regular rotation of duty assignments at the jail to help prevent such groups from forming in the future.

Prisons and Prisoners
Guards
Los Angeles (Calif)
Men's Central Jail


Japan’s Annual Trade Deficit Surges, Hit by Energy Needs

Abstract: TOKYO — A dispute over islands with China that led to boycotts of Japanese goods, coupled with rising energy purchases to compensate for idled nuclear plants, gave Japan a record annual trade deficit last year, the government said on Thursday, in another sign of a steadily worsening trade situation for this onetime export juggernaut. In the fiscal year ended March 31, imports exceeded exports by a margin of 8.17 trillion yen, or $83.4 billion at current exchange rates, the Ministry of Finance said. That was almost twice as large as the previous year’s deficit, also a record, and the largest shortfall since the ministry started keeping such data in 1979. Japan’s trade balance has been hit hard since the accident two years ago at the Fukushima nuclear plant forced the nation to shut down all but one of its nuclear plants and prompted it to try to cover the resulting energy shortfall by importing more natural gas and other fossil fuels. But even before the accident, Japan had been experiencing a steady erosion of the huge trade surpluses that it long enjoyed with the rest of the world, as Japan’s once faithfully nationalistic consumers grew increasingly hungry for low-cost manufactured goods from China. According to the ministry, surging imports of Chinese-made smartphones and computer chips helped give Japan a $40.7 billion bilateral trade deficit with China last year. At the same time, exports to China dropped 9.1 percent as a flare-up in tensions over disputed islands in the East China Sea prompted violent street demonstrations by Chinese citizens and anti-Japanese boycotts. The declines were particularly painful for Japanese manufacturers as the fast-growing Chinese economy surpassed the United States in 2009 as the largest foreign market for Japanese-made goods. By contrast, sales of Japanese automobiles and auto parts led a 10.4 percent rise in exports to the economically recovering United States, the ministry said. Those gains were enough to push the United States back ahead of China for the first time in three years as Japan’s largest overseas market. Japan recorded a $54 billion two-way trade surplus with the United States, the ministry said. Thursday’s figures surprised some analysts by showing that Japanese exports did not receive a noticeable lift from the sharp depreciation of the yen under the economic recovery plan put forth by the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who took office in December. A weaker yen usually helps bolster Japanese exports by making the nation’s goods less expensive than in other currencies. The ministry said that despite the yen’s declines, however, Japan recorded a trade deficit last month of $3.7 billion, more than four times as large as the trade shortfall in the same month the year before. It was the largest deficit ever recorded in the month of March, the ministry said. Over all, Japanese exports fell last year by 2.1 percent to $652 billion while its imports rose 3.4 percent to $736 billion, the ministry reported. Imports of fuel, which account for more than a third of Japan’s total imports, surged last year as the nation’s atomic plants remained idled from the March 2011 nuclear accident. The ministry reported a 14.9 percent increase in imports of liquefied natural gas, much of it from Qatar and Australia, and a 5.3 percent rise in imports of petroleum from nations like Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Japan
Manufacturing
Economy
International trade


Should You Charge Your Phone Overnight?

Abstract: Chances are, you plug in your phone before you go to bed at night, thinking it’s best to greet the morning with a fully charged device. Is this a good idea? That depends. Here’s the thing. Many people don’t expect to keep their phones for much longer than two years. For the most part, experts say, those people are not going to notice much damage to their phone batteries before they start hankering for a new device. If that sounds like you, feel free to charge every night, and as often as you like in between. But frequent charging takes a toll on the lithium-ion batteries in our phones. And it’s not because they can be overcharged, said Edo Campos, a spokesman for Anker, which produces phone chargers. “Smartphones are, in fact, smart,” Mr. Campos said. “They know when to stop charging.” Android phones and iPhones are equipped with chips that protect them from absorbing excess electrical current once they are fully charged. So in theory, any damage from charging your phone overnight with an official charger, or a trustworthy off-brand charger, should be negligible. But the act of charging is itself bad for your phone’s battery. Here’s why. Most phones make use of a technology that allows their batteries to accept more current faster. Hatem Zeine, the founder, chief scientist and chief technical officer of the wireless charging company Ossia, says the technology enables phones to adjust to the amount of charge that a charger is capable of supplying. The technology allows power to pulse into the battery in specific modulations, increasing the speed at which the lithium ions in the battery travel from one side to the other and causing the battery to charge more quickly. But this process also leads lithium-ion (and lithium-polymer) batteries to corrode faster than they otherwise would . “When you charge fast all the time, you limit the life span of the battery,” Mr. Zeine said. Is there a solution? If you’re intent on preserving a lithium-ion battery beyond the lifetime of the typical phone or tablet, Mr. Zeine suggested using a charger meant for a less powerful device, though he couldn’t guarantee that it would work. “For example, if you used an iPhone charger on an iPad Pro, it’s going to charge very slowly,” Mr. Zeine said. “If the electronics are right, they can actually preserve the battery because you’re always charging it slowly.” People looking to preserve their batteries should make sure their phones don’t become overheated, Mr. Campos advised, because high temperatures further excite the lithium-ion in batteries, leading to even quicker deterioration. Apple’s website says temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (or 35 Celsius) can “permanently damage battery capacity.” Both Mr. Zeine and Mr. Campos noted that given the constant demand for new cellphones, charging overnight might not be a point of great concern for many people. “All this actually doesn’t make a huge difference for consumers,” Mr. Campos said, citing a 2015 Gallup survey showing that 44 percent of smartphone users planned to upgrade their devices as soon as their providers allowed it — usually after two years, about the length of time it takes for batteries to start showing signs of wear.

Batteries Smartphone Android iPhone Apple