Kazakhstan President Set to Win Fifth Term, Even as Economy Falters

Abstract: MOSCOW — Voters in Kazakhstan were set to re-elect an incumbent on Sunday who has ruled the country since the Soviet Union collapsed, in an election that could have only one outcome. Nursultan Nazarbayev, 74, will win his fifth straight term in a snap presidential election as voters headed to the polls in droves on Sunday. According to The Associated Press, election officials said on Monday that Mr. Nazarbayev had taken 97.7 percent of the vote. The country’s elections commission said turnout was higher than 95 percent. The election was called in February, seen as a move by Mr. Nazarbayev to win a vote of confidence as Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest country, faces a daunting economic slowdown from the collapse in oil prices and regional instability because of the crisis in Ukraine. Mr. Nazarbayev, who has taken a title meaning “father of the nation,” has built a cult of personality and created a political system with little room for dissent. The main intrigue in Sunday’s vote was not who would win, but why the early election was held at all. “This has been quite a year for the Kazakhs,” said Alexander A. Cooley, a professor at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and an expert on Central Asia. “In times of political uncertainty, you reaffirm some traditional moorings and foundations of the political system.” Mr. Nazarbayev will receive his new mandate as Kazakhstan’s growth is expected to stall from the slowdown in the Russian economy and cut-rate oil prices. In January, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development cut the country’s growth outlook for 2015 to just 1.5 percent from 5.1 percent. Prices for consumer goods are rising, producers are having trouble competing with Russian rivals and the Central Bank is rumored to be considering a new devaluation of the tenge, the national currency. (The tenge lost 19 percent of its value in a single day in a devaluation last year.) “I think the government was concerned that if the economy goes down, then there could be a protest electorate,” said Nargis Kassenova, the director of the Central Asian Studies Center at Kimep University in Almaty, the country’s largest city. “So to have nice figures, to get really good numbers for the leadership without manipulating the vote too much, I think they held the vote this year.” The fallout from the conflict in Ukraine has left Kazakhstan wary about the potential of its neighbor Russia to sow discord among the country’s ethnic Russian minority, who make up a quarter of the population. The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, sent a chill through the Kazakh political elite last August, when asked whether a “Ukraine scenario” of revolution and regional separatism could play out in Kazakhstan. Mr. Putin lavished backhanded praise on Mr. Nazarbayev, suggesting that the aging leader “would never go against the will of his own people.” “He created a government on a territory where there was never government before,” Mr. Putin added in his remarks. “The Kazakhs had never had government. He created it.” As Mr. Nazarbayev prepares for his fifth term, the lack of an obvious heir has become increasingly obvious. Mr. Nazarbayev has not said who would succeed him, and several prospects, including Rakhat Aliyev , a former son-in-law, have passed in and then out of favor. “On the one hand, this is how he stays in power because people don’t see an alternative,” Ms. Kassenova said. “But on the other hand, what’s next? There is a great deal of uncertainty.” In an opinion piece published in The Financial Times last week, Mr. Nazarbayev portrayed Kazakhstan as a country navigating the difficult path from despotism to democracy. “This remains the main condition for the sustainable development of our country and completing the large-scale tasks of modernizing our economy and society,” Mr. Nazarbayev said, favoring a gradual approach. As he left a polling booth after voting on Sunday, Mr. Nazarbayev said he was “confident that Kazakhstanis will vote for stability in our state.”

Kazakhstan
Economy
Election
Ukraine
Rakhat Aliyev
Nursultan A Nazarbayev
Vladimir Putin


Kerry Castigates Russia Over Syria-Bound Missiles

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday strongly criticized Russia’s pledge to sell advanced antiaircraft weapons to Syria, suggesting that along with the growing involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in the fighting, the sale threatened to disrupt efforts to negotiate a political settlement and could destabilize the region. Russia’s confirmation this week that it planned to sell S-300 missiles to Syria — and President Bashar al-Assad’s defiant boasts on Thursday about Russian arms aimed at Israel — have added a dangerous new dimension to the civil war in Syria. They have also complicated efforts to organize an international conference in Geneva in the hope of ending a war that has killed tens of thousands of Syrians. Mr. Kerry’s remarks, his sharpest criticism of Russia since taking office in February, signaled a growing frustration with its continuing support for Mr. Assad’s government, including the delivery of various types of weaponry as part of what the Russians have said are longstanding arms contracts. He said the missiles in particular threatened regional stability because of the threat they would pose to Israel, which has all but said it would respond militarily to stop the shipments. “Whether it’s an old contract or not, it has a profoundly negative impact on the balance of interests and the stability of the region, and it does put Israel at risk,” Mr. Kerry said at the State Department. “It is not, in our judgment, responsible because of the size of the weapon, the nature of the weapon and what it does to the region in terms of Israel’s security.” Mr. Kerry, appearing with Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, suggested that Russia’s continued support of Mr. Assad’s government called into question its commitment to the political process that he and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, proposed in Moscow on May 7. “We will learn very quickly whether or not they and others are acting in good faith” to negotiate a settlement, Mr. Kerry said in remarks that also criticized Hezbollah and Iran for intervening directly in the fighting on Mr. Assad’s behalf. “If they’re not, the world will know it.” The prospects for a conference, originally intended to be held in June in Geneva, appear to have waned as Mr. Assad’s government has grown more assertive and members of the Syrian opposition have balked, saying they would attend only if Syrian forces ended the fierce fighting under way in Qusayr, a strategically important town near the Lebanese border. Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite Lebanese militant organization that both the United States and Israel regard as a terrorist group, has sent hundreds of fighters into Syria to assist Mr. Assad’s forces, particularly in Qusayr. Hundreds of wounded civilians have been reported to be trapped in the town, which has been under intensifying assault by Syrian government troops and their Hezbollah allies. On Friday, the interim leader of the Syrian Coalition, the main umbrella opposition group, said about 1,000 insurgent reinforcements had broken through military lines and joined their colleagues in Qusayr. The interim leader, George Sabra, also announced at a meeting in Istanbul that the Syrian Coalition had agreed to expand by adding 43 members of the Free Syrian Army, the principal insurgent force, which had threatened to repudiate the group if it was not given a greater role. The Syrian Coalition remains beset by internal squabbling, regarded by its Western and Arab backers as a major weakness in achieving a unified position aimed at ending the war. The United States and other Western countries have also been pressuring the group to be more inclusive and to distance itself from radical Sunni jihadi fighters who have been entering Syria to fight Mr. Assad’s forces. Al Nusra Front, a Qaeda affiliate that is one of the most successful Syrian insurgent groups, was added on Friday to a global sanctions blacklist by the United Nations Security Council. The classification means the group is subject to an arms embargo and a freeze on its assets. Mr. Kerry said that he had not lost hope that the divided opposition leaders would unite and send a representative to talks with Mr. Assad’s government. “I’m not going to discuss consequences with respect to the opposition not coming, because I’m convinced the opposition is going to come,” he said. “And I understand their passionate anger and frustration with the massacre that has been taking place on the ground coming from Hezbollah that has crossed a border from Lebanon and entered into another country and from Iranian forces that are on the ground.” The German foreign minister, Mr. Westerwelle, also criticized Russia’s delivery of weapons, saying Germany had also raised the issue with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “The delivery of weapons to the Assad regime is totally wrong,” he said. Russia has been equally critical of arms sales to Mr. Assad’s armed opponents by countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, this week defended its sale as a legitimate contribution to Syria’s ability to defend itself against foreign military intervention, which appears to be Russia’s primary concern in the conflict. Mr. Ryabkov also sharply criticized the European Union’s failure to renew an arms embargo that has until now prevented governments there from sending any weapons to Syria. Mr. Westerwelle emphasized that while that ban would expire effective June 1, none of the European governments had made a decision to provide any in order to give the negotiations in Geneva “a realistic chance.” Despite Mr. Assad’s opaque remarks that suggested he had received some parts of the most advanced Russian weapons, Russia has not yet shipped any of the S-300 missiles, according to Israeli officials. Israel, though, has publicly warned against the sale of the missiles, whose range would permit Syria to strike deeper inside Israel, and its officials have made it clear privately that they would take action to ensure they are not delivered and readied for use. Israel has already struck Syria at least three times this year , targeting what officials have described as missiles and other weapons shipments to Hezbollah, whose members are now openly fighting in Syria. On May 14, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel flew to the Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russia, favored by Mr. Putin to raise concerns about the missiles but, the officials said, apparently failed to persuade him to cancel the sale. The State Department’s spokeswoman, Jennifer R. Psaki, said on Friday that the United States fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself.

Russia
Syria
John Kerry
Arab Spring
Missiles and Missile Defense
International relations


Baylor Coach Scott Drew’s Family All In During a Big Win

Abstract: ATLANTA — By the standards of major college basketball, Baylor Coach Scott Drew has been remarkably adaptable this season. For example, Drew instituted a three-guard lineup in late February that changed the look of his team, an admission that the plan for his high-profile but underachieving team was not working and needed adjustments midflight. On Friday night, however, he did what he always does. Even though his parents, Homer and Janet, brother Bryce and extended family sat in the Baylor rooting section, Drew did not sneak so much as a glance at them. “I never look at anybody in the stands,” Drew said after his Bears advanced to the national quarterfinals for the second time in three years, courtesy of a taut 75-70 victory over Xavier . “I know my 7-year-old gets mad at me, wondering why when I walk out on the floor, I won’t wink at her or look at her.” Such focus was impressive, given that both of Drew’s parents are battling cancer and had made the 10-hour drive from Valparaiso, Ind., to watch their oldest son’s team play live for the first time this season. Homer, the former coach at Valparaiso University, had surgery last fall for prostate cancer, and Janet has bladder cancer. “We had to convince the doctors to let us come,” said Homer Drew, who wore a blue blazer, resisting the urge to dress in the Day-Glo green that Baylor is foisting upon unsuspecting college hoops fans during the tournament. His cancer was caught early, and he said he was “feeling great.” Janet Drew’s illness is more severe, requiring chemotherapy and radiation treatment. But she had no problem engaging in some deception to make the trip south. “It was like when you ask your kids if they did their homework,” she said, “and they say, ‘Yes.’ Then you ask again, and they say, ‘Well, not the math.’ They don’t give you the whole story. That’s what we did. We didn’t give the doctors the whole story. We left out a few details.” Scott Drew said after the game that his mother “probably shouldn’t have come down, but my mom’s the tough one in the family.” When the Bears took a 22-4 lead in the game’s opening moments, Janet Drew was probably counting on a comfortable win. But Xavier made it a game until the final seconds. “I got a shot of adrenaline from that one,” she said as the buzzer sounded. “I’m feeling good right now.” The three-guard set Baylor turned to late in the season revitalized the Bears, enabling them to get the defensive stoppers A. J. Walton and Deuce Bello more playing time. “We talked about it during the season when they switched,” Homer Drew said. “I liked it because they got better defense out of it. And it changes the look of the offense a little, enough to open up space inside.” Scott Drew admitted to a little larceny after the game, saying that the few minutes of triangle-and-2 defense Baylor used to help slow Xavier’s superb backcourt of Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons was taken from its rival Kansas. “They used it a little bit this year,” he said. “We practiced it, and it was O.K., and that’s why we threw it out there today.” Between the different defenses and the smaller lineup, Baylor hounded Holloway and Lyons into a combined 11-of-28 shooting as they wore down noticeably in the second half. “I think our guards do a great job on the defensive end,” said Baylor point guard Pierre Jackson, who had 16 points and 10 assists. Bello, a lanky 6-foot-4 freshman, in particular, caused problems for Xavier on the perimeter. The Drew family of coaches also includes Bryce, who took over for his retired father at Valparaiso this season but is still best known for his memorable 3-pointer at the buzzer that lifted the Crusaders over Mississippi in the 1998 N.C.A.A. tournament. “We have three-way discussions whenever we can,” Homer said of his sons. “I learn more from them than they do from me.” Janet Drew, explaining why it was so important for her to make the trip, said, “Basketball has always been the stability in our lives.” It also provides the excitement, like the moment when Baylor forward Quincy Acy hammered down a monstrous dunk over the Xavier 7-footer Kenny Frease, bringing Janet Drew to (and practically off) her feet. “My dad will point out a few things we did wrong tonight,” Scott Drew said, “so I have that to look forward to.” Up next for Baylor is the South Region final against Kentucky, the consensus tournament favorite and one of the few teams more athletic than the Bears. Regardless of the result Sunday, the Drews will have had a memorable weekend.

NCAA Basketball Championships (Men)
Basketball (College)
Baylor University
Drew Scott
Coaches and Managers
Drew Homer
Xavier University of Ohio
University of Kentucky


Tiny Lead for Incumbent in Tennessee Primary Vote

Abstract: MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Less than two years after tawdry details of his divorce and extramarital relationships burst into public view , Representative Scott DesJarlais, Republican of Tennessee, held a minuscule advantage on Friday in a primary election battle that could become a startling example of political survival. The Tennessee secretary of state reported that Mr. DesJarlais led his nearest rival, State Senator Jim Tracy, by just 35 votes on Friday. More than 77,000 voters submitted ballots in the seven-way election for the Republican nomination in this state’s Fourth Congressional District, a vast stretch that includes parts of the Chattanooga and Nashville metropolitan areas. Mr. DesJarlais, who was elected to Congress in 2010, declared victory early Friday and told supporters, “I promise I will never forget that I work for you.” In a later post on his campaign’s Facebook page , he said, “I promise I will never let you down.” Mr. Tracy’s campaign refused to concede the race, putting into some doubt the identity of the Republican who will meet Lenda Sherrell , a Democrat, in the general election. “There are ballots left to be counted in the Fourth District Republican primary,” Mr. Tracy’s campaign said. “We eagerly await the final outcome once the counting is completed and verified.” Just months ago, such an electoral showing by Mr. DesJarlais would have been all but unthinkable, and many observers here expected Mr. Tracy to win the Republican nomination with ease. Mr. Tracy raised about $1.4 million for his campaign, according to federal disclosure filings, while Mr. DesJarlais had only $447,000 to spend. Image Mr. DesJarlais led his nearest rival, State Senator Jim Tracy, by just 35 votes Credit Mark Humphrey/Associated Press And discussion of Mr. DesJarlais’s personal life continued to swirl around him and his campaign. Days after he won his second term in Congress in 2012, the transcript of his divorce trial from more than a decade earlier became public. The court documents, reported by The Chattanooga Times Free Press , showed that Mr. DesJarlais, a physician, had sexual relationships with multiple women, including patients under his care. (In May 2013, the State Board of Medical Examiners fined and reprimanded him for his associations with two patients.) The records also showed that Mr. DesJarlais, who ran for office as a conservative opposed to abortion rights, endorsed his ex-wife’s decisions to have two abortions before they were married. Steve Newton, 62, a voter, said he was exasperated that personal issues had been at the forefront of the campaign. He thought voters ignored Mr. DesJarlais’s past marital troubles. “They’ve tuned it out because they’re just tired of it,” Mr. Newton said while he waited for a turkey-and-cheese sandwich on Friday at City Cafe, a popular gathering spot here where a pre-election straw poll had given Mr. Tracy the edge. “You ever hear two teenage girls arguing? That’s what it sounds like.” But other voters, in a reflection of sentiment across the country against incumbents, said they wanted to oust Mr. DesJarlais, even before they considered the matter of his integrity. “I just remember thinking someone else needs a turn,” said Savannah Sadler, a student at the University of Tennessee. In this deeply conservative district — one business here has a banner reading “Save America. Fire President Obama.” — many voters were willing to prioritize Mr. DesJarlais’s voting record over his personal history. “If someone is voting against who they want you to vote against, people in this environment will overlook some issues,” said Kent Syler, a former congressional aide who now teaches at Middle Tennessee State University. “The bottom line for a whole lot of voters is, ‘You may not be perfect, but if you’re voting against Barack Obama most of the time, then I can give you the benefit of the doubt, especially in a Republican primary.’ ”

Tennessee
Primaries
Voting
Jim Tracy
Scott E DesJarlais
2014 Midterm Elections
House races
Congressional elections
Adultery


Panthers Overwhelm the Islanders in Brooklyn

Abstract: Reilly Smith, Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad all scored in the second period Tuesday night to lead the Florida Panthers to a 5-1 victory over the Islanders in Brooklyn. Vincent Trocheck and Jonathan Huberdeau added goals in the third period, and Roberto Luongo finished with 33 saves for the Panthers. Florida defeated the Islanders for the second time this season after a shootout win at home on Nov. 23. Brock Nelson had his 10th goal of the season for the Islanders, who had a five-game home winning streak end, as well as a 10-game stretch over all without a loss in regulation (8-0-2). Jaroslav Halak had 12 saves. After the Islanders outshot the Panthers, 19-2, in a scoreless first, Smith opened the scoring at 1 minute 51 seconds of the second with a slap shot from the right circle for his ninth goal of the season. Barkov made it 2-0 for the Panthers with his seventh goal of the season, unassisted, at 7:25 of the second. Nelson pulled the Islanders to 2-1 with 7:23 remaining in the period when his shot dribbled past Luongo. However, Ekblad scored 20 seconds later to restore the two-goal lead. The goal was Ekblad’s seventh. Trocheck extended the lead to 4-1 at 1:23 of the third period with his ninth goal of the season. Huberdeau was awarded an empty-net short-handed goal with 3:43 left when he was pulled down as he tried to score; it was his fourth goal of the season. Luongo improved to 11-11-3 this season. A former Islander who leads active goaltenders with 412 wins and 888 games played, Luongo, 36, was not especially tested except for glove saves on Kyle Okposo in the first and John Tavares in the second. Playing without their leading scorer — Jaromir Jagr, who was out with the flu — the Panthers kept steady pressure on the Islanders, even though they were outshot by a wide margin. Florida recalled Rocco Grimaldi from the American Hockey League’s Portland franchise for the game. The Panthers also dressed the rarely used right wing Logan Shaw and center Corban Knight, who made his Panthers debut. Halak had been 4-0-2 in his past six games. He lost for the first time since Nov. 12 at Los Angeles, when the Kings won, 2-1. The Islanders smothered three Panthers power plays, extending their streak to 24 straight penalty kills. The Panthers have won the past four meetings against the Islanders — including twice in shootouts — but the Islanders are 6-4-2 in their past 12 games against Florida. Islanders forward Ryan Strome returned after missing Sunday’s win over the Devils with an upper-body injury.


What It Takes to Become a United States Citizen

Abstract: The United States deported 387,790 people in the 2009 fiscal year, but to hear Shyconia Burden of Citizenship and Immigration Services describe it, you would think we’re desperate for new recruits. “The goal is to naturalize as many people as want to become U.S. citizens,” she told me one recent day in the waiting room of the New York district office where she, an effusively warm community relations officer, has been working since she was 15. Ms. Burden and her colleagues distribute knapsacks full of informative flashcards and DVDs. They fan out around the city to conduct community workshops. Last year the New York office naturalized around 90,000 people, something like 90 percent of those who applied. Seated near Ms. Burden as she spoke were people from Canada, the Dominican Republic, Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan, Colombia, China, Haiti, Nigeria — whatever assortment the day brought. Having gotten themselves safely to our shores, having beaten the odds and secured a green card, having held that card for at least five years (three for those married to citizens), having filled out Form N-400 and paid $675, they were waiting to undergo an interview. So was I, although my interview, like the application I had submitted, was only for show. I was led to a small office, where Officer Tracy Plante began reviewing my file. Was it true that I had lived at the following addresses? Had I ever practiced bigamy? Would I read and write a sentence in English, and take a brief oral exam on the basics of citizenship? The exam offers 10 chances to get six correct answers. I got there in seven, having choked on the simple question of when income taxes are due. My error would come as no surprise to the I.R.S. (or my husband). But the truth is, I was nervous. The N-400 is a difficult form to complete, and not just because it asks for such a detailed accounting of your life. It also asks you to commit yourself in ways that I, having been born here, had never before been asked to do. For example, without bothering to give it much thought, I had always assumed that if I were drafted into military service I could ride it out in some noncombatant role, along with others as idealistic or cowardly as I am. But candidates for citizenship have to state their willingness to bear arms. Then they have to sign an oath to that effect, and then they have to recite the oath. Some of the questions seemed to be daring me to lie. “Have you ever advocated (either directly or indirectly) the overthrow of any government by force or violence?” Sure, by paying my federal taxes — or does it not count as overthrow if you call it “regime change”? I went with “no” but worried about the perjury warning at the form’s conclusion. For me, it was an exercise. But a real applicant might be very worried indeed. If an examiner finds any technical problems with the way an immigrant got his green card, or if his background check turns up any unfavorable encounters with law enforcement, that person may wind up not just rejected, but remanded to a detention center . After a hearing, many are deported. Others fall into a limbo from which it may take years to emerge. Since 2003, 112 people died in these detention centers, often from lack of medical attention . The naturalization process moves more quickly these days than it did before the Department of Homeland Security absorbed the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2003. But David Leopold, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that “removal proceedings” have become a more likely outcome, especially if a candidate has a criminal record. “I’ve seen almost no favorable discretion,” he said, “even if it’s a very old conviction and the person has shown through their actions a lifetime of rehabilitation.” I passed my exams and interview. (Good thing I chose the right answer to the question, “Between March 23, 1933, and May 8, 1945, did you work for or associate in any way (either directly or indirectly) with the Nazi government of Germany?”) Afterward, I was invited to participate in the next scheduled swearing-in ceremony, held in the auditorium of Baruch College. It was Flag Day, so everyone got little American flags. Sitting among the 125 elated, exhausted candidates from 40 countries, I thought about all they had gone through to get to this day: leaving home, crossing oceans or borders, living for so long in some anxious half-way status. Maybe it was the video we were watching — sepia-toned images of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free — but I got a little teary. Then the music ended, the lights came up, and I looked across the room. The Asian hipster with the Justin Bieber shag had fallen asleep. When it was time for the national anthem, Ms. Burden busted out with a set of pipes to shame Aretha Franklin. Andrea Quarantillo, the New York district director of the immigration service, told the crowd, “It may be the best work the U.S. government does, to bring new citizens to the country” — fighting words, in some places. Then we all watched another stirring video, unforgivably accompanied by the Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the U.S.A.” Finally we stood up, row by row, and walked across the stage, for our official papers and a receiving line of congratulatory handshakes. (I received a dummied-up certificate, with a photo someone pulled up off the Internet. Be warned: the Department of Homeland Security apparently reads Gawker.) The path to American citizenship can be grueling and treacherous, but this day was pure joy. “Really, I feel like I’m free now,” said Shaker Baidas, who came here from Jordan in 1994. It was just hard not to think of the millions more who would give anything to join in.

United States
Immigration and Emigration
Citizenship and Naturalization


2 Voter Rights Cases, One Gripping a College Town, Stir Texas

Abstract: PRAIRIE VIEW, Tex. — “Vote or Die,” exhorts the faded slogan on a roadway at Prairie View A&M University, where black students once marched for the right to vote here in the town where they attend school, on a former cotton plantation about 50 miles northwest of Houston. The students won that battle in 2004, long after the United States Supreme Court supposedly decided the issue in 1979. But disputes over minority voting rights — along with accusations of election fraud — continue to rouse Prairie View, home to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges, and other Texas locales. “The cold war’s not over — they just moved the fence from Berlin to the Texas border,” said DeWayne Charleston, Waller County justice of the peace, who maintains that local officials failed to record hundreds of students whom he registered to vote in 2006. The federal Department of Justice and the Texas attorney general’s office say investigations are under way here, but will not give details. Meanwhile, the attorney general, Greg Abbott, is a defendant in a separate voting rights case that goes to federal trial on Wednesday in the East Texas city of Marshall, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding Indiana’s tough voter identification law. Arguing that antifraud provisions enacted in 2003 were being selectively enforced to intimidate minority voters who are largely Democrats, the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against Mr. Abbott and Phil Wilson, the secretary of state, both Republicans. The suit, initially filed in 2006, contends that get-out-the-vote activists who help voters with mail ballots have been “interrogated, harassed and intimidated” by state investigators. J. Gerald Hebert, the lawyer for the Democrats, said his first witnesses would be several elderly black women prosecuted on fraud charges for what Mr. Hebert described as help given other elderly voters in the mailing of early ballots in Texarkana, Fort Worth and Dallas. Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson say they have a duty to prevent voter fraud. To complaints that any infractions at issue have been insignificant, they say that in pursuit of that duty, they must pursue violations of provisions like one that requires anyone mailing in a ballot to sign the envelope. They say that “there is no evidence of any voters who have been unable to vote due to enactment or enforcement” of the provisions, which, they also note, were sponsored in the Texas House by a Democrat. Further, they say, there is no evidence that enforcement has intimidated anyone into stopping voter assistance efforts. The Dallas Morning News reported on May 18 that all 26 cases of voter fraud prosecuted by Mr. Abbott had been brought against Democrats, almost all of them black or Hispanic. But in their legal brief, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson said that the state had brought voter fraud cases against Republicans as well and that “mere questioning” of people about activities that might have broken the law did not deprive them of a constitutional right. The brief said the two officials’ position was strengthened by the Supreme Court’s Indiana ruling, on April 28, which allowed states, as a way of preventing fraud, to require voters to show photo identification. The suit against Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson involves enforcement of provisions that make it a crime in certain cases to carry someone else’s filled-in early-voting ballot to the mailbox, to possess another person’s blank ballot or to provide early-voting ballot assistance to anyone who has not asked for it. The case, to be tried without a jury before Judge T. John Ward, has put Mr. Abbott at odds with Judge Charleston and some campus activists at Prairie View, who say they once looked to the attorney general as a champion of their voting rights. In 2004, Oliver Kitzman, then the Waller County district attorney, challenged the students’ right to cast ballots here rather than in their home communities, although the Supreme Court had long ago decided they could. Students, claiming that the county’s white residents feared the voting power of the predominantly black 9,000-member student body, marched in protest, and Mr. Abbott wrote an opinion supporting them. Mr. Kitzman soon retired, and students continued to cast ballots here. But other voting rights disputes have since erupted. Before the 2006 election, Judge Charleston said in an interview, he personally registered about 1,000 students. But on Election Day, he said, hundreds of them were turned away as not registered to vote. The registration cards were later found in county offices, he said. Ellen C. Shelburne, the county tax assessor and registrar, who took office in January 2007, said she had recently been questioned by investigators from Mr. Abbott’s office and had told them that she knew nothing about the matter. Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott, said, “We cannot comment on ongoing investigations.” Jamie Hais, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said, “We do have an ongoing investigation into the matter,” but declined to comment further. Judge Charleston said he had also complained to federal and state officials that Waller County had denied Prairie View students convenient polling locations. Further, he told them that for the May 10 school board election, not only did district trustees use public money to issue a voter guide, the guide also gave short shift to two black candidates, Jemiah Richards and Charli Cooksey, both Prairie View students, who subsequently lost to incumbents. Patrick W. Mizell, a lawyer for the firm of Vinson & Elkins, which was hired to represent the school board, said that this was the first time the trustees had put out a guide but that he saw nothing wrong with it. Anyway, Mr. Mizell said, “I don’t think a large number of Prairie View students have kids in the local school district.”

Texas
Voter Registration and Requirements
Race


Liberals See Hillary Clinton’s Focus on Big Donors as Bafflingly Dated

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In 2012, B. Rowe Winecoff, a retired social worker from Newton, Iowa, contributed $120 to President Obama’s re-election campaign. But he has yet to give any money to Hillary Clinton in this election. “This year just seems dirtier than ever,” said Mr. Winecoff, a Democrat, explaining why he has not contributed to the candidate he intends to vote for. Even as newly released financial disclosures reveal that Mrs. Clinton enjoys a substantial fund-raising advantage over Donald J. Trump, she is struggling to replicate the sort of small-dollar juggernaut that Mr. Obama enjoyed in his campaigns and Senator Bernie Sanders relied on in this year’s Democratic primaries. In an illustration of the lack of enthusiasm for her among some liberal activists, just 24 percent of the contributors to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign so far have given $200 or less. In 2012, 43 percent of the money to Mr. Obama was from contributors who gave $200 or less, and this year 58 percent of the giving to Mr. Sanders’s grass-roots bid came from small-dollar donors. Without this online network, Mrs. Clinton is being made to continue with an aggressive calendar of fund-raisers with rich donors as Election Day grows near — events that can limit her time in swing states and reinforce concerns that give rank-and-file Democrats pause. “Hillary has been at so many fund-raisers and off the campaign trail,” said Mr. Winecoff, bringing up her schedule without prompting. “And a lot of money is coming from special interests, so we’re concerned about what that’s going to mean.” Since Labor Day, the traditional start of general election campaigns, Mrs. Clinton has appeared at nine fund-raisers while attending five public events in swing states. And that does not include the multiple money events she was set to attend in California, but instead sent Bill Clinton to after she came down with pneumonia. Mrs. Clinton has tried to meld her need to raise money for advertisements and voter-turnout efforts with her retail campaign. But it can be a stretch. After addressing college students at Temple University this week, for example, she attended a fund-raiser hosted by David L. Cohen, a Comcast executive and Philadelphia Democratic powerhouse, that brought in roughly $3 million. Trying to keep with the day’s theme, college students and young Comcast employees were also invited, to interact with Mrs. Clinton in the kind of rarefied small setting typically reserved for wealthy contributors. “What Bernie did in the primary was truly incredible, but we’re very happy with the state of our grass-roots fund-raising,” said Josh Scherwin, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, adding that “September is shaping up to be our best month for online fund-raising.” But the campaign’s traditional approach to raising money is maddening to many Democrats, particularly liberals who have witnessed the evolution of online fund-raising and are baffled at why Mrs. Clinton is so committed to an approach they see as nearly as dated as torchlight parades. “It boggles my mind that the Clinton campaign didn’t learn their lessons from 2012 or even earlier this year, and haven’t moved toward a more open and public campaign, one that constantly has her in front of real people instead of rich people,” said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the blog Daily Kos. Donors for Bush, Kasich and Christie Are Turning to Clinton More Than to Trump People who donated to establishment Republican candidates in the primary season are more likely to give money to Hillary Clinton than to Donald J. Trump. He continued: “Sanders certainly proved that if you focus all of your energy on the voting public, that core supporters will reward that love with real money. Instead, Clinton’s campaign still seems stuck on the old model of never-ending high-dollar fund-raisers. As a result, she looks secluded and out of reach, further reinforcing the notion that she cares more about the wealthy than regular folks.” This close to the election, though, Mrs. Clinton may not have much of a choice. Given Democratic fears of Mr. Trump and her advantage in the race, there is an intense demand for her in the ranks of major Democratic givers. “Just trying to find a date has been a challenge,” said James Hodges, a former South Carolina governor who has been trying to organize an event for Mrs. Clinton before the election. Further, the very fund-raising model she is depending on demands a continued stream of events with contribution levels that begin at five figures and often run higher. It is an approach that she and Mr. Clinton are well acquainted with, dating to the 1990s when raising soft money for the national parties was legal. They have enduring relationships with donors in all 50 states going back to those days. So unlike in the campaigns of Mr. Obama and Mr. Sanders, who began as insurgents, necessity has not demanded that Mrs. Clinton raise money any other way. (Mr. Obama ultimately fashioned a network that relied on both modest givers and the wealthy.) “She’s invested heavily in the infrastructure of human beings: finance directors across the country, photo lines and donor-circle membership,” said Scott Goodstein, the founder of Revolution Messaging, an online Democratic fund-raising firm. “Now they’ve got to play that out. She, unfortunately, made that commitment to do those five house parties or what have you in New York and now she has to stand on that because her bundler network needs it.” Mr. Goodstein, whose firm ran Mr. Sanders’s online fund-raising effort, added that “the mistake that I think they made was not reaching deeper, building deeper infrastructure and a deeper coalition.” Instead, she is relying on the sort of access-oriented fund-raising that is a staple of Washington. And she is not the only one making herself available to major contributors who want to influence policy. This month, for example, Michele Flournoy, who is seen as a favorite to be Mrs. Clinton’s defense secretary, headlined a fund-raiser in defense-industry-rich Northern Virginia where the top contribution requested was $5,000. Mrs. Clinton’s low-dollar fund-raising has picked up in recent months, and over half of the total money she raised last month came through online contributions, according to a campaign aide. And with polls tightening, Democrats expect Mrs. Clinton’s online success to pick up.“Urgency really drives action,” said Mitch Stewart, a veteran of Mr. Obama’s campaigns. It is Mr. Trump who is drawing more from modest givers as a percentage of his total contributions . Sixty-one percent of his donations through the end of July were in amounts of $200 or less, a figure that is partly explained by the resistance to his candidacy from wealthy Republican contributors. Yet many in Mrs. Clinton’s own party believe she could have done far better had she made Democratic activists feel as invested as the party’s elites. “The campaigns with the most effective networks of small-dollar donors are the campaigns where small-dollar donors feel their donations matter,” said Ari Rabin-Havt, a SiriusXM radio host who has worked on online fund-raising campaigns for Democrats.

Hillary Clinton
Democrats
2016 Presidential Election
Campaign finance
Barack Obama
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump


Sam Farber, Creator of Oxo Utensils, Dies at 88

Abstract: Sam Farber, who was spurred by a fiend in the form of a vegetable peeler to start Oxo, the housewares manufacturer whose ergonomic rubber handles grace its kitchen utensils in many homes, died on Sunday in East Meadow, N.Y. He was 88. The cause was complications of a recent fall, his son John said. Oxo took root in the late 1980s, when Mr. Farber, ostensibly retired, and his wife, Betsey, were making an apple tart in their rented home in the south of France. Preparing the apples, Ms. Farber, who has mild arthritis in her hands, was exasperated by their unwieldy peeler, which she found painful to use. Mr. Farber knew housewares — he had founded Copco, a maker of brightly colored enameled cast-iron cookware, in 1960 and run the company before selling it in 1982. He immediately discerned a gap in the market: kitchen devices that were as comfortable as they were functional, designed not only for cooks with hand problems but for all cooks. With John Farber, the couple founded Oxo in Manhattan soon afterward. (Sam Farber chose the name for its backward, upside-down and vertical graphic symmetry.) Enlisting Smart Design , a New York industrial design concern, they created Oxo’s Good Grips line of kitchen tools. Image Sam Farber came up with the idea for Oxo after watching his wife, Betsey, using an apple peeler with her arthritic hands. Credit OXO Made with a spare, minimalist aesthetic in mind, the tools sported what would become the line’s distinctive hallmark: fat black handles of a soft plastic known as Santoprene, shaped and angled to be easy on the hand. The line was unveiled in 1990 at the Gourmet Products Show in San Francisco. Though its prices left some commercial buyers skeptical at first — a Good Grips potato peeler cost about $6, compared with about $2 for a conventional peeler — it soon proved a hit with consumers. The company’s products have won many design awards and are ubiquitous today in hardware and housewares stores and in chain retailers like Target and Kmart. Mr. Farber sold Oxo to the General Housewares Corporation in 1992. His later ventures included creating a line of kitchenware with his son John for the celebrity chef Mario Batali. Samuel Farber was born in Manhattan on Nov. 16, 1924, and reared in Yonkers. Pots and pans were in his pedigree: an uncle, Simon Farber, founded the cookware maker Farberware on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1900. His father, Louis, helped found Farber Brothers, makers of glass and silver-plated serving ware. During World War II, Mr. Farber served with the Army Air Forces in Turkey and North Africa. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard in 1946 and later joined his father’s business. Image The kitchen tools feature soft plastic handles shaped for comfort. Credit OXO Mr. Farber, who lectured frequently about industrial design and received many awards in the field, was also a major collector of outsider art, including work by Henry Darger and Martín Ramírez. As a board member of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, he helped secure the architectural firm Tod Williams, Billie Tsien & Associates to design the museum’s former home on West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Opened in 2001 and widely praised by critics, the building is now owned by its neighbor, the Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Farber’s first marriage, to Joan Levine, ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, the former Betsey Wells Kriegsman, whom he married in 1985, survivors include two sons from his first marriage, John and Thomas; two stepchildren, Mark Kriegsman and Sue Kriegsman; four granddaughters; and three step-granddaughters. A longtime resident of Manhattan, Mr. Farber lived most recently in Lexington, Mass. Today, Oxo is owned by Helen of Troy, a maker of personal care products. Its Good Grips line now comprises hundreds of items, including cleaning, gardening and barbecue tools. All for the want of a painless peeler a quarter-century ago. “It’s hard to think of a vegetable peeler as radical,” Mr. Farber told The Los Angeles Times in 2000. “But I guess it was.”

Sam Farber
OXO International
Cookware and bakeware
Obituary


A Killing. A Pointed Gun. And Two Black Lives, Witnessing.

Abstract: “Stay with me.” These are the first words that Diamond Reynolds speaks to her dying boyfriend, Philando Castile , in her video on Facebook Live. He’s slumped in the driver’s seat, blood soaking his white T-shirt, a police officer pointing a gun through the car window, as Ms. Reynolds’s 4-year-old daughter sits in the back seat. We’re sadly used to seeing videos of police violence against black citizens: chaotic, abrupt images of a deadly moment. This one, showing a killing’s aftermath, is different — narrative, personal and terrifyingly intimate. We listen as a woman talks us through her nightmare and tries to talk herself and her daughter out of it alive. In about 10 minutes, it tells a story of race and law enforcement in America, plays out a life-or-death interaction between a black woman and armed police and shows us a little girl’s heartbreaking education. First Ms. Reynolds calmly gives her description of what happened: They were pulled over on Wednesday for a broken taillight in Falcon Heights, Minn.; Mr. Castile told the officer that he had a licensed firearm and reached for his identification, and the officer shot him. When the video begins, Mr. Castile is moving. A minute later, he’s still and slack. She worries that he is already gone. We stay with her. “We” here refers to the worldwide audience of the video, which had some four million views as of Thursday evening. We have seen this sort of thing too many times. We saw it just this week , when cellphone video emerged of Alton B. Sterling, another African-American man, being shot and killed point-blank while pinned to the ground by the police in Baton Rouge, La. We saw Tamir Rice and Walter Scott and on and on. But Ms. Reynolds’s video is still stunning, not simply for its raw images. It takes us inside a moment of private horror and public witness, showing how the ubiquitous technology of video can be empowering yet leave the viewer feeling helpless. There are layers to Ms. Reynolds’s narration. The camera may be a kind of shield; the officer still has his gun drawn, cursing, agitated, and her 4-year-old daughter is in the back seat. Ms. Reynolds is also telling the first draft of the story, calmly. And the calmness is a message in itself. “I told him not to reach for it,” the officer shouts. “You told him to get his ID, sir,” she says. She says “sir” repeatedly — “You shot four bullets into him, sir” — as if to counter any questions about her tone, as if to say, you can comply, you can say all the things you’re supposed to say, and still this happens . (Because the video begins after the shooting, we don’t see firsthand how it unfolded.) More officers, guns drawn, tell her to get out of the car and get on her knees. Someone puts the phone on the ground, and you see blue sky and utility wires. You hear the click of handcuffs, sirens, a male voice shouting, cursing. Then a hand picks up the phone, and there’s blackness. But you can still hear. You hear Ms. Reynolds cry out — “Please don’t tell me my boyfriend’s gone!” — hear her pray for Mr. Castile’s life, hear her testify for him: “He’s never been a gang member, anything.” You hear, heartbreakingly, Ms. Reynolds’s daughter tell an officer, “I want to get my mommy’s purse.” There’s a rustle; there’s light. You see, for a second, the face of the young girl who just watched a man shot to death, staring stoically at you. Black Lives Upended by Policing: The Raw Videos Sparking Outrage This is a collection of the viral footage that has prompted a national conversation about race and policing. The video puts you in the moment, but it disembodies you. You are this machine, picked up, dropped down, pulled back out. You are eyes and ears without arms and legs. Watching, by itself, is a kind of paralysis. We can see this thing — but we’ve seen so many tragedies like it by now, and seeing hasn’t kept them from happening again and again. Witnessing, on the other hand — as an affirmative act, like Ms. Reynolds’s — can make a difference. Without video, this kind of shooting might be an item in a local police blotter rather than national news. In the shooting of Mr. Sterling, the police said that the officers’ body cameras had been dislodged, but private-citizen video provided a record, and the Justice Department opened an investigation. Witnessing spurred the Black Lives Matter movement. After the video of Mr. Castile’s shooting appeared, people protested in the streets and gathered online to commiserate and to share advice on how to record encounters with the police. But for all of video’s power to bring us directly into a moment, it can’t help but remind us of the gulf between virtual and physical presence, as Ms. Reynolds’s livecast does in its last wrenching minute. She sits in the back of a police car, handcuffed, with her daughter. She makes her case again: “The police just shot him for no apparent reason.” She tells any friends watching live that she’s going to need a ride. Finally, she loses her composure and screams. “It’s O.K.,” we hear her daughter say. “I’m right here with you.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Curry Seems to Lose His Touch Just as the Knicks Find Theirs

Abstract: GREENBURGH, N.Y., Dec. 1 — Even Eddy Curry could not resist poking fun at himself during the last three games. “I’ve been on vacation,” Curry told reporters after practice Saturday. Curry, the Knicks ’ starting center, was not on a remote beach Thursday, but it seemed that way. He scored 4 points in the Knicks’ 45-point loss to the Boston Celtics, missing 9 of 11 shots. On Friday, Curry was a spectator late in the fourth quarter as the Knicks came back to beat the Milwaukee Bucks. Curry’s recent decline is the latest pothole in what has been a difficult season for the team. But Coach Isiah Thomas said he saw no reason to change Curry’s role in the rotation, perhaps because the Knicks have won three of their last four games. “He draws so much attention down low,” Thomas said of Curry. “He’s getting double-teamed and triple-teamed, which consequently opens up a lot of things for everyone else. So good things are happening for other people.” Thomas also said that Curry had been playing well on defense; he has four blocks in the last three games. But Curry’s struggles offensively are nearly impossible to overlook. In the past three games, beginning with Monday’s victory against the Utah Jazz, he had a combined 19 points and 10 rebounds. Last season, Curry averaged 19.5 points and 7 rebounds a game. If the problems persist when the Knicks (5-10) play host to the speedy Phoenix Suns (12-4) on Sunday night, Thomas might give Curry a quick hook. That would most likely create an opportunity for David Lee, whose playing time has been limited this season. Unlike Curry and Zach Randolph, Lee does not need to take a lot of shots to be effective. Curry and Randolph rarely seem to play well at the same time. But Curry also saw no reason to tinker with the lineup. “I think it can work,” Curry said of the low-post tandem he forms with Randolph. “We’ve won games with both of us on the court, so it’s obvious that it can work. But it’s going to take some patience. It’s going to take some hard work.” A few weeks ago, Thomas threatened to bench several players, Curry included. Curry, who scored at least 12 points in each of the Knicks’ first 12 games, said Saturday that he did not feel pressured by the threat. He said he would prefer to play through his dry spells. “Especially when I’m not playing well, I definitely hate coming out of the game,” said Curry, who played only 4 minutes 37 seconds in the fourth quarter of Friday’s 91-88 victory against Milwaukee. “I always feel like when I’m out there, it’s an opportunity for me to try and turn things around.” Point guard Stephon Marbury was likewise not on the court for the comeback. He missed the entire fourth quarter with an injured right shoulder. Marbury said Saturday that he felt fine and had been cleared by the Knicks’ medical staff to play against the Suns. He missed the Knicks’ first game against Phoenix, nearly three weeks ago, when he briefly left the team. Curry said the Knicks never imagined that November would present so many obstacles. But brighter days — in theory, at least — appear to be on the horizon. The Knicks played 7 of 15 games on the road in November, but they play 5 of 14 games on the road in December. They played five of the league’s top six teams — Boston, Orlando, Phoenix, Utah and Detroit — in November, going 1-4. Only five of their opponents in December currently have winning records. “Thank God,” Thomas said, laughing, about this month’s schedule.


Man Shot After Striking Off-Duty New York Detective With Meat Cleaver, Authorities Say

Abstract: A man wielding an 11-inch meat cleaver near Pennsylvania Station and resisting police officers’ efforts to catch him on Thursday slashed an off-duty detective in the head before being shot by the police, the authorities said, in an episode that sent commuters and tourists fleeing during the evening rush. It started when the police confronted a man who was trying to remove a “boot” device attached to a tire on his car, officials said, and escalated into a chaotic chase through Midtown Manhattan that ended with officers shooting at him 18 times. The man, Akram Joudeh, 32, was critically injured and taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, the police said. The off-duty detective, identified by the police as Brian O’Donnell, was in serious condition. Two other officers were taken to the center with injuries that were not life-threatening. The episode began around 5 p.m. at West 32nd Street and Broadway when several officers responded to a report that Mr. Joudeh was trying to remove the device, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said at a news conference on Thursday night. The police said they believed Mr. Joudeh, whose last known residence was in Queens, was living out of his car. The chief of department, James O’Neill, said Mr. Joudeh pulled a cleaver from his waist band, threatened the officers and then fled. At one point, the chief said, the man mounted the front grille of a marked police car that had responded to the call. As officers pursued him, a uniformed sergeant “deployed a Taser, striking the suspect without apparent effect,” Chief O’Neill said. As Mr. Joudeh ran along West 32nd Street, the off-duty detective, who was headed to Penn Station after a day in court, saw the pursuit and tried to stop him. He was struck in the head with the cleaver, “causing an approximate six-inch gash from his temple about down to his jaw,” the chief said. Officers then fired at the man, striking him several times, the chief said. Officials said Mr. Joudeh had several past arrests, but they would not elaborate on his criminal history. In 2010, Mr. Joudeh pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of petit larceny and was sentenced to 90 days, according to public records. In 2009, he was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, but those felonies were dismissed, records show. He pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a vehicle and was fined, but served no time. Image Akram Joudeh, the man accused in the attack. Asked about the possibility that the attack might have been tied to terrorism, Chief O’Neill said, “As part of our investigation, nothing’s off the table.” The chase left commuters and tourists scurrying for cover as officers flooded the area during the start of the evening rush near a transit hub. Mr. Bratton addressed concerns that so many shots were fired in such a busy area. “Sufficient shots were fired to deter the attack on my officers,” he said. Richard DeWald, a nurse, said he narrowly avoided Mr. Joudeh during the pursuit. “He just seemed wild and crazy,” Mr. DeWald, 56, said. “First there was yelling, and then all I heard was the gunshots.” Witnesses said they saw Mr. Joudeh on the corner of 32nd Street and Avenue of the Americas, clutching a large meat cleaver to his chest. They said he was silent and his face was expressionless. “He didn’t say a word, that’s the thing,” said Jonathan Schneier, who works at a software company and watched the episode unfold from across the street. Mr. Schneier said the officers, shouting “Drop the weapon,” pointed their guns at the man, who appeared “flustered.” “He just looked like a crazy guy with a huge weapon,” he said. “He just literally looked like a deer in headlights.” Mr. Schneier said the man began “sprinting as fast as he could” and was pursued by police. About 10 seconds after that, Mr. Schneier said, he heard gunshots. Image While the confrontation sent commuters and tourists fleeing during the evening rush, some passers-by paused to take in the scene. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times “I called my girlfriend right away and told her what happened,” he added. “It’s New York. Stuff happens.” Robert Mennella of Bridgewater, N.J., said he had left the subway station at 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue and was headed to Penn Station. He said he saw a number of unmarked and marked police cars racing along 32nd Street when he heard gunshots. “Everybody turned around,” he said. “Some people stood there with their phones to take pictures, and I just took off.” He said he ran to Penn Station and saw officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and from New Jersey Transit running upstairs. “I just told them ‘shots fired,’ and they started running faster,” he said. Lina Gana, a laser technician at Cosmed Laser and Spa on Avenue of the Americas, said she heard gunshots that “sounded like a machine gun.” Another technician, Nailya Howe, who has worked in the area for three years and at the spa for more than a year, said she was surprised by what happened. “I’ve never heard gunshots here before,” she said. “This is a very quiet area.” Ms. Gana agreed. “Ten minutes before the shooting, I was walking down the street getting food for everyone,” she said. “And then this happened.”


Conferences Ending Ties to E.A. Sports

Abstract: The Big Ten, Pacific-12 and Southeastern conferences are following the N.C.A.A.’s lead and will no longer allow E.A. Sports to use league logos in its college football video games. The N.C.A.A. announced last month that it would no longer allow Electronic Arts Inc. to use its logo starting next year. The move comes as the N.C.A.A. fights a lawsuit that says the organization owes millions of dollars to former players for allowing their likenesses to be used for free. E.A. Sports is also a defendant in the suit. ESPN first reported that the SEC would end its licensing agreement with E.A. The Big Ten and the Pac-12 said they also would not renew agreements with E.A. The conference contracts do not cover individual universities.

Logo
College football
Electronic Arts
Big Ten Conference
Pacific-12 Conference
NCAA
Computer and Video Games


E.C.B. President Defends Measures on Greece

Abstract: PARIS — Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, on Sunday defended measures taken by euro-zone governments to relieve the pressure on Greece, saying there was no doubt about the commitment of the Continent’s governments to aiding the beleaguered country. “When President Sarkozy, Mrs. Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and President Zapatero in Spain, in his capacity as president of the European Union, sign the same document, it’s serious,” Mr. Trichet said in an hourlong interview on France’s LCI Television, referring to the communiqué issued last Thursday in Brussels in which European leaders vowed to stand by Greece. Mr. Trichet also stressed that the E.C.B., which has responsibility for maintaining the value of the euro, is working with the European Commission to ensure that Greece implements the measures it has agreed to take to return its finances to sound footing. Greece had for years understated the degree to which it was borrowing money, a practice Mr. Trichet called “intolerable.” While the country is not in imminent danger of default, refinancing its debts will be difficult without action to restore confidence, analysts say. Conditions for Greece to set its finances right “are very precise,” Mr. Trichet said, and the Greek government must carry out its responsibilities “with extreme vigor.” “It’s enough for me that everyone honor his engagements,” he said. European finance ministers are scheduled to meet Monday and Tuesday to discuss the Greek situation, amid concern that other euro-zone members with yawning public-sector deficits — in particular Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain — could come under pressure if a credible financial workout is not found. European officials want Greece to reduce its budget deficit to the euro-zone limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2012, from 12.7 percent of G.D.P. last year. Markets initially cheered the announcement Thursday that European governments had agreed to support Greece, which has come under increasing pressure in financial markets over the perilous state of its public finances. On Friday, however, the lack of concrete bailout measures from the euro-zone governments, which some analysts have suggested could mirror techniques used by the International Monetary Fund, led to a return of pessimism. The Athens stock market fell by 2.1 percent and the spread, or gap, between yields on Greek and German 10-year bonds — a measure of confidence in Greek debt — widened 23-hundreths of a point to more than 2.9 percentage points, after narrowing Thursday, and the euro fell to a nine-month low against the dollar, as investors questioned European leaders’ resolve. Skepticism is particularly rife over the commitment of Mrs. Merkel’s government to bail out Greece, should it come to that. More than half of Germans — 53 percent — think the European Union should expel Greece from the euro zone if necessary, according to the results of an Emnid poll published Sunday in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Greece
European Central Bank
European Union
Trichet Jean-Claude
Euro (Currency)
European Monetary Union


Pennington Excused From Practice

Abstract: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Aug. 17 — Chad Pennington was excused from practice Thursday because of a family illness. His availability for the Jets ’ game Saturday against the Redskins is uncertain. “I want Chad to make certain that he’s able to focus on his family and take care of the things that he needs to take care of,” Coach Eric Mangini said. “That’s where his focus should be right now.” Regarding Saturday’s game, Mangini said, “I’ll be in conversation with Chad, and it’s something that we’ll follow closely and adjust accordingly as we go.” Pennington, who quarterbacked the No. 1 unit in the preseason opener at Tampa Bay, is trying to retain his starting job after having his second shoulder operation in two seasons. Three others — Patrick Ramsey, Kellen Clemens and Brooks Bollinger — are also competing for the job. Though Mangini has not announced a starter, Pennington appears to be the favorite.


House Panel Votes to Pay For Five New Helicopters

Abstract: A House subcommittee voted on Thursday to spend $485 million to help salvage at least five of the new presidential helicopters that were being assembled in upstate New York before the Obama administration canceled the program in May. Legislators said they were pushing for a compromise in which the helicopters could be used as the first phase of a broader effort to replace an aging White House fleet. Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, a Democrat from New York, said members of the defense appropriations subcommittee wanted to avoid wasting the nearly $4 billion already spent on the program. The measure, which is part of a $636 billion defense spending bill, is just a first step toward salvaging the helicopters. The measure, which would restart the work on them, would also need to pass several other hurdles in both the House and the Senate. Mr. Hinchey, who sits on the subcommittee, said further funding could restore many of the 600 jobs being eliminated at a Lockheed Martin plant in Owego, N.Y. The helicopter program, initiated by the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks in 2001, had long been plagued by delays and cost overruns. President Obama described it earlier this year as “an example of the procurement process gone amok.” But most of the problems involved a second phase in which 23 more sophisticated craft were going to be built. As a result, some legislators and military experts have suggested saving the basic version to replace the oldest White House helicopters, while starting over on a more advanced craft. On Thursday, the House subcommittee also approved $369 million for parts to build 12 more radar-evading F-22 fighter jets . That action added to a Congressional showdown with Mr. Obama. He has said he would veto any bill that includes more money for the plane. The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved $1.75 billion for seven more F-22s. The full Senate is scheduled to decide next week, in a vote that is now said to be too close to call, on whether to keep that money in its bill. The House panel also voted on Thursday to add $674 million to the Pentagon’s budget request to buy three more C-17 transport planes built by Boeing. And it approved language that would block a Pentagon decision to privatize nearly 6,000 civilian and military jobs, including 531 at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Huge Profits Spell Doom for a 400-Acre Market

Abstract: MOSCOW — Russia ’s chief criminal investigator called it a “hell-hole” on the outskirts of Moscow. For more than a decade, the Cherkizovsky outdoor market had been a warren of plywood shacks where horse meat and live turtles went on sale beside bales of counterfeit name-brand jeans from China in an explosion of raw commerce. So many migrant laborers worked there that unusual businesses sprang up to serve them, like a bank inside a shipping container and a Tajik consular office right in the market. Before the market was finally closed late last month, the authorities said that one in every 40 traders had an infectious disease like tuberculosis or syphilis. Yet the real reason may have been that the market — and its owner — ran afoul of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s vision of the new Russia. The market’s closing hints at the workings of power and wealth in today’s Russia, as the country lurches away from the coarser forms of capitalism that existed in the immediate post-Soviet period. That system is being replaced by a new form of state control over business under Mr. Putin, one based on codes of personal loyalty and fealty to ideals of a sterner, more dignified Russia than what existed in the 1990s. The trouble in this case was that the market’s owner, Telman Ismailov, who had made billions of dollars as Cherkizovsky evolved from a mere flea market into an industrial-scale distribution hub for Chinese imports during the oil boom, had violated unwritten codes of business conduct that put him at odds with Mr. Putin, according to analysts and Russian news reports. The market was closed with a flurry of citations of fire code and health violations not unlike the use of environmental allegations to force Royal Dutch Shell to sell a portion of its investment in a Siberian oil field two years ago, or the shutdown of the Yukos oil company with tax claims before that. The market closing came as the Kremlin shut casinos in Moscow and other major cities to prevent vice, also at the urging of Mr. Putin. While it surely dented the business empire of Mr. Ismailov, the closing of the Cherkizovsky market also put an estimated 100,000 migrant laborers out of work, dispersed Russia’s largest Chinatown and broke up a major distribution system for durable goods imports. “Of course, if you applied the official hygiene, fire and labor codes, it was not done the way it was written,” Arseny Popov, an authority on the Chinese diaspora in Russia with the Russian Academy of Sciences, said of the market’s operations. “But nothing was happening there that wasn’t happening for the past 15 years.” What was new was Mr. Ismailov’s $1.4 billion investment, using proceeds from the market, into a glittering, five-star resort thousands of miles away in a seemingly unrelated world of luxury on the Turkish seaside. It was called Mardan Palace , after Mr. Ismailov’s father, with 560 rooms, 10 restaurants, 17 bars and a lake-size swimming pool. Mr. Ismailov, an immigrant from Azerbaijan who survived the sharp-elbowed world of street capitalism in the early 1990s to create the Cherkizovsky empire, threw a lavish series of opening parties in May. Mariah Carey was hired to perform a set and sing “Dreamlover” for Mr. Ismailov and his guests. Monica Bellucci, Sharon Stone and Paris Hilton also attended, the resort’s publicist said. The mayor of Moscow, Yuri M. Luzhkov, cut the ribbon. It is unclear what about the lavish resort may have set off the regulatory onslaught. The ostentation in time of economic crisis, the investment abroad of profits made in Russia and a move to undermine Mr. Luzhkov, a one-time rival of Mr. Putin’s, have all been suggested in the Russian press. Mr. Ismailov declined to be interviewed about his market’s closing. But within a week of the Mardan Palace party, the case had reached the ultimate arbiter of the business affairs and lifestyle of the Russian rich: Mr. Putin. The prime minister broached the matter at a cabinet meeting June 1, leaving little doubt what he had in mind. “The fight is on, but results are few,” Mr Putin said, referring to smuggled goods at the market, according to news reports. “The results in such cases are prison terms. Where are the prison terms?” Government agencies quickly took up the theme of the market’s seedy side — which was hard to deny. The powerful director of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s office, Aleksander Bastrykin, called the market a “hell-hole” that had become a “a state within a state” on the edge of Moscow. “It has its own police, its own customs service, its own courts, its own prosecutor and stand-alone infrastructure, including brothels,” he said. It was also a workplace for about 50,000 Chinese immigrants and had coalesced into a center of northeastern Chinese culture, according to Mr. Popov, the Chinese expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The other main ethnic groups were Azerbaijanis, Tajiks, Vietnamese and smaller numbers of Afghans and North Koreans. In all, the Russian Federation of Migrants, a nonprofit group, estimated that 100,000 people worked there. Thousands also lived there. Most of the population of 18,000 Tajik porters, for example, slept in basement rooms of an abandoned sports stadium and in shipping containers, said Karomat B. Sharipov, the chief of a nonprofit group called Tajik Migrant Labor. Outbreaks of tuberculosis were common, the worst occurring in 2006. Around the market fence last week, hundreds of migrants loitered on the sidewalks, smoking or chewing sesame seeds. About a hundred Chinese and Vietnamese traders had attempted to block traffic on a Moscow highway; they were quickly broken up by the police and 24 Vietnamese were deported. China has sent a deputy commerce minister to Moscow to protest the treatment of its citizens. Mostly, the laborers can do nothing. Bakhodur M. Mirzoyev, a Tajik, squatted outside the market on a recent afternoon. He has been living in Kazan Train Station. “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, open our containers,” he said. “We want to work.” Asked why the market closed, Mr. Mirzoyev shrugged. The owner, he said, had built a hotel in Turkey. Now he was left with nothing but “three hungry children in Dushanbe.” Inside the fence, the market that covered 400 acres, or about half the size of Central Park, was abandoned. Plastic bags blew in the breeze, flies buzzed and sampled spilled dog food, and the sour smell of rotting meat wafted out. At one spot, frontloaders were smashing stalls into piles of dry wall and broken glass. A sign still hung on in one place: “cigarettes, wholesale and retail.”

Russia
Moscow (Russia)
International Trade and World Market


Orioles Sign Peguero, Free-Agent Outfielder

Abstract: The Baltimore Orioles have signed the free-agent outfielder Francisco Peguero to a one-year contract. Peguero, 25, played most of the 2013 season with the San Francisco Giants’ Class AAA team in Fresno, Calif., hitting .316 in 70 games. He also went 6 for 29 in 18 games with the Giants. In eight minor-league seasons, Peguero batted .306 in 690 games.


Review of New York Shelter System Finds Hundreds of Violations

Abstract: A New York City homeless shelter system that was supposed to provide a refuge for families with children instead forced some of them to live in squalid conditions that included a dead rat in an apartment; garbage strewn in hallways and stairways; and a puddle of urine in the only working elevator of one building. Those findings were among hundreds of health and safety violations cited in a 54-page report released on Thursday by the city’s Department of Investigation after a yearlong inquiry that examined the shelter system’s performance in 2014 at the request of Mayor Bill de Blasio . The Homeless Services Department, which houses 11,900 families, currently operates 145 shelters and 16 other temporary housing programs known as cluster sites, according to the report. “D.O.I. has found that the family shelters it inspected and reviewed are too often unsafe and unhealthy for children and families,” the report stated, “and that the family shelter system is in need of aggressive, immediate, as well as long-term reform efforts.” The report emphasized that the problems were not new, and were a product of decades of neglect. It also noted that the Homeless Services Department had already taken steps to address some of the concerns raised by the investigation. Image A broken window in the hallway of a Brooklyn apartment building that houses homeless families and renters. Credit Department of Investigation Responding to the findings, Gilbert Taylor, commissioner of homeless services, said in an interview on Thursday that the report had in fact highlighted many of the same problems his department had found in its own inspections of the shelter system over the past year. Mr. Taylor, who was appointed commissioner in January 2014, said the homeless services agency had closed two shelters in the Bronx that were cited in the report, and had made other changes as well, including placing more families in shelters instead of cluster sites, and providing additional resources to families with a young child considered at high risk of abuse or neglect. “We’re not going to tolerate substandard conditions for any of our residents,” Mr. Taylor said, adding that his department had worked closely with the Investigation Department. Mary Brosnahan, president and chief executive of the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy organization, said the report’s findings were “deeply disturbing” and revealed “how much further New York City must go to provide decent shelter.” Report on Violations in Homeless Shelters The Department of Investigation found family shelters in New York City are too often unsafe and unhealthy for children and families, according to its report. But these problems are the result of decades of neglect, the report said. “The city has a legal and moral obligation to provide these families — mostly women and children — with shelters that are at minimum clean and safe,” Ms. Brosnahan said. The Investigation Department examined 25 shelters and cluster sites, working alongside inspectors from the Fire Department, the Buildings Department and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The 25 shelters received a total of 621 violations. As of Thursday, about two-thirds of the violations had been addressed, and the rest remained open, city investigators and homeless services officials said. “Dangerous living conditions, rat-and-roach-infested residences and fire violations are the stark reality facing too many homeless families and children in the city’s shelters,” Mark G. Peters, commissioner of the Investigation Department, said. Image Inside one residence, there were three beds for seven people, and some of the beds were broken. Credit Department of Investigation The worst conditions were found at the cluster sites, apartment buildings where about 3,000 families had been placed temporarily. Investigators found that there was little support for families in the cluster buildings and security at some of the properties was so lax that residents felt unsafe. It was in a cluster site building that investigators spotted a dead rat in an apartment, “the decaying smell of which permeated the hallways,” the report said. Investigators also found that buildings in cluster sites “routinely ignore basic health and safety measures, committing a variety of fire and building code violations” that included obstructed passageways, locked exits, and missing or nonworking smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. But the shelters had their own shortcomings. For instance, the report said, inspections of former hotels that had been converted to shelters found persistent rodent infestations, poor maintenance, fire safety problems and broken fixtures. Other shelter buildings had improper certificates of occupancy or lacked such certificates altogether. The report also found that many shelters and cluster sites operated on an emergency basis rather than “under any bidding, procurement or contract requirements,” which often left the city paying higher rent while limiting its ability to force building owners to make needed repairs. As part of a plan outlined in the report, the Homeless Services Department will establish contracts for all shelters and cluster sites. Mr. Taylor said the department had already negotiated lower rents at some cluster sites, and was decreasing its reliance on such housing. Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, who as deputy mayor for health and human services oversees the Homeless Services Department, said that while the city aimed to place families in permanent housing instead of temporary shelters, “while they’re in shelter, they must have a decent, humane and constructive experience.”

Homelessness
Bill de Blasio
Homeless Services Department NYC
Department of Investigation NYC
NYC


New Insight Into a Caterpillar’s Crawl

Abstract: For caterpillars, what you see on the outside as they crawl is not necessarily what is going on inside. Shaped something like an accordion, the tobacco hornworm caterpillar moves one segment at a time. First, the back legs on the last segment step forward, then the second-to-last segment and so on until finally the front segment with its head moves forward. Researchers at Tufts University and Virginia Tech were curious about the interior biomechanics of this form of movement, so they stuck the caterpillars on a treadmill within a powerful X-ray light source at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. For most creatures, including people, the innards and the outer parts are connected to something rigid like a skeleton or carapace, and the movements of the inside and the outside are synchronized. But caterpillars are almost entirely squishy, and the researchers were surprised when they saw that the guts of the caterpillar move differently. “It amazes me and blows my mind that there are still very unusual things to discover about such a humble creature,” said Michael A. Simon, a researcher at Tufts University in Boston who is the lead author of a paper describing the caterpillar locomotion , to be published in the journal Current Biology. While the caterpillar crawled one segment at a time on the outside, the entire length of the gut shortened when the rear segment moved forward, then lengthened again as the head made its step forward. “It’s a very interesting form of locomotion,” Dr. Simon said. “In the middle, nothing is synchronized.” The insight could help in the design of certain robots that are made of soft materials. And what it unquestionably shows is the caterpillar in the children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” is not a tobacco hornworm. The title character scrunches up its middle in a U-shape as it moves. That is how an inchworm (a smaller caterpillar) crawls.

Insects
Biology and Biochemistry
Science and Technology


British Phenom Is Ready for Change in Coursework

Abstract: SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Unlike most 19-year-olds, Matthew Fitzpatrick will spend his final hours of summer freedom on one of the world’s most famous golf courses. He will try to lead the team from Britain and Ireland to a win in the Walker Cup, then celebrate or commiserate, then prepare for the cold reality awaiting him. Soon, college life begins. The beginning of the fall quarter at Northwestern University will mark the conclusion of an impressive string of play for Fitzpatrick, a rising star from Sheffield, England, who came to the National Golf Links of America this weekend after winning the United States Amateur and the silver medal (low amateur) at the British Open in July. It was a tour de force that began in June, when he was so focused on finishing his high school advanced placement exams that he went to the Open qualifying tournament at Gullane Golf Club with hardly any practice time. His parents, Russell and Sue Fitzpatrick, thinking he had no shot of qualifying, did not even attend. Now, watching their eldest son attract the largest galleries at the biennial Walker Cup, they are trying to soak in the hours before he is off to Chicago, on a flight that leaves Monday morning, without even his own American bank account. “Oh, I’ll be very emotional, trust me,” Sue Fitzpatrick said. “Don’t go anywhere near me, because I’ll be in a quandary. But I’m excited for him. If I thought that was the wrong thing for him, I wouldn’t let him go. But it’s completely the right thing.” Watching her son throughout his round in the singles match Saturday afternoon, Sue Fitzpatrick could read his body language and sense his growing frustration — not typically a vibe he gives off. After a strong morning round, in which he sank a 3-foot putt on 18 to win his foursome match with Neil Raymond over Jordan Niebrugge and Nathan Smith of the American side, Fitzpatrick’s singles matchup with Michael Weaver was not going well. Trailing by two on the 17th, Fitzpatrick went for the cup on his approach shot but the ball skidded off the green. Weaver held on to win, 3 and 1, completing a strong American showing. The Americans lead, 8-4, heading into Sunday’s final day of competition. “You can’t play great every day,” his teammate Gavin Moynihan said of Fitzpatrick. “There’s a lot of pressure on him as well. Everybody’s looking at him. He’s the boy to beat, isn’t he?” Fans here seemed to greet Fitzpatrick with some fascination, as a name that has circulated in the news and a face seen on their television sets, as somewhat of a physical wonder. He weighs just 133 pounds and is wafer-thin and boyish, with a not-yet-shaving look. But at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., last month, Fitzpatrick became the first Englishman in 102 years to win the United States Amateur championship. Riding such a wave of strong match play, he said Friday that he was feeling as confident as ever about his game. “I think all of the achievements I’ve managed to complete has prepared me really well,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think the biggest thing that I’ll get out of those is just playing in front of a big crowd. It’s really nerve-racking playing in front of a crowd. So having that experience in the past definitely helps.” Fitzpatrick’s passion for golf started with using plastic clubs as a youngster. He began playing in tournaments at 10, but his rise has been swift. He finished 11th in the England under-14 tournament in 2008, but two years later won the North of England under-16 championship and found himself 11th in the world amateur golf ranking in November 2012, when he signed his letter of intent to attend Northwestern. “It’s been a steady progress,” Sue Fitzpatrick said. “There wasn’t a morning when we woke up and thought, you know, this kid’s great. He’s always been very focused, and he knows what he wants to achieve.” In opting to attend Northwestern, though, Fitzpatrick has postponed his dream of playing professionally for at least a little while, a decision that his mother said was not as difficult as it seemed. In their household, education came second to nothing. Instead of studying greens on the PGA Tour, Fitzpatrick will study geography, history and science, share a dormitory room with a member of the Wildcats football team — a sport he still needs to learn — and fend off the harsh Chicago winter. “He packed some winter things, but he needs some proper winter gear for Chicago,” Sue Fitzpatrick said. “We know how cold it can get in February.” After the summer he has had, the last thing Matthew Fitzpatrick may want to think about is winter.


De Blasio Offers Easier Access to City Money for Special Education

Abstract: Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a series of changes on Tuesday to make it easier for special-needs students in New York to receive private schooling at public expense, a practice that has led to frequent litigation as the city has tried to keep such spending under control. His plans, announced at a news conference at City Hall, forestalled a bill in Albany that would have forced the city to make changes to the process. The bill, passed by the State Senate, was halted in the State Assembly last week after Mr. de Blasio promised to make the changes on his own. At the news conference, the mayor revealed how he would streamline the process for thousands of parents each year who ask the city to pay for private schooling because they believe that public schools do not meet the needs of their children, a right established by court rulings. If the city proposes a public school placement and the parent decides to move the child to a private school that serves special-needs children, the mayor said, the city will seek to resolve the case within 15 days “where settlement is appropriate,” a change that could speed up the often monthslong process of litigating the case. Mr. de Blasio emphasized that the city would “reserve the right” to deny a claim if the city felt it did not make sense. “But that will be the exception, not the norm,” said Mr. de Blasio, flanked by Carmen Fariña, the schools chancellor, and Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the Assembly. “We believe in a parent-friendly, family-friendly approach, that we’re going to be able to come to resolution quickly in the vast majority of cases and help parents get what they need.” The city will require parents receiving tuition payments to fill out paperwork every three years, rather than every year. In cases where a family has won a claim, but the city is appealing, the city will pay the tuition while the appeal is pending. And the city will stop making parents reapply for tuition payments every year as long as the student’s specialized education plan remains the same. “This is a good initial step towards reducing the unnecessary frustration that parents of students with special needs face as they struggle to find an appropriate education for their children,” Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children of New York , said in a statement. “Now we have to make sure they follow through.” Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, had adopted a more adversarial posture toward such cases after a consultant said the city could save money by challenging requests more often. The Education Department spends about $45,000 per year to educate each full-time special education student inside the public school system, according to a de Blasio administration official. By contrast, the average cost to educate a student in a private school is around $65,000, the official said. The city is projected to spend more than $200 million on such cases this year, up from $144 million in 2009. “This is going to open the floodgates for parents who use this mechanism to get their fancy private schools paid for on the public dime,” said Elizabeth Lynam, the vice president of the Citizens Budget Commission , a budget watchdog group. “Instead of lowering the barrier to private school reimbursement, the department should do a better job of developing more appropriate public school services.” Pressure was mounting in the state capital for the changes, particularly from a vocal body of Orthodox Jewish parents seeking to place their special-needs students in religious schools. The bill that nearly passed this month would have made it easier for all New York City parents seeking private school tuition, not just religious ones. For one parent, Donna Lewis, 60, her battle has been emotionally and financially taxing. Each year, since her daughter Nabila received a diagnosis of an intellectual disability in the eighth grade, the city agreed to pay her tuition. But last year, just as Nabila, now 20, was switching into a post-high school program, the city took her case to a court hearing, forcing Ms. Lewis to fight for her daughter — and lose. She now owes $50,000 in tuition. The battle itself was nasty, said Ms. Lewis, of East New York, Brooklyn, and had “an air of condescension, like maybe my daughter doesn’t deserve this.” Now, she said, she hopes the de Blasio administration’s new strategy will help. “I don’t want to be in a collection agency all my life,” she said.

Special education
Bill de Blasio
Private Schools
K-12 Education
NYC
NYC Department of Education


Jihadis Tug at Edges of a Staunch American Ally

Abstract: MAAN, Jordan — Hanging from the facade of a shuttered bank on a bustling market street in this sunbaked town were two large, white banners emblazoned with black letters. “We congratulate the Islamic nation for its epic conquests,” one read. “Granted by Allah to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” The banners went up last month after about 100 local residents carried them through downtown , waving the black flags of jihad and praising the extremist group that has seized territory in two neighboring countries. But while ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, appears to have no active presence in this desert town south of the capital, Amman, the event demonstrated how its image is growing, its ideology gaining traction and its appeal extending beyond those who would take up arms and don suicide vests. “People were happy about the victories of the Sunnis in Iraq, so they went out to congratulate them,” said Ahed Abu Darwish, whose brother, Essam, organized the pro-ISIS march. “It’s like raising the flag of Barcelona or Argentina after they win a soccer match.” Across the Arab world, the drive for democratic change has stalled, for the moment at least, and in its place has been a resurgence of strongmen and Islamic militants, both selling the promise of stability and order as counterpoints to the tumult that followed the Arab Spring. For many here, the radical Sunni jihadis of ISIS are seen as a force battling oppression, an unsettling prospect for Sunni rulers, like the king of Jordan, as much as for Shiites, like the prime minister of Iraq. As other Arab nations have fallen prey to protests, wars and Islamist insurgencies, Jordan has maintained its reputation as a pro-American bastion of stability better known for hosting refugees than for civil unrest. But Maan has long challenged that image with a mixture of poverty, Islamism, criminality and neglect that has fueled recurrent clashes between the government and the town’s heavily armed populace. “There is no ISIS here, but there could be because there is oppression, frustration, high prices and unemployment,” said the mayor, Majid Sharari. “All that could lead to chaos.” Around the region, marginalized communities in Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula have also embraced the ISIS brand to add leverage to their local grievances. Image Breaking the Ramadan fast in Maan, Jordan. Some residents cite unemployment and police brutality as causes of increasing ISIS support among young people. Credit Adam Ferguson for The New York Times In Jordan, while some saw the march last month as a sign that extremists had established a foothold that could threaten the state, local residents said it was an expression of their greater concerns — unemployment and the heavy-handed tactics of the police, who frequently carry out raids to arrest criminals, setting off clashes that have killed and wounded residents. “We have no ISIS here, we have never had ISIS here, and we would never accept its presence,” said Ahmad al-Bazia, who works for the local governor’s office. “What we have are young men who see themselves as outcasts from their own government because of how it treats them.” But some worried that the group’s appeal would grow if local grievances were not addressed. As it is, residents acknowledge a strong Islamist presence in the town and say about 100 men have left Maan to join the rebels in Syria. More than two dozen have been killed, their status as “martyrs” publicly celebrated. Around town, it appeared that some of the young people reveled in the power and impact of invoking ISIS. One evening as sunset approached, a crowd collected at a colorful tent put up by a local Islamic association that offered free meals to anyone wishing to break the Ramadan fast. Spotting a visitor, a group of teenagers gathered, and a boy with black fuzz on his upper lip pointed to his friends one by one. “I am ISIS, he is ISIS and he is ISIS,” he said, his friends laughing mischievously. Evidence of Maan’s dysfunctional relationship with the government was clear around town. Billboards had been shredded during clashes, and main streets bore the circular scars of tires burned to keep out the police. A number of buildings had also been burned. No police officers directed traffic at intersections, making the only visible security presence the fleet of imposing armored vehicles parked around town. The police had stopped entering Maan in regular cars because residents often shot at them. The local governor, Ghalib al-Shumaili, dismissed the idea that poverty caused Maan’s problems, blaming instead criminals hiding among the population. “They are very dangerous; they have guns, and they fire at everyone: police, citizens, anyone walking down the road,” he said. He said the situation was getting worse. Earlier this year, the government named 19 wanted men in Maan, he said. Five have since been arrested, but the number had risen to 26 after new gunfights between residents and the police. Mr. Shumaili said that he did not consider ISIS a threat in Maan, but he added that it was difficult to gauge such threats. “Northern Iraq fell in 24 hours,” he said. Maan’s residents resent the characterization of their town as a den of militants and criminals, saying that decades of neglect have left few prospects for young men. They also say the tribes that form the town’s social fabric hesitate to hand over wanted men because they fear the police will mistreat them. Many residents carry a video on their cellphones showing security forces dropping a dead body on the street. Others mentioned a photo of a shirtless local man with blood on his face that appeared on social media after he was detained. Still, few consider ISIS proper an immediate threat to Jordan. The government arrested only one person after last month’s pro-ISIS rally, and the town’s most notorious jihadi, Muhammad al-Chalabi, lives openly and often speaks to the news media. “If we really had ISIS in Maan, how many explosions do you think we would have had?” said Abdullah al-Hossan, a local activist. But that does not stop angry residents from embracing the idea of ISIS to express displeasure and to provoke the government. Three black flags adorned a wall near the home of Suleiman al-Imami, an employee of the Maan city hall whose son Qusai was killed in April during a police raid meant to arrest someone else. Other black flags fly from the nearby traffic circle and the roof of Mr. Imami’s house. “It is a flag for Islam,” Mr. Imami said, denying that it implied support for ISIS. “We fly it because we are proud that we are Muslims and because we are mourning my son.” One young man, hanging around the colorful Ramadan tent, delivered a dramatic statement in formal Arabic about how ISIS had come to sweep away the region’s corrupt governments and bring justice. His speech elicited giggles from his friends. When asked his name, he gave an obviously fake nom de guerre like those adopted by foreign jihadis leaving to fight in Syria: Abu Waleed al-Muhajir. Once his friends had wandered off, however, he grew more serious, saying he had finished school, but had no job and no idea how to get one. He volunteered a photo on his phone of a man in black holding a machine gun, saying it was his friend who had gone to fight jihad in Syria. Then he showed a video of armored vehicles in the streets of Maan, firing tear gas. “Sometimes, the police bug people here,” he said, pointing to an armored vehicle down the street. “Don’t you see where they’re parked?” Having overheard the conversation, a teacher at a local college intervened. “These kids have no idea what ISIS is,” said the teacher, Emad al-Khattab. “But they’ll say anything to annoy the government.”

Jordan
Islam
Iraq
Syria
Arab Spring
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Terrorism