Apartment Sales Remain Vigorous in Manhattan

Abstract: Despite slowing sales and continuing economic worries, market studies released yesterday showed that the Manhattan co-op and condominium market remained strong in the peak spring selling season, with prices up 25 percent or more compared with a year ago, and overall prices roughly flat or just below record levels. Average prices reached about $1.67 million for a Manhattan apartment in the second quarter, 1 percent to 3 percent below the record levels reported in the previous quarter, according to the series of competing market studies prepared by the major brokerage firms in New York City. But these figures include a number of closings over the winter at two immensely expensive new condominium projects — the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue and 15 Central Park West — that drove up average prices in the first quarter. When these high-end sales were excluded for the second quarter, Gregory J. Heym, the chief economist of both Halstead Property and Brown Harris Stevens, said his figures still showed that average sales prices were actually up about 5 percent over the first quarter. “Prices are at incredibly high levels,” Mr. Heym said. Yet Mr. Heym and other analysts said there was increasing concern that prices would remain flat or perhaps decline over the next year, especially if the economy continued to weaken. So far, he said, despite reports of recent and impending layoffs, the local economy has “yet to show any real weakness.” While luxury sales remained very strong, the reports showed slowing sales and weakening prices for studios and one-bedroom apartments, where buyers are extremely sensitive to tighter lending requirements and larger down payments now being demanded by mortgage lenders. The number of sales dropped sharply, by about 22 percent, compared with the second quarter of 2007, which was a record year for sales, according to an analysis released by Prudential Douglas Elliman. But at the same time, the number of sales was higher compared with the same period in 2006. The inventory of unsold apartments rose to 9,968 in the second quarter, 21 percent higher than the year before, according to a tally by the Corcoran Group. But the total number of apartments listed for sale in June had fallen by 1.2 percent since April, and was reported to be below inventory levels of several years ago. Strong luxury sales and faltering studio sales had the perverse effect of catapulting the median price — the price of the apartment exactly in the middle of all sale prices — to a record. It was close to or slightly above $1 million, depending on the report. The report by Prudential Douglas Elliman found that average co-op prices fell by 8 percent compared with the previous quarter, to $1.28 million, while the average condo price fell by 2.3 percent, to $1.94 million. Pamela Liebman, the president and chief executive of the Corcoran Group, said there was “a lot of pressure on one-bedrooms and studios” but that “anyone who thinks price appreciation is over in this market is dreaming.” The flat sales picture has led many brokers to look back on 2007 as the golden age of Manhattan real estate, when inventory was falling and prices were rising regularly to new records. Ms. Liebman said that while “everything was perfect in 2007,” the party was far from over. “It is still a party,” she said. “We are just not serving Cristal.” Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel Inc, an appraisal firm, who prepares the market report for Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that the decline in average prices was the first since the fall of 2006, and could augur a turning point in the market. “We are looking at several years of lackluster performance at best,” Mr. Miller said. Dorothy Herman, president and chief executive of Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that “obviously the frenzy mentality is gone,” and she predicted that the market would be flat or down slightly during the rest of the year. She said buyers were cautious and price sensitive, and lenders were requiring a lot more cash down. Still, she said, “New York was different from the rest of the country,” and she said that bidding wars over well-priced apartments would continue. “I don’t think New York is going to collapse,” she said. For the first time, the report by the Corcoran Group distinguished sales of new condo and co-op apartments from sales of existing apartments, which is similar to the way real estate sales data is collected across the country. The report found that the average sales price of existing apartments rose 10 percent compared with a year ago, to $1.43 million, and fell 8 percent from the first quarter. But average sale prices at new developments rose to $2.2 million, a 61 percent increase from a year ago, and a 17 percent increase from the first quarter. In Brooklyn, the report found that co-op and condo prices rose 5 percent in the first half of 2008 compared with a year earlier, to an average of $621,000. In Williamsburg, where the prices were highest, the average price fell by 26 percent. The average price of a single-family town house fell by 17 percent in Brooklyn, to $1.2 million. Hall F. Willkie, the president of Brown Harris Stevens, said that the market reports reflected closed sales, based on contracts that were signed in the last 3 to 12 months. But based on contracts signed recently, he said that sales were off 16 percent this year, but the total value of sales was roughly equal to the total value of sales a year ago. “If properties are priced within their value range, they sell and they sell well,” he said.

Sales
Real Estate
Housing
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


J Street, a Lobbying Group, Builds on Moderate Stance on Israel

Abstract: WASHINGTON — There was a time not so long ago when political contributions from Americans supportive of Israel inevitably veered toward those Congressional candidates who were the most hawkish and outspoken in defending Israel and its security. No longer. While aggressive defenders of Israel still dominate the debate, more moderate voices in the Jewish community — led by J Street, a Washington lobbying group — are expanding their ability to generate money and political capital for pro-Israel candidates who favor a less confrontational approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other issues. This week, J Street is expected to land one of its biggest names when it announces its endorsement of Senator Dianne Feinstein, the veteran Democrat from California who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, an important forum for Middle East intelligence. With Ms. Feinstein’s acceptance of J Street’s endorsement, the group’s political action committee plans to raise at least $100,000 for her re-election bid, the officials said. Founded in 2008, J Street is on pace to set a fund-raising record this election. By November, it expects to raise nearly $2 million for more than 60 Congressional candidates whose views on Israel align with its own, said Alexandra Stanton, a co-chairwoman of the PAC, and she said it had tapped into pro-Israel donors who had no real political outlet before now. Several leaders from J Street, along with other Jewish groups, attended a White House reception with President Obama on Wednesday as part of Jewish Heritage Month. Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, said in an interview that “the assumption has always been that to run for office, you have to run to the right on this issue with a relatively hawkish view on Israel and the Middle East — the ‘Israel right or wrong’ position.” “We’re changing that calculus,” he said. “We are beginning to organize a very, very large network of people in the middle.” In the past, some Congressional candidates were reluctant to take J Street’s money because of charges from some American Jewish leaders and Israeli officials that the group’s moderate positions — it supports increased diplomacy, a two-state Israeli solution and continued aid to the Palestinian Authority — made it “anti-Israel.” “These are people who cannot be considered friendly to Israel,” said Morris J. Amitay, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, widely considered the most powerful American lobbying force on Israeli matters. Aipac has generally supported a more aggressive defense of Israel, including possible use of American military force against Iran. Josh Block, another former Aipac official, called J Street “a gnat” in the Israel debate and “a fringe organization with no credibility.” Capitol Hill critics say J Street has been unnecessarily sharp-elbowed in attacking lawmakers over policy differences, leading to friction with onetime supporters like Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, who broke with the group last year over its support for a United Nations resolution criticizing Israel’s West Bank settlements as illegal. For J Street defenders, the vitriol is a sign that the group is beginning to have an impact. Ms. Feinstein is regarded as a strong supporter of Israel — “obviously, we’re going to back up Israel” in any military conflict against Iran, she said in a recent CNN interview — and her acceptance of J Street’s endorsement is seen as buoying the group’s political credentials. Bill Carrick, the senior strategist for the Feinstein campaign, said that the senator agreed with many of J Street’s principles and that the decision to accept the group’s endorsement was simple. “We didn’t look at it as picking sides in the debate,” he said. “They wanted to endorse her and, basically, she said fine.” Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who is challenging Representative Joe Walsh, Republican of Illinois, a staunch Israel defender, has also aligned herself with J Street. The group’s leaders said its political action committee expected to raise $50,000 or more for her. “I stand by Israel,” Ms. Duckworth said in a telephone interview, “but from everything I’m hearing, a two-state solution is really the way forward. Sometimes the best security is peace.” Her moderate stance stands in contrast to that of Mr. Walsh, who wrote in an op-ed piece this month in The Washington Times that a single Israeli state is “the only viable solution for the Middle East,” and suggested that the Palestinians move to Jordan. So far this year, J Street is endorsing and raising money for more than 60 candidates — all Democrats — including the Senate campaigns of Representatives Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and the re-election campaigns of Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representatives John D. Dingell of Michigan, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Anna G. Eshoo of California, and Melvin Watt of North Carolina. Whatever inroads it has made, J Street lags far behind Aipac in terms of both money and influence. The influence gap was on display in March, when Aipac and J Street each held their annual conferences in Washington. J Street drew a record number of attendees — 2,500 — as well as speeches by Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, and other notables. But it could not compete for global news coverage or firepower with Aipac’s conference, which featured policy-defining and fist-pounding speeches defending Israel’s security by President Obama, Mitt Romney and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. American Jews, pro-Israel Christian evangelicals and other advocates for Israel represent a sizable political bloc, raising more than $12 million for candidates in the 2010 election cycle, according to data from the Center for Competitive Politics. Aipac, unlike J Street, does not have a political action committee and so does not raise money directly for candidates. However, political analysts say the bulk of the money from Israeli-focused groups and individuals comes from harder-line factions aligned with Aipac and like-minded groups. The biggest donor to emerge during the current campaign is the billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a pro-Israel hawk. He made headlines during the Republican presidential primaries when he and his wife gave $10 million to a group supporting Newt Gingrich, who called the Palestinians an “invented people” during the campaign. While the liberal philanthropist George Soros gives J Street about $500,000 a year, it has no donor near the financial scale of Mr. Adelson. Still, leaders of J Street and politicians aligned with the group say they believe they have helped shift the debate in Washington, broaden the politically acceptable options in Israel and advance an agenda that they characterize as both “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace.” J. J. Goldberg, editor at large for The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, and author of “Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment,” said he was impressed by the inroads that J Street had made politically and financially. “I’m stunned that there are so many members of Congress willing to take their money,” Mr. Goldberg said. “The fact that they’ve got 60 candidates who aren’t afraid to accept their ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ argument is a real breakthrough.”

J Street
Israel
United States International Relations
Lobbying and Lobbyists


Verrazano Cruises to Victory in Tampa Bay Derby

Abstract: Verrazano survived a small stumble out of the gate to easily beat the field at the Grade II $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby on Saturday. The win helps solidify the 3-year-old as a legitimate Kentucky Derby favorite. Verrazano, the 2-5 betting favorite, passed Falling Sky before the half-mile mark and cruised to victory three lengths ahead of a late-charging Java’s War, a 32-1 long shot. Falling Sky held on for third. Verrazano, who remains undefeated in three races, covered the mile-and-a-sixteenth distance in 1 minute 43.96 seconds and returned $2.80 on a $2 bet to win. Despite being a heavy favorite, Verrazano was making his stakes debut on a difficult track he had never run. “He definitely showed us that he can overcome an early stumble and deal with a little dirt in his face,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “We found out that he could travel well and handle two turns. All the things we were worried about he overcame them pretty well.” With previous victories of seven and three-quarters lengths and 16 ¼ lengths at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., Verrazano arrived at the track with high expectations . After stumbling coming out of the gate Saturday, Verrazano quickly went to the outside rail and battled with Falling Sky down the backstretch before taking a lead near the half-mile mark. From that point on, the colt easily fended off all challengers and extended the lead heading into the final stretch. Winning jockey John Velazquez said the horse cut himself a bit on the stumble, but he settled down quickly. “Down the backstretch I had a lot of horse and I just let him do his thing,” Velazquez said. “I asked him for something in the turn, and he had as much as I thought he would.” Velazquez rode five winners at Tampa Bay Downs on Saturday, becoming the seventh jockey to accomplish that feat at the track. Pletcher said that Verrazano’s next race would likely be the Wood Memorial in New York, but the Florida Derby and the Arkansas Derby are also options. “It was nice to get this one today,” Pletcher said. “We’re happy he did everything we hoped he would and looked real strong out there.” HEAR THE GHOST WINS SAN FELIPE Hear the Ghost rallied to run down Flashback and Goldencents in the stretch and win the $300,000 San Felipe Stakes by a half-length at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif., inserting himself into the Kentucky Derby picture. Ridden by Corey Nakatani, Hear the Ghost covered one and one-sixteenth miles in 1:42.34 and paid $13.80 on a $2 bet to win. Flashback, the even-money favorite trained by Bob Baffert, finished second, and Tiz a Minister was another half-length back in third. Goldencents, the 2-1 second choice trained by Doug O’Neill, was fourth. Trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, Hear the Ghost came charging down the middle of the track to overtake the tiring duo of Flashback and Goldencents, who clocked fast fractions as they hooked up approaching the stretch turn.

Kentucky Derby
Gulfstream Park
Florida
Horse racing


Qatar Lets Soccer Player Leave After Two Years

Abstract: Zahir Belounis, a French-Algerian soccer player who has been unable to leave Qatar for more than two years because of a contract dispute with his former club, and whose case shined a light on the emirate’s labor laws, has been told he can return home. Belounis, 33, learned Wednesday morning that he would be granted a visa allowing him to leave Qatar. The decision ended an ordeal that he claimed had driven him toward contemplating a hunger strike and, at one point, suicide. “It is a fantastic day; we are so happy,” Belounis’s brother Mahdi said in an interview after he announced the news on Twitter. “He called me this morning, and his very first sentence was, ‘I have this bloody exit visa,’ which was quite funny,” he added, adding that Zahir was scheduled to land in Paris on Thursday evening. “For the first time in two years I heard him laughing. I’m really looking forward to holding my brother in my arms. So is our mother.” Belounis’s case had come to symbolize Qatar’s much-criticized sponsorship labor laws after he was prevented from leaving the country, which will host the 2022 World Cup, after a dispute over unpaid wages with his club, El Jaish. Under Qatar’s kafala system of sponsorship, workers are tied to their employers, whether as a soccer player or one of the 1.3 million migrant laborers working in the country’s construction industry. Employees are not allowed to leave Qatar without their employer’s permission. Human rights groups have been critical of the kafala system . Last week, Amnesty International released a scathing report on labor abuses in Qatar, and Human Rights Watch has blamed the sponsorship system for ensuring that hundreds of thousands of people “work under conditions of abuse.” An investigation by The Guardian in September found that dozens of Nepalese workers had died this year building a new city in Qatar that will eventually host the 2022 World Cup final. But it is not just Qatar that has been under fire over the treatment of workers in the country. FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, has been criticized for awarding its marquee event to Qatar in the first place. At last month’s meeting of FIFA’s powerful executive committee in Zurich, FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, agreed to meet with Qatar’s newly installed emir and raise the issue of worker rights. Last week, Blatter met with the International Trade Union Confederation and c alled the situation regarding worker rights in Qatar “unacceptable.” The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, the body charged with organizing the World Cup, has released a so-called workers’ charter, which, it says, will guarantee rights for all those working on projects in the country. But organizations like the trade union confederation, which has campaigned against the kafala system and called on FIFA to hold a new vote for the 2022 Cup, have pointed to the Belounis case to prove how little the situation has changed. Zahir Belounis was a journeyman player who had struggled in the lower reaches of French soccer. But in 2010 he was offered a five-year contract in Qatar with El Jaish, the army’s soccer team. He was also fast-tracked through the naturalization process so that he could represent Qatar at the Military Games. But when he returned from the games, he said, his Qatari passport was confiscated. He helped El Jaish gain promotion to the top tier of Qatari soccer but was then moved out on loan to another club, whereupon he says his pay from El Jaish stopped. After 18 months without pay, he pursued legal action but was told that he would be prevented from leaving Qatar until he dropped the case. FIFA, when asked about the Belounis case, said it was powerless to intervene because of the continuing legal case. “I’m crying like a girl every night,” Belounis said in an interview last month. Belounis said he and his family were surviving on money sent from relatives in France and from donations made by members of the French expatriate community in Qatar. His situation soon became a global cause; even Arsène Wenger, the French coach of the Premier League powerhouse Arsenal in England, had questioned why Belounis had not been allowed to return home. Two weeks ago, Belounis wrote an open letter to the French World Cup winner Zinedine Zidane and the Bayern Munich coach, Pep Guardiola, who have strong ties to Qatar. “I know that you served as ambassadors for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid,” Belounis wrote. “You did this with good intentions, but the reality is that if Qatar does not scrap its ‘exit visa’ system, then there will be hundreds, maybe thousands, of people trapped here.” At one point Belounis was visited by France’s president, François Hollande, who promised to help get him home. But the promises did little to change his status. “I told him that I am here just because I complained,” Belounis said in October of his meeting with Hollande. When presented with reports of the case, the Qatar Football Association at first accused Belounis of defamation and threatened legal action against him. As recently as last week, soccer officials said that Belounis had been paid and that the accusations against them had been false. Even after Belounis agreed to drop the claim, an exit visa was not forthcoming. He said he had sold all of his furniture and was living on the floor of his empty villa, waiting for news. It finally came Wednesday. The next step, Mahdi Belounis said, is to undo the psychological damage he said had been inflicted on his brother. “Zahir is still a depressed person and needs to gain confidence,” he said. He also hopes that Zahir will one day play soccer again. “I’m doing my best to get him training again, maybe with an English Premier League club,” he said. “It will be a symbol to say to Qatar: ‘You didn’t totally kill him.’ ”

Qatar
Soccer
FIFA
Sepp Blatter
2022 FIFA World Cup
Jobs


Europe to Fine Microsoft for Breaking Antitrust Deal

Abstract: BRUSSELS — Europe’s antitrust regulators are preparing to deliver a strong message: a deal is a deal, and if a company fails to live up to a settlement agreement, there will be consequences. On Wednesday, the European Union is expected to impose a large fine on Microsoft for failing to give users of the company’s Windows software a choice of Internet browsers. It would be the first time that European regulators had punished a company for neglecting to comply with the terms of an antitrust settlement, and it could signal a tougher approach to enforcing deals in other antitrust cases, including one involving Google. Microsoft and officials at the European Commission reached an antitrust settlement in 2009 that called on the company to give Windows users in Europe a choice of Web browsers instead of pushing them to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But Microsoft failed to offer users such a choice for more than a year — apparently without anyone at the company or the commission noticing. Last July, the company admitted the problem and apologized. It said the failure was a result of a technical issue that had escaped its notice, and it updated its Windows 7 and Windows 8 software to give European users the browser choice. In October, Europe’s antitrust chief, Joaquín Almunia, charged Microsoft with failing to live up to the agreement. The amount of the fine could not be learned on Tuesday. Mr. Almunia’s office and Microsoft executives declined to comment. The decision to fine Microsoft comes as Mr. Almunia’s office is negotiating with Google to try to resolve the commission’s concerns about that company’s dominance of the Internet search and advertising markets. Even if Google and the commission reach a settlement, a substantial fine for Microsoft would serve as a warning that a company violates such a settlement at its financial peril. “It’s important for the commission to show it’s serious in this case because this will set a precedent, and because the commission increasingly uses settlements to help reach solutions more quickly, especially in the fast-moving technology sector,” said Nicolas Petit, a professor of competition law and economics at the University of Liège in Belgium. “The commission also has an incentive to slap on a big fine in this case to ensure that companies, which are hard to monitor, get the message that it will be costly down the road if they get caught defying settlement orders,” Mr. Petit said. In theory, Mr. Almunia can levy a fine totaling up to 10 percent of a company’s global annual revenue. In Microsoft’s case that could mean a penalty of $7 billion, but analysts say it is highly unlikely to reach that level. The largest fine ever levied by the European authorities in an antitrust case was 1.1 billion euros, or $1.4 billion, in 2009 against Intel for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market. Intel is still appealing that ruling. Microsoft has paid a long series of fines to European regulators over the past decade. In 2008, it was fined nearly 900 million euros in so-called periodic penalties for defying a decision that regulators had imposed on the company. Image Joaquín Almunia, Europe’s antitrust commissioner, may seek to make an example of Microsoft. Credit Thierry Charlier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The amount was subsequently reduced to 860 million euros after the company appealed to the General Court of the European Union. Microsoft also paid fines of 497 million euros and 281 million euros for separate but related offenses, bringing the total to 1.7 billion euros during its battles so far with European regulators. Although Microsoft has appealed past punishments, it may be reluctant to do so this time, preferring to focus on its rivalry with Google. Microsoft is among the companies that have complained about Google’s business practices to the commission. The commission has been formally investigating Google since November 2010. Mr. Almunia offered the company a settlement in May 2012 after finding that it might have abused its dominance in Internet search and advertising by giving its own products an advantage over those of others, even while maintaining that it offered neutral results. Mr. Almunia and Google have been negotiating since then, and a final agreement may not come until later this year, suggesting that the strategy of seeking quick results in antitrust technology cases through settlements instead of lengthy legal battles could be coming undone. The commission has taken a tougher line with Google than American regulators did. The Federal Trade Commission decided in January after a 19-month inquiry that Google had not broken antitrust laws. But Mr. Almunia has insisted that Google make changes to the most sensitive area of its business, online search. The latest dispute stemmed from the settlement of a case concerning Microsoft’s dominance in Internet browsers, a dominance that the company has ceded to market forces in recent years. In Microsoft’s settlement of 2009, the company did not pay a fine but agreed to install a system called Browser Choice Screen with Windows. It was intended to offer alternatives like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to counter the strength of Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s own browser. The choice must be offered for five years, according to the agreement. Millions of European users of the Windows 7 SP1 version of the software may not have been offered a choice of browsers from February 2011 to July 2012, Mr. Almunia said. The company said it learned of the error when the commission sent a notification about reports it had received indicating that alternative browsers were not being offered on some personal computers. Microsoft’s failure to comply with the European order has already resulted in financial penalties of a different sort for the company’s own executives. In a filing with American financial regulators last October, Microsoft said that Steven A. Ballmer, the company’s chief executive, and Steven Sinofsky, then the head of its Windows division, received less than the full annual bonuses they were eligible for, in part because of the browser issue in Europe. A month later, Mr. Sinofsky left the company in a decision that was described as “mutual” by people briefed on the matter.

Fines
Microsoft
Google
Competition law
EU
Microsoft Windows


Rangers Bury the Maple Leafs Beneath 7 Goals

Abstract: Dominic Moore scored twice, Carl Hagelin had a goal and an assist, and the Rangers cruised to a 7-1 victory against the host Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night. Benoit Pouliot, Chris Kreider, Brad Richards and Brian Boyle also scored for the Rangers, and Cam Talbot stopped 25 shots. Joffrey Lupul scored for Toronto, which had won three in a row. Jonathan Bernier gave up five goals on 32 shots before being pulled in favor of James Reimer, who had not played since being benched Dec. 21. Reimer did not fare much better, giving up two goals on 18 shots. Hagelin’s deflection goal put the Rangers ahead at 6 minutes 57 seconds of the first, and Moore made it 2-0 nine minutes later. Pouliot, Kreider and Moore again made it 5-0 in the second period before Lupul scored for the Leafs. Before the game, the Rangers acquired Dan Carcillo from the Los Angeles Kings for a seventh-round pick in the 2014 draft. Carcillo fills an enforcer role for the Rangers, who lost Derek Dorsett to a broken left fibula for four to six weeks. “We pick up a player that can bring an element of toughness,” Coach Alain Vigneault said. “It’s an area that we felt that we needed to get a little bit better. Dan became available, and we picked him up.” HURRICANES 3, ISLANDERS 2 Jordan Staal and Brett Sutter scored 57 seconds apart in the second period, and Carolina beat the host Islanders for their third consecutive win. Staal broke a tie with his ninth goal with 6:48 left in the second. Sutter stretched the Carolina lead to 3-1 with 5:51 to go with the second goal of his N.H.L. career and first since his debut on Dec. 23, 2008 — a stretch of 50 games. Manny Malhotra staked the Hurricanes to a 1-0 lead when he scored for a third straight game, connecting at 6:57 of the second with his fourth goal. John Tavares answered 44 seconds later with his 17th for the Islanders, and Thomas Vanek scored with 24.2 seconds remaining, but the Islanders had a season-best, three-game winning streak broken. “We have some bad breakdowns,” Tavares said. “We made it too easy for them. We didn’t make them earn it.” The Hurricanes improved to 23-5-5 in the last 33 meetings with the Islanders and 16-2-4 in the past 22. Carolina is certainly not intimidated by Nassau Coliseum; the Hurricanes are 11-1-2 there in their past 14 visits. SABRES 2, DEVILS 1 Matt Moulson and Matt D’Agostini scored power-play goals to lead Buffalo past the Devils. Ryan Miller made 21 saves for the Sabres, who have won five straight home games. Michael Ryder scored his 13th goal of the season for the Devils, who took two penalties in three minutes late in the second period. The Devils forced a turnover and had two players alone on Miller during the first penalty, but Miller stopped Adam Henrique’s shot. Buffalo scored on the second opportunity. FLYERS 5, COYOTES 3 Jakub Voracek scored the winner with 8:08 left and visiting Philadelphia rallied from a two-goal deficit for a victory over Phoenix. BRUINS 4, JETS 1 Defenseman Torey Krug had two goals and an assist, and Tuukka Rask made 36 saves to lead host Boston to a victory over Winnipeg. Ondrej Pavelec stopped 25 shots for the Jets, who has lost two in a row. SENATORS 4, CANADIENS 3 Clarke MacArthur scored on a power play 58 seconds into overtime and visiting Ottawa beat Montreal. Daniel Briere scored twice and had an assist for the Canadiens, and Brian Gionta also scored. AVALANCHE 4, SHARKS 3 Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and Semyon Varlamov stopped 30 shots to help Colorado hold off visiting San Jose for its third straight win. The Avalanche have 56 points at the halfway point of the season, the second most in team history. WILD 5, CAPITALS 3 Ryan Suter scored three goals, and host Minnesota beat Washington. Suter completed the first hat trick by a Wild defenseman with 12:23 to play in the third. Minnesota has won two straight after snapping a franchise-record six-game losing streak on Thursday. PANTHERS 5, PREDATORS 4 Tomas Kopecky scored the winner in the sixth round of a shootout, lifting host Florida over Nashville. Kopecky’s shot went past Marek Mazanec high on the glove side, improving Florida’s record in shootouts to 5-5. BLUES 6, BLUE JACKETS 2 Patrick Berglund scored twice and Vladimir Sobotka and Alex Pietrangelo each had a goal and an assist as St. Louis beat visiting Columbus, the Blues’ fifth straight win. RED WINGS 5, STARS 1 Jimmy Howard made 44 saves and Henrik Zetterberg scored two goals, leading Detroit to a victory over host Dallas.

Rangers
Maple Leafs
Bruins
Torey Krug
Ice hockey
Winnpeg Jets


Daring to Say Loans Made No Sense

Abstract: Sometimes, if you want the real answer, you have to ask a dumb question. Alex Blumberg, a producer at “This American Life,” a public radio show that specializes in old-fashioned storytelling about local slices of Americana, has never owned a house or had a mortgage, let alone covered the financial industry. Nonetheless, he was fascinated as he watched the subprime mess unfold. His dumb question? “Why are they lending money to people who can’t afford to pay it back?” In 2006, Mr. Blumberg began bothering his friend Adam Davidson, an experienced business reporter at National Public Radio , about subprime loans. Mr. Davidson, who had a broad knowledge of global capital markets, patiently walked him through collateralized debt obligations, yield and risk curves, and the growing amount of international capital in need of a home. But Mr. Blumberg still didn’t get it. How could securities based on lending money to bad risks be good business? “I was embarrassed for him,” Mr. Davidson said. “I understood how money flowed around the world and I was talking to big-picture thinkers.” Soon, Mr. Blumberg was madly surfing the Web and torturing his wife and friends with arcane talk about loan syndication and credit-default swaps . “It was a very unhealthy obsession,” he says now. “I just couldn’t understand how they could expect to be paid off when everyone I knew was maxed out on their credit cards. And these were very big loans.” He decided to do the story for “This American Life,” a show that has a reputation for discussing things like summer camp and inner demons. “I told him, I don’t know how you’re going to do a story about mortgage securitization for ‘This American Life,’ but good luck,” Mr. Davidson said. But by December of last year, both Mr. Davidson and the broader markets were beginning to have their doubts about whether the fallout from subprime lending had actually been contained. The more they talked, the more Mr. Davidson realized the education was going both ways. They eventually came up with a one-hour collaboration between NPR News and “This American Life” called “The Giant Pool of Money” that was broadcast last May and became a much downloaded primer on all the mayhem that followed. (You can find it at thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242 ) Mr. Blumberg and Mr. Davidson were hardly the only ones asking questions. Nearly 19 months ago, under the headline “Mortgages May Be Messier Than You Think,” my colleague Gretchen Morgenson wrote, “as is often the case, only after fiery markets burn out do we see the risks that buyers ignore and sellers play down.” As the assumptions that had blown air into the bubble began to dissipate, many mainstream reports became increasingly skeptical in their reporting and blogs like Calculated Risk offered increasingly alarming insights. After large-scale financial disasters, the press is usually criticized — often justly — for ignoring the problem, but it’s hard to make that case with the subprime mess. If no one saw this coming, they were not looking. “This has been a very slow-moving train wreck,” said Andrew Leckey, director of the center for business journalism at Arizona State University. “But it came wrapped in the warm feelings of home ownership while the executives behind it used obfuscation and a lack of transparency to lie about how deeply they were in the subprime business.” As Mr. Davidson and Mr. Blumberg showed, there’s more than one way to get behind the lies. Using an ad they placed on Craigslist — “Were you employed in the subprime mortgage industry?” — the pair proceeded to assemble a remarkably likable rogues gallery of participants up and down the subprime food chain. One was Clarence Nathan, who sounded like a nice guy, but his house was in foreclosure, and he did not have full-time employment. He had no assets to speak of, and yet he received a loan for $450,000. And then Mr. Blumberg asked Mr. Nathan the stupid question: “Would you have loaned you the money?” Mr. Nathan answered: “I wouldn’t have loaned me the money. And nobody I know would have loaned me the money. I know guys who are criminals who wouldn’t loan me that, and they break kneecaps.” The pair suggested that an excess of global capital — a doubling in available capital in just six years to $72 trillion — left a “giant pool of money” in need of returns. Enter mortgage-backed securities. A lot of them. One of the remarkable things about the report is the absence of evildoers, even though the cumulative effect of their behavior is now threatening to upend our nation. Early in the broadcast, we hear from Mike Francis, an executive director at the residential mortgage trading desk of Morgan Stanley. “From our standpoint it’s like, there’s a guy out there with a lot of money. We’ve got to find a way to be his sole provider of bonds to fill his appetite. And his appetite’s massive.” The story then turns to another Mike, Mike Garner, a bartender in Nevada turned mortgage bundler. Mr. Garner said that market appetites for anything that resembled a mortgage pushed loan standards down: “No income, no asset. You don’t have to state anything. Just have a credit score and a pulse.” (Mr. Blumberg pointed out that the pulse thing was optional: 23 dead people in Ohio were also approved.) Mr. Garner’s boss had been in the business for 25 years and knew something was wrong. “It makes me sick to my stomach the kind of loans we do.” It was not a very common response. Glen Pizzolorusso was an area sales manager at WMC Mortgage in New York and a young ninja in this new world. Just out of college, he had five cars, a penthouse and a vacation house in Connecticut. And a taste for good living. “We ordered three, four bottles of Cristal at $1,000 per bottle,” he said on the broadcast, recalling a night when he had a table at Marquee, a nightclub in Manhattan. “They bring it out, you know they’re walking through the crowd, they’re holding the bottles over their heads. There’re firecrackers, sparklers. You know, the little cocktail waitresses,” he said. “You know so you order three or four bottles of those and they’re walking through the crowd and everyone’s like: Whoa, who’re the cool guys? We were the cool guys.” Mr. Pizzolorusso himself soon fell behind on his own mortgage. “We could take joy in his deep-frying in his own greed, except for the fact that we all will end up getting billed for the Cristal.” Mr. Blumberg said: “I admire him very much for talking to us. “He was completely honest about how he behaved.” Kevin Kelly, a writer and thinker who helped invent Wired and The Whole Earth Catalog, is a huge fan of “The Giant Pool of Money.” “It was not an abstract,” he said. “These were ordinary people doing ordinary things that accumulated in the wrong sequence and creating a system that failed. Normally, the scale prohibits people from understanding, but it was broken down into parts and sets of behavior that regular people could understand.” It was clear even last spring that the people who perpetrated this fraud knew at some level what they were doing. Mr. Davidson said that the idiosyncrasy of the instruments, combined with the overlay of technology, allowed the traders to live in denial. They would sit at terminals and use data — historical data that had been gathered before they started giving out money to people with no ability to pay — and decide that the risks were manageable. All of it was unreal, ineffable, tough to know. Except the way it turned out, as Mr. Davidson notes near the end of the story. “It’s as if the global pool of money thought it was putting trillions of dollars in a savings account, but really, half of it was going into a furnace. The money is gone, burned up, never to come back.” That was five months ago, and now that same furnace is about to burn public money. Mr. Davidson and Mr. Blumberg are working on a follow-up report to be broadcast next week on “This American Life,” that looks into the wreckage of a calamity their reporting all but predicted. Mr. Blumberg said that back when they first started, “there were all these respected economists saying that no, it’s not a bubble, and yes, there would be a correction, but it would be a soft-landing and I think people were too intimidated to question that,” Mr. Blumberg said. “That’s the story of my life, asking the stupid question,” he said.

Radio
Mortgages
National Public Radio
Foreclosures
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
News and News Media
This American Life (Radio Program)


A Safe Haven, but Not Safe From All

Abstract: THIS is how it went down at the place they call "10-11": 1011 First Avenue, the headquarters for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The cardinal sent out an explanatory video. Bishops gathered information from parishes and advisory groups. Someone tracked the demographic trends. Meetings begat meetings. Proposals were floated, challenged and refined. After two years of this research and reflection, the archdiocese finally lowered the boom. This week it proposed closing 31 parishes and 14 schools as part of the next phase of its "realignment," which sounds more like a matter of auto mechanics than one of faith. The euphemism is apt only in that the news fell like a truck upon two women who work at St. Martin of Tours School, an institution in the East Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx for the last 85 years. They are Sister Cecilia McCarthy and Sister Nora McArt. If you do not recognize their names, it is because nuns have always been a quiet strength of this city. The sisters and others at St. Martin's did not learn of the school's proposed demise from "10-11," but rather from an alumnus. This, of course, is in keeping with the archdiocese's congenital inability to demonstrate a pastoral touch. That day, Sister Cecilia, 87, had kept busy in the school's library, whose collection includes books that she purchases with her modest allowance from her order, the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, in Rockland County. Sister Nora, 61, had traveled to Lower Manhattan to lay claim to computers and other equipment that some business was discarding. A typical day for them both, really. Then came the word, indirectly, from "downtown," as Sister Nora says. A day's distance did not ease the hurt. On Wednesday afternoon, after school, Sister Cecilia cloistered herself in the adjacent convent, rather than have children see her cry. Sister Nora, answering the telephone while the secretary led a "Save Our School" chant outside, teared up only when none of the 225 students were in sight. When an anxious young girl materialized at the end of the school day, the shaken and quiet nun instantly became the radiant and smiling nun saying, "What's up, darling?" Sister Nora told the child that her mother would be here soon, then patted her gently on the back. That small gesture -- of reassurance, of love, of I'll always be here -- represents what is at stake. The archdiocese clearly has hard choices to make, but no crunching of numbers, no mapping of demographics, not even a video from His Eminence himself, can capture the worth of a pat on the back from a nun in the Bronx. Every parish and school will be given a chance to "tell us why they should remain open," said Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the archdiocese. "We made it clear that we understand these are upsetting recommendations, but you're going to have to do more than say, 'We love our parish.' " In other words, the archdiocese wants these parishes and schools to detail how they plan to remain financially and spiritually viable, which means that the contributions of the likes of Sister Cecilia and Sister Nora are, in effect, stipulated. Stipulated: That Sister Cecilia arrived at St. Martin of Tours in 1967; that she served as principal for 34 years, controlling the rhythms of a school through her dedication and her golden bell; that at age 84, she became the school's librarian, transforming the small, hot room into a haven of knowledge. Stipulated: That Sister Nora arrived in 1969; that she is known for the speed with which she answers any child's cry; that she single-handedly carried the school into the computer age; that at 7 every morning, she opens the school doors for dozens of children who receive the free breakfast they need to start the day. Stipulated: That together, Sister Cecilia and Sister Nora have touched the lives of thousands; that they have made St. Martin of Tours School a safe place in a sometimes tough neighborhood; that they intend to fight for its continued survival. It is unclear whether officials from "10-11," working on the realignment, ever visited St. Martin of Tours. If they had come on Wednesday afternoon, they would have walked past the outdoor rally to find preschoolers squirming in Head Start class, children enduring religious education instruction, and aspiring musicians seeking rhythm in band class. They would have also encountered Sister Nora, who answered every telephone call with this greeting: "St. Martin of Tours School. Good afternoon. How may we help you?" About New York E-mail: dabarry@nytimes.com

NUNS
NEW YORK CITY
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
PRIVATE AND SECTARIAN SCHOOLS
SHUTDOWNS (INSTITUTIONAL)
EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS


Jorge Vazquez, in Yankees’ Camp, Waiting for a Shot

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — The Yankees welcomed Jorge Vazquez into their spring training facility with the intention of sending him to Scranton, Pa., not the Bronx, when they break camp at the end of the month. A veteran of the Mexican league, Vazquez has never reached the majors. But he has become a curiosity this spring training: a home run hitter powerful enough to play in the big leagues, but too limited defensively to become the Yankees’ backup infielder. So, despite his tantalizing talent at the plate and legendary minor league performances, Vazquez will have to wait for his shot in the majors. “It’s a little hard,” Vazquez said through an interpreter. “I think I’m ready. But I know what kind of organization that’s here; it’s something I respect. That makes it difficult for me. I’m waiting for my opportunity.” Vazquez has hit an astounding .452, with three home runs, this spring training. But he can play only first base and has struggled in tryouts at third base. That has diminished his value as a bench player. But while Vazquez, 29, might be too old to still be considered a prospect, he represents insurance for the Yankees, and possibly trade bait to acquire more pitchers this season. General Manager Brian Cashman said that the plan all along was for Vazquez to start the season with Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The Yankees have not formally announced that Vazquez would be sent to the minor leagues. “He’s going to wait in the wings,” Cashman said. “He just needs to continue doing what he did this year at the next level. Slowly but surely, if he continues to conquer every level, there will only be one level left to conquer, the major leagues.” There is no chance that Vazquez would displace the Yankees’ $180 million starting first baseman, Mark Teixeira, and he cannot play defense as well as the versatile backup infielder Eric Chavez, who is all but assured of making the team. Vazquez was an error-prone third baseman while playing in Mexico City from 2000 to 2003, with a high of 16 errors in 59 games in his final season. But he played primarily at first base when he joined the teams in Angelopolis and Quintana Roo, from 2004 to 2008. “I remember him as a great hitter,” said Ramiro Pena, who played with Vazquez in Mexico before also joining the Yankees’ system. “He was good at first, and when you have a bad throw, he can help you. But he was a great hitter.” Known as El Chato — squat or chunky in Spanish — the 225-pound Vazquez was prolific at the plate, hitting for power and average. Those who played in the Mexican league tell stories of how Vazquez would hit home runs past fences, out of ballparks and over parked cars. The numbers do not lie: 33 home runs and a .379 batting average in 71 games in 2005, his most productive season. Vazquez, who was scouted by Lee Sigman, has proven his slugging ability in two years in the Yankees’ system. Despite playing in just 57 games in 2009 because of injury, Vazquez has hit 31 combined home runs with Class AA Trenton and Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. “He’s hit everywhere he’s went,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “That’s his M.O.” The Yankees acquired Chavez, a six-time Gold Glove third baseman in his 13-year career in Oakland, during the off-season. Chavez, 33, is the leading contender for the role of backup infielder — teams typically carry only one such player on their bench — because he can play ably at first or third base. With the 35-year-old Alex Rodriguez probably requiring more time off to rest his surgically repaired hip, third base is a position that is particularly in need of depth. But Vazquez has not shown the mobility needed to effectively play there. In particular, he has had difficulty with his lateral movement at the position. But with his powerful bat and capable defensive skills at first base, Vazquez could be an asset for another team looking to add power. The Yankees could trade him in the hope of bolstering their rotation. “He’ll hit his way to the big leagues,” Cashman said. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that. Whether it’s with us or somewhere else, he will get there because he can swing the bat.” But El Chato, at least for a little longer, will have to wait for his major league arrival. INSIDE PITCH The Yankees would love to follow the blueprint to their 8-1 victory Sunday over the Phillies in the March 31 opener against Detroit. C. C. Sabathia, the scheduled opening day starter, allowed one run in six and two-thirds innings, Mark Teixeira homered, and so did Alex Rodriguez, who extended his torrid spring training by going 2 for 3 with a double and his fourth homer in five games. “I’ve said all along that this is the best I’ve felt in a few years,” said Rodriguez, who is hitting .432 in 37 at-bats with a 1.475 on-base plus slugging percentage. “I feel more consistent and a little more energized, and my body feels good.” BEN SHPIGEL


Suitcase of Cash Tangles U.S. and 2 Latin Nations in Intrigue

Abstract: CARACAS, Venezuela — One day last August, an airport policewoman in Buenos Aires noticed something peculiar as she was monitoring a baggage scanner: the appearance of six perfect, dense rectangles inside a suitcase. She asked the passenger, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, one of eight people aboard a private plane chartered by Argentina ’s national oil company that flew from Caracas, to open the case. “He became frozen and did not say a word,” the policewoman later said in a radio interview. When he did open it, nearly $800,000 in cash spilled out. Mr. Antonini, a businessman with Venezuelan and American citizenship, is now at the center of a spy mystery and diplomatic imbroglio involving Argentina, Venezuela and the United States. American officials portray the episode as a rare glimpse into President Hugo Chávez’s use of oil wealth to spread his influence, saying the cash was destined for the campaign of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner , Argentina’s new president. Venezuela and Argentina describe it as an amateurish American attempt to smear their governments. Mrs. Kirchner has called the case a “garbage operation” by Americans, while Venezuela’s official news agency claimed this week that it was a plot by the Central Intelligence Agency. But American investigators, in court documents, say a concealed recording device they persuaded Mr. Antonini to wear after the cash was seized revealed that Venezuelan spies and businessmen threatened and pressured him to cover up the destination of the cash. The United States attorney in Miami is prosecuting those men for failing to register as foreign agents. The case hinges on a charge that four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan in south Florida tried to cover up an operation gone badly awry and to prevent Mr. Antonini from going public. Neither Mr. Antonini nor his lawyer, Theresa van Vliet, responded to numerous requests for interviews. Thomas A. Shannon Jr., assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said Friday that the Argentine reaction was “regrettable and not positive,” but that the investigation had “no foreign policy purpose.” He said recent statements from Argentine officials indicated that “the Argentines understand that this is a judicial process and that it is best for everybody to allow this to play itself out.” The case began when Mr. Antonini, 46, returned to his home in Key Biscayne, Fla. Within days, he began cooperating with American investigators, offering them insight into what they contend was an operation in which wealthy Venezuelan businessmen in south Florida plotted with officials as high up as Mr. Chávez’s spymaster and former vice president. Mr. Antonini may have asked for American help after Argentine investigators sought his extradition. Two days after being caught with the cash, Mr. Antonini was seen in the presidential palace in Buenos Aires celebrating the signing of business deals with Venezuela, according to Victoria Bereziuk, an Argentine secretary who was at the palace and who was one of the passengers in the private plane with Mr. Antonini, according to Argentine investigators. Alberto Fernández, Mrs. Kirchner’s chief of staff, later denied her assertion, saying the Argentine government had no record of Mr. Antonini being at the palace. What is clear is that soon after leaving Argentina he agreed to be recorded, photographed and videotaped by F.B.I. agents as he talked to a number of Venezuelans in Florida, who coaxed, cajoled and outright threatened him to keep quiet and accept falsified documents about the origin and intent of the money, American investigators contend. The government made 41 audio recordings and eight videotapes, documents in the case show. The surveillance took place in a series of restaurants and cafes. In one meeting, on Aug. 23 at Jackson’s Steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Carlos Kauffmann, 36, a Venezuelan businessman, told Mr. Antonini it was not in Venezuela’s best interest for him to have any “problems” in Venezuela. A Venezuelan lawyer assured Mr. Antonini that Venezuela’s national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, would pay for all legal expenses and financial penalties that might result from the suitcase scandal. But by Sept. 7, when Mr. Antonini met with Franklin Duran, 40, a Venezuelan oil products tycoon and close friend, at a Quarterdeck restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Mr. Duran was telling him that Venezuelan authorities no longer trusted Mr. Antonini and suspected that he was talking to American law enforcement. At one point, two of the suspects, according to prosecutors, offered Mr. Antonini $2 million in hush money. On another occasion, prosecutors said, Mr. Duran told Mr. Antonini that if he did not cooperate his children could be in danger. On Oct. 27, Moisés Maionica, 36, another Venezuelan suspect, told Mr. Antonini by phone that an “emissary” was being sent from Venezuela to meet with him at a Starbucks in Plantation, Fla. The emissary was Antonio José Canchica Gómez, an agent of Venezuela’s Disip intelligence service, according to investigators. The next day Rodolfo Wanseele Paciello, a Uruguayan also charged in the case, drove Mr. Canchica to the Starbucks. Coded language had been agreed upon in advance. “Christian,” Mr. Antonini muttered in Mr. Canchica’s direction at the Starbucks. The code word accepted, Mr. Canchica assured Mr. Antonini that he would be “skillfully and discreetly helped,” American prosecutors charge, and that he, Mr. Canchica, was the “last link in the chain.” When the 40-minute meeting was over, Mr. Paciello drove Mr. Canchica to the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel, seven miles away. But Mr. Paciello, apparently to try to lose any trailing car, drove 43 miles instead of seven, making constant shifts and turns in direction and going 35 miles on the Florida Turnpike, where the speed limit is 70 miles per hour. It was, American investigators contend, an attempt at countersurveillance. It did not work. The F.B.I. was watching the whole time, an agent testified in court last month. Three days later, Mr. Canchica left Miami by plane. On Dec. 12, the F.B.I. arrested the three Venezuelans and Mr. Paciello, the Uruguayan. Mr. Canchica, the fifth suspect, remains at large. American officials, who requested anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the case, said they believed he had fled to Cuba, beyond the reach of American intelligence services. No investigation of Mr. Antonini or those involved in the alleged cover-up has been initiated in Venezuela, opening its government to charges that it is reluctant for the truth to emerge. That leaves the burden of proof foremost with federal prosecutors in the United States. With a trial in the case still months away, some important questions remain unclear: Who gave the orders to the Venezuelan businessmen to pursue Mr. Antonini on American soil? Where did the money in Mr. Antonini’s suitcase come from? And what motivated Mr. Kauffmann and Mr. Duran, two highflying Venezuelan tycoons enmeshed in the scandal who have pleaded not guilty to the charges? The State Department says that prosecutors in Miami initiated the case without orders from Washington, and that the indictments were not motivated by any desire to smear Mr. Chávez’s government. A senior United States official said that the State Department learned of the case soon after the investigation began but did not interfere. Mr. Duran’s lawyer, Edward R. Shohat, in Miami, said the case should be of no concern to the United States. “Here, in essence, Venezuelan citizens are accused of trying to influence the conduct of another Venezuelan citizen with respect to a seizure of currency in Argentina, which, if such conduct amounts to an obstruction of justice, could only affect proceedings in Argentina,” he said. “No United States interest is implicated.” This is not the first time the United States Attorney’s office in Miami has pursued a hostile government based on the statements of people involved in an investigation. Thomas Mulvihill, the assistant United States attorney leading the case, also accused Cuba’s Fidel Castro in the late 1980s of acting as a go-between in cocaine trafficking out of Colombia, claims that were never substantiated. In February, a former professor at Florida International University and his wife were convicted of acting as unregistered agents of the Cuban government. But the current case is unusual because the statute has almost always been used in cases where people are accused of trying to spy on expatriate communities, or where the suspects were viewed to be dangers to national security, legal experts said. This time, Mr. Mulvihill insists, the suspects in question have implicated themselves. “The taped conversations indicate clearly they were doing the bidding of a foreign government, and those taped conversations are in their own words,” he said in a Miami courtroom last month.

Venezuela
Argentina
Kirchner Cristina Fernandez de
Petroleos de Venezuela SA
Espionage
International Relations


Like Ducks and Penguins, With Nervous Stomachs

Abstract: The smell of Swinburne Island is the smell of the birds: layers of guano, decaying fish, salt water. It is a smell both tangy and rotten, and it intensifies as you fight your way through shoulder-high brush toward the bare branches where cormorants are nesting. Colin Grubel, a graduate student in biology at Queens College, is delighted when he spies something on the ground — on close inspection, the mummified, half-digested body of a fish, poached in stomach acid. Mr. Grubel gets down on his hands and knees and slips it into a baggy. This is what he came for. “It’s not necessarily glamorous, you know,” said Mr. Grubel, 30. “I pick up cormorant vomit. I’m not sure very many people would want that on their résumé. But I love it.” The double-crested cormorant, threatened across the country during the 1960s by the use of the insecticide DDT, is a relatively new arrival to New York Harbor. The first documented sighting in New York City was in 1985. A census this year by a wildlife group counted 1,046 breeding pairs. On harbor islands like Swinburne — where hospitals were built long ago to quarantine contagious immigrants with yellow fever and cholera — they have built boisterous colonies, claiming once-human spaces for their own. Their arrival has drawn mixed reactions. Cormorants are big and black, with sharp curved bills and a habit of vomiting when threatened. When they stretch their wings out to dry, they seem to be wearing the black cloaks associated with vampires. They are also mercilessly efficient marine predators, with the ability to fly like ducks and dive like penguins, which has not endeared them to fishermen (or, for that matter, anchovies). Susan Elbin, an ornithologist, said that the cormorant’s recovery has tracked almost perfectly with the bald eagle’s. But a typical audience hearing about the eagle will “go, ‘Yay,’ ” while “when you say, ‘cormorant,’ they say, ‘Oh.’ ” “I’ve heard them called ‘devil birds,’ ” said Ms. Elbin, a senior scientist at the Wildlife Trust, a group dedicated to protecting biodiversity that conducted the cormorant census. “They sit with their wings out like Dracula. They sit really low in the water — they’re built for diving. Maybe they look snakelike. There’s a lot of them. And they smell.” This dynamic, referred to by biologists as “human-cormorant conflict,” has played out in one region after another as the cormorant population has recovered, thanks in large part to the Clean Water Act and a federal ban on DDT. Cormorants are expanding into new territory. In the Great Lakes region, fishermen have pressed for a mass killing of the birds, which they believe are depleting fish populations. Similar rumblings are coming from Long Island Sound, where fishermen are worried about the supply of winter flounder. That is one reason Mr. Grubel is collecting vomit samples, an activity he cheerfully compares to “a treasure hunt.” Back in his laboratory, spending long days over “balls of flesh,” he is making a painstaking catalog of what cormorants are eating. “I love the birds,” he said, “And at the same time I think the fishermen are great people,” with a strong grasp of trends in fish populations. “I’d like to do my part to help the fishermen understand the birds.” This particular Thursday was hot, and the air in the harbor hung low and heavy as the researchers’ boat passed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and drew near Swinburne Island. The island, closed to the public, has the remote, overgrown look of an ancient ruin. There are 264 cormorant nests on the island. The birds have made it their own; they have stripped trees of their bark, leaving them with the bleached smoothness of bones; they have whitewashed old walls and green leaves with guano; and they have turned the color of the ground itself to chalk. Mr. Grubel, who grew up in Brooklyn Heights, has been making these trips for two years, gathering data for his master’s thesis. He grew accustomed, long ago, to the looks he gets on the subway when he rides home after a day’s work, smelling like a cormorant colony. His wife has made her peace with the presence of bagged vomit samples, which made their way into their home’s freezer when the Queens College laboratory’s space ran short. Most of his colleagues, he said, set their sights on exotic subjects: elephants, say, in Kenya. But his days on New York City’s islands intoxicate him. “I’d love to be able to see Kenya someday, but I’m a Brooklyn boy,” he said. “There’s a lot of wild places in New York.” As the boat approached the island, many of the birds flushed, rising off the branches and settling on the roof of an abandoned building. Sometimes, when Mr. Grubel ventures into a colony, he said, he hears thumping, as the birds regurgitate on their way to a safer perch. It is not entirely clear why cormorants are such prodigious vomiters. Like many birds, they feed their young regurgitated fish, but they also vomit when approached by predators — perhaps to drop weight in preparation for flight, but possibly also to distract their predators. There is also, said John Waldman, a Queens College biology professor and Mr. Grubel’s thesis adviser, the “nervousness theory.” Whatever the explanation, the phenomenon has become so much a part of Mr. Grubel’s work that one colleague recommended he “build a hat with a bowl on top.” The thumps he hears are exciting for him: In gobs of vomit, to be referred to in his thesis as boli, he has identified eels, mud snails, oyster toadfish and menhaden. Sometimes he will hear a thump so loud it can only be a whole fish, or close to it. This, he says, is particularly interesting. “I’ve been hit on occasion,” he said. “In some ways it’s almost this great personal experience between you and the birds.” Mr. Grubel got down on his hands and knees, picking up about a dozen samples for what Professor Waldman describes as frantic ichthyology — a search for ear bones or other fragments that could identify a certain species. The fish he found were nothing unusual: cunner and tautog, small fish generally found around pilings or rocky shores, and one weakfish. And then he collected himself to leave. Mr. Grubel works quickly, to avoid disrupting the birds for too long. He compared his work in the colonies to “going through someone’s closet and finding out where their money is stashed.”

Birds
New York Harbor
Biology and Biochemistry


‘E10,’ at Aljira Center in Newark, Spotlights Emerging Artists

Abstract: Aljira Emerge, an annual program aimed at preparing artists for the marketplace, is now in its 10th season at Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art in Newark , attracting participants from as far as Washington and Boston. Over the years, the group show that is organized as the culmination of the seven-week program, though not without its limitations, has gotten more interesting. The current exhibition , “E10,” features the work of 22 artists living and working throughout the Northeast. It ranges from painting and sculpture to video and installation, though the emphasis is on sculpture, in contrast to previous years, when painting dominated. A handful of interesting site-specific installations make creative use of the building. One of them, José Ruiz ’s “Abstract Funding” (2009), fashioned of blue vinyl, is attached to the gallery’s front window. It looks abstract until you get close and discover that it is an amalgam of logos for Aljira’s public and private financial supporters; each logo’s size reflects the amount of money Aljira receives from the donor in question. Nearby is another intriguing installation, “No One’s Land” (2009) by Priscila De Carvalho , a Brazilian-born, New York-based artist who currently has a solo show at the Jersey City Museum . Her work here consists of a layered, labyrinthine representation of an urban landscape constructed from paint, foam, paper and photograph collage. It is a vision of a troubling urban milieu in which mysterious red figures seem to be spraying graffiti. Over all, the show, assembled by a guest curator, Sara Reisman , director of the Percent for Art Program in New York , seems more political than in past years. Some of the work is even quite confrontational, including Roxana Perez-Mendez’s “Brutal” (2009), an LCD light sculpture made of large, blinking letters spelling out the title of the work, which refers to the immigrant experience. Identity politics seems to be making a comeback, although the bitterness and anger once prevalent in this sort of work has been largely replaced by a knowing irony and a sense of humor. Nyeema Morgan’s “Elemental Configurations” (2009), an inkjet print collage, is a poster for a periodic table of the elements into which the artist has inserted faces of characters played by African-Americans in science fiction movies and television series. Identity is also the focus of the handful of paintings in this exhibition, most obviously Cecile Chong ’s mixed-media works that juxtapose appropriated illustrations from vintage children’s books with found imagery from North and South America and Asia. They address the artist’s feelings of displacement and alienation as an Ecuadorean-born Chinese living in New York. Fariba Alam is another artist who is making identity-oriented work, though you might not immediately guess that from looking at it. She creates wall installations of miniature tiles covered in meticulously rendered imagery, including Islamic calligraphy, archival photography, mathematical diagrams and self-portraiture. Ms. Alam manages to illuminate here the murky terrain between individual identity and cultural identification. Inescapably, the show includes some videos; still, they are not as boring as a lot of those seen in galleries and museums these days. In fact, Jaye Rhee ’s three videos, “Swan” (2007), “Polar Bear” (2007) and “Niagara” (2008), are actually mildly entertaining, showing performers moving in public baths against a backdrop of wall paintings depicting nature scenes. Which brings us to the limitations of “E10.” Though the show has improved over the years, it still features too many works that, aesthetically speaking, do nothing and go nowhere. Embedding politics in a material or an image is one thing, but doing so in ways that engage the viewer is quite another.

Art
Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art
Newark (NJ)


Aquino’s Son to Seek Presidency of Philippines

Abstract: MANILA — Benigno Aquino III, the only son of the former president Corazon C. Aquino , announced Wednesday that he would run for president of the Philippines in next year’s elections. His declaration ended weeks of speculation fueled by the withdrawal from the race of another popular politician, Mar Roxas, the grandson of a former president, Manuel Roxas, whose allies hope that the fractious political opposition will unite behind Mr. Aquino, 49. Mr. Aquino, known by his nickname, Noynoy, will hope to capitalize on the popularity of his mother, the architect of the “people power” pro-democracy movement. Mrs. Aquino died Aug. 1 at age 76 . More than 100,000 Filipinos marched through the rain during her funeral — a display of reverence matched only by the funeral of her husband, Mr. Aquino’s father, Benigno Aquino Jr., who was assassinated in 1983 upon his return from the United States to challenge the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos. “I accept the wish of the people,” Mr. Aquino said at a news conference here on Wednesday. “I accept the challenge to lead this nation. I want to make democracy work, not just for the rich and well connected, but for everybody.” A former congressman who is now a senator, Mr. Aquino has largely stayed out of the limelight. Lacking a natural flair as a public speaker, he has yet to approach the popularity of his mother. His legislative accomplishments have been unremarkable as well. Mr. Aquino’s declaration has come as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo faces the end of her term next year. Some of Mrs. Arroyo’s allies tried in vain to muster support to allow her to run again through an amendment to the Constitution, which was adopted during Mrs. Aquino’s presidency in 1987. Mrs. Aquino had led demonstrations calling for Mrs. Arroyo’s resignation, and the bitterness between the political rivals remained strong enough this summer that the current president did not attend her predecessor’s funeral Mass, although she did visit the cathedral where Mrs. Aquino’s body was, after 3 a.m. Analysts say Mr. Aquino should benefit from the legacy of his parents regardless of whom he faces from Mrs. Arroyo’s party next May. “Most of the good will or sympathy generated by former President Corazon Aquino’s death comes from the urban middle and upper classes, mainly based in Manila and some cities,” said Romulo Tuazon, a political analyst at the nonprofit Center for People Empowerment in Governance. “They want a change in the Arroyo presidency mainly because of corruption and failure of governance. They are encouraged by the entry of Noynoy in the presidential race, hoping that the name he carries is translatable into winnable votes.” Indeed, in the past week, Mr. Aquino has done several things that tend to remind Filipinos that he is his mother’s son. He now uses yellow as his signature color; he flashes the “L” sign, for laban, or fight; and his news conference Wednesday was held at the same place where his mother took her first oath of office. As his mother did in 1986, Mr. Aquino went on a retreat with Catholic nuns in order to contemplate his future. He also asked Filipinos to gather at least one million signatures in a petition urging him to run — a suggestion that was soon forgotten — and his friends have begun a “peso for Aquino” campaign to finance his candidacy. The challenge for Mr. Aquino, analysts say, is to do more . He faces “the formidable challenge of broadening the outpouring of sympathy from the small upper-middle classes to the masses, where the votes really count,” Mr. Tuazon said. Aside from facing the powerful machinery of the governing party, Mr. Aquino will also have to contend with at least two other opposition candidates who have said they plan to run in the elections. At least four other opposition hopefuls have withdrawn and said they would support Mr. Aquino.


Much Has Happened Since the Jets Last Won

Abstract: It is with the benefit of hindsight that Sept. 7 now stands out as a rare and amazing day. For that was the Sunday when the Jets, in their season opener, actually won a game. They have not won since — not in eight games, played in five stadiums and in two time zones. Their misery is in its third month, with no relief in sight. During this long, pathetic stretch, in which, among other things, the Jets have allowed 22 touchdown receptions and intercepted one pass in return, some crazy things have happened in the N.F.L. The Cleveland Browns rallied from a 25-point deficit against the Titans in Tennessee, and quarterback Mark Sanchez, the famous Jets reject, got back on the field again and led the Philadelphia Eagles to, you guessed it, a victory. Then there was Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who on Sunday threw six touchdown passes for the second consecutive game. Guess whom the Jets play next? We could go on, and on, but here is a random sample of some of the other things that have happened since the Jets last came out on top: Image Lucas Duda on Sept. 28. Credit Alex Goodlett/Getty Images ■ The Mets won 11 games (as did the Yankees, for that matter). Image The Winnipeg Jets on Saturday. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images ■ The Winnipeg Jets won two games in the New York metropolitan area, against the Islanders and the Rangers. Image Joan Jett in 2004. Credit Scott Gries/Getty Images ■ Joan Jett was nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ■ An N.F.L. coach was fired — Dennis Allen, whose Oakland Raiders naturally supplied the Jets with their only victory. Image A Bolts player at the team's home opener. Credit Earl Wilson/The New York Times ■ The Brooklyn Bolts, of the new Fall Experimental Football League, have won all three of their games. Image The New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 19. Credit Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images ■ The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba debuted on the stock market and, as of Monday, was worth more than Wal-Mart. ■ Pacific-12 teams completed three Hail Marys. ■ Four new network television shows premiered and were canceled : “Manhattan Love Story” (ABC), “Bad Judge” and “A to Z” (NBC) and “Utopia” (Fox). None had anything to do with the Jets — as far as we know. ■ The University of Florida football team, for which the Jets offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg’s son, Skyler, is a backup quarterback, won three games. ■ Geno Smith, the Jets quarterback who has cursed at a fan, missed a team meeting and lost his starting job, turned a year older. His 24th birthday was on Oct. 10, two days before the Jets lost to Denver.


A Car Accident Throws a Productive Life Into Turmoil

Abstract: Fresh from a promising meeting with a real estate agent, David Nublett was on his way to treat himself to a new pair of shoes when he started to walk across Westchester Avenue in the Bronx. That is the last thing he remembers. Mr. Nublett later woke up in a state of delirium at a hospital. Tubes were inside him. A doctor was snapping his left shoulder back into joint; another told him if they did not perform emergency surgery to remove his spleen, he could die. “You wake up and they’re ready to cut you open,” Mr. Nublett recalled, his voice strained. “It’s like ‘The Twilight Zone.’” He was struck by a car that morning in February 2012. He spent the next two months at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Years later, after multiple surgeries, Mr. Nublett, 57, still has five pins in his shoulder, a metal plate in his ribs and a shattered left knee. He struggles to walk. He has developed high blood pressure, diabetes and severe anxiety. “I shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Nublett said, an anguished refrain he often repeated. Before the accident, Mr. Nublett worked two jobs, in maintenance and in security. He was self-sufficient and frugal. Now he cannot work at all. Mr. Nublett said the driver’s liability insurance covered his medical bills, but left him with no compensation to make up for what has become years of lost wages. The catastrophe not only stripped him of his mobility and independence, but also decimated his life savings. “I have to start all over again, like a baby,” he said. His monthly income consists of $987 a month in Social Security disability, enough to cover the rent for his Bronx apartment. He also receives $194 in food stamps. Desperation compelled him to beg strangers for help. “You feel less than a man when you do this,” he said. “When you ask people for change, you feel less than a man.” After falling $3,589.40 behind in rent, he turned to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund. Catholic Charities worked with other groups to cover his arrears. They used $347 in Neediest Cases money to buy Mr. Nublett a kitchen table, chairs, a dresser and a medicine cabinet to help him organize and thrive in his apartment, which he can rarely leave. Mr. Nublett, who uses a wheelchair, a walker and a cane to get around, lives in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment. Venturing outside is an exhausting, painstaking process. He does so only to see doctors or physical therapists. “I got to sit here and watch TV all day with a pillow behind my head like some old dude,” he said. Catholic Charities has applied for a rent-increase exemption and is trying to secure him a ground-floor apartment in his building. Mr. Nublett’s physical ailments keep him inside, which only worsens the psychological pain of confinement, he said. He has few ways to keep from dwelling on his misfortune and the inequity of having his life change so radically. Conventional forms of escapism do nothing for him. “Music soothes the savage beast or whatever,” Mr. Nublett said. “But when you listen, you just think about what you’re going through.” Friends have fallen away, visiting much less and looking at him with pity when they do, he said. No family members live in New York State. Other close family members are deceased. His neighbors are friendly, he said, but have not helped him navigate his new life. His only consistent companion is his home health care aide. The medication Mr. Nublett sometimes takes for his anxiety makes him drowsy. He has grown accustomed to that state of consciousness at times, mentally drifting away and pondering the unanswerable question, “Why me?” “The only bad things I did was curse, and we all do that when the game comes on,” Mr. Nublett said. He has always followed rules and adhered to a rigid code of right and wrong, taught to him by his mother and his faith. But now, Mr. Nublett struggles to understand the feeling of being inexplicably punished. “I shouldn’t be here,” he said. “What about the bad guys that walk around the streets? There are guys out there who are worse. These guys are still walking the streets, they’re still walking.” Additional surgeries are pending, including for a replacement for his left knee. Mr. Nublett is praying that he will be able to get back on his feet at long last. “I want to go back outside again and cross the street,” Mr. Nublett said. “I want to catch a train again, sit down and have a bite to eat. Go to work like everybody else.” That is where he should be, he said. Not taking pills, receiving injections and fending off panic attacks. Not fighting loneliness and despair, as he spends every day on the couch. He should not be here.

Bronx
Catholic Charities
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund


Pelé Leaves Hospital After Surgery

Abstract: Pelé has been released from a Brazilian hospital after having back surgery. Doctors said Pelé, 74, left the Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo on Monday after a procedure to alleviate discomfort in his back and hip.


Lessons Learned From an Unsuccessful Retail Venture

Abstract: If you search the Internet for the word “blackberry,” the first result you are likely to find is the smartphone, not the fruit. Similarly, the top result in a recent search for orange soda was not a soft drink, but OrangeSoda , a company based in American Fork, Utah, that creates online marketing campaigns for small- and medium-size businesses. OrangeSoda, which was founded in 2006 by Jay Bean, has 175 employees and 6,000 customers. Mr. Bean said that the company’s revenue was $19 million in 2010, and that he expected it to reach $32 million this year. But not all of his ventures have been successful. In 2005, he started a retail business that failed, but that helped him better understand the marketing needs of his small-business clients. Mr. Bean, 43, recently talked about why he named his business OrangeSoda, what he learned from his unsuccessful retail venture and what small businesses don’t understand about search-engine optimization. He also discussed why he thought Groupon made a big mistake when it turned down a $6 billion offer from Google. A condensed version of the conversation follows. Q. Why OrangeSoda? A. It’s sticky and makes us stand out, which makes people more likely to talk about and link to us. Most companies in our industry use industry terms in their names. From a branding perspective, they’ve limited themselves. We’re building a national brand and our name helps us. Q. Does it create any confusion? A. Surprisingly few people come to our Web site looking for something to drink. “Orange soda” is a fairly generic term. Users have to qualify their searches, so if someone wants to buy orange soda in bulk, they’ll search for “orange soda bulk.” It all goes back to keywords. Q. Still, aren’t you competing for Web presence not just with your industry competitors but with Coke? A. We are. But our focus is on our industry. We give very little thought to what Coke or Pepsi might do to optimize their sites. And most of the time, we outrank the soft drink companies because the term “orange soda” is just one of thousands of terms they are trying to get ranked on, while it’s core to our brand. Q. What were you doing before OrangeSoda? A. I founded ah-ha.com , a search-engine marketing company that focused on small-business clients, in 1999. Marchex acquired ah-ha in 2003, and I was there until 2006. During that time, in 2005, I also started a company called Sunglasses Only. I had never sold anything myself and wanted to share the experiences of my small-business clients. Q. How did Sunglasses Only do? A. We closed in November 2010 and sold the assets at a loss. Initially, I planned an online business — I owned the domain name sunglassesonly.com . But I found the major brands required you to have a retail location to sell their glasses, much like car manufacturers. We didn’t want the traditional, 400-square-foot sunglass store. So we tried something different, selling 25 brands out of two stores that were closer to 15,000 square feet. We stocked 3,000 pairs of sunglasses. In 2008, the year we opened our second store, sales dipped 80 to 90 percent in one month during the recession. Business continued to suffer — sunglasses aren’t something you have to have. I’ve now got 300 pairs at my house. I’m selling most of them on eBay and to family and friends. Q. What did the experience teach you about being a small-business owner? A. My biggest lessons related to inventory. I had no experience with it as an online provider of services. Having inventory requires you to deal with a different set of complex issues, including theft control. I also didn’t consider that, if the typical 400-square-foot sunglass shop needs to get 30 people through the store every hour, I was going to need four times that amount. Q. Why did you buy the domain name sunglassesonly.com? A. I started buying domain names in 2000 and have two or three hundred. I don’t know why I buy them. I just do. But I don’t buy them to sell them — they’re expensive if you’re not doing anything with them. Mostly they’re ones I think I might use, or related to my interests. I like cars, so I own automobilecity.com . Some are just quirky, like groovyprices.com . I have no idea what I’ll do with that. None are particularly valuable. The most expensive was OrangeSoda.com , which cost about $2,500. Someone else owns jaybean.com . So I have jayrbean.com . I own all my kids’ names. I don’t know what they’ll do in life, but they might need them. It costs me $9 a year to give them the option. Q. What mistakes do you see small-business owners making on the Web? A. One is that, because one-third of mobile searches have local intent, a small business that doesn’t consider mobile will miss the boat. More generally, business owners spend more time building their businesses, and less on what they don’t understand, like Internet marketing. Small businesses think they can do it alone, but they can’t. Q. What can’t they do? A. It depends on their skill set. But the problem is that there isn’t just one easy platform that allows business owners to easily create their own ads. There are dozens of advertising outlets on the Web — directories, search engines, social media — and you need to be using all of them. We create a system that allows business owners to manage these complexities across outlets. Q. How are you different from all of the other S.E.O. gurus? A. Most focus on national local. We do local local. For example, if a brand has 15 dealerships, we’ll do separate campaigns for each location, or at least break it down by region. Madison Avenue ad agencies and big S.E.O. agencies find it harder to run 100 different campaigns. But it’s necessary because search results focus locally. We focus locally all the way down to Sedalia, Mo. We’ll focus on Chelsea, not all of New York City. Q. Why has your firm grown so much faster than other Web marketing firms? A. Most firms try to work with bigger customers. But we built a platform specifically designed for local businesses with their smaller budgets. The trend is toward local advertising. But the Googles of the world don’t connect with small business. We’ve become the centerpoint in that connection process. Q. How can a small-business owner tell if a Web marketer really knows what he’s doing? A. The results will speak for themselves. Q. Is Groupon, with its local focus, worthwhile for small businesses? A. Businesses need to keep in mind that Groupon is just one thing and needs to be combined with other tools as part of a marketing campaign. A campaign should include, for example, a good Web site and strategies for search, mobile and social media. If you have all the basics covered, then you can benefit from Groupon by using it as a customer-acquisition tool. Q. Do you think Groupon is worth its rumored initial public offering valuation of $25 billion? A. No. They should have taken the $6 billion from Google when they had the chance. Q. Why? What don’t they understand? A. Groupon isn’t seeing very good supplier renewal rates. It’s not doing anything to keep those customers.

Small Business
E-Commerce
Advertising and Marketing
Shopping and Retail


Duke Holds Off Butler to Win Fourth N.C.A.A. Title

Abstract: INDIANAPOLIS — The dark sky, tornado warnings and pelting rain here Monday night portended something ominous. The backdrop all week at the Final Four had been one of change, a feeling that the tournament as it has existed for the past quarter-century could be forever altered. And the championship matchup between Duke and Butler offered the N.C.A.A., in Butler’s hometown, a reminder on the largest stage of the quintessential joy of this tournament. Butler — with the disparity in traditions, budgets and name recognition — represented the best of the tournament. But as tournament history has shown, the best team often wins. Behind Kyle Singler’s stellar defensive effort and game-high 19 points, Duke won its fourth title, 61-59. Duke (35-5) outslugged scrappy Butler, which had won 25 consecutive games, in a tense, edge-of-your-couch game with 5 ties, 15 lead changes and 2 potentially game-winning shots by Butler that caromed out in the final five seconds. “This was a great basketball game,” said the Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski . “I want to congratulate an amazing Butler team. We played a great game and they played a great game.” Butler’s first chance came when the sophomore forward Gordon Hayward missed a fading 14-foot baseline jump shot with Butler trailing, 60-59. Duke center Brian Zoubek got a hand in Hayward’s face, was fouled after the miss and hit one of two free throws. Hayward rebounded the miss, which was intentional, but his last-chance, half-court gasp hit the backboard and barely front-rimmed out. He collapsed on the floor, spoiling an ending that would make even Bobby Plump, the real-life Jimmy Chitwood in the film “Hoosiers,” blush. “They played good defense and forced me into a tough shot,” Hayward said. “I thought it was a good shot for us. Just missed it long. The last shot it was just a last-second shot and, I don’t know, it missed.” Since the tournament expanded in 1985, there has been no more dominant sideline figure than Mike Krzyzewski, who tied Adolph Rupp for second in N.C.A.A. championships with his fourth. Krzyzewski’s presence in his 30th season at Duke offered a stark contrast to the 33-year old Butler Coach Brad Stevens, who looks as calm as he does young. But Stevens could not conjure up collegiate version of “Hoosiers,” as Singler and Lance Thomas limited Hayward to 2-for-11 shooting and 12 points. Krzyzewski showed he could still mold a team as well as anyone. Duke guarded with a slap-the-floor ferocity that long defined the program, scored twice in the second half on delightfully designed inbounds plays and battled through second-half foul trouble to the starting big men, Zoubek and Thomas. “It was obviously a physical game,” Hayward said. “They played hard and we played hard. I feel like we pretty much left it all out there.” Duke’s big three — Singler, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith — led them again. Singler drained silky jumpers out of intricate sets, Scheyer capped a dynamic senior year with 15 points and Smith played steadily and scored 13. Zoubek proved a terror on the boards, with 11 rebounds and made the game’s best defensive play. Among Duke titles, this one, the Blue Devils’ first since 2001, will resonate as one of its most improbable. The 1991 team had to slay a mighty and undefeated Nevada-Las Vegas team. But this edition lacks a sure-fire high first-round draft pick like Bobby Hurley, Grant Hill or Elton Brand of teams past. Duke won with synergy and teamwork more than an overwhelming roster of talent. It held Butler to 34.5 percent shooting and stayed poised down the stretch after two Matt Howard field goals cut the Duke lead to a point in the final minute. This was Duke’s 10th appearance in the finals, Butler’s first. The Blue Devils have an endowment of nearly $6 billion more than Butler and spent more than $12 million more on basketball in the latest data available from the United States Department of Education. Butler, with just under 4,000 undergraduates, was aiming to became the smallest college by enrollment to win the national title since Holy Cross in 1947. “Can it get better than these guys?” Stevens asked. “They came one shot away from the national championship.” Even with the loss, the epic nature of the title game and Butler’s delightful run cemented the team in N.C.A.A. tournament lore. But that didn’t dull the pain for Butler. “For me it’s going to be the loss,” Hayward said of the take-away from the game. “I hate losing. It's one of the worst feelings that I have is losing.” The occasionally grinding pace of the first half favored Butler, even though the Bulldogs trailed at the break, 33-32. Butler played large portions of the first half without point guard Ronald Nored, its best on-the-ball defender, and Howard. Nored played only seven minutes in the first half and Howard nine. Howard’s status was in question after he sustained a concussion Saturday night against Michigan State. Howard picked up his second foul 11 minutes into the game, and he did not look particularly good in the time he played. He missed all four of his first-half shots from the field and three of four free throws. Every potentially magical college basketball story needs an unlikely hero. For Butler, the reserve forward Avery Jukes emerged as that player in the first half. If the scouting report had advised the Blue Devils to lay off Jukes, no one would have blamed them. He was averaging 2.7 points and had not scored 10 points in a game since Dec. 5 against Valparaiso. In the five previous N.C.A.A. tournament games, he had scored 6 points. But at halftime he had 10, more than any other player on the floor. But Jukes’s first half scoring explosion will only be a small footnote on this night. Instead, the Butler players trudged off the floor in their hometown as losers of a taut and epic one-possession games. Krzyzewski called the game “the toughest and the best one” of the eight national championship games he’s coached in. “Butler University has been on a stage that’s hard to put into words,” Stevens said. “More importantly for the 15 guys in that locker room. It’s the last time they’ll play together. They’ll have it for a long, long time.” And as change comes to the N.C.A.A. tournament as this generation has known it, this game that perhaps ended an era may be the best one of it.

Basketball
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men)
Duke University
College Athletics
Hayward Gordon
Krzyzewski Mike
Scheyer Jon
Smith Nolan
Stevens Brad (1976- )