China Wins in Wind Power, by Its Own Rules

Abstract: TIANJIN, China — Judging by the din at its factory here one recent day, the Spanish company Gamesa may seem to be a thriving player in the Chinese wind energy industry it helped create. But Gamesa has learned the hard way, as other foreign manufacturers have, that competing for China ’s lucrative business means playing by strict house rules that are often stacked in Beijing ’s favor. Nearly all the components that Gamesa assembles into million-dollar turbines here, for example, are made by local suppliers — companies Gamesa trained to meet onerous local content requirements. And these same suppliers undermine Gamesa by selling parts to its Chinese competitors — wind turbine makers that barely existed in 2005, when Gamesa controlled more than a third of the Chinese market. But in the five years since, the upstarts have grabbed more than 85 percent of the wind turbine market, aided by low-interest loans and cheap land from the government, as well as preferential contracts from the state-owned power companies that are the main buyers of the equipment. Gamesa’s market share now is only 3 percent. With their government-bestowed blessings, Chinese companies have flourished and now control almost half of the $45 billion global market for wind turbines. The biggest of those players are now taking aim at foreign markets, particularly the United States , where General Electric has long been the leader. The story of Gamesa in China follows an industrial arc traced in other businesses, like desktop computers and solar panels. Chinese companies acquire the latest Western technology by various means and then take advantage of government policies to become the world’s dominant, low-cost suppliers. It is a pattern that many economists say could be repeated in other fields, like high-speed trains and nuclear reactors, unless China changes the way it plays the technology development game — or is forced to by its global trading partners. Companies like Gamesa have been so eager to enter the Chinese market that they not only bow to Beijing’s dictates but have declined to complain to their own governments, even when they see China violating international trade agreements. Even now, Gamesa is not crying foul — for reasons that are also part of the China story. Although the company’s market share in China has atrophied, the country’s wind turbine market has grown so big, so fast that Gamesa now sells more than twice as many turbines in China as it did when it was the market leader five years ago. So as Gamesa executives see it, they made the right bet by coming to China. And they insist that they have no regrets about having trained more than 500 Chinese machinery companies as a cost of playing by Beijing’s rules — even if those rules have sometimes flouted international trade law. It is simply the table stakes of playing in the biggest game going. “If we would not have done it, someone else would have done it,” said Jorge Calvet, Gamesa’s chairman and chief executive. Gamesa, an old-line machinery company that entered the wind turbine business in 1994, is a modern Spanish success story. Its factories in Pamplona and elsewhere in Spain have produced wind turbines installed around the world. With sales of $4.4 billion last year, Gamesa is the world’s third-largest turbine maker, after Vestas of Denmark , the longtime global leader, and G.E. With its relatively low Spanish labor costs, Gamesa became an early favorite a decade ago when China began buying significant numbers of imported wind turbines, as Beijing started moving toward clean energy. Gamesa also moved early and aggressively to beef up sales and maintenance organizations within China, amassing 35 percent of the market by 2005. But Chinese officials had begun to slip new provisions into the bidding requirements for some state-run wind farms, requiring more and more of the content of turbines to be equipment produced within China — not imported. Those piecemeal requirements soon led to a blanket requirement. On July 4, 2005, China’s top economic policy agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, declared that wind farms had to buy equipment in which at least 70 percent of the value was domestically manufactured. “Wind farms not meeting the requirement of equipment localization rate shall not be allowed to be built,” stated the directive, known as Notice 1204. Trade lawyers say that setting any local content requirement — let alone one stipulating such a high domestic share — was a violation of the rules of the World Trade Organization , the international body that China had joined just four years earlier. Joanna I. Lewis, a Georgetown University professor who is a longtime adviser to Chinese policy makers on wind energy, said she and others had repeatedly warned Beijing that the local-content policy risked provoking a W.T.O. challenge by other countries. But the Chinese government bet correctly that Gamesa, as well as G.E. and other multinationals, would not dare risk losing a piece of China’s booming wind farm business by complaining to trade officials in their home countries. Rather than fight, Gamesa and the other leading multinational wind turbine makers all opted to open factories in China and train local suppliers to meet the 70 percent threshold. Mr. Calvet said Gamesa would have opened factories in China at some stage, regardless of the content policy. “If you plan to go into a country,” Mr. Calvet said, “you really need to commit to a country.” Ditlev Engel, the chief executive of Vestas, said in an interview, “We strongly believed that for us to be competitive in China, it was very important for us to develop an Asia supplier base.” A top executive at a rival of Gamesa and Vestas, who insisted on anonymity for fear of business retaliation by Beijing, said that multinationals had another reason for going along with China’s dictates: “Everybody was too scared.” Local Production There is a difference between setting up an assembly plant in a host company — as many European wind turbine companies, including Gamesa, have done in the United States, for example — and ceding the production of crucial parts to companies in the host country. In the United States, where there are no local-content requirements, the wind turbine industry uses an average of 50 percent American-made parts. For its American operations, Gamesa relies somewhat more than that on American suppliers, but it still imports some parts from Spain, including crucial gearboxes. Within weeks after Beijing’s issuance of Notice 1204, Gamesa sent dozens of Spanish engineers to Tianjin. The engineers did not just oversee the construction of the assembly plant, but fanned out to local Chinese companies and began teaching them how to make a multitude of steel forgings and castings, and a range of complex electronic controls. One Chinese supplier here became so adept at making a 10-ton steel frame that keeps a wind turbine’s gearbox and generator aligned even under gale-force conditions, and making it so cheaply, that the Spanish company now ships the Chinese frame halfway around the world for turbines that Gamesa assembles at its American plant in Fairless Hills, Pa. Mr. Calvet said the American manufacturing sector had been so weakened in recent decades that for some components there were no American machinery companies readily available. It was not until the summer of 2009, when senior Obama administration officials started looking at barriers to American clean energy exports, that the United States pressed China hard about Notice 1204. The Chinese government revoked it two months later. But by then, the policy was no longer needed. Some Gamesa wind turbines exceeded 95 percent local content. “The objectives of the local content requirement were achieved, and probably more achieved than anyone expected,” said Steve Sawyer, the secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, a trade group based in Brussels that represents wind energy companies from around the world, including China. A Battle Takes Shape China agreed to abide by the W.T.O.’s trade rules when it joined the organization in 2001. And Chinese officials, when willing to comment on such matters at all, typically defend their actions as being within the bounds of fair play. Li Junfeng, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission who oversees renewable energy policy, defended the local content policy. “It was localization support,” Mr. Li said in an interview. China is a developing country, he said, and developing countries need to do what they can to foster industrial development. But the Obama administration takes a different view. It included the local content rule in the investigation it announced on Oct. 15, an inquiry into whether China’s clean energy policies had violated W.T.O. rules. The investigation was spurred by the United Steelworkers union, which has no qualms about taking on Beijing because it has no sales contracts at risk in China. Zhang Guobao, the director of China’s National Energy Administration, said at an Oct. 17 press conference that the United States was wrong to cite the local content rule in its investigation — because China had already abolished it. Mr. Zhang did have a point: the W.T.O.’s main redress for a local content protection is to push the offending country to revoke it. But the United States investigation of China goes beyond local content, and the W.T.O. has other weapons at its disposal. The trade organization, for example, has authority to order the repayment of subsidies a government gives to its export industries to the detriment of foreign competitors. The steelworkers’ petition cites various forms of subsidies and support that China has given to its industries in potential violation of international trade rules. That includes low-interest loans from state-owned banks and grants of cheap or free land, as well as other perks not available to foreign companies operating in China. As for the state-owned wind farms that are the main buyers of wind energy equipment, China has many policies to preserve their dominance, while limiting market opportunities for foreign companies that might try to develop wind farms. Those policies — all potential W.T.O. violations, according to some experts — are an open secret. Earlier this autumn the Chinese wind turbine maker Ming Yang Wind Power Group made an initial public offering of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange , as prelude to entering the American wind energy market. The financial disclosures in the company’s prospectus acknowledged that “we obtained land and other policy incentives from local governments,” as well as deals requiring that the municipal governments’ wind farms buy turbines only from Ming Yang. China Looks Abroad Gamesa, among other multinational turbine makers, so far has benefited from the growing market in China, despite policies that have increasingly relegated those companies to fighting over ever-thinner slices of the pie. But that dynamic could be changing. The Chinese government is now slowing the approval of new wind farms at home. The pause, whose duration is unclear, is meant to give the national electricity system time to absorb thousands of new turbines that have already been erected and not yet connected to the grid. Gamesa had an ample order book lined up before the government applied the brakes. But the government policy means that the Chinese turbine makers, having become giants on the backs of companies like Gamesa, must now look beyond their captive national market for further growth. Sinovel, China’s biggest wind turbine maker, has said it wants to become the world’s largest by 2015. The company’s chairman and president, Han Junliang, said in October at the annual China Wind Power industry conference in Beijing that his goal was to sell as many turbines overseas as within China. Sinovel is among the Chinese companies now opening sales offices across the United States in preparation for a big export push next year. They are backed by more than $13 billion in low-interest loans issued this past summer by Chinese government-owned banks; billions more are being raised in initial public offerings led mainly by Morgan Stanley this autumn in New York and Hong Kong . Multinationals are alarmed. Vestas, for example, is closing four factories in Denmark and one in Sweden , and laying off one-eighth of its 24,000-person labor force this autumn, in an effort to push its costs down closer to Asian levels, its chief, Mr. Engel, said. The Chinese push, clouded by the Obama administration’s investigation of the steelworkers’ complaint, could complicate the climate change debate in the West. Wind farm developers in the West are worried that Western governments may be less enthusiastic about encouraging renewable energy requirements if these programs are perceived as creating jobs in China instead of at home. The provincial government of Ontario in Canada now wants to take a page from China’s playbook by trying to require 25 percent local content for wind energy projects and 50 percent for solar power projects in the province. The Japanese government responded by filing a W.T.O. complaint against Canada in September, asserting that Ontario was violating the W.T.O. prohibition on local content requirements. By contrast, Japan has never filed a W.T.O. complaint on any issue against China, for fear of harming diplomatic relations with its large neighbor. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is intent on turning its wind energy industry into the global leader, helping manufacturers coordinate export strategies and providing various sorts of technical assistance. Mr. Li, the overseer of the Chinese renewable energy industry, publicly exhorted the leaders of the nation’s biggest wind turbine makers at the China Wind Power conference, a three-day event that drew hundreds of executives from around the world. “You cannot be called a winner if you are the leader for three or five years,” Mr. Li told the Chinese executives. “You can only stand on the top line if you are the leader for 100 or 200 years.” The Chinese presidents sat quietly and respectfully, chins down. Senior executives from the foreign manufacturers — including Vestas, G.E. and Gamesa — sat alongside them, staring straight ahead in stony silence.


Blast in Pakistan Kills Senior Police Official

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A senior Pakistani police investigator at the forefront of operations against the Taliban and other criminals in the sprawling, seaside city of Karachi was killed in a huge bomb blast there on Thursday, police officials said. His driver and a security officer were also killed in the attack, and at least 11 people were reported wounded. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, following up on repeated vows through the years to have him killed. The police official, Muhammad Aslam Khan — widely known as Chaudhry Aslam — had survived at least nine previous assassination attempts. His hard-charging public crusades against Karachi’s entrenched criminal enterprises and sectarian violence earned him many admirers, but also many enemies, officials said. In an assassination attempt against him in September 2011, a suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the main gate of Mr. Aslam’s home in an upscale Karachi neighborhood. Mr. Aslam and his family survived the attack, but six police guards and two civilians were killed. Karachi police officials were still investigating Thursday’s bombing, but they said they believed that the explosion, which was heard miles away and shattered dozens of windows in nearby buildings, was caused by a roadside bomb. Officials said the size of the crater left by the blast suggested that around 50 pounds of explosives had been set off. Local news networks showed images of a cloud of smoke billowing above the Essa Nagri neighborhood of Karachi. Charred and mangled pieces of two police vehicles that were part of Mr. Aslam’s security convoy were scattered on the asphalt. Mr. Aslam’s vehicle was destroyed. Image Pakistani security officials examining the wreckage of a destroyed vehicle at the site of the suicide bombing in Karachi. Credit Asif Hassan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Aslam was a police superintendent in charge of the Anti-Extremist Cell of the Crime Investigation Department. Over the course of a 29-year career, he gained recognition, and even notoriety, for his operations against militants and criminals as well as for his dramatic style, accented with a fondness for wearing white. While claiming responsibility for Thursday’s attack, Sajjad Mohmand, a spokesman for the Mohmand faction of the Pakistani Taliban, accused Mr. Aslam of torturing and killing Taliban prisoners in secret prison cells. And Mr. Mohmand warned that more attacks against police officers would be coming. “This is a warning to all those who create hurdles for us,” he said. Earlier on Thursday, around 4:30 a.m., Mr. Aslam led a raid on a militant hide-out in Karachi that left three Taliban militants dead, according to local news reports. Sharjeel Memon, the information minister of Sindh Province, told reporters in Karachi that Mr. Aslam’s death was “a big loss.” A statement from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing, saying, “Such attacks will not deter the morale of the law-enforcing agencies in the fight against terrorism.” Also on Thursday, judges ruled that the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf must still personally attend treason proceedings against him scheduled for Jan. 16. Mr. Musharraf has been in a military hospital in Rawalpindi for a week after complaining of heart trouble, and his lawyers had presented a medical report to the court and requested that he be allowed not to appear.

Pakistan
Taliban
Karachi
Pakistani Taliban
Muhammad Aslam Khan
Terrorism


Ex-President of Argentina Sentenced

Abstract: Former President Carlos Saúl Menem was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday for illegally smuggling weapons to Ecuador and Croatia in violation of international embargoes in the 1990s. The court also barred Mr. Menem, now a senator, from holding elective office, and asked the Senate to vote to remove the immunity he enjoys as an elected member of Congress. The sentence is final unless overturned by the Supreme Court. An appeals court found Mr. Menem, above, and 11 others guilty in March, overturning his acquittal at trial in 2011. Mr. Menem, 82, who served two terms as president from 1989 to 1999, acknowledged signing secret decrees to export weapons to Venezuela and Panama, but said he had no idea that the tons of rifles and ammunition made in Argentina would end up in Ecuador and Croatia. Given his age, Mr. Menem could be allowed to serve his sentence at home.

Argentina
Smuggling
Carlos Saul Menem
Criminal Sentence


At the Top, the Spotlight Can Turn Harsh

Abstract: NEW YORK — It was not the best of weeks for several high-flying American women in finance, new media and presidential politics. Perhaps ironically, it came just as Forbes magazine was touting them on its list of the 100 Most Powerful Women, worldwide rankings intended to boost women’s stature and, not least, create buzz for the magazine. But by the time the current issue was on newsstands and feeding gossipy material to women-centered daytime shows — Lady Gaga was No. 11, for instance — some of the ranked women had lost altitude and were spiraling off radar, in danger of joining next year’s “dropoff” list (Katie Couric, Carly Fiorina). In one quick sweep, Carol A. Bartz, Yahoo’s chief executive, was fired over the phone last Tuesday, a bloodless termination to her unsteady two years directing one of the nation’s major online media companies. Ms. Bartz, 63 years old and ranked No. 37 in the Most Powerful Women list, took it upon herself to announce her forced march into unemployment with a blunt e-mail, saying, “I’ve just been fired.” Just as Ms. Bartz was getting kicked out, Sallie L. Krawcheck was packing up at Bank of America, a victim of a management shakeup. Ms. Krawcheck, 46 years old and ranked No. 67 on the list, was president of global wealth and investment management, among a minuscule number of women at the top of the finance industry. Meantime, Arianna Huffington, the 61-year-old editor in chief of AOL Huffington Post Media Group who has seemed inured to criticism, missteps and the ridicule that followed her when she played political pundit — first as a hard-core conservative, then as a bleeding-heart liberal — got into a dust-up over the management of Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch blog, which is now part of her mini-empire. Maybe she can prove she earned her No. 31 ranking. Still, she was dinged. Arguably, one of last week’s biggest losers on the Forbes list was No. 22, Michele Bachmann , the 55-year-old Minnesota congresswoman who is running for president. Surprisingly, Forbes rated her ahead of Sarah Palin (34) and ahead of world leaders like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (26), the Burmese nationalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. But lately Mrs. Bachmann, who had climbed to the top tier of Republican presidential candidates, has seemed to be sliding rapidly. It took just about the length of summer for her to surprise skeptics with her strong performances in early Republican debates against a cadre of more experienced male opponents. Her vigorous campaigning to broaden her base of grass-roots Tea Party supporters and evangelical Christians won her support in Iowa and South Carolina, and her victory in the Iowa Straw Poll last month capped an impressive run. Mrs. Bachmann did better than survive sneers and mockery at the hands of the mainstream news media. Not only did she outflank her critics, but she won them over long enough for her candidacy to be taken seriously. But the Iowa victory lap didn’t last long. Governor Rick Perry of Texas swaggered into the arena, declaring his candidacy and bringing his 11-year governing experience in the nation’s second-largest state and a winning down-home campaign style. Within hours, Mrs. Bachmann’s star dimmed. The spotlight was no longer fixed on her, and her campaign trail was growing cold. She went on the road to South Carolina and in Florida, key states for Republican presidential candidates; she tightened security around her, angering reporters who were refused access; her poll numbers dropped well behind Mr. Perry and former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts; and her top strategist, the political veteran Ed Rollins, left the campaign. At the Republican debate Sept. 7 at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, Mrs. Bachmann seemed unusually hesitant in her answers. Nearly eclipsed by Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney, she hardly made a dent on Mr. Perry’s hard-core conservatism (he has come under fire for saying Social Security is a “ Ponzi scheme ”). When it was over, MSNBC, which televised the debate, featured a handful of panelists who rated her as the debate’s biggest loser, perhaps because expectations had been higher for her, and perhaps because, as left-leaning commentators, they wanted to bury her once and for all. The next day, Chris Matthews, the MSNBC talk show host who has been a thorn at Mrs. Bachmann’s side, said, not unsympathetically, “Michele looked like she knew she would not win the nomination.” But she had another chance this week to inject momentum into her slumping campaign: the Monday night debate sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party Express in Tampa, Florida. Once again the spotlight was trained on Mr. Perry as the front-runner, but Mrs. Bachmann came out fighting. She pitched herself as the leader of the anti-Obama health care plan, and with brio, took on Mr. Perry directly on the issue of immigration and his executive order, since rescinded, to have 12-year-old girls in Texas vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus. Though she hardly drew blood, she was back on the offensive and earned good marks in the CNN commentary following the debate. If she fails to pick up ground after the debate and the focus remains on the Perry-Romney tango, she may just be forced to retreat, though more likely she will stay the course through the South Carolina and Florida primaries. Without a strong showing there, she could well fade away. But on Monday night, she seemed undaunted, saying, “This is a marathon.”


Judge Raises Prospect of Criminal Charges in Hospital Case

Abstract: Invoking the specter of criminal charges against officials of the State University of New York for obstructing the delivery of emergency room services at Long Island College Hospital, a State Supreme Court judge warned lawyers for SUNY and the state on Wednesday that he might require a week of daylong hearings before deciding whether to dismiss the latest civil actions seeking to keep the hospital open. Justice Johnny L. Baynes in Brooklyn, who has issued three temporary restraining orders in the case since March, all forbidding SUNY to take steps to close the hospital, asked a lawyer representing Bill de Blasio, the public advocate and a Democratic candidate for mayor, whether he had reported allegations of criminal interference with emergency room services to the Brooklyn district attorney. Murmurs of approval rose from the room, packed with longtime patients, doctors, nurses and residents of northern Brooklyn where the fate of the 150-year-old hospital has become a rallying cry. “Yes,” replied the lawyer, James Walden, who had accused SUNY officials of illegally diverting ambulances from the hospital. He also said SUNY officials had surrounded the hospital with “a virtual army of armed guards” who falsely tell patients that the hospital is closed, and that the hospital’s chief medical officer had berated patients who chose to be treated there. Justice Baynes noted that both the district attorney’s office and the state attorney general were represented in the courtroom. Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney, later confirmed that an assistant district attorney, Kevin Richardson, was present in court and had been assigned to investigate. The judge first referred the matter to the district attorney on July 22, Mr. Schmetterer said. Later, Steven Greenberg, a SUNY spokesman, said of the allegations, “Every decision that has been made has been made in the interest of safety and patient health.” At midday, when 12 lawyers gathered around the judge’s bench for an off-the-record conference, Justice Baynes could be heard pressing them to come to a settlement. But there was no sign of rapprochement. A lawyer for the New York State Nurses Association argued that the Department of Health regulation on closing a hospital, which requires 90 days’ notice, was unconstitutionally vague. The lawyers for SUNY argued that none of the plaintiffs had legal standing to challenge the regulation or its application because they had not been injured by it, notwithstanding the anticipated loss of more than 900 union jobs. “For a 14-year period, LICH has been unprofitable,” said Anthony Genovese, one of the SUNY-Downstate lawyers. “Having a job is not a constitutional right.” Mr. Walden argued that SUNY had willfully flouted the court’s orders to maintain the status quo, and had ignored the criminal statute requiring a hospital to provide emergency services unless it was authorized by the state to stop. The Department of Health still considers the hospital open. “It’s a law, Mr. Walden said. “They are state officers. They are not above the law.” Justice Baynes ordered the lawyers to return to court on Thursday morning.

Hospital
Long Island College Hospital
Brooklyn
Emergency medicine


Turkish Court Calls Ruling Party Constitutional

Abstract: Turkey’s governing party narrowly missed being banned in a court ruling on Wednesday that relieved months of pressure in the country and handed a victory to the party’s leader, a former Islamist. The party, Justice and Development, or AKP, as it is known in Turkish, was kept alive by just one vote — six members of Turkey’s Constitutional Court voted to close it for violating the country’s secular principles, but seven were required. A ban would have brought down the government, forcing elections for the second time in a year and pitching Turkey into political chaos. “A great uncertainty blocking Turkey’s future has been lifted,” said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan , the leader of the party, speaking in Ankara, the capital. The court case was the culmination of an epic battle between the country’s secular establishment — a powerful coterie of judges and generals that has deposed elected governments four times in Turkish history — and Mr. Erdogan, a broadly popular politician whose supporters say that his past as a political Islamist is firmly behind him. And while the ruling was widely viewed as a victory for Mr. Erdogan, and in turn for Turkish democracy, the court reined the party in, imposing a strong but not fatal sanction to cut its public financing in half and issuing a “serious warning” that it was steering the country in too Islamic a direction. Legislation pressed by the party that would have allowed women in head scarves to attend universities, for example, raised suspicions about its agenda. “AKP is on probation,” said Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “The court clearly said it sees the party as a focal institution for Islamizing the country.” Still, by overcoming the case, which accused the party of trying to bring Islamic rule to Turkey, the party and its supporters have prevailed against the country’s staunchly secular old guard, which has steered the country from behind the scenes since Turkey’s founding by Ataturk in 1923. The ruling releases the political deadlock that had paralyzed politics in Turkey since March, when the case was filed, and seems to have softened the sharp polarization that had formed between parts of Turkish society — those who want a more openly religious society and those who fear that too much space for Islam will end up curbing secular lifestyles. In a live news conference interrupted by jubilant supporters, Mr. Erdogan said his party had “never been the focus of antisecular activities,” and pledged that it would “continue to protect the fundamental principles of our republic also in the future.” Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim, but its system of government is secular. While the case against the AKP was broadly criticized as weak, secular Turks still worry that the party, with its control of Parliament, the presidency and the government, has too much leeway to impose policies that appeal to its socially conservative base. But the ruling seemed to have something for everyone, clearing the air politically and allowing even Turkey’s most adamant secularists to claim it as a victory. “AKP can no longer continue with its previous line in politics,” said Onur Oymen, the deputy chairman of the secular opposition Republican People’s Party. “They have been granted a chance. In order to make the best of it, they need to go through some serious self-critique.” There appear to be no practical implications for the party aside from the cut in financing, which is expected to be made up from other sources in the party’s vast middle- and upper-class network of supporters. The ruling opens a new opportunity for Mr. Erdogan to reach out to liberal Turks, who oppose the secular elite but resented his legislation on the head scarves. They felt that he had abandoned other liberal issues like freedom of speech. “They can no longer afford to act single-handedly,” said Ersin Kalaycioglu, political science professor of Sabanci University in Istanbul, who compared the party to a soccer player “with a yellow card to be expelled from the game after one more mistake.” The ruling was an “elegant solution,” said Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who used a metaphor to describe its effect: “If the AKP was a river that has overflown its banks, the court has set up embankments, forcing it back into its bed. It has not put a dam in front of it.” The ruling came at a time of great tension in the country. A bomb attack had killed 17 people in Istanbul just three days before, and a ban of the party and its senior members would have brought great instability. On Wednesday, the Istanbul police detained nine people in connection with the blast, Turkey’s state-run Anatolian News Agency reported. “The judges must have judged that the consequences of closure would have been intolerable for the country,” Mr. Ozel said. A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the party had taken the ruling to heart. “A new period is ahead,” the official said. “The self-critique following the verdict,” he said, “will be seen in our actions, not in words.” Turkey is trying to gain membership in the European Union, and its chances could have been dented if the party was closed. “There is a great sense of relief among the Europeans,” said Joost Lagendijk, a member of the European Parliament who works on matters regarding Turkey. The case has paralleled another sensational legal proceeding — the prosecution of 86 people, including writers, members of civic organizations and former military officers who are charged with plotting to overthrow the government — and many in Turkey saw the effects of that case in the ruling on Wednesday. The case, referred to as Ergenekon, the name of the ultranationalist organization the people belong to, is one of the first public accountings of the darker side of Turkey’s deep state. Baskin Oran, a professor of international relations at Ankara University, said the ruling was a sign that Turkey’s judiciary, long believed to be well in the sphere of the secular establishment, seemed to have broken ranks. “Everybody is very happy with this decision,” he said. “Otherwise it would have created a hell of a situation for Turkey.”

Turkey
Justice and Development
Erdogan Recep Tayyip
Politics and Government


In Win, Royals Show the Confidence of a Division Leader

Abstract: Kansas City Manager Ned Yost was sitting in the Yankee Stadium visitors’ dugout Friday afternoon and discussing playoff scenarios when he made a passing comment that sounded more like a message for the rest of the American League. “They’re not going to want to match up with us in a one-game playoff,” Yost said, referring to the showdown between wild-card teams, his tone serious and direct. The statement naturally raised a follow-up question: What would make the Royals so dangerous if their season came down to one game? Yost cited their starting pitching, their bullpen and their defense. Thanks to those pillars, the team stood atop the A.L. Central and was playing meaningful baseball in New York in September for the first time in years. The Royals met the Yankees in the playoffs four times in five years, from 1976 to 1980, and beat St. Louis in the World Series in 1985. They have not made the playoffs since. Yost said this three-game series against the Yankees would be a good test for the Royals, and following their new formula, they won the first game, 1-0 , on Friday night. James Shields, their ace, pitched a gem. Wade Davis, their setup man, earned a save. Their defense held true. And their only run was aided by a Yankee error. Before the game, Yost, who has managed the Royals since 2010, said he noticed his team was more focused this September. He said the team’s veteran leaders, like Raul Ibanez, had set the tone. Yost said he was so focused on each day and his task at hand that he refused to check the standings or watch the games of the Royals’ division rivals. On Thursday night, for example, he did not see the second-place Detroit Tigers win in 11 innings. “I was in bed way before that game ended,” Yost said. Shields showed that same steely focus. He perhaps could not have been more dominant his first time through the Yankees’ lineup, retiring the batters in order on 30 pitches, with three strikeouts, while not allowing the ball to leave the infield. This was more or less expected of the Royals’ pitching. Their offense, which was averaging only about four runs a game, was more concerning. But the Yankees’ defense offered help. In the third inning, a hard-hit ground ball to third base skipped off the top of Chase Headley’s glove, allowing Alcides Escobar to reach second. The next batter, Nori Aoki, singled Escobar home. This was a cruel twist from the night before, when Headley had hit a game-ending home run . After Friday’s game, he watched a replay of the error and was pleased with his technique. “If it’s an inch lower,” Headley said, “it hits on the bottom side of my thumb and goes in my glove.” In general, in a change from years past, the Royals did not seem intimidated by the Yankees, the crowd or the moment. “It’s always a playoff atmosphere here,” Billy Butler said before the game when asked if this series would feel different. “This is the main stage. I mean, you’re in New York. They’re in the hunt. We’re in the hunt. We’ve been basically playing playoff games for a while.” So had the Yankees, but they hardly showed it. They could count their good scoring chances on one hand. In the fourth, with two runners on and two outs, Brian McCann popped out softly to the third baseman. In the fifth, Headley was stranded at first. In the sixth, a Brett Gardner fly ball was caught just shy of the right-field porch. Michael Pineda, the Yankees’ starter, did his part, pitching seven innings, allowing three hits and the unearned run, and recording four strikeouts. In five starts since returning from a shoulder injury, he has a 1.78 earned run average. His Royals counterpart, though, was up to the task. After that brief lapse in the fourth, Shields rediscovered his rhythm quickly. He allowed one more hit, a single to Headley, and then retired the next 11 batters. This was the type of start the Royals have counted on from Shields since trading their top prospect, Wil Myers, for him in 2012. “He just didn’t make any mistakes,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. The night before, the Yankees had rallied in vintage fashion against the Boston Red Sox, with two solo home runs in the bottom of the ninth. Headley had been the hero. Afterward, the Yankees had talked about believing in one another, about having hope. They talked about the old days, when comebacks like that were expected. They wanted to recapture that magic. In the ninth on Friday, the Yankees seemed to be staging another comeback. With one out, Derek Jeter singled to center. The crowd buzzed as Davis replaced Shields. Antoan Richardson, a pinch-runner for Jeter, stole second. Here was the Yankees’ chance. Gardner drew a full count, and the crowd grew louder. But Davis fired a 98-mile-per-hour fastball past him and froze Carlos Beltran on a similar pitch. Davis did not celebrate. He simply walked over and hugged his catcher as the fans groaned and filed out. INSIDE PITCH Martin Prado (hamstring) was kept out of the starting lineup for a third straight game. He was hopeful he would return to the lineup Saturday.

Ned Yost
Yankees
Baseball
James Shields
Kansas City Royals


Michael Ward, Survivor of ’85 Bombing by Philadelphia Police, Is Dead at 41

Abstract: When the boy ran from the house, he was burned over a fifth of his body and so malnourished that at 13 he looked like a child of 9. He had never been to school and could not read, write, use a toothbrush or tell time. His mother would die in the fire he had fled. Yet after years of rehabilitation from injuries physical and psychological, he graduated from high school, served in the Army, became a father and made a career as a long-haul trucker and a barber. The boy, then known as Birdie Africa, and later as Michael Ward, was one of just two people — and the only child — to survive the Move bombing, the 1985 Philadelphia debacle in which police officers seeking to rout a black separatist group touched off a fire that killed 11 people, 5 of them children, and destroyed three city blocks. Mr. Ward, 41, died Sept. 20 while vacationing aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean. An investigator for the Brevard County, Fla., medical examiner’s office told The Associated Press that Mr. Ward’s body was found in a hot tub on the ship, the Carnival Dream. The apparent cause was accidental drowning. The Move bombing endures in the national memory as one of the most shameful episodes in Philadelphia’s history. In an interview on Friday, the filmmaker Jason Osder, who made a documentary about the bombing, said that Mr. Ward’s death “in a strange way has reminded us of the nature of the event itself: it’s tragic that he died young, but it serves as a reminder of the other five children that didn’t even live to age 41.” Mr. Osder’s film, “ Let the Fire Burn ,” which is organized around 13-year-old Michael’s videotaped testimony at the official inquiry into the bombing, is scheduled to open at Film Forum in New York on Wednesday and nationwide afterward. On May 13, 1985, hundreds of police officers converged on Move’s fortified row house in West Philadelphia, intent on serving arrest warrants on several of its members. After a gun battle during which the police failed to dislodge the group, they dropped explosives on the roof. The explosion started a fire that destroyed Move’s house and 60 others, leaving some 250 people homeless. All of the 11 dead were Move members or their children; only Michael and Ramona Africa, an adult in the group, survived. Although Move positioned itself as a radical back-to-nature group, it was run, in the young Mr. Ward’s accounts, far more like a cult. Michael Moses Ward — the name his father gave him after he was rescued — was born Olewolffe Momer Puim Ward on Dec. 19, 1971, the son of Andino Ward and the former Rhonda Harris. His parents separated when he was about 2, and he spent his early childhood with his mother in a Move commune in Virginia, where they became known as Rhonda and Birdie Africa. (In solidarity with Move’s founder, John Africa, né Vincent Leaphart, members took Africa as their surname.) Michael and his mother later went to live with the group in Philadelphia. Image Michael Ward in 1996. Credit H. Rumph Jr./Associated Press As Michael testified afterward, Move’s children were forbidden cooked food and contact with outsiders. While the adults around them ate hot meals, the children subsisted largely on a diet of raw fruit and vegetables, deemed purer — and therefore fit for children — by the movement’s leaders. Toys were also forbidden, though the children grew skilled at spotting neighborhood children’s discards on the street and secreting them about the house. “We would poke little holes in the wall and hide toys there,” Mr. Ward, who spoke to the news media only rarely, said in a 1995 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I remember I had a toy soldier hidden in the wall in the basement.” Michael and the other children resolved to run away. When Move’s leaders got wind of their plan, he said in the Inquirer interview, they told the children that if they did, they would be tracked down and killed. Testifying in the fall of 1985 in the city’s inquiry into the bombing, Michael told of huddling in the basement during the standoff, listening to bullets fly and then hearing an explosion (“It shook the whole house up,” he said) before being pushed by his mother into an alley behind the house. Afterward, he was reunited with his father, who lived outside Philadelphia and had been searching for him for years, unaware that he was so close at hand. He learned to read and write, graduating from high school in Lansdale, Pa., where he was on the football team, and attending junior college briefly. From 1997 to 2001, he served in the Army, attaining the rank of sergeant. Move’s legacy remained visible in the burn scars on Mr. Ward’s face, arms and torso. It could be discerned in other ways as well. “I have a hard time getting close to anybody, feeling anything about anybody,” Mr. Ward told The Inquirer. “It has to do with the way I was brought up.” He added: “It’s not even so much the fire. I had some bad dreams about the fire when I was little, but not anymore. The things that bother me most are the things I remember about Move before the fire. There are some things that happened that I can’t talk about.” As was widely reported, under the terms of a 1991 settlement with the City of Philadelphia, Mr. Ward and his father were to receive a lump-sum payment of $840,000, followed by a series of lifetime monthly payments starting at $1,000 and increasing over the years. Andino Ward has said publicly that all of the initial payment went to legal fees; Michael Ward said that he had never grown rich from the rest. Michael Ward, who lived in Pennsylvania, was divorced. Besides his father, his survivors include a son, Michael, and a daughter, Rhonda. The family did not return telephone calls, and further information about Mr. Ward, including his survivors, could not be confirmed. In the Inquirer interview, Mr. Ward spoke of the fire as a devastation — but not an unalloyed one. “In a way, I’m glad it happened,” he said. “The only regret I have is about me being hurt and my mom dying and the other kids. I feel bad for the people who died, but I don’t have any anger toward anybody. See, I got out.”


1199 S.E.I.U Is a Winner in Cuomo Medicaid Cuts

Abstract: In Wisconsin, public workers face a nearly unprecedented rollback of collective-bargaining rights. In New Jersey, teachers and their unions find themselves the target of open ridicule from Gov. Chris Christie, who is seeking major increases in how much the state’s public employees pay for their pensions and health care. And in Connecticut, state workers are being pressured to accept a wage freeze, more furlough days and a higher retirement age. Yet in New York, where a fiscal crisis has helped put the state’s powerful government employee and teachers’ unions on the defensive, New York’s influential health care workers’ union appears on the verge of wringing significant victories out of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ’s austerity budget, even as he nears potentially historic cuts in spending. Intertwined with the hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts proposed on Thursday by Mr. Cuomo’s Medicaid task force were an array of policies and spending decisions avidly sought by the union, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East. They included a wage floor for home health workers; substantial rollbacks in Mr. Cuomo’s proposed cuts to nursing homes and personal care; and a major overhaul of the home care industry that is likely to boost the union’s membership over the long term. Those victories have left some other health care industry players grumbling — and may suggest a model for other unions seeking to ride out the twin storms of a skeptical public and plunging revenues. “We are proud that working people were able to play a role in proposing innovative solutions and thoughtful reforms that protect patient care,” George Gresham, the union’s president, said in a statement. “Delivering state savings without disruption to Medicaid beneficiaries and their caregivers is an enormous feat. While many challenges still lie ahead, when working people are given a seat at the table, a lot can be achieved.” The difference between New York and other states stems in part from the political environment. Wisconsin and New Jersey have Republican governors, while Mr. Cuomo is a Democrat who has maintained close ties to labor even while pledging to roll back public unions’ influence over government spending. And the union benefited from Mr. Cuomo’s decision to invite the industry’s biggest players, including it, to join the task force to hash out cuts with his administration, rather than fighting with them in public. But the union’s success follows a carefully plotted two-year-long strategic retreat intended to minimize the momentum for cuts and channel the debate into policies that would best suit its members. In 2009, amid the Wall Street crash, the union used planned pay raises to shore up its workers’ wobbly health and pension funds, a move that sharply contrasted with the hard line that other unions took a year later when Gov. David A. Paterson asked for further concessions. The union also sought to get ahead of Mr. Cuomo’s cuts rhetorically as well as substantively. Mr. Gresham has taken a noticeably softer line against Mr. Cuomo’s call for cuts than some of his partners in labor — like the state teachers’ union — and 1199 had made clear for months that it expected substantial cuts this year. “We could read the handwriting on the wall, and we wanted to do cuts in a smart way,” said Kevin Finnegan, the union’s political director. “This was a good opportunity to have a say.” Well before last year’s election, 1199 began advocating changes to programs for home health care, a rapidly expanding category of Medicaid spending and an industry that also happens to be less unionized than other sectors, like hospitals and nursing homes. The Medicaid team’s proposals largely mirror the union’s original aims, moving home health services into managed-care programs while driving business toward nonprofit home health agencies. While officials project that the shift will save the state money by controlling costs, it is also likely to bring more home health workers into 1199’s fold. “They got two seats at the table and accolades,” said Joanne Cunningham, president of the Home Care Association of New York, an industry trade association that did not have a representative on the Medicaid team. “They got their living wage. As far as the process, if you didn’t get to sit at the table, it was the equivalent of being out in the nosebleeds.” And 1199 quietly joined with the New York City teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, in a grass-roots effort to persuade lawmakers to extend a state income tax surcharge on high-income taxpayers. That has allowed the union to push in recent weeks for more money to offset potential cuts, but without directly attacking Mr. Cuomo. The committee’s recommendations included several measures that would cut costs for hospitals or raise additional revenue for the state, which critics said amounted to a less-than-subtle effort to offset the cuts to the big players that Mr. Cuomo wanted to win over.

Medicaid
United Healthcare Workers East
Cuomo Andrew M
Organized Labor
New York State
Budgets and Budgeting


Inquiry Into Russian Editor’s Beating Is Revived

Abstract: MOSCOW — Law enforcement authorities on Thursday unexpectedly reopened the investigation into the brutal beating of an outspoken newspaper editor whose case had come to symbolize the dangers facing journalists in Russia . The editor, Mikhail Beketov, was attacked two years ago in front of his home in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow, and left to die in the snow. He survived, but suffered brain damage that left him unable to talk. Three of his fingers and a leg had to be amputated. Mr. Beketov had sought to expose corruption and other government misconduct in his newspaper, Khimkinskaya Pravda (Khimki Truth). He had angered local officials by criticizing efforts to build a highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg through a cherished forest in Khimki. From the start, it seemed that the authorities were not interested in finding the attackers, and over the last year they all but abandoned their inquiry. The beating was part of a wave of unsolved attacks against journalists in suburban Moscow, and this week the authorities were again pressed to do something about the violence after a reporter for a prominent newspaper, Kommersant, was attacked outside his home in Moscow. The reporter, Oleg Kashin , had reported on the Khimki forest highway dispute, among other provocative topics. A Khimki political activist who opposed the highway, Konstantin Fetisov, also was beaten this month, raising questions about whether the cases were related. The government also appeared embarrassed this week when a court allowed a criminal slander suit against Mr. Beketov to go forward even though he is severely disabled. The suit, which was filed before the attack on him, was brought by the Khimki mayor, who said he had been defamed when Mr. Beketov accused him of being involved in a bomb blast that destroyed Mr. Beketov’s car. A judge found Mr. Beketov guilty on Wednesday, though he was not punished. The investigative committee of the Russian general prosecutor’s office did not offer any explanation for its decision to reopen the Beketov investigation, and did not say whether it had gathered any new information. In an interview, Mr. Beketov’s lawyer, Andrei Stolbunov, said he was pleased, though he noted that after two years it would be difficult for investigators to find the culprits. He said he doubted that the authorities had discovered any new clues in recent days. “This was a political decision, done in response to how these cases have resonated,” Mr. Stolbunov said. The investigative committee also said it would re-examine the killing 10 years ago of Igor Domnikov, a journalist for the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Russia
Newspapers
Freedom of the Press
Beketov Mikhail
Kashin Oleg


Tobacco Companies Broke Law by Selling Untaxed Cigarettes, Judge Rules

Abstract: A federal judge ruled last week that two tobacco wholesalers illegally skirted paying millions of dollars in taxes by selling truckloads of untaxed cigarettes to retailers on an American Indian reservation on Long Island, which then resold them in the city at cut-rate prices. The judgment, which could cost the wholesalers up to $15 million in penalties, was the latest victory in a battle that the city and state have waged for years to collect taxes on cigarettes sold by Indian-owned businesses to non-Indians. The city has argued that the availability of cheaper cigarettes is a public health concern because taxes were in part a way to discourage smoking. Cigarette tax stamps are $43.50 per carton in New York; thus, a pack of cigarettes — about $12 to $14 — includes $4.35 in taxes. Federal law prohibits wholesalers from selling large quantities of cigarettes without paying state or local taxes on the goods. Wholesalers selling to Indian retailers are exempt from paying the tax if the cigarettes are resold only to other Indians. In 2006, the city sued three wholesalers — which buy the cigarettes from the manufacturer and resell them to retailers — for violating the law. One of those, a Long Island company, Mauro Pennisi, sold more than 11 million cartons of unstamped cigarettes to Indian retailers from May 2008 to January 2011, mostly on the Poospatuck Reservation, where fewer than 500 people live, according to the written opinion of Judge Carol B. Amon of the Eastern District of New York. A Queens company, Gutlove & Shirvint, sold more than 10 million cartons during that period to the same tribe, including nearly 400,000 in one month alone. (The city estimated that the tribe’s average demand for one month would be 270 cartons.) After the lawsuit was filed, the defendants voluntarily stopped selling to the Indian retailers, a move that took place not long after new state legislation clarified the circumstances under which cigarettes sold on Indian reservations were exempt from taxes. But Judge Amon ruled that the companies should have stopped selling long before. “The vast majority, if not all, of the unstamped cigarettes the defendants sold to reservation retailers were resold to and consumed by non-Native Americans,” Judge Amon wrote in her decision. “Any reasonable wholesaler would have been well aware of that fact.” The judge found that the city did not prove its case against a third company, Day Wholesale. The companies’ lawyers did not return calls seeking comment. “This decision demonstrates the strong legal basis for the city’s efforts to curb illegal tobacco sales,” Michael A. Cardozo, head of the city’s Law Department, said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Smoking and Tobacco
Sales and Excise Taxes
Native Americans
Decisions and Verdicts
Amon Carol Bagley
Long Island (NY)
New York State
New York City


Near Misses Allowed Man With Tuberculosis to Fly

Abstract: A series of “understandable” near misses accounted for a Georgia man’s odyssey to Europe in which he might have exposed fellow passengers on a series of commercial flights to an exceptionally dangerous form of tuberculosis , federal officials said yesterday. The man is being detained under a federal isolation order in an Atlanta hospital for treatment of extremely resistant tuberculosis, which is often lethal. American officials and those in many other countries, meanwhile, are seeking to advise more than 100 passengers who sat closest to him on the longest flights and crew members to be tested for the infection. Health officials are also offering testing to hundreds of other passengers on the flights. It was the first airline-contact tracing investigation for extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, and it exposed many flaws that need to be fixed for future episodes, officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a news conference in Atlanta. While many infectious-disease experts and ethicists supported the agency’s action, at least one strongly criticized it as over-reacting. Among the problems the agency identified were dealing with time zone differences; a lack of coordination between American and international authorities concerning how to medically isolate the man while he was abroad; and how to speed the retrieval of passenger manifests from airlines. The episode also raised questions about how rapidly health officials could respond to a similar emergency with other deadly infectious diseases. Even after the news conference, many other questions remained unanswered, including why it took health officials in Georgia so long to try to deliver a letter that explicitly told the man, whose identity was not disclosed, not to fly abroad for his honeymoon. In an interview published yesterday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the man disputed statements from disease agency officials about warnings it said Fulton County officials gave him about flying abroad. The agency said he was told not to fly. The man told the paper that Fulton County health officials said they “preferred” that he not go abroad for his honeymoon and did not advise him to take any precautions. “There are different perspectives on who said what to whom when,” said Dr. Martin S. Cetron, who directs agency’s division of global migration and quarantine. “It is very unfortunate that this whole situation wasn’t prevented” before the man flew with 432 other passengers and 18 crew members to Paris from Atlanta on Air France 385 on May 12, Dr. Cetron said. He took at least five flights within Europe and then flew with 190 other passengers and nine crew members from Prague to Montreal on Czech Air 104 on May 25. The Fulton County health department in Atlanta met with the man and his family on May 10, two days before he flew to Paris, and told them that he should not travel because he had multi-resistant tuberculosis, the disease agency said. No legal order was issued at the time, Dr. Cetron said in referring further questions to the Fulton County health department. Calls to the Fulton County health department yesterday were not returned. The extraordinary dangerous form of the tuberculosis was not detected until May 22, while he was in Europe. Dr. Cetron said that an agency officer telephoned the man in Rome and explicitly told him not to fly on a commercial plane — doctors believe prolonged exposure is needed to spread tuberculosis — while the agency worked out options to bring him back to the United States. They included an air ambulance. By the time a former disease agency doctor, who is working in Rome, arrived at the man’s hotel, the couple had left, Dr. Cetron said. The agency was in the process of putting the man’s name on a no-fly list. But by this time he had cut short his honeymoon that was supposed to last into June and was landing in Montreal. The efforts “weren’t fast enough,” Dr. Cetron said, adding that “we certainly will be learning lessons and looking to improve” current systems. The man drove to the United States and somewhere between Albany and New York spoke with Dr. Cetron, who instructed him on how to continue to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. There, he was isolated for 72 hours until the disease agency flew him in its plane to Atlanta on Monday. The man told the Atlanta paper that tuberculosis was detected by accident when he had a chest X-ray in January for another undisclosed problem. Dr. Cetron said that lesions showed up in the upper lobe of the man’s right lung, making doctors suspicious for tuberculosis because the infection often affects that area. Because the man had no symptoms and little cough, his doctors performed a procedure to obtain the secretions from which the tuberculosis bacteria were detected. That process and additional testing to determine to which antibiotics might be effective can take weeks, even months. But some doctors not connected with the case questioned why four months passed between the X-rays and the letter from the health department. A standard initial test for tuberculosis is to smear a sample of a patient’s sputum on a glass slide, stain it with a chemical and look for the microbes under a microscope. Doctors also try to grow the organism in a laboratory. It was from this test that doctors initially detected the man’s tuberculosis. At some point he began taking standard medication for the treatment of tuberculosis, but it was stopped because it was not effective, Dr. Cetron said. Repeated subsequent smear tests of the man’s sputum performed at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan and at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta were negative. Those findings suggest a low chance that the man transmitted the infection to others. But in 17 percent of tuberculosis cases the source is a patient whose smear is negative, according to studies from Vancouver, British Columbia, and from San Francisco. The man’s bride is not infected. Initial plans to drive the patient for treatment at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver were aborted at least temporarily, a health official said, because of concerns of news media attention while he travels. But officials said they were trying to work out the logistics. While most patients voluntarily agree to isolation for medical problems, government officials, doctors and ethicists interviewed said that issuing federal orders for isolation or quarantine must be done with care to balance an individual’s liberties and the public’s health. Dr. Robert Klitzman, a co-founder of the Columbia University Center for Bioethics, said that there are legitimate concerns about abuses in isolating patients to avoid infecting others. Dr. Philip Alcabes, an epidemiologist and professor at Hunter College School of Health Sciences in Manhattan, was adamant in arguing that the disease agency had overreacted. The act of isolating the patient, Dr. Alcabes said, was “a maximum penalty for a minor medical problem,” since the patient was not likely to be infectious. But another expert, Dr. Richard P. Wenzel, president of the international society for infectious diseases, called the patient “grossly irresponsible.” “It’s irresponsible in active tuberculosis for anyone to be on an airplane — whether it’s multi-resistant or not,” said Dr. Wenzel, an infectious disease expert at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. At a time when airline passengers have to discard shampoo bottles in the airport security line, Dr. Wenzel said, “We don’t have a simple sort of wand at the airport to wave to say, ‘You have tuberculosis.’ It really counts on the responsibility of the individual.”


Wiggins Hops the Channel to Meet Bigger Challenges

Abstract: PARIS — It is usually festive at the Hôtel Concorde La Fayette, on the western edge of Paris, the evening after the Tour de France ’s final stage. This year, though, not even the race winner, Bradley Wiggins, could truly celebrate after three tough weeks of competition. With the Olympic men’s road race six days away, he and fellow cyclists prepared to head across the Channel for some last-minute training. “Everything turns to the Olympics,” Wiggins, the first Briton to win the Tour, said on Sunday. “It’s a little weird to leave Paris without a party because it would be nice to spend time with the team and really enjoy it.” There is a full slate of cycling awaiting them in the Olympics; over 15 days, men and women will tackle road, track, BMX and mountain biking competitions. But the men’s road race and the men’s individual time trial — both of which are projected to have British winners — will headline. On Saturday, 145 riders will assemble in London on The Mall, which runs from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, for the start of the highly anticipated road race. Professional cyclists are used to riding shortly after the Tour’s conclusion, but typically in small criterium races that are more about collecting appearance fees than performance. Saturday’s ride will be no victory lap. The 156-mile, or 250-kilometer, test will take the pack southwest of London to Box Hill in Surrey, which they will climb nine times before returning to the queen’s residence. If it was not already difficult enough, riders will not be allowed to use race radios, the two-way devices ubiquitous at most professional events. “It just makes it a bit more chaotic and it’s harder to communicate with your teammates,” said Tyler Farrar, an American sprint specialist. “On that course, you can’t really see far out in front of you, so as soon as a break is out of sight, you can’t see them and you don’t have a radio to hear time checks, so it will be interesting.” It is a course similar to those in the spring classics, a series of grueling one-day races, and could be won by a rider who has excelled in those events, like the Belgian Philippe Gilbert. In all likelihood, however, the fight for gold will come down to a bunch sprint. Farrar is expected to contend along with the German André Greipel, Matt Goss of Australia and Peter Sagan, the young Slovak who won the green jersey this Tour for best sprinter. But the race favorite is the British sprinter Mark Cavendish. At 27, the brash Isle of Man native is already a cycling legend. He has won 23 stages of the Tour de France, including three this year, and is the current world road race champion, the first Briton to hold the title since Tom Simpson in 1965. Though he won a preview race on a shortened version of the Olympic circuit last August, Cavendish knew he needed to improve his climbing ability to compete for a gold medal this weekend. In the off-season, he dropped nearly nine pounds, or about four kilograms, to help fight gravity. He struggled at the outset of the Tour de France without a lead-out train delivering him to the finish line, but won two of the last three stages — including his fourth straight victory in the final stage on the Champs-Élysées on Sunday — with the help of his Team Sky teammates. It was not a typical take for Cavendish, though, which has motivated him further for the road race. “I didn’t get to sprint as much. It can make you hungry for sprints when you’re used to winning five stages here every year,” he said after winning Stage 18 last Friday. Cavendish will helm a five-man British team that includes four Team Sky members, including Wiggins and Chris Froome, who placed second in the Tour. Not all squads have the same luxury. On the Australian team, Michael Rogers will have to work alongside Cadel Evans of BMC Racing, who suffered at the hands of Rogers and Team Sky in the Tour mountain stages. Rogers said that the two did not speak about the Olympics during the Tour, but he was confident that, with 24 years of professional racing experience between them, there would be no issues. “Anyone that’s been doing this for a long time can switch quite easily,” he said. “When you’ve got the same jersey on, that’s what we’ll do.” National teams are awarded Olympic spots based on rider rankings by the International Cycling Union, or U.C.I., which governs the sport. In a typical professional race, there are nine riders per team; in the Olympics, the maximum roster size is five spots, but some countries, like Canada, have only one. “I’m going to be a one-man show for Canada, so I’m going to have to find my way,” said Ryder Hesjedal. “But it’s going to be a hard dynamic to predict, just six days after the Tour. All that matters is that you have good legs.” Hesjedal, a rider for Garmin-Sharp who won the Giro d’Italia in May, crashed out of the Tour in the first week. Despite a lingering hematoma on his thigh, he will ride the race, unlike defending Olympic gold medalist Samuel Sánchez of Spain, who broke his hand in a crash during the Tour and is recovering. Sánchez is not the only talented rider to miss out on London. His countryman Alberto Contador is serving a backdated two-year ban for doping during his 2010 Tour victory, which was eventually awarded to runner-up Andy Schleck from Luxembourg. Schleck fractured his pelvis in June, however, and will not race; neither will his older brother Frank, who tested positive for a banned diuretic during the Tour. Tom Boonen of Belgium will be in attendance, but almost stayed home after breaking a rib during the Tour of Poland last week. Ironically, he was riding in that race because he skipped the Tour de France to focus on the Olympics. Some riders, like Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, abandoned the Tour voluntarily to rest their legs before the coming challenges. Cancellara placed second at the road race in Beijing and could contend again this year, but his specialty is the individual time trial, which will take place on Aug. 1. The RadioShack Nissan Trek rider will try to defend his 2008 gold medal on a 27.3-mile course that starts and ends at Hampton Court Palace. The palace is no stranger to sports — Henry VIII was fond of real tennis, the indoor predecessor of lawn tennis, and had a court installed in the palace that is still used today. (The women’s time trial will also take place on Aug.1 and will be a shortened version of the men’s course. The American Kristin Armstrong, despite having broken her collarbone in May, is expected to repeat as Olympic champion.) Cancellara will face a stiff challenge from the German Tony Martin, the defending world time-trial champion, but it is Wiggins who will be his chief rival. “If I’m 100 percent honest, it’s gold or nothing in London now,” Wiggins said earlier this week. “I can’t sit here and say I’ll be happy with a silver or happy with a bronze.” Wiggins, a multiple Olympic medal winner in track cycling, won both time trials of length in this year’s Tour and considers the discipline his specialty. During the 25.8-mile time trial on Stage 9, in the hills near Besançon, France, Cancellara held the lead in the late afternoon before Wiggins came through and bested the Swiss rider’s time by more than a minute. If Wiggins can win, and help deliver Cavendish to a gold medal this weekend, it will have been worth postponing the Champagne-soaked bash in Paris. Of the possibility of following his Tour victory with an Olympic medal, Wiggins said: “The icing is on it. We’ve just got to put the little cherry on top.”

Olympic Games (2012)
Bicycles and Bicycling


Military Contractors Await Details of Obama’s Budget

Abstract: The good news for big military contractors from President Obama’s budget this week was his proposal to increase the basic Pentagon budget by 4 percent, to $534 billion. But now the companies are contending with a new question: what will the priorities of the new administration — which has made clear it wants to shift spending from futuristic weapons systems to simpler arms that troops can use now — mean for the industry? The big contractors “are sitting on the edge of their seats,” said Gordon Adams, a professor at American University in Washington and an expert on the defense budget. The defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, said this week that he would probably not decide the fate of some marquee weapons systems — including the Air Force’s supersonic F-22 jet fighter and the Navy’s plans for a new high-tech destroyer — until April. In an effort to blunt some of the inevitable lobbying, he has taken the extraordinary step of requiring members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sign documents promising not to leak any details of the deliberations. In addition to the basic budget, the Obama administration expects to spend at least $130 billion to cover the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total defense budget to $664 billion in fiscal 2010, which begins Oct. 1. That is slightly higher than the $654 billion the government has set aside in the current fiscal year — the most it has spent, in inflation-adjusted terms, since World War II. Some military executives acknowledge that the spending proposal for next year remains generous given the government’s spiraling budget deficits. “It’s a good number in this economic climate,” said Kendell Pease, a spokesman for General Dynamics, the giant military contractor. But, he said, “There are so many contentious issues to decide, and nobody is going to do anything in Congress until they see the line-item decisions.” Investors also seem unnerved by the uncertainty; the stocks of the leading military companies fell even harder than the general market averages Friday. Investors were also concerned that with the plans to gradually withdraw forces from Iraq, the level of supplemental war funding will drop sharply in the future. Ronald Epstein, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said in a research note that this could end up “marking the end of the defense spending boom.” But other analysts said some of the savings in Iraq could be offset by greater spending in Afghanistan. James McAleese, whose company, McAleese & Associates, advises military firms on legal and business issues, said Mr. Obama’s proposed budget could also increase next year’s spending on weapons acquisitions and research by $6 billion. But the military contracting industry is consumed now with the parlor game of guessing which prominent programs Mr. Gates will cut back or scrap as either “gold-plated” or troubled — and whether industry lobbyists will be able to persuade Congress to overturn some of those decisions. Perhaps the most controversial program is Lockheed Martin’s advanced jet fighter, the F-22, which the Bush administration tried for years to halt, saying it was a cold war relic. Many analysts say they believe that a compromise to produce 60 more of the planes, at a cost of $9 billion to $11 billion, is likely, especially if the Air Force agrees to finance part of the cost by canceling other programs. But others say President Obama’s statement this week that “we’re not paying for cold war-era weapons we don’t use” did not bode well for the F-22. Other cuts seem clearer. During his campaign, Mr. Obama raised questions about the $10 billion missile defense programs — with parts led by Northrop Grumman and Boeing seeming most at risk — and the Army’s $160 billion modernization program, also led by Boeing. Given Mr. Gates’s focus on systems that can help save lives, the Army should be able to hold onto its financing for a network of robots and other sensors to provide troops with better combat intelligence, Mr. McAleese said. But the Army might have to revise its plans for eight types of new ground vehicles. Analysts say another likely target is the new DDG-1000 destroyer, which relies on sophisticated electronics systems from Raytheon. Even the Navy would like to drop the ship in favor of building more vessels of an earlier class. Mr. Obama also said recently that he did not need a costly and long-delayed new fleet of presidential helicopters. But because of cancellation fees and contractual obligations, it may make more sense to take possession of at least the first five, said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that investigates government waste. “We understand that the cost of canceling them could be too high,” she said.

United States Armament and Defense
Defense Contracts
Budgets and Budgeting
United States Economy


Devils Beat Capitals on Ilya Kovalchuk’s Overtime Goal

Abstract: Ilya Kovalchuk scored with 21 seconds left in overtime Friday night, lifting the Devils to their third straight win and sending the Washington Capitals to their fourth straight loss. Kovalchuk took a pass from defenseman Marek Zidlicky low in the left circle and beat Michal Neuvirth, giving the host Devils a 3-2 victory after they blew a 2-0 third-period lead. Neuvirth finished with 32 saves, including seven in overtime. “I got a good angle with that shot,” Kovalchuk said. “The key thing was that we all had faith in the overtime.” Stephen Gionta and Patrik Elias also scored for the Devils, off to their first 3-0 start since the 2002-3 season, the last time they won the Stanley Cup. Mike Ribeiro and Mike Green scored for Washington in the final 7 minutes 15 seconds of regulation to force overtime. The Capitals (0-3-1) became the last N.H.L. team to earn a point this season. BRUINS 4, ISLANDERS 2 Zdeno Chara’s tiebreaking goal in the third period and Tuukka Rask’s 24 saves lifted Boston past the visiting Islanders. Patrice Bergeron, Shawn Thornton and Gregory Campbell also scored for the Bruins (3-0-1). Keith Aucoin had his first career two-goal game for the Islanders (2-2), who played the second of five straight games on the road. Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro, playing his first game since Dec. 3, 2011, made 23 saves. RED WINGS 5, WILD 3 Todd Bertuzzi scored two goals and Pavel Datsyuk had a goal and two assists, helping Detroit (2-2) beat Minnesota (2-2). The former Devil Zach Parise scored twice for the visiting Wild. JETS 4, PENGUINS 2 Andrew Ladd scored the go-ahead goal in the second period, and host Winnipeg (2-1-1) overcame two first-period goals by Sidney Crosby in a victory over Pittsburgh (2-2). HURRICANES 3, SABRES 1 Jay Harrison scored the go-ahead goal with 4:50 left, helping Carolina (2-2) defeat host Buffalo (2-2). LIGHTNING 6, SENATORS 4 Ryan Malone scored two third-period goals, leading Tampa Bay (3-1) to a comeback win over visiting Ottawa (3-1). KNUBLE AND FLYERS REUNITE The veteran right wing Mike Knuble returned to the Philadelphia Flyers, signing a one-year contract. He will be available for Saturday’s game at the Florida Panthers. Knuble, 40, spent the past three seasons with the Capitals. He played for the Flyers from 2005 to 2009, recording 114 goals and 221 points.

Devils
Ilya Kovalchuk
Washington Capitals
Ice hockey


Forward Has Goals Aplenty but Ground to Make Up

Abstract: PALO ALTO, Calif. — No American in the four years since soccer’s last World Cup has scored more goals in competition than Chris Wondolowski. Few of the other 29 players on the United States men’s national team’s provisional roster can match his story, either, partly because no others have scored three goals in an international game with their names misspelled on the back of their jerseys. As the team convened at Stanford University on Wednesday for its final training camp before the June start of the 2014 World Cup, plenty of attention focused on Wondolowski, the late-blooming 31-year-old with an underdog’s tale. His background is sure to elicit a lot of supporters, especially here. Wondolowski grew up in nearby Danville, Calif., and now stars for Major League Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes. “I knew my way here,” he said, referring to Wednesday’s commute, not his career’s serpentine route. Not recruited out of high school and not a regular starter in M.L.S. until he was 27, Wondolowski is a goal-scoring machine and a league most valuable player. His tardy rise in American soccer has been compared to the American football ascent of the former quarterback Kurt Warner, the grocery clerk-turned-Super Bowl hero. But Wondolowski might not make the American squad that opens World Cup play June 16. The team, under Coach Jurgen Klinsmann, will train at Stanford for most of May, and more cuts are coming. The 30-man roster must be pared to 23 by June 2, and Wondolowski is far from guaranteed a spot alongside experienced talent at forward. Wondolowski will compete with Jozy Altidore, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Terrence Boyd and Aron Johannsson for roster spots. It is unclear when Klinsmann will make the seven cuts, or if they will come at once. The national team will play the first of three exhibitions on May 27, against Azerbaijan at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Wondolowski, if still on the team, is sure to have his own cheering section filled with family and friends. He will probably attract some of the Earthquakes’ faithful, who regularly serenade him with a song, to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine.” (“You are my Wondo, my Wondolowski ...”) But Klinsmann has grown increasingly familiar with Wondolowski, and has seen many of his right-place, right-time goals firsthand. “He doesn’t have to change anything,” Klinsmann said on a conference call when the 30-man roster was announced at the start of the week. “Every time he’s in, he gives everything he has. He gives 1,000 percent. He has built his own case, and built it stronger and stronger.” Image Wondolowski, left, and Clint Dempsey of the U.S. in a draw against Mexico last month. Wondolowski tied the M.L.S. single-season record with 27 goals in 2012. Credit Rick Scuteri/Associated Press Klinsmann added: “He’s determined. You give him a 1 percent chance, and he wants to make it 100 percent by the end of the day. He will be one of the drivers in camp.” By the start of Wednesday’s training session, 21 of the 30 invited players had arrived, Klinsmann said, the others granted excused absences as they finish games with current teams or take an extra couple of days off from the grind of their European seasons. All players should be in attendance by the weekend. Klinsmann named 30 players to provide competition and hedge against injuries, though many teams take only 23 players to their final preparations, as Klinsmann’s Germany team did in 2006. Wondolowski was asked which method he preferred — a camp with 30 players needing to be pared, or one set with 23. “Whichever one includes me,” he said. Unlike so many soccer stars, Wondolowski garnered little attention through his teens and early 20s. He received no soccer scholarship offers (though he had some for track, for running a mile in 4 minutes 14 seconds in high school) and walked on at Division II Chico State. His professional career almost ended before it started when, after the first day of the 2005 college combine, an Earthquakes assistant forgot to invite him back for more. But Wondolowski made enough of an impression to be taken in the 2005 M.L.S. supplemental draft. Surprisingly, he made the final roster. He spent most of his first season with the reserve team. After the franchise moved to Houston, he scored four goals in four seasons with sporadic playing time. His career blossomed in 2010 after he was traded back to the Earthquakes, which rejoined the league in 2008. Finally a regular starter, just as the United States national team was in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup and while he was still coaching his high-school team on the side, Wondolowski scored 18 goals in 28 games. He was named San Jose’s M.V.P. and earned the league’s Golden Boot as its top goal-scorer. In 2012, Wondolowski scored 27 goals for the Earthquakes, tying a league record, earning another Golden Boot and his first league M.V.P. award. But his goal-scoring prowess did not immediately translate to his appearances with the national team. He had no goals in his first nine games. But he has nine in his past 10. Three came against Belize last July while Wondolowski wore a jersey with his name spelled with an extra “W” — “Wondowlowski.” The superstitious sort, Wondolowski now plays with his name spelled correctly, but a third “W” sewn into the collar of his jersey. According to the Earthquakes, his 85 goals since the end of the 2010 World Cup are the most in competition of any American male player. His 34 career game-winning goals in M.L.S. (33 since 2010) rank third in league history. All others in the top five have played at least 125 more games than Wondolowski, the Earthquakes said. That was enough to land Wondolowski on the 30-man roster. Whether he survives seven cuts in the coming weeks will be determined by what he does now, not before. “I’m not content yet,” he said. “I want to make the 23. And once I make the 23, I want to try to make an impact, whether starting, coming off the bench — whatever it is, I want to do it.”

Soccer
Chris Wondolowski
2014 World Cup
San Jose Earthquakes
Jurgen Klinsmann
MLS
US Men's Soccer Team


Pope Expresses Outrage at Abuse in Ireland

Abstract: VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI , “shares the outrage, betrayal and shame” felt by Catholics in Ireland over a child sex-abuse scandal and plans to write a letter to Catholics there, indicating actions church experts say could include resignations of bishops there. . The Vatican released the statement after the pope met here with top Irish church officials two weeks after a report was issued in Ireland accusing the Roman Catholic Church and the police in Ireland of covering up decades of child sex abuse by priests in Dublin. The abuse “deeply disturbed and distressed” the pope, who expressed “his profound regret at the actions of some members of the clergy who have betrayed their solemn promises to God, as well as the trust placed in them by the victims and their families, and by society at large,” the statement said. In 2008, the pope publicly apologized during papal visits to the United States and Australia, two countries badly shaken by clerical sexual abuse scandals. Ireland is still reeling from the revelations that have emerged from the 700-page so-called Murphy Report , prepared under the auspices of the Irish government and issued on Nov. 26. That report described a secretive church bent on covering up any hint of scandal to protect its reputation and assets. In May, a separate report nine years in the making suggested Dickensian nightmares of sexual, emotional and physical abuse of underprivileged children studying at church-run residential schools in Ireland. The pope’s letter to the Irish church is expected to be issued early next year, year, said Cardinal Sean Brady, president of the Irish bishops conference, who met with the pope along with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin. Its contents, said Archbishop Martin, would contribute to the process of “a very significant reorganization of the whole Church of Ireland,” to overhaul the “climate in the church” that had allowed abusers to act with impunity. The church would also work to increase the involvement of lay people, he said. The Irish media have speculated recently about the possible resignation of various bishops who worked in Dublin during the years covered by the report. Cardinal Brady told reporters at an impromptu press conference in front of St. Peter’s Square that the topic had not come up at the meeting. Friday’s statement said that the Vatican took “very seriously the central issues raised by the report, including the governance of local Church leaders with ultimate responsibility for the pastoral care of children.” — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Ireland
Benedict XVI
Roman Catholic Church
Child Abuse and Neglect


William Donald Schaefer, Former Mayor of Baltimore, Dies

Abstract: William Donald Schaefer, a political showman who captivated voters and infuriated critics for more than three decades as the mayor who rejuvenated decaying Baltimore and then as Maryland’s governor and comptroller, died on Monday at a retirement home in Catonsville, Md. He was 89. A former aide, Lainy LeBow-Sachs, confirmed the death, The Associated Press reported. New York had its Fiorello H. La Guardia. Chicago had its Daleys. And Baltimore had William Donald Schaefer: the name on park benches, garbage trucks, office buildings, construction sites, horse races at Pimlico — and on the psyche of Baltimoreans in the 1970s and ’80s. It was a kind of anticlimax when he became governor: they called him the mayor of Maryland. Mr. Schaefer, a Democrat who steamrolled his opponents with up to 94 percent of the ballots, had one of the longest runs in American politics. After 16 years as a city councilman, he won four terms as mayor, from 1971 to 1987; two terms as governor, from 1987 to 1995; and two terms as state comptroller, from 1999 to 2007. His defeat in a 2006 bid for re-election was his first in more than a half-century. “Bawlamer,” as natives call it, was a seedy, shot-and-beer factory town when he became mayor. There had been riots in the late 1960s, and residents and businesses were leaving. Its 18th-century core was a shambles of rotting piers and dilapidated warehouses. Gritty row houses and run-down tenements lined the inner city streets. Neighborhoods ached with poverty, unemployment, drugs and crime. His methods were unorthodox. He sold 500 abandoned buildings for $1 apiece to urban homesteaders and hundreds of commercial shells for $100 each to businessmen. He twisted bureaucratic arms to get development projects moving. He badgered government authorities for housing and transportation money, solicited private donations, lured new businesses with concessions and enlisted world-class architects. He demolished and rebuilt whole neighborhoods. He had city crews salvage the lintels, fireplaces and marble from derelict buildings and sold them for restoration money. He pushed summer festivals and community theaters. He jawboned professional sports teams to stay put, or come to town. He drove around at night looking for potholes, trash, troublemakers and drug pushers, and got things done. By the end of his tenure at City Hall, Mr. Schaefer was being hailed for transforming what was once the United States’ eighth-largest city into a model of urban renaissance and national tourism. There were new businesses, parks, auditoriums, expressways and transit lines, a new skyline of hotels and office towers, a new convention center and a 28-story pentagonal World Trade Center designed by I. M. Pei. The centerpiece was Mr. Schaefer’s signature Harborplace, a glass waterfront pavilion of restaurants and shops by James Rouse, the developer of New York’s South Street Seaport and Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It had cobblestone walks, a National Aquarium and, on the water, sailboats, a historic frigate, a vintage submarine and a Chesapeake Bay skipjack. It had 18 million visitors its first year, 1980-81. The transformation was hardly complete. The city’s economy and image improved, but critics said that the lives of many citizens had not, that schools had declined, and that poverty, crime, unemployment and drugs had not been subdued. The mayor was widely denigrated as a bully who favored business and promoted himself with clownish gimmicks. (When the aquarium was not finished on time, he jumped as promised into the seal pool wearing a striped Victorian swimsuit and clutching a rubber ducky.) But defenders insisted his improvements were substantive and had brought a much-needed sense of pride. When he became governor in 1987, The Baltimore Sun editorialized that Mr. Schaefer had “changed the way the city felt about itself.” William Donald Schaefer was born in Baltimore on Nov. 2, 1921, the son of William Henry and Tululu Irene Skipper Schaefer. He attended public schools and graduated from Baltimore City College in 1939 and the University of Baltimore Law School in 1942. He joined the Army in World War II, became an officer and supervised hospitals in England and Europe. He practiced real estate law in Baltimore after the war, and joined citizens’ groups focused on housing and city planning. He was portly, with a long face and solemn eyes, and painfully shy as a young man. He never married and lived most of his life with his mother, until her death in 1983, in two plain Baltimore row houses. After he became governor at 65, his friend since childhood, Hilda Mae Snoops, served as his official hostess in the governor’s mansion in Annapolis. She died in 1999. After two unsuccessful races in the early 1950s, Mr. Schaefer finally won a seat on the City Council in 1955, and he became known as a tireless civic leader as he worked his way up to the council presidency. In a city of 900,000, where blacks were half the population and Democrats outnumbered Republicans 5 to 1, he easily won the mayoral election in 1971, and was soon embarked on his mission to resurrect Baltimore. His re-election totals (“Vote for Baltimore”) in 1975, 1979 and 1983 all exceeded 85 percent. He won the governorship in 1986 with 82 percent of the vote, the biggest landslide ever in a contested statewide race in Maryland, and was re-elected in 1990 with 60 percent. In politics, he used all three of his names, and they were up everywhere, including Pimlico Race Course, where the annual William Donald Schaefer Handicap was inaugurated in 1994. As governor, he overhauled the state’s legal code and was credited with improving education, social programs, transportation and efforts to clean up pollution in Chesapeake Bay. He saw the completion of the publicly financed Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992, a project he had pushed as mayor. But he also ignited controversy by commuting the sentences of eight battered women who killed or assaulted their mates, and suggesting that contraceptives be given to women on welfare and vasectomies to men leaving prison. Limited to two terms as governor, he joined a Baltimore law firm and held a chair named for him at the University of Maryland. In 1998, after three years out of politics, he won the comptroller’s job. His two terms as chief financial officer were relatively unremarkable. But he was in the news for feuding with Gov. Parris N. Glendening, a fellow Democrat, and for criticizing immigrants who could not speak English, saying AIDS victims “brought it on themselves,” and ostentatiously ogling a woman at a public meeting. “William Donald Schaefer: A Political Biography,” by C. Fraser Smith, was published in 1999. When he lost his re-election bid in 2006, Mr. Schaefer was asked how he would like to be remembered. “There are two words,” he said. “ ‘He cared.’ People mock me and make fun of it. But it’s the truth.”

Mayors
Maryland
Schaefer William Donald
Baltimore (Md)
Deaths (Obituaries)
Governors (US)


Uncle Mo Protects Reputation in Return

Abstract: HALLANDALE, Fla. — The expectations for Uncle Mo’s return to the racetrack were huge. The colt is the undefeated 2-year-old champion, and the Timely Writer Stakes — a nontaxing one-turn mile — was written for him by Gulfstream Park’s racing secretary so Uncle Mo would make his first start of the year here. But what about Uncle Mo’s opponents? They were not exactly pushovers, but it is doubtful that any of them will show up in the Triple Crown races. Uncle Mo’s trainer, Todd Pletcher, had chosen the $100,000 race for the colt’s 3-year-old debut instead of the Grade II, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby. So it was little wonder that Pletcher and the owner Mike Repole were tense as they paced the paddock while getting the colt ready to run. When Uncle Mo broke sideways out of the first post and bumped into Gallant Dreams, one could not blame Pletcher and Repole for losing their breath. But that was the only drama during the 1 minute 36.55 seconds that Uncle Mo was in full flight. It was a textbook demonstration of a horse, rider and trainer at the top of their games. Jockey John Velazquez knew this race was little more than a public workout — as did the bettors who made Uncle Mo the 1-20 favorite — and he handled his colt like a Formula One driver during a practice run. Velazquez immediately grabbed the lead, then glided Uncle Mo down the backstretch with a strong, steady hand. The first two quarter miles ticked away leisurely at 25.53, then 24:05 and 24:11. “It was pretty simple,” Velazquez said. “I wanted to keep him out of trouble and slow the pace down as much as possible. We were able to do that. He was doing it so easily.” When Rattlesnake Bridge made a strong move around the final turn, Velazquez let Uncle Mo loose. “In the stretch, I let him run a little,” he said. Yes, he did, and Uncle Mo blasted off without Velazquez raising a whip or shaking a rein. Uncle Mo ran the last quarter mile in a very rapid 22:87 while Velazquez turned left and right and watched Rattlesnake Bridge disappear. When Uncle Mo hit the wire, he was three and three-quarter lengths ahead. But his work was not over. “I made sure he galloped out an extra eighth of a mile to make sure he got something out of the race,” Velazquez said. So was there anything not to like about Uncle Mo’s effort, other than it did not come upstate in the Tampa Bay Derby? Neither Pletcher nor Repole said so. The trainer had sent one of Uncle Mo’s stablemates, Brethren, to Tampa only for him to run third as the favorite behind Watch Me Go, a 43-1 shot, and Crimson Knight, who was 86-1. The hard knocks of the racetrack are easier to overcome, however, when you have a colt like Uncle Mo pointed to the Derby. Uncle Mo’s $60,000 first-place check, which pushed his bankroll past $1.35 million, was nice, but a whole lot more was at stake. “It’s great to get over this hurdle,” Pletcher said. “He really galloped out strong. He was the Derby favorite going in and he’s the Derby favorite coming out.” Repole, a high-strung sort, was not his usual ebullient self as he escorted his 50-strong entourage into the winner’s circle. He simply seemed relieved. “It’s the first time in three months that I’ve taken a deep breath,” he said “So it kind of feels good to take a deep breath. But when you have the best trainer in the world and he tells you how good this horse is, you’ve got to trust him.” PREMIER PEGASUS ROLLS Premier Pegasus beat the Bob Baffert-trained Jaycito by more than seven and three-quarter lengths in the San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita, announcing himself as a hot Derby prospect. He covered one and one-sixteenth miles in 1:41.23. (AP)