Warm Welcome for Syrians in a Country About to Ban Them

Abstract: CHICAGO — On Friday afternoon, a group of suburban synagogue members clustered at O’Hare International Airport, waiting to greet one of the last Syrian refugee families to be accepted in the United States, to give them the warmest possible welcome to a country that no longer wanted their kind. In Washington, the presidential limousine was already speeding toward the Pentagon, where President Trump would sign a paper officially slamming the door shut on Syrian refugees. But here the volunteers had yellow roses, more warm coats than the newcomers would need and, a few miles away, an apartment ready with a doormat that said “welcome” in 17 languages. “Welcome to chicag Hope you make your selfs at home” said a sign made by one of the youngest members of the group. Whatever the new president said about the supposed dangers of Syrian refugees, the volunteers, who knew almost nothing about the family they were about to welcome, instantly identified with them anyway. They had already committed to helping guide and care for the newcomers for six months. Some of the volunteers were children or grandchildren of refugees. Their synagogue, Am Shalom (“People of Peace”) in Glencoe, Ill., displays a statue depicting members’ families who perished at the Nazis’ hands. The Syrian family, and the president’s orders, were coming on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, some of the volunteers noted with tears in their eyes. A hundred synagogue members had contributed in some way to helping resettle the Syrians: renting an apartment steps from a playground, assembling a vacuum cleaner, lining up juice boxes in the refrigerator. Some of the synagogue members had signed on instinctually, so the Syrians would be helped the way their own parents or grandparents had been aided when they arrived in the United States. Others had joined as a way of countering Mr. Trump — just a few of the many Americans, of varied backgrounds, reacting with shock, outrage and concern to his curtailment of the country’s long-established refugee resettlement system. Image Volunteers from the synagogue made signs to welcome the Syrian family, arriving just as President Trump closed the door to refugees from the country. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times “The Statue of Liberty has always been our symbol of welcome,” Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein, the group’s leader, said at the airport. “It feels like Trump turned off the light,” he said. At the Pentagon on Friday, the preparations for the president’s actions were orderly: High-level officials gathered in a room called the Hall of Heroes, and photographers assembled. But around the country, refugees, resettlement workers and volunteers expressed panic. Resettlement workers did not know if they would have jobs once Mr. Trump’s refugee and immigration plans have been fully carried out. Volunteers wondered what they would do with furniture and money they had collected for refugees who were supposed to arrive soon. RefugeeOne, the resettlement agency responsible for the family coming into O’Hare, had been expecting another Syrian family to arrive on Monday. Image Julie Stark and her husband, Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein, just before Ms. Stark accompanied the Syrian family to their new home. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times “That’s not happening,” Kim Snoddy, the program’s liaison to groups like the Am Shalom volunteers, said as she waited with them at the airport on Friday. A volunteer from another Chicago group posted a photograph on Facebook of an empty crib, made up with a pink sheet and a stuffed bunny, for the baby of a family that would no longer arrive. Resettlement workers and volunteers across the country said that since Election Day, Americans of diverse backgrounds had been lining up to aid refugees, channeling their opposition to Mr. Trump into a desire to help vulnerable newcomers. Sloane Davidson, 37, a graduate student in Pittsburgh, hosted refugees for Thanksgiving dinner and said she was so moved by the experience that she took a job as a case aide at a local agency . “The more I learned about what I felt to be the truth and the truth that Trump was telling,” the more she wanted to get involved, she wrote in an email. Resettlement agencies said that volunteers had been swarming their offices and that even more had surfaced last week when Mr. Trump’s specific plans became public. When the International Refugee Assistance Project put out a call for lawyers to help new arrivals in danger of being turned away, it received 3,000 volunteers in four hours, said Becca Heller, the organization’s director. “People are desperate to help refugees as a way to counter these discriminatory policies,” she said. As the minutes passed at O’Hare, the volunteers checked the time again, tense with the knowledge that Mr. Trump was about to commit pen to paper. The family they were awaiting had flown into Washington the night before, meaning they had cleared immigration with less than a day to spare. But the volunteers said they would not be able to exhale until the newcomers landed in Chicago. The flight was delayed, they heard. They glanced at the time on their phones again. As soon as the Syrian family of four stepped into the baggage claim area, the synagogue members surrounded them protectively, offering the flowers and signs, as a resettlement worker translated. Because they spoke no English, the newcomers wore tags around their necks, like Paddington Bear, so if they got lost, they could be identified. In a moment, the two Syrian children’s arms were laden with gift bags of toys. The parents said they were too terrified to talk to a reporter, out of concern for family members — some still trapped in dangerous areas of Syria and others who had been cleared to travel to the United States but had not yet received plane tickets. After hugs and snapshots and many professions of welcome and thanks, the group at the airport dispersed. The refugees headed to their new home with a few escorts, the synagogue members back to their far more stable lives. Just before they parted, Rabbi Lowenstein gathered his congregants and gave them a charge. “If this is the last group of refugees to get in, we will show them the best of America,” he said. The family was driven to its new home, where a meal and a Syrian-style semolina cake were waiting. The couple said they had not checked the news since landing in the United States, and no one from the volunteer group had told them what was about to happen. Moments before they arrived at the cozy, fully stocked apartment, Mr. Trump, wearing an American flag pin, signed the orders in front of an audience of his advisers and Pentagon officials. As he finished, the clapping in the room was loud. Behind him hung an oversize medal depicting the Statue of Liberty, a beacon of welcome.


Ships Tread Water, Waiting for Cargo

Abstract: SINGAPORE — To go out in a small boat along Singapore’s coast now is to feel like a mouse tiptoeing through an endless herd of slumbering elephants. One of the largest fleets of ships ever gathered idles here just outside one of the world’s busiest ports, marooned by the receding tide of global trade. There may be tentative signs of economic recovery in spots around the globe, but few here. Hundreds of cargo ships — some up to 300,000 tons, with many weighing more than the entire 130-ship Spanish Armada — seem to perch on top of the water rather than in it, their red rudders and bulbous noses, submerged when the vessels are loaded, sticking a dozen feet out of the water. So many ships have congregated here — 735, according to AIS Live ship tracking service of Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay in Redhill, Britain — that shipping lines are becoming concerned about near misses and collisions in one of the world’s most congested waterways, the straits that separate Malaysia and Singapore from Indonesia. The root of the problem lies in an unusually steep slump in global trade, confirmed by trade statistics announced on Tuesday. China said that its exports nose-dived 22.6 percent in April from a year earlier, while the Philippines said that its exports in March were down 30.9 percent from a year earlier. The United States announced on Tuesday that its exports had declined 2.4 percent in March. “The March 2009 trade data reiterates the current challenges in our global economy,” said Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative. More worrisome, despite some positive signs like a Wall Street rally and slower job losses in the United States, is that the current level of trade does not suggest a recovery soon, many in the shipping business say. “A lot of the orders for the retail season are being placed now, and compared to recent years, they are weak,” said Chris Woodward, the vice president for container services at Ryder System, the big logistics company. Western consumers still adjusting to losses in value of their stocks and homes are in little mood to start spending again on nonessential imports, said Joshua Felman, the assistant director of the Asia and Pacific division of the International Monetary Fund. “For trade to pick up, demand has to pick up,” he said. “It’s very difficult to see that happening any time soon.” So badly battered is the shipping industry that the daily rate to charter a large bulk freighter suitable for carrying, say, iron ore, plummeted from close to $300,000 last summer to a low of $10,000 early this year, according to H. Clarkson & Company, a London ship brokerage. The rate has rebounded to nearly $25,000 in the last several weeks, and some bulk carriers have left Singapore. But ship owners say this recovery may be short-lived because it mostly reflects a rush by Chinese steel makers to import iron ore before a possible price increase next month. Container shipping is also showing faint signs of revival, but remains deeply depressed. And more empty tankers are showing up here. The cost of shipping a 40-foot steel container full of merchandise from southern China to northern Europe tumbled from $1,400 plus fuel charges a year ago to as little as $150 early this year, before rebounding to around $300, which is still below the cost of providing the service, said Neil Dekker, a container industry forecaster at Drewry Shipping Consultants in London. Eight small companies in the industry have gone bankrupt in the last year and at least one of the major carriers is likely to fail this year, he said. Vessels have flocked to Singapore because it has few storms, excellent ship repair teams, cheap fuel from its own refinery and, most important, proximity to Asian ports that might eventually have cargo to ship. The gathering of so many freighters “is extraordinary,” said Christopher Pålsson, a senior consultant at Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay Research, the consulting division of Lloyd’sRegister-Fairplay. “We have probably not witnessed anything like this since the early 1980s,” during the last big bust in the global shipping industry. The world’s fleet has nearly doubled since the early 1980s, so the tonnage of vessels in and around Singapore’s waters this spring may be the highest ever, he said, cautioning that detailed worldwide ship tracking data has been available only for the last five years. These vessels total more than 41 million tons, according to the AIS Live tracking service. That is nearly equal to the entire world’s merchant fleet at the end of World War I , and represents almost 4 percent of the world’s fleet today. Investment trusts have poured billions of dollars over the last five years into buying ships and leasing them for a year at a time to shipping lines. As the leases expire and many of these vessels are returned, losses will be heavy at these trusts and the mainly European banks that lent to them, said Stephen Fletcher, the commercial director for AXS Marine, a consulting firm based in Paris. In previous shipping downturns, vessels anchored for months at a time in Norwegian fjords and other cold-weather locations. But stringent environmental regulations in practically every cold-weather country are forcing idle ships to warmer anchorages. But that raises security concerns. Plants grow much faster on the undersides of vessels in warm water. “You end up with the hanging gardens of Babylon on the bottom and that affects your speed,” said Tim Huxley, the chief executive of Wah Kwong Maritime Transport, a shipping line based in Hong Kong. One of the company’s freighters became so overgrown that it was barely able to outrun pirates off Somalia recently, Mr. Huxley said. The freighter escaped with 91 bullet holes in it. Another of the company’s freighters close to Singapore was hit last December by a chemical tanker that could not make a tight enough turn in a crowded anchorage; neither vessel was seriously damaged. Capt. M. Segar, the group director for the hub port of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, said in a written reply to questions that many vessels were staying just outside the port’s limits. They do not have to pay port fees there. Singaporehas reported to the countries of registry for administrative actionabout 10 to 15 ships that have anchored in sea lanes in violation ofinternational rules in the last two weeks, Captain Segar said. Ships are anchoring at other ports around the world, too. There were 150 vessels in and around the Straits of Gibraltar on Monday, and 300 around Rotterdam, the Netherlands, according to the AIS Live tracking service. But Singapore, close to Asian markets, has attracted far more. “It is a sign of the times,” said AIS Martin Stopford, the managing director of Clarkson Research Service in London, “that Asia is the place you want to hang around this time in case things turn around.”

Singapore
Ports
International Trade and World Market
Ships and Shipping


L.I.R.R. Workers’ Error Is Cited in Shutdown Last Fall

Abstract: When the Long Island Rail Road was paralyzed on Sept. 29 for nearly 12 hours after a lightning storm, nature was the obvious culprit — but not, it turns out, the only guilty party. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s inspector general has concluded that the breakdown, which left thousands of commuters stranded on trains and at nearby stations, was caused by workers who used the wrong widget in installing computer equipment. In 2010, the railroad put into place a $56 million state-of-the-art signal system designed by Ansaldo STS; it had been built to protect against lightning strikes and power surges. But the railroad added a serial server that was never part of the original design, so that diagnostic tests could be performed remotely, according to the inspector general’s report , which was released on Wednesday. In installing the server, the workers used a “look-alike connector on hand” to replace a connector that was missing. “What made the connector wrong for the installation, and disastrous for the systems, was that it contained a built-in path to ground,” the report said. “This allowed the surge to enter the system and flow through” the main signal switching system and a backup system. The shutdown was so extensive, passengers on 9 trains sitting at platforms and another 17 trains between stations were stuck for hours. In addition, thousands of passengers were stranded at Pennsylvania and Jamaica Stations. “Common sense tells us that before modifying a system’s design with additional equipment, we must confirm design compatibility of that equipment with the system designer,” said Barry L. Kluger, the inspector general. The Long Island Rail Road issued a statement that it was making sure “that our lightning protection is upgraded and that we have sufficient backup systems in place that are properly isolated to reduce the chances of another system shutdown.” Mr. Kluger said the Long Island Rail Road, a consultant and the signal system’s designer “all agree that this wrong connector created the pathway by which the power surge generated by the lightning damaged the signal system and brought it down.” Mr. Kluger made nine recommendations to prevent a recurrence, including checking compatibility with vendors before installing additional equipment, improving lightning protection standards and better distributing information about major disruptions to riders. On March 30, Helena E. Williams, the president of Long Island Rail Road, wrote a letter to Mr. Kluger saying that the agency had finished negotiating with the vendor to improve the system. She also said the railroad was working to address Mr. Kluger’s eight other recommendations. But she also defended the railroad, writing that “there were no reported customer injuries, service was restored and the next morning regular peak service was provided.”

Lightning
Railroads
Ansaldo
Long Island Rail Road Co
Kluger Barry L


Investor-to-Be in Starrett City Is Bargaining for New Deal

Abstract: Rebuffed by state and federal regulators over his plan to buy Starrett City for $1.3 billion, David Bistricer is now bargaining with the current owner over a lower sale price and devising a plan that he hopes will pass muster with government officials, local politicians and the 14,000 tenants at the vast Brooklyn housing complex. If Mr. Bistricer has any chance of success, it now seems critical that he renegotiate his deal with the current owner, Starrett City Associates. Senator Charles E. Schumer and state officials have indicated that a deal is not feasible at $1.3 billion, asserting that such a heady price would force the new owners to increase rents sharply or cut services at the ethnically and economically diverse complex. Executives who have talked with Mr. Bistricer’s group say that the owner recently said it would consider a new proposal, but it is unclear whether the two sides can come to terms on a lower price for Starrett City, the nation’s largest federally subsidized housing complex. The new proposal, which has not been finalized, also involves forging a partnership with the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III of Harlem and devising a way to ensure that the 5,881 apartments at Starrett City will remain affordable to poor and working-class families. Mr. Bistricer, who heads Clipper Equity, also wants to develop mostly market-rate housing on vacant land within the 140-acre complex, which sits on Jamaica Bay between East New York and Canarsie. With many New Yorkers increasingly rattled by the price of housing, politicians including Mr. Schumer, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn have come out against the sale. “As Starrett City goes, so goes the city of New York on the question of affordable housing,” Mr. Barron said yesterday at a City Hall rally of tenants and housing advocates. “Not only do we need to preserve affordable housing, we need to build more of it. Otherwise, New York City will turn into a town for the rich.” He also excoriated Mr. Butts, who heads Abyssinian Development Corporation, a well-regarded housing developer based in Harlem, for working with Mr. Bistricer. “We’re saying to the reverend from Harlem,” Mr. Barron told a crowd of about 75 people, “butt out of our business.” Mr. Butts disputed a suggestion by Mr. Barron that he was involved simply for the money. “We are working on something that will answer a lot of the questions that many people have,” Mr. Butts said. “I think we will maintain affordability not only for the current tenants but for tenants to come.” If an agreement is reached, Abyssinian will have a substantial role in managing Starrett City and in developing new housing on the site. For its part, Mr. Bistricer’s group insisted that it was not proposing steep rent increases and was supportive of reasonable state legislation that would regulate rents in complexes like Starrett City that are part of the state’s middle-class Mitchell-Lama housing program. “Clipper’s deal to buy Starrett City will get done,” said Lisa Linden, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bistricer. “We are in discussion with many individuals, including Reverend Butts. Our plan is evolving, as well. Its centerpiece remains affordability.” The secretary for housing and urban development, Alphonso R. Jackson, rejected Mr. Bistricer’s first proposal in March, saying it failed to show how the complex would remain a “viable community for New Yorkers of modest means.” In April, state officials rejected Mr. Bistricer’s second proposal, saying it was unworkable under state housing laws. Two weeks ago, Senator Schumer said that a deal at $1.3 billion was not feasible because it would require millions of dollars in additional federal subsidies, which would allow the seller to reap a windfall from the sale. He said Starrett was a successful complex because of huge federal, state and city subsidies since the day it opened in 1974. He suggested that Starrett City Associates hold a new auction or renegotiate the sale price, which he said, should be closer to $900 million or $1 billion. The senator’s remarks seemed to signal that Mr. Bistricer’s deal was dead unless he was able to reopen negotiations over the sale price. Real estate executives who have been briefed by the Bistricer group say that Clipper has talked to the owners and put together a plan that would allow most of the tenants to remain. Mr. Bistricer has also sought to enhance his credibility and political clout by reaching out to Abyssinian Development and Mr. Butts, who knows both Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jackson in Washington. But critics remain unconvinced. “The private developers interested in buying Starrett City do not have the best interests of this community in mind,” said Bertha Lewis, executive director of New York Acorn, a community-building group.


Google Settles Its European Antitrust Case; Critics Remain

Abstract: Google has agreed to a settlement with European competition regulators that leaves the company with a few bruises, yet victorious over all — and would end half a decade of wrangles with antitrust authorities across the globe. Under the settlement, which awaits formal approval by the European Commission, Google agreed to the harshest penalties it has yet received in an antitrust inquiry anywhere. But it escaped a fine and a finding of wrongdoing. And it protected its crown jewel — its secret algorithm — from oversight by regulators, and avoided a court battle or potential consequences like a $5 billion fine or a ruling to make major changes to its company structure or its products. The changes Google agreed to did little to satisfy the competitors whose formal complaints prompted the inquiry by European antitrust regulators. The investigation focused on whether Google abused its dominant position in the European search market, where it has about 90 percent market share, versus two-thirds in the United States. “The basic pronouncement is Google’s not an illegal business,” said Tim Wu, a professor of antitrust law at Columbia who worked on the United States Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against Google, which concluded that Google had not violated antitrust law. “Their main business goes full speed ahead. Obviously what some of Google’s competitors would have liked was much more aggressive.” The deal’s limited scope, however, did not stop Joaquín Almunia, the European Union’s competition commissioner, from hailing it as a major success. “No other antitrust body has secured such concessions from Google,” Mr. Almunia, a Spanish policy maker, told reporters on Wednesday. ‘The agreement is far-reaching and creates a level playing field across Europe.” Image A Google search for gas grills as it currently appears with promoted products, top, compared to how competitors' promoted products would appear under the new agreement. Credit European Commission The decision would force Google to give its rivals more prominence in specialized search results, like those for shopping, travel and local business reviews. The result would be a search engine that looks significantly different in Europe than it does in the United States. It is the latest effort by European officials to police the activities of the American tech giants that have come to dominate the digital world, including stepped-up scrutiny after revelations from Edward J. Snowden about United States government surveillance. “We will be making significant changes to the way Google operates in Europe,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, said in a statement. “We have been working with the European Commission to address issues they raised and look forward to resolving this matter.” Most noticeably, Google said it would display results from at least three competitors each time it shows its own results for specialized searches related to things like shopping, restaurants and travel. In some cases, competitors will pay when people click on these results. The deal would last for five years and apply to any new search products Google introduces in Europe. Google also said it would make two changes similar to those requested by the F.T.C. It would allow rivals like Yelp to forbid Google from using their content in its specialized search services, yet avoid being penalized for that in Google’s normal search rankings. And it would eliminate some restrictions that have prevented advertisers from moving their ads to other companies’ services. Since the investigation began in 2010, Google has expanded well beyond web search to new businesses including wearable computing and mobile software. All those other activities are beyond the reach of Wednesday’s settlement, illustrating how difficult it is to create effective rules of engagement for regulating Internet businesses. “Google is no longer just a search company,” said Daniel Knapp, director of advertising research at the advisory firm IHS in London. “These concessions won’t have a material impact on Google.” The changes, however, could be a boon for small companies that do specialized search , antitrust experts said. “The importance of the decision is it gives some oxygen to companies that want to be in markets adjacent to Google, so they don’t live under this umbrella of being at any time suffocated by Google,” Mr. Wu said. The European Commission has gone further than the F.T.C. in extracting concessions from Google in large part because European antitrust law gives more priority to protecting competing companies . United States antitrust doctrine gives dominant companies more freedom if they can prove they are creating a better product for consumers, which was a central factor in the F.T.C.’s decision to close its case without charges. “It underscores how if you want to complain about a dominant firm’s behavior, you go to Brussels, not Washington,” said an international antitrust specialist who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. Still, Google competitors said they felt the proposed remedies hardly provided them protection. “Almunia risks having the wool pulled over his eyes by Google,” said David Wood, legal counsel for Icomp, a trade group representing Microsoft and other Internet companies. “We do not believe Google has any intention of holding themselves to account on these proposals.” Rivals complained that Mr. Almunia said he would not offer another formal period for rivals to weigh in on the plan, known as market testing. He rejected two previous proposals from Google after feedback from opponents. “Market testing of Google’s last two proposals identified serious and widespread concerns about the damage they would have done,” Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in a statement. “If these new proposals are materially better than those that have already been rejected, then they should be broadly market tested.” That leaves Google’s opponents with one option, which is to take the European Commission to court. “If I receive strong arguments that oblige changes to my decision, I am always ready. I am flexible,” Mr. Almunia said. “I don’t see why, from now on, I would change my mind based on the proposals Google has put forward.” Regulators for the European Union and some member countries are still scrutinizing several of Google’s other business practices. They include privacy complaints about Google’s mapping services, tax disputes related to the company’s European operations and an antitrust investigation by the European Commission into the Android operating system. While Google initially balked at giving rivals more prominence in promoted search results, it was eager to avoid the protracted legal troubles that plagued Microsoft after European antitrust officials opened a competition investigation into its practices in the early 1990s. Mr. Almunia, who will step down from his post this year, had given Google until the end of January to submit a more satisfactory proposal, which it did, or face regulatory proceedings. He met regularly with Google’s senior executives, including having a discussion with the firm’s chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to work out the final deal. On Tuesday, Google awarded Mr. Schmidt , who is handling governmental relations like the antitrust investigations, a $106 million bonus.

Google
European Commission
Search Engines
Competition law
EU
Joaquin Almunia


Out of N.F.L. in Early Fall, Now Essential to Carolina Panthers

Abstract: CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As he waited for a team, any team, to call him, Robert McClain grew to love the jogging trails around Buford, Ga. He ran daily, always on his own, unless you count Melo, his 6-year-old German shepherd. Melo became a dependable training partner, even as McClain began to wonder what he was training for. Released by the New England Patriots in September, McClain, a seventh-round draft pick out of Connecticut in 2010, tried out for 10 teams during the fall, hoping for another opportunity. Nothing came. Time passed. The routine remained: McClain running after Melo running after a tennis ball. “He’ll take off and I’ll try to keep up,” McClain said. “As long as he didn’t see a squirrel, we’re good.” Passers-by would have no conception that the 27-year-old McClain, an inconspicuous 5 feet 9 and 190 pounds, would soon be starting at cornerback for the Carolina Panthers in the N.F.C. championship game, transported here less than six weeks ago after a series of late-season injuries to the Panthers’ secondary. When he arrived, a warm face greeted him as if to say, “I’m new here, too.” Cortland Finnegan, 31, had announced his retirement a year ago and was managing a string of Juice Bar franchises around Nashville when the Panthers signed him on Nov. 30. They were erstwhile professionals called to the stage of an N.F.L. playoff chase like contestants on “The Price Is Right.” Carolina (16-1) had 10 players selected to the Pro Bowl this season, finished with the league’s best record, and faces the No. 2 seed, Arizona, at Bank of America Stadium on Sunday night, a game that, for the first time in N.F.L. postseason history, features two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks, in Cam Newton and Carson Palmer, squaring off against each other. Yet the Panthers’ success will depend largely on how they stop Arizona’s passing game, and that relies on the play of two men who spent most of the fall just like most of the fans who will be watching. Since he announced in March via Instagram that he was stepping away after a nine-year N.F.L. career, Finnegan had spent the majority of his recreational time playing pickup games on the basketball courts at the local Prairie Life Fitness. “I was working on my shot,” Finnegan said, by way of explaining whether he had been staying in shape. Football training? Hardly. He was content with his decision to quit. His last training camp, with the Miami Dolphins, had been grueling. Recovering from injuries was getting harder, and the toll of nine N.F.L. seasons had caught up. He was excited about an entrepreneurial career, first as a Juice Bar franchisee (30 stores and counting) and potentially pivoting into sneaker design. Still, he said he had never officially turned in his retirement papers. Then the Panthers called, not long after he had watched them on television on Thanksgiving. Injuries had left Carolina with only one backup cornerback, Teddy Williams, and Finnegan’s familiarity with the coach of Carolina’s nickel backs, Curtis Fuller, who worked with him in Tennessee, ultimately moved him to sign. There was another thing driving him: Finnegan had appeared in only two postseason games. “Just to play for something,” Finnegan said, inflecting his voice with emphasis. “That’s enough.” It will be mainly Finnegan’s duty to cover the veteran All-Pro receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who often lines up in the slot and has a distinct size advantage. A reporter helpfully tried to suggest that Finnegan might attempt to knock Fitzgerald off his routes. “I’m like 114 pounds,” Finnegan said. “I don’t know if trying to knock him off is going to be ideal.” But playing for a chance to go to the Super Bowl feels “like Christmas,” Finnegan said, even if the Panthers’ concerns extend beyond Fitzgerald. Arizona’s airborne attack, which ranked second in yards per game this season, features two other top targets, John Brown and Michael Floyd. And the Cardinals are not shy about letting Palmer use his arm. “This is an offense that will come in here and try to put the ball in the air; we know that,” cornerback Josh Norman said. “They’re probably going to throw the ball 50 times, at least.” Presumably, most of those throws will be away from Norman, a Pro Bowl player, and toward McClain, who was targeted 14 times by Seattle last weekend. That was understandable. McClain, signed Dec. 15 because another corner went down, has had even less time than Finnegan to get comfortable. Home in Georgia, he had grown beyond restless. The tryouts were teases, and each tease was crushing. “I felt as though I had a long way to go in my career, and I wasn’t done,” McClain said. “I wasn’t finished yet.” The season almost was, though. A year seemed squandered. At least the dog was in great shape. As he spoke about his comeback, McClain often credited the hours he spent with Melo as a surrogate wide receiver, working out of breaks into bump-and-run coverages along imaginary routes. He paused, however, when asked whether that training had shaped him for Sunday’s matchup. “You can’t compare a dog to a human being, so that’s kind of tough,” McClain said. “But both can be explosive.” Carolina Coach Ron Rivera expressed confidence in the ability of the newcomers to handle Arizona’s vertical attack, indicating that he was more concerned with getting pressure on Palmer, making him force throws into a defense that led the N.F.L. with 39 takeaways this season, including 14 interceptions. “It’s not just what we have to do in the secondary but what we do with the rush as well,” Rivera said. “A lot of people want to point to certain things. I point to the fact that we’ve won all those games. We’ve just got to make sure we do our jobs.” For the two men with new jobs, the goal was mainly to prove they belong. “You’ve got to play the game, brother,” Finnegan said. “If you take the names and numbers off the jerseys and you just play football, you can make a case for anybody.”

Carolina Panthers
Robert McClain
Cortland Finnegan
Football
Arizona Cardinals


Debating the Blame for Reducing Much of a Village to Rubble

Abstract: JUHR EL DIK, Gaza — When the Assi brothers returned to their village, most of it was missing. Their house was flattened, and their olive groves crushed. The only thing left standing was a single almond tree. Of all the areas hit in Israel ’s military campaign, Juhr el Dik, a farming village on Gaza’s eastern border, had more than its share of loss. In its center is now a giant swath of destruction where about 40 houses once stood. “It’s an earthquake,” said Salim Abu Ayadah, the mayor of the town, whose house was among those destroyed. “When I saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t walk.” The destruction was a hard fact, but how it happened was not, with Israelis and Gazans each offering their own divergent versions of events, alternate realities that have come to typify this war. Villagers here say the Israelis bulldozed the area during their ground operation, which began on Jan. 3. Tread marks from tanks or bulldozers crisscross the area. An Israeli government minister said that Israel had not planned to enter the village, but that it was left with no choice when six Hamas fighters shot at its troops from a water cistern there. Soon after, a group of houses detonated at once, wired to explode as Israeli troops passed, said the minister, Isaac Herzog, who is in charge of humanitarian relief for Gaza and who cited information from a brigade commander. Residents strongly dispute that account. Three of them, including the mayor, said all the houses were intact when they fled several days after the ground invasion began. “It’s simply not true,” Mr. Abu Ayadah said. Hamas fighters would occasionally drive up in a car, fire a rocket and leave, he said, but they did not have close relations with the villagers, farmers who were far from urban politics. Giving the Israeli version the benefit of the doubt, he said, “So suppose there’s a bomb in one house, but in many houses — no.” What is left is an unnatural landscape. Mounds of concrete rubble mix with broken olive trees. Flies buzz over dead goats. Spoons, slippers and hair brushes are strewn in the dirt. When Khaled al-Assi returned, he first noticed the broken bodies of his olive trees. The trees, which would take 20 years to grow back, were dearer to him than his house, which could be rebuilt. His father had planted them when Mr. Assi was little, and, until recent weeks, they had supported his family, as well as an impoverished widow, Um Salama, a villager who was no relation. “We can’t build our house without outside help, so we’re focusing on the trees now,” Mr. Assi said, his brother Ziad scooping sandy soil out of a four-foot hole he was digging. The task was urgent, because the trees, whose unearthed roots had not had water in days, were close to dying. Of his several dozen trees, a handful appeared to be salvageable. But there was another reason for urgency. When the brothers first saw the house in a crumpled heap, they said, they were so stunned it was hard to breathe. Ziad started crying. They plunged into tree planting to escape. “Everybody now is trying to forget,” Khaled said, standing among his broken trees in a blue button-down shirt, and jeans smudged with dirt. “The only way to put your mind on something else is to replant.” The village on Tuesday was a scene of frenetic activity. Men scurried over broken piles of concrete blocks, yanking out pieces of metal to use for makeshift roofs. A team of men dragged branches onto a donkey cart to make fires for cooking. Mr. Abu Ayadah said about 130 homes in Juhr el Dik had been destroyed and 40 others seriously damaged. In all, there are 600 to 700 homes, he said. The destruction was so complete in the Assis’ area that it looked surreal. Even the animals were confused. A brood of chickens rustled noisily underneath a fallen guava tree that had flattened their coop. A cat mewed plaintively, unseen. A dog wandered. “They can’t find their house,” Mahmud el-Bahabsa said of the chickens. “Even the dog is lost.” There were few clues about how the destruction actually happened. A giant artillery shell, knee-high standing upright and marked M825E1, gave few answers. A map drawn in black marker on the back of a kitchen cabinet door, and a calendar with days crossed off sketched on a wall, did not help much either. Rounds fired from an Apache helicopter also turned up in the rubble. Up the hill, another resident was thinking about her trees. Noha Shawa, an affluent woman whose family owns a summer house here, looked ruefully at her unearthed grove. She was particularly angry because she had just replanted after May, when the Israeli military bulldozed older trees she had nurtured. She was home when the soldiers came that time. They closed her in a room and began to bulldoze, she said. “I wish this could happen to their land,” she said, sitting on a plastic lawn chair, surveying her damage. “I wish I could see the look on their faces.” Ms. Shawa’s son owns a children’s clothing store in Gaza City. His business partners, Israeli Jews, are reliable and trustworthy, he said. But since an embargo that Israel imposed after Hamas pushed out its political rival in 2007, business has plummeted. “We are like chickens — they decide what to feed us,” Ms. Shawa said. “They would not accept this life for themselves.” The residents seemed determined to make the best of a bad situation. The Assis’ 80-year-old neighbor, Abu Tawfiq, joked that he would use the artillery shell as a teapot. Pea plants that were still alive would provide dinner. Cured olives in a blue plastic jug, unspoiled, turned up in the rubble. By late afternoon, four trees had been replanted, their smooth trunks twisting unnaturally out of the sandy soil. It was unclear, Khaled al-Assi said, if they would survive. He would keep thinking about them, he said, even in his sleep. “I’m going to sleep and to look at the sand,” he said. “I will imagine that there is still an olive grove there.”


Trials for Parents Who Chose Faith Over Medicine

Abstract: WESTON, Wis. — Kara Neumann, 11, had grown so weak that she could not walk or speak. Her parents, who believe that God alone has the ability to heal the sick, prayed for her recovery but did not take her to a doctor. After an aunt from California called the sheriff’s department here, frantically pleading that the sick child be rescued, an ambulance arrived at the Neumann’s rural home on the outskirts of Wausau and rushed Kara to the hospital. She was pronounced dead on arrival. The county coroner ruled that she had died from diabetic ketoacidosis resulting from undiagnosed and untreated juvenile diabetes . The condition occurs when the body fails to produce insulin, which leads to severe dehydration and impairment of muscle, lung and heart function. “Basically everything stops,” said Dr. Louis Philipson, who directs the diabetes center at the University of Chicago Medical Center, explaining what occurs in patients who do not know or “are in denial that they have diabetes.” About a month after Kara’s death last March, the Marathon County state attorney, Jill Falstad, brought charges of reckless endangerment against her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann. Despite the Neumanns’ claim that the charges violated their constitutional right to religious freedom, Judge Vincent Howard of Marathon County Circuit Court ordered Ms. Neumann to stand trial on May 14, and Mr. Neumann on June 23. If convicted, each faces up to 25 years in prison. “The free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects religious belief,” the judge wrote in his ruling, “but not necessarily conduct.” Wisconsin law, he noted, exempts a parent or guardian who treats a child with only prayer from being criminally charged with neglecting child welfare laws, but only “as long as a condition is not life threatening.” Kara’s parents, Judge Howard wrote, “were very well aware of her deteriorating medical condition.” About 300 children have died in the United States in the last 25 years after medical care was withheld on religious grounds, said Rita Swan, executive director of Children’s Health Care Is a Legal Duty, a group based in Iowa that advocates punishment for parents who do not seek medical help when their children need it. Criminal codes in 30 states, including Wisconsin, provide some form of protection for practitioners of faith healing in cases of child neglect and other matters, protection that Ms. Swan’s group opposes. Shawn Peters, the author of three books on religion and the law, including “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law” (Oxford, 2007), said the outcome of the Neumann case was likely to set an important precedent. “The laws around the country are pretty unsettled,” said Mr. Peters, who teaches religion at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and has been consulted by prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case. In the last year, two other sets of parents, both in Oregon, were criminally charged because they had not sought medical care for their children on the ground that to do so would have violated their belief in faith healing. One couple were charged with manslaughter in the death of their 15-month-old daughter, who died of pneumonia last March. The other couple were charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, who died from complications of a urinary tract infection that was severely painful and easily treatable. “Many types of abuses of children are motivated by rigid belief systems,” including severe corporal punishment, said Ms. Swan, a former Christian Scientist whose 16-month-old son, Matthew, died after she postponed taking him to a hospital for treatment of what proved to be meningitis . “We learned the hard way.” All states give social service authorities the right to go into homes and petition for the removal of children, Ms. Swan said, but cases involving medical care often go unnoticed until too late. Parents who believe in faith healing, she said, may feel threatened by religious authorities who oppose medical treatment. Recalling her own experience, she said, “we knew that once we went to the doctor, we’d be cut off from God.” The crux of the Neumanns’ case, Mr. Peters said, will be whether the parents could have known the seriousness of their daughter’s condition. Investigators said the Neumanns last took Kara to a doctor when she was 3. According to a police report, the girl had lost the strength to speak the day before she died. “Kara laid down and was unable to move her mouth,” the report said, “and merely made moaning noises and moved her eyes back and forth.” The courts have ordered regular medical checks for the couple’s other three children, ages 13 to 16, and Judge Howard ordered all the parties in the case not to speak to members of the news media. Neither Ms. Falstad nor the defense lawyers, Gene Linehan and Jay Kronenwetter, would agree to be interviewed. The Neumanns, who had operated a coffee shop, Monkey Mo’s, in this middle-class suburb in the North Woods, are known locally as followers of an online faith outreach group called Unleavened Bread Ministries, run by a preacher, David Eells. The site shares stories of faith healing and talks about the end of the world. An essay on the site signed Pastor Bob states that the Bible calls for healing by faith alone. “Jesus never sent anyone to a doctor or a hospital,” the essay says. “Jesus offered healing by one means only! Healing was by faith.” A link from the site, helptheneumanns.com , asserts that the couple is being persecuted and “charged with the crime of praying.” The site also allows people to contribute to a legal fund for the Neumanns. In the small town of Weston, many people shake their heads with dismay when Kara Neumann is mentioned. Tammy Klemp, 41, who works behind the counter at a convenience store here, said she disagreed with the Neumanns’ passive response to their daughter’s illness but said she was not sure they should go to prison. “I’ve got mixed feelings,” Ms. Klemp said. “It’s just such a terribly sad case.” Chris Goebel, 30, a shipping department worker for a window maker, said many people in the area felt strongly that the parents should be punished. “That little girl wasn’t old enough to make the decision about going to a doctor,” Mr. Goebel said. “And now, because some religious extremists went too far, she’s gone.”

Parenting
Child Abuse and Neglect
Prayers and Prayer Books
Medicine and Health
Children and Youth
Neumann Dale
Neumann Leilani
Religion and Churches


Shooting Suspect Was Calm in Taxi to Supermarket, Driver Says

Abstract: TUCSON — Jared L. Loughner wanted change back from a $20 bill that he used to pay for a taxi ride to a Safeway store here, according to the manager of the taxi company. His demeanor was so unremarkable that the driver thought nothing of walking into the store with Mr. Loughner to get change, and did not know that a shooting rampage occurred at the scene until many hours later. “No red flags went up,” said Joe Acosta, the general manager of the taxi company, AAA Full Transportation. “The customer got his change, our driver got his fare and left, and that’s it.” That account of the taxi ride provides small but telling new details on what preceded the shooting. It might suggest, for example, that Mr. Loughner, 22, planned or hoped to escape, and would need the money, after what police said was a deliberate attack on Representative Gabrielle Giffords . Or it could be one more element of his unsettled mental state on the morning of the attack — that getting his change was somehow important before, as police say, he opened fire with a 9 millimeter Glock pistol at a constituents meeting. Mr. Acosta said the driver, John Marino, who was questioned by the F.B.I. and Pima County sheriff’s officers at the taxi company on Sunday morning, was not taken into custody and has declined to speak to any reporters. “He was like, ‘I really don’t need this,’ ” Mr. Acosta said. Mr. Loughner’s state of mind, in the weeks and months before the shootings and perhaps especially on Saturday morning itself, has emerged as a major subtext of the investigation here, as the authorities try to understand his motive and mental state. But the environment of Tucson — the light traffic on a Saturday morning, and the volume of taxi calls — perhaps played a role as well in what, according to Mr. Acosta’s secondhand account, seemed at the time to be nothing more than a young man’s calm ride to the grocery store. “Since the volume wasn’t that heavy on Saturday, he was picked up moments after the call was placed,” Mr. Acosta said. “And a few minutes later he was at the Safeway.” The driver, Mr. Acosta added, “treated it like it was a normal run — nothing out of the ordinary.” Mr. Acosta said that Mr. Marino noticed sirens coming in the opposite direction as he was heading to pick up his next fare on Saturday morning, but thought nothing of it until the next day, when security camera images showing him walking into the store with Mr. Loughner became part of the police investigation.

Tucson Shooting (2011)
Loughner Jared Lee
Giffords Gabrielle


At Yale, Redefining an Observer of the British Colonial Empire

Abstract: In the same way the first sentence of a story sets the tone for a work of literature, paintings hung at the entrance to an exhibition offer crucial clues. The first five canvases on view at “Johan Zoffany, RA: Society Observed” at the Yale Center for British Art take as their subject classical myth, portraiture, colonialism and the French Revolution. This is not a random selection: The curators are being up-front, literally, about realigning Zoffany, a painter known for pleasant portraits and conversation pieces, with the larger events and movements of his day. “Adapting the Eye: An Archive of the British in India, 1770-1830,” a companion exhibition, follows a similar pattern, with a group portrait leading us into an archive of objects and images made during the colonial era. Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) is often identified as a British painter — hence his appearance at the Yale Center for British Art — although he was born in Frankfurt. His father was an architect and cabinetmaker in the court of Alexander Ferdinand, Prince von Thurn und Taxis, and Zoffany apprenticed in Germany. But Italy was the finishing school for 18th-century artists, and so, in 1750, he made his way to Rome, on foot. “Venus Marina,” from 1760, the first painting in the show after the introductory wall text, is a playful depiction of the Roman goddess of love and beauty, with cherubs and a harmless-looking sea monster. Other paintings from Zoffany’s early period are less cheerful. “Susanna and the Elders” (1760) — usually an exercise in soft-porn titillation — depicts a disturbing sexual assault, while “Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew” (1753) produces a frightening sense of what it’s actually like to be flayed. And the recently discovered “David With the Head of Goliath,” painted in 1756, includes a startling and unsettling detail in the lower right quadrant of the picture: the eye of the decapitated giant stares directly out at the viewer. Zoffany’s career in Britain was hindered, initially, by his poor command of English. This changed somewhat when David Garrick, a major theater figure in London, became a patron. Several portraits, like “ David Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard in ‘Macbeth ,’ ” (1768), capture the impresario onstage. But “Mr. and Mrs. Garrick by the Shakespeare Temple at Hampton” (circa 1762) brings with it a perfect storm of 18th-century British cultural signifiers, with Mr. Garrick and his wife posing in a garden designed by Capability Brown, the influential English landscape architect, in front of a Roman-style temple designed by Robert Adam, the Scottish architect and designer who greatly influenced Federal architecture in the United States. Zoffany was appointed to the Royal Academy of Arts by King George III, who founded the institution in 1768. “The Portraits of the Academicians of the Royal Academy” (1771-72) is a great conversation-piece portrait that includes a significant historical detail: Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser, the only two women among the nearly 40 Academicians, are represented as portraits hanging on the wall, since women couldn’t be present in the painting’s setting, a studio with nude male models. Zoffany traveled to India in 1783 and spent six years there, producing paintings filled with curious devices and observations. “The Blair Family” (1786-87) includes three paintings displayed on the wall behind the family, depicting scenes and landscapes of India. One shows “charak puja,” a Hindu religious festival in which some participants hang with hooks through their back muscles, swinging from wires suspended on a tall central pole. Zoffany’s depiction of the practice, a picture-within-a-picture, is telling: charak puja fascinated the British, and yet it is shown at a level once removed. Portraits of important British and Indian politicians of the day, like Warren Hastings and Asaf-ud-Daula, as well as festive cockfights including people from both cultures, are similarly coded in the language of British colonial rule. The catalog describes how contemporary accounts of Asaf, a devout Indian Shiite painted by Zoffany, were “typically laden with Orientalist tropes” and stressed “his impotence, homosexuality, self-indulgence, corpulence, addiction to gaming, undiscriminating aesthetic taste, and legendary profligacy.” Images of colonial unrest, naturally, are absent. Revolution on European soil, however, was treated differently. Two paintings hung at the entrance, both from 1794, feature large, gruesome scenes from the French Revolution: the chaotic “Plundering the King’s Cellar at Paris” and a massacre of Swiss soldiers, with decapitated heads on pikes and bodies spilling into the foreground of the picture. Violence and chaos were not central to Zoffany’s life, however. A record of his later years, the “Self-Portrait with Hookah,” from around 1800 to 1803, reflects upon the idea of India but also includes a humorous detail: the painter, with failing eyesight, squints at the viewer over the glasses perched on his nose. India seen through British eyes is also on view in “Adapting the Eye,” which draws from an archive assembled by Sir Charles Warre Malet, an employee of the East India Company, and the British artist James Wales. A giant 1804 map of India, made by the cartographer Aaron Arrowsmith and based on data from military surveys, is followed by drawings and watercolors documenting architecture, musical instruments, flora, fauna and people. An undated sculptural tableau of figures, made by an unknown artist from plaster and wood and clothed in linen, catalogs the different vocations available in India (from the British perspective): messenger, servant, footman, water carrier and coolie, the one here shown carrying a bundle of clothes for sale. Balthazar Solvyns ’s 1799 book describing “the Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos” is included, open to a page with a tinted etching depicting an acetic with exceptionally long fingernails, holding his arms up for what is apparently an extended period of time. An unknown viewer has written in pencil at the bottom “One of a Sect who inflict encredible tortures on their persons.” The “encredible tortures” inflicted by the British on their colonial subjects, which have come to us through Indian narratives, are virtually absent from these shows. These artists weren’t necessarily complicit in those crimes — and the wall texts, catalog and brochure do fill in some of the historical blanks. But seeing the Johan Zoffany show just a few blocks from the Occupy New Haven site brought to mind another, more interesting omission: the American Revolution. That conflict did not register as a subject with Zoffany, despite unfolding at the same historical moment. And from the vantage point of the particular “society” he “observed,” it is as invisible as the gathering of tents on the New Haven Green is from the museum.

Yale Center for British Art
Art
Zoffany Johan


Enforcer Paints Picture of Gotti as Powerful Don

Abstract: It was Christmas Eve 1988, Michael DiLeonardo said, when Jackie D'Amico, a captain in the Gambino crime family, told him, "Put a suit on, you're going to get straightened out." He went to an apartment on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, a few blocks from the Ravenite Social Club, home base of the Gambino family. There he waited in a room with four other men, including John A. Gotti, the son of the family boss, to be inducted as "made men" into the family. The first knock was for Mr. Gotti, he said. The third knock, "That was my knock," Mr. DiLeonardo testified yesterday as a government witness at Mr. Gotti's racketeering trial. He was taken to another room and seated at a long table next to Sammy Gravano, a consigliere in the family who himself would one day turn into a government witness. "We've been watching you," Mr. Gravano told him. "This is not a club. This is a secret society. There is one way into this society, the way you come in today, and one way out -- on a slab." Mr. Gravano pricked Mr. DiLeonardo's trigger finger, squeezed the blood onto a crumpled picture of a saint and set the paper on fire in Mr. DiLeonardo's cupped palms. "If I betray the oath of omertà, may my soul burn in hell like this saint," Mr. DiLeonardo recited. That story came in a day of testimony in which the sins of the fathers were visited on the sons by federal prosecutors, who are trying to prove for a second time that Mr. Gotti became acting head of the Gambino family after his father, John J. Gotti, was arrested and jailed in 1990. Lawyers for the younger Mr. Gotti, 42, say that although he idolized his father, he had renounced a life of crime because he had seen how much damage it could do to his family. Michael McGovern, a prosecutor, led Mr. DiLeonardo, the star witness, through testimony that began with his Brooklyn grandfather's role in founding "the Black Hand," a precursor to the Mafia, in the early 1900's, to Mr. DiLeonardo's initiation into loan-sharking for the Gambino family at a tender age in his home neighborhood, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. It continued through his account of becoming the enforcer for the younger Mr. Gotti. Mr. DiLeonardo has admitted to three murders (in the lingo, he said, a murder is "a piece of work") and is testifying in the hope that he will receive a reduced sentence. He also testified at Mr. Gotti's first trial, which ended in a hung jury. He was to continue testifying today, and has not yet been cross-examined by Mr. Gotti's lawyers. With his center-parted auburn hair and large reading glasses, Mr. DiLeonardo looked more like an accountant than a mobster. But he said he had been born into organized crime, on his father's side. He got the nickname Mikey Scars when he was about 8, he said, after a dog bit him in the face. Joe Colombo, boss of the crime family, happened to be playing cards upstairs at his grandfather's house and gave him a handkerchief to wipe up the blood, he testified. His role at this trial was to paint a picture of John A. Gotti as the personification of the Mafia, one of the last best-known dons of a dying breed. Because this is a racketeering trial, establishing that Mr. Gotti conspired to commit a pattern of crime -- he is accused of loan-sharking, extortion of the construction industry, and the kidnapping of Curtis Sliwa, the radio host and Guardian Angels founder -- is more important than specific events. Mr. DiLeonardo said he had been involved in a conversation at the Carousel Diner in Howard Beach, Queens, in which he said Mr. Gotti ordered Mr. Sliwa to be beaten "as bad as a beating can be without killing him." When Mr. Sliwa was shot in the stomach and leg, Mr. Gotti was upset, Mr. DiLeonardo said, because, "It was a mess." Mr. DiLeonardo said he had participated, on behalf of Mr. Gotti, in the extortion of various construction businesses and of Scores, a strip club. "I call it a mob tax," he said. "The government taxes, we tax. We tax everybody." So much dirty cash was funneled up through the ranks of the Gambino crime family that Mr. Gotti didn't know what to do with it, Mr. DiLeonardo testified. So Mr. DiLeonardo said he and two partners started a company, Metropolitan Stone, to launder the money, and returned checks to Mr. Gotti, which he invested in real estate. Asked by Mr. McGovern whether the company was legitimate, Mr. DiLeonardo, whose testimony often seemed polished to high gloss, replied: "Illegitimate. Anything I touch is illegitimate because I'm in the mob and anything I do facilitates my acts." Scraps of paper found by investigators in a Queens basement were identified by Mr. DiLeonardo as promotion lists for various mob families. There was a ceiling on how many members could be in each of the five or six families, he said, so for somebody to get "straightened out," somebody else has to die. Some of the names were preceded by Mr. and Mrs., but, he testified, women could not be made members. The honorifics, he said, were intended to fool law enforcement agents into thinking the paper was an invitation list. The most sentimental moment during the six hours of testimony came when Mr. DiLeonardo mentioned Kenneth McCabe, a retired police detective who spent years conducting surveillance of the mob. Mr. DiLeonardo seemed to choke up when he called Mr. McCabe particularly tenacious. Mr. McCabe, who was supposed to be a prosecution witness in this trial, died Sunday of cancer.

GAMBINO CRIME FAMILY
ORGANIZED CRIME
NEW YORK CITY
SLIWA CURTIS
DILEONARDO MICHAEL
GOTTI JOHN A
MURDERS AND ATTEMPTED MURDERS
RACKETEERING AND RACKETEERS


Jobless Koreans Turn to Manual Labor, Quietly

Abstract: KUNGHANG, South Korea — With his clean white university sweatshirt and shiny cellphone, Lee Chang-shik looks the part of a manager at a condominium development company, the job that he held until last year’s financial panic — and the one he tells his friends and family he still holds. But in fact, he leads a secret life. After his company went bankrupt late last year, he recently relocated to this remote fishing village to do the highest-paying work he could find in the current market: as a hand on a crab boat. “I definitely don’t put crab fisherman on my résumé,” said Mr. Lee, 33, who makes the five-hour drive back to Seoul once a month to hunt for a desk job. “This work hurts my pride.” Tales of the downwardly mobile have become common during the current financial crisis, and South Korea has had more than its share since the global downturn hammered this once fast-growing export economy . But they often have a distinctly Korean twist, with former white-collar workers going into more physically demanding work or traditional kinds of manual labor that are relatively well paid here — from farming and fishing to the professional back-scrubbers who clean patrons at the nation’s numerous public bathhouses. Just as distinctly Korean may be the lengths to which some go to hide their newly humble status. Mr. Lee says he carefully avoids the topic of work in phone conversations with friends and his parents, and dodges invitations to meet by claiming he is too busy. He gave his name with great reluctance, and only after being assured the article would not appear in Korean. Another former white-collar worker who now works on a crab boat in the same village said he could not tell family and friends, and told his wife only via e-mail after arriving here. Yet another tells his parents that he is in Japan. In a competitive, status-conscious society, these and other workers say they feel intense shame doing manual work. Some also say they feel guilty working such rough jobs after years of expensive cram schools and college. And many younger workers, having grown up in an increasingly affluent nation, consider physical labor a part of the bygone, impoverished eras of their parents and grandparents. “These days, many South Koreans think they have the right to be white collar,” said Lee Byung-hee, senior economist at the Korea Labor Institute , a government-linked research organization based in Seoul. “But their expectations hit the dark reality of this economy, where people have no choice but to go into the blue-collar work force.” Labor experts say the number of former office workers who are moving into blue-collar jobs has increased as South Korea has suffered its worst unemployment since the 1997 Asian currency crisis. According to the National Statistical Office , the unemployment rate has risen to 3.8 percent — low by American standards, but high for this Asian economic powerhouse. Many of the unemployed can rely on traditional forms of economic support, like living with family. And despite the slowdown, jobs are still to be found in this prosperous society, where the neon-lit bustle of cities like Seoul has not missed a beat. Still, Jeong Seung-beom, whose small Seoul-based firm helps recruit workers for South Korea’s fishing industry, says that this year is the busiest he has seen, even better than 1997, when white-collar workers also flooded his office. He said his company, the Sea Job Placement Center, now places about 80 people a month, four times the number a year ago. Mr. Jeong said most of the new recruits were laid-off office workers or university students who could no longer afford tuition. Many of the newcomers are so woefully unprepared for the physical demands of fishing, he said, he tries to scare them during orientation sessions. On a recent morning in his cramped office, six young men showed up with gym bags, ready to make the trip to Kunghang, near the nation’s southwest tip. Among them was Mr. Lee, the former condominium developer. Mr. Jeong warned them that they might get seasick or homesick, or even be injured or killed on the crab boats, which can spend 14 hours a day at sea. When he paused for questions, one man in his 20s asked if he could go home during holidays. “Crabs don’t take holidays,” Mr. Jeong scoffed. Undaunted, all six went to Kunghang later that day. Mr. Lee said he decided to fish because he could make about $1,700 a month, much more than he could earn in Seoul pouring lattes or busing tables. The high salaries stem from the chronic labor shortages in these occupations during the boom years when South Koreans shunned them as too dirty, leaving them to Asian migrant laborers. Another allure is that many of these menial jobs seem to be recession-proof, workers and labor experts say. Na Deuk-won, who owns a school in Seoul that trains back-scrubbers and bathhouse masseuses, says enrollment has jumped 50 percent this year, to 180 students, because of a sudden influx of university graduates and laid-off office workers. “Even in a recession, people need their back scrubbed,” Mr. Na said. At his Dongdaemun Bath Academy, students gathered in a tiled shower room to learn how to scrub naked customers with a pair of sponge mitts. One, Hyun Sung-chul, 48, said he had been supervising 50 workers as a manager at a construction company before losing his job in January. At first, he said, he hid his enrollment in scrubbing school from family and friends, though he told his wife. When he finally confided about his career change to a friend, he was surprised when the friend confessed interest as well. “He told me, ‘Teach me when I get fired, too!’ ” Mr. Hyun said. “I think people come into this field only when they are afraid that their livelihood is at risk.” In Kunghang, many of the new crab fishermen recruited by Mr. Jeong expressed regrets about their choice. “This is so smelly and dirty, it makes me want to vomit,” Kwak Jung-ho, 33, a branch manager of a cellphone store in Seoul before it closed this year, said as he cut tangled crabs out of a net. “If my parents knew what I was doing now, they would pity me,” he said. “Now, I look at the ocean and think, I should have worked harder at the cellphone store, and be a better man for my family.”

Labor
South Korea
Recession and Depression
Layoffs and Job Reductions


A Review of Eastchester Fish Gourmet, in Scarsdale

Abstract: Eastchester Fish Gourmet , the restaurant affiliate of the fish market of the same name, is merrily bobbing on the swells of 26 successful years. Known by regular patrons as E.F.G., this soignée seafood house excels at turning fresh catches into beautiful plates of food for a crowd, seven days a week, under pressure. We dined twice, on sweltering nights. Eating at E.F.G. is a little like swooning aboard a vintage Grand Banks yacht, with a top-drawer caterer below decks and a cool sea breeze — in the form of perfectly calibrated air-conditioning — blessedly blowing through the whole enterprise. The trim décor lifts the mood. It all just adds up: varnished wood, stately banquettes, shimmering porthole sconces, port and starboard lanterns, an ocean blue abstract canvas and bold French posters — one of which, featuring a jubilant red-suited bellhop astride a giant lobster , inspired E.F.G.’s logo. Image Tshe broiled gray sole. Credit Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times Did I mention the decorative oyster plates that run the length of the dining room wall? The little window that allows you to watch as a kitchen worker shucks oysters, one every 10 seconds? Our smart, unassuming waitress? The water glasses that were never less than half full? On a Monday night, when a weekly lobster special was on, the place was packed like a can of brisling sardines. Our 40-minute wait seemed shorter, perhaps because everyone — hostess, bartenders, waiters maneuvering around us — was so nice. We nursed drinks and watched a parade of ruddy pound-and-a-half lobsters go by on the arms of servers, along with giant baked potatoes. The menu, which offers delight and variety, changes daily based on the availability of fish. Rick Ross, the owner, and his buyer go to the New Fulton Fish Market five times a week. Arsenio Flores, the longtime chef, balances blasts of Americana like jumbo lump crab cake with lobster sauce and red-pepper preserves, with more classical preparations like skate wing encrusted with herbs, almonds and pine nuts with a retinue of bronze potatoes, pancetta, savoy cabbage and Grenobloise sauce. First-rate appetizers included the grilled calamari with snappy roasted potatoes and slim green beans in a summery tomato and basil pesto sauce; crisp breaded octopus with shaved fennel, pickled onions and candied lemon vinaigrette; taut grilled shrimp brushed with adobo oil; and a sweet-and-sour salad of endive, thyme-scented sautéed onions, Gorgonzola, fig jam and lemon vinaigrette. But two starters had less pizazz: a salad of peekytoe crab and avocado ornamented with limp gaufrette potatoes; and pan-seared scallops that hadn’t stayed in the pan long enough to caramelize, atop a tired corn salad. Image The blackberry lime mousse. Credit Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times For an entree, you can’t do better than fish and chips, at $19 the least expensive on the menu. Made with snow-white New England cod on the night we ordered them, the super-fresh fillets were dipped in beer batter and fried to perfection, as were the husky potato wedges stacked alongside them. On the other end of the price spectrum, pan-seared wild Alaskan salmon with grilled asparagus and a brisk navel-orange gastrique was $36; the pale, luxurious fillet had huge, glossy flakes but lacked the beefy flavor that I associate with wild Pacific salmon. (The same dish was offered with organic Icelandic farmed salmon for $26.) No matter, I am still daydreaming about pan-seared golden snapper over garlicky crushed potatoes with wild mushrooms and peas in a creamy sea of mustard beurre blanc; saffron risotto with a bounty of shrimp, scallops and crab meat; and broiled gray sole with baby carrots, haricots verts, leeks, capers and thyme-laced fumet. Nothing on the dessert menu swims, but don’t let that stop you. Pretty blackberry and lime mousse, lemon sponge cake layered with whipped cream, chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream in a dressy hazelnut tuille, robust sorbets with precision-cut fruit, and blissful Almond Joy ice cream. You can’t go wrong. We saw, too late, a chocolate soufflé float past on its way to a table. How had we missed that? As if we needed an excuse to go back.

Eastchester Fish Gourmet
Restaurant
Scarsdale NY


Mississippi Coach Gets Extension

Abstract: Mississippi Coach Mike Bianco has received a contract extension through the 2018 season after leading the Rebels to the College World Series. The extension starts with a base salary of $640,000 per season and includes incentives for academic and on-field accomplishments. Bianco has a 557-323-1 record at Ole Miss over 14 seasons and has led the Rebels to 12 N.C.A.A. tournaments.

College Sports
University of Mississippi


New Spider, Cerbalus Aravensis, Is Discovered in Jordan

Abstract: One benefit of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, signed 15 years ago, was that it allowed for scientific cooperation and exchanges between the countries. Among the more recent cooperative efforts is a cross-border study in the Arava Valley involving biologists at the University of Haifa and colleagues from Jordan. “We were very happy finally to be able to see what kind of diversity there is on the other side of the border,” said Uri Shanas, a biologist at the university’s Oranim campus. They are looking, in part, at ecological differences between the Israeli side, with its more Western-style agricultural economy, and the nomadic land management on the Jordanian side. But in the process, the researchers discovered something else: a new species of desert spider. The spider, Cerbalus aravensis, was collected in the Sands of Samar, a dune area on the Jordanian border. C. aravensis is large by spider standards — up to five inches across — and lives in a small burrow in the sand, reinforcing the walls with silk. The spider covers the burrow with a door of sorts, made of sand-encrusted silk. “It completely conceals the entrance,” Dr. Shanas said. The scientists have yet to learn much about the spider’s habits, though presumably it consumes insects and, given its size, perhaps small geckos. But Dr. Shanas said time might be running out as its habitat was endangered. The dunes are being quarried for construction material. “They’re really under great threat,” he said. “There’s almost nothing left.”

Spiders
Deserts
Biology and Biochemistry


Number of Baseball Players Given Drug Exemptions Grows Slightly

Abstract: The number of Major League Baseball players who received a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder last season continued to exceed the national average and was by far the most common reason a player was allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs, according to baseball’s drug testing administrator. The report released Tuesday by the testing administrator, Dr. Bryan Smith, showed that the number of players granted exemptions to use amphetamine-like substances because of A.D.D. increased slightly for the third year in a row. According to the administrator, 108 players received exemptions last season, 2 more than in 2008 and 5 more than in 2007. The number of exemptions for attention deficit disorder has been an issue since baseball officials were compelled in January 2008 to turn over the figures to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform after the Mitchell report was released the previous month. The information from baseball showed the number of players claiming exemptions for A.D.D. rose sharply to 103 in 2007 from 28 in 2006. Members of Congress said the commissioner’s office and the players union, which agreed to begin amphetamine testing for the 2006 season, allowed players to make false claims of A.D.D., thus exploiting a loophole in their testing program. In response to the concerns from Congress, baseball said it would make it more difficult for players to receive exemptions. On Tuesday, Rob Manfred, the top drug testing official in the commissioner’s office, said he was pleased that the number of exemptions for A.D.D. had remained static. “What you need to remember about the exemption numbers is that a leveling off of the numbers is a positive development,” Manfred said in a telephone interview. “You have a certain number of renewals of players, and we are not granting many more. The concern was that we were going to see an ever-increasing number of exemptions, and that is not the case.” The total of 108 players who received exemptions for attention deficit disorder is about 9 percent of the roughly 1,200 major league players. A study commissioned by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2006 found that 4.4 percent of adults ages 18 to 44 in the United States experienced symptoms of attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The decision to disclose the data on the drug testing program — including the number of positive tests, the substances players tested positive for and the number of tests — came in response to a recommendation in George J. Mitchell’s report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. The commissioner’s office and the players union adopted that recommendation because they believed it made the testing program more transparent. According to the numbers, only one player was suspended for testing positive for steroids — two fewer than in 2008. Twelve players tested positive for stimulants: 11 for Adderall and one for clobenzorex. Two players received exemptions to use performance-enhancing drugs because of hypertension, two for low levels of testosterone, one for narcolepsy, one for obsessive compulsive disorder and one for postconcussion syndrome.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder


P.G.A. Championship 2015: Dustin Johnson Is Calm Before Storming to the Top

Abstract: HAVEN, Wis. — Dustin Johnson started his first round of the 2015 P.G.A. Championship on the 10th hole, a short, downhill 361-yard par 4. Most players in the field Thursday used irons off the tee, strategically positioning themselves on a serpentine fairway so they could be aggressive with their second shots. Johnson was showing no such patience. He chose to attack with his initial swing of the day, pulling a wood out of his bag and busting his shot down the fairway. “I just wanted to make today as easy as possible,” he said. Johnson birdied his first two holes and then eagled the seventh hole he played. Three more birdies on the back nine, along with one bogey, gave Johnson a six-under-par 66, which was good enough for the first-round lead by one stroke over David Lingmerth. A day earlier, Johnson, who despite several frustrating close calls has yet to win a major championship, was asked to describe his mood entering the season’s final major. “Just chillin’,” he responded. His disposition had not changed by the end of his round. “Today was pretty easy, I have to say,” said Johnson, who also benefited from playing in the morning when the playing conditions were less windy. But it was only one round, and 11 players who have won major championships were within six strokes. There was a gaggle of golfers tied at four-under 68, including Jason Day, who has contended at several recent major championships. But Johnson’s name at the top of the leaderboard got everyone’s attention. It helped that he was able to hit the ball farther and straighter than almost everyone else in the field. As Day, Johnson’s playing partner, said after the round: “Dustin is hitting his ball to places where 95 to 99 percent of the players cannot hit the ball. That’s just freakish.” Image Top-ranked Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland teeing off on the 14th hole on Thursday. He shot a 71. Credit Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Championship golf is considerably more than just hitting it far, and Johnson was precise with his approach shots; he also putted with authority. Johnson’s eagle putt was from 27 feet. For the round, he had 28 putts. Johnson was even executing shots he had barely practiced. Twice on the unpredictable Whistling Straits layout, Johnson’s ball came to rest up against the collar near the green. It can be a dicey shot that requires touch. Johnson again grabbed a wood. Using a putting stroke, he knocked the ball close to the hole for an easy par putt. “It’s not a shot that I’ve ever really played,” Johnson said of the 5-wood he brushed through the higher grass of the collar. “But I was out here Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday trying to figure out how to hit those shots. This worked out very well.” Image Keegan Bradley on the 13th hole during the first round of the 2015 P.G.A. Championship. Bradley shot a four-over-par 76 and will probably need a better score during Friday to avoid being cut. Credit Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images While Johnson was happily cruising around the grounds, making it seem effortless, much of the rest of the field was slugging it out on a windswept Whistling Straits and finding inventive ways to stay on the leaderboard. The world’s top-ranked golfer, Rory McIlroy, rolled up a pant leg and waded into a lake to hit a shot (and save par). McIlroy shot a one-under 71. Another pretournament favorite, Rickie Fowler, took four swings to get his ball out of a bunker and made a quadruple bogey on the par-3 third hole. He rallied to finish with a one-over 73. The British Open champion, Zach Johnson, seemed to be in every difficult place on the golf course, hitting within inches of the lake, chipping to a green 15 feet above his head and occasionally sauntering through a jungle of thorny bushes and bad lies. He finished with an unsightly 75 that could have easily been much worse if not for some nifty recovery shots. Some things stayed constant. Jordan Spieth opened his round with nine consecutive pars. He then missed a 2-foot par putt on his 11th hole. But Spieth rallied with two back nine birdies to tie McIlroy at one under par. Tiger Woods’s game continued to look wobbly. He shot a 75. Phil Mickelson shot an even 72 to remain in the hunt. Image John Daly, wearing his usual colorful pants, as he neared the 10th hole on Thursday at Whistling Straits in Haven, Wis. Credit Jae Hong/Associated Press Lingmerth, who also began his round on the 10th hole in the afternoon, was tied with Johnson for about 40 minutes before he bogeyed the sixth hole. Lingmerth has had something of a breakthrough season with a victory at the Memorial Tournament and one other top-three finish. He has finished in the top 10 in three of his last four tournaments, although at one of those events, the British Open, he faltered in the final round with a 77 to finish tied for 74th. “I’ve been playing near the leading groups on weekends in several tournaments lately, and that has been good practice in tournaments like this,” Lingmerth said. “I was happy to keep it going through the wind on the back nine today.” The group at four under par was a mix of players without a major championship, including Matt Kuchar, J. B. Holmes, Harris English and Danny Lee, another recent first-time winner on the PGA Tour. Lurking at three under was Justin Rose, and one stroke behind him was Martin Kaymer, who won the event the last time it was held at Whistling Straits, in 2010. But the round of the day belonged to Johnson, who did not play in the P.G.A. Championship last year because he had taken a leave of absence for personal issues. Johnson said he did not watch last year’s tournament on television. He added that he was proud of what he had accomplished during his absence and of how well he has been playing since his return. “But the best thing has been the birth of my son,” Johnson said of Tatum, whose mother is Johnson’s fiancée, Paulina Gretzky. “That’s what I’m most proud of. It helps make life a lot more fun whether I’m playing well or not. I’ll leave here and be thinking about him, not the next round.”


U.S. Missiles Kill 15 People in Pakistan Border Area

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In an exceptionally heavy barrage by American drones in Pakistan , five Predator aircraft fired 10 missiles at suspected militant compounds along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday. Along with an earlier attack, at least 15 people, including 7 foreigners, were killed, Pakistani security officials said. The stepped-up drone strikes came as the civilian government felt the repercussions of a Supreme Court decision on Wednesday that declared unconstitutional an amnesty for thousands of politicians accused of corruption. On Thursday, the National Accountability Bureau , acting with remarkable speed, prohibited 247 people, including some cabinet ministers, from leaving the country, as corruption cases could be revived against them. They included Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, who was stopped at the Islamabad airport, along with his wife and secretary, from boarding a flight to China, where he was scheduled to make an official visit. He complained publicly that he had not been informed of the ban. The drone strikes included two missiles that hit at a vehicle in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, near the Afghan border, killing at least one person. The second, heavier assault took place at the village of Degan, hometown of a Pakistani Taliban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, and a haven for foreign fighters. Pakistani officials said the seven foreigners killed were Arabs, including a commander named Zohaib al-Zahidi, though it could be independently verified. Degan, a target of previous missile attacks, is about 15 miles west of Miram Shah, capital of North Waziristan, and is within Datta Khel. The United States has stepped up the pace and intensity of its drone attacks in Pakistan this year, which now number more than 40, fanning anti-American sentiment over increased civilian deaths and sensitivities over Pakistani sovereignty. Washington has pressed Pakistan to expand military operations to include the area of North Waziristan that the missiles hit Thursday, threatening to attack militants if Islamabad does not. The area is a stronghold of local and foreign fighters allied with Al Qaeda ; an Afghan commander, Sirajuddin Haqqani ; and Mr. Bahadur, the Pakistani Taliban commander, both of whom are involved in attacks against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has declared a truce with Mr. Bahadur that it deems essential as it battles militants in neighboring South Waziristan. But American officials believe that North Waziristan has become a haven for Afghan and Qaeda commanders, who use it as a staging ground for attacks not only in Afghanistan but also around the world.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Ultra Runner Karl Meltzer Sets Appalachian Trail Record, Fueled by Beer and Candy

Abstract: At a time when “endurance running” no longer means mere marathons — and even 100-mile races are attracting the masses — Karl Meltzer, a former ski-resort bartender, has proved he can suffer longer and faster than almost anyone else. When he staggered onto Springer Mountain in Georgia before dawn Sunday, Meltzer set a record for completing the Appalachian Trail. He covered the 2,190 miles over 14 states in 45 days 22 hours 38 minutes. Meltzer, 48, is a little different from other titans of the newly booming ultra-running scene. He is six years older than Scott Jurek, who was featured in the best-selling book about almost-barefoot endurance running, “Born to Run” — and who set the former Appalachian Trail record last year (46 days 8 hours 7 minutes). In a sport checkered with mantras like “clean living,” Jurek sustained his trek on a vegan diet. Staples of Meltzer’s diet, by contrast, included Red Bull and Tang. Jurek incurred a $500 fine and public outrage for opening champagne at the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine during his record run. When Meltzer finished Sunday, he walked down the mountain, sat in a chair and sated himself with pepperoni pizza and a beer. Image Meltzer on a leg of his record-breaking run along the trail in late August. Credit Interpret Studios, via Red Bull Content Pool It was the latest milestone in an unusual professional racing career. Meltzer moved to Utah to ski in 1989 and started running the next year. He came to long-distance racing in his late 20s. Primarily a skier, he worked as a bartender at the Snowbird ski resort but took summers off to run. Now based in Sandy, Utah, he became an ultra runner in 1996 after completing a 100-mile race nearby in just over 28 hours. In a sport built on comparatives — faster, longer, more, more, more — his 100-mile trail race portfolio is formidable: He has won 38 of them, more than anyone else in the world. But the Appalachian Trail was a particular challenge. This was Meltzer’s third attempt at the record, and his first since Jurek set it last year. He tried once in 2008, finishing a week off the record; in 2014 he dropped out with 600 miles left. This time, he capped each night with one or two beers and left from rest stops with rainbow-colored Spree candy, Three Musketeers chocolate bars and bacon in his pockets. To save time and keep his energy up, he typically slept less than seven hours a night and instead had an energy drink every 10 miles, downing about five a day. When on another day his support crew found him napping, they gave him a pint of ice cream for a boost. Though Meltzer averaged 50 miles in 15 hours of running a day, his pace faltered at times. At one point he slept on the trail instead of making it to his support van — and then he slept the next morning on the dirt again. But in the last two days, he gathered strength, running 83 miles nonstop in the final leg to finish Sunday morning at 3:38. His support crew said Meltzer was not available for an interview immediately after completing his run. He was sleeping.

Karl Meltzer
Appalachian Trail
Ultramarathons


Close Call at the Plate Leaves the Mets With Regret

Abstract: DETROIT — It happened too quickly for Jay Bruce to absorb: the two-out, ninth-inning single by Travis d’Arnaud that sent Bruce, the potential tying run, heading home from second; J. D. Martinez’s muscular, on-target throw from right field; the dusty slide and the tag by Detroit catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. The plate umpire, Tony Randazzo, called Bruce out. The Mets did not challenge the ruling, ending a night that featured a short, ineffective start from Logan Verrett and a rally from a five-run deficit. The Mets had managed a rare hit with a runner in scoring position but still lost, 6-5, to the Tigers on Saturday. “I was focused on trying to be safe,” said Bruce, a Met for all of six days. “I didn’t have time to dissect what happened on the play. It’s so bang-bang, so hit or miss, it’s hard to know when you are the runner.” Mets Manager Terry Collins said he did not challenge the call because Jim Kelly, the club’s video replay coordinator, had told him Bruce was out. Fifteen minutes later, meeting with reporters in his office, Collins second-guessed his failure to challenge, musing that he had had nothing to lose. “It might have been one of those plays where you take the chance and see what happens,” Collins said. So why didn’t he? “Because I didn’t think about it,” Collins said in a low voice. That the Mets came so close to overcoming a 6-1 deficit made the loss sting even more. Verrett was charged with all six Tigers runs, as well as seven hits, in three and two-thirds innings. That performance, and two and one-third solid innings of relief from the reacquired Jon Niese, could jeopardize Verrett’s place in the rotation. Collins said Verrett (3-7, 4.66 E.R.A.) was set to make his next scheduled start, but that could change. “I just talked to Sandy about some things,” Collins said, referring to General Manager Sandy Alderson, the ranking executive on the trip. “We’re going to take a look at some options. We’ve certainly got to pitch better in that spot.” With Yoenis Cespedes and the switch-hitting Asdrubal Cabrera on the disabled list, Collins tried to stack the lineup with right-handed hitters against the young Detroit left-hander Matt Boyd, which led to some intriguing lineup choices. Collins put the backup catcher Rene Rivera at designated hitter, Matt Reynolds at shortstop and Ty Kelly in left field, leaving the left-handed-hitting Michael Conforto on the bench. “There’s a fine line you’ve got to walk here: Are we going to develop guys, or put out the best lineup that will allow us to win?” Collins said before the game. “Right now, we need to win some games. “He’s not hitting lefties,” Collins continued, referring to Conforto, “so I put somebody in there who I thought could get some hits off lefties.” Rivera, a career .212 hitter, entered Saturday batting .375 against left-handers this season (9 for 24), with Reynolds at .368 (7 for 19). The switch-hitting Kelly was only 1 for 6 against left-handers, but that one hit matched Conforto’s total against lefties since May 11. “Again: We all think the world of him,” Collins said of Conforto, who is carrying a .109 average against left-handers. “We all think he’s going to be a very, very good hitter. But he’s scuffling a little bit. So I’ve got to put somebody out there who maybe can get some hits.” Collins said he expected Conforto to start on Sunday. The changes did not help much. The Mets went 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position, continuing a season-long trend. Rivera, Reynolds and Kelly combined for only one hit — an infield single — in five at-bats, with two walks, against Boyd even though he was not particularly effective or efficient. Boyd threw 104 pitches in five innings and allowed three runs, two on solo home runs by Bruce and the former Tiger Curtis Granderson. Detroit still led, 6-3, before handing the Mets two seventh-inning runs on two errors, the first on a throw toward second by first baseman Miguel Cabrera that clanged off the helmet of the Mets’ Neil Walker. In the ninth, facing Francisco Rodriguez, Bruce beat a shift by singling to left with two outs, and pinch-hitter Alejandro De Aza singled as well. D’Arnaud’s two-strike single to right sent Bruce on his way. “We got a big hit when we needed it, but we still didn’t score,” Collins said. “This makes the game a lot more frustrating.” INSIDE PITCH JAY BRUCE ’s home run tied him for the National League lead, at 27. … Although he was on the disabled list, YOENIS CESPEDES ’s batting average dropped three points, to .289, when Major League Baseball changed his infield single against the Yankees on Tuesday to an error on STARLIN CASTRO . … TERRY COLLINS said JOSE REYES (left oblique strain) would take at-bats in a simulated game Monday before beginning a rehabilitation assignment on Tuesday. With ASDRUBAL CABRERA (strained left knee) nowhere close to returning, Reyes will get plenty of work at shortstop, Collins said. … ZACK WHEELER threw 17 pitches and gave up one unearned run in a rain-shortened, one-inning rehabilitation start for Class A St. Lucie, the next step in his delayed return.

Mets
Logan Verrett
Baseball
Detroit Tigers
Terry L Collins