Mets G.M. Suggests Big Move at Trade Deadline Is Unlikely

Abstract: If television cameras had been in the office of Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson around last season’s nonwaiver trade deadline, viewership could have brought in record ratings. On July 29, the Mets were ready to trade Wilmer Flores and Zack Wheeler to the Milwaukee Brewers for Carlos Gomez — or so it was thought — but the deal fell through. Flores, the Mets’ young shortstop, was brought to tears on the field during the game that night against the San Diego Padres, believing that he was leaving the only organization he had known, which he signed with as a 16-year-old in Venezuela. Two days later, Alderson kept up the drama, making a last-minute trade with the Detroit Tigers for Yoenis Cespedes, an acquisition that helped the Mets reach the World Series and continues to pay benefits. On Monday, one week before this year’s nonwaiver trade deadline, Alderson did not expect such a flurry of action. “This is the entertainment business,” Alderson said. “We talk about steak and sizzle, and I enjoy sizzle as much as anybody. Those are the fun aspects of the job.” He added, “But at the same time you have to be realistic about where one can improve and what makes sense both short term and long term. Last year worked out really well. Deals at the deadline don’t always work out that way. In fact, that was a fairly unique combination of events.” The most realistic move, Alderson said, is for the Mets to add another bullpen arm, if they acquire anyone. Although Alderson said the Mets were always looking to upgrade the entire roster, another middle reliever is currently the most cost-effective move. “For whatever reason, this year clubs keep asking for the top tier of our system,” Alderson said, “and we’re simply not going to move players that we think are going to have a significant role for us in the somewhat near future for the possibility of getting the kind of unique return that we got last year.” Alderson’s remarks would seem to contradict recent reports that the Mets had offered catcher Travis d’Arnaud to the Milwaukee Brewers for the All-Star catcher Jonathan Lucroy. While Alderson said the team “would consider anything,” he did not lend credence to any trade chatter. “I understand there have been some rumors regarding a couple of players, and if I’m thinking of the same rumors you’re thinking of, that rumor was dead on arrival,” Alderson said when asked if he would consider trading a younger player on the major league roster instead of top prospects. The Mets may also be less inclined to make a big move this season because of their depth, although the timetable for the return of Wheeler and first baseman Lucas Duda is uncertain. Alderson said there was no set date for the return of Duda, who has a stress fracture in his lower back. Wheeler, who had Tommy John surgery in March 2015, is scheduled to throw to batters this week. His return might be even more vital with the loss of Matt Harvey to season-ending surgery. “If I had to guess, I’d say end of August, but again, that’s a little bit speculative as well,” Alderson said about Wheeler. A week from now, the Mets may not look much different. Improvement from within could be the biggest key to another postseason run. “I have a lot of confidence in the team that we have,” Alderson said, “and there’s no reason that we can’t be a little bit better for the rest of the season than we have been so far. And if we are a little bit better, we’ll be in good shape.” INSIDE PITCH Monday’s scheduled game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Citi Field was postponed because of rain. The teams will play a single-admission doubleheader on Tuesday, starting at 4:10 p.m., with the second game scheduled to begin approximately 30 minutes after the first’s conclusion. Noah Syndergaard will start Game 1 against Carlos Martinez . Bartolo Colon will start Game 2 against Jaime Garcia .


Women in Tech Band Together to Track Diversity, After Hours

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Ellen Pao spent the last few years spotlighting the technology industry’s lack of diversity, in court and beyond. Erica Baker caused a stir at Google when she started a spreadsheet last year for employees to share their salaries, highlighting the pay disparities between those of different genders doing the same job. Laura I. Gómez founded a start-up focused on improving diversity in the hiring process. Now the three — along with five other prominent Silicon Valley women from companies including Pinterest, Stripe and Slack — are starting an effort to collect and share data to help diversify the rank-and-file employees who make up tech companies. The nonprofit venture, called Project Include , was unveiled on Tuesday. “The standard mantra for every company on diversity statistics is, ‘We’re not doing well, but we’re working on it,’” said Ms. Pao, a former venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who sued the firm for accusations of gender discrimination and lost . “People don’t learn anything from that. Can you tell us what are you actually doing?” The group’s push is one of the more visible diversity efforts to come from women in Silicon Valley as tech companies grapple with criticism over the makeup of their work forces, which skew white and male. Over the last few years, tech entrepreneurs like Kimberly Bryant of Black Girls Code and Laura Weidman Powers of Code 2040 have promoted the inclusion of young women and minorities in early computer science education programs with their start-ups. Project Include stands out because of the number of well-known tech women in the group who have championed diversity and are now banding together. Ms. Pao, for one, was in the headlines last year for her court case against Kleiner Perkins, as well as her ouster as interim chief executive of Reddit, the online message board. Tracy Chou, a software engineer at Pinterest who is also a founding member of Project Include, has been one of the most vocal engineers concerning the lack of female peers. Project Include’s other founders are Freada Kapor Klein, a partner at the Kapor Center and a longtime proponent of inclusion in tech, Susan Wu of the mobile payments start-up Stripe, Y-Vonne Hutchinson of the diversity consulting firm ReadySet and Bethanye McKinney Blount, a former executive at Reddit. All of them are working on Project Include outside of their respective workplaces, on their own time. As part of Project Include, the group plans to extract commitments from tech companies to track the diversity of their work forces over time and eventually share that data with other start-ups. The effort will focus on start-ups that employ 25 to 1,000 workers, in the hope of spurring the companies to think about equality sooner rather than later. The project will also ask for participation from venture capital firms that advise and mentor the start-ups. Project Include aims to have 18 companies as part of its first cohort; a few have already signed up. The group will meet regularly for seven months to define and track specific metrics. At the end of that period, the group will publish an anonymized set of results to show the progress — or lack thereof — that the start-ups have made around diversity. “If companies start early with diversity and inclusion, they don’t have to bolt it on later, which is much harder,” said Ms. Baker, the former Google engineer, who now works at Slack, a workplace collaboration software start-up. The group’s push is intended to cut through tech’s slow pace of change on diversity. Large companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, have openly admitted their failings in creating diverse work forces, and some have started programs to move the needle. But that has not seemed to spur much movement in views on the issue. In December, for instance, Michael Moritz, a partner at the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, made headlines when he said in an interview that his firm — which had no female investment partners in the United States — would focus on hiring women but would not “lower its standards” to do so. He also said the firm was blind to gender and race. “It is this incredibly self-serving mythology that we are the best and the brightest, and that the best ideas rise to the top and will get funded,” said Ms. Kapor Klein, noting there is plenty of data to show that minority access to tech programs and networks is worse than that of white males. “Despite an avalanche of rigorous data to the contrary, the belief in pure meritocracy persists.” Many of the women involved in Project Include were already leading diversity efforts before they decided to collaborate. Last year, for example, Ms. Pao became something of a magnet for women who were disenfranchised with inequality issues in tech after her case against Kleiner Perkins. So when Ms. Pao had the seeds of the idea for what would become Project Include, it was easy to find others to join forces. She reached out over Twitter’s private message system to Ms. Baker, who is known in Silicon Valley for raising awareness around diversity issues. Ms. Baker in turn introduced Ms. Pao to Ms. Hutchinson; Ms. Pao already knew Ms. Blount through their time working together at Reddit. Eventually, over a dinner, they settled on a group of eight, with a number of outside supporters. Kate Mitchell, managing director at the venture capital firm Scale Venture Partners and a co-chairwoman of a National Venture Capital Association task force on diversity, said her group was working with Project Include because of its tech-centric, start-up approach to sharing data and information with other participants. “It’s taking a page out of open-source software,” Ms. Mitchell said. “You measure, you try things, you iterate and then you build on top of each other’s ideas and make your companies even better.” The hope, over time, is for members of Project Include to form a community open to discussing inclusion issues among one another. “A lot of these conversations are very uncomfortable for people,” Ms. Pao said. “These are exactly the types of uncomfortable conversations that we need to have.”

Ellen Pao
Erica Baker
Laura I. Gómez
Silicon Valley
Project Include
Discrimination
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Women and Girls


Google's Shadow Payroll Is Not Such a Secret Anymore

Abstract: FEELING depressed because you missed out on Google's stock bonanza? Not to worry. Just get on the company's shadow payroll. Hundreds of thousands of people have essentially done just that by starting blogs, forums or other informational sites and getting paid for posting ads on Google's behalf. And while the money they earn might not be enough for them to buy, say, a share of Google's stock, such revenues are growing. The trickle-down effect from Google does not stop at fledgling entrepreneurs. A growing number of rank-and-file contributors to Web sites are also profiting. Consider Digital Point Solutions, a software company in San Diego, which publishes an online forum (http://forums.digitalpoint.com) frequented by about 15,000 users. Any one of them who starts a new forum discussion topic receives half of the advertising revenue paid to the site by Google for ads on the front page of that topic section. (The discussion's creator then splits his share with others who post messages.) Google does not actually advertise on the Digital Point site. Rather, through Google's AdSense program, it places ads on the forum, similar to the ads that appear next to search results on Google.com. Google scans the information on the forum's pages, then posts related ads. If the discussion is about computer hardware, for instance, ads for DVD drives might appear. Google pays Digital Point about $10,000 a month, depending on how many people view or click on those ads, said Shawn D. Hogan, the owner and chief technology officer of Digital Point. Mr. Hogan said he started the revenue-sharing approach in 2004 "as kind of a marketing gimmick." "But everyone seemed to think it was a cool idea," he said. "I saw a lot of other sites doing the same thing maybe six months later." Mr. Hogan said it was difficult to say whether the financial incentives had made the forum's participants more active, because its growth rate was about the same before and after it started paying users. Either way, the payoff is meager. "In the best-case scenario, someone might make $50 a month, so they're definitely not quitting their jobs to do this," he said. "But it might be enough to buy a nice dinner." One area of concern, Mr. Hogan said, was whether the forum's participants would skew their postings to earn more money. For instance, since advertisers in certain categories, like sexual-performance drugs, pay much more to place their ads on Google and its affiliated sites, you might expect technology discussions to randomly veer in that direction. "But that hasn't happened, thankfully," Mr. Hogan said. "Probably because there isn't that much revenue in it for them." That could change, as more marketers adopt this approach, which Yahoo also offers. Google's advertising network sales, which come largely from its AdSense advertisers, reached $675 million in the third quarter of 2005, the last period for which Google reported results. That figure was up 76 percent from a year earlier. AdSense generates slightly less revenue than Google's primary revenue engine, its search Web sites, which sold about $885 million worth of ads in the third quarter of 2005, a 115 percent jump from the previous year. Google.com and the company's foreign search sites contribute more to Google's bottom line than AdSense, because for every dollar the company brings in through AdSense and other places that distribute its ads, it pays roughly 78.5 cents back to sites like Digital Point that display the ads. But in some ways, search advertising has a more limited horizon, since the number of advertisements a company can display is limited by the number of searches its users conduct. Internet users continue to increase their reliance on search sites, and Google in particular, but the rate of growth is in the single digits. By contrast, millions of small sites have not yet signed up for Google's AdSense program, which was introduced in 2002. AdSense quickly gained a following among bigger companies with an online presence, like the Weather Channel, as a way to supplement their advertising deals and populate more obscure pages with paid ads. But as more small sites use the Internet to post photos, journals and other material, the number of pages that can carry new Google ads is growing quickly. That's what makes AdSense one of Google's most compelling long-term bets, said Charlene Li, an online media analyst with Forrester Research. "I've called Google the one-trick pony for a long time, and for the most part they still are," Ms. Li said. "But they really see AdSense as the next frontier." To that end, the company has refined the program significantly, with various features intended to attract more advertisers and publishers. For instance, as of late last year anyone who created a blog with Google's Blogger service was automatically enrolled in the AdSense program. "Before that, it was quite painful to figure out," said Gokul Rajaram, the business product manager for AdSense, "so over the last few months we've seen a sharp uptick in bloggers using AdSense." For AdSense advertisers, some of the more significant improvements began last June, when Google started allowing marketers to select vast groups of sites on which to advertise, as Paramount Pictures did last year when it chose 100 small sites with hip-hop-oriented content to promote its movie "Hustle & Flow." Late last year, Google also gave advertisers the ability to display graphical ads on sites within the AdSense network of publishers, as well as the ability to pay different (typically lower) prices for AdSense ads than those available on Google.com. The company will not disclose how many advertisers have joined the program -- "thousands" is all it says -- but analysts said marketers were quickly warming to it, thanks in part to the recent upgrades. More advertisers, of course, mean more money for publishers, many of whom would simply not publish if it were not for AdSense, Ms. Li of Forrester said. "Before, if I wanted to put advertising on my site, I'd have to hire ad salespeople, process orders -- there's no way," she said. "This has taken away a huge barrier in publishing and made it viable for people to make a couple dollars, or thousands of dollars."

DIGITAL POINT SOLUTIONS
ADVERTISING
GOOGLE INC
HOGAN SHAWN
COMPUTER SOFTWARE
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET


Report Details Corruption Cases Involving U.N. Purchasing

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — A task force established to ferret out corruption in United Nations purchasing practices will report the details of five new cases involving some $20 million in contracts to the General Assembly on Thursday, as well as preliminary details of eight other inquiries. The report, covering July 2007 to July 2008, includes several allegations of United Nations employees’ steering contracts to close relatives or to vendors involved in kickback schemes. The report from the Procurement Task Force, leaving out some details of individuals still under investigation, was released several weeks ago, just three months before the group’s mandate from the General Assembly was scheduled to run out at the end of December. The task force is investigating some 50 cases involving fraud or corruption, which will be transferred to the investigations division in the internal oversight office of the United Nations. The task force has been viewed with suspicion by some United Nations members since it was formed in January 2006, after the oil-for-food scandal involving kickbacks in the program under which Iraq was allowed to sell oil and to buy humanitarian goods. The task force report said that 22 vendors had been sanctioned by the United Nations during its years in operation and that it had identified more than 20 fraud and corruption schemes involved in some $630 million in contracts. But the report and two responses from the United Nations underscore the tension between the Secretariat building and the task force, which is run by Robert Appleton, a former assistant United States attorney in Connecticut, and has 19 investigators of diverse nationalities. The task force says the United Nations has not done enough to screen vendors and has allowed corrupt individuals to continue getting contracts after changing companies’ names. It also criticizes the organization for not pursuing millions of dollars in lost revenue with any zeal. “It is a matter of concern that the task force’s recommendations for recovery actions — supported by documentary evidence of fraud, corruption and misappropriation of funds resulting in losses and damages — have not been vigorously pursued,” the report says. Senior United Nations officials responded that often the task force did not provide the detail needed to pursue the individuals. In its official response to the report, the Secretariat said the task force overstepped its authority in recommending whom and what to pursue. The response, issued by the office of Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general, said “a recommendation or finding of severe performance failings does not necessarily constitute misconduct or bind the discretion of the secretary general.” A clash of cultures is also evident, with the task force calling any fraud a poor reflection on the United Nations. But a review by the United Nations Board of Auditors suggested that the damage done was unclear because the task force “was only able to identify clear losses of $25 million.” The main task force report and the secretary general’s response were first reported in The Washington Post on Tuesday. The reports were released without fanfare more than two weeks ago, quietly placed on public display racks among a blizzard of the organization’s documents. In one case in Kenya investigated by the task force, an operations assistant involved in buying supplies via the United Nations Office for Project Services steered contracts to various companies, including one called Depasse Logistics, owned by her husband, according to the full investigation report posted on the American Embassy Web site. The value of the contracts awarded amounted to $800,000. The woman and another employee were dismissed, and 12 companies were banned from doing business with the United Nations.

United Nations
Ethics
Frauds and Swindling
International Relations


Straight Talk, or Unhelpful Scolding?

Abstract: NEW YORK — Late last month, my colleague Kate Galbraith had an opportunity to chat with Ted Kulongoski, a former labor lawyer and now the governor of Oregon — a state in the Northwest United States known for its left-leaning politics and environmentally friendly disposition. As Kate noted last week on the Green Inc. blog, Mr. Kulongoski has been a strong supporter of renewable energy development, luring a host of foreign companies to do business in his state — from solar manufacturers like SolarWorld of Germany and Sanyo of Japan, to wind companies like Vestas, based in Denmark, and Iberdrola of Spain. But it was Mr. Kulongoski’s accompanying thoughts on American lifestyles — and the degree to which they need to be adjusted in the face of global warming, energy insecurity and other challenges that lay before the country and the planet — that seemed to capture the fascination (and raise the ire) of many of our readers. “Other than taxes,” Mr. Kulongoski said, “the hardest thing I find to talk with my constituents and my citizens about is about changing lifestyles.” It was a wide-ranging critique, but the gist of it was this: Combating climate change and making the transition to renewable energy sources will be expensive, and Americans need to acknowledge and accept that. Carbon caps and emissions trading projects, too, will be onerous for some businesses, but they must be explored (Mr. Kulongoski has proposed such a project for his state). And finally, Americans must recognize that they represent just 5 percent of the globe’s population and yet consume 25 percent to 30 percent of its resources. That, Mr. Kulongoski said — in a bit of political heresy — is unsustainable. Americans, with the help of leaders who refuse to level with them, he suggested, have been coddled into thinking otherwise. “We’ve wasted 8 to 10 years in not engaging our citizens,” Mr. Kulongoski said, “and that’s why Europe is so far ahead of us.” His comments were recycled around the Web — from green advocacy sites like Grist.org, to the Drudge Report, a rightist news aggregator. Reader reaction at Green Inc. ran the gamut, though most who commented were clearly displeased. “Well thankfully there is evidence that a politician finally recognizes the real issue and what becoming a sustainable society truly entails,” wrote one reader, representing the minority of those who commented. But another, whose thoughts echoed most of the sentiments in our inbox, said, “I think the governor should mind his business, and I’ll mind mine.” Another reader moaned, “Surely he could have a better comparison than Europe.” And another, in what seemed to cut right to the beating heart of America’s conservation/consumption paradox, said, “Perhaps Mrs. Obama can lead the charge in her $540 sneakers” — a reference to the first lady’s widely reported footwear choice while donating time at a local food bank last month. David Roberts, a staff writer at Grist.org, took the governor to task. Lifestyles, he said, are always evolving — gradually — with changes in technology, new modes of communication and so forth. Intimating that climate change will require abrupt and perhaps distressing lifestyle adjustments among Americans is, he said, counterproductive. “People fear losing what they’ve got,” he wrote. “It’s fine to acknowledge that shifting to a low-carbon economy will involve big changes, but there’s no reason to feed the fear that those changes will be disruptive and unpleasant. They needn’t be.” I contacted Mr. Kulongoski last week to follow up on some of the criticism, and to see if he had any clarifying thoughts. But the governor held the line. Americans, he said, are acculturated to believing that “more is best.” It’s built into the economy, Mr. Kulongoski said. “It’s about the Joneses next door: if they’ve got it, I want it — and a bigger one.” “But at some point,” he said, “you have to be candid with the public and say ‘Why do two people need a 3,000-square-foot house?”’ the equivalent of 280 square meters. He also reiterated that making alternative energy choices — that is, investing in renewable sources like wind and solar, or exploring nuclear energy and cleaner coal power production — have attendant costs that politicians must be frank about and that taxpayers must be willing to support. The governor’s point of comparison — Europe — generated a number of hoots from the audience at Green Inc. “Message to the governor,” wrote one reader. “We are not Europe, and we don’t want to be like Europe.” Several readers pointed out that the European Union’s emissions trading system has proved unwieldy and volatile, with prices in recent months plummeting. It has also been touched by scandal as companies profited from freely distributed emissions permits that they did not need and subsequently sold. And as my colleague James Kanter reported last week, experts continue to debate whether the system has decreased greenhouse gas emissions at all. For all of that, however, there is no question that the E.U. is much farther ahead in its development of the wind and solar industries. And surveys have shown European consumers to be, on the whole, more energy-conscious and waste-averse. A poll conducted by the public relations firm Porter Novelli and the Natural Marketing Institute in 2007, for example, found that Europeans were 25 percent more likely to recycle, and more than 32 percent more likely to purchase a product with an environmentally friendly seal or certification. The pollsters acknowledged that these attitudes were almost certainly cultivated by differences in tax structures, the availability of government subsidies and stricter environmental laws. Speaking to the Web magazine LiveScience, a spokeswoman for the Natural Marketing Institute suggested that, in addition to shaping individual behavior, tougher governance on environmental issues and stricter codes for things like recycling and appliance efficiency in Europe had “raised awareness of environmental issues in a way that just hasn’t happened” in the United States. Which seems to be why Mr. Kulongoski is calling for some frank discussion between Americans and their leaders. That’s easier said than done. What, after all, would the governor say to a constituent who balks at supporting renewable investments if it means his utility bill will be higher? “My answer is, I know initially that this is a burden,” Mr. Kulongoski said, “but it will end up making your life, and your children’s lives, and your grandchildren’s lives, better.” Of course, the governor acknowledged that such straight talk doesn’t sit well with all voters. “That’s how you get unelected,” he said.


Dinosaur Ancestors’ Oldest Fossils Are Found in Poland

Abstract: The earliest known relatives of dinosaurs were the size of a house cat, walked on four legs and left footprints in the quarries in Poland. The tracks, described in a report published Wednesday by the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, push back the first appearance of this dinosaur lineage to about 250 million years ago. “They are the oldest fossils of the dinosaur lineage of any type anywhere in the world,” said Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student at Columbia University and lead author of the journal article. The findings indicate that dinosaurs, which died out in a meteor impact 65 million years ago, originally arose to fill ecological niches opened by an earlier, even greater mass extinction. “It’s definitely exciting,” said Sterling Nesbitt, a researcher at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. Dr. Nesbitt said that it was often hard to draw convincing conclusions about animals just from their footprints, but that Mr. Brusatte and his colleagues “put the best argument that anyone has ever put forth about early dinosaur tracks.” He added, “And I think they’re right.” So far, no dinosaur bones have been found in the rocks, but “the possibilities are really exciting,” Mr. Brusatte said. The earliest known bone fossils of an animal that fulfilled all of the criteria to be designated a true dinosaur date from about 230 million years ago. But dinosaurs were preceded by ancestors, including the ones that left the Polish footprints, that had similar characteristics and behavior. “Anatomically, for all intents and purposes, it was a dinosaur,” Mr. Brusatte said. “If you saw this thing, you would call it a dinosaur.” The dinosaur relatives were far less imposing than tyrannosaurs, triceratops and sauropods. But the dinosaurlike animals left distinctive, albeit small, dinosaurlike prints — three prominent middle digits bunched together — in the muddy plains. The animals had an unusual gait. As they walked, the back feet stepped in front of the shorter front legs. For these earlier dinosaur cousins, scientists had previously dug up bones dating from 242 million years ago and had found footprints from about 247 million years ago. The new footprints, uncovered over the past decade by Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki of the University of Warsaw at three quarries in the Holy Cross Mountains of central Poland, push back the lineage to within a couple of million years of the Permian-Triassic boundary , the largest extinction in Earth’s history. “In geological terms, we now have the dinosaur lineage a blink of an eye after this extinction,” Mr. Brusatte said. At the two older sites, evidence indicated that the dinosaur relatives all walked on four legs. But at a third site, dated at 246 million years ago, it appears the animals diversified to include larger ones that walked on two legs. Nonetheless, they were all rare. Only 2 percent to 3 percent of the footprints at the sites were left by the dinosaur cousins, which were far outnumbered by lizards, amphibians and crocodilian reptiles. Only after another extinction 200 million years ago , which largely cleared out the crocodilians, did the age of dinosaurs begin.

Dinosaurs
Fossils
Paleontology
Science and Technology


Pearson in Talks to Sell Its Stake in the Economist Group

Abstract: Pearson, the British education company, said on Saturday that it was in discussions to sell its 50 percent stake in the Economist Group, the publisher of The Economist. “Pearson confirms it is in discussions with the Economist Group board and trustees regarding the potential sale of our 50 percent share in the group,” it said in a statement. “There is no certainty that this process will lead to a transaction.” Pearson also owns the Financial Times, but announced late last week , after releasing a similar statement, that it had reached a deal to sell the newspaper to the Japanese company Nikkei for $1.3 billion. It said that it wanted to focus on its core education business. The discussions involving The Economist, The Financial Times reported, are focused on other shareholders of the group, including wealthy families like the Schroders, the Cadburys and the Agnellis. Exor, the Agnelli family’s Italian holding company and a major shareholder in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, is in talks with Pearson to raise its 4.72 percent stake in The Economist Group, according to several news reports. The German media company Axel Springer and the financial information company Bloomberg, which came close to buying The Financial Times, were also approached, the newspaper reported. But they declined to pursue the purchase because The Economist is held in a trust that guarantees “the continued independence of the ownership of the company and the editorial independence of The Economist,” according to its website. The Pearson shares do not allow control. The Financial Times reported that Pearson’s stake was worth more than $600 million, and that the Economist Group, which also includes CQ Roll Call, had operating profit of about $90 million last year — more than double the profit of The Financial Times. Pearson also owns 47 percent of the publisher Penguin Random House. When asked, in the wake of the Financial Times sale this week, whether it would also seek to sell that stake, Pearson’s chief executive declined to comment.

Pearson
The Economist
Economist Group
Magazine


Bloomberg Strikes Deal to Redevelop Land Near Citi Field

Abstract: In a sudden departure from its long-held plans, the Bloomberg administration has struck a deal with a developer and the owners of the Mets to build a 1.4-million-square-foot mall and parking garage in Queens next to Citi Field , as well as a 200-room hotel and stores on the other side of the stadium. The administration planned to hold a news conference next week to announce the new proposal, but word has been circulating in real estate circles and among local elected officials. City officials and the developers — a joint venture of Related Companies and Sterling Equities, a real estate company owned by Fred Wilpon and Saul B. Katz, who also own the Mets and Citi Field — declined to comment. But according to executives with direct knowledge of the proposal, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, the developer would eventually build a mix of housing, shops and possibly office space just east of the stadium in Willets Point, a shambling, 62-acre district of junk yards and auto repair shops, possibly as late as 2025. Before any of that can happen, however, the latest proposal requires a new environmental review , public hearings and a potentially grueling trip through the city’s public review process. The developer must also clean a 20-acre stretch of the heavily polluted Willets Point, which could cost $40 million or more. It may be years before anything is built. “They’re back to square one,” said Michael Rikon, a lawyer representing Willets Point property owners opposed to the use of eminent domain to gain control of the site. “You’re talking about a three-year process, at best.” Until recently, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had been on the verge of announcing the start of one of the signature developments of his administration: turning the often-waterlogged Willets Point area into New York City ’s “next great neighborhood.” Initial plans called for a 680,000-square-foot mall, a hotel and up to 400 apartments. But after lengthy negotiations over the last year with a series of four developers, city officials learned that most of the candidates could not meet the project requirements without large subsidies and revised zoning. The Willets Point site is complicated and requires expensive upfront costs, including cleansing the area of waste and raising the level of the land, most of which is below the flood plain, by as much as seven feet. In addition, the area is not very appealing when it comes to attracting new development. Citi Field sits amid an ocean of parking lots, and Willets Point is a collection of sheds and cinder block garages. According to the executives, Related Companies joined forces with Sterling Equities to come up with a new proposal that embraced Citi Field. Proponents argue that the city will get what it had always planned at Willets Point, but the timeline and sequencing will be different. Under its deal with the city, the developers must clean a 20-acre section of Willets Point and build a 10-story hotel and two retail strips along 126th Street, on the east side of Citi Field, before Related and Sterling can begin the potentially lucrative mall and garage on the west side of the stadium. Some of the parking areas would be converted to green space that the community can use whenever the Mets do not have a game.

Sterling Equities
New York City
Area Planning and Renewal
Willets Point (NYC)
Citi Field (NYC)
Related Cos
Real Estate (Commercial)


A Long Wait for a Last Moment With Mandela

Abstract: PRETORIA, South Africa — Patience Mashele put on her black, gold and green shirt, hat and skirt and left her house before dawn. She did not want to be late. It was time to say goodbye. A day after the world’s leaders, celebrities and royalty gathered in a stadium to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela in a pomp-filled ceremony, Wednesday was the people’s turn. They came by the thousands, black and white, frail and spry, from gated golf estates and tin-shack squatter camps, waiting to pay their final respects to the last and most beloved of a generation of leaders who liberated South Africa from apartheid. The lines, which snaked through the capital for miles, were reminiscent of the endless queues that South Africans endured in 1994 to vote for Mr. Mandela’s African National Congress in the nation’s first fully democratic elections. At the time, people stood in lines, some miles long, to cast their ballots at the beginning of a hopeful new era. Now, they lined up to bid farewell, not just to a man, but for many, to that early period of optimism he represented. “For our freedom he spent 27 years in prison,” Ms. Mashele said six hours into her sun-blasted wait to see the body of Mr. Mandela. “He gave me my freedom. I can wait a little longer.” Mr. Mandela was lying in state on Wednesday below the sweeping facade of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of official power where he was sworn in 19 years ago as South Africa’s first black president. With his head and shoulders visible under a glass cover, and his body dressed in a brown shirt, his face — unmistakable to many around the world since his release from prison in 1990 — seemed serene. “He looked peaceful,” Louisa Mogale, 24, said after filing past the coffin. “Although he lived for 95 years and I only saw him for two seconds, I’m grateful because it’s the first time and the last time I saw him.” The sheer number of South Africans hoping to catch a glimpse of the body appeared to have overwhelmed the authorities, with thousands lined up at screening sites around the city to board buses to the Union Buildings. At the University of Pretoria sports facilities, a single white tent the size of a cottage was intended to serve a line that wound for hundreds of yards around the campus. Kyle Garth, 39, from Cincinnati, said he held out little hope that the people at the back of the line would be able to see Mr. Mandela. He, his South African wife and their two children had already been waiting for over five hours and still had not made it into the tent. But his spirits remained high. “The wait is definitely worth it to me,” Mr. Garth said. Without Mr. Mandela and the end of apartheid restrictions, he said, his wife never could have left South Africa and they never would have met. While the day’s transportation might be disorganized, he added, inching forward as the line shuffled on a bit, “this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Mr. Mandela’s body is lying in state for three days before his funeral on Sunday, the latest solemn moment in the nation’s mourning for its former president and towering moral authority. Compared with the sometimes rambunctious national ceremony for Mr. Mandela on Tuesday in Soweto, where many in the crowd booed and hooted at President Jacob Zuma, the mood was more muted, as the reality of his death finally settled in, and the celebration of his life turned to grief at the loss. Mr. Zuma was among the first mourners to view the coffin along with family members, including Mr. Mandela’s widow, Graça Machel, and his former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who were dabbing at their eyes with white handkerchiefs. On the esplanade of the pale stone Union Buildings, a military honor guard formed as the coffin arrived under bright skies — a marked contrast to the rain that drenched the Soweto ceremony. Mandla Mandela, Mr. Mandela’s grandson, led family mourners as a military band played the national anthem, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika,” or “God Bless Africa.” “As a black person, I couldn’t even have gone in there,” said Happy Sebothoma, 35, gesturing at the imposing Union Buildings and crediting Mr. Mandela with the changes that made a better life possible for him. As mourners walked across the vast lawn of the Union Buildings, past an equestrian statue of Louis Botha, a former general and prime minister, one man pointed at the figure and shouted, “That should be Mandela!” Image South Africans waited in the hot sun for hours on Wednesday to see Nelson Mandela’s body in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times Mr. Mandela’s coffin is being transported for three successive mornings from a military mortuary to the Union Buildings, and the body will be flown to the Eastern Cape for the state funeral in Mr. Mandela’s childhood village, Qunu. On its way to the Union Buildings, the hearse carrying the coffin, escorted by a phalanx of police motorcycles, passed knots of well-wishers on the streets. Some people bowed their heads. Others raised their fists in the militant salute Mr. Mandela favored. Women gathered to sing his praises. As has often been the case in the days since Mr. Mandela died, the crowd was festive and joyous, singing and waving small South African flags. Then the hearse — a black Mercedes-Benz van with glass side panels — drove by, the coffin clearly visible. It was as if the procession often drew the air along with it, leaving behind silence and a sense of finality. “I think it sunk in that he was really gone when you saw the casket inside,” said Patricia Ramahanelo, 29, who works in a government records office here. “You think he’s there, but immediately when you see the coffin it’s done. He’s gone. He’s no more.” Ms. Ramahanelo said she was not sure she could bring herself to view the body. “I never saw him alive,” she said. “I’m not sure I can see him for the first time. ... ” Her words trailed off. For the public, the lying-in-state was tightly controlled, with mourners shuttled in aboard hot and packed buses. As Ms. Mashele, 41, waited to board one of those buses, she recounted the three times she had seen Mr. Mandela while he lived. The first was in 1990, after his release from prison. She had not yet been born when he was sent to prison by the apartheid regime for his part in the armed struggle to liberate South Africa. Possessing his picture was illegal when she was growing up. No one knew what he would look like when he emerged, she said. Yet he was a touchstone in her life. “I ran away from my parents’ house and went to Soweto to see him,” she said with a giggle at her youthful enthusiasm. “I knew I had to see him in the flesh.” The next time was in 1994, when she joined the throng of thousands to watch him be sworn in at the Union Buildings. “It was everything we had dreamed of, all those years,” she said. “Our president, Nelson Mandela, at the Union Buildings. It was history.” The last time she saw him alive was at the funeral of his son, Makgatho, who died of AIDS in 2005. She traveled to Mr. Mandela’s hometown, Qunu, to pay her respects. “It was a sorrowful day,” Ms. Mashele said. “I wanted to be there to mourn with him.” Finally, on Wednesday, her bus slowly rumbled toward the Union Buildings, with their sweeping, winged facade dominating the leafy bowl of the capital below. It has been the seat of power since it was built, an emblem of white authority until the country’s first democratic elections brought Mr. Mandela to power. The building has also been the target of protests, most notably in 1956 when thousands of women converged on it in a demonstration against the pass laws — a cornerstone of apartheid. Ms. Mashele said that as a child she feared the place. But now, it is a symbol of South Africa’s democracy. As she approached the coffin, Ms. Mashele tensed. “I don’t know if I am ready,” she whispered. “You can do it, my sister,” a police officer said, gently urging her on. She filed past the coffin, which was surrounded by lilies, orchids and a rare aloe from Mr. Mandela’s native Eastern Cape. “Hamba kahle,” Ms. Mashele said, wiping tears from her cheeks. The Zulu phrase, endlessly repeated in the last few days, means “go well.”


Woman in Punjab Is Killed After Being Molested on Bus

Abstract: NEW DELHI — A young woman traveling in Punjab on Wednesday evening was killed after she and her mother were molested and thrown from a private bus by a group of men, the mother said. Four men were arrested on Thursday in connection with the case: the driver and conductor of the bus and two other employees of the bus line. They were variously charged by the police in the Moga district with murder, attempted murder, molestation and conspiracy, as well as violating a law relating to crimes committed against members of India’s lower castes, to which the two women belonged. The young woman sustained a head injury and died immediately, according to a police constable in the district, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. The constable said the mother was taken to a hospital for treatment. The company that operated the bus is owned at least in part by the family of Parkash Singh Badal, the chief minister of Punjab state, according to local news media reports. Mr. Badal’s son, Sukhbir, is his deputy chief minister, and his daughter-in-law, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, is a minister in the central government. “It is a big incident. It pains me very much,” the elder Mr. Badal told reporters on Thursday. “Unfortunately, the bus is ours. I think it is a big mistake — it is a Himalayan blunder.” Brutal attacks on women using public transportation have repeatedly made headlines in India, most notably in 2012 when a young woman nicknamed Nirbhaya was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi and died of her injuries. Her death prompted fierce protests across the country and demands for improved security for women in public. Lawmakers demanded an impartial investigation of the Punjab attack, citing the connections between the bus company and the family of Mr. Badal, whose regional political party is allied with the national ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Ravneet Singh, a member of Parliament of the opposition Indian National Congress Party, called the episode “Punjab’s Nirbhaya,” according to the Indian news channel NDTV.

Bus
India
Murders and Homicides
Rape
Women and Girls
Punjab India


Bronx Residents Vow to Fight Hefty Rent Increase

Abstract: FOR the past 32 years, Rafael Pimentel and his family have lived in a three-bedroom apartment at 2720 Grand Concourse, a six-story building that sits like a brown brick fortress off East 196th Street. In all that time, said Mr. Pimentel, a 72-year-old from the Dominican Republic, he has never had troubles like those he has had this year, after he received a letter from his landlord notifying him of a hefty rent increase. “They want to get us out and rent the apartment to people who can pay more,” Mr. Pimentel said recently as he sat on a leather recliner in his living room. But he has no intention of leaving. “They will have to kill me here,” he said. “I have no place else to go.” Mr. Pimentel, a retired dietary aide who lives on Social Security and a pension, received a letter in January notifying him of a 16 percent increase in his $992-a-month rent, along with $2,209.90 in retroactive fees. All the tenants of the building, which is rent-stabilized and has 166 units, received similar letters, according to the tenants association. Ellen Selechnik, a partner of 2720 LLC, the company that owns the building, said the rents were increased because of work done to the building’s facade, and were permitted by law to offset the cost of a major capital improvement, or M.C.I., that significantly enhanced the value of the building. In 2004, when another landlord owned the building, a section of the parapet crumbled, seriously injuring a young boy on the street. The landlord was cited by the city with a violation for “failure to maintain exterior building wall” and ordered to fix the facade. Large portions of the facade were replaced. For that work, the current owners applied for the capital improvements rent increase after they bought the building in 2005. The State Division of Housing and Community Renewal approved an increase, and the new owners implemented it this year. As Ms. Selechnik acknowledges, the owners initially overcharged the tenants, raising rents by far more than the 6 percent annual capital improvements increase allowed for rent-stabilized apartments. To fight the increase, the residents formed a tenants association and held a protest outside the landlord’s office in Riverdale, as reported in the local newspaper The Norwood News. The owners have since taken steps to correct the overcharges. Ms. Selechnik said the owners made an honest mistake and blamed the state agency for providing incorrect information on how to implement the increase. But a spokeswoman for the agency said the owners received accurate written instructions. Even with the corrected increase, many tenants say that the work done on the facade constitutes a repair rather than a capital improvement. They have appealed the increase to the state housing agency, and a decision is pending. Although some residents say they have no idea what M.C.I. stands for, the name has taken on a negative meaning in a building where household budgets are generally tight. Cristina Mejia, a 52-year-old Dominican who lives in a seven-room apartment in the building with her mother, her son and her grandson, said the rent increase meant that her family would have less to eat. Standing in her lobby, she reached into a grocery bag and pulled out a two-pound piece of turkey she had just purchased for $5.50. “Look how expensive this is,” she said. “What can we do to fix the M.C.I.?”

Landlords
Renting and Leasing
Rent Control and Stabilization


Charges Weighed in Flag Swap After 2 Say They Did It

Abstract: The police investigation into the flag-swapping stunt on the Brooklyn Bridge had resulted in numerous tips, dozens of leads and even some DNA evidence. All of that was deemed to be significant progress toward an arrest; New York City’s police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said last week that police officials “have a pretty good idea of who was involved.” His aides have cautioned that such investigations can take time, noting that it took almost half a year to make arrests after several daredevils parachuted off 1 World Trade Center last September. Now a pair of German artists have fast-tracked the police investigation, declaring that they were responsible for the Brooklyn Bridge episode on July 22. They said they were the men who the police said climbed the bridge in the predawn hours, dimmed the lights that illuminated the flags on top of the bridge’s two towers — nearly 1,600 feet across from each other — and replaced them with hand-sewn white flags. It was not immediately clear whether the two artists, Mischa Leinkauf and Matthias Wermke, had figured into the New York Police Department’s investigation or whether this was the first that investigators had heard of them. But their claim of responsibility — as well as their claim that they had placed balloons on the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in 2007, again undetected — leaves detectives with plenty to look into. Video The German artists Mischa Leinkauf and Matthias Wermke submitted this video as proof that they hoisted two white flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge earlier this summer. “At a minimum, it’s trespass, but there is a possibility you could charge burglary,” said Deputy Commissioner Stephen P. Davis, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. “If you go into a fenced-in area for the purpose of committing a crime, that legally constitutes a burglary.” “And keep in mind they stole the flags,” Mr. Davis added, referring to the two American flags, which the artists claimed they had ceremonially folded “following the United States flag code.” Mr. Davis also said a charge of reckless endangerment was possible. The authorities have so far said little about the leads they have pursued. While the police had obtained a DNA sample from a metal tray that was used to cover lights on the bridge as the flags were removed, an analysis did not reveal a match with any of the samples of criminal offenders on file, a law enforcement official said. Mr. Davis hinted that investigators would look into whether anybody had assisted the two artists. “We are still looking at the totality of who may have been involved in this incident,” he said. Should the authorities seek to press a case against the German artists, their presence outside the United States could well present an obstacle. Mr. Davis said it was premature to discuss any question of extradition. A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Joan Vollero, declined to comment. Mr. Davis said the Police Department had improved security surrounding the bridge since the episode. And Anthony Shorris, the first deputy mayor, said in a statement last month that “multiple agencies are collaborating with the police on further measures that will increase the safety of this and other key facilities.” Following the stunt, many New Yorkers questioned why the officers stationed at the edges of the bridge, usually in parked patrol cars, had failed to notice anything occurring that night. Mr. Davis said those officers were not being relied on to detect intruders or screen bridge traffic; they were there to block the bridge’s entrances should the Police Department ever need to stop traffic from entering in the case of an emergency or a terrorist threat. As for the stolen American flags, Mr. Davis said, “We’d certainly love to have them back.”

Flags
Brooklyn Bridge
Mischa Leinkauf
Matthias Wermke
Art
NYPD


California: Sheriff’s Deputies Brawl

Abstract: Seven Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been suspended from duty after a brawl at a holiday party for employees of Men’s Central Jail. About 100 people had gathered last Friday at the Quiet Cannon banquet hall in Montebello when an argument involving several deputies turned violent around 11:30 p.m. No shots were fired, but at least two people were injured, according to a sheriff’s spokesman, Steve Whitmore. All the deputies involved have been suspended with pay, but the department released little other information.


Anne McLaren, 80, Expert on the Embryo, Is Dead

Abstract: Anne McLaren, a leading developmental biologist and expert on the embryo who in the 1950s conducted experiments on mice that were important in the development of human in vitro fertilization , died on July 7 in Britain. She was 80. Dr. McLaren died in a car accident near London while traveling with her former husband, Donald Michie, an authority on artificial intelligence and robotics. Their deaths were confirmed by the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge University, where Dr. McLaren conducted her fertility research. Throughout her career, Dr. McLaren delved ever deeper into biological as well as ethical questions of reproduction and what she termed “everything involved in getting from one generation to the next.” In 1958, in work at University College London, Dr. McLaren and another researcher, John D. Biggers, were able to remove mouse embryos and hold them in culture for days before implanting them in the uterus of another mouse. The novel transfer between different strains of mice was part of a larger experiment to determine if offspring were formed by genetics alone or if there would be a measurable influence on development within a surrogate mother’s womb. Their findings were startling: the embryos implanted in a surrogate developed with a different number of vertebrae from that found in their genetic mother. Dr. Biggers and Dr. McLaren concluded that there was indeed some unknown effect on the embryos while in the uterus. The work was later useful in refining techniques for human in vitro fertilization. Dr. Michie, who was then a geneticist and Dr. McLaren’s husband, contributed to the research. They divorced in 1959. Dr. McLaren went on to study chimeras in mice, in which individuals have two or more populations of genetically distinct cells. She wrote an influential book on the subject, “Mammalian Chimaeras” (1976). Brigid L. M. Hogan, a professor of cell biology at Duke University and chairwoman of the department of cell biology there, said that Dr. McLaren had employed chimeras to pose fundamental and penetrating biological questions about how an organism’s sex is determined as well as how many cells are needed to form a particular type of bodily tissue. In 2002, for her work in using embryos and chimeras to help explain basic questions of reproduction and growth in mammals, Dr. McLaren was awarded the Japan Prize for developmental biology. She shared the prize with Andrzej K. Tarkowski, a Polish scientist, who also studied mouse embryos. Dr. McLaren’s research led her to examine the reproductive cells, known as germ cells, that make up sperm and egg — how they formed, and how they interacted with surrounding tissue. The work was detailed in another well-received book, “Germ Cells and Soma: A New Look at an Old Problem” (1980). She also became increasingly aware of the ethical concerns attached to biological research and spoke about them on British and European ethics panels, gaining further stature when she became president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from 1993 to 1994. Dr. McLaren argued in favor of pursuing research on adult stem cell lines as well as those derived from human embryos because, she said, “perhaps some diseases may benefit from one and some from the other.” Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren studied zoology as an undergraduate at Oxford. She received her doctorate, also from Oxford, in 1952. She joined the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh in 1959 and conducted her research there until 1974. Dr. McLaren then returned to London, as director of the Medical Research Council’s mammalian development unit. She was elected to the Royal Society in 1975 and became its first female foreign secretary in 1991. Dr. McLaren married Dr. Michie in 1952. She is survived by their son and two daughters. Addressing ethical questions about stem cell research, she wrote in the journal Nature in 2001: “Let a thousand stem cell lines bloom — but let them bloom in full view of all.” Such bloomings, Dr. McLaren continued, would require a critical audience, “so that they can be subject to scientific and ethical review, freely available for research and one day, perhaps, for treating diseases.”

Artificial Intelligence
Reproduction (Biological)
Science and Technology
Genetics and Heredity
McLaren Anne


Company Rarely Placed Clients in Jobs, Former Employees Say

Abstract: While searching for executive-level positions around Minneapolis late last year, Mike Myser soon realized that a single headhunting firm seemed to have most of the listings on CareerBuilder.com : the Arthur Group . Mr. Myser, 48, who had been a vice president for business development at a technology company, quickly sent his résumé to the company. Eventually, he sat down in the Arthur Group’s Minneapolis office with its president, Barry Trimble. He said Mr. Trimble told him that he had the credentials to become a “featured candidate” for the company but that his résumé and interviewing skills badly needed work, which the Arthur Group could provide for a fee. Mr. Myser paid the company nearly $3,000 for various services, which he believed meant the company would push him for all the jobs it seemed to have. But the company, which purported to have connections to all kinds of employers, rarely placed anyone in jobs, according to three people, Edward Guck, Sean Durose and Michael Flom, who worked as salesmen for the company before quitting recently, as well as two other former employees who worked in recruiting and business development for the company and asked to remain anonymous because they feared retaliation. The former employees said the company found jobs for about one person a month, but often none, though dozens of people signed up every month for services, usually paying several thousand dollars. The former workers said the majority of the job listings posted by the Arthur Group on online job boards were no longer active. The employees said that the Arthur Group typically sent out résumés blindly and that it did not have special relationships with legions of employers. In an interview, Mr. Trimble said the Arthur Group was a legitimate recruiting company and furnished a list of clients who he said had been placed in jobs. He said the former employees were not privy to placement information and were inventing their accusations. All of the company’s job listings were real and active, he said. He also said the company’s contract was clear that it did not guarantee interviews or employment and that job candidates did not need to buy services to be considered for jobs. He called disgruntled clients of his company “nutburgers” and “unemployables.” In Mr. Myser’s case, after several months of working with the company and no sign of being considered for any jobs, he demanded his money back. So far, he has had no luck.

CareerBuilder.com
Arthur Group
Careers and Professions
Employment Agencies


Bush and Relatives of Fallen Lean on Each Other

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — Late one night last year, while her husband was an Army scout in Iraq , Melissa Storey sat in the quiet of her bedroom to write President Bush a letter. She wanted him to know “we believed in him.” And after Staff Sgt. Clint Storey, 30, was killed by a roadside bomb, his widow put pen to paper again. “I felt like I needed to let him know I don’t hate him because my husband is dead,” Mrs. Storey said, “that I don’t blame him for Clint dying over there.” The correspondence did not go unnoticed. In May, Mrs. Storey received a surprise telephone call from the White House inviting her to a Memorial Day reception there. As she mingled at the elegant gathering, too nervous to eat, her 5-year-old daughter clutching her dress, her infant son cradled in her arms, a military aide appeared. The president wanted to see her in the Oval Office. The Storeys, of Palmer, Mass., joined a growing list of bereaved families granted a private audience with the commander in chief. As Mr. Bush forges ahead with the war in Iraq, these “families of the fallen,” as the White House calls them, are one constituency he can still count on, a powerful reminder to an unpopular president that even in the face of heartbreaking loss, some still believe he is doing the right thing. Since the war in Afghanistan began six years ago, Mr. Bush has met quietly with more than 450 such families, and is likely to meet more on Sunday, Veterans Day, in Waco, Tex., near his Crawford ranch. Mr. Bush often says he hears their voices — “don’t let my son die in vain,” he quotes them as saying — when making decisions about the war. The White House says families are not asked their political views. Yet war critics wonder just whose voices the president is hearing. Like Melissa Storey, Bill Adams, who has been leading war protests in Lancaster, Pa., wrote Mr. Bush a letter — not to praise the president, but to question the military’s account of the death of his son, Brent. When Mr. Bush held a town-hall-style meeting in Lancaster last month, Mr. Adams asked a friend with a ticket to deliver his missive to the president. It worked, and a top aide to Mr. Bush later called Mr. Adams. But when the president met families of the fallen that day in Lancaster, it did not escape Mr. Adams’s notice that he was not among them. “I can’t help but be left with the suspicion that possibly his advance team screened those families for people who would be sympathetic,” Mr. Adams said. Given the chance, he said, he would have told Mr. Bush “that my son’s life was squandered.” Polls show that two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the war in Iraq; in a recent New York Times/CBS News survey, a majority said Mr. Bush’s troop buildup was having no impact, or making things worse. The White House pays close attention to military families, an important constituency, yet surveys, including a New York Times/CBS News poll in September, have also shown an erosion of support for the war among them. Yet, White House aides and nine families who have met with Mr. Bush said dissent was rare in the sessions. The meetings are deeply private — the administration never reveals names of participants — and just one senior official attends, to take notes. That official, who would speak only anonymously, said the “overwhelming number of families talk about the good their loved one felt they were doing.” This official said families were not screened; when Mr. Bush is traveling, the Pentagon finds local families for him to meet. And not all the meetings are cordial; in 2004, one mother, Cindy Sheehan, met with Mr. Bush and later complained that he had been dismissive of her. She went on to start a political crusade against the war. Other family members have expressed discontent, including Elaine Johnson of Spartanburg, S.C., who said she asked Mr. Bush in her meeting why soldiers like her son, Darius Jennings, were still dying in Iraq. She subsequently began speaking out against the war. Mr. Bush also meets families in connection with Iraq-related ceremonies and speeches, where war supporters make up the audience. John Ellsworth, vice president of Families United, a support group that backs Mr. Bush, has been invited to three White House events in the past seven months; each time, he, his wife, Debbie, and their daughter, Jessica, 12, have met Mr. Bush. Tears are a big part of presidential family meetings; Mr. Ellsworth, whose son, Justin, died in Iraq in 2004, called Mr. Bush “a big softie.” Since the day in September 2001 that he stood on a charred fire truck with a bullhorn in the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center, much has been made of Mr. Bush’s role as comforter in chief. He has consoled victims of floods, wildfires and tornadoes. But in his family meetings, the comforting works both ways. Kevin Graves of the Northern California town of Discovery Bay waited two hours during a South Lawn picnic to tell Mr. Bush “it was an honor for my son to serve under you as commander in chief.” Amy Galvez of Salt Lake City told Mr. Bush that “as a mom who lost a son in this war, it’s easier for me to handle because I believe you are sincere.” God is a frequent topic. Robert Lehmiller, also of Salt Lake City, says the president brought religion into the conversation, telling him, “If you truly believe the Scriptures, you will see your son again.” Sometimes, gifts are exchanged. Maureen and Dan Murphy of Patchogue, N.Y., gave Mr. Bush a gold dog tag engraved with the likeness of their son, Lt. Mike Murphy, moments before Mr. Bush awarded him a posthumous Medal of Honor. They were stunned to see the president loosen his tie and slip the necklace under his shirt. Mr. Bush later remarked to Mr. Murphy that it had gone well “because I had Mike next to my heart.” The senior official said Mr. Bush often remarked that he gained “strength and comfort” from the encounters. But war critics say the sessions amount to little more than echo chambers to reinforce Mr. Bush’s views. Charley Richardson, a founder of Military Families Speak Out, which opposes the war, said about 100 families who had lost loved ones were members of his group, but just one, Ms. Johnson, had met Mr. Bush. “He doesn’t hear the other voices,” Mr. Richardson said. “If all the voices are supporting the war, it’s a powerful emotional addition to the chorus.” The White House knows that if support for the war erodes among military families, Mr. Bush’s ability to pursue his policies in Iraq will suffer. In a recent interview with conservative columnists, Mr. Bush said, “I am constantly trying to get a sense of the military, the people that are out there in the fight. And the question is, Are their families in the fight?” To see to it that they are, Mr. Bush often plays the role of social worker in his family meetings, asking participants about issues like benefits and health care. Mrs. Storey said the president “seemed to get really upset” when she told him she was not getting her survivor’s benefits. Within a week, she said, “the checks began showing up.” It has been nearly six months since their meeting, and sometimes Mrs. Storey still finds it hard to believe that the simple act of writing a letter brought her into the presence of the president of the United States. She still has the photographs from the session, the letters she and Mr. Bush exchanged. Living in the heavily Democratic state of Massachusetts, she said, it is not easy to be a Bush supporter. “When I tell the people I met the president, a lot of people will give that look,” she said. “I say, I don’t care what your opinion is of him. You have your opinion, I have mine, but I’ve met him and he’s a good guy. I cannot say anything negative about that man. He showed us nothing but kindness.”

Iraq
Families and Family Life
United States Armament and Defense
Bush George W


In Major League Baseball, Bench Coaches Assume Growing Role

Abstract: With a profusion of pitching changes, pinch-hitting announcements and fielding realignments, a baseball game can slow interminably in the later innings. But to decision makers in the dugout — those who make strategic adjustments while looking ahead to the next pitch, the next batter, the next inning — it feels as if it is speeding up. Through much of baseball history, the manager was seen as a solitary figure, making decisions without help. These days, though, many are pictured as attached at the hip to their bench coaches, who ponder every possible situation, evaluate statistics, time a pitcher’s speed to the plate, shift infielders, keep role players informed and offer tactical ideas. “They’re not just making suggestions; that’s not really the right word,” said Houston Astros Manager Brad Mills, who was a bench coach in Montreal in 2003 and in Boston from 2004 to 2009. “It’s a constant conversation, a flow.” Referring to his bench coach, Mills said, “Joe Pettini and I got in a cab at 8 o’clock this morning and started talking about our players and who we’re facing, and we will build on that through the game.” No one knows exactly who the first major league bench coach was. New York Giants Manager John McGraw used his former pitching ace Christy Mathewson as assistant manager from 1919 to ’21, but the first modern “bench-riding coach,” as he called it, was very likely Pete Reiser, who served as Walter Alston’s deputy with the Dodgers in 1962. Gary Gillette, who edited the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia , said Reiser told The Sporting News his duties included making suggestions about tactics, relaying signals and checking statistics — all part of the job today. But baseball changes slowly, and Alston was not copied until 1969, when Ted Williams became the manager of the Washington Senators and asked his former teammate Johnny Pesky to be his right-hand man in the dugout. Pesky had broadcasting obligations in Boston, so Williams instead hired Joe Camacho, a former minor league infielder. In 1976, Yankees Manager Billy Martin gave Yogi Berra a dugout seat to share his baseball acumen and act as a liaison because Berra could “communicate very well with the players,” a skill that could elude the explosive Martin. And when Bill Veeck promoted a novice named Tony La Russa as the Chicago White Sox manager in mid-1979, he insisted that a veteran, Loren Babe, serve as the bench coach, a move that La Russa recalled last week “really helped.” Still, the bench coach was an inconsistent presence through the 1980s. According to the Hall of Fame, the first recorded reference to the role in print was The Washington Post’s mention of the Yankees’ hiring of Joe Altobelli for the job in November 1985. The New York Times first mentioned the position in 1989. Larry Bowa did not have a bench coach as a rookie manager in San Diego in 1987 but wishes he had. “It’s a really valuable position,” Bowa, now an analyst for MLB Network, said recently. “It would have been helpful then. The speed of the game is sometimes hard to slow down and a bench coach helps you look ahead and figure out your options. He might say in the sixth inning, ‘Don’t use this lefty now because we may need him for the ninth.’ ” Like Bowa, John Wathan did not have a bench coach when he started managing, in Kansas City in 1987. But eventually, he asked the first base coach Bob Schaefer to sit beside him. “In the transition to the computer age, he was one of the first and he had a lot of ideas,” Wathan said. “I wanted him close by making suggestions.” To Schaefer, the manager focuses so intently on the game as it unfolds that he does not have the luxury of thinking far ahead. “The manager is thinking about right now,” said Schaefer, who believes the bench coach job is especially rewarding in the National League, where teams use more pinch-hitters and double switches. “If you’re down by a run,” he said, “the bench coach might see who is up sixth for you in the next inning, knowing that if it comes to the bases loaded and two out, the manager will need to have pinch-hitting options ready.” Having a bench coach became standard only in the 1990s (today, only Detroit’s Jim Leyland operates without one). La Russa said soaring star salaries necessitated the change. “Clubs offset the big salaries with more young players, so you need someone who can teach the position players at the major league level,” La Russa said, adding that the bench coach had the luxury of stepping back to assess a player’s performance. “A bench coach might say, ‘This kid has a real quick bat,’ ” he said. The bench coach role gained widespread attention in 1996 when Don Zimmer took his years of accumulated wisdom to assist Joe Torre in transforming the Yankees into perennial winners. Torre had been a conservative manager, and he credited Zimmer with pushing him to be more aggressive, though Zimmer told Esquire in 2001 that his position was “a joke.” “I sit next to Torre on the bench,” he said. “When he plays a hit-and-run that works, I say, ‘Nice goin’, Skipper,’ and if it doesn’t work, I go down to the other end of the bench, get a drink, and get out of his way.” That assessment would seem to jibe with a perhaps apocryphal exchange in Montreal in the 1980s when the Expos bench coach Vern Rapp suggested a pinch-runner to Manager Dick Williams. “Hey Vern,” Williams is said to have replied, “that washroom down the tunnel, go see if there is enough toilet paper on the roll; that’s your job.” Houston’s Pettini, who spent a decade at La Russa’s side in St. Louis before joining Mills, said, “This job takes a certain temperament.” Bench coaches have more responsibilities than ever. With managers diverted to pregame and postgame news conferences and other demands, they must delegate more. “Bench coaches run spring training and do things like schedule batting practice and stretching before games,” Pettini said. Baseball’s technological and numbers revolution has also expanded the bench coach’s portfolio to include monitoring scouting reports and statistics. “There is just so much more information now,” said Terry Francona, who was a bench coach for two teams between managing stints in Philadelphia and in Boston, where he hired Mills. Despite the bench coach’s expanding responsibilities, the manager, Francona said, has the final say. “You need to have a big enough voice and a strong enough personality to stand up to me and tell me when I’m wrong,” he said, “but you also need to know when to shut up.” Dave Martinez, who had no coaching experience before Joe Maddon made him the bench coach in Tampa Bay, agrees. “Joe liked that I could see things before they happened, but he also wanted someone who was opinionated,” Martinez said. “And I always ask Joe why whenever he makes or doesn’t make a move.” Martinez aspires to follow in his mentor’s footsteps — Maddon was the Los Angeles Angels’ bench coach before becoming the Rays’ manager — and knows that as long he keeps analyzing every situation and offering his insights, it is fine if Maddon does not use every one. “I feel like I’ve managed 650 games already,” Martinez said.

Baseball
Coaches and Managers
Mathewson Christy
Berra Yogi
la Russa Tony
Martinez Dave


With Taliban’s Revival, Dread Returns to Swat Valley

Abstract: SWAT VALLEY, Pakistan — As battle rages in North Waziristan, where the Pakistani military says it has killed more than 500 militants, unfinished business from the army’s first major assault on the Taliban lingers painfully in the Swat Valley, at the other end of Pakistan’s Pashtun belt. Five years ago, Pakistani soldiers flooded into Swat as part of an operation to banish the Taliban from the valley. The offensive became a cherished victory for Pakistani generals, who presented it as evidence of their counterinsurgency prowess. But a steady drumbeat of killings, by both militants and soldiers, has whipped up fear in Swat in recent years and blighted hopes for a return to normality in a place known for its beauty and tourist industry. Taliban fighters have slowly crept back to attack and kill pro-government community leaders. The army faces accusations of gross human rights abuses, including the execution of at least dozens of detainees whose bodies have recently been returned to their families. And Maulana Fazlullah, the ruthless cleric and militant commander who led the original Swat uprising in 2007, has evaded capture and risen to greater heights as the supreme leader of the Pakistani Taliban. “For a long time there was a narrative of the Swat operation as a total success,” said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a veteran journalist based in Peshawar. “Now that success is being questioned.” Few doubt that conditions in Swat have improved dramatically. Bloodied bodies no longer hang from traffic lights in the town square where the Taliban once executed their enemies. Markets are bustling, and more girls are attending school. But the campaign of Taliban violence, though sporadic, has rattled public confidence. “This is a controlled peace,” said Akbar Khan, a 38-year-old bookseller. And it offers a sobering check on the limits of military engagement at a time when the army is engaged in a fresh anti-Taliban drive in the tribal district of North Waziristan. There, more than one million people have fled their homes since the operation started on June 15. The military, which tightly controls media access, has portrayed it as an unalloyed success, drip-feeding reports of battlefield victories to the Pakistani media. On Saturday, a spokesman said its forces had killed 531 militants and lost just 34 men. Similarly triumphant claims followed the 2009 Swat offensive, but some successes proved to be temporary. Although hundreds of Taliban fighters were captured, many more slipped across the porous border into the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, where they have successfully regrouped. In the last two years, small pockets of fighters have infiltrated back into Swat, moving along remote mountain trails on horseback and on foot, according to villagers. One of their most infamous attacks was on Malala Yousafzai, the teenage schoolgirl who was shot in the head in October 2012 but survived her injuries and became a global icon . But for the most part, the Taliban gunmen have targeted the Village Defense Committees — local militias, mounted by the army to keep the Taliban at bay — which lost nine leaders to Taliban attacks in 2013, and eight so far this year. In the most recent shooting, on Tuesday, gunmen opened fire on Umar Hayat Khan, the committee leader in Takhta Band village, as he said his prayers in a local mosque. Two weeks earlier, gunmen killed Khan Saib, a landowner who had just returned from self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia. A relative said that Mr. Saib had fled Swat after the Taliban demolished his house in 2009, and had been attacked twice before his death. Image Refugees from North Waziristan registering for aid in Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan. The shootings have scared Swat residents because their targets are prominent community leaders — often landowners or members of the Awami National Party, a secular party that has borne the brunt of Taliban violence across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. The army itself has been another cause of concern in Swat as it has cast a wide net for militants. Human-rights groups say that hundreds of suspected militants have died in military custody since 2009. In 2010, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, then the army chief, announced an investigation into a video that appeared to show soldiers executing six detainees . The result of the investigation was never made public; some activists questioned whether it ever took place. Since April 2013, some Swat detainees have turned up dead, their bodies quietly returned to their families for burial. Many have reportedly been held in an army-run internment center in Kohat , 30 miles south of Peshawar. Relatives say the army often attributes the deaths to heart attacks — an explanation that human-rights activists say is consistent with similar violations elsewhere in northwestern Pakistan. “Most of these detainees are in their 20s or early 30s. It’s unusual for men of that age to die from a heart attack,” said Mustafa Qadri of Amnesty International. In Swat, the wives and children of detained men hold regular protests against the military. The most recent took place on July 20 in the village of Kanju, where women waved photos and held placards calling for judicial intervention. “Let the courts decide if they are guilty,” read one. While mistreatment of detainees offends rights groups, many Swat residents have a more ambivalent attitude, said Mr. Yousafzai, the journalist. “The community is very polarized,” he said. “Many people don’t want to hear about the suffering of militants or their families.” Public opinion had been further divided by plans for three permanent military bases in Swat. Some citizens want the army to leave; others fear a return to civilian rule would lead to a Taliban resurgence. “People remember that the last time, the civilians ran away,” Mr. Yousafzai said. The tensions and violence have stymied efforts to revive the local economy, despite some progress. The valley’s ski resort at Malam Jabba, which had been destroyed by the Taliban, hosted a five-day “snow festival” in March; a summer festival is scheduled for early August. The valley’s musicians and dancers have returned from the cities where they fled in 2009. Pakistan’s Hot Spots at a Glance Main theaters of conflict in northwestern Pakistan. But caution is widespread. Kiran, a dancer who would give only her first name, said she refused to work outside the main town, Mingora. Some business owners have left the valley over security fears. And tourism numbers are way down, said Zahid Khan, head of the Swat hotel owners’ association. Meanwhile, Mr. Fazlullah, the Taliban leader, is using his Afghan sanctuary to step up the pressure. His fighters killed a two-star general , Maj. Gen. Sanaullah Khan Niazi, in a roadside bombing in neighboring Dir district in September 2013. His fighters have infiltrated Karachi, the port city where they run a campaign of extortion and assassination targeting Pashtun political and business leaders. More recently, Mr. Fazlullah has increased violence inside Swat in a bid to shore up his authority inside the Taliban, following a split in the militant ranks last May. In a rare video message released on May 19, he directed suicide bombers to attack “the forces of evil.” The military, for its part, is focused on the campaign in North Waziristan. But that has also touched Swat, in the form of refugees who have made an arduous journey across northwestern Pakistan to the verdant valley in search of shelter. The authorities in Swat have registered almost 600 refugees from Waziristan, many of whom are living in cramped rented accommodations. Speaking at a religious charity’s food distribution event, Hajji Nooruddin, a 50-year-old truck driver from Miram Shah, said he was sharing a house with 25 other people. Asif Nawaz, 21, said he was stuck in a traffic jam for two days as he fled North Waziristan. During that time, he saw two mothers take the bodies of their dead infants to the soldiers, shouting that they had died from hunger, he said with tears in his eyes. However, many of the refugees said they were glad to have reached Swat — a place of relative safety, compared with North Waziristan.

Taliban
Swat
Pakistan
Waziristan
Military
Maulana Fazlullah


With Season at Hand, Knicks’ Defense Remains a Work in Progress

Abstract: GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Metta World Peace went through a series of majors when he was a student at St. John’s. He initially wanted to study architecture so he could learn to build community centers, but he was disappointed to discover that too many of his classes clashed with basketball practice. “Stupid basketball,” World Peace said. So after dabbling with being an art major and concluding that basketball would still get in the way, he finally found a match: math. The classes fit the demands of his schedule, and he was drawn to the work itself. Each equation was a puzzle. As World Peace put it, “I love solving problems.” Now in his 15th N.B.A. season, World Peace approaches his basketball schedule in much the same way. The season, he said, is one big puzzle with a series of smaller challenges. And as the Knicks spent recent weeks gearing up for Wednesday’s opener against the Milwaukee Bucks, their first such challenge became glaringly apparent: The team’s defense is a grease fire. “We’re not where I want us to be,” Coach Mike Woodson said. In the preseason, according to Synergy Sports, the Knicks ranked among the league’s worst teams in a truckload of categories that measure defensive performance. Over all, they allowed .946 points per possession, which ranked 29th out of 30 teams. They were last in defending halfcourt sets (.929), post-ups (1.069) and shots coming off screens (1.25). By comparison, they looked like the 1986 Boston Celtics against isolations, limiting opponents to .984 points per possession, which ranked 26th. “We know we’ve got to pick it up, and that’s going to come with communication,” Iman Shumpert said. “But we’ll get it done.” In fairness, Woodson experimented with lineups throughout the preseason, rotating familiar faces (Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler) with more recent additions (Tim Hardaway Jr., Beno Udrih) as he searched for continuity and chemistry. But players who were invited to camp and eventually cut from the roster consumed just 14 percent of the team’s total minutes. So the product that was on the court provided some indication of what could be ahead for this team. And it was not pretty. World Peace, who signed with the team in the off-season and has long been known as one of the league’s top defenders, said he was not concerned. The Knicks, he said, are “athletic and talented.” World Peace will be an immediate defensive upgrade if he can stay healthy. He also has been mentoring Shumpert, an energetic swingman. Image Metta World Peace, left, a longtime defensive standout, said the Knicks could become one of the league’s better defensive teams. Credit Maddie Meyer/Getty Images “We’ve got a chance to be one of the better defensive teams in the league,” World Peace said. Still, it is worth noting that the Knicks were not a turbocharged defensive team last season. They allowed 103.5 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com, and that figure ranked 16th in the league. If their defense had the consistency of a soggy paper towel for long stretches, they offset some of those problems by scoring at a high clip — at least until the playoffs, when the Indiana Pacers gave them fits. Woodson has a reputation as a defensive guru, but this may be the Knicks’ most effective approach once again: to mask their flaws on defense with high-octane offense. Consider the addition of Andrea Bargnani, a 7-footer who was never a particularly stout defender in seven seasons with the Toronto Raptors. Woodson acknowledged that he might need to pair Bargnani with strong wing defenders. In other words, Bargnani is not employed by the Knicks because of his prowess as a rim protector, but in spite of it. And if he wants a good amount of playing time this season, he may need to unearth his shooting stroke. It was lost to him in the preseason, as he shot 38.1 percent. During intrasquad scrimmages leading to Wednesday’s game, Bargnani was beginning to see time with the team’s second unit. All indications Tuesday were that Bargnani would come off the bench against the Bucks. It is all part of the process for a team seeking adequate defenders, if not basketball burglars. “It’s going to take a little time,” Woodson said, “but that’s no excuse.” Many of Woodson’s defensive tenets are unconventional and require adjustments by players new to the system. For example, Woodson wants his post players to glue themselves to their individual assignments. That means resisting the urge to offer help defense, with the responsibility for stopping dribble penetration falling on the team’s guards. Chandler, the team’s starting center, said the concept still felt foreign to him, even after two seasons with the Knicks. “I fight it every time because it’s my natural instinct to go help and make a difference,” said Chandler, who was the league’s defensive player of the year in the 2011-12 season. “A lot of the things that Woody tries to strategize out there are the complete opposite of what you’re taught as a big man. It takes guys a while to catch on.” Perhaps that is the hope. Chandler said he was optimistic that Bargnani had the potential to become a good team defender. It might be a low bar, but the Knicks have room to grow. World Peace cautioned against reading too much into the preseason schedule. He likes to divide the season into segments, and the Knicks, he said, are still searching for their identity. At this point, the puzzle is just a bunch of pieces. “We will figure it out,” he said.

Knicks
Metta World Peace
Basketball
Mike Woodson
Iman Shumpert
Andrea Bargnani


Jay-Z’s Entertainment Company Makes Music Deal With Universal

Abstract: Days after it was revealed that Jay-Z’s entertainment company, Roc Nation, is getting into the sports agency business , the company has announced a worldwide deal with the Universal Music Group for its record releases. The deal, described as a multiyear partnership, will bring Roc Nation’s record label under Universal’s umbrella, moving it from Sony Music , where the label last struck a deal four years ago. It also means that Jay-Z’s own records, which recently were released through a deal with Atlantic Records, part of the Warner Music Group, will once again come out on Universal. Image Jay-Z at the 2013 Grammy Awards. Credit Matt Sayles/Invision, via Matt Sayles, via Invision, via Associated Press Terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but a person briefed on the negotiations, who was not authorized to discuss it publicly, said it was one of the more competitive label auctions in recent years, with interest from all the major record companies. Sony and Universal, the two largest record conglomerates, have been competing intensely to sign deals with top artists and independent labels. Roc Nation is a joint venture with Live Nation Entertainment that was created as part of Jay-Z’s $150 million deal with that company in 2008. It includes a record label, music publishing division and a growing roster of artists under management, including Rihanna, Shakira, Timbaland, M.I.A. and Kylie Minogue. As part of the deal, Rihanna will also extend her recording contract with Universal. Jay-Z’s own albums had long come out through Def Jam -- he was president of the label for several years in the mid-2000s -- but after starting Roc Nation, his latest solo album, “The Blueprint 3,” was released through a distribution arrangement with Atlantic. “This agreement presents a unique opportunity for Roc Nation’s artists -- being able to continue to operate as an independent label with the strength, power and reach of the best major,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “I look forward to a long and prosperous collaboration with U.M.G. It feels good to be home.”

Music
Roc Nation
Universal Music Group
Label
Sony


Business-Conservative Alliance Presses for Immigration Action

Abstract: WASHINGTON — For the business group from Utah, the lobbying blitz started well before their plane touched down in the nation’s capital. Heading to Washington to spend Tuesday urging House Republicans to take up a broad immigration overhaul, the team of Utah business leaders buttonholed several members of their state’s congressional delegation — Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, both Republicans, and Representatives Jim Matheson, a Democrat, and Chris Stewart, a Republican — as the lawmakers waited to board their flight Monday at the Salt Lake City airport. “Our plea is to act now, do it now, lead,” Stan Lockhart, a former chairman of the Utah Republican Party, said Tuesday in an interview as he explained the group’s basic pitch. “Ask House leadership to lead, and let’s pass what’s possible now.” Randy Parker, chief executive of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, chimed in: “They need to act now. That’s the bottom line.” Mr. Lockhart and Mr. Parker are part of an unlikely coalition of business executives, evangelical groups and prominent conservatives coming together to urge House Republicans to put broad immigration legislation on the House floor, ideally before the end of this year. Image Senator Marco Rubio, far left, seemed to backpedal Saturday. Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times On Tuesday, the group of more than 600 leaders from roughly 40 states descended on the Capitol for meetings with nearly 150 Republican lawmakers. They are largely taking aim at House Republicans who they think could support a broad immigration overhaul, including some sort of legal status for the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. The leaders are urging the lawmakers to take a more proactive role in pushing immigration legislation to a House vote. “Our fly-in today is about moving votes on the Hill in support of reasonable immigration reform,” Randel K. Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president for immigration and labor issues, said in a conference call with reporters. “I’m confident we’re going to move the ball forward.” The event’s sponsors include the Chamber of Commerce; FWD.us, a political action group founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook; the National Immigration Forum; and the Partnership for a New American Economy, which is led by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Marriott Jr. The effort kicked off in the morning with several panel discussions at the Chamber of Commerce, including one conversation in which the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, unveiled a new study that found a broad immigration overhaul would help the economy. Advocates then boarded buses to the Capitol. Members of the group from Utah said that while they believed most of their House lawmakers were largely supportive of at least some form of an immigration overhaul, their goal was to persuade them to get out in front on the issue. “It’s one thing to be with us,” said Todd Bingham, president of the Utah Manufacturers Association. “It’s another to lead out and actually create dialogue and create discussion and tell leadership in the House that we’re not interested in waiting two years — we need to address this now.” Video The Times’s Sam Tanenhaus explains government efforts to keep immigrants out of the country and links President Reagan’s amnesty for Latino Americans to today’s debate. The push comes as conflicting messages continue to emerge from the immigration debate on Capitol Hill. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and an author of the Senate-passed immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship for those immigrants already in the country illegally, seemed to backpedal slightly on Saturday. His spokesman told Breitbart News , a conservative news outlet, that House conservatives should not fall for a “ruse” that could lead to one of their more narrow, piecemeal immigration bills being used as vehicle to enter a conference negotiation between the House and the Senate, from which a broader immigration bill could emerge. “On the surface, the statement didn’t read well,” said Alberto R. Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union, when asked about Mr. Rubio’s comments. “But maybe a good explanation from him will be persuasive, so I’m going to hold judgment.” Alex Conant, a spokesman for Mr. Rubio, said that the senator was not backing away from his support for the Senate bill, but simply reflecting the political reality in the Republican-controlled House, where many conservatives refuse to support any immigration bill because they fear it could be used as a “Trojan horse” and lead to amnesty. “An ‘all or nothing’ strategy on immigration reform would result in nothing,” Mr. Conant said in a statement. “What is keeping us from progress on a series of immigration issues on which there is strong consensus is the fear that a conference committee on a limited bill will be used to negotiate a comprehensive one. We should take that option off the table so that we can begin to move on the things we agree on.” Meanwhile, the group of business leaders from Utah remained intensely focused on their congressional delegation. Though they had scheduled meetings with only the four Utah House members, they were hoping to see Mr. Lee, their senator, who won election in 2010 with strong Tea Party support and has remained hesitant to support an immigration overhaul that he considers “amnesty.” At roughly 11 a.m., good news arrived in the form of a text message: Mr. Lee would meet with them. “Whatever is causing this issue to be stopped — whether it’s compromise, whether it’s breaking it into pieces — whatever is happening that’s blocking him from taking up a banner and being a leader on this, we want him to get over the barriers,” said Donna Milakovic, the executive vice president of the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Immigration
Utah
Marco Rubio
Fwd.us
National Immigration Forum
Partnership for a New American Economy
House of Representatives
Congress
United States Chamber of Commerce
US states