Spain Flexes Its Muscles in Euro 2012 Final

Abstract: KIEV, Ukraine — Confetti rained and fireworks exploded as Spain held aloft the championship trophy of Europe. If Sunday’s 4-0 rout of Italy did not fully illustrate that La Roja was untouchable, even against its fiercest opponents, defender Sergio Ramos made celebrative passes on the field with a matador’s cape. Spain put on a masterly performance with inspired and skewering passes, impenetrable defense and collective brilliance unsurpassed in this golden period of international soccer. Or perhaps ever. Criticism that its tiki-taka style was dull appeared silly, fatuous. Some had doubted Spain’s frequent choice to play without a traditional striker, as Coach Vicente Del Bosque preferred six midfielders. Everyone must complain about everything, Del Bosque had said, ignoring his critics. On Sunday, his team attacked relentlessly and earned a victory that was as historic as it was dominant. Spain won its second consecutive European championship and third major title in a row, along with the 2010 World Cup. No team has held so many important trophies at once. Befitting its unselfishness and depth, Spain’s four goals came from different players — David Silva in the 14th minute, Jordi Alba in the 41st, Fernando Torres in the 84th and Juan Mata in the 88th. For a 10th consecutive match in the knockout rounds, not a single goal was conceded. As usual, goalkeeper Iker Casillas was unfaltering. Now the debate will escalate: can Spain, with its attractive and generous style, rightfully be considered the greatest national team ever? In various polls, the 1970 World Cup champion from Brazil, and its beautiful game played by Pelé, Carlos Alberto and Rivelino, has been widely considered No. 1. Some favor the Magnificent Magyars of Hungary in the early 1950s. Or the Total Football played by the Netherlands of the 1970s. Or the French team of Zinedine Zidane that won a World Cup in 1998 and a European title in 2000. Spain will make its argument on the strength of its creativity, patience, resilience, underappreciated defense and commitment to the team over a period of years when solidarity might have fractured into arrogance and egotism. “I think Spain deserves the compliment,” said United States Coach Jurgen Klinsmann, a former star forward for Germany. “It speaks of outstanding class and the marriage of hunger and desire. To win the title, you need to be a total giver for your team. You need to be able to suffer through the difficult moments and to put your ego totally on the side. What they’ve shown in the past few years, now playing without a striker, is that they find ways to confuse, to create chances, to make everyone else look not capable. I think this is the team of the century.” The completeness of Spain’s victory could be found in the sad, shocked faces of the Italians, who had been assured in defense in this tournament and newly ambitious in attack. This is a nation that has won four World Cups. Italy dared to attack on Sunday, but its players grew weary chasing the ball, as all teams do against Spain. And when the Azzurri were reduced to 10 men after a hamstring injury felled Thiago Motta in the 61st minute, with the score at 2-0, a revival became impossible. “They completely dominated,” Italy Coach Cesare Prandelli said. “They really have made history, and deservedly so. They’ve been playing terrific football for a number of years. In spite of the fact they don’t play with a traditional striker, they still cause a lot of problems.” Prandelli’s plan for Sunday was to close space in central midfield and win the ball. But from the opening whistle, Spain appeared much sharper with its short, geometric passing game than it had against the high pressure of Portugal in the semifinals. In the 14th minute, Andrés Iniesta played a through pass to Cesc Fàbregas, who beat the struggling Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini to the end line. Fàbregas cut a pass back to the hurtling Silva, who headed the ball into the upper left corner, giving Spain a 1-0 lead. An afterthought at the 2010 World Cup, Silva had since sought a more expanded role. On Sunday, he delivered the only goal necessary, completing a splendid year in which he also helped his club team, Manchester City, win its first English Premier League title in 44 years. Chiellini soon limped off, apparently reinjuring a tender hamstring muscle that had kept him out of the quarterfinals against England. His replacement at left back, Federico Balzaretti, brought energy down the flank, but Italy could not produce a goal. And in the 41st minute, Spain scored again with searing speed and intent. Alba made a short pass to Xavi Hernandez, the playmaker who some believed looked tired after a long season with Barcelona. But Xavi seemed fresh and alert on Sunday. His shot from the top of the penalty area flew just high in the 10th minute. A half-hour later, he received the pass from Alba and played it back to him with familiar exactness. Gianluigi Buffon came rushing out of the Italian goal, but he was helpless as Alba sliced past two defenders in a furious sprint and scored his first international goal, putting Spain ahead, 2-0. “We were superior,” Xavi said. It was not yet halftime, and the match was slipping away for Italy. It fell beyond reach when Motta, the third and final substitute, left in the 61st minute, shortly after entering. The remainder of the game offered redemption for Torres, who scored the lone, winning goal for Spain in the final of Euro 2008, but whose career since has mostly gone unfulfilled. His goal Sunday made him the first player to score in two European finals. “We won being true to our style,” Casillas said. “What we do is difficult, but we make it look easy.” Not to mention historic.

Spain
Italy
Soccer
UEFA European Football Championship


Yanukovich Visits Russia and Promises Better Relations

Abstract: MOSCOW — Ukraine ’s newly inaugurated president, Viktor F. Yanukovich , arrived in Moscow on Friday promising a “sharp turn” in his country’s relations with Russia , five years after the Orange Revolution chilled formerly close ties between the two neighbors. “The new government in Ukraine will change relations with Russia, so that they will never again be like they were for the last five years,” Mr. Yanukovich said in a meeting with Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev . At a news conference in the Kremlin, Mr. Medvedev, who had frequently clashed with Ukraine’s Western-oriented former president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, appeared pleased to be welcoming a Ukrainian ally to Russia once again. “I hope that with your arrival and your work as president this black page in relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation will be turned over, and we will see completely new conditions for cooperation,” Mr. Medvedev said. Little has irked the Kremlin more in recent years than Ukraine’s move away from Russia. Former President Yushchenko’s open support of Georgia in its August 2008 war with Russia, his push for NATO membership and his repeated threats to expel the Russian navy from its base in Ukraine’s Sevastopol enraged Russian officials. Mr. Yanukovich, a native of Ukraine’s east, where linguistic and cultural ties to Russia are closest, has long been seen as the leader of his country’s pro-Russian forces. He narrowly defeated his rival, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, in elections last month, a victory that was expected to bring about an immediate thaw in relations with Russia. But in a move that raised some eyebrows in Moscow, Mr. Yanukovich chose Brussels for his first official visit as president, telling European leaders earlier this week that he wanted to continue his predecessor’s efforts to forge stronger ties with the West. Mr. Medvedev, however, said the visit would have no effect on Ukraine’s relationship with Russia. The two leaders vowed to immediately begin seeking solutions to the problems that have plagued their relations, including the status of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and lingering border disputes. Of particular importance is the transport of Russian natural gas through Ukrainian territory to Europe. Politically charged disputes over pricing have for years caused costly gas cutoffs that have at times left European homes without heat. As he campaigned, Mr. Yanukovich suggested that he might allow Russia to share the management of Ukrainian pipelines in exchange for cheaper gas. The presidents said they discussed the issue but would not go into details, saying only that their governments would continue the talks. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who met later with Mr. Yanukovich, also addressed the issue, saying that Russia and Ukraine could build a “normal, civilized relationship and move forward,” the Ria Novosti news agency reported. Mr. Yanukovich, asked about his stance on NATO membership for Ukraine on Friday, simply said, “Ukraine will build its relations with NATO in accordance to the national interests of Ukraine.” Any major decisions concerning relations with Russia, however, will have to wait until a new government can be formed in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Parliament ousted the government of Ms. Tymoshenko, who resigned as prime minister. If a new governing coalition is not formed within 30 days, Parliament will be disbanded and new elections called, adding to Mr. Yanukovich’s difficulties. “I have it a little easier than Viktor Fyodorovich,” Mr. Medvedev, whose country is not so burdened with political competition, said of Mr. Yanukovich. “I do not have to form a coalition to solve various problems.” In January, Mr. Yushchenko took a final swipe at the Kremlin as he left the presidency, giving a Hero of Ukraine award to a World War II partisan and Ukrainian nationalist, Stepan Bandera, who is admired in western Ukraine for fighting the Soviet Union. The decision incensed Russians and Russian-leaning Ukrainians, who consider Mr. Bandera a Nazi collaborator. Mr. Yanukovich, who must avoid alienating western Ukrainians in order to govern effectively, said Friday that a decision on the award would be made before the 65th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II in May. He added that he would also evaluate an earlier award granted by Mr. Yushchenko to another Ukrainian nationalist and World War II partisan, Roman Shukhevych.

Russia
Ukraine
Yanukovich Viktor F
Politics and Government
Medvedev Dmitri A


Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Is Arrested in Philippine Hospital on New Charges

Abstract: MANILA — Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines was arrested Thursday afternoon on corruption charges related to allegations of misuse of $8.8 million in state lottery funds during her administration. Mrs. Arroyo, who is now a member of Congress, checked herself into a government medical facility after the warrant was issued and shortly before it was served. Police officials said she was arrested while in a hospital bed. It was unclear whether she would be transferred to a jail cell. “Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is now under arrest and in detention, under the custody of the Philippine National Police,” Senior Superintendent Joel Coronel said after the warrant was served. Mr. Coronel said Mrs. Arroyo was suffering from dehydration and hypertension. She was in the same hospital suite where she spent about eight months under detention on separate charges of rigging an election. She was released in July after a judge found evidence against her to be weak. Mrs. Arroyo is under investigation in connection with a variety of corruption offenses said to have been committed during her time as president, from 2001 to 2010. Additional charges are expected to be filed in the coming months. She has maintained that she is innocent of all allegations against her. The new charges are related to accusations that Mrs. Arroyo and members of her administration repeatedly stole money from the national lottery between 2008 and 2010. The prosecution of Mrs. Arroyo is a cornerstone of the anticorruption campaign of her successor, President Benigno S. Aquino III . A presidential spokesman said Thursday that the case was in the hands of the courts and declined to discuss the matter in detail or comment on Mrs. Arroyo’s detention in the hospital. “We cannot speculate on the condition of the former president,” said the spokesman, Edwin Lacierda. Before Mrs. Arroyo was arrested on Thursday, her son, acting on her behalf, filed a certificate of candidacy to run for re-election as a member of Congress representing the northern province of Pampanga. Though Mrs. Arroyo is unpopular in most of the country, her family is from the Pampanga area and she remains well liked there.

Philippines
Arroyo Gloria Macapagal
Corruption (Institutional)


Mountain Biking in New York Parks

Abstract: NEW York City is becoming a bicycle rider’s paradise. Paths grace the shorelines of Manhattan and Brooklyn, parks offer shady loops, and bike lanes increasingly provide physical separation from car traffic. But that’s all on pavement. Riding through the woods, negotiating twists and turns and roots and rocks, is an entirely different experience. (Although avoiding taxicab doors and delivery trucks is good practice.) Mountain biking improves upper body control and balance as much as leg strength and aerobic capacity. Make it up that twisty, rock-strewn hill, and triumph is in the air. “You accomplish this thing that has stymied you the last few times,” said Jamie Bogner , president of the New York City Mountain Biking Association . “You’ve done it.” Until a few years ago, mountain bikers would have to head for the hills, or at least the suburbs, to find a legal trail. Today, though, there are three — one in Manhattan, one in Queens and one in Staten Island — that put backwoods riding within the swipe of a MetroCard . Each trail has its own environment, terrain and challenges. All three were de facto dumping grounds before volunteers did some heavy lifting, both in persuading the city to allow the mountain biking and in actually removing discarded tires, refrigerators and stoves. There’s enough to do in the parks that house the trails to make each worthy of a day trip. For a beginner , the first order of business is getting hold of a mountain bike. Mine was refitted years ago with slick tires for faster city riding, so I decided to rent one. Many bike stores and rental companies supply hybrids, but not bikes suitable for trails. I found mine at Central Park Bike Rentals, where I paid $35 for the full day, lock and helmet included. With three businesses splitting the retail space, this has to be one of the few places where you can order a crepe, surf the Web and shop for bike gloves while your rental gets a safety check. As for technique, Mr. Bogner suggests keeping your body loose, particularly the arms and legs, which he called “your best shock absorbers,” and getting comfortable with changing gears and using both brakes. And now, off to the woods. Queens Getting to the trailhead at Cunningham Park is probably the hardest part of riding there. It’s a 20-minute bike trip from the last stop on the F train, or about 30 minutes from the 7 to the trailhead at 210th Street and 67th Avenue. But bring directions, which you can get from the mountain biking association’s Web site, nycmtb.com , because the park is large. The trails are well defined and perfect for a first-time mountain biker. Markers point the way to the easiest or more difficult routes, and even the hard parts have easier options. The paths are one-way, so there’s no oncoming traffic, and while there are enough trails to bike for hours, you probably won’t get lost. The riders I encountered there on a recent blazing Saturday were friendly, supportive and as diverse as Queens itself. Greg Martinez of Rego Park, Queens, invited me to follow him on a loop. Mr. Martinez, who works in tech support, said he first biked here about a year ago and now can’t stay away. “It was all downhill from there,” he said, adding that he does his bit to keep the trail clean by carrying out a piece of litter each time he rides. We sped around banked turns, hopped over obstacles and rolled through small but exhilarating dips and inclines. The experience reminded me of a roller-coaster ride that makes you shout like a child, “Again!” Explore more of Cunningham Park and you’re likely to find yourself biking on a shady, paved path called the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway , one of America’s original automobile roads (fascinating historical marker) that you can follow east to Alley Pond Park. West of Cunningham Park, within about a half-hour’s bike ride, are the Queens Botanical Garden and Queens Museum of Art. Staten Island Reminiscent of the Ewoks’ forest moon in “Return of the Jedi,” Wolfe’s Pond Park is the lushest of the three city spots. It is also the only one with freshwater ponds and a beach. Unless you live on Staten Island, getting there can take awhile, but if a bike-boat-rail adventure to thick woodlands piques your interest, this is the trip. The Staten Island Ferry has a bicycle area on the lower level, and once a search dog sniffs its approval, you park your bike and enjoy the 25-minute ride. Next, walk your bike to the Staten Island Railway. Exit about 35 minutes later at Prince’s Bay. Cross over the tracks and make an immediate left on Herbert Street. There’s the trail. Wolfe’s Pond is good for beginners, with orange markings guiding the way, but there is more trial and error here, and a few more downed trees to circumnavigate, than at Cunningham Park. The thickness of the woods and humidity on the day I went made it feel like a rain forest , a sensation that grew when the skies opened about 20 minutes later. On a nicer day there’s plenty more to do: go to the beach; visit Anderson’s Annex, a remote bar and restaurant near the bay; or take a 3.5-mile ride east on Hylan Boulevard to the southernmost point in New York State, Conference House Park , where the British and the Americans failed to hash things out in 1776. Back at the ferry landing, meanwhile, you can catch a Staten Island Yankees game. Manhattan If Cunningham and Wolfe’s Pond are a little bit country, then Highbridge Park is thrashing rock ’n’ roll. Forget mellow, rolling and lush; think instead of cliffs, rocks and twisting, leg-burning climbs. In mountain bike speak, the trail is technical. It’s also easy to reach. When the uptown No. 1 train pulls into the Dyckman Street stop, you can see the green sign for a trail entrance off to the right, just across the street on Fort George Hill. As Mr. Bogner of the mountain biking association gave me a tour of the trail he helped to create, he reminded me to walk the bike through difficult stretches, advice worth heeding as we spun through areas with names like Hellfighter, Hessian Hill and Rough Ryder. If you want to get the lay of the land before trying a trail, take in the summer sprint racing series, a casual event for mountain bikers that begins on Friday night. The park is also home to a city pool and a water tower that overlooks High Bridge, the city’s oldest, expected to reopen in 2013 after a renovation. We stopped to check out the dirt jump park, a feature that accompanies the trails in all three boroughs and is popular with young BMX riders. The one downer is the litter on the trails, evidence that visitors other than mountain bikers have been having a good time here. Mr. Bogner said the park , a 45-block sliver overlooking the Harlem River, had come a long way from its low point, when miles of paved paths were buried beneath layers of garbage. But he said it was still a work in progress . “Who would think that in the middle of the most densely populated island in North America,” he said, “that you could get an interesting, challenging wilderness experience out on trails?” IF YOU GO Details about parks are at nycgovparks.org ; search for the park name. Besides riding the trails yourself, you can try: Cunningham Park, Queens PEAK BICYCLE PRO SHOP Hosts group rides (and rents bikes); Sundays at 8:30 a.m.; (718) 225-5119, peakmtnbike.com . VANDERBILT MOTOR PARKWAY Paved bike path; nycgovparks.org; search for “Greenway Guide.” QUEENS BOTANICAL GARDEN 43-50 Main Street, Flushing; (718) 886-3800, queensbotanical.org . Wolfe’s Pond Park, Staten Island ANDERSON’S ANNEX Post-ride drinks; 83 Purdy Place, at Holton Avenue, Prince’s Bay; (718) 948-9410. CONFERENCE HOUSE PARK Biking, hiking, landmarks; Tottenville; (718) 984-6046, theconferencehouse.org . STATEN ISLAND YANKEES vs. the Brooklyn Cyclones, Saturday and Monday at 7 p.m.; Richmond County Bank Ballpark, St. George; (718)720-9265, web.minorleaguebaseball.com ; $12 to $16. Highbridge Park, Manhattan SUMMER SPRINT RACING SERIES Beginning on Friday at 6:45 p.m.; Highbridge trails at Dyckman Street and Fort George Hill; nycmtb.com . FREE SUMMER CONCERTS Tuesdays in August at 7 p.m.; Highbridge Park, West 155th Street, at Dyckman Street, Washington Heights; (212) 360-2777, nycgovparks.org; search “Highbridge Park.” FREE NATURAL HISTORY WALK Led by the Urban Park Rangers; Aug. 8 at 1 p.m. Meet at 174th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, Washington Heights. Resources CENTRAL PARK BIKE RENTALS 250 West 49th Street, Manhattan; (347) 713-0013, centralparkbikerent.com ; $15 to $35. BIKE NY A list of bike rental shops; bikenewyork.org ; click on “Ride Resources.” NEW YORK CITY MOUNTAIN BIKE ASSOCIATION Guides to trails; nycmtb.com; click on “NYC Trails.”


China Deployed Artillery on Disputed Island, U.S. Says

Abstract: SINGAPORE — The United States has spotted a pair of mobile artillery vehicles on an artificial island that China is building in the South China Sea, a resource-rich stretch of ocean crossed by vital shipping lanes, American officials said. China’s construction program on previously uninhabited atolls and reefs in the Spratly Islands has already raised alarm and drawn protests from other countries in the region, whose claims to parts of the South China Sea overlap with China’s. The United States has also become increasingly vocal about its objections in recent days. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter called this week for China to halt the construction , saying that international law did not recognize Chinese claims of sovereignty over the new territories and that American warships and military aircraft would continue to operate in the area. He reiterated those assertions in a speech Saturday morning in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference that brings together most Asian countries and many other powers outside the region. “We all know that turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty,” Mr. Carter said. The United States, he added, is “deeply concerned about the pace and scope” of China’s island building and the possibility of increased militarization, which risks the kind of miscalculations that could lead to conflict. Mr. Carter announced a new $425 million maritime security initiative to help countries in Southeast Asia improve their naval and coast guard capabilities. China is not the only country to develop outposts in the South China Sea over the years, Mr. Carter noted. Vietnam, for instance, has 48, and the Philippines, a close American ally, has eight. “Yet, one country has gone much farther and much faster than any other,” he said. “And that’s China.” China has constructed over 2,000 acres of new territory in the Spratly Islands in the past 18 months, which is “more than all other claimants combined,” Mr. Carter continued. “It is unclear how much farther China will go.” The artillery was spotted by satellites and surveillance aircraft about a month ago on one of the new islands China has built, and the two vehicles have since either been hidden or removed, according to another American official who spoke about intelligence matters on the condition of anonymity. The official added that even if the weapons remained on the island, they posed no threat to American naval forces or aircraft in the region, though the guns could reach some nearby islands claimed by other countries. With Mr. Carter in Singapore for the security conference, which Chinese officials are also attending, American officials were reluctant to publicly discuss the intelligence they had collected about the artillery. Brent Colburn, a spokesman traveling with Mr. Carter, would say only that the United States was aware of the weapons, whose detection was first reported by The Wall Street Journal . Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, criticized China’s deployment of artillery on the island as “a disturbing development and escalatory development.” “Their actions are in violation of international law, and their actions are going to be condemned by everyone in the world,” Mr. McCain was quoted by Reuters as saying in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he stopped on Friday on his way to Singapore for the conference. “We are not going to have a conflict with China,” he said, “but we can take certain measures which will be a disincentive to China to continue these kinds of activities.” There was no immediate comment from Chinese officials about the weapons. But China has sent its most high-powered delegation yet to the annual meeting in Singapore; a top military official, Adm. Sun Jianguo, is scheduled to speak at the conference. China released a military strategy document this week that, for the first time, called for its navy to project force beyond its coastal waters into the open oceans. Western officials said that because of its timing, the document seemed intended as a challenge to other participants in the conference. And days before the document was released, China demanded that an American military surveillance plane leave the skies above Fiery Cross Reef , which China has built into an island with a runway that its military can use. The American aircraft did not alter its course, American officials have said. China has said that it was building the artificial islands largely for civilian purposes, but it has not denied that it also envisions a military role for them. “Such constructions are within China’s sovereignty and are fair, reasonable, lawful and do not affect nor target any country, and are beyond reproach,” Hua Chunying, the spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters in April. The United States disagrees, and American officials have stressed in recent days that the American-dominated security order in the region should be respected because it has brought calm and prosperity, a theme Mr. Carter will develop in his remarks on Saturday in Singapore. “It’s important for the region to understand that America is going to remain engaged,” he said, and it will “continue to stand up for international law and universal principles and help provide security and stability in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.” The implication is that China is threatening to upend that system, though Mr. Carter and other American officials have hesitated to say so directly, preferring to talk in generalities about the need for diplomatic solutions and inclusive security arrangements. But the island-building has been a major concern of the United States and Southeast Asian nations for more than a year, and Mr. Carter is not the first head of the Pentagon to say so at a regional security forum. At last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, Chuck Hagel, Mr. Carter’s predecessor, said that China was engaged in “destabilizing, unilateral actions asserting its claims in the South China Sea.” The Philippines has also spoken out against Chinese island building. China has countered by pointing to the outposts built by the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea. But analysts say that the two nations did not build islands, and in any case their structures were generally built before 2002, when China and nine Southeast Asian nations signed a nonbinding agreement to “exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities” and to refrain from trying to inhabit any land features that were uninhabited at that time. American and Southeast Asian officials are concerned that China may try to claim an exclusive economic zone in waters within 200 nautical miles of the new land formations, which they argue are ineligible for determining such zones.

China
South China Sea
Spratly Islands
John McCain
Ashton Carter


With Crowd Behind Them, Celtics Go Nowhere Against Knicks

Abstract: BOSTON — Doc Rivers said he felt his Boston Celtics team lost its spirit on Friday, an unimaginable concept given everything that appeared to be favoring them heading into Game 3 of their first-round playoff series against the Knicks. But the Celtics lost a lot more than their spirit. They also lost the game, crushed by the Knicks, 90-76. That means they trail by 3-0 in the series, a situation from which no team in N.B.A. history has recovered. On a night when their season was on the line, the Celtics laid an egg in front of 18,624 fans, most of them wearing Boston Strong T-shirts. The Celtics shot the ball poorly. They looked lethargic, uninterested, and they were careless with the ball and struggled again to make that most basic of N.B.A. plays — a basket. “I thought they wanted to play well,” Rivers said of his team, who had hoped to be buoyed by a raucous home crowd that included first responders from the Boston Marathon bombing last week. “You know, we didn’t.” No, they didn’t. The Celtics were counting on more than a boisterous crowd to get them back into the series. They had history on their side, or so they thought. Since 2008, the Celtics were 13-0 in home playoff games after a road loss. Forgotten, apparently, was the fact that the Celtics had lost the first two games of this series, and lost them badly. Forgotten, too, was the fact that their offense in New York looked like something out of the pre-shot clock era (74.5 points on 39.3 percent shooting). All the talk Friday focused on a victory that would get Boston back in the series. Rivers changed his starting lineup, inserting Jason Terry in an attempt to provide offense and relieve an overmatched Avery Bradley of some of the ball-handling duties. “At the end of the day,” Rivers said, “that didn’t work.” Little did. The Celtics ran a perfect play on their first possession — except that Paul Pierce missed a layup and Kevin Garnett followed with another missed layup. That sequence set the stage for the evening. The Celtics were never in a game they absolutely could not afford to lose. Over the final 27 minutes, they never got closer than 11 points. They trailed by as many as 21. The Celtics held one lead, at 2-0, but the Knicks then scored 10 of the next 12 points. Garnett did an admirable job on the boards (17 rebounds) but could not convert several shots from close range, finishing with 12 points and shooting 5 of 13. Pierce (17 points, 6-for-15 shooting) and Jeff Green (21 points, 8 for 17) led what passed for the Boston offense, but they also combined for 10 of the Celtics 18 turnovers. The sellout crowd at TD Garden was looking for any excuse to cheer, but the home team never gave them the opportunity. For two days, the talk in Boston was how the great home crowd would energize the team, how the team would feed off that energy and get back in the series. But the fans don’t play the games. A while back, when the Celtics were facing a crucial home playoff game, Kevin McHale was asked if the fans would make a difference. “Only if Bill Russell is in the stands and decides to come out and play,” he said.

Celtics
Knicks
Doc Rivers
Paul Pierce
Kevin Garnett
Basketball


Mahmoud Abbas Says Israel Is Hindering West Bank Security

Abstract: RAMALLAH, West Bank — President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said Saturday that his security forces were struggling because Israel had refused to allow them to import a shipment of weapons, and that he was “very, very, very afraid” of what might happen if one of the Palestinian prisoners on a long-term hunger strike died. Mr. Abbas, meeting with a delegation from J Street , an American lobbying group that describes itself as “pro-Israel and pro-peace,” said 3,000 guns from Egypt and Russia sitting in Jordan had been previously authorized, but were now blocked from entering the Palestinian territories. “If they help me to get weapons, I’m helping them because I’m promoting security,” Mr. Abbas said of the Israelis. “We want security to stop terrorism. We have a need for these legal weapons. I have complaints from the security apparatus: ‘We don’t have guns and bullets.’ ” A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that he was unaware of any hold on guns, but that there had been a longstanding dispute over heavier weapons going into the area. “From Russia we’re not talking about guns and bullets — we’re talking about weapons that are above and beyond,” he said. “There are some types of weapons that we see as a potential security threat, and we are not yet comfortable.” He added, “I’m not aware of any shortage of guns and bullets in the West Bank.” Mr. Abbas spoke as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators sought to end a hunger strike by more than 1,600 prisoners that in some cases has stretched to more than two months, and hours before an Israeli envoy met with him here to deliver a letter regarding the peace process. A senior Israeli official said the letter, which followed one last month from Mr. Abbas to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, contained “Israel’s call to resolve all outstanding issues between the two peoples and resume direct negotiations, and to move ahead according to the formula articulated by the quartet,” a reference to the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. After the late-night meeting on Saturday, the two sides issued a brief statement: “Israel and the Palestinian Authority are committed to achieving peace, and the sides hope that the exchange of letters between President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu will further this goal.” With Mr. Netanyahu forming a new unity government in Israel last week, significantly broadening his coalition and thus his power, Mr. Abbas said he was hopeful that there might soon be movement on the long-stalled process because what he called Mr. Netanyahu’s pretext of a fragile coalition had been removed. “Now he is the emperor, or the king of Israel, he can do anything,” Mr. Abbas said. “If I were him, I would do it now, now, now — not to wait.” Israel has repeatedly said that it is waiting for a “willing partner” to return to substantive negotiations, and that a crucial step would be for Mr. Abbas to recognize it as a Jewish state. But Mr. Abbas said Saturday that such recognition was not his responsibility, suggesting that Mr. Netanyahu instead “go to the United Nations and change the name.” “Why he asks me? Why should I do it?” Mr. Abbas said. “I do not object. I do not reject. I’m telling you to go in the proper way to change your name. I am not the address.” While there are no active talks on the broader conflict, Israeli officials have been meeting with representatives of the Palestinian prisoners, who are protesting the conditions of their Israeli detention, including solitary confinement and restrictions on family visits and access to education. Several of the hunger strikers, including two Islamic Jihad members who have gone without food for 74 days and are near death, are demanding to be released from what is known as administrative detention — imprisonment without charges — which Israel says is a necessary tool to ensure security. Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in recent days to protest the prisoners’ situation, occasionally clashing with Israeli soldiers, and leaders of Islamic Jihad and Hamas have warned of a violent uprising if one of them dies. “I cannot control the situation,” Mr. Abbas told the J Street delegation of about two dozen in a half-hour meeting. “I am afraid, God forbid, that the security system here will collapse.” He added: “I told the Israelis: ‘Please, please, please. They have some demands. If you do not respond to them and somebody today or tomorrow dies, it will be very, very disastrous for us.’ ” Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, said Saturday that he hoped that “we are close to a deal” with the prisoners, but that he could not reveal details of the negotiations for fear of scuttling them. “We are acting to contain the strike and to end it as soon as possible,” Mr. Regev said. “We have no interest in seeing Palestinian prisoners commit suicide. On the other hand, we can’t give a Hamas or Islamic Jihad prisoner, every time he goes on a hunger strike, a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Israel
Palestinians
Palestinian Authority
Hunger Strikes
Prisons and Prisoners
Netanyahu Benjamin
Abbas Mahmoud


Rolls-Royce Says Single Component Led to Engine Failure

Abstract: Rolls-Royce, the aircraft engine maker, confirmed Friday that a “specific component in the turbine area” caused an oil fire that forced an Airbus A380 operated by Qantas Airways to make an emergency landing in Singapore last week. Rolls-Royce’s finding came a day after Europe’s air safety regulator ordered a new round of inspections on all A380 jetliners using Rolls-Royce engines after it said an oil fire in the Trent 900 engine of the Qantas superjumbo might have been to blame. An uncontained engine failure is a rare situation that results in components detaching and exiting the main engine housing, often with explosive force. The failure experienced by Qantas was the first on a large civil Rolls-Royce engine since 1994. In a statement, Rolls-Royce, whose headquarters is in London, said its investigations had led to two main conclusions. “First, as previously announced, the issue is specific to the Trent 900. Second, the failure was confined to a specific component in the turbine area of the engine. This caused an oil fire, which led to the release of the intermediate pressure turbine disc,” the statement said. The directive Thursday by the European Aviation Safety Agency came as Qantas said that its fleet of six A380 superjumbos would probably remain grounded for at least two more days. Qantas is one of three airlines whose fleets are equipped with the Rolls-Royce Trent 900. Rolls-Royce said its inspection of Trent 900 engines would be “supplemented by the replacement of the relevant module,” which would “enable our customers progressively to bring the whole fleet back into service.” Josh Rosenstock, a Rolls-Royce spokesman, declined to identify the component in question. But according to one person who had been briefed on the matter, investigators isolated a problem in the air-transfer tube in the cavity between the engine’s high- and intermediate-pressure turbines. Rolls-Royce is preparing a replacement program for the component, known as Module 51, said the person, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject. Dominique Fouda, a spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency, said that, pending further findings in the investigation, the agency considered the replacement program proposed by Rolls-Royce to be “sufficient to continue operations” of A380s fitted with the affected engines. Rolls-Royce made its disclosure on Friday as part of its interim management statement for the July-to-September quarter. The company, which had previously forecast earnings growth of 4 to 5 percent this financial year, said its full-year profit would be “slightly lower” than previously forecast because of the Nov. 4 Qantas emergency. Louis Gallois, the chief executive of European Aeronautic Defense and Space, the parent company of Airbus, said his company was working closely with Rolls-Royce to investigate the problem and expressed his support for the engine maker, which is currently developing the only engine for its forthcoming Airbus A350-XWB, due to enter service in 2013. “It is not just because an engine maker has a problem that he is condemned,” Mr. Gallois said in an interview. Asked whether the Qantas incident raised issues for the A350 program, Mr. Gallois said, “We are three years before the first delivery. It means that we have time.” In addition to Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa of Germany operate A380s with the affected Trent 900 engines. Qantas and Singapore said this week that they had found oil stains on some of the engines in their superjumbo fleets. On Nov. 4, a Qantas A380 bound for Sydney had to make an emergency landing after one of its Trent 900 engines failed. The blowout of the jetliner’s No. 2 engine sent debris falling on Batam Island in Indonesia. The plane, carrying more than 450 people, returned safely to Singapore and Qantas grounded its fleet of six A380s.

Engines
Qantas Airways
Singapore
Europe
Rolls-Royce Plc
Airlines and Airplanes
Accidents and Safety
Airbus Industrie
London (England)


Mehdi Karroubi, Iranian Cleric Under House Arrest, Quits Political Party

Abstract: Mehdi Karroubi, an Iranian cleric who ran for president in 2009 in an election that was followed by protests and a brutal crackdown , has resigned from his political party, according to the Iranian news media. Mr. Karroubi, 79, has been under house arrest since 2011 for his role in the Green Movement, which helped lead widespread antigovernment protests after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. “The conditions of house arrest have rendered me unable to follow up on affairs such as the issues of this party, and my knowledge and information about it are limited,” Mr. Karroubi wrote in a letter to his party published in the reformist newspaper Shargh on Tuesday. In the letter, Mr. Karroubi asked party members to approve his resignation request for the sake of the party. “Until the end of my life, I shall not cease from defending the culture of revolution and the party,” he wrote. Mr. Karroubi, who has held several senior positions in Iran, including leader of Parliament, founded the National Trust Party after unsuccessfully competing for the presidency in 2005. He urged the party to maintain its independence but also to “have interaction and collaboration with other reformist groups and characters.” In April, Mr. Karroubi wrote a letter to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s successor, President Hassan Rouhani, demanding a public trial. The letter put Mr. Rouhani, whom Mr. Karroubi supported in the 2013 election, in a difficult position. Mr. Rouhani, a moderate, had promised to end the house arrest of Mr. Karroubi and two other leaders of the Green Movement, Mir Hussein Moussavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard. The cleric had long operated in Mr. Moussavi’s shadow, but he emerged in 2009 as a leading opposition figure in his own right . He accused state security officers of sexually assaulting and torturing men and women who were arrested for taking part in the election protests; in turn, the government accused him of fomenting unrest and aiding Iran’s foreign enemies. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his hard-line supporters do not support the release of Mr. Karroubi and the other opposition leaders, despite persistent calls for their freedom . The letter to Mr. Rouhani revealed a division in the reformist movement in Iran between members of an older generation like Mr. Karroubi, who want to aggressively challenge the system, and mainstream moderates now in ascendancy, who want to focus on reviving the sluggish economy and to avoid a confrontation with Ayatollah Khamenei. In his April letter, Mr. Karroubi complained about corruption, mismanagement and blind political ambition in Iran’s religious and political establishment, portraying himself as fearless and outspoken.

Mehdi Karroubi
Iran
Politics
Election
Hassan Rouhani
Mir Hussein Moussavi
Ali Khamenei


Ethiopian Rebels to Refrain From Attacks

Abstract: KHARTOUM, Sudan, Sept. 2 — A powerful rebel group in the Ogaden desert of Ethiopia has declared a temporary cease-fire to allow a United Nations fact-finding team to gain access to the war-torn region, a rebel spokesman said Sunday. Fighters from the group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, will not attack government soldiers while United Nations officials are in the area, said Abdirahman Mahdi, a spokesman for the rebels. “We appreciate what they are doing and won’t put any obstacle in their path,” he said. The Ogaden desert is a desolate corner of eastern Ethiopia where impoverished nomads are waging a separatist war against the Ethiopian military, one of the biggest armies in Africa. After the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers at a Chinese-run oil field in April, government troops cracked down by blockading much of the area, Western diplomats and aid workers say. Many Ogaden residents have described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will, accusations that the Ethiopian government vehemently denies. Concerned by the reports of human rights abuses and the risks of a government-made famine, United Nations officials set off last week on a fact-finding mission to the Ogaden. The mission included human rights officers and experts in child welfare, food and health. The Ethiopian government has said it has nothing to hide, though several aid organizations have recently complained about lack of access to the Ogaden. On Friday, Doctors Without Borders, an international aid agency, said its workers were being blocked from the region. The agency said in a statement that there were “urgent health needs and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis” in the Ogaden and that “despite a signed agreement” with the group, the Ethiopian authorities continued to deny it access to the area. In July, the Ethiopian government expelled the Red Cross from the Ogaden, accusing its workers of being rebel spies. An Ethiopian government spokesman, Zemedkun Tekle, said Sunday that he did not know which aid organizations had been restricted but that “the U.N. mission will be free to conduct its work.”

Ethiopia
United Nations
Ogaden National Liberation Front
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
International Relations


Stephanopoulos to Join ‘Good Morning America’

Abstract: ABC News has made official the long-rumored appointment of George Stephanopoulos to succeed Diane Sawyer as the anchor of “Good Morning America” — and its top executive promised on Thursday that the show would move “in a new direction,” toward more news and substantive information. David Westin , the president of ABC News, who made the announcement on Thursday, conducted a three-month search for a successor for Ms. Sawyer, who was named in September as the next anchor of ABC’s evening news program, “World News,” succeeding Charles Gibson . Throughout the process, Mr. Stephanopoulos, the anchor of ABC’s Sunday morning discussion program “This Week” and the chief political correspondent for the network, was considered the front-runner, although “there were many candidates who could have done the job,” Mr. Westin said in an interview by phone. With his background in politics — he worked in the Clinton White House — and political reporting, Mr. Stephanopoulos had, according to some accounts, insisted that he not lead some of the lighter segments, like cooking features and celebrity interviews, that are often a staple of morning television. But “that was not as much a point of discussion as has been reported,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said in an interview by phone. “David told me he was already thinking of reorienting the show.” Mr. Westin said that even before Mr. Gibson made clear his intention to retire from the evening anchor position — leading to the appointment of Ms. Sawyer on “World News” — he had decided that “we needed to be providing more information about things that matter to our audience.” Mr. Stephanopoulos said: “I think I have a pretty good sense of what makes sense to do and what doesn’t make sense. If there’s something that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it shouldn’t be on the show.” Jim Murphy, the show’s executive producer, pointed out that Mr. Stephanopoulos had substituted as anchor on many occasions. “George’s No. 1 attribute is his interviewing skill,” Mr. Murphy said. “But he has interests. It’s not like we’re getting some wonk who was born on a Sunday morning show.” Mr. Stephanopoulos, 48, is married to the actress Ali Wentworth; they have two young daughters. He acknowledged that the decision to join the show was a difficult one for him. “I was definitely torn,” he said. “I love the job I have. And Ali and I love our life in Washington. That said, ‘G.M.A.’ is an incredible franchise.” The show has long been in second place in the morning behind NBC’s “Today,” and the gap between the shows is wide at the moment. Last week “Today” beat “Good Morning America” by its widest margin in three years — more than 1.5 million viewers — and continued the longest winning streak in television history when it recorded a 14th consecutive year of finishing first every week. Mr. Westin said the pursuit of the top-rated spot in the morning remains a priority and that the decision to pair Mr. Stephanopoulos with the holdover anchor Robin Roberts “is going to help us to be No. 1.” The pursuit begins immediately: Mr. Stephanopoulos starts Monday. In another adjustment, Juju Chang will succeed Chris Cuomo as the show’s news reader. Mr. Cuomo, who had sought the show’s anchor job, agreed on Thursday to stay with ABC News as the co-anchor of the network’s prime-time magazine show “20/20.” ABC also announced that Mr. Stephanopoulos would remain in his old position as anchor on “This Week” until a successor was chosen. Mr. Stephanopoulos, who said he was proud of how much progress that show had made in closing the ratings gap in recent months with another perennial NBC leader, “Meet the Press,” expressed regret that he would not be able to keep both jobs permanently. “I just can’t do both jobs for long and also help raise a family,” he said. He will, however, retain his job as the chief political reporter for ABC News.

ABC News
Television
Stephanopoulos George
News and News Media
Appointments and Executive Changes
Sawyer Diane
Westin David
Gibson Charles


A ‘Docu-Ad’ Looks at Hardship of Those Without Bank Access

Abstract: REMEMBER the longtime pitch for Campbell’s Chunky soup , “the soup that eats like a meal”? A project that American Express is to introduce Wednesday can be described as a commercial that watches like a documentary. The commercial is styled and presented like an investigative nonfiction film that might be part of the “Frontline” series on PBS or a segment of “60 Minutes.” Titled “Spent: Looking for Change,” it runs almost 40 minutes and can be watched free online: on the YouTube channels of American Express and a digital news show, the Young Turks ; on hulu.com ; and on a special website , spentmovie.com. “Spent” has some big names behind it: Tyler Perry is the narrator and the filmmaker Davis Guggenheim is an executive producer, with Christopher Gebhardt of the Participant/Tag division of Participant Media , which handled the project for American Express. “Spent” is meant as an exposé of the high costs of living outside the traditional financial system and seeks to make its case by following four families who are — in the parlance of those involved with the issue — unbanked or under-banked and must use alternatives like check-cashing services, payday lenders, pawn shops and car title lenders. “Our financial system is leaving nearly 70 million Americans behind,” a promotional ad for “Spent” declares. “It’s time for a change.” By commissioning “Spent,” American Express hopes to build a coalition for solving the problems of people forced to use nontraditional financial services. “Making the system work better is within our reach,” title cards assert at the end, adding: “Share this film. Lend your voice. Start the conversation.” A company in West Hollywood, Calif., named theAudience will help promote the project with a campaign in social media. Unlike many commercials that resemble films or documentaries, “Spent” features no overt American Express brand presence. In fact, the credit “Presented by American Express” does not appear on screen until 38 minutes and 23 seconds into the commercial, which runs 39 minutes and 43 seconds. An earlier version contained no credit at all. Visitors to spentmovie.com must scroll to the bottom of the home page to find the words “Brought to you by American Express” and links to information about two prepaid-card products, Bluebird and Serve , that American Express sells in the nontraditional financial services market. The company recently entered that market in an effort to expand beyond its customer base of affluent professionals. Neither Bluebird nor Serve is depicted or mentioned in “Spent.” By eschewing product placement or branded content, American Express is following the example of other modern-day Medicis that underwrite documentary-style commercials on issues important to their businesses. Chipotle commissioned a four-part web series about industrial farming. “The issue in general, it’s one we believe in pretty passionately,” said Daniel H. Schulman, group president for enterprise growth at American Express. “There is this saying, ‘It’s expensive to be poor,’ and usually the less money you have the more it costs to manage it.” “But talking about ‘financial exclusion’ can fall flat and tends to not have the impact that great storytelling can have,” he added, so “we wanted to create a documentary that brings to life this story in a way that a print ad or an article” could not. Nor does American Express “want this to be about our products or our services,” Mr. Schulman said, because “if someone is turned off by what they think of as advertising, and they do not watch the documentary, something is lost.” “We could have gone a traditional way,” he added, “but that isn’t going to make the impact this documentary can in breathing life into ‘financial exclusion.’ ” Experts say that although American Express has a dog or two in the hunt, it is credible for the company to address those issues. “Having someone else call for things we’re calling for sounds like it would be great,” said Susan Weinstock, director for the Pew Safe Checking in the Electronic Age Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington. “It’s hard to say more, having not seen ‘Spent,’ ” she added, “but having more people understand the problems with the products that are hurtful is a good thing, and if it helps the C.F.P.B. to write strong rules, that’s a great thing.” Her reference was to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is to release rules on prepaid cards. A Bluebird prepaid card with a direct-deposit feature topped a Consumer Reports survey of such products in July. “American Express has introduced products that address the concerns of the unbanked and under-banked,” said Christina Tetreault, a staff lawyer at the San Francisco office of the parent, Consumers Union. “But it’s important that consumers have options, and our advice is to always shop around.” The right type of prepaid cards “can be a real, low-cost, effective and nonpunitive way to manage your money,” she added, and the Bluebird card that led the survey could be “an on-ramp to the financial mainstream.” How much has American Express spent on “Spent”? Although Mr. Schulman refused to say, it is estimated to be a small fraction of the cost of a traditional campaign. American Express spent $300.1 million last year to run ads in major media, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP — a sum that would redeem a lot of items pawned by the unbanked or under-banked.

American Express
Documentaries
Personal finance
advertising,marketing
Banking and Finance


Finance Committee Asks Senators to Start Tax Reform Process

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday began a legislative push to simplify the tax code by asking all senators to identify what tax breaks, deductions and credits should be kept. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the committee’s chairman, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the committee’s ranking Republican, said they wanted to start the process by clearing the tax code of all special breaks. They gave their colleagues until July 26 to produce their so-called pardon list. “To make sure that we clear out all the unproductive provisions and simplify tax reform, we plan to operate from an assumption that all special provisions are out unless there is clear evidence that they: (1) help grow the economy, (2) make the tax code fairer, or (3) effectively promote other important policy objectives,” the senators told their colleagues . They also asked for proposals for changes to the tax code. The leaders of both the finance committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have promised a robust effort this Congress to overhaul the tax code, but they face extremely long odds. President Obama has expressed only tentative interest. Senate Democratic leaders have offered little support, and although Republicans say it is a top priority, they have been loath to say which breaks they would sacrifice or curtail. In concept, a simplified tax code has bipartisan appeal. “America’s tax code is broken,” the committee’s letter reads. “The last major reform of the tax code was the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which is considered by many as the gold standard for tax reform. However, since then, the economy has changed dramatically and Congress has made more than 15,000 changes to the tax code. The result is a tax base riddled with exclusions, deductions and credits.” In practice, the biggest tax breaks — the mortgage interest deduction, employer tax breaks for health care benefits, deductions for state and local taxes and deductions for charitable contributions — may prove politically more popular than true tax reform. Image Senator Max Baucus, left, and Senator Orrin Hatch said on Thursday that they want to start work on the tax code by clearing it of special breaks, unless those breaks meet specific goals. Credit Gary Cameron/Reuters While groups like the Business Roundtable, which represents the chief executives of the nation’s largest corporations, praised the initiative, trade associations representing specific tax breaks immediately jumped to the defense of their causes. “Our message to lawmakers is the charitable deduction must be included in any sensible tax reform legislation. The charitable deduction is unique in that it requires individuals to give their money away for the benefit of society,” said Sandra Swirski, executive director of the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a group formed to protect the tax deduction for giving. Rather than having senators identify the tax breaks they want to eliminate, Senator Baucus and Senator Hatch decided that it would be politically easier to ask them which breaks should be saved. But they said saving tax breaks come at a cost: every $2 trillion in individual tax breaks added back to their “blank slate” would raise tax rates 1.3 to 2.2 percentage points. In other words, senators must decide between popular tax breaks and low income tax rates. Still, some senators blanched at being handed such a responsibility. Usually, committee leaders draft a base bill and submit it to members to amend. Others said they were pleased that after three years of hearings, white papers and small breakout groups hashing over issues in the tax code, a legislative process was beginning. “It’s a deliberate process that takes the politics out of it,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and a finance committee member. Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the Ways and Means chairman, who has vowed to complete a tax overhaul bill by the end of the year, welcomed Senate movement. House Republican leaders have reserved the symbolic H.R.1 — the first official bill of the 113th Congress — for a comprehensive tax reform plan, but they have privately expressed concern that Mr. Camp will move forward with a contentious measure, then leave House members politically exposed when the Senate fails to follow. “This significant step forward underscores that the Senate and House are on the same page as they work in a bicameral, bipartisan manner to fix our broken tax code,” Mr. Camp said in a statement.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions


Fertilization in Flowers Marked by Expert Precision

Abstract: Flower fertilization is a complex process that requires a perfect union between a single ovule and a single pollen tube, which contains sperm. Now a new study reports how flowers are able to reproduce with such expert precision. Researchers report that the moment a gamete fusion event occurs — that is, when the two sperm cells from a pollen tube unite with the two female gametes in the ovule — all other pollen tubes are repelled, redirected toward other ovules. “As soon as the fusion is successful, this mechanism is triggered that tells all the other pollen tubes to go away,” said Mark Johnson , a molecular geneticist at Brown University and an author of the study, which is reported in the journal Current Biology. It isn’t clear exactly what causes the redirecting, Dr. Johnson said. “I don’t know if there’s a physical block to more pollen tubes coming,” he said. “We don’t see any evidence for that.” Most likely, “some sort of molecule is triggered that repels the other pollen tubes,” he said. For a flowering plant like Arabidopsis — the one the researchers studied — to be as successful as possible, ovules should not go to waste. The repelling feature helps flowers attain maximum reproductive success. And it is probably why flowering plants have generally been more successful than other plants in colonizing the earth, Dr. Johnson said. “They’re basically everywhere,” he said.

Current Biology
Flowers and Plants
Reproduction (Biological)
Science and Technology


Time Warner Cable Results Fall Short of Predictions

Abstract: Time Warner Cable executives provided few clues on Thursday about whether the company would partake in a new round of deal activity, as it missed expectations for first-quarter profit but reported its strongest subscriber growth in years. Intense regulatory scrutiny led Comcast last week to abandon its $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable, which would have united the country’s two largest cable operators and reshaped the video and broadband landscape. The deal’s collapse immediately set off a new round of speculation about whether Time Warner Cable would seek out another buyer, pursue an acquisition of its own or remain independent. Video “We gotta move on,” says Brian L. Roberts, Comcast’s chief executive, on abandoning the cable giant’s $45 billion bid for Time Warner Cable. Credit Credit CNBC Robert D. Marcus, Time Warner Cable’s chief executive, said in a conference call that he was not going to respond to questions about mergers and acquisitions but that the company was seeking the option that would maximize shareholder value. “While the termination of our merger with Comcast and speculation of our other M&A continue to grab most of the headlines, this morning I’d like to focus on the fundamental strength of our business,” he said. “In short, I believe we are as well positioned for the future as any company in our industry. To be blunt, that was not the case when we entered 2014 and I couldn’t be more pleased with the strides we’ve made.” Net income for the quarter was $458 million, or $1.59 a share, down from $479 million, or $1.70 a share, during the same period last year. Higher programming costs and investments in technical operations and customer services dragged down profits. Total revenue increased 3.5 percent to $5.8 billion. The company added 205,000 total residential customers, its most ever during a quarter. It added 30,000 video subscribers, its first positive quarter for video growth since 2009.

Time Warner Cable
Comcast
Earnings Reports


New President of Brazil, Michel Temer, Signals More Conservative Shift

Abstract: BRASÍLIA — The new Brazilian president’s first pick for science minister was a creationist. He chose a soybean tycoon who has deforested large tracts of the Amazon rain forest to be his agriculture minister. And he is the first leader in decades to have no women in his cabinet at all. The government of President Michel Temer — the 75-year-old lawyer who took the helm of Brazil on Thursday after Dilma Rousseff was suspended by the Senate to face an impeachment trial — could cause a significant shift to the political right in Latin America’s largest country. “Temer’s government is starting out well,” Silas Malafaia, a television evangelist and author of best-selling books like “How to Defeat Satan’s Strategies,” wrote on Twitter . “He’ll be able to sweep away the ideology of pathological leftists,” Mr. Malafaia added of a conservative lawmaker whom Mr. Temer chose as education minister. For more than a decade, Brazil has been an anchor of leftist politics in the region, less strident than the governments in countries like Venezuela and Cuba, but openly supportive of them and committed to its own platform of reducing inequality. But parts of Latin America are now drifting away from the left after elections in neighboring countries like Argentina and Paraguay. Mr. Temer seems to be embracing a more conservative disposition for his government as well, with the country’s business establishment pressuring him to privatize state-controlled companies and cut public spending. Image Dilma Rousseff acknowledged supporters after Brazil’s Senate voted to suspend her on Thursday. Credit Eraldo Peres/Associated Press To many of Mr. Temer’s critics, the shift is perhaps most evident in the role of women in his and Ms. Rousseff’s administrations. The contrasts could not be more glaring. Ms. Rousseff, 68, was a former operative in an urban guerrilla group. She was tortured during the military dictatorship and eventually rose to lead the board of the national oil company before becoming Brazil’s first female president. Until recently, relatively few Brazilians had even heard of Mr. Temer. When they did, it often involved references to his wife, Marcela Temer, 32, a former beauty pageant contestant who is 43 years younger than he is. They met when she was just 18. A profile of Ms. Temer in Veja, a newsmagazine, caused a stir by glowingly referring to her as “pretty, demure and of the home.” It said Mr. Temer was “a lucky man” to have such a devoted, unassuming housewife as a spouse, especially one who wears knee-level skirts. The magazine did not mention the tattoo on the nape of Ms. Temer’s neck featuring her husband’s name, but the message was clear: Mr. Temer, a law professor and career politician, embodies a more conservative approach than Ms. Rousseff in the corridors of power and in his own home. Then there is the issue of race. After a long stretch in which Brazil pressed ahead with affirmative action policies, Mr. Temer’s critics point out the lack of Afro-Brazilians in his cabinet, especially when nearly 51 percent of Brazilians define themselves as black or mixed race, according to the 2010 census. “It’s embarrassing that most of Temer’s cabinet choices are old, white men,” said Sérgio Praça, a political scientist at Fundação Getulio Vargas, an elite Brazilian university. He drew a contrast with Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, who formed a cabinet in which half of the 30 ministers are women. Video Protesters took to the streets in São Paulo on Thursday night to protest the interim government of President Michel Temer and the suspension of Dilma Rousseff. Credit Credit Nelson Almeida/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In a speech to the nation on Thursday, Mr. Temer said he would seek to soothe tensions in Brazil, a nation polarized by the impeachment trial of Ms. Rousseff. She is accused of manipulating the federal budget to hide yawning deficits, a budgetary sleight of hand that her critics say helped her get re-elected in 2014. “It’s urgent to seek the unity of Brazil,” Mr. Temer said during a ceremony introducing his ministers. “We urgently need a government of national salvation.” The new president’s supporters point out that he considered a couple of women for cabinet-level posts, including Renata Abreu, 34, a lawmaker, to oversee human rights policies. But that effort, along with other test balloons, did not prosper. First, it became widely known that Ms. Abreu had voted in favor of legislation to make it difficult for women who are raped to get abortions. Then Mr. Temer opted to fold the human rights post into the Ministry of Justice, making it a second-tier appointment. Mr. Temer’s offer of the science ministry to Marcos Pereira, an evangelical pastor who does not believe in evolution, also fizzled. He named Mr. Pereira trade minister instead. Then, to the dismay of leaders in Brazil’s scientific community, Mr. Temer merged the ministries of science and communications. Like many of Brazil’s political leaders, Mr. Temer has legal problems of his own. He was recently found guilty of violating campaign finance limits, a conviction that could make him ineligible to run for office for eight years, leaving a cloud of scandal that has raised concerns about his capacity to govern with a strong mandate. “Temer faces the fundamental problem of legitimacy,” said Michael Shifter, the president of Inter-American Dialogue, a policy group in Washington. “He did not become president as a result of a popular vote, but rather because of a controversial impeachment process.” Brazil’s Line of Succession Is Engulfed in Scandals But some argue, in Mr. Temer’s favor, that his cabinet includes officials who held important posts when Ms. Rousseff’s leftist Workers’ Party was in control. Henrique Meirelles, a banker who is the new finance minister, served as central bank president for eight years during the government of Ms. Rousseff’s predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from 2003 through 2010. During that time, Brazil’s government gained the respect of investors as incomes soared during a commodities boom. Prominent figures in Brazil’s financial markets hope that Mr. Meirelles can rebuild that credibility. Some environmental activists are blasting Mr. Temer’s choice for agriculture minister, Blairo Maggi, a soybean farmer and politician who has pushed for opening huge areas of the Amazon to agricultural development. Yet some point out that Mr. Maggi was also open to dialogue, winning plaudits for reducing deforestation rates while he was governor of Mato Grosso State. Still, Mr. Maggi, along with an array of other members of Mr. Temer’s cabinet, has been battling corruption inquiries. For three years, investigators examined claims tying Mr. Maggi to a money-laundering scheme . Just this week, the Supreme Court shelved the case. Other ministers appointed by Mr. Temer remain under investigation in separate cases, including Geddel Vieira Lima, a former executive at one of Brazil’s largest government-controlled banks who is now the president’s secretary, and Henrique Alves, a tourism minister in Ms. Rousseff’s government who will occupy the same post under Mr. Temer. The rancor around the ouster of Ms. Rousseff, who will go on trial in the Senate, was evident Thursday on the streets of Brasília, the capital. Dozens of women chained themselves to barriers surrounding the presidential palace, shouting slogans in support of Ms. Rousseff and expressing alarm about Mr. Temer’s top advisers. Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, a political scientist at the University of São Paulo, said that the last time a Brazilian cabinet did not have any women was in the early 1980s, during the military dictatorship that ruled from 1964 to 1985. Until Mr. Temer’s rise to power on Thursday, she said, “all the democratic governments have had women.”

Brazil
Michel Temer
Dilma Rousseff
Impeachment
Latin America
Women and Girls
Appointments and Executive Changes
Black People,African-Americans
Discrimination


For Rutgers, Another Rout in a Season Full of Them

Abstract: PISCATAWAY, N.J. — As Rutgers and Michigan State stationed themselves in their locker rooms during halftime Wednesday night at the Rutgers Athletic Center, the Scarlet Knights’ mascot walked over to the Spartans’ bench, grabbed Coach Tom Izzo’s clipboard and pretended to scribble a play. If the mascot had done so for Rutgers Coach Eddie Jordan, it would not have seemed that odd. Losses have come by the dozen, and few have been close. Rutgers’s best player was suspended, and last month the team was stripped down to seven scholarship players. Jordan seems likely to be fired at season’s end, and with a poetic twist. Jordan made his name at Rutgers as the point guard who guided the 1975-76 team to an undefeated regular season. This season he could end up winless in the Big Ten. If he and Rutgers were hoping for a respite to their woes Wednesday, No. 2 Michigan State (25-5, 12-5 Big Ten) offered them nothing. Rutgers (6-24, 0-17) lost, 97-66, extending its Big Ten losing streak to 31 consecutive games — the second-longest run in conference history. The Scarlet Knights, who have also lost a program-record 17 straight over all, could soothe themselves with a moral victory, but that will not buttress them in the conference standings. Michigan State did not pull away until the second half, when the Spartans proved too big, too bruising and, plainly, too good. They went on a 16-2 run and handed Rutgers its ninth loss of 25 or more points. “No disrespect to Rutgers, but we let the worst team in the conference come out and play like that,” Spartans guard Denzel Valentine said. “We totally disrespected the game.” Bryn Forbes, the Spartans’ senior sharpshooter, hit 11 3-pointers — a Big Ten record — and scored 33 points, frequently muzzling any rally by Rutgers. After Rutgers’s Bishop Daniels missed a forceful dunk 2 minutes 27 seconds into the second half, Forbes hit a 3-pointer, and Erron Harris followed with another. Suddenly, Rutgers’s deficit had ballooned to 15, from 9. Corey Sanders, who returned from a four-game suspension for violating team rules, could not stem the tide alone despite scoring a team-high 19 points for the Scarlet Knights. For Michigan State, the result could be chalked up as another ho-hum victory — even with the momentary lapse that had it nearly equal with Rutgers for nearly 20 minutes. And the game was more of the same for the Scarlet Knights, too. They have made bungling defeats and eyesore box scores a routine. The university, which has already fired its football coach and its athletic director in the last four months, is seemingly primed to do the same with its basketball coach. “I’m going to be here tomorrow, and we’ll see,” Jordan said when asked about his job status. “Again, that’s not my concern. My concern is coming in tomorrow and getting better tomorrow and getting better the next day and see if we can win a game on Saturday. I’m not into predictions. I know it’s a process. We all knew it was not going to be just two years, not just three years; we knew that coming in.” Jordan’s return to his alma mater was supposed to be the story of a favorite son lifting a downtrodden and scandal-ridden program out of the gutter it found itself in in 2013 after the former coach Mike Rice was seen on video hurling homophobic slurs and basketballs at players and was fired. Instead, Jordan’s tenure has been ignominious. It began with the revelation that he had not actually earned a degree from Rutgers as a student and was still a few credits shy of graduating. And his record has only gotten worse in each of his three years at the helm. Rutgers lost by 50 points to Iowa at home in January and on Saturday dropped a game by 39 at Northwestern — a program that has never made the N.C.A.A. tournament. Jordan earned the scorn of the fans last month when he responded to cries of discontent by proclaiming apathy. “I don’t care about the reaction,” he said when Rutgers’s conference losing streak was a mere 26.

Rutgers
Michigan State
College basketball


Egon Ronay, Publisher of Food Guides, Dies at 94

Abstract: Egon Ronay, whose restaurant and hotel guides, first published in the late 1950s, alerted austerity-pinched Britons to the possibilities of fine dining and helped pave the way for Britain ’s current culinary renaissance, died Saturday at his home in Yattendon, Berkshire. He was 94. His death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Shebah Ronay. Mr. Ronay, a Hungarian who fled Budapest for London in 1946, made a novel proposition when he published “Egon Ronay’s Guide to British Eateries” in 1957. Restaurant food did not have to be bad, he said, and good food could be found in Britain. To invigorate British food culture, such as it was, he adopted the Michelin model, sending out full-time inspectors to visit restaurants and hotels all over Britain and file reports that led to a score of one to three stars. Mr. Ronay visited about 200 restaurants each year. The first edition ran to 96 pages, written entirely by Mr. Ronay, and sold about 30,000 copies. The guide took off from there, quickly becoming an indispensable resource for hungry diners, who found assurance in Mr. Ronay’s policy of accepting no advertising or hospitality from hotels or restaurants. He later began publishing annual pub and budget-restaurant guides. The Ronay guide, published for nearly 30 years, could make or break a restaurant. Mr. Ronay bolstered the careers of chefs like Raymond Blanc, Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay, although he could turn on a dime. In 2008, he complained to The Daily Mail that Mr. Ramsay and the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver “are not chefs anymore, they are businesspeople.” “There’s no doubt that he had a huge, huge influence and he helped British chefs to believe in themselves,” Mr. Blanc told The Daily Telegraph, pointing out that his life changed forever when his restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxford , was named restaurant of the year by the Ronay guide in 1978. In an interview with the BBC in 2009, Mr. Ronay said: “I really wanted to see better food. That really was my purpose.” Egon Ronay (pronounced EE-gahn ron-AY) was born in Budapest, where his enormously wealthy father ran five of the city’s finest restaurants. He earned a law degree from the University of Budapest but entered the family business. He was conscripted by the Hungarian Army during World War II and, he said, deserted in 1943 and spent the rest of the war living underground in Budapest. After the family’s restaurants were taken over by the Communist government, he left for London and found work managing a restaurant in Piccadilly owned by a friend of his father’s. In 1952 he opened a 39-seat restaurant, the Marquee, near Harrods, which shocked and delighted Londoners by serving French food. Its French chef, flown in from the Riviera, prepared country pâtés, eel stew and bouillabaisse. Fanny Cradock, a famous television chef and newspaper columnist, praised the restaurant lavishly, and within a few years Mr. Ronay succeeded her at The Daily Telegraph. In his columns and in his guidebooks, Mr. Ronay waged a campaign for higher standards of cooking, even at such unpromising locations as airport restaurants, hospitals and highway service stops. His first marriage ended in divorce. In addition to his granddaughter, Shebah, he is survived by his second wife, the former Barbara Greenslade, and her son, Gerard, whom he adopted, as well as two daughters from his first marriage, Edina and Esther; a grandson; and two great-grandchildren. In 1985 he sold the Ronay guide to the Automobile Association. Unhappy with its declining reputation under subsequent owners, he bought back the name in 1997 and in 2005, with the Royal Automobile Club, published a successor guide, “Egon Ronay’s RAC Guide to the Top 200 Restaurants in the UK.” Faced with several new competitors, it was not nearly as successful as the first guide. The culinary revolution he helped start made him, in the end, superfluous. In 1989 he published a memoir, with recipes, “The Unforgettable Dishes of My Life.”

Food
Restaurants
Ronay Egon
Reviews
Deaths (Obituaries)
Great Britain
Cooking and Cookbooks


Israeli Move Over Housing Poses a Threat to Peace Talks

Abstract: JERUSALEM — The troubled Middle East peace talks that started this summer threatened to collapse on Tuesday over what the Israeli government described as a routine bureaucratic move by its housing ministry to start long-term planning for 20,000 new apartments in West Bank settlements . Saeb Erekat, the lead Palestinian negotiator, said in an interview that he had informed American, European, Russian and Arab diplomats on Tuesday evening that if Israel did not withdraw the call for new housing plans, “we will consider it a declaration of the termination of negotiations.” “This is not going to be tolerated,” Mr. Erekat said. “Either they revoke this order or they will be held responsible for the end of the peace process.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released a statement near midnight saying he had instructed the housing minister to reconsider the plans, noting that they had not been coordinated with his office. Earlier, Mr. Netanyahu froze construction plans related to a particularly contentious area outside Jerusalem known as E1 for fear of exacerbating tensions with the United States, which had escalated in recent days because of deep disagreements about both settlement construction and negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The tempest erupted after days of unusually harsh public statements by Mr. Netanyahu and Secretary of State John Kerry, and revealed the internal political challenges Mr. Netanyahu faces in trying to control members of his own government, including the housing minister, who oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state. “This is a meaningless step — legally and in practice — and an action that creates an unnecessary confrontation with the international community, at a time when we are making an effort to persuade elements in the international community to reach a better deal with Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said in the late-night statement. “At this time, the attention of the international community must not be diverted from the main effort: preventing Iran from receiving an agreement that will allow it to continue its military nuclear program.” It is unclear whether the review of the settlement plans, which the housing minister agreed to, would satisfy the Palestinians, who scheduled an emergency leadership meeting for Wednesday and were considering taking the matter to the United Nations Security Council or the International Criminal Court. A second Palestinian negotiator, Muhammad Shtayyeh, submitted his resignation from the peace talks on Tuesday. Mr. Erekat had earlier dismissed as “not serious” the insistence by the prime minister’s office that the housing announcement was only an expression of long-term goals, not a decision to actually build. “This chain of lies must stop,” he said. “This is a government of the settlers, by the settlers and for the settlers.” American officials were working with both sides to contain the crisis. Before Mr. Netanyahu’s order to reconsider the move, a White House spokeswoman said the Obama administration was “deeply concerned” about it, adding, “We do not consider settlement planning, even in its early stages, to be a step that creates a positive environment for the negotiations.” During a visit here last week aimed at regaining momentum in the stalled talks, Mr. Kerry had criticized Israel’s continued construction in the settlements. “If you say you’re working for peace and you want peace and a Palestine that is a whole Palestine that belongs to the people who live there, how can you say, ‘We’re planning to build in the place that will eventually be Palestine’? ” Mr. Kerry said in a joint television interview with Israeli and Palestinian journalists. “It sends a message that somehow, perhaps, you’re not really serious. If you announce planning, I believe it is disruptive to the process.” Relations between the United States and Israel have only deteriorated since, with Mr. Netanyahu relentlessly criticizing the interim deal Mr. Kerry had been trying to broker in which Iran would freeze much of its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of some economic sanctions. “There is no need to rush into a bad deal,” the prime minister reiterated on Tuesday. Mr. Netanyahu’s halting of the construction planning process in E1 — a vast, hilly expanse between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim — was a sign that he was trying to cool the temperatures. Palestinians contend that construction in E1, short for East 1, would disrupt the contiguity of their future state. A year ago, Israel prompted an international uproar by declaring its intention to build there a day after the United Nations voted to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to an observer state . Yariv Oppenheimer, director of Peace Now , which opposes Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, said E1 was “very sensitive for Americans, but all the other places are not less controversial.” Ariel Rosenberg, a spokesman for the Housing Ministry, said earlier in the day, before Mr. Netanyahu’s admonition to reconsider the construction plans, that Israel would build “all over the country.” Separately, Avigdor Lieberman, reinstated as Israel’s foreign minister after an acquittal on fraud charges, expressed concern on Tuesday about the disconnect between Israel and the United States. His comments seemed like a rebuke to Mr. Netanyahu, and surprising given his history of speaking bluntly and his own hawkish views on both Iran and the Palestinian issue. “We need to understand that relations with the U.S. are foundations set in stone — without them we can’t maneuver in the contemporary world,” Mr. Lieberman told the diplomatic corps at the Foreign Ministry headquarters, according to an Israeli news site. “All these differences of opinion, which are natural and have always existed, should simply not be aired as publicly as they were.”

Saeb Erekat
Palestinians
Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli settlement
PLO


Royals Poised for a Third Run

Abstract: Up on the third floor of the museum at the Baseball Hall of Fame, in front of an oversize photograph of giddy players in championship caps and Champagne goggles, is a gray Kansas City Royals jersey. Actually, it used to be gray. Now, preserved for ages, it is caked in Citi Field dirt, smeared from the bottom of the buttons up through the script across the chest. Eric Hosmer put it there with his daring dash in the ninth inning last Nov. 1 when he bolted for home on a groundout to third. Had the Mets thrown Hosmer out, the World Series would have shifted back to Kauffman Stadium, where the Royals would have faced Jacob deGrom in Game 6 and Noah Syndergaard in a potential Game 7. But Hosmer, of course, was not out. He dived safely across the plate, beating a wild throw from Lucas Duda. Three innings later, the Royals were champions. The World Series lasted 53 innings, and the Royals held the lead at the end of just 13. Yet they were always in control. A year and a half ago, it was easier to dismiss the Royals. They had nearly beaten San Francisco in the 2014 World Series — stranding the tying run on third base in Game 7 — but their charmed postseason had nearly died before it started, in a wild-card game they had barely survived. Sure, the Royals were good, but perhaps they had also been lucky. Then, in 2015, the same thing happened. Facing elimination in Houston in Game 4 of their division series, down by four runs in the eighth inning, the Royals stormed back to win. That kind of repeated resilience is real. There should be nothing more we need to see from the Royals, who open their title defense — against the Mets, no less — at home on Sunday night. They have gone from possible fluke to possible dynasty. “They know they have a chance to get to three straight World Series and win back-to-back World Series,” Royals Manager Ned Yost said in spring training. “Quite frankly, they know they were 90 feet away from going for a three-peat this year. They’re every bit as motivated to come back and do it again.” The Royals did not do much to replace second baseman Ben Zobrist or right fielder Alex Rios, but Ian Kennedy takes over for Johnny Cueto in the rotation, and Joakim Soria assumes Ryan Madson’s setup spot. At 24, Yordano Ventura could develop into an ace, and Yost believes the core position players — Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez — will continue to grow. “You just see them getting better and better every year,” Yost said. “None of those guys have reached their ceiling, even though they’re experienced world champions now. They’re such a special group because they really know when to have fun — but they know when to get after it, too, like no team I’ve ever had before.” Below the Royals in the American League’s Central division is a cluster of teams that all have reasons to believe they can contend. But the one that just might challenge for a wild card is the Minnesota Twins , who are too polite to acknowledge how good they could be. Catapulted by young talent — some of which had never before reached the majors — the Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs and the Mets lifted themselves from losing records in 2014 to the postseason in 2015. The Twins seem capable of the same trick, especially if center fielder Byron Buxton, who hit just .209 in 46 games last season, and Byung-ho Park, a designated hitter signed from South Korea, have the same impact the slugger Miguel Sano did last summer. “You try to imagine how you envision your talent, and how it’s going to play out in terms of being competitive and winning,” Twins Manager Paul Molitor said. “We’ve talked a lot about not so much getting to the playoffs as trying to continue to move forward and pushing in the right direction.” The Twins are heading there, though their rotation may need a midseason reinforcement from the top pitching prospect Jose Berrios, who starred in Class AAA last season. The Detroit Tigers, as usual, left little to chance, restocking their last-place team with familiar names, including Jordan Zimmermann and Mike Pelfrey for the rotation, Justin Upton for left field and Francisco Rodriguez for the ninth inning. Age is always a concern for the Tigers, but Justin Verlander, at 33, could be an ace again. Over his final 11 starts last year, Verlander had a 2.12 E.R.A. while opponents hit just .194. Image The Royals will rely on, from top, starter Ian Kennedy, starter Yordano Ventura and reliever Joakim Soria to go from possible fluke to possible dynasty. Credit Photographs by John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star, via Associated Press “What we want is for everybody to be healthy and basically to perform to expectations,” General Manager Al Avila said. “Justin Verlander doesn’t have to be all-world. Jordan Zimmermann doesn’t have to be all-world. Miguel Cabrera doesn’t have to hit 50 home runs. Everybody contributing as a team unit is going to determine our winning, not one guy being a superstar.” The Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox cannot be discounted in the Central, because both have strong rotations, at least at the top. The Indians will count on Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, while the White Sox have three standout left-handers in Chris Sale, Jose Quintana and Carlos Rodon. Both teams struggled at the plate last season, though, and between them added only one elite hitter this winter: third baseman Todd Frazier, who joined the White Sox in a trade. The Indians are notoriously slow starters, and their star left fielder, Michael Brantley, will begin the season on the disabled list as he recovers from shoulder surgery. In the West division, the Astros and the Texas Rangers should again stage a spirited race, with both very likely to reach the playoffs. The Astros helped their bullpen by trading for Ken Giles, the former Philadelphia closer whose slider looks like the primary weapon of another Phillies and Astros relief star, Brad Lidge. The Astros will also get a full season from the dazzling shortstop Carlos Correa, who joined the team last June. Better health for right fielder George Springer and a full season of center fielder Carlos Gomez — who arrived in a trade last July — should also make the Astros more dangerous. Image The Houston Astros should benefit from a full season with shortstop Carlos Correa, who joined the team last June. Credit Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press As much as the Royals deserved their playoff victory last October, the Astros did make it awfully tough. That experience can only help. “Was I O.K. with losing to the eventual champs?” Manager A. J. Hinch said. “It was probably the best lesson we could give our team: We’re good enough to compete with anybody on any given day.” The Rangers, though, could say something similar. They nearly beat the Toronto Blue Jays in their five-game division series and should also benefit from the full-season production of their July acquisitions. The ace Cole Hamels and the revamped bullpen — with Jake Diekman and Sam Dyson — will make a big impact, and second baseman Rougned Odor could be the game’s next major star. With Prince Fielder, Adrian Beltre and Ian Desmond, the Rangers should have enough power to at least win a wild-card berth. If Yu Darvish returns to stardom after Tommy John surgery, Texas will be tough to beat in a playoff series. Under the new general manager Jerry Dipoto, the Seattle Mariners should at least beat out Dipoto’s old team, the Los Angeles Angels. The Mariners could be a surprise — Sleeper in Seattle? — if Dipoto’s mini-makeover works. He tried to load the roster with speed, athleticism and contact hitting to maximize the thunder from Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager. “They can make life miserable for somebody,” Dipoto said, “but we needed to put a group around them that would help elevate the floor.” That floor could go up quickly if Taijuan Walker joins Felix Hernandez as an ace atop a rotation with Hisashi Iwakuma, Wade Miley and Nate Karns. But rising to the franchise’s first playoff spot since 2001 seems just out of reach. The California teams — the Angels and the Oakland Athletics — seem likely to finish at the bottom, despite the presence of the game’s best player (Angels center fielder Mike Trout) and the ace Sonny Gray in Oakland. The Angels seem thin in the rotation and at spots in their lineup, and while the A’s are no pushovers, their history suggests that trading a star at peak value (in this case, Gray) will be a strong consideration. The A’s did that last season with third baseman Josh Donaldson, who joined the Blue Jays, won the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award and carried the team to its first playoff appearance since 1993. The Blue Jays lost their rental ace, David Price, but retain almost everyone from an offense that scored 127 more runs than any other team last season. “When you look around and see the kind of talent that we have, it makes winning very plausible, and you believe that’s what we’re going to do,” Donaldson said. “Nobody wants to be the weak link.” Image David Ortiz will have his farewell tour this season, but whether it ends with a Red Sox playoff appearance will be determined. Credit Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press There are few weak links in the Blue Jays’ lineup, and the pitching staff is strong enough to make the most of the run support. The young starters Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez could be breakout stars in the rotation, with R. A. Dickey, Marco Estrada and J. A. Happ as stabilizers. Drew Storen adds to the bullpen depth as a setup man for Roberto Osuna. The Yankees ranked second to Toronto in runs last season, and while it is hard to trust their aging lineup to repeat that feat, it is not too far-fetched. Nobody would want to face the Yankees’ relievers in October, but the starters need to do more to get them there. The Yankees’ rotation included only one pitcher (C. C. Sabathia) who met the minimum requirement (162 innings) to qualify for the E.R.A. title last season, but with Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda, Luis Severino and Nathan Eovaldi, the talent is there to contend. The Boston Red Sox have the motivation, the money and the prospects to add what they need at the trading deadline. But will their roster be strong enough for it to matter? The guess here is that David Ortiz will finish his career the way Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter did for the Yankees: without a playoff appearance. Price is a major upgrade atop the rotation, of course, and Craig Kimbrel arrives to secure the ninth inning. But with two of Boston’s more promising arms now hurt — starter Eduardo Rodriguez with a knee injury and reliever Carson Smith with a muscle strain near his elbow — the rest of the staff looks underwhelming. If the Tampa Bay Rays’ pitching could be paired with the Baltimore Orioles’ offense, that team could win 90 games. Alas, the Rays’ arms will have a slim margin for error, and the Orioles’ starters could be so weak that even the thumpers in their lineup will not be able to save them.

Baseball
Kansas City Royals
American League
Minnesota Twins