Complaints Abound in ‘Green’ Certification Industry

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The legal watchdogs at the Federal Trade Commission have been trying to police the proliferating — and often false — claims in recent years that products are “green” or “environmentally friendly.” The agency recently brought cases against Amazon.com, Macy’s and Sears, Roebuck & Company for selling clothing purportedly made of bamboo fiber that was really fashioned from rayon, a decidedly ungreen material. It cracked down on the paint manufacturers Sherwin-Williams and PPG Industries for saying that some of their products did not produce hazardous fumes. It shut down an online firm selling “tested green” certifications for products that were neither tested nor green. “This is certainly one of our priorities,” said James A. Kohm, the associate director of the trade commission’s enforcement division. “We’ll bring a case where we need to make a point, where consumers are getting hurt the most.” This week, two environmental groups, ForestEthics and Greenpeace , filed a complaint with the trade commission claiming that an organization that certifies paper and other forest products as “green” is a front group for the timber industry and violates the agency’s new standards for such claims. They call it a classic case of falsely claiming that a product or service is somehow more environmentally friendly or sustainable than similar products. ForestEthics and Greenpeace charge that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative , or S.F.I., a group originally formed by big timber companies, defrauds the public by certifying that products carrying its label are harvested using only environmentally responsible practices. The environmental groups say that some of the companies using the S.F.I. label engage in damaging forestry methods like clear-cutting, overusing pesticides and destroying habitats or rare species. The groups claim that the certification panel, far from being independent of the industry it supposedly oversees, as required by F.T.C. guidelines, is in fact a body created by and dominated by timber companies. S.F.I. officials deny the allegations. The environmental groups’ complaint aims to test the trade commission’s new “green guides,” a revised set of rules issued last year laying out the circumstances under which a company can claim that a product or process is environmentally sound. The new guidelines also update previous guidance on what constitutes a legitimate certification or endorsement. They now state explicitly that any certifying body must be independent of the industry it oversees and that any “material connection” to that industry must be disclosed. The F.T.C. warns manufacturers or marketers not to use broad claims that a product is “environmentally friendly” or “eco-friendly,” because these statements frequently have no scientific basis and mislead consumers. The agency also now warns against claiming that a product is biodegradable, free of harmful substances, made with renewable energy or made with all-natural materials unless these statements can be proven. Mr. Kohm said that the agency had received the complaint about the forestry certification program but would not comment on it. It may be months or longer before it is known whether the commission has opened a formal investigation or declined to take any action. The forestry complaint laid bare an obscure schism in the forest products world between two rival green certification groups, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, which mainly includes companies in the United States and Canada, and the Forest Stewardship Council , known as F.S.C., a more global group with ties to environmental advocacy organizations. The two bodies compete fiercely for companies to use their eco-friendly labels. At stake is a marketplace in the United States for green products and services that some say is worth as much as $500 billion a year. Todd Paglia, the executive director of ForestEthics, said that his group took its concerns to the F.T.C. because it believed that the revised guidelines specifically cover organizations like the Sustainable Forestry Initiative . ForestEthics filed a similar complaint in 2009 under the earlier guidance but the agency took no action. “We believe it is a really strong signal the F.T.C. agrees with us that S.F.I. is operating in an illegal manner, deceiving individuals and companies by not disclosing their close ties to the logging industry,” Mr. Paglia said. “The fact is they’re funded by logging companies, and the industry has a veto over anything proposed.” Kathy Abusow, the chief executive of S.F.I., said that interests allied with the Forest Stewardship Council were behind the trade commission complaint, part of a campaign to entice companies to quit S.F.I. and seek F.S.C. certification. So far, 24 companies , including Hewlett-Packard and Office Depot , have done so, according to Mr. Paglia. Brad Kahn, a spokesman for the stewardship council, said it was “not aware of the complaint and had no involvement whatsoever.” Ms. Abusow defended her program’s independence and its rigorous standards. She was confident that the trade commission would ignore the complaint, as it did the previous one. “These groups are stuck on where we were a decade ago and not where we are today,” Ms. Abusow said. She said that her group’s 18-member board included a dozen representatives of governments, environmental organizations and universities, as well as six representatives of the forest products industry. Ms. Abusow said the certification body was a nonprofit entity fully independent of the forest industry, although much of its revenue comes from dues and fees paid by member companies. S.F.I. has threatened to sue ForestEthics, saying that it files frivolous claims and spreads false and defamatory information. “These tactics are going to catch up with ForestEthics,” Ms. Abusow said. “People won’t even want to talk to them because they’re unethical.” Conflicts over certification are likely to grow in coming years as more companies seek to position themselves as green alternatives in the marketplace, said Scot Case, the markets development director for UL Environment , a branch of the 120-year-old safety certification body UL , the old Underwriters Laboratories. UL Environment publishes sustainability standards for scores of household and institutional products, from adhesives to window treatments. Mr. Case said that recent Federal Trade Commission enforcement actions had gotten the attention of manufacturers and retailers, who are now more careful about their claims of purity. “With the F.T.C. clamping down on the pure charlatans out there,” Mr. Case said, “it makes it easier for legitimate environmental labeling organizations like UL Environment to do what we do best — make it easier for consumers to buy greener products.”

ForestEthics
Forests
Greenpeace
Sustainable Forestry Initiative
Label
FTC
Sustainable living


In Greenwood Heights, Bread, Beer and Famous Graves

Abstract: “Greenwood Heights? I know it as Park Slope!” Bachir Benterkia of Greenwood MiniMarket said. He’s not the only one who’s confused. The steep, narrow strip of Brooklyn west of Green-Wood Cemetery is South Slope to some, Sunset Park to others. But many today, perhaps swayed by the real estate industry, know it as Greenwood Heights. Whatever you call it, this compact neighborhood is in easy reach from the R train stop at 25th Street. First-time visitors should head for the 478-acre cemetery, founded in the 1830s, when land prices made graveyards next to churches impractical. Wandering under its weeping beeches and beside its lily-covered ponds, you can trace the course of American history. Among those buried or entombed here are freed slaves and civil war soldiers, artists and politicians, and many ordinary New Yorkers — 560,000 and counting. APPROACHING FIFTH AVENUE, the scent of bread leads to Aladdin Bakers, which dominates the corner of 26th street. Joseph Ayoub began the commercial bakery in 1972 to make pita bread for locals; today, the business distributes across the country. In April, he opened Baked in Brooklyn on the site, a cafe with white marble counters and its own separate artisanal baking operation. Plate-glass windows overlook Green-Wood; glass walls inside offer a view of bakers at work. ALMOST NEXT DOOR, at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue, is the intriguing ruin of a wood-and-glass greenhouse, its flaking green trim matching the patina of its cupola. The sign “McGovern Weir” sits atop it like a weather vane. James Weir Jr., the English-born son of a Scottish immigrant who had more than 20 greenhouses and nurseries in other Brooklyn neighborhoods, built it in 1880 and expanded it significantly in 1895. The McGoverns, another florist family, took over in 1971. This year, Green-Wood bought the building, now a landmark, with plans to make it a visitors’ center. IN THE 1970S, only the families of plot owners could enter Green-Wood’s neo-Gothic gates, which the architectural firm Richard Upjohn and Son designed in 1861. Three spires, symbolizing the Christian trinity, spike skyward above two grand porticos, through which Victorian visitors drove their carriages. Sandstone reliefs above the entrances show scenes of resurrection. Today, the cemetery is open to the public, and more than 200,000 people explore the grounds each year. Impressive — but in the 1850s, about twice as many people came, and the cemetery rivaled Niagara Falls as a tourist destination. ONE HIGHLIGHT not far from the entrance is Battle Hill, the highest natural point in Brooklyn, where the British suffered significant casualties during the Revolutionary War. A statue of Minerva gestures toward the Statue of Liberty, visible in the distance. Leonard Bernstein’s grave is close by, set flat in the lawn. Fans often leave small stones on top of it in the Jewish custom. It’s easy to get lost wandering the paths or seeking out a famous grave site. (Jean-Michel Basquiat’s is a popular pilgrimage.) Visitors should pick up a free map, take a docent-led tour in Green-Wood’s shiny green “trolley” or download “Green-Wood Discover,” an app that was introduced this month. FOR A HINT of this traditionally immigrant neighborhood’s future, drop in on Greenwood Park, a bar in a former garage complex a few blocks away at Seventh Avenue and 19th Street. It has three bocce courts and a big open area out front, protected from the sidewalk by stacks of recycled pallets. Word is spreading, but the place is still so new it doesn’t have a phone.

Green-Wood Cemetery (NYC)
Greenwood Heights (NYC)


Teterboro Airport Faces Many Problems, Including Cramped Tower

Abstract: In the cab atop Teterboro Airport’s seven-story tower, air traffic controllers operate an array of sophisticated technological equipment in a space so small they often bump elbows as they work. Fog can mar the visibility through the double-paned windows. One controller said that the tops of trees near the tower partly obscured the controllers’ views, a problem the airport controls by cutting the branches back with chain saws. The planes that take off and land at Teterboro — from plush corporate jets to the single-engine planes of weekend pilots — come and go in great numbers, with about 500 daily takeoffs and landings on average last year. Departing planes tend to back up on the tarmac on busy days. And there are more runway incursions — incidents of near collisions of planes with other planes, people or vehicles — than there are at either Kennedy International or La Guardia Airport. “In my opinion, it is the most complex piece of airspace in the country — the amount of traffic that moves in and out, the mix of traffic and the confines and constraints that exist there, it is actually amazing,” said a former Teterboro controller about his old airport. The small, busy airport is now facing scrutiny after the midair crash of a single-engine airplane and a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River two weeks ago that killed nine people. National Transportation Safety Board investigators were on the scene again on Friday after a small plane crashed as it tried to land, injuring both pilots. Teterboro, for all the recent attention, is generally regarded by government officials and airline industry experts as a vital “reliever airport,” with a mission like others positioned around other big cities, like Hanscom Field, near Boston, and Van Nuys Airport, which serves Los Angeles. It helps keep small planes out of big planes’ way. But its 1970s tower needs to be replaced — something that is not expected to happen anytime soon. Officials at the safety board said that they had been told that Teterboro is far down on a national list for a new tower and that construction may not take place until 2050. “It is a very old tower,” said Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. “It was not designed to accommodate either the number of people or the kind of work they do there today.” The cab atop the tower is only about 200 square feet — the size of many a bedroom — and is packed with equipment. As many as four controllers work there at a given time. In recent weeks, Ms. Brown said, the tower has been “moved up on the priority list for replacement,” and the agency expects to put money in its next budget, in 2011, to “proceed with design.” She disputed any notion of construction being forestalled until 2050, but could not say when it would occur. Meanwhile, Teterboro keeps making headlines. The small airplane that collided with the tourist helicopter on a sunny Saturday two weeks ago was cleared for takeoff from Teterboro at 11:48 a.m. Safety board investigators are examining the actions of a controller who initiated a “nonbusiness-related” phone call to a woman in the airport’s operations department as he was monitoring the flight. They have determined that a supervisor was not there, as required. Safety board analysts, who found “air traffic error” to be one factor, but not a cause or the common denominator, in each of four recent runway incursions — are following the inquiry into the Aug. 8 crash. “There is no question that this accident is the type of accident that is high on the N.T.S.B.’s agenda — the idea of a crowded airspace, the intermingling of turboprops, jets and helicopters — and it would not surprise me if the N.T.S.B. looks very carefully at the operations of the airport,” said Peter Goelz, a former managing director at the safety board. “It is a vital part of the New York city aviation system.” Teterboro’s physically cramped layout — it is on 827 acres about six miles west of the George Washington Bridge — was a factor in an accident in 2005, when a corporate jet shot off a runway as it was taking off, ripped through a fence and barreled across six lanes of Route 46, striking cars before hitting a warehouse. On Friday, a smaller plane, carrying specimens from doctors’ offices, crashed and burst into flames as it was trying to land about 3 a.m.. The controllers at Teterboro — 22 men and women as of last week — are a mix of veterans, trainees and those in midcareer. Though there is little sense that Teterboro is a dumping ground for underachievers, one controller who left there several years ago said that during his tenure, “all anybody wanted to do was leave” to advance their careers at more prominent airports. The airport is facing the same issue as about 300 others staffed by Federal Aviation Administration controllers: a retirement bubble of a large number of them hired during a controllers’ strike in 1981, and a mandatory retirement age of 56. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns and operates Teterboro, said it is the “oldest operating airport” in the metropolitan area. Its first flight was in 1919; the Army ran it during World War II. Most flights are on weekdays, as companies “from small to very large” use it as a portal to the city and its surroundings, said Steve Brown, an official of the National Business Aviation Association. But traffic has dipped recently: the annual number of takeoffs and landings fell to 175,322 last year from 325,282 in 2000, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. It is the mix of aircraft — not the volume — that can be most challenging. “Teterboro presents a challenge, which is not uncommon at major general aviation airports, in that there is a diverse mix of traffic, including airplanes of greatly varying performance characteristics, so, simply put, this means that there is a mix of fast and slow traffic,” said Steven B. Wallace, former director of accident investigations for the Federal Aviation Administration, who began flying at Teterboro 32 years ago. In 1985, a fast plane attempting to land at Teterboro crashed with a slower one. The planes, a Falcon 50 Executive Jet and a single-engine Piper Cherokee, plummeted to the ground in Fairview and Cliffside Park, N.J., killing six people, one of them on the ground. That crash led to a series of safety board recommendations regarding air traffic controllers and their facilities. Runway incursions are serious, and are “precursors to aviation accidents,” according to a 2008 study by the Government Accountability Office. It showed that Teterboro had 26 incursions, three of them serious, from 2001 through August 2008. Ms. Brown, of the aviation agency, said that it had challenged the aviation community to “accelerate runway safety improvements” in October 2007. Serious incursions fell to 24 that year from 53 in 2001, she said, and there have been seven this year through last month. Corporate and private planes like the ones that use Teterboro account for a majority of all incursions, Ms. Brown said. Those familiar with Teterboro, including current and former controllers and people in the aviation industry, said that for all of the airport’s bustle, there are moments when things cool off; the pace of takeoffs and landings slows. In those periods, late at night or in blinding rain or snow, another kind of challenge can creep in: boredom. “There is nothing there to stimulate you,” said the controller who still works there. “No TV. No radio. There is nothing to do but sit and stare out the window and wait for an airplane to call.” In addition, there are times on the overnight shift when “only one person is staffing it,” the controller said. No one else was on duty on July 5, a Sunday, when a controller inadvertently locked himself out of the Teterboro tower for 43 minutes around midnight. In that instance, the controller used his cellphone to notify controllers elsewhere, who took over monitoring Teterboro traffic. Ms. Brown said that controllers who work the overnight shift alone get extra pay to eat dinner in the tower. Controllers who need a break coordinate with the Terminal Radar Approach Control — an air traffic office on Long Island that handles all traffic into and out of the airports in the New York area — “at a time when there are no expected arrivals or departures,” she said. “Traffic on that shift is very light.” For example, she said, the plane that overran the runway on Friday was the only one the controller was handling at the time.

Airports
National Transportation Safety Board
New York City
Airlines and Airplanes
Accidents and Safety


Police Seek Arsonist After Attacks on 2 Staten Island Churches

Abstract: Had the floors of the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Staten Island not been made of slate, the 150-year-old house of worship might have burned to the ground on Sunday, when, the police said, a person threw a burning bottle filled with flammable liquid through an open window. The bottle flamed out on the stone floor. The First Central Baptist Church a few blocks away, also in the Stapleton neighborhood of the island’s North Shore, was likewise spared destruction on Thursday. Before dawn, someone tossed a similarly crude grenade at a window, but it bounced off and landed on an awning, burning the structure and scorching an exterior wall, the police said. A passing ambulance saw the fire and called for help before the flames spread. The police are investigating both arson fires as hate crimes, and the same man is believed to be responsible for the two attacks, Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, said on Friday. “There are key pieces of evidence that link the two that I am not going to get into forensic-wise,” Chief Boyce said. “But we believe they were four blocks away from each other. The pieces of evidence we picked up are almost identical.” Fire marshals believed the accelerant in the bottles was gasoline, Chief Boyce said, and investigators were canvassing area gas stations and backyards — anywhere people use gasoline — for more evidence. The hooded suspect was seen in surveillance video crossing the street near the intersection of Van Duzer and Beach Streets, around the corner from the Baptist church after it had been set on fire. The police, who released the video on Thursday, said the man had not been identified and remained at large. No one was injured in either attack, and both churches suffered minor damage, the police said. In a statement on Friday, State Senator Diane J. Savino called the arsonist a “coward” and condemned the “hateful and senseless” attacks. “It’s disturbing to even think that there are people living in our communities with such malice in their hearts,” Ms. Savino said. “First Central Baptist Church and St. Paul are places where a number of my constituents have been members for most of their lives, so it truly upsets me to hear what has happened.” Michael E. McMahon, the Staten Island district attorney, said his office was monitoring the police investigation.

Arson
Staten Island
Fires
Hate crime
church,churches
NYC


Jeb Bush Apologizes to France for Workweek Remark in Debate

Abstract: LONDON — Accused of French-bashing, the Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush apologized this week for making fun of France ’s work ethic, saying he was sorry for insulting America’s oldest ally. “I made the mistake of saying that the Congress operates on a French workweek,” Mr. Bush, with jovial flourish, said in his apology. “I really did a disservice to the French.” During the Republican presidential debate last week, Mr. Bush, former governor of Florida, sought to pour scorn on his opponent Marco Rubio’s attendance record in the Senate by comparing it to the perceived idleness of the French. “I mean, literally, the Senate, what is it, like a French workweek? You get like three days where you have to show up?” Mr. Bush asked. The assault, a seemingly well-rehearsed line that fell flat both at home and in France, stirred a backlash, with more than a few irate French people taking to social media to mock Mr. Bush’s lack of diplomacy. Moreover, some critics, including France’s ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, noted that Mr. Bush had muddled his facts. “A French work week of 3 days? No but a pregnancy paid leave of 16 weeks yes! And proud of it,” Mr. Araud wrote on Twitter , with Gallic defiance. Who’s Winning the Presidential Campaign? History suggests that each party’s eventual nominee will emerge from 2015 in one of the top two or three positions, as measured by endorsements, fund-raising and polling. Indeed, despite having a 35-hour week, in practice the French are far from lazy. Full-time French workers last year put in an average of 38.9 hours a week, compared with the eurozone average of 39.6 hours a week, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At the same time, French labor productivity is sufficiently robust that The Economist recently noted that “the French could take Friday off and still produce more than Britons do in a week.” Mr. Bush, who has been seeking to revive his flagging candidacy and this week unveiled a new campaign slogan, “Jeb can fix it,” sought to mollify France, the first ally of the United States, which, historians note, provided essential military help during the American Revolutionary War. “I now know that the average French workweek is actually greater than the German workweek,” Mr. Bush said in his apology. “So, my God, I totally insulted an entire country — our first ally, that helped us become free as a nation. And I apologize.” Mr. Araud, for his part, appeared willing to accept the apology, called a mea culpa by Le Monde, the French newspaper. “Everything is forgotten and forgiven,” Mr. Araud wrote on Twitter, adding, “Errare humanum.”

Jeb Bush
US
France
Marco Rubio
Gérard Araud
2016 Presidential Election
Political Debates
Working Hours


China Extends Tax Break Program to Spur Economy

Abstract: HONG KONG — The Chinese government on Wednesday announced a modest package of economic stimulus measures, the latest sign of concern by Beijing that growth may be slowing more than expected. The State Council, China’s cabinet, decided at a meeting to extend tax breaks for small and very small enterprises through 2016 and said it was considering a significant broadening of those breaks. The council also gave a strong hint that it was preparing a broader response to recent signs of economic weakness, which have included lackluster business orders, industrial production and investment. “Officials attending Wednesday’s cabinet meeting also said China will improve macrocontrol in 2014 with measures to stimulate enterprises, expand domestic consumption and boost employment,” the government said in a statement distributed shortly before midnight by Xinhua, the state-controlled news agency. “There will also be fiscal help in coping with unexpected challenges.” The statement contained few other details, except to mention that railroad construction would be carried out rapidly and the renovation of rundown urban neighborhoods would continue. China plans to open 6,600 kilometers, or 4,100 miles, of new rail lines this year, an increase of 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles, from last year. Prime Minister Li Keqiang had said the government would build or renovate homes for 4.7 million people currently living in makeshift shelters. China also intervened in currency markets on a huge scale in late February and through March, issuing torrents of renminbi so as to buy up dollars. That had the effect of at least temporarily driving down the value of the renminbi about 1 percent, which helps make Chinese exports more competitive in foreign markets. The extra renminbi moving through the economy also brought down short-term interest rates, making it easier for troubled real estate developers and other large borrowers to continue borrowing. But the scale of China’s measures so far is much smaller than in 2009, during the global financial crisis. China limited its slowdown then with a huge spending program. The nation’s central bank also expanded China’s broadly measured money supply on a scale that dwarfed what the Federal Reserve achieved in the United States with its “quantitative easing.” Chinese leaders have called repeatedly since then for a shift toward consumption-led growth, but achieving that has proved difficult. The Asian Development Bank in a report on Tuesday called for governments across Asia, including China’s, to adjust their fiscal policies to promote economic growth that is more inclusive of the poor. Zhuang Juzhong, the deputy chief economist of the Manila-based regional lending institution, said in an interview in Hong Kong on Wednesday that China relies heavily on consumption taxes to finance government spending, which does little to address the country’s gap between rich and poor. Consumption taxes, mainly a value-added tax that reaches 17 percent for a wide range of consumer goods, represent almost half of government revenues in China. That compares with less than a third of government revenues in most affluent countries. At the same time, China has struggled to figure out how to introduce property taxes, which would tend to fall more heavily on the rich, and collects only a tenth of government revenues through personal income taxes, compared with roughly a third for affluent countries.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions


Saturday’s College Football Games to Watch

Abstract: SEC CHAMPIONSHIP 1 ALABAMA vs 14 MISSOURI 4 p.m., CBS, Atlanta Alabama is the last team standing after a chaotic race in the Southeast Conference West. Since losing to Mississippi on Oct. 4, the Tide have reeled off seven straight victories. They needed overtime to beat Louisiana State, 20-13, in a bruising contest, and last week put up 55 points against Auburn in a shootout victory in the Iron Bowl. Lane Kiffin, the offensive coordinator, has opened up the attack, and quarterback Blake Sims is a threat with his mobility. Amari Cooper has broken almost every program receiving record and is among the most talented players in college football. The Tide’s defense has looked good at times, but it allowed 44 points and 630 yards to Auburn, the most yardage the program has ever surrendered. Missouri’s offense is not on par with Auburn’s, but Alabama will need a better effort in this game. Alabama and Missouri are no strangers to the SEC championship game. The Tigers won their second straight SEC East title after coming from behind to knock off Arkansas. After getting blown out, 34-0, by Georgia, an East title seemed like a pipe dream. But the Tigers won six straight games to take the division. Shane Ray and Markus Golden give Missouri perhaps the best pair of defensive ends in the country. The Tigers lead the SEC with 38 sacks. On offense the Tigers take care of the ball, with only two fumbles, and their 13 total turnovers are second fewest in the conference. Missouri is a two-touchdown underdog against an Alabama team that seems to be destined for the College Football Playoff. BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP Image Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon leads college football with 2,260 yards and 26 touchdowns. Credit Andy Manis/Associated Press 6 OHIO STATE vs. 11 WISCONSIN 8 p.m., Fox, Indianapolis Ohio State is one of the hottest teams in the country, riding a 10-game winning streak. Yet the Buckeyes are underdogs after quarterback J. T. Barrett broke his ankle last week against Michigan. Barrett recorded a Big Ten record of 45 total touchdowns as the replacement for Braxton Miller, who was lost for the year when he injured his shoulder in the preseason. The Buckeyes are hoping Cardale Jones, a redshirt sophomore, will discover success similar to Barrett’s in his first start. The Badgers have a long history of big offensive lines that open holes for star running backs. This season’s edition paved the way for Melvin Gordon, who leads college football with 2,260 yards and 26 touchdowns. Gordon ran for a Football Bowl Subdivision record 408 yards in three quarters against Nebraska and has rushed for more than 200 yards five times. Stopping the running game is the key to beating Wisconsin. Gordon sprained an ankle against Minnesota last week, but will play. Wisconsin’s defense has come on strong down the stretch, allowing only 16.8 points per game, fewest in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes are ranked fifth in the College Football Playoff rankings. Even with a win, the Buckeyes would need someone above them to lose to make the playoff. A.C.C. CHAMPIONSHIP Image Georgia Tech quarterback Justin Thomas has compiled 861 rushing yards as part of the Yellow Jackets' triple option. Credit Scott Cunningham/Getty Images 2 FLORIDA STATE vs. 12 GEORGIA TECH 8 p.m., ABC, Charlotte, N.C. The college football world is waiting for the Seminoles’ luck to end. The defending national champions have won 28 games in a row. They are looking to win their third straight Atlantic Coast Conference title and need one victory to assure themselves a playoff spot. Standing in their way is a Georgia Tech team that does not always get the respect it deserves. The Yellow Jackets rolled over then-No. 18 Clemson two weeks ago and knocked off then-No. 8 Georgia in overtime last week. They run a triple option that averages 333.8 yards rushing per game, fourth most in the nation. Quarterback Justin Thomas (861 yards rushing) and running backs Zach Laskey (748 yards) and Synjyn Davis (686 yards) are dangerous runners. Georgia Tech is 10th in the nation on defense with 17 interceptions. Jameis Winston is coming off a four-interception performance against Florida last week and has struggled with turnovers all season. The Seminoles have won their last three games by a combined 12 points and are 4-point favorites. Each week it seems as if Florida State is going to lose, but it finds a way to win. The selection committee has taken that into account. Despite an undefeated record, the one-loss teams — Alabama, Oregon and Texas Christian — are ahead of Florida State in the College Football Playoff rankings. A loss would probably knock the Seminoles out of the playoff. MOUNTAIN WEST CHAMPIONSHIP FRESNO STATE at 22 BOISE STATE Image Boise State's Jay Ajayi has 1,619 yards rushing, the fifth most in college football. Credit Otto Kitsinger/Associated Press 10 p.m., CBS Boise State is a victory from clinching a spot in a major New Year’s Day bowl. The Broncos beat Fresno State, 37-27, earlier this season. The Broncos have won eight of their last nine games against Fresno State and are 23-point favorites. Boise State’s Jay Ajayi 1,619 yards rushing, the fifth most in college football, and his 24 touchdowns are second to Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon. 9 KANSAS STATE at 5 BAYLOR 7:45 p.m., ESPN The Big 12 does not have a championship game, but this one is close enough. Texas Christian is No. 3 in the College Football Playoff rankings and Baylor is No. 6. But Baylor beat T.C.U., 61-58, in a memorable game earlier this season. The Bears followed that up with a costly loss to unranked West Virginia, while the Horned Frogs started winning and jumped over Baylor and never looked back. Image Quarterback Bryce Petty is the key to Baylor's quick-strike offense. Credit Ronald Martinez/Getty Images The teams have nearly identical schedules, but the biggest difference is that T.C.U. has an out-of-conference victory over Minnesota. To the surprise of many, the Gophers were competitive in the Big Ten West, and T.C.U.'s victory carries weight. If Baylor beats Kansas State, it would be difficult to argue that T.C.U. deserves a spot in the playoff ahead of a team that beat it. T.C.U. will host Iowa State, 0-8 in Big 12 play, at noon on ABC. With a win, the Horned Frogs would be the lone Big 12 champion and would probably have a spot in the playoff. This is not a far-fetched scenario. The Wildcats have lost only to T.C.U. and Auburn. Kansas State will have to slow down one of the most dangerous offenses in the nation. According to ESPN research, the Bears have 21 touchdown drives that have taken a minute or less, most in the F.B.S. Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty is the key to the quick-strike offense. He left last week’s game against Texas Tech with a concussion and returned to practice and seems to be on track to play, but the Bears will need him at full strength.

College football
Playoffs
Atlantic Coast Conference
Southeastern Conference
Big Ten Conference


In 3M Case, Lawsuits and Intrigue Over a Medical Test

Abstract: It is a legal scrap with tabloid sensibilities: extortion charges, libel claims, British royalty — and a prominent American protagonist, the 3M Corporation, purveyor of staples like Scotch tape and Post-it notes. It began three years ago as a routine lawsuit over a diagnostic test to be marketed by 3M that detected a highly resistant bacterium often found in hospitals. But it has since escalated into a trans-Atlantic swill of suits and countersuits that now ensnare 3M’s chairman and chief executive, Britain’s secretary of defense and a well-known Washington lawyer and lobbyist, Lanny J. Davis . In one lawsuit, 3M charged that a big investor in the diagnostic test had tried to blackmail the company into settling its lawsuit for $30 million by suggesting that a knighthood conferred on the 3M chief executive, George W. Buckley, could be derailed. In turn, that big investor, Harvey Boulter, filed a libel suit against 3M, Mr. Buckley and a lawyer for the company. And in a legal filing on Thursday, 3M suggested Mr. Davis — probably best known for his role in defending President Clinton during his impeachment — had been part of a conspiracy to shake down the company. Mr. Davis, who represents Mr. Boulter’s equity fund, had masterminded a series of attacks on 3M that “began as a defamatory media blitz and culminated in the outright attempted blackmail of 3M and its chairman,” the company asserts in papers filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. A 3M spokeswoman declined to make Mr. Buckley available for comment. Mr. Davis said the company’s filing was untrue and intended to divert attention from 3M’s own problems. “I am accustomed when speaking publicly in only dealing in facts that can be documented,” he said. The dispute can be traced to 2005 when the equity fund headed by Mr. Boulter acquired a majority interest in the diagnostic test, which was based on technology developed by the British Ministry of Defense. The test, known as BacLite, offered a faster way to identify hospital patients who were carriers of the bacterium methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA . In recent years, MRSA infections, which are resistant to antibiotics , have caused patient deaths and injuries. Initial studies indicated that BacLite was highly accurate and, in 2007, 3M struck a multimillion-dollar deal to acquire the test, though the majority of that payout was tied to future BacLite sales. Just a year later, however, 3M dropped BacLite, saying that its subsequent studies found a high rate of false results. By then, several competing MRSA tests had also been introduced. Entities associated with Mr. Boulter’s fund, the Porton Group, responded with a lawsuit filed in 2008 in London, claiming that 3M had failed to fulfill its agreement to diligently market BacLite. And over the next three years, the case puttered along quietly until just before it went to trial last month. Several months ago, Mr. Davis began firing off a series of salvos on behalf of Porton. In May, Mr. Davis and some patients held a demonstration outside 3M’s corporate headquarters in St. Paul, at which he accused 3M of abandoning a “lifesaving” technology. In addition, Mr. Davis filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration asking it to investigate how 3M had conducted its tests of BacLite, which he says the company botched. He also helped set up a Web site, www.mrsa-injustice.com , that tells the dispute from the side of Mr. Boulter’s fund. Early last month, Queen Elizabeth announced that Mr. Buckley, who holds American and British passports, would receive a knighthood. And as the lawsuit against 3M began to unfold in a London court, Mr. Davis and 3M’s outside lawyer, William A. Brewer III, spoke about a settlement, though those discussions apparently did not advance far. Then, in mid-June, Mr. Davis suggested that Mr. Brewer and Mr. Boulter speak directly with each other. Soon, accusations began to fly. To hear Mr. Brewer tell it, he was biking in Sag Harbor, N.Y., when he received a cellphone call from Mr. Boulter, who had just arrived in Italy from Dubai, where his fund is based, and was driving down the coast to reach his yacht. After exchanging pleasantries, Mr. Brewer said that the businessman began making references to talks about BacLite he had been having with Liam Fox, the British defense secretary. The call between the two men then broke off, Mr. Brewer said, as Mr. Boulter drove through a series of tunnels along the Italian coast. Not long after, the lawyer received a lengthy e-mail from Mr. Boulter that 3M said in the lawsuit contained the blackmail threat. Along with the reference to the “embarrassing situation of George’s knighthood,” Mr. Boulter also wrote in the e-mail that he had a lengthy conversation earlier that day with the defense secretary on “our current favorite topic.” He stated that British officials viewed 3M’s decision not to market BacLite as a violation of trust and that, while 3M might prevail in a courtroom, there could be business ramifications for the company. “It might leave Gov quietly seething for a while, with ramifications for a while — they have memories like elephants,” he wrote. He suggested that 3M settle the case, adding that at a “headline of $30mn+ you will allow MoD to internally save face.” Mr. Boulter rejected any suggestion that his e-mail contained a threat to 3M, adding that he had discussed the note’s contents with Mr. Brewer before sending it. He also said that his reference to his discussion with Mr. Fox about “our current favorite subject” was not about BacLite. “I thought I was in a good-faith confidential settlement discussion,” Mr. Boulter said. Mr. Brewer said that Mr. Boulter’s threat was clear and that he reinforced it in a second e-mail, in which Mr. Boulter cited Mr. Fox again, writing “I need to tell something” to him. “3M quickly decided that the only way to treat this type of behavior was to push it out into the sunlight immediately,” Mr. Brewer said. Mr. Boulter said that he and the defense secretary had briefly discussed the BacLite lawsuit as part of a broader conversation and that he brought up the potential public relations problems for Mr. Buckley given his knighthood and 3M’s behavior in the case. “I said it was unfortunate because it was going to attract a lot of media attention,” Mr. Boulter said. Asked about Mr. Boulter’s comments, a spokesman for the ministry of defense said that Mr. Fox and Mr. Boulter had not discussed the BacLite case or anyone’s knighthood. A decision in the MRSA-related lawsuit against 3M is not expected for some time.


India and Pakistan Strain as Flooding Kills Hundreds

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Relief operations struggled on Monday in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir and in parts of Pakistan where six days of rain and flooding have left hundreds of people dead. On the Pakistan side of the border, Ahmed Kamal, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority, said more than 190 people had been killed — more than 60 in the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir and about 130 in Punjab Province. Severe damage was caused by the Jhelum and Chenab Rivers, which swelled after heavy monsoon rainfall last week, flooding hundreds of villages adjoining the rivers. Thousands of people were displaced, most of them living in tents and waiting for medical supplies and food. The Pakistani military was overseeing relief efforts. On Monday, 970 people were rescued in Punjab, according to a spokesman. “We did not expect this kind of flood,” said Muhammad Hameed, 54, the head of a family of 13 people in the Chiniot district of Punjab. “We were sleeping at night when all of a sudden water came and we had to rush out of our home.” The Jhelum River also breached its banks in Indian-administered Kashmir, in the summer state capital of Srinagar, where water levels rose to 15 to 18 feet at points, according to a statement from the Indian Army on Monday. At least 150 people died in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, according to the office of the divisional commissioner there. The death toll in both countries was expected to rise as rescuers reached areas that had been inundated. “For the next 48 hours our focus will remain on Srinagar and areas of south Kashmir because there are still a very large number of people stranded without food and water, and our idea is to pull them as quickly as possible,” Lt. Gen. D. S. Hooda, chief of the Indian Army’s Northern Command, said at a news conference in Udhampur on Monday afternoon. Telephone networks in Srinagar were down for much of Monday, and the police, the army and the special police forces in the city could not be reached. Shakeela Rahman, 34, spent the past few nights sleeping on a divider on a road that connects Bemina, where she lives, to Srinagar. She fled her home with her two small children early Friday morning, after water started flowing into houses there. “We have not eaten anything, my kids are starving, and our house is completely submerged under water,” Ms. Rahman said. Nearby, a camp for the Central Reserve Police Force was also flooded, and its personnel had spent the evening sleeping in buses parked outside. In the Karan Nagar neighborhood of Srinagar, where Ahmad Mujtaba, his wife and three children were trying to reach the higher parts of the city, the water level rose several feet on Sunday. “No one came to help us,” he said. “People are still trapped inside their buildings, children are dying and the government’s rescue operations have failed.” O. P. Singh, an official with the Indian National Disaster Response Force, said that rescue efforts were slow in parts of Srinagar. Image People awaiting help in Punjab Province in Pakistan on Monday. Thousands have been displaced by floods in parts of Pakistan and Indian-administered Kashmir. Credit Rahat Dar/European Pressphoto Agency “We are facing some difficulty, and there is no communication with our rescue teams,” Mr. Singh said. “It is practically impossible to go through the area with boats,” he said of parts of Srinagar. He said rescue operations in those areas had just begun, with Indian Air Force helicopters ferrying boats and rescue personnel between hard-to-reach areas of town, where they were collecting stranded people and bringing them to relatively safer areas. The army has evacuated about 22,000 people, with 3,000 removed on Sunday, according to a statement. The army distributed food, water, tents and blankets on Monday. Part of the army quarters in Srinagar was flooded, and 900 soldiers had to be evacuated. Hospitals in Srinagar were also submerged. Aerial images on Indian news channels showed entire neighborhoods in the Kashmir Valley under water, with only roofs and treetops visible. People in Srinagar waded through muddy, hip-deep water, carrying children on their shoulders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, calling the floods a national disaster. In a news release, he also expressed his “anguish at the loss that has been caused in neighboring areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.” He said the government would provide $166 million to Jammu and Kashmir to supplement the state’s own disaster relief fund. Image A damaged bridge across the Tawi River in the region of Jammu, where at least 140 people died in severe flooding. Credit Channi Anand/Associated Press Mr. Modi also wrote to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan on Sunday. “I offer any assistance that you may need in the relief efforts that will be undertaken by the government of Pakistan,” he said. “Our resources are at your disposal wherever you need them.” Mr. Sharif declined Mr. Modi’s offer. After surveying the damage in the Rawalakot district of Kashmir on Monday, he pledged assistance and called for “addressing the deeper causes of recurrent floods and strengthening the preparedness” of local communities, according to a statement issued by his office. “I believe closer collaboration in disaster management should be a part of our agenda for peace and development in the region,” Mr. Sharif said. Some Pakistanis have blamed India for suddenly releasing river water into Pakistan, violating an understanding of giving warning before opening dams. The disaster also put additional strain on the government of Mr. Sharif, who is grappling with a monthlong political crisis caused by opponents demanding his resignation. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, accused India of committing “water aggression,” local news media reported. Relations between India and Pakistan were strained last month when India called off foreign-secretary-level talks with Pakistan after a Pakistani envoy met with Kashmiri separatist leaders in India. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pakistan on Sunday expressed “deepest condolences over the loss of precious lives of our Kashmiri brethren on both sides of the Line of Control,” the contested border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan. As floodwater moved downstream, an emergency was declared in Baluchistan Province, according to government officials.

India
Pakistan
Flood
Srinagar
Kashmir Valley
Kashmir and Jammu


Republicans Fail to Annul New Light Bulb Law

Abstract: WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday failed to advance a measure that would repeal regulations that increase efficiency standards for light bulbs, rules that they have assailed as an example of government overreach. “The 2010 elections demonstrated that Americans are fed up with government intrusion,” Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who proposed the repeal, said in a debate on Monday. “The federal government has crept so deep into our lives that federal agencies now determine what kind of light bulbs the American people are allowed to purchase.” But Democrats, despite being in the minority in the House, were able to defeat the repeal on a vote of 233 to 193 because the measure was brought up under rules that require a two-thirds majority for passage. The Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said Republicans were wrong to propose the repeal at a time when Congress should be focusing on creating jobs and on the debt-limit negotiations. “By bringing misguided bills like this one to the floor instead of a comprehensive jobs plan, it is clear that House Republicans are still in the dark,” Mr. Hoyer said in a statement titled “Not the Brightest Idea.” The first stage of the standards, which will be phased in from Jan. 1 through 2014, requires bulbs to be 25 to 30 percent more efficient. The second stage could require bulbs to be 60 percent more efficient by 2020. The law includes exceptions for specialty lights, like candelabra lamps, three-way bulbs and black lights. The restrictions could eliminate the familiar incandescent bulbs, which have used essentially the same technology since Thomas Alva Edison invented them. Republicans have also said the new types of bulbs are too expensive. Prices range from about $1.50 for a halogen incandescent to $20 for light-emitting diode, or LED, bulbs, which are supposed to last 10 years. Regular bulbs today cost about 35 cents. Democrats countered that the higher cost of the new bulbs would be offset by savings on the energy bills of consumers and cited Congressional testimony from Kathleen Hogan, the Energy Department’s deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency. Using the new bulbs could save households about $50 a year by 2015, Ms. Hogan said. Nationally, consumer savings could be $6 billion a year. The standards were part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a broad update of the country’s energy policy signed into law by President George W. Bush. Thirty-six House Republicans voted for the standards in an amendment offered by Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan. “This common-sense, bipartisan approach partners with American industry to save energy as well as help foster the creation of new domestic manufacturing jobs,” Mr. Upton said in a December 2007 statement. He is now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr. Upton has removed the old statement from his Web site and posted a new one that says, “The public response on this issue is a clear signal that markets — not governments — should be driving technological advancements.” Seventeen Republicans who voted for the original law ended up voting for repeal of the standards on Tuesday. When Congress acted in 2007, many people assumed the incandescent bulb was on its way out. But electric companies have since invested in new technologies that increase bulb efficiency. Many industry groups, including the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and General Electric, have come out in opposition to the repeal. Republicans, however, contended that the new standards amounted to a de-facto ban of incandescent bulbs. “If we don’t pass this bill, we might as well turn out the lights; the party is over for the traditional incandescent light bulb,” said Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas.

Energy Efficiency
United States Politics and Government
Electric Light Bulbs
House of Representatives
Republican Party


Zabul Province Offers a Hopeful Look at Afghanistan’s Future

Abstract: SHINKAY, Afghanistan — Zabul Province, one of Afghanistan ’s poorest, is mainly known for being a transit route for Taliban insurgents and NATO supply convoys. But recently Zabul, in southeastern Afghanistan, has become important for another, better reason: as a small but overlooked corner of the Afghan war that offers a glimpse of what a stable future might look like as Afghans take over their own security and administration by 2014. Afghan Army battalions have deployed in the districts of Zabul, and are the first in the country to operate independently. They are emerging as a real authority acceptable to local people and as an alternative to both the Taliban and international forces, which are still received ambivalently. Increasingly, they are handling security, relations with the people and even dispute resolution. In Zabul, at least, there has never really been any permanent authority beyond the provincial capital, Qalat: Taliban, government officials and Americans would come and go. But Afghan forces have steadily established themselves. The success of the Afghan Army in getting out among the people has shifted the security environment. As people have warmed to the Afghan forces, the Taliban found themselves less welcome and moved away. “I think we are having one of those eureka moments,” said Lt. Col. Andy Veres, the Air Force officer who commands the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Zabul, now on his second tour in the province. In the Afghan military, he said, “There’s a growing sense of, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’ ” Zabul has started to work because of a convergence of good leadership and years of combined experience of the Afghan and American partners, both civilian and military. This exists elsewhere, but is not easily replicated in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. In interviews conducted away from Afghan or foreign troops, residents of Zabul generally approved of the Afghan National Army, a multiethnic force that has been built up from scratch since 2002. Yet they showed a lingering fear of criticizing the Taliban and complained openly about government officials and the police. “Our government is very corrupt, but the A.N.A. still has a clean and trustworthy face,” one Zabul elder, Hajji Sayed Agha, said. Such sentiment points to both the progress here and the myriad challenges that still face coalition forces across the country as they try to train Afghan police and army forces to eventually take over security. The Afghan National Army is set to reach over 300,000 by the end of this year, but its quality and leadership vary. The Afghan National Police and the Afghan Border Police are way behind, plagued with corruption and unruliness. In larger, more volatile provinces, where more is at stake and where the insurgency is more concentrated and intense, responsibility for security remains overwhelmingly in NATO hands, even as the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus , uses Afghan soldiers, police officers and local village militias to solidify security gains. In that light the progress in Zabul may seem slight. But because it is Afghan-led, the achievements here look more sustainable than what has been done by larger, more aggressive operations in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, where progress has depended on tens of thousands of American troops, some scheduled to begin leaving this summer. In Zabul, the presence of coalition forces — consisting of American and Romanian troops — is confined to small teams of Special Forces soldiers, civil affairs officers, engineers and military mentors. They maintain a base in Qalat, mostly to ensure security along the main national artery, the Kabul -Kandahar highway. Beyond that, two Afghan Army battalions are responsible for security, with Afghan commandos taking the place of American Special Forces soldiers in one area to provide extra muscle. Col. Gadda Muhammad Dost, 43, has been the Afghan battalion commander in this district, Shinkay, for two years. A Tajik from Kabul, he has learned Pashto, the language spoken in Zabul Province, and has worked hard to counter what he calls the “black propaganda” of the insurgents. People ran away in fear when they first patrolled villages because the Taliban had spread propaganda that his forces would kill or arrest people, he said. “The people would not shake hands with us because they said we were working with the infidels,” he said. “So we made a plan to set up a district council, and through the council meetings explain that we are here to help you, not to harm you or destroy you,” he said. The first thing they had to do was to persuade the council that they were Muslims by inviting them to the mosque on the Afghan base, he said. The Afghan soldiers had lessons for their foreign mentors, he said. “We told them, ‘You must never step into their mosques and never, on the basis of poor information, go into their houses,’ ” he said. “Whenever we had information, we would ask the mullah or tribal leader, and tell him we have information and we want to search,” he said. That approach has brought relative peace to Shinkay; the Afghan Army base has not come under attack in two years, Colonel Dost said. The road to Shinkay District was repeatedly under attack or laid with mines until six months ago, Colonel Veres said. But the number and strength of the roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices — I.E.D.’s — have declined, he said. Real change, however, will be measured not in the decline in attacks but in the community’s courage in supporting the government, he said. “The tipping point is not when the body count or the I.E.D.’s go down — it is when people say the Taliban are not coming back.” There are signs of deepening trust already, he said. A family dispute led to the murder of two men in Shinkay recently. Rather than go to the police, tribal elders, or even the Taliban, villagers went to the Afghan National Army base and asked Colonel Dost to help sort it out. “People feel with the A.N.A., they are here to stay,” Colonel Veres said. Eventually, the Romanian and Afghan soldiers who patrol the Kabul-Kandahar highway, and the main towns along it, hope to hand off that responsibility to the Afghan police, as that force is trained and expanded. The Afghan Army, then, will be free to secure outlying districts, south to the border with Pakistan , and to cut the Taliban’s infiltration lines, a task currently done by American Special Forces units. As the Afghan forces assume broader control of the province, foreign forces will pull out. Afghanistan may well have to live with having some of its more remote districts lie outside government control for some time, Colonel Veres said. Those can be gradually dealt with through fighting or by inducements to join with the government, he said. But both he and the Afghan brigade commander in Zabul, Maj. Gen. Jamaluddin Sayed, in his fourth year in the province, struck a cautionary note, saying that the Afghan Army still lacked the resources and equipment to fight the insurgency on its own. It was Special Forces operations against Taliban leaders and strongholds that have largely helped turn the tide in the province, the Afghan general noted. Both Afghan commanders stressed that they would need continued international support to counter Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “Afghanistan is like an old man crossing the desert with a group of young men, and in the middle of the desert he gets weak,” Colonel Dost said. “Will they leave him, with war and snakes all around him?”

Afghanistan
Taliban
Military
Afghanistan War


Myth of the Sisterhood

Abstract: LONDON — Earlier this year, Sheryl Sandberg asked members of a mainly female audience at Harvard to stand up if they thought one day they could be chief executive of a company — or even president of the United States. Many stayed seated. For the chief operating officer of Facebook and the fledgling elite she was addressing, one barrier on the road to equality may well be what Ms. Sandberg calls the leadership ambition gap — the lack of women self-confident enough to “lean in” like men. But running for president is not a concern most women lie awake thinking about. And it is this quiet majority that Alison Wolf, a professor at King’s College London, draws attention to in “The XX Factor,” a brisk new volume on the economic rise of (some) women. Ms. Wolf argues that universal sisterhood is dead, with a slice of well-educated women leaving the rest behind. “Whereas through most of human history it made sense to talk about ‘women’ en masse,” Ms. Wolf writes, “today it very rarely does.” The women of recent feminist manifestoes, she contends, have become a class apart, their ambitions and concerns shared not by other women, but by elite men. Elite women, like their male counterparts, marry later and have fewer children than their less-educated sisters. They take shorter breaks from paid full-time employment (a reverse from past trends) and claim an ever greater share of overall female income while relying on nannies and other household help. And although the professional world of the elites is increasingly integrated when it comes to gender, most women, including those domestic helpers, tend to work in professions that are still very much segregated along gender lines. One result: Men and women at the top marry each other more, exacerbating income inequality and reducing social mobility in Western societies. Ms. Wolf’s book is a sobering reminder that as currently framed, the work-family debate smacks of elitism. The narrative of middle-class women seeking to combine fulfilling jobs with more quality time for family clashes with that of poorer women, who have long worked for pay because they had to. Stereotype-busting innovations like shared parental leave and shared part-time working arrangements between parents are not just cultural challenges. They are luxuries that only relatively well-off couples can afford. Here is where Ms. Wolf makes her most provocative but also her most problematic assertion: Gender equality for professional women, she suggests, comes at a price. She does not explicitly attribute blame, but she comes close: “Without the new servant classes, elite women’s employment would splutter and stall,” she writes. True. But their elite husbands rely on those nannies just as much. For all the important differences, women in the early 21st century still share distinct hurdles based on their sex, independent of class — from everyday sexism and sexual violence to the mother of all challenges, motherhood itself. If there is one thing the would-be Sandbergs of this world and their nannies have in common, it is that maternal stereotypes still govern how women are expected to behave. It explains why female leaders who display traditionally “male” characteristics are penalized — “aggressiveness” clashing with the compassion and softness associated with women, with mothers. It explains why the caring professions are so overwhelmingly dominated by women (and why they are so badly paid). And it may explain why, even though Ms. Wolf’s book successfully reminds readers of the many revolutionary changes to women’s lives over the past century, it is also quick to regard certain remaining gender differences as “normal.” We are told that women earn less for “big (and immovable) reasons.” “Women get pregnant. Women give birth. And women breast-feed,” Ms. Wolf writes. She can sound uncomfortably nostalgic for what she calls a “golden age” of “female altruism,” when “the most brilliant and energetic women in society” worked in the charitable or caring professions — never mind that they often did so for low or no pay. Yes, one may regret that many highly educated individuals, men and women, are today more motivated by money than by compassion. Changing this would require a society that recognizes, with greater remuneration and greater respect, the nurturing work that is so often cast as “female” — a society, in other words, that recruits not only more women as chief executives but also more men as midwives. Such a society might actually go some way toward counteracting the polarizing trends that Ms. Wolf so crucially highlights.


Pilot Killed in Crash of Home-Built Plane at Stewart International Airport

Abstract: A small plane crashed shortly after takeoff at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, N.Y., on Friday afternoon, killing the pilot. The plane, a single-engine, fixed-wing Giles G 202, had been scheduled to perform in the New York Air Show over the weekend. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a home-built aircraft, assembled from a kit. The pilot was identified as Andrew Wright of Austin, Tex. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate and determine the probable cause of the crash, the F.A.A. said The crash comes after a fatal crash in June at an air show in Cameron, Mo., and a crash of a single-engine Malibu Piper at an air show in Oshkosh, Wis., in July that injured five . On Saturday, at least seven people were killed when an old military plane crashed at an air show in England, according to CNN.

Stewart International Airport
Plane Crash
Air Shows,Air Racing
Airlines,airplanes
Newburgh NY


On Day 1, Mets, Ryan Church and Luis Castillo Ace Exams

Abstract: FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — One by one, the balls landed on the outfield grass, guided from the Mets ’ bats to the opposite field by some sort of otherworldly force. No other explanation could suffice for Jerry Manuel, who watched his primary spring training objective play out with his two pet projects — Ryan Church and Luis Castillo — assuming central roles. It would have been difficult for the Mets’ Grapefruit League opener to unfold any better than it did Wednesday. Their 9-3 victory against the Baltimore Orioles featured a rejuvenated Castillo, a recharged Church and smart situational hitting. Castillo and Church combined to drive in the Mets’ first seven runs, with six scoring on hits the other way. Afterward, Manuel had trouble suppressing a smile. “Exactly,” Manuel said when asked if that was what he hoped his prodding would produce. “I have to start challenging some other folks to do some things. That’s what you want to see, and I’m happy to see that they responded.” On spring training trips that last much longer than the nightly news, the Mets’ buses are mostly populated with backups and long shots. But Church and Castillo’s being on the traveling party was hardly a mistake. No one on the Mets is being watched more closely than Castillo, who promised a better season after shedding 17 pounds and strengthening his legs during the winter. In return, Manuel tried jump-starting Castillo by batting him leadoff, bumping José Reyes out of that spot. As foreign as it was to hear, “Leading off for the New York Mets, the second baseman, No. 1, Luis Castillo,” the most daring phase of Manuel’s spring experiment generated encouraging results Wednesday. Even if Castillo cannot replicate his performance (two hits, four runs batted in) on a daily basis, he and Manuel know that he has done it — and can do it again. “That’s exactly what Luis needed,” Manuel said. “Drive in some runs, perform the way he did today, that’s what he needed to do.” Harder still may be quieting a fan base that booed him regularly last season and pined over the off-season for a new second baseman. After Castillo grounded out to begin the game, the jeering resumed. “Nice hustle!” a fan screamed. But in his next at-bat, Castillo, hitting right-handed, ripped a bases-loaded single to right field to drive in two runs. When he batted again in the fourth, Castillo acknowledged Manuel’s wishes of being more aggressive from the left side. He lined David Pauley’s pitch over the head of left fielder Luke Scott for a double. “Like I’ve said before, I’m healthy,” Castillo said. “I want to keep it going. I want to keep working hard and see what happens.” Church entered camp with just as much to prove as Castillo, eager to move past a trying season wrecked by concussions. He arrived healthy, without any setbacks. Then he was forced to wonder about his place on the team when on Sunday Manuel called Daniel Murphy a better hitter and said that Church’s playing time in right field could diminish. It was Manuel’s not-so-subtle way of tweaking him, of motivating him, and Church offered the perfect retort Wednesday. In the third, he crushed a double to center that, if not for a strong wind, might have been a home run. When he batted in the fourth, Church poked a two-run single to left. It was exactly what Manuel hoped to achieve with his 80-pitch hitting drill. “You just have it in your back pocket, the feeling that we have that it doesn’t matter where the pitch is or what the count is, we always know there’s grass over there, there’s hits over there,” Church said. “A lot of it has to go back to that drill that we did. I know I feel it.” Of the Mets’ 15 hits Wednesday, 10 went to the opposite field, and in all they hit 14 balls that way. Castillo did it every time he batted. Church did it twice. Just as they — and Manuel — planned. “I think for us as a staff, when we put something in, and it manifests itself so quickly, it gives the players confidence that we know what we’re talking about,” Manuel said. “That’s very huge for us, especially at this level.” INSIDE PITCH Sean Green, projected as the Mets’ primary setup reliever, left with two outs in the first inning because of a cracked nail on his right middle finger. He will have the nail repaired and does not expect to miss any time. ... Still bothered by a sore right hand, Fernando Tatis stayed in Port St. Lucie. Jerry Manuel said he expected Tatis to play Friday against St. Louis. ... Ángel Pagán and Nick Evans each had three hits. ... J. J. Putz’s wife, Kelsey, gave birth to the couple’s third child, Joseph Ethan, on Wednesday in Arizona. Putz is scheduled to rejoin the team Friday to pitch in a B game against Italy’s World Baseball Classic team.

New York Mets
Baseball
Church Ryan
Castillo Luis


Indonesia and Malaysia Agree to Care for Stranded Migrants

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia and Malaysia agreed on Wednesday to take in thousands of migrants stranded at sea until they can be sent home or resettled in a third country, in the first official action by Southeast Asian nations to try to resolve a crisis well into its second week. Responding to international pressure to save the migrants, many of whom have been adrift in rickety boats for weeks with little food or water, the agreement by the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand was a potential lifesaver even as experts said it offered only a temporary fix to deeper problems. It reverses the previous position of those governments, whose navies had been pushing boatloads of desperate migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar away from their shores in what international aid groups characterized as a dangerous game of human Ping-Pong. Video The foreign minister of Malaysia, Anifah Aman, said Wednesday that his country would provide humanitarian assistance to 7,000 migrants still at sea. “It’s extremely welcome news,” said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration in Bangkok. “It’s the right thing to do. They should get the helicopters and planes and boats out there to look for these people.” But in a sign of the underlying problems that remained, the migrants’ home countries, Bangladesh and Myanmar, did not participate in the talks in Malaysia that led to the agreement on Wednesday. And Thailand, which has been a way station for the migrants and until recently a haven for traffickers, did not agree to take in any migrants. The agreement came as fishermen on the Indonesian island of Sumatra rescued at least 370 migrants from sinking ships and brought them ashore. Those migrants included passengers from a boat that was spotted by journalists adrift in the Andaman Sea near Thailand and Malaysia last Thursday. Image Women and children from Myanmar and Bangladesh after arriving at the port in the village of Julok in Aceh Province, Indonesia, on Wednesday. Credit Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 migrants are still at sea, many of them abandoned by traffickers after a recent crackdown by Thailand on human smuggling. An additional 3,500 migrants — mainly Bangladeshis seeking jobs and ethnic Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar — have landed in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, or have been rescued offshore, since May 10. Many of them are women and young children. In the agreement announced on Wednesday, Indonesia and Malaysia said they would “provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants still at sea.” They also agreed “to offer them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community.” The statement called on countries to “share the burden” by providing financial support. While the details have not been worked out, Mr. Lowry called on regional governments and commercial shipping companies to help pinpoint the locations of migrant boats and provide them directions to landing points in Malaysia and Indonesia, or rescue them if necessary. Joint Statement on the Asian Migrant Crisis A statement issued by the foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand on the thousands of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh who have been stranded at sea. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called the agreement “an important initial step” and “vital” for saving lives, but said further action was required to address the root causes of crisis. Tens of thousands of Rohingya , a stateless Muslim ethnic group that lives primarily in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, have fled the country during the last several years, most going to Malaysia or Bangladesh. The government in Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens and has refused to accept any back. Officials from Myanmar did not attend Wednesday’s meeting in Malaysia and had no plans to attend a regional conference in Bangkok on May 29 to discuss the issue, said U Zaw Htay, deputy director general of the office of President Thein Sein of Myanmar. Image An ethnic Rohingya migrant from Myanmar is processed in Indonesia, which, with Malaysia, is sheltering refugees for now. Skepticism has met Europe’s new migrant policy. Credit Sutanta Aditya/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In a statement on Tuesday, Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry said the government was “deeply concerned” with the problem and was “making serious efforts” to combat trafficking and illegal migration. But officials have made no suggestion of reconsidering their policies toward the country’s one million Rohingya. Surin Pitsuwan, a former Thai foreign minister and former secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said Myanmar’s cooperation would be essential to finding a more lasting solution to the crisis. “Myanmar has to demonstrate to the world that it can resolve its own internal complexities and resolve this citizenship problem” with the Rohingya, he said, as well as the government’s failure to provide them education and health care. How Myanmar and Its Neighbors Are Responding to the Rohingya Crisis Myanmar and its neighbors see the people of the Rohingya ethnic group and the seaborne trafficking of migrants in the region very differently, complicating the refugees’ plight. While the migrants from Myanmar may be allowed to apply for asylum, in Indonesia, Malaysia or perhaps a third country, those from Bangladesh are mainly economic refugees who are likely to be sent home, experts say. They are likely to resist repatriation: Many have made great financial sacrifices to make the voyage and many have relatives working abroad whom they had planned to join. “Those who are identified as Bangladeshi nationals, we will bring them back to our country,” said Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, Bangladesh’s minister for expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment. He called the decision by Malaysia and Indonesia to take in migrants “a very good decision because our primary concern was to save their lives.” Image Migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar bathing after being rescued on Wednesday. Credit Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images The military government in Thailand, where the migrant issue has been divisive, was still grappling with its response, including whether to take any migrants. “Whether to accept them or not, I don’t know,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters on Wednesday. “We are discussing it.” Human Rights Watch described Thailand as “missing in action.” “Let’s hope that this failure of Thai leadership is temporary, and that Bangkok recognizes that it should urgently revamp its stance and join with Indonesia and Malaysia to save these people on the high seas and provide them with humanitarian shelter and assistance ashore,” said Phil Robertson, the organization’s deputy director for Asia. Understanding Southeast Asia’s Migrant Crisis About 25,000 migrants left Myanmar and Bangladesh on rickety smugglers’ boats in the first three months of 2015, according to a United Nations estimate. Officials in the Philippines expressed willingness this week to accept migrants, but did not make specific pledges as to how many might be taken in and under what circumstances. They have said that if migrants make it to the shores of the Philippines, they will not be turned away. But the crisis is unfolding more than 1,500 miles away with migrants using flimsy boats, and so far none have come near the Philippines. One issue that was not controversial was human trafficking, which all of the countries involved, including Myanmar, agreed to try to stop. The migrants who have made it to shore in Indonesia told stories of weeks of horror and brutality at the hands of the traffickers, who extorted them for money, provided little food or water and then abandoned them on the open sea to evade a crackdown on smuggling networks by the government of Thailand. There have been reports of passengers dying of starvation and their bodies being tossed overboard. During their meeting on Wednesday, the three foreign ministers pledged to take necessary action against human traffickers, and they called for an emergency ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to discuss transnational crime. The migrants saved by fishermen in Indonesia were on several ships rescued separately on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning off Aceh Province, on the northern tip of Sumatra, said Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, chief spokesman of the Indonesian military. He said they all were taken to a camp in Langsa, in East Aceh District, one of two camps opened in the province last week. Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, a human rights group that tracks migration in the Andaman Sea, said that one of the ships that had arrived in Aceh had been first discovered last week by journalists off the coast of Thailand.

Indonesia
Malaysia
Thailand
Rohingya
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
Immigration
Ships and Shipping


Obama Chides Congress Over Zika Funding

Abstract: The House and Senate are gearing up for a push before a Memorial Day break that President Obama said Congress should not take unless it got some very specific business done. Mr. Obama chided lawmakers last week, saying they should not leave town at the end of this week unless they reconcile their differences over a Zika prevention funding bill and send him public health legislation he is willing to sign. “They should not be going off on recess before this is done,” Mr. Obama said about putting resources behind an effort to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne virus. “To the extent that we’re not handling this thing on the front end, we’re going to have bigger problems on the back end.” But chances of a quick compromise on the legislation seem dim. The House has provided only about half as much as the $1.1 billion approved by the Senate — both well short of the $1.9 billion sought by the White House. And the House bill would shift money to fight Zika from efforts to combat Ebola, which Mr. Obama compared to robbing Peter to pay Paul. The president also archly referred to aggressive Republican efforts in fall 2014 to make the administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak a major campaign issue. “Given that I have, at least, pretty vivid memories of how concerned people were about Ebola, the notion that we would stop monitoring as effectively and dealing with Ebola in order to deal with Zika doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. Pressuring lawmakers over recess is a tried-and-true tactic of both parties who find it helpful to remind voters that officials are heading off on a holiday with important business left undone — often business more important to one party than the other. But the president’s complaint is likely to have little impact on the congressional schedule. With legislative time for the year already starting to run short, the House and the Senate are trying to finish other business this week, including the first significant overhaul in decades of legislation governing regulation of toxic chemicals, including many found in household items.

Congress
Congress
Senate
Zika Virus
US Politics
House of Representatives


Red Wings Defenseman Could Miss a Month

Abstract: Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser is expected to be out for at least three to four weeks with a separated left shoulder. He was hurt early in Tuesday night’s 2-0 loss to the Nashville Predators when he was checked into the boards by Predators forward Patric Hornqvist. DeKeyser ranks among the rookie leaders in assists, with seven.


Raymond Roth, Suspected of Faking His Death, Returns to New York

Abstract: Officials investigating the disappearance of a Long Island man who seemed to try to fake his own death last week said on Saturday that he had returned to New York, but that they had not decided whether to charge him with a crime. The man, Raymond Roth, 47, disappeared in the waters off Jones Beach on July 28, prompting an extensive police search, involving a helicopter and boats, that turned up nothing. His wife, Evana Roth, said on Friday that she had found e-mails implicating Mr. Roth in the staging of his death and that she feared for her safety. Detective Thomas Duignan of the New York State Park Police said by telephone on Saturday that officers met with the Nassau County district attorney’s office but were not ready to speak with Mr. Roth or his son, Jonathan, who had called to report his father missing and was suspected of being involved in the disappearance. He confirmed that Mr. Roth, an unemployed telecommunications manager from Massapequa, had returned to New York but could not give further details. Investigators said that Mr. Roth had not been charged with a crime. “We’re not planning to make any arrests today,” Detective Duignan said. A lawyer for Ms. Roth, Lenard Leeds, reiterated concerns about his client’s safety on Saturday amid reports by neighbors that Mr. Roth had been seen near the couple’s home late Thursday. Ms. Roth would seek an order of protection against her husband, Mr. Leeds said by telephone. “We think that he’s an imminent threat to her,” he said. On July 28, Jonathan Roth, 22, reported that his father had disappeared after swimming off Jones Beach. Raymond Roth, who was presumed dead after the search, was stopped for speeding in South Carolina on Aug. 2, but was not detained. Ms. Roth, a doctor’s receptionist, said that she had begun preparing for her husband’s funeral when she learned that he was still alive. Since then, she said, Mr. Roth has repeatedly tried to contact her by telephone, though Mr. Leeds said she had refused to speak with him. The whereabouts of Jonathan Roth, who is Ms. Roth’s stepson, was unknown. In a news conference on Friday, Ms. Roth described her husband as a verbally abusive alcoholic. She said she did not know why he tried to fake his death, though she said he was fired on July 20, shortly after he had threatened to shoot two supervisors. Mr. Roth turned over a licensed gun he owned on July 21, after a police inquiry. Mr. Leeds said Ms. Roth had given away four other firearms that Mr. Roth had owned. He said Ms. Roth would seek a divorce and attempt to regain full ownership of the family’s home. She said that Mr. Roth had coerced her into transferring the home into both their names in April.

Missing Persons
Roth Raymond
Jones Beach (NY)


The Best Punishment For Tressel? Let Him Stay

Abstract: Here’s a suggestion to the power brokers at Ohio State University as they contemplate the fate of their Teflon football coach, Jim Tressel. Don’t fire him. That would be the easy way out. Make him stay. The most humbling punishment Ohio State’s president, E. Gordon Gee, and athletic director, Gene Smith, could impose on Tressel is making the tarnished coach preside over the mound of hypocrisy he has created in Columbus. In 10 seasons at Ohio State, Tressel, with the help of the news media, has cultivated an image as college football’s Mr. Rogers. In reality, Tressel is simply another win-at-all-costs boss in a sweater vest and tie. His real nightmare would be facing reporters every day knowing that he knows, and we know, he has been exposed. Every Buckeyes coach since Paul Brown has been fired. Let Tressel keep his job and his $3.4 million salary. After all, money will not repair the damage that has been done to his name. “This whole situation has become his Woody Hayes punch,” said Kevin Noon, the publisher of BuckeyeGrove.com since 2005. Noon, who attended Ohio State, was referring to the sideline incident that took place in the closing moments of the 1978 Gator Bowl. Hayes, the legendary Ohio State coach, punched Clemson’s Charlie Bauman after Bauman intercepted a pass to secure the Tigers’ victory. Hayes was fired the next day. Just as that punch defined Hayes’s career, this scandal may define Tressel’s. “If he survives this people are always going to associate this whole mess to his legacy,” Noon said. Tressel’s unraveling began in April 2010 when Christopher Cicero, a Columbus lawyer and former Ohio State walk-on, sent Tressel an e-mail, saying that a federal agency had raided the house of a tattoo-shop owner, Eddie Rife, and discovered a multitude of autographed Ohio State jerseys, cleats, pants and helmets, Big Ten championship rings and the gold pants trinkets given to Buckeyes players for beating archrival Michigan. Tressel promised to immediately look into the matter. But instead of contacting compliance officers at the university, the N.C.A.A. or his athletic director, Tressel forwarded the e-mail to Ted Sarniak, a friend and mentor to the star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, one of five players involved with Rife. “The cover-up took on a life of its own and is probably bigger than the actual N.C.A.A. violations that started this whole thing,” Noon said. The Columbus Dispatch reported on Monday that Tressel exchanged at least 12 e-mails with Cicero, and had several telephone conversations with Sarniak before telling the N.C.A.A. or Ohio State of the allegations. In September, he signed an Ohio State compliance form acknowledging that he did not know of any N.C.A.A. violations. Apparently, the emperor of Columbus did not think this would blow up in his face. It did. The five players are suspended for the first five games of next season. Tressel, who originally was suspended for two games, will also serve five. The university will almost surely forfeit the 2010 season since the N.C.A.A. contends that Tressel knowingly used ineligible players. The Buckeyes could face additional penalties, including probation. The turmoil resonates beyond Columbus. Running back Bri’onte Dunn of Canton, Ohio, gave a verbal commitment to Ohio State. In a phone interview Wednesday Dunn’s father, Brion, said his son will make other visits. Most notably to Michigan. “All I’ve been doing is thinking about this; I woke up this morning thinking about it,” Dunn said. “I’m just worried about them determining what the violations are going to be and how all that is going to pan out.” Dunn said that he liked Tressel. His brother played for Tressel at Youngstown State, and his son was looking forward to being a Buckeye, but not if it means missing out on bowl games. “My son likes to be on the winning team, he likes championship bowls,” Dunn said. “He likes the rings, and he likes to play in competitive games.” For Tressel, this may simply be a case of the chickens finally coming home to roost. A few years ago Troy Smith, the Ohio State Heisman Trophy winner, admitted he had received improper benefits from boosters. Tressel claimed no knowledge. Before that, running back Maurice Clarett said in an ESPN The Magazine article that the coach, other members of the Buckeyes staff and Ohio State boosters were guilty of numerous N.C.A.A. improprieties, including providing him — and at times others — with free loaner cars, bogus jobs that paid well and passing grades for classes he did not attend. Nothing came of the accusations, and Clarett wound up in prison for crimes unrelated to football. Then there was Ray Isaac, Tressel’s quarterback at Youngstown State. Isaac ran into trouble with the N.C.A.A. because he received improper benefits, including money and the use of cars. Tressel, again, said he knew nothing, though Youngstown State eventually admitted to wrongdoing and accepted minor penalties. The posse has finally caught up with our man in Columbus. “The biggest tragedy of the whole situation was if he got fired,” Noon said. “Knowing him and knowing his family, I’d like to see him be able to get out in front of this.” Don’t fire the coach. Make Tressel preside over his hypocrisy.

Ohio State University
Football
College Athletics
Tressel Jim
Coaches and Managers
National Collegiate Athletic Assn
Football (College)


‘Shark Tank’ Companion to Be Unveiled by ABC

Abstract: “ Shark Tank ” has become a reliably popular show on one of television’s least popular nights, Fridays — so naturally, ABC wants even more of it. The network was expected to announce, as soon as Friday, that it would add a companion show to the hit series about successful businesspeople, called “sharks,” competing to invest in the businesses of aspiring entrepreneurs. The new show, “Beyond the Tank,” will trace the next stage of a start-up in which its product tries to find its way to market — and either succeeds or flops. Like “Shark Tank,” “Beyond the Tank” will be produced by Sony Pictures Television. On Thursday, the deal with ABC was in the final stages, one executive involved in it said. No date has been set for the new show’s debut, but it will most likely make it onto ABC’s schedule sometime in the coming television season. “Beyond the Tank” has Mark Burnett, the most successful reality TV producer of the last decade, as an executive producer. His company, One Three Media , will co-produce it with Sony. “This show is exactly what ‘Shark Tank’ fans have been asking: Tell me what happens when they walk out of the tank,” Mr. Burnett said in an email. Zack Van Amburg, president of programming for Sony, said he could not comment yet on the new series because a deal had not been completed. But he noted that the original “Shark Tank” would celebrate its 100th episode on Friday. He also cited the popularity of the show, which averaged 7.2 million viewers last season and generally topped all shows on Fridays among viewers preferred by many advertisers — those between 18 and 49. The “Shark Tank” format, which originated in Japan, where it was called “Dragon’s Den,” has become popular around the world. Versions have appeared in countries ranging from Germany to Saudi Arabia. “Shark Tank” repeats are by far the most successful program on the cable network CNBC, where they average 490,000 viewers. All this for a show that, Mr. Van Amburg said, was repeatedly turned down when Sony tried to sell it years ago, even by ABC — three times — before the network stepped up and bought it. As for the format of “Beyond the Tank,” Mr. Van Amburg said he could not offer any details. But the executive involved in the deal said the new show would definitely include the participation of the business leaders who play the role of the sharks on the original. The new offering will be similar to the updates on “Shark Tank” that show how the new businesses have prospered (or not). “Beyond the Tank” will go back over past deals made on “Shark Tank” and gauge how effectively the businesses are progressing with the backing of the sharks who invested in them.


Profit for the Year Triples at Porsche

Abstract: BERLIN, Nov. 12 (AP) — The luxury sports car maker Porsche said on Monday that its net profit for 2007 more than tripled with help from a revaluation of its 22 percent stake in Volkswagen and strong results from its core business. Porsche said it earned 4.24 billion euros ($6.18 billion) for the year, up from 1.39 billion euros a year earlier. The revaluation resulted in a one-time gain of 520.8 million euros ($759.27 million). Pretax profit for the year that ended July 31 more than doubled to 5.86 billion euros ($8.54 billion) from 2.11 billion euros in the previous year. The automaker, based in Stuttgart, said the earnings contribution of its core business improved compared with last year, excluding special factors like a “high three-digit million euro development expenditure” for Porsche’s fourth model series, the Panamera, and for the hybrid drivetrain of the Cayenne sport utility vehicle. Another factor was the weaker level of hedging rates versus the American dollar. Porsche said in September that sales for the 2007 fiscal year rose 3.4 percent to 7.4 billion euros ($10.79 billion), helped by a better model mix. Car sales totaled 97,515, compared with 96,794 a year earlier, the company said. Porsche proposes to increase its dividend to 21.94 euros ($31.99) for each common share, from 8.94 euros; and it will pay out 22 euros ($32.07) for each preferred share, an increase from 9 euros in 2006. This will raise the total dividend payment to 384 million euros ($559.8 million) for 2007, from 157 million euros last year.

Sales
Porsche AG
Automobiles
Volkswagen AG