G.M. Is Said to Be Selling Some Foreign Stakes to China

Abstract: HONG KONG — General Motors is selling half of its India operations and a small stake in its China business to its main joint-venture partner in China, people with knowledge of the transaction said on Thursday, the latest sign of a shift in wealth and industrial power from American corporate giants to rising Asian powers. G.M.’s main partner in China, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, known as S.A.I.C., suspended trading in its shares on the Shanghai stock market on Thursday pending a major announcement, but declined to release details. G.M. said in a statement that it was routinely in discussions with Shanghai Automotive on various issues, but also did not disclose any details. G.M.’s international operations have been in a quiet but intense search for cash after a majority-owned South Korean subsidiary, Daewoo, lost $2 billion last year on a bad bet on financial derivatives based on the Korean won and then exhausted its remaining credit during the recent global economic downturn. G.M.’s international operations could not raise money for the Daewoo bailout from G.M.’s American operations because of legal restrictions on financial assistance extended by the United States government during G.M.’s bankruptcy and refinancing. It was not immediately clear Thursday how much cash G.M. would raise from the two transactions. “It’s a big deal, it’s a good deal,” a person close to G.M. said. Daewoo develops many of G.M.’s small cars, an important niche with oil prices above $70 a barrel, which many analysts expect to continue. But by decreasing its exposure to the Chinese and Indian markets, G.M. is paying a high price to rescue Daewoo. China has surpassed the United States this year as the world’s largest auto market in terms of number of cars sold. Sales were up 40 percent in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period last year, and up 69 percent in October compared with the period a year earlier. Early indications are that November was even better. Sales by G.M.’s joint ventures in China more than doubled last month compared with a year ago, surging 109.5 percent. Industrywide figures for last month are not yet available. The Indian auto market has also grown powerfully this year, although not as much as China’s. The number of cars sold in India was up 12 percent in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period last year, and the year-over-year gain was 38 percent in October, according to J.D. Power and Associates. G.M. is the fifth-largest automaker in India and has had slower growth than three out of four of the leaders. G.M. sells fairly costly Chevrolets in India at a time when the market for basic transportation there is expanding quickly, prompting G.M. executives to cast around for ways to sell inexpensive cars in India at a profit. G.M. has become the second-largest automaker in China, after Volkswagen, mainly through a 50-50 venture with Shanghai Automotive that makes a wide range of G.M.-designed cars. Under the deal being completed now, G.M. would sell a 1 percent stake in the venture to Shanghai Automotive, raising the Chinese automaker’s share to 51 percent, although G.M. would retain equal voting rights in company decisions and have an option to buy back the stake later, people with knowledge of the transaction said. Michael Dunne, an independent auto consultant specializing in Asian markets, said that for G.M. to accept a minority holding in its main joint venture signified an inevitable decline in G.M.’s influence in China. “Dropping below the 50-50 partnership is huge — there may be a way to preserve voting rights, but symbolically, it is a step down,” Mr. Dunne said. Such symbolism is especially important in China, he added. G.M. is separately putting its Indian operations into a new joint venture with Shanghai Automotive, effectively selling about half of these operations to its Chinese partner as well. G.M. also holds a 34 percent stake in a successful manufacturer of inexpensive minivans and pickup trucks, S.A.I.C.-G.M.-Wuling Automobile, while Shanghai Automotive owns 50.1 percent. The city of Liuzhou, in southernmost China, owns the rest of that venture. Yale Zhang, the director of greater China vehicle forecasting at CSM Worldwide, a big auto consulting company, said that Wuling would be a natural choice to expand in India because it sold some of the world’s lowest-cost light vehicles. Its $4,000 minivans and pickups have been extremely successful in less prosperous areas of China. Wuling has little knowledge of the Indian market, however, and G.M. can provide that, Mr. Zhang said.

General Motors
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp


Head of Inquiry Into Child Abuse in Britain Faces a Legal Challenge

Abstract: LONDON — Britain’s efforts to investigate a long list of child abuse scandals suffered another setback this week, when it emerged that the new head of a national inquiry was on “dinner party terms” with a former minister most likely to be questioned about an alleged cover-up. The government’s first choice to lead the investigation, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss , a former senior judge, resigned from the job within days of being appointed last July, citing concerns over a conflict of interest: Her late brother, Michael Havers, was attorney general in the 1980s, when files containing allegations about high-profile pedophiles were passed to ministers and subsequently lost. Now her successor, Fiona Woolf, a corporate lawyer, faces a legal challenge from a group of abuse victims regarding her links to the man who was home secretary when a number of those files went missing. The former home secretary, Leon Brittan, now a member of the House of Lords, Britain’s upper house of Parliament, is likely to be called before the inquiry to give evidence about allegations that he helped cover up sex abuse claims. Mr. Brittan has denied involvement in any cover-up. The inquiry was set up in July by the home secretary, Theresa May, against the backdrop of revelations about sexual misconduct by celebrities and entertainers like Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris. The lead investigator has a mandate to determine whether public institutions fulfilled their duty to shield children from abuse. “Wherever institutions and individuals have failed to protect children from harm, we will expose those failures and learn the lessons,” Ms. May said. Since then, more scandals have come to light, including one in which about 1,400 teenage girls were sexually exploited over 16 years in the northern English town of Rotherham. Lawyers for some of the abuse victims are raising questions about Ms. Woolf’s independence. As Lord Mayor of London, Ms. Woolf also represents the City of London and its interests and has lived on the same London street as Lord Brittan since 2004. Ms. Woolf and Lord Brittain both sat on the advisory board of TheCityUK, a lobby group for London’s financial district, and Lady Brittan is a member of a panel of judges for a community engagement award presided over by Ms. Woolf. Ms. Woolf acknowledged that she had socialized with the Brittans in a letter made public on Tuesday. Since 2008, she wrote, Lord Brittan and his wife had come to dinner at her house three times and she had dined at theirs twice. On a “small number of occasions” she had met Lady Brittan for coffee. But she also wrote that she had not seen the Brittans socially since April 2013, and on Wednesday photographs emerged in the press showing her and Mrs. Brittan engaged in conversation at a reception as recently as last October. Alison Millar, a partner at the law firm Leigh Day, which represents several abuse victims, said her clients considered Ms. Woolf’s links to Lord Brittan to be “beyond the pale.” “Somebody who seems to be on dinner-party terms with a senior political figure whose knowledge this inquiry will be scrutinizing is somebody who, from the perspective of my clients, does not have the necessary independence,” Ms. Millar told the British Broadcasting Corporation. The government so far stands behind Ms. Woolf. But Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he was “surprised that there is new information about the list of meetings that Fiona Woolf has had.” “I will write to her to ask her why this particular piece of information was missing and is there anything else she can help the committee, and therefore the public, in respect of other issues,” he told the BBC. Following a preliminary inquiry last year, the government said that more than 100 had files vanished over a period of 20 years, including a number of documents given to Lord Brittan when he was Margaret Thatcher’s home secretary from 1983 to 1985.

Child Abuse
Fiona Woolf
Rape
Great Britain


Deaths of Motorcyclists Rise Again

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The number of motorcyclist deaths jumped in 2007, accounting for nearly one in eight motor vehicle deaths, government safety officials said on Thursday. Deaths of people in cars and trucks, on bicycles or on foot dropped by nearly 2,000 last year, pushing the overall death rate to a historic low. But deaths of motorcyclists surged 6.6 percent, to 5,154; 2007 was the 10th straight year of increase. Experts say the trend is most likely to continue, as high gasoline prices will encourage some travelers to use their bikes more often, getting 50 miles for the $4 gallon of gasoline instead of 20 in their cars. “We have seen the total motorcycle participation in vehicle miles traveled go up,” said Mary E. Peters, the secretary of transportation and a longtime Harley-Davidson rider. “We might see more people moving to that mode of transportation,” Ms. Peters said. “We might see that data skew.” Motorcycle ridership appears to be rising even as the total miles for all vehicles drops. Total deaths in motor vehicle crashes in 2007 declined to 41,059, a drop of 3.9 percent compared with 2006. Deaths in cars fell 7.8 percent, and in light trucks 2.7 percent. Even alcohol-related deaths fell. In recent years, the development of safer cars and improved highways has been racing against growing levels of traffic to keep the death rate steady. Last year the total miles traveled declined by about 0.6 percent, and total deaths dropped much more sharply. The number of deaths per 100 million miles of vehicle travel, dropped to 1.37, a historic low. In 1966, the rate was above 5 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, and the number of dead was above 50,000. Deaths on motorcycles hit a low of 2,116 in 1997. Since, they have risen 128 percent. Their share of crash fatalities has jumped to almost 13 percent from 5 percent. The highway safety authorities say that about 75 percent more motorcycles are registered today than 10 years ago. They suspect each motorcycle is ridden more miles, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it does not have a reliable measurement of use. And, safety officials say, many of the riders are middle-age or older men who rode when they were young, gave it up as they raised children and have recently gone back to the bike. “They think they still have the same reflexes,” said James Port, the safety agency’s deputy administrator. Yet ridership has probably become more dangerous mile for mile. One reason is a decline in the number of states requiring the use of helmets. According to the National Transportation Safety Board , in 1975, 47 states required all motorcycle riders to wear helmets, but now only 20 do. At the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety , the organization that conducts independent vehicle crash tests, Russ Rader, a spokesman, said motor vehicle deaths would probably continue their decline into this year. “A drop in highway deaths is always the silver lining in a down economy,” Mr. Rader said, with fewer trips to work and discretionary trips. “We are the only industrialized country in the world where there is an organized effort to weaken or repeal motorcycle helmet laws,” Mr. Rader said. “That definitely is a factor in the increasing deaths.” At the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, which is financed by the manufacturers, Tim Buche, the president, said a person killed on a motorcycle was 2.5 times more likely to be under the influence of alcohol than a person killed in a car and three times more likely not to have a proper license. “There’s risks in everything in life, but the risks can be addressed,” Mr. Buche said, by training, licensing, riding sober and wearing protective gear.


When the Scientist Is Also a Philosopher

Abstract: Do you want to know a dirty little secret of economists who give policy advice? When we do so, we are often speaking not just as economic scientists, but also as political philosophers. Our recommendations are based not only on our understanding of how the world works, but also on our judgments about what makes a good society. The necessity of political philosophy arises because most policies are good for some people and bad for others. For example, an increase in the minimum wage, as proposed by President Obama, may raise incomes for some low-wage workers, but it will cause some businesses to make smaller profits, some customers to pay more and some workers to lose their jobs. Similarly, the Affordable Care Act has provided greater opportunity for some people to get health insurance, but it also caused cancellations for others who were previously happy with their insurance. Evaluating the overall effect of these policies requires balancing competing interests. To strike this balance, many economists think in terms of a “social welfare function” that aggregates individuals’ well-being into a summary measure. This approach dates back to the utilitarian philosophers of the 19th century, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The utilitarians suggested that each person in society receives a certain amount of happiness, or “utility,” from an allocation of society’s resources. The job of policy makers, they argued, is to do their best to maximize the total utility of everyone in society. According to utilitarians, taking a dollar from Peter and giving it to Paul is justified if Peter’s decrease in utility is smaller than Paul’s increase, as would plausibly be the case if Peter is richer than Paul. Philosophers have long debated the validity of utilitarianism as an ethical criterion. Some of the most famous thought experiments in this area involve what ethicists call trolley problems . Imagine that you are on a bridge and see a runaway trolley car below you, hurtling toward three children playing on the tracks. A fat man is standing next to you. You can push him off the bridge and into the path of the trolley, killing him but saving the children. What do you do? If, like a true utilitarian, you have no trouble sacrificing the fat man, try another scenario. You are a doctor with four dying patients. One needs a new liver, one needs a new heart, and two need a new kidney. A perfectly healthy patient walks into your office for his annual checkup. Are you still willing to pursue the utilitarian course of action? At this point, almost everyone balks. Sometimes, respecting natural rights trumps maximizing utility. Image Credit Anthony Freda Another problem with the utilitarian approach is that there is no objective way to compare one person’s happiness with another’s, especially when people have different preferences. Peter may work long hours at a dreary job to earn a high income because he gets a lot of utility from money. Paul may be forgoing a higher income for a job that requires fewer hours or offers more personal satisfaction because he doesn’t care as much about money. In this case, equalizing incomes by moving a dollar from Peter to Paul could reduce total utility. Perhaps the biggest problem with maximizing a social welfare function like utility is practical: We economists often have only a basic understanding of how most policies work. The economy is complex, and economic science is still a primitive body of knowledge. Because unintended consequences are the norm, what seems like a utility-maximizing policy can often backfire. So, what is the alternative? At the very least, a large dose of humility is in order. When evaluating policies, our elected leaders are wise to seek advice from economists. But if an economist is always confident in his judgments, or if he demonizes those who reach opposite conclusions, you know that he is not to be trusted. In some ways, economics is like medicine two centuries ago. If you were ill at the beginning of the 19th century, a physician was your best bet, but his knowledge was so rudimentary that his remedies could easily make things worse rather than better. And so it is with economics today. That is why we economists should be sure to apply the principle “first, do no harm.” This principle suggests that when people have voluntarily agreed upon an economic arrangement to their mutual benefit, that arrangement should be respected. (The main exception is when there are adverse effects on third parties — what economists call “negative externalities.”) As a result, when a policy is complex, hard to evaluate and disruptive of private transactions, there is good reason to be skeptical of it. As I see it, the minimum wage and the Affordable Care Act are cases in point. Noble as they are in aspiration, they fail the do-no-harm test. An increase in the minimum wage would disrupt some deals that workers and employers have made voluntarily. The Affordable Care Act has disrupted many insurance arrangements that were acceptable to both the insurance company and the insured; these policies were canceled because they deviated from lawmakers’ notion of the ideal. To be sure, you can find economists favoring a higher minimum wage and the Affordable Care Act. They acknowledge that there are winners and losers but argue that, on the whole, these policies increase social welfare. Perhaps they are right. But keep in mind that in making that judgment, they are relying on forecasts from a far-from-perfect science, as well as a healthy dose of their own political philosophy.

Economics
Philosophy
Minimum wage
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
US Economy
US Politics


Six-Time Gold Medalist Severs Spine in Accident

Abstract: SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The swimmer Amy Van Dyken Rouen, a six-time Olympic gold medalist, severed her spine in an all-terrain vehicle accident Friday and told emergency workers she could not move her toes or feel anything touching her legs. Rouen, 41, was airlifted to a hospital and had surgery to stabilize her spine. A hospital spokeswoman said Monday that Rouen was in good condition. A letter from the Van Dyken and Rouen families said that she severed her spinal cord at the T11 vertebra and that the broken vertebra came within millimeters of rupturing her aorta. According to a report by the Show Low Police Department, the A.T.V. that Rouen was driving hit a curb in a restaurant parking lot and sent her over a drop-off between five and seven feet. Rouen was not wearing a helmet at the time. Her husband, the former Denver Broncos punter Tom Rouen, told the police he had changed the A.T.V. throttle mechanism days before the accident, but he wasn’t sure if it was a factor. Rouen starred at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where she became the first American female athlete to win four gold medals in a single Games. She captured the 50-meter freestyle and 100 butterfly and also competed on the winning relay teams in the 4x100 free and 4x100 medley. Four years later at Sydney, she added two more golds in the 4x100 free and 4x100 medley relays before retiring.


Man Trades Elmo Costume for a Jail Suit

Abstract: Elmo bad. Elmo go to jail. The man known for dressing up in an Elmo costume and harassing New York City tourists with anti-Semitic outbursts was sentenced in Manhattan Criminal Court on Wednesday to a year in jail after admitting he tried to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts. Just before sentencing, the man, Dan Sandler, who has also gone by the name Adam Sandler, told Judge Robert Stolz that he was not remorseful. “This is not the case of someone in the back room of the office trying to embezzle money — this is more of a protest, like laying down in the intersection,” Mr. Sandler said. He added, “I am in no way sorry to the Girl Scouts organization, because I think they are a corrupt organization.” In addition to imposing the one-year sentence, Judge Stolz issued permanent orders of protection for two female employees of the Girl Scouts whom Mr. Sandler had been accused of harassing. Last month, Mr. Sandler, 49, of Ashland, Ore., pleaded guilty to reduced charges of second-degree attempted grand larceny and third-degree stalking in return for the one-year sentence. Prosecutors said he sent harassing e-mails in 2012 to his former supervisor at the Girl Scouts, where he had worked in 2007 and 2008 on a short-term computer programming project. He also tried to force his way into the organization’s headquarters in Manhattan. Image Dan Sandler won’t be playing Elmo for a while. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times In some of his e-mails, Mr. Sandler demanded $2 million in cash and threatened to spread the false story that the Girl Scouts regularly arranged sexual encounters between men and its campers if he did not get the money, prosecutors said. The sentencing was just the latest of many odd encounters Mr. Sandler has had with the law. In the 1990s, he operated a pornographic Web site in Cambodia called “Welcome to the Rape Camp,” which purported to show videos of nonconsensual sex. The Cambodian authorities deported him in 1999. After he left his job with the Girl Scouts in November 2008, he bought an Elmo suit for $300 and joined the other costumed characters in Times Square and Central Park, charging money to have his picture taken with children. But he soon became known as “Evil Elmo” and “Bad Elmo” for his habit of making obscene rants at passers-by. Last year, one of his outbursts in Times Square led to an arrest and guilty plea for disorderly conduct. He then moved to San Francisco, where he was spotted delivering similar tirades in a park before being arrested in May on the New York charges in the extortion case. Mr. Sandler’s lawyer, Lori Cohen, said he pleaded guilty to extortion to avoid a trial and the risk of a longer sentence for the original top charge, first-degree attempted larceny. Still, Ms. Cohen said the evidence was weak. “Is there any realm in which we think the Girl Scouts would pay him money because he sent them e-mails?” she said. “It was sort of a silly case.”

Elmo
Girl Scouts
Criminal Sentence
Extortion and Blackmail
Times Square and 42nd Street Manhattan


Short-Lived Rangers Partnership Helped Brian Leetch Seal a Legacy

Abstract: When Brian Leetch is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night, he will be celebrated for his many achievements as a Rangers defenseman and as a keystone player on what may have been the best United States national team ever assembled. But the brightest moment of Leetch’s career took place alongside a Russian, who combined with him to form one of the most offensively dangerous blue-line partnerships in N.H.L. history. “It was like some kind of magic — we both knew what the other one was going to do,” said Sergei Zubov, the defenseman who played alongside Leetch on the 1994 Rangers power play, and who worked seamlessly with Leetch and Mark Messier to create the famous first goal of the Game 7 victory against Vancouver that ended a 54-year Stanley Cup drought . “It was kind of rare to have two players from different systems, he from America and me from Russia, work so well together,” Zubov added. “But we were thinking the same way.” Leetch will go into the Hall along with Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille, one of the most impressive induction classes in many years. In addition to those players, Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello will go in as an executive, and the longtime Rangers analyst John Davidson, now president of the St. Louis Blues, will enter as a broadcaster, giving the evening something of a New York metropolitan area flavor. “It doesn’t feel like yesterday anymore,” Leetch said of the Rangers’ Stanley Cup victory 15 years ago. But he remembered Zubov as an amazing player. “He couldn’t have been more like me in the way we saw the game,” Leetch said. “I felt that if I gave the puck to him, he’d do exactly the right thing, and the play would be made.” Leetch made plays for 18 N.H.L. seasons, 16 ½ of them with the Rangers. He scored 247 goals and had 1,028 points in 1,205 regular-season games, and added 28 goals and 97 points in 95 playoff games. He was rookie of the year in 1988-89 after scoring 23 goals, still a record for first-year defensemen, and in 1991-92 became the fifth and last blueliner to score more than 100 points in a season. He won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman that year and in 1996-97. But the biggest night of Leetch’s career came on June 14, 1994: Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals between the Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks had won twice in a row, and the tension at Madison Square Garden was practically unbearable. But during a first-period power play, the Rangers grabbed a lead they would never relinquish. Messier carried the puck into the Vancouver zone, dangled for a moment to create space and backhanded it to Zubov, who waited, waited, waited in the right face-off circle. Finally he passed cross-ice to Leetch, who had gotten himself open by drifting backward from the slot to the left circle. Leetch fired into the side of the net left unguarded by Canucks goaltender Kirk McLean, who was still on the other side, fooled by Zubov’s patient maneuver. “Mark made a great move on the blue line and gave it to me,” Zubov remembered, speaking by telephone from St. Petersburg, Russia, where he is still playing at 39 . “After that, we followed our instincts.” The Rangers hung on to win, 3-2, and finally lift the Cup. A vintage mid-’90s moment followed when President Bill Clinton called the Rangers’ jubilant dressing room to congratulate Leetch on becoming the first (and still only) American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. After Leetch thanked the president, he hung up and asked, disbelievingly, “Was that Dana Carvey?” The magic of the Leetch-Zubov partnership had been in evidence throughout that season. Zubov, nearly 24 and playing his first full N.H.L. campaign, led the Rangers in points during the regular season — the only defenseman to be top scorer for a team that finished first over all. Twenty-six of the 35 total goals he and Leetch scored came on the power play. In the playoffs, Leetch, 26, was the team’s top scorer. “Those two guys were incredible,” said Mike Richter, the Rangers’ goalie that season. “They understood each other from the get-go. Our power play opened up everything, because we had two guys who could be quarterbacks on the blue line. As a goalie, you had to honor that.” Zubov recalled a power play during a game on a Southern road swing, though he said he was not sure if it was against Tampa Bay or Florida. “The two of us started with the puck as usual on the blue line,” he said. “Then we went through all the position, rotating around. Finally we wound up the two of us against the goalie, and we scored a goal.” Who scored it? “Leetchie,” Zubov said, laughing. Two years after the Rangers’ Cup season, Leetch was captain of the United States team that pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the sport’s history, scoring four goals in the last three minutes in Montreal to shock Canada, 5-2, and win the World Cup of Hockey — the Americans’ only senior-level international title since the 1980 Miracle on Ice. “We had so many great players, I didn’t really have to do much as captain,” Leetch said, with the quiet understatement that marked everything he said during his career. That 1996 team also included Hull, Chris Chelios, Pat LaFontaine, Mike Modano, Keith Tkachuk, Doug Weight, John LeClair, Phil Housley and Richter, whose 35 saves, many of them spectacular, were indispensable to the clinching victory. It was the strongest collection of talent the Americans had ever put together. Lamoriello was the general manager of that team, and said he was touched to be entering the Hall with Leetch and Hull from that ’96 team. He admitted that it was a relief to have had Leetch briefly on his side during that World Cup amid so many years of Rangers-Devils rivalry. “No question,” Lamoriello said. “He haunted me before that tournament and he haunted me after.” Although Leetch had many great seasons in his later career, 1994 remains his N.H.L. pinnacle. Zubov had a falling out with Colin Campbell, the Rangers’ coach in 1995, and was traded, eventually winding up with Dallas, where he played for 12 successful seasons. “I missed him for sure,” said Leetch, who said he thought Zubov and Slava Fetisov were the best Russian defensemen to play the game. “I always figured Sergei would be the guy to take my place with the Rangers,” Leetch said. “He was a couple years younger than me, a very similar type of player. But it didn’t work out that way.” Zubov cannot attend the ceremony in Toronto. He is in his first season with first-place SKA St. Petersburg in the Kontinental Hockey League, and he is also on the list of candidates for the Russian Olympic team. “Leetchie was an extraordinary player, and I really enjoyed that time playing with him,” Zubov said by phone from Russia. “Unfortunately, it was a short time. But trust me, it was enough of an experience to realize how good he was as a person and as a player. This is such good news.”

Hockey Hall of Fame
Stanley Cup
Leetch Brian
Hockey Ice
New York Rangers
National Hockey League
Zubov Sergei


Where the Flophouse Once Ruled, a Call to Go Slow

Abstract: DAVID MULKINS, a history teacher at the High School of Art and Design, became a community activist because he couldn’t sleep at night. Mr. Mulkins was so annoyed by the racket outside his apartment on East Fifth Street near the Bowery that he started attending meetings in hope of curbing the incessant noise from the bars that increasingly define his neighborhood. “The number of bars and clubs going in is astronomical,” Mr. Mulkins said. “I came to this because I felt like war had arrived on my doorstep.” He was also among 40 East Village residents who gathered Monday night to protest outside the Cooper Square Hotel, a 22-story building expected to open by next summer at the Bowery and East Fifth Street. Plans for the hotel include several outdoor restaurants, and some neighbors fear that what results will be a nonstop party in their neighborhood. Chanting, “Fifth Street is not for sale,” protesters made ominous comparisons to the ultra-trendy meatpacking district. One man carried a photograph of the hotel in one hand and one of Godzilla in the other. The protest against the hotel was related to a larger issue, the omission of the Bowery from a proposal to rezone much of the East Village and the Lower East Side to preserve its low-rise buildings. The plan, which comes as a response to the growing number of new and planned towers, would limit the height of buildings in a 114-block swath of the area. The western boundary of the proposed area to be rezoned, though, stops just short of the Bowery. Bowery residents hardly long for a return to the days of flophouses and drunken men lying in their doorways. But many of them contend that large-scale development is diluting their neighborhood’s historically low-rise and proudly unpolished character. “We’re seeing inappropriate and out-of-scale development skewed almost entirely toward hotels, dorms and luxury housing,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Jennifer Torres, a spokeswoman for the Department of City Planning, said the rezoning would limit new development generally to 8 stories, with buildings of up to 12 stories allowed along certain sections of Delancey, Houston and Chrystie Streets and Avenue D. When asked why the Bowery was not included in the rezoning, Ms. Torres said that because of its width, a different approach was needed than on the narrower streets found in most of the proposed area. Several residents who showed up for the protest on Monday admitted that change in their neighborhood was inevitable; the Cooper Square Hotel, for example, has already been built, and others are likely to follow soon. Mr. Mulkins acknowledged this with regret. “I’ve always been inspired by the history that my neighborhood represents,” he said, “and I always just kind of assumed it was all protected.”

Zoning
Bowery (NYC)
East Village (NYC)
Historic Buildings and Sites


It’s American Brandstand: Marketers Underwrite Performers

Abstract: The hip-hop and R&B producer Jermaine Dupri has discovered best-selling acts like Kris Kross and Da Brat, has produced hits for Mariah Carey and Jay-Z, and now runs the urban music division of the Island Def Jam Music Group. He’s also looking for fresh talent for a new label financed by a company new to the music industry. The new player? Procter & Gamble . The consumer goods giant is part of a wave of companies getting into the music business to promote their own products, essentially becoming record labels themselves. Procter & Gamble, for example, is joining Island Def Jam in a joint venture called Tag Records, a label that will sign and release albums by new hip-hop acts. It is named after a brand of body spray that P.& G. acquired when it bought Gillette. And Mr. Dupri, a music-industry veteran and the longtime partner of the singer Janet Jackson, sounds quite pleased with his new gig. “I’ve never seen someone wanting to devote this much money to breaking new artists,” said Mr. Dupri, who will serve as president of Tag Records while keeping his position at Island Def Jam. “Nobody in the music business has the marketing budget that I have.” At a time when online file-sharing is rampant, record stores are closing and consumers are buying singles instead of albums, getting into the music business might seem like running into a burning building. But as record labels struggle to adjust to a harsh new digital reality, other companies are stepping up their involvement in music, going far beyond standard endorsement contracts and the use of songs in commercials. These companies — like Procter & Gamble, Red Bull and Nike — are stepping outside of their core businesses to promote, finance and even distribute music themselves. A few months ago, Bacardi announced that it would help the English electronic music duo Groove Armada pay for and promote its next release. Caress, the body-care line owned by Unilever, commissioned the Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger to record a version of Duran Duran’s “Rio” that it gave away on its Web site to promote its “Brazilian body wash” product. The energy drink company Red Bull is starting a label that is expected to release music before the end of the year. And at least some of this music is credible: a hip-hop song that Nike released by Kanye West, Nas, Rakim and KRS-One was nominated for a Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group. Unlike Starbucks, which got into the music business to sell CDs at its stores, these companies want to use music to promote products they already sell. “It’s not about money,” said Sarah Tinsley, a global marketing manager at Bacardi. “It’s a branding exercise.” Unlike the exclusive album deals that Wal-Mart is striking with groups like the Eagles, these companies are attracting artists at the height of their relevance. Two weeks ago, Converse released a single by a combination of artists that The Times of London called “a three-headed Frankenstein’s monster of coolness”: the Strokes singer Julian Casablancas, the producer Pharrell Williams and the R&B performer Santogold. Offered as a free download on Converse’s Web site, the song received mostly favorable reviews from both blogs and newspapers. “Our instructions to them were to have fun, as though they were doing any song,” said Jon Cohen, co-founder of Cornerstone, a music marketing company that has set up music deals for Converse, Nike, Caress and Smirnoff. “It doesn’t matter where the music comes from as long as it’s great.” A decade ago, signing a record contract with a body spray company would have been unthinkable for most artists. But at a time when labels’ promotion budgets are declining, consumer brands can offer valuable exposure in print and television ads. Jeff Straughn, Island Def Jam’s vice president for strategic marketing, said that Tag might spend seven times as much promoting a release as a traditional label. “When I started in this business 10 years ago, it was hard to get an artist to stand in front of a sign with a logo on it,” said David Caruso, the co-founder of Acme, the agency that negotiated the deal between Island Def Jam and Tag. “Now brands are engaging their audiences with content.” But the brands walk a fine line by making sure that consumers are aware that they financed a song without having it simply seem like a commercial. “We wanted it to be like they were making their own record,” said Rob Stone, a Cornerstone co-founder, referring to the song that Kanye West, Nas and KRS-One made for Nike with a celebrated producer, Rick Rubin. “None of them had to mention the Air Force 1,” a Nike shoe. Instead, Cornerstone asked the artists to write a track about the theme of timelessness and promoted it like any other song, making a video, promoting it to radio and selling it on iTunes. (Nike’s profits went to the Force4Change Fund, a charity for youth leadership programs.) As it turned out, the song, “Better Than I’ve Ever Been,” does mention the sneakers as well as “Nike’s straight classic.” For artists, deals with brands can be more lucrative than traditional record contracts. Performers usually get an advance or fee in addition to a royalty rate higher than that given by record labels, which is usually $1 to $2 per sale. If the artist is signed to a label, he usually has to share the money he makes. In most cases, control of the recording copyright reverts to the artist or label after a set period of time. In another deal Cornerstone negotiated, the electronic music duo Crystal Method remixed some of its songs to create a workout soundtrack that Nike could sell on its page in Apple ’s iTunes store. The sneaker company gave Crystal Method a small advance but a generous royalty, according to Richard Bishop, the duo’s manager. The mix sold nearly 40,000 copies online, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and more than 15,000 copies in traditional stores once Nike’s period of exclusivity ended. Crystal Method’s last traditional album sold 184,000 copies, but Mr. Bishop said the duo made more money on the Nike project because the royalty rate was so much better. “I think in the world today, it doesn’t make a difference to the consumer if a record comes out on Warner Music, EMI, Red Bull or Diesel Jeans,” Mr. Bishop said. “Artists may be better advised to put their music out with a brand to get better reach and bigger advertising.” Groove Armada should also do well in its deal with Bacardi, according to the band’s manager, Dan O’Neill. The yearlong contract calls for the duo to play 25 Bacardi events and give the liquor company online distribution rights to its new E.P. — a release with less music than a CD — which is due in October. In exchange, Groove Armada receives a monthly fee, money for recording costs and a generous royalty on music Bacardi sells or gives away. It retains the copyright to its recording, as well as the right to sell its E.P. in traditional outlets, where it will presumably benefit from the money Bacardi spends on marketing. Music executives say many of the acts now striking deals with brands are popular enough to do so because they have already benefited from major-label marketing campaigns: Crystal Method was signed to Interscope, Groove Armada to Sony. Although consumer brands are taking on roles once reserved for labels, they are investing so much money in music because the same digital technology that whipsawed the music business is also making it harder to reach consumers. “We don’t just want to talk to people,” said Anne Jensen, a brand-building director at Unilever who works with Caress. “We want to give them something that adds value to their lives.” She said that Ms. Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls was perfect for the campaign because she embodied the spirit of Brazil. (Though, truth be told, she is Hawaiian, Russian and Filipino.) Ms. Scherzinger will get money from her deal with Caress as well as exposure in the brand’s television campaign — the kind of advertising that a major label would not buy, even for a star. “If you’re only looking at these deals in terms of money, you’re going to miss what they do for each party,” said Jeff Haddad, who manages Ms. Scherzinger and the Pussycat Dolls. Danny Goldberg, founder of the management company Gold Village Entertainment and former chairman and chief executive of Mercury Records, said that deals with brands would turn off fans of some bands but could be effective in promoting other performers. “In another era, there was a stigma attached to this,” he said. “Now it’s just another way to expose your music.”

Music
Procter & Gamble Co
Advertising and Marketing
Recordings and Downloads (Audio)


In Westchester, a Rescue Fund for Mortgages in Arrears

Abstract: Westchester Residential Opportunities, a nonprofit housing group, specializes in protecting its clients from discrimination or predatory activities in the housing market. But it recently raised its counseling staff from two to five in response to the far different matter of foreclosures. “The requests have doubled; we are literally overwhelmed,” said Geoffrey Anderson, the executive director of the group. Last summer, the agency introduced the Rescue Fund, a program that he said is unique to the county. It is financed with $75,000 from the county’s legislative board that is to be distributed to homeowners in arrears on their mortgages. To qualify for the money, a household’s income must be less than $100,000, the home must be a primary residence, and the homeowner must demonstrate a future ability to resume payments. Based in White Plains and with offices in Yonkers and Mount Vernon — two of the areas hit hardest by the mortgage crisis — Mr. Anderson’s agency has distributed Rescue Fund money to 24 homeowners countywide, and, with the demand continuing, he has applied for a second dose of financing from the legislators. “Last year, we saw a lot of people with subprime mortgages,” Mr. Anderson said. “The trend we’re starting to see now is, sad to say, individuals who got prime loans and bought very nice homes, but who have suddenly lost their jobs. It’s a tough thing to tell somebody they need to do a short sale or give their house back to the bank. It’s the last thing they want to hear, and we try not to say it.” ROBIN FINN

Foreclosures
Housing and Real Estate
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Westchester County (NY)


China Is Investing Billions in the U.S. Despite Tensions Between the Governments

Abstract: HONG KONG — As China increasingly flexes its financial muscle, the country’s companies are spreading their wealth broadly across the United States instead of chasing major lawmakers or causes. A new study, which looked at Chinese investment by congressional district, found the money was scattered across every region. Chinese companies are buying trophy properties in New York. They are building manufacturing operations in the Midwest. And they are snapping up Internet companies in California. In all, Chinese companies have invested $46 billion in the United States since 2000, with most coming in the last five years, according to a study prepared by the Rhodium Group, a New York research firm, to be released on Wednesday At the same time, geopolitical tensions with China have been rising. Washington is worried about China’s construction of artificial islands and at least one military-grade airstrip on disputed shoals, as well as the country’s deployment of multiple, independently targeted hydrogen bomb warheads. The Obama administration has also raised concerns about the new Chinese-led development bank. The steadily rising corporate investment could quell some of the criticism of China in Congress, said Stephen A. Orlins, the president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a nonprofit group that sponsored the Rhodium study and promotes cooperation between the two countries, and is releasing the report with Rhodium. “If you’ve got 3,000 to 4,000 of your people working for the Chinese, that’s feeding a lot of your constituents,” Mr. Orlins said. That said, Chinese investment alone won’t quiet the criticism. “The geo-security tension will get worse, so the economic upside better be strong to offset the negativity,” said Daniel Rosen, the Rhodium Group partner who oversees the company’s work on China. China’s approach to American investment contrasts with Japan in the 1980s, when it was the world’s rising export powerhouse. Back then, the Japanese government encouraged the country’s automakers and other very large manufacturers to open factories in crucial congressional districts as a way to blunt pressures for legislation limiting imports to slow heavy American job losses. That policy appeared to bear fruit in the next decade as lawmakers from districts with big Japanese factories, particularly those in Southern states with little union presence, were reluctant to support restrictive trade measures. It’s not easy, though, for Beijing to follow Japan’s example. That is because Chinese companies of all sizes and types are now investing. While some are state-owned enterprises that may closely follow the dictates of government policy makers, many are medium-size businesses owned by entrepreneurs who often put profits first. Representative Matt Salmon, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s panel on Asia and the Pacific, said that the American operations of Chinese financial services companies and exporters had contacted him periodically to ask that American markets be kept open to China’s exports. “Access to U.S. markets, that’s what they want,” he said. The study, the first detailed analysis of Chinese investments by congressional district, shows little correlation with the districts of key lawmakers. Not one of the five House Republican leaders represents a district that ranks in the top 15 by Chinese investment, measured in dollars since 2000 or by the number of employees of Chinese companies. And only one of the top four Democrats in the House does: Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker and current House minority leader. She represents a district in San Francisco where a third of the residents are Asian-Americans, and where many entrepreneurs have formed trans-Pacific business ties. He Weiwen, a former Commerce Ministry official who is now known as a trade policy intellectual, said that the study’s results were surprising and showed that the Chinese government needed to try harder to guide companies’ investments into central congressional districts. Mr. He, who is now the co-director of the influential China-U.S.-E.U. Study Center, said the study would be carefully considered in Beijing.

China
Manufacturing
Rhodium Group
Foreign Investment
International trade
US


Candidates Disclose February Fund-Raising

Abstract: President Obama raised $45 million in February, his campaign announced on Monday, a significant increase over the $29.1 million he raised in January. Mitt Romney raised $11.5 million for the same month, according to his campaign. And Rick Santorum ’s campaign said on Monday that he had raised more than $9 million, almost as much as Mr. Romney. Yet those figures are highly selective releases of the complete monthly fund-raising reports that each campaign must file with the Federal Election Commission by midnight on Tuesday, and they do not tell the whole story. Mr. Obama’s figure, as his campaign noted in a Web video released over Twitter, includes his fund-raising on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, which can accept contributions far larger than Mr. Obama may accept for his campaign. Obama campaign officials did not release a breakdown of how much of February’s haul went to the campaign versus the national committee, but of the $29.1 million Mr. Obama raised in January, just $11.8 million went into the president’s own campaign coffers. Moreover, Mr. Obama, as an incumbent, is accepting contributions for the general election as well as for the primary campaign, meaning each individual donor can give $5,000 to his campaign. Mr. Romney is accepting only the maximum contribution allowed for the primaries, $2,500, meaning he can in theory raise only half as much as Mr. Obama from his individual donors. Mr. Santorum is also accepting general election contributions, his spokeswoman said on Monday. That means that some unknown portion of the more than $9 million he raised in February cannot actually be spent unless he wins the Republican nomination — and he is far behind Mr. Romney in delegates. In keeping with his tradition of giving his supporters the early scoop on campaign fund-raising, Mr. Obama released his figures via a series of early-morning Twitter messages. His campaign revealed that 348,000 people donated last month, about 100,000 of them for the first time. But the president’s campaign did not disclose what it spent during the month. Neither did Mr. Santorum’s. Because Mr. Santorum has raised most of his money through small donations, he probably incurs higher fund-raising costs than Mr. Romney, who made early investments in campaign infrastructure and has also relied more on high-dollar fund-raising events. Newt Gingrich had not yet released his February report. The deadline is midnight Tuesday. Mr. Obama has been raising money at a furious clip amid indications that he has been slow to reconnect with portions of his vast network of high-dollar donors from 2008. He has attended roughly 110 fund-raising events since opening his re-election bid last spring, and on Friday made a five-event, two-state, $4.8 million dollar “money run,” including a fund-raiser featuring Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey. Representative Ron Paul of Texas filed his election commission report on Friday , several days early, reporting about $3.3 million in contributions in February, less than the $4.5 million he reported raising in January. Since the beginning of the Republican primaries, Mr. Paul has been able to count on a steady flow of small checks from his supporters, keeping his campaign war chest full through the ups and downs of a primary campaign in which he has yet to win a single contest. Through the end of January, Mr. Paul had raised $31 million, putting him in second place to Mr. Romney in the race for campaign dollars and well ahead of Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich. But the prolonged string of losses may be having an effect on his grass-roots enthusiasm. He spent about $3.5 million in February, slightly more than he took in, and began March with just $1.6 million in cash on hand.

Presidential Election of 2012
United States Politics and Government
Campaign Finance
Romney Mitt
Obama Barack
Gingrich Newt
Santorum Rick
Paul Ron


North Korea’s Antipathy for the U.S. Is Seen at a New High

Abstract: North Korea’s reclusive government signaled new anger toward the United States on Friday, equating it to a “mentally retarded patient” over an annual military exercise with South Korea, and offering hints that two American tourists arrested in North Korea four months ago would soon be put on trial and face long imprisonments. In a rare, nearly hourlong news conference at the United Nations, the North’s deputy permanent representative, Ri Tong-il, recited a litany of grievances with the United States and South Korea, accusing them of conspiring for regime change in the North, repeatedly ignoring the North’s entreaties for diminished tensions and moving ahead with the war games, known as the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises, scheduled to begin Aug. 18. The annual drills are intended to test readiness to repel a North Korean invasion of South Korea. While North Korea has always made such accusations ahead of the drills, Mr. Ri coupled them this year with the announcement that he had requested an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting for the purpose of condemning them as a threat to peace and security. Mr. Ri said he had received no response to the request, sent July 21, to the 15-member Council, which includes the United States as a permanent member and South Korea as a rotating member. “If the Security Council turns away from this emergency meeting, it will only expose itself as a U.N. body which has lost its principles, impartiality and responsibility,” Mr. Ri said. Security Council diplomats later confirmed that the North Korean letter had been received but no further action had been taken. “There are no plans for a meeting at this stage,” one said privately. Mr. Ri rejected suggestions that North Korea’s own nuclear and long-range missile activities, for which it has been sanctioned by the United Nations, were provocative. “No country in the world has been living like the D.P.R.K., under serious threats to its existence, sovereignty, survival,” he said, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. “That’s why the D.P.R.K. went with the option to go with a nuclear deterrent, to protect our people.” He accused the United States of using its military power to deliberately subvert any dialogue between North and South Korea — which is also a standard North Korean assertion. But in a variant of that theme, he said the American behavior “is reminding us of the historical lasting symptom of a mentally retarded patient.” Asked later to explain the analogy, Mr. Ri said, “The U.S. has been doing it for over six decades on our doorstep.” His critique came as more news dribbled out of North Korea over the two detained American tourists, Matthew Todd Miller, 24, and Jeffrey Edward Fowle, 56, suggesting that they are likely to be put on trial soon for unspecified hostile acts. A television news crew for The Associated Press, the first Western news agency with a bureau in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, was permitted by the North Korean authorities to briefly visit with the two under the condition that the location not be disclosed. It was unclear from The A.P.’s account whether the two were interviewed together or separately, or whether they had been coerced. But both were quoted as saying they needed help from the American government and feared they would be incarcerated for long periods. “The horizon for me is pretty dark,” Mr. Fowle was quoted as saying. Mr. Miller was quoted as saying, “I expect soon I will be going to trial for my crime and be sent to prison.” North Korea has not explained the nature of the accusations against them. On Thursday, a pro-North Korea newspaper in Japan published an interview with Kenneth Bae, an American missionary who has been incarcerated in North Korea for nearly two years, in which he said that his health was failing and that he had lost faith in the American government’s efforts to win his release.


New York Attorney General’s Suit Against Trump University May Proceed, Court Rules

Abstract: A New York appeals court decided on Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by the state attorney general claiming that Donald J. Trump’s defunct for-profit school defrauded consumers can go forward. The attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, filed the lawsuit in 2013 asserting that Trump University, later known as the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, misrepresented itself and bilked students individually of thousands of dollars and collectively of $40 million. A panel of justices from the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ruled in Manhattan against dismissing the lawsuit. The justices found that Mr. Schneiderman was authorized to pursue the case and disagreed with the claim raised by Mr. Trump’s lawyers that the statute of limitations for the claim had run out. In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat, hailed the decision as a “clear victory in our effort to hold Donald Trump and Trump University accountable for defrauding thousands of students.” “We look forward to demonstrating in a court of law that Donald Trump and his sham for-profit college defrauded more than 5,000 consumers out of millions of dollars,” Mr. Schneiderman added. Jeffrey L. Goldman, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, called the court’s decision “intellectually dishonest.” Citing previous cases handled by the court, Mr. Goldman argued that the case should have had a three-year statute of limitations. “For some unexplained reason,” he said, “the Appellate Division says, ‘No, now it should be a six-year statute.’” Image Eric T. Schneiderman is the attorney general of New York. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times Trump University — which the lawsuit says lacked the credentials to call itself a university in New York — has been a source of criticism of Mr. Trump in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Last week, the American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit, said that it was pursuing a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign featuring students of the program who felt that they had been cheated. Mr. Trump has defended himself and the program. A website was set up to highlight positive reviews from participants, including those who are now critics. The site’s name, 98percentapproval.com, is a nod to the percentage of students, based on 11,000 evaluations, who rated themselves “extremely satisfied,” Mr. Trump has said. In a statement this week responding to the television ads, Mr. Trump dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous and Mr. Schneiderman as a “typical politician.” Mr. Schneiderman “continues to waste taxpayer money trying to smear me, but the fact is that the overwhelming majority of students had a great experience,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It’s a minor civil case I have not settled out of principle.” The program, according to the lawsuit, was a series of seminars held in hotels across the country, billed as an opportunity to learn about how to invest in real estate from instructors “handpicked” by Mr. Trump. The program attracted prospective students with a free seminar, widely advertised in newspapers and through direct mail, that was effectively “a sales pitch for a three-day seminar costing $1,495,” the suit says. That, in turn, was an opportunity to pitch students to subscribe to Trump Elite mentorship packages, which cost up to $35,000. But the lawsuit claimed the program failed to live up to what it advertised. Mr. Trump did not pick instructors and had little involvement in devising curriculums, the suit says. Some participants were led to expect a personal appearance by Mr. Trump, the suit says; instead, they had their photograph taken with a life-size cutout.

Trump University
Lawsuits
Donald Trump
For-profit education
Fraud


To Fix Social Security, Use the Right Wrench

Abstract: SOCIAL SECURITY is expected to run out of reserves by 2033 — a mere 20 years from now. With the public apparently opposed both to tax increases and to benefit cuts, the main politically feasible way to avoid such a fate seems to involve some monkeying with obscure aspects of the definition of benefits. Congress seems to want a ruse to disguise a cut in benefits as something else — like the discovery of a technical error that, once corrected, would let the government write smaller checks without taking the blame for cutting benefits. In a spirit of compromise, President Obama has proposed changing how inflation is measured in benefit calculations. In his 2014 budget proposal released in April, he proposed that retirees’ Social Security benefits be indexed to something called the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers or C-CPI-U, rather than the current benchmark, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers , or CPI-W. This seems to correct a real technical error. Economists have argued that the current index overstates the actual inflation rate, and that a switch to the C-CPI-U would make the inflation indexing more accurate, seemingly justifying the resulting gradual reduction in benefits. (And it would be a reduction, to the point that someone retiring today would be receiving about 5 percent less in 20 years.) But here is the rub: the proposal solves the wrong problem and, in doing so, undermines the integrity of the Social Security system. The purpose of Social Security is to help families. It reinforces the intergenerational sharing that families already — though imperfectly — provide. It helps retirees by stabilizing their income, and it helps their grown children, who are relieved of any excessive burden of supporting them. This purpose strongly suggests that the Social Security benefits should be indexed to some measure of the available, aggregate economic pie. That means a formula that looks completely different from the ones being discussed today. Clearly, something needs to be done: if nothing changes, and the trust fund runs out in 2033, the system would be able to pay only about 75 percent of promised benefits. The issues are complex, as economic theorists like Henning Bohn at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have shown . But now that an index change is on the table, we should take this opportunity to get it right. Image Credit Rafa Alvarez One alternative that we should consider is a different kind of index switch, linking retirees’ benefits to gross domestic product per capita, in current dollars. This measure responds to inflation just as the C-CPI-U does, but, in contrast, it also responds to changes in the nation’s resources, as measured by real G.D.P. There could also be corrections for other factors, like the dependency ratio, which compares the number of “dependents” (retired people and children) to the number of working adults. Such an index switch, however, has received hardly any public discussion, and that fact alone will make some people think that something is wrong with it. But political talk is limited; it is too focused on the identified problem of somehow fixing the projected Social Security insolvency. While this new idea won’t solve insolvency — we may need to raise Social Security contributions to do that — it would support the principle that one generation shouldn’t be more burdened than another. Before 1972, Social Security wasn’t indexed at all, and there was little public talk about tying it to inflation despite periodic, inflation-induced disasters for retirees. Congress simply made occasional, ad hoc, upward adjustments in the benefit formula. Proponents of these adjustments often justified the increases as offsetting the rising cost of living. But at the same time, they also described retirees as needy, suffering hardships and deserving dignity. While there were no explicit references to G.D.P., it’s plausible that their sense of “needy” was influenced by comparison with the rising American standard of living for working adults. As a matter of fact, total Social Security benefits more than kept up with the rapid G.D.P. growth in the couple of decades before they were indexed to inflation. Now that inflation indexing has been in place, some people see the formula as always providing the scientifically “right” amount of benefits. They don’t think much about other factors that might enter into the determination of benefits. And, in fact, since 1982, Social Security benefits as a fraction of G.D.P. have generally been falling, at least until the latest recession. The fact is that per capita G.D.P., in current dollars, has grown 1.2 percent faster a year, on average, than the CPI-W in the last 20 years, despite the Great Recession. If we indexed Social Security benefits to G.D.P. per capita, and not to the C-CPI-U, people who retire today and live 20 additional years would get a third more in real, inflation-corrected benefits — provided, of course, that the next 20 years are like the last. If the economy grew unusually rapidly, however, they might get 50 or 60 percent more, in real terms. But even that wouldn’t break the budget of the Social Security system, because contributions would be higher, too, in response to the greater economic growth. And if the economy stagnated in a deep depression in the next 20 years, retirees might see no growth at all, or conceivably even a decline, in real terms. That’s O.K., too, because everyone else would be suffering as well. We have other programs, like Medicare, that deal with any extreme hardships that some older Americans with special conditions might encounter. THE point of G.D.P. indexing is to align the interests of the retired with society as a whole. Older Americans should share both the windfalls and the losses with other generations — with working adults, and with children. It shouldn’t be otherwise. If the system’s rules force us to maintain the real benefits of retirees at all costs, we may find ourselves, in difficult times, taking excessively from our children via cuts in education, or from our working adults. Why should retired people feel no effect at all from the recession while younger people are left suffering? They should be sharing the hardships, if we have familial feelings for one another. The issue is especially salient today because the demographics have shifted: the aging of the baby boomers will create many retirees relative to adults who are still working. This huge shift could not have been foreseen by Social Security’s designers. Achieving the right benefit formula while fixing Social Security’s solvency problem might require increasing the contribution rate — now in the form of 6.2 percent taxes on employees and employers. But so be it. We need to say what is right, keeping our eyes on the integrity of Social Security, which is crucial to our identity as a civil society.

Social Security
Inflation
Retirement
Consumer price index
US Economy
GDP
Barack Obama


Secret Service Director to Testify That Security Was Not Breached in Scandal

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Secret Service director, Mark Sullivan, is expected to tell Congress on Wednesday that the prostitution scandal in Colombia last month did not result in a breach of national security. In testimony prepared for a Senate committee that will be his first public comments on the scandal, Mr. Sullivan says his investigation revealed that at the time of the misconduct, the dozen agents and other agency employees implicated in the case had not received any specific information about plans to protect President Obama during his visit to Cartagena for a summit meeting of leaders of Western Hemisphere nations. Mr. Sullivan says the agents were scheduled to be briefed the day after what turned out to be a night of partying and cavorting with prostitutes and other women. He says they did not have security documents, firearms, radios or other equipment in their hotel rooms on the night in question. In his prepared testimony, Mr. Sullivan says he directed agency inspectors to investigate accusations of similar misconduct in San Salvador. After 28 interviews with hotel employees and managers, State Department officials and others, “no evidence was found to substantiate the allegations,” he said. The acting inspector general of the Secret Service, Charles Edwards, is also scheduled to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. The episode in Colombia resulted in the dismissal or resignation of nine agents and officers and the discipline of three others. The top Republican on the committee, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, says in her prepared remarks: “This reckless behavior could easily have compromised individuals charged with the security of the president of the United States. This misconduct was almost certainly not an isolated incident.” The White House on Tuesday restated its confidence in Mr. Sullivan. Its spokesman, Jay Carney, said Mr. Obama “has great faith in the Secret Service, believes the director has done an excellent job.” The agency has tightened rules for staff members traveling in foreign countries, saying they cannot have foreigners in their rooms with the exception of hotel staff members and law enforcement counterparts. “Patronization of nonreputable establishments is prohibited,” an agency memorandum said. It also said that “alcohol may only be consumed in moderate amounts” on the trips and that drinking alcohol less than 10 hours before reporting for duty was prohibited. Agency rules had prohibited drinking less than four hours before reporting for duty.

Secret Service
Prostitution
Colombia
United States
House of Representatives
Homeland Security Department


Senate Leaders and White House Make Their Cases on Iran Deal Legislation

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee negotiated into the night on Monday to soften language and possibly shorten a congressional review period in legislation that would give Congress influence over the shape of President Obama’s nuclear accord with Iran. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s first legislative effort to muscle into the continuing talks to rein in Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, will formally go before the committee on Tuesday afternoon. Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, the panel’s chairman, and Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, its ranking Democrat, pushed to reach bipartisan consensus by Tuesday morning, then join forces to stave off threats to the bill from the right and the left. A Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations said Monday night that Mr. Cardin was optimistic that a bipartisan accord would be reached by morning. To try to get there, Mr. Corker and Mr. Cardin focused on watering down two provisions. One would require the president to certify every 90 days that Iran is not supporting terrorist attacks against Americans, an issue that has not been part of the nuclear negotiations. The other would prevent the president from waiving any sanctions until the expiration of a 60-day congressional review period. The biggest threat to the bill still comes from Mr. Obama, who says the measure would undermine the international negotiations to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program. White House officials vowed on Monday that the president would “absolutely veto” the legislation in its current form, and he spent several hours on Monday discussing the Iran accord with Jewish leaders at the White House. In two closed-door discussions in the Roosevelt Room, Mr. Obama sought to explain his initiative to Jewish leaders and longtime supporters of Israel, many of whom have expressed deep reservations about the effect of the Iran negotiations on Israel’s security. Aides said Mr. Obama hoped to enlist influential Jewish leaders in his bid to fend off a congressional vote on the still-unfinished nuclear agreement announced this month by Iran, the United States and six other world powers. The Iran Nuclear Deal’s Definition Depends on Who’s Talking American and Iranian officials are using different words to describe elements of the preliminary agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program. Republicans posed their own threat with amendments that would vastly complicate the nuclear talks. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, fresh off his declaration Monday that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, will fly to Washington on Tuesday to push an amendment making any Iran deal dependent on Tehran’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist, which is considered a nonstarter. In addition, the surviving former hostages who were held by Iran for 444 days, from late 1979 to early 1981 at the American Embassy in Tehran, have persuaded Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, to press for compensation as a condition to a final accord. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, would make the agreement a formal treaty requiring ratification by two-thirds of the Senate. “My own feeling is I don’t understand the necessity of moving forward on legislation in the next 60 days,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after emerging from a two-hour, classified briefing for House members by three Obama cabinet secretaries. “Apart from a small domestic political benefit, I don’t see how it contributes to getting a better agreement or strengthening our bargaining position with Iran.” Tom Zamora Collina, policy director at the Ploughshares Fund, an arms control group, said, “The worse this bill gets, the easier it gets for the president to veto it and for Democrats to sustain the veto.” But Republican leaders are eager to confront the administration well before the June 30 deadline that has been set for a final accord. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said the bill would probably come to a vote this month, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, said Monday that he would push for quick passage of a Senate-approved bill. Mr. Obama spent several hours Monday pitching the nuclear agreement in two private White House meetings as his aides began a furious, two-day lobbying effort on Capitol Hill aimed at heading off what they view as congressional interference. Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew briefed House members in a classified session Monday evening. The officials are scheduled to hold a similar briefing for senators on Tuesday morning. Jewish leaders who attended the first of the two White House sessions with the president said that Mr. Obama opened with a half-hour statement in which he provided a detailed, nine-point explanation of why he believes the nuclear deal with Iran is in the security interests of both the United States and Israel. “His tone was very emphatic and very passionate,” said one official from a Jewish group who was briefed in detail on the discussion, and who asked for anonymity to discuss a private meeting at the White House. “He made the argument for why this is a good deal, and why he is not going down this road for the sake of bringing any harm to Israel.” Critics in the room urged the president to push for a better deal, according to participants, saying it would allow Iran’s government to evade inspections of its nuclear facilities. And they told Mr. Obama that lifting sanctions would allow Iran to earn $100 billion from the sale of oil that would help finance terrorist activities around the globe. Mr. Obama also acknowledged the strains in his relationship with Israel’s leadership, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but told the group that the disagreements were “not personal” and were instead evidence of serious policy disagreements, in particular about how to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Groups invited to the sessions included J Street, an organization that has been supportive of Mr. Obama’s negotiations with Iran, as well as the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which oppose the deal. Other groups invited included the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Officials said the first meeting with the president was intended for “leaders of American Jewish organizations,” while the second was for “Jewish community leaders.” Participants said the second meeting was reserved for wealthy supporters and donors, though Josh Earnest, the president’s spokesman, said that political contributions were “not a factor in their invitation.” But the president’s opponents in this case include Democrats, nine of whom have co-sponsored the review act. Democrats worry that the terrorism provision in the bill would, in effect, make the Iran agreement impossible to carry out. Supporters of the bill also worry that the 90-day review period would freeze the president’s hand for three months and give Iran time to back out of the deal.

Iran
Legislation
Republicans
Democrats
US Politics
Nuclear weapon
US


Suspect in Fatal Crash Arrives in Brooklyn to Face Charges

Abstract: The suspect in a hit and run that killed a young pregnant woman, her husband and, later, their newborn son was returned to New York on Thursday and charged with three felony counts of criminally negligent homicide. The suspect, Julio Acevedo, waived extradition at a brief Thursday morning hearing in Pennsylvania before a Lehigh County judge, and was later handed over to the New York police for the long drive to the 78th Precinct station house in Brooklyn. At his arraignment in Criminal Court in Brooklyn late Thursday night, Mr. Acevedo was charged with criminally negligent homicide, as well as leaving the scene, excessive speed, assault and reckless driving, and the judge ordered him held without bail. The severity of the crash had led to calls — from many in the Orthodox Jewish community, to which the couple belonged, and beyond — for the police and prosecutors to aggressively pursue the driver of the BMW. Gayle Damf, a Brooklyn assistant district attorney, said that based on Mr. Acevedo’s criminal record, he could face anywhere from 15 years to life imprisonment if convicted. Ms. Damf said that on the night of the crash, two witnesses saw Mr. Acevedo’s vehicle speed around a fire truck. After the crash, she said, “They approached him. They asked if he was O.K.” She continued: “He said he was fine.” The witnesses then approached the vehicle of the couple, Raizy and Nathan Glauber. When the witnesses turned around, “he was gone,” Ms. Damf said. The same witnesses later identified Mr. Acevedo in a police lineup. A lawyer for Mr. Acevedo, Kathleen Julian, said that the crash “was an accident, a horrible accident.” She added: “The facts are going to show it was an accident.” The police had arrested Mr. Acevedo on felony charges of leaving the scene, and earlier Thursday night, added an additional charge of first-degree vehicular manslaughter for the death of the boy, who was delivered prematurely immediately after the accident and died a day later. Prosecutors did not file that charge. New York courts have examined the issue of an emergency delivery after an accident: in 2002, a Brooklyn court found a drunken driver who hit a pregnant woman could be charged with manslaughter in the death of her 8-month-old fetus that was delivered after the crash and died shortly after. A charge of manslaughter, prosecutors with experience in this area said, generally requires the driver to have criminal intent or be intoxicated, as was the case in 2002. “The law is, if the baby is born prematurely and the only reason the baby is born is from his actions, and then dies, he caused the death of that child,” said Arthur L. Aidala, a criminal defense lawyer and former assistant Brooklyn district attorney. “All it takes is a breath” from the baby for it to be considered a live birth. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office of the chief medical examiner, said late Thursday that the couple’s child died of “extreme prematurity” because of “blunt force injuries” sustained by Ms. Glauber during the accident. Also on Thursday, the other driver in the crash spoke publicly for the first time at a news conference arranged by a taxi drivers’ trade association. Pedro Nuñez Delacruz, a veteran cabdriver, said he had no recollection of the crash that killed the Glaubers, both 21, who were in his car. “Before the accident, there is nothing I can remember,” he said. The crash occurred just after midnight on Sunday on Kent Avenue as Mr. Delacruz turned from Wilson Street, which has a stop sign at the intersection. “I know the area,” Mr. Delacruz said. “I’ve worked in this area for 10 years. I do this five days a week. Of course I’m going to stop at a stop sign.” The police have said Mr. Acevedo, who did not have a stop sign or light, had been driving a borrowed BMW at “more than 60 miles per hour” when it slammed into the driver’s side of the cab, owned by Mr. Delacruz. Mr. Delacruz, a 32-year-old father of three whose wife is pregnant, said that the death of the family had devastated him. “I’m not good,” he said in Spanish. “There is nothing that he did wrong,” Fernando Mateo, the founder of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said in a telephone call after the news conference. Mr. Mateo said Mr. Delacruz was in the process of formally transferring his car’s paperwork to a new company, Brooklyn Car Service. On the day of the crash, that paperwork had yet to be processed, meaning the car should not have been sent to pick up passengers, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said. Logs from Brooklyn Car Service list several pickups by Mr. Delacruz for the company that night, but none after 11:04 p.m. Mr. Delacruz said he did not pick the Glaubers up on the street, but he did not say what company sent him. Mr. Acevedo, 44, who is unemployed and had a pending court date at the time of the crash on a drunken-driving arrest, told the judge at his extradition hearing in Pennsylvania that he lived with his mother in Brooklyn. He said his last job was maintaining vehicles for a bus company. Scott Brettschneider, a lawyer retained by Mr. Acevedo on Wednesday, said it was up to the prosecution to provide evidence of criminal behavior behind the wheel if they sought to bring stiffer charges than leaving the scene of an accident causing injuries (or, in this case, deaths), a felony. “Other than a horrible accident, there has to be more than that,” he said in a telephone interview before the arraignment. Mr. Brettschneider said he had previously given legal advice to Mr. Acevedo during his time in prison. Mr. Acevedo, who has struggled with alcohol, has a history of serious crime and served more than eight years in prison for a 1987 killing. “I think we have to see what the prosecution has,” Mr. Brettschneider said. “They have to prove everything.”

Hit and Run
Julio Acevedo
Nathan Glauber
Car Crash
Raizy Glauber
Williamsburg Brooklyn
Murders
NYC


Protests in Baseball Are Seldom Upheld

Abstract: When Yankees pitcher Dellin Betances overthrew first baseman Mark Teixeira, allowing the Astros to score a run on Tuesday afternoon, Manager Joe Girardi was incensed . The Astros’ 6-foot-4 Carlos Correa had caused the errant throw by running on the field side of the first-base line, Girardi believed, and not in the running lane. So Girardi followed the pattern trod by so many managers before him. First, he argued. And when that did not work, he announced that he was playing the game under protest. (On Wednesday, Girardi said that the Yankees had decided not to file the required paperwork and would not pursue the protest.) Playing a game under protest because of some perceived injustice is not uncommon in baseball. In 2014, the Rays objected to the timing of a replay challenge . In the 2012 National League wild-card game, the Braves disputed an infield fly rule call . In 2011, the Phillies were angry about fan interference . These grievances, like so many others, had two things in common: They led to the game being played under protest. And the protest was quickly dismissed. Reversals after a game is over are exceedingly rare. Rule 7.04 sets a fairly high bar: “Even if it is held that the protested decision violated the rules, no replay of the game will be ordered unless in the opinion of the league president the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning the game.” The historical research group Project Retrosheet found 15 games that were resumed after a successful protest , but only one in the 21st century. The key element in that successful protest was, of all things, a tarp. When rain came in a Giants-Cubs game in August 2014, the host Cubs struggled to get the tarp on the field quickly. The game was eventually called on account of rain, and the Cubs were declared winners by the score at the time. But, the league said: “The groundskeeping crew was unable to properly deploy the tarp after the rain worsened. In accordance with Rule 4.12(a)(3), the game should be considered a suspended game that must be completed at a future date.” The Major League Baseball executive Joe Torre said the failure to store the tarp properly after its previous use had contributed to the problems. Two days later, the game resumed. The Giants scored a run, but the Cubs hung on for a 2-1 victory. By far the most famous resumed contest was the Pine Tar Game of 1983. George Brett’s ninth-inning home run was initially declared void after his bat was found to have too much pine tar on it, and the Yankees went on to beat the Royals. But the league decided that the ruling was wrong, reinstated Brett’s homer, and ordered the game to be resumed from that point. The Royals duly hung on for the win in the resumed game. Protests, successful and otherwise, have been made over a wide variety of incidents. In 1913, Manager John McGraw of the Giants complained that Phillies fans in center field were waving their straw hats to reflect the sun into the eyes of the Giants batters. As The New York Times reported at the time: “It was requested that those occupying seats directly in line with the pitcher and batsman move to some other place. There was little space to move to, and the spectators, who had been there almost from the start of the game, would not budge.” The umpires awarded the game to the Giants, who were trailing, 8-6. Philadelphia fans, who have changed little in the last century, did not take this well. “As soon as the word had been spoke,” The Times reported, “New York players made a rush across the field to the clubhouse. As quick as they were, some of the fans were there ahead of them and showered upon them all kinds of names. Some missiles were hurled, but no one was hurt.” For their part, the umpires were pelted with seat cushions, and some New York players were struck by objects while making their way to the train station. After several back-and-forth appeals, the league reversed the decision, and the game was played out a month later, though after the Giants had clinched the pennant. The odds were against Girardi’s winning his protest, even if the Yankees decided to pursue it. And unless straw hats come back in fashion, reversals are likely to remain a rarity in baseball.

Baseball
Yankees
Carlos Correa
MLB
San Francisco Giants
Chicago Cubs


Before Kenya Attack, Rehearsals and Planting of Machine Guns

Abstract: NAIROBI, Kenya — The plot was hatched weeks or months ago on Somali soil, by the Shabab’s “external operations arm,” officials say. A team of English-speaking foreign fighters was carefully selected, along with a target: Nairobi’s gleaming Westgate mall. The building’s blueprints were studied, down to the ventilation ducts. The attack was rehearsed and the team dispatched, slipping undetected through Kenya’s porous borders, often patrolled by underpaid — and deeply corrupt — border guards. A day or two before the attack, powerful belt-fed machine guns were secretly stashed in a shop in the mall with the help of a colluding employee, officials say. At least one militant had even packed a change of clothes so he could slip out with fleeing civilians after the killings were done. Image Relatives of Johnny Mutinda Musango, 48, who was killed, grieved Tuesday at a mortuary in Nairobi after identifying his body. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times That is the picture emerging from American security officials of the massacre at the Westgate mall, which killed scores of people over the weekend. After a four-day standoff, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya claimed Tuesday to have finally “ashamed and defeated our attackers,” declaring that the last militants still holed up inside the mall had been killed, though the bodies of many civilians, perhaps dozens, had yet to be recovered. Mr. Kenyatta said that “intelligence reports had suggested that a British woman and two or three American citizens may have been involved,” but that he could not confirm those reports. American officials said that they had not determined the identities of the attackers and were awaiting DNA tests and footage from the mall’s security cameras, but that they did know the massacre had been meticulously planned to draw “maximum exposure.” “They had people in there, they had stuff inside there,” said an American security official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “This was all ready to go when the shooters walked in.” Image Kenya Defense Forces on the roof of the Westgate shopping mall, on Tuesday. Credit Noor Khamis/Reuters Kenya is now entering an official three-day period of mourning to mark one of the most unsettling episodes in its recent history. The authorities here, in a country widely perceived as an oasis of peace and prosperity in a troubled region, are struggling to answer how 10 to 15 Islamist extremists could lay siege to a shopping mall, killing more than 60 civilians with military-grade weaponry, then hold off Kenyan security forces for days. On multiple occasions, the Kenyan government said the mall was under its control, only to have fighting burst out again. Earlier on Tuesday, the Shabab, the Somali Islamist group that has taken responsibility for the attack, bragged in a Twitter message that their fighters were “still holding their ground.” Western security officials fear that several fighters slipped out of the mall during the mayhem of the attack, dropping their guns and disguising themselves as civilians, an account echoed by some witnesses. Image Relatives who identified the body of Johnny Mutinda Musango, 48, who was killed in the Westgate Mall attack, tried to comfort each other as they left the mortuary in Nairobi on Tuesday. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times And the death toll could keep going up. The Kenya Red Cross said Tuesday that more than 50 people were missing. The way the attack was carried out may have had something to do with the recent killing of Omar Hammami, a Shabab fighter who grew up in Alabama and became a phantomlike figure across the Somali deserts, known by his nom de guerre: Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, “the American.” Mr. Hammami was fatally shot by another wing of the Shabab less than two weeks ago. One reason for the rift was Mr. Hammami’s complaints that the Shabab had become too brutal toward fellow Muslims under the leadership of the group’s emir, Ahmed Abdi Godane. That brutality, Mr. Hammami said, was the reason the Shabab had become so unpopular in Somalia and lost so much territory recently. Image Kenyans looked toward the Westgate Mall as they passed the building in a public bus Tuesday. The government reports that they have taken the building back from Al Shabab militants who launched an attack on Sunday. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Stig Jarle Hansen, a Norwegian researcher who has published a book on the Shabab, said this rift might explain why the militants in the Nairobi mall decided to spare the lives of many Muslims. In the past, the Shabab have killed countless Muslims in Somalia with suicide bombs and buried Muslim girls up to their necks in sand and stoned them. “Even Osama bin Laden criticized Godane for being too harsh,” Mr. Hansen said. “This attack might have been Godane’s way of saying, ‘See, I’m not so harsh — to Muslims.’ ” Some Muslims were indeed killed in the mall. But many survivors of the attack said the militants had questioned people at gunpoint about their religion, ruthlessly sorting out non-Muslims for execution. Aleem Manji, a Kenyan radio announcer, remembered that as he uttered an Islamic prayer to save his life, the gunman threatening to kill him spoke fluent English. Kenya Presses Assault Against Mall Attackers 9 Photos View Slide Show › Image Tyler Hicks/The New York Times His accent was “light,” Mr. Manji recalled, saying it definitely was not Kenyan. American officials — who said they based their reconstruction of the plot on intelligence reports, witness statements and intercepted electronic messages — say the Shabab may have recruited English speakers from the United States and possibly other Western countries so that they would be able to operate effectively in Kenya, where English, along with Swahili, is the national language. Some survivors, including a newspaper vendor who watched one militant mercilessly shoot a toddler in the legs, said other gunmen had been young and either Somali or Arab. American officials said the militants must have had a back office in Kenya, a safe house to finalize their plot and store their guns. Witnesses said several militants had toted G3 assault rifles, a bulky weapon that Kenyan security services use. Intelligence analysts say this may mean the militants acquired their weapons from corrupt Kenyan officers, who are known to sell or rent out their guns, charging as little as a few dollars an hour. After killing scores of shoppers, the militants retreated into a supermarket and used belt-fed machine guns to hold off the Kenyan forces, killing at least six members. “You don’t bring something like a crew-served weapon through the door,” an American official said, referring to heavy machine guns. “Those must have been stored well beforehand.” Another mystery: the women. Many witnesses have been emphatic that they saw at least two female militants, armed to the teeth and dressed in fatigues. Earlier, Kenyan officials asserted that there had been no women among the shooters, but on Tuesday Mr. Kenyatta seemed to revive the possibility that one of the assailants was a British woman. Several intelligence analysts in Nairobi speculated that the woman was Samantha Lewthwaite , a Muslim convert who had been married to one of the suicide bombers who struck London in 2005. Kenyan authorities suspected that Ms. Lewthwaite had risen up through the ranks of extremist groups and was leading a terrorism cell on the Kenyan coast; though they nearly swooped in on her in 2011, she escaped. In Kenya, she is now known as “the white widow.”

Nairobi
Al Shabab
Terrorism
Westgate Mall Shootings