His Friends Know Him as Petroswickonicovick

Abstract: SÃO PAULO, Brazil — When he became a teenager, Wonarllevyston Garlan Marllon Branddon Bruno Paullynelly Mell Oliveira Pereira did what any self-conscious person worried about merciless taunting from his peers might do: He pleaded with his parents and the courts to let him change his name. “I never had anything in common with Marlon Brando,” he said, referring to the American actor for whom he was partially named. So with the permission of his parents and the legal system, he whittled down his nine names to an economical four, Bruno Wonarleviston Oliveira Pereira. “I just didn’t want to go through life with something more complicated than that,” explained Mr. Oliveira Pereira, a 19-year-old university student. Carrying an extraordinary name is remarkably widespread in Brazil. Glance at the Facebook timelines of Brazilian friends. Strike up a conversation at a Sunday afternoon barbecue. Or merely stand in line at a notary public and listen to a pencil-pusher call out the people waiting for documents to be stamped. You will be awed by some of the names you hear. Mike Tyson Schwarzenegger Pradella. Errolflynn Paixão. Charlingtonglaevionbeecheknavare dos Anjos Mendonça, a 31-year-old plumber who prefers to go by Chacha, melodically pronounced Sha-sha in Portuguese. Some scholars say the practice stems from a tendency to hold certain rich countries in higher esteem than Brazil, prompting some parents to aim for foreign-sounding names that may seem illustrious. A minor tradition of honoring American presidents has produced names like Abraão Lynconn Sousa Santana and Francisco Lindon Johnson Menezes da Luz Junior. The other side of the ideological divide is represented, too, in a name like Mao Tse Tung Lima de Moura. Others say it reflects centuries of immigration, conquest and slavery, a process that has mixed indigenous, African, European and Asian cultures to produce a fusion of identities. In a country with an array of musical traditions, from the melodious bossa nova to sertanejo country music, naming experts also mention the symphonious way some unusual names resonate when they are coined by expecting parents. A name like Sherlock Holmes da Silva, pronounced SHARE-Lockee WHOLE-mees in Brazil, certainly does have a distinctive ring to it. “You ask someone why they chose a name and they say because of the sound,” said Elaine Rabinovich, a psychologist who has explored Brazil’s naming practices. “The people who are doing this are still not co-opted by mass culture. I think this is great.” Some countries, like Germany and Iceland, strictly regulate the names parents can choose. Officials in Portugal, Brazil’s former colonial ruler, provide a list of approved names requiring parents to stick to tradition, allowing a name like Neóteles but eliminating Neptuno. But Brazil, unhindered by such hang-ups, ranks among nations where naming has evolved into something resembling a competitive sport. Neighboring Venezuela is also a contender , with its Stalins, Nixons, Hiroshimas, Tutankamens and Taj Mahals. Honduras has Llanta de Milagro (Miracle Tire). Zimbabwe has its Godknows , Lovemores and Learnmores. Brazil is much less freewheeling, however, for the unfortunate souls stuck with names they do not like. Changing one’s name requires the approval of a judge who can rule whether it is ridiculous or offensive. But the process is often drawn out and laborious, as are many bureaucratic matters in Brazil, requiring a lawyer. “The tendency of the courts is to deny name changes,” said Gerson Martins, a lawyer who specializes in helping Brazilians change their names. “It’s a shame, because many names in Brazil are little more than alphabet soup.” Though some people with incredible names press to change them, many Brazilians relish having a name that twists tongues, drops jaws or starts conversations. “I have a marvelous name which makes me stand out above the crowd,” said Creedence Clearwater Couto, 34, a student named in honor of Creedence Clearwater Revival, the American rock band. “Now, almost no one in Brazil knows who they are, and 90 percent of the people can’t pronounce it correctly,” said Mr. Couto. “But these were the guys who did ‘Bad Moon Rising,’ ” he added, referring to their 1969 hit single . “I am honored to be named for such artistic geniuses.” While the elite tends to hew to traditional names in Portuguese like Pedro, Gabriel, Julia and Carolina, American popular culture clearly fascinates broad sections of society, explaining a name like Oleúde José Ribeiro, a retired athlete whose first name is a phonetic spelling of Hollywood. Not far from São Paulo, a television network recently found a family in which seven children were named in honor of Elvis Presley: Elvis, Elvisnei, Elvismara, Elvislei, Elvicentina, Elvislaine and Elvislene. Encountering such names can be a little bewildering to newcomers. “Never think he or she was making a joke about his or her name,” the Mexican novelist Juan Pablo Villalobos, who lives in São Paulo, wrote in his irony-soaked “ Brazil: A User’s Guide ,” published in Granta. “No matter the name they told you, it’s the actual name.” Some Brazilians contend that naming has fallen from previous heights. Ruy Castro, a newspaper columnist, recently noted that melodious names like Eustáquio, Pancrácio, Hermenegilda and Hilária can now probably be found only on gravestones. Others warn that naming has grown so extreme that limits are needed. “We have reached the point where an alarm must be sounded,” said Osny Machado Neves, 73, a lawyer who worked for more than 35 years in a notary public’s office. Astounded by the names he came across, he compiled about 8,000 of them into a book. “Sometimes parents don’t know the trauma they are inflicting on their children,” said Mr. Neves, citing first names like Colapso Cardíaco (Cardiac Arrest). Sources of inspiration vary widely. José Miguel Porfirio, an accordionist in Recife, named his three children Xerox, Autenticada (Notarized) and Fotocópia (Photocopy), words he saw on a sign at a civil registry. Then there is Petroswickonicovick Wandeckerkof da Silva Santos, a 12-year-old soccer prodigy who has begun training with Corinthians, one of Brazil’s leading teams. Even in a country flooded with amazing names, his 19-letter first name and 12-letter middle name have raised eyebrows. The boy said it took him awhile to learn how to pronounce his own name. His father, José Ivanildo dos Santos, a soccer coach, has been repeatedly questioned about the choice. “The woman at the notary public’s office thought it was terrible and called me crazy,” Mr. dos Santos said in a televised interview. “But I told her I’d name my son my way.”


Biathlon Officials Bungle 2 Race Starts

Abstract: WHISTLER, British Columbia — A problematic opening week at the Vancouver Olympics continued Tuesday when errors by biathlon officials caused unprecedented mistakes to be made in the starting procedures at the men’s and women’s biathlon pursuit races. The pursuit is a head-to-head event in which biathletes chase the leaders. Start times are staggered and were determined by the finish in last weekend’s sprint races. Those with the fastest times in the sprint essentially receive a head start in the pursuit. In the women’s 10-kilometer, or 6.2-mile, pursuit Tuesday morning, three competitors were held back incorrectly and forced to leave late. Anna Carin Olofsson-Zidek of Sweden ended up in fourth place after having her time adjusted during the race. According to the International Biathlon Union technical delegate Norbert Baier, the primary officials responsible for the gaffe were relieved of their starting responsibilities for the men’s 12.5-kilometer, or 7.76-mile, race that followed. Yet there were more mistakes. Jean-Philippe Leguellec of Canada and Jeremy Teela of the United States were sent off too early. According to Baier, volunteers “didn’t check the right start numbers.” Leguellec and Teela were made aware of the mistake during the race, but they said that the confusion was a distraction. Baier apologized for the errors and laid part of the blame on the biathlon union. “This day for me is for me the blackest day I had ever,” said Baier, a former German biathlon coach who has worked with the I.B.U. since 1998. Max Cobb, the executive director of U.S. Biathlon, said the team leader filed a protest after the men’s race because the I.B.U. technical official did not initially give a clear answer as to what happened at the start of the race. But after hearing a more detailed explanation, Cobb said the team decided to accept the results. But Teela, who finished 24th after 22 seconds were added to his time, was not in an accepting mood immediately after the race, even though he conceded that the mistake did not cost him a medal. “If I was in the top five and this happened, I’d still be up there throwing my equipment, and J. P. should be throwing it,” said Teela, referring to Leguellec who finished in the fifth position but was knocked to 11th after 30 seconds were added to his overall time. “He’s 11th, but he had a strategy to race against the guys around him, and it would have been different if he would have known, “ Teela said. “I’m pretty bummed for myself, but I feel really bad for J. P. This is his home country, his home Olympics.” Despite the evident enthusiasm from Vancouverites and the thousands of volunteers, these Olympics are off to a rough start, with the death of the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during a training accident, numerous weather-related delays and even issues with ice-resurfacing machines . Canada’s experience with biathlon does not run deep, and Baier indicated that part of the explanation for the errors could have been that local officials attempted to delegate some of the start responsibilities to I.B.U. officials on the eve of the pursuits. “Yesterday, the organizers from VANOC, they told us: ‘Can you make this start? Our people are a little too nervous and so on and don’t have the experience,’ ” Baier said. Leguellec said: “I am upset because I came in fifth but received 11th place. It’s unfair, but that’s what it is. I can’t do much more. The volunteers are doing a great job, and in Canada, we don’t have this experience in doing these types of events.” Baier said the biathlon union officials delegated to help the local officials were experienced. “I can’t understand why this happened,” he said. Although Canadian coaches initially suggested that the I.B.U. should have restarted the men’s race after the error was spotted, Baier said there was no provision for that in I.B.U. rules, only for adjusting the times. With no more pursuit races to organize in Vancouver, Baier said he hoped that there would be no further problems. Teela could only concur. “I’m not going to tell these guys how to do their job, but they need to look back and make a serious inquiry into how it happened,” he said. “I have a job to do, but they have a job to do, too.”


Arsenal Returns to Form of Its Better Days

Abstract: LONDON — Hours before heavy snow blanketed England and much of Europe, Arsenal put on a green-grass show in London that was reminiscent of its finer days. The team blitzed and bewildered the poor Blackburn Rovers. The final score was 7-1 — and the scorers were from three different eras. There was a hat trick from Robin van Persie, very much the man of the modern Arsenal. There were the first two goals by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, an 18-year-old who is already predicted to go straight onto the England national team for Euro 2012. And there was a goal, perhaps a sentimental farewell, from Thierry Henry in the final moments of what could be his final appearance as a player in Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. All seven goals Saturday came along the ground. All stemmed from intelligent movement combining physical swiftness and mental thought. And many of them came down the wings, where Arsène Wenger, the team manager these past 15 seasons, has always preached the chances are made. It represents quite a turnaround since August, when Arsenal suffered its most humiliating defeat in the Premier League , going down 8-2 at Manchester United. There will be many who say that United and Blackburn are scarcely similar. They operate in the same league, for now, but Manchester is England’s most powerful soccer city, while Blackburn, alas, must be the worst-run club in the league since the Indian poultry company Venky’s began operating it by remote control from the subcontinent. Yet, despite the owners promising big-name players and delivering chicken feed, the Blackburn coach Steve Kean had of late appeared to turn the corner in at least making his side resilient. Since Christmas, Blackburn has drawn at Liverpool and at Everton, two of the most difficult grounds to visit in the Premiership. It had shocked everybody by beating Manchester United, 3-2, at United’s Old Trafford fortress. Blackburn also beat Arsenal, 4-3, in September in another match that suggested what a fickle, unfathomable English season this is at times. Saturday put an abrupt end to such notions. Arsenal, for all its vulnerability, clearly has talents way beyond the means, and the dreams, of the Rovers. This was apparent inside the first two minutes, when Theo Walcott’s pace down the right cut open Blackburn and created an easy, early goal for van Persie. Easy, eh? Well, van Persie can make it look so simple. He possesses something akin to a soccer sixth sense. He knows where to move, where to find spaces in the oft-crowded goalmouth. He does it not by taking on the muscular men who guard their net, but by infiltrating their lines. He lurks, he darts unseen by the opposition, but very much seen by his wingers, who know where to find him. The goal, from barely six yards, was the Dutchman’s 121st for Arsenal, eclipsing the career total his countryman, the marvelous Dennis Bergkamp, accumulated in the decade up to 2006. Van Persie will never be another Bergkamp. They are both Dutch, but Bergkamp could charm life out of an inanimate ball with his imagination. Van Persie, however, is becoming very special to the club with his economy of movement, his unerring eye for the goal and his leadership of a side that lost its leader, Cesc Fàbregas, when he chose to return to Barcelona last summer. Twice more van Persie was to poach goals, each a small masterpiece of awareness, anticipation and sureness of touch. His accomplices were Walcott, possibly the fastest man in English soccer, and Oxlade-Chamberlain, the son of a former England national team winger, Mark Chamberlain. Oxlade-Chamberlain is stocky, while Walcott is slender. The Ox is strong. Wenger says Oxlade-Chamberlain is a fighter as well as a mover, a maker and a taker of goals. The youth has no fear of what happened to Arsenal earlier this season because he was then still an apprentice under wraps. Two weeks ago, the 60,000-strong Arsenal crowd, and the ex-players and ex-managers sitting in TV studios, berated Wenger for withdrawing Oxlade-Chamberlain during a game against Manchester United. Wenger tried to explain that Oxlade-Chamberlain had been ill some days before the game, and that 74 intense minutes of an Arsenal-United match was enough for a growing lad. He was trying to protect a special youngster. Wenger became irritated by interviewers thinking they know better. He snapped when he said that he had made 50,000 substitutions in his time, and he did not feel he must explain his reasons for this one any longer. On Saturday, a more benign Wenger was not even asked why he withdrew Oxlade-Chamberlain after 68 minutes and replaced him with Henry. The match was by then handsomely won and devastatingly lost, so the critics might have accepted that the manager knew what he was doing. Van Persie’s hat trick was in the bag, Oxlade-Chamberlain had brightly, alertly and almost with a seasoned campaigner’s composure, come in from his wing to score a brace. Mikel Arteta had also scored. There was one aberration, one terrible reminder of how dangerous desperate opponents might be. Just before halftime, with the score already at 3-1 after a wonderful free-kick goal from Blackburn’s Morten Gamst Pedersen, a Blackburn defender was sent off. Give credit to the referee for showing a straight red card to Gaël Givet, whose two-footed lunge could have broken van Persie’s ankle. Once again, the Dutchman’s quickness and anticipation enabled him to dodge the danger. This reckless foul is one that FIFA’s medical officer, Michel D’Hooghe, continually campaigns against. It needs more referees like Andre Marriner to act as he did by instantly dismissing the culprit. Van Persie survived it. And it was van Persie who, with moments left on the clock, set up one more goal for a man he idolizes, Thierry Henry. It was another easy finish, albeit via a deflection, from Arsenal’s all-time top scorer. It is the last time he will score in London, unless Henry is excused from preseason training with his latest team, the New York Red Bulls, scheduled for later this month.

Arsenal (Soccer Team)
Blackburn Rovers (Soccer Team England)
Henry Thierry
English Premier League


Immigration Checks Ordered in New Jersey

Abstract: TRENTON, Aug. 22 — The New Jersey attorney general, Anne Milgram , on Wednesday ordered local law enforcement agencies to inquire about the immigration status of criminal suspects and notify federal authorities whenever they believe someone arrested is in the country illegally. The directive comes amid growing debate across the state over the role of local officials in immigration questions since the Aug. 4 schoolyard slayings of three friends in Newark. One of the prime suspects in the murders, Jose Lachira Carranza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail despite three prior felony arrests, in part because the authorities never checked his immigration status. “There’s a need that was brought home to us all recently with the tragic events in Newark for a uniform state policy,” Ms. Milgram, the state’s top law enforcement officer, said at a news conference here, promising random compliance checks to ensure that local officials are following the policy, effective immediately. A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency, praised the new policy Wednesday, saying, “We welcome this newly expanded cooperation throughout the State of New Jersey.” Ms. Milgram has talked often about helping local law enforcement officials deal with illegal immigrants in a manner that promotes public safety without treading on human rights. That has become more precarious for politicians since the shooting. On the one hand, Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark has repeatedly said that he opposes the notion of involving city police in immigration matters, and Paula T. Dow, the Essex County prosecutor — whose office was one of several that did not check Mr. Carranza’s immigration status — was even more pointed, saying her policy was to notify immigration officials only upon conviction. On the other hand, a growing chorus of officials — including the State Senate president, Richard J. Codey, a Democrat, and Assemblyman Alex DeCroce, the Republican minority leader — have recently urged the state to adopt a tougher stance. And on Monday, Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who is running for president on a conservative immigration platform, accused Newark officials of being complicit in the murders because of their lax approach. Until now, local law enforcement agencies had broad discretion — and widely divergent practices — on whether to check immigration status or report suspicious candidates to federal authorities. The Hudson County prosecutor’s office, for example, already routinely does so; the West Orange Police Department, which had arrested Mr. Carranza for assault last fall, has no set procedures for contacting the immigration service. There has been a similar patchwork of policies around the country. After a Kentucky judge jailed 17 Hispanic immigrants without bail last year for traffic infractions, the state’s attorney general, a Democrat, issued an advisory telling local police officers to consult a national database to check the status of people they arrest, and to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities. When Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, was governor of Massachusetts, he signed an agreement with the federal immigration agency giving specially trained state police officers the authority to enforce immigration law. But in January, the new governor, Deval Patrick, a Democrat, rescinded the agreement and restricted the training to corrections officials charged with finding illegal immigrants convicted of crimes in the state’s jails. There are now 26 local agencies around the country that have signed formal agreements with the federal government to deputize correctional officers to check the immigration status of prisoners. Under Ms. Milgram’s directive, local law enforcement officials are to ask about any arrested person’s citizenship, nationality and immigration status, and notify the immigration service of anyone believed to be here illegally. The local officers cannot, however, ask immigration questions of victims or witnesses to a crime, because, Ms. Milgram said, it is vital that the authorities retain the trust and cooperation of the public in conducting criminal investigations. The United States attorney for New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, who stood with Ms. Milgram at the news conference, said bluntly that racial profiling would not be tolerated and that any police officer believed to be abusing the directive would be dealt with “very, very seriously.” Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who has represented immigrant-rights groups, said that while the New Jersey directive appeared to be a measured response to “the politics of the moment,” it still raised concerns. “One of the problems with police doing status inquiries even after serious offenses is it encourages people to flee,” Mr. Wishnie said, adding that it might not be easy for local officers to sort out the roles between victims, witnesses and criminals. Sometimes, he said, “You bring everyone back to the station house, and sort it out there,” he noted. “The reality of police practice is, the distinctions are often too finely drawn to protect victims and witnesses.”

New Jersey
Milgram Anne
Immigration and Refugees


No Joke, Bulb Change Is Challenge for U.S.

Abstract: The new energy bill signed this week makes it official. When 2012 hits, stores can no longer sell the cheap but inefficient incandescent light bulbs that are fixtures in most homes. Even so, light bulb manufacturers say that worries about greenhouse gases and the high cost of energy had them moving away from conventional incandescents way before Congress weighed in. For quite some time, they note, they have been trying to soften the light emitted by compact fluorescent lights, bring down the cost of light-emitting diodes — and yes, find ways to increase the efficiency of incandescents. Many of the products are already on the market, and more will be available before the deadline kicks in, “Sure, you’ll see more compact fluorescents five years from now, but you would have seen them without any energy bill,” said the chief executive of Osram Sylvania, Charlie Jerabek. Michael B. Petras Jr., vice president of GE Consumer and Industrial — the unit that includes General Electric’s lighting business — broadened the thought to all forms of lighting. “You’ll see different light sources for your decorative chandelier, for your recessed lighting and for your under-cabinet lights,” he said. “And I can assure you that all the kinds of light sources are already getting a lot more efficient.” Including incandescents. Congress has not specifically outlawed incandescent bulbs, only inefficient ones. In February, G.E. said that it was developing a high-efficiency incandescent that will radiate more than twice the light of conventional incandescents. It expects to make that one commercially available by 2010, and one that is twice as efficient a few years later. And so far, consumers have been slow to give new products a chance. Compact fluorescents, for example, are already ubiquitous in stores. Many retailers, led by Wal-Mart, have promoted the economics of the bulbs — though compact fluorescents generally cost six times what incandescents do, they last six times as long and use far less energy. The EnergyStar program of the Environmental Protection Agency has been pushing compact fluorescents for almost nine years. “People realize that incandescents are an old, inefficient technology,” an EnergyStar spokeswoman, Maria Vargas, said. The promotions have had modest success. Mr. Jerabek said Sylvania’s sales of compact fluorescents doubled in 2006 over 2005, and doubled again this year. But, he notes, they still account for 15 percent of bulbs in use in homes. Sylvania recently introduced a fluorescent that Mr. Jerabek said mimicked the light of incandescents. He concedes that incandescents are about 10 percent warmer, but he insists that “the average consumer would have trouble detecting the difference.” Compact fluorescent lights have problems beyond light quality. They contain mercury, and few recycling centers will accept them. So at the end of life, they still pose an environmental hazard. “We’re working to reduce mercury, but the amount will never go to zero,” Mr. Petras said. That is why Mr. Jerabek, for one, calls compact fluorescent lights “a temporary fix.” Manufacturers are putting a lot of stock in light-emitting diodes — or L.E.D.’s. They operate with chips made of nontoxic materials and last for about 50,000 hours, compared with 1,000 hours for an incandescent and 6,000 for a compact fluorescent. A tiny L.E.D. can shed as much light as a cumbersome bulb, which makes them easier to integrate into a home’s décor. And, they are extremely energy efficient. But today, they are too expensive to use for all lighting applications. And, while manufacturers are able to make pretty good colored L.E.D.’s — the kind that are already available for Christmas tree lights — they have yet to perfect a white L.E.D. that would be useful for lighting homes. Manufacturers are working to get the costs down and the white lighting quotient up. Most predict that white L.E.D.’s will be commercially viable in a few years. “Most C.F.L.’s meet the EnergyStar specs now, and all of us are optimistic about the prospects for L.E.D.’s,” Ms. Vargas said. But even though the energy bill has not changed the direction of lighting research, most manufacturers are relieved to have a federal standard in place. “If each state passed its own rules for light bulb efficiency, we’d have to make 50 different types,” Mr. Jerabek said. “Now we can all standardize our production techniques.”

Lighting
Environmental Protection Agency
Electric Light Bulbs
Environment


Cablevision and ABC Leave Viewers Without the Oscar Channel

Abstract: There was buy an antenna. There was squeeze in front of the computer (really hard with 20 or 30 guests, and munchies). There was find a friend — any friend — in Manhattan. There was, alas, go to the in-laws. These were among the viable choices — some not so bad and some pretty unfortunate — that the three million Cablevision customers in the New York area confronted on Sunday as they hastily weighed ways to watch the Academy Awards in an emergency. Given that WABC-TV, which was broadcasting the Oscars, had abruptly erased itself from Cablevision’s channel offerings at midnight in a nasty money squabble, the expected means of viewing the show seemed like it would no longer be an option. The dispute between Cablevision and The Walt Disney Co ., owner of WABC in New York, was centered on ABC’s effort to change the longstanding custom of cable providers’ paying nothing for traditional broadcast channels. Industry experts cautioned that this battle could augur similar fights with larger distributors. After a day of brinksmanship, the two sides abruptly returned ABC to the air about 20 minutes into the Oscars broadcast — but well after scores of Cablevision subscribers in affected areas of New York, New Jersey Connecticut were sent scrambling. Some switched to Verizon FiOS or satellite providers, even if installers could not get there by Sunday night. Others headed for the nearest Wal-Mart or Target to buy that quaint device known as a TV antenna so they could pick up WABC through the air. For those with old TVs, this meant a digital converter box, too. At the Wal-Mart in Massapequa on Long Island, Musa Josany, the electronics manager, said customers began invading the antenna area Saturday night. By Sunday afternoon, there was little left to chose from. Catherine Toth, 58, a Cablevision customer who lives in Copaigue, a few miles east of Massapequa, said she had always been a firm believer in being prepared for storms and hurricanes . As it happens, this made her equally well-equipped for TV-channel shutdowns. She owns a seven-inch battery-powered TV that gets the network channels. Her intention was to watch the Oscars on the miniature set, hoping not to murder her eyesight. Bars throughout Cablevision territory had been promoting Oscar-watching parties, and they couldn’t just turn them into “Undercover Boss” or “Dog the Bounty Hunter” parties. Fortunately, many of the bars were unaffected because they relied on satellite dishes. Or, in the case of Pete’s Candy Store, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that was holding a Bavarian Oskar party, just a TV with an antenna. The bar doesn’t get cable. The Oscar for Bad Timing, however, should go to Ross Greenberg. In January, he opened what he calls a sexy soccer bar, Woodwork, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The bar was outfitted with three 50-inch flat screens, and he began as a DirecTV customer. On Wednesday, he switched to — you guessed it — Cablevision. Patrons had been promised an Oscar bash, starting at 7 p.m. With a few hours to go, he was still sweating it out. “We’re going to do everything in our power to watch the Oscars tonight,” he said, as he started listing some options — one more unlikely than the next. “We can stream it from the Internet. Is it on a Spanish channel?” Then he had the idea of trying to reconnect the dormant DirecTV dish on the roof. But that made him nervous. So Matthew Pozzi, the co-owner, hurried over to the Apple store in SoHo and bought an adapter that allowed them to transmit the ceremony from Mr. Greenberg’s MacBook onto the three TVs. Computers were going to be the solution for many other stranded Oscar viewers. “No Channel 7 is no big deal,” said Carl Campagna, 50, from Bethpage on Long Island. Several Web sites promised live video streams of the Oscars, and by watching it that way, he said, “I don’t have to miss not one long speech or political commentary from the podium.” Amy Giles of Huntington Station, N.Y., meanwhile, said she would be staying home from work Monday so that a Verizon FiOS technician could install her new TV service. She had soured on Cablevision after it lost two cable channels, Food Network and HGTV, for much of January in a dispute over cable fees. And the advertising wars with Disney now had her feeling like she was “stuck at the kitchen table listening to Mom and Dad argue.” Others planned to lean heavily on friends, some of whom became much better friends than they were on Saturday, for no other reason than that they were Verizon or Time-Warner households. It didn’t even matter if they had a cheap set and stale pretzels. Out of other options, some people drove as far as absolutely necessary to sit with the in-laws, hoping the show moved more briskly than normal. And, of course, there were those Cablevision customers who in fact never intended to watch the Oscars or were perfectly capable of getting a full night’s sleep without knowing who won for best sound mixing. “I’m just going to wait this one out,” said Millie Menzel, 61, of Muttontown, on Long Island’s North Shore. “I’m not buying an antenna, and I’ll find out who wins the Oscars in the morning.” For most of the day, Cablevision viewers who tuned to WABC were treated to a “customer alert” that gave Cablevision’s view of the dispute, as well as instructions on watching WABC with a digital antenna. Where some suffer, others rejoice. Sara Benincasa, a 29-year-old comedian, was co-hosting an Oscar party at 92YTribeca in Manhattan, where the TVs were fed by satellite. Out of the Cablevision-ABC game of chicken, she saw the prospect of higher attendance. “I’m hoping that we’re able to welcome some Cablevision orphans into our comedic bosom,” she said. Ms. Benincasa, who had just bought a curve-hugging purple gown for the event, felt people would survive Oscar night, but worried about the week ahead. Things like “Lost” were on. “The ‘Lost’ fans are crazy,” she said. “They will storm the headquarters of Cablevision. I am actually frightened for Cablevision employees, especially the C.E.O.” As for her personal channel supplier, she has none. She doesn’t own a TV.

WABC-TV
Cablevision Systems Corp
ABC Inc
Academy Awards (Oscars)
Parties (Social)
Cable Television


Trump’s Army Secretary Pick Was Once Accused of Punching Auction Worker

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Vincent Viola, the billionaire Wall Street trader Donald J. Trump has nominated to be the secretary of the Army, was accused in August of punching a concessions worker at a high-end racehorse auction in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., according to a police report and local law enforcement officials. Police officers did not witness the episode. When officers arrived at the scene, however, the concessions worker had a “swollen bloody lip” and said that Mr. Viola had punched him in the face, according to the police report. Mr. Viola, 60, a retired Army Ranger who owns the Florida Panthers hockey team, told the police that the man had pushed his wife as she tried to enter a restricted area to get water for a woman who had fainted, the report said. The concessions worker, whose name is redacted from the report, told officers that he did not push Mr. Viola’s wife, according to local law enforcement officials. Greg Veitch, the chief of the Saratoga Springs Police Department, said officers “determined that both incidents involved actions that could have been charged as harassment, a violation level offense in New York State.” But charges were not brought because neither man wanted to press charges and officers had not witnessed the incident, Mr. Veitch said. Vincent Viola Police Report Vincent Viola, Donald J. Trump's nominee to be the secretary of the Army, was accused in August of punching a concessions worker in the face at a high-end racehorse auction. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Saratoga Springs Police Department provided a copy of the police report from the incident to The New York Times. A spokesman for Mr. Viola did not dispute that Mr. Viola had punched the worker, and said that Mr. Viola had informed Mr. Trump’s transition team about the episode. “Mr. Viola loves his wife and regrets the incident,” the spokesman said in a written statement in response to several questions. A few hours later, the spokesman sent another statement. “Mr. Viola will always stand up and defend his wife, and in this case there was a simple disagreement with the matter being dropped and no charges were filed,” the statement said. “Mr. Viola notified the Transition Team of the disagreement early on in the process and we consider this matter closed.” The Saratoga Springs Police Department provided a copy of the police report after a reporter filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act. The secretary of the Army is the senior civilian official overseeing the service’s budget and personnel. By law, the secretary must ensure that soldiers are properly trained and equipped before they are sent overseas. Image Jockeys entered the paddock at the Saratoga Racecourse in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Mr. Viola was accused of punching a concessions worker at a high-end racehorse auction in the city. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times Mr. Viola’s confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled. The incident occurred on Aug. 8 at one of the most prestigious horse auctions in the country, where 1-year-olds were purchased for as much as $1.45 million. The sale, held by the horse auction company Fasig-Tipton, occurred in a small auditorium where horses were paraded in front of bloodstock agents and owners. That night, Mr. Viola’s stable purchased a colt for $200,000 that was the son of a sire named Paynter and a dam named More Oats Please. In response to a series of questions, Fasig-Tipton said in a statement that it had conducted an internal investigation into the dispute and “determined that any assault allegations were without merit.” Fasig-Tipton did not say whether it was referring to the allegation that the concessions worker had pushed Mr. Viola’s wife or the punch, and it did not respond to a follow-up question about what it investigated. In a news release on Dec. 19 announcing Mr. Viola’s nomination, Mr. Trump’s transition team described Mr. Viola as “living proof of the American dream.” A son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Viola was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from West Point in 1977, becoming the first member of his family to receive a college degree. He was a member of the 101st Airborne Division, graduated from the Army’s elite Ranger school, and retired as a major before going on to work as a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange. He became head of the exchange in March 2001. In 2013, he became the owner of the Florida Panthers, and around that time also began buying racehorses. According to Forbes, Mr. Viola is worth $1.81 billion; he is No. 374 on its list of wealthiest Americans. He is one of four billionaires that Mr. Trump has nominated to be in his administration. In the news release, Mr. Trump called Mr. Viola “a man of outstanding work ethic, integrity, and strategic vision, with an exceptional ability to motivate others.”


David Greenglass, the Brother Who Doomed Ethel Rosenberg, Dies at 92

Abstract: It was the most notorious spy case of the Cold War — the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union — and it rested largely on the testimony of Ms. Rosenberg’s brother David Greenglass, whose name to many became synonymous with betrayal. For his role in the conspiracy, Mr. Greenglass, an Army sergeant who had stolen nuclear intelligence from Los Alamos, N.M., went to prison for almost a decade, then changed his name and lived quietly until a journalist tracked him down. He admitted then, nearly a half-century later, that he had lied on the witness stand to save his wife from prosecution, giving testimony that he was never sure about but that nevertheless helped send his sister and her husband to the electric chair in 1953. Mr. Greenglass died on July 1, a family member confirmed. He was 92. His family did not announce his death; The New York Times learned of it in a call to the nursing home where he had been living under his assumed name. Mr. Greenglass’s wife, Ruth, who had played a minor role in the conspiracy and also gave damning testimony against the Rosenbergs, died in 2008 . In today’s world, where spying has more to do with greed than ideology, the story of David Greenglass and the Rosenbergs is an enduring time capsule from an age of uncertainties — of world war against fascism, Cold War with the Soviets, and shifting alliances that led some Americans to embrace utopian communism and others to denounce such ideas, and their exponents, as un-American. Mr. Greenglass, who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a household that believed Marxism would save humanity, was an ardent, preachy Communist when drafted by the Army in World War II, but no one in the barracks took him very seriously, much less believed him capable of spying. He was not well educated, but his skills as a machinist — and pure luck — led to his assignment in 1944 to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, where America’s first atomic bombs were being developed. After being picked to replace a soldier who had gone AWOL, he lied on his security clearance report and was assigned to a team making precision molds for high-explosive lenses used to detonate the nuclear core. Image Mr. Greenglass, with his sister, Ethel Rosenberg. When Mr. Rosenberg, already a Soviet spy, learned of his brother-in-law’s work, he recruited him. Security was often lax at Los Alamos, with safes and file cabinets left unlocked and classified documents lying on desks. Mr. Greenglass had no need for Hollywood spy tricks. He kept his eyes and ears open, and in mid-1945 sent Mr. Rosenberg a crude sketch and 12 pages of technical details on the bomb. That September, after the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed with atomic bombs, ending the war, David and Ruth Greenglass visited the Rosenbergs’ apartment in New York. What happened there later became a matter of life and death, for as Mr. Greenglass delivered his latest spy notes, a woman — either his wife or his sister — sat at a Remington typewriter and typed them out. The significance of that act did not become evident for five years. By then the Soviet Union, once America’s ally, had become a Cold War foe, witch hunts for suspected Communists were underway, and spy networks were being broken up. Klaus Fuchs , a physicist who had worked at Los Alamos, was caught, and named Harry Gold as a courier. Mr. Gold then named the Greenglasses and the Rosenbergs, who were arrested in 1950. Mr. Greenglass admitted passing secrets to Mr. Rosenberg, but refused at first to implicate his sister. But just before the Rosenberg trial, Mr. Greenglass changed his story. Told that Ruth had informed F.B.I. agents that Ethel had typed his notes, he supported his wife’s account and agreed to testify against his sister and her husband. Mr. Greenglass was under intense pressure. He had not yet been sentenced, and his wife, the mother of his two small children, faced possible prosecution, though her role had been minimal. In federal court in Manhattan in 1951, Mr. Greenglass’s testimony — corroborated by his wife’s — clinched the case against Mr. Rosenberg and implicated Mrs. Rosenberg. Referring to Ethel Rosenberg in ringing hyperbolic phrases, the chief prosecutor, Irving H. Saypol, declared, “Just so had she, on countless other occasions, sat at that typewriter and struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets.” The jury found the Rosenbergs guilty of espionage conspiracy, and the presiding judge, Irving R. Kaufman , sentenced them to death. Appeals failed, and the Rosenbergs, who rejected all entreaties to name collaborators and insisted they were not guilty, were executed at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953. A co-defendant, Morton Sobell, was also convicted and was imprisoned for 18 years. Image Ruth Greenglass, wife of Mr. Greenglass, in 1951. She had a supporting role in the conspiracy and gave damning testimony against the Rosenbergs. She died in 2008. Credit The New York Times Mrs. Greenglass was not prosecuted. Mr. Greenglass was sentenced to 15 years, but was released in 1960 after nine and a half. He rejoined his wife and for decades lived quietly in the New York area, working as a machinist and inventor. A 1983 book by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, “The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth,” rekindled interest, concluding that Mr. Rosenberg was a dedicated spy but that his wife had played only a minor role, and raising questions about the evidence and the government’s tactics in the case. Mr. Radosh and Sol Stern also interviewed Mr. Greenglass for an article in The New Republic. Sam Roberts, a Times editor and reporter, later found Mr. Greenglass and, after a 13-year effort, obtained 50 hours of interviews that led to a book, “The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case.” In the book, Mr. Greenglass admitted that, to spare his wife from prosecution, he had testified that his sister typed his notes. In fact, he said, he could not recall who had done it. “I don’t remember that at all,” Mr. Greenglass said. “I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don’t remember.” He said he had no regrets. “My wife is more important to me than my sister. Or my mother or my father, O.K.? And she was the mother of my children.” In a 2008 interview with Mr. Roberts, Mr. Sobell admitted that he had given military secrets to the Soviet Union, and concurred in what has become a consensus among historians: that the Greenglass-Rosenberg atomic bomb details were of little value to the Soviets, except to corroborate what they already knew, and that Ethel Rosenberg had played no active role in the conspiracy. David Greenglass was born on the Lower East Side on March 2, 1922, to immigrants from Russia and Austria. He was 14 when he met Julius Rosenberg, who began courting Ethel, who was seven years older than David, in 1936. The Rosenbergs were married in 1939. Image Mr. Greenglass, left, with a United States marshal in 1950. Credit Associated Press David graduated from Haaren High School in 1940 with only fair grades. He attended Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, but flunked out. Mr. Greenglass and Ruth Printz, who had been neighbors, childhood sweethearts and members of the Young Communist League, were married in 1942. They had a son and a daughter, who survive him. He had several machinist jobs before being drafted in 1943, and the Army put his skills to use. He fixed tank motors, inspected equipment and worked on ordnance in California and Mississippi. He was also assigned to classified work at Oak Ridge, Tenn., where uranium was being enriched for a secret weapon. To pass his security clearance for the most sensitive work of the war at Los Alamos, Mr. Greenglass disguised or omitted Communist associations in his background. For character and work references, he alerted the writers — all friends — how to respond, and only glowing reports came back. “All evidence indicates subject to be loyal, honest and discreet,” Army intelligence reported. Everywhere — even at Los Alamos — he preached communism, trying to persuade fellow G.I.s and co-workers that they would someday prosper in a utopian society free of squalor and injustice. Letters to his wife, some signed “Your Comrade,” also sprinkled dialectics among the endearments. “We who understand,” he wrote, “can bring understanding to others because we are in love and have our Marxist outlook.” The deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Greenglass, like those of the Rosenbergs more than 60 years ago, are unlikely to end public fascination with the case, whose betrayals have been woven into American culture. In Woody Allen’s film “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” the character played by Mr. Allen says dryly that he still has feelings for his vile brother-in-law. “I love him like a brother,” he says. “David Greenglass.”

David Greenglass
Ethel Rosenberg
Cold War
Julius Rosenberg
Obituary
Spying and Intelligence Agencies


Randall Munroe, the Creator of XKCD, Explains Complexity Through Absurdity

Abstract: While giving a physics talk for high school students five years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Randall Munroe could tell that his audience was, in his words, “not totally with me.” He was trying to explain potential energy and power — not complex concepts, but abstruse. So, in the middle of his three-hour presentation, Mr. Munroe, who is best known as the creator of the Web comic xkcd , switched gears to “ Star Wars .” “I thought about the scene in ‘ The Empire Strikes Back ’ when Yoda lifts the X-wing out of the swamp,” he said in an interview. “It occurred to me as I was lecturing.” Instead of abstract definitions (an object lifted upward gains potential energy because it will accelerate if dropped; power is the rate of change in energy), Mr. Munroe asked a question: How much Force power can Yoda output? Image Credit Randall Munroe/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt “And so I did a rough version of the calculation on the fly in the classroom, looking up the craft dimensions and measuring things in the scene on the projector in front of them,” Mr. Munroe said. “They all perked up.” For most people, physics is not interesting in itself. “The tools are only fun when the thing you’re using them on is interesting,” he said. The students started asking other questions. “What about the end of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ when Sauron’s eye explodes ?” he recalled. “How much energy is that?” The experience inspired Mr. Munroe to start soliciting similar questions from his xkcd readers . Mr. Munroe has now collected that work, including a version of his Yoda calculations and new material, into a book, “What If?” which has been on the nonfiction best-seller list since it was published in September. Image A self portrait by the author. Credit Randall Munroe As its cover asserts, the book is full of “serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions.” “It exercises your imagination, and his dry wit is charming,” said William Sanford Nye, better known as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” who shared the stage with Mr. Munroe last month at New York Comic Con. “He does, for lack of a better term, absurd scenarios, but they’re very instructive.” Some examples: What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? (“The answer turns out to be ‘a lot of things,' ” Mr. Munroe writes, “and they all happen very quickly, and it doesn’t end well for the batter [or the pitcher].”) If every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the moon at the same time, would it change color? (“Not if we used regular laser pointers.”) How long could a nuclear submarine last in orbit? (“The submarine would be fine, but the crew would be in trouble.”) The explanations are accompanied by the same stick-figure drawings and nerdy wit that made xkcd popular. (What does xkcd mean? It is meaningless. The comic’s website helpfully explains, “It’s just a word with no phonetic pronunciation.”) Image What If You Had a Hypothetical Question That Needed Answering? Randall Munroe, a former NASA roboticist who achieved viral fame with his website xkcd.com, has a new book called “What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.” As a child, Mr. Munroe also asked questions. In the book’s introduction, he recounts wondering if there were more hard things or soft things in the world. The conversation made such an impression on his mother that she wrote it down and saved it. The young Mr. Munroe, 5 years old, concluded the world contained about three billion soft things and five billion hard things. “They say there are no stupid questions,” Mr. Munroe, now 30, writes. “That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. “But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.” Image Credit Randall Munroe/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt In the interview, he also remembered asking questions and sharing tidbits of knowledge with his fifth-grade teacher. “And he said, ‘O.K., you have a lot of stuff to tell me, and that’s good, but have you heard of the concept of quality over quantity?' ” Mr. Munroe said. While a physics major at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, Mr. Munroe started working as an independent contractor on a robotics project at the nearby NASA Langley Research Center , and he continued after graduating. During that time, he started scanning his doodles and posting them on the web. By mutual decision, the NASA contract ended in 2006. Mr. Munroe became a full-time cartoonist and moved to the Boston area, because, he said, he wanted a bigger city with geekier things to do. In 2012, he added the “What If?” feature to the website. Now, he said, he receives thousands of questions a week. Many are obviously students looking for help with homework. Others can be answered simply: No. Image Credit Randall Munroe/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt “One of them was ‘Is there any commercial scuba diving equipment that would allow you to survive under molten lava?' ” Mr. Munroe said. “No, there’s not. There’s nothing complicated about the answer to that. It’s exactly what you think.” Once he chooses a question worth answering, he spends a day or two immersing himself in research, mostly on the web, and then writing. He rarely consults experts, as he is often working at 4 a.m. and “there’s no point in trying to call someone.” For the Yoda problem, he later refined the calculations. He watched the scene, timing the 3.5 seconds it took the front landing strut to rise out of the water. In the original “Star Wars,” a crew member squeezes past an X-wing strut. From that, he estimated the height at 1.4 meters. Mr. Munroe could not find a published figure for the mass of an X-wing, but there is a published length — 12.5 meters . He then took the specifications of an Air Force F-22 fighter — 19 meters and 19,700 kilograms — and scaled them down to estimate the X-wing mass at 5,600 kilograms. Image Credit Houghton Mifflin Harcourt That gave an answer of peak power output of 19.2 kilowatts, which Mr. Munroe noted, can power a block of suburban homes. (Or in the imperial units still used in American newspapers, that would be 12,300 pounds rising at a rate of 1.3 feet a second out of the swamp, producing a peak power of 14,200 foot-pounds a second.) As for the exploding eye at the end of “Lord of the Rings,” Mr. Munroe says he does not remember the answer that he and the class arrived at, but he remembers looking up the air-pressure spike that would knock over a person and the explosive energy needed to produce a pressure spike that forceful at various distances. (A federal publication, “ The Effects of Nuclear Weapons ,” helpfully provides the data.) Then they approximated the distance between Sauron’s tower, where the eye hovered, and the Black Gate, knocked over by the blast. One of his favorite replies, which ends the book, is to a question about earthquakes: “What if a Richter magnitude 15 earthquake were to hit America at, let’s say, New York City? What about a Richter 20? 25?” The short answer is that a magnitude 15 earthquake would destroy the planet. “That’s not all that interesting,” Mr. Munroe said. Then he flipped the question around. The scale, which is logarithmic, can also describe smaller rumblings of zero or negative magnitude. Each step downward just means the amount of energy released diminishes a factor by one thirty-second. A quake of magnitude zero would release one thirty-second the energy of a magnitude 1 quake. Mr. Munroe calculated that it would be like the Dallas Cowboys’ running full tilt into the side of a garage. And a magnitude of minus 15 would be a mote of dust landing on a table. After so many questions involving mayhem, death and destruction, Mr. Munroe said, “It’s nice to leave the world alone for once and leave it quiet.”

Physics
Books
Randall P Munroe
What If Book
Science and Technology


Massachusetts: Venue Change Is Sought in Marathon Case

Abstract: Lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused in last year’s marathon bombings, filed court documents on Wednesday saying that they want their client’s trial moved out of Boston. The lawyers did not say why they were seeking a new location, but indicated that they were trying to spare Mr. Tsarnaev the death penalty. In early court filings, Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers have referred to Boston’s news media coverage of the bombings, suggesting that the pretrial publicity there would prevent Mr. Tsarnaev from receiving a fair trial. If the court grants the move, the trial could still be held in Massachusetts, avoiding the intense feelings in Boston while benefiting from the state’s general anti-death-penalty tilt.

Marathon
Boston
Dzhokhar A Tsarnaev
Boston Marathon Bombings
Capital punishment


Joel Anthony and Mario Chalmers Are the Miami Heat’s Other Guys

Abstract: MIAMI — They are the guys next to the Guys: the two sidekicks who will play supporting roles if the Miami Heat is to execute its plan on the court as skillfully as it did off it when it signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh and retained Dwyane Wade in the off-season. With three superstars sharing the basketball, not to mention the praise and blame, Joel Anthony and Mario Chalmers will try to carve out identities beyond simply one day being the answer to the question, Who started next to the N.B.A.’s 2010-11 incarnation of the Big Three? Anthony and Chalmers are the front-runners to become the Heat’s fourth and fifth starters, though a nagging ankle injury could delay Chalmers’s ascension. Steve Kerr, a sidekick on five N.B.A. championship teams with two franchises, shared the floor with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen for the Bulls’ titles in 1996, 1997 and 1998. As president and general manager of the Suns last season, he built a strong bench that contributed mightily to the franchise’s run to the Western Conference finals. It takes a “certain mentality” to play next to superstars, Kerr said, and to navigate the thin line between contributing and conceding. Kerr said it could be stressful playing next to Jordan, a player whose game came easily and who demanded perfection from others. If Jordan was double-teamed and passed to Kerr, who then missed a shot, he could expect a glare. Still, he said, it was a thrilling ride filled with the satisfaction that comes with winning under a microscope. “You have to learn how to accept that pressure and deal with it and forge a relationship with those star players,” said Kerr, who returned to TNT as an analyst after last season. “Eventually it’s good. You use that as an edge because there are so many games; you’re on edge every night because you don’t want to let those guys down.” Anthony and Chalmers each took the hard road to the N.B.A., though Anthony’s was perhaps a bit harder. A 6-foot-9 center, Anthony did not start playing basketball until his senior year in high school and was cut from the team at Dawson College in Montreal before landing at Nevada-Las Vegas as a defensive specialist. Just as Jordan used his being cut from his high school team as motivation, Anthony was fueled by his dismissal. “I never wanted to have that feeling that I couldn’t help, I couldn’t contribute, and that’s kind of how I felt,” Anthony said. “It’s definitely been a long road, a long road. It wasn’t smooth or anything to be able to get to this point.” Anthony continued to scrap, making his mark block by block. Undrafted out of U.N.L.V., he signed with the Heat three years ago as a summer league practice fill-in. “It’s a real testament to his professionalism and his work ethic,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said of his progression. Anthony’s skills are not usually reflected in the box score. He sets solid screens, moves the ball and is quick from baseline to baseline. He will probably score some easy baskets as long as he can hold on to the ball, a problem in the past. Chalmers should have the ball in his hands a lot when he is healthy, especially if Spoelstra decides to go with a veteran-laden second group. A point guard, Chalmers was drafted in the second round in 2008 by the Minnesota Timberwolves, who quickly shuffled him to Miami, then fresh off a 15-victory season. More than most young players, Chalmers is used to the kind of accumulating pressure Kerr said he felt with the Bulls. At Kansas, he made a 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation that tied the 2008 N.C.A.A. championship game against Memphis. The Jayhawks won in overtime. “It’s going to be good because in pressure moments and pressure situations, I’ll just be ready for it,” Chalmers said. The Heat’s second unit will probably include Mike Miller, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Udonis Haslem, former starters who, by accepting less money, enabled the team’s president, Pat Riley, to assemble a capable roster around the new core. Kerr calls them “good shooters and good guys.” James, whom Chalmers gave his No. 6 jersey to when he joined the team, would seem to agree. “It was great to see it unfold like it did,” James said. “There was a point where they only had two guys under contract and that was Mario Chalmers and Michael Beasley. And that was the only thing they had at one point in the summertime, and to see how they were able to put the team together, so far has been good.” But keeping the team together may be something else entirely. Chalmers is one of several Heat players who have made the training room a regular stop this preseason. Carlos Arroyo, who is also vying to start at point guard, has been hurt, too. As have forward Jamaal Magloire and guard Eddie House. Miller, a swingman and one of the league’s best 3-point shooters, reportedly injured his right thumb on Wednesday and could miss three weeks. But of most concern is Wade, who injured his right hamstring early in the Heat’s first preseason game. As a result, the three members of the greatest N.B.A. free-agency coup will have been on the court together for all of 3 minutes 17 seconds heading into Tuesday’s season opener against the Celtics and their big three — Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce — in Boston. Wade will miss the rest of the preseason out of caution. James recently rested a sore hamstring and returned Monday against the Bobcats. “It’s a delicate situation for us,” James said. “We need team chemistry. We’re not like Boston, L.A. or Orlando with one or two new guys coming into the system. We have a brand new team.” Spoelstra is just eager to put the team’s health problems behind. “Our feeling is that by the time you get to February or March,” he said, “people will probably long forget that you were going through some of these things in the preseason right now in the middle of October. We have plenty of time to still grow and jell together as a team.”

Miami Heat
Basketball
Chalmers Mario
Anthony Joel


Democrats Allege D.N.C. Hack Is Part of Russian Effort to Elect Donald Trump

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — Cold War-era intrigue permeated the 93-degree heat in Philadelphia on Monday, as Democrats sought to spread the idea that the release of thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee is part of a Russian effort to help elect Donald J. Trump. “I do know this: that the Russians did the D.N.C. hack,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, told reporters. She said she had learned of Russian involvement not through intelligence briefings, but through other means. The hacking embarrassed party officials by showing that they seemed to favor Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders in the primary, when they were supposed to be neutral. Video President Trump and Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, have exchanged many compliments since the 2016 election. We look at the basis of the mutual respect between the two men. (Updated on July 5, 2017.) Credit Credit From left; Todd Heisler/The New York Times, Yury Kochetkov/European Pressphoto Agency Ms. Pelosi, asked whether she thought Mr. Trump played any role in the hack or release of the 20,000 emails, said, “I have no reason to think that.” Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manger, Robby Mook, tried to deflect attention from the content of the emails, which led to the resignation of the party’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and keep it on the Russians. “There have been larger forces at work to hurt Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Mook said Monday, calling the hacking an attempt to undermine her campaign. Saying he would leave the details of the hacking to intelligence experts, Mr. Mook added, “It was the Russians who perpetrated this leak for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton.” Proving a cyberattack is difficult, but researchers have said the D.N.C.’s server had been breached by Russian intelligence agencies, which had also targeted the White House and the State Department. But the Russian-intervention narrative fits with Mrs. Clinton’s efforts to establish the idea that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to see Mr. Trump elected to weaken America and hurt its closest NATO allies. Mr. Trump has suggested he would not automatically defend NATO allies if they were attacked. Video The Democratic Party opened its convention to news of an embarrassing email leak, while Senator Bernie Sanders struggled to rally his supporters behind the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton. Credit Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Putin, and throughout her campaign Mrs. Clinton has tried to tie Mr. Trump to to the Russian leader, with whom she clashed as secretary of state. “He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends,” Mrs. Clinton said last month. “I don’t understand Donald’s bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America,” she once said. “Putin will eat your lunch,” she said in a speech aimed at Mr. Trump. And if Mr. Trump were elected president, she has said, it would be like “Christmas in the Kremlin.” On Twitter Monday morning, Mr. Trump dismissed the idea that the Russians were behind the hack and said the Clinton camp had spread the idea to distract from its own convention drama. But later Monday, while speaking in Roanoke, Va., Mr. Trump at least seemed to accept that the Russians might have been involved. Speaking of Ms. Wasserman Schultz, he said: “She worked very, very hard to rig the system. Little did she know China, Russia, one of our many, many friends, came in and hacked the hell out of us.”

Russia
Donald Trump
Nancy Pelosi
Hillary Clinton
Robby Mook
2016 Presidential Election
Russian meddling in US elections
Mueller report
Hacker (computer security)
DNC


Nashville Predators Are Hockey’s Improbable Steamroller

Abstract: NASHVILLE — Seven o’clock on a Tuesday, and the gold-clad, goose-calling, Tim McGraw-crooning fans of the Nashville Predators are offering an updated primer in Southern hospitality. One by one, the starters for the Predators’ victim on this night, the Colorado Avalanche, are announced, and one by one, each is advised by the frothing crowd that — in somewhat more colorful language — he is not good at his job, not good at all. The Avalanche’s coach, Patrick Roy, is then introduced, and he is told the same, with a bit more fervor. Bridgestone Arena, where the Predators skate, is a spaceship of a building perched on a stretch of Broadway downtown that evokes a hillbilly Bourbon Street — all boot joints and neon guitars and honky-tonks. By the opening face-off, all that energy is sucked inside, creating a rowdy atmosphere for a rowdy team, the N.H.L.’s unlikely juggernaut. The Predators have lost only five times at home all season, but they have not lost much on the road, either. After missing the playoffs the past two seasons, Nashville has upended the Western Conference establishment, barging into a realm usually occupied by the likes of Chicago and Los Angeles to seize the best record in the league. On pace for a franchise-high 116 points, the Predators, who play the Rangers on Monday at Madison Square Garden, have 89, 2 points ahead of Montreal and Anaheim. “We all knew that we had more in here, and we liked the pieces we had, but I don’t think anybody would have said we’d be first in the league at this point,” left wing Matt Cullen said. “It’s a little more than we would have expected.” Image Roman Josi leads a dynamic and mobile defensive corps. Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times After an off-season retooling, General Manager David Poile said that all he wanted was to make the playoffs. He has since recalibrated his goals. More than three-quarters into this season of seasons, this serendipitous marriage of a new coach and system with new personnel, Nashville has evinced few discernible weaknesses. Outstanding goaltending? Pekka Rinne trails only Montreal’s Carey Price in save percentage (.928) and goals against (2.07). A dynamic and mobile defensive corps? This precocious unit, led by the ferocious tandem of Shea Weber and Roman Josi and bolstered by 20-year-old Seth Jones, has generated the most blue-line scoring (160 points) in the league. A deep group of forwards? An influx of talent, coupled with the maturation of Filip Forsberg and Colin Wilson, has produced the highest-scoring Predators team (2.94 goals per game) in eight years. “It definitely feels like we have the most complete team since I’ve been here,” Weber said, “and we’re set up in the right position to definitely have the best team.” How a franchise that has never won its division in 15 previous seasons, let alone a Presidents’ Trophy as the team with the most points, materialized as a strong contender to hoist Lord Stanley’s silver chalice is an exercise in contradictions — in daring but also in patience, in planning but also in hope, and some luck. Image The Predators have lost only five games at home this season. Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times Sitting in his ice-level office at Bridgestone an hour before the Predators paddled Colorado, in a 5-2 victory that showcased their craftiness with the puck and relentlessness without it, Poile ruminated on the team’s good fortune. “It all had to happen for us to be where we are today,” he said. And it all started when he recognized that he needed to fire Barry Trotz, a dear friend and the only coach Nashville had had but who had never guided the Predators beyond the conference semifinals. The players needed a jolt — “Maybe we got too comfortable,” Rinne said — and one came from a man whose pedigree and philosophy Poile coveted, and who happened to be available. Peter Laviolette, a demanding boss with a Stanley Cup ring and a penchant for leading distressed teams to prominence, meshed an offensive-oriented style with the stalwart defense that has come to define the organization. He has molded Nashville into the N.H.L.’s best team at even strength, and also among its most resilient: Only the Islanders have won a greater percentage of games than Nashville after allowing the first goal. Facilitating those comebacks has been an offensive resurgence fronted by the gifted playmaker Mike Ribeiro, who wanted to play for the Predators so much that he paid his way for a visit. Bought out by the Coyotes in June after the first season of a four-year, $22 million contract because of off-ice matters that management refused to tolerate, Ribeiro garnered minimal interest. Poile’s unwillingness to add a potential nuisance outweighed his need for a center. At least until Ribeiro avowed that he had prioritized his family, that he sought to find serenity in the relative tranquillity of Nashville, that not once would he cause trouble. He and his wife bought a house here before Poile even offered a contract, and when that offer came, at a bargain rate of $1.05 million for one year, Ribeiro set about reclaiming his career. Centering a line with the sniper James Neal, acquired in a June trade with Pittsburgh, and the 20-year-old Forsberg, a leading candidate to win the Calder Trophy as the rookie of the year, Ribeiro was tied for seventh in the league with 40 assists through Sunday. “I’m doing the right things and eating well and taking care of myself, not drinking or partying,” Ribeiro said. “I actually am serious about it. I don’t want to screw it up like I did last year.” Image Filip Forsberg is a leading candidate to win the Calder Trophy, an award that goes to the N.H.L.'s top rookie. Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times For entirely different reasons, last year was a dreary time for Rinne, who underwent a second hip operation that limited him to 24 games. He reported to training camp in excellent shape — testing indicated he was the team’s third-best-conditioned player, said Stu Grimson, the team’s color analyst — and has used that as a platform to post the best season of his career, vying to become the first goalie to win the Hart Trophy, awarded to the league’s most valuable player, since Jose Theodore in 2002. “Whatever else they’ve done, that’s been their most important addition — a healthy Pekka Rinne,” said the former N.H.L. center Ray Ferraro, an analyst for TSN. The Predators are built from Rinne out, with a defense that Poile has called the best in franchise history — all six defensemen who dressed against Minnesota last Thursday were drafted and developed by Nashville — and enviable depth up front. When Mike Fisher ruptured an Achilles’ tendon in July, Poile loaded up on veteran centers — “We threw a lot of spaghetti on the wall,” he said — like Ribeiro, Olli Jokinen and Derek Roy. Roy was waived in December, but last month, Poile flipped Jokinen to Toronto as part of a package that netted defenseman Cody Franson and right wing Mike Santorelli. “If you’re having bad luck, he may not have been able to come back,” Poile said of Fisher, the team’s best two-way center, who returned in November. “But he did, he’s played terrific, and we’re stronger for it.” Having coached his entire career in the Eastern Conference, Laviolette said he knew little about the Predators’ roster. He and Poile identified some shortcomings, and then in training camp, Laviolette deployed the puck-possession system that Cullen, who won the Cup with Laviolette in Carolina in 2006, characterized as “attack, attack, attack.” Or, as Fisher described it, “shoot, shoot, shoot.” No attempt is a bad one for Nashville, which has won a league-best 74.3 percent of games in which it has outshot the opposition. That axiom also applies to defensemen, who are expected to shift to offense more quickly than before. Image Melissa Rosadini tests her shooting speed before Saturday's game. Bridgestone Arena, where the Predators skate, is perched on Nashville’s Broadway, which is home to many of the city’s famous honky-tonks. Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times To acclimate his players to the faster tempo, Laviolette emphasized skating and stamina in rugged sessions akin to what Colorado center Daniel Briere experienced with Philadelphia in 2009, when Laviolette took over two months into the season. Before the first practice, Briere looked on a board and saw 14 drills listed. “We thought we were going to be on the ice for four hours,” Briere said. “But everything was so fast, so intense, and we were done in 40, 45 minutes. That’s what he taught us — to play at a fast pace, always on the go. He completely turned our team around at the time.” Inheriting a team mired in 10th place in the conference, Laviolette guided Philadelphia within two victories of the Stanley Cup. These Predators soared from the outset, going 10-3-2 in their first 15 games, building confidence that served them well, when, in the third period of a 5-1 victory over Vancouver on Jan. 13, a fluky collision sent Rinne careening into the back boards. Rinne’s injury, a sprained knee that sidelined him for three weeks, left at least one fan uneasy. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody that we’re not able to hang with,” the country music star Vince Gill said last Thursday, chatting between periods during Nashville’s 4-2 loss to Minnesota, “but when Pekka got hurt, everybody went, ‘Oh, no, here we go again.’ ” At the time of Rinne’s injury, Nashville had 29 victories. Rinne had accounted for them all. Laviolette said he was less concerned than curious to see how the team would respond, and in Rinne’s absence, the Predators went 4-2-2, losing only 2 points in the standings. Rinne returned Feb. 3 and compiled a .929 save percentage during his next nine games, including last Tuesday’s rout of Colorado. After Nashville’s final goal glided into an empty net, clinching the victory that tied an N.H.L. record for most wins (26) in a team’s first 30 home games, a clip of McGraw appeared on the video board. The fans chanted along with him. They liked it. They loved it. They wanted some more of it.

Nashville Predators
Patrick Roy
David Poile
Peter Laviolette
Ice hockey


Latest Unease on Right: Ryan Is Too Far Left

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Far-right media figures, relatively small in number but potent in their influence, have embarked on a furious Internet expedition to cover Representative Paul D. Ryan in political silt. In 2012 when Mitt Romney picked Mr. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, as his running mate, the concern among some in their party was that Mr. Ryan was too conservative, particularly when it came to overhauling social programs like Medicare and Medicaid . Now, as he agonizes over whether to answer the appeal of his colleagues to become their next speaker, the far right is trotting out a fresh concern: Mr. Ryan is too far left. He is being criticized on issues ranging from a 2008 vote to bail out large banks to his longstanding interest in immigration reform to his work on a bipartisan budget measure . On Sunday night, the Drudge Report — a prime driver of conservative commentary — dedicated separate headlines to bashing Mr. Ryan on policy positions. Even a self-congratulatory book outlining how Mr. Ryan and two other Republican House leaders drafted Tea Party candidates to help them take over the House in 2010 — “Young Guns” — is being recast by some as a manual of how to be traitorous to conservatism. “Tryouts for speaker continue,” Phyllis Schlafly, founder and chairwoman of the conservative Eagle Forum, said in a statement Friday, when Mr. Ryan was escaping Capitol Hill for the week. “The kingmakers are so desperate for someone to carry their liberal priorities that they are trying to force Congressman Paul Ryan into a job he does not want.” The influence of conservative websites has enraged members who were once considered right of center themselves, and who are desperately trying to keep Mr. Ryan from getting spooked. Hard-Line Republicans Clear the Way for Paul Ryan to Be Speaker Any candidate for the speakership — which requires the approval of a majority of the House — will need the support of at least some of the hard-line members. “Anyone who attacks Paul Ryan as being insufficiently conservative is either woefully misinformed or maliciously destructive,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “Paul Ryan has played a major role in advancing the conservative cause and creating the Republican House majority. His critics are not true conservatives. They are radical populists who neither understand nor accept the institutions, procedures and traditions that are the basis of constitutional governance.” To some degree, the attacks on Mr. Ryan, so far an unwilling draft pick by his colleagues to replace Speaker John A. Boehner , reflect criticism of flashes of pragmatism by Mr. Ryan, the architect of his party’s conservative budget dogma. Since the 2012 general election defeat, Mr. Ryan has indeed become more of a consensus builder and leader in the House, even as he has maintained his ideological tilt. He has largely voted for bills to keep the government operating and the debts paid when many other Republicans vote against them these days. He was half the brain on a 2013 compromise with Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, to funnel more money to the government and avert two years of budget brinkmanship, even though two years earlier, he had refused to sit on the original committee that tried and failed to find a solution to the government’s financial problems. Mr. Ryan moved this year to the chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee from the Budget Committee because he said he wanted even greater influence on national fiscal policy, and his prescriptions are anathema to most Democrats. But the current flak following Mr. Ryan stems from a growing and powerful collection of far-right pundits and news media — from Mark Levin to Laura Ingraham to the sites RedState and Breitbart and the new Conservative Review — that have successfully wielded influence over Republican voters and lawmakers in strongly conservative districts. Their bill of particulars against Mr. Ryan have shifted from the national debt and spending to immigration. Lately, they have focused on Mr. Ryan’s enthusiastic support for free trade, traditionally a policy that has gotten broad Republican support but is now being used as a bat against him. Beyond Mr. Ryan, the conservative targets have seemingly shifted from old time establishment lawmakers to a process seemingly more akin to random selection. On Monday, a Tea Party group in Alabama sent out warning flares to Representative Martha Roby, a Republican, advising her that she would come under fire if she supported Mr. Ryan for speaker. While the influence of Fox News on conservative voters has been well documented, “There’s a lot we don’t know about this bumper crop of digital news start-ups of the past five or 10 years, especially ad-supported ones,” said Jesse Holcomb the associate director of journalism research at the Pew Research Center. “Many aren’t public and don’t produce earnings statements and aren’t required to release information on revenue or profit margins.” Possible Candidates for a Brokered House Speaker Race With Representative Kevin McCarthy’s stunning decision to withdraw from the race for speaker on Thursday, the Republican leadership elections were turned upside down. The competitive races were supposed to be those for lower-tier positions. Now the big uncertainty is who the next speaker will be. But House Republicans and their staff say millions of Republican primary voters have their opinions shaped by sites like Breitbart.com , which define a version of the conservative position of the moment, then whip their readers into a frenzy, imploring them to oppose anyone who takes a different position. “Our goal is not influence; it is reporting and highlighting stories important to grass roots conservatives,” said Alex Marlow, the editor in chief of Breitbart. “To those in Congress and on the national political stage who want to better understand this constituency’s interests and worldview, we feel Breitbart News is a good place to start. Our focus on issues like spending, trade and particularly immigration are a reflection of the fact that there are massive populations of center-right Americans who do not favor the policies most often associated with the Republican Party establishment.” Mr. Boehner, for instance, once considered unquestionably conservative, was forced out by his right flank. His would-be successor, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, abruptly withdrew from the speaker’s race, also the target of Internet rancor that he was too much like Mr. Boehner. The conservative rap on Mr. Ryan’s fiscal positions is especially curious. As Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Ryan was the author of plans that would convert Medicare into something akin to a voucher plan, where seniors would get government subsidies to purchase private insurance and move away from government-run health care. He also wanted to turn Medicaid into increasingly tight block grants to state governments, and he also called for drastic cuts in food stamps, Pell grants and many other domestic programs. But in 2013, Mr. Ryan and Ms. Murray reached an agreement, which passed 332 to 94 in the House, that modestly raised spending restrictions on military and domestic programs for two years, bringing temporary peace to the incessant budget wars that are now eliciting the wrath of the conservative industrial complex. Immigration is proving to be an even more ripe area for venomous assessment of Mr. Ryan. He pressed for a vote on an immigration reform bill with his Republican colleagues in 2013, noting that “earned legalization is an issue I think the House can and will deal with” but was rebuffed. While 53 percent of Republicans support some earned path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally, said Robert P. Jones, the chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, citing a 2013 poll , “support drops well below majority to 45 percent among Republicans who identify with the Tea Party,” he said. The question for Mr. Ryan, now ensconced in Wisconsin with his family while Congress is in recess, is whether the heat from the right is worth the fight or whether he will gamble that he can overrun them and win far in excess of the 218 votes needed to elected speaker in spite of all that noise, and start off strong and ready for the next round.

Mitt Romney
Republicans
Congress
Kevin McCarthy
US Politics
US
Paul D Ryan Jr
John Boehner
House of Representatives


Two Approaches to Selling Secure Transactions

Abstract: VISA and MasterCard use similar strategies to fight identity theft and fraud, but the companies have come up with two vastly different approaches to market their security efforts. Visa USA has taken its message to consumers, sending out a stream of television and magazine ads highlighting the steps it takes when account data is missing. MasterCard International aims at merchants and other players in the payment chain with a lower-profile campaign using ads that look like articles that encourage protecting the information in the first place. "We are not doing what the Visa campaign is doing. I don't believe this is top of mind for the cardholder when they are undertaking a transaction," said Christopher D. Thom, MasterCard's chief risk officer. "I think it is much better to put our efforts toward advertising in the business-to-business community, which can effect change. There is a limit to how much you can expect or want a cardholder to do." The divergent strategies of Visa and MasterCard underscore the growing debate among marketers after a wave of high-profile data breaches rocked the credit card industry and heightened consumer concerns. In an industry that spent well over $1 billion on advertising last year, according to TNS Media, security has become an increasingly important theme. Yet selling a security message can be a delicate balance. Focus too much on the problem and there is the risk of unnecessarily alarming consumers each time they pull out their cards. (Both Visa and MasterCard reported about 8 percent transaction growth through the third quarter last year, and a recent Federal Trade Commission report suggests that identity theft and credit card fraud complaints are trailing off.) But not giving the issue enough emphasis can mean missing a chance to distinguish the brand. Visa has directed its efforts toward cardholders. Its campaign promotes safeguards, like its zero-liability policy for fraudulent charges, with lighthearted television advertisements by BBDO in New York, a division of Omnicom. A parallel Web campaign is by AKQA in San Francisco, a boutique agency that specializes in online advertising. This fall, its television and Web ads included athletes, like the offensive line of the New England Patriots and their star quarterback, Tom Brady, to personify concepts like a "pocket of protection." A television spot featuring Lindsey Jacobellis, the United States Olympic snowboarding hopeful, began in November and will run until the Games begin next week. Visa's advertising strategy accepts that account information is sometimes lost or stolen; its spots try to ease consumers' fears by offering concrete solutions and the perception of control. "If your brand can say to consumers you are trustworthy, you can help them when something goes wrong and you can make them feel safe and secure," said Susanne Lyons, Visa's chief marketing officer, "you get extra brownie points." The campaign by MasterCard takes an informational approach. Over the last few months, it bought space in about 19 major magazines and newspapers. The ads will soon appear in some trade publications. The campaign's message -- "the powerful results of collaboration" -- stresses the responsibility of merchants and other payment industry players to protect consumer data before it is stolen. It does not emphasize how MasterCard is equipped afterward to clean up the mess. "Together we can help to combat ID theft and fraud, and prove once more what soccer teams, symphony orchestras and happily married couples already know," an advertising article developed by McCann Erickson in New York and Sawyer Miller, which calls itself an issues advocacy firm. Both agencies are owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies. MasterCard is also aggressively promoting online seminars for merchants as well as a new Web site, that explains its security policies. It was developed by IconNicholson of New York. Executives at MasterCard say that while security is an important cardholder concern, it is a "latent issue" -- not one most consumers give much thought until they learn of a major data breach. The 3,700 consumers who participate in its weekly brand tracking poll, they say, consistently rank safety and security themes about 11th on an 18-point list, behind priorities like convenience. MasterCard's marketing strategy is intended to keep it that way. It treats security as a payments industry problem, not a consumer concern. "We are trying to drive the message, drive the solutions and get the industry moving," said Lawrence Flanagan, MasterCard's chief marketing officer. "Consumers are important, but they aren't the main driver." Of course, both companies sometimes shift gears. Take, for instance, last summer, when the media spotlight glared on CardSystems Solutions, a tiny payment processor that left the account information of 40 million cardholders exposed. Visa ran a big print campaign promoting its "layers of protection" with pictures and lots of explanatory text. Ms. Lyons said the ads hit home with consumers. "Ninety percent thought it was highly relevant," she said. "You see almost nothing like that in advertising," where 60 or 70 percent relevancy rates are the norm. MasterCard, meanwhile, ran what Mr. Flanagan called a "tactical spot." It quickly inserted a 2002 McCann Erickson television commercial to reassure cardholders that their information was secure. "Knowing you're safe when you shop online: Priceless," was its theme.

VISA INTERNATIONAL INC
MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL INC
IDENTITY FRAUD
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
CREDIT AND MONEY CARDS
COMPUTER SECURITY
COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET
ADVERTISING (TIMES COLUMN)


Obama Commutes a Prisoner’s Sentence, Lengthened More Than 3 Years by a Typo

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Ceasar Huerta Cantu did not discover the mistake until he had already spent six years behind bars. His lawyer had missed it. The judge did not notice. But studying a report he was not supposed to have, the federal inmate noticed something was wrong. A typographical error, a single wrong digit, had consigned him to prison for an extra three and a half years that he was not supposed to serve. Once the error was discovered, the court system refused to correct it. Mr. Cantu had waited too long, a judge ruled. Only with the intervention of President Obama did it finally get fixed. In a rare use of his clemency powers, Mr. Obama commuted Mr. Cantu’s sentence on Tuesday and spared him from being locked up for an additional 42 months. “It’s hard to imagine that someone in the federal criminal justice system could serve an extra three-plus years in prison because of a typographical error,” said Kathryn Ruemmler, the White House counsel. The president’s action comes at a time when Mr. Obama and his administration are rethinking sentencing rules and the use of his commutation power. Over his first five years in office, Mr. Obama granted fewer acts of clemency than any modern president. But the White House and Justice Department are working on an initiative to improve the process, and that is likely to increase the number of successful petitions, especially given the sometimes-harsh mandatory sentencing. Mr. Cantu’s case was not directly part of that initiative, but it brought more attention to the issue of fair sentencing. “It’s a shame that we need presidential action to take care of something everybody agrees was a mistake,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at the Ohio State University who studies sentencing. “It sounds like a bad dystopian novel or a Kafka novel that a typo could even lead to three and a half years in prison. Something’s very rotten in our system.” Mr. Cantu, who is from Katy, Tex., and whose first name is sometimes rendered as Cesar in court papers, pleaded guilty in Virginia in 2006 to money laundering and conspiracy to possess 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana and five kilograms or more of cocaine with intent to distribute. The presentence report incorrectly listed his base offense level as 36 instead of 34 under federal sentencing guidelines; after adjustments for other factors, it resulted in a 17 1/2- year prison term. His sentence was later reduced to 15 years after he provided law enforcement authorities with what Ms. Ruemmler said was “substantial assistance on an unrelated criminal matter.” But that was still at least 42 months longer than he would have served had the presentence report recorded the proper base offense level. Mr. Cantu only noticed the error in May 2012, when he had his family mail him a copy of that report, according to court papers. Prisoners are not allowed to have copies of such reports, although they are allowed to review them under controlled circumstances without keeping them. When he found the mistake, Mr. Cantu personally wrote a motion asking that his sentence be reconsidered and sent it to court. The judge who sentenced him in 2006, Jackson L. Kiser, sitting in Danville, Va., rejected his request because of a one-year limit on such appeals. Mr. Cantu could have reviewed his presentence report in that time, the judge concluded. “While I am sympathetic to petitioner’s position, I am not permitted to disregard the law,” Judge Kiser wrote in March 2013. Such rules are intended to impose a finality in criminal cases and keep courts from being clogged by never-ending and usually frivolous appeals. But that left Mr. Cantu with nowhere to turn but the president. He wrote out a request for clemency, and a lawyer was later appointed to help him. A Justice Department official said the case was so clearly unjust, it moved through the process at unusual speed and was sent less than a month ago to the White House, where Ms. Ruemmler recommended that Mr. Obama approve it. The decision was announced shortly before Ms. Ruemmler addressed the issue of clemency at a New York University Law School conference on Tuesday. “Before today, no articles had been written about Ceasar Cantu,” she said in a prepared text. “No editorials referenced his name. But Mr. Cantu’s case is every bit as important as cases that have received media attention.” Mr. Cantu, 46, a naturalized citizen who was married in 2003 and has an 8-year-old daughter, remains in the federal prison in Oakdale, La. Federal officials said he has been a model prisoner, taking vocational and life skills courses and expressing remorse. As a result of good-conduct credit, Mr. Obama’s order means Mr. Cantu now can be released in May 2015. Stephen R. Wills, a Roanoke, Va., lawyer assigned to help Mr. Cantu with his unsuccessful court appeal, said the case underscored the rigid nature of today’s system. “If you’re familiar with federal drug laws, they are very punitive, and I deal with them all the time,” he said. “Any chance you get to right that, I think that’s a good thing.”

Prison
Ceasar Huerta Cantu
Virginia
Money laundering
Barack Obama
Amnesties Commutations and Pardons
Criminal Sentence
Drug Abuse
Marijuana,Pot,Weed
Texas