As Child Migrants Flood to Border, U.S. Presses Latin America to Act

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — Faced with an unprecedented surge of child migrants from Central America that is overwhelming shelters and jails in Texas and Arizona, the United States has begun pushing for stronger regional cooperation to arrest the flow and enable the children’s safe return. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrives Friday in Guatemala to meet with the presidents of that country and of El Salvador, as well as senior officials from Honduras and Mexico, to help highlight warnings about the dangers of crossing Mexico and the United States border, as well as the futility of trying to obtain legal status without a proper visa. Mr. Biden also plans to announce ways to better address the crime rattling the nations that is contributing to the exodus. Both issues have long made for complicated, and at times tense, relations between the United States, Mexico and Central America, and Mr. Biden’s visit puts the matter front and center. The countries largely blame the United States for failing to revamp laws to better regulate migration and for the drug trade that has stoked the violence on their streets. Ahead of the meeting, President Obama called President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico on Thursday afternoon “to discuss the urgent humanitarian issue,” according to a White House statement, “and welcomed the opportunity to work in close cooperation with Mexico to develop concrete proposals to address the root causes of unlawful migration from Central America. He also discussed the United States and Mexico’s shared responsibility for promoting security in both countries and in the region.” From October to June 15, 52,000 unaccompanied children were caught at the American border with Mexico border, twice the number for the same period in the previous year. Migration from Central America has been rising as young people seek to escape gang and other violence, but the sudden spike has been attributed in part to rumors that the United States would grant leniency to those who cross the border. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, while expressing sympathy for the plight of the children, until now have treated the migration with far less urgency and have focused their diplomatic efforts on pushing for better conditions for the detained children, rather than on halting the flow in the first place. The Honduran foreign minister, Mireya Agüero de Corrales, this week suggested minors from her country should be granted special status to stay in the United States with family members on humanitarian grounds, even as the Obama administration has tried to dispel any notion that would occur. The president of Guatemala, too, renewed a call that had already been rejected for Guatemalans in the United States without proper visas to be granted “temporary protected status” allowing them to live and work. Mexico, declaring that migration problems are a matter of “shared responsibility” with neighboring countries, has not unveiled any new initiative to halt the notoriously free flow of migrants across its southern border or to address the hundreds of people who openly stow away on a crime-ridden freight train known as “La Bestia,” or the Beast. “There is a sense the problem is really terrible and shameful, but there is not much of sense they are going to do much new,” said Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, who is in Honduras researching the American approach to public security in the region. While corruption and spotty, lackluster efforts at law enforcement and border control have not helped, the countries tend to view the violence that is propelling people north as a byproduct of American drug consumption, with multinational trafficking organizations using their countries as staging grounds and transit points for the illegal drugs that Americans demand. In addition, Central American nations lament that economic development assistance has taken a back seat to immigration. They also denounce the emphasis on deportation, saying it results in the return of street gang members who then resume their acts of terror against law-abiding citizens in some of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. It is not clear what new aid the United States might provide the countries to curb the violence or improve economic conditions. In general the approach has been trade agreements and limited economic programs that have not lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty. And the United States lately has been eschewing short-term, get-tough strategies that put soldiers on the streets, instead favoring crime prevention programs and training sessions for the police, prosecutors and judges in an effort to shore up weak institutions. About $642 million has been designated for anti-crime aid to the region since 2008 under a program known as CARSI, for the Central American Regional Security Initiative, but congressional overseers have given the program mixed reports and said its successes are difficult to measure. “Although Congress first appropriated funding for CARSI nearly six years ago, little information is available about the results of the initiative thus far,” said a report from the Congressional Research Service in May. “U.S. agencies reportedly monitor and report on CARSI through internal channels, but they have not publicly released the metrics used to assess the initiative’s performance.” Héctor Silva Avalos, a former Salvadoran diplomat and now a scholar at American University who is studying the migration crisis, said CARSI had failed to stem violence or put a dent in the flow of drugs. That, he said, has caused El Salvador and Guatemala to consider or propose unorthodox approaches to reducing violence. A gang truce that began two years ago in El Salvador with the government’s support initially helped reduce the number of murders, but the truce has since crumbled and violence is rising again there. In Guatemala, President Otto Pérez Molina has suggested legalizing narcotics as an alternative, but he has not taken steps toward such a move, and some analysts believe he is raising the prospect to pressure American officials to fully restore military aid suspended decades ago during the country’s civil war. “Because of frustration with the circumstances, Central America has felt more empowered to talk back,” Mr. Avalos said. “It is good for politics there, but not really for policy.” Honduras, the most violent of the nations and the source of a great number of the migrants, has proposed a militarized approach to fighting crime, but the United States, while still working closely with certain police units, has balked at some of the steps taken by the country’s new president. The United States stopped its assistance in tracking drug planes with radar after Honduras adopted a law allowing its forces to shoot down suspect civilian aircraft, a tactic that violates the terms of American foreign assistance. The United States has also threatened to withdraw help to repair Honduras’s fighter jets. The United States temporarily halted drug aid for four months in 2012 after the Honduran military shot down two civilian planes. President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras has rebuked the United States for its position. In a sign of the tensions the matter has provoked, he is attending the World Cup in Brazil and plans to skip the meeting of the other nations and Mr. Biden in Guatemala. “Either you are helping us or you are not going to continue to do so, but it is good to know,” Mr. Hernández said at a police ceremony in March, with the American ambassador seated before him. He went on to thank countries for helping the effort to curtail the violence, but said “clearly some should be helping more than others.” Mr. Olson, the Latin America expert, said, “Right now in Honduras in a lot of ways the U.S. and Honduras are not on the same page when it comes to public security.” The United States has continued to assist in intercepting boats in Honduras, which officials say carry 80 to 90 percent of the drugs into the country. And Honduras has found other ways to support its military approach: it has bought radar from Israel and Mr. Hernandez has sought agreements with Brazil to repair its air force jets. “They may see us a small, they may see us as poor but we are people with dignity who are going to press forward no matter the cost,” Mr. Hernández said at the police ceremony.

Children
Illegal Immigration
US Foreign Policy
Joe Biden
Enrique Pena Nieto
Otto Perez Molina
Juan Orlando Hernandez


Pews Tirelessly Restored, and an Immigrant Redeemed

Abstract: On a Sunday morning last summer, Fabian Cervantes walked through the doors of Our Lady of Refuge, the Roman Catholic church in Brooklyn that he had lost hope of ever seeing again. His arms were pale from seven months in jail. His clothes hung limply because he had lost 25 pounds. His sallow eyes attested to scores of sleepless nights. He picked his way up the central aisle, passing the regulars at the 8:30 a.m. Spanish-language Mass, the people who had prayed for him. Then, from the altar, he began to tell the story of his return. His best friend in the congregation, Sammy Cruz, considered it a miracle, one that he believed had something to do with the way he and Mr. Cervantes had restored every single pew in the church. When did the story begin? On the day in early 2003 when Mr. Cervantes walked across the desert from Mexico into the United States? The bitter February night, his first in New York, when he wound up sleeping in the subway? The day when that Colombian man took pity on him and offered him a job and a basement bed? The day when he happened to walk past Our Lady of Refuge and heard Spanish being spoken and went inside to give thanks? However Mr. Cervantes’s odyssey started, by the summer of 2010 he had created a stable life for himself, or at least as stable a life as an immigrant without papers can have. He had an apartment of his own. He worked steadily in construction — sometimes carpentry, sometimes drywall — for $70 a day, and on those modest wages, he managed to send $300 a month to relatives back home. During that summer, the pastor of Our Lady of Refuge, the Rev. Michael A. Perry, mentioned that he wanted to fix the pews. There were 37 rows, installed when the church had been built 76 years earlier, and their original oak was by this time hidden beneath seven coats of paint. That paint, in turn, was cracked and chipped and water-damaged. Mr. Perry had gotten an estimate for restoration: $100,000, way beyond anything a parish of working-class immigrants could afford. “Tell Father Perry this is nothing,” Mr. Cervantes, 50, told Mr. Cruz, a retired sanitation worker. “I can do this.” So Mr. Cervantes and Mr. Cruz undertook the work. They began at 6 most weeknights, after Mr. Cervantes had finished his construction work. They finished as late as 2 the next morning. Sometimes they had a dozen other volunteers. Often, they had just each other. Six rows each night, they did battle with the accreted paint, going at it with coarse 60-grit sandpaper, then 120-grit to level out the worst gouges, then 220-grit to smooth the surface for coatings of stain and shellac. The accumulated dust filled two garbage bags every shift. “This is rough,” Mr. Cervantes said one time to Mr. Cruz. “We can’t stop now,” Mr. Cruz replied. They did not stop until Nov. 29, 2011, barely a week before their target date, the parish’s 100th anniversary, on Dec. 8. (The original frame building was replaced in 1934 by the current church, at Foster and Ocean Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood, built of granite in the French Gothic style.) The oak pews gleamed golden, never more so than on the December day when Mexican immigrants like Mr. Cervantes celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few weeks later, he traveled back to Mexico to buy a car, which he needed to get to construction jobs. Passing outside Pittsburgh on the way east, his car collided with another. When the police came and asked for his license, Mr. Cervantes had to admit he had none. Registration? None. Passport? None. He went to the Allegheny County Jail, the holding pen for nearly 3,000 people accused of crimes ranging from public intoxication to murder. Mr. Cervantes’s otherwise minor offense, driving without a license, looked more than sufficient for him to be deported. Father Perry, the pastor, and the jail’s Catholic chaplain, Deacon Thomas J. O’Neill, tried to find an immigration lawyer to take the case. The required retainer, about $6,000, far exceeded anything Mr. Cervantes or his four grown daughters, two of whom have moved to New York, could pay. So his case fell to a public defender, Amy Lindberg, and the congregation at Our Lady of Refuge raised $500 for Mr. Cervantes’s seat on a deportation flight. After a brief hearing in late July 2012, the county court found Mr. Cervantes guilty on the charge of driving without a license. He was remanded to an immigration detention center in Pittsburgh to await the forced repatriation. Then something unexpected happened, something for which nobody — not Mr. Cervantes, Father Perry, Deacon O’Neill or Ms. Lindberg — has a firm legal explanation. The immigration authorities released Mr. Cervantes. As best anyone involved in the case can surmise, the officials were using the discretion given to them by President Obama under a policy change announced in August 2011. It permitted immigration prosecutors to suspend deportation proceedings against immigrants whose sole crime was being in the United States illegally. Outside the detention center, Mr. Cervantes dropped to his knees beside a tree and prayed. During his months in jail, he had read the Bible, turning repeatedly to the story of Joseph — Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph miraculously redeemed. On the next Sunday, he walked into Our Lady of Refuge, a kind of Joseph. This week, a free man, he again marked the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And he kept a particular promise. “Do you really like God?” Mr. Cruz had asked him once during the months of captivity. “Yes,” Mr. Cervantes had replied. “Then pray to him,” Mr. Cruz said. “He’s the best lawyer you could have.”

Roman Catholic Church
Deportation
Immigration and Emigration
Brooklyn (NYC)
Illegal Immigrants
Cervantes Fabian


Chinese Christians Defend Persecuted Underground Church

Abstract: BEIJING — More than a dozen Christian leaders in China have thrown their support behind an embattled underground church, calling for the government to end its persecution and for broader religious freedoms as well. Their petition, a rare public gesture for religious figures, who are often wary of wading into politics, raises the stakes in a standoff that has drawn concern from Christian groups outside China and prompted a separate petition campaign in the United States and Canada. Nineteen pastors signed the petition , delivered Wednesday to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, and posted on the Internet. It calls for legal protections for so-called house churches, which operate illicitly outside the government-run religious system. The petition also calls on the legislature to investigate the crackdown on one such church, Shouwang, an evangelical Protestant congregation whose leaders have been under house arrest for more than a month. The church and its 1,000 members became homeless in early April after the landlord, under pressure from the authorities, canceled its lease. Since then, the parishioners have tried to pray outdoors each Sunday, prompting a predictable cat-and-mouse game with the police, who prevent some members from leaving their homes and round up those who manage to reach the predetermined place of worship. Carsten Vala, an expert on Chinese Christianity at Loyola University Maryland, said the petition ratcheted up pressure on the ruling Communist Party at a time when it was increasingly nervous about perceived challenges to its authority. “This shows there is national attention to what’s happening to Shouwang and that there is connection among urban house churches across the country,” he said. The petition blames an “outdated system of religion management” for a crisis that is stirring up the tens of millions of Chinese believers who have come to place more faith in Christianity than in the atheist Communist Party. It also suggests that such policies will invariably lead to more social strife, the very thing Chinese leaders are so eager to avoid. “We hope that by setting up a special investigation commission, the government will be able to handle the Shouwang incident in a rational and wise manner on basis of the principles of ‘putting people first and ruling the country by law’ and in the gracious spirit of serving the citizens, so as to avoid the escalation of the conflict between state and church,” the petition says, quoting a common slogan of the current leadership. The document was written by Xie Moshan and Li Tianen, patriarchs of the house church movement, who have each spent more than a decade in Chinese prisons. The persecution of Shouwang and a number of other unregistered churches coincides with a wider clampdown in China , fueled by unrest in the Arab world, which has led to the detention of scores of dissidents, rights lawyers and other perceived critics. Like many unofficial churches, Shouwang started out in a private home, but in recent years it has become one of the capital’s largest and most affluent congregations. In 2009, after a previous eviction forced the church to worship in a park, parishioners donated more than $4 million to purchase a space of their own. But despite having a deed in hand, the church has not been permitted by the government to occupy the space, a conflict that led to the current crisis. At a regular news conference on Thursday, Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, defended the campaign against Shouwang, saying that congregants had tried repeatedly to “gather illegally in the streets,” according to Reuters. “To maintain public order and security, the public security departments have taken the appropriate measures,” she said.


A Nod to Dark Days, a Moment in the Sun

Abstract: BEFORE services, after passing through the golden doors of the Armenian Church of the Holy Martyrs in Bayside, Queens, parishioners often pause briefly in front of a glass case. The case contains fragments of bones of Armenians who died at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I. Some of the parishioners chant along with the hymns being sung from the altar; others pray silently for the dead. Last Sunday, a young girl with long black hair wearing a white dress gently ran her hand over the glass, as if touching the past. The past was the main topic of conversation last week at the church, a beige brick structure in a small but vibrant Armenian community. A few days earlier in Washington , the House Foreign Affairs Committee had voted to recommend that Congress recognize as genocide the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians early in the last century. Although the chances that Congress would do so seemed to dim as the week proceeded, in the face of vehement opposition by the Turkish government, Armenians are gratified that a long-nursed anger is at least on the table. “It still affects us,” Hrair Ghazarian, a 51-year-old parishioner, said of the killings. Mr. Ghazarian, an electrical engineer who lives across the street from the church, chatted excitedly with another parishioner about Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, who had discussed the resolution on television. “She’s going to bring it before the entire House,” said Mr. Ghazarian, a stocky man who speaks as much with his hands as his voice. Then, as cars whizzed by outside on the nearby Long Island Expressway, the two men headed toward their pews. Discussion of possible Congressional action continued after the services, when about 50 church members gathered in the wood-paneled auditorium for coffee, bagels and homemade cookies. The Very Rev. Vahan Hovhanessian offered a prayer of thanks “in celebration of the resolution and what it means to us.” Despite the general euphoria, some among the congregation recalled deep sorrow, among them Marie Gemdzian, who is 81. “I’m happy but not happy,” she said in halting English. “Too many people are dead. My mother’s family — how many died? Aunts, uncles. ...” With the help of Alice Keurian, her daughter, Mrs. Gemdzian began counting her lost relatives on her hands. She soon ran out of fingers. As people tossed out their paper cups and pushed in their folding chairs, one young parishioner spoke of the future. “The genocide is a big part of how we define ourselves,” said a Columbia freshman named Markrete Krikorian. “As a culture, I think we need to let it go.” But she added that until the event is “recognized by the people who did the genocide to us, then we can’t move on.”


Philippines Says China Executes Three Filipinos

Abstract: MANILA — Three Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking in China were executed on Wednesday, Filipino officials said, prompting grief and outrage in the Philippines . Vice President Jejomar C. Binay, who had been designated by President Benigno S. Aquino III to intercede for the three convicts, confirmed that Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain had been executed in China, according to Joey Salgado, the vice president’s spokesman. Mr. Aquino’s spokeswoman, Abigail Valte, also confirmed the executions According to media reports here, the executions — Ms. Villanueva and Mr. Credo were executed in Xiamen, Ms. Batain in Shenzhen — took place shortly before noon on Wednesday. The Philippine government had earlier asked Beijing to stay the executions , which were originally scheduled for February. Mr. Binay wrote President Hu Jintao on Tuesday pleading again for mercy, arguing that at least in the case of Ms. Villanueva, there was new evidence to indicate that she had been used as an unwitting drug courier and that sparing her would help in the prosecution of the drug traffickers who led her to bring heroin into China. A Chinese official said Tuesday that the three had been tried and convicted according to the law. In the days leading up to the executions, prayers, masses and vigils were held across the Philippines, with the families of the convicts insisting on their innocence. “This is a sad day for this country and we are afraid for the other Filipinos who are also on death row who have been neglected by the government,” Garry Martinez, chairman of Migrante International, a migrant-rights group, said moments after news of the execution came. Ms. Villanueva’s parents and siblings visited her in Xiamen, China, on Wednesday morning and were told that they could not bring in her favorite food and a mobile phone. According to a report by Radyo Cinco, a Manila radio station, Ms. Villanueva was surprised by her relatives’ visit. The Chinese authorities had earlier said that the convicts would not know their execution date until the day came. “She asked us why we were there and why we were crying and if she was going to die,” Ms. Villanueva’s sister, Mylene Ordinario, told Radyo Cinco from Guangzhou, China. She added that Ms. Villanueva maintained her innocence. According to a sworn statement by Ms. Villanueva, she did not know that the luggage she used in traveling into China had been lined with heroin. The Department of Foreign Affairs said that more than 200 Filipinos are being held in Chinese prisons, 72 of them on death row for drug trafficking. Dozens of others are also on death row in several other countries, the department said. In its annual report on the death penalty worldwide , Amnesty International this week said China executed more people in 2010 than any other country. The organization did not list the number of executions carried out by China, citing Beijing’s practice of withholding such information.

Human Rights and Human Rights Violations


Martin Nowak - In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution

Abstract: When Martin Nowak was in high school, his parents thought he would be a nice boy and become a doctor. But when he left for the University of Vienna, he abandoned medicine for something called biochemistry. As far as his parents could tell, it had something to do with yeast and fermenting. They became a little worried. When their son entered graduate school, they became even more worried. He announced that he was now studying games. In the end, Dr. Nowak turned out all right. He is now the director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard. The games were actually versatile mathematical models that Dr. Nowak could use to make important discoveries in fields as varied as economics and cancer biology. “Martin has a passion for taking informal ideas that people like me find theoretically important and framing them as mathematical models,” said Steven Pinker, a Harvard linguist who is collaborating with Dr. Nowak to study the evolution of language. “He allows our intuitions about what leads to what to be put to a test.” On the surface, Dr. Nowak’s many projects may seem randomly scattered across the sciences. But there is an underlying theme to his work. He wants to understand one of the most puzzling yet fundamental features of life: cooperation. When biologists speak of cooperation, they speak more broadly than the rest of us. Cooperation is what happens when someone or something gets a benefit because someone or something else pays a cost. The benefit can take many forms, like money or reproductive success. A friend takes off work to pick you up from the hospital. A sterile worker bee tends to eggs in a hive. Even the cells in the human body cooperate. Rather than reproducing as fast as it can, each cell respects the needs of the body, helping to form the heart, the lungs or other vital organs. Even the genes in a genome cooperate, to bring an organism to life. In recent papers, Dr. Nowak has argued that cooperation is one of the three basic principles of evolution. The other two are mutation and selection. On their own, mutation and selection can transform a species, giving rise to new traits like limbs and eyes. But cooperation is essential for life to evolve to a new level of organization. Single-celled protozoa had to cooperate to give rise to the first multicellular animals. Humans had to cooperate for complex societies to emerge. “We see this principle everywhere in evolution where interesting things are happening,” Dr. Nowak said. While cooperation may be central to evolution, however, it poses questions that are not easy to answer. How can competing individuals start to cooperate for the greater good? And how do they continue to cooperate in the face of exploitation? To answer these questions, Dr. Nowak plays games. His games are the intellectual descendants of a puzzle known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Imagine two prisoners are separately offered the same deal: if one of them testifies and the other doesn’t talk, the talker will go free and the holdout will go to jail for 10 years. If both refuse to talk, the prosecutor will only be able to put them in jail for six months. If each prisoner rats out the other, they will both get five-year sentences. Not knowing what the other prisoner will do, how should each one act? The way the Prisoner’s Dilemma pits cooperation against defection distills an important feature of evolution. In any encounter between two members of the same species, each one may cooperate or defect. Certain species of bacteria, for example, spray out enzymes that break down food, which all the bacteria can then suck up. It costs energy to make these enzymes. If one of the microbes stops cooperating and does not make the enzymes, it can still enjoy the meal. It can gain a potential reproductive edge over bacteria that cooperate. The Prisoner’s Dilemma may be abstract, but that’s why Dr. Nowak likes it. It helps him understand fundamental rules of evolution, just as Isaac Newton discovered that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. “If you were obsessed with friction, you would have never discovered this law,” Dr. Nowak said. “In the same sense, I try to get rid of what is inessential to find the essential. Truth is simple.” Dr. Nowak found his first clues to the origin of cooperation in graduate school, collaborating with his Ph.D. adviser, Karl Sigmund. They built a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma that captured more of the essence of how organisms behave and evolve. In their game, an entire population of players enters a round-robin competition. The players are paired up randomly, and each one chooses whether to cooperate or defect. To make a choice, they can recall their past experiences with other individual players. Some players might use a strategy in which they had a 90-percent chance of cooperating with a player with whom they have cooperated in the past. The players get rewarded based on their choices. The most successful players get to reproduce. Each new player had a small chance of randomly mutating its strategy. If that strategy turned out to be more successful, it could dominate the population, wiping out its ancestors. Dr. Nowak and Dr. Sigmund observed this tournament through millions of rounds. Often the winners used a strategy that Dr. Nowak called, “win-stay, lose-shift.” If they did well in the previous round, they did the same thing again. If they did not do so well, they shifted. Under some conditions, this strategy caused cooperation to become common among the players, despite the short-term payoff of defecting. In order to study this new version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Dr. Nowak had to develop new mathematical tools. It turned out that these tools also proved useful for studying cancer. Cancer and the Prisoner’s Dilemma may seem like apples and oranges, but Dr. Nowak sees an intimate connection between the two. “Cancer is a breakdown of cooperation,” he said. Mutations sometimes arise in cells that cause them to replicate quickly, ignoring signals to stop. Some of their descendants acquire new mutations, allowing them to become even more successful as cancer cells. They evolve, in other words, into more successful defectors. “Cancer is an evolution you don’t want,” Dr. Nowak said. To study cancer, however, Dr. Nowak had to give his models some structure. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the players usually just bump into each other randomly. In the human body, on the other hand, cells only interact with cells in their neighborhood. A striking example of these neighborhoods can be found in the intestines, where the lining is organized into millions of tiny pockets. A single stem cell at the bottom of a pocket divides, and its daughter cells are pushed up the pocket walls. The cells that reach the top get stripped away. Dr. Nowak adapted a branch of mathematics known as graph theory, which makes it possible to study networks, to analyze how cancer arises in these local neighborhoods. “Our tissue is actually organized to delay the onset of cancer,” he said. Pockets of intestinal cells, for example, can only hold a few cell generations. That lowers the chances that any one will turn cancerous. All the cells in each pocket are descended from a single stem cell, so that there’s no competition between lineages to take over the pocket. As Dr. Nowak developed this neighborhood model, he realized it would help him study human cooperation. “The reality is that I’m much more likely to interact with my friends, and they’re much more likely to interact with their friends,” Dr. Nowak said. “So it’s more like a network.” Dr. Nowak and his colleagues found that when they put players into a network, the Prisoner’s Dilemma played out differently. Tight clusters of cooperators emerge, and defectors elsewhere in the network are not able to undermine their altruism. “Even if outside our network there are cheaters, we still help each other a lot,” Dr. Nowak said. That is not to say that cooperation always emerges. Dr. Nowak identified the conditions when it can arise with a simple equation: B/C>K. That is, cooperation will emerge if the benefit-to-cost (B/C) ratio of cooperation is greater than the average number of neighbors (K). “It’s the simplest possible thing you could have expected, and it’s completely amazing,” he said. Another boost for cooperation comes from reputations. When we decide whether to cooperate, we don’t just rely on our past experiences with that particular person. People can gain reputations that precede them. Dr. Nowak and his colleagues pioneered a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in which players acquire reputations. They found that if reputations spread quickly enough, they could increase the chances of cooperation taking hold. Players were less likely to be fooled by defectors and more likely to benefit from cooperation. In experiments conducted by other scientists with people and animals, Dr. Nowak’s mathematical models seem to fit. Reputation has a powerful effect on how people play games. People who gain a reputation for not cooperating tend to be shunned or punished by other players. Cooperative players get rewarded. “You help because you know it gives you a reputation of a helpful person, who will be helped,” Dr. Nowak said. “You also look at others and help them according to whether they have helped.” The subject of human cooperation is important not just to mathematical biologists like Dr. Nowak, but to many people involved in the current debate over religion and science. Some claim that it is unlikely that evolution could have produced humans’ sense of morality, the altruism of heroes and saints. “Selfless altruism presents a major challenge for the evolutionist,” Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, wrote in his 2006 book, “The Language of God.” Dr. Nowak believes evolutionary biologists should study average behavior rather than a few extreme cases of altruism. “Saintly behavior is unfortunately not the norm,” Dr. Nowak said. “The current theory can certainly explain a population where some people act extremely altruistically.” That does not make Dr. Nowak an atheist, however. “Evolution describes the fundamental laws of nature according to which God chose to unfold life,” he declared in March in a lecture titled “Evolution and Christianity” at the Harvard Divinity School. Dr. Nowak is collaborating with theologians there on a project called “The Evolution and Theology of Cooperation,” to help theologians address evolutionary biology in their own work. Dr. Nowak sometimes finds his scientific colleagues astonished when he defends religion. But he believes the astonishment comes from a misunderstanding of the roles of science and religion. “Like mathematics, many theological statements do not need scientific confirmation. Once you have the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, it’s not like we have to wait for the scientists to tell us if it’s right. This is it.”

Evolution
Bacteria
Nowak Martin
Science and Technology
Biology and Biochemistry
Microbiology


For Edwards, a Reunion, and a Team With Promise

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 9 - Make his tie green instead of red and put the room at Hofstra University instead of Arrowhead Stadium. This could have been a Herman Edwards news conference with the Jets. Edwards stood behind a lectern Monday afternoon and invoked the familiar themes from his five seasons in New York: faith, trust, integrity, sacrifice, commitment and accountability. He addressed reporters as "sir" and "ma'am" and seemed to have an answer for everything, except what everyone wanted to know: Why was he here, being introduced as the Kansas City Chiefs' head coach, just six days after saying, "I intend to be back as the Jets' coach"? Before taking questions, Edwards said he would not discuss his departure from the Jets, who on Friday accepted a fourth-round draft choice in exchange for letting Edwards out of the final two years of his contract. "I believe in family," Edwards said. "And what happened in New York stays in New York. So if you ask any questions about what happened, I'll tell you right now, it stays in the family. "I learned a long time ago, what stays in your house stays in your house. It's in that house, and I threw the key away." When Edwards did speak about the Jets and New York, it was only in positive terms. As his wife, Lia, held their 5-month-old daughter, Gabrielle, in her lap, Edwards thanked the Jets' owner, Woody Johnson, for hiring him and for letting him return to Kansas City, where he served as an assistant coach and scout from 1990 to 1995. "I owe a debt of gratitude to Woody Johnson," Edwards said. "He gave a young coach a chance to be a head coach when maybe a lot of people wouldn't do that. I thank him for that, and I thank the organization for that. "And I thank my players my last five years in New York for making me a better man. I hope I made a difference, and I hope I make a difference here." Edwards agreed to a four-year deal reportedly worth $12 million, about $1 million more a season than he made with the Jets. With the Jets, he was among the lower-paid head coaches in the N.F.L. Job security may have been a bigger concern for him. Though the Jets extended his contract twice, the second time after the 2003 season, Edwards faced an uncertain future. If the Jets struggled again next season -- a strong possibility with workhorse back Curtis Martin and quarterback Chad Pennington coming off injuries -- Edwards would enter the final year of his contract as a lame duck. The Jets' 4-12 mark this season dropped his record as coach below .500, at 39-41. But he departed as the only Jets coach to make the playoffs three times, and his 39 victories tied Walt Michaels for third in team history. Edwards's news conference concluded a tumultuous final six days to his Jets career. Dick Vermeil announced his retirement as head coach on Jan. 2, and the Chiefs' president, Carl Peterson, said Jets General Manager Terry Bradway called the next day to ask if he was interested in talking to Edwards. That was the day Edwards said he was staying. Then the Jets agreed to release Edwards from his contract. Peterson's relationship with Edwards goes back to 1972, when Peterson, then an assistant at U.C.L.A., recruited Edwards out of high school. Edwards spurned the Bruins for Cal. "I was a little bit of a rebel," Edwards said. Five years later, when he was Philadelphia's director of player personnel, Peterson signed Edwards, a defensive back, as a rookie free agent. Peterson became the Chiefs' president in December 1988, and the next year Edwards joined the team as part of the N.F.L.'s minority coaching fellowship program, becoming a scout in 1990. Edwards is believed to be the first graduate of the program to become head coach of the team he served. "I have waited to do this for a long time," Peterson said. "I was very fortunate. I got to hire the guy who hired me, Dick Vermeil. And we had the opportunity to hire somebody we've known for a long time." Vermeil was 44-36 in five seasons, but Kansas City had only two winning records in that time and one playoff appearance, losing to Indianapolis, 38-31, in a divisional game in the 2003 season. Edwards inherits a team that finished 10-6 and missed the playoffs despite having the top-ranked offense in the league, led by running back Larry Johnson (1,750 yards, 20 touchdowns), the seven-time Pro Bowl tight end Tony Gonzalez and an offensive line that landed three players in the Pro Bowl. "I think they upgraded the act," Vermeil said. "He's getting a better team. That doesn't guarantee anything, but the talent level here is far superior than when I got here."

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
NEW YORK JETS
EDWARDS HERMAN
APPOINTMENTS AND EXECUTIVE CHANGES
COACHES AND MANAGERS
FOOTBALL


Washington Metro System Failed to Learn From Accidents, Report Finds

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The capital region’s subway system has failed to adequately learn from a series of dangerous and sometimes fatal episodes in recent years, making “little or no progress” toward instituting a culture of safety, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded on Tuesday. The assessment came as the board discussed the findings of a more than yearlong investigation into a fatal instance of smoke filling a tunnel in January 2015. Its conclusion painted the most complete picture to date of the how the aging infrastructure, flawed safety response and inadequate local and federal oversight combined to cause the event, which killed one person and injured 91 others. But the investigation also allowed the board members to express concerns about how the nation’s second busiest subway system has acted — or not acted — to address prominent safety lapses. “When the N.T.S.B. finds itself issuing a continuous stream of accident reports to address the basic safety management of a single transit rail system, something is fundamentally flawed,” Christopher A. Hart, the board’s chairman, said. “Here, that something is safety oversight.” Image A Metro station after it was evacuated in January 2015 when smoke filled a tunnel, killing one person. Credit Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press The report came as the newly installed managers of the transit agency, known here as Metro, grapple with several high-profile setbacks and continuing funding woes facing the system. The N.T.S.B. members acknowledged that Metro, under that leadership, appeared now to be taking steps in the right direction and offered more than 30 recommendations to the authorities involved in the incident, primarily involving maintenance and safety training. They also renewed their criticism of the Federal Transit Administration, which has overseen the system’s safety since October, arguing that it does not have the ability, the experience or the disciplinary authority to do its job adequately. Instead, Mr. Hart and other board members said, Metro should be reclassified as a commuter rail system and its oversight moved to the better-established Federal Railroad Administration until authorities here conclude their long-stalled efforts to create a federally approved local safety oversight body. That suggestion prompted a response after the meeting from Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, who defended the F.T.A. in a letter released to the board and said it should continue its oversight of Metro. Though many of the investigation’s findings were forecast in a preliminary report in the days after the smoke event and during investigative hearings last June, the final report gave a step-by-step account of what went wrong and who was to blame. Image A smoke inhalation victim, one of the 91 people who were injured in the smoke accident in 2015. Credit Paul J. Richards/A.F.P. — Getty Images Investigators concluded that the Jan. 12, 2015, episode was caused by “a prolonged short circuit that consumed power system components” that had been allowed to lapse under “ineffective inspection and maintenance practices.” Water that contaminated the faulted cable, a dearth of smoke detectors in Metro’s tunnels, ventilation fans that did not work properly, and staff that was not trained in how to use them exacerbated the problem, the N.T.S.B. said. The board also said that city fire and emergency services were not prepared to respond to such an event. “Whatever could go wrong that afternoon did go wrong,” Robert L. Sumwalt, a member of the board, said, while questioning N.T.S.B. investigators. “To quote a Shakespearean play, it was a comedy of errors. Except, it was not funny.” N.T.S.B. members made frequent comparisons to conclusions reached in a similar investigation after a 2009 train collision that killed nine people near the city’s outskirts. Top Metro officials attended Tuesday’s meeting. Paul J. Wiedefeld, its new general manager, is expected to announce a systemwide maintenance plan in the coming weeks. And on Monday, in advance of the safety board’s report, Metro took steps to address at least one of its concerns, announcing that it would station a fire department official at its operations control center at all times to help coordinate emergency responses.

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority


A Gruesome Find, and a Mother Is Accused of Murders

Abstract: WASHINGTON — United States marshals made a gruesome discovery on Wednesday when they went to evict Banita M. Jacks from her home — the decomposed bodies of Ms. Jacks’s four daughters. On Thursday, the authorities charged Ms. Jacks, 33, with murdering the girls, ages 5, 6, 11 and 17. If convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Investigators said that Ms. Jacks denied killing her daughters and claimed they had been possessed by demons. The victims, dead for as long as eight months, were found in two bedrooms on the second floor of a row house in Washington Highlands, a neighborhood in the southeast part of the city. According to a court document, the three youngest girls, Aja Fogle, 5, N’Kiah Fogle, 6, and Tatianna Jacks, 11, were found face down in an unfurnished bedroom, clad only in white T-shirts. The preliminary medical examiner’s report said Aja appeared to have died from a blow to the back of the head and strangulation. N’Kiah and Tatianna also appeared to have been strangled, the report said. The naked body of the girls’ older sister, Brittany Jacks, 17, was discovered by marshals in a second bedroom, and the medical examiner found what appeared to be three stab wounds on her body. At a news conference on Thursday, the medical examiner, Dr. Marie-Lydie Y. Pierre-Louis, said that based on the decomposition of the bodies, she could not pinpoint when the girls died, but the court document said that they might have been dead since May. Investigators said Ms. Jacks had told them that she stopped feeding her children and that all of them, starting with her youngest daughter, had died in their sleep over a period of a week to 10 days before her electricity was turned off. Investigators say that the local power company, Pepco, shut the power off on Sept. 5. At a hearing on Thursday in District of Columbia Superior Court, the prosecution argued that Ms. Jacks should be held without bail, but a defense lawyer asked that she be released into the custody of a male adult relative until her trial. Labeling it a horrendous situation, Magistrate Judge Karen A. Howze called a brief recess on Thursday evening before ruling that Ms. Jacks be detained pending the preliminary hearing, scheduled for Feb. 11. At the news conference, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty promised a full investigation into the deaths, including the conduct of welfare agencies and school officials. There had been at least one contact between Ms. Jacks and child welfare services and another between her and the Metropolitan Police Department, Mayor Fenty said, but he declined to elaborate. “I don’t think anyone in the city can remember a case involving this many young people who have died in such a tragic way,” he said. Ms. Jacks’s home is in the city’s poorest ward, which is represented by Washington’s former mayor and current councilman, Marion S. Barry Jr. “How could this not have been detected by some school officials somewhere?” Mr. Barry asked at the news conference, where he also called for a tightening of school attendance laws.

Murders and Attempted Murders
Children and Youth
Washington (DC)


Pervasive Abuse Found in Belgian Catholic Church

Abstract: BRUSSELS — Sexual abuse of children reached all parts of Belgium ’s Roman Catholic Church , and it drove at least 13 victims to kill themselves, a report released Friday said. The report, put forth by a commission established by the church itself, sketched the harrowing dimensions of priestly abuse over five decades, listing cases involving 327 male complainants and 161 women, and 19 cases in which the gender of the victim was unclear. In one case the abuse began when a child was just 2 years old. The report was the latest blow to a church reeling from a sexual scandal that worsened after the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe , resigned in April after admitting that he had abused a boy who was later identified as his nephew. The resignation prompted more than 200 victims to come forward within a few days with complaints about abuses by priests, in some cases dating back many decades. One complainant is more than 90 years old. Those victims’ stories, compiled in the report, reveal in detail their suffering. Many say they are still fighting illness and depression many years after the abuses. “I had massive depressions, including one which took me to attempted suicide,” wrote one victim. Another wrote, “My life has been essentially nothing but running away, surrender, solitude, sickness, humiliation, tears, silence, mistrust and REGRETS.” The report amounts to the final act of the commission, led by Peter Adriaenssens, a prominent psychiatrist. The commission decided to stop its work after the Belgian police confiscated its documents in a series of high-profile raids on church property in June in search of proof of sexual abuse or of a cover-up by the church. At the same time, the police searched the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Mechelen, disturbing the tomb of a cardinal in an unsuccessful hunt for documents, and prompting criticism from Pope Benedict XVI . Seizures made by the police were ruled inadmissible this week by the country’s Court of Appeal. Belgian law prevents the police from investigating complaints about events that happened more than 10 years ago, and the commission was set up to try to deal with cases that are too old for legal action. Dr. Adriaenssens said the number of cases multiplied after several abusers were interviewed for the report. “We saw how priests, called up by the commission and asked to help seek the truth, were willing to set up the list of 10, 15, 20 victims they abused during boarding school while the commission knew only of one,” he said, according to the BBC . Jurgen Mettepenningen, spokesman for the Belgian church, declined to comment on the report. On Monday the church will announce a new process for dealing with abuse cases, he said. While the legal investigation goes on, Friday’s report underlined the human cost of abuse. It showed that the most abuse occurred between the 1950s and the late 1980s, a period when priests, some of them teachers, had greater access to children and enjoyed great respect and trust among parents in Belgium, where Catholicism is the majority religion. Though some of the statements by victims tell of the abuse in detail, names and places have been deleted to preserve the anonymity of the victims and those suspected of abuse. The testimony illustrates the way victims struggled for years to try to come to terms with the abuse, sometimes with results that devastated families. Many complain of illness or mental health problems. Friends or relatives reported that the suicides of 13 victims “were related to sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said. Six other victims said they had attempted suicide. And one victim mentioned the suicide of a partner because of the impact of abuse and the way it affected their relationship. Some also paint a picture of a church hierarchy determined to ignore any damaging allegations. One 17-year-old said she complained to a bishop about an abusive relationship with a priest and said she was told, “Ignore him and he’ll leave you alone.” In some cases, the abuse started when victims were very young. One victim was 2 years old, five were 4 years old, eight were 5, seven were 6, and 10 were 7. “Males are at a markedly higher risk between 10 and 14 years,” the report says, while the risk for women is more uniform through their childhood and adolescence and tends to increase with age. Dr. Adriaenssens described the report as the church’s “Dutroux dossier,” a reference to Marc Dutroux, Belgium’s notorious pedophile and child killer, who is serving a life sentence in prison. “Of course, the facts revealed are old,” said Dr. Adriaenssens, according to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir. “Society has evolved, parents now are more sensitive to the rights of children, but nothing indicates that the proportion of pedophiles has declined.”

Belgium
Roman Catholic Church
Priests
Benedict XVI
Sex Crimes
Child Abuse and Neglect
Suicides and Suicide Attempts
Vangheluwe Roger


Founder of a Nonprofit Is Punished by Its Board for Engaging in an Internet Ruse

Abstract: A founder of GiveWell, a new nonprofit research organization that seeks to assess the effectiveness of charities, has been demoted after admitting that he promoted the organization on a Web site by posing as a prospective charitable donor seeking information. GiveWell’s board acted last week against the founder, Holden Karnofsky, demoting him from executive director to “program officer” and saying it was withholding $5,000 of his salary and using the money to pay for him to take a professional development course. The board said it would contact all donors who had contributed to GiveWell since Dec. 1 and offer to return their money. “The board believes that the acts of misrepresentation that were committed are indefensible and are in direct conflict with the goals of the organization,” the board said in a statement posted on givewell.net late Friday night. GiveWell drew attention last month when, in articles on Dec. 20, its demanding approach to assessing the work charities do was reported in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Karnofsky and his co-founder, Elie Hassenfeld, were also interviewed that day on the CNBC program “Power Lunch.” Ten days later, Mr. Karnofsky, writing as geremiah, posted a question to Ask MetaFilter, a question-and-answer page that is part of MetaFilter, a community blog. “All the Web sites I’ve seen just have huge lists of charities with some basic financial data/ratings,” Mr. Karnofsky, as geremiah, wrote. “I’d ideally like to hear from someone who has put some time into examining/comparing charities and can recommend someone who’s good. Any ideas?” Roughly a half-hour later, after three other people had posted comments, Mr. Karnofsky, writing as himself under the name holden0 but without disclosing his relationship with GiveWell, answered his own question and recommended GiveWell’s Web site. “This was a horrible lapse in judgment,” Mr. Karnofsky wrote in a Dec. 31 post on GiveWell’s site. Reached by phone on Monday, he said he was not authorized to comment. Participants in various MetaFilter discussions continue to call for more severe punishment of Mr. Karnofsky. “I think Holden should have absolutely been fired,” one MetaFilter participant, Daniel Gadsby, a marketing coordinator in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Gadsby said that Mr. Karnofsky demanded transparency among charities he assessed and that what he had done was therefore hypocritical. “If I did that at my job,” he added, “I’d be fired.” Robert Elliott, GiveWell’s chairman, defended the board’s response, saying, “We decided that Holden’s analysis skills and commitment to helping others continues to be well suited to helping GiveWell accomplish its goals.”

GiveWell
Karnofsky Holden
Philanthropy
Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Computers and the Internet


Ebola May Pose Little Threat to U.S., but It Looms Large on Twitter

Abstract: As the shadow of the deadly Ebola virus looms over Africa, its danger clear and present, a lesser kind of contagion, diffuse but persistent, has infected social media feeds in the United States. Ebola is trending on Twitter. Even a cursory hashtag search turns up, among the news articles and official announcements, expressions of fear, gallows humor and bad information. The virus can spread through the air? OMG! (It cannot.) A possible Ebola case in New York City? Time to pack for Mars! (It was not Ebola.) Why do people feel compelled to post and rebroadcast jokes, rumors and dread of a distant disease that public health officials say is extremely unlikely to pose serious risk on this side of the Atlantic Ocean? The science behind how and why ideas spread on social media is a growing area of research. At the most basic level, marketing experts say, people tend to share stories that stir their deepest feelings, whether positive or negative. To wit, frightful shark attacks routinely top the trending charts alongside cheerful cat videos and inspirational quotes. “We are not just information-processing machines; we’re very driven by emotion,” said Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.” Stronger emotions, Dr. Berger has found, increase sharing. In 2011, he investigated the emotions that compel users to share articles via email. Dr. Berger asked 40 students to jog in place, and then presented each of them with a neutral news article that they could email to whomever they wanted. After the physical arousal of jogging, Dr. Berger found that students were more likely to share the article, compared with when sitting still. He concluded that people share content when they are stimulated, regardless of the source. “It’s whatever generates arousal,” he said. “If you read a scary article about Ebola, and then you read another article, you’re more likely to share that second article because you’re anxious.” Sharing stories on social media may help us relieve some of that anxiety, according to Pamela Rutledge, a psychologist and director of the Media Psychology Research Center in Corona del Mar, Calif.“Twitter panics, such as we’re seeing with Ebola, are a reflection of people trying to get information, sharing information — even if it’s inaccurate — because being part of the conversation is less threatening than being out of the ‘know,’ ” Dr. Rutledge said by email. How Many Ebola Patients Have Been Treated Outside of Africa? Questions and answers on the scale of the outbreak and the science of the Ebola virus. Our compulsion to post on Twitter about Ebola may be compounded by the fact that the human mind is hard-wired to focus on subjects with vivid examples. “When people think about Ebola, they imagine flesh-eating, visceral, gory stuff,” Dr. Berger said. “High-arousal emotions increase sharing, and that’s even more likely when it’s visceral.” This theory is based on a concept in psychology known as availability bias, which emerged some 40 years ago. In a study published in the journal Cognitive Psychology in 1973, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman found that people tend to judge the likelihood of an event based on immediate examples that come to mind. For instance, you are much more likely to drown in the ocean than to be eaten by a shark. But since you can imagine a shark attack in graphic detail, you worry about it disproportionately. Public interest in the Ebola outbreak, a rare disease with vivid, disturbing symptoms, may have similar roots. The flu, after all, kills thousands of people in the United States every year, but it is rarely a hot topic on Twitter. Other researchers, however, believe that the recipe for social-media momentum is less well defined. “There are a few pretty general features that enhance likelihood that something will go viral,” said Duncan J. Watts, a sociologist and principal researcher at Microsoft Research in New York. “For example, if it’s terrible and violent and people are dying, that’s a positive feature in your model,” he said. “Boring and heavy are unlikely to go viral.” Beyond that, however, Dr. Watts posits that social-media obsessions are primarily fueled not by public sentiment, but by the influence of the mass media. Users focus on subjects that major outlets choose to cover, he said, and when journalists write and talk about Ebola, Twitter users begin posting comments about it. “I suspect that for a lot of these viral phenomena,” he said, “look under the surface, and working there is the mass media.” But the overheated Twitter rhetoric may have a few positive effects, spurring efforts by news media, advocates and individuals like Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to go into overdrive posting facts and hosting chat sessions to debunk rumors and quell fear. Moreover, Dr. Watts added, when Twitter feeds are abuzz with concerns about Ebola, that may spur public health officials to do more to beat back the outbreak. “If panic on social media gets world health authorities to pay attention and devote serious resources to a problem, it’s probably a good thing,” he said.

Ebola
Social Media
Fatalities,casualties
CDC


Mets’ R.A. Dickey Appears on ‘Daily Show’ as Mets Discuss His Fate

Abstract: R. A. Dickey hails from Nashville, but in many ways New York has become his adopted home. It is where he has produced a surprising and triumphant new chapter for what had been a long, winding and often frustrating baseball career. But on Tuesday, in a quirky twist evocative of his signature knuckleball pitch, Dickey was in Manhattan, making an appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” while his baseball fate was being discussed, and perhaps decided, back in Nashville, where the baseball winter meetings are under way. Dickey, the National League Cy Young Award winner, has one year remaining on his contract with the Mets , and he is seeking an extension. But the Mets, intent on addressing the numerous holes in their lineup and without the money to pursue big-name free agents, seem open to the idea of trading Dickey now for some talented young players. So as Dickey appeared on the show with Stewart, who is a longtime Mets fan, he sensed that his days with the team might be numbered. So did Stewart, who seized on the seeming absurdity of the Mets trading away a Cy Young winner and jokingly wondered: “This tremendous story, this tremendous success, I guess my question is, how will the New York Mets screw this up?” Dickey has embraced New York and has said he wants to remain with the Mets, despite the team’s flaws. But he is 38 years old, has been around and is well aware that baseball is a business. He also knows that general managers like the Mets’ Sandy Alderson are hired to build winning clubs, even if it means trading popular players. “Sandy is paid to make the Mets better, and if I can help him do that by being traded, then that’s what’s going to be done,” Dickey said after the show ended. “That’s their job and I understand it.” As he talked with Stewart, Dickey sounded less than enthusiastic about the prospect of playing somewhere else, even though any team he is traded to is likely to be in a better position to compete in 2013 than the Mets will be. “I’m hoping to be here,” he told Stewart. “I love it here.” After the show, Dickey conceded that he had little insight into where he will play next year. “I’m not privy to what’s being talked about in the suites at the Opryland Hotel,” he said, referring to the site of the winter meetings. “I wish I could say there was a percentage attached to it, like 60-40 I’ll stay, or 50-50 I’ll go, but I’m just not there.” Whatever the odds, Dickey, who does not have a no-trade clause in his contract, said he would rather learn his fate now — when he can have more time to prepare, move his family and potentially negotiate a contract extension with a new team — than to be dealt away in the middle of the 2013 season, right before the July 31 trading deadline. And what he really does not want, he said, is for the Mets to keep him but not sign him to a contract extension that would stretch several years. “It’s tough to reconcile coming back on a lame-duck contract,” he said of the prospect of playing for the Mets in 2013 without any guaranteed future beyond that. “It’s kind of like them saying, ‘Oh well, we don’t really want you around, we tried, but it’s not worth it to us.’ That’s a bad dynamic.” Back in Nashville, Alderson and Dickey’s longtime agent, Bo McKinnis, met rather surreptitiously Monday night in the parking lot outside the meeting hotel. Their talk did not appear to produce great progress toward a contract extension. Indeed, on Tuesday afternoon, Alderson maintained to reporters that the Mets wanted to hold on to Dickey but that he was unsure if the sides could find a compromise that would allow that to happen. “I think that remains to be seen,” he said. McKinnis spoke separately to reporters and said the negotiations to date had been cordial but that a gap remains on dollar amounts for a contract extension. Dickey, McKinnis added, has adjusted to the idea that he may be traded. He said it would just be another unexpected twist in an unusual career. “When it first came up, it was a shock, like, ‘Hey, we’ve got a good thing going on here, how could this even be brought up?’ ” said McKinnis, who spoke to Dickey on the phone shortly before he taped the “Daily Show.” “His words to me on the phone were, ‘Sandy’s got a job to do, and if part of that job is trading me, then I’m fine with it.’ ” During the show, Stewart even joked that Dickey might become the first player to be traded while on the air. And then, a little while later, the show ended. Dickey was still a Met, but maybe not for much longer.

Baseball
New York Mets
Dickey R A
Trades (Sports)


Martínez Is Pleased With Test

Abstract: JUPITER, Fla., Aug. 27 — Pedro Martínez ’s normally pinpoint control was not present Monday night. He threw far more balls against the Class A Palm Beach Cardinals than he had in any of his other rehabilitation efforts. Yet Martínez said that was a good thing. “I was able to throw all my pitches,” he said after giving up one unearned run in six innings for the St. Lucie Mets and throwing strikes on 52 of his 88 pitches. “I’m sure if I would have just thrown fastballs and curveballs, I would have thrown more strikes. But the idea is to get command of all the pitches.” Concerned about his cut fastball and changeup after his last start, Martínez said he significantly improved on each. Despite those positive steps, Mets Manager Willie Randolph said that Martínez would make another minor league start before joining the Mets. Martínez said: “I’m not going to go against anything they say. If they feel they need me, I’m pretty sure they’d take their chances with me.” In his previous three minor league starts, Martínez’s one constant was his control. He threw only 19 balls in 63 pitches in his first game, 13 in 60 pitches in his second, and 20 in 72 pitches last week. Perhaps Martínez’s most impressive inning last night was the sixth, when he walked the leadoff hitter and then gave up a double. After retiring the next batter on a groundout, Martínez was visited by St. Lucie Manager Frank Cacciatore, who asked him to walk the next hitter to load the bases. “I said, ‘No, this is the situation I want, to see if I can make pitches,’ ” Martínez said. “I want to test myself.” He struck out the next hitter and then induced an inning-ending flyout. The Mets did not appear concerned that none of Martínez’s pitches have hit 90 miles an hour in any of his four minor league starts. He reached 88 on three occasions Monday night. General Manager Omar Minaya has said that Martínez got through a sizable portion of last season throwing only around 85 m.p.h. Martínez said: “When velocity is needed, I’ll click it. If it doesn’t come, then I’ll try to get by with what I can do.”


120 Multistate Outbreaks: Tip of Iceberg in Food-borne Infection

Abstract: The E. coli infections linked to the Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant chain are only the latest cluster of illnesses caused by contaminated food. To be sure, the Chipotle outbreak was large. As of Dec. 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 52 people had been infected in nine states and 20 had been hospitalized. But there was nothing unusual about such incidents. As of Nov. 23, an outbreak of E. coli traced to a sample of diced celery and onions sold at Costco had infected 19 people in seven states. Five people had been hospitalized, and two had developed kidney failure. By Dec. 2, Salmonella from nut butter spread had infected people in nine states. According to an analysis published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report last month, there were 120 multi-state outbreaks of food-borne infection from 2010-14 — an average of one every two weeks. Video A 1993 E. coli outbreak linked to Jack in the Box hamburgers sickened 700 people and drew new attention to the dangers of food-borne illness. More than 20 years later, how far have we come? Every state in the country has been affected, along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and the outbreaks led to 7,929 illnesses, 1,460 hospitalizations and 66 deaths. Fruits, vegetable row crops like lettuce, beef and sprouts were the main sources. But seeded vegetables, dairy products, chicken, fish, eggs and turkey have all been contaminated. Imported foods accounted for only 18 of the outbreaks, so experts did not blame poor hygiene in foreign countries. Widespread food-borne outbreaks are being identified more often, partly because of better surveillance and reporting, and because of the greater centralization of food processing and distribution practices. Although they accounted for disproportionate numbers of serious illness and deaths, the 120 multi-state outbreaks were in a sense the tip of the iceberg. Over the five-year period, the C.D.C. reported 4,163 cases of food-borne disease outbreaks, or an average of more than two a day. More than 71,000 people were sickened, 4,247 were hospitalized, and 118 died. “These outbreaks are a big problem and our goal is to prevent them,” said the lead author of the report, Samuel J. Crowe, an epidemiologist at the C.D.C. “We want to detect quickly, trace the food back to its source, and learn where the food was contaminated.”

Infection
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Salmonella
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Food Safety
Epidemic
E Coli
CDC


Maldives: Commission Rejects Claims of Ex-President

Abstract: A commission in the Maldives concluded Thursday that the resignation of President Mohamed Nasheed in February was legal and that he had not been forced to step down at gunpoint as he claimed. Mr. Nasheed rejected the findings released by the commission of national inquiry, and his supporters resumed street protests on Thursday. Mr. Nasheed resigned after public protests and a loss of support from the military and the police. The commission was set up to investigate allegations that mutinying police officers and soldiers had forced him to resign.


Stanford Sisters Nnemkadi and Chiney Ogwumike Share Bond

Abstract: FRESNO, Calif. — The play-by-play sheet did not mark the exact moment, and there was no telephone changing booth in sight. Just the same, Nnemkadi Ogwumike somehow switched from Stanford teammate to Super Sister the split second Chiney Ogwumike crumpled with a yelp to the hardwood floor of the Save Mart Center on Saturday night. Nnemkadi — she is the big sister — was at her little sister’s side before the official could whistle the play dead. She asked Chiney if she was O.K., and how bad did her bruised knee hurt, and don’t you dare lie to me or I’m telling Mom. Or something along those lines. “When a teammate goes down like that, and then it’s your sister, oh my gosh,” Nnemkadi said. “At that point, I just want to make sure she’s O.K. I’m always focused on making sure she’s O.K.” Satisfied Chiney was truthful about her pain levels, Nnemkadi reached down and pulled her up by the hand. She helped her to the bench, then quickly flipped the switch back to Stanford teammate mode in the Cardinal’s 76-60 victory over South Carolina in the Fresno Region of the N.C.A.A. tournament. Of course, Chiney was going to be fine, bulky knee brace and all. Nnemkadi, who scored 39 points against South Carolina, has seen to it all these years. So if Chiney falls again Monday night, Nnemkadi will make sure she gets up as the top-seeded Cardinal play No. 2 Duke in what Chiney calls a “nerd on nerd” regional final to determine a place in the Final Four. “It’s not just when I fall,” Chiney said. “When I miss a shot, anything, she’s the first one there. She knows exactly what’s going through my mind. She can read my emotions. First of all, she’s, “You O. K.? O.K. then, get up. “You always feel safe because you know she is always with you.” Not exactly always, but only 21 months separate them from birth. Nnemkadi is a senior, Chiney a sophomore. By age 2, Chiney would pull the pacifier out of her mouth to warn Nnemkadi that whatever she was doing in the back seat of the car, she was in danger of getting a spanking. Once home, Nnemkadi would dare Chiney to play household games involving serious risk of elbow scrapes or rug burn. After all, she would reason, all the cool sisters are doing it. “I was always pressuring her to do things she didn’t want to do,” said Nnemkadi, who declined to identify the roughhouse games because it wasn’t clear their parents had found out yet. “I’d say, ‘Come on, Mom’s not here,’ just dangerous games around the house. I always wanted to play. She wanted to sit down and watch the news on TV. It was weird. “Now she’s the one who is more imaginative, and I’m the one trying to tame her a bit.” So goes the dynamic of their sisterhood. One minute, Nnemkadi is asking Chiney if she is O.K., like the time Chiney broke her nose during one of their high school games. Once convinced the injury was not life-threatening, she told her to get up and put a face mask on, there was a game to play. In this tournament’s opener, Nnemkadi again switched from starting forward to a first-responder sibling when Chiney bruised her knee. She has grown into quite the mother hen. “Once she tells me she’s O.K., that’s usually a good sign because Chiney exaggerates a lot,” Nnemkadi said. “It may take six or seven times of me asking before she actually tells me, but then I can relax a little bit. “She’s my sister. The instinct comes natural.” Their mother, Ify Ogwumike, drilled this thought process into their pre-basketball minds early on. Sisters are sisters, and everyone else comes second. Chiney needs a ride? Nnemkadi picks her up. They want to play sports? Then they will play together. Chiney was given the choice of where to play college basketball, but how could she not follow her sister from Texas to Stanford? Nnemkadi is all she has ever known, and Ify likes it that way. “I’ve always shared with them that they’re all they have,” Ify said. “I even joke with them once in a while that if you have to choose between me and one of your sisters, always choose one of your sisters. They’ve always heard that from me. “They are so close to the point that, oh my gosh, I hope one can function without the other.” The Ogwumike sisters are about to find out. Nnemkadi is headed to the W.N.B.A. the moment this tournament ends — maybe Monday, and no later than the Final Four this weekend in Denver. Chiney has two years of college to play. Soon enough, Nnemkadi must hand over the keys to their car and let Chiney drive herself around campus. Good thing Chiney got a GPS for her birthday, or she’d be lost. “Not a lot of people get to play with their sister, so this is something special and I think about it all the time,” Nnemkadi said. “I just don’t want our last game together to be until three games from now.”

Ogwumike Nnemkadi
Ogwumike Chiney
Stanford University
NCAA Basketball Championships (Women)
Basketball (College)
Duke University


Afghan Police Chief Is Killed as He Tries to Turn Tide Against Taliban

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — A hard-charging Afghan police chief with deep experience in Afghanistan ’s long conflict with the Taliban was killed in a blast on Sunday in the country’s eastern Nangarhar Province, which has been under threat from the Taliban and affiliates of the Islamic State. The police chief, Gen. Zarawar Zahid, was visiting an outpost in the Hisarak district when explosives placed near the outpost detonated, according to Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar. One of General Zahid’s bodyguards was wounded, Mr. Khogyani said. More Than 14 Years After U.S. Invasion, the Taliban Control Large Parts of Afghanistan At least one-fifth of the country is controlled or contested by the Taliban. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing, according to a statement by the insurgency’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid. The attack came a week after twin bombings outside Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense killed at least 40 people , including several senior security officials. Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, has faced mounting security perils over the past couple of years, with new Islamic State affiliates complicating the threat from the Taliban. Zabihullah Zmarai, a member of the provincial council, said the Islamic State posed a danger in five districts, despite repeated operations by the Afghan Army. “Out of the 22 districts, only six are secure,” he said. The Taliban’s presence across nearly a dozen districts varies, Mr. Zmarai said. But the Hisarak district faced a collapse in recent weeks. That drew the attention of General Zahid, who had gone there to supervise a counterattack. Over the past decade, he rose from a bodyguard to a well-regarded police chief of several volatile provinces. His postings included two stints as the police chief of southeastern Ghazni Province, and one term each in Zabul and Paktika Provinces. General Zahid was seen as a hands-on commander, often arriving at the front lines unannounced. When a major cultural event drew world leaders to the ancient city of Ghazni, the general was photographed riding around the city on the back of a motorcycle to check on security measures. He had been wounded twice and had lost two brothers during the decades of war in Afghanistan. In June, he took part in clashes with Pakistani forces that erupted on the border. In a Facebook video that he posted, he appeared beside two mortars and shouted to his men, “Strike hard enough to blow up Nawaz Sharif’s home,” referring to the prime minister of Pakistan. Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, called General Zahid “one of the bravest commanders of Afghan police.” “He lost his life on the front line of duty in the fight against terrorism,” Mr. Sediqqi said.

Taliban
Afghanistan
Nangarhar Province
Zarawar Zahid
Bombs
Terrorism
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


How Health Plan Turns Supply-Side Ideas Upside Down

Abstract: BARACK OBAMA is, in many ways, the left’s answer to Ronald Reagan . Both came to office as charismatic and self-confident leaders, elected in times of economic crisis and determined to move the economy in a new direction. What is less obvious, however, is that the signature domestic issue in President Obama ’s first year in office — health care reform — is shaping up to be the antithesis of President Reagan’s supply-side economics . The starting point for Ronald Reagan was the idea that people respond to incentives. The incentives that he most worried about were those provided by the tax system. According to his budget director, David A. Stockman, Mr. Reagan would regale the staff with stories of how he, as an actor, used to alter his work schedule in response to the tax code. “You could only make four pictures, and then you were in the top bracket,” Mr. Reagan would say. “So we all quit working after four pictures and went off to the country.” The key economic concept here is the marginal tax rate, which measures the percentage of a family’s incremental income to which the government lays claim. During Mr. Reagan’s time in office, the top marginal tax rate on earned income fell to 28 percent from 50 percent. The verdict on supply-side economics is mixed. The most striking claim associated with the theory — that cuts in marginal rates could generate so much extra work effort that tax revenue would rise — is unlikely to apply except in extreme cases. But substantial evidence supports the more modest proposition that high marginal tax rates discourage people from working to their full potential. Mr. Reagan’s behavior as a movie actor is a case in point. President Obama has said he wants to raise marginal tax rates on high-income taxpayers. Yet under his policies, the largest increases in marginal tax rates may well apply not to the rich but to millions of middle-class families. These increases would not show up explicitly in the tax code but, rather, implicitly as part of health care reform. The bill that recently came out of the Senate Finance Committee illustrates the problem. Under the proposed legislation, Americans would have the opportunity to buy health insurance through government-run exchanges. Depending on a family’s income, premiums and cost-sharing expenses, like co-payments and deductibles, would be subsidized to make health care more affordable. A family of four with an income, say, of $54,000 would pay $9,900 for health care. That covers only about half the actual cost. Uncle Sam would pick up the rest. Now suppose that the same family earns an additional $12,000 by, for example, having the primary earner work overtime or sending a secondary worker into the labor force. In that case, the federal subsidy shrinks, so the family’s cost of health care rises to $12,700. In other words, $2,800 of the $12,000 of extra income, or 23 percent, would be effectively taxed away by the government’s new health care system. That implicit marginal tax rate of 23 percent is a significant disincentive. And it comes on top of the explicit marginal tax rate the family already faces from income and payroll taxes. Altogether, many families would face marginal rates at or above the 50 percent level that animated the Reagan supply-side revolution. One might hope that such a large climb in marginal rates is a bug in the Senate Finance bill, one that could be fixed before the legislation became law. But there is no simple fix. Higher marginal tax rates are an integral part of the Obama health plan. Here’s why: Health reformers start with the problem that some people are expensive to insure, because of pre-existing health conditions. Their solution is to require insurers to sell insurance to everyone (a policy called guaranteed issue) at the same price (called community rating). This solution, however, causes another problem. For healthy people, insurance is now a bad bet. A person without significant medical needs has an incentive to wait — to buy insurance later if and when he gets sick, a decision that raises the cost of insurance for everyone else. This problem, according to the reformers, calls for another solution: a mandate requiring people to buy health insurance. But this mandate leads to yet another problem. Requiring an expensive purchase like health insurance can be onerous for low-income families. So the health reformers offer subsidies. Which brings us back to marginal tax rates. If large health insurance subsidies were offered to all Americans, regardless of income, the program’s cost would be exorbitant, requiring substantial increases in explicit taxes. So, instead, the subsidies are phased out as income rises. As a result, we get implicit marginal rates like those in the Senate Finance bill. NONE of this necessarily means that health reform is not worth doing. President Obama’s push for reform is premised on the belief that access to good health care should be a right of all Americans — a proposition better judged by political philosophers than economists. But we should not forget the cost of translating that noble aspiration into practical policy. As a matter of economic logic, President Obama’s goal of universal health insurance cannot help but undermine former President Reagan’s goal of lower marginal tax rates. Future generations of Americans may find health insurance more affordable, but they will also find hard work less financially rewarding.

Economics
Income
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Taxation
Reform and Reorganization
Law and Legislation
Senate Committee on Finance
Obama Barack
Reagan Ronald Wilson


Mets Fall to Nationals Despite Homer by Bay

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As the Mets ’ season limps toward its conclusion, the progress of individual players will take the spotlight from actual wins and losses. Manager Terry Collins said late Saturday night that he knew for all the hills his players climb, there would inevitably be some valleys. Collins had just seen both. Jason Bay ended his 19-game home run drought with a game-tying blast in the sixth, but the Mets lost to the Washington Nationals , 8-7 , after a disastrous save attempt by Bobby Parnell, who is auditioning to be the Mets’ future closer. “It’s a work in progress,” Collins said of Parnell’s transition into the closer role. “Hopefully he’ll learn from it and move on.” With the Mets leading in the bottom of the ninth, 7-6, Parnell gave up a single to Jesus Flores, and after throwing a wild pitch, he walked Jonny Gomes. Ian Desmond advanced the runners on a bunt, and the Mets elected to walk Roger Bernadina to face Ryan Zimmerman. Although Parnell shattered Zimmerman’s bat with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball, the ball landed softly beyond the glove of Lucas Duda, scoring two runs and sending the Nationals to victory. “It hurts to walk off the field with your head down,” Parnell said. “That’s not an enjoyable feeling.” Parnell’s implosion nullified some positive moments for the Mets. For 19 games, Bay had failed to hit a baseball with the power needed to clear a ballpark fence, a skill that has earned him considerable wealth as a professional player. The way his season has gone, he may go 19 more. But for a brief moment Saturday night, Bay made a significant contribution with his bat, slamming a two-run homer that helped the Mets draw even, 6-6, with the Nationals in the sixth. Bay, who was 10 for 71 with 18 strikeouts in the 19 games since his last home run, is one of the more contemplative players in the Mets’ clubhouse. But even he has been at a loss to explain his struggles. The home run will be barely a blip in the scheme of his dreadful season. But it represents a small reward for the energy he has expended of late to remedy his ills. Bay spent several hours last week watching video with Dave Hudgens, the Mets’ hitting coach. The two compared his current swing with the motion he used during his most successful seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox. Hudgens said before Saturday’s game that he was not trying to get Bay to emulate his past swing. He explained that almost every player’s motion changes naturally over time. Rather, he would like Bay to regain the general “feel” of his earlier swing, beginning with its free, “whipping” movement. Bay, whose average remained at .230, said he was pleased to see signs of progress, however small. “I kind of feel like I’ve been working on the same things over the last few days, and it’s nice to get a result,” Bay said. “It kind of felt like the old me.” Bay’s homer was his only hit in the game, but it helped erase a six-run deficit created by starter Dillon Gee. After giving home runs in each of the first two innings, Gee allowed a three-run homer to his counterpart Tom Milone, a 24-year-old left-hander making his major league debut, which made the score 5-0. “I definitely wish I could have it back,” Gee said of his fastball to Milone. “I didn’t do my part tonight.” The pitch was the first Milone had seen in his first big league at-bat, and for a while, it appeared he was off to a storybook start. He baffled the Mets early, keeping them off balance with a wide array of pitches that dipped and tumbled, none of them faster than 90 m.p.h. But the Mets started to erase the deficit in the fourth. Angel Pagan sent a two-run double to right field, and one out later Nick Evans homered to left to cut the Nationals’ lead to 5-4. The Nationals padded their lead with a solo home run in the fifth. But after Bay’s homer tied the game in the sixth, the Mets went ahead, 7-6, in the seventh. But in the ninth, Parnell and the Mets hit what Collins might call a valley. INSIDE PITCH Johan Santana resumed his comeback from a torn capsule in his left shoulder with a rehabilitation start Saturday afternoon for the Class A Port St. Lucie Mets. Santana threw 30 pitches, 21 for strikes, during two innings of work.

Washington Nationals
Baseball
New York Mets
Bay Jason
Parnell Bobby


Death Sentences Surge, Even as More Countries Drop Capital Punishment

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — The death penalty is steadily receding toward the dustbin of history worldwide, with fewer than two dozen countries relying on it at all as a form of punishment. Yet a handful of countries have been especially eager to mete out capital punishment, including against those convicted of nonlethal crimes, while some countries that had discontinued capital punishment have resumed the practice, especially in what they consider to be terrorism cases. All told, in 2014, at least 2,466 people were sentenced to death — a 28 percent increase from 2013, according to an annual tally by Amnesty International . Among the leading executioners in the world are the archrivals of the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, it was Saudi Arabia’s execution of a Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, on Saturday that led to an unraveling of diplomatic ties between the two nations and raised apprehensions of a widening sectarian crisis in the region. China leads the world in executions, according to human rights groups, although no recent figures are available because death sentences are a state secret. The United States and Iraq round out the list of the top five countries that resort to capital punishment. They are in a minority of nations. A total of 105 countries have abolished the death penalty, with Suriname and Mongolia the latest to do so. According to the United Nations, 60 other countries allow for the death penalty but have not carried it out in a decade, making them what the United Nations calls “de facto abolitionists.” Image The death chamber in Huntsville, Tex., in 2008. Credit Pat Sullivan/Associated Press Only 28 countries have retained capital punishment on their books and used it in the last 10 years. “It is a troubling paradox that while the majority of countries have abandoned the use of the death penalty, the overall number of those sentenced to death has been increasing recently,” said Ivan Simonovic, the United Nations assistant secretary general for human rights. “Terrorism offenses and drug-related offenses seem to be the driving arguments behind this increase, although there is no evidence of its deterring effects,” Mr. Simonovic said. In 2014, Saudi Arabia executed at least 90 people, according to Amnesty International. A separate tally, kept by Human Rights Watch , said that Saudi Arabia put to death 158 prisoners last year. Among the charges against Sheikh Nimr was “inciting sectarian strife.” Mr. Simonovic said his execution was in breach of an international covenant, which allows for the use of capital punishment only in the most serious crimes. The Saudis, however, contend that the sheikh was involved in terrorism. Saudi Arabia is an elected member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, stopped short of criticizing the kingdom, expressing only his “disappointment” with the executions. He said he had conveyed his opposition to the death penalty in a telephone call with the Saudi foreign minister on Monday. Iran has been even more ardent in using the death penalty, executing at least 289 people in 2014, including for drug offenses, according to the Amnesty International report. Among the most recent executions in Iran was that of a woman convicted of killing her husband, whom she was forced to marry at 16. Some countries have returned to using capital punishment after suspending the practice for many years. Jordan and Pakistan resumed executions late in 2014, mostly in terrorism cases. Pakistan has put to death an estimated 300 people since then. Image A woman was taken after being sentenced to death in Beijing in 2001. China is the top executioner in the world. The total number of death sentences it issues is a state secret, but the United Nations estimates that China executed 6,687 people from 1999 to 2003. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images That year, Egypt, on more than one occasion, sentenced several hundred citizens to death , many of them supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood who had participated in violent political protests in which a police officer was killed . The United Nations says China carries out the largest number of executions, estimating that 6,687 people were put to death there from 1999 to 2003. While the United States is one of the top five executioners, there has been an effort among state governments to limit the use of the death penalty (the federal government still uses it, though rarely). At least 12 states have a moratorium or an official hold on the use of the death penalty, and in several others, courts are considering challenges to execution by lethal injection, according to the Death Penalty Information Center . Twenty-eight people were executed in the United States last year, continuing a six-year decline. India, the second-most populous country in the world, still has the death penalty, too, and last used it in July to execute one of the central figures in a deadly series of bombings in Mumbai in 1993. The condemned man, Yakub Memon , was only the fourth person executed in India since 2000, although in 2014, three men convicted of raping a photojournalist in Mumbai were sentenced to death under new sex crime laws . In the Islamic world, the authorities often argue that capital punishment is justified under Shariah law . But the punishment is used on virtually every continent. In South America, for instance, Trinidad and Tobago retain the death penalty, as do several countries in Africa, including Guinea and Zimbabwe. The Saudi executions did not figure in a Security Council statement that was issued Monday evening. The statement condemned the ransacking and burning of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. The Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdullah bin Yahya Almoalimi, told reporters Monday evening that the 47 prisoners executed on Saturday had been charged in a variety of crimes, including sedition and aiding terrorists. He said he expected support from the Council in the form of a statement condemning the attacks on the Saudi consulate.

Capital punishment
Amnesty International
Iran
Saudi Arabia
China
UN


Respect for Torre Found Even in Boston

Abstract: CLEVELAND, Oct. 18 — Terry Francona, the Boston Red Sox manager, has known Joe Torre since Francona was 8 years old. When Francona’s father, Tito, was with the Atlanta Braves in 1967, he became teammates with Torre. Terry was just a boy buzzing around the clubhouse, but he immediately developed respect for Torre. Those feelings have never left. So, as Francona sat in the Red Sox dugout before Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians on Thursday, he said it felt strange to know that someone he had respected and enjoyed competing with was no longer with the Yankees . “I’ve always had a lot of respect for Joe,” Francona said. “Everyone can talk about Joe and have their opinions, but he’s a gentleman. He’s always been a gentleman.” As a testament to Torre’s 12-year legacy with the Yankees and the way that he has been intertwined with the Red Sox, three of the first five questions that Francona fielded during a pregame news conference were about Torre. The Red Sox were trying to keep their season alive, but they were still asked about what had happened with the former manager of their biggest rivals. “It will be weird to not see him in the Yankee dugout,” Tim Wakefield said. Francona was preparing for the do-or-die game Thursday when Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein told him that Torre had rejected the Yankees’ one-year, $5 million offer with bonuses. Francona did not discuss Torre’s decision or the offer, but said, “I hope Joe is happy.” Meanwhile, Eric Wedge, the Indians manager, was more direct. Wedge called Torre, who won four World Series titles, “one of the greatest managers of all time.” Then Wedge complimented the principled way Torre handled himself. “I know there’s a business side of it, but, from what I understand, for him to look at that day and say no, good for him,” Wedge said. After the Red Sox shocked the Yankees by rallying from a 3-0 series deficit to snare the 2004 A.L.C.S., Torre called Wakefield in Boston’s clubhouse. Since Wakefield had given up Aaron Boone’s game-winning homer in Game 7 of the 2003 A.L.C.S., Torre wanted Wakefield to know he was happy for him. Wakefield said Torre’s call was classy. “I have so much respect for him as a manager that I hoped to be able to play for him at some point in my career,” Wakefield said. “I’ve talked to guys who have played for him, guys like Johnny Damon. They say he’s the best.” Bob Watson, who was the Yankees’ general manager when Torre won his first title in 1996, said he was not surprised that Torre left. “It’s time,” said Watson, who was apparently referring to everything Torre had endured in 12 years with George Steinbrenner, the principal owner. But Jim Leyritz, one of Torre’s former players, who has admitted that he did not have a strong relationship with Torre, said he was surprised that Torre turned down a chance to return for 2008. Leyritz wondered if Torre wanted a two-year contract because that would have presumably enabled him to manage the team when it opened its new stadium in 2009. “I actually thought the one-year rocking-chair tour would be a good way to send him out and a good way for Joe to walk into the sunset,” Leyritz said. “Where it started with him being fired, it went to him having a chance to make $8 million if he won the World Series.” Leyritz played general manager, too, and said Don Mattingly was the “only logical choice” to follow Torre. “Donnie is the only guy with the star power,” Leyritz said. Francona said he had conversations with Torre during all six series this season, even if they did not necessarily chat in front of the news media. When Francona was asked if he would contact Torre, he said Boston needed to win Game 5 “or I might be getting the phone calls. Joe might be calling me.” About an hour later, Francona said he would call Torre in a few days. But, a few minutes after that, Francona asked a New York reporter for some help. “If you talk to him, could you give him a message?” Francona said. “Let him know I was asking for him.”

Francona Terry
Torre Joe
Baseball
New York Yankees