A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

Abstract: Many boldface names enabled the stratospheric rise of the blood-testing start-up Theranos: two former secretaries of state, a former secretary of defense, two former senators, a retired admiral, venture capitalists, scientific luminaries and a prestigious clinic. None has been more important to Theranos than Walgreens. The sprawling drugstore chain, now a part of Walgreens Boots Alliance , was Theranos’s first — and thus far only — direct-to-consumer retail partner, promising to eventually make Theranos’s “wellness centers” an integral part of its more than 8,000 stores nationwide. When it announced the deal in 2013, Walgreens hoped to drive traffic to its stores and bask in the reflected glow from one of Silicon Valley’s hottest unicorns and its youthful founder and glamorous chief executive, Elizabeth Holmes. For unproved Theranos, the Walgreens endorsement was akin to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Theranos’s valuation vaulted to $9 billion and put Ms. Holmes on the Forbes list of billionaires. Nearly three years later, with Theranos under siege on multiple regulatory fronts and its reputation in tatters , it’s clear that the relationship has been a disaster for Walgreens. The company has been trying to distance itself, halting expansion of Theranos testing in its stores and, in January, threatening to end the partnership if Theranos did not meet regulatory standards within 30 days. But that deadline has come and gone. With this week’s news that Theranos is under criminal investigation for, among other things, possibly defrauding Walgreens and other investors, the question is: What will it take for Walgreens to end its troubled relationship? While the legal agreement between Theranos and Walgreens isn’t public, legal experts said nearly all such contracts have a termination clause that anticipates something can go wrong. (If this one doesn’t, Walgreens would have a good case for suing its lawyers for malpractice.) Video Maria Shriver discusses her “Today” show interview with Elizabeth Holmes, the chief executive of Theranos. Credit Credit CNBC And any contract can be voided if it was induced by a material misrepresentation — such as Theranos’s overstating the capabilities of its nanotechnology — even if it was an innocent mistake. “I’d be shocked if Walgreens doesn’t have a contractual right to terminate the contract right now,” said George Triantis, an expert on contract design and dispute resolution at Stanford Law School. Walgreens declined to comment. It’s easy to see why Walgreens would have been so infatuated with Theranos and its revolutionary scientific promises. When the deal was announced, a news release trumpeted Theranos’s claim that its “kind, minimally invasive collection” technology using blood drawn from a “tiny finger stick or microsample” would revolutionize blood testing and empower consumers, not to mention attract them to Walgreens stores. The Wall Street Journal reported that Walgreens was so eager to cement the relationship that it lent Theranos money, acquired warrants to buy Theranos stock and skipped its usual due diligence when evaluating a pharmacy partner. The report was confirmed by a person involved in the relationship who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of continuing investigations and the likelihood of litigation. Not that Walgreens would have learned much: Theranos was as secretive about its technology with Walgreens as it was with everyone else. Walgreens eventually opened 40 Theranos wellness centers in Arizona in a pilot program, and one in Palo Alto, Calif., close to Theranos’s headquarters. The companies sealed their relationship in November 2013 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the opening of a Theranos wellness center in Scottsdale, Ariz., attended by Ms. Holmes; Gregory Wasson, chief executive of Walgreens at the time; and Mayor Greg Stanton of Phoenix. Mr. Stanton, too, jumped on the too-good-to-check bandwagon, hailing Theranos’s “revolutionary lab testing program that makes diagnosis of illnesses fast, inexpensive and convenient.” Theranos’s claim that it could run the full gamut of blood tests on a microsample from a finger prick using its own breakthrough technology proved to be grossly exaggerated, if not entirely false. At most, Theranos performed a few tests using such technology, and recently has been using tiny samples for only one out of every 240 tests. The accuracy of even those few tests has been questioned. Last year, Walgreens said it would halt any expansion of Theranos wellness centers in its stores. After federal regulators warned Theranos in January that practices at its California lab “pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety,” Walgreens stopped Theranos testing at its location in Palo Alto and said no patient samples collected in Arizona could be sent to the California lab. Video James B. Stewart, on CNBC, talks about the struggling relationship between Walgreens and Theranos. Earlier this month, federal regulators said they planned to revoke the license for Theranos’s California lab for failing to meet minimum standards and proposed banning Ms. Holmes from owning or running any lab for two years. This week brought news of the criminal investigation into whether Theranos misled investors. In every case, Walgreens was blindsided, the insider told me, learning the bad news from media reports or from regulators rather than Theranos itself. This has hardly endeared Theranos to its ostensible partner’s directors and executives. Theranos declined to comment. Walgreens hasn’t disclosed the amount of its investment in Theranos, saying only that it isn’t material. But the reputational damage, especially for a drugstore chain trying to reposition itself as a champion of consumer health and well-being, has been considerable. “It’s obvious they’d love to get out of this,” said Ross Muken, a senior managing director at Evercore, an investment bank, and head of its health care research team. “It’s an unwanted distraction for a company that otherwise seems to be on the mend.” The Walgreens executives responsible for the Theranos deal, including Mr. Wasson, as well as the chief financial officer and the president of the company’s pharmacy unit, have all been replaced, forced out in 2014 by activist investors after Walgreens acquired the European drugstore chain Alliance Boots. But their departures had little to do with the ill-fated partnership with Theranos, whose troubles became public after they left. “I don’t know that you can really blame them, given how secretive Theranos has been,” Mr. Muken said. “They’re not molecular biologists.” Nonetheless, he added, “this is another black mark on what was already a checkered record of delivering for shareholders. Now the new team has to get out of this.” Theranos’s lawyers have taken a hard line, insisting that Walgreens is contractually bound by their agreement. So far, the approach has worked. Walgreens appears to have taken a cautious approach toward terminating the relationship, perhaps preferring to wait until federal regulators impose penalties or the criminal investigation yields formal charges, either of which would strengthen Walgreens’s hand. But that could take years. Theranos can appeal any penalties, and a grand jury investigation could be a protracted process. And Theranos is likely to sue Walgreens in any event if it terminates their agreement. In the meantime, Walgreens risks being dragged into nearly every negative story about Theranos. “A host of things can go wrong in these kinds of partnerships,” Professor Triantis said. “There are two general ways to deal with the risks: One is to sue for damages if this happens. But the much better way is to terminate the contract and the relationship rather than risk even more damage to reputation.”

Theranos
Blood
Drugstore
Elizabeth Holmes
Medical test
Lawsuits
Gregory D. Wasson


Bomb Kills 8 Afghans Escorting NATO Convoy

Abstract: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Amid concerns about security for next month’s presidential elections in Afghanistan, a remote-controlled bomb exploded in the troubled southern province of Helmand and killed eight Afghan contractors escorting a NATO supply convoy on Tuesday, officials said. The Interior Ministry in Kabul said four other guards were wounded when the explosives detonated close to Gereshk in the northern part of Helmand Province. The security guards were in two vehicles on the main highway between Herat and Kandahar. Dawoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial authorities, blamed the Taliban. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Helmand Province is a Taliban stronghold where a force of American, British and other forces have been fighting for a several weeks in an offensive designed to help create more security for the Aug. 20 presidential elections. Amid the heavy fighting, though, coalition casualties have risen sharply, with at least 69 allied soldiers, including 32 Americans, killed this month. That number includes the deaths of two British soldiers on Monday, bringing Britain’s monthly toll to its highest point since the war’s start in 2001. The bodies of four British soldiers killed recently were flown home on Tuesday, their coffins proceeding in what has become a familiar, silent ritual through streets lined with people in the town of Wootton Basset in Wiltshire on their way from a nearby air base. The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, sought on Monday to assuage concerns among the British people about the purpose and prospects of the Afghan war, which has been going on since the American-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. But a survey published in The Independent newspaper on Tuesday said 58 percent of British respondents believed the war was unwinnable and 52 percent wanted the 9,000 British troops there — the second-largest contingent after the United States — to be withdrawn immediately. Mr. Miliband said military pressure must be accompanied by political moves to strip away support for the Taliban among Afghans. “It is only when the cooperation, passive and active, of ordinary Afghans is removed that the insurgency will be fatally undermined,” he said in a speech to NATO allies in Brussels. “The squeeze on the Taliban must come from within as well as without.”

Afghanistan
Bombs and Explosives
North Atlantic Treaty Organization


Britain: Couple Is Convicted of Planning Bomb Attack

Abstract: A husband and wife were convicted Tuesday of planning to bomb civilian targets in London to mark the 10th anniversary of the July 7, 2005, attacks on the city’s transit system. Mohammed Rehman, 25, and his wife, Sana Ahmed Khan, 24, were found guilty at the Old Bailey court. Prosecutors said Mr. Rehman was only a few days away from finishing work on a bomb capable of causing mass casualties when the police moved in on May 28. They say he had been stockpiling chemicals and had detonated a small practice device in his backyard. The authorities said he had used the name Silent Bomber to ask Twitter followers to help him choose a target, writing: “Westfield shopping center or London underground? Any advice would be appreciated greatly.”

Bombs
Great Britain
Criminal Sentence
Terrorism


Looking for Any Signs at Obama-Bayh Meeting

Abstract: ELKHART, Ind. — When Senator Evan Bayh introduced his colleague Senator Barack Obama , the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, at a town-hall-style meeting here on Wednesday morning, there was more scrutiny of the interaction between the two men than would be usual at such an event. That was because Mr. Bayh’s name is said to be on the short list of candidates Mr. Obama is considering as his running mate. The reasons for Mr. Bayh’s apparent presence in the inner circle of potential ticketmates are varied, and they say something about the nature of the 2008 race and the correlation of forces within the Democratic Party. In contrast to Illinois, Mr. Obama’s home state, neighboring Indiana has not supported a Democrat for president since 1964, when it was part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide victory. But in this election, it is considered a battleground state. Many Republicans crossed over to vote Democratic in the May 2 primary, and there is some thought that putting Mr. Bayh on the ticket just might be enough to make this red state and its 11 electoral votes turn blue. During the primary campaign, Mr. Bayh, 52, not only supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, he was also one of her national campaign co-chairmen and described her in an advertisement as having “a spine of steel.” But his roots and popularity in Indiana run deep. His father, Birch Bayh, served three terms in the United States Senate (losing in 1980 to Dan Quayle, the last Indiana native to serve as vice president). And Evan Bayh served two terms as governor of Indiana before being elected to the Senate in 1998. Still, there was not much to parse Wednesday at the event here, which focused, as have all of Mr. Obama’s public appearances this week, on energy independence. Mr. Bayh introduced Mr. Obama as “my friend, our neighbor” and they embraced on the stage, Mr. Obama patting Mr. Bayh on the back and smiling warmly. But a stop later in the day, at Schoop’s Diner in Portage, exemplified the sometimes-feverish and ultimately undecipherable speculation that has been swirling around Mr. Bayh. He and Mr. Obama entered together, and, according to a pool report, after Mr. Obama ordered four cheeseburgers, a local reporter yelled out, “What does the V.P. want?” Mr. Bayh smiled and said, “You’re causing trouble.” At that, another reporter asked about the speculation and Mr. Bayh said, “Nothing today.” In fact, he added, the subject of the ticket did not come up on their bus ride to the diner. Instead, he said, they spoke about sports and family. And Mr. Obama remained as mum on the subject during a conversation with reporters Monday night during a flight from Boston to Ohio, when he deflected a question about his leanings. Which is exactly why there was so much attention paid to body language and nuance when Mr. Bayh was in his company on Wednesday.

Presidential Election of 2008
Bayh Evan
Obama Barack


In Emotional Season, the Colts Never Broke

Abstract: INDIANAPOLIS — Coach Chuck Pagano began giving out the links of a chain before the first game of the Indianapolis Colts’ season. It was before they had reason to think he was doing anything more than trying to make a metaphor real, to bind a team of youngsters and castoffs, a few remaining veterans and those imported to be part of what Pagano refused to call a rebuilding but instead labeled a renovation. As he handed a link to each player, Pagano delivered his message. “He said you could be the last one, you could be the first one, but don’t be the missing one,” defensive end Cory Redding said. “Everybody on that team, when new guys came in, they got a link. We needed everybody to stay strong.” The players still have their links. Redding’s is on a chain. Safety Tom Zbikowski keeps his in his bag. Punter Pat McAfee’s is with his car keys. But on that late summer night, Pagano did not account for one link, the one he became a few weeks later: unseen, but strong enough to keep the team he had bound since spring workouts from failing when everything around it seemed to be falling apart. The giant inflatable Colts player that welcomed Pagano back to work after his nearly three-month leave for leukemia treatment was gone from the team headquarters’ snow-covered lawn last week. The only reminders of Pagano’s ordeal are a small Chuckstrong sign in a locker room, the tiny orange stickers with his initials on each players’ nameplate, the hair on his head that is slowly growing back and the streams of text messages he sent from the hospital, late at night or in the middle of games, advising his players to take shorter steps on a punt or cursing them for allowing so many rushing yards. Pagano, coaching in absentia after his treatment began during the fourth week of the season, guided one of the most inspiring performances in an N.F.L. season; almost everyone but the Colts says they overachieved. The Colts won seven games with second-half comebacks from a tie or deficit, and it seems fitting that their season will come full circle in Baltimore, where Pagano was the defensive coordinator last season and where the Colts will play the Ravens on Sunday in an A.F.C. wild-card game. “Guys had talked about it from Day 1, when we all got together in the off-season, we laid out our goals and expectations,” Pagano said in an interview last week. “We said just because of all the turnover and change, this guy is gone, that guy’s gone, we weren’t going to let anything determine the outcome of our season and how we played the game. So sitting back and watching, starting with the Green Bay game, all they knew was 60 minutes, all you’ve got, one play at a time. Don’t look at the scoreboard, don’t judge, just play hard. And expect something really good to happen when you do that.” In Week 5, the Packers game was the first of the Colts’ comeback victories and the first game that Pagano watched from a distance. That made him feel powerless, despite the dry-erase board with the depth chart hung in his hospital room, despite the iPad the team loaded with practice film. Even before Pagano’s illness, the Colts were the longest shot in the league. Their wrenching separation from Peyton Manning last March, after a two-win season that cost Jim Caldwell and Bill Polian their jobs, dominated the headlines while their remaking of the roster flew under the radar. When the Colts take the field against the Ravens, only 17 players on the 53-man roster will have been with the team last season. (Eight additional players on injured reserve were with the Colts in 2011.) Image Deji Karim, who last month was working as a parking attendant, went 101 yards on a kickoff in Week 17 for the Colts. Credit Aj Mast/Associated Press Among the new players is Jerrell Freeman, one of the league’s most productive linebackers, who was General Manager Ryan Grigson’s first signee. Freeman is an alumnus of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, which was a Texas women’s college until 1971 and played its first football game in 1998, and the Canadian Football League. A more recent addition is kickoff returner Deji Karim, who was working a month ago as a hotel parking attendant in Oklahoma City. Twenty-eight Colts will be making their first playoff appearance, including 14 rookies or first-year players, and as many as five rookies could start on offense on Sunday. It fell to the offensive coordinator, Bruce Arians, to hold them together during Pagano’s absence. Practice times and routines were not altered. Pagano made a point of staying in touch with his players. Redding said he received this text at halftime of a game: “If you read this at halftime, set the freaking edge.” McAfee said he had so many conversations and exchanged so many texts with Pagano that he wondered: “Don’t you have something you should be doing? Shouldn’t you be beating leukemia right now?” Arians talked to Pagano almost every morning, then delivered Pagano’s message to the team. Redding said it was almost as if Pagano were using sign language with Arians as his interpreter. “B. A. has been around football a long time,” quarterback Andrew Luck said. “He’s seen most everything and knows how to handle situations. I think he understood what Chuck’s message was so well, it seemed seamless to us that he could continue that message. It wasn’t an abrupt change. It sort of felt like Chuck was never gone, almost. It was interesting to see him on the sideline again — oh, my gosh, that is Coach. I guess it is back to the routine.” Pagano would like that. He wants to stop talking about his illness: the diagnosis, the chemotherapy, the migraines and the night sweats. Reviewing it when he returned, before the final regular-season game, was emotionally exhausting. The pregame ceremony to welcome him back produced sustained applause from the Houston Texans and almost brought Pagano to tears. Now he is ready to get back to something closer to normal, to return to the thrilling mundanity of preparing for a playoff game. In the rush to return to work, Pagano, whose plight had motivated the Colts, allowed himself to wonder if his presence might upset their balance. But for the Colts, it has become impossible to separate inspiration from maturation. “I think camaraderie is something that is overlooked a lot,” McAfee said. “Chuck’s big thing at the start of the year was, ‘We’ve got to become a team, a family.’ It was like our dad getting sick, so we all had to rally together for something that was bigger than us. It really brought our team together, especially for a young team that doesn’t know much about each other.” When his leukemia, a treatable form, was diagnosed, Pagano asked his doctor for the odds and the game plan for his care. When he got to work last Monday, Pagano said, his world was back to normal. His doctors cautioned him not to overdo it, but Pagano re-immersed himself immediately in the details of coaching, getting the update on the weather and the grass conditions for practice, then bounding around in the bitter cold to take it all in. “It’s almost surreal,” Pagano said. “When you’re going through it, the days are long. Three months later, you sit back, and I’ve had time to reflect with my wife and family, and it’s almost like, ‘Did we actually just go through what we went through?’ “I said there was never a doubt I would beat this and be back with my team. I didn’t know when that would be, but I’d be back. I told them there was never a doubt in my mind ever since we got together that this team could accomplish anything they set their minds to accomplish. When you have a faith and belief in something and you come together the way this team has come together as a family, the sky’s the limit. There was never a doubt I would beat my illness, and never a doubt whether you were down one score, two scores, all the comebacks we had, never a doubt you guys could get it done.” Pagano got it done, too. During the months he was sick, the chain did not break. He was not the missing link.

Colts
Chuck Pagano
Football
Playoffs
Bruce Arians
Andrew Luck


Judge Hears Arguments on Legality of Detroit Bankruptcy Filing

Abstract: DETROIT — It is hard to picture a city in worse financial shape than Detroit, where decades of mismanagement and misfortune led to the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy filing. But while the city’s filing in July unmasked its fiscal problems, it also raised thorny legal issues that threaten to derail the bankruptcy case before it gets started. At issue are whether Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan had the authority to force Detroit into Chapter 9, and whether his decision violated the state’s constitutional protection of public employee pensions. Those and other topics will be the subject of hearings this week during the critical eligibility phase of the federal bankruptcy case. Judge Steven Rhodes of United States Bankruptcy Court, who will rule on eligibility, has already split the case into two parts. On Monday, Judge Rhodes concluded three days of heated testimony on legal questions surrounding the case. And starting Wednesday, he will hear evidence about whether Detroit is truly insolvent and cannot pay its bills, and whether its state-appointed emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, negotiated in good faith to settle an estimated $18 billion in debts before recommending to Mr. Snyder that the city file for bankruptcy. Because of the size and complexity of Detroit’s case, it is being closely watched by other cities around the country that might also consider bankruptcy as a means to avoid huge pension obligations. “This is one of those moments when one could look back and say this is where Chapter 9 changes,” said Babette Ceccotti, a lawyer for the United Auto Workers union, which represents some Detroit city workers affected by the bankruptcy. The U.A.W. and other unions have argued strenuously that Mr. Snyder overstepped his authority by supporting a bankruptcy filing that puts employee pensions at risk. In the first set of hearings, which began last week and concluded Monday, lawyers for the unions said state officials were required to abide by Michigan’s Constitution and protect the pensions of 23,000 retired Detroit city workers. Judge Rhodes questioned whether the bankruptcy filing by itself jeopardized the employee pensions. “Do you have to wait for the emergency manager to propose a plan to cut pensions?” he asked. Claude Montgomery, a lawyer representing a committee of retirees, said the judge could pre-empt any attack on pensions by upholding the state’s constitutional protections. “You are the keeper of protection for the retirees,” Mr. Montgomery said. “You are the one who can stop it from happening.” Mr. Montgomery and lawyers for the unions said Mr. Orr had already suggested a plan to cut pensions during negotiations with unions before the filing. The judge asked the city’s lead bankruptcy lawyer, Bruce Bennett, if such a plan was under consideration. “The city did make a proposal that contemplates cuts to the underfunded pensions,” Mr. Bennett said. “This was an out-of-court proposal.” Mr. Bennett, who will be a principal advocate for the bankruptcy during the eligibility hearings, said pensions cannot be treated differently from debts to bondholders and other creditors. “The purpose of this Chapter 9 case is to adjust the city’s debts,” he said. “That means all of the debts.” The lawyers for the unions and retirees also challenged the nature of Michigan’s emergency-manager law , which has been used to take control of several financially troubled cities in the state. The law violates “home rule” provisions allowing the citizens of Detroit and other cities to choose their form of government, said Sharon Levine, a lawyer for the local council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “The breadth of the powers granted the emergency manager is inappropriate,” she said. “It doesn’t allow the wholesale takeover of the city.” Lawyers representing Michigan’s attorney general said that Detroit voters chose state legislators who had a voice in whether the law was enacted. Margaret Nelson, an assistant state attorney general, said the law was narrowly defined to help cities solve their financial woes. “This is essentially a temporary situation,” she said. “This isn’t the state dictating how the city is going to operate forever.” It is uncertain how the debate over Mr. Snyder’s authority and the emergency-manager law will affect Judge Rhodes’s ultimate determination on the city’s eligibility for bankruptcy. But the question of whether Detroit was forced into Chapter 9 illegally by state officials is central to the objections of the unions, retirees and some residents. Beyond that, the unions are expected to argue this week that Mr. Orr has overstated the size of Detroit’s debts and the shortfall in the financing of its employee pensions. Mr. Orr is expected to be the key witness for the city. He will most likely explain in detail the dismal state of city services, like street lighting and police protection, and Detroit’s chronic inability to pay its bills. He may also cast a harsh light on how pension funds were mismanaged, including the practice of handing out extra cash to active and retired workers in years when the funds had a surplus. Union leaders are also likely to testify in the hearings. They are expected to challenge Mr. Orr’s assertions that he bargained fairly for concessions in the weeks leading up to the Chapter 9 filing.

Detroit
Bankruptcy
Rick Snyder
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Steven W Rhodes
Kevyn D Orr


At Upstairs in Upper Montclair, a Fresh Approach — Review

Abstract: SURPRISE isn’t on the menu at Upstairs , a new restaurant and bar drawing crowds to a second-story space in Upper Montclair. But it might as well be. From the barely there signage to the super-soft opening, it arrived in July like a secret that took months to reveal itself, and then almost entirely by word of mouth. Upstairs is above Dai-Kichi, a longtime Japanese restaurant on Valley Road. When you ascend the blue-lighted glass staircase, you may be stopped short by the décor, with its undulating ceiling and glass-slab bar. Or by the bartenders shaking up cocktails like the Mad Hatter, a concoction of bourbon, muddled orange and simple syrup flavored with pecan. All that is nothing, though, next to the food, arranged simply in plates small and large, which are reshuffled every few weeks, rewarding even devoted regulars with something new and, above all, fresh. An aversion to doing the same thing every day seems to be the overriding dictum of the chef at Upstairs, Dave Van Morrelgem, 34, a Montclair native. He started cooking at age 10 with recipes from his aunt’s copies of Food & Wine magazine, then learned his craft in kitchens across the Northeast, before burning out, he said, at a country club at the Jersey Shore. He spent the past few years building cabinets. And for a chef, Mr. Van Morrelgem is as humble as a carpenter: “I’ll never have a sauce named after me,” he told me in a phone call after my visits. But his insistence on using seasonal produce as much as possible — witness the beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips, fennel and kale popping up all over the menu now — gives Upstairs a sense of constant renewal that may just make a name for him yet. Then there is freshness, as in made from scratch: Mr. Van Morrelgem doesn’t just cure his own lamb sausage, which is redolent of fennel, juniper and mustard; he slow-cooks the garlic confit that goes into it. He smokes his own duck bacon just to sprinkle it on top of his decadent Gorgonzola toast; he works for days to make his duck rillette, emulsified with garlic, shallot and pickled mustard seed, and matched with an apple gastrique. He soaks cherries in bourbon just to counterpose them against his mouthwatering, many-colored, many-splendored torchon of foie gras. He braises short ribs just to toss them into a ragù for his homemade tagliatelle (so good that my wife ordered a second portion). He is also frugal, pickling odds and ends — beets, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, fennel, even the stems of Swiss chard — for a small plate that makes a nice, cool refresher before a meaty serving of comfort food. Like the pork chop: A double-cut, 14-ounce slab soaked overnight in a honey-flavored brine, then briefly cold-smoked and simply grilled, it’s served with a sweet-potato gratin, scalloped and baked in heavy cream, maple syrup and a purée of house-smoked, roasted and ground chipotle peppers. The garlic confit and chipotle also flavor the accompanying sautéed kale, as do cider and lemon juice. And a little candied bacon, flavored with maple syrup, mustard and bourbon, sweetens the chop to within an inch of too much. The rib-eye is none too shabby, either — 14 ounces of prime beef humbly grilled with olive oil, salt and pepper, sliced and served with a buttery, vinegary parsnip purée and sautéed shiitake, oyster and cremini mushrooms. Apples cooked in butter and ginger, and scented with rosemary and thyme, elevate the simply seared, flaky tilefish. And the only shortcoming of the snapper was its underwhelming size by comparison; it was seared to give its skin crunch, served with arugula salad dressed in lemon aioli and accented with a couple of caperberries. The fish was paired with red bliss potatoes, first boiled, then sautéed with garlic, shallots and herbs, and then smashed, giving them both creaminess and crunch. Upstairs was built by Aki Kaneda, the owner of Dai-Kichi, who intended the new place as a high-end Japanese steakhouse. But Mr. Van Morrelgem and Scott Hirschberg, a classmate from Montclair High and fellow restaurant journeyman, persuaded Mr. Kaneda to go in a different direction. They’ve been taking one challenge at a time — it took them several months to get a walk-in refrigerator, for example, and they had no full dessert menu on my visits (though they were serving coffee). But their selection of gelatos from Sotto Zero , in North Arlington — which changes daily, of course — made for an adequate end to an otherwise excellent meal. Me, I’d rather skip dessert and have another tagliatelle — or maybe another cocktail. Upstairs 608 Valley Road Upper Montclair (973) 744-4144 upstairsmontclair.com DON’T MISS THE SPACE Renovated second-story space with sleek modern finishes and surprises even in the bathrooms. (Spoiler alert: Heated seats!) Seating for 18 in the bar, 12 on high stools opposite the open kitchen, 30 in the dining room in the rear. Wheelchair users, there is no avoiding the imposing staircases in the front and back. THE CROWD Generally in their 30s and older, from the neighborhood and beyond. THE BAR Original cocktails and retro favorites, $8 to $10. List of 43 wines (13 white and 30 red), $32 to $185, with 16 by the glass, $8 to $14; 19 bottled beers, heavy on the German and Belgian, $5 to $8. THE BILL Small plates, $6 to $14; large plates, $23 to $33. Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover accepted. WHAT WE LIKED Pickled vegetables, duck rillette, foie gras torchon, lamb sausage, tilefish, tagliatelle, blue cheese toast, pork chop, rib-eye, snapper. IF YOU GO Dinner: Tuesday to Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 5 to 10 p.m. Kitchen closed Monday. Reservations recommended. Ample parking on street or in lot in rear. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother.

Restaurants
New Jersey
Van Morrelgem Dave
Upper Montclair (NJ)
Upstairs (Montclair NJ Restaurant)
Upstairs (Montclair NJ)


Raw Milk Sales Could Reinvigorate U.S. Dairy Farms

Abstract: For four generations the Gibbs family milked cattle on their farm in a fertile valley in Allamuchy Township, New Jersey. Facing dismally low milk prices, Frank Gibbs and his sons, Brant and Keith, struggled this year to continue the tradition. But a month ago, they sold off their entire herd of nearly 200 cows. They are not the only ones. There are now fewer than 100 New Jersey dairy farms, less than a third of the number 10 years ago. One potential solution had eluded them, because the sale of higher-priced “raw,” or unpasteurized, milk is illegal in their state. In September, the uniform price paid to a New Jersey farmer for pasteurized milk was $1.11 per gallon, or roughly four liters. That is 66 cents less than in July of last year. According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group for organic foods, dairy farmers who sell unpasteurized milk directly to the customer currently command $5 to $7 per gallon. “There’s no middleman, and people are willing to pay a premium for raw milk and related products,” said Sally Fallon Morell, president of the foundation. “As the dairy crisis gets worse, raw is becoming more and more attractive.” The market is relatively small in the United States because the Food and Drug Administration banned the interstate sale of raw milk 22 years ago. The agency calls unpasteurized milk and related products “inherently dangerous,” warning that they could contain a host of potentially lethal pathogens, including salmonella, E. coli and listeria. But individual states regulate how unpasteurized milk is produced, bought and sold within their borders, and just over half allow its sale in some form. Now, the weak market for pasteurized milk and its effect on dairy farmers is motivating some states to reconsider their ban. Ms. Fallon Morell estimates that as many as one million people in the United States regularly consume unpasteurized milk and that the number is “rising very quickly,” reflecting trends toward organic and locally produced food diets. In Pennsylvania, 122 dairy farms hold raw milk permits, the most of any state. The number has tripled over the last three years, and state officials say another 40 permits are pending. Kimberton Whole Foods, a Pennsylvania health food store, gets in five shipments — a total of about 240 gallons — of raw milk a week from two dairy producers and is about to enlist a third. Terry Brett, the store’s owner, said that its sales of unpasteurized milk have doubled over the last five years. Pennsylvania is one of just eight states nationwide in which consumers can purchase raw milk in grocery stores. In May, a hearing was held on a bill that would allow for the sale of raw milk in neighboring New Jersey. Of the 30 or so farmers, consumers and health professionals who testifiedbefore the Assembly’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, most were in favor of overturning the state ban. “This is a consumer choice bill in so many ways, and it would help make our dairy farms competitive,” said Marcia Karrow, a state senator and the bill’s sponsor. “It’s so easy for consumers who want raw milk to travel across the river to Pennsylvania or over the border to New York, where its sale is legal, and cut our farmers out.” Brant Gibbs said his farm was selling “the same thing as when I graduated from high school in 1981, but operating at 2009’s costs.” “Selling raw milk would be the only way that we could ever get back into dairy,” said Cristianna Gibbs, Mr. Gibbs's wife and a municipal health officer. “We need to get back to basics. People want to know where their food comes from.” At least one farmer who testified at the hearing, though, was concerned that the slightest case of illness from raw milk could be disastrous for the entire dairy industry. Margery Eachus, who owns a seventh-generation farm in Salem County, said that far from saving farms, raw milk could “hurt all of us.” Raw milk advocates say that pasteurization kills enzymes and bacteria that are nutritionally beneficial and aid in digestion and diminishes vitamin content. Studies that they cite link raw milk consumption to lower instances of tooth decay, infection, allergy and asthma. However, John Sheehan, director of the F.D.A.’s division of plant and dairy food safety, is adamant that raw milk enjoys “no health benefits not also attached to pasteurized milk.” In his testimony before the Maryland House of Delegates in March, Mr. Sheehan said that “raw milk should not be consumed by anyone, at any time, for any reason.” As an exception, the FDA permits the sale of cheeses made from raw milk, so long as they are aged for at least 60 days; as a cheese ages, its acid and salt help destroy pathogens. But even as some states contemplate revising their raw milk prohibitions, U.S. laws surrounding cheese may become more stringent. The 60-day aging requirement is no longer thought to be effective, Mr. Sheehan said, and is currently under review. In the Canadian province of Quebec, a listeria outbreak in the fall of 2008 was traced to unpasteurized cheese. One person died; more than 30 became ill. Authorities in the province recalled 27,000 kilograms, or nearly 60,000 pounds, of cheese from hundreds of producers before identifying the two believed responsible for the outbreak. Producers say that millions of dollars worth of cheese was destroyed and that cheese counters and shops were closed for up to a month and a half. “The government was very drastic in the way they handled things because it was hard to know at the outset who the carrier was and immediate action had to be taken,” said Pierre Nadeau, chief executive of the Quebec Dairy Council, an industry group. Though the Quebec government said that it would not compensate individual merchants, it did announce a three-year aid package worth 8.4 million Canadian dollars, or $8 million, to help revive its cheese industry, including interest-free loans for struggling producers. In addition, the agriculture ministry began to institute monthly inspections. “These free tests have been a tremendous help to producers because the government is showing them how to take the proper precautions,” said Mr. Nadeau. But some cheese makers say that, far from being a help, Quebec’s new regulations are driving artisanal cheese producers out of business. They call the inspections “excessive” and denounce the province’s microbiological standards as more rigid than even those in certain American states. “Right now the government is killing the raw-milk cheese sector in Quebec,” said Louis Arsenault, president of the Artisanal Cheese Maker’s Association of Quebec and co-owner of La Fromagerie des Grondines. Mr. Arsenault said that under the pressure of new scrutiny, half of the province’s two dozen raw-milk cheese producers have made the switch to pasteurization. “If they’ve stopped making raw-milk cheese, it’s because the Mapaq was harassing them and they could no longer support it, financially,” said Mr. Arsenault, using a French acronym for the ministry. “Quebec’s severe rules regarding, in particular, levels of E. coli, make it so that many of our cheeses can’t be commercialized. But according to standards in Europe, they are perfectly fine.” In the United States, the F.D.A.’s aging requirement has meant that young raw-milk cheeses, like fresh goat cheese or Brie de Meaux, cannot be imported from Europe either. A U.S. import alert from the 1980s prohibits France from exporting soft and soft-ripened cheeses to that country if they are not made from pasteurized milk in plants certified by the French authorities, even if they have been aged for more than 60 days. French cheese makers lament the fact that supplying the American market means contributing to the decline of their long raw-milk cheese tradition. Some feel the same in Quebec, even though, ironically, about a month before the listeria outbreak, Quebec announced a new regulation that would allow for the sale of raw-milk cheese aged less than 60 days — the only one of its kind in the country. The law, from July 2008, is still in effect. But so far, only one cheese maker has acquired a permit to sell young unpasteurized cheese. Michel Houle, interim assistant director of the Quebec ministry’s inspection coordination unit, said that other cheese producers were preparing to take advantage of the new regulation but that their facilities “just aren’t ready yet.” “If you don’t have the 60-day requirement, then you need to replace it with controls on the raw materials and the finished products,” he said. “There are a lot of conditions attached to this law.” But artisanal cheese producers see the delay as a turnabout by the government. “The Quebecois government said it was opening the doors to us,” Mr. Arsenault said. “But after the crisis, they decided to close the door, literally. It’s sad because our province has always been a pioneer in the world of dairy, and we producers could have done some great things.”


55 Colleges Named in Federal Inquiry Into Handling of Sexual Assault Cases

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday released the names of 55 colleges and universities under investigation for their handling of sexual assault complaints, an unusual step meant to increase pressure on the institutions to crack down on the problem on their campuses. It was the first time that the Department of Education had made public a comprehensive list of colleges under investigation for potential violations of federal antidiscrimination law under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 . The law prohibits gender discrimination at colleges that receive federal money. The colleges under investigation include Ivy League institutions like Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton; other private universities like Boston University, the University of Chicago, Swarthmore and the University of Southern California; and public universities including Florida State, the University of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. The list also included less well known institutions like the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. The list was made public three days after the White House released a report drafted by a sexual assault task force aimed at pressuring schools to better comply with federal law and prevent sexual attacks. “We are making this list available in an effort to bring more transparency to our enforcement work and to foster better public awareness of civil rights,” Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant education secretary for civil rights, said in a written statement . The Education Department announced on Monday that Tufts University in Boston had failed to comply with the federal law by allowing a sexually hostile environment to persist at the institution. The finding, which was the result of an investigation by the department’s Office of Civil Rights into a 2010 complaint by a student who said she was sexually assaulted, determined that Tufts had “failed to provide a prompt and equitable response” to complaints of sexual harassment and violence as required by the Title IX law. The Obama administration, which has stepped up enforcement of civil rights laws, zeroed in on colleges and universities after a series of highly publicized assaults on campuses. The problem has also been a focus on Capitol Hill as lawmakers have taken on sexual assault in the military, where similar cultural issues and institutional truculence have bedeviled the process. “Today’s move by the Department of Education is an important, helpful step for students and their parents, who until today had no way of knowing whether their school was under investigation for Title IX violations,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who plans to conduct a survey of 350 colleges and universities nationwide to monitor their handling of sexual assault cases. “We’ll continue working to help schools provide the highest level of responsiveness and protections for victims and to require the federal government to provide the highest level of transparency on compliance and enforcement.” The White House task force found that nearly 20 percent of female college students have been assaulted, but that only 12 percent of cases are reported. It concluded that many women feared that their reports might become public, discouraging them from coming forward. The task force recommended that colleges provide better assurance of confidentiality to those who report such crimes; conduct standardized, anonymous surveys on campus assaults; and replicate a program at the University of Kentucky and other colleges that train bystanders in how to intervene. Since 2011, when the Education Department sent a letter to universities warning that they needed to better follow up on sexual assault complaints, an increasing number of students have won large damage awards in sexual assault cases filed against their colleges. The letter emphasized that complaints could be successfully pursued through the department’s civil rights office, which victims say is less cumbersome than using lawyers to file complaints. Universities have typically tried to keep the lawsuits quiet. “Information is power,” said Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who has taken a strong interest in sexual assault in the military and on college campuses. “Which is why I am such a staunch supporter of transparency which leads to accountability.” The White House task force said that the Department of Education would post resolution agreements and compliance findings for these and recently settled cases. Erin E. Buzuvis, a Title IX expert and a law professor at Western New England University, said of the postings, “That will also be hugely valuable to motivate proactive compliance by universities and to provide more blueprints for compliance.” Student activists have led the campaign for universities and the government to be more responsive to the problem of assault on campuses, and more victims have been willing to come forward and discuss episodes that previously tended to be kept quiet. In particular, many student groups are focusing on the legal definition of consent, which can guide universities as they try to adjudicate crimes. “ Using the social media site Tumblr , we uploaded photos giving voice to student reactions to laws and policies that take silence as consent,” Rory Gerberg, a Harvard graduate student who is a founder of a coalition of students to address the university’s sexual assault policy, said in an email. “The definition of consent is a core challenge in addressing campus sexual assault and the larger culture of sexism and gender-based violence that allow it to occur.” Ms. Gerberg added: “Our task is to give voice to the daily forms of violence we too often accept as inevitable. This is precisely why student activism is so important. Since I’ve become a campus advocate numerous students have approached me with their stories.”

College
Civil Rights
Rape
US Department of Education


Dissident Journalist in Yemen Is Shot and Killed

Abstract: CAIRO — One of Yemen ’s best-known dissident journalists, who survived beatings and imprisonment under the former authoritarian government, was shot and killed on Wednesday by unidentified gunmen outside his home in the capital, Sana, according to witnesses and officials. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, which a witness said was carried out by two men on a motorcycle. The victim, Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani, was hit by at least seven bullets, according to a Yemeni security official. Mr. Khaiwani was a longtime supporter of the Houthi rebel movement, which seized the capital last year, setting off one of the worst political crises in Yemen’s recent history. For years, Mr. Khaiwani wrote about the Houthi rebellion against the central government, drawing the ire of officials in Sana. More recently, he acted as a spokesman for the group and served on a senior leadership committee, representing the Houthis’ most liberal wing. In a statement after the shooting, Amnesty International said that, “given the history of intimidation and harassment Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani faced for his outspoken journalism and peaceful activism, his despicable killing today smacks of a politically motivated assassination.” Similar killings have been an ominous hallmark of Yemen’s civil crisis over the last seven months, one that has split the country in half but has not descended into all-out armed conflict. The Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite movement, control the capital and large parts of northern Yemen. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was confined to his house by the Houthis in January, fled to the southern part of the country last month, seeking to re-establish his authority in the port city of Aden. The details of the shooting on Wednesday eerily recalled the assassination in November of Muhamed Abd al-Malik al-Mutawakel, another political activist who was seen as a moderate voice in Yemen’s charged politics. Mr. Mutawakel was also gunned down by men who fled on a motorcycle. The death of Mr. Khaiwani added to the growing list of leftist and liberal activists who have been killed across the Arab world, from Tunis to Damascus, over the last four years — women and men silenced by a violent regional order increasingly dominated by militia fighters, Islamist extremists and vindictive state security forces. Mr. Khaiwani was one of the few journalists in Yemen to shine a light on the government’s brutal war against the Houthis in northern Saada Province, publishing accounts and photographs on his website in defiance of official attempts to hide the fighting from public view. In an interview with The New York Times in 2008 , he said he was working on behalf of the people in Saada, who “wanted to show a real image of what is happening in the war there.”

Yemen
Houthis
Assassination
Murders and Homicides
News media,journalism


Donald Trump Tries to Clarify Immigration Plan, but Avoids Key Issue

Abstract: DES MOINES — Donald J. Trump provided on Saturday a more detailed look at his immigration policy, returning to the issue after a week in which he faced criticism from across the political spectrum for seeming to soften his hard-line position on deporting undocumented immigrants. In a speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Mr. Trump said he would strengthen the system that allows employers to verify the eligibility of workers, and would create an entry-exit tracking system for visas. He also reiterated his promise to cancel “unconstitutional orders” and “executive orders” relating to immigration. But Mr. Trump largely avoided the question that has caused him trouble this week: what to do about the undocumented immigrants already in the country. “All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million people, or more, or less — they have no idea what the number is because we have no control over our country, have no idea what it is, that are here illegally,” Mr. Trump said. His proposals on the employment verification system, known as E-Verify, and on visa tracking, which he said would “ensure those who overstay their visas are quickly removed,” are in line with the approaches put forward by many Republicans, including Jeb Bush and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, two of Mr. Trump’s chief rivals in the Republican primary race, and Mitt Romney, the party’s nominee in 2012. They were also central to legislation proposed by a bipartisan group of senators in 2013. Mr. Trump maintained his hard-line approach to undocumented immigrants who have committed violent crimes, promising that “on Day 1, I am going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country.” He said he would always “err on the side of protecting the American people” when it came to removing such immigrants. Video Donald J. Trump began his presidential campaign with strong language on immigration policy, especially pertaining to Hispanics and Muslims. With less than three months until the election, his tone has softened. Credit Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times To help illustrate his point, Mr. Trump invited the family of Sarah Root, a young Iowa woman killed by an illegal immigrant in a drunken-driving accident , to give brief remarks. The comments on Saturday came after Mr. Trump and his campaign faced a backlash from some of his most fervent supporters, who expressed anger and confusion after he told the Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he would be open to “softening” on immigration, indicating he might let some undocumented immigrants remain in the country legally, though not as citizens. “No citizenship,” Mr. Trump said. “They’ll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes,” he added. “There’s no amnesty, but we will work with them.” He sought to clear that up on Thursday in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “There’s no path to legalization unless they leave the country,” Mr. Trump said in the interview. “When they come back in, then they can start paying taxes, but there is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and then come back.” But he still declined to clarify whether he would forcibly deport the undocumented immigrants who have been in the country and not committed a crime, something he had promised during his primary campaign. Mr. Trump also used the event here, sponsored by Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, to discuss his agricultural policy. Ms. Ernst, a freshman senator who was considered a possible vice-presidential candidate for Mr. Trump, argued that he would keep the country safe. Senator Charles E. Grassley, the state’s senior senator, noted the importance of the Supreme Court vacancy. In his remarks, Mr. Trump also brought up the shooting death of a cousin of the N.B.A. star Dwyane Wade, which he had cited earlier in the day on Twitter , as evidence that he was right about the plight of African-Americans. This time, Mr. Trump’s remarks were more tempered, and he offered prayers and condolences rather than saying, as he had earlier: “Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!” “Just yesterday, the cousin of N.B.A. star Dwyane Wade — a great guy, Dwyane Wade — was the victim of a tragic shooting in Chicago,” Mr. Trump said. “She was the mother of four and was killed while pushing her infant child in a stroller just walking down the street. Shot. It breaks all of our hearts to see it.” He continued: “This shouldn’t happen in our country; this shouldn’t happen in America. So we send our thoughts and prayers to the family, and we also promise to fight for a much, much better tomorrow.”

Donald Trump
Visas
Illegal Immigration
2016 Presidential Election


Shrunken Citigroup Illustrates a Trend in Big U.S. Banks

Abstract: Citigroup became the nation’s first megabank some two decades ago by expanding into new businesses while pushing to knock down barriers that limited its size. A much different Citigroup was evident on Friday as it reported its quarterly results. Business lines like subprime lending, which used to define the company, have all but disappeared. Over the last seven years, Citigroup has sold more than 60 businesses, shedding retail bank branches from Boston to Pakistan. In all, the bank’s holdings have shrunk by $700 billion — an amount roughly equivalent to Switzerland’s economic output. The bank’s chief executive said on Friday that since he took over in 2012, the company’s work force had declined by 40,000 jobs, through layoffs or selling businesses. On the campaign trail, and in the Democratic debate Thursday, the conversation has often returned to an assumption that very little has changed in the nation’s banking system since the 2008 financial crisis. But Citigroup’s financial results were one of many reminders this week of just how much success the government has already had in pushing banks to become simpler and safer, if not always smaller. Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, in their own earnings announcements this week, emphasized how much more of a financial cushion they had built up to protect themselves in a crisis, and how many risky businesses they had jettisoned. The bank presentations this week also indicated that even if Senator Bernie Sanders, Democrat of Vermont, does not win the White House — and is thwarted in his wish to break up the big banks — the companies will still face intense pressure from their regulators and their shareholders to shed more employees and business lines. On Thursday, Bank of America talked about the likelihood of further reductions, while Goldman Sachs is said to be embarking on its biggest cost-cutting campaign in years. All of these moves are a testament to the power of the tools that the regulators have already used, and appear intent to continue using, to change the profile of the biggest American banks. Rather than simply telling the banks to shrink, regulators have used a set of sometimes arcane instruments — like capital requirements — that have quietly but significantly penalized the banks for their size and complexity, and required them to find ways to shrink on their own. Just this week, the top bank regulators wielded a relatively new tool when they told five of the eight largest banks that they needed to develop better plans for winding themselves down in case of a crisis. If the banks do not do so, the regulators threatened to force the banks to shrink even more. Citigroup was the only one of the eight largest banks to have its plan, or so-called living will, approved by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, in large part because of the steps the bank has already taken to slim down. Like the other big banks, it is not yet out of the woods, however. Because of the regulatory penalties for being large, some on Wall Street are questioning whether even in its diminished state, Citigroup is still too large. “You should be selling the silverware in the dining rooms or the paper clips from the desk or the desk chairs or the whole desk,” the banking analyst Mike Mayo told Citigroup’s top executives in a conference call Friday morning. Mr. Mayo’s frustration is a response to the struggles of Citigroup and other banking giants to increase profits under the new regulatory burden they are facing. The results in the first quarter were among the weakest the big banks have reported since the financial crisis, as they struggled with a sluggish global economy and persistently low interest rates. The challenges have pushed bank stocks down this year to their lowest level since 2012. That in turn, has forced bank executives to cut salaries and bonuses, and thousands of jobs, across their business lines. Financial services nonetheless is still among the highest-paying sectors in the country. And more important, the big banks remain behemoths. JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are bigger than they were before the financial crisis. At all the big banks, the risk-taking Wall Street operations still provide a major proportion of revenue and profit. But all of that is being squeezed by the “vise that is the current regulatory environment,” said Brian Kleinhanzl, an analyst with Keefe Bruyette & Woods, an investment bank. Wall Street Earnings: A Grim Quarter for Big Banks It is shaping up to be another grim year for the nation’s biggest banks. They were hit hard by a bad environment for trading and deal-making. Mr. Kleinhanzl has said that Citigroup will probably have to eventually break into smaller pieces if it wants to increase growth under current regulations. Until now, many of the assets that large banks like Citigroup have sold have included a hodgepodge of businesses — student loans, an insurance unit and retail operations in far-flung corners or the developing world. Mr. Kleinhanzl says the bank needs to take more drastic steps, making the case for Citigroup to split its consumer and corporate businesses into two separate companies or sell parts of its profitable Mexican unit. Still, the banks could get a reprieve from many of these pressures if a Republican wins the White House in November. All of the top Republican candidates have called for a reversal of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that has guided many of the recent regulatory actions. Citigroup and the other big banks continue to defend the economic importance of global banks with a wide array of business lines. “We don’t think it’s the time to start selling the furniture,” Citigroup’s chief financial officer, John C. Gerspach, said in response to Mr. Mayo. But at more than a few points, hints of resignation crept into the presentations of the top bank executives as they spoke of the need to submit to the tightening regulatory vise. “We’re trying to meet all the regulations, all the rules and all the requirements,” JPMorgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said on Thursday, after announcing one of the bank’s worst quarters in years. “We’ve been doing that now for five or six years. It’s six years since Dodd-Frank was passed; they have their job to do, and we have to conform to it.”

Citigroup
Banking and Finance
Dodd Frank
Earnings Reports


Fires in California Kill One and Destroy Buildings

Abstract: MALIBU, Calif., Oct. 21 — Wind-whipped wildfires feeding on the driest brush in years erupted across Southern California on Sunday, killing one person, injuring four firefighters, destroying and damaging several homes and scorching thousands of acres. By evening, a dozen fires had broken out from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border, and firefighters strained to keep up and beat back flames that hurricane-force winds blasted over hills and through canyons. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in seven counties, where flames had burned 30,000 acres. Thousands of homes in Canyon Country, north of Los Angeles, were threatened by a fire that had engulfed more than 10,000 acres in a few hours. By early evening, the blaze had already burned several homes and other structures and had led to the evacuation of 800 homes. Residents battled the flames with garden hoses and shovels while others gave up and fled in their vehicles. Television stations showed images of fire descending on structures with little to stop it, and Los Angeles County rushed to shift firefighters there from another large fire in Malibu that had earlier seemed poised for large-scale destruction. Chief P. Michael Freeman of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, speaking at the Malibu fire in the late afternoon, said state and local resources “are trying to deal with all these fires, and we are thin.” Officials have warned for months that the driest year on record has made brush, grown thick from previous wet years, especially susceptible to fires. The only fatality came in a fire in San Diego’s backcountry, in Potrero, one of two blazes that had consumed more than 10,000 acres by evening. Several people were injured in the fires, including four firefighters who were hospitalized in serious condition with burns, said Roxanne Provaznik, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Border Patrol said that several illegal immigrants who had crossed the border might have been trapped in the flames and that a search had begun. Other large fires broke out as the day wore on, recalling a 2003 firestorm that killed 24 people, destroyed 3,700 homes and burned 750,000 acres, the worst such fire in state history. The causes of Sunday’s fires were undetermined, but investigators in Malibu were looking into whether power lines downed by an overnight windstorm played a role. Nearly a thousand firefighters fought to gain control of the Malibu fire, which had burned 1,200 acres by early afternoon in a densely populated area. The Pacific Coast Highway was closed as smoke and flame billowed from the hillsides and canyons opposite beachfront homes. Los Angeles County officials said five homes and a church were destroyed, and other commercial buildings damaged. The fire was fanned by winds of 50 to 60 miles per hour and even higher in passes and canyons. About 1,500 people were evacuated from their homes, with several sent to Zuma Beach, better known as a surfing spot in Malibu. Some beachgoers continued to surf and sunbathe as the fire raged several miles away in this city of 13,000 about 25 miles from downtown Los Angeles. “We’ve got everything on our side except for Mother Nature,” said State Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, who represents the area. Ms. Brownley pointed to weather forecasts that called for no break in the winds for a couple of days and rising temperatures. But Chief Freeman said water-dropping helicopters had made “significant progress.” For a time, the fire here threatened Pepperdine University on the Pacific Coast Highway, but the campus was not evacuated and winds eventually blew the fire away from it. For residents, the fire prompted the all-too-familiar rhythms of fire season: the wind at night, the smell of smoke, the wail of sirens and racing hearts. Mike Weinstock stood outside his beachfront house watching firefighters put out a small fire in a shopping center across the street and a wall of smoke billowing from the main fire a few miles down the highway. The house three doors down had burned overnight, and Mr. Weinstock climbed onto his roof with a garden hose. “I’ve lived here 20 years,” he said, “and I am not going anywhere.” The threat of fire is simply part of life here, he said, with several fires, some much larger and destructive, having swept parts of Malibu over the years. This fire, though, is likely to be remembered as the one that destroyed two landmarks, the Malibu Presbyterian Church and a home known as Castle Kashan or Hodges’ Castle that overlooked the civic center and played host to community functions. Built in the style of a Scottish castle in 1978 that residents considered fabulous or an abomination or both, the home was owned by Lilly Lawrence, a philanthropist and the daughter of a former Iranian oil minister. She had recently put it on the market for $17 million. At Canyon Country, hundreds of people, many with pet dogs, gathered in parking lots and along roadways, watching the flames. Glenn and Claire Reeves left with their children and pet dogs and turtles. “I started loading up pictures of the kids and I saw flames come up the hill,” said Ms. Reeves, watching the fire from a drug store parking lot near her home. “We had less than half an hour to get out.”

California
Forest and Brush Fires
Malibu (Calif)
San Diego (Calif)
Fires and Firefighters


Merkel Away When Crises Came Calling

Abstract: BERLIN — On Sunday morning, Chancellor Angela Merkel watched a grand parade in Moscow marking the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Back home, voters in Germany’s largest state turned out in North Rhine-Westphalia to deal her conservative Christian Democratic Union a crippling defeat. At the same time, in European capitals, one emergency meeting was unfolding after another to formulate a response to the Greek financial crisis. But Mrs. Merkel sat on the podium in Red Square, watching row after row of marching British, French, Russian and U.S. soldiers. Surely, asked some legislators, Mrs. Merkel should have remained in Berlin as the world’s financial institutions, President Barack Obama and E.U. leaders grappled with the Greek crisis that has threatened the existence of the euro and created havoc in the markets. “Merkel was right to attend those celebrations,” said Gerhard Hirscher, a political analyst at the Hanns Seidel Foundation, a conservative research organization. “She was fulfilling her international obligations.” Her domestic obligations are a different matter. When Mrs. Merkel was elected to a second term last September, expectations over her new center-right government were very high. After all, she now had her dream coalition of conservatives and the pro-business Free Democrats in place. She could no longer blame the Social Democrats, her previous coalition partners, for holding up changes. But in the past eight months, the coalition has spent much of the time squabbling over tax cuts, energy policy and changes in health care. “The profile of the government has been blurred by unending discussions,” said Kurt Lauk, a leading Christian Democrat and chairman of the party’s influential economics council. Leading conservative legislators say Mrs. Merkel should have imposed her authority over the coalition instead of tolerating the arguments. “We have failed to tell voters what this coalition stands for,” said Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of the Christian Democrats. Mrs. Merkel had much more going for her. Her coalition had a comfortable majority in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament. And until Sunday, it had a majority in the Bundesrat, the upper house. It represents the 16 German states, which have the final say over most laws. There were no excuses. Yet Mrs. Merkel failed to use both majorities to push through any changes. “She was sitting it out until after the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia before making any big decisions,” said Gero Neugebauer, a political science professor at the Free University in Berlin. Now that her center-right coalition has lost its majority in the Bundesrat, it is too late to implement some of her key projects, like cutting taxes, changing the health system and keeping nuclear power plants online longer. “Had she won the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, she might have used that chance over the next few years to pursue her liberal economic agenda,” Mr. Hirscher said. “But the Greek crisis and the whole debate over the stability of the euro have changed everything. Things are no longer predictable.” That sense of unpredictability extends particularly to European policy. Until recently, E.U. governments had looked to Germany to provide leadership. Indeed, when Mrs. Merkel was first elected in 2005, she broke ranks with previous chancellors by making foreign policy rather than domestic issues her priority. She brokered a major budget deal for Poland during an E.U. summit meeting in 2006. She stood up to Russia in 2008 when it imposed an embargo on Polish meat exports. And she worked tirelessly to get the Lisbon Treaty accepted by the 27-member Union in the belief that the bloc could become efficient. But over the past year or so, Mrs. Merkel’s zest for foreign policy and her commitment to more economic and political integration of Europe has faded. She no longer gives speeches about Europe. Some conservative legislators say this is because Mrs. Merkel senses the growing Euro-skepticism of the German public. Others say she now has to be extremely careful over how far she can push for integration without running up against the country’s Constitutional Court. Last year, the court concluded that Germany’s national sovereignty could be endangered by some parts of the Lisbon Treaty. Katinka Barysch, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, an independent research organization in London, said this partly explained why Mrs. Merkel had taken such a very tough stance against bailing out Greece. “Merkel felt that her hands were tied by very real and immediate constraints,” Ms. Barysch said. “But her cautious and delayed reaction is also in line with a deeper shift in Germany’s European policies. In a European Union of 27, Germans no longer automatically assume that their national interest coincides with that of the Union.” Mrs. Merkel, however, has never defined Germany’s national interests. During the Greek crisis, she stuck to just one issue — the stability of the euro — but without proposing in any detail how the Union could avoid another such catastrophe. On other foreign policy issues, Mrs. Merkel’s profile has been low, too. She has said almost nothing about trans-Atlantic relations, Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda for improving ties with Russia or reducing nuclear weapons. Until recently, she avoided talking about the war in Afghanistan, which is her biggest foreign policy challenge and which is highly unpopular. Indeed, it fell to Bild Zeitung, the conservative-leaning mass circulation newspaper, to ask why Mrs. Merkel never attended ceremonies commemorating German soldiers killed in Afghanistan. She finally attended her first ceremony last month. Yet for all the criticism of Mrs. Merkel by her European and U.S. partners and all the coalition squabbles at home, it would be premature to write her off. While her Christian Democratic Union party continues to lose public support, Mrs. Merkel, so far, remains the most popular politician. “If there is one thing Mrs. Merkel understands, it is power,” said Mr. Neugebauer, the Free University professor. This may be so. But now, more than ever, Mrs. Merkel has failed to answer the question what that power should be used for.

Germany
European Union
Merkel Angela
Economic Conditions and Trends


Last Pass by Favre: A Special Gift

Abstract: Brett Favre threw more passes than anyone in N.F.L. history. The last ball he threw — No. 9,479 — was intercepted by Giants cornerback Corey Webster on Jan. 20. It now belongs to Greg Gadson, a United States Army lieutenant colonel who lost his legs in May while serving in Iraq and who became an inspirational leader for the Super Bowl champion Giants. The ball’s importance in N.F.L. history increased with the news that Favre is planning to retire. His last game was a 23-20 overtime loss to the Giants in the National Football Conference championship game, played in subzero temperatures at Lambeau Field. Favre was 19 of 35 for 236 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. His final pass, on the second play of overtime, came on second-and-8 from Green Bay’s 28-yard line. Favre took several steps back and, under little pressure, flung the ball downfield to his right in the direction of receiver Donald Driver. Webster stepped in front of Driver and intercepted at Green Bay’s 43-yard line. Favre angrily unsnapped his chin strap and walked to the sideline. Webster joyfully gave the ball to Gadson, an honorary team captain who was sitting in a wheelchair on the Giants’ sideline. Four plays later, Lawrence Tynes kicked a 47-yard field goal and the Giants were on their way to the Super Bowl, which they won against the Patriots. “That interception, to this point, was the biggest play of my career,” Webster said in a statement released Tuesday by the Giants. “I gave that ball to Greg Gadson, and he said I could have it back whenever I wanted. But I’ve told him it’s his to keep.” Gadson, 42, was a football teammate of the Giants receivers coach Mike Sullivan at Army in the late 1980s. In Iraq on May 7, he was returning from a memorial service for two soldiers when he was injured in a roadside bombing. Sullivan visited Gadson at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and invited him to come to the team’s September game against the Washington Redskins. Coach Tom Coughlin asked Gadson to speak to the team the night before the game. He delivered a powerful message about the importance of relying on one another for support, and the players responded with a standing ovation. The Giants earned their first win the next day, after a last-minute goal-line stand. After scoring a touchdown, receiver Plaxico Burress ran to Gadson and handed him a ball. Nearly four months later, Webster did the same thing after his interception — Favre’s last pass, as it turned out. “That Saturday practice before the Super Bowl, I told Corey he could have the ball back,” Gadson said Tuesday in a statement. “I said, ‘Just let me know and you can have it back,’ but he told me that he wanted me to keep it, and that really symbolized to me what this Giants team was about. That was such an unselfish act.” The only part of the story that could be considered selfish, of course, was that Webster — now the answer to a Brett Favre trivia question — was the one to catch Favre’s final pass. After all, despite retiring with more interceptions than anyone in N.F.L. history, Favre was not intercepted on 96.7 percent of his passes.

United States Army
Super Bowl
Football
Favre Brett
Webster Corey
New York Giants


At Duke, Krzyzewski’s Message Resonates Across Basketball Generations

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — After Duke secured career victory No. 900 for Coach Mike Krzyzewski last weekend, he took a moment to reflect. One. Then he boarded the team bus and watched the game that would decide his next N.C.A.A. tournament opponent. Such is the Krzyzewski way: understated, methodical, consistent, the force behind 13 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament titles, 12 national coach of the year awards, 11 Final Four trips, 4 national championships and now, perhaps the most implausible milestone of all, 900 wins. Yet when the moment came, Krzyzewski, 64 , reflected on the people who made the number possible. Players. Assistants. Administrators. Bob Knight , his mentor . Knight was the first coach — and before Krzyzewski, the only Division I men’s coach — to reach 900 victories. That Krzyzewski, his former point guard, first matched that achievement seemed improbable, until now. On his weekly SiriusXM radio show, Krzyzewski addressed Knight, said he loved him and admired him. “Yesterday is a day that will never happen again, for anybody, in the history of our game,” he added, referring to their shared accomplishments. Knight retired with 902 wins , a number Krzyzewski could match with triumphs over Arizona on Thursday night here in the Round of 16 and in Saturday’s regional final. From Texas, Knight alternately pitched his prostate cancer awareness initiative — OnTheLine.com — and spun stories of Krzyzewski, before career victory No. 1. When Knight recruited Krzyzewski to West Point in 1966, he asked Krzyzewski to reinvent himself from a high school guard who led his league in scoring to a defensive stopper and distributor. In all his years of coaching, Knight said, Krzyzewski made the greatest transformation of any single player. “He became a totally different entity,” Knight said. “He was observant, and to this day, that’s one of his outstanding characteristics. It helped him do as good a job in college sports as anybody who ever coached anything.” As Tom Butters watched No. 900, he thought back to 1980, when, as Duke athletic director , he phoned Knight looking for a coach. Knight rattled off three names, but Butters instead asked about Krzyzewski, winner of 73 games at Army but only nine the previous season. Butters considered Krzyzewski the best young defensive coach in the country, cut from Knight’s prestigious cloth. Knight told him Krzyzewski possessed all his best coaching qualities, and none of his worst. That was 827 wins ago. “I mean, 900 wins, it’s incredulous, a testament to the coach,” Butters said. “I remember those first three years at Duke. A lot of people didn’t think he’d reach 50 there.” Johnny Dawkins and Jay Bilas saw the latest milestone in different states, but flashed back to the same place. Each graduated in 1986, as members of the recruiting class that turned Duke basketball into the current incarnation, a dominant, envied, in some quarters irritating, force. Dawkins was the key recruit, and even though he described the choice as “easy,” his friends wondered why he did not choose a more established basketball program. In his freshman season, Bilas said, players heard calls for Krzyzewski to be fired. Then Duke started winning. It won the A.C.C. tournament in 1986 and reached the N.C.A.A. final , after Krzyzewski asked Knight to address his team before the tournament. Then came wins 200, 300, 400, one milestone bleeding into the next. Bobby Hurley watched the 1986 team at the Meadowlands, saw Dawkins throw down a two-handed reverse dunk against Navy. Hurley thought, “Maybe I should go to Duke.” Hurley arrived in 1989 and helped Krzyzewski capture his first two national titles, in 1991 and 1992. The speeches Krzyzewski delivered, the stories he relayed, gave Hurley chills. His favorite: Krzyzewski spoke of the pickpocket who went after his mother’s purse and how she chased him off. To Hurley, a presumed protector of the basketball, that story resonated. “It’s amazing how many generations he navigated, how many players he reached,” said Hurley, now an assistant coach at Wagner . “We never thought about the numbers. That’s not how he operated.” For the CBS analyst Bill Raftery, 900 prompted reminders of when he coached at Seton Hall and Krzyzewski coached at Army. Raftery always admired how Krzyzewski prepared for games, his concentration on the smallest details. But he never expected this. Raftery was there in November 2000 when Krzyzewski notched his 500th win at Duke against Villanova . He said he thought, “Wow, 500, incredible.” And now, “He’s going to double it.” Krzyzewski added USA Basketball duties to his Duke responsibilities in 2005. The man who hired him, the USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo, liked Krzyzewski’s military background and the Knight influence. Colangelo heard from those who thought Krzyzewski had taken on too much, but he later insisted it made him a better coach. He learned offensive principles from N.B.A. coaches, borrowed drills, expanded the highest of basketball I.Q.’s. Mike D’Antoni, the Knicks’ coach and an Olympic assistant, said Krzyzewski “is absolutely the best at creating an organization that pulls in the same direction,” while Chauncey Billups, a Knicks guard and an Olympian, described Krzyzewski as “probably the most passionate coach I’ve ever played for.” This season, more than three decades into his Duke tenure, Krzyzewski has proved as adaptable as ever. He lost point guard Kyrie Irving for months to a toe injury, shifted Nolan Smith into that slot, coaxed an exceptional performance from Smith, and deftly worked Irving back into the rotation. Irving made the decisive shot against Michigan for win No. 900 . Krzyzewski drew the play up on the sideline. In that game, Krzyzewski channeled his inner Knight. He screamed at his team during a timeout in the second half. He glared, teeth clenched. Some of the things that he learned from Knight are showing up on branches of the Krzyzewski coaching tree. “I find myself saying some of the same things he said to me as a player, or assistant,” said Dawkins, a longtime Duke assistant and now the head coach at Stanford. “I catch myself, and I laugh, like wow. I can’t believe it, but it kind of comes out that way. It shows you there will always be a connection forever.” Should Krzyzewski advance to another title game, he will pass Knight this season. If not, he will secure the career victories record next season and stretch the total well into the future. “I just don’t see an end to it,” Bilas said. “His style really hasn’t changed, but he seems more active now. More productive. More energetic.” On the satellite radio show, Knight told Krzyzewski, “Before you get carried away now, let me tell you, in the great beyond, somewhere down the road, I’m coaching, and you’re playing, I’m still not going to let you shoot.” “Coach,” Krzyzewski answered, “that’s why we won a lot of games.” Indeed, from Knight to Krzyzewski to Bilas to Hurley to Smith and right on down the line. But Krzyzewski is not concerned with numbers, not 900, 902, 903, or even his 12th trip to the Final Four, which would tie John Wooden for the most in a career. He reached 900 victories by focusing only on the next game. In this case, potential win No. 901.

Basketball
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men)
Duke University
Krzyzewski Mike
Knight Bob
College Athletics
Basketball (College)
NCAA Basketball Championships (Men)
Coaches and Managers
Records and Achievements


Jurgen Klinsmann Stays the Course Despite a Chorus of Doubters

Abstract: PASADENA, Calif. — After years of living in Southern California, Jurgen Klinsmann seems to insert regional jargon naturally into his vocabulary. “Bummer” is a notable favorite. It seemed appropriate, then, how Klinsmann responded to a reporter’s question Friday about recent comments from a former player, Landon Donovan, who had suggested that Klinsmann’s job as coach and technical director of the United States soccer team should be in peril after a string of mediocre results. “It’s totally cool,” said Klinsmann, who is originally from Germany. Yet Klinsmann, always tanned and smiling when facing members of the news media, also offered what seemed like a tacit acknowledgment of the notion that he may have certain shortcomings. He noted that he had played for dozens of coaches of all statures and from all parts of the globe. And, he said, “There’s no perfect coach.” This has been an interesting time for Klinsmann, who has held his job since 2011. He is a year removed from leading the United States to what was generally regarded as a positive World Cup performance in Brazil, almost a full three years before the next one in 2018. But for the first time, he is facing an extended period in which fans and pundits have openly doubted his performance and aptitude, and a 3-2 loss to Mexico outside Los Angeles on Saturday, which allowed Mexico to advance to the Confederations Cup in 2017, will not help matters. It was bad enough that the team had staggered to a fourth-place finish this summer at the Gold Cup, the regional championship. A 4-1 loss in a September exhibition against Brazil seemed to lay bare the various ways Klinsmann and his players were falling short of expectations. Upon joining the program Klinsmann declared that he would create a proactive, attacking team, yet his players lately have looked mostly ponderous. He said the team would have a strong identity, but instead he has tinkered endlessly, without much to show for it. Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer, has said Klinsmann’s job is not in jeopardy. But the chorus of unrest has been unmistakable. Taylor Twellman, who played 30 games for the national team and now works as an analyst for ESPN, said he thought coaches faced a different set of challenges after their first four-year World Cup cycle, with familiarity a primary obstacle to getting the best out of players. Noting that the team had also secured big wins overseas on Klinsmann’s watch, he said a lull could be natural. “A common denominator among players, you hate your coaches,” Twellman said. “It’s the connecting bond between all the players to complain about your coach. And being a coach for a second cycle, players know all your little intricacies, all your motivational tricks.” The same seems to have occurred on some level for fans and members of the news media. Klinsmann himself has always called for more pressure on the team from outsiders — in line with the soccer fervor in other countries — believing his players would emerge as stronger professionals from such a crucible. Klinsmann has always tried to get players out of their comfort zones, but lately the public has seemed to try to nudge him away from this. Donovan’s comments — he implied that Klinsmann had it easy compared with coaches abroad — percolated through social media. Inside the team’s camp, some were quietly bemused by Donovan’s timing. But in public comments, they dismissed the small hubbub as background noise. “I think media is media,” Brad Evans, a veteran defender, said when asked if the criticism carried extra weight coming from a former star. “Now we’re entering a phase where players — good players, ones that played a long time — are becoming pundits, and that’s just the nature of it, the culture shift.” Outside of the camp, though, people in the game generally agreed that punditry and fan frustration could prod officials into action. Mexico, for instance, has cycled through coaches at a comparatively absurd rate. Later this year, Juan Carlos Osorio will become Mexico’s 17th national team coach since 2000. “I think the media can always create stuff and drive firings and people getting hired,” said Carlos Bocanegra, a former national team captain who was hired this year as technical director of the M.L.S. franchise that will begin play in Atlanta in 2017. “Clubs and federations start taking that into account, of course. That’s a given.” But Bocanegra said the first year after a World Cup should allow for some experimentation, allowing young players to compete for time against veterans who might not be around in another three years. He said teams, in this early period, should always strive for wins, but that success was not the only priority. In a recent interview with ESPN, Klinsmann suggested as much, using the example of Ventura Alvarado, a young central defender, as a player he was calling upon, even if the immediate results would probably not be perfect. “So even in a Gold Cup or a World Cup qualifier, I’ll take that risk to give minutes to someone who maybe is not there yet, but I know it’s going to pay off two years from now,” Klinsmann said. Bruce Arena, the national team coach from 1998 to 2006, said fans and the news media focused on results and not always on an understanding of which ones mattered. He said he thought the Confederations Cup, from a competitive standpoint, was “really insignificant” and dismissed friendlies as “a complete waste of time.” “I didn’t worry about it,” Arena said of game-to-game results. Referring to Gulati, he added with a smile: “But the current president is the one who didn’t offer me a new contract after eight years and a lot of success. So I think somebody thinks it means something.” The long-term, hopeful outlook, for Klinsmann and the program, would be that all the doubt and discomfort manifest as a successful 2018 World Cup. “You’re only judged as a national team coach on World Cup qualifying and playing in the World Cup — nothing else,” Arena said. “All the other stuff is meaningless, to be honest with you.”

Jurgen Klinsmann
Coaches
Soccer
Mexico
US Men's Soccer Team
United States Soccer Federation


Red Sox and Ortiz Bombard Blue Jays

Abstract: One day after promising he was “about to get hotter than Jamaica in the middle of August,” David Ortiz hit two towering home runs, and the Red Sox won their fifth straight game Monday night, routing the Toronto Blue Jays, 14-1, in Boston. The homers were the 452nd and 453rd for Ortiz, moving him past the Boston great Carl Yastrzemski into 36th place on the career list. “He’s always hit well in this ballpark, and tonight was another example,” Red Sox Manager John Farrell said of Ortiz, whose 35 career homers at Rogers Centre are second only to Alex Rodriguez’s 36 among visitors. Ortiz matched Yastrzemski with a two-run blast to center off the left-hander Brad Mills in the fourth and then broke the tie with another two-run shot off Mills in the fifth, his 21st and 22nd homers of the season. Ortiz had little to say about his night, pushing past reporters by saying, “Put it down like this: I’m on my way to Jamaica.” It was the third multihomer game of the season for Ortiz and the 44th of his career. Ortiz’s first homer ended his 0-for-18 skid against Toronto and an 0-for-11 slump over all. Mike Napoli followed Ortiz’s second shot with his 12th homer of the season, the fourth time this year Boston has gone back-to-back. Stephen Drew added a three-run homer as the Red Sox connected a season-high four times and won for the eighth time in nine games. John Lackey (11-6) allowed one run and two hits in seven innings. MARLINS 3, BRAVES 1 Garrett Jones drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the 10th to lift Miami over host Atlanta. Christian Yelich led off the 10th with a single off Shae Simmons (1-2) and moved to second on Jordany Valdespin’s sacrifice bunt. After an intentional walk to Giancarlo Stanton, Simmons walked Casey McGehee to load the bases. Jones broke a 1-1 tie with his grounder into center field. GIANTS 7, PHILLIES 4 Adam Duvall hit a two-run homer to spoil Cliff Lee’s return from the disabled list, and visiting San Francisco beat Philadelphia. Hunter Pence and Buster Posey each drove in two runs, and the Giants remained tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the National League West. Making his first start since May 18 because of an elbow injury, Lee (4-5) had a rare rough outing against San Francisco. Lee had been 5-0 with an 0.88 earned run average in six career games against the Giants. DODGERS 5, PIRATES 2 Hyun-Jin Ryu pitched seven strong innings, Adrian Gonzalez reached base five times, and Los Angeles kept pace with San Francisco by beating host Pittsburgh. Ryu (11-5) joined Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw in making the Dodgers the first team in the majors this season with three 11-game winners. Los Angeles played without right fielder Yasiel Puig (left hand) and shortstop Hanley Ramirez (left wrist). WHITE SOX 3, ROYALS 1 Chris Sale pitched seven effective innings in his first outing since the All-Star break, and Adam Dunn had two R.B.I. to lead host Chicago over slumping Kansas City. Sale (9-1) was not at his best, allowing seven hits and a walk in seven innings, but he worked out of jams in the fourth and sixth innings. BREWERS 5, REDS 2 Milwaukee scored three runs on two misjudged balls in the outfield by Chris Heisey, and Wily Peralta pitched seven strong innings in a win over visiting Cincinnati. Ryan Braun hit a two-run double in the third on which Heisey took a couple of steps in before retreating as the high liner went over his head. Heisey, a four-year veteran with 134 career starts in left field, apparently lost a high fly ball to the warning track by Carlos Gomez in the fourth inning that turned into a run-scoring ground-rule double. Peralta (11-6) allowed three hits, including Billy Hamilton’s solo homer. TWINS 4, INDIANS 3 Josh Willingham’s tiebreaking home run in the eighth inning helped Minnesota to a home victory over Cleveland for the first time in more than 11 months. Kurt Suzuki had a two-run double among his three hits. He is 25 for 63 in his last 17 games.

Red Sox
Blue Jays
Baseball
Sergio Santos