As Central Park Gondolier, He Helms a Love Boat

Abstract: Dusk was descending on Central Park Lake when a couple from Connecticut stepped onto Andrés García-Peña’s gondola. The man, Will Martinez, 30, said he was looking for a romantic setting and was told that “this is the place.” The woman, Tara Meach, 34, smiled when Mr. García-Peña, 53, assured the couple that it was, and they nestled cozily into a cushioned seat as Mr. García-Peña skillfully worked his long oar against a well-worn walnut post jutting up from the deck of the Italian-made boat. He maneuvered nearly effortlessly through a tangle of rented rowboats and told the couple: “You’re the king and queen of New York. All the guys on the rowboats are peasants.” Mr. García-Peña wore the traditional blue-and-white striped shirt and broad-brimmed straw hat with a red sash imported from Venice. Then there were his work pants and Converse high tops, which hinted at his background as a skateboarder and street artist. After casually interviewing the couple about their relationship, he belted out a version of “That’s Amore,” with improvised lyrics recapping how they had met in Ms. Meach’s nail salon. As the boat headed under the lovely Bow Bridge, with Manhattan twinkling to life as a backdrop, Mr. Martinez, a postal worker from Ansonia, Conn., dropped to his knees, produced a ring and asked for Ms. Meach’s hand in marriage, bringing her tears of joy. Mr. García-Peña said that he presided over as many as six proposals a day. But he keeps that secret from passengers who are getting engaged. “I tell couples that it’s few and far between, because you don’t want to make them feel like cattle,” he said. “You do get cynical, but when you see a guy get down on one knee, the hair still stands up on your arms,” he said. Mr. García-Peña, who is also a painter, grew up in Miami and moved to New York City when he was 20, joining the thriving East Village art and punk rock scene in the 1980s. After a stint in Spain, he returned to inherit the gondolier job from a friend, to support his painting. He now lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with his wife and two young daughters, and paddles the gondola from May through October, working Fridays through Sundays. He said his experience as a skateboarder — he still skates from the subway station to the boathouse — helped him feel immediately comfortable on the boat. “It’s the same stance,” he said. Mr. García-Peña, who honed his voice as a punk rock singer in the 1980s, said he memorized a repertoire of Italian songs to make better tips. “When you’re singing in Italian, for some reason, everyone takes it as a reason to make out,” he said. “The more romantic the ride, usually the better they tip. Especially if it’s their first kiss ever.” Then there are the kissing sessions that escalate into more risqué activities, which, if Mr. García-Peña tolerates them, can result in a nice tip as well. There was one Lothario who took different women out on the gondola 27 times in one summer, Mr. García-Peña recalled. The man was such a big tipper, he said, “he basically paid for my kids’ private school that year.” The gondola operates out of the Boathouse restaurant , which charges $30 for 30 minutes. Mr. García-Peña gets half of that, in addition to tips. During the afternoons, the lake gets crowded with rowers. “Bumper boats,” Mr. García-Peña called it, adding that the nicest rides can be had at dusk, when the park quiets down and Manhattan buildings become illuminated. “I once took out this Southern belle who called it, ‘The time when the city puts on her jewelry,’ ” he said. After a successful proposal, Mr. García-Peña may return the couple to the dock and yell out, “She said yes!” “People start clapping, and then I turn to the next guy waiting with his date and tell him, ‘No pressure — relax, dude,’ ” Mr. García-Peña said. “In 20 years, I’ve seen maybe 10 girls say no, usually because they’re just not ready yet,” he said. “When that happens, they usually turn to me to explain that, ‘No, I really do love this guy.’ And I’ll say, ‘You don’t have to tell me — I’m not judging you.’ ” Gondola passengers also include families, friends and people attending corporate outings, he said. There have been drunk people jumping in the green waters of the lake, and Mr. García-Peña said he once fell in himself, after a gust of wind blew the gondola against the edge of the restaurant, in front of a full dining room. “The whole place burst out in applause,” he said. “It was a very humbling moment. I took a bow, like I do it every day, and then I just climbed back on and finished the ride. Hey, I’m a professional, man.”

Central Park
Boats
Central Park Boathouse
Andres Garcia-Pena


Brandon Jennings Paves Path From High School to European Pro Leagues

Abstract: ROME — Brandon Jennings likes fettuccine Alfredo, but he never envisioned eating it for lunch near the Pantheon. Jennings, 19, is a basketball player, and a trailblazer of sorts. He is the first American to play professionally in Europe directly out of high school. He signed this summer with Lottomatica Virtus Roma, a top team, and he is forging a cutting-edge career path. Jennings, of Compton, Calif., was unsure about meeting the academic requirements for a scholarship to the University of Arizona after he signed a letter of intent to play there. Instead he chose to play in Italy, where he will earn $1.2 million this season in salary and endorsements, including a shoe contract with Under Armour. Roma signed Jennings to a three-year deal but has little at risk because his contract must be bought out if he leaves for the National Basketball Association . If Jennings has a strong season with Roma and is among the top 10 selected in next June’s N.B.A. draft , as expected, more players may follow his route. “I think it’s going to change the game a lot,” he said. “If they don’t change the rule, I think you’re going to see more kids test the waters and try to make a name for themselves overseas.” The N.B.A. changed its eligibility rules for the 2006 draft, requiring players to be at least a year past their high school graduating class before turning pro. That has invigorated the college game and given stars like Derrick Rose, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, who might have entered the draft after high school, a taste of campus life. The question of how many players will follow Jennings’s path to the N.B.A. lingers at all levels. Sonny Vaccaro, the former sneaker company executive who orchestrated Jennings’s move, said that the families of 12 elite high school players had contacted him. They are intrigued by the notion of going to Europe. “I think we’re going to have a revolution, and Brandon Jennings, a kid from Compton, is going to start it,” Vaccaro said in a telephone interview. Jennings’s decision, driven by circumstance and opportunity, is challenging the custom that an elite player must attend college before he pursues his dream of playing in the N.B.A. Playing professionally in Europe suits Jennings’s basketball goals and is far more lucrative than a college scholarship. He was an all-American at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and was considered the nation’s top point guard. No one knows the effect that a parade of elite players taking Jennings’s path would have on the college game, and the flow of players to Europe is expected to be a trickle rather than a flood. The N.C.A.A. tournament has thrived even though a generation of stars like Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James skipped college for the N.B.A. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of other people,” Myles Brand, the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, said in a recent interview. “But I would hope and expect that most would want to go to college, not just to play basketball but to get an education.” David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, is an advocate for having high school players wait a year to enter the league. He said that Jennings would probably have a better basketball experience in Europe than in college. N.B.A. teams have sophisticated scouting systems abroad, Stern said, and 74 international players began last season on league rosters. “I actually think it’s a pretty cool thing for a kid to do what he’s doing,” Stern said. “There’s a big world out there. If you want to play for Rome as opposed to Arizona, go ahead and do what you think is best. It’s a positive development for kids and for the N.B.A. scouts.” At lunch near the Pantheon, Jennings spun fettuccine Alfredo on his fork and referred to playing college basketball several times as “the easy road.” Jennings said he regretted that he did not declare his intentions to play in Europe before he left high school. He said he would have received a bigger contract and shoe deal if there had been more hype. Instead, Jennings, an admittedly apathetic student, signed a letter of intent to attend Arizona and planned to stay there only one season. But he struggled to reach a standardized test score to meet the N.C.A.A. minimum for a scholarship. (He and his mother, Alice Knox, said that his last SAT score was questioned by the testing service and that they still had not received it.) Jennings said he had strongly considered taking the year off, receiving a shoe company sponsorship and working out until the draft. That was until he and his mother heard Vaccaro talking on the radio about Europe as an option for high school basketball players. Jennings called Vaccaro, and about two months later, he was in Rome. “Going to college was something that I didn’t want to do,” Jennings said. “If I did that and came to the league and I’m not ready, and then I have to wait two years for my turn. Why not come overseas and learn the pro game and be ahead of everybody?” But his workday is not a stroll in the piazza. The 6-foot-2 Jennings, Roma’s youngest player by five years, is coached by the demanding Jasmin Repesa, who also coaches Croatia’s national team. The team practices twice a day, with skill work and weight lifting in the morning and more traditional practice at night. Jennings is comfortable because he has three American teammates, and the team’s primary language is English. He lives with his mother and half-brother in a posh apartment provided by the team. Yet during training camp in September, Repesa, whose booming voice could quiet an Oktoberfest beer tent at last call, threw Jennings out of practice one day for not cutting hard in a drill. “I was like, Man, I got kicked out of practice for that,” Jennings said. “But it was lesson learned, and we moved on.” That moment was an anomaly. Repesa said Jennings had improved significantly, especially on defense, during his first month. He led the team in scoring, averaging about 20 points through five exhibition games. Roma’s general manager, Dejan Bodiroga, said he had been impressed with Jennings’s attitude, work ethic and determination. That has coalesced with his natural ability. “He’s one of the top talents that I’ve ever seen,” Bodiroga said. So far, Roma seems happy with the result, and Jennings is likely to play plenty of minutes when the 65-game season begins later this month. Claudio Toti, Roma’s owner and president, said he expected other European clubs to try to lure top American prospects next year. “Rome opened the door,” he said. “It could be an important signing for young people.”

Basketball
National Basketball Assn
Jennings Brandon (1989- )


Quiet Start to Central Bank Bond-Buying Program for the Eurozone

Abstract: FRANKFURT — The European Central Bank began its long-awaited bond-buying program on Monday, an unprecedented 1.1 trillion euro bid to help revive the eurozone economy. Despite predictions that the central bank would have trouble finding enough government bonds to buy, officials in Frankfurt said they were not encountering any problems — at least on the first day of purchases. Initial market reaction was muted, reflecting the lengthy buildup to the so-called quantitative easing program, which by design eliminated any element of surprise. European stock markets slipped slightly for the day, while the euro rose initially against the dollar before retreating to about $1.085. The effective interest rate or yield on German 10-year bonds fell to 0.31 percent from 0.39 percent, though it was not clear if the central bank’s buying was the main reason. Bond yields fall as prices rise. The central bank’s president, Mario Draghi , announced the starting date of the asset purchases at the central bank’s meeting last week. Monday morning, the European Central Bank confirmed on Twitter that the program had begun. “E.C.B. and eurosystem national central banks have, as previously announced, started purchases under the Public Sector Purchase Program,” the central bank said on Twitter. The eurosystem refers to the network of eurozone national central banks, which are doing most of the purchasing on bond markets. Typically they are buying the bonds from large banks that act as dealers. The goal of the program is to drive up inflation, which has slipped into negative territory and has raised the specter of deflation, a broad decline in consumer prices that can eventually undercut corporate revenue and force companies to cut staff. Central banks in the United States, Britain and Japan have used quantitative easing, but it had never been tried in the eurozone until Monday. The European Central Bank has said bonds will be purchased on the open market — not directly from bond issuers, in part to avoid accusations that it is violating a ban on central bank financing of eurozone governments. And it will wait several days before buying newly issued bonds to give financial markets time to determine a price. Image Benoît Coeuré, a member of the central bank’s Executive Board, said the asset purchase program had already pushed down the cost of credit. Credit Ralph Orlowski/Reuters But one side effect of the program could be to relieve pressure on government budgets. Most of the purchases are being conducted by national central banks, which will buy their own governments’ bonds and collect interest payments and other profits. Later, the central banks will pass the profits back to their national governments. That means the debt effectively becomes free of cost to the issuing country. One unresolved issue is how to deal with any losses suffered in countries like Germany, where many government bonds with maturities of seven years or less carry negative interest rates and thus will return less money than they cost. Opposition to the bond-buying program remains fierce in Germany. “The bond purchase program will make the problems in Europe even worse,” Lüder Gerken, director of the Center for European Policy in Freiburg, Germany, said in a statement. “By lowering interest rates on government bonds the E.C.B. will further remove reform pressure on member states. At the same time the flood of money will lead to false allocation of capital and strongly raise the risk of bubbles.” The European Central Bank aims to buy €60 billion ($65 billion) in government bonds and other assets each month, spread out evenly over the month. The purchases will continue until September 2016, or until the bank’s Governing Council is confident that inflation is heading back toward the official target of below, but close to, 2 percent. Much of the effect of the central bank’s policies was already reflected in the rising prices of stocks and bonds. The central bank said in January that it would begin buying government bonds, and it had signaled well before then that quantitative easing was imminent. Benoît Coeuré, a member of the central bank’s executive board, said in an interview on Sunday with Politis, a newspaper in Cyprus, that the asset-purchase program had already had a positive effect on the eurozone economy, by pushing down the cost of credit. “Lending rates to households and firms have come down since the summer across the entire euro area,” Mr. Coeuré said in the interview. The purchases are being made roughly in proportion to the economic weight of each of the 19 countries in the eurozone. In addition to bonds issued by governments, the European Central Bank and national central banks will also buy debt issued by government institutions such as the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone bailout fund, and the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a German development bank. The European Central Bank said it would disclose details of the bond purchases on a weekly basis.

Europe
European Central Bank
Government bond
Quantitative easing
Mario Draghi
Banking and Finance


More Than 200 Migrants Drown Off Libya Trying to Reach Europe

Abstract: More people are dying while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Europe: at least 239 drowned in two separate shipwrecks, the United Nations reported on Thursday. Nearly as many migrants have died at sea this year as all of last year, the United Nations’ refugee agency has said, even though far fewer have attempted the perilous crossing. Smugglers Are Changing Their Tactics The sharp rise in fatalities — 3,940 deaths this year , compared with 3,700 in all of 2015 — can be attributed in part to the changing tactics used by smugglers. They are loading thousands of people at a time and using less seaworthy boats, including inflatable rubber rafts that do not last the crossing. Video The Italian navy is moving quickly to train Libya’s coast guard in an effort to prevent the thousands of deaths that occur each year as migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean. On Wednesday, a rubber dinghy believed to be carrying scores of migrants from West Africa collapsed a few hours after it left Libya early in the morning, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration told Reuters. The spokesman, Flavio Di Giacomo, cited accounts by survivors who said that most of the passengers, including several children, had drowned. Another raft carrying about 130 people from Libya sank around the same time, according to two women who had been rescued. The other passengers had not been recovered. Fewer Migrants, but Greater Challenges Despite the overall decrease in the number of migrants, the smugglers are straining the capacity of rescue services to cope. More than one million people made the crossing last year. So far this year, about 328,000 have tried to do so, the United Nations refugee agency said last week .

Middle East and Africa Migrant Crisis,European Migrant Crisis


U.S. and East Asia Allies Join Forces to Track North Korean Missiles

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — The United States, South Korea and Japan will, for the first time, jointly test their ability to detect and track North Korean missiles, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said on Monday. The drill will be conducted on June 28 — shortly before Japan and South Korea are scheduled to join the American-led Rim of the Pacific Exercise in waters off Hawaii — and will involve destroyers equipped with the Aegis radar system, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. During the drill, the ships will test their ability to collect signs of North Korean missile launches, as well as data on missile trajectories, and they will share the information through a common channel operated by the United States, the official said. The nations agreed to conduct the drill after North Korea’s growing missile threat was emphasized by its launching of a long-range rocket on Feb. 7, the official said. North Korea said it had used the rocket to place a satellite in orbit, but the United Nations has banned it from launching such rockets, calling them a cover for developing an intercontinental ballistic missile. The United States regularly holds separate military exercises with South Korea and Japan and shares military intelligence with them under bilateral treaties. But South Korea has been extremely wary of direct military cooperation with Japan, other than conducting search-and-rescue drills. Japan ruled Korea as a colony in the early 20th century. Washington has been trying to persuade the two countries to work more closely to better cope with China’s rising military power, as well as with the North Korean nuclear threat. Such efforts bore fruit in 2014, when Washington, Seoul and Tokyo signed an agreement to share intelligence on the North’s nuclear and missile programs. Even in that pact, South Korea and Japan agreed to share their military secrets only through the United States. Washington must obtain permission to share intelligence it has received from one country with the other.

North Korea
South Korea
Japan
Missiles and Missile Defense
US Military


In San Jose’s Latino Gardens, Vegetables, Health and Savings Flourish

Abstract: SAN JOSE — At dawn, Maria Lupercio Alarcon wakens to the heady scent of onions and cilantro from her family’s first garden, outside her bedroom window. The two-month-old vegetable garden, from which Mrs. Alarcon picks extravagant bursts of broccoli for breakfast with scrambled eggs, is both comforting and unfamiliar. It is one of 30 backyard vegetable gardens recently planted by a nonprofit group here called La Mesa Verde, or The Green Table, which makes house calls to help residents of the city’s low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhoods grow their own organic produce. “People don’t eat vegetables unless they are close by, to be honest with you,” Mrs. Alarcon, a mother of three who grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, said of the human tendency to eat whatever is at hand, especially if it is cheap. “If you have vegetables,” she said, pointing to luxuriant tangles of peas and other delights, “then you can come get them. To see them growing is a blessing.” The fledgling effort to bring backyard vegetable beds to San Jose neighborhoods like the Washington-Guadalupe and Gardner districts — historic portals for immigrants — is part of a national movement, from West Oakland to Little Rock, Ark., to make healthy food readily accessible to marginalized urban neighborhoods. “Nobody was going into the homes,” said Raul Lozano, 55, the son of farm workers, whose passion for gardening inspired him to form La Mesa Verde after 15 years as executive director of a Latino theater company. “You can get beer in the neighborhood. But not vegetables.” In San Jose, with roughly 300 sunny days a year, the new gardeners were recruited from food pantry rolls and word of mouth. Once known as “Goosetown,” after Italian immigrants who raised geese there, the Gardner neighborhood is less than two miles from downtown but is fragmented by highways. In the 1980s, it acquired the nickname Barrio Horseshoe, a reference to a contested sliver of territory between street gangs. In recent years, with help from a city neighborhood revitalization initiative, it has become a place of “prideful homes,” as Mr. Lozano put it, where the familiar ting-a-lings of vendors selling ice cream, tamales and pork rinds with lemon and chili punctuate the afternoons. These are the working poor — maids, landscapers, restaurant workers, teacher’s aides — “people trying to make ends meet with two or three jobs and who don’t have time to commit to a community garden,” said Poncho Guevara, the executive director of Sacred Heart Community Service, which started Mr. Lozano’s program with over 100 volunteers. “For years,” he added, “residents raised concerns that they had no place to obtain fresh produce. This puts the solution in their hands.” The program, including bilingual gardening classes and the installation of two raised beds per yard with soil, seedlings and a drip-irrigation system, costs $210 a family, financed by Sacred Heart through local foundations, a federal community services block grant and individual contributions. Raised beds use 40 percent less water and require less weeding, Mr. Lozano said. Volunteer “master gardeners” call twice a month, with the idea that residents themselves will eventually mentor new families, “keeping the knowledge base in the community,” Mr. Lozano said. For Arturo Vargas, a carpenter and roofer, and his wife, Rosa, backyard produce is more than a culinary nicety. The couple, who have four children, share their two-bedroom house with three families — 14 people in all. Before the garden, Mr. Vargas estimated that the family spent $4 a week on cilantro alone. “Last month we saved money on lettuce, next month, snap peas,” Mr. Vargas said, his exorbitant cascades of peas flourishing with the help of goat manure from his uncle’s ranch. Mrs. Alarcon said her garden had saved her family about $90 a month in grocery bills. Mr. Lozano had been germinating the idea for “a full-service holistic experience,” as he put it, since 1994, when he first moved to a house in the Gardner neighborhood with a big backyard. He decided to enroll in a 16-week master gardener program offered by the University of California extension school. Although he worked at a social service agency and then for the theater company, “I always had a connection to working in the ground,” he said. As a child in Reedley, in the Central Valley, he worked with his extended family in the fields, laying papers beneath grape vines in the hot sun to catch raisins as they fell. In fourth grade, his family moved to Mountain View, where his father, Frank, who died six years ago, got a job as a construction laborer laying sewer pipes and overpasses of what would become known as Silicon Valley. There, during summers, Mr. Lozano picked onions and string beans to earn money for school clothes, his boots mended with copper wire. Until 1969, when the family was finally able to buy a home, he lived without hot water or cooking gas. “When you’re growing up,” he said, “you don’t realize how poor you are.” Dayana Salazar, a professor of urban and regional planning at San Jose State University, said the approach was “common sense” for the Latino community. “They understand the connection between food and the land,” Ms. Salazar said. “This is also what happens in the rest of the world: you have a piece of land, you use it to the maximum. You don’t use it for display.” The program now extends beyond the neighborhood and hopes to reach 100 yards in all by spring. Gardeners like Nelly Vilcherrez, who is from Peru, have been adding their own touches — like huacatay, a native herb she uses to make Peruvian salsa. Mrs. Vilcherrez’s 4-year-old son Fernando has grown partial to organic broccoli with ketchup, while her older son, Jorsson, 12, enjoys the picking. The garden, her first, installed beside the shade porch her husband, Bernardo, built, relaxes her, she said, making her less worried about the children’s whereabouts in a rough neighborhood. “It brings a lot of health for families,” she said. “It brings the family closer.”

Vegetables
Urban Areas
Gardens and Gardening
Area Planning and Renewal
Sustainable Living
San Jose (Calif)


Iraq: 4 From Movement Are Released From Jail

Abstract: Four young leaders of Iraq ’s struggling government-reform movement were released from jail after being held for 12 days without formal charges. At a news conference on Wednesday, a day after their release, the men said they had been interrogated by officers who asked questions about possible ties between the protest movement and Al Qaeda or the outlawed Baath Party. Ultimately, security officials accused the men of carrying fake identification cards — a charge all of them denied. It is unclear whether officials will attempt to formally prosecute them. Human rights activists have called the detentions an attempt to sap the strength of the youth-led reform movement.

Iraq
Prisons and Prisoners
Politics and Government
Demonstrations Protests and Riots


As Israelis Are Tried in a Palestinian’s Murder, Agonizing Intimacy in Court

Abstract: JERUSALEM — The slightly plump Israeli teenager on the witness stand insisted that he had not known the plan was to kill, and had “never dreamed” it would end that way. The teenager, a second youth and one adult, Yosef Haim Ben-David, 30, are on trial in Jerusalem District Court, charged with the abduction and premeditated murder of a Palestinian teenager, Muhammad Abu Khdeir. He was snatched off a street near his East Jerusalem home, driven to a forest, beaten unconscious and burned to death in the early hours of July 2, 2014. A year later, a final chapter of that traumatic period is playing out with agonizing intimacy in a cramped courtroom where the three defendants, who are all related, and the parents of the victim sit a few yards apart. Under a court order, the two teenage defendants’ names cannot be published because they are minors. At the time of the crime they were 16, the same age as Mr. Abu Khdeir. At a recent hearing in the case, the state prosecutor pressed the youth on the stand about premeditation. “So when did it occur to you” that the plan was to kill Mr. Abu Khdeir? the prosecutor asked. Thumbing through a thick file, the prosecutor recounted statements to the police that the adult defendant, Mr. Ben-David, who was driving, had urged his young relatives to “finish him off” as they struggled with their captive in the back of the car. Then he asked, “Do you remember when Ben-David asked you for the crowbar?” And in reference to the youth’s admission that he had doused the victim with gasoline, the prosecutor asked, “You wanted to wipe out the traces of DNA, right?” The Israeli authorities have described the killing of Mr. Abu Khdeir as a revenge attack. It happened a few hours after Israel buried three teenagers — Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gilad Shaar, 16; and Naftali Fraenkel, 16 — who were hitchhiking home from their yeshivas in the West Bank when they were abducted and shot dead by Palestinians. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave near the West Bank city of Hebron after an 18-day search. The kidnappings and killings prompted deep outrage, set off riots in East Jerusalem and contributed to an upward spiral of Israeli-Palestinian tensions and violence that led to the 50-day Gaza war last year. The two Palestinian men who were suspected of abducting and murdering the three Israeli youths were shot dead by Israeli troops in a gun battle in September in Hebron. A third man was later arrested, tried and sentenced to three life terms by an Israeli military court. But the Abu Khdeir case remains open and personal, as the two sides wrangle over the grisly details in the courtroom, with its low wooden benches and its noisy air-conditioning units whirring high on the walls. As the prosecutor at the recent hearing questioned the teenage defendant accused of playing the more active role in events, the other teenager sat, thin and wan, on a bench across the room, separated from Mr. Ben-David by a prison guard. Both defendants were shackled hand and foot. Three judges sat on a dais, and lawyers filled the front two benches. The victim’s parents, a sister and a cousin squeezed into the last bench by the back wall to observe the proceedings, together with a translator and some reporters. Other relatives came and went as seating space allowed. Image Yosef Haim Ben-David, pictured in July 2014, is one of three people being tried in the killing of a Palestinian teenager. Credit Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse Hussein Abu Khdeir, Muhammad’s father, has repeatedly demanded justice for his son in interviews with the Hebrew and Arabic news media. During a break in the hearing he reiterated his misgivings about the trial. “I said from the beginning that they would claim insanity,” he said of the defendants. “Now, you see, the older one is ‘insane,’ ” he said, referring to Mr. Ben-David, who has refused to testify. His lawyer says Mr. Ben-David was not mentally sound at the time of the killing and is not fit to stand trial; the court has yet to rule on that claim. At times during the court session Mr. Ben-David closed his eyes and moved his lips silently. At others, he conferred in whispers with his lawyer. “It’s all an act,” the victim’s father said. “They burned Muhammad once. Every day we are burned anew.” The victim’s mother, Suha, compared the trial to a movie. “We come to watch,” she said, describing the defendants as “cowards.” “If we don’t get justice for Muhammad,” she said, “we will go to a higher court.” The three defendants, all from Orthodox Jewish backgrounds, were arrested soon after Muhammad Abu Khdeir was killed. Mr. Ben-David, a resident of Adam, a West Bank settlement, owned an eyeglass store in Jerusalem. The teenagers are from Jerusalem and the nearby Israeli town of Beit Shemesh; one was a student at a religious school, or yeshiva, and the other a yeshiva dropout working at a toy store. Mr. Ben-David and one of the youths have been treated for obsessive-compulsive disorder, among other illnesses, according to the indictment. Mr. Ben-David and the yeshiva dropout are also charged with trying to kidnap an 8-year-old Palestinian boy in the same area of East Jerusalem the night before Mr. Abu Khdeir was killed. That abduction failed when the Palestinian boy’s mother shouted and struggled with the kidnappers and the boy escaped. Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, said that while they were being questioned, the three defendants in the Abu Khdeir case admitted to the abduction and killing. The agency said the three also re-enacted the attack for investigators. In court, the prosecution showed video images of the re-enactment, in which Mr. Ben-David was heard describing, among other things, how one of the teenagers held Mr. Abu Khdeir’s arms in the back of the speeding car while the other — the one on the witness stand — choked him to stop him from struggling. Asher Ohayon, the public defender representing Mr. Ben-David, said in an interview that his client was unable to remember his actions that night, let alone justify them, and was in “a state of denial.” Mr. Ohayon said that his client had told investigators he did not understand how he could have committed such terrible acts and that he was ashamed and regretted what he had done. The teenagers’ defense appeared to rest mainly on persuading the court that they did not know in advance that the night’s events would end with a killing and that they thought the plan was merely to give someone a beating. The indictment says that the second teenager remained in the car while the victim was taken into the forest, bludgeoned and burned. “There is no question that he was present at the event,” said Avi Himi, one of the lawyers representing the second teenager, who is scheduled to testify on July 15. “The question,” Mr. Himi said, “is what was the role each of them played.”

Palestinians
Jerusalem
Yosef Haim Ben-David
Muhammad Abu Khdeir
Israel
Kidnapping and Hostages
Murders and Homicides
Gaza Strip
Hate crime


Tseng Wins Kraft Nabisco Championship

Abstract: RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The Kraft Nabisco Championship trophy was slipping out of Yani Tseng’s reach on Sunday at Mission Hills Country Club. Not during the final round, but afterward, when an earthquake added to the commotion surrounding her second major victory. Tseng, who was in the middle of a news conference when the ground started rolling, reached for the trophy, which was moving across the table like a downhill putt. “Cool! It’s like my big week,” Tseng said, before quickly adding that she hoped nobody was hurt in the earthquake, which was centered roughly 100 miles south in Mexico, and measured 7.2 on the Richter scale . With a four-under-par 68, Tseng finished at 13-under 275 for a one-stroke victory over her friend and playing partner Suzann Pettersen, who closed with a 69. Song-Hee Kim (70) finished third, four shots behind Tseng. Lorena Ochoa, the 2008 champion, was a distant fourth after a 73 gave her a 282 total. After signing her scorecard, Tseng, 21, was hustled over to the pond that surrounds the 18th green so she could take the celebratory plunge before the end of the CBS telecast. The Masters has the green jacket; the Kraft Nabisco has the white bathrobe. “It’s kind of my dream to jump in the water,” Tseng said. She added: “I told my caddie: “Wait! I don’t know how to swim. Can you let me get out here?’ because it was a little scary.” Before the ground started shaking, Pettersen made Tseng quake in her shoes when she nearly holed a chip for eagle on the 18th hole. The ball curled around the cup. Had it gone in, Tseng would have had to make her 12-foot birdie attempt to win. Instead, after Pettersen made her birdie, Tseng happily two-putted for par. “Jeez, that was a big chip; I was scared to look,” said Tseng, whose first major title came at the 2008 L.P.G.A. Championship. “I was really scared that she made that putt. There was just so many things coming through my mind for just like five seconds.” Pettersen missed a few putts down the stretch to seal her fate. Starting at the par-4 13th, she had four consecutive birdie putts in the 10- to 12-foot range. Her attempt at 16 was the only one that dropped, cutting Tseng’s lead to two strokes. “One of those drops, of course there’s a little different pressure on Yani playing those last four or five holes,” Pettersen said. “I gave myself a lot of good chances, and it wasn’t that I hit a lot of bad putts. They were as close as you can possibly get them.” Pettersen’s chip on 18 was great theater, but the real drama came on the previous hole when she chipped out of heavy rough and made a putt to save par. At that point, she had reason to believe that perhaps it was her turn to steal a victory here. Nobody knows better than Pettersen how quickly a lead can evaporate on the Dinah Shore Course. In 2007, she had a four-stroke lead with four holes to play and lost to Morgan Pressel. She finished second to Ochoa in 2008. “Yeah, just collecting them up,” Pettersen said of the close-but-no-bathrobe finishes. “It’s starting to feel like it owes me one.” Pettersen is now tied with Annika Sorenstam for the most second-place showings here. This one, while no less disappointing, was easier for Pettersen to swallow because she kept the pressure on Tseng until the end, forcing her to earn her second major title. “It’s hard to describe but I feel like I’m maturing every time I play on this course,” Pettersen said, adding, “I feel a lot more comfortable playing these last five holes now.” Tseng, a native of Taiwan, failed to record a top-10 finish in the majors last year, her game regressing under the weight of enormous expectations that were mostly self-imposed. In January, Sorenstam, her idol, sat down with her for two hours in Orlando, where they both live, and offered her counsel. “I really want to thank Annika Sorenstam,” Tseng said, adding, “She helped me a lot about my game, about the mentals, and she told me go step by step.” Tseng did Sorenstam proud with the way she managed the round. She attacked the front nine, playing it in four under par, then protected her lead. “I’m playing very safe on the back nine,” she said. The third member of the final group was Karen Stupples, who took a one-shot lead into the final round but closed with a 78 to fall into a tie for fifth. The first inkling that it was not going to be her day came on the second hole when, after watching Tseng drain a 65-foot eagle putt, she missed an eagle attempt from 12 feet. On the sixth hole, Stupples’s second shot landed in the water and she carded a double bogey to fall four strokes behind Tseng. As Stupples walked off the 18th green, her son, Logan, who will turn 3 this month, ran into her arms. She picked him up and gave him a big smile as a tear rolled down her cheek. A few minutes later, she was giving Logan a can of apple juice while the awards ceremony started. “Yay,” he said. “Somebody wins.” “That’s right,” she told him, fighting back her tears.

Song-Hee Kim
Golf
Tseng Yani
Pettersen Suzann
Ochoa Lorena
Pressel Morgan
Sorenstam Annika
Stupples Karen


Third Gunman in Attacks in Paris Area Is Identified

Abstract: PARIS — The Paris prosecutor identified on Thursday a Belgian-Moroccan man as one of the previously unidentified jihadists involved in the terror attacks in Paris and its suburbs in November. The militant was identified as Chakib Akrouh by the prosecutor, who said he had been the third person who shot and killed patrons at cafes and bars in Paris on the evening of Nov. 13, the night in which 130 people were killed in three coordinated attacks in and around the city. Mr. Akrouh, 25, blew himself up in an apartment on Rue Corbillon in St.-Denis during a police raid five days later, the office of Paris prosecutor François Molins said in a statement. Mr. Akrouh had Belgium and Moroccan nationality. He was identified by matching his DNA with that of his mother, the prosecutor’s office said. The identification of Mr. Akrouh reduces to two the number of unidentified figures involved in the attacks; both of them were among the three suicide bombers at the Stade de France in the north of Paris. The one who has been identified is Bilal Hadfi. The other two were registered as having entered Europe through Greece carrying Syrian documents that were not believed to have been their own. Mr. Molins has now identified all three gunmen at the cafes and bars, where 39 people were killed. The two who had previously been identified were Ibrahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up, according to the prosecutor, and Abdelhamid Abaaoud, believed to have been the on-the-ground organizer of the attacks. Mr. Abaaoud died in the Nov. 18 police raid on the hide-out in St.-Denis. Like the majority of the attackers, Mr. Akrouh had ties to Morocco. The others had Belgian-Moroccan or French-Moroccan backgrounds. Reports in the Belgian news media said Mr. Akrouh went to Syria and was sentenced to five years in absentia last summer in the same court case in which Mr. Abaaoud was sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting for the Islamic State. Mr. Akrouh came from Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels where the Abdeslam brothers, who were also involved in the Paris attacks, lived. He appears to have known Mr. Abaaoud, perhaps from there. His image was captured in a Paris Métro station with Mr. Abaaoud on the night of Nov. 13, when the two returned to the area near the Bataclan concert hall, where some of the other assailants were still shooting and killing civilians.

Terrorism
Chakib Akrouh
Belgium
Stade de France
Syria
Abdelhamid Abaaoud
Paris Attacks
Bataclan


Hard Line on Iran Places White House in a Bind

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As American and European diplomats prepare for crucial negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program , the White House finds itself caught in a bind: for the diplomatic effort to work, American officials say, the Iranian government must believe that President Obama is ready and willing to take military action. Yet tough talk, necessary as it might be for successful diplomacy, contributes to a sense that war may be unavoidable. And it masks the fact that Mr. Obama, and his military commanders, remain deeply worried about the consequence of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, either by Israel alone or a strike that could draw in the United States . “Obama had two main objectives — to deflect Israeli pressure to conduct or acquiesce in a premature war, and to neutralize Republican criticism that he is too soft on Iran and too hard on Israel,” said Robert Malley , program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group. “On those fronts, mission accomplished.” But, Mr. Malley added, “victory came at a price.” By stating clearly that containment of a nuclear-armed Iran is off the table, Mr. Obama may have committed America to military action to halt Iran if other means fail to do so, Mr. Malley said. Some White House officials acknowledge that in an election year when Republican candidates are calling for tougher action against Iran, the misgivings expressed by the Pentagon — both publicly and privately — over a strike could provide the president with some political cover. A classified war simulation conducted by United States Central Command this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli airstrike, for example, found that an Israeli attack could lead to a wider regional war, draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, providing recent evidence to the skeptics — not only in the Pentagon but also in the White House and intelligence community as well — who have warned that any action by Israel against Iran could prove perilous. At the same time, some current and former administration officials worry that any hesitancy about considering military action that is expressed in the United States could lull the Iranians into thinking that they do not need to make concessions at the negotiating table, just at a time when the diplomatic effort has taken center stage. “For diplomacy to work there has to be a coercive side,” said Dennis B. Ross , a former senior official at the National Security Council who handled Iran policy. “If the Iranians think this is a bluff, you can’t be as effective. The message to the Iranians is: you’ve got an option.” And even Israeli officials who have pushed for tougher action from the United States say they would much rather see a diplomatic end to the crisis. “At the end of the day, Israel doesn’t want to strike Iran either,” one Western diplomat said. Added David Makovsky, an Israel expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “The next move on the chess board is diplomacy. It has to be diplomacy, and there has to be an effort to get diplomacy to work.” But some White House officials clearly feel that diplomatic options for resolving the crisis are being overlooked amid all the talk about force. The risk, they say, is that the debate will take on a momentum of its own. There is also a sense at the White House that the administration is not getting enough credit for putting together a global coalition to enforce economic sanctions against Iran that is also creating the conditions for a possible diplomatic solution to the problem — even as administration officials say the military option is never off the table. White House officials declined to discuss these deliberations on the record, citing their extreme sensitivity, both with the Israelis and with other parts of the administration, chiefly the Pentagon. Mr. Obama, after his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel this month, warned Republican candidates and others against “loose talk” of war . Yet at a news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain , the president said the window for diplomacy with Iran was “shrinking.” There are differences of opinion among top administration officials about the likelihood of a pre-emptive Israeli military strike. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. , for example, is said to be less worried than Mr. Obama that Mr. Netanyahu will pull the trigger in the coming months, several officials said. Mr. Biden bases his judgment on his long relationship with Mr. Netanyahu, which dates from the prime minister’s first stint in office in the 1990s. But unlike the internal administration debate over Afghanistan , the White House and Pentagon appear to be on the same page about Iran. Whatever the cliché about military leaders being more gung ho about going to war than their civilian counterparts, the reality is that the American military has often led the argument against military engagement, including in the recent conflict in Libya , past conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda , and even now on the question of whether the United States should engage militarily in Syria . The concern about going to war with Iran that is emanating from the Pentagon did not start with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta . His predecessor, Robert M. Gates , as well as Adm. Mike Mullen , the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , were equally outspoken. “Both of those guys were counseling on the risks of military action, and quite publicly,” said a senior military official. “Their successors have reaffirmed that — and that is where the building’s leadership is on this.” Senior Pentagon civilian officials and military officers say the cautious Iran comments from Mr. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey , the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are not part of any organized messaging campaign by the White House. “As is appropriate in addressing a matter of this importance, senior leaders from across the government — led by the president — have discussed the potential consequences of a military conflict with Iran,” said George Little, the Pentagon press secretary. The warnings, officials said, reflect the assessments by both leaders that an Israeli preventive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities may provoke a round of counterattacks that might lead to a wider war that would involve the United States after years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pentagon officials said they were aware of reports in the Israeli news media of high-level unhappiness, up to and including the office of Mr. Netanyahu, at the stern warnings issued by Mr. Panetta and General Dempsey. “The chairman’s job is to provide options and to provide the risks and benefits of various options,” a senior Pentagon official said, referring to General Dempsey. “But ultimately, the civilian leaders — the National Command Authority — make the final decision.” Several military officials said the cautious tone set by Mr. Panetta and General Dempsey flowed directly from the fact that one of the military’s metrics in weighing potential conflict is the body bag. “We are going to bear the brunt of any retaliation from Iran,” said another senior military officer. “It will be our men and women, whether overt and ugly or covert and just as ugly.”


New Jersey Car Dealer Buckles Under Detroit’s Malaise

Abstract: Westfield TWO cars were left in the three-car showroom of Larry Friedman’s Chevy dealership, and one of them wasn’t for sale — his baby-blue 1954 Bel Air with the dice hanging from the rearview mirror, a pristine memory of breezier times in the auto trade. The salesmen’s desks sat empty, and a half-full box beside one held giveaway calendars advertising a business about to close for good after more than 80 years. The end came quickly here at New Norris Chevrolet, an echo in New Jersey of a collapse in Detroit. In December, Norris sold 12 cars, half its previous monthly average, and when the numbers weren’t any better by the end of January, Mr. Friedman couldn’t see a way to make them work anymore. He called his employees — many of whom had been hired by his late father, Mitch — into the showroom one morning a few weeks ago to tell them that Thursday, Feb. 26, would be the last day. “I choked up a little bit,” said Mr. Friedman, 42, who started working at Norris as a boy and took over after his father’s death in 2005. The license plate on his Bel Air looked ahead to his potential successors, “3 Boys,” referring to his sons. Two of them will wear Norris jerseys this season on a T-ball team he had already signed on to sponsor. “Unfortunately, the plan was always to pass it on to the next generation one day, and have them work here.” Dealerships are known within the auto business as stores, and Mr. Friedman’s Chevy store was among the smaller ones, a Main Street grocer by comparison with the wide-aisle supermarkets out on the highway. As the end loomed, Norris’s shelves were sagging under the weight of unsold goods, the one-acre lot parked tight with 60 of the thousands of vehicles that are crowding stores all over America and dragging down dealers who once ranked among the most visible merchants in their communities — the faces on the cable TV ads, the names on the backs of youth-sports jerseys, the easy touches for every local charity. “Since the beginning of the year, I’ve probably seen four or five dealers go out of business in exactly the same way,” said Jim Appleton, president of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, whose membership has dropped from 650 to less than 600 in the last two years. “And I expect we’ll lose as much as another 10 percent this year.” Norris started selling Chevys in the 1920s at the busy corner of Central and North Avenues in this prosperous railroad suburb. The bright neon sign that crowned its Spanish-mission-style roof was a local landmark for decades, and the showroom held 11 vehicles, big enough to display just about every new model Chevy unveiled each year. Mitch Friedman had started in the business as a car salesman, and then worked for Ford: “Closing down stores,” his son said, liquidating the small dealerships that once dotted city neighborhoods, but that faded as the population shifted to the suburbs. He finally got a Ford dealership of his own, far from home in Queens, and then, with a partner, bought a Chevy store in South Orange. He and his partner bought Norris in 1981, and he soon put his son to work. “I remember Larry coming in on his moped from high school and working in the parts department,” said Rich Byers, an automotive technician who started in 1982 at Norris, a job that fit him so well he has driven 26 miles to it each workday from his home in Randolph. His spent about half of his last day in the six-lift garage on a 100,000-mile service job on a Chevy Suburban. “Everybody here was brokenhearted. I’ve had three elderly women whose cars I’ve taken care of come in crying.” Mitch Friedman moved the store several blocks up North Avenue in 1994 to the site of a defunct Pontiac dealership, and leased the original location to a real estate business. Larry Friedman worked his way through every department after graduating from Upsala College in 1990. “It was on a Friday, and my father said, ‘Now that you’ve graduated I want to see what you can do — go out on your own,’ ” Mr. Friedman said. But one of Norris’s service advisers had a stroke that weekend. “So that Monday he said, ‘It’s over, get back to work.’ ” Larry Friedman moved in 2001 from service to the sales floor, where he sometimes parked a vintage Chevy, like his Bel Air, that triggered warm recollections from customers about first cars, summer nights and the glory days of General Motors. Norris sold about 325 new cars, and 100 used, in a good year. But last year was not a good year: Gas prices spiked; interest rates on leases soared; credit dried up, for buyers and dealers both; uncertainty about G.M.’s future made buyers wary. And then Detroit started asking for more money: higher interest rates on the inventory dealers held; more charges on cars that sat unsold. “The economics of the business changed overnight,” said Jim Appleton, who has watched many New Jersey dealerships struggle to finance their operations. “They’re essentially collateral damage in the credit crunch.” Mr. Friedman’s desk looks across the showroom floor and past his Bel Air toward a wall of photos he will soon have to box up and take home, among them one of his father shaking hands with Mickey Mantle at a benefit for the American Cancer Society. Most of the employees have found new jobs, but Mr. Friedman isn’t sure yet where he’ll land, although he expects to be selling cars somewhere, for someone else. “I think he would have been realistic, and I think he would have done it a lot earlier,” he said when considering what his father would have decided if faced with the same crunch. “I’ve been coming here every single day for so long, it’s going to be weird that first day that I don’t have to come in to work.” A few customers continued drifting in through the last week, but Mr. Friedman had already decided what the last car he sold would be: a 2009 gray Impala, to his mother, a final piece of Norris that will linger in the family after the doors close, like the name on the backs of his sons’ T-ball shirts. “I guess those will be antiques,” he said of the shirts he will watch all spring long, the Norris name receding into the distance as his sons circle the bases.

Chevrolet Division of General Motors Corp


One Dead as Protesters and Police Clash in Nepal

Abstract: KATHMANDU, Nepal — Protesters and the Nepalese police clashed near the border with India on Monday, in violence that left an Indian man dead and threatened to further complicate a political and economic crisis in Nepal . The police in the border town of Birgunj fired on protesters belonging to the ethnic Madhesi population who have been agitating against a recently passed Constitution, saying it would dilute their political voice. About 5 a.m. on Monday, the police said, they cleared a number of tents and protesters from a bridge near Birgunj in a zone between the two countries, where the demonstrators had been staging a sit-in for over a month. More than 200 trucks that had been stranded in Nepal crossed into India afterward, but none of the hundreds filled with cooking gas and merchandise stranded in India made their way into Nepal. By late morning, about 500 protesters had converged in Birgunj, the police said. The demonstrators pelted security forces with stones, set fire to the office of a nongovernmental organization on the border and attacked a village police post, said Raju Babu Shrestha, the superintendent of police in Parsa District. “At this point, we began to fire tear gas shells to control the crowd,” Mr. Shrestha said. “As the protesters continued attacking us, we fired bullets.” The Indian man who was killed, Ashish Kumar Ram, was in his early 20s and from Raxaul, on the Indian side of the border, Mr. Shrestha said. It was unclear why he was killed. The police announced an indefinite curfew in Birgunj on Monday afternoon. The clash could undermine a dialogue between Madhesi political parties and the Nepalese government. For more than a month leading up to the passage of the new Constitution in September, Nepal was convulsed by protests that left more than 40 people dead, most of them demonstrators. Nepal has accused India of imposing an economic blockade on it by refusing to allow trucks carrying fuel and other essentials to cross the border, because of objections to the new Constitution. India, for its part, has criticized the way the Constitution was passed for not being inclusive enough, but it maintains that unrest in Nepal, not a blockade, has prevented trucks from entering. The impasse has led to severe fuel shortages in Nepal, which receives the majority of its imports from India. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said that it was “deeply concerned” by the shooting in Nepal and the death of an Indian. Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, the spokesman for Nepal’s Home Ministry, said that the Nepalese police had cleared the demonstrators in an attempt to resume trade because Indian officials had repeatedly indicated that the reason for the impasse was Nepalese protesters. He said that although Nepal would allow trucks to cross the border, India “did not cooperate.” Officials on the Indian side said on Monday that the trucks could not enter Nepal because there was not enough time to get customs clearance before the protests resumed. Rabindra Mahato, a 44-year-old businessman in Birgunj, witnessed the clash on Monday and said in a telephone interview that though the fuel shortages were dire, Nepalis living near the border had been able to enter India and refuel at gas stations there. Now, he said, he feared recriminations across the border after the death of an Indian. “Today’s killing has deepened the fear here,” he said. “It’s getting worse for people like us.”

Nepal
India
Constitution
Ashish Kumar Ram
Civil Unrest
Fatalities,casualties
Oil and Gasoline


Macedonian Police Clash With Migrants on Border With Greece

Abstract: SKOPJE, Macedonia — Tensions at the Greek-Macedonian border erupted into clashes on Friday, when the Macedonian police used stun grenades to try to disperse a large group of migrants trying to cross the border into their country. The United Nations refugee agency expressed deep concern about the clashes, which took place a day after the Macedonian government declared a temporary state of emergency and tried to clamp down on a growing flood of migrants trying to reach wealthier Western European countries through the Balkans. By evening a wary calm had been restored at the border crossing outside the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, where the clashes took place early in the day. For many, despair later turned to a kind of relief when the authorities relented somewhat and allowed several groups of migrants to cross the border in an orderly way. But some 3,000 tired and frightened men, women and children, most of them fleeing war zones in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, were still waiting Friday evening in a neutral zone between the Greek and Macedonian sides, hemmed in by barbed wire and surrounded by soldiers and armed police officers. Many found makeshift shelter in one of the dozens of tents that were set up on the site. “It is a fact that we are facing an increased pressure from the influx of migrants attempting to cross the border,” said Ivo Kotevski, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “But so far we have the situation under control, and there haven’t been any major incidents or injuries.” Before the state of emergency was declared, large numbers of migrants who had made their way to Greece , often in perilous sea crossings by small boat, would head north to Macedonia , often crossing the relatively porous border by train or by walking along the tracks. While Macedonia is not a member of the European Union, travel costs there are relatively low, and other countries in the region have tightened their border controls recently, making it a preferred route north for migrants. But the Macedonian police moved to stiffen the border on Friday, sharply limiting the number who could cross and fencing off the railroad right of way through Gevgelija with barbed wire and armored vehicles. The government also used its temporary authority under the state of emergency to deploy army troops along the border. Critics of the government said that the moves would only drive the migrants to try to sneak across in more dangerous ways, or fall victim to traffickers. Image An aerial view of the border on Friday, a day after Macedonia declared a state of emergency. Credit Nikos Arvanitidis/European Pressphoto Agency “There was no need for declaring a state of crisis,” said Jasmin Redzepi of Legis, a nonprofit organization that provides support to migrants. “It appears to come as a result of the increased pressure from the local citizens.” Residents of Gevgelija have protested the physical and environmental toll that the crowds of migrants are taking on the area, filling all the town’s public spaces and straining its resources. Mr. Redzepi said slow processing of requests for asylum was “one of the main reasons for the forming of big crowds” at the border, where he said the migrants face “very bad conditions, with no access to toilets and with only food and water that activists and local citizens manage to supply.” The Macedonian prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, said the state of emergency was a temporary measure intended to control the flow of migrants “so that they will have more humane transport through Macedonia.” “The country does not have the capacity to help so many people, so we had to intervene,” he said. Video The move came as the police tried to disperse a crowd of migrants at the border with Greece on Friday morning. Credit Credit Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters About 42,000 migrants have traveled through the country in the past two months, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. That figure is equivalent to 2 percent of the country’s total population of about 2.1 million. Advocacy groups like Amnesty International reacted to the clashes on Friday by criticizing the state of emergency. “Every country has the power to patrol its own borders, but this kind of paramilitary response is an unacceptable pushback, in violation of international law,” said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty’s deputy director for Europe. “Macedonian authorities are responding as if they were dealing with rioters rather than refugees.” The group called on the national authorities to switch their focus to humanitarian conditions. “Instead of sealing off the border, the Macedonian and Greek authorities must focus on providing shelter, food, clothing and health care, with help from the international community if needed,” the group said in a statement. In a statement from its Geneva headquarters, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it was “particularly worried about the thousands of vulnerable refugees and migrants, especially women and children, now massed on the Greek side of the border amid deteriorating conditions.” António Guterres, the high commissioner for refugees, said in the statement that he had spoken with Macedonia’s foreign minister, Nikola Poposki, about the problem, and “received assurances that the border will not be closed in the future.”


Federer Is Fifth Youngest to Win 50 Tournament Titles

Abstract: MASON, Ohio, Aug. 19 (AP) — Top-ranked Roger Federer reached another measure of tennis greatness Sunday, winning his 50th tournament title by defeating James Blake, 6-1, 6-4, in the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters . Federer, 26, became the fifth-youngest player to reach 50 titles, and only the ninth over all in the open era — since 1968 — to win so many tournaments. “It’s not a goal I set for myself in my career, but it’s definitely a nice number to get to, especially in terms of titles,” Federer said. Federer improved to 7-0 against Blake, who has won only 1 of their 19 sets — on a tie breaker in the semifinals at the United States Open last year. Blake was playing catch-up from the start. Federer served two aces to open the match, then broke Blake’s serve in the next game. Blake had three break chances in the fifth game of the opening set, which lasted 20 points and ended with Federer’s emphatic forehand volley. Blake was broken at 0-40 in the next game. Federer then served it out. Blake overcame four double faults to hold serve in the opening game of the second set but was on the defensive the rest of the way. Federer broke him to lead, 4-3, then fought off two break points in the next game to retain control. Federer raised his arms in celebration after his ninth ace of the match gave him the title. Bjorn Borg won his 50th title at 23 years 7 months. Jimmy Connors was four months older when he reached the mark; John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl were 25.


Mets, Neither Buyers Nor Sellers, Look to Off-Season to Make Moves

Abstract: The Mets could have made a trade before Thursday’s nonwaiver trade deadline. They said they discussed deals involving significant players, but ultimately they stayed put. They held on to Bartolo Colon — for now. They held on to Daniel Murphy. They held on to their stash of young, talented starting pitching prospects. General Manager Sandy Alderson has become more confident in the team, and he was careful about moving veterans. His inaction underlined the team’s in-between state. The Mets are no longer in a rebuilding mode, per se. But their next moves, the ones they hope could make them contenders, have to be well thought out. As the deadline passed, they were 52-56, six games out of the second wild-card spot. “I think going in we didn’t intend to be sellers; we didn’t intend to be buyers, necessarily,” Alderson said on a conference call. “We were looking at the market and what it would dictate. We set a price on some of our players, and under the circumstances, they weren’t met. So be it. We’re happy with the team that we have.” As the Mets discussed trades, Alderson said, the conversations tended to circle back to their pitching prospects. That presumably included names like Zack Wheeler, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero, who are among the Mets’ best assets. But Alderson said the Mets were not ready to deal them yet. The off-season, he said, will be a better time. By then, the Mets will have a better idea about Matt Harvey’s return from Tommy John surgery, a better feel for where their prospects stand and a firmer grasp on which veterans to keep and where the team has glaring needs. “In some way, we don’t want to limit ourselves to the options that are available now, as opposed to what we think may be available in the off-season,” Alderson said. Over the last three weeks, a clearer picture has taken shape. First baseman Lucas Duda and catcher Travis d’Arnaud have emerged as regular contributors — Duda in particular. But the Mets lack a right-handed power bat behind him and could probably use an upgrade at shortstop. When prompted, Alderson indicated that an in-house prospect could emerge in the middle infield. A shortstop who might fit that profile is Matt Reynolds, the Mets’ 2012 second-round pick, who hit .312 with an on-base percentage of .364 in 37 games with Class AAA Las Vegas. Reynolds could even land at second base if the Mets end up trading Murphy. Despite the seemingly constant trade rumors, Murphy has established himself as a key contributor and made the All-Star team this season as the Mets’ only representative. It appeared that Colon was the Met most likely to be traded, and as the team’s young pitchers progress, he could become expendable. But he is not a very attractive trade chip. He is owed $11 million next season, when he will turn 42. Alderson indicated that because the market for top-tier pitchers like David Price took so long to resolve itself, teams did not have time to check on Colon.

Mets
Bartolo Colon
Daniel Murphy
Sandy Alderson
Baseball


New Twists on Old Crafts

Abstract: PRAGUE — Being on the cutting edge of technology is one way to win market share; doing traditional, well-loved things supremely well is another. Some companies do both. Plzensky Prazdroj will have been brewing Pilsner Urquell beer for 169 years, come October. “At the time the new brewery was established, they had cutting-edge technology, they brought in the best ideas and a Bavarian brew master named Josef Groll,” said Jiri Marecek, the brewery’s external communications manager. “Using local ingredients and the new technology, he invented what’s now known as the Pils style beer.” Within 30 years, the brewery was exporting its bottom-fermented brew to more than 30 countries. Now, after a couple of world wars, 40 years of Communist rule and the Velvet Revolution, comes another defining moment: the purchase of Plzensky Prazdroj by SABMiller, the global brewing giant. Some might see that as a sellout, but not Mr. Marecek. “After SABMiller came lots of investments,” Mr. Maracek said. “Not much was invested in the breweries under Communism, so we still had our historic technology. Now, they’ve invested 15 billion koruny,” or $870 million. “We export to over 55 countries and not only are we building the brand, which has been ongoing from the beginning, but we continue to leverage the tradition,” he said. Tradition is a buzzword for Plzensky Prazdroj, but looking at the current market the brewery is investing 200 million koruny in something beer purists might consider sacrilege: a PET plastic bottling line. “Historically beer is consumed in pubs with your friends,” said Mr. Marecek. “ But times are changing. With the economic downturn, there’s been a decline in consumption in pubs and restaurants. The market for PET is rising.” The brewery is selling its low-cost labels Primus and Klasik and its alcohol-free Kozel beer in plastic bottles, using a Hungarian bottler until its own line starts up later this year. Herend has been producing luxury porcelain at its factory near Lake Balaton in Hungary since 1839. The company won numerous awards at the 1851 London World Fair and Queen Victoria ordered a complete service, decorated with a Chinese flower and butterfly pattern, for Windsor Castle, said Laszlo Szesztay, Herend’s commercial director. The pattern, bearing the queen’s name, is still in production and a Herend dinner service was used for the recent wedding in the British royal family, he said. The style is traditional but the company stays up-to-date. Mr. Szesztay said that in addition to a new, more youthful interpretation of the Victoria pattern, it was also introducing a jewelry collection while looking to expand exports to new markets in Russia and China. At the core of its identity is involvement with its community and its workers. The company has joined Hungary’s employee share ownership program, which means that 75 percent of company shares are owned by its employees. “The value of Herend porcelains is derived primarily from the labor invested into the product, the high level of skill of the workers, their love of the profession and the manufactory character of shaping and painting,” he said. “Thanks to the work of the potters and painters, Herend makes products that to this day earn the highest esteem of art connoisseur consumers.” Skoda is one of the world’s oldest car manufacturers, dating to 1895. “Family-oriented, functional, practical — that is what Skoda is all about,” Winfried Vahland, Skoda Auto’s chairman, wrote in the 2010 annual report. Through the twists and turns of Central European history, the Czech company has held to that route map. Now celebrating 20 years of its association with Volkswagen this year, it is planning a major expansion to raise output to at least 1.5 million vehicles a year by 2018. “Since 1991, Skoda has quadrupled its worldwide sales under Volkswagen,” said Rudolf Dreithaler, a company spokesman. “In order to achieve this, Skoda is investing massively in new products and new markets, particularly in China, India, and Russia.”

Plzensky Prazdroj
Beer
SABMiller
Skoda Auto
Czech Republic


Garrett Reid, Son of Eagles Coach, Dead at 29

Abstract: Garrett Reid, the oldest son of Philadelphia Eagles Coach Andy Reid, was found dead Sunday morning in his dormitory room at the team’s training site in Bethlehem, Pa., after a troubled life that included a struggle with drug use and prison stints. The younger Reid, 29, could not be revived when the police responded to a 911 call Sunday, and the county coroner said an investigation was under way. The Lehigh University police said no suspicious activities were involved. No cause of death was given. According to the team, Andy Reid asked that training camp continue. He did not attend the team’s morning walk-through, which began with a prayer by players, or afternoon practice, but the team owner Jeffrey Lurie said Sunday that he expected Reid to return to the team this week and to be on the sideline when the team opened the preseason against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night. Garrett Reid had reportedly been working with the team’s strength coaches during training camp. “It’s a tough morning for all of us in the Eagles family,” General Manager Howie Roseman said in announcing Garrett Reid’s death after the early practice. “Garrett grew up with this team, which makes this news even harder for us to process.” Later, he added: “On a personal note, we’ve been with Andy for a long time. He’s always been strong for us; we’re going to be strong for him right now. As a father and a friend, we’re all hurting.” Only last week, Andy Reid was unusually relaxed after a morning walk-through at camp, joking with visiting reporters and entertaining a war veteran he had befriended during the man’s long recovery from injuries. Entering his 14th season with the Eagles, Reid spoke of not allowing himself to think about the pressure of his job. His son’s personal travails, though, had weighed heavily on Reid and had been intertwined with his work for at least five years. In 2007, he took a five-week leave of absence from the Eagles — unusual in a world where coaches proudly announce they sleep in their offices — and accompanied Garrett to a drug rehabilitation facility after Garrett admitted he had used heroin before causing a car accident that sent a woman to a hospital. On the day of Garrett’s accident, his younger brother Britt pointed a gun at another motorist during a road-rage incident, and drugs were found in his car. Both Reids eventually spent time in prison; at the sentencing, a judge described their family’s home as “more or less like a drug emporium.” While Garrett was in prison, he was caught smuggling prescription pills into his cell. According to documents prepared before his sentencing by the probation department, Garrett said he began abusing drugs and alcohol after he graduated from high school in 2001. Garrett said in court documents that he began dealing drugs in 2002. “I don’t want to be that kid who was the son of the head coach of the Eagles, who was spoiled and on drugs and OD’d and just faded into oblivion,” Garrett said at his sentencing. When Andy Reid returned from his leave of absence, he told reporters he had at least briefly pondered giving up his job because of his sons’ troubles. “If I tell you after a loss or a win that I do a lot of thinking, I’m sure you can add that up for this,” Reid said in 2007. “Yeah, you go back and think through a lot of things.” When the Eagles signed quarterback Michael Vick in 2009 after he had served time in federal prison for his role in a dogfighting operation, Reid said he was moved to consider Vick, in part, because of the second chances offered to his sons. Reid and his wife, Tammy, have three other children. Lurie spoke to Reid on Sunday and said that Reid felt bad he had missed Sunday’s practices and would probably miss Monday’s, too. “Today is one of life’s tough days,” Lurie said. “Andy is a rock-solid man. I think what makes him a great coach is his combination of compassion, feeling and strength. And today, he exhibited it all. “It’s unimaginable. We’ve all suffered — most of us have suffered tragedy in our lives. Losing a son is unimaginable. Losing a child is unimaginable — the pain.”

Philadelphia Eagles
Reid Andy
Football
Reid Garrett
Drug Abuse and Traffic


Con Men Prey on Confusion Over Health Care Act

Abstract: To the list of problems plaguing President Obama’s health care law, add one more — fraud. With millions of Americans frustrated and bewildered by the trouble-prone federal website for health insurance, con men and unscrupulous marketers are seizing their chance. State and federal authorities report a rising number of consumer complaints, ranging from deceptive sales practices to identity theft, linked to the Affordable Care Act. Madeleine Mirzayans was fooled when a man posing as a government official knocked on her door. Barbara Miller and Maevis Ethan were pitched by telemarketers who claimed to work for Medicaid. And Buford Price was almost caught by another trap: websites that look official but are actually bait set by fly-by-night insurance operators. Some level of fraud or abuse is predictable with any big government program, and administration officials expected a few bad actors to emerge. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services; Edith Ramirez, the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission; and other officials met at the White House in September to discuss possible pitfalls. But now, the technical failures troubling the HealthCare.gov website, as well as the law’s complexity, threaten to make matters worse. Only a tiny fraction of Americans have been affected so far, but state authorities and the F.T.C. are reviewing the issue aggressively. “With this changing health insurance landscape, there is a new opportunity for people to take advantage of our residents, and we’ve seen it starting already,” said Kate Abernathy, a spokeswoman at the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance. While it is difficult to quantify the problem, interviews with authorities in states including California, Florida, Illinois and New York suggest that fraud is a growing worry. Websites are particularly difficult to police. “We are remaining vigilant, since we anticipated that the law was so complex that scam artists would take advantage of it,” said Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa. In New York and Illinois, attorneys general are investigating at least two firms that they suspect of fraud, according to people briefed on the matter. Since October, attorney general offices in 36 states have been holding conference calls about the emerging dangers every two weeks. The most prevalent complaints involve older Americans. Under the law, people age 65 and over, who are on Medicare, do not need to buy supplemental coverage. Nonetheless, some marketers are pushing expensive add-on policies by falsely claiming that such coverage is required, state authorities say. Others are telling people that the law means they need new Medicare cards — not true. And still others are charging fees as high as $100 to “help” people navigate the new insurance landscape. And then there are those who are creating websites that resemble state health care exchanges. Visitors to those websites, with addresses like NewHampshireHealthExchange.com, say they are inundated with pitches from private insurance agents unaffiliated with the government. Authorities warn that in some cases the come-ons are merely a ruse to get people to divulge sensitive Medicare and banking information. The pitches usually come with a telephone call or knock at the door. Someone claiming to be a government official offers help or warns residents that their Medicare cards are about to expire. Then the hook is set. To Ms. Mirzayans, 68, the caller sounded so official that she agreed to meet him the next day at her home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He told her the law meant she would have to update her Medicare card. Ms. Mirzayans, a retired small-business owner, was grateful that the government was taking such interest in her insurance coverage. Over glasses of pomegranate juice last month, Ms. Mirzayans divulged to her visitor crucial Medicare, Social Security and personal information. Only after the man left without giving her a business card did she grow suspicious. “I just feel so foolish and betrayed,” said Ms. Mirzayans, who reported the incident to state authorities. She is hardly alone. Across the country, volunteers with Senior Medicare Patrol , a government program that works with older Americans to root out health care fraud, say they have been deluged with calls for assistance. The typical complaints are from retirees who said they had handed over bank account information to callers claiming to be from Medicare. Anne Gray, a project coordinator in California with the Senior Medicare Patrol, said, “Such calls have doubled in recent months.” Ms. Miller and Ms. Ethan, both of whom live in California, said they also received calls from people urging them to update their Medicare cards in light of the new law. Neither fell for the ploy. In Kentucky, Elsie Burdon, 70, said she knew she had slipped up almost as soon as she hung up the phone. She had divulged her Medicare information and Social Security number. Ms. Burdon, of Jenkins, Ky., said the caller assured her that Medicare was changing, inquired about her diabetes and even asked about her shoe size. “I thought it was odd,” Ms. Burdon said, adding that she immediately contacted her bank and state authorities. Days later, she got a flood of other marketing calls. “I can’t even keep track,” she said. “First it was a Joe, then an Ashley and then at least six other people all claiming to be from the government.” Anyone, young or old, can be targeted by the unscrupulous marketers. But older people — whether because of age, their tendency to be at home often or other factors — are particularly vulnerable. Medicare has also long been a magnet for swindlers, thanks to its sheer scale and complexity. The troubled rollout of the new health care law has amplified the problem. “The scammers are deploying traditional Medicare cons but wrapping them in the Affordable Health Care Act,” said James Quiggle of Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, a Washington-based nonprofit. With all the problems surrounding the federal websites, it can be even more difficult for consumers to navigate. In October, New Hampshire’s insurance commissioner hit the operator of NewHampshireHealthExchange.com, an insurance provider in Arizona, with a cease-and-desist order. Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general, is investigating a website over concerns that it is a lead generator for insurance providers not registered to do business within the state, the people briefed said. New York’s Department of Financial Services is also investigating potential fraud. Mr. Price, 75, who lives in Willis, Tex., concedes he is not technology-proficient. “I don’t do the Internet,” he said. But he was surprised at how quickly a wrong turn on the web led to a barrage of marketing calls. While he and a friend were watching football one recent Sunday, the friend entered Mr. Price’s name and phone number into a pop-up window that appeared when Mr. Price was perusing an official-looking government website. Roughly five minutes later, Mr. Price said, his cellphone rang. On the line, Mr. Price said, was a man who offered to come by his house the next day. Mr. Price declined — but got three more calls later that week. “I know the Internet is fast,” Mr. Price said, “but this was something else.”

Fraud
Health Insurance
Identity Theft
HealthCare.gov
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
Old age,elderly,senior citizens
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


U.S. Ship Off Yemen Fires Missiles at Houthi Rebel Sites

Abstract: WASHINGTON — An American warship stationed off the coast of Yemen fired cruise missiles on Thursday at radar installations that the Pentagon said had been used by Yemeni insurgents to target another American warship in two missile attacks in the last four days. The strikes against the Houthi rebels marked the first time the United States has become involved militarily in the civil war between the Houthis, an indigenous Shiite group with loose connections to Iran, and the Yememi government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations. The strikes were approved by President Obama, said Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, who warned of more to come if American ships were fired upon again. “These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic.” Until Thursday, the Obama administration had tried to navigate a treacherous course in Yemen, publicly pushing for a peace deal while quietly providing military support to a Saudi Arabia-led bombing campaign against the rebels since last year. Yet the main goal of the administration has often appeared to be keeping the United States from being dragged too deeply into a conflict that has shown little signs of abating, and instead continues to grow deadlier. That changed in the past four days with two separate missile attacks on an American destroyer, the Mason, that was sailing off the coast of Yemen in the southern end of the Red Sea. In both the first attack, which took place on Sunday, and the second one on Wednesday evening, missiles were fired from areas under Houthi control. The missiles fell well short of the ship in both attacks. But American commanders believed that the attack posed a real threat. The retaliatory strikes on Thursday targeted three radar installations that were “involved in the recent missile launches threatening U.S.S. Mason and other vessels operating in international waters in the Red Sea” and the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked waterways, the Pentagon said. “Initial assessments show the sites were destroyed,” it said. Up to now, the Obama administration put limits on its support for the Saudi-led coalition, providing intelligence and Air Force tankers to refuel the coalition’s jets and bombers. The American military has refueled more than 5,700 aircraft involved in the bombing campaign since it began, according to statistics provided by United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East. This American role has drawn criticism from human rights groups who condemn the campaign as reckless. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since the bombing began, according to the United Nations’ top human rights official , Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein. That number includes at least 140 people who were killed in an airstrike on a funeral ceremony last weekend in the Yemeni capital, Sana. The strike prompted the administration to promise a review of the American military assistance to the Saudis “so as to better align with U.S. principles, values and interests.” After the strikes by the United States on Thursday, a senior American military official stressed that the three radar installations were in remote areas. There was little risk of civilians being caught in the attacks, the official said, though there was no definitive declaration that civilians were unharmed in the strikes. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to provide details not included in the formal Pentagon statement, said the attack was carried out by the Nitze, also a destroyer, which fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the radar sites. The radar sites, which are in Houthi-controlled territory, had been active during the failed missile attacks against the Mason and other ships. They were also active on Oct. 1 when Houthi forces are believed to have fired a missile that disabled a United Arab Emirates military logistics ship, the Swift, the American official said. Before Thursday’s attack, Secretary of State John Kerry pushed for a peace deal in Yemen, arguing that the United States could be an honest broker because it was not directly involved in the Saudi-led bombing campaign. The military response could now make that a more difficult position to take. Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert at Chatham House, a London policy institute, said in an interview conducted hours before the American strikes that “if they do intervene, it deepens the case that the Americans are party to the conflict.” The Mason was sailing in the Bab el Mandeb, at the southern end of the Red Sea, when it was fired upon Wednesday. The ship responded with defensive fire before the missile fell into the water, according to the Pentagon. A second American ship nearby, the Ponce, used to transport amphibious assault forces, was also untouched in the attack. Mr. Cook, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the Mason was “conducting routine operations” when it was fired upon, and that it would continue to sail in the strait. The senior American military official described the weapon used in the attack on Wednesday on the Mason as a coastal defense cruise missile, designed to be used against ships. The official said the missile came from an area under rebel control. The situation was similar to one that unfolded on Sunday, when a pair of coastal defense missiles were fired at the Mason but failed to hit the ship. How the rebels might have obtained the missiles was not clear. The Houthis, who are from northern Yemen, have seized ample amounts of military hardware in their two-year campaign to seize control of the country, and they are also believed to have received substantial aid from Iran, possibly including advanced weaponry. American intelligence officials believe that the Houthis receive significantly less support from Iran than the Saudis and other Persian Gulf nations have charged. The Saudi-led campaign began in March 2015, about a year after the Houthis and army units loyal to Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began battling to oust the country’s current president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Despite skepticism in Washington about the wisdom of the campaign, the Obama administration threw its support behind the Saudis, in part because it needed support in Riyadh for the nuclear deal it was then negotiating with Iran , a bitter enemy of Saudi Arabia. Besides providing intelligence and refueling help, the Pentagon sent a team of military personnel to Saudi Arabia to assist the planners of the air campaign. Yet the Saudi campaign has failed to dislodge the Houthis from Sana. Much of Yemen is now on the brink of famine, and reports of civilians’ being killed in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have become routine. The aid organization Doctors Without Borders has withdrawn its personnel from six hospitals in northern Yemen after the coalition bombed several of its medical facilities. But the group continues to operate in the rest of the country. Despite international condemnation of the campaign, the White House pushed ahead this year with a $1.15 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia that includes tanks and other heavy military equipment. A Senate resolution in September to block the sale failed, but 26 senators voted for it, signaling growing congressional concern about the Saudi alliance. “We are complicit and actively involved with war in Yemen,” Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who worked to block the arms deal, said at the time.“There’s been no debate in Congress, really no debate in the public sphere over whether or not we should be at war in Yemen.”

Yemen
Houthis
US Military
US Navy
Missiles and Missile Defense