Men Struggle for Rape Awareness
Keith Smith was 14 when he was raped by a driver who picked him up after a hockey team meeting. He had hitchhiked home, which is why, for decades, he continued to blame himself for the assault.
When the driver barreled past Hartley’s Pork Pies on the outskirts of Providence, R.I., where Mr. Smith had asked to be dropped off, and then past a firehouse, he knew something was wrong.
“I tried to open the car door, but he had rigged the lock,” said Mr. Smith, of East Windsor, N.J., now 52. Still, he said, “I had no idea it was going to be a sexual assault.”
Even today, years after the disclosure of the still-unfolding child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and the arrest of a former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach accused of sexually abusing boys, rape is widely thought of as a crime against women.
Until just a few weeks ago, when the federal government expanded its definition of rape to include a wider range of sexual assaults, national crime statistics on rape included only assaults against women and girls committed by men under a narrow set of circumstances. Now they will also include male victims.
While most experts agree women are raped far more often than men, 1.4 percent of men in a recent national survey said they had been raped at some point. The study, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that when rape was defined as oral or anal penetration, one in 71 men said they had been raped or had been the target of attempted rape, usually by a man they knew. (The study did not include men in prison.)
And one in 21 said they had been forced to penetrate an acquaintance or a partner, usually a woman; had been the victim of an attempt to force penetration; or had been made to receive oral sex.
Other estimates have run even higher. A Department of Justice report found that 3 percent of men, or one in 33, had been raped. Some experts believe that one in six men have experienced unwanted sexual contact of some kind as minors.
But for many men, the subject is so discomfiting that it is rarely discussed — virtually taboo, experts say, because of societal notions about masculinity and the idea that men are invulnerable and can take care of themselves.
“We have a cultural blind spot about this,” said David Lisak, a clinical psychologist who has done research on interpersonal violence and sexual abuse and is a founding board member of 1in6, an organization that offers information and services to men who had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences as children.
“We recognize that male children are being abused,” Dr. Lisak said, “but then when boys cross some kind of threshold somewhere in adolescence and become what we perceive to be men, we no longer want to think about it in this way.”
Even when high-profile cases dominate the news, said Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime advocacy organization in Washington, “attention goes to the things we feel more comfortable talking about — such as whether Penn State had done enough, and what will happen to their football program — and not to the question, ‘What do we do to prevent boys from being sexually assaulted?’ ”
In an interview with The Washington Post this month, Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who was fired after the abuse scandal erupted and who died of lung cancer on Sunday, said that when an assistant had told him about witnessing an inappropriate encounter between a young boy and Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach who is facing charges of sexual abuse, he had been confused and unsure how to proceed. Mr. Paterno said the assistant “didn’t want to get specific. And to be frank with you, I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of rape and a man.”
Much of the research on the sexual assault of men has focused on prisons. But men are also raped outside of prison, usually by people they know, including acquaintances and intimate partners, but occasionally by complete strangers. They are raped as part of violent, drunken or drug-induced assaults; war crimes; interrogations; antigay bias crimes; and hazing rites for male clubs and organizations, like fraternities, and in the military.
In one study of 3,337 military veterans applying for disability benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder, 6.5 percent of male combat veterans and 16.5 percent of noncombat veterans reported either in-service or post-service sexual assault. (The rates were far higher for female veterans, 69.0 percent and 86.6 percent respectively.)
A Pentagon report released on Thursday found a 64 percent increase in sexual crimes in the Army since 2006, with rape, sexual assault and forcible sodomy the most frequent violent sex crimes committed last year; 95 percent of all victims were women.
Some studies have reported that the risk of rape is greatest for men who are young, are living in poverty or homeless, or are disabled or mentally ill. The C.D.C. study found that one-quarter of men who had been raped were assaulted before they were 10 , usually by someone they knew.
And young men raised by poor single mothers are especially vulnerable to male predators, said Dr. Zane Gates, an internist who cares for low-income patients on Medicaid at a community health center in Altoona, Pa.
“You’re looking for a male figure in your life desperately, and you’ll give anything for that,” he said.
Showing posts with label US news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US news. Show all posts
Monday, January 23, 2012
Chaotic Start to Egypt’s First Democratically Elected Parliament
Chaotic Start to Egypt’s First Democratically Elected Parliament
CAIRO — As Egypt’s first freely elected Parliament in six decades held its opening session on Monday, the Muslim Brotherhood received a lesson in the unwieldiness of democracy when a dispute over choosing a speaker degenerated into a shouting match that overshadowed the day.
It took until nightfall for the Muslim Brotherhood to decisively beat back the challenge to its choice of Saad el-Katatni, a Brotherhood stalwart, by a vote of nearly 400 to fewer than 100.
Its victory was another marker in the group’s transformation from outlawed opposition to political establishment. The Brotherhood won nearly half the legislative seats during the first free elections since last year’s ouster of Hosni Mubarak. After struggling for 84 years in the shadows of monarchy and dictatorship, the Brotherhood — the secretive, hierarchical once-militant group that became the fountainhead of Islamist ideologies — gained political power and the hope of democratic legitimacy as a result of Monday’s vote.
Its triumph, in the heart of the Arab world and the center of last year’s regional uprising, was arguably the closest that Islamists have ever come to governing an Arab country since their movement was born here 80 years ago. Although a party with Islamist roots dominated Tunisia’s elections last fall, it has sought to jettison the label in order to emphasize its commitment to democracy and pluralism, while the Brotherhood still considers itself the movement’s flagship.
In a weary speech after his election late Monday night, Mr. Katatni said the differences of opinion expressed over his selection were democracy in action. “This is democracy that had left this hall for years, and now the people have grasped it,” he said. “We want Egypt and the whole world to know that our revolution will continue and we will not rest and our eyes won’t sleep until the revolution fulfills all its demands.”
But the acrimony of the challenge to Mr. Katatni from a former Brotherhood leader was also a reminder of the difficulties facing the group as it tries to unite the country, the Parliament and even its fellow Islamists, especially at a time when Egypt remains under the rule of the generals who seized power from Mr. Mubarak.
The bedlam in the chamber tempered a day that had begun as a joyous occasion for some Brotherhood members. Hundreds of them arrived outside the Parliament in the early morning, directed by their leaders both to cheer for the new lawmakers and to ensure against any outbreak of violence. “Everyone has his role to play,” said Mohsen Eid, 44, an aviation engineer and Brotherhood member.
For many, it was the first opportunity to recognize an achievement three generations in the making. “This is the most important day in our lives, after the day Mubarak left,” said Abdul Moneim el-Tantawy, 67, a mechanical engineer. “This is our celebration,” he said, looking up at the Parliament building. “Before, if we stood here, we would be taken directly to jail.”
Men held hands and danced in the street, singing religious and patriotic songs. They carried paunchy middle-aged men in suits and ties on their shoulders to lead them in chants like a high school sports team that won a big game. Some handed the lawmakers flowers as they approached the door, and a few men and women cried tears of joy.
Some members of Parliament tried to approach by car but the crowds were so thick they had to get out and walk. “At this time there is no one who can overcome the people,” said Ahmed Hassanin, 41, a neurologist who turned up before 8 a.m. to watch the lawmakers arrive for the historic session. “It was beautiful.”
The streets around the Parliament had been repainted, to hide the evidence of the deadly clashes between security forces and protesters challenging military rule that took place there just a month before. But by midafternoon a few thousand other demonstrators had arrived, many repeating the demand for the military rulers to step down immediately — a call the Muslim Brotherhood has not endorsed. It has accepted the military’s plan to hand over power to a newly elected president by the end of June.
CAIRO — As Egypt’s first freely elected Parliament in six decades held its opening session on Monday, the Muslim Brotherhood received a lesson in the unwieldiness of democracy when a dispute over choosing a speaker degenerated into a shouting match that overshadowed the day.
It took until nightfall for the Muslim Brotherhood to decisively beat back the challenge to its choice of Saad el-Katatni, a Brotherhood stalwart, by a vote of nearly 400 to fewer than 100.
Its victory was another marker in the group’s transformation from outlawed opposition to political establishment. The Brotherhood won nearly half the legislative seats during the first free elections since last year’s ouster of Hosni Mubarak. After struggling for 84 years in the shadows of monarchy and dictatorship, the Brotherhood — the secretive, hierarchical once-militant group that became the fountainhead of Islamist ideologies — gained political power and the hope of democratic legitimacy as a result of Monday’s vote.
Its triumph, in the heart of the Arab world and the center of last year’s regional uprising, was arguably the closest that Islamists have ever come to governing an Arab country since their movement was born here 80 years ago. Although a party with Islamist roots dominated Tunisia’s elections last fall, it has sought to jettison the label in order to emphasize its commitment to democracy and pluralism, while the Brotherhood still considers itself the movement’s flagship.
In a weary speech after his election late Monday night, Mr. Katatni said the differences of opinion expressed over his selection were democracy in action. “This is democracy that had left this hall for years, and now the people have grasped it,” he said. “We want Egypt and the whole world to know that our revolution will continue and we will not rest and our eyes won’t sleep until the revolution fulfills all its demands.”
But the acrimony of the challenge to Mr. Katatni from a former Brotherhood leader was also a reminder of the difficulties facing the group as it tries to unite the country, the Parliament and even its fellow Islamists, especially at a time when Egypt remains under the rule of the generals who seized power from Mr. Mubarak.
The bedlam in the chamber tempered a day that had begun as a joyous occasion for some Brotherhood members. Hundreds of them arrived outside the Parliament in the early morning, directed by their leaders both to cheer for the new lawmakers and to ensure against any outbreak of violence. “Everyone has his role to play,” said Mohsen Eid, 44, an aviation engineer and Brotherhood member.
For many, it was the first opportunity to recognize an achievement three generations in the making. “This is the most important day in our lives, after the day Mubarak left,” said Abdul Moneim el-Tantawy, 67, a mechanical engineer. “This is our celebration,” he said, looking up at the Parliament building. “Before, if we stood here, we would be taken directly to jail.”
Men held hands and danced in the street, singing religious and patriotic songs. They carried paunchy middle-aged men in suits and ties on their shoulders to lead them in chants like a high school sports team that won a big game. Some handed the lawmakers flowers as they approached the door, and a few men and women cried tears of joy.
Some members of Parliament tried to approach by car but the crowds were so thick they had to get out and walk. “At this time there is no one who can overcome the people,” said Ahmed Hassanin, 41, a neurologist who turned up before 8 a.m. to watch the lawmakers arrive for the historic session. “It was beautiful.”
The streets around the Parliament had been repainted, to hide the evidence of the deadly clashes between security forces and protesters challenging military rule that took place there just a month before. But by midafternoon a few thousand other demonstrators had arrived, many repeating the demand for the military rulers to step down immediately — a call the Muslim Brotherhood has not endorsed. It has accepted the military’s plan to hand over power to a newly elected president by the end of June.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Afghanistan’s Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces
Afghanistan’s Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces
KABUL, Afghanistan — American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report.
A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.
Underscoring the danger, a gunman in an Afghan Army uniform killed four French service members and wounded several others on Friday, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan, prompting the French president to suspend his country’s operations here.
The violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of American efforts to build a functional Afghan Army, a pillar of the Obama administration’s strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and experts who helped shape the strategy.
The problems risk leaving the United States and its allies dependent on an Afghan force that is permeated by anti-Western sentiment and incapable of combating the Taliban and other militants when NATO’s combat mission ends in 2014, they said.
One instance of the general level of antipathy in the war exploded into uncomfortable view last week when video emerged of American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Although American commanders quickly took action and condemned the act, chat-room and Facebook posts by Marines and their supporters were full of praise for the desecration.
But the most troubling fallout has been the mounting number of Westerners killed by their Afghan allies, events that have been routinely dismissed by American and NATO officials as isolated episodes that are the work of disturbed individual soldiers or Taliban infiltrators, and not indicative of a larger pattern. The unusually blunt report, which was prepared for a subordinate American command in eastern Afghanistan, takes a decidedly different view. The Wall Street Journal reported on details of the investigation last year. A copy was obtained by The New York Times.
“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” it said. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest,” said the report, and it played down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.
The coalition refused to comment on the classified report. But “incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings Jr. of the Army, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force. “We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships.”
The numbers appear to tell a different story. Although NATO does not release a complete tally of its forces’ deaths at the hands of Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified report and coalition news releases indicate that Afghan forces have attacked American and allied service members nearly three dozen times since 2007.
Two members of the French Foreign Legion and one American soldier were killed in separate episodes in the past month, according to statements by NATO. The classified report found that between May 2007 and May 2011, when it was completed, at least 58 Western service members were killed in 26 separate attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police nationwide. Most of those attacks have occurred since October 2009. This toll represented 6 percent of all hostile coalition deaths during that period, the report said.
KABUL, Afghanistan — American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report.
A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.
Underscoring the danger, a gunman in an Afghan Army uniform killed four French service members and wounded several others on Friday, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan, prompting the French president to suspend his country’s operations here.
The violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of American efforts to build a functional Afghan Army, a pillar of the Obama administration’s strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and experts who helped shape the strategy.
The problems risk leaving the United States and its allies dependent on an Afghan force that is permeated by anti-Western sentiment and incapable of combating the Taliban and other militants when NATO’s combat mission ends in 2014, they said.
One instance of the general level of antipathy in the war exploded into uncomfortable view last week when video emerged of American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Although American commanders quickly took action and condemned the act, chat-room and Facebook posts by Marines and their supporters were full of praise for the desecration.
But the most troubling fallout has been the mounting number of Westerners killed by their Afghan allies, events that have been routinely dismissed by American and NATO officials as isolated episodes that are the work of disturbed individual soldiers or Taliban infiltrators, and not indicative of a larger pattern. The unusually blunt report, which was prepared for a subordinate American command in eastern Afghanistan, takes a decidedly different view. The Wall Street Journal reported on details of the investigation last year. A copy was obtained by The New York Times.
“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” it said. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest,” said the report, and it played down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.
The coalition refused to comment on the classified report. But “incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings Jr. of the Army, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force. “We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships.”
The numbers appear to tell a different story. Although NATO does not release a complete tally of its forces’ deaths at the hands of Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified report and coalition news releases indicate that Afghan forces have attacked American and allied service members nearly three dozen times since 2007.
Two members of the French Foreign Legion and one American soldier were killed in separate episodes in the past month, according to statements by NATO. The classified report found that between May 2007 and May 2011, when it was completed, at least 58 Western service members were killed in 26 separate attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police nationwide. Most of those attacks have occurred since October 2009. This toll represented 6 percent of all hostile coalition deaths during that period, the report said.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Mexico’s Drug War Bloodies Areas Thought Safe
Mexico’s Drug War Bloodies Areas Thought Safe
MEXICO CITY — The Mexican drug war that has largely been defined by violence along the border is intensifying in interior and southern areas once thought clear of the carnage, broadening a conflict that has already overwhelmed the authorities and dispirited the public, according to analysts and new government data.
Last week, two headless bodies were found in a smoldering minivan near the entrance to one of the largest and most expensive malls in Mexico City, generally considered a refuge from the grisly atrocities that have gripped other cities throughout the drug war.
Two other cities considered safe just six months ago — Guadalajara and Veracruz — have experienced their own episodes of brutality: 26 bodies were left in the heart of Guadalajara late last year, on the eve of Latin America’s most prestigious book fair, and last month the entire police force in Veracruz was dismissed after state officials determined that it was too corrupt to patrol a city where 35 bodies were dumped on a road in September.
The spreading violence, believed to largely reflect a widening turf war between two of the biggest criminal organizations in the country, has implications on both sides of the border, putting added pressure on political and law enforcement leaders who are already struggling to show that their strategies are working.
“It is a situation ever more complicated and complex,” said Ricardo Ravelo, a Mexican journalist who has written several books on criminal organizations. “Resources are and will be stretched to deal with this.”
American officials here acknowledge that the mayhem is unpredictable but contend that they have a way to help tackle it, spreading word that the $1.6 billion Merida Initiative, Washington’s signature antidrug program, will step up training and advising for the Mexican state and local police and judicial institutions this year, rather than emphasizing the delivery of helicopters and other equipment.
In a year in which President Felipe Calderón’s party, in power since 2000, may struggle to hang on to the presidency in July elections, the expanding violence is giving political rivals, all promising a more peaceful country, much to run on.
Discerning patterns of violence in the drug war can be perilous; it is often like a tornado skipping across terrain, devastating one area while leaving another untouched.
But government statistics released last week showed a surge in deaths presumed to be related to drug or organized crime in Mexico State, which surrounds the capital and is the nation’s most populous state, in the first nine months of last year. The government data also show that violence has now afflicted 831 communities nationwide, an increase of 7 percent.
Although questions have emerged about the government’s tally, many analysts agree that the violence is widening.
“There has been a definite shift of violence away from the border and back to the interior states,” said David A. Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, who closely tracks drug crime.
In a way, he said, the shift is a stark reversal of the trend of six years ago, when violence exploded in more southerly states and migrated north along drug-trafficking routes, accelerating a drug war that has now left more than 47,000 people dead, according to the government.
In response, the Mexican government deployed its military and the federal police, arresting and killing more than two dozen cartel leaders and splintering or dismantling several groups. Their push has been backed by American aid in the form of helicopters, remotely piloted drones and the deepening involvement of American drug agents in investigations and raids.
The violence slackened in many areas along the border, including Ciudad Juárez, the bloodiest city, where homicides have been declining. Mexican officials say the decrease is proof that they are making headway, but analysts say it may have more to do with one rival group’s defeat of another, reducing competition and the bloodshed that comes with it.
As for the violence in other areas — Acapulco, in the south, is now the second most violent city — that, too, may reflect the shifting contours of the fights between criminal organizations.
The drug war, Mr. Shirk and other analysts say, is increasingly coming down to a fight to the death between the Sinaloa cartel, a more traditional drug-trafficking organization widely considered the most powerful, and Los Zetas, founded by former soldiers and considered the most violent as it expands into extortion, kidnapping and other rackets in regions far off the drug route map. A third, the Gulf Cartel, remains well armed and rises to attack from time to time.
Many of the clashes have been in central or more southern areas where the two main rivals have not previously fought each other so violently, analysts say. George W. Grayson, a longtime researcher of Mexican violence and co-author of a coming book on Los Zetas, said the group had spread to 17 states from 14 a year ago.
MEXICO CITY — The Mexican drug war that has largely been defined by violence along the border is intensifying in interior and southern areas once thought clear of the carnage, broadening a conflict that has already overwhelmed the authorities and dispirited the public, according to analysts and new government data.
Last week, two headless bodies were found in a smoldering minivan near the entrance to one of the largest and most expensive malls in Mexico City, generally considered a refuge from the grisly atrocities that have gripped other cities throughout the drug war.
Two other cities considered safe just six months ago — Guadalajara and Veracruz — have experienced their own episodes of brutality: 26 bodies were left in the heart of Guadalajara late last year, on the eve of Latin America’s most prestigious book fair, and last month the entire police force in Veracruz was dismissed after state officials determined that it was too corrupt to patrol a city where 35 bodies were dumped on a road in September.
The spreading violence, believed to largely reflect a widening turf war between two of the biggest criminal organizations in the country, has implications on both sides of the border, putting added pressure on political and law enforcement leaders who are already struggling to show that their strategies are working.
“It is a situation ever more complicated and complex,” said Ricardo Ravelo, a Mexican journalist who has written several books on criminal organizations. “Resources are and will be stretched to deal with this.”
American officials here acknowledge that the mayhem is unpredictable but contend that they have a way to help tackle it, spreading word that the $1.6 billion Merida Initiative, Washington’s signature antidrug program, will step up training and advising for the Mexican state and local police and judicial institutions this year, rather than emphasizing the delivery of helicopters and other equipment.
In a year in which President Felipe Calderón’s party, in power since 2000, may struggle to hang on to the presidency in July elections, the expanding violence is giving political rivals, all promising a more peaceful country, much to run on.
Discerning patterns of violence in the drug war can be perilous; it is often like a tornado skipping across terrain, devastating one area while leaving another untouched.
But government statistics released last week showed a surge in deaths presumed to be related to drug or organized crime in Mexico State, which surrounds the capital and is the nation’s most populous state, in the first nine months of last year. The government data also show that violence has now afflicted 831 communities nationwide, an increase of 7 percent.
Although questions have emerged about the government’s tally, many analysts agree that the violence is widening.
“There has been a definite shift of violence away from the border and back to the interior states,” said David A. Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, who closely tracks drug crime.
In a way, he said, the shift is a stark reversal of the trend of six years ago, when violence exploded in more southerly states and migrated north along drug-trafficking routes, accelerating a drug war that has now left more than 47,000 people dead, according to the government.
In response, the Mexican government deployed its military and the federal police, arresting and killing more than two dozen cartel leaders and splintering or dismantling several groups. Their push has been backed by American aid in the form of helicopters, remotely piloted drones and the deepening involvement of American drug agents in investigations and raids.
The violence slackened in many areas along the border, including Ciudad Juárez, the bloodiest city, where homicides have been declining. Mexican officials say the decrease is proof that they are making headway, but analysts say it may have more to do with one rival group’s defeat of another, reducing competition and the bloodshed that comes with it.
As for the violence in other areas — Acapulco, in the south, is now the second most violent city — that, too, may reflect the shifting contours of the fights between criminal organizations.
The drug war, Mr. Shirk and other analysts say, is increasingly coming down to a fight to the death between the Sinaloa cartel, a more traditional drug-trafficking organization widely considered the most powerful, and Los Zetas, founded by former soldiers and considered the most violent as it expands into extortion, kidnapping and other rackets in regions far off the drug route map. A third, the Gulf Cartel, remains well armed and rises to attack from time to time.
Many of the clashes have been in central or more southern areas where the two main rivals have not previously fought each other so violently, analysts say. George W. Grayson, a longtime researcher of Mexican violence and co-author of a coming book on Los Zetas, said the group had spread to 17 states from 14 a year ago.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Young, in Love and Sharing Everything, Including a Password
Young, in Love and Sharing Everything, Including a Password
Young couples have long signaled their devotion to each other by various means — the gift of a letterman jacket, or an exchange of class rings or ID bracelets. Best friends share locker combinations.
The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts.
They say they know such digital entanglements are risky, because a souring relationship can lead to people using online secrets against each other. But that, they say, is part of what makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.
“It’s a sign of trust,” Tiffany Carandang, a high school senior in San Francisco, said of the decision she and her boyfriend made several months ago to share passwords for e-mail and Facebook. “I have nothing to hide from him, and he has nothing to hide from me.”
“That is so cute,” said Cherry Ng, 16, listening in to her friend’s comments to a reporter outside school. “They really trust each other.”
We do, said Ms. Carandang, 17. “I know he’d never do anything to hurt my reputation,” she added.
It doesn’t always end so well, of course. Changing a password is simple, but students, counselors and parents say that damage is often done before a password is changed, or that the sharing of online lives can be the reason a relationship falters.
The stories of fallout include a spurned boyfriend in junior high who tries to humiliate his ex-girlfriend by spreading her e-mail secrets; tensions between significant others over scouring each other’s private messages for clues of disloyalty or infidelity; or grabbing a cellphone from a former best friend, unlocking it with a password and sending threatening texts to someone else.
Rosalind Wiseman, who studies how teenagers use technology and is author of “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” a book for parents about helping girls survive adolescence, said the sharing of passwords, and the pressure to do so, was somewhat similar to sex.
Sharing passwords, she noted, feels forbidden because it is generally discouraged by adults and involves vulnerability. And there is pressure in many teenage relationships to share passwords, just as there is to have sex.
“The response is the same: if we’re in a relationship, you have to give me anything,” Ms. Wiseman said.
In a 2011 telephone survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 30 percent of teenagers who were regularly online had shared a password with a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend. The survey, of 770 teenagers aged 12 to 17, found that girls were almost twice as likely as boys to share. And in more than two dozen interviews, parents, students and counselors said that the practice had become widespread.
In a recent column on the tech-news Web site Gizmodo, Sam Biddle called password sharing a linchpin of intimacy in the 21st century, and offered advice to couples and friends on how to avoid missteps.
“I’ve known plenty of couples who have shared passwords, and not a single one has not regretted it,” said Mr. Biddle in an interview, adding that the practice includes the unspoken notion of mutually assured destruction if somebody misbehaves. “It’s the kind of symbolism that always goes awry.”
Students say there are reasons, beyond a show of trust, to swap online keys. For instance, several college students said they regularly shared Facebook passwords — not to snoop on or monitor each other, but to force themselves to study for finals. A student would give her password to a friend to change it — and not disclose the new password — thereby temporarily locking out the Facebook account holder and taking away a big distraction to studying.
Alexandra Radford, 20, a junior at San Francisco State University, said she had done this for friends several times during exams. One friend wanted to know the new password before finals ended, but Ms. Radford held firm.
“Once finals were over, I gave it to her,” she said. “She was, like, ‘Oh, my gosh, thank you.’ She knew I was good about not giving her the password back.”
Young couples have long signaled their devotion to each other by various means — the gift of a letterman jacket, or an exchange of class rings or ID bracelets. Best friends share locker combinations.
The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts.
They say they know such digital entanglements are risky, because a souring relationship can lead to people using online secrets against each other. But that, they say, is part of what makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.
“It’s a sign of trust,” Tiffany Carandang, a high school senior in San Francisco, said of the decision she and her boyfriend made several months ago to share passwords for e-mail and Facebook. “I have nothing to hide from him, and he has nothing to hide from me.”
“That is so cute,” said Cherry Ng, 16, listening in to her friend’s comments to a reporter outside school. “They really trust each other.”
We do, said Ms. Carandang, 17. “I know he’d never do anything to hurt my reputation,” she added.
It doesn’t always end so well, of course. Changing a password is simple, but students, counselors and parents say that damage is often done before a password is changed, or that the sharing of online lives can be the reason a relationship falters.
The stories of fallout include a spurned boyfriend in junior high who tries to humiliate his ex-girlfriend by spreading her e-mail secrets; tensions between significant others over scouring each other’s private messages for clues of disloyalty or infidelity; or grabbing a cellphone from a former best friend, unlocking it with a password and sending threatening texts to someone else.
Rosalind Wiseman, who studies how teenagers use technology and is author of “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” a book for parents about helping girls survive adolescence, said the sharing of passwords, and the pressure to do so, was somewhat similar to sex.
Sharing passwords, she noted, feels forbidden because it is generally discouraged by adults and involves vulnerability. And there is pressure in many teenage relationships to share passwords, just as there is to have sex.
“The response is the same: if we’re in a relationship, you have to give me anything,” Ms. Wiseman said.
In a 2011 telephone survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 30 percent of teenagers who were regularly online had shared a password with a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend. The survey, of 770 teenagers aged 12 to 17, found that girls were almost twice as likely as boys to share. And in more than two dozen interviews, parents, students and counselors said that the practice had become widespread.
In a recent column on the tech-news Web site Gizmodo, Sam Biddle called password sharing a linchpin of intimacy in the 21st century, and offered advice to couples and friends on how to avoid missteps.
“I’ve known plenty of couples who have shared passwords, and not a single one has not regretted it,” said Mr. Biddle in an interview, adding that the practice includes the unspoken notion of mutually assured destruction if somebody misbehaves. “It’s the kind of symbolism that always goes awry.”
Students say there are reasons, beyond a show of trust, to swap online keys. For instance, several college students said they regularly shared Facebook passwords — not to snoop on or monitor each other, but to force themselves to study for finals. A student would give her password to a friend to change it — and not disclose the new password — thereby temporarily locking out the Facebook account holder and taking away a big distraction to studying.
Alexandra Radford, 20, a junior at San Francisco State University, said she had done this for friends several times during exams. One friend wanted to know the new password before finals ended, but Ms. Radford held firm.
“Once finals were over, I gave it to her,” she said. “She was, like, ‘Oh, my gosh, thank you.’ She knew I was good about not giving her the password back.”
As European Union Beckons, Allure Fades for Wary Croatia
As European Union Beckons, Allure Fades for Wary Croatia
HARMICA, Croatia — Zoran Sluga has a small family farm here on the border with Slovenia, his 300-year-old barn filled with thousands of squawking chickens.
But if Croatians vote to join the European Union next Sunday, Mr. Sluga’s simple business will become a lot more complicated. The cages he keeps his hens in will not meet the group’s rules, requiring expensive upgrades. Italian egg producers, given access to Croatian markets, are likely to undercut his prices. Mr. Sluga believes that his very way of life is a stake. And for what? he asks.
“See what happened to Greece,” he said. “They got billions from the E.U. and it did not work out.”
Much has changed in the decade since Croatia first applied to join the European Union. What was once seen as a rich man’s club — which Croatia was eager to join — no longer looks like such a clear ticket to prosperity. Today’s European Union is mired in a crippling debt crisis, which has pushed some of its members to the brink of bankruptcy and threatened its very essence.
Recent polls show that Croats are still likely to vote yes. Then, the 27 European Union countries are expected to ratify their membership and Croatia will become part of the group on July 1 — in all likelihood, the last new member for many years.
Srdjan Dumicic, the director of Ipsos Puls, a company that has conducted several polls on the subject in recent years, said that support had been dwindling in the past few weeks and could narrow, according to the latest poll that has not yet been published. Some Croatians joke, he said, that joining now is like arriving at the party at 2 a.m. Half the revelers are drunk. Half have gone home.
“It’s not the party it was at midnight,” Mr. Dumicic said.
Even the recently elected prime minister, Zoran Milanovic, talks about the prospect of European Union membership without much fervor.
Mr. Milanovic, a social democrat, says the pluses outweigh the minuses. He emphasizes the benefits of full access to a market of 500 million consumers and of gaining about $2 billion a year in development aid in the next couple of years, though future assistance is less certain.
And he sees progress in the overhaul of Croatia’s legal system, which the European Union insisted on.
But he also says that the events of recent years have proved that membership does not guarantee success and that Croatians need to be ready to work hard in a highly competitive environment.
“The working title could be ‘Curb That Enthusiasm,’ ” Mr. Milanovic said in an interview, slightly mangling the title of Larry David’s HBO series.
Critics go much further. They say that recent events have proved that Germany and France make the big decisions and that a country the size of Croatia, with a population of just 4.5 million, will have little say.
They worry also about joining just in time to pay the bill for Greece and other debt-laden countries. And they worry that Croatia, with a long Adriatic coastline, will find itself confronting a flood of immigrants, as Spain, Italy and Greece have.
“In the European Parliament, we would be 12 members out of more than 740; in the Council of Ministers, 7 votes out of more than 350,” said Marjan Bosnjak, secretary of the Council for Croatia, an association opposing European Union membership. “We will be a statistical error. Who will give a damn about what Croatians think?”
To get this far, Croatia, which could not escape the vicious fighting that broke out in the 1990s after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, had to subject itself to a European Union-style makeover. Once deeply corrupt, the government was forced to pass 350 new laws. No one knows how many documents were exchanged because the Croatians stopped counting after 150,000 pages. About 3,000 Croatians worked on the project, from diplomats to translators.
The reach of the European Union is often underestimated, as it tries to create an even playing field among its members. Take the egg business. No detail seems overlooked. The union’s rules say that the chicken cages must allow at least 750 square centimeters per hen and contain a nest, litter, perch and “clawing board.” These requirements are amusing to Mr. Sluga, the farmer. “The chickens have more rights than humans in the E.U.,” he joked.
HARMICA, Croatia — Zoran Sluga has a small family farm here on the border with Slovenia, his 300-year-old barn filled with thousands of squawking chickens.
But if Croatians vote to join the European Union next Sunday, Mr. Sluga’s simple business will become a lot more complicated. The cages he keeps his hens in will not meet the group’s rules, requiring expensive upgrades. Italian egg producers, given access to Croatian markets, are likely to undercut his prices. Mr. Sluga believes that his very way of life is a stake. And for what? he asks.
“See what happened to Greece,” he said. “They got billions from the E.U. and it did not work out.”
Much has changed in the decade since Croatia first applied to join the European Union. What was once seen as a rich man’s club — which Croatia was eager to join — no longer looks like such a clear ticket to prosperity. Today’s European Union is mired in a crippling debt crisis, which has pushed some of its members to the brink of bankruptcy and threatened its very essence.
Recent polls show that Croats are still likely to vote yes. Then, the 27 European Union countries are expected to ratify their membership and Croatia will become part of the group on July 1 — in all likelihood, the last new member for many years.
Srdjan Dumicic, the director of Ipsos Puls, a company that has conducted several polls on the subject in recent years, said that support had been dwindling in the past few weeks and could narrow, according to the latest poll that has not yet been published. Some Croatians joke, he said, that joining now is like arriving at the party at 2 a.m. Half the revelers are drunk. Half have gone home.
“It’s not the party it was at midnight,” Mr. Dumicic said.
Even the recently elected prime minister, Zoran Milanovic, talks about the prospect of European Union membership without much fervor.
Mr. Milanovic, a social democrat, says the pluses outweigh the minuses. He emphasizes the benefits of full access to a market of 500 million consumers and of gaining about $2 billion a year in development aid in the next couple of years, though future assistance is less certain.
And he sees progress in the overhaul of Croatia’s legal system, which the European Union insisted on.
But he also says that the events of recent years have proved that membership does not guarantee success and that Croatians need to be ready to work hard in a highly competitive environment.
“The working title could be ‘Curb That Enthusiasm,’ ” Mr. Milanovic said in an interview, slightly mangling the title of Larry David’s HBO series.
Critics go much further. They say that recent events have proved that Germany and France make the big decisions and that a country the size of Croatia, with a population of just 4.5 million, will have little say.
They worry also about joining just in time to pay the bill for Greece and other debt-laden countries. And they worry that Croatia, with a long Adriatic coastline, will find itself confronting a flood of immigrants, as Spain, Italy and Greece have.
“In the European Parliament, we would be 12 members out of more than 740; in the Council of Ministers, 7 votes out of more than 350,” said Marjan Bosnjak, secretary of the Council for Croatia, an association opposing European Union membership. “We will be a statistical error. Who will give a damn about what Croatians think?”
To get this far, Croatia, which could not escape the vicious fighting that broke out in the 1990s after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, had to subject itself to a European Union-style makeover. Once deeply corrupt, the government was forced to pass 350 new laws. No one knows how many documents were exchanged because the Croatians stopped counting after 150,000 pages. About 3,000 Croatians worked on the project, from diplomats to translators.
The reach of the European Union is often underestimated, as it tries to create an even playing field among its members. Take the egg business. No detail seems overlooked. The union’s rules say that the chicken cages must allow at least 750 square centimeters per hen and contain a nest, litter, perch and “clawing board.” These requirements are amusing to Mr. Sluga, the farmer. “The chickens have more rights than humans in the E.U.,” he joked.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Romney Is Opponents’ Main Target in G.O.P. Debate
Romney Is Opponents’ Main Target in G.O.P. Debate
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Mitt Romney withstood forceful attacks during a debate here on Monday evening, with his Republican rivals lining up to question his job-creation record, wealth and character, as they implored voters to scrutinize his candidacy more deeply before allowing him to sail to the party’s presidential nomination.
With five days remaining before the South Carolina primary, the four other remaining Republican candidates sought once again to raise questions about Mr. Romney’s credentials as an economic manager and his consistency as a conservative.
Yet they failed to goad him into losing his composure or making any major mistakes, and he devoted nearly as much attention to President Obama as he did to the candidates on stage with him.
A spirited crowd of nearly 3,000 Republicans inside the Myrtle Beach Convention Center loudly cheered — and occasionally jeered — throughout the two-hour debate. It was one of the most rollicking presidential debates of the season, with the candidates absorbing instant feedback from voters who will help decide their fate on Saturday.
“My record is out there — proud of it,” Mr. Romney said. “I think that if people want to have someone who understands how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, then I’m the guy that can best post up against Barack Obama.”
But from the moment the debate began, Mr. Romney was besieged by his opponents, all of whom are trying to survive the winnowing process of the early primaries and emerge as a singular challenger to him. They pointedly called on him to disclose his tax returns, explain whether his corporate buyout firm Bain Capital had created or killed jobs and account for his evolving views on social issues like abortion.
“Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so that the people of this country can see how you made your money,” said Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. “As Republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in September. We need to know now.”
Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire who has declined to release returns that could shed new light on the tax rate that he pays, said he would consider reversing course. But he said he would not do so until April, by which point the Republican competition may well be over.
Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, defended the withering criticism he has helped lead of Mr. Romney’s business background. Mr. Gingrich said he was not attacking American capitalism and, if anything, was fulfilling a duty to the party so it knew its nominee’s vulnerabilities before making a final choice about who should face Mr. Obama in the general election.
“We need to satisfy the country,” Mr. Gingrich said, “that whoever we nominate has a record that can stand up to Barack Obama in a very effective way.”
Here in South Carolina, the third stop in the Republican nominating contest, the airwaves are filled with ads from candidates and groups known as “super PACS” that support the candidates without being directly tied to their campaigns. The advertisements provoked a series of lively exchanges between Mr. Romney and his rivals.
Mr. Gingrich sarcastically dismissed Mr. Romney’s protestations that he had nothing to do with a super PAC ad attacking Mr. Gingrich. He said Mr. Romney’s defense “makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president.”
In reply, Mr. Romney said the outside group supporting Mr. Gingrich was showing an anti-Romney documentary that has been widely criticized for its misleading claims about Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital. He called it “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot.”
Yet Mr. Gingrich, who is trailing Mr. Romney narrowly in some polls here, was in top debate form and often seemed to overshadow Rick Santorum, who is battling Mr. Gingrich to emerge as a more conservative alternative to Mr. Romney.
In fact, Mr. Gingrich won some of his loudest and most sustained applause when the liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams pressed him on his call for schoolchildren to work as janitors, for his description of Mr. Obama as a “food stamp president” and remarks that Mr. Williams said, to loud boos, seemed “intended to belittle the poor.”
At one point rolling his eyes, cocking his head to the side and saying with mock impatience, “Well, first of all, Juan,” Mr. Gingrich seemed to revel in using Mr. Williams as a foil.
“The fact is more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history,” Mr. Gingrich said, a claim that is numerically true but ignored the depth of the recession that Mr. Obama inherited when he took office. “I know that among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”
The field of Republican candidates had been narrowed to five as they gathered for their 16th debate of the primary campaign. Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah bowed out of the race on Monday morning and offered an endorsement of Mr. Romney.
The departure of Mr. Huntsman underscored the rising urgency facing Mr. Romney’s rivals, who are trying to change the race’s trajectory. But that did not appear to happen during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party. While many voters say they are open to changing their minds, Mr. Romney holds considerable advantages in South Carolina and in Florida, the next primary state.
The discussion often seemed to be directed at a Southern audience, with questions devoted to what Mr. Perry termed a “war on religion,” as well as race and labor relations.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Mitt Romney withstood forceful attacks during a debate here on Monday evening, with his Republican rivals lining up to question his job-creation record, wealth and character, as they implored voters to scrutinize his candidacy more deeply before allowing him to sail to the party’s presidential nomination.
With five days remaining before the South Carolina primary, the four other remaining Republican candidates sought once again to raise questions about Mr. Romney’s credentials as an economic manager and his consistency as a conservative.
Yet they failed to goad him into losing his composure or making any major mistakes, and he devoted nearly as much attention to President Obama as he did to the candidates on stage with him.
A spirited crowd of nearly 3,000 Republicans inside the Myrtle Beach Convention Center loudly cheered — and occasionally jeered — throughout the two-hour debate. It was one of the most rollicking presidential debates of the season, with the candidates absorbing instant feedback from voters who will help decide their fate on Saturday.
“My record is out there — proud of it,” Mr. Romney said. “I think that if people want to have someone who understands how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, then I’m the guy that can best post up against Barack Obama.”
But from the moment the debate began, Mr. Romney was besieged by his opponents, all of whom are trying to survive the winnowing process of the early primaries and emerge as a singular challenger to him. They pointedly called on him to disclose his tax returns, explain whether his corporate buyout firm Bain Capital had created or killed jobs and account for his evolving views on social issues like abortion.
“Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so that the people of this country can see how you made your money,” said Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. “As Republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in September. We need to know now.”
Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire who has declined to release returns that could shed new light on the tax rate that he pays, said he would consider reversing course. But he said he would not do so until April, by which point the Republican competition may well be over.
Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, defended the withering criticism he has helped lead of Mr. Romney’s business background. Mr. Gingrich said he was not attacking American capitalism and, if anything, was fulfilling a duty to the party so it knew its nominee’s vulnerabilities before making a final choice about who should face Mr. Obama in the general election.
“We need to satisfy the country,” Mr. Gingrich said, “that whoever we nominate has a record that can stand up to Barack Obama in a very effective way.”
Here in South Carolina, the third stop in the Republican nominating contest, the airwaves are filled with ads from candidates and groups known as “super PACS” that support the candidates without being directly tied to their campaigns. The advertisements provoked a series of lively exchanges between Mr. Romney and his rivals.
Mr. Gingrich sarcastically dismissed Mr. Romney’s protestations that he had nothing to do with a super PAC ad attacking Mr. Gingrich. He said Mr. Romney’s defense “makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president.”
In reply, Mr. Romney said the outside group supporting Mr. Gingrich was showing an anti-Romney documentary that has been widely criticized for its misleading claims about Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital. He called it “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot.”
Yet Mr. Gingrich, who is trailing Mr. Romney narrowly in some polls here, was in top debate form and often seemed to overshadow Rick Santorum, who is battling Mr. Gingrich to emerge as a more conservative alternative to Mr. Romney.
In fact, Mr. Gingrich won some of his loudest and most sustained applause when the liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams pressed him on his call for schoolchildren to work as janitors, for his description of Mr. Obama as a “food stamp president” and remarks that Mr. Williams said, to loud boos, seemed “intended to belittle the poor.”
At one point rolling his eyes, cocking his head to the side and saying with mock impatience, “Well, first of all, Juan,” Mr. Gingrich seemed to revel in using Mr. Williams as a foil.
“The fact is more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history,” Mr. Gingrich said, a claim that is numerically true but ignored the depth of the recession that Mr. Obama inherited when he took office. “I know that among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”
The field of Republican candidates had been narrowed to five as they gathered for their 16th debate of the primary campaign. Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah bowed out of the race on Monday morning and offered an endorsement of Mr. Romney.
The departure of Mr. Huntsman underscored the rising urgency facing Mr. Romney’s rivals, who are trying to change the race’s trajectory. But that did not appear to happen during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party. While many voters say they are open to changing their minds, Mr. Romney holds considerable advantages in South Carolina and in Florida, the next primary state.
The discussion often seemed to be directed at a Southern audience, with questions devoted to what Mr. Perry termed a “war on religion,” as well as race and labor relations.
Day Care Centers Adapt to Round-the-Clock Demand
Day Care Centers Adapt to Round-the-Clock Demand
ELYRIA, Ohio — Dinner (chicken and mashed potatoes) was long over, teeth were brushed, and a rousing game of Monopoly had come to a close. It was 9 p.m., and the children nestled into bed under blankets emblazoned with superheroes.
The tranquil domestic scene plays out nightly here, not in a family home, but behind a brightly lighted storefront next to Tuffy’s auto repair, the site of a new child care center that is open 24 hours a day.
Day care is slowly becoming night care in today’s economy, as parents work ever longer days, take on second jobs and accept odd shifts to make ends meet.
“No one works Monday through Friday, 9 to 6 anymore,” said Tiffany Bickley, a cook whose 6-year-old daughter, Airalyn, recently started going to the center, ABC & Me Childcare. “No one.”
About 40 percent of the American labor force now works some form of nonstandard hours, including evenings, nights, weekends and early mornings, according to Harriet B. Presser, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. That share is expected to grow with the projected expansion of jobs in industries like nursing, retail and food service, which tend to require after-hours work.
At the same time, working hours are less predictable than they once were. ”There’s a greater variability and irregularity of schedules,” said Lonnie Golden, a professor of economics and labor studies at Pennsylvania State University. “In surveys, more and more people are no longer able to specify a beginning or end of the workday.”
Yet for years it has been a frustrating reality for parents that child care services have failed to keep pace with the changing workday, with many centers still keeping a rigid 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule. Experiments with nighttime care have come and gone over the years, but lingering ambivalence about the concept led most centers to deem it financially untenable.
“You don’t want to put your 2-year-old at a child care center at 2 a.m.” said Gina Adams, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
There are some indications now that this might be changing. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies said it was hearing from members that providers were offering more nontraditional hours, though it added that it did not formally track the data.
While overnight care is still relatively rare, evening hours are no longer so unusual, providers say. Donna McClintock, chief operating officer for Children’s Choice Learning Centers Inc., which runs 46 employer-sponsored child care centers across the country, said that demand for nontraditional hours had grown and that centers providing care after-hours care made up a large part of the company’s recent growth. About a fifth of the company’s centers have added nontraditional hours in the past few years, she said.
Demand for nonstandard child care hours tends to be highest in sectors where employees tend to work varying schedules, like universities, hospitals and casinos.
“It’s the wave of the future,” said Roger Neugebauer, publisher of Exchange Magazine, a trade journal for the early childhood care field. “The trend is to move beyond 9 to 5 because, with the changing economy, that’s where the need is.”
In Ohio, the number of centers offering nighttime hours is up by more than 50 percent since 2003, according to the Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association. Centers with overnight hours have doubled and those open on weekends have quadrupled, though the absolute numbers remain small. In all, about 7 percent of Ohio’s licensed child care centers offer some form of after-hours care, said Todd Barnhouse, executive director of the association.
Brianna Smith, who runs ABC & Me, said demand for such care had been strong in Elyria, a Rust Belt town that is part of Cleveland’s sprawling suburbs. And though the recession hit hard here — the median household income dropped by about 10 percent from 2006 to 2009, and unemployment rose to 11 percent in 2009 — the center decided to include all-night hours when it opened in a converted carpet and tile showroom in June.
“There’s a big need out there right now,” Ms. Smith said. “When I talk to parents, the first thing they ask is, ‘What are your hours?’ “
Now the center is busy, literally, around the clock.
ELYRIA, Ohio — Dinner (chicken and mashed potatoes) was long over, teeth were brushed, and a rousing game of Monopoly had come to a close. It was 9 p.m., and the children nestled into bed under blankets emblazoned with superheroes.
The tranquil domestic scene plays out nightly here, not in a family home, but behind a brightly lighted storefront next to Tuffy’s auto repair, the site of a new child care center that is open 24 hours a day.
Day care is slowly becoming night care in today’s economy, as parents work ever longer days, take on second jobs and accept odd shifts to make ends meet.
“No one works Monday through Friday, 9 to 6 anymore,” said Tiffany Bickley, a cook whose 6-year-old daughter, Airalyn, recently started going to the center, ABC & Me Childcare. “No one.”
About 40 percent of the American labor force now works some form of nonstandard hours, including evenings, nights, weekends and early mornings, according to Harriet B. Presser, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. That share is expected to grow with the projected expansion of jobs in industries like nursing, retail and food service, which tend to require after-hours work.
At the same time, working hours are less predictable than they once were. ”There’s a greater variability and irregularity of schedules,” said Lonnie Golden, a professor of economics and labor studies at Pennsylvania State University. “In surveys, more and more people are no longer able to specify a beginning or end of the workday.”
Yet for years it has been a frustrating reality for parents that child care services have failed to keep pace with the changing workday, with many centers still keeping a rigid 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule. Experiments with nighttime care have come and gone over the years, but lingering ambivalence about the concept led most centers to deem it financially untenable.
“You don’t want to put your 2-year-old at a child care center at 2 a.m.” said Gina Adams, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
There are some indications now that this might be changing. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies said it was hearing from members that providers were offering more nontraditional hours, though it added that it did not formally track the data.
While overnight care is still relatively rare, evening hours are no longer so unusual, providers say. Donna McClintock, chief operating officer for Children’s Choice Learning Centers Inc., which runs 46 employer-sponsored child care centers across the country, said that demand for nontraditional hours had grown and that centers providing care after-hours care made up a large part of the company’s recent growth. About a fifth of the company’s centers have added nontraditional hours in the past few years, she said.
Demand for nonstandard child care hours tends to be highest in sectors where employees tend to work varying schedules, like universities, hospitals and casinos.
“It’s the wave of the future,” said Roger Neugebauer, publisher of Exchange Magazine, a trade journal for the early childhood care field. “The trend is to move beyond 9 to 5 because, with the changing economy, that’s where the need is.”
In Ohio, the number of centers offering nighttime hours is up by more than 50 percent since 2003, according to the Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association. Centers with overnight hours have doubled and those open on weekends have quadrupled, though the absolute numbers remain small. In all, about 7 percent of Ohio’s licensed child care centers offer some form of after-hours care, said Todd Barnhouse, executive director of the association.
Brianna Smith, who runs ABC & Me, said demand for such care had been strong in Elyria, a Rust Belt town that is part of Cleveland’s sprawling suburbs. And though the recession hit hard here — the median household income dropped by about 10 percent from 2006 to 2009, and unemployment rose to 11 percent in 2009 — the center decided to include all-night hours when it opened in a converted carpet and tile showroom in June.
“There’s a big need out there right now,” Ms. Smith said. “When I talk to parents, the first thing they ask is, ‘What are your hours?’ “
Now the center is busy, literally, around the clock.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Among the Wealthiest One Percent, Many Variations
Among the Wealthiest One Percent, Many Variations
KINGS POINT, N.Y. — Adam Katz is happy to talk to reporters when he is promoting his business, a charter flight company based on Long Island called Talon Air.
But when the subject was his position as one of America’s top earners, he balked. Seated at a desk fashioned from a jet fuel cell, wearing a button-down shirt with the company logo, he considered the public relations benefits and found them lacking: “It’s not very popular to be in the 1 percent these days, is it?”
A few months ago, Mr. Katz was just a successful businessman with five children, an $8 million home, a family real estate company in Manhattan and his passion, 10-year-old Talon Air.
Now, the colossal gap between the very rich and everyone else — the 1 percent versus the 99 percent — has become a rallying point in this election season. As President Obama positions himself as a defender of the middle class, and Mitt Romney, the wealthiest of the Republican presidential candidates, decries such talk as “the bitter politics of envy,” Mr. Katz has found himself on the wrong end of a new paradigm.
As a member of the 1 percent, he is part of a club whose name conjures images of Wall Street bosses who are chauffeured from manse to Manhattan and fat cats who have armies of lobbyists at the ready.
But in reality it is a far larger and more varied group, one that includes podiatrists and actuaries, executives and entrepreneurs, the self-made and the silver spoon set. They are clustered not just in New York and Los Angeles, but also in Denver and Dallas. The range of wealth in the 1 percent is vast — from households that bring in $380,000 a year, according to census data, up to billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates.
The top 1 percent of earners in a given year receives just under a fifth of the country’s pretax income, about double their share 30 years ago. They pay just over a fourth of all federal taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. In 2007, they accounted for about 30 percent of philanthropic giving, according to Federal Reserve data. They received 22 percent of their income from capital gains, compared with 2 percent for everybody else.
Still, they are not necessarily the idle rich. Mr. Katz, who sometimes commutes by amphibious plane and sometimes carries luggage for Talon Air passengers, likes to say he works “26/9.”
Most 1 percenters were born with socioeconomic advantages, which helps explain why the 1 percent is more likely than other Americans to have jobs, according to census data. They work longer hours, being three times more likely than the 99 percent to work more than 50 hours a week, and are more likely to be self-employed. Married 1 percenters are just as likely as other couples to have two incomes, but men are the big breadwinners, earning 75 percent of the money, compared with 64 percent of the income in other households.
Though many of the wealthy lean toward the Republican Party, in interviews, 1 percenters expressed a broad range of views on how to fix the economy. They think that President Obama is ruining it, or that Republicans in Congress have gone off the deep end. They favor a flat tax, or they believe the rich should pay a higher marginal rate. Some cheered on Occupy Wall Street, saying it was about time, while others wished the protesters would just get a job or take a bath. Still others were philosophical — perhaps because they could afford to be — viewing the recession as something that would pass, like so many previous ups and downs.
Of the 1 percenters interviewed for this article, almost all — conservatives and liberals alike — said the wealthy could and should shoulder more of the country’s financial burden, and almost all said they viewed the current system as unfair. But they may prefer facing cuts to their own benefits like Social Security than paying more taxes. In one survey of wealthy Chicago families, almost twice as many respondents said they would cut government spending as those who said they would cut spending and raise revenue.
Even those who said the deck was stacked in their favor did not appreciate anti-rich rhetoric.
“I don’t mind paying a little bit more in taxes. I don’t mind putting money to programs that help the poor,” said Anthony J. Bonomo of Manhasset, N.Y., who runs a medical malpractice insurance company and is a Republican. But, he said, he did mind taking a hit for the country’s woes. “If those people could camp out in that park all day, why aren’t they out looking for a job? Why are they blaming others?”
To many, 99 vs. 1 was an artificial distinction that overlooked hard work and moral character. “It shouldn’t be relevant,” said Mr. Katz , who said he both creates job and contributes to charitable causes. “I’m not hurting anyone. I’m helping a lot of people.”
The Enclave
The placid sliver of Long Island that F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized in “The Great Gatsby” as West Egg and East Egg seems almost to have shrugged off the recession.
A stretch of northwest Nassau County that includes Great Neck, Manhasset and Port Washington, this area has the country’s highest concentration of 1 percenters, and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. Houses in Port Washington are worth only 10 percent less than they were at their peak, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a far smaller decline than in the rest of the country. Yearly sales at the Americana Manhasset, the upscale granite and glass shopping center, have already exceeded their prerecession high. Even in down times, the 1 percent has staying power, being far more likely than any other group to stay where they are rather than slip to lower rungs of the economic ladder.
KINGS POINT, N.Y. — Adam Katz is happy to talk to reporters when he is promoting his business, a charter flight company based on Long Island called Talon Air.
But when the subject was his position as one of America’s top earners, he balked. Seated at a desk fashioned from a jet fuel cell, wearing a button-down shirt with the company logo, he considered the public relations benefits and found them lacking: “It’s not very popular to be in the 1 percent these days, is it?”
A few months ago, Mr. Katz was just a successful businessman with five children, an $8 million home, a family real estate company in Manhattan and his passion, 10-year-old Talon Air.
Now, the colossal gap between the very rich and everyone else — the 1 percent versus the 99 percent — has become a rallying point in this election season. As President Obama positions himself as a defender of the middle class, and Mitt Romney, the wealthiest of the Republican presidential candidates, decries such talk as “the bitter politics of envy,” Mr. Katz has found himself on the wrong end of a new paradigm.
As a member of the 1 percent, he is part of a club whose name conjures images of Wall Street bosses who are chauffeured from manse to Manhattan and fat cats who have armies of lobbyists at the ready.
But in reality it is a far larger and more varied group, one that includes podiatrists and actuaries, executives and entrepreneurs, the self-made and the silver spoon set. They are clustered not just in New York and Los Angeles, but also in Denver and Dallas. The range of wealth in the 1 percent is vast — from households that bring in $380,000 a year, according to census data, up to billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates.
The top 1 percent of earners in a given year receives just under a fifth of the country’s pretax income, about double their share 30 years ago. They pay just over a fourth of all federal taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. In 2007, they accounted for about 30 percent of philanthropic giving, according to Federal Reserve data. They received 22 percent of their income from capital gains, compared with 2 percent for everybody else.
Still, they are not necessarily the idle rich. Mr. Katz, who sometimes commutes by amphibious plane and sometimes carries luggage for Talon Air passengers, likes to say he works “26/9.”
Most 1 percenters were born with socioeconomic advantages, which helps explain why the 1 percent is more likely than other Americans to have jobs, according to census data. They work longer hours, being three times more likely than the 99 percent to work more than 50 hours a week, and are more likely to be self-employed. Married 1 percenters are just as likely as other couples to have two incomes, but men are the big breadwinners, earning 75 percent of the money, compared with 64 percent of the income in other households.
Though many of the wealthy lean toward the Republican Party, in interviews, 1 percenters expressed a broad range of views on how to fix the economy. They think that President Obama is ruining it, or that Republicans in Congress have gone off the deep end. They favor a flat tax, or they believe the rich should pay a higher marginal rate. Some cheered on Occupy Wall Street, saying it was about time, while others wished the protesters would just get a job or take a bath. Still others were philosophical — perhaps because they could afford to be — viewing the recession as something that would pass, like so many previous ups and downs.
Of the 1 percenters interviewed for this article, almost all — conservatives and liberals alike — said the wealthy could and should shoulder more of the country’s financial burden, and almost all said they viewed the current system as unfair. But they may prefer facing cuts to their own benefits like Social Security than paying more taxes. In one survey of wealthy Chicago families, almost twice as many respondents said they would cut government spending as those who said they would cut spending and raise revenue.
Even those who said the deck was stacked in their favor did not appreciate anti-rich rhetoric.
“I don’t mind paying a little bit more in taxes. I don’t mind putting money to programs that help the poor,” said Anthony J. Bonomo of Manhasset, N.Y., who runs a medical malpractice insurance company and is a Republican. But, he said, he did mind taking a hit for the country’s woes. “If those people could camp out in that park all day, why aren’t they out looking for a job? Why are they blaming others?”
To many, 99 vs. 1 was an artificial distinction that overlooked hard work and moral character. “It shouldn’t be relevant,” said Mr. Katz , who said he both creates job and contributes to charitable causes. “I’m not hurting anyone. I’m helping a lot of people.”
The Enclave
The placid sliver of Long Island that F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized in “The Great Gatsby” as West Egg and East Egg seems almost to have shrugged off the recession.
A stretch of northwest Nassau County that includes Great Neck, Manhasset and Port Washington, this area has the country’s highest concentration of 1 percenters, and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. Houses in Port Washington are worth only 10 percent less than they were at their peak, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a far smaller decline than in the rest of the country. Yearly sales at the Americana Manhasset, the upscale granite and glass shopping center, have already exceeded their prerecession high. Even in down times, the 1 percent has staying power, being far more likely than any other group to stay where they are rather than slip to lower rungs of the economic ladder.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
U.S. Restores Full Ties to Myanmar After Rapid Reforms
U.S. Restores Full Ties to Myanmar After Rapid Reforms
WASHINGTON — The United States moved to restore full diplomatic relations with Myanmar on Friday, rewarding the sweeping political and economic changes that the country’s new civilian government has made, including a cease-fire with ethnic rebels and, only hours before, the release of hundreds of political prisoners.
Freeing the prisoners, which President Obama praised as a “substantial step forward for democratic reform,” was one of the most significant gestures yet by Myanmar’s new civilian government to address international concerns about the country’s repressive history, which led to decades of diplomatic and economic isolation.
Among 651 prisoners given amnesty on Friday were leaders of the brutally repressed student protests in 1988; a former prime minister, Khin Nyunt, ousted in an internal purge in 2004; and monks and others involved in antigovernment protests in 2007 that were known as the “saffron revolution.” A senior State Department official in Washington described Myanmar’s move on Friday as the largest single release of political prisoners in Asia’s history.
The administration’s reciprocal announcement is the latest in a series of cautious moves that have significantly eased tensions between the United States and Myanmar, also known as Burma. The diplomatic engagement — which one senior administration official said would have seemed unthinkable a year ago — now appears to be accelerating, though he and other officials stopped short of calling it irreversible.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who visited the country for the first time only six weeks ago, said in Washington: “This is a momentous day for the diverse people of Burma. And we will continue to support them and their efforts and to encourage their government to take bold steps.”
A renewed relationship between the two countries has the potential to remake American diplomacy in Asia, where the Obama administration says it hopes to refocus its foreign policy at a time when China’s influence is expanding. The closer ties could enhance trade and help integrate Myanmar into regional alliances sympathetic to the West.
Since taking office last March, the country’s president, U Thein Sein, has overseen a raft of changes that appear to indicate a new willingness to end military rule for the first time since a coup in 1962.
He has sought to reform the economy, allow political competition and end the country’s economic and diplomatic dependence on China, its huge neighbor to the north. In a move that presages a far broader shift in policies, his government halted work in September on a $3.6 billion dam under construction on the Irrawaddy River by a Chinese state company.
The United States never fully severed relations with Myanmar, as it did over the years with Iran, Cuba and North Korea, but it downgraded relations and withdrew its ambassador after elections in 1990. Those elections were won by the party of the main opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, though never recognized by the military government, which instead cracked down and put her under house arrest. Subsequent administrations have since toughened sanctions on most trade with Myanmar.
The Obama administration is not yet considering lifting sanctions, but Mrs. Clinton announced that it would soon nominate an ambassador and invite Myanmar to send one to Washington. She pledged other actions in response to continued reforms, though she did not spell them out.
Mrs. Clinton, who met with Mr. Thein Sein in the country’s newly built capital, Naypyidaw, pressed him to follow through with the nascent reforms, which he appears to be doing. Since her visit, the government scheduled special elections on April 1 to fill 48 vacant parliamentary seats. For the first time since 1990, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party will be allowed to seek elected office.
The prisoner release was another critical benchmark that administration officials had tracked closely before announcing Friday’s step. Only two months ago, Mr. Thein Sein denied the existence of political prisoners in his country, even though there have been several smaller releases since he took office. Privately, however, he indicated a willingness to release more, though only after a deliberate legal and political process, the officials said.
Even so, the scope of Friday’s releases appeared to catch many by surprise. Televised reports from Myanmar showed inmates emerging from the gates of a prison into jubilant crowds of relatives and supporters.
The releases — described in official reports as an amnesty — occurred around the country and included political activists, journalists, leaders of ethnic minority groups and relatives of the dictator who led the coup in 1962, Gen. Ne Win.
WASHINGTON — The United States moved to restore full diplomatic relations with Myanmar on Friday, rewarding the sweeping political and economic changes that the country’s new civilian government has made, including a cease-fire with ethnic rebels and, only hours before, the release of hundreds of political prisoners.
Freeing the prisoners, which President Obama praised as a “substantial step forward for democratic reform,” was one of the most significant gestures yet by Myanmar’s new civilian government to address international concerns about the country’s repressive history, which led to decades of diplomatic and economic isolation.
Among 651 prisoners given amnesty on Friday were leaders of the brutally repressed student protests in 1988; a former prime minister, Khin Nyunt, ousted in an internal purge in 2004; and monks and others involved in antigovernment protests in 2007 that were known as the “saffron revolution.” A senior State Department official in Washington described Myanmar’s move on Friday as the largest single release of political prisoners in Asia’s history.
The administration’s reciprocal announcement is the latest in a series of cautious moves that have significantly eased tensions between the United States and Myanmar, also known as Burma. The diplomatic engagement — which one senior administration official said would have seemed unthinkable a year ago — now appears to be accelerating, though he and other officials stopped short of calling it irreversible.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who visited the country for the first time only six weeks ago, said in Washington: “This is a momentous day for the diverse people of Burma. And we will continue to support them and their efforts and to encourage their government to take bold steps.”
A renewed relationship between the two countries has the potential to remake American diplomacy in Asia, where the Obama administration says it hopes to refocus its foreign policy at a time when China’s influence is expanding. The closer ties could enhance trade and help integrate Myanmar into regional alliances sympathetic to the West.
Since taking office last March, the country’s president, U Thein Sein, has overseen a raft of changes that appear to indicate a new willingness to end military rule for the first time since a coup in 1962.
He has sought to reform the economy, allow political competition and end the country’s economic and diplomatic dependence on China, its huge neighbor to the north. In a move that presages a far broader shift in policies, his government halted work in September on a $3.6 billion dam under construction on the Irrawaddy River by a Chinese state company.
The United States never fully severed relations with Myanmar, as it did over the years with Iran, Cuba and North Korea, but it downgraded relations and withdrew its ambassador after elections in 1990. Those elections were won by the party of the main opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, though never recognized by the military government, which instead cracked down and put her under house arrest. Subsequent administrations have since toughened sanctions on most trade with Myanmar.
The Obama administration is not yet considering lifting sanctions, but Mrs. Clinton announced that it would soon nominate an ambassador and invite Myanmar to send one to Washington. She pledged other actions in response to continued reforms, though she did not spell them out.
Mrs. Clinton, who met with Mr. Thein Sein in the country’s newly built capital, Naypyidaw, pressed him to follow through with the nascent reforms, which he appears to be doing. Since her visit, the government scheduled special elections on April 1 to fill 48 vacant parliamentary seats. For the first time since 1990, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party will be allowed to seek elected office.
The prisoner release was another critical benchmark that administration officials had tracked closely before announcing Friday’s step. Only two months ago, Mr. Thein Sein denied the existence of political prisoners in his country, even though there have been several smaller releases since he took office. Privately, however, he indicated a willingness to release more, though only after a deliberate legal and political process, the officials said.
Even so, the scope of Friday’s releases appeared to catch many by surprise. Televised reports from Myanmar showed inmates emerging from the gates of a prison into jubilant crowds of relatives and supporters.
The releases — described in official reports as an amnesty — occurred around the country and included political activists, journalists, leaders of ethnic minority groups and relatives of the dictator who led the coup in 1962, Gen. Ne Win.
Peru: 28-Year Sentence in Lima Killing
A court sentenced Joran van der Sloot on Friday to 28 years in prison for the murder of a woman he had met at a Lima casino. The decision came two days after he pleaded guilty to killing Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old business student. The court also ordered him to pay $75,000 in reparations to her family. Mr. van der Sloot said he would appeal the sentence. He was also a suspect in the killing an American teenager, Natalee Holloway, in Aruba in 2005.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Republican Rivals Batter Romney in South Carolina
Republican Rivals Batter Romney in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. — For the Republican presidential candidates who want to stop Mitt Romney in South Carolina, it comes down to this: How far are they willing to go?
A day after Mr. Romney’s victory in New Hampshire left his rivals running out of time to block his path to the nomination, he was greeted here by a wave of attacks on his business record, his past support for abortion rights and his character.
With little left to lose, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and their allies sought to portray Mr. Romney as insufficiently steadfast in his conservatism in this very conservative state, threatening a scorched-earth approach to the primary to be held here on Jan. 21.
But there were some signs that a pressure campaign from the party establishment — encouraged and to some degree organized by pro-Romney forces — was forcing his rivals to recalibrate if not rethink the attacks. A growing chorus of high-profile Republicans criticized the attacks on Mr. Romney’s earlier career buying and selling companies as Democratic talking points.
Two days after former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah said that Mr. Romney “likes firing people,” The Associated Press reported him as saying on Wednesday: “If you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been part of capitalism, it becomes a little disingenuous to take on Bain Capital,” Mr. Romney’s former firm.
But Mr. Gingrich said he would not back off as an outside “super PAC” supporting him introduced a scathing video about Mr. Romney’s work at Bain. And Mr. Perry kept up his critique of what he has called Mr. Romney’s “vulture capitalism.”
It was Day 1 of what is shaping up as a 10-day test of whether conservatives can marshal the arguments, tactics and unity to slow Mr. Romney and rally around a single alternative — and of whether Mr. Romney, now in a commanding position, can show the muscle needed to stamp out the opposition and take control of the party.
Mr. Romney utilized the full force of his formidable campaign machinery to create a backlash against the attacks on his record at Bain. Employing resources no other campaign can match, his Boston headquarters held conference calls with his huge array of endorsers around the nation, sent talking points to supporters and enlisted go-betweens to tell leaders of the pro-Gingrich group Winning Our Future that they were harming the party with the attacks.
At the very least, Mr. Romney’s team appeared to have made headway in casting his opponents as abandoning their own party’s longstanding support for the free market. It received backing Wednesday from two political voices that have had the respect of the Tea Party movement here in ways Mr. Romney has not: Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, who has endorsed Mr. Romney, and Senator Jim DeMint, who has not.
“I am baffled by the fact that we are putting the free market on trial here,” Ms. Haley said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’m concerned for my party. The free market’s what we fight for.”
Speaking on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Mr. DeMint lectured Mr. Gingrich: “Newt, you’re a great American. Get back on your positive focus. Talk about your big ideas.” He singled out Mr. Gingrich’s attacks on Mr. Romney for changing his position on abortion, saying, “This idea of condemning people who change their minds is not a good idea for any of us.”
It was potentially critical cover in a state where Mr. Romney’s past positions in favor of abortion, and his Mormon religion, could tilt important evangelical voters against him. Mr. Romey seemed to try to get out ahead of the possibility that evangelical voters might spurn him based on his Mormonism, saying on MSNBC on Wednesday morning that he was not running for “pastor in chief” and emphasizing the economy and national security.
Those comments came as national evangelical leaders prepared to meet in Texas this weekend to consider backing one of Mr. Romney’s rivals, and his campaign was on guard for any movement to coalesce behind an alternative to him.
In the morning, Mr. Romney had declared the attacks against his business background a failure. But later, with others taking on his opponents for him, Mr. Romney did not mention the subject when it came time to address supporters here Wednesday evening. He kept his focus instead on President Obama.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — For the Republican presidential candidates who want to stop Mitt Romney in South Carolina, it comes down to this: How far are they willing to go?
A day after Mr. Romney’s victory in New Hampshire left his rivals running out of time to block his path to the nomination, he was greeted here by a wave of attacks on his business record, his past support for abortion rights and his character.
With little left to lose, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and their allies sought to portray Mr. Romney as insufficiently steadfast in his conservatism in this very conservative state, threatening a scorched-earth approach to the primary to be held here on Jan. 21.
But there were some signs that a pressure campaign from the party establishment — encouraged and to some degree organized by pro-Romney forces — was forcing his rivals to recalibrate if not rethink the attacks. A growing chorus of high-profile Republicans criticized the attacks on Mr. Romney’s earlier career buying and selling companies as Democratic talking points.
Two days after former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah said that Mr. Romney “likes firing people,” The Associated Press reported him as saying on Wednesday: “If you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been part of capitalism, it becomes a little disingenuous to take on Bain Capital,” Mr. Romney’s former firm.
But Mr. Gingrich said he would not back off as an outside “super PAC” supporting him introduced a scathing video about Mr. Romney’s work at Bain. And Mr. Perry kept up his critique of what he has called Mr. Romney’s “vulture capitalism.”
It was Day 1 of what is shaping up as a 10-day test of whether conservatives can marshal the arguments, tactics and unity to slow Mr. Romney and rally around a single alternative — and of whether Mr. Romney, now in a commanding position, can show the muscle needed to stamp out the opposition and take control of the party.
Mr. Romney utilized the full force of his formidable campaign machinery to create a backlash against the attacks on his record at Bain. Employing resources no other campaign can match, his Boston headquarters held conference calls with his huge array of endorsers around the nation, sent talking points to supporters and enlisted go-betweens to tell leaders of the pro-Gingrich group Winning Our Future that they were harming the party with the attacks.
At the very least, Mr. Romney’s team appeared to have made headway in casting his opponents as abandoning their own party’s longstanding support for the free market. It received backing Wednesday from two political voices that have had the respect of the Tea Party movement here in ways Mr. Romney has not: Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, who has endorsed Mr. Romney, and Senator Jim DeMint, who has not.
“I am baffled by the fact that we are putting the free market on trial here,” Ms. Haley said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’m concerned for my party. The free market’s what we fight for.”
Speaking on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Mr. DeMint lectured Mr. Gingrich: “Newt, you’re a great American. Get back on your positive focus. Talk about your big ideas.” He singled out Mr. Gingrich’s attacks on Mr. Romney for changing his position on abortion, saying, “This idea of condemning people who change their minds is not a good idea for any of us.”
It was potentially critical cover in a state where Mr. Romney’s past positions in favor of abortion, and his Mormon religion, could tilt important evangelical voters against him. Mr. Romey seemed to try to get out ahead of the possibility that evangelical voters might spurn him based on his Mormonism, saying on MSNBC on Wednesday morning that he was not running for “pastor in chief” and emphasizing the economy and national security.
Those comments came as national evangelical leaders prepared to meet in Texas this weekend to consider backing one of Mr. Romney’s rivals, and his campaign was on guard for any movement to coalesce behind an alternative to him.
In the morning, Mr. Romney had declared the attacks against his business background a failure. But later, with others taking on his opponents for him, Mr. Romney did not mention the subject when it came time to address supporters here Wednesday evening. He kept his focus instead on President Obama.
Back From War, Fear and Danger Fill Driver’s Seat
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Before going to war, Susan Max loved tooling around Northern California in her maroon Mustang. A combat tour in Iraq changed all that.
Back in the States, Ms. Max, an Army reservist, found herself avoiding cramped parking lots without obvious escape routes. She straddled the middle line, as if bombs might be buried in the curbs. Gray sport-utility vehicles came to remind her of the unarmored vehicles she rode nervously through Baghdad in 2007, a record year for American fatalities in Iraq.
“I used to like driving,” Ms. Max, 63, said. “Now my family doesn’t feel safe driving with me.”
For thousands of combat veterans, driving has become an ordeal. Once their problems were viewed mainly as a form of road rage or thrill seeking. But increasingly, erratic driving by returning troops is being identified as a symptom of traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. — and coming under greater scrutiny amid concerns about higher accident rates among veterans.
The insurance industry has taken notice. In a review of driving records for tens of thousands of troops before and after deployments, USAA, a leading insurer of active-duty troops, discovered that auto accidents in which the service members were at fault went up by 13 percent after deployments. Accidents were particularly common in the six months after an overseas tour, according to the review, which covered the years 2007-2010.
The company is now working with researchers, the armed services and insurance industry groups to expand research and education on the issue. The Army says that fatal accidents — which rose early in the wars — have declined in recent years, in part from improved education. Still, 48 soldiers died in vehicle accidents while off duty last year, the highest total in three years, Army statistics show.
The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are also supporting several new studies into potential links between deployment and dangerously aggressive or overly defensive driving. The Veterans Affairs health center in Albany last year started a seven-session program to help veterans identify how war experiences might trigger negative reactions during driving. And researchers in Palo Alto are developing therapies — which they hope to translate into iPhone apps — for people with P.T.S.D. who are frequently angry or anxious behind the wheel.
“I can’t talk with somebody who is a returned service member without them telling me about driving issues,” said Erica Stern , an associate professor of occupational therapy at the University of Minnesota, who is conducting a national study of driving problems in people with brain injuries or P.T.S.D. for the Pentagon.
Though bad driving among combat veterans is not new — research has found that Vietnam and Persian Gulf war veterans were more likely to die in motor vehicle accidents than nondeployed veterans — experts say Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are unique, for one major reason: their combat experiences were frequently defined by dangers on the road, particularly from roadside bombs.
“There is no accepted treatment for this,” said Dr. Steven H. Woodward , a clinical psychologist with the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System who is leading a study of potential therapies for veterans with P.T.S.D.-related driving problems. “It’s a new phenomenon.”
Though there has been some research into road rage among veterans, therapists and psychologists have only recently begun to view traumatic brain injuries and P.T.S.D. as factors in prolonging driving problems, probably by causing people to perceive threats where none exist — such as in tunnels, overpasses, construction crews or roadside debris.
“In an ambiguous situation, they are more likely to see hostile intent,” said Eric Kuhn , a psychologist with the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care System, who has studied driving problems. He said his research found that veterans who report more severe P.T.S.D. symptoms also tend to report being more aggressive drivers.
Experts note that driving problems are not always the result of the disorder. In some cases, returning troops may be reflexively applying driving techniques taught in Iraq during the height of the insurgency — for example, speeding up at intersections to avoid gunfire or scanning the roadside for danger instead of watching the road ahead.
In a study of Minnesota National Guard soldiers who returned from Iraq in 2007, Dr. Stern and fellow researchers found that a quarter reported driving through a stop sign and nearly a third said they had been told they drove dangerously in the months immediately after their tours. Both results were higher than the answers reported by National Guard cadets who had not been deployed.
Back in the States, Ms. Max, an Army reservist, found herself avoiding cramped parking lots without obvious escape routes. She straddled the middle line, as if bombs might be buried in the curbs. Gray sport-utility vehicles came to remind her of the unarmored vehicles she rode nervously through Baghdad in 2007, a record year for American fatalities in Iraq.
“I used to like driving,” Ms. Max, 63, said. “Now my family doesn’t feel safe driving with me.”
For thousands of combat veterans, driving has become an ordeal. Once their problems were viewed mainly as a form of road rage or thrill seeking. But increasingly, erratic driving by returning troops is being identified as a symptom of traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. — and coming under greater scrutiny amid concerns about higher accident rates among veterans.
The insurance industry has taken notice. In a review of driving records for tens of thousands of troops before and after deployments, USAA, a leading insurer of active-duty troops, discovered that auto accidents in which the service members were at fault went up by 13 percent after deployments. Accidents were particularly common in the six months after an overseas tour, according to the review, which covered the years 2007-2010.
The company is now working with researchers, the armed services and insurance industry groups to expand research and education on the issue. The Army says that fatal accidents — which rose early in the wars — have declined in recent years, in part from improved education. Still, 48 soldiers died in vehicle accidents while off duty last year, the highest total in three years, Army statistics show.
The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are also supporting several new studies into potential links between deployment and dangerously aggressive or overly defensive driving. The Veterans Affairs health center in Albany last year started a seven-session program to help veterans identify how war experiences might trigger negative reactions during driving. And researchers in Palo Alto are developing therapies — which they hope to translate into iPhone apps — for people with P.T.S.D. who are frequently angry or anxious behind the wheel.
“I can’t talk with somebody who is a returned service member without them telling me about driving issues,” said Erica Stern , an associate professor of occupational therapy at the University of Minnesota, who is conducting a national study of driving problems in people with brain injuries or P.T.S.D. for the Pentagon.
Though bad driving among combat veterans is not new — research has found that Vietnam and Persian Gulf war veterans were more likely to die in motor vehicle accidents than nondeployed veterans — experts say Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are unique, for one major reason: their combat experiences were frequently defined by dangers on the road, particularly from roadside bombs.
“There is no accepted treatment for this,” said Dr. Steven H. Woodward , a clinical psychologist with the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System who is leading a study of potential therapies for veterans with P.T.S.D.-related driving problems. “It’s a new phenomenon.”
Though there has been some research into road rage among veterans, therapists and psychologists have only recently begun to view traumatic brain injuries and P.T.S.D. as factors in prolonging driving problems, probably by causing people to perceive threats where none exist — such as in tunnels, overpasses, construction crews or roadside debris.
“In an ambiguous situation, they are more likely to see hostile intent,” said Eric Kuhn , a psychologist with the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care System, who has studied driving problems. He said his research found that veterans who report more severe P.T.S.D. symptoms also tend to report being more aggressive drivers.
Experts note that driving problems are not always the result of the disorder. In some cases, returning troops may be reflexively applying driving techniques taught in Iraq during the height of the insurgency — for example, speeding up at intersections to avoid gunfire or scanning the roadside for danger instead of watching the road ahead.
In a study of Minnesota National Guard soldiers who returned from Iraq in 2007, Dr. Stern and fellow researchers found that a quarter reported driving through a stop sign and nearly a third said they had been told they drove dangerously in the months immediately after their tours. Both results were higher than the answers reported by National Guard cadets who had not been deployed.
Monday, January 9, 2012
U.S. Faults State’s Progress on Race to the Top Goals
U.S. Faults State’s Progress on Race to the Top Goals
New York is one of three states on the federal government’s watch list because it has not yet complied with the goals it set when applying for financial assistance through the federal Race to the Top program.
In a strongly worded statement on Monday, the education secretary, Arne Duncan, said that despite “significant progress,” New York had “hit a roadblock” in recent months, failing to put in place a planned database to track student records across school districts and failing to fulfill a promise to adopt a system to evaluate the work of teachers and principals.
The state has not fallen as far behind as Hawaii, which was warned last month that it risked losing its federal grant over delays in adopting a teacher evaluation system. But New York’s progress, along with that of Florida, has been slow enough to raise concerns.
“New York has a chance to be a national leader, or a laggard, and we are only interested in supporting real courage and bold leadership,” Mr. Duncan said. “Backtracking on reform commitments could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Through the Race to the Top program, New York has received about $700 million, at least half of which was to go directly to school districts.
Keeping track of how the state plans to spend its share of the financing has been a challenge, though. According to the federal government’s assessment, the first it has released since New York entered the program in August 2010, the complexities of reviewing and approving budgets and expenditures “presented a formidable task.”
One of the problems is purely logistical. The state has 713 school districts, regional education consortiums and charter schools that have signed up for the program, and every one of them has to adopt all of the changes promised by the state.
The most challenging is the development of the evaluation system, which depends on agreements between individual districts and their teachers’ unions. That task has already jeopardized a smaller pot of federal money meant to help struggling schools.
The state said it was working to fix the problems. It has grouped districts that serve similar student populations under networks, offering training to help their leaders address specific challenges, and it has rolled out an online help desk of sorts, listing answers for commonly asked questions district officials might have over the many requirements of the program.
The state’s education commissioner, John B. King Jr., said in a statement that the federal assessment was “disappointing, but not discouraging.”
“We have to get this done, and we will,” Dr. King said.
Last week, Dr. King suspended about $100 million in federal grants to failing schools in New York City and in nine other school districts to pressure them to reach an agreement with union officials on an evaluation system that could serve as a model statewide. On Monday, outside a Board of Regents meeting in Albany, protesters convened to criticize Dr. King’s decision. The gathering was notable not because of its size — about 20 people attended — but because it brought together school officials and representatives of teachers’ unions, the two sides whose disagreements have been blamed for the suspension of the grants.
Richard C. Iannuzzi, the president of the state’s teachers’ union, got things started by calling Dr. King a “bully.” The Albany schools superintendent, Raymond Colucciello, took a more pragmatic approach, warning that 13 teachers would get layoff notices if the grant money did not resume.
Negotiations between New York City officials and the United Federation of Teachers collapsed two days before Dec. 31, the deadline for the 10 districts receiving the federal grants to have committed to an evaluation system. The city’s schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, said last week that there seemed to be no chance for a resolution. On Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo rejected the union’s call to intervene.
“I’m not going to go between Mayor Bloomberg and the U.F.T.,” Mr. Cuomo told the listeners of Talk 1300 AM. He also said he would not play any role in helping broker the compromises needed for the statewide evaluation systems.
“I can’t negotiate 700 union contracts,” Mr. Cuomo said.
New York is one of three states on the federal government’s watch list because it has not yet complied with the goals it set when applying for financial assistance through the federal Race to the Top program.
In a strongly worded statement on Monday, the education secretary, Arne Duncan, said that despite “significant progress,” New York had “hit a roadblock” in recent months, failing to put in place a planned database to track student records across school districts and failing to fulfill a promise to adopt a system to evaluate the work of teachers and principals.
The state has not fallen as far behind as Hawaii, which was warned last month that it risked losing its federal grant over delays in adopting a teacher evaluation system. But New York’s progress, along with that of Florida, has been slow enough to raise concerns.
“New York has a chance to be a national leader, or a laggard, and we are only interested in supporting real courage and bold leadership,” Mr. Duncan said. “Backtracking on reform commitments could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Through the Race to the Top program, New York has received about $700 million, at least half of which was to go directly to school districts.
Keeping track of how the state plans to spend its share of the financing has been a challenge, though. According to the federal government’s assessment, the first it has released since New York entered the program in August 2010, the complexities of reviewing and approving budgets and expenditures “presented a formidable task.”
One of the problems is purely logistical. The state has 713 school districts, regional education consortiums and charter schools that have signed up for the program, and every one of them has to adopt all of the changes promised by the state.
The most challenging is the development of the evaluation system, which depends on agreements between individual districts and their teachers’ unions. That task has already jeopardized a smaller pot of federal money meant to help struggling schools.
The state said it was working to fix the problems. It has grouped districts that serve similar student populations under networks, offering training to help their leaders address specific challenges, and it has rolled out an online help desk of sorts, listing answers for commonly asked questions district officials might have over the many requirements of the program.
The state’s education commissioner, John B. King Jr., said in a statement that the federal assessment was “disappointing, but not discouraging.”
“We have to get this done, and we will,” Dr. King said.
Last week, Dr. King suspended about $100 million in federal grants to failing schools in New York City and in nine other school districts to pressure them to reach an agreement with union officials on an evaluation system that could serve as a model statewide. On Monday, outside a Board of Regents meeting in Albany, protesters convened to criticize Dr. King’s decision. The gathering was notable not because of its size — about 20 people attended — but because it brought together school officials and representatives of teachers’ unions, the two sides whose disagreements have been blamed for the suspension of the grants.
Richard C. Iannuzzi, the president of the state’s teachers’ union, got things started by calling Dr. King a “bully.” The Albany schools superintendent, Raymond Colucciello, took a more pragmatic approach, warning that 13 teachers would get layoff notices if the grant money did not resume.
Negotiations between New York City officials and the United Federation of Teachers collapsed two days before Dec. 31, the deadline for the 10 districts receiving the federal grants to have committed to an evaluation system. The city’s schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, said last week that there seemed to be no chance for a resolution. On Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo rejected the union’s call to intervene.
“I’m not going to go between Mayor Bloomberg and the U.F.T.,” Mr. Cuomo told the listeners of Talk 1300 AM. He also said he would not play any role in helping broker the compromises needed for the statewide evaluation systems.
“I can’t negotiate 700 union contracts,” Mr. Cuomo said.
Daley Stepping Down in Rare White House Shake-Up
Daley Stepping Down in Rare White House Shake-Up
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Monday that the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, was stepping down, jolting the top ranks of his administration less than a year before he faces a difficult re-election. Mr. Daley will be replaced by Jacob J. Lew, the budget director and a seasoned Washington insider with ties to Capitol Hill.
Mr. Daley, a fellow Chicagoan who was recruited by Mr. Obama a year ago to help strike bipartisan legislative deals, struggled to find his footing in a ferociously partisan Washington and failed to help his boss broker a huge budget agreement with Congressional Republicans last summer. His departure interrupts a run of good news for the White House, with tentative signs of life in the job market, victory over Republicans on the payroll tax and Republican presidential candidates assailing one another on the campaign trail.
It was a distracting shake-up in a White House that has prided itself on a lack of internal drama, with a tightly knit circle of loyal senior advisers playing a steadying role. Mr. Obama said he asked Mr. Daley to reconsider his decision — made after a holiday respite from the capital — but Mr. Daley, a 63-year-old member of a Chicago political dynasty, was determined to leave.
“Obviously this was not easy news to hear,” Mr. Obama said in a brief appearance in the State Dining Room, flanked by Mr. Daley and Mr. Lew. “In the end,” the president said, “the pull of the hometown we both love — a city that’s been synonymous with the Daley family for generations — was too great.”
Mr. Lew, known as Jack, is a mild-mannered and steady technocrat with long experience in the White House and on Capitol Hill, having served two administrations and a speaker of the House, Thomas P. O’Neill. He was also a deputy to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, coordinating the “civilian surge” in Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama said would equip him to deal with foreign policy issues.
A major question, though, is whether Mr. Lew will be any more successful than Mr. Daley in establishing himself in the president’s inner circle. It was not yet clear, for example, whether Mr. Lew would share some of his duties with Pete Rouse, a low-key former Congressional aide who is close to the president and was assigned some of Mr. Daley’s responsibilities after the failed budget talks.
That move last fall, though portrayed by the White House as sensible sharing of the burden with an adroit colleague, ended up being seen as a very public rebuke of Mr. Daley, one that undermined his standing. Administration officials said Mr. Lew and Mr. Rouse would work out those issues between them, though one said Mr. Rouse was likely to remain influential.
Mr. Lew, however, has a broader web of contacts in Washington than Mr. Daley, a former banker and commerce secretary in the Clinton administration. He also enjoys support on Capitol Hill, where Mr. Daley was criticized for not adequately cultivating leaders like Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader who bristled last year when Mr. Daley seemed to blame Democrats as well as Republicans for lack of progress on Capitol Hill.
In a statement, Mr. Reid lavishly praised Mr. Lew, calling him a “consummate professional with intimate knowledge of Congress.” He gave credit to Mr. Daley for seeing through “a tumultuous year in which Republicans’ unprecedented obstructionism turned every issue into an all-or-nothing battle.”
Mr. Daley handed in his resignation to Mr. Obama last Tuesday after discussing it with his wife on vacation in Mexico during the Christmas holiday. In a resignation letter that was long on praise for Mr. Obama’s accomplishments, Mr. Daley did not cite a specific reason for leaving, beyond declaring, “It’s time for me to go back to the city I love.” He declined further comment.
“It’s been a pretty frenetic year,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity so that he could discuss private conversations. “He felt like it was a propitious time.”
Mr. Daley, the son and brother of legendary Chicago mayors, proved to be an awkward fit on the Obama team. Chosen largely for his deal-making skills and ties to the business world, he failed to strike a “grand bargain” on the federal debt and deficit with the Republican speaker of the House, John A. Boehner — a setback that left him and other White House staff members stunned and bruised for weeks.
Mr. Daley instituted a more button-down style at the White House, after the more temperamental style of his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, who left to run for mayor of Chicago.
The news of Mr. Daley’s departure was first reported by The Tribune Company newspaper chain.
That Mr. Daley was frustrated by Washington was no secret. In October, he told a Chicago television station that he planned to leave the White House in January 2013, at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. In an interview with The New York Times in September, he dwelt on the failed budget negotiations, and evinced little appetite for the cut-and-thrust of partisan combat that followed them.
“The nation is being pushed into that, by the Republican primaries, by the type of ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ language in Congress,” he said.
Mr. Obama praised Mr. Daley for his role in shepherding trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. He also helped design the president’s $447 billion jobs bill, which — with the exception of a short-term extension in the payroll tax waiver and a few other odds and ends — was stymied in Congress.
While the president said he asked Mr. Daley to reconsider his decision, he did not apply the kind of pressure he brought to bear on Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has for several months been eager to return to New York.
Administration officials said Mr. Daley would play a role in fund-raising for the Obama campaign, probably with the title of campaign co-chairman. With his family pedigree and Wall Street connections, he is likely to remain a force in Democratic politics. Mr. Obama said in his statement that he planned to consult Mr. Daley regularly.
The president also said that Mr. Lew, 55, had been Mr. Daley’s choice as his replacement, and the “one clear choice” for the job. Mr. Lew worked alongside Mr. Daley in the effort to strike a budget deal with Republicans.
“Jack’s economic advice has been invaluable and he has my complete trust, both because of his mastery of the numbers, but because of the values behind those numbers,” Mr. Obama said, noting that Mr. Lew, who had served in the administration of President Bill Clinton, was the only budget director in history to preside over budget surpluses for three consecutive years.
Mr. Lew, who divides his time between New York and Washington, has built a reputation as a pragmatic liberal who believes Democrats must compromise with Republicans on long-term deficits in order to forestall draconian cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Before joining the Obama administration, he was a banker at Citigroup, helping run a division with esoteric investments in real estate and construction — a connection that was criticized by liberal groups on Monday. No successor as budget director to Mr. Lew was announced, but his deputy, Heather Higginbottom, and Rob Nabors, currently the Congressional liaison, were considered contenders for the post.
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Monday that the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, was stepping down, jolting the top ranks of his administration less than a year before he faces a difficult re-election. Mr. Daley will be replaced by Jacob J. Lew, the budget director and a seasoned Washington insider with ties to Capitol Hill.
Mr. Daley, a fellow Chicagoan who was recruited by Mr. Obama a year ago to help strike bipartisan legislative deals, struggled to find his footing in a ferociously partisan Washington and failed to help his boss broker a huge budget agreement with Congressional Republicans last summer. His departure interrupts a run of good news for the White House, with tentative signs of life in the job market, victory over Republicans on the payroll tax and Republican presidential candidates assailing one another on the campaign trail.
It was a distracting shake-up in a White House that has prided itself on a lack of internal drama, with a tightly knit circle of loyal senior advisers playing a steadying role. Mr. Obama said he asked Mr. Daley to reconsider his decision — made after a holiday respite from the capital — but Mr. Daley, a 63-year-old member of a Chicago political dynasty, was determined to leave.
“Obviously this was not easy news to hear,” Mr. Obama said in a brief appearance in the State Dining Room, flanked by Mr. Daley and Mr. Lew. “In the end,” the president said, “the pull of the hometown we both love — a city that’s been synonymous with the Daley family for generations — was too great.”
Mr. Lew, known as Jack, is a mild-mannered and steady technocrat with long experience in the White House and on Capitol Hill, having served two administrations and a speaker of the House, Thomas P. O’Neill. He was also a deputy to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, coordinating the “civilian surge” in Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama said would equip him to deal with foreign policy issues.
A major question, though, is whether Mr. Lew will be any more successful than Mr. Daley in establishing himself in the president’s inner circle. It was not yet clear, for example, whether Mr. Lew would share some of his duties with Pete Rouse, a low-key former Congressional aide who is close to the president and was assigned some of Mr. Daley’s responsibilities after the failed budget talks.
That move last fall, though portrayed by the White House as sensible sharing of the burden with an adroit colleague, ended up being seen as a very public rebuke of Mr. Daley, one that undermined his standing. Administration officials said Mr. Lew and Mr. Rouse would work out those issues between them, though one said Mr. Rouse was likely to remain influential.
Mr. Lew, however, has a broader web of contacts in Washington than Mr. Daley, a former banker and commerce secretary in the Clinton administration. He also enjoys support on Capitol Hill, where Mr. Daley was criticized for not adequately cultivating leaders like Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader who bristled last year when Mr. Daley seemed to blame Democrats as well as Republicans for lack of progress on Capitol Hill.
In a statement, Mr. Reid lavishly praised Mr. Lew, calling him a “consummate professional with intimate knowledge of Congress.” He gave credit to Mr. Daley for seeing through “a tumultuous year in which Republicans’ unprecedented obstructionism turned every issue into an all-or-nothing battle.”
Mr. Daley handed in his resignation to Mr. Obama last Tuesday after discussing it with his wife on vacation in Mexico during the Christmas holiday. In a resignation letter that was long on praise for Mr. Obama’s accomplishments, Mr. Daley did not cite a specific reason for leaving, beyond declaring, “It’s time for me to go back to the city I love.” He declined further comment.
“It’s been a pretty frenetic year,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity so that he could discuss private conversations. “He felt like it was a propitious time.”
Mr. Daley, the son and brother of legendary Chicago mayors, proved to be an awkward fit on the Obama team. Chosen largely for his deal-making skills and ties to the business world, he failed to strike a “grand bargain” on the federal debt and deficit with the Republican speaker of the House, John A. Boehner — a setback that left him and other White House staff members stunned and bruised for weeks.
Mr. Daley instituted a more button-down style at the White House, after the more temperamental style of his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, who left to run for mayor of Chicago.
The news of Mr. Daley’s departure was first reported by The Tribune Company newspaper chain.
That Mr. Daley was frustrated by Washington was no secret. In October, he told a Chicago television station that he planned to leave the White House in January 2013, at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. In an interview with The New York Times in September, he dwelt on the failed budget negotiations, and evinced little appetite for the cut-and-thrust of partisan combat that followed them.
“The nation is being pushed into that, by the Republican primaries, by the type of ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ language in Congress,” he said.
Mr. Obama praised Mr. Daley for his role in shepherding trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. He also helped design the president’s $447 billion jobs bill, which — with the exception of a short-term extension in the payroll tax waiver and a few other odds and ends — was stymied in Congress.
While the president said he asked Mr. Daley to reconsider his decision, he did not apply the kind of pressure he brought to bear on Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has for several months been eager to return to New York.
Administration officials said Mr. Daley would play a role in fund-raising for the Obama campaign, probably with the title of campaign co-chairman. With his family pedigree and Wall Street connections, he is likely to remain a force in Democratic politics. Mr. Obama said in his statement that he planned to consult Mr. Daley regularly.
The president also said that Mr. Lew, 55, had been Mr. Daley’s choice as his replacement, and the “one clear choice” for the job. Mr. Lew worked alongside Mr. Daley in the effort to strike a budget deal with Republicans.
“Jack’s economic advice has been invaluable and he has my complete trust, both because of his mastery of the numbers, but because of the values behind those numbers,” Mr. Obama said, noting that Mr. Lew, who had served in the administration of President Bill Clinton, was the only budget director in history to preside over budget surpluses for three consecutive years.
Mr. Lew, who divides his time between New York and Washington, has built a reputation as a pragmatic liberal who believes Democrats must compromise with Republicans on long-term deficits in order to forestall draconian cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Before joining the Obama administration, he was a banker at Citigroup, helping run a division with esoteric investments in real estate and construction — a connection that was criticized by liberal groups on Monday. No successor as budget director to Mr. Lew was announced, but his deputy, Heather Higginbottom, and Rob Nabors, currently the Congressional liaison, were considered contenders for the post.
A New Race of Mercy to Nome, This Time Without Sled Dogs
A New Race of Mercy to Nome, This Time Without Sled Dogs
NOME, Alaska — In the winter of 1925, long after this Gold Rush boomtown on the Bering Sea had gone bust, diphtheria swept through its population of 1,400. Medicine ran dangerously low, and there was no easy way to get more. No roads led here, flight was ruled out and Norton Sound was frozen solid.
Parents still read books to their children about what happened next: Balto, Togo, Fritz and dozens more sled dogs sprinted through subzero temperatures across 674 miles of sea ice and tundra in what became known as the Great Race of Mercy. The medicine made it, Nome was saved and the Siberian huskies became American heroes.
Eighty-seven years later, Nome is again locked in a dark and frigid winter — a record cold spell has pushed temperatures to minus 40 degrees, cracked hotel pipes and even reduced turnout at the Mighty Musk Oxen’s pickup hockey games. And now another historic rescue effort is under way across the frozen sea.
Yet while the dogs needed only five and a half days, Renda the Russian tanker has been en route for nearly a month — and it is unclear whether she will ever arrive. The tanker is slogging through sea ice behind a Coast Guard icebreaker, trying to bring not medicine but another commodity increasingly precious in remote parts of Alaska: fuel, 1.3 million gallons of emergency gasoline and diesel to heat snow-cloaked homes and power the growing number of trucks, sport utility vehicles and snow machines that have long since replaced dogsleds.
For the moment, this latest tale appears less likely to produce a warm children’s book than an embarrassing memo, and maybe a few lawsuits, about how it all could have been avoided.
“People need to get fired over this,” said David Tunley, one of the few Musk Oxen at the outdoor rink on an evening when the temperature was minus 23. “The litigation of whose fault it is will probably go on forever.”
How Nome ended up short on fuel this winter is a complicated issue unto itself, but trying to get the Renda here to help has become a sub-Arctic odyssey — and perhaps a clunky practice run for a future in which climate change and commercial interests make shipping through Arctic routes more common.
“There is a lot of good knowledge that is coming out of this,” said Rear Adm. Thomas P. Ostebo, the officer in charge of the Coast Guard in Alaska.
The learning curve has been steep. Since leaving Vladivostok, Russia, on Dec. 17, the 370-foot Renda has encountered a fuel mix-up in South Korea and storms that prevented it from going to Japan; it has received a waiver of the Jones Act in the United States (to allow the foreign vessel to finally pick up gasoline in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, before transporting it to Nome) and broad support for its mission from Alaska’s Congressional delegation; it has been joined by the Coast Guard’s only operative icebreaker built for the Arctic, the Healy. It has had to alter its route to avoid the world’s most substantial population of a federally protected sea duck called the spectacled eider.
As of Monday, the Renda and the Healy were about 140 miles south of Nome, having made little progress from the night before. Wind, current and the brutal cold are causing complications with breaking what is known as first-year ice — the kind that forms each winter and melts in the summer as opposed to lasting year-round. As soon as the Healy breaks open a channel, ice closes in behind it, squeezing the Renda.
The Coast Guard has been among the most vocal government agencies in asking for more money and better equipment to deal with increased commercial activity in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Admiral Ostebo said the Healy, a medium-duty icebreaker, was fully capable of making the trip to Nome but that using a heavy-duty polar icebreaker — the Coast Guard owns two: one is retired, the other under repair until at least 2014 — might have made a difference.
He said the Coast Guard had thought that having the Healy lead the Renda would have been easier, “but it turns out that the pressure that ice is under quite frankly makes it hard to move through for the Renda.” He said these were “conditions I think we’re going to see a lot in the future.”
If the Renda reaches Nome, it would be making the first maritime fuel delivery through sea ice in Alaska history. The effort comes as many interested parties are anticipating business that could develop as Shell plans to conduct new exploratory offshore oil drilling just north of here as early as this summer.
“These are not cowboys out here trying to do crazy things,” said Mark Smith, the chief executive of Vitus Marine, the Alaska company that proposed using the Renda to representatives for Nome. “All of the stakeholders involved in this mission look at it as a learning experience as they consider further development.”
Nome usually receives its winter supply of fuel in early fall, before ice hardens over the Bering. But last fall, multiple shipping delays and then a major storm prevented the fall shipment from arriving. Many people here blame Bonanza Fuel, one of two local companies that barge in fuel and the one that failed to ensure its fall delivery made it. But the fuel company’s owner blamed the barge company for delaying shipments.
“Certainly we’ll evaluate how this situation came together,” said Jason Evans, the chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corporation, which owns Bonanza, “so that we’re not put in this situation and the community of Nome’s not put in this situation again.”
Officials say Nome could run out of heating oil by March. A normal fuel barge cannot make the trip until ice melts in June or July.
Dogs still pull sleds to Nome, in the annual Iditarod race each March, but there are still no roads here from outside. There are, however, more modern means of transportation. Mr. Evans said Nome could resort to flying in fuel through hundreds of small shipments but that shipping costs alone would be more than $3 per gallon. Fuel here already approaches $6. Conservation can only go so far.
“You have to heat your home when it’s 36 below,” he said.
The effort has prompted observers far and wide to comment on what it all means as the United States tries to figure out how to navigate the increasingly important Arctic. One question not to ask here: Regardless of how it came to this, is tiny Nome worth all the effort?
“Why should we be treated any differently than the Lower 48?” said Mayor Denise L. Michels, noting that the Coast Guard also escorts commercial shipments through ice and difficult conditions in the Great Lakes and off the East Coast. “We keep saying that we are an Arctic nation.”
NOME, Alaska — In the winter of 1925, long after this Gold Rush boomtown on the Bering Sea had gone bust, diphtheria swept through its population of 1,400. Medicine ran dangerously low, and there was no easy way to get more. No roads led here, flight was ruled out and Norton Sound was frozen solid.
Parents still read books to their children about what happened next: Balto, Togo, Fritz and dozens more sled dogs sprinted through subzero temperatures across 674 miles of sea ice and tundra in what became known as the Great Race of Mercy. The medicine made it, Nome was saved and the Siberian huskies became American heroes.
Eighty-seven years later, Nome is again locked in a dark and frigid winter — a record cold spell has pushed temperatures to minus 40 degrees, cracked hotel pipes and even reduced turnout at the Mighty Musk Oxen’s pickup hockey games. And now another historic rescue effort is under way across the frozen sea.
Yet while the dogs needed only five and a half days, Renda the Russian tanker has been en route for nearly a month — and it is unclear whether she will ever arrive. The tanker is slogging through sea ice behind a Coast Guard icebreaker, trying to bring not medicine but another commodity increasingly precious in remote parts of Alaska: fuel, 1.3 million gallons of emergency gasoline and diesel to heat snow-cloaked homes and power the growing number of trucks, sport utility vehicles and snow machines that have long since replaced dogsleds.
For the moment, this latest tale appears less likely to produce a warm children’s book than an embarrassing memo, and maybe a few lawsuits, about how it all could have been avoided.
“People need to get fired over this,” said David Tunley, one of the few Musk Oxen at the outdoor rink on an evening when the temperature was minus 23. “The litigation of whose fault it is will probably go on forever.”
How Nome ended up short on fuel this winter is a complicated issue unto itself, but trying to get the Renda here to help has become a sub-Arctic odyssey — and perhaps a clunky practice run for a future in which climate change and commercial interests make shipping through Arctic routes more common.
“There is a lot of good knowledge that is coming out of this,” said Rear Adm. Thomas P. Ostebo, the officer in charge of the Coast Guard in Alaska.
The learning curve has been steep. Since leaving Vladivostok, Russia, on Dec. 17, the 370-foot Renda has encountered a fuel mix-up in South Korea and storms that prevented it from going to Japan; it has received a waiver of the Jones Act in the United States (to allow the foreign vessel to finally pick up gasoline in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, before transporting it to Nome) and broad support for its mission from Alaska’s Congressional delegation; it has been joined by the Coast Guard’s only operative icebreaker built for the Arctic, the Healy. It has had to alter its route to avoid the world’s most substantial population of a federally protected sea duck called the spectacled eider.
As of Monday, the Renda and the Healy were about 140 miles south of Nome, having made little progress from the night before. Wind, current and the brutal cold are causing complications with breaking what is known as first-year ice — the kind that forms each winter and melts in the summer as opposed to lasting year-round. As soon as the Healy breaks open a channel, ice closes in behind it, squeezing the Renda.
The Coast Guard has been among the most vocal government agencies in asking for more money and better equipment to deal with increased commercial activity in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Admiral Ostebo said the Healy, a medium-duty icebreaker, was fully capable of making the trip to Nome but that using a heavy-duty polar icebreaker — the Coast Guard owns two: one is retired, the other under repair until at least 2014 — might have made a difference.
He said the Coast Guard had thought that having the Healy lead the Renda would have been easier, “but it turns out that the pressure that ice is under quite frankly makes it hard to move through for the Renda.” He said these were “conditions I think we’re going to see a lot in the future.”
If the Renda reaches Nome, it would be making the first maritime fuel delivery through sea ice in Alaska history. The effort comes as many interested parties are anticipating business that could develop as Shell plans to conduct new exploratory offshore oil drilling just north of here as early as this summer.
“These are not cowboys out here trying to do crazy things,” said Mark Smith, the chief executive of Vitus Marine, the Alaska company that proposed using the Renda to representatives for Nome. “All of the stakeholders involved in this mission look at it as a learning experience as they consider further development.”
Nome usually receives its winter supply of fuel in early fall, before ice hardens over the Bering. But last fall, multiple shipping delays and then a major storm prevented the fall shipment from arriving. Many people here blame Bonanza Fuel, one of two local companies that barge in fuel and the one that failed to ensure its fall delivery made it. But the fuel company’s owner blamed the barge company for delaying shipments.
“Certainly we’ll evaluate how this situation came together,” said Jason Evans, the chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corporation, which owns Bonanza, “so that we’re not put in this situation and the community of Nome’s not put in this situation again.”
Officials say Nome could run out of heating oil by March. A normal fuel barge cannot make the trip until ice melts in June or July.
Dogs still pull sleds to Nome, in the annual Iditarod race each March, but there are still no roads here from outside. There are, however, more modern means of transportation. Mr. Evans said Nome could resort to flying in fuel through hundreds of small shipments but that shipping costs alone would be more than $3 per gallon. Fuel here already approaches $6. Conservation can only go so far.
“You have to heat your home when it’s 36 below,” he said.
The effort has prompted observers far and wide to comment on what it all means as the United States tries to figure out how to navigate the increasingly important Arctic. One question not to ask here: Regardless of how it came to this, is tiny Nome worth all the effort?
“Why should we be treated any differently than the Lower 48?” said Mayor Denise L. Michels, noting that the Coast Guard also escorts commercial shipments through ice and difficult conditions in the Great Lakes and off the East Coast. “We keep saying that we are an Arctic nation.”
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Romney Is Focus as Battle in G.O.P. Takes Sharp Edge
Romney Is Focus as Battle in G.O.P. Takes Sharp Edge
CONCORD, N.H. — The Republican race for president splintered along two distinct tracks on Sunday, with all of the candidates who are not named Mitt Romney intensifying their attempts to derail the one who is. And all the while they kept their sights trained on one another as they try to emerge as his chief rival.
Two days before the first primary of the Republican nominating process, Mr. Romney remained a solid favorite here on Tuesday and beyond. But the winnowed cast of candidates who lag behind him was hatching competing plans to outlast one another through the next few nominating contests, starting with the traditionally bruising primary in South Carolina, which votes on Jan. 21.
And so the steady jog of the last few months became a sharp-edge sprint heading out of the weekend, with barbs flying in speeches, in advertisements and in the final debate before Election Day here, which took place Sunday and included some of the most pointed exchanges of the campaign so far.
In the debate, hosted by “Meet the Press” and Facebook, Newt Gingrich disputed Mr. Romney’s assertions that he was not a lifetime politician, saying, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?”
“You have been running consistently for years and years and years,” Mr. Gingrich said, looking directly at his rival. He added: “Just level with the American people. You’ve been running for — at least since the 1990s.”
Mr. Gingrich also attacked Mr. Romney’s tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, accusing him of pillaging companies and cutting jobs to enrich himself and his colleagues. He compared him unfavorably with two other presidential candidates from Massachusetts: former Gov. Michael Dukakis and Senator John Kerry, both Democrats who were defeated.
Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, accused Mr. Romney of lacking core convictions. “We want someone when the time gets tough — and it will in this election — who will stand up for conservative principles,” he said.
Even Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor who has struggled to stand out in the race, scored points with the debate audience when he said Mr. Romney was out of line in attacking him for having served as President Obama’s ambassador to China. “This nation is divided,” Mr. Huntsman said, “because of attitudes like that.” He criticized Mr. Romney for his slogan “Believe in America,” saying: “How can you believe in America when you’re not willing to serve America? That’s just phony.”
Mr. Romney had been seeking to remain above it all and rely on his muscular campaign organization and get-out-the-vote operation to propel him to victory in Tuesday’s primary and beyond. But time and time again, he was forced to defend himself.
“I’m very proud of the conservative record I have,” Mr. Romney said, ticking through a list of leading Republicans supporting his candidacy who, as he put it, “don’t have any ax to grind.”
The Romney team conveyed the nervousness of a leading marathon runner, acutely aware of the potentially volatile nature of this contest, the reluctance of Republicans to unite behind a single candidate and the possibility that an anti-Romney candidate could emerge supreme to split the delegate field with Ron Paul, who is viewed as having a distinct but sizable following.
During a day of hard campaigning, Mr. Romney sought to deflect criticism of his time at Bain and to defend against derision from Mr. Gingrich and the others about his claim to be a nonpolitician. But it did not always go so smoothly. Speaking to voters at a rally in Rochester, N.H., Mr. Romney described himself as a “a high school kid like everybody else with skinny legs” who ultimately “backed into a chance” to run for president.
The son of a wealthy American Motors chief executive turned Michigan governor, Mr. Romney also said, “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired,” and declared, “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
Afterward, his campaign could not provide specific examples, though a spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said in a statement that “as a young person just out of college, he worked his way up the career ladder knowing that his continued employment was by no means guaranteed.”
For months, Democrats have been trying to use Mr. Romney’s pedigree against him, seeking to tap into the boiling anger over wealth disparities resonating with voters. As the presidential primary campaign intensifies, his Republican rivals are highlighting the same theme, suggesting that Mr. Romney is out of touch with Americans.
CONCORD, N.H. — The Republican race for president splintered along two distinct tracks on Sunday, with all of the candidates who are not named Mitt Romney intensifying their attempts to derail the one who is. And all the while they kept their sights trained on one another as they try to emerge as his chief rival.
Two days before the first primary of the Republican nominating process, Mr. Romney remained a solid favorite here on Tuesday and beyond. But the winnowed cast of candidates who lag behind him was hatching competing plans to outlast one another through the next few nominating contests, starting with the traditionally bruising primary in South Carolina, which votes on Jan. 21.
And so the steady jog of the last few months became a sharp-edge sprint heading out of the weekend, with barbs flying in speeches, in advertisements and in the final debate before Election Day here, which took place Sunday and included some of the most pointed exchanges of the campaign so far.
In the debate, hosted by “Meet the Press” and Facebook, Newt Gingrich disputed Mr. Romney’s assertions that he was not a lifetime politician, saying, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?”
“You have been running consistently for years and years and years,” Mr. Gingrich said, looking directly at his rival. He added: “Just level with the American people. You’ve been running for — at least since the 1990s.”
Mr. Gingrich also attacked Mr. Romney’s tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, accusing him of pillaging companies and cutting jobs to enrich himself and his colleagues. He compared him unfavorably with two other presidential candidates from Massachusetts: former Gov. Michael Dukakis and Senator John Kerry, both Democrats who were defeated.
Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, accused Mr. Romney of lacking core convictions. “We want someone when the time gets tough — and it will in this election — who will stand up for conservative principles,” he said.
Even Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor who has struggled to stand out in the race, scored points with the debate audience when he said Mr. Romney was out of line in attacking him for having served as President Obama’s ambassador to China. “This nation is divided,” Mr. Huntsman said, “because of attitudes like that.” He criticized Mr. Romney for his slogan “Believe in America,” saying: “How can you believe in America when you’re not willing to serve America? That’s just phony.”
Mr. Romney had been seeking to remain above it all and rely on his muscular campaign organization and get-out-the-vote operation to propel him to victory in Tuesday’s primary and beyond. But time and time again, he was forced to defend himself.
“I’m very proud of the conservative record I have,” Mr. Romney said, ticking through a list of leading Republicans supporting his candidacy who, as he put it, “don’t have any ax to grind.”
The Romney team conveyed the nervousness of a leading marathon runner, acutely aware of the potentially volatile nature of this contest, the reluctance of Republicans to unite behind a single candidate and the possibility that an anti-Romney candidate could emerge supreme to split the delegate field with Ron Paul, who is viewed as having a distinct but sizable following.
During a day of hard campaigning, Mr. Romney sought to deflect criticism of his time at Bain and to defend against derision from Mr. Gingrich and the others about his claim to be a nonpolitician. But it did not always go so smoothly. Speaking to voters at a rally in Rochester, N.H., Mr. Romney described himself as a “a high school kid like everybody else with skinny legs” who ultimately “backed into a chance” to run for president.
The son of a wealthy American Motors chief executive turned Michigan governor, Mr. Romney also said, “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired,” and declared, “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
Afterward, his campaign could not provide specific examples, though a spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said in a statement that “as a young person just out of college, he worked his way up the career ladder knowing that his continued employment was by no means guaranteed.”
For months, Democrats have been trying to use Mr. Romney’s pedigree against him, seeking to tap into the boiling anger over wealth disparities resonating with voters. As the presidential primary campaign intensifies, his Republican rivals are highlighting the same theme, suggesting that Mr. Romney is out of touch with Americans.
Subdued Remembrance of a Dark Day in Tucson
Subdued Remembrance of a Dark Day in Tucson
TUCSON — The sun had fallen and a crowd had gathered on a chilly Sunday night on the mall at the University of Arizona, for the last event of a weekend commemorating the first anniversary of the mass shooting here one year ago. The vigil began with the Pledge of the Allegiance.
Led by Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
The crowd responded with gasps and a roar as Ms. Giffords, wearing a vibrant red scarf, walked unaided slowly to the center of the stage. Most had expected her to be there — that is why many had come — but few thought she would be able to play such a central role.
“I pledge of allegiance,” Ms. Giffords began, speaking slowly — almost defiantly — as the crowd of several thousand, some in tears, joined in. Ms. Giffords holding her stiff right arm with her left hand, finished with a bright grin at the crowd. She was led slowly and unsteadily to the side of the stage by Ron Barber, her chief of staff who was also shot in the attack and led the ceremony tonight.
“It gives you goose bumps,” said Michael Wood, 52, a construction worker in the crowd, his gaze fixed on the congresswoman, who was shot in the head just one year ago. “It’s good to see her. She looked really good.”
It was a stirring ending to a two-day commemoration that was in many ways remarkable for how understated it was.
A year ago, after the shooting attack that left 6 people dead and 13 wounded — including Ms. Giffords — this city gathered in an expression of grief and shock that lasted for weeks. There was a blur of funerals, a crush of flowers, candles and well-wishers on the expanse of lawn at the hospital where victims were taken, and a visit by President Obama that drew thousands.
On this anniversary, there was the candlelight vigil, an interdenominational prayer service, a ringing of bells at 10:11 a.m., marking the moment of the attack, and the reading of the names of victims.
There was Ms. Giffords herself, a quiet presence until her appearance Sunday, visiting places that have become national symbols of the attack (even if they have little meaning to her, given her inability to remember the events of that day): the Safeway supermarket where the shootings took place and the intensive care unit at the University of Arizona Medical Center where people were taken.
But there were also anniversary events more in keeping with the character of this community, where people have struggled to comprehend how such brutal violence could unfold in such a serene place. There were yoga, meditation, designated hugging spots, dancing and steel drum playing. There were campaigns promoting civility and community — people gathered Saturday at a park to sign a “Tucsonans Commit to Kindness” contract. At the vigil, the crowd held a lot blue glow stick — taking care not to light them until Mr. Barber told them it was time — that cast a slightly mystical air to the whole event.
“You have to understand: This has always been a very civil community, a community that has always been tied together,” said the mayor, Jonathan Rothschild. “We are a different place. We are a city of one million people, and sometimes we acted, to our benefit and detraction, as a community of 50,000 people. For something like this to happen was such a shock.”
“Tucson is a changed community,” he said.
For Tucson, this is a turning point as it searches for a way to mark the tragedy — to give it meaning beyond the day itself — without the images from the Safeway parking lot becoming the first thing people think of at the mention of the city. “We refuse to let this tragic day define us,” Patricia Maisch, one of the women who wrested the gun from the shooter, said at a service memorializing the victims at a hall at the University of Arizona.
Sunday’s events included two church services, a memorial service and a candlelight vigil. Hundreds gathered for an interfaith service at the St. Augustine Cathedral, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson; a shofar was sounded by a rabbi, a prayer was read from the Koran, and there was a welcome from a Lutheran pastor and the vicar general of the Diocese of Tucson. Nearly every pew of the soaring church — still decorated with Christmas wreaths — was filled. People sat quietly, some holding back tears, as a bell was rung as the name of each of the six people who died was called out in the church.
TUCSON — The sun had fallen and a crowd had gathered on a chilly Sunday night on the mall at the University of Arizona, for the last event of a weekend commemorating the first anniversary of the mass shooting here one year ago. The vigil began with the Pledge of the Allegiance.
Led by Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
The crowd responded with gasps and a roar as Ms. Giffords, wearing a vibrant red scarf, walked unaided slowly to the center of the stage. Most had expected her to be there — that is why many had come — but few thought she would be able to play such a central role.
“I pledge of allegiance,” Ms. Giffords began, speaking slowly — almost defiantly — as the crowd of several thousand, some in tears, joined in. Ms. Giffords holding her stiff right arm with her left hand, finished with a bright grin at the crowd. She was led slowly and unsteadily to the side of the stage by Ron Barber, her chief of staff who was also shot in the attack and led the ceremony tonight.
“It gives you goose bumps,” said Michael Wood, 52, a construction worker in the crowd, his gaze fixed on the congresswoman, who was shot in the head just one year ago. “It’s good to see her. She looked really good.”
It was a stirring ending to a two-day commemoration that was in many ways remarkable for how understated it was.
A year ago, after the shooting attack that left 6 people dead and 13 wounded — including Ms. Giffords — this city gathered in an expression of grief and shock that lasted for weeks. There was a blur of funerals, a crush of flowers, candles and well-wishers on the expanse of lawn at the hospital where victims were taken, and a visit by President Obama that drew thousands.
On this anniversary, there was the candlelight vigil, an interdenominational prayer service, a ringing of bells at 10:11 a.m., marking the moment of the attack, and the reading of the names of victims.
There was Ms. Giffords herself, a quiet presence until her appearance Sunday, visiting places that have become national symbols of the attack (even if they have little meaning to her, given her inability to remember the events of that day): the Safeway supermarket where the shootings took place and the intensive care unit at the University of Arizona Medical Center where people were taken.
But there were also anniversary events more in keeping with the character of this community, where people have struggled to comprehend how such brutal violence could unfold in such a serene place. There were yoga, meditation, designated hugging spots, dancing and steel drum playing. There were campaigns promoting civility and community — people gathered Saturday at a park to sign a “Tucsonans Commit to Kindness” contract. At the vigil, the crowd held a lot blue glow stick — taking care not to light them until Mr. Barber told them it was time — that cast a slightly mystical air to the whole event.
“You have to understand: This has always been a very civil community, a community that has always been tied together,” said the mayor, Jonathan Rothschild. “We are a different place. We are a city of one million people, and sometimes we acted, to our benefit and detraction, as a community of 50,000 people. For something like this to happen was such a shock.”
“Tucson is a changed community,” he said.
For Tucson, this is a turning point as it searches for a way to mark the tragedy — to give it meaning beyond the day itself — without the images from the Safeway parking lot becoming the first thing people think of at the mention of the city. “We refuse to let this tragic day define us,” Patricia Maisch, one of the women who wrested the gun from the shooter, said at a service memorializing the victims at a hall at the University of Arizona.
Sunday’s events included two church services, a memorial service and a candlelight vigil. Hundreds gathered for an interfaith service at the St. Augustine Cathedral, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson; a shofar was sounded by a rabbi, a prayer was read from the Koran, and there was a welcome from a Lutheran pastor and the vicar general of the Diocese of Tucson. Nearly every pew of the soaring church — still decorated with Christmas wreaths — was filled. People sat quietly, some holding back tears, as a bell was rung as the name of each of the six people who died was called out in the church.
Latest Hacking Scandal Arrest Suggests Focus on Cover-Up
Latest Hacking Scandal Arrest Suggests Focus on Cover-Up
LONDON — Scotland Yard’s arrest of a former personal assistant to Rebekah Brooks, a former chief executive of the British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, appears to reflect the investigators’ intensifying focus on the possibility of a cover-up by executives, editors and others of the extent of illegal phone hacking and other criminal wrongdoing at the The News of the World, which is now defunct.
After 10 hours of questioning on Friday, detectives assigned to a special unit investigating the affair released the assistant, Cheryl Carter, 47, on police bail pending further questioning. She was arrested at dawn at her home in Billericay, 25 miles east of London. Efforts to reach her for comment on Saturday were not successful.
Scotland Yard said she was the 17th person, most of them former employees of the The News of the World, to be arrested by officers assigned to Operation Weeting, established last year under special provisions intended to ensure the independence of the investigators.
The creation of that task force followed several years of faltering inquiries by Scotland Yard that upheld, until a torrent of disclosures last year, denials by News International that more than two people on the News of the World’s newsroom staff had been involved in the illegal interception of the cellphone voicemails of crime victims, politicians and celebrities.
As the scandal grew last year, dominating headlines in Britain for months, the police inquiry, and hearings by a parliamentary committee, began to focus on allegations that executives, editors and others involved had conspired to cover up the extent of the wrongdoing, which Scotland Yard said last month had involved the hacking of the cellphones of at least 800 people.
One of the executives who has been under pressure is James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son, who leads News Corporation’s European and Asian operations, and has long been considered a candidate to succeed his father as head of the company. The police investigation and testimony before a parliamentary committee identified a 2009 meeting in London attended by James Murdoch as crucial to unraveling the issue of whether senior executives conspired in the cover-up.
Under questioning at two sessions before the committee last year, James Murdoch denied having approved an out-of-court settlement of more than $1.4 million to buy the silence of a British soccer union executive who was suing News International and threatening to go public with documents pointing to a wider use of phone hacking than the company had then admitted. Two other senior Murdoch employees contested Mr. Murdoch’s denial, saying that they had informed Mr. Murdoch of the extent of the phone hacking, and cited that as a reason for approving the settlement. One of the two, Colin Myler, the former editor of the The News of the World, was appointed editor last week of The Daily News in New York, a rival of the Murdoch-owned New York Post.
Ms. Carter’s arrest drew attention for several reasons, including a Scotland Yard statement that said that she had been questioned on suspicion of trying to pervert the course of justice, a line of inquiry that has not been specified in police statements on most of the other arrests in Operation Weeting.
In addition, Ms. Carter appeared to have had a close personal and professional relationship with Ms. Brooks, the most senior executive in the Murdoch hierarchy to have been arrested in the affair. Former News of the World employees who spoke on condition of anonymity said Ms. Carter had worked as a personal assistant to Ms. Brooks for 19 years, starting when Ms. Brooks was deputy editor of The Sun, another Murdoch-owned tabloid in London, and continuing as Ms. Brooks became editor of the The News of the World, editor of The Sun, and later chief executive of News International, overseeing all of the Murdoch titles in Britain.
Ms. Brooks’s resignation in July followed closely the News Corporation’s abrupt decision to close News of the World, Britain’s highest-circulation Sunday newspaper, after 168 years of continuous publication.
Ms. Carter, who was described by those who worked with her as Ms. Brooks’s “gatekeeper,” with close knowledge of Ms. Brooks’s schedule, e-mails and meetings, lost her job as personal assistant amid the storm of recriminations after the disclosure that one of those whose cellphones had been hacked was Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in an outer London suburb in 2002.
News International’s acknowledgment that the The News of the World had hacked into the teenager’s phone at a time when there was still hope that she remained alive, and deleted messages left by her family and friends so as to make room for others, was a watershed in the scandal. Ms. Carter’s departure from News International closely followed that of Ms. Brooks, but Ms. Carter continued to write a weekly beauty column for The Sun until that, too, was discontinued in December.
One of the issues under investigation by Scotland Yard is whether any documents or e-mails pertinent to the inquiry were deleted or destroyed as part of a cover-up. Although News International has provided investigators with an archive of 300 million e-mails, the company has been accused of having deleted e-mails and of providing former employees with lavish payouts on the condition of their silence. It has also been accused of making selective leaks to other sections of the news media that Scotland Yard suggested constituted a “deliberate campaign to undermine the investigation.”
According to two former staff members who did not want to be named because they were discussing a topic that was the subject of an active police investigation, Ms. Carter was fiercely loyal to Ms. Brooks. A person who claimed to have been present on the day that Ms. Brooks cleared out her office at News International’s headquarters, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the two women were seen carrying items to a parked car.
LONDON — Scotland Yard’s arrest of a former personal assistant to Rebekah Brooks, a former chief executive of the British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, appears to reflect the investigators’ intensifying focus on the possibility of a cover-up by executives, editors and others of the extent of illegal phone hacking and other criminal wrongdoing at the The News of the World, which is now defunct.
After 10 hours of questioning on Friday, detectives assigned to a special unit investigating the affair released the assistant, Cheryl Carter, 47, on police bail pending further questioning. She was arrested at dawn at her home in Billericay, 25 miles east of London. Efforts to reach her for comment on Saturday were not successful.
Scotland Yard said she was the 17th person, most of them former employees of the The News of the World, to be arrested by officers assigned to Operation Weeting, established last year under special provisions intended to ensure the independence of the investigators.
The creation of that task force followed several years of faltering inquiries by Scotland Yard that upheld, until a torrent of disclosures last year, denials by News International that more than two people on the News of the World’s newsroom staff had been involved in the illegal interception of the cellphone voicemails of crime victims, politicians and celebrities.
As the scandal grew last year, dominating headlines in Britain for months, the police inquiry, and hearings by a parliamentary committee, began to focus on allegations that executives, editors and others involved had conspired to cover up the extent of the wrongdoing, which Scotland Yard said last month had involved the hacking of the cellphones of at least 800 people.
One of the executives who has been under pressure is James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son, who leads News Corporation’s European and Asian operations, and has long been considered a candidate to succeed his father as head of the company. The police investigation and testimony before a parliamentary committee identified a 2009 meeting in London attended by James Murdoch as crucial to unraveling the issue of whether senior executives conspired in the cover-up.
Under questioning at two sessions before the committee last year, James Murdoch denied having approved an out-of-court settlement of more than $1.4 million to buy the silence of a British soccer union executive who was suing News International and threatening to go public with documents pointing to a wider use of phone hacking than the company had then admitted. Two other senior Murdoch employees contested Mr. Murdoch’s denial, saying that they had informed Mr. Murdoch of the extent of the phone hacking, and cited that as a reason for approving the settlement. One of the two, Colin Myler, the former editor of the The News of the World, was appointed editor last week of The Daily News in New York, a rival of the Murdoch-owned New York Post.
Ms. Carter’s arrest drew attention for several reasons, including a Scotland Yard statement that said that she had been questioned on suspicion of trying to pervert the course of justice, a line of inquiry that has not been specified in police statements on most of the other arrests in Operation Weeting.
In addition, Ms. Carter appeared to have had a close personal and professional relationship with Ms. Brooks, the most senior executive in the Murdoch hierarchy to have been arrested in the affair. Former News of the World employees who spoke on condition of anonymity said Ms. Carter had worked as a personal assistant to Ms. Brooks for 19 years, starting when Ms. Brooks was deputy editor of The Sun, another Murdoch-owned tabloid in London, and continuing as Ms. Brooks became editor of the The News of the World, editor of The Sun, and later chief executive of News International, overseeing all of the Murdoch titles in Britain.
Ms. Brooks’s resignation in July followed closely the News Corporation’s abrupt decision to close News of the World, Britain’s highest-circulation Sunday newspaper, after 168 years of continuous publication.
Ms. Carter, who was described by those who worked with her as Ms. Brooks’s “gatekeeper,” with close knowledge of Ms. Brooks’s schedule, e-mails and meetings, lost her job as personal assistant amid the storm of recriminations after the disclosure that one of those whose cellphones had been hacked was Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in an outer London suburb in 2002.
News International’s acknowledgment that the The News of the World had hacked into the teenager’s phone at a time when there was still hope that she remained alive, and deleted messages left by her family and friends so as to make room for others, was a watershed in the scandal. Ms. Carter’s departure from News International closely followed that of Ms. Brooks, but Ms. Carter continued to write a weekly beauty column for The Sun until that, too, was discontinued in December.
One of the issues under investigation by Scotland Yard is whether any documents or e-mails pertinent to the inquiry were deleted or destroyed as part of a cover-up. Although News International has provided investigators with an archive of 300 million e-mails, the company has been accused of having deleted e-mails and of providing former employees with lavish payouts on the condition of their silence. It has also been accused of making selective leaks to other sections of the news media that Scotland Yard suggested constituted a “deliberate campaign to undermine the investigation.”
According to two former staff members who did not want to be named because they were discussing a topic that was the subject of an active police investigation, Ms. Carter was fiercely loyal to Ms. Brooks. A person who claimed to have been present on the day that Ms. Brooks cleared out her office at News International’s headquarters, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the two women were seen carrying items to a parked car.
Bold Lie Turns Run-In at Sea Into Dramatic Rescue
Bold Lie Turns Run-In at Sea Into Dramatic Rescue
ABOARD THE FISHING VESSEL AL MULAHI, in the Gulf of Oman — Late on Thursday afternoon, as the American destroyer Kidd loomed alongside this hijacked Iranian dhow, the warship’s loudspeaker issued a command in Urdu to the dhow’s frightened Urdu-speaking crew. American sailors stood ready, weapons in hand.
If you have weapons aboard, the voice boomed, put them where we can see them, on the roof of your wheelhouse.
Fifteen Somali pirates were also on board Al Mulahi, crouched and cornered on the very vessel they had seized in November to use as their mother ship. They had knives, a pistol and four assault rifles. But they did not speak Urdu. For a moment, the captors depended on their captives. They asked their Iranian hostages what the American sailors had just said.
One of the hostages, Khaled Abdulkhaled, answered without pause: “They said they are about to blow this ship up.”
The pirates panicked. Their unity broke down. Each man hoped, variously, to surrender, find cover or hide. Discarding their weapons, nine of them crammed into a small hold beneath the wheelhouse. Six more huddled near the open bow.
Soon, armed American sailors climbed aboard. They spotted the six Somalis on the bow, who did not resist. As more of the boarding team swarmed over the side, the Iranian hostages pointed to where the remaining pirates were hiding. The sailors pulled those men out, one by one, into the light and forced them face down onto the deck.
Al Mulahi was secured. The Iranian hostages had been saved without a shot being fired.
In interviews by two journalists from The New York Times who spent Thursday night on the rescued vessel, the former hostages, the captured pirates and the American sailors guarding them told of a drama on the open ocean: Naval vessels, helicopters and inflatable boats first thwarted a pirate attack and then converged on the pirates’ roving base, freeing 13 hostages who had expected to die.
The operation was a geopolitical thriller, as the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, which had been warned not to return to the region by senior Iranian defense officials on Tuesday, answered on Thursday by swiftly organizing the rescue of Iranian hostages not far from Iran’s coast.
But the rescue was also the dramatic finale to a slow-moving ordeal for the hostages. To survive more than six weeks after their 82-foot gillnetter was captured at gunpoint and converted to a platform for attacks against international shipping, the fishermen relied on calm nerves, prayer, camaraderie and, in the end, duplicity.
Their troubles began in November, shortly after Al Mulahi left its home port of Chabahar, Iran, on a voyage intended to last several weeks. Its captain, Mahmed Younes, was seeking marlin, which he said could fetch about $1.50 a pound. He hoped to fill the vessel’s freezers with five or six tons of fish before returning home.
But pirates were at sea, too, and hoping for a far larger score.
Not long after leaving port, while transiting the Omani coast, Al Mulahi was approached by a smaller Iranian dhow, the fishing vessel Bayan. Unbeknownst to Al Mulahi’s crew, the Bayan had been hijacked by Somali pirates. When it came alongside, the pirates appeared on its deck, and fired rifles into the air. Now they had Al Mulahi, too.
The pirates’ intentions became clear immediately. The Bayan was almost out of fuel, rendering it useless as a mother ship from which the pirates could mount attacks in skiffs against passing ships they hoped to hold for multimillion-dollar ransoms.
The Somalis transferred their equipment onto Al Mulahi. Captain Younes said two of the Bayan’s crew members had been killed by the pirates, and the rest were exhausted and terrified. But before Al Mulahi pulled away, the Bayan’s fishermen apologized for carrying the pirates to another boat, and for the fact that they were going free even as Al Mulahi’s crew was being taken hostage.
Captain Younes, who had been captured by Somali pirates while on a different fishing vessel three years ago, understood. He knew something of a fishing crew’s helplessness when faced by gunmen at sea. He had survived 25 days that time, he said, and escaped when the fishermen overpowered three pirates on the vessel when the five others left on a skiff to hunt for ships.
As his new period of captivity began, his mind was working. He gave his crew an order: “Just comply,” he said. With time, they might get a chance.
The pirates, perhaps sensing an obedient crew, did not beat them, the hostages said. They ordered Al Mulahi to set a course to Xaafuun, a port on the northern Somali coast.
After they arrived and anchored the dhow, many of the pirates went ashore, leaving guards and bringing on food, water and, with time, more gunmen to prepare for a high-seas hunt.
Only one of the hostages, Fazel ur Rehman, was allowed onto land. He was ill. The pirates gave him medicine, he said.
ABOARD THE FISHING VESSEL AL MULAHI, in the Gulf of Oman — Late on Thursday afternoon, as the American destroyer Kidd loomed alongside this hijacked Iranian dhow, the warship’s loudspeaker issued a command in Urdu to the dhow’s frightened Urdu-speaking crew. American sailors stood ready, weapons in hand.
If you have weapons aboard, the voice boomed, put them where we can see them, on the roof of your wheelhouse.
Fifteen Somali pirates were also on board Al Mulahi, crouched and cornered on the very vessel they had seized in November to use as their mother ship. They had knives, a pistol and four assault rifles. But they did not speak Urdu. For a moment, the captors depended on their captives. They asked their Iranian hostages what the American sailors had just said.
One of the hostages, Khaled Abdulkhaled, answered without pause: “They said they are about to blow this ship up.”
The pirates panicked. Their unity broke down. Each man hoped, variously, to surrender, find cover or hide. Discarding their weapons, nine of them crammed into a small hold beneath the wheelhouse. Six more huddled near the open bow.
Soon, armed American sailors climbed aboard. They spotted the six Somalis on the bow, who did not resist. As more of the boarding team swarmed over the side, the Iranian hostages pointed to where the remaining pirates were hiding. The sailors pulled those men out, one by one, into the light and forced them face down onto the deck.
Al Mulahi was secured. The Iranian hostages had been saved without a shot being fired.
In interviews by two journalists from The New York Times who spent Thursday night on the rescued vessel, the former hostages, the captured pirates and the American sailors guarding them told of a drama on the open ocean: Naval vessels, helicopters and inflatable boats first thwarted a pirate attack and then converged on the pirates’ roving base, freeing 13 hostages who had expected to die.
The operation was a geopolitical thriller, as the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, which had been warned not to return to the region by senior Iranian defense officials on Tuesday, answered on Thursday by swiftly organizing the rescue of Iranian hostages not far from Iran’s coast.
But the rescue was also the dramatic finale to a slow-moving ordeal for the hostages. To survive more than six weeks after their 82-foot gillnetter was captured at gunpoint and converted to a platform for attacks against international shipping, the fishermen relied on calm nerves, prayer, camaraderie and, in the end, duplicity.
Their troubles began in November, shortly after Al Mulahi left its home port of Chabahar, Iran, on a voyage intended to last several weeks. Its captain, Mahmed Younes, was seeking marlin, which he said could fetch about $1.50 a pound. He hoped to fill the vessel’s freezers with five or six tons of fish before returning home.
But pirates were at sea, too, and hoping for a far larger score.
Not long after leaving port, while transiting the Omani coast, Al Mulahi was approached by a smaller Iranian dhow, the fishing vessel Bayan. Unbeknownst to Al Mulahi’s crew, the Bayan had been hijacked by Somali pirates. When it came alongside, the pirates appeared on its deck, and fired rifles into the air. Now they had Al Mulahi, too.
The pirates’ intentions became clear immediately. The Bayan was almost out of fuel, rendering it useless as a mother ship from which the pirates could mount attacks in skiffs against passing ships they hoped to hold for multimillion-dollar ransoms.
The Somalis transferred their equipment onto Al Mulahi. Captain Younes said two of the Bayan’s crew members had been killed by the pirates, and the rest were exhausted and terrified. But before Al Mulahi pulled away, the Bayan’s fishermen apologized for carrying the pirates to another boat, and for the fact that they were going free even as Al Mulahi’s crew was being taken hostage.
Captain Younes, who had been captured by Somali pirates while on a different fishing vessel three years ago, understood. He knew something of a fishing crew’s helplessness when faced by gunmen at sea. He had survived 25 days that time, he said, and escaped when the fishermen overpowered three pirates on the vessel when the five others left on a skiff to hunt for ships.
As his new period of captivity began, his mind was working. He gave his crew an order: “Just comply,” he said. With time, they might get a chance.
The pirates, perhaps sensing an obedient crew, did not beat them, the hostages said. They ordered Al Mulahi to set a course to Xaafuun, a port on the northern Somali coast.
After they arrived and anchored the dhow, many of the pirates went ashore, leaving guards and bringing on food, water and, with time, more gunmen to prepare for a high-seas hunt.
Only one of the hostages, Fazel ur Rehman, was allowed onto land. He was ill. The pirates gave him medicine, he said.
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