F R O M T H E Pa G E

F R O M T H E PA G E S O F

Thursday, October 8, 2009 Midnight in New York Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times

Visit The Times on the Web: www.nytimes.com

Obama Considers Shift in War Strategy WASHINGTON — President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan does not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday. As Obama met with advisers for three hours to discuss Pakistan, the White House said he has not decided whether to approve a proposed troop buildup in Afghanistan. But the shift in thinking outlined by administration officials suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested. It remains unclear whether everyone in the war cabinet fully accepts this view. While Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued for months against increasing troops in Afghanistan because Pakistan was the greater priority, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have both warned that the Taliban

remain linked to Al Qaeda and would give its fighters safe haven again if it regained control of all or large parts of Afghanistan, making it a mistake to think of them as separate problems. Obama’s commander there, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has argued that success demands a substantial expansion of the U.S. presence — up to 40,000 more troops. Any decision that provides less will expose the president to criticism, especially from Republicans, that his policy is a prescription for failure. The White House appears to be trying to prepare the ground to counter that by focusing attention on recent successes against Qaeda cells in Pakistan. The approach amounts to an alternative to the analysis presented by McChrystal. If, as the White House has increasingly asserted in recent weeks, it has improved the ability of the United States to reduce the threat from Al Qaeda, then the war in Afghanistan is less central to U.S. security. In reviewing McChrystal’s request, the White House is rethinking what was, just six months ago,

a strategy that viewed Pakistan and Afghanistan as a single integrated problem, according to several administration officials and outsiders who have spoken with them. Now the discussions in the White House Situation Room are focusing on related but separate strategies for fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. An official said that the administration has begun to define the Taliban as an indigenous group that does not express ambitions of attacking the United States. “When the two are aligned, it’s mainly on the tactical front,” the official said, noting that Al Qaeda has fewer than 100 fighters in Afghanistan. Officials argued that the Taliban cannot be wholly removed from Afghanistan because it is too ingrained in the country. Forces often described as Taliban are an amalgamation of militants that includes local warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network or others driven by local grievances rather than jihadist ideology. PETER BAKER and ERIC SCHMITT

Leader Ousted, Honduras Hires U.S. Lobbyists WASHINGTON — First, depose a president. Second, hire a lobbyist. In the months since soldiers ousted the Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, the de facto government and its supporters have resisted demands from the United States that he be restored to power. Arguing that the leftleaning Zelaya posed a threat to their country’s fragile democracy by attempting to illegally extend his time in office, they have made their case in Washington in the customary way: by starting a high-profile lobbying campaign. The campaign has had the effect of forcing the administration to send mixed signals about its position to the de facto government, which reads them as signs of encouragement. It also has delayed two key State Department appointments in the region.

Costing at least $400,000 so far, according to lobbying registration records, the campaign has involved law firms and public relations agencies with close ties to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. John McCain. It has also drawn support from several former high-ranking officials who were responsible for setting U.S. policy in Central America in the 1980s and ’90s, when the region was struggling to break with the military dictatorships and guerrilla insurgencies that defined the cold war. Two decades later, those officials — including Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and Daniel W. Fisk — view Honduras as the principal battleground in a proxy fight with Cuba and Venezuela, which they characterize as a threat to stability in the region

in language similar to that once used to describe the designs of the Soviet Union. The de facto government has also mobilized the support of Republican legislators, led by Sen. James DeMint of South Carolina. They are holding up two State Department appointments —assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and ambassador to Brazil — as a way of pressing the administration to lift sanctions against the country. Chris Sabatini, the editor of Americas Quarterly, a policy journal, said that to placate its opponents in Congress, and get its nominations approved, the State Department has sent backchannel messages to legislators expressing its support for Zelaya in equivocal terms. GINGER THOMPSON and RON NIXON

health care bill gets green light in cost analysis WASHINGTON — The Senate Finance Committee legislation to revamp the health care system would provide coverage to 29 million uninsured Americans but would still pare future federal deficits by slowing the growth of spending on medical care, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The much-anticipated cost analysis showed the bill meeting President Obama’s main requirements, including his demand that health legislation not add “one dime to the deficit.” Indeed, the budget office said, the bill would reduce deficits by a total of $81 billion in the decade starting next year. The report clears the way for the Finance Committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to push for a panel vote within the next few days, and sets the stage for Democrats to take legislation to the floor for debate by the full Senate this month. Despite the expansion of coverage at a cost of $829 billion over 10 years, the budget office said 25 million people — about one-third of them illegal immigrants — would still be uninsured in 2019. In all, it said, the proportion of nonelderly Americans with insurance would rise over the 10 years to 94 percent, from 83 percent today. Republicans, who are opposed to the legislation, minimized the significance of the cost analysis. They suggested that the “real” bill would be written secretly by Democratic leaders as they combine the Finance Committee measure with a version approved by the Senate health committee in July. But Democrats rejoiced. Several wavering Democrats and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, had said they would be influenced by the budget office report.  ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

International

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Floodwaters Bring Disease in Philippines MANILA — More than a week after Typhoon Ketsana devastated the Philippines, followed by a second damaging storm, large areas of Manila and nearby provinces remain flooded, and survivors — some gathered in evacuation centers and others marooned in their homes — face a host of other problems, including disease and ruined crops. The high floodwaters and uncollected debris, especially in hard-to-reach areas, have resulted in higher numbers of illnesses such as diarrhea, skin diseases, coughs and colds, government and relief officials say. The presence of mosquitoes and the spread of the diseases they carry, such as dengue fever and malaria, has also become a serious concern. While efforts are under way to alleviate the suffering of survivors, supplies and money for relief operations are disappearing

fast, prompting the United Nations to appeal to other countries for help, saying that the Philippines needs an additional $101 million to cope with the disaster. The food supply is also under threat. Ketsana and the second typhoon, Parma, destroyed $128 million worth of crops, mostly rice, and the government has said it will have to import more rice to replenish stocks for next year. The two storms killed more than 300 people and damaged an estimated $57 million worth of property and infrastructure in addition to the damage to agriculture, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council. In addition, many workers have been kept away from their jobs, according to Ibon Foundation, a nonprofit economic research group. The disaster “could cause lasting poverty and severe dif-

ficulties” for those affected, particularly the poor, the foundation said. For the moment, the government and aid organizations are focusing on distributing relief goods — food, water, medicine, clothing — before tackling the clearing of debris and the rebuilding of infrastructure and homes. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said it would take at least two months to clean the capital of tons of debris. But funds are in short supply. The World Food Program, the U.N. agency, estimates that it alone would need $26 million more for its relief operations. Stephen Anderson, its country director for the Philippines, said it might be tougher now to get funds because of recent disasters in other countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Samoa. “The donor community is stretched,” he said.  CARLOS H. CONDE

3 Share Chemistry Prize for Ribosome Research Three scientists who showed how the information encoded on strands of DNA is translated into the thousands of proteins that make up living matter will share the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday. The trio are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Each will get a third of the prize, worth $1.4 million. Working independently and using, among other things, the Xrays generated by powerful par-

ticle accelerators and prodigious computer calculations, the three winners and their colleagues succeeded in mapping the locations of the hundreds of thousands of atoms in the giant molecular complexes inside cells known as ribosomes. The Swedish academy said the three were being honored “for having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level.” The work, scientists said, has had important medical implications. Some antibiotics work by gumming up the ribosomes of bacteria, allowing those bacteria to be stopped at no danger to their host. The ribosome research is being used to develop new antibiotics.

Ramakrishnan was born in Chidambaram, India, in 1952 and obtained his Ph.D. at Ohio University. He holds U.S. citizenship. Steitz was born in Milwaukee in 1940 and got his Ph.D. from Harvard. Yonath was born in Jerusalem in 1939, earned her Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science and has worked in Israel her whole life. Yonath is the fourth woman to win the chemistry prize, said Thomas Lane, president of the American Chemical Society. Lane said it reflected “a tremendous change in the demographics of the field.” More than 50 percent of chemistry degrees are now earned by women, he said.  DENNIS OVERBYE

Italian Court Rejects Immunity for Prime Minister ROME — Italy’s highest court overturned a law on Wednesday granting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution, in a ruling that reopens corruption trials against him. After deliberating for two days in a tense political climate, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law — which grants the nation’s four highest office holders immunity from prosecution while in office — violated a clause in the

Constitution granting citizens equality under the law. The practical consequences of the ruling are unclear. Berlusconi, 73, has successfully fended off prosecutors for years. But it comes as a deep blow at a difficult time. It opens a new front against the embattled prime minister, who is already defending himself against sex scandals that have tarnished his international image and attacks from within

his own center-right coalition. “This is the most difficult day for Berlusconi since he entered political life,” said Stefano Folli, a political columnist for the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore. “The government won’t fall over this, but as prime minister he is weaker than he has ever been.” In televised remarks, a defiant Berlusconi said he would “forge on” and serve out his mandate until 2013.  RACHEL DONADIO

2

in brief Guerrilla Leader Freed in Jailbreak Machine gun-firing militants on motorbikes attacked a prison in Colombia on Wednesday, freeing a guerrilla commander who was accused of kidnapping two U.S. journalists. One guard was killed and another wounded in the midday raid at the prison in the northeastern city of Arauca, which ended with the rebel chief, Gustavo Anibal Giraldo, fleeing on the back of a motorcycle, the authorities said.  (AP)

Fighting Al Qaeda In Afghan Prisons In an effort to combat Al Qaeda’s growing influence and presence in Afghanistan’s prisons, the Pentagon is creating a new military task force to oversee an overhaul of the detention operations there. The Defense Department named Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, a former Navy Seal commander in Afghanistan who is now deputy commander of the military’s Joint Forces Command, to lead the task force.  (NYT)

Egypt Cuts Ties With the Louvre Egypt said Wednesday that its antiquities department had severed ties with the Louvre museum, because it had refused to return what the Egyptians say are stolen artifacts: reliefs chipped from the walls of a tomb. The decision means that no archaeological expeditions connected to the Louvre will be allowed to work in Egypt.  (AP)

Pakistan Army Upset The Pakistani Army expressed anger at the terms of a $1.5 billion U.S. aid package, saying it interfered with Pakistan’s security, a posture that set it at loggerheads with the government. The section of the legislation that has outraged the army says the secretary of state must report to Congress every six months on whether the government is exercising “effective civilian control over the military.” (NYT)

national

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Fashion Photographer Irving Penn Dies at 92 Irving Penn, one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers of fashion and the famous, whose signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 92. Penn’s talent for picturing his subjects with clarity and economy earned him the admiration of Vogue readers during his long association with that magazine, beginning in 1943. It also brought him recognition in the art world; his photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries and are prized by collectors. His career at Vogue spanned a number of transformations in fashion and its depiction, but his style remained constant. Imbued with calm and decorum, his photographs often seemed intent on defying fashion. His models and portrait subjects were never

seen leaping or running or turning themselves into blurs. Even members of the Hells Angels, photographed in San Francisco in 1967, were transformed within the quieting frame of his studio camera into the graphic equivalent of a Greek frieze. Instead of spontaneity, Penn provided the illusion of a séance, his gaze precisely describing the profile of a Balenciaga coat or of a Moroccan djellaba in a way that could almost mesmerize the viewer. Nothing escaped the edges of his photographs unless he commanded it. His subjects were usually shown whole, apparently enjoying a splendid isolation from the real world. He was probably most famous for photographing Parisian fashion models and the world’s great cultural figures, but he seemed equally at home photographing Peruvian peasants or bunion pads. Merry A. Foresta, who helped organize a 1990 retrospec-

tive of his work, wrote that his pictures exhibited “the control of an art director fused with the process of an artist.” Irving Penn was born June 16, 1917, in Plainfield, N.J. His father, Harry, was a watchmaker and his mother, Sonia, a nurse. As a student at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia from 1934 to 1938, Penn studied drawing, painting and graphic and industrial design. His most influential teacher was the Russian émigré Alexey Brodovitch, the art director at Harper’s Bazaar. Penn’s marriage to Lisa Fonssagrives, a leading model and artist, lasted 42 years, ending with her death at the age of 80 in 1992. Penn’s photographs of her captured a slim woman of lofty sophistication and radiant good health and set the aesthetic standard for the fashion photography of the 1940s and ’50s.  ANDY GRUNDBERG

Areas Hit Hard by Flu in Spring See Little Now While concern over the spread of the H1N1 virus sweeps the country, epidemiologists in New York and a few other cities that were awash in swine flu last spring are detecting very little evidence of a resurgence. Although flu season will not peak until the weather gets cold, in New York, which was the nation’s hardest hit city, officials say that flu activity is no higher than it normally is at this time of year and that school attendance is normal. Last week, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of immunization at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said,

“Most states do have quite a lot of disease right now, and that’s unusual for this time of year.” But public health officials say there appears to be a pattern of areas that had big outbreaks in the spring, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, seeing less swine flu now. New York City health officials now believe that while only 10 percent to 20 percent of New Yorkers were reported ill with flu last spring, as many as 20 percent to 40 percent may have been exposed to the disease and developed immunity that has prevented it from spreading. Although it is too early to be

sure, they said, the high level of immunity may mean that the second wave of swine flu infection ends up being far less extensive than expected. Officials say the conflicting data show the delicate balance public health officials are walking with swine flu. So far it has turned out to be less deadly than it seemed when a pattern of deaths was reported in Mexico. At the same time, officials fear that it could take a turn for the worse, and they want to maintain a high level of alertness without crying wolf too many times. ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS and DONALD G. MCNEIL Jr.

7 New Preserves Envisioned to Manage Wild Horses HELENA, Mont. — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday that he was proposing to create seven new wild-horse preserves, including one in the East and one in the Midwest, to address the problem of a growing population crowding the Western range. The program, which also applies to wild burros, would expand the use of contraceptives and would geld more herds on public

lands in the West, Salazar said. The seven new preserves would accommodate 25,000 non-reproducing horses. The preserves’ size and sites have yet to be determined, and the program is subject to Congressional approval. A spokesman for Salazar put the expense of creating the two preserves in the East and the Midwest alone at some $96 million. The goal is to reduce not only the 37,000 free roaming horses

and burros in the West but also the 32,000 housed in corrals, where they must be fed and cared for at government expense. “The arid Western lands simply cannot support a population this large without significant damage,” Salazar said. Officials said that the new program would not involve euthanasia or slaughter of horses, neither of which is permitted now.  JIM ROBBINS

3

in brief Former Agent Pleads In Trafficking Case Richard P. Cramer, 56, a former high-ranking federal agent, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to drug trafficking charges that included accusations that he gave intelligence to Mexican cartel members. Cramer, who served with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the Arizona border and in Guadalajara, Mexico, was arrested last month at his home near Tucson. According to the complaint, he searched U.S. and California databases to see if drug trafficking organization members were informants for U.S. law enforcement. The case is being prosecuted in Miami.  (NYT)

Parents Sentenced A Wisconsin couple has been sentenced for failing to seek medical attention for their ill daughter. The parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, were ordered on Tuesday to serve 30 days in jail each year for the next six years, and 10 years on probation. The Neumanns, who live in Weston, were convicted of second-degree reckless homicide. Their daughter, Madeline, 11, died from untreated diabetes on March 23, 2008. When she could no longer walk or talk, her parents prayed for her recovery instead of taking her to a doctor, the authorities said.  (NYT)

Detainee Measure Congressional leaders have decided to allow detainees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay to be brought to the United States to face trials, legislative aides said. The compromise would forbid the administration from releasing detainees in the United States.  (NYT)

Nominee Blocked M. Patricia Smith, President Obama’s nominee to be the Labor Department’s top enforcement official, won approval from a Senate panel but immediately encountered a roadblock when Sen. Michael B. Enzi, RWyo., said he would put a hold on the nomination.  (NYT)

business

Thursday, October 8, 2009

DJIA

9,725.58

D

5.67

Dollar/YEN

NASDAQ

2,110.33

U

6.76

10-yr treasury 3.18% D 0.08

88.63 D 0.18

gold (ny) $1,044.20 U 2.10 crude oil

$69.57 D 1.31z

In Merrill’s Failed Plan, Lessons for Pay Czar It sounds like something Washington’s pay czar might propose to rein in runaway bonuses on Wall Street. Tie executives’ compensation to their company’s stock price. Withhold big paydays for years. Claw back bonuses if things go wrong. And force risk-loving traders to gamble with their own money, not just their company’s. In fact, those strictures were part of a compensation plan that Merrill Lynch adopted voluntarily in 2006 — two years before the company collapsed into the arms of Bank of America. But the Merrill program, which was supposed to align its top employees’ pay with the company’s long-term performance, did not keep workers from taking risks that nearly sank the brokerage gi-

ant. And some of its senior executives still stand to collect millions of dollars in stock under the plan. As the Obama administration’s pay czar, Kenneth R. Feinberg, contemplates curbing compensation for the top 100 executives at each of the seven companies that received big bailouts — including Bank of America — the Merrill experience raises some sobering questions. Can Washington really control outsize pay on Wall Street, which many critics say fueled this crisis? And can Feinberg and federal regulators ensure that their plans will work? Most of the financial industry, after all, is out of Feinberg’s reach. And after the bailouts, many banks are moving toward paying employees more in the

form of stock, rather than in cash, and spreading out workers’ payouts, much as Merrill did a few years ago. At Merrill Lynch — whose 2008 bonuses have come under sharp scrutiny in Congress — some employees stand to profit from the 2006 incentive plan, which was turbo-charged by the company’s own money. The payments, due in January, are outside Feinberg’s purview, because they were guaranteed before pay restrictions were imposed on bailed-out banks. The Merrill plan, copies of which were reviewed by The New York Times, was authorized by the firm’s board and recommended by Towers Perrin, a compensation consulting firm.  LOUISE STORY

U.S. Is Said to Open Antitrust Inquiry on I.B.M. The Justice Department has started a preliminary investigation into whether I.B.M. has abused its monopoly position in the market for mainframe computers, which remain vital to many of the world’s largest businesses. This month, antitrust regulators at the Justice Department began seeking information about I.B.M.’s business practices from companies that compete with I.B.M. in the market for large computer hardware and software, people who had been contacted in the inquiry said. The requests for information followed a complaint filed by the

Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group with a history of involvement in antitrust disputes. The organization, which is backed by I.B.M. competitors like Microsoft and Oracle, contends that I.B.M. stymied competition in the mainframe market and has blocked efforts by competitors and potential partners to license I.B.M.’s software. The complaint follows similar legal action taken by T3 Technologies against I.B.M. T3, a small company that resold mainframelike computers, filed an antitrust complaint against I.B.M. in January in Europe.

T3 also filed a civil suit against I.B.M. in the United States. Last week a federal district judge in New York dismissed that case. T3 said it planned to appeal. Steven Friedman, the president of T3, said he had received a formal request for information from the Justice Department about I.B.M.’s actions in the mainframe market. “They asked for a very broad set of documents and information,” he said. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. The inquiry is the early stages and may not result in charges against I.B.M.  ASHLEE VANCE  and STEVE LOHR

Travel Industry Takes Preventive Steps on Swine Flu The travel industry was hard hit after the first reports of swine flu emerged from Mexico in the spring. Trips were canceled, destination weddings were moved elsewhere and flights were grounded as traveler demand plummeted. So the industry, already reeling from the effects of the recession, has reason to be cautious as the autumn flu season gets under way. Still, because the H1N1 pandemic strain, or swine flu, has generally not been more viru-

lent than ordinary seasonal flu, airports, hotels and airlines are trying to find a balance between showing that they are taking substantive steps and not acting so aggressively that they set off a panic among travelers. Their actions can best be described as preventive. So instead of cutting back on high-traffic services like buffet dining in areas affected by the virus, as they did in the spring, hotel representatives say they are focusing more on day-to-day measures.

Most major hotel brands, among them Marriott, Hilton, Starwood and Intercontinental, are ramping up the cleaning of items most frequently touched by guests, like phones, hand rails, elevator buttons and fitness equipment. Airports around the United States are also adopting alcoholbased hand sanitizers. Airports fare placing the dispensers in high-traffic areas of their terminals and concourses.  MARTHA C. WHITE

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nikkei

9,799.60 U 107.80

ftse 100

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N.Y.S.E. Most Active Issues Vol. (100s) Last Chg. Citigrp 3557715 BkofAm 1479617 SPDR 1448384 BcSBrasil n 1424613 SPDR Fncl 938697 Vonage h 927055 DirFBear rs 688579 GenElec 601430 iShEMkts 503518 Alcoa 459783

4.64 – 0.03 17.35 + 0.35 105.80 + 0.29 13.01 unch 15.09 + 0.16 2.00 + 0.56 20.02 – 0.55 16.16 + 0.08 39.34 – 0.04 14.20 + 0.31

Nasdaq Actives Vol. (100s) ETrade 1333877 PwShs QQQ 886910 BrcdeCm 717947 CellTher rsh 693266 Verisk n 636361 UCBH lf 508506 Intel 492824 Cisco 430910 Oracle 416290 Microsoft 378677

Bid

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1.69 – 0.01 42.06 + 0.12 9.05 + 0.15 1.14 + 0.16 27.22 unch 1.23 + 0.07 19.75 + 0.12 23.61 + 0.26 20.57 + 0.03 25.10 – 0.01

Amex Actives Vol. (100s)

Last

CelSci 171814 Rentech 85703 EldorGld g 62696 GoldStr g 33259 TimberlnR 32208 Taseko 30310 NthgtM g 30259 NwGold g 26932 NA Pall g 25650 NovaGld g 25148 VistaGold 22692

1.47 1.63 12.13 3.46 1.33 2.53 2.80 4.24 2.90 5.47 3.00

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0.09 0.02 0.11 0.06 0.50 0.07 0.02 0.12 0.19 0.07 0.06

Foreign Exchange

Fgn. currency Dollars in in dollars fgn.currency Wed. Tue. Wed. Tue.

Australia .8887 .8895 Bahrain 2.6522 2.6525 Brazil .5685 .5701 Britain 1.5938 1.5911 Canada .9401 .9435 China .1465 .1465 Denmark .1970 .1976 Dominican .0277 .0278 Egypt .1824 .1823 Europe 1.4671 1.4710 Hong Kong .1290 .1290 Japan .01128 .01126 Mexico .07422 .07412 Norway .1753 .1756 Singapore .7137 .7130 So. Africa .1343 .1350 So. Korea .00085 .00085 Sweden .1423 .1439 Switzerlnd .9669 .9732

1.1252 1.1242 .3770 .3770 1.7590 1.7540 .6274 .6285 1.0637 1.0598 6.8275 6.8275 5.0761 5.0607 36.10 36.00 5.4838 5.4840 .6816 .6798 7.7500 7.7503 88.63 88.81 13.472 13.491 5.7041 5.6949 1.4011 1.4025 7.4470 7.4095 1167.4 1165.3 7.0274 6.9493 1.0342 1.0275

Theme Parks Sold Off Anheuser-Busch InBev said Wednesday it had agreed to sell its theme parks, including the three SeaWorlds and two Busch Gardens attractions across the country, to the Blackstone Group for at least $2.3 billion. InBev, the world’s largest brewer, has been shedding assets to help pay for the $52 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch.  (AP)

business

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Chinese Drywall Is Blamed for Ills in U.S. When Bill Morgan, a retired Virginia policeman, moved into his newly built dream home in Williamsburg, Va., three years ago, his hopes were quickly dashed. His wife and daughter suffered constant nosebleeds and headaches. A foul odor filled the house. Every piece of metal indoors corroded or turned black. In short order, Morgan moved out. The headaches and nosebleeds stopped, but the ensuing financial problems pushed him into personal bankruptcy. “My house is not worth the land it’s built on,” said Morgan. Morgan, like many other American homebuyers who tell similar tales of woe, is blaming the drywall in his new home — specifically, drywall from China, imported during the housing boom to meet heavy demand — that he says is contaminated with various sulfur compounds. Hundreds of lawsuits are piling up in state and federal courts,

and a consolidated class action is moving forward in Louisiana. Three hundred cases have been filed in Louisiana alone, many with similar complaints from homeowners — a noxious smell, recurrent headaches and difficulty breathing. In Florida, the health department has received over 500 complaints with such symptoms. In addition, these suits say, metal objects in homes corrode quickly, causing kitchen appliances, air-conditioners, televisions and plumbing to fail. “There could be 60,000 to 100,000 homes that are worthless and have to be ripped completely down and rebuilt,’’ said Arnold Levin, a Philadelphia lawyer and co-chairman of the plaintiffs’ steering committee. While tainted Chinese imports like toothpaste, pet food and baby formula have been quickly removed from store shelves, drywall is installed throughout homes, and does not lend itself to

a quick fix. This month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, whose investigation into Chinese drywall is the largest in its history, will release the results of a study to determine why the drywall is causing the problem, and what kind of remediation programs might be effective. Already, the commission has sent six investigators to Chinese gypsum mines and to meet with the government there. The Chinese government’s counterpart to the federal safety commission sent two of its experts here to inspect affected homes. Investigators are finding that getting scientific data, establishing legal accountability and following a supply chain is difficult when so many drywall sheets — millions in all were brought into the United States — were simply marked “Made in China,” providing no clues to its actual source.  LESLIE WAYNE

5

in brief Deadline for Google The parties to the Google book settlement that would allow the creation of a vast digital library outlined on Wednesday an aggressive timeline for modifying the agreement to satisfy objections from the Department of Justice and others. A federal judge in New York set Nov. 9 as the date by which Google must submit a revised settlement for the court’s approval. (NYT)

ING Sells Swiss Unit PARIS — The ING Group said Wednesday that it had agreed to sell its Swiss private banking unit to the wealth manager Julius Baer Holding for 520 million Swiss francs ($505 million). ING, a bank and insurer based in the Netherlands, is selling assets after receiving a government bailout of 10 billion euros ($14.6 billion) a year ago.(NYT)

journal

Thursday, October 8, 2009

6

Michelle Obama’s Roots Reveal a Twisty Path From Slavery WASHINGTON — In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-yearold slave girl valued soon afterward at $475. In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of nearly two centuries. In the annals of American slavery, this

crossword

Edited By Will Shortz PUZZLE BY SCOTT ATKINSON

ACROSS 1 ___ salad (dish with ground beef) 5 Where Panasonic is headquartered 10 Nav. ___ 14 “Get ___,” 1967 hit for the Esquires 15 Florida tourist destination 16 Hershey’s candy 17 Like many old gym socks 18 *Baseball feat 20 ___ friends 22 Pay dirt 23 Clear, in a way 24 *Physics period 26 Garth Brooks, by birth 27 Winter Olympics races 28 Marijuana’s active substance: Abbr. 29 Directional ending 30 Old greeting 31 Farm sound 32 Not just turn down 33 Repeatedly … and a hint to the answers to this puzzle’s starred clues 37 Kind of wave 38 One of the Canterbury pilgrims

Golden Globewinning English actor McShane 40 M.D.’s who deliver 41 Palm product 42 X, e.g. 46 Last word in shampoo instructions 48 *Brave front 49 Dentist’s admonition 50 Do a background check on 51 “What he said” 52 *Asthmatic’s concern 55 Town at one end of the Windsor Bridge 56 Something a person may take a spin in? 57 Blinded painfully 58 Filmmaker Riefenstahl 59 To be, to 33-Down 60 Targets of some sprays 61 Harriet Beecher Stowe novel 39

DOWN read at services 2 Uncouth sort 3 Basilica feature 1 They’re

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE S H A W

W A C O

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painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, marked the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House. Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-greatgreat-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady. Viewed by many as a powerful symbol of black advancement, Mrs. Obama grew up with only a vague sense of her ancestry,

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61 10/8/09 (No. 1008)

4 Hazard

around an aerosol can 5 Work started by London’s Philological Soc. 6 Many Mel Brooks films 7 “Dedicated to finding ___” (diabetes foundation motto) 8 Japanese port 9 The Falcons, on scoreboards 10 Cosmetician Adrien 11 Olympics venue 12 Individually, in a way 13 Leading lady 19 N.E.A. part: Abbr.

Part of a hazmat suit 25 Follow-up to a parent’s command, maybe 26 Metal that’s an effective radiation shield 28 It may be pinched 31 Range part: Abbr. 32 Treacherous expanse 33 Caligula’s predecessor as emperor 34 Not gradually 35 Suffix with glee or sorrow 36 Like circus elephants 21

Potassium ___ (preservative) 41 Home of highways H-1, H-2 and H-3 42 Flap one’s gums 43 Vermin hunter 44 When Romeo meets Juliet 45 Russian playwright Andreyev 47 -like 48 Insurance giant 50 ___ the Dragon, ruler of old Wallachia 53 “Yo te ___” 54 Stat for an R.B. 37

For answers, call 1-900-289-CLUE (289-2583), $1.49 a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5550. Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 5,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Mobile crosswords: nytimes.com/mxword. Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS. Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

aides and relatives said. During the presidential campaign, the family learned about one paternal great-great-grandfather, a former slave from South Carolina, but the rest of Mrs. Obama’s roots were a mystery. Now the more complete map of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors — including the slave mother, white father and their biracial son, Dolphus T. Shields — for the first time fully connects the first African-American first lady to the history of slavery, tracing their five-generation journey from bondage to a front-row seat to the presidency. The findings — uncovered by Megan Smolenyak, a genealogist, and The New York Times — substantiate what Mrs. Obama has called longstanding family rumors about a white forbear. While President Obama’s biracial background has drawn considerable attention, his wife’s pedigree, which includes American Indian strands, highlights the complicated history of racial intermingling, sometimes born of violence or coercion, that lingers in the bloodlines of many African-Americans. Mrs. Obama and her family declined to comment for this article, aides said, in part because of the personal nature of the subject. “She is representative of how we have evolved and who we are,” said Edward Ball, a historian who discovered that he had black relatives — the descendants of his white slave-owning ancestors — when he researched his memoir, “Slaves in the Family.” “We are not separate tribes of Latinos and whites and blacks in America,” Ball said. “We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations.” The outlines of Mrs. Obama’s family history unfolded from 19th century probate records, yellowing marriage licenses, fading photographs and the recollections of elderly women who remember the family. Of the dozens of relatives she identified, Ms. Smolenyak said, it was the slave girl who seemed to call out most clearly. “Out of all Michelle’s roots, it’s Melvinia who is screaming to be found,” she said. RACHEL L. SWARNS

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opinion

Thursday, October 8, 2009

editorials of the timeS

gail collins

Patriot Act Excesses

The Lion King

Three high-profile provisions of the USA Patriot Act are about to expire. That should be a chance for Congress to give serious consideration to curtailing some of the excessive powers it granted to the executive branch during the Bush years. Instead, Congress is headed toward renewing the provisions — including expanded authority to search financial records, conduct roving wiretaps and track “lone wolf” terrorist suspects — without adequate oversight or safeguards or touching other problematic areas of the new surveillance and intelligence framework. Consider last week’s gyrations in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was to consider a bill prepared by the chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. The measure contained some strong fixes to the overly expansive snooping regime. But there was a last-minute switch. In the committee session, Leahy’s base bill was tossed in favor of a significantly weaker substitute that he hammered out with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The substitute bill dropped language that would have allowed the government to secretly obtain Americans’ business records or “tangible things” only where there is some connection to terrorism or espionage. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., proposed an amendment to require a terrorism connection, but it failed. The bill contains some improvements over current law. It augments audit and reporting

requirements for warrantless searches using often-abused “national security letters.” An amendment successfully offered by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., shortens the period that law enforcement agencies may delay in giving notice to subjects of so-called sneakand-peek searches. Although enacted as part of the USA Patriot Act, the sneak-and-peek authority, which gives government agents extraordinary power to break into people’s homes without telling them, is most often used in drug cases and only rarely in terrorism cases, according to a recent report. Still, the measure taking shape in the Senate is far too weak to restore essential constitutional checks and balances. Feinstein has suggested, without offering any real evidence, that it was necessary to water down the Leahy bill to avoid interfering with the investigation of the case of Najibullah Zazi. The issue has never been whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is what powers the government really needs and how best to balance them with the rights and liberties on which this nation was founded. To a troubling extent, the debate is happening in the dark. Several senators have asked the Obama administration to release classified information that would inform the discussion without harming national security. It has largely been ignored. Chances are fading for an expansive and searching review of the USA Patriot Act, which was the whole point of having some of its central provisions expire.

The Tanker Saga, Continued Trying to recover from past mistakes, the Pentagon has initiated a third competition for a new Air Force refueling tanker. After two bungled attempts, defense officials, contractors and Congress really need to get it right this time. President Obama and his administration have pledged to reform the way the Pentagon buys weapons, and the tanker program will be their biggest test. The initial purchase is $35 billion for 179 planes, but the contract could be extended for decades and eventually cost $100 billion for 400 or 500 planes. In 2003, Congress quashed an agreement in which the Air Force would have leased (without bidding) 100 tankers from Boeing after it was discovered that a top Air Force official negotiating the deal was also negotiating a job with Boeing. On the second try in 2008, Northrop Grumman and EADS, the European company that makes the Airbus planes, won a contract. Boeing challenged the deal, charging that the evaluations were unfair. A scathing report by the Government Accountability Office accused the Air Force of breaking its own contracting rules. One example: the Air Force

told Boeing it wouldn’t give credit for a bigger jet and then gave extra credit for just that to Northrop Grumman. This time, Pentagon officials say they are running a “best value” competition in which bids are to be judged on 373 features. They will sensibly look at both the tanker’s immediate production cost and long-term operating costs. And they are insisting on a fixed-price contract in the development phase. Independent review teams will examine how well the Pentagon is handling the bidding process. Nevertheless, Boeing and Northrop Grumman-EADS, their lobbyists and lawmakers from states where the contractors have plants are already faulting the process. We fear neither side will ever accept a decision that lets the other win, but an unresolved competition is not in the country’s interest. The new tankers are needed to replace the current Eisenhower-era planes. With the United States engaged in two wars and countless other missions around the globe, the Obama administration, Congress and defense contractors must ensure that, this time, a fair and open bidding process produces the best tanker at the best price.

7

Republicans in the House of Representatives attempted to remove Charles Rangel as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, arguing that Rangel’s current ethics controversy has “held the House up to public ridicule.” The Republicans are completely right. Whenever a powerful committee chairman has so many problems that you need a timeline to keep all the allegations straight, he is a liability. When those problems revolve around things like the failure to pay taxes, it is not a good plan to have him be in charge of tax policy. I say this with great sadness because Rangel is my congressman. But I’m not prepared to argue that you can have a chairman of the tax-writing committee who failed to declare $75,000 in rental income on a Caribbean villa on his tax returns. Or one who seems to think you can turn yourself into a resident of two different cities if it gets you cheaper housing. The Democrats made no attempt whatsoever to defend Rangel when the Republican resolution came up in the House. They swiftly referred it to the ethics committee, which is currently embarked on Year Two of its Charles Rangel investigation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims the current Congress is the most ethical and open one in history. And given what’s gone before, who knows? But this is a test of whether the Democrats will follow through when it’s really, really hard. We already know that Pelosi will not fail to act if one of her members gets caught with $90,000 in marked bills hidden inside his freezer. We don’t know whether she’ll be as firm if a popular guy who also happens to be the cofounder of the Congressional Black Caucus gets caught doing a laundry list of things that are totally outrageous but not necessarily grounds for a major criminal indictment. Rangel is certainly not going to step down without a push. He did apologize for the failure to pay taxes and settled up with the I.R.S. But when a man who represents a district that is about 50 percent Hispanic says he was unable to figure out whether he had rental income because his agent in the Dominican Republic kept speaking in Spanish, you can presume he is not exactly bowed down with grief and shame. Rangel’s friends say he was just sloppy, but it’s more likely that he just feels he’s too important to be bothered with the rules. He does not mind being referred to as “the Lion of Lenox Avenue.” There are tons of people in Congress who have huge egos and an impatience with the minor irritations of life. If the Democrats made Rangel step down, it would be a reminder that holding public office means you have to be more conservative about drawing the line between proper and improper behavior than your humblest constituent.

sports

Thursday, October 8, 2009

in brief

Yankees Take Opener According to Plan The Yankees’ old shrine still stands on 161st Street in the Bronx, dark and cold and gutted. The October games that made it so famous have moved across the street, where the new Yankee Stadium hosted its first playoff game in style Wednesday night. The bright lights twinkled above the signature frieze, and three decks of seats thumped on a night when nearly everything went perfectly for the Yankees. They snuffed the Minnesota Twins, 7-2, in the first game of their division series, benefiting from the kind of shutdown pitching they have lacked in October for much of this decade. The Yankees scripted this after missing the playoffs last season. They signed C.C. Sabathia to be their ace, to overwhelm hitters when he had to. They nurtured and kept homegrown arms like

Phil Hughes, Phil Coke and Joba Chamberlain. And they hoped that Mariano Rivera, as ever, would throttle their opponents. It all happened in Game 1. “That’s a great start for us,” Chamberlain said. “If you want to draw it up, that’s the way. C.C. went deep in the game and threw strikes and got big outs when he needed to. Guys got big hits. It was a great start for everybody.” That included Alex Rodriguez, who shook his playoff slump with two run-scoring singles. Both times, he drove in Derek Jeter, who hit the first postseason homer at the new stadium in the third inning. Casey Stengel, of all people, hit the first across the street, as a New York Giant in the 1923 World Series. Jeter’s homer erased a 2-0 lead the Twins had built in the top of the third against Sabathia. Jeter,

who reached base all four times up, now has as many postseason homers as Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson. That he has done it in many more games does not diminish his reputation. “It’s almost like he takes it like it’s just another day,” said Nick Swisher, whose double in the fourth put the Yankees ahead to stay. “But once the lights hit in the postseason, it’s Jeter Time.” The Yankees signed Sabathia — and A.J. Burnett, the Game 2 starter on Thursday — for a combined $243.5 million last winter to win these types of games. Sabathia was facing a Twins team that had won the American League Central in 12 innings Tuesday, beating Detroit in a playoff and arriving at its Manhattan hotel at 3:50 a.m. on Wednesday.  TYLER KEPNER

Lee’s Complete Game Gives Phillies’ Bullpen a Rest PHILADELPHIA — The flag adorned with 2008 whipped and thrashed in the gusting winds, a red-and-white reminder of the Phillies’ recent glory. They are the defending World Series champions, and any team wishing to unseat them must figure out how to tame the ferocious offense and brilliant starting pitching that helped Philadelphia cruise through last season’s postseason and then stop the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday afternoon in the opener of their National League division series. The Phillies began their title defense with a neat 5-1 victory that,

judging from the reaction of the largest crowd in Citizens Bank Park history, elevated Cliff Lee to the level of worship reserved for another left-hander in town, Cole Hamels. As Lee applied the finishing touches to a six-hit, nine-inning masterpiece, the towel-waving fans serenaded him by chanting, “Let’s go, Lee!” Context is everything. Lee is not some stranger plucked from a South Philly row house to start Game 1 of the playoffs. His credentials — 14 regular-season wins, a 2008 Cy Young Award — are superb, and the Phillies did not surrender four prospects in

WEATHER

High/low temperatures for the 20 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) for the 18 hours ended at 2 p.m. yesterday. Expected conditions for today and tomorrow. Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PCpartly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SSsnow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.

U.S. CITIES Yesterday Today Tomorrow Atlanta 78/ 66 0.34 80/ 57 PC 84/ 63 PC Albuquerque 74/ 51 0.19 68/ 50 PC 71/ 43 S Boise 55/ 37 0 58/ 38 S 60/ 37 PC Boston 69/ 54 0.46 63/ 50 S 66/ 50 Sh Buffalo 61/ 50 0.38 63/ 43 PC 63/ 49 Sh Charlotte 85/ 63 0.01 77/ 47 S 85/ 58 PC Chicago 59/ 45 0 55/ 44 Sh 53/ 46 Sh Cleveland 58/ 51 0.07 64/ 43 C 64/ 52 Sh Dallas-Ft. Worth 62/ 57 0.07 85/ 62 T 68/ 61 T Denver 68/ 37 0 39/ 35 Sn 54/ 27 PC Detroit 60/ 50 0.03 63/ 45 Sh 59/ 49 Sh

Houston Kansas City Los Angeles Miami Mpls.-St. Paul New York City Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Salt Lake City San Francisco Seattle St. Louis Washington

91/ 78 68/ 34 70/ 57 93/ 79 62/ 37 69/ 59 92/ 73 72/ 61 77/ 68 56/ 35 70/ 52 61/ 44 65/ 44 75/ 65

0 0 0 0 0 0.16 0 0.05 0 0 0 0 0 0

a late July trade with Cleveland to hand Lee mop-up duty. This being Philadelphia, there was also concern that Lee, shaky in his last seven starts with the Phillies, would crumble in his postseason debut. Instead, Lee fired 25 of 32 firstpitch strikes. Instead, he retired 16 consecutive batters over one stretch. And his efficientcy — 113 pitches — rendered moot the question on everyone’s lips: Who would close? No one in the bullpen moved, let alone picked up a ball, until there were two outs in the ninth inning, but it was just for show. BEN SHPIGE 91/ 78 PC 59/ 53 R 72/ 56 PC 92/ 79 PC 50/ 39 PC 67/ 51 S 93/ 75 PC 70/ 50 S 82/ 64 PC 57/ 37 S 75/ 53 PC 63/ 45 S 64/ 50 R 73/ 51 S

86/ 80 T 57/ 40 PC 75/ 55 PC 92/ 80 PC 48/ 34 PC 69/ 55 Sh 94/ 75 PC 76/ 52 PC 87/ 60 S 62/ 37 PC 75/ 52 PC 59/ 44 PC 56/ 48 R 82/ 57 PC

FOREIGN CITIES Acapulco Athens Beijing Berlin Buenos Aires Cairo

Yesterday Today Tomorrow 94/ 79 0 86/ 77 T 86/ 75 T 81/ 66 0 81/ 63 S 82/ 63 S 68/ 48 0 63/ 48 PC 70/ 46 S 74/ 55 0.35 62/ 48 PC 57/ 43 PC 61/ 36 0 64/ 45 S 70/ 48 PC 84/ 70 0 88/ 72 S 88/ 72 S

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Cape Town Dublin Geneva Hong Kong Kingston Lima London Madrid Mexico City Montreal Moscow Nassau Paris Prague Rio de Janeiro Rome Santiago Stockholm Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vancouver Warsaw

U.S. Olympic Chief Will Step Down Stephanie Streeter, the acting chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee, whose rocky seven-month tenure culminated in Chicago’s failure to win the 2016 Olympic Games, announced Wednesday that she would step down after the close of the Paralympics in Vancouver next March.  (NYT)

Jets Acquire Edwards FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The New York Jets are a loose bunch, but the trade Wednesday with Cleveland for Braylon Edwards, a 26-year-old wide receiver, was a serious move for the organization. In exchange for Edwards, whose talent apparently outweighed his baggage, the Jets shipped two players and two early-round draft choices to the Browns.  (NYT)

49ers Sign Crabtree The lengthy holdout of receiver Michael Crabtree ended early Wednesday, when he agreed to a deal with the San Francisco 49ers. Crabtree, the 10th overall pick in the 2009 draft, has missed all of training camp and the first month of the season.  (NYT)

NHL scores TUESDAY’S LATE GAMES Minnesota 4, Anaheim 3, OT Calgary 4, Montreal 3 Edmonton 5, Dallas 4, SO Los Angeles 6, San Jose 4 WEDNESDAY Phoenix 3, Pittsburgh 0 66/ 59 55/ 34 80/ 55 89/ 81 92/ 81 68/ 61 64/ 51 80/ 61 82/ 55 60/ 50 51/ 34 81/ 77 78/ 59 78/ 61 81/ 73 76/ 57 69/ 43 55/ 48 67/ 50 73/ 63 56/ 48 56/ 45 71/ 46

0 0.55 0 Tr 0 0 0.20 0 0 0.43 0 0 0.03 0.03 0 0 0 – 0.08 0.47 0.36 0 0.08

63/ 48 PC 53/ 45 PC 66/ 59 R 86/ 75 S 90/ 81 PC 70/ 63 C 61/ 47 PC 71/ 61 PC 79/ 54 Sh 60/ 47 PC 57/ 48 Sh 93/ 81 S 68/ 58 Sh 73/ 59 Sh 83/ 68 T 77/ 61 S 81/ 43 PC 49/ 37 PC 63/ 52 Sh 79/ 64 R 61/ 46 PC 63/ 45 PC 73/ 53 Sh

66/ 46 S 59/ 48 R 66/ 56 PC 86/ 73 PC 90/ 79 Sh 69/ 61 C 62/ 48 PC 73/ 57 PC 77/ 55 T 58/ 50 R 55/ 43 R 93/ 81 S 68/ 54 Sh 61/ 51 PC 75/ 66 R 79/ 63 PC 80/ 43 C 47/ 33 Sh 63/ 52 C 74/ 62 PC 55/ 48 R 55/ 41 PC 56/ 40 PC

sports journal

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Twins on a Roll Until Steamrolled in Game 1 The Twins are young and they “To come out on top and being are athletes and they were on a here in New York is a great feelroll. They probably could have ing,” Mauer added. flown all the way from the Twin So what if the Twins came Cities to New York on adrenaline. to New York with a chewed-up There is probably a pitching staff to meet the Sports more humane way of Yankees, who had their Of running this particular expensive imported ace, The Times railroad than to force a C.C. Sabathia, rested team to survive a playoff and waiting? That’s the George on a Tuesday night in whole point. The postseaVecsey the Upper Midwest, then son isn’t fair and it isn’t play the Yankees, or anybody, equal. But it can be fun. the next evening. Then again, baseball seems Things did not go so well for to produce one of these games them in the Bronx on Wednesday every October, starting in 1995, night in Game 1 of their Amerithe first year of the wild card can League division series. They and the three-tiered postseason. were drubbed, 7-2, by the YanTo set the tone, the Yankees and kees who were rested but, more the Seattle Mariners tussled into important, the Yankees. the 11th inning of the fifth and If there were a slower, more final game, with Junior Griffey accommodating way to qualify emerging from the pile at home for the baseball postseason, then with an impish smile, as if to tell fans would have been deprived of the baseball-speaking world, that 12-inning Minnesota victory Whee, isn’t this fun? over Detroit on Tuesday that was The World Series should still be thrilling specifically because of treated as a separate unit — let’s its urgency. play down the hybrid known as “I think yesterday’s game was “postseason statistics” — but the probably the most exciting game process works, including the oneI’ve ever been part of,” said the and-out playoff to break a tie, just Twins’ Joe Mauer, one of the to get into the postseason. best-hitting catchers in history, “Well, there’s nothing we can with the demeanor of an Eagle do about it,” said Twins Manager Scout, albeit a tall and powerful Ron Gardenhire, who has made one. it to the postseason five times in

eight seasons with a franchise short of cable television swag. The Twins are here, and they are not complaining. Gardenhire said the Twins were delighted to catch the Tigers and force the 163rd game of the regular season, even if they had to wait because the Metrodome was booked for a Vikings-Packers game Monday night. “We couldn’t do anything about that,” said Gardenhire, who added: “And no sense in — no crying in baseball. I don’t think anybody feels sorry for us.” The Twins got through a game filled with great lunges and diving catches, with the ball bouncing loose in the outfield, with desperate throws home. “I don’t recommend everybody playing 163 games every year,” said Gardenhire, whose Twins also forced a playoff last year, but lost a 1-0 game to the Chicago White Sox. It is a tremendous accomplishment for a modest-market team to keep popping up in the postseason. As Bill Smith, the Minnesota general manager, noted before Wednesday’s game, the Twins had been built on scouting and development. This discipline and success is worth celebrating.

9

AP Top 25 The Top 25 teams in The Associated Press college football poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Oct. 3 and previous ranking:

Record 1. Florida (54) 4-0 2. Texas (1) 4-0 3. Alabama (5) 5-0 4. LSU 5-0 5. Virginia Tech 4-1 6. Boise St. 5-0 7. Southern Cal 4-1 8. Cincinnati 5-0 9. Ohio St. 4-1 10. TCU 4-0 11. Miami 3-1 12. Iowa 5-0 13. Oregon 4-1 14. Penn St. 4-1 15. Oklahoma St. 3-1 16. Kansas 4-0 17. Auburn 5-0 18. BYU 4-1 19. Oklahoma 2-2 20. Mississippi 3-1 21. Nebraska 3-1 22. Georgia Tech 4-1 23. South Florida 5-0 24. Missouri 4-0 25. South Carolina 4-1

Pvs 1 2 3 4 6 5 7 10 9 11 17 13 16 15 14 18 — 20 8 21 23 25 — — —

Others receiving votes: Wisconsin 157, Houston 142, Georgia 115, Stanford 50, Utah 31, Michigan 25, Boston College 12, Notre Dame 9, Pittsburgh 3, Arizona 2, West Virginia 2.

Oklahoma State Declares Star Receiver Ineligible

Earlier Nascar Starts

Dez Bryant, Oklahoma State’s all-American receiver, was declared ineligible by the university on Wednesday for failing to disclose to the N.C.A.A the full details of contact he had with the former N.F.L. player Deion Sanders. According to an Oklahoma State statement, Bryant, a junior, did not tell the N.C.A.A. the full details of his interaction with a former N.F.L. player not affiliated with the university. Sanders said in a telephone interview that he was the player. Oklahoma State said it had begun the process to apply for Bryant’s reinstatement. The No. 15 Cowboys open Big 12 play Saturday at Texas A&M. Bryant was ruled ineligible for violating N.C.A.A. bylaw 10.1 (d), which prohibits “knowingly furnishing the N.C.A.A. or the individual’s institution false or misleading information concerning the individual’s involvement in or

Nascar’s Sprint Cup races will start mostly earlier next season, at uniform times, to appeal to core fans. Twenty-one Sunday afternoon races, including the Daytona 500, will start at 1 p.m. Eastern; five others will begin at 3 p.m. and the Coca-Cola 600 will start at 5:45 p.m. All nine Saturday night broadcasts will begin at 7:30 p.m. The races have begun at various times on Saturdays and Sundays. Brian France, the chairman and chief executive of Nascar, said Wednesday that moving the races contradicts the logic that says a sports league wants its events scheduled later in the day when more households watch television. “We have a fan council, 25,000 dedicated fans we communicate with on a daily basis,” he said. “The feedback was pretty clear that the earlier start times fit their lifestyles” better. (NYT)

knowledge of matters relevant to a possible violation of an N.C.A.A. regulation.” Sanders said the suspension stemmed from a day he and Bryant spent together last summer. They met at an athletics center in Frisco, Tex., and later had dinner at Sanders’s home in Prosper, Tex. Sanders said the N.C.A.A. asked Bryant if he had ever been in Sanders’s home and Bryant said no. Bryant could not be reached for comment through the university, but he said in its statement: “I made a mistake by not being entirely truthful when meeting with the N.C.A.A. I sincerely regret my mistake and apologize to my teammates, coaches, O.S.U. fans and the N.C.A.A.” Coach Mike Gundy said in the statement, “We are certainly disappointed, but we are moving forward as we would with any challenge during the season.”

A spokesman for the N.C.A.A. said it could not comment, other than to say Oklahoma State had not yet submitted the reinstatement request to its office. Sanders said Bryant had visited him to help with his youth camp and to mentor younger players. Sanders said he and Bryant visited an athletics center called Fieldhouse USA, where Sanders met with a group of business partners to consider using it for Prime U, his organization for training players in preparation for the N.F.L. Sanders said he did not enter into a business agreement with Fieldhouse USA. Sanders said he was asked two years ago to mentor Bryant because of his difficult past; his mother served time in prison on a drug-sale conviction. Sanders said that before he started mentoring Bryant, he called an Oklahoma State assistant for approval.  THAYER EVANS