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 29, 2009 Midnight in New York Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times

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

Wider Authority for F.B.I. Stirs Concern clinton arrival in pakistan met by fatal attacks WASHINGTON — After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in 2008, the F.B.I. began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on U.S. soil. Agents fanned out to scrutinize Somali communities, including those in Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. The operation unfolded as the Bush administration was relaxing domestic intelligencegathering rules. The F.B.I.’s interpretation of those rules was recently made public when it released, in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, its “Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.” The disclosure has opened the widest window yet onto how agents have been given greater power in the post-Sept. 11 era. In seeking the revised rules, the bureau said it needed greater flexibility to hunt for would-be terrorists. One section lays out a low threshold to start investigating a person or group as a potential security threat. Another allows agents to use ethnicity or religion as a factor — as long as it

is not the only one — when selecting subjects for scrutiny. “It raises fundamental questions about whether a domestic intelligence agency can protect civil liberties if they feel they have a right to collect broad personal information about people they don’t even suspect of wrongdoing,” said Mike German, a former F.B.I. agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union. Valerie Caproni, the F.B.I.’s general counsel, said the bureau has adequate safeguards to protect civil liberties as it looks for people who could pose a threat. “The F.B.I. has been told that we need to determine who poses a threat to the national security — not simply to investigate persons who have come onto our radar screen.” The manual authorizes agents to open an “assessment” to “proactively” seek information about whether people or organizations are involved in national security threats. Agents may begin such assessments against a target without a particular factual justification. The basis for such

an inquiry “cannot be arbitrary or groundless speculation,” the manual says, but the standard is “difficult to define.” Assessments permit agents to use potentially intrusive techniques, like sending confidential informants to infiltrate organizations and following and photographing targets in public. F.B.I. agents previously had similar powers when looking for potential criminal activity. But until the recent changes, greater justification was required to use the powers in national security investigations because they receive less judicial oversight. Farhana Khera, president of Muslim Advocates, said that the F.B.I. was harassing Muslim-Americans. Her group was among those that sued the F.B.I. to release the manual. Caproni cited the search for signs of the Somali group, Al Shabaab, to illustrate why the manual allows agents to consider ethnicity. In that case, the bureau worried that other such teenagers might return from Somalia to carry out domestic operations. CHARLIE SAVAGE

Vaccine Shortage Is Political Test for Obama WASHINGTON — The moment a novel strain of swine flu emerged in Mexico last spring, President Obama instructed his top advisers that his administration would not be caught flatfooted in the event of a deadly pandemic. Now, despite months of planning and preparation, a vaccine shortage is threatening to undermine public confidence in government, creating a very public test of Obama’s competence. The shortage, caused by delays in the vaccine manufacturing process, has put the president in exactly the situation he sought to avoid — one in which questions are being raised about the government’s response. Aware that the president would be judged on how well he handled his first major domestic emergency, the Obama administration left little to chance. It built a

new Web site, Flu.gov — a sort of one-stop shopping for information about H1N1, the swine flu virus. It staged role-playing exercises for public health officials and the news media. It commissioned public service announcements, featuring the fuzzy Sesame Street characters, Elmo and Rosita, singing in English and Spanish about “the right way to sneeze.” The president added a swine flu update to his regular intelligence briefing — he also receives an in-depth biweekly memorandum on the prevalence of the disease worldwide and in the United States — and appeared in the Rose Garden to urge Americans to wash their hands. Early on, Obama told his aides he wanted them to “learn from past mistakes,” said John O. Brennan, Obama’s Homeland Security adviser, who has been coordinat-

ing the flu-preparedness effort. Obama and his top aides studied earlier flu outbreaks, including one in 2004, when a vaccine shortage created a political problem for President George W. Bush, and another in 1976, when President Gerald R. Ford ordered a mass vaccination campaign for an epidemic that never materialized — and faced criticism for it. Now, with officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that H1N1 is widespread in 46 states, public health experts and leading senators are giving the Obama administration only mixed grades. “I would give them a B for performance so far,” said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who has advised the administration. (NYT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan punctuated Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s arrival with deadly attacks on Wednesday, underscoring their ability to cause chaos even in the face of offensives on both sides of the border. In Pakistan, a car bomb tore through a congested market in Peshawar, killing as many as 101 people, many of them women and children. The authorities said the attack was the country’s most serious in two years, and the deadliest ever in Peshawar, which has become a front line for Taliban efforts to destabilize the government. In Kabul, Taliban suicide bombers stormed a guesthouse, killing five U.N. employees and three other people. The attack was meant to scare Afghans away from voting in a runoff election on Nov. 7 between President Hamid Karzai and his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a Taliban spokesman said. The violence cast a shadow over the visit of Clinton, who was meeting with government ministers in Islamabad, 90 miles southwest of Peshawar, when news of the explosion came over television screens. Clinton immediately condemned the bombing, which in killing women and children seemed aimed at the very constituencies she has championed in her travels to other developing countries. “These attacks on innocent people are cowardly; they are not courageous, they are cowardly,” Clinton said at a news conference with the Pakistani foreign minister. “They know they are on the losing side of history,” she said of the militants. “But they are determined to take as many lives with them as their movement is finally exposed for the nihilistic, empty effort it is.” MARK LANDLER and ISMAIL KHAN

International

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Corruption Undermines Fragile Iraqi State BAGHDAD — As Iraqi officials work to assign blame for the attacks on the heart of the government on Sunday, concern is rising that a greater security threat may come from within the system in the form of corruption. A recent report by the inspector general of the Interior Ministry specifically mentions the bribery of checkpoint guards: The blast on Sunday at the Justice Ministry, surrounded by checkpoints, killed nearly 160 people, while a similar attack in August on the Foreign and Finance Ministries killed at least 122. “These car bombs didn’t come from the sky!” said Judge Abdul Sattar al-Beiriqdar, spokesman for the Higher Judicial Council. “They must have been driven in streets until they reached their target. If there were no corruption, the attackers wouldn’t risk passing through these check-

points.” But the corruption runs much deeper, endangering the fragile sense of security in Iraq, with security services that seem aimed as much at enriching themselves as protecting Iraqis, according to dozens of interviews with police officers and officials. “Corruption is a phenomenon that forms a real threat to the structure of the state,” said Jawad Bolani, the interior minister. His ministry is Iraq’s second largest, employing one of every four Iraqis working in the public sector, which accounts for a vast majority of the jobs in Iraq. Contracts are manipulated and fudged to wring personal profit. Police officers are told they are fired even as commanders continue to take their pay. Criminals and insurgents are freed with a well-placed bribe, criminal records are expunged for payment, detainees are abused by guards in order to ex-

tort money from relatives. Beyond the outright financial corruption, there is also political corruption, where the parties vying for power here look to secure the loyalty of large chunks of the security apparatus, according to Iraqi and Western officials. “Our brigade commander steals $34,000 out of the $41,000 allocated monthly for the food,” said one police officer. “He replaced our battalion commander four times because they were not cooperating with him.” Another officer described how there are people on the payroll who never show up for work, but come only to get their pay, which they share with their patron. “Every officer with the rank of a colonel or higher has at least 10 policemen from whom he takes all or part of their salaries,” said the officer. “We call those policemen ‘fadhaei,’ ” which translate roughly as aliens from outer space.  MARC SANTORA

U.S. Quietly Aids Pakistani Drives on Taliban WASHINGTON — Even as the Pakistani government plays down the U.S. role in its military operations in Taliban-controlled areas, the United States has quietly rushed hundreds of millions of dollars in arms, equipment and sophisticated sensors to Pakistani forces in recent months, officials said. During preparations this spring for the Pakistani offensives in Swat and South Waziristan, President Obama personally intervened at the request of Pakistan’s top army general to speed the delivery of 10 Mi-17 troop transport helicopters. Pentagon officials have also hurried

spare parts for Cobra helicopter gunships, night vision goggles, body armor and eavesdropping equipment to the fight. U.S. surveillance drones are feeding video images and target information to Pakistani ground commanders, and the Pentagon has provided the Pakistani Air Force with high-resolution, infrared sensors for F-16 warplanes, which Pakistan is using to guide bomb attacks on militants’ strongholds in South Waziristan. In addition, the number of Special Forces soldiers and support personnel who are training and advising Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops has doubled

in the past eight months, to as many as 150, a U.S. adviser said. The Americans do not conduct combat operations. Pakistani officials are loath to publicize the aid because of deepseated anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. And they privately express frustration about the pace and types of assistance, which totals about $1.5 billion this year. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military analyst in Lahore, said that publicly acknowledging the military aid — an open secret in Pakistan — could hand militants fresh ammunition for propaganda.  ERIC SCHMITT

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in brief Attack on U.N. The guests were sleeping when the gunmen, in police uniforms, arrived early Wednesday. They shot the guards, scaled the gate of the guest house and began firing grenades, the beginning of a two-hour siege in Kabul. By the end of the siege, at least five U.N. employees, two Afghan security officials and the brotherin-law of an Afghan politician were dead, as were the three attackers. The strike was the biggest on the United Nations in Afghanistan in its half-century of work here and sent the organization into lockdown. (NYT)

Scholar Punished An Iranian-American scholar, Kian Tajbakhsh, who has been jailed in Iran since July and was sentenced last week to 15 years in prison, has been transferred into solitary confinement, a family member said. He was arrested after protests broke out following the disputed June 12 election. On Wednesday, state television reported that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that questioning the results of the election was “the biggest crime.”  (NYT)

Pirates Captured The ordeal of a seafaring British couple thought to have been seized by Somali pirates took a new turn on Wednesday after European Union naval officials said they had captured seven pirates. A man who has acted as a spokesman for the pirates said the pirates were part of a 10-person contingent that kidnapped the couple days earlier.  (NYT)

In Cancún, Police Officers Picked the Wrong Tourist for Their ‘Little Bite’ MEXICO CITY — “Piece of cake,” the three police officers might have thought when they spied the rental car with five American tourists on the main drag of Cancún’s hotel zone. They pulled the car over and told the driver, Scott Fischbach, that he was going about a mile an hour over the speed limit, recalled his wife, Michelle Fischbach. One of the officers then cupped his hands and asked Fischbach to

blow into them. “This was their Breathalyzer,” said Mrs. Fischbach. “They tried very hard, but Scott doesn’t drink.” The police took his driver’s license and told him they would take him to jail unless he came up with $300. The patrol car escorted the family back to the hotel, where she says the group of relatives came up with the money. What the police may not have expected, however, was that Mrs.

Fischbach was a state senator — or that she would complain so effectively. On Wednesday, the episode made front-page news in Mexico after Cancún officials released the information, some eight months after the event took place. (Yes, those police officers were fired long ago.) And in Paynesville, Minn., the Fischbachs got a check in the mail from the Cancún city gov-

ernment. The transit officer’s “mordida,” or little bite, is standard in Mexico, but most violations usually cost no more than $50. When Mrs. Fischbach returned home, she wrote a letter to Gregorio Sánchez Martinez, Cancún’s mayor, mentioning her position as a state legislator. “I personally attended to it,” Sanchez said. ELISABETH MALKIN

national

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Pelosi Changes Course on a Public Option WASHINGTON — Under pressure from moderate-to-conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to propose a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than using prices set by the government, aides said Wednesday. Pelosi said the public plan, which she prefers to call a “consumer option,” would compete with private insurers. But the speaker was apparently unable to muster the votes needed for the “robust” liberal version of a public plan, which she has repeatedly said would save more money for consumers and the government. Members of the House Democratic leadership team offered these details of their bill, to be unveiled on Thursday. It would provide coverage to 35 million or 36 million people. The 10-year cost of expanding coverage would be less than the $900 billion

ceiling suggested by President Obama. The cost would be offset by new taxes and by cutbacks in Medicare, so the bill would not increase the federal budget deficit in the next 10 years or in the decade after that. The new bill, like an earlier version, retains a surtax on highincome people, but increases the thresholds. The tax would hit married couples with adjusted gross incomes exceeding $1 million a year and individuals over $500,000 — just three-tenths of 1 percent of all households, Democrats said. Pelosi can describe the proposal as a “millionaires’ tax.” The original thresholds were $280,000 for individuals and $350,000 for couples. The government insurance plan would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, as private insurers do. Payments would not be based on Medicare rates, as Pelosi had wanted. Democrats from rural areas balked at the

use of Medicare rates, saying they were so low that hospitals could not survive on them. House Democratic leaders will hold a rally at the Capitol on Thursday to promote the bill. They hope to take it to the House floor next week, with a final vote before Veterans Day, Nov. 11. Scores of lobbyists were “cordially invited” to attend the rally in e-mail messages sent Wednesday by Pelosi. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, announced Monday that he too had decided to include a government plan, with negotiated rates, in the bill he intends to take to the Senate floor for weeks of debate. House Democrats do not have firm commitments from enough lawmakers to guarantee passage of their bill at the moment. But their aggressive schedule suggests they are confident they can round up the votes they need.  ROBERT PEAR

With a Veto Message, Schwarzenegger Gets Even SAN FRANCISCO — Oh, Arnold. In an apparent effort to infuse the dry work of government with a dash of manly brio, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently issued a veto statement that contained a message — and not a nice message — that some interpret as a put-down of the bill’s author. The message can be seen only by a careful reading of the printed version of the veto statement. By taking the first letter of each line, beginning with the third line, two words emerge: The first is obscene; the second is “you.” There is history here, of course. The bill in question, which would

have assisted financing for projects along the San Francisco waterfront, was sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat from the city who recently heckled the governor at a Democratic gala here after Schwarzenegger, a Republican, unexpectedly decided to speak at the event. Ammiano, who is gay and was upset over cuts to state-financed AIDS programs, shouted at the governor, calling him a liar. Ammiano also apparently shouted another — more vulgar — insult. Aaron McLear, the governor’s spokesman, offered a kind of denial of the hidden message, which

was first reported by The San Francisco Bay Guardian. “It was just a weird coincidence,” McLear said in an e-mail message. “I suppose when you do so many vetoes, something like this is bound to happen.” A spokesman for Ammiano said that his boss did not mind the hidden message, just the veto. “Kudos to the governor for his creative use of coincidence with his veto message,” the spokesman, Quintin Mecke, said in an email message. Mecke added, “We will call it even and start with a clean slate with the governor from here on out.” JESSE McKINLEY

Roy DeCarava, Influential Photographer, Dies at 89 Roy DeCarava, the child of a single mother in Harlem who turned that neighborhood into his canvas, becoming one of the most important photographers of his generation by chronicling the lives of its ordinary people and its jazz giants, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 89 and lived in Brooklyn. Over a career of almost 60 years, DeCarava — who fiercely guarded the manner in which his

work was exhibited and whose visibility in the art world remained low for decades — came to be regarded as the founder of a school of African-American photography that broke with the social documentary traditions of his time. “I do not want a documentary or sociological statement,” he wrote in his application for a Guggenheim fellowship, which he won in 1952. His goal was “a

creative expression, the kind of penetrating insight and understanding of Negroes which I believe only a Negro photographer can interpret.” His books, like “The Sweet Flypaper of Life” a collaboration with Langston Hughes, and his famous photographs — a girl in a graduation dress heading down a shadowed street; a stage portrait of John Coltrane — were hugely influential. RANDY KENNEDY

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in brief Mayor Convicted Larry Langford, the controversial and flamboyant mayor of Birmingham, Ala., was convicted of multiple counts of bribery in a federal corruption trial in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday. A jury took less than two hours to determine that as president of the Jefferson County Commission, Langford accepted more than $230,000 in cash, expensive clothing and jewelry in exchange for steering $7.1 million in county bond business to a prominent investment banker. The bonds and debt restructuring destabilized the finances of the county, which includes Birmingham, and its sewer system, helping to push the county to the brink of bankruptcy last year.  (NYT)

School Vaccination Has Few Takers Fewer than half of New York City parents with children in elementary school have given permission for their children to receive the swine flu vaccine at school, reflecting some ambivalence about the need for the vaccine or concern about its effects. At Public School 157 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where health officials opened their public school vaccination campaign on Wednesday, only a third of students had permission to receive it. Some parents may assume that if their children contracted swine flu in the spring, they were now immune, a belief supported by most flu experts.  (NYT)

Test of New Rocket On Wednesday, for the first time since 1981, a rocket that was not a space shuttle took off from a launching pad at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. With a clearing in a partly cloudy sky, the Ares I-X rocket — a prototype of NASA’s next-generation Ares I rocket — zipped off at 11:30 a.m., heading east over the Atlantic Ocean. As tall as a 32-story building but with a first stage only 12 feet wide, the Ares I-X looked skinny and top-heavy. Yet it flew as envisioned.  (NYT)

business

Thursday, October 29, 2009

DJIA

9,762.69

D 119.48

Dollar/YEN

NASDAQ

2,059.61

D 56.48

10-yr treasury 3.41% D 0.03

90.79 D 1.02

gold (ny) $1,028.10 D 11.95 crude oil

Google’s Free GPS for Phones Undercuts Rivals MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — GPS navigation devices were the latest must-have tech toy just two years ago, and shares of device makers like Garmin and TomTom were soaring. That didn’t last long. In a turnabout that has been remarkably swift even for the fast-moving technology business, those companies have suffered as competition has pulled down prices — and as more people have turned to their cellphones for directions. In the latest blow to the business, Google announced a free navigation service for mobile phones on Wednesday that will offer turn-by-turn directions, live traffic updates and the ability to recognize voice commands. The service will initially be available on only one phone, the new Motor-

ola Droid, but will be expanded to more phones soon. In a briefing on Tuesday in advance of its announcement, Google said that the service might be supported by advertisements in the future. That would make driving directions the latest form of information to shift from being a paid service to one that is ad-supported. “This is consistent with a certain pattern of Google, where they are able to build volume and usage of a product and then subsidize it with advertising,” said Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligent, a research firm. The losers, he said, were companies like TomTom and Garmin, along with the cellphone carriers, which offer navigation services

by subscription. Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said that he didn’t view the new service as hurting an industry. Instead, he said, it is a boon to consumers, made possible by the increasing power of smartphones and the growing ubiquity of Internet access. “Obviously we like the price of free, because consumers like that as well,” he said. But analysts say that if successful, Google’s service could chip away at sales of stand-alone GPS devices and subscription navigation services offered by cellphone carriers. Google’s announcement also reflects a broader shift toward consolidation in the gadget world.  JENNA WORTHAM  and MIGUEL HELFT

3rd Rescue Is Considered to Shore Up GMAC It might seem like a lot of cash for one supersize clunker, a goodmoney-after-bad attempt to jumpstart a broken-down giant of Detroit. But as the Obama administration contemplates a third rescue of GMAC, the onetime finance arm of General Motors, federal officials, automotive executives and analysts all say the company is — just like the biggest Wall Street firms — too big to fail. Despite two taxpayer-financed bailouts, GMAC is still struggling, even as its two biggest customers, General Motors and Chrysler, have put bankruptcy behind

them. While the collapse of GMAC probably would not send shock waves through the financial system the way the failure of a giant bank would, it would nonetheless deal a devastating blow to the auto industry, its suppliers and employees. GMAC, which lends money to buyers of G.M. and Chrysler vehicles, is racing to shore up its finances before a crucial Nov. 9 deadline when federal regulators will evaluate its financial health. In a prelude to what is likely to be another direct government rescue, GMAC borrowed $2.9 billion

in the bond market on Wednesday with the backing of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. But that money probably will not be enough to plug all the holes at GMAC, whose disastrous foray into subprime mortgages pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy. GMAC is seeking as much as $5.6 billion in taxpayer money, on top of the $12.5 it received in two previous installments along with the growth in its lending responsibilities. The government has already pumped more into GMAC than it did into Chrysler’s car business.  ERIC DASH

Strategy of Motorola’s New Chief Is Poised to Pay Off LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. —Sanjay Jha’s honeymoon as co-chief executive at Motorola lasted just a few minutes into his first meeting with employees in 2008. “Why should we trust you?” one employee blurted. The frustration was understandable. Motorola, which pioneered cellphones and built such consumer favorites as the StarTac and the Razr, had not had a hit phone in years, and a succession of leaders could not find one. Jha, 46, an engineer who worked his way up at Qualcomm

from a chip designer to the No. 3 executive, answered the challenge, saying employees should not take him on faith but watch what he did. Jha also knew he had only a year to deliver new handsets that could go head to head with Apple’s iPhone if he had any hope of retaining the trust of Motorola’s employees, investors and customers. “If I didn’t have smartphones in the market for Christmas of ’09, this business wouldn’t have a runway,” he said. Jha does not have Motorola

nikkei

$77.46 D 2.09

flying again, but he at least has it poised for a takeoff. On Wednesday, Verizon Wireless introduced Motorola’s new Droid smartphone, which is nearly as thin as an iPhone but with a bigger screen and a slide-out keyboard. T-Mobile has started selling another Motorola smartphone called the Cliq. “Motorola is a different place than it was a year ago,” said Paul E. Cole, T-Mobile’s vice president for product development. “Sanjay has done a spectacular job.”  SAUL HANSELL

ftse 100

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N.Y.S.E. Most Active Issues Vol. (100s) Last Chg. Citigrp 3115183 BkofAm 2660490 SPDR 2194745 SPDR Fncl 1008093 DirFBear rs 938620 GenElec 865353 iShEMkts 848312 FordM 724510 SprintNex 656379 LVSands 639607

4.27 unch 15.45 + 0.05 106.42 – 0.49 14.60 – 0.11 21.09 + 0.41 14.93 – 0.08 39.55 – 0.70 7.33 – 0.14 3.17 – 0.03 14.31 – 1.75

Nasdaq Actives Vol. (100s) ETrade 1545421 PwShs QQQ 1321985 Intel 862377 Microsoft 722502 Cisco 466549 Oracle 297659 Level3 296823 HuntBnk 293197 Dell Inc 290371 Apple Inc 287177

Bid 1.46 41.39 19.03 28.02 23.02 21.30 1.19 3.81 14.59 192.40

Amex Actives Vol. (100s) Last KodiakO g Oilsands g Sinovac Rentech CelSci NthgtM g GoldStr g Hemisphrx NovaGld g GranTrra g AbdAsPac

62702 54238 47161 41294 32008 24870 23009 21412 18865 17493 15966

2.58 1.31 8.19 1.41 1.27 2.74 3.27 1.61 4.55 5.25 6.38

Chg. – – – – – – – – – –

0.11 0.95 0.71 0.57 0.52 0.57 0.17 0.23 0.70 4.97

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0.30 0.05 0.13 0.09 0.06 0.02 0.08 0.08 0.03 0.08 0.09

Foreign Exchange

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

Australia .8989 .9171 Bahrain 2.6528 2.6520 Brazil .5688 .5763 Britain 1.6413 1.6386 Canada .9268 .9405 China .1464 .1464 Denmark .1977 .1989 Dominican .0277 .0277 Egypt .1829 .1829 Europe 1.4719 1.4809 Hong Kong .1290 .1290 Japan .01101 .01089 Mexico .07507 .07521 Norway .1744 .1768 Singapore .7124 .7154 So. Africa .1276 .1303 So. Korea .00084 .00084 Sweden .1416 .1435 Switzerlnd .9745 .9790

1.1125 1.0904 .3770 .3771 1.7580 1.7353 .6093 .6103 1.0790 1.0632 6.8292 6.8322 5.0582 5.0277 36.12 36.05 5.4670 5.4670 .6794 .6753 7.7502 7.7503 90.79 91.81 13.320 13.296 5.7342 5.6563 1.4038 1.3979 7.8361 7.6754 1190.5 1177.5 7.0621 6.9686 1.0261 1.0214

G.M. Claims Gains DETROIT — General Motors executives said Wednesday that October would be its third consecutive month of market share gains, proof that consumers were returning to its showrooms after G.M.’s humbling tour through bankruptcy court this summer. The company will reveal more about its financial condition this week. (NYT)

business

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Spitzer Lieutenant Takes a Different Course Eric R. Dinallo was once one of Eliot Spitzer’s right-hand men. He is credited with dusting off the Martin Act, the sweeping New York state securities law, and devising a way for Spitzer to use it to prosecute Wall Street corruption and make a national name as state attorney general. And it was Dinallo, as the head of the investor protection bureau in the attorney general’s office, who oversaw the case against Henry Blodgett and other securities analysts who hyped stocks to curry favor with their firms’ investment banking clients. So one might expect now that he is running for attorney general himself, Dinallo, 46, would take up the role as scourge of Wall Street. But along with the obvious problem — being one of Spitzer’s men does not have the cachet it once did — Dinallo does not want to be mistaken for the second coming of Spitzer. He envisions a less combative

relationship with Wall Street and thinks that systemic reforms are best handled in Washington. Since declaring his candidacy in August, Dinallo has won support from some of Spitzer’s most fervent foes, including Richard A. Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, and Kenneth G. Langone, a founder of Home Depot who sat on the stock exchange’s board. He even expresses reservations about his old boss’s case against Grasso over his lofty pay. “It would be easy in these times to only rail against the evils that have been, but that would sweep too broadly and do real harm,” said Dinallo, a Democrat. “We don’t want to kill Wall Street, but we do want to learn from what happened.” Of course, the whole notion of a Democrat running for New York’s attorney general next year is complicated, because Andrew M. Cuomo, a highly popular

Democrat, already holds the job. Dinallo is assuming that Cuomo will run for governor next year to supplant a faltering Gov. David A. Paterson. A changing of the guard would be closely watched. Under Spitzer and then Cuomo, the New York attorney general’s office has often picked up where the Securities and Exchange Commission did not venture. Few regulators were more despised than Spitzer on Wall Street. But there is a division among state officials over how vigorously New York’s attorney general should batter Wall Street. On the one hand, there has been outrage across the country at the enormous bill for the rescue of Wall Street. On the other hand, New York depends on Wall Street for about a fifth of the state’s revenue, and its latest troubles have depleted the state’s coffers.  DANNY HAKIM

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in brief US Airways Cuts US Airways will reduce routes and cut 1,000 jobs starting next year in a plan that will leave it focused on its four key hubs. The airline says the job cuts will happen in the first half of 2010. Once the changes are made, US Airways Group Inc. will do 99 percent of its flying through four hubs in Philadelphia; Phoenix; Charlotte, N.C.; and Washington.  (AP)

Law Firm Merger Two international law firms are in high-level merger talks in a move that would create a behemoth with 2,500 lawyers, an individual with knowledge of the discussions said on Wednesday. Together, the two firms — Hogan & Hartson, based in Washington, and Lovells, in London — would probably be one of the top 10 law firms in the world. (NYT)

journal

Thursday, October 29, 2009

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In the West Bank, Gloom Gives Way to Joy on the Soccer Field AL RAM, West Bank — Given the sheer exhilaration of the cheering, flag waving, anthem singing crowd packed into the soccer stadium in this otherwise drab West Bank town one afternoon this week, one could have been forgiven for thinking that an independent Palestinian state had just been born. The Palestinians were playing the Jordanians. But more significant was that the women’s teams were playing, and for the Palestinian side it was the first international match played outdoors at home. In front of a roaring crowd of at least 10,000 — about three-quarters women and a quarter equally enthusiastic men — the players

crossword ACROSS 1 They’re

khans

akin to

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e.g. Maintain 14 Joining of opposite sides 15 First word of the Lord’s Prayer in French 16 Drop 17 ___ perpetuum (let it be everlasting) 18 Sinclair Lewis novel 20 Setting piece 22 Exotic fish 23 Venetian feature 24 Rankle 26 Series of sorties 28 Half of bi29 Big do 30 Tricolor pooch 34 Wind element 36 Title not acquired by Miss Spain?: Abbr. 38 ___ ring 39 Set on the court 42 Utah ski resort

imparted a collective sense of achievement that had eluded their male compatriots for a long time. With the peace process stalled and the Palestinian polity divided, the atmosphere is generally dour. Yet the game turned into an exuberant carnival of social liberation and national pride. The line between the dual quests for equality and statehood became increasingly blurred as the women chased the ball. “In our culture,” said Rukayya Takrori, 50, the Palestinian team’s manager, “Palestinian women work side by side with the men in the fields and factories. They fight together,

Edited By Will Shortz PUZZLE BY JOE KROZEL

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Mass ender?

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Gateway Arch designer

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Beethoven dedicatee

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34

59

Funny Wilson

39

60

Went after

10

2

3

4

20

5

6

7

8

9

10

21

28

29

30

35

36 40

41

46

37 42

43

44

47

Tag words “Doctor Who” villainess, with “the”

53

63

Italian rumbler

57

58

59

64

Big ados

65

Putin input?

60

61

62

63

64

65

50

51

52 54

55

56

DOWN

10/29/09 (No. 1029)

1 Galoots

6 Ones

examining bodies of evidence?

2 Refinery

products

7 Juan’s

3 Insurance

company employees

other

8 Betrays, 9 Finish

4 Like

some traffic

10

break,

say

(up)

They’re out standing in their field

26

Goddess of breezes

43

Biblical money units

27

Charles and others

44

Fleischer and others

31

Kind of party

47

32

What’s barely done in movies?

It doesn’t end in 00

33

First couple’s home

48

Natural

49

Quit Unalaska native, e.g. It may precede a storm

Somewhat

35

Tab, for one

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

Not natural, in a way, after “in”

37

51

P I S A

13

___ Allen furniture

Actor Sim who played Ebenezer Scrooge

19

Hold (off)

21

Coin “swallower”

25

Trunk part

B R E W L A D Y U S U A T K N O T I O S C O M E K N I T S E C A

H A L T E D O L A F L P N

Y D S

45 48

12

C O L O N

O G E R W T E O C L E W F T H C A N O R P W O E A T E I C K T S

C L O D S D E F E R S

I D E A T E K E N O C T A

C A D A K N I C S I N T G O A M E N T E T R E S N I G H T O Y O F I T F L I E A L L M I E D U R R E S

33

38

11

T R I C K

32

27

50

I N K S

31

25

62

as a twig

13

22 24

61

5 Suddenly

12

19

23

49

11

16

S K O R T S T S

S E P T

40

41

1991 and 1992 U.S. Open champ III in modern Rome

55

Play start

56

Work on a muffler, say

58

Walk-___

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.

demonstrate together. Sometimes she takes the place of the man because he is in jail or is in the mountains, hiding.” This game, she said, proved that “Palestinian women can do everything — even football.” In Al Ram, just north of Jerusalem, signs of the Israeli occupation are never far away. The stadium sits half a block from Israel’s West Bank separation barrier. Though it is made up mostly of a fence, barbed wire and ditches, here in this urban environment it takes the form of a high, seemingly endless concrete wall. To enter Jerusalem, West Bank residents must have special permits and pass through the nearby Kalandia checkpoint, a gray, prisonlike crossing of turnstiles and watchtowers. On Sunday, an Israeli security guard on duty there was stabbed and wounded by a young Palestinian woman. But at Monday’s soccer game, Palestinians came together in a more peaceful endeavor for the cause. Though nonpartisan, the event clearly bore the stamp of the nonIslamist, nationalist camp that holds sway in the West Bank. Watching over the players on the field were huge posters of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. A couple of images of King Abdullah II of Jordan had been hastily added. Several dignitaries attended, including the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad. FIFA, the international governing body of football, as soccer is known in most of the world, also sent a representative, in a salute to the Palestinian commitment to the sport. Most of the women played bareheaded, though one Palestinian and a few of the Jordanians wore hijabs and tights under their shorts. The Palestinian team’s captain, Honey Thaljieh, 24, is a Christian from Bethlehem. The youngest player, Aya Khatib, 14, is a Muslim from a refugee camp near Jericho. The game ended in a tie, with two goals for each side.  ISABEL KERSHNER

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opinion

Thursday, October 29, 2009

editorials of the timeS

nicholas d. kristof

Ongoing Agony of the Banks

Schools, Not Guns

It is hardly surprising that GMAC, the consumer finance company, is circling back to the government for a third helping of taxpayer money. GMAC is struggling under the double whammy of bad car loans and the fallout from its misguided foray into mortgage finance at the height of the housing bubble. After the government applied stress tests to the banks last May, GMAC was the only big bank that could not raise the capital it was deemed to need. Still, GMAC’s return to the public trough — where it expects to get up to $5.6 billion on top of the $12.5 billion it has received since December — should serve as a reminder that much of the American banking system is nowhere near where it needs to be despite hundreds of billions of dollars doled out by the Treasury. If the federal government’s strategy to save the banks was meant to get them back into the business of lending to American consumers and businesses, it has not worked yet. GMAC’s sorry state is bad enough news for Main Street. It is the main source of financing for General Motors and Chrysler dealers around the country. That means it is virtually assured to get the additional money it needs for the same reason that the government bailed out the automakers and then gave them the windfall profits of the cash-for-clunkers initiative: too many auto-sector jobs are on the line. But GMAC is hardly the only hobbled big bank in the country. Bank of America report-

ed a $1 billion loss in the last quarter and is still limping along, dragged down by its bloated portfolio of bad loans. Citigroup relied on accounting gymnastics and a dubious decision to stockpile few reserves against potential loan losses in order to make a $100 million profit. The mere fact that these banks are still going concerns is because of the government’s willingness to ply them with cash. But neither is lending much. The banks that do have the financial wherewithal — like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, which made combined profits of nearly $7 billion in the third quarter — are not making their money through lending. They are making it from trading complex financial products that few people understand. Meanwhile, sectors of the economy are being starved of credit. Consumer credit by commercial banks stood at $834 billion in August — about $45 billion less than at the end of last year. Business financing is doing no better. Banks’ outstanding commercial and industrial loans fell to $1.411 trillion in September, $170 billion less than a year earlier. Commercial paper issued by nonfinancial businesses has plummeted 40 percent over the last year. This will not do. It is impossible for economic recovery to take hold when credit is sputtering as it is. For the Obama administration’s financial strategy to be a success, the banks must lend again.

A Watershed Decision The decision by Chesapeake Energy Corp. not to drill for natural gas in New York City’s watershed is a smart and welcome move on the company’s part, and very good news for the 8.2 million New York City residents who depend on this environmentally sensitive region for their drinking water. The threat has not, however, disappeared. Chesapeake is believed to be the only leaseholder in the watershed, but its decision is not binding on other companies. New York State needs to adopt regulations that place the watershed permanently off limits, while imposing the strictest possible safeguards on drilling anywhere else where drinking water supplies might be affected. The process of extracting gas from shale, known as hydraulic fracturing, requires shooting a mix of water, sand and chemicals into the ground at high pressure. While pending state regulations would require drillers to take special precautions in the watershed, there are too many points in the process where toxic chemicals could escape into the water supplies. Chesapeake decided against drilling there mainly for business reasons. Its plans had already drawn stiff opposition from some politicians. Any accidental contamination would

create a huge environmental and public relations headache. The company hasn’t given up all that much. The one million acres northwest of New York City that comprise the watershed contain less than one-tenth of the rich deposits of natural gas lodged in the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale, a layer of rock that runs from West Virginia to New York. New York State officials, who have eagerly embraced drilling as one answer to upstate New York’s economic woes, recently issued 800 pages of proposed regulations to govern drilling in the Marcellus Shale. They insisted the rules were tough enough to prevent accidents. Now Chesapeake has decided that it is unwilling to take the risks. Chesapeake’s decision also undercuts one of Albany’s main fears: that companies with leases to exploit mineral rights in the watershed would sue if the state denied them the opportunity to do so. Chesapeake has decided that it won’t even try to exercise that right. And its chief executive, Aubrey McClendon, told The Times that he didn’t expect any other company “would dare” to acquire leases in the watershed. All in all, Albany has no remaining excuse not to declare the New York City watershed, once and forever, a drill-free zone.

7

One of the most compelling arguments against more troops in Afghanistan rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there. The hawks respond: It’s impossible to build schools now because the Taliban will blow them up. In fact, it’s still quite possible to operate schools in Afghanistan — particularly when there’s a strong “buy-in” from the local community. Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea,” has built 39 schools in Afghanistan and 92 in Pakistan, and not one has been burned or closed. CARE has 295 schools educating 50,000 girls in Afghanistan, and not a single one has been closed or burned by the Taliban. The Afghan Institute of Learning, another aid group, has 32 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with none closed by the Taliban. In short, there is still a vast scope for greater investment in education, health and agriculture in Afghanistan. These have a better record at stabilizing societies than military solutions. Matthew P. Hoh, a U.S. military veteran who was the top civilian officer in Zabul Province, resigned over Afghan policy. He argues that our military presence is feeding the insurgency, not quelling it. Schools are not a quick fix, but we have abundant evidence that they can, over time, transform countries. In the area near Afghanistan there’s a nice natural experiment in the comparative power of educational versus military tools. Since 9/11, the United States has spent $15 billion in Pakistan, mostly on military support, and today Pakistan is more unstable than ever. In contrast, Bangladesh has focused on education. Bangladesh now has more girls in high school than boys. (In contrast, only 3 percent of Pakistani women in the tribal areas are literate.) Educated Bangladeshi women have joined the labor force, laying the foundation for a garment industry and working in civil society groups. That has led to a virtuous spiral of development, jobs, lower birth rates, education and stability. That’s one reason Al Qaeda is holed up in Pakistan, not in Bangladesh, and it’s a reminder that education can transform societies. When I travel in Pakistan, I see evidence that Islamic extremists believe in the transformative power of education. They pay for madrassas that provide free schooling and often free meals for students. They then offer scholarships for the best pupils to study abroad in Wahhabi madrassas before returning to become leaders of their communities. What I don’t see on my trips is similar numbers of American-backed schools. It breaks my heart that we don’t invest in schools as much as medieval, misogynist extremists.

sports

Thursday, October 29, 2009

in brief

Lee Goes Distance as Phils Throttle Yanks When the Philadelphia Phillies traded for Cliff Lee in July, there was no playoff data to explore, no highlights of Lee striking out the cleanup man or fielding bouncers behind his back. Lee had pitched for the last team to win a postseason series at the old Yankee Stadium, but he was not even on the roster. In the two years since, Lee has taken to the Bronx as few visitors have. He started the final All-Star Game at the old Stadium, won the opener of the new place in April and made its World Series debut his personal showcase on Wednesday night. Lee carved the Yankees with the precision of a master chef, allowing six hits and an unearned run in a 6-1 victory. Chase Utley homered twice off C.C. Sabathia, Lee’s former Cleveland teammate, who allowed no other runs

and just two other hits in seven innings. Sabathia was very good, but Lee was outstanding. The Phillies did not warm up a reliever until the ninth, when the Yankees scored on a throwing error by Jimmy Rollins. Lee struck out 10 with no walks, and his earned run average in four postseason starts is 0.54. “I was told that you’d have to pry the ball out of his hand to get him off the field,” General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said last week. “You couple that with the kind of talent that he has, and it’s a pretty good fit.” The Phillies have won the opening game of their last six postseason series, including all three last season, when they won their first title in 28 years. They are trying to become the first repeat champion since the Yankees of 1998 to

2000. The Yankees have not won since then, and their principal owner, George Steinbrenner, was there to watch a home game for the first time since the season opener. But in Game 1, as then, Lee outpitched Sabathia. Sabathia retired the first two hitters of Game 1, and he had a 1-2 count on Utley, the third hitter. Then he lost his control. Ten of his next 15 pitches missed the strike zone. One of the strikes went for a double to the right-field corner by Ryan Howard. But with the bases loaded and two outs, Raul Ibanez topped a high 3-1 fastball to second base, ending the threat. Lee had a smoother beginning. He needed just 11 pitches to rip through the top of the Yankees’ order.  TYLER KEPNER

N.F.L. Is Scolded Over Players’ Brain Injuries WASHINGTON — The commissioner of the N.F.L. faced heated criticism on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, with lawmakers, former players and even a former team executive accusing the league of neglect in its handling of active and retired players with brain injuries. With evidence mounting of a link between playing professional football and cognitive impairment in later life, and news reports of poor medical treatment for some former players with dementia and other signs of mental decline, the commit-

tee repeatedly challenged the commissioner, Roger Goodell, to defend the league’s policies and research. “The N.F.L. sort of has this blanket denial or minimizing of the fact that there may be this link,” Rep. Linda T. Sánchez, DCalif., said to Goodell during the daylong hearing. “And it sort of reminds me of the tobacco companies pre-’90s when they kept saying, ‘Oh, there’s no link between smoking and damage to your health.’ ” When pressed, Goodell would not say whether he thought there was a link between football and

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 71/ 54 0.17 76/ 54 PC 69/ 59 Sh Albuquerque 51/ 33 0.25 42/ 28 PC 48/ 26 S Boise 47/ 30 0 46/ 27 PC 57/ 36 PC Boston 51/ 49 0.20 52/ 44 PC 57/ 42 S Buffalo 54/ 48 0.56 56/ 45 C 65/ 48 Sh Charlotte 69/ 55 0.86 75/ 47 PC 70/ 54 Sh Chicago 57/ 48 0.06 69/ 48 PC 64/ 58 R Cleveland 56/ 52 0.73 65/ 46 PC 67/ 53 T Dallas-Ft. Worth 69/ 48 0 73/ 67 T 66/ 48 Sh Denver 33/ 29 0.35 31/ 22 Sn 43/ 20 PC Detroit 63/ 50 0.09 61/ 47 PC 62/ 52 T

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

81/ 51 66/ 49 68/ 56 90/ 79 51/ 37 57/ 52 90/ 72 63/ 55 67/ 51 42/ 30 62/ 55 45/ 39 58/ 52 71/ 58

0 0 0 0 0 1.28 0 1.41 0 0.01 0 0 0.06 1.34

cognitive decline among N.F.L. players. He did say, “I can think of no issue to which I’ve devoted more time and attention than the health and well-being of our players, and particularly retired players.” Several Republican members of the committee said that Congress should have no role in regulating football on either the professional or youth levels. “We cannot legislate the elimination of injuries from the games without eliminating the games themselves,” said Rep. Lamar S. Smith, R-Texas.  ALAN SCHWARZ 80/ 73 T 64/ 55 Sh 74/ 48 S 90/ 79 PC 56/ 49 R 57/ 47 C 90/ 71 PC 60/ 49 Sh 66/ 45 S 39/ 23 PC 69/ 50 S 53/ 43 R 68/ 53 T 62/ 52 C

64/ 59 T 53/ 44 PC 76/ 51 S 88/ 79 PC 45/ 41 C 60/ 48 PC 87/ 72 PC 63/ 48 PC 74/ 48 S 46/ 29 PC 68/ 52 PC 58/ 48 Sh 62/ 56 R 64/ 52 C

FOREIGN CITIES Acapulco Athens Beijing Berlin Buenos Aires Cairo

Yesterday Today Tomorrow 81/ 75 Tr 86/ 77 R 86/ 77 R 70/ 64 0.12 70/ 55 C 68/ 52 PC 65/ 50 0 72/ 50 S 50/ 45 R 51/ 46 0.02 50/ 41 C 46/ 36 S 81/ 61 0 90/ 63 S 88/ 63 T 87/ 72 0 82/ 70 PC 77/ 72 PC

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

8

Wolves Nip Nets Jonny Flynn scored 13 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter on Wednesday to help erase a 19-point deficit, and Damien Wilkins converted a putback at the buzzer, as the Minnesota Timberwolves edged the visiting New Jersey Nets, 95-93.(AP)

Sabres Beat Devils Clarke MacArthur and the rookie Tim Kennedy scored early in the first period to help the Buffalo Sabres remain unbeaten on the road with a 4-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night. Ryan Miller made 31 saves. The Sabres are 4-0 on the road. (AP)

NBa scores TUESDAY’S LATE GAMES Portland 96, Houston 87 L.A. Lakers 99, L.A. Clippers 92 WEDNESDAY Atlanta 120, Indiana 109 Orlando 120, Philadelphia 106 Toronto 101, Cleveland 91 Boston 92, Charlotte 59 Miami 115, Knicks 93 Detroit 96, Memphis 74 Minnesota 95, Nets 93 San Antonio 113, New Orleans 96 Oklahoma City 102, Sacramento 89

NHL scores TUESDAY’S LATE GAMES Colorado 3, Edmonton 0 Detroit 5, Vancouver 4 WEDNESDAY Buffalo 4, Devils 1 Islanders 3, Rangers 1 Phoenix 4, Columbus 1 St. Louis 5, Carolina 2 Pittsburgh 6, Montreal 1 Ottawa 4, Florida 3 Dallas 4, Toronto 3, OT Nashville 4, Minnesota 3 70/ 55 64/ 55 57/ 36 85/ 75 91/ 79 71/ 63 65/ 52 78/ 50 69/ 57 45/ 39 45/ 41 89/ 77 64/ 41 53/ 46 80/ 72 69/ 50 87/ 54 42/ 37 75/ 57 71/ 59 53/ 50 45/ 37 49/ 45

0.02 0.04 0 0 Tr 0 0.01 0 0.24 0 0.67 0 0 Tr 0.47 0 0 0 0 0 0.09 0 0.02

70/ 52 S 61/ 54 C 66/ 45 PC 82/ 73 S 88/ 79 S 70/ 63 C 66/ 50 PC 73/ 57 PC 77/ 57 C 55/ 36 PC 41/ 34 C 90/ 79 PC 66/ 48 PC 55/ 48 C 84/ 70 R 70/ 54 PC 86/ 50 PC 41/ 34 C 75/ 57 PC 70/ 61 PC 55/ 46 C 50/ 41 R 46/ 37 PC

75/ 50 S 61/ 55 R 63/ 43 PC 82/ 73 S 88/ 79 S 68/ 63 C 64/ 55 PC 73/ 55 PC 79/ 55 Sh 57/ 39 Sh 32/ 28 SS 90/ 75 S 63/ 50 PC 48/ 37 S 86/ 66 T 72/ 55 S 88/ 48 PC 41/ 30 PC 79/ 57 S 75/ 61 PC 63/ 50 R 59/ 46 R 43/ 34 PC

sports journal

Thursday, October 29, 2009

As in Play, Agassi Pushes Limit in His Book Provocative during his long, Agassi’s means, and even if they shape-shifting playing career, were, admitting to using crystal Andre Agassi is staying true to meth is not without risk in terms form in retirement. of his relationships with the corAn excerpt from his porate world and future Tennis soon-to-be-released autosponsors. biography, “Open,” was But judging from the Analysis published in The Times tenor of the excerpts, of London on Wednesday. In it, which also put flesh on the bones Agassi revealed that he used the of his fraught relationship with illegal drug crystal meth on mulhis hard-driving father, Mike, it tiple occasions during his annus seems that Agassi has decided horribilis in 1997, when his rankto take the same soul-stripping ing fell out of the top 100 and he, approach to the literary process despite serious concerns, marthat he once took to running hills ried the actress Brooke Shields. in Las Vegas in the off-season. In Agassi wrote that he failed collaboration with his co-author, a doping test for the banned J.R. Moehringer, he has pushed substance that year, then lied himself beyond the typical to the Association of Tennis boundaries in an attempt to genProfessionals about how the erate something exceptional and crystal meth entered his body in perhaps clear his conscience in a successful attempt to avoid a the process. suspension and the public pilloBut his revelations also raise rying that would have gone along some troubling questions for the with it. sport Agassi professes, in his Agassi, a popular eight-time book, to hate with “a dark and Grand Slam singles champion, secret passion.” has earned a reputation as a Why did the ATP exonerate humanitarian, someone who was him if crystal meth — a banned presumably under no obligation stimulant in 1997 and now, also to fess up to past transgressions. known as methamphetamine — Of course, Agassi has a book to was found in his system? Does it sell, and this is not your average indicate a flawed, lax approach? talking point. The International Tennis FedMercantile concerns were eration president, Francesco surely not primary to someone of Ricci Bitti, certainly sounded

eager to put distance between that drug-testing era and today on Wednesday. In a statement, Ricci Bitti underscored that Agassi’s case occurred before the World Anti-Doping Agency was founded in 1999 and “during the formative years of antidoping in tennis when the program was managed by individual governing bodies.” Agassi wrote that he was “in a bad way” in 1997 when he claims he first tried crystal meth, at the urging of an assistant he identifies as Slim. Agassi wrote that he was full of concern about his impending marriage to Shields, whom he later divorced, and also that he was concerned about a serious neck injury to the daughter of his longtime friend and physical trainer Gil Reyes. Agassi wrote that he was informed of his positive test later in the year by a phone call from a doctor working with the ATP. He then composed a letter of explanation to the panel, lying and blaming his positive result on unwittingly ingesting the drug in one of the sodas that Slim regularly spiked with crystal meth. “I feel ashamed, of course,” Agassi wrote. “I promise myself that this lie is the end of it.”  CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

9

n.h.l. standings EASTERN CONFERENCE

Atlantic Pittsburgh Rangers Devils Phila. Islanders

W L OT Pts GF GA

10 8 6 5 2

2 4 4 4 4

0 1 0 1 5

20 17 12 11 9

43 47 27 33 25

26 36 26 31 38

Northeast

W L OT Pts GF GA

Buffalo Ottawa Montreal Boston Toronto

7 6 6 5 1

Southeast

W L OT Pts GF GA

Wash. Atlanta Tampa Carolina Florida

7 4 3 2 2

1 2 6 4 7 2 3 3 6 7

1 2 0 1 2

15 14 12 11 4

30 34 31 30 24

17 29 38 32 42

2 16 41 32 1 9 28 24 3 9 24 32 3 7 26 39 1 5 22 39

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Central

W L OT Pts GF GA

Chicago Columbus St. Louis Detroit Nashville

7 6 5 4 4

Northwest

W L OT Pts GF GA

Colorado Calgary Edmonton Vancou. Minnesota

9 7 6 6 3

Pacific

W L OT Pts GF GA

L.A. Dallas San Jose Phoenix Anaheim

8 6 7 7 3

3 5 4 4 6 1 2 5 6 9 4 2 4 4 6

1 0 1 2 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 4 1 0 1

15 12 11 10 9 20 15 13 12 6 16 16 15 14 7

36 34 29 30 22 41 41 38 35 26 44 41 42 30 25

27 38 27 35 36 26 33 36 33 39 38 35 35 23 37

Used Very Little, Eagles’ Vick Hasn’t Shown Much

New L.P.G.A. Chief

When the Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick in August, questions about the decision centered on whether Vick deserved a second chance in the N.F.L. after spending more than a year in federal prison for his role in a dogfighting operation. Left out of the conversation was another question: after missing two seasons, was Vick any good? A month into the Vick experiment, the answer remains unclear. Vick has barely been on the field in four games and has made almost no impact, rushing nine times for 22 yards and completing two of six passes for 6 yards. He has often looked slow, as he did on a run against the Redskins when he struggled to get around the edge. That could be an indication that he lacks the dynamism in his legs that had defined his talent. It seems unlikely he will ever again be able to run as he did in 2006, when he gained 1,039 yards.

After a three-month search, the L.P.G.A. announced Wednesday the hiring of Michael Whan as the eighth commissioner in its 59-year history. Whan, chosen from a field of hundreds of applicants, will replace Marsha Evans, who took over in July on an interim basis after the resignation of Carolyn Bivens. Whan will take over in January after a transition period. Bivens was forced out after a player revolt precipitated largely by a loss of tournament sponsors that reduced the 2009 schedule to 27 events from 34 in 2008. Whan, 44, is an experienced marketer who began his business career at Procter & Gamble. A lifelong golfer, Whan learned about the business of golf at Wilson Golf and later at TaylorMade Adidas Golf North America, where he became an executive vice president.(NYT)

“I think they signed a very nice backup quarterback,” the former Ravens coach Brian Billick said. “I would question, did you waste some money? You don’t just step back in. “The difficulty you’ll have is, how does he get better? The only place you get better is in a game. You can practice until the cows come home, and it won’t make a difference. “It will be next year before we have a chance to see if Michael Vick can come back,” he said. “Maybe not to the degree he was — I’m talking about the ability to run around, do things like he did. But 90 percent of Michael Vick is still pretty good.” Most striking is how little the Eagles have used Vick and their Wildcat package. There was an expectation that he would become an extra weapon for the offense, one that defenses would have to prepare for extensively.

Vick was in for 11 plays in his first game, and that was perceived as a tantalizing glimpse into what was to come. But Vick’s involvement has decreased since then, and against Oakland two weeks ago, he was in for just two plays. Against Washington on Monday, he had one pass and three runs. “We just said, listen, if he can contribute, let him contribute,” Coach Andy Reid, whose team hosts the Giants on Sunday, said in a conference call on Wednesday. “We know he is a very talented guy. That is how we have gone about it; just take baby steps there.” In the meantime, the clock is ticking for Vick. He is 29 years old, and Billick said that speed is the first thing to go for athletic quarterbacks. While Vick toils with few results, the game has continued to evolve, with an emphasis on precision passing — never Vick’s strength. JUDY BATTISTA