Timesdigest_20090817[1]

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

Monday August 17, 2009 Midnight in New York Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times

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Taliban Intimidate Afghan Voters TARAKAI, Afghanistan — A group of Taliban fighters made their announcement in the bazaar of a nearby village a few days ago, and the word spread fast: anyone caught voting in the presidential election will have his finger — the one inked for the ballot — cut off. So in this hamlet in southern Afghanistan, a village of adobe homes surrounded by fields of corn, the local people will stay home when much of the rest of the country goes to the polls on Thursday to choose a president. “We can’t vote. Everybody knows it,” said Hakmatullah, a farmer who, like many Afghans, has only one name. “We are farmers, and we cannot do a thing against the Taliban.” Across the Pashtun heartland in eastern and southern Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents hold sway in many villages, people are being warned against going to the polls. In many of those places, conditions have been so chaotic that many Afghans have been unable to register to vote. In many areas, there will not be any polling

places to go to. The possibility of large-scale nonparticipation by the country’s Pashtuns is casting a cloud over the Afghan presidential election which, American and other Western officials here believe, needs to be seen as legitimate by ordinary Afghans for the next government to exercise real authority over the next five years. Doubts about Pashtun participation are injecting uncertainty into the presidential race itself, and particularly into the campaign of the incumbent, Hamid Karzai. Five years ago, Karzai rode to an election victory on a wave of support from his fellow Pashtuns, who make up about 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Polls show that Karzai is leading the other candidates. But those predictions could be overturned if a large number of Pashtuns stay away from the polls. The threats against the local population in villages like Tarakai show a change in the Taliban’s tactics from previous years. Five years ago, the insur-

gents largely allowed voting to go forward. At the time, Afghan and American officials believed that the prospect of voting was so popular among ordinary Afghans that Taliban commanders decided that opposing it could set off a backlash. But things are different now. The Taliban have surged in strength since 2005. Mr. Karzai, though he is the leading candidate, is vastly more unpopular than he was then. As a result, Taliban leaders are actively trying to disrupt the candidates’ campaigns and preparations for the vote. They have warned Afghans against voting. “Afghans must boycott the deceitful American project and head for the trenches of holy war,” said a communiqué released by the Taliban leadership last month. “The holy warriors have to defeat this evil project, carry out operations against enemy centers, prevent people from participating in elections, and block all major and minor roads before Election Day.”  DEXTER FILKINS

Stimulus Money Roils Education Reform Debate Holding out billions of dollars as a potential windfall, the Obama administration is persuading state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers. That aggressive use of economic stimulus money by Education Secretary Arne Duncan is provoking heated new debates over the uses of standardized testing and the proper federal role in education, issues that flared frequently during President George W. Bush’s enforcement of his signature education law, No Child Left Behind. A recent case is California, where legislative leaders are vowing to do whatever is necessary, including rewriting a state law barring the use of student scores in teacher evaluations, to

ensure that the state is eligible for a chunk of the $4.3 billion the federal Department of Education will soon award to a dozen or so states. The law had the strong backing of the California teachers union. Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Tennessee and several other states have moved to bring state education laws or policies into line with one or more planks in President Obama’s school improvement agenda. The administration’s stance has caught by surprise those educators and officials who had hoped that Obama’s calls during the campaign for an overhaul of the No Child law would mean a reduced federal role and less reliance on standardized testing. The No Child law requires every American school to bring all students to proficiency in reading

and math by 2014 and penalizes those that do not meet annual goals. The proposed rules make testing an even more powerful factor in schools by extending the use of scores to teacher evaluation. Much of the grumbling is from educators who say they supported Obama’s candidacy. “I am a public school teacher who vehemently wanted to vote for a president who would save us from No Child Left Behind,” Diane Aoki of Kealakekua, Hawaii, wrote to the Department of Education. But the administration’s requirement that states link test scores to teacher evaluation, Aoki said, means “the potential is there for the test frenzy to get worse than it is under No Child Left Behind.”  SAM DILLON

Obama Hedges On Public Option For Health Care The Obama administration sent signals on Sunday that it has backed away from its once-firm vision of a government organization to provide for the nation’s 50 million uninsured and is now open to using nonprofit cooperatives instead. Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, said on Sunday morning that an additional government insurer is “not the essential element” of the administration’s plan to overhaul the country’s health care system. “I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.” Her less-than-forceful insistence on a government insurance organization was paralleled by Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary. “What I am saying is the bottom line for this for the president is, what we have to have is choice and competition in the insurance market,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has fought to retain the government insurer in the Obama health plan but conceded last week that the White House might not have a choice. “We have heard from both chambers that the House sees a public plan as essential for a final product, and the Senate believes it cannot pass it as constructed and co-op is what they can do,” he said. Gibbs implicitly echoed that assessment today, saying: “What the president has always talked about is that we inject some choice and competition into the private insurance market.”  JOSEPH BERGER

International

Monday, August 17, 2009

Obama Hopes for Cooperation From Egypt CAIRO — In White House meetings beginning Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is expected to tell the Obama administration that Arab nations want peace, but are unwilling to abide Obama’s call to make goodfaith concessions to Israel until Israel takes tangible steps like freezing settlements, an Egyptian official said. As part of its effort to resuscitate the peace process, the Obama administration has asked Arab countries to make small but symbolic gestures to normalize relations with Israel, like allowing planes to fly through their airspace or improving cultural ties. The administration has also asked Israel to freeze all growth in settlements. So far, neither side has agreed to Obama’s proposed first steps and so the president is expected to look to Mubarak for help in breaking the latest Middle East deadlock, regional analysts said.

Mubarak flew from Cairo to Washington on Saturday for his first American visit in five years, accompanied by Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Gen. Omar Suleiman, chief of Egypt’s intelligence service. He was scheduled to meet Monday with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other officials, and is to meet with Obama on Tuesday. Mubarak will tell Obama that from the Arab perspective, the best way to build confidence is to press Israel to freeze settlements, implement an economic plan to improve life in the West Bank, ease pressure on Gaza and agree to negotiate with all issues on the table, including the status of Jerusalem and refugees, said Ambassador Hossam Zaki, spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry. “If they do this and engage immediately in negotiations with Abu Mazen, this is a recipe for openness and the Arabs will

make the gestures needed,” Zaki said, referring to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. “But they don’t want to make this first step. They are demanding the Arabs make the first step. The Arabs should not make the first step. They are the occupying power. The occupation must end.” In many ways, Mubarak’s visit to Washington signals a new beginning to an old script, as Arabs and Israelis argue which side should go first, Arab states revert to their old roles in the region, and the United States tempers its criticism of Egypt’s political and human rights record in return for Egypt’s regional cooperation. During the Bush years, the region’s more radical forces, those against the peace process, had the upper hand, including Iran, Syria and Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that now controls the Gaza Strip.  MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Clerics in Iran Denounce the Supreme Leader DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A group of Iranian clerics has issued a anonymous letter calling Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a dictator and demanding his removal, the latest and perhaps strongest rhetorical attack on him yet in the country’s post-election turmoil. While the impact of the clerics’ letter, posted late Saturday on opposition web sites, may have been diluted by the withholding of their signatures, two Iranian experts vouched for its authenticity. Its publication came atop other unusual verbal attacks on Khamenei in recent days. Last week a group of former

lawmakers issued their own letter calling his qualifications into question. A day earlier, a member of the state body empowered to dismiss Khamenei called for an “emergency meeting” to address criticisms. The letters do not pose any real threat to Khamenei, who retains the loyalty of the security services and most of the political elite. The clerical establishment is heavily dependent on him and scarcely any member would dare to openly challenge him. Still, the verbal attacks illustrate the erosion of a powerful taboo. Long unquestioned, Khame-

nei’s status as a neutral arbiter and Islamic figurehead have suffered in the weeks since he blessed the June 12 presidential election, which many Iranians believe was rigged. The crackdown on street protests that followed has only deepened public anger with him. In recent days the phrase “death to Khamenei” has begun appearing in graffiti on Tehran walls, a phrase that would have been almost unimaginable not long ago. In their 11-page letter, the clerics blamed Khamenei for the violence after the elections, in which dozens of people were killed and possibly many more.  (NYT)

American Held in Myanmar Is Turned Over to Senator BANGKOK — An American man who was sentenced to seven years of hard labor last week for intruding at the home of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the prodemocracy leader, in Myanmar was released Sunday and left the country together with a visiting American senator, Jim Webb. The release of the American came one day after Webb, D-Va. , held meetings with the leader of Myanmar’s ruling junta, Senior

Gen. Than Shwe, and with. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months of house arrest. At a news conference in Bangkok on Sunday, Webb said the meetings and the release of the American, John Yettaw, were gestures that could be helpful as part of the foundations for a relationship “of good will and confidence building so that we can have a better situation in the future.”

Webb said he would discuss his trip with State Department officials when he returned to Washington. Webb described Yettaw, 53, as “not a well man,” and Yettaw appeared tired as he and the senator arrived at a Bangkok airport. “I believe what happened was regrettable,” Webb said. “He was trying to help. He’s not a meanspirited human being.”  SETH MYDANS

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in brief Afghanistan Debate KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai moved to strengthen his chances of reelection on Sunday, just four days before the voting, by appearing in a live televised debate with two of his opponents and allowing an Uzbek warlord to return to Afghanistan to rally support. His security chiefs also announced that the Taliban would allow more polling stations to be open in the south, Karzai’s stronghold. The warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek commander whose men are accused of killing hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war in 2001, arrived in Afghanistan from exile in Turkey on Sunday evening, said Sardar Mohammad Rahman Oghli, a member of Parliament who is an ethnic Uzbek. Dostum’s return is expected to boost ethnic Uzbek support for Karzai, even though his reputation may put off some voters.  (NYT)

Plot Against Allende SAO PAULO — President Richard Nixon discussed with Brazil’s president a cooperative effort to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende of Chile, according to recently declassified documents that reveal deep collaboration between the United States and Brazil in trying to root out leftists in Latin America during the cold war. The formerly top secret memos, published Sunday by the National Security Archive in Washington, show that Brazil and the United States discussed plans to overthrow or destabilize Allende, President Fidel Castro of Cuba and other leaders. (NYT)

Agents Replaced MEXICO CITY — In a sweeping move to root out corruption among customs agents and reduce the influx of huge quantities of illegal drugs into the country, the Mexican government replaced hundreds of inspectors at airports and border crossings over the weekend, officials said. (NYT)

national

Monday, August 17, 2009

Big Fees and Few Jobs at Some Search Firms NAPERVILLE, Ill. — In retrospect, Kerry Fischman said he should have paid more attention to the nagging concern he felt when the saleswoman from the job search company kept pressing him to sign the contract and send in his credit card number. But it had been just two weeks since he lost his management job at Georgia Pacific, the paper products company, and the maelstrom of emotions was still fresh. “Obviously, the anxiety and the fear were there,” Fischman said. “That’s all you ever heard on the news, how many more thousands, tens of thousands, lost their jobs.” Seeking an edge, Fischman paid the company, ITS Corp., $8,250 at the end of December, believing it would help him land a six-figure job in the Denver area, which he said the saleswoman promised. But the company did little more than redo his résumé and push him to cold-call employers, he said. Fischman, 58, now believes

the firm misrepresented its services and exaggerated its capabilities. He eventually found a job, but without the help of ITS, and got a partial refund from the company after threatening to report it to the authorities. Company officials deny that ITS misrepresented itself. But Fischman’s experience highlights the vulnerability of job seekers as they cast about for help in the most difficult job market in decades and encounter a bewildering and largely unregulated array of individuals and businesses offering assistance. While some customers have benefited from their work, others have accused the companies of using misleading sales tactics. “Career management” or “career marketing” companies like ITS, which charge hefty up-front fees, are easy to stumble upon on employment web sites. Some firms place advertisements that appear to be job postings but in-

stead are lures for sales pitches. Several state attorneys general offices said they have fielded complaints about career counseling firms in this recession. “Many employment services provide valuable help, but others misrepresent themselves and their services in an attempt to take your money,” said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who succeeded several years ago in banning one career counseling company, Bernard Haldane Associates, from doing business in the state. “To find legitimate agencies for your needs, it’s critical to do your homework first.” Many of the firms do little more than provide ordinary jobsearch assistance — overhauling résumés and cover letters, giving advice on how to network and helping sort through public job listings. While this can be a legitimate and useful service, much of it can also be obtained more cheaply. MICHAEL LUO

Genes Tied to Disparity in Hepatitis C Treatment The standard treatment for infection with the hepatitis C virus is a 48-week course of the antiviral drugs interferon and ribavirin that gives some patients flulike symptoms and severe depression. The treatment varies in its effectiveness, being much more successful in Americans of European descent than in African-Americans. A Duke University team has now uncovered the principal reason for the disparity between the races. It lies not in differing compliance to the treatment or access to health care, as some have assumed, but in genetics.

Using a genetic test called a genome-wide association study, the Duke team found that the coding at a single site on the DNA made all the difference in people’s response to the treatment. The site is close to the gene for a special kind of interferon, known as interferon-lambda-3. Some people have the DNA unit T at this site, and others have C. Since a person inherits two copies of the genome, one from each parent, individuals may have T’s on both copies, C’s on both, or one T and one C. People with the CC version, or allele, respond much better to the

standard hepatitis treatment than do those with the TT allele. The C versions are more common in Europeans than in Africans, and this explains half of the difference in the response between the two races, the Duke team said in a report released Sunday on the Web site of the journal Nature. The C versions are even more common among East Asians, about 75 percent of whom respond well to the standard treatment, compared with 55 percent of European-Americans and 25 percent of African-Americans.   NICHOLAS WADE

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in brief California Wildfires SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Hot, dry winds and high temperatures continued to fan wildfires across California Sunday. A fire near Swanton and Bonny Doon was about 50 percent contained Sunday, after burning 10 square miles since Wednesday and leading to evacuations of about 2,400 residents. The blaze threatened more than 250 homes and had damaged two outbuildings.  (AP)

Milwaukee Mayor Attacked With Pipe MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was hospitalized Sunday after a man attacked him with a metal pipe as the mayor tried to assist a grandmother yelling for help near the Wisconsin State Fair. Barrett, 55, was in stable condition at a hospital with a fractured hand and other head and hand wounds, official said. (AP)

Allstate Pitchman Dies at Age 96 NEW YORK — Ed Reimers, the actor who told television viewers ‘’you’re in good hands with Allstate’’ for decades, died Sunday in upstate New York, a relative said. He was 96. Reimers, who also was an announcer for several TV shows in the 1950s and ‘60s, died at his daughter’s home in Saratoga Springs, said Dean Lindoerfer, his nephew by marriage. The cause of Reimers’ death wasn’t immediately clear.  (AP)

In Murder Case, Thought to Be a Botched Robbery, Blogger Finds a Twist PENSACOLA, Fla. — The state attorney said it was a robbery. Byrd and Melanie Billings, the parents of 13 adopted children with special needs, were murdered in their house just a few miles from here because they were rich. But Rick Outzen, a local blogger and publisher of a small alternative weekly, heard a darker tale. A few days after the killings on July 9, someone told him that Billings used to own a seedy strip club and had a reputation for ruthlessness in the used-car business. Others, insisting on anonymity, said some

of the seven suspects charged with the murders told the police it was a contract killing. And with a 277-word blog post on July 19, Outzen, 52, became a controversial player in a case that has drawn international attention. His coverage so far has attracted assignments from The Daily Beast, and help from volunteer researchers outside Florida. It has also brought rebuttals from competing media outlets, and the threat of a lawsuit from Henry Cabell Tice, a used-car salesman here who has not been charged

in the murders and who denies claims by Outzen’s sources that he might be linked to the crime. But Outzen has not had to retract anything that he has written. The Escambia County sheriff, David Morgan, said in an interview that Outzen’s anonymous sources were largely right. Morgan would not confirm that someone paid $20,000 to $50,000 to have Billings killed, as Outzen has written, but he said the police are investigating the claim. Kevin Doyle, publisher of The Pensacola News Journal, said

Outzen is benefiting from his vocal support for Morgan in the 2008 election. But in the eyes of many here, Outzen has become an example of journalism that trades objectivity for love of place. “I don’t always agree with him, but he is the conscience of the community,” said Mort O’Sullivan, chairman of the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. “People have come to trust that Rick’s going to be out there, pushing us in ways sometimes we’re not comfortable with.”  DAMIEN CAVE

business

Monday, August 17, 2009

Tribe and Professor to Make Fuel From Algae IGNACIO, Colo. — An unusual experiment is unfolding here on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado. With the twin goals of making fuel from algae and reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, a start-up company co-founded by a Colorado State University professor recently introduced a strain of algae that loves carbon dioxide into a water tank next to a natural gas processing plant. The water is already green-tinged with life. The Southern Utes, one of the nation’s wealthiest American Indian communities thanks to its energy and real-estate investments, is a major investor in the professor’s company. It hopes to gain a toehold in what tribal leaders believe could be the next billion-dollar energy boom. The 1,400-member tribe also has a long history of herbal medicine use that made growing algae for fuel appealing. “It reminded

people of herbs that are helpful here, like bear root, which is harvested in the mountains,” said the tribe’s chairman, Matthew J. Box. The Colorado State professor, Bryan Willson, who teaches mechanical engineering and is a co-founder of the three-yearold company Solix Biofuels, said working with the Southern Utes on their land afforded his company advantages that would have been impossible in mainstream corporate America. The tribe contributed almost one-third of the $20 million in capital raised by Solix, plus free use of land and more than $1 million in equipment. “If you’re going with strict venture capital, they’re looking for a blistering return on capital in three to five years,” Dr. Willson said. “The Utes have a very long economic view. They’re making decisions now for future generations as opposed to the next quar-

ter, and that is just fundamentally different.” But the tale of any start-up is written between the margins of inspiration and hard-edged reality. More than 200 other companies are also trying to find a cost-effective, scalable way to achieve the same end. “This is still a very young industry, with a lot of claims out there that are sometimes difficult to believe,” said Al Darzins, a group manager at the lab’s National Bioenergy Center. Darzins said Solix’s model was different from most: the algae is grown in closed bags, lined up vertically in the water tanks, with the intent of increasing yield. But for every hopeful, he said, the crux will be controlling costs. “Solix has an interesting idea; whether it will work, I don’t know,” Darzins said. “It’s all going to come down to the economics.”  KIRK JOHNSON

The Newspaper That Doesn’t Want to Be Free PARIS — Not long ago, when other media executives were convinced that the only way to succeed on the Web was to give away their content, The Financial Times played the eccentric. “We were regarded as slightly freakish,” says John Ridding, the newspaper’s chief executive. Indeed, the newspaper started charging readers for access to its Web site in 2002. Now, with other publishers moving to imitate FT.com by erecting so-called pay walls, Ridding feels vindicated. The Financial Times is adding to its paid-content strategy with a

plan to accept micropayments for individual articles. FT.com has not attracted a huge paying audience, with about 117,000 worldwide, up from 101,000 in 2007. Yet FT.com is lucrative because it charges a premium for its content. A premium subscription to the Web site costs $300 a year in the United States. Adding the print version costs $100 more. Pearson said last month that operating profit at FT Publishing, the unit that includes The Financial Times, had fallen 40 percent in the first half of the year, with revenue down 13 percent. Because

of rate increases by FT.com, revenue from Web subscriptions has risen 30 percent over the last year, Ridding said. For other online publishers, the big question is whether consumers would be willing to pay for general news, as opposed to specialized financial news. “I sometimes think there’s too much fatalism around — people throwing up their hands and saying it’s not possible for general publishers to charge,” Ridding said. “I think it is possible, and necessary, for them to charge.”  ERIC PFANNER

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in brief No Deal With Firm Tied to Madoff BOSTON — The Massachusetts secretary of state’s office has rejected a proposed settlement by an investment firm to repay nearly $6 million to state investors who lost money in Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme. A spokesman for the office, Brian McNiff, said Sunday that his agency is not accepting Fairfield Greenwich Group’s offer to refund nearly a dozen investors in the state because officials are still trying to identify all the affected investors. The attorney general, William F. Galvin, filed a civil fraud complaint against Fairfield Greenwich in April, saying officials misrepresented how much they knew about the fraud.  (AP)

Bird Repellent WEST FARGO, N.D. — A West Fargo company that’s marketing an ecologically friendly repellent intended to keep blackbirds away from sunflower fields is trying to find out if its product can help limit bird strikes to airplanes. An experiment this summer at an airport showed the repellent, known as Flock Buster, drove away geese temporarily from a nearby lagoon, said John Nord, director of the Devils Lake airport. The non-toxic, viscous liquid has four different tastes and three smells demonstrated to be unpleasant to the birds.  (AP)

On the Swoopo Auction Site, Paying for the Privilege of Placing a Bid Some people will stop at nothing to snap up a bargain — even if it means paying too much. That is the paradoxical principle behind Swoopo, a Web site that offers a seductive and controversial proposition to online shoppers. The site, which started in Germany and was recently introduced in the United States, sells products in auctions that typically top out at a fraction of the retail price. This month, a new 40-inch Samsung TV, which normally sells for $1,500, sold for $67.92, and

a white LG refrigerator with a price tag of $1,498 went for $77.90. But there is a catch, of course: Swoopo users are charged 60 cents every time they bid, and those charges add up quickly. The complicated machinations behind Swoopo and its online imitators are drawing attention from critics who say they prey on human foibles, like the tendency of people to overlook small increments of money. These critics also say that players face long odds in Swoopo’s auctions, where they must compete against peo-

ple in the United States, Britain and Germany. And they say that Swoopo is making a nice profit on each item when all the bidding fees are tallied. Bidders spent a cumulative $2,337 in their losing effort to buy the $1,498 refrigerator, for example. Swoopo says it must spend much of that revenue to advertise the auctions and attract customers to the site, which it says had 2.5 million visitors in July, double the number it had a year earlier. A growing number of small imitators with names like GoBid and

Rockybid are popping up. People who use these sites say they can be addictive, frustrating and potentially rewarding. Last month, Carolyn Parslow, who manages a flea market in Trumbull, Ohio, won a new refrigerator on Swoopo for $9.66 — plus the $61.80 she spent on bids. But she says that she has lost far more auctions than she has won. “As soon as you think you have it figured out, you lose,” Parslow said. “You pull your hair out more than you jump up and down with excitement.”  BRAD STONE

business

Monday, August 17, 2009

A Reinvented AOL Blossoms as Print Retreats The name AOL, apart from conjuring echoes of the most disastrous merger in business history, redounds with the archaic sound of a phone-driven modem screeching as it connects with some fusty computers sequestered in Dulles, Va., the former headquarters of the company. But AOL is now manufacturing a broad array of digital media that is free for the grabbing. There are 300 working content producers in its New York headquarters, backed by hundreds of other freelancers and programmers in Bangalore, Dublin and Dulles, cranking out copy and editing photos for more than 80 Web sites. Politics Daily, which began in April, already has 3.6 million unique users a month, while Politico, a much more established name, has 1.1 million. In the aggregate, the media properties at AOL have about 76 million unique visitors. Part of the way that AOL has

been able to achieve quick credibility is by grabbing talent that is on the loose because of trouble in the rest of the industry. “I’m not going to deny that the availability of talent has accelerated many of our efforts,” said Martin Moe, who is in charge of the news sites at AOL. “Suddenly, in the last 18 months, this huge pool of talent has become available.” Visitors to sites like Engadget and FanHouse may not know that those sites emanate from a company that used to confine most of its communication to telling them they’ve got mail. Which is sort of the idea. Since he arrived in April, Tim Armstrong, chief executive of AOL and the former head of sales at Google, has made it clear that he expects AOL, using its MediaGlow division, to be one of the largest sources of ad-supported content on the planet. He’s a bit more chaste in person. “We are just a small little com-

pany that has gone through some challenging times that is trying to find a way to come up with ideas that will connect with an audience,” he said. This is probably version 8.0 of the revolution at AOL. When its core dial-up business began to falter, AOL was going to be the next Windows. Then it was going to be the largest media company in the world by virtue of a merger with Time Warner. Then it was an entertainment channel. Next up was an emphasis on the member experience, then a jab at providing broadband, followed by portal initiatives, free e-mail and then a huge advertising initiative called Platform A. Finally Time Warner announced plans to spin the enterprise out on its own by the end of this year. And wouldn’t it be funny if about the time that Time Warner forced AOL to stand on its own two feet, it actually was able to?  DAVID CARR

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Steel Mill Workers Fight Privatization HONG KONG — A Chinese provincial government halted the privatization of a state-owned steel mill on Sunday after thousands of workers protested last week and took an official hostage. The protests, in Henan Province in central China, were the latest sign of increasing labor activism in China’s steel industry, the world’s largest and a cornerstone of China’s economy. Three weeks ago, rioting workers beat to death an executive who had been overseeing the sale of another stateowned company, Tonghua Iron and Steel. The privatization of Tonghua was immediately postponed after that death. The official Xinhua news agency said that the workers had decided on Saturday to halt their protests, which had attracted up to 3,000 participants at a time, after a government mediation team agreed to reconsider the takeover.  KEITH BRADSHER

journal

Monday, August 17, 2009

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Kenya and Uganda Threaten to Go to War Over a Rock in Lake Victoria MIGINGO ISLAND, Lake Victoria — This little island doesn’t look like much. It’s a slab of rock, not even an acre big, packed with rusty metal shacks, heaps of garbage, glassy-eyed fishermen and squads of prostitutes, essentially a microslum bathing in the middle of Africa’s greatest lake. But baby Migingo is creating a huge fuss. The island happens to lie right along the disputed watery border between Kenya and Uganda, and politicians in the two countries have even threatened to go to war over it. The reason? Fish. Lots of them, but maybe not enough. The island is an angler’s paradise, surrounded by schools of tasty — and export-

crossword ACROSS 1 Container for serving wine 7 Kindergarten learning 11 Sounds during backrubs 14 Witty 15 Lunch or dinner 16 Gift at Honolulu airport 17 1966 19 Norse war god 20 Treasury secretary Geithner 21 ___ guy (one who gets things done) 22 Flank 23 Drinking cup 26 With 51-Across, roles for 17-, 38and 62-Across 28 Big part of an elephant 29 Jacob’s first wife 32 Pictures at a hospital 33 City on the Black Sea 36 Actress Zellweger 38 1989 42 Theater walkway 43 Came out with

Edited By Will Shortz PUZZLE BY MIKE BUCKLEY

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DOWN 300 2 Ginger ___ 3 Place to pull over 4 Be of help to 5 Physicist Enrico 6 Flub 7 Bullets and BBs 8 Borscht vegetable 1 Roman

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able — Nile perch. But Lake Victoria, one of the world’s biggest bodies of fresh water, which 30 million impoverished Africans depend on for their survival, may be running out of these fish. According to a recent study, Nile perch stocks are down by nearly 70 percent, and several fish factories have recently closed, threatening a crucial African industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But there may be an even bigger issue here — the lake itself. Lake Victoria, like so many other lakes across Africa — Lake Chad, Lake Faguibine in Mali and Lake Wamala in Uganda — is rapidly receding. Water levels have dropped more than three feet in the last ten years and explosive algae blooms, which

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8/17/09 (No. 0817)

9 Chocolate

When doubled, a substitute villain’s chuckle 10 ___-mo 34 Close calls, perhaps 11 Nissan sedan 35 One taking to the 12 Period of one’s slopes prime 13 Fire truck sounds 37 Static, e.g. 39 Nobel Prize18 Double curve winning U.N. 22 Emphasize workers’ grp. 23 Pooh-bah hired 40 On empty by a board of 41 6:30 p.m. directors broadcast 24 Muslim’s 44 Female deer pilgrimage 45 Norwegian 25 Family groups coastal features 27 Leaps in ice46 Skin soother skating 30 Like parabolas 47 Like 31

49

Draw like Albrecht Dürer

52

Where the action is

54

Where the action is

55

Helen who sang “I Am Woman”

58

Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple ___”

59

See 62-Down

62

With 59-Down, something flying off the shelves

63

___ États-Unis

64

Double curve

65

Letter between pi and sigma

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.

cover the lake’s surface like a coat of thick green paint, are choking off the fish. It is irrefutable evidence, environmentalists say, of climate change, overpopulation, pollution, deforestation and a dozen other modern ills coming to a head in a vital corner of Africa that is not prepared to deal with it. “You’ve got an ecosystem that is totally out of balance now,” said Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, which has been closely watching Lake Victoria. “It should be an extreme concern for anybody who cares about the future of 30 million people. The pressures on this huge natural asset in east Africa are increasing.” A bilateral border commission is now poring over dusty colonial documents, trying to figure out if Migingo is in Kenya or Uganda, but the commission itself has been beset by financial woes and rival patriotic feelings. The Ugandan government claims that Migingo is in Ugandan waters and that it is illegal for Kenyans to fish there. The subtext is that fish are essential to Uganda’s economy, which does not have the manufacturing or tourism industries that Kenya has. According to Henry Aryamanya-Mugisha, director of Uganda’s environmental protection agency, overpopulation and overfarming on the Kenyan side of the lake are decimating these wetlands where the fish spawn. At the same time, rapid deforestation is reducing the amount of rainfall that flows into the lake, and all the new development in the area is pumping fertilizer, industrial pollutants and even raw sewage into the water. “It’s very, very sad,” Aryamanya-Mugisha said. “It’s happening so fast. Five years ago there were plenty of fish.” That is why Migingo is so ideal. The water around it is relatively deep and filled with perch, and once there, fishermen do not spend as much on fuel, because they basically cast a line and pull up dinner. “It’s like no other place,” said Charles Okumu Chambu, a Migingo angler.  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

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opinion

Monday, August 17, 2009

e d i t o r i a l s of t h e t i m e S

Paul Krugman

The View From the Bottom

The Swiss Menace

Federal Reserve policy makers said last Wednesday that the recession appeared to be hitting bottom. Among the end-is-near indicators was consumer spending which they said had begun to stabilize. On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that retail sales fell in July, after rising in May and June. It turns out that the earlier boosts had come mainly from higher prices for necessities like energy, not from more spending on more items. And while the government’s cash-for-clunkers program boosted car sales last month, retail sales on everything else fell by 0.6 percent, a much worse showing than economists had expected. The downbeat news was reinforced on Friday, when the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index also fell unexpectedly. Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70 percent of economic activity. So the latest data could be a warning that the recession is not bottoming out, as the Fed believes. Or — almost as grim — the data may be evidence that hitting the bottom will not be followed by a rebound, but by a long spell of very weak growth. The good news is that over the next several months, stimulus spending is likely to lift economic growth considerably. Policymakers, eager to declare the recession over, need to pay close attention and be ready to do more to rescue the economy. Otherwise there is a high risk that once the stimulus begins to fade, the economy will too. Consumer spending won’t truly recover until employment revives. Unfortunately,

job growth is not expected to resume before next year. From there, it could take another two years or so to recoup the devastating job losses of this recession. Spending will also be restrained as households work off their heavy debt loads and try to rebuild the trillions of dollars of wealth they have lost in the housing and stock markets. At the same time, families will face more pressure from higher state taxes and from cuts in public services. The financial system is also not out of the woods. Commercial property loans are increasingly prone to default. Mid-sized and smaller banks, heavy lenders to developers, are especially in harm’s way. Many will fail, and as they do, credit will become even harder to come by for businesses and consumers. And the residential foreclosure crisis continues. Joblessness, weak spending and state fiscal distress will all require more federal spending — on unemployment benefits and aid to states, to replace the demand that is lost as consumers retrench. Bank weakness will require federal regulators to efficiently shut down insolvent institutions, so that losses do not deepen and make eventual failures even more damaging. Mounting home foreclosures will require the Obama administration and Congress to come up with alternatives to current — inadequate — relief efforts. It is already clear that policy makers need to do more to ensure that whenever the bottom comes, the economy does not stay mired there.

Intel’s Human Rights Intel has decided to appeal the $1.45 billion fine leveled against it by the European Union for engaging in anti-competitive behavior and it is claiming that the proceedings have violated its human right to due process. Several European companies are also testing the tactic to fend off Europe’s aggressive antitrust regulator. They argue that in antitrust cases the European Commission unfairly plays the role of prosecutor, judge and jury — hindering their ability to mount an effective defense. They argue they should instead be entitled to the due process rights that European Human Rights law grants in criminal cases to ensure that the accused — usually powerless individuals— are not steamroller by the overwhelming power of the state. This concept of powerlessness doesn’t fit Intel, a company with annual sales of $38 billion. It especially doesn’t fit given what it was found guilty of: giving hidden rebates to computer makers that bought all or virtually all of their chips from Intel and even paying some to delay or hinder the introduction of products that had microprocessors from its rival, Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel has already hired a squadron of lawyers and is appealing the Commission’s decision before Europe’s Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, Europe’s lower court. If it doesn’t like what that court says, it can appeal its case to the European Court of Justice. The process is all quite similar to what happens when the Federal Trade Commission in this country rules against a company for violating antitrust law. FTC cases are tried before an FTC administrative law judge — an FTC employee. Any appeal must then go to the FTC’s five commissioners. Only after that can a company appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals. American regulators have been far less vigilant than the E.U. The FTC only opened a formal investigation into Intel’s business last year, after rulings against the company by Japan and Korea, and a preliminary decision by the E.U. that Intel was abusing its dominant position. We suspect that at least part of the motivation for Intel’s human right’s bid is to raise sympathy among American anti-trust regulators for a poor abused American near-monopoly — and thereby blunt any impulse to follow. The FTC should know better.

7

Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world. Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. There are, however, wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches taken. In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person as we do. By the way, our own Veterans Health Administration, which is run somewhat like the British health service, also combines quality care with low costs. The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills. That’s how Canada and, in a more complex fashion, France do it. It’s also a system familiar to most Americans, since even those of us not yet on Medicare have parents and relatives who are. Again, you hear a lot of horror stories about such systems, most of them false. French health care is excellent. Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular. Finally, the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or preexisting conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies. So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage. If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route. True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That’s why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort. But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work. So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

sports

Monday, August 17, 2009

Boldly, Bolt Rewrites 100-Meter Record Book BERLIN — All those curious to know just how fast Usain Bolt might have gone if he had not stopped sprinting near the end of his world-record run at the Olympics last year now have a clearer answer. Bolt pushed himself from start to finish Sunday night, and the result was a time of 9.58 seconds in the men’s 100-meter final at the world track and field championships: eleven-hundredths of a second better than his game-changing mark of 9.69 in Beijing. Tyson Gay, the understated American who was considered Bolt’s biggest threat here, ran the race of his life, setting a national record of 9.71. But Gay was beaten convincingly in the Olympic Stadium as Bolt took the biggest bite out of the men’s 100 record since electronic timing became mandatory for record ratification in 1977.

At the start of the 2008 season, Bolt was a novice 100-meter runner better known for his vast potential in the 200. Less than two years later, Boit has become the first man to crack the 9.7-second barrier and the 9.6-second barrier, which were considered distant dreams only a few years ago. The scary part for Bolt’s rivals is that he is still just 22, well short of the traditional prime age for sprinters. “I’m really happy Usain Bolt won the record,” Gay said. “I know that might sound strange. I knew it was humanly possible for someone to run that fast. Unfortunately it wasn’t me. I’m very happy with the race.” Bolt was up to his usual antics before the start, striking a lighting-bolt pose and covering his face with his hand and then removing it to reveal a variety of expressions.

After all that, he got off to a fine start by his standards in Lane 4. Men of his height — Bolt stands 6 feet 5 inches — are generally slower out of the blocks than their more compact rivals. Bolt did not stop running after the finish line. Title and record secure, he slapped his chest and loped 100 more meters around the curve, celebrating his first world championship gold medal to go with the three Olympic golds he won last year in Beijing. Bolt said that his priority was not the record, which deserves a spot on the short list of the greatest track and field performances if Bolt’s drug tests are and remain negative. “For me, it was all about going and winning, because I knew these guys were ready,” he said. “Tyson was doing well all season.”  CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

Yang, Ranked 110th, Is First to Topple Woods CHASKA, Minn. — Y. E. Yang, ranked No. 110 in the world, took on No. 1 Tiger Woods and never blinked. Yang, of South Korea, stunned Woods on Sunday at Hazeltine National by shooting a two-underpar 70 in the final round to win the P.G.A. Championship with a score of eight-under 280. Woods finished three strokes back after a final-round 75, and Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy tied for third at 285. Yang, 37, became the first Korean man to win one of golf’s four major championships. He was also the first golfer to overtake

Woods in a major championship in which Woods had the lead going into the final round. Woods missed his final par putt — one of eight putts from inside 10 feet he missed on Sunday. He putted out for the 75, which tied his highest closing round as a professional in a major championship. The losing margin was a five-shot swing from the start of the day, which Woods entered leading by two. “You never know in life, this might be my last win as a golfer,” Yang, smiling, said through an interpreter. “But this is a great day. It’s going to be a great foundation

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 88/ 71 0 86/ 71 C 90/ 70 PC Albuquerque 90/ 63 0 92/ 62 S 87/ 64 PC Boise 77/ 51 0 82/ 54 S 88/ 57 S Boston 87/ 71 0 92/ 71 S 94/ 73 S Buffalo 86/ 66 0 89/ 70 S 82/ 70 T Charlotte 84/ 66 0.03 89/ 68 C 91/ 68 PC Chicago 88/ 70 0 84/ 69 T 82/ 65 PC Cleveland 91/ 66 0 94/ 70 S 87/ 71 T Dallas-Ft. Worth 97/ 79 0 99/ 78 S 98/ 78 PC Denver 78/ 46 0 74/ 53 PC 78/ 55 PC Detroit 90/ 69 0 86/ 70 T 85/ 69 T

for me to continue playing on the PGA Tour.” It was new territory for Woods, who had built a 14-0 record in the majors he led after 54 holes. He was stoic afterward, more angry about his putting than anything else. “I hit the ball so much better than my score indicates,” he said. “I hit it great all day, and just didn’t make anything. I played well enough to win the golf tournament, but I did not putt well enough to win the golf tournament. It was just a bad day at the wrong time, and that’s the way it goes.”  LARRY DORMAN

Houston 95/ 75 0 95/ 77 PC 94/ 77 C Kansas City 84/ 71 1.43 82/ 70 T 82/ 65 PC Los Angeles 77/ 64 0 79/ 63 PC 80/ 64 PC Miami 91/ 73 0.07 91/ 82 PC 89/ 80 PC Mpls.-St. Paul 77/ 71 0.25 78/ 61 PC 79/ 59 PC New York City 91/ 73 0 92/ 72 S 92/ 73 S Orlando 91/ 73 0.10 92/ 74 PC 90/ 76 T Philadelphia 91/ 70 0 93/ 70 S 94/ 71 S Phoenix 105/ 81 0 108/ 81 S 108/ 81 S Salt Lake City 76/ 48 0 80/ 51 PC 83/ 55 S San Francisco 73/ 55 0 74/ 56 PC 76/ 56 PC Seattle 73/ 54 0 80/ 55 S 80/ 58 S St. Louis 90/ 78 0 88/ 72 T 86/ 71 C Washington 92/ 71 0 93/ 72 S 94/ 73 S

FOREIGN CITIES Acapulco Athens Beijing Berlin Buenos Aires Cairo

Yesterday Today Tomorrow 94/ 77 0.08 88/ 75 T 88/ 77 T 89/ 75 0 88/ 68 S 88/ 70 S 88/ 79 0 82/ 73 T 82/ 73 C 89/ 61 0 84/ 63 PC 77/ 57 PC 54/ 46 0.55 59/ 43 PC 57/ 41 C 93/ 75 0 95/ 73 S 95/ 75 S

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

in brief Jankovic Vanquishes World’s Top Player MASON, Ohio — Neutralizing the world No. 1, Dinara Safina, Jelena Jankovic cruised to a 6-4, 6-2 victory at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. Jankovic’s victory was the first of her career against a current No. 1 and was made all the sweeter by the fact that Jankovic held the top spot at the start of the year. She had fallen to No. 5 but will move to No. 4. after her showing here. (NYT)

Mets’ David Wright Is on Disabled List The Mets placed David Wright on the disabled list with postconcussion symptoms Sunday, the day after a 93-mile-anhour fastball from Giants pitcher Matt Cain hit him with such force that it knocked off his helmet.  (NYT)

AL Scores Sunday’s Games Kansas City 3, Detroit 2 L.A. Angels 17, Baltimore 8 Tampa Bay 5, Toronto 2 Texas 4, Boston 3 Cleveland 7, Minnesota 4 Oakland 3, Chi White Sox 2 Seattle 10, NY Yankees 3

NL Scores Sunday’s Games NY Mets 3, San Francisco 2 Washington 5, Cincinnati 4 Florida 10, Colorado 3 Colorado 7, Florida 3 (make-up game) Houston 8, Milwaukee 5 St. Louis 7, San Diego 5 Pittsburgh at Chicago, ppd., rain L.A. Dodgers 9, Arizona 3 Philadelphia at Atlanta, late 75/ 43 0.01 64/ 55 0.20 91/ 61 0 93/ 82 Tr 91/ 79 0 66/ 60 0 78/ 59 0 99/ 64 0 80/ 53 0 85/ 70 0 69/ 50 0.24 91/ 79 Tr 90/ 61 0 86/ 57 0 85/ 61 0 92/ 68 0 53/ 39 0.94 69/ 57 0 79/ 48 0 92/ 75 0 84/ 68 0 66/ 55 0 85/ 54 0

68/ 52 PC 66/ 55 Sh 88/ 68 PC 90/ 81 C 88/ 79 T 70/ 59 S 75/ 55 PC 97/ 70 S 77/ 50 Sh 90/ 66 PC 79/ 57 PC 93/ 79 T 82/ 63 PC 88/ 70 PC 86/ 66 S 90/ 72 S 54/ 32 C 70/ 55 Sh 70/ 50 S 86/ 72 PC 86/ 72 PC 77/ 57 C 86/ 64 PC

59/ 45 R 66/ 55 C 88/ 66 S 90/ 81 PC 90/ 79 Sh 70/ 59 S 77/ 54 PC 95/ 73 S 72/ 52 Sh 90/ 68 T 75/ 63 T 93/ 81 T 86/ 60 S 79/ 59 S 86/ 66 S 90/ 70 S 46/ 36 R 68/ 52 R 68/ 48 S 84/ 72 C 79/ 64 T 81/ 59 PC 75/ 59 PC

sports journal

Monday, August 17, 2009

For Olympics, Vancouver Ponders Its Ice VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Ice appears such a simple concoction — water turned really cold. This time of year, its favored role is usually the one it plays at the bottom of a glass. But ice is a year-round, lifelong science for the people hired by the Vancouver Organizing Committee to produce complex forms of it for the Winter Olympics, coming in February. Beyond the usual challenges in constructing ice surfaces to meet the needs of different sports in different arenas, Vancouver’s location presents a twist, with its combination of sea-level elevation and high humidity, unique among Winter Olympic host cities. Toss in the usual broadcast demands accompanying the Olympics — extra banks of hot lights and inflexible event schedules among them — and the so-called icemeisters may want to make some extra cubes for a stiff drink. Already, six months before the Olympics, they oversee a busy calendar of events and training sessions to test the limits of the refrigeration systems, and gauge the effects of spectators in the building and athletes on the ice. They experiment with water filtration and air circulation and train teams of workers in the art of resurfacing. About half of the Olympic events will take place on carefully crafted ice between one and two inches thick. Varying by arena, it must be a specific temperature, texture, composition, even color

(thank you, television), whether spread across a vast surface inside an arena or down the side of a mountain. It must hold its consistency for weeks despite the collaborative efforts of ice’s enemies, from the obvious (the sun, sharp objects and thundering 1,400-pound bobsleds) to the not-so-obvious (open arena doors, spectators and spinning 90-pound figure skaters). “You can’t just go out there and make ice,” said Hans Wuthrich, in charge of the surface at the newly built curling arena, where the final step is a delicate spritz of scientifically configured water droplets strong enough to alter the course of 44 pounds of sliding granite. The five ice specialists, each with deep Canadian ties, have extensive experience from previous Olympics. On behalf of ice, they helped design new locales and the upgrades to existing ones. They toured Vancouver’s water-treatment plants to study their product’s key ingredient. They ponder every ice-dooming possibility. Consider the challenge facing Tracy Seitz, who will make ice for competitors in bobsled, luge and skeleton at the Whistler Sliding Centre. The serpentine track, nearly a mile long, starts at an elevation of 3,080 feet and drops to 2,582 feet. In February, it sometimes snows at the top and rains at the bottom. Occasionally, the opposite occurs. The track’s straight parts are

U-shaped. High-banked curves are C-shaped, arcing up about 15 feet to a gravity-defying overhang to accommodate speeds of more than 95 miles an hour. Parts of the track angle toward the midday sun. Parts are always in shadow. Some competitions will be at night. The trick is to keep the ice, no matter the forces working against it, between 24 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Warmer, and the outer layers can turn slushy. Colder, and the brittle ice can crack in sheets. Inconsistencies can be dangerous, even fatal. “We want to make sure the ice doesn’t change considerably in the heat of a race,” Seitz said. Competitions can take several hours, he noted. But medals are often determined by hundredths of a second. Even indoors, most ice begins the same way — atop concrete disguising a maze of refrigeration pipes. Water is added in thin layers because that makes stronger ice than filling a rink with an inch of water as if it were a giant ice-cube tray. “The water in Vancouver is incredible,” said Mark Messer, the icemeister for the Richmond Olympic Oval, where speed skating will take place. “It’s very, very clean. We have a filtration unit that we’re using at Richmond, and when putting it through there it almost makes the water too clean. You need to have a slight bit of impurities there to just kind of hold things together.”  JOHN BRANCH

Murray Moves Past Nadal Into No. 2 Ranking MONTREAL — Andy Murray lingered on center court at Stade Uniprix long after his match. He signed oversized tennis balls, programs, hats, even an arm that was thrust at him from the grandstand. It had been that kind of week. In winning the Rogers Cup, Murray overtook Rafael Nadal for the No. 2 ranking; tied Nadal for most titles this year with five; added $435,500 to his bank account; won his ATP Tour-leading 50th singles match this season; and bolstered his confidence for the United States Open. After outlasting Juan Martín del Potro on Sunday afternoon, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-1, Murray opened a

585-point lead on Nadal for the No. 2 ranking. The Open begins Aug. 31; Murray lost in the final last year to Roger Federer. At Wimbledon, the last tournament Murray played before this one, he fell in the semifinals. Murray said he had answered the same question over and over about how he would come back. “This was the perfect way,” he said. The Rogers Cup final was billed as a contest between young stars with contrasting styles. Murray, 22, is a complete player, built with the body of an accountant, who has what many believe is the best return in tennis. Opposite him stood the sixth-ranked del Potro, 20, a big-bodied banger with one of the

fastest serves on the tour. What followed was more toplevel tennis at the Rogers Cup, where the top eight players in the rankings advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time in men’s tennis. Del Potro took the first set without breaking Murray’s serve. It was the only set Murray lost in the tournament. Del Potro had defeated Nadal and Roddick to reach the final, but in the third set Sunday, he ran out of energy during his ninth match — and sixth three-setter — in the past two weeks. Asked what made the difference in the 2-hour-44-minute match, Murray said, “He obviously was tired.” GREG BISHOP

9

AL STANDINGS East

Yankees Boston Tampa Bay Toronto Baltimore Central

Detroit Chicago Minnesota Cleveland Kansas City West

Los Angeles Texas Seattle Oakland

W

L

74 66 63 55 48

44 51 54 61 69

Pct

GB

.627 — .564 7{ .538 10{ .474 18 .410 25{

W

L

Pct

GB

62 60 56 51 46

55 58 61 66 71

.530 .508 .479 .436 .393

— 2{ 6 11 16

Pct

GB

W

L

70 66 61 52

45 50 57 65

.609 — .569 4{ .517 10{ .444 19

al Leaders G AB R H Pct. Mauer Min 92 353 69 133 .377 ISuzuki Sea 110 486 69 175 .360 Bartlett TB 96 351 63 120 .342 MiCabrera Det 114 436 69 144 .330 Jeter NYY 112 473 79 153 .323 Cano NYY 117 471 79 151 .321 Rolen Tor 88 338 52 108 .320 Crawford TB 116 464 77 148 .319 MYoung Tex 113 457 65 145 .317 Figgins LAA 113 446 92 139 .312 Home Runs CPena, Tampa Bay, 31; Teixeira, New York, 30; AHill, Toronto, 28; Morneau, Minnesota, 28. Runs Batted In Morneau, Minnesota, 94; Longoria, Tampa Bay, 88; Teixeira, New York, 86; Bay, Boston, 83. Pitching Beckett, Boston, 14-4; Halladay, Toronto, 13-5; Verlander, Detroit, 13-6; Sabathia, New York, 13-7.

NL STANDINGS East

Philadelphia Florida Atlanta Mets Washington Central

St. Louis Chicago Milwaukee Houston Cincinnati Pittsburgh West

Los Angeles Colorado San Francisco Arizona San Diego

W

L

65 63 61 55 43

49 55 55 62 75

W

L

67 60 58 57 50 46

52 55 59 61 67 70

W

L

70 65 63 54 49

48 53 54 64 70

Pct

GB

.570 — .534 4 .526 5 .470 11{ .364 24 Pct

GB

.563 — .522 5 .496 8 .483 9{ .427 16 .397 19{ Pct

GB

.593 — .551 5 .538 6{ .458 16 .412 21{

NL leaders G AB R H Pct. HaRamirez Fla 110 427 76 152 .356 Sandoval SF 111 421 52 139 .330 Pujols StL 117 412 93 134 .325 DWright NYM 115 426 74 138 .324 Helton Col 110 406 60 129 .318 Braun Mil 114 453 84 143 .316 Tejada Hou 116 473 59 148 .313 CaLee Hou 117 444 52 139 .313 FLopez Mil 110 445 60 139 .312 Victorino Phi 110 447 81 139 .311 Home Runs Pujols, St. Louis, 38; Reynolds, Arizona, 37; AdGonzalez, San Diego, 32; Dunn, Washington, 31; Fielder, Milwaukee, 30; Howard, Philadelphia, 28; Ibanez, Philadelphia, 27. Runs Batted In Fielder, Milwaukee, 105; Pujols, St. Louis, 104; Howard, Philadelphia, 87; Braun, Milwaukee, 86; Dunn, Washington, 86; HaRamirez, Florida, 82; DLee, Chicago, 81; Reynolds, Arizona, 81. Pitching Wainwright, St. Louis, 14-7; JSantana, New York, 13-8; Marquis, Colorado, 13-8; JoJohnson, Florida, 12-2; CCarpenter, St. Louis, 12-3; Lincecum, San Francisco, 12-3; Cain, San Francisco, 12-4.