Michael Perez/Associated Press
Nick Foles being sacked by Akiem Hicks and Cameron Jordan in the second half, during which the teams scored 37 points. More Photos »
PHILADELPHIA — The New Orleans Saints joined the N.F.L. in 1967 and did not make the playoffs for 20 years. It took the Saints another 13 years to win a playoff game. And Saturday night, 46 seasons after their debut in the N.F.L., they finally won a road playoff game.
A 32-yard field goal by Shayne Graham as time expired in the game gave New Orleans a 26-24 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in an N.F.C. wild-card game at Lincoln Financial Field.
"I told the team to carry your own history," Coach Sean Payton said of the Saints' winless record in road playoff games. "It's a stereotype. It goes with a team that plays in a dome. I thought we traveled pretty well tonight."
An uneven game that began sleepily suddenly turned electrifying and tense in a seesaw fourth quarter as Philadelphia quarterback Nick Foles and his counterpart Drew Brees dueled.
With the Saints leading by 23-17 midway through the quarter, Foles led the Eagles on a 77-yard drive. The key sequence ended with a pass-interference penalty on Saints cornerback Corey White that netted Philadelphia 40 yards and gave them a first down at the New Orleans 3. Two plays later, Foles threw to Zach Ertz for the go-ahead touchdown and a 24-23 Eagles lead with less than five minutes to play.
But the Saints' Darren Sproles returned the ensuing kickoff 39 yards and there was a 15-yard penalty for a horse-collar tackle tacked onto the end of the return. Two plays later, the Saints had advanced to the Eagles' 35.
The Saints methodically worked the football closer to the end zone, trying to use up as much clock as possible. With three seconds left, the Saints took their final time out, setting up the winning kick, Graham's fourth field goal of the game.
With the final score of the game, the teams had combined for 16 points in the fourth quarter and 37 in the second half.
New Orleans will travel to Seattle next weekend to play the Seahawks, the top-seeded team in the N.F.C.
Trailing by 7-6 at the start of the second half, the Saints seemed intent on establishing the run game. It was a successful strategy as running back Mark Ingram gained 24 yards on three carries. The drive culminated with a 24-yard touchdown pass from Brees to Lance Moore. It was a typically intricate Saints play. With multiple receivers working the sidelines, Brees waited in the pocket as Moore, releasing late and working underneath, sprung free in the middle of the field.
Once Moore caught the pass, he was able to easily weave his way into the end zone because most of the Philadelphia defenders were in coverage on the edges of the field.
The touchdown gave the Saints a 13-7 lead.
After an ineffective Eagles drive, Brees was at it again, converting on a third-and-12 with a 14-yard completion to Kenny Stills. He then threw to tight end Benjamin Watson for 27 yards, which advanced the Saints deep into Eagles' territory. The drive ended with a 4-yard touchdown run by Ingram and a 20-7 New Orleans lead with 3:54 left in the third.
The Eagles decided that they could run the football, too, and behind LeSean McCoy mounted a touchdown drive. McCoy cut the New Orleans lead to 20-14 on a 1-yard plunge. What's more, the Saints lost cornerback Keenan Lewis on the drive, when he sustained a head injury on a tackle. His absence unleashed the Eagles' talented wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who caught two passes from Foles.
Jackson also had a 29-yard punt return that set up a 31-yard field goal by Alex Henery that cut the Saints' lead to 20-17 early in the fourth. But Brees managed to rally the Saints, connecting with wide receiver Robert Meacham for 40 yards. That reception led to a 35-yard field goal by Graham and a 23-17 New Orleans lead.
"We felt pretty good when it was only 7-6 at the half, considering everything that had gone wrong for us," Payton said.
Though much was made of the Saints having to play in the winter elements of the Northeastern corridor as opposed to the domed stadium in New Orleans where they were undefeated this season, the game was played in relatively benign conditions. The game time temperature was 25 degrees with only a 5-mile-per-hour wind.
So bad weather was not an excuse for the sloppy play by both teams early. The Saints' opening drive of the game was disrupted by a false start on fourth down.
Philadelphia's first few drives were no better.
New Orleans had another promising drive that reached Philadelphia territory late in the first quarter, but Brees overthrew Stills down the right sideline and was intercepted by Bradley Fletcher.
The turnover sparked the Eagles' offense, which moved 58 yards on 10 plays until it had a first down at the New Orleans 15. Foles was getting plenty of time in the pocket, allowing him to wait for plays to develop. But on first down at the 15, a short throwback pass to Brent Celek lost 8 yards. Then Foles was sacked, and the Eagles did not recover. Henery then missed a 48-yard field-goal attempt to keep the game scoreless.
Brees completed three passes to move the Saints to the Eagles' 20. Facing another fourth down, the Saints were once again whistled for a false start. They settled for a 36-yard field goal by Graham to take a 3-0 lead.
The Eagles' offense was still struggling — until they were again jump-started by a Brees turnover. An interception by linebacker DeMeco Ryans gave Philadelphia the ball at the New Orleans 44. Foles found Riley Cooper for a 22-yard reception. Another Foles completion and two runs by McCoy put the Eagles at the Saints' 10.
On second down, Foles waited in the pocket for nearly six seconds, until finding Cooper in the back left of the end zone for a 7-3 Philadelphia lead with 1:48 to play in the first half.
New Orleans rebounded, however, with Brees leading the Saints 47 yards, and Graham booting a 46-yard field goal on the final play before intermission.
By BILL PENNINGTON 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/sports/football/after-long-wait-good-things-come-to-visiting-saints.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Courtesy of O&M Co.
Audience members threw red and white roses onto the Foxwoods Theater stage for the last Broadway performance of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."
It wouldn't have been a fitting final performance of Broadway's "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" if something hadn't gone wrong.
The $75 million production of "Spider-Man," the most expensive musical in history and one of the most troubled, ended a run of three years and two months on Saturday night with a final show that dazzled audience members as the superhero flew over their heads in the most elaborate aerial stunts ever on Broadway. But the special-effects-laden musical, which drew headlines for a string of technical problems and cast injuries, did endure one glitch on Saturday: a door handle failed to close properly on the villainous Green Goblin's metamorphosis machine, causing a crew member to dash out on stage and snap it into place while a musical number was underway.
The 1,900-strong audience roared with approval and applause at the sight of the stagehand, whose quick work helped insure the safety of the actor inside the goblin's machine. And to be fair, it was the briefest of errors – nothing on par with the five times that "Spider-Man" had to stop entirely during its first preview performance on Nov. 28, 2010, the star-crossed debut of a production whose difficulties turned it into a national punchline and an object of ghoulish fascination.
There were no speeches on Saturday night until the curtain call, when the actor Robert Cuccioli, who played the Green Goblin, thanked "the vast array of dedicated and talented people backstage" who had worked on the show. He then asked them to join the cast for a bow, and also called out the musical's lead producers, Michael Cohl and Jeremiah Harris, and its current director, Philip William McKinley.
As audience members threw red and white roses onto the Foxwoods Theater stage, two of the musical's former stars, Reeve Carney (who played Peter Parker for two and a half years) and Patrick Page (who won strong reviews as the Green Goblin), also ran onto the stage with bouquets for current cast members. A couple of actors held banners that read, "Always Bet on Red (and Blue)!" and "Vegas, Baby!," the latter a reference to the producers' announcement that they intend to open a revamped version of "Spider-Man" in Las Vegas in 2015.
No mention was made of the show's famous composers, Bono and the Edge of U2, nor its original director, Julie Taymor, who was fired during preview performances after clashing with the two musicians and the producers over strategies to improve "Spider-Man." Bono, the Edge, and Ms. Taymor did not attend Saturday's performance; only the fourth creator of the show, Glen Berger, who co-wrote the script with Ms. Taymor, was in the audience. (Mr. Berger has been busy lately selling copies of a tell-all memoir about the making of the musical and the ensuing infighting.)
The vibe inside the theater was festive, with Mr. Carney, Mr. Page and other audience members going to lengths to loudly applaud the first entrances of several actors. The performance included only one inside joke about the closing of the show: A character reads aloud a newspaper headline, "Super-hero mega-musical defies doubters, runs three years on Broadway." A cast party was also planned for later that night at John's Pizzeria in Times Square.
"Spider-Man" had 1,268 performances in all, a healthy run by Broadway standards – but not nearly enough to come close to earning back the original $75 million capitalization to create and stage the musical. Most Broadway musicals are capitalized at between $10 million to $15 million; the costs for "Spider-Man" were much higher because of years-long delays in making the show as well as hefty set and costume budgets, salaries for scores of people on the creative team, and a costly retooling of the show during previews, among many other budget items.
The producers and investors on "Spider-Man" are expected to lose up to $60 million on the Broadway run, though they could still see some financial return if the show runs in Las Vegas and proves popular. The producers are negotiating with the Las Vegas casino owner Steve Wynn about putting the musical into one of his properties and adding even more special effects. Final terms have yet to be reached.
While the musical grossed more than $210 million over its Broadway run, profits were relatively low because ticket sales were barely enough to cover the show's record-high running costs, which totaled between $1 million and $1.3 million each week. (The running costs were in addition to the $75 million capitalization.) "Spider-Man" would have had to run for at least seven years on Broadway to recoup the $75 million investment, according to the producers, though other theater executives estimated that it would have taken even longer.
The musical benefited early on from unprecedented media coverage of cast injuries, aerial stunt problems and backstage fights (culminating in the ouster of Ms. Taymor), and countless theatergoers no doubt purchased tickets out of curiosity. The producers had hoped that all the attention might draw in audience members who would then tell friends and neighbors that the show itself was actually good, while also counting on the popularity of "Spider-Man" to attract families and tourists.
Ticket sales were strong for a year and a half after the media frenzy died down, but they began to decline noticeably by the fall of 2012. Some weeks in 2013 were even worse, as competition increased from new family musicals like "Cinderella" and "Matilda" and spectacle-driven shows like "Pippin." By August, when the "Spider-Man" grosses fell below $1 million for the first time for an eight-performance week, the question looming over the show was when it would close, not if.
But the show's highs and lows weren't on the minds of several audience members on Saturday night. They cared only about the highs.
"Spider-man's my favorite super-hero, so I loved it," said Will Gercich, 12, of Secaucus, N.J., after the performance. "When he started flying around the theater, it just felt so incredible to watch."
"Will really wanted to see the very last performance," added his mother, Patricia, as they waited at the stage door for cast members to sign autographs.
"It was a special occasion," said Will, who fell in love with the superhero from comic books. "I'll never forget the show."
By PATRICK HEALY 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/theater/spider-man.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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BARDALA, West Bank — The residents of this neglected Palestinian farming village in the northern Jordan Valley area of the West Bank say they get running water once every three days, which they store in bottles and cisterns.
The neighboring Jewish settlement of Mehola is a small paradise by comparison, with green lawns and a swimming pool.
The contrasts across this stark landscape of jagged hills reflect the complexities of the fierce contest for control of the Jordan Valley, and the challenges the Palestinians face in administration. As Israeli and Palestinian negotiators struggle to make headway on peace talks initiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, they have remained bitterly at odds over the strategic corridor that runs between the populous heartland of the West Bank and the border with Jordan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel insists on maintaining a long-term Israeli military presence along the border to prevent infiltrations and weapons smuggling from the east. Some in his Likud Party say there is no security or strategic depth without the settlements and argue that Israel should annex the area permanently. The Palestinians insist that Israel withdraw its forces and settlements so they can control their own borders as part of an independent and sovereign state.
But for the residents of the Jordan Valley, where the long summers are intense and the black flies ubiquitous, the diplomatic jockeying is secondary to the hard realities facing two intertwined, adversarial communities. While settlers worry they will lose their homes, the Palestinians, who view the fertile valley as the breadbasket of a future state, are concerned that Israel will continue to control nearly all the water and land.
"We live at their mercy," said Dirar Sawafta, an employee of the Bardala village council.
Some 60,000 Palestinians live here in scattered villages and the ancient oasis city of Jericho. They farm about 8,600 acres of the land, much of it leased from wealthy Palestinian landowners in Jerusalem and Nablus. Many complain of mismanagement and dysfunction on the part of the Palestinian Authority, which administers Jericho and the villages, as well as the strictures of Israeli military rule.
The 6,500 Israeli settlers live in 21 small communities interspersed with army bases. Farming nearly 13,000 acres, they use treated wastewater to irrigate their abundant date groves and employ 6,000 Palestinians in a thriving agricultural enterprise adapted to the semitropical climate.
Palestinian leaders contend that Israel wants to remain here indefinitely out of economic interests. Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator, who lives in Jericho and represents the Jordan Valley in the Palestinian legislature, listed the settlers' assets: "The biggest palm farms, the biggest grape farms, turkey farms and alligator lakes."
Yet the Jordan Valley settlers — many of whom came in search of a pastoral life under the aegis of security-minded Labor-led governments after the 1967 war — live with growing uncertainty that the government will support their continued presence there.
In 1997, during his first term as prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu wrote a letter to the settlers saying that "the Jordan Valley will be an integral part of the state of Israel under any agreement."
But many settlers here note that Mr. Netanyahu now speaks only of maintaining a military presence.
In Bardala, the issues are complex, as occupation and internal Palestinian problems have left the wells dry. Before Israel conquered the area from Jordan in 1967, Bardala's water came from a nearby spring. But the Israelis dug a deeper well nearby. "Ours dried up," Mr. Sawafta said.
A deal was made in the 1970s, and the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s brought new water agreements, but with the second uprising in 2000, Palestinians stopped paying their water and electricity bills to the Palestinian Authority. The Bardala council owes the authority about two million shekels (more than $560,000) in unpaid utility bills. So, Mr. Sawafta said, the authority has delayed funding for projects like new roads, a dam and a water network in the village.
Israel deducts the utility debts from the tax revenue it collects on behalf of the authority. Then the ever-cash-poor Palestinian government uses the rest to pay its employees' salaries.
By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS and ASHLEY SOUTHALL 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/world/middleeast/strategic-corridor-in-west-bank-remains-a-stumbling-block-in-mideast-talks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Hussein Malla/Associated Press
An explosion last Thursday rocked a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, one day after authorities announced the arrest of a senior Saudi-born Qaeda leader.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The images of recent days have an eerie familiarity, as if the horrors of the past decade were being played back: masked gunmen recapturing the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Ramadi, where so many American soldiers died fighting them. Car bombs exploding amid the elegance of downtown Beirut. The charnel house of Syria's worsening civil war.
But for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region's sectarian hatreds.
Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries' conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers — claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively — cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy.
"I think we are witnessing a turning point, and it could be one of the worst in all our history," said Elias Khoury, a Lebanese novelist and critic who lived through his own country's 15-year civil war. "The West is not there, and we are in the hands of two regional powers, the Saudis and Iranians, each of which is fanatical in its own way. I don't see how they can reach any entente, any rational solution."
The drumbeat of violence in recent weeks threatens to bring back the worst of the Iraqi civil war that the United States touched off with an invasion and then spent billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers' lives to overcome.
With the possible withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan looming later this year, many fear that an insurgency will unravel that country, too, leaving another American nation-building effort in ashes.
The Obama administration defends its record of engagement in the region, pointing to its efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis and the Palestinian dispute, but acknowledges that there are limits. "It's not in America's interests to have troops in the middle of every conflict in the Middle East, or to be permanently involved in open-ended wars in the Middle East," Benjamin J. Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said in an email on Saturday.
For the first time since the American troop withdrawal of 2011, fighters from a Qaeda affiliate have recaptured Iraqi territory. In the past few days they have seized parts of the two biggest cities in Anbar Province, where the government, which the fighters revile as a tool of Shiite Iran, struggles to maintain a semblance of authority.
Lebanon has seen two deadly car bombs, including one that killed a senior political figure and American ally.
In Syria, the tempo of violence has increased, with hundreds of civilians killed by bombs dropped indiscriminately on houses and markets.
Linking all this mayhem is an increasingly naked appeal to the atavistic loyalties of clan and sect. Foreign powers' imposing agendas on the region, and the police-state tactics of Arab despots, had never allowed communities to work out their long-simmering enmities. But these divides, largely benign during times of peace, have grown steadily more toxic since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The events of recent years have accelerated the trend, as foreign invasions and the recent round of Arab uprisings left the state weak, borders blurred, and people resorting to older loyalties for safety.
Arab leaders are moving more aggressively to fill the vacuum left by the United States and other Western powers as they line up by sect and perceived interest. The Saudi government's pledge last week of $3 billion to the Lebanese Army is a strikingly bold bid to reassert influence in a country where Iran has long played a dominant proxy role through Hezbollah, the Shiite movement it finances and arms.
That Saudi pledge came just after the assassination of Mohamad B. Chatah, a prominent political figure allied with the Saudis, in a downtown car bombing that is widely believed to have been the work of the Syrian government or its Iranian or Lebanese allies, who are all fighting on the same side in the civil war.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have increased their efforts to arm and recruit fighters in the civil war in Syria, which top officials in both countries portray as an existential struggle. Sunni Muslims from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have joined the rebels, many fighting alongside affiliates of Al Qaeda. And Shiites from Bahrain, Lebanon, Yemen and even Africa are fighting with pro-government militias, fearing that a defeat for Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, would endanger their Shiite brethren everywhere.
By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS and ASHLEY SOUTHALL 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/world/middleeast/power-vacuum-in-middle-east-lifts-militants.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Peter Nessen, a friend, said Mr. Forst had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer.
Mr. Forst projected an old-fashioned newspaperman's toughness and a colorful, devil-may-care demeanor. According to a profile of Mr. Forst in the 1990s, he ventured into journalism when he joined his college newspaper; he did so because he noticed an attractive girl at the sign-up table.
He went on to a long and peripatetic career that included stops at newspapers that fought and lost circulation wars, like The New York Herald Tribune and The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and survivors like The New York Times, where he oversaw cultural-news coverage for several years after The Herald Tribune merged with two other papers, creating the short-lived The New York World Journal Tribune.
Mr. Forst worked for Newsday twice. He was hired in 1971 as managing editor and, according to Robert F. Keeler's book "Newsday: A Candid History of the Respectable Tabloid," played a role in preparing some of the articles for a series on heroin trafficking that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1976. The series followed the drug from Turkish poppy fields through France to the streets of Long Island and, as the book version of the series put it, on to "its ultimate customer — the young American addict."
Mr. Keeler wrote that Mr. Forst huddled with the team working on the series for two weeks at a villa on the French Riviera after the reporters arrived from Turkey.
"I've got to admit, it wasn't the toughest duty in the world," Mr. Forst said. The team resumed its reporting after Mr. Forst returned to Long Island.
Mr. Forst quit Newsday for The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1977, hired by the top editor in Los Angeles, James G. Bellows, who had been his boss at The Herald Tribune. But Mr. Forst returned in 1985 as the founding editor of New York Newsday, an edition that carried the Long Island paper into the five boroughs. He gave New York Newsday its own identity, separate from its Long Island parent, and assembled a staff that covered the city aggressively.
Mr. Forst positioned New York Newsday between the city's two established tabloids — The New York Post and The Daily News — and The Times. He hired stars like Jimmy Breslin and Dennis Hamill and young journalists and editors he pushed to report deeper and harder.
The paper won two Pulitzer Prizes. But the Times Mirror Company, which owned Newsday, shut down New York Newsday in July 1995. Other New York Newsday editors said that Mr. Forst had not met Mark H. Willes, a former consumer-products executive who was the chief executive of Times Mirror, until the day before the shutdown of Mr. Forst's paper was announced. Mr. Willes said later that the company had concluded that there was not room in New York City for three tabloids.
Mr. Forst worked as the editor of Newsday's streamlined Queens edition before resigning to begin a short-lived tenure as metropolitan editor of The Daily News in February 1996. By midsummer, he had left The News, and by that fall, he became the top editor at The Village Voice, the leftist weekly that was famous for its alternative worldview and its cantankerous, all but uneditable writers.
Mr. Forst seemed an odd choice. He said that until he sought the job, he had not read The Voice in years.
"Why did I take this?" he was quoted as saying at the time. "Because it was insane. It's what Karl Wallenda said: 'Life is on the wire. All the rest is waiting.'"
Mr. Forst presided over The Voice until 2005. For the last seven years, he had taught journalism at the University at Albany.
His survivors include his second wife, Starr Ockenga, a photographer. He was married to the food writer Gael Greene from 1961 until the mid-1970s. Ms. Greene said on Saturday that they had met when they worked at The New York Post, she during the day, he at night. She said he got a promotion because he happened to be reading The Wall Street Journal one day. The top editors named him financial editor, she said.
Donald Forst was born on July 3, 1932, and grew up in the Jewish middle class of 1930s Brooklyn, where his father was a lawyer. He attended the University of Vermont and earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
His companion, Val Haynes, said Mr. Forst missed newspapering even after he took to teaching prospective journalists. "When he left The Voice," she said in an interview on Saturday, "for the first year and a half, every morning he woke up and designed the front page of a broadsheet. Every single morning. Newspapers were his life."
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and JULIE TURKEWITZ 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/nyregion/donald-h-forst-feisty-newspaper-editor-dies-at-81.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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The body of the developer, identified as Menachem Stark, 39, was discovered on Friday afternoon by workers at a Getty gas station in Great Neck, about 20 miles away from where he was kidnapped, the Nassau County Police Department said in a statement on Saturday.
When Mr. Stark left his office at 331 Rutledge Street in Williamsburg at about 11:35 p.m. on Thursday, two men were waiting for him in the darkness, the New York Police Department said Saturday. A struggle ensued for several minutes as the men tried to force Mr. Stark into a 2006 or 2007 Dodge Caravan, the police said.
The Police Department released a blurry surveillance video on Saturday, which it said showed Mr. Stark wrestling in the driving snow with the two men who eventually overcame him and put him in the van. The light-colored vehicle then drove off.
The authorities did not release information about a motive for the crime, or any word about arrests. A police spokesman said Mr. Stark was known to carry large amounts of cash with him.
On Mr. Stark's street in Williamsburg, neighbors said they were shocked that a man who was known for his generosity could meet such an end. They said Mr. Stark and his wife regularly held parties at their home to raise money for charity.
The Starks have seven children, five girls and two boys, neighbors said. The oldest, a daughter, is 16.
Court records show that Mr. Stark and his business partner, Israel Perlmutter, were sued several times after defaulting on major loans. In 2009, they declared bankruptcy after defaulting on a $29 million loan for a Brooklyn property consisting of 74 rental units and two joining lots.
Fernando Cerff, who owns the Getty gas station where Mr. Stark's body was found and is a snowplow operator, said he arrived to work at 7 on Friday morning and noticed smoke coming from the open trash bin. Thinking a colleague had thrown a lit cigarette away, Mr. Cerff said, he threw some snow into the bin without looking and left in his truck to plow.
When he returned at 3 p.m., he noticed the smell.
"I went to throw out the garbage and it smells terrible. I was sick," he said. "The police came and found a body."
Mr. Stark's funeral was held just before 9 p.m. on Saturday. At least a thousand people gathered at the corner of Marcy Avenue and Hooper Street, outside a tiny synagogue.
In the crowd, Joseph Kohn, 53, said Mr. Stark had played a key role in the community.
"He was the livelihood of the synagogue," he said.
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and JULIE TURKEWITZ 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/nyregion/charred-body-of-kidnapped-man-is-found-on-long-island.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Colts quarterback Andrew Luck recovered a fumble by Donald Brown and dived into the end zone, fueling a fourth-quarter rally. Indianapolis won, 45-44, to advance to the second round.
By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS and ASHLEY SOUTHALL 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/01/05/sports/football/2014-nfl-wildcard-playoff.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Saul Zaentz, an acclaimed independent film producer who adapted literary works for the screen and won best-picture Academy Awards for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Amadeus" and "The English Patient," died Friday at his apartment in San Francisco. He was 92.
Mr. Zaentz died of complications from Alzheimer's disease, the producer Paul Zaentz, his nephew and longtime business partner, told The Associated Press.
Mr. Zaentz (pronounced zants) was comfortably in his 50s when he began making movies and had already made a fortune in the music business from the success of the rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival and the acquisition of a formidable jazz catalog.
In a business driven by celebrity stars and box-office profits, he staked his reputation and his money on serious, intelligent films, often based on offbeat prizewinning books or plays, featuring rising stars and relatively untested directors passionate about the collaboration.
Working with Milos Forman, Anthony Minghella, Peter Weir and other directors, he made only nine films in his cinematic heyday, from 1975 to 2007, most of them without Hollywood studio backing. They included "The Mosquito Coast" (1986), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988), "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" (1991) and "Goya's Ghosts" (2007).
He produced blockbusters and bombs, made and lost millions, and, while applauded by critics, he never became a household name like Zanuck, Spielberg, Hitchcock or George Lucas. But his major hits (each a decade apart), "Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), "Amadeus" (1984) and "The English Patient" (1996), won 22 Oscars for his actors, actresses, directors and other contributors.
And on Oscar night in 1997, Mr. Zaentz won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement and his third best-picture award. It crowned a career and an evening of triumph, with nine Academy Awards conferred on "The English Patient," Mr. Minghella's mesmerizing dramatization of Michael Ondaatje's novel of love and war set in the North African desert and a bombed-out Italian villa.
Described by The New York Times in 1995 as the last of the great independent producers, Mr. Zaentz, a portly, balding man with a full white beard who read voraciously and loved baseball, financed his own pictures when possible to retain creative control, selected his own stars and directors and shot on location to capture the beauties of an African desert, a ruined Tuscan monastery or the jungles of Central America.
Colleagues said he did not interfere with his artists' work. "Saul is the producer ideal because he realized that a film has to be made by one person, the director, not by a committee," Mr. Forman, who directed "Cuckoo's Nest," "Amadeus" and "Goya's Ghosts," recalled in 1995.
Berkeley was the home of the Saul Zaentz Film Center, for years the editing and sound studio for his and other independent films, and the Bay Area was his spiritual home. There in the 1960s and 1970s he made millions in the music business: his grubstake for an autumn-of-life film career that, critics said, reflected his rebel persona and eclectic taste for fiction and drama.
Saul Zaentz was born in Passaic, N.J., on Feb. 28, 1921, one of five children of Morris and Goldie Zaentz, Jewish refugees from a shtetl in Eastern Poland. He ran away from home at 15, sold peanuts at ballgames in St. Louis, made a little money gambling and traveled around the country, hitchhiking and riding freight trains. He enlisted in the Army in World War II and served in Africa, Europe and the Pacific.
After the war he studied at Rutgers University, worked on a chicken farm and took a business course in St. Louis. He settled in San Francisco in 1950 and began working for a record distributor. In 1955 he was hired as a salesman by Fantasy Records, a label whose roster included the jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, the poet Allen Ginsberg and the comedian Lenny Bruce. He also managed tours for Duke Ellington, Stan Getz and others.
By ELLEN BARRY 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/saul-zaentz-producer-of-oscar-winning-movies-dies-at-92.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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DHAKA, Bangladesh — As Bangladesh prepared for general elections on Sunday, a truck driver named Nur Islam was trying to haul a load of potatoes to Dhaka, the capital, along a route he knew would be targeted by protesters allied with the opposition.
He took precautions, strapping on a helmet and leaving in the dead of night, but was still terrified after his truck was surrounded — not once, but twice — by young men hurling bricks. His windows and windshield shattered, blanketing him with glass, but he kept driving, afraid that if he stopped the men would set his truck on fire. He arrived in the capital battered, exhausted and more frustrated than ever by the combustible standoff between the country's two major political forces.
"Both parties are playing with the lives of common people," Mr. Islam said.
The tension could rise to a new level on Sunday, when the country will go to the polls in a vote that is strikingly noncompetitive by Bangladeshi standards. The opposition has refused to participate, leaving more than half of the seats in Parliament uncontested.
The country's main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party, called the boycott after the government refused to put in place an impartial caretaker government ahead of the elections, which has been customary in Bangladesh since 1996 and is seen as a guard against government manipulation. Protesters have set fire to vehicles and hurled bricks and homemade explosives, demanding that the government hold new elections on terms the opposition accepts.
For weeks, it seemed as if the vote might be delayed at the last minute, in an effort to avoid the confrontation that was certain to follow. But the governing Awami League has pushed forward. As the vote approached, each side took a harder line — the opposition calling for a street campaign powerful enough to derail the elections, and the government clamping down severely on demonstrators and opposition leaders. By Saturday, the country was bracing itself.
"The fact that we are having this sort of sham election, it's not going to solve our problems," said Badiul Alam Majumdar, secretary of the nonprofit group Citizens for Good Governance. "It will push us to an uncertain future. We will be in uncharted waters."
Street protests often accompany elections in Bangladesh, but political violence intensified in 2013, resulting in around 150 deaths, according to Human Rights Watch.
The violence increased in part when the government began prosecuting figures from Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence for war crimes, handing down death sentences to several leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic political party. The Awami League has also hardened its view of Begum Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh National Party's leader and a two-time prime minister, accusing her of links to Islamist militants.
That distrust culminated last week in an unprecedented step. Police officers surrounded Mrs. Zia's home when she tried to leave for a rally, and would not allow her to leave. Since then, she has remained blockaded inside the compound, at one point behind five trucks loaded with sand. After arranging with Mrs. Zia for an interview on Friday, a reporter for The New York Times was turned away by officers at the gate, who said the meeting could not take place, out of concern for Mrs. Zia's security.
Hasanul Haq Inu, Bangladesh's information minister, said Mrs. Zia had been "unleashing violence" and was not under arrest, but "detained."
"The law of the country says a person can be detained in his house by an order of the home ministry," he said. "We are just protecting her safety. In her house, she is very safe." Asked what threat Mrs. Zia faced, he said: "Nobody knows. Some miscreants can just shoot at her."
One worry about Sunday's elections is whether they will lead to a burst of violence from supporters of the opposition. By Saturday evening, Bangladeshi news outlets were reporting arson attacks on some polling stations, ballot boxes and trucks used to transport election materials. Near midnight, police officials in the country's north reported the stabbing death of the chief at one polling station.
Osman Faruk, a former education minister and top aide to Mrs. Zia, said the party told its supporters to discourage Bangladeshis from voting on Sunday, and hoped to continue its campaign "in a peaceful way," by distributing leaflets, for example. But he went on to justify the use of violence as the only outlet available to Mrs. Zia's followers.
"When people say the movement is not peaceful, the reply is that whatever happens in the street is a reflection of the government's actions," he said.
A low turnout could pressure the government to begin preparing for fresh elections, something that happened after a similar opposition boycott in 1996. Gowher Rizvi, an adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said it was "almost without doubt" that Mrs. Hasina would call new elections ahead of schedule, noting that an election "loses its luster" when a major party does not take part.
"Is it one year? Is it nine months? Is it 15 months? I can't tell you," he said.
That step would be welcomed by many in Dhaka, where opinion polls testify to voters' frustration at being denied a choice. Bangladeshis are boisterous in their embrace of democracy, having voted out the incumbent government in four consecutive elections. A Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that factor might force the two parties to "step back and realize that they may be overreaching."
"This election does not appear to be credible in the eyes of the Bangladeshi people," the diplomat said. "So they have to find a way back to the table."
By ELLEN BARRY 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/world/asia/bangladesh-election.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Army shelled the western city of Falluja overnight to try to wrest control of it from Sunni Muslim militants and local tribesmen, killing at least eight people, according to tribal leaders and officials on Saturday.
Falluja has been held since Monday by militants linked to Al Qaeda and by some tribal fighters united in their opposition to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, posing a serious challenge in Anbar Province to the authority of his Shiite-led central government.
Medical officials in Falluja said that in addition to the deaths, 30 people were wounded in the army shelling.
In recent months, the militants, members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, have been tightening their grip in the Sunni-dominated desert province of Anbar, near the Syrian border, in a bid to create an Islamic state across the Iraqi-Syrian borders.
Tribal loyalties are fluid in the region, and the government has tried to secure the support of local tribal leaders with offers of guns and money. In Ramadi, the other major city in Anbar, the army and tribesmen who have decided for now to side with the central government have worked together to counter the militants seeking to take control.
But in Falluja, the militants' task has been made easier by the cooperation of other tribesmen, who have joined forces against the government with ISIS.
Tension has been running high in Anbar, once the heart of Iraq's insurgency after the 2003 American-led invasion, since the Iraqi police broke up a Sunni protest camp on Monday. At least 13 people were killed in those clashes.
The escalating tension shows that the civil war in Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are battling President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by the Shiite power leaders in Iran, is spilling over to other countries like Iraq and threatening a delicate sectarian balance.
Officials and witnesses in Falluja said the northern and eastern parts of the city were under the control of tribesmen and militants after residents fled those areas to take refuge from the army shelling.
Militants have deployed snipers on top of empty houses and government buildings to prevent soldiers from entering the city.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/world/middleeast/shelling-in-iraqi-city-held-by-qaeda-linked-militants-kills-at-least-8.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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The turnabout by Mr. Cuomo, who had long resisted legalizing medical marijuana, comes as other states are taking increasingly liberal positions on it — most notably Colorado, where thousands have flocked to buy the drug for recreational use since it became legal on Jan. 1.
Mr. Cuomo's plan will be far more restrictive than the laws in Colorado or California, where medical marijuana is available to people with conditions as mild as backaches. It will allow just 20 hospitals across the state to prescribe marijuana to patients with cancer, glaucoma or other diseases that meet standards to be set by the New York State Department of Health.
While Mr. Cuomo's measure falls well short of full legalization, it nonetheless moves New York, long one of the nation's most punitive states for those caught using or dealing drugs, a significant step closer to policies being embraced by marijuana advocates and lawmakers elsewhere.
New York hopes to have the infrastructure in place this year to begin dispensing medical marijuana, although it is too soon to say when it will actually be available to patients.
Mr. Cuomo's change of heart comes at an interesting political juncture. In neighboring New Jersey, led by Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican whose presidential prospects are talked about even more often than Mr. Cuomo's, medical marijuana was approved by his predecessor, Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, but implemented only after Mr. Christie put in place rules limiting its strength, banning home delivery, and requiring patients to show they have exhausted conventional treatments. The first of six planned dispensaries has already opened.
Meanwhile, New York City's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, had quickly seemed to overshadow Mr. Cuomo as the state's leading progressive politician.
For Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has often found common ground with Republicans on fiscal issues, the sudden shift on marijuana — which he will announce on Wednesday in his annual State of the State address — was the latest of several instances in which he has embarked on a major social policy effort sure to bolster his popularity with a large portion of his political base.
In 2011, he successfully championed the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. And a year ago, in the aftermath of the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Cuomo pushed through legislation giving New York some of the nation's toughest gun-control laws, including a strict ban on assault weapons. He also has pushed, unsuccessfully so far, to strengthen abortion rights in state law.
The governor's action also comes as advocates for changing drug laws have stepped up criticism of New York City's stringent enforcement of marijuana laws, which resulted in nearly 450,000 misdemeanor charges between 2002 and 2012, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates more liberal drug laws.
During that same period, medical marijuana became increasingly widespread outside New York, with some 20 states and the District of Columbia now allowing its use.
Mr. Cuomo voiced support for changing drug laws as recently as the 2013 legislative session, when he backed an initiative to decriminalize so-called open view possession of 15 grams or less. And though he said he remained opposed to medical marijuana, he indicated as late as April that he was keeping an open mind.
His about-face, according to a person briefed on the governor's views but not authorized to speak on the record, was rooted in his belief that the program he has drawn up can help those in need, while limiting the potential for abuse. Given Mr. Cuomo's long-held concerns, this person said, he insisted that it be a test program so he can monitor its impact.
But Mr. Cuomo is also up for election this year, and polls have shown overwhelming support for medical marijuana in New York: 82 percent of New York voters approved of the idea in a survey by Siena College last May.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/nyregion/new-york-state-is-set-to-loosen-marijuana-laws.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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A small plane made an emergency landing on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx on Saturday afternoon, fire officials said.
The plane landed on the highway around 3:20 p.m. near East 233rd Street, fire officials said. There was no fire and no fuel spilled, and the passengers were able to leave the plane.
At least one passenger was taken to a local hospital, fire officials said. None of the passengers had life-threatening injuries.
Drivers should expect traffic delays and take alternate routes, New York's Office of Emergency Management said.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/nyregion/small-plane-makes-emergency-landing-on-bronx-expressway.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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BOSTON — When Massachusetts finally gave in after decades of resistance and decided two years ago to legalize casino gambling, it seemed a relatively easy way to fill the state's recession-battered coffers.
Katherine Taylor for The New York Times
Stephen Crosby, the gambling commission chairman, says the casino law is working as intended.
KPM and Mohegan Sun Massachusetts
A rendering of the $1.3 billion Mohegan Sun casino proposed for the Suffolk Downs racetrack in Revere, Mass.
Some of the nation's biggest casino operators, including Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts, rushed in to get a piece of this potentially lucrative market. Having already spent millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers to allow casinos, they then spent millions more selling themselves to voters, mainly by promising streams of revenue and thousands of jobs.
But a funny thing happened to the moguls on the way to staking their claims. Voters in several towns rejected them. While they did not object to casinos per se, they told pollsters, they did not want them in their own backyards.
Even Gov. Deval Patrick, who pushed through the casino legislation, acknowledged that he would vote against a casino if one were proposed for the town in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, where he owns a second home.
As if voter rejection were not discouraging enough, the casinos also faced an unusually tough gatekeeper in the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which was charged with investigating them and will be selecting one casino for at least two of three regions in the state this spring. The winnowing produced daily twists and turns that transformed the process into a running soap opera. Investigators raised questions, for example, about Caesars' suitability for a license. One involved a rather tenuous tie to an alleged Russian mobster. Still, Caesars withdrew, despite having spent $100 million here.
There were revelations about a possible conflict of interest involving the gambling commission chairman, who was subsequently sued by Caesars, which is looking to redeem itself. And the commission made some eyebrow-raising decisions, like allowing a casino proposal to move forward even though it had been defeated by one of the two towns it would straddle (the commission said the law was ambiguous).
Adding to the drama is Steve Wynn, of the Wynn Resorts gambling empire. He is already trying to change the long-set state law that says gamblers must pay a tax on any winnings over $600, an amount he says is so low it will discourage customers. At one commission hearing on his company's practices, he fell asleep at the witness table.
Lawsuits are now flying, and a nascent statewide movement to repeal the 2011 casino legislation has picked up steam.
"Watching the way this is playing out, for those of us who opposed the casino legislation in the first place, just reinforces our concerns," said Michael S. Dukakis, a former governor.
Gambling is not anathema to New England, despite the region's Puritan roots. New Hampshire started the nation's first state lottery in 1963. New England's first casino, Foxwoods, opened in Connecticut in 1992; today it is one of the largest in the world.
It was the success of Foxwoods that helped inspire Massachusetts to consider casinos in the first place; so many residents were going to Connecticut to gamble that officials here decided to give them a reason to part with their money at home.
The casinos scouted locations and made lavish offers to their potential host communities to win support. Towns that were struggling financially tended to accept them. Wealthier towns spurned them, fearing that the quality of life would deteriorate because of increases in traffic and crime, the ripple effects of gambling addiction and the cannibalization of local businesses, especially mom-and-pop enterprises.
"The gambling industry is constantly looking for new markets, but it's finding it very difficult to get into the markets they want to be in," said Richard McGowan, who teaches business at Boston College and is an authority on gambling. "They want to be where the money is."
By BEN HUBBARD and HWAIDA SAAD 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/path-to-casinos-turns-messy-in-massachusetts.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Greggor Ilagan initially thought a ban on genetically modified organisms was a good idea.
KONA, Hawaii — From the moment the bill to ban genetically engineered crops on the island of Hawaii was introduced in May 2013, it garnered more vocal support than any the County Council here had ever considered, even the perennially popular bids to decriminalize marijuana.
Public hearings were dominated by recitations of the ills often attributed to genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.'s: cancer in rats, a rise in childhood allergies, out-of-control superweeds, genetic contamination, overuse of pesticides, the disappearance of butterflies and bees.
Like some others on the nine-member Council, Greggor Ilagan was not even sure at the outset of the debate exactly what genetically modified organisms were: living things whose DNA has been altered, often with the addition of a gene from a distant species, to produce a desired trait. But he could see why almost all of his colleagues had been persuaded of the virtue of turning the island into what the bill's proponents called a "G.M.O.-free oasis."
"You just type 'G.M.O.' and everything you see is negative," he told his staff. Opposing the ban also seemed likely to ruin anyone's re-election prospects.
Yet doubts nagged at the councilman, who was serving his first two-year term. The island's papaya farmers said that an engineered variety had saved their fruit from a devastating disease. A study purporting that a diet of G.M.O. corn caused tumors in rats, mentioned often by the ban's supporters, turned out to have been thoroughly debunked.
And University of Hawaii biologists urged the Council to consider the global scientific consensus, which holds that existing genetically engineered crops are no riskier than others, and have provided some tangible benefits.
"Are we going to just ignore them?" Mr. Ilagan wondered.
Urged on by Margaret Wille, the ban's sponsor, who spoke passionately of the need to "act before it's too late," the Council declined to form a task force to look into such questions before its November vote. But Mr. Ilagan, 27, sought answers on his own. In the process, he found himself, like so many public and business leaders worldwide, wrestling with a subject in which popular beliefs often do not reflect scientific evidence.
At stake is how to grow healthful food most efficiently, at a time when a warming world and a growing population make that goal all the more urgent.
Scientists, who have come to rely on liberals in political battles over stem-cell research, climate change and teaching evolution, have been dismayed to find themselves at odds with their traditional allies on this issue. Some compare the hostility to G.M.O.'s to the rejection of climate-change science, except with liberal opponents instead of conservative ones.
"These are my people, they're lefties, I'm with them on almost everything," said Michael Shintaku, a plant pathologist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, who testified several times against the bill. "It hurts."
But scientists, supporters of the ban argued, had not always correctly assessed health and environmental risks before. "Remember DDT?" one proponent demanded. "It took years to figure out that's why the eggshells were thinning and the eagles were going extinct."
Ms. Wille's bill would ban the cultivation of any genetically engineered crop on the island, with the exception of the two already grown there: corn recently planted by an island dairy to feed its cows, and papaya. Field tests to study new G.M.O. crops would also be prohibited. Penalties would be $1,000 per day
Like three-quarters of the electorate on Hawaii Island, known as the Big Island, Mr. Ilagan voted for President Obama in the 2012 election. When he took office himself a month later, after six years in the Air National Guard, he planned to focus on squatters, crime prevention and the inauguration of a bus line in his district on the island's eastern rim.
He had also promised himself that he would take a stance on all topics, never registering a "kanalua" vote — the Hawaiian term for "with reservation."
But with the G.M.O. bill, he often despaired of assembling the information he needed to definitively decide. Every time he answered one question, it seemed, new ones arose. Popular opinion masqueraded convincingly as science, and the science itself was hard to grasp. People who spoke as experts lacked credentials, and G.M.O. critics discounted those with credentials as being pawns of biotechnology companies.
"It takes so much time to find out what's true," he complained.
By BEN HUBBARD and HWAIDA SAAD 05 Jan, 2014
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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