Ambassador Becomes Focus of Egyptians’ Mistrust of U.S.

WASHINGTON — Her image has been plastered on banners in Tahrir Square, crossed out with a blood-red X or distorted and smeared with insults. She is too cozy with Egypt's deposed president and the Muslim Brotherhood, the signs say, and should leave the country.

Anne W. Patterson, a press-shy career diplomat who has been American ambassador to Cairo since 2011, suddenly finds herself a target in a dangerous political upheaval, a symbol for angry young Egyptians of America's meddlesome role in their country's affairs.

With the Egyptian military ousting President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday, Ms. Patterson will have to navigate a perilous course between Mr. Morsi's opponents and his enraged Islamist supporters, both of whom have grievances with the United States.

That she has become such a lightning rod for American policy speaks to the legacy of American involvement in Egypt and to the comparatively low level of attention Egypt has received from the Obama administration since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak two and a half years ago — at least until this week's turmoil.

As her bosses in Washington struggle to exert even modest influence over the events in Cairo, Ms. Patterson, 63, has been portrayed as a sinister force by pro- and antigovernment protesters alike: a defender of the status quo as well as a troublemaker who schemes with the opposition.

"She's being lambasted because she's the face of America," said Vali Nasr, a former State Department official who worked with Ms. Patterson when she was ambassador to Pakistan. "But the fact that she's being excoriated instead of the president only represents the fact that the rest of the American administration is absent."

In his first reaction to Mr. Morsi's ouster, Mr. Obama warned of the dangers of violence and tried to steer Egypt's military toward a prompt resumption of democratic rule. But the flurry of White House meetings and phone calls on Wednesday served to underscore the lack of leverage the United States has over Egypt, once a crucial strategic ally in the Middle East but lately just another headache.

Ms. Patterson's problems started on June 18 when she was invited, at a time of mushrooming demonstrations against Mr. Morsi's government, to speak to an audience in Cairo about the United States' relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. It was, she said, a welcome chance to "set the record straight."

While the United States supported Egypt's democratic development, it still had to deal with those in power, Ms. Patterson said, adding, "I don't think the elected nature of this government is seriously in doubt." Moreover, she said she was "deeply skeptical" that "street action will produce better results than elections."

Even as Ms. Patterson sought to distance the United States from the Muslim Brotherhood, those words marked her as an enemy of the crowds in Tahrir Square, reviving memories of Mr. Obama's early reluctance to cut loose Mr. Mubarak, a longtime ally of the United States.

"She manipulates people and secretly governs the country," Mona Mohammed, 52, a bank employee said of Ms. Patterson at an antigovernment rally. "The ambassador is part of a conspiracy against Egypt and its people," Ms. Mohammed added, clutching a poster with a caricature of Ms. Patterson and the slogan "Hayzaboon, Go Home." (Hayzaboon is Arabic for ogre.)

At a pro-Morsi demonstration across town, Mohammed Amr-Alla, a professor at Al-Azhar University, said: "The ambassador meets with the opposition and supports them. She should not interfere; she needs to watch from a distance."

Both perspectives belie the reality that the United State has far less influence in Egypt than it did a generation ago.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Patterson at the American Embassy in Cairo said she was not available for comment. On Wednesday, hours after Mr. Morsi's ouster, the State Department ordered the evacuation of all nonessential personnel from the embassy.

Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday described Ms. Patterson as candid, tough and committed to democratic change in Egypt. In a statement, Mr. Kerry said she "does her best work in the most challenging places."

Sarah Mousa contributed reporting from Cairo, and Thom Shanker from Washington.

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For Egypt’s Islamists, Confusion and Fear Amid Celebration

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Scenes in Cairo on Wednesday included a woman in tears outside the presidential palace. More Photos »

CAIRO — Over speakers, the news came Wednesday and some people fainted. An hour later it had settled in, and President Mohamed Morsi's supporters sat dazed on sidewalks or walked home, glassy-eyed.

As he left the sit-in in front of Cairo University, Khaled Mohamed found himself suddenly, and painfully, facing Egypt's new reality. In front of him were soldiers, and beyond them, people who seemed to revel in his misfortune. They celebrated Mr. Morsi's fall and the dramatic eclipse of Mr. Mohamed's 80-year-old organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.

He did not know whether the soldiers were there to protect him and his fellow Islamists, or to watch them. Worse, he was once again out of place in his own country, a condition that the last revolution supposedly cured.

"I'm scared," Mr. Mohamed said. "I feel oppressed."

As much of Cairo exploded in euphoria on Wednesday, parts of the city fell silent where Mr. Morsi's loyalists had protested desperately for days, to stave off what they saw as a threat to democracy and the legitimacy of Egypt's first free presidential election. Their disappointment on Wednesday was a symptom of a nation still far from healed. In their anger was a warning, of unsettled days ahead.

Mr. Mohamed said the Brotherhood's members still had not received instructions about what to do next. Many of his comrades said they would maintain a peaceful resistance. Others could not contain their rage.

"There will be a civil war," said Abdullah Mohamed al-Sayed, a teacher. "A grinding civil war."

The day began in anger. During overnight clashes near the sit-in at the university, at least 18 people were killed, part of a wave of violence in the days before June 30, when Mr. Morsi's opponents rallied around the country demanding that he leave power. Blood stained the sidewalk in front of the university, and formed patches on the shirt of Sherif Fouad, a lawyer.

Birdshot had left a hole on his forehead. Now, he and his friends awaited a decision from the military on the future of the country.

None of the signs had been good. For days, the army had seemed to flirt with Mr. Morsi's opponents, dropping flags on their protests from helicopters. "Aren't we from the Egyptian people?" Mr. Fouad asked. "Why is our voice not heard?"

In a tent nearby, a man who called himself Abu Mohamed said any coup would have consequences, hinting at the danger facing Egypt as Islamists saw their political gains thwarted, and some considered violence to regain their rights.

"There will be a strong reaction," Abu Mohamed said, as he ate his breakfast and his friends warned against speaking too frankly. "It is either the ballot box, or the bullet box."

There was even greater unease across town, at another protest by Mr. Morsi's supporters, a few hours before the Wednesday deadline the army had given to Egypt's political forces to resolve their differences. People spoke of a conspiracy to strip Egyptians of their power, ignoring the millions of other Egyptians who had marched in recent days, fed up with who they saw as a hapless president.

At the protest, the army was the villain, for daring to challenge not just the president, but Egypt's new civilian authority. Half an hour later, when the army descended, the balance of power between Egypt's two most powerful forces, the military and the Islamists, was tested.

The confrontation was awkward and explosive. Protesters met the armored vehicles as they arrived, and shoved the commanding officer who had drawn his pistol. Soldiers fired their weapons in the air. A protester lifted his shirt, daring soldiers to shoot.

Then it calmed, as some protesters, desperate for an ally, tried to bring the soldiers to their side. "Take care of Egypt!" one man said. Some of the soldiers were distracted by the pleas, and seemed torn. Then the commander spoke, saying the army was there to protect the protest.

"I will not fire," he said. "I don't want to go to hell."

By 10 p.m., soldiers had surrounded the entrance to Cairo University, where the despondent included Ahmed Ali Ismail, who did not belong to any party and saw hope even in Egypt's flawed new politics. He had voted for Mr. Morsi because of the powerful movement behind him: he thought it might shake up Egypt's ossified institutions, and would help the country "get rid of the military."

Asmaa Al Zohairy contributed reporting.

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Officials Say They See Signs of a Slowdown in Deadly Arizona Wildfire

Max Whittaker for The New York Times

A vehicle used by the elite firefighting unit, the Granite Mountain Hotshots, was removed on Wednesday from the fire site.

PEEPLES VALLEY, Ariz. — A wildfire that killed 19 firefighters and destroyed dozens of homes nestled in the mountains here showed signs of slowing Wednesday as hundreds of firefighters on the ground tried to shore up the perimeters of the blaze. It has consumed an estimated 8,400 acres.

Fire officials said they hoped to begin allowing hundreds of residents evacuated from the towns of Yarnell and Peeples Valley to return as soon as Saturday.

Jim Whittington, a fire information officer for the United States Forest Service, said the fire had not moved substantially since Sunday. But he warned that explosive fuels like dry timber, grass and chaparral scrub hidden in the rocky terrain could ignite with sudden shifts of wind brought by thunderstorms that were predicted to move through the area in the late afternoon. Such storms often bring only limited rain but great bouts of lightning, thunder and wind.

"The fire behavior looks benign right now but the fuels can be deceptive," Mr. Whittington said.

The slowdown may aid investigators as they look into what went wrong Sunday as the blaze, stoked by a powerful shift in winds, trapped members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite firefighting unit out of nearby Prescott, killing all but one.

Investigators from across the country arrived on the scene Tuesday night and are expected to spend the next two to three months carefully reconstructing everything leading up to the deaths. Among the many things the team will examine are the radio traffic logs, weather conditions, equipment, the terrain and decisions made by the crews on the ground and incident commanders.

"Our goal is to figure out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen to other firefighters," said James R. Karels, the director of the Florida Forest Service, who is leading the team.

At least two crews were evacuated from the lines on Tuesday as a precautionary measure amid threats of thunderstorms, the Forest Service said. Mr. Whittington said Wednesday that he did not immediately know if the Granite Mountain crew had received a similar warning on Sunday.

The fire was one of 33 across the West, including 5 in Arizona, that have consumed more than a half-million acres in tinder-dry conditions, fueled by an extensive drought.

Fire officials took reporters around the northern edge of the fire Wednesday. Miles of charred scrubland were punctuated by untouched strips of green. Near the entrance of the Double Bar A Ranch, flames had reduced a home to a standing fireplace and a scattering of rock pillars.

A preliminary survey by the county showed 114 structures had been lost in the fire, said Dwight D'Evelyn, a spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. He did not have a breakdown of how many of those were homes.

Firefighters paused for a moment of silence Wednesday to honor the 19 fallen firefighters, as their two Hotshot buggies — specialized vehicles used to ferry crews into fires — were driven from the fire scene in a slow procession back to Prescott, about 45 minutes away.

Tuesday night, roughly 3,000 people, among them the families of many of the 19 men killed in the fire, packed the Prescott High School football field for a candlelight vigil, where, over songs and prayers, they memorialized the lives lost. After a moment of silence, purple balloons floated into the air, one for each of the men. At one point, a pastor urged the lone survivor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, Brendan McDonough, to get up, which he did.

Mr. McDonough, 21, was working as the lookout on Sunday, standing on higher ground to inform the men about shifts in the weather or in the direction of the flames, according to a spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.

Late that afternoon, Mr. McDonough radioed the team, saying he had to retreat from his position because the conditions had changed and he felt he was no longer safe there. He walked downhill, using the escape route he had picked for himself, a trench carved by a bulldozer. When he looked back at where he had been standing, he saw the place was already engulfed in flames.

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Army Ousts Egypt’s President; Morsi Is Taken Into Military Custody

CAIRO — Egypt's military officers removed the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, on Wednesday, suspended the Constitution and installed an interim government presided over by a senior jurist.

Tahrir Square, where tens of thousands of opponents of the government had gathered each night since Sunday to demand Mr. Morsi's removal, erupted in fireworks and jubilation at news of the ouster. At a square near the presidential palace where Mr. Morsi's Islamist supporters had gathered, men broke into tears and vowed to stay until he was reinstated or they were forcibly removed. "The dogs have done it and made a coup against us," they chanted. "Dying for the sake of God is more sublime than anything," a speaker declared.

Mr. Morsi rejected the generals' actions as a "complete military coup."

Military vehicles and soldiers in riot gear had surrounded the rally in the hours before the takeover, and tensions escalated through the night. Within hours, at least seven people had died and more than 300 were injured in clashes in 17 provinces between Mr. Morsi's supporters and either civilian opponents or security forces.

By the end of the night, Mr. Morsi was in military custody and blocked from all communications, one of his advisers said, and many of his senior aides were under house arrest. Egyptian security forces had arrested at least 38 senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Saad el-Katatni, the chief of the group's political party, and others were being rounded up as well, security officials said. No immediate reasons were given for the detentions.

For Mr. Morsi, it was a bitter and ignominious end to a tumultuous year of bruising political battles that ultimately alienated millions of Egyptians. Having won a narrow victory, his critics say, he broke his promises of an inclusive government and repeatedly demonized his opposition as traitors. With the economy crumbling, and with shortages of electricity and fuel, anger at the government mounted.

The generals built their case for intervention in a carefully orchestrated series of maneuvers, calling their actions an effort at a "national reconciliation" and refusing to call their takeover a coup. At a televised news conference late on Wednesday night, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi said that the military had no interest in politics and was ousting Mr. Morsi because he had failed to fulfill "the hope for a national consensus."

The general stood on a broad stage, flanked by Egypt's top Muslim and Christian clerics as well as a spectrum of political leaders including Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and liberal icon, and Galal Morra, a prominent Islamist ultraconservative, or Salafi, all of whom endorsed the takeover.

Despite their protestations, the move plunged the generals back to the center of political power for the second time in less than three years, following their ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Their return threatened to cast a long shadow over future efforts to fulfill that revolution's promise of a credible, civilian democracy. But General Sisi sought to present a very different image from the anonymous, numbered communiqués from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that were solemnly read over state television to announce Mr. Mubarak's exit, and the general emphasized that the military had no desire to rule.

"The armed forces was the one to first announce that it is out of politics," General Sisi said at the start. "It still is, and it will remain away from politics."

Under a "road map" for a post-Morsi government devised by a meeting of civilian, political and religious leaders, the general said, the Constitution would be suspended, the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour, would become acting president, and plans would be expedited for new parliamentary and presidential elections under an interim government.

Reporting was contributed by Kareem Fahim, Mayy El Sheikh and Ben Hubbard from Cairo; Mark Landler from Washington; Alan Cowell from London; and Mona El-Naggar from New York.

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South Korea Proposes Talks With North on Factory Complex

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Thursday revived its proposal for talks with North Korea to discuss reopening a jointly operated industrial complex, three weeks after their last attempt to start a dialogue collapsed amid mutual recriminations.

The two Koreas have bickered over the fate of the Kaesong Industrial Zone, a factory park located in the North Korean border town of the same name, ever since the North pulled out all 53,000 of its workers from the complex in April, citing military tensions it blamed on joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises at the time.

The owners of 123 South Korean factories who had withdrawn from Kaesong after their North Korean workers deserted them have been eager to return there. Their hopes rose, then crashed after the two governments first agreed to hold senior-level talks in Seoul on June 12, but canceled them in a last-minute dispute over who should lead their delegations.

Since then, the two sides had made no overtures over the fate of the Kaesong complex, until now.

On Wednesday, some of the factory owners said they could no longer wait and demanded that the two Korean governments let them return to Kaesong so they could disassemble their manufacturing facilities and relocate them to South Korea or elsewhere in Asia.

That prompted the North to open a cross-border communications hot line on Wednesday and invite South Korean factory owners and engineers to return to Kaesong to do maintenance work on their equipment ahead of the possible reopening of the complex. Factory owners have warned that their facilities will begin deteriorating soon, as the rainy season has just started.

On Thursday, South Korea refused to let the factory owners travel across the border. Instead, it reiterated its proposal for official dialogue, insisting that the fate of the factory park should first be discussed between the two governments. It proposed to hold talks at the border on Saturday.

There was no immediate reaction from the North.

"We make this proposal, considering the difficulties faced by Kaesong factory owners and the severe damage expected to their factories with the onset of the monsoon season," said Kim Hyung-suk, spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry.

The Kaesong complex, where textile and other labor-intensive factories from South Korea had hired low-cost North Korean workers, had been the last and best-known symbol of inter-Korean economic cooperation until it was shuttered in April.

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DealBook: Payroll Cards Are Under Scrutiny by New York’s Attorney General

New York's top prosecutor is investigating some of the state's largest employers over their use of A.T.M.-style cards to pay their hourly employees.

The New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has sent letters seeking information to about 20 employers, including McDonald's, Walgreen and Wal-Mart, say people briefed on the matter.

The inquiry by Mr. Schneiderman comes as a growing number of companies are abandoning paper paychecks and direct deposit to offer prepaid cards. But consumer lawyers, employees, and state and federal regulators have said that in the vast majority of cases, use of the cards can generate a range of fees — 50 cents for a balance inquiry and $2.25 for an out-of-network A.T.M. Those fees can quickly devour the pay of part-time and low-wage workers.

And many employees say that they have no alternative. Even at companies where there is a choice, it is often elusive. Worried about imperiling their jobs, some employees say they are terrified of requesting another option, according to interviews with consumer advocates. Other employees say that they are automatically enrolled in the payroll-card programs and forced to navigate a bureaucratic maze if they want to opt out.

The surge in payroll cards and the problems associated with them were the subject of an article in The New York Times on Monday.

One of the employers contacted by the attorney general's office, Walgreen, said that the company provided a payroll card as one option among many. The Walgreen's spokesman, James W. Graham, added that the company "created a payroll card program for our employees with the specific intention of providing terms as favorable to our employees as possible, if they choose to be paid that way."

McDonald's declined to comment on the investigation. Wal-Mart did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but said in an earlier statement that the company allowed employees to choose whether to receive wages through direct deposit or a prepaid card.

Some employers and card issuers, like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and NetSpend, have said that the payroll cards are a useful tool for low-wage workers who do not have bank accounts. They also say that the fees on the cards are usually lower than those associated with check-cashing services — often the only other option for people who do not have bank accounts. The card providers and employers also note that there are free ways for employees to gain access to their pay.

Mr. Schneiderman's office is examining whether the companies have violated state labor laws, say the people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. Under New York law, employees must give their explicit consent before companies can credit funds to a payroll card.

His office is also investigating whether the employers are forcing workers to use payroll cards as a condition of their employment, these people said. State law also requires that employees have an option for getting their wages without incurring any fees.

"We are concerned about excessive or insufficiently disclosed fees which may unduly reduce employees' take home pay," Mr. Schneiderman's office told employers, according to letters reviewed by The Times.

In the first stage of the inquiry, the attorney general is collecting more information about the use of payroll cards. His office is ordering employers to turn over documents that prove employees have given consent before being enrolled in the cards.

The prosecutor is also examining fee schedules to determine how the fees are accrued. The companies are required to also provide "a summary report of all fees paid by employees" that add up "as a result of payroll cards which they have been issued," the letters said.

The Times article highlighted the case of Natalie Gunshannon, 27, who made $7.44 an hour working at a McDonald's franchise in Dallas, Pa. Saying she was forced to use a payroll card issued by JPMorgan, Ms. Gunshannon quit her job and sued the franchise owners.

On Monday, the owners of the McDonald's franchise, Albert and Carol Mueller, announced that they were changing their policy and would offer direct deposit and paper paychecks to their employees. Ms. Gunshannon's lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages, is still going forward, her lawyer said.

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State’s Witnesses in Zimmerman Trial Put the Prosecution on the Defensive

Pool photo by Joe Burbank

With Officer Chris Serino on the stand, the lead prosecutor, Bernie de la Rionda, demonstrated on Tuesday how a fight might have played out between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.

SANFORD, Fla. — Prosecutors in the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman scrambled Tuesday to undo damage to their case by one of their leading witnesses, a Sanford police officer who interviewed the defendant hours after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin.

The witness, Officer Chris Serino of the Sanford police, had testified under cross-examination on Monday afternoon that Mr. Zimmerman seemed to be telling the truth when he said he had fired his gun in self-defense. The officer's remarks made for a dramatic moment in the trial — and clearly benefited the defense — but drew no immediate objection from the prosecutors. The court then recessed for the day.

But early on Tuesday, citing case law, the prosecution successfully argued that Officer Serino's comments about Mr. Zimmerman's truthfulness should be disregarded by the jury. The judge then instructed the jurors, who are being sequestered during the trial, to ignore the officer's statement — nearly 17 hours after he made it.

Officer Serino's testimony, in the second week of the trial in Seminole County Court, was the latest setback for prosecutors, whose witnesses have repeatedly helped bolster the defense's case. Mr. Zimmerman has said he shot Mr. Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, in self-defense after he was attacked on a drizzly night in February 2012. Prosecutors say that Mr. Zimmerman, who identifies as Hispanic, racially profiled Mr. Martin, who was black, and followed the teenager through the town house complex where Mr. Zimmerman lived and Mr. Martin, of Miami, was visiting.

On Monday, jurors watched and listened to audio and visual recordings of a calm and willing Mr. Zimmerman being interviewed by the police shortly after the shooting. One officer testified that Mr. Zimmerman had shown no trace of malice or ill intent. After prosecutors probed inconsistencies in Mr. Zimmerman's story — he said that Mr. Martin had jumped out of the bushes, although no bushes were found at the place he indicated — two police officers who took the stand said that the discrepancies were slight and that the broad narrative of self-defense offered by Mr. Zimmerman remained largely unchanged.

Mark Osterman, a federal air marshal who described Mr. Zimmerman as "the best friend I've ever had," and who wrote a book about the shooting, recounted on Tuesday what Mr. Zimmerman told him about the events of Feb. 26, 2012, the day of the killing.

Mr. Osterman's account largely matched what Mr. Zimmerman — who was photographed bleeding after the killing — told the police. There was one exception: Mr. Osterman's contention that, according to Mr. Zimmerman, Mr. Martin had grabbed his gun but that he managed to get it back. That contradicted Mr. Zimmerman's account to the police, in which he said Mr. Martin seemed to be reaching for his gun.

Other pieces of testimony may also have reflected poorly on Mr. Zimmerman. Officer Serino, who took the stand again on Tuesday, said the expletives that Mr. Zimmerman used as he was pursuing Mr. Martin connoted ill will — a necessary component in a second-degree murder conviction. The police officers were also clearly disturbed that Mr. Zimmerman, a community watch volunteer, seemed to have pursued Mr. Martin on foot after a police operator had told him he need not do so. Last week, a young woman who had been on the phone with Mr. Martin that night testified that he told her he was being followed by a "creepy" man, and that she later heard her friend crying, "Get off, get off."

One of the clearest witness accounts of the fight that proved damaging to the prosecution came from John Good, a neighbor of Mr. Zimmerman's. He testified last week that he saw a person in dark clothes on top of and repeatedly striking someone light skinned who was lying on the ground and wearing red or white. Mr. Zimmerman was wearing a red jacket that night.

Jurors also heard Tuesday from Dr. Valerie Rao, a medical examiner in Jacksonville, Fla., who concluded after studying photos that Mr. Zimmerman's injuries were "very insignificant" and "not life threatening," and that scrapes on the back of his head could have come from just one strike against the sidewalk. Her testimony cast doubt on Mr. Zimmerman's claim that Mr. Martin struck him repeatedly, banging his head on the pavement, causing him to fear for his life. But under cross-examination by Mark O'Mara, one of Mr. Zimmerman's lawyers, Dr. Rao conceded that Mr. Zimmerman's injuries could have come from multiple blows.

Mr. O'Mara also noted that Angela Corey, the special prosecutor in the case, had recommended that Dr. Rao be appointed, although she insisted that had no bearing on her testimony. The state also presented a television interview from 2012 with Mr. Zimmerman by Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, in which Mr. Zimmerman recounted his version of events before adding, "I feel that it was all God's plan," as Mr. O'Mara squirmed by his side.

The Sanford police did not charge Mr. Zimmerman in the killing, citing insufficient evidence and Florida's expansive "stand your ground" law, but that decision provoked national protests. Six weeks later, after Ms. Corey was assigned to the case, Mr. Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder.

But many legal experts said this week that the state had overreached and that it should have filed manslaughter charges. The jury can still find Mr. Zimmerman guilty of manslaughter, but it would fall to the prosecutors to argue for that result without appearing to concede a weakness in their case.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 2, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article identified Mark O'Mara as one of Trayvon Martin's lawyers. He is one of George Zimmerman's lawyers.

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Bailey's 2nd No-Hitter Sends Reds Over Giants 3-0

CINCINNATI — Homer Bailey fretted for a moment as first baseman Joey Votto reached to pluck the ball out of the air for the final out. What next? Raise both arms in celebration.

Bailey has this no-hitter celebration down pat — just like his idol, Nolan Ryan.

Another hard-throwin' Texan who wears No. 34 made some no-hit history Tuesday night. Bailey threw his second in 10 months and led the Cincinnati Reds' infield celebration with arms raised after a 3-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants.

There was a bit of been-there, done-that in the humid night air.

"It's something I've already done, so I knew what to expect," Bailey said of his easy-as-could-be step into rare territory.

Bailey became the third Reds pitcher with more than one no-hitter, joining Jim Maloney and Johnny Vander Meer — still the only big leaguer to toss two in a row. Bailey beat the Pirates 1-0 in Pittsburgh last Sept. 28 and got another 17 starts later.

This one was at home with 27,509 fans standing and chanting "Homer! Homer!" as he finished it off in a tidy 102 pitches with one walk and nine strikeouts. The defending World Series champions had only one moment when they thought they might get a hit.

"It was a pretty easy no-hitter," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "We didn't hit too many balls hard. There weren't any tough plays. We only hit a couple balls decent. He was really overmatching us all night."

Yes, it was reminiscent of that Hall of Famer from Texas who holds the record with seven no-hitters. And they now have more than just their home state in common.

Bailey threw the last of the majors' seven no-hitters last season, and now the first of 2013. The last pitcher to throw one no-hitter and then another before anyone else in the majors accomplished the feat was Ryan, according to STATS. Baseball's career strikeout king did it for the California Angels on Sept. 28, 1974, against Minnesota, and June 1, 1975, vs. Baltimore.

"Obviously being from Texas and what a legend he is," said Bailey, who wears No. 34 in tribute to his boyhood hero. "To do it once is extra special. To do it twice — I don't really have the words for it right now."

Try Ryan-esque.

"He comes from the state of Texas that has produced a lot of no-hitters," said Reds manager Dusty Baker, who made the final out in Ryan's fifth no-hitter. "It means a lot — and he's still got some time left."

Bailey (5-6) dominated the defending champs, who are going through quite a slump. It was so tidy that there weren't many close calls.

He walked Gregor Blanco leading off the seventh, the only Giants batter to reach base. Blanco advanced on a groundout, then made the out that settled San Francisco's only close call.

Buster Posey hit a soft one-hopper that pulled Votto away from first base. Bailey got a slow break off the mound to cover the bag, setting up what would have been a close play. Maybe Posey beats Bailey to the base for an infield hit.

"That would have been a sad way to lose a no-hitter," Baker said.

Instead, Votto saw Blanco break for third and threw him out.

"Joey had a great heads-up play. I was almost a little late getting to the bag," Bailey said.

Two innings later, Bailey finished it off smoothly. He jumped to glove Brandon Crawford's high comebacker, struck out Tony Abreu and retired Blanco on a grounder to third baseman Todd Frazier.

"Going into the eighth and ninth I just said, 'Why the hell not?' Here we go again," Bailey said.

Justin Verlander, Mark Buehrle and Roy Halladay are the only other active pitchers with a pair of no-hitters. Halladay, of course, threw one of his in the postseason against the Reds in 2010.

When Votto caught the throw for the final out, Bailey raised both arms in triumph, reminiscent of that grand moment in Pittsburgh last September, then hugged catcher Ryan Hanigan. This time, Baker got to celebrate too — he was in a hospital in Chicago being treated for a mini-stroke last September.

Teammates poured onto the field to celebrate and doused Bailey with a red sports drink.

It was the 16th no-hitter in Cincinnati history. No Reds pitcher had thrown a no-no at home since Tom Browning's 1-0 perfect game against the Dodgers at Riverfront Stadium on Sept. 16, 1988.

Bailey became the third pitcher in the history of baseball's first professional franchise to get more than one.

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As Arizona Fires Rage On, Inquiry Into Firefighters’ Death Focuses on Wind

PRESCOTT, Ariz. — A swelling army of firefighters aided by bulldozers, air tankers and helicopters struggled on Tuesday to subdue the forest blaze that killed 19 elite firefighters on Sunday and continued carving a destructive path through two mountainside communities whose residents were forced to flee.

The Forest Service sent four C-130 planes to work on this fire and on another wildfire in Kingman, on the western edge of the state, which doubled in size overnight Monday and charred more than 2,300 acres on Tuesday. Each of the planes is capable of dropping 3,000 gallons of water and fire retardant in less than five seconds, a Forest Service spokesman said.

The firefighters' chief opponent has been the wind, which gusted at 20 miles per hour throughout the day from the south and southwest, only to twirl under thick storm clouds that have for days moved over the area in the late afternoons.

The clouds, according to Stewart Turner, a fire behavior analyst in the multiagency team that has taken command of the operation, "push the wind down, then they push it out in different directions, in unpredictable ways."

Late Monday, the wind grounded the aircraft that had been dropping water and fire retardant over the flames.

As another thunderstorm was forecast to move over the region, pilots were warned Tuesday morning that they might have to ground their planes again, said Jim Wallmann, a meteorologist working at the command center outside Peeples Valley, one of the villages that the fire has partly destroyed.

Increasingly, the shifting winds — part of a meteorological phenomenon known as outflow — have become the main focus of investigators who arrived from several states on Tuesday to begin piecing together what happened to the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, the elite firefighters killed Sunday.

Ralph Lucas, a battalion chief for the Prescott Fire Department, said that firefighters spoke of "a large thunderstorm above the fire" just as the men deployed their emergency shelters, a last resort when they have no place to hide and no time to run.

"That may have led to the incident," Chief Lucas said.

The crew's 20th member and only survivor was Brendan McDonough, 21. He was in his third season and was working as the lookout. His task was to post himself on top of a hill and warn his comrades of any changes in the way the flames were moving and the weather behaving. At one point, Mr. McDonough faced a choice: Stay and risk being engulfed by flames or leave for safer ground.

He left, and as he headed downhill, he crossed paths with the member of another Hotshot crew, who pointed at the place where he had been standing, noting it had completely burned out, said Wade Ward, a spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.

Mr. McDonough has asked to be left alone. In a statement read by Bob Orrill, of the Southwest Incident Command Team, Mr. McDonough said he was "physically healthy," but is "working through the process" of dealing with what happened.

The size of the fire has remained steady: 8,400 acres, or roughly 13 square miles, burning through canyons, ridges and slopes covered by parched piñon pine, chaparral bush and yellowed grass. It is a small area, compared with other Western wildfires, but as of Tuesday the blaze had yet to be contained. Mr. Turner of the multiagency Southwest Incident Command Team said it might not be until the wind subsides or rain falls that significant progress would be made.

The uncertainty and the instability of the weather have left residents here on edge. A modest yet steady flow of people has come through the shelters set up by the American Red Cross here and in Wickenburg. Some stay overnight. Others take showers and grab a bite. All have questions, said Trudy Thompson Rice, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross's Grand Canyon Chapter.

"They want to know about the firefighters, they want to know what they need to do to move forward, but they also come for support, just to see one another," Ms. Thompson Rice added.

At a community meeting at Prescott High School, dozens of residents gathered on the bleachers to hear the latest update and to ask questions. One woman wondered how she would know if an evacuation order is given for her area. (The city has a reverse 911 call system in place, so she would probably get a call, she was told.) One man asked: "When can we go home? What's going on?"

 Clay Templin, one of the fire's incident commanders, said that before anyone could go home, "I have to make sure this fire won't go ahead and cross the line."

There were 500 firefighters working the line on Tuesday and at least six aircraft helping them from above, with more to come. They had built a cordon around the fire, hoping to salvage what is left of Yarnell and Peeples Valley, old gold-mining villages southwest of Prescott that have been under an evacuation order since Sunday.

Command of the operations has been in the hands of the multiagency Southwest Incident Management Team since Sunday, as soon as it became clear that the fire was growing too big and out of control for local crews to handle, but before the 19 firefighters ran into trouble.

They were deep into the mountains southwest of here, lugging enough equipment to cut deep trenches around the flames, one of the strategies that Hotshot teams use to try to contain fires.

As a storm moved over the area, one of them radioed the commanders at a base camp nearby, saying the men, trapped, were going to deploy their emergency shelters, which are designed to protect them from intense heat, but only for a short period.

That was the last time anyone heard from them.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 2, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the Granite Mountain Hotshots' sole surviving firefighter. He is Brendan McDonough, not Brendan McDonogh. The name of a spokesman for the Southwest Incident Command Team was also incorrect. It is Bob Orrill, not Paul Orrill.

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Roundup: Reminiscent of His Idol, a Second No-Hitter

Another hard-throwing Texan who wears No. 34 made some no-hit history Tuesday night.

That Texan, Homer Bailey, threw his second no-hitter in 10 months for the Cincinnati Reds in a 3-0 win over San Francisco.

Bailey became the third Reds pitcher with more than one no-hitter, joining Jim Maloney and Johnny Vander Meer — still the only big leaguer to toss two in a row. Bailey no-hit the Pirates, 1-0, in Pittsburgh last Sept. 28 and got another no-hitter 17 starts later.

This one was at home with 27,509 fans standing and chanting "Homer! Homer!" as he finished it off in a tidy 102 pitches with one walk — in the seventh inning — and nine strikeouts.

"It was a pretty easy no-hitter," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. "We didn't hit too many balls hard. He was really overmatching us all night."

Yes, it was reminiscent of Nolan Ryan, a Hall of Famer from Texas who holds the record with seven no-hitters.

Bailey threw the last of the majors' seven no-hitters last season, and now the first of 2013. The last pitcher to throw one no-hitter and then another before anyone else in the majors was Ryan, according to STATS. Ryan, baseball's career strikeout king, did it for the California Angels on Sept. 28, 1974, against Minnesota, and on June 1, 1975, versus Baltimore.

"Obviously, being from Texas and what a legend he is," said Bailey, who wears No. 34 in tribute to his boyhood hero. "To do it once is extra special. To do it twice — I don't really have the words for it right now."

DODGERS 8, ROCKIES 0 Clayton Kershaw tossed a four-hitter for his second shutout of the season and the rookie sensation Yasiel Puig had three more hits, including a solo home run, to lead visiting Los Angeles. Colorado's Michael Cuddyer had his franchise-record 27-game hitting streak halted.

PHILLIES 3, PIRATES 1 Jonathan Pettibone pitched neatly into the sixth inning, and Philadelphia snapped host Pittsburgh's nine-game winning streak.

BREWERS 4, NATIONALS 0 Stephen Strasburg had hitters flailing at curveballs for seven scoreless innings in a magnificent outing that was wasted when visiting Milwaukee scored off the Washington bullpen.

BRAVES 11, MARLINS 3 Chris Johnson's two-run, go-ahead double was the big hit in a four-run sixth inning that helped host Atlanta to a win over Miami.

MARINERS 9, RANGERS 2 Kendrys Morales homered twice and tied a career high with six runs batted in to lead visiting Seattle past Texas.

RAYS 8, ASTROS 0 The American League Cy Young Award winner David Price pitched three-hit ball for seven innings in his return from the disabled list and Desmond Jennings homered and drove in four runs as Tampa Bay won at Houston.

TIGERS 7, BLUE JAYS 6 Torii Hunter drove in the tiebreaking run with a two-out infield single in the eighth, and Detroit rallied from a 4-0 deficit to win at Toronto.

INDIANS 6, ROYALS 5 Carlos Santana and Asdrubal Cabrera each drove in a pair of runs for Cleveland at Kansas City.

WHITE SOX 5, ORIOLES 2 Adam Dunn and Conor Gillaspie homered to help Chicago snap visiting Baltimore's four-game winning streak.

RED SOX 4, PADRES 1 Brandon Snyder hit a bases-loaded double and John Lackey struck out six over eight strong innings in Boston's victory at home.

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