Orb Wins the 139th Running of the Kentucky Derby

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The revelers were sloppy, the grounds were sloppy and the racetrack was sloppy, but Orb apparently did not mind much, and afterward his owners and trainer could not have been happier with the way the day played out.

The late-closing Orb, ridden by the red-hot Joel Rosario, found a way to win despite his lack of experience on a wet track, trudging to victory in the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

He outran Golden Soul by two and a half lengths to win the mile-and-a-quarter race in 2 minutes 2.89 seconds. It was the first Derby victory for the Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey and the Phipps family. Revolutionary finished third, another length back.

"Obviously, it's a huge, huge thrill for me," McGaughey, 62, said, teary after the race. "It's a race I've always wanted to win, a race I've always wanted to compete in if I thought I had the right horse, and finally today we had the right horse."

The top contenders all drew favorable posts Wednesday, allowing the Churchill Downs oddsmaker, Mike Battaglia, to leave his early predictions for the morning line intact. But as the week wore on, the weather forecast grew more grim, leaving many handicappers scrambling for a horse that had shown that he could handle the slop.

Orb, who had won four straight races entering the race, including the Florida Derby on March 30, proved he was the best of the bunch, mud or no mud. He stole the morning-line favorite distinction from Verrazano, at 7-2, with a blazing workout Monday that left McGaughey smiling. But the sunny and warm weather early in the week transformed to chilly and rainy by the end, harming Orb's chances. He rewarded those who were faithful to him with $12.80 on a $2 bet to win.

Orb is owned by Ogden Mills Phipps and Stuart Janney III, who are first cousins and prominent members of the Phipps racing empire. Six generations of the family have been involved in the sport, stockpiling victories in the biggest races, all except the Kentucky Derby. Easy Goer finished second for the Phippses and McGaughey behind Sunday Silence in 1989. Long before that, Phipps (and his father, Ogden Phipps) lost out on the Triple Crown winner Secretariat, a son of Bold Ruler, who was owned by Phipps's grandmother. After a coin toss, they picked a filly by the sire instead.

"We wanted the filly because our stable is based on the fillies," said Ogden Mills Phipps, who is known as Dinny, who because of complications from a blood clot in his leg four years ago has trouble walking. "The foal couldn't outrun me, and that's not very good."

Janney said he never heard anyone in his family lament about losing out on Secretariat.

"I never saw my grandmother or my Uncle Ogden spend too much time worrying about spilled milk," he said. "They were always about what's going to happen next. I can remember Uncle Ogden would be very nervous before a big race. There were many times when whatever his expectations were, they didn't turn out, the horse ran terribly, whatever. It was like he just turned the page."

Dinny Phipps made an effort to get out to Payson Park near his home in Palm Beach, Fla., to see his late-blooming colt train, making McGaughey, knowing the significance, a little nervous.

"It's a struggle for me to get out there, but I wanted to go see how he was doing," Phipps said.

Throughout the lead-up to the race, the family insisted it did not have Derby fever. But a glance at Phipps during the singing of "My Old Kentucky Home" showed he might have had more emotion inside than he was letting on.

Afterward, the owners gave credit where it was due, to McGaughey, who has trained for the family since 1986 and has been a fixture in his barn throughout the week, watching over his charge and getting his hands dirty in the process.

"This is a time to reflect on our terrific trainer," Janney said. "I certainly hoped it would be his time, and it was."

Phipps quickly chimed in, "Well, he's right about that."

Rosario won the world's richest horse race, the $10 million Dubai World Cup, on March 30 aboard the 2011 Derby winner, Animal Kingdom. He closed the recent Keeneland meet with 38 victories, a spring session record. And on opening night at Churchill Downs, he won five races, including the prep race, the Derby Trial.

"To win the Dubai World Cup and the Derby, it is like living a dream," Rosario said. "I feel awesome, and this guy today, it was all him. I was so far behind. I let him be calm and relaxed."

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

N.R.A. Officials Issue Rallying Cry for Midterm Elections

HOUSTON — In speech after speech at the National Rifle Association's annual convention here this weekend, its top leaders and political allies blasted President Obama and other gun control advocates, warned against "all-out, historic attacks" on the constitutional right to possess firearms, and issued a rallying cry to members to become a political force in next year's midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race.

"We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation fight for everything we care about," Wayne R. LaPierre, the association's executive vice president and principal spokesman, told a cheering throng of members at the convention center here on Saturday. "We have a chance to secure our freedom for a generation, or to lose it forever."

"We must remain vigilant, ever resolute, and steadfastly growing and preparing for the even more critical battles that loom before us," he said.

Praising the N.R.A.'s membership for helping defeat a bipartisan Senate proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers last month, Mr. LaPierre said that the Senate fight had helped swell the association's membership to a record five million people.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the convention theme was "Stand and Fight," and much of the fight was directed toward Mr. Obama, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and those Mr. LaPierre described as their supporters in the "media elite" who were "conspiring right now, regrouping, planning, organizing" to exploit "the next horrific crime."

The Senate bill "wouldn't have prevented Newtown, couldn't have prevented Tucson or Aurora and won't prevent the next tragedy," he said.

Later on, he added the Boston Marathon bombings to bolster his position."How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?" Mr. LaPierre said. "How many other Americans now ponder that life-or-death question?"

Mr. LaPierre and James W. Porter II, who was expected to be named president by the board of directors on Monday, succeeding David Keene, both urged N.R.A. members to become active in the 2014 midterm elections — which Mr. Porter described as more important than last year's presidential election — and then the 2016 presidential race.

"We do that and Obama can be stopped," Mr. Porter said.

The lineup of speakers at Friday's Leadership Forum looked like the early field for the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, featuring Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate, as well as video appearances by Representative Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker, both of Wisconsin.

Ms. Palin, wearing a black T-shirt that said "Women Hunt," criticized gun control proposals that "won't even work for their stated intended purposes." Mr. Cruz warned that any infringement on the Bill of Rights would undermine the entire Constitution. And just about every speaker poked fun at the N.R.A.'s favorite cast of enemies: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Mr. Bloomberg, whom Mr. LaPierre described as the "national nanny."

Critics of the N.R.A. lined up outside the convention center.

"Somehow they managed to make the N.R.A. the victims of the Newtown shootings," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, which advocates for stricter gun control. "I think the average American would be shocked by their language."

Across from the sprawling convention hall, a small group of gun control advocates spent Friday and Saturday reading the names of about 4,000 Americans killed by gun violence since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Among the protesters was Patricia Maisch, a survivor of the mass shooting in Tucson where former Representative Gabrielle Giffords was wounded. "I'm here to not let the issue go away," she said. "I don't think people are going to let that happen this time."

Yet beneath the politically charged surface of the convention, it was clear that many of the tens of thousands of N.R.A. members had come for things other than speeches. There were seminars on competitive shooting, firearms law and hunting, including "Advanced Sausage Processing, BBQ and Smoke Cooking Techniques," taught by Brad Lockwood, an expert and TV host.

Outside the "Defensive Shooting Skills Development" course, David Shoffner, 66, a car dealer from Redding, Calif., said he had owned guns since he was a boy, but had never taken a defensive shooting class. "I'm worried about society going downhill," he said, asserting that drug-related crime had picked up even in his largely agricultural region of Northern California.

Amiable and engaging, Mr. Shoffner described himself as a "conservative guy" descended from a rancher who fled Missouri after shooting a man who cheated at poker. He professed to hating bloodshed and said he would not hunt because he did not like killing animals.

But he admired the N.R.A.'s efforts to "keep the Second Amendment alive" and, like many other conventioneers, expressed bafflement with the mind-set that "you can stop evil" with gun control.

Even as the speeches ground on in a huge meeting hall, thousands of members were downstairs, where acre-upon-acre of kiosks displayed the latest in hunting and camping equipment, and weaponry, from futuristic black-matte rifles to six-shooters to knives that would have made Jim Bowie envious.

Conventioneers could admire a vintage Volkswagen bus outfitted with a kind of mini-Gatling gun (not for sale).

And Jim Revis took photographs of his daughter, Lais, 19, as she posed with a pink-and-white military-style rifle. She said she planned to start attending gun safety classes because she wanted a gun for both hunting and self-defense. "The main thing I get out of this is to get together with people who think the way I do," said Mr. Revis, who lives in the Houston area.

John Shia, an engineer from Houston who is also a yoga, martial arts and gun enthusiast, said he had come to love target shooting after emigrating from Japan 20 years ago. "Shooting is a fine motor skill, like sewing," he said. "Like yoga."

Mr. Shia, 47, a longtime N.R.A. member, said he had come to the exhibition hall to check out laser-targeting systems.

"The speeches are a waste of time," Mr. Shia said. "The gun control debate, you can argue it either way. It just depends on what data set you use."

He paused, recognizing that he was not voicing a typical N.R.A. viewpoint. "We can be a diverse group," he said. "But I guess I'm not the average member."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 4, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the position of James W. Porter II in the National Rifle Association. He is expected to be named president by the association's board of directors on Monday; he was not elected during the convention. 

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Life in North Korean Complex: A Glimmer of Hope

Woohae Cho for The New York Times

Kwak Kyung-dock, center, who was a manager at the Kaesong complex, on Thursday at a factory in Bucheon, near Seoul.

SEOUL, South Korea — When the order came last weekend to evacuate an industrial park in North Korea, Kwak Kyung-dock, a South Korean factory manager, said he was forced to flee with the suit on his back — and his car filled with so many boxes of the plastic machinery parts made at his factory that he had to tie several on the roof.

"I had to leave like a refugee," he said.

The flight of South Korean managers like Mr. Kwak, crossing the border in cars overburdened with gear from factories they may never see again, has become the enduring image of a standoff that began when the North successfully launched a long-range rocket in December.

The exodus was all the more alarming because for the nine years that North Koreans had worked in South Korean-owned factories at the Kaesong complex, it had seemed reassuring proof that no matter how heated the back-and-forth got, the two nations were unwilling to let things go too far.

Now that all of the managers have returned to South Korea, they are shedding light on the sprawling outpost of capitalism in the impoverished Communist state. Though it sometimes felt like a prison, to many it represented the only tangible hope that the two Koreas might one day be able to find common ground.

"Kaesong was like a mini reunification, the first time in 60 years of division where we ate out of the same rice pot," said Park Nam-seo, president of Comcase, a toy manufacturer who left Kaesong in March.

Since its creation during a thaw in inter-Korean relations nine years ago, the Kaesong park had grown from a small collection of buildings into a vast complex that became one of the world's most unusual investment enclaves. With its 123 South Korean-built factories powered with electricity from the South, and surrounded by tall fences guarded by North Korean soldiers, the park was a bright light in the darkness caused by electrical shortages in the North's failed command economy.

But last month, as tensions rose on the peninsula after North Korea was sanctioned for conducting a nuclear test, North Korea suspended operations at the complex, saying a final decision would depend on South Korea's attitude. The North withdrew its 54,000 workers, then cut off shipments of food and other supplies from the South.

By Friday, the South had withdrawn all of its citizens, who had worked mainly as managers and overseers at the park. Some of the South Korean managers expressed anger, saying that the park was being held hostage by politics.

"Just because the father and mother fight doesn't mean their 10-year-old child should be sent to an orphanage," said Yoo Chang-geun, president of SJTech, an auto parts maker with a factory in Kaesong. "It will be very sad if Kaesong closes, because it planted a dream of peace."

In interviews, more than a half-dozen of the South Korean managers said they had been reluctant to leave, and hoped to return as soon as possible.

They said their companies had become dependent on the North Korean plants, whose workers, ill trained at first, quickly rivaled South Korean factory workers in skill, and for much lower wages. But just as important, the managers displayed an almost missionary-like zeal to use the park as a living laboratory of whether combining South Korean money and know-how with North Korean workers hungry for better lives could somehow provide a formula for peace and perhaps even reunification of the peninsula.

The South Korean managers said that after nine years, a yawning gulf still divided the managers, whose housing and restaurants were in the complex, from the North Korean workers, who commuted in every day. The South Koreans, as many as 1,000, were carefully checked every time they entered the North to ensure they were not carrying newspapers or other politically charged information. Even factory manuals were censored for mentions of capitalism or other banned ideas.

Lee Kyu-yong, a manager at SJTech's Kaesong factory, recalls how at first even basic communication was difficult because of huge differences in living standards. Once he meant to praise a North Korean by remarking that she had lost weight, but instead ended up offending her. Mr. Lee said he realized that in a society with famines, being plump was seen as more desirable.

Over time, he said, he was able to close that gap, at least a bit, and grew close enough with his company's 430 North Korean employees to talk about personal matters like families, though politics remained a forbidden topic.

"The human relations that we built have a value that go beyond calculation," Mr. Lee said.

Su-hyun Lee reported from Seoul, and Martin Fackler from Tokyo.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Another Order to Vacate at Site Threatened by One57 Crane

One of the more dramatic moments as Hurricane Sandy raged last October took place in Midtown Manhattan when hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes because the winds accompanying the storm had damaged the boom of a crane that loomed 1,000 feet above the sidewalk from a soaring residential tower under construction just south of Columbus Circle.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Construction at a tower near Columbus Circle, where a damaged crane dangled during Hurricane Sandy, may yet again temporarily push out residents of Alwyn Court.

Connect with NYTMetro

Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

The tower, known as One 57, is visible through the glass ceiling from inside Alwyn Court.

Among those forced to vacate for nearly a week were residents of the 72 apartments in Alwyn Court, the stately apartment building at the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 58th Street.

So, board members and other residents at the building were unhappy Friday when they received word from the city and the developer of the yet-to-be completed tower next door, known as One57, that they would have to leave their homes once again next weekend while the crane atop the tower was repaired. According to the city's Buildings Department, the operation would replace the boom damaged in the hurricane.

"They are trying to lower the boom on us," said Joseph Baillio, 69, one of the Alwyn residents who stood on Saturday morning inside the Alwyn Court's spacious lobby. Speaking of Extell, the developer of the building, he added: "They are bullying us."

The president of the building's co-op board, Paul Matus, 62, said that he had met with Extell executives and Buildings Department officials on Thursday to discuss plans to install a new boom on May 10 and 11 and told them that his fellow residents would be willing to discuss how best to accommodate the operation but wanted more time to plan.

On Friday, he said, a Buildings Department official told him that the agency was planning to issue a vacate order to compel the residents of Alwyn Court to leave for about 24 hours starting next Friday night. Similar orders would also apply to another building, the Briarcliff, and to a nearby school, he said.

Saying that the Buildings Department appeared to be working as "an arm of the developer," Mr. Matus said that he and other board members were considering asking for a court injunction to block the vacate order.

Mr. Matus said Extell officials had told him that they would reimburse the Alwyn Court's residents up to $1,500 per apartment to relocate temporarily on Friday. But he added that it would be difficult for many residents to find lodging, particularly those who would not want to leave dogs, cats or other pets behind if there was a chance that their apartments might be damaged.

"We feel like our backs are up against the wall," Mr. Matus said.

A spokeswoman from Extell said the company had worked with representatives from buildings where people would be required to vacate.

"For those owners or residents with special needs or requirements, we are working with them to be certain that all such needs are appropriately addressed," the spokeswoman said. "We understand, and apologize for the inconvenience caused by this disruption; however, this operation will allow for the safe completion of the building."

Also dismayed by the prospect of a shutdown next weekend was Alexandre Petrossian, one of the owners of Petrossian, a restaurant on the ground floor of the Alwyn Court.

"It is very painful," he said, adding that the restaurant had many reservations for Mother's Day weekend and was in the unenviable position of telling patrons that those reservations could not be honored.

Mr. Petrossian said that he, too, was consulting with a lawyer.

Tony Sclafani, a spokesman for the Buildings Department, said the boom replacement had been approved after an "extensive, thorough review" by the agency, the crane manufacturer and a third-party engineer. "The safest construction site is one that is completed," he said. "The replacement of the boom will facilitate that process."

Developers of One57 have presented it as one of the world's most exclusive buildings. It will rise to a height of 90 stories, offer sweeping views, and include top-floor apartments priced at $90 million apiece.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 4, 2013

Because of incorrect information supplied, an earlier version of this article misstated the amount of money that Paul Matus said Extell officials told him Alwyn Court residents would be reimbursed for relocating temporarily. The amount was up to $1,500 per apartment, not up to $1,000.

An earlier version also referred incorrectly to the developer of One57 in one instance. The company is Extell, not Excell.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Game 7: Bulls 99, Nets 93: Nets Show Up Late and Miss Out on Celebration

The Nets fought back from a three-games-to-one deficit against the Chicago Bulls to earn this opportunity, a win-or-go-home game in their new arena and another chance for their black-clad fans to shower this rebranded franchise with full-throated adoration.

They were confident because it was all right there, all on a platter, all for the taking. The Bulls' roster had been thinned by injury and illness. The Nets could surge into a second-round series with the top-seeded Miami Heat.

But it all crumbled to pieces in a first-half performance that, for the Nets, could not have been scripted any worse. The Bulls went on to win, 99-93, on Saturday night, closing the inaugural season at Barclays Center with an anticlimactic thud and cutting short the season of a team with designs on a deeper postseason run.

"When we won Game 6," Nets point guard Deron Williams said, "we felt like this was our series."

In front of a raucous capacity crowd — the first to watch a Game 7 in Brooklyn since the Dodgers hosted the Yankees in 1956 — the Nets shot 40.7 percent and fell behind by as many as 17 points in the first half. They closed the gap to 4 in the fourth quarter, but Chicago, which scored 52 points in the paint and had 19 offensive rebounds, managed to hold on.

The Bulls followed the energetic lead of their center, Joakim Noah, who had 24 points and 14 rebounds and blocked six shots. After the game, Noah, grinning broadly, leapt into the crowd to hug his mother, Cecilia Rodhe.

"I'm so proud of this team," he said. "All of these experiences I'll never take for granted."

In a dour and stunned Nets locker room, Williams tossed a crumbled score sheet to the floor. Joe Johnson, who shot 2 of 14 from the field and scored 6 points, barely whispered his explanation for what tied his lowest scoring output of the season.

"I was just out there trying to give the guys what I had," Johnson said. "It was tough not being able to come through."

The Nets entered Game 7 calm and confident, saying they believed that they were better than the Bulls — that they were better than the Bulls without the injuries and were certainly better than them now.

The bravado had some foundation. The Nets won 49 games this season, earning the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference with two of the N.B.A.'s highest-paid players, Williams and Johnson, and an All-Star center, Brook Lopez, at their core.

They also had a full roster at their disposal, unlike Chicago, which was missing the starters Kirk Hinrich (calf) and Luol Deng (illness) on Saturday, not to mention its franchise player, Derrick Rose, who has not played this season.

The Bulls got by mainly on heart and hustle, as well as the ingenuity of their coach, Tom Thibodeau, who was wringing a rolled-up statistics sheet in his hand for parts of the second half Saturday, looking the part of a mad scientist on the sidelines.

The Nets were undone by the same inconsistent swings that plagued them all season and all series. They made two field goals in the third quarter of Game 2. They missed 25 of 26 shots in the first half of Game 3. They shot 27 percent in the second half of Game 6.

On Saturday, they fell behind, 29-25, in the first quarter while relying on Williams, who scored or assisted on 15 of the team's first 20 points, to engineer the offense. Lopez was quiet, and Johnson struggled.

The Bulls built up their lead in the second quarter, taking a 17-point lead into halftime. The crowd booed.

"They played like they weren't ready for their season to end," forward Gerald Wallace said. "They ran what they wanted, and we were on the back of our heels."

After Game 6, Noah had sat at his locker and predicted the Bulls would win Game 7.

"We're going to go into a hostile environment in Brooklyn," Noah said, "and we're going to win."

It was a head-turning pronouncement. The Nets had won two straight, and the momentum was clearly in their favor. It tilted even further that way when Hinrich and Deng were announced out for Saturday's game. But that hardly mattered.

The Nets opened the second half firing, and after a 21-8 rally, the score was 69-65. Wallace was explosive, flying to the rim for several emphatic slams and scoring 11 of his 19 points in the third quarter. The crowd was back into the game.

The Nets trailed by 7, at 82-75, entering the fourth quarter, but they missed their first six shots and quickly fell behind by 10. A layup-and-one by Williams with 2 minutes 26 seconds left cut the lead to 5, 93-88.

It was 95-90 entering the final minute, and with 40 seconds left Johnson missed a 3-pointer from the corner. Fans began gathering their belongings. A 3-pointer by Williams offered a glimmer of hope, but the season ended on a missed 25-foot 3-point attempt by Johnson with nine seconds remaining.

The Nets and the Bulls hugged at midcourt after the buzzer. After seven hard-fought games, which included moments of rage, there was nothing left in either tank.

The Bulls were exhausted but victorious. The Nets were humbled and muted. In Game 7 on their home court, with all on the line, the Nets never led.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Game 6: Knicks 88, Celtics 80: Over for Celtics, but Not Easy Win for Knicks

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

The Knicks' Carmelo Anthony shooting over the Celtics' Jeff Green. More Photos »

BOSTON — The wait had been long, humiliating, often torturous, and it would not end without one final jolt of stress, one last anxious sensation before the moment of exhilaration finally, mercifully arrived. Delayed gratification never felt this good.

The Knicks had blown a chance to sweep the Boston Celtics, blown a clinching game at home and extended a 13-year playoff drought for another unfortunate few days. Then they nearly blew a 26-point fourth-quarter lead Friday night, flirting briefly with disaster, before finally securing an 88-80 victory and a moment long, long overdue.

The Knicks are advancing from the first round for the first time since 2000, after closing out the Celtics, four games to two. They will meet the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, which open Sunday at Madison Square Garden. The Pacers also advanced Friday, closing out the Atlanta Hawks in six games.

There was no celebration at the final buzzer, only relief, a minor mission accomplished.

"It's a big relief," said Carmelo Anthony, adding, "It's something that I've been looking forward to since I came here to New York."

Anthony's arrival in 2011 was supposed to portend great things, but it took three tries to take this step. There was symmetry in the moment: it was the Celtics who swept the Knicks in Anthony's first postseason in New York.

Now it is the Knicks who appear ascendant, having outlasted the aging Celtics in a taut, defensive-oriented series and earned their respect.

"They can beat anybody when they play right, I'll tell you that," Doc Rivers said.

The Celtics, who failed to make the second round for the first time since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined Paul Pierce in 2007, are heading for an off-season of potentially drastic change, and the possible breakup of the Pierce-Garnett tandem.

This was not the Knicks at their most efficient, but they did play a smarter, more balanced game Friday, with Anthony serving as a decoy — a word he used, reluctantly — while the scoring shifted to Iman Shumpert (17 points), Pablo Prigioni (14 points) and Raymond Felton (11 points). J. R. Smith began to re-emerge as well, scoring 13 points.

By the late fourth quarter, Anthony had missed an astounding 19 straight 3-pointers — a streak that began late in Game 3 — but it was the 20th attempt that mattered most. After the Celtics cut the 26-point deficit to 4, Anthony turned them back with two huge shots: a 12-footer and finally a 3-pointer, extending the lead to 84-75 and effectively snuffing the rally.

"For him to miss all the 3s that he missed, he hit the biggest one in the series," Coach Mike Woodson said. "And that's what counts."

The series was a grind from start to finish, with the Celtics focusing all of their defensive energy on Anthony, forcing him into tough shots game after game. He shot 38.1 percent over the six games and was 7 for 23 in the clincher, finishing with 21 points.

Shumpert delivered the other key play of the fourth, stealing the ball from Pierce with 5 minute 10 seconds to play and racing for a layup that ended a 20-0 Celtics run. The Knicks had gone 4:38 without scoring.

"Shumpert tonight was their best player," Rivers said.

After two poor games, the Knicks revived their offense with the basics. They kept the ball moving, found secondary and tertiary scoring sources and reclaimed the all-for-one identity that carried them through the regular season.

Five Knicks scored in double figures, and they made 9 of 21 shots from 3-point range. Woodson tightened the rotation, relying primarily on six players for much of the night, until the game and the series were secure.

The Celtics fought valiantly, but they sorely missed Rajon Rondo, their star point guard who has been out since January, and their offense was dismal throughout. With their postseason on the line Friday, the Celtics shot 38.1 percent, missed seven free throws and committed 20 turnovers, many of them unforced.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

DealBook: JPMorgan Board Feels Heat From Upset Shareholders

As JPMorgan Chase's annual meeting nears, much of the tension surrounds a critical vote to split the chairman and chief executive roles — a decision that could strip Jamie Dimon, the bank's influential leader, of the dual titles he has held since 2006. Behind the scenes, though, another battle is brewing.

Some JPMorgan shareholders are taking public aim at individual directors who hold crucial positions on the bank's audit and risk committees as the bank grapples with an onslaught of regulatory challenges.

On Friday, the CtW Investment Group, which represents union pension funds and owns six million shares in JPMorgan, said it planned to vote against the three directors on the risk policy committee and the head of the audit committee. While it is not known how other shareholders are voting on directors, big stakeholders like BlackRock, T. Rowe Price and TIAA-CREF have increasingly taken aim at boards, voting against directors they think are performing poorly.

JPMorgan, once the darling of Washington after emerging from the financial crisis in far better shape than its rivals, suffered a multibillion-dollar trading loss last year. Since then it has increasingly found itself under regulatory scrutiny for potential risk and compliance lapses.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the bank's chief regulators, is deciding whether to bring new enforcement actions, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity. One action the agency is considering, these people said, focuses on whether JPMorgan used faulty documents in lawsuits to collect overdue credit card debt.

In one of the latest regulatory crackdowns, investigators from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sent a scathing message to the bank in March that warned of a potential action over accusations of manipulation in the energy markets. The confidential government document, reviewed by The New York Times, also took aim at a top executive, Blythe Masters, contending she gave "false and misleading statements" under oath.

"We intend to vigorously defend the firm and the employees in this matter," said Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for the bank, which is the nation's largest. "We strongly dispute that Blythe Masters or any employee lied or acted inappropriately in this matter."

While Mr. Dimon apologized in a recent letter to shareholders for disappointing "our regulators," vowing to bolster controls and "do all the work necessary to complete needed improvements," some shareholders are not satisfied and are now considering how to cast their votes. Some shareholders are reluctant to vote to split the role of chairman and chief executive, saying the right way to send a message is to vote against certain directors, a move they think will result in positive change at the board level.

JPMorgan's annual meeting is scheduled for May 21 in Tampa, Fla., and the results of shareholders' votes on all the proposals will be announced then. Directors and senior executives at the bank have been contacting major shareholders in recent weeks, hoping to ease any concerns they might have. They hope to persuade investors not only to back the board but also to vote against a proposal calling for the separation of the chairman and chief executive role. Last year, 40 percent of shareholders supported the proposal.

Shareholders like CtW are singling out members of the risk committee because they think the board failed to police the bank in important areas, contributing to the trading loss in 2012.

"What we have learned over the past year is that the performance of the risk committee is even worse than we thought," said Richard Clayton, CtW's research director. "Their behavior is a combination of being out at sea and asleep at the wheel. Both are bad and together they are disastrous."

James S. Crown, who has been a director of JPMorgan or one of its predecessor companies since 1991, is chairman of the risk policy committee. The other members are David M. Cote, the head of Honeywell International; Timothy P. Flynn, a former KPMG executive; and Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History. Mr. Flynn was appointed to the risk policy committee in August 2012.

CtW also plans to vote against Laban P. Jackson, chairman of the audit committee, which shares responsibility for oversight.

CtW voted against all four directors last year but went public only about its displeasure with Ms. Futter, contending she lacked banking experience. Last year, 86 percent of shareholders voted for Ms. Futter, the lowest amount of support for any director. A person close to JPMorgan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss board matters publicly, said that while Ms. Futter was not a career banker, she was well steeped in issues like reputational risk, bringing value to the committee.

Failing to receive a majority of shareholder votes does not necessitate a resignation, but such a vote might prompt a director to leave.

In 2011, before the big trading loss, CtW met with senior bank executives, warning that risk controls needed to be improved. It felt its concerns fell on deaf ears.

At a recent meeting with bank management, including the chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, and the general counsel, Stephen M. Cutler, the company owned up to its recent risk lapses, CtW said, but it has failed to devise any significant changes to improve the risk committee's operations.

"We realize there was a management failure," said Dieter Waizenegger, CtW's executive director. "But it is as if the board didn't do anything wrong and that is puzzling."

Ms. Lemkau, the bank spokeswoman, said, "We disagree with CtW on the points they have raised but continue to engage with them."

CtW's six million shares are worth about $285 million. In contrast, the company's biggest shareholders own more than 100 million JPMorgan shares each.

Since the trading loss last year, JPMorgan and its board have worked to fortify controls. JPMorgan's board reduced Mr. Dimon's pay this year by more than 50 percent, to $11.5 million, and issued a public report on the trading misstep. With the approval of the board, JPMorgan also clawed back more than $100 million in pay from the employees at the center of the soured wagers.

Last year, the board met 15 times, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the bank's proxy filing, the 11-member board said that Mr. Dimon should continue to hold the dual top posts.

"The board has determined that the most effective leadership model for the firm currently is that Mr. Dimon serves as both," the filing said.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

St. John’s President Says He Will Retire

The longtime president of St. John's University, the Rev. Donald J. Harrington, announced his retirement on Friday, ending a tenure that included successes like soaring student enrollment and campus expansion, but also financial scandal: he acknowledged going on trips with a former dean who committed suicide while on trial for corruption.

His retirement comes amid a pending inquiry requested a few months ago by the board of trustees into possible financial improprieties involving officials at the university, in Queens.

In announcing his retirement, effective July 31, Father Harrington, 67, alluded to the successful and difficult chapters during his 24 years as president.

"St. John's has been transformed and stands today a truly world-class global university," he wrote Friday to the trustees, but, "the difficulties for everyone during the past year have convinced me, after much prayer and reflection, that the time to leave the presidency has now come."

In the fall, the former dean, Cecilia Chang, was on trial, accused of stealing more than $1 million from the university and using foreign scholarship students as her personal servants. Prosecutors said she had created bank accounts in the students' names in a scheme to pocket tens of thousands of dollars.

During the trial, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, Father Harrington testified that he had traveled several times with Ms. Chang, as part of a delegation from St. John's, to Asia, where they stayed at opulent hotels. He also acknowledged accepting gifts, like a designer watch and suits custom-made in Hong Kong, from Chinese businessmen. He testified that Ms. Chang had convinced him that it was customary in Chinese culture to give gifts and that it would be rude to refuse them.

Ms. Chang, 59, was found dead in her Queens home a day after she testified in her own defense.

The suicide cut the trial short, but the allegations that surfaced in the wake of the proceedings continued to plague Father Harrington, as some students and faculty members questioned his leadership, and support waned.

The inquiry requested by the board is focused partly on Ms. Chang, Father Harrington and his chief of staff, Robert Wile. The investigation, according to reporting by New York magazine, includes a look at $370,000 in interest-free loans that Mr. Wile received from St. John's and people with university connections.

In the wake of the new allegations, the board retained Frank Wohl, a former federal prosecutor, to conduct a review of Mr. Wile's financial and business ties to the university.

Mr. Wile submitted his resignation this week; his last day will be June 30, said Dominic P. Scianna, a St. John's spokesman. Mr. Wile, through Mr. Scianna, declined to comment.

Last month, 66 faculty members sent a letter to the St. John's board calling for an open review of the allegations surrounding Father Harrington and Mr. Wile, a detailed forensic audit and the creation of an oversight committee that would include students, faculty and alumni.

"Because the board of trustees has not been able to meet its fiduciary responsibilities to monitor the financial status of the university and the actions of the administration," they wrote, "we fear the possibility that there has been a 'serious violation of the public trust' as defined by New York State."

On Friday, as news of Father Harrington's retirement spread, supporters praised him.

"Father Harrington transformed St. John's from a really good university to a great one," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. "As an alumnus of its law school, I've witnessed with pride as Father Harrington strengthened St. John's academically and physically with new facilities and buildings, while holding fast to the Vincentian mission."

The board said in a statement: "The tenure of Father Harrington as president has been a period of unrivaled growth, expansion and achievement for our university. He has been a transformative leader."

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

New York City to Double Number of Storm Evacuation Zones

The Bloomberg administration announced on Friday that it would double to six the number of evacuation zones along New York City's coast and expand them to include an additional 640,000 residents, saying that the new map would provide more flexibility when major storms hit.

The changes to the city's coastal storm plan were the most visible initiative to emerge from a report on the response to Hurricane Sandy prepared at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's request.

The report repeatedly praises city agencies and their state and federal counterparts, and acknowledges few if any significant missteps as government officials scrambled to respond to and recover from the severity of Hurricane Sandy, which killed 43 city residents and damaged thousands of homes.

"Over all, the response was very strong," said Caswell F. Holloway, the deputy mayor for operations, who oversaw the preparation of the report with Linda I. Gibbs, deputy mayor for health and human services. He said the point was to identify ways the city could do better, not to find fault.

"We were certainly not in a self-flagellation mode," Mr. Holloway said.

The new evacuation zones will bring to nearly three million the number of New Yorkers living in these areas. The city has roughly eight million residents.

Mr. Holloway declined to provide details on the new map until it is finished in June, but a preliminary version was included in the report released on Friday.

He and Ms. Gibbs said the city had to work on making evacuation orders more persuasive to residents who resist calls to leave their homes.

The extra evacuation zones should help with that, Mr. Holloway said, by making it possible to "only dislocate the people who truly need to be dislocated, and ultimately give everybody even more confidence that the data they're getting, they should be acting upon."

Many lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy will be set down in new "playbooks" for city agencies that had to learn on the fly how to deal with a major storm's aftermath: how to request waivers and extensions from federal school-lunch and food-stamp programs to serve a deluge of needy families; how to muster economic development programs to help battered businesses get back up to speed faster.

Others issues will be left to future task forces to interpret.

A number of smaller recommendations are already being acted on, like the purchase of more emergency lights, generators and small boats for firefighters.

The report also calls for new regulations for hospitals, nursing homes and adult homes during evacuations. It recommends the creation of a patient tracking system, better communication equipment and guidelines for the return of patients.

The report defends the city's decision not to evacuate health centers before Hurricane Sandy, emphasizing that the risks of evacuation were high and had to be weighed against the risks of the storm, which no one expected to be so severe.

The city and the state helped evacuate approximately 6,300 patients from 37 health care centers without a fatality, according to the report.

But it does not address the harrowing details of many of those evacuations, which were widely reported after the storm.

Two hospitals voluntarily evacuated before the storm. But NYU Langone Medical Center, Bellevue and Coney Island hospitals were forced to evacuate as the floodwaters rose and power faltered or failed.

At NYU Langone and Bellevue, gravely ill patients, including babies, had to be carried down darkened flights of stairs. Two patients remained at Bellevue for days in the flickering gloom of backup power because they were too ill to be evacuated with the rest.

Many nursing and adult homes were flooded and lost power, stranding residents without enough food or clothing, or waiting in buses while there was a scramble to find places that would accept them. Some families could not immediately find relatives. Some homes did not reopen for months.

While the report acknowledges that many hospitals, nursing and adult homes are in coastal areas where the flooding was worst, it does not directly address that geographic problem as a planning issue for the future.

City officials said they planned to issue a future report on infrastructure planning.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Israel Bombs Syria as U.S. Considers Military Options

WASHINGTON — Israel aircraft bombed a target in Syria overnight Thursday, an Obama administration official said Friday night, as United States officials said they were considering military options, including carrying out their own airstrikes.

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, with his British counterpart, Phillip Hammond, talked Thursday at the Pentagon about "the need for new options" if Syria uses chemical weapons.

American officials did not provide details on the target of the Israeli strike. But in late January, Israel carried out airstrikes against SA-17 antiaircraft weapons, which the Israelis feared were about to be moved to the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon.

Israel has been worried that chemical weapons and advanced arms might be transferred to Hezbollah from Syria, and the Israeli military has made clear that it is prepared to take action to stop such shipments.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has long had a close relationship with Hezbollah, and Syria has been a gateway for shipping Iranian weapons to the militia.

Hezbollah has sent trainers and advisers to Syria to help Mr. Assad with his war against the Syrian opposition, American officials say, and Syrian opposition officials report that Hezbollah fighters are also involved in the conflict.

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined on Friday night to comment on the Israeli attack, which was first reported by CNN, saying only in a statement, "Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to terrorists, specially to Hezbollah in Lebanon."

The Israeli attack came as the Obama administration — as part of its examination of possible responses to obtaining conclusive proof that Mr. Assad has used chemical weapons — is considering military options with allies. Those options include attacking Syria's antiaircraft systems, military aircraft and some of its missile fleet, according to senior officials from several countries.

Those officials say that attacking the chemical stockpiles directly has been all but ruled out. "You could cause exactly the disaster you are trying to prevent," a senior Israeli military official said in an interview last week in Tel Aviv.

But attacking Mr. Assad's main delivery systems, the officials say, would curtail his ability to transport those weapons any significant distance. "This wouldn't stop him from using it on a village, or just releasing it on the ground, or handing something to Hezbollah," said one European official who has been involved in the conversations. "But it would limit the damage greatly."

The topic was alluded to on Thursday, when Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met with his British counterpart and talked about "the need for new options" if Mr. Assad used his chemical arsenal, the officials said. But while the military has been developing and refining options for the White House for months, the discussion appears to have taken a new turn, officials say, in the struggle to determine whether the suspected use of sarin gas near Aleppo and Damascus last month was a prelude to greater use of such weapons.

"There are a lot of options on the table, and they're generally carrying equal weight at the moment," a senior administration official said Friday. He declined to discuss the others, though Mr. Hagel talked on Thursday about arming rebel groups

So far, President Obama has been reluctant to get involved in the Syrian conflict. He has ruled out placing American forces on the ground, a stance he reiterated on Friday at a new conference in San José, Costa Rica, where he was meeting with Latin American leaders.

Mr. Obama told reporters he did not foresee a situation in which "American boots on the ground in Syria would not only be good for America but also would be good for Syria," adding that he had consulted with leaders in the Mideast who agree.

When asked in recent days whether recent evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria crossed the "red line" he set in August, Mr. Obama described questions he would need to have answered — including when and how chemical weapons were used — before he would take action. Even then, he made clear, he may choose something well short of military action.

Reporting was contributed by Alan Cowell from Paris; Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Rick Gladstone from New York; and Michael D. Shear from San José, Costa Rica.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More