One Dies in Shooting Near Long Island Mall

The gunman, who fled and set off a manhunt, was identified by the police as Sang Ho Kim, 63, of Fresh Meadows, Queens.

The shooting occurred just after 10 a.m. at a light fixture company on South Street in East Garden City, N.Y., only blocks from the Roosevelt Field mall. Shortly after, there was a strong police response.

Streets were closed, shoppers were screened as they left the mall, schools were locked down, and vehicles were stopped and searched. With a recent bloody terrorist attack on a mall in Kenya and a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard still in the news, many residents were alarmed when they saw the burst of law enforcement activity.

Steven Skrynecki, the Nassau County police chief, held an afternoon news conference to try to put to rest any fears that the shooting was a prelude to something larger.

"There is nothing to suggest that this individual is on a random shooting rampage," Chief Skrynecki said.

While the investigation is in its early stages, he said, the police believe that Mr. Kim knew his victims and was angry about a business deal.

"The motive here appears to be work related," Chief Skrynecki said. After the shooting, he said, Mr. Kim drove off in a white 2008 Honda Pilot. The chief then cautioned, "We believe that this suspect is armed and very dangerous."

The owner and an employee of the light company, Savenergy, were shot. The police did not immediately release their names, and it was unclear who had died.

A woman who identified herself as Mr. Kim's wife but who declined to give her name said in a telephone interview that her husband was "victimized" by his boss, the owner of Savenergy. She said her husband and the owner had been good friends for more than a decade through their church.

Sobbing and speaking in Korean, she said her husband was being forced to resign from his job installing LED lights as a contractor for the company. She said he was owed more than $10,000.

"He couldn't sleep well," she said. "His chest filled with anger."

On Wednesday morning, when her husband left their home and headed to the office in Garden City to try to settle the dispute, she said, she became concerned.

"I had a strange feeling," she said, adding that she called him four times, "and he didn't pick up the phone."

In their hunt for the gunman, the police searched the campuses of Nassau Community College and Hofstra University. They were assisted by the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Jasmine Alston, 20, who works at the Macy's at the Roosevelt Field mall, said that she was let out of the building after her shift ended at 1:45 p.m. but that the mall itself was still closed at that time to people seeking to enter. She said the shutdown was uneventful: no announcements were made, and Macy's workers learned of the lockdown from customers or colleagues who called from outside. Even after becoming aware, she said, "some people were still shopping."

Jiha Ham and Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.

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Now Revealed by Stripper: Booker’s Twitter Messages

But the occasional perils of his reliance on the social media service became evident on Wednesday when a 26-year-old stripper from Oregon revealed her private online correspondence with him.

In a message to the stripper, named Lynsie Lee, Mr. Booker wrote that "the East Coast loves you, and by the East Coast, I mean me."

Ms. Lee, whose photograph on Twitter features her splayed topless across a yellow couch, replied, "Well, now I'm blushing :)"

Mr. Booker wrote back: "It's only fair."

The Newark mayor, a 44-year-old Democrat now seeking to become a United States senator, has long talked about the democratizing and revolutionary power of social media, collecting 1.4 million Twitter followers in the process — about five times the number of people who live in the New Jersey city he governs.

Even as many politicians have adopted a hyper-disciplined approach to social media, or handed over their official Twitter accounts to image-conscious aides in the wake of online scandals involving the likes of Anthony D. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman, Mr. Booker's fingers seem to rarely stray from the keyboard.

He takes an especially inclusive approach in signing on to follow those who reach out to him. There are now about 76,000 of them.

In February, Ms. Lee joined their ranks, which allowed the two of them to trade private messages.

Her correspondence with Mr. Booker, unearthed by BuzzFeed, suggests that she was exchanging casual banter with him.

Ms. Lee, offering context for Mr. Booker's words, told BuzzFeed that she had written to the mayor that the West Coast loved him, prompting his reply. "He was just flattering me," she said.

Ms. Lee, who works at Casa Diablo, which bills itself as the world's first vegan strip club, said she became acquainted with Mr. Booker when both were included in a film about social media. In an interview over Twitter on Wednesday night, Ms. Lee said she developed a "slight crush on the mayor."

Ms. Lee's correspondence with Mr. Booker came to light after he boasted that he would someday be president — of the New Jersey Star Trek Club. Ms. Lee and another Twitter user, Calla Bonanno, playfully sparred online over who would get to be his first lady, and both eventually said that they exchanged private messages with the mayor.

Ms. Bonanno, a 24-year-old from Ohio, said on Wednesday in a telephone interview that her only private communication with Mr. Booker came when she complimented him on a television appearance, and he thanked her.

Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Mr. Booker, declined to discuss how many private messages the mayor had exchanged with Ms. Lee. "The mayor talks with people from all walks of life on Twitter," he said in a statement. "The most shocking part of the story was learning that there is a vegan strip club in Portland."

A spokesman for Mr. Booker's Republican opponent in the Senate race, Steve Lonegan, declined to comment.

As he sent out his nightly deluge of messages on Twitter on Wednesday, Mr. Booker did not directly address the topic. But he could not resist forwarding a post from a follower, @DaveTKoenig, who said, "Just to end speculation right now, Cory & I follow each other, and it's purely platonic."

Ms. Lee seemed to delight in the attention. "I guess I'm famous now," she wrote. "Do I get to be on @piersmorgan's show?"

But she did not overlook the politician who brought her sudden celebrity: "You have to go donate to @CoryBooker's campaign," she wrote in a Twitter message to the scores of her newfound admirers.

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Coming Soon: Hers to Lose

September 25, 2013By Brent McDonald, Zena Barakat, Catherine Spangler, Stephen Maing, Matthew Orr and Emma Cott

Christine C. Quinn, the longtime front-runner in the New York City mayoral race, lost in the 2013 Democratic primary. This behind-the-scenes documentary captures the final month of her campaign.

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More Sway for F.D.A. Is Object of New Bill

A bipartisan committee of lawmakers from the Senate and the House reached a compromise on Wednesday on legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration greater control over compounding pharmacies. But analysts said it was still unclear whether the law would actually make drugs safer.

Lawmakers said the bill's primary function was to help prevent another national health disaster like the meningitis outbreak last year that was traced to a large Massachusetts-based compounding pharmacy, a company that mixes specialty medicine. More than 60 people died and more than 700 were sickened after receiving injections of a contaminated steroid made by the pharmacy, the New England Compounding Company.

The F.D.A. has argued repeatedly that it has limited authority over compounders, which are now regulated by state boards of pharmacy, even though many ship drugs across state lines.

The bill's authors argued that it would give the agency broader powers by placing some compounding pharmacies in a separate category that would require them to behave much like traditional drug manufacturers: to alert the authorities when something goes wrong with their products, to register with the F.D.A. and to allow agency officials into their facilities for inspection, much as traditional drug manufacturers do.

But the language of a statement issued late on Wednesday by the bill's authors implied that companies would not be required to be part of the new category, leaving the option open to those compounding facilities "who wish" to join.

If being part of the new group is optional, that means there will be a reliance on the market to drive demand for products made under the stricter standards, said Allan Coukell, a drug policy expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

"It will be incumbent on the purchaser — the physician, clinic or hospital — to opt for drugs from F.D.A.-regulated facilities," he said.

Under current law, compounders are not required to give the F.D.A. access to their books, or to allow them in to their production facilities for . About half of all the court orders the agency obtained over the past decade were for pharmacy compounders, although compounders were only a small part of the agency's regulatory responsibilities.

A Senate staff member with knowledge of the legislation said the goal of the bill was to create an incentive for compounding pharmacies to register with the F.D.A., even though it is not a requirement for companies to do so.

"If you're a hospital or a doctor and you have the choice of going to an unregistered facility or one that is registered with the F.D.A., you're going to choose the latter," the staff member said. "It gives hospitals and doctors the certainty that they are getting drugs from an F.D.A.-approved source."

The bill also sets up a system for tracking drugs, the Congressional leaders said in a news release. The system, which they said would help ensure that counterfeit and stolen drugs stay out of the drug supply, includes serial numbers for drugs and an electronic drug-tracing mechanism.

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Rays 8, Yankees 3: Yanks Succumb to the Inevitable, Failing to Make Playoffs

There was a somber inevitability Wednesday night in the Bronx: from the brief pregame ceremony honoring Andy Pettitte to Tampa Bay's crushing back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning to the decisive final out, which actually came more than 400 miles away in Cleveland.

The Yankees' quest to win another World Series fell terribly short as they lost, 8-3, to the Rays. But even before the Yankees and the Rays moved to the ninth inning of their game, the Yankees were officially eliminated — about 10:16 p.m., when the Indians concluded their 7-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox, as the scoreboard in center field showed for all at Yankee Stadium to see.

With four games remaining, the Yankees have 82 wins, and the Indians have 88.

"When you are out before the postseason even starts," Manager Joe Girardi said, "it's extremely disappointing."

It is only the second time in the last 19 years that the Yankees have not qualified for the postseason. Since 1995, qualifying had seemed almost automatic. Not in 2013, though, for a team with too many injuries and aging veterans.

"It's frustrating," Robinson Cano said. "We were close, but we didn't make the playoffs. At the same time, we have to be, not satisfied, but at least we got this far because we didn't have most of the guys most of the season. It was close, but there is nothing else you can do."

The Yankees, typical of their recent form, could muster little offense against the left-hander David Price, and the Rays delivered the decisive blows when Evan Longoria hit a three-run homer off reliever David Huff and David DeJesus followed with a shot to right field. The fans at Yankee Stadium, perhaps numbed by the inevitable, watched in near silence.

The Yankees last failed to make the playoffs in 2008. In 2009, they rebounded with a flourish, spending lavishly in the off-season and winning the World Series. There is little to suggest that pattern will hold this year, with the Yankees professing a new frugality. But many changes are probable.

Some players could leave through free agency, others are aging and facing an uncertain future, two are retiring, and Alex Rodriguez is facing a season-long suspension for allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Rodriguez, who is also dealing with fragile legs, was removed in the eighth inning.

"He told me his legs weren't great, and he said he was going to go take care of them," Girardi said. "And I said, 'O.K., go take care of them.' "

Both Pettitte and Mariano Rivera have announced they will retire after the season. Pettitte was scheduled to start Friday in Houston, near his hometown, against the Astros, his former team, and Rivera will probably pitch Thursday in his last game at Yankee Stadium. But it is not the way Rivera wanted to end his career.

"To say goodbye to the fans, but it doesn't mean anything," he said. "I'm not used to pitching for something that doesn't mean anything. I want to pitch in something that means something. But the fans to me are special, and I'll be there tomorrow."

Several other key players, like Cano, Curtis Granderson, Hiroki Kuroda, Boone Logan and Phil Hughes, are eligible for free agency and may end their Yankees careers in unusual fashion — playing in meaningless games.

Hughes in particular was a disappointment. Pitching Wednesday in what was probably his last game as a Yankee, he had a performance characteristic of his dreadful season. Hughes, who is 4-14 with a 5.19 earned run average, gave up three runs and seven hits in two-plus innings.

He allowed three runs in the first inning and was removed in the third with the bases loaded, a sour expression on his face as he made what could have been his final walk to the Yankees' dugout.

"In a game we absolutely had to win, it's tough to leave that way," he said.

This season was a challenging season for the entire team, starting in spring training, when Derek Jeter and Rodriguez were sidelined with serious leg injuries. Jeter, who broke his ankle in the playoffs last year, played only 17 games in a season he described as "a nightmare." He sustained two other muscle injuries and was shut down for good with pain in his injured ankle.

Rodriguez returned from hip surgery on Aug. 5 and hit seven home runs, including a grand slam last week. But his batting average declined over the last two weeks, and on Wednesday, the booing he faced earlier this season returned.

Mark Teixeira and Granderson were injured in spring training, only to return and be injured again. Kevin Youkilis, Brett Gardner, Travis Hafner, Francisco Cervelli and Jayson Nix were also victims of injuries.

"It's been a frustrating year, and we fought hard," Gardner said. "It's not from a lack of trying, guys not playing hard, guys not wanting it. It was just that some teams are better than us, we didn't play well, and we got beat."

The Yankees did remain viable until the final week of the season. But in the end they could not compete with teams like the Rays, teams that still have hopes of making the playoffs and even the World Series. For the Yankees, now, that is but a distant dream.

"It's extremely disappointing," Girardi said. "And it's back to the drawing board."

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David Hubel, Nobel-Winning Scientist, Dies at 87

Dr. David Hubel, who was half of an enduring scientific team that won a Nobel Prize for explaining how the brain assembles information from the eye's retina to produce detailed visual images of the world, died on Sunday in Lincoln, Mass. He was 87.

The cause was kidney failure, his son Carl said.

Dr. Hubel (pronounced HUGH-bull) and his collaborator, Dr. Torsten Wiesel, shared the 1981 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine with Roger Sperry for discovering ways that the brain processes information. Dr. Hubel and Dr. Wiesel concentrated on visual perception, initially experimenting on cats; Dr. Sperry described the functions of the brain's left and right hemispheres.

Dr. Hubel's and Dr. Wiesel's work further showed that sensory deprivation early in life can permanently alter the brain's ability to process images. Their findings led to a better understanding of how to treat certain visual birth defects.

Dr. Hubel and Dr. Wiesel collaborated for more than two decades, becoming, as they made their discoveries, one of the best-known partnerships in science.

"Their names became such a brand name that H&W rolled off the tongue as easily in the lab as A&W root beer did at lunch," Robert H. Wurtz, a neuroscientist, wrote in a review article about their work.

Before Dr. Hubel and Dr. Wiesel started their research in the 1950s, scientists had long believed that the brain functioned like a movie screen — projecting images exactly as they were received from the eye. Dr. Hubel and Dr. Wiesel showed that the brain behaves more like a microprocessor, deconstructing and then reassembling details of an image to create a visual scene.

By measuring the electrical impulses of cells in the visual cortex, the scientists discovered that cells respond to straight lines, movement and contrast — features that delineate objects in the environment. They further found that some cells fire rapidly in response to horizontal lines, while other cells prefer vertical lines or angles. Cells with similar functions are organized into columns, they said, tiny computational machines that relay information to a higher region of the brain, where a visual image is formed.

Dr. Hubel and Dr. Wiesel also found that vision does not develop normally if the brain fails to make connections with the eye during a critical window early in life.

In a 1962 experiment, the scientists showed that kittens that had one eye sewn shut after birth became blind in that eye because their brains were deprived of visual stimulation. In a related experiment, the scientists showed that exposure to light did not by itself provide enough stimulation; it was necessary for newborn animals to see the patterns and contours of the world around them.

Doctors now operate on infants born with cataracts early in life to prevent vision loss; before Dr. Hubel's and Dr. Wiesel's research, doctors removed cataracts from infants between ages 6 months and 24 months, with poor results. The research also led to earlier treatment for strabismus, a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned.

Scientists have since found evidence of similar "critical periods" in hearing and language acquisition.

"David and Torsten did more than open up the study of the primary visual cortex; they laid the basis of all that was to follow in the sensory systems," Dr. Eric R. Kandel, a Nobel laureate, wrote in a recent commentary about their research. "Together this body of work stands as one of the great biological achievements of the 20th century."

David Hunter Hubel was born in Windsor, Ontario, on Feb. 27, 1926, to American parents. His father was a chemical engineer. Dr. Hubel grew up in Montreal, where his boyhood hobbies included chemistry. He once rocked his neighborhood by firing a small cannon in the middle of his street; in another experiment, he launched a hydrogen balloon that was found by a farmer's daughter 100 miles away.

He went to McGill University, where he studied math and physics because he preferred solving problems to memorizing facts. But after earning his bachelor's degree in 1947, he decided against a career in mathematics. "To make it in that field required a virtuosity — like becoming a concert pianist — that I probably lacked," he told an interviewer.

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Rays 7, Yankees 0: Rays All but Crush Yankees’ Wild-Card Hopes

Adam Hunger/Reuters

Vernon Wells of the Yankees watched a home run by Matt Joyce of the Rays.

The Yankees' inexorable march toward elimination inched closer to its conclusion, in typically maddening fashion and with very little resistance.

The story of this Yankees season is one of an injury-depleted team striving to succeed but unable to overcome their offensive deficiencies, even as their once-stout pitching finally gave way. Such was the case Tuesday as the Yankees fell behind before they even came to bat, and then were unable to capitalize on a parade of base runners.

The result was a 7-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on a cool autumn night that has so often blended seamlessly into the October postseason.

But another loss Wednesday, or a victory by the hard-charging Cleveland Indians, will mathematically eliminate the Yankees from postseason contention. The Indians defeated the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday on a game-ending homer by Jason Giambi, and lead the Yankees for the second wild-card spot by five games, with five games left to play. The Yankees were eliminated from the American League's first wild-card spot Tuesday as they fell six games behind the Rays.

"It's not a good feeling," Manager Joe Girardi said. "It hurts."

Although Girardi has maintained a positive outlook as the Yankees have gone on a late-season plunge, losing 7 of their last 10 games, he was a lot closer to facing reality after this humbling loss.

"Yeah, it's definitely hard because you work hard to put yourself in a good spot and get into the playoffs," he said. "Right now, we need a ton of help and we need to win every game or we're not going to get in, and that's the hard part because of what you go through."

Tuesday's was the latest loss in a series of games the Yankees considered must-wins, including Sunday's crushing 2-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants, and two defeats in the three-game series in Toronto last weekend.

For several days it has been obvious that the only hope the Yankees had to win a wild-card berth could be found only with a dizzying combination of events, most of which included them winning all their games while at least three teams ahead of them lost most of theirs.

Before Tuesday's game it was pointed out to Girardi that, as grim as the outlook seemed, the Yankees were still mathematically alive.

"Darn right we are," he said.

Just hours later he watched as the Yankees lost their second straight game to fall to 82-75. Hiroki Kuroda gave up a leadoff home run to Matt Joyce and then two more runs in the first to set an unsettling tone for the Yankees. Kuroda settled down for the next four innings, but the Yankees' offense could not capitalize on numerous opportunities.

They had runners on first and second with two outs in the first, but Mark Reynolds struck out swinging. They loaded the bases with only one out in the third, but Reynolds hit a fly ball to right, too shallow to score the runner on third base, Vernon Wells. Eduardo Nunez then hit into a fielder's choice to end the inning.

The trend continued in the fourth when Alex Rodriguez came to the plate with runners on first and third and two outs. He hit a towering fly ball to center, but it was caught by Sam Fuld to end the inning. In the fifth, Wells hit a harmless fly ball with runners on first and second as the Yankees again failed to execute with runners on.

In the seventh inning Robinson Cano doubled with one out, but was stranded at second. All season long Cano has been the one constant in a lineup saturated with injuries. He was unable to do much on his own through much of the season, and Tuesday was no different.

"Any time you put this uniform on you expect to go out and produce and win," Wells said. "When you're not doing it, it's frustrating."

INSIDE PITCH

The Yankees had to scramble to distribute 18,000 MARIANO RIVERA bobblehead dolls that did not arrive at Yankee Stadium until 6:45 p.m. because of transportation problems. The Yankees opened the gates 30 minutes late while they printed up 18,000 vouchers for the bobblehead doll and distributed those to fans as they entered the Stadium. The vouchers were then exchanged for the dolls after the third inning, producing long lines. ... The Yankees announced that PHIL HUGHES and IVAN NOVA will start the next two games against the Rays, and ANDY PETTITTE will pitch Friday in the opener of a three-game series in Houston. The Rays lost two players to injury. YUNEL ESCOBAR left the game in the fifth inning with a sore left ankle and JOSE LOBATON exited in the seventh with a bruised elbow. Both were listed as day-to-day.

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24 Recipients of MacArthur ‘Genius’ Awards Named

Clockwise from top left: Andrea Mohin/The NYT; Jimmy Katz/ACT; Mark Mahaney/The NYT; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation via AP; Fred R. Conrad/The NYT; Joe Sinnott/WNET.

Clockwise from top left: Kyle Abraham; Vijay Iyer; Karen Russell; Donald Antrim; Jeremy Denk; Angela Duckworth.

The dancer-choreographer Kyle Abraham, who recalled relying on food stamps just three years ago, was among the 13 men and 11 women officially named MacArthur fellows on Wednesday. Besides the imprimatur of achievement and future promise, the 2013 fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation come with a sweetened stipend of $625,000 paid over five years.

"It was amazing to me," Mr. Abraham, 36, said of receiving the good news via a recent telephone call from Cecilia Conrad, vice president of the program. "It was a shock. I was laughing about it; I was crying about it, it was so overwhelming. I've been trying to figure out how to pay off my student loans to this day."

A Pittsburgh native whose latest work, "Pavement," uses dance to probe violence, Mr. Abraham lives in Brooklyn and is the founder and artistic director of his company, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion. "Getting an award like this lets me know I can continue to make work and pay my dancers and I can pay my rent."

As in the past, some of the winners are well known, in their disciplines or on a broader stage, while others have been working quietly for years. One-third of the 2013 fellows live in New York City and, like Mr. Abraham, many are artists of distinction. The artists are Donald Antrim, 55, an associate professor in the writing program at Columbia University and the author of "The Verificationist," a novel about a meeting of psychoanalysts; Jeremy Denk, 43, the concert pianist on the faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music; Vijay Iyer, 41, the jazz pianist and composer known for collaborations with poets; Tarell Alvin McCraney, 32 a playwright, member of Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago and the author of "Choir Boy," a play about competition and homophobia in elite all-black boys schools; and Alexei Ratmansky, 45, the choreographer of classical ballet and an artist in resident at American Ballet Theater.

"I want to use the money for the greater good of the community," said Mr. Iyer, whose latest project of note was "Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dream Project," an exploration of the dreams of minority war veterans. Mr. Iyer, who lives in Harlem, added: "A life in the arts is a life of service, Yo-Yo Ma once told me. That sits well with me."

The youngest winner was Karen Russell, 32, the fiction writer whose most recent short-story collection was "Vampires in the Lemon Grove." The oldest was Carrie Mae Weems, 60, a photographer and video artist who for over 30 years has explored the subjects of black women, class, feminism and African-American history. She lives in Syracuse.

"The timing was really amazing," Ms. Russell said of her MacArthur award, adding that she had been moving from city to city to take a series of writing jobs at colleges and universities to support herself.

"I was really craving a stable home," said Ms. Russell, who lives in New York and wants to stay put. "I'm working on a second novel and short stories — it's not the most lucrative form. I've felt there are all these imaginary worlds that are probably pre-emptively foreclosed on because writers cannot support themselves. The MacArthur is this amazing license to take some imaginative risks because you have this safety net."

Among the other fellows are Angela Duckworth, 43, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is studying how characteristics like grit and self-control influence academic achievement; Margaret Stock, 51, a lawyer in Anchorage who is working to shape immigration policy and help military families; and C. Kevin Boyce, 39, a paleobotanist at Stanford University who is examining the connection between the remains of ancient plants and present-day ecosystems.

The stipend, which comes with no strings attached, increased this year from $500,000, the amount since 2002. Ms. Conrad said that she and other MacArthur officials decided on the increase after considering new awards in science, other fellowships, inflation and teaching salaries. Ms. Conrad, for the first time, made most of the telephone calls informing the fellows of their windfall.

"It was thrilling because people's reactions told you how important this recognition was for so many of them," Ms. Conrad said. She also ran into the inevitable skepticism that comes with a life-changing phone call. "At least one person asked me what my name was and how I spelled it," she recalled. "I could hear him tapping — he was Googling me as we spoke."

The other winners this year include Phil Baran, 36, an organic chemist at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.; Jeffrey Brenner, 44, a primary-care physician in Camden, N.J.; Colin Camerer, 53, a behavioral economist at the California Institute of Technology; Craig Fennie, 40, a materials scientist at Cornell; Robin Fleming, 57, a medieval historian at Boston College; Carl Haber, 54, an audio preservationist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif; and Dina Katabi, 42, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

They are joined by Julie Livingston, 46, a public health historian and anthropologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey; David Lobell, 34, an agricultural ecologist at Stanford; Susan Murphy 55, a statistician at the University of Michigan; Sheila Nirenberg, a neuroscientist at Cornell; Ana Maria Rey, 36, an atomic physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Sara Seager, 42, an astrophysicist at M.I.T.

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Officials Detail Premium Costs of Health Plan

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Former President Bill Clinton and President Obama on Tuesday discussed the Affordable Care Act at a forum in New York.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday provided the first detailed look at premiums to be charged to consumers for health insurance in 36 states where the federal government will run new insurance markets starting next week, highlighting costs it said were generally lower than previous estimates.

Administration officials released the information, central to their campaign to persuade millions of uninsured Americans to sign up for coverage, even as Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, waged a fierce fight on the Senate floor, risking a government shutdown if necessary to eliminate financing for the expansion of coverage under President Obama's health care law.

The White House sought to focus attention on what it portrayed as the financial advantages of the health insurance program, which is set to start accepting customers on Oct. 1.

"I can tell you right now that in many states across the country, if you're, say, a 27-year-old young woman, don't have health insurance, you get on that exchange, you're going to be able to purchase high-quality health insurance for less than the cost of your cellphone bill," Mr. Obama said Tuesday, speaking at a health care forum in New York City with former President Bill Clinton.

For a benchmark plan — the second-lowest-cost "silver plan," covering 70 percent of projected medical costs for a typical consumer — the average premium nationally will be $328 a month for individuals, the administration said in a new report.

For a family of four with an annual income of $50,000, the administration said, monthly premiums for the second-cheapest plan will vary widely, averaging $600 in Arizona, $800 in Georgia, $961 in Indiana, $1,069 in Mississippi, $859 in New Hampshire, $943 in New Jersey and $656 in Utah.

However, the data provided only a partial picture of the reality that consumers will face. The government did not identify the insurance companies offering policies in the federal marketplaces, also known as exchanges. Nor did it provide any information about the many policies that will cost more than the amounts cited in its report. Such information will not be available until the exchanges open, federal health officials said. Republicans and other critics of the health program were likely to take issue with the financial picture painted by the administration as the new premium information became more widely known.

The figures, almost by definition, provide a favorable view of costs, highlighting the least expensive coverage in each state.

Consumer advocates said that people shopping for health insurance should consider not only price, but also other factors like the list of covered drugs and the doctors and hospitals available in a health plan.

Under the 2010 health law, most people buying insurance in the exchanges will be eligible for federal subsidies in the form of tax credits. Taking account of these subsidies, the administration said, a family of four with income of $50,000 will generally be able to buy a silver-level plan for $282 a month, while a 27-year-old with income of $25,000 will be able to get such coverage for $145 a month.

"We are excited to see that rates in the marketplace are even lower than originally projected," said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services. Insurance, she said, will be affordable even to low- and moderate-income people.

Gary M. Cohen, the director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said that premiums were generally lower in states with vigorous competition in their insurance markets and robust programs to review rates.

In the 36 states where the federal government has primary responsibility for the exchanges, Mr. Cohen said, consumers will be able to choose from an average of 53 health plans. In most states, health plans will be offered by two or more insurance companies — a high of 13 companies in Wisconsin, but just one apiece in New Hampshire and West Virginia.

"About one in four of these insurance companies is offering health plans in the individual market for the first time in 2014, a sign of healthy competition," Mr. Cohen said.

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After Comeback for the Ages, a Last Dash for America’s Cup

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Oracle Team USA, once way behind, has tied the series to force a winner-take-all race on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO — The America's Cup has produced no shortage of strange scenes in its 162 years. There have been capsizings, shattered masts and shattered spirits, but it has never produced a reversal of fortune quite like this year.

 A week ago, the defender of the trophy, Oracle Team USA, bankrolled by the American billionaire Larry Ellison, trailed by eight races to one and was just one defeat from losing the most prestigious prize in yachting to the challenger, Emirates Team New Zealand.

 But by winning seven races in succession, including two on Tuesday, Oracle has tied the series at 8-8. Winds permitting, the rivals from different hemispheres will contest one final race Wednesday, winner take all.

Perhaps Ellison, one of the world's richest men, should have had the event won from the start. As the owner of the defending champion, he got to select where the race would be and what type of boats would be used. He designed a boat so technically advanced and expensive that only three other teams signed up to challenge it, a low figure attributed to the global economic downturn.

Despite those advantages, Oracle Team USA got off to a stunningly poor start. An event that had been billed as a potential economic boost for this city and a source of international fanfare felt more like a punch line.

But that was last week. After making changes to its boat that have improved upwind speed and after making a change to its lineup, replacing the tactician John Kostecki with the star British sailor Ben Ainslie, Oracle has mounted such a remarkable comeback that it begs for a dry-land comparison, like the Boston Red Sox winning four consecutive games to overcome the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series.

"It's not over; that's the key point here — we've got to finish it off," said Jimmy Spithill, Oracle's skipper, helmsman and cheerleader in chief. He added: "There's this huge wave of momentum now that we've been riding for the past few days and it just builds and it builds and it builds. And we're going to carry that into tomorrow."

The gripping endgame represents quite a change in tone for an event that was widely viewed as a fiasco in its preliminary phases. America's Cups have traditionally been contested in monohull yachts, but this one was staged in fast, fragile 72-foot catamarans capable of hitting speeds over 50 miles an hour and sailing — no, flying — on hydrofoils after a design breakthrough by Team New Zealand that forced other teams to follow suit.

But a series of accidents raised questions about the concept. Oracle capsized during a training maneuver on San Francisco Bay last October and did major damage to the first of its two boats. In May, the British sailor Andrew Simpson died after the Swedish challenger Artemis Racing capsized its AC72 during training.

The accident led to a series of rule changes designed to increase safety, along with a major reduction in wind limits for racing, which meant that a regatta initially designed to be contested in a wide range of weather conditions became much more susceptible to delays.

That has proved problematic in this America's Cup, now the longest in history at 19 days, in part because of numerous postponements. That has chopped up the drama and forced organizers to scramble, with the regatta stretching well past its last scheduled finishing date. Bleachers on Marina Green were being dismantled Tuesday with the winner still in doubt.

But the bottom line has been suspense.

The America's Cup is the most famous yachting race, both for its long history and for the powerful personalities and tycoons it has attracted, from the British tea merchant and graceful loser Thomas Lipton to the brash media mogul Ted Turner to Ellison, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars chasing the Cup with a series of challenges and has spent hundreds of millions more staging it and defending it in San Francisco.

Yet despite its high profile, the America's Cup has rarely been a close yachting race. Most of the matches between challenger and defender have been lopsided affairs short on close finishes and telegenic appeal. But this Cup match is now the closest in 30 years. In September 1983, Australia II and Liberty faced off in another winner-take-all race off Newport, R.I., and the Australians came from behind to end the 132-year American winning streak.

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