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

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

ISIS Captures
Key Iraqi City
Despite Strikes
BAGHDAD The last Iraqi security forces fled Ramadi on Sunday,
as the city fell to the militants of the
Islamic State, who ransacked the
provincial military headquarters,
seizing a large store of weapons,
and killed people loyal to the government, according to security officials and tribal leaders.
The fall of Ramadi, despite intensified American airstrikes in a bid to
save the city, represented the biggest victory so far this year for the
Islamic State, which has declared
a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the
vast areas of Syria and Iraq that it
controls.
The defeat also laid bare the failed
strategy of the Iraqi government,
which had announced last month a
new offensive to retake Anbar Province, a large desert region in the
west of which Ramadi is the capital.
The city has fallen, said Muhannad Haimour, the spokesman
for Anbars governor. Haimour said
that at least 500 civilians and security personnel had been killed over
the last two days in and around Ramadi, either from fighting or executions. Among the dead, he said, was
the 3-year-old daughter of a soldier.
Men, women, kids and fighters
bodies are scattered on the ground,
said Sheikh Rafi al-Fahdawi, a tribal leader from Ramadi, who was in
Baghdad on Sunday and whose men
had been resisting the Islamic State,
also known as ISIS or ISIL.
He also said, All security forces
and tribal leaders have either retreated or been killed in battle. It is
a big loss.
American officials said recently
that the Islamic State was on the
defensive in Iraq, noting that the
group has lost territory in Salahuddin Province and some other areas
in northern Iraq, and Pentagon officials said Sunday that it was premature to declare Ramadi had fallen.
Were continuing to monitor reports of tough fighting in Ramadi
and the situation remains fluid and
contested, said Col. Steven H. Warren, a Defense Department spokesman.
TIM ARANGO

2015 The New York Times

FROM THE PAGES OF

Degree Scam Emanates From Pakistan

Seen from the Internet, it is a
vast education empire: hundreds
of universities and high schools,
with elegant names and smiling
professors at sun-dappled American campuses.
Their websites offer online degrees in dozens of disciplines, like
nursing and civil engineering.
There are glowing endorsements
on the CNN iReport website, enthusiastic video testimonials and
State Department authentication
certificates bearing the signature
of Secretary of State John Kerry.
We host one of the most renowned faculty in the world,
boasts a woman introduced in
one promotional video as the
head of a law school. Come be
a part of Newford University to
soar the sky of excellence.
But the news reports are fabricated. The professors are paid
actors. The university campuses
exist only as stock photos on computer servers. And the degrees
have no true accreditation.
Very little in this virtual academic realm, appearing to span at least
370 websites, is real except for
the tens of millions of dollars in

estimated revenue it gleans each

year from thousands of people
around the world, all paid to a secretive Pakistani software firm.
That company, Axact, operates from the port city of Karachi, where it employs over 2,000
people and calls itself Pakistans
largest software exporter.
Axact does sell some software
applications. But according to
former insiders, company records and a detailed analysis of its
websites, Axacts main business
has been to take the centuries-old
scam of selling fake academic
degrees and turn it into an Internet-era scheme on a global scale.
At Axacts headquarters, former employees say, telephone
sales agents work in shifts
around the clock. Sometimes
they cater to customers who
clearly understand that they are
buying a shady instant degree
for money. But often the agents
manipulate those seeking a real
education, pushing them to enroll
for coursework that never materializes, or assuring them that
their life experiences are enough
to earn them a diploma.

To boost profits, the sales

agents often follow up with elaborate ruses, including impersonating American government
officials, to persuade customers
to buy expensive certifications or
authentication documents.
Revenues, estimated at several
million dollars per month, are cycled through a network of offshore
companies. All the while, Axacts
role as the owner of this fake education empire remains obscured
by proxy Internet services, combative legal tactics and a chronic
lack of regulation in Pakistan.
Customers think its a university, but its not, said Yasir Jamshaid, who left Axact in October.
Its all about the money.
Axacts response to repeated
requests for interviews over the
past week, and to a list of detailed
questions submitted to its leadership on Thursday, was a letter
from its lawyers to The New York
Times on Saturday. In the letter,
it issued a blanket denial, accusing a Times reporter of coming
to our client with half-cooked stories and conspiracy theories.

DECLAN WALSH

16 Contenders Shake Up Campaign Financing

As the 2016 campaign unfolds,
Hillary Rodham Clinton will
benefit from one rapid-response
team working out of a war room
in her Brooklyn headquarters
and another one working out of a
super PAC in Washington.
Jeb Bush has hired a campaign manager, press aides and
fund-raisers, yet he insists he is
not running for president.
And Sen. Marco Rubios chance
of winning his partys nomination
may hinge on the support of an
independent group financed by
a billionaire who has bankrolled
Rubios past campaigns, paid his
salary teaching at a university
and employed his wife.
The 2016 contenders are exploiting loopholes and regulatory
gray areas to transform the way
presidential campaigns are organized and paid for. Major costs
of each candidates White House
bid are being shifted to legally independent organizations that can

accept unlimited contributions

from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions.
In this new world, campaigns
are not campaigns. And candidates are not actually candidates.
Though they sometimes forget it.
I am running for president in
2016, Bush said at a speech in
Nevada last week, before quickly
amending himself. If I run, clarified Bush, whose political operation has already raised tens of
millions of dollars just in case.
Bush and several other contenders have delayed registering
their campaigns with the Federal Election Commission. That
allows them, or so their spokespeople argue, to personally raise
money for and coordinate spending with super PACs. By law, a
campaign and an independent
group cannot coordinate their activities, but since there is no campaign, the spokespeople argue,
there is nothing for the groups to

illegally coordinate with.

In March, the Campaign Legal
Center and Democracy 21, two
groups that favor stricter enforcement of campaign regulations,
filed complaints with the election
commission alleging that Bush;
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin;
Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania; and Martin OMalley, the former Maryland
governor, all met the legal definition of being a candidate, and were
illegally raising tens of millions of
dollars in violation of federal rules.
Bushs comment in Nevada was
a slip of the mask, not a slip of the
tongue, said Paul S. Ryan, a senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. The rules apply to you
as soon as you start spending money to determine whether you will
run. Simply denying that youre a
candidate doesnt get you around
these campaign finance laws.
 NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

and ERIC LICHTBLAU

INTERNATIONAL

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

Airstrikes Resume in Yemen as a Truce Ends

SANA, Yemen A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia resumed
airstrikes in Yemen on Sunday,
hours after the expiration of a fiveday humanitarian cease-fire between the coalition and Yemens
Houthi rebels.
Residents in the southern city
of Aden reported warplanes flying overhead late Sunday and the
sound of airstrikes falling on what
appeared to be Houthi-controlled
neighborhoods in the city.
There had been no official statement from Saudi Arabia about
whether it intended to renew the
truce as it lapsed at 11 p.m. on Sunday. International aid agencies, as
well as the United Nations envoy
to Yemen, had called for an extension of the cease-fire in order to
continue delivering relief supplies
to a country that had been under
an air and sea blockade since the
Saudi-led coalition launched its
offensive against the Houthis in
late March.
The escalation of the fighting
on Sunday appeared to threaten

a frenzied relief effort that had

sought to take advantage of the
break in the fighting. On Sunday,
aid workers acknowledged that
those efforts so far had been insufficient, given the scale of the crisis
in Yemen, a deeply impoverished
country that relies almost entirely
on imports of basic goods.
Emergency supplies, delivered
by chartered planes and rickety
wooden dhows had reached only a
fraction of those Yemenis in need,
relief workers said.
Unicef said it had been able to
resupply health care centers, activate mobile medical teams in rural areas affected by the fighting
and supply fuel that allowed local
authorities to run water systems.
The group had also delivered solar-powered refrigerators, to keep
vaccines cold in a country starved
of electricity.
Its nowhere near enough,
said Julien Harnies, Unicefs Yemen representative. A country
of 26million people was essentially cut off from any commercial

shipping as a result of the way

the arms embargo is being implemented, he said, referring to the
Saudi-led blockade.
Ships that were able to dock
during the truce had provided a
minute percentage of the amount
of goods that need to come into the
country for any normal life.
Andr Prache, the head of mission for Doctors Without Borders
in Yemen, said the devastating
shortage of fuel, had hardly eased
during the cease-fire.
Hospitals are still scrambling
to find fuel for generators, he
said. Without fuel for cars, people
still struggled to reach the hospitals. The capital city is dark at
night.
Saudi Arabia proposed the
cease-fire this month as it faced
growing criticism of its military
campaign against the Houthis, a
rebel group from northern Yemen
that had taken control of the capital and other parts of the country.
 MOHAMMED ALI KALFOOD

and KAREEM FAHIM

Burundi Leader Warns of Threat From the Shabab

BUJUMBURA, Burundi
President Pierre Nkurunziza of
Burundi on Sunday used his first
public appearance since a coup
attempt against his government
last week to warn of a threat by
the Shabab, the Somali militant
group to his country.
Today is Sunday, others are
attending church services, but I
have decided to come to my office
in order to discuss with my counterparts in Uganda and Kenya on
measures to be taken to protect
our people against Shabab, Nkurunziza said at a news conference
in the capital, Bujumbura.
The Burundi contingent taking
part in the African Union mission

in Somalia is the second largest

with 5,432 soldiers. The Shabab
have been behind attacks in Kenya and Uganda, which have also
contributed to the mission.
But a Shabab spokesman quoted by Reuters denied that there
was a threat.
We think that this is an attempt
by him to appease his people, who
are standing in the streets protesting against his dictatorship,
or to divert the worlds attention
from him while he possibly prepares his mass revenge, the
spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mahamud
Rage, said in a statement.
The coup attempt in this Central
African country arose not from

outside threats, but after a month

of protests that began when Nkurunziza announced that he would
seek another term as president.
Since the demonstrations began, at least 20 people have been
killed, and 105,000 refugees have
spilled into neighboring countries, according to the United Nations. Last Wednesday, a group
of army officers attempted to
overthrow the government while
Nkurunziza was in Tanzania for
talks on the crisis in his country.
The coup failed, and many of its
leaders were arrested.
Maj. Gen. Godefroid Niyombare, the coup leader, remains on
the run.
ISMAIL KUSHKUSH

U.S. and Russia to Hold Talks on Peace Deal for Ukraine

MOSCOW The United States
will deepen its involvement in negotiating a solution to the Ukraine
crisis, with a senior State Department official, Victoria J. Nuland,
to hold a day of talks on Monday
with Russian officials on buttressing a rickety peace agreement.
Until now, the peace agreement
reached in February by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany
and France, has curbed the worst
violence between the government

forces and the Russian-supported separatists in southeastern

Ukraine. Fighting continues, however, and work on carrying out
political and economic measures
in the agreement, negotiated in
Minsk, Belarus, has sputtered.
There is less firing, but none of
us should be satisfied with the results, Nuland said Saturday at a
news conference in Kiev, Ukraine.
So thats why we want to push
harder on all of these things and

see what we can achieve in the

coming days and weeks.
She arrived in Moscow just
days after Secretary of State John
Kerry met with President Vladimir V. Putin in the southern resort
of Sochi to discuss Ukraine, the
Iranian nuclear negotiations and
the Syrian conflict, among other
issues. It was the first visit by a
senior American official since the
Ukraine crisis erupted in February 2014. NEIL MacFARQUHAR

In Brief
Francis Canonizes
Nuns From Palestine
Pope Francis canonized two
19th-century nuns from Ottoman-ruled Palestine on Sunday,
just days after the Vatican moved
to formally recognize a state of
Palestine. The canonization of
Sister Mariam Baouardy, who
founded a Carmelite convent in
Bethlehem, and Sister Marie Alphonsine Ghattas, who founded a
congregation of nuns, was not related to the Vaticans announcement last week of a new treaty
with the Palestinians, Vatican officials said Friday. The two saints,
now named St. Mary of Jesus
Crucified and St. Marie-Alphonsine, are being held up as beacons
of encouragement to Christian
communities in the Middle East
that are being persecuted by Islamic extremists.
(NYT)

Nepal Copter Crash

Victims Identified
The bodies of six United States
Marines and two Nepalese soldiers who were aboard a helicopter that crashed while delivering
earthquake relief supplies were
identified on Sunday, officials
said. The wreckage of the UH-1
Huey helicopter was spotted on
Friday by the Nepalese Army, but
intense thunderstorms and the
mountainous terrain hampered
recovery efforts. The Marines
were identified as Capt. Dustin R.
Lukasiewicz of Nebraska; Capt.
Christopher L. Norgren of Kansas; Sgt. Ward M. Johnson IV of
Florida; Sgt. Eric M. Seaman of
California; Cpl. Sara A. Medina of
Illinois; and Lance Cpl. Jacob A.
Hug of Arizona.
(NYT)

Bomber Hits Convoy

A Taliban suicide car bomber
attacked a convoy from the European Union police training mission Sunday near the Afghan capitals international airport, killing
at least three people, including
a Briton, the authorities said.
The attack in Kabul came amid a
stepped-up Taliban campaign in
which 14 people, including nine
foreigners, were killed last week
at a guesthouse in Kabul. The car
bomb exploded Sunday near the
office of the Afghan Civil Aviation
Authority, said Najib Danish, a
deputy Interior Ministry spokesman.
(AP)

NATIONAL

Towns Decline
Illustrates Peril
Of Trade Deals
GALESBURG, Ill. Even in
this city of abandoned factories, it
is possible to see some of the benefits the United States reaps from
increased foreign trade: At the
rail yard, where boxcars of bargain-price Asian goods are routed
to American consumers; at the
nearby slaughterhouse, where pigs
are packaged for the global market; and at Knox College, where
almost 10percent of the students
now come from foreign countries.
It is also hard to miss the costs.
In 2004, Maytag shut down the refrigerator factory that for decades
was Galesburgs largest employer and moved much of the work to
Mexico. A decade later, many of
those workers are still struggling.
The citys population is in decline,
and the median household income
fell 27percent from 1999 to 2013,
adjusting for inflation.
George Carney, who drove a
forklift until the factory closed, and
then found work as a bartender, is
now receiving federal disability
benefits. He says he is bitter that
American policy makers smoothed
Maytags road to Mexico by passing the North American Free Trade
Agreement in the early 1990s.
I dont believe in laying someone off, in taking away someones
livelihood just so other people can
make more money, Carney said.
It is one of the basic principles of
economics that trade is good and
more trade is better. But as President Obama presses Congress
for the authority to negotiate a
new generation of trade deals, the
struggles of Galesburg illustrate
why some economists have come
to doubt the relevance of that orthodoxy. The costs of globalization have been greater and more
enduring than they expected, and
government efforts to mitigate
the impact on American workers
have often proved insufficient.
I think what weve learned is
that U.S. labor markets arent as
flexible and self-correcting as I
think we had presumed, said Gordon Hanson, an economist at the
University of California, San Diego. The uneasiness I have about
the way weve handled globalization is not so much globalization
itself. Its that if you dont have the
right safety net, youre going to impose an enormous amount of hardship. BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

9 Bikers Are Killed in a Shootout in Waco

HOUSTON A shootout
among members of several rival
motorcycle gangs in a busy shopping plaza in the Central Texas
city of Waco on Sunday left at
least nine bikers dead and 18 other people injured, creating chaos
on a sprawling parking lot packed
with afternoon shoppers, law enforcement officials said.
The gunfire erupted at about
12:15 p.m. outside of a Twin Peaks
Restaurant. The fight spilled into
the parking lot, initially involving
just fists and feet, but escalating
quickly to chains, knives, clubs
and firearms. Waco police were at
the scene when the confrontation
first unfolded because they had
anticipated problems as hundreds
of bikers from at least five gangs
gathered at the shopping plaza.
There were multiple people on
the scene firing weapons at each
other, Sgt. Patrick Swanton, a
Waco Police Department spokesman, said at a news conference
on Sunday. They then turned on
our officers. Our officers returned
gunfire, wounding and possibly
killing several.
Law enforcement officials said
the shootout was the worst violence in Waco since the siege on
the Branch Davidian compound
in 1993 that left 86 people dead.
On Sunday, eight members of motorcycle gangs were killed on the
scene and another died at a hos-

ROD AYDELOTTE/WACO TRIBUNE HERALD, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

pital, Swanton said. The injured

were taken to area hospitals with
a combination of gunshot and stab
wounds.
No officers, shoppers or bystanders were injured. The authorities said their decision to
stage officers outside the restaurant before the gunfire erupted
likely saved lives.
There were so many rounds
fired from bad-guy weapons here,
it is amazing that innocent civilians were not injured here, said
Swanton, who added that investigators expected to recover about
100 weapons.
In 34 years of law enforcement,
this is the worst crime scene the
most violent crime scene that I
have ever been involved in. There
are dead people still there. There
is blood everywhere, Swanton
said.

A shootout
left a scene
of bloodshed
and chaos at
a restaurant
where at least
nine people
died in Waco,
Tex., on
Sunday.

The police did not identify the

gangs involved, but photographs
of gang members who were arrested showed a number of them
in leather jackets bearing the
names of at least three motorcycle clubs: Bandidos, Cossacks and
Scimitars.
Hours after the shooting, police
officials were still issuing messages on social media warning people
to stay away from the shopping
plaza, the Central Texas Marketplace, saying that it was closed
because it was unsafe.
Officers are continuing to arrest individuals coming to the
scene with weapons, one of the
Police Departments Facebook
postings read. This is not the
time to sightsee as we are dealing
with very dangerous individuals.

MANNY FERNANDEZ

and LIAM STACK

In Brief
Amtrak to Restore Service
Amtraks Northeast Corridor trains will resume
service Monday in complete compliance with
federal safety orders following last weeks deadly
derailment, officials announced Sunday. The companys president, Joseph Boardman, said Amtrak
staff and crews have been working around the
clock to restore service along the route between
Washington and Boston following Tuesday nights
crash that killed eight people and injured more than
200 others. Service along the corridor will resume
with departures from New York City at 5:30 a.m.
Monday and Philadelphia at 5:53 a.m. Monday, and
all Acela Express, Northeast Regional and other
services will resume for the first time since the accident, the company said.
(AP)

Shark Becomes Star on Twitter

Theyre going to need a bigger Twitter. An organization studying great white sharks is enjoying some
welcome attention after one of the creatures they
have been monitoring started gaining a loyal social
media following. @MaryLeeShark is the fake Twitter handle for a very real, nearly 3,500-pound great

white whose movements can be tracked online

and in real time. The shark has drawn over 44,000
followers with her playful updates and witty replies
as the real life shark cruises up and down the East
Coast. Oh heyyyyy .... youre right by my house,
come by for a nightcap? invited one recent Twitter
commenter as she popped up off the coast of Long
Island, NY.
(AP)

Mayoral Race Drawing Interest

There is a reason why the mayoral race in Jacksonville, Fla., is drawing the attention of outsiders
like former President Bill Clinton, former Texas
Gov. Rick Perry, former Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen.
Marco Rubio. Its because the states largest city
will also be a key to winning Florida in the 2016 presidential election, and having an ally in the mayors
office can only help. Perry, Bush and Rubio have an
eye on the White House next year and each is helping former state Republican Party Chairman Lenny
Curry, who is challenging incumbent Democrat
Alvin Brown. Clinton, whose wife Hillary, is running
for president, came to Jacksonville to raise money
for Brown. Jacksonvilles mayor serves all of Duval
County, which has about 900,000 residents.
(AP)

BUSINESS

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

Volatility Is Prompting Hedge Funds to Close

For decades, nearly everything
that the billionaire Julian Robertson touched turned to gold. Robertson, founder of the hedge fund
Tiger Management, seeded a network of hugely successful Tiger
Cubs companies that, in turn,
seeded more talent. It became the
closest thing the hedge fund industry had to a dynasty.
Since the start of this year, however, the managers of three firms
spun out of that gilded empire
have called it quits after volatile
performances and sometimes
steep losses. They will return
money to investors and focus on
managing their own wealth.
TigerShark, Tiger Consumer
and JAT Capital Management
are just three examples among a
recent wave of hedge funds that
have closed their doors to investors in the face of choppy markets. They are a reminder that

the hedge fund industry is not all

spectacular returns.
In past years, titans like George
Soros and Stanley F. Druckenmiller have also taken down their
shingles, choosing to manage
their own enormous wealth without the worry of pesky investors.
These days, bothersome investors who make too many demands
are just one item on a long list of
frustrations. Privately, and sometimes publicly, managers complain that it has become harder to
make money and that regulation
has raised the cost of business.
Add to that six long years of a
bull stock market in the United
States, and a coinciding six consecutive years of underperformance from the hedge fund industry.
The average hedge fund returned 3percent last year compared with a 13.7percent gain for

the Standard & Poors 500-stock

index.
Some investors are fed up with
paying high fees for little returns.
Hedge funds typically follow a 2
and 20 model in which investors
pay an annual management fee of
2percent of assets under management and 20percent of returns.
Over the last six months, investors have redeemed $34.6billion
from hedge funds according to
BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research, the largest
quarterly outflow since 2009.
If you have enough money and
on top of that its a tough market
and you dont want to deal with
investors asking about performance, you can take the high
road and say, Heres your money back, said Steven Nadel, a
hedge fund lawyer at Seward &
Kissel.
 ALEXANDRA STEVENSON

In Brief
Nevada May End
Foreclosure Relief
At its height, Nevada was
ground zero for the Great Recession. One in every 10 homes faced
foreclosure. While Nevadas
jobless and foreclosure rates still
rank high relative to other states,
the raw numbers have plummeted. Lawmakers want to pull the
plug on a state program born in
the height of the recession to help
homeowners fend off foreclosures. The Nevada Foreclosure
Mediation Program, which has
brokered negotiations between
more than 7,500 beleaguered
borrowers and lenders at its peak
year five years ago, is projected
to serve one-tenth that number in
the coming year. State lawmakers have recommended that the
program begin winding down
this summer.
(AP)

New Studio Chief Leads Effort to Rebuild Sony Films

Non-G.M.O. Process
Wins U.S. Approval

LOS ANGELES Most movie

studio chiefs get a year or two to
find their balance after taking the
job. Tom Rothman is enjoying no
such grace period.
Rothman was appointed chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment motion picture group
in February, after Amy Pascal
resigned under pressure after
an embarrassing email hacking
scandal. He now is running Sonys
entire movie operation, a rapid expansion of responsibility from his
previous post as head of the companys TriStar Productions.
Rothmans acumen as a picture-picker will be on full display
this year, as Sony releases the first

A little-known but publicly

traded organic food processing
company, SunOpta, has convinced the federal government
that its system for detecting genetically modified crops is so effective that the company should
be permitted to label ingredients
from one of its plants in Minnesota as free of such alterations.
The United States Department
of Agriculture is not certifying
that SunOptas ingredients are
G.M.O.-free. It is certifying that
SunOptas process ensures that
the corn and soy it plans to process in its plant in Hope, Minn.,
are not genetically altered varieties.
(NYT)

three of six films that he approved

since joining TriStar in 2013. His
success or failure will determine
whether Sony can move beyond
the lingering effects of the hackers
attack and turn its focus to reorienting to a changing movie market.
The first TriStar movies with
Rothmans imprint include Jonathan Demmes Ricki and the
Flash, in which Meryl Streep
plays an aging rocker, set for
release on Aug. 7, and Nicholas
Hytners The Lady in the Van,
a cross-generational dramedy
starring James Corden and Maggie Smith, which will come out in
early December.
Most eyes, however, will be on

Octobers The Walk, which stars

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and tells
the story of Philippe Petits famed
tightrope walk between the World
Trade Center towers in 1974.
Whether revamped film labels
will revitalize Sony is a core question. Historically, the mere name
of a film studio tends to draw viewers only when it has a sharply defined reputation, like Walt Disney
with its family films or Pixar with
its computer-animation movies.
If you can create a brand personality as distinct as that, I think
theres some value in it, said Dennis Rice, a film marketer who has
worked at Disney and at Miramax
Films. 
MICHAEL CIEPLY

The Craigslist of Canada, Kijiji, Is a Bright Online Spot for eBay

TORONTO If Kijiji is remembered at all in the United States,
it is probably as one of eBays unsuccessful attempts to challenge
Craigslist in online classified ads.
But in Canada, Kijiji is now practically synonymous with classifieds.
More than 12million people
visit Kijijis site in Canada every
month, three times the amount
drawn to Craigslist in the country.
Kijiji pronounced Ka-jee-jee,
which is Swahili for village is
used by 42percent of Canadians,
according to comScore, making it
one of countrys 10 most popular
sites. It has also eclipsed other on-

line businesses, including Cox Automotives AutoTrader.

That success is a striking counterexample to the globalization
of the web, in which services like
Facebook and Google offer a single product worldwide. It also
represents one of the few online
brands that fizzled in the United
States but found success elsewhere, as the social media pioneer
Friendster has in the Philippines
and Malaysia.
How Kijiji achieved those feats
is partly a story of good timing, arriving in Canada before Craigslist
really took off in this country. The

success is also the result of the

companys tailoring itself to the
subtle distinctions of the market,
catering to the tendency of Canadians toward thriftiness.
Canadians are traditionally
penny-pinchers, which manifests
itself in consumer buying differences, said Warren Shiau, consulting director of buyer behavior
research at the market analysis
firm IDC Canada. Kijiji has no fees
for anything outside of a few specific big-ticket categories, which appeals to the penny-pinchers in us.
Kijiji now has 6.7million listings
on the site. The operation has ex-

panded to the point that its offices

sprawl through two 19th-century
former factories in downtown
Toronto. While eBay does not disclose Kijijis financial results or
the results for eBay Canada, the
classifieds site is eBays largest
operation in Canada. Variations
of Kijiji now run in 32 other countries. And eBay Classifieds succeeded Kijiji in the United States.
I was a user of Kijiji before I
came here, said Scott Neil, managing director of Kijiji in Canada.
The one thing that surprised me
was really how much people loved
the site.
IAN AUSTEN

BUSINESS

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

Seeking Buyer, Daily News Awaits a Savior

Ember in Ashes
Yields a Sequel
At Razorbill

When Mortimer B. Zuckerman

paid $36million in cash to rescue
The Daily News from bankruptcy
in 1993, he was convinced that he
could make the paper successful.
Im not suicidal, he said.
Maybe not, but he appears to
be at least a little bit masochistic.
Over the last 20-plus years, Zuckerman has watched circulation
and advertising plummet, turning a marginally profitable asset
into a big-time money loser. He
has also been engaged in a bruising asymmetrical newspaper war
with a rival press baron, Rupert
Murdoch, owner of The New York
Post. Zuckerman, 77, has been
criticized, repeatedly, for taking
The Daily News down-market in
an effort to attract readers.
Zuckerman, who earned his
fortune in commercial real estate,
decided recently that enough was
enough. This year, he put the paper up for sale, retaining the Wall
Street firm Lazard to help advise
him in the process.
Final bids are due this week,
though this is less a bidding war
than a matter of how much liability a potential buyer is willing
to assume. Interest seems light.
Wealthy people are typically
drawn to media properties as a
means to expand their influence.
But as the influence of a property

diminishes, so
does its appeal
to prospective
owners.
Only 25 years
ago, The Daily
News had more
weekday readMortimer B.
ers than any
other newspaZuckerman
per in America, with a daily
paid circulation that exceeded one
million. As of March, that number
had dropped to 312,736.
These days, a struggling newspaper hardly qualifies as news;
dozens of papers around the country have shut down. But the fate of
The Daily News carries a symbolic
weight. The News is the model of
the big-city, elbows-out tabloid, a
local paper with a national profile.
Superman worked there, or
Clark Kent did, anyway: The lobby of the Daily News Building on
42nd Street, with its massive, rotating globe, was the basis for the
headquarters of The Daily Planet
in the movie Superman. The
paper was the inspiration for the
1994 movie The Paper.
So who wants to buy this journalistic institution? For years, the
most likely candidate appeared
to be Murdoch, the assumption
being that he would simply shut

it down. But Murdoch, 84, already

loses tens of millions of dollars a
year on The Post. And judging
from the most recent acquisitions
of the Murdoch-controlled media
company News Corporation a
real estate listings site and a romance novel publisher his interest in newspapers is limited.
Last week, Reuters reported
that James Dolan, the head of
Cablevision and Newsday, had
withdrawn his $1 bid for the paper.
(A Daily News spokesman said
Dolan never made a formal bid, so
there was nothing to withdraw.)
That leaves three likely bidders: John A. Catsimatidis, the
supermarket magnate, Jimmy
Finkelstein, a New York entrepreneur; and Jon Peters, a hairdresser-turned-Hollywood mogul. None have ever run a daily
newspaper. The closest is Finkelstein, the owner of The Hill, which
reports on Congress.
Catsimatidis, the founder of the
New York City grocery store chain
Gristedes, is the only bidder to publicly acknowledge his interest in
The News, and the only one to take
or return a call seeking comment.
What sort of appeal does a money-losing newspaper hold? Maybe I want to be Walter Cronkite
when I grow up, he said.

JONATHAN MAHLER

Old Navy Thrives After a Style-Conscious Rebirth

For years, Stefan Larsson was
Gaps worst nightmare, as he led
H&Ms dizzying expansion in the
United States with a combination
of designer chic and rock-bottom
prices.
Three years ago, Gap Inc. hired
him, and gave him its most challenging brand, Old Navy.
Since his arrival, Larsson has
led a striking turnaround at the
low-cost label, transforming Old
Navy from a butt of jokes to its
parent companys crown jewel.
Last year, Old Navy took in almost
$6billion in sales in the United
States almost as much in sales
as the Gap and Banana Republic
brands put together and made
up 40percent of the companys
global revenue. Earnings reports
due this week are expected to
show Old Navy as the Gaps biggest driver of growth. Its other big
labels are struggling.
Still, Old Navy faces a challenge
in sustaining that strong growth
in a world of cheap fashion that

increasingly seems a race to the

bottom.
Larsson is unfazed. I saw an
unpolished diamond in Old Navy,
Larsson said in an interview at
Old Navys San Francisco headquarters. Everything starts and
ends with product.
Old Navys success so far under Larsson has been built on a
level of attention to design that
sellers of low-end, family-oriented clothes including the old
Old Navy had not put into their
wares. (Larsson calls that view of
fashion the clothes by the pound
approach and says it ignores the
aspirations of low-income shoppers.)
The labels newfound strength
also points to a fundamental shift
in the way people shop for clothes,
as well as a new frugality for all
but the wealthiest of shoppers in
the United States.
Matching a $10 T-shirt with a
designer bag has become much
more common, as shoppers grow

more selective about what they

will splurge on.
And even as consumers benefit from lower gas prices and a
stronger job market, cautious
households especially those
with children have preferred to
invest in fundamentals like their
cars or homes rather than their
wardrobes.
All that has been a boon to Old
Navy. Sales at established stores
jumped 11percent in the fourth
quarter, by far the fastest rate
shown by a mass apparel brand in
the critical holiday season.
Old Navys approach used to
be selling commodities, said Betty Chen, a retail analyst at Mizuho
Securities USA.
But the more stylish clothes
and marketing that Larsson has
brought to the brand have had a
strong halo effect, Chen said, that
has bolstered the brands image.
And price points are so much
lower than Gap or Lululemon.

HIROKO TABUCHI

Sabaa Tahirs splashy debut

novel, An Ember in the Ashes,
was greeted with such breathless
accolades before its April release
that it seemed unlikely it could
live up to the hype.
The hype appears to be justified. The novel shot to the No.2
spot on The New York Times
young adult best-seller list. The
story takes place in an ancient
fantasy world where a girl goes
undercover as a slave and stealthily joins the resistance movement
against a martial empire. It has
drawn comparisons to several of
the biggest publishing blockbusters of the last decade, including
The Hunger Games, Harry
Potter and George R.R. Martins
high fantasy series A Song of Ice
and Fire.
Paramount Pictures optioned
the film rights in a seven-figure
deal, according to Publishers
Marketplace.
Readers immediately began demanding another installment. I
am hoping and praying that there
will be a sequel, one reviewer
wrote on Amazon. Hear that Penguin? We want a sequel! Another
online reviewer said, This better
not be a stand-alone novel as the
author claims.
Razorbill, a young adult imprint
at Penguin, seems to have gotten
the message. The publisher will
announce on Monday that it has
acquired a sequel, which is scheduled for publication in 2016.
All of us at Penguin are very
happy to promise Sabaas fans a
second book, Ben Schrank, the
president and publisher of Razorbill, said in a statement. The
advance for the sequel was said to
be in the mid-six figures.
The next book will pick up the
story of the heroine Laia, a rebel
who is fighting to protect her family, and Elias, a reluctant soldier for
the empire, as they travel to free
Laias brother from prison and try
to evade the Empires armies.
Tahir, a former international
editor for The Washington Post,
said that the setting and plot were
inspired in part by real stories of
children around the world who are
pressed into being soldiers. I love
my characters like family, and cannot wait to share more of their story with readers, Tahir said in the
statement. ALEXANDRA ALTER

ARTS

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

Fire and Ice: Minnesota Meets Charanga

HAVANA It was after midnight here Sunday morning at the
Habana Caf, and the Orquesta
Aragn, a charanga group that
was founded in 1939 and which
helped popularize the cha-cha,
was taking a break when the
clubs master of ceremonies announced in English and Spanish
that a few of their members would
return with some special guests.
Some Minnesota Orchestra
musicians, who were drinking
mojitos at the club after finishing
the last concert of their groundbreaking tour of Cuba, joined
them onstage and began playing
Dos Gardenias, the bolero that
Ibrahim Ferrer sang with the Buena Vista Social Club.
Theres a very iconic trumpet
solo at the beginning, Charles
Lazarus, a trumpeter in the orchestra, told the crowd, before
explaining that one of his sidemen
would play it on the clarinet. So I
thought it would be a great idea to
have Osmo play the trumpet solo.
Osmo was Osmo Vanska, the
Minnesota Orchestras music
director, who has helped make
the ensemble famous for Nordic
repertoire and Sibelius, which
can conjure images of bleak, icy
landscapes. But early Sunday
morning he was playing clarinet
in a decidedly more tropical vein
as members of his orchestra and
the Orquesta Aragn think of
them as El Conjunto de Minneapolis, perhaps played a mixture
of jazz and Cuban music.

LISETTE POOLE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

For this set some of the conducting duties fell to Orlando

Prez, Orquesta Aragns pianist,
who would hold up a finger to signal when the players should let
a vamp continue, or when they
should wrap things up.
It was the kind of back and forth
that members of the orchestra
were particularly keen to experience on their tour here, which
ended Sunday when they flew
back to Minneapolis.
Some parts of the exchange
were political. The Minnesota Orchestras tour was inspired by the
improving relations between the
United States and Cuba, and the
ensemble moved fast to become
the first major American symphony orchestra to play here in more
than 15 years.
After the orchestra took to
the stage for its Saturday night
concert at the Teatro Nacional,
Vanska strode out to the podium
turned and faced the audience

Kristen Bruya,
a Minnesota
Orchestra
bassist, center,
at an Orquesta
Aragn show
at Habana
Caf. The
musicians
joined the
Cubans
onstage, too.

and, with a gesture, urged the

somewhat confused concertgoers
to stand. Then he turned to the orchestra and urged them to stand.
Then, to audible gasps, the Minnesota Orchestra played the Cuban
national anthem, which the audience sang along to lustily. When it
was over they cheered loudly.
The orchestra kept standing
and Vanska signaled the percussion section. A drumroll began.
Then the orchestra began playing The Star-Spangled Banner,
drawing more surprise in the theater, which sits on the Plaza de la
Revolucin, which for many years
was the scene of some of Fidel
Castros most fiery anti-American
speeches.
Fewer Cubans seemed to know
the lyrics, which were mostly
sung by the Americans in the orchestras entourage. But when it
was over the Cuban members of
the audience cheered as well.

MICHAEL COOPER

KenKen
Answers to Puzzles

Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each
heavily outlined box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication
or division, as indicated in the box. A 4x4 grid will use the digits 1-4. A 6x6 grid will use 1-6.
For solving tips and more KenKen puzzles: www.nytimes.com/kenken. For feedback: nytimes@kenken.com
KenKen is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Copyright 2015 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.

Life After
Don Draper
The final strains of AMCs Mad
Men have scarcely faded and already panic has set in: after seven
seasons of being held rapt by the
machinations of Sterling Cooper &
Partners, how will you fill the void?
Whatever your reason for watching the allure of the 1960s, the
art of the pitch, the prickly gender
relations, the boozy bad behavior
or simply the panache of a man in
a bespoke suit weve got some
ideas for feeding your fix.
For 1960s erotic intrigue try
Showtimes Masters of Sex,
starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy
Caplan as Dr. William Masters and
his collaborator, Virginia Johnson,
who sought to demystify arousal
during the dark ages before the
sexual revolution. They spent
thousands of hours researching
the arousal stages of subjects
wired to monitors during intercourse, masturbation and other
sexual activity. Seasons 1 and 2 are
on Showtime Anytime and iTunes.
Season 3 begins on July 12.
For stoic 60s housewives sidelined by their husbands, tune in
to The Astronaut Wives Club,
a new ABC television drama. The
series ventures inside the kitchens and boudoirs of seven women with iconic last names Carpenter, Cooper, Glenn, Grissom,
Schirra, Shepard and Slayton.
Premieres June 18.
And to see one woman who managed to crash through the glass
ceiling, The Mary Tyler Moore
Show begins where Mad Men
ends, in 1970, when all things felt
possible to a single gal in her 30s
producing a television show in
Minneapolis. On iTunes and Vudu.
For pitch-perfect workplace
drama, turn to The West Wing,
Aaron Sorkins dissertation on the
White House. All seven seasons are
on iTunes, Netflix and Vudu.
And if you cant let go of Don
Drapers existential panic, theres
The Twilight Zone. In episode 5
of the first season, an advertising
executive sets out on a quest for
his own sanity. He stops at a gas
station and walks into the past. All
156 original Twilight Zone episodes are on Hulu and iTunes.
But for times when nothing but
the real deal will suffice, all seven
seasons of Mad Men are available for streaming on iTunes;
some episodes are also available
on Netflix and AMCtv.com.

KATHRYN SHATTUCK

OBITUARY

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

Elisabeth Bing, Mother of Lamaze, Is Dead at 100

Elisabeth Bing, who helped lead a natural
childbirth movement that revolutionized how
babies were born in the United States, died on
Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 100.
Her death was confirmed by her son, Peter.
Bing taught women and their spouses to
make informed childbirth choices for over 50
years. (We dont call it natural childbirth, but
educated childbirth, she once said.) She began her crusade at a time when hospital rooms
were often cold and impersonal, women in
labor were heavily sedated, and men were expected to remain in the waiting room, pacing.
Bing worked with obstetricians, introducing them to the so-called natural childbirth
methods developed by Dr. Fernand Lamaze,

which incorporated relaxation techniques in

lieu of anesthesia and enabled a mother to see
her child coming into the world.
Along with Marjorie Karmel, Bing helped
found Lamaze International, a nonprofit educational organization, and became known
as the mother of Lamaze, championing the
technique in her book Six Practical Lessons
for an Easier Childbirth (1967) and on the lecture and television talk-show circuits.
Today, Lamaze and other natural childbirth
methods are commonplace in delivery rooms,
and Lamaze classes, with their emphasis on
breathing techniques, are attended by an
estimated quarter of all mothers-to-be in the
United States and their spouses each year.

CROSSWORD Edited by Will Shortz

ACROSS
bird
4 Alternative to
rock and scissors
9 T-bone, for one
14 Sought office
15 Girl who was a
guest at the Mad
Hatters tea party
16 Bird on the back
of a quarter
17 Columns
opposite
18 You forgot
to water the
plants, Tom said
___
20 Hunter
constellation
22 Poems whose
titles often start
To a
23 Playwright
Hellman
26 Savory filled
pastries
31 Delivered, as a
punch
33 Pop-up or foul
34 Prefix with cycle
or color
36 Stared stupidly
38 Doorbell sound
39 Get the ___ of
41 Reaction to the
Beatles in 1964
or Justin Bieber
in 2010
43 Not many

PUZZLE BY GENE NEWMAN

44

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46
48
49
51
53
55
58
60

61

67
68
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70
71
72
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Former F.B.I.
director J. ___
Hoover
Lawful
Gridiron scores,
for short
Salmon serving
Lowly, as labor
North Pole
workplace
Sound systems
Pitcher
Saturday Night
Fever music
genre
Oh, I just fed
the alligator,
Tom said ___
What crosswalks
cross: Abbr.
The P of
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Hit 1977 musical
with the song
Its the HardKnock Life
Meadow
Prom duds for
guys
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Since Jan. 1

DOWN
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Zealander

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

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5/18/15

3 As

much as Id
like, youre not
getting any of
my estate, Tom
said ___
4 Hocking
5 ___ Baba and
the 40 Thieves
6 Poes The
___ and the
Pendulum
7 Sound effect in a
long hallway
8 Baby Moses was
found among
them
9 Earth-shaking
10 Light brown
11 What might be
cooked once
over easy
12 Everybody
13 Item often kept
on a chain

19
21
24
25
27
28

29
30
32
34
35
37
40
42
45

500 sheets of
paper
Suffix with
schnozz
Eves man
2015 earthquake
locale
Dept. of Labor
arm
Being a bit
lazy, I prefer
automatic, Tom
said ___
Directed (at)
Worries
Jeans material
Piracy, e.g.
SiriusXM medium
Cuts into cubes
Guys partners
Fats Wallers
___ Misbehavin
Microwaves, say

47
50
52
54
56
57
59

61
62
63

64
65
66

Colors, as
hippies shirts
Village
___ Ben Canaan
of Exodus
Part of a piano
or bike
Duo quadrupled
It pains me to
hear that
So-called
Biggest Little
City in the
World
Choose (to)
Annual winter
outbreak
Obsolescent
means of
communication
Hasten
Genetic stuff
Cornea cover

Online subscriptions: Todays puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles,
nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).
Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.
Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/studentcrosswords.

For years, Bing led classes herself in hospitals and

in a studio in her apartment
building on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan, where
she kept a collection of
pre-Columbian and Native
American fertility figurines.
Elisabeth
Bing preferred the term
Bing
prepared childbirth
to natural childbirth,
because she said her goal was not to eschew
drugs altogether but to empower women to
make informed decisions. Her mantra was,
Awake and alert, and she saw such a birth as
a transformative event in a womans life.
Its an experience that never leaves you,
she told The New York Times in 2000. It
needs absolute concentration; it takes up
your whole being. And you learn to use your
body correctly in a situation of stress.
There was one secret she seldom shared,
however: Her own experience giving birth to
her son, Peter, was decidedly unnatural.
As Randi Hutter Epstein reported in her
book Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth
From the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank
(2010), she continually asked her doctor, Is
the baby all right? Is the baby all right, until
the doctor said he could not concentrate with
her chatter and gave her laughing gas and an
epidural.
I got everything I raged against, Bing told
Epstein. I had the works.
Bing was modest about her own role in the
movement, but she rejoiced in the outcome.
We are not being tied down anymore, she
said in 2000. Were not lying flat on our backs
with our legs in the air, shaved like a baby.
You can give birth in any position you like.
The father, or anybody else, can be there. We
fought for years on end for that. And now its
commonplace. Weve got it all.

KAREN BARROW

620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

Tom Brady, Editor

email: digesteditor@nytimes.com

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OPINION

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

EDITORIALS OF THE TIMES

Justice Reform in the Deep South

It has been getting easier for politicians to talk
about fixing the nations broken criminal justice system. But when states in the Deep South,
which have had some of the nations harshest
penal systems, adopt significant sentencing and
prison reforms, you know things have changed.
Almost all of these deep-red states have
made changes to their justice systems in the
last few years, and in doing so they have run
laps around Congress, which continues to dither on the passage of any meaningful reform.
Lawmakers in Alabama voted nearly unanimously early this month to approve a criminal justice bill. Alabama prisons are stuffed
to nearly double capacity, endangering the
health and lives of the inmates, and the cost of
mass imprisonment is crippling the state budget at no discernible benefit to public safety.
The bill would cut the states prison population of nearly 25,000 by about 4,500 people in the
next five years. Sentences for certain nonviolent
crimes would be shortened, and more parole
supervisors would be hired to help ensure that
people coming out of prison dont return. Gov.
Robert Bentley is expected to sign the measure.
Before Alabama, South Carolina passed its
own package of reforms in 2010. In February,
it closed its second minimum-security prison
in a year. Georgia got on board with significant
reforms to its adult and juvenile prison systems in 2012 and 2013, including giving judges
more leeway to sentence below mandatory
minimums and increasing oversight of prisons. In 2014, Mississippi passed its own systemic fixes, like providing more alternatives

to prison for low-level drug offenders.

Of course, all these states had abysmal conditions to start with. Mississippi imprisons more
of its citizens per capita than China and Russia
combined. Thats worse than any state except
Louisiana, which has not yet managed reforms
as broad as its neighbors. Alabama was facing
the threat of federal intervention to alleviate its
overcrowded prisons if it didnt act. And many
of these reforms are far more modest than they
should be. Alabamas prisons will still be 40percent over capacity in five years, even if everything goes as planned. In many parts of Mississippi and Alabama, the lack of funding for public defenders is so acute that people can spend
months behind bars before even being indicted.
These initiatives show important progress.
Less than a decade ago, it was difficult to find
any governor, of either party, who would go
near this issue. Now, a Republican governor like
Nathan Deal of Georgia is pointing with pride
to two major reform packages, as well as the
states ban the box law, which bars the state
from asking potential employees about their
criminal history until later in the hiring process.
Still, reform is a fragile proposition, and can be
thwarted by more powerful political forces.
As the 2016 presidential election approaches, most of the major candidates agree that
criminal-justice reform is a priority, but there
remains a good deal of ambivalence on how to
move forward. There neednt be. The reforms in
the Southern states are already paying off. The
presidential candidates not to mention Congress should be paying close attention.

Stemming the Tide of Fake Medicines

A flood of fraudulent medicines sold mostly in the developing world is threatening the
health of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in those nations and consumers
in more advanced nations as well.
International organizations, national drug
regulators and the drug industry have been
struggling for years to curb sales of phony or
poorly prepared medicines. But articles in a
special issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, published online
last month, show that efforts to control this
problem have had only modest success.
The number of fakes pills containing no
active ingredients at all may have declined.
However, the problem of substandard medicines that have some, but not all, of the active
ingredient they are supposed to contain has
worsened. Often the manufacturer deliberately reduces the amount of active ingredients to
save money while increasing inert ingredients
to keep the weight and shape the same.
Substandard medicines a pill, for instance, that has 70 to 80percent of the active
ingredient may accelerate the development
of resistant germs. The dose is not enough to
eliminate all the germs, and those that remain

are the most resistant to the drug. The resistant strains can then infect new people.
A study of 35 samples of amoxicillin and
co-trimoxazole purchased in Ghana, Nigeria,
and Britain found that 60percent of the tablets
of co-trimoxazole did not have the requisite
amount of active ingredient. A study in Southeast Asia found that 65percent of the ampicillin samples were substandard.
What can be done to stop the abuses? Poor
countries need financial help, technical assistance and training to improve their oversight of
medicines. More affluent developing countries
like China and India, whose companies make
many of the substandard drugs, need to crack
down on the wrongdoers. And punishments
for knowingly or negligently making or selling
fake medicines need to be severe, especially for
those who sell medicines on the World Health
Organizations list of essential drugs.
Congress is considering ways to modernize
drug regulation at the Food and Drug Administration to speed clinical trials and get drugs
to market faster. It should also look at how the
agency, acting on its own or through international groups, might help rein in bogus drugs in
a global market that can affect all consumers.

CHARLES M. BLOW

Underrepresented
President Obama is a Christian (despite the
fact that most Republicans apparently still believe that his deep down beliefs are Muslim,
according to one poll conducted last year.)
According to the Public Religion Research
Institute, there have only been four religiously unaffiliated heads of state in American history, the last being Rutherford B. Hayes, who
left office in 1881. This does not mean that they
did not believe in God.
Perhaps the most famous unaffiliated president was Abraham Lincoln, who wrote: That
I am not a member of any Christian Church, is
true; but I have never denied the truth of the
Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any
denomination of Christians in particular.
Now it is almost unconscionable to think of a
president who didnt believe in God. A poll last
year by the Pew Research Center found that not
believing in God was the most negative trait a
presidential candidate could have, even more
negative than having an extramarital affair.
In the House and Senate this session, 92percent of members were Christian, 5percent were
Jewish, 0.4percent each were Buddhist and
Muslim, and 0.2percent were unaffiliated. For
those doing the math, that leaves only one member unaffiliated: Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
But how long can this overrepresentation of
Christianity and underrepresentation of the
unaffiliated last in government? According
to a Pew report released last week, the percentage of adults who describe themselves
as Christians has dropped by nearly eight
percentage points in just seven years, from
78.4percent in 2007 to 70.6percent in 2014.
But the report also found, Over the same
period, the percentage of Americans who are
religiously unaffiliated describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular has jumped more than six points, from
16.1percent to 22.8percent.
In March, Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of
history at Princeton University, argued in The
New York Times Sunday Review that the
founding fathers didnt create the ceremonies
and slogans that come to mind when we consider whether this is a Christian nation. Our
grandfathers did. This, according to Kruse,
began with anti-New Deal business leaders in
the 1930s who linked capitalism to Christianity as a public relations move. From there, the
idea of a Christian nation grew and expanded.
But what comes of this idea of a Christian nation as the percentage of Christians drops and
the percentage of the unaffiliated rises?
If the unaffiliated are to make their presence
felt in terms of more representation, it will
most likely come on the Democratic side. As
PRRI points out, in 1980 unaffiliated support
for Jimmy Carter over Ronald Reagan was by
a margin in the single digits by percentage; in
2012, they supported Barack Obama over Mitt
Romney by 51 percentage points.
That time will come, I believe. For now, unaffiliated is an identity as yet unaware of its power.

SPORTS

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

In Brief

Harden and Houston Advance to West Finals

HOUSTON James Harden
scored 31 points, Dwight Howard
had 16 points and 15 rebounds,
and the Houston Rockets never
trailed in a 113-100 victory over the
Los AngeROCKETS 113,
les Clippers
CLIPPERS 100
on Sunday,
Houston wins series, 4-3 advancing
to the Western Conference finals
for the first time since 1997.
It was the ninth time that a team
overcame a 3-1 series deficit to win
an N.B.A. playoff series.
The Rockets needed an epic
comeback to overcome a 19-point
third-quarter deficit and force
Game 7. No such heroics were
needed Sunday when they were
up by 17 after three, and Howard
opened the fourth quarter with a
3-point play to push it to 88-68.
Blake Griffin scored 5 points in
a 9-0 run to cut the lead to 8 points
with less than two and half min-

utes left. Harden made a pair of

free throws after that, but a dunk
by center DeAndre Jordan got the
Clippers within 8 points again.
This time, Trevor Ariza hit a 3
from the corner to secure the victory. Ariza finished with 22 points
and made six 3-pointers.
Griffin had 27 points, and point
guard Chris Paul had 26 points
and 10 assists for Los Angeles.
The Western Conference finals
begin Tuesday at Golden State.
Every fan in the arena Sunday
was given a red shirt emblazoned
with the words Clutch City in
yellow letters, recalling the 1994
and 95 Houston teams, which
won back-to-back titles. These
Rockets also lived up to the nickname, winning their third straight
game to become the first team to
win a playoff series after trailing
by 3-1 since the Phoenix Suns did
it in 2006 against the Lakers.

After winning Game 4, the

Clippers appeared destined to be
heading to the conference finals
for the first time in franchise history. But they failed in all three
chances to put Houston away.
Los Angeles never led, but it
tied the score twice in the first
four minutes. The Clippers insisted Saturday that they were over
Thursdays loss, but they looked
listless early in this one.
When a dunk by Jordan early in the fourth quarter simply
bounced out of the rim, he could
only look at the basket in disgust.
The frustration was evident with
Paul, too, as he angrily threw the
ball after picking up an offensive
foul later in the fourth.
Harden, the Most Valuable
Player runner-up to the Warriors
Stephen Curry, scored 12 points in
the first quarter and finished with
8 assists and 7 rebounds.
(AP)

ford stopped 23 shots for Chicago, which hadnt lost since April
23. The Blackhawks struggles in
their first game in 10 days were encapsulated when Andersen made
a jaw-dropping stick save against
Patrick Kane, deflecting the Chicago stars shot over an open net.
The Blackhawks capitalized
on just one scoring chance while
making just enough mistakes to
fall behind and stay there. Chicago got reminded just how much
work will be necessary to hold off
the hungry Ducks and to get back
to the Stanley Cup finals for the
third time in six years.
Sometimes you play these
first games, and it is kind of a

WEATHER
High/low temperatures for the 21 hours ended at 4 p.m.
yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches)
for the 18 hours ended at 1 p.m. yesterday. Expected
conditions for today and tomorrow.
Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice,
PC-partly cloudy, R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow,
SS-snow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.

U.S. CITIES

Albuquerque
Atlanta
Boise
Boston
Buffalo
Charlotte
Chicago
Cleveland
Dallas-Ft. Worth
Denver
Detroit

Yesterday Today Tomorrow

68/ 40 0
76/ 53 PC 73/ 48 PC
84/ 68 0.39 86/ 69 T
87/ 68 T
68/ 46 0.11 72/ 52 T
69/ 52 T
67/ 54 0
58/ 51 C
69/ 54 Sh
82/ 60 Tr
79/ 56 T
66/ 39 S
86/ 63 0
88/ 66 T
89/ 64 T
81/ 66 0.20 78/ 41 PC 58/ 38 S
81/ 63 0.04 80/ 55 T
65/ 41 S
78/ 64 0.20 85/ 67 PC 81/ 68 T
65/ 43 0.12 56/ 42 C
47/ 38 R
80/ 63 Tr
84/ 52 PC 64/ 38 S

Houston
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Miami
Mpls.-St. Paul
New York City
Orlando
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Salt Lake City
San Francisco
Seattle
St. Louis
Washington

85/ 77
79/ 62
72/ 59
87/ 78
73/ 68
83/ 64
88/ 73
84/ 68
85/ 64
62/ 48
61/ 55
69/ 51
82/ 66
86/ 70

1.04
0
0
0.01
0.15
0
0.19
Tr
0
0.10
0
0.04
0
Tr

feeling-out process where you

dont really know what to expect,
Kane said. I dont want to say we
came in and wanted to do that, but
I think well have a better effort
come next game.
Game 2 is Tuesday night in Anaheim.
Andersen, who made 32 saves,
had to be stellar under a heavy
barrage of shots.
Hes a battler, and you saw that
on numerous saves he had tonight
where it seemed like we had a good
chance to score and he gets a leg or
a stick on it, Kane said. We knew
that was the scouting report on
him. Just got to bear down a little bit
more on those opportunities.(AP)
86/ 73
67/ 45
70/ 57
88/ 75
47/ 36
68/ 58
90/ 71
82/ 62
89/ 65
66/ 50
63/ 54
75/ 54
82/ 53
88/ 70

PC
S
PC
PC
W
C
PC
PC
C
C
PC
PC
PC
T

86/ 72
63/ 47
69/ 57
88/ 75
56/ 42
75/ 57
91/ 73
81/ 58
86/ 65
61/ 50
65/ 54
74/ 53
70/ 53
86/ 62

T
S
C
S
S
T
T
T
S
T
C
C
S
T

FOREIGN CITIES

Acapulco
Athens
Beijing
Berlin
Buenos Aires
Cairo

Yesterday Today Tomorrow

95/ 79 0.05 89/ 79 T
89/ 80 T
79/ 57 0
81/ 62 S
79/ 63 PC
84/ 62 0.25 83/ 58 S
81/ 58 S
61/ 43 0
67/ 49 C
69/ 47 Sh
77/ 64 0
73/ 63 Sh 74/ 66 PC
90/ 62 0
97/ 69 S
98/ 72 S

Yankees Shut Out

Edinson Volquez threw threehit ball for seven innings, and Salvador Perez homered and drove
in two runs as host Kansas City
won, 6-0, taking two out of three
games from the Yankees. The
Yankees lost for the fifth time in
six games, and they were shut out
for the first time this season. (AP)

A.L . SCO RES

SATURDAYS LATE GAMES
L.A. Angels 6, Baltimore 1
Yankees 5, Kansas City 1
Houston 6, Toronto 5
Cleveland 10, Texas 8
Chicago White Sox 4, Oakland 3
Boston 4, Seattle 2
SUNDAY
Baltimore 3, L.A. Angels 0
Kansas City 6, Yankees 0
Tampa Bay 11, Minnesota 3
Houston 4, Toronto 2
Texas 5, Cleveland 1
Chicago White Sox 7, Oakland 3
Seattle 5, Boston 0

N.L . SCO RES

Anaheim Goalie Turns Back Barrage of Shots

ANAHEIM, Calif. The Chicago Blackhawks headed into the
Western Conference finals with a
wealth of playoff experience and
ample rest.
N o n e
DUCKS 4,
of it made
BLACKHAWKS 1
much difAnaheim leads series, 1-0 f e r e n c e
when they struggled to find a way
past Frederik Andersen and the
surging Anaheim Ducks.
Hampus Lindholm, Nate
Thompson and Jakob Silfverberg
each had a goal and an assist, and
the Ducks beat the Blackhawks,
4-1, in the opener on Sunday.
Brad Richards scored late in the
second period and Corey Craw-

Cape Town
Dublin
Geneva
Hong Kong
Kingston
Lima
London
Madrid
Mexico City
Montreal
Moscow
Nassau
Paris
Prague
Rio de Janeiro
Rome
Santiago
Stockholm
Sydney
Tokyo
Toronto
Vancouver
Warsaw

SATURDAYS LATE GAMES

Philadelphia 7, Arizona 5
Mets 14, Milwaukee 1
San Francisco 11, Cincinnati 2
Washington 4, San Diego 1
Colorado 7, L.A. Dodgers 1
SUNDAY
Atlanta 6, Miami 0
Mets 5, Milwaukee 1
San Francisco 9, Cincinnati 8
Philadelphia 6, Arizona 0
Pittsburgh 3, Chicago Cubs 0
L.A. Dodgers 1, Colorado 0
Washington at San Diego, 4:10
St. Louis 2, Detroit 1

N.B .A. SCORES

SUNDAY
Houston 113, L.A. Clippers 100
Rockets win series, 4-3

N.H .L . P L AYO FFS

SUNDAY
Anaheim 4, Chicago 1,
Ducks lead series, 1-0
77/ 46
55/ 45
70/ 48
84/ 78
88/ 79
77/ 66
61/ 46
86/ 54
79/ 56
75/ 59
54/ 38
85/ 75
68/ 43
61/ 52
79/ 69
88/ 57
72/ 41
46/ 41
65/ 52
79/ 64
72/ 57
64/ 55
59/ 50

0
0.07
0
0.29
0.01
0
0
0
0.12
0
0.08
0.18
0
0
0
0
0
1.14
0.04
0
0
0.01
0.01

72/ 57
53/ 41
74/ 51
91/ 81
89/ 78
75/ 64
59/ 45
88/ 59
80/ 55
82/ 63
55/ 40
84/ 72
68/ 45
69/ 50
78/ 69
83/ 59
76/ 46
53/ 37
66/ 56
75/ 65
80/ 56
71/ 53
64/ 48

PC
Sh
PC
T
W
PC
R
PC
T
Sh
Sh
PC
Sh
PC
PC
S
S
Sh
PC
C
T
PC
PC

67/ 51
53/ 41
61/ 43
90/ 81
88/ 78
74/ 65
58/ 44
75/ 46
79/ 56
77/ 45
53/ 43
85/ 75
60/ 44
71/ 48
78/ 68
78/ 59
79/ 44
55/ 42
73/ 58
73/ 64
65/ 36
69/ 53
77/ 55

Sh
Sh
C
T
W
PC
Sh
PC
T
Sh
C
PC
Sh
Sh
Sh
PC
S
Sh
PC
C
PC
PC
T

SPORTS JOURNAL

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015

10

Before Envelopes Are Even Opened, Draft Fates Are Sealed

Until Deputy Commissioner
Mark Tatum opens the envelopes
Tuesday at the N.B.A. draft lottery
at the New York Hilton, he will not
know the winner.
Nor will the hopeful representatives from each team, nor the
assembled members of the news
media, nor the millions watching
the revelation on television.
But about 25 people will know
because the actual draft lottery will
be over, having occurred an hour
earlier in another room of the hotel.
The annual opening of the envelopes is essentially a made-forTV sideshow; the actual selection
takes place in strict secrecy.
The site for the little-seen but
crucial event will be a conference
room elsewhere in the hotel. A
drawing of Ping-Pong balls from
a machine like those used in state
lotteries will be witnessed by a
representative from each team
not the same ones who sit at desks
under television lights at the formal announcement and a few
members of the news media.

SAM MANCHESTER/NEW YORK TIMES

Their cellphones will be confiscated, and no contact with the outside world will be allowed.
Once the drawing is complete,
three people will leave: two N.B.A.
legal officials and Denise Pelli,
a partner of the accounting firm
Ernst & Young. They will go to a
second room, where 14 envelopes
and logo cards for each team will
be waiting. Everyone else in the
first room must remain sequestered until after the ceremony.

The envelopes will be prepared,

and then Pelli will be escorted by
security guards to a third room,
where the ceremony will take
place. The N.B.A. officials will remain behind; Pelli will be the only
person in the room who knows
what is in the envelopes.
The lottery will be conducted on
a machine made by Smartplay International, which is responsible
for weighing and measuring the 14
Ping-Pong balls pulled from it.
A timekeeper with a digital
stopwatch will stand with his
back to the machine. Precisely
20 seconds after it starts, he will
signal to the operator to draw a
ball. Further signals will come at
10-second intervals until four balls
have been pulled.
Although there are 14 teams in
the lottery and 14 Ping-Pong balls,
that match is just a coincidence.
The number of balls was chosen because there are exactly 1,001 ways
that four numbers can be drawn
from a set of 14. Each of those combinations is assigned to a team.

American Pharoah Is Running Against History

Baltimore
So here we go again: Days after
another Preakness Stakes, and
horse-racing aficionados once
more have a bounce in their step.
For the fourteenth
On Horse time in the last 36
Racing years, a horse will
Joe Drape pull into Belmont
Park with an opportunity to become the 12th Triple
Crown champion, and the first
since Affirmed in 1978.
Ive written that phrase countless times, referring to eight
other horses, including California
Chrome just last year.
Now theres a ninth, American Pharoah, the colt that raced
across a sloppy track here Saturday on his way to a seven-length
victory. Within seconds, my
phone and social media accounts
lit up with different versions of
the same question: Is American Pharoah the horse to finally
complete one of the most difficult
feats in sports?
My answer is that I havent a
clue, and the times I thought I
did, I watched my horse lose by a
bob (Real Quiet in 1998), get run
down in a stretch (Smarty Jones
in 2004) or be compromised by a
questionable ride, as California
Chrome did last year.

So lets stick first with what

American Pharoah has going for
him. He is the reigning 2-year-old
champion, as were six of the last
seven Triple Crown champs.
Like Affirmed, Seattle Slew,
Secretariat, Citation, Count
Fleet and Whirlaway, American
Pharoah demonstrated brilliance
early in his career. Only Assault
failed to earn the 2-year-old title.
It is a foundation that American Pharoah has continued to
build on, winning all four of his
races as a 3-year-old for a record
of six victories in seven starts and
more than $3.7million in purses.
American Pharoah also has a
running style similar to those of
many of the greats. He likes to be
on or near the front early in the
race, possesses a high cruising
speed and has a grittiness that
wears down his rivals.
Affirmed, Seattle Slew and,
most memorably, Secretariat
took control of the Belmont
Stakes from the gate and never
gave an inch as each passed the
Test of the Champion, as the grueling mile and a half is known.
What are his intangibles? He
definitely passes the name test;
American Pharoah (even misspelled) sounds regal and powerful enough to stand alongside

Triple Crown champions like Sir

Barton and Gallant Fox, Omaha
and War Admiral. You couldnt
say that about Smarty Jones.
What are the strikes against
American Pharoah?
Affirmed, Seattle Slew and
Secretariat were all based in New
York and trained at Belmont Park,
and so they were familiar with
its sandy surface and expansive
turns. American Pharoah has
been based in California for most
of his career, but Bob Baffert,
the horses Hall of Fame trainer,
makes Churchill Downs his base
during the Triple Crown. The colt
will return there Monday.
The plan is that he will remain
there until the Wednesday before
Belmont, which is June 6.
Baffert knows better than
most that a thousand things can
happen between now and the
race, most of them bad. American
Pharoah could spike a fever, step
on a rock, detest Belmonts surface or just plain run out of gas.
Baffert has been here before
with Silver Charm (1997), Real
Quiet (1998) and War Emblem
(2002) and couldnt get it done.
Its going to be tough, he said.
I know everybody right now is
sharpening their knives, getting
ready.

The Minnesota Timberwolves,

who had the worst record this
season and have a 25 percent
chance of getting the top pick, receive the first 250 combinations:
1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 5; 1, 2, 3, 6 all the
way to 1, 7, 12, 14. The Knicks, the
next-worst team, get the next 199
combinations, and so on down to
the Oklahoma City Thunder, who
have only five combinations and a
0.5percent chance at the top pick.
The 1,001st and final combination 11, 12, 13, 14 is unassigned; if it is drawn, the balls will
be put back and drawn again.
Once the top three picks are determined, the lottery will be over.
Slots 4 through 14 will be assigned
based solely on record. As a result,
the Timberwolves, even if they are
not pulled in the three draws, will
get no worse than the fourth pick.
But even as executives are interviewed and fans cross their fingers, the drama will have already
occurred, thanks to a few bouncing
Ping-Pong balls in a small room
downstairs. VICTOR MATHER

Barcelona Clinches
Spanish League Title
Lionel Messi ended Barcelonas short-lived trophy drought
by scoring the goal that clinched
the Spanish league title on
Sunday, securing a 1-0 win at dethroned champion Atltico Madrid. Messi slotted in the decisive
goal in the 65th minute.
(AP)

McIlroy Cruises
Rory McIlroy became the first
two-time winner in the Wells
Fargo Championship with a
seven-shot victory Sunday over
Webb Simpson and Patrick Rodgers. He closed with a 3-under 69
to finish at 21-under 267 and break
the tournament record by five
strokes. He entered the day with a
four-stroke lead after a course-record 61 on Saturday.
(AP)

Extreme Athlete Dies

Extreme athlete Dean Potter,
renowned for his bold climbs
and BASE jumps, was among
two people who were killed while
attempting a wingsuit flight in
Yosemite National Park, a park
spokesman said Sunday. Potter,
43, and Graham Hunt, 29, had
jumped from a 7,500-foot promontory called Taft Point, a park
ranger, Scott Gediman, said.(AP)