March 12, 2016

On Top Of The News Email:news@arubatoday.com website: www.arubatoday.com Tel:+297 582-7800 Saturday, March 12, 2016

Washed Away

Shatripa Reid with her daughter Jamikka Rodgers and her grandson Jayvea’l Robinson are rescued by Tangipahoa sheriff’s deputies from their home on Friday, March 11, 2016 in Hammond, La. Torrential rains pounded northern Louisiana for fourth day Friday, trapping several hundred people in their homes, leaving scores of roads impassable and causing widespread flooding.

(Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune)

Severe Weather Lashes Louisiana, Forcing Evacuations N. BENCHAABANE K. MCGILL Associated Press BOSSIER CITY, La. (AP) — Torrential rains pounded Louisiana for a fourth day Friday, leaving roads im-

passable, submerging cars and forcing people from their homes overnight.

The Bossier City area across the Red River from Shreveport has taken the brunt of the storm that began satu-

rating northern Louisiana late Tuesday. At least three people have died, and mandatory evacuations have been enforced by rescuers using large trucks able to negotiate the high

waters.

At the Pecan Valley Estates mobile home park, Sam Cassidy and his wife were the last holdouts. The murky waters surrounded Cassidy’s home and his neigh-

bors had already left. He said he would leave if the water started to get inside but he was worried about looters.

Continued on Page 5

A2 UP

Saturday 12 March 2016

FRONT

Kerry arrives in Saudi for talks on Syria, Yemen wars HAFR AL-BATIN, Saudi Arabia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed Friday at a sprawling military facility in northeastern Saudi Arabia where the kingdom just finished a three-week-long counterterrorism drill that included 20 nations and which observers say was a show of force against its foes.

Kerry touched down at the King Khalid Military City near the town of Hafr alBatin in the desert, south of the Iraqi and Kuwaiti border. He was later in the evening received by King Salman and other top Saudi officals, which was to be followed by a working dinner with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef and Foreign Minister Adel al-Ju-

beir.

His visit came as the kings of Bahrain and Jordan joined Pakistan’s prime minister, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Qatar’s emir and the Saudi king for a parade and airshow marking the end of the military exercise, dubbed “Northern Thunder.” It also comes amid heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and its regional Shiite rival Iran as they back opposite sides of the wars in Syria and Yemen. On Thursday, state media reported that Saudi Arabia was building a new air base to protect the kingdom’s airspace in Hafr al-Batin.

The drills included troops from Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Jordan,

Saudi King Salman, middle, watches military exercises code named North Thunder with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, right, and the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah, left, in Hafr Al-Baten, Saudi Arabia. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed Friday at a sprawling military facility in northeastern Saudi Arabia following the exercises.

(Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Sudan and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

Other countries that contributed include Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.

Kerry’s talks focused on the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, where a Saudiled campaign has been

targeting the country’s Iran-backed Shiite rebels.

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said Kerry emphasized that now is the time to keep moving forward on ending the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.q

Dubai official warns of ‘clash of civilizations’ over Trump JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A top security official in Dubai warned Friday of a “clash of civilizations” if U.S. Republican candidate Donald Trump becomes president, the latest sign of disquiet across the Middle East over the businessman’s comments about Muslims.

Trump refused to back away from his recent statement that “Islam hates the West” during a Republican debate Thursday night in Miami, which came after he called in December for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Trump said he wouldn’t stoop to being “politically correct” by avoiding such statements.

Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, the deputy chairman of police and general se-

curity in Dubai, took to Twitter to respond. Referencing political scientist Samuel P. Huntington’s theory that future wars would be fought between cultures, Tamim warned that a Trump win could see him face Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“If Trump beats Hillary (Clinton), that means that the scenario of the clash of civilizations created by Samuel will come to light at the hands of the candidate and al-Baghdadi,” Tamim wrote.

Trump has for years looked to do business in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf and the emirate of Dubai.

Trump has lent his name to two high-profile Dubai golf course projects and an ongoing real estate development, and sought for years to expand his hotel chain into the region.q

U.S. NEWS A3 Friends, family say final farewells to Nancy Reagan Saturday 12 March 2016

MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Mourners from the top ranks of Washington and Hollywood paid final tribute to Nancy Reagan on Friday, recalling at her funeral how the former first lady and her husband made up “two halves of a circle,” with a legendary love that seemed to inspire everyone they met.

Inseparable in life, the pair were to be reunited in death in side-by-side graves at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library.

During a service filled with poignant and often humorous memories, each speaker came back to the couple’s love story.

“When they were together, he hid love notes around the house for her to find,” said Reagan’s former chief of staff, James Baker. “She reciprocated by secreting little notes in jellybeans in his suitcase.

“Ronald and Nancy Reagan were defined by their love for each other,” Baker added. “They were as close to being one person as it is possible for any two people to be.”

Although many speakers invoked the president’s name, they were also quick to add that Mrs. Reagan was more than just a supportive wife. She was a force of nature herself.

“There would be no Ronald Reagan Presidential Library without a President Ronald Reagan, and there likely wouldn’t have been a President Ronald Reagan without a Nancy Reagan,” said the couple’s son, Ron Reagan.

It was her belief in what her husband could accomplish that gave his father the “chutzpah” to seek political office, he added.

“It would be a mistake, by the way, to consider her as somehow subordinate to him just because he was the one usually taking the center stage,” Reagan said. “They were co-equals.

They complemented one another.”

While her husband was affable, Mrs. Reagan could be loving, friendly

and quick to laugh. But, if anyone did anything she thought was harmful to her husband, she was fiercely protective and sometimes quick to anger.

Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw recalled that when he once questioned the hard-luck story of the president’s early life, Mrs. Reagan was so angry that Reagan’s own staff advised him to stay away from the White House until she calmed down. Reagan didn’t mind the criticism, Brokaw said, but his wife did. “Occasionally I’ve thought that even God might not have the guts to argue with Nancy Reagan,” the couple’s daughter, Patti Davis, quipped.

For his part, Reagan spoke in public so warmly, and so often, about his wife, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney recalled, that he once told Reagan he was making every other world leader look bad in front of their wives. A waterproof tent was put up behind the library to shield its 1,000 invited guests from a rainy forecast. Although it sprinkled lightly during the 90-minute ceremony, the heavens didn’t open up into a full downpour until its conclusion, forcing guests to open umbrellas as they left. Among those in the front row were first lady Michelle Obama, who was seated next to former President George W. Bush.

Hillary Clinton sat between Bush’s wife, Laura, and former first lady Rosalynn Carter.

The sprawling, Spanish mission-style library is located between the Reagan’s post-White House home in the upscale Bel Air section of Los Angeles and Rancho del Cielo, the “ranch in the sky” where the Reagans spent their leisure time, sometimes on horseback, in the rugged mountains near Santa Barbara.

The guest list for the funeral told the story of the couple’s life together, which stretched from Hollywood’s Golden Age to the California statehouse during Reagan’s time as governor to Washington.q

Patti Davis, daughter of late former President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan speaks during the funeral service for the former First Lady at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Friday, March 11, 2016, in Simi Valley, Calif.

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A4 U.S.

Saturday 12 March 2016

NEWS

With Cuba trip, Obama aims to make renewed ties irreversible JOSH LEDERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will use his historic trip to Cuba to chip away at key remaining U.S. obstacles to travel and commerce with the communist island, working to push his diplomatic relaunch past the point of no return before he leaves office.

The three-day trip to Havana beginning next weekend marks the first time a sitting president will set foot in Cuba in nearly nine decades. It also is one of Obama’s final opportunities to lock in the sharp reversal in policy toward Cuba that his administration launched. In a bid to show growing momentum, the Obama administration is preparing to further ease restrictions and greenlight projects by U.S. companies in connection with the trip, according to a half-dozen individuals familiar with the administration’s plans.

Starwood, the hotel chain whose brands include Sheraton and Westin, is expected to receive a license from the Treasury

A worker wipes a representation of the The Great Seal of the United States at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. President Barack Obama will use his historic trip to Cuba to chip away at key remaining U.S. obstacles to travel and commerce with the communist island.

(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Department in the coming days to operate hotels in Cuba, following extensive conversations with both Cuban and U.S. officials.

If successful, Starwood would become the first and only U.S. hotel company with operations in Cuba.

The chain, which is being purchased by Marriott, is exploring numerous possibilities for Cuba that include

managing the famed Hotel Saratoga in central Havana, said the individuals, who weren’t authorized to discuss the plans publicly and requested anonymity. Starwood is one of a number of major U.S. hotel chains actively working on plans to expand to Cuba.

Starwood declined to offer specifics but confirmed it has applied for a license

from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which would allow it to do business in Cuba despite congressional sanctions.

A Marriott spokesman said that chain was also hoping to “get a green light soon” from the U.S. to operate Marriott-branded hotels in Cuba, adding that chief executive Arne Sorenson planned to travel there for Obama’s trip. And Carnival Cruise Line, which already has U.S. approval, said it expects Cuban ap-

proval soon and plans to sail to Cuba starting May 1.

The White House declined to comment on any potential announcements related to Cuba policy or Obama’s trip. But it has stressed that Obama plan s to meet while I Havana with Cuban dissidents that the White House, not the Cuban government, has picked. The Obama administration is also poised to remove yet another roadblock for those who wish to visit Cuba by allowing Americans to travel independently, rather than in organized, group trips. Already, Obama has eased travel restrictions by allowing Americans traveling for one of 12 approved purposes to go without obtaining a specific license, but the forthcoming regulatory tweaks will remove the requirement that Americans go through structured trips with set itineraries, the individuals said. Getting to Cuba remains tricky; chartered flights are currently the only option. Last month the U.S. and Cuba signed a deal restoring commercial flights for the first time in five decades, triggering a flood of applications from U.S. airlines.

Diplomat: 100-plus nations reject U.S. sanctions against Venezuela DAVE BRYAN Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Venezuela’s U.N. ambassador on Friday accused the Obama administration of trying to “destabilize our country and our government” by renewing sanctions on several of his country’s top officials over human rights violations, and he read out a statement from more than 100 developing countries backing him up.

Ambassador Rafael Ramirez read out to reporters the statement from the Non-Aligned Movement of 120 countries not formally linked to any major power bloc. The statement expressed support for Venezuela and criticized President Barack Obama, who renewed the sanc-

tions by executive order on Wednesday.

“We are continuing to move forward and reject these measures from the U.S.,” the ambassador said.

The countries have had stormy relations since the late Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela in 1999.

A year ago, Obama sanctioned seven Venezuelan officials, accusing them of perpetrating human rights violations and corruption in the socialist-governed country. All seven came from the top echelon of the state security apparatus responsible for cracking down on anti-government protests that rocked Venezuela in 2014 and for pursuing charges against leading opponents.

U.S. NEWS A5

Saturday 12 March 2016

Trump rallies raise questions about inciting violence SOPHIA TAREEN JILL COLVIN Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — As Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump attempts to unify a fractured party around his candidacy, images of his supporters attacking protesters and allegations that he’s inciting violence are raising new questions about the divisive nature of his campaign.

Trump had to answer questions at Thursday night’s debate about video that showed a white supporter punching a black protester at a rally this week in North Carolina. The supporter was charged with assault Thursday.

“It’s not the America they portray on TV,” 26-year-old Rakeem Jones said a day after being punched.

It was the latest in a series of scuffles at his often heated rallies, where protesters frequently clash with supporters and security. Last year, video captured Trump sup-

A man is removed as he protests Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

porters physically assaulting Mercutio Southall Jr., an African-American activist, at a rally in Alabama.

At past events, Trump has said he’d like to punch a protester in the face and promised to pay supporters’ legal fees if they get into trouble. He’s spoken

fondly of the “good old days” when police could rough protesters up without fear of backlash.

Trump on Thursday rejected the idea that he was responsible for the incidents and said some of the protesters at his rallies “are bad dudes and have done

bad things.”

And he defended his supporters: “People come with tremendous passion and love for the country,” he said. “When they see what’s going on in this country, they have anger that’s unbelievable.”

But during a news confer-

ence Friday, Trump applauded his supporters for taking on protesters who he says have gotten physical at his rallies.

“The audience hit back,” he said. “And that’s what we need a little bit more of.” Security experts say Trump is playing with fire by not calming uncivil behavior and assault. “I would go so far as to say that I find that abhorrent,” security consultant Stan Kephart, a former police chief in Arizona and California. “To me, he’s pressing the line.

He’s doing things that you would see a showman do.”

The role of law enforcement in these situations is not simple.

“We respect folks’ First Amendment rights to free speech. We’re not there to police the protesters,” said Robert K. Hoback, a spokesman for the Secret Service, commenting on reports that Secret Service agents escorted protesters out of a recent Trump event in Georgia.

Severe Weather Lashes Louisiana, Forcing Evacuations Continued on Page 5

He said God might take it all with the flood but he wouldn’t allow anyone else to. Thursday morning, with waters creeping up his front steps, he stood in waist-deep water watching his neighbors evacuate. An alligator swam by.

By night it looked like a “horror movie.”

“We were the only two here,” he said. “It was pitch black, the houses were empty. It’s been an adventure.”

Residents in two additional subdivisions in the region were ordered to leave Friday, while the Louisiana

Downs racetrack was under a mandatory evacuation, said Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Davis. A flood warning was in effect for the Red Chute Bayou, where levees built to prevent water from overflowing were at risk.

The southeast of the state started to get battered by rain Thursday and Friday.

In Tangipahoa Parish, Sheriff Daniel Edwards said close to 50 roads were closed due to high water and an estimated 300 to 400 people had to evacuate. Flash flood waters in many populated areas appeared to be receding by Friday afternoon, although more rain could change

that.

To the east, in St. Tammany Parish officials said three local rivers were reaching historic levels and would continue to rise. They encouraged people in homes nearby to decide before dark whether to evacuate.

Thaddeus Jackson, 37, said water was already entering his two-story apartment in Hammond when he arrived home from work at around 2:30 a.m. He tried to protect his furniture, then he and his wife and children went to bed.

“When I woke up this morning, the rescue people were banging on the door, telling us to get out,” said Jackson.

Further to the east in Washington Parish, swollen rivers and creeks have led to widespread flooding, prompting rescues from scores of homes.

Mike Haley, a chief deputy for the parish’s sheriff, said dozens of homes have been flooded. The Coast Guard even had to send a helicopter from New Orleans to rescue someone trapped on a roof.

There were no reports of serious injuries or deaths, said Haley, but he noted that the flooding was worse than what the parish saw during Hurricane Isaac in 2012. The severe weather system that has dumped rain across the state has

been feeding off of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, said Frank Revitte, from the National Weather Service in Slidell.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday, the system dumped 15-20 inches over north Louisiana before moving south where it dumped about 10-15 inches of rain Thursday and Friday in some areas — in just 3 to 4 hours — Rivette said.

The weather system is starting to move slowly to the northeast, he said, giving the state a chance to dry out. Southeast Louisiana will dry out faster than north Louisiana, where the ground is saturated, he said.

A6 U.S.

Saturday 12 March 2016

NEWS Judge says farmworkers may use loudspeakers at Palm Beach rally

Commuters take escalators at Newark Penn Station, Friday, March 11, 2016, in Newark, N.J. More than 100,000 commuters use NJ Transit to get into New York City, and the transit agency says its contingency plan using extra buses will only be able to accommodate about 40,000 riders. NJ Transit has estimated that a one-hour commute by train will more than double.

(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

New York region braces for rail strike DAVID PORTER BEN FINLEY Associated Press NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Commuters and businesses on both sides of the Hudson River braced for the worst as negotiators for rail unions and New Jersey Transit worked to reach a contract deal Friday to head off a weekend shutdown from a strike.

After about six hours of negotiations, no deal had been announced by late afternoon, and neither side had offered an update on the status of the talks. . If negotiators can’t iron out

an agreement over wages and benefits, unions have authorized a strike beginning at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

It remained to be seen whether Republican Gov. Chris Christie would become directly involved in the talks. Earlier in the week, Christie said he would monitor negotiations but wouldn’t take part unless his “involvement will be helpful in bringing together a resolution.”

More than 100,000 commuters use NJ Transit to get into New York, and the transit agency says its contingency plan using extra bus-

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es will only be able to accommodate about 40,000 “It would be an enormous inconvenience,” said Martin Dorph, chief financial officer for New York University in lower Manhattan, who takes the train from Hamilton, New Jersey, to New York.

Eric Delgado, a sales rep for a software company, said he could work from home in Robbinsville, New Jersey, about 60 miles from Manhattan, except he’s scheduled to meet new clients for the first time next week near his office.

On Friday, he weighed that prospect against commuting on a bus to Jersey City and then taking a train into the city. “I think it’s doable, but it’s just going to be a nightmare,” he said. “The bus is going to be packed full of people, and it’s going to be uncomfortable.”

NJ Transit has estimated that a one-hour commute by train — roughly the length of Dorph’s ride from Hamilton to Penn Station on an express train — will more than double by bus or a combination of bus and ferry or Port Authority Trans-Hudson train.

Worse, motorists have been told to expect backups of 20 miles or more at the Lincoln and Holland tunnels into New York.q

TERRY SPENCER Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A farmworkers coalition can use loudspeakers and a slow-moving truck during its planned weekend demonstration in the Town of Palm Beach but its marchers must remain on the sidewalk, a federal judge ruled Friday.

District Judge Robin Rosenberg issued her ruling one day before 500 members and supporters of the Immokalee Coalition of Farmworkers plan to march and rally near the home of billionaire Nelson Peltz, the chairman of the Wendy’s fast-food chain. At issue is Wendy’s refusal to pay a penny-per-pound fee for its tomatoes to supplement some farmworkers’ wages.

Rosenberg ruled that the coalition, which represents about 40,000 workers, has a First Amendment right to have its views heard, so it can use loudspeakers carried by the truck that will travel at 3 mph. She also said the flatbed truck will carry the old, young and the disabled so their constitutional right to demonstrate will not be infringed.

The town had wanted to limit the demonstration to 64 decibels as measured at the nearest private property — about the noise level of two men talking. During the march, property lines could be inches away. To stay within the law, demonstrators would have to march silently or far away from others, meaning their message would be lost, Rosenberg wrote.

“Both options severely hinder the dissemination of the protected speech,” she wrote.

However, she said Palm Beach has a legitimate right to keep its streets clear, particularly so that emergency vehicles can get in and out. The town, which is on a barrier island, is served by one major bridge. Along with 8,700 residents, on winter weekends about 20,000 tourists are typically in town.

It will be easy to move the truck out of the way, if needed, Rosenberg ruled, but not 500 marchers. The coalition had argued that street protests have a long history nationally and that awnings and other overhanging barriers would keep the marchers from carrying picket signs.

“Allowing them to march, but requiring them to stay on the sidewalk, is narrowly tailored to the significant government interest in public safety,” Rosenberg wrote.

Steve Hitov, the coalition’s attorney, said “we won a lot and they won some.” He said the coalition was negotiating with the town to implement the judge’s order.

John Randolph, the town attorney, said the town’s biggest concern was keeping the marchers on the sidewalk. “We just want to preserve order, public safety and peace and in a great sense, we have been able to do that,” Randolph said.

Among the 590 Florida cities, towns and unincorporated areas with at least 1,000 households that the U.S Census Bureau tracks, Palm Beach ranks 10th in median household income at $105,700. Current and former residents and property owners include the Kennedy family, Donald Trump, commentators Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and entertainers Jimmy Buffett, John Lennon and Rod Stewart.

Immokalee, the southwest Florida farming town about 100 miles from Palm Beach where the coalition is based, is 575th, with a median household income of $25,725.

The coalition has used demonstrations and sometimes consumer boycotts to pressure the five largest fastfood companies — Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Taco Bell — into joining its “fair food program.” All but Wendy’s eventually joined. q

U.S. NEWS A7

Saturday 12 March 2016

Giant canopies part of $6 billion Atlanta airport expansions JEFF MARTIN Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Two giant, translucent canopies spanning several lanes of roadway and sidewalks outside the domestic terminal will be among the most visible aspects of a $6 billion expansion and renovation project at the world’s busiest airport during the next 20 years, officials announced this week.

A computer animation unveiled at the Atlanta airport’s inaugural “State of the Airport” address shows the massive structures enclosing the drop-off and pickup lanes outside the main terminal and connecting the terminal to parking decks.

The canopy will protect travelers from the elements “while making a memorable impression of the world-class stature of Atlanta,” said Miguel Southwell, general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The airport also plans to update the interior of the domestic passenger terminal and concourses and add a sixth runway and a 400room hotel, officials said.

Parts of the ticketing areas where passengers check in for domestic flights will be “flooded with natural light” when renovations are complete, Southwell said.

Work begins on concourse renovations later this year.

The project accelerates next year with work on parking decks, passenger gates and the terminal renovation, officials said.

Atlanta’s airport handled 101.5 million passengers last year, more than any other in the world, officials said. q

US Financial Front:

ACA co-ops lose big in 2015; some expect 2016 profits

The HealthCare.gov website, where people can buy health insurance, is displayed on a laptop screen in Washington. The Affordable Care Act’s health insurance co-ops absorbed deep financial losses last year, and 2016 is shaping up to be a make-or-break year for these nonprofit alternatives to traditional insurers.

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

TOM MURPHY AP Business Writer The Affordable Care Act’s health insurance co-ops absorbed deep financial losses last year, and 2016 is shaping up to be a makeor-break year for these nonprofit alternatives to traditional insurers.

Officially called Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, these still-fledgling insurers were devised during the ACA’s creation to inject competition into insurance markets. But they have struggled from the start to build a customer base from scratch and deal with higher-than-expected expenses, among other problems.

Heading into their third full year of operation, the coops are adding customers and improving their coverage, but they also face the end of some government programs designed to support insurers as they build business on the

ACA’s public insurance exchanges. They will have to determine soon whether their businesses can stand on their own and compete with more established carriers.

“Plan year 2016 is a critical year for these co-ops — they must move from startup to stability and improve their financial capabilities,” said Kevin Counihan, CEO of the federal exchange operator HealthCare.gov, during a Thursday hearing held by the Senate’s Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee.

A dozen of the 23 co-ops created under the law have closed, and many of the survivors lost well over $20 million last year, according to recently filed annual statements compiled by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

But the co-ops also hit a growth spurt and now

cover more than 350,000 people, or nearly triple their total from 2014. Enrollment is growing better than expected and patient populations appear to be getting younger and healthier in some cases. That can help cut future expenses.

Plus, the co-ops are learning more about their patient population, which can help them price future coverage to cover claims.

These insurers knew 2015 would be ugly, according to Kelly Crowe, CEO of the trade association the National Alliance of State Health Co-Ops. But she said last year’s numbers don’t reflect where the coops stand today. Crowe noted that many are growing methodically and adding more stable, employersponsored coverage.

“We’re optimistic that they will continue to grow and be a viable alternative for people in selecting their health care,” she said.

“They are still financially fragile, though. There obviously is still some risk there, as there is with any start up business.”

Maryland’s Evergreen Health Cooperative did the best of the remaining co-ops in 2015, booking a loss of $10.8 million. Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. in Illinois lost $90.8 million.

Maine’s Community Health Options made $7.3 million in 2014 but lost $74 million last year. More than half of that stemmed from a reserve the insurer set aside to cover future losses.

Both the Maine and Illinois co-ops say higher-thanexpected costs hurt them in 2015.

Hospital and medical expenses for Community Health Options more than doubled to $354.7 million, something CEO Kevin Lewis attributes in part to pentup demand from people who had been waiting for coverage in order to seek treatment. But that program, which aims to help insurers pay big medical bills, will end after this year.

Maryland’s Evergreen Health should turn a profit in 2016, according to CEO Dr. Peter Beilenson.

He said $7.3 million of Evergreen’s 2015 loss came from a payment the insurer had to make for a federal risk adjustment program.

That program aims to help insurers with high-cost patients by giving them payments from carriers with healthier patient populations.

Beilenson and other co-op leaders say the formula for calculating this risk adjustment is skewed to favor established insurers, and they are talking with government officials about adjusting it.q

A8

Saturday 12 March 2016

WORLD NEWS

Tears, prayers as Japan marks 5th anniversary of tsunami

People offer incense stick to mourn the victims of the deadly March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, in Natori, Miyagi prefecture, northeastern Japan early Friday, March 11, 2016. Japan marks the fifth anniversary of the disaster on Friday. The sign reads “We never forget.”

(Jun Hirata/Kyodo News via AP)

EMILY WANG MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (AP) — Japanese gathered in Tokyo and along the country’s ravaged northeast coast to observe a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. Friday, exactly five years after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck

offshore, triggering a devastating tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and sent reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant into meltdown.

Some teared up as they held hands or bowed their heads in prayer as sirens sounded on a chilly afternoon in northern Japan.

Japanese Emperor Akihito,

Empress Michiko and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, all in formal wear, led a ceremony in Tokyo attended by officials and survivors.

“Many of the people affected by the disaster are aging, and I worry that some of them may be suffering alone in places where our eyes and attention don’t reach,” Akihito

said. “It is important that all the people keep their hearts together so that not a single person still in difficulty is overlooked and they can return to normal life as soon as possible.”

Five years on, the most heavily damaged communities have yet to be rebuilt.

About 180,000 people are still displaced, including those reluctant to return to homes in Fukushima.

Much of the disaster-hit Tohoku coast remains empty except for huge mounds of dirt that are raising the ground to minimize the risk of future tsunami before any rebuilding.

Abe acknowledged that many people are still struggling, but said “reconstruction is steadily making progress, step by step, with housing being rebuilt and jobs regained.”

His Cabinet approved on Friday a new 6.5 trillion yen ($57 billion) five-year reconstruction plan through 2020 to speed up construction of public housing for evacuees, and for medical care, infrastructure, tourism

promotion and other projects.

At a Buddhist temple in the tsunami-ravaged city of Rikuzentakata, memorial prayers were offered for the more than 1,700 residents who perished, including about 200 whose bodies were never recovered.

“The best thing would be for things to go back as they were, but of course that’s not how the world works,” said 37-year-old Tadayuki Kumagai, who lost his parents.

He considers himself fortunate, because their bodies were found.

“Even if it’s impossible to go back to the way things were before the disaster, everyone hopes that living standards will at least come closer to what they were,” he said. “I think that’s what rebuilding means.”

Housing is an acute problem, with some still in temporary quarters, said Zuishu Sugawara, the temple’s chief monk. Forty-seven members of the temple are among the missing.

Arab League brands Hezbollah group a terrorist organization MAGGIE MICHAEL Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The Arab League on Friday formally branded Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group a terrorist organization, a move that raises concerns of deepening divisions among Arab countries and ramps up the pressure on the Shiite group, which is fighting on the side of President Bashar Assad in Syria.

The decision came during a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Arab League at the organization’s seat in Cairo, the Egyptian state MENA news agency re-

ported. It came just a day after the league elected veteran Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Aboul-Gheit as its new chief. The move aligns the 22-member league firmly behind Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-led bloc of six Gulf Arab nations, which made the same formal branding against Hezbollah on March 2. It also brings the league in line with the United States, which is closely allied with the Gulf states and has long considered Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. The European Union only lists the military wing of Hezbollah

on its terrorist blacklist.

In Cairo, Saudi Ambassador Ahmed Qattan, told the satellite TV station Al Arabiya that the vote was not unanimous as Lebanon and Iraq abstained.

Earlier in the day, the Saudi delegation stormed out of a league meeting in protest over a speech by Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim alJaafari hailing Hezbollah and Shiite militias as “resistant movements.”

“I only described Hezbollah as a resistant movement and rejected accusations against the Popular Mobilization Forces (a Shiite Iraqi

group) and other resistant movements,” al-Jaafari told the state daily Al-Ahram.

The decision by the Arab League is a significant blow to Hezbollah and it is also likely to further aggravate tensions in Lebanon, undermining the country’s delicate political balance amid fierce political infighting between groups loyal to Hezbollah and Saudibacked factions.

The league’s decision also reflects deep regional divisions between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shiite powerhouse Iran, Hezbol-

lah’s patron. Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran earlier this year after protesters angry over the kingdom’s execution of influential Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and another diplomatic mission in Iran.

In addition to diplomatic pressures, Saudi Arabia has just finished a three-week long counter-terrorism drill dubbed “Northern Thunder” that included 20 participating countries, in what observers say was a show of force by the kingdom against its foes.

WORLD NEWS 9

Saturday 12 March 2016

German broadcaster: IS files refer to some Paris attackers Kings College in London.

Maher has seen a bulk of the files. He said while it would be unusual for women to be recruited as fighters, women may have been listed as personal references.

“One of the key things about these documents is that they contain names of people who have vouched for the recruits,” Maher said.

“By cross-checking these names against the information we have already, we’ll be likely to piece together a detailed picture of IS netDemonstrators carry al-Qaida flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraq. Germany’s federal criminal police said Thursday, March 10, 2016 they are in possession of files containing personal data on members of the extremist Islamic State group and believe them to be authentic.

(AP Photo)

PAISLEY DODDS GEIR MOULSON Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A cache of leaked documents containing the names of recruits into the Islamic State group includes references to several of the men who carried out the November attacks in Paris, a German broadcaster reported Friday. Security officials and counterterrorism analysts said the cache could provide valuable clues into how the group lures followers and how vast its global recruiting networks are.

German broadcaster WDR says that it, along with the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and fellow broadcaster NDR, have obtained some 22,000 IS documents.

On Friday, WDR reported that the files document the entry into IS territory in 2013 and 2014 of Paris attackers Samy Amimour, Foued Mohamed-Aggad and Ismael Omar Mostefai. In addition,

the broadcaster said the files contain an apparent reference to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who has been identified as the architect of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were killed.

The IS files that surfaced in various outlets this week contain names of potential fighters, personal references, telephone numbers and other detailed information. The leak, which contains names of people from more than 50 countries, also stands to heighten suspicion among followers. Similar leaks within other terror affiliates have created fissures in Pakistan and elsewhere in the past.

Some of the documents included names of women, but neither their nationalities nor their roles were immediately known, according to Shiraz Maher, a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at

works and how they relate to one another. And a lot of the information we’ve seen on the documents correspondents to what we have on our databases which leads us to believe the documents are authentic.”

In the documents, Amimour, Mohamed-Aggad and Mostefai said only that they wanted to fight for IS when they arrived, though it was possible to tick an option on the form to be a suicide attacker, WDR reported.

It said that Abaaoud apparently acted under a pseudonym, Abu Omar AlBeliki, to vouch for the entry of another French Islamist.

An initial analysis of the documents found no entry form for Abaaoud, WDR added.

The documents also showed that at least 14 men from France crossed the Turkish-Syrian border on Dec. 18, 2013 with the same smuggler and were vouched for by a single extremist of Moroccan origin, it said.

A10 WORLD

Saturday 12 March 2016

NEWS

China says slowing economy won’t stop anti-pollution efforts LOUISE WATT Associated Press BEIJING (AP) — China will not return to its era of pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment despite its slowing economy, the country’s environment minister said Friday.

Chen Jining said China would continue to restructure its economy away from heavily polluting companies to create more room for “good companies” to develop and focus on technological innovation, for example.

Chen pointed, however, to the need to rein in local governments, some of whom are still leery of enforcing environmental laws in favor of boosting economic growth in their areas.

“We need to hold the local governments accountable,” said Chen. “Only if we hold them accountable for environmental responsibilities will the enterprises be more law-abiding.”

Last year, China’s economic growth slowed to a 25-year low of 6.9 percent.

This year, authorities have set a growth target of 6.5 to 7 percent.

For decades, China pursued economic growth

A woman wears a mask during a polluted day at the opening session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. China will not go back to its era of pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment despite its slowing economy, the country’s Environment Minister Chen Jining said Friday, March 11, 2016.

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

with little care of the damage to the country’s environment. In recent years, the Chinese government has changed tack as it tries to move away from an economy dependent on heavy industry to a more sustainable one based on domestic consumption and services.

At the same time, China’s increasingly wealthy become citizens have

more concerned with the consequences of environmental pollution.

“What is development?

We used to equate it with GDP and production,” said Chen. “We have come to believe that nature is valuable and priceless. We have abandoned the former idea of contrasting development with environmental protection but rather believe the two ele-

ments can be unified and balanced.”

Today, China is aiming to transform its economic development model and pursue “economic quality, but also environmental quality,” Chen told a news conference during an annual meeting of the country’s legislature.

“Only when those polluters bow out of the market will it be possible to set aside

some development space for good companies to focus on innovation and improving product quality, and to avoid the phenomenon of ‘bad money driving out good’ in our development,” said Chen.

China’s slowing growth, attempts to refocus its economy on services and longterm efforts to get rid of overcapacity in industries including coal and steel are helping to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases.

But local governments’ perennial push for economic growth in their cities and provinces, and state companies’ tendency to spend large, can lead to projects that are at odds with central policymakers’ push to clean up the area, according to environmentalists.

China is the world’s largest coal user, but its coal consumption has fallen for the past two years, and it has become the world’s leading investor in renewable energy. Yet China approved more than 200 new coal-fired power plants last year, with a capacity three times as much as that in each of the previous two years, according to a Greenpeace analysis published last week.

Seoul: Number of North Korean cyberattacks doubled in month HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Friday that the number of North Korean cyberattacks on the South has doubled over the past month. The National Intelligence Service told a parliamentary committee meeting that the North unsuccessfully tried

to hack into the railway control system and computer networks of financial institutions in South Korea, according to the office of lawmaker Joo Ho-young who attended the private meeting. The NIS also accused North Korea of having tried to hack into the smartphones of 300 foreign affairs, security and military officials in South Korea be-

tween late February and early this month. According to the NIS, NorthKorea succeeded in hacking the phones of 40 of those 300 officials and stole their text and voice messages and phone logs, said an aide to Joo who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media publicly.

The NIS didn’t say whether

the stolen messages include any sensitive information. Seoul has accused Pyongyang of launching other similar cyberattacks in recent years. Pyongyang has denied the allegations.

Animosities between the rival Koreas have risen since North Korea’s nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

Furious over harsh new U.N.

sanctions and the biggestever South Korea-U.S. military drills, North Korea has fired short-range missiles and artillery into the sea and vowed to expand its nuclear arsenal. On Friday, NorthKorea’s state media quoted leader Kim Jong Un as having ordered more nuclear explosion tests but it didn’t say when they would be conducted.

WORLD NEWS A11

Saturday 12 March 2016

Elimination of Peru presidential candidate sows confusion

Presidential candidate Julio Guzman smiles next to supporters during a press conference in Lima, Peru. All bets are off in Peru’s presidential race after the disqualification of the moderate economist Julio Guzman who was the chief challenger to front-runner Keiko Fujimori.

(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

FRANKLIN BRICENO Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) — All bets are off in Peru’s presidential race after the disqualification of the moderate economist who was the chief challenger to front-runner Keiko Fujimori.

Analysts say the decision throws the April 10 contest into confusion. It will not necessarily give Fujimori the strength to win the simple majority needed to avoid a second round of voting, but does make it likely she will face a weaker challenger in an eventual runoff.

Peru’s electoral council on Wednesday blocked the candidacy of Julio Guzman, saying the technical mechanism by which his party chose him violated the party’s own internal rules.

Critics of the ruling described it as petty, and warned the disqualification undermines confidence in

the country’s democratic process.

The Organization of American States, which is sending an observer mission for the election, expressed concern over Guzman’s last-minute elimination.

The center-right politician Fujimori is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who is imprisoned for corruption and authorizing death squads. The country’s institutions have struggled to reclaim legitimacy since the strongman’s time in office.

Guzman has vowed to fight his disqualification and continue to campaign, but his chances of reversal are slim.

The country is in for political drama on par with the El Nino weather phenomenon, political analyst Jorge Saldana Ramirez said.

“In these remaining four weeks, we’re going to see a political El Nino, with floods of complaints

lodged by politicians, a drought of proposals, inundations of economic resources, and heat waves in the exchanges among candidates,” he said.

Guzman had surged in opinion polls, with recent surveys saying he had the backing of about 17 percent of voters, while 35 percent supported Keiko Fujimori, who has maintained a strong lead throughout the race. No other candidate polled above 10 percent.

Officials also disqualified candidate Cesar Acuna on Wednesday. He had been running a distant fourth in polls.

Keiko Fujimori narrowly lost a 2011 presidential runoff to current President Ollanta Humala. She struggled in that election with the leg-

acy of her father’s time in office.

Guzman, a technocrat with a doctorate in public policy from the University of Maryland, formerly worked as a deputy minister in Humala’s administration.

It’s unclear whether moderate and leftist voters will be able to coalesce around a single candidate to challenge Fujimori in a runoff.

Polls show that half of the country’s voters are still undecided or open to changing their preferences.

“Back in December and January we were talking about it being unclear who would take second place. Now we’re right back there,” Urpi Torrado, director of the polling firm Datum, told local media outlet Peru21.

A12 WORLD

Saturday 12 March 2016

Mexico:

NEWS

Cartel’s unusual recruitment ads indicate expansion MARK STEVENSON Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — A public recruitment drive

course featuring paintball fights.

While prosecutors did not name the gang, experts said Friday it is without

Raul Benitez, a security specialist who teaches political science at the National Autonomous University of

Soldiers stand guard outside the Altiplano maximum security prison near Toluca, Mexico state, Mexico. A public recruitment drive by a Mexican drug cartel using fliers promising high wages and good benefits reflects the expanding power of the gang, experts said Friday.

(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

by a Mexican drug cartel using fliers promising high wages and good benefits reflects the expanding power of the gang, experts said Friday.

The recruitment fliers advertised jobs as security guards or bodyguards under the name of a fake company, and promised good benefits, a Christmas bonus and “growth in the short term,” according to Jesus Eduardo Almaguer, the chief prosecutor in western Jalisco state.

Those recruited were, however, employed as streetlevel drug dealers, not guards.

They were sent to the town of Lagos de Moreno for a quick 10-day training

doubt the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Almaguer tried to depict the recruitment as a sign of the success of government raids against the gang.

Speaking of the recruits — about a dozen were arrested earlier this week — Almaguer said “these people said they had been taken to Lagos de Moreno to substitute for people who had been retiring, or who had been fleeing from government raids.”

However, Hope said the recruitment reflected how openly the gang dared to act. “This speaks of the impunity, of their operating almost openly,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico City.

Mexico, said the Jalisco cartel, far from on the ropes, is clearly expanding.

“They are penetrating all the areas where the Knights Templar and Sinaloa cartel are leaving a vacuum,” Benitez said.

“Sinaloa is leaving the area because of (the arrest of) El Chapo,” Benitez said, referring to drug lord Joaquin Guzman, captured in January. Jalisco “is the only cartel that can be said to be in expansion.”

In the past, Almaguer said that “normally what was done was recruiting through friends or acquaintances. Now they are doing it openly, deceiving people, obviously, but openly.”

In 2008, a cartel in the border city of Ciudad Juarez placed newspaper ads for drivers who were unwittingly used as drug couriers. But in the intervening years, no cartel had advertised openly for recruits.

Almaguer said a U.S. woman led the effort to hand out fliers on the streets of Jalisco cities like the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta.

The U.S. embassy could not confirm the name of the woman, but did say it was aware of reports that a U.S. citizen has been arrested in Jalisco.

After recruiting the people — many of whom had previously worked as informal parking valets or cleaning motorists’ windshields at stoplights — they were told they had to sell methamphetamines and other drugs.

The plan was discovered after one of the recruits tried to back out of the scheme, and was kidnapped and held by the gang, who demanded a ransom of 1 million pesos ($55,500). His family called authorities.

The recruitment fliers themselves played on the recruits hope for advancement. It listed as requirements “initiative and desire to advance,” and offered a salary of about 3,000 pesos ($166) per month.

Tellingly, the flier listed “ability with guns” as a requirement, and hinted that “if you are an ex-government employee, or ex-policeman, traffic officer, detective or ex-soldier... the salary is higher.”

Cuba and Europe sign deal normalizing relations Associated Press HAVANA (AP) — Cuba and the European Union have signed a deal normalizing their relations after years of tensions spawned by disagreement over human rights on the island.

Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Cuba Foreign Minister Bruno Ro-

driguez attended the Friday signing, which allows cooperation between Europe and Cuba on projects ranging from environmental protection to modernizing Cuba’s tax-collection system. EU policy had prevented a normal relationship with Cuba until the island opened its single-party political system and cen-

trally planned economy.

“The deal marks a new phase in bilateral relations, a historic demonstration of mutual trust and understanding,” Mogherini said.

The agreement came nine days before President Barack Obama becomes the first U.S. president to visit Cuba in 88 years, a trip meant partly to spur busi-

ness ties between the two countries in the wake of their 2014 declaration of detente.

U.S.-Cuba normalization and the promise of economic growth on the island has prompted renewed interest by European countries in maintaining their position as trading partners with Cuba.

Brazil’s embattled head Rousseff says she will not resign SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Friday said she will not resign despite mounting pressure to do so and that there is no legal justification backing efforts to impeach her.

Rousseff faces impeachment proceedings over alleged fiscal mismanagement, while the Supreme Electoral Court is considering possible campaign funding irregularities that could end up annulling her 2014 re-election.

Rousseff spoke to reporters at the end of a meeting with rectors of federal universities.

She said people shouldn’t demand the resignation of an elected president like her without concrete evidence that she violated the constitution.

She said that “if there is no reason to do so, I will not step down.”

Asked about recent press reports that said she may name former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to a ministerial post to shield him from possible imprisonment on corruption and money laundering charges, Rousseff said she would be “extremely proud” to have Silva in her government.

“But, I will not discuss with you if he will or will not be part of the government.”

Under Brazilian law, only the Supreme Court can authorize the investigation, imprisonment and trial of cabinet members.

Last week, federal police questioned Silva in an investigation into a sprawling corruption case involving state-run oil company Petrobras that has ensnared some of the country’s top lawmakers and wealthiest businessmen.

And on Wednesday Sao Paulo state prosecutors charged Silva with money laundering, in a separate case. A judge must accept the charges in order for that case to move forward.

Silva governed from 2003 to 2010.

LOCAL A13

Saturday 12 March 2016

Couple Weds Aboard Jolly Pirates:

Sabrina and Sasha Tie the Knot on One Happy Island

HADICURARI - With a magical beach ceremony and Champagne toast Aruba Lovers, Sabrina Monserrate and Sasha Kucherov of New York clicked glasses with forty enthusiastic guests when they were married recently on the island.

The party continued aboard the teak decks on the Jolly Pirates Sailing Ship.

The ship proved to be the ideal spot for Sabrina and Sasha’s loved ones to gather and celebrate their new union.

Wedding Planner Jesse Reing of Events by Jesse tells us, “The catering service was incredible and drinks were enjoyed - the Jolly Pirates staff were perfect for organizing the occasion.

Several of the groomsman took the party a step further by taking off their formal wear and rope swing-

be missed, allowing you to enjoy your family and friends on your memorable day.

Email Jolly Pirates for more

ing into the water! It was a wedding like no other and it is sure to be memorable.”

Jolly Pirates can arrange fun- loving private charter cruises. Aboard these 85ft

twin teak schooners you are afforded a one of a kind, special occasion with miles and miles of ever changing scenery. Sailing along

Aruba’s picturesque coastline is the ideal setting for any event. Amenities will be suited for your special day and with a dedicated event team, no detail will

charter information. info@ jolly-pirates.com or call (297) 586 8107.

Photos by Alicia King Photography.

A14 LOCAL

Saturday 12 March 2016

Loyal Guests Honored by the Aruba Tourism Authority

EAGLE BEACH - Recently the Aruba Tourism Authority had the great pleasure of honoring a very loyal couple as Distinguished Visitors at the Divi All Inclusive Resort. The symbolic honorary title is presented in the name of the Minister of Tourism as a token of appreciation to guests who visit Aruba for 10-to-19 consecutive years.

The honorees were Mr. Jeffrey and Mrs. Deborah Lauder.

Jeffrey and Deborah are regular guests at the Divi All Inclusive Resort and they love Aruba very much because of the friendly people, the climate, beaches, restaurants, relaxation and being on Aruba and staying at the Divi is like being home for them. The certificate was presented by Mr. Mr. Ricardo Croes representing the Aruba Tourism Authority together with friends and family, and Francis and other associates from the Divi All Inclusive Resort team.

LOCAL A15

Saturday 12 March 2016

Shanahan Family Honored at the Marriott Surf Club

PALM BEACH - Recently the Aruba Tourism Authority had the great pleasure of honoring a very nice couple as Distinguished Visitors at the Marriott Surf Club.

The symbolic honorary title is presented in the name of the Minister of Tourism as a token of appreciation to guests who visit Aruba for

10-to-19 consecutive years.

The honorees were Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Susan Shanahan from New Jersey. Â Joseph and Susan are loyal members of the Marriott Surf Club and they love Aruba very much because of the friendly people, the climate, beaches, restau-

rants, and relaxation, and being on Aruba and staying at the Surf Club is like being home for them. The certificates were presented by Mr. Ernest Giel representing the Aruba Tourism Authority together with Ms. Jenny Boekhoudt representing the Marriott Surf Club.

A16 LOCAL

Saturday 12 March 2016

Friends of Aruba Honored at Costa Linda Beach Resort

EAGLE BEACH - Recently the Aruba Tourism Authority had the great pleasure of honoring a very loyal couple as Goodwill Ambassadors at the Costa Linda Beach Resort. The symbolic honorary title is presented in the name of the Minister of Tourism as a token of appreciation to guests who

visit Aruba for 20-to-34 consecutive years.

The honorees were Mr. Antaeus and Mrs. Judith Balevre. Antaeus and Judith are regular guests at the Costa Linda and they love Aruba very much because of the friendly people, the climate, beaches, restaurants, relaxation and be-

ing on Aruba and staying at the Costa Linda is like being home for them. The certificate was presented

by Mr. Mr. Ricardo Croes representing the Aruba Tourism Authority together with friends and family, and Gloria and other associates from the Costa Linda Beach Resort team.

SPORTS A17

Saturday 12 March 2016

LAST TANGO

In LeBron’s final duel with Kobe, Cavs top Lakers Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James, left, moves into position while Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, right, defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 10, 2016, in Los Angeles.

Associated Press Page 19

A18 SPORTS

Saturday 12 March 2016

Eugenie Bouchard beat Risa Ozaki at Indian Wells JIM SHORT Associated Press INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) — Eugenie Bouchard beat Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday night to close out firstround women’s play in the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

Bouchard, a 22-year-old Canadian who is trying to recapture the form that carried her to No. 5 in the world late in 2014, battled with her own inconsistency throughout the match, but won on her first match point when Ozaki hit a backhand just long.

Bouchard, No. 42 this week, will face 21st-seeded Sloane Stephens of the U.S. in the second round.

American Ryan Harrison beat Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-3, 7-6 (3) in their firstround match.

Earlier, teenagers Frances Tiafoe and Brona Coric grabbed the center-court

Dominika Cibulkova, of Slovakia, returns a volley from Agnieszka Radwanska during their match at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, Friday, March 11, 2016, in Indian Wells, Calif.

Associated Press

spotlight.

Tiafoe outlasted Taylor Fritz

3-6, 6-2, 3-6, in a battle of 18-year-old Americans,

and Coric, a 19-yearold Croatian, beat Lucas

Pouille of France 6-2, 7-5.

Those two matches helped kick off the opening day for the men, with Nicolas Mahut of France, Leonardo Mayer of Argentina and Robin Haase of the Netherlands also advancing. Mahut beat qualifier Renzo Olivo of Argentina 6-2, 6-4; Mayer ousted Sam Groth of Australia 6-4, 6-3; and Haase toppled Diego Schwartzman of Argentina 6-3, 6-4. Daniela Hantuchova, a two-time tournament champion, lost to Daria Kasatkina of Russia 6-2, 6-4. It was the second straight first-round loss for Hantuchova, who won her titles in 2002 and 2007.

The women will begin second-round play Friday with Venus Williams scheduled to play her first match at the tournament in 15 years in the afternoon and topranked Serena Williams on the schedule for the night session.

SPORTS A19

Saturday 12 March 2016

NBA Capsules

Cavaliers win final duel between LeBron, Kobe

Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, left, and Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James wait for play to resume during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 10, 2016, in Los Angeles.

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — LeBron James scored 24 points while sharing a court with Kobe Bryant for the final time, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 120-108 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night.

Bryant had 26 points on 11-of-16 shooting in an entertaining farewell duel between two of the greatest players in NBA history.

Bryant, who will retire after the season, ignored his constantly sore right shoulder to make sure he didn’t miss his 22nd meeting with James on an NBA court, albeit never in the playoffs.

After starting the night with a pregame chat and hug with the crowd on its collective feet just to watch pregame warmups, Bryant and James both had vintage individual moments in the final edition of this friendly rivalry.

Kyrie Irving scored 26 points and Channing Frye had 21 for the Cavaliers, who have

won on the first two stops of their four-game West Coast road trip.

SPURS 109, BULLS 101 SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Kawhi Leonard had 29 points, LaMarcus Aldridge added 26 points and 10 rebounds and San Antonio won its 31st straight at home to open the season, upending short-handed Chicago.

Tony Parker added 20 points and had 12 assists for San Antonio, which has won 40 straight at home going back to last season.

The Spurs have their best start after 65 games at 5510.

Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol had 21 points each for the Bulls. E’Twaun Moore had 20 points, going 4 for 5 on 3-pointers. Chicago was without Jimmy Butler, Joakim Noah and Cameron Bairstow, who were not with the team because of injuries.

RAPTORS 104, HAWKS 96 TORONTO (AP) — DeMar

DeRozan had 30 points and five rebounds to help Toronto beat Atlanta.

Toronto turned the ball over nine times before the game was 13 minutes old, but did a much better job of holding onto it the rest of the way in winning its second straight and 14th of 15 at home.

Kyle Lowry had 19 points and seven assists for the Raptors, and Luis Scola had 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Al Horford led Atlanta with 20 points.

NUGGETS 116, SUNS 98 DENVER (AP) — Emmanuel Mudiay scored a careerhigh 30 points in a matchup of rookie guards and Denver beat Phoenix for its third straight victory.

Nikola Jokic added 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Will Barton had 17 points and eight rebounds.

Phoenix rookie Devin Booker had a career-high 35 points in the loss. Booker scored 25 points in the second half when the Suns made a run to briefly lead.q

20 SPORTS

Saturday 12 March 2016

Overtime winner lifts Hurricanes to 3-2 win at Boston NHL Capsules MONTREAL (AP) — Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban was taken off the ice on a stretcher after being hit on the side of the head by a teammate, overshadowing the Canadiens’ 3-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 on Thursday night.

The Canadiens said Subban was taken to a hospital for further testing and that he had normal movement in his extremities.

Subban was injured late in the third period when teammate Alexei Emelin ran into him, knocking him on the side of the head with his back side while retrieving the puck in Montreal’s corner. Subban was nearly motionless on the ice for about 10 minutes while doctors and trainers tended to him.

Alex Galchenyuk scored twice for the Canadiens, Torrey Mitchell added a goal, and Mike Condon made 36 saves for his 17th victory of the season, best among rookie goaltenders.

Nicolas Deslauriers and Brian Gionta scored for Buffalo, and Robin Lehner stopped 31 shots.

PANTHERS 6, SENATORS 2 SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Jaromir Jagr scored twice and Vincent Trocheck had a goal and three assists to lead Florida.

Jonathan Huberdeau had a goal and an assist, and Aaron Ekblad and Jussi Jokinen also scored for the Panthers. Roberto Luongo stopped 26 shots.

Erik Karlsson and Zack Smith scored for Ottawa, which has lost five of six. Craig An-

Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, front, scores a goal against Anaheim Ducks goalie John Gibson in the first period of an NHL hockey game Wednesday, March 9, 2016, in Denver.

Associated Press

derson made 25 saves in his first start after missing four games with a knee injury.

The Panthers stretched their lead to 5-2 on Jagr’s second goal as his shot from the slot got past Anderson at 4:26 of the third for his team-leading 23nd goal and 51st point of the season. The 44-year-old Jagr became the fifth player in NHL history to have at least 50 points in 20 NHL seasons — joining Ron Francis, Gordie Howe, Ray Bourque and Mark Messier.

OILERS 2, WILD 1 ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Rookie sensation Connor McDavid scored the goahead goal with 7:29 left, leading Edmonton to the win. With Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon trying to slow his rush, the 19-yearold McDavid reached out

and snapped the puck underneath goalie Darcy Kuemper’s arm to give the Oilers the lead. McDavid has four goals in the last six games.

Lauri Korpikoski scored in the first period and Cam Talbot made 29 saves for the Oilers, who won for the fifth time in their last seven games and stuck the Wild with a costly loss in their competition with the Colorado Avalanche for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Zach Parise’s second goal in his last 19 games forged a tie in the second period for the Wild, who trail the Avalanche by two points in the standings.

RED WINGS 3, JETS 2 DETROIT (AP) — Justin Abdelkader scored the tiebreaking goal late in the

third period to help Detroit snap a three-game losing streak.

Dylan Larkin and Jonathan Ericsson also scored and Petr Mrazek stopped 23 shots for the Red Wings.

Marko Dano and Tyler Myers scored for Winnipeg and Michael Hutchinson finished with 32 saves.

On the go-ahead score, Tomas Tatar intercepted Myers’ pass behind the net and passed to Abdelkader in the slot, who shot the puck top shelf for his 17th of the season with 4:36 remaining.

HURRICANES 3, BRUINS 2, OT BOSTON (AP) — Phillip Di Giuseppe scored on a rebound 1:30 into overtime and Carolina beat Boston.

Di Giuseppe had a wideopen net when Boston goalie Tuukka Rask couldn’t

corral the rebound on Jeff Skinner’s breakaway.

The officials reviewed the play for a few minutes before ruling there was no interference when Skinner made contact with Rask outside the crease.

It was the fourth OT game in a row for the Bruins, who still pulled ahead of Tampa Bay for sole possession of the Atlantic Division lead with the single point.

Elias Lindholm and Nathan Gerbe also scored for Carolina and Cam Ward stopped 30 shots. Riley Nash had two assists for Carolina.

Loui Eriksson and David Pastrnak scored for Boston, which still hasn’t lost in regulation since Feb. 28.

DEVILS 3, SHARKS 0 SAN JOSE Calif. (AP) — Keith Kinkaid made 30 saves for his second career shutout and Travis Zajac scored twice to lead New Jersey.

Devante Smith-Pelly and Zajac scored on successive shots for New Jersey that came more than 18 minutes apart as the Devils opened a three-game California swing by winning for the third time in 11 games.

Zajac also added an empty-net goal to help New Jersey match last season’s win total of 32 to move within five points of Pittsburgh for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Martin Jones made 13 saves but the Sharks were shut out for the fifth time this season. San Jose lost for just the second time in seven games and remained four points behind first-place Los Angeles and three in back of Anaheim in the Pacific

SPORTS A21

Saturday 12 March 2016

Johnny Be Gone: Browns release Manziel after 2 seasons TOM WITHERS AP Sports Writer CLEVELAND (AP) — Johnny Football has been tossed aside.

Quarterback Johnny Manziel, the scrambling, Heisman Trophy-winning college star who hasn’t come close to matching his hype in the NFL, was released Friday by the Cleveland Browns following two turbulent and troubling seasons.

Manziel’s unceremonious exit — the team sent out a brief statement with a few stats and no comment — ends a drama-filled stay in Cleveland for the 23-yearold, who faces an uncertain future on and off the field. For the first time since he started throwing a football as a kid while growing up in Texas, Manziel isn’t a wanted player and he’s contending with possible criminal charges for a recent domestic incident in which his ex-girlfriend claimed he struck and threatened to kill her.

The Browns drafted Manziel in the first round in 2014, hoping he could not only be their long-term solution at quarterback but revive a sluggish franchise.

Instead, he was a two-year headache that wouldn’t go away.

Cleveland couldn’t handle any more lies, parties or distractions.

Manziel entered the NFL amid fanfare and with a party-boy reputation, which only grew thanks to nearly constant exposure on social media. While he was with the Browns hardly a week passed without there being a photo or video of Manziel, usually with a drink in his hand, out having a good time.

But he paid for all those late nights in bars and clubs as Manziel hasn’t developed the work ethic needed to succeed and he wound up spending more than 10 weeks following his rookie season in a Pennsylvania rehab facility specializing in alcohol and drug abuse.

The Browns supported him

as long as they could, but his decision to skip the team’s season finale against Pittsburgh — he had a concussion at the time — for a trip to Las Vegas and a second domestic incident in three months was more than the team could tolerate and they dumped Manziel, who went 2-6 as a starter.

The Browns had been expected to waive Manziel on Wednesday, when free agency opened and the league began its new calendar year. The team, though, waited to see if they could find a team interested in making a trade, that way they wouldn’t have to pay Manziel the $2.1 million he’s still owed for the next two years.

But nobody wanted to give up anything for Manziel, who was in Vegas last weekend and has been spotted in nightclubs around Los Angeles the past few days.

Manziel played in 14 games for the Browns. He passed for 1,675 yards with seven touchdowns and seven interceptions.

And now that he’s no longer with the Browns, Manziel has other issues to handle. On Feb. 25, Dallas police referred their domestic violence case against him to a grand jury, which will exam evidence against Manziel. His ex-girlfriend, Colleen Crowley, accused Manziel of striking her in the head during a night out on Jan. 30. Crowley told police Manziel hit her so hard, she temporarily lost hearing in one ear.

Manziel is also being investigated by the NFL, which could suspend him for his off-field behavior. He was cleared by the league in October following a similar incident with Crowley.

With Manziel gone, the Browns will take another swing at finding a franchise quarterback in this year’s draft or through a trade.

They have the No. 2 overall pick, and it’s safe to assume they’ll be even more diligent in checking back-

In this Aug. 23, 2014, file photo, Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel celebrates after a 7-yard touchdown run against the St. Louis Rams in the third quarter of a preseason NFL football game, in Cleveland. The Browns have released troublesome quarterback Johnny Manziel.

Associated Press

grounds on candidates after their failed experience with Manziel.

It all began with such promise.

As he sat backstage inside New York’s Radio City Music Hall on draft day, Manziel famously sent a text to a Browns assistant coach urging the team to take him so they could “wreck this league” together. Although other teams passed on the Texas A&M star, the Browns traded two picks to move up and take him with the No. 22 pick, a selection they would later regret.

There were disturbing signs before he got to his first training camp as Manziel was photographed floating on an inflatable swan while swigging champagne.

The Browns had concerns, but there was no denying his impact on Cleveland’s die-hard fans, still waiting for a Super Bowl appearance. The quickly scooped up tickets and cleared off store clothing racks of his No. 2 jerseys during the early stages of “Manzielmania.”

He started his rookie season as Josh McCown’s backup and barely got on the field before getting his first extended action in Cleveland’s 12th game. Manziel ran for a touchdown in the fourth quarter at Buffalo, celebrating by rubbing his fingers together and flashing his signature “money” salute, a gesture he later ditched after being taunted with it by opponents.

Manziel’s first career start couldn’t have gone worse.

He threw two interceptions and was sacked three times in a 30-0 loss to Cincinnati. The following week he sustained a hamstring injury that ended his season, and Manziel was suspended by coach Mike Pettine for the finale when he failed to show up for the team’s walk-through.

Following his rookie season, Manziel said he regretted not taking his job more seriously and vowed to come back better. In January, he entered a treatment center to get help for an unspecified addiction. He left after 73 days, and there

was hope Manziel had exorcised demons.

The Browns stood by Manziel. Pettine named him starter in Week 9, and Manziel showed promise against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

Manziel, though, was demoted to third string after a video surfaced of him partying during the team’s bye week.

Manziel returned to the starting lineup when McCown broke his collarbone and led the Browns to a win over San Francisco. He made two more starts, but sustained a concussion on Dec. 27 at Kansas City.

Manziel wasn’t required to be at Cleveland’s finale, but he skipped a required medical checkup and the team wasn’t sure of his whereabouts amid reports he was in Vegas, hitting the clubs while wearing a disguise.

The alarming events involving Crowley in Texas, including police using a helicopter to locate Manziel, who indicated he might harm himself, were the final straw for the Browns.q

A22

Saturday 12 March 2016

SPORTS

Stricker shares lead at Innisbrook as Spieth makes cut

DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — Jordan Spieth holed three shots from off the green and made the cut with one shot to spare Friday in the Valspar Championship.

Now he has to figure out how to catch up to Steve Stricker and Will MacKenzie.

Stricker, playing for only the fifth time this year, holed out from the 10th fairway for eagle and made a 60foot birdie putt across the fourth green for a 5-under 66 that gave him a share of the lead with MacKenzie, who had a 67.

They were at 5-under 137, one shot ahead of Bill Haas (67), Graham DeLaet (66) and Daniel Berger (68).

Spieth is just happy to be joining them. He opened with a 76 and was in danger of missing the cut, especially when the wind began to pick up just as he was starting his second round on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook.

And then he hooked his tee shot on the par-5 opening hole into a bush, had to take a penalty shot and made bogey on the easiest hole on the course.

“I’m walking off that green going, ‘Oh, boy. We can either somehow flip this one around today or ... I don’t want that to be the key of

Steve Stricker hits his tee shot on the 18th hole during the second round of the Valspar Championship golf tournament Friday, March 11, 2016, in Palm Harbor, Fla. Associated Press

me not being able to be here for the weekend.’ I thought it was really strong what we did after that,” he said.

Nearly five hours later, after he nearly holed a bunker shot on the 17th to save par, Spieth exhaled on the 18th tee and said with a smile, “This was grinding today. I’ve got some good stuff coming on the weekend.”

He wound up with a 68 and was at 2-over 144 to make the cut by one shot. That’s all he was thinking about until he chipped in from

behind the green on the 15th for a birdie, and his tee shot on the 16th narrowly cleared the water.

It was hard work, and there is plenty left.

More than just trying to make up seven shots on the weekend, he had 42 players in front of him.

Stricker began to cut back on his schedule a few years ago, and he had back surgery at the end of 2014 that limited his playing even more. But the strength is starting to return to the 49-year-old with the pure putting stroke, and he has

Jeter part of MLB’s delegation in Havana for Rays’ game NEW YORK (AP) — Retired New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter will be part of Major League Baseball’s delegation in Havana for the Tampa Bay Rays’ exhibition game against Cuba’s national team on March 22.

Former big leaguers Luis Tiant and Jose Cardenal, both born in Cuba, also will make the trip, the commissioner’s office said Friday.

The game will be the first for a big league team in Cuba since the Baltimore Orioles played Cuba’s national team in Havana in March 1999.

In this July 15, 2014, file photo, American League shortstop Derek Jeter, of the New York Yankees, singles during the third inning of the MLB All-Star baseball game in Minneapolis.

Associated Press

looked solid for two days.

Stricker was tied for the lead early on Thursday until three straight bogeys late in his round. This time, he took the eagle and keep running, adding a short birdie putt on the par-5 14th and a 10-foot birdie on the 16th hole to catch MacKenzie.

“There are times I escaped with a few good breaks,” Stricker said. “Holing out on 10, you don’t expect to do that. And that putt at No. 4 was going pretty quick, and that ended up going in. So some things evidently went my way. I’m starting to play a little better. Definitely putting better. And slowly, things are coming together.”

The large group at 3-under 139 included Justin Thomas, who hit a sharp slice to escape the trees on his first hole of the day (No. 10) and turned potential bogey into birdie on his way to a 67. Also at 139 were

Augusta, Georgia, native Scott Brown (69), who has yet to play the Masters; past champion Retief Goosen and Charles Howell III, another Augusta native who had a 72.

Only eight shots separated the top and bottom of the leaderboard, leaving the weekend wide open.

That includes Spieth, the defending champion, whose first goal was get to Saturday. It wasn’t easy, but he settled into his round with a 6-iron over the water to 5 feet on the third hole.

He used the blade of his sand wedge to hole a birdie putt from the collar the par-5 fifth — the first time he has used that shot in competition — and putted one from off the green on No. 7 for another birdie.

He lost an easy birdie opportunity on the par-5 11th when he barely got out of a greenside bunker and was in deep rough. But he holed a 4-foot par putt that could have sent his momentum in the other direction, and despite missed birdie chances on the next three holes, the chip-in on the 15th was key.

“Today it was all about the cut,” he said. “All of a sudden I’m over the green on 15, kind of sitting down in the bluegrass rough just trying to hope to chip that one to tap-in range. ... Then all in all, we get finished and we’re back in the tournament.”

Among those missing the cut were Keegan Bradley, who followed his 67 with a 79. It was more critical to Harris English and Webb Simpson, who were outside the top 66 in the world and will not qualify for the Dell Match Play in two weeks.

TECHNOLOGY A23

Saturday 12 March 2016

What’s in the (cable) box? Possibly the future of television TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer NEW YORK (AP) — It’s hard to get excited about a cable box. It’s basically a boring oblong you put on a shelf near your TV and never think of again unless your cable service goes out.

But it’s at the center of a battle pitting technology companies and the government against the TV industry. The Federal Communications Commission wants to let you buy your own cable box in hopes of saving you money and getting you new features.

The cable industry worries about losing the power to frame how you get your video — and with it, billions of dollars in revenue. Some in Hollywood also worry about losing advertising dollars.

Here’s what you need to know about this dispute: ___ WHAT’S A SET-TOP BOX? Early on, cable boxes were little more than descramblers intended to block channels you hadn’t paid for. Although they still serve that purpose, they’ve evolved into mini-entertainment centers that can record and play back programs, handle video on demand and even tempt you with non-TV distractions. Comcast, for example, recently added video games.

Most TV subscribers today lease boxes from their TV service provider. A study released last year by Sens.

Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal, Democrats

on a Senate subcommittee that oversees technologyand communications, found that the average household spends about $231 a year on box rental fees. Although some boxes can integrate Netflix, most people need a separate device to watch online video. ___ WHAT DOES THE GOVERNMENT WANT TO DO? The FCC wants to give you more options for buying boxes and using different TV-watching software, much the way you can currently buy your own phone or modem.

The tech companies and regulators arrayed behind this effort claim you’ll see lower prices, more choices and technological advances as a result.

The new rules would force TV suppliers — companies like Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon Fios — to make available video and channel information to outside companies like Google, Apple and TiVo. They’d have to provide this data in a format set by an “open standards body,” which the FCC says could include consumer-technology makers, cable companies, content companies, apps developers and consumerinterest groups. ___ HAVE THERE BEEN EFFORTS TO “UNLOCK THE BOX” BEFORE? Yes, but they didn’t work.

About 12 years ago, cable operators rolled out CableCards — high-tech cards

TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The federal government is proposing new privacy rules that would make Internet service providers such as cable and phone companies ask your permission in some instances before using and sharing your data.

Using customer information could help so-called ISPs make more money from targeted digital advertising, when advertisers are

able to show you ads that they think will appeal to your specific interests.

The Federal Communications Commission’s rules are likely to face criticism and possible lawsuits from Internet service providers.

The rules affect only companies that connect you to the Internet like Comcast, Verizon and Sprint.

They do not apply to Internet companies that have huge advertising businesses based on customer data, like Facebook or Google.

you could stick in TVs or boxes sold by others, like TiVo, to negate the need for a cable box.

But cable companies initially had to install them for customers and had no incentive to make sure they were easy to get and activate, says John Bergmayer, an attorney at the public-interest group Public Knowledge, which supports the government’s cable-box initiative.

A cable-industry vision from 2008, dubbed tru2way, also failed. The cable industry designed software for TVs that let them deliver cable without a box.

But the technology didn’t appeal to consumer-electronics companies and fizzled out, Bergmayer says. ___

BENEFITS FOR VIEWERS With a device like an Apple TV, you could, theoretically, get all your video in one place: live cable channels, Netflix, HBO’s app, YouTube. And the device would keep working even if you switched, say, from cable to satellite TV. You could also see better search capabilities. New gadgets might let you do a single search for both TV channels and online services, which could help you find niche online video that cable companies don’t carry. TiVo already offers such a feature, but you still need a CableCard or a box from a cable company that has partnered with TiVo. Change is coming no matter what the FCC does,

says Alan Wolk, an analyst with the Diffusion Group, a TV and media research firm.

Cable companies already have apps that let you watch TV on phones and tablets, and newer Internet-only offerings deliver channels through a streaming-TV gadget rather than a set-top box. ___ WHY ARE CABLE AND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANIES RESISTING? Besides losing fees from renting boxes, the cable industry doesn’t want some intermediary in charge of video its customers get. For example, a box designed

by Apple might make it just as easy to get video from Netflix, such that customers might question the need to pay for channels or cable’s video-on-demand offerings.

Cable companies now pay — and charge you — billions of dollars a year to carry these channels and programs.

Cable companies also worry that they wouldn’t be able to help customers with technological issues and that new ads could interfere with the viewing experience. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said that the rules would prohibit extra advertising, but he didn’t offer details.

Some TV executives worry that instead of buying regular commercials on their channels, advertisers might migrate to targetedad opportunities if, say, Google builds a box.

Those companies are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.

FCC officials say their rules wouldn’t “prohibit” targeted advertising from ISPs. But the aim is that in many, if not most, cases, your Internet provider would have to get your permission before sharing your personal data with advertisers.

The agency says you would only have to opt out, a less stringent requirement, if you were a customer of Ve-

rizon Fios, for example, and Verizon wanted to market Verizon Wireless services to you. But Verizon also owns a big digital ad business in AOL — if it wants to share data it collects from you with AOL, it needs your permission.

Privacy watchdogs applauded the FCC’s effort.

“It’s a major step forward for the U.S., which has lagged behind other countries when it comes to protecting consumer privacy rights,” said Jeff Chester,

executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, in a statement.

Berin Szoka, the president of TechFreedom, a think tank that often criticizes telecoms regulation, says the rules are a bad idea.

“The FCC loudly denounces certain privacy and business practices th at sound bad, despite having little or no evidence that they don’t offer any consumer benefits that should be weighed against potential harms.”

This Wednesday, May 30, 2007, file photo shows a cable box on top of a television in Philadelphia.

Associated Press

New privacy rules expected for Internet providers

A24 BUSINESS

Saturday 12 March 2016

Stock market extends rally to a 4th week on energy BERNARD CONDON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A jump in crude oil and a rise in European markets set off a rally in U.S. stocks to cap a four-week winning streak for major indexes.

as data has suggested the U.S. economy is strengthening.

“While things aren’t great, they’re not the disaster we thought,” said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist at Bell Curve Trading. “We’ve

out” have emerged. Energy companies have been shutting down rigs and laying off thousands of workers as oil prices plunged to around $30 per barrel, from well over $100 per barrel just two years ago.

Big East Conference Commissioner Val Ackerman, third from left, and Director Scott Tallon of Jeep Brand, second from right, as ring the New York Stock Exchange opening bell, Friday, March 11, 2016, to highlight sponsorship of the Big East Conference.

(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Investors bought across industries from the start of trading on Friday. Drillers, refiners and other energy companies rose sharply as the price for U.S. crude hit a high for the year. Devon Energy jumped 11 percent and Southwestern Energy gained 10 percent.

Just a month ago, investors were dumping shares amid talk of a possible U.S. recession. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell to almost a two-year low. But confidence has returned

rallied after a horrendous start to the year.”

The S&P 500 is up now nearly 11 percent from Feb. 11.

On Friday, the S&P 500 gained 32.62 points, or 1.6 percent, to 2,022.19. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 218.18 points, or 1.3 percent, to 17,213.31.

The Nasdaq composite climbed 86.31 points, or 1.9 percent, to 4,748.47.

U.S. crude gained after the International Energy Agency said signs that the market has “bottomed

U.S. crude has risen 47 percent from a 13-year low of $26.21 a month ago.

Bank stocks also rose sharply. That sector had been beaten down in recent weeks as investors worried about loans to highly leveraged energy companies going bad.

The rally has got some investors worried, though.

Chief Equity Strategist Phil Orlando of Federated Investors said the “terrific four-week run” makes him a “little nervous.” Among

his concerns are a steeper China slowdown, a U.S. dollar strengthening even more and hurting U.S. exports, no relief from the corporate profits drop over the last year and more surprises in the presidential election.

“Don’t discount the fiscal policy uncertainty of the election,” he warned.

Xavier Smith, manager of the Centre Global Select Equity Fund, said he doesn’t buy the oil rally, either.

“Oil is a proxy for the overall economy, and it’s not going on four cylinders anywhere,” Smith said. “So why would oil be strong? It doesn’t make any sense.”

European markets rose sharply as investors hoped that the European Central Bank’s latest blast of stimulus policies would help revive the region’s economy.

Germany’s DAX gained 3.5 percent, France’s CAC 40 advanced 3.3 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.7 percent.

The ECB moves included three interest rate cuts, loans to banks, and the expansion of a bond-buying stimulus program. Shares in banks, which will be supported by the ECB loans, were among the biggest gainers.

Investors turn their attention to a meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve next week.

Unlike its counterparts in Europe and Japan, the Fed is looking to wind down its economic stimulus, though most investors do not expect it to tighten credit next week. The Fed raised rates for the first time in nine years in December.

Ford establishing subsidiary to invest in mobility DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. said Friday that it is establishing a Silicon Valleybased subsidiary to build and invest in new mobility options like car-sharing and ride-hailing services.

Ford Smart Mobility LLC will be chaired by former Steelcase CEO Jim Hackett, who has been a member of Ford’s board since 2013.

Hackett resigned his board seat Friday to lead the new company. Ford Smart Mo-

bility plans to name a CEO in the near future.

The company will operate in Palo Alto, California, and Ford’s hometown of Dearborn, Michigan.

Ford CEO Mark Fields said the company will be “separate but connected” to its parent. Fields said Ford won’t initially include the company in its financial reporting, but may do so once it’s more firmly established.

“We wanted to make sure give it the freedom and the

flexibility to move almost like tech companies do,” Fields told The Associated Press.

Ford Smart Mobility will build, design and invest in services like car-sharing or ride-hailing. Ford has already conducted more than 30 global experiments over the last 14 months, including GoDrive, a car sharing program with guaranteed parking in London, and Bridj, a van service in Kansas City that users can summon with a smart-

phone.

The research and design of autonomous vehicles and vehicle connectivity will remain with the parent company, Fields said.

Fields said Hackett, who spent 30 years at office furniture maker Steelcase, helped transform the industry, in part by predicting the end of traditional cubicles.

“Jim is a fantastic strategic thinker and has a very good network in Silicon Valley,” Fields said.

GM buys software company to speed auto development DETROIT (AP) — With hopes of speeding development of self-driving cars, General Motors has acquired a small software company that’s been testing vehicles on the streets of San Francisco.

The Detroit automaker says it purchased Cruise Automation, a 40-person firm that was founded just three years ago.

The move, coupled with GM’s in-house research, should help the company in its race with Google and others to have autonomous cars start transporting people on public roadways.

GM wouldn’t give a timetable for rolling out the technology, but President Dan Ammann said it would happen as soon as the company can demonstrate that the cars are ready.

“It’s our view that driverless technology will be demonstrably safer than the human driver,” Ammann said in a telephone interview.

Cruise Automation, along with Google, is among the few companies with permits from the state of California to test the cars, said Kyle Vogt, the company founder and CEO. The company is working to tackle the biggest obstacles to autonomous cars — seeing the lane lines in bad weather and integrating data from cameras and other sensors so the cars make the right decisions on the road, Vogt said. “I agree that’s a challenge,” he said. “Looking at lane markers isn’t going to get you there.”

Cruise reported one crash to the state Department of Motor Vehicles in which an autonomous car rearended a city of San Francisco parking enforcement vehicle. Vogt said the car’s backup human driver had taken control of the vehicle when it crashed.

GM wouldn’t disclose the purchase price of deal, which was announced Friday.

BUSINESS A25 Capital One to let users pay bills via Amazon’s Echo Saturday 12 March 2016

NEW YORK (AP) — Capital One has teamed with Amazon to let owners of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker system pay their bills and get other account information through voice commands.

Amazon’s Echo speakers use a voice-command service called Alexa to help users perform various tasks, such as turning on smart

lights, playing music or setting a kitchen timer. The number of so-called “skills” Alexa can perform has been growing since the Echo became widely available last year and now numbers more than 100.

The Capital One service will be the first time a creditcard company has been involved, however. Capital One will let users check

their credit card balance, review recent transactions, pay their credit card bill and perform other tasks simply by talking to the device.

Users can sign up for the service via the Amazon Echo setup app. There they can set up a checking account link if they want to pay their credit card balance via the Echo.

Then, to set up a session with Capital One, they give a command such as: “Alexa, ask Capital One for my Quicksilver Card balance” or “Alexa, ask Capital One to pay my credit card bill.”

Security concerns have swirled around Amazon’s Echo since it debuted, since the $179 device is always “on.” But Ken Dodelin, vice president of digital

products management at McLean, Virginia-based Capital One, said the service is secure.

“As a bank we’re very attuned to security concerns,” he said. When a user of the service asks Alexa to perform a Capitol One task, they will be prompted for a four-digit personal key that users set up when they enable the skill.

Oil price appears to have ‘bottomed out,’ energy agency says PARIS (AP) — The organization that represents major oil-consuming nations said Friday that signs of a market that has “bottomed out” are emerging.

U.S. crude prices jumped to a high for the year. Brent crude, used as a global benchmark, hit a high for the year Tuesday and rose 1 percent Friday.

Energy companies have been shutting down rigs and laying off thousands of workers as oil prices plunged to around $30 per barrel, from well over $100 per barrel just two years ago.

A broad retreat by the energy sector played out again Friday on both fronts.

The number of oil and natural gas rigs active in the U.S. fell for the 12th consecutive week, according to Baker Hughes on Friday, to 480. That’s the lowest level in decades, and perhaps the fewest since the earliest days of the oil drilling industry.

And Texas driller Anadarko Petroleum Corp. said that it would cut 1,000 workers, 17

Oil pumps work in the desert oil fields of Sakhir, Bahrain. The organization that represents major oil-consuming nations said Friday, March 11, 2016 that signs of a market that has “bottomed out” are emerging. U.S. crude prices jumped to a high for the year. Brent crude, used as a global benchmark, hit a high for the year Tuesday and rose 1 percent Friday.

(AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)

percent of its work force.

The pain at Anadarko and other energy companies may finally be translating into a reduction of a massive and global oversupply of oil, the International En-

ergy Agency said Friday.

OPEC production tumbled by 90,000 barrels a day last month, the IEA said.

U.S. production that had surged due to new drilling technology, is expected to

fall by almost 530,000 barrels a day this year, according to the IEA. The Paris organization, however, said that the recovery in crude prices in recent days from multi-year

lows does not mean that there will be a significant and sustained rebound in the short-term.

There have been sharp declines in demand, particularly in the United States and China, it said.

China, the world’s secondlargest oil consumer, is attempting to quell anxiety over a slowing economy and labor unrest.

Earlier this month, it cut its growth expectations for the year.

Goldman Sachs said on Friday that production is unlikely to increase in the U.S. until 2017, and that prices could volatile in the next few months.

Analysts with Goldman said that if U.S. drillers ramp up production with any rise in oil prices, “we believe a self-defeating rally in oil prices/equities could result.”

The report buoyed stocks of energy companies Friday, making the sector the second-best performer on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Yahoo snubs activist shareholder with 2 new directors

MICHAEL LIEDTKE Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo has set up a battle for control of its board by appointing two directors likely to further agitate an activist shareholder threatening an attempt to oust CEO Marissa Mayer unless she bows to demands to sell the company’s Internet operations.

The decision announced this week increases the likelihood that the unhappy shareholder, Starboard

Value, will nominate an opposing slate to run against Yahoo’s board of nine directors in a proxy fight.

If the confrontation occurs, it would escalate the challenges already facing Mayer and the rest of Yahoo’s board as they try to reverse a prolonged decline in the company’s revenue and figure out a way to avoid paying taxes on the gains from a roughly $28 billion stake that it holds in China’s e-commerce leader, Alibaba Group.

Starboard had been seeking seats on Yahoo’s board without a proxy fight, but that seems unlikely to happen now that Yahoo has filled two vacancies that recently opened up with the resignations of PayPal cofounder Max Levchin and discount stock brokerage pioneer Charles Schwab.

Yahoo Inc. named former Morgan Stanley investment banker, Catherine Friedman, and Eric Brandt, chief financial officer of comput-

er chipmaker Broadcom Corp., to fill those positions.

“It’s like they are giving the middle finger to Starboard, ” said Eric Jackson, managing director of SpringOwl Asset Management, another Yahoo shareholder critical of Mayer’s leadership. Jackson declined to say how much stock SpringOwl owns.

Starboard Value didn’t respond to a request for comment. The firm has until March 26 to nominate its own candidates to take

over Yahoo’s board. If Starboard Value seized control of Yahoo’s board, it could then fire Mayer, who has been the company’s CEO since July 2012.

Mayer wants to pursue a plan that calls for Yahoo to lay off 15 percent of its workforce and shed unprofitable services to reduce expenses and sharpen the company’s focus on mobile, digital video and its most popular specialties, such as sports and finance.

A26 COMICS

Saturday 12 March 2016

Mutts

Conceptis Sudoku

6 Chix

Blondie

Mother Goose & Grimm

Baby Blues

Zits

Yesterday’s puzzle answer

Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

CLASSIFIED A27

Saturday 12 March 2016

Dr. Gonzales / Samuels Dr. Britt - Croes

Tel. 584-6427

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204748

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Divi Dutch Village

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#2 Divi Dutch Village for sale week 27 June 25 Start 3 Room Suite, Lock Off Master bed RM withlock off Studio with small kitchen 1 other room with Queen sofa, full kichen dining area 4900$ if used in 2016 buyer pays M fees of 839, and 2017 special Assessement, Seller Pays 2016, (For Renovations) rmwjmw@aol.com 5086510016 204717

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A28 SCIENCE

Saturday 12 March 2016

Panel: Finding climate fingerprints in wild weather is valid SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Climate science has progressed so much that experts can accurately detect global warming’s fingerprints on certain extreme weather events, such as a heat wave, according to a high-level scientific advisory panel.

For years scientists have given almost a rote response to the question of whether an instance of weird weather was from global warming, insisting that they can’t attribute any single event to climate change. But “the science has advanced to the point that this is no longer true as an unqualified blanket statement,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine reported.

Starting in 2004, dozens of complex peer-reviewed studies found the odds of some extreme events were affected by man-made climate change. This new field of finding global warming fingerprints is scientifically valid, the academies said in a 163-page report released Friday. The private non-profit has advised the government on complex, science-oriented issues since the days of President Abraham Lincoln.

When it comes to heat waves, droughts, heavy rain and some other events, scientists who do rigorous research can say whether

In this July 21, 2010 file photo, a polar bear has a bucket on his head, while cub polar bear swims nearby in the cooling waters of Moscow Zoo. Associated Press

they were more likely or more severe because of man-made global warming, said academies report chairman David Titley, a Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor.

And that matters.

“While we plan for climate, we live in weather,” Titley, a retired Navy admiral, said in an interview. “These extremes are making climate real when in fact they are attributable to climate change.”

Not all weird weather can be blamed with any degree of certainty on global warming, according to the

report.

“For a certain class and type of event there is a human fingerprint,” said report co-author Marshall Shepherd, a University of Georgia meteorology professor. The report says there is “high confidence” in studies looking for climate change connections between extreme hot and cold temperatures, such as the Russian heat wave of 2010. There’s medium confidence in efforts trying to attribute droughts and extreme rainfall.

Hurricanes and other tropical cyclones, wildfires and

severe thunderstorms are on the low end of the confidence range, the report found.

In some cases heat and lack of rain combine, and the studies find a viable connection to global warming, such as in the recent four-year California drought and the drought that hit Syria and its neighbors, Titley said.

“The fog of uncertainty that obscured the human role in individual events is finally lifting,” said Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer. He wasn’t part of the study, but is

on the board of Climate Central, which manages a large climate attribution project.

Good attribution studies are based on what Titley calls a “three-legged stool” of observational records of decades of past events, detailed understanding of the physics that cause the weird weather itself, and sophisticated computer models that simulate the chances of the extreme event if there were no man-made, heat-trapping gases warming the atmosphere.

These studies don’t say an event was 100 percent caused by climate change. They usually say chances were increased by a certain fraction.

Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech climate scientist who wasn’t part of the study, praised the work: It is “very important to clarify to people how no event is black or white: No individual weather event can be said to be ‘solely’ human nor ‘solely’ natural any more. They are somewhere on the sliding scale between.”

But other scientists don’t like the idea of looking at single events.

Climate change caused by man “has fingerprints in every weather event we experience today,” wrote Oklahoma University meteorology professor Jason Furtado, who wasn’t part of the study. q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Saturday 12 March 2016

‘Creative Control’ looks at the near future of personal VR LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — What does technology look like five minutes in the future?

It’s a question that’s on a lot of artists’ minds lately. Whether it’s the Sirilike companion in Spike Jonze’s “Her,” a beautiful A.I. in Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” or the ability to instantly rewind and project memories in the “Black Mirror” episode of TV’s “The Entire History of You,” on nearly every screen there seems to be someone’s vision of the not-so-distant future — and usually a warning about how the purportedly convenient technologies are damaging our realities. The latest entry is the bold indie “Creative Control” (out Friday in limited release and expanding on March 18), about an ad exec who gets lost in the possibilities of Augmenta — an augmented reality system in a pair of glasses. In this highly stylized, “Google-utopia” world, Augmenta even looks cool. Think Warby Parker, not Google Glass or Microsoft HoloLens.

Director Ben Dickinson, who co-wrote and stars, didn’t have the VFX budget of some of his contemporaries, but what he did have was time to really hone in on an idea, and a few friends in the tech world to help — including Vimeo co-creator Jake Lodwick.

Together they designed Augmenta — from the retinal projection interface to a user’s guide. The French digital effects company Mathematic brought it to life. It looks familiar, but slightly askew. The screens and monitors are like the ones we have now, but in “Creative Control” they’re sleek and completely clear. With Augmenta, the world becomes a screen, but video messages still skip in transmission and texts and emails still pop up incessantly in front of your face.

And then David discovers that he can also create a virtual version of a woman he loves with Aug-

This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Benjamin Dickinson, center, in a scene from the film, “Creative Control.” The film is about an ad exec who gets lost in the possibilities of Augmenta, an augmented reality system in a pair of glasses.

Associated Press

menta too — putting “Creative Control” somewhere between “Her” and “Ex Machina.”

“There’s that little boy part of me that really enjoyed making a fake product,” Dickinson said.

Lodwick helped Dickinson understand details about tech design that he hadn’t considered otherwise. Big, theatrical swiping movements in the air might look great in something like “Minority Report,” for instance, but it’s impractical.

“If you’re working all day it doesn’t make sense to be reaching out into space all the time. Sometimes you need to rest your hands,” Dickinson said. “The usual approach in science fiction is to expand something to its most exciting, but ours was to make it feel really realistic and familiar.”

So in “Creative Control,” the movements are small and ergonomic. Legs can be used as typing surfaces, and texting can be done just by tapping your fingers together.

Like many others before him, Dickinson was interested in how technology affects our lives.

“It’s accelerating so much quicker than our bodies so I think there’s a trauma happening,” Dickinson said.

“It’s difficult to not just be overwhelmed with the re-

lationships you’re trying to manage through text messages increasingly and the ego roller coaster of social media and then on top of that trying to make a career.” “It’s much easier to program a digital girlfriend who says exactly the right things at the right time and just fulfills your needs. I think there’s a part of all of us that is attracted to that.

The way technology exists right now offers that false hope to people and we’re starting to get lost.”

Just recently, Dickinson was in San Francisco meeting with a company that’s developing Augmented Reality — and it’s coming a lot faster than he thought would be possible when he started making “Creative Control.”

A30 PEOPLE

Saturday 12 March 2016

& ARTS

In this Jan. 6, 2016 file photo, people react as they wear Samsung Gear VR goggles at CES International in Las Vegas. VR is a habitat of countless possibilities, an exhilarating refuge that yanks one from the sidelines and thrusts them into the action.

Associated Press

Never tried virtual reality?

Here’s what it’s like FRAZIER MOORE AP Television Writer NEW YORK (AP) — It doesn’t take a high-tech headset to see that virtual reality is the rage. It’s being touted as the future for all things sensory, from games to film and television, from storytelling to visualart.

My response as a television critic — and as a dyed-inthe-wool TV viewer — is to ask what this all means to me.

I am not typically an early adopter. My beat as a journalist isn’t newfangled gadgetry. I’m a TV-centric content guy, scrambling to keep up with the torrent of programs that, however more plentiful and varied their providers, still contain themselves in two dimensions.

Even so, VR seems a force to be reckoned with. So I grabbed a Samsung Gear VR headset for a maiden voyage.

Virtual reality is the link to an alternate reality, and instantly I’m all in! For example, I find that a wooded, birds-twittering forest on a sunny day is a far more agreeable environment than my stuffy apartment.

And that’s even before Reese Witherspoon appears over a rise and, puffing with her backpack, rests herself on a nearby rock.

In character from her 2014 film “Wild,” she is bedraggled but radiant and seems close enough and real enough to bother for a sip of her water. Alas, all too quickly Witherspoon resumes her solitary trek, vanishing through trees in the opposite direction too absorbed in her odyssey to have paid me any notice.

But a dinosaur does. With “Jurassic World: Apatosaurus,” I am in a different kind of forest, stationed a few yards from a colossal dozing reptile sprawled on the forest floor. Then, during

this two-minute interlude, it blinks awake, clambers to its feet, spots me and, staring me right in the face, takes a curious sniff.

These adventures pale in wonder to Cirque du Soleil’s “Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities,” which sweeps me into a wondrous spectacle.

Beautiful and dazzlingly weird, the dozen-and-ahalf performers cavort on a stage where they accept me as a spellbound intruder. They put on quite a show.

Or, maybe more accurately, many shows. As I share their 360-degree space, where and what I look at is up to me. I am free to bob and swivel my head to fix my gaze on anyone or anything. I literally get to call the shots. And after a half-dozen viewings, with my attention leap-frogging from one direction to another, I still can’t take in all the revelry.

If joining a famed entertainment troupe is remarkable, an even bigger blast is gaining entry to a painting by Vincent Van Gogh.

Thanks to a VR reimagining of Van Gogh’s 1888 “The Night Cafe,” I can take my place within the brushstrokes of the Café de la Gare and its scattering of tables and chairs, billiard table and lone patron come to life.

But there’s more to explore than the single room the painting has immortalized.

Through a doorway in the corner, I can stray into a never-before-seen side room, where a pianist plays a melancholy tune and — lo and behold — Vincent himself sits listening while meditatively smoking his pipe.

Unlike VR video captured with stationary 360-degree cameras, this Van Gogh tribute is more like a video game, letting me interact more authentically with my surroundings. I can step up

to a table or a person, but no farther, as if these objects were really in my way.

And unlike many VR experiences, this one is openended. I am free to linger in this otherworldly, painterly realm to my heart’s content. At this cafe, there is no last call. And I am in no hurry to leave.

Why would I? Despite the possible onset of a headache or queasiness (nothing comes without a price, including this technology in its infant stage), VR is a habitat of countless possibilities, an exhilarating refuge that yanks me from the sidelines and thrusts me into the action.

Could VR ever become the default mode for its audience? I can imagine a time when immersion in VR might be as normal a state of self-imposed isolation as earbuds piping music from an iPod is now.

But more pertinent to me, a television guy, is this question: As VR evolves as technology and art, what will be its impact on the act of vegging out with old-fashioned TV? Television has long reigned as the province of the couch potato, viewing passively while free to do other things: answer email, fix a snack or just nurse a beer. But lost in VR’s altered state, I could easily miss my mouth when trying to take a sip. VR demands full commitment.

Could be, as VR comes of age, television will become not quite old hat, but instead what radio became with TV’s birth: an atmospheric add-on, just one part of the everyday sensory mosaic. Similarly, TV, with its grip on public consciousness downgraded, might be recast as an omnipresent supplement to real life.

Not supplementing, but supplanting real life: That’s what VR aims to do.q

PEOPLE & ARTS

A31

Saturday 12 March 2016

Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer dies at 71

Actor and comedian Steve Martin, who is guest curator of an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts devoted to Canadian modernist Lawren Harris, smiles, while seated in front of Harris’s “North Shore” painting during a gathering at the museum in Boston, Friday, March 11, 2016.

Associated Press

Steve Martin is guest curator at Boston art exhibition

BOSTON (AP) — Steve Martin has some happy eyes to go with those happy feet.

The actor and comedian is guest curator of an exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts devoted to Canadian modernist Lawren Harris.

Martin will be on hand Friday for a preview of the exhibition, and he’ll discuss Harris’ work at Saturday’s public opening of the show. He is a passionate arts patron and collector.

Thirty Harris paintings will be on display, including landscapes of the northern shores of Lake Superior, the icy waters of the eastern Arctic and snow-capped Rocky Mountain peaks.

Martin says Harris deserves international acclaim for reaching “another level of the metaphysics of landscape.” Harris died in 1970.

“The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris” runs through June 12.q

ROBERT JABLON Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Keith Emerson, founder and keyboardist of the progressiverock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died, his longtime partner announced Friday. He was 71. Mari Kawaguchi said she found Emerson dead at around 1:30 a.m. at their condominium in the coastal suburb of Santa Monica, California but he could have died Thursday evening or night. She declined to disclose the cause of his death.

“Keith was a gentle soul whose love for music and passion for his performance as a keyboard player will remain unmatched for many years to come,” his former bandmate, drummer Carl Palmer, said in a statement. “He was a pioneer and an innovator whose musical genius touched all of us in the worlds of rock, classical and jazz. I will always remember his warm smile, good sense of humor, compelling showmanship and dedication to his musical craft. I am very lucky to have known him and to have made the music we did together.”

Kawaguchi said Emerson was able to compose with-

In this Jan. 23, 2015 file photo, Keith Emerson attends the 2015 National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show in Anaheim, Calif.

Associated Press

out any instrument.

“He was just natural. The music was always in his head, always,” she said.

“Even when he was sleeping, you know, I could tell he was always thinking about music. Sometimes he would wake up and compose music. And it was all so, so beautiful.”

Emerson, Palmer and vocalist/guitarist Greg Lake were giants of progressive rock in the 1970s, recording six platinum-selling albums. They and other hit groups such as Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues and Genesis stepped away from rock’s emphasis on short

songs with dance beats, instead creating albums with ornate pieces full of complicated rhythms, intricate chords and time signature changes. The orchestrations drew on classical and jazz styles and sometimes wedded traditional rock instruments with full orchestras.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s 1973 album “Brain Salad Surgery” included a nearly 30-minute composition called “Karn Evil 9” that featured a Moog synthesizer and the eerie, carnivallike lyric: “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends.”q

Dos Equis says ‘adios’ to ‘Most Interesting Man’ pitchman NEW YORK (AP) — Even the “Most Interesting Man in the World” is not immune to getting dumped.

Mexican beer brand Dos Equis is letting go of its gray-haired spokesman, 77-year-old Jonathan Goldsmith, and replacing him with another actor.

Goldsmith, known in the ads as the “Most Interesting Man in the World,” has been appearing in Dos Equis commercials for about nine years. He’s usually seen sitting at a table with a group of women before

uttering the beer’s slogan, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

Dos Equis is making the change to attract new drinkers, said Andrew Katz, the brand’s vice president of marketing. Dos Equis, owned by Amsterdambased Heineken, says sales of the brand have nearly tripled since the ads began airing in 2007. A new “Most Interesting Man in the World” will appear in commercials later this year.

A replacement has been chosen, but Katz declined to say who it is. Goldsmith

is not crying in his beer over the change. “I feel terrific, I really do,” Goldsmith said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve had a great time in the last 10 years.” He said fans of the ads approach him all the time. “It’s overwhelming recognition,” said Goldsmith. “I would be literally mobbed.” In his last Dos Equis commercial , Goldsmith is shipped off in a rocket on a one-way trip to Mars.

He says, “Stay thirsty, my friends,” for the last time as the rocket takes off.

This still image provided by Dos Equis shows a scene from one of the beer company’s ads featuring actor Jonathan Goldsmith as the “Most Interesting Man in the World.”

Associated Press

Some brands have had a hard time getting rid of beloved pitchmen. Four years ago, travel website Priceline.com tried to kill off the Negotiator, played by actor William Shatner, in a

fiery bus crash during a TV spot. But Shatner returned to the role just months later.

Katz said Goldsmith’s space odyssey is more permanent. “It’s a one-way mission.”q