March 22, 2016

On Top Of The News Email:news@arubatoday.com website: www.arubatoday.com Tel:+297 582-7800 Tuesday, March 22, 2016

A”NEW DAY”

Obama, Castro lay bare tensions on embargo, human rights Cuban President Raul Castro lifts up the arm of President Barack Obama at the conclusion of their joint news conference at the Palace of the Revolution, Monday, March 21, 2016 in Havana, Cuba.

Associated Press Page 2

A2 UP

Tuesday 22 March 2016

FRONT

Secretary of State John Kerry, right, talks with Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, left, as they wait for the arrival of President Barack Obama, and first lady Michelle Obama, as they attend a State Dinner hosted by Cuban President Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution,

Obama, Castro lay bare tensions on embargo, human rights Associated Press JULIE PACE Associated Press MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN HAVANA (AP) — Laying bare a half-century of tensions, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro prodded each other Monday over human rights and the longstanding U.S. economic embargo during an unprecedented joint news conference that stunned Cubans unaccustomed to their leaders being aggressively questioned.

The exchanges underscored deep divisions that still exist between the two countries despite rapidly improved relations in the 15 months since Obama and

Castro surprised the world with an announcement to end their Cold War-era diplomatic freeze.

Obama, standing in Havana’s Palace of the Revolution on the second day of his historic visit to Cuba, repeatedly pushed Castro to take steps to address his country’s human rights record.

“We continue, as President Castro indicated, to have some very serious differences, including on democracy and human rights,” said Obama, who planned to meet with Cuban dissidents Tuesday.

Still, Obama heralded a “new day” in the U.S.-Cuba relationship and said “part of normalizing relations means we discuss these differences directly.”

Castro was blistering in his criticism of the American embargo, which he called “the most important obstacle” to his country’s economic development. He also pressed Obama to return the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which is on the island of Cuba, to his government.

“There are profound differences between our countries that will not go away,” Castro said plainly.

White House officials spent weeks pushing their Cuban counterparts to agree for the leaders to take questions from reporters after their private meeting, reaching agreement just hours before Obama and Castro appeared before cameras.

It’s extremely rare for Castro to give a press conference, though he has sometimes taken questions from reporters spontaneously when the mood strikes.

While the issue of political prisoners is hugely important to Cuban-Americans and the international community, most people on the island are more concerned about the shortage of goods and their struggles with local bureaucracy.

Castro appeared agitated at times during the questioning, professing to not

understand whether inquiries were directed to him.

But when an American reporter asked about political prisoners in Cuba, he pushed back aggressively, saying if the journalist could offer names of anyone improperly imprisoned, “they will be released before tonight ends.”

“What political prisoners? Give me a name or names,” Castro said.

Cuba has been criticized for briefly detaining demonstrators thousands of times a year but has drastically reduced its practice of handing down long prison sentences for crimes human rights groups consider to be political.

Cuba released dozens of prisoners as part of its deal to normalize relations with the U.S., and in a recent report, Amnesty International did not name any current prisoners of conscience in Cuba.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the U.S. regularly raises specific cases and some are resolved, but added Cuba typically insists they’re being held for other crimes. Rhodes said, “I’ve shared many lists with the Cuban government.”

Obama’s and Castro’s comments were broadcast live on state television, which is tightly controlled by the government and the Communist Party.

At an outdoor cafe in Havana, about a dozen Cubans and tourists watched in awed silence. One woman held her hand to her mouth in shock.

“It’s very significant to hear this from our president, for him to recognize that not all human rights are respected in Cuba,” said Raul Rios, a 47-year-old driver, who also expressed agreement with Castro’s defense that Cuba is good in some areas, no country is perfect and all should try to do better.

Continued on Page 3

Tensions rights Continued from Page 2

Ricardo Herrera, a 45-yearold street food vendor said, “It’s like a movie but based on real life.”

After responding to a handful of questions, Castro ended the news conference abruptly, declaring, “I think this is enough.”

Obama then appeared to lean in to pat Castro on the back. In an awkward moment, the Cuban leader instead grabbed Obama’s arm and lifted it up as the U.S. president’s wrist dangled, an image that immediately grabbed attention on social media.

White House officials said Obama did not plan to meet with Fidel Castro, the older brother of the Cuban president and his predecessor in office, hoping to keep the visit focused on the future of the island.

Rhodes, the White House adviser, said there were also other considerations, including Castro’s “health issues.” Obama, in an interview with ABC News, said he has no problem with such a meeting “just as a symbol of the end of this Cold War chapter.”

Obama’s visit to Cuba is a crowning moment in his and Raul Castro’s bid to

normalize ties between two countries that sit just 90 miles apart. The U.S. leader traveled with his family and was taking in the sights in Old Havana and attending a baseball game between the beloved Cuban national team and the Tampa Bay Rays. Monday night, Castro honored the Americans with a state dinner at Havana’s Palace of the Revolution.

Several American business leaders joined Obama on the trip, many eager to gain a foothold on the island nation. Technology giant Google announced plans to open a cutting-edge online technology center offering free Internet at speeds nearly 70 times faster than those now available to the Cuban public.

Obama said Google’s efforts in Cuba are part of a wider plan to improve access to the Internet across the island.

While Castro has welcomed increased economic ties, he insisted his country would still suffer as long as the American economic embargo was in place. Obama has called on Congress to lift the blockade, but lawmakers have not held a vote on the repeal.

U.S. NEWS A3

Tuesday 22 March 2016

President Barack Obama, left, listens to a live band along with Cuba’s President Raul Castro during a state dinner at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 21, 2016. Laying bare a half-century of tensions, Obama and Castro prodded each other Monday over human rights and the long-standing U.S. economic embargo during an joint news conference.

Associated Press

A4 U.S.

Tuesday 22 March 2016

NEWS

Trump opens up on his foreign policy positions

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the 2016 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference at the Verizon Center, on Monday, March 21, 2016, in Washington.

Associated Press

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday confronted doubts about the depth

of his knowledge of world affairs, delivering a sober speech to a pro-Israel crowd and outlining for the first time his team of foreign policy advisers.

In a lengthy interview with the editorial board of The Washington Post, Trump outlined a distinctly noninterventionist approach for the United States in the world.

“I do think it’s a different world today, and I don’t think we should be nationbuilding anymore,” Trump told the newspaper. He stressed instead the need to invest in infrastructure at home.

“At what point do you say, ‘Hey, we have to take care of ourselves’?” he said. “So, I know the outer world exists

and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities.”

Trump has largely avoided policy details during his campaign, focusing instead on boldly stated goals and saying last week in an interview with MSNBC that his “primary consultant is myself.”

“They’re not doing anything. And I say: ‘Why is it that Germany’s not dealing with NATO on Ukraine?

Why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity

of Ukraine, why aren’t they dealing?” he said.

In fact, since the Ukraine crisis erupted more than two years ago, the Obama administration has refused to provide the new, proWestern government in Kiev offensive military equipment to use against Russian-backed separatists.

And while a February 2015 ceasefire helped reduce the worst of the violence, Germany and France led that mediation effort. The United States wasn’t directly involved.

Trump has also drawn concerns from Jewish leaders for saying he would attempt to be “neutral” in the decades-long IsraeliPalestinian conflict. He worked to soothe those worries Monday in a major speech before the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In a speech delivered from prepared remarks and a teleprompter, a rarity for Trump, he stressed that he is “a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel.”

Trump’s remarks largely focused on Iran, calling the deal reached last year with several world powers aimed at keeping it from acquiring nuclear weapons “catastrophic for America, for Israel and to the whole Middle East.”

He also said he would reject any attempt by the United Nations to impose conditions on either side during future peace talks in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that “it will only further delegitimize Israel.”

NYC seeks to recover money made off transit impostor’s film COLLEEN LONG Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — To Hollywood, a transit impostor with a long history of posing as a New York City subway worker driving trains is rich material for a movie.

But to transit officials, Darius McCollum is a criminal who shouldn’t profit off his behavior.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Monday that it will use the state’s Son of Sam law to try to recoup any money he makes off a feature film in development about his life.

McCollum, who’s been arrested 30 times for transitrelated crimes, told The Associated Press that his uncontrollable obsession with buses and trains is because of an autism-spectrum disorder and he needs help.

He was most recently arrested in November, when he was accused of stealing a Greyhound bus from a terminal in New Jersey and driving it to Brooklyn.

Transit officials said they would ask for written notice from the film’s producers, The Gotham Group, of their financial agreement with McCollum. The officials said they were seeking “any illgotten gains he receives from participation in this purported film project.”

The Gotham Group had no comment.

McCollum, now 50, had the subway map memorized by age 8. He befriended engineers and pilots and

first started hanging around the subway as a child — he knows every subway line, every stop. After the Sept.

11 attacks, he was asked by the MTA to help fortify their system, his lawyer said. He wanted to work for the MTA, but transit officials have long said they would not hire someone who had stolen a train, as he did at 15 from Penn Station to the World Trade Center.

“The MTA created this problem because they were lazy and glad to have him do their work,” said McCollum’s attorney, Sally Butler.

“They also aren’t involved in this case. I will fight this.”

McCollum’s story has been in newspapers and magazines for decades. A documentary about his life, “Off the Rails,” will premiere April 7 at the Full Frame festival in Durham, North Carolina.

The feature film, tentatively titled “Train Man,” was sold to a financer and is set to star Julia Roberts as Butler, who has been McCollum’s attorney since his 2010 arrest in Queens for stealing a Trailways bus.

He hasn’t seen any money yet from the producers, Butler said. Any money would likely come if the film makes it to production.

“And if he gets any, he should be able to keep it,” she said. “This is not your usual guy in jail. He’s a special case.”

The state’s Son of Sam law originated after rumors that publishers and movie studios were offering large

amounts of money to David Berkowitz for his story, and it was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991 during a battle over the mobster tale “Wiseguy.” The struckdown law was replaced in 2005.

In a Brooklyn court Monday, McCollum rejected a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for up to 10 years. He’s pleaded in every other criminal case against him. Butler is still trying to get McCollum into the borough’s mental health court, where he’d receive treatment and have to adhere to a strict protocol or face stricter sentences. The district at-

U.S. NEWS A5

Tuesday 22 March 2016

In this Nov. 13, 2015 file photo, Darius McCollum is arraigned in Brooklyn criminal court in New York. New York City transit officials say they will try to recoup any money made by the notorious transit impostor from a feature film in development about him. McCollum, who first commandeered a train at age 15, has been arrested 30 times over the years for transit-related crimes.

Associated Press

torney’s office initially said it would not allow the move but then backed off in court. A decision was ex-

pected April 11.

If not, McCollum may be headed for trial — his first ever.q

A6 U.S.

Tuesday 22 March 2016

NEWS

FBI might have way to unlock attacker’s iPhone without Apple BRANDON BAILEY AMANDA LEE MYERS Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — A much-anticipated court hearing on the federal government’s effort to force Apple Inc. to unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terror attack was abruptly vacated Monday after the FBI revealed it may have a way to access data without the company’s help.

Federal prosecutors made the surprising announcement on the eve of Tuesday’s hearing in U.S. District Court in Riverside, California. In court papers they said the FBI has been researching methods to access the data on Syed Rizwan Farook’s encrypted phone since obtaining it on Dec. 3, the day after the attack.

“An outside party” came forward over the weekend and showed the FBI a possible method, the government said in court papers requesting the hearing be postponed.

Authorities need time to determine “whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data” on the phone.

If viable, “it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple,” according to the filing.

The government did not identify the third party or explain what the proposed method entailed.

Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym granted that request and ordered the government to file a status report

by April 5. Pym also stayed her Feb. 16 order compelling Apple to create software that would disable security features on the phone, including one that erases all information if a

In this Feb. 17, 2016 file photos an iPhone is seen in Washington. The dispute over whether Apple must help the FBI hack into a terror suspect’s iPhone is about to play out in a Southern California courtroom.

Associated Press

passcode is incorrectly entered more than 10 times.

The fact that a third party may have found a way into the phone without Apple’s help appears to contradict every sworn affidavit and filing put that the Justice Department has put forward in the last month. The government has argued in each of its filings that Apple’s help is necessary and that the company was the only entity that could provide investigators with what was needed.

FBI Director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee in sworn testimony earlier this month that agency investigators had approached even the National Security Agency for help but did not have success.

Apple has said in its filings that the government did not exhaust all its options, and lawmakers have criti-

cized the FBI for not doing more to try to crack the iPhone itself before seeking Apple’s help.

“To me, it suggests that either the FBI doesn’t understand the technology or they weren’t giving us the whole truth when they said there is no other possible way” of examining the phone without Apple’s help, said Alex Abdo, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. “Both of those are scary to me.”

The ACLU has filed a court brief supporting Apple’s position.

Robert Cattanach, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who handles cyber-security cases for the Dorsey & Whitney law firm, said the government would likely not have disclosed it had a lead on possibly unlocking the phone unless it was almost certain the method would work. That’s

because the disclosure weakens the government’s case by introducing doubt that it could only access the phone with Apple’s help, he said.

“They’ve created ambiguity in a place where they’ve previously said there is none,” he said.

Prosecutors have argued that the phone used by Farook probably contains evidence of the Dec. 2 attack in which the county food inspector and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, slaughtered 14 at a holiday luncheon attended by many of his work colleagues. The two were killed in a police shootout hours later.

The FBI has said the couple was inspired by the Islamic State group. Investigators still are trying to piece together what happened and find out if there were collaborators.

The couple destroyed oth-

er phones they left behind, and the FBI has been unable to circumvent the passcode needed to unlock the iPhone, which is owned by San Bernardino County and was given to Farook for his job.

Apple has argued that the government was seeking “dangerous power” that exceeds the authority of the All Writs Act of 1789 it cited, and violates the company’s constitutional rights, harms the Apple brand and threatens the trust of its customers to protect their privacy. The 18thcentury law has been used on other cases to require third parties to help law enforcement in investigations.

It’s not clear what method the government now wants to test. But even as the FBI has insisted that only Apple is able to provide the help it needs, some technical experts have argued there are other options.

The most viable method involves making a copy of the iPhone’s flash memory drive, said Jonathan Zdziarski, a computer expert who specializes in iPhone forensics.

That would allow investigators to make multiple tries at guessing the iPhone’s passcode. A security feature in the phone is designed to automatically erase the data if someone makes 10 wrong guesses in a row.

But if that happens, Zdziarski said, investigators could theoretically restore the data from the backup copy they have created.

The data itself would remain encrypted until the phone is unlocked, but it would remain viable while investigators continued to guess the passcode, he added.

U.S. NEWS A7

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Health insurance gains due to Obama’s law, not economy

BY RICARDO ALONSOZALDIVAR ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) -There’s growing evidence that most of the dramatic gain in the number of Americans with health care coverage is due to President Barack Obama’s law, and not the gradual recovery of the nation’s economy.

That could pose a political risk for Republicans running against “Obamacare” in the GOP primaries as they shift to the general election later this year. While the health care law remains highly unpopular in the party, the prospect of taking away health care coverage from millions of people could trigger a backlash if the eventual GOP nominee’s plan to replace it is seen as coming up short.

“There are different phases of the campaign,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff.

Playing to like-minded voters in the primaries, Republican front-runner Donald Trump doesn’t have to spell how he’d replace Obama’s law. “When you get to the general election, the demand for what you are going to do different starts to escalate.”

Under “Obamacare,” the share of Americans without health insurance has dropped to a historic low of about 9 percent, with room to go even lower.

But even as the economy has expanded, major government surveys point to a

In this March 23, 2010. file photo, President Barack Obama signs the health care bill in the East Room of the White House in Washington. There’s growing evidence that most of the nation’s dramatic jump in health care coverage is due to President Barack Obama’s law, and not the gradual economic recovery.

Associated Press

lackluster rebound for employer-based coverage.

“It’s very clear that the Affordable Care Act has done most of the work in decreasing the number of uninsured,” said economist Robert Kaestner of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The numbers vary across different government surveys, but the overall pattern is strikingly similar: - The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found about 3 million more people gained employer coverage between 2010, when the health law passed, and 2014. But the number of uninsured people dropped by more than 10 million during that same period. The strongest gains appeared to come from

Medicaid, which was expanded under Obama’s law. The percentage of Americans covered by employers stayed about the same.

- The National Health Interview Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found that employer coverage was essentially flat between 2010 and 2014. But the same survey found 12.6 million more people with health insurance during that period.

- The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey found no statistically significant change in the number of people covered by employers from 2013 to 2014, while the number of uninsured people dropped by nearly 9 million as the law’s main coverage expansion got under way during that time.

“This kind of shift in insurance I don’t think can be explained by the economy,” economist Christine Eibner of the RAND Corporation said. “The increase (in coverage) is large enough that it can’t be driven by just economic recovery.”

Kaestner said “most of the heavy lifting” seems to be coming from Medicaid expansion.

Employer-provided insurance plans remain the mainstay for workers and their families, covering an estimated 150 million to 170 million Americans.

But even before the 20072009 economic recession, workplace coverage was steadily shrinking because of rising medical costs.

Obama’s law provides subsidized private insurance for those who don’t have access at work, along with a Medicaid expansion geared to low-income adults in states that agreed to do so. Most individuals are required to have coverage, and larger employers must offer it or face fines.

The health care law has been difficult to navigate for consumers, and its skinny policies can expose patients to high medical bills.

But it’s becoming a backstop for millions of Americans in a changing economy.

On the campaign trail, Republican presidential can-

didates denounce “Obamacare” for a litany of woes.

But some prominent conservative experts recognize that the law has increased coverage, even as they propose other approaches to meet that goal.

“Repealing the law without a plausible plan for replacing it would be a mistake,” said a policy paper from 10 leading GOP health policy experts, published by the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has already previewed how Democrats might use the issue this fall, frequently reminding voters they risk losing some popular benefits if the health care law is eliminated.

Meanwhile, a nonpartisan analysis of Trump’s initial outline for repealing and replacing the health care law found it would push millions back into the “uninsured” category.

The analysis last week from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that the Trump plan would increase the number of uninsured by about 21 million people while costing the government nearly $500 billion over 10 years.

Replacing Obama’s law with a conservative alternative that delivers comparable coverage would require considerable taxpayer dollars, something few Republicans seem ready to accept.

“Any repeal has to have a way to increase coverage and not just by a few million,” said economist Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare under former President George H.W. Bush.

Obama’s law “is obviously not the only way to do thisbut it is important that it gets done” Wilensky added.q

A8 U.S.

NEWS Seoul: North Korea fires 5 short-range projectiles

Tuesday 22 March 2016

HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired five shortrange projectiles into the sea on Monday, Seoul officials said, in a continuation of weapon launches it has carried out in apparent response to ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drills it sees as a provocation.

The projectiles launched from a site near the northeastern city of Hamhung flew about 200 kilometers (125 miles) before landing in waters off North Korea’s east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The South Korean military was attempting to determine whether the projectiles were missiles, artillery shells or rockets.

The firings came three days after Seoul said North Korea launched its first medium-range ballistic missile into the sea since early 2014, ignoring U.N. resolutions against such tests.

The firings appear to be North Korea’s response to annual springtime U.S.South Korean military exercises that it says are a rehearsal for an invasion. In the past two weeks North Korea has fired several short-range missiles and artillery shells into the sea and threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul.

This year’s drills are the largest ever, and come after North Korea conducted a nuclear test and a longrange rocket launch earlier this year, leading the U.N. Security Council to impose its toughest sanc-

U.S. State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador Sung Kim, right, answers a reporter’s questions as Coordinator for Sanctions Policy Ambassador Daniel Fried, left, listens after finishing the high level sanctions meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

tions on the country in two decades.

The U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, Sung Kim, who is visiting Seoul, said Monday that North Korea “should refrain from all provocative actions, including missile tests, which are clearly in violation of Security Council resolutions.”

On Sunday, North Korean state TV broadcast photos of leader Kim Jong Un

supervising landing and defensive drills. The photos showed artillery blazing, navy ships landing as shells fell nearby, and soldiers running with the national flag. North Korea has a history of photo manipulation and there was no way to verify the authenticity of the photos.

Last week, state media said Kim ordered tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying

such armaments. He issued the orders while overseeing what state media called a successful simulated test of a re-entry vehicle aimed at returning a nuclear warhead to the atmosphere from space so it could hit its intended target. The reentry vehicle is considered one of the last major technologies North Korea must master to develop longrange missiles equipped with nuclear weapons ca-

pable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

Analysts in South Korea said the medium-range missile launch last Friday may have been a test of the re-entry technology. North Korean state media have not commented on the reported launch.

South Korean defense officials say North Korea doesn’t yet have functioning intercontinental ballistic missiles.

WORLD NEWS 9 Gunmen attack EU mission in Mali capital; 1 attacker dead

Tuesday 22 March 2016

BABA AHMED Associated Press BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Gunmen launched an attack Monday evening on the European Union military training mission’s headquarters in the Malian capital, Bamako, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks on Western interests in the region.

Armed forces killed at least one man, who lay outside the hotel in jeans and a shirt in a pool of blood next to a Kalashnikov rifle. His

backpack lay beside him.

Cmdr. Modibo Naman Traore, a spokesman for the Malian special forces, said three other attackers were still being sought. As of late Monday, no group had claimed responsibility.

Sgt. Baba Dembele from the anti-terrorism unit in Bamako told an Associated Press reporter at the scene that it was believed some attackers had entered the Hotel Nord-Sud, where the mission is headquartered.

The EU training mission later released a statement say-

Secret operation brings 19 of Yemen’s last Jews to Israel JERUSALEM (AP) — Some of Yemen’s last remaining Jews have arrived in Israel after a clandestine operation retrieved them from the war-torn country, an Israeli nonprofit group said Monday.

Over the last few days, 19 Yemenite Jews landed in Israel — among them a rabbi carrying a centuries old Torah scroll —according to the Jewish Agency, which works closely with the Israeli government and acts as a link to Jews around the world.

The rabbi, Saliman Dahari, said the Torah scroll he brought is 800 years old, handed down over the generations.

Some of those airlifted to Israel relayed in Yemenite accented Hebrew to Israeli media the horrors of the fighting in Yemen along with dangers they faced from extremist groups.

Hundreds of Jews have arrived in Israel from Yemen in recent years, but the most recent arrivals could mark the end of this immigration.

The 50 remaining Jews in Yemen want to stay in the country, the agency said.

“This is a highly significant moment in the history of Israel,” said Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the

Jewish Agency. “Yemenite Jewry’s unique, 2,000-yearold contribution to the Jewish people will continue in the State of Israel.”

The Jewish Agency would not disclose details of the secret mission, which it said was a “complex covert operation.” It named the mission “Miktze Teiman,” a Hebrew phrase taken from a biblical verse that roughly translates as “from the ends of Yemen.” Israeli Channel 2 TV said the U.S. State Department was involved, a report the Jewish Agency declined to comment on.

The new arrivals leave behind a civil war raging in Yemen and a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in the country, which the Jewish Agency said was endangering the community.

The Jews that have chosen to stay in Yemen mostly live in the capital, Sanaa, where they dwell in a closed compound next to the U.S. embassy and enjoy the protection of Yemeni authorities, the agency said.

Some 50,000 Jews have arrived to Israel from Yemen since 1949 and have grown to become an integral part of Israeli society.q

ing it had come under attack by small arms fire but no personnel had been wounded, and that Malian security forces were securing the area.

EU soldiers, the Malian army, national police and other security forces stood outside the hotel.

The assault comes about four months after jihadis attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital, killing 20 people. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it was their first joint attack since al-Mourabitoun joined al-Qaida’s North Africa branch in 2015.

In January, extremists from the same militant groups attacked a cafe near a hotel popular with foreigners in Burkina Faso’s capital, killing at least 30 people.

And just last week, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for an assault on a beach in Ivory Coast that left at least 19 dead, identifying the

Mali troops on alert near the European Union military mission in Bamako, Mali, Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

three attackers as members of al-Mourabitoun and Sahara units.

This week marks the fourth anniversary of the coup that unleashed widespread chaos in Mali. After the overthrow of the democratically elected president, extremists in the northern half of Mali took over major towns and began implementing their strict interpretation of Islamic law. The amputations and public whippings only ended when a French-

led military mission forced them from power in 2013.

Over the past year, the jihadis have mounted a growing wave of violent attacks against U.N. peacekeepers who are trying to help stabilize the country.

The EU launched a training mission to help support and rebuild the Malian armed forces in February 2013 at the request of Malian authorities. The training is carried out in Koulikoro, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of the capital.

A10 WORLD

Tuesday 22 March 2016

NEWS

Greece sets up detention camps as refugee deal hits delays DEREK GATOPOULOS LORNE COOK Associated Press ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece detained hundreds of refugees and migrants on its islands Monday, as officials in Athens and the European Union conceded a much-heralded agreement to send thousands of asylum-seekers back to Turkey is facing delays.

Migrants who arrived after the deal took effect Sunday were being led to previously open refugee camps on the islands of Lesbos and Chios and held in detention, authorities on the islands said.

EU countries are trying to avoid a repeat of the mass migration in 2015, when more than a million people entered the bloc. Most were fleeing civil war in SyrPeople gather at the Athens’ port of Piraeus, where over 5,000 refugees and migrants stay, on Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

ia and other conflicts, traveling first to Turkey and then to the nearby Greek islands in dinghies and small boats.

Efforts to limit migration have run into multiple legal and practical obstacles.

Under the deal, Greek authorities will detain and return newly arrived refugees to Turkey. The EU will settle more refugees directly from Turkey and speed up financial aid to Ankara. The two sides, however, are still working out how migrants will be sent back.

“We are conscious of the difficulties,” EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said in Brussels.

“And we are working 24-7 to make sure that everything that needs to be in place for this agreement to be implemented soon is happening.”

Commission officials said support staff needed to implement the deal — including hundreds of translators and migration officers — would not start arriving until next week. Returns, they said, cannot start untilGreece changes its law to recognize Turkey as a “safe country” for asylum applications.

The human rights group Amnesty International sharply criticized the plan.

“Turkey does not offer adequate protection to anyone,” Iverna McGowan, the head of Amnesty’s EU office, told The Associated Press, accusing Turkey of routinely forcing Syrians back across the border.

Migrants, meanwhile, continued to reach Greek islands in large numbers, as smugglers appeared to be

opting for more overnight crossings and increasingly dangerous routes.

Four people died Sunday while trying to reach Greece, two men off the island of Lesbos and two girls off the tiny islet of Ro, the coast guard said. More than 1,600 people made the crossing to Greece on Sunday, and 262 were rescued in five incidents after vessels sank or were in distress. “We face an uphill effort. Implementation of this agreement will not be an easy issue,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said.

He met in Athens with EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and urged him to increase pressure on Turkey to crack down on smugglers.

Migrants and refugees have been stranded in Greece since Austria and Balkan countries started border closures in recent weeks. The number stranded reached 50,000 on Monday, with some 12,000 still camped out on Greece’s closed border with Macedonia.

On the Greek mainland, army personnel expanded refugee shelters at sites in the central and northern parts of the country — mostly at former army bases — so migrants who traveled to the Greek islands before the agreement came into effect could be resettled.

“We are creating between 500 and 1,000 additional shelter places every day ... and the total right now is 36,000,” Migration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas said.

On Monday, monitors from Turkey’s interior Ministry arrived on Lesbos, Chios and three other Greek islands to help supervise the agreement and were to stay for at least one week.q

WORLD NEWS A11

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Brazil poll shows strong support for president’s impeachment JENNY BARCHFIELD Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A new poll published Sunday suggested strong support for the impeachment of embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in a politically polarized country mired in an economic recession and a corruption probe that has ensnared much of the county’s political brass.

The poll by the respected Datafolha agency, published in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, said 68 percent of people surveyed want to see lawmakers vote to impeach Rousseff.

That’s up 8 percentage points since February, with the jump was highest among the rich, who supported Rousseff’s impeachment by 74 percent.

Just 10 percent rated Rousseff’s agoverment good or excellent, with 69 percent calling it bad or terrible.

The ratings of her predecessor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, were also down — possibly dented by controversy over his appointment as Rousseff’s chief of staff, a move critics said was a bid to shield him from corruption allegations.

Fifty-seven percent said they disapprove of him — a dramatic drop from the near-90 percent approval rating he had when leaving office in 2010.

But in a sign of the depth of Brazilians’ disgust with

the entire political establishment, Silva held onto his ranking as the best president Brazil ever had, with 35 percent of the survey’s respondents picking him, compared with the 16 percent who chose his predecessor, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

A Supreme Court justice on Friday suspended Silva’s nomination to the Cabinet post, and the full Supreme Court will have to decide whether he can take office.

Under Brazilian law, Cabinet members cannot be investigated, charged or imprisoned unless authorized by the Supreme Court.

The Datafolha survey was carried out on March 17 and 18, with face-to-face interviews with 2,794 people in171 cities and towns.

The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The effort to impeach Rousseff over allegations of fiscal mismanagement moved forward last week when the lower house created a special commission on the matter.

Rousseff backers say impeachment is a power grab by opponents who themselves have been sullied by an unrelated probe into kickbacks and bribery at the state-run oil company Petrobras. Eight of the 65 members of impeachment commission are currently facing charges, as is the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who opened the impeach-

ment proceedings.

Former President Cardozo, meanwhile, said in an interview published Sunday by O Estado de S. Paulo that impeachment is a way out of the country’s problems.

“With the government’s incapacity to function that one sees today, her (Rousseff’s) ability to hold firm and make the government work, I think the path is impeachment,” said Cardozo, who governed the country from 1995-2002.

The political turmoil comes as Brazil prepares to host

Woman shows poster written in Portuguese “There will not be a coup” next to a picture of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, during a rally in her support and of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, March 18, 2016.

Associated Press

the Summer Olympics in August while struggling with an economic crisis and an outbreak of the

Zika virus, which health experts believe may cause a devastating birth defect in newborns.q

A12 WORLD

Tuesday 22 March 2016

NEWS

Breaking taboo, Hindu widows celebrate festival of colors BISWAJEET BANERJEE Associated Press VRINDAVAN, India (AP) — Aruna Samaddar threw fistfuls of colored powder into the air. Blue and red and green, the cheerful colors settled on her white sari and all over other women nearby. In most of India, widows like Samaddar have no place in this joyful celebration of Holi, the Hindu festival of colors. The country’s millions of observant Hindu widows are expected to live out their days in quiet worship, dressed only in white. They are typically barred from all religious festivities because their very presence is considered inauspicious.

So for Samaddar, Monday’s celebration was a joy long denied.

“I am so happy. I am playing Holi after 12 years. I am happy, very happy,” said

Samaddar, who appeared to be in her early 30s. The powder made her white sari and those of the widows around her shimmer in myriad colors. So deep is the ostracization of widows that they’re often shunned by their families and forced to seek shelter in temples.

The holy city of Vrindavan, in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, is known as the City of Widows because it has given so many women shelter. And in recent years, widows have found a bit of color and joy here as well.

Aid group Sulabh International has been organizing regular Holi celebrations in Vrindavan since 2013. Samaddar and more than 1,000 other widows gathered in the courtyard of one of the city’s oldest temples — devoted to Krishna, the most playful of the Hindu gods. The festival of Holi

Hindu widows apply colour powder to each other during Holi celebrations at the Gopinath temple, 180 kilometres (112 miles) south-east of New Delhi, India, Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

falls on Thursday this year, but in Vrindavan and many

ndian Hindu widows throw flower petals and colored powder during Holi celebrations at the Gopinath temple, 180 kilometres (112 miles) south-east of New Delhi, India, Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

other parts of the country, the playing of colors begins a week ahead.

Hindu priests chanted religious verses as hundreds of widows splashed colored powders and played with water pistols filled with colored water. Showers of flower petals filled the air.

As loud music blasted, the younger women jostled with each other as they played with the colors.

For dozens of older women, years of social conditioning proved hard to break. They applied only tiny dots of color to each other’s foreheads. “Their participation in Holi symbolizes a break from tradition, which forbids a widow from wearing a colored sari, among many other things,” said Bindeshwar Pathak, the head of Sulabh International.

Sulabh was asked to oversee the lives of widows of the city by India’s Supreme Court following news reports of the widows being forced to beg for food

and into prostitution. While there are tens of thousands of widows in Vrindavan, the group has been appointed caretaker for about 1,500.

The organization looks after their basic needs and gives them a stipend of 2,000 rupees ($30) to buy essentials. They are taught to make incense sticks and garlands to ensure that they can earn a small amount of money on their own. But for most part, the women spend the day singing hymns to Krishna, for which they earn 10 rupees (15 cents).

The women range in age from 22 to 100. Some were abandoned by their families decades ago.

While some women were not comfortable joining in the celebration of colors Samaddar was determined to have at least one day of cheer. “We have got just one day to celebrate life,” she said as she tossed the colors joyfully. “Let’s do it to the hilt.”q

LOCAL A13

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Leatherback Sea Turtle Season has started

Do you have noticed the turtle information signs along the Boulevard at Eagle Beach? (one in front of Paradise Beach Villa’s and another one close to Costa Linda Beach Resort) The signs are called “Driekiel-O-Meter” with information about the Leatherback Sea Turtle (locally called Driekiel).

The Leatherback Sea Turtles nesting on Aruba don’t live in the Caribbean, but in

the Northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.

But they are born on Aruba’s beaches. After 20 – 30 years they reach maturity and then return to their natal beach in order to nest during the turtle nesting season (March – July).

This year’s first Leatherback made her nest in front of La Quinta.

Normally one female makes about 7 nests per

season. So Turtugaruba (the local foundation that protects the sea turtles on Aruba) was waiting for the second nest of this Leatherback. Normally “Sea Turtles Dig The Dark” , they come ashore at night, being less visible for predators.

But yesterday the turtle showed up at noon, in front of Bucuti Beach Resort.

She was not able to make her nest though, because

All species of sea turtles are endangered and need our protection.

What you can do to protect sea turtles: _Lights out for sea turtles.

Nighttime activities and artificial lighting may deter adult females from nesting.

So PLEASE keep all lights off, including flashlights, flash photography and video equipment. “Sea turtles dig the dark”

_Remove obstacles from the beach. Obstacles as beach furniture or recreational equipment may cause nesting females to abort their nesting attempt or may even trap them.

So don’t leave any beach chairs at night unattended close to the sea, but make a stack as far as possible away from the water . _ Do not disturb a nesting sea turtle. Do not attempt

of too many onlookers.

She returned into the sea without egg laying.

It is very impressive to see a huge sea turtle coming ashore, enjoy the sight, but make sure that the turtle does not see you! Stay out of her sight at a distance of at least 15 meters.

_ Ask your hotel manager to turn of or minimize the lights that are visible on the beach in front of the resort.

Close the curtains of your room at night to prevent light shining on the beach. _Do not drive on beaches.

Not all of the turtle nests on all the beaches around Aruba are marked. Vehicles (4x4, quads) compact the sand and can crush the eggs. _ Do not litter. Do not leave any plastic cups or bags on the beach. The wind will blow it into the sea. A floating plastic bag is easily mistaken for a jellyfish, the Leatherback Sea Turtle’s favorite food.

to touch the turtle but stay at a respectful distance (at least 15 meters). Do allow the turtle to complete the full nesting proces (about two hours) and don’t be in her way when she returns to the sea. _ Do call Turtugaruba (24 hour Turtle Hotline: (297) 592-9393.

Follow Turtugaruba at www.facebook.com/Turtugaruba If you witness a sea turtle, or if you see turtle crawl marks, during a late evening or early morning stroll on the beach please do call Turtugaruba or notify the frontdesk of your hotel.

Thanks!

A14 LOCAL

Tuesday 22 March 2016

“Let Us Be the Highlight of Your Vacation!”The Gold Mine Ranch Horseback Riding Tours – Aruba

Exciting, Personal, and Safe! These three words describe Aruba’s best horseback riding adventure with the Gold Mine Ranch.

Gracefully located right on the coast, the ranch offers exciting beach & ocean riding tours through some of the most amazing scenery of Aruba. The Gold Mine Ranch focuses on small groups in order to provide the best service to all its guests. “We provide horseback adventures, not just trail rides!”

The Gold Mine Ranch is a family operated ranch that aims to deliver personal service excellence, combined with a local flavor to all its guests. The Ranch was established in 2004 as a rescue Ranch, and despite the fact that horse feed is very expensive in Aruba, they still practice animal rescues. “Our family loves animals and has continued the tradition of raising & rescuing farm animals for over 5 generations. We strive to make our guests feel like family with our genuine Aruban hospitality, rich with local knowledge”. Besides the scenic natural beauty

of Aruba, the tour includes a brief history of the island and its local traditions.

Just like in every successful business, there’s an amazing team that comes together to make it all possible. “Behind this amazing experience we have a close family and a great team of volunteers to keep the horses happy and healthy”.

Our mission is to be the best by offering our best service to our guests and all our love to our animals and those in need. Our motivation is to be able to touch everyone we meet by giving a part of our history, culture, and Aruban hospitality. That is now and for always our main principle. That’s why our tours are small, tailored to the riding skill of each rider, giving you the personal touch in every horseback riding adventure.

The Gold Mine Ranch has been recognized by many for service excellence during the past five years. Over 500 guests’ reviews can be viewed on the popular travel website Tripadvisor. com. The travel website

has recognized the ranch’s efforts awarding them a Certificate of Excellence for four consecutive years now. The Certificate of Excellence honors hospitality businesses that consistently achieve outstanding traveler reviews on tripadvisor. com.

“We have consistently received excellent traveler ratings for 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015”. The TripAdvisor reviews highlight not only the amazing scenery that is experienced while on the tours, but also the excellent customer service the ranch offers its guests. Many travelers have even commented that the Gold Mine Ranch is the best not only in Aruba, but in the world.

Now, The Gold Mine Ranch has been honored once againby being nominated by its guests, this time for the Luxury Travel Guide Global Awards for 2016. This nomination is an outstanding recognition of the hard work, excellent service, and awesometeamthat comes together to make the Gold Mine Ranch the highlight of your vacation. � Wipe this of your Bucket list!

Contact information: Telephone: (297) 594-1317 or (297) 586-4954 Website: www.thegoldmineranch.com

e-mail: info@thegoldmineranch.com Address: Matividiri #60, last stop on the road to the Natural Bridge

LOCAL A15

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Loyal visitors honored at the Marriott Surf Club

Recently the Aruba Tourism Authority had the great pleasure of honoring a group of loyal and friendly Visitors of Aruba, at the Marriott Surf Club, as Ambassadors of Goodwill and Honorary Emerald Ambassadors.

The symbolic honorary titles are presented in the name

of the Minister of Tourism as a token of appreciation to guests who visit Aruba for 20 to 35 and 35 or more consecutive years.

The honorees were Mr. Kenneth and Mrs. Donna Miller from Massachusetts, Mr. Ciro Merone and his daughter Devon Anne Merone from Chesterfield NJ. and

Mr. Luc Anthony Zito from Quebec Canada received their Goodwill Ambassadors certificate, Mr. Luciano and Mrs. Giovanna Zito from Quebec Canada received their Honorary Emerald Ambassadors certificate representing over 35 years of consecutive visit to Aruba.

A16 LOCAL

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino turn off lights for earth hour

ORANJESTAD – MARCH– Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino contributed to ‘Earth Hour’ for the fifth consecutive year, a worldwide event organized once a year by World Wide Fund

of Nature (WWF). The main objective is to encourage households and businesses to take action on climate change and global movement by turning off lights for one hour. Renaissance Aru-

ba Resort & Casino joined ‘Earth Hour’ last Saturday which marked the 10th annual event.

From 8:30pm till 9:30pm there was an unusual dark-

ness; Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino turned off the lights of the parking lot in front of the government offices, all common light poles, parts of the Renaissance Marina Ho-

tel façade, Renaissance Marketplace exterior lights, Renaissance Mall exterior lights, Seaport Casino exterior lights and signs and also the popular Crystal Casino tower. q

SPORTS A17

Tuesday 22 March 2016

FIRST PITCH

In this April 5, 2010, file photo, President Barack Obama, wearing a Washington Nationals jacket and a Chicago White Sox hat, delivers a ceremonial pitch before the Washington Nationals home opening baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Nationals Park in Washington.

Associated Press

As Obama watches Rays in Havana, Cuban baseball in crisis PETER ORSI Associated Press HAVANA (AP) — When President Barack Obama watches the Tampa Bay Rays play Cuba’s national team Tuesday, it will come at the deepest moment of crisis in more than 50 years for the island’s famed staterun baseball league.

A flood of high-profile defections to the U.S. has gutted the country’s teams.

Stadiums and fields are run down, and experts and fans say quality of play is too. The national team hasn’t won a major international tournament in nearly a decade.

“It’s going through a bad period,” said Ismael Sene, a Cuban baseball historian.

Now authorities are considering once-unimaginable changes to save the socialist country’s national game

— reforms partly prompted

by Obama’s detente.

Major League Baseball is in talks with both nations’ governments on a potential deal that could make it easier for Cuban ballplayers to play in the United States without having to sneak away at international tournaments or risk high-seas defections with human smugglers.

Last week the Obama ad-

ministration implemented a policy to let Cubans earn salaries in the U.S. as long as they don’t pay special taxes back home. Those regulations specifically mention athletes, along with artists and performers.

Victor Mesa, a retired Cuban baseball legend who’s managing the team facing the Rays, said he has dreamed of a day when Cuban players could com-

pete in the United States without abandoning their homeland.

“They could go work there, they would give us work permits, the money can be brought back to Cuba — that is what we want, for our baseball players to be able to play there,” Mesa said.

Continued on Page 19

A18 SPORTS

Tuesday 22 March 2016

MLB increases prospect spending, overall percentage steady RONALD BLUM AP Baseball Writer Major league teams steeply increased the money spent on young players last year, when several Cuban prospects got big-money deals. Still, the overall percentage of revenue devoted to players has remained relatively stable for a decade.

Financial data released

by Major League Baseball to The Associated Press showed the big leaguers’ share of net revenue was between 48.5 percent and 51.7 percent each year since 2006.

Dollars spent on amateur players and minor leaguers rose by 29 percent last year — four times the increase in big league compensation. Counting signing bonuses for amateurs and minor league salaries, revenue devoted to players has ranged from 53.7 percent in 2012 to 57.5 percent last year.

“The data shows that the percentage of our revenue that has been paid to players has been fair-

In this Monday, Feb. 23, 2015 file photo, the shadow of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is projected on an MLB logo backdrop in Phoenix. Major league teams steeply increased the money spent on young players in 2015, but the overall percentage of revenue devoted to players has remained relatively stable for a decade.

Associated Press

ly consistent,” said Dan Halem, MLB’s chief legal officer. “Obviously, it’s a

free market and clubs can spend however much they choose. We’ve seen an

NFL looking at game in China as early as 2018 BARRY WILNER AP Pro Football Writer BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — The NFL could be headed to China in a couple of years. For a regular-season game, no less.

The league is looking into playing a game in China as early as the 2018 season. A detailed analysis of how much interest there would be in such a game in the world’s most populous country is under way, and is being discussed this week at the owners’ meetings. But few details, including which Chinese city the league will target, have been settled.

Quietly, several teams have expressed a willingness to be involved in a game in China, though the logistics would be more challenging than

participating in annual regular-season series in London. For one, heading to China after playing a Sunday game and then suiting up again the following Sunday could be problematic considering the hefty time difference and travel involved.

This year, the NFL will stage three games in London and return to Mexico for a regular-season game in November. The London matches will feature Washington against Cincinnati and Indianapolis facing Jacksonville at Wembley Stadium, the usual venue for NFL games, with the Bengals and Jaguars as hosts. The Giants face the Rams at Twickenham Stadium, a rugby ground being used for the first time, with the Rams as host.

On Nov. 21, Oakland will host Houston at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, the first NFL game there since 2005, when Arizona beat San Francisco 31-14 before 103,467 fans.

The NFL had planned to play a preseason game in China once before, in 2007 in Beijing, but it was canceled.

A trip to China would be the longest for the NFL, which has staged exhibition games in Japan and Australia. Preseason games were played in Tokyo in 1976, 1989-96, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2005. One match was played in Osaka in 2002. One game was played in 1999 in Sydney.

Germany also has expressed interest in hosting an NFL regular-season game.q

uptick in spending on the amateur side, and on the major league side it fluctuates slightly up and down but it has stayed within a range.”

Scott Boras, the most prominent player agent, said at the general managers’ meetings in November that the players’ share of revenue had dropped to 43 percent. Boras is including gross revenue from Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which formed in 2000, and the MLB Network, which launched in 2009 and is two-thirds owned by MLB. The expenses of running those companies are deducted to determine their net revenue. During his final season as baseball commissioner, Bud Selig said revenue would exceed $9 billion in 2014, but that was the gross figure.

“We believe that using net income for MLBAM and the network is appropriate for assessing the percentage of revenue that owners pay to players,” Halem said. “Owners only can spend the net profits of those businesses, not gross

revenues which they never receive.”

MLB said net revenue rose from $7.16 billion in 2013 to $7.79 billion in 2014 to $8.15 billion last year.

Dollars devoted to big leaguers climbed from $3.59 billion in 2013 to $3.87 billion in 2014 to $4.15 million last year; the amount on amateurs and minor leaguers was $420 million annually in 2013 and ‘14, then jumped to $540 million last year, when several Cuban defectors and young Dominicans received large signing bonuses.

Boston agreed to pay $31.5 million alone to Yoan Moncada, a 19-year-old Cuban second baseman.

Three other Cuban prospects agreed to bonuses of $8 million or more: Arizona pitcher Yoan Lopez, Los Angeles Angels shortstop Roberto Baldoquin and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Pablo Fernandez.

The Major League Baseball Players Association has access to MLB’s figures, and union head Tony Clark described the percentage devoted to players as “fairly constant.”

“Two or three percentage points one way or the other is always room for improvement,” he said of the fluctuations.

Boras did not want to comment on MLB’s figures, but did say he thought gross revenue should be used to determine increases in teams’ signing bonus pools for amateur players. The draft figures to be a key discussion matter in talks for a collective bargaining agreement to succeed the labor deal that expires Dec. 1. Under the 2012-16 agreement, the pools increase annually at the rate of the rise in total industry revenue — defined as MLB did in these figures.

“I trust in negotiations of the draft itself, and this is a union matter, that attention is paid to outside sources and expenses affecting the amount of money that teams can spend on drafted players pursuant to a calculation of net versus gross revenues,” Boras said. q

SPORTS A19

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Cuban baseball Continued from Page 17

One key sticking point is that while Cuba now allows some players to compete in foreign leagues, they are legally on loan from the Cuban Baseball Federation, which takes a cut of their salaries. Paying money directly to the Cuban government would violate the U.S. embargo under its current form.

Yulieski Gourriel became the first big star to go overseas in the prime of his career with the island’s full blessing, in 2014. He made $1 million in Japan with the Yokohama Dena Baystars and paid 10 percent of that to the federation — a huge payoff for a country where take-home salaries for Cubans average about $25 a month.

But last season he ended up back in Cuba after the club canceled his contract.

Then last month he and

younger brother Lourdes — also considered a promising prospect — slipped out of their hotel at the Caribbean Series in the Dominican Republic, joining the likes of Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes in a string of high-profile defections.

Photos posted on Twitter in early March showed Gourriel at the Miami airport.

At the time he left, Gourriel was batting around .500 for Havana’s powerhouse club Industriales and was on pace to shatter multiple hitting records. Some of that was surely skewed by a decline in local pitching, but Gourriel is widely considered to be the finest Cuban player of his generation.

“That was a symbolic blow,” said Peter C. Bjarkman, author of the forthcoming book “Cuba’s Baseball Defectors: The Inside Story.”

Bjarkman interpreted it as a sign that no MLB deal was imminent, because otherwise Gourriel probably would have stayed: “Run-

ning out of time as he was (at age 31), he felt he had to go now or never.”

Another problem is that Cuba plays in the winter.

That means players who also compete in Japan or elsewhere get precious little offseason.

Senior players like Gourriel would risk exhaustion and potentially serious injury.

Sene said authorities already are talking of shifting to a May-September league that would operate without players who sign with the Majors. A second, six-team league could run from October to December when they would be available to play back home after the U.S. season ends.

“I hope that can happen,” Sene said.

“For me it is the solution to the general quality” of play in Cuba.

It would likely be necessary, because MLB clubs that pay millions of dollars in salaries will aggressively defend their investment.

“The White Sox are not go-

Tampa Bay Rays catcher Rene Rivera, right, talks with Diego Lopez, 9, at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

ing to release (Jose) Abreu in the middle of a pennant race to go play for Cuba,” Bjarkman said.

Cuban baseball insiders say many players are genuinely torn between loyalty to the Cuban system that nurtured their talent and the dream of competing against the best.

But MLB salaries are a powerful lure. In recent years signings have netted whop-

ping deals for Cubans like Rusney Castillo ($72.5 million, Red Sox) and Abreu ($68 million, White Sox).

“Every baseball player would like to test himself in that league,” said Livan Moinelo, a left-handed pitcher for Pinar del Rio. “Big possibilities are opening for Cuban ballplayers to play in the Major Leagues, and we hope it turns out for the best.”q

20 SPORTS

Tuesday 22 March 2016

NHL Capsules

Penguins run win streak to 6, top Capitals 6-2

Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby (87) and Washington Capitals’ Karl Alzner (27) collide during the second period of an NHL hockey game in Pittsburgh, Sunday, March 20, 2016.

Associated Press

The Associated Press PITTSBURGH (AP) — Rookie Tom Kuhnhackl had a goal and two assists on his way to a career-best three points as the Pittsburgh Penguins denied the Washington Capitals a chance to lock up the Metropolitan Division with a dominant 6-2 win on Sunday night.

Matt Cullen, Trevor Daley, Justin Schultz, Chris Kunitz and Bryan Rust also scored for Pittsburgh. Sidney Crosby picked up two assists to push his scoring streak to 12 games as the Penguins won their sixth straight. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 16 shots to move past the New York Rangers and into second place behind Washington in the Metropolitan.

The Capitals could have clinched the franchise’s ninth division title with a win but instead gave up a season-high six goals. Braden Holtby finished with 21

saves before being pulled in the third. Jason Chimera and Andre Burakovsky scored for Washington.

DUCKS 3, JETS 2, OT WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Jakob Silfverberg scored at 4:01 of overtime to lift Anaheim past Winnipeg.

Silfverberg’s 13th goal of the season came as he was left all alone in front of Jets goalie Michael Hutchinson, who made a glove save on the first attempt but couldn’t corral the rebound, allowing Silfverberg to score.

Jamie McGinn and Ryan Kesler scored for the Ducks in regulation, and John Gibson made 27 saves for his 17th win.

Anaheim got its 40th win of the season and moved four points behind Los Angeles Kings for first place in the Pacific Division.

Paul Postma and Blake Wheeler scored for the Jets,

who last their third straight.

Hutchinson finished with 30 saves.

DEVILS 2, BLUE JACKETS 1 NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) — Devante Smith-Pelly scored the tiebreaking goal 8:38 into the third period and Scott Wedgewood made 27 saves in his NHL debut to lead New Jersey.

Reid Boucher also scored as the Devils ended a sixgame losing streak against the Blue Jackets (1-5-1), less than 24 hours after dropping a 6-3 decision in Columbus.

Jared Boll scored for the Blue Jackets, while Joonas Korpisalo made 20 saves.

Smith-Pelly did most of the work on his seventh goal in nine games in New Jersey.

His forecheck on Nick Foligno forced the Columbus forward to send the puck around the boards. Devils defenseman Adam Larsson stopped it at the point and sent it to Smith-Pelly on the edge of the crease.

Korpisalo stopped his backhander but the Devils’ forward nudged the rebound into the net.

FLAMES 4, CANADIENS 1 MONTREAL (AP) — Sean Monahan had two goals and an assist to help Calgary beat Montreal.

Joe Colborne and Johnny Gaudreau also scored for the Flames, who have points in four straight games. Niklas Backstrom, playing for the first time in more than a year, finished

with 21 saves.

Michael McCarron scored his first NHL goal for Montreal, which has lost four of its last five. Michael Condon stopped 30 shots.

Backstrom, acquired from Minnesota on Feb. 29, appeared in his first NHL game since Jan. 13, 2015.

One of Montreal’s best chances came when Flames defenseman Mark Giordano accidentally backhanded a shot at his own net in the first period.

WILD 3, BLACKHAWKS 2, SO CHICAGO (AP) — Charlie Coyle scored the only goal in the shootout as Minnesota beat Chicago for the fourth time in four meetings this season.

Coyle, the Wild’s first shooter, beat Chicago’s Scott Darling a night after he and Zach Parise scored in the tiebreaker in a home win over Carolina.

Nino Niederreiter had his 18th goal and added an assist, and Erik Haula also scored in regulation for Minnesota. Devan Dubnyk stopped 29 shots through overtime and then was perfect in the shootout against Chicago’s Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Artemi Panarin.

Andrew Shaw scored his 12th goal to end an 11game drought and linemate Richard Panik connected to end a 14-game streak without a goal to bring the Blackhawks back from a 2-0 deficit. Darling

made his third straight start and finished with 32 saves.

AVALANCHE 3, OILERS 2 EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Gabriel Landeskog had a goal and an assist as Colorado got its third straight win.

Tyson Barrie and Blake Comeau also scored for the Avalanche, who remained one point ahead of Minnesota for the second and final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Matt Hendricks and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored for Edmonton, which snapped a two-game winning streak and was mathematically eliminated from playoff contention for the 10th consecutive year.

Landeskog and Barrie scored in the second period to give the Avalanche a 2-0 lead.

Hendricks got the Oilers on the scoreboard with his second goal in two games about 3 minutes into the third. However, Comeau deflected Erik Johnson’s shot to restore Colorado two-goal lead midway through the period.

Nugent-Hopkins closed the scoring with just under 7.6 seconds remaining.

SHARKS 3, COYOTES 0 SAN JOSE, California (AP) — Tomas Hertl scored a power-play goal in the latest contribution from San Jose’s second unit and James Reimer earned his second shutout in four starts with the Sharks.q

Brad Davis’ first goal with Sporting KC beats Toronto FC 1-0 KANSAS CITY, Kansas (AP) — Brad Davis scored the first goal with his new team, helping unbeaten Sporting Kansas City stay atop the MLS standings with 1-0 win over Toronto FC. Davis joined Sporting KC for his 15th season in the MLS after spending a decade at the Houston Dynamo.

He beat defender Justin

Morrow to a loose ball and slotted a left-foot shot into the far corner in the 70th minute Sunday to secure KC’s third win from as many games.

It was his 56th career MLS goal.

Sporting KC was reduced to 10 men in the 84th when Roger Espinoza was sent off for a serious foul but the

hosts held firm, and Toronto missed a chance for an equalizer when Sebastian Giovonco’s free kick hit the defensive wall in the last minute of stoppage time.

The Philadelphia Union won their home opener 3-0 over the 10-man New England Revolution and moved into a share of top spot in the Eastern Conference on six

points with Montreal.

C.J. Sapong had two firsthalf goals, both left foot shots from crossed by Fabinho in the 18th and Creavalle in the 33rd. Sebastien Le Toux capped the scoring in stoppage time.

Winless New England played with 10 men after Je-Vaughn Watson was

sent off for a studs-up challenge on Roland Alberg in the 36th minute.

In the only other match Sunday, D.C. United salvaged a 1-1 draw with Fabian Espindola’s 80th-minute equalizer against the Colorado Rapids canceling out Dillon Powers’ header from Marco Pappa’s corner in the 69th minute.q

SPORTS A21

Tuesday 22 March 2016

NBA Capsules

Nowitzki, Williams lead Mavericks past Trail Blazers 132-120 The Associated Press DALLAS (AP) — Dirk Nowitzki scored 40 points and Deron Williams had 31 points and 16 assists, leading the Dallas Mavericks to a 132-120 overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.

Nowitzki and Williams capped season-high scoring efforts with the first 11 points in overtime. Williams made a tiebreaking 3-pointer before Nowitzki scored eight straight points.

The Mavericks’ victory moved them within a halfgame of the Trail Blazers for the sixth playoff position in the Western Conference.

Dallas has 12 games to play, and Portland 11.

The Mavericks (35-35) also gained a tiebreaker by winning the first two of three games in the season series against the Trail Blazers (3635). The teams play again in Portland on Wednesday.

Damian Lillard led the Trail Blazers with 26 points. Allen Crabbe scored 24 points, and C.J. McCollum had 22.

Miles Plumlee had 14 points and 19 rebounds.

RAPTORS 105, MAGIC 100 TORONTO (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 25 points, leading Toronto to the win.

Luis Scola had 20 points as the Raptors moved within one game of idle Cleveland for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

Evan Fournier and Victor Oladipo each had 21 points for Orlando, which lost its seventh straight game in Toronto and has now lost 13 of the last 14 meetings with the Raptors.

A 3-pointer from Fournier with 1:11 remaining trimmed Toronto’s lead to 97-96, but DeRozan responded with a floating jumper with 53.9 seconds left and added the free throw after being fouled by Ersan Ilyasova.

PELICANS 109, CLIPPERS 105 NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Jrue Holiday scored 22 points, helping the injury-riddled Pelicans to the victory.

Omer Asik scored a season-high 15 points and tied his season best with 14 rebounds for New Orleans, while Dante Cunningham scored a season-high 19 points. Reserve guard Tim Frazier added a seasonhigh 17 points.

Chris Paul and J.J. Redick each scored 24 points, and Paul also had 13 assists for the Clippers, who lost in Memphis on Saturday night

Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) attempts a layup during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Portland Trail Blazers Sunday, March 20, 2016, in Dallas. Dallas won in overtime 132-120.

Associated Press

and were playing their second game in less than 24 hours. Los Angeles missed 19 3-point attempts and 13 free throws.

The Pelicans tipped off shortly after announcing All-Star forward Anthony Davis, who hurt his left knee on Friday night, would miss the rest of the season to treat that injury as well as a torn labrum in his left shoulder that he played with for much of the season.

KINGS 88, KNICKS 80 NEW YORK (AP) — DeMarcus Cousins had 24 points and 20 rebounds, and Sacramento had its best defensive performance of the season.

The Kings, who came in allowing a league-worst 109.6 points per game, easily surpassed their previous best of 88 points allowed, shutting down a Knicks team that played without leading scorer Carmelo Anthony.

Cousins emerged the winner in a good big-man duel with Robin Lopez, who finished with 23 points and 20 rebounds for the Knicks, playing through his usual frustrations with the officiating and even a security guard in this one.

New York fell to 0-8 this season without Anthony, who was still bothered by symptoms of a migraine that he began suffering from Saturday night in a loss at Washington.

CELTICS 120, 76ERS 105 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Isaiah Thomas led six Celtics players in double figures with 26 points as Boston ended a four-game skid.

Jared Sullinger added 17 points and 13 rebounds for Boston, which swept the

four-game season series against the 76ers to make it eight consecutive wins against Philadelphia. The Celtics avoided matching their longest losing streak of the season with the victory.

Carl Landry scored 26 points for the 76ers, who have lost five in a row and 18 of the last 19 to fall to 9-61.

JAZZ 94, BUCKS 85 MILWAUKEE (AP) — Gordon Hayward scored 18 points, including 13 during a decisive third quarter, as the Jazz won for the fifth time in six games.

Utah remained one game behind Dallas for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Trey Lyles added 14 points for the Jazz, and Shelvin Mack had 13 points and 12 assists. Rudy Gobert finished with 12 points and 14 rebounds.

Milwaukee is 4-18 in its last 22 games against Utah.

Jabari Parker had 19 points and eight rebounds for the Bucks.q

A22

Tuesday 22 March 2016

SPORTS

Jimmie Johnson gets past Harvick in OT to win at Fontana GREG BEACHAM AP Sports Writer FONTANA, California (AP) — Jimmie Johnson somehow saved his fastest lap for last, and Southern California’s favorite racing son soared to another historic victory.

Johnson pulled away in overtime to beat Kevin Harvick on Sunday for his record sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win at Fontana.

With his 77th career victory, Johnson passed Dale Earnhardt for seventh place in NASCAR annals. And he did it in style: Johnson was third on the late restart, but he surged past leader Denny Hamlin while giving a little bump to Harvick before side-drafting and pulling away.

After showcasing his famed skills to snare another landmark win, the 40-year-old Johnson got a bit reflective when asked about his place in the sport.

“I feel like physically and mentally, I’m the best that I’ve ever been in my career,” the six-time series champion said. “I’m in the space I want to be in, which makes me want to stick around and do this for

Johnson is from El Cajon, just outside San Diego. He won at Fontana in 2009 and 2010, but hadn’t finished higher than ninth in his last four races at his closest thing to a hometown track, one hour east of Los Angeles.

Driver Jimmie Johnson poses for a photo wearing a superman cape in after winning the Auto Club 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway on Sunday, March, 19, 2016, in Fontana, Calif.

Associated Press

a lot of years. There’s no guarantees about when you’re going to win and have success, so I’ve been very, very fortunate to win 77 of these things, which blows my mind.”

Johnson finished with his fastest lap of the race to claim his second overtime win of the young season, adding Fontana to Atlanta.

He has won three of his last eight races after a 20-race winless skid in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Harvick was in position to win for the second consecutive week before sec-

ond-place Kyle Busch blew a tire with two laps to go.

Hamlin got off pit road first for his first lead of the race, but Johnson’s fresh tires and cleverness gave him the speed needed to get ahead.

“I knew we had a great car, and the caution fell at a bad time,” Johnson said.

“The run before, I just didn’t have the tires on the car to race with those guys. I got a great run off of Turn 2, and I thought, ‘Man, I’ve got a shot at this thing,’ which I didn’t expect to have. Harvick has been so fast.”

Harvick finished second to Johnson for the ninth consecutive time that the California natives have occupied the top two spots.

“That was the worst it’s taken off on the restarts,” Harvick said of the last lap.

“But we weren’t good on the restarts for four or five laps unless we were by ourselves. We weren’t able to drive it in like I needed to.

Just didn’t have the front tires turning, and then the back wouldn’t grip. Still a good day for us.”

Hamlin was third, followed

by Joey Logano and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Martin Truex Jr. was in contention until late contact with Logano, who left Truex furious.

The combination of Auto Club Speedway’s aged asphalt and NASCAR’s new low-downforce package led to the excellent entertainment value that most

drivers expected in the closest race to Hollywood.

Fontana showcased uncommonly close racing and multiple passes on one of the series’ fastest tracks.

ROUGH WEEKEND: Busch’s blown tire while he was in second place capped a hard-luck weekend for the defending Sprint Cup champion, who won here in 2013 and 2014. A day after Busch blew a tire while leading on the last lap and closing in on his fourth straight Xfinity Series victory, his streak of eight straight top-five Cup finishes also ended in dismaying fashion.q BIG CRASH: Kyle Larson was unhurt after a frightening solo crash on the 48th lap that sent his entire car flying into the air. He hit the wall head-on when he blew his left rear tire, but climbed out after landing on his wheels.

BAD CRASH: Danica Patrick then hit the wall hard with 79 laps to go after contact while passing Kasey Kahne, who was a lap down. Patrick and her team were angry with Kahne for the bump, with Patrick calling Kahne “pretty desperate.”

WTA Tour CEO assails ‘alarming’ criticism of female players

In this March 20, 2016, file photo, tournament director Raymond Moore gestures while speaking at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, Calif.

Associated Press

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) — The former tournament director at Indian Wells who now runs the WTA Tour calls his successor’s critical comments about women’s tennis players “disappointing and alarming.”

Before Sunday’s finals at the BNP Paribas Open, current tournament director Raymond Moore said women “ride on the coattails of the men.” He later

issued a written apology.

Moore’s longtime colleague at Indian Wells, Steve Simon, became the WTA’s CEO last fall.

“As the tournament director of one of the pre-eminent events in professional tennis, the comments made today by Raymond Moore were extremely disappointing and alarming,” Simon said in a statement late Sunday.

“The WTA stands on its own and was founded on the principles of equality and empowerment. I am proud of all the strong athletes on the WTA who put in hard work and sacrifice every single day. Tennis as a whole is enriched by the contributions and accomplishments of every player, both male and female.”

The president of the U.S. Tennis Association also repudiated Moore’s comments Monday. Katrina Adams, who played on the WTA Tour for 12 years, reiterated the USTA and U.S. Open’s commitment to player equality.

“There is no place in this sport for antiquated, sexist or uninformed ideologies,” she said in a statement, “and the comments made yesterday in no way

reflect the beliefs of the vast majority of those in the tennis world.”

Moore, a 69-year-old former touring pro from South Africa, oversees the $7 million tournament in the California desert featuring the men’s and women’s tours.

In the event’s early days, he and fellow ex-player Charlie Pasarell started PM Sports Management, which oversaw the tournament as it expanded.

Moore became the event’s CEO in 2012.

“In my next life when I come back I want to be someone in the WTA because they ride on the coattails of the men. They don’t make any decisions and they are lucky. They are very, very lucky,” he said. “If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees

and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport.”

He also referred to women’s players as “physically attractive and competitively attractive.” Moore later apologized, calling his comments “in extremely poor taste and erroneous.”

“I am truly sorry for those remarks, and apologize to all the players and WTA as a whole,” the statement said. “We had a women’s final today that reflects the strength of the players, especially Serena and Victoria, and the entire WTA. Again, I am truly sorry for my remarks.”

Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka also criticized Moore’s comments after they played in the final Sunday.

TECHNOLOGY A23

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Emojimania: Fans and brands crying tears of joy LEANNE ITALIE Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — When it comes to emojis, the future is very, very ... Face with Tears of Joy. If you don’t know what that means then you: a) aren’t a 14-year-old girl. b) love to hate those tiny pictures that people text you all the time. Or c) are nowhere near a smartphone or online chat.

Otherwise, here in 2016, it’s all emojis, all the time. And Face with Tears of Joy, by the way, is a bright yellow happy face with a classic, toothy grin as tears fall.

The Face was chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as its 2015 “word” of the year, based on its popularity and reflecting the rise of emojis to help charitable causes, promote businesses and generally assist oh-somany-more of us in further expressing ourselves on social media and in texts.

The Beyhive knows. The collective fan base of Beyonce recently spammed Amber Rose with bumblebee emojis when they sensed a diss of their queen.

Taco Bell also knows. Emoji overseers approved a taco character last year after a yearlong campaign by the company to get one up and running, rewarding users of said taco on Twitter with gifts of free photos, GIFs and other virtual playthings to celebrate.

So what’s it all about?

Here’s a look at the past, present and rosy future of emojis: ___ WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? While there’s now a strict definition of emojis as images created through standardized computer coding that works across platforms, they have many, many popular cousins by way of “stickers,” which are images without the wonky back end. Kimojis, the invention of Kim Kardashian, aren’t technically emojis, for instance, at least in the eyes of purists.

In tech lore, the great emoji explosion has a grandfather in Japan and his

name is Shigetaka Kurita.

He was inspired in the 1990s by manja and kanji when he and others on a team working to develop what is considered the world’s first widespread mobile Internet platform came up with some rudimentary characters. They were working a good decade before Apple developed a set of emojis for the first iPhones.

Emojis are either loads of fun or the bane of your existence. One thing is sure: There’s no worry they’ll become a “language” in and of themselves. While everybody from Coca-Cola to the Kitten Bowl have come up with little pictographs to whip up interest in themselves, emojis exist mainly to nuance the words regular folk type, standing in for tone of voice, facial expressions and physical gestures — extended middle finger emoji added recently.

“Words aren’t dead. Long live the emoji, long live the word,” laughed Gretchen McCulloch, a Toronto linguist who, like some others in her field, is studying emojis and other aspects of Internet language.

Emojis have been compared to hieroglyphs, but McCulloch is not on board.

That ancient picture-speak included symbols with literal meaning, but others stood in for actual sound.

Emoji enthusiasts have played with telling wordfree stories using their little darlings alone and translating song lyrics into the pictures, “but they can’t be put together like letters to make a pronounceable word,” McCulloch said. ___ THE EMOJI OVERSEERS Back when Kurita was creating some of the first emojis, chaos already had ensued in trying to make all the pagers and all the emerging mobile phones and the newfangled thing called email and everything else Internet-ish that was bubbling up speak to each other. And also to allow people in Japan used to a more formal way of communicating make themselves understood in

In this Feb. 18, 2016, file photo, Julie Zhuo, product design director at Facebook, demonstrates the new emoji icons. With more than 270 billion text messages sent a day, those tiny pictures and symbols have exploded beyond their initial fan base of 14-year-old girls. Now businesses, charities and events are scrambling to come up with their own.

Associated Press

the emerging shorthand.

Enter the Unicode Consortium, on the coding end.

It’s a volunteer nonprofit industry organization working in collaboration with the International Organization for Standardization, the latter an independent non-governmental body that helps develop specifications for all sorts of things, including emojis, on a global scale.

Unicode, co-founded and headed by Mark Davis in Zurich, has a big, big mission, of which emojis have a place: making sure all the languages in the world are encoded and supported across platforms and devices.

The key word here is volunteer. Davis has a whole other job at Google, but he has dedicated himself to the task above. He also co-chairs the consortium’s emoji subcommittee, a cog in a vetting process for new emojis that can take up to two years before new ones are put into the Unicode Standard for the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook to do with what they wish.

Where does Davis sit with the rapid rise of emojis?

“It has been a surprise. We didn’t fully understand how popular they were going to be,” he said.

At the moment, Unicode

has released 1,624 emojis, with more options when you factor in modifiers for such things as skin tone.

The emoji subcommittee fields about 100 proposals for new emojis a year. Not all make it through the vetting process.

“We don’t encode emoji for movie or fictional people, or for deities. And we’re not going to give you a Donald Trump,” Davis said.

Gender, he said, is among the next frontiers for emojis. Demand for a female runner, for instance, will be voted on in May as critics have questioned a malefemale divide. The consortium is trying to come up with a way to more easily and quickly customize emoji for gender, hair color and other features, Davis said.

“Personally, I am very much looking forward to a face palm emoji,” he joked. ___ EMOJI LOVERS AND HATERS Meet Elle Brown. She’s a 9-year-old “kidpreneur” from Plant City, Florida. She makes emoji-theme jewelry and key fobs that she sells at school and church, and that her mom sells from her desk at an insurance firm.

“My favorite one is the “poo” emoji, and the money emoji,” said Elle.

People of all ages buy from

her mom, Zee Brown.

“It’s like having Girl Scout cookies. People come to me,” she said.

While marketers are all over emojis these days, professional brander Kevin Winslow in Boise, Idaho, was a reluctant adopter.

“I thought they were rather silly. It didn’t seem to me like something a grown-up would use,” he said. “Now they’re a necessity in social media campaigns. Sometimes they help do away with the exclamation point, which I also despise.”

Vivian Rosenthal is founder and head of Snaps, a platform on which keyboards full of branded images are launched, including marketing campaigns intended to support social causes, such as the plight of refugees.q With nearly half of all Instagram posts now including at least one emoji and with more than 270 billion text messages sent a day across all mobile devices, brands are trying big time to monetize emojis, Rosenthal said.

“Basically, messaging is social 2.0,” she added. “People want to convey more and more emotion. The language of the future is a visually based language.

It’s very universal and democratic.”q

A24 BUSINESS

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Starwood battle to have little impact on price of rooms NEW YORK (AP) — The bidding war over the Starwood hotel chain is being closely watched by investors and frequent business travelers.

For the leisure crowd, however, who owns their hotel makes very little difference.

Starwood said Monday it has accepted a sweetened $14.41 billion bid from Marriott, just days after a Chinese insurance company appeared to steal it away from the hotel chain with an offer valued at $14.15 billion.

Shares of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, which traded at $60 in early February, were at $83.80 in morning trading Monday. Marriott shares are up 23 percent in the same time frame.

The buyout would create the world’s biggest hotel company and give Marriott a stable of tony properties run by Starwood, like the St. Regis New York. Until shareholders of both companies vote on April 8, there could still be a counteroffer from China’s Anbang or a bid from another suitor.

Unlike the merger of airlines or office supply stores, this deal should have minimal impact on consumer choices or prices.

Marriott and Starwood — like other hotel chains — own very few individual hotels. Instead they manage or franchise their brands to hundreds of individual owners, often real estate development companies.

This April, 28, 2014, file photo, shows a Marriott hotel in Cranberry Township, Pa. Marriott wins over Starwood with revised buyout bid to create global hotel giant, announced Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

Those individual hotel owners are responsible for setting nightly room rates. A developer will often own a Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Sheraton in the same city.

Frequent business travelers, however, have more on the line.

Road warriors try to stay loyal to one hotel chain, airline and car rental company because they are rewarded with more upgrades and points. Guests who stay typically 50 nights a year with the same hotel chain get free breakfast, late check-out and often nicer rooms.

For Marriott loyalists, this

merger would add nearly 1,300 extra hotels for them to stay at. That includes many high-end resorts to use their loyal points at after countless nights on the road for work. Starwood, based in Stamford, Connecticut, owns Sheraton,

Westin and St. Regis.

Starwood over the weekend became the first U.S. hotel operator to gain access to Cuba, just as President Barack Obama arrived to Cuba for the first visit by a sitting U.S. president in almost 90 years.

The revised deal would give Starwood shareholders $21 in cash and 0.80 shares of Marriott International Inc. Class A stock for each Starwood share.

Starwood shareholders are also expected to get Interval Leisure Group stock valued at $5.83 per share.

Taken together, that would value Starwood stock at $85.36 per share, or about $14.41 billion.

Anbang’s offer is for $83.83 for each Starwood share, or approximately $14.15 billion. Marriott has more than 4,400 properties in 87 countries and territories, under brands such as RitzCarlton, Residence Inn and Marriott. While Starwood fans would gain access to more hotels, they are hesitant about the deal.

Having Anbang buy Starwood would keep their much-beloved hotel chain independent of Marriott.

Smaller hotel chains like Starwood and Hyatt have had to fight harder to win over business travelers and therefore offer more benefits to their most-frequent guests.q

First Airbus jet made in U.S. undergoes successful flight test MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — European aircraft maker Airbus conducted the inaugural test flight on its first U.S.made jetliner Monday, calling the exercise a success after the plane flew for hours over the Gulf of Mexico.

The A321 passenger jet took off and landed at Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, site of the company’s newplant near downtown Mobile, Alabama.

The three-hour flight over the Gulf was to include a series of maneuvers and tests of all the airplane’s operating systems. The company later tweeted that the flight was successful.

In a statement, Gov. Robert Bentley called the flight a “major milestone” for the state’s aviation sector.

“Aerospace and aviation industries are extremely important to Alabama, and

The first Airbus A-321 aircraft assembled in Mobile made its first test flight Monday, March 21, 2016, taking off from Brookley Field in downtown Mobile. Ala. Associated Press

it is exciting to know soon JetBlue will receive its first A321 proudly made in Alabama,” he said.

The aircraft will be delivered to purchaser JetBlue in a few weeks after final preparations.

Airbus began constructing the $600 million plant

in 2013 after selecting Alabama as the location.

State and local governments provided more than $158 million in incentives for the factory, which will employ about 1,000 people.

The plant will produce A319 and A320 aircraft aside from the A321.q

BUSINESS A25

Tuesday 22 March 2016

U.S. home sales slump in February; supply shortage hits market JOSH BOAK AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans retreated from home-buying in February, reversing months of prior gains as low inventories push up prices to levels that restrict sales.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes fell 7.1 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million. The decline follows robust yearly sales rates of 5.47 million in January and 5.45 million in December, a new regulation had delayed closings in November.

The housing market enters the traditional spring buying season facing a quandary: There are relatively few properties listed for sale, even as steady job gains and low mortgage rates have bolstered demand from would-be buyers. The limited supplies have fueled rising prices that have, in turn, reduced affordability and limited sales levels.

These cost pressures were

further enhanced by a volatile stock market that hit down payment savings.

“We assume the plunge in the stock market in the first six weeks of this year persuaded some potential homebuyers to reconsider, at least temporarily,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Shepherdson noted that sales momentum “stalled” in February, but sales volumes might pick-up in the spring.

The median home sales price was $210,800 in February, a 4.4 percent annual increase from a year ago.

Tight supplies have driven the increases in home prices, forcing buyers to bid more for hotly contested homes.

Listings in February fell 1.1 percent from a year ago.

Many homeowners are hesitant to sell, since they would need more equity to cover the down payment for stepping-up to a new property. Investors have also turned homes into

rentals, further depriving the market of supplies.

The Realtors have forecast that overall sales levels will be nearly unchanged this year, after a 6.5 percent gain in 2015. But median sales prices are forecast to rise 4 percent, meaningfully faster than wages.

Home-buying fell sharply in the Northeast and Midwest last month, while slipping less severely in the South and West.

Investors accounted for 18 percent of sales in February. First-time buyers made up 30 percent of purchases, staying persistently below their historic share of 40 percent.

The shortage remains a consequence of the burst housing bubble, which initially flooded the market with distressed foreclosures and then left a limited selection of homes for buyers as the recovery from the Great Recession surpassed 6 ½ years.

Inventory is particularly low for starter homes, keeping first-time buyers out of the

This Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015 file photo shows an existing home for sale in Roswell, Ga. On Monday, March 21, 2016, the National Association of Realtors reports on sales of existing homes in February.

Associated Press

market, according to a separate report released Monday by the real estate firm Trulia.

At the bottom of the housing market in 2012, a typical homebuyer only needed to commit 32.2 percent of their income to buy the median priced starter home. That share of income has climbed to 37.7 percent, putting home ownership out of reach for many.

Trulia found a market tilting toward wealthier buyers.

The inventory of starter and trade-up homes has tumbled more than 40 percent since the start of 2012, while premium homes with a median list price of $542,805 account for a larger share of all listings.

Still, sales have been aided over the past year by hiring that has pushed unemployment to a healthy 4.9 percent. q

Stocks shake off an early loss and end with slight gains

This Oct. 4, 2014, file photo, shows the facade of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks are off to a mixed start Monday, March 21, 2016, as the market comes off its fifth straight week of gains.

Associated Press

ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Major U.S. stock indexes eked out modest gains on Monday, extending the market’s winning streak into a fourth day.

Stocks wavered into the red at times before steadying in the late afternoon.

The price of oil also veered lower at times, but ended

higher.

Investors had their eye on the latest batch of company deal news and new data on housing that sent homebuilders broadly lower.

Telecommunications services and health care stocks were among the biggest risers.

Monday’s action builds on the market’s five-week

string of gains and suggests an improved outlook by investors since the market’s rocky start to 2016. Worries about the global economy prompted the Federal Reserve to slow the pace of interest rate increases this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 21.57 points, or 0.1 percent, to 17,623.87.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 2.02 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,051.60.

The Nasdaq composite gained 13.23 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,808.87.

Thanks to steady gains in recent weeks, the Dow is up 1.1 percent for the year, while the S&P 500 index is up 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq is down about 4 percent.

Stocks had appeared to be headed for a down

day early Monday.

Homebuilders fell broadly following a report indicating that sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank 7.1 percent last month.

The trend could weigh on homebuilders, many of which rely on buyers who must sell their home before they can purchase a newly built one.q

A26 COMICS

Tuesday 22 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

Tuesday 22 March 2016

FDA moves to ban most powdered surgical gloves

BY MATTHEW PERRONE AP HEALTH WRITER WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health officials are moving to ban most surgical gloves made with powder, a feature designed to make them easier to wear, but which actually poses health risks to patients and health professionals.

The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that the powder added to some latex gloves can cause breathing problems, wound inflammation, and scar tissue on internal organs when used during surgery. The agency proposed the ban Monday in a federal filing.

The action is not expected to have much impact on glove supplies or manufacturer sales, according to government research.

Most powdered gloves have already been phased out, and only six manufacturers are still registered to make them in the U.S., according to the agency.

“This ban is about protecting patients and health care professionals from a danger they might not even be aware of,” said Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, head of the FDA’s medical device center. Public Citizen, the consumer watchdog group, petitioned the FDA to ban powdered gloves in 1998, citing allergic reactions caused by cornstarch powder used in most brands. At the time, the group estimated roughly 75 percent of surgical gloves used in the U.S. contained the powder. Prior to the 1970s, powdered gloves contained talc, another ingredient that was found to be an irritant.

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FOR SALE Townhouse Orlando, Fl. 1862 Sq. Ft. 2 stories, Year 2014 City of Medic Lake Nona 32827 E-mail: gustavorf28@gmail.com 204746 _________________________

FOR SALE Divi Golf & Beach week 11

1 Bdrm, 2 Bath 28 week remain +10 Accelerated weeks Room 2204 $7500 ritchey5652@comcast.net 204721 ___________________________

FOR RENT Paradise Beach Villas

week 13 - 1 bedroom March 24- April 2 $800 Tel. 740-4988 info@arubadirectdeals.com 204831 ___________________________

FOR RENT Paradise Beach Villas

weeks 10,11,12 $700 each 1 bedroom Tel. 740-4988 info@arubadirectdeals.com 204832 ___________________________

TIME SHARE RESALE

35000 points Gold Member with blue Green Time Share up to 5 wks vacation Price $45,000.00 Tel. here till 20 of March 583-0440 E-mail: klausyblitzy@aol.com 204808 ___________________________

TIMESHARE FOR SALE

RENAISSANCE Week room price wk 38 room 529 $4,750 wk 40 room 336 $3,750 wk 42 room 338 $4,000 wk 43 room 329 $3,250 wk 49 room 144 $5,500 wk 50 room 546 $6,000 wk 49 room 2571 $3,750 wk 48 room 517 $3,750 wk 48 or 49 room 119 $4,750 wk 48 or 49 room 551 $5,500 wk 49 or 50 room 203 $5,500 wk 21 or 22 room 347 $4,000 wk 1+2 room 517 $19,000 Contact Brian Cell: 593-0200 vr.realty@mac.com

204343 ____________________________

FOR SALE

by owner Marriott Surf Club 2 br O.V. lock off unit Gold season price $16.000 Marriott Ocean Club 2 Br O.V. Gold season 5 floor lock off unit Price $16.000 567-6024 / 587-2633 martem1@aol.com USA 718-748-0395 204825 ____________________________ MASSAGE Are you tired of tripping the whole day well let us come to you to relax you with a professional massage Call 660-7202 For an appointment 204823 _____________________________

FOR SALE Condo in Gold Coast Everything’s included in this 2 Br 2 1/2 bath unit check it out now at www.arubarental.info or call 562-0735 free pick up

___________________________ 204711

DIVI DUTCH VILLAGE For Sale week 27

June 25 start 3 room suite, lock off master bed rm, with lock off studio one other room with queen sofa, $4900, 565-9394 e-mail: rmwjmw@aol.com or us 508-651-0016

204717 ____________________________

Time Share For Rent/Sale

Studios and 1 Bdrm at Divi Village / Dutch Village March 12 to Dec 11th.

Also wk 17 Rm 3205 Studio bldng 2 from 4/24 $3950 or B/O e-mail: rmwjmw@aol.com or us 508-651-0016

204724 ____________________________

Divi Dutch Village

1 Bdrm week 10, ground floor 12 weeks left in contract $4,200 US E-mail: burbon812@yahoo.com

DOCTOR ON DUTY Oranjestad

Dr. Algera Tel. 588-9660 San Nicolas Dr. Linden v/d Tel: 584-6427

EMERGENCIA

911

POLICE

100

ORANJESTAD NOORD STA. CRUZ SAN NICOLAS POLICE TIPLINE FIRE DEPT. FIRE DEPT. HOSPITAL DENTAL CLINIC AMBULANCE CENTRO MEDICO

527-3140 527-3200 527-2900 584-5000 11141 115 582-1108 527-4000 587-9850 582-1234 523-8833

PHARMACY Oranjestad: DakotaTel: 588-7364 San Nicolas: San Nicolas Tel: 584-5712 INFORMATION TAXI-TAS PROF. TAXI TAXI D.T.S. SERVICE ARUBA

118 587-5900 588-0035 587-2300 583-3232

CRUISESHIP

March 23 Freewinds Zenith Monarch

Aruba Aiport American Airline Avianca Aruba Airlines Jet Blue Surinam Tiara Air Venezolana

Aruba Foundation For those Visually Incapasitated Tel: 582-5051

FUNDACION Anti-Droga Aruba (FADA) Tel: 583-2999

FUNDACION Respetami Tel: 582-4433

Centro Diabetic Arubano Tel: 524-8888

Narcotics Anonymous Tel: 583-8989

QUOTA Club Tel: 525-2672

Women in Difficulties Foundation Tel: 583-5400

Bloodbank Aruba

____________________________

204818

524-2424 582-2700 588-0059 583-8300 588-2244 582-7896 588-4272 583-7674

Tel: 587-0002

A28 SCIENCE

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Space station delivery rich in science and technology MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A space station supply ship is set to blast off Tuesday night with a commercial-quality 3-D printer for astronaut as well as public use — for a price — and the makings for a large-scale fire.

Don’t worry: The blaze is for scientific purposes only and won’t ignite until the unmanned craft is clear of the International Space Station at mission’s end. NASA project manager Gary Ruff said this blaze will be second in size only to the 1997 fire on the Russian Mir space station, which was caused by a defective oxygen-generating canister.

Orbital ATK’s capsule, named Cygnus after the swan constellation, holds nearly 8,000 pounds of station supplies for NASA. Onefourth of that is scientific research, including robotic grippers inspired by the tiny, sticky hair on geckos’ feet.

An Atlas rocket provided

by United Launch Alliance will provide the ride from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Excellent weather is forecast for the 11:05 p.m. launch.

A look at some of the experiments bound for the space station and its sixman crew: ___ FIRE ON BOARD NASA will deliberately set a fire inside the trash-packed

Cygnus cargo ship, once it leaves the space station in May and is a safe distance away. Researchers want to understand how a fire spreads in weightlessness — how fast and how big does it get? The goal is to improve fire safety on future spacecraft. An electrical igniter will be used to light a yard-long cotton-fiberglass sheet inside a box. The burn should last 15 to 20 minutes, with a pair of cameras recording the flames and sensors making measurements. A week or so later, the capsule will burn up as planned over the Pacific.

The test is called Saffire, short for Spacecraft Fire Experiment.

3-D SPACE PRINTS, ANYONE? This new 3-D printer is an update to one launched to the space station in 2014.

Northern California-based company Made In Space says the new printer is bigger and better. The first printer created items no bigger than an iPhone, this new printer will churn out items as big as an iPad mini.

It will be controlled from the ground, with minimal input from the astronauts.

The intention is to make 3-D items as needed for realtime use. But the company also is leasing the printer for groups interested in creating customized 3-D items in space. Some of the items will be returned to Earth aboard SpaceX Dragon

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft stack sits on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday, March 21, 2016.

Associated Press

capsules, according to the company.

METEOR SHOWERS UP CLOSE A new camera will provide high-definition video of meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere. It should be ready to go well before the Perseids meteor shower in August. Southwest Research Institute’s Michael Fortenberry and his team want to analyze the chemical composition of incoming meteors. This is the third attempt to get the experiment to the space station; the first was destroyed in an Orbital launch explosion in 2014, the second in a SpaceX launch accident last June.

SLIP-SLIDING AWAY A spacecraft landing on an asteroid will need to

anchor itself to avoid floating away, given the exceedingly low gravity. The question is: Will the anchor stay put or yank free? Researchers hope to better understand the loose, gravelly asteroid surface with a NASA experiment known as Strata. They’ve pulverized a hunk of meteorite discovered in Africa to simulate the surface material found on airless asteroids; 400 grams are on board.

Silica glass shards also are making the trip, along with other materials stored in tubes, so researchers can see how they move around in weightlessness.

GECKO GRIPPERS Some of nature’s best grippers can be found on the feet of geckos. Research-

ers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have based their new mechanical spring-loaded grippers on the thousands of tiny sticky hairs found on geckos’ feet.

Five handheld grippers will be tested on the space station; one will remain on board an entire year.

Researchers envision using these so-called Gecko Grippers for robots’ hands and feet, allowing them to crawl around the outside of a spacecraft to perform inspections or repairs. The reusable grippers can be turned on and off, and adhere to multiple surfaces, making them ideal for future space station use, according to NASA scientist Pete Hasbrook.q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Ben Affleck says he’s serious about playing Batman JOHN CARUCCI Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Ben Affleck hopes Batman fans who were skeptical of him playing the caped crusader in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” realize how seriously he took the role.

“The most difficult thing about making this movie, honestly, was the physical aspect,” Affleck told The Associated Press on Sunday on the red carpet for the film’s New York premiere at Radio City Music Hall.

Affleck said he wanted to be in shape, so he worked out hard.

“Having to be in the gym every day, six in the morning ... I wasn’t used to that kind of workout regimen,” Affleck said. “Fans have come to expect that if you’re going to play a superhero, you got to look in the body like a superhero. I knew the camera was go-

ing to be looking at me and the guillotine was there so I knew I had to be ready.”

When Warner Bros. made the announcement nearly three years ago that Affleck would play Batman, some fans weren’t thrilled, and the backlash led to petitions asking the studio to remove him.

Eventually, it blew over, and the two-time Oscar winner feels proud to be part of the Batman legacy.

“I’m really honored to be part of a tradition that Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan, great talents, worked on. Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Tim Burton, great talents. So I just wanted to do my best. I think we did something different, but something that is still very much Batman,” Affleck said.

Co-star Jesse Eisenberg shared a similar experience when he was cast as Super-

man’s arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor.

Eisenberg, famous for his role as Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” empathized with his critics.

“I can assure them as critical as they are of me, I’m more critical. No one is more concerned or critical or worried about doing a good job than I am,” Eisenberg said.

Amy Adams, who plays Lois Lane in the film, praised both Eisenberg and Affleck.

“I think the audience is going to have to decide for themselves. (I) got to see it, and I was blown away,” Adams said. “They both bring something we’ve never seen before in these characters, but something that really pays homage to the canon, so I think they are going to be really happy.”

“I think people are going to like it,” Affleck said. “All you can do is do your best.”q

Ben Affleck attends the premiere of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, March, 20, 2016, in New York.

Associated Press

A30 PEOPLE

Tuesday 22 March 2016

& ARTS

Fey, Bassett, Pinkett Smith to receive women’s media awards LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tina Fey, Angela Bassett, Jada Pinkett Smith, Cynthia Nixon and Kathie Lee Gifford are being recognized for their media achievements.

The Alliance for Women in Media Foundation said Monday that it will honor the five women at its 41st annual Gracie Awards in May. Foundation Chairwoman Kristen Welch said the entertainers will be honored because their success on both sides of the

camera encourages future generations of women to pursue media careers.

They will be recognized at a gala ceremony at May 24 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The event will raise funds for the foundation’s scholarships and educational programs. A second celebration for students and local-market media talent is set for June 21. The Gracies Awards Luncheon will be held at Cipriani in New York.

In this March 2, 2016 file photo, Angela Bassett arrives at the LA Premiere of “Underground” in Los Angeles.

Associated Press

Review: Batman’s life as a night stalker, dancing machine

This book cover image released by Simon & Schuster shows, “The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise Of Nerd Culture,” by Glen Weldon.

Associated Press

MICHAEL HILL Associated Press Batman is a brooding night stalker, grim and remorseless. Also, he’s a guy who might break out into “Batusi” on the dance floor.

While Superman has barely veered off his flight path over the decades, Batman’s image has swung back and forth like a pendulum since the superhero’s creation in 1939. The night detective of early

comics was soon brightened up with the addition of a young sidekick, Robin.

By the 1960s, Batman became a camp icon thanks to a hit TV show where he got to show off his dance moves and gravely intone ridiculous lines like: “Well, well. We’ve come a long way from the prime minister’s exploding cake. ... Or have we?” The TV show inspired a return in the comics to a darker Batman, one familiar to a new generation of fans weaned on Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster movie trilogy. Even then, there have been fluctuations along the way. In 1986, writer and artist Frank Miller portrayed Batman as an ill-tempered middleaged man. In 1997, George Clooney put on the cowl in a widely panned movie remembered mostly for a Batsuit with nipples.

Weldon tracks Batman’s evolution and how the changes played among his hard-core fans. The “nerds” went from being a subculture with hand-copied fanzines to Internet-era kingmakers with influential

websites and comic-cons that attract top sci-fi stars.

Batman provides the better story. He could have been a forgettable knockoff character inspired by The Shadow. But his creators developed a comicnoir style and a compelling origin story with a young Bruce Wayne vowing to fight criminals after one guns down his parents. And he’s vulnerable in a way that super-powered heroes like Superman are not.

Writing a book about Batman is tricky. He is a cultural icon deeply meaningful to many because his story touches on themes of loss, adversity and perseverance. Also, he is an implausible character who defies laws of physics and common sense every time he swoops on gun-blazing lunatics. Weldon successfully walks the tightrope, showing reverence for the character but keeping it fun.

Plus, he loves Batman, and the nerds that love him.

There is a certain type of nerd who thinks anything less than a dark Batman is a travesty.

PEOPLE & ARTS

A31

Tuesday 22 March 2016

A British play about love turns its attention to America MARK KENNEDY AP Drama Writer NEW YORK (AP) — As a playwright, Lucy Prebble isn’t frightened of going into big, scary places.

She’s already delved into pedophilia and stock-market bubbles. Now she’s going after love.

Prebble’s play “The Effect” makes its American debut this month at the Barrow Street Theatre. To write it, Prebble spent years trying to understand the pharmaceutical industry and the scientific underpinnings of love.

“I’m really interested in things that people tell me are hard to understand. I suppose there’s a slightly childish part of me that says, ‘Well, I’m going to try to understand it,’” she said.

“I look at making a play as an opportunity to learn something as well as feel something.”

“The Effect” follows two young people who become romantic during a clinical trial for a new antidepressant. They can’t be sure if their relationship is true or if they’re just enjoying elevated dopamine levels.

This undated image released by DKC/O&M shows director David Cromer, left and playwright Lucy Prebble. Prebble’s “The Effect,” about two young people who become romantic during a clinical trial for a new anti-depressant, makes its American debut this month at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York.

Associated Press

“What really drew me to this subject matter was looking at love. The more I thought about love and the more I looked into what it was, the more you have to be faced with science,” said Prebble, who wrote the plays “The Sugar Syndrome” and “Enron,”

UN names Angry Birds character Red to tackle climate change UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday named Red, the starring animated character in the soon-to-be-released “The Angry Birds Movie” as an honorary U.N. ambassador to encourage young people to go “green” and step up action to tackle climate change. The U.N. chief told a launch event attended by hundreds of young people in the General Assembly hall that “the Angry Birds have entertained millions of people around the world — and now they are part of making the world a better place.”

Ban said there was no better way to mark the International Day of Happiness on March 20 “than to have our animated ambassador raise awareness about the importance of addressing climate change to create a safer, more sustainable and happier future for all.”

The campaign, in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, the U.N. Development Program and U.N. Foundation, asks people around the world to make the Angry Birds happy by taking actions to combat climate change such as recycling, taking public transportation and conserving water.

Participants are asked to share their photos and commitments on social media platforms using the common hashtag #AngryBirdsHappyPlanet.

As part of his ambassadorial duties, the U.N. said Red will go on a “virtual world tour” starting March 21 to highlight various ways to combat climate change.

as well as the cable series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl.”

The director is David Cromer. He first met Prebble a year ago over dinner in London, calling her generous, patient and “the least precious playwright I’ve ever worked with.”

He said the new play, which won the 2012 UK Critics’ Circle award for best new play, sits at the in-

tersection of heart and science. “It’s a crystallization of theater and it’s also a way to examine, one step removed, all that happens when we’re falling in love,” Cromer said.

The play is co-produced by the Royal National Theatre and marks the first time the British theatrical powerhouse has ventured offBroadway. It is also being

produced by Jean Doumanian Productions and Barrow Street Theatre.

The National Theatre has had success transferring to Broadway such hits as “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” ‘’One Man, Two Guvnors” and “War Horse.” They mounted “The Effect” three years ago.

Tim Levy, who heads up the National Theatre in North America, said he’s interested in exploring different ways of collaborating, producing and partnering across the Atlantic.

“For quite a while, we would have a show and it would either go to Broadway or nothing at all. I think the idea that we could actually bring a play like this, which is quite an intimate piece, off-Broadway is something we’re really into at the moment,” he said.

Doumanian, who also has produced “The Flick,” ‘’Our Town” and “Every Brilliant Thing” at the Barrow Street Theatre, has long admired the National Theatre and said collaborating made sense.

“It’s what theater’s about, isn’t it? It’s discovering new things and making connections,” the Tony Awardwinning producer said.

Smokey Robinson to receive honor for charitable efforts NEW YORK (AP) — Smokey Robinson is getting an award — this time for his charitable efforts.

The icon will be honored on May 19 by the MusiCares MAP Fund, which provides members of the music community access to addiction recovery treatment regardless of their financial situation.

Singers CeeLo Green, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, El DeBarge and Kem will perform in honor of Robinson at The Novo in Los Angeles.

Tickets go on sale Monday.

Robinson will receive the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award, which was given to Pete Townshend at last

In this June 28, 2015, file photo, Smokey Robinson performs at the BET Awards in Los Angeles.

Associated Press

year’s benefit concert.

The 76-year-old Robinson also will perform at the event, to be hosted by

comedian-actor Cedric theEntertainer.

Additional performers will be announced at a later date.