23jan14

ROUGH RIDER USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71)

Underway

January 23, 2014 • DAILY

inside: Quenching your thirst and Training to fight

H2 OH: So Fresh and So Clean

Story and Photo by MCSN Jenna Kaliszewski

W

ater is one of the basic elements of human life. It is something that the 3,000 Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) rely on every day for survival and to do their jobs. It is imperative that this crucial element is clean and safe to drink.

Sailors from Medical department help ensure TR’s potable water supply is safe and ready for use.

“We do two things,” said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Chelsea Turner. “We test for chlorine and we test for Escherichia coli (e. Coli).”

Medical personnel use a colorimeter to test the chlorine level in the water, which uses a laser to measure the refractions from the water sample.

Testing for e. Coli is a different process.

“We’ll fill a jar up with water and we’ll put a tablet in there that grows the e. Coli and we’ll put it in an incubator overnight so it grows and cooks,” said Turner. “Then we look at it with a black light to see if it fluoresces and if anything is growing in there. If that’s the case we’ll call Engineering and tell them the line that’s going to whatever tank is bad and they need to clean it and rerun it. After they do that we’ll retest it.”

Medical also tests Theodore Roosevelt’s 26 water tanks every quarter.

“We make sure they clean the tanks and chlorinate them,” said Turner.

The Navy makes drinkable water the same way a bottled water company does, said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Camille Gordon. Bottled water companies, however, add

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Camille Gordon collects water in the aft galley to test for Escherichia coli (e. Coli) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). Theodore Roosevelt is underway conducting carrier qualifications.

nutrients and other substances for aesthetics to make the water taste different.

“When you’re looking at water, a lot of it is cosmetic,” said Turner. “We don’t add the extra nutrients and aesthetic piece, that’s why it doesn’t taste like bottled water.”

Filling up Camelbaks from the faucets will not hurt one bit, even if it looks white at first or seems fizzy. It will not taste like your favorite bottled water, but it will keep you hydrated and is perfectly safe.

Damage Control Training Team

Story by MCSA Matthew Young Photo by MCSN Bounome Chanphouang

S

ailors hurriedly transit through the ship as alarms sound over the 1MC calling them to their Battle Stations for General Quarters (GQ). They arrive at their repair lockers with flash gear and full battle dress, ready to save the ship from fire or flooding.

Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) participate in GQ drills almost every week while underway, and it takes strong teamwork to organize, motivate and train Sailors to be ready for casualties.

The Damage Control Training Team (DCTT), led by TR’s Executive Officer Capt. Mark Colombo, is responsible for training the crew in damage control.

“The purpose of DCTT is to motivate the Sailors and give them training on damage control equipment whether it’s for dewatering, pipe patching, or firefighting,” said Damage Controlman 1st Class Daniel Hernandez, a member of DCTT. “This gives the crew more experience to act if something actually happens out to sea or in port.”

DCTT has approximately 80 members broken up between 10 repair lockers during GQ. “A majority of your ship training falls under either safety or damage control. If you look at it, a lot of the qualifications fall under DC training materials. That’s how we relate to Training [department]. Training helps us out whether it’s scheduling, schools, or getting the crew involved. We make sure we’re both on the same page when it comes to safety standards,” said Chief Warrant Officer Noel Genao, the ship’s fire marshal and DCTT coordinator.

Damage Controlman 2nd Class David Boone directs Aviation Machinist’s Mate Airman Bruce Manley on how to handle a fire hose during a simulated class alpha fire aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71).

Damage control is a subject that is taken very seriously aboard TR. Sailors with the Damage Control 320 qualification can become a part of DCTT. “The damage control training team members are some of the most qualified and motivated Sailors, as they should be,” said Genao. “They’re the ones that take their knowledge and train Sailors in all types of damage control, whether it be fighting fires or flooding.”

DCTT members motivate and train Sailors to fight the ship in the case of emergency and lead their shipmates during GQ. From fighting fires to patching pipes, DCTT members lead the way.

midnight in New York F R O M T H E PA G E S O F

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

© 2014 The New York Times

FROM THE PAGES OF

Deepening Ukraine Unrest Turns Deadly EUROPEAN UNION PROPOSES EASING OF CLIMATE RULES

KIEV, Ukraine — A deepening civil uprising in Ukraine turned deadly on Wednesday, and this embattled capital veered toward chaos, after at least three demonstrators died during clashes with the police and the first direct negotiations between President Viktor F. Yanukovich and opposition leaders yielded only threats and ultimatums.

As Yanukovich met the three principal opposition leaders at the presidential headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, protesters and the police battled on a main street near the Dynamo soccer stadium. There were sporadic explosions and gunfire as the standoff entered its third day.

Two protesters were shot and killed early Wednesday during the violence, the general prosecutor’s office said in a statement that promised a full investigation but generally put the blame on protesters, calling them “members of extremist-minded groups.”

At least 300 were injured.

The circumstances of their deaths were murky, but protesters said that the police had

free-trade agreements with the European Union.

The opposition leaders, who represent minority factions in Parliament, had initial ly criticized the violence against the police, but after the fruitless meeting with YaEFREM LUKATSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS nukovich they At least three protesters died in clashes demanded that with police on Wednesday in Kiev. he offer concessions within 24 opened fire on them. A third man hours or apparently they would died after falling from an arch- join the confrontation.

Vitali Klitschko, the former way that demonstrators had climbed to hurl rocks and fire- boxer who leads a party called bombs. There were unconfirmed Ukrainian Democratic Alliance reports in the Ukrainian news for Reform, addressed Yanukovich in his remarks to protesters. media of four other fatalities.

The intractable conflict erupt- “If you won’t hear the people, ed in November when Ukraine they will do everything to make was ensnared in a battle for influ- you hear them,” he said, addence between Europe and Rus- ing: “Tomorrow, if the president sia, and Yanukovich was assailed won’t listen to us, we will go into by demonstrators for breaking attack. There is no other way.”

DAVID M. HERSZENHORN a promise to sign political and

Big Web Crash: Experts Suspect Great Firewall SAN FRANCISCO — The story behind what may have been the biggest Internet failure in history involves an unlikely cast of characters, including a little-known company in a drab brick building in Wyoming and the world’s most elite army of Internet censors a continent away in China.

On Tuesday, China’s 500 million Internet users were unable to load websites for eight hours.

Nearly every Chinese Internet user and Internet company, including major firms like Baidu and Sina.com, was affected.

The reason? Technology experts say China’s own Great Firewall — that vast collection of censors and snooping technology used to control Internet traffic in and out of China — was likely to blame, mistakenly redirecting the country’s traffic to several sites normally blocked inside China, some connected to a company based in the Wyoming building.

Chinese authorities put a premium on control, but the strange story of Tuesday’s downtime shows that sometimes their efforts can backfire.

The China Internet Network Information Center, a state-run agency, said it had traced the problem to the country’s domain name system.

“I have never seen a bigger outage,” said Heiko Specht, an Internet analyst at Compuware, a technology company based in Detroit. “Half of the world’s Internet users trying to access the Internet couldn’t.”

Those domain-name servers, which act like an Internet switchboard, routed traffic from some of China’s most popular sites to an Internet address that, according to records, is registered to Sophidea, a company based, at least on paper, in that Wyoming building in Cheyenne.

With half the world’s Internet

traffic flooding Sophidea’s Internet address, Specht said he believed it would have taken less than a millisecond for the company’s servers to crash.

Until last year, Sophidea was based in a 1,700-square-foot brick house on a residential block of Cheyenne. The house, and its former tenant, a business called Wyoming Corporate Services, was the subject of a lengthy Reuters article in 2011 that found about 2,000 business entities had been registered to the home.

Technology experts say Sophidea appears to be a service that reroutes Internet traffic from one website to another to mask a person’s whereabouts, to make it easier to send spam for example — or to evade a firewall, like the ones that Chinese censors erect.

Sophidea’s managers are not publicly listed, and Wyoming is light on business regulation.

NICOLE PERLROTH

LONDON — For years, Europe has tried to set the global standard for climate-change regulation, creating tough rules on emissions, mandating more use of renewable energy sources and arguably sacrificing some economic growth in the name of saving the planet.

But now even Europe seems to be hitting its environmentalist limits.

High energy costs, declining industrial competitiveness and a recognition that the economy is unlikely to rebound strongly any time soon are leading policy makers to begin easing up in their drive for aggressive climate regulation.

On Wednesday, the European Union proposed an end to binding national targets for renewable energy production after 2020. It substituted an overall European goal likely to be much harder to enforce.

It also decided against proposing laws on environmental damage and safety during the extraction of shale gas by a controversial drilling process known as fracking. It opted instead for a series of minimum principles it said it would monitor.

Europe pressed ahead on other fronts, aiming for a cut of 40 percent in Europe’s carbon emissions by 2030, double the current target of 20 percent by 2020.

“It will require a lot from Europe,” said Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action. “If all other big economies followed our example the world would be a better place.”

But the proposals were seen as a substantial backtrack by environmental groups, and evidence that economic factors were starting to influence the climate debate in ways they previously had not in Europe. Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, described the proposals as “totally inadequate.”

Wednesday’s proposals came from the European Commission, the Brussels-based executive arm of the bloc, and would next require approval by the group’s member states and the European Parliament.

STEPHEN CASTLE

INTERNATIONAL

Scholar Charged With Espionage CAIRO — An internationally respected Egyptian political scientist said Wednesday that prosecutors had filed espionage charges against him, making him the second such scholar targeted this month in a widening crackdown on dissent against last summer’s military takeover.

Emad Shahin, a scholar of political Islam who has taught at Harvard, Notre Dame and the American University in Cairo and edited the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics, was charged along with several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood with conspiring with foreign organizations to undermine Egypt’s national security. He is listed as Defendant 33 in a lengthy criminal complaint that also names former President Mohamed Morsi, who was deposed in the takeover.

The charges against Shahin were filed more than two weeks ago, but they have come to light just as prosecutors have also charged Amr Hamzawy, a liberal political scientist and former lawmaker, with the crime of insulting the judiciary because he questioned a ruling against a group of Western nonprofit organizations.

Shahin learned of the complaint, left Egypt before his arrest and on Wednesday he was in Washington for a conference at Georgetown University. He called the charges “baseless,” “politically motivated” and “beyond preposterous,” noting that he had never been a member or supporter of the Brotherhood.

DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

2

Syrian Peace Conference Opens With Vitriol MONTREUX, Switzerland — From its early moments on Wednesday, the long-delayed peace conference on Syria was marked by acrimony when Syria’s foreign minister described Syrian rebels as “evil” and ignored appeals by Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, to avoid invective or even to yield the floor.

By the end of the day, the sense that the new peace talks were headed for trouble was compounded when the proceedings ended without any hint of progress toward imposing local ceasefires or opening humanitarian corridors for the delivery of food and medicine to besieged cities.

In an evening news conference here, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, said that stopping terrorism, not sharing power, needed to be the priority when Syrian government officials sat down with the opposi-

tion on Friday to discuss a political solution to the bloody conflict, a stance that also appeared to promise more confrontation.

Putting the best face on the meeting, Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Wednesday night that it was significant that senior diplomats from 40 countries and organizations had gathered in the lakeside Swiss city of Montreux, to initiate the conference. Kerry insisted that he had always known that the talks would be “tough” and described the conference as a “process,” which he implied could last for months or even years.

Several Syrians also expressed hope that the conference signaled the start of a process in which Syrians might eventually overcome their differences. “It’s a historic moment,” said Ibrahim al-Hamidi, a veteran journalist for the Saudiowned newspaperAl Hayat who is

originally from the northern Syrian city of Idlib. “After three years of military struggle, when the opposition tried very hard to destroy the regime, and the regime tried very hard to crush the opposition, this is the first time the two delegations sit down in one room under U.N. auspices.”

But when the conference opened on Wednesday sharp differences came to the fore. Kerry said it was unthinkable that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria could play a role in a transitional administration that would govern the country as part of a political settlement. Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, challenged the American insistence that Assad be excluded, arguing that the conference had to “refrain from any attempt to predetermine the outcome of the process.”

MICHAEL R. GORDON and ANNE BARNARD

Photos Linked to Torture Known to U.S. Since November WASHINGTON — The Obama administration first learned last November about a harrowing trove of photographs that were said to document widespread torture and executions in Syrian prisons when a State Department official viewed some of the images on a laptop belonging to an antigovernment activist, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The United States did not act on the photos for the last two months, officials said, because it did not have possession of the digital files and could not establish their authenticity. Nevertheless, they

said, the administration believes the photos are genuine, basing that assessment in part on the meticulous way in which each of more than 11,000 bodies were numbered.

The photographs, some of which were released this week on the eve of an international peace conference on Syria, have helped prompt the administration to heighten its demand that President Bashar alAssad release political prisoners and allow Red Cross inspectors access to the prisons.

But it seems clear that the photos will not fundamentally alter American policy, which is to push

for a political settlement that will remove Assad from a power but eschew direct military intervention in the conflict.

The White House and State Department are expressing outrage at the images, even as they caution the United States has not independently authenticated them.

Secretary of State John Kerry endorsed a demand by Syrian opposition groups that the United Nations investigate the portfolio.

“The questions raised by this requires an answer,” Kerry said.

BEN HUBBARD and MARK LANDLER

In Brief New Push to Free American Advocates for a former Marine imprisoned in Tehran more than two years ago are seeking to use a diplomatic window created by the temporary nuclear agreement with Iran to gain his release. In a letter to President Obama released on Wednesday, four top former American defense and security officials urged “immediate action” to expedite the release of the Marine, Amir Hekmati, who has been held in Evin Prison with no publicly disclosed charges against him. “Mr. Hekmati has committed no crime,” read the letter, signed by William S. Cohen, a former secretary of defense; Gen. Peter Pace, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. James L. Jones, a former national security

adviser; and Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, a former allied commander in Europe.

(NYT)

Palestinians Die in Airstrike An Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed two Palestinians, one of them a militant who Israel said had been responsible for recent rocket attacks against Israel. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad said that the militant, Ahmed Zaanin, 21, had been a member of the group. The other person killed was his cousin, Mohammed Zaanin. It was the second time this week that an Israeli airstrike was aimed at a specific person, reviving a practice that had all but stopped after a Gaza cease-fire took effect 14 months ago after eight days of fighting.

(NYT)

Call to Delay Thai Elections Like the protesters trying to overthrow the Thai government, Somchai Srisutthiyakorn says he is against holding elections next month and does not think they will help resolve the country’s increasingly violent political turmoil. But Somchai is not a protester. He is one of five members of the country’s Election Commission whose mission, according to Thai law, is to arrange, provide support for and promote elections.

Somchai’s lack of enthusiasm for the Feb. 2 elections, endorsed by royal decree last month when the government dissolved Parliament, underlines the depth of divisions in Thai society after two months of debilitating protests in Bangkok.

(NYT)

NATIONAL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

When Political Spouse Helps Cause Downfall Virginia’s first lady needed a designer dress for her husband’s inauguration.

When a political patron offered to buy her an Oscar de la Renta gown, Maureen McDonnell jumped, according to federal prosecutors, until an aide to her husband, Gov. Bob McDonnell, vetoed the gift. Ms. McDonnell sent off an angry email: “We are broke, have an unconscionable amount in credit card debt already, and this Inaugural is killing us!!’’

In most tales of political careers destroyed by personal weaknesses, it is the office-holder’s spouse who has wound up humiliated.

But there is another drama that plays out, too: the political spouse whose own misjudgment and taste for luxury contribute to an officeholder’s downfall.

In a 43-page federal indictment of the McDonnells, charging them with aiding a Virginia businessman in exchange for cash and designer baubles, prosecutors portray Ms. McDonnell as the

person whose desires for luxury items led the couple to use the governor’s office to promote a contributor’s Maureen dietary suppleMcDonnell ment business.

A former Washington Redskins cheerleader who married her high school sweetheart, Ms. McDonnell, 59, treated herself to a shopping spree at Bergdorf Goodman, travel by Ferrari and private jet, and a silver Rolex watch to present to her husband, prosecutors said.

A peril for political couples is proximity to the donor class of wealthy Americans who pursue the game of political influence. Mr. McDonnell, who earned $175,000 a year as governor, first met the businessman whose cash and gifts he is accused of illegally soliciting, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., when Williams offered his private jet for use

on the campaign trail in 2009.

In a 14-count indictment charging the McDonnells with fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks, the U.S. Justice Department accuses them of using the office of the governor to help Williams promote a dietary supplement sold by his company, Star Scientific.

The McDonnells have proclaimed their innocence. Mr. McDonnell accused prosecutors of stretching the law to cover a relationship between him and Williams that involved no quid pro quo.

Kellyanne Conway, a Republican consultant, said that political spouses are often stunned at how their lives turn out after marrying young, before a partner’s ambition for office takes hold.

“There is the resentment of one person being in the spotlight and the other picking up Cheerios off the floor,” Conway said, adding: “Just as new money makes people behave in certain ways, new power can have a tantalizing effect on some people.”

TRIP GABRIEL

Gay Marriages Confront Catholic School Rules SAMMAMISH, Wash. — Eastside Catholic prides itself on teaching acceptance. At the school’s entrance, banners hang celebrating “relationships” and exhorting passers-by to “remember to take care of each other.” Students use a sign-language gesture to remind one another of the school’s emphasis on unconditional love.

But now the school is unexpectedly grappling with how it defines both love and acceptance. Last month, a well-regarded vice principal was forced to leave his job as soon as administrators became aware that he had married a man.

The ouster of Mr. Z, as the former vice principal, Mark Zmuda,

is known, comes amid a wave of firings and forced resignations of gay men and lesbians from Roman Catholic institutions, in most cases prompted not directly by the employees’ sexuality, but by their decisions to get married.

This month, the band and choir director at a Catholic school in Ohio was fired hours after he told the school’s president that he planned to marry his boyfriend; in December, a teacher at a Catholic school in Pennsylvania was fired days after telling his principal he was applying for a marriage license in New Jersey. Similar ousters have taken place at Catholic schools, universities and parishes in Arkansas, Cali-

fornia, Illinois, Missouri, New York and North Carolina.

The Roman Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriage, and school officials, including Zmuda, generally sign contracts saying they will abide by church teachings. But for some young Catholics, the firings are mystifying, particularly given the new tone set by Pope Francis. At Eastside Catholic, some students have taken to crafting banners with the quotation “Who am I to judge?,” words uttered by the pope when asked about gay priests; others have been trying to reach the pope via Twitter, hoping he will intercede.

MICHAEL PAULSON

Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Phone Program Is Illegal WASHINGTON — An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down.

The findings are laid out in a 238-report, scheduled for release on Thursday, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Over-

sight Board, an agency established

by Congress in 2004 that only recently became fully operational.

The Obama administration has portrayed the bulk collection program as useful and lawful while at the same time acknowledging concerns about privacy. But in its report, the board said that the program “lacks a viable legal foundation” and “raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties.” The report added: “As a result, the

board recommends that the government end the program.”

While a majority of the fivemember board embraced that conclusion, two members dissented from the view that the program was illegal. But the panel was united in 10 other recommendations, including deleting raw phone records after three years instead of five and tightening access to search results.

CHARLIE SAVAGE

3

In Brief $350 Million Sought To Help Fund Detroit With time growing short for Detroit’s leaders to file a plan for the city’s emergence from bankruptcy, Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday urged Michigan’s Legislature to provide $350 million to lessen possible cuts to the pensions of Detroit retirees and save the city’s art collection from the threat of sale. Snyder laid out the proposal during a news conference in Lansing, but broad support for the plan remains uncertain. In this state’s Republican-held Legislature, any notion that could be characterized as bailing out Detroit has previously been met with deep skepticism.

(NYT)

Second Chemical Was Part of Spill The chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginia residents without usable water involved more chemicals than the company involved had previously reported, officials revealed this week. The newly disclosed chemical appears to be somewhat less toxic than MCHM, a blend of coal cleaners, and it made up only a small part of the Jan. 9 spill.

Freedom Industries revealed that the tank, which leaked about 7,500 gallons into the ground by the Elk River, had also contained a mixture of glycol ethers known as PPH, with a similar function as MCHM. (NYT)

Texas Executes Mexican Citizen Despite opposition from the State Department, Mexican officials and Latino advocates, Texas executed Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, on Wednesday, putting to death a Mexican citizen in the United States illegally, whose case raised questions about the state’s duty to abide by international law. Tamayo’s arrest in Houston in 1994 on charges of murdering a police officer violated the international treaty known as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

The authorities neglected to tell him of his right under the Vienna Convention to notify Mexican diplomats.

(NYT)

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014 4

BUSINESS

THE MARKETS

Child Car Seats to Face Crash-Test Standards DETROIT — Federal regulators moved on Wednesday to address a glaring hole in auto-safety rules by proposing new crashtest standards to better protect children in car seats.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it was seeking a new rule that requires child car seats to withstand side-impact collisions of up to 30 miles an hour.

The proposal, which followed a directive from Congress and has been years in the making, is considered a major step in a larger effort to improve the safety of car seats for small children.

Up to now, federal rules have covered only how well car seats protect children in crashes from the front. Under the proposed rule, the seats would for the first time have to pass a test that simu-

lates a typical side-impact crash.

David Friedman, the agency’s administrator, called the proposed side-impact rule a “significant” measure that could prevent as many as five deaths and more than 60 injuries a year. “Car seats are one of the most essential tools we have for keeping young people safe in vehicles,” he said.

Under the proposal, manufacturers would have up to three years to alter or adjust their products to meet the new requirements. Consumers could then buy a newer model.

The new tests will position a car seat on a crash-test sled traveling at 15 miles an hour. Then the sled will be rammed from the side by another sled moving at 30 miles an hour. The test will determine how well a car seat protects a child passenger from

a vehicle’s door crushing, as well as the overall impact of the crash.

Deaths of children in car seats have been declining in recent years, to 397 in 2011, down from a total of 614 in 2002. But while carseat restraints are considered to be effective, auto-safety experts said more needs to be done.

Accidental injury is the leading cause of child death in the United States, according to Matthew R. Maltese, head of biomechanics research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Side-impact crashes can hurt children in a variety of ways.

While the door can intrude and strike a child in a car seat, the impact of a collision can cause a child’s head to move suddenly and hit the seat or a part of the vehicle’s interior.

BILL VLASIC and CHERYL JENSEN

Upward Mobility Has Not Declined, Study Says The odds of moving up — or down — the income ladder in the United States have not changed appreciably in the last 20 years, according to a large new academic study that contradicts politicians in both parties who have claimed that income mobility is falling.

Both President Obama and leading Republicans, like Rep. Paul Ryan, have argued recently that the odds of climbing the income ladder are lower today than in previous decades. The new study, based on tens of millions of anonymous tax records, finds that the mobility rate has held largely steady in recent decades, although it remains lower than in Canada and in much of Western Europe, where the odds of escaping poverty are higher.

Raj Chetty, a professor of economics at Harvard and one of the authors, said that he and his colleagues still believed that a lack of mobility was a significant problem in the United States. Despite less discrimination of various kinds and a larger safety net than in previous decades, the odds of escaping the station of one’s birth are no higher today than they were decades ago.

The results suggested that other forces — including sharply rising incomes at the top of the ladder, which allows well-off families to invest far more in their children — were holding back talented people, the authors said.

“The level of opportunity is alarming, even though it’s stable over time,” said Emmanuel Saez,

an author and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

The authors noted that a previous study of children born from 1952 to 1975 found broadly similar levels of mobility. Taken together, the studies suggest that rates of intergenerational mobility appeared to have held roughly steady over the last half-century.

Today, the odds of escaping poverty appear to be only about half as high in the United States as in the most mobile countries like Denmark, Saez said.

The authors emphasized that the average economic penalty of being born poor has grown over time. “It matters more who your parents are today than it did in the past,” Chetty said.

DAVID LEONHARDT

Goodyear Reaches Severance Deal With French Union PARIS — Striking workers at a Goodyear tire plant in France agreed on Wednesday to accept severance pay that they said was three times as much as the company had initially offered, clearing the way for the facility to close after a bitter conflict that escalated into a “boss-napping.”

The agreement provided “significant improvements in benefits” for the 1,173 employees of the plant in Amiens, about 90 miles north of Paris, Goodyear said in a statement. In return, the

dominant union at the facility, the C.G.T., agreed to end the occupation of the plant and halt legal action meant to delay its closing.

The company did not disclose the terms of the settlement, but a union statement said that Goodyear had agreed to pay “three times more severance for all employees” than proposed as part of a plan announced in 2012. The iTele news channel in France cited a union lawyer as saying that the payout would be 120,000 euros to 130,000 euros, or about $163,000

to $176,000, per worker.

As is usual in such cases here, the union will seek additional money in a labor court, because, it said, there was no economic rationale for closing the plant.

Unable to find a buyer, Goodyear said in January 2013 that it would shut down the facility. Two weeks ago, the dispute attracted international attention when workers held two Goodyear executives hostage after a court ruling against their motion to halt the shutdown.

DAVID JOLLY

DJIA

NASDAQ

41.10 0.25%

D

16,373.34

17.24 0.41%

U

S&P 500 1.06 0.06%

U

4,243.00

1,844.86

EURO PE BRITAIN

GERMANY

FRANCE

FTSE 100

DAX

CAC 40

7.93 0.12%

D

6,826.33

10.01 0.10%

D

1.11 0.03%

U

9,720.11

4,324.98

ASIA/PACIFI C JAPAN

NIKKEI 225 25.00 0.16%

U

15,820.96

HONG KONG

CHINA

HANG SENG SHANGHAI 49.13 0.21%

U

U

23,082.25

43.44 2.16%

2,051.75

AM ER I C AS CANADA

BRAZIL

MEXICO

TSX

BOVESPA

BOLSA

37.53 0.27%

U

757.59 U 1.56%

U

224.19 0.54%

13,989.30 49,299.66 42,062.82 CO M M O DIT IES/BONDS

GOLD

D

3.30

10-YR. TREAS. CRUDE OIL YIELD

U

$1,239.00

0.04

U

2.87%

1.76 $96.73

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Australia (Dollar) Bahrain (Dinar) Brazil (Real) Britain (Pound) Canada (Dollar) China (Yuan) Denmark (Krone) Dom. Rep. (Peso) Egypt (Pound) Europe (Euro) Hong Kong (Dollar) Japan (Yen) Mexico (Peso) Norway (Krone) Singapore (Dollar) So. Africa (Rand) So. Korea (Won) Sweden (Krona) Switzerland (Franc)

Fgn. currency Dollars in in Dollars fgn.currency

.8848 2.6527 .4214 1.6577 .9021 .1653 .1816 .0234 .1437 1.3547 .1289 .0096 .0752 .1624 .7822 .0924 .0009 .1544 1.0973

1.1302 .3770 2.3728 .6032 1.1085 6.0508 5.5079 42.7700 6.9600 .7382 7.7575 104.48 13.3058 6.1585 1.2785 10.8180 1067.3 6.4774 .9113

Source: Thomson Reuters

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014 5

BUSINESS

Leaning Right in Hollywood, Under a Lens LOS ANGELES — In a famously left-leaning Hollywood, Friends of Abe stands out as a leading conservative group that bucks the prevailing political winds.

A collection of perhaps 1,500 right-leaning players in the entertainment industry, Friends of Abe keeps a low profile and protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist.

Now the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the group’s activities in connection with its application for tax-exempt status. Last Friday, federal tax authorities presented it with a 10-point request for detailed information about its meetings with politicians like Paul Ryan, Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain, among other matters, according to people briefed on the inquiry.

Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s se-

curity-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for 501(c)3 applications.

Friends of Abe — the name refers to Abraham Lincoln — has strongly discouraged the naming of its members. That policy even prohibits the use of cameras at group events, to avoid the unwilling identification of all but a few associates — the actors Gary Sinise, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer, or the writer-producer Lionel Chetwynd, for instance — who have spoken openly about their conservative political views.

The I.R.S. request comes in the face of a continuing congressional investigation into the agency’s reviews of political nonprofits, most of them conservative-leaning, which provoked outrage on the right. But unlike most of those groups, which had sought I.R.S.

approval for a mix of election campaigning and non-partisan issue advocacy, Friends of Abe is seeking a far more restrictive tax status, known as 501(c)(3), that would let donors claim a tax deduction but strictly prohibits any form of partisan activity.

The group is not currently designated tax-exempt, but it behaves as a nonprofit, according to people briefed on the matter.

The I.R.S. review will determine whether Friends of Abe receives tax-exempt status. If not, Friends of Abe could resort to the courts, or simply operate as a nonprofit, but it would be unable to receive tax-deductible contributions.

Jeremy Boreing, executive director of Friends of Abe declined on Wednesday to discuss details of the tax review, but said the group would continue regardless of the outcome. “Friends of Abe has absolutely no political agenda,” he added. “It exists to create fellowship among like-minded individuals.” MICHAEL CIEPLY and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

An American Wind Farm, Made in Europe MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — Carl Horstmann strode around the floor of his factory here, passing welders honing head-high metal tubes as sparks flew. He is one of a dying breed: the owner of Mass Tank, a steel tank manufacturer in a down-at-the-heels region that was once a hub of the craft.

Four years ago, having heard of plans to build a $2.6 billion wind farm off the shores of Cape Cod, he saw opportunity. Much of the work, the developers and the politicians promised, would go to American companies like his, in what would be the dawn of a lucrative offshore wind industry.

Now, after Horstmann has spent more than $500,000, much has changed. Cape Wind, the wind farm’s developer, won a court case over an important approval on Wednesday but is still caught up in legal and financial wrangling and faces a tenuous future. And even if the project is completed, most of the investment and jobs for supplying the parts will go not to American companies like Mass Tank, but to European manufacturers.

Horstmann’s company lost a bid to build support structures to a German company it had

Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a catch-22,” he said, because without a steady flow of projects, companies would not build plants and “therefore, we don’t get the jobs.”

For Horstmann, the issue GRETCHEN ERTL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES is personal. “As Mass Tank, a Massachusetts manufacturer, Americans, we won’t be helping to build a wind farm. are really upset that all this money is going overbrought in as a partner, and last seas,” he said. As a ratepayer to month Cape Wind completed ar- a utility, he added, “I’m going to rangements for other major com- be getting my monthly bill and if Cape Wind goes through it’s goponents to be built in Denmark.

Those deals have provoked a ing to have this premium on it.”

Cape Wind’s plans call for 130 strong reaction from suppliers like Horstmann, but they also il- turbines spinning on Horseshoe lustrate the difficulty of creating a Shoal of Nantucket Sound, supnew energy industry from scratch. plying 75 percent of the power for “We don’t have the volume and Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the guaranteed market that China, Nantucket. The project has been for example, or some of the Euro- a source of bitter resistance since pean countries that keep those jobs it was proposed in 2001, with opin their countries, can provide to in- ponents saying it would increase vestors,” said Thomas A. Kochan, utility rates and spoil the view.

DIANE CARDWELL a professor at the Sloan School of

MOST ACTIVE, GAINERS AND LOSERS

% Volume Stock (TICKER) Close Chg Chg (100) 10 MOST ACTIVE Advanced M (AMD) 3.67 BlackBerry (BBRY) 10.78 Bank of Am (BAC) 17.15 Facebook I (FB) 57.51 Alcoa Inc (AA) 12.22 Intel Corp (INTC) 25.31 General El (GE) 25.99 eBay Inc (EBAY) 54.42 Sirius XM (SIRI) 3.74 ThermoGene (KOOL)2.63

◊0.50 +0.85 +0.14 ◊1.00 +0.09 ◊0.28 ◊0.30 +0.27 +0.03 +0.33

◊12.0 +8.6 +0.8 ◊1.7 +0.7 ◊1.1 ◊1.1 +0.5 +0.8 +14.3

864549 818342 681671 614171 564814 487907 487573 360088 333229 328117

% Volume Stock (TICKER) Close Chg Chg (100) 10 TOP GAINERS North Vall (NOVB) 24.66 Super Micr (SMCI) 22.94 BroadVisio (BVSN) 13.79 Evoke Phar (EVOK) 11.75 Karyopharm (KPTI) 31.80 Mirati The (MRTX) 21.56 China Natu (CHNR) 9.35 BioCryst P (BCRX) 12.14 Huron Cons (HURN)69.97 Nova LifeS (NVFY) 6.43

+5.51 +4.44 +2.55 +1.75 +4.49 +2.76 +0.75 +1.34 +7.21 +0.63

+28.8 +24.0 +22.7 +17.5 +16.4 +14.7 +8.7 +12.4 +11.5 +10.9

8612 33570 4238 14789 2219 1179 1933 19836 4981 2153

% Volume Stock (TICKER) Close Chg Chg (100) 10 TOP LOSERS Liquid Hol (LIQD) 5.30 Barrett Bu (BBSI) 87.79 Ocera Ther (OCRX)14.40 Penn West (PWE) 7.40 Just Energ (JE) 7.03 Phoenix Co (PNX) 44.95 Aetrium In (ATRM) 7.04 Cadiz Inc (CDZI) 7.90 GlycoMimet (GLYC)10.22 Standard R (SR) 6.93

◊0.96 ◊13.11 ◊2.03 ◊0.83 ◊0.68 ◊4.21 ◊0.62 ◊0.71 ◊0.78 ◊0.57

◊15.3 ◊13.0 ◊12.4 ◊10.1 ◊8.8 ◊8.6 ◊8.1 ◊8.2 ◊7.1 ◊7.6

2744 5276 2268 120994 25425 2206 1069 1651 2001 421

Source: Thomson Reuters

Stocks on the Move Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Wednesday: IBM Corp., down $6.18 to $182.25.

Light fourth-quarter revenue revealed the thin margins that the tech company is working with as it shifts from hardware to software and services.

Coach Inc., down $3.17 to $49.38. Rivals including Michael Kors and Vera Bradley are cutting into the luxurygoods merchant’s market share.

Brinker International Inc., up $3.03 to $49.72. The parent company of Chili’s and Maggiano’s reported a 7 percent jump in quarterly profit.

Norfolk Southern Corp., up $4.23 to $92.94. The railroad’s fourth-quarter profit jumped 24 percent.

FirstEnergy Corp., down $1.02 to $31.13. The utility cut its dividend for the first time its 17-year history.

AMAG Pharmaceuticals Inc., down 99 cents to $20.87. Federal regulators rejected the specialty drugmaker’s appeal for the expanded use of its anemia treatment, Feraheme.

Nuance Communications Inc., up $1.16 to $16.05. The voice technology company boosted its quarterly forecast.

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc., down 78 cents to $14.60. The company opened a $90 million underwritten public offering of common shares.

(AP)

STYLE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

Push Comes to Shove in Brooklyn Snow fell at a punishing slant across the darkened warehouses along Union Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn. It couldn’t be farther from the sunny retirement communities of Florida, but inside one former factory, the spirit of St. Petersburg lived on.

Like the lido deck of some deluxe retirement home, 10 bright blue shuffleboard courts were lined up in a neat row, but instead of retirees, it was filled with 20and 30-something players wielding sticks and pints of beer.

The Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club, which opens next week, may be the first shuffleboard club in New York, and it’s trying to turn the pastime favored by septuagenarians into the next Ping-Pong among the borough’s barhopping millennials.

Brooklyn and shuffleboard may not seem like an obvious fit, but they do share similarities.

Shuffleboard is a sport with a low athletic buy-in and offers plenty of time to drink between turns. That might appeal to Brooklynites who prefer to cloak their inner jock in irony and nonchalance.

The story of the Royal Palms began two years ago when Jonathan Schnapp, 41, a D.J., piñata-maker, web design professor at New York University and web developer,

Shuffleboard at The Royal Palms in Brooklyn. board Club, which was built in 1924.

At its height in the 1940s and ’50s, the club had over 8,000 members.

The club appeared YANA PASKOVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES in the movie “Cowas driving to Miami with a friend, coon,” on countless postcards Ashley Albert, 40, a voice-over art- and has hosted the World Shuffleist, front woman for the children’s board Championship twice.

As it happens, the sport was exrock ’n’ roll band the Jimmies, and jewelry maker. The pair were on periencing a revival in St. Peterstheir way to judge a barbecue con- burg. Christine Page, the 43-yeartest in Lakeland, Fla. (Schnapp old president of the club, started and Albert are also accredited a shuffleboard night that draws upward of 500 younger players. barbecue judges.)

Soon Schnapp and Albert were Driving south through the alligator belt, Schnapp asked: “We’re pushing their biscuits (as the going to play shuffleboard, right?” ceramic shuffleboard disks are Schnapp had grandparents in called) with a pair of borrowed Florida and spent the winter vaca- tangs (the aluminum poles), in tions of his youth playing shuffle- the company of 20- and 30-someboard in their retirement home in things. A food truck sold vegan hot West Palm Beach. “It seemed like dogs and a punk band played.

“We were like, ‘Oh my God,’ ” there was shuffleboard for miles,” he said. “It was a huge scene and Albert said. “This the most magical place we’ve ever been to in everybody was playing.”

Schnapp and Albert took a de- our whole lives.” They decided to tour to St. Petersburg, home of the bring it to New York.

JOSHUA DAVID STEIN prestigious St. Petersburg Shuffle-

Ready to Strut in Ready-to-Rent Dresses All the world is, alas, no longer a stage. ’Tis a red carpet.

The great unfurling and its concomitant shutter clicks now occur not only at the Hollywood award ceremonies CritiCal that drag on for Shopper two-thirds of the Alexandra year, but also at store openings, Jacobs nightclubs, sweet 16s, quinceañeras, bat mitzvahs and probably some baby showers.

And the players are putting a filter on it and posting to Instagram.

In this world of continuously streaming display, a business called Rent the Runway has flourished: leasing women designer dresses and building a sisterly social network (“GREAT potential, but sadly did not work out for me”) from the resultant selfies. Recently the company, which has showrooms in SoHo and Las Vegas, set up another at Henri Bendel, the once-venerable department store.

JENNIFER S. ALTMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Rent the Runway dresses at Henri Bendel in New York.

Customers pay from $30 (for a strapless cocktail frock by the special-event stalwart Nicole Miller, retail price $480) to $500

(for a full-skirted gown by Giles, retail price $19,690) to have dresses sent on loan, with complimentary backup size, to the location of their choice. After using, they pop ’em into the mailbox.

“But what if you like the dress so much you want to buy it?” I inquired after zipping myself into an enchanting red chandelier maxi by Matthew Williamson.

“That is our most frequently asked question!” said a staff member named Brittany, adding firmly, “You can’t.”

Rent the Runway is often described as catering to Cinderellas, average women who can’t afford luxury, but I think it’s more for Tianas (“The Princess and the Frog”), too busy running their restaurants to stew about what to wear to the ball.

“We believe that confident women can change the world,” reads a placard signed by the company’s founders, both named Jennifer (Hyman and Fleiss).

6

For Tresses Feeling Their Age Is hair the new skin? Serums, BB creams, massages, lasers: an increasing number of products and services are emerging to address the issue of aging locks.

Even though most Skin women aren’t going bald in the same Hilary Howard numbers as men, their tresses can start to thin, dry out and lack general oomph, especially after 40.

“As hair ages we tend to torture it more, which makes matters worse,” said Dr. Alan J. Bauman, a hair restoration physician in Boca Raton, Fla. “It’s not addressing the root of the problem.”

The problem is what encases the actual hair root: the follicle.

Bauman performs hair transplants when follicles, the organs that grow hair, cannot be resuscitated. But he said he was first and foremost concerned with keeping follicles alive and healthy.

To nourish them (along with the rest of the body), he recommends eating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids like salmon and flaxseeds, as well as dark green vegetables, which are strong sources of vitamins A and C, needed by the follicles to produce sebum (hair’s natural conditioner). He also encourages patients to eat eggs, beans and poultry.

“You need protein for hair,” Bauman said. “If you’re starving yourself, your hair will suffer.”

Dr. Doris Day, a dermatologist in New York, agreed that the right foods are necessary for healthy hair. She suggests eating pomegranate, avocado, pumpkin and olive oil, along with herbs like turmeric, mint and rosemary.

Hair care also comes in pill form. Biotin has been a go-to for hair and nails for years, while the newer Norwegian dietary supplement Viviscal includes biotin and other hair strengtheners.

Both doctors also endorse a LaserCap, which “looks like a regular baseball hat,” as Bauman put it, costs $3,000 and is used 30 minutes daily. Day described the cap as offering “short wavelengths that produce very low heat; like a gentle warm compress that stimulates follicle growth,” as opposed to hair removal laser treatments, which deliver stronger amounts of energy, “like a hammer to a nail,” to the base of the follicle, killing it.

JOURNAL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

7

At Resting Place for France’s ‘Great Men,’ Calls to Include More Women as Voltaire and Rousseau (who hated each other), Victor Hugo and Marie Curie, the lone woman among 73 people entombed there to make it on her own merits (one other was included at her husband’s insistence). So when President François Hollande publicly sought suggestions about who to add to the roster, it was not surprising that the debate quickly turned to redressing the gender imbalance.

The president’s staff has been barraged with names of important women recommended for a Panthéon burial. At a time when France is deep into one of its periodic debates about its national identity, the types of women most often nominated for the honor are a reflection of sorts of the national psyche.

PARIS — As the builders were putting the final stones in place on the Panthéon, France’s monument to some of its most important figures, a young Napoleon wrote, “Men of genius are meteors destined to burn to light their century.” The motto above the monument’s door bears much the same sentiment: “To great men, a grateful country.”

Which raises a question: What about the “great women”? Although times have changed since 1790, neither the motto nor, more important, the choice of who should be buried there has caught up.

By tradition, every French president is accorded the honor of moving a deceased worthy into the structure alongside such figures

CROSSWORD

Edited By Will Shortz PUZZLE BY MICHAEL HAWKINS

ACROSS

Color of el mar 1 Pudding flavor 44 Crescent 4 Rapper Lil ___ 45 Enticed 7 Take on 49 Calrissian of “Star Wars” films 13 Sea goddess who rescued 52 Expensive boot Odysseus material 14 “Mit,” across the 53 Bygone delivery Rhine 56 “Titanic” or 16 Mixture of “Avatar” cement 59 Daisy’s love 17 “Deliver Us From ___” (2003 film) 60 “The Time Machine” people 18 Actress Rogers 61 Decline 19 Less loose 62 Zenith 20 Member of a boy 63 Blacken band with nine top 10 hits 64 Thrilla in Manila participant 23 Supply line cutter 65 Settings for some escape 24 Fatigue scenes 25 Triple-platinum 66 Ten Sinatra album Commandments 26 Boundary river keeper 27 Western actor Do-over 67 Wooley 29 Move like goo DOWN 33 Invitation info 1 Buffs 34 Top-heavy 2 Flip 35 Kitchen counter option 3 “Beat it!”

39 Some street 4 Pack tightly gatherings 5 Poet who wrote 41 Befuddled “If you want to 42 Jordan’s only be loved, be seaport lovable” 43

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Its name may be written with an ampersand 30 ___Clean 46 Make plain 31 Actress/model 47 Food item Kravitz 48 Smidgen 32 Rescue letters 50 Less inept 33 “Huh?” 51 The Graces in 34 It might be under Raphael’s “The a tank Three Graces,” e.g.

35 Barnyard cry 52 Smug look 36 Snack brand represented by 53 One of the Sterling Cooper Argonauts on “Mad Men” 54 Deal 37 Houston sch.

55 Sufficient, for Shakespeare 38 Cooler part 56 Obstruction 39 Set-off chunks of text 57 Zeno’s home 40 Fin 58 Thunder 28

Royal messengers

45

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 5,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS. Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

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At the top of the list are rebels and crusaders, women who dared to live different lives, which sometimes meant unconventional sexual liaisons, as well as exceptional intellectual and social accomplishments. Above all, the women who are being promoted were individualists and independents in a society that at its core is deeply conformist.

The fact that these women managed to flourish while going against the grain adds to their luster, said Clémence Helfter, of Osez le Féminisme, one of the feminist organizations that have pushed to have a woman named to the Panthéon. They were unconventional because “despite their condition as women in a patriarchal society, they managed to have exceptional destinies,” she said.

In the 20 days that the Center for National Monuments had a poll online asking for suggestions, most of the top nominees were women. When the magazine Le Point polled 5,000 people, the strongest support went to Louise Michel, a 19th-century anarchist and teacher who never married, and Sister Emanuelle, a nun who lived for most of her life in Turkey and Egypt among the poor and espoused liberal views on the use of contraception.

In addition to Michel and Sister Emmanuel, women demonstrating in front of the Panthéon last year hoisted portraits of Olympe de Gouges, an early crusader for women’s rights and an opponent of slavery. Another potential entrant is Simone de Beauvoir, a political theorist.

Women active in the French resistance to the Nazis are frequently mentioned, including Germaine Tillion, an ethnographer who was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and Lucie Aubrac, whose daring ruse to save her Jewish husband and others makes for breathtaking reading.

The standards for inclusion in the Panthéon have long been idiosyncratic. Mona Ozouf, a French historian, emphasized that the people buried there were meant to inspire French citizens. “We’re not putting ourselves in the Panthéon,” she said, “but someone who is larger than us.”

ALISSA J. RUBIN

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OPINION

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

EDITORIALS OF THE TIMES

GAIL COLLINS

A Plan to Make Voting Easier

Luck of the Pontiff

A superb report released Wednesday by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration can be summarized in one quick sentence: There are many ways to make voting easier in America. There shouldn’t be the slightest whiff of controversy or partisanship about that concept, or the important suggestions made in the report. But of course there is, and that makes the commission’s persuasive logic and research all the more valuable.

President Obama appointed the commission to address the problem of long lines at the polls in 2012. At a time when states were deliberately keeping people from voting with draconian ID requirements, that seemed a narrow goal, but members of the commission did far better than expected in showing the many ways that the nation’s patchwork of state and local election laws has contributed to low turnouts.

Led by two election-law experts from opposing parties — Robert Bauer, a Democrat, and Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican — the commission didn’t get into politicized voter ID issues, though it did note that fraud is rare. It agreed, however, on a set of a principles that ought to be considered fundamental: No one should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote. Ballots should be simple; registration efficient. Polling places should be well-organized and workers properly trained. The report makes several key recommendations: EARLY VOTING The report said early voting is one of the best ways to involve more people in the political process, allowing them to cast a ballot at their convenience and reducing Election Day congestion. Only 32 states allow some form of in-person early voting, and many Republican lawmakers have tried to cut back on it. The commission said every state should

adopt the idea in some form, citing a bipartisan consensus of election administrators.

ONLINE REGISTRATION The report says every state should move to online registration, which reduces the chances of errors, makes registration easy, and is far less expensive than paper systems. Registration has gone up significantly in states that have adopted these systems.

BETTER TECHNOLOGY The machines purchased with federal funds after the 2000 balloting disaster are wearing out, and there is no new money to replace them. The commission said the federal government needs to set clear national standards for new machines and certify the ones that work, replacing the federal Election Assistance Commission, which currently has no members thanks to Republicanled skirmishing in Congress. One suggestion made by the report is that voters be allowed to print out a ballot at home and fill it in before bringing it to the polling place for scanning.

POLL WORKERS States and cities should bring in more students and private-sector workers, and use fewer retirees. Colleges and employers should be encouraged to let students and workers volunteer. States should require far more training than the two to four hours that the average poll worker currently receives.

The most important idea in the report, endorsed by members of both parties on the panel, is that these are national problems requiring a national solution. It is no longer tenable for voting to be difficult in one state but easy next door.

Republicans may continue to fight to keep large groups from participating in the democratic process, but after the commission’s report, there can no longer be any doubt that there are no legitimate reasons for their resistance.

Dangerous Tensions in Ukrainian Standoff The standoff in Kiev, Ukraine, is now two months old, and it has claimed its first fatalities: two men who died of bullet wounds and a third who fell to his death. With Ukraine’s citizens inflamed by both economic policy and new laws against public assembly, President Viktor Yanukovich met with the three most prominent opposition leaders: the popular boxer Vitali Klitschko, the former economics minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and the far-right nationalist Oleh Tyahnybok.

The meeting was a positive development, but it was difficult to see what agreement could end the standoff peacefully. Neither bitter winter nor threatening laws and actions have deterred the protesters, and Yanukovich has shown no inclination to resign. The protesters are divided, and the most radical nationalists among them have defied calls by Klitschko and other more moderate leaders to shun violence.

The United States and the European Union have made no secret that their sympathies are with the protesters, who poured out into Independence Square after Yanukovich abruptly

announced in November that he would not sign a pact aligning Ukraine more closely with the European Union. Russia, which opposed the European pact, has predictably accused the West of egging on the demonstrators.

At this stage, however, the United States and Europe need to do more. They must make clear their opposition to violence, as the State Department did on Wednesday. Now that blood has been shed, there is a real risk that the clashes could spread beyond central Kiev, rendering a peaceful solution less viable. But the West must also make abundantly clear to Yanukovich and his lieutenants that they will pay a price if they try to use the talks simply to gain time, or if they order a bloody crackdown.

The State Department’s warning — plus an announcement by the American Embassy in Kiev that it was revoking the visas of several unnamed officials responsible for actions taken against protesters — was a good start.

It also must be prepared to follow through on its promise to consider “additional steps in response to the use of violence by any actors.”

8

President Obama is going to visit the pope!

He’s been to the Vatican before, but not with this pope, who is perhaps the only person in the world almost everybody likes. Except Rush Limbaugh, which sort of makes it even better.

The president’s visit, which is scheduled for March, comes at an interesting intersection in the two men’s careers. Pope Francis can currently do no wrong, and Barack Obama can do no right. Recently, the Obama administration decided to move its Vatican Embassy into a compound that includes the American Embassy to Italy. This will save money and improve security, but the outcry was so intense that you’d think Obama had ordered a re-creation of the Sack of Rome. Fast-forward to many variations on the headline “Obama Insults Catholics.”

The State Department pointed out that while the new embassy will not be in the Vatican, neither is the current one. Or that of any other country. The Vatican is only two-tenths of a square mile, and half of that is gardens. “In fact, our new location is a tenth of a mile closer,” said Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy.

Cynics might wonder why we have an embassy for the Vatican in the first place. The total population is about 800, which is one-eighth the seating capacity of Radio City Music Hall.

But, obviously, nobody is going to disrespect the Vatican while Pope Francis is around. He won the world’s heart by quickly doing a few things that were so obvious, it’s amazing no previous pontiff figured them out. Such as: if you are going to talk about the poor all the time, you should try to avoid gold furniture.

Without changing any of the Church’s reactionary rules on contraception, homosexuality or abortion, Francis changed the tone just by saying that Catholics should stop obsessing about sex. And instead of just pleading for greater charity toward the poor, Francis decreed that the world needed to drop the idea that when the rich got richer, everybody eventually benefited. (This would have been where he lost Rush Limbaugh.)

Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, told Cardinal Timothy Dolan that a rich benefactor to a rebuilding project at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York might hesitate to cough up his promised million-dollar donation because of the pope’s attitude. Dolan said he assured Langone that while the pope loves the poor, “he also loves rich people.”

Republican budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan said the pope’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the capitalist system was due to an unfortunate upbringing. “The guy is from Argentina. They haven’t had real capitalism in Argentina,” he told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Even if Francis was down on capitalism, no capitalists wanted to sound down on Francis.

Meanwhile, Obama has spent the last five years dodging calls for new taxes while protecting the insurance industry from health care reform. Stocks have been at an all-time high, and Wall Street hates him.

The moral is: It’s way easier to be pope.

SPORTS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014

In Brief

Sold on Yankees, Tanaka Gets $155 Million They met with Masahiro Tanaka for almost three hours at a private residence in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 8, and the length of the session left the Yankees feeling encouraged. After all, their eightmember delegation had been allotted only one hour to meet with Tanaka, the prized Japanese righthanded pitcher, and his agent, Casey Close, but instead the giveand-take kept going and the Yankees kept making their pitch.

They told Tanaka, who had a startling 24-0 record in 2013, that both the Yankees and New York City stood out from the competition and that someone with his talent could flourish in that environment. They could offer Tanaka a stage no other team could match, and they were prepared to back up their words with an enormous amount of money.

When they were done, the Yan-

kees waited, not sure if another team might find a way to outmaneuver them. And then, late Tuesday, nearly two weeks after that initial meeting, the Yankees got the word from Close they had been hoping for: Tanaka had agreed to accept their offer of a seven-year, $155 million contract, the fifth-largest deal landed by a pitcher and the most money given to a player coming from Japan.

The deal includes an opt-out clause that will allow Tanaka to become a free agent after four seasons in the Bronx. The Yankees will pay an additional $20 million to the Rakuten Golden Eagles, Tanaka’s former team in Japan, as part of the new posting agreement between Major League Baseball and Japanese clubs.

With the signing of Tanaka, the Yankees concluded their extensive, and very expensive, off-sea-

son roster renovation, which they undertook while feeling the sting of not making the playoffs for just the second time in 19 seasons. The money spent on Tanaka, Brian McCann (five years, $85 million), Jacoby Ellsbury (seven years, $153 million), Carlos Beltran (three years, $45 million) and three other new players comes to $450 million, not including the $20 million posting fee for Tanaka, leaving the Yankees with the same heavy-spending image they had hoped to modify.

The Yankees’ off-season extravaganza will take them right past the $189 million payroll threshold for 2014 that the team had initially hoped to stay under.

Instead, the Yankees will continue to pay a 50 percent luxury tax on every payroll dollar over $189 million and will forfeit millions more in rebates. DAVID WALDSTEIN

Federer Reaches a Higher Level as Other Stars Fall MELBOURNE, Australia — All week at the Upset Open, the favorites have fallen. Serena Williams toppled first. Then Maria Sharapova. Then Novak Djokovic.

Then Victoria Azarenka.

On Wednesday night, the trend continued, albeit with a counterintuitive twist. Because the latest lower seed to undo a top-five player was not really an underdog, but rather Roger Federer, perhaps the greatest player in tennis history. In their 20 previous meetings, Andy Murray had never been ranked higher than Federer.

Federer, seeded sixth, arrived at the Australian Open with a new coach in Stefan Edberg and a larger

racket frame, and, for five matches now, he has continued to turn back the clock. His 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3 destruction of the fourth-seeded Murray in Wednesday’s quarterfinal was vintage Federer: a blend of sliced backhands and risks taken and hair flopped.

Federer’s latest victory produced yet another meeting with his longtime rival Rafael Nadal. It will be their 33rd meeting, but the first in a Grand Slam event since the semifinals here in 2012.

Nadal lassoed and punched and roared past Grigor Dimitrov into the semifinals in four tight sets, 3-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (7), 6-2. He inched closer toward becoming the first

WEATHER High/low temperatures for the 21 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) for the 18 hours ended at 1 p.m. yesterday. Expected conditions for today and tomorrow.

Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PCpartly cloudy, R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SSsnow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.

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

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man in the Open era to win each Grand Slam tournament twice.

GREG BISHOP LI IN FINAL Li Na has reached the Australian Open final for the third time in four years with a 6-2, 6-4 win over 19-year-old Canadian Eugenie Bouchard.

No. 4-seeded Li, the 2011 French Open champion, is the only major winner and the highest-ranked player still in contention after the defending champion Victoria Azarenka’s quarterfinal loss to Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland.

No. 5-seeded Radwanska was scheduled to play No. 20 Dominika Cibulkova in the second semifinal later Thursday.

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FOREIGN CITIES Acapulco Athens Beijing Berlin Buenos Aires Cairo

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

9

Thunder Top Spurs Kevin Durant had 36 points to offset Tony Parker’s season-high 37, and the Oklahoma City Thunder survived a testy 111-105 victory over the San Antonio Spurs, their third win this season over the defending Western Conference champions. Reggie Jackson had 27 points and Serge Ibaka added 14 points for Oklahoma City (33-10), which reclaimed the West’s best record.

(AP)

Sunderland Advances Sunderland beat Manchester United in a dramatic penalty shootout to advance to the League Cup final against Manchester City. After United scored in injury time of extra time to make it 2-1 and 3-3 on aggregate, goalkeeper Vito Mannone saved the decisive spot kick from Rafael da Silva to put Sunderland into only its second final. (AP)

N.H.L. SCORES TUESDAY’S LATE GAMES Toronto 5, Colorado 2 Vancouver 2, Edmonton 1 Winnipeg 3, Anaheim 2 WEDNESDAY Detroit 5, Chicago 4, SO Carolina 3, Philadelphia 2 Pittsburgh 5, Montreal 1

N.B.A. SCORES WEDNESDAY Atlanta 112, Orlando 109 Boston 113, Washington 111, OT Chicago 98, Cleveland 87 Charlotte 95, L.A. Clippers 91 Toronto 93, Dallas 85 Philadelphia 110, Knicks 106 Houston 119, Sacramento 98 Milwaukee 104, Detroit 101 Oklahoma City 111, San Antonio 105 88/ 66 46/ 43 45/ 36 60/ 49 86/ 75 83/ 69 50/ 43 54/ 42 70/ 36 0/-13 3/ -8 74/ 66 41/ 34 28/ 27 91/ 79 57/ 48 79/ 59 21/ 20 73/ 68 46/ 36 7/ -9 45/ 36 18/ 10

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2014 10

SPORTS JOURNAL

Yankees on a Budget? Free-Agent Bill Hits $470 Million You’re rich and you’re famished and you’re eager for something new. You find the fanciest restaurant, order everything on the menu and raise a toast.

Problems on BaSeBall solved. This is Tyler Kepner going to cost you, but you knew that when you walked in.

This, again, was the Yankees’ approach to the off-season. They grew nothing of their own that is likely to help in 2014. They were hungry and loaded with cash and they gorged on seven free agents.

Total bill: $470 million, plus a big tip in luxury taxes.

Masahiro Tanaka, the star Japanese pitcher who reached a contract agreement on Wednesday, got the most, $155 million for seven years, though he will surely opt out after four years, as long as he is pitching well. At that price, and at 25 years old, exceptional performance should be a given.

This is what the Yankees do.

They understand there is a better and cheaper way, they just cannot execute it. While the Yankees missed the playoffs last fall, the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals reached the World

son, one year and Series with just $3 million; and two players, one second baseman per team, on nineBrian Roberts, figure contracts. one year and Counting the $2 million. The suspended Alex Yankees also Rodriguez, the must pay a $20 Yankees have six million posting such players. fee to Tanaka’s The Cardinals Japanese team. win with a few “There’s a lot of stars and a selfareas that needed sustaining farm improvement, system. The and I know that Red Sox won ownership has last year with a KOJI WATANABE/GETTY IMAGES discount version Masahiro Tanaka signed stepped up to allow us to secure a of the playbook for $155 million. lot of players that the Yankees are should make our following now. fans excited that 2014 is going to be Rarely do things work out so rather different than 2013,” Generneatly on the free-agent market, al Manager Brian Cashman said, where most players are nearing adding, “Hopefully, we’ve pushed the end of their prime, or past it. ourselves into a level of conversaIf the Yankees’ spending is tion that we can be included back really over, here is the itemized with some of the better teams in bill after Tanaka: Ellsbury, the the American League.” center fielder, at seven years and So there it is, the $470 million $153 million; catcher Brian Mcremedy for a team suffering in Cann, five years and $85 million; the standings and, alarmingly, outfielder Carlos Beltran, three in attendance and television ratyears and $45 million; reliever ings. But, really, the Yankees’ toMatt Thornton, two years and tal outlay is closer to $500 million. $7 million; infielder Kelly John-

Host’s Pride Rests on Aging, and Aching, Star Skater It has long been difficult to imagine Russia’s first Winter Olympics without Yevgeny Plushenko, and now that will no longer be necessary.

Despite having barely competed in the last two years and despite having finished second at this season’s Russian national figure skating championships and skipped the European championships altogether, Plushenko, 31, was handed Russia’s only men’s singles spot for the Sochi Games on Wednesday. That was no great surprise in light of Plushenko’s past and prominence, but it was not without debate or risk.

“I have kind of a life philosophy that nostalgia’s expensive,” Scott Hamilton, a former gold medalist who is now an NBC commentator, said in an interview Wednesday.

“What I’m saying is that to take such a bold stance as to send Yevgeny after all the surgeries he’s had over the last four, eight years and having not seen him really on the stage having a logical momentum going into the Olympics, they must know something pretty substan-

tial to make that decision to send him as the sole participant.”

The decision came after a highly unusual closed-door mock competition session on Tuesday in which Plushenko performed his free program for top Russian figure-skating officials and reportedly completed two quadruple jumps, one in combination. The federation’s selections are subject to approval from the Russian Olympic Committee. “I had no room for error,” Plushenko later told the Russian publication Sovietsky Sport.

Perhaps not, but Plushenko, the sharp-featured one-time wunderkind who rose from poverty to become a triple Olympic medalist and one of the most successful figure skaters in history, clearly had name recognition and public sentiment on his side. The N.H.L. star Alex Ovechkin, one of the few Russian winter sports stars with a higher profile than Plushenko, has already said that Plushenko should be the one carrying the Russian flag at the opening ceremony at the country’s first home Olympics in 34 years.

It is not clear whether Plushenko would be available for that honor. This will be the first Olympics with a team event in figure skating, and it begins Feb. 6, the day before the opening ceremony.

But there is no doubt that Sochi has been the motivation for pushing through the pain. “I have not seen him in person since an exhibition we did in Berlin a year ago, and all he could talk about was Sochi, Sochi, Sochi,” said Daniel Weiss, a former German skater turned television analyst. “Sochi was everything for him.”

This is Plushenko’s latest comeback. He skipped three years of elite competition before returning for the 2010 Winter Olympics, where he finished second to the American Evan Lysacek. Before the Vancouver Games, Plushenko was asked whether he could still see himself competing in Sochi.

“I don’t know yet; they would like, they would like,” he said, referring to his fellow Russians.

Given his age, he added, “It’s going to be too hard.”

CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

The Yankees genuinely wanted to bring their 2014 payroll under $189 million to reset their luxurytax rate and take advantage of a revenue-sharing rebate built into the last collective bargaining agreement. They believed there was no reason they had to spend so much while other teams won for far less. But the 2013 season changed everything. The Yankees were lucky to win 85 games.

So now the Yankees will be taxed at 50 percent on the portion of their payroll above $189 million. They will also lose the rebate, which comes to about $7 million. Altogether they could lose more than $30 million, over a few years, by going over the $189 million threshold.

The Yankees have built a business empire on the premise that nothing sells like stars. Well, actually, nothing sells like success, but the easiest way to get it is to buy all the talent you can.

“Clearly, a lot of heavy lifting needed to take place,” Cashman said. “And it has taken place.”

It all amounts to a $500 million gamble. But for the Yankees, that may have been the only option they had.

In Brief Coming Off Injury, Named to U.S. Team Sarah Hendrickson, the reigning world champion in the women’s ski jump, was named to the U.S. Olympic team Wednesday even though she has not competed this season. The first women’s ski jumping event at the Olympics will be held Feb. 11. Before her injury, Hendrickson was considered one of the favorites to win a medal in Sochi.

(NYT)

Browns Chase Coach The Buffalo Bills’ defensive coordinator Mike Pettine is the front-runner to become the Cleveland Browns’ seventh fulltime coach and will reportedly have a third interview with the team on Thursday. Team officials interviewed Pettine on Tuesday in Mobile, Ala., site of the Senior Bowl, and although a deal was not reached in a fourhour meeting, enough progress was made to move forward. (AP)

YOURNAVY IN THE NEWS

CNP Visits Bataan Talks Value of Sea Duty

By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Mark Hays, USS Bataan Public Affairs

Chief of Naval Personnel (CNP) Vice Adm. Bill Moran visited multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) Jan. 21.

During his visit he held an all-hands call in the ship’s hangar bay to discuss important issues such as pay, benefits, manning and deployment cycles.

Moran announced during the all-hands call that the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) are moving forward and will soon announce changes to career sea pay for all Sailors while on sea duty.

“It’s long overdue; we haven’t adjusted sea pay in over 10 years,” Moran said.

“We are convinced it’s the

right thing to do for Sailors who are serving at sea. We want to compensate you more for the work that you do.”

With Bataan preparing to deploy early next month, the discussion of a career sea pay raise was great news for Sailors and their families.

“I’m excited about the changes, especially with deployment coming up,” said

Electronics Technician 2nd Class Thien Nguyen. “This will help me when I consider doing back-to-back sea duty.”

Moran also stressed that when you read a headline today in the media about important Sailor and family issues, “read the whole story.”

Rumors are out there that we are cutting pay, benefits and retirement. He explained that

none of the rumors are true.

“We are not cutting your pay,” Moran said. “The retirement system that you came into the Navy with is the retirement system you are going to get.”

As CNP, he said he and his staff remain focused on putting the right Sailor with the right education in the right billet at the right time. That means getting manning levels to appropriate levels earlier in a ship’s training cycle.

According to Moran, the Navy brought in 8,000 additional Sailors in the last two years to help reduce the number of gaps at sea and minimize the dip in manpower after deployment in preparation for the next.

PACOM Thanks Sailors in Singapore

By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jay C. Pugh, Commander, Task Force 73

Commander, Pacific Fleet Admiral Harry Harris visited Commander Logistics Group Western Pacific (COMLOG WESTPAC) and Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG 111) Jan. 22, during a visit to Singapore.

Harris addressed Sailors and Navy personnel assigned to COMLOG WESTPAC, Navy Region Singapore (NRS), and various tenant commands during an all hands call held at the NRS recreation facility.

“Thank you for everything you are doing in working with our partners in Singapore

and throughout the region,” said Harris. “Your work here is critically important and will become even more so in the future as we continue our strategic rebalance to the Pacific.”

Harris highlighted the U.S. Navy support to the

Asia-Pacific rebalance, saying that “no one should doubt America’s long term commitment to the rebalance and the region.”

With one of the Navy’s newest ships, USS Spruance, as a backdrop, Harris emphasized the deployment and future uses

of the Navy’s most advanced platforms such as the littoral combat ship, the Zumwaltclass guided missile destroyer and P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft to the AsiaPacific.

“Thanks to some great support from Singapore, our first littoral combat ship, USS Freedom, just completed a very successful deployment to Southeast Asia which included responding to a devastating typhoon that hit our allies in the Philippines. Later this year, our next littoral combat ship will deploy to Southeast Asia for 16 months,” said Harris.

BUILDING THE

BOMBS

Photos by MCSN Jenna Kaliszewski

Aviation Ordnancemen, from Weapons department G-3 division, move an inert bomb in a weapons magazine. G-3 conducted training in order to properly handle ordnance.

Staff Commanding Officer Capt. Daniel Grieco Executive Officer Capt. Mark Colombo Public Affairs Officer Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Evans Media Officer Ensign Jack Georges Senior Editor MCC Adrian Melendez Editor MC2 (SW) Brian G. Reynolds Layout MC3 (SW) Heath Zeigler Rough Rider Contributors Theodore Roosevelt Media MCSN Jenna Kaliszewski MCSA Matthew Young Command Ombudsman Sabrina Bishop Linda Watford Michelle V. Thomas cvn71ombudsman@gmail.com The Rough Rider is an authorized publication for the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71).

Contents herein are not necessarily the views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, Department of Defense, Department of the Navy or the Commanding Officer of TR. All items for publication in The Rough Rider must be submitted to the editor no later than three days prior to publication.

Do you have a story you’d like to see in the Rough Rider? Contact the Media Department at (757) 443-7419 or stop by 3-180-0-Q.

CHECK US OUT ONLINE! Facebook.com/ussTheodoreRoosevelt Twitter: @TheRealCVN71 youtube.com/ussTheodoreRoosevelt

Thursday *

Times

Ch. 66

January 23

Ch. 67

Ch. 68

0900

BULLET TO THE HEAD

TYLER PERRY’S PEEPLES

SINISTER

1100

THE GODFATHER

THE LONE RANGER

INDEPENDENCE DAY

1400

ABDUCTION

GHOSTBUSTERS

INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 2

1600

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK

SPIDERMAN 3

1830

ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH

WANDERLUST

CARRIE

2030

BULLET TO THE HEAD

TYLER PERRY’S PEEPLES

SINISTER

2230

THE GODFATHER

THE LONE RANGER

INDEPENDENCE DAY

0130

ABDUCTION

GHOSTBUSTERS

INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 2

0330

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK

SPIDERMAN 3

0600

ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH

WANDERLUST

CARRIE

*Movie schedule is subject to change.