Articles On Information

President Vladimir Putin’s Dangerous Moves

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President
 Vladimir Putin of Russia has added new, chilling nuclear threats to his
 aggression in Ukraine, where 6,000 people have been killed in a war 
with Russian-backed separatists. Mr. Putin wants to expand his country’s
 influence and standing, but his alarming behavior has estranged Russia 
from most other major powers, damaged its economy and narrowed its 
future options.</div>
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Even
 for Mr. Putin, the recent nuclear threats have set a new benchmark for 
hostility in the conflict he has ignited with the West. Two weeks ago, 
The Times of London <a href="http://news.err.ee/v/International/cbe4d3fa-960c-4331-8b4f-2fec20ac70d5">reported</a>
 on a meeting between Russian generals and American officials in which 
the Russians threatened a “spectrum of responses from nuclear to 
non-military” if NATO moved more military forces into the Baltic States.</div>
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Last month, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/22/us-denmark-russia-idUSKBN0MI0ML20150322" title="reuters">Mikhail Vanin</a>,
 warned that Danish warships “will be targets for Russia’s nuclear 
weapons” if Denmark follows through on its expressed interest in joining
 NATO’s missile defense system.<br />
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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Vladimir Putin" data-mediaviewer-credit="Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/opinion/16thu1web/16thu1web-superJumbo.jpg" height="278" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/opinion/16thu1web/16thu1web-master315.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/opinion/16thu1web/16thu1web-master315.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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                <span class="caption-text">Vladimir Putin</span>
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            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti        </span>
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And in remarks aired on March 15, Mr.<a href="http://time.com/3745522/vladimir-putin-russia-nukes-crimea-ukraine/" title="time"> Putin</a>
 said he was ready to bring nuclear weapons into a state of alert last 
year when Russia was in the process of invading and annexing Crimea. 
Some Russian officials have also hinted at the possibility of 
reintroducing nuclear weapons to Crimea, which has been free of them for
 two decades.</div>
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American
 officials say they have seen no evidence that Russia has actually begun
 to reposition or make ready a nuclear arsenal that still contains 
thousands of weapons. But even if the Russian threats are loose talk to 
intimidate adversaries or curry favor with nationalists at home, they 
reflect a cynical disregard for Russia’s post-Cold War role as a partner
 with America in arms control treaties designed to discourage the spread
 of nuclear weapons. These threats inevitably raise tensions and could 
increase the chances of deadly miscalculations.</div>
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Mr.
 Putin has crossed other lines, including sending military aircraft 
unannounced into international airspace over Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia,
 Poland and the North Sea. On April 7, a Russian fighter jet intercepted
 an American spy plane over the Baltic Sea north of Poland; the Pentagon
 complained the Russians acted in an “unsafe and unprofessional manner.”</div>
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There
 have been scores of similar episodes over the past year as NATO 
increased its air patrols in response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea.</div>
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The Russian leader’s decision to proceed with the long-delayed sale
 of an S-300 missile defense system to Iran was another bad choice. 
Experts say the system does not threaten Israel, which has nuclear 
weapons and the best military arsenal in the Middle East, but the move 
could make it harder for the Obama administration to get congressional 
support for a nuclear agreement with Iran.</div>
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Mr.
 Putin’s aggression is rooted in intense nationalism, which plays very 
well to his people and fuels the war against Ukraine. Despite a 
cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk in February, Russia has continued 
to arm, train and direct separatist rebels. Fighting has<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32296796" title="bbc"> surged</a> and there are grave concerns that Mr. Putin is planning an offensive to seize more territory in eastern Ukraine.</div>
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Russia’s
 bellicose behavior is a serious test for NATO, which has sometimes 
shown disturbing divisions. The Europeans and the United States have to 
stay united in maintaining sanctions on Russia and in continuing air 
patrols and training exercises, as it becomes increasingly difficult to 
predict Mr. Putin’s next move.</div>
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President Vladimir Putin’s Dangerous Moves

President Vladimir Putin of Russia has added new, chilling nuclear threats to his aggression in Ukraine, where 6,000 people have been killed in a war with Russian-backed separatists. Mr. Putin wants to expand his country’s influence and standing, but his alarming behavior has estranged Russia …

16Apr2015

At Marathon in North Korea, Curiosity Goes a Long Way

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                <span class="caption-text">North Korean runners mixed briefly with foreigners before Sunday’s races, and some posed for a picture.</span>
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            Jeré Longman/The New York Times        </span>
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As
 we flew in by the hundreds on Saturday, the arrival hall at Sunan 
International Airport grew cramped and cold. After examining countless 
laptops, smartphones and passports, a security official gave the 
international smile of exasperation, caught my eye and said, “Tourists.”</div>
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By
 Sunday, the mood at Kim Il-sung Stadium was one of throbbing, if 
rehearsed, enthusiasm. I warmed up along a curve of the track where 
backboards had been set up on an outdoor basketball court. Others jogged
 on the artificial surface of the soccer field inside the track. Almost 
everyone seemed to take photographs of the crowd, a huge one for the 
start of a marathon outside the Olympics.</div>
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A
 tone sounded, and race officials in red hats and white coats marshaled 
us for the start. There was some confusion about whether to exit the 
stadium down the backstretch or the homestretch. We faced one direction,
 then the other.</div>
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“If this was easy, it wouldn’t be North Korea,” the runner next to me said.</div>
<h4 class="story-subheading story-content" data-para-count="11" data-total-count="2184" id="subhead-1" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Muted Logos</h4>
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The
 white coats of the officials suggested some sort of athletic and social
 experiment. In February, Sunday’s races were abruptly closed to 
foreigners as North Korea cited continuing concerns about the spread of Ebola. Then, in March, with little explanation, the door opened again.</div>
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Tour
 operators and Korean guides offered several possible explanations: 
North Korea desperately needed hard currency from expanded tourism. It 
was attempting to generate mass interest in recreation. It was using 
sport to try to rehabilitate an “axis of evil” image of nuclear 
antagonism and widespread human rights abuse that, according to a 2013 
United Nations report, included secret prison camps, torture, forced 
starvation and a paucity of free thought.</div>
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“Many
 people see our country as military development and poor people,” said O
 Ryong-jong, an official in the North Korean sports ministry who was a 
guide on my marathon tour bus. “We want them to come and see for 
themselves.”</div>
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North
 Korean runners mixed briefly with foreigners before Sunday’s races. 
Some posed for photographs while others shyly looked away. One young 
local runner held up his arms in Rocky-style determination; another 
hugged a teammate from behind and flashed the peace sign.</div>
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The
 international runners started first, dressed in our casual 
fluorescence, while the North Koreans followed an hour later, the 
fastest of them in singlets and racing flats, some of the women and 
girls with white ribbons around their waists. As many as 800 would run 
the race, according to a generous estimate by state-run news media, some
 competing unofficially without racing bibs.<br />
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<figure class="media photo embedded has-adjacency layout-large-horizontal media-100000003630308 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003630308" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb3/NORTHKOREAweb3-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><div class="image">
            <a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Race officials, wearing red hats and white coats, marshaled runners for the start of the race." data-mediaviewer-credit="Jeré Longman/The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb3/NORTHKOREAweb3-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb3/NORTHKOREAweb3-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb3/NORTHKOREAweb3-articleLarge.jpg" /></a><div class="media-action-overlay">

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                <span class="caption-text">Race officials, wearing red hats and white coats, marshaled runners for the start of the race.</span>
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            Jeré Longman/The New York Times        </span>
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Another
 guide on my tour bus, Pak Un-gyong, had carefully examined each of our 
running outfits. It was forbidden to depict flags of the United States, 
South Korea or Japan. And the logos of the apparel companies had to be 
muted. Last year, one runner was reported to have run in jeans because 
of a violation.</div>
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If
 the logos were obtrusive, Ms. Pak said the day before, “You must pay 
some money to the I.A.A.F.” This was a reference to track and field’s 
world governing body, which sanctioned the race, officially known as the
 Marathon Amateurs’ Running Race Celebrating the Day of the Sun.</div>
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Everybody
 in our group seemed to have passed sartorial muster. And with a roar we
 headed out of the stadium and past the 197-foot Arch of Triumph, a 
symbol of resistance to the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula 
from 1910 to 1945.</div>
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“Have you been to France?” Ms. Pak had asked on a prerace tour of the course. “I hear this one is 11 meters taller.”</div>
<h4 class="story-subheading story-content" data-para-count="25" data-total-count="4798" id="subhead-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Stopwatches and Bathrooms</h4>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="257" data-total-count="5055" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
We
 could not leave the loop course, but we could leave our minders for an 
hour or two or four. Maybe we could make a personal connection that 
seemed less scripted than the opening ceremony: a brief smile, a wave, a
 hello, a thank you, a small encouragement.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="229" data-total-count="5284" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Or
 would it all be staged, a Potemkin race in an authoritarian capital for
 the elite and loyal, where Kim Jong-il was said to have scored a 
perfect 300 in his first bowling match and five holes in one on his 
maiden round of golf?</div>
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An
 early uphill stretch carried us past modest but encouraging crowds 
along a wide street of apricot blossoms. A police officer high-fived a 
few runners. A woman waved from the window of her apartment building. 
Other women in red jackets poured water into cups at small hydration 
tables.</div>
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The
 6.2-mile loop brought us back and forth across the Taedong River via 
bridge and tunnel, the roads decorated with clusters of North Korean 
flags, their red star and red field meant to symbolize the spilled blood
 of liberation in a military-first nation.</div>
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Because
 Ebola concerns had disrupted planning of the race, only the Korean 
runners were issued computer chips for timing. The rest of us were timed
 with stopwatches every five kilometers, or 3.1 miles.<br />
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<figure class="media photo embedded layout-large-horizontal media-100000003630358 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003630358" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><div class="image">
            <a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="A North Korean police officer waved to a runner." data-mediaviewer-credit="Jeré Longman/The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4/SUB-NORTHKOREAweb4-articleLarge.jpg" /></a><div class="media-action-overlay">

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                <span class="caption-text">A North Korean police officer waved to a runner.</span>
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            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Jeré Longman/The New York Times        </span>
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The
 portable toilets familiar at most marathons were also absent. Discreet 
signs directed runners to bathrooms near the course. One was on the 
second floor of a building, another through a sundry shop, a restaurant 
and a karaoke bar.</div>
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“Last
 year, we had a guy who went to all the bathrooms because he couldn’t 
get into the buildings otherwise,” said Tori Cook, a guide with Koryo 
Tours, a British-run company in Beijing that brought 270 foreign runners
 to Sunday’s race.</div>
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Cameras
 were officially off limits to runners on the course, but the rule 
essentially seemed unenforced. No one rushed to confiscate them or 
seemed to object to being photographed.</div>
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“It
 feels looser, less controlled,” said Zahlen Titcomb, 32, of Seattle, 
who traveled to Pyongyang in 2011 for an ultimate Frisbee competition.</div>
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Tourists
 bowed to their guides then, Mr. Titcomb said, and it would have been 
all but unthinkable to take a photograph without permission or to whoop 
and holler while running through a tunnel or to jump in the air to take a
 silly picture in front of a stadium or a monument.</div>
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“Nobody at the Vatican takes a photo pretending to hold Jesus in your hand,” he said.</div>
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An Air Kiss and a Sly Wink</h4>
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On
 my second lap of Sunday’s race, the crowd seemed to thin. For 
stretches, the only sounds came from bells on passing bicycles, martial 
music or a helicopter dropping parachutists to entertain the spectators 
in Kim Il-sung Stadium. Women in traditional dresses appeared as bright 
as lanterns against a backdrop of drab Stalinist apartment blocks that 
were as drained of color as some of the runners.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="215" data-total-count="7837" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Children
 along the course seemed to grow bolder. Dressed in tracksuit jackets, 
or the red scarves and blue uniforms of young pioneers, they eagerly 
slapped hands with passing runners and often called out in English:</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="23" data-total-count="7860" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
“Nice to meet you.”<br />
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<figure class="media photo embedded layout-large-vertical media-100000003630310" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003630310" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb5/NORTHKOREAweb5-blog427.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><div class="image">
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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Runners approached the Arch of Triumph, which is modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris." data-mediaviewer-credit="Jeré Longman/The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb5/NORTHKOREAweb5-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb5/NORTHKOREAweb5-blog427.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb5/NORTHKOREAweb5-blog427.jpg" /></a></div>
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                <span class="caption-text">Runners approached the Arch of Triumph, which is modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.</span>
                        <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Jeré Longman/The New York Times </span></figcaption><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="199" data-total-count="8128" id="story-continues-8" itemprop="articleBody">
During
 his half-marathon, Hank Mannen, 36, of the Netherlands, was startled to
 see a young woman blow him a kiss. He said he reciprocated, then 
thought for a moment, “She’s in big trouble now.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="218" data-total-count="8346" itemprop="articleBody">
On
 the first of two laps of the half-marathon, Richard Friedman, 67, of 
Manhattan, patted his heart when he passed one of the austere women who 
direct traffic in Pyongyang. On the second lap, he patted his heart 
again.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="190" data-total-count="8536" itemprop="articleBody">
“I
 swear she winked at me,” Friedman said later. A friend, Martin Rojahn, 
57, of Tasmania, remained unconvinced, suggesting with a laugh that “she
 probably had something in her eye.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="382" data-total-count="8918" itemprop="articleBody">
Just
 after I reached 13.1 miles, the elite North Koreans began to pass me in
 swift groups. I could barely hear their whispering strides. Meanwhile, I
 was stuck in a kind of no-man’s land, no amateur runner visible in 
front or behind. A man in a suit must have sensed the heaviness in my 
legs or the struggle in my face. He clapped softly on the sidewalk and 
said, “Very good.”</div>
<h4 class="story-subheading story-content" data-para-count="18" data-total-count="8936" id="subhead-4" itemprop="articleBody">
A Four-Hour Cutoff</h4>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="190" data-total-count="9126" id="story-continues-9" itemprop="articleBody">
Looming
 above the other monuments to the Kim cult of personality was a 
triangular building on the gauzy horizon, the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel, 
under construction since 1987 but never opened.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="297" data-total-count="9423" itemprop="articleBody">
In
 2013, Kim ordered that North Korea increase its yearly total of foreign
 tourists to a million from 200,000 within three years, Andrei Lankov, a
 North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea, wrote 
in “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist 
Utopia.”<br />
    </div>
<figure class="media photo embedded has-adjacency layout-large-horizontal media-100000003630311 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003630311" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb6/NORTHKOREAweb6-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><div class="image">
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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="The top two North Korean professionals, Ri Yong-ho and Ra Hyon-ho, pushed each other toward the finish in about 2 hours 14 minutes." data-mediaviewer-credit="Jeré Longman/The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb6/NORTHKOREAweb6-superJumbo.jpg" height="265" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb6/NORTHKOREAweb6-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/sports/NORTHKOREAweb6/NORTHKOREAweb6-articleLarge.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
</div>
<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description">
                <span class="caption-text">The top two North Korean 
professionals, Ri Yong-ho and Ra Hyon-ho, pushed each other toward the 
finish in about 2 hours 14 minutes.</span>
                        <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Jeré Longman/The New York Times</span></figcaption></figure><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="259" data-total-count="9682" id="story-continues-10" itemprop="articleBody">
To
 that end, North Korea is building a new airport terminal, inviting 
foreigners to Pyongyang’s marathon and international film festival and 
trying to entice jet-setters with a ski resort, perhaps a reflection of 
Kim Jong-un’s school years in Switzerland.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="284" data-total-count="9966" itemprop="articleBody">
“It
 appears,” Mr. Lankov wrote, that Kim “hopes to make his realm into an 
East Asian Switzerland, where crowds of rich Westerners will rush with 
pockets full of cash. This dream is highly unrealistic, especially given
 the sorry state of tourist infrastructure in the country.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="437" data-total-count="10403" itemprop="articleBody">
Of
 more immediate concern late Sunday morning was the sorry state of my 
running. I am 60, and this was my fourth marathon in 12 months. My body 
was rebelling. I needed a cortisone shot in my left hip. My left knee 
crackled like a wood fire. I reached 30 kilometers, 18.6 miles, in 3 
hours 5 minutes, feeling exhausted with seven and a half miles 
remaining, facing a four-hour cutoff when the doors to Kim Il-sung 
Stadium would be closed.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="135" data-total-count="10538" itemprop="articleBody">
“If you can’t finish in four hours, there’s no punishment, right?” Lucy Guo, 36, of China, had asked nervously before the race.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="73" data-total-count="10611" itemprop="articleBody">
No, Richard Beal, a guide, assured her. Race officials would pick her up.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="58" data-total-count="10669" itemprop="articleBody">
“They’re not going to make you keep going,” he said.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="231" data-total-count="10900" itemprop="articleBody">
I
 would never have another chance to take a lap around a full stadium, so
 I called it quits, pausing outside to see the top two North Korean 
professionals, Ri Yong-ho and Ra Hyon-ho, push each other toward the 
finish in about 2:14.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="331" data-total-count="11231" itemprop="articleBody">
A
 match involving the North Korean soccer league was underway as I 
entered the stadium. The crowd was cheering, prompted by yell leaders. I
 waved but did not see anyone waving back. Later, at dinner, I laughed 
to myself when I overheard another runner say of the victory lap: “Sure,
 it was staged, but who cares? It was great.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="261" data-total-count="11492" itemprop="articleBody">
After
 the marathon, medalists at various distances were celebrated at a 
closing ceremony. Sitting in the stands, Mr. Mannen, the Dutch runner 
who had been blown a kiss, considered what he would tell his friends at 
home. Some would insist it had all been a fake.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="162" data-total-count="11654" itemprop="articleBody">
Not
 everyone’s reaction could have been staged on the course, said Roeland 
Loof, 33, a fellow Dutch runner. Especially the children. Children do 
what they want.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="85" data-total-count="11739" id="story-continues-11" itemprop="articleBody">
“In the U.S. and Europe, we’re as brainwashed as they are here,” Mr. Loof said.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="279" data-total-count="12018" itemprop="articleBody">
After
 finishing third in the half-marathon for international amateurs, 
Filippo Nicosia, a diplomat at the Italian Embassy in Beijing, spoke in 
Korean to a group of female students. He tossed them his bouquet of 
flowers. The woman who caught it seemed surprised. Everyone laughed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“This
 is just a slight opening up, not a structural change,” said Mr. 
Nicosia, 39, who was formerly based in Seoul. “Like when the New York 
Philharmonic came in 2008. A small drop in an ocean. It doesn’t really 
change anything, but it gives curiosity a chance to turn into warmth.”</div>
</figure></div>
</div>

At Marathon in North Korea, Curiosity Goes a Long Way

PYONGYANG, North Korea — By 8:30 a.m. Sunday, the 50,000 seats in Kim Il-sung Stadium were nearly filled with men in Mao suits and coats and ties, women in dresses and heels, and police officers in olive-drab hats with crowns as wide as a discus. Students carried paper megaphones and silver …

16Apr2015

Legal Battle Begins Over Obama Bid to Curb Greenhouse Gases

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="The two largest coal companies in the United States, along with 14 coal-producing states, have challenged a bill to curb carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants." data-mediaviewer-credit="Jim Cole/Associated Press" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/17/world/17Climate-web/17Climate-web-superJumbo.jpg" height="425" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/17/world/17Climate-web/17Climate-web-master675.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/17/world/17Climate-web/17Climate-web-master675.jpg" width="640" /></a> </div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="287" data-total-count="287" id="story-continues-1" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s most far-reaching regulation to slow climate change
 will have its first day in court on Thursday, the beginning of what is 
expected to be a multiyear legal battle over the policy that Mr. Obama 
hopes to leave as his signature environmental achievement.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="645" data-total-count="932" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
In
 two separate but related cases to be jointly argued in the United 
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the 
country’s two largest coal companies, along with 14 coal-producing 
states, have challenged a proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation, which the agency issued under the authority of the Clean Air Act,
 to curb planet-warming carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. 
If put in effect as E.P.A. officials have proposed, the rule is intended
 to fundamentally transform the nation’s power sector, shuttering 
hundreds of coal plants and expanding renewable energy sources such as 
wind and solar.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="284" data-total-count="1216" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Thirteen
 states and the District of Columbia are backing the Obama 
administration’s proposal. No matter the outcome of the case, it is 
widely expected that it will be appealed, and that more lawsuits will 
follow — and that its fate will ultimately end up before the Supreme 
Court.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="230" data-total-count="1446" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
In
 the two cases, Murray Energy v. E.P.A. and West Virginia v. E.P.A., the
 plaintiffs contend that the E.P.A. lacks the authority to issue the 
rule in the first place, and so should stop working on the rule before 
making it final.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="271" data-total-count="1717" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Among
 the lawyers arguing on behalf of the coal companies is Laurence H. 
Tribe, a renowned Harvard scholar of constitutional law, who was also a 
mentor to Mr. Obama when he attended law school. Republicans who opposed
 the rule have cheered Mr. Tribe’s role in the case.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="195" data-total-count="1912" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Legal
 experts say it is also possible that the judges could throw the case 
out, since the rule has only been proposed and thus contains language 
that could change when released in the final form.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="366" data-total-count="2278" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
“Is
 industry right that the agency lacks the authority to regulate? The 
challenge is extremely unusual, since the rule is proposed, and not 
final,” said Jody Freeman, the director of Harvard University’s 
environmental law program and a former senior counselor to Mr. Obama. 
“For a court to entertain that would go against decades and decades of 
precedent.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="526" data-total-count="2804" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
If
 the court does entertain the case, it will enter into more unusual 
legal territory. The coal companies and the E.P.A. dispute the 
interpretation of ambiguously worded amendments to the Clean Air Act 
passed in 1990. Under those amendments, legal experts say, it is not 
clear whether the E.P.A. has the authority to use one section of the 
Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, 
since the agency has already used a different section of the law to 
regulate different pollutants from power plants.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="239" data-total-count="3043" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
When
 the 1990 legislation was passed, the House version of the law appeared 
to prohibit such “double regulation,” experts say, but the Senate 
version appeared to allow it. The final version of the legislation left 
the question unclear.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="244" data-total-count="3287" id="story-continues-5" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
In
 arguing that it has the authority to regulate different pollutants from
 the same sources, the E.P.A. will point to the 1990 Senate language. In
 arguing that the agency lacks the authority, the coal companies will 
point to the House language.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="226" data-total-count="3513" id="story-continues-6" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
“It’s
 an extremely technical argument about how the statute was put into the 
U.S. code 25 years ago — it’s basically a clerical error,” said Kevin 
Desharnais, an expert on environmental law with the firm Mayer Brown.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="449" data-total-count="3962" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Patrick
 Morrissey, attorney general of West Virginia, which is leading the 
states’ petition against the E.P.A., said the agency is trying to 
exploit the ambiguity in a law to enact sweeping regulations that could 
transform the American energy economy. “They are trying to bring life to
 a clerical error,” he said. “Now it’s being used to put forth a major 
transformation to American energy policy — and to cause harm to West 
Virginia.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="228" data-total-count="4190" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Opponents
 of the rule say they are optimistic about the outcome in part because 
of the judges presiding over the case. All three were appointed by 
Republican presidents — two by President George W. Bush, and one by his 
father.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Typically,
 a rule is proposed by the E.P.A., which then takes public comment on 
the proposal. The E.P.A. may then adapt the rule before issuing the 
final version. The Obama administration proposed the coal plant rule 
last June, and is expected to release the final version this summer.</div>
</div>

Legal Battle Begins Over Obama Bid to Curb Greenhouse Gases

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s most far-reaching regulation to slow climate change will have its first day in court on Thursday, the beginning of what is expected to be a multiyear legal battle over the policy that Mr. Obama hopes to leave as his signature environmental achievement. In two se…

16Apr2015

Dean Skelos, New York Senate Leader, and His Son Are Said to Be Focus of Corruption Inquiry

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="228" data-total-count="228" id="story-continues-1" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Federal
 prosecutors have begun presenting evidence to a grand jury considering a
 case against the leader of the New York State Senate, Dean G. Skelos of
 Long Island, and his son, according to people with knowledge of the 
matter.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="236" data-total-count="464" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" border="0" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="A grand jury is weighing evidence in a case against State Senator Dean G. Skelos, at the Capitol in March." data-mediaviewer-credit="Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-1y/16INQUIRY-1y-superJumbo.jpg" height="266" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-1y/16INQUIRY-1y-master675.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-1y/16INQUIRY-1y-master675.jpg" width="400" /></a>Investigators
 have served a number of subpoenas in recent weeks, including several to
 state senators on Long Island, and federal prosecutors have interviewed
 people who have had dealings with Adam Skelos, the Republican senator’s
 son.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="247" data-total-count="711" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
News of the investigation follows the arrest this year of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver,
 a Manhattan Democrat, and his resignation as speaker; any criminal case
 against Senator Skelos, the majority leader, would throw the Capitol 
into further tumult.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="192" data-total-count="903" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Prosecutors
 and the F.B.I. have focused on at least two areas in their 
investigation, zeroing in on Adam Skelos’s business dealings, according 
to several people with knowledge of the matter.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="388" data-total-count="1291" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
One
 focal point has been Adam Skelos’s hiring by an Arizona company, AbTech
 Industries, as well as a storm-water treatment contract that AbTech was
 awarded by Nassau County — the senator’s political backyard — even 
though the company was not the low bidder. Another area of inquiry has 
been a $20,000 payment to Adam Skelos from a title insurance company 
that he never worked for.<br />
    </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<figure class="media photo embedded has-adjacency has-lede-adjacency layout-large-horizontal media-100000003631272 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003631272" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-2y/16INQUIRY-2y-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><div class="image">
            <div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Mr. Skelos being sworn in this year, with his wife, Gail, and his son, Adam, who is also part of the investigation." data-mediaviewer-credit="Mike Groll/Associated Press" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-2y/16INQUIRY-2y-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-2y/16INQUIRY-2y-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/nyregion/16INQUIRY-2y/16INQUIRY-2y-articleLarge.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="media-action-overlay">

</div>
</div>
<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description">
                <span class="caption-text">Mr. Skelos being sworn in this year, with his wife, Gail, and his son, Adam, who is also part of the investigation.</span>
                        <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Mike Groll/Associated Press        </span>
            </figcaption>
    </figure></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="490" data-total-count="1781" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
According
 to people familiar with the questions being asked by federal 
authorities, investigators are seeking to determine whether Senator 
Skelos exerted any influence in matters involving AbTech. They are also 
examining whether his son’s hiring as a consultant was part of a scheme 
in which the senator, in exchange, would take official action that would
 benefit AbTech or another company, Glenwood Management, a politically 
influential real estate developer that has had ties to AbTech.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="294" data-total-count="2075" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Any
 such action could pose a conflict of interest or potentially violate 
federal corruption statutes. It is unclear what actions, if any, Senator
 Skelos has taken in connection to his son’s business dealings, or how 
they relate to state government; neither man has been accused of 
wrongdoing.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="135" data-total-count="2210" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
All
 of the people who spoke about the investigation did so on the condition
 of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the subject.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="454" data-total-count="2664" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
The investigation is being conducted by the office of Preet Bharara,
 the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, who 
has embarked on an assault against graft and other political misdeeds in
 Albany, describing the capital as a “caldron of corruption.” His 
critics have accused him of grandstanding, and say his unusually blunt 
public condemnations of how business is done in Albany have crossed the line for a federal prosecutor.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="339" data-total-count="3003" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Glenwood Management, one of the state’s largest campaign donors, also surfaced in the criminal case
 against Mr. Silver, who is accused of steering Glenwood and another 
developer to a law firm that gave him a cut of their fees. Glenwood has 
not been accused of wrongdoing in the Silver case or in the 
investigation involving the Skeloses.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="275" data-total-count="3278" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Adam
 Skelos, 32, when asked about the investigation during a brief interview
 outside his house, said he was surprised to learn he was the focus of a
 federal inquiry. “I had no idea that this was even an issue,” he said. 
“I got to tell you, this is really unexpected.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="93" data-total-count="3371" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Senator Skelos, 67, and his son did not respond to written questions from The New York Times.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="201" data-total-count="3572" id="story-continues-5" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
The
 inquiry into the senator and his son comes at a chaotic time in Albany.
 In January, state government was rocked when Mr. Silver was arrested on
 corruption charges brought by Mr. Bharara’s office.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="406" data-total-count="3978" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
The case against Mr. Silver and the investigation of Mr. Skelos grew in some measure out of the Moreland Commission,
 an anticorruption panel that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo created in 2013. The 
governor, a Democrat, abruptly disbanded the panel last year as part of a
 budget deal he negotiated in large part with Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver;
 Mr. Bharara’s office then opened a criminal inquiry into the shutdown.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="423" data-total-count="4401" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
As
 with Mr. Silver’s, Mr. Skelos’s outside income as a lawyer has come 
under federal scrutiny. In the senator’s case, his law firm, Ruskin 
Moscou Faltischek, received a federal grand jury subpoena in 2014. In January, <a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/dean-skelos-investigation-state-senate-leader-albany-290259821.html">WNBC-TV</a>
 reported that federal investigators were looking into Mr. Skelos’s 
outside income, with a focus on his ties to the real estate industry. 
The law firm has not been accused of any wrongdoing.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="83" data-total-count="4484" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Mr. Bharara’s office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="293" data-total-count="4777" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Adam
 Skelos, who lives blocks from his father in a well-kept neighborhood in
 Rockville Centre in Nassau County, is involved in an array of 
businesses stretching from Long Island to Albany, according to a review 
by The Times. In recent years, he has held positions at title insurance 
companies.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="187" data-total-count="4964" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
But
 it is his connection to AbTech Industries, which sells spongelike 
filters to remove pollutants from storm water, that brings him in 
particular proximity to state and local government.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="5106" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
For
 a small business in Arizona, AbTech would seem unlikely to be 
associated with Glenwood, which develops rental apartments in New York 
City.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="241" data-total-count="5347" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Glenwood’s
 link to AbTech is buried in the regulatory filings of AbTech’s publicly
 traded parent company. In 2011, one of its largest investors was a 
company that shared an address on Long Island with Glenwood’s corporate 
headquarters.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="482" data-total-count="5829" id="story-continues-6" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Two
 men with close ties to the real estate company — Charles Dorego, a top 
Glenwood executive, and Steven Swarzman, a grandson of Glenwood’s 
longtime principal, Leonard Litwin — have signed public records filed by
 the company that invested in AbTech’s parent company, Abtech Holdings. 
Mr. Swarzman became friends with AbTech’s founder in Arizona, and, 
impressed by the environmental sponge, became AbTech’s East Coast 
distributor, according to a 2006 article in Newsday.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="348" data-total-count="6177" id="story-continues-7" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
AbTech’s sponge has met with limited commercial success. In fact, the parent company is not profitable and trades
 at roughly 30 cents a share. But AbTech got what appeared to be a big 
break in 2013, when it secured a contract worth up to $12 million from 
Nassau County for the design, installation and operation of a 
storm-water treatment system.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="345" data-total-count="6522" id="story-continues-8" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Adam
 Skelos introduced officials at the Nassau Department of Public Works to
 AbTech, said Mary Studdert, a spokeswoman for the agency. Ms. Studdert 
said Mr. Skelos had roughly a dozen meetings and phone calls with a 
senior public works official; that person was a member of the committee 
that evaluated the proposals for the storm-water project.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="215" data-total-count="6737" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
The
 contract was awarded to AbTech, even though another company submitted a
 substantially lower bid. County officials at the time contended that 
AbTech would ultimately provide the best value, county documents show.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="262" data-total-count="6999" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
But
 the low bidder, Newport Engineering, seemed mystified by the process. 
Nicholas J. DeSantis, the company’s president, said that the Public 
Works Department never acknowledged receiving his bid and that he was 
not notified that the contract had been awarded.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="449" data-total-count="7448" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
So
 far, AbTech has been paid only a small amount of the potential value of
 the contract, according to the county comptroller’s office. In an 
unusual arrangement for a local public works project in New York, the 
contract calls for AbTech to oversee both design and construction, 
requiring Nassau to secure state legislative approval for the contract 
to go forward as intended. No lawmaker has sponsored the necessary 
legislation, Ms. Studdert said.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="181" data-total-count="7629" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
The
 Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, a Republican who held a 
news conference in 2014 to publicize the AbTech contract, did not 
respond to questions sent to his spokesman.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="155" data-total-count="7784" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
AbTech
 has not been accused of wrongdoing and did not respond to written 
questions from The Times. A lawyer for Glenwood, Alan Levine, declined 
to comment.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="248" data-total-count="8032" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
In
 addition to AbTech’s effort to solicit government contracts, a 
subsidiary of its parent company has lobbied in Albany on several 
matters, including engineering issues, although it is unclear whether 
those activities are under federal scrutiny.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="288" data-total-count="8320" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Federal
 investigators have also focused on a one-time $20,000 signing bonus 
paid to Adam Skelos by American Land Services, a title insurance firm, 
according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mr. Skelos never went 
to work at the company and did not return the money, the people said.</div>
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American
 Land Services also has at least one indirect link to Glenwood, although
 it is not known whether that is under scrutiny by federal authorities. 
Property records show that in June 2014, a senior executive at American 
Land Services paid $330,000 for an undeveloped South Carolina vacation 
property along a golf course on Kiawah Island. The executive, Tom Dwyer,
 the company’s chief operating officer, bought the parcel from Mr. 
Dorego, the Glenwood executive, who personally financed Mr. Dwyer’s 
mortgage.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="192" data-total-count="903" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
Neither
 Mr. Dwyer nor other executives at American Land Services responded to 
requests for comment by phone and email. Mr. Dorego declined to answer 
questions, telling a reporter, “I have nothing to say.”</div>
</div>

Dean Skelos, New York Senate Leader, and His Son Are Said to Be Focus of Corruption Inquiry

Federal prosecutors have begun presenting evidence to a grand jury considering a case against the leader of the New York State Senate, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, and his son, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Investigators have served a number of subpoenas in recent weeks, …

16Apr2015

Big Money From Super PACs Is Eroding the Power of Parties

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Six months ago, I would have told you that April 15, the date when campaigns report their first-quarter fund-raising <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/upshot/political-fund-raising-how-candidates-are-doing.html?abt=0002&abg=1">tallies</a>, could be one of the most interesting early milestones of the Republican primary season.</div>
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I
 think I even told my boss, admittedly with hyperbole, that the Q1 
report of a year preceding a presidential election was the most 
important fund-raising report in American politics.</div>
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In 2007, it was when <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/04/obama.fundraising/index.html?iref=newssearch">we learned</a>
 that Barack Obama could match the supposedly inevitable Hillary Rodham 
Clinton in fund-raising, and that John McCain wasn’t a real front-runner
 for the Republican nomination (although he managed to claw back to win 
it), despite his second-place <a class="meta-org" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Republican Party">G.O.P.</a> showing in 2000.</div>
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But this year, April 15 has come and gone without much news at all.</div>
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Rather than exploratory committees and campaigns, top Republican candidates like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have started <a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/campaign_finance/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about Super PACs.">super PACs</a>
 and other groups allowing them to solicit unlimited contributions. None
 will have to file disclosure forms with the Federal Election Commission
 until July.<br />
    </div>
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<figure class="media photo embedded has-adjacency has-lede-adjacency layout-large-horizontal media-100000003630924 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003630924" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/upshot/17UP-Funds/17UP-Funds-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><div class="image">
            <div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Ted Cruz at a National Rifle Association event in Nashville last week. A network of super PACs aligned with Mr. Cruz said it raised $31 million in the weeks after he announced his candidacy." data-mediaviewer-credit="Justin Sullivan/Getty Images" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/upshot/17UP-Funds/17UP-Funds-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/upshot/17UP-Funds/17UP-Funds-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/16/upshot/17UP-Funds/17UP-Funds-articleLarge.jpg" /></a></div>
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<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description">
                <span class="caption-text">Ted Cruz at a National Rifle 
Association event in Nashville last week. A network of super PACs 
aligned with Mr. Cruz said it raised $31 million in the weeks after he 
announced his candidacy.</span>
                        <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Justin Sullivan/Getty Images        </span>
            </figcaption>
    </figure></div>
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The
 uneventful passing of April 15 is only the most subtle indication of 
the way super PACs are transforming the presidential nominating process.
 They have given candidates the ability to raise colossal sums from 
small but wealthy bases of support. Along with Internet fund-raising, 
super PACs are helping to form an alternative campaign finance model 
that is eroding party control over the primary process. Which types of 
candidates will benefit remains to be seen.</div>
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The
 primary season is just underway, but the early super PAC tallies appear
 to be an order of magnitude beyond what we saw the last time, when Mitt
 Romney’s super PAC “Restore Our Future” raised $12 million in the first
 half of 2011.</div>
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<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/jeb-bush-fundraising-right-to-rise-116108.html">Some speculate</a>
 that Jeb Bush could raise $100 million in the first quarter and $500 
million by June. Anything near those sums would smash Mr. Romney’s 
performance.</div>
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Ted Cruz more than doubled Mr. Romney’s tally in three weeks. A network of super PACs aligned with Mr. Cruz said it raised $31 million in the weeks after he announced his candidacy, which is more than Mr. Obama did in the entire first quarter of 2007.</div>
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There is no precedent for the fund-raising success of Mr. Cruz, a candidate with virtually no support from party elites. My colleague Nicholas Confessore wrote
 that “the size of the contributions is likely to force backers of other
 candidates to rethink their budgets for the primary season,” and one 
can only wonder what the effect might be in another four years. Will the
 incumbent president raise $4 billion? How much is the presidency really
 worth? At this point, perhaps we shouldn’t rule out anything.</div>
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Money
 doesn’t buy presidential nominations. At least it hasn’t yet. A 
candidate who raises the most money, as Phil Gramm did in 1996, can fall
 flat. A competitive fund-raising effort doesn’t even guarantee 
competitiveness, as Ron Paul or Rudy Giuliani can attest.</div>
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Typically,
 broad support from party elites is a much better predictor of which 
candidate will win the nomination. Elites not only help raise money, but
 they also shape public opinion by promoting or playing down candidates 
on television or to reporters, or offering public endorsements. They 
form the staff of an effective campaign</div>
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Money
 alone isn’t enough to hand victory to a candidate like Mr. Cruz, whom 
many party elites view as unelectable and unpresidential. They would 
rally against him if he ever seemed as if he could win. The Republican 
primary electorate — which is more moderate than it looks — would 
probably follow the elites’ lead in such circumstances, though this is 
as much a judgment about the preferences of Republican primary voters as
 it is about the power of elites.</div>
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But
 even if money can’t buy the presidency, fund-raising is a big part of 
the reason that elite support is important. Lack of resources resulting 
from insufficient elite support has hurt many campaigns, even those of 
mainstream candidates like Gary Hart in 1984 or Mr. McCain in 2000.</div>
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There’s
 no way to rerun the 1984 Democratic or 2000 Republican primaries to 
figure out how they might have gone differently under 2016 conditions. 
Perhaps Walter Mondale or George W. Bush would have benefited so much 
from unlimited contributions that their super PACs would have buried all
 challengers. Maybe 2004 and 2008 would have been better opportunities 
for candidates like Mr. McCain or Mr. Hart after the rise of Internet 
fund-raising but before super PACs allowed their establishment-backed 
rivals to raise millions more.</div>
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Either
 way, there’s no question that the new combination of unlimited super 
PAC contributions and online fund-raising has eroded the control of 
party elites over the last two decades. It’s especially the case in 
today’s factionalized G.O.P., where even the party elite is fractured 
along regional, religious and ideological lines. Each faction has a star
 candidate in this year’s race — not just Mr. Cruz, but also Rand Paul, 
Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee. Despite their big flaws, they have 
natural bases of support and considerable political talent. They also 
have real paths to win Iowa or New Hampshire.</div>
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Fifteen
 years ago, candidates such as these would have had virtually no shot of
 winning the nomination. It took broad support from party donors to 
build a large war chest — there was no way around it. Today, all it 
takes is Internet star power or the right wealthy benefactors. These 
candidates still don’t have a great shot at winning, but they can’t be 
completely ruled out anymore.</div>
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Nor can we rule out the possibility that the right elite-backed candidate, like Jeb Bush, will steamroll the field.</div>
</div>

Big Money From Super PACs Is Eroding the Power of Parties

Six months ago, I would have told you that April 15, the date when campaigns report their first-quarter fund-raising tallies, could be one of the most interesting early milestones of the Republican primary season. I think I even told my boss, admittedly with hyperbole, that the Q1 report of a yea…