F R O M T H E PA G E S O F
Monday
October 5, 2009
Midnight in New York
Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times
As Companies Sink, Investors Profit
For most of the 133 years since
its founding in a small city in Wis-
consin, the Simmons Bedding Co.
enjoyed an illustrious history. Its
recent history has been notable,
too, but for a different reason.
Simmons says it will soon file
for bankruptcy protection, as
part of an agreement by its cur-
rent owners to sell the company
— the seventh time it has been
sold in a little more than two de-
cades — all after being owned for
short periods by a parade of dif-
ferent investment groups, known
as private equity firms, which try
to buy undervalued companies,
mostly with borrowed money.
For many of the company’s
investors, the sale will be a disas-
ter. Its bondholders alone stand
to lose more than $575 million.
The company’s downfall has also
devastated employees like Noble
Rogers, who worked for 22 years
at Simmons, most of that time at a
factory outside Atlanta. He is one
of 1,000 employees — more than
one-quarter of the work force —
laid off last year.
But Thomas H. Lee Part-
ners of Boston has escaped un-
scathed. The investment firm,
Petraeus Reserved in Debate Over Afghan War
WASHINGTON — Gen. Da-
vid H. Petraeus, the face of the
Iraq troop surge and a favorite
of former President George W.
Bush, spoke up or was called
upon by President Obama “sev-
eral times” during the big Af-
ghanistan strategy session in
the Situation Room last week,
one participant says, and will be
back for two more meetings this
week.
But the general’s closest as-
sociates say that underneath
the surface of good relations,
the celebrity commander faces
a new reality in Obama’s White
House: He is still at the table, but
in a very different seat.
No longer does the man who
oversees the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan have one of the big-
gest voices at National Security
Council meetings, as he did when
Bush gave him 20 minutes dur-
which bought Simmons in 2003,
has pocketed around $77 million
in profit, even as the company’s
fortunes have declined. THL col-
lected hundreds of millions of
dollars from the company in the
form of special dividends. It also
paid itself millions more in fees,
first for buying the company,
then for helping to run it. Last
year, the firm even gave itself a
small raise.
Wall Street investment banks
also cashed in. They collected
millions for helping to arrange
the takeovers and for selling the
bonds that made those deals pos-
sible. All told, the various private
equity owners have made around
$750 million in profits from Sim-
mons over the years.
How so many people could
make so much money on a com-
pany that has been driven into
bankruptcy is a tale of these fi-
nancial times. Every step along
the way, the buyers put Simmons
deeper into debt.
The financiers borrowed more
and more money to pay ever
higher prices for the company,
enabling each previous owner to
cash out profitably.
ing hourlong weekly sessions to
present his views in live video
feeds from Baghdad. No longer
is the general, with the Capitol
Hill contacts and web of e-mail
relationships throughout Wash-
ington’s journalism establish-
ment, testifying in media explo-
sions before Congress, as he did
in September 2007, when he gave
34 interviews in three days.
The change has fueled specu-
lation in Washington about
whether Petraeus might seek
the presidency in 2012. His advis-
ers say that it is absurd — but
in immediate policy terms, it
means there is one less voice in
the administration’s debate over
whether to send up to 40,000 addi-
tional troops to Afghanistan.
Petraeus’s aides now pri-
vately call him “Dave the Dull,”
and say he has largely muzzled
himself from the fierce public
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But the load weighed down an
otherwise healthy company. To-
day, Simmons owes $1.3 billion,
compared with just $164 million
in 1991, when it began to become a
Wall Street version of “Flip This
House.”
In many ways, what private
equity firms did at Simmons, and
scores of other companies like it,
mimicked the subprime mort-
gage boom. Fueled by easy mon-
ey, not only from banks but also
endowments and pension funds,
buyout kings like THL upended
the old order on Wall Street. It
was, they said, the Golden Age
of private equity — nothing less
than a new era of capitalism.
These private investors were
able to buy companies like Sim-
mons with borrowed money and
put down relatively little of their
own cash.
Then, not long after, they often
borrowed even more money, us-
ing the company’s assets as col-
lateral — just like home buyers
who took out home equity loans on
top of their first mortgages. For
the financiers, the rewards were
enormous.
 JULIE CRESWELL
debate about the war to avoid
antagonizing the White House,
which does not want pressure
from military superstars and is
wary of the general’s ambitions
in particular.
Petraeus’s advisers acknowl-
edge that he has stepped back
in part because Obama has
handpicked his own public face
for the war in Afghanistan, Gen.
Stanley A. McChrystal, who last
week gave an interview to CBS’s
“60 Minutes,” used a speech in
London to reject calls for scaling
back the war effort and met with
Obama on Air Force One.
“The president values his in-
sights in helping to turn around
an eight-ear-old war that has
been neglected,” Rahm Emanu-
el, the White House chief of staff,
said of Petraeus.
 SABRINA TAVERNISE
 and SANGAR RAHIMI
8 U.S. Soldiers
Killed in Attack
In Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insur-
gents attacked a pair of remote
American military bases in Af-
ghanistan over the weekend in a
deadly battle that underscored
the vulnerability of the kind of iso-
lated bases that the top American
commander there wants to scale
back.
The commander, Gen. Stanley
A. McChrystal, is pressing for
a change in strategy that would
shift troops to heavily populated
centers to protect civilians and fo-
cus less on battling the insurgents
in the hinterlands.
As though to reinforce his point,
insurgents carried out a bold day-
light strike on two bases on the
Pakistani border, killing eight
Americans and four Afghan secu-
rity officers in the deadliest attack
for American soldiers in more
than a year, Afghan and American
officials said Sunday.
The assault occurred less than
20 miles from the site of a similar
attack that killed nine Americans
last year, which had already be-
come a cautionary tale at the Pen-
tagon for how not to win the war in
Afghanistan.
And it came as the debate within
the administration over the war
sharpened Sunday, as President
Obama’s national security advis-
er, Gen. James L. Jones, seemed
to distance himself from Mc-
Chrystal, saying that he did not
believe that Afghanistan was in
“imminent danger of falling” to
the Taliban.
The battle began Saturday
morning, when insurgents
stormed the two American base
camps in the Kamdesh District
of Nuristan Province. The Ameri-
cans fought back with helicopters,
heavy guns and airstrikes.
The commander of the Ameri-
can unit in Kamdesh, Col. Randy
George, described the strike as “a
complex attack in a difficult area.”
 SABRINA TAVERNISE
 and SANGAR RAHIMI
International
Iran to Let Inspectors See Nuclear Facility
WASHINGTON — The chief of
the world’s nuclear inspection
agency said during a visit to Teh-
ran on Sunday that the Iranian
government had agreed to allow
access to a newly disclosed nucle-
ar enrichment facility on Oct. 25,
and Iran said it would enter talks
earlier about temporarily export-
ing much of its low-enriched ura-
nium to be converted into nuclear
reactor fuel.
At a news conference, the direc-
tor general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, Mo-
hamed ElBaradei, praised Iran
for moving forward on agree-
ments reached at a meeting last
week with the United States and
its allies, even while cautioning
that his agency had “concerns
about Iran’s future intentions.”
“I see that we are at a critical
moment,” ElBaradei said. “I see
that we are shifting from confron-
tation into transparency and co-
operation.”
In Washington, officials were
Greek Socialists Win Election in a Landslide
ATHENS — Socialists won
national elections in Greece on
Sunday, trouncing a center-right
government crippled by corrup-
tion scandals and a growing eco-
nomic crisis.
With 88 percent of Greece’s 10
million votes counted, according
to The Associated Press, the So-
cialist Pasok Party was leading
with 44 percent of the vote to 34
percent for the center-right New
Democracy Party, a margin ex-
pected to give the Socialists their
largest victory ever and a com-
fortable majority in Parliament.
“Today we set off together to
build the Greece we want and
need. We have no time to waste,”
Rescuers Still Try to Reach Villages Hit by Earthquake
PADANG, Indonesia — Emer-
gency workers continued to
struggle Sunday to reach sev-
eral remote villages buried be-
neath landslides caused by a
large earthquake, while a steady
stream of bodies, wrapped in yel-
low bags, arrived by ambulance
at Padang’s main hospital.
More than 700 people were
confirmed dead throughout the
island of Sumatra, and thousands
remained missing four days after
not willing to go as far as ElBa-
radei, saying the next few months
will be critical in determining
whether Iran is truly cooperat-
ing, or simply trying to drag out
negotiations.
President Obama’s national
security adviser, Gen. James L.
Jones, said on CBS’s “Face the
Nation” that “for now, things are
moving in the right direction,”
citing the forthcoming inspec-
tion and discussion on uranium
exports as evidence that the new
effort to deal with Iran was gain-
ing momentum. But some admin-
istration officials expressed pri-
vate skepticism that Iran would
ultimately prove willing to allow
the kind of widespread inspec-
tions that the United States and
its Western allies have in mind.
They want the inspections to
include several facilities that
American and European officials
suspect could be part of a string
of covert facilities built to supply
the newly revealed enrichment
the Socialist leader, George Pa-
pandreou, said in his victory
speech. “We want it, we can do it,
we will succeed.”
“Nothing will be easy,” he add-
ed. “But I will always be honest
and upfront with the Greeks.”
In conceding defeat, Prime
Minister Kostas Karamanlis said
he had failed to persuade Greeks
to accept the two years of auster-
ity measures he had called for to
steer the country out of its eco-
nomic crisis. “The voters did not
approve of this policy. It was their
choice, and I respect it,” he said.
Karamanlis also stepped down
as leader of the New Democracy
party, which suffered its worst
a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit
the western coast. Heavy rains at
night hampered rescue efforts.
In the heart of Padang, with lit-
tle or sometimes no help coming
from the authorities, some affect-
ed neighborhoods turned to an in-
formal network of businesses and
volunteers to fill the void.
On one block in the city’s Chi-
nese quarter, workers at a coal
concern and a truck rental com-
pany set up a base from which
Monday, October 5, 2009
center near the holy city of Qum.
Getting inspectors inside Qum
is the top priority on the Obama
administration’s Iran agenda, of-
ficials said. The administration
had demanded that the facility be
opened within two weeks of their
meeting with Iran on Oct. 1. In-
stead, Iran has offered a date 24
days later, and exactly a month to
the day after President Obama,
President Nicolas Sarkozy of
France and Prime Minister
Gordon Brown of Britain stood
together to announce that their
intelligence services had seen
evidence Iran was putting equip-
ment into the site, tunneled under
a mountain and inside a Revolu-
tionary Guards base.
A few days before the lead-
ers spoke, Iran had sought to
pre-empt the announcement by
declaring the site to the atomic
agency, years after it had begun
building.
 DAVID E. SANGER
 and NAZILA FATHI
performance since the restora-
tion of Greek democracy in 1974
after years of military dictator-
ship.
Karamanlis, 53, called early
elections last month, two years
into a mandate dogged by cor-
ruption scandals and economic
crisis, aiming to win a fresh man-
date and stave off labor unrest. He
had called for a freeze in public
sector wages to fight rising debt
and unemployment, but had diffi-
culty pushing through important
economic and structural reforms
because he governed with a one-
vote majority in Parliament.
 RACHEL DONADIO
 and ANTHEE CARASSAVA
they dispatched much-needed
earth-moving vehicles across
the city. The two companies re-
sponded to private requests, usu-
ally from friends and business
partners, said Budianto, 38, who
supervises shipping at the coal
company, Bumi Anyer Wisesa,
and had no experience dealing
with rescue missions.
“There’s no coordination with
the government at all,” Budianto
said.  (NYT)
2
in brief
Option of Troops
President Obama’s national
security adviser, Gen. James
L. Jones, said on Sunday that
a recommendation to send
another 40,000 American troops
to Afghanistan was just one
part of a review of overall
strategy that included such
factors as a larger role for
the Pakistani military and the
integrity of the recent Afghan
elections. (NYT)
Pope Warns Africa
ATHENS — Opening a month-
long meeting in Rome that will
be devoted to Africa, where
the Roman Catholic Church
is growing most rapidly, Pope
Benedict XVI warned Sunday
that the continent was at risk
from materialism, nihilism and
religious fundamentalism.
Benedict called Africa “a
great spiritual lung” for the
Catholic Church, but he added
that it was also subject to mal-
adies, including the “spiritual
toxic waste” of materialism and
nihilism sent by the first world,
which he called a new form of
colonialism.
That development, he said,
led to the “virus” of “religious
fundamentalism, mixed with
political and economic inter-
ests.”  (NYT)
Leader Denounced
PARIS — France, Guinea’s
former colonial ruler, said Sun-
day that it could no longer work
with Guinea’s junta leader,
Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara,
after scores of people were
killed by his security forces
there during an opposition rally
last week.
“Something terrible and sav-
age happened. We cannot ac-
cept it,” said France’s foreign
minister, Bernard Kouchner. “It
seems to me that we can no lon-
ger work with Dadis Camara
and that there has to be an in-
ternational intervention.”
Camara has ruled the West
African nation for about nine
months after a bloodless coup
following the death of Lansana
Conté, Guinea’s longtime lead-
er. Camara has denied any re-
sponsibility for the killings on
Sept. 28.  (AFP)
national
Term Will Test Justices’ Views on Regulation
WASHINGTON — The new
Supreme Court term that begins
Monday will be dominated by
cases concerning corporations,
compensation and the financial
markets that could signal the jus-
tices’ attitude toward regulatory
constraints at a time of extraordi-
nary government intervention in
the economy.
Those Obama administration
initiatives, constitutional scholars
say, are generating fundamental
questions about the structure and
limits of government power.
“There will be major ways in
which these interventions will
produce legal and constitutional
issues,” said Michael W. McCon-
nell, director of the Stanford Con-
stitutional Law Center.
The term will provide impor-
tant hints, said Richard H. Pildes,
a law professor at New York Uni-
versity, on “how much the worst
economic crisis since the Depres-
sion is going to shape the court’s
general stance toward markets
Pro Wrestling Script: From Mat to U.S. Senate?
She emerges from a coma and
kicks her cheating husband in the
groin. In a showdown with her
daughter, she goes flying to the
mat after her daughter smacks
her in the face.
As Linda E. McMahon and her
husband built the billion-dollar
empire of World Wrestling Enter-
tainment, she was more than its
chief executive: she was a char-
acter in its story lines.
Now, McMahon is playing to
a new audience, as she seeks the
Republican nomination to chal-
lenge Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of
Connecticut, who finds himself
Parents Face Extra Costs as Tuition Savings Funds Struggle to Survive
In the last two decades, more
than a million families around
the country have invested in state
funds that pledged to cover the
cost of attending their state’s pub-
lic colleges and universities.
But in the last year, the stock
market slump and rising college
costs have combined to drive all
but two of the nation’s 18 such
funds, known as prepaid college
savings plans, into the red, jeopar-
dizing those pledges.
Even with stock market gains
since March, the losses have
forced some programs, like Penn-
and economic regulation.”
Pildes pointed to two cases in
particular, one concerning the
constitutionality of a regulatory
board created in the wake of the
Enron accounting scandal, the
other about what role the courts
should play in setting the pay of
advisers to mutual funds.
The new term comes at a time
of rapid change at the court. While
the Rehnquist court welcomed no
new justices in its final 11 years,
ending with Chief Justice Wil-
liam H. Rehnquist’s death in 2005,
there have already been three
versions of the Roberts court in
its first four years. And there may
be more changes come summer,
if talk of the retirement of Justice
John Paul Stevens turns out to be
correct.
The court’s newest addition,
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, ar-
rived in August, replacing Justice
David H. Souter. While most Su-
preme Court specialists expect
her to vote much as Souter did,
among the most vulnerable of Sen-
ate Democrats.
McMahon has stressed that she
cut her official ties to the W.W.E.
corporation, stepping down as
chief executive the day before
she announced her Senate bid last
month.
Ms. McMahon — who founded
W.W.E., formerly the World Wres-
tling Federation, more than 25
years ago with her husband, Vin-
cent K. McMahon, the company’s
chairman — has already poured
nearly $1 million into a television
and newspaper advertising bar-
rage since Sept. 16.
sylvania’s and Washington’s, to
impose new and higher fees that
could amount to thousands of dol-
lars a year in costs to parents.
Others, like South Carolina’s,
have developed doomsday sce-
narios, capping how much a fam-
ily would get if the program shut
down completely. West Virginia
had to pump $8 million into its pre-
paid program to help restore its
financial health because its fund
lost 25 percent of its value in the
last year. And Alabama closed its
program to new enrollees because
the fund lost almost half of its as-
Monday, October 5, 2009
there are at least two areas in
which she may take a different
approach.
One is criminal law. The other is
corporate law, a field in which the
expertise she gained on the fed-
eral appeals court in New York,
with its heavy business docket,
will play a major role.
The Obama administration’s
lawyers, meanwhile, took over
the legal reins in the middle of the
last term and made only minor
adjustments in pending cases.
They will be freer to chart their
own course now.
One result, McConnell said, will
be an inevitable clash, one echo-
ing confrontations with other
ambitious presidents, including
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald
Reagan.
“Every time in American his-
tory when you see a consequential
administration,” he said, “you see
a heightened tension between it
and the court.”
 ADAM LIPTAK
But rather than celebrating
the arrival of McMahon, a well-
financed Greenwich business-
woman, some Republicans are
squirming over the emergence
of a political novice from a world
known for leotards and outra-
geous stunts.
In an interview, McMahon
seemed to dismiss concerns that
her ties to the company would un-
dercut her candidacy. “Did any-
one in Sacramento expect Arnold
Schwarzenegger to show up in a
Terminator outfit?’’ she said. “It
borders on silliness.’’
 RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
sets — more than $300 million — in
the stock market in the last year.
The funds were first proposed
23 years ago in Michigan. They
were quickly adopted by other
states after 1996, when Congress
allowed them to be tax-deferred
under Section 529 of the Internal
Revenue Code.
Carol M. Perdue was troubled
by a letter she got from Alabama’s
treasurer this summer that said
the state’s prepaid program had
lost about 50 percent of its assets
in the stock market. She is suing to
force the state to put money into
3
in brief
1 in 10 Babies
Is Born Premature
Nearly 1 in 10 of the world’s
babies is born premature, and
about one million infants die
each year as a result, according
to a report released on Sunday
by the March of Dimes.
The vast majority of the near-
ly 13 million premature babies
born each year are in Africa
and Asia, according to the re-
port. The rates are highest in
Africa, but North America fol-
lows closely behind, concludes
the first part of the report, a
collaboration with the World
Health Organization.  (AP)
California Wildfires
A wildfire that charred more
than five square miles of the
San Gabriel Mountains in Cali-
fornia continued to rage Sun-
day. The fire, driven by wind
gusts of up to 40 miles per hour,
destroyed three homes and was
10 percent surrounded. About
4,000 to 6,000 residents were or-
dered to evacuate, said Robin
Prince, public information offi-
cer for the San Bernardino Na-
tional Forest.  (AP)
Gays in the Military
President Barack Obama will
focus “at the right time’’ on how
to overturn the “don’t ask, don’t
tell’’ ban on gays serving openly
in the military, his national se-
curity adviser said Sunday.
“I don’t think it’s going to be
— it’s not years, but I think it
will be teed up appropriately,’’
James Jones said.  (AP)
the fund to make up for the losses.
“At first I was kind of scared,”
said Perdue, 40, an insurance
agent in Phenix City who has about
$30,000 in the program for her two
daughters. “And then I felt almost
cheated, like I was sold a bill of
goods that wasn’t there.”
Despite all this bad news, inves-
tors continue to see the funds as an
attractive option for one simple
reason, said Joseph F. Hurley,
founder of Savingforcollege.com:
“Even with all the problems, no
one has ever lost money in the pro-
cess.”  SEAN D. HAMILL
business
China Looks to Build Its Own Media Empires
SHANGHAI — China plans to
spend billions of dollars over the
next few years to develop media
and entertainment companies
that it hopes can compete with
global giants like the News Corp.
and Time Warner, and will in the
process loosen some of its tight
control of these industries.
A plan set forth in guidelines
last week by China’s State Coun-
cil envisions the creation of en-
tertainment, news and culture
companies with a market orien-
tation and with less government
backing.
Beijing hopes the moves will
even improve the nation’s image
overseas — part of a longstand-
ing effort to use “soft power”
rather than military might to win
friends abroad.
Along the way, Beijing will al-
low private and foreign compa-
nies to invest in everything from
music, film and television to the-
ater, dance and opera produc-
tions — though largely through
Bond Market Booms as Investors Flock Back
The swift rally in stock mar-
kets this year caught everyone’s
attention. But with far less fan-
fare, a frenzy has been taking
place in the market for corporate
bonds.
When credit markets practi-
cally shut down last year, busi-
nesses had to pay huge premiums
to raise money from investors,
offering returns of 10 to 20 per-
cent to anyone who would buy a
company’s debt. Now, investors
are the ones paying higher prices
as they race back into the bond
markets.
Some see this as good news,
The Quest Continues: a Tablet Computer That Somebody Wants
SAN FRANCISCO — The high-
tech industry has been working it-
self into paroxysms of excitement
lately over an idea that is not ex-
actly new: tablet computers.
Quietly, several high-tech com-
panies are lining up to deliver
versions of these keyboard-free,
touch-screen portable machines
in the next few months.
Tablets have been around in
various forms for two decades,
thus far delivering little other
than memorable failure. None-
theless, the new batch of devices
has gripped the imagination of
state-owned companies.
Though China has not provided
a detailed plan yet, one exception
loosening of gevernment control
is likely to be news programming,
which falls under the control of
the Communist Party.
China has also been upgrading
its state-run news media.
Among the first companies to
benefit from the new government
policy will be Shanghai Media
Group, one of the country’s big-
gest state-run news and media
conglomerates. In August, the
government gave the company
approval to reorganize its op-
erations and to issue stock to the
public.
S.M.G., as it is known, has close
to $1 billion in revenues and $100
million in profits last year. It also
has partnerships with companies
like the News Corp., Viacom and
CNBC, and a profitable array of
television units, as well as radio,
newspaper, magazine and film
production units.
a sign that credit markets are
humming along after their near-
collapse last year. Others believe
Wall Street’s next big bubble is
now inflating as investors chase
down returns, and they warn that
the big spike in bond prices could
roll backward if the economy
stumbles and investors again run
for safer ground.
“I don’t quite see the funda-
mentals of how this works,” said
Thomas H. Atteberry, of First
Pacific Advisors. “If I don’t think
I have a sustainable economic
recovery, how do I justify these
prices? How do I justify these
tech executives, bloggers and
gadget hounds. In their visions,
tablets will save the newspaper
and book publishing industries,
present another way to watch
television and movies, play video
games, and offer a visually rich
way to enjoy the Web and the ex-
panding world of mobile applica-
tions.
There were basic problems
with early tablets: they cost too
much and did not do enough. But
integrated microchips now com-
bine wireless connectivity and
support for features like multi-
Monday, October 5, 2009
The company is being split into
a state-controlled nonprofit side
that will house news program-
ming and satellite transmission,
and a profit-driven side focused
on advertising, content develop-
ment and distribution.
“The domestic media mar-
ket is being changed dramati-
cally,” says Li Ruigang, S.M.G.’s
40-year-old chairman and chief
executive. “This will be a new
S.M.G. In the future we’ll be a
holding company, and there will
be more than 10 subsidiaries.”
Foreign media companies look-
ing for greater access to China’s
vast market may be disappoint-
ed, analysts say of the new guide-
lines.
“This is not an invitation for
stakes by international media
companies,” says Vivek Couto, di-
rector of Media Partners Asia, a
Hong Kong-based research firm.
“But this may be an invitation for
private equity and foreign capital
to do more.”  DAVID BARBOZA
yields? You go, wait a second.”
Some $265 billion has flowed in-
to bond funds since the beginning
of the year, according to figures
from the Investment Company
Institute, 15 times the money that
has entered equity funds.
“The easy trade is something
you want to be wary of, and the
easy trade right now is into the
high-quality fixed income mar-
ket,” said Lawrence Glazer, a
managing partner at Mayflower
Advisors. “Look at the flows: peo-
ple are falling over themselves.
That should be a caution flag for
investors.”  JACK HEALY
media, GPS functions and rich
graphics. They are also more
energy-efficient.
The drumbeat of tablet product
introductions has already begun.
In June, Archos, a French con-
sumer electronics company, be-
gan selling a small touch-screen
tablet running Google’s Android
software. Later this month, it
will introduce another tablet that
runs on Microsoft’s Windows 7,
which has built-in support for
touch screens.
The industry blog TechCrunch
has also commissioned its own
4
in brief
I.F.C. to Help
Buy Toxic Assets
The head of the International
Finance Corp said on Saturday
that the group plans to work
with private equity funds, debt
servicing companies and ma-
jor banks to soak up toxic as-
sets held by banks in emerging
markets.
The IFC, the World Bank’s
private-sector lender, said this
week it would contribute up to
$1.5 billion toward a proposed $5
billion global scheme that would
invest in or mobilize investment
to buy up distressed assets.
 (Reuters)
Angry Diner Study
In a study soon to be pub-
lished in the Journal of Consum-
er Research, college students
were told to imagine a service
disaster at a local restaurant:
long wait, cold food, inattentive
waiter. Students told to imagine
that this was their favorite res-
taurant were mollified by imag-
ining a chance meeting with the
owner, who apologized and of-
fered a $50 gift certificate. But
for casual customers, it took
$100 to achieve the same effect.
 (NYT)
Defibrillator Recall
Philips Healthcare said Sat-
urday it is recalling about 5,400
automated external defibrilla-
tors after receiving reports of a
memory chip failure in a small
number of some models that
could make them inoperable.
 (AP)
Web tablet, called the Crunch-
Pad, which it has said it will start
selling later this year.
In September, images of a
booklike Microsoft device called
Courier, with two 7-inch color
screens, surfaced on the gadget
blog Gizmodo.
Apple’s rumored tablet is the
most highly anticipated of the lot.
Analysts expect Apple to intro-
duce it early next year — a sort
of expanded, souped-up version of
the iPod Touch, priced at around
$700.  BRAD STONE
 and ASHLEE VANCE
business
At Tribune, Layoffs, Bankruptcy and Bonuses
Let’s say that a group of execu-
tives uses scads of debt to take
over a struggling company, sells
off some profitable assets, lays
off thousands of employees while
achieving miserable results. And
then, less than a year after sad-
dling the company with $8 billion
in debt, they opt for bankruptcy.
You’d expect them to walk the
plank, or at the very least, spend a
good stretch of time in the naugh-
ty corner. But you wouldn’t ex-
pect the top 700 managers to col-
lect $66 million in bonuses.
But that’s just what happened
at the Tribune Co. A week ago
Friday, lawyers for the company,
which publishes The Los Angeles
Times, The Chicago Tribune, The
Baltimore Sun and many other
important newspapers, and owns
some television stations, were
in Federal Bankruptcy Court in
Delaware suggesting that the
proposed 2009 bonuses were criti-
cal for the health and survival of
the company.
Report on Bailouts Says Treasury Misled Public
WASHINGTON — The inspec-
tor general who oversees the gov-
ernment’s bailout of the banking
system is raising the possibility
that it unfairly disbursed money
to the biggest banks.
A Treasury Department official
made incorrect statements about
the health of some banks, accord-
ing to a report on the Troubled As-
set Relief Program to be released
on Monday by the special inspec-
tor general, Neil M. Barofksy.
The bailout formula called for
banks to get an amount equal to
Plenty of News About Wall Street, but Little About Ordinary Americans
A study to be released Monday
of financial news coverage this
year found that government,
Wall Street and a small handful of
story lines got the bulk of the at-
tention while much less was paid
to the economic troubles of ordi-
nary people.
The study, by the Pew Research
Center’s Project for Excellence in
Journalism, also found that when
the stock market rebounded from
its lows and the most pitched
battles in Washington ended, the
news media turned their attention
away from economic coverage.
Reviewing almost 10,000 re-
Under questioning, Chandler
Bigelow III, the chief financial of-
ficer, said the bonuses would help
“incentivize our key managers to
battle all of the intense challenges
that unfortunately our local me-
dia businesses are facing,” ac-
cording to The Associated Press.
The unsecured creditors of
the Tribune Co. filed a letter in
support of the incentives, and its
senior lenders support the plan
as well. But both the company’s
union and the trustee appointed
to oversee the bankruptcy raised
objections, arguing that the bo-
nuses would be the highest ever
paid — even as the company has
its lowest cash flow in 10 years.
“It is sort of along the same
lines as the Bank of America
and A.I.G. bonuses, except it is
not taxpayer money,” said Cet
Parks, executive director of the
Baltimore-Washington Newspa-
per Guild, in an interview. “At the
same time they are asking em-
ployees to make sacrifices, they
as much as 3 percent of their risk-
weighted assets, with aid capped
at $25 billion for each institution,
according to the report. By size,
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and
Bank of America could have quali-
fied for more, and the first two re-
ceived $25 billion.
But Bank of America was only
given $15 billion in October, since
Merrill Lynch was earmarked
for $10 billion. The two companies
had agreed to a merger. Bank of
America ultimately received
Merrill’s $10 billion in January —
ports from Feb. 1 to Aug. 31 in
newspapers, on news Web sites,
on the radio and on network
broadcast and cable television,
Pew found that almost 40 percent
of economic news reports dealt
with the trials of the banking and
auto industries, and the federal
stimulus bill passed in February.
Rising unemployment and
the housing crisis accounted for
12 percent. And, the study said,
“stories that tried to explicitly ex-
amine the broader impact of the
economic downturn on the lives of
ordinary Americans filled 5 per-
cent of the economic coverage.”
Monday, October 5, 2009
want to reap the rewards of all
these cuts they have been mak-
ing.”
At a hearing about the bonuses,
a union accountant testified that
if the maximum incentives were
paid, they would eat up 15.5 per-
cent of operating cash flow.
All this requires what we in
the journalism business call a
to-be-sure moment. (A company
spokesman reminded me that
with the coming $740 million sale
of the Cubs, the company will
have $1.5 billion in cash on hand.)
So, let’s stipulate that many of the
men and women at the Tribune
are terrific executives working
hard to lift the company out of
bankruptcy. They are not traders
in obscure financial instruments
that tipped over the markets and
are now lining up at the trough.
But at a bankrupt company in a
declining industry with negative
performance, is it really time for
the bankruptcy court to open up
the wallet?  DAVID CARR
as well as another $20 billion.
Barofsky’s office also says that
regulators were wrong to tell the
public last year that the earliest
bailout recipients were all healthy.
Former Treasury Secretary Hen-
ry M. Paulson said on Oct. 14 that
the banks were “healthy,” and that
they accepted the money for “the
good of the U.S. economy.”
In truth, regulators were con-
cerned about the health of several
banks that received that first bail-
out, the inspector general writes.
 LOUISE STORY
Three-quarters of the reports
originated from Washington or
New York, and a similar number
were based on the actions of gov-
ernment and business leaders.
In February and March, the
economy was the subject of nearly
half of all news coverage, driven
by the stimulus bill and the uses of
bank bailout money. After those
fights died down, financial news
coverage fell by more than half.
Mark Jurkowitz, associate di-
rector of the Pew project, said it
was easier for the national news
media to cover Washington “than
to fan out around the country and
5
A Shrinking Role
For the Group of 7
At the weekend meetings in Is-
tanbul of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, the
move toward a more multilateral
world was in full swing.
The Group of 7 began what may
be an extended fade to black. And
major members of the I.M.F.,
while still certain to clash over the
details, broadly endorsed chang-
es to I.M.F. rules that will water
down the ironclad control that the
industrialized world has held on
the organization for the last half
century.
“A more representative, respon-
sive and accountable governance
structure is essential to strength-
ening the I.M.F.’s legitimacy,” the
U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy
Geithner, said in a statement.
Coming only weeks after offi-
cials at a summit meeting in Pitts-
burgh of the top industrialized and
emerging economies blessed the
Group of 20 as the globe’s top de-
cision-making body for economic
governance, the Group of 7 made
clear that its existence now only
made sense in conjunction with
the Group of 20, which includes
China, Brazil, India and other
emerging economies.
Less consensus emerged on
how countries will restructure the
I.M.F., which has 186 members,
to mirror the tectonic shifts in the
world economy.
Also, the I.M.F. did not address
the effective United States veto
at the organization. With a 17 per-
cent voting share in a body that re-
quires 85 percent for major deci-
sions, the United States can block
any significant move.
 CARTER DOUGHERTY
measure the impact on real lives,”
especially after recent cuts to
news staffs.
“There’s plenty of reason to
understand why a lot of this is a
Washington and New York story,”
he said. “But we’re talking about
something that affected almost
every American in some way.”
Newspapers did more financial
reporting than other media, and
covered a much broader range
of economic topics about a wider
range of people, and they were
far more likely to dig up items on
their own, the study said.
 RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
journal Monday, October 5, 2009 6

Pressure Grows to Contain the Human Population of Galápagos

PUERTO AYORA, Galápagos Islands — already harming the ecosystem that allowed unskilled migrants, many of whom moved
The mounds of reeking garbage on the edge the islands’ more famous inhabitants, among here to do jobs in tourism, construction or in
of this settlement 600 miles off Ecuador’s them giant tortoises and boobies with brightly the bureaucracy created to manage the archi-
Pacific coast are proof that one species is colored webbed feet, to evolve in isolation pelago.
thriving on the fragile archipelago whose before mainlanders started colonizing the ar- “We are being told that a tortoise for a rich
unique wildlife inspired Darwin’s theory of chipelago more than a century ago. foreigner to photograph is worth more than
evolution: man. Faced with the unruly growth, Ecuador’s an Ecuadorean citizen,” said Maria Mariana
Tiny gray finches, descendants of birds that government has stepped in over the past year, de Reina Bustos, 54, a migrant from Ambato
were crucial to his thesis, flutter around the taking the politically unpopular step of expel- in Ecuador’s central Andean valley, whose
dump, which serves a growing town of poor ling hundreds of poor Ecuadoreans from a 22-year-old daughter, Olga, was recently
Ecuadoreans who have moved here to work in province they feel is rightfully theirs. rounded up by police near the slum of La Cas-
the islands’ thriving tourist industry. By cracking down, officials hope to pre- cada and put on a plane to the mainland.
The burgeoning human population of Ga- serve the natural wonders that bolster one of Pressure is building here, within the ar-
lápagos, which doubled to about 30,000 in the Ecuador’s most profitable sectors, tourism. chipelago’s scientific and environmental
last decade, has unnerved environmental- But the new measures belie festering tension community, and abroad for Ecuador to act
ists. They point to evidence that the growth is on the islands, feeding a backlash among on curbing the migration. The United Nations
put Galápagos on its list of endangered heri-
crossword Edited By Will Shortz tage sites in 2007.
Even though laws technically prevent peo-
PUZZLE BY MARK FELDMAN
ACROSS 47 Not to be missed,
ple from living in 97 percent of the archipelago
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
as a TV show set aside 50 years ago as a national park, sci-
1 Brown eyes or
curly hair 50 “… boy ___ girl?” 14 15 16 entists here said the growing population had
6 Surrender 51 Pester already impacted the archipelago, pointing
17 18 19
10 House in Spain 52 Divided in to fuel spills, poaching of giant tortoises and
14 Cry of
appropriate 20 21 sharks and the introduction of invasive spe-
amounts cies, including rats, cattle and fire ants that
exasperation 22 23 24
57 $1,000 threaten animals endemic to Galápagos.
15 Salve ingredient
16 Boxer
60 Swampy ground 25 26 27 28 29 Even seemingly benign human activities
Muhammad and 61 Snakes that — like owning a pet — can have outsized con-
family constrict 30 31 32 33 34
sequences here. “With people come cats, and
62 U.S./Mex./Can.
17 $500
commerce pact
35 36 37 38 39 with cats come threats to other animals found
20 Stoops nowhere else in the world,” said Fernando Or-
63 Years and years 40 41 42
21 Not tiz, coordinator of the Galapagos program for
64 Rodgers and
knowledgeable in
Hart’s “___ It 43 44 45 46 Conservation International.
the ways of the With only about 15 percent of the population
Romantic?”
world 47 48 49 50
65 Nervous native born, or Galapagueño, the migration
22 Prefix with plunk
or plop 51 52 53 54 55 56 crackdown may be helping a regional identity
23 Collection of DOWN to crystallize on the islands, which lure mi-
information in 1 Fancy marbles
57 58 59
grants from across Ecuador. One of the most
tabular form
2 Banister 60 61 62 industrious and cohesive groups is the Sala-
25 $5,000
3 Singer Guthrie sacas, Quichua-speaking Indians from the
30 Gladden
4 Ice house: Var.
63 64 65
highlands. As many as 3,000 Salasacas live in
31 Sort of: Suffix 5 Stocky 10/5/09 (No. 1005)
Galápagos.
32 “___ du lieber!” 6 Kodak product 12 Kitchen utensil 32 Paul who sang 47 Molten volcanic
“We built this province with our own
35 Exactly … or 7 Majestic shade with a mesh “Diana” material hands, so, yes, it pains us to see our country-
where to find trees 13 So far 33 Middling grades 48 Strip, as a ship men deported like animals,” said Margarita
17-, 25-, 43- and Masaquiza, 45, a director of the Salasaca asso-
8 Only one of the 18 Sound before 34 Jekyll’s 49 Cause unrest?
57-Across?
Seven Dwarfs to “Your, um, fly is counterpart ciation who arrived here at age 14. “After all,
40 China’s Chiang wear glasses 52 Bit of
___-shek
open” 36 Undress with the strategizing we are indigenous Ecuadoreans, how can we
9 Hair-raising cry 19 Take ___ eyes be illegal in our own country?”
41 Tricked account 53 Shepard who
10 Ancient Palestine 37 Alaskan city near  SIMON ROMERO
42 Questioned
walked on the
11 “___ well” (“Don’t 23 Waiter’s serving the Arctic Circle moon
43 $10,000 worry”) 24 Tennis’s Arthur 38 Dance craze of 54 President just
25 Bozo
the ’90s before Wilson
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE 39 ___Kosh B’Gosh 55 Med. specialists
26 Inter ___ (among
other things) 43 Hotpoint products who might treat 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
G R E A A T P E E S P A N A tonsillitis
F U N N M Y A N F L A G O N 27 Bearers of gold, 44 “___ sow, so •
frankincense and shall …” 56 June 6, 1944 Tom Brady, Editor
O L D G O R W T H F O R E S T
myrrh 45 What the weary 58 Hitter’s stat e-mail: digesteditor@nytimes.com
R E I S R E R O E G L E I •
C O N T A L E R T B I C S 28 Biblical suffix get, it’s said 59 “I Spy” co-star TimesDigest Sales Office
E N G P L E A S E A M O K 29 “Same for me” 46 Can. division Bill, familiarly phone: (212) 556-1200
D E L E T E T R I N I fax: (646) 461-2364
T O P O N Y M S N O R T E D For answers, call 1-900-289-CLUE (289-2583), $1.49 a minute; e-mail: timesdigest@nytimes.com
A V I L A A S H O R E or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5550. •
P E N T M R M O T O C P O Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 5,000 past For advertising information
A R C S A V O W S C A E N puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). and to request a media kit
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opinion
e d i t o r ia l s o f t h e t i m e S
The Supreme Court Returns
The Supreme Court starts its new session
this week with cases on its docket that could
reshape the law in campaign finance, gun con-
trol and sentencing for juvenile crimes, and
with the first new Democratically appointed
justice in 15 years. That newest member, Jus-
tice Sonia Sotomayor, has been getting a lot
of attention, but Justice Anthony Kennedy is
likely to continue to wield the real power, on
the most controversial issues.
Among the most anticipated cases so far
are two that raise the question of whether it is
constitutional to sentence juvenile offenders
to life without parole. One of the defendants
was just 13 when he raped an elderly woman
in her home — an appalling and brutal crime,
but one that did not involve homicide. We
should not be giving up on a person for an act
committed at 13. A few years ago, the court
ruled that the death penalty for juvenile of-
fenders amounts to cruel and unusual punish-
ment. It should extend that reasoning to these
cases.
The court has also agreed to hear the case
of a man prosecuted for selling videos of dog-
fights, in which he was not involved. A federal
appeals court ruled that his conviction violat-
ed the First Amendment.
Animal abuse videos are truly loathsome,
but the right approach is to criminalize ani-
mal cruelty, as all 50 states do, and not to in-
fringe on free speech.
Mr. Obama’s Promise of Transparency
Hopes for an effective law that would pro-
tect the public’s access to essential news from
inside government have been dealt a severe
setback by the Obama administration.
As a senator, President Obama co-spon-
sored a robust proposal to protect journalists
and their sources who rely on confidentiality
to reveal abuses, scandals and other inner
workings of government agencies. But White
House officials are now proposing deep revi-
sions to a Senate Judiciary Committee bill
that weaken protections against forcing re-
porters to reveal their sources.
At the heart of the disagreement is the bal-
ance between national security and the pub-
lic’s right to know. The best approach is to
protect legitimate security claims while re-
jecting those that are made in the name of na-
tional security but are really aimed at avoid-
ing embarrassment. That was the constant
cry from the Bush administration as the pub-
lic learned — through the unauthorized disclo-
sure of confidential information — of prisoner
abuse, secret C.I.A. prisons for terrorist sus-
pects and warrantless wiretapping.
The Senate bill and a measure passed ear-
lier in the House aim at a reasonable balance
by relying on a federal judge to decide when
security is not truly at risk and sources must
be protected. The White House proposals
Following on a major case from last year
in which the court struck down parts of the
District of Columbia’s gun-control law, the
justices have decided to consider whether
state and local gun control laws can also be
challenged under the Second Amendment.
The court should not use the case to prevent
states and localities from enacting reason-
able restrictions on guns.
The court will hear a First Amendment
challenge to a cross that stands on land in
California that once belonged to the federal
government.
The government gave the land to a private
group to get around a court order that the
cross violated the prohibition on state sup-
port for religion. The court should rule that
despite the land transfer, the cross is uncon-
stitutional.
The court’s docket is heavy with business
cases, including one about whether a particu-
lar method of hedging financial risk can be
patented. Patents should be limited to more
physical creations.
The most important business case, how-
ever, is the one the court heard last month. In
Citizens United v. F.E.C., the court could wipe
out a longstanding ban on corporate spending
on federal elections, which would allow big
business to swamp democracy. We hope the
court will avoid such recklessness, and rule
narrowly.
would instruct judges to defer to the admin-
istration’s view of when and if a news leak
presents a “significant” security leak. The
executive branch would arrogate power to
decide the public’s right to know by crimping
the news media’s ability to make a case for
disclosure.
The need for a shield law is clear. Last year,
42 of the state attorneys general pushed for a
clearer federal standard to avoid undermin-
ing state shield laws.
The White House insists that the president
supports a strong media shield and that ne-
gotiations should proceed. But Sen. Charles
Schumer, a chief sponsor of the pending mea-
sure, said the Obama proposals have made it
an uphill fight. The administration’s position,
he said, “doesn’t show much concern for com-
promise.”
As president, Obama has been progressive-
ly more protective of executive powers in such
sensitive areas as state secrets and detainee
policy. It’s time for him to recall that in win-
ning the White House, he spoke vigorously in
favor of a shield law that trusts the judiciary
to settle disclosure conflicts. The latest hedg-
ing from the White House does not deliver on
his promise for a new era of openness. Instead,
it signals that some in his administration may
be intent on killing a fair shield bill.
Monday, October 5, 2009 7
paul krugman
The Politics of Spite
There was what President Obama likes to
call a teachable moment last week, when the
International Olympic Committee rejected
Chicago’s bid to be host of the 2016 Summer
Games.
“Cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the
conservative Weekly Standard, according to
a blog post by a member of the magazine’s
staff, with the headline “Obama loses! Obama
loses!” Rush Limbaugh declared himself
“gleeful.” “World Rejects Obama,” gloated
the Drudge Report. And so on.
So what did we learn from this moment?
For one thing, we learned that the modern
conservative movement, which dominates
the modern Republican Party, has the emo-
tional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.
But more important, the episode illustrated
an essential truth about the state of American
politics: at this point, the guiding principle of
one of our nation’s two great political parties
is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think
something might be good for the president,
they’re against it — whether or not it’s good
for America.
To be sure, while celebrating America’s
rebuff by the Olympic Committee was puer-
ile, it didn’t do any real harm. But the same
principle of spite has determined Republican
positions on more serious matters, with poten-
tially serious consequences — in particular,
in the debate over health care reform.
The main G.O.P. line of attack is the claim
— based mainly on lies about death panels and
so on — that reform will undermine Medicare.
And this line of attack is utterly at odds both
with the party’s traditions and with what con-
servatives claim to believe.
Think about just how bizarre it is for Repub-
licans to position themselves as the defend-
ers of unrestricted Medicare spending. First
of all, the modern G.O.P. considers itself the
party of Ronald Reagan — and Reagan was a
fierce opponent of Medicare’s creation, warn-
ing that it would destroy American freedom.
(Honest.) In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich tried to
force drastic cuts in Medicare financing. And
in recent years, Republicans have repeatedly
decried the growth in entitlement spending —
growth that is largely driven by rising health
care costs.
The key point is that ever since the Reagan
years, the Republican Party has been domi-
nated by radicals — ideologues and/or ap-
paratchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not
accept anyone else’s right to govern.
The result has been a cynical, ends-justify-
the-means approach with the G.O.P. oppos-
ing anything that might be good for Obama.
Hastening the day when the rightful govern-
ing party returns to power is all that matters,
so the G.O.P. will seize any club at hand with
which to beat the current administration.
It’s an ugly picture. But it’s the truth. And
it’s a truth anyone trying to find solutions to
America’s real problems has to understand.
sports Monday, October 5, 2009 8

Tigers and Twins Force Issue in A.L. Central in brief

MINNEAPOLIS — Detroit
Tigers Manager Jim Leyland
predicted this months ago. The
American League Central Divi-
sion, he said, was so balanced that
he expected the race to go down to
the final day of the season.
Leyland reiterated that two
weeks ago, when the Tigers lost
two of three to the Minnesota
Twins at the Metrodome in what
he had hoped was the Tigers’ final
trip here. Leyland ended up be-
ing right and wrong at the same
time.
The race did go down to the fi-
nal day of the season, with Detroit
and Minnesota tied for first place
after each team won Sunday. But
because both teams finished 86-
76, they will have to play one more
game, a 163rd, to settle the divi-
sion.
In Minneapolis, with dozens of
former Twins players on hand for
Postseason Baseball hit his career-high 32nd homer to Fever Nears Title
extend the Metrodome’s baseball
Tamika Catchings had 14
DIVISION SERIES life by one game.
American League points, 12 rebounds and 7 as-
New York vs. Detroit-Minnesota winner The tie breaker will be Tuesday
sists as the Indiana Fever
Wednesday, Oct. 7 or Thursday, Oct. 8 afternoon, with the Tigers rookie
Detroit-Minnesota winner at New York (Sabathia moved within one victory of the
19-8), 6:07 p.m. standout Rick Porcello expected
Los Angeles. vs. Boston W.N.B.A. title Sunday by defeat-
to oppose Scott Baker, a 15-game
Wednesday, Oct. 7 or Thursday, Oct. 8 ing the Phoenix Mercury, 86-85,
Boston (Lester 15-8) at Los Angeles (Lackey 11- winner. The winner will face the
8), 9:37 p.m. or 6:07 p.m. in Game 3 of the finals.
Yankees in an A.L. division series
Indiana took a 2-1 lead in the
National League starting Wednesday or Thursday
Los Angeles vs. St. Louis series. It can clinch its first
Wednesday, Oct. 7 in New York.
championship by winning at
St. Louis (Carpenter 17-4) at Los Angeles (Wolf The tie breaker could not be
11-7), 9:37 p.m. home on Wednesday.
Philadelphia vs. Colorado held Monday because the Minne-
Wednesday, Oct. 7  (AP)
Colorado (Jimenez 15-12) at Philadelphia (Lee sota Vikings, by lease agreement,
7-4), 2:37 p.m. have priority for their Monday NFL scores
night N.F.L. game with the Green Sunday’s Games
the final regular-season game at Bay Packers. Chicago 48, Detroit 24
the Metrodome, a hanky-waving “Obviously we didn’t want to Houston 29, Oakland 6
crowd of 51,155 watched Minne- have to go back there,” said Tigers Washington 16, Tampa Bay 13
sota pound five home runs to rout left fielder Ryan Raburn, who hit Indianapolis 34, Seattle 17
the Royals, 13-4. two homers and scored three of Giants 27, Kansas City 16
Jason Kubel hit three-run hom- Detroit’s runs Sunday. “But for us New England 27, Baltimore 21
Cincinnati 23, Cleveland 20, OT
ers in the first and third innings. to be able to go in there and take
Jacksonville 37, Tennessee 17
Delmon Young contributed two a win to shut that place down, it Miami 38, Buffalo 10
solo homers and Michael Cuddyer would be awesome.” PAT BORZI New Orleans 24, Jets 10
Denver 17, Dallas 10

Saints Make Jets’ Sanchez Look Like a Rookie

San Francisco 35, St. Louis 0
San Diego at Pittsburgh, late

NEW ORLEANS — The best de-
fense on the field Sunday at the Su-
perdome was neither the highest
ranked nor the most celebrated.
That defense belongs to the Jets,
and it turned in a solid perfor-
mance against New Orleans, albe-
it one overshadowed by the Saints’
underrated unit that scored two
touchdowns in a 24-10 victory.
The exclamation points came
back to back, late in the fourth
quarter. Trailing by 14 points,
quarterback Mark Sanchez and
the Jets were driving.
Sanchez dropped back on sec-
ond down, only to be swarmed by
Saints and dropped by defensive
end Will Grant for an 11-yard fense and the Saints’ turbo-boost- AL Scores
loss. On the next play, Sanchez ed offense, a matching of wits be- Sunday’s Games
Detroit 5, Chicago White Sox 3
forced another pass into double tween two gurus — the offensive Boston 12, Cleveland 7
coverage, safety Darren Sharper mastermind Sean Payton and Baltimore 5, Toronto 4, 11 innings
grabbed his second interception of Jets Coach Rex Ryan, his defen- Yankees 10, Tampa Bay 2
the game. sive counterpart. Minnesota 13, Kansas City 4
“It’s just not a great day,” said Instead, the Saints’ defense L.A. Angels 5, Oakland 3
Sanchez, who had three intercep- stole the show. They intercepted Seattle 4, Texas 3
tions, a fumble and no touchdown Sanchez a third time late in the
NL Scores
passes. “I just feel like I let these third quarter to seal the game.
Sunday’s Games
guys down. And I need to prove to The Saints improved to 4-0 for the Mets 4, Houston 0
them that I can bounce back after third time in franchise history. Cincinnati 6, Pittsburgh 0
some costly mistakes.” Ryan and Sanchez both had their Philadelphia 7, Florida 6, 10 innings
This game featured two of the first loss of the season. Washington 2, Atlanta 1, 15 innings
seven undefeated teams head- “Overall, it was a poor perfor- Milwaukee 9, St. Louis 7, 10 innings
ing into this weekend’s games. It mance on our part,” Ryan said. Arizona 5, Chicago Cubs 2
was billed as a premier matchup “We got it handed to us.” San Francisco 4, San Diego 3, 10 innings
between the Jets’ aggressive de-  GREG BISHOP L.A. Dodgers 5, Colorado 3

WEATHER
High/low temperatures for the 20 hours ended at 4 p.m.
yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches)
for the 18 hours ended at 2 p.m. yesterday. Expected
conditions for today and tomorrow.
Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PC-
partly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SS-
snow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.
U.S. CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Atlanta 73/ 57 0 60/ 53 Sh 76/ 56 C
Albuquerque 71/ 50 0 75/ 53 PC 71/ 49 PC
Boise 43/ 40 0.29 52/ 39 C 58/ 35 PC
Boston 67/ 56 0.04 67/ 55 PC 67/ 51 S
Buffalo 54/ 48 0.47 57/ 47 C 64/ 47 PC
Charlotte 73/ 46 0 65/ 55 Sh 68/ 53 Sh
Chicago 59/ 46 0.01 66/ 40 PC 67/ 48 T
Cleveland 61/ 50 0 62/ 48 PC 69/ 46 C
Dallas-Ft. Worth 64/ 60 0.82 75/ 58 C 85/ 73 T
Denver 60/ 39 0 67/ 41 PC 58/ 36 S
Detroit 59/ 51 0.02 64/ 48 PC 64/ 47 Sh
Houston
Kansas City
86/ 73
65/ 43
0.53
0
84/ 71 PC
65/ 44 C
90/ 76
66/ 55
PC
PC
Los Angeles 69/ 59 0 69/ 56 PC 71/ 58 PC
Miami 90/ 77 0 91/ 76 PC 92/ 79 PC
Mpls.-St. Paul 54/ 45 0 55/ 43 Sh 52/ 44 Sh
New York City 74/ 58 0 67/ 56 S 68/ 53 S
Orlando 88/ 72 0 92/ 71 PC 92/ 74 PC
Philadelphia 74/ 55 0 70/ 52 S 70/ 51 PC
Phoenix 88/ 71 0 82/ 67 S 85/ 62 S
Salt Lake City 61/ 46 0.07 53/ 38 PC 56/ 34 S
San Francisco 62/ 50 0 67/ 50 S 73/ 51 S
Seattle 64/ 48 0 63/ 44 S 61/ 44 PC
St. Louis 68/ 45 0 70/ 48 PC 68/ 56 Sh
Washington 72/ 54 0 73/ 53 S 73/ 52 PC
FOREIGN CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Acapulco 96/ 79 0.43 88/ 77 T 88/ 77 T
Athens 78/ 70 0.08 81/ 61 S 81/ 63 S
Beijing 74/ 54 0 77/ 54 S 68/ 52 S
Berlin 62/ 55 0 61/ 46 PC 66/ 48 PC
Buenos Aires 72/ 57 0 75/ 57 T 61/ 49 PC
Cairo 91/ 72 0 93/ 75 S 88/ 75 S
Cape Town
Dublin
70/ 54 0
56/ 43 0.08
72/ 52 PC
59/ 47 PC
70/ 52 PC
62/ 44 Sh
Geneva 69/ 43 0 71/ 48 C 70/ 59 PC
Hong Kong 91/ 77 0 86/ 75 PC 85/ 75 PC
Kingston 89/ 81 0 90/ 81 S 88/ 81 S
Lima 69/ 61 0 70/ 61 S 70/ 61 S
London 62/ 50 0.12 63/ 47 Sh 70/ 56 C
Madrid 83/ 50 0 81/ 59 PC 79/ 64 PC
Mexico City 80/ 60 0 81/ 55 Sh 81/ 54 Sh
Montreal 59/ 50 0.06 57/ 50 Sh 59/ 47 PC
Moscow 54/ 34 0 52/ 44 Sh 46/ 39 Sh
Nassau 91/ 75 Tr 91/ 77 PC 91/ 79 PC
Paris 66/ 55 0 64/ 55 Sh 77/ 61 PC
Prague 64/ 50 0 61/ 51 C 66/ 53 R
Rio de Janeiro 78/ 72 0 84/ 64 C 93/ 66 S
Rome 77/ 54 0 75/ 57 S 77/ 57 S
Santiago 63/ 54 0 68/ 36 C 77/ 41 C
Stockholm 54/ 45 – 50/ 35 PC 52/ 34 PC
Sydney 63/ 55 0.91 70/ 57 T 70/ 52 Sh
Tokyo 78/ 66 0.08 73/ 66 Sh 68/ 61 R
Toronto 57/ 45 0.06 60/ 48 C 59/ 46 R
Vancouver 58/ 45 0 64/ 46 PC 64/ 46 PC
Warsaw 60/ 46 0 57/ 45 PC 59/ 43 PC
sports journal
Big East Gets Some Respect
SYRACUSE — As the glossy
preseason college football peri-
odicals gave way to the preseason
polls this summer, there was not
a lot of good news for the Big East
conference. The combination of a
perceived lack of a marquee team
in the league and the Mountain
West’s stellar 2008 season led to a
drumbeat of criticism.
Columnists called into ques-
tion the league’s automatic bid to
the Bowl Championship Series. A
sense of uncertainty, at least in
the news media, surrounded the
seven-team league.
The Big East had no ranked
teams in the preseason polls, and
the league’s most recognizable
star was Syracuse quarterback
Greg Paulus, who built his reputa-
tion as a Duke point guard.
“There’s really nothing more
irrelevant than preseason rank-
ings,” Nick Carparelli Jr., the Big
East’s associate commissioner
for football, said Saturday in a
telephone interview. “Unfortu-
nately, they’re the rankings that
are out there the longest, talked
about the most and get the most
scrutiny.”
Five weeks into the season, the
Big East has silenced nearly all
of its critics, thanks mainly to the
stellar play of its two undefeated
teams: No. 8 Cincinnati (5-0) and
No. 23 South Florida (5-0). The
Bearcats and the Bulls, who have
posted the league’s defining wins,
will face off in a Thursday night
game on Oct. 15.
The Thursday Big East game
has become something of a trade-
Patriots Defeat Ravens, 27-21
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — It
seemed inevitable that the New
England Patriots’ offense would
eventually slip into its familiar
gear. When Tom Brady and Ran-
dy Moss were spotted talking on
the sideline midway through the
third quarter Sunday, the con-
spiring should have set off alarms
for the Baltimore Ravens that the
time was near.
The bigger question for the Pa-
triots was whether the defense
would right itself. It had been at
least as much of a concern in the
first month of the season, display-
ing a leakiness that did little to
offset an offense still working out
the kinks from Brady’s yearlong
layoff.
After Brady recognized a blitz
mark for the revamped league,
which is now in its fifth year in a
seven-team format. And because
Cincinnati and South Florida have
byes this week, they will be unde-
feated when they meet.
“It’s been our goal to put our
best games in a spot where the
most people could see it,” Car-
parelli said. “You can have a great
game on a Saturday and it gets
lost among a bunch of other great
games.”
No one has defended the Big
East more vociferously than South
Florida Coach Jim Leavitt, who, at
the conference’s media day, took
umbrage at a reporter who insinu-
ated that the league padded its 12-4
bowl record the last three seasons
because of lopsided matchups.
“I’ll say it again, the same thing
I told you a month ago, and I’m
right,” Leavitt said. “All you can
do is look at the bowl games, the
nonconference games, and make
your own decision. “I don’t know
why the media doesn’t do the
things they should do with the Big
East. The Big East is that tough.”
Carparelli said the sniping
about the league stopped on La-
bor Day weekend, when Cincin-
nati, unranked to start the season,
went to Rutgers and embarrassed
the Scarlet Knights, 47-15. The
Bearcats, who have also beaten
Oregon State, have had a func-
tional defense. They lost 10 start-
ers from last year’s Orange Bowl
team.
“They should be in the top 5,”
Leavitt said. “They’re that good.”
 PETE THAMEL
that left Domonique Foxworth
alone in coverage against Moss,
and fired a pass just as Moss
made his move to the end zone to
give the Patriots a 10-point lead
late in the third quarter, the de-
fense had its opportunity to allay
some fears of its own.
Two stops on fourth down —
one a run stuff, the other a pass
break-up with 32 seconds left —
sealed the 27-21 victory and sent
the rest of the N.F.L. a signal: the
Patriots are back — maybe not
better than ever but good enough
to hold on against a rising team
like the Ravens.
“I felt we had to do a lot of
good things just to compete with
them,” Coach Bill Belichick said.
 JUDY BATTISTA
Monday, October 5, 2009
NFL STANDINGS
AMERICAN CONFERENCE
East W L T Pct PF PA
Jets 3 1 0 .750 74 57
N. England 3 1 0 .750 87 71
Miami 1 3 0 .250 81 79
Buffalo 1 3 0 .250 74 110
South W L T Pct PF PA
Indianapolis 4 0 0 1.000 106 62
Jacksonville 2 2 0 .500 97 86
Houston 2 2 0 .500 94 92
Tennessee 0 4 0 .000 75 108
North W L T Pct PF PA
Baltimore 3 1 0 .750 124 80
Cincinnati 3 1 0 .750 84 76
Pittsburgh 1 2 0 .333 47 50
Cleveland 0 4 0 .000 49 118
West W L T Pct PF PA
Denver 4 0 0 1.000 79 26
San Diego 2 1 0 .667 73 64
Oakland 1 3 0 .250 42 86
Kansas City 0 4 0 .000 64 112
national CONFERENCE
East W L T Pct PF PA
Giants 4 0 0 1.000 107 64
Phila. 2 1 0 .667 94 72
Dallas 2 2 0 .500 96 78
Washington 2 2 0 .500 56 62
South W L T Pct PF PA
New Orleans 4 0 0 1.000 144 66
Atlanta 2 1 0 .667 57 53
Carolina 0 3 0 .000 37 87
Tampa Bay 0 4 0 .000 54 107
North W L T Pct PF PA
Minnesota 3 0 0 1.000 88 57
Chicago 3 1 0 .750 105 78
Green Bay 2 1 0 .667 81 63
Detroit 1 3 0 .250 83 134
West W L T Pct PF PA
San Fran. 3 1 0 .750 102 53
Arizona 1 2 0 .333 57 68
Seattle 1 3 0 .250 74 82
St. Louis 0 4 0 .000 24 108
Manning Hurt in Win
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Eli Man-
ning of the Giants did not limp en
route to his news conference, but
his subdued voice and serious
expression were not typical of
a quarterback after leading his
team to a 4-0 start.
After the Giants’ 27-16 victory
over the Kansas City Chiefs on
Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium,
Manning talked less about his
three touchdown passes and
more about the heel injury that
forced him to leave in the fourth
quarter.
The severity and exact diag-
nosis of the injury will probably
not be known until Monday, Man-
ning said. The Giants called it a
bruised heel.
“I don’t think it’s awful. I’ve
been injured worse before.” How-
ever, he added, “There is some
discomfort.”
 JOE LAPOINTE
9
AL STANDINGS
East W L Pct GB
y-Yankees 103 59 .636 —
z-Boston 95 67 .586 8
Tampa Bay 84 78 .519 19
Toronto 75 87 .463 28
Baltimore 64 98 .395 39
Central W L Pct GB
Detroit 86 76 .531 —
Minnesota 86 76 .531 —
Chicago 79 83 .488 7
Cleveland 65 97 .401 21
Kansas City 65 97 .401 21
West W L Pct GB
y-Los Angeles 97 65 .599 —
Texas 87 75 .537 10
Seattle 85 77 .525 12
Oakland 75 87 .463 22
y-clinched division
z-clinched wild card
al Leaders
Mauer Min
G AB R H
137 519 94 189 .364
Pct.
ISuzuki Sea 146 639 88 225 .352
Jeter NYY 153 634 107 212 .334
MiCabrera Det 159 606 95 196 .323
MYoung Tex 135 541 76 174 .322
Cano NYY 161 637 103 204 .320
Bartlett TB 137 500 90 160 .320
Span Min
EAybar LAA
144 573 97 179 .312
137 504 70 157 .312
Ordonez Det 130 460 52 142 .309
Home Runs
CPena, Tampa Bay, 39; Teixeira, New York, 39;
Bay, Boston, 36; AHill, Toronto, 36.
Runs Batted In
Teixeira, New York, 122; Bay, Boston, 119; Lind,
Toronto, 114; Longoria, Tampa Bay, 113.
Pitching
FHernandez, Seattle, 19-5; Sabathia, New York,
19-8; Verlander, Detroit, 19-9; Beckett, Boston,
17-6; Feldman, Texas, 17-8.
NL STANDINGS
East W L Pct GB
y-Philadelphia 93 69 .574 —
Florida 87 75 .537 6
Atlanta 86 76 .531 7
Mets 70 92 .432 23
Washington 59 103 .364 34
Central W L Pct GB
y-St. Louis 91 71 .562 —
Chicago
Milwaukee
83
80
78
82
.516 7{
.494 11
Cincinnati 78 84 .481 13
Houston 74 88 .457 17
Pittsburgh 62 99 .385 28{
West W L Pct GB
y-Los Angeles 95 67 .586 —
z-Colorado 92 70 .568 3
San Francisco 88 74 .543 7
San Diego 75 87 .463 20
Arizona 70 92 .432 25
y-clinched division
z-clinched wild card
NL leaders
G AB R H Pct.
HaRamirez Fla 151 576 101 197 .342
PSandoval SF 153 572 79 189 .330
Pujols StL 160 568 124 186 .327
Helton Col 151 544 79 177 .325
Votto Cin 131 469 82 151 .322
Coghlan Fla
Braun Mil
128 504 84 162 .321
158 635 113 203 .320
Tejada Hou 158 635 83 199 .313
FLopez Mil
DWright NYM
151 604 88 187 .310
144 535 88 164 .307
Home Runs
Pujols, St. Louis, 47; Fielder, Milwaukee, 46;
Howard, Philadelphia, 45; Reynolds, Arizona, 44.
Runs Batted In
Fielder, Milwaukee, 141; Howard, Philadelphia,
141; Pujols, St. Louis, 135.
Pitching
Wainwright, St. Louis, 19-8; CCarpenter, St. Louis,
17-4; De La Rosa, Colorado, 16-9.