March 15, 2017

Wednesday

March 15, 2017 T: 582-7800 | F: 582-7044 www.arubatoday.com

3-TIME CHAMPION NADALWINS AT INDIAN WELLS Page 22

The Netherlands Votes!

Dutch Head to the Polls for Crucial Elections Democrats 66 party leader Alexander Pechtold, right-wing populist leader Geert Wilders, Socialist Party leader Emile Roemer, Party for the Animals’ Marianne Thieme, Green Left party leader Jesse Klaver, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Gert-Jan Segers of the Christian Union, Labour Party leader Lodewijk Asscher, and Christan Democrats party leader Sybrand Buma, from left, pose for a picture after the closing debate at parliament in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Amid unprecedented international attention, the Dutch go to the polls Wednesday in a parliamentary election that is seen as a bellwether for the future of populism in a year of crucial votes in Europe.

(Robin van Lonkhuijsen ANP POOL via AP) Page 2

A2 UP

Wednesday 15 March 2017

FRONT

As the Dutch go to the polls:

Rutte vs. Wilders puts Dutch elections in a stark light

MIKE CORDER RAF CASERT Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Amid unprecedented international attention, the Dutch go to the polls Wednesday in a parliamentary election that is seen as a bellwether for the future of populism in a year of crucial votes in Europe.

With the anti-Islam, far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders running just behind twoterm right-wing Prime Minister Mark Rutte in polls, the Dutch vote could give an indication of whether the tide of populism that swept Britain toward the European Union exit door and Donald Trump into the

Right-wing populist leader Geert Wilders and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, left, leave the stage after a national televised debate, the first head-to-head meeting of the two political party leaders since the start of the election campaign, at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Monday, March 13, 2017.

(Yves Herman POOL via AP)

White house has peaked.

The election in the Netherlands comes ahead of polls in France and Germany over the next half year, when right-wing nationalists will also be key players.

During a final election debate among leaders from the parties vying for seats and control of the government, Wilders piled on the anti-Islam invective while Rutte sought to underscore his leadership experience.

None of the party representatives made a critical faux-pas or scored points that should alter campaign dynamics established over months.

The final days of campaigning have been overshadowed by a diplomatic crisis between the Dutch and Turkish governments over the refusal of the Netherlands to let two Turkish government ministers address rallies about a constitutional reform referendum next month that could give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more powers. It showed Rutte as refusing to bow to pressure from outside, a stance which has widespread backing in the nation.

“It is my task to keep the nation safe and stable and deal with these kind of people,” said Rutte.

Rutte has driven through unpopular austerity measures

over the last four years, but as the election approaches the Dutch economic recovery has gathered pace and unemployment has fallen fast. So the prime minister is urging voters to stick with him.

Rutte is casting the election as a two-horse race between his VVD party and the Party for Freedom led by Wilders. The choice, Rutte says, is simple: Chaos or continuity.

The prime minister says Wilders’ one-page manifesto — which pledges to take the Netherlands out of the European Union, shut its borders to all immigrants from Muslim countries, shutter mosques and ban the Quran — would lead to chaos. Wilders fired back in a debate Monday that it would allow the Dutch “to become the boss in our own country again.”

“The Netherlands does not belong to all of us,” he proclaimed. Ruud van Dongen, a 49-year-old chauffeur, said he would vote for Wilders’ PVV as a protest against more flexible contracts that mean fewer people have jobs for life which used to be a staple in Dutch welfare state.

“Do you know what’s the deal with jobs? They last for two years and then people are on the street,” he said.

Even if Wilders wins the popular vote Wednesday, the Dutch system of proportional representation for the 150-seat lower house of Parliament will likely keep him out of government since all mainstream parties, with Rutte leading the way, have rejected working with Wilders in a coalition.

“Wilders will play no role in the formation of a government,” said Amsterdam Free University political analyst Andre Krouwel.

“But Wilders plays a major role in the tone and content of the campaign and Wilders — even if he doesn’t win a single seat — has already won because the two biggest right-wing parties have taken over his policies.”q

U.S. NEWS A3

Wednesday 15 March 2017

‘A real kick in the rear’: Northeast hit by late-season snow

Two women struggle to walk in the blowing snow during a winter storm Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Boston.

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

COLLEEN LONG DENISE LAVOIE Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A blustery late-season storm plastered the Northeast with sleet and snow Tuesday, paralyzing much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor after a stretch of unusually mild winter weather that had people thinking spring was already here.

The powerful nor’easter fell well short of the predicted snow totals in New York and Philadelphia but unloaded 1 to 2 feet in many places inland, grounded more than 6,000 flights and knocked out power to nearly a quarter-million customers from Virginia northward.

By the time it reached Massachusetts, it had turned into a blizzard, with near hurricane-force wind gusting over 70 mph along the coast and waves crashing over the seawalls. Up to a foot of snow was expected in the Boston area.

It was easily the biggest storm in a merciful winter that had mostly spared the Northeast, and many weren’t happy about it.

“It’s horrible,” said retired gumball-machine technician Don Zimmerman, of Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, using a snowblower to clear the sidewalk along his block. “I thought winter

was out of here. ... It’s a real kick in the rear.”

While people mostly heeded dire warnings to stay home and off the roads, police said a 16-year-old girl was killed when she lost control of her car on a snowy road and hit a tree in Gilford, New Hampshire.

The storm closed schools in cities big and small, Amtrak suspended service and the post office halted mail delivery.

Philadelphia and New York City got anywhere from a few inches of snow to around half a foot before the storm switched over mostly to sleet; forecasters had predicted a foot or more. In New Jersey, which saw rain or just a little snow in many areas, Gov. Chris Christie called the storm an “underperformer.” But officials warned of dangerous ice. Inland areas, meanwhile, got hit hard. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Worcester, Massachusetts, received a foot or more of snow. The Binghamton, New York, area got over 2 feet, while Vernon, New Jersey, had at least 19 inches.

The storm came just days after the region saw temperatures climb into the 60s, and less than a week before the official start of spring. February, too, was remarkably warm.

“The winters seem to be upside down now. January and February are nice and then March and April seem to be more wintry than they were in the past,” said Bob Clifford, who ventured out on an early morning grocery run for his family in Altamont, near Albany, New York. His advice: “Just hide inside. Hibernate.”

In the nation’s capital, nonessential federal employees were given the option of reporting three hours late, taking the day off or working from home. The city got less than 2 inches of snow.

A few days ago, workers on Washington’s National Mall were making plans to turn on the fountains.

“Obviously all that has to come to an abrupt stop

until we get all the snow cleared,” said Jeff Gowen, the acting facility manager for the National Mall and Memorial Parks. “The cherry blossoms, they’re right on the cusp of going into bloom here. I had a feeling this was going to happen.”

Kelly Erskine, a 28-year-old coffee shop manager from Whitman, Massachusetts, about 25 miles south of Boston, made it almost all the way through the winter without a shovel. She went to Walmart on Tuesday morning to get one.

“I live in an apartment complex and they usually take care of the shoveling, but they sent a letter to us and said, ‘Expect a lot of snow.’

I knew from the letter that I’d have to go out and buy a shovel,” she said.q

A4 U.S.

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NEWS

Defiant conservatives still fighting Trump’s health bill

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March, 14, 2017.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

ALAN FRAM Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) — Undaunted by fellow Republicans’ defiance, GOP leaders and the White House redoubled their efforts Tuesday to muscle legislation overhauling America’s health care system through Congress following a sobering report about millions being shoved off insurance coverage.

President Donald Trump, whose strong Election Day showing in GOP regions makes him the party’s ultimate Capitol Hill vote

wrangler, discussed the legislation by phone with the House’s two top Republicans.

He also dispatched Vice President Mike Pence and health secretary Tom Price to hear GOP senators’ concerns.

With leaders hoping to move the measure through the House next week so the Senate can debate it, changes in the measure seemed all but certain. Trump’s spokesman acknowledged they were open to revisions to win support.

“This has never been a take it or leave it,” said Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

The GOP bill is the party’s response to seven years of promising to repeal President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul.

It would undo that law’s individual mandate, which requires most people to have coverage, by ending the tax penalty on those who don’t.

It would also provide agebased tax credits instead of the subsidies geared to income in Obama’s statute, end that law’s expansion of Medicaid and curb its future spending, and let insurers boost rates for seniors.

On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office said the Republican legislation would reduce the ranks of the insured by 24 million in a decade, largely by cutting Medicaid recipients and people buying individual policies. That would be more than the 20 million who’ve gained coverage under Obama’s overhaul

— and attach a big number to a problem haunting GOP governors and members of Congress whose states have benefited from “Obamacare.”

“I plan to vote NO” on the GOP bill, Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen, R-Fla., tweeted Tuesday. “As written the plan leaves too many from my #SoFla district uninsured.”

The budget office report also said the measure would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the next decade, largely by cutting Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, and eliminating Obama’s subsidies for low- and middle-income people.

The report said that the bill’s changes would result in federal subsidies that would fall to half their current size in a decade and that older, lower-earning people would be hit especially hard.

Those findings further energized Democrats, who already were unanimously opposing the GOP repeal effort and showing no sign of relenting.

“Of course you can have savings if you cut off millions of people from access to health care,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

She said the measure’s shift of billions of dollars from lower- to higher-earning families actually would effectively transfer money from GOP to Democratic regions, and, seemingly taunting Republicans, she added, “Explain that to your constituents.”q

U.S. NEWS A5

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Fired US attorney in Manhattan replaced by longtime friend Law School. Rodgers once worked with Kim on a case against Peter J. Gotti, a son of the late Gambino crime boss John Gotti Jr. Sharp and self-deprecating, Kim puts people at ease with a regular-guy look and ability to explain even the most complex of issues in everyman terms, colleagues say.

“He is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met in my life,” said Michael McGovern, who tried a host of cases against the Gambinos with Kim, including two hung-jury cases against John Gotti Jr. “Even in the toughest of cases, when either at the end of the day or while the jury is deliberating, we’re sitting there in the trial room, sometimes late into the evening, he’d have me In this undated photo provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Joon Kim poses for a photo. Kim, 45, will be acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York until President Trump nominates a candidate for the job who can be confirmed by the Senate.

(U.S. Attorney’s Office via AP)

JAKE PEARSON Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Preet Bharara, the high-profile federal prosecutor who was fired by President Donald Trump’s administration after refusing to resign, has been replaced temporarily by a longtime friend and top adviser.

Joon H. Kim, 45, who had previously served as Bharara’s chief counsel, criminal division head and top deputy, will be acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York until Trump nominates a candidate for the job who can be confirmed by the Senate. That process could take months.

In the meantime, Kim, the son of a South Korean diplomat who came up through the ranks of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan prosecuting organized crime and terrorism cases with his old boss, isn’t likely to stop pursuing the kinds of cases that have made the Manhattan prosecutor’s office known for its reach and breadth, former colleagues say.

“I think things will continue

to hum along,” said Lev Dassin, who served as acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan for eight months beginning in December 2008 after Michael Garcia resigned.

Kim’s promotion comes after a public confrontation between the Trump administration and Bharara, 48, who was asked to resign last week with 45 other prosecutors appointed during President Barack Obama’s administration.

Bharara had said in November that Trump had assured him that the job was his to keep.

A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

Kim’s former colleagues said that there was no reason to believe he would pursue existing cases any differently following Bharara’s high-profile departure.

“The nice thing here is that Preet and Joon have been working together for quite a while,” said Jennifer Rodgers, the executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia

just bent over laughing,” McGovern said.

In 2009, when South Korea reformed its judicial system, the country asked Kim to come and train its prosecutors, said Victor Hou, who worked with Kim both in government and private practice.

A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Stanford and Harvard Law School, Kim worked in the federal prosecutor’s office from 2000 to 2006 before he joined the Manhattan firm Cleary Gottlieb, where he helped defend Citibank against charges of manipulating interest rates.

In 2013, Bharara brought him back as his chief counsel, describing him in a memo to staff as “an incredibly exacting lawyer with unerring judgment.”q

A6 U.S.

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NEWS

City alleges drugmaker let OxyContin flood black market PHUONG LE Associated Press EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — As deaths from painkillers and heroin abuse spiked and street crimes increased, the mayor of Everett took major steps to tackle the opioid epidemic devastating this working-class city north of Seattle.

Mayor Ray Stephanson stepped up patrols, hired social workers to ride with officers and pushed for

more permanent housing for chronically homeless people. The city says it has spent millions combating OxyContin and heroin abuse — and expects the tab to rise.

So Everett is suing Purdue Pharma, maker of the opioid pain medication OxyContin, in an unusual case that alleges the drugmaker knowingly allowed pills to be funneled into the black market and the city of

about 108,000. Everett alleges the drugmaker did nothing to stop it and must pay for damages caused to the community.

Everett’s lawsuit, now in federal court in Seattle, accuses Purdue Pharma of gross negligence and nuisance. The city seeks to hold the company accountable, the lawsuit alleges, for “supplying OxyContin to obviously suspicious pharmacies and phyIn this Feb. 16, 2017, photo, Leroy Henry, center, steps out of his tent in the woods to talk with police officer Kevin Davis, left, and Sgt. Mike Braley in Everett, Wash. As overdose deaths from opioids and heroin spiked the mayor of Everett took steps to tackle the epidemic devastating this working-class city north of Seattle.

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

sicians and enabling the illegal diversion of OxyContin into the black market” and into Everett, despite a company program to track suspicious flows.

“Our community has been significantly damaged, and we need to be made whole,” said Stephanson, who grew up in Everett and is its longest-serving mayor, holding the job since 2003.

He said the opioid crisis caused by “Purdue’s drive for profit” has overwhelmed the city’s resources, stretching everyone from first responders to park crews who clean up discarded syringes. The lawsuit doesn’t say how much money the city is seeking, but the mayor says Everett will attempt to quantify its costs in coming months.

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma says the lawsuit paints a flawed and inaccurate picture of the events that led to the crisis in Everett.

“We look forward to presenting the facts in court,” the company said in a statement.

Purdue said it is “deeply troubled by the abuse and misuse of our medication,”

and noted it leads the industry in developing medicines with properties that deter abuse, even though its products account for less than 2 percent of all U.S. opioid prescriptions.

In 2007, Purdue Pharma and its executives paid more than $630 million in legal penalties to the federal government for willfully misrepresenting the drug’s addiction risks.

The same year, it also settled with Washington and other states that claimed the company aggressively marketed OxyContin to doctors while downplaying the addiction risk.

While numerous individuals and states have sued Purdue, this case is different because Everett is getting at the results of addiction, said Elizabeth Porter, associate law professor at the University of Washington.

She thinks Everett may have a shot at winning, though it will have to overcome some legal burdens, including showing that diverted OxyContin from rogue doctors and pharmacies was a substantial factor in the city’s epidemic.q

U.S. NEWS A7

Wednesday 15 March 2017

US Financial Front:

American student loan defaults rising, study finds that,” Chopra said.

Other reports have also painted a bleak picture for student loan borrowers in the U.S. The New York Federal Reserve, which looks at slightly different data, reported last month that total household debt in America in 2016 began nearing its previous peak from 2008, driv-

Brooklyn College students walk between classes on campus in New York.

(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

SARAH SKIDMORE SELL AP Personal Finance Writer The stock market is up, unemployment is down but things aren’t rosy for all Americans.

A new analysis of government data by the Consumer Federation of America found that the number of Americans in default on their student loans jumped by nearly 17 percent last year.

As of the end of 2016, there were 4.2 million Federal Direct Loan borrowers in default, meaning they’ve not made a payment in more than 270 days. That’s up from 3.6 million at the end of 2015.

“Despite all improvements in the economy, student loan borrowers are still struggling,” said Rohit Chopra, senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and formerly the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Student Loan Ombudsman.

As of the end of 2016, 42.4 million Americans owed $1.3 trillion in federal student loans, according to the U.S. Department of Education data. This doesn’t include borrowing through private student loans, credit cards, and home equity loans to finance the grow-

ing costs of college.

The Federal Reserve System puts the measure slightly higher at $1.4 trillion, as it includes private loans as well. Defaulting on a federal student loan can be a financial disaster for the borrower. Unlike other types of debts, most federal student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Those who go into default face serious repercussions including wage garnishment, damaged credit scores and potentially added costs in fees, interest and legal fees.

Student debt has risen along with the cost of education, which makes repayment difficult. The average amount owed per borrower rose to $30,650 in 2016, after rising steadily for years. In 2013, borrowers on average owed $26,300.

The good news is that the number of people who are defaulting for the first time is down. But the number of people defaulting for the second time or more is up.

And that worries the CFA, an association of more than 250 nonprofit consumer groups “We thought in an improving labor market, default rates would improve but we simply are not seeing

en largely by student debt and auto debt.

It found that student loan defaults jumped sharply in 2012 and the default rate has held fairly steady since.

But the NY Fed also warned that the true number of people unable to pay is much higher because about half of loans are in forebearance, deferment

or a grace period so are not at risk of default.

The CFA also said Tuesday that the report validates some of the recent claims made by federal regulators that the nation’s largest loan servicer put borrowers at greater risk for default by failing to help them find the best repayment plans for their needs.q

A8

Wednesday 15 March 2017

WORLD NEWS

Scottish leader to UK premier: Don’t block independence vote

JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The British and Scottish leaders traded barbs Tuesday over Scotland’s desire to hold a vote on independence just as the U.K. is negotiating its exit from the European Union.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says she intends to ask voters in late 2018 or early 2019 whether they want to leave the United Kingdom.

Britain decided in a 2016 referendum to quit the European Union after four decades of membership, but Scots voted strongly to remain. Sturgeon says Scotland must not be “taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice.”

The British government must agree before Scotland can hold a legally binding referendum, and May condemned Sturgeon’s push for an inde-

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, center, gestures as she sits with Lord Advocate James Wolffe, left, Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans and Deputy First Minister John Swinney, right, during a Scottish Government cabinet meeting in Bute House, Edinburgh, Scotland Tuesday March 14, 2017. Sturgeon announced this week plans for a fresh referendum on Scottish independence before Britain finally leaves the EU. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)

pendence vote, accusing the Scottish leader of sowing uncertainty and division.

“This is not a moment to

play politics or create uncertainty,” May told lawmakers in the House of Commons. “It is a moment to bring our country togeth-

er, to honor the will of the British people and to shape for them a better, brighter future and a better Britain.”

Sturgeon warned May

Turkey’s Erdogan renews war of words on Netherlands SUZAN FRASER Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.

In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Erdogan said: “We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebren-

ica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Erdogan’s comments, calling them a “disgusting distortion of history.”

“We will not lower ourselves to this level. It is totally unacceptable,” Rutte told Dutch broadcaster RTL Z.

It was the latest in Erdogan’s war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend. The two ministers had sought to campaign for an April 16 referendum on expanding Erdogan’s powers, courting the votes of eligible Turks in the Netherlands.q

against trying to block a referendum. The first minister said “the referendum must be for Scotland’s national legislature to shape.”

“It should be up to the Scottish Parliament to determine the referendum’s timing, franchise and the question,” Sturgeon said.

She plans to ask the Edinburgh-based legislature next week for the authority to seek a new referendum.

In a dig at May, Sturgeon tweeted that she had been elected “on a clear manifesto commitment” by her Scottish National Party to hold a referendum. She added: “The PM is not yet elected by anyone.”

May took office through an internal Conservative Party process when predecessor David Cameron resigned after failing to convince voters to back remaining in the EU. Critics accuse May of lacking a strong popular mandate because she has not won an election as prime minister.

In a 2014 referendum, Scottish voters rejected independence by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent. But Sturgeon said the U.K.’s decision to leave the EU had brought about a “material change of circumstances.”

Sturgeon wants to put the independence question to Scottish voters before Britain completes its withdrawal from the EU, which will likely be in the first half of 2019. q

WORLD NEWS A9

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Besieged areas in Syria get aid for the first time in months PHILIP ISSA BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Trucks carrying food and other aid began entering four besieged areas in Syria on Tuesday for the first time in months, offering hope to tens of thousands of residents.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least two trucks carrying food baskets and baby formula entered the northwestern villages of Foua and Kfarya, which are besieged by insurgents, while other trucks entered the Damascus suburbs of Madaya and Zabadani, which are besieged by government forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

Dozens of trucks were supposed to enter the besieged areas, but it was not immediately clear if all would make it in. Previous planned deliveries have been canceled at the last minute or halted because of fighting.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media released a video showing a convoy of SUVs from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent escorting at least two trucks into Madaya. It gave no further details.

The delivery came a month after the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Syria appealed to all parties to reach an agreement for immediate access, saying that aid has not reached the areas since Nov. 28.

Some 60,000 people live in the four besieged areas, according to the U.N.

Hundreds of thousands of people live in besieged areas around Syria, mainly in areas surrounded by progovernment forces.

The U.N. embarked on an ambitious plan early in 2016 to establish regular humanitarian access, but it was reportedly stymied by the government as well as an agreement between the warring parties to limit assistance to 60,000 of the most distressed, divided among the four towns.

The flow of aid to the four villages came hours after Physicians for Human Rights issued a report in which it accused the Syrian government of willfully denying international shipments of food and medicine to many Syrians in besieged areas.

Earlier Tuesday, a U.N. investigative commission said it believes government forces deliberately bombed a school complex in the northern countryside in October, killing 21 children, in a scathing report on alleged crimes committed in Syria over the last seven months.

This 2014 photo shows residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk, queuing to receive food supplies, in Damascus, Syria. Trucks carrying food and other aid began entering four besieged areas in Syria on Tuesday for the first time in months, offering hope to tens of thousands of residents.

(UNRWA via AP)

The U.N.’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said government forces and their allies had shown a “complete disregard for civilian

life and international law” through continued use of cluster munitions, incendiary weapons and chlorine gas.

It also fingered an al-

Qaida-aligned insurgent group fighting on the side of Syria’s rebels and a U.S.backed Kurdish group for conscripting adolescents for combat. q

Official: Pakistan promises nuclear arms responsibility KATHY GANNON Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan vowed on Tuesday to work to prevent non-nuclear states from gaining the technology that would put them on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons — even though both Islamabad and neighbor New Delhi have defied nonproliferation treaties to become competing nuclear

powers.

The pledge was delivered

by Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister on foreign affairs, at a multination conference on nonproliferation in Islamabad, attended by representatives of South and Central Asia, as well as China and Russia. Pakistan is signatory to the 13-year-old United Nations resolution aimed at curbing the spread of

nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, with a particular emphasis on preventing non-state actors from getting their hands on massively destructive technology as well as materials.

But Islamabad has had a sketchy history in this area, with the architect of its nuclear weapons program, Qadeer Khan, accused of clandestinely giving North Korea nuclear weapons

technology.

When India started down the nuclear road by launching its program in the early 1970s, Pakistan was quick to follow. The tensions between the two countries — neither of which is a signatory to the Nuclear NonProliferation Agreement — have raised the specter of a nuclear confrontation between the two hostile neighbors.q

A10 WORLD

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NEWS

Somali pirates demand ransom for oil tanker, EU force says

In this photo taken Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, the Aris 13 oil tanker is seen from a helicopter in the harbor of Gladstone, Australia.

Pirates have hijacked the Aris 13 oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, officials and piracy experts said Tuesday, March 14, 2017, the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel on the crucial global trade route since 2012.

(Kevin Finnigan/Tropic Maritime Images via AP)

ABDI GULED JON GAMBRELL Associated Press MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP)

— Armed men are demanding a ransom for the release of an oil tanker they have seized off the coast

of Somalia and the crew is being held captive, the European Union anti-piracy operation in the region announced late Tuesday.

An EU Naval Force statement said the operation had finally made contact with the ship’s master, who confirmed that armed men were aboard the Comorosflagged tanker Aris 13.

Monday’s hijacking was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012. It came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile and that Somali pirates “possess the intent and capability to resume attacks.” One expert said some in the region had let down their guard as the situation calmed. NATO ended its anti-piracy mission off Somalia in December.

A Somali pirate who said he was in touch with the armed men aboard the tanker said the amount of ransom to demand had not yet been decided.

Bile Hussein told The Associated Press that the armed men have locked most of

the crew in one room and cut off communication lines. “Their main concern now is a possible rescue attempt, so that’s why all communications were cut off in the afternoon,” he said.

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, the director of Oceans Beyond Piracy. The EU statement said the ship’s master issued a mayday alert.

An official in Somalia’s semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off the country’s northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

The ship was anchored Tuesday off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. “The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship,” he told the AP by phone.

The EU Naval Force said it had passed the information from its contact with the ship’s master to the oil

tanker’s owners and an investigation was underway.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was in touch with shipping agents and officials abroad for more information to help ensure the crew’s “safety and welfare.”

A U.N. shipping database shows the Aris 13 is owned

by Armi Shipping SA, whose address is listed in care of Aurora Ship Management FZE, a company based in the United Arab Emirates.

Calls and emails to Aurora went unanswered.

Australian government records from 2014 list the ship’s owner as Flair Shipping Trading FZE in the UAE. An address listed for Flair Shipping in Dubai was for a company called Flair Oil Trading DMCC. A woman there told an AP reporter the firm wasn’t connected to the ship and directed him to another office.

When no one answered there, the reporter returned to find Argyrios Karagiannis, the managing director of Flair Shipping, entering the first office. “We will not be releasing any information,” Karagiannis said before shutting the door.

The incident involving the Aris 13 represents the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Steed of Oceans Beyond Piracy said.q

Libya: Forces loyal to general retake oil installations BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A Libyan military spokesman says hundreds of forces loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter have seized major oil facilities at Ras Lanuf and al-Sidra from Islamist-allied militias.

Faisal al-Zwei, the spokesman for the 101st Brigade, told The Associated Press

that the assault started early Tuesday and that the fighting is still ongoing. He said that some 1,300 forces loyal to Hifter are taking part in the battle.

The militias occupied the terminals on March 3. They are comprised of Islamic militants and former rebels who were recently de-

feated by Hifter’s forces in Benghazi, Libya’ second largest city.

They were joined by militiamen from the western city of Misrata.

Hifter is allied with Libya’s parliament, based in the east, and is at odds with a U.N.-backed government in the capital, Tripoli.q

WORLD NEWS A11

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Colombian president apologizes for corrupt firm’s donations JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — President Juan Manuel Santos apologized to Colombians on Tuesday after revelations that a scandaltarred Brazilian construction company illegally paid costs related to his 2010 campaign.

Santos’ apology came after his former campaign manager, Roberto Prieto, acknowledged for the first time that Odebrecht paid $400,000 to a vendor to print 2 million campaign posters during the final stretch of the 2010 race, though he said the president had no knowledge of the irregular payment.

“I deeply regret and ask forgiveness to Colombians for this embarrassing act that should never, never have happened and about which I just found out,” Santos said in a video message. “I never authorized nor did I have knowledge of these actions, which were carried out in direct violation of the ethical norms and controls I demanded be put in place during the campaign.”

The revelation that surfaced in local media last week is the latest to tarnish Santos’ reputation for rectitude by associating the Nobel Peace Prize winner with Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying almost $800 million in bribes across Latin America.

Last week, a polling company that worked for Santos’ 2014 re-election said it

received $1 million from the Brazilian company. Prieto himself has been accused by a jailed lobbyist hired by Odebrecht of receiving $1 million in cash for the Santos campaign, an accusation Prieto denied in an interview Tuesday with Blu Radio. Odebrecht is also accused of covering $1.6 million in campaign bills for Santos’ conservative rival in the 2014 race.

For many Colombians tired of shady dealings from the country’s political elite, the accusation recalled the covert way the Cali drug cartel funded President Ernesto Samper’s 1994 campaign.

Presidential campaign contributions by companies are illegal in Colombia, but like many places throughout Latin America, candidates regularly keep a second, undeclared war chest of private contributions to finance the high cost of running for office.

Although Santos is at no risk of being impeached like Samper nearly was, the accusations are likely to further damage his standing with elections to choose his successor 14 months away and an uneasy coalition in congress needed to imple-

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos gives a thumbs up in Bogota, Colombia. A corruption scandal that has spread across Latin America is inching closer to Santos amid new evidence that suggests a Brazilian construction company paid $1 million for an opinion poll carried out during his re-election campaign.

(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

ment a peace accord with leftist rebels showing signs of fraying.

Santos’ approval rating stood at 24 percent in February, close to the lowest since he took office. The same Gallup survey found that Colombians for the first time in more than 12 years of polling consider corruption the country’s top problem, even more than tradi-

tional concerns of public safety and the lack of economic opportunity in the war-torn country.

In another sign of how corruption is dominating voters’ sentiment, the government’s independent comptroller general on Monday launched a probe of more than 30 high-ranking officials, including the current defense and fi-

nance ministers, for alleged negligence and mismanagement in the expansion of a state-owned oil refinery. The project at the Reficar refinery was originally budgeted at $3.5 billion but ended up costing almost triple that amount, with cost overruns that exceed the $5 billion price tag of the recent Panama Canal expansion.q

OAS head urges bloc suspend Venezuela over elections BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The head of the Organization of American States is recommending to regional governments that Venezuela be suspended from the Washington-based group

unless general elections are held soon.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro makes the request in a 75-page report in which he says the socialist administration of Venezue-

lan President Nicolas Maduro has broken the country’s democratic order by disregarding the results of 2015 legislative elections and jailing dozens of opponents.

Maduro’s government has yet to comment but in the past has accused Almagro of doing the bidding of the U.S. government and trying to isolate Venezuela.q

A12 WORLD

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NEWS

Ex-Brazilian president denies trying to obstruct graft probe SARAH DiLORENZO Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — A former Brazilian president denied in court Tuesday that he was part of a plot to impede the sprawling corruption probe at the state oil company and likened the barrage of media attention on the charges against him to a “massacre.”

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been accused, along with several others, of plotting to buy off or otherwise prevent a former Petrobras executive from revealing what he knew about the bribery scheme. Silva testified he didn’t even know former oil company director Nestor Cervero and never had contact with him.

“I have absolutely no reason to have any problem with the testimony of Cervero — no reason at all.

I don’t know (him),” Silva said, according to a video provided by the court.

State oil giant Petrobras is at the center of a wideranging investigation into kickbacks and inflated contracts at state com-

Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva looks during an event with rural workers in Brasilia, Brazil. Brazil’s former president has denied in court on March 14, that he was part of a plot to obstruct a massive corruption probe by keeping a former executive-turned-state’s evidence from revealing what he knew.

(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

panies. The probe has ensnared dozens of high-level politicians and executives.

Cervero was convicted in connection with the probe and is cooperating with prosecutors.

At the beginning of nearly an hour of testimony, Silva

was asked if he was familiar with the accusations against him and whether they were true. He responded: “The information is false.”

Silva, who was president in 2003-2010, is also facing charges in a handful

of other cases linked to the probe. He has maintained his innocence in all of them, saying the allegations are politically motivated. Despite these legal challenges, Silva is leading some polls for next year’s presidential election.

Cuba tries to reboot its creaky state news apparatus MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN Associated Press HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban government is trying to reboot its Soviet-era style news programming with a high-definition current affairs channel staffed by young journalists.

The Caribe channel is starting slowly, with 3½ hours of offerings a night on a new channel available to a few hundred thousand viewers who have bought high-definition decoder boxes.

Producers say they hope

to eventually expand to nearly round-the-clock programming. That’s a niche currently occupied only

by Telesur, a regional news channel financed by leftist Latin American governments.

Caribe channel producers say their programming premiering Tuesday night will be less dogmatic and more openly critical than traditional Cuban state television, whose reporting rarely goes beyond repeating communiques from

government ministries. Cuban state media are facing increasing competition from more widely available online sources as internet access expands.

“Now we’re going to be able to reflect the needs of the people in the news,” said Karina del Valle, a 24-year-old presenter on a Caribe current-affairs show.

Like many of the country’s state outlets, Caribe journalists will include many recent graduates eager to modernize official media

that have become irrelevant to most young Cubans.

But content remains almost entirely under the control of Communist Party ideological monitors and a crippling government cash shortage means the channel has few resources.

“Our great challenge is really making this a reality,” said Ovidio Cabrera Garcia, director-general of Cuban television. “We don’t want to create great expectations.”q

The former president occasionally appeared emotional, frustrated or even angry during his testimony.

He made several self-aggrandizing claims, including that his presidency turned Brazil into a major player on the world stage, that he is considered the most important president in Brazil’s history and that Brazilians see him as the most important world leader of the beginning of the 21st century.

He contrasted these successes with the indignity of seeing headlines every day claiming that some business executive or politician was going to level a new accusation against him. “For about three years now, I have been the victim of, I would say, almost a massacre,” he said.

Silva, a union leader turned politician, testified that he was exceptionally careful during his eight years in office to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, saying he skipped dinners, birthday parties and weddings, so he wouldn’t find himself in a situation where someone might ask a favor. The Petrobras probe has grown into the biggest graft investigation in Brazil’s history and has shocked even the most cynical of Brazilians for the scale of corruption it has revealed.

Prosecutors have relied heavily on signing plea bargains with certain defendants to make cases against others.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Rodrigo Janot asked the Supreme Court to open 83 corruption inquiries into sitting politicians who have the right to have their cases heard by the highest court. q

LOCAL A13

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Aruba No. 5 in the World: The Aruba Museum Academie

ORANJESTAD - After Singapore, Amsterdam, Rostov and Yerevan have Anky Vrolijk (Director of Fundacion Museo Arubano) and Renwick Heronimo (FMA curator), and Björn Stenvers (Amsterdam Museum Academy) the Aruba Museum Academy created especially for trainings of the museum staff of Aruba. The first days of class this week take place in St. Nicholas in the soon to open Community Museum Nicolas Store. Every day at 9am to 5pm, 20 colleagues get to follow trainings and workshops from each other and from colleagues from the Leisure market to learn. Anky Vrolijk, Director of Fundacion Museo Arubano; “We are very happy with this unique collaboration and we will do all we can to learn from each other as much as possible

on the way to an even more welcoming Aruba.”

The Museum Academy will

be run by the Fundacion Museo Arubano.

The program of the Aruba

Museum Academy in 2017 focuses on the development of the quality of service. During the training days the museum staff of the Front Office/public service gets offered an intensive program. “We want to service delivery of our museum colleagues optimize knowledge sharing among themselves even more,” said Amsterdam Museum

Academy Director Björn Stenvers. “So, we come together to a standard, quality for small and large museums on the island. We are planning to organize several training courses, so that we from the wishes of colleagues teaching. In the first few days one has already indicated to want to like les in sign language, marketing and sales.” q

A14 LOCAL

Wednesday 15 March 2017

How Social Protection Can Facilitate Formalization in the Caribbean

(ILO News) PORT OF SPAIN - Representatives from 16 Caribbean countries are in Trinidad and Tobago (14-17 March

2017) to discuss the extension of social protection in the context of formalization policies.

Director of the ILO Decent

Work Team and Office for the Caribbean, Ms Claudia Coenjaerts, opened a Caribbean training Workshop on the Extension of Social Protection in the context of formalization policies. “Social security extension strategies should apply to persons both in the formal and informal economy and support the growth of formal employment and

the reduction of informality. These policies should be consistent with and facilitate the implementation of the social, economic and environmental development plans in the spirit of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda�, she said.

The capacity building and knowledge sharing Workshop is taking place at

the Kapok Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad, with participants from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands and also includes four Director Generals representing their National Insurance Services.

The objectives of the Workshop are to: -Build capacity of participants on formalization policies that have social protection as a main element in their design and share ILO’s strategies, policies and tools for the extension of social protection and formalization; -Share knowledge amongst participants about the policies and practices operating in their respective jurisdictions; -Examine success stories from different regions of the world that successfully increased social protection coverage in the formalization process; -Identify target groups for extend social protection coverage through formalization; and -Elaborate national and regional proposals to increase social protection coverage in the context of formalization.

Emphasis will be placed on three ILO Instruments adopted by its member States. Recommendation 204 concerning the transition from informal economy to formal economy, Recommendation 202 concerning social protection floors and ILO Convention 102 concerning the minimum standards on social security.

Latin America and the Caribbean has managed to reduce unemployment and increase social protection and wage and salaried employment.

However, there are still some 130 million informal workers[1].q

LOCAL A15

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Good food, great shopping and live entertainment:

Experience Aruba’s Local Art at Aruba’s Greatest Mall Palm Beach Plaza Mall Tonight!

ORANJESTAD –Palm Beach Plaza Mall is Aruba’s largest & greatest shopping mall offering you the best in shopping, restaurants, spa and a cinema; and is the only one on the island with a bowling alley. Definitely fun for everyone. At Palm Beach Plaza Mall shopping goes hand in hand with entertainment for the entire family.

With known brands such as Salvatore Feragamo, Bally Boutique, Mont Blanc,

Swarovski, Victoria Secret to name a few you know that at Palm Beach Plaza Mall you have to be for the best shopping experience.

Tonight will be like no other night as besides shopping in well-known stores you can also see and experience Aruba’s local art with well know local talents whom will show case and sell their local art. All made right here on Aruba by our local people. Aruba’s Godmother of art Trudy Lampe

will also be present with her art. Besides that we will have live entertainment

by Aruba’s own musician Francis Jacobs whom will be playing his ample repertoire live. All this will be happening between 6:30 and 9:30 pm tonight. Francis is a favorite among locals for his charismatic performances and ability to get the audience engaged.

Surely something you do not want to miss In addition, be sure not to

miss the several specials available throughout the mall, where the more you spend, the more you’ll save in cash! There are over 30 well known brands and stores at Palm Beach Plaza Mall. Palm Beach Plaza is open daily from 10 am till 10 pm, and on Sundays the mall comes alive from 5 pm on. If you are staying in the high rise area, it just a few steps away; but if you have a car, there is free parking available to all its custom-

ers.

Join the fun at the largest shopping mall in Aruba, right in the center of shopping Palm Beach with daily Happy Hour from 5 to 7 pm on all Belgian beers, cocktails & wines at half price at Taste of Belgium and that is just one example. For more information on all the vendors, visit our website at www.palmbeachplaza. com or check us on Facebook Palm Beach Plaza Mall.q

A16 LOCAL

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Loyal Guests Honored at La Quinta Beach Resort EAGLE BEACH - Recently the Aruba Tourism Authority had the great pleasure of honoring a group of loyal and friendly visitors of Aruba at La Quinta Beach Resort as Goodwill Ambassadors. The symbolic honorary title is presented in the name of the Minister of Tourism as a token of appreciation to guests who visit Aruba for 20-to-34 consecutive years.

The honorees were Ken Goeman, Melanie Jo Goeman, Cisse and Gary Goeman and Linda Goeman and Catherine Suedbeck, all from Wisconsin.

These special guests say they love Aruba very much because of the friendly people, the climate, beaches, and restaurants.

They say the people on Aruba are like a family to them and that the island is their ‘homeaway-from-home.’ The certificates were presented by Ms. Marouska Heyliger representing the Aruba Tourism Authority together with associates from La Quinta Beach Resort.q

SPORTS A17

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Venezuela’s Miguel Cabrera delivers against Italy during the ninth inning of a tie-breaker game at the World Baseball Classic in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, March 13, 2017.

Associated Press

KING of the HILL

Venezuela rallies past Italy 4-3 to reach 2nd round of WBC

CARLOS RODRIGUEZ GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) — Miguel Cabrera hit a tying homer and Rougned Odor delivered a go-ahead single during a three-run rally in the ninth inning that carried Venezuela past Italy 4-3 on Monday night and into the second round of the World Baseball Classic.

In a one-game tiebreaker that determined the final team to advance out of the first round, Cabrera’s solo shot to right-center evened the score at 2 in the top of the ninth. With a runner on, Odor launched an opposite-field drive off the top of the left-center fence and held up at first base with an RBI single after thinking the ball had cleared the wall.

Odor later scored on a nicely executed suicide squeeze by Alcides Escobar. Francisco Rodriguez gave up Alex Liddi’s leadoff homer in the bottom half before getting three straight groundouts for the save, eliminating Italy.

Continued on page 21

Arnold Palmer’s presence remains strong at Bay Hill

In this March 25, 2013, file photo, Tiger Woods, left, jokes with Arnold Palmer after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla. Associated Press Page 18

A18 SPORTS

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Memories of Palmer everywhere at Bay Hill DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The photo was never published out of respect for Arnold Palmer.

Palmer was walking his dog early one morning when he turned down Marina Drive across from the Bay Hill Club & Lodge, a tiny lane next to the tennis courts where sunlight filtered through a canopy of trees. He was 85, moving slower than anyone was used to seeing, his shoulders slightly drooped.

What made the picture so poignant was that he looked so real, a man of the people, perhaps Palmer’s greatest appeal.

The Bay Hill staff asked the magazine not to use the photo simply because Palmer preferred to be seen in public wearing slacks and a golf shirt (usually pink, always with the Bay Hill umbrella logo), sometimes a sweater. The King was out of uniform.

To look down Marina Drive now is to see the image of Palmer walking his dog, and to be reminded of his presence.

It will not go away anytime soon.

There are sure to be som-

In this March 20, 2016, file photo, Arnold Palmer acknowledges the crowd in the grandstands at the 18th green during the trophy presentation of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla. Associated Press

ber moments at the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week. That 13-foot bronze statue of Palmer behind the first tee at Bay Hill was attracting plenty of attention Tuesday. The cart that Palmer used to drive, with two sets of clubs strapped on the back, will be behind the 16th tree starting Wednesday.

Players have put the umbrella on their caps, their shirts or their golf bags for the week. They are taking turns going to his office, sitting behind his desk and signing memorabilia for

budgetaruba@setarnet.aw

fans, because that’s what Palmer would have done.

Golf Channel, the network Palmer co-founded with Joe Gibbs in 1995, is devoting 50 hours of programming from Bay Hill this week, including live coverage of the opening ceremony on Wednesday.

But it would be a mistake in this week of remembering the King to think of this as the end.

Since his death in September, Arnold Palmer Enterprises already has renewed corporate deals with MasterCard, equipment maker

Textron and Arizona Beverages, which includes the famous Arnold Palmer (half iced tea, half lemonade).

The greater concern is the tournament, and whether it will lose any prestige now that Palmer is gone.

There have been comparisons with the AT&T Byron Nelson outside Dallas, and how it struggled to get a strong field after Nelson died in 2006, in part because the golf course wasn’t exactly on anyone’s bucket list to play. There’s a big difference, though.

Nelson had his name on a tournament that moved from Preston Trail to the TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas.

Bay Hill had Palmer’s prints from the very start in 1979, long before his name became the title in 2007.

He owned the place. He nurtured it. He was everywhere at the club, playing the shootouts with his friends, sipping on his Ketel One in the clubhouse, signing autographs upstairs in his office, and yes, walking his dog down Marina Drive.

Ask any of the players who have lived in Orlando — Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson, Graeme McDowell — and they will be quick to say their children were born in the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies.

Nelson retired from a full schedule in the prime of his career, wanting to secure enough money to buy his ranch. He was a stately figure in the game, and he remained deeply involved in his tournament.

Palmer probably stayed in the game too long, and no

one cared.

He was 75 when he played the Masters for the last time.

He played Bay Hill for the final time a year earlier, and capped it off by hitting driver off the deck and onto the green at the 18th.

What he left behind are stories, too many too tell, because just about everybody has one.

And everyone is smiling when they finish telling them.

To complain about which players are not at the Arnold Palmer Invitational is a waste of time. Sure, Palmer paid attention to who played Bay Hill and who didn’t. He once referred to Rory McIlroy not playing in 2013 by saying: “What his name? The No. 1 guy?”

But it was always accompanied by a wink and a smile.

Palmer, above all, was a golfer. He understood schedules. He understood being ready for the Masters. Besides, the Arnold Palmer Invitational field is the strongest it has been for the last decade except for 2013, the year Woods won for the eighth and final time at Bay Hill.

It has been nearly six months since Palmer died.

Bay Hill will be another reminder that his void will be hard to fill, if it’s even possible. But the King left behind too many great moments, too many great stories, too many friends.

And that might be the best way for players to honor his legacy, to leave behind more than what they take.q

SPORTS A19

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NBA Capsules

Spurs beat Hawks to join GS with NBA’s best record The Associated Press SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Kawhi Leonard scored 31 points in his return from a concussion and the San Antonio Spurs equaled Golden State for the NBA’s best record with a 107-99 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night.

San Antonio made a season-high 16 3-pointers in its 19th straight home victory over Atlanta. The Spurs and Warriors are 52-14 with 16 games remaining, including the final regular-season matchup between them on March 29.

Atlanta point guard Dennis Schroder had 22 points and 10 assists, shooting 10 for 22 from the field. Tim Hardaway Jr. added 17 points, but the Hawks had their three-game winning streak snapped.

San Antonio’s Patty Mills had 15 points and Danny Green added 14. The starting guards combined to shoot 7 for 12 on 3-pointers and the team finished 16 for 34 on 3s.

JAZZ 114, CLIPPERS 108 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Gordon Hayward scored 27 points and Utah broke a nine-game home losing streak to Los Angeles.

The victory gave the Jazz a two-game lead over the Clippers in the race for the No. 4 playoff seed in the Western Conference and home-court advantage in the first round.

Utah scored 40 points in the third quarter, a seasonhigh for any quarter, after trailing much of the first half. George Hill was much more aggressive on the offensive end after a sluggish first half and the Jazz

missed just four of 17 shots in the period while hitting all six 3-point attempts. The ball movement was outstanding on offense and nearly everyone got in the mix.

Chris Paul had 33 points, six rebounds and six assists for the Clippers.

TIMBERWOLVES 119, WIZARDS 104 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — KarlAnthony Towns had 39 points and 13 rebounds while Ricky Rubio scored 22 points and broke his own franchise record with 19 assists as Minnesota beat Washington.

Nemanja Bjelica added 16 points and 10 boards off the bench for the Timberwolves, who entered the game 3½ games behind Denver for the eighth seed in the Western Conference.

Minnesota shot 52 percent and Rubio topped 20 points in back-to-back games for the second time in his six-year career.

John Wall scored 27 points for the Wizards, who fell 2 ½ games back of Cleveland for the top seed in the Eastern Conference.

Bradley Beal added 20 points, but Washington lost for the first time in six games.

GRIZZLIES 113, BUCKS 93 MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) — Vince Carter made all eight of his shots, including six from beyond the arc, to score a season-high 24 points and lead Memphis past Milwaukee.

The 40-year-old Carter set a season high for 3-point makes in his first start of the season.

Memphis shot 52 percent for the game, including 14 of 27 from deep.

Memphis stopped a fivegame skid by ending the Bucks’ six-game winning streak.

Mike Conley had 20 points and 10 assists for Memphis, while Tony Allen scored 15 points. Zach Randolph finished with 14 points.

Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks with 18 points, while Malcolm Brogdon contributed 15 off the bench. Greg Monroe and Matthew Dellavedova finished with 13 points each for Milwaukee, which started a six-game trip against Western Conference teams.

San Antonio Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard (2) drives to the basket against Atlanta Hawks defenders Thabo Sefolosha (25) and Kent Bazemore (24) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, March 13, 2017, in San Antonio.

Associated Press

BULLS 115, HORNETS 109 CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) — Nikola Mirotic scored 24 points, Rajon Rondo had a season-high

20 in his return to the starting lineup and Chicago beat Charlotte to snap a season-high, five-game losing streak.q

A20 SPORTS

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NHL Capsules

Versteeg hits shootout winner, Flames get 10th straight win The Associated Press CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Kris Versteeg scored the shootout winner and the Calgary Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 to tie a club record with their 10th straight victory Mon-

day night.

Calgary’s first shooter, Versteeg moved in slowly and made a nifty deke before zipping a shot high past Marc-Andre Fleury. Brian Elliott stopped Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Phil Kes-

sel to clinch the win.

Before the franchise moved to Calgary, the Atlanta Flames won 10 games in a row from Oct. 14 to Nov. 3, 1978.

Pittsburgh had a chance to win in overtime when Mark

Calgary Flames left wing Matthew Tkachuk (19), from left, defenseman TJ Brodie (7), right wing Alex Chiasson (39), goalie Brian Elliott (1) and center Matt Stajan (18) celebrate their shootout win during overtime of an NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Calgary, Alberta, Monday, March 13, 2017.

Associated Press

Giordano was sent off for slashing Nick Bonino, but the Flames killed off the 4-on-3.

Johnny Gaudreau, Deryk Engelland and Dennis Wideman scored in regulation for Calgary, which moved back into second place in the Pacific Division. The Flames are even in points with Anaheim, but have more regulation/ overtime wins.

Malkin, Crosby and Conor Sheary scored for Pittsburgh. The Penguins had their five-game winning streak snapped, but still moved into a tie in points with Washington atop the Metropolitan Division. The Capitals are ahead on the tiebreaker.

BLUE JACKETS 5, FLYERS 3 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Cam Atkinson scored twice and Brandon Dubinsky had the go-ahead goal in the third period to help Columbus set franchise records for wins and points in a season with a victory over Philadelphia.

Zach Werenski and Sam Gagner also scored for the Blue Jackets, who have 44 wins and 94 points.

Travis Konecny had a pair of goals and Brayden

Schenn also scored for sagging Philadelphia, which has lost 10 of 15 to hurt its fading playoff chances.

The Flyers began play six points out of a postseason spot with 15 games remaining. Dubinsky’s power-play goal with 11:14 left snapped a 3-all tie and followed a rouging minor on Konecny. Atkinson got his 32nd of the season with 20.9 seconds remaining on an empty-netter.

BLUES 3, KINGS 1 LOS ANGELES (AP) — Magnus Paajarvi scored a power-play goal, Jake Allen made 38 saves and St. Louis extended its winning streak to five games by beating Los Angeles.

David Perron scored late in the second period and Alexander Steen added an empty-net goal with 6.5 seconds left for the Blues, who lead the Kings by five points for the second wild card in the Western Conference.

Dustin Brown scored with 2:55 remaining and Jonathan Quick stopped 23 shots, but the Kings failed to earn a point for the first time in Quick’s six starts since returning from a groin injury.q

SPORTS A21 DeMarcus Ware announces his retirement from NFL Wednesday 15 March 2017

ARNIE STAPLETON AP Pro Football Writer ENGLEWOOD, Colorado (AP) — DeMarcus Ware won’t be returning to either the Dallas Cowboys or the Denver Broncos as expected.

The 12-year NFL veteran is instead retiring from the NFL. Ware announced his decision Monday on Twitter.

Next to a split image of the Cowboys and Broncos, Ware wrote, “After a lot of thought and prayer, I’ve decided to accept the unknown and retire from my NFL career. Tempting opportunities still present themselves for me to play and I feel better than I have in years. However, long-term health of quality of life outweigh the spark and passion to play that I once had.”

Ware’s decision was surprising. Just two months ago, he scoffed at those suggesting he might have played his last NFL game after he missed the Broncos’ season finale to undergo lower back surgery.

Hours before Ware announced his retirement, Broncos general manager John Elway said, “He’s going to test the market to see

what’s out there. I told him that’s probably the best thing to do at this point in time and we’ll stay in touch and see where he is.”

After he announced his retirement, the Broncos tweeted, “See you in Canton.”

“DeMarcus, you are the epitome of what an NFL player should be,” Elway tweeted. “Congrats on your Hall of Fame career & thank you for becoming a Bronco!”

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said: “DeMarcus was everything we could have ever wanted in a player, a person and a representative of the Cowboys organization. He was one of the most dominant NFL players at his position in his era, and he was one of the most dynamic players in the history of the Dallas Cowboys.

“We wish nothing but the best for DeMarcus and his family, and we appreciate and respect his contributions to the NFL and to our team.”

In his Twitter post, Ware thanked “all the people in my life who had a hand in molding me into a great player and the God fearing man I am today. I thank the Dallas Cowboys and

This Oct. 30, 2016 photo shows Denver Broncos outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware (94) smiling prior to an NFL football game against the San Diego Chargers in Denver.

Associated Press

Denver Broncos for opportunities to experience what greatness feels like.”

Ware retires with 138½ sacks, eighth on the career list.

The Cowboys’ all-time sacks leader with 117, Ware joined the Broncos as part of Elway’s defensive makeover in 2014 along with safety T.J. Ward and cornerback Aqib Talib.

Von Miller credited Ware with helping him become a superstar and Super Bowl MVP. Late last season, Miller told The Associated Press: “The type of impact that he had

on my life, you could just look at my career those years that he was here. If you look at 2011, 2012 and 2013 and then you look at the years that DeMarcus Ware was here — 2014, 2015, 2016 — and on the field it may not be a big change, but the person that I am and the stuff that I’ve been exposed to sure was.

“You always want to be a leader. You think you know what it takes and you think you have great ideas, but until you’re like three feet away from it and you see like nah, he really doesn’t

WBC

Continued from page 17 One night after getting a late reprieve from WBC officials, Venezuela moved on to face the United States in the Pool F opener for both teams Wednesday in San Diego.

Puerto Rico, which went 3-0 to win Venezuela’s first-round pool, and the defending champion Dominican Republic are the other teams in Pool F. Two will advance to the single-elimination semifinals at Dodger Stadium next week.

The Venezuelans lost to Mexico on Sunday night, leaving Italy, Venezuela and Mexico all at 1-2 after round-robin play was completed in Pool D. The host team was eliminated on a close tiebreaker — runs al-

Venezuela’s Miguel Cabrera celebrates with teammates after hitting a run against Italy during the ninth inning of a tie-breaker game at the World Baseball Classic in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, March 13, 2017.

Associated Press

lowed per inning played — but the correct announcement did not come until long after the game was over.

Initially, the WBC Twitter account declared that Monday night’s tiebreaker

game would be between Mexico and Italy. Officials then informed Venezuela of the proper calculation.

“We qualified here basically because of an out that (Mexico) did not get (against Italy),” Venezu-

ela manager Omar Vizquel said. “I remember when I was a player and before a Game 7 of the World Series was very stressful, and I haven’t felt like that until last night. We were in limbo until we got word that we

do that or he does this instead of that. And it can just be the little subtle stuff like he comes in and watches film on his phone, it’s the little stuff that you observe, that you take,” Miller said.

“Like, I don’t have to come in every day and make an announcement. I can just come in and do my work and say what needs to be said and get things done.

I think I just had to calm down and what calmed me down was really just seeing how it was really supposed to be,” Miller said. “I was full speed before, 100 percent. DeMarcus, he’s like that, too, though. But just not all the time, you get to see there’s a time and a place for everything, and in DeMarcus I got to see a great example of that.”

Ware totaled 81 tackles and 21½ sacks in Denver and had a terrific playoff performance two seasons ago with a dozen quarterback hits during the Broncos’ run to their Super Bowl 50 title.

Injuries took their toll , however. He missed five games in 2015 with a back injury that first flared up in Dallas, and six games last season with a broken forearm and more back troubles.q were going to play and tonight we were shut down for six innings, but we kept on fighting.”

“I’m really proud of my team,” he added. “Now moving forward, I don’t want to say too much. I just want a good night’s sleep.”

Venezuela, with a bevy of major league stars on its roster, advanced despite allowing 35 runs in the first round — the third-highest mark in tournament history.

South Africa and China gave up 38 each in 2006.

“The pitching has not been up to the challenge so far.

We have been punished badly but the team made it to the second round,” Vizquel said. “Sometimes it’s not easy to get where you want to go. Sometimes destiny makes it difficult, and that happened to us.

Hopefully we can use that to play better baseball.”q

A22

Wednesday 15 March 2017

SPORTS

Hirscher, Shiffrin take some drama out of World Cup Finals

PAT GRAHAM Associated Press ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin and Marcel Hirscher have taken a chunk of the suspense out of World Cup Finals.

Not their fault, obviously.

They’ve been that dominant this season.

Might it possibly be time to put more of a point value on the final set of races to close out the season — just to spice things up? Six of the final 10 season-ending globes have already been pretty much clinched.

“No. No, no, no,” Italian racer Peter Fill said when asked if races at World Cup Finals should be worth, say, 150 points for first place, instead of the customary 100.

“Marcel skied so good, so there’s no chance to win the overall. We can ski fast and it’s impossible to beat him now. But I don’t think we need to change something.”

Hirscher enters Aspen having already secured his sixth straight World Cup overall title with a 554-point lead and only a possible 400 remaining. Shiffrin has a nearly insurmountable advantage of 378 points over Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia.

Should officials ever decide to bump up points for finals, Hirscher is game. He is game for anything, even if that wouldn’t be his first choice.

“If it is that way, OK, it is that way,” Hirscher said. “You have to deal with it. But I

Mikaela Shiffrin competes during the second run in the women’s World Cup slalom competition Saturday, March 11, 2017, in Olympic Valley, Calif.

Associated Press

really think it should be the same, because why should a final race be worth more than a highlight race at Kitzbuehel?”

Formula One racing tried awarding double points to the winner of the final race to prolong the suspense in the drivers’ championship.

It eventually was scrapped.

“It devalues the other races,” four-time overall winner Lindsey Vonn explained. “Every race should be the same. I feel like there’s enough pressure on us at finals anyway, to win overall titles, discipline titles.

For those of the athletes that skied well all season, it can be sometimes difficult to maintain that en-

ergy through the finals. So if there are more points at the finals, I think it would be not fair.”

In addition to his overall crown, Hirscher has already wrapped up the men’s slalom and giant slalom discipline titles, while Kjetil Jansrud of Norway has captured the super-G crown.

Shiffrin also locked up the women’s slalom title.

That leaves only four races that still need to crown a winner: — Women’s giant slalom, with Tessa Worley of France holding an 80-point advantage over Shiffrin.

— Women’s downhill, where Stuhec leads by 97 points over Sofia Goggia of

Italy.

— Women’s super-G, with Stuhec protecting a scant 15-point lead over Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather.

— Men’s downhill, where Jansrud leads Fill by 33 points.

When asked if adding more points at finals might inject more drama, retired German standout racer Maria Hoefl-Riesch simply said: “If you have people like Shiffrin and Hirscher who are dominating, it probably doesn’t change anything.”

Here are things to know heading into World Cup Finals that begin Wednesday with men’s and women’s downhill: UNDER THE WEATHER: Vonn

caught a cold on her recent trip back from South Korea and is struggling to catch her breath on the downhill course. “I’ll attack either way,” said Vonn, who finished third in Tuesday’s downhill training run, which was won by Stuhec. “I might just be on the ground on the finish.”

PUT ON THE GLOVES: Trailing Stuhec in the super-G standings, Weirather says she’s treating Thursday’s race like she’s “preparing for a boxing fight. You have that one day, where it’s going down and you don’t think about anything else.”

MORSE’S MEMORY: 20-yearold Sam Morse of Sugarloaf, Maine, made it into the downhill field courtesy of his world junior downhill win earlier this month. He will be skiing with two good friends on his mind: skiing prospects Bryce Astle and Ronnie Berlack, who were killed in an avalanche in Soelden, Austria, in January 2015.

“They never got the opportunity to run a World Cup,” Morse said. “We’re carrying on their story.”

FRIENDLY BANTER: At an Oakley event Monday, Shiffrin and Vonn had a friendly argument over whether Shiffrin had seen “Dumb and Dumber” since the movie that features a cross-country trip to Aspen wasn’t released until 1994. Shiffrin was born in ‘95. “It’s on DVD,” Shiffrin countered.q

3-time champion Nadal, Venus Williams win at Indian Wells

Venus Williams returns a shot to Peng Shuai, of China, at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Indian Wells, Calif.

Associated Press

BETH HARRIS AP Sports Writer INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) — Rafael Nadal defeated Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 7-5 in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open on Tuesday for his 50th career victory at the desert tournament.

Nadal closed out the 1 1/2hour match in 95-degree (35 C) heat with a forehand winner. The three-time tournament champion could next face Roger Federer, who played American

Steve Johnson later.

Nadal won 80 percent of his first-serve points and three of five break points.

Verdasco, who won eight straight points for a 3-2 lead in the second set, had seven double faults. Venus Williams advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2001 with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Shuai Peng, the last remaining qualifier in the draw. She had 40 winners, 40 unforced errors and won the final four

games of the match after trailing 3-2. Williams ended her 15-year boycott of the event last year, when she lost in the second round.

In other women’s matches, No. 3 seed Karolina Pliskova advanced when 15thseeded Timea Bacsinszky retired trailing 5-1 in the first set; No. 19 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova outlasted No. 5 Dominika Cibulkova 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; and No. 8 Svetlana Kuznetsova beat 21st-seeded Caroline Garcia.q

TECHNOLOGY A23

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Facebook says its data can’t be used for ‘surveillance’ BARBARA ORTUTAY AP Technology Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is prohibiting developers from using the massive amount of data it collects on users for surveillance. This includes using such data to monitor activists and protesters.

The company said Monday that it is making an existing policy “explicit.” Facebook says it has already taken action against developers who created or marketed tools meant to be used for surveillance. It says it wants to “be sure everyone understands the underlying policy and how to comply.”

Last fall, the American Civil Liberties Union obtained records that Facebook and its Instagram service provided user data access to Geofeedia, which develops a monitoring product marketed to law enforcement. The ACLU said at the time that while both Instagram and Facebook cut

In this May 16, 2012, file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed on an iPad in Philadelphia.

Associated Press

off access after finding out about this, Facebook did not have a “public policy specifically prohibiting developers” from taking user data for surveillance.

The new prohibition states

that developers — who get access to user data from Facebook to create apps — should protect “the information you receive from us against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For

example, don’t use data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance.”

The ACLU report says the data the companies provided to Geofeedia includ-

ed only public posts, not those that users restricted to just friends or in some other way. But such access to Facebook data is still valuable to third parties because it would be very difficult to collect and comb through all the stuff on their own.

According to the ACLU, Facebook had provided Geofeedia with access to a data feed called the “Topic Feed API,” which is supposed to be a tool for advertisers. But Geofeedia could use it to obtain a feed of public Facebook posts that mentioned a specific topic, place or event — for example, “monitor hashtags used by activists and allies, or target activist groups as ‘overt threats,’” Matt Cagle, attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, wrote last October.

Facebook terminated this access nearly a month earlier after being notified about it by the ACLU.q

Pandora starts on-demand music subscription service NEW YORK (AP) — Internet radio company Pandora is launching an on-demand music service for $10 a month.

Pandora’s existing service works more like radio. People listen to music on customizable stations.

The premium service launching this month will let users choose specific songs or albums and will personalize recommendations based on people’s listening habits. There is also an “offline mode.”

The new Pandora Premium

offering will compete with Apple Music and Spotify, both of which have given the music-streaming pioneer a run for its money.

Spotify has 50 million subscribers, while Pandora had about 4.4 million as of the end of 2016.

That’s because most people listen to Pandora without paying; the company has 81 million total “active listeners.”

Until now, the Pandora subscription mostly stripped out ads — for $5 a month.q

In this Oct. 23, 2015, file photo, Pandora is displayed above a post where it trades on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Associated Press

A24 BUSINESS

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Another drop for oil prices pulls stock indexes lower

Specialist Michael Pistillo works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Stock indexes sank Tuesday after yet another drop in the price of oil dragged down shares across the energy industry.

(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Stock indexes sank Tuesday after yet another drop in the price of oil dragged down shares across the energy industry.

Other areas of the market saw modest losses as investors wait to hear from

the Federal Reserve, which began a two-day policy meeting on interest rates.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 8.02 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,365.45. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 44.11, or 0.2 percent, to 20,837.37. The Nasdaq composite fell 18.97, or 0.3 percent, to 5,856.82.

Two stocks fell on the New York Stock Exchange for every one that rose.

The price of oil has been slipping on concerns that supplies will outweigh demand.

It’s dropped from nearly $55 per barrel in late February to $47.72 on Tuesday, down 68 cents, or 1.4 per-

cent. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, fell 43 cents to $50.92 per barrel in London.

It’s the seventh straight decline in the price of oil.

Energy stocks in the S&P 500 fell 1.1 percent, the largest loss among the 11 sectors that make up the index.

Marathon Oil fell 52 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $15.32.

Lower oil prices help to curb inflation, and bond yields sank in tandem. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.59 percent from 2.63 percent late Monday.

The 30-year yield sank to 3.18 percent from 3.21 percent, while the two-year yield dipped to 1.37 percent from 1.38 percent.

Stocks of smaller companies sank more than the rest of the market.

The Russell 2000 of smallcap stocks lost 0.6 percent, double the decline of the S&P 500 index of the largest stocks.

When the Fed finishes its meeting on Wednesday, most economists expect it to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage

point. It would be only the third increase since the Fed slashed rates to a record of nearly zero in 2008 during the financial crisis.

What investors are likely more interested to hear is what Fed Chair Janet Yellen says about the pace of future increases.

The job market, stock prices and other economic indicators have picked up momentum in recent months, which raises expectations for more increases.

In the past, expectations for higher rates may have spooked stock investors, because more-expensive borrowing can slow the economy. That’s not happening this time.

“We’re in an environment now where the market is no longer afraid of Fed hikes because the perception now is the Fed is hiking for the right reasons,” said Jon Adams, senior investment strategist at BMO Global Asset Management.

As long as the economy continues to improve and interest-rate hikes are only gradual, analysts say stocks can maintain their lofty heights. q

Toshiba mulls selling Westinghouse, delays earnings report YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Troubled Japanese nuclear and electronics company Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday it

was considering selling its money-losing Westinghouse operations in the U.S. President Satoshi Tsunakawa said the company was looking at selling its majority

stake in Westinghouse and making a priority trying to get the energy giant’s battered results off its books.

“We want to deal with this properly,” he said at a news

conference after the company won approval for a second delay in reporting its earnings for OctoberDecember.

“We are working on nurturing our growth businesses to return to stable growth by fiscal years 2018 and 2019,” Tsunakwa add-

ed, reiterating apologies to stakeholders.

Toshiba had been scheduled to report earnings Tuesday, after delaying the report due in February because of auditing problems.

It now has until April 11 to produce the report.q

BUSINESS A25

Wednesday 15 March 2017

3 things to watch for from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Fed watchers appear buoyed by signs of a stronger economy than worried about whether slightly higher rates might slow growth.

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Sending signals loud and clear, the Federal Reserve has left little doubt that it will raise interest rates Wednesday for the third time since December 2015 to reflect a consistently solid U.S economy.

The rate increase will likely go down as one of the most telegraphed ever, given that several Fed officials, including Chair Janet Yellen, each let it be known over the past two weeks that they felt it was time to raise the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate.

Their string of likeminded comments surprised many investors, who had assumed that the Fed would wait until probably June before raising rates again.

The thinking was that the Fed would want to see whether President Donald Trump’s ambitious economic program of tax cuts, deregulation and higher spending on the military and infrastructure could pass Congress — and then assess how it might affect the economy.

But after the Fed officials each suggested that the economy’s gains had

moved the central bank closer to its goals for employment and inflation, the likelihood of a rate hike after the Fed ends its latest policy meeting Wednesday shot from around 20 percent to near 100 percent as estimated by futures markets, according to data tracked by the CME Group.

Now, the guessing switches to how many times the Fed may raise rates during 2017 — whether three times, as the market now expects, or perhaps as many as four.

Yet regardless of the answer, the market seems far less nervous about the prospect of rate increases than it was in recent years. Investors seem increasingly confident that the U.S. economy is vigorous enough to withstand modestly higher borrowing rates.

Here are three things to watch for after the Fed’s meeting ends: STATE OF THE ECONOMY The Fed has managed its control of interest rates with exceeding caution, beginning with an initial hike in December 2015, which ended seven years of record-low rates near zero. It then waited an entire year

before raising rates again in December last year.

But in recent weeks, the view has taken hold, within and outside the Fed, that the U.S. economy has entered a new, stronger phase, with a job market near full health, rising consumer and business confidence, a sturdy housing market and inflation moving closer to the Fed’s 2 percent target. Nearly eight years after the Great Recession ended, the economy seems less and less to need the support of ultra-low borrowing rates.

A robust February employment report issued on Friday — 235,000 added jobs, brisk pay growth and a dip in the unemployment rate to 4.7 percent — was seen as the final major encouraging economic report the Fed needed to feel confident about announcing a rate increase.

What the Fed says in its statement Wednesday assessing the health of the economy will be parsed for clues to its thinking about the pace of future rate increases.

FORECAST AND DOT PLOT Four times each year, the Fed updates the economic and interest-rate forecasts of the 17 members of its policy committee — five board members (there are two vacancies) and 12 regional bank presidents.

Each policymaker offers his or her own anonymous forecast.

Investors and Fed watchers tend to scrutinize those projections to determine whether they think the central bank is growing more optimistic about growth, unemployment and inflation. A shift in sentiment toward greater optimism could indicate that the Fed is preparing to accel-

US wholesale prices up just 0.3% in February MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation at the wholesale level rose at just half the rate in February as the previous month, as a surge in energy prices slowed.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that its producer price index, which measures inflation pressures before they reach consumers, increased 0.3 percent in February following a 0.6 percent rise in January.

Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 2.2 percent, reflecting a steady rise in inflation as energy prices have increased. Just six months ago, the yearover-year increase stood at zero.

erate its pace of rate hikes.

Along with economic forecasts, the Fed releases what has come to be called the “dot plot.” This is an illustrated plot of dots, representing the expectations for each official for the path of the federal funds rate, the Fed’s key policy rate. In December, the Fed raised that rate to a range of 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent, still quite low by historical standards.

Fed officials stress that the dot plot is merely a projection of where rates might go and not at all a guarantee. At December’s meeting, the projection from the dot plot was that the Fed would raise rates three times in 2017.

YELLEN’S VIEW On Wednesday, as she does after four Fed meetings each year, Yellen will hold a news conference.

The Fed chair is likely to stress many of the points she has made in recent speeches: That while the Fed is raising rates, the pace of the increases will likely remain gradual and

that rates will still be at historically low levels. For consumers and businesses, that means that while loan rates will rise, they will remain relatively low.

Yellen is sure to be asked for her views of the policies being pursued by the Trump administration. The president has vowed to double the economy’s growth rate to 4 percent from around 2 percent over the past nearly eight years. Trump has said his package of tax cuts, deregulation, a tougher trade stance and increased spending in such areas as infrastructure can achieve his growth goals.

But if the Fed starts to become concerned about inflation pressures at a time when the economy is at full employment, an increase in the pace of rate hikes could make it harder for Trump to achieve his goals.

While Trump was personally critical of Yellen during the presidential campaign, accusing her of favoring low rates to help the Democrats, he has been silent on the Fed since winning the election. q

A26 COMICS

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Mutts

Conceptis Sudoku

6 Chix

Blondie

Mother Goose & Grimm

Baby Blues

Zits

Yesterday’s puzzle answer

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

CLASSIFIED A27

Wednesday 15 March 2017

dOCTOR ON DUTY Oranjestad

Dr. Anthony Tel. 585 8017

San Nicolas

Time Share Resale Aruba Divi Phoenix 1 BR Week 9 Room # 401 Ocean View $8500 31 Weeks on the Contract Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ________________________________207154

Time Share Resale 1 BR Deluxe WK 2/17 $12,000 2 BR Supreme WK 2/17 $30,000 3 BR Supreme WK 2/17 $40,000 2 BR Deluxe Wk 9 and 10 All inclusive included $30,000 Both Weeks Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Playa Linda Beach Resorts 2 BR Week 11 and 12 Lenia # 40 Right on the Palm Beach Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com _______________________________________

Time Share Resale La Cabana BRC 1 BR Week 11 and 12 Room #414A Pool/Ocean View $18,000 Both Weeks Divi Village Studio Week 9 Room #8302 27 Weeks on the contract Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Free ( Non Exclusive Listings) Free Appraisal Report.

Rent, Sell,Buy 31 Years Doing Honest Business Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnyPaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

FOR SALE BY OWNER wk 11 Divi Links Golf & Beach Rm 4221 1 Br /2Ba RTU: Exp.2051 + 10 Accelerated Sleeps 4 $5,600 wk 9 Divi Little Bay St. Maarten Rm 621 1 Br/2Ba RTU: Exp.2042 + 10 Accelerated Sleeps 4 $5,600 ritchey5652@comcast.net

_________________________________207149

TIME SHARES FOR SALE Caribbean Palm Village Weeks week 7 $6,500.00 week 8 $6,000.00 week 26 $2,000.00 All are 2 beedroom all are garden view Casa del Mar week 25 $8,000.00 ocean front E-mail: asargenti@aol.com Call: 609 775 3836 _________________________________206891

FOR SALE Casa del Mar Week 1 + deed 2 bedroom and 2 bath #1313 Presidential / ocean view $21,000 e-mail: gkoons2@gmail.com _________________________________206892

Time Share Resale Dutch Village 2 BR Week 12 Room #85 30 weeks remain on the contract Non Mandatory Contract $9000 Call:(297) 63013-07 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ________________________________207154

Time Share Resale Divi Links Golf 1 BR Week 10 Room #2224 32 weeks on the contract $8000 Studio WK 11 Room # 2220 33 Weeks on the contrat $7000 Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Divi Links Golf 2 BR Week 1 Room #2303/2302 $16,000 27/10 Weeks on the contract 10 accelerated 1 BR Week 12 Room #2303 $8000 27/10 Weeks on the contract 10 can be accelerated Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Divi Links Golf 1 BR week 8,9,10 Room #2130 23 Weeks on the Contract $8500 Tropicana Resorts $7000 1 BR Week ( Room #5567 G Call:(297)630-1307 johnnypaesch@gamail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Studio Wk 9 Room # 652 $12,000 32 Weeks On the Contract 1 BR Week 10 Room # 841 25 Weeks on the contract $15,000 Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Marriott Surf Club and Ocean Club All Season +Weeks available 1,2,3, Bedrooms, Garden View Ocean Front,Ocean Side, Ocean View Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

Time Share Resale Marriott Ocean Club 2 Bedroom Ocean View Platinum $20.000 Call:(297) 630-1307 johnnypaesch@gmail.com ______________________________________

FOR SALE Tropicana - 1st floor wks 4-5-6-7-8 1 bed / 2 queen beds $5,000 per wks contact arzemaitatis@yahoo.com USA 609 350 5461 _________________________________207132

FOR SALE Two Gold Coast Towhouses Gated Community, 3 pools, Gym, Club House, Tennis courts Call Rich 737 0993 or view at goldcoastarubaproperties.com Call Butch 562 0735 or view at www.arubarental.info ____________________________________206898

FOR SALE motivided owner Divi Golf Villas Eagle building 30% off from compatible market value.

Unit # 4130 1 st floor 1 tousand squar foot, one bedroom sleep four, infinity pool week 6 $8,000 USD $258a week only (31 years left) week 7 $9,000 USD $290 a week only (31 years left) Call: - 774 - 3121272 USA hermeneazizian@icloud.com

Dr. Britt-Croes Tel. 584 1984

EMERGENCIA 911

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

100 527-3140 527-3200 527-2900 584-5000 11141 115 582-1108 527-4000 587-9850 582-1234 524-8833

Women in Difficulties

PHARMACY Oranjestad: del Pueblo Tel. 582 1253 San Nicolas San Nicolas Tel. 584 5712 INFORMATION 118 TAXI-TAS 587-5900 PROF. TAXI 588-0035 TAXI D.T.S. 587-2300 SERVICE AUA 583-3232 A1 TAXI SERVICES 587-8850

280-2828

CRUISE SHIP

_________________________________207134

For Sale Motivated Owner: Casa del Mar 2B/2B Suites.

Wk. 1/1408($20,000); Wk. 2/1113($20,000); Wk. 5/1315($22,500) & 1521($25,000); Wk. 6/1315($22,500) & 1521($25,000); Wk. 7/1308 & 1408($22,500); Wk. 8/1113, 1408 & 1409($17,500); Wk. 9/1218($18,500); Wk. 10/1207($18,500); Wk. 11/1419($16,500); Wk. 12/1419($16,500); Wk. 13/1509($15,000); Wk. 14/1308($15,000); Wk. 15/1217($13,000).

CDMOwner@gmail.com U.S.(860) 992-3890. ______________________206879

March 15 Adventure of the Seas Caribbean Princess Silver Spirit March 16 Norwegian Pearl / Carnival Vista

Aruba Airport 524-2424 American Airlines 582-2700 Avianca 588-0059 Aruba Airlines 583-8300 Jet Blue 588-2244 582-7896 Surinam Venezolana 583-7674

Aruba Foundation For those Visually Incapasitated Tel. 582-5051 AL-ANON group Sabana Liber #8, Noord Tel. 736-2952 or 593-7081

FUNDACIONS Respetami Tel. 582-4433

FOR SALE Casa del Mar Ambassador Unit 1329 weeks 9 & 10 deeded same room no moving for sale asking $8,500 per week on island until 3/22 obo E-mail: tdon310@netscape.net

Centro Diabetic Arubano Tel. 524-8888

FOR SALE Divi Village Golf Villas week 9 unit; 2224, Birdie IV;34 weeks remaining.

Contact Hugh at 613-599-5355 for details.

Women in Difficulties Foundation Tel. 583-5400

Narcotics Anonymous Tel. 583-8989 QUOTA Club Tel. 525-2672

_________________________________207121

________________________________207107

Bloodbank Aruba Tel. 587-0002

A28 SCIENCE

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Despite poaching, South Africa plans for rhino horn trade CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s government is moving ahead with plans to allow a domestic trade and limited export of rhino horns, alarming many international conservationists who believe rhinos will be more vulnerable to poachers after a record slaughter in the past decade.

Draft regulations would allow a foreigner with permits to export “for personal purposes” a maximum of two rhino horns. Critics argue that any exported horns would be hard to monitor and likely would end up on the commercial market, defying global agreements to protect threatened rhino populations.

Most of the world’s rhinos live in South Africa. An international ban on trade in rhino horns has been in place since 1977, and South Africa imposed a moratorium on the domestic trade in 2009, when rhino poaching was accelerating to meet

In this Wednesday, March 8, 2017 photo, three rhinos line up at the Welgevonden Game Reserve in the Limpopo province, South Africa.

Associated Press

growing demand for horns in parts of Asia, especially Vietnam.

South Africa’s government has lost court battles to preserve the 2009 ban, which was challenged by rhino breeders, and has leaned toward trade, backing a failed proposal by neighboring Swaziland at a U.N. wildlife conference in Johannesburg last year to legalize the international sale of rhino horn.

WE BRING OUR LIVE GIRL ON GIRL SHOW TO YOU

A 30-day period during which the public was invited to express opinions about the draft legislation on rhino horn trade ended Friday, the Department of Environmental Affairs said.

“The comments will be evaluated, the draft regulatory provisions will be revised based on the comments received, and the process for approval of the final legislation will be set in motion,” the department said in an email to The Associated Press.

A foreigner who takes rhino horns out of the country must do so through O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and cannot carry them in hand luggage, according to the draft provisions. They say authorized freight agents must provide authorities

with DNA data and other information related to exported horns. Skeptics believe the system would be open to corruption.

Some consumers in Asia believe rhino horn in powder form can cure illnesses, although there is no evidence that the horn, made of the same substance as human fingernails, has any medicinal value.

Critics say legalization will spur poaching as illegally obtained horns are laundered into the legal market, similar to the exploitation of elephant ivory. Rhino breeders, however, believe poaching would be undercut by a regulated trade, which likely would allow the sale of horn stockpiles and the harvesting of horns from living rhinos.

The poaching is not confined to South Africa.

This month, a 5-year-old white rhinoceros was shot three times in the head by poachers who broke into the Thoiry Zoo near Paris and used a chain saw to remove the rhino’s horn.

“Banning the trade in horn has made the horn more and more and more valuable. Had we never banned it, the price of horn would never have got to where it is now,” said John Hume, a rhino breeder in South Africa. “And that Parisian rhino would have been safe in its zoo be-

cause its horn would have been worth a fraction of what it is.”

Hume described South Africa’s draft legislation on the domestic rhino horn trade as “a step in the right direction.”

But Allison Thomson, a South African campaigner against legalization, said putting rhino horns on the market would increase demand and that South Africa is sending “conflicting messages” about how to deal with poaching, jeopardizing its lucrative wildlife tourism. “The risk we run at the moment is that if we open up trade and poaching escalates we will have no rhinos in the wild. We will only have rhinos on farms, being farmed like cows,” Thomson said.

Poachers killed 1,054 rhinos in South Africa last year, a 10 percent drop from 2015, according to the government. While authorities attributed the decrease to increased security and other anti-poaching measures, some conservationists speculate that there are fewer rhinos to kill. Drought also killed some rhinos in the past year.

By some estimates, South Africa has nearly 20,000 rhinos, or 80 percent of Africa’s population. Asia has several rhino species, including two that are critically endangered.q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Wednesday 15 March 2017

In sensation of ‘Get Out,’ hints of a Trump-effect

JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — There have been monster gorillas and sharp-clawed superheroes at the box office this month, but the biggest beast of them all has been Jordan Peele’s $4.5 million, race-exploding thriller “Get Out.” In just 16 days, Peele’s low-budget self-described “social horror” film has already crossed the $100 million mark. While “Get Out,” made by Blumhouse Productions and released by Universal Pictures, doesn’t match the hefty global totals of “Logan” or “Kong: Skull Island,” few films can touch its extreme profitability — or its firm grip of the zeitgeist. “’Get Out’ isn’t a Redbox, VOD, iTunes movie,” Peele said recently on Twitter. “If you don’t see it with the theater energy, you’ll miss the full intended experience.”

And moviegoers have taken the advice. “Get Out” made $21.1 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, bringing its total to $111 million. Whereas most movies — especially horror films — drop considerably after opening weekend, “Get Out” has barely slipped. It dropped about 15 percent after its first weekend, and 25 percent after its second.

“Get Out,” which is the directorial debut of the for-

In this Feb. 9, 2017 photo, Jordan Peele poses for a portrait at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles to promote his film, “Get Out.” Associated Press

mer “Key and Peele” star, first led the box office the same weekend “Moonlight” won best picture at the Academy Awards. It also follows the spectacular success of the Oscar-nominated “Hidden Figures,” which has made more than $160 million since its No. 1 wide-release debut in early January.

For those who still cling to the old stereotype that films led by black actors are limited at the box office, 2017 is making an already difficult to defend notion downright ridiculous.

And “Get Out” has done it without a big name; it stars British actor Daniel Kaluuya

as an African-American photographer whose white girlfriend (Allison Williams) brings him home to meet her family (Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener).

“It’s time to put to bed the idea that movies with any kind of cast don’t perform at the box office. The only thing audiences care about is whether a movie is good or not,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore.

The success of “Get Out,” Dergarabedian says, has been driven by its quality (at 99 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s the best-reviewed film of the year), its capacity to enter-

tain and its ability to remain in the conversation. “You can’t just put this movie in a box,” he says.

And audiences for “Get Out” have been notably diverse, with 39 percent black, 36 percent white and 17 percent Latino on opening weekend.

In some ways, “Get Out” — where deep and violent racism is papered over by smiles and protests of liberal enlightenment — suggests the movie theater is already a different place since before Donald Trump’s presidency. Peele conceived of his movie years ago as a rebuke to the Obama-era idea of a

post-racial America, but it has struck many as an unusually timely film. “’Get Out’ shows how the public racism of (the civil rights era) has hidden itself by burrowing like a ravenous tapeworm into the bowels of America, growing fatter each year as it feeds off good intentions and bad faith,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote in a Hollywood Reporter column that called “Get Out” “’Invasion of the Black Body Snatchers’ for the Trump era.”

The comedy website FunnyOrDie made even more direct parallels, re-cutting the film’s trailer to put Trump — who has defended himself as “the least racist person that you ever met” — in the father’s role and Ivanka as the daughter. It’s been watched by more than 3.6 million.

Audiences have recently been showing a hunger for films that confront race issues head-on. Raoul Peck’s Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” has made $5.8 million since opening last month, an exceptional result for any documentary, particularly a literary-minded one. Ava Duvernay’s Oscar-nominated documentary about the historical roots of mass incarceration, “The 13th,” has also been a hit on Netflix.q

Funny, first novel about freshman love at Harvard

ANN LEVIN Associated Press “The Idiot,” Elif Batuman’s beautifully written first novel, is a wry, funny comingof-age story set at the dawn of email among a group of Harvard brainiacs too nerdy and self-involved to even think about sex, drugs and drinking, the usual pastimes of college students.

The heroine, Selin Karadag, is the good-hearted, naive yet preternaturally wise daughter of Turkish immigrants. When the story begins, she is shopping for classes and getting to know her overachieving

roommates.

Over the course of the novel she will fall helplessly in love with an older boy named Ivan in her Russian language class. She will even travel to his native Hungary to teach English over the summer in the hope of spending time with him.

Their tortured but chaste relationship develops largely through the new medium of email. And when she isn’t musing about such things as the difference between Noam Chomsky’s view of language and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, she agonizes over his cryptic

emails.

Readers figure out long before Selin that the relationship is doomed. Yet, as must happen in novels of this genre, she endures and emerges a wiser and more spiritually perfect being.

Batuman, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has an extraordinarily deft touch when it comes to sketching character. There’s Selin’s friend Ralph, for instance.

The two met at a summer program for high school students about the Northern European Renaissance.

Ralph is premed but taking art history and thinking about majoring in govern-

ment. The thought of majoring in government is baffling to Selin, who knows she will be a writer. “It wasn’t clear to me what was going to happen to them after college. Were they going to be our rulers?” she wonders.

That deadpan voice, so suited to Harvard Square, gives way to slapstick humor in the latter part of the novel, when she meets her hosts in the Hungarian countryside. Here Batuman captures the antic quality of Americans abroad interacting with non-English speaking locals.

The novel fairly brims with

provocative ideas about language, literature and culture. The title itself pays homage to Dostoyevsky’s namesake novel, whose main character, like Selin, is so good and noble he might be mistaken for an idiot.

And while the plot proceeds at the stately, sometimes tedious, pace of the 19th-century novels Selin is reading for a literature course, you won’t want to miss it — as long as you’re willing to feel empathy for a bunch of superior beings who in one way or another are destined to be our rulers.q

A30 PEOPLE

Wednesday 15 March 2017

& ARTS

Alan Menken on cuts, adds and intimidating Emma Watson LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Composer Alan Menken really wanted to include the song “If I Can’t Love Her” in the new live-action “Beauty and the Beast.”

The soaring ballad, sung by the Beast, was written for the Broadway musical as the closing number before intermission.

“It’s a monumentally good

song. But it is unique to the structure of a stage musical,” Menken said recently.

“I made a few attempts to go, ‘well could it just be right there’ and (lyricist) Tim Rice said to me, ‘it would be like writing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Brazil.’”

So, on the cutting room floor it went, along with some of the other Broadway additions, like “Home” (although some of the mu-

In this March 5, 2017 photo, composer Alan Menken appears at the press junket for “Beauty and the Beast,” at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Associated Press

sic from that song does make it into the new film).

Menken, who won Oscars for his “Beauty” score and also the song “Beauty and the Beast,” knew that this ship was in the hands of director Bill Condon.

“I have to balance being the keeper of the flame of the original and the Broadway show and being an enthusiastic and supportive team member in bringing it into new territory,” Menken said. “With ‘Beauty’ I was blessed to have Bill Condon ... He’s smart, he loves musical theater and he loves ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”

“Beauty” fans need not despair about too many changes, either — all of the songs written by Menken and Howard Ashman for the 1991 animated film are in this new version (out Friday), with a few tweaks and some newly unearthed Ashman lyrics, as well, that attentive listeners might notice in the songs “Gaston” and the closing version of “Beauty and the Beast.”

(Ashman died of complications from AIDS before the animated film was released.)

The cuts also made room for three new songs from Menken and Rice, including a more fitting ballad for the Beast, “Evermore,” sung after he lets Belle go.

“We had these up numbers and the one ballad so we felt we could afford gentler or more anthem-ic

moments,” Menken said of the new songs. There’s one for the household objects, “Days in the Sun,” and one for Belle’s father Maurice (Kevin Kline), “How Does a Moment Last Forever.”

Menken loves different interpretations of his work.

In his over 30-year career scoring some of the most iconic Disney soundtracks of all time, Menken has seen much of his work live on beyond the screen. He’s had many of his projects adapted into Broadway musicals, including “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin,” which are also on the docket for future live-action renderings.

“I think of myself as an architect,” he said. “I design a structure and other people live in it.”

It’s one of the qualities that makes him such a skilled composer and songwriter.

“His music, I find, is very easy to sing because he’s done all the work for you. You don’t have to put anything on it. It’s all there,” Broadway vet Audra McDonald said. “He’s one of those composers who can grab your heart with a melody, so much so that you don’t even realize it because he’s so simple about it.

You don’t realize that he’s reaching in and taking your heart and ripping it out —or massaging it.”

While much of the supporting cast had some Broadway experience, Menken

acknowledges that leads Emma Watson and Dan Stevens were a bit green in that area.

“They both were a little deer-in-headlights,” Menken said.

Watson, in particular needed space to find her own voice as Belle.

“I’m not used to being an intimidating presence, but I think the composer was a little scary to her so we made sure she had her own vocal coach,” Menken said. “I stepped back, which was fine. The songs speak for themselves. I could always give my notes from a distance.”

For what it’s worth, Watson is now comfortable around Menken.

Menken might have a dozen things going on at any given time, but he can still sit down at a piano and launch into anything from his catalogue. You name a lyric and he’ll finish it without pause. The impact of his work on generations of children is not lost on him. Now, in addition to a handful of ongoing projects, including international runs of many of his stage productions, Menken is gearing up to do it all over again and work on the live action “Little Mermaid” with Lin-Manuel Miranda (who he’s known since Miranda was a child).

As for “Beauty”? “People are very grateful that we didn’t screw it up,” he laughs.q

PEOPLE & ARTS

A31

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Prosecutor: Film’s edit of Ferguson video distorts incident

In this Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015, file photo, Stephen Hillenburg attends the world premiere of “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water” at AMC Lincoln Square in New York.

Associated Press

‘SpongeBob’ creator says he has Lou Gehrig’s disease

The Associated Press The creator of Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” says he has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Stephen Hillenburg tells Variety he’ll continue to work on the show and his other passions for as long as he’s able.

Lou Gehrig’s disease is also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. It’s a progressive disease that attacks nerve cells that control the muscles. There is no known cure. The 55-year-old Hillenburg is a former marine biology teacher who created the series featuring an animated sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea in 1999.

Nickelodeon says in a statement to Variety that Hillenburg “is a brilliant creator who brings joy to millions of fans” and its “thoughts and support” are with Hillenburg and his family.

‘SNL’ ‘Weekend Update’ segment gets summer prime-time run

In this March 4, 2017 photo provided by NBC, Colin Jost and Michael Che, right, appear during Weekend Update segment of “Saturday Night Live” in New York.

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Saturday Night Live” gets the summer off, but “Weekend Update” will keep the political satire coming in prime time.

NBC said Tuesday that four episodes of “Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update” will air at 9 p.m. Thursday starting Aug. 10. Michael Che and Colin Jost, who anchor the segment, will be joined by other “SNL” cast members, the network said. “Weekend Update” has ventured away from its late-night turf into prime time before, but political tumult makes it an especially ripe opportunity for the faux newscast. “SNL” is enjoying a ratings bounce from milking President Donald Trump’s election and the early days of his administration.

JIM SALTER Associated Press FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A prosecutor was critical Monday of store surveillance footage from a new documentary about the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, calling it a heavily edited attempt to distort an incident that occurred several hours before Brown died in an encounter with a police officer.

Filmmaker Jason Pollock responded by calling St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch a “master of deception” and standing by the video shown in his documentary “Stranger Fruit.”

McCulloch released five surveillance videos from the early hours of Aug. 9, 2014, at Ferguson Market & Liquor that he said are unedited and tell a different story than filmmakers suggest.

The footage as it appears in the documentary “was clearly an attempt to distort this and turn it into something it isn’t,” McCulloch said at a news conference. He added that it was potentially dangerous, setting off a Sunday night protest of about 100 people that included reports of shots fired and the arrest of a man accused of trying to blow up a police car by putting a napkin in the gas tank and trying to light it. Henry Stokes, 44, was charged Monday with attempting to cause a catastrophe.

On Monday night, a few dozen protesters gathered peacefully outside Ferguson Market while police officers guarded the store.

Pollock said there was no deceptive editing.

“He’s trying to make it seem like I did something that I didn’t,” Pollock said of McCulloch on Monday in a phone interview. “He’s a master at deception, I’ll give him that, and he tricked the world for a long time, but he can’t trick us now. Because anybody who sees that video knows exactly what they see.”

Brown, a black, unarmed

St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, left, speaks during a press conference on Monday, March 13, 2017, at the St. Louis County Justice Center to address the latest video just released that shows Michael Brown at the Ferguson Market the night before he was shot.

Associated Press

18-year-old, was fatally shot by a white officer, Darren Wilson, shortly after noon on Aug. 9, 2014. The shooting set off months of sometimes violent protests. Wilson was eventually cleared of wrongdoing by both a St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Within days of Brown’s death, Ferguson police released surveillance video from Ferguson Market purporting to show Brown stealing cigarillos from the store shortly before noon.

He left the store and was walking on Canfield Drive when Wilson told him to get on the sidewalk and off the street — the beginning of their fatal confrontation.

The documentary, which premiered Saturday, includes earlier and previously unseen surveillance footage showing Brown inside the store at 1:14 a.m. getting what appears to be two drinks from a cooler, then going to the counter and requesting cigarillos. The clerk puts the drinks and cigarillos in a bag.

Brown gives something to a clerk, who appears to sniff it. A second clerk also sniffs what appears to be a small bag. Brown starts to leave but then returns to the counter, talks to the clerks and leaves without the bag containing the drinks and cigarillos.

Pollock said he believes the

footage shows Brown trading a small amount of marijuana in exchange for the cigarillos. Pollock reasons Brown returned 10 hours later to pick up the bag of cigarillos that he simply had set aside earlier — not to steal cigarillos as police claimed. Jay Kanzler, an attorney for Ferguson Market, said there was no bartered deal between Brown and the market workers.

Kanzler said Brown offered marijuana for cigarillos, but the workers refused.

McCulloch agreed “there was no transaction between Mr. Brown and the store employees.”

“And the suggestion that he’s coming back to pick up what he bartered for is just stupid,” McCulloch said.

The grainy unedited footage, which has no sound and also was released by Kanzler, shows a clerk pulling both boxes of cigarillos from the bag after Brown leaves and putting them back on a shelf. Another worker takes the drinks back toward the cooler.

Pollock said those actions are not relevant.

“I didn’t edit the exchange,” Pollock said. “I decided to end my scene after Michael left the store because after that it is irrelevant what happened to the (cigarillos) and it is irrelevant what they (the clerks) did with them.