Southwest Journalist, May 31, 2013

INSIDE: Superman’s 75th anniversary rocks comic culture Page 6 Friday, May 31, 2013

The University of Texas at Austin

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Storms wrack the midwest

Charlie Riedel/ Associated Press

Tina Taylor salvages items at her brother-in-law’s tornado-ravaged home Saturday in Moore, Okla. On Thursday, less than two weeks after the Moore tornado killed 24 people, the National Weather Service reported three tornadoes in Oklahoma, one in Tulsa, another near Perkins and a third near Ripley. Another tornado touched ground

near Oden, Ark., where nine people were reported injured. Thursday’s tornadoes were much less dangerous than the EF5 storm that struck Moore. The U.S. averages more than 1,200 tornadoes a year, but top-of-the-scale storms like the one in Moore — with winds of more than 200 mph — happen only about once a year.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE

Falling deficit could delay faceoff Frequently asked questions reveal projections for the economy TOM RAUM Associated Press

WASHINGTON — As the U.S. recovery slowly gathers steam, federal deficits are finally coming down from their $1-trillionplus heights. That will postpone a new budget showdown between Congress and the White House until fall, and also probably will delay the days of reckoning, feared by millions of aging Americans, when Social Security and Medicare become insolvent.

Why does it matter? Because if those programs’ money dries up, benefits must

be reduced.

Some answers on future financial prospects should come today when trustees overseeing the two programs issue their annual report. Last year, they projected that Medicare funds would run dry in 2024 and Social Security’s would follow in 2033.

The trustees have steadily been moving those dates closer, as almost 10,000 baby boomers a day have been reaching retirement age and qualifying for benefits.

What next? Ahead of the report, here are some questions and answers about the outlook for the two biggest federal programs.

MODERN FAMILIES

Q: Will Friday’s report show an improvement in light of the government’s budget advances?

A: Probably only a small one, given continued general weakness in the economy.

“The relatively good news on the budget front could well translate into at least slightly better projections,” said Paul Van de Water, an analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank. “There are so many moving parts to these projections that I never want to go out on a limb. But there is certainly some reason to be slightly optimistic.”

In the meantime, the economy is far from healed, with sluggish growth and a 7.5 percent unemployment rate still way above pre-recession levels of about 5 percent.

Q: With the army of retiring baby boomers, what are the future prospects for Social Security and Medicare?

A: “The real problem starts about 2017 or 2018, when the deficits start going up again,” veteran budget analyst Stanley Collender said. Few fixes are under serious Please see DEFICIT, Page 2

BOSTON BOMBING

Tsarnaevs profess innocence Bombing suspect continues recovery, talks to parents for first time since arrest MAX SEDDON Associated Press

Jeff Chiu / Associated Press

Joyce Chen, a single mother and occupational therapist who lives in San Francisco, credits a network of friends from church with helping her as she raises her daughter, Kathryn, 10. But she says she believes a single mother can do just as good a job raising a child as two parents can.

More women opting for single motherhood, according to survey JENNIFER AGIESTA Associated Press

As Christy Everson neared age 40, she made a decision: She was single and wanted to raise a child, even if it meant doing it all alone.

Her daughter, conceived via an anonymous sperm donor, is now 2 1/2 years old, and Everson hopes to have a second child.

“Was it worthwhile? Well, I’m thinking of doing it again, aren’t I?” she said.

Everson and women like her are part of a shift in American society. An Associated Press-WE TV poll of people younger than 50 found 42 percent of unmarried women would consider having a child without a partner. Of those,

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37 percent would also consider adopting solo.

A U.S. Census Bureau report shows that single motherhood is on the rise. Of the 4.1 million women who gave birth in 2011, 36 percent were unmarried at the time, an increase from 31 percent in 2005. Among mothers 20 to 24, the figure was 62 percent.

The AP-WE TV poll also found that only 26 percent of Americans think the growing variety of family arrangements is bad for society. However, many have some qualms about single mothers, with about two-thirds — or 64 percent — saying single women Please see FAMILIES, Page 2

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — The remaining living suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has recovered enough to walk and assured his parents in a phone conversation that he and his slain brother were innocent, their mother told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, walked without a wheelchair to speak to his mother last week for the first and only phone conversation they have had since he has been in custody, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told the AP. In a rare glimpse at his state of mind, the young man told his mother he was getting better and

Tsarnaev

Tsarnaev

that he had a very good doctor, but was struggling to understand what happened, she said.

“He didn’t hold back his emotions either, as if he were screaming to the whole world: ‘What is this? What’s happening?’,” she said.

His older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed

in a shootout with police, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains in a prison hospital after being badly wounded.

“I could just feel that he was being driven crazy by the unfairness that happened to us, that they killed our innocent Tamerlan,” their mother said, standing by the family’s insistence that their sons are innocent.

The suspects’ parents met the AP in their new apartment in a 14-story building in a well-to-do area of Makhachkala, the capital of the restive Caucasus province of Dagestan.

Anzor Tsarnaev, the suspects’ father, said they bought it for TaPlease see BOMBING, Page 2

CHEMICAL HAZARDS

Facilities under scrutiny nationwide DINA CAPPIELLO Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Fears of terrorism have made it harder than ever for citizens to find out what dangerous chemicals lurk in their backyards, The Associated Press has found. Secrecy and shoddy record-keeping has kept the public and emergency workers in the dark about stockpiles of explosive material.

A monthlong reporting effort by the AP, drawing upon public records in 28 states, found more than 120 facilities within a potentially devastating blast zone of schoolchildren, the elderly and the sick. But how many others ex-

ist nationwide is a mystery, as other states refused to provide data.

People living near these facilities who want to know what hazardous materials they store would also have to request the information from state environmental agencies or emergency management offices. County emergency management officials would also have it. The federal government does not have a central database, and while the Homeland Security Department has a list of ammonium nitrate facilities, it does not share it because of security concerns.

Until the fertilizer company in West blew up last month and de-

molished scores of homes, many in that town didn’t know what chemicals were stored alongside the railroad tracks or how dangerous they were. Even some of the rescue workers did not know what they were up against.

“We never thought of an explosive potential,” said Dr. George Smith, the EMS director who responded to the factory fire.

It is a peculiarity of the post9/11 age that Americans are more likely to be hurt from chemical or industrial accidents, such as the one in Texas, than from terrorist attacks, such as the one in Boston.

Please see CHEMICALS, Page 2

5/31/13 12:09 AM

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Page 2 —

Friday, May 31, 2013

Dow Jones interns spread their wings Eleven college students and recent graduates are headed to paid copy editing internships on daily newspapers after completing 10 days of intensive preparation at The University of Texas at Austin.

The interns are among a select group of undergraduate and graduate students placed in internships in copy editing, sports copy editing, business reporting and digital journalism.

The Dow Jones News Fund, a foundation of the Dow Jones Company, and participating news­papers and new media services work together to fund the competitive national program.

More than 600 students applied for the program. Applicants were required to take a test and complete an extensive application before being considered.

The School of Journalism at UT Austin, one of five pre-internship training sites for print and online copy editors and designers, has been part of the News Fund program since 1998. Participants in the UT workshop were involved in newspaper copy editing, design and production assignments and operated a parallel online news operation.

Newspaper professionals, visiting faculty and UT journalism faculty moderated the sessions in this 16th residency program at UT Austin.

In the latter half of the preinternship training, participants

produced three issues of a live, model newspaper, the Southwest Journalist, as well as a companion online product, swjournalist.com.

The Austin American-Statesman provided printing services for the newspaper.

Participants in the UT Austin workshop, including universities and host news organizations, are: • Carrie Blazina, Kent State University, The Denver Post • Samantha Clark, San Jose State University, San Francisco Chronicle • Ashley Rene Davis, Baylor University, The Beaumont Enterprise • Brooks Johnson, the University of Montana, Idaho Falls Post Register • Danae Lenz, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, The Dallas Morning News • Laurence Leveille, Syracuse University, The Oregonian • Maribel Molina, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin American-Statesman • Forrest Roth, the University of Oregon, Bay Area News Group • Emily Siner, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Los Angeles Times • Rachel Stella, Lewis University, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

• Natalie Webster, the University of Texas at Arlington, Alabama Media Group

Bradley Wilson /Southwest Journalist

Dow Jones News Fund interns spent 10 days honing their skills at the University of Texas workshop.

Front row: Maribel Molina, Laurence Leveille and Samantha Clark. Second row: Emily Siner, Rachel Stella, Griff Singer (faculty), Natalie Webster and George Sylvie (faculty). Third row: Bradley Wilson, Beth Butler, Amy Zerba (all faculty), Danae Lenz, Carrie Blazina and Forrest Roth. Back: Brooks Johnson and Ashley Rene Davis.

They will serve internships of 10-14 weeks. Grants from the News Fund and contributions from participating newspapers cover the cost of the participants’ pre-internship training, to include housing, meals, transportation and instruction.

Participating newspapers also pay interns a weekly wage for their work during the internship.

Students returning to their universities after the internships are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship provided by the News Fund.

Leading the UT workshop were S. Griffin Singer, director; George Sylvie, assistant director; and Lourdes Jones and Sonia ReyesKrempin, administrative associates of the School of Journalism.

Faculty included Beth Butler, assistant workshop director, from Kent State University; Bradley Wilson, assistant professor of journalism at Midwestern State University; Amy Zerba, a staff editor of The New York Times; Linda Shockley, deputy director of the News Fund, Princeton, N.J.

Drew Marcks, senior editor of the Austin American-Statesman, coordinated the interns’ visit to that newspaper. Other newspaper training centers were at Temple University, the University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Nebraska. Digital journalism workshops were held at Arizona State University and Western Kentucky University, and a business reporting workshop was conducted at New York University.

DEFICIT: Secure benefits may suffer from inactive Congress —Continued from Page 1

Charlie Riedel / Associated Press

The West Fertilizer Company’s plant was reduced to mangled debris by an explosion of ammonium nitrate on April 17. Residents were largely unaware of the danger, and information on facilities such as the one in West is difficult or impossible to obtain.

CHEMICALS: Terrorism worries fueled secretive record-keeping practices —Continued from Page 1 Yet information intended to keep people safe is concealed in the name of keeping people safe.

At least 60 facilities around the country reported to state regulators as having about as much or more ammonium nitrate than the 540,000 pounds West Fertilizer Co. said it had at some point last year. The AP contacted 20 of the facilities individually to confirm the information, and three companies disputed the records.

More than half a dozen states,

including Ohio, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho and South Carolina refused to provide such information to the AP, citing the risk of terrorist attacks and their interpretations of federal law.

In the states that provided verifiable data, the AP’s analysis found more than 600,000 people who live within a quarter-mile of a facility, a potential blast zone if as little as 190 tons of ammonium nitrate is detonated. More often than not, census data show, the danger zones are middle-class or poor neighborhoods.

In the western Michigan farming town of Shelby, state records show that the town’s branch of the Helena Chemical Co. reported storing as much as 1 million pounds of ammonium nitrate last year.

Tim Horton, a real estate agent who sits on the local hospital board and the Shelby Area Chamber of Commerce, did not know how much ammonium nitrate the factory holds.

“I would say people don’t know and don’t care,” he said. “Ignorance is bliss.”

BOMBING: Father of suspect’s friend says FBI executed son —Continued from Page 1 merlan Tsarnaev, his wife, and their young daughter in the expectation that they would move to Makhachkala later this year.

He added that they planned to turn their old home into a dentist’s office, so that his younger son, a dental hygiene student, could work out of it after completing his studies.

Meanwhile, the father of a Chechen immigrant killed in Florida while being interrogated by the FBI about his ties to Dzhokar’s slain brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, maintained that the U.S. agents killed his son “executionstyle.”

At a news conference in Moscow, Abdul-Baki Todashev, the

father of 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev accused agents of being “bandits” who executed his son.

The FBI says Ibragim Todashev was being questioned by an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state troopers about his ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as well as a 2011 triple slaying in Massachusetts.

Abdul-Baki Todashev showed journalists 16 photographs that he said were of his son in a Florida morgue. He said his son had six gunshot wounds to his torso and one to the back of his head.

The pictures were taken by Ibragim’s friend, Khusen Taramov.

It was not immediately possible to authenticate the photographs.

Three law enforcement officials said initially that Ibragim Todashev had lunged at the FBI agent with a knife, although two

of them later said it was no longer clear what had happened.

The FBI wouldn’t comment on the claims made by Todashev’s father.

Todashev’s father said his son moved to the U.S. in 2008 on a study exchange program and met the older Tsarnaev brother at a boxing gym in Boston in 2011.

He said the two were “not particularly close friends.”

Abdul-Baki Todashev said his son told him he thought Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been set up to take the blame for the bombings.

Seddon reported from Moscow.

Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie in Boston and Kyle Hightower in Orlando contributed.

consideration in Congress.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has proposed major revisions to the structure of Medicare. And President Barack Obama wants to alter the formula for automatic costof-living Social Security increases that would result in lower future benefit increases. But neither proposal has gained much traction.

Q: What if no agreement is reached between the White House and Congress to guarantee the future solvency of Social Security and Medicare?

A: If funds are exhausted, the two programs will find themselves collecting only enough money in payroll taxes to pay partial benefits to the millions of American recipients. Payroll taxes are in addition to — and collected along with — your federal income taxes.

Q: What will forced reductions mean in dollar terms for those receiving benefits?

A: The Social Security trustees have suggested that once the reserves are gone, incoming payroll taxes will cover about 75 percent of the program’s promised benefits. That could mean an immediate 25 percent cut in benefits. That

would reduce the average monthly Social Security check, now $1,266, to roughly $950 a month. Medicare’s giant hospital fund could pay only 87 percent of costs.

Q: How likely is this to happen?

A: Such deep mandatory cuts seem highly unlikely, given the political heat that would be sure to rise if the deadline were nearing and the White House and Congress were failing to act. A compromise to avoid a cut in benefits seems inevitable. But as recent events have shown, finding common ground is increasingly difficult in Washington.

Q: Won’t any improvement in Social Security and Medicare finances just let Congress “kick the can down the road” again?

A: Today’s Congress does have a history of procrastinating. Its inability to find common ground on spending cuts by the March 1 deadline resulted in the “sequester” of automatic spending cuts that are trimming $42 billion from government programs through Oct. 1. Social Security and Medicare were exempted.

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Martin Crutsinger contributed.

FAMILIES: Women weigh effects of motherhood on their careers —Continued from Page 1 having children is bad for society.

The poll found broad gender gaps on many issues. One example: Women were more apt than men to say having children has negatively impacted their career.

But for Joyce Chen, a hospital occupational therapist in San Francisco, it is a question of what kind of career she wants. Chen, 41, a single mother, is happy to have a career that she enjoys and one that she can balance easily with caring for her 10-year-old daughter.

“I’ve been blessed,” she said. “I have a decent income. I don’t feel like I need to climb the ladder.”

But Chen feels that a single mom can do just as good a job of raising a child as two parents can.

The poll found decidedly mixed results on that question: Thirty

percent of respondents said yes, 27 percent said no, and 43 percent said “it depends.”

In the poll, 76 percent of women without children said it was important for them to reach certain career goals before starting a family. At 26, Jacqueline Encinias is at a much less established point in her career. A married mother of a month-old baby in Albuquerque, N.M., she aims to go back to school. For now, though, she said she is “just looking for something to get me by.”

Encinias said she would probably not have made the choice to be a mother alone.

“I wouldn’t want my child to grow up with just one parent,” she said.

AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

2013 Dow Jones News Fund Interns Carrie Blazina

Volume 16 — May 22-31, 2013 Center for Editing Excellence School of Journalism The University of Texas at Austin S. Griffin Singer

Director UT Center for Editing Excellence

George Sylvie

Assistant Director UT Center for Editing Excellence

Beth Butler

Assistant Director Kent State University

p1-2_053113.indd 2

Lourdes Jones Sonia Reyes-Krempin

Administrative Associates UT Austin School of Journalism

Drew Marcks

Faculty Austin American-Statesman

Kent State University The Denver Post

Samantha Clark

San Jose State University The San Francisco Chronicle

Ashley Rene Davis

Linda Shockley

Baylor University The Beaumont Enterprise

Bradley Wilson

University of Montana The Idaho Falls Post Register

Faculty Dow Jones News Fund

Faculty Midwestern State University

Amy Zerba

Faculty The New York Times

Brooks Johnson

Laurence Leveille

Syracuse University The Oregonian, Portland

Danae Lenz

Emily Siner

University of Illinois The Los Angeles Times

Rachel Stella

University of NebraskaLincoln The Dallas Morning News

Lewis University The Tribune, San Luis Obispo

Maribel Molina

University of Texas at Arlington Alabama Media Group

University of Texas at Austin Austin American-Statesman

Natalie Webster

Forrest Roth

University of Oregon Bay Area News Group

The Southwest Journalist is a teaching publication of the Dow Jones News Fund and the Center for Editing Excellence at The University of Texas at Austin. The Southwest Journalist is edited and designed by students attending the 2013 pre-internship training program funded by a grant from the News Fund and news organizations hosting the interns. Printing of the Southwest Journalist by the Austin American-Statesman is gratefully acknowledged.

5/31/13 12:15 AM

I NTE R NAT IO NA L

Friday, May 31, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

Indian issues intensify in Chile

VILCUN, Chile — The arson deaths of an elderly couple in their ranch home on land claimed by Mapuche Indians have cast a cold light on the indigenous group’s struggle in southern Chile’s Araucania region.

Chile’s government has spent decades trying to appease Mapuche demands, but violence has only increased. Many blame Mapuche extremists and police overreaction for the current impasse.

In the past five years, reported acts of violence from the Mapuche struggle have escalated 10 times over, prompting a police response that the indigenous group says has been heavy-handed and abusive.

Now, Chile’s government is at an impasse about how to ease tensions. In the last three years, it has returned 25,000 acres to the Mapuche and encouraged timber companies and other landowners to let people till small plots.

— Page 3

SYRIA

Confident Assad sees victory Retaliation promised if Israel attacks; Russia missile sale protested BASSEM MROUE Associated Press

BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Thursday that he is “confident in victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned that Damascus would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory.

Assad also told the Lebanese TV station Al-Manar that Russia has fulfilled some of its weapons contracts recently, but he was vague

on whether this included advanced S-300 air defense systems.

The comments were in line with a forceful message the regime has been sending in recent days, even as the international community attempts to launch a peace conference in Geneva, possibly next month.

Syria indicated it is ready to attend a conference in principle, but the opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said earlier Thursday that it would not attend.

An animated Assad said he has been confident since conflict started two years ago that he would be able to defeat his opponents.

“Regarding my confidence about victory, had we not had this confidence, we wouldn’t have been able to fight in this battle for two years, facing an international attack,” he said.

He warned that Syria would strike back against any future Israeli airstrike.

When Israel struck near Damascus earlier this month, Syria did not respond.

Russia’s S-300 missiles would significantly boost Syria’s air defenses and are seen as a gamechanger, but Assad was unclear whether Syria had received a first shipment.

He said Russia’s weapons ship-

EGYPT

UK

Slaying suspect appears in court

Sunni-Shiite violence resurgence worries officials BAGHDAD — Officials in Iraq are growing increasingly concerned about an unabated spike in violence that claimed at least another 33 lives Thursday and is reviving fears of a return to widespread sectarian fighting.

Authorities announced plans to impose a sweeping ban on many cars across the Iraqi capital starting early Friday in an apparent effort to thwart car bombings, as the United Nations envoy to Iraq warned that “systemic violence is ready to explode.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, was shown on state television visiting security checkpoints around Baghdad the previous night as part of a three-hour inspection tour, underscoring the government’s efforts to show it is acting to curtail the bloodshed.

Iraqi security forces are struggling to contain the country’s most relentless round of violence since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal.

The rise in violence follows months of protests against the Shiite-led government by Iraq’s Sunni minority, many of whom say they have been marginalized and unfairly treated since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Pope walks in procession, unlike predecessors ROME — Pope Francis has again broken with the practice of his predecessors, walking the full length of the annual 1-mile procession from one Roman basilica to another.

The 76-year-old Francis, who walks with a slight limp because of apparent lower back pain, paused several times in prayer during the 45-minute nighttime walk between St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major.

Thousands of pilgrims holding candles lined the route on a chilly spring evening.

During his nearly eight-year pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI would make the annual Corpus Domini procession riding on a specially outfitted flat-top pickup truck, kneeling in prayer. Pope John Paul II did the same in his final years.

On Thursday, two priests knelt on the truck in prayer before the Eucharist while Francis walked behind them.

Taliban backs off talks after drone kills deputy leader PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban withdrew their offer of peace talks Thursday following the death of the group’s deputy leader in an American drone attack, a spokesman for the group said. The withdrawal is a blow to the incoming government of Nawaz Sharif that was elected partly on promises to restore security after years of deadly attacks.

The death of Waliur Rehman, wanted by the U.S. for a 2009 attack in Afghanistan that killed seven people working for the CIA, also focuses attention on the controversial U.S. drone program.

Despite President Barack Obama’s sweeping promise last week of new transparency, Wednesday’s strike against a longtime American target shows that the CIA will still launch attacks on militants without having to explain them publicly.

The announcement by the Pakistani Taliban came amid conflicting reports about whether the Islamic militant movement had selected a replacement for Rehman, who was killed Wednesday.

––Associated Press

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ments are not linked to the Syrian conflict.

“We have been negotiating with them about different types of weapons for years, and Russia is committed to Syria to implement these contracts,” he said.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Israel considered the S-300s in Syrian hands a threat and signaled it was prepared to use force to stop delivery.

Russia rejected U.S. and Israel requests to cancel the sale. The coalition’s decision not to attend the talks could torpedo the only peace plan the international community has been able to rally behind.

Police ban protest march in brutal death of soldier CASSANDRA VINOGRAD Associated Press

Hassan Ammar / Associated Press

Farhan Amir, 70, father of Romani Farhan Amir, listens as a Catholic priest leads a recent prayer service for the soul of his son in the family home 180 miles south of Cairo. Police say Amir jumped to his death in Assiut on May 11, minutes before he was to be questioned about the stabbing of his estranged wife, Azza Willia, who fled, then reappeared, declaring she had converted to Islam.

Conversion sensitivities Religious intolerance rises under new regime HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press

ASSIUT, Egypt — In one case, an Egyptian Christian man stabs his wife after she converts to Islam with the support of hard-line Islamists. After surrendering to police, he dies in mysterious circumstances.

At about the same time, a Muslim woman in another village converts to Christianity and elopes with a Christian man. A crowd of Muslims attacks the local church in outrage. Police arrest the Christian man’s family.

The two instances illustrate the sensitivities around conversions in Egypt, but they also demonstrate discrepancies in how the cases are treated.

Christians say powerful Islamist hard-liners have stepped up efforts to get Christians to embrace Islam. Meanwhile, the rare cases of Muslims turning to Christianity often bring violence against the community.

That has heightened Christians’ sense of siege amid the increasing influence of Islamists

since the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Ibram Louiz, an activist who tracks conversions and disappearances of Christian women, estimated about 500 conversions since Mubarak’s fall.

Public conversions to Christianity are far rarer. Technically, it is not illegal for a Muslim to become Christian, but converts have been imprisoned for insulting religion, threatening national security or other charges.

Romani Farhan Amir, an impoverished Christian day laborer, had little choice but to accept when his wife marched into a police station in Assiut, accompanied by members of the hardline Gamaa Islamiya, and registered her conversion to Islam in February.

His family says Amir told police that he did not want her near their children.

When she showed up at the school of one of their sons, he stabbed her.

Amir surrendered. While waiting to be questioned, he fell from

a fourth-story window. Police say he committed suicide.

The other conversion story provides a telling contrast.

A 22-year-old Muslim woman, Rana el-Shenawi, is believed to have converted, fleeing with a Coptic Christian.

In retaliation, Muslim mobs attacked the Mar Girgis Church in her hometown of Wasta.

Police detained the father, mother and cousin of Ibram Andrews, the Christian with whom el-Shenawi allegedly eloped.

Salafi groups drummed up a nationwide uproar, warning of a plot to convert Muslims.

In Wasta, the priest of Mar Girgis church, Father Angelos, said he didn’t understand why his church was blamed for elShenawi’s disappearance, because Andrews never attended services there.

“Attacks on churches continue . . . because the culprits act with impunity,” he said. “Generally, we suffered as Christians under Mubarak, but nowhere near what is happening to us now.”

LONDON — A prime suspect in the vicious slaying of a British soldier sat in court Thursday, allowed not to stand due to wounds received when he was shot by police.

Michael Adebowale, 22, is one of two men suspected of attacking Lee Rigby near a military barracks in southeast London. The other suspect, 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo, remains hospitalized and will not been charged until he recovers enough to be released from the hospital.

The attack on Rigby by two men wielding knives and meat cleavers has created tensions in Britain, especially since Adebolajo — carrying bloody weapons — invited onlookers to film him after the killing as he ranted about the British government’s presence in Muslim lands. There has been a surge in anti-Muslim protests and attacks on mosques since the killing, and far-right groups have mobilized.

London police Thursday barred a planned march by the far-right British National Party from the scene of the attack to a nearby Islamic center because of the threat of “serious disorder.”

The al-Qaida-linked magazine Inspire expressed support for the soldier’s slaying.

Security was extremely tight for Adebowale’s first court appearance. He is scheduled to return to court Monday for another hearing and remains in custody.

Autopsy results made public Wednesday indicated that Rigby, 25, was first struck by a car and then attacked. He died of multiple stab wounds, the report said.

Both suspects were shot by police who arrived on the scene minutes after the attack on the soldier.

EUROPEAN UNION

Deal reached to protect Atlantic fish stocks BARRY HATTON Associated Press

BRUSSELS — Half a century ago, a cook would chop a cod in half because it was simply too big to fit in the oven. Today, most fit easily in the frying pan.

Blame the shrinking dinner plate on industrial overfishing of Europe’s formerly full waters.

On Thursday, though, the European Union backed landmark legislation that could prevent the commercial extinction of some of the continent’s favorite fish.

European parliamentarian Chris Davies did not have to think twice about whether this was the best news for fish in decades.

“Unquestionably yes. It is a complete change of thought,” he said.

Environmental groups have not been as upbeat in years.

“This is a historic deal. It has a commitment to rebuild fish stocks and a legally binding target to end overfishing,” said Uta Bellion of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The plan compels the fishing industry to respect scientific advice on overfishing, to vastly reduce the amount of healthy fish thrown back into the sea and to protect sensitive areas at sea.

“If we carried on, potentially 90 percent of all fish stocks would be unsustainable and at risk within the next decade,” said Davies, a

Francisco Seco / Associated Press

Food store employee Jose Martins shows a piece of dried cod to a customer in downtown Lisbon, Portugal, on Thursday. The European Union recently backed legislation that could prevent the overfishing of fish like cod and sole.

British Liberal Democrat who led the push for change.

North Sea stocks of cod, the emblematic fish in the Atlantic EU waters, have declined by roughly 75 percent over three decades.

A few decades ago, cod could be caught in abundance just off the Belgian coast, and it would be trucked into Brussels fish market within a day.

“Most of my cod is no longer from Belgium, nor from the North

Sea for that matter,” said Sylvie Vandercruys, who runs the Vimar fish restaurant close to where the breakthrough deal was brokered in Brussels. “We get a lot from Norway now.”

Portugal, too, gets a lot from Norway, though the Portuguese once had a major fleet that went far beyond EU waters. And on Lisbon supermarket shelves these days, shoppers will find cod from the Pacific, too.

It has been such a staple for the Portuguese that they call dried, salted cod their “faithful friend.”

Despite the far-flung origins, cod’s place at the table has not diminished.

“We don’t have any cod near us, but nobody cooks cod like us,” said Joao Oliveira, the Grand Master of the Gastronomic Brotherhood of Cod, a group of enthusiasts in northern Portugal.

In Britain, cod has a place in people’s hearts as part of the classic fish and chips combination.

Nowadays, underneath the sizzling batter may be fish brought from half a world away.

“The central problem is not the fishermen, but the regulators,” said Mark Kurlansky, author of the classic “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.”

But under the new plan, overfishing should end by 2015 for most species and by 2020 for all stocks, with a ban on approving catch quotas that are not in line with scientific advice.

“The next generation will have stocks to fish that are in a better state than that they are now,” Irish Marine Minister Simon Coveney said.

The plan still needs the approval of the member states and the European Parliament.

5/30/13 11:47 PM

ARIZONA

NATIONAL

Page 4 —

Friday, May 31, 2013

Group fails to oust sheriff

Organizers do not receive enough voter signatures to push lawman out JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press

PHOENIX — A campaign to force a recall election against the polarizing sheriff of metropolitan Phoenix failed Thursday after recall organizers said they could not collect enough voter signatures to put the lawman on the ballot again.

Organizers of the recall effort against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio needed to turn in more than 335,000 valid voter signatures by 5 p.m. Thursday to force a recall election.

“It is a sad day,” said recall campaign manager Lilia Alvarez. “It is a disappointment.”

Recall organizers will not reveal the numArpaio ber of signatures they gathered. The last update they gave on their numbers five weeks ago was 200,000 signatures.

“The count at this point doesn’t matter,” Alvarez said.

Arpaio issued a statement suggesting that recall organizers are not revealing the number of signatures they gathered because they are embarrassed by the level of their failure.

“This effort failed because the good people of Maricopa County, whom I’m honored to serve, rejected the wrong-headed idea of overturning an election,” Arpaio said.

Arpaio supporters say the sheriff won re-election in November

and senior fellow at Wagner College in New York, said the Arpaio recall effort suffered from too little fundraising, having to collect an unusually high number of voter signatures for a county race and not having an alternative candidate to vote for.

“They are running against Joe Arpaio,” Spivak said. “But who are they electing?”

Arpaio critics had argued that the sheriff should be booted because his office has failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crimes cases, has cost the county $25 million in legal settlements about treatment in county jails and his office was found by a federal judge to have systematically racially profiled Latinos in his signature immigration patrols. Critics say the sheriff is too focused on getting publicity for himself.

In the past, the sheriff has apologized for the bungled sex-crimes investigations and said his office has moved to clear up the cases and has taken steps to prevent a repeat of the problem. He also has denied allegations that his deputies racially profiled people in traffic patrols targeting immigrants who are not authorized to be in the country.

Recall organizers had hoped last week’s racial-profiling ruling would pump new life into their Matt York / Associated Press cause.

Susan Islas collects a signature in an effort to recall Maricopa County “I wish from the bottom of my Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The recall campaign said late Thursday it did not heart that this ruling would have get the 335,000 signatures needed to have the recall election. come out a month earlier,” said Democratic state Rep. Martin publican sheriff started his sixth fair and square and that recall Quezada of Avondale, a supporter organizers should not have been term in January. His November reof the Arpaio recall effort. allowed to contest the election election race marked the second“Had this ruling come out a simply because they did not like closest contest in his 20-year pomonth earlier, who knows how litical career. He beat the closest the outcome. many signatures we would have The recall effort began just candidate by 6 percentage points. gotten,” he said.

Joshua Spivak, a recall expert weeks after the 80-year-old Re-

SPORTS

OSU president blasted for jokes Gee called Notre Dame ‘those damn Catholics’ who cannot be trusted ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The president of Ohio State University said Notre Dame was never invited to join the Big Ten because the university’s priests are not good partners, joking that “those damn Catholics” cannot be trusted, according to a recording of a meeting he attended late last year.

Gordon Gee also took shots at schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville, according to the recording of the December meeting of the school’s Athletic Council that The Associated Press obtained under a public records request.

The university called the statements inappropriate and said Gee is undergoing a “remediation plan” because of the remarks.

Gee was on a long-planned family vacation and not available for comment, Ohio State spokeswoman Gayle Saunders said. He apologized in a statement.

“The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the

university stands for,” he said in the statement.

“They were a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate. There is no excuse for this, and I am deeply sorry.”

Gee, who has taken heat before for uncouth remarks, told members of the council that he negotiated with Notre Dame officials during his first term at Ohio State, which began more than two decades ago.

“The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they’re holy hell on the rest of the week,” Gee said to laughs at the Dec. 5 meeting attended by Athletic Director Gene Smith, other athletic department members, professors and students.

“These statements were inappropriate, were not presidential in nature and do not comport with the core values of the university,” trustee Robert Schottenstein said in a statement.

The Big Ten had for years courted Notre Dame, but the school resisted as it sought to retain its independent status in college football. In September, the school announced that it would join the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football but would play five football games each year against ACC teams.

Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo, Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind., Janet Cappiello in Louisville, Ky., and Stephen Hawkins in Irving, Texas, contributed to this report.

FBI

Carolyn K aster / Associated Press

OSU president Gordon Gee told a university committee last December that Notre Dame was not invited to join the Big Ten because they are not good partners.

son like this,” said former AtAssociated Press torney General John Ashcroft, WASHINGTON — Repub- a Missouri Republican who licans said Thursday they see served in the Senate from 1994no major obstacles to Senate 2000, of his onetime deputy.

Former Solicitor General confirmation of James Comey, Theodore Olson, who the former deputy atserved with Comey torney general in the at the Justice DepartBush administration ment, said Comey is who is expected to be “very smart. He’s a very nominated by Presistraight shooter. He’s dent Barack Obama as the FBI’s kind of perthe next FBI director. son.”

Comey, who would Several Democratic replace Robert Mueller senators, including as head of the national Comey Judiciary Committee security organization, Chairman Patrick Leahy is certain to face tough questions about his work as of Vermont, had no immedia counsel for a major hedge ate comment as they awaited fund and his ties to Wall Street official word from the White as well as how he would handle House.

White House spokesman current, high-profile FBI invesJosh Earnest on Thursday detigations.

But Republicans and Dem- clined to comment on Comey’s ocrats said the former pros- impending nomination, nor ecutor’s strong credentials and would he discuss the timing of sterling reputation suggest his any announcement. path to confirmation should Associated Press writers Pete be relatively smooth.

Yost, Mark Sherman, Alan Comey “is an extraordinary Fram and Nedra Pickler conindividual, and I don’t know tributed to this report. why you wouldn’t want a per-

p4_053113.indd 4

OSU PRESIDENT GORDON GEE

OKLAHOMA CITY — At least three tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma and two more hit Arkansas on Thursday as a powerful storm system moved through the middle of the country, injuring at least nine people.

The National Weather Service reported at least one tornado in the suburb of Broken Arrow; two tornadoes on the ground near Perkins and Ripley in north central Oklahoma; and one west of Oden, Ark. All nine of the injured were in Arkansas; two of the injuries were attributed to a lightning strike in Rogers. Lightning was also said to have started a fire that destroyed two floors of a condominium building in northwestern Indiana.

Motorcycle injuries up with weaker laws in Michigan WASHINGTON — The average medical claim from a motorcycle crash rose by more than one-fifth last year in Michigan after the state stopped requiring all riders to wear helmets, according to an insurance industry study.

Some states have sought to mitigate the repeal or loosening of mandatory helmet laws by setting minimum medical insurance requirements, but “that doesn’t even come close to covering the lifelong care of somebody who is severely brain-injured and who cannot work and who is going to be on Medicaid,” said Jackie Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

Jeff Hennie, vice president of the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, looked at it differently.

“This (the Michigan helmet law change) doesn’t make helmets illegal. ... No one is forcing anyone to ride without a helmet,” he said.

Penn State ex-players, faculty join suit against NCAA BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Nineteen people, from former players to faculty members, a mini-cross section of the Penn State community has partnered with the late head coach Joe Paterno’s family in suing the NCAA to overturn the landmark sanctions against the school for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. They seek a jury trial to reverse what they call the NCAA’s swift and unlawful punishment of the storied football program.

Paul Kelly, an attorney representing trustees, faculty, and former players and coaches, said the action affected “the entire Penn State community.”

NCAA president Mark Emmert — named as a defendant in the lawsuit — said he had not reviewed the filing and declined comment Thursday on individual cases.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at a modest 2.4 percent annual rate from January through March, slightly slower than initially estimated. Consumer spending was stronger than first thought, but businesses restocked more slowly and state and local government spending cuts were deeper.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that economic growth in the first quarter was only marginally below the 2.5 percent annual rate the government had estimated last month.

That is still much faster than the 0.4 percent growth during the October-December quarter.

Most economists think growth is slowing to around a 2 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter as the economy adjusts to federal spending cuts, higher taxes and further global weakness.

Still, many say the decline may not be as severe as once thought.

Solid hiring, surging home prices and record stock gains should keep consumers spending.

Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the small revision to first-quarter

Associated Press

NASA wants to use the Orion space capule, shown above, for deep space missions.

First-quarter growth rate rises less than expected MARTIN CRUTSINGER

DONNA CASSATA

More tornados hit Oklahoma, Arkansas

“The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the university stands for. There is no excuse for this, and I am deeply sorry.”

ECONOMY

Former Bush attorney likely to get director job

NATIONAL

U.S. ECONOMY FACTS ✔✔First-quarter growth rate: 2.4 percent ✔✔First-quarter consumerspending rate: 3.4 percent ✔✔2013 predicted annual growth rate : 2.2 percent ✔✔Consumer spending: 70 percent of economic activity growth supported her view that the economy will grow a moderate 2.2 percent for the year, the same as last year.

Still, Lee expects growth to improve to 3.2 percent in 2014, as the job market accelerates and consumers grow more confident in the economy.

Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity as measured by the gross domestic product. GDP is the economy’s total output of goods and services, from haircuts and computers to trucks and aircraft carriers.

The government’s second look at first-quarter growth showed that consumer spending roared ahead at a 3.4 percent annual rate, the fastest spending growth in more than two years.

High radiation levels pose risk for manned trips to Mars LOS ANGELES — Astronauts traveling to and from Mars would be bombarded with as much radiation as they could get from a full-body CT scan about once a week for a year, researchers reported Thursday.

That dose would, in some cases, exceed NASA’s standards and is enough to raise an astronaut’s cancer risk by 3 percent.

NASA aims to send a crew to orbit the red planet by the mid2030s, and despite the potential health risks, Norm Thagard, the first American to fly on the Russian space station Mir, said there likely won’t be a shortage of astronauts willing to hop on a Mars flight.

Bank-owned homes reach lowest level since 2008 LOS ANGELES — The nation’s foreclosure woes may be easing as the U.S. housing market recovery gains momentum.

Between January and March, sales of bank-owned homes fell 16 percent from the previous three months and were down 23 percent versus the first quarter of 2012, according to foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. Sales of bank-owned homes have not been this low since the first quarter of 2008, the firm said.

Sales of previously occupied homes have risen nearly 10 percent during the past 12 months.

––Associated Press

5/30/13 11:41 PM

TE X A S / SOU T H W E S T

Friday, May 31, 2013

TEXAS/SOUTHWEST

— Page 5

OIL INDUSTRY

Minorities call for revamped redistricting

Texas minority groups blasted the state’s process of considering new political district maps as state officials try to rush to a solution in hopes of avoiding a federal court defeat.

Minority advocates said Thursday that Texas lawmakers are denying poor people outside Austin the chance to testify and that the map versions under consideration would discriminate against minorities.

Minority senators, all Democrats, opposed adopting interim, federal court-drawn maps because the maps did not Seliger guarantee that minorities would have a fair say in the 2014 elections. They said the maps do not reflect, in terms of voting power, that 89 percent of new Texans since 2000 are minorities.

Republican Sen. Kel Seliger, who chairs the Senate Redistricting Committee, contested the discrimination argument, but advocated a public and transparent process for adopting a map and promised to consider amending the interim maps to make them “more legal.” He said he would reject changes solely for political or personal purposes.

2-year-old fatally shoots self in face with 9 mm pistol RUSK — A 2-year-old East Texas boy has died after shooting himself in the face.

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office stated in a news release that the boy’s great-great-grandmother called 911 on Wednesday afternoon.

Details, including how the toddler found the gun, are still under investigation.

According to officials, the boy, who would have turned 3 in July, shot himself with a 9 mm pistol.

Man gets 50-year sentence after $35 rib theft, robbery WACO — A Waco man discovered ribs cost more than money.

Willie Smith Ward, 43, was convicted and sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in prison on robbery charges in connection with the theft of $35 rack of pork ribs.

Ward’s theft became a robbery after he threatened a grocery store employee, who said Ward threatened him with a knife after the employee tried to stop him.

The jury recommended Ward be sentenced as a habitual criminal. He has prior convictions for burglary, attempted robbery, aggravated assault, leaving the scene of an accident and possession of cocaine.

He must serve at least 12.5 years before he is eligible for parole.

Decomposed dogs found under Central Texas bridge BASTROP — Sheriff’s officials are investigating the deaths of at least six decomposed dogs found under a bridge in Red Rock.

Sgt. Tom Neely of the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department said it is difficult to tell what happene.

Officials do not know if the animals were killed or how they died.

He also said they were too decomposed to determine the cause of death.

Ellie Farmer, the owner of one of the dead dogs, found the dogs May 22 after getting a tip from a man who found them.

Farmer identified her dog, a Great Pyrenees named Chazak, because of his black collar. Farmer said she thinks the dog, missing since April 18, was stolen.

Alamo may replace Cotton as top Big 12 bowl IRVING — The Alamo Bowl is close to being top choice for the best Big 12 teams that will not play for the national championship.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Wednesday the league’s future bowl lineup is not complete but sounded confident the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio would replace Dallas’ Cotton Bowl as first destination for teams not in the four-team College Football Playoff in 2014.

Bowlsby said the league had agreed in principle with most slots after current agreements expire following the 2013 season, including a new alliance with a Florida bowl.

The Big 12 also voted Wednesday to become the first conference with an eight-person officiating crew, expanding by one.

The extra official would be opposite the referee on the offensive side of the ball.

––Associated Press

p5_053113.indd 5

Brennan Linsley / Associated Press

Workers tend to a wellhead during a hydraulic fracturing operation outside Rifle, Colo., in March. The oil and gas industry in Colorado made up 2.25 percent of the state’s GDP as of 2010. The two largest oil and gas lobbiers in recent years were Pioneer Natural Resources and Nobel Engery Inc., both Texas companies.

Lobbies sway Colorado policy KRISTEN WYATT Associated Press

DENVER — The two largest lobbying spenders in the oil and gas industry in Colorado were Texas companies, Pioneer Natural Resources and Noble Energy Inc. The generous political spending of oil and gas companies might exert an outsize influence on Colorado politics, suggests a leftleaning watchdog group report out Thursday.

Colorado Ethics Watch reviewed state lobbying disclosures and political donations from oil and gas companies, industry associations and their employees.

The group concluded the industry spent nearly $5 million lobbying Colorado officials between 2007 and 2012. That is more than twice what other mining businesses spent, and more than five times what the agriculture industry spent over the same period.

The two Texas companies did punches above its weight when it not immediately return calls and comes to influence on Colorado emails for comment Thursday. politics,” the report states.

The Colorado Oil and Gas AsEthics Watch notes that the insociation, an industry group also dustry still spends much less in mentioned in the report, was re- Colorado than the health care viewing the report and did not industry, which dwarfed lobbyist have an immedispending by all ate response. other industries The oil and gas “We knew that there during the pericompanies and would be a lot of od in question at their employees nearly $17 milalso were gener- money spent on oil lion. ous campaign The watchand gas, but they donors, distribdog group does uting more than took it up a notch this suggest, though, $800,000 to 113 that political session.”

Republican and spending by SEN. MATT JONES the oil and gas 82 Democratic candidates. industry helps Ethics Watch does not accuse explain why state drilling regulathe oil and gas industry of wrong- tions are so difficult for policydoing but suggests the industry makers to tighten. benefits from spending so freely The latest legislative session to influence politicians. featured several big wins by the “The oil and gas industry industry, including the defeat of

a bill to impose new conflict-ofinterest restrictions on oil and gas regulators. Lawmakers also declined to hike drilling fines that have not changed since the 1950s. The oil and gas industry also helped block measures to increase drill inspections and water-testing requirements in northern Colorado.

“We knew that there would be a lot of money spent on oil and gas, but they took it up a notch this session, and I think it had an effect,” said Sen. Matt Jones, DLouisville, sponsor of some of the failed oil and gas measures.

The head of Colorado Ethics Watch, Luis Toro, said the report is designed to raise public awareness, not castigate legal lobbying and political activity.

“But when people think that their vote counts less than the influence of lobbyists, that’s bad for democracy,” Toro said.

NATIONAL

MEXICO

Texan to serve 25 years for ambassador murder plot TOM HAYS

Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press

A man asks for help finding a relative during a Mexico City protest Thursday. The sign reads in Spanish: “Help us find him. Rafael Rojas Marines. Disappeared in the after-hours (club) Heaven. Asking for your support!!”

11 young adults missing from Mexico City club MARK STEVENSON

Texas

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Eleven young people went missing in broad daylight Sunday from a Mexico City bar.

The suspected mass abduction was particularly brazen, even by Mexico City standards, happening in daytime just off the Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s main boulevard, and 1½ blocks from the U.S. Embassy.

The bar where the youths disappeared also is a few blocks from the city’s main police headquarters.

“How could so many people have disappeared, just like that, in broad daylight?” said Josefina Garcia, mother of missing Said Sanchez Garcia, 19, her only son. “The police say they don’t have them, so what, the Earth just opened up and swallowed them?”She said her son was not involved in any criminal activity and

Austin

Mexico Mexico City Graphic by Emily Siner

worked at a market stall selling beauty products.

The known missing include six men, most in their 20s, a 16-year-old boy and four young women.

While no clear motives had been revealed in the attack, residents of the downtown neighborhood of Tepito said a wave of abductions of young people has occurred in recent months that could be related to organized crime activities.

Tepito is the center of black market activities in the city,

where guns, drugs, stolen goods and contraband are sold.

Relatives said they believe the youths were at the club around midmorning Sunday, when waiters and bar employees herded them out to the street and armed men bundled them into waiting vehicles and spirited them away.

“We aren’t sure what exactly occurred,” said Rodolfo Rios, Mexico City’s chief prosecutor. “No witness has come forward to say anything about any armed gang.”

The disappearances are the latest incident in Mexico City’s largely unregulated bar scene.

Officials allow bars of questionable character to continue operating, although they may sell drugs and frequently violate rules governing closing times, parking and serving alcohol to minors.

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A U.S. citizen-turned-covert Iranian operative was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for plotting to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.

Manssor Arbabsiar, 58, a former used car salesman from Corpus Christi, pleaded guilty in October to two conspiracy charges and a murder-for-hire count. He alleged he was directed by Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to hire a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the assassination. U.S. agents disrupted the plot.

U.S. District Judge John Keenan cited evidence that Arbabsiar had transferred nearly $100,000 to an FBI bank account in 2011, believing it was a down payment for the killing. He also Arbabsiar cited secret recordings in which Arbabsiar told a confidential informant that the risk that the explosion could kill innocent bystanders, including U.S. senators, was “no problem” and “no big deal.”

Arbabsiar went to Mexico in the summer of 2011 and approached someone he thought was a member of the Mexican narco-terror group, Los Zetas, for help with an attack on a Saudi embassy in Washington. The man was an informant for U.S. drug agents who began recording their conversations.

In a statement following the sentence, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara described Arbabsiar as “an enemy among us — the key conduit for, and facilitator of, a nefarious international plot concocted by members of the Iranian military to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and as many innocent bystanders as necessary to get the job done.”

SPELLING BEE

Missed words Three Texas middle school students competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee semifinals Thursday. Shobha Dasari was eliminated in round 6.

Chetan Reddy, who tied for 22nd last year, and Syamantak Payra were eliminated in round 10, tying for seventh place.

These are the words that bested the semifinalists, first with their attempt and then with the correct spelling.

Chetan Reddy, Plano

caburri

kaburi noun land crab common to mangrove swamps from the West Indies to southern Brazil

Syamantak Payra, Friendswood

cipolino

cipollino noun fictional character from a 20th-century Italian children’s story; also, a type of marble first used in ancient Greece

Shobha Dasari, Houston

bourret

bourrée

noun 17th-century lively French dance, usually in quick duple time beginning with an upbeat

5/31/13 12:01 AM

c ver or original?

CU LTU R E

Page 6 —

Friday, May 31, 2013

Streaming sites are changing the way we listen to music. Some record labels are opting out while cover bands are profiting.

RYAN NAKASHIMA Associated Press

Music Streaming Services Spotify.com — Music streaming, social media application Last.fm — Online radio, music reccomendation service Rhapsody.com — Paid subscription to online music library.

here are about 600 versions of Adele’s Oscar-winning song “Skyfall” on the Spotify subscription music service. Not one of them features Adele.

Adele’s label, XL Recordings, keeps Chris Pizzello / Associated Press her music off the all-you-can-listen subscripHundreds of copycat versions of Adele’s Oscar-winning song “Skyfall” appear tion plans until download sales peter out. In on Spotify’s subscription service. XL Recordings keeps her music off of the meantime, copycat artists fill the void, streaming services until the download sales slow. Cover artists collect royalty racking up royalty revenue, often before revenue, often before customers realize they were listening to someone else. customers realize they have been listening to someone else. tracks — because of consumer confusion or Alice Bonde Nissen found that out the hard otherwise — can earn cover artists enough way. She once paid $17 a month for Spotify’s money to make a living. premium service in Denmark. Nissen found a The hurdle is so low for the average amateur version of “Skyfall” and mistakenly clicked on that once a hit song comes out, it is covered a “follow” button to become a fan of GMquickly. Take “Suit & Tie,” a Justin Timberlake Presents and Jocelyn Scofield, a cover-song song released by RCA Records in January. specialist with some 4,600 Spotify followThere are already about 180 ers. Scofield, has the most covers on Spotify. listened-to cover of “Skyfall” Since Adele’s “Skyfall” was on the service.

“It may not be illegal released in October, it has “When I found out ... that I sold more than 1.9 million couldn’t find the original ‘Sky- or immoral, but it copies in the United States. fall’ (and some other hits), may not be the best Cover artists sold more than I decided to quit Spotify,” thing for society at 54,000 copies, according to Nissen said.

Nielsen SoundScan. The topThousands of cover songs large either.” crowd digital music services BRIAN FELSEN selling cover was produced

by Movie Sounds Unlimited, such as Spotify and Rhapsody a subsidiary of German muand listeners are getting annoyed. The phenomenon threatens the growth sic publisher BMG, and sold more than 9,800 units. of these services — which have millions of While some people make covers to get dispaying subscribers — and could hold back the covered, others seem to be in it to trick buyers tepid recovery of a music industry still reeling and make a fast buck. A search for popular artfrom the decline of the CD. ists on Spotify reveals plenty of me-too bands Cover songs are legal in the U.S. and have who pick deceptive artist names such as the a long tradition in the music industry. Some “Bruno Mars Tributors” or song names such as covers are even more famous than the originals. Which do you think of first, Aretha Frank- “Firework (As Made Famous By Katy Perry).”

The artwork and graphics used for their songs lin’s soaring 1967 version of “Respect,” or Otis are sometimes a mirror image of the originals.

Redding’s original from two years earlier? How It is a big business, with millions of dolabout Jimi Hendrix’s funky 1968 rendition of “All Along the Watchtower”? Does anyone even lars invested, and Movie Sounds’ parent remember that Bob Dylan wrote and sang it in Countdown Media has a catalog of more than 50,000 covers. Digital music stores have made a release six months before? knockoffs profitable in a way that would not Spotify’s head of development and analysis, be possible with physical stores.

Sachin Doshi, acknowledged that finding covBrian Felsen, the president of CDBaby, ers instead of originals can be frustrating.

“We recognize it’s a problem we haven’t fully another independent song distributor, said that while a gray area exists today, the deluge solved yet,” Doshi said. of covers cannot really be stopped.

Obtaining a license to record a cover is easy “Everybody polices it as much as you can,” and inexpensive. Services such as Google Inc.’s he said, adding that his staff attempts to Limelight, which launched in late 2009, offer prevent knockoffs that copy cover art and use commercial song licenses to anyone who fills other deceptive practices from being distribout a form. For each song they cover, artists uted. He said that having so many covers isn’t pay a $15 fee. By law, Limelight also charges good for consumers. $9.10 in advance for every 100 downloads the “It may not be illegal or immoral, but it artists may sell. TuneCore, which launched in may not be the best thing for society at large 2006, distributes songs on outlets like iTunes either.” for $10 per track. Selling a couple hundred

John Marshall / Associated Press

About 180 covers of Justin Timberlake’s song “Suit & Tie” have been uploaded to Spotify.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s 75!

MATT MOORE Associated Press

What to get Superman for his 75th birthday? DC Entertainment’s starting with a new logo.

The company, part of Warner Bros. Entertainment, unveiled the new logo Thursday in honor of Superman’s 75th anniversary.

It ties in the iconic character’s familiar red and blue colors, along with his ever-present cape, and the words “75 Years.”

Comic book “Superman Unchained” by DC co-publisher Jim Lee and writer Scott Snyder will be the first to feature the new logo on its June 12 cover. Portions of a new animated short being produced by “300” and “Man of Steel” director Zack Snyder will be

p6_053113.indd 6

All things Superman ✔✔First appeared in Action Comics No. 1, 1938. ✔✔Doomsday killed Superman in 1992, but the caped hero quickly returned. ✔✔Neil DeGrasse Tyson estimated Krypton was 27 light-years from Earth. ✔✔“Man of Steel” opens in theaters June 14 shown at San Diego Comic-Con in July.. Snyder’s finished version will debut in full this summer.

Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara said Thursday the new logo is part of a yearlong celebration of what he called the “first

super hero” whose exploits have jumped from the pages of comic books to radio, television, movies (the latest incarnation, “Man of Steel,” opens June 14) and video games.

“We are proud to commemorate this milestone with exciting entertainment across the entire studio and across the globe, ensuring this enduring icon reaches new generations of audiences,” he said of the character created in Cleveland by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in June 1938.

Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment, called Superman “undeniably the greatest super hero in the world and likely the most influential comic book character of all time.”

In celebration of his 75th anniversary, comic book hero Superman is getting a reworked logo from DC Entertainment.

5/30/13 10:59 PM