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TARAKAI, Afghanistan Agroup of Taliban fighters madetheir announcement in the ba-zaar of a nearby village a fewdays ago, and the word spreadfast: anyone caught voting in thepresidential election will havehis finger the one inked for theballot cut off.

So in this hamlet in southernAfghanistan, a village of adobehomes surrounded by fields ofcorn, the local people will stayhome when much of the rest ofthe country goes to the polls onThursday to choose a president.

We cant vote. Everybodyknows it, said Hakmatullah,a farmer who, like many Af-ghans, has only one name. Weare farmers, and we cannot do athing against the Taliban.

Across the Pashtun heartlandin eastern and southern Afghan-istan, where Taliban insurgentshold sway in many villages, peo-ple are being warned against go-ing to the polls.

In many of those places, condi-tions have been so chaotic thatmany Afghans have been unableto register to vote. In many ar-eas, there will not be any polling

places to go to.The possibility of large-scale

nonparticipation by the coun-trys Pashtuns is casting a cloudover the Afghan presidentialelection which, American andother Western officials here be-lieve, needs to be seen as legiti-mate by ordinary Afghans forthe next government to exercisereal authority over the next fiveyears.

Doubts about Pashtun partici-pation are injecting uncertaintyinto the presidential race itself,and particularly into the cam-paign of the incumbent, HamidKarzai. Five years ago, Karzairode to an election victory on awave of support from his fellowPashtuns, who make up about 40percent of Afghanistans popula-tion.

Polls show that Karzai is lead-ing the other candidates. Butthose predictions could be over-turned if a large number of Pash-tuns stay away from the polls.

The threats against the lo-cal population in villages likeTarakai show a change in theTalibans tactics from previousyears. Five years ago, the insur-

gents largely allowed voting togo forward. At the time, Afghanand American officials believedthat the prospect of voting wasso popular among ordinary Af-ghans that Taliban commandersdecided that opposing it could setoff a backlash.

But things are different now.The Taliban have surged instrength since 2005. Mr. Karzai,though he is the leading candi-date, is vastly more unpopularthan he was then.

As a result, Taliban leadersare actively trying to disruptthe candidates campaigns andpreparations for the vote. Theyhave warned Afghans againstvoting.

Afghans must boycott thedeceitful American project andhead for the trenches of holywar, said a communiqu re-leased by the Taliban leadershiplast month. The holy warriorshave to defeat this evil project,carry out operations againstenemy centers, prevent peoplefrom participating in elections,and block all major and minorroads before Election Day.

DEXTERFILKINS

O H g

Holding out billions of dol-lars as a potential windfall, theObama administration is per-suading state after state to re-write education laws to open thedoor to more charter schools andexpand the use of student testscores for judging teachers.

That aggressive use of eco-nomic stimulus money by Edu-cation Secretary Arne Duncanis provoking heated new debatesover the uses of standardizedtesting and the proper federalrole in education, issues thatflared frequently during Presi-dent George W. Bushs enforce-ment of his signature educationlaw, No Child Left Behind.

A recent case is California,where legislative leaders arevowing to do whatever is neces-sary, including rewriting a statelaw barring the use of student

scores in teacher evaluations, to

ensure that the state is eligiblefor a chunk of the $4.3 billion thefederal Department of Educa-tion will soon award to a dozen orso states. The law had the strongbacking of the California teach-ers union.

Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana,Tennessee and several otherstates have moved to bring stateeducation laws or policies intoline with one or more planks inPresident Obamas school im-provement agenda.

The administrations stancehas caught by surprise thoseeducators and officials who hadhoped that Obamas calls duringthe campaign for an overhaul ofthe No Child law would mean areduced federal role and less re-liance on standardized testing.The No Child law requires everyAmerican school to bring all stu-

dents to proficiency in reading

and math by 2014 and penalizesthose that do not meet annualgoals.

The proposed rules make test-ing an even more powerful factorin schools by extending the use ofscores to teacher evaluation.

Much of the grumbling is fromeducators who say they support-ed Obamas candidacy.

I am a public school teacherwho vehemently wanted to votefor a president who would saveus from No Child Left Behind,Diane Aoki of Kealakekua, Ha-waii, wrote to the Department ofEducation.

But the administrations re-quirement that states link testscores to teacher evaluation,Aoki said, means the potentialis there for the test frenzy to getworse than it is under No ChildLeft Behind.

SAM DILLON

Stimulus Money Roils Education Reform Debate

The Obama administrationsent signals on Sunday that it hasbacked away from its once-firmvision of a government organiza-tion to provide for the nations 50million uninsured and is now opento using nonprofit cooperativesinstead.

Kathleen Sebelius, the Secre-tary of Health and Human Servic-es, said on Sunday morning that anadditional government insurer isnot the essential element of theadministrations plan to overhaulthe countrys health care system.

I think there will be a competi-tor to private insurers, she saidon CNNs State of the Union.Thats really the essential part, isyou dont turn over the whole newmarketplace to private insurancecompanies and trust them to do theright thing. We need some choices,we need some competition.

Her less-than-forceful insis-tence on a government insuranceorganization was paralleled byRobert Gibbs, the presidentspress secretary.

What I am saying is the bot-tom line for this for the presidentis, what we have to have is choiceand competition in the insurancemarket, he said on CBSs Facethe Nation.

Rahm Emanuel, the WhiteHouse chief of staff, has fought toretain the government insurer inthe Obama health plan but conced-ed last week that the White Housemight not have a choice.

We have heard from bothchambers that the House sees apublic plan as essential for a finalproduct, and the Senate believesit cannot pass it as constructedand co-op is what they can do, hesaid.

Gibbs implicitly echoed that as-sessment today, saying: Whatthe president has always talkedabout is that we inject some choiceand competition into the privateinsurance market.

JOSEPH BERGER

O Pu c Op oFo H h C

Taliban Intimidate Afghan Voters

F R O M T H E PA G E S O F

Nine pages 2009 The New York Times Visit The Times on the Web: www. ime .c m

Monday august 17, 2009

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CAIRO In White House meet-ings beginning Monday, Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak of Egypt isexpected to tell the Obama ad-ministration that Arab nationswant peace, but are unwilling toabide Obamas call to make good-faith concessions to Israel untilIsrael takes tangible steps likefreezing settlements, an Egyp-tian official said.

As part of its effort to resus-citate the peace process, theObama administration has askedArab countries to make small butsymbolic gestures to normalizerelations with Israel, like allow-ing planes to fly through theirairspace or improving culturalties. The administration has alsoasked Israel to freeze all growthin settlements.

So far, neither side has agreedto Obamas proposed first stepsand so the president is expectedto look to Mubarak for help inbreaking the latest Middle Eastdeadlock, regional analysts said.

Mubarak flew from Cairo toWashington on Saturday for hisfirst American visit in five years,accompanied by Foreign Minis-ter Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Gen.Omar Suleiman, chief of Egyptsintelligence service. He wasscheduled to meet Monday withVice President Joseph R. BidenJr. and other officials, and is tomeet with Obama on Tuesday.

Mubarak will tell Obama thatfrom the Arab perspective, thebest way to build confidence isto press Israel to freeze settle-ments, implement an economicplan to improve life in the WestBank, ease pressure on Gaza andagree to negotiate with all issueson the table, including the sta-tus of Jerusalem and refugees,said Ambassador Hossam Zaki,spokesman for Egypts ForeignMinistry.

If they do this and engageimmediately in negotiationswith Abu Mazen, this is a recipefor openness and the Arabs will

make the gestures needed, Zakisaid, referring to Mahmoud Ab-bas, president of the PalestinianAuthority. But they dont wantto make this first step. They aredemanding the Arabs make thefirst step. The Arabs should notmake the first step. They are theoccupying power. The occupationmust end.

In many ways, Mubaraks visitto Washington signals a new be-ginning to an old script, as Arabsand Israelis argue which sideshould go first, Arab states revertto their old roles in the region,and the United States tempers itscriticism of Egypts political andhuman rights record in return forEgypts regional cooperation.

During the Bush years, the re-gions more radical forces, thoseagainst the peace process, hadthe upper hand, including Iran,Syria and Hamas, the militantPalestinian group that now con-trols the Gaza Strip.

MICHAELSLACKMAN

Obama Hopes for Cooperation From Egypt

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates A group of Iranian clerics hasissued a anonymous letter callingIrans supreme leader, AyatollahAli Khamenei, a dictator and de-manding his removal, the latestand perhaps strongest rhetoricalattack on him yet in the countryspost-election turmoil.

While the impact of the clericsletter, posted late Saturday on op-position web sites, may have beendiluted by the withholding of theirsignatures, two Iranian expertsvouched for its authenticity. Itspublication came atop other un-usual verbal attacks on Khame-nei in recent days.

Last week a group of former

lawmakers issued their own let-ter calling his qualifications intoquestion.

A day earlier, a member of thestate body empowered to dismissKhamenei called for an emer-gency meeting to address criti-cisms.

The letters do not pose any realthreat to Khamenei, who retainsthe loyalty of the security ser-vices and most of the politicalelite. The clerical establishmentis heavily dependent on him andscarcely any member would dareto openly challenge him.

Still, the verbal attacks illus-trate the erosion of a powerful ta-boo. Long unquestioned, Khame-

neis status as a neutral arbiterand Islamic figurehead havesuffered in the weeks since heblessed the June 12 presidentialelection, which many Iraniansbelieve was rigged. The crack-down on street protests that fol-lowed has only deepened publicanger with him. In recent daysthe phrase death to Khameneihas begun appearing in graffiti onTehran walls, a phrase that wouldhave been almost unimaginablenot long ago.

In their 11-page letter, the cler-ics blamed Khamenei for the vio-lence after the elections, in whichdozens of people were killed andpossibly many more. (NYT)

Clerics in Iran Denounce the Supreme Leader

BANGKOK An Americanman who was sentenced to sevenyears of hard labor last weekfor intruding at the home ofDaw Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader, in Myanmarwas released Sunday and left thecountry together with a visitingAmerican senator, Jim Webb.

The release of the Americancame one day after Webb, D-Va., held meetings with the leader ofMyanmars ruling junta, Senior

Gen. Than Shwe, and with. AungSan Suu Kyi, who was sentencedTuesday to 18 months of housearrest.

At a news conference in Bang-kok on Sunday, Webb said themeetings and the release of theAmerican, John Yettaw, were ges-tures that could be helpful as partof the foundations for a relation-ship of good will and confidencebuilding so that we can have a bet-ter situation in the future.

Webb said he would discuss histrip with State Department offi-cials when he returned to Wash-ington.

Webb described Yettaw, 53, asnot a well man, and Yettaw ap-peared tired as he and the senatorarrived at a Bangkok airport.

I believe what happened wasregrettable, Webb said. He wastrying to help. Hes not a mean-spirited human being.

SETH MYDANS

American Held in Myanmar Is Turned Over to Senator

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Af ha i a D baKABUL, Afghanistan Pres-

ident Hamid Karzai moved tostrengthen his chances of re-election on Sunday, just fourdays before the voting, by ap-pearing in a live televised de-bate with two of his opponentsand allowing an Uzbek warlordto return to Afghanistan to ral-ly support. His security chiefsalso announced that the Tali-ban would allow more pollingstations to be open in the south,Karzais stronghold.

The warlord, Abdul RashidDostum, the Uzbek commanderwhose men are accused of kill-

ing hundreds of Taliban prison-ers of war in 2001, arrived in Af-ghanistan from exile in Turkeyon Sunday evening, said SardarMohammad Rahman Oghli, amember of Parliament who isan ethnic Uzbek.

Dostums return is expectedto boost ethnic Uzbek supportfor Karzai, even though his rep-utation may put off some vot-ers. (NYT)

P A ai A dSAO PAULO President

Richard Nixon discussed withBrazils president a coopera-tive effort to overthrow thegovernment of Salvador Al-lende of Chile, according to re-cently declassified documentsthat reveal deep collaborationbetween the United States andBrazil in trying to root out left-ists in Latin America duringthe cold war.

The formerly top secret mem-os, published Sunday by theNational Security Archive inWashington, show that Braziland the United States discussed

plans to overthrow or destabi-lize Allende, President FidelCastro of Cuba and other lead-ers. (NYT)

A R p ac dMEXICO CITY In a sweep-

ing move to root out corruptionamong customs agents and re-duce the influx of huge quan-tities of illegal drugs into thecountry, the Mexican govern-ment replaced hundreds of in-spectors at airports and bordercrossings over the weekend, of-ficials said. (NYT)

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NAPERVILLE, Ill. In retro-spect, Kerry Fischman said heshould have paid more attentionto the nagging concern he feltwhen the saleswoman from thejob search company kept press-ing him to sign the contract andsend in his credit card number.

But it had been just two weekssince he lost his managementjob at Georgia Pacific, the paperproducts company, and the mael-strom of emotions was still fresh.

Obviously, the anxiety and thefear were there, Fischman said.Thats all you ever heard on thenews, how many more thousands,tens of thousands, lost their jobs.

Seeking an edge, Fischman paidthe company, ITS Corp., $8,250 atthe end of December, believing itwould help him land a six-figurejob in the Denver area, which hesaid the saleswoman promised.But the company did little morethan redo his rsum and pushhim to cold-call employers, hesaid. Fischman, 58, now believes

the firm misrepresented its ser-vices and exaggerated its capa-bilities. He eventually found a job,but without the help of ITS, andgot a partial refund from the com-pany after threatening to report itto the authorities.

Company officials deny thatITS misrepresented itself. ButFischmans experience highlightsthe vulnerability of job seekersas they cast about for help in themost difficult job market in de-cades and encounter a bewilder-ing and largely unregulated ar-ray of individuals and businessesoffering assistance. While somecustomers have benefited fromtheir work, others have accusedthe companies of using mislead-ing sales tactics.

Career management or ca-reer marketing companies likeITS, which charge hefty up-frontfees, are easy to stumble uponon employment web sites. Somefirms place advertisements thatappear to be job postings but in-

stead are lures for sales pitches.Several state attorneys gen-

eral offices said they have fieldedcomplaints about career counsel-ing firms in this recession.

Many employment servicesprovide valuable help, but oth-ers misrepresent themselvesand their services in an attemptto take your money, said IllinoisAttorney General Lisa Madigan,who succeeded several years agoin banning one career counselingcompany, Bernard Haldane Asso-ciates, from doing business in thestate. To find legitimate agen-cies for your needs, its critical todo your homework first.

Many of the firms do littlemore than provide ordinary job-search assistance overhaul-ing rsums and cover letters,giving advice on how to networkand helping sort through publicjob listings. While this can be a le-gitimate and useful service, muchof it can also be obtained morecheaply. MICHAEL LUO

Big Fees and Few Jobs at Some Search Firms

The standard treatment for in-fection with the hepatitis C virusis a 48-week course of the antiviraldrugs interferon and ribavirin thatgives some patients flulike symp-toms and severe depression. Thetreatment varies in its effective-ness, being much more successfulin Americans of European descentthan in African-Americans.

A Duke University team hasnow uncovered the principal rea-son for the disparity between theraces. It lies not in differing com-pliance to the treatment or accessto health care, as some have as-sumed, but in genetics.

Using a genetic test called a ge-nome-wide association study, theDuke team found that the codingat a single site on the DNA madeall the difference in peoples re-sponse to the treatment.

The site is close to the gene for aspecial kind of interferon, knownas interferon-lambda-3. Some peo-ple have the DNA unit T at this site,and others have C. Since a personinherits two copies of the genome,one from each parent, individualsmay have Ts on both copies, Cson both, or one T and one C.

People with the CC version, orallele, respond much better to the

standard hepatitis treatment thando those with the TT allele. The Cversions are more common in Eu-ropeans than in Africans, and thisexplains half of the difference inthe response between the two rac-es, the Duke team said in a reportreleased Sunday on the Web site ofthe journal Nature.

The C versions are even morecommon among East Asians,about 75 percent of whom respondwell to the standard treatment,compared with 55 percent of Eu-ropean-Americans and 25 percentof African-Americans.

NICHOLAS WADE

Genes Tied to Disparity in Hepatitis C Treatment

PENSACOLA, Fla. The stateattorney said it was a robbery.Byrd and Melanie Billings, theparents of 13 adopted children withspecial needs, were murdered intheir house just a few miles fromhere because they were rich.

But Rick Outzen, a local bloggerand publisher of a small alterna-tive weekly, heard a darker tale. Afew days after the killings on July9, someone told him that Billingsused to own a seedy strip club andhad a reputation for ruthlessnessin the used-car business. Others,insisting on anonymity, said some

of the seven suspects charged withthe murders told the police it wasa contract killing.

And with a 277-word blog post onJuly 19, Outzen, 52, became a con-troversial player in a case that hasdrawn international attention.

His coverage so far has attract-ed assignments from The DailyBeast, and help from volunteerresearchers outside Florida. Ithas also brought rebuttals fromcompeting media outlets, and thethreat of a lawsuit from HenryCabell Tice, a used-car salesmanhere who has not been charged

in the murders and who deniesclaims by Outzens sources thathe might be linked to the crime.

But Outzen has not had to re-tract anything that he has written.The Escambia County sheriff, Da-vid Morgan, said in an interviewthat Outzens anonymous sourceswere largely right. Morgan wouldnot confirm that someone paid$20,000 to $50,000 to have Billingskilled, as Outzen has written, buthe said the police are investigat-ing the claim.

Kevin Doyle, publisher of ThePensacola News Journal, said

Outzen is benefiting from his vo-cal support for Morgan in the 2008election. But in the eyes of manyhere, Outzen has become an ex-ample of journalism that tradesobjectivity for love of place.

I dont always agree with him,but he is the conscience of the com-munity, said Mort OSullivan,chairman of the Pensacola BayArea Chamber of Commerce.People have come to trust thatRicks going to be out there, push-ing us in ways sometimes werenot comfortable with.

DAMIEN CAVE

In Murder Case, Thought to Be a Botched Robbery, Blogger Finds a Twist

Ca if r ia Wi dfirSAN FRANCISCO, Calif.

Hot, dry winds and high tem-peratures continued to fan wild-fires across California Sunday.

A fire near Swanton and Bon-ny Doon was about 50 percentcontained Sunday, after burning10 square miles since Wednes-day and leading to evacuationsof about 2,400 residents. Theblaze threatened more than 250homes and had damaged twooutbuildings. (AP)

Mi wa k May rA ack d Wi h Pip

MILWAUKEE MilwaukeeMayor Tom Barrett was hospi-talized Sunday after a man at-tacked him with a metal pipeas the mayor tried to assist agrandmother yelling for helpnear the Wisconsin State Fair.Barrett, 55, was in stable con-dition at a hospital with a frac-tured hand and other head andhand wounds, official said. (AP)

A a Pi chmaDi a A 96

NEW YORK Ed Reimers,the actor who told televisionviewers youre in good handswith Allstate for decades, diedSunday in upstate New York,a relative said. He was 96. Re-imers, who also was an an-nouncer for several TV showsin the 1950s and 60s, died at hisdaughters home in SaratogaSprings, said Dean Lindoerfer,his nephew by marriage. Thecause of Reimers death wasntimmediately clear. (AP)

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IGNACIO, Colo. An unusualexperiment is unfolding here onthe Southern Ute Indian Reserva-tion in southwest Colorado.

With the twin goals of makingfuel from algae and reducingemissions of heat-trapping gases,a start-up company co-foundedby a Colorado State Universityprofessor recently introduced astrain of algae that loves carbondioxide into a water tank next to anatural gas processing plant. Thewater is already green-tingedwith life.

The Southern Utes, one of thenations wealthiest AmericanIndian communities thanks toits energy and real-estate invest-ments, is a major investor in theprofessors company. It hopesto gain a toehold in what triballeaders believe could be the nextbillion-dollar energy boom.

The 1,400-member tribe alsohas a long history of herbal medi-cine use that made growing algaefor fuel appealing. It reminded

people of herbs that are helpfulhere, like bear root, which is har-vested in the mountains, saidthe tribes chairman, MatthewJ. Box.

The Colorado State profes-sor, Bryan Willson, who teachesmechanical engineering and isa co-founder of the three-year-old company Solix Biofuels, saidworking with the Southern Uteson their land afforded his com-pany advantages that would havebeen impossible in mainstreamcorporate America. The tribecontributed almost one-third ofthe $20 million in capital raisedby Solix, plus free use of land andmore than $1 million in equip-ment.

If youre going with strict ven-ture capital, theyre looking fora blistering return on capital inthree to five years, Dr. Willsonsaid. The Utes have a very longeconomic view. Theyre makingdecisions now for future genera-tions as opposed to the next quar-

ter, and that is just fundamentallydifferent.

But the tale of any start-up iswritten between the margins ofinspiration and hard-edged real-ity.

More than 200 other companiesare also trying to find a cost-ef-fective, scalable way to achievethe same end.

This is still a very young indus-try, with a lot of claims out therethat are sometimes difficult tobelieve, said Al Darzins, a groupmanager at the labs NationalBioenergy Center.

Darzins said Solixs model wasdifferent from most: the algaeis grown in closed bags, lined upvertically in the water tanks, withthe intent of increasing yield. Butfor every hopeful, he said, thecrux will be controlling costs.

Solix has an interesting idea;whether it will work, I dontknow, Darzins said. Its all go-ing to come down to the econom-ics. KIRK JOHNSON

Tribe and Professor to Make Fuel From Algae

PARIS Not long ago, whenother media executives wereconvinced that the only way tosucceed on the Web was to giveaway their content, The FinancialTimes played the eccentric.

We were regarded as slightlyfreakish, says John Ridding, thenewspapers chief executive.

Indeed, the newspaper startedcharging readers for access to itsWeb site in 2002. Now, with otherpublishers moving to imitateFT.com by erecting so-called paywalls, Ridding feels vindicated.The Financial Times is adding toits paid-content strategy with a

plan to accept micropayments forindividual articles.

FT.com has not attracted ahuge paying audience, with about117,000 worldwide, up from 101,000in 2007. Yet FT.com is lucrative be-cause it charges a premium for itscontent. A premium subscriptionto the Web site costs $300 a year inthe United States. Adding the printversion costs $100 more.

Pearson said last month thatoperating profit at FT Publishing,the unit that includes The Finan-cial Times, had fallen 40 percentin the first half of the year, withrevenue down 13 percent. Because

of rate increases by FT.com, rev-enue from Web subscriptions hasrisen 30 percent over the last year,Ridding said.

For other online publishers, thebig question is whether consumerswould be willing to pay for generalnews, as opposed to specialized fi-nancial news.

I sometimes think theres toomuch fatalism around peoplethrowing up their hands and say-ing its not possible for generalpublishers to charge, Riddingsaid. I think it is possible, and nec-essary, for them to charge.

ERIC PFANNER

The Newspaper That Doesnt Want to Be Free

Some people will stop at nothingto snap up a bargain even if itmeans paying too much.

That is the paradoxical prin-ciple behind Swoopo, a Web sitethat offers a seductive and con-troversial proposition to onlineshoppers.

The site, which started in Ger-many and was recently intro-duced in the United States, sellsproducts in auctions that typicallytop out at a fraction of the retailprice. This month, a new 40-inchSamsung TV, which normallysells for $1,500, sold for $67.92, and

a white LG refrigerator with aprice tag of $1,498 went for $77.90.

But there is a catch, of course:Swoopo users are charged 60cents every time they bid, andthose charges add up quickly.

The complicated machinationsbehind Swoopo and its onlineimitators are drawing attentionfrom critics who say they prey onhuman foibles, like the tendencyof people to overlook small incre-ments of money. These criticsalso say that players face longodds in Swoopos auctions, wherethey must compete against peo-

ple in the United States, Britainand Germany. And they say thatSwoopo is making a nice profiton each item when all the biddingfees are tallied.

Bidders spent a cumulative$2,337 in their losing effort to buythe $1,498 refrigerator, for exam-ple. Swoopo says it must spendmuch of that revenue to advertisethe auctions and attract custom-ers to the site, which it says had 2.5million visitors in July, double thenumber it had a year earlier.

A growing number of small imi-tators with names like GoBid and

Rockybid are popping up.People who use these sites say

they can be addictive, frustratingand potentially rewarding.

Last month, Carolyn Parslow,who manages a flea market inTrumbull, Ohio, won a new refrig-erator on Swoopo for $9.66 plusthe $61.80 she spent on bids. Butshe says that she has lost far moreauctions than she has won.

As soon as you think you haveit figured out, you lose, Parslowsaid. You pull your hair out morethan you jump up and down withexcitement. BRAD STONE

On the Swoopo Auction Site, Paying for the Privilege of Placing a Bid

n D a Wi h Firmti d Mad ff

BOSTON The Massachu-setts secretary of states officehas rejected a proposed settle-ment by an investment firm torepay nearly $6 million to stateinvestors who lost money inBernard Madoffs fraudulent in-vestment scheme.

A spokesman for the office,Brian McNiff, said Sunday thathis agency is not acceptingFairfield Greenwich Groups of-fer to refund nearly a dozen in-vestors in the state because of-ficials are still trying to identifyall the affected investors.

The attorney general, WilliamF. Galvin, filed a civil fraudcomplaint against FairfieldGreenwich in April, saying offi-cials misrepresented how muchthey knew about the fraud.

(AP)

Bird R pWEST FARGO, N.D. A

West Fargo company thatsmarketing an ecologicallyfriendly repellent intended tokeep blackbirds away from sun-flower fields is trying to find out

if its product can help limit birdstrikes to airplanes.An experiment this summer

at an airport showed the repel-lent, known as Flock Buster,drove away geese temporar-ily from a nearby lagoon, saidJohn Nord, director of the Dev-ils Lake airport.

The non-toxic, viscous liquidhas four different tastes andthree smells demonstrated to beunpleasant to the birds. (AP)

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The name AOL, apart fromconjuring echoes of the most di-sastrous merger in business his-tory, redounds with the archaicsound of a phone-driven modemscreeching as it connects withsome fusty computers seques-tered in Dulles, Va., the formerheadquarters of the company.

But AOL is now manufactur-ing a broad array of digital me-dia that is free for the grabbing.There are 300 working contentproducers in its New York head-quarters, backed by hundreds ofother freelancers and program-mers in Bangalore, Dublin andDulles, cranking out copy and ed-iting photos for more than 80 Websites. Politics Daily, which beganin April, already has 3.6 millionunique users a month, while Po-litico, a much more establishedname, has 1.1 million. In the ag-gregate, the media properties atAOL have about 76 million uniquevisitors.

Part of the way that AOL has

been able to achieve quick cred-ibility is by grabbing talent that ison the loose because of trouble inthe rest of the industry.

Im not going to deny that theavailability of talent has acceler-ated many of our efforts, saidMartin Moe, who is in charge ofthe news sites at AOL. Suddenly,in the last 18 months, this huge poolof talent has become available.

Visitors to sites like Engadgetand FanHouse may not know thatthose sites emanate from a com-pany that used to confine most ofits communication to telling themtheyve got mail. Which is sort ofthe idea.

Since he arrived in April, TimArmstrong, chief executive ofAOL and the former head of salesat Google, has made it clear thathe expects AOL, using its Me-diaGlow division, to be one of thelargest sources of ad-supportedcontent on the planet. Hes a bitmore chaste in person.

We are just a small little com-

pany that has gone through somechallenging times that is trying tofind a way to come up with ideasthat will connect with an audi-ence, he said.

This is probably version 8.0 ofthe revolution at AOL. When itscore dial-up business began to fal-ter, AOL was going to be the nextWindows. Then it was going to bethe largest media company in theworld by virtue of a merger withTime Warner. Then it was an en-tertainment channel.

Next up was an emphasis on themember experience, then a jab atproviding broadband, followed byportal initiatives, free e-mail andthen a huge advertising initiativecalled Platform A. Finally TimeWarner announced plans to spinthe enterprise out on its own bythe end of this year.

And wouldnt it be funny if aboutthe time that Time Warner forcedAOL to stand on its own two feet, itactually was able to?

DAVID CARR

A Reinvented AOL Blossoms as Print Retreats HONG KONG A Chinese

provincial government haltedthe privatization of a state-ownedsteel mill on Sunday after thou-sands of workers protested lastweek and took an official hostage.

The protests, in Henan Prov-ince in central China, were the lat-est sign of increasing labor activ-ism in Chinas steel industry, theworlds largest and a cornerstoneof Chinas economy. Three weeksago, rioting workers beat to deathan executive who had been over-seeing the sale of another state-owned company, Tonghua Ironand Steel. The privatization ofTonghua was immediately post-poned after that death.

The official Xinhua news agen-cy said that the workers had de-cided on Saturday to halt theirprotests, which had attracted upto 3,000 participants at a time, af-ter a government mediation teamagreed to reconsider the takeover.

KEITH BRADSHER

Steel Mill Workers Fight Privatization

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1Container forserving wine

7 Kindergartenlearning

11 Sounds duringbackrubs

14 Witty15 Lunch or dinner16 Gift at Honolulu

airport17 1966 19 Norse war god20 Treasury

secretaryGeithner

21 ___ guy (onewho gets thingsdone)

22 Flank23 Drinking cup26 With 51-Across,

roles for 17-, 38-and 62-Across

28 Big part of anelephant

29 Jacobs first wife32 Pictures at a

hospital33 City on the Black

Sea36 Actress

Zellweger38 1989 42 Theater walkway43 Came out with

45 Solarphenomenon

48 Laudatory poems50 A pair51 See 26-Across53 Chinese blossom56 Big name in

elevators57 Fashionable60 Official with a

whistle61 ___ Tin Tin62 2008 66 i topper67 French eleven68 Mark slightly

longer than ahyphen

69 ___-cone70 Be overrun (with)71 Declares

emphatically

DOWN

1 Roman 300 2 Ginger ___ 3 Place to pull over 4 Be of help to 5 Physicist Enrico 6 Flub 7 Bullets and BBs 8 Borscht

vegetable

9 Chocolatesubstitute

10 ___-mo11 Nissan sedan12 Period of ones

prime13 Fire truck sounds18 Double curve22 Emphasize

23 Pooh-bah hiredby a board ofdirectors

24 Muslimspilgrimage

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skating30 Like parabolas

31 When doubled, avillains chuckle

34 Close calls,perhaps

35 One taking to theslopes

37 Static, e.g.39 Nobel Prize-

winning U.N.workers grp.

40 On empty41 6:30 p.m.

broadcast44 Female deer45 Norwegian

coastal features46 Skin soother47 Like

49 Draw likeAlbrecht Drer

52 Where the actionis

54 Where the actionis

55 Helen who sangI Am Woman

58 Jimi HendrixsPurple ___

59 See 62-Down62 With 59-Down,

something flyingoff the shelves

63 ___ tats-Unis64 Double curve65 Letter between pi

and sigma

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

PUZZLE BY MIKE BUCKLEY

For answers, call 1-900-289-CLUE (289-2583), $1.49 a minute;or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5550.Online subscriptions: Todays puzzle and more than 5,000 pastpuzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).Mobile crosswords: nytimes.com/mxword.Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sundaycrosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS.Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

M A S T S S R I U S P S

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O S H A O L O R D S H O E

U T E T O O F A R A P A R T

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MIGINGO ISLAND, Lake Victoria Thislittle island doesnt look like much.

Its a slab of rock, not even an acre big,packed with rusty metal shacks, heaps ofgarbage, glassy-eyed fishermen and squadsof prostitutes, essentially a microslum bath-ing in the middle of Africas greatest lake.

But baby Migingo is creating a huge fuss.The island happens to lie right along the

disputed watery border between Kenya andUganda, and politicians in the two countrieshave even threatened to go to war over it.

The reason?Fish. Lots of them, but maybe not enough.

The island is an anglers paradise, sur-rounded by schools of tasty and export-

able Nile perch. But Lake Victoria, oneof the worlds biggest bodies of fresh water,which 30 million impoverished Africansdepend on for their survival, may be runningout of these fish. According to a recent study,Nile perch stocks are down by nearly 70 per-cent, and several fish factories have recentlyclosed, threatening a crucial African indus-try worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

But there may be an even bigger issue here the lake itself. Lake Victoria, like so manyother lakes across Africa Lake Chad,Lake Faguibine in Mali and Lake Wamala inUganda is rapidly receding. Water levelshave dropped more than three feet in the lastten years and explosive algae blooms, which

cover the lakes surface like a coat of thickgreen paint, are choking off the fish.

It is irrefutable evidence, environmental-ists say, of climate change, overpopulation,pollution, deforestation and a dozen othermodern ills coming to a head in a vital cornerof Africa that is not prepared to deal with it.

Youve got an ecosystem that is totally outof balance now, said Nick Nuttall, a spokes-man for the United Nations Environment Pro-gram, which has been closely watching LakeVictoria. It should be an extreme concern foranybody who cares about the future of 30 mil-lion people. The pressures on this huge natu-ral asset in east Africa are increasing.

A bilateral border commission is now por-ing over dusty colonial documents, trying tofigure out if Migingo is in Kenya or Uganda,but the commission itself has been beset byfinancial woes and rival patriotic feelings.

The Ugandan government claims thatMigingo is in Ugandan waters and that it is il-legal for Kenyans to fish there. The subtext isthat fish are essential to Ugandas economy,which does not have the manufacturing ortourism industries that Kenya has.

According to Henry Aryamanya-Mugisha,director of Ugandas environmental pro-tection agency, overpopulation and over-farming on the Kenyan side of the lake aredecimating these wetlands where the fishspawn. At the same time, rapid deforestationis reducing the amount of rainfall that flowsinto the lake, and all the new development inthe area is pumping fertilizer, industrial pol-lutants and even raw sewage into the water.

Its very, very sad, Aryamanya-Mugishasaid. Its happening so fast. Five years agothere were plenty of fish.

That is why Migingo is so ideal. The wateraround it is relatively deep and fil led withperch, and once there, fishermen do notspend as much on fuel, because they basi-cally cast a line and pull up dinner.

Its like no other place, said CharlesOkumu Chambu, a Migingo angler.

JEFFREYGETTLEMAN

Kenya and Uganda Threaten to Go to War Over a Rock in Lake Victoria

CRossWoRD Edited By Will Shortz

620 Ei h h ave e, new y rk, ny 10018

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e d i t O r i a l s O F t H e t i m e s

Federal Reserve policy makers said lastWednesday that the recession appeared to behitting bottom. Among the end-is-near indica-tors was consumer spending which they saidhad begun to stabilize.

On Thursday, the Commerce Departmentreported that retail sales fell in July, after ris-ing in May and June. It turns out that the earlierboosts had come mainly from higher prices fornecessities like energy, not from more spend-ing on more items. And while the governmentscash-for-clunkers program boosted car saleslast month, retail sales on everything else fellby 0.6 percent, a much worse showing thaneconomists had expected. The downbeat newswas reinforced on Friday, when the Universityof Michigans consumer sentiment index alsofell unexpectedly.

Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70percent of economic activity. So the latest datacould be a warning that the recession is not bot-toming out, as the Fed believes. Or almost asgrim the data may be evidence that hittingthe bottom will not be followed by a rebound,but by a long spell of very weak growth.

The good news is that over the next severalmonths, stimulus spending is likely to lift eco-nomic growth considerably.

Policymakers, eager to declare the reces-sion over, need to pay close attention and beready to do more to rescue the economy. Other-wise there is a high risk that once the stimulusbegins to fade, the economy will too.

Consumer spending wont truly recoveruntil employment revives. Unfortunately,

job growth is not expected to resume beforenext year. From there, it could take anothertwo years or so to recoup the devastating joblosses of this recession. Spending will also berestrained as households work off their heavydebt loads and try to rebuild the trillions of dol-lars of wealth they have lost in the housing andstock markets.

At the same time, families will face morepressure from higher state taxes and fromcuts in public services.

The financial system is also not out of thewoods. Commercial property loans are in-creasingly prone to default. Mid-sized andsmaller banks, heavy lenders to developers,are especially in harms way. Many will fail,and as they do, credit will become even harderto come by for businesses and consumers. Andthe residential foreclosure crisis continues.

Joblessness, weak spending and state fiscaldistress will all require more federal spending on unemployment benefits and aid to states,to replace the demand that is lost as consumersretrench. Bank weakness will require federalregulators to efficiently shut down insolventinstitutions, so that losses do not deepen andmake eventual failures even more damaging.Mounting home foreclosures will require theObama administration and Congress to comeup with alternatives to current inadequate relief efforts.

It is already clear that policy makers needto do more to ensure that whenever the bot-tom comes, the economy does not stay miredthere.

The View From the Bottom

Intel has decided to appeal the $1.45 billionfine leveled against it by the European Unionfor engaging in anti-competitive behavior andit is claiming that the proceedings have vio-lated its human right to due process. SeveralEuropean companies are also testing the tacticto fend off Europes aggressive antitrust regu-lator.

They argue that in antitrust cases the Eu-ropean Commission unfairly plays the role ofprosecutor, judge and jury hindering theirability to mount an effective defense. They ar-gue they should instead be entitled to the dueprocess rights that European Human Rightslaw grants in criminal cases to ensure that theaccused usually powerless individuals arenot steamroller by the overwhelming power ofthe state.

This concept of powerlessness doesnt fit In-tel, a company with annual sales of $38 billion.It especially doesnt fit given what it was foundguilty of: giving hidden rebates to computermakers that bought all or virtually all of theirchips from Intel and even paying some to de-lay or hinder the introduction of products thathad microprocessors from its rival, AdvancedMicro Devices.

Intel has already hired a squadron of law-yers and is appealing the Commissions deci-sion before Europes Court of First Instancein Luxembourg, Europes lower court. If itdoesnt like what that court says, it can appealits case to the European Court of Justice.

The process is all quite similar to what hap-pens when the Federal Trade Commission inthis country rules against a company for violat-ing antitrust law. FTC cases are tried before anFTC administrative law judge an FTC em-ployee. Any appeal must then go to the FTCsfive commissioners. Only after that can a com-pany appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

American regulators have been far lessvigilant than the E.U. The FTC only opened aformal investigation into Intels business lastyear, after rulings against the company byJapan and Korea, and a preliminary decisionby the E.U. that Intel was abusing its dominantposition.

We suspect that at least part of the motiva-tion for Intels human rights bid is to raisesympathy among American anti-trust regula-tors for a poor abused American near-monop-oly and thereby blunt any impulse to follow.The FTC should know better.

Intels Human Rights

PAul KRugMAn

The Swiss MenaceLets talk about health care around the ad-

vanced world.Every wealthy country other than the Unit-

ed States guarantees essential care to all itscitizens. There are, however, wide variationsin the specifics, with three main approachestaken.

In Britain, the government itself runs thehospitals and employs the doctors. Weve allheard scare stories about how that works inpractice; these stories are false. Like everysystem, the National Health Service has prob-lems, but over all it appears to provide quitegood care while spending only about 40 percentas much per person as we do. By the way, ourown Veterans Health Administration, which isrun somewhat like the British health service,also combines quality care with low costs.

The second route to universal coverageleaves the actual delivery of health care inprivate hands, but the government pays mostof the bills. Thats how Canada and, in a morecomplex fashion, France do it. Its also a sys-tem familiar to most Americans, since eventhose of us not yet on Medicare have parentsand relatives who are.

Again, you hear a lot of horror stories aboutsuch systems, most of them false. Frenchhealth care is excellent. Canadians with chron-ic conditions are more satisfied with their sys-tem than their U.S. counterparts. And Medi-care is highly popular.

Finally, the third route to universal cover-age relies on private insurance companies,using a combination of regulation and subsi-dies to ensure that everyone is covered. Swit-zerland offers the clearest example: everyoneis required to buy insurance, insurers cantdiscriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizensget government help in paying for their poli-cies.

So where does Obamacare fit into all this?Basically, its a plan to Swissify America, us-ing regulation and subsidies to ensure univer-sal coverage.

If we were starting from scratch we prob-ably wouldnt have chosen this route. Truesocialized medicine would undoubtedlycost less, and a straightforward extension ofMedicare-type coverage to all Americanswould probably be cheaper than a Swiss-stylesystem. Thats why I and others believe thata true public option competing with privateinsurers is extremely important: otherwise,rising costs could all too easily undermine thewhole effort. But a Swiss-style system of uni-versal coverage would be a vast improvementon what we have now. And we already knowthat such systems work.

So we can do this. At this point, all that standsin the way of universal health care in Americaare the greed of the medical-industrial com-plex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda ma-chine, and the gullibility of voters who believethose lies.

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BERLIN All those curiousto know just how fast Usain Boltmight have gone if he had notstopped sprinting near the end ofhis world-record run at the Olym-pics last year now have a cleareranswer.

Bolt pushed himself from startto finish Sunday night, and the re-sult was a time of 9.58 seconds inthe mens 100-meter final at theworld track and field champion-ships: eleven-hundredths of a sec-ond better than his game-chang-ing mark of 9.69 in Beijing.

Tyson Gay, the understatedAmerican who was consideredBolts biggest threat here, ran therace of his life, setting a nationalrecord of 9.71. But Gay was beatenconvincingly in the Olympic Stadi-um as Bolt took the biggest bite outof the mens 100 record since elec-tronic timing became mandatoryfor record ratification in 1977.

At the start of the 2008 season,Bolt was a novice 100-meter run-ner better known for his vast po-tential in the 200. Less than twoyears later, Boit has become thefirst man to crack the 9.7-secondbarrier and the 9.6-second barrier,which were considered distantdreams only a few years ago.

The scary part for Bolts rivalsis that he is still just 22, well shortof the traditional prime age forsprinters.

Im really happy Usain Boltwon the record, Gay said. I knowthat might sound strange. I knewit was humanly possible for some-one to run that fast. Unfortunatelyit wasnt me. Im very happy withthe race.

Bolt was up to his usual anticsbefore the start, striking a light-ing-bolt pose and covering his facewith his hand and then removing itto reveal a variety of expressions.

After all that, he got off to a finestart by his standards in Lane 4.Men of his height Bolt stands6 feet 5 inches are generallyslower out of the blocks than theirmore compact rivals.

Bolt did not stop running afterthe finish line. Title and recordsecure, he slapped his chest andloped 100 more meters around thecurve, celebrating his first worldchampionship gold medal to gowith the three Olympic golds hewon last year in Beijing.

Bolt said that his priority wasnot the record, which deserves aspot on the short list of the great-est track and field performancesif Bolts drug tests are and remainnegative.

For me, it was all about go-ing and winning, because I knewthese guys were ready, he said.Tyson was doing well all season.

CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

Boldly, Bolt Rewrites 100-Meter Record Book i n b r i e F

CHASKA, Minn. Y. E. Yang,ranked No. 110 in the world, tookon No. 1 Tiger Woods and neverblinked.

Yang, of South Korea, stunnedWoods on Sunday at HazeltineNational by shooting a two-under-par 70 in the final round to win theP.G.A. Championship with a scoreof eight-under 280.

Woods finished three strokesback after a final-round 75, andLee Westwood and Rory McIlroytied for third at 285.

Yang, 37, became the first Ko-rean man to win one of golfs fourmajor championships. He wasalso the first golfer to overtake

Woods in a major championshipin which Woods had the lead goinginto the final round.

Woods missed his final par putt one of eight putts from inside10 feet he missed on Sunday. Heputted out for the 75, which tied hishighest closing round as a profes-sional in a major championship.The losing margin was a five-shotswing from the start of the day,which Woods entered leading bytwo.

You never know in life, thismight be my last win as a golfer,Yang, smiling, said through an in-terpreter. But this is a great day.Its going to be a great foundation

for me to continue playing on thePGA Tour.

It was new territory for Woods,who had built a 14-0 record in themajors he led after 54 holes. Hewas stoic afterward, more angryabout his putting than anythingelse.

I hit the ball so much betterthan my score indicates, he said.I hit it great all day, and justdidnt make anything. I playedwell enough to win the golf tour-nament, but I did not putt wellenough to win the golf tournament.It was just a bad day at the wrongtime, and thats the way it goes.

LARRYDORMAN

Yang, Ranked 110th, Is First to Topple Woods

ja k vic Va q i hW r d t p P ay r

MASON, Ohio Neutralizingthe world No. 1, Dinara Safina,Jelena Jankovic cruised to a 6-4,6-2 victory at the Lindner Fam-ily Tennis Center.

Jankovics victory was thefirst of her career against a cur-rent No. 1 and was made all thesweeter by the fact that Jank-ovic held the top spot at thestart of the year. She had fallento No. 5 but will move to No. 4.after her showing here. (NYT)

M David Wri hI Di ab d li

The Mets placed DavidWright on the disabled list withpostconcussion symptoms Sun-day, the day after a 93-mile-an-hour fastball from Giants pitch-er Matt Cain hit him with suchforce that it knocked off his hel-met. (NYT)

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VANCOUVER, British Colum-bia Ice appears such a simpleconcoction water turned reallycold. This time of year, its favoredrole is usually the one it plays atthe bottom of a glass.

But ice is a year-round, lifelongscience for the people hired by theVancouver Organizing Commit-tee to produce complex forms of itfor the Winter Olympics, comingin February.

Beyond the usual challengesin constructing ice surfaces tomeet the needs of different sportsin different arenas, Vancouverslocation presents a twist, with itscombination of sea-level elevationand high humidity, unique amongWinter Olympic host cities.

Toss in the usual broadcast de-mands accompanying the Olym-pics extra banks of hot lightsand inflexible event schedulesamong them and the so-calledicemeisters may want to makesome extra cubes for a stiff drink.

Already, six months before theOlympics, they oversee a busycalendar of events and train-ing sessions to test the limits ofthe refrigeration systems, andgauge the effects of spectators inthe building and athletes on theice. They experiment with waterfiltration and air circulation andtrain teams of workers in the artof resurfacing.

About half of the Olympicevents will take place on carefullycrafted ice between one and twoinches thick. Varying by arena, itmust be a specific temperature,texture, composition, even color

(thank you, television), whetherspread across a vast surface in-side an arena or down the sideof a mountain. It must hold itsconsistency for weeks despitethe collaborative efforts of icesenemies, from the obvious (thesun, sharp objects and thunder-ing 1,400-pound bobsleds) to thenot-so-obvious (open arena doors,spectators and spinning 90-poundfigure skaters).

You cant just go out there andmake ice, said Hans Wuthrich,in charge of the surface at thenewly built curling arena, wherethe final step is a delicate spritzof scientifically configured waterdroplets strong enough to alterthe course of 44 pounds of slidinggranite.

The five ice specialists, eachwith deep Canadian ties, have ex-tensive experience from previousOlympics. On behalf of ice, theyhelped design new locales and theupgrades to existing ones. Theytoured Vancouvers water-treat-ment plants to study their prod-ucts key ingredient. They ponderevery ice-dooming possibility.

Consider the challenge facingTracy Seitz, who will make ice forcompetitors in bobsled, luge andskeleton at the Whistler SlidingCentre.

The serpentine track, nearly amile long, starts at an elevation of3,080 feet and drops to 2,582 feet.In February, it sometimes snowsat the top and rains at the bottom.Occasionally, the opposite oc-curs.

The tracks straight parts are

U-shaped. High-banked curvesare C-shaped, arcing up about 15feet to a gravity-defying overhangto accommodate speeds of morethan 95 miles an hour.

Parts of the track angle towardthe midday sun. Parts are alwaysin shadow. Some competitionswill be at night.

The trick is to keep the ice,no matter the forces workingagainst it, between 24 and 25 de-grees Fahrenheit. Warmer, andthe outer layers can turn slushy.Colder, and the brittle ice cancrack in sheets. Inconsistenciescan be dangerous, even fatal.

We want to make sure the icedoesnt change considerably inthe heat of a race, Seitz said.

Competitions can take severalhours, he noted. But medals areoften determined by hundredthsof a second. Even indoors, mostice begins the same way atopconcrete disguising a maze of re-frigeration pipes. Water is addedin thin layers because that makesstronger ice than filling a rinkwith an inch of water as if it werea giant ice-cube tray.

The water in Vancouver isincredible, said Mark Messer,the icemeister for the RichmondOlympic Oval, where speed skat-ing will take place. Its very, veryclean. We have a filtration unitthat were using at Richmond,and when putting it through thereit almost makes the water tooclean. You need to have a slightbit of impurities there to justkind of hold things together.

JOHN BRANCH

For Olympics, Vancouver Ponders Its Ice

MONTREAL Andy Murraylingered on center court at StadeUniprix long after his match. Hesigned oversized tennis balls,programs, hats, even an arm thatwas thrust at him from the grand-stand.

It had been that kind of week.In winning the Rogers Cup, Mur-ray overtook Rafael Nadal for theNo. 2 ranking; tied Nadal for mosttitles this year with five; added$435,500 to his bank account; wonhis ATP Tour-leading 50th singlesmatch this season; and bolsteredhis confidence for the UnitedStates Open.

After outlasting Juan Martndel Potro on Sunday afternoon, 6-7(4), 7-6 (3), 6-1, Murray opened a

585-point lead on Nadal for the No.2 ranking. The Open begins Aug.31; Murray lost in the final lastyear to Roger Federer.

At Wimbledon, the last tourna-ment Murray played before thisone, he fell in the semifinals. Mur-ray said he had answered the samequestion over and over about howhe would come back. This was theperfect way, he said.

The Rogers Cup final was billedas a contest between young starswith contrasting styles. Murray,22, is a complete player, built withthe body of an accountant, who haswhat many believe is the best re-turn in tennis. Opposite him stoodthe sixth-ranked del Potro, 20, abig-bodied banger with one of the

fastest serves on the tour.What followed was more top-

level tennis at the Rogers Cup,where the top eight players in therankings advanced to the quarter-finals for the first time in menstennis. Del Potro took the first setwithout breaking Murrays serve.It was the only set Murray lost inthe tournament.

Del Potro had defeated Nadaland Roddick to reach the final, butin the third set Sunday, he ran outof energy during his ninth match and sixth three-setter in thepast two weeks.

Asked what made the differencein the 2-hour-44-minute match,Murray said, He obviously wastired. GREG BISHOP

Murray Moves Past Nadal Into No. 2 Ranking

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G aB R H Pct.Mauer Min 92 353 69 133 .377ISuzuki Sea 110 486 69 175 .360Bartlett TB 96 351 63 120 .342MiCabrera Det 114 436 69 144 .330Jeter NYY 112 473 79 153 .323Cano NYY 117 471 79 151 .321Rolen Tor 88 338 52 108 .320Crawford TB 116 464 77 148 .319MYoung Tex 113 457 65 145 .317Figgins LAA 113 446 92 139 .312Ho R sCPena, Tampa Bay, 31; Teixeira, New York, 30;AHill, Toronto, 28; Morneau, Minnesota, 28.R s B tt IMorneau, Minnesota, 94; Longoria, Tampa Bay,88; Teixeira, New York, 86; Bay, Boston, 83.Pitchi gBeckett, Boston, 14-4; Halladay, Toronto, 13-5;Verlander, Detroit, 13-6; Sabathia, New York, 13-

East W L Pct GBPhil elphi 65 49 .570 Fl ri 63 55 .534 4a l 61 55 .526 5Me 55 62 .470 11 {

W hi 43 75 .364 24Central W L Pct GBs . L i 67 52 .563 Chic 60 55 .522 5Milw kee 58 59 .496 8H 57 61 .483 9 {Ci ci i 50 67 .427 16Pi b r h 46 70 .397 19 {

West W L Pct GBL a ele 70 48 .593 C l r 65 53 .551 5s Fr ci c 63 54 .538 6 {ariz 54 64 .458 16s die 49 70 .412 21 {

East W L Pct GBy kee 74 44 .627 B 66 51 .564 7 {t mp B 63 54 .538 10 {t r 55 61 .474 18B l im re 48 69 .410 25 {

Central W L Pct GBde r i 62 55 .530 Chic 60 58 .508 2 {Mi e 56 61 .479 6Clevel 51 66 .436 11K Ci 46 71 .393 16

West W L Pct GBL a ele 70 45 .609 tex 66 50 .569 4 {se le 61 57 .517 10 {o kl 52 65 .444 19

G aB R H Pct.HaRamirez Fla 110 427 76 152 .356Sandoval SF 111 421 52 139 .330Pujols StL 117 412 93 134 .325DWright NYM 115 426 74 138 .32Helton Col 110 406 60 129 .318Braun Mil 114 453 84 143 .316Tejada Hou 116 473 59 148 .313CaLee Hou 117 444 52 139 .313FLopez Mil 110 445 60 139 .312Victorino Phi 110 447 81 139 .311Ho R sPujols, St. Louis, 38; Reynolds, Arizona, 37;AdGonzalez, San Diego, 32; Dunn, Washington,31; Fielder, Milwaukee, 30; Howard, Philadelphia28; Ibanez, Philadelphia, 27.R s B tt IFielder, Milwaukee, 105; Pujols, St. Louis, 104;Howard, Philadelphia, 87; Braun, Milwaukee, 86;Dunn, Washington, 86; HaRamirez, Florida, 82;DLee, Chicago, 81; Reynolds, Arizona, 81.Pitchi gWainwright, St. Louis, 14-7; JSantana, New York,13-8; Marquis, Colorado, 13-8; JoJohnson, Florid12-2; CCarpenter, St. Louis, 12-3; Lincecum, SanFrancisco, 12-3; Cain, San Francisco, 12-4.

sPoRts jouRnAl Monday, august 17 , 2009 9