Armstrong admits doping: ‘I’m a flawed character’

CHICAGO (AP) — He did it. He finally admitted it. Lance Armstrong doped.

He was light on the details and didn’t name names. He mused that he might not have been caught if not for his comeback in 2009. And he was certain his “fate was sealed” when longtime friend, training partner and trusted lieutenant George Hincapie, who was along for the ride on all seven of Armstrong’s Tour de France wins from 1999-2005, was forced to give him up to anti-doping authorities.

But right from the start and more than two dozen times during the first of a two-part interview Thursday night with Oprah Winfrey on her OWN network, the disgraced former cycling champion acknowledged what he had lied about repeatedly for years, and what had been one of the worst-kept secrets for the better part of a week: He was the ringleader of an elaborate doping scheme on a U.S. Postal Service team that swept him to the top of the podium at the Tour de France time after time.

“I’m a flawed character,” he said.

Did it feel wrong?

“No,” Armstrong replied. “Scary.”

“Did you feel bad about it?” Winfrey pressed him.

“No,” he said. “Even scarier.”

“Did you feel in any way that you were cheating?”

“No,” Armstrong paused. “Scariest.”

“I went and looked up the definition of cheat,” he added a moment later. “And the definition is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe. I didn’t view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field.”

Wearing a blue blazer and open-neck shirt, Armstrong was direct and matter-of-fact, neither pained nor defensive. He looked straight ahead. There were no tears and very few laughs.

He dodged few questions and refused to implicate anyone else, even as he said it was humanly impossible to win seven straight Tours without doping.

“I’m not comfortable talking about other people,” Armstrong said. “I don’t want to accuse anybody.”

Whether his televised confession will help or hurt Armstrong’s bruised reputation and his already-tenuous defense in at least two pending lawsuits, and possibly a third, remains to be seen. Either way, a story that seemed too good to be true — cancer survivor returns to win one of sport’s most grueling events seven times in a row — was revealed to be just that.

“This story was so perfect for so long. It’s this myth, this perfect story, and it wasn’t true,” he said.

Winfrey got right to the point when the interview began, asking for yes-or-no answers to five questions.

Did Armstrong take banned substances? “Yes.”

Did that include the blood-booster EPO? “Yes.”

Did he do blood doping and use transfusions? “Yes.”

Did he use testosterone, cortisone and human growth hormone? “Yes.”

Did he take banned substances or blood dope in all his Tour wins? “Yes.”

In his climb to the top, Armstrong cast aside teammates who questioned his tactics, yet swore he raced clean and tried to silence anyone who said otherwise. Ruthless and rich enough to settle any score, no place seemed beyond his reach — courtrooms, the court of public opinion, even along the roads of his sport’s most prestigious race.

That relentless pursuit was one of the things that Armstrong said he regretted most.

“I deserve this,” he said twice.

“It’s a major flaw, and it’s a guy who expected to get whatever he wanted and to control every outcome. And it’s inexcusable. And when I say there are people who will hear this and never forgive me, I understand that. I do. …

“That defiance, that attitude, that arrogance, you cannot deny it.”

Armstrong said he started doping in mid-1990s but didn’t when he finished third in his comeback attempt.

Anti-doping officials have said nothing short of a confession under oath — “not talking to a talk-show host,” is how World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman put it — could prompt a reconsideration of Armstrong’s lifetime ban from sanctioned events.

He’s also had discussions with officials at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, whose 1,000-page report in October included testimony from nearly a dozen former teammates and led to stripping Armstrong of his Tour titles. Shortly after, he lost nearly all his endorsements, was forced to walk away from the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997, and just this week was stripped of his bronze medal from the 2000 Olympics.

Armstrong could provide information that might get his ban reduced to eight years. By then, he would be 49. He returned to triathlons, where he began his professional career as a teenager, after retiring from cycling in 2011, and has told people he’s desperate to get back.

Initial reaction from anti-doping officials ranged from hostile to cool.

WADA president John Fahey derided Armstrong’s defense that he doped to create “a level playing field” as “a convenient way of justifying what he did — a fraud.”

“He was wrong, he cheated and there was no excuse for what he did,” Fahey said by telephone in Australia.

If Armstrong “was looking for redemption,” Fahey added, “he didn’t succeed in getting that.”

USADA chief Travis Tygart, who pursued the case against Armstrong when others had stopped, said the cyclist’s confession was just a start.

“Tonight, Lance Armstrong finally acknowledged that his cycling career was built on a powerful combination of doping and deceit,” Tygart said. “His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction. But if he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities.”

Livestrong issued a statement that said the charity was “disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us.”

“Earlier this week, Lance apologized to our staff and we accepted his apology in order to move on and chart a strong, independent course,” it said.

The interview revealed very few details about Armstrong’s performance-enhancing regimen that would surprise anti-doping officials.

What he called “my cocktail” contained the steroid testosterone and the blood-booster erythropoetein, or EPO, “but not a lot,” Armstrong said. That was on top of blood-doping, which involved removing his own blood and weeks later re-injecting it into his system.

All of it was designed to build strength and endurance, but it became so routine that Armstrong described it as “like saying we have to have air in our tires or water in our bottles.”

“That was, in my view, part of the job,” he said.

Armstrong was evasive, or begged off entirely, when Winfrey tried to connect his use to others who aided or abetted the performance-enhancing scheme on the USPS team

When she asked him about Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who was implicated in doping-related scrapes and has also been banned from cycling for life, Armstrong replied, “It’s hard to talk about some of these things and not mention names. There are people in this story, they’re good people and we’ve all made mistakes … they’re not monsters, not toxic and not evil, and I viewed Michele Ferrari as a good man and smart man and still do.”

But that’s nearly all Armstrong would say about the physician that some reports have suggested educated the cyclist about doping and looked after other aspects of his training program.

He was almost as reluctant to discuss claims by former teammates Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis that Armstrong told them, separately, that he tested positive during the 2001 Tour de Suisse and conspired with officials of the International Cycling Union officials to cover it up — in exchange for a donation.

“That story wasn’t true. There was no positive test, no paying off of the labs. There was no secret meeting with the lab director,” he said.

Winfrey pressed him again, asking if the money he donated wasn’t part of a tit-for-tat agreement, “Why make it?”

“Because they asked me to,” Armstrong began.

“This is impossible for me to answer and have anybody believe it,” he said. “It was not in exchange for any cover-up. … I have every incentive here to tell you yes.”

Finally, he summed up the entire episode this way: “I was retired. … They needed money.”

Ultimately, though, it was Landis who did the most damage to Armstrong’s story. Landis was stripped of the 2006 Tour title after testing positive and wound up on the sport’s fringes looking for work. Armstrong said his former teammate threatened to release potentially destructive videos if he wasn’t given a spot on the team. That was in 2009, when Armstrong returned to the Tour after four years off.

Winfrey asked whether Landis’ decision to talk was “the tipping point.”

“I’d agree with that. I might back it up a little and talk about the comeback. I think the comeback didn’t sit well with Floyd,” Armstrong recalled.

“Do you regret now coming back?”

“I do. We wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t come back,” he said.

The closest Armstrong came to contrition was when Winfrey asked him about his apologies in recent days, notably to former teammate Frankie Andreu, who struggled to find work in cycling after Armstrong dropped him from the USPS team, as well as his wife, Betsy. Armstrong said she was jealous of his success, and invented stories about his doping as part of a long-running vendetta.

“Have you made peace?” Winfrey asked.

“No,” Armstrong replied, “because they’ve been hurt too badly, and a 40-minute (phone) conversation isn’t enough.”

He also called London Sunday Times reporter David Walsh as well as Emma O’Reilly, who worked as a masseuse for the USPS team and later provided considerable material for a critical book Walsh wrote about Armstrong and his role in cycling’s doping culture.

Armstrong subsequently sued for libel in Britain and won a $ 500,000 judgment against the newspaper, which is now suing to get the money back. Armstrong was, if anything, even more vicious in the way he went after O’Reilly. He intimated she was let go from the Postal team because she seemed more interested in personal relationships than professional ones.

“What do you want to say about Emma O’Reilly?” Winfrey asked.

“She, she’s one of these people that I have to apologize to. She’s one of these people that got run over, got bullied.”

“You sued her?”

“To be honest, Oprah, we sued so many people I don’t even,” Armstrong said, then paused, “I’m sure we did.”

Near the end of the first interview installment, Winfrey asked about a federal investigation of Armstrong that was dropped by the Justice Department without charges.

“When they dropped the case, did you think: ‘Now, finally over, done, victory’?”

Armstrong looked up. He exhaled.

“It’s hard to define victory,” he said. “But I thought I was out of the woods.”

___

AP Sports Writers Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, Eddie Pells in Denver and Dennis Passa in Melbourne contributed to this report.

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The Neediest Cases: Medical Bills Crush Brooklyn Man’s Hope of Retiring

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

John Concepcion and his wife, Maria, in their home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. They are awaiting even more medical bills.

Retirement was just about a year away, or so John Concepcion thought, when a sudden health crisis put his plans in doubt.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$6,865,501

Recorded Wed.:

16,711

*Total:

$6,882,212

Last year to date:

$6,118,740

*Includes $1,511,814 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

“I get paralyzed, I can’t breathe,” he said of the muscle spasms he now has regularly. “It feels like something’s going to bust out of me.”

Severe abdominal pain is not the only, or even the worst, reminder of the major surgery Mr. Concepcion, 62, of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, underwent in June. He and his wife of 36 years, Maria, are now faced with medical bills that are so high, Ms. Concepcion said she felt faint when she saw them.

Mr. Concepcion, who is superintendent of the apartment building where he lives, began having back pain last January that doctors first believed was the result of gallstones. In March, an endoscopy showed that tumors had grown throughout his digestive system. The tumors were not malignant, but an operation was required to remove them, and surgeons had to essentially reroute Mr. Concepcion’s entire digestive tract. They removed his gall bladder, as well as parts of his pancreas, bile ducts, intestines and stomach, he said.

The operation was a success, but then came the bills.

“I told my friend: are you aware that if you have a major operation, you’re going to lose your house?” Ms. Concepcion said.

The couple has since received doctors’ bills of more than $250,000, which does not include the cost of his seven-day stay at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. Mr. Concepcion has worked in the apartment building since 1993 and has been insured through his union.

The couple are in an anxious holding pattern as they wait to find out just what, depending on their policy’s limits, will be covered. Even with financial assistance from Beth Israel, which approved a 70 percent discount for the Concepcions on the hospital charges, the couple has no idea how the doctors’ and surgical fees will be covered.

“My son said, boy he saved your life, Dad, but look at the bill he sent to you,” Ms.  Concepcion said in reference to the surgeon’s statements. “You’ll be dead before you pay it off.”

When the Concepcions first acquired their insurance, they were in good health, but now both have serious medical issues — Ms. Concepcion, 54, has emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Mr. Concepcion has diabetes. They now spend close to $800 a month on prescriptions.

Mr. Concepcion, the family’s primary wage earner, makes $866 a week at his job. The couple had planned for Mr. Concepcion to retire sometime this year, begin collecting a pension and, after getting their finances in order, leave the superintendent’s apartment, as required by the landlord, and try to find a new home. “That’s all out of the question now,” Ms. Concepcion said. Mr. Concepcion said he now planned to continue working indefinitely.

Ms. Concepcion has organized every bill and medical statement into bulging folders, and said she had spent hours on the phone trying to negotiate with providers. She is still awaiting the rest of the bills.

On one of those bills, Ms. Concepcion said, she spotted a telephone number for people seeking help with medical costs. The number was for Community Health Advocates, a health insurance consumer assistance program and a unit of Community Service Society, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The society drew $2,120 from the fund so the Concepcions could pay some of their medical bills, and the health advocates helped them obtain the discount from the hospital.

Neither one knows what the next step will be, however, and the stress has been eating at them.

“How do we get out of this?” Mr. Concepcion asked. “There is no way out. Here I am trying to save to retire. They’re going to put me in the street.”

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DealBook: Michael Dell’s Empire in a Buyout Spotlight

The computer empire of Michael S. Dell spreads across a campus of low-slung buildings in Round Rock, Tex.

But his financial empire — estimated at $16 billion — occupies the 21st floor of a dark glass skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

It is there that MSD Capital, started by Mr. Dell 15 years ago to manage his fortune, has quietly built a reputation as one of the smartest investors on Wall Street. By amassing a prodigious portfolio of stocks, companies, real estate and timberland, Mr. Dell has reduced his exposure to the volatile technology sector and branched out into businesses as diverse as dentistry and landscaping.

Now, Mr. Dell is on the verge of making one of the biggest investments of his life. The 47-year-old billionaire and his private equity backers are locked in talks to acquire Dell, the company he started with $1,000 as a teenager three decades ago, in a leveraged buyout worth more than $20 billion. MSD could play a role in the Dell takeover, according to people briefed on the deal.

The private equity firm Silver Lake has been in negotiations to join with Mr. Dell on a transaction, along with other potential partners like wealthy Asian investors or foreign funds. Mr. Dell would be expected to roll his nearly 16 percent ownership of the company into the buyout, a stake valued at about $3.5 billion. He could also contribute additional personal money as part of the buyout.

That money is managed by MSD, among the more prominent so-called family offices that are set up to handle the personal investments of the wealthy. Others with large family offices include Bill Gates, whose Microsoft wealth financed the firm Cascade Investment, and New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, who set up his firm, Willett Advisors, in 2010 to manage his personal and philanthropic assets.

“Some of these family offices are among the world’s most sophisticated investors and have the capital and talent to compete with the largest private equity firms and hedge funds,” said John P. Rompon, managing partner of McNally Capital, which helps structure private equity deals for family offices.

A spokesman for MSD declined to comment for this article. The buyout talks could still fall apart.

In 1998, Mr. Dell, then just 33 years old — and his company’s stock worth three times what it is today — decided to diversify his wealth and set up MSD. He staked the firm with $400 million of his own money, effectively starting his own personal money-management business.

To head the operation, Mr. Dell hired Glenn R. Fuhrman, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and John C. Phelan, a principal at ESL Investments, the hedge fund run by Edward S. Lampert. He knew both men from his previous dealings with Wall Street. Mr. Fuhrman led a group at Goldman that marketed specialized investments like private equity and real estate to wealthy families like the Dells. And Mr. Dell was an early investor in Mr. Lampert’s fund.

Mr. Fuhrman and Mr. Phelan still run MSD and preside over a staff of more than 100 overseeing Mr. Dell’s billions and the assets in his family foundation. MSD investments include a stock portfolio, with positions in the apparel company PVH, owner of the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, and DineEquity, the parent of IHOP and Applebee’s.

Among its real estate holdings are the Four Seasons Resort Maui in Hawaii and a stake in the New York-based developer Related Companies.

MSD also has investments in several private businesses, including ValleyCrest, which bills itself as the country’s largest landscape design company, and DentalOne Partners, a collection of dental practices.

Perhaps MSD’s most prominent deal came in 2008, in the middle of the financial crisis, when it joined a consortium that acquired the assets of the collapsed mortgage lender IndyMac Bank from the federal government for about $13.9 billion and renamed it OneWest Bank.

The OneWest purchase has been wildly successful. Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman executive who led the OneWest deal, has said that the bank is expected to consider an initial public offering this year. An I.P.O. would generate big profits for Mr. Dell and his co-investors, according to people briefed on the deal.

Another arm of MSD makes select investments in outside hedge funds. Mr. Dell invested in the first fund raised by Silver Lake, the technology-focused private equity firm that might now become his partner in taking Dell private.
MSD’s principals have already made tidy fortunes. In 2009, Mr. Fuhrman, 47, paid $26 million for the Park Avenue apartment of the former Lehman Brothers chief executive Richard S. Fuld. Mr. Phelan, 48, and his wife, Amy, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, also live in a Park Avenue co-op and built a home in Aspen, Colo.

Both are influential players on the contemporary art scene, with ARTNews magazine last year naming each of them among the world’s top 200 collectors. MSD, too, has dabbled in the visual arts. In 2010, MSD bought an archive of vintage photos from Magnum, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Mahatma Gandhi, and has put the collection on display at the University of Texas, Mr. Dell’s alma mater.

Just as the investment firms Rockefeller & Company (the Rockefellers, diversifying their oil fortune) and Bessemer Trust (the Phippses, using the name of the steelmaking process that formed the basis of their wealth) started out as investment vehicles for a single family, MSD has recently shown signs of morphing into a traditional money management business with clients beside Mr. Dell.

Last year, for the fourth time, an MSD affiliate raised money from outside investors when it collected about $1 billion for a stock-focused hedge fund, MSD Torchlight Partners. A 2010 fund investing in distressed European assets also manages about $1 billion. The Dell family is the anchor investor in each of the funds, according to people briefed on the investments.

MSD has largely remained below the radar, though its name emerged a decade ago in the criminal trial of the technology banker Frank Quattrone on obstruction of justice charges. Prosecutors introduced an e-mail that Mr. Fuhrman sent to Mr. Quattrone during the peak of the dot-com boom in which he pleaded for a large allotment of a popular Internet initial public offering.

“We know this is a tough one, but we wanted to ask for a little help with our Corvis allocation,” Mr. Fuhrman wrote. “We are looking forward to making you our ‘go to’ banker.”

The e-mail, which was not illegal, was meant to show the quid pro quo deals that were believed to have been struck between Mr. Quattrone and corporate chieftains like Mr. Dell — the bankers would give executives hot I.P.O.’s and the executives, in exchange, would hold out the possibility of giving business to the bankers. (Mr. Quattrone’s conviction was reversed on appeal.)

The MSD team has also shown itself to be loyal to its patron in other ways.

On the MSD Web site, in the frequently asked questions section, the firm asks and answers queries like “how many employees do you have” and “what kind of investments do you make.”

In the last question on the list, MSD asks itself, “Do you use Dell computer equipment?” The answer: “Exclusively!”

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 18, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated when an MSD affiliate raised money from outside investors for a hedge fund. It was last year, not earlier this year. The article also misstated which hedge fund and its focus. It was MSD Torchlight Partners, a stock-focused hedge fund, not MSD Energy Partners, an energy-focused hedge fund.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/18/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Michael Dell’s Empire In a Buyout Spotlight.

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Group of hostages reportedly escapes Islamist captors in Algeria

CAIRO -- The Algerian news agency reported Thursday that as many as 45 hostages, including Americans, had escaped from a natural gas complex a day after Islamic militants seized the installation in retaliation for French airstrikes against Islamist rebels in neighboring Mali.   

The Algerian report said 30 Algerians and 15 foreigners had fled the compound Thursday. The report could not be independently confirmed. The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed Algerian official, said 20 foreigners, including Americans, had escaped.

[Updated, 5:51 a.m. Jan. 17: Conflicting reports suggested that hostages and kidnappers may have been killed by Algerian soldiers when they attempted to leave the complex. Media reports said a Mauritanian news organization quoted a militant spokesman as saying gunfire from helicopters killed 35 foreigners and 15 kidnappers, including the group's leader.

If either scenario if true -- no details are yet known -– it would mark a stunning twist in a drama that has raised fears of a long siege and highlighted the dangerous Islamist extremism stretching from Mali across the mountains and lawless deserts of North Africa.]

The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the gas facility at In Amenas near the Libyan border if government commandos attempted to free the hostages. France 24 television reported that a male captive said in a telephone interview that attackers forced some hostages to strap on belts laden with explosives. It could not be confirmed if the man was a hostage.

Hundreds of Algerian soldiers ringed the Sahara Desert compound and helicopters skimmed above. Algerian officials had earlier said they would not negotiate with the militants, who reportedly had asked for safe passage into Libya.

Captives being held are believed to be from the U.S., France, Japan, Norway and other countries. Reports on Wednesday suggested that as many as 41 foreigners were being held by an Al Qaeda-linked group calling itself the Signed-in-Blood Battalion.

The ordeal has shown the volatility of a region bristling with gunrunners, smugglers and a visceral strain of Islamic ideology. Militant groups, including Algeria's Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), have been deadly at home but now present a widening danger in North Africa, including in Tunisia and Libya, where Islamic extremists have gained a foothold since the uprisings of the Arab Spring.

The natural gas complex at In Amenas, which supplies Europe and Turkey, is a joint venture operated by BP; Statoil, a Norwegian firm; and Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company

ALSO:

Germany to bring home its gold by 2020

Islamic militants hold foreigners hostage at Algeria gas field

Pakistan government calls demands by protesters "not possible"

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

 

 

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Why Lance Armstrong's Confession Should Make <em>You</em> Worry

Lance-o-Rama has broken out … again. But this time, we’re getting a confession. On air. On Oprah. Tonight.

While many people speculate about this being his first step towards redemption, a comeback, a new chapter in the doping arms race, the one thing nobody seems to be discussing right now is what L’Affair de Lance means for you.

After all, if you’re like most Americans, you watched the Tour de France for about five minutes, and cheered when Armstrong won. You know a little about his cancer charity, and that he dated a pop star. And that’s about the extent of emotional energy you’ve expended. Since I’ve written a lot about doping in sports – and delved into how anti-doping agencies like the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) conduct business – I’ve expended a lot more energy on your behalf.

So here’s the thing you need to know: The USADA takedown of Armstrong matters, and it could effect everybody. Because it will enhance the power and reach of a private, non-profit business that has managed to harness the power of the federal government in what’s quickly becoming a brand new war on drugs … with all the same pitfalls brought to you by the first war on drugs.

The USADA is a private outfit. Yet it gets taxpayer money. And it has existed in this weird legal nether world since its creation in 1999 at the instigation of the International Olympic Committee, United States Olympic Committee, and President Clinton’s White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The USADA is designated by the U.S. Congress as the company that handles anti-doping for this country, because the World Anti-Doping Treaty – a UNESCO-promulgated document that the U.S. signed with almost no discussion – obligates the U.S. to do a number of things, which includes conforming our laws to the international anti-doping code.

Nobody cared much about that treaty. And few care much now, really, because it was understood that anti-doping was about testing athletes, and mostly elite ones.

But the Armstrong case isn’t based on testing at all.

The USADA has wanted Armstrong for years. To it, and to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Armstrong was Moby Dick: If they could kill the whale – and do it without a raft of positive tests to show Armstrong doped – a new model of anti-doping would be enshrined into practice. And that’s just what happened.

Piggy-backing on a federal investigation, the USADA was able to pressure Armstrong teammates to confess to doping and implicate Armstrong … with no positive test results. It was an FBI-style investigation spanning multiple countries, but there was no “smoking syringe” found stuck in Armstrong’s arm.

Yet this is now the main model for anti-doping. Athletes will still have to pee in cups and have blood drawn from their arms, but anti-doping agencies are using the Armstrong case to justify a tremendous expansion of their investigatory powers.

In Australia and the United Kingdom, anti-doping agencies are part of the government — and they’re beginning to look like police bodies. The U.K. agency, headed by the former chief constable of the North Yorkshire police, has promised to boost investigations. It, along with WADA, has called on governments to form alliances with the international police body Interpol.

There was no ‘smoking syringe’ found stuck in Armstrong’s arm. Yet this is now the main model for anti-doping.

The Australian Anti-Doping Agency, meanwhile, went so far as to demand private medical records from hundreds of athletes so it could fish for anything suspicious. In an eerie echo of the tactics used by the American House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare days, the Australian agency issued a call this past November “to anyone involved with, or has information about, doping activity in the sport of cycling to come forward and talk before someone else accuses them of doping.” If you talk first, you can get credit for snitching. If you wait, well, who knows what somebody else might say about you?

All of these state-sanctioned players – the Australians, the British, the Americans, and WADA — are hyping what they call “increased intelligence.” This includes anything from spying on athletes, to fishing through their garbage — and anything they find can be shared with “real” crime enforcers like the FBI (and vice versa). All of them have used the Armstrong case as illustration number one of why such actions are justified.

USADA chief Travis Tygart — who’s been talking like anti-doping’s Eliot Ness since the Armstrong story broke — has told me he’d like his own team of investigators. Let’s keep in mind that we’re talking about sports here: not terrorism, or even industrial espionage.

So while you might wish athletes didn’t dope — I do, too — and want action taken to combat doping, you might also want to be careful about what you’re wishing for. Especially since sports is taking on a broader definition that includes amateurs, low-level marathon runners, and even your kid’s high school football team.

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“Gangnam Style” takes top song prize at “K-pop Grammys”

(Reuters) – South Korean rapper Psy‘s quirky viral hit “Gangnam Style” took the prize for top song on Wednesday at the 27th annual Golden Disk Awards, a Korean pop event dubbed the “Korean Grammys.”

The two-day celebration of all things K-pop, including performances by superstars such as the boy band Super Junior, was held in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur before hordes of screaming fans, a testimony to the soaring popularity of Korean pop music around the world.

Nowhere has that been more apparent than with “Gangnam Style,” an infectious hit that made history last month when it became the first ever video on YouTube to reach 1 billion views, the latest record on the song’s surge into mainstream pop.

The tune won the Song of the Year award, the final prize.

The awards were only the latest accolades for Psy, 35, in what has been a whirlwind year for the chubby rapper, the first K-pop artist to achieve mainstream success in the United States as a result of “Gangnam Style.”

Decked out in a bow tie and suit jackets varying from pink to baby blue, and only a towel for one sequence set in a sauna, Psy raps in Korean and busts funky moves based on horse-riding in venues ranging from playgrounds to subways.

The song, released in July, was meant as a commentary on the rampant materialism of today’s South Korea – particularly in relation to the Gangnam section of the city, which Psy has termed Seoul’s Beverly Hills.

“My goal in this music video was to look uncool until the end. I achieved it,” Psy told Reuters in August.

The popularity of the song, which has prompted many copycat and parody videos, has added fuel to growing international interest in Asian pop music, especially the K-pop industry, which now aims to follow Psy into mainstream Western pop music.

Thanks to their youth, glowing image and the style of their songs and dances, K-pop fans have grown rapidly in Southeast Asia, formerly dominated by stars from the West as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

A Malaysian fan who queued for three days to get into the first night of the awards ceremony said she loved how the K-pop stars strived for perfection.

“K-pop stars have been working very hard, even before they make their first debut. They spend a lot of time practicing to become a perfect artist,” said the 20-something Tay Ching Ee. “This is what other artists should learn from them.”

The Golden Disk Awards began in 1986, with winners chosen based on album sales and digital downloads. The ceremony first ventured overseas in 2012, when it was held in Japan.

On Tuesday, the first night, Super Junior again won the best album award with their album “Sexy, Free & Single.” Boy band Shinee scooped the Most Popular Star prize.

(Additional reporting by Angie Teo and Belinda Goldsmith; writing by Elaine Lies; editing by Patricia Reaney)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age Blog: Officials Say Checks Won't Be in the Mail

The jig is up.

Two years ago, the Treasury Department initiated its Go Direct campaign to persuade people still receiving paper checks for their Social Security, Veterans Affairs, S.S.I. and other federal benefits to switch to direct deposit.

“At that point, we were issuing approximately 11 million checks each month,” or about 15 percent of the total, Walt Henderson, director of the campaign, told me.

After putting notices in every monthly check envelope, circulating public service announcements and putting the word out through banks, senior centers, the Red Cross, AARP and other organizations, the Treasury Department has since shrunk that number to five million monthly checks.

That means 93 percent of those getting federal benefits are using direct deposit or, if they prefer or lack a bank account, a Direct Express debit card that gets refilled each month and can be used anywhere that accepts MasterCard.

“So people have been getting the word and making the switch,” Mr. Henderson said. Now, federal officials are pushing the last holdouts to convert to direct deposit by March 1.

Although officials say the change is not optional, the jig isn’t entirely up. If you or your older relative does not respond to their pleading, “we’re not going to interrupt their payments,” Mr. Henderson said. But the department will start sending letters urging people to switch.

The major motive is financial: shifting the last paper checks to direct deposit or a debit card (only 2 percent of recipients go that route) will save $1 billion over the next decade, the department estimates.

But safety enters the picture, too. One reason some beneficiaries resist direct deposit, Mr. Henderson said, is that they fear their electronic deposits can be hacked or diverted. Having grown up in a predigital age, perhaps they feel safer with a check in their hands.

But they probably aren’t. In 2011, the Treasury Department received 440,000 reports of lost or stolen benefits checks. With direct deposit, “there’s no check lingering unattended in a mailbox,” Mr. Henderson noted.

The greater reason for sticking with paper is probably simple inertia. “It’s human nature to procrastinate,” he said.

But unless you or your relatives want a series of letters from the Treasury Department, it is probably time for the last fence-sitters to get with the program.

They don’t need to use a computer. People can switch to direct deposit, or get the debit card, at their banks or the local Social Security office. More simply, they can call a toll-free number, (800) 333-1795, and have agents walk them through the change. Or they can sign up online at www.GoDirect.org.

They will need:

1. Their Social Security number.
2. The 12-digit federal benefit number found on their checks.
3. The amount of the most recent check.
4. And, for direct deposit, a bank or credit union routing number, usually found on the front of a check. They can have direct deposit to a savings account, too.

A caution for New Old Age readers: If you think your relative has not switched because he or she is cognitively impaired and can no longer handle his finances, you can be designated a representative payee and receive monthly Social Security or S.S.I. payments on your relative’s behalf. This generally requires a visit to your local Social Security office, documentation in hand.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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DealBook: JPMorgan’s Board Uses a Pay Cut as a Message

Shortly after the markets closed on Tuesday afternoon, an emissary from JPMorgan Chase’s board of directors walked two flights down to the 48th-floor corner office of the bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, to deliver a stark message. The board had voted to slash Mr. Dimon’s annual compensation for 2012 by half.

At first blush, the move appeared to be a stinging rebuke of Mr. Dimon for his failures of leadership that contributed to the bank’s multibillion-dollar trading loss last year.

But the pay cut was actually a message from the board to regulators and worried investors that it was a strong watchdog over the nation’s largest bank, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

After facing criticism for its lax oversight, the board wanted to assert its position as a check on top management, according to the people, who declined to be named because the discussions were not public.

Mr. Dimon, who was the highest paid chief executive at a large bank in 2011, was unfazed when he heard the news. On Wednesday, Mr. Dimon said the board “had a tough job” in assessing how to reduce his total compensation for the year. He called the trading episode an “embarrassing mistake” and said, “I respect their decision.”

The decision came after back-to-back board meetings earlier this week where the head of the board’s compensation committee, Lee R. Raymond, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil who is known for his no-nonsense style, made a compelling pitch to his fellow directors. The group, Mr. Raymond argued, needed to take swift, decisive action.

While a few members were initially skittish about the depths of the proposed cuts, the board voted unanimously to reduce Mr. Dimon’s pay to $11.5 million from $23.1 million a year earlier, according to the people. The directors also voted to release the results of internal investigations into the trading losses, which largely fault other top executives for the problems.

The extent of the cut took some JPMorgan executives by surprise when news of the compensation was disclosed on Wednesday along with the bank’s earnings, which surged to an annual record of $21.3 billion.

“Mr. Dimon bears ultimate responsibility for the failures that led to losses,” the board said in a statement. It added that upon learning the extent of the losses, he “responded forcefully.”

Still, the trading losses, which have swelled to more than $6 billion, have cast a long shadow over the board and management of the bank. Many of JPMorgan’s hallmarks that Mr. Dimon has trumpeted, from its deft management of risk to a deep bench of executive talent, have been partially undercut by the trading fiasco and ensuing upheaval.

Despite the board’s move on pay, some federal regulators are skeptical that the directors have prowess to adequately police risk, according to several current and former regulators with knowledge of the matter. Mr. Dimon, 56, who successfully steered the bank through the turbulence of the 2008 financial crisis relatively unscathed, still maintains a tight grip on the bank.

Some federal regulators worry that the board, which largely exonerated themselves in their internal investigation of the losses, cannot sufficiently push back against the hard-charging Mr. Dimon. Others, the regulators said, are concerned that the directors lack the financial acumen to rein in risky activities.

At the time of the losses, the board’s risk committee had three members, a smaller group than many of its major Wall Street rivals. Also troubling, the regulators said, the three included executives with little banking experience: the president of the American Museum of Natural History, Ellen V. Futter, and David M. Cote, the chief executive of the manufacturer Honeywell. Since the losses were disclosed, Timothy P. Flynn, formerly the chairman of the auditing firm KPMG, joined the risk committee.

Joseph Evangelisti, a JPMorgan spokesman, said, “This is the same board that brought us through the worst financial crisis in our history with flying colors.”

Since revealing the trading losses in May from a soured bet on complex credit derivatives, Mr. Dimon has exerted his powerful influence over the shape and direction of the bank. He has reshuffled the upper echelons of its management, claiming the jobs of some of his most trusted lieutenants. Two notable casualties are Douglas L. Braunstein, who ceded his role as chief financial officer in November, and Barry L. Zubrow, a former chief risk officer, who resigned as head of regulatory affairs late last year. Mr. Braunstein is a vice chairman reporting to Mr. Dimon.

Adding to the turmoil at the top of the bank, Ina R. Drew resigned as head of the chief investment office shortly after the trading losses were announced. Her precipitous fall was followed this year by the departure of James E. Staley, once considered a potential heir to Mr. Dimon.

To replace them, Mr. Dimon has elevated a group of younger executives, most of whom are in their 40s. Some bank analysts and executives at JPMorgan worry that the group does not yet have the institutional knowledge or experience of their more seasoned predecessors, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

At a conference in San Francisco earlier this month, Mr. Dimon called the current group of executives “the strongest leadership team we have ever had in place.” He mixed his praise, however, with a sharp criticism of others at the bank in the aftermath of the trading losses. “Instead of helping, they were running around with their head chopped off,” he said. Some “acted like children” and wondered “What does this mean for me personally? How’s my reputation?”

At the same time, Mr. Dimon has emerged relatively unscathed. While critical of Mr. Dimon, an internal report, led by Michael J. Cavanagh, a head of the corporate and investment bank, leveled its most scathing attacks on the executives who directly oversaw the London traders who made increasingly outsize wagers in the bank’s chief investment office. “Responsibility for the flaws that allowed the losses to occur lies primarily with C.I.O. management,” the report, which was released on Wednesday, said. Also ensnared are Mr. Zubrow and Mr. Braunstein.

The cuts target Mr. Dimon’s bonus compensation. While his salary remained the same from a year earlier at $1.5 million, his bonus was whittled down to $10 million, paid out in restricted stock.

Still, Mr. Dimon has accumulated much wealth in his years at the bank. He owns bank shares valued at $263 million.

Ben Protess contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/17/2013, on page A1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: JPMorgan Uses Big Cut in Pay To Send Signal.

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Helicopter crashes in central London, killing at least two people

LONDON -- A helicopter apparently crashed into a crane atop a high-rise building in central London during the morning rush hour Wednesday, falling to earth and killing at least two people, police said.

Video footage showed flaming debris on the ground where the chopper came down in the Vauxhall district of south London, close to the headquarters of MI6, Britain's spy agency.

Scotland Yard said two people were confirmed dead at the scene, with two others taken to the hospital. A fire official told the BBC that one of the dead had been aboard the helicopter. Authorities quickly cordoned off the area and shut down Vauxhall rail station.

[Update, 4:26 a.m. Jan 16: Later Wednesday morning, police said one of the dead was the chopper's pilot. The other victim has not been identified, but the helicopter was not believed to be carrying passengers, police said. 

"At this stage, it appears a commercial helicopter on a scheduled flight was in collision with a crane on top of a building under construction," Scotland Yard said in a statement. 

Police said seven people were treated on the scene for minor injuries. Six people were taken to local hospitals, all for minor injuries except for one person who suffered a broken leg.]

The crash occurred on a gray morning with thick clouds or fog lying low in the sky. Police did not speculate as to the cause of the crash, but the BBC reported that terrorism did not appear to be likely.

Nicky Morgan, a member of Parliament who was walking toward Vauxhall, told the broadcaster that she heard a huge explosion shortly before 8 a.m., a time when commuters and schoolchildren were going about their usual routine.

"I did wonder if it was a bomb explosion, because it was just such a loud bang," she said. "It was the thick black smoke that really meant that this is not right."

Helicopters are common in London, particularly around the city's financial district where many tall buildings are clustered.

The crash site is near the Nine Elms neighborhood south of the Thames, where the U.S. is planning to build a large new embassy.

ALSO:

Blue plaques that pay tribute to London's past may be history

Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian teen in West Bank confrontation

Egyptian lawyer gets 5 years, 300 lashes for Saudi drug conviction

 

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See a Real-Life <em>Mario Kart</em> Race Complete With RFID Bananas, Power-Ups

What Mario Kart fan hasn’t secretly dreamed of playing a real-life version of the Mario Bros-themed racing game? But while most people would be content with renting regular go-karts and using their imaginations really, really hard, two Texas engineers, Hunter Smith and Ben James, decided to make the dream a reality by creating an ingenious live-action version of the Mario Bros-themed racing game.

Where things really get amazing, however, are the RFID-embedded power-up item boxes suspended over the track by pieces of rope, which allow the player to collect items like bananas and turtle shells modeled on the original Mario Kart game — and actually affect their performance in the race. The mushroom item, for example, wirelessly activates tiny Servo motors that enable go-karts to speed up by accessing 100 percent of their throttle power.

“Ben and I grew up playing Mario Kart on Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 so we’re both big fans,” Smith, the co-founder of Austin Texas-based Waterloo Labs, told Wired. We got the idea for the real-life Mario because we work with First Robotics Competition and they use same controller, software and motors. We got a few extra kits so we asked ourselves ‘What can we do with these competition kits that would be fun?”

The system details and source code for the project are available on the Waterloo Labs website, which volunteers that while there is no permanent set-up for Real-Life Mario Kart for enthusiasts to visit, “we would be happy to help you build your own!”

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