As Gold Is Spirited Out of Afghanistan, Officials Wonder Why

Zalmai for The New York Times

A Kabul jewelry shop. Officials are concerned about gold being flown out of Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Packed into hand luggage and tucked into jacket pockets, roughly hewed bars of gold are being flown out of Kabul with increasing regularity, confounding Afghan and American officials who fear money launderers have found a new way to spirit funds from the country.

Most of the gold is being carried on commercial flights destined for Dubai, according to airport security reports and officials. The amounts carried by single couriers are often heavy enough that passengers flying from Kabul to the Persian Gulf emirate would be well advised to heed warnings about the danger of bags falling from overhead compartments. One courier, for instance, carried nearly 60 pounds of gold bars, each about the size of an iPhone, aboard an early morning flight in mid-October, according to an airport security report. The load was worth more than $1.5 million.

The gold is fully declared and legal to fly. Some, if not most, is legitimately being sent by gold dealers seeking to have old and damaged jewelry refashioned into new pieces by skilled craftsmen in the Persian Gulf, said Afghan officials and gold dealers.

But gold dealers in Kabul and current and former Kabul airport officials say there has been a surge in shipments since early summer. The talk of a growing exodus of gold from Afghanistan has been spreading among the business community here, and in recent weeks has caught the attention of Afghan and American officials. The officials are now puzzling over the origin of the gold — very little is mined in Afghanistan, although larger mines are planned — and why so much appears to be heading for Dubai.

“We are investigating it, and if we find this is a way of laundering money, we will intervene,” said Noorullah Delawari, the governor of Afghanistan’s central bank. Yet he acknowledged that there were more questions than answers at this point. “I don’t know where so much gold would come from, unless you can tell me something about it,” he said in an interview. Or, as a European official who tracks the Afghan economy put it, “new mysteries abound” as the war appears to be drawing to a close.

Figuring out what precisely is happening in the Afghan economy remains as confounding as ever. Nearly 90 percent of the financial activity takes place outside formal banks. Written contracts are the exception, receipts are rare and statistics are often unreliable. Money laundering is commonplace, say Western and Afghan officials.

As a result, with the gold, “right now you’re stuck in that situation we usually are: is there something bad going on here or is this just the Afghan way of commerce?” said a senior American official who tracks illicit financial networks.

There is reason to be suspicious: the gold shipments track with the far larger problem of cash smuggling. For years, flights have left Kabul almost every day carrying thick wads of bank notes — dollars, euros, Norwegian kroner, Saudi Arabian riyals and other currencies — stuffed into suitcases, packed into boxes and shrink-wrapped onto pallets. At one point, cash was even being hidden in food trays aboard now-defunct Pamir Airways flights to Dubai.

Last year alone, Afghanistan’s central bank says, roughly $4.5 billion in cash was spirited out through the airport. Efforts to stanch the flow have had limited impact, and concerns about money laundering persist, according to a report released last week by the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The unimpeded “bulk cash flows raise the risk of money laundering and bulk cash smuggling — tools often used to finance terrorist, narcotics and other illicit operations,” the report said. The cash, and now the gold, is most often taken to Dubai, where officials are known for asking few questions. Many wealthy Afghans park their money and families in the emirate, and gold dealers say more middle-class Afghans are sending money and gold — seen as a safeguard against economic ruin — to Dubai as talk of a postwar economic collapse grows louder.

But given Dubai’s reputation as a haven for laundered money, an Afghan official said that the “obvious suspicion” is that at least some of the apparent growth in gold shipments to Dubai is tied to the myriad illicit activities — opium smuggling, corruption, Taliban taxation schemes — that have come to define Afghanistan’s economy.

There are also indications that Iran could be dipping into the Afghan gold trade. It is already buying up dollars and euros here to circumvent American and European sanctions, and it may be using gold for the same purpose.

Yahya, a dealer in Kabul, said other gold traders were helping Iran buy the precious metal here. Payment was being made in oil or with Iranian rials, which readily circulate in western Afghanistan. The Afghan dealers are then taking it to Dubai, where the gold is sold for dollars. The money is then moved to China, where it was used to buy needed goods or simply funneled back to Iran, said Yahya, who like many Afghans uses a single name.

Read More..

Gunman Kills 20 Children at School in Connecticut; 28 Dead in All

Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Connecticut State Police stood guard outside Sandy Hook Elementary School on Saturday morning.

A gunman who killed 26 people in a shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., before committing suicide forced his way into the building, the authorities said on Saturday morning.

The medical examiner’s office was still finalizing its work before the authorities could make public the names of the victims in the mass shooting on Friday, Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the Connecticut State Police., said at a news conference Saturday morning.

Lieutenant Vance said investigators had found valuable information at the home of the gunman that may help explain why he began his assault, but declined to give details.

“We are hopeful it will paint a complete picture of how and why,” Lieutenant Vance said of the evidence.

Only one of the shooting victims survived. That person, who was shot in the foot, remained in a hospital and was to be interviewed by the police on Saturday.

“She will be instrumental in this investigation,” Lieutenant Vance said.

The gunman, identified by law enforcement officials as Adam Lanza, started his killing spree at his home near the school, where he shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the face, the authorities said.

Mr. Lanza, 20, then drove his mother’s car to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Outfitted in combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle, Mr. Lanza forced his way into the building and then chose his victims with a brutal efficiency, according to law enforcement officials.

As children hid in closets, barricaded themselves in bathrooms and huddled in classroom corners, Mr. Lanza shot child after child. A janitor ran through the halls alerting others to the shooting, and someone switched on the school intercom, providing more warning and perhaps saving lives, the authorities said.

When the principal and teachers tried to intervene, they, too, were shot dead.

The shooting spree lasted only minutes, but it was enough time to leave a nation stunned and a community shattered.

Even as bodies were removed from the school overnight Friday and investigators continued to work the crime scene, the town began to mourn the dead.

Across Newtown, a picture-perfect New England town where neighbors are a quick with a friendly hello and know one another by name, the Christmas lights and decorations were overwhelmed by memorials. With words so hard to come by, several people hung up signs that simply read, “Pray.”

On Friday night, thousands of people flocked to local churches, attending candlelight vigils and seeking comfort in community.

“These 20 children were just beautiful, beautiful children,” Msgr. Robert Weiss of St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church told reporters. "These 20 children lit up this community better than all these Christmas lights we have.”

A letter from Pope Benedict XVI was read at one of the vigils.

"I ask God our father to console all those who mourn and to sustain the entire community with the spiritual strength which triumphs over violence by the power of forgiveness, hope and reconciling love," the pope wrote.

At the White House, President Obama struggled to choke back his own emotions as he read a statement on Friday. More than once, he dabbed his eyes.

“Our hearts are broken,” Mr. Obama said, adding that his first reaction was not as a president, but as a parent.

“I know there is not a parent in America who does not feel the same overwhelming grief that I do,” he said.

“They had their entire lives ahead of them: birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own,” he said. Then the president reached up to the corner of one eye.

In his Saturday morning weekly address to the nation, Mr. Obama reiterated his call to take “meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics.” 

Read More..

School shooting postpones Cruise premiere in Pa.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. premiere of the Tom Cruise action movie "Jack Reacher" is being postponed following the deadly Connecticut school shooting.

Paramount Pictures says "out of honor and respect for the families of the victims" the premiere won't take place Saturday in Pittsburgh, where "Jack Reacher" was filmed.

The premiere would've been Cruise's first U.S. media appearance since his split from Katie Holmes over the summer. It was to be more contained with select outlets covering and a location away from Hollywood or New York.

A proclamation ceremony for Cruise had been planned with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

No new date for the premiere has been set. The movie opens Dec. 21.

Friday's massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school killed 20 children and several adults.

Read More..

School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians

T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times

Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination.

ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras.

Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing.

“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”

Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.

A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.

After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.

Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them.

“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.”

Ms. Eady and a few dozen other parents say a public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that.

Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga.

Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Mr. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose.

“There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said.

“The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said.

The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums.

The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community.

The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky” are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy.

Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the program, and Mr. Broyles has threatened to sue if the board does not address their concerns.

The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said.

“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.”

Ms. Eady is not convinced.

“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”

Russell Case, a representative of the Jois Foundation, said the parents’ fears were misguided.

“They’re concerned that we’re putting our God before their God,” Mr. Case said. “They’re worried about competition. But we’re much closer to them than they think. We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”

Read More..

Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.

Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

The campaigns by Mr. Penn, 58, a longtime political operative known for his brusque personality and scorched-earth tactics, are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas.

Microsoft has long attacked Google from the shadows, whispering to regulators, journalists and anyone else who would listen that Google was a privacy-violating, anticompetitive bully. The fruits of its recent work in this area could come next week, when the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce the results of its antitrust investigation of Google, a case that echoes Microsoft’s own antitrust suit in the 1990s. A similar investigation by the European Union is also wrapping up. A bad outcome for Google in either one would be a victory for Microsoft.

But Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has realized that it cannot rely only on regulators to scrutinize Google — which is where Mr. Penn comes in. He is increasing the urgency of Microsoft’s efforts and focusing on their more public side.

In an interview, Mr. Penn said companies underestimated the importance of policy issues like privacy to consumers, as opposed to politicians and regulators. “It’s not about whether they can get them through Washington,” he said. “It’s whether they can get them through Main Street.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions specifically, but said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition.”

In Washington, Mr. Penn is a lightning rod. He developed a relationship with the Clintons as a pollster during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, when he helped identify the value of “soccer moms” and other niche voter groups.

As chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president, he conceived the “3 a.m.” commercial that raised doubts about whether Barack Obama, then a senator, was ready for the Oval Office. Mr. Penn argued in an essay he wrote for Time magazine in May that “negative ads are, by and large, good for our democracy.”

But his approach has ended up souring many of his professional relationships. He left Mrs. Clinton’s campaign after an uproar about his consulting work for the government of Colombia, which was seeking the passage of a trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, then a senator, opposed.

“Google should be prepared for everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them,” said a former colleague who worked closely with Mr. Penn in politics and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Actually, they should be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at them, too.”

Hiring Mr. Penn demonstrates how seriously Microsoft is taking this fight, said Michael A. Cusumano, a business professor at M.I.T. who co-wrote a book about Microsoft’s browser war.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to do whatever they can to halt Google’s advance, just as their competition did to them,” Professor Cusumano said. “I suppose that if Microsoft can actually put a doubt in people’s mind that Google isn’t unbiased and has become some kind of evil empire, they might very well get results.”

Nick Wingfield reported from Seattle and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

Read More..

Mandela Remains Hospitalized as Questions Grow

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Where is Nelson Mandela?

As the 94-year-old patriarch of South Africa's democracy entered his seventh day of hospitalization Friday for a recurring lung infection, confusion grew as the government appeared to contradict itself over where he is being treated.

Journalists on Friday saw a convoy of presidential security cars and an ambulance pass through South Africa's capital, Pretoria, but the government refused to confirm that Mandela had been moved from hospital.

With the government refusing to say where Mandela is, concern grew across the nation of 50 million people about the health of the anti-apartheid icon.

Mandela, admitted Saturday to a hospital, was thought to have been at 1 Military Hospital near Pretoria after Defense Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said she visited the leader there Monday. But when local media reported that Mandela wasn't at that hospital Thursday night, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj refused to give the whereabouts of the ailing politician.

"President Mandela is being treated at a Pretoria hospital as said from the first statement we issued," Maharaj said. "We have refrained from disclosing the hospital in order to ensure privacy and also to allow doctors space to do their work of caring for (him) without interruptions or undue pressure."

It was not immediately clear if Mandela had been moved or if he had been at a different facility during his entire seven-day hospitalization, his longest since 2001, when he underwent radiation therapy after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

On Monday, addressing journalists after her visit, Mapisa-Nqakula said: "We confirm that former President Mandela is in (the) hospital, 1 Military Hospital, and he's doing very, very well."

Sonwabo Mbananga, a defense department spokesman, said Friday that "the minister is not going to clarify anything" about her remarks Monday and declined to comment further.

On Friday, journalists saw a convoy of presidential security cars and an ambulance leave a private Pretoria hospital and later arrive at 1 Military Hospital. However, it could not be immediately determined if the convoy had anything to do with Mandela's care.

South Africa's government has said Mandela, initially admitted for medical tests, was being treated for a lung infection. Mandela has a history of lung problems, after falling ill with tuberculosis in 1988 toward the tail-end of his 27 years in prison before his release and being elected president. While doctors said at the time the disease caused no permanent damage to his lungs, medical experts say tuberculosis can cause problems years later for those infected.

Mandela had an acute respiratory infection in January 2011 and following the chaos surrounding Mandela's stay at a public hospital the South African military took charge of his care and the government took over control the information about his health.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Read More..

From 'Sherlock' to 'Star Trek' for Cumberbatch

LONDON (AP) — Benedict Cumberbatch has had a busy 24 hours.

The British actor was nominated for a Golden Globe, chased by the paparazzi in London and unveiled the first nine minutes of the new "Star Trek" movie Friday.

At a special IMAX presentation of the footage in London, Cumberbatch's menacing character John Harrison was introduced at the beginning of the much-anticipated "Star Trek Into Darkness."

The sequel kicks off at a fast pace, with Captain Kirk's trademark quips, a volcano erupting and Spock in grave danger during a mission to save a planet.

Cumberbatch was not allowed to reveal much about the plot, but the 36-year-old did admit that he auditioned for the role of Harrison — who he describes as "a phenomenal one-man weapon of mass destruction" — on an iPhone in his friend's kitchen.

Fans wanting to see the footage can catch it in front of selected IMAX 3D screenings worldwide of "The Hobbit," beginning Friday.

"Star Trek Into Darkness," directed by J.J. Abrams, opens next May.

___

The Associated Press spoke to the "Sherlock" star Friday after the presentation.

AP: "How did it feel coming here and seeing your face so big on that screen?"

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: "I always get incredibly nervous, especially on an empty stomach having only had a macchiato. It makes your heart beat a lot faster and I don't like it. I look away when it's me, I don't like being my own audience. It's very weird. ... You probably saw my nostril hairs, counted how many pores I've got on my nose and which one of my teeth is wonky. "

AP: "It's obviously in the great tradition of having an English baddie."

CUMBERBATCH: "I'm following in the very hallowed footsteps of (Jeremy) Irons, (Alan) Rickman and Tom Hiddleston, my great friend in this summer's "Avengers." There are a few of us who have done it before, it stretches back as old as time. They get excited about these actors with theatre training who can do stuff. It's hugely flattering but you're not going to see me do a whole raft of villains after this."

AP: "Congratulations on the Golden Globe nomination (best actor in a miniseries for "Sherlock"). Did you celebrate?"

CUMBERBATCH: "I went out with my niece, who is my PA (personal assistant) Emily, and we got papped (followed by paparazzi) to the point that I couldn't actually see and I had to put my head down and just blink a couple of times. I was trying to get in the car with her and so immediately they presume, 'ah, beautiful blonde.' Poor girl, she's never experienced that before — I've never experienced that — like 15 of them hanging off the bonnet of the car."

AP: "Surely it's only going to get worse after this "Star Trek" film?"

CUMBERBATCH: "I hope not. I don't court it. I think you have to be in certain places at certain times. Of course, promoting a film you're out in the public and I'm proud to do that for the work I've done. But I'm quite a private person at heart."

Read More..

HealthBridge Managemant Ordered to Reinstate Striking Workers

A federal judge in Hartford has ordered a Connecticut nursing home chain to reinstate nearly 600 workers who have been on strike since July 3, and to rescind the pension and health care cuts it had imposed.

Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the United States District Court in Connecticut ruled on Tuesday night that the nursing homes’ owner, HealthBridge Management, had broken the law by refusing to bargain in good faith and by imposing the cuts before a true negotiating impasse had been reached.

Judge Chatigny issued an injunction that ordered HealthBridge to reinstate the workers by next Monday, even if it means ousting hundreds of the replacement workers hired to run the nursing homes after the strike began.

“Everybody is quite happy about the decision,” said Vern Scatliffe, a nurse’s aide, as he picketed outside Danbury Health Care Center, one of the five nursing homes — the others are in Milford, Newington, Stamford and Westport — where the workers walked out to protest the cuts HealthBridge had imposed. “The judge’s order is a big relief to me. I can now go back to work and earn my living again.”

Saying the company was disappointed by the judge’s decision, Lisa Crutchfield, a HealthBridge spokeswoman, said it had filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the injunction.

“We are acting in the best interests of our residents — their well-being is paramount to us,” she said. Ms. Crutchfield said the order to reinstate the strikers would “expose residents to the very people who sought to do them harm” during the walkout. HealthBridge has accused the strikers of several acts of sabotage, including changing the names on several patients’ doors and wheelchairs and switching the names of some residents in Alzheimer’s units.

Deborah Chernoff, a spokeswoman for the strikers’ union, the New England Health Care Employees Union, said it had opposed any sabotage. She suggested that the allegations themselves were suspicious, noting that they were first made two weeks after the strike began.

The strike began after HealthBridge declared the negotiations deadlocked and then imposed changes that included freezing the workers’ pensions, requiring many to pay at least $6,000 more a year for family health coverage and eliminating six paid sick days and a week’s vacation for many workers.

Two weeks after the strike began, the striking employees, who belong to a branch of the Service Employees International Union, offered to return to work, but the company refused to take them back. Judge Chatigny said it was “just and proper” to reinstate them “because there is a pressing need to restore the status quo” from before the company made the changes, which he found to be illegal.

The judge acted only after the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Hartford sought an injunction.

David Pickus, president of the strikers’ union, said, “This ruling is a decisive victory for workers and a sign that HealthBridge cannot get away with its unfair and illegal treatment of its employees.”

Read More..

DealBook: Best Buy Gives Founder More Time to Make a Bid

Best Buy plans to give its founder a reprieve from holiday shopping.

The electronics retailer said on Friday that it would give its founder, Richard Schulze, until Feb. 28 to make a takeover bid for the company. That will give Mr. Schulze and his private equity partners the chance to review holiday sales before making their bid.

Best Buy cautioned that its founder may not make a bid, and that it may turn down any offer that is made.

Shares of the retailer tumbled nearly 17 percent in morning trading on Friday, to $11.75, as investors appeared worried that the chances of a successful takeover were growing remote.

Mr. Schulze remains the single biggest shareholder, with a roughly 20 percent stake, but analysts and investors have questioned whether he can line up the requisite equity and debt financing.

He has reached tentative agreements to partner with a number of leveraged buyout firms to aid him in his campaign, a person briefed on the matter said. But any offer is unlikely to come close to the $8.8 billion that he initially floated.

The announcement comes as shares in Best Buy have fallen steadily in recent months, down 33 percent over the last three months. Even with the holiday shopping season in full swing, the retailer is expected to struggle against online competitors like Amazon.com and bigger rivals like Wal-Mart Stores.

Analysts suspect that consumer will continue to use Best Buy stores as “showrooms” to play around with products, before buying them more cheaply elsewhere. That’s despite efforts by the company’s relatively new chief executive, Hubert Joly, to entice shoppers with redesigned stores and improved customer service.

The company said last month that its same-store sales fell yet again, as it reported a $10 million loss in its third quarter.

Read More..

Barneys Remakes Itself for the New New York

Barbel Schmidt for The New York Times

The new shoe floor of Barneys New York.

The elevator door opened in the Sutton Place penthouse of Richard Perry, the hedge-fund manager, and there he stood in the white foyer wearing a black knit suit whose slumping shoulders made him look like a bony country parson. Perry is a man of meticulous habit, a super-athlete who prides himself on his sophisticated sense of style. He has a closetful of suits by Thom Browne and Lanvin that don’t have shoulders that slant like a roof. This one was a blip of misjudgment. But Perry, no doubt out of devotion to his wife, Lisa, a fashion designer who made the suit in the same double knit she uses for her mod dresses, decided to wear it that night. And it was an evening of some importance, for the Perrys were off to a party at Barneys — their first since Richard bought the renowned specialty store.

Barbel Schmidt for The New York Times

Richard and Lisa Perry in their Pop Art apartment.

“Welcome! Welcome!” he boomed as I stepped off the elevator. A moment later, from the apartment’s depths, Lisa appeared, a small, sunny woman with ageless girl-next-door features and tawny hair cut in a chic mop. Lisa grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago and still retains, after more than 30 years in New York, a Midwestern accent, along with an easy friendliness. She was wearing a yellow-and-gray-print dress of her own design and high heels.

Richard was keen to show me the apartment, which is something else. It is a pure example of the Pop and neo-Pop aesthetics in that everything is magnified and lurid, like the huge Jeff Koons metallic green diamond planted on the terrace, visible from the foyer — and a source of vexation with a neighbor, who claimed the rock emits a laser-strength glare. (Richard dismisses the gripe as baseless.) The apartment is like someone’s idea in 1963 of a home of the future, down to the panoramic curve of the living room, the bottomless whiteness and the oval leather sofa large enough to seat 30. On the walls hang paintings by Roy Lichtenstein and Jim Dine. It’s not a room for relaxing; even trays of hard candies, displayed with absurd precision, seem to treat enjoyment strictly as a still life.

Far from being the white elephant that some supposed when the Perrys bought the penthouse in 2000 for $10.9 million (the main drawback was its two ballrooms), the place fed new goals for the couple. Lisa, at one time an abortion-rights advocate and a Democratic fund-raiser (“I really wanted Hillary to be president,” she says, and to illustrate the couple’s regard, a portrait of Hillary by Chuck Close hangs in the apartment), had begun to collect ’60s fashion, like Courrèges. Strangers would often ask her who designed her outfit, she said, and “that’s when the light bulb went off.” By 2007, she was selling Lisa Perry creations at stores like Jeffrey and Bergdorf Goodman. She persuaded artists or their heirs, like Lichtenstein’s widow, Dorothy, to let her reproduce artwork on her designs, for a small percentage of sales (that is then donated to the artist’s cause). But she was bedeviled by the pressures of a small wholesale operation, so she decided to focus just on her shop on Madison Avenue and some kids’ clothes for Barneys. By that time, and perhaps not wholly coincidentally, Richard had bought a large amount of Barneys’ debt. He had also endorsed his wife’s Pop aesthetic, buying all the biggest art guns. It astonished Lisa how far he went. She said: “I was going to do Pop Art lite, I call it — stuff that looked like Pop Art. Warholesque.” She laughed at how this sounded. She said that it was the analyst in her husband that made him want to dig deep, “whether it’s a company, whatever it is.” Before their Pop Art phase, they collected French Empire antiques, and Richard would crawl under tables to see how they were put together. The apartment makes Lisa happy, but she admitted: “I even walk around saying, ‘Do I really live here?’ I did not grow up like this.” Richard described his art foray in candy-store terms, saying he went through a book on Pop Art and said, “I’ll take this, this and this.” But that’s a typical bit of Perry swagger. (If he made the gluttonous “this and this” comment, the art adviser Dominique Levy, who has worked with the Perrys for a decade, said it was not to her, and that Perry pushed to make unexpected choices.)

Richard motioned me over to the window to peer at the green diamond, which would look just dandy on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

He said, “Did you know that Koons considers it a symbol of human creation?”

Lisa laughed tensely. “Richard, I don’t think Jeff meant — ”

Read More..