Endless 13

Friday, 12 April 2013

Chinese GP: Felipe Massa fastest in second practice for Ferrari

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12 April 2013Last updated at 07:49 GMT
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Chinese GP: Felipe Massa fastest in second practice for Ferrari

By Andrew BensonChief F1 writer

Ferrari's Felipe Massa headed Lotus's Kimi Raikkonenin second practice at the Chinese Grand Prix.

The Brazilian was more than 0.4 seconds quicker than team-mate Fernando Alonso in third place, with Mercedes' Nico Rosberg fourth fastest.

Red Bull's Mark Webber was fifth ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.

The Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta were eighth and ninth, from Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel.

Mercedes had dominated the first practice session and were first and second, with Rosberg narrowly ahead of Hamilton after the first runs in second practice, too.

But in the middle of the session, when the teams are preparing for qualifying, Massa produced an impressive lap of one minute 35.340 seconds to set the pace.
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Webber hints at Red Bull tensions

Raikkonen was just 0.152secs adrift, with Alonso 0.415secs behind his team-mate.

The two Ferraris were running in different specifications as the team evaluated a series of upgrades aimed at closing the gap to the pace-setting Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus cars. The Ferrari has been on balance the fourth quickest car so far this season.

Massa this weekend has the chance to become the first team-mate of Alonso ever to out-qualify the double world champion five times in succession, counting the end of last season and the beginning of this.

"I was not really happy with the medium tyres, we were not so quick," Massa said. "But it was amazing to see how much we improved with the soft tyres, I didn't expect that and when I did the race simulation the pace was very good, very competitive.

"[I'm] confident for the weekend. I think we can do everything we did today on tomorrow and Sunday as well."

Rosberg ended the session just less than 0.5secs slower than Massa, although he set his time considerably earlier in the session when the track would have been in less good condition.

"Mine and Nico's pace was quite competitive today," said Hamilton. "I think we are there or thereabouts."

When asked if victory on Sunday was a possibility he added: "Not just yet; we're working on it. The car definitely doesn't feel bad. For me, I'm still finding myself a little bit uncomfortable in the car.

"We just made a change going into this session on the brakes and it made a massive difference, a positive step, so I'm hoping to make some more steps like that just to make me more comfortable in the car."

Webber was 0.752secs off the pace and Vettel 1.451secs adrift and complaining of problems with vibration and locking brakes.

Red Bull took the unusual step of shaving the top off the barge boards - the aerodynamically shaped pieces of bodywork behind the front tyres - during the session.

“It was amazing to see how much we improved with the soft tyres”Felipe Massa

"It was a tricky day for us," said Vettel. "I seemed to struggle a little bit more this afternoon; the gap to the guys at the top is a bit bigger than I would like.

"But we have two or three things to work on and we should be in better shape tomorrow. It's not a disaster. It's not as if we are in the dark. But I don't have the answer right now."

BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson said: "You can see when teams are in control and when they are not in control. And Red Bull did appear to be in a little bit of a thrash."

McLaren were running with a revised rear bodywork in an attempt to solve the aerodynamic problems that have blighted them in the first two races.

The team seemed to show some improved form, with Button 1.092secs off the pace on headline times.

BBC F1 commentator Ben Edwards said: "Ferrari seem to be in good shape on ultimate lap time but it looks as close as ever on race pace between them, Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus."

Teams were reporting over the radio that the 'soft' tyre on which they set their fastest times and which will be used for qualifying was unlikely to last very long in the race.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said: "The medium tyre showed it could do a 20-lap stint, which is borderline two and three stops. The soft tyres are going quicker than we expected - about 1.5secs quicker than the medium. We will see how they get on on the longer runs but the track is improving a lot. It was very dusty this morning."

Button suffered a delamination of the left-front tyre after suffering a flat caused by locking his brakes when running on the 'soft' tyre, with slightly less than 15 minutes of the session remaining.

Gary Anderson added: "It does seem to be heading towards a two-stop race - for some people at least. The limitation seems to be the front tyre wearing out and you can live with that."

Marussia's English driver Max Chilton had a frustrating second session. He stopped out on the circuit on his first lap when a fail-safe sensor shut down his engine and when he finally got back out again the car ground to a halt.

Second Practice result:

1. Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 1:35.340

2. Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus - 1:35.492

3. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 1:35.755

4. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 1:35.819

5. Mark Webber - Red Bull - 1:36.092

6. Jenson Button - McLaren - 1:36.432

7. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes - 1:36.496

8. Adrian Sutil - Force India - 1:36.514

9. Paul Di Resta - Force India - 1:36.595

10. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull - 1:36.791

11. Sergio Perez - McLaren - 1:36.940

12. Romain Grosjean - Lotus - 1:36.963

13. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber - 1:37.103

14. Daniel Ricciardo - Toro Rosso - 1:37.206

15. Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso - 1:38.127

16. Valtteri Bottas - Williams - 1:38.185

17. Nico Hulkenberg - Sauber - 1:38.211

18. Pastor Maldonado - Williams - 1:38.276

19. Jules Bianchi - Marussia - 1:38.725

20. Giedo van der Garde - Caterham - 1:39.271

21. Charles Pic - Caterham - 1:39.814

22. Max Chilton - Marussia - 1:43.227

CHINESE GRAND PRIX, DAY ONE
Friday, 12 April: First practice highlights: 11:50-13:30 BST, BBC Two; Second practice highlights: 13:30-15:10 BST, BBC Two

CHINESE GRAND PRIX, DAY TWO
Saturday, 13 April: Third practice: 03:55-05:05, BBC Two/BBC HD, BBC Radio 5 live sports extra and live text commentary online; Qualifying: 06:00-08:30, BBC One/BBC Red Button, BBC Radio 5 live sports extra from 06:55 and live text commentary online; Qualifying replay: 13:00-14:15, BBC One/BBC HD.

CHINESE GRAND PRIX, DAY THREE
Sunday, 14 April: Race live: 07:00-10:15 BST, BBC One/Red Button, BBC Radio 5 live from 07:45 BST and live text commentary online. Race replay: 14:00-16:00 BST, BBC One/BBC Red Button, Race highlights: 19:00-20:00 BST, BBC Three.

Lionel Messi came off the bench to kick-start a Barcelona fightback as the four-time winners reached the Champions League semi-finals on away goals

10:49

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Javier Pastore's clipped finish put Paris St-Germain ahead for the first time in the tie, 3-2 on aggregate.

But Messi, who suffered a hamstring strain in the first leg, inspired Barca and was involved as Pedro hammered home from 15 yards.

Andres Iniesta almost added a second for the hosts after a sublime turn.

PSG manager Carlo Ancelotti ushered David Beckham off the bench in the closing stages, but the former England captain could not replicate Messi's impact on the game as the visitors struggled to force their way back onto the front foot.

For an hour, however, it had seemed as though the French side were to announce their arrival as a new force in the European game by taking the most celebrated scalp of them all.

The Catalans had looked toothless with Cesc Fabregas at the point of their attack and PSG just about deserved their lead before the talismanic Messi arrived in the 62nd minute to wrest control of the game away from the visitors.

Fabregas had scored a 46-minute hat-trick in a 5-0 win over Mallorca at the weekend, but he and his team-mates predictably found a star-studded PSG far more formidable opposition.

With Beckham consigned the bench and Blaise Matuidi suspended for a booking during the gripping 2-2 first-leg draw, a midfield pairing of Marco Verratti and Thiago Silva hustled and harried their Barca counterparts.

The visitors tried their luck with shots from the edge of the box and also attempted to exploit their aerial advantage from set-pieces.

That Lucas Moura was among the main threats from distance, firing into Victor Valdes' body, was not a surprise.

But the Brazilian winger also had the best headed chance, outmuscling Jordi Alba at the far post to nod straight into the goalkeeper's gloves.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic was largely outshone by Lucas in the first half, but his sleight-of-foot through ball deserved a better finish than Ezequiel Lavezzi's poke against Valdes's shins.

Aside from an early Xavi free-kick that brushed the side netting, Barcelona struggled to threaten and the first half ended with Messi looking restless on the sidelines.

His mood will only have darkened as another wayward Fabregas shot was closely followed by Pastore's opener.

The offside Lavezzi wisely diverted his run away from Ibrahimovic's weighted pass, allowing his compatriot to hold off the covering Dani Alves and clip his shot over Valdes.

Falling behind for the first time in the tie ratcheted up the tension in the home side's ranks, but the sight of Messi warming up brought relieved cheers and his introduction, at the expense of Fabregas, gave the hosts the composure and penetration they had lacked.

A heavy touch from the Argentine squandered a good opening soon after his arrival, but within 10 minutes he helped create the equaliser with a precise ball into the path of David Villa, whose lay-off was in turn hammered into the corner by Pedro.

PSG packed the penalty area in the final five minutes, but Barcelona held firm and Iniesta almost decorated their win with a wonderful second, spinning past a floundering Cristophe Jallet before firing just wide.

LINEUP, BOOKINGS (4) & SUBSTITUTIONS (6)

Barcelona

01 Valdes
02 Alves
03 Pique
18 Alba
21 Adriano Correia Booked (Bartra - 62' )
04 Fabregas (Messi - 62' )
06 Xavi
08 Iniesta
16 Busquets
07 Villa (Song - 83' )
17 Pedro

Substitutes

13 Pinto
15 Bartra
19 Montoya
10 Messi
11 Thiago
25 Song
09 Sanchez

Paris SG

30 Sirigu
02 Thiago Silva Booked
13 Alex
17 Maxwell
24 Verratti (Beckham - 83' Booked )
26 Jallet (Van Der Wiel - 88' )
28 Motta
29 da Silva Lucas
11 Lavezzi Booked (Gameiro - 81' )
18 Ibrahimovic
27 Pastore

Substitutes

01 Douchez
03 Sakho
22 Armand
23 Van Der Wiel
20 Chantome
32 Beckham
19 Gameiro

Ref: Kuipers

Att: 78,000

Shots

2014

On target

108

Corners

75

Fouls

1114

Champions League: Real Madrid and Barcelona kept apart

10:42

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Barcelona and Real Madrid could meet in the Champions League final at Wembley after being kept apart in the semi-final draw.

Barcelona drew Bayern Munich, with Real Madrid set to play Borussia Dortmund.

The games will be played on 23 and 24 April, with the return legs on 30 April and 1 May.

In the Europa League, Chelsea will travel to Switzerland for the first leg of their last-four tie against Basel on 25 April.

Champions League semi-finals
Bayern Munich v Barcelona
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid

The other match sees Turkish side Fenerbahce face Portuguese opponents Benfica. The return legs in the Europa League will take place on 2 May.

Chelsea are the only British side left in European competition after sealing their place despite a second-leg defeat against Rubin Kazan in Russia.

Rafael Benitez's side lost 3-2 but still progressed with a 5-4 aggregate win.

Tottenham lost on penalties against Basel after drawing 2-2 in each leg, while Newcastle drew 1-1 with Benfica and failed to overturn a 3-1 first-leg deficit.

In the Champions League, all-German and all-Spanish semi-finals were ruled out in the draw in Nyon, Switzerland.

Real - who eliminated Manchester United in the second round - booked their place in the last four with a 5-3 aggregate win over Galatasaray, although they lost 3-2 in Istanbul.

They were joined by Spanish league leaders Barcelona, who eliminated Paris St-Germain on away goals.

New Bundesliga champions Bayern, who beat Arsenal in the previous stage, completed a comfortable 4-0 aggregate victory over Juventus,winning 2-0 in Turin.

It secured a place in the last four alongside Dortmund, who needed two stoppage-time goals to beat Malaga 3-2.

Dortmund faced Real in the group stage of this year's competition, with Jurgen Klopp's team beating Real 2-1 at home, while in Spain the two sides drew 2-2.

Europa League semi-finals
Fenerbahce v Benfica
Basel v Chelsea

"I don't think Madrid will be afraid because of what happened in the group stage," Dortmund general manager Hans-Joachim Watzke said. "They will respect us, just like we respect them."

Real ambassador Emilio Butragueno also believed their previous meetings would not be an influence.

"We have a lot of respect for Borussia Dortmund," the former Spain striker said. "We played them twice [in the group stage] but didn't manage to beat them.

"This time we hope it will different as we want to be in the final."

In regards to the other half of the draw, Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says his club will play "the best team in Europe".

"I think we will see two very good games, played at the highest possible level," the former Germany international striker said.

"Barcelona are the benchmark for me in Europe. They are the best team in Europe at the moment, with fantastic attacking potential."

Hopi tribe masks fetch record prices at Paris auction

10:29

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A "Chof Cachina" sacred mask of the Arizona's Hopi native American tribe

The Hopi say the masks are blessed with the spirits of their ancestors

1/7

A mask from a native American tribe in Arizona has fetched 160,000 euros (£135,000) at auction in Paris, more than three times the pre-sale estimate.

Friday's auction of 70 masks fetched some 930,000 euros after a legal challenge to stop the sale failed.

Lawyers for the Hopi tribe had asked for the auction to be cancelled on the grounds that the 70 masks must have been stolen from the tribe.

It considers them sacred and blessed with divine spirits.

Auctioneers, however, say the masks had been bought and sold in the past and were legally acquired.

They said blocking the sale would have implications for the trade of indigenous art and could potentially force French museums to hand back collections they have bought.

'Criminal gesture'

The masks - mysterious looking faces fashioned from wood, leather, horse hair and feathers, and painted in a vivid array of colours - are spiritual artefacts thought to have been taken from a reservation in northern Arizona in the 1930s and 40s.

To Hopi Indians they are sacred - tools through which the living can communicate with the spirits of the dead.

The sale of sacred Indian artefacts has been outlawed in the United States since 1990 - but the law does not extend to sales overseas.

Protesters repeatedly disrupted Friday's auction. As the Mother Crow mask was sold, one protester shouted: "These are sacred things!"

One mask was bought by an association to give back to the Hopis, said the Drouot auction house.

One buyer who acquired four masks said he was delighted to be adding to his collection of Hopi artefacts.

"One day I might give some back," the collector, who declined to be identified, told Reuters news agency.

"But if it had not been for collectors in the 19th Century who contributed to the field of ethnology, there would very little knowledge of the Hopi."

Two museums in Arizona and members of the Hopi tribe had demanded the sale be called off.

The actor Robert Redford has also been supporting the 18,000-strong Hopi tribe and describes himself as their "close friend".

Before the court ruling, he wrote that the masks "belong to the Hopi and the Hopi alone".

"To auction these would be, in my opinion, a sacrilege - a criminal gesture that contains grave moral repercussions," he said.

Survival International's Jonathan Mazower: "The Hopi people are deeply distressed"

"I would hope that these sacred items can be returned to the Hopi tribe where they belong. They are not for auction."

The legal proceedings were brought by the organisation Survival International, which defends the rights of tribal peoples.

The US Ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, has also said he is "very concerned" about the sale.

However, auctioneer Gilles Neret-Minet of auction house Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou had warned that a ruling to stop the sale could potentially force French museums to empty out their collections.

"If we lose this case, there will be no more sales of objects of indigenous art in France," he said before the court ruling.

The Paris court sided with the French auction house, saying there were no grounds to stop sale because the items were acquired legally by a French collector during a 30-year stay in the US.

US warns N Korea missile launch would be 'huge mistake'

10:28

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US Secretary of State John Kerry has said an anticipated missile launch by North Korea would be a "provocative act" and "huge mistake".

The North has moved two missiles to its east coast and South Korea is on alert.

Speaking in Seoul, Mr Kerry reconfirmed the US's commitment to protecting itself and its allies.

But he played down a US report that the North has a nuclear warhead, saying it was "inaccurate" to suggest it has "a working and tested" device.

“Start Quote

Diplomatic prowess will be required in Mr Kerry's conversation with the Chinese in Beijing”

Kim GhattasBBC News, Seoul

A declassified section of a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report had warned there was "moderate" confidence that Pyongyang had developed the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile.

'Food not missiles'

North Korea has increased its warlike rhetoric following fresh UN sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test in February and joint military manoeuvres by the US and South Korea.

The North has said it will restart a mothballed nuclear reactor, has shut an emergency military hotline to the South and has urged countries to withdraw diplomatic staff, saying it cannot now guarantee their safety.

On 15 April, North Korea will mark the birth of national founder Kim Il-sung , a date which could be used for a missile launch.

North Korean TV has been showing preparations for the birthday celebrations, which include displays of "Kimilsungia" flowers, parades, and models of missiles.

Analysis

Ian Pannell,BBC News, Washington

Does North Korea have a nuclear weapon capable of being fired on a ballistic missile? Someone in America's vast intelligence community thinks the answer is "Yes" - well "probably Yes", as analysts do not like absolutes.

They also think it would not be very reliable.

This is a deeply sensitive area and with recent history in mind, no-one wants to be accused of "sexing-up" intelligence.

The honest answer is that no-one outside of a small group of people in Pyongyang actually knows what capability North Korea has. It is also true that, as with most conflicts, there are always hawks and doves and people with competing agendas. For now at least this probably remains one of former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's infamous "known unknowns".

Recently, the North reportedly moved two Musudan ballistic missiles to its east coast. Estimates of their range vary, but some suggest the missiles could travel 4,000km (2,500 miles).

That would put US bases on Guam within range, although it is not believed that the Musudan has been tested before.

In a joint news conference with his South Korea counterpart, Mr Kerry said that if Northern leader Kim Jong-un decided to go ahead with a launch "he will be choosing wilfully to ignore the entire international community, his own obligations which he has accepted, and it will be a provocative and unwanted act that will raise people's temperature".

"It is a huge mistake for him to choose to do that because it will further isolate his people ... who are desperate for food not missile launches, who are desperate for opportunity not for a leader who wants to flex his muscles in this manner," he said.

"Kim Jong-un needs to understand - and I think he probably does - what the outcome of a conflict would be," he added.

Mr Kerry said that in his talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye she had made clear her "bright vision" of a peaceful Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

North Korean television has been showing various celebrations despite its increasingly bellicose rhetoric

"We are prepared to work with conviction that relations between the North and South can improve and can improve very quickly," he said.

"The world will be much better off if the leaders of the North, and one leader in particular, can make the right decision."

Musudan missile

The Musudan, also known as the Nodong-B or the Taepodong-X, is an intermediate-range ballistic missile. Its likely targets are Okinawa, Japan, and US bases in the Pacific
Range estimates differ dramatically. Israeli intelligence suggests 2,500km, while the US Missile Defense Agency estimates 3,200km; other sources put the upper limit at 4,000km
These differences are due in large part to the fact that the missile has never been tested publicly, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Its payload is also unknown

On Saturday Mr Kerry will move on to China. He said he would urge leaders there to use their influence to rein in Pyongyang's aggression. He will then travel to Japan.

His hope, he said, was that from talks in China and Japan "we will find the unity necessary to provide a very different set of alternatives for how we can proceed and ultimately diffuse this situation".

Mr Kerry said it was "clear to everybody in the world that no country in the world has as close a relationship or as significant an impact on [North Korea] than China", and that talks there would aim to "lay out a path that will defuse this tension".

China, like the US, wanted denuclearisation, he said, adding:"If that's your policy, you've got to put some teeth into it."

On Thursday, China carried out a civilian emergency drill in a town near its border with the North.

China's state media said the half-hour exercise covered evacuations and responses to an air raid and was aimed at raising public awareness of disaster prevention and relief.

Taliban Attacks Highly Regarded Afghan Arm

10:22

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KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents dealt a serious blow to one of the Afghan Army’s most highly regarded units on Friday, killing 13 soldiers and overrunning their outpost in eastern Afghanistan.

It was one of a series of bloody attacks by the insurgents during their current spring offensive, which has helped drive the rate of government fatalities to the highest level of the war. Afghan soldiers and policemen are dying at a rate more than double the rate a year ago, according to military officials.

The numbers underscore how much more of the fighting has been handed over to Afghan forces and raise questions about their readiness for the increased responsibility. Within the next few months, the NATO transfer of security operations to the Afghans will be complete, with their forces responsible for security in 100 percent of the country, and NATO and American military forces moving to a support and training role as their numbers decline.

“We know the enemy’s going to come out hard this summer, so the numbers are going to go up,” said Col. Thomas Collins, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, the formal name of the NATO-led military coalition.

Friday’s attack was on a battalion that was among only a handful of Afghan Armybattalions rated by the United States military as independent and able to operate on their s own without foreign advisers. It was one of two such battalions that had been deployed without advisers recently in Kunar Province, according to a military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject.

The Third Battalion was assigned to hold the Narai district, a rugged, mountainous area near the Pakistani border, on an important insurgent infiltration route.

According to Afghan security officials, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the Taliban victory, 13 Afghan National Army soldiers were killed, the entire complement of a remote check post. One police official said 200 Taliban fighters had overrun the post, opening fire with heavy weapons and finally setting it on fire; most of the deaths were from the flames.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, took credit for the attack. He claimed that 15 soldiers had been killed and that the insurgents had captured all of their weapons and ammunition before leaving the post.

It was a measure of the sensitivity of the episode that officials publicly played down the death count, with a spokesman for the 201st Corps confirming only that an incident had taken place, and the Kunar Province police chief, Gen. Habib Saidkhelli, claiming that only two soldiers had been killed in the attack.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, however, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that 13 soldiers were killed.

The battalion was part of the Second Brigade, which has been widely praised as among the best of the Afghan Army’s formations.

While it is still early in the spring fighting season to generalize, the insurgents have carried out several attacks recently using foot soldiers, or what the military calls “complex attacks,” involving bombings as well as firefights. Last year, the insurgents relied largely on suicide bombers and roadside bombings and avoided engaging directly with Afghan or international military forces.

But there have been several such direct engagements in recent weeks, however. In March, ground attacks by the insurgents killed four police officers and four Afghan soldiers in the Dangaam district of Kunar Province. Officials there said Friday’s attack was the deadliest in at least six months.

In northern Badakhshan Province, an area with little previous insurgent activity, Taliban forces ambushed a convoy and killed 17 Afghan soldiers sent to reinforce police posts there on March 7. Most were executed after being captured, according to Afghan officials.

Then on March 25, 10 more Afghan soldiers were captured in the same area; their fate is unclear.

On April 3, one of the deadliest insurgent attacks of the war was launched in western Farah Province by nine Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan soldiers. They stormed a government compound, killing 10 soldiers and 34 civilians, and wounding more than 100 people.

Colonel Collins said the increased death toll among Afghan forces was “tragic,” but did not have any long-term impact. “It doesn’t seem to be impairing their recruiting any,” he said.

The Afghan National Army, which is a volunteer force, has to replace and train nearly a third of its force every year because of desertions and attrition.

The death toll among Afghan forces has been steadily climbing in recent years as their size has grown drastically and they have taken over more of the fighting. By 2012, it had topped 1,000 dead for the army for the year, and an estimated 1,400 dead for the Afghan police forces, according to Afghan government estimates.

Late last year, Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the spokesman for the Afghan military, said at a news conference at NATO headquarters that 110 soldiers and 200 policemen were dying each month.

Asked about those numbers on Friday, however, he repudiated them, but said he did not have correct figures immediately available.

Nonetheless, NATO officials have said those numbers are generally accurate.

By comparison, 25 NATO soldiers, most of them Americans, were killed in the first three months of 2013, according to figures compiled by Icasualties, an independent monitoring group. A third of them were victims of aircraft accidents, not hostile attacks.

An Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting in Kunar Province.

Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook

10:21

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One day in early February, I met Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin for breakfast at the Gramercy Park Hotel, one of their regular joints, just a few blocks from their apartment on Park Avenue South. The first thing Weiner said when I sat down was that their 13-month-old son, Jordan, had just moments ago taken his first step. They were both giddy, kvelling with baby-pride, especially Weiner, who, with all his free time, has become his son’s primary caretaker. This is what life is like now for the man whose name is invariably followed in print by some version of “the disgraced former congressman who sent out a lewd picture of himself via Twitter.” He seems to spend much of his time within a five-block radius of his apartment: going to the park with Jordan; picking up his wife’s dry cleaning and doing the grocery shopping; eating at his brother Jason’s two restaurants in the neighborhood. This is what happens after a scandal: Ranks are closed and the world shrinks to a tiny dot. It is a life in retreat. And for a man who was known, pre-scandal, for his overweening ambition, his constant presence on cable news, his hard-charging schedule that verged on lunacy, well, it has been quite a change.

More in the Magazine »

Because of their careers, Weiner and Abedin are pros when it comes to small talk, chatting about the baby, their two cats and the pleasures of domestic life. But as the conversation shifted into why we were there, Weiner got serious and went into problem-solving mode; Abedin, while still cheerful and talkative, started to look a little nervous. As Abedin pointed out to me later, she has a tendency toward pessimism. “Anthony,” she said, “is a glass-half-full person. He doesn’t dwell. He’s not negative.”

They present as two people who have painstakingly pieced their private life back together: they cook dinner and watch TV and have friends and family over to their spacious prewar apartment for special occasions. They seem to be functioning again as a couple, even unselfconsciously bickering in front of the waiter. But what they do not yet have a handle on is their public life. Before he resigned from Congress, Weiner was leading in early polls as a candidate for mayor of New York, and almost immediately after the scandal, there was speculation about whether he could make a comeback. Could anyone survive such an ignominious end to a Congressional career? Much less someone whose attack-dog tendencies made him so many enemies? The two of them had seemed to be a power couple on the cusp of a Clintonian rise. Now what?

When they appeared in People magazine last summer, it looked like a toe-dipping of sorts. (The couple say that it was entirely for the purpose of getting a picture of Jordan published so it would no longer have value and the paparazzi would stop camping out on their corner.) But there were other reports that suggested they were testing the waters for a return to politics: Last July, The New York Post reported that Weiner was weighing a run in 2013, because after that his public matching funds would expire. In January, The New York Daily News reported that Weiner’s name was among the candidates voters were asked about in a poll of a five-way mayoral primary. And The New York Post reported that pollsters had asked voters about a run for comptroller, pitting Weiner against the Manhattan Borough president, Scott Stringer.

At breakfast, Weiner quickly put all the speculation to rest: he is eyeing the mayor’s race. He told me that his political committee spent more than $100,000 on polling and research by Obama’s longtime pollster, David Binder (a detail that would be made public — and prompt a flurry of news reports — in mid-March when a spending report was filed with the city’s Campaign Finance Board). The focus of the poll, Binder says, was the question “Are voters willing to give him a second chance or not, regardless of what race or what contest?” And the answer? “There was this sense of ‘Yeah, he made a mistake. Let’s give him a second chance. But there are conditions on that, and there are a couple of things we’re going to want to know: What have you been doing since this incident occurred? Did you learn anything from this mistake? How did you deal with it?’ They want to know that they’ve put it behind them.”

By agreeing to be interviewed, Weiner and Abedin would seem to be trying to give voters what they want — and gauge public reaction. But it’s clear that the idea of talking about the scandal and its aftermath appeals to them on a personal level too. “We have been in a defensive crouch for so long,” Weiner said. “We are ready to clear the decks on this thing.” Their lives have become too small, too circumscribed, too claustrophobic for a couple accustomed to public life. They haven’t been to a major event together — no White House Correspondents Dinner, no red-carpet events — in nearly two years. “We didn’t want to make other people uncomfortable,” Abedin said, “but also, we just didn’t want to deal with it. I have now gotten used to people asking, over and over again, ‘How is Anthony?’ Oh, he’s good! ‘But how is he doing?’ He’s doing fine.”