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For months, the governor's race in Virginia has unfolded beneath a cloud of scandal over the Republican incumbent that spread to his would-be Republican successor, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II.
But now a potential scandal also threatens to distract the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe.
An electric car company Mr. McAuliffe founded is a target of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, government documents show.
The venture, GreenTech Automotive, was already a flash point because of the failure of enthusiastic promises of jobs made by Mr. McAuliffe, the former Democratic fund-raiser known for his showmanship and close friendship with Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The S.E.C. investigation has the potential to elevate GreenTech in the campaign by focusing on Mr. McAuliffe's history of mingling politics and business, as investigators target the company's fund-raising arm run by Anthony Rodham, a brother of Mrs. Clinton's. The commission is focused on possible fraud involving foreign investors in GreenTech, according to government documents.
The documents were made public on Friday by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who is investigating whether Mr. McAuliffe received special treatment from a top immigration official.
The official, Alejandro Mayorkas, is President Obama's pick for the No. 2 job at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Mayorkas said at a Senate hearing last week that he had met with Mr. McAuliffe once to listen to his complaints, but that he gave him no special treatment.
Mr. McAuliffe and Mr. Rodham sought dozens of green-card visas for foreign investors, primarily Chinese, under a program known as EB-5, which gives permanent resident visas in exchange for a $500,000 investment in an American company that creates jobs. GreenTech's financing depended on the EB-5 program, which was administered by a sister company that Mr. Rodham ran, Gulf Coast Funds Management. Both used the same office near Mr. McAuliffe's Northern Virginia home.
According to e-mails Mr. Grassley received from what he calls disgruntled Homeland Security employees, Mr. McAuliffe and his lawyers applied a drumbeat of pressure to speed up visa approval.
In a letter this week to Mr. Mayorkas, who oversees the visas as director of the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services, Mr. Grassley wrote, "At a minimum, you clearly created the impression among senior career staff that you were giving special treatment."
Mr. Mayorkas strenuously denied in Senate testimony last week that he had shown preferential treatment.
"I have never in my career used undue influence to influence the outcome of a case," he said.
A spokesman for Mr. Mayorkas said Friday that he had no further reply to Mr. Grassley.
The S.E.C. subpoenaed documents last month from GreenTech and Gulf Coast apparently aimed at determining whether the electric car maker had promised foreign investors risk-free returns, which would violate securities rules.
In a statement, GreenTech acknowledged the subpoena and said it was "cooperating fully" with the commission.
Mr. McAuliffe, through a campaign spokesman, said he had no knowledge of the investigation. He stepped down as chairman of GreenTech in early December last year to focus on his campaign for governor.
His spokesman, Josh Schwerin, said Mr. McAuliffe never sought special treatment from the immigration service through his and his lawyers' frequent e-mails and requests for meetings.
"Terry, like many business and political officials from both parties, was frustrated with the bureaucratic pace of the investment program," Mr. Schwerin said.
GreenTech's failure to live up to Mr. McAuliffe's original predictions — that it would create 900 jobs, versus the fewer than 100 currently, and produce more than 100,000 cars annually, compared with 7,000 this year — became a campaign issue from the beginning.
At the first debate of the race last month, Mr. Cuccinelli also attacked Mr. McAuliffe for skipping Virginia to set up the GreenTech factory in Mississippi.
"So run for governor of Mississippi," Mr. Cuccinelli jabbed.
Mr. Cuccinelli, the Virginia attorney general, is trying to deflect attention from the scandal tracking Gov. Bob McDonnell, who this week said he would return lavish gifts from a political donor, including a $6,500 Rolex watch, and repay nearly $125,000 in loans, which are the subject of state and federal investigations.
When nine New York residents shuffled into a cramped jury room in the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, they were divided over Fabrice Tourre's culpability in a toxic mortgage deal sold to investors.
Then, over more than 13 hours, the five women and four men pored over reams of disclosure documents that Mr. Tourre and his employer Goldman Sachs had provided for investors in 2007, grappling with the nuances of the Securities and Exchange Commission's case. One juror, 32-year-old Tina Oommen, scribbled the various charges facing the former trader on a white board. Others scoured the voluminous transcript from the three-week trial.
Tension mounted among the nine — which included educators, a stockbroker, an Episcopal priest and a digital advertising employee who reads Esquire magazine — as the deliberations dragged on.
"It got really intense; it reminded me of religion," said the Rev. Beth F. Glover, the 47-year-old priest who initially struck a skeptical tone about aspects of the government's case. She questioned whether Mr. Tourre's supposed violation was "material," a finding that was needed to rule against the former trader.
At 3:12 p.m. on Thursday, the jury reached a verdict. Mr. Tourre, they decided, was liable for six of the seven counts.
Interviews with five of the nine jurors, an eclectic group spread across Westchester County, Manhattan and the Bronx, pulled back a curtain on the private deliberations in the S.E.C.'s most prominent trial stemming from the financial crisis. The jurors, speaking from their homes and offices a day after the trial, described the genesis of their decision.
They expressed sympathy for Mr. Tourre, alternately calling him a "scapegoat" and a "willing participant" in Goldman's vast mortgage machine.
But ultimately, the jurors said, their decision came down to what they saw as the letter of the law and, for some, a broader concern that Mr. Tourre's actions underscored a fundamental problem with society: Wall Street greed.
"He is what Wall Street is all about and it scared me," Evelyn Linares, a school principal from the Bronx, said on Friday in an interview from her porch. "You go in thinking you can make a difference and you get sucked in."
The S.E.C.'s case hinged on its grim portrayal of Wall Street.
In his opening argument to the jury, Matthew T. Martens, the leading lawyer for the agency, depicted the case against Mr. Tourre as an assault on "Wall Street greed," arguing that the former trader had created a deal "to maximize the potential it would fail."
Mr. Tourre, Mr. Martens later declared in his closing remarks, was living in a "Goldman Sachs land of make-believe" where deceiving investors is not fraudulent.
That argument resonated with the jurors.
"Mr. Martens told us at the beginning that we would see this was all about Wall Street greed, and we did get to see that," Ms. Linares said.
And jurors said that they trusted Mr. Martens, with one describing the clean-cut lawyer as "Marine-like."
For Mr. Martens, the case was his final act at the S.E.C. He has already notified the agency's enforcement chiefs that he will soon depart for a white-shoe law firm, a person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Martens, the person said, is currently choosing between Latham & Watkins and WilmerHale.
For the S.E.C., whose credibility as a regulator came into question after failing to thwart the crisis, the jury delivered a long-sought courtroom victory. The triumph over Mr. Tourre follows one disappointment after another for the S.E.C., including two similar mortgage-related cases that crumbled last year.
In an e-mail to the trial team after the verdict, an S.E.C. official thanked the lawyers for securing a victory. "We needed this," the official said.
Still, some critics have questioned why the agency chose to make Mr. Tourre — a midlevel employee who was 28 at the time of the mortgage deal — the face of the crisis. Not one executive at Lehman Brothers, which filed Wall Street's biggest bankruptcy ever at the height of the crisis, was charged with wrongdoing.
Mr. Tourre's lawyers seized on that sentiment, painting the trader as a scapegoat who abandoned his Wall Street career to pursue a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago. The lawyers also noted that senior Goldman executives had approved the deal.
The jurors were sympathetic to that argument. After reflecting on Mr. Tourre's case, Beverly Rhett, a former special education teacher known as juror No. 2, commented: "I could characterize him as somewhat of a scapegoat."
Ms. Glover, the priest, echoed those remarks. "It is a shame lower-level employees get pulled in," she said. "There's a part of me that felt it was very unfair."
Yet his lower-level status, jurors say, did not erase what he did.
"We were asked to look at his actions," Ms. Glover said, as she sipped coffee, with a button pinned to her shirt saying "We Care About Your Spiritual Needs."
"They portrayed him as a cog, but in the end a machine is made up of cogs and he was a willing part of that," she said.
Ms. Linares, the school principal, said, "We don't think he deserved to take the blame for everything but he did play along."
The scheme, according to the S.E.C., involved the marketing of a mortgage deal in 2007. At the heart of the agency's case was the claim that Mr. Tourre and Goldman sold investors the deal without disclosing a crucial conflict of interest: a hedge fund that helped construct the deal also bet that it would fail.
Mr. Martens also cited an e-mail in which Mr. Tourre stated that the riskiest slice of the mortgage trade — a piece typically bought by someone betting that the deal would succeed — was "precommitted," when in fact it was not even going to be offered.
Mr. Tourre, his lawyers argued, corrected that misstatement in offering documents that followed, calling that slice N/A or not applicable. But some jurors said they didn't feel that convincing, because the tranche the hedge fund bought was also listed as N/A when it wasn't.
His lucrative paycheck — $1.7 million in 2007, the year he assembled the mortgage deal in question — also swayed some jurors.
Still, Ms. Glover was not initially convinced. She debated whether it was "material" for investors to know the hedge fund's role in the transaction.
"Industry practice was also not to disclose," she said, reciting a line from the defense's playbook.
And when the S.E.C. quoted embarrassing love notes Mr. Tourre sent to his girlfriend, some jurors felt sympathy rather than condemnation. Ms. Linares also prayed for Mr. Tourre — and the other witnesses — every day during the trial.
Other jurors were more adamant that Mr. Tourre was liable. When they couldn't agree on a particular charge, they would shift to another issue.
"At times things got heated. We were trying to play both sides of the fence and there were times when we didn't agree on things," Leonel Lopez, the Esquire-reading advertising employee, added.
Mr. Tourre lost, the jurors said, despite performing well on the witness stand over three days.
In fact, some jurors questioned why Mr. Tourre's lawyers didn't keep him there longer.
"It was a big shock to us that they didn't ask more questions," Ms. Glover said. "He was likable and engaging," she said, adding it would have been easier for jurors if he was more villainlike.
While the loss also raised questions about the defense team declining to call a single witness, most jurors said that decision did not sway their vote. Mr. Lopez, 27, said the decision "didn't strike me as odd because they did get a chance to question the prosecution's witnesses."
According to legal experts, defense lawyers commonly present no defense when the government has already called their client as a witness.
"It's both a show of confidence and a tactic to get the jury to focus on the fact that the burden of proof rests with the government," said Evan T. Barr, a former federal prosecutor who now defends white-collar cases as a partner at Steptoe & Johnson. "I would not be second-guessing the decision."
A lawyer for Mr. Tourre declined to comment. Goldman Sachs, which settled its part in the case by paying a $550 million fine in 2010, also declined to comment. The bank has paid for Mr. Tourre's defense, and is likely to continue doing so.
While Mr. Tourre was the one on trial, the case weighed on jurors as well. Some traveled from more than an hour away each day, and then were forced to cram in work every evening.
Jurors were provided muffins or doughnuts by the court on some mornings. Nonetheless, Ms. Linares, on a special diet she started just before trial, says she lost 20 pounds — taking her muffin home for her 87-year-old mother.
"It's been a long three weeks," Reece Pate, 37, a graphic designer known as juror No. 7, said. "I'm trying to get back into my normal routine."
For Ms. Rhett, the retired teacher, the trial ended just in time for her to make a cruise. Reached late Thursday night, Ms. Rhett said she returned home after the verdict and began to read media articles.
"I had no idea how big the case was. I had not read anything or heard anything."
After the verdict on Thursday, Steven Zucker, the jury foreman, suggested a reunion, and Ms. Rhett collected everyone's e-mails. One person recalled Mr. Zucker, the former stockbroker, saying, "We should all go out for a drink."
William Alden contributed reporting.
TRENTON — At a news conference after a minor league rehabilitation game Friday night, Alex Rodriguez was peppered with questions about allegations that he was involved with Biogenesis, a now-defunct South Florida clinic accused of issuing performance-enhancing drugs.
Rodriguez had hit a home run for the Yankees' Class AA affiliate, the Trenton Thunder. But with a possible suspension from Major League Baseball looming, the questions were focused on other matters.
"There are a lot of people that are confused, a lot of people that don't understand the process," Rodriguez said. "There is a lot of layers. I will say this: there's more than one party that benefits from me not ever stepping back on the field. That's not my teammates, and it's not the Yankee fans."
Asked whom he meant, he replied: "I can't tell you that right now. And I hope I never have to."
There has been plenty of speculation that the Yankees front office would not mind if Rodriguez were suspended rather than return to the team. Rodriguez's contract is considered an albatross, among the worst in baseball.
Rodriguez had come to Trenton to play in two rehabilitation games, on Friday and Saturday, before possibly rejoining the Yankees on Monday for a series against the White Sox in Chicago. That, Rodriguez said Friday night, was the plan he had discussed with the Yankees.
A suspension for Rodriguez could come Sunday, or Monday at the latest, according to a baseball official with direct knowledge of the situation who was not allowed to speak publicly on the matter.
Baseball officials have threatened to issue Rodriguez a lifetime ban, but they are hoping that before Monday he will agree to accept a lesser suspension that would last through the 2014 season. Negotiations between baseball officials and Rodriguez's representatives in the players union seemed to slow Friday.
That was the backdrop as fans lined up outside Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton. Rodriguez took batting practice, ran the bases, long-tossed and fielded grounders. His injured hip and quadriceps did not seem bothersome.
Len Grzywacz, an usher, watched Rodriguez from a walkway in the stands. He thought Rodriguez looked fine, like his old self.
"This could be it," Grzywacz said. "You'll want to save these ticket stubs."
Once inside, fans snapped photos of the whiteboard showing the lineup. There he was, Rodriguez, Alex, wearing No. 13, playing third base, batting second. A crowd huddled around the Thunder dugout, in some places four people deep, and waited.
Rodriguez finally emerged, about a half-hour before the first pitch. One woman shrieked as if he were a Beatle. Others clambered over seats to get a better look or take a picture. Near the back, two men held high a makeshift sign that read, "Cheater."
As he signed autographs, Rodriguez disappeared in a swarm of cameras that moved as he moved.
About 150 media members had credentials for the game, and the concourse was already crowded. The park was sold out, and the Thunder sold standing-room-only tickets. There was an even smattering of cheers and boos when Rodriguez was introduced, but there were clearly more boos when he came to bat for the first time. He chatted with the fans in the front rows and then drew a five-pitch walk.
He came up again in the third inning, swung effortlessly and crushed a 2-0 pitch into the night. Rodriguez watched as the ball sailed over the 32-foot-high wall in left field, trotted around the bases, pointed to the crowd and managed to smile.
In his third plate appearance, in the fifth inning, he struck out. The plan was for him to play five innings and get three at-bats, so after that, he left the game. Then about 20 television cameras and 70 reporters squeezed into a room for his news conference.
Rodriguez was asked what he would say to young boys who idolize him.
"That I love the game," Rodriguez said. "And this game has been very good to me, for a long time. That's all I've ever done: I love the game, appreciate the game."
He said that he felt good and that he wished he were in San Diego, playing with his Yankees teammates. He said he wanted to play another five years. He said it was his understanding that the plan was for him to play seven innings with the Thunder on Saturday, to complete a short workout Sunday and then to play Monday in Chicago.
He said he was confident he would do so.
"Unless I get hit by lightning," he said, smiling, "and these days, you never know."
David Waldstein contributed reporting from San Diego.
Bill Kostroun/Associated Press
Eric Young Jr.'s two-run homer off Luis Mendoza ended the game after David Wright left an inning earlier with a hamstring injury.
From start to finish, it was an unsettling Friday for the Mets.
It began in the morning, when their bullpen took a dual injury blow. It continued into their game against the Kansas City Royals, one of baseball's hottest teams, when the Mets' reordered lineup went silent and the bullpen faltered, making things difficult even after a fine start from Dillon Gee.
Things reached a nadir, finally, in the 10th inning, when third baseman David Wright, the team's captain and best player, limped ominously into the Mets' dugout, feeling at his right hamstring.
At that point, the game's result ceased to matter — for the record, the Mets won, 4-2, when Eric Young Jr. hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning at Citi Field.
"It's bittersweet at the moment," Manager Terry Collins said after the game.
The injury to Wright looked fairly serious. It could represent a gigantic problem for the Mets, who have had trouble scoring runs anyway. Before the game, Collins shuffled his lineup to address the problem, moving Daniel Murphy to fifth, Ike Davis to seventh and Juan Lagares to second.
Wright, who will have a magnetic resonance imaging test Saturday morning, was not available to speak to reporters after the game. A club spokesman referred to the injury as a right hamstring strain.
"It's mostly likely not all that good," Collins said.
Wright started the game hitting .302 with 15 home runs and 52 runs batted in and promptly demonstrated his worth. In the first inning, he drilled a two-run homer to left field to give the Mets an early lead against the Royals, who came to Citi Field with a nine-game winning streak. It was Wright's 220th homer, which tied him with Mike Piazza for second on the club's all-time list, behind Darryl Strawberry with 252.
Hours later, when the score was 2-2, Wright led off the 10th inning and drilled a grounder into the shortstop hole. He sprinted down the line, swerving to avoid an errant throw, but as the ball rattled around, Wright hobbled to a stop, holding the back of his right leg, before coming to a rest with his hands on his knees.
Wright, who has had a right hamstring problem for a week or so — a problem he has been reluctant to talk about — promptly left the game, walking gingerly into the Mets' clubhouse. All this week, Wright said he felt healthy enough to play, and Collins said he trusted Wright.
"He just wanted to get extended to try to help us win a baseball game," Collins said late Friday. "That's what it was all about."
An inning after Wright's injury, Young ripped a two-run homer to right field off Luis Mendoza to end the game. But the jubilation at home seemed more subdued than the average game-winning celebration.
Earlier, Gee brought some steadiness to the up-and-down day, giving up one run in seven-plus innings, allowing just three hits and two walks and striking out four batters. The Mets carried a 2-1 lead into the ninth, but their bullpen could not finish the job. It was a meltdown that could have been predicted hours earlier, when two key relief pitchers were sidelined.
Josh Edgin, a 26-year-old left-hander, was placed on the 15-day disabled list after a magnetic resonance imaging test revealed a hairline fracture in the eighth rib on his left side. Edgin was told he could miss four to six weeks, but he will be re-evaluated next week.
Edgin began to feel pain around his rib cage last month, but he pitched through it. When the pain intensified this week, he thought it might be an intercostal muscle strain. But an M.R.I. showed otherwise.
The Mets were also without closer Bobby Parnell, who has 22 saves. Parnell visited team doctors Friday because of lingering stiffness around his neck. He was given medication and will be re-examined Monday.
Parnell's absence became glaring when David Aardsma, handed the closer's job for the night, botched the save chance. He loaded the bases before Lorenzo Cain lined a sacrifice fly to center field that tied the score.
Pedro Feliciano, called up Friday to replace Edgin, entered the game. It was Feliciano's first major league appearance since Oct. 2, 2010, during his first stint with the Mets. After showing an 85-mile-per-hour fastball, he coaxed Alex Gordon into hitting a groundout on a 73-m.p.h. changeup.
Feliciano arrived from Nashville, where the Mets' Class AAA team was playing, in the middle of the game, and he got a joyful welcome from his teammates inside the bullpen.
"It's been almost three years that I've been out of here," Feliciano said, smiling. "So they see me back there, and they all get happy, and I get happy, too. I started hugging everybody, like a big family."
For the Mets, it was a bright moment on a mostly disconcerting day.
HONG KONG — One of the world's leading suppliers of dairy products said Saturday that a type of bacteria that could cause botulism had been found in tests of ingredients the company sells for use in infant formula and sports drinks, and that it had warned companies that buy its products about the problem.
Fonterra, the world's fourth-largest dairy company, sells its milk products to other companies that make infant formula, and said those companies would be responsible for any recalls. Officials would not name the companies it had issued warnings to, or what countries could be affected.
Botulism is a rare but serious illness caused by Clostridium botulinum bacteria. Even tiny amounts of this toxin can lead to severe poisoning when consumed.
"We are acting quickly," the New Zealand-based company's chief executive, Theo Spierings, said in a statement. "Our focus is to get information out about potentially affected product as fast as possible so that it can be taken off supermarket shelves and, where it has already been purchased, can be returned."
Infant formula from New Zealand is in huge demand in China, largely because of concerns about the quality of domestic formula there, particularly since milk formula tainted with melamine led to the deaths of several babies and sickened thousands more in 2008. Fonterra owned part of one of the companies involved in that scandal, but that company, Sanlu, was since shut down.
After Fonterra raised alarms about the bacteria found in its milk products, Chinese officials urged companies that import Fonterra products to start an immediate recall and told local officials to increase inspections of dairy products from New Zealand, according to The Associated Press.
Earlier this year, Fonterra launched a plan to sell its own infant formula in China, which included building an ultrahigh-temperature milk manufacturing plant there, aiming to sell a quarter-billion gallons of milk in the country by 2018, company officials told Chinese state media in April.
At a news conference Saturday, Fonterra officials said Mr. Spierings, the chief executive, had been dispatched to China to deal with the scare.
The company said the problem involved three batches of a whey protein concentrate produced at a single New Zealand manufacturing site in May 2012.
Officials first noticed a quality-control problem back in March. The company then conducted more intensive tests, and on Wednesday workers found signs of the presence of Clostridium botulinum in a sample. Investigators have tied the problem to unsterilized pipes at a factory, and officials said those pipes have since been cleaned.
The company is run on a shoestring budget, supported one play at a time by a community college that does not even have a theater department.
But on Thursday, the student repertory company at Hostos Community College will travel across the Atlantic to join thousands of seasoned and heralded performers in Edinburgh, Scotland, for one of the largest and most prestigious arts festivals in the world. Months of grueling rehearsals, fund-raising and anticipation will culminate on Tuesday with a performance of "Rough Magic," a modern take on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" that is set partly in New York City.
"I wonder if we'll stick out," said Jenesis Scott, 29, a student who lives in a housing project in the Bronx and until recently worked as a teaching assistant at a charter school. "At first I was intimidated, but now I'm more positive. Different is good; we'll be more memorable."
They will be among more than 24,000 artists from 41 countries who will perform during the three-week Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which for the true aficionado is considered a must on the theater calendar. The Hostos students are to perform along with three other college groups, through a program that received applications from more than 200 schools in the United States and Canada.
The Hostos Repertory Company grew out of an effort by the college to give its 7,000 students — many of whom are poor and the first in their families to pursue higher education — a taste of literature, art and the finer things in life. It was originally founded in 1983 as a professional group performing Spanish-language dramas, and was revived in 2005 with students, said Angel Morales, a humanities professor who doubles as the artistic director.
The students started with a bilingual translation of "Romeo and Juliet" by Pablo Neruda that filled the college's 362-seat theater. Soon there was one play every semester, many with Latino themes and authors, including "A Bicycle Country" by Nilo Cruz, and "Chain Reaction," a work about the Puerto Rican activist Antonia Pantoja written by Tere Martinez, an adjunct professor at Hostos.
The college, an often overlooked branch of the City University of New York that is known for its training programs in nursing, dental hygiene and radiologic technology, took the unusual step of bringing the plays into the classroom. Professors in English, the humanities, education, sociology and the sciences collaborated to teach ideas and lessons from the various works, and post online study guides.
George Alvarenga, 23, the middle of three children of a home attendant and a building handyman, said that until he landed at Hostos, he had only seen theater performed in his high school, "so I'm thinking what's so great about seeing it live."
But after taking a class with Professor Morales last year, he waited in line for four hours for free tickets to Shakespeare in the Park. He has been back twice, so far. "Every show is a different show, anything can happen," he said. "I like that because it's a unique morsel that you get to savor. What you see today is not what you'll get tomorrow."
In 2011, Professor Morales was invited to visit the Edinburgh festival by the International Collegiate Theater Festival, an organization that presents college productions as part of the Festival Fringe. Hostos students had started to attract notice outside the Bronx, and performed that year alongside groups from Yale and Boston Universities in a regional college theater festival.
"We bring ethnic diversity," Professor Morales, 42, said. "We bring energy. We bring the thirst of young students from the South Bronx to showcase their talents at a time when opportunities for them are scarce."
Hostos raised $40,000 through donations from alumni and others to cover airfare, housing, festival fees and most meals. The students will be accompanied by Professor Morales and the college president, Felix V. Matos Rodriguez.
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Scott Audette/Reuters
Alex Rodriguez hopes to rejoin the Yankees on Monday, but a suspension from Major League Baseball could come before that.
Alex Rodriguez's effort to return to the Yankees' lineup before Major League Baseball issues its expected suspension of him is moving into a decisive phase, with the possibility that the games he is set to play in minor league settings over the next few days could be his last ones for a long time.
Rodriguez, the 38-year-old third baseman now in baseball's cross hairs, will play in a simulated game Thursday at the Yankees' complex in Tampa, Fla., followed by a minor league game Friday at an undisclosed location, perhaps Class AA Trenton.
All that, however, could change abruptly if he comes to an agreement to accept a substantial suspension. That possibility grew on Wednesday with the disclosure that baseball and Rodriguez's representatives, through the players union, were engaged in a dialogue about his situation.
In the meantime, a tentative plan calls for Rodriguez to meet his Yankees teammates Monday in Chicago, where the team will begin a series against the White Sox. But that may be too late for Rodriguez, who at this point is hardly the master of his own fate.
For the second time in two days, baseball officials met with their union counterparts Wednesday to inform them of the suspensions the league is about to hand down in connection with its investigation of a South Florida clinic suspected of dispensing performance-enhancing drugs.
Major League Baseball is preparing to suspend Rodriguez and other players, perhaps by Friday. Rodriguez is expected to incur the heaviest penalty by far, with the commissioner's office signaling it might give him a lifetime ban or even seek to punish him under provisions of the collective bargaining agreement that would not allow him to immediately appeal his punishment.
But that tough posture by baseball may be modified as a result of the current dialogue, which was cited by a person with knowledge of the matter. It was unclear whether the discussions would lead to Rodriguez's accepting a suspension that would prevent him from putting on a major league uniform for the rest of this season and much or all of 2014.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez continues to move closer to being able to play in major league games for the first time since he had hip surgery in January. The whole situation — a looming suspension, the possibility of a deal, Rodriguez's desire to play now — essentially puts the Yankees in uncharted waters, but General Manager Brian Cashman tried to deal with it during a conference call with reporters.
Cashman did not rule out Rodriguez's playing in more minor league rehabilitation games over the weekend. The Yankees have a three-game series against the Padres in San Diego this weekend, and Rodriguez, under any almost scenario, is unlikely to join them for that.
After that comes the three-game series against the White Sox. Rodriguez could take part in those games, although by then he might be appealing a hefty suspension, or already beginning an agreed-on exile from the sport.
Rodriguez and the other players expected to be suspended have been linked to the activities of a now-defunct anti-aging clinic that operated under the name Biogenesis. But Rodriguez stands out from the others because baseball officials believe he tried to obstruct the league's investigation of the clinic. For that reason, he is facing a penalty that could put the rest of his career in jeopardy.
But there have been indications that Rodriguez might be open to accepting a deal that would be less harsh than a lifetime ban. And it is quite possible that the players union is counseling him to take that approach. Michael Weiner, the head of the union, has said that in instances in which there is overwhelming evidence against a player in the Biogenesis investigation, the union would want that player to make a deal with baseball rather than fight a suspension.
If Rodriguez did agree to a deal, he would be following the example of another star player, Milwaukee's Ryan Braun, who was likewise ensnared in the Biogenesis case and 10 days ago agreed to a suspension that immediately barred him from playing.
In Braun's case, the suspension is for 65 games, through the end of the 2013 season. In Rodriguez's case, the suspension would presumably be for much longer, perhaps lasting through the 2014 season. And in that case, Rodriguez would not be rejoining his teammates at any point this season.
In the conference call, Cashman said he had no information about baseball's investigation and its expected suspensions and was proceeding as if Rodriguez would play for him again this season. Cashman said that Rodriguez was due to get on a plane and rejoin the team soon.
"That is correct, absolutely," he said. "We have a plan in place with a schedule that Alex; my trainer, Tim Lentych; and myself all worked through the other day."
Rodriguez turned 38 on Saturday. If he ultimately accepted a deal that would leave him unable to play until 2015, he would be 39 by the time he got back on the field. Coming back at that age after missing two full seasons in the major leagues would be a steep challenge, and maybe an impossible one.
For now, Rodriguez continues to work out as if his return were within days. But with a suspension looming, and baseball hoping to pressure Rodriguez's side into a deal, it is unclear when, or if, that return may take place.
Steve Bornstein, a pivotal figure in televised sports for more than 20 years, will step down as president and chief executive of the NFL Network when his contract expires in the spring of 2014.
He will be succeeded by Brian Rolapp, the chief operating officer of NFL Media since January 2011.
Bornstein, 61, joined the N.F.L. in 2002 and laid the groundwork for the growth of the league's media operations, in part by establishing the NFL Network, which made its debut in 2003.
Much of Bornstein's time was spent securing full distribution for the new network on cable systems throughout the country. Known throughout the industry as aggressive, Bornstein engaged in sometimes contentious negotiations with cable operators. When deals finally closed with Cablevision and Time Warner in 2012, the NFL Network was available in more than 70 million households in the United States.
"Steve was great making sure we understood it was not going to be an easy road," N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday.
Rolapp was also involved in the negotiation with the cable operators, as well as in the talks for the eight-year deal that will keep "Monday Night Football" on ESPN through 2021. Before joining the N.F.L., Rolapp worked in acquisitions and strategy for NBC Universal in New York.
"Technology is a great opportunity for the N.F.L., and Brian understands that," Goodell said. "He's been at the center of what we've been doing in technology, and that's going to be his focus now that we have our broadcasting agreements in place."
Before it was NBC Universal and when it was still owned by General Electric, NBC figured in one of Bornstein's biggest accomplishments with the N.F.L. — persuading Dick Ebersol, then the chairman of NBC Sports, to bring the N.F.L. back to the network in 2006. The negotiations involved switching the league's cable TV package from Sunday to Monday nights so NBC could have marquee games for its new "Sunday Night Football" lineup and could take advantage of flexible scheduling late in the season.
In 2006, Bornstein also presided over the first season of games on the NFL Network — eight games in prime time, which echoed the first season of eight Sunday-night N.F.L. games carried by ESPN in 1987, when Bornstein was the sports network's programming chief. Securing N.F.L. games was a breakthrough for ESPN, enabling it to greatly increase the fees it charged cable systems.
Bornstein joined ESPN in 1980, during its first year of existence, and in 1990, at 38, became the network's president. He stayed through 1997, when he was named chairman of ESPN and president of ABC, its broadcast-network counterpart. In 1998, ESPN began broadcasting its first full season of N.F.L. games.
Bornstein, who will also give up his title as the N.F.L.'s executive vice president for media, said he had not decided what he would do next.
"If you want to talk about what's on my tombstone, which I hope is far away, both the NFL Network and ESPN would have to be mentioned," he said. "The difference is, the N.F.L. was going to thrive with or without me. At ESPN, we were faced with a touch-and-go situation. There were no guarantees that business was going to survive."
