Karzai to Forbid His Forces to Request Foreign Airstrikes

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he would issue a decree forbidding his military forces from turning to NATO or American forces to conduct airstrikes, and he condemned the use of torture on detainees by his security forces.

He made his comments in a speech at the Afghan National Military Academy in Kabul. It was the first time he had dwelt at such length and with such passion on human rights.

His proposed ban on Afghan troops from calling in airstrikes came after a joint Afghan-NATO attack last week in Kunar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, that killed four women, one man and five children, all of them civilians, according to local officials.

Mr. Karzai said Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the commander of the international coalition forces fighting the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan, told him that the airstrike had been requested by the National Directorate of Security, the country’s intelligence service. The attack took place in the Shigal district, an area where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members, Afghan officials have said.

“Our N.D.S. in their own country calls foreigners to assist them and bombard four or five Al Qaeda or Taliban,” Mr. Karzai said.

“It is very regrettable to hear this,” he added. “You are representing Afghan pride. How do you call for an airstrike from foreigners on your people?”

Civilian casualties in the war on the Taliban has long vexed Mr. Karzai and has been a major point of contention with American and NATO troops. New rules instituted by commanders from the International Security Assistance Force have minimized the loss of life, and the coalition has all but stopped air attacks on populated areas and on homes. The result has been a dramatic drop in civilian casualties caused by foreign forces.

Nevertheless, Afghan troops, who lack their own air support, still turn to foreign forces for help during pitched battles with the Taliban and other insurgents. It was not clear whether there would be exceptions to Mr. Karzai’s decree, but he was clearly dismayed that his own forces would be employing the very techniques he had worked so hard to persuade the West to abandon.

In an unusual move, the Afghan president also publicly acknowledged that torture was a problem in Afghan detention centers and pledged to halt it. In the past, the government has largely deflected charges of torture raised by human rights organizations, contending that any abuse was the work of a few bad actors.

But after a United Nations report released in January detailed abuses or torture at a number of detention sites around the country, Mr. Karzai took a closer and more independent look at the complaints.

He appointed a delegation to investigate the report’s validity, and when the inquiry confirmed many of the allegations, he ordered the security ministries to implement the team’s recommendations. He reiterated that order on Saturday. The recommendations include prosecuting perpetrators of torture, giving detainees access to defense lawyers, providing medical treatment for detainees who are ill or have been beaten, and videotaping all interrogations.

“Not only have foreigners tormented and punished Afghans, but our people have been terrorized and punished by our own sons too,” Mr. Karzai said. “The U.N. report showed that even after 10 years, our people are tortured and mistreated in prisons.”

The United Nations’ human rights office here emphasized the importance of Mr. Karzai’s attention to the issue.

“It is encouraging that the president appears to be personally taking the issue of human rights of all Afghans seriously,” said Georgette Gagnon, the office’s director of human rights. She added that the government should act immediately on the delegation’s recommendations. “We urge them to do so without delay,” she said.

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Hunter voted out as head of NBA players' union

HOUSTON (AP) — Billy Hunter was ousted unanimously as executive director of the union by NBA players who said Saturday they will "no longer be divided, misled, misinformed."

"This is our union and we have taken it back," players' association president Derek Fisher said.

Fisher said it was a day of change for the union, which has seemed inevitable since a review of the union last month was critical of Hunter's leadership and urged players to consider whether they wanted to keep him.

They didn't.

"We want to make it clear that we are here to serve only the best interests of the players," Fisher said. "No threats, no lies, no distractions will stop us from serving our memberships."

In brief remarks, Fisher said a new executive committee was elected and he will remain as president. The Spurs' Matt Bonner is vice president, Miami's James Jones is secretary-treasurer and the Nets' Jerry Stackhouse the first vice president. The Clippers' Chris Paul, Golden State's Stephen Curry, Denver's Andre Iguodala, the Hornets' Roger Mason, Jr. and the Clippers' Willie Green are vice presidents.

Hunter had led the union since 1996, guiding the players through three collective bargaining agreements and helping bring their average salaries to more than $5 million, highest in team sports. But Fisher pushed for the review after a falling out between the two leaders, and though it found Hunter wasn't guilty of any criminal activity involving union funds, it cited him for a number of conflicts of interests and poor choices that led the players to remove him.

Released in January, the review conducted by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP criticized Hunter for hiring family members and friends. It said he knew his 2010 contract extension wasn't properly ratified by union rules, and raised questions about everything from travel expenses to the amount he spent on gifts.

Players acted quickly, putting Hunter on a leave of absence on Feb. 1. He hoped to be invited to Saturday's annual meeting, which included about 35 players, superstar LeBron James among them.

But Hunter's attorneys said their client was told he wouldn't be welcomed. They said his contract was legal and indicated there could be a lawsuit if the players removed him and attempted to withhold the more than $10 million that remains on his salary.

"We do not doubt that this process will possibly continue in an ugly way," said Fisher, who then reminded reporters that there are three ongoing government investigations into Hunter, likely the reason he didn't take questions after his remarks.

It's a swift fall for the 70-year-old Hunter, a former athlete who was well-respected by many players. But agents didn't like him, questioning his bargaining strategies and frustrated they didn't have a bigger role in his union.

Hunter's family did, and that was another central issue of the report. He had since fired his daughter and daughter-in-law, and cut ties with a financial institution that employed his son. He also instituted an anti-nepotism policy at the NPBA.

Fisher, Paul, Bonner, Mason and Jones were holdovers from the previous executive committee. Stackhouse, who along with James was vocal during the meeting, joins Iguodala, Curry and Green among the newcomers.

Fisher and Hunter clashed during the 2011 lockout and their fractured relationship divided the union. Hunter originally persuaded the executive committee to vote to request Fisher's resignation last year. Fisher did not resign and instead pushed for the outside review, which lasted more than eight months and cost the union more than $4 million.

The law firm reviewed NBPA documents and emails, and interviewed more than three dozen witnesses. It found that Hunter spent more than $100,000 on gifts for executive committee members — including a watch worth more than $20,000 for Fisher before their falling out — and accepted a payout of $1.3 million for unused vacation time when records made it unclear how his time off was kept.

Fisher remains president even though he isn't on an NBA roster, having asked the Dallas Mavericks for his release after a brief stint earlier this season. He gave no update on what would happen to the executive director position. Union attorney Ron Klempner was appointed to the position on an interim basis when Hunter was placed on leave.

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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.

A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”

Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.

Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.

The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”

While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.

“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”

Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.

“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”

Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.

“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”

For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.

“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”

“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.

That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.

Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.

Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.

“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”

Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.

As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.

“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”

She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.

“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”

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The Education Revolution: In China, Families Bet It All on a Child in College

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Wu Caoying studied English under her father’s watchful eye in 2006. She is now a sophomore in college. More Photos »

HANJING, China — Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education.

His wife, Cao Weiping, toils from dawn to sunset in orchards every day during apple season in May and June. She earns $12 a day tying little plastic bags one at a time around 3,000 young apples on trees, to protect them from insects. The rest of the year she works as a substitute store clerk, earning several dollars a day, all going toward their daughter’s education.

Many families in the West sacrifice to put their children through school, saving for college educations that they hope will lead to a better life. Few efforts can compare with the heavy financial burden that millions of lower-income Chinese parents now endure as they push their children to obtain as much education as possible.

Yet a college degree no longer ensures a well-paying job, because the number of graduates in China has quadrupled in the last decade.

Mr. Wu and Mrs. Cao, who grew up in tiny villages in western China and became migrants in search of better-paying work, have scrimped their entire lives. For nearly two decades, they have lived in a cramped and drafty 200-square-foot house with a thatch roof. They have never owned a car. They do not take vacations — they have never seen the ocean. They have skipped traditional New Year trips to their ancestral village for up to five straight years to save on bus fares and gifts, and for Mr. Wu to earn extra holiday pay in the mines. Despite their frugality, they have essentially no retirement savings.

Thanks to these sacrifices, their daughter, Wu Caoying, is now a 19-year-old college sophomore. She is among the growing millions of Chinese college students who have gone much farther than their parents could have dreamed when they were growing up. For all the hard work of Ms. Wu’s father and mother, however, they aren’t certain it will pay off. Their daughter is ambivalent about staying in school, where the tuition, room and board cost more than half her parents’ combined annual income. A slightly above-average student, she thinks of dropping out, finding a job and earning money.

“Every time my daughter calls home, she says, ‘I don’t want to continue this,’ ” Mrs. Cao said. “And I say, ‘You’ve got to keep studying to take care of us when we get old’, and she says, ‘That’s too much pressure, I don’t want to think about all that responsibility.’ ”

Ms. Wu dreams of working at a big company, but knows that many graduates end up jobless. “I think I may start my own small company,” she says, while acknowledging she doesn’t have the money or experience to run one.

For a rural parent in China, each year of higher education costs six to 15 months’ labor, and it is hard for children from poor families to get scholarships or other government financial support. A year at the average private university in the United States similarly equals almost a year’s income for the average wage earner, while an in-state public university costs about six months’ pay, but financial aid is generally easier to obtain than in China. Moreover, an American family that spends half its income helping a child through college has more spending power with the other half of its income than a rural Chinese family earning less than $5,000 a year.

It isn’t just the cost of college that burdens Chinese parents. They face many fees associated with sending their children to elementary, middle and high schools. Many parents also hire tutors, so their children can score high enough on entrance exams to get into college. American families that invest heavily in their children’s educations can fall back on Medicare, Social Security and other social programs in their old age. Chinese citizens who bet all of their savings on their children’s educations have far fewer options if their offspring are unable to find a job on graduation.

The experiences of Wu Caoying, whose family The New York Times has tracked for seven years, are a window into the expanding educational opportunities and the financial obstacles faced by families all over China.

Her parents’ sacrifices to educate their daughter explain how the country has managed to leap far ahead of the United States in producing college graduates over the last decade, with eight million Chinese now getting degrees annually from universities and community colleges.

But high education costs coincide with slower growth of the Chinese economy and surging unemployment among recent college graduates. Whether young people like Ms. Wu find jobs on graduation that allow them to earn a living, much less support their parents, could test China’s ability to maintain rapid economic growth and preserve political and social stability in the years ahead.

Leaving the Village

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Meteor Fragments Rain Down on Siberia; Hundreds of Injuries Reported

MOSCOW — Gym class came to a halt inside the Chelyabinsk Railway Institute, and students gathered around the window, gazing at the fat white contrail that arced its way across the morning sky. A missile? A comet? A few quiet moments passed. And then, with incredible force, the windows blew in.

The scenes from Chelyabinsk, rocked by an intense shock wave when a meteor hit the Earth’s atmosphere Friday morning, offer a glimpse of an apocalyptic scenario that many have walked through mentally, and Hollywood has popularized, but scientists say has never before injured so many people.

Students at the institute crammed through a staircase thickly blanketed with glass and from there out to the street, where hundreds of people were standing in awe, looking at the sky. The flash had come in blinding white, so bright that the vivid shadows of buildings slid swiftly and sickeningly across the ground. The light burst yellow, then orange. And then there was the sound of frightened, confused people.

Around 1,200 people, 200 of them children, were injured, mostly by glass that exploded into schools and workplaces, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry. Others suffered skull trauma and broken bones. No deaths were reported. A city administrator in Chelyabinsk said that more than a million square feet of glass had been shattered by the shock wave, leaving many buildings exposed to icy cold.

And as scientists tried to piece together the chain of events that led to Friday’s disaster — on the very day a small asteroid passed close to Earth — residents of Chelyabinsk were left to grapple with memories that seemed to belong in science fiction.

“I opened the window from surprise — there was such heat coming in, as if it were summer in the yard, and then I watched as the flash flew by and turned into a dot somewhere over the forest,” wrote Darya Frenn, a blogger. “And in several seconds there was an explosion of such force that the window flew in along with its frame, the monitor fell, and everything that was on the desk.”

“God forbid you should ever have to experience anything like this,” she wrote.

At 9 a.m., the sun had just risen on the Ural Mountains, which form a ridge between European Russia and the vast stretch of Siberia to the east. The area around Chelyabinsk is a constellation of defense-manufacturing cities, including some devoted to developing and producing nuclear weapons. The factory towns are separated by great expanses of uninhabited forest.

As residents of Chelyabinsk began their day on Friday, a 10-ton meteor around 10 feet in diameter was hurtling toward the earth at a speed of about 10 to 12 miles per second, experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences reported in a statement released Friday. Scientists believe the meteor exploded upon hitting the lower atmosphere and disintegrated at an altitude of about 20 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface — not an especially unusual event, the statement said.

This meteor was unusual because its material was so hard — it may have been made of iron, the statement said — which allowed some small fragments, or meteorites, perhaps 5 percent of the meteor’s mass, to reach the Earth’s surface. Nothing similar has been recorded in Russian territory since 2002, the statement said.

Estimates of the meteor’s size varied considerably. Peter Brown, director of the Center for Planetary Science and Exploration at Canada’s Western University, said it was closer to 50 feet in diameter and probably weighed around 7,000 tons. He said the energy released by the explosion was equivalent to 300 kilotons of TNT, making it the largest recorded since the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Siberia, which is believed to have been caused by an asteroid.

Meteors typically cause sonic booms when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and the one that occurred over Chelyabinsk was forceful enough to shatter dishes and televisions in people’s homes. Car alarms were triggered for miles around, and the roof of a zinc factory partially collapsed. Video clips, uploaded by the hundreds starting early Friday morning, showed ordinary mornings interrupted by a blinding flash and the sound of shattering glass.

Maria Polyakova, 25, head of reception at the Park-City Hotel in Chelyabinsk, said it was the light that caught her eye.

“I saw a flash in the window, turned toward it and saw a burning cloud, which was surrounded by smoke and was going downward — it reminded me of what you see after an explosion,” she said. The blast that followed was forceful enough to shatter the heavy automatic glass doors on the hotel’s first floor, as well as many windows on the floor above, she said.

Valentina Nikolayeva, a teacher in Chelyabinsk, described it as “an unreal light” that filled all the classrooms on one side of School No. 15.

“It was a light which never happens in life, it happens probably only in the end of the world,” she said in a clip posted on a news portal, LifeNews.ru. She said she saw a vapor trail, like one that appears after an airplane, only dozens of times bigger. “The light was coming from there. Then the light went out and the trail began to change. The changes were taking place within it, like in the clouds, because of the wind. It began to shrink and then, a minute later, an explosion.”

“A shock wave,” she said. “It was not clear what it was but we were deafened at that moment. The window glass flew.”

The strange light had drawn many to the windows, the single most dangerous place to be. Tyoma Chebalkin, a student at Southern Urals State University, said that the shock wave traveled from the western side the city, and that anyone standing close to windows — security guards at their posts, for instance — was caught in a hail of broken glass.

He spoke to Vozhd.info, an online news portal, four hours after the explosion, when cellphones, which had been knocked out, were still out of order. He said that traffic was at a standstill in the city center, and that everyone he could see was trying to place calls. He said he saw no signs of panic.

In those strange hours, Ms. Frenn, the blogger, wrote down the thoughts that had raced through her mind — radiation, a plane crash, the beginning of a war — and noted that her extremities went numb while she was waiting to hear that the members of her family were unhurt.

When emergency officials announced that what had occurred was a meteor, what occurred to her was: It could happen again.

“I am at home, whole and alive,” she wrote. “I have gathered together my documents and clothes. And a carrier for the cats. Just in case.”

Viktor Klimenko contributed reporting from Moscow, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Different looks for Heat, Lakers at All-Star break

HOUSTON (AP) — If Kobe Bryant's season seems tough, imagine what Dwyane Wade went through five years ago.

"I came to All-Star weekend one year, I think we had won nine games. Seriously," Wade said Friday. "I was looking for my 10th win at the All-Star game."

Things sure have changed for his Miami Heat.

Back where they first teamed up as All-Stars in 2006, Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh return as NBA champions who will start together for the Eastern Conference on Sunday night.

Now the misery belongs to Bryant, Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers, whose season has been so disappointing that Bryant was asked Friday if the All-Star weekend was a "retreat" for him.

"I don't know if it's a retreat, it's just more of an opportunity to get some rest, regroup, put the first half of the season behind us and move on," he said.

As Wade knows, the All-Star break can be just that — a break — from a forgettable season.

He arrived for the 2008 All-Star game with a 9-43 record after the Heat lost on Valentine's Day to the Chicago Bulls, on their way to a 15-win debacle just two years after they won the NBA title.

"I put all that aside though, and I came and I enjoyed the weekend, and when I went back to Miami, it was like, 'Oh my God, we're back in it,'" Wade said. "But All-Star weekend, you just enjoy being an All-Star. You enjoy being around the guys. You can kind of forget about that a little bit, unless you have the cameras and the microphones in front of you asking you questions about it, but besides that you try to enjoy it."

This time, the Heat celebrated Valentine's Day in Oklahoma City with a 110-100 victory over the Thunder, the team they beat in five games last summer for the title. They have won seven in a row, James is playing arguably the best basketball of his career, and they can relax and reminisce as they return to Houston.

"It's really indescribable," Bosh said, "just to not only win a championship with great guys, be in a great locker room, and just to have fun doing it, but just to be an All-Star every year, play with great teammates, I mean to play in front of a lot people in arenas every night. I don't take those things for granted."

James, Wade and Bosh were in their third NBA seasons when they were chosen for the 2006 game, which turned out like so many Heat games these days. James was voted MVP after scoring 29 points and leading a huge East comeback that was wrapped up when Wade made the go-ahead basket with 16 seconds left.

Think about that: James was already the best player that night, and he was nowhere near the player he is today.

"I'm a better player. At that point in time, I wasn't a complete basketball player. I couldn't shoot as well as I can now, I never posted up back then," James said. "More games, more playoff games, more knowledge. You continue to learn each and every day, it makes you a better player. That's what you want, to become a better player. That's what I want. I want to be the greatest of all-time. I try to do whatever it takes to get me in that position.

"Seven years, I've tried to improve each and every year."

He's gotten to the point now where he ran off an NBA-record six straight games with at least 30 points and 60 percent shooting from the field, and seems to be distancing himself from anyone else that can take the MVP award he won last year for the third time in four years.

"He's doing well," Bosh said in a Texas-sized understatement. "That's the best way to put it."

Bosh was chosen as a starter Friday by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who will lead the East. He replaces Boston guard Rajon Rondo, who pulled out with a torn ACL.

Bryant and Howard are still here, away from a Los Angeles season that's been anything but a Hollywood story.

Considered a title contender after acquiring Howard and Steve Nash in the summer, the Lakers fell to 25-29 after they were blown out Wednesday by the rival Clippers, who opened a 13-game lead over them in the Pacific Division standings.

Smiling as he sat with his daughter, Natalia, Bryant laughed that he wished the All-Star break was a chance for the Lakers to "hit the reset button" on what he's said has been a most difficult season.

"Hopefully there's an easy button like in the commercial when we come back in the second half of the season and things are a little easier for us," he said.

Howard has battled injuries to his back and shoulder and has been nothing like the player who has been the NBA's dominant big man in recent years. He said at times he hasn't been having fun and has tried to ignore all the bad news around the team.

"You just try to stay away from the tube and do as much as I can to rehab my back and my shoulder and my mind, and really just get away from everything when I'm not playing basketball," he said.

If he's looking for a chance to enjoy himself this season, it may get no better than the next few days.

"It's a great weekend, it's an unbelievable weekend for the fans to be able to put all their favorite players together in one venue," James said. "We have a great time with it."

___

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

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Fat Dad: Baking for Love

Fat Dad

Dawn Lerman writes about growing up with a fat dad.

My grandmother Beauty always told me that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and by the look of pure delight on my dad’s face when he ate a piece of warm, homemade chocolate cake, or bit into a just-baked crispy cookie, I grew to believe this was true. I had no doubt that when the time came, and I liked a boy, that a batch of my gooey, rich, chocolatey brownies would cast him under a magic spell, and we would live happily ever.

But when Hank Thomas walked into Miss Seawall’s ninth grade algebra class on a rainy, September day and smiled at me with his amazing grin, long brown hair, big green eyes and Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, I was completely unprepared for the avalanche of emotions that invaded every fiber of my being. Shivers, a pounding heart, and heat overcame me when he asked if I knew the value of 1,000 to the 25th power. The only answer I could think of, as I fumbled over my words, was “love me, love me,” but I managed to blurt out “1E+75.” I wanted to come across as smart and aloof, but every time he looked at me, I started stuttering and sweating as my face turned bright red. No one had ever looked at me like that: as if he knew me, as if he knew how lost I was and how badly I needed to be loved.

Hank, who was a year older than me, was very popular and accomplished. Unlike other boys who were popular for their looks or athletic skills, Hank was smart and talented. He played piano and guitar, and composed the most beautiful classical and rock concertos that left both teachers and students in awe.

Unlike Hank, I had not quite come into my own yet. I was shy, had raggedy messy hair that I tied back into braids, and my clothes were far from stylish. My mother and sister had been on the road touring for the past year with the Broadway show “Annie.” My sister had been cast as a principal orphan, and I stayed home with my dad to attend high school. My dad was always busy with work and martini dinners that lasted late into the night. I spent most of my evenings at home alone baking and making care packages for my sister instead of coercing my parents to buy me the latest selection of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans — the rich colored bluejeans with the swan stitched on the back pocket that you had to lie on your bed to zip up. It was the icon of cool for the popular and pretty girls. I was neither, but Hank picked me to be his math partner anyway.

With every equation we solved, my love for Hank became more desperate. After several months of exchanging smiles, I decided to make Hank a batch of my chocolate brownies for Valentine’s Day — the brownies that my dad said were like his own personal nirvana. My dad named them “closet” brownies, because when I was a little girl and used to make them for the family, he said that as soon as he smelled them coming out of the oven, he could imagine dashing away with them into the closet and devouring the whole batch.

After debating for hours if I should make the brownies with walnuts or chips, or fill the centers with peanut butter or caramel, I got to work. I had made brownies hundreds of times before, but this time felt different. With each ingredient I carefully stirred into the bowl, my heart began beating harder. I felt like I was going to burst from excitement. Surely, after Hank tasted these, he would love me as much as I loved him. I was not just making him brownies. I was showing him who I was, and what mattered to me. After the brownies cooled, I sprinkled them with a touch of powdered sugar and wrapped them with foil and red tissue paper. The next day I placed them in Hank’s locker, with a note saying, “Call me.”

After seven excruciating days with no call, some smiles and the usual small talk in math class, I conjured up the nerve to ask Hank if he liked my brownies.

“The brownies were from you?” he asked. “They were delicious.”

Then Hank invited me to a party at his house the following weekend. Without hesitation, I responded that I would love to come. I pleaded with my friend Sarah to accompany me.

As the day grew closer, I made my grandmother Beauty’s homemade fudge — the chocolate fudge she made for Papa the night before he proposed to her. Stirring the milk, butter and sugar together eased my nerves. I had never been to a high school party before, and I didn’t know what to expect. Sarah advised me to ditch the braids as she styled my hair, used a violet eyeliner and lent me her favorite V-neck sweater and a pair of her best Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.

When we walked in the door, fudge in hand, Hank was nowhere to be found. Thinking I had made a mistake for coming and getting ready to leave, I felt a hand on my back. It was Hank’s. He hugged me and told me he was glad I finally arrived. When Hank put his arm around me, nothing else existed. With a little help from Cupid or the magic of Beauty’s recipes, I found love.

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Fat Dad’s ‘Closet’ Brownies

These brownies are more like fudge than cake and contain a fraction of the flour found in traditional brownie recipes. My father called them “closet” brownies, because when he smelled them coming out of the oven he could imagine hiding in the closet to eat the whole batch. I baked them in the ninth grade for a boy that I had a crush on, and they were more effective than Cupid’s arrow at winning his heart.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the pan
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped, or semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs at room temperature, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Fresh berries or powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish.

3. In a double boiler, melt chocolate. Then add butter, melt and stir to blend. Remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix well.

4. Add flour. Mix well until very smooth. Add chopped walnuts if desired. Pour batter into greased baking pan.

5. Bake for 35 minutes, or until set and barely firm in the middle. Allow to cool on a rack before removing from pan. Optional: garnish with powdered sugar, or berries, or both.

Yield: 16 brownies

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Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father appears occasionally on Well.

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U.S. Signals Support for Japan’s Yen Policy

MOSCOW — Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, strongly indicated on Friday that the United States did not intend to censure Japan for weakening its currency over the last several months, something that has aided Japanese exporters and angered its competitors.

Mr. Bernanke spoke in brief introductory remarks at a conference in Moscow of the Group of 20, a club of the world’s largest industrial and emerging economies.

At issue are stimulus programs backed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is also maintaining pressure on the Bank of Japan to keep interest rates near zero and flood the economy with money to support Japanese manufacturers. As a result, the yen has lost about 15 percent of its value against the dollar over the last three months, meaning products produced in Japan, like some Sony electronics or models of Toyota cars, are relatively cheaper.

Japan’s maneuver touched off fears that other countries and the European Union might follow suit in a so-called currency war, which has been the main topic of the Group of 20 meeting here, which runs through Saturday.

Initially, it seemed the world’s largest economies might agree on a firm statement at the end of the meeting to condemn a currency war, or competitive devaluations. This tactic is now widely seen as a beggar-thy-neighbor approach to creating growth that would ultimately harm a global recovery and is understood to be a cause of the lingering nature of the depression in the 1930s.

Mr. Bernanke, an advocate of the loose monetary policy in the United States known as quantitative easing, but also a student of the Great Depression, suggested a distinction should be drawn based on the intention of the monetary easing.

“The United States is using domestic policies to advance domestic agendas,” Mr. Bernanke said, speaking in a gilded and colonnaded chamber in the Kremlin to a round table of the world’s leading central bankers and finance ministers, in addition to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“We believe that by strengthening the U.S. economy, we are helping to strengthen the global economy as well,” Mr. Bernanke said. “We welcome similar approaches by other countries.” He said he endorsed an earlier statement at the meeting from Christine Lagarde, the director of the International Monetary Fund, who had said the risk of a currency war was “overblown.”

The global recovery has become unbalanced, Mr. Lagarde said in her statement to the group. Developed countries are swooning, while the emerging markets bounced back quickly, and yet such countries, including Russia, have been critical of the stimulus efforts of the developed nations. Japan’s devaluation of the yen is “sound policy,” she said.

“The international monetary system can function effectively if each country follows the right policies for their domestic economies,” she said, ultimately lifting the tide of the global marketplace, she said.

Ms. Lagarde did caution that too bald a ploy to prop up exports would not count as a justified weakening of a currency.

Because loose monetary policy encourages economic growth while also helping exports, critics of such tactics say these are distinctions without a difference.

Germany’s finance minister offered a contrarian view, saying that countries should not use easy money to avoid reducing their deficits over the long term, with measures like reducing government waste.

The Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, the host of the meeting, has also been pushing for a strong statement against competitive devaluations in the final communiqué from the forum, expected Saturday. Mr. Siluanov said in his opening remarks that a statement endorsing market mechanisms to set exchange rates would “find a place in the communiqué.”

That reiterated the position of a statement issued by the Group of 7 earlier this week. But it now seems a watered-down version is more likely.

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Benedict Says He Will Be ‘Hidden to the World’ in Retirement

VATICAN CITY — Saying he would soon be “hidden to the world,” Pope Benedict XVI took his leave of parish priests and clergy of the Diocese of Rome on Thursday as he offered personal, and incisive, recollections of the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops 50 years ago that set the Roman Catholic Church’s course for the future.

Benedict, who announced his resignation on Monday in a move that stunned the Roman Catholic world, also indicated that he would not hold a public role once his resignation becomes official on Feb. 28. He is the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years.

“Though I am now retiring to a life of prayer, I will always be close to all of you and I am sure all of you will be close to me, even though I remain hidden to the world,” Benedict, 85 and increasingly frail, told the assembly of hundreds of priests, who had greeted him with a long standing ovation and some tears.

Priests in attendance said they felt they had witnessed a powerful moment in church history, one that also humanized a pope who has often seemed remote. “It moved me to see the pope smile,” said Don Mario Filippa, a priest in Rome. “He has found peace within himself.”

“It was a part of history,” said Father Martin Astudillo, 37, an Argentine priest who is studying in Rome. “This is a man of God who at the end of his public role transmits his vision of the church and relationship with the church,” he added. “We saw in a few words a real synthesis of his vision of the church and what he expects from whomever takes over.”

During the reflection — or “chat” in his words — on the Second Vatican Council, Benedict recalled the “incredible” expectations of the bishops going into the gathering.

“We were full of hope, enthusiasm and also of good will,” he said.

But while the council made landmark decisions that would propel the church into the future, much got lost in the media’s interpretation of what transpired, he said, which led to the “calamities” that have marred recent church history.

The media reduced the proceedings “into a political power struggle between different currents of the church,” and they chose sides that suited their individual vision of the world, the pope said.

These messages, not that of the council, entered into the public sphere and that led in the years to “so many calamities, so many problems, seminaries closed, convents that closed, the liturgy trivialized,” the pope said.

Benedict spoke of how the council had explored ideas of “continuity” between the Old and New Testaments, and of the relationship between the Catholic and Jewish faiths, an issue that was thorny during his tenure.

“Even if it’s clear that the church isn’t responsible for the Shoah, it’s for the most part Christians who did this crime,” Benedict said of the Holocaust, adding that this called for a need to “deepen and renovate the Christian conscience,” even if it’s true that “real believers only fought against” Nazi barbarism.

At a news briefing on Thursday, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, confirmed a report in the Turin newspaper La Stampa that the pope had accidentally hit his head during a trip to Mexico last March. The press corps traveling with the pope was not informed of the accident.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has reported that the pope had decided to retire after returning from that trip. But Father Lombardi rejected La Stampa’s suggestion that the episode might have prompted the decision.

La Stampa reported that Benedict had gotten up in the middle of the night but could not find the light switch in the unfamiliar environment, and accidentally hit his head on a bathroom sink.

An unidentified prelate on the same trip said the pope came down to breakfast the next morning with blood in his hair, the paper said. There was also blood on the pillow, “and a few drops on the carpet,” the prelate told La Stampa. “But it was not a deep cut, nor was it worrisome,” and it was covered by the pope’s thick hair, the prelate said. The pope did not complain during the day’s events.

Later that night, the prelate said, he heard that the pope’s doctor had reacted by expressing concerns about so much travel, and that Benedict had responded that he too had concerns about traveling.

Father Lombardi said: “I don’t deny that this episode happened, but it didn’t impact on the rest of his trip, nor on his decision to resign. That isn’t linked to one single episode.”

Since Benedict announced the decision, saying he felt he did not have the strength to continue in his ministry, there has been much closer public scrutiny of his health.

On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed for the first time that the pope had had a pacemaker since his time as a cardinal and had its batteries changed three months ago.

Once retired, Benedict will live in a convent inside Vatican City, and will be tended to by the nuns who currently look after him. Father Lombardi said Benedict’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who was also named prefect of the papal household two months ago, would continue to work for him.

Father Lombardi said he saw no conflict of interest if Archbishop Gänswein served the current pope and his successor.

The prefect is responsible for logistical duties, and “in this sense it is not a profound problem, I think,” Father Lombardi said.

Rachel Donadio contributed reporting.

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Amputee Olympic star Pistorius charged in slaying

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter dubbed the Blade Runner, was charged Thursday in the Valentine's Day slaying of his girlfriend at his upscale home in South Africa, a shocking twist to one of the feel-good stories of last summer's Olympics.

Pistorius buried his face in the hood of his workout jacket as officers escorted him from a police station after his arrest in the shooting death of Reeva Steenkamp, a 30-year-old model who had spoken out on Twitter against rape and abuse of women.

Police said she was shot four times in the pre-dawn hours at Pistorius' villa in a gated community in the capital, Pretoria. Officers found a 9 mm pistol inside the home and arrested Pistorius on a murder charge.

What sparked the shooting remained unclear, but police said they had received calls in the past about domestic altercations at the home of the 26-year-old athlete, who has spoken publicly about his love of firearms.

A police spokeswoman, Brigadier Denise Beukes, said the incidents included "allegations of a domestic nature."

"I'm not going to elaborate on it, but there have been incidents," Beukes said. She said Pistorius was home at the time of Steenkamp's death and "there is no other suspect involved."

Pistorius made history in the London Games when he became the first double-amputee track athlete to compete in the Olympics. He didn't win a medal but did make the semifinals of the 400 meters and became an international star.

Thursday, companies quickly removed billboards and advertising featuring Pistorius, a national hero in South Africa who also inspired fans worldwide with the image of his high-tech carbon-fiber blades whipping through the air.

Kenny Oldwage, Pistorius' lawyer, told reporters the athlete was "emotional" after his arrest, "but he is keeping up." He said he planned to seek bail for Pistorius at a preliminary hearing Friday.

Pistorius has had troubles in the past in his personal life, which often featured fast cars, cage fighters and women.

In February 2009, he crashed a speedboat on South Africa's Vaal River, breaking his nose, jaw and several ribs and damaging an eye socket. He required 180 stitches to his face. Witnesses said he had been drinking, and officers found alcoholic beverages in the wreckage, though they did not do blood tests.

In November, Pistorius was involved in an altercation over a woman with a local coal mining millionaire, South African media reported. The two men involved the South African Police Service's elite Hawks investigative unit before settling the matter.

Pistorius' father, Henke Pistorius, said Thursday: "We all pray for guidance and strength for Oscar and the lady's parents."

A spokeswoman for Pistorius at Fast Track, an international sports marketing agency in London, said the athlete was assisting with the investigation and there would be no further comment "until matters become clearer."

The sprinter's former coach, Andrea Giannini, said he hoped the shooting was "just a tragic accident."

"No matter how bad the situation was, Oscar always stayed calm and positive," Giannini told The Associated Press in Italy. "Whenever he was tired or nervous, he was still extremely nice to people. I never saw him violent."

Firearms captivated Pistorius, the subject of an online Nike advertisement that featured him with the caption: "I am a bullet in the chamber." In November 2011, he posted a photograph on Twitter of himself at a shooting range, bragging about his score. "Had a 96% headshot over 300m from 50shots! Bam!" he wrote.

Linked to a number of women by the South African media, Pistorius and Steenkamp were first seen together publicly in November. She was named one of the world's 100 Sexiest Women for two years running by the men's magazine FHM.

The leggy blonde with a law degree also appeared in international and South African ads and was a celebrity contestant on "Tropika Island of Treasure," a South African reality show filmed in Jamaica.

While known for her bikini-clad, vamping photo spreads, she tweeted messages urging women to stand up against rape. Her tweets also focused on Pistorius, with one of her last messages noting her excitement over Valentine's Day.

"What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?" she wrote. "It should be a day of love for everyone."

Police have not publicly named Steenkamp as the victim, saying only that a 30-year-old woman was killed. Steenkamp's publicist, however, confirmed in a statement that the model had died.

"Everyone is simply devastated," the publicist, Sarit Tomlinson, said. "She was the kindest, sweetest human being; an angel on earth and will be sorely missed."

Police arrived at Pistorius' home after 3 a.m., and paramedics tried unsuccessfully to revive Steenkamp, police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Katlego Mogale said.

Officers later took Pistorius to a hospital so doctors could collect samples for DNA testing and check his blood alcohol content.

Pistorius had both legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday because of a congenital condition, and campaigned for years to be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes.

He was initially banned because of his carbon fiber blades — which critics said gave him an unfair advantage — before being cleared by sport's highest court in 2008.

He was a last-minute selection to South Africa's Olympic team, competing in the 400 meters and the 4x400 relay. He later retained his Paralympic title in the 400 meters.

South Africa's Sports Confederation, its Olympic committee and the International Paralympic Committee all had no comment on the shooting.

Shock rippled across South Africa, a nation of 50 million where nearly 50 people are killed each day, one of the world's highest murder rates. U.N. statistics say South Africa also has the second highest rate of shooting deaths in the world, behind only Colombia.

"The question is: Why does this story make the news? Yes, because they are both celebrities, but this is happening on every single day in South Africa," said Adele Kirsten, a member of Gun Free South Africa.

"We have thousands of people killed annually by gun violence in our country. So the anger is about that it is preventable."

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Gerald Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. Associated Press writers Michelle Faul and Ed Brown in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

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

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Doctor and Patient: Afraid to Speak Up to Medical Power

The slender, weather-beaten, elderly Polish immigrant had been diagnosed with lung cancer nearly a year earlier and was receiving chemotherapy as part of a clinical trial. I was a surgical consultant, called in to help control the fluid that kept accumulating in his lungs.

During one visit, he motioned for me to come closer. His voice was hoarse from a tumor that spread, and the constant hissing from his humidified oxygen mask meant I had to press my face nearly against his to understand his words.

“This is getting harder, doctor,” he rasped. “I’m not sure I’m up to anymore chemo.”

I was not the only doctor that he confided to. But what I quickly learned was that none of us was eager to broach the topic of stopping treatment with his primary cancer doctor.

That doctor was a rising superstar in the world of oncology, a brilliant physician-researcher who had helped discover treatments for other cancers and who had been recruited to lead our hospital’s then lackluster cancer center. Within a few months of the doctor’s arrival, the once sleepy department began offering a dazzling array of experimental drugs. Calls came in from outside doctors eager to send their patients in for treatment, and every patient who was seen was promptly enrolled in one of more than a dozen well-documented treatment protocols.

But now, no doctors felt comfortable suggesting anything but the most cutting-edge, aggressive treatments.

Even the No. 2 doctor in the cancer center, Robin to the chief’s cancer-battling Batman, was momentarily taken aback when I suggested we reconsider the patient’s chemotherapy plan. “I don’t want to tell him,” he said, eyes widening. He reeled off his chief’s vast accomplishments. “I mean, who am I to tell him what to do?”

We stood for a moment in silence before he pointed his index finger at me. “You tell him,” he said with a smile. “You tell him to consider stopping treatment.”

Memories of this conversation came flooding back last week when I read an essay on the problems posed by hierarchies within the medical profession.

For several decades, medical educators and sociologists have documented the existence of hierarchies and an intense awareness of rank among doctors. The bulk of studies have focused on medical education, a process often likened to military and religious training, with elder patriarchs imposing the hair shirt of shame on acolytes unable to incorporate a profession’s accepted values and behaviors. Aspiring doctors quickly learn whose opinions, experiences and voices count, and it is rarely their own. Ask a group of interns who’ve been on the wards for but a week, and they will quickly raise their hands up to the level of their heads to indicate their teachers’ status and importance, then lower them toward their feet to demonstrate their own.

It turns out that this keen awareness of ranking is not limited to students and interns. Other research has shown that fully trained physicians are acutely aware of a tacit professional hierarchy based on specialties, like primary care versus neurosurgery, or even on diseases different specialists might treat, like hemorrhoids and constipation versus heart attacks and certain cancers.

But while such professional preoccupation with privilege can make for interesting sociological fodder, the real issue, warns the author of a courageous essay published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine, is that such an overly developed sense of hierarchy comes at an unacceptable price: good patient care.

Dr. Ranjana Srivastava, a medical oncologist at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Australia, recalls a patient she helped to care for who died after an operation. Before the surgery, Dr. Srivastava had been hesitant to voice her concerns, assuming that the patient’s surgeon must be “unequivocally right, unassailable, or simply not worth antagonizing.” When she confesses her earlier uncertainty to the surgeon after the patient’s death, Dr. Srivastava learns that the surgeon had been just as loath to question her expertise and had assumed that her silence before the surgery meant she agreed with his plan to operate.

“Each of us was trying our best to help a patient, but we were also respecting the boundaries and hierarchy imposed by our professional culture,” Dr. Srivastava said. “The tragedy was that the patient died, when speaking up would have made all the difference.”

Compounding the problem is an increasing sense of self-doubt among many doctors. With rapid advances in treatment, there is often no single correct “answer” for a patient’s problem, and doctors, struggling to stay up-to-date in their own particular specialty niches, are more tentative about making suggestions that cross over to other doctors’ “turf.” Even as some clinicians attempt to compensate by organizing multidisciplinary meetings, inviting doctors from all specialties to discuss a patient’s therapeutic options, “there will inevitably be a hierarchy at those meetings of who is speaking,” Dr. Srivastava noted. “And it won’t always be the ones who know the most about the patient who will be taking the lead.”

It is the potentially disastrous repercussions for patients that make this overly developed awareness of rank and boundaries a critical issue in medicine. Recent efforts to raise safety standards and improve patient care have shown that teams are a critical ingredient for success. But simply organizing multidisciplinary lineups of clinicians isn’t enough. What is required are teams that recognize the importance of all voices and encourage active and open debate.

Since their patient’s death, Dr. Srivastava and the surgeon have worked together to discuss patient cases, articulate questions and describe their own uncertainties to each other and in patients’ notes. “We have tried to remain cognizant of the fact that we are susceptible to thinking about hierarchy,” Dr. Srivastava said. “We have tried to remember that sometimes, despite our best intentions, we do not speak up for our patients because we are fearful of the consequences.”

That was certainly true for my lung cancer patient. Like all the other doctors involved in his care, I hesitated to talk to the chief medical oncologist. I questioned my own credentials, my lack of expertise in this particular area of oncology and even my own clinical judgment. When the patient appeared to fare better, requiring less oxygen and joking and laughing more than I had ever seen in the past, I took his improvement to be yet another sign that my attempt to talk about holding back chemotherapy was surely some surgical folly.

But a couple of days later, the humidified oxygen mask came back on. And not long after that, the patient again asked for me to come close.

This time he said: “I’m tired. I want to stop the chemo.”

Just before he died, a little over a week later, he was off all treatment except for what might make him comfortable. He thanked me and the other doctors for our care, but really, we should have thanked him and apologized. Because he had pushed us out of our comfortable, well-delineated professional zones. He had prodded us to talk to one another. And he showed us how to work as a team in order to do, at last, what we should have done weeks earlier.

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Media Decoder Blog: CBS Reports Record Operating Income for 4th Quarter

The CBS Corporation set records in the fourth quarter for operating income and adjusted operating income, the company said Thursday, but the results were short of some analysts’ expectations, causing its share price to fall slightly in after-hours trading.

The adjusted net earnings of $414 million produced earnings per share of 64 cents, also a new quarterly record for CBS, though some analysts had forecast a price as high as 69 cents.

CBS, which reported full-year results for 2012 as well as for the quarter ending Dec. 31, also announced an additional stock buyback of $1 billion. That brings the total amount of stock CBS has committed to repurchasing for the current year to $2.2 billion.

Over all, CBS demonstrated improved results in most financial categories and divisions. Revenues for the quarter rose to $3.7 billion, up 2 percent from $3.61 billion for the comparable quarter in 2011.

The company reported net income of $393 million, or 60 cents a share, up 6.2 percent from $370 million, or 55 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 2011.

CBS cited increases in advertising revenue in the quarter, partly driven by political commercials in an election year. The CBS broadcast network continues to be the most watched in television and will likely beat all its competitors in the significant ratings categories for the current season.

The company also saw increases from subscription fees, driven by improvement in its cable networks. Showtime, the pay-cable channel owned by CBS, has experienced growth in subscriptions, thanks in part to its award-winning drama “Homeland.” CBS has pressed for years for increased compensation from cable systems for the rights to carry CBS broadcast stations, and Thursday the company reported that retransmission fees were also up for the quarter, part of 9 percent growth overall in affiliate and subscription fees.

Adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization increased 6 percent, to $866 million from $814 million the year before. Operating income increased 12 percent to $726 million, up from $647 million.

For the full year CBS also produced some encouraging results. The company reported revenues of $14.09 billion, up 3 percent from $13.64 billion in 2011. Adjusted income increased to $3.49 billion from $3.16 billion. Operating income of $2.98 billion was up from $2.62 billion in 2011. All represented new highs for CBS.

One more troubling area was publishing. CBS’s Simon & Schuster unit experienced a decrease in revenues, to $215 million from $229 million in 2011. CBS attributed the drop to decreasing print book sales that could not be offset by increasing e-book sales.

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IHT Special: Tunisia Sinks Back Into Turmoil

TUNIS — Following the murder of a leading opposition politician, Tunisians are asking whether the Arab Spring, which began in their country, has accomplished much of anything. They are disenchanted with the fits and starts of the transition from dictatorship to something else.

“Nobody likes the situation and this government has to change,” said Rabbeh Souly, 28, who sped up her steps on the pavement in central Tunis after witnessing a mugging. “They need to fix the things that concern people like unemployment and poverty. Before, at least things were calm and safe. I regret Ben Ali is gone.”

She was speaking of the longtime dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted two years ago. His departure ushered in a transition coalition government led by the Islamists.

Now Tunisia is at a crossroads. Violence has been escalating for months and the general political atmosphere has been deteriorating. This was underscored by the murder of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was shot in front of his house by unidentified assailants last week. The killing came as a shock to both ordinary people and to the political establishment.

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets after Mr. Belaid’s death, vowing revenge in scenes reminiscent of the protests in 2011.

“With our souls, with our blood, we will avenge you Belaid,” they chanted in the rain on a march to the cemetery.

In the halls of government buildings, another drama played out. The prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, called for the government to resign in favor of a technocratic leadership. But his own Ennahda party disavowed his call.

Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party, has been the strongest political group following the departure of Mr. Ben Ali, winning elections in October 2011 handily because it was viewed as very different from the strongman and his cronies.

But after the assassination of Mr. Belaid, the party has been forced into retreat, while the secular leftist opposition has been given new momentum and unity.

“The country entered a new political cycle: It was in a difficult political transition that was marked by phases of instability and now we are seeing a radicalization of political actors,” said Vincent Geisser, a researcher at the French Institute for the Near East who is based in Beirut, speaking of Islamists and secularists. “There is a serious need for dialogue before there is another assassination.”

The challenges are real: The country is dealing with a weak economy that contracted by 1.8 percent in 2011 and grew by an estimated 2.7 percent last year — not enough to reduce unemployment, which is running at about 17 percent, up from 13 percent at the end of the old regime.

Political instability is also frightening away tourists. Tourism was a key source of jobs and income in the past.

The turmoil is hurting just about everyone.

“Political parties are fighting and the Tunisian people are paying for it,” said Mohamed Ben Amor, sweeping in front of a bodega after a protest on Avenue Bourguiba. “The country is deeply affected by the problems that are happening, so business has been really bad.”

Tunisians lay the blame at Ennahda’s door for failing to address the roots of popular discontent and maintain order in the country, while creating an atmosphere in which religious radicals get away with making violent threats against the secular opposition.

Violence has been escalating in Tunisia over the past two years. Extremists have attacked tombs they consider sacrilegious and a TV station they believe has violated their conservative religious beliefs. In Sidi Bouzid, a city in central Tunisia, the extremist Salafis vandalized a bar in September.

Rachid Ghannouchi, a founder and leader of the Islamist party, who was recently called an “assassin” by demonstrators, strongly denies that the party has promoted violence.

“Ennahda never resorted to violence, it’s not part of our ideology,” he said during an interview in one of the party’s offices in Tunis.

“We are in power, but we feel like we are in the opposition. We don’t have any political party that stands by our party,” he added.

Even so, many blame Ennahda for the political turmoil and worry about a takeover by the military.

“Most Tunisians are held hostage by this kind of radicalization of the political spectrum,” Mr. Geisser said. “This stubbornness to not listen to each other could lead to a takeover by the security apparatus.”

Fares Mabrouk, a co-founder of the Arabic Policy Institute, a research concern in Tunis, believes that the shorter the transition period, the more chances the country has to get back to a more stable political climate. The current government is only supposed to remain until a constitution is in place and new elections are held.

“There is today an opportunity to create a historical compromise that will be unique to Tunisia, and unique in the Arab world,” he said. “The murder of Chokri Belaid and the unification of the left will balance the forces.”

The constitution is not finished and there is no date set yet for elections. This fight over political legitimacy is hurting the country.

“We have two equal forces and it can lead to civil war,” Mr. Mabrouk said. “The first one has electoral legitimacy and the other has now a martyr that is giving them legitimacy. With the political future so unclear, no Tunisian or foreign businesses will invest.”

But for many Tunisians, the murder of Mr. Belaid was a call to even greater political activism.

“I am in a state of shock, but actually there are thousands of Chokri Belaids,” said Mounji Ayari, 43, who wept as he held a sign with a picture of Mr. Belaid that read “martyr” at the funeral. “He is someone who taught us rebellion. He may be dead but he will forever stay with us and we will make sure his ideals live on.”

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Barry Bonds seeks dismissal of felony conviction

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A lawyer for Barry Bonds urged a federal appeals court on Wednesday to toss out the slugger's obstruction of justice conviction, saying a rambling answer he gave while testifying before a grand jury was not a crime.

Appellate specialist Dennis Riordan argued that Bonds was not formally or specifically charged with the felony that he was convicted of committing. A federal jury in April 2011 found baseball's all-time home runs leader guilty of obstruction for saying he was a "celebrity child" when asked about injecting steroids.

Prosecutors asked Bonds during his December 2003 grand jury appearance whether Greg Anderson, his personal trainer, ever gave him "anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with?"

Bonds referred to his father, former major leaguer Bobby Bonds, when he responded "that's what keeps our friendship. You know, I am sorry, but that — you know, that — I was a celebrity child, not just in baseball by my own instincts. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. I just don't get into other people's business because of my father's situation, you see ..."

That particular exchange wasn't included in the indictment originally released in November 2007. The omission is "the dagger in the heart of this conviction," Riordan argued.

Further, Riordan said that Bonds ultimately answered the question when put to him again and denied receiving any substance to inject.

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins wondered aloud if Bonds' direct denial undercut the government's argument that Bonds intentionally misled the grand jury.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Merry Jean Chan countered that the denial was a lie because Bonds' former personal assistant, Cathy Hoskins, testified that she witnessed Anderson inject Bonds. Chan said Bonds' denial and his other rambling answers to the same question throughout his grand jury appearance added up to obstruction.

"He answered the question falsely each time," she said.

Bonds and his legal team are asking a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the lone felony conviction stemming from Bonds' 2½ hours of testimony in December 2003 before a grand jury investigating performance enhancing drug use and sales among elite athletes. Bonds, who was rejected by voters last month in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, wasn't required to attend Wednesday's highly technical hearing, though Riordan said his client expressed a desired to watch the proceedings in person.

Riordan said outside court that he advised Bonds to watch from afar rather than personally attending the 35-minute session San Francisco. A local television station was given permission to show the hearing live and streamed at least a couple of segments on the Internet.

"His presence would have been a distraction," Riordan said.

Legal experts who have followed the case closely since his grand jury appearance in December 2003 are divided over Bonds' chances before Daly Hawkins and Judges Mary Schroeder and Mary Murguia, each of whom was appointed by a different Democrat president and all of whom are based in Phoenix, home of San Francisco's division rival Diamondbacks and about a 20-minute drive from the Giants' Scottsdale spring training facility.

One set of analysts argue that appellate courts are reluctant to overturn jury verdicts absent an overwhelmingly obvious mistake. They say that U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who ran the trial, is a respected jurist who has few of her cases overturned.

"There is a definite overriding respect of a jury's verdict," said Howard Wasserman, a Florida International University law professor. "Typically, it's pretty hard to get a jury's verdict reversed."

On the other hand, there are those lawyers who argue that Bonds stands a good chance to clear his name.

"The government's biggest hurdle is that testimony obstruction cases are usually based on blatant, undeniable lies to questions at the heart of an investigation," said William Keane, a San Francisco criminal defense attorney. "Here the prosecution limps in with only a single rambling, unresponsive, unimportant answer that is literally true."

Regardless of the outcome, University of New Hampshire law professor Michael McCann contends that the case was ultimately a loss of the U.S. Department of Justice. In a case that put a superstar athlete at the defendant's table, the jury deadlocked on three charges of making false statements

"The main thrust of the government's original case was that he lied when he denied taking steroids," said McCann, who also edits the popular Sports Law Blog. "That's not what he was convicted of. Obstruction was not the main charge."

If Bonds' conviction is upheld, he will have to serve 30 days house arrest.

Read More..

Phys Ed: Getting the Right Dose of Exercise

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

Fitness Tracker

Marathon, half-marathon, 10k and 5K training plans to get you race ready.

A common concern about exercise is that if you don’t do it almost every day, you won’t achieve much health benefit. But a commendable new study suggests otherwise, showing that a fairly leisurely approach to scheduling workouts may actually be more beneficial than working out almost daily.

For the new study, published this month in Exercise & Science in Sports & Medicine, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham gathered 72 older, sedentary women and randomly assigned them to one of three exercise groups.

One group began lifting weights once a week and performing an endurance-style workout, like jogging or bike riding, on another day.

Another group lifted weights twice a week and jogged or rode an exercise bike twice a week.

The final group, as you may have guessed, completed three weight-lifting and three endurance sessions, or six weekly workouts.

The exercise, which was supervised by researchers, was easy at first and meant to elicit changes in both muscles and endurance. Over the course of four months, the intensity and duration gradually increased, until the women were jogging moderately for 40 minutes and lifting weights for about the same amount of time.

The researchers were hoping to find out which number of weekly workouts would be, Goldilocks-like, just right for increasing the women’s fitness and overall weekly energy expenditure.

Some previous studies had suggested that working out only once or twice a week produced few gains in fitness, while exercising vigorously almost every day sometimes led people to become less physically active, over all, than those formally exercising less. Researchers theorized that the more grueling workout schedule caused the central nervous system to respond as if people were overdoing things, sending out physiological signals that, in an unconscious internal reaction, prompted them to feel tired or lethargic and stop moving so much.

To determine if either of these possibilities held true among their volunteers, the researchers in the current study tracked the women’s blood levels of cytokines, a substance related to stress that is thought to be one of the signals the nervous system uses to determine if someone is overdoing things physically. They also measured the women’s changing aerobic capacities, muscle strength, body fat, moods and, using sophisticated calorimetry techniques, energy expenditure over the course of each week.

By the end of the four-month experiment, all of the women had gained endurance and strength and shed body fat, although weight loss was not the point of the study. The scientists had not asked the women to change their eating habits.

There were, remarkably, almost no differences in fitness gains among the groups. The women working out twice a week had become as powerful and aerobically fit as those who had worked out six times a week. There were no discernible differences in cytokine levels among the groups, either.

However, the women exercising four times per week were now expending far more energy, over all, than the women in either of the other two groups. They were burning about 225 additional calories each day, beyond what they expended while exercising, compared to their calorie burning at the start of the experiment.

The twice-a-week exercisers also were using more energy each day than they had been at first, burning almost 100 calories more daily, in addition to the calories used during workouts.

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

“We think that the women in the twice-a-week and four-times-a-week groups felt more energized and physically capable” after several months of training than they had at the start of the study, says Gary Hunter, a U.A.B. professor who led the experiment. Based on conversations with the women, he says he thinks they began opting for stairs over escalators and walking for pleasure.

The women working out six times a week, though, reacted very differently. “They complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time,” Dr. Hunter says. They did not report feeling fatigued or physically droopy. Their bodies were not producing excessive levels of cytokines, sending invisible messages to the body to slow down.

Rather, they felt pressed for time and reacted, it seems, by making choices like driving instead of walking and impatiently avoiding the stairs.

Despite the cautionary note, those who insist on working out six times per week need not feel discouraged. As long as you consciously monitor your activity level, the findings suggest, you won’t necessarily and unconsciously wind up moving less over all.

But the more fundamental finding of this study, Dr. Hunter says, is that “less may be more,” a message that most likely resonates with far more of us. The women exercising four times a week “had the greatest overall increase in energy expenditure,” he says. But those working out only twice a week “weren’t far behind.”

Read More..

Stock Indexes End Mixed

The stock market lacked direction on Wednesday, as a slump in McDonald’s stock helped pull the Dow Jones industrial average below 14,000. Other major market indexes were marginally higher.

McDonald’s was among the biggest decliners in the Dow, losing $1.10, to $94, as investors worried that Americans were spending less on eating out after a rise in Social Security taxes at the beginning of the year. The government reported early Wednesday that spending by Americans barely grew last month.

Other fast-food companies also fell. Buffalo Wild Wings stock plunged $4.52, to $76.55, after its earnings fell short of analysts’ expectations. Burger King and Wendy’s also fell.

“Consumer spending is coming under pressure,” said Bryan Elliott, an analyst at Raymond James. “It’s the easiest way to save money; stay at home and cook.”

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 35.79 points, or 0.26 percent, to 13,982.91. The Dow is still up 6.71 percent so far this year and is just 182 points below the record close of 14,164 set on Oct. 9, 2007.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index edged up 0.90 point, or 0.06 percent, to 1,520.33. The index climbed as high as 1,524.69 during the day, the highest since November 2007. It is up 6.6 percent so far this year.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 10.38 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,196.88.

Investors sent General Electric and Comcast higher after G.E. agreed Tuesday to sell its stake in NBCUniversal to Comcast for $16.7 billion. G.E. said it would use up to $10 billion of the money to buy back its own stock. Shares of G.E. rose 81 cents, to $23.39. Comcast advanced $1.16, to $40.13.

Trading has been relatively quiet in recent days following a strong opening to the year.

“We’re cautiously optimistic on stocks,” said Colleen Supran, principal at Bingham, Osborn & Scarborough. “There is some indication that we could be continuing on this slow growth trajectory.”

Ms. Supran said investors should still be prepared for volatility in the stock market and not assume that the gains from January and so far in February will set the pattern for the rest of the year.

Strengthening the economy and creating jobs were major topics in President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday. Although the economy is healthier than it was four years ago, growth remains slow and unemployment high.

The government reported that spending at retail businesses and restaurants slowed last month after higher taxes cut paychecks. Retail sales growth slowed to 0.1 percent in January, from a 0.5 percent increase in December.

Among the stocks on the move, Groupon rose 28 cents, to $5.57, after the brokerage firm Sterne, Agee & Leach, raised its rating on the company to buy from neutral, citing the long-term potential for Groupon’s changing business model. The online deals company has lost almost three-quarters of its value since going public in November 2011 at $20 as revenue growth slowed.

Dean Foods, a milk producer, fell $1.69, or 9.19 percent, to $16.70, after its profit forecast fell short of Wall Street expectations.

As stocks have advanced this year, bond prices have slumped and interest rates have risen. On Wednesday, the price of the 10-year Treasury note fell 13/32, to 96 15/32, while its yield rose to 2.03 percent, from 1.98 percent late Tuesday.

Read More..

The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries. (Turn off auto-refresh to watch videos.)

4:17 P.M. |Subtitled Video of Pope’s Resignation Statement

The Telegraph has added English subtitles to video of the pope’s resignation statement, made in Latin to cardinals at the Vatican on Monday.

Video of Pope Benedict XVI announcing his intention to resign.

Later in the day, the photojournalist Alessandro Di Meo captured a striking image of St. Peter’s Basilica during a thunderstorm that drenched the Vatican.

Lightening strikes St Peter’s on day #Pope Benedict announces resignation from Vatican (pic ANSA) http://t.co/09KGgZNl
— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) 11 Feb 13

— Robert Mackey

3:24 P.M. |The Vatican’s Electoral College

As the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reports, the Catholic News Service has published a complete list of the cardinals, “from oldest to youngest, eligible to vote for a pope in a conclave.” The oldest, Cardinal Walter Kasper, will be 80 years old on March 5, so “depending on the date of the conclave, he might be over 80, and thus too old to vote.”

Full list of potential cardinal-electors for a papal conclave: http://t.co/qzl9NFTY
— L’Osservatore Romano (@LOsservatoreUSA) 11 Feb 13

The youngest elector, 53-year-old Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church from India, was appointed less than three months ago by Pope Benedict XVI.

A video report on Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

— Robert Mackey

2:11 P.M. |Pope Decided to Step Down ‘Months Ago’

As our colleague Rachel Donadio reports, the editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said that the pope made his decision to step down nearly a year ago after a trip to Mexico and Cuba. The pope made up his mind “after his trip to Mexico and Cuba, and having repeatedly examined his conscience before God, due to his advancing age,” the editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said.

Vatican newspaper says Benedict made his decision to resign “many months ago” after his trip to Mexico & Cuba March 2012. He was tired then.
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

Vatican newspaper frontpage: “Benedict XVI leaves the pontificate” http://t.co/PS3bwOR7
— Catholic News Svc (@CatholicNewsSvc) 11 Feb 13

The German newspaper Die Welt reports that the pope’s brother, Father Georg Ratzinger, who is also a Catholic priest, said that he had known of the impending announcement for many months.

A German television interview with the pope’s older brother, Father Georg Ratzinger, on Monday.

As the Catholic News Service reports, the pope had previously hinted that resignation was a possibility for him:

The German author and journalist Peter Seewald asked Pope Benedict in the summer of 2010 whether he was considering resigning then, a time when new reports of clerical sexual abuse were being published in several European countries.

“When the danger is great, one must not run away. For that reason, now is certainly not the time to resign,” he told Seewald, who published the remarks in the book, “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.”

The pope did tell him, though, “one can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it.”

In another section of the book, the pope told Seewald: “If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.”

— Robert Mackey

1:43 P.M. |Obama and Other World Leaders Praise the Pope

The White House released the following statement on Monday in response to the pope’s resignation:

On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years. The Church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.

President Obama joined many world leaders in paying tribute to the pope on Monday. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called the pope, “deeply educated, with a sense for history’s great correlations and a lively interest in the processes of European unification.” She added: “”In an era in which people are living ever longer, many people can understand how the pope is having to deal with the burdens of aging.”

A less somber note was struck by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a catholic, who joked at a news conference that he would not be running for the papacy.

Reporter yells about the pope retiring. ”Oh,” says Biden. ” No, I’m not running.” #bidenguns
— Tara Murtha (@taramurtha) 11 Feb 13

Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, who was caught on video checking his phone during a papal address last year, said: “On behalf of the Government and people of Ireland, I would like to extend best wishes to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI following his declaration today that he intends to step down from his office. This is clearly a decision which the Holy Father has taken following careful consideration and deep prayer and reflection. It reflects his profound sense of duty to the Church, and also his deep appreciation of the unique pressures of spiritual leadership in the modern world.”

Two years ago, Mr. Kenny also attacked the Vatican after a report found that officials there had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sex abuse to the police.” In a speech to the Irish Parliament after the release of the Cloyne Report in 2011, which detailed abuse and cover-ups by church officials, Mr. Kenny said:

for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic … as little as three years ago, not three decades ago. And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism — the narcissism — that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.

— Robert Mackey

12:55 P.M. |The Pope’s Decision as ‘the Eruption of Modernity’

Reflecting on Monday’s news, Ezio Mauro, the executive editor of La Repubblica, suggested in a video interview published on the Italian newspaper’s Web site, that the pope’s decision to resign marked “the eruption of modernity” into the papacy.

Mr. Mauro also discussed the possible difficulties the resignation, unprecedented in modern times, could have for the next pope, who will have to deal with not just the memory of his predecessor, but the also the fact of the living man. He added that, although a Vatican spokesman insisted that the pope “was absolutely not depressed,” the scenario unfolding in real life reminded him somewhat of the plot of the Italian director Nanni Moretti’s 2012 comedy “Habemus Papam,” about a reluctant new pope who tries psychoanalysis before ducking out of the Vatican to wander the streets of Rome.

The trailer for the 2012 Italian comedy “Habemus Papam,” about a reluctant pope.

— Robert Mackey

11:59 A.M. |Cardinal Dolan Says He Admires Pope for Decision

Associated Press video of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, speaking to reporters on Monday about the pope’s resignation.

Speaking after the pope announced his resignation plans on Monday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, told reporters, “I just always admired him as a scholar, as a priest, as a holy man — and now my admiration for him is even higher because of his humility.” The American cardinal also said in a statement:

The Holy Father brought the tender heart of a pastor, the incisive mind of a scholar and the confidence of a soul united with His God in all he did. His resignation is but another sign of his great care for the Church. We are sad that he will be resigning but grateful for his eight years of selfless leadership as successor of St. Peter.

Though 78 when he elected pope in 2005, he set out to meet his people – and they were of all faiths – all over the world. He visited the religiously threatened – Jews, Muslims and Christians in the war-torn Middle East, the desperately poor in Africa, and the world’s youth gathered to meet him in Australia, Germany and Spain.

He delighted our beloved United States of America when he visited Washington and New York in 2008. As a favored statesman he greeted notables at the White House. As a spiritual leader he led the Catholic community in prayer at Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As a pastor feeling pain in a stirring, private meeting at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, he brought a listening heart to victims of sexual abuse by clerics.

— Robert Mackey

11:45 A.M. |Speculation Online About Who Comes Next

A video report from the news agency Rome Reports on what happens after the pope’s resignation.

Within hours of the announcement that the pope had resigned, Twitter was filled with speculation as to who would come next, with some hoping it would be an opportunity for a younger, more reform-minded pope, or one drawn from the new Catholic strongholds in the developing world, where more than half the world’s Catholics now reside.

An interesting profile of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, the most likely African papal candidate. http://t.co/0LLkUh2T #pope
— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) 11 Feb 13

Name to keep in mind in talk of papal succession: #Brazil’s Cardinal João Braz de Aviz http://t.co/XgNUwGkq & http://t.co/rk25wEz0
— Simon Romero (@viaSimonRomero) 11 Feb 13

I wish the Pope well. Probably next choice won’t be 78 y.o. #conclave
— qestout (@qestout) 11 Feb 13

I believe Cardinal Arinze will be the next Pope. See my booklet of eschatology: The Future and the Popes http://t.co/pdj2nBNa #conclave
— Ronald L. Conte Jr. (@RonConte) 11 Feb 13

Hoping for a Pope from outside Europe or North America . . . #conclave #churchhistorygeek
— Tim Dalton (@timdalton74) 11 Feb 13

Hmm… Gonna be interesting to see what the #Conclave decides. Hopefully a #Pope who is somewhat #liberal. #Popeguy
— Jeanette Widén (@JeanetteWiden) 11 Feb 13

Church insiders speculate that Dolan will not be next #pope because he is from a “superpower”.
— Greg O’Brien (@RealGOBstoppah) 11 Feb 13

As our colleagues Elisabetta Povoledo and Alan Cowell report:

Vatican lore has it that cardinals seen as front-runners in advance of the vote rarely triumph, and Vatican-watchers say there is no clear favorite among several potential contenders: Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan; Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna; and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops.

As the Vatican explains on its Web site, popes are elected by a conclave of cardinals.

#Vatican spokesman Lombardi says the #conclave will be held in March before Easter #pope #benedict #papalresignation
— Novus Ordo Watch (@NovusOrdoWatch) 11 Feb 13

There are currently 118 Cardinal-electors that can participate in next #Conclave. A two thirds majority is required to elect the new #Pope
— Óscar SánchezBenítez (@osanchezbenitez) 11 Feb 13

The BBC describes the process:

During this period all the cardinals – retirees included – will begin to discuss in strict secrecy the merits of likely candidates. The cardinals do not have to choose one of their own number – theoretically any baptised male Catholic can be elected pope – but tradition says that they will almost certainly give the job to a cardinal….

The only clue about what is going on inside the Sistine Chapel is the smoke that emerges twice a day from burning the ballot papers. Black signals failure. The traditional white smoke means a new pope has been chosen…

After the election of the new pope has been signaled by white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel chimney, there will be a short delay before his identity is finally revealed to the world.

Among those who called for the church to embrace change and diversity with its selection was the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, who drew a distinction in Catholic service between the papal activities in the Vatican and those who work in some of the poorest places on earth.

Some of the people I most admire are nuns I’ve met doing heroic work in dangerous places. I nominate them for Pope.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) 11 Feb 13

As Mr. Kristof observed from southern Sudan in 2010:

As I’ve noted before, there seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan. The Vatican certainly supports many charitable efforts, and some bishops and cardinals are exemplary, but overwhelmingly it’s at the grass roots that I find the great soul of the Catholic Church.

— Christine Hauser

11:26 A.M. |Reaction From Germany, Ireland and the U.S.

Television news crews around the world have been sampling street reaction on the pope’s decision to step down.

In Germany, the pope’s native country, there was surprise at the announcement which caught even the German government off-guard, Deutsche Well reports.

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle sampled reaction in Germany to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation.

In Ireland, a traditionally Catholic country where the church has been rocked by sexual abuse scandals, The Irish Times found less surprise, and some words of welcome for the idea of a younger pope.

One Catholic in Washington told The Associated Press that his first reaction was to pray and ask for support even from members of other faiths.

Associated Press video on the reaction of American Catholics to the pope’s resignation.

— Robert Mackey

10:20 A.M. |Betting Begins on Next Pope

While many people remain in shock over the pope’s surprise resignation on Monday, bets are already being placed on who will succeed him in one of the world’s most Catholic countries, Ireland.

Next #pope? Bookmakers favouring an African. I’m sceptical. Marc Ouellet of #Canada more likely. And Scola certainly in the running. #news
— John Hooper (@john_hooper) 11 Feb 13

As the Guardian correspondent John Hooper notes, the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power quickly issued odds on the cardinals considered most likely to succeed Benedict — with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops, Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was converted from animism by Irish missionaries, Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson of Ghana and Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, among the early favorites.

Next Pope betting: 5/2 Cardinal Ouellet, 3/1 Cardinal Arinze, 4/1 Cardinal Turkson Web: http://t.co/X3IhCpxO Mobile: http://t.co/WrItgPIK
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) 11 Feb 13

The longest odds offered by the bookie are 1,000 to 1 on the Irish singer Bono, who is not Catholic, and the Irish television star Father Dougal Maguire, who is not real.

In 2005, Cardinal Ouellet, who was then the archbishop of Quebec and primate of Canada’s Catholic Church, warned that legalizing gay marriage “threatens to unleash nothing less than cultural upheaval whose negative consequences are still impossible to predict.”

During the 2004 presidential campaign in the United States, Cardinal Arinze was asked about Senator John Kerry’s support for abortion rights, and replied that a Roman Catholic politician who supports abortion “is not fit” to receive communion.

As my colleague Ian Fisher reported in 2005, Cardinal Scola — who was considered a top Italian candidate to become pope during the previous election — started an Arabic-language magazine, Oasis, that was devoted to improving contacts and dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

Last year, Reuters reported, Cardinal Turkson “caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe,” to an an international gathering of bishops. The viral YouTube video, “Muslim Demographics,” relies on quotes from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and wildly inaccurate population projections from anti-Islam authors to make alarmist claims about the future growth of the Muslim population of Europe and the United States.

— Robert Mackey

9:42 A.M. |Not the First Pope Benedict to Resign

Although, as close observers of social media quickly noted, the pope’s new Pontifex Twitter feed has been mute on his resignation so far, the Vatican press office has been busy online, issuing a string of updates on the Vatican news feed with links to a timeline of Benedict XVI’s papacy, a report on Facebook reaction to the announcement — “Hacked?” — interviews with a papal historian and an expert on canon law on the Vatican Radio’s site.

Virtually unprecedented: papal resignation throughout history
§RV http://t.co/xXccYs7g
— Vatican – news (@news_va_en) 11 Feb 13

In one of those interviews, Donald Prudlo, an associate professor of history who studies “hagiography and saint’s lives, medieval miracle stories, Church History, and the development of canonization” at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, explained that the last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down almost 600 years ago, “so that the council of Constance could assume his power and appoint a new pope, and in so doing bring an end Great Western Schism.”

Mr. Prudlo added that the pope’s resignation does not have to be accepted by anyone:

At the end of the 13th century, a very holy hermit named Peter was elected as Pope Celestine V in order to break a deadlock in the conclave that had lasted nearly three years. He was elected because of his personal holiness, sort of a unity candidate. And once he got there, being a hermit, not used to the ways of the Roman Curia, he found himself somewhat unsuited to the task, that it wasn’t just holiness but also some shrewdness and prudence that was also required. So within six months he knew that he was really unequal to the task, and so he gathered the cardinals together in a consistory, just as was recently done, a couple hours ago, and he announced to the cardinals his intention to resign. Because of the Pope’s position as the supreme authority in the Church, Celestine declared that the pope could freely resign, that it was permissible, and that, because, as supreme authority, it did not have to be accepted by anyone.

The professor also noted that one of the few previous popes to step down, also named Benedict, apparently had second thoughts about his decision:

Celestine V and his advisers were aware that this was an unusual process. And so what they did is they went back through history, they looked at the Liber Pontificalis, and they could go all the way back to Pope St. Pontian, in 235, one of the first bishops of Rome, who was arrested and sent to the salt mines, and in order for a successor to be able to be elected in Rome, he resigned his office. And so as early as 235 we have evidence of the possibility of Popes resigning for the good of the church. Several others, they tried to force them to resign. The Byzantines attempted to force Pope Silverius to resign, but he refused to. But that also demonstrates the possibility of resignation. And then, at a rather low point in the Church’s history, Pope Benedict IX, in the 1040s, resigned and attempted to re-acquire the papacy several times. But according to good reports, he too died in penance at the monastery of Grottaferrata outside of Rome.

— Robert Mackey

9:02 A.M. |Video of Vatican News Conference

Video of a Vatican news conference on the pope’s resignation, posted online by The Telegraph.

As our Rome bureau chief Rachel Donadio reports, Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters at a news conference on Monday, “The pope took us by surprise.” Among other questions, reporters asked Father Lombardi what the pope will be called after is resignation and what he will wear.

Vaticanisti asking how pope will dress & how he will be called after resignation! #BenedettoXVI
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

The spokesman said he had no answers to those questions.

Father Lombardi also explained that the pope would continue to carry out his duties until Feb. 28 and a successor could be elected by Easter, at the end of March.

Video from the news conference was posted online by The Telegraph.

— Robert Mackey

8:51 A.M. |Text and Video of Pope’s Resignation Announcement

Video of Pope Benedict XVI announcing his resignation in a Latin statement on Monday at the Vatican.

As my colleague Rachel Donadio reports from Rome, Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that he would resign in a statement in Latin that he read to a meeting of cardinals who had gathered at the Vatican on other church business.

the @ansa journo who broke news on #pope resignation heard #benedictxvi read news to cardinals in LATIN & understood what he said. brava!
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

Video of the pope reading the announcement in Latin was posted on YouTube by Rome Reports, a news agency that covers the Vatican. This English translation of the complete statement was posted on the official Vatican Radio Web site:

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

— Robert Mackey

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