Seeking Allies Among Syrian Rebels, U.S. Instead Finds Hostility

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

Free Syrian Army fighters aimed their weapons during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — As the United States tries attempts to rally international support for the Syrian rebellion, trying to herd the opposition into a shadow government that it can recognize and assist, on the ground in Syria it faces an entirely different problem: Much of the rebellion is hostile toward America.

Frustration mounted for months as the United States sat on the sidelines, and peaked this week when it blacklisted the Nusra Front, one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, calling it a terrorist organization. The move was aimed at isolating the group, which according to Iraqi and American officials has operational ties to Al Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq.

But interviews with a wide range of Syrian rebels and activists show that for now, the blacklisting has appeared to produce the opposite. It has united a broad spectrum of the opposition — from Islamist fighters to liberal and nonviolent activists who fervently oppose them — in anger and exasperation with the United States. The dissatisfaction is over more than just the blacklisting, and raises the possibility that now, just as the United States is stepping up efforts to steer the outcome in Syria, it may already be too late.

More than 100 antigovernment organizations and fighting battalions have called online for demonstrations on Friday under the slogan, “No to American intervention — we are all Jabhet al-Nusra,” a reference to the group’s Arabic name.

Syrians across the political spectrum say the United States allowed more than 40,000 people to die in the 21-month conflict. Supporters of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, call the uprising a creation of the West and its allies. His opponents excoriate the United States for failing to provide arms and leaving them to perish — and have begun to express a growing wariness of American involvement in Syria’s political future.

“Anti-American sentiment is growing, because the Americans are messing up in bigger ways lately,” said Nabil al-Amir, an official spokesman for the rebel military council for Damascus and its suburbs, one of the committees that the United States and its allies are trying to coax into a unified rebel command. With every step to correct earlier mistakes, he said, “they make a bigger mess.”

Liberals activists blame American inaction for giving jihadists a leading role in the conflict. Rival rebel groups have declared solidarity with the Nusra Front, and Islamists have congratulated it on its new distinction. And seemingly everyone accuses the United States of hypocrisy for not putting a terrorist label on Mr. Assad, whose forces have killed far more civilians than any rebel group.

The United States scrambled on Tuesday to contain the damage, issuing a more complete justification for blacklisting the Nusra Front and stressing that the group has killed Syrian civilians in more than 40 suicide bombings. And it announced a new wrinkle: It is also blacklisting pro-government militias accused of killing civilians as part of “the Assad regime’s campaign of terror and violence.”

The militias, a Treasury Department statement said, would include what it called “the Shabiha” and Jaish al-Sha’bi, or the People’s Army, which it said was created with the help of Mr. Assad’s allies Iran and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and was modeled on Iran’s Basij militia.

But it may be hard to define who exactly is blacklisted under the heading of “shabiha,” which is not the name of an organization but a catchall term for pro-government gangs. The People’s Army is a nascent group, an apparent effort to turn those informal militias into a paramilitary organization.

Criticizing America has become a favorite sideline of antigovernment activists. Some have even questioned the sincerity of President Obama’s recent warning that Mr. Assad would be crossing “a red line” if he used chemical weapons on Syrians.

At a recent demonstration, solemn-eyed boys posed for a photograph that spread online with the title “Red line or green light?” They held a poster of a traffic light, emblazoned with an American flag, shining green for Mr. Assad as he drives a truck laden with chemical weapons.

Demonstrators in Kafr Nabl, a northern Syrian town known lately for its witty antigovernment slogans, quickly mocked the blacklisting with a poster that showed a cartoonish Mr. Assad, with jutting ears, a diabolical grimace and a bloody dagger in each hand, standing over a pile of corpses. One of the dead held a black banner with an Islamic slogan as Mr. Obama, his back to the massacre, pointed at the banner and said, “Terrorist!”

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Washington.

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Microsoft ups Surface production, to sell in more stores

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp has stepped up manufacturing of the Surface tablet, its new device designed to counter Apple Inc‘s iPad, and will introduce it to third-party retailers this week.

The moves suggest Microsoft is seeing some demand for its first own-brand computer in the crucial holiday shopping season, although it has yet to divulge any sales figures.

“The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see,” said Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft’s Surface project, which forms part of the company’s Windows unit.

“We’ve increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface,” said Panay, but gave no details of how many extra units were being produced.

Panay did not mention names of retailers that will sell the Surface, but separately office equipment retailer Staples Inc said it would stock the tablet from Wednesday.

He said the Surface would also be on sale at retailers in Australia from mid-December, with more countries to follow in the next few months.

Since launch in late October, the Surface has only been sold by Microsoft itself, in its own brick and mortar stores in the United States and Canada and online in Australia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

The only Surface model available now – officially called Surface with Windows RT – runs a version of Windows created to work on the low-power chips designed by ARM Holdings, which dominate smartphones and tablets but are incompatible with old Windows applications.

It starts at $ 499 for the 32 gigabyte version plus $ 120 for a thin cover that doubles as a keyboard.

A larger, heavier tablet – called Surface with Windows 8 Pro – will be introduced in January, running on an Intel Corp chip that works with all Microsoft’s Windows and Office applications. Microsoft plans to price the new Surface from $ 899 for a 64 gigabyte version.

The world’s largest software company also said it would keep its chain of ‘pop-up’ holiday stores open into the new year and will convert them into permanent retail outlets or what it called “specialty store locations”.

Microsoft’s recent push into physical retail – following Apple’s great success – has resulted in 31 permanent stores plus 34 holiday ‘pop-up’ stores in the U.S. and Canada.

If Microsoft converted each of the temporary stores into permanent outlets it would have 65 stores, still well below Apple with almost 400 worldwide.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle, Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Tagliabue overturns Goodell on Saints suspensions

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In a sharp rebuke to his successor's handling of the NFL's bounty investigation, former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue overturned the suspensions of four current and former New Orleans Saints players in a case that has preoccupied the league for almost a year.

Tagliabue, who was appointed by Commissioner Roger Goodell to handle the appeals, still found that three of the players engaged in conduct detrimental to the league. He said they participated in a performance pool that rewarded key plays — including bone-jarring hits — that could merit fines. But he stressed that the team's coaches were very much involved.

The entire case, he said, "has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints' organization."

The team's "coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation," the ruling said.

Tagliabue oversaw a second round of player appeals to the league in connection with the cash-for-hits program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams from 2009-2011. The players initially opposed his appointment.

Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma had been given a full-season suspension, while defensive end Will Smith, Cleveland linebacker Scott Fujita and free agent defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove each received shorter suspensions.

Tagliabue cleared Fujita of conduct detrimental to the league.

"I affirm Commissioner Goodell's factual findings as to the four players. I conclude that Hargrove, Smith and Vilma — but not Fujita — engaged in 'conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the game of professional football,'" the ruling said.

"However, for the reasons set forth in this decision, I now vacate all discipline to be imposed upon these players. Although I vacate all suspensions, I fully considered but ultimately rejected reducing the suspensions to fines of varying degrees for Hargrove, Smith and Vilma. My affirmation of Commissioner Goodell's findings could certainly justify the issuance of fines. However ... this entire case has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints organization," it said.

Saints quarterback Drew Brees offered his thoughts on Twitter: "Congratulations to our players for having the suspensions vacated. Unfortunately, there are some things that can never be taken back."

None of the players sat out any games because of suspensions. They have been allowed to play while appeals are pending, though Fujita is on injured reserve and Hargrove is not with a team.

Shortly before the regular season, the initial suspensions were thrown out by an appeals panel created by the league's collective bargaining agreement. Goodell then reissued them, with some changes, and now those have been dismissed.

Now, with the player suspensions overturned, the end could be near for a nearly 10-month dispute over how the NFL handled an investigation that covered three seasons and gathered about 50,000 pages of documents.

"We respect Mr. Tagliabue's decision, which underscores the due process afforded players in NFL disciplinary matters," the NFL said in a statement.

"The decisions have made clear that the Saints operated a bounty program in violation of league rules for three years, that the program endangered player safety, and that the commissioner has the authority under the (NFL's collective bargaining agreement) to impose discipline for those actions as conduct detrimental to the league. Strong action was taken in this matter to protect player safety and ensure that bounties would be eliminated from football."

Meanwhile, the players have challenged the NFL's handling of the entire process in federal court, but U.S District Judge Ginger Berrigan had been waiting for the latest round of appeals to play out before deciding whether to get involved.

NFL investigators found that Vilma and Smith were ring leaders of a cash-for-hits program that rewarded injurious tackles labeled as "cart-offs" and "knockouts." The NFL also concluded that Hargrove lied to NFL investigators to help cover up the program.

Goodell also suspended Williams indefinitely, while banning Saints head coach Sean Payton for a full season.

Tagliabue's ruling comes after a new round of hearings that for the first time allowed Vilma's attorneys and the NFL Players Association, which represents the other three players, to cross-examine key NFL witnesses. Those witnesses included Williams and former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo, who was fired after the 2009 season and whose email to the league, accusing the Saints of being "a dirty organization," jump-started the probe.

"We believe that when a fair due process takes place, a fair outcome is the result," the players' union said in a statement. "We are pleased that Paul Tagliabue, as the appointed hearings officer, agreed with the NFL Players Association that previously issued discipline was inappropriate in the matter of the alleged New Orleans Saints bounty program.

"Vacating all discipline affirms the players' unwavering position that all allegations the League made about their alleged 'intent-to-injure' were utterly and completely false.

"We are happy for our members."

A statement released on Vilma's behalf said the linebacker is "relieved and gratified that Jonathan no longer needs to worry about facing an unjustified suspension.

"On the other hand, Commissioner Tagliabue's rationalization of Commissioner Goodell's actions does nothing to rectify the harm done by the baseless allegations lodged against Jonathan. Jonathan has a right and every intention to pursue proving what really occurred and we look forward to returning to a public forum where the true facts can see the light of day."

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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

At William H. Ziegler Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia, students are getting acquainted with vegetables and healthy snacks.

PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”

Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.

Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.

But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”

Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.

Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.

“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”

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European Parliament Adopts Uniform Patent System

BRUSSELS — It only took four decades of wrangling.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted a uniform patent system for Europe. If the plan goes into effect as expected by early 2014, it would try to remedy the country-by-country approach whose time and costs have long been an impediment to innovation across the European Union.

Achieving the new unified system could conceivably provide encouragement for another, far more ambitious project that European leaders will be grappling with at their summit meeting this week: a uniform system of banking regulation and supervision for the euro area. But the long, tortuous route to the patent agreement might also serve as a cautionary tale.

The banking union has already bogged down in national battles that some experts warn could drag out the process for years — particularly if changes to the bloc’s treaties are needed to give the central bank new and wide-ranging supervisory powers, or to set up a joint financial backstop to ensure the orderly winding down of failing banks.

“What’s clear is that the E.U. continues to operate on a hopelessly optimistic time scale,” Mats Persson, the director of the research group Open Europe, wrote in a briefing note on Tuesday. Mr. Persson was referring to the time it would take to set up a “proper safety net” for Europe’s banks, including a bank resolution fund.

In the case of the patent system, decades of discussions resulted in an unsatisfactory compromise, according to Bruno van Pottelsberghe, the dean of the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. The new system will “still be a mess” and “we should not expect any of a change in Europe’s innovative performance,” Mr. van Pottelsberghe said.

Meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the European Parliament voted 484 to 164 to pass the key plank of the new patent system. Nation-by-nation vetting of the new system will formally start in February, when governments are expected to sign a treaty creating special patent courts.

The system would supplement the current patchwork of patent rules in the European Union; under the current system, a ruling in one of the union’s 27 countries has no automatic bearing on another. The patchwork approach has made protecting inventions and innovations in Europe 15 times more expensive than in the United States, harming competitiveness, according to the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union.

The cost of patent protection should initially drop to around 6,500 euros, or $8,400, from about 36,000 euros, or $46,500, the commission said. That change is largely because the new so-called unitary patents granted by the European Patent Office in Munich would no longer need to be validated in all of the countries where protection is sought. Nor would they need to be translated into all local languages. Instead, English, German or French would suffice.

Benoît Battistelli, the president of the European Patent Office, said the decision on Tuesday would “equip the European economy with a truly supranational patent system.”

Yet the long, tangled history of working toward a common patent — repeatedly shelved after bumping up against national interests and with squabbling over languages — is a timely reminder of how much easier it is to make commitments to a unified Europe than to put unity into practice.

In the case of the banking rules, also known as banking union, European governments still must overcome differences over the system’s most fundamental element: a single banking supervisor operating under the aegis of the European Central Bank.

European finance ministers are expected to work through the night on Wednesday in Brussels debating whether a new supervisor would oversee all 6,000 lenders in the euro area. France, Germany, Sweden, Hungary and Britain are among countries with concerns about the plan. The timing for an agreement “is likely to slip, as member states remain far apart on a number of key substantive issues,” Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst for the Eurasia Group, wrote in a briefing note on Tuesday.

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Chinese Police Detain Two Tibetans in Self-Immolation Protests

BEIJING — Chinese police officials have detained a Tibetan monk and his nephew and accused them of playing a role in a series of self-immolations, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The move appeared to be part of a campaign to prosecute Tibetans who are accused of aiding others who set fire to themselves in protest of Chinese rule.

The police said the monk who was detained — Lorang Konchok, 40, of the Kirti Monastery in Sichuan Province — was connected with eight self-immolations, Xinhua reported Sunday.

The two men were apparently detained in August; it was unclear why Xinhua did not report on them until now.

The Kirti Monastery, in the town of Ngaba, has been central to the wave of self-immolations that began in Tibetan areas in February 2009, when a young monk from Kirti named Tapey set himself on fire in the center of Ngaba. Nearly 100 people in Tibetan regions of China have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule, including three over the weekend, according to Tibetan exile groups.

The Xinhua report said that Mr. Lorang Konchok and his nephew, Lorang Tsering, 31, were suspected by the police of passing on information to exiles in India about the identities and backgrounds of Tibetans who have burned themselves. A Tibetan government-in-exile is based in India, and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, lives there. Some of the information and photos were sent using a cellphone, the report said.

Xinhua said Mr. Lorang Konchok became involved after being contacted by a “Tibetan independence organization” tied to the Dalai Lama after Tapey’s self-immolation in 2009.

Referring to the monk and his nephew, the Xinhua report said that “the two men had persuaded several people to attempt self-immolation, who abandoned the idea after their families, local government officials and police officers intervened.”

The detention of the two men appeared to be part of a concentrated effort to rein in the self-immolations, which have gathered pace in recent months; in November they occurred nearly every day. An editorial published Dec. 3 in The Gannan Daily, a newspaper in a Tibetan area of Gansu Province, said China’s supreme court, prosecution agency and Ministry of Public Security had issued “guidelines” that said “the act of self-immolation by Tibetans is a crime.” The guidelines said that assisting or encouraging the act was considered intentional homicide, and that those who committed it were also criminals and punishable by law if they “have caused severe damage,” according to the newspaper.

No information about the guidelines was posted on the Web sites of the three government bodies that the newspaper said had issued them. It is unclear how widely they are being applied across China, or whether the two men detained in Ngaba will be prosecuted based on the guidelines.

Mia Li contributed research.

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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld. For example:  

Kramer is under investigation for heavy torrenting. Jerry’s new girlfriend writes an extremely graphic blog. George discovers Banh Mi.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

The man behind the account, BuzzFeed’s sports editor Jack Moore, started tweeting out scenarios with his friend, comedian Josh Gondelman, and then decided that the joke merited its own account. Moore is a Seinfeld fanatic himself: “I’m pretty much constantly watching episodes in the background while I’m doing anything,” he told us in an email. “I have a thumb drive with the whole series on it that I keep in my bag pretty much all the time.” 

RELATED: Rich Folks, Saggy Pants, and the Vast Manatee Conspiracy

So far, the modern-day episode summaries ring true, despite warnings from Gawker last year that classic episodes wouldn’t have worked if the characters just had the use of newfangled technology. “It would be different but not as different as everyone acts like,” Moore wrote to us. “People always say that ‘if they had cell phones Seinfeld couldn’t exist,’ which is true for a certain type of Seinfeld episode, but not as a general rule (which I think the account shows).” 

RELATED: Jon Huntsman Finds His Voice by Sounding Like a Dad on Twitter

The account makes it obvious that Internet apps and 2012 trends would create the same awkward situations that Seinfeld thrived on. For example: 

Kramer uses grinder to meet new friends, doesn’t know it’s a gay hook-up app. Jerry refuses to admit he cried on @wtfpod.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

Elaine has a bad waiter at a nice restaurant, her negative Yelp review goes viral, she gets banned. Kramer accidentally joins the Tea Party.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

George thinks his GF is faking a gluten-intolerance, feeds her real cookies, sending her to the ER. Autocorrect ruins Jerry’s relationship.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

We kind of really want to see some of these made, actually. Reunion special? 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mild sprain has Redskins' RG3 uncertain for Sunday

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — All the medical terms associated with Robert Griffin III's knee injury can be boiled down to one simple message: It's not too bad.

Beyond that, there are still some very important unknowns.

The NFL's top-rated quarterback might or might not play Sunday when the Washington Redskins visit the Cleveland Browns. Coach Mike Shanahan, knowing full well that it makes the other team work extra to prepare for two quarterbacks, will no doubt wait as long as possible to publicly commit one way or the other to Griffin or fellow rookie Kirk Cousins.

"Both of them will have a game plan," Shanahan said Monday.

The interior of Griffin's right knee was the subject of intense scrutiny during Shanahan's weekly news conference, when it was shown that an injury to a franchise player like RG3 can flummox even a seasoned coach. Shanahan initially said Griffin had a "strain of the ACL" before later correcting the diagnosis to a sprained LCL, with the coach stepping away from the podium to demonstrate the location of the ligament involved.

The upshot: Griffin has a mild, or Grade 1, sprain of the lateral collateral ligament located on the outside of the knee, caused when he was hit by defensive tackle Haloti Ngata at the end of a 13-yard scramble late in regulation of the 31-28 overtime win over the Baltimore Ravens.

"When I looked at it on film," Shanahan said, "I thought it would be worse than it was."

The LCL is one of four ligaments in the knee. A Grade 1 sprain typically means the ligament is stretched or has some minor tears and usually doesn't require surgery. Griffin will get multiple treatments daily and will probably have to wear a brace for several weeks.

The next major benchmark is whether Griffin will able to take part when practice resumes on Wednesday.

"You're hoping with rehab it gets better very quickly," Shanahan said. "But we don't know for sure. ... He's definitely not ruled out for the Cleveland game."

Griffin's father, Robert Griffin Jr., said in a text message that his son was "feeling good" and that "we will know by Thursday" whether Griffin III will be able to suit up against the Browns.

The most severe knee injury usually associated with sports is a season-ending torn ACL, the anterior cruciate ligament. Griffin tore the ACL in his right knee while playing for Baylor in 2009, but Shanahan said Griffin's reconstructed ACL "looks great" and that there's "no problem there."

"He's doing good. He's in high spirits," left tackle Trent Williams said after speaking with Griffin on Monday. "It was a pretty nasty, awkward hit, and for him not to be seriously injured is a blessing."

No. 2 overall pick Griffin has become a phenomenon in his debut NFL season, leading the Redskins — a team that went 5-11 last year — to four straight victories to put the record at 7-6, one game behind the first-place New York Giants in the NFC East. His performance Sunday put him atop the league with a 104.2 passer rating, better than Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and everyone else.

Fourth-rounder Cousins might not be much of a drop-off, especially after his super-sub performance against the Ravens. When Griffin left for one play, Cousins converted a third-and-6 with a pass to Pierre Garcon that drew a pass interference penalty on Chris Johnson.

When Griffin left for good later in the drive, Cousins completed two passes in two plays, and his nice pump fake allowed Garcon to get open for an 11-yard touchdown with 29 seconds left in regulation.

Cousins then did his best RG3 impersonation, running the quarterback draw on the 2-point conversion to tie the game.

"You're running the scout team the majority of the time, and you're expected to go in there and perform," Shanahan said. "So there's a lot of pressure on people. Some people can handle it; other people can't. But when you prepare yourself like he has, it didn't surprise me that he was flawless in what he did."

Shanahan defended the decision to have Griffin return to the game for four plays after the injury, saying he left the decision in the hands of Dr. James Andrews, the renowned sports physician who is on the sidelines for most Redskins games.

"He's the one that gives me that information," Shanahan said. "It's way over my head."

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Follow Joseph White on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Vital Signs: Smoking Tied to Less Dense Bones for Girls

Smoking in teenage girls is associated with slower development of bone mineral density, a new study reports.

The scientists studied 262 healthy girls ages 11 to 19, using questionnaires and interviews to assess their smoking habits. The researchers also measured the girls’ bone density at the hip and lumbar spine three times at one-year intervals.

Smokers entered adolescence with the same lumbar and hip bone density as nonsmokers, but by age 19, they were about a year behind on average. After adjusting for other factors that affect bone health — height, weight, hormonal contraceptive use and more — the researchers found that even relatively low or irregular rates of smoking were independently associated with lower bone density.

The study, published last week in The Journal of Adolescent Health, used a sample that fell below national averages for calcium intake and physical activity, so the results may not be generalizable to wider populations.

The lead author, Lorah D. Dorn, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, pointed out that this is only one study and that more research is needed. Still, she said, “It tells me that for care providers — clinicians and parents — this needs to be something they’re vigilant about.”

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Disruptions: Disruptions: How Smartphones Are Making Wallets Obsolete

Growing up, I noticed that something happened to my father as he aged: his wallet expanded with each passing year.

There were new credit cards, membership cards, coffee cards, business cards, pictures of his family, stamps and other plastic and paper things, added almost weekly. Eventually, his wallet grew so large that he would pull it out of his back pocket when he sat down, dropping it on the table like a brick.

As I’ve grown older, something entirely different has happened to my wallet: each year, it has become slimmer. Things that once belonged there have gradually been siphoned out by my smartphone. Last week, I realized I didn’t need to carry a wallet anymore. My smartphone had replaced almost everything in it.

So, it’s gone. Add that to the pile of things — my address books, Filofax, portable music player, point-and-shoot camera, printouts of maps — that have melded into the smartphone.

So where did the things that used to live in my wallet go?

Printed photos, which once came in “wallet size,” have been replaced by an endless roll of snapshots on my phone. Business cards, one of the more archaic forms of communication from the last few decades, now exist as digital rap sheets that can be shared with a click or a bump.

As for cash, I rarely touch the stuff anymore. Most of the time I pay for things — lunch, gas, clothes — with a single debit card. Increasingly, there are also opportunities to skip plastic cards. At Starbucks, I often pay with my smartphone using the official Starbucks app. Other cafes and small restaurants allow people to pay with Square. You simply say your name at a register and voilà, transaction complete.

But wait, what did I do with all of the other cardlike things, like my gym membership I.D., discount cards, insurance cards and coupons? I simply took digital pictures of them, which I keep in a photos folder on my smartphone that is easily accessible. Many stores have apps for their customer cards, and insurance companies have apps that substitute for paper identification.

Because I own an iPhone, I don’t have to carry tickets around, either. I use Passbook, a free Apple app that can store boarding passes, movie tickets, coupons and loyalty cards. I’ve used these digital replicas to board a flight to Los Angeles and to get into a movie and a baseball game.

Some people might cringe at the thought of putting a picture of an insurance card on their phone, but if I lose my phone, there is a password to stop someone from opening it. My wallet never came with a password.

There are a couple of things I still carry in my pocket, held together with a money clip: the debit card and my driver’s license. But I’m confident that those, too, will someday disappear.

Soon enough, my phone will become my sole credit card, and the only thing left in my pocket will be my driver’s license. And at some point, the government will enter the 21st century and offer a digital alternative for that.

Or maybe I won’t need a driver’s license at all: when cars drive themselves in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be taking a nap while my car takes me to work.

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

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