Ravens take 7-0 lead over 49ers in Super Bowl

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Joe Flacco's 13-yard touchdown pass to Anquan Boldin gave the Baltimore Ravens a 7-0 lead over the San Francisco 49ers less than 4½ minutes into the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Ravens won the pregame coin toss and chose to defer until the second half. The kickoff went out of the end zone, so the 49ers began the game's first drive on their 20. But they were called for an illegal formation on the very first play, then needed to punt.

A good return by Jacoby Jones set up Baltimore near midfield, and they promptly drove 51 yards in six plays. Another 49ers penalty on third down at the 18 came right before Flacco's nice scoring pass over the middle to Boldin. Flacco was 3 of 4 for 41 yards on his team's opening possession.

The NFC champion 49ers (13-4-1) were seeking their record-tying sixth Super Bowl title — but first since 1995 — and brought in a 5-0 record from their previous appearances. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers have won six Super Bowls.

The AFC champion Ravens (13-6), a franchise that moved from Cleveland to Baltimore 17 years ago, also came in unbeaten in Super Bowls, albeit only 1-0, thanks to their championship in 2001, when linebacker Ray Lewis was voted the game's MVP.

All eyes were going to be on Lewis this time again, as he played his final game before retirement after a 17-year career that is expected to land him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Lewis missed 10 games this season with a torn right triceps muscle — and spent two days in the past week dismissing a report that he had used, of all things, deer-antler spray to enhance his performance.

About 45 minutes before the opening kickoff, Lewis gathered his teammates in the end zone painted the Ravens' purple team color. As they encircled him, Lewis — large triangles of eye black covering his entire cheeks — delivered his usual rousing pregame speech, and other players whooped it up, too.

Not long after, 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis — who, like Lewis, wears No. 52 — delivered his own fiery words, surrounded by the rest of his team near the red, white and blue NFL shield logo at midfield.

It was the first Super Bowl coaching matchup between brothers: Baltimore's John Harbaugh is 15 months older than San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh.

Both starting quarterbacks were making their debut in the NFL championship game.

Indeed, 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick was making only his 10th start the NFL, having taken over the job after Alex Smith got a concussion during a game. Flacco, who led the Ravens past Denver's Peyton Manning and New England's Tom Brady for two of his league-record six career postseason road victories by a quarterback, was getting one last chance to impress before heading into an offseason that could land him a $20 million-per-year contract in free agency.

Before the game began, with 100 million or so Americans expected to tune in on TV, a chorus of 26 children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — where 20 students and six adults were killed in a shooting rampage in December — sang "America the Beautiful," accompanied by "American Idol" alum Jennifer Hudson. Grammy winner Alicia Keys performed the national anthem.

This was the 10th time New Orleans hosted the big game — tying Miami for most in a city — and first since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Big Easy in August 2005.

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Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Matt Eich for The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 3, 2013

An earlier version of a quote appearing with the home page presentation of this article misspelled the name of a medication. It is Adderall, not Aderall.

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Looking Ahead: Economic Reports for the Week of Feb. 4

ECONOMIC REPORTS Data to be released include factory orders for December (Monday); the Institute for Supply Management nonmanufacturing index for January (Tuesday); weekly jobless claims, fourth-quarter productivity and consumer credit for December (Thursday); the trade deficit for December and wholesale trade inventories for December (Friday).

CORPORATE EARNINGS Companies scheduled to release quarterly earnings: Gannett, Humana and Yum Brands (Monday); Archer Daniels Midland, BP, Kellogg, NYSE Euronext, Sirius XM Radio, Toyota Motor, UBS, Walt Disney, Take-Two Interactive Software and Zynga (Tuesday); CVS Caremark, GlaxoSmithKline, Madison Square Garden, Time Warner, Allstate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, News Corporation and Visa (Wednesday); Cigna, Credit Suisse, Daimler, K.K.R., The New York Times, Sony, Sprint Nextel Activision Blizzard, Hasbro and LinkedIn (Thursday); AOL and Nissan (Friday).

IN THE UNITED STATES On Monday, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, will address the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission will hold hearings in Manhattan and Hoboken, N.J., on the resiliency of telephone networks during natural disasters; the Congressional Budget Office releases its twice-yearly outlook for the budget and economy; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission holds a daylong public meeting to discuss its proposed rules to enhance protection of client funds held by futures commission merchants and derivatives clearing organizations; and a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will conduct a hearing about energy security and innovation.

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will conduct a hearing about the role of the Federal Housing Administration in the mortgage insurance market.

On Thursday, retailers will report January same-store sales.

OVERSEAS On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will meet in Berlin with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain.

On Thursday, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England will issue decisions about interest rates, and European leaders will meet through Friday in Brussels seeking an agreement on a budget for the European Union.

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The Lede Blog: Two Iranian Space Monkeys Got Confused, an Official Says

A senior official at Iran’s space agency confirmed on Saturday that state media reports on the launching of a monkey into the thermosphere had used images of two different monkeys. The official insisted, however, that the monkey had survived the journey and that Iran was not trying to cover up a failed flight.

As The Lede explained on Friday, doubts about Iran’s claim that the monkey had survived the journey spread after journalists noticed that the monkey pictured in the first reports from state-run news organizations had a prominent mole over its right eye, before the launch, but had clear skin when it showed up at postflight celebrations broadcast on Iranian television the next day.

Video from Iranian television of the monkey that Iran says it launched into space.

The space agency official, Mohammad Ebrahimi, told The Associated Press in Tehran that the first images provided to Iran’s official news outlets to illustrate their reports had mistakenly shown another of the five monkeys that trained for the flight at the space agency — the one with the mole — and not the one that had actually taken part.

A report from Press TV, Iran’s English-language satellite news channel, broadcast on Monday used the still images of the first monkey.

A report on simian space travel broadcast on Monday on Press TV, Iran’s state-run news channel.

The second monkey was featured in a Press TV report broadcast on Tuesday.

A report on Iran’s space monkey broadcast on Tuesday by Press TV.

In his interview with The A.P., Mr. Ebrahimi insisted that the monkey that had made the flight was in good health and said that of several monkeys that had been trained for the flight, the one that seems least stressed for the journey had been chosen at the last moment. One of the photographs of the monkey with the mole over its eye did appear to show the monkey in distress while strapped into a launch seat.

The space agency did not, apparently, offer to disprove rumors that one of the monkeys had died by showing them both to the A.P. reporter on Saturday.

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Sony likely to unveil next PlayStation on Feb. 20

NEW YORK (AP) — Sony is poised to unveil the next PlayStation game console on Feb. 20, a date that would give the Japanese electronics company a head start over Microsoft‘s expected announcement of an Xbox 360 successor in June.

Sony Corp. invited journalists to an evening press event in New York City. The company has not said what it plans to show off, but signs indicate that it’ll be the PlayStation 4. Sony would only say that it “will deliver and speak about the future PlayStation business.”

Such a console would follow Nintendo‘s Wii U, which launched last fall, and precede Microsoft Corp.‘s next Xbox game console, which will likely be unveiled in June at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said it’s a “super smart” move for Sony to pre-empt Microsoft. This way, the PlayStation 4 will get the spotlight without much competition.

The currently available PlayStation 3 went on sale in 2006, a year after the Xbox 360. But Xbox 360 has been more popular, largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online. The Wii is still the top seller among the three consoles, though it has lost momentum in recent years.

The Wii U was the first of the newest generation of video game consoles to launch, but sales so far have been disappointing. Nintendo Co.’s president, Satoru Iwata, acknowledged recently that the Wii U and the handheld Nintendo 3Ds didn’t do well over the holidays, but he ruled out a price cut for the new console.

All three console makers are trying to position their devices as entertainment hubs that go beyond games as they try to stay relevant in the age of smartphones and tablet computers. Such hubs can deliver TV shows, movies and music. The Wii U has a TV-watching feature called TVii. With it, the console’s touch-screen GamePad controller becomes a remote control for your TV and set-top box. TVii groups your favorite shows and sports events together, whether it’s on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.

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Parcells, Sapp, Carter among 7 Hall inductees

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Coach Bill Parcells, Warren Sapp, Cris Carter, Jonathan Ogden and Larry Allen were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.

The class of 2013 also included a pair of senior selections, Curley Culp and Dave Robinson. The announcement was made in New Orleans, site of Sunday's Super Bowl.

Five players failed to get in on the final vote: Jerome Bettis, Charles Haley, Andre Reed, Michael Strahan and Aeneas Williams.

Earlier Saturday, the selection committee eliminated Tim Brown, Kevin Greene, Will Shields and former owners Edward DeBartolo Jr. and Art Modell.

Parcells reversed the fortunes of four teams — New York Giants, New England Patriots, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys — during 19 years as a head coach. He finished with a record of 172-130-1, leading the Giants to a pair of Super Bowl titles.

Parcells thought he might get in the previous year in tandem with one of his former players, Curtis Martin.

"It was a little less stressful than last year," Parcells said. "I was kind of hoping we could do it together, but as fate would have it, it didn't work out."

Giants president and CEO John Mara said Parcells' selection for the hall was "long overdue."

"He's one of the best coaches in NFL history," Mara said. "He turned our franchise around. We went through a long period in the 1960's and 70's when we were a laughingstock. When Bill took over in 1983, he survived a very difficult first year, but then turned us into a perennial playoff contender and won two Super Bowls for us. He coached three other teams and everywhere he went, he had great success."

Sapp got in on his first year of eligibility after playing 13 seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders. He amassed 96½ career sacks despite playing on the interior of the defensive line, including double-digit sack totals in four seasons. He was the 1999 NFL Defensive Player of the Year after helping Tampa Bay claim its first division title in 18 years.

Carter played 16 seasons, becoming only the second player in NFL history to reach 1,000 receptions in a career. He caught at least 70 passes in 10 seasons, and totaled 130 touchdown receptions from 13 passers.

Allen played 203 games over 14 seasons, spending the bulk of his career with the Cowboys. He played every position on the offensive line except center and was a first-team All-Pro seven straight seasons.

Ogden spent a dozen seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, a lineman who led the way for Jamal Lewis to become just the fifth running back in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. Ogden was a six-time All-Pro and was voted to 11 Pro Bowls.

Like Sapp, Allen and Ogden were first-year selections.

Ogden shared the moment with his family. He called his mother "first thing," and also told his 7-year-old son.

"He's real proud of his dad," Ogden said.

He watched nervously as the announcement was made on the Class of 2013.

"It's like going to the hospital with your wife to have a baby. You can't do anything about it," Ogden said. "You hear everybody say you're a first ballot for sure, but you never really know. A lot of good well deserving guys didn't get in on the first ballot."

Culp was a defensive stalwart for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 1960s and '70s, and also played for the Houston Oilers and Detroit Lions. He started at tackle in Kansas City's Super Bowl win over Vikings in 1970 and was selected to six Pro Bowls.

Robinson played on the great Green Bay Packers teams of the 1960s, starting at outside linebacker in coach Vince Lombardi's victories in the first two Super Bowls. He closed his 12-year career with the Washington Redskins.

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Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/super-bowl-watch and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Fayetteville, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 2, 2013

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the town in which Mr. Sams died. It was Fayetteville, Ga., not Lafayette, Ga.

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Americans Closest to Retirement Were Hardest Hit by Recession

David Maxwell for The New York Times

Susan Zimmerman, 62, has three part-time jobs.

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Arynita Armstrong, 60, at her home in Willis, Tex. She last worked five years ago. “When you’re older, they just see gray hair and they write you off,” she says.

In the current listless economy, every generation has a claim to having been most injured. But the Labor Department’s latest jobs snapshot and other recent data reports present a strong case for crowning baby boomers as the greatest victims of the recession and its grim aftermath.

These Americans in their 50s and early 60s — those near retirement age who do not yet have access to Medicare and Social Security — have lost the most earnings power of any age group, with their household incomes 10 percent below what they made when the recovery began three years ago, according to Sentier Research, a data analysis company.

Their retirement savings and home values fell sharply at the worst possible time: just before they needed to cash out. They are supporting both aged parents and unemployed young-adult children, earning them the inauspicious nickname “Generation Squeeze.”

New research suggests that they may die sooner, because their health, income security and mental well-being were battered by recession at a crucial time in their lives. A recent study by economists at Wellesley College found that people who lost their jobs in the few years before becoming eligible for Social Security lost up to three years from their life expectancy, largely because they no longer had access to affordable health care.

“If I break my wrist, I lose my house,” said Susan Zimmerman, 62, a freelance writer in Cleveland, of the distress that a medical emergency would wreak upon her finances and her quality of life. None of the three part-time jobs she has cobbled together pay benefits, and she says she is counting the days until she becomes eligible for Medicare.

In the meantime, Ms. Zimmerman has fashioned her own regimen of home remedies — including eating blue cheese instead of taking penicillin and consuming plenty of orange juice, red wine, coffee and whatever else the latest longevity studies recommend — to maintain her health, which she must do if she wants to continue paying the bills.

“I will probably be working until I’m 100,” she said.

As common as that sentiment is, the job market has been especially unkind to older workers.

Unemployment rates for Americans nearing retirement are far lower than those for young people, who are recently out of school, with fewer skills and a shorter work history. But once out of a job, older workers have a much harder time finding another one. Over the last year, the average duration of unemployment for older people was 53 weeks, compared with 19 weeks for teenagers, according to the Labor Department’s jobs report released on Friday.

The lengthy process is partly because older workers are more likely to have been laid off from industries that are downsizing, like manufacturing. Compared with the rest of the population, older people are also more likely to own their own homes and be less mobile than renters, who can move to new job markets.

Older workers are more likely to have a disability of some sort, perhaps limiting the range of jobs that offer realistic choices. They may also be less inclined, at least initially, to take jobs that pay far less than their old positions.

Displaced boomers also believe they are victims of age discrimination, because employers can easily find a young, energetic worker who will accept lower pay and who can potentially stick around for decades rather than a few years.

“When you’re older, they just see gray hair and they write you off,” said Arynita Armstrong, 60, of Willis, Tex. She has been looking for work for five years since losing her job at a mortgage company. “They’re afraid to hire you, because they think you’re a health risk. You know, you might make their premiums go up. They think it’ll cost more money to invest in training you than it’s worth it because you might retire in five years.

“Not that they say any of this to your face,” she added.

When older workers do find re-employment, the compensation is usually not up to the level of their previous jobs, according to data from the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

In a survey by the center of older workers who were laid off during the recession, just one in six had found another job, and half of that group had accepted pay cuts. Fourteen percent of the re-employed said the pay in their new job was less than half what they earned in their previous job.

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Novella’s Sympathetic Portrayal of Armenians Causes Uproar in Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan —A novella by an Azeri author that portrays ethnic Armenians sympathetically has provoked an uproar in Azerbaijan, with Azeri lawmakers denouncing the work and protesters burning the author’s portrait outside his house.

The novella, “Stone Dreams,” was published in mid-December by Ekrem Eylisli, a former lawmaker, but condemnation grew strident only over the last week, after mainstream news outlets began reporting on and discussing it.

On Thursday, a crowd of several dozen people gathered around Mr. Eylisli’s house and burned his portrait. At a session of Azerbaijan’s Parliament on Friday, lawmakers attacked the novel, with one recommending that Mr. Eylisli be stripped of his citizenship and urging him to move to Armenia.

Another lawmaker, Melahet Ibrahimqizi, said, “He insulted not only Azerbaijanis, but the whole Turkish nation,” a reference to passages in the book that discuss historical Turkish violence toward Armenians.

The work tells the story of two Azeri men who try to protect their Armenian neighbors from ethnic violence, an incendiary topic in Azerbaijan, a country still gripped by the war it fought two decades ago with Armenia. Since the war ended, Azerbaijan has been trying to regain control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnically Armenian enclave within its borders, and secure the return of Azeris who were forced from their homes.

Mr. Eylisli, 75, said he knew there might be an uproar over his book, which he finished in 2007. He said he decided to publish it last year in a relatively obscure Russian-language journal, Friendship of Peoples, because Russian-language speakers tend to be better educated and more progressive.

“Armenians are not enemies for me,” he said in an interview. “How can they be? I am a writer living in the 21st century. A solution to Nagorno-Karabakh is being delayed, and hostility is growing between the two nations. I want to contribute to a peaceful solution.”

He added that he was shocked by the ferocity of the reaction. “I did not say anything insulting, I did not betray my country,” he said. “I describe how an Azerbaijani helps an Armenian. What is bad about this?”

On Friday, protesters placed a copy of the journal containing “Stone Dreams” in a coffin and held a mock funeral at a monument in honor of Azeris who were killed in the war.

Via social media, young people discussed passages in the book that they found particularly distasteful, like a description of the young hero’s impulse to convert to Christianity and “ask God to forgive Muslims for what they did to the Armenians.” Armenia is predominantly Christian, while most Azeris are Muslim.

Qan Turali, 28, a popular novelist, said he saw the book’s artistic merit but believed that Mr. Eylisli had chosen the wrong time to publish a book portraying Armenians in a positive light.

“He is a great writer, the novel is good, but the time is not right,” he said. “Azeri people still feel pain and are aggressive. Instead of increasing tolerance toward Armenians, the writer caused more hatred.”

He said Mr. Eylisli’s work would have been received better if he had added depictions of Azeris being killed by Armenians. Another writer, Oktay Hajimusali, 32, was blunter, saying that it is “nonsense to promote peace with Armenians.”

Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow.

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Coming soon to Facebook- more action, battle games

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When nWay began a trial of its dark, sci-fi combat game “ChronoBlade” on Facebook last year, the San Francisco-based startup felt sure it had a hit on its hands.

“First of all, what comes is, ‘Wow, I had no idea you could actually do a game of this quality on Facebook,’” said Dave Jones, Chief Creative Officer of nWay, who has worked on “Grand Theft Auto.”

Then came some resistance: Jones admits some potential investors and partners questioned how an action-focused game with slick graphics can play to a Facebook audience more accustomed to “Farmville” and other less time-consuming casual games. Others wondered how the game — which launches this spring — would gain significant users and revenue on the social network.

But Facebook Inc is betting nWay and a clutch of other developers this year can extend console-style action games beyond Microsoft Corp‘s Xbox or Sony Corp’s PlayStation onto the world’s largest social network.

Facebook is spearheading the launch of 10 high-quality games created by third-party developers in 2013 that squarely target so-called hardcore gamers, an atypical audience overlooked thus far against the wealth of family-friendly offerings like Zynga Inc’s “Farmville” that now dominate the social network’s gaming landscape.

The effort, which began late last year but will accelerate in 2013, is part of Facebook’s ongoing objective of making sure its 1 billion-plus users log in and spend more time on the network, which in turn boosts ad revenue. Facebook also takes a cut of its applications’ revenue.

Facebook’s push into action and battle games follows a meeting in January between companies that make games like “first-person shooters” and Vice President Joe Biden to look for ways to curb gun violence in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings.

Based on the console gaming industry experience, hardcore gamers — typically men 18 to 30 years old — spend more time and effort to master fast-paced games such as first-person shooters (Microsoft’s “Halo”) or real-time strategy games (Activision Blizzard’s “StarCraft”).

“You’ll see a whole set of games hitting in the next two quarters in particular and throughout the year that really start to redefine what people think of Facebook games,” Sean Ryan, head of game partnerships at Facebook said in an interview.

Facebook will embrace games from “casual all the way up through first-person shooters, massively multiplayer online games, real-time strategy games – all those types of more core player-versus-player games.”

Just as hardcore gamers interact online and form clans in multiplayer games on console game networks like Xbox LIVE, Facebook can be that social layer needed to foster such gaming communities that help popularize titles, Jones said.

GAMING POPULATION

Over a quarter of Facebook’s 1.06 billion monthly active users play games, one of the largest gaming communities in the industry, and the social network hopes that can grow.

Facebook also aims to make more revenue from games. Revenue from the area was flat in the fourth quarter from a year ago, the company said on Wednesday without providing details.

The 8-year-old social network takes a 30 percent revenue share from game developers who offer their product free but then charge for virtual goods — like ammunition and power boosts.

On Wednesday, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman told analysts on a post-earnings conference call that its “games ecosystem continues to show healthy signs of diversification” and suggested that games revenue would grow with increasing user engagement.

To grow its gaming business, Facebook has invested time and resources to work with developers since the summer to bring titles like u4iA’s first-person shooter “Offensive Combat” and Plaruim’s real-time strategy game “Stormfall: Age of War” alive, Ryan said.

“It doesn’t mean we’re walking away from other games, but there’s no question our focus for 2013 much of it will be about becoming a better platform for core gamers and developers who make those games.”

To help users discover them, Facebook added new action and strategy games categories on its App Center that also shows you friends from your list playing those games. It brought back notification messages from game apps — a feature that had been removed because users found the annoying — with certain restrictions that stop developers from spamming a gamer.

Developers also rely on word-of-mouth publicity and ads on Facebook’s advertising platform to draw in prospective gamers.

“Stormfall” has a player base of 4.5 million and hardcore games were proving to be far more lucrative, said Gabi Shalel, chief marketing officer Of Tel Aviv, Israel-based Plarium.

“Hardcore gamers pay more, play more and generate higher average revenue per user than traditional casual games.”

Kixeye, which makes the warfare-strategy game “War Commander,” said its gamers spend 20 times more than players of social games, helping it stay profitable over the past three years.

Going forward, nWay’s Jones says Facebook must have a defining title that comes along that establishes it as a hardcore gaming spot for gamers.

“Like ‘Super Mario’ did for Nintendo or ‘Halo’ on Microsoft, I think it just takes one title to come along, sort of as a benchmark to legitimize the whole thing,” he said.

(Reporting By Malathi Nayak; editing by Andrew Hay)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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