Stock Indexes End Mixed

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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.


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The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

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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.

— 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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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Body slam for wrestling: Sport cut from Olympics

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LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — For wrestling, this may have been the ultimate body slam: getting tossed out of the Olympic rings.


The vote Tuesday by the IOC's executive board stunned the world's wrestlers, who see their sport as popular in many countries and steeped in history as old as the Olympics themselves.


While wrestling will be included at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, it was cut from the games in 2020, which have yet to be awarded to a host city.


2004 Olympic Greco-Roman champion Khasan Baroev of Russia called the decision "mind-boggling."


"I just can't believe it. And what sport will then be added to the Olympic program? What sport is worthy of replacing ours?" Baroev told the ITAR-Tass news agency. "Wrestling is popular in many countries — just see how the medals were distributed at the last Olympics."


American Rulan Gardner, who upset three-time Russian Olympic champion Alexander Karelin at the Sydney Games in an epic gold-medal bout known as the "Miracle on the Mat," was saddened by the decision to drop what he called "a beloved sport."


"It's the IOC trying to change the Olympics to make it more mainstream and more viewer-friendly instead of sticking to what they founded the Olympics on," Gardner told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Logan, Utah.


The executive board of the International Olympic Committee reviewed the 26 sports on its summer program in order to remove one of them so it could add one later this year. It decided to cut wrestling and keep modern pentathlon — a sport that combines fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting — and was considered to be the most likely to be dropped.


The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission report that analyzed 39 criteria, including TV ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board was also subject to political, emotional and sentimental factors.


"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling; it is what's right with the 25 core sports."


According to IOC documents obtained by the AP, wrestling ranked "low" in several of the technical criteria, including popularity with the public at the London Games — just below 5 on a scale of 10. Wrestling sold 113,851 tickets in London out of 116,854 available.


Wrestling also ranked "low" in global TV audience with a maximum of 58.5 million viewers and an average of 23 million, the documents show. Internet hits and press coverage were also ranked as low.


The IOC also noted that FILA — the international wrestling federation — has no athletes on its decision-making bodies, no women's commission, no ethics rules for technical officials and no medical official on its executive board.


Modern pentathlon also ranked low in general popularity in London, with 5.2 out of 10. The sport also ranked low in all TV categories, with maximum viewership of 33.5 million and an average of 12.5 million.


FILA has 177 member nations, compared to 108 for modern pentathlon.


Modern pentathlon, which has been on the Olympic program since the 1912 Stockholm Games, was created by French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement.


It also benefited from the work of Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC president who is a UIPM vice president and member of the IOC board.


"We were considered weak in some of the scores in the program commission report but strong in others," Samaranch told the AP. "We played our cards to the best of our ability and stressed the positives."


Klaus Schormann, president of governing body UIPM, lobbied hard to protect his sport's Olympic status and it paid off in the end.


"We have promised things and we have delivered," he said after Tuesday's decision. "That gives me a great feeling. It also gives me new energy to develop our sport further and never give up."


The IOC executive board will meet in May in St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to propose for 2020 inclusion. The final vote will be made at the IOC session, or general assembly, in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.


Wrestling will now join seven other sports in applying for 2020, but it is extremely unlikely that it would be voted back in so soon after being removed by the executive board.


The other sports vying for a single opening in 2020 are a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu, a martial art.


"Today's decision is not final," Adams said. "The session is sovereign and the session will make the final decision."


Wrestling featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year's London Olympics, with Russia dominating the podium but Iran and Azerbaijan making strong showings. Women's wrestling was added to the Olympics at the 2004 Athens Games.


Tuesday's decision came via secret ballot over four rounds, with 14 members voting each time on which sport should not be included in the core group. IOC President Jacques Rogge did not vote.


Three sports were left in the final round: wrestling, field hockey and modern pentathlon. Eight members voted against wrestling and three each against the other two sports. Taekwondo and canoe kayaking survived the previous rounds.


"I was shocked," said IOC board member Rene Fasel of Switzerland.


"It was an extremely difficult decision to take," added IOC Vice President Thomas Bach of Germany. "The motivation of every member is never based on a single reason. There are always several reasons. It was a secret vote. There will always be criticism, but I think the great majority will understand that we took a decision based on facts and for the modernization of the Olympic Games."


Wrestling was featured in the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. Along with Russia's Karelin, it has produced such American stars as Gardner, Bruce Baumgartner, Jeff Blatnick and Jordan Burroughs.


U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun also expressed surprise at the IOC decision, citing "the history and tradition of wrestling, and its popularity and universality."


"It is important to remember that today's action is a recommendation, and we hope that there will be a meaningful opportunity to discuss the important role that wrestling plays in the sports landscape both in the United States and around the world," Blackmun said in a statement. "In the meantime, we will fully support USA Wrestling and its athletes."


FILA said in a statement that it was "greatly astonished" by the decision, adding that the federation "will take all necessary measures to convince the IOC executive board and IOC members of the aberration of such decision against one of the founding sports of the ancient and modern Olympic Games."


It said it has always complied with IOC regulations and is represented in 180 countries, with wrestling the national sport in some of them.


The federation, which is headed by Raphael Martinetti and based in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, said it would meet next week in Thailand to discuss the matter.


Gardner cited wrestling's worldwide popularity and urged a campaign to keep it in the Olympics.


"It just seems like wrestling — if we don't fight, we're going to die," he said. "At this point, it's time for everybody to man up and support the program."


The decision hit hard in Russia, which has long been a power in the sport.


Mikhail Mamiashvili, president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, suggested FILA had not done enough to keep the sport in the games.


"We want to hear what was done to prevent this issue from even being discussed at the board," he said on the Rossiya TV channel.


In comments carried by ITAR-Tass, Mamiashvili added: "I can say for sure that the roots of this problem is at the FILA. I believe that Martinetti's task was to work hard, socialize and defend wrestling's place before the IOC."


Alexander Leipold, a 2000 Olympic champion from Germany and former freestyle German team coach, said he was shocked.


"We are a technical, tactical martial sport where the aim is not to harm the opponent," he said. "Competing at the Olympics is the greatest for an athlete."


Wrestling's long history in the Olympics has featured some legendary names and moments:


— Karelin won the super-heavyweight gold in Greco-Roman over three straight Olympics — 1988, 1992 and 1996 — until his streak was ended by Gardner, who beat him for the gold in 2000.


— Baumgartner won four Olympic medals, including golds in 1984 and 1992.


— Blatnick overcame cancer to win gold in Greco-Roman at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, bursting into tears after the match. Blatnick died last year at age 55.


— Burroughs emerged as the star of the sport in London, where he won the 74-kilogram gold.


The last sports removed from the Olympics were baseball and softball, voted out by the IOC in 2005 and off the program since the 2008 Beijing Games. Golf and rugby will be joining the program at the 2016 Games in Rio.


Among those in Lausanne were the leaders of the recently created World Baseball Softball Confederation. The two sports agreed last year to merge in a joint bid to return to the games.


Don Porter, the American who heads international softball, and Riccardo Fraccari, the Italian who leads baseball, are working out the final details of their unified body ahead of their presentation to the IOC in May.


A major hurdle remains the lack of a commitment from Major League Baseball to release top players for the Olympics.


Porter and Fraccari said they hope to have another meeting with MLB officials in April in Tokyo.


"The next thing is to sit down with them and see how they can help us," Porter said. "It all depends on the timing, the timing of the season. It's not an easy decision to allow players a week off."


___


Associated Press writers Lynn Berry in Moscow and Luke Meredith in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.


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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

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At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.


A transcript of this interview can be found here.

Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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Media Decoder Blog: Netflix Teams With DreamWorks Animation to Create Cartoon Series

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LOS ANGELES — Continuing a campaign to deepen its appeal to children, Netflix on Tuesday announced a partnership with DreamWorks Animation to create an original cartoon series.

The show, expected to make its debut on the streaming service in December, will be based on DreamWorks Animation’s coming movie “Turbo,” about a snail who gains the power of superspeed. The Netflix spinoff will be called “Turbo: F.A.S.T.,” which stands for Fast Action Stunt Team.

Netflix is gambling that “Turbo” will be a hit when it arrives in theaters on July 19. Although DreamWorks Animation has high hopes for that movie, it’s still anyone’s guess how audiences will respond; the company’s last film, “Rise of the Guardians,” was a box-office disappointment.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a statement that DreamWorks Animation had “a long track record of creating incredibly successful characters.” DreamWorks Animation’s chief executive, Jeffrey Katzenberg, never shy about making a hard sell, called the partnership “part of the television revolution.”

A rival streaming service, Amazon’s Prime Instant Video, is racing to prepare its own original series, and has five children’s shows in development.

Netflix, which recently introduced the original series “House of Cards” to strong reviews from critics, has been working over the last several years to enhance its offerings for children. In 2011, it acquired the streaming rights to DreamWorks Animation’s movies and television specials. New films from Disney, Pixar and Marvel will move from Starz to Netflix in late 2016, following a deal the streaming company made with the Walt Disney Company in December.

Netflix said its members streamed more than two billion hours of children’s content in 2012, taking care to note that it is “always commercial free.” Netflix is also trying to enhance its appeal with multiple audience niches. A new horror series called “Hemlock Grove” is on the way, for instance. “Orange Is the New Black,” an original comedic drama from the “Weeds” creator Jenji Kohan, is aimed at women.

Children’s programming is particularly important to the company’s growth plans. Children are avid streaming consumers, particularly overseas, and Netflix can pitch itself to parents as a commercial-free alternative to television. Cartoons are also less likely to appear on the pirated-content sites that compete with Netflix for viewers.

For DreamWorks Animation, the agreement is part of an effort to diversify into television both as a way to grow and to avoid the sharp ups and downs of the movie business. The company’s shares rose 2.91 percent on Tuesday, to $16.63.

The company has two shows on Nickelodeon that are spinoffs of its “Madagascar” and “Kung Fu Panda” films; a third series built around “Monsters vs. Aliens” is in the works. DreamWorks Animation also has a series built around the film “How to Train Your Dragon” on the Cartoon Network, as well as a growing number of holiday-themed television specials.

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Middle-Class Afghans Face a Murky Future

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Bryan Denton for The New York Times


Haji Safiullah, right, attends to a customer at his pharmacy along the Kabul River. He is part of a new generation of Afghans that has succeeded in the private sector.







KABUL, Afghanistan — The landmarks of this capital city’s new middle class light up a once-restrained night sky — vast and glittering wedding halls with aspirational names like “Kabul-Paris,” streetlamp networks, come-hither billboards for energy drinks.




After the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, thousands of Afghan families returned from abroad, or came in from the countryside, to construct urban and increasingly Westernized lives. They built homes and careers based on an influx of foreign money, expanded bureaucracies and new educational opportunities.


And they are the ones most haunted by the fear that it could all just be a bubble, doomed to pop once foreign money and Western militaries stop holding it up.


“We are enjoying life,” said Rasool Mohibzada, 31, a former taxi driver who sold chickpeas and balloons in Pakistan during the Taliban years, but after returning to Kabul won a job as an I.T. manager for the British Council, the cultural relations agency of the British government.


Sitting in the large house he built on a $95,000 plot of land in airy western Kabul and playing with his 5-year-old daughter, he is a member of a young Afghan generation whose eyes burn with modest aspiration for what would be by outside standards an ordinary life — access to electricity, schools for his son and daughter, rule of law, security.


“But I am quite afraid about the future at the moment,” he said, shaking his head. “If I got the chance, I would go now.”


Though all of Afghanistan’s major cities have grown and changed, the biggest differences, by far, can be seen in Kabul. Its population has exploded, now more than 5 million compared with 1.2 million in 2001, and its streets, planned for 30,000 cars, are clogged with 650,000, according to the mayor, Mohammad Yunus Nawandish. He is drawing up an expanded city plan that can accommodate up to 8 million residents.


The new urban elite makes up only a tiny slice of Afghan life — most of the newcomers to Kabul are impoverished migrants who now occupy terraces of rough mud houses that have splashed up onto the rocky hillsides surrounding the city.


And the norm is still grinding poverty for about 70 percent of Afghans, who live in the countryside, or about 25 million people by some estimates. Taken as a whole, life expectancy for Afghans is still just 48 years, and the average annual national income per capita is about $410. That makes the contrast with the markers of the middle class all the more striking: in Kabul, there are beauty parlors, a bowling alley, new television stations, access to health care (although Afghans must travel abroad for serious treatment), restaurants like Afghan Fried Chicken and children’s birthday parties hosted at nice hotels.


At the private American University, privileged young adults — some of them the offspring of top officials and businessmen who have minted fortunes in the war economy — stride the five-acre campus, paying up to $6,000 a year for degrees in law and other subjects.


Some in the new generation have succeeded in the private sector, like Haji Safiullah, 42, a serious, thin-faced man, who owns three pharmacies and is branching out into construction, building apartment blocks in Kabul, Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif.


“I am one of the people who have invested more than $1 million in different businesses,” Mr. Safiullah said.


Even as the United States is deliberating how large a force, if any, will stay in Afghanistan past the 2014 end of the international combat mission, Mr. Safiullah holds to the belief that the Americans will not leave Afghanistan altogether for many years. All the same, he is clear about the shape catastrophe will take if the world averts its gaze: a deterioration of security and an economic collapse.


“To tell you the truth, I am not that worried about the future because the international community has invested a lot in Afghanistan,” he said. “They will not let this investment fail.”


However, he keeps a Kalashnikov rifle beneath his counter just in case.


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Indiana stays at No. 1 in AP Top 25 despite loss

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Indiana coach Tom Crean used an analogy to the state's second favorite sport after the Hoosiers remained No. 1 in The Associated Press' Top 25 for a second straight week.


It had been over a month since a team managed to stay on top, and Indiana broke that trend despite losing a game last week, leading Crean to bring up auto racing.


"I had a good friend tell me that in-season rankings are the barometer of representing what lane you're in and the direction and how far you are moving towards your goals," Crean said Monday. "We want to stay in the left lane and keep working on our team and pace because we know there are quite a few others in the left lane as well."


The Hoosiers (21-3) lost to Illinois on a last-second basket Thursday but rebounded with a win at then-No.10 Ohio State on Sunday. In a week when four of the top five teams and six of the top 10 lost, it was enough to keep the No. 1 ranking.


"They were really disappointed on Thursday night. And instead of carrying that disappointment into a 'woe is me' mentality, they really did trigger how to get better. And I think it was in the sense of closing games," Crean said.


"I think there was a different level, a sense of urgency because of the way we didn't finish it off, combined with the fact that we knew we were playing a team that it is outstanding."


This ends a stretch of five consecutive weeks with a new No. 1, two weeks short of the longest such stretch in 1993-94. Duke started the run followed by Louisville, Duke again, Michigan and Indiana.


The Hoosiers received 26 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel Monday, while Duke, the only member of the top five not to lose last week, moved up two spots to second after getting 20 first-place votes.


The last time a No. 1 team lost and kept the ranking the next week was the final poll of last season. Kentucky fell to Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference tournament championship game, but Nos. 2-4 also went down that week, so the Wildcats were No. 1 heading into the NCAA tournament.


Miami, which received 17 No. 1 votes, jumped from eighth to No. 3, the Hurricanes' highest ranking ever.


"I've never really thought that Miami could be a top 10 program," center Reggie Johnson said. "I didn't think we'd be here in February. It's surreal. The votes are cool, but we've still got work to do."


The Hurricanes are the last team from a major conference to still be unbeaten in league play.


"It's what every program strives for," coach Jim Larranaga said. "Carolina and Duke have this every year. It's a little different for us. These guys are hungry. They remain very, very humble."


Michigan dropped one spot to fourth, while Gonzaga, which got the other two first-place votes, moved up one spot to fifth.


Syracuse was sixth, followed by Florida, Michigan State, Arizona and Kansas State.


Along with Indiana and Ohio State, the other top 10 teams to lose last week were No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Michigan, No. 5 Kansas and No. 7 Arizona.


There were four newcomers to the rankings: No. 20 Wisconsin, No. 22 Memphis, No. 24 Colorado State and No. 25 Kentucky.


Wisconsin, Memphis and Kentucky, the defending national champion, were all ranked early in the season, while Colorado State makes it first appearance in the poll since March 9, 1954.


They replace Creighton, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Missouri, the only one of the four not to lose two games last week.


In all, 14 ranked teams lost at least once, with five losing twice.


___


AP Sports Writer Steve Wine in Miami contributed to this report.


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Personal Health: Getting the Right Addiction Treatment

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“Treatment is not a prerequisite to surviving addiction.” This bold statement opens the treatment chapter in a helpful new book, “Now What? An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery,” by William Cope Moyers, a man who nonetheless needed “four intense treatment experiences over five years” before he broke free of alcohol and drugs.

As the son of Judith and Bill Moyers, successful parents who watched helplessly during a 15-year pursuit of oblivion through alcohol and drugs, William Moyers said his near-fatal battle with addiction demonstrates that this “illness of the mind, body and spirit” has no respect for status or opportunity.

“My parents raised me to become anything I wanted, but when it came to this chronic incurable illness, I couldn’t get on top of it by myself,” he said in an interview.

He finally emerged from his drug-induced nadir when he gave up “trying to do it my way” and instead listened to professional therapists and assumed responsibility for his behavior. For the last “18 years and four months, one day at a time,” he said, he has lived drug-free.

“Treatment is not the end, it’s the beginning,” he said. “My problem was not drinking or drugs. My problem was learning how to live life without drinking or drugs.”

Mr. Moyers acknowledges that treatment is not a magic bullet. Even after a monthlong stay at a highly reputable treatment center like Hazelden in Center City, Minn., where Mr. Moyers is a vice president of public affairs and community relations, the probability of remaining sober and clean a year later is only about 55 percent. (Hazelden also published his book.)

“Be wary of any program that claims a 100 percent success rate,” Mr. Moyers warned. “There is no such thing.”

“Treatment works to make recovery possible. But recovery is also possible without treatment,” Mr. Moyers said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What I needed and what worked for me isn’t necessarily what you or your loved one require.”

As with many smokers who must make multiple attempts to quit before finally overcoming an addiction to nicotine, people hooked on alcohol or drugs often must try and try again.

Nor does treatment have as good a chance at succeeding if it is forced upon a person who is not ready to recover. “Treatment does work, but only if the person wants it to,” Mr. Moyers said.

Routes to Success

For those who need a structured program, Mr. Moyers described what to consider to maximize the chances of overcoming addiction to alcohol or drugs.

Most important is to get a thorough assessment before deciding where to go for help. Do you or your loved one meet the criteria for substance dependence? Are there “co-occurring mental illnesses, traumatic or physical disabilities, socioeconomic influences, cultural issues, or family dynamics” that may be complicating the addiction and that can sabotage treatment success?

While most reputable treatment centers do a full assessment before admitting someone, it is important to know if the center or clinic provides the services of professionals who can address any underlying issues revealed by the assessment. For example, if needed, is a psychiatrist or other medical doctor available who could provide therapy and prescribe medication?

Is there a social worker on staff to address challenging family, occupational or other living problems? If a recovering addict goes home to the same problems that precipitated the dependence on alcohol or drugs, the chances of remaining sober or drug-free are greatly reduced.

Is there a program for family members who can participate with the addict in learning the essentials of recovery and how to prepare for the return home once treatment ends?

Finally, does the program offer aftercare and follow-up services? Addiction is now recognized to be a chronic illness that lurks indefinitely within an addict in recovery. As with other chronic ailments, like diabetes or hypertension, lasting control requires hard work and diligence. One slip need not result in a return to abuse, and a good program will help addicts who have completed treatment cope effectively with future challenges to their recovery.

How Families Can Help

“Addiction is a family illness,” Mr. Moyers wrote. Families suffer when someone they love descends into the purgatory of addiction. But contrary to the belief that families should cut off contact with addicts and allow them to reach “rock-bottom” before they can begin recovery, Mr. Moyers said that the bottom is sometimes death.

“It is a dangerous, though popular, misconception that a sick addict can only quit using and start to get well when he ‘hits bottom,’ that is, reaches a point at which he is desperate enough to willingly accept help,” Mr. Moyers wrote.

Rather, he urged families to remain engaged, to keep open the lines of communication and regularly remind the addict of their love and willingness to help if and when help is wanted. But, he added, families must also set firm boundaries — no money, no car, nothing that can be quickly converted into the substance of abuse.

Whether or not the addict ever gets well, Mr. Moyers said, “families have to take care of themselves. They can’t let the addict walk over their lives.”

Sometimes families or friends of an addict decide to do an intervention, confronting the addict with what they see happening and urging the person to seek help, often providing possible therapeutic contacts.

“An intervention can be the key that interrupts the process and enables the addict to recognize the extent of their illness and the need to take responsibility for their behavior,”Mr. Moyers said.

But for an intervention to work, Mr. Moyers said, “the sick person should not be belittled or demeaned.” He also cautioned families to “avoid threats.” He noted that the mind of “the desperate, fearful addict” is subsumed by drugs and alcohol that strip it of logic, empathy and understanding. It “can’t process your threat any better than it can a tearful, emotional plea.”

Resource Network

Mr. Moyer’s book lists nearly two dozen sources of help for addicts and their families. Among them:

Alcoholics Anonymous World Services www.aa.org;

Narcotics Anonymous World Services www.na.org;

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration treatment finder www.samhsa.gov/treatment/;

Al-Anon Family Groups www.Al-anon.alateen.org;

Nar-Anon Family Groups www.nar-anon.org;

Co-Dependents Anonymous World Fellowship www.coda.org.

This is the second of two articles on addiction treatment. The first can be found at “Effective Addiction Treatment.”

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DealBook: R.B.S. Executives Testify in Rate-Rigging Case

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LONDON — British politicians took aim at the Royal Bank of Scotland for its role in a rate-rigging scheme, accusing management of fostering a profit-driven culture that encouraged traders to skirt the law.

In nearly four hours of testimony to Parliament’s commission on banking standards, current and former bank executives faced questions over management missteps, deficient controls and the broader environment that prompted employees to report false rates. The senior executives acknowledged that they missed the problems, as they focused on reviving the bank after the financial crisis.

“The behavior was the disgraceful failure of individuals,” Stephen Hester, the bank’s chief executive, said during the hearing. “We were slow to recognize that behavior and catch it.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland is dealing with the fallout from the global investigation into rate manipulation, which has ensnared more than a dozen banks.

Last week, the financial firm agreed to pay a $612 million fine to settle accusations by American and British regulators that traders influenced major benchmark interest rates to bolster profit. As part of the settlement, the Justice Department forced the firm’s Japanese unit to plead guilty to felony wire fraud.

While the settlement follows similar deals with Barclays and UBS, the case against the Royal Bank of Scotland has also proved to be politically sensitive. The bank is 82 percent owned by British taxpayers after receiving a multibillion-dollar bailout during the financial crisis.

“There would be enormous anger if U.K. taxpayers pick up the tab for the individual sins of traders who were trying to rig Libor rates,” said Pat McFadden, a Labour politician who sits on the parliamentary commission.

The case centers on the major benchmark rates like the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. Such rates underpin trillions of dollars of financial products like corporate loans and mortgages.

Libor Explained

In the settlement, British and American authorities detailed an effort to manipulate the rate-setting process, a five-year scheme that involved multiple currencies and countries. They claimed that the bank “aided and abetted” other financial firms, including UBS. According to regulatory filings, the Royal Bank of Scotland failed to monitor the submissions of benchmark rates, and employees continued to report false rates even after authorities began to investigate the wrongdoing.

“It has brought shame against the bank,” Rory Phillips, a lawyer working behalf of the commission, said at the hearing. “There’s been a loss of trust and confidence on behalf of the public.”

Senior executives said in testimony that Libor was not a major focus for the Royal Bank of Scotland, which almost collapsed in 2008 after an ill-advised deal to buy the Dutch financial giant ABN Amro.

“When we took control of the bank, it had had a cardiac arrest,” said John Hourican, the former head of the investment banking division, who resigned last week. “We had to prioritize dealing with the existential threat to the bank.”

After the subsequent bailout by the British government, senior managers focused on reviving the bank by selling off assets, reducing its work force and curbing exposure to risky trading activity. Mr. Hourican indicated that the bank’s operations had become stretched across too many countries and business units.

“The bank was doing too many things in too many countries with too little capital,” Mr. Hourican said.

At the same time, executives said they underestimated the potential for rate-rigging.

“I was not aware that derivatives traders were making these requests,” Peter Nielsen, Mr. Hourican’s deputy, told British politicians. “We had very serious issues. Senior management felt that it was a mathematical impossibility to alter the rates.”

British politicians demanded to know why Mr. Nielsen had not lost his job. When the manipulation occurred, Mr. Nielsen served as the global head of rates. Mr. Nielsen, who is now co-head of firm’s investment banking operations, said he had discussed resigning with Mr. Hourican, but decided to stay on.

Lawmakers repeatedly asked executives why the British bank did not have appropriate controls in place to catch the wrongdoing.

In 2011, the Royal Bank of Scotland told regulators in a letter that systems had been created to monitor Libor submissions. But American and British authorities discovered in their investigations that these controls had not been established, according to the recent settlement. Authorities said the firm did not deliberately mislead regulators.

“At the very least, there was a wholesale failure of systems and controls of the rate process,” said Mr. Phillips, the lawyer. “Somebody in management more senior in the structure should have known what was going on and put a stop to it.”

Facing political scrutiny, the Royal Bank of Scotland has moved to revamp its practices and overhaul its compliance.

The British bank said last week that it would claw bank past, current and future bankers’ bonuses totaling around $470 million to pay the Libor settlement. Mr. Hourican is forgoing past and current bonuses totaling around $14 million in response to the scandal.

A majority of the money will be used to pay the fines levied by American regulators. Because the Royal Bank of Scotland is majority-owned by British taxpayers, the penalty from the Financial Services Authorities, the British regulator, will be recycled back into the government’s coffers.

The bank has also fired six employees for their role in the rate-rigging scheme, while another individual was dismissed for an unrelated matter. Eight other people left the bank before the manipulation was discovered, and six employees have been disciplined but remain at the firm.

The bank “shouldn’t waste my death,” Mr. Hourican told lawmakers, referring to his resignation. “We must send a cultural shudder down our organization’s spine.”

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3 North Korean Doctors Are Killed in Nigeria

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POTISKUM, Nigeria (AP) — Assailants in northeastern Nigeria have killed three North Korean doctors, beheading one of them, officials said Sunday.




The attack on Saturday night in Potiskum, a town in Yobe State, comes after gunmen killed at least nine women who were administering polio vaccines in Kano, the major city in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north.


The assailants apparently killed the North Korean doctors inside their home, said Dr. Mohammed Mamman, chairman of the Hospital Managing Board of Yobe State.


The North Korean doctors had no security guards at their residence and typically traveled around the city without a police escort, officials said.


All three bodies had what appeared to be machete wounds.


Two of the men had their throats slit. The assailants beheaded the other doctor.


The doctors lived in a quiet neighborhood in the town. There was no room to house them at the hospital, where they would have had some protection, Dr. Mamman said.


Initially, doctors at the hospital who worked with the three men identified them as being from South Korea, while the police said they were from China.


But Dr. Mamman said that the three men were from North Korea and had lived in the state since 2005 as part of a medical program between Yobe State and the North Korean government.


More than a dozen other North Korean doctors work in the state under the program, which also includes engineers, Dr. Mamman said.


He said all the North Koreans would receive immediate protection from the security forces.


“It is very unfortunate,” he said of the killings.


The Yobe State police commissioner, Sanusi Rufai, confirmed that the attack took place and said that officers had begun an investigation.


Mr. Rufai said the police had already arrested 10 people, though the police in Nigeria routinely round up those living around the site of a crime, whether or not there is any evidence suggesting their complicity.


North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency did not immediately report the three doctors’ deaths on Sunday.


No one claimed responsibility for the attack, though suspicion fell on the Islamist sect Boko Haram. Members of the sect, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege,” have been attacking government buildings and security forces over the past year and a half.


In 2012 alone, the group was blamed for killing at least 792 people.


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