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1495707_3 | California May Restrict Vehicle Cellphone Use | issue in a nod to cellphone makers, which contend that the devices have been unfairly singled out. ''People say, What about eating and smoking? What about pets? What about personal grooming? Not only are cellphones the cause of more accidents than any of those, but they cause more accidents than all those put together,'' Mr. Simitian said, referring to a 2002 study the California Highway Patrol did of distractions and accidents in the state. According to the study, driver distraction or inattention was found to be a factor in 5,677 of the 491,083 traffic collisions reported in the state from Jan. 1, 2002, to June 30, 2002. The top four distraction-related accidents were connected to these: cellphone use, 11 percent; radios and CD players, 9 percent; children, 4 percent; and eating, 3 percent. In addition, a 1997 study published by the New England Journal of Medicine of 5,980 Canadian drivers found that the crash risk was four times as high for drivers using cellphones than when a phone was not in use. Dwight O. Helmick, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, supports both bills under consideration. Increased concern about the issue prompted his agency, in conjunction with the 21st Century Insurance Company, to start a public relations campaign to remind drivers about the risks when doing other things while driving. Billboard signs depicting a man behind the driver's wheel with a laptop computer and a notepad caution with slogans like ''World's Deadliest Office.'' Opponents of the proposed legislation argue that more information is needed on the subject. They point out that dialing the phone and conducting a conversation are also significant distractions. ''While I'm dialing the phone I often find myself thinking, 'I wish I didn't have to look to do this,' '' said Deborah M. Rosenthal, a lawyer in Irvine whose practice often requires trips in heavy traffic that can take up to two hours. Earplugs are hard to use and fall out, she said, and voice recognition software needs improving. Would cellphone restrictions be effective? ''No,'' she said, ''and I'm not sure that requiring people to do nothing but drive and have no distractions would improve the driving.'' For Ms. Rosenthal, maximizing her activities while in her car is essential. Depending on the time of day, she catches up on phone calls, listens to books on tape or eats. But she has limits. ''Anything that needs a fork, |
1495680_2 | Don't Tug on That Buffalo's Tail, and Other Wilderness Wisdom | the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't paint yourself with barbecue sauce in bear country.'' Actually, that last phrase was my addition. The book has its surprises as well. For instance, Mr. Smith writes, ''A study in Yellowstone National Park found that from 1982 to 1999, buffalo injured far more people than grizzly bears did. Grizzlies injured 32 people, including 2 deaths. Buffalo injured 81 people, including 2 deaths.'' Buffalo bulls weigh up to 2,000 pounds and may be 6 feet high at the shoulder. In some ways they resemble Superman. Mr. Smith notes that ''biologists in Alaska saw a full-grown bull leap over a seven-foot-tall fence from a standing position.'' On the other hand, I was encouraged to learn that for javelinas, small wild pigs of the Southwest, ''Most 'attacks' are really a case of confused javelinas running in the wrong direction.'' That's a relief. And I got the point about cougars. Don't go where they are. Don't bring children where they are. And above all, don't run. Yell, throw stuff, fight back. Cougars do not attack because they are irritated or threatened or don't like having you in their personal space. To a cougar, you are food, and playing dead will only make you easier to eat. Do anything you can to convince it that you are not the average peopleburger, like drive a sharp stick in its eye, if you happen to have one handy. I suspect most people who buy this book will be interested in its tips about bears. I can't summarize the advice, because there are variations in appropriate behavior. You should never run or play dead when you see a bear approaching. On the other hand if the bear actually reaches you, then it is a good idea to play dead. But, if the bear is not simply trying to intimidate or kill you for emotional reasons (in which case it would leave once you were prone and inactive), but instead starts to eat you, then you must not play dead. The big worry is grizzly bears, but there are occasional predatory black bears, which are most likely to prey on people during the day, but may do it at night. There is also some room for confusion with buffaloes. ''When a buffalo's tail goes straight up, there's a distinct possibility it will charge,'' Mr. Smith notes. ''But a buffalo's |
1495742_5 | Widespread Looting Leaves Iraq's Oil Industry in Ruins | fields. The Army Corps of Engineers has not set a date for starting that project, and a corps spokesman said production at Rumaila could rise without the water. But Mr. Alkadiri and other independent Iraqi oil experts dispute that claim. At South Oil's headquarters, Mr. Leaby questioned how any repairs could hold when security was so threadbare. ''Every minute, we have something missing,'' he said. ''Every time we fix something, it gets looted.'' Mr. Leaby and other oil officials think that some damage to the oil industry can only be explained as sabotage. He points to the constant looting of electric facilities that provide the power to run oil pumping stations and other plants. Phillip J. Carroll, the former Shell Oil executive who now heads an American-backed advisory committee to the Oil Ministry, said that an oil pipeline running from the north-central town of Beiji to Baghdad had been punctured by shooting, and that a spark from a passing car had set off an explosion and fire that burned for three days. ''There have been other attacks on facilities that seem senseless,'' Mr. Carroll said, ''except to impede the development of the oil sector.'' He conceded that despite the ongoing havoc, the military could do little more to help. ''People want, they actually demand, more security,'' he said at the Baghdad palace where the American civil administration is billeted. ''And quite frankly, we don't have the forces at our disposal to do it.'' Sanctions Oil Was Pumped Exhaustingly Fast Looters stole what little Iraqi engineers had scrimped and scavenged to keep the oil industry running during the 12 years of enforced poverty under United Nations sanctions. Under the constraints of the United Nations and Mr. Hussein, engineers were forced to maximize output with minimal parts and equipment, a process that was slowly throttling the industry, Iraqi oil officials said. Near the entrance to the Kirkuk oil field in the north looms a derelict statue of four towering swords upright on their hilts, their tops lashed together to form an oil derrick -- a symbol of the old government's dream of the might oil riches can bring. This is where Iraqi oil was first exploited by the British. In 1991, production at the field stood at 1.25 million barrels a day, said Adel Qazzaz, the new director general of the North Oil Company that oversees the Kirkuk field. From 1990 to |
1495726_2 | Latin Lands Don't Share Powell's Priorities | right to democracy,'' adding, ''It does not say the peoples of the Americas except Cubans have the right to democracy.'' Canada's foreign affairs minister, Bill Graham, said that '' many of my colleagues do not believe that this O.A.S. of ours is the appropriate forum to discuss this'' because Cuba does not have a chance to defend itself and is seen as a victim of the longstanding American embargo. The conference here began Sunday, two days after the United States and Chile signed a free-trade agreement in Miami that was a result of nearly a decade of on-again, off-again talks. Many Chileans have expressed concern that their government's opposition to the Iraq war could hamper approval of the accord by the United States Congress, but Mr. Powell, who met with Chile's president, Ricardo Lagos, and other senior officials today, made a point of arguing otherwise. ''We were disappointed in the Chilean position,'' he told reporters traveling on the plane with him from Washington, but ''we're anxious to talk about the future and not the past.'' For that reason, he said, ''I don't see any lasting consequences'' to the deep-rooted opposition all over Latin America to the invasion of Iraq. In his remarks this morning, Mr. Powell acknowledged that ''an unfettered market alone does not guarantee sustained development.'' But he also urged the organization's members to support the United States' plan for a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas by 2005, saying it would lead to ''a partnership of strong, equal and prosperous countries living and trading in freedom.'' But there has been both resistance to the American proposal and skepticism that the separate pact with Chile, which is widely seen as less generous than an agreement with the European Union that went into effect on Jan. 1, can serve as a template for a regional agreement. Mr. Powell described the accord with Chile as ''an important way station'' on the path to hemispheric free trade, but opposition is strong, especially in Brazil, which is the co-chairman of the trade talks and feels that Washington is demanding a lot and offering relatively little. ''They're not going to eliminate agricultural subsidies, and the reason is very simple,'' the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said in a speech last week, referring to Washington's position on the export sector in which Latin America is most competitive. ''Bush is seeking re-election in 2004.'' |
1495703_0 | Contraband Is Big Business in Paraguay | Judging by this country's trade figures, Paraguayans would seem to be a nation of ferocious chain smokers. Last year, the tobacco industry here produced about 45 billion cigarettes, worth about $600 million all told. But according to the central bank's records, only about 300 million cigarettes, or $4.3 million worth, were exported. That leaves about a pack a day to be smoked by each Paraguayan man, woman and child. In reality, of course, most of the cigarettes really are exported -- just not legally. Industry experts say that nearly 95 percent of the country's output, including counterfeit versions of American brands like Marlboro and Camel and Latin American favorites like Derby and Free, are smuggled through Paraguay's porous borders with Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil and then on to destinations as distant as the Caribbean, the United States and Mexico. ''Paraguay's tobacco exports are, almost without exception, illegal,'' said Milton Cabral, vice president of Souza Cruz, the Brazilian subsidiary of British American Tobacco. The situation is typical of many industries here. About one-fifth of the Paraguayan economy has been driven for years by illicit cross-border trafficking in everything from cigarettes and pirated Nintendo games to submachine guns and stolen BMW's. But now the country has a president-elect -- Nicanor Duarte Frutos, who won handily in April and is to take office in August -- who has promised to clamp down on ''the chronic problems'' of counterfeiting and contraband and ''build a system of legality,'' as he put it in remarks he made to reporters on a recent visit to Brazil. Even if he is to be believed -- and there are already signs his zeal for reform might not survive long once he is in office -- Mr. Duarte Frutos will have a tough job weaning the economy off contraband, even though most Paraguayans agree it is increasingly urgent that the country kick the habit. Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and getting poorer. Income per person has fallen by half in the last six years, to less than $900 a year, and more than one-third of the population lives in abject poverty. With the public payroll bloated with 200,000 government employees, nearly all affiliated with Mr. Frutos's Colorado Party, the country's finances are draining fast. The government has been especially short of cash in the last 12 months, as the money from a $400 million loan |
1500392_0 | Rain Forest Is Losing Ground Faster in Amazon, Photos Show | Newly released satellite images show that the Amazon rain forest is disappearing at an increasing rate, with about 10,000 square miles lost mainly to pasture land, soybean plantations and illegal logging in the 12-month period that ended last August. The government said on Thursday that the area represented a 40 percent rise in deforestation compared with a year earlier, when about 7,000 square miles of rain forest were lost. It was the fastest acceleration in the loss in the Amazon forest, the world's largest continuous area of rain forest, since the same 12-month period in 1994 and 1995, environmentalists said. ''It is terribly serious,'' said Luis Meneses, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund's Amazon project in Brasília. ''Our fear is that the period for 2002-2003 could be even worse.'' The environmental group Greenpeace has warned that the rain forest could be wiped out in 80 years if deforestation rates are not slowed. Scientists say about a fifth of the Amazon has already vanished, helping to accelerate global warming. Brazil's new, left-leaning government, which has publicly embraced environmental issues, pledged to act immediately. The environment minister, Marina Silva, called the new data ''highly worrying'' and promised ''emergency action,'' although no specific proposals were offered. Despite years of lobbying, the World Wildlife Fund says that of the six states with rain forest on their territory, only one, Acre, which contains less than 10 percent of the Amazon area, has put laws into effect to promote sustainable development through controlled logging and modern farming technology. Another state, Rondônia, has passed a zoning law, but Mr. Meneses said the law was frequently ignored or altered to suit immediate political needs. About one third of the state has already been deforested. The previous government's program to pave roads through the region has also been blamed for quickening the forest's demise. The project was suspended, but one third of the roads were already completed. |
1498910_0 | PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL | |
1498973_2 | Eiffel Tower Refitted With 20,000 New Points of Light | there were people standing on the ground below,'' said Fred Novel, a 33-year-old supervisor with Jarnias Enterprise, the company in charge of the project. ''There was this terrible fear that a piece of metal could drop from my hands at any time and fall on the crowd. Then there were the tourists who stared at us as if we were extraterrestrials.'' The job, he added, ''was much more tiring mentally than physically.'' Indeed, tourists gaped at Mr. Novel, a professional mountaineer and guide dressed in blue overalls and with a long braid, as he clamped himself to a girder and did last-minute midair checks of cables and screws. ''They're crazy,'' one tourist said. ''Oh, oh, that's scary,'' said a young girl as she snapped pictures of him. As the project went along, architects discovered that the existing architectural plan of the Eiffel Tower was inaccurate, so it had to be redrawn by computer. Engineers had to invent tools, including drills with magnets, to ensure that holes drilled on the angled surfaces were straight. They also discovered that their first system of bolts did not work and had to be refitted. ''It was like a game of 'Meccano,' '' an erector set, Mr. Novel said. ''It's just that we used giant boxes of materials.'' Rain and snow made the metal structure too slick to maneuver on, but also sometimes too slippery to descend, leaving workers trapped for hours. Tough industrial safety rules meant that the climbers had to wear helmets and use double the number of ropes and other security devices that they would have needed in the mountains. Laboratory tests were conducted so that the lights could withstand winds of more than 150 miles per hour. Jean-Paul Jarnias, the president of Jarnias Enterprise, traces his company to the Eiffel Tower. Ten years ago, when Mr. Jarnias was a professional mountain climber and a guide, he was asked by a client to project the image of the Ariane rocket (the pride of the French aerospace industry) from the Eiffel Tower. It inspired the creation of Mr. Jarnias's company, which has since become the go-to place for dangerous construction projects. Elsewhere, Mr. Jarnias strung nets under the giant arch at La Défense when pieces of that 1989 structure began to break off and fall, and worked on restoring the crumbling roof of the Opéra Garnier. Jarnias was also the company that decked |
1498933_1 | The Nation; READING FILE | its July issue. The magazine cites a United States Fish and Wildlife Service study, conducted in 2001, showing that American hunters are wealthier and spending more on their sport now than ever before -- $20.6 billion a year -- including a 29 percent increase in the last 10 years. Also, the wildlife conservation movement has produced an abundance of North American game animals, including many species that were near extinction a century ago. But hunting also faces challenges that could prove insurmountable. The two main ones: Fewer people are becoming hunters, and access to hunting lands is increasingly limited. Among the figures cited in the magazine: The number of hunters in the last five years fell 14 million to 13 million. Only 6 percent of Americans 16 and older hunt, and the hunters are getting older. Sixty-seven percent of all hunters are over 35. Only 14 percent are between 16 and 24 years old. Charles Murray On the West, the Rest ''EUROCENTRISM has in recent years joined racism and sexism as one of the postmodern mortal sins,'' writes Charles Murray in the summer issue of The Public Interest. In the article, ''Measuring Achievement: The West and the Rest,'' he says, ''The assumption that Eurocentrism is a real problem accounts for the reluctance of many to celebrate Western culture -- or even defend it.'' Using various measurements, Mr. Murray concludes that since 1400, Europe has ''overwhelmingly dominated accomplishment both in the arts and sciences.'' He argues: ''What the human species can claim to its credit in the arts and sciences is owed in astonishing degree to what was accomplished in just a half-dozen centuries by the peoples of one small portion of the northwestern Eurasian land mass.'' Mr. Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, created an uproar in 1994 when his book ''The Bell Curve,'' written with Richard J. Herrnstein, linked intelligence, race and genes. Men and Women: A Differing Sexuality A Northwestern University study strongly suggests that compared with men's, women's sexual arousal patterns may be less tightly connected to their sexual orientation. In contrast to men, both heterosexual and lesbian women tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have what experts call a bisexual arousal pattern. The study is forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science. The findings ''have important implications for understanding differences in sexual orientation between men and women,'' said |
1498680_6 | Savant for a Day | -- are mistaken. Autistic thought isn't wholly incompatible with ordinary thought, he says; it's just a variation on it, a more extreme example. He first got the idea after reading ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,'' in which Oliver Sacks explores the link between autism and a very specific kind of brain damage. If neurological impairment is the cause of the autistic's disabilities, Snyder wondered, could it be the cause of their geniuslike abilities, too? By shutting down certain mental functions -- the capacity to think conceptually, categorically, contextually -- did this impairment allow other mental functions to flourish? Could brain damage, in short, actually make you brilliant? In a 1999 paper called ''Is Integer Arithmetic Fundamental to Mental Processing? The Mind's Secret Arithmetic,'' Snyder and D. John Mitchell considered the example of an autistic infant, whose mind ''is not concept driven. . . . In our view such a mind can tap into lower level details not readily available to introspection by normal individuals.'' These children, they wrote, seem ''to be aware of information in some raw or interim state prior to it being formed into the 'ultimate picture.''' Most astonishing, they went on, ''the mental machinery for performing lightning fast integer arithmetic calculations could be within us all.'' And so Snyder turned to TMS, in an attempt, as he says, ''to enhance the brain by shutting off certain parts of it.'' ''In a way, savants are the great enigma of today's neurology,'' says Prof. Joy Hirsch, director of the Functional M.R.I. Research Center at Columbia University. ''They exist in all cultures and are a distinct type. Why? How? We don't know. Yet understanding the savant will help provide insight into the whole neurophysiological underpinning of human behavior. That's why Snyder's ideas are so exciting -- he's asking a really fundamental question, which no one has yet answered.'' If Snyder's suspicions are correct, in fact, and savants have not more brainpower than the rest of us, but less, then it's even possible that everybody starts out life as a savant. Look, for example, at the ease with which children master complex languages -- a mysterious skill that seems to shut off automatically around the age of 12. ''What we're doing is counterintuitive,'' Snyder tells me. ''We're saying that all these genius skills are easy, they're natural. Our brain does them naturally. Like walking. Do you know |
1499011_0 | PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL | |
1498997_0 | PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL | |
1498896_1 | Ideas & Trends; Short Men, Short Shrift. Are Drugs The Answer? | salaries tend to be as modest as their stature. If they are out striving to make their mark, they are derided as ''Little Napoleons.'' Call them whatever you please, and chances are you won't get called on it, for making fun of short men is one of the last acceptable prejudices. Small wonder, then, that an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration has just recommended that the agency approve the use of genetically engineered human growth hormone for healthy children who are ''idiopathically'' short -- that is, children who are at the bottom-most tail of growth curves, yet who, unlike a small subset of very short children, do not suffer from growth hormone deficiency. Children with innate hormone deficiency are given hormone shots to very noticeable effect: without the treatment, they would be true midgets, perhaps under four feet tall as adults; with the shots, they are brought up to low-normal heights. Yet ever since the biotechnology business began synthesizing potentially limitless supplies of the drug 20 years ago, doctors have been using it in off-label fashion to treat children who for unknown reasons are quite short, maybe in the lowest three percentiles of their age group. The results have been what might be called whelming, in some cases adding as much as 3 1/2 inches to a person's projected final height, in others maybe no more than an inch and change. Still, the scientists on the advisory panel were persuaded enough by the hormone's relative safety and measurable if modest effects to recommend all-around treatment for the seriously subcompact among us. Whether the F.D.A. takes the advice will not be known until later this summer, if even then. Yet already the moral trichotillomania has begun. Why are we so obsessed with height, particularly among men? Women, after all, often like to be called petite, though women in law, business and other high-powered professions who are below the female average height of 5-foot-5 claim that their diminutive stature makes it hard for them to be taken seriously. ARE we really willing to subject our kids to buttock or thigh injections three to six times a week, year after year, just so that the local Dudley Dursley will taunt them about their big ears and good grades, rather than their stature? Aren't people like the Dutch, among the tallest populations on earth, with an average male height of over |
1498662_2 | Babies Aren't the Only Beneficiaries of Breast-Feeding | ''don't know about the longer-term health effects.'' The most promising aspect is a reduction of the risk for breast cancer in a study that compared data on 150,000 women from 30 countries. It found that each year of breast-feeding reduced a woman's lifetime breast cancer risk by 4.3 percent. The study's lead researcher, Dr. Valerie Beral, the head of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's cancer epidemiology unit at Oxford University in Britain, described the results: ''We looked at all kinds of different characteristics: age when women had their children, whether they smoked or drank alcohol, how tall they were, how many children they had; and this 4.3 percent risk reduction seemed to be pretty across the board.'' Dr. Beral conceded that for any given woman, a 4.3 percent risk reduction is not a huge amount. But in a large population, as in the United States, increasing the total aggregate amount of breast-feeding ''will really make a difference'' in overall cancer rates, she said. In fact, if the average American woman were to breast-feed, say, each of her two children for six months longer than she does now (which tends to be just a few months), Dr. Beral and her colleagues concluded, the number of new breast cancer cases in this country, now estimated at approximately 211,000 a year, could be cut by 7,500. ''Even a little, little bit'' more nursing has an effect, Dr. Beral said. Moreover, breast-feeding has an even bigger effect on the risk of ovarian cancer, a particularly difficult disease to treat and estimated to kill more than 14,000 American women a year, according to the American Cancer Society. Dr. Alice S. Whittemore, an epidemiologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said that a variety of ovarian cancer studies had ''found that the risk among those who breast-fed was 70 to 80 percent that of women who had not breast-fed.'' That, she added, is a ''20 to 30 percent risk reduction.'' THE benefits go on. The process by which women's bones recalcify after breast-feeding reduces the chance of osteoporosis and postmenopausal hip and spinal fractures, Dr. Brenner of the Medical College of Georgia said. ''We know that the protective effect increases with the total months of lifetime breast-feeding.'' In fact, women over 65 who had breast-fed have half the risk of hip fracture. Nursing immediately after childbirth also causes the uterus to contract, thus reducing maternal |
1498666_8 | The Cross-Country Duo Behind a Breakthrough Vaccine | avoid genital warts because they can turn into large, ugly growths on the penis and may repel sex partners. The new vaccine is being tested in tens of thousands of young people in the United States and other countries. Results are expected within several years. Even in countries with widespread screening and relatively few deaths from cervical cancer, like the United States -- which has 13,000 cases and 4,100 deaths a year -- a vaccine would offer great benefits. Besides reducing cancer rates, a vaccine could spare hundreds of thousands of women from cancer scares, a problem that occurs when Pap tests come back abnormal even when it turns out that there is no cancer. These nerve-wracking episodes happen because human papillomavirus infections are rampant and often cause cervical lesions that are detected by Pap tests. Most of the lesions are harmless and go away on their own, but some turn cancerous -- and there is no way to predict what a given lesion will do. Therefore, all lesions must be monitored, with more Pap tests and other exams, including biopsies sometimes. Dr. Jansen said that she herself had an abnormal Pap test when she was in her 20's. ''I freaked out,'' she said. ''I didn't know anything. Something is abnormal. That's what you hear, even though they deliver the message benignly.'' She had a lesion that was treated with cryotherapy, or freezing. ''The whole affair is not something you look forward to,'' she said. ''You hope they got everything. It's not a nice experience, so I can sympathize with women.'' Dr. Koutsky said: ''Many of my friends have daughters who get an abnormal Pap test, and they think their daughters have cancer. To me, there's an enormous burden placed on women.'' And many more women go through this ordeal than they really need to, she added. ''The Pap test is a wonderful screening tool but is not very accurate.'' Before the data on the first vaccine study was analyzed, Dr. Jansen said, members of the research team took bets on how effective the vaccine would turn out. ''I think I gave it 97 percent, and Laura gave it 98,'' Dr. Jansen said, adding that the other bets were also in the high 90's. Nobody was correct, because the vaccine was 100 percent effective. ''We all lost the bet,'' Dr. Jansen said. ''But we were all glad to lose.'' CANCER |
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1498639_2 | Always in Attack Mode | to the enemy's own shores. After sailing the 20-gun sloop Ranger from Portsmouth, N.H., to the coast of France, he launched a series of daring raids that soon had the British citizenry in an uproar. Thomas convincingly suggests that Jones used what we would today call a terrorist campaign to settle some decidedly personal scores. The son of a Scottish gardener and therefore without the social clout to win a midshipman's appointment in the Royal Navy, Jones deeply resented how he had been treated in his native Britain. After a long indentured apprenticeship aboard a vessel out of Whitehaven in northern England, he had had no choice but to take a job as a third mate aboard a slave ship. Once he had worked his way to the captaincy of a small brig, he was briefly jailed for having the audacity to whip a mutinous carpenter's mate from a prominent family. Thanks to the Revolution, Jones managed to become something he could never have been if he had remained in Britain: a naval officer. He decided to return to his old haunts in Whitehaven and abduct the local earl, who, in Thomas's words, ''symbolized the height of ruling-class dominance.'' Unfortunately, the earl happened to be away when Jones's men came calling, requiring them to make do with the earl's silver platter and teapot. Jones next sailed the Ranger across the Irish Sea to a harbor at Carrickfergus, where he came upon H.M.S. Drake and decided to do what precious few American naval officers had so far attempted -- take on a fighting ship of the Royal Navy. An hour and five minutes later, Jones achieved the victory he had so desperately craved. The British people and especially the Admiralty were outraged. ''Britain was not like the continent of Europe,'' Thomas explains, ''where populations felt vulnerable to conquest. The British slept secure in their island fortress, protected by the 'wooden wall' of the Royal Navy.'' Militarily, Jones's raids were of negligible importance, but psychologically the impact was huge. Soon there were close to half a dozen British ships in pursuit of the rebel pirate. After a triumphant return to France, Jones set out again, this time as the leader of a small squadron. Despite his famous insistence on a fast vessel, Jones's flagship, an old Indiaman renamed the Bonhomme Richard in honor of Benjamin Franklin, was, according to Thomas, a ''slow |
1498776_3 | As Graduates Look for Work, The Engineer Is Standing Tall | Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, says he has been pleasantly surprised this spring to be getting calls once again from employers looking for recent computer engineering graduates for jobs in software development. ''It's been pretty quiet the last couple of years,'' Mr. Staley said. AirPrism, a software start-up in Redwood Shores, Calif., has hired 18 engineers in the last several months to design and support hand-held devices. It plans to hire at least eight more by the close of the year, according to the president and chief executive, Steve Sommer. Marc D. Lewis, North America president of Morgan Howard, a global executive-search firm for the technology industry, has been busy placing those with computer engineering backgrounds into high-level positions like chief security officer and chief information officer. ''The market for technical talent has warmed up significantly in the last three months,'' he said. All of this is not to say that landing a job has suddenly become easy. Generalists are probably less desirable than engineers with niche specialties, for example, said Wayne Voris, a vice president for the Cincinnati office of Spherion Professional Recruiting. ''Conventional wisdom says you should round yourself out, but that's not the case in engineering,'' Mr. Voris said. Recent college graduates, in particular, need to be aggressive in their job hunting, recruiters say. Jamie Fox, who graduated this month with a degree in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic, says it took nearly nine months to secure a job offer from Mazzetti & Associates, an architectural engineering and consulting firm in San Francisco. He began looking for full-time work last fall, attending career fairs sponsored by his university. At such events, he said, you usually ''give your résumé to a bunch of people and no one ever calls you back.'' But at a fair in January, he took a more forceful approach, handing the people at the Mazzetti booth a list of reasons he wanted to work there, directing them to his personal Web site, and showing off his familiarity with the company by spouting information he had gleaned from its Web site. He left the meeting all but securing the $50,000 position on the spot. ''The C.E.O. joked with me and said, 'When can you start?' '' Mr. Fox said. The lesson he drew from the experience: ''You've got to search pretty hard, and be pretty determined.'' Even Ms. Brewton, the Virginia Polytechnic graduate |
1459029_0 | World Briefing | Europe: Britain: Talks On Northern Ireland | Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, left, met at 10 Downing Street and said they had charted a ''work program'' in the coming weeks of intensive meetings for themselves and the leaders of Northern Ireland's political parties to try to get the suspended Catholic-Protestant government of the British-ruled province up and running again. The government created by the 1998 peace agreement was suspended and direct rule from London was restored after the discovery last October of an Irish Republican Army spying operation that was compiling information on prison officers, police officials, Protestant guerrilla groups and community workers. Warren Hoge (NYT) |
1459149_0 | Civil Rights for Old Boys | The dean of admissions at Harvard, William Fitzsimmons, has defended so-called legacy allowances with heroic attention to data. He told The Wall Street Journal that he read personally ''all applications from children of alumni,'' which last year amounted to (an astonishing) 727. How heavy was the edge given to these applicants? Oh, not much: The average SAT score of legacies admitted is just two points below the school's overall average. But how does he justify any preferment at all? Well, alumni recruit students, raise money and ''often bring a special kind of loyalty and enthusiasm for life at the college that makes a real difference in the college climate,'' he said. Defensiveness in the matter of legacies is in high gear with the coming Supreme Court arguments over affirmative action at the University of Michigan. Critics are taking the line that legacy preferences are a form of affirmative action that should not be permitted. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, a Democratic presidential hopeful, has complained that legacy preference ''is a birthright out of 18th century British aristocracy, not 21st century American democracy.'' Well, if you're going to use that kind of language, the United States Senate in which Mr. Edwards resides, however restively, can be denounced as a birthright out of the House of Lords. It isn't very democratic that North Carolina, with a population of eight million, should have as many votes in the Senate as California, with its population of 34 million. So should we leave it that some legacies are O.K.? So what is the argument for convincing Harvard how it might achieve greater happiness if a new civil rights bill were devised forbidding the least advantage to an applicant at Daddy's college? Senator Bob Dole, no less, in 1990 called legacy preference an ''unfair advantage'' for children of ''wealthy contributors.'' One thinks of a lot of advantages children of wealthy parents have. He asked the Office of Civil Rights whether such a practice was illegal under the l964 Civil Rights Act; legacy preferences are not, he was informed, illegal. Are they deplorable? In 1961, C. Vann Woodward, the groundbreaking historian of the American South, was lured to Yale from Johns Hopkins. He became a Sterling Professor. In 2000, Yale created an association of Sterling Fellows. You become one if you contribute a million dollars to Yale. In enticing Mr. Woodward to Yale, there was no |
1458964_1 | Holes Found in I.N.S. Checks at Airports | to shore up airport security operations. All travelers from foreign countries are required to pass through airport checkpoints, as inspectors determine their eligibility to enter. When eligibility is unclear, inspectors send travelers to secondary areas for interviews, examinations of travel documents and, if needed, detentions for further investigation. More than 43 million non-American travelers passed immigration checks at airports in the 2001 fiscal year, along with more than 30 million citizens, officials said. Officials at the immigration agency, which will move in March from the Justice Department to the new Homeland Security Department, said they agreed with virtually all the findings in the sharply critical report and promised to improve operations. In a formal response, they called the report an ''invaluable tool.'' Justice Department officials noted that the agency had failed to heed warnings in the past. In 1999, the inspector general found safety problems at the checkpoints of all 42 airports that it reviewed. Beginning last May, investigators followed up on that review by examining 12 airports used by many non-American travelers and found that not much had changed. Investigators found ''repeat deficiencies'' at each airport, as well as shortcomings in complying with new requirements. Because of security sensitivities, the public version of the report omits the names of the 12 airports, as well as many specific shortcomings. But it cites general findings and anecdotal evidence in finding that the airport operations remain vulnerable. Checkpoints were understaffed, monitoring and surveillance activities sometimes were not conducted, alarm and emergency systems often did not work properly, and some detained suspects were allowed to disappear because of poor security in holding areas, the report found. Justice Department officials said the shortcomings could be used by terrorists and nonterrorists alike to enter the United States illegally. ''We're concerned that anyone could exploit these facilities,'' the inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, said in an interview. ''It's clear that the I.N.S. did not take all the action it could have and should have and did not respond adequately to our past concerns. We hope that will change.'' The report said immigration officials had not notified airport authorities, the airlines or their own staff about the shortcomings cited in 1999. ''I.N.S. officials believed that the power of the airline lobby kept the I.N.S. from using its authority to enforce available sanctions, that security was not the I.N.S.'s responsibility, and that the failure of facilities to meet |
1456935_0 | Defending France's Jews | Over the past two years France has been the site of hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents -- synagogues defaced, sacred texts burned, individuals menaced -- nearly all of them perpetrated by disaffected North African youths. The official reaction consisted of a Gallic shrug, as if to ask, What can you expect from poor Arabs when they watch brutal scenes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on television? As accusatory reminders of France's Nazi collaboration flowed in from the United States and Israel, the French establishment went from dismissive to defensive. President Jacques Chirac asserted indignantly, after his re-election last May, that France was not an anti-Semitic country. Lately there has been a marked and welcome change. Early this month a young rabbi in Paris was stabbed at the entrance to his synagogue by a man shouting ''God is great'' in Arabic. The rabbi was only superficially wounded, but the reaction of the government was swift and on target. It included a letter from President Chirac saying, ''There can be no place in our republic for anti-Semitism,'' an investigation by the Interior Ministry and a remarkable display of solidarity at a ''service for fraternity and hope'' several days later. Meanwhile the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has ordered the police to treat attacks on religious sites differently from simple property violation or arson. The National Assembly recently passed a bill making crimes committed because of a victim's real or presumed ethnicity, race or religion subject to harsher penalties. And partly in an effort to rein in more extreme Islamist tendencies, the government has created a national council to represent France's five million Muslims. The 500,000 French Jews nonetheless remain nervous and skeptical. Last year the number of Jews moving from France to Israel doubled. While that number remains small -- an increase to 2,300 from 1,150 the previous year -- it sets a three-decade record. A poll of French Jews in November found that despite their high level of success throughout the professions, business and government, they were worried about the risk of violence and troubled by the official silence. It remains sadly common for French intellectuals and officials to discount Jewish anxiety and to suggest that if only Israel would do right by the Palestinians, the problems of France's Jews would disappear. While a solution in the Middle East would help calm things down, this is a cynical argument. At the same time, Americans |
1456952_0 | Bouncing Signals Push the Limits of Bandwidth | IT is a phenomenon well known to people who drive through urban high-rise canyons. Just as you stop at a traffic light, the car radio loses its signal. Once the light turns green, the car only has to creep forward a few feet to restore the radio reception. Those dead spots, which can also cut off cellphone calls and mobile computer communications, are often caused when signals bounce wildly off the surrounding buildings. This scattering creates pockets in which two reflections of the same signal collide and cancel each other out. Avoiding the undesirable effects of multipath, as this scattering effect is formally known, has long been a preoccupation of people who design wireless communications systems. Now, however, a system developed by Bell Labs actually embraces radio reflections not only to improve reception but also to boost the speed of wireless networks. Prototypes of the system, called Blast, can send data over third-generation, or 3G, cellphone networks at rates about eight times those of 3G. ''Normally multipath is the source of confusion, it's the enemy,'' said Robert W. Lucky, who recently retired as vice president for applied research at Telcordia Technologies and is familiar with the Bell Labs work. ''Here you put the confusion back together Humpty Dumpty style. It's like getting something for nothing.'' Gerard J. Foschini, a 40-year veteran of Bell Labs, came up with the theory behind Blast about a decade ago while working on a long-term project to find the limits of a wide variety of technologies. As part of that project, he reviewed the work of Claude Shannon, the Bell Labs mathematician who published a paper in 1948 that established the field of modern information theory. Dr. Shannon's work still provides the basis for much information theory, including the notion of system capacity limits. ''He found the ultimate limits,'' Dr. Foschini said. ''But he was basically dealing with one transmitter and one receiver. It was obvious to us that we could deal with many transmitting antennas and many receiving antennas for the same transmission.'' So Dr. Foschini began developing mathematical models to see whether sending data through arrays of antennas would expand network capacities. Antenna arrays have long been used in radar systems. But Dr. Foschini said that radar arrays are used to focus radio beams, whereas he wanted to scatter them. He hoped to discover whether wireless capacity could be boosted by dividing up |
1456943_3 | Rule Your Own Realm: The Ultimate E-Mail Address | One of the best deals is from Doteasy (www.doteasy.com), which offers free hosting and 10 POP e-mail accounts with 10 megabytes of storage space, all for the $25 fee to register your domain name. One disadvantage, however, is that the domain has to be renewed each year. The basic plan from VeriSign (www.verisign.com) is cheaper at $20 a year, but it includes only one e-mail address (with 10 megabytes of storage). Yahoo's personalized e-mail service (www.yahoo.com) doesn't offer POP accounts, but its $35-a-year plan includes five e-mail accounts with four megabytes of storage each that can be managed through the free e-mail system at Yahoo's Web site. Although your messages will carry your own domain name, they will still include the tag line advertising Yahoo's e-mail services at the bottom of each message. All of the domain-name registration companies provide search engines that allow you to see if the name you want has already been reserved by someone else. The recent addition of new suffixes, like .biz and .info, increases your chances of being able to use your name. No matter what company you pick to register and host your domain, the process takes only a few minutes and your account is usually active within a few hours, if not sooner. And remember that you own your domain name. So if you are unhappy with the company that you chose, you can always switch, although it usually involves a fee. To start sending and receiving e-mail with your new domain name, you will first need to set up mailboxes with unique user names and passwords with your new hosting company. (This can usually be done through its Web site.) Then you need to make some changes to the configuration of your e-mail software. The incoming mail server will be pop.yourdomain.com; the outgoing mail server is the name of your Internet service provider or the name of your new hosting company. If you plan to keep an existing e-mail address, especially a free account that you can check through the Web from anywhere, you may also want messages that are sent to your domain name forwarded to your current e-mail address as well. Just remember to change the preferences on your existing account so that the reply-to address for recipients is your domain-name address and not your current e-mail address. (In Yahoo, for instance, this can be done by going to |
1457003_0 | Technology Briefing | Biotechnology: Planting Of Modified Crops Rose In 2002 | The planting of genetically modified crops increased in 2002 despite lingering concern in some countries about their safety and environmental effects, a group that conducts an annual survey said yesterday. Land devoted to such crops grew 12 percent worldwide last year, to 145 million acres, an area two and a half times the size of Britain. The survey was done by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, a nonprofit group backed partly by biotechnology companies that introduces biotechnology to developing countries. The crops were grown in 16 countries last year, up from 13 in 2001, with India, Colombia and Honduras being the new ones. But four countries -- the United States, Argentina, Canada and China -- accounted for 99 percent of the total. The United States, where planting rose 9 percent, accounted for two-thirds of the world's total. The types of crops were also concentrated, with herbicide-resistant soybeans accounting for 62 percent of the global total and insect-resistant corn for 13 percent. Andrew Pollack (NYT) |
1454168_4 | Studios Using Digital Armor To Fight Piracy | like the Apple iPod. ''That's what digital rights management does: it enables business models.'' The new software weapons, entertainment executives say, are already reinforcing a variety of new services, from movies on demand to online jukeboxes, that they say they would have been reluctant to offer before. Tempted by promises of a brave new digital world, eager consumers are testing out high-definition TV's and scooping up DVD's. But in what may prove to be an old-fashioned analog awakening, consumers are beginning to suspect that the new tools take away more freedoms than they give. Brian Wozny, 52, so liked the idea of watching a Steve McQueen movie without going to a video store that he recently paid $1.99 to download ''The Hunter'' over Movielink, an online service introduced by several movie studios in November. Then he learned that he could not transfer the film to another computer and that it would disappear from his hard drive 24 hours after he started watching it. ''I don't mind them putting some limits on it, but it's one rule after another rule after another and it's hard to keep track,'' said Mr. Wozny, of Cleveland. ''Being able to watch it for 30 days would be a lot better.'' Gary Merson, who reviews equipment for consumer electronics magazines, found last week that his state-of-the-art high-definition television system would not display several channels, including HBO and WCBS. Instead a message flashed on the $8,000 screen: ''Notice -- Copy restrictions prevent the viewing of this program in the high definition format. For more information see the owner's manual for your satellite receiver.'' DirecTV, Mr. Merson's satellite provider, said no one was available to comment on the company's policy on copy restrictions last week. But Mr. Merson said he was told by a customer service representative that the message was intended for television studios that want to activate anti-piracy measures. If DirecTV detects that a customer's equipment would allow certain shows to be transmitted over the Internet, the viewer is informed that the material can be seen only in standard format. In Mr. Merson's case, the message appears to have been a technical glitch, which did not make him any happier. ''These copy-protection schemes are a bill of goods,'' said Mr. Merson, who wrote about the experience in his Internet newsletter, The HDTV Insider. ''The program providers get the higher profits and we get stuff that doesn't |
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1453928_1 | Waters Flooded With Life | the Japurá and (as the Amazon above Manaus is known) the Solimões. The peaceful-looking current in front of us is an underwater highway full of piranha, electric eels, stingrays, manatees, dolphins, water snakes and hundreds of other creatures of questionable motivation. Crocodilians are more numerous here than anywhere else in the world, and 10- to 15-foot black caiman laze about on the forest edges. My husband, Ted, lifted our bags out of the boat and seemed equally willing to wait. ''How about a quick tour of the forest before lunch?'' Patrícia asked. The shade looked inviting so we handed her our luggage and climbed into a shallow canoe just large enough to hold João, our local guide, and the two of us sitting single file. João had a deep furrow in his brow that provided a roof for his smile and the powerful upper body of someone who'd spent his life propelling himself in a boat. With a few strokes, he took us to the forest edge, where vines hung thickly over low trees like dust covers in a warehouse of oddly shaped furniture. He lifted a leafy flap and we floated right into the treetops. Our feet wouldn't touch the ground for the next five days. Mamirauá, about the size of Connecticut, is the largest flooded forest reserve in the world and a place I'd never heard of until John Robinson, the head of International Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Bronx, told me it had some of the best wildlife viewing in the Amazon. Beginning in January, the river swells up with melting snow from the Andes and 10 feet of seasonal rains. It overflows its banks and rises up to 40 feet in the forest by May. The river becomes a limitless viewing platform in the rain-forest canopy. Its peak fruiting season is from April to July, and howler monkeys, three-toed sloths, umbrella birds and giant tambaqui fish come to stuff themselves at the feast. At first I felt a little disoriented in this weird, watery world. We were at nose level with orchids and bromeliads and face to face with cutter ants carrying tiny leaf flags up a tree instead of across the forest floor. Even the boat was strange. With just an inch of freeboard, it could have been a floating leaf. We glided silently by a sleeping red howler monkey with his |
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1453830_0 | Stoics in Charge | To the Editor: Where have you gone, Marcus Aurelius? After the carnage of 9/11 and the ensuing struggle against+Al Qaeda's hydralike terrorist network, America finds itself in need of sound moral, spiritual and foreign policy guidance. And who better to+impart+such wisdom than ancient Rome's cerebral philosopher-emperor? But Hollywood's simplistic silver-screen+Stoicism will not do. Bill Clinton's thoughtful if self-serving take on the ''Meditations'' can't cut it. And Judith Shulevitz's tongue-in-cheek assessment, ''A Philosopher in Full'' (Dec. 15), is, well, less than Aurelian. No, the best advice for our troubled times+lies in Book IV of the emperor's magnum opus: ''Take no enterprise in hand at haphazard, or without regard to the principles governing its proper execution.'' Before he+attacks Saddam Hussein's Iraq, President Bush would be wise to consult Marcus Aurelius. Rosario A. Iaconis Mineola, N.Y. |
1453944_0 | A London Walk | To the Editor: No trip to London's East End (''The East End Goes Mainstream,'' Dec. 8) would be complete without a visit to Body Worlds, an anatomical exhibition of real human bodies, located in the former Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane, Spitalfields (Aldgate East or Shoreditch tube stations). The exhibition, which continues until early February, features more than 200 ''plastinates'' of whole human bodies and organs that have been hardened by a process developed by a German, Prof. Gunther von Hagens. Some may call it gruesome, but I found it fascinating, and it is drawing huge crowds. June Oliansky Brooklyn, N.Y. |
1453867_0 | Towering Vision | Q: So, how have you managed to stay out of the debate over the twin-towers site? You're the only architect who's a household name in America, so naturally people wondered why your name was missing when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation presented seven new proposals for the site last month. I was invited to be on one of the teams, but I found it demeaning that the agency paid only $40,000 for all that work. I can understand why the kids did it, but why would people my age do it? Norman Foster or Richard Meier or any of those people? When you're only paid $40,000, you're treated as if that is your worth. But what about your sense of civic responsibility? Don't tell me you built the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, simply to earn a buck. I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don't get a lot of work sometimes. But don't you owe it to the public to try to help New York, not to mention the rest of the country? I was in New York when the towers fell. I was in the Four Seasons Hotel, and I couldn't believe it. In the next few weeks, I couldn't imagine what could be put there. I couldn't even think about it. But then I was watching the news a few months later, and I heard Giuliani say that what should be there is a soaring, beautiful space that people from all over the world would want to come see. And that inspired me. You mean you drew up a plan? No, but the following January I was teaching a class at Yale, and I decided to give that project for my class: how do you build an extraordinary public space? I took 15 students to see the Haga Sofia in Constantinople, and said to them: this is what we need in New York. I think you should think on this scale or bigger, about a building that could be spiritual but not religious. The pope would come, and the Islamic guys, and it would be a symbol of openness and tolerance. Have you shared your ideas with any public officials? At one point I was going to have Giuliani come to Yale to meet my students, but I didn't call him. I thought any moves in that direction would have been opportunistic. Aren't all |
1454115_2 | The Nation: Looming Decision; Affirmative Action Faces a New Wave of Anger | Statistics, part of the federal Department of Education, examined the earnings of a group of college graduates five years after their graduation and concluded that the selectivity of their alma maters had had a minimal impact. A more important predictor of income was the person's undergraduate major. Yet, Dr. Freedman acknowledges, these things still count. ''I think for the first job, these credentials really do matter,'' he said. ''Going to Dartmouth gets you an entree at Goldman Sachs. How you do at Goldman Sachs is up to you.'' Moreover, an earnings survey can capture neither the quality of instruction at an elite college, nor the incalculable boost in status of students (and families) associated with the nation's elite schools. In a nation of few formal class distinctions, the college sticker on one's car may be the most potent. Such issues are at the heart of the two cases seeking to undo the admissions policies of the undergraduate and law school programs at Michigan. MS. GRATZ, a B student in high school, is one of the two white plaintiffs challenging the undergraduate policy at Michigan, where black and Hispanic applicants are given a 20-point bonus on a 150-point evaluation scale. Like other selective universities, Michigan aids minority applicants for two main reasons: to level the playing field and to enrich the educational experiences of whites and nonwhites alike. But had Ann Arbor not given a statistical boost to applicants whose test scores and grades may have been lower than hers, Ms. Gratz contends, she would have had a better chance of getting in. ''They clearly discriminate based on the color of your skin,'' she said. To Andrew Hacker, a professor of political science at Queens College, a fierce race and class struggle is being waged in the arena of highly selective college admissions. ''Call it Whites' Rights,'' said Professor Hacker, whose 1992 book ''Two Nations'' will be reissued by Simon & Schuster this year. To Professor Hacker, those whites who are most up in arms are those who indeed may be at the biggest disadvantage -- those in the lower and middle classes. Upper-class whites, he said, can still afford to attend the top high schools, whether private ones or public schools in the wealthiest suburbs, that place a disproportionate number of their graduates at marquee colleges. But whites of lesser means, particularly in the Northeast, face competition as never before, |
1454124_1 | Why Keep U.S. Troops? | counterattack. Underlying these deliberations is a touch of dismay with a longtime ally: With North Korea rattling a nuclear sword, how can South Koreans criticize America? When American forces might be better deployed in the Persian Gulf, why should they be tied down in a country that doesn't want them? ''It's like teaching a child how to ride a bike,'' said one Pentagon official. ''We've been running alongside South Korea, holding on to its handlebars for 50 years. At some point you have to let go.'' Deciding if now is the time depends on how well the United States is able to project power across the Pacific, as well as on its responsibilities as the globe's presumptive supercop. Withdrawing forces in Korea would reverberate powerfully in Tokyo, Beijing, Taipei and beyond, raising questions in an already jittery region about Washington's willingness to maintain stability in Asia. ''In the present mood, the Japanese reaction could be quite strong,'' said Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser to Jimmy Carter. ''And under those circumstances, it's hard to say how the Chinese might respond.'' In the 1970's, Mr. Brzezinski took part in the last major debate over reducing American forces in Korea, when President Carter, motivated by post-Vietnam doubts about American power, proposed withdrawing ground forces from the peninsula. He faced resistance from the South Korean government, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. The arguments against withdrawal then still apply today, Mr. Brzezinski says. A secure Korea makes Japan more confident, he contends. An American withdrawal from Korea could raise questions about the United States' commitment to the 40,000 troops it has in Japan. And that could drive anxious Japanese leaders into a military buildup that could include nuclear weapons, he argues. ''If we did it, we would stampede the Japanese into going nuclear,'' he said. Other Asian leaders would be likely to interpret a troop withdrawal as a reduction of American power, no matter how much the United States asserts its commitment to the region. China might take the opportunity to flex its military muscle in the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea. North Korea could feel emboldened to continue its efforts to build nuclear arms. ''Any movement of American forces would almost certainly involve countries and individuals taking the wrong message,'' said Kurt Campbell, a deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration. ''The main one would be this: receding |
1453912_5 | Over Hill And Dale, A Fight for Service | kind of comical,'' Mr. Rollinson said. ''I run through the house trying to find a spot. I've gone out on the back deck, the back yard, upstairs figuring that the higher I got it would work better. Success depends on the atmospheric pressure and the amount of leaves on the trees.'' The leaves? Leaves can indeed impede reception, said Vince FuscoRossi, whose main job for Verizon Wireless is detecting dead zones. ''In wooded areas, when the foliage comes down, the signal can get further and coverage will improve,'' he said. Not surprisingly, coverage complaints from customers in those areas come in the spring and summer. As part of his job, Mr. FuscoRossi trains drivers of a special Verizon car that is equipped to find dead zones for all carriers doing business in Connecticut. Sprouting 15 antennae, the 2002 white Ford Taurus station wagon patrols Connecticut interstates and secondary roads, Monday through Friday, prowling for dead spots. In the wagon's rear, eight cell phones, each representing a carrier, call constantly in a babble of recorded nonsensical sentences, ''A chicken leg is a rare dish'' or ''He ran halfway to the hardware store.'' The calls go to a computer that records the car's location and whether calls are successfully completed. ''You should see the looks we get,'' said Mr. FuscoRossi, who drove such a car himself for three years. Since Sept. 11, Mr. FuscoRossi said, police officers who were suspicious of the car's appearance have stopped the wagon at least five or six times. The car also provokes constant comment from other drivers. '' 'Are you looking for aliens?' I get that one a lot,'' he said. Standing on chairs, perching on porch railings, climbing up fire escapes, they all make perfect sense to Mr. Clark, the consultant. Increasing elevation increases the chances for snagging a signal. ''I've seen people with their phone in their ears, standing on the running boards of their S.U.V.'s on the side of the road, getting the last few inches of elevation'' along Madison's Route 79, he said. ''I've done it myself.'' Dr. Michael Craig Miller, a psychiatrist and editor-in-chief of Harvard's Mental Health Letter, said people's need to connect may overrule their good judgment. ''To put your life in danger to get a signal, it speaks to how important it is for us to communicate, even when we don't have anything to say,'' Dr. Miller said. |
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1454196_0 | Can Democrats Change Channels? | To the Editor: Re ''Outflanked Democrats Look for Ways to Play Catch-Up in Media Battles'' (news article, Jan. 1): Where are the women? The Democratic Party big boys need a shot of hormones. Estrogen. Judiciously blended with testosterone. This time, there won't be any side effects except the rise in temperature that many of us older women have come to think of as a ''power surge.'' MARY SOJOURNER Flagstaff, Ariz., Jan. 1, 2003 |
1454838_17 | At a Texas Foundry, An Indifference to Life | was relatively low cost -- outside audits, better training, improved manuals, an annual company environmental conference. Before long, the company's stated desire for ''environmental excellence'' was tested in a small way. The question was what to do with a pile of 200 old tires. It would have cost about $750 to have them hauled away to a hazardous waste dump. But company documents show that Mr. Stoker had another solution, even though he had been told that it violated state air-quality laws. ''He wanted the tires burned and he wanted them burned now,'' an internal company document stated. And so they were, in the cupola. Buckets of contaminated grease disappeared the same way, workers said. The biggest worries, though, had to do with safety. Texas workers' compensation laws give McWane broad immunity from negligence lawsuits. But they also required it to pay medical bills and lost wages for injured workers. Company executives complained that they were ''hemorrhaging'' money on workers' compensation -- many millions of dollars a year and rising. Once again, the company chose a minimalist approach, according to company and OSHA records and former safety and health employees. It devised a system of ''workers' compensation cost control techniques'' that shifted responsibility for safety problems onto the workers themselves. It was a system that assumed widespread fraud and often subjected workers reporting injuries to disciplinary action, and sometimes firing, for violating safety rules. ''Whether the employee is 100 percent or 5 percent at fault is irrelevant,'' wrote Stephen A. Smith, then president of the McWane subsidiary that owns Tyler Pipe. In 2000 and 2001, company records show, more than 350 workers were subjected to disciplinary actions -- known as D.A.'s -- after reporting injuries. ''All disciplines short of termination is administered with the intent and purpose to teach,'' the plant's employee handbook explained. But OSHA inspectors concluded that the system was used not to teach but to punish. Disciplinary action was meted out if it was the fault of the employee or not, they said. ''The true significance of a D.A. is that they move an employee along a track for termination,'' the inspectors wrote. Even longtime employees with exemplary work records could be fired for a single D.A. Employees say they learned to keep injuries a secret whenever possible. In his response, the McWane president, Mr. Page, said no Tyler Pipe worker had been fired in retaliation for |
1454824_3 | Young Survivors of Cancer Battle Effects of Treatment | seem most vulnerable. Dr. Butler said: ''We used to think they would be the most likely to recover, because their brains have greater plasticity. But the youngest children actually take a bigger hit from the treatments.'' Children who have brain tumors -- the second most prevalent form of childhood cancer, after leukemia -- are at greater risk than those with other cancers. The tumor can damage brain tissue, Dr. Brouwers said, and the treatment, typically radiation directed at the head and spinal cord, can damage neurons. Doctors can minimize the damage by using only the lowest possible doses of radiation, said Dr. Anna T. Meadows, a pediatric oncologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Butler estimated that as many as 90 percent of children who had received radiation to the brain and spinal cord had some degree of impairment. Young patients like Sarah with acute lymphoblastic leukemia are often treated with chemotherapy alone. The drugs are often injected into the space containing the brain and spinal cord. Many of these children do not develop any cognitive problems, Dr. Meadows said. And those who do, studies show, are likely to be less impaired. About 30 percent of children who have received this chemotherapy end up with learning or concentration problems, Dr. Butler said. Such problems are also found among an undetermined number of children who have not had cancer, he noted. Sarah's problems were relatively mild compared with those of children who received radiation. And though experts cannot say for certain that chemotherapy caused her problems, Sarah's experience follows the pattern of other patients in her age group, according to Dr. Anne E. Kazak, the director of psychology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a researcher in Dr. Butler's study. Radiation and chemotherapy can damage the cells of the basal ganglia, a section of the brain involved in attention functions, Dr. Brouwers said. The problems often do not show up until three years after the children have finished treatments, studies show, because the brain cells die off slowly. ''It's tough on the kids and tough on parents,'' Dr. Brouwers said. ''They're told the disease is gone, and then after five years, the kid is failing in school. And it just seems like it's never over.'' The trauma of cancer itself can contribute to the problem, many doctors and parents believe. ''Sarah repeated kindergarten because she missed a lot of school for |
1454899_0 | Corrections | An article yesterday about Venezuela's plans to reorganize the state-owned oil company as part of an effort to recover from a strike misstated the amount of crude oil exported by the country to the United States. It was about 1.45 million barrels a day before the strike; that is about 14 percent of the United States' total imports of 11 million barrels -- not 14 percent of the 19 million barrels that the United States consumes daily. |
1453400_2 | For the Gadget Universe, a Common Tongue | also be easily reprogrammed to take advantage of improvements in the network. Consumers would not face decisions as they do today about whether to buy new phones to take advantage of advanced networks. Instead of facing vast, high-risk technology transitions once a decade, the cellphone industry could advance at a steadier pace, like the personal computer industry. But there are more compelling uses for software radio technology that have drawn innovators like Mr. Bose and giant companies like Motorola and Boeing into the field. The Defense Department in particular is counting on the technology to end the dangerous confusion that arises when different branches of the armed forces try to talk to each other, get data from satellites or control robotic weaponry with incompatible communications systems. Despite more than two decades of research and development, experts say, soldiers in combat often carry separate radio systems one to talk to one another and another to communicate with air support. Similar barriers plague police, fire and rescue agencies, many of which intentionally bought incompatible radio systems to minimize interference with one another. But after Sept. 11, many are looking to software radio technology to give them the flexibility to bridge incompatible systems when coordination becomes critical. More recently, the Federal Communications Commission has singled out software radio as a possible means for expanding use of the radio spectrum while reducing interference in the most crowded portions. Such devices could, in theory, start a phone call in the portion of the spectrum currently assigned to cellphones and jump temporarily into unused parts of the television or public safety spectrum if more space was available there. Mr. Bose's background and his enthusiasm as he shows off his prototypes make it hard to believe he ever considered doing anything with his life besides playing around with signals. Now 37, he recalls being delighted at his opportunities as a child to visit the Bose research labs. As an undergraduate at M.I.T., he plunged into the world of FM radio signals while typesetting a research paper for his father (on FM radio reception when signals arrive at different times after bouncing off various obstructions). '' That solidified my interest in the field and the math behind it, Mr. Bose said. I always felt I could figure it out if I sat down and worked hard enough on it.'' But Amar Bose never pushed his son to do |
1453305_3 | ONLINE DIARY | in the area of weight loss,'' Vince Mattaliano, a regular participant in the Men's Room, said by e-mail. ''EDiets provides a forum where men can identify issues that stem from our common roles in business, our status as family members, our preferences in exercise and diet, and the motivators that we feel are most effective.'' Philosopher's Tome Leave it to philosophers to create an encyclopedia that by design will never be finished. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu), a free Web-based encyclopedia, is a volunteer effort by hundreds of philosophy experts worldwide. The project, begun in 1995, has the goal of continual change (Heraclitus would be proud). No article is ever complete; the author updates it as needed at least once a year. A snapshot of the site is archived every three months so that links to citations do not become out of date. All content is vetted by subject editors working through an electronic publishing system based on e-mail alerts. Of 766 commissioned articles, there are now 375 entries online. The site's editor, Edward N. Zalta, a senior research scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University, said he was inspired to create the online philosophy encyclopedia when he realized that 30 years had passed between publication of printed versions, in 1968 and 1998. ''I also looked at all the academics and lay people who don't have access to expensive books or journals containing the latest scholarship in philosophy,'' he said. The encyclopedia is beginning to have an impact, according to an informal study by the project's staff. The topics of the first 100 articles in the encyclopedia were entered into Google, which ranks sites based on how often they are linked to from other well-connected sites. In 95 instances, the relevant article was among the top 10 search results for the topic involved. Not bad for a work in progress. On the Radar Now that you've cleaned up the torn wrapping paper, take a deep breath and face down the inevitable at the Toy Recall Database (www.safechild.net/toyrecalldatabase). Snowcrystals.net, created by a physics professor, will tell you everything you always wanted to know about snowflakes. The images, made with the latest photomicroscopic techniques, seem too perfect to be real. Browse through ''Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project'' (digital.lib.msu.edu/cookbooks) for a glimpse of the past of the American repast. Online Diary E-mail: online@nytimes.com |
1453297_3 | A Sloop Subs For a Town House | purchases survived the journey, despite dire predictions from certain nautical know-it-alls. More important, having a few beautiful things around made the boat feel like a home, and not a floating motel room. If the learning curve for how to make a fiberglass boat feel homey was steep, figuring out how to run a household at sea was even more of a challenge. Back home we had always encouraged our daughters to question authority because, well, how else were they going to change the world? But when you're in open water, questioning authority can have dire consequences. Early on in the trip we encountered a bit of rough weather on the Chesapeake. Bert instructed the girls to go below and get their harnesses and safety lines so we could clip them into the cockpit and not have to worry about their getting tossed overboard. Both of them balked loudly at the idea of being tethered. They finally did as they were told, but that evening we all had a long talk about the importance of following orders. We decided that we needed to come up with a signal that would convey to the girls that an order was final -- no discussion, no complaints, no arguments. Bert, in a moment of divinely illogical inspiration, came up with the two-word signal that would simplify our lives from that day on: Code 9 (as in, ''Nora and Rosie, You get down from that mast right now! Code 9!''). It worked like a charm. Other boat parents marveled at its efficacy and eagerly inquired after Codes 1 through 8. Some were disappointed to learn that no such codes existed. Land-bound parents marvel too -- and sometimes give an involuntary shudder -- at the idea of being confined to a very small space with one's children (and one's spouse) for 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year. But truly, it was a wonderful experience. We watched the amazing transformation of our daughter Nora from reluctant helper into confident crew member. And Rosie, our little anti-intellectual, surprised us by becoming an insatiable reader. After plowing through all her second-grade ''age appropriate'' books, she moved on to Nora's library. I actually had to start hiding some of my books after I caught her lounging in my bed one day with David Sedaris's ''Me Talk Pretty One Day.'' As with all long-term voyages there was |
1453396_1 | NEWS SUMMARY | left-wing Workers Party and a former lathe operator and labor union leader, was inaugurated as president of Brazil, promising ''a new style of government'' and a crusade against hunger, injustice and corruption. A3 Chinese Charge Demonstrators The police in China have charged two leaders of worker demonstrations in Liaoyang with subversion -- a crime that carries the death penalty -- after they organized protests to focus attention on workers' interests. A5 Cyclone Devastates Island A small Pacific island, Tikopia, has been hit by 40-foot waves generated by a cyclone that seems to have swept away entire villages and completely destroyed the lagoon around the island. A4 Oil Tanker Strikes Sunken Ship A tanker carrying 70,000 metric tons of highly flammable gas oil struck the sunken hull of a Norwegian transport ship in the English Channel. The tanker was the second vessel in recent weeks to strike the sunken ship, and was briefly stuck before refloating. There was no evidence of damage or leaking. A7 New Day for Paper in Paris The International Herald Tribune, descendant of an American paper first published in Paris in 1887, is appearing for the first time under the sole ownership and management of The New York Times Company. A4 China Plans Manned Spacecraft China plans to launch its first manned spacecraft in the second half of this year, a government news agency announced, citing a senior aerospace official. A7 NATIONAL A10-15 Foes of Abortion Prepare Big Push in New Congress Galvanized by the Republican takeover of the Senate, opponents of abortion are preparing a major push for new abortion restrictions in the next Congress, beginning with a ban on the type of medical procedure they call ''partial birth abortion.'' A1 Professors vs. Computers As universities rush toward a wireless future, installing networks that let students and the faculty surf the Internet from laptop computers in the classroom, the library or any where on campus, professors say the technology poses a growing challenge for them: retaining their students' attention. A1 DNA Dragnet for Serial Killer Investigators in Louisiana, searching for a serial killer whose DNA has been recovered from all four of his victims, have taken DNA samples from 800 men for testing. Many of those 800 own or have access to white pickup trucks similar to the one that several eyewitnesses placed at the scene of two of the crimes. A10 Missed Deadline Costs Nevada |
1453358_5 | Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention | showed up in the dorm, the library and the commons. ''There's less of an obvious use for wiring the classroom,'' where the benefits have to be balanced against the distraction, he said. At American University, Professor Mallek said the benefits of the technology in his classroom far outweighed the problems. He ran the pilot project at the business school that helped the American decide to put in a campuswide network and said he had grown used to students' flipping their screens. ''It's a new type of social commentary, to hear clicking,'' he said. ''It's an audible vote.'' He suggested that it might even be making him a better teacher. He takes the threat of losing his students to e-mail and online newspapers as a challenge to keep lectures interesting and lively. ''As a professor,'' he said, ''if you are not productively engaging them, they have other opportunities.'' Mr. Whitman, the director of e-operations, said he was testing new programs that might address some of the problems of online distraction. A system that takes the locations of students into account could be used to set rules that varied from place to place. Any use of the Internet might be acceptable in the library or the dean's office, he said, ''but if you're downstairs in Jay's classroom, you could not surf the Internet or you could surf the Internet but only go to CNN.com for in-class reading.'' Joseph Sun, a first year M.B.A. student in Professor Mallek's class, takes notes with pen and paper. He owns a laptop but does not take it to class. Although it ''comes in handy to look up an article or quote during discussion,'' Mr. Sun said, he has to resist ''the temptation to surf the Net during lectures.'' Students say they are finding a balance in the classroom between the good uses of online technology and its temptations. Tetse Ukueberuwa, a major in environmental studies at Dartmouth, said, ''Over all, it's a great thing,'' being able to check e-mail messages and conduct online research anywhere on her campus. Ms. Ukueberuwa said she preferred to take notes by hand, however, saying: ''I feel I'm more in touch with what the teacher is saying. You're looking at the teacher instead of looking at your computer.'' As a junior, though, she realizes that she may be ''old-fashioned.'' Every incoming class, she said, seems ''more technologically advanced'' than the last. |
1453311_0 | New Strategy in the War on Spammers | A RESEARCHER at AT&T Labs is proposing to stop at least some spam before it starts by using e-mail addresses that expire or come with other restrictions attached in code. ''It came to me one day that spam works because there's no easy way to differentiate between what's real e-mail and what isn't,'' said John Ioannidis, a member of the research department at AT&T Labs in Florham Park, N.J. Dr. Ioannidis suggests adopting something he calls ''single-purpose addresses'' rather than continuing to refine software filters that try to sort the good from the bad. Such addresses would not replace permanent e-mail addresses, which, under Dr. Ioannidis's plan, users would continue to give to those they trust and need to maintain contact with, like relatives or employers. Instead, single-purpose addresses would be used when the senders have no continuing relationship with the other parties and fear that their e-mail addresses might be sold or given to spammers. Online purchasing or newsgroup postings are obvious examples. Dr. Ioannidis will present a paper about his approach in February at a meeting of experts in computer network security. Under the system, users would generate single-purpose addresses with special software. The process could be relatively simple. Using an on-screen menu, the user would first select how long the address would exist. Currently, the shortest period with Dr. Ioannidis's technology is one day. A user could also choose to have the address work only when sent from a specific domain (the part that follows the @ symbol). This would prevent an unexpired address from being used by spammers. After those settings are made, the address software would generate a code containing the date and domain restrictions and the user's permanent e-mail address. That code, in turn, would be converted into a string of 26 characters that appear to be a jumble of numbers and letters. Together with the user's domain, the string would form the single-purpose address, which could be cut and pasted into forms like those used by online stores. When, say, the store sends a reply indicating that a user's desired item is out of stock, software on the customer's mail server would decode the special address and then, assuming it remains valid, forward the mail to the permanent address. Dr. Ioannidis acknowledges that even with his system, spammers could still get access to permanent e-mail addresses. A trusted relative, he said, may give |
1460667_2 | Bringing the Oldies To Modern Gamers | as controllers. Old games are history lessons, harking back to a time when looks were not everything but simplicity was. Atari's Pac-Man is like a ghoulish experiment gone wrong. Activision's Pitfall looks like a third-grade class project, with sounds about as sophisticated as a watch alarm. Spy Hunter's trees look like lumpy mushrooms, and Space Invaders still uses some of the least sophisticated graphics known to modern man. Yet, especially for those who played the games as children, they offer plenty of fun. Darek Mihocka, a founder of Emulators Inc. (www.emulators.com), which offers Xformer 2000 and Gemulator, free emulators that help run the old Atari computer systems on a PC, contends that one reason the games are popular is that they are more intelligently programmed than today's. Creators had to think more because they had no fancy graphics to hide behind, he said. ''Despite running on one-megahertz processors and in 4K of RAM and with ridiculously crude graphics,'' he said,'' the games from 20 years ago such as Star Raiders and Space Invaders and Robotron and Joust and Pac-Man are simply more fun to play, more interesting,'' he said. ''They're simpler, yes, but written for a pre-MTV generation.'' Although the International Digital Software Association has expressed concern about the legality of much of the retro-game downloading, members of its anti-piracy team say they put a much higher priority on cracking down on pirated versions of newer games like those for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, which are more widely coveted. ''We have a fixed amount of resources, so we have to make choices about what we're going to look for,'' said Ric Hirsch, senior vice president for intellectual property enforcement for the association. Of the 30,000 software-piracy cases on which the association took action last year, only a few hundred involved vintage games. Many emulator makers say their products, unlike most downloaded games, are not illegal. They compare emulators to DVD or CD players, which are still legal even though they can play pirated DVD's or CD's. At emulators.Atari.org, links to sites providing game downloads warn: ''The sites below contain commercial Atari software. They are provided for convenience only. If you download a program that you don't own, it is illegal -- even though these programs are no longer available commercially. You've been warned.'' But even those who still have the cartridges for the old games will have a hard time |
1460543_0 | An Elevator Tower Hangs in the Balance | Deconstructivism is being put to a vote in Brooklyn. An elevator tower, below left, added to the former Daily News printing plant, at 535 Dean Street in Prospect Heights, doesn't sit well with some condominium owners in the building. The $500,000 tower by Elena Kalman, the project's architect, is clad in aluminum panels and craggy stucco. It represents, she said, ''the rebirth of the neighborhood, the new emerging out of the old skin.'' But some owners think it jars with the building, and Boymelgreen Developers, who hired Ms. Kalman, is polling them. Linda G. Fine, the sales director, said the race ''between those who think it is cutting edge and those who are unhappy is very close so far.'' The Newswalk complex (interior, below right), has lofts priced from $399,000 to $1.5 million; seven units, with voting rights, remain to be sold. EVE M. KAHN CURRENTS: CITY LANDSCAPE |
1460607_1 | U.S. Links Indonesian Troops to Deaths of 2 Americans | week to help in the investigation. The Indonesian military has denied any involvement in the ambush, which also killed an Indonesian teacher and wounded eight Americans. But a report by the country's police force last year suggested that the military was behind the killings. The two F.B.I. agents now in Indonesia are gathering evidence for the Justice Department in Washington, American and other Western officials in the region said. ''There is no question there was military involvement,'' said a senior administration official. ''There is no question it was premeditated.'' The administration official and diplomats from other countries said there was still a mystery about who ordered the killings and why. They said the most likely explanation was that soldiers were trying to send a message to the teachers' employer, an American company that operates one of the world's largest copper and gold mines in the area. The company, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, had reduced payments and other benefits to soldiers, the officials said. ''Extortion, pure and simple,'' said a Western intelligence analyst, explaining what he believed was behind the attack. Freeport has declined to answer any questions about the killings or about payments to the police and the military. ''This is a police matter, and we cannot comment on the ongoing investigation,'' said a company spokesman, Siddharta Moersjid. ''Freeport hopes the perpetrators, whoever they are, will be brought to justice.'' The victims, who taught at Freeport's international school, were ambushed last Aug. 31, as they traveled a twisting mountain road between two military posts near Tembagapura, a mile-high company town on the equator in Irian Jaya, an eastern province also known as Papua. The party -- the school's new principal, his teachers and their families -- had cut its Saturday picnic short when fog and mist rolled in. At a bend in the road back to town, with a steep gorge on the right and a small hill on the left, several men sprayed the group's two Toyota Land Cruisers with automatic weapons fire. The Americans slain in the ambush were the principal, Edwin Burgon, 71, a former smoke jumper in Idaho who had taught around the world, and Ricky Lynn Spier, 44, a fourth-grade teacher from Colorado. The school's Indonesian teacher, Bambang Riwanto, was also killed. Immediately, Indonesian and Freeport officials blamed a separatist group, the Free Papua Movement, which has been fighting a low-level guerrilla war for independence, |
1455545_0 | North Korea Is Target Of Protests From World | North Korea stirred a storm of protest with its announcement Friday that it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, with many analysts viewing the move as hard bargaining rather than a declaration that it would begin building nuclear weapons. Condemnation came from around the world, from France, Japan, Russia and Australia as well as from South Korea, where President Kim Dae Jung said the announcement had ''brought the situation on the Korean peninsula from bad to worse by one step.'' Concerns were heightened after a North Korean representative to the United Nations said on Friday in New York that any United Nations sanctions would be considered an act of war. Mr. Kim was scheduled to meet today with Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France, who called for ''more urgent international action'' in response to North Korea's withdrawal. France holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council. The statement issued on Friday asserted that North Korea had no intention of producing nuclear weapons and was acting in self-defense because it was ''most seriously threatened'' by the United States. North Korea said it would use its nuclear program only for peaceful purposes ''at this stage.'' Soon after the announcement, the official North Korean news agency published an aggressive statement that called the United States warmongers and said: ''A new Korean War will finally lead to the Third World War. Let us see who will win and who will be defeated in a fire-to-fire standoff.'' While condemning the North Korean action, several countries urged a cautious and low-key response. In South Korea, which has taken a softer line than its allies in Washington, Mr. Kim said: ''Thanks to our efforts, the United States is now moving toward dialogue with North Korea. We have to make the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. For this purpose, we have to be patient and persistent in achieving a peaceful solution.'' His successor, President-elect Roh Moo Hyun, also expressed ''deep regret'' at the North's action. The United States offered on Tuesday to talk with North Korea together with South Korea and Japan. It had earlier said it would not talk until North Korea halted its nuclear programs. The governments of South and North Korea will have an opportunity to discuss the situation at a cabinet-level meeting scheduled for Jan. 21-24 in Seoul. But North Korea says it wants to talk directly with the United States. |
1455538_5 | At the Other End of the Axis: Some F.A.Q.'s | ''assisted suicide.'') Whatever you call it, I don't follow the logic. You say North Korea is an isolated totalitarian state that has never learned how to conduct itself in polite society. So the way to teach it better manners is to cut it off? Look, sanctions are everybody's cheap solution for countries behaving badly. Liberals love them when the target is South Africa or Myanmar. Conservatives love them when the target is Cuba or Iraq. Sanctions often accomplish exactly the opposite of what you want, and even at their best they have deleterious side effects. One longtime sanctions skeptic, Richard Haass, has written that in the case of North Korea, economic pressure should be only a last resort if engagement fails, not a substitute for dialogue. Mr. Haass, by the way, is now the director of policy planning at the Bush State Department. Which raises the question, who's in charge there? At the outset the Bush policy was dominated by people whose expertise is not Asia but weapons proliferation. Now the lead role has reverted to Colin Powell and the diplomats. They have renounced ''tailored containment'' and forsworn military options so vociferously that Mr. Bush now sounds like Jimmy Carter. True, his motives for this show of restraint may be questionable -- he doesn't want to distract attention from Job One in Iraq -- but it's a welcome change from the gunslinger talk. We've also started paying more attention to North Korea's neighbors, whose cooperation is essential. Japan, Russia, China and especially South Korea, whose new president floated to power on a wave of anti-American sentiment, all believe Mr. Kim can be induced to sober up and maybe even join the world. Most important, we've agreed to ''talk'' to the North. (But not ''negotiate.'' It's basically the difference between foreplay and sex.) Whether the Bush folks have come entirely to their senses is hard to tell, but Mr. Galucci describes them as ''lurching in the right direction.'' Does anybody have a plan that makes sense? Actually, yes. Back in 1999 the National Defense University assembled a team of Asia experts to draft a strategy for dealing with North Korea. It came to be known as ''more for more'': we would expect more from the North Koreans, including rigorous inspections, a full accounting of their nuclear history, and an end to missile exports. We would offer more in return -- financial |
1455509_0 | Facing a Registration Deadline | THREATS AND RESPONSES |
1455525_6 | Gold in Them Thar Tin Cans?; Recycler Sees Money to Be Made From City's Containers | disposal world. Most waste companies make their profits by disposing of trash in the most efficient way possible, and many have bought up landfills around the country to further smooth the garbage path from curbside to final entombment. Scrap companies, on the other hand, make their money by squeezing out the last possible percentage of salvage from the cars and other items they process, and any excess that cannot be used and must be thrown out represents a failure and a loss. At Hugo Neu's clattering shredder operation here on the Jersey City waterfront, a car fed in one end of the 6,000-horsepower behemoth comes out 50 seconds later, divided into streams of steel, aluminum, plastic, cloth and other materials. Even coins are recovered. Over time, car seats tend to collect coins that slip out from pockets or get bobbled at toll booths, and each year about $35,000 worth pile up here, shaken free by the shredder from their car-seat piggy banks. Similarly, Mr. Kelman said, the company is learning more and more about plastic salvage, as the cars it processes render a more complex mix of materials -- a trend, he said, that will only continue. The average vehicle going through the shredder these days was built in the early 1990's, and the amount of plastic in cars has grown since then. As scrap becomes more complex, Mr. Kelman said, scrap dealers are being forced to become ''true recyclers.'' But none of that will make New York's choice easy, waste experts said. Environmentalists like Mr. Izeman at the Natural Resources Defense Council are already applying pressure to accept the Hugo Neu bid and bring back recycling immediately, saying the city would be ''foolish'' to reject an offer with immediate revenue benefits. Other experts said the city had to think about the long term, and that the national network of contacts and contracts that the big waste companies provide might simply be something that smaller scrap dealers are unable to offer. ''A small guy is just going to have a hard time competing with a Waste Management,'' said James Thompson Jr., the president of Chartwell Information Publishers, a San Diego company that tracks the waste industry. ''Sure, they have solid relationships with manufacturers who want their metal,'' he added, referring to the scrap dealers. ''Their shortcoming is that they just can't provide as sophisticated an aftermarket for all the stuff.'' |
1458828_4 | U.S. SET TO DEMAND THAT ALLIES AGREE IRAQ IS DEFYING U.N. | the publication of polls showing a drop in the number of Americans supporting a war, and a vast majority of Americans opposing action without the support of allies. Administration officials said that although both Mr. Chirac and Mr. Schröder had called on the United States to slow down its move toward war, the comments of their foreign ministers on Monday at the United Nations were surprisingly vehement. France had called for the special United Nations ministers' meeting on Monday, ostensibly to discuss terrorism, and many American officials expressed the opinion that Foreign Minister de Villepin had somehow set Mr. Powell up and surprised him with the vehement remarks. Asked by Mr. Lehrer if he felt ''sandbagged'' by the French, Mr. Powell replied, ''Well, I wouldn't say 'sandbagged' is the word.'' But he said it was ''unfortunate'' that Mr. de Villepin transformed a meeting on terrorism into a forum on Iraq. The administration is now planning to focus on the report that the United Nations weapons inspections chief, Hans Blix, is to issue on Monday -- in the hope that it offers details on Iraq's noncompliance. That could result in a fresh United Nations demand that Iraq come clean and dismantle its weapons. Noting today that French officials have in the past stated publicly that Iraq has those weapons and has failed to comply with the resolutions, officials said the Bush administration believed that France and Germany could somehow be embarrassed next week into repeating that acknowledgment. ''Our goal is to rub their nose in reality, and then proceed to discuss what we do about it,'' an official said, referring to France. ''We want to create a situation where they have to respond to the obvious facts and then explain why they don't want to act on them.'' American officials said one alternative strategy would be for the United States to seek a Security Council resolution only if France agreed to abstain rather than veto. France has not vetoed a resolution favored by the United States since a 1976 dispute over the Comoros Islands, off the coast of Africa. ''We haven't given up on the United Nations process,'' one administration official said. ''We'll just have to see what happens.'' On the subject of delay, Mr. Blix seemed more deferential to the American position today than he did last week, when he made calls for a prolonged inspections process. Asked whether time |
1458724_0 | France and Germany Draw a Line, Against Washington | In a blunt rejection of American impatience toward Baghdad, the leaders of France and Germany said today during ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of a French-German cooperation treaty that they shared common views on Iraq, and that any Security Council resolution for military action would have to await the report of weapons inspectors. President Jacques Chirac of France said that ''war is always the admission of defeat, and is always the worst of solutions.'' ''And hence everything must be done to avoid it,'' he said, adding, ''France and Germany have a judgment on this crisis that is the same.'' Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, appearing with Mr. Chirac at a news conference, said, ''We both want a peaceful solution to the crisis in Iraq, and we will work toward that in close cooperation.'' On Tuesday, Mr. Schröder expressed his most forceful rejection yet of military action. The words took on particular weight, since France and Germany hold the Security Council presidency this month and next. The leaders were speaking at daylong ceremonies in the French capital and at nearby Versailles recalling the signing in 1963 of the Élysée Treaty, which was meant to set the agenda for new stages of European integration. A list of areas in which both countries seek closer cooperation that was published today contained a pledge that they would ''be attentive to adopt common positions in international bodies, including the Security Council.'' On Tuesday, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said France would seek the agreement of other European countries, including Britain, to oppose American pressure for military action before there was a clear signal from the weapons inspectors and agreement by the Security Council. France plans to act at a European Union ministers' meeting Monday and Tuesday that coincides with a report to the Security Council on Monday from the chief weapons inspectors. Mr. de Villepin has refused to rule out the possibility that France, as a permanent member of the Security Council, will use its veto if the United States presses for a United Nations resolution authorizing war. But the statements of unity by Mr. Chirac and Mr. Schröder vividly illustrated the lack of unity among European states. Britain announced on Monday that it was preparing almost 30,000 troops for action in Iraq. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair, appearing to side with Washington, stated that fresh intelligence indicated that the intensified preparations |
1458807_0 | Hands-Free Conversation, With Help From the Car Radio | Cellphones are moving in contradictory directions. Their overall size is getting smaller at the same time that their tiny displays are being asked to do more things, like presenting e-mail messages. Small screens are a particular problem in cars, where they can make it difficult to sort out names in electronic address books. Alpine Electronics and the cellphone maker Nokia have jointly developed a conversion package that enables some car radios to take over the display and control duties of a phone. When a Nokia 6310i GSM phone (which is available in the United States only through AT&T Wireless) is inserted into an Alpine Mobile Hub attached to a compatible Alpine car radio, the radio's display takes over from its tiny telephone counterpart. The system also automatically answers calls and mutes the music during conversations. The car's stereo speakers do double duty as well, becoming the conduit for the phone system. The radio's control can also be used to manipulate various telephone functions -- although for obvious safety reasons, some of them, like composing and reading text messages, can be used only when the car's parking brake is set. Just being able to use the radio to dial the phone, however, provides safety benefits, said Todd Van Zandt, a product manager at Alpine. ''Typically, phones have small keypads that are out of reach in a car,'' he said. The conversion package sells for $300 and is available through car audio and telephone installers. More information is available at www.alpine-usa.com. Ian Austen NEWS WATCH: CELLPHONES |
1460381_0 | Plane Is Evacuated After Blade Is Found | A plane about to leave here for San Francisco was evacuated today after a passenger found a box cutter in the seat pocket in front of her. The passenger, in the first-class cabin on United Airlines Flight 179, found the object around 3:20 p.m., 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to depart from Logan International Airport. The 76 passengers were ordered to gather at the gate, where they went through additional security screening, said George Naccara, the federal security director at Logan. Mr. Naccara said that all the luggage was rescreened and that state troopers with bomb-sniffing dogs were deployed to search the plane. Nothing was found. The flight took off about 6:30 p.m. with all passengers on board. Mr. Naccara said the box cutter was similar to ''one you find in a toolbox, with a blade about an inch and a half long.'' He said he did not know how it got into the cabin but said a member of the catering or maintenance staff might have left it there accidentally. |
1460308_2 | The Neediest Cases; Helping a Disabled Boy Return to Summer Camp | Alternatives for Children, a beneficiary of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. ''For them to call, and they said, 'If you need anything' -- that was so refreshing,'' Ms. Flores-Rose said. New Alternatives is a health and social services agency that helps disabled or chronically ill children and their families. The agency has helped the Futrell twins and their family many times before. Ms. Bradum got her certification to become a foster parent in 1995 through the agency. Under her care, the boys left the New York Foundling Hospital. Ms. Bradum raised, and later adopted, the two boys, along with another brother, Shaquan, 15, and a sister, Shareese, 25, in subsidized housing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, relying on her Social Security and her adoption care subsidy. With the help of the Neediest Cases, Jarrell was able to get that camp experience after all. Ms. Flores-Rose took New Alternatives up on its offer of help, and called Katie Fredricks, a caseworker there. Immediately, Ms. Flores-Rose said, Ms. Fredricks went to work with Jaclyn Ritchie, an agency resource specialist, to identify more options for Jarrell. ''I must have called 15 different camps,'' Ms. Flores-Rose said. ''They were all full.'' Together they found Camp Hope in Carmel, N.Y., a Christian camp for children and adults with developmental and physical disabilities. The next obstacle was the $500 tuition. At the time, Ms. Flores-Rose said, she was not working. The twins' biological mother, who had been unable to meet the twins' numerous medical needs when they were younger, was back in their lives, and had moved in with Ms. Bradum four years ago. But her salary as an ambulette driver was going toward all the bills, Ms. Flores-Rose said. And after Ms. Bradum's death, the adoption subsidy that she was getting -- $3,000 a month -- was stopped. So Ms. Fredricks went to the federation and got the Neediest Cases money for the camp. ''I felt so much better,'' Ms. Flores-Rose said. ''Because of my grandmother passing, I didn't want to take the camp experience away from him.'' If Jarrell had stayed in Brooklyn last summer, he would have gone to summer school. But providing other activities would have placed a huge burden on the family. Transportation is the biggest problem. Access-a-Ride, which helps the disabled, is not always dependable, Ms. Flores-Rose said. |
1459944_1 | U.S. Spy Plane Crashes in South Korean Town, Injuring 5 | minor injuries at an American military hospital and released, said a spokeswoman for the United States Seventh Air Force at nearby Osan Air Base. The cause of the crash was under investigation. South Korean news reports said the plane hit a house and a motor vehicle repair center, setting off an explosion that burned down the buildings while the owner of the garage was on a break. A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said four Koreans were taken to a nearby hospital and treated for injuries that he described as ''not serious.'' The crash came at a time of increasing tensions over North Korea's weapons program, and disputes between the United States and South Korea over how to deal with the North. The United States military command, wary of providing more ammunition for foes of the American troop presence here, promptly expressed sorrow for the accident. Brig. Gen. Mark G. Beesley, vice commander of the Seventh Air Force, visited the injured Koreans, and he promised to spare no efforts in assisting them and ensuring that claims for personal injuries and property damage were processed ''quickly and effectively.'' There was no immediate comment by the South Korean government, but television networks showed graphics with maps and dates of two previous U-2 crashes, one in 1984 in the same general region near Osan, headquarters of the United States Seventh Air Force. The second crash was in the sea off South Korea's east coast in 1992. The Air Force did not divulge what the plane's mission was at the time of the crash but said U-2's in general provided ''continuous day-and-night high altitude all-weather surveillance and reconnaissance'' on behalf of the 37,000 American troops in South Korea. Such planes are not believed to be flying over North Korea but instead are restricted to flights on the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone between the two countries and just off North Korea's coastlines. North Korea has frequently protested the flights, which are believed to have been a source of some of the detailed information the United States acquired on its nuclear weapons program before James A. Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, confronted North Korean officials with what he knew in early October. That conversation led to North Korea's acknowledgment that it indeed had a program for developing nuclear warheads with enriched uranium. THREATS AND RESPONSES: KOREAN PENINSULA |
1459913_1 | Point Man In Europe Assesses Intel Outlook | business market throughout Europe. And there are very large Fortune 500 corporations. So it's a well-balanced market. The consumer market was quite active last year in terms of investing in new clients. Small and medium business is also quite active, and we are seeing initiatives from them to get more and more connected to their customers. Q. How is this affecting Intel's growth? A. We had strong growth of notebooks and servers, and this is what drove a lot of our growth in Europe in the second half. Notebooks are growing because people want to become more and more mobile. They want to have their office with them wherever they go. Q. Is there evidence of growth from this convergence? A. What is really new with mobile notebooks is that they are now coming equipped with communications. We will launch in March the Centrino mobile technology for notebook computers -- this is going to be a major breakthrough from a user model standpoint. We will have hundreds of wireless hot spots throughout Europe -- and it's going to be thousands throughout the world -- which means that whenever you want, you're going to be able to connect to the Internet and see your mail, send mail, whatever you want to do in terms of communications. You're going to have 802.11 function in your notebook. Q. What specific issues affect Intel's approach in Europe? A. The big difference between Europe and any other continent has been this incredible investment in radio spectrum from the European telephone companies. Europe has been leading in wireless for many years. And this big bet on 3G has been taken by the whole European industry, which is different from other geographies, where they have been more cautious. Now I think the challenge and the opportunity is how those telcos are going to keep on investing in 3G but also in new technologies, like 802.11. There is a need for both technologies, but for the Internet, which is driven by notebooks, it is on 802.11 that the telco companies will have to invest to meet the requirements and the demands from users. Q. Europe is seen as a Linux-friendly market, and Linux is making major inroads in the corporate world globally. What are the implications for Intel? A. We are supporting all the operating systems that the customers want. The customers make the choice. In the corporate |
1459954_0 | Cloned Cows Are Engineered To Speed Up Cheese Making | Will great cheese come from genetically engineered cloned cows? Scientists in New Zealand are reporting that they have created such cows, animals that produce milk with higher than normal levels of protein, which would speed the process of making cheese. Cows have previously been genetically engineered to produce proteins for use as pharmaceuticals in their milk. But this is the first time the food properties of the milk have been genetically engineered, according to the journal Nature Biotechnology, which will publish a paper on the work in its February issue. The researchers, led by Götz Laible at AgResearch, a government-owned research company, put extra copies of the genes for two milk proteins -- beta-casein and kappa-casein -- into cow cells in the laboratory. They then created cow embryos from those cells using cloning. Eleven cows were born, and nine produced milk with 8 percent to 20 percent more beta-casein and twice as much kappa-casein as controls. ''It could be a very cool thing, especially if you like pizza,'' said Robert J. Wall, an expert on genetically engineered cattle at the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md. But Dr. Wall, who was not involved in the work, said the Agriculture Department's own surveys had detected mixed reactions on such cows from the dairy industry. ''One year they will say, 'Please increase the protein content in the milk so I can make cheese more efficiently,' '' he said. ''The next year they'll say, 'We have a sort of deficit in butter, so make fat at a high concentration.' '' Cheese made from genetically engineered cows is not expected in groceries any time soon. The Food and Drug Administration has asked that milk or meat from cloned animals not be sold while it develops a policy on such products. But even if products from cloned animals are allowed, a separate review of food from genetically engineered animals would be required. Testing would have to be done to make sure the genetic engineering had not produced any unexpected changes in the milk. |
1459986_2 | NEWS SUMMARY | Coast as thousands marched in an explosion of anger over a peace accord they said France had imposed to the advantage of rebels. A4 Tibetan Monk Appeal Rejected A Chinese court has rejected the appeal of a prominent Tibetan monk whose death sentence for bombing and separatist activities had touched off a world outcry. A4 NATIONAL A16-22 Surveillance Network Takes Aim at Bioterror The government is building a computerized network that will monitor the health of people in eight big cities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to lead the multimillion dollar effort, which will try to spot disease outbreaks by tracking doctor reports, emergency-room visits and sales of flu medicines. A1 Arizona Cities Feel Drought A persistent drought in rural Arizona and large parts of most other Western states is bearing down on Phoenix and Tucson. The cities are facing difficult decisions on water use as the state confronts the drought's long-term effects. A16 Coverage for Small Business President Bush is planning a new initiative to help small businesses obtain health insurance. The proposal faces opposition from consumer groups and governors because the insurance would be largely exempt from state regulation. A21 Divisive Budget Measure Lawmakers from both parties are predicting that many of the provisions the Senate inserted into its spending bill will be altered or stricken entirely because House Republicans are vowing to adhere closely to the $389.5 billion spending cap requested by President Bush. A21 Democrats Turn to Governor Gov. Gary Locke of Washington will become one of few governors ever chosen to give the nationally televised response to the State of the Union address. A16 Gates Pledges $200 Million The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $200 million to identify critical questions about the leading causes of death in developing nations and to create a competition to entice scientists to solve them. A16 Protest Against a Bishop More than 200 people demonstrated outside St. Joseph's Cathedral in Manchester, N.H., to call for the resignation of Bishop John B. McCormack. A21 Clean-Up Duty in Pacific The Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned about the responsibility of caring for Johnston Atoll in the Pacific and the potential liability from the radioactive dump there. A20 EDUCATION More Privacy for Students Colleges across the country have been competing with off-campus housing in a high-priced competition for students who are concerned with residential amenities. The colleges are |
1456753_4 | Swiss Has Peak to Scale, but It's Not an Alp | the bigger picture.'' While Ellison has been demoted to the passenger seat aboard his USA-76, Bertarelli has an active role on Alinghi as the team's navigator. He has sailed since childhood and has won several world championships, but he is perhaps best known for a spectacular crash aboard a 40-foot trimaran in the Bol d'Or race in 1994 in Lake Geneva. On the final leg of that race, the boat flipped over, sending the crew flying; the capsized craft was blown across the line and Bertarelli's team finished third. Things on Alinghi have gone more smoothly. The team has lost only 2 of 24 races so far and swept Oracle, 4-0, in the semifinals. Bertarelli's job on board is to call the distance to the starting line and to chart an efficient course to the marks. That task became trickier two weeks ago when the race jury ruled that teams could no longer use laser range-finders. Now Bertarelli has to judge the angles the old-fashioned way, with a hand-bearing compass. Early on, he hedged his bet by training to be a grinder if he could not cut it as navigator. Though he has made mistakes -- once when his instruments were faulty and once when he misjudged the distance to a lay line -- he has kept his job. ''I've messed up and I've been told off,'' he said. ''As it's happened, we've been successful as much when I'm on board as when I'm not.'' Though it certainly helps to have two of the world's best sailors in Coutts and Butterworth double-checking Bertarelli's work, Cup watchers say he has been holding his own. ''He's certainly right in the game,'' said Ed Baird, an America's Cup veteran who does commentary on the races. ''It's very helpful when the navigator is an accomplished skipper, and Ernesto is an accomplished skipper.'' With Coutts and Butterworth on board, no one doubted that Alinghi's crew work would be solid, but the design team was an early question mark. Now Bertarelli said, ''We've basically been winning races because of our boat speed.'' Indeed, Alinghi's strength on the water is behind much of the local resentment. Though most of the ill will has been directed at Coutts, Bertarelli has been involved as well. He closed his account at ASB Bank when the company unfurled a Team New Zealand banner on its downtown Auckland office tower. ''What I |
1456612_6 | Getting Onto the Internet at 30,000 Feet or So | can be upgraded as demand increases, executives say. Neither Tenzing nor Boeing intend to offer Internet or e-mail access on flights lasting less than two to three hours because passengers on short hops probably would not pay for the services, executives say. Tenzing has developed two products: a simple text messaging system and a more involved e-mail service. Virgin is equipping its fleet with the former, while Cathay Pacific has been testing the latter for about a year. It has signed on to outfit its entire long-range fleet with the technology. Wendy Buck, a spokeswoman for Virgin, said the messaging system was preferable to Connexion because it allowed passengers without a laptop to send and, starting in March, receive text. As for the e-mail service, Cathay Pacific and Tenzing will not charge passengers for another four months or so, even though they will offer the product on many of Cathay's upper-class cabins starting this month, said Eric Frederickson, Tenzing's marketing director. Passengers will connect their laptops to a port on the seat and install software that allows them to choose one of two types of e-mail access. From their pre-existing e-mail accounts, they can download message titles that come with a few lines of text, similar to abstracts; or they can download just the titles and choose, at an extra cost per message, which ones to open. Passengers will probably end up paying $10 to $20 a flight, said Alan McGinnis, chief executive of Tenzing. There are limits on the kinds of e-mail accounts that passengers can use. Right now, only passengers with Pop 3 and Exchange 5.5 accounts can use the service. Companies like Yahoo and America Online have yet to make deals with Tenzing, although Mr. McGinnis said talks with such companies were continuing. In the end, though, the fate of these projects will depend entirely on the fickle desires of business travelers. Take this traveler, whose behavior in the post-Sept. 11 era would no doubt cause executives at Boeing, Airbus and Tenzing to wince: ''I'm one of those who because of the security hassles have gone completely light and have abandoned my laptop,'' said Leonard S. Glickman, chief executive of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and a frequent trans-Atlantic flier. ''I rarely bother taking my laptop with me. With the combination of security hassles and increased enforcement of carry-on bags, I travel as light as possible now.'' |
1456669_0 | Study Faults U.S. on Assessing Altered Fish | A new study maintains that the government is poorly structured to assess possible environmental hazards posed by genetically modified fish. The study, being issued today by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonprofit group, comes as the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to approve a salmon genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as regular salmon. The study notes that oversight of the fledgling field is left largely to the F.D.A., which regulates such fish under the rules covering drugs for animals. But the study says that those rules may not allow the agency to consider fully the environmental risks of such fish and that even if it can, it lacks the expertise. ''Regulators will increasingly have to stretch their authority to make old laws and regulations address the evolving next wave of products,'' Michael Rodemeyer, executive director of the Pew Initiative, said in a statement. ''We seem to be treading in uncharted legal waters.'' While some genetically engineered fish are being grown experimentally, none have been approved for use as food. But the F.D.A. is considering an application from Aqua Bounty Farms, a company in Waltham, Mass., for the fast-growing salmon. The Pew Initiative, based in Washington and backed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, says it is not against genetic engineering but wants to promote public discussion about biotechnology and its regulation. Indeed, the report said there could be benefits from genetically engineered fish. Faster-growing fish could make fish farming more productive. Efforts are also under way to get fish to produce human drugs like a blood clotting factor, to make fish disease-resistant and to make shellfish that will not provoke allergic reactions. But there could also be hazards, the report notes. Some studies suggest that if the engineered fish escape from pens they could out-compete wild fish for mates or food, endangering wild populations. Another question is whether the genetic engineering affects the rate at which a fish accumulates toxins like mercury from the environment. The report, based on a review of legal and scientific literature and interviews with experts, says the F.D.A.'s effort to regulate genetically modified fish as drugs might not withstand a legal challenge. Yet another problem with the arrangement, it said, is that drug applications are kept confidential, denying the public a chance to comment. Such secrecy, the report said, could undermine public confidence in the regulatory system. Many of |
1454396_1 | ECONOMIC PULSE: The West; California Ups and Downs Ripple in the West | east of Los Angeles, is faring relatively well, with unemployment below the national average, personal income growth outpacing the nation and military contractors riding a wave of Pentagon and domestic security spending. The film industry set box-office records last year, and consumers took advantage of low interest rates to invest in new homes and automobiles. But the San Francisco Bay Area remains mired in a technology slump, with skilled and formerly wealthy workers fleeing to find jobs elsewhere and analysts worried that it could be years before the next new thing revitalizes Silicon Valley. ''It's like two separate countries,'' said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist for Wells Fargo bank. ''For the time being,'' he said, ''California will lag the U.S. economy, primarily because it's being dragged down by the Bay Area.'' Viewed as a whole, California, which accounts for roughly one-seventh of the nation's total output, reflects the wobbly national economic picture. Employers are investing little and hiring less, waiting for the promised recovery that always seems to be six months away. Consumers, who propped up the economy through much of last year, are cooling off their credit cards. And the state's government, facing a $35 billion budget hole, is preparing to lay off thousands of workers, drastically cut spending and raise taxes. As a result, Californians' fabled optimism has taken a sharp blow. In early 2001, before the technology crash and the terrorist attacks, 70 percent of California residents said the state was enjoying good economic times. Eighteen months later, that view had turned upside down, with just 20 percent of Californians describing the state as prospering, according to a survey last fall by the Field Institute. Ring of Gold The brightest spot in the state economy is the ring of fast-growing counties around Los Angeles where Mr. Pineda lives -- San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and San Diego. Unemployment in these counties ranges from 4 to 5.5 percent, kept low by an expansion in retail and business services, along with the growth of biotechnology companies and a burst of spending on Pentagon research and development. The statewide unemployment rate is 6.4 percent. But in Silicon Valley the news is bleak. The technology industries in the Bay Area continue to shed jobs, with employment falling by 87,000 people last year. An estimated 40,000 people have left Silicon Valley in the past year in search of work elsewhere. Unemployment in precincts |
1454333_0 | At the Airport: Carry-ons Only | To the Editor: Has it not occurred to anyone (''Peering Into a Billion Bags,'' editorial, Dec. 31) that eliminating the possibility of passenger-air explosions from bomb-laden checked luggage is as simple as eliminating checked luggage? Carry-on bags will suffice for any traveler, who needs only to wait 24 hours for an overnight service to deliver his bags to their destination. Thus, we eliminate the problem, eliminate the wait, eliminate the venue for terrorists and get on with our flying. No billions -- in bags examined or dollars spent -- needed! HOWARD REED New Milford, Conn., Jan. 1, 2003 |
1454419_2 | A Sturdy Survivor Gets Back to Work; Herculean Effort to Restore A Landmark Battered on 9/11 | has not been affected by the fight with the union, although if picket lines materialize during contract negotiations next August, some construction workers may not cross. The repopulation of 140 West Street with some office workers is now scheduled to begin at the end of 2003, but the rebuilding could continue for years. So far, $70 million has been spent to stabilize the building, and the restoration is expected to cost at least $140 million more, only part of the $1.4 billion that Verizon is spending downtown to restore equipment and cables. Since the day the building opened in 1926, it has been a beehive of both administrative and technical activity, and its design was considerably more than functional: it was intended to establish a presence, given the building's role as administrative headquarters and central office. Nevertheless, according to George Famulare, Verizon's manager of corporate real estate, ''the building is a tank.'' Built with reinforced concrete and steel, its floors can hold 250 to 300 pounds per square foot, constructed to support the giant electromechanical switching assemblies that were replaced long ago by electronic alternatives. If that sturdiness accounted for its survival, the subsequent efforts to protect and restore 140 West Street have been nothing short of Homeric. Verizon lost two of its technicians, who were working above the crash zones, in the World Trade Center attack. None died in the Verizon Building. Mr. Famulare supervised the evacuation after seeing people jumping from the towers. He found himself trapped under his desk after the ceiling fell during the collapse of the south tower. Eventually he escaped through the cloud of ash and dust looking like ''a white powdered doughnut,'' he recalls. Then he stayed to shut down crucial equipment. During the collapses, steel projectiles from the towers hit the Verizon building, sliced the mains and left water cascading into the building's five subbasements, filling the lowermost vaults like a swimming pool. A javelin of steel actually speared through the sidewalk concrete and lodged in the basement. The building's fuel oil tanks were submerged in water, then burst. Up in the topmost subbasement, a pool of shin-deep water made unusable the miles of snaking phone cables (black for copper, orange for fiber optics) in the 250-foot-long, 60-foot-wide cable vault. At 10:21 p.m., the building's backup batteries ran out of power and the last call went through the switching equipment. Below, Subbasement |
1453154_3 | A Piece Here, a Piece There: An Ancient Temple Is Rebuilt | cushion the construction, each block must be returned to nestle precisely among those beside, above and below it. ''One place for one block, one block for one place,'' Mr. Royère said. ''That's the rule.'' Like any jigsaw puzzle, there is no forcing a piece into a place that is almost right, but not quite. ''You'll laugh, but if you are off by ten millimeters here, 20 meters farther along, everything is wrong,'' Mr. Royère said. ''It happens regularly, but when it happens you know right away. That's the difficulty and also the insurance against mistakes. The monument corrects itself.'' Apart from the temple's own dynamic, the restorers had three things to guide them. Jacques Dumarcay, the French architect who had worked on the Baphuon project in the 1960's, had since retired but was able to offer some institutional memory. The second guide was a cache in Paris of almost 1,000 photographs the French had taken of the temple over the years. Their chief value was to show which sections had already collapsed before the temple was dismantled, saving the workers from fruitless searches for missing stones. Third was the remaining half of Baphuon, which was to be dismantled after the first half was rebuilt. By studying this second half, Mr. Royère's team created stylized drawings of the carved profiles of the blocks in each row of each tier of the temple. Early on, an attempt was made to computerize these shapes and create a reconstruction model. But given the eroded shapes of the stones, the computer's generalized solutions were of little use. ''So we looked for a more simple solution, which was the man-made solution,'' he said. In other words, memorization. There are about 500 different shapes, Mr. Royère said, but by now nobody needs to refer to the drawings. Each team knows just what shapes it is looking for. ''We have people who walk around all day,'' he said. About 70 percent of the blocks have now been identified, and Mr. Royère said he was confident that none were missing. At times, as with any puzzle, some small sections are fitted together on their own, and the woods are dotted with what look like mini-temples awaiting their moment to be put in place. ''This is not a high-tech project,'' Mr. Royère said. ''It's just a question of paying attention to what you do, and don't sleep.'' Siem Reap Journal |
1457367_5 | A Fishing Boat Falls Prey to Mutiny? Pirates? | before Coastwatch spotted it. The tear-off calendar hanging in the wheelhouse still has the Jan. 3 page on it; earlier pages had been torn off. On Jan. 9, while heading into port at Broome, an Australian Navy ship, the Stuart, came upon the drifting ship and boarded it. The investigation began. The first assumption was that the boat had belonged to people smugglers. But for many reasons that has been discounted, officials said. Mutiny comes to mind. Indonesian crews have been known to turn on their Chinese captains, said Mr. Kennedy, who now has custody of the boat. But there was no blood on the boat, and no other evidence of a struggle, he said. Besides, if there had been a mutiny, the Indonesian crew would have stripped the boat of everything valuable, Mr. Kennedy said. ''I've been around Indonesian crews for 15 years,'' he said. ''I know they would not have left anything.'' But highly valuable equipment is still aboard on the High Aim, including an echo sounder for locating fish, radar gear and a Global Positioning System. The only thing that was missing was the high-frequency radio. This suggests that someone did not want the crew to radio for help. That suggests pirates. Piracy is notorious in the waters between Indonesia and Australia, and with their AK-47 rifles, pirates have even seized huge commercial tankers. But pirates would have taken the boat and the valuable tuna, Mr. Kennedy said. Perhaps, he said, the pirates were interrupted in their mission. But then where did they and the crew go? A life raft is missing from the boat -- maybe. No life raft was found on the High Aim, Mr. Kennedy said, but then, owners always say they have life rafts but do not necessarily provide them. If the crew did flee in the life raft, where are they? The weather at sea has been calm for the last two weeks, so they should have been found or reached safety. ''We wait with bated breath,'' said Mr. McCoy, the customs agent. Correction: January 23, 2003, Thursday A picture caption on Saturday with an article about a fishing boat that had apparently been abandoned suddenly off northwestern Australia referred incorrectly to a craft shown with Craig Kennedy, who now has custody of the derelict ship, and his son. That boat, in the background, was unidentified; it was not the mysterious ship. |
1455840_0 | A Year of Originality, If Not Much Else | Judging from the stock market and their balance sheets, many companies may want to forget 2002. But it was a memorable year for product innovation. The Marketing Intelligence Service in Naples, N.Y., which tracks new products worldwide (www.productscan.com), said 31,785 food, beverage, health, beauty, household and pet products were introduced in 2002 -- just 0.7 percent fewer than the record of 32,025, set in 2001. But the company said that more of the 2002 products were truly original. It said that nearly 9 percent of them earned its innovation rating, meaning that they offered ''breakthrough features or benefits'' in areas like packaging, technology and merchandising. That was the highest percentage since 1989, when 13 percent were deemed innovative. Following are a few of last year's standouts, according to Marketing Intelligence. * Benylin DM Medicated Dry Cough Freezer Pops for Children. In orange and grape flavors, the pops are intended to relieve coughing and soothe the throat. * Reynolds Wrap Release Nonstick Aluminum Foil. One side of the foil has a nonstick surface so that foods slide off. * Baby Start FertilMarq Infertility Test for Men. From Lake Consumer Products of Vernon Hills, Ill., this at-home test sells for $39.99, lower than the cost of tests in hospitals and doctors' offices. * Country Harvest's Better Half Bread. This sliced bread, from Weston Bakeries in Toronto, is two loaves in one -- white and wheat. A zipper at one end and a plastic clip at the other offer easy access to both. * Scentco Paint Pourri Scented Paint Additive. When added to paint, it gives off a time-released fragrance for up to a year after application. Scents include vanilla and wildflower. Vivian Marino BUSINESS: DIARY |
1455699_2 | Australia Steps Up Security After Bali | checked again. A second tier of newly placed uniformed immigration officers makes random passport checks at the baggage carousels. These new officers were highly visible on a recent visit. As passengers from several overseas flights waited for their baggage, the officers focused on non-Caucasian travelers, inspected their passports again and asked questions about the purpose of their stay in Australia. The government has also required tougher baggage screening at all of Australia's 37 major airports. The new machinery for this must be installed by December 2004, although some airport officials have complained that the baggage machinery is too costly. To pay for it, air fares would rise, the officials said. Even smaller airports, like the one at Canberra, have upgraded security, airport officials said. Dogs now patrol the terminal, and stricter rules about dropping passengers in front of the terminal have been introduced. Also in the wake of the Bali attack, the government has introduced more visible protection to well-known buildings -- the Parliament in Canberra, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in Sydney -- including uniformed patrols with dogs. Several managers at Australian hotels and resorts said they were paying extra attention to security, but they echoed Shaun Campbell, the director of marketing for Hyatt hotels in Australia, in pointing out that Australia is not considered a flash point of terrorism and that he was unwilling to turn his hotel into an armed camp. Unlike some resorts in Asia, where armed guards have become de rigueur, the atmosphere here is more relaxed. ''Americans and Europeans still see Australia as a safer destination,'' Mr. Campbell said. He added that he had detected little nervousness among guests, in part because those still traveling in Asia are the ''more resilient'' guests. So far, the impact of terrorism on travel to Australia has not been extreme. From July 2001 to June 2002, 4.8 million international visitors traveled to Australia, compared with 5.1 million during the same period the previous year -- which includes an increase in arrivals due to the Sydney Olympic Games -- and 4.7 million visitors the year before that. But in a report issued in early December, the government trimmed its estimate of arrivals in 2012 by 20 percent to 8.1 million. Among the reasons cited for the lowered forecast: fewer flights to Australia, an uncertain global economy and the continued threat of international terrorism. TRAVEL ADVISORY: CORRESPONDENT'S REPORT |
1455947_0 | Rewards of Moonlighting | To the Editor: Re ''Making a Career Leap, Sore Muscles and All'' (Book Value, Dec. 22), in which William J. Holstein reviewed new books about how professionals can reinvent themselves for new careers: Having been forced into early retirement at 55 during the recession of 1991-92, I know the benefits of a dual career, more commonly referred to as moonlighting, during one's prime working years. At a time when my M.B.A. and strong work ethic did not seem to be moving me forward in my corporate career, I was offered an opportunity to teach college evening and weekend courses in the late 1970's. By the time of my early retirement, I had over 10 years of teaching experience, which gave me strong credentials for a full-time teaching position. This career switch was rewarded with only about 50 percent of my previous corporate salary, but the freedom from a hierarchical, politicized atmosphere, the freedom to think creatively and, plainly, more free time, were well worth it. Today, at 65, I am semiretired and continue to teach as an adjunct professor at several colleges and universities. While I hope that my students benefit from my experience and knowledge, I am fortunate to have the opportunity to gain intellectually from their fresh minds. RICHARD RISINIT Deep River, Conn., Dec. 24 |
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1456036_0 | January 5-11: NATIONAL; NEW LABELS FOR ESTROGEN | The Food and Drug Administration announced that all estrogen drugs and drugs combining estrogen and progestin that are used to relieve symptoms of menopause must warn, in a black-rimmed box, of their health risks. A large federal study indicated that one drug, Prempro, increases the chance a woman will develop heart disease, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer. But the agency said that unless other drugs are proved to be safer, doctors and women must assume that they carry the same risks. Gina Kolata |
1455884_0 | Breast Cancer Data | To the Editor: ''Abortion and Breast Cancer'' (editorial, Jan. 6) questioned the motivation behind reassessment of a fact sheet on the National Cancer Institute Web site. Our ''true views'' will always be the views provided by the factual scientific data. Available data on this subject are not consistent. The current statement acknowledges conflicting data and announces that the N.C.I. will convene a meeting of independent experts to review the science associated with hormonal changes during a woman's reproductive years, identify gaps in our knowledge and make recommendations for further research. A broad range of scientific perspectives will be represented and all of the evidence will be reviewed to provide the basis for an updated fact sheet. Breast cancer is an important public health concern for women and their families, and we are determined to provide information as rapidly and clearly as possible. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH, M.D. Director, National Cancer Institute Bethesda, Md., Jan. 8, 2003 |
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1458041_0 | New Economy; Getting your résumé to the top of the electronic pile can be a matter of paying an extra fee. But does it translate into better results? | JUST as it is often difficult for people to find what they are looking for on the Internet, it is frequently a challenge for the people themselves to be found when they want to be. For businesses dealing with this issue, Internet companies have long capitalized on the frustration by selling merchants the opportunity to increase their visibility among pages of search results. Now job seekers and other individuals are being offered similar ways to raise their Web profiles -- for a fee. At least two online career services, for example, now offer job candidates some sort of listing enhancement. The Careerbuilder.com site has a ''résumé upgrade'' service that lets users pay to have their résumés appear near or at the top of the list when an employer conducts a search. On Monster.com, meanwhile, candidates must leave the ranking to the luck of the search software but can pay for a premium service that includes, among other features, the promise that their résumés will appear in bold text amid the plain-text search results. Other examples of these hey-look-me-over features include options for individuals who are selling things on the Web -- as on eBay, where sellers can choose from a menu of paid ''listing upgrade'' services to give their wares more prominent placement. While some Web site operators oppose the idea of letting people buy their way to the top because it may seem to reduce the validity of search results, others see it as a way to let serious users distinguish themselves from the pack. Careerbuilder.com, operated from Chicago, collects $20 to $150 apiece from job seekers who pay for the résumé upgrade option, which moves their listings toward the top of the search heap. ''Obviously, the more you pay, the more on top you are,'' said Dawn Haden, Careerbuilder's vice president for human resources. The fee is good for 30 days and functions somewhat like a bid. If one candidate has paid $40 and no one else in the results listings has paid more, then the top slot goes to the $40 bidder. In the results list, the upgraded résumés appear with a faintly shaded background and an orange check mark -- a distinction employers may or may not bother to decipher by reading the key at the bottom of the page. So does preferred placement translate into better results? In some sense, it does. Careerbuilder has offered |
1458110_1 | Russia Helped U.S. On Nuclear Spying Inside North Korea | the Russians for help also demonstrates how the United States has been forced to rely on assistance from other nations to collect information from inside North Korea, one of the most closed societies in the world. Current and former American officials say the fact that the United States does not have an embassy in North Korea has made it difficult for C.I.A. officers to obtain direct access to the country. Overseas C.I.A. stations are usually inside American embassies, and undercover C.I.A. officers typically have diplomatic immunity and pose as employees of the State Department or other government agencies. As a result, the agency faces major hurdles in gathering intelligence in countries where the United States does not have permanent diplomatic representation. ''It is a very tough country to get data from,'' said one person familiar with American intelligence operations concerning North Korea. ''We have tried every which way we can to get information.'' The C.I.A. turned to its former adversaries in Russian intelligence for assistance to take advantage of Moscow's longstanding relationship with the North Korean government. The Soviet Union supported North Korea during the Korean War in the early 1950's and throughout the remainder of the cold war, until the Soviet collapse in 1991. North Korean nuclear scientists are believed to have received training in the Soviet Union. More recently, Russia has tried once again to improve its ties to North Korea, at least in part to enhance its economic links to South Korea and the larger Pacific marketplace. Russia has also been trying to play an important diplomatic role in the current standoff between North Korea and the United States over the North's nuclear weapons program, which is no longer controlled by an agreement that suspended nuclear work, provided aid to North Korea and allowed international inspections. Over the weekend, in fact, a top Russian diplomat met with North Korean officials to propose a new plan to resolve the crisis. The secret agreement between the C.I.A. and Russian intelligence came sometime in the early 1990's, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and at about the same time that the North Korean nuclear weapons program first emerged as a major international issue. The joint operation represented a major test of efforts by the C.I.A. and S.V.R. to forge a new relationship in the post-cold-war period. Even though the C.I.A. had asked for the help, it did not completely |
1455283_0 | U.S. Threatens to Act Against Europeans Over Modified Foods | The Bush administration's top trade official announced today that he was weighing whether to approach the World Trade Organization with a case against the European Union for its ban on genetically modified food, asserting that the ''Luddite'' and ''immoral'' European position was leading to starvation in the developing world. The official, Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, said that when famine-threatened African nations refused American genetically modified food last year, they were acting under the influence of the European position. ''The European antiscientific policies are spreading to other corners of the world,'' Mr. Zoellick told reporters, adding that African leaders seeking to avoid ''the food that you and I eat'' were letting their people starve. ''I think that is a rather serious development,'' Mr. Zoellick said, in the strongest statement yet made on the subject by an administration official. ''I find it immoral that people are not being able to be supplied food to live in Africa because people have invented dangers about biotechnology. That puts it rather high on my scale to deal with.'' European officials rejected Mr. Zoellick's assertions, saying they had never encouraged African nations to reject aid. Moreover, Pascal Lamy, the European Commission's chief trade negotiator, said today that if Mr. Zoellick did approach the trade organization with such a case, it would only complicate Europe's plan for lifting its ban against the foods, which is expected to occur in the spring. When that happens, products tested and deemed safe will be allowed into European markets -- with labels identifying them as genetically modified. The United States does not require such labeling. Tony Van der haegen, the expert for food safety at the European Union delegation in Washington, noted that ''in a democracy you have to take into account fears of the people, and the people in many European countries are concerned about genetically modified food.'' European consumers have for years questioned the safety of genetically modified foods. Many object to what they consider aggressive American promotion of those foods, which is seen as influenced by American agribusiness. British newspapers have coined the term ''Frankenfoods,'' reflecting the deep suspicion of crops like corn and soybeans, when genetically modified to increase productivity and improve resistance to disease. Such modifications, many fear, may have unintended consequences for human health. American consumers, though already exposed to modified foods, have expressed uncertainties about them; several state legislatures have |
1460142_2 | F.A.A. Reviews Rules on Passenger Weight After Crash | Gilligan, director of flight standards at the agency, said that she expected people to fib about their weight, but that ''they usually lie in the single digits.'' But officials said passengers generally do not consider the weight of their clothing and shoes. The airlines will also be weighing bags to verify that assumptions about their weight are still correct. The standard allowance is 25 pounds per bag for domestic flights and 30 pounds for international flights. Aviation agency officials said they had been using the 180-pounds-per-person estimate since 1995 and possibly longer. The rule issued today applies to 24 airlines that operate planes with 10 to 19 seats. There are 223 such planes in airline service, made by a number of manufacturers. The planes include the Beech 1900, the DeHavilland Twin Otter and the Embraer Bandeirante. The airlines must ascertain the weight of all passengers and bags on a sampling of their flights, covering 30 percent of their routes. They must pick flights at varying times of day, and on a Sunday, a Monday and a Tuesday. Mr. Cusimano of the aviation agency said that assumptions on weight were now used only for regular passenger service. If a small plane were being used as a charter for a football team or for a group of soldiers with heavy equipment, he said, the airline would have to weigh each bag and ask about the weight of each passenger. Soon after the crash in Charlotte, investigators asked gate agents if there had been any ''large-statured people'' among the passengers, said John Goglia, the safety board member at the scene. Investigators tried to weigh the luggage, which was difficult because some of it had burned. The plane was taking off in clear weather and a light wind for a scheduled 45-minute trip to the Greenville-Spartanburg airport in Greer, 84 miles to the southwest. It nosedived seconds after taking off, slamming into a maintenance hangar and bursting into flames. In another response to the Charlotte crash, the agency also ordered that all airlines flying Beech 1900's complete by Friday new inspections of the tail assembly to ensure that the elevators, the parts that control the nose-up or nose-down attitude, could move as far as they were supposed to. The Beech in the Charlotte crash was serviced a few hours before the crash. Investigators suspect that the cables that run from the cockpit controls back |
1460094_3 | In-Flight Selling of Food Gets High Marks in Test | would if they had known about the option in advance. Others wanted more selections, including cheaper dinner prices, and perhaps a kid's meal. Some said that paying by credit card would be good. One guy just wasn't happy at all, however. ''Serve only cold food! The plane stinks like a lousy diner from the hot meals,'' he scrawled on his form. To my surprise, none of the America West flight attendants I spoke to at airports or on the plane expressed a complaint. ''At first I thought I was going to be embarrassed selling food, but the passengers liked it so much that it was no problem,'' one said. Another was relieved that take-out packaging might be reduced. A women's soccer team recently brought pizzas on a flight, ''and we could barely find a place to stack the empty boxes,'' she said. The for-sale meals fit on the standard food cart, and the dishes and trash can be stowed easily, another said. No one really knows yet whether this idea will actually fly on a wide scale. Northwest will continue its food-sale tests through Feb. 15, on 12 flights a day (out of a total of 1,500), said Kurt Ebenhoch, a spokesman. Northwest's test-menu items, like America West's, are prepared by LSG Sky Chefs, the big airline caterer, which has been aggressively promoting the idea. Caterers have been badly hurt as airlines eliminate meals on many flights. America West executives are evaluating the passenger response and the logistical questions, Ms. Schmidt said. Can the system handle expanded selections, or will the limited menus be enough? Can credit cards be processed on board? Is there a way to let customers buy meal vouchers when they book reservations without making it look like some kind of back-door fare increase? If the airline decides to approve the idea, ''it will probably be a phase-in, with simple items first, 45 days or so forward,'' Ms. Schmidt said. There is no rush, she added. ''The traveling public, particularly the frequent traveler such as the business traveler, realizes right now that airlines need to be focused on core competencies, such as, let's get you there safely, on time, and hopefully with your luggage with you. They're saying, 'Do that; give me value for what I pay for.' Anything else, like food, is a customer-service option.'' ON THE ROAD On the Road appears each Tuesday. E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com. |
1460211_8 | Nuclear Inspection Chief Reports Finding No New Weapons | more closely on follow-up of specific concerns, as we continue to conduct visits to sites and interviews with key Iraqi personnel. We have begun helicopter operations, which increase the inspectors' mobility and their ability to respond rapidly to new information, and allow wide-scale radiation detection surveys. Laboratory analysis of environmental samples is continuing, and we will be reinstalling air samplers for wide-area environmental monitoring. We also will re-introduce surveillance systems with video cameras in key locations to allow near-real-time remote monitoring of dual-use equipment. Need for Information By its very nature, the inspection process, both in Iraq and elsewhere, is not based on trust, but on a thorough process of fact finding, supported by access to all available information. Where applicable, this should include information available to states that may be relevant to the purpose of the inspection. We have begun in the last few weeks to receive more actionable information from states -- that is, information of direct and current value for inspection follow-up. I would continue to call on states that have access to such information to provide it to the inspecting organizations so that the inspection process can be accelerated and additional assurances can be generated. Need for Cooperation Finally, we have urged Iraq once again to increase the degree of its cooperation with the inspection process. In support of the I.A.E.A. inspections to date, the Iraqi authorities have provided access to all facilities visited -- including presidential compounds and private residences -- without conditions and without delay. The Iraqi authorities also have been cooperative in making available additional original documentation, in response to requests by I.A.E.A. inspectors. In our discussions with Iraqi officials last week in Baghdad, we emphasized the need to shift from passive support -- that is, responding as needed to inspectors' requests -- to proactive support -- that is, voluntarily assisting inspectors by providing documentation, people and other evidence that will assist in filling in the remaining gaps in our information. One example of how Iraq could be more proactive was illustrated by the inspection of a private residence just two weeks ago, which resulted in the retrieval of a sizable number of documents, some of which were classified, and related, in part, to Iraq's pre-1991 efforts to use laser technology for enriching uranium. While these documents do not appear to reflect new or current activity related to nuclear weapons in Iraq, they |
1460223_0 | World Briefing | Europe: Vatican: Women's Excommunication Upheld | The Vatican upheld the excommunication of seven women, including an American, who were ''ordained'' in Austria last June. The decree, signed by the Holy See's top doctrinal officer, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said the ''penalty imposed is not only just, but also necessary, in order to protect true doctrine'' and ''safeguard the communion and unity of the church.'' The women had appealed the excommunication but the Vatican ruled they had not sufficiently asked forgiveness and cited efforts to rally support as ''open and divisive disobedience'' toward Pope John Paul II. Jason Horowitz (NYT) |
1460141_4 | College Loans Rise, Swamping Graduates' Dreams | now takes her 70 hours a week worth of tutoring, freelancing and stacking books just to keep them at bay. She has almost no idea how to break into the comic book business, no promising leads, no artistic talent to speak of (or so she says) -- and no appreciable fear of failure or inclination to pursue anything else. Formidable though they may be, her loans will not get in her way. ''Spending all that money and not making the most of my degree is not something I'm going to tolerate,'' said Ms. Brophy, who majored in English, but has loved comics since 13. ''I refuse to waste my degree.'' Connie Chavez, 22, on the other hand, has only about $10,000 in loans, but the mere thought of them rattles her so thoroughly that she has virtually given up on her dream of going to business school, at least for now. Though it pains her to say so, her sole priority is finishing her senior year at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., then finding a job that pays well enough to stamp out her debt. ''I have friends who graduated in May, and they can't find anything in their fields,'' Ms. Chavez said. ''They're working in CVS or Pathmark, waitressing and doing other things that pay so minimally. How are they going to pay back tens of thousands of dollars?'' Statistics suggest that family background plays a big role in determining how students respond to higher debt levels. According to the Nellie Mae survey, 62 percent of low-income borrowers said they regretted taking out so much in loans, compared with about half of those from families that were too well off to qualify for federal grants. Similarly, only 54 percent of low-income students said the debt ultimately paid off in terms of their career goals, while 63 percent of their wealthier counterparts said it did. There are many plausible explanations for the differing perspectives, researchers say. Perhaps low-income students are less able to turn to their parents to help pay off their loans, and so feel the burden more acutely. Maybe they have had less exposure to mortgages, car loans and other types of consumer debt, making their loans seem larger. Whatever the reason, it is the first time in the survey's 15-year history that low-income borrowers have expressed greater worry about their loans than their counterparts, providing a glimpse |
1460072_2 | A Goal for Ground Zero: Finding an Urban Poetry | has shifted shape, first into towers of light and now into towers of air. Memory is their invisible structural core. The exposed metal framework of the two structures evokes the origins of tall building design in engineering works of the 19th century. They suggest that the urban center, too, is changing shape, still in transition from the industrial city of a century ago to today's cultural crossroads. The towers themselves would be integral to this progress. They would help lift New York out of the provincialism that has afflicted its cultural life in recent decades. I agree with those who feel that New York would gain by restoring the totemic image of the twin towers to the skyline, if not in their original form. Think's proposal is the only one of the new designs that would accomplish this. Perhaps for that reason, a nighttime rendering of the project has been the overwhelming preference of foreign newspapers and magazines. Perhaps they are trying to tell us something. Concept, however, not image, drives Think's design. The plan's fundamental strategy is to secure investment in the public realm during the limited period that federal dollars will be available to rebuild Lower Manhattan. The towers themselves would be for noncommercial uses. In the present era of architectural tourism, however, it is reasonable to assume that they would benefit New York's economy. Construction would be phased, starting with the two tower structures, the memorial and new parks. Commercial development would be added around the perimeter of the site as the market demands. But the elevation of the public realm is the design's most emphatic statement. It is a powerful polemic to make at a time when city planning and civic amenities have become increasingly privatized. Making the concept work would be a challenge, especially in an era of heightened concern for building security. New circulation systems would have to be devised to ensure public access and prevent the towers from becoming fortresses. But this is a legitimate challenge for the city to take on at this moment in urban history. And it is a cultural challenge as well as a technical one. Think's design recognizes a need for new forms of social space amid urban density. Let's go up there and see what they might look like, the design proposes. What have we got to lose but our boredom? One of the greatest strengths of |
1458460_1 | Blair Sees Iraq Weakening As France Resists Early War | of the way,'' he said. Mr. Blair did not elaborate on the intelligence indicating that Mr. Hussein's power has been shaken. In Brussels, France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, offered a sharply different assessment of the military buildup, warning against the use of force at a time when the United Nations inspectors were seeking more time to pursue their search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ''We see no justification today for an intervention, since the inspectors are able to do their work,'' he said. ''We could not support unilateral action.'' Mr. de Villepin said France would work with other European countries to forge a united front against American efforts to push for military action before there was a clear signal from the inspectors and agreement by the United Nations Security Council. ''I think that we can together, with the agreement of the four countries'' -- the European members of the Security Council -- ''try to lead Europe in this common position,'' he said, reiterating that France regarded the United Nations weapons inspectors' report, to be presented to the Security Council on Monday, as an interim report and that the inspectors must be given more time to complete their job. France's efforts come as European public opposition to a war appears to be hitting a new peak. Opinion polls in France, Britain and Germany this month show a growing number of people -- 32 percent in Britain, 76 percent in Germany and 77 percent in France -- are against military action even with the blessing of the United Nations. Few Europeans believe that Iraq presents an imminent threat to their security while many fear that military action could bring a terrorist backlash to their shores. The opposition also reflects a deep uneasiness with America's increasingly assertive role as the world's only superpower. Mr. Blair gave his views during a two-and-a-half-hour televised grilling by House of Commons committee heads, many of whom take issue with his hard-line policy on Iraq and his close association with the United States and President Bush. Placard-waving protesters crowded Parliament Square outside, giving raucous voice to the antiwar movement. Mr. Blair told the lawmakers that while getting a new resolution from the United Nations authorizing force was Britain's preference, it was not viewed as necessary. Asked whether he thought that an attack by Al Qaeda on Britain was inevitable, he said, ''I think |
1453517_0 | Biotech Company Says It Has Improved 2 Drugs | By applying an artificially accelerated process of evolution in a test tube, a small biotechnology company has developed what it says are improved versions of two of the biotechnology industry's most successful products -- Remicade for rheumatoid arthritis and Rituxan for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The company, Applied Molecular Evolution, is expected to an nounce today that it hopes to sell the improved drugs. However, clinical trials are not expected to begin until 2004 at the earliest and it will take several years for the drugs to reach the market. Remicade is sold by Centocor, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, and Rituxan by Idec Pharmaceuticals and Genentech. Both products are monoclonal antibodies, designed to bind to a particular target in the body. Both had sales estimated at more than $1 billion in 2002. Applied Molecular, which is based in San Diego, is one of several companies specializing in directed molecular evolution, which tries to accelerate evolution from a natural process taking millions of years to an artificial one taking months. This involves taking a gene or protein and quickly making many mutations in a laboratory in hopes of producing a molecule that is better at a particular task than the original. The mutated products can then be further mutated in the hope of getting even better results. The company said that in laboratory and animal tests, its versions of the two antibodies it created appear to be about 10 times better at binding to their targets and in medical efficacy. Until now, Applied Molecular has been using its technology to improve antibody drugs made by other companies, like MedImmune. But it hopes to develop the arthritis and lymphoma drugs on its own. Shares of Applied Molecular rose 18 cents yesterday, or nearly 9 percent, to $2.23. Many biotechnology drugs face limited competition either because of patent protection or regulations prohibiting the easy introduction of generic versions of proteins and monoclonal antibodies. But many companies are now trying to figure out how to get around those obstacles to either introduce generic versions or improved ones. William D. Huse, chief executive of Applied Molecular, said he did not think the company's antibodies would infringe patents held by Centocor or Idec. A spokesman for Centocor said the Applied Molecular product was so far from the market that it would be meaningless to comment. Idec did not immediately comment. By the time Applied Molecular reaches |
1453495_3 | U.S. Trying to Save Washington Forest by Cutting It Down | would have on fish and wildlife. The administration plan would suspend these reports in some cases, and would streamline them in others. Critics of the plan say President Bush is using fire prevention as a way to resume large-scale logging and get around environmental laws. ''It all looks like arcane regulation, but what it adds up to is maximum discretion with minimum public accountability,'' said Jay Watson, a West Coast official with the Wilderness Society. ''This administration believes the pendulum has swung too far for conservation. But they are fighting majority sentiment trying to go back the other way.'' Mr. Watson pointed to a Forest Service survey of 7,069 people, published in September, which showed majority support for wilderness, and little support for logging and snowmobile access to public land, which the administration also favors. Some Fish and Wildlife Service biologists here are concerned that the thinning plan might strip the valley of some of its remaining tree cover. ''I told them I don't see any need here to take out trees close to the river, which is great wildlife habitat,'' said Julie Collins, a federal biologist. But federal officials say they plan to take out only small trees, and will do so judiciously. The intent is to prevent more fire in a sliver of land surrounded by high mountain walls. ''You've got slopes in there that are just steeper than a cow's face,'' said Pam Ensley, a regional fire director with Fish and Wildlife. ''By streamlining the environmental assessment process, we can do this fire prevention work more quickly.'' Ms. Bullitt, whose family is a major contributor to environmental causes, says she doubts the government is interested only in fire prevention. ''They want to get a little foot in the door, and then go much bigger,'' Ms. Bullitt said. Leavenworth used to be a railroad and logging town, then went nearly bust before resurrecting itself as a year-round tourist center. Signs are printed in German and English, a testament to the old country visitors who want to see what the new country knockoff looks like. The hatchery dates to 1939, when completion of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River blocked off 1,200 miles of spawning habitat for one of the world's great salmon runs. To make up for the lost fish, the government created a series of hatcheries on the eastern slope of the Cascades. The idea was |
1455052_3 | NEWS SUMMARY | estrogen and progestin for menopausal women must include a warning about possible side effects. A18 NEW YORK/REGION B1-7 Pataki Talks of Sacrafice But Vows No Tax Increase Saying the state must continue to foster economic growth, Gov. George E. Pataki said that he opposed raising taxes or postponing planned tax cuts. He also suggested that deep reductions in core state services would be needed to close the state's budget gap. A1 Possible Police Layoffs Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said he might have to order the first layoffs of police officers in nearly three decades to achieve the additional budget cuts being sought by the Bloomberg administration. B1 Judge Admonishes Giuliani In testimony for a civil trial, Rudolph W. Giuliani said that as New York City mayor, he immediately called for the firing of a police officer and two firefighters for their participation in a racist 1998 Labor Day parade float because he feared civil unrest. But the judge in the case questioned the appropriateness of the mayor's quick condemnations. B2 Neediest Cases B6 CIRCUITS G1-8 HOUSE & HOME F1-14 ARTS E1-12 Frick Director Steps Down After running the Frick Collection, located on East 70th Street in Manhattan, for six years, Samuel Sachs II announced that he would be stepping down as director in September. E1 SPORTS D1-7 OBITUARIES B8 Sarah McClendon A White House reporter who covered and often infuriated presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was 92. B8 BUSINESS DAY C1-12 Expanding the Nafta Concept The White House began talks aimed at reaching a free trade pact with five Central American nations within a year, a huge leap toward its goal of a Nafta-like zone throughout the Western Hemisphere. C1 New Sentencing Guidelines The United States Sentencing Commission approved a plan to lengthen prison sentences for corporate criminals, rebuffing Justice Department officials who said the new guidelines do not go far enough. C1 Bush Lobbies for More Oil The Bush administration, alarmed by a 38-day strike that has crippled Venezuela's petroleum industry and driven up prices, has begun pressing oil exporting countries to increase production of crude oil. C1 Business Digest C1 World Business W1 EDITORIAL A26-27 Editorials: The revenge of Trent Lott; happy talk in Albany; calling North Korea; Francis X. Clines on President Bush's relations with the new Congress. Columns: Bob Herbert, William Safire. Bridge E10 TV Listings E12 Crossword E10 Weather D8 Public Lives B2 |
1455056_0 | QUOTATION OF THE DAY | ''Having a black box on the label is a big deal. It's pretty astounding to go from a year ago thinking this is one of the most benign drugs to a 180-degree turn in the opposite direction.'' Dr. SUSAN HENDRIX, a gynecologist, on the government decision to require warning labels on drugs containing estrogen. [A18] |
1455000_2 | F.D.A. Orders Warning on All Estrogen Labels | said that the company would work with the agency on revising its label. ''We will have to make changes, but we have to determine what those changes will be,'' Ms. Schillace said. But with 10 million women in this country still taking estrogen products, the agency's decision sends a strong message, medical experts said. Putting a black box on a drug's label is a regulatory action, and it is not taken lightly. ''Having a black box on the label is a big deal,'' said Dr. Susan Hendrix, a gynecologist at Wayne State University in Detroit who was an investigator in the federal study. ''It's pretty astounding to go from a year ago thinking this is one of the most benign drugs to a 180-degree turn in the opposite direction.'' Dr. McClellan said that women should consult with their doctors about whether to take estrogen for the symptoms of menopause. But, he said, ''estrogen and progestin should be used at the lowest doses for the shortest time.'' The agency has also revised two of the three indications for the use of estrogen. The drugs were suggested for vaginal dryness and irritation, even if there were no symptoms and the condition was noticed only in a medical exam. Now, the drugs' labels will state that the condition must be moderate to severe and that women should consider using topical products, like vaginal creams. Although estrogen can slow bone loss that occurs with menopause, the new drug labels must state that when the hormone is used only for prevention of osteoporosis, it should be restricted to women who are of the highest risk. Even then, the new labels will say, other osteoporosis drugs that do not contain estrogen should be considered. Estrogen is still recommended to alleviate moderate to severe hot flashes and night sweats. ''These symptoms can be very disruptive and are often only controlled by estrogen,'' Dr. McClellan said. Many medical authorities applauded the drug agency's decision. Dr. Isaac Schiff, a gynecologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that a task force he led for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology had advised doctors not to assume that other estrogen formulations were any safer than Prempro. But, Dr. Schiff said, ''some distinguished people in my discipline, I am embarrassed to say, put out a letter saying the patch is safer.'' Now, he said, it should be harder to make that argument. |
1460917_1 | CUNY Says It Must Raise Tuition but Will Try to Limit Increase | incomes under $30,000. ''There is no doubt that there will have to be some change. I can't predict how high it will be or when we will know. But I want to ensure that students at most risk are protected as much as we can.'' Dr. Goldstein said he would seek ways to save money and find other ways to limit the increase; one possibility is imposing larger tuition increases for some graduate and professional students to offset smaller increases for undergraduates. Undergraduate tuition for state residents is $3,200 at CUNY and $3,400 at SUNY, and has remained at those levels since 1995. Students on many CUNY and SUNY campuses staged protests yesterday over Governor Pataki's proposals this week to raise tuition, cut financial aid and reduce state support for education. At Hunter College, where more than 100 students gathered in protest, many students said that the combination of tuition increases and financial-aid cuts could force them out of school. ''I can barely afford to pay now,'' said Mildred Armstrong, a 19-year-old mathematics major. ''I have no other choices but to fight this. I'm going full time, but will probably take fewer classes. I take 15 credits, and I'll probably have to take just 6.'' Marie Destin, a Hunter junior from the Bronx, said she did not think she would be able to afford CUNY next year. ''I might have to drop a few semesters,'' she said. Despite the grim budget outlook, Dr. Goldstein said he would try to hire more professors and create new programs, including a graduate journalism program specializing in urban studies, a computer simulation laboratory run in collaboration with other research universities on Governors Island, and a School of Professional Studies to run training programs for companies, unions, nonprofit entities and the government. ''The city and state of New York are facing the most serious financial crises in recent memory, Dr. Goldstein said. ''Simply put, there's not enough money to pay for essential services.'' The chancellor, who said he welcomed Governor Pataki's plan to invest $1.2 billion in CUNY building programs, estimated that CUNY might realize another $300 million by selling development rights. Dr. Goldstein also called on the state to introduce tuition indexing, which would link tuition to selected economic indicators so that increases would be more moderate and students could ''make informed decisions in managing their finances to plan for the costs of college.'' |
1460988_0 | When College Breaks the Bank | To the Editor: Re ''College Loans Rise, Swamping Graduates' Dreams'' (front page, Jan. 28): The pursuit of a college degree should be a path to freedom, intellectual and economic. It should not lead to a downward spiral of indebtedness. Rising tuition costs have been extremely burdensome to low- and middle-income students, especially those with aspirations for graduate school and professional careers. Higher education serves many purposes, from fostering individual growth and democratic values to ensuring the existence of a highly skilled work force. It should not be in the business of creating a new class of ''indentured'' workers. Given that so many college classes are taught by adjunct faculty members (who are poorly paid, with few or no benefits), one must wonder why tuition continues to skyrocket to such exorbitant levels. CHRIS STERN Hoboken, N.J., Jan. 29, 2003 |
1460954_3 | Satellites Said to See Activity At North Korean Nuclear Site | experts, to have been carefully chosen, so that Mr. Bush was not taking off the table the threat of a strike on the plant. On the other hand, administration officials have said such a strike may not accomplish much, because North Korea has now admitted to a second nuclear program, involving enriched uranium. ''We don't know where that program is,'' said one senior official. ''So if you hit the plutonium plant, they would just speed up on the uranium program.'' Several American officials said today that there were no indications that the Pentagon was preparing for a pre-emptive strike against the plant, emphasizing that Mr. Bush was still focused on reaching a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. Nonetheless, military and Pentagon officials say Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is immersed in the crisis, even as he oversees the troop buildup in the Persian Gulf. Within the last week, Mr. Rumsfeld has taken part in several videoconferences with commanders in the Pacific, including Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, the commander of American forces in South Korea. Mr. Rumsfeld is meeting with General LaPorte this week, while the general is in Washington for a conference. Mr. Rumsfeld has pressed his top military advisers not only on the options for using force pre-emptively against North Korea, but also on how to ensure that as the United States prepares for a possible war with Iraq, American forces are positioned to deter and, if needed, wage a second conflict on the Korean Peninsula, officials said. Despite American pledges to use diplomacy, North Korea is interpreting American behavior as threatening. Responding today to the State of the Union address, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement, ''This policy speech is, in essence, an undisguised declaration of aggression'' against North Korea. The statement referred to Mr. Bush as a ''shameless charlatan.'' Ever since North Korea ejected the international inspectors and stripped seals and cameras away from its nuclear facilities, American intelligence officials have been searching for signs that the country was preparing to reprocess the fuel rods. North Korea is believed to have produced enough plutonium to make about two nuclear weapons prior to 1994; the current stockpile is enough for five or six more, though it is unclear whether Mr. Kim's scientists have the ability to detonate them. It is unclear whether American intelligence officials will know for certain if North Korea begins reprocessing spent fuel |
1461066_0 | World Briefing | Americas: Cuba: Crackdown On Drug Production | The Cuban government has announced a crackdown on vice, acknowledging that the country not only has a problem with drug use, but also with domestic production. The campaign was announced this week in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, which said that those found guilty of using, selling or growing drugs would lose their homes, among other penalties. The government decree also singled out prostitution and other antisocial offenses. The decree is the first public acknowledgment that some farmers were growing marijuana in the countryside. Although the government has always maintained that domestic drug use is lower than in surrounding islands, it has grown in recent years, at least partly because of Cuba's increased flow of tourists. Similarly, prostitution has flourished in recent years, catering to Europeans and other tourists. David Gonzalez (NYT) |
1453745_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | INTERNATIONAL A3-5 South Korean Leader Drafting a Compromise South Korea's president-elect, Roh Moon Hyun, is preparing a compromise proposal that would require both North Korea and the United States to accept concessions to resolve the standoff over the North's nuclear program, an aide said. A6 U.N.-Israeli Relations Failing The death of Iain Hook, a 54-year-old British supervisor for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency who was shot in the back by an Israeli soldier, has laid bare a breakdown of trust between the Israeli government and the United Nations. A1 Brazil Stops Fighter Purchase Brazil's new government suspended a $760 million purchase of a dozen new jet fighter planes, saying the money could be better used to relieve hunger. A3 European Storms Kill 2 Fierce winds and rain cut a destructive swath across Europe, killing at least two people, flooding parts of Germany and Belgium, and halting traffic on the swollen Rhine River. A5 Tikopians Survive Storm The inhabitants of Tikopia, one of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific battered by a fierce cyclone, survived by fleeing to mountain shelters, a photographer said. The situation on other islands hammered by the cyclone was unclear. A5 Peru Strikes Down Terror Laws Peru's top court struck down some of former President Alberto K. Fujimori's tough antiterror laws, potentially paving the way for top rebel leaders and hundreds of others to be granted retrials. A5 Ivory Coast Agrees to Demands President Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast agreed to French demands to expel foreign mercenaries and stop airstrikes in an effort to resolve the country's four-month conflict. A5 2 Killed in Venezuela At least two people were shot to death and dozens of others were wounded by gunfire in clashes between opponents of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, and pro-government groups, as a peaceful protest deteriorated into a street fight. A3 NATIONAL A7-9 Bush Considering Tax Cut In Range of $600 Billion White House officials said that President Bush could propose as much as $600 billion in tax cuts and new spending measures over the next 10 years, an economic stimulus package nearly twice as big as even Republican lawmakers had been expecting. A1 Qualms About DNA Testing Critics say DNA testing of 800 southern Louisiana men in the search for a serial killer may violate suspects' constitutional protections against self-incrimination and unreasonable search and seizure. A1 Lott in Line to Lead |
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