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1401742_6 | and refused to return to the Soviet Union at the end of the war. As an undergraduate at New York University in the 1940's Mr. Kurtz came under the influence of the philosopher Sidney Hook and pragmatism. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis at Columbia University on value theory, on whether there can be a science of ethics. He is married to Claudine Vial, a retired French teacher. They have four children, including Jonathan, 33, a vice president of Prometheus Books. Mr. Kurtz founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal when he was teaching at Buffalo in the 1970's. He said he had noticed that students were suddenly saying that they believed in astrology, U.F.O.'s and other mystical systems. In 1973 he published ''The Humanist Manifesto II.'' It set forth his philosophy of pragmatic skepticism, which he saw as a continuation of John Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism. Today one of Mr. Kurtz's biggest challenges, in addition to the proliferation of people talking to the dead in movies and on television, is Islam. ''Islam is a great religion, a great culture,'' he said. ''It contributed to the preservation of science in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries.'' But there is a need for a scientific analysis of Islam's claims, such as the belief of some Muslims that religious martyrs are greeted by 72 virgins in Paradise. ''There is a rich tradition of inquiry into Islam dating back to the 19th-century French and German scholarly critiques,'' Mr. Kurtz said. ''There are many versions of the Koran. We don't know if we have the authentic one. Muhammad never wrote anything down. Some of it was written 150 years later.'' As in the Bible, the prophet's words in the Koran and the Hadith, his collected sayings, were recorded by followers. ''Islam desperately needs a Protestant-like Reformation,'' he continued. The Islamic system is the product of ''a nomadic, agrarian society, pre-modern and pre-urban, which they are trying to apply to the contemporary world.'' Mr. Kurtz is well aware of the dangers of criticizing Islam. ''Anything critical of Islam, you can get a fatwa,'' he said. But no matter, he said. ''My main interest is defending humanism as an alternative morality, of happiness here and now, of autonomy and individual freedom and dignity, and of the value of the exuberance of this life.'' He concluded, ''Islam and Judaism and Christianity are false.'' | A Vigorous Skeptic Of Everything but Fact; His Target: The Paranormal on TV and in Film |
1401889_4 | don't have a prison,'' said Nabil Aburdeineh, a senior aide to Mr. Arafat. ''If we arrest someone, where should we put him?'' Mr. Aburdeineh said Hamas and the Israeli government were both intent on destroying the Palestinian Authority. Members of Mr. Sharon's government, for their part, held Mr. Arafat responsible. ''He cannot be here,'' said Uzi Landau, the minister of public security. ''Arafat is of course no different than bin Laden. The P.L.O. and the Palestinian Authority is equal to the Al Qaeda.'' Mr. Landau said talk from Washington about a possible Palestinian state only encouraged more violence. ''This means that terrorism pays off, and why should anyone stop it?'' he said. Mr. Sharon, who has seldom visited the scene of terrorist attacks, appeared at the blast site this morning, silently surveying the row of body bags. ''This terror must be struggled against and fought against, and we will do so,'' he told reporters, who were permitted a close look at the carnage. He made an apparent reference to debate within the Bush administration over whether the president should call for some sort of interim Palestinian state to persuade Palestinians to lay down arms, saying bitterly, ''What Palestinian state are they talking about?'' Some Israeli politicians and officials urged that Israel refrain from retaliating for at least 24 hours, to avoid displacing in the news media the horrific images of the bombing with ones of an Israeli reprisal. But in the Israeli Parliament on Tuesday, members demanded a fierce response. ''For every Jew who is buried as a result of an attack, we must make sure 1,000 Palestinians are killed,'' said Michael Kleiner, a far-right legislator. Effi Eitam, a minister in Mr. Sharon's government and the leader of the National Religious Party, harshly attacked the creators of the Oslo peace accords, describing ''this evil animal you created, with its terror teeth that bite into our tattered flesh day by day.'' He added, ''You wish to give this evil animal a reservation that is called a Palestinian state of terror.'' One of Mr. Eitam's colleagues in the government, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, shared a Nobel Peace Prize for achieving the Oslo accords. Mr. Peres cut short a foreign trip on Tuesday to return to Israel. Even before the attack on Tuesday, Mr. Sharon had come under sharp criticism and pressure from his political base, the right, for acceding to the construction | ISRAEL ACTS TO SEIZE ARAB LAND AFTER BLAST; BUSH DELAYS TALK |
1402322_11 | whose mental retardation has been found an insufficiently compelling reason to lessen their individual responsibility for the crime. The court pronounces the punishment cruel and unusual primarily because 18 states recently have passed laws limiting the death eligibility of certain defendants based on mental retardation alone, despite the fact that the laws of 19 other states besides Virginia continue to leave the question of proper punishment to the individuated consideration of sentencing judges or juries familiar with the particular offender and his or her crime. I agree with Justice Scalia that the court's assessment of the current legislative judgment regarding the execution of defendants like petitioner more resembles a post hoc rationalization for the majority's subjectively preferred result rather than any objective effort to ascertain the content of an evolving standard of decency. I write separately, however, to call attention to the defects in the court's decision to place weight on foreign laws, the views of professional and religious organizations and opinion polls in reaching its conclusion. The court's suggestion that these sources are relevant to the constitutional question finds little support in our precedents and, in my view, is antithetical to considerations of federalism, which instruct that any ''permanent prohibition upon all units of democratic government must [be apparent] in the operative acts (laws and the application of laws) that the people have approved.'' The court's uncritical acceptance of the opinion poll data brought to our attention, moreover, warrants additional comment, because we lack sufficient information to conclude that the surveys were conducted in accordance with generally accepted scientific principles or are capable of supporting valid empirical inferences about the issue before us. . . . In reaching its conclusion today, the court does not take notice of the fact that neither petitioner nor his amici have adduced any comprehensive statistics that would conclusively prove (or disprove) whether juries routinely consider death a disproportionate punishment for mentally retarded offenders like petitioner. Instead, it adverts to the fact that other countries have disapproved imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed by mentally retarded offenders. I fail to see, however, how the views of other countries regarding the punishment of their citizens provide any support for the court's ultimate determination. . . . For if it is evidence of a national consensus for which we are looking, then the viewpoints of other countries simply are not relevant. THE SUPREME COURT | Excerpts From Decision and Dissents on Executing the Mentally Retarded |
1403587_4 | trying to make it a relatively pleasant experience, assuming the T.S.A. doesn't kill off the whole industry.'' Since its establishment on Nov. 19, the Transportation Security Administration has started a pilot program at five airports for baggage screening, and has said that all checked bags must be screened by Dec. 31 and that parking garages must be 300 feet from terminals, with some exceptions. The screening is to be done with machines called Explosive Detection Systems. They are the size of sport utility vehicles and look somewhat like magnetic resonance imaging spectrometers. Boeing has a contract to put them or similar machines called Explosive Trace Detection devices in 429 commercial airports. ''All of the money has been funneled into security,'' said Ronald L. Steinert, a vice president of the design firm Gensler. He added that all the money spent on retrofitting airports for baggage screening could push back expansion plans to the extent that airports become so unpleasant that travelers stop flying. The danger, he said, is that ''we will have 100 percent screened, but we will have ignored capacity to the extent that the whole industry will collapse.'' The construction and design companies that profit from expansions say that Congress has created an unfinanced mandate in the Transportation Security Administration, but their complaint is more accurately directed at the airlines. The T.S.A.'s sources of financing include $2.4 billion in appropriations for fiscal 2003, and it has asked for an additional $4.4 billion this year and appropriations of $4.8 billion next year, but much of that will be spent on hiring a work force of 52,000 to 54,000 security workers. Deirdre O'Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the agency, said some money would be set aside for the cost of installing the baggage screening machines, but she declined to say how much. The Federal Aviation Administration, which administers the $3.3 billion Airport Improvement Program, is in much the same position as the airport directors, said Marcia Adams, a spokeswoman for the F.A.A. Its program has been used to finance airport expansions in previous years, but now the F.A.A. is waiting to see whether the Transportation Security Administration will issue new guidelines for the kind of projects it can finance, and waiting to see how airport directors will react to the security agency's guidelines. Local airport owners themselves generally have no taxing authority. Some are beginning to reach out to private developers, copying | Airport Improvements Are Adrift After Sept. 11 |
1433797_0 | Beginning on Monday, the Department of Agriculture's new seal labeling food organic will appear in grocery stores, making clear to consumers for the first time what produce has been raised without conventional pesticides or fertilizers, antibiotics or growth hormones. For more than 12 years organic farmers, environmental groups, chefs and food executives have lobbied for the seal, one of those cases where an industry -- or at least part of one -- has urged the government to impose regulations. Beyond that, ''Organic Monday'' is a milestone in a long-running fight that takes in issues like the role of agriculture in pollution and the dominance of farming by corporations. ''People can make a statement by buying food that wasn't grown with chemicals and won't hurt the air they breathe, the water they drink or the soil they depend on,'' said Nora Pouillon, the owner and chef of Nora's, the country's first organically certified restaurant. For two days this week, her Washington restaurant was host to a coterie of fellow organic travelers, feeding them dishes like smoked trout with horseradish sauce and cumin-crusted sirloin roast smothered in rosemary sauce. This being a Washington celebration, it drew lawyers and lobbyists as well as farmers and publishers. Maria Rodale, the granddaughter of J. I. Rodale, the man who coined the term organic farming, joined the Thursday lunch -- but only by speaker phone, getting not so much as a taste of what was causing all the clattering of forks and knives. At lunch on Wednesday, Wes Jackson, a soil conservationist and president of the Land Institute in Salina, Kan., was treated to hugs from Ms. Pouillon for his work as a leader of the organic movement when there were few others. ''This is the single biggest step in the last 100 years to change a broken agriculture system that puts profits above all else,'' said David C. Cole, chairman of Sunnyside Farms and Acicra Inc., a company that acquires organic food companies. Those sentiments are dismissed by the conventional agriculture industry, which prides itself for having turned American farmlands into the breadbasket of the world, with one out of every three acres now planted with crops for export. Even the most fervent members of the organic movement acknowledge that mainstream agricultural practices will not change with the advent of one small green-and-white seal. Organic Monday will be celebrated on farms and at restaurants across | Organic Gets an Additive: A U.S.D.A. Seal to Certify It |
1433067_2 | policy, such as setting up lay boards to review abuse cases, or appointing a diocesan coordinator to handle accusations. David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said, ''Fundamentally, we're almost back to square one, where each bishop handles it however he deems best, which is precisely what got us into this mess to begin with.'' Catholic groups that advocate more involvement by laypeople regarded the Vatican's response as an ominous sign that the Holy See will ultimately undermine the American bishops' decisions that gave laypeople a role in keeping their church accountable. The bishops created a national lay review board led by Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, and required that every diocese create a local review board primarily composed of lay experts to make recommendations to bishops about how to handle abuse allegations. ''It's quite obvious that the Vatican has no intention of letting go of the control that they want to have over the process, and they really don't want lay involvement or lay oversight,'' said Linda Pieczynski, spokeswoman for Call to Action, a liberal Catholic reform group. ''The Dallas charter was an attempt to regain trust. It was flawed, but it was an attempt, and now this has just set that back even further.'' Faced with headlines proclaiming the Vatican's response an outright rejection, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said at a news conference in Rome that the policy merely needed to be refined by a ''mixed commission'' of church officials, four from Rome and four from the United States, to bring it into conformity with canon law. He acknowledged, however, that the Vatican had not granted the formal approval, or recognitio, the American bishops had sought, and that until it does, the policy is not binding on the American bishops. But he said that American bishops who had followed the Dallas guidelines should not stop, nor was the Vatican asking them to. Echoing his optimistic assessment, many bishops quickly issued statements putting a positive spin on the Vatican's response. Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York said in his statement: ''The Holy See has not rejected the 'charter' and 'norms' as some have suggested. By seeking greater clarity and precision in certain areas, the bishops and the Holy See will be able to move forward to achieve the recognitio necessary to implement the | Many Leaders of U.S. Church Say Rome's Stance Is a Relief |
1433055_0 | INTERNATIONAL A3-7 U.S. Seeks to Build Consensus on North Korea American officials opened a diplomatic drive across Asia and Europe to build international pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. A6 Japan's plan for billions of dollars in aid to North Korea's rickety economy is being shelved in light of its nuclear weapons program, which violates a series of signed agreements. A6 Indonesian Suspect in Hospital The militant Muslim cleric who was to have been questioned by the Indonesian police was instead hospitalized. The illness of the cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, was met with great skepticism, and there were conflicting accounts of what was ailing him. A8 Iraq Resolution Debate The United States and France moved closer to agreement on a draft resolution to force Iraq to disarm. But French officials are worried about the language that would give Washington authorization to go to war. A8 Politician Killed in Moscow A sniper equipped with a silencer shot and killed one of Moscow's regional governors and tried to shoot the province's vice governor. A4 European Pact Criticized The president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, whose office is meant to enforce the 1997 Stability and Growth Pact, called the pact ''stupid.'' Many economists argue that the pact leaves governments unable to jump-start stalled economies. A3 Ireland to Vote on Europe Irish voters will decide in a referendum whether to approve the Treaty of Nice, which sets rules for redrawing Europe's east-west divide. A3 Israel Pulls Out of Jenin The Israeli Army has moved out of the West Bank city of Jenin, surrounding it and digging a trench to prevent militants from sneaking out. A5 Troop Pullout Jolts Congo The United Nations has persuaded all foreign armies to leave eastern Congo. They are being replaced by local militias. The departures are bringing more disorder than stability. A7 NATIONAL A9-14 Vatican Tells U.S. Bishops To Rewrite Policy on Abuse The Vatican failed to endorse a stringent new policy by American bishops to combat child sexual abuse by priests, saying that parts of it needed to be rewritten to make it conform with the laws of the Roman Catholic Church. A1 While victims of sexually abusive priests expressed despair and outrage at the Vatican's failure to endorse the American bishops' zero tolerance policy, many bishops, priests and even some laypeople privately breathed a sigh of relief. A1 Sniper Disrupts School Life | NEWS SUMMARY |
1433066_0 | The great basilicas of Italy house some of the most important sculpture, painting and craft work in Western art. One of the most prized holdings -- a series of 13th-century ceiling frescoes by the ground-breaking painters Giotto and Cimabue -- was thought to be forever lost when an earthquake ravaged the basilica of St. Francis in the town of Assisi five years ago. Those who have visited this soaring structure since the restoration was unveiled last month are relieved to see that the pessimists were wrong. When the quake settled, the ceiling frescoes lay shattered on the floor in tens of thousands of puzzle-like pieces that were mixed in with general debris. The restoration was carried out by a team of professionals, students and volunteers who were willing to sift through the rubble endlessly, often going for days at a time without finding a single fragment of an artwork. The saints emerged gradually with the discovery of an eye, a nose or a few wisps of hair. Though somewhat diminished, frescoes of several of the figures in the chapel's ceiling have now been put back into recognizable form. St. Jerome has lost most of his beard; his cloak is eaten with holes, but it is nonetheless inspiring to see that he has risen from the rubble. The famous wall panels depicting the life of St. Francis -- which are also attributed to Giotto -- have been fully restored. The 13th-century basilica has been braced with high-tech devices that will help it to resist new tremors, and it is likely to stand for many centuries more. The first phase of the restoration was celebrated recently on the fifth anniversary of the quake. Yet to be tackled is the fresco of St. Matthew -- by Cimabue, a seminal figure in Italian painting -- which was reduced to more than 100,000 fragments that are currently stored in boxes. A computer program will be used to help restorers piece together the fresco in virtual reality before moving it physically into place. The restoration will go on for years. But that effort is the least the contemporary world can do for the great artists who devoted years and even decades to individual works that have come to define the Western aesthetic. | A Miracle at Assisi |
1433049_2 | commercial vessels like tankers almost never mount deck guns to ward off attackers themselves, because many ports prohibit the weapons. About all the ships can do is stay far from shore when possible and take the basic precautions commonly used in areas with piracy problems, said Chris Horrocks, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, a maritime trade association: ''Manning fire pumps, extra deck lighting so that you are very visible, additional deck patrols in high-risk areas -- anything that will make it less likely that it will be you rather than someone else.'' Mr. Horrocks's organization and others say that only governments can provide any significant protection to tankers. So far, oil companies have said little publicly about the attack on the Limburg, and it is unclear whether they are lobbying governments for greater protection. Asian shipping executives say that it is hopeless to expect effective military protection for vessels passing through the straits near Indonesia. There are too many vessels, too many islands and too many long, narrow sea passages for that to be practical, they argue. ''If we go around protecting every large tanker against small-boat attacks, we miss the larger point,'' said Arthur Bowring, the managing director of the Hong Kong Ship Owners Association, one of Asia's largest shipping trade groups. ''We should more actively aid the Indonesian economy to stop the attacks.'' There are 50,000 tankers and other freighters plying the world's oceans, and it would be hard to make a case for defending oil tankers and not, for example, chemical tankers or tankers carrying liquefied natural gas, Mr. Bowring said. And if tankers alone were protected, terrorists could simply board an undefended freighter carrying a dry bulk cargo like iron ore and then ram it into a tanker, he said. The Indonesian Navy did offer escorts two years ago for vessels leaving certain ports to reduce the risk of piracy, but it found few takers. ''Some people feel that if you have an escort, it advertises that you have a cargo on board worth stealing,'' Mr. Bowring said. ''There is an advantage to anonymity.'' The piracy problem in Indonesian waters peaked in the late 1990's; police crackdowns ashore have reduced it somewhat since then. More valuable than naval escorts, Mr. Bowring said, would be better navigational aids and ship-traffic control in the busy straits, which would allow more vessels to use them safely | A Vulnerable Time to Be Moving Oil by Sea |
1431273_4 | These cabins were at the two farthest ends of the boat, one forward, just behind the fo'c'sle (which was also the workshop and sail locker), and one aft, below the cockpit. In between was a small but perfectly formed galley kitchen and the boat's saloon -- a generous, wood-paneled room with a table that folded out to seat eight, and two sofas that doubled, beneath their blue and green upholstery, as food lockers. With each cabin came a small bathroom with its own W.C. This meant that we all had our own minisanctuary, which was, it turned out, all that we needed. I had assumed that the life of a sailor was one of sacrifice: of doing without home cooking or other such comforts, and of generally living a crusty, salty old life isolated and away from the world. Sailors' obsessive relationship with the sea and the stars and the sun, I reasoned, made up for such losses. Not so, I discovered. At least not for us and not for the boats we met in port. Sailors may love the sea, but it is their boats they are married to, and it is an active, noisy, loving, niggling relationship. Sailors are always, but always, at work on their boats -- cleaning, repairing, adjusting and inventing. A boat, any sailor will tell you, is so satisfying and pleasing because it is incapable of offense. It is simply and purely a functional thing: it is nothing but design, and yet there is not room for a single flourish or contrivance. Everything has to earn its place. Yet a boat also has to accommodate everything a sailor needs. I became smug about how both spartan and unspartan our life at sea was. We did without telephones or newspapers or freshwater showers or video games or DVD's, and yet we ate hot meals and had a library of books to read. We were always comfortable and, because our saloon had a small coal fire in one corner, always toasty warm. I droned on and on about our perfectly balanced, perfectly designed, perfectly executed boat life. And then, in Horta, I saw a topsail schonker modeled after a 16th-century pirate boat, built in six months by a 28-year-old Dutch lunatic called Long-Haired Boogie. He shut me up. He didn't have electricity or a motor or any kind of bathroom, but he didn't much care either. | Shipshape |
1431357_0 | Aren't the citizens of Indianapolis concerned that this kind of antisocial conduct will build up over time? Psychiatric studies of serial killers show a pattern of childhood cruelty to animals. It is a derogation of common sense to call this cruel and cowardly activity a sport. John Alan Cohan Los Angeles | Dog Bites Dog |
1431437_8 | eating clubs at the start of second semester, the number of emergency calls triples. ''Because of the club system, Princeton is a more welcoming environment to drinking than say, Harvard or Yale, which Princeton would like to associate itself with,'' said David Goldfarb, a borough councilman. Mr. Goldfarb, the most vocal proponent of the new ordinance, sees it as giving the police one more tool to help control excessive drinking. ''The problem is not people sipping sherry and talking about Proust,'' he said. ''The problem is these students are getting very drunk. We have people who arrive at the emergency room right on the brink. The alcohol suppresses their breathing, they have low oxygen in their blood, they're on the point of death.'' Police Chief Charles Davall estimated that each year his department transported 40 to 50 students suffering from alcohol poisoning, a condition where the central nervous system shuts down, leading to potential respiratory failure. So far Princeton has escaped the fate of M.I.T., Duke and the University of Maryland, where in recent years students have died of alcohol poisoning. Tim Szostek, one Princeton graduate, gives credit to the current system that protects students' confidentiality. ''I don't think that more kids drink here than at other schools,'' said Mr. Szostek, who is a graduate advisor to the eating clubs. ''It's more of a national problem, binge drinking. If you consider the last couple of years, the riots at Penn State, the alcohol-related deaths at other schools, we've been lucky, in part because students are quick to seek help.'' Despite an intense public information campaign, binge drinking does not appear to be abating on college campuses nationwide. A study released in March by the Harvard School of Public Health found that 44 percent of college students admitted to binge drinking -- measured as four drinks in a row for women, and five for men -- within the previous two weeks, virtually unchanged since the same survey was conducted eight years earlier. In the meantime, those who described themselves as habitual binge drinkers increased to 22.8 percent in 2001 from 19.7 percent in 1993. In its 2002 report, ''Changing Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges,'' the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that alcohol was at the root of 1,400 deaths (including auto accidents), 500,000 injuries, 600,000 assaults and 70,000 sexual assaults annually. With numbers like these, some universities | The Halls of Ivy, The Smell of Beer |
1431658_6 | Adams, an accounting manager in Cupertino, Calif., who was laid off early this year, has sat in a few job interviews in which an executive has described being overwhelmed by the response to a job advertisement. ''I think the number of choices are fewer,'' said Mr. Adams, 55, who has a graduate business degreee and was making about $80,000 at his old job, ''and I also think there are a lot more people looking for the same positions.'' Others have applied to graduate and professional schools, making admission unusually difficult over the last year. Law school applications for the class that enrolled this fall rose 15.4 percent over the previous year, the largest increase since the Law School Admission Council began keeping track. The recent recession and initial recovery have also reduced some of the gaps separating Americans of different classes and ethnicities. For example, the gap between the unemployment rates for the most educated and least educated workers has narrowed substantially since early last year. In February 2001, only 1.6 percent of college graduates in the labor force were unemployed, compared with 7.4 percent of workers who did not finish high school. Last month, the unemployment rate among college graduates had nearly doubled to 2.9 percent, while it had edged up only slightly, to 7.8 percent, among the dropouts. High school graduates with no college also picked up some ground on the holders of bachelor's degrees. The catch-up by the least educated workers has surprised labor economists. ''That's not what people think of as typical,'' said David Card, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. ''The typical scenario is that the unemployment rate of less-skilled workers is more sensitive to business conditions, and as a result of that, during a recession, the gap would widen. That was pretty much the orthodoxy for the last four decades.'' However, he hesitated to call the change a trend yet. ''You can't really say for sure that this is the new pattern that we'll expect the next time there's a recession,'' he said. During the 1990's boom, black and Hispanic workers, whose unemployment rates have always been higher than the rates for whites, started to gain ground on their white counterparts. That trend has continued through the most recent recession and recovery. ''During some recessions, while black unemployment in absolute levels jumps up, the white rate increases faster,'' said William E. | With Few Jobs Being Created, Pain Is Felt Far and Wide |
1431331_0 | AIRLINE passengers accustomed to checking excess or overweight baggage without penalty may soon start to feel like teenagers whose long-flouted curfew is suddenly being enforced. Over the past several months, many airlines have begun enforcing frequently ignored restrictions on the number, size and weight of the bags passengers are allowed to check, while some have also increased the fees they charge for those that are over the limit. The six largest United States airlines -- American, United, Delta, Northwest, Continental and US Airways -- now allow passengers to check two pieces of luggage free for domestic travel (down from the three that most allowed until this spring). No piece can measure more than 62 linear inches (height plus length plus depth) or weigh more than 70 pounds. The fees for exceeding these limits vary by airline and the size and weight of the bag, but a typical cost is $80 a bag, which is charged for each infraction and each direction of the trip. In other words, checking a third bag that is both oversize and overweight for a round-trip domestic flight can mean paying an $80 penalty six times, for a total of $480. For international travel, baggage restrictions and fees vary by airline and destination -- and in some cases, the aircraft and time of year -- so those going abroad are advised to call their airline before packing. Holding Down Costs Given the dismal financial state of the industry, the airlines have justified the crackdown on excess baggage as necessary to stay afloat in tough times. ''It's an effort to continue to keep costs under control,'' said Jeff Green, a spokesman for United Airlines, which charges a $75 fee for a third checked bag (plus an additional $75 for each overweight or oversize bag). Although that has been the fee for several years, Mr. Green said that enforcement has probably become more stringent. What has upset some passengers -- and luggage retailers -- is that the airlines began enforcing baggage restrictions without providing much, if any, notice to customers or to companies that make and sell bags. ''I visited all the major airlines' Web sites -- on only one could I find a reference to the baggage fees,'' said Anne DeCicco, president of the Travel Goods Association, which represents luggage retailers. ''On no one's home page is there any announcement about the new enforcement of the rules.'' | New Reasons To Travel Light |
1431902_4 | portraying masked gunmen and militant slogans. Paramilitary gangs enforce street discipline among their own by vigilante attacks and punishment beatings that can leave victims permanently maimed. Some Protestant housing projects have become the scenes of violent turf wars and drug disputes. But these areas are increasingly insulated from the rest of the city. ''The only time I ever go to those places is when I have visitors from out of town who want to see them,'' said John Morison, 44, professor of jurisprudence at Queen's University. He remembered staying away from downtown and observing a family curfew as a youth for fear of getting caught up in random violence. In an image of the kind of cohabitation that has taken hold here, a crew club on this Sunday morning glided its sculls in practice runs along the Lagan River and families strolled the Donegall Quay promenade, while just blocks away in one of Belfast's most conflict-ridden areas, residents of the Catholic Short Strand and Protestant Cluan Place shot harassing fireworks over the wall dividing their two communities. Many people who fled Belfast in the bad years have returned now that the violence has ebbed. One of them in the crowds of shoppers in the City Hall square on Saturday was Susan Marsh, 43, who came back with her 10-year-old daughter Marissa after 16 years in Germany. ''Right over there used to be a great steel wall,'' she said, ''and to get into the street and then into the shops, you had to be searched right down to your lipstick holders.'' So what was her attitude about the suspension of government? ''Oh, I've given up on Northern Ireland's politicians, but I haven't given up on Northern Ireland,'' she said. ''It's a great place, and I've never looked back.'' Richard English, professor of politics at Queen's, said he thought people would be patient because they were now confident that a resolution was in sight. ''Everyone thinks they see the broad shape of the deal,'' he said. ''It's some form of power-sharing, with Dublin and London both involved and the paramilitaries eventually having gray hair, wearing suits and being in government.'' Paul Arthur, professor of politics at the University of Ulster, said the public had clearly moved ahead of the politicians. ''The mistake the politicians have made is not to realize how progressive their constituents are,'' he said. ''People are reacting the way | The Troubles in Ulster Shift From Street to the Assembly |
1435046_1 | by an American, Col. Henry Steel Olcott. In 1875, Olcott co-founded, with Helena Blavatsky, the Theosophical Society for the study and propagation of an esoteric religious knowledge drawing on spiritualism, Eastern religions and 19th-century science. Five years later, Olcott and Blavatsky went to Ceylon where he embraced Buddhism and was soon founding a Young Men's Buddhist Association, publishing the first ''Buddhist Catechism,'' trying to unite all the different forms of Asian Buddhism around a common denominator of beliefs and encouraging the leaders and intellectuals who would reshape Buddhism for their time. Naturally, this new Buddhism presented itself as a return to the authentic teachings of the Buddha. The Buddhism of the Buddha's experience of enlightenment was seen, Professor Lopez writes, as ''most compatible with the ideals of the European Enlightenment, ideals such as reason, empiricism, science, universalism, individualism, tolerance, freedom, and the rejection of religious orthodoxy -- precisely those notions that have appealed so much to Western converts.'' In effect, this modern Buddhism distanced itself from the actual Buddhism surrounding it. It rejected many ritual elements, Professor Lopez writes, implicitly conceding the charges of Western officials and missionaries that Buddhist populations were ridden by superstition and burdened by exploitative monastic establishments: ''The time was ripe to remove the encrustations of the past centuries and return to the essence of Buddhism.'' That essence was to be found in Buddhist texts and philosophy, not in the daily round of ''monks who chanted sutras, performed rituals for the dead and maintained monastic properties.'' The pervasive Buddhist practice of venerating images and relics of the Buddha, which Christian missionaries had considered idolatry, was de-emphasized. Traditional lines dividing monks and lay people were blurred. Important roles were restored to women. The fundamental Buddhist concern to bring an end to suffering now encompassed support for social justice, economic modernization and freedom from colonialism. Central to modern Buddhism was meditation, an emphasis, Professor Lopez says, that ''marked one of the most extreme departures of modern Buddhism from previous forms,'' which had made meditation only one of many spiritual activities and not necessarily the highest, even within monastic institutions. Meditation now became a practice recommended for everyone -- and also ''allowed modern Buddhism generally to dismiss the rituals of consecration, purification, expiation and exorcism so common throughout Asia as extraneous elements that had crept into the tradition,'' he writes. The emergence of modern Buddhism, as Professor Lopez describes | The development of modern Buddhism is traced to a mix of Eastern and Western influences. |
1429889_3 | Instead, if the customer configures the WURLD-Morpheus software a certain way, the service flashes a red or green light on the computer's toolbar, signaling whether the customer could earn a WURLD-Morpheus rebate by clicking directly to the merchant. The signal would also offer a link to instructions on how to earn a rebate if the customer chooses. Many merchants and their technology providers say such changes are sufficient. Take Stephen Messer, chief executive of Link Share, an affiliate services network for about 600 merchants and more than 1 million affiliate sites. Mr. Messer said his company's user agreement stipulated that no affiliate may try to trump another affiliate's offer with a last-minute pop-up ad. ''If there's an alert of some kind in the toolbar, though, that seems fair,'' he said. ''But the affiliates have taken the position that you can't interfere in any way, and to me, that doesn't work,'' Mr. Messer said. ''It's almost as if you go down that line and say any competition could be parasitic.'' According to Sasha Miles, who publishes buy-discount-cosmetics.com, a site based in London that directs customers to online retailers like Strawberry Net and SkinStore, the music services are wrongfully using the information on her Web site to trigger other offers to their customers -- whether through pop-up ads or tool-bar alerts. ''There are costs associated with providing this 'free information,' '' Ms. Miles wrote in an e-mail message. ''Costs that I bear. Not WURLD Media and not the shopper. If the law requires me to work for the benefit of an economic parasite, how long do you suppose I will decide to do so?'' Haiko De Poel Jr., who publishes ABestWeb.com, an affiliate discussion forum, has been mentioned by industry executives as a logical person to represent small affiliates at next month's industry meeting. But he said he would not participate unless the parties consider curbing the shopping software companies more strictly. ''My position is simple: no toolbars or plug-ins or other parasite-ware is allowed,'' Mr. De Poel said. ''If that is not implemented, I think the anger will shift from the merchants and parasites to the ad networks, and then the affiliate anger would be even worse.'' Given the smaller affiliates' vehement opposition to the music services, one industry executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the prospects for a quick resolution to the problem were not good. Moreover, this executive | Software that 'hijacks' links to online merchants is at the center of a war for sales commissions. |
1429908_3 | negotiator, Martin McGuinness, today dismissed the raids and the arrests as ''a contrivance,'' promoted by Protestant unionists to bring down the Northern Ireland Assembly and other institutions created by the 1998 peace agreement aimed at enabling Catholics and Protestants to share power. Unionists, most of whom are Protestants, wish to see Northern Ireland remain part of Britain, while republicans, most of whom are Catholic, want closer ties with the Irish Republic. Mr. McGuinness said that Mr. Donaldson was innocent of the charge and that the police had not discovered any evidence in the Sinn Fein offices. He also said he found it hypocritical of the Northern Ireland Office to be complaining about I.R.A. spying. The Northern Ireland Office had ''been bugging our houses for the last 30 years,'' he told RTE, the Irish state radio. ''They've been bugging our gardens and bugging our cars. There's an awful lot of double standards and an awful lot of hypocrisy.'' Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland is scheduled to meet here with Mr. Blair on Wednesday, and he said in Dublin today that he had a number of telephone conversations with his British counterpart over the weekend. David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and the first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, is also coming to 10 Downing Street this week. He said he would demand that Mr. Blair throw Sinn Fein out of the government. Protestants in Northern Ireland backed the power-sharing agreement by a small margin four years ago, but today they have turned into opponents of the accord, convinced that the republicans have received more benefits from it than they have. Mr. Trimble has battled hard-liners in his party who wanted him to cease cooperation with Sinn Fein and to withdraw unionist support for the government, but two weeks ago he was forced to give in to them in a showdown meeting of his 850-member party governing council. The session passed a motion setting a Jan. 18 deadline by which the I.R.A. had to show clear evidence of disarming or the Ulster Unionists would stage mass resignations. Their departure would have the effect of bringing the power-sharing administration to an end, because under the formula set up by the agreement, there must be cross-community approval of all legislative actions. The Northern Ireland peace arrangement has lurched from crisis to crisis since 1998, but Sir Reg Empey, a | Northern Ireland Peace Accord Is in Danger, Britain Warns |
1430341_2 | about half what it was during the 1970's and 1980's when the Cubans sold sugar to the Soviet Union. (Before the 1959 revolution, similarly favorable trade with the United States fed Cuba's sugar industry.) The deal with the Soviets meant there was no attempt to diversify crops or industrialize more fervently. Thus, when the Soviet patron collapsed in 1991 and its largess vanished, Cuba was plunged into the economic hardship euphemistically dubbed ''the special period.'' ''The terrible thing is not that it disappeared, but that it went away at once, without any time to prepare ourselves for it,'' Mr. Almazán said. As sugar mills were shuttered, officials said they began to explore restructuring and to focus on those that could burn the milled cane stalks to power electric turbines. They also studied soil to ensure that only the most fertile plantations would continue to be cultivated. This summer, officials announced that about 60 percent of existing sugar fields would be given over to other agricultural production and that former mills would be converted to food processing plants. Since many sugar workers have only a ninth-grade education, officials said the government is building new schools to allow them to receive a salary while studying for their high-school diplomas. Classes will include computer training, as well as vocational skills for the emerging industries, they said. Whether there will be jobs for everyone, and whether the restructuring of the sugar industry will suffice to ease Cuba's economic problems are both uncertain, said Antonio Jorge, a professor of economics at Florida International University. Cuba imports about twice as much as it exports, and has high debt, including loans from Russia that have yet to be renegotiated, while European companies have suspended commercial credit for nonpayment, Professor Jorge said. ''Cuba's economy is at a very crucial moment,'' the professor said. ''It doesn't possess the capability to keep on importing and that means major crisis.'' Despite official reassurances, the families residing in the batey, or mill village, nestled in the shadow of Aguacate's smokestacks are worried. There are no other jobs in the area, they said, and they are too worried about making ends meet even to think about learning a new skill. ''People older than 40 going to study, what can they do with that kind of head?'' said Carmen Prieto, who lives with her husband, a tractor driver, in a narrow home that reeks | Cuba's Bittersweet Move to Trim Its Sugar Crop |
1430426_10 | and chemical weapons and his nuclear program ongoing. For this reason I cannot unequivocally count future military action out in the face of this legitimate threat, however I strongly believe that the most effective way of combating this menace is by solidifying the support of the international community and acting within the auspices of the United Nations, not by acting unilaterally. In the 1990's we made significant progress in conjunction with our international allies through the United Nations weapons inspection program, which led to the destruction of 40,000 chemical weapons, 100,000 gallons of chemicals used to manufacture weapons, 48 missiles, 30 warheads and a massive biological weapons facility equipped to produce anthrax. Inspections are a proven nonviolent and internationally supported method of thwarting Iraq's acquisition of weapons materials and technology. What's more, a clear majority of the American people want us to give the inspectors the opportunity to work before we take military action. Representative Tauscher I rise today in strong support of this resolution because it puts our country back on the right track of working with the United Nations to disarm Iraq. But the passage of this Congressional resolution in support of efforts to disarm Iraq will not provide President Bush with open-ended authority. In fact, Congress and the president's hard work is just beginning. The United States has a responsibility as the world's only superpower to set the standard for international behavior. We must consider every peaceful alternative and contemplate every possible outcome before we turn to force. With this resolution Congress is making clear that our first priority is building an international coalition through the United Nations. If the president decides that diplomatic efforts have failed he must inform Congress and explain his reasoning. If the United States engages in military action the president must provide continual updates to Congress regarding the status of the war. The president will also be required to declare that any military action against Iraq will not hamper our ongoing efforts on the war on terrorism. I also expect the president to provide clear plans for military engagement that explain our military strategy: detail where our troops will be based, report to Congress on his efforts to secure international assistance, protect us against simultaneous threats from other parts of the world, and define plans for Iraq after Saddam. While I am firmly committed to using diplomacy first and our military only | Excerpts From House Debate on the Use of Military Force Against Iraq |
1428681_3 | material's enhanced conductivity. Dr. Chiang has jointly founded a battery technology company that has licensed the process from M.I.T. and is working on commercializing it. ''The raw materials that go into the compound are about a quarter of the cost of those for lithium cobalt oxide,'' he said. George E. Blomgren, a consultant in battery technology in Lakewood, Ohio, said that the material's potential to yield very high power made it particularly interesting. ''The power capability Chiang has shown is well beyond that of the current nickel metal hydride batteries used in present hybrid electric vehicles,'' Dr. Blomgren said. High battery power density is required, for example, in most hybrid electric vehicles for rapid acceleration and to generate electricity for later use when someone slams on the brakes. Ralph J. Brodd, a battery industry consultant in Henderson, Nev., said that Dr. Chiang's material offered advantages not only in terms of cost and power but in stability as well. ''There's less likelihood of its decomposing, liberating oxygen inside the cell and creating safety problems,'' he said. But the new material is unlikely to find much use in laptop computers and related applications in which a lot of energy must be supplied in a small space, said M. Stanley Whittingham, a professor of materials and inorganic chemistry and director of the Institute for Materials Research at the State University of New York at Binghamton. ''The energy stored per unit volume in his material is poorer than that in present lithium batteries,'' he said, ''though the material may find a use in large batteries, where cost is very important.'' Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics and chemistry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who sppecializes in new materials for advanced batteries, agreed that materials like Dr. Chiang's might have a home in large batteries, whose developers have to worry about the cost of the cathode material and its stability with respect to other cell components. ''It might have a place, for instance, in abusive situations like automobile accidents where the battery is crushed,'' he said. Dr. Dahn, meanwhile, has not abandoned the alternative route of coating lithium iron phosphate particles with carbon to increase their conductivity. ''Just mixing the substances efficiently with carbon might still do the trick,'' he said. ''In the end, lithium iron phosphate is going to make a big difference to all of us in battery technology.'' WHAT'S NEXT | From Humble Materials, a Burst of Power for Batteries |
1428708_3 | do everything necessary to protect and defend our country. In accepting this responsibility, we also serve the interests and the hopes of the Iraqi people. They are a great and gifted people with an ancient and admirable culture, and they would not choose to be ruled by violence and terror. The people of Iraq are the daily victims of Saddam Hussein's oppression. They will be the first to benefit when the world's demands are met. Americans believe all men and women deserve to be free. And as we saw in the fall of the Taliban, men and women celebrate freedom's arrival. The United States will work with other nations to bring Saddam to account. We will work with other nations to help the Iraqi people form a just government in a unified country. And should force be required, the United States will help rebuild a liberated Iraq. Countering Iraq's threat is also a central commitment on the war on terror. We know Saddam Hussein has longstanding and ongoing ties to international terrorists. With the support and shelter of a regime, terror groups become far more lethal. Aided by a terrorist network, an outlaw regime can launch attacks while concealing its involvement. Even a dictator is not suicidal. But he can make use of men who are. We must confront both terror cells and terror states because they are different faces of the same evil. I brought this issue to the attention of the world and many, many countries share our determination to confront this threat. We're not alone. The issue is now before the United States Congress. This debate will be closely watched by the American people. And this debate will be remembered in history. We didn't ask for this challenge as a country. But we will face it, and we will face it together. As the vote nears, I urge all members of Congress to consider this resolution with the greatest of care. The choice before them could not be more consequential. I'm confident that members of both parties will choose wisely. Representative Hastert This is a bipartisan agreement. The White House deserves credit for working with Republicans and Democrats to achieve this historic resolution. The resolution does not tie the president's hands. It gives him flexibility he needs to get the job done. This resolution does not require the president to get United Nations approval before proceeding. It | Excerpts From Remarks by President and Lawmakers on Iraq Resolution |
1433995_0 | THREATS AND RESPONSES | Help for Sudan |
1433923_1 | Sure enough, the researchers then isolated another enzyme, which they named lachrymatory- factor synthase. This acts on the intermediate compound to form thiopropanal but is not involved in the production of thiosulphinate. The researchers suggest that by cutting back on this second enzyme (perhaps by modifying the gene that expresses it) and leaving the first enzyme alone, a new onion could be short on tears but long on taste. Microwaves' Drawback Put to Technological Use No doubt about it, the development of microwave technology over the past half-century or so has had a great impact on modern society. Among other things, microwaves have changed the way people communicate, helped meteorologists' forecasts and enabled couch potatoes to heat TV dinners in 5 minutes instead of 45. Now, engineers at Tel Aviv University have come up with a new use for microwaves: a drill with no spinning parts. They've used it to make holes in materials like ceramics, glass and concrete, with little noise and no dust. The invention, reported in the journal Science, takes advantage of what is ordinarily considered one of microwave's biggest drawbacks, hot spots. (Scientists call this the thermal-runaway effect; microwave oven users call it a pain in the neck.) In the drill, the microwaves are directed at the material through a series of wave guides, and the heating occurs just under the surface, creating a soft or molten hot spot. A movable electrode in the wave guide functions as a drill bit; it's pushed through the surface into the hot spot, forming a hole, and withdrawn as the material cools. (Just as with a microwave oven, the drill must be shielded to prevent hazardous microwaves from leaking out.) The researchers say the drill may eventually be useful in various industrial settings, including production lines where silence and cleanliness are important. A Backyard Survey Want to do something about West Nile virus from the comfort of your home? The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is seeking more volunteers for its FeederWatch project, with the goal of gauging the effect of the virus on bird populations. Participants simply count numbers of birds that visit their feeders from November into April and report the information either online or on paper. The organizers hope that data collected this winter, when compared with previous years, will give a better indication of how West Nile is affecting species, numbering more than 100, known to | OBSERVATORY |
1433919_2 | studies were poorly designed, the conclusions of a meta-analysis are likely to be erroneous. Even the so-called gold standard of medical research -- the placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind clinical trial -- sometimes produces spurious results or results that apply to a limited group or only under certain conditions. Nonetheless, such a trial is most likely to yield results that can be reliably applied to people like those in the study population. In such a study, participants are randomly assigned to an experimental group or control group, and neither the participants nor the researchers who evaluate them know which person is in which group until the study is completed. Does It Apply to You? How participants are recruited can influence the reliability of the findings. Advertising for participants in a newspaper may favor those who are better educated or more highly motivated than the general population. Such people may have habits or attitudes that can affect the outcome of the study. Many studies exclude people who have other ailments, take certain medicines or speak languages other than English. If a study of a new drug is conducted among healthy young men, the findings may not apply to older women with an existing illness. Or if a study is done among people with advanced disease, the outcome may be different for those with milder forms. Finally, where and how was the study conducted? If the participants had to be hospitalized or if the research involved equipment that was not generally available to practicing physicians, the findings might be useless to an ambulatory patient being cared for by a private doctor or in an outpatient clinic. The Issue of Structure The question the study was designed to answer limits the dependability and extendability of the results. Thus, in one placebo-controlled randomized study of postmenopausal hormone replacement, participants who took the hormones had levels of blood fats that strongly suggested better protection against heart disease. This is considered a ''soft endpoint'' -- an indication of, but not proof of, protection against heart disease. For proof, a study has to include many more participants and last much longer to show that those on hormones do or do not suffer fewer cardiac problems, thus providing a ''hard endpoint.'' Most studies are designed to find that a particular outcome has statistical significance. This is called the primary endpoint. Sometimes other findings, called secondary endpoints, are also found to | Separating Gold From Junk in Medical Studies |
1434017_3 | undamaged ones, and the towers stood even though seriously damaged. But as the heat increased, the columns weakened and became less able to hold up the top of the towers, even with all floors intact. The core of the north tower, hit dead center by the first plane, held out the longest, because the undamaged columns on its outer edges acted like the four legs of a table. But the south tower, struck more asymmetrically, tilted and fell first, like a table with two weakened legs on one side. There was no need to invoke a failure of the floors to produce a collapse, the study performed for Mr. Silverstein says. The conclusion, this work suggests, is that a collapse was unavoidable, no matter how well constructed the floors were. To support that argument, the study asserts that an analysis of videos of Sept. 11 shows patterns of smoke emerging from trade center windows that are consistent with intact floors rather than fallen ones. Some engineers who have read the analysis are questioning those conclusions. John Osteraas, director of civil engineering practice at Exponent Failure Analysis in Menlo Park, Calif., and a consultant for the insurance companies, said the computer analysis assumed that the floors stayed intact until the collapse. Many engineers have pointed out that the floors not only held up acres of office space, but also gave crucial lateral support for the columns -- a sideways brace, almost like a flying buttress on a Gothic cathedral -- that prevented them from buckling. The federal study concludes that the performance of the floor trusses during the fire was ''likely critical to the building collapse,'' but it conceded that the finding was preliminary. Because the Silverstein analysis did not allow for the possibility that the floors could give way, the assertion that the floor design played no role was in some ways foreordained, Dr. Osteraas said. ''The mechanism they predict is really the only one they can predict, given the model they use,'' said Dr. Osteraas, who has seen the study in an exchange of documents between the two sides. ''You can't legitimately claim to have looked at all possible collapse scenarios without considering the floors.'' If Mr. Silverstein can successfully argue that each tower fell as a result of a chain of events initiated by the impact of a plane, he may have a better chance at sustaining an | Expert Report Disputes U.S. On Collapse |
1434033_3 | we will not develop faster than the rest of world. We are not going to be first.'' That would amount to a decisive shift for China, which until recently seemed to want to become the developing world's leader in biotechnology. It has invested large amounts -- as much as $100 million annually, according to a survey team from the University of California -- to develop more than 140 varieties of genetically modified plants. The idea is to rearrange genes in important crops to maximize their resistance to pests or to pesticides and herbicides. Other strains have been designed to grow in arid or salty soil, while still others were tweaked to improve taste. China saw genetic research as the way to maintain basic self-sufficiency in staple foods and get the most from its arable land, which is already scarce and is shrinking every year. So strong was its commitment to genetic engineering that it was the only developing country to join the Human Genome Project. Its scientists played a leading role in deciphering the complex rice genome. And China produced genetically modified seeds to grow potatoes, tomatoes, soybeans, rice and even trees and flowers. But some early failed experiments with genetically modified tobacco plants in the 1990's, as well as reports that genetically modified corn had unintentionally been mixed with organic corn in Mexico in 1999, began to diminish its ardor, local and international experts said. Growing consumer resistance to genetically modified food in Japan and South Korea, as well as in Europe, provided another warning. Chinese officials feared that they would lose important export markets by pushing ahead too quickly. Polls also showed that domestic shoppers preferred food that had not been genetically altered. After Chinese officials issued new labeling rules this summer, supermarkets were supposed to begin putting notices on products that contained genetically modified ingredients. Few products carry such labels now, but there are many, like Rong's brand corn oil, that have bright yellow labels saying they contain only organic ingredients. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations had hoped that China would become an ally on farm issues in the World Trade Organization, where the fight over the safety of genetically modified food may eventually end up. Instead, China now appears more inclined to support a cautionary stance like the one taken by the European Union. If its position does not change, it may slow the trade | The Science and Politics of Super Rice |
1434001_0 | President Bush said today that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had to disarm his nation ''for the sake of peace,'' but indicated that he saw a significant difference between North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and Iraq's pursuit of them. In his first public remarks about North Korea since the White House announced last week that the country was conducting a covert nuclear weapons program, Mr. Bush said he would use diplomatic pressure, not threats of military action, to try to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear efforts. ''It is a troubling discovery, and it's a discovery that we intend to work with our friends to deal with,'' he told reporters in the Oval Office after a meeting with the NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson. ''I believe we can do it peacefully. I look forward to working with people to encourage them that we must convince Kim Jong Il to disarm for the sake of peace.'' In contrast, Mr. Bush said he was threatening military action against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq because his case was ''unique'' in that he had gassed his own people and ''thumbed his nose'' at United Nations resolutions for more than a decade. The president's remarks reflected recent comments by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, that Iraq poses a greater threat to the United States, even if it does not yet have nuclear weapons, because of its record of using chemical weapons and its hatred of the United States and its allies. Nonetheless, Mr. Bush said that he viewed North Korea's admission ''very seriously'' and that he would work with the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea and Russia at an economic summit meeting of Pacific nations this weekend in Los Cabos, Mexico, to exert pressure on Mr. Kim. The No. 2 official in North Korea made a public overture to the United States today, saying he was willing to negotiate over the country's nuclear weapons program ''if the United States is willing to withdraw its hostile policy toward the North.'' American officials said they were uncertain how to respond to the overture by Kim Yong Nam, the country's nominal head of state. Mr. Kim made the offer during a meeting in Pyongyang, the North's capital, with a South Korean delegation. For now, the administration remains embroiled in an internal debate over how and | Bush Sees Korean Nuclear Effort as Different From Iraq's |
1435781_0 | The National Institutes of Health held a two-day conference last week to explore what women and doctors should think about hormone replacement therapy in the wake of test results showing that prolonged use can do more harm than good. By the end of the event, it seemed clear that women are faced with even more perplexing choices than anyone had realized. Hormone therapy has been widely used by millions of American women both to cope with the hot flashes and other acute symptoms of menopause and -- sometimes for years after menopause -- to ward off chronic ailments and signs of aging. That indiscriminate use slowed greatly when federal health authorities curtailed a study of hormone therapy in July because the risks, though quite small, outweighed the benefits, which were even smaller. Women taking a pill combining estrogen and progestin had an increased risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots that was not offset by the pill's benefits in reducing the risk of colon cancer and hip fractures. A consensus seemed to be emerging among many physicians that short-term use, say less than five years, to combat the acute symptoms of menopause was probably safe. But experts at the N.I.H. conference cited hints from the recently curtailed study that even short-term use may carry risks. Women taking the medication for even two years had a greater incidence of breast cancer, with the risk increasing in years three and four. The risk of heart attacks also began to increase in the first year or two of hormone therapy. Both risks were very small and need further analysis to determine their significance. But they will force women to think harder about whether their menopausal symptoms are severe enough and disruptive enough to warrant hormone therapy. | More Hormone Perplexities |
1430688_3 | biochemistry at the University of Maryland and an associate editor of the journal Analytical Chemistry, said Mr. Tanaka's and Dr. Fenn's work had given biologists a much more direct view of the chemical processes going on in a cell. Previously, for example, scientists studying an anticancer drug could look only at the fragments that the drug was broken into and guess at how it was broken apart. ''Now we can look directly at what proteins and nucleic acids the drug interacts with,'' Dr. Fenselau said. ''This enabled amazing questions to be asked in biology.'' In her research Dr. Fenselau is looking at changes in cancer cells when they become drug-resistant. ''We found there are at least 100 proteins whose levels are changed,'' she said. Before mass spectrometry, measuring concentrations of that many proteins would have been impossible, she said, ''or it would have taken decades. I'm so happy it happened during my career.'' Because protein levels in normal cells differ from those in cancerous cells, measurements via mass spectrometry may one day provide quick diagnosis of cancer. The function of a protein is largely determined by its shape. With nuclear magnetic resonance, Dr. Wüthrich can not only identify a protein, but also determine its three-dimensional structure. Previously, scientists had mapped proteins by carefully stacking them into crystals and then bombarding them with X-rays. By watching how the X-rays bounced off the crystal, they could deduce the structure of the protein. But some proteins cannot be stacked into crystals. In nuclear magnetic resonance, the molecules are placed in a magnetic field, causing the atomic nuclei in the molecule, which essentially act like tiny magnets, to line up with the field. A pulse of radio waves flips the magnets, which causes the molecule to emit radio waves. With hundreds to thousands of atoms in a protein molecule, scientists had trouble trying to interpret the avalanche of radio waves. ''It gets to be a very complex problem,'' said Dr. Adriaan Bax, the section chief for biophysical nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Wüthrich said he overcame the problem ''by careful bookkeeping.'' He developed a technique to determine the distances between any two hydrogen atoms in the molecule. From the distances, the structure of the protein could then be deduced. ''It's essentially a big jigsaw puzzle,'' Dr. Bax said. ''It's a 10,000-piece puzzle with all the same color pieces.'' | 3 Whose Work Speeded Drugs Win Nobel |
1430648_2 | his debt?'' The answer was the community responsibility system, in which every member of a community was liable for every other member's debts. If someone in Community A didn't pay what he owed, Community A had the choice to either cease trading with Community B or compensate it for the damage and seek retribution from the individual. Because communities wanted to maintain trading relations, they policed their own. As trade flourished and communities grew, however, the system began to break down. The costs to an individual who cheated shrank, while larger merchants had to bear a high cost for other people's cheating. Communities abandoned the old system. In 1279, for instance, Florence, Venice, Genoa and other cities agreed not to hold any person or his goods because of someone else's debts. They also agreed to imprison debtors who fled to their towns. Over time, new forms of enforcement developed, forcing creditors to evaluate borrowers by using indicators of their individual merits. But the community responsibility system provided the institutional scaffolding that made the expansion of trade possible. Even without centralized law, it was possible to make enforceable contracts. Turning to the present, Guido Friebel of the Stockholm School of Economics and Sergei Guriev of the New Economic School in Moscow offer a provocative argument about an extralegal contract: the payments illegal migrants promise traffickers who arrange long-term, long-distance moves from, say, China to the United States or Europe. It costs an illegal migrant as much as $35,000 to go from China to the United States and $25,000 to go to Europe. (This research does not apply to short-haul migration like that involving the United States and Mexico.) But these are mostly poor people who can't possibly pay that much in advance. Instead, they make a down payment and agree to work a certain term -- for Fujian Chinese, the average is 26 months -- to repay the rest. On arrival, they become temporary slaves or, as they were known when America was settled, indentured servants. But in contrast to colonial times, these days these contracts aren't legally enforceable. In theory, the immigrants could run away once they were in the country. They don't escape, however, because they fear deportation. Their illegal status acts to enforce their contracts. (Traffickers generally keep their deals because they face competition in the home country. A bad reputation would cost them future business.) Tightening immigration | Even without law, contracts have a way of being enforced. |
1430611_6 | serpentine sculpture from Zimbabwe. The only technology is sight is on two-and-a-half-pound notebook computer with a wireless connection to the Internet. As much as Ms. Mathews links her Treo to a particular way she sees herself, Dr. Gonick Links his technical spareness to his view on the role of technology in the world at large. ''For me it's a philosophical aspiration - that technology will have its largest impact on our condition when it's invisible,'' he said. And conspicuous objects of questionable usefulness have been bangished from the Gonic kitchen as well. The electric can opener is gone, as is the fancy electronic griddle. ''And this Thanksgiving we're going to have to have a national summit on whether to replace the electric knife to cut the turkey,'' Dr. Gonick said. ''It hasn't worked properly for three years.'' It is the nomad in Americ Azevedo that led him to embrace one technology - and a sense that he was suppressing his real identity that led him to eliminate another. Mr. Azevedo, 55, who teaches computer science at the University of California at Berkeley, is stuck like glue to his Palm-Kyocera cellphone hybrid. Like the Treo, the Kyocera allows Mr. Azevedo to send and receive e-mail. ''I like to be able to move around, from one office to another, or from home to a coffee shop, or just walking around,'' Mr. Azevedo said during an interview from his cellphone as he sat on a bench on the university's main plaza, watching, as he put it, ''all manner of students in different states of disarray walk by.'' Ten minutes after the interview, a reporters reached Mr. Azevedo as he sipped a cappuccino at a cafe near the campus. An hour later, he called the reporter to answer a last-minute question. At the same time, Mr. Azevedo is banishing excessive e-mail from his life. He used to try to respond to each of the 100 or so messages he received every day, but realized he was increasingly miserable at the thought of spending so much time in front of a screen. ''I realized that that isn't who I am,'' he said. ''I like to be out there feeling the pulse of life.'' Mr. Azevedo now responds to only 15 or so of his messages in a day, ignoring the rest. ''I want to see my kids, eat, breathe, have that human bodily experience that | Wired, Yes, but Drawing the Line |
1432606_0 | A medical panel that helps set government policy has joined the growing ranks of experts registering doubts about the value of hormone replacement therapy in preventing many of the chronic diseases associated with aging. Stating that the risks of the hormones outweigh their benefits, the group recommended ''against the routine use of estrogen and progestin for the prevention of chronic conditions in postmenopausal women.'' The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, issued a set of guidelines for doctors on Tuesday, based on its review of hundreds of studies. The task force is an independent, 14-member group of experts that advises the federal government, and its recommendations are generally adopted by Medicare, health plans and insurers. Hormone replacement has been used for decades and was widely believed to prevent heart disease and to prolong youth and health. But recent studies have contradicted those theories. Even though hormones can prevent osteoporosis, broken bones and colorectal cancer, the panel said it did not recommend them for those purposes because the hormones also increase the risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, gallbladder disease and blood clots. The panel advised women concerned about bone loss to consult their doctors about nonhormonal ways to prevent it. Other medical groups, including the American Heart Association, have said that hormone replacement should not be used to prevent heart disease. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the North American Menopause Society agree and also urge caution in using hormones solely to prevent osteoporosis. The task force did not advise for or against hormone therapy to treat menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal irritation, conditions for which doctors agree hormones are the most effective treatment. Instead, the group said women should consult their doctors about whether to use hormones. Many doctors advise women who are suffering from those symptoms to take the lowest dose of hormones for the shortest time possible. Dr. Janet D. Allan, vice chairwoman of the task force and dean of the school of nursing at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, said the group did not make recommendations about treating symptoms because its purpose was to evaluate preventive medicine for healthy people, not treatments for people with symptoms. The task force did not make any recommendations about the use of estrogen alone, without progestin, a treatment prescribed for women who have had hysterectomies. No recommendations were possible, the | Panel Questions Value of Hormone Therapy |
1432573_1 | Chirac said in the interview in the Beirut-based, French-language newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour. ''Even if certain terrorists could have been able to find refuge in Iraq, we must not mix up the issues. The first objective of action by the international community is Iraq, and that means disarmament.'' Last month, Mr. Bush won praise, especially among war opponents in Europe, for promising to go to the United Nations for approval before taking military action against Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad. But after intense discussions and a certain impatience in Washington, now France, Russia and China -- which have vetoes on the Security Council -- remain opposed to giving the administration an automatic option to use force if Iraq fails to comply with new weapons inspections. France wants the United States to go to a second stage and get later authorization for using force if Mr. Hussein rebuffs the United Nations inspectors. France, which has a history of going its own way in NATO and maintains strong links to the Arab world, has emerged as a bigger stumbling block than Russia or China, which do not consider themselves American allies, administration officials said. American officials express confidence that if they can persuade Mr. Chirac to go along with a single United Nations resolution, Moscow and Beijing will follow suit by either agreeing to it or not vetoing it. At least so far, officials say, France is resisting an administration proposal to have the resolution threaten unspecified ''consequences,'' rather than a more explicit reference to force, if the inspection process collapses. Diplomats familiar with the negotiations said the Bush Administration could interpret the word ''consequences'' as tantamount to pre-approval for military action. At the same time, they said Washington was offering private assurances that the United States would not ignore the Security Council. ''This could end up with something that is not a one-stage or a two-stage process,'' said a diplomat familiar with the talks. ''The word is that it will be one-and-a-half stages.'' ''The French really do want to be with us,'' a senior State Department official said. ''The French are worried that if the first resolution authorizes all necessary means to enforce inspections, we might go to war without checking with them. What they want is to keep the Security Council in the picture. We believe that can be done in the context of one resolution. That's our goal.'' In a | U.S. Is Putting Heavy Pressure on France and Other Skeptics for a U.N. Resolution |
1432647_2 | radiation treatments usually given after a lumpectomy may cause cancers themselves. ''We know it takes 15 years or so to begin to see radiation-induced cancers,'' said Dr. Patrick Borgen, chief of breast surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. ''These papers put that concern to rest.'' Not every woman will want a lumpectomy, doctors and advocates for women with breast cancer said. But, they added, women should know they have a choice. ''I think this is great,'' said Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School. ''This is Cadillac data, just what we want. Someone could always have argued that things might change at a distant date, that maybe the problems with a lumpectomy wouldn't occur for 10 or 15 years. This puts that to rest.'' The American study, by Dr. Bernard Fisher of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues, involved women with tumors up to four centimeters in diameter, or about an inch and a half, which can easily be felt. In more than a third, the cancer had spread to their underarm lymph nodes. The women were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: a mastectomy, a lumpectomy alone, or a lumpectomy followed by radiation. The study found that there was absolutely no difference in the likelihood that the disease would subsequently spread, in the rate of death from cancer, or in the rate of death from all causes. Regardless of the treatment, about 47 percent of the women were still alive 20 years later. In a sense, Dr. Borgen said, that has been a surprise. ''Everyone thought early on that radiation would improve survival,'' he said, ''but it didn't.'' Radiation did, however, markedly reduce the chance of another cancer's arising in the same breast, sparing many women a mastectomy, which is the usual treatment for a second cancer. The risk that a second cancer would emerge later in the same breast was about 40 percent in women who had a lumpectomy without radiation and about 14 percent in those who also had radiation therapy. The other study, by Dr. Umberto Veronesi of the European Institute of Oncology and his colleagues, involved women with tumors no larger than two centimeters in diameter, though in all but three cases the tumors were large enough to feel. Once again, more extensive surgery was no more effective than surgery that conserved the woman's breast. Some medical experts say the new findings | Lumpectomies Seen As Equal in Benefit To Breast Removals |
1432642_2 | and Red Hook. And each discusses the need to develop the area along Brooklyn's waterfront to add housing for moderate-income residents and create more commercial space. Mr. Martinez, who often identifies himself as ''the only candidate who was born and raised in this district,'' also talks about the need to ''fight the proliferation of the adult entertainment shops that have come into this district.'' The growth of that industry, he said, ''represents the failed leadership in this district.'' Mr. Rodriguez, who often discusses his passion for his civil rights work in the attorney general's office, laments that the city's financial problems will make it difficult to get funds for the rehabilitation and construction of schools. He said he would push for ''some form of progressive taxation, meaning an income tax increase for the wealthiest citizens in New York City.'' With so much agreement on the priorities of the district, the candidates have focused on defining themselves -- and their opponents -- in other ways. For example, Ms. Gonzalez, who emphasizes her civic and nonprofit work, has been portrayed by her opponents as being closely tied to Angel Rodriguez and to the Brooklyn Democratic Party organization that backed his effort to become speaker. Ms. Gonzalez vigorously denied the portrayal. ''I am my own person,'' she said. ''I am not tied to anyone.'' She acknowledged that she did work on the former councilman's election campaigns, but ''so did Eddie Rodriguez -- he carried petitions for Angel.'' Mr. Rodriguez said he worked one afternoon on the former councilman's campaign. ''But I'm not a member of Angel's political club like she is. And the people who collected signatures for her were all Angel's people.'' Both Mr. Rodriguez and Ms. Gonzalez have criticized Mr. Martinez for not participating in the city's campaign finance program, which imposes a limit on individual contributions but matches them with city dollars, four to one. His two opponents suggest that the program is a hallmark of good government and that Mr. Martinez's refusal to participate reveals his lack of credentials as a reformer. Mr. Martinez said he participated in the program when he ran for the Council seat last year but believed that the city could put its money to better use than by matching the $20,000 he has raised. ''It doesn't make sense to be in the program,'' he said, ''when the city is facing a $6 billion shortfall.'' | 3 Rivals in Brooklyn Race See Council Issues Alike |
1432602_0 | Businesses, responding to lawmakers and consumers, say they are giving customers more ways than ever to control how their personal information is used and sold. But, in fact, many companies all but frustrate their customers' attempts to exercise that control. Barbara Bechtold of Sacramento recounts the unending process of trying to keep companies from selling her e-mail address and the details of her credit card accounts, insurance policies and mortgage inquiries. When she tried to tell Pacific Bell not to share information that some phone companies sell -- including calling habits -- she found herself confronted with a voice automation system maze. ''Push '1' for this, push '2' for this,'' she recalled. ''Twenty different steps to say, 'I don't want you to sell my information, please.' '' John Britton, a spokesman for Pacific Bell, a unit of SBC Communications, said the company tried to make the process simple and that it shared information only among affiliated companies and did not sell calling data to other companies. Still, Ms. Bechtold said that most people, faced with too much twiddling and clicking, ''will get disgusted and say, 'Oh, forget it!' rather than try to get off those lists.'' For some companies, that might be the point. Facing new laws in half a dozen states and the threat of legislation in other states and in Congress, businesses have claimed to give customers more control over the use of their personal information. But these efforts are subject to abuse. Some online marketers, including some offering low, low mortgage rates, naughty pictures or seminars on dental office management, simply lie. ''You are receiving this e-mail because you opted-in by requesting information or requested to receive special offers from an online purchase,'' reads one message offering online marketing services -- spam to help people produce spam. Did you really ask for the message? Probably not. But many online businesses claim you gave explicit permission to receive them. Some states are taking on what they considerthe most blatant lies about whether a consumer gives permission to share or sell an e-mail address and other information. New York State has sued an online marketer, MonsterHut, over unsolicited e-mail messages, which MonsterHut insisted were sent with permission. A decision in the case is pending. Among more mainstream businesses, drafters of privacy policies have ways of confusing and frustrating customers. Consumer privacy advocates have complained about the practices at Yahoo, | A Tricky Maze for Consumers |
1434795_0 | The Food and Drug Administration said today that it was still wrestling with questions about how to regulate hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women after a study raised questions about its safety. The issues for the agency arose when a large federal study of what was the most popular hormone treatment, Prempro, made by Wyeth, was halted this year, five years after it began. Investigators for the study, known as the Women's Health Initiative, found that there were small but important risks, including breast cancer, from taking the drug. But there are dozens of hormone therapies besides Prempro on the market. Should the findings of the Women's Health Initiative, which tested Prempro, be applied to these other products? Should makers of new drugs for menopause be required to show they are safe in long-term studies? At meeting here sponsored by the National Institutes of Health to discuss the future of hormone replacement therapy, Wyeth scientists and independent scientists said there was no reason to expect that the other products would not have the same risks as Prempro. ''It is making us re-evaluate the whole area,'' Dr. Janet Woodcock, who directs the F.D.A.'s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said. ''The real question is, Where do we go from here?'' Dr. Daniel A. Shames, the director of the F.D.A.'s division that evaluates reproductive and Urologic drugs, asked the audience at the conference for guidance. Until now, he said, the agency has accepted data from studies lasting just 12 weeks to show that hormone therapies relieve the symptoms of menopause, with the women being followed for perhaps a year longer to assess the drugs' safety. Now, he said, with the lessons of the Women's Health Initiative, what advice would the experts give? ''Is this adequate?'' Dr. Shames asked. ''If not, what should we do?'' At the same time, researchers at the National Institutes of Health said they must consider whether to sponsor large studies of other therapies for menopause and, if so, which ones to test. The Women's Health Initiative study of Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin, involved 16,000 women and cost more than $600 million. But it addressed a question that was of vital importance to the 40 percent of American women who took hormone therapy after menopause. How safe is it to take a combination of estrogen and progestin? Estrogen unquestionably relieves symptoms of menopause, but the study | Drug Agency Weighs Role Of Hormone Replacements |
1434831_3 | the 1994 accord. On the other hand, he said the Bush administration had no interest in negotiating yet another agreement with North Korea similar to the 1994 pact, now that it has proven it would not live up to the previous one. ''We bought that horse one time before,'' he said. Nonetheless, the official's comments appeared to be intended to assuage the concerns in Asia, especially in South Korea, that the tough talk in Washington was cutting off all avenues to ending the stalemate with North Korea peacefully. Japan and South Korea regard military action against North Korea as unrealistic, since North Korea has a million troops on its border with South Korea and could easily retaliate against South Korea with artillery, rockets and missiles. The comments from administration officials came as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met today with the South Korean foreign minister, Choi Sung Hong, and other representatives of 19 Asian and Pacific nations, plus Hong Kong and Taiwan. Preparations are also under way for a meeting on Friday between President Bush and President Jiang Zemin of China. White House officials say North Korea will be at the top of the agenda for that meeting. The official said today that there were differences between the United States, South Korea and Japan about how to approach North Korea. Although the Chinese are reported to favor negotiating with North Korea, the official said the Chinese were also concerned about the dangers of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. President Bush is expected to arrive at this Baja California resort on Saturday, about the same time that a hurricane is expected to hit the region, though probably not near here. In another sign of disagreement between South Korea and the United States, a top South Korean cabinet official who had his own contacts with North Korea said this week that James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, had mischaracterized North Korea's response when he said North Korea viewed the 1994 agreement as ''nullified.'' In fact, said the South Korean official, Jeong Se Hyun, North Korea did not go quite that far. Today, Mr. Kelly said he had not seen Mr. Jeong's report. But he said his recollection of North Korea's position on nullifying the accord was ''the full fidelity version'' of what had been said. THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE VIEW FROM ASIA | U.S. and Its Asian Partners Strain to Form United Stand on North Korea |
1434717_4 | named for Carl Sagan, who taught at Cornell and lived in Ithaca. If you'd rather do some shopping, try the Commons, a few blocks of State Street, between Cayuga and Aurora Streets, that have been turned into a pedestrian mall. Most of the shops are independent, and many of the buildings are from the 19th century. Look for Birkenstocks at Leather Express (126 East State Street; 607-273-5806), check out the work of local artisans at Handwork (102 West State Street; 607-273-9400) or get a designer dog dish at Paws (220 East State Street; 607-272-2145. A block north of the Commons is the Dewitt Mall (215 North Cayuga Street), originally a high school (look for the separate boys' and girls' entrances) and now housing shops and the Moosewood Restaurant (607-273-9610), where Molly Katzen once cooked. 1 p.m. 7. A Paddle or a Waterfall Get a sandwich at the Ithaca Bakery (400 North Meadow Street; 607-273-7110) (Il Francisco, $7.50, has prosciutto, artichoke hearts and a calamata olive spread) for lunch and then, if you like to paddle, head over to the Puddledockers kayak shop (704 1/2 West Buffalo Street; 607-273-0096). Rent a kayak ($25 for four hours for a single, $30 for a tandem) and have a picnic on Cayuga Lake. If you'd rather get a look at the countryside, drive 10 miles north out of town to Taughannock Falls State Park, where you can have a lakeside picnic and then take an easy three-quarter-mile hike inland to Taughannock Falls, a 215-foot-high ribbon of water spilling into a leafy gorge. 7 p.m. 8. Supper at the Club Relax at Bistro Q (708 West Buffalo Street; 607-277-3287), a good spot for cocktails, where the outdoor patio has live music and a lively crowd on Fridays and Saturdays. For dinner, move on to Maxie's Supper Club (635 West State Street; 607-272-4136), which used to be a union hall (hence the ''Farmers and Shippers'' sign out front). It also has a raw bar and Southern food with a Cajun bent. Sunday 9 a.m. 9. Take a Hike T-shirts and bumper stickers proclaim, ''Ithaca Is Gorges,'' and you can verify the claim with a hike up the Cascadilla Creek Gorge. Get your caffeine fix and a scone at Gimme! Coffee (430 North Cayuga Street; 607-277-8393). Cascadilla Creek is right across the street; follow it east a few blocks to the gorge. It's a vigorous half-hour walk, | 36 Hours | Ithaca, N.Y. |
1434733_0 | LIGHTEN up, pare down and go fly. Or, more likely, go stand and wait. Be ready to be searched, to remove your shoes and to suffer the indignity of seeing your personal belongings strewn about a security checkpoint. All this to get on a fully booked plane with tightly compressed seats, short-tempered fellow travelers, and little baggage room. It's guerrilla travel out there, and fliers need to plan accordingly. Like packing a suitcase, packing for the flight has become an art in itself, and at least two companies are prepared to help you customize your carry-on case. Magellan's, a travel merchant with stores in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, Calif., and in London (800-962-4943; www.magellans.com), now carries almost as many items for air travel as it does for ground adventures. Flight 001, a three-year-old Manhattan shop dedicated to frequent fliers (96 Greenwich Avenue, 212-691-1001) now has a satellite store in Henri Bendel on Fifth Avenue and another in San Francisco (525 Hayes Street, 415-487-1001). In the next year and a half, Flight 001 plans to open shops in Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago. (Flight 001 has a Web site, www.flight001.com, but most of its merchandise is available only in stores.) Some Identification, Please These days, at the airport and on the plane, identification must be accessible at all times, so you can use the time-honored clutch method or try Pantone's sleek light rubberized ticket wallet. It holds all necessary documents, comes in easy-to-spot metallic gray and costs $35 at Flight 001. Feet First When confined for hours to one tight space, even passengers with an aisle seat and no circulatory problems can suffer from swollen feet and ankles. Fly Safe Circulation Socks can help. They are thin cotton unisex knee socks designed to alleviate in-flight leg problems. In gray, they're $25 at Flight 001. Arcopedico slippers, made in Portugal, acquired popularity as beach wear, but travelers have discovered that the stretchy nylon mesh shoes with flexible rubber soles are perfect for traveling, allowing feet to breathe and be supported at the same time. Magellan's carries the Arcopedico leisure shoe in unisex sizes, six colors, two styles -- open back and closed -- and one price, $49. If you have short legs and take long flights, try Magellan's folding plastic footrest: it costs $24.85, is four inches high when in use, measures 4 by 8 1/2 by 3/4 inches when folded, | 10 Hours in Coach? Pack to Make Time Fly |
1434822_0 | A newly identified synthetic hormone worked better than estrogen to strengthen bone when tested in mice, researchers are reporting today. Unlike estrogen, it did not increase the risk of breast or uterine cancer, they said. The new compound, estren, is years away from human tests, but researchers say it is of great interest because it belongs to a new class of drugs with the potential to work better than existing ones at preventing or treating osteoporosis and other chronic diseases of aging. Dr. Stavros C. Manolagas, the senior author of a report being published today in the journal Science, said estren helped build bone in both males and females, with no effect on reproductive tissues. ''It is a gender-neutral treatment,'' Dr. Manolagas said. ''Men will not grow breasts.'' He added that estren might also prevent hot flashes, cardiovascular disease and the brain lesions associated with Alzheimer's disease. But, he said, an important question is whether estren, like estrogen, will increase the risk of blood clots, which can be deadly. Dr. Manolagas is director of a bone disease center in Little Rock for the Department of Veterans Affairs and director of endocrinology at the University of Arkansas. Interest in new therapies for osteoporosis and menopause symptoms has soared because hormone replacement therapy causes small but significant increases in the risk for breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, blood clots and gallbladder disease. Although hormone therapy prevents bone loss, an influential government panel said last week that it did not recommend hormones for that purpose because of the risks. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, said that women at risk for osteoporosis should consult their doctors about other treatments. Other treatments exist, but all have side effects, and most do not work as well as estrogen does. Dr. Jill Carrington, a researcher at the National Institute on Aging who did not take part in the estren study, said: ''This opens up a whole new avenue for potential treatment. That's not to say it's going to happen in the clinic tomorrow, but we didn't have this whole new class of compounds to consider before.'' Dr. Carrington added: ''This is something that could potentially work for males as well as females. Males are definitely in jeopardy for osteoporosis, and have fewer options than women have.'' | A Synthetic Hormone Outdoes Estrogen in Mice Bone-Building |
1428964_0 | The AIDS epidemic is a humanitarian catastrophe. But as the virus spreads insidiously around the world, it is becoming something else -- a threat to global and regional stability, because of its potential to disrupt the economic, political and military structures of key countries. Until now the main impact of AIDS has been in central and southern Africa. Now a report from the National Intelligence Council, which prepares analyses for the American intelligence community, provides alarming estimates of the next big wave of AIDS infections. It says they will soon hit Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, India and China, countries with more than 40 percent of the world's population. All are regional or global powers. The number of infected people in these countries is projected to triple over the next eight years, reaching roughly 50 million to 75 million in 2010. Nigeria and Ethiopia could be devastated, losing a big slice of government and business professionals and suffering a loss in economic growth and foreign investment. Their ability to play regional leadership roles could be seriously weakened. In Russia, AIDS could exacerbate the severe health problems and population decline, slow economic growth and weaken the military, which already loses a third of its prospective conscripts because of H.I.V. or hepatitis infections caused by drug use. China and India, though projected to have the largest number of infections, were deemed able to cope for the next eight years because the infected people will be diffused in very large populations. But both nations could experience severe problems after that if they fail to curb the epidemic. These intelligence projections exceed previous estimates by health authorities, making it hard to judge their reliability. But the general thrust of the new report is surely right -- that AIDS is gaining momentum in countries whose governments have not given it the high priority needed to stem the epidemic. Officials there need to understand that they are not only facing the prospect of millions of sufferers but of the very fabric of their societies coming unraveled. | AIDS as a Threat to Global Stability |
1429394_0 | FEW corners of Germany are more remote. The Usedom Music Festival, already out of the way, opened its season last weekend with a major commemorative performance of Benjamin Britten's ''War Requiem'' in this village at the northern tip of the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea, within shouting distance of Poland. But more to the point of the commemoration, within shooting distance of England. For this is where the Nazi government developed the V-2 rockets that hailed on Western Europe in the closing stages of World War II. And the location of that project was chosen in part for its very remoteness, to allow for great secrecy. Mstislav Rostropovich conducted North German Radio orchestras and international choruses and soloists before an audience of 1,000, including Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, and Johannes Rau, the president of Germany. The occasion was, loosely, the 60th anniversary of the first successful launch of a rocket into space on Oct. 3, 1942. (''Space'' at least by some definitions; the rocket rose 50 miles, twice the previous record set by Germany's Paris Gun of World War I.) That is not the most obvious pretext for a memorial, and partly for this reason, the concert raised larger issues relating to the nature of such retrospective events and their prospects for success. The observance was in any case made more meaningful, even necessary, by a botched 50th-anniversary commemoration a decade ago. That was to have been an unabashed celebration of the birth of rocketry, which had given fateful rise not only to intercontinental ballistic missiles and the nuclear arms race but also to space travel. As the musical comedian Tom Lehrer caustically recounted (''once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?''), Wernher von Braun, the mastermind at Peenemünde, also went on to mastermind the early American space program. The 1992 event -- monumentally insensitive to matters like the use of slave labor in both the development and manufacture of V-2's, with deaths in the thousands, as well as the havoc the rockets wrought -- stirred protests in Germany and abroad and was ultimately canceled. Now, with the help of a new museum, opened in stages over the last two years, discussions have shifted to the darker purposes and implications of the technology developed here. Those issues are detailed in an informative book, ''The Rocket and the Reich,'' by Michael J. Neufeld, the | Ineffable Sounds in a Haunted Place |
1429411_2 | level, all of my work is related to what I see as certain new tendencies in the culture,'' Mr. Aitken said in a recent phone conversation, a follow-up to an extended face-to-face interview two years ago. ''Accelerated nomadicism, self-contained, decentralized communication -- these things are at the core of this space we're living in, a terrain that is radically different from the past.'' There's no question that the tendencies Mr. Aitken identifies in the broader culture are particularly vivid in his own peripatetic professional life. In addition to his international exhibition schedule, Mr. Aitken is often on the road in search of locations, from the Skeleton Coast of Namibia for his 1997 film, ''Diamond Sea,'' to the interior of the volcano-ravaged Caribbean island of Monserrat for the entropic 1998 travelogue, ''Eraser.'' For last year's ''New Ocean,'' he went even farther afield, traveling to remote sites from the Arctic to Argentina for the water-rich imagery that filled its multiroom, multiscreen environments. Yet for all Mr. Aitken's love of extraordinary settings, and his unusual ability to distill them in images, there is rarely a sense of touristic exoticism in his work. The projects he creates with the film he brings back from these remarkable places always cycle back to the individual. Shot by the artist, meticulously edited, paired with carefully calibrated sound components and presented in highly strategized, architectural installation settings, Mr. Aitken's major works at first dazzle the senses. Their deeper concerns, however, lie less with exterior settings than with interior states: psychic conditions expressed in vivid moments of sensory experience, time and activity lyrically recast outside the linear conventions of traditional narrative. Born and reared in Redondo Beach, Calif., Mr. Aitken entered the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1987 with a vague intention of pursuing illustration. Soon bored, he embarked on a series of conceptual experiments in different mediums and forms, gravitating toward video for some of his first substantial works after graduation. Combining a fascination with alternative modes of image-making and a flair for slightly loopy guerrilla performance, these projects used video to document stray moments of perceptual poetry. For his earliest VHS work, ''Inflection'' (1992), Mr. Aitken got his shot by fastening a surveillance camera to a hobbyist's model rocket that was then launched over suburban San Diego. For the next year's ''Superstar,'' he spent a full day climbing each of the letters of the | No Labels, No Boundaries: An Artist of the Moment |
1429726_1 | to money from international Catholic organizations. The changes, however, have heightened tensions between the ''official'' churches, which register with the government and allow the Communist Party to govern church affairs, and the clandestine ''underground'' churches, which cling to the supremacy of the pope at the cost of persecution. Only the official churches are allowed to accept foreign money. In the last few years, hundreds of Catholic churches have been built in central Hebei Province alone, according to Beifang Jinde, China's first Catholic charity. Through its bilingual Web site and overseas lobbying efforts, the organization has helped secure foreign financing for 100 churches since it was founded in 1999. But that is not all: Beifang Jinde as well as a number of parishes in this area are also busily building schools, clinics and nurseries -- social services that China's lapsed socialist system no longer provides. It is a striking burst of religious activity in a country where freedom to worship varies significantly from place to place, depending on the often begrudging tolerance of local officials, the negotiating skills of parish priests and their willingness to abide by government rules on registration and practice. Over time, foreign charities have become increasingly willing to assist government-registered congregations like the one here in Beizhan, and to accept congregants as genuine Catholics, albeit Catholics who are forced to live with compromises. The revival of religious activity has drawn a number of formerly clandestine Catholics back to open practice at official churches. At the same time, those who remain underground have felt ever more intense suffering. This summer in the village of Dingzhou, about 100 miles north of here, the police bulldozed a church that was under construction by an unregistered congregation, according to the United States-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, which tracks China's underground Catholics. Also, the revival of church building and charity work by groups like Beifang Jinde has left many officials anxious about maintaining control. In September, the police in Bao-ding, also in Hebei, opened a yearlong investigation of local Catholics, both ''official'' and underground, according to documents provided by Li Shixiong, head of the Committee for Investigation of Persecution of Religion in China, which is based in New York. Under special scrutiny are Chinese clerics who have ties with or accept money from abroad, even though such donations to registered groups are legal under a 1999 law. ''Even as this kind of money | In China, Catholic Churches Flourish, but Under Controls |
1429346_5 | mechanical invention''; there is no ''necessary progression,'' so it ''is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another.'' Most disturbing was his recognition that because natural selection gave a contingent, materialist explanation for the existence of the moral capacity, it removed any divine or cosmic endorsement of its products. In a darkly funny passage in ''The Descent of Man,'' Darwin wrote that if humans had the same reproductive biology as bees, ''there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters.'' As Browne shows, Darwin had unshakable moral commitments -- he was fiercely antislavery, furious that Lincoln's war aims did not center on abolition, enraged by cruelty to animals, politically liberal and radical. But virtually alone in his time, he did not seek to validate his commitments by appeal to nature, God or science. Darwinism was not a doctrine of the strong celebrating the rightness of their power over the weak. Chronically ill, anguished by the deaths of three dearly loved children, haunted by the possibility that he might have transmitted some hereditary vulnerability to his remaining children, Darwin was achingly aware of ''the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horridly cruel works of nature.'' ''My God,'' he wrote to his friend Hooker, ''how I long for my stomach's sake to wash my hands of it.'' Emerging out of the fertile detail in Browne's book, it is this aspect of Darwin's character that suggests answers. Darwin went farther than his contemporaries because he was less bound by the compulsion to make the universe conform to his predilections. While others rapidly turned aside, his stoicism in the face of bitter imaginative vistas allowed him to persevere along logical paths to some of the coldest places human thought has ever reached. In a eulogy, Huxley identified the ''intense and almost passionate honesty by which all his thoughts . . . were irradiated.'' It was this quality that won the admiration, but not the agreement, of his colleagues and of his nation. The will to know must have been singularly unbending in a man for whom even God's banishment or death was incidental to finding the truth about finch beaks, barnacle mating and primate laughter. John Tooby's book ''Universal Minds'' (with Leda Cosmides) is due out this winter. He | 'The Greatest Englishman Since Newton' |
1429384_0 | TRAVEL can sometimes feel like losing control: One is confined for hours in speeding machines, obliged to sleep in strange surroundings and eat food prepared by unseen hands. So it's not surprising that seasoned travelers have a trick or two to defeat the forces of discomfort and carve out a bit of individual privilege. These little tips can be the difference between misery and mastery. Following are some strategies from personal experience, friends and lively online forums and bulletin boards on domestic and international travel, including Compuserve, Fodor's, Frommer's and Rick Steves's ''Europe Through the Back Door'' Web site. Duct tape looms large in these discussions, along with Ziploc bags, Bubble Wrap, diaper pins, paper clips, waxed dental floss and everything inflatable. (Anything that might not pass muster with airport security personnel should go into checked luggage.) Because air travel is stressful, many tips have to do with flying. When airlines allow passengers with small children to board first, some suggest that if there are two adults, one should take the heavy carry-on belongings onto the plane as soon as possible, while the other stays in the boarding lounge with the children until the last minute. The idea is to reduce the time young children are in their seats. Lots of people swear by the ''bucky'' pillows, filled with buckwheat hulls, that support one's neck through a long flight. Space savers recommend the inflatable neck pillows, while conceding that they're not as comfortable. Some travelers take a pillowcase to cover the headrest or to make a fairly good pillow, stuffed with spare clothing. The issue of food and drink is, of course, basic. To ensure that she has bracingly cool water, a friend freezes a nearly filled liter bottle of water, then gets the attendants to top it off when they pass by with water. Others take packages of protein shakes or chicken bouillon, or nutrition bars, for those times during a trip when there is no food around. An added benefit is that when these consumables are gone, there's extra space for souvenirs. Some travelers recommend checking luggage curbside before dropping off a rental car or leaving a car in a parking lot. (This tip works only for domestic flights; there's no curbside check-in for international.) If you have black luggage like the majority of travelers, it's helpful to mark your bag with brightly colored duct tape, or unmistakable | The Small Stuff Can Save a Trip |
1432025_0 | ''The V Book: A Doctor's Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health,'' by Dr. Elizabeth Gunther Stewart and Paula Spencer, Bantam Books, $13.95. Every year in the United States there are 10 million doctor's-office visits for vulvo-vaginal complaints. The women who seek help have unusual discharge, constant itching, yeast and other infections, dryness and pain with sexual activity, to name only a few annoyances and serious disorders. And yet, the V-zone, as the authors of this excellent manual put it, is something that many women have misguided notions about. Too often, they merely walk away from their physicians' offices with tubes of cream or antibiotic pills -- and sometimes without a clear diagnosis. ''Vagina is hardly a household word,'' writes Dr. Stewart, a veteran gynecologist who operates a renowned ''vulvar specialty'' service in Boston. ''Vulva and clitoris might as well belong to another language. They are blushers, vaguely subversive, not ready for prime time.'' Her book has no such constraints. Covering everything from pap tests to pain, vibrators to the existence of the G spot to ranges of absorbency (in grams) in tampons, it explores the basics of ''V-Health'' as candidly as comfortably as ''The Vagina Monologues'' publicized the vagina. Written because ''so many women are unfamiliar with their bodies,'' the book's comprehensive content separates truth from popular belief about yeast infections (they are harder to diagnose and self-treat than women have been led to believe), discusses the leading cause of vaginal complaints (bacterial vaginosis), and what foods to avoid with a bladder inflammation (spicy, chocolate, citrus fruits and sour cream among them). The book provides a detailed road map to the external genitalia, a tour through the passageway of the vagina (a ''design marvel''), and addresses questions like, ''What should you do if a tampon or condom gets 'lost' inside you?'' (''Don't panic, nothing's ever gotten lost in the vagina''); ''Do women ejaculate?'' (''Amazingly, no one's sure''); and ''Should I dye pubic hair?'' (''I'd really rather you didn't''). The book, the authors write, is not out to challenge modesty. ''Private parts are meant to stay private,'' they say. But it is designed, they add, to help a woman realize ''that the vulva and the vagina should not be private to YOU.'' BOOKS ON HEALTH | For Women, Separating Truths From Beliefs |
1432010_0 | Millions of women discovered a basic in medicine, much to their dismay, this summer when the Women's Health Initiative study showed that postmenopausal hormone replacement did not prevent heart attacks. Only clinical trials, they learned, can establish a definitive fact about the effectiveness and safety of a diagnostic technique, preventive method or treatment. Experience with patients in doctors' offices and hospitals and observational studies like the Nurses' Health Study can offer hints, sometimes strong ones, on benefits and risks of various procedures and habits, but they are still only guesstimates. Turning a hint into a hard-to-refute fact requires a clinical trial in which participants are randomly assigned to one procedural group or another. Even then, the findings can be applied with certainty only to the kinds of people or circumstances used in the trial. Lifesaving Progress Clinical trials are the backbones of medical progress. They have demonstrated the value of vaccines to prevent devastating diseases and drugs to treat them. They have shown, for example, that certain drugs given immediately after a heart attack or stroke can markedly increase survival while others do not help. And clinical trials are behind nearly all the progress that has been made in treating various kinds of cancers in the last four decades. Treatments that now save the lives of most children with acute leukemia and most young adults with Hodgkin's disease were established through clinical trials. So was the replacement of radical mastectomies, the standard therapy for breast cancer for more than half a century, with lesser procedures like simple mastectomies and, more common now, lumpectomies followed by radiation therapy and sometimes chemotherapy. The newer therapies are not only less damaging to a woman's body and self-image but are also associated with better survival rates. Thanks largely to the findings of clinical trials, the five-year survival rate for all stages of breast cancer is nearing 84 percent, and rates for melanoma and cancers of the cervix, uterus, prostate and bladder exceed 90 percent. Yet, only 3 percent to 5 percent of cancer patients take part in clinical trials, which test standard therapies against new approaches that may or may not be better than the standard. It usually takes three years to enroll enough patients in a cancer trial to produce statistically significant results, a simple fact that delays progress in the fight against cancer. Why More Don't Participate Misconceptions about the nature of | Ferreting for Facts in the Realm of Clinical Trials |
1432007_0 | The soybeans growing on a test plot in Hawaii look, grow and taste like other soybeans. But some people who eat them will notice a big difference, because the beans have been genetically engineered to cause fewer allergic reactions. The project is one of several efforts to use genetic engineering to reduce allergies from foods like wheat, rice and peanuts. Scientists are aiming beyond food allergies, too. A group in Australia has worked on removing allergens from ryegrass, a major cause of hay fever. And at least two groups hope to genetically engineer the deadly ricin toxin out of castor plants. One of the main concerns about genetic engineering of crops is that it might introduce new allergens into the food supply. Genetically modified StarLink corn was not approved for human consumption because scientists were concerned the bacterial protein it contained would be allergenic. When the corn was later discovered in taco shells and other foods, huge food recalls ensued. Some researchers hope that if genetic engineering could also be used to remove allergens, it would counter some of the criticism of biotech foods. But the big-crop biotech companies are still in the very early stages of developing nonallergenic products. A spokesman for Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the big seed company growing the less allergenic soybean in Hawaii, said it might take 7 to 10 years to reach the market. About 2 percent of adults and 8 percent of children in the nation have food allergies, causing hives, diarrhea, nausea or, in rare cases, potentially fatal anaphylactic shock. Dozens of people die each year from eating peanuts, sometimes unwittingly. Soy allergies affect fewer than 1 percent of American children, though the allergies are more prevalent in Asian countries, where soy is a staple, said Dr. Ricki M. Helm, an allergy specialist at the Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. Nonallergenic crops could be used for special products, like soy formula for babies allergic to soy. If enough nonallergenic crops are grown, the overall level of allergens in the food supply may fall enough to limit the risks of accidental exposure. ''The ultimate goal is to make foods more safe so ingestion of hidden allergens will not cause anaphylactic or dangerous food reactions,'' said Dr. Helm, who is working on the less allergenic soybean with scientists from the Department of Agriculture and from Pioneer Hi-Bred and its parent company, DuPont. Allergies occur | Gene Jugglers Take to Fields for Food Allergy Vanishing Act |
1432054_2 | the republican movement to politics,'' Mr. Reid said in an interview. ''But we now have charges in three different jurisdictions that stand in complete contrast with those intentions, and it is undermining everyone's confidence. The time it is taking to rein in this kind of activity is taking longer than any of the other parties in the power-sharing arrangement can reasonably be asked to bear.'' The Ulster Unionists, the largest party in the assembly, have said they will not serve again with Sinn Fein unless the I.R.A. disarms and disbands as the peace agreement had promised. Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, has said he wants to see all paramilitary groups, including the I.R.A., disbanded but contends that Sinn Fein cannot bring about that result by itself. A senior Bush administration official said today that Sinn Fein could no longer hide behind claims that it can not control I.R.A. actions that are at odds with the party's commitment to peace. ''Whatever the analysis, whether it's dissidents within the I.R.A. or hard-liners or whatever, it's simply unacceptable,'' the official said in a telephone interview from Washington. Britain and Ireland are the co-sponsors of the Northern Ireland peace agreement, and Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern issued a joint statement today saying ending paramilitary activity had become the defining issue. ''It is now essential that the concerns about the commitment to exclusively democratic and nonviolent means are removed,'' they said. ''The time has come for people to clearly choose one track or the other.'' In his announcement at his Hillsborough Castle official residence, Mr. Reid said there was no reason for paramilitaries to exist in contemporary Northern Ireland. ''People talk of the history 30 years ago, of 300 years ago, but in today's Northern Ireland the passage to power through democracy is open to everyone,'' he said. ''There is absolutely no legitimacy to the use of violence.'' He said he hoped that this suspension would be a ''short-lived impasse,'' but indications were that it could last longer than the other three, the longest of which continued for three months. Mr. Reid noted the broad public support for self-government in Northern Ireland and suggested that the bickering legislators of Ulster were out of step with its 1.6 million residents. ''I have never met anyone in Northern Ireland outside of the politicians who wishes to get rid of the peace process,'' he said. | Britain Reasserts Ulster Rule, Suspending Elected Assembly |
1432061_4 | ahold of them?'' said Thom Nulty, the president of Navigant International, the travel-management company. Navigant and other big corporate travel-management companies are all working with their clients to encourage travelers to book business trips on internal company travel sites. This is mostly for cost savings and for the ease of keeping travel data to use in airline discount negotiations, but also for its usefulness in tracking people down in an emergency. ''Travel managers can go online and query the database for up-to-the-minute information for any of their people traveling anywhere in the world,'' Mr. Nulty said. ''It will track down their itineraries right away.'' This is all a reflection of an urgent readjustment going on in the way business travel is managed, as well as the way it is undertaken. Expecting trouble anywhere in the world and preparing for it are matters that have risen very high on the corporate travel agenda. The Business Travel Coalition, which works closely with corporate travel managers, is currently surveying companies to gauge what kind of new procedures -- in logistics and communications -- they have been adopting in light of the possibility of a war with Iraq and the likelihood of increasing terrorist attacks against Americans. ''They need to know where their travelers are; they need to have a communications platform set up,'' said Kevin P. Mitchell, the chairman of the group. ''You remember the last gulf war, and during Sept. 11, there were thousands of travelers stranded around the world, and great concerns about where they were.'' Mr. Platt added: ''The old days of just picking up your passport and making sure you have your ticket to get on the plane are over. Today, you need to do more research and be more aware of the threats. And by the way, those threats are not mostly from terrorists or from a large catastrophe.'' Day in and day out, he said, the biggest threat around the world is crime. Steven Kellner, the intelligence manager for International SOS, readily agreed. ''Your chances of getting caught in a terrorist incident'' are slight while traveling, he said, adding: ''People really need to start thinking about crime. Today, Americans traveling abroad don't think enough about what it mans to be an American walking the foreign streets.'' And that's a subject for next week's column. On the Road appears each Tuesday. E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com. BUSINESS TRAVEL: ON THE ROAD | The Need to Know Who, What, Where and When |
1435456_0 | IT'S official: no longer will the hormones many women take at menopause be called ''hormone replacement therapy.'' As the National Institutes of Health announced last week, treatment with estrogens and progestins is now to be called ''menopausal hormone therapy.'' The hormone treatment never was a replacement and never did restore the physiology of youth, and the treatment name should reflect that, federal scientists and Food and Drug Administration officials said. ''We have to separate our aging from our going through menopause,'' said Dr. Susan Hendrix, a gynecologist at Wayne State and an investigator in a large federal study that cast doubt on the drugs' overall benefit. ''We can't take a pill for the rest of our lives to make us young.'' Such drugs relieve symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes, and can also help maintain bone mass. But they also confer slight risks of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and breast cancer. They don't make women look younger, and it's not known whether they can stave off memory loss. With the old name, ''it was almost as though language was corrupting thought,'' said Dr. Barnett Kramer, director of the office of disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. ''If you think that all you're doing is treating a deficiency, you can fool yourself into thinking you don't even need to test the hypothesis that the benefits of giving hormones would outweigh the harm,'' Dr. Kramer said. Gina Kolata | Replacing Replacement Therapy |
1435227_1 | plane door closes. There is hope. In recent months airports have reported that the pace of lost articles has slowed considerably. ''Now, people are paying more attention at the checkpoints,'' said Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for Chicago's airports, ''and the screeners are more cognizant that people leave things behind.'' Despite having taken more than a dozen flights under the new restrictions, I still get rattled when I am chosen for one of the random security searches -- I have been ''randomly'' selected in my last six flights -- in which you are asked to remove your coat, watch, belt buckle, writing devices and potentially ballistic footware. My shoes have been removed so often that I should save time by traveling barefoot. One of the handiest little devices on a trip is the Swiss Army knife. You can slice fruit, uncork wine, cut articles out of magazines, remove old luggage tags, file your nails and perform other types of essential tasks. Almost invariably, I forget to put it in my checked luggage, so there goes another $25 -- and try removing a magazine article with a plastic knife. There may be some way to get back these articles, but it's hardly worth the effort once you are back home. I've always wondered where these knives and files and other metal accessories go, so on a recent trip I asked a security officer. ''Throw 'em away,'' he grumbled. ''They throw away thousands of perfectly good pocket knives?'' ''I said we throw 'em away,'' he repeated sternly, walking away with the purposeful air of someone who would happily impound a Boy Scout's whistle. Rumor has it that people carrying laptops have a greater chance of being pulled out of line; and one-way tickets always trigger suspicions, they say, as do travelers whose itineraries change several times in a short period. This is precisely my profile. On the infrequent occasions when I am not frisked, my troubles usually begin when I am asked to spread out my clothing and possessions -- keys, wallet, change, pens, notebooks -- on a long table. Often this table also holds detritus from fellow travelers' pockets and bags, and when everyone is in a rush, things can get pretty wild. About a year and a half ago, even before the security crackdown, I walked off with another man's navy blazer and wore it for nearly a month before noticing | Securely Lost |
1435361_1 | in the technology field. Armed with an M.B.A. in finance and information systems, Mr. Sawicki had been job hunting since his graduation from Fordham University in August 2001. Novantech's offer of a future salary when the company became profitable seemed attractive. Mr. Sawicki will be learning a new field and gaining marketable skills, and he could continue job hunting in case the company did not turn a profit. ''I'd have to be crazy not to take their offer,'' he said. Mr. Sawicki was interviewed on a park bench; the company does not have offices yet. But that is fine with him, as long as he can learn. He does a little bit of everything for the company -- marketing, recruiting, updating the Web site, for now, and eventually he hopes to manage projects. He works from his home three days a week while continuing to look for a paid position. Sacrificing a salary might seem a little extreme, but at least it makes a good impression on a potential employer. Some job hunters, straining to stand out from the crowd, make the mistake of resorting to gimmicks that are more likely to rub hiring managers the wrong way. Christopher Jones, vice president for content development at HotJobs.com, tells the story of an applicant who sent a company a box of chocolates with his résumé. Another made a stab at humor, asking a food company in his cover letter whether it was ''hungry for a good worker.'' Yet another put a bag of sand and a gold coin in his packet, promoting himself as ''buried treasure.'' ''That's taking a metaphor a bit too far in the job hunt,'' Mr. Jones said. Well, that may not always be true. In creative fields like advertising or television, pushing the envelope is accepted, even admired. Robert Wilson, now a resident of Vermont, recalls his early days of job hunting, when he parlayed a hyped résumé, a messenger-delivered follow-up letter and a half-dozen phone calls to the producer of ''NBC Nightly News'' into an audition, even though he had no on-camera experience. ''I heard that their consumer reporter was leaving, so I wrote and told them what that person had been doing wrong and what I'd do to improve the segment,'' Mr. Wilson recalled. Alas, he did not get the job. Stuart Simons is hoping his artistic talent will give him a leg up in | In Land of the Jobless, The Extreme Approach |
1435175_9 | on Fifth Avenue photographing the Easter parade. So I got on my bike and went up to the Sheep Meadow, and there before me were all the kids -- the flower children. All these kids dressed in everything from their mother's and grandmother's trunks, lying on the grass. It was unbelievable. It was all about the fashion revolution. And it was because Charlotte Curtis had called me on the phone. MOST of my pictures are never published. I just document things I think are important. For instance, I've documented the gay pride parade from its first days. It was something we had never seen before. I documented every exhibition that Diana Vreeland did at the Met, but every picture is of her hand on something. I do everything, really, for myself. I suppose, in a funny way, I'm a record keeper. More than a collector. I'm very aware of things not of value but of historical knowledge. I remember when Chez Ninon was closing in the mid-70's. I went in one day, and the files were outside in the trash. I said to the secretary, ''Well, I hope you gave all the letters from Jackie Kennedy and Mrs. Rose Kennedy to the Kennedy Library.'' And she said, ''No, they kept a few, but they felt that the rest were too personal, so they threw them out.'' I rescued everything I could and still have it. I go to different places all the time. And I try to be as discreet as I can. My whole thing is to be invisible. You get more natural pictures that way, too. The only place where I really hung out was the old Le Cirque on 65th Street. My friend Suzette, who did the flowers there, has been with Sirio Maccioni since he got off the boat from Europe, when he was a captain at the old Colony restaurant. Everyone said Suzette tipped me off, but she couldn't have cared less about who was there. Most people wouldn't believe that anyone would be so dumb to come every day and stand for two hours without knowing whether somebody was coming out. But I like the surprise of finding someone. Most photographers couldn't do what I do because of deadlines. You spend days, weeks, years waiting for what I call a stunner. I think fashion is as vital and as interesting today as ever. I | Bill on Bill |
1435536_0 | The United States, Japan and South Korea issued a joint statement here today calling on North Korea to dismantle its clandestine nuclear weapons program ''in a prompt and verifiable manner'' and warned Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, that his ''relations with the international community'' hinged on his quick compliance with the demand. The statement was issued after considerable behind-the-scenes diplomacy by the United States to form a common front with the Asian allies against North Korea's project to enrich uranium in its latest attempt to develop atomic weapons. But it stopped short of threatening the complete economic isolation of North Korea that the Bush administration has talked about in the last week. The statement said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, who traveled to North Korea to normalize relations just before the nuclear disclosure, warned today that ''normalization talks would not be concluded'' until the nuclear issue was fully resolved. That statement was considered crucial by American officials because Japan is the largest potential source of trade and investment for North Korea. The statement came as the administration seemed increasingly anxious that members of the United Nations Security Council -- including Mexico, the host of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting that started here today -- are still unwilling to give Washington a broad latitude to strike at President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The French said they would introduce their own resolution if the Security Council does not reach a consensus on the Bush proposal. [Page 8.] President Vicente Fox of Mexico told President Bush today that his country was still consulting with France and Russia, among other nations. Mexico holds a pivotal vote on the Security Council as it debates how to confront Iraq. Mexico, France and Russia have pursued an alternative resolution that Mr. Bush finds too constraining, and he warned anew today with some frustration in his voice that he has told the world ''in speech after speech after speech'' that ''if the U.N. won't act, if Saddam Hussein won't disarm, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.'' Underscoring the president's impatience with the six-week-long debate in the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that ''we have reach the point where we have to make a few fundamental decisions in the early part of next week'' about whether the United Nations is ready to pass a resolution that Mr. Bush | U.S. and 2 of Its Allies Warn North Korea on Atomic Arms |
1435281_0 | Interpreting Bears In the mid-1980's, Dr. Lynn Rogers began living with wild black bears, after some 15 years of research in the Minnesota forests seeking to understand bears' fears of people as opposed to humans' fears of bears. Mr. Rogers has published 100 articles on the subject and has appeared on many television programs. He is also the subject of Animal Planet's documentary, ''The Man Who Walks with Bears.'' At 7 p.m. today, Mr. Rogers will present a slide-talk titled ''The Bear Facts: Unlocking the Mystery of the American Black Bear'' at the Torrey Life Sciences Building of the University of Connecticut in Storrs. In tracking 111 bears, some of whom have lived to be 30, he has learned to interpret their body language and vocalizations, which are aimed at scaring intruders away rather than preparing to attack them. He cites New Englanders as ''among the most highly educated in the world, and they are allowing bears to return to areas where they have not been seen for a century.'' Admission is $5. Information: (860) 486-4460. A Motherly Mission Grandmother power is to be explored as a force for finding nonviolent solutions to social problems, particularly those of children throughout the world, at the first meeting of the Grandmothers' Circle at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Bedford Middle School in Westport. After breakfast and registration, a day of workshops and planning sessions ending at 6 p.m. will include a broad spectrum of speakers, including Laura Lee Simon, the founding member of the Connecticut Commission on Children; Brenda Kelley, the director of Connecticut's A.A.R.P.; Alex Kopp, the mayor of Norwalk, and Marilyn Nelson, the state poet laureate. The morning sessions is free. Admission to lunch and the workshops is $10. The school is at 88 North Avenue. Information: (203) 227-6306. Painter's Solo Act Thomas Eggerer, a German-born painter who has tried his hand at stage and film set design in Bavaria and in Vienna, is having his first solo museum show at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Mr. Eggerer, 39, also studied at the Munich Art Academy, worked on collaborative installations and graphics projects in the United States and returned to Cologne to paint again. He moved to Los Angeles in 1999. Mr. Eggerer's canvasses recall a vintage movie in which a small number of people aboard a large ship come to realize that they are traveling to nowhere. One painting depicts | THE GUIDE |
1435642_0 | The first thing you notice is the sandals. All the Masai warriors wear them -- 10,000-mile shoes they call them. Because they are made from old car tires. The way the Masai walk, they'll do another 10,000 easy before they wear out. Martin Margiela would love them. Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni has already used a variation of them. In London or New York or Paris, it would be street fashion. Way out back of beyond in Kenya, when you're five hours from Nairobi, in the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser, riding through the Rift Valley, where baboons are the only traffic hazard, then bumping through scrub and mud and dried-up riverbeds, past zebra and ostrich, toward the haven known as Shompole close by the Nguruman Escarpment, the word ''street'' becomes superfluous. These sandals work! Then there is the jewelry. Blinding, dazzling, fabulous color. No wonder European designers like John Galliano of Dior are inspired. These days, the native beads come from the former Czechoslovakia, and the fastenings are made from fuse wire. But so what? Go to the museum in Nairobi and you see that even in the colonial period the Masai were using old saucepan lids for tribal adornment. What do we know about recycling? HILARY ALEXANDER The writer is the fashion editor of The Daily Telegraph | Travelers Elect a Real Best-Dressed List; TOUGH SHOES FOR THE WARRIOR |
1435526_2 | changes to the draft or formally discuss anyone else's draft. United Nations procedures can be complicated, and by formally and publicly introducing a resolution, instead of keeping it in the corridors where it can be discussed in private, the United States was clearly signaling its Council partners that it had taken the lead. France and Russia responded by presenting their own ''informal'' texts, which are not considered official United Nations documents. Early in the week, French officials assured the United States that they did not intend to compete by formally introducing a different text. But France and Russia say the American resolution is deeply flawed and has too many ambiguous references that would give the United States too much leeway to go to war. France has also been concerned that the United States might try to force a vote on the American resolution, putting Paris in the position of perhaps having to abstain or even use its veto. The last time France vetoed an American resolution at the United Nations was over the Suez crisis in 1956, and it is determined not to be faced with having to decide to vote against the United States on such a crucial matter. In the radio interview, Mr. de Villepin said, ''There is still work to be done, progress to be made, and we have said so to our American friends for weeks.'' He also said France wanted a unanimous vote in the Council ''to send a clear and strong message'' to Iraq, adding that for France the use of force cannot be automatic and is only a last resort. ''We are convinced that if everyone concentrates on the main objective -- disarmament, the return of the inspectors -- there is a strong chance, and the document which we have prepared demonstrates this, of a unanimous vote in the Security Council,'' Mr. de Villepin said. American officials have said the resolution must ensure that United Nations inspectors gain complete access to any sites they choose as well as to Iraqi experts and documents. It must also refer to Iraq's ''material breach'' of past Council resolutions, the officials said. The French version does not mention Iraq's ''material breach.'' France considers the phrase a ''hidden trigger'' that could permit the United States to cite any new Iraqi violations of United Nations demands as justification for war without approval by the Council. THREATS AND RESPONSES: DIPLOMACY | France Is Set to Offer the U.N. A Separate Resolution on Iraq |
1433535_1 | Republican Army was still engaged in military activity while Sinn Fein was taking part in government. In a surprise visit to Belfast on Thursday, Mr. Blair used unusually forthright language to demand that the I.R.A. disarm. Today's statement was the first public I.R.A. response. ''The crunch is the crunch,'' Mr. Blair said in his speech. ''There is no parallel track left. The fork in the road has finally come.'' ''We cannot carry on with the I.R.A. half in, half out of this process,'' he added. ''Remove the threat of violence and the peace process is on an unstoppable path.'' Mr. Blair's speech was billed in London as his most important on Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which paved the way for establishing the power-sharing government. The reimposition of Britain's rule deepened the province's crisis, with violence in the streets and paralysis in the power-sharing government. In its statement today, the I.R.A. said it was not a threat to peace in Northern Ireland. ''The source repeated that the I.R.A. is not a threat to the peace process and will not accept what they say are the imposition of unrealistic demands,'' Ireland state television said. On Friday, Mr. Adams also seemed to reject Mr. Blair's ultimatum. ''This is not a time for deadlines,'' he said. ''That has never worked in the past.'' In his speech, made during a brief visit to Northern Ireland that had not been previously announced, Mr. Blair sought to balance his demands on the I.R.A. with criticism of the loyalist paramilitary groups that stand accused by republicans of perpetuating attacks on Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast. ''Most people do not see even a veneer of politics associated with the violence,'' Mr. Blair said, ''and much of it has long since descended into gangsterism, drug-dealing and organized crime.'' But Mr. Adams took issue with what he called Mr. Blair's one-sidedness. ''I think the republican anger will be that the focus is on one armed group,'' Mr. Adams said. At the same time, hard-liners among the Protestant loyalists also criticized Mr. Blair's statement as ''empty words.'' ''This was flagged as a very big and significant speech from the prime minister so we awaited it with interest, but what action is there?'' said David Burnside, an Ulster Unionist party member. But the Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, seemed to support Mr. Blair. Both men have invested political capital | I.R.A. Rejects Blair's Disarmament Demand |
1433367_2 | note pads or ink cartridges -- and he had received word that a recent batch of the products was deemed defective, his actions might seem reasonable. But given that his company repairs parts for jet engines that, if they malfunctioned, could result in passenger deaths, is it fair to hold him to a higher ethical standard? Is it fair, for that matter, to hold more accountable any company that makes products in which safety and life is an issue? ''The relative consequences of actions have everything to do with how we think about what is ethical and what is not,'' said Sharon Daloz Parks, co-author of ''Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World'' (Beacon Press) and associate director of the Whidbey Institute, a retreat center in Clinton, Wash., that runs personal and professional development programs. For Dr. William A. Carter, chief executive of Hemispherx Biopharma, a pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia that develops AIDS and cancer medications, whether to disclose potentially negative information before final results are known comes down to a level of comfort. ''Every person has his rheostat set differently with respect to the ethical issue and when you report a concern,'' Dr. Carter said. ''It's the same whether you're talking about your taxes or if you're in pharmaceutical development. Everything will become public knowledge; it's just a question of when. It's much better to err on the side of disclosure because to me it's a more comforting thing to do.'' Even if disclosure isn't necessary, that doesn't mean that it won't be in the future. ''That doesn't mean some court or some prosecutor won't read the law more broadly two years from now,'' said Jeffrey M. Kaplan, a lawyer at Arkin, Kaplan & Cohen in Manhattan. CONCERN about legal and financial exposure can certainly be a motivating factor. But the consequences of, say, a top executive's not reporting a potentially faulty engine part to aircraft companies are far greater than not disclosing a potential tax error. Urgency can and should become crucial when a suspected malfunction in a company's products -- whether jet engines, automobile tires or drugs -- can result in someone's death. Kenneth R. Andrews, a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School and editor of ''Ethics in Practice: Managing the Moral Corporation'' (Harvard Business School) said that making sound ethical decisions depends in part on ''the experience, intelligence and integrity of the decision | When to Err on the Side of Disclosure |
1433458_2 | botanical education programs. The first group of HSBC employees to go on Earthwatch expeditions included 16 from the United States and was selected from nearly 2,200 applicants. Of HSBC's 170,000 employees, about 110,000 speak fluent-enough English -- a requirement -- to be eligible. Earthwatch chose the fellows; the bank doesn't see the applications, which ask employees to explain why they want to go and how they plan to share what they learn. HSBC says the program is part of what it called a longstanding commitment to environmental and educational philanthropy projects. The company is a major corporate donor -- its philanthropic spending totaled $30.6 million in 2001. Until this year, however, HSBC had focused on local programs in the 81 countries and territories in which it operates, never exceeding $2 million or $3 million for a single project. ''The environment is something that people feel very strongly about, and the reality is that we can make some difference there because of our scale,'' said Amanda Combes, the HSBC manager who oversees HSBC's community programs, including this latest venture, which HSBC calls Investing in Nature. Ms. Combes, who is based in London, said the Earthwatch component, especially, showed the staff ''that this is not just a perk, but a true demonstration that we as an organization take the environment seriously, that we're not just doing this as window dressing.'' NOT everyone agrees that HSBC has a pristine record as a corporate citizen. It has underwritten bonds for the World Bank, which antiglobalization advocates accuse of having economic policies that undermine human rights and the environment in developing countries. And HSBC has made investments in socially and environmentally contentious projects in places like China and Indonesia, financing, for instance, nuclear plants and, in China, the Three Gorges Dam, which critics maintain will destroy the environment in the Yangtze River region. ISIS Asset Management, a London investment firm that monitors socially responsible investing, said in a recent report that HSBC was in its ''chasing pack'' category -- meaning that the bank had made progress assessing the environmental impact of its lending policies but still had room for improvement. HSBC has allowed its Investing in Nature partners to scrutinize its investing and environmental policies and has agreed to set up joint committees to monitor progress. The bank also has hired KPMG to review its operations and set targets for lowering greenhouse gas emissions (through | Business; HSBC's New Loan: 2,000 Environmentalists |
1433173_2 | into the other's possessions, unearthing, in each case, a forbidden secret. The second, longer section of the book, involving Vernor, is stronger than the first. Here Oates luxuriates in a favorite terrain: doomed, illicit love. ''I'd fallen in love with a man I did not know . . . and that love is a kind of illness; not a radiant idea as I'd imagined but a physical condition, like grief,'' the narrator says. And later, ''For whom we love helplessly we love, too, to betray: any connection is thrilling.'' Oates knows few contemporary rivals (Kathryn Harrison is one) for her expertise at conjuring up the frenetic compulsion of forbidden desire, its helpless commingling of passion with self-abasement. The incantatory rhythms of her prose are well suited to capturing both the heedlessness of physical attraction and the ugliness and cruelty that can accompany it. What makes this particular love taboo is a difference of race. Admirers of Oates's novel ''Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart'' (1990) may read with particular interest; there are parallels (beginning with their names) between Vernor Matheius and the black protagonist of that earlier novel, Verlyn Fairchild, known as Jinx. Both are young men of great promise who seem to thrive in a white world, but they are stymied by self-destructive tendencies. In the earlier novel the male and female protagonists are kept largely apart by their separate races, and their relationship goes unconsummated; here the bond is intimate and sexual, allowing Oates to explore racial difference in a far more raw and interesting way. For all that divides them, Vernor and the narrator share one enormous and peculiarly American conviction: that philosophy can rescue them from their personal histories and allow them to create themselves anew. It's no accident that the subject of Vernor's research involves ''the classic problem of 'ontological proof.' '' Vernor tells the narrator that ''I have no people, no parents, no brothers or sisters; I have no god; I have no home except in the mind. My thoughts are my home.'' This is precisely what the narrator has been trying to convince herself of since she left home, yet ultimately her love affair with Vernor reveals to both of them the folly of this wish. When the narrator's spying brings to light unsavory facts about Vernor's past, she tries to reassure him: '' 'But why should it matter? | The Consolation of Philosophy |
1433611_1 | conformity with the church's canon law. American church officials said they hoped to see that work finished in time to take it to the next meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in mid-November for their approval. Several church officials in the United States and in Rome said that some dismissed priests would now have firmer grounds for their appeals, while others cautioned that it is too soon to predict until the work of the eight church officials in Rome is concluded. ''It means that anyone who wants to appeal is going to have a damn easy trial in Rome,'' said the Rev. Canice Connors, a Franciscan friar who is president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. The conference represents religious orders in the United States and refused last summer to endorse the zero-tolerance approach. One Vatican official, asked whether a priest dismissed under certain provisions of the zero-tolerance policy would now have a better case for appeal, said, ''Absolutely.'' He added that the Vatican's response last week to the bishops ''doesn't legitimize the process by which the priest was dismissed.'' Abuse survivors said they were concerned that some priest perpetrators would be returned to ministry based on technicalities. ''It's like the Vatican just passed out get-out-of-jail-free cards to these priests, and it's a great concern that they will be reinstated,'' said Claudia Vercellotti, co-coordinator of the Toledo chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. But in Chicago, where five of eight suspended priests have appealed their removals to the Vatican, the Rev. Patrick Lagges, archdiocesan vicar for canonical services, said he did not think the Vatican's action would affect priests who have appealed their suspensions. ''No matter what, the right to appeal is a fundamental principle in our law,'' Father Lagges said. ''The appeals are something entirely different from the norms. The appeals are dealing with specific ways of acting on the part of the bishop that the priest is taking exception to.'' Among those appealing are priests who faced accusations from more than 20 years ago, priests who were suspended without full judicial hearings, and priests dismissed on the basis of anonymous letters, said Msgr. Michael Higgins, a canon lawyer and retired priest who founded ''Justice for Priests and Deacons.'' At issue in many of the appeals cases is that the bishops returned from their Dallas meeting with a policy | More Priests Are Now Likely To Challenge Dismissals |
1433175_6 | mountainous slopes breathing smoke and flame, roamed by diesel dinosaurs and filled with the human dead. The pile heaved and groaned and constantly changed, and was capable at any moment of killing again.'' It takes a brave writer to tackle the mechanics of ''slurry wall'' reinforcement -- these are the walls that kept tidal waters from flooding the deep basements of the trade center, and which were in constant danger of collapsing during the cleanup. But he makes slurry walls and even the occasional garbage barge come to life in ways that are impressive. ''American Ground'' helps us understand the gigantic proportions of the attack on Sept. 11; it helps us remember -- especially now that the architects are asserting control -- that Ground Zero is the final resting place of so many of the dead; and it makes for compelling reading. But it is also interesting as metaphor. Despite the many problems Langewiesche discovered in the cleanup operations, including the instances of looting by firemen, policemen and construction workers, the dismantling of the World Trade Center ruins was a great success. It took place at incredible speed. The remains of nearly 1,300 of the dead have been identified. And, most important, no one was killed, despite the enormous dangers to be found on the pile. The success of the operation, Langewiesche makes clear, is due to a little-known city agency called the Department of Design and Construction, which, according to the city's organizational charts, should not have been in charge. But the men who run the department took charge because they were the best men for the job, in a city with the greatest capabilities of any city, anywhere. In one delightful aside, Langewiesche quotes the D.D.C. commissioner, Kenneth Holden, on why his small department never ceded control of the recovery to the Federal Emergency Management Agency: ''As I kept explaining to FEMA later, this is not Oklahoma,'' Holden says. ''We had the equipment. We had the connections. We could handle it. We just went in and did what we had to do. And no one said no.'' Which made me think: imagine how much better off we'd be if only New Yorkers were in charge of domestic security and the war on terror. Jeffrey Goldberg, a staff writer for The New Yorker, is currently a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. | Reverse Engineering |
1431149_0 | Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement, which has brought four and a half years of peace to that troubled province, faces a grave crisis. The British and Irish governments must do everything possible to maintain the momentum of peace while trying to re-establish some trust between the province's leading Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, and Roman Catholic politicians, especially those from Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing. Sinn Fein's good faith is now in some doubt. Last week several of its members were charged with illegally possessing sensitive information, including home addresses of law enforcement personnel, that could be used for terrorist purposes. If these charges hold up, Sinn Fein will have a lot of explaining to do. After the arrests, the Ulster Unionists, who were already rashly threatening to torpedo the province's power-sharing executive, demanded that Sinn Fein's representatives be expelled by next week. To prevent a total rupture, Britain should once again temporarily suspend home rule in Northern Ireland, as it now seems likely to do, to buy time for a more lasting solution. The fundamental problem is Sinn Fein's intimate relationship with the I.R.A. and the I.R.A.'s continued refusal to declare a permanent peace. Ideally, the I.R.A. should disband as a military organization. Failing that, Sinn Fein will have to put considerably more distance between itself and its longtime sponsor. At the same time, the Ulster Unionists must unequivocally embrace the idea of power-sharing and accept whoever the Catholic community chooses to represent it. The British government should strengthen recent reforms of Northern Ireland's police service, prepare for new elections there next spring, and work with the Irish government in administering the province's affairs. Much has been accomplished in the past four and a half years. The communal violence and terrorism that killed more than 3,000 people has been halted. Home rule has been restored. Political detainees have been released and former paramilitary fighters reintegrated into civilian society. The return of peace has encouraged plans for economic revival of the long-depressed province. Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists must do what is needed to sustain these achievements in the days ahead. | Ulster's Fragile Peace |
1432911_0 | In a surprise visit to Belfast, Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the 1998 Northern Ireland peace accord is the only way forward for the British province and that the Irish Republican Army must cease all paramilitary activity for it to proceed. Britain resumed direct rule of Northern Ireland on Monday after the local government, in which Protestants and Roman Catholics share power, was suspended for the fourth time in response to accusations that the I.R.A. was spying on British officials. ''The British Government will simply not countenance any path other than implementing the agreement,'' Mr. Blair told business group. ''But we cannot carry on with the I.R.A. half in, half out of this process.'' Brian Lavery (NYT) | World Briefing | Europe: Northern Ireland: Blair Pushes Peace Effort |
1432833_1 | Microsystems announced that it would lay off 4,400 employees, and it reported a loss of $111 million, or 4 cents a share, for the quarter. Revenue was $2.7 billion, down 4 percent. [C3.] Foreign Sales Help Philip Morris Earnings at Philip Morris increased in the third quarter, largely on the strength of sales in foreign markets. Net income rose to $4.36 billion, or $2.06 a share, compared with $2.33 billion, or $1.06 a share, in the period a year earlier. Revenue decreased 1.7 percent, to $19.9 billion, from $20.25 billion. [C2.] Rules Proposed on Tax Shelters The Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service are proposing rules to force high-income people and corporations to disclose their use of potentially abusive tax shelters. [C2.] Auction Revenue Increases at EBay EBay, the Internet auction site, said revenue from transactions increased 73 percent in the quarter, to nearly $264 million. [C3.] Deal Near on Terrorism Insurance Administration officials and lawmakers have reached a tentative agreement on legislation to provide up to $100 billion in support to the insurance industry for terrorist attacks. [A11.] Delta Air Lines Plans More Layoffs Delta Air Lines announced plans to cut 7,000 to 8,000 more jobs. In addition, Continental, Northwest and America West reported losses for the quarter; Southwest had a profit. [C4.] Sales and Income Increase at Nokia Nokia, the world's largest cellphone maker, reported third-quarter net income of $598.8 million, up from $182.6 million in the comparable quarter a year earlier. Sales for the period grew 2 percent, to $7.1 billion. Though its sales ticked up only slightly in the third quarter, Nokia managed to triple its net income from the period a year ago. Analysts said the results show how efficiently Nokia controls its costs and negotiates prices with suppliers. [World Business, Section W.] First Boston May Face Complaint Massachusetts regulators who have been investigating Credit Suisse First Boston and its research practices are expected to file an administrative complaint against the firm, according to someone close to the inquiry. [C10.] EMC Reports $21 Million Profit EMC, a supplier of data storage systems, reported a quarterly profit of $21 million because of a one-time overseas tax benefit. [C3.] Cranberry Ads Take Health Angle Cranberries are the latest fruit to order up a multimillion-dollar publicity campaign using health as a selling point. The Cranberry Marketing Committee has hired Publicis Dialog U.S. to promote the fruit. Advertising. [C4.] | BUSINESS DIGEST |
1432848_4 | creation of a committee of American and Vatican representatives to resolve differences between the American initiatives and universal church law. Already today, advocates for victims of sexual abuse by priests began raising concerns about the impact of the Vatican response. ''If due process rights are the crux of the Vatican rejection, then I think we'll see a lot of priests who might have gone quietly suddenly asserting that correct procedures were not followed,'' said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Mr. Clohessy had not yet seen the Vatican response and was reacting to some news reports that characterized it as a rejection. Along with those reports came contradictory signs today that the Vatican's response was more nuanced and less cut-and-dried. Pope John Paul II, in fact, granted a private audience today to Bishop Gregory and other American prelates for a discussion of the abuse crisis. In June, American bishops voted overwhelmingly in favor of new prescriptions for trying to rid the priesthood of sexual predators. Those measures included the zero-tolerance policy -- which removed such priests from ministry, but not necessarily the priesthood -- along with increased cooperation with law enforcement authorities and the creation of a national lay board to monitor the church's progress. Bishop Gregory then carried the prescriptions to Rome, looking for feedback from the Vatican and for something called a recognitio that would make some of the regulations special laws for the Roman Catholic church in the United States. Vatican officials studied the regulations for four months and were keenly aware of the importance of restoring the credibility of church leaders in the United States, whose handling of sexually abusive priests plunged the church there into crisis. They also had problems with the prescriptions. The zero-tolerance policy, for example, defined child sexual abuse in a way that includes even situations that do not involve physical force or direct contact. The policy also did not differentiate between one-time offenders and serial molesters and, in the eyes of some Vatican officials, did not safeguard the rights of priests who faced murky accusations. The Dallas charter also called for American bishops to report all cases of sexual abuse to civil authorities, but the Vatican will admonish American bishops not to adopt the role of civilian prosecutors because that could jeopardize the traditionally pastoral relationship between a bishop and his priests, officials said. | ROME WITHHOLDING FULL ENDORSEMENT OF U.S. ABUSE PLAN |
1428167_1 | the campus of the Federal Aviation Administration's training academy here, in rooms commandeered by the Transportation Security Administration, hundreds of students were learning to spot guns and knives on X-ray screens, to pat down people in wheelchairs and when to request a passenger's shoes for inspection. Under new guidelines, when a traveler sets off a metal detector, the screener with the detection wand will start at the feet, and if the shoes show metal, take them immediately, so they can be scanned in a separate machine simultaneously with the rest of the wand examination, rather than waiting until last; that saves 15 seconds a passenger, officials estimate. Trainees learned how the screener assigned to watch the X-ray screen had to key in an identification code and to stand on a rubber pressure-sensing pad that stops the conveyor belt if the operator steps away from the screen. They also learned about a computer trick that projects images of guns or knives into the bags they are scanning, one every few dozen or few hundred bags, to keep screeners alert through the monotony of looking at bags with no contraband in them. In other rooms, trainees seated at computer screens saw what a gun looked like when viewed by X-ray from various angles. For Mr. Stewart, it was a job that he thought he would enjoy and that would provide steady work in one place after seven years of traveling to distant construction sites. For Ms. Tyler, it was a first job after 10 years as ''a stay-at-home mother,'' but a challenge, too. ''It's something you can never be lazy at -- you can never let your guard down,'' Ms. Tyler said. But it is also an effort to refine the still-unformed etiquette of security checkpoints, where uniformed strangers ask permission to pat down everyone from business travelers to children to grandparents. The idea is to strike a balance between politeness and assertiveness. In a classroom session opened up briefly for visiting reporters, Rebecca Berry, a temporary instructor brought in by Lockheed Martin, a contractor, instructed screeners on the meaning of the terms bias, prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination. She told them that the Sikh religion is one of the world's largest, and that adherents wear turbans, and that removing them in public is a form of humiliation. She also told them that Sikhs carry ceremonial knives called kirpans and may not be | Learning the Etiquette of Patting Down Passengers |
1428112_6 | necessary to test genes. Other tests, like those for cholesterol, can help guide diet decisions. Still, despite skepticism about some early applications, interest is growing. Several companies, some still operating in their founders' living rooms, have sprung up: Galileo Laboratories in Santa Clara, Calif.; Alphagenics of Gaithersburg, Md.; NutraGenomics of Chicago; and NuDisCo of St. Louis. Bigger food and consumer products companies like Unilever, Nestlé and Kraft are at least monitoring the field. Interleukin Genetics, a company that studies variations of genes involved in inflammation, announced last month that it was in talks with a ''major consumer products company'' about developing nutritional supplements and skin care products based on genetic information. But much of the early focus is not on customizing foods but on using genomics to unravel the mechanisms by which certain food ingredients affect the body. ''We'd like to know the molecular mechanism of nutrients,'' said Dr. Young S. Kim, a program director at the National Cancer Institute, which recently held a workshop on nutritional genomics and cancer prevention. Scientists at Johns Hopkins have found which genes are turned on by sulforaphane, a compound in broccoli that helps prevent cancer. Dr. Len Augenlicht, professor of medicine and cell biology at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center in the Bronx, found that different genes were turned on and off in mice when they ate the rodent equivalent of an unhealthy Western diet than when they ate a healthy diet. Dr. Jose M. Ordovas, director of nutrition and genomics at the Agriculture Department's Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts, said dietary guidelines would soon have to be customized. ''There are some people at very high risk of cardiovascular disease who, if they follow the current recommendations, they make it even worse,'' he said. Moderate alcohol consumption, he said, is considered to reduce risk of heart disease. But for people with the Alzheimers-linked APOE4 gene, alcohol consumption raises the level of bad cholesterol. People with a certain variant of a gene called APOA1 should eat more polyunsaturated fats than called for in the guidelines. Nutrigenomics could raise questions about policies to fortify foods. If it is found that only a subset of the population benefits from fortified foods, ''do you give a whole population a higher exposure than normal to a nutrient, without knowing what the risk is?'' asked Dr. Patrick J. Stover, the director of the Cornell Institute for Nutritional Genomics. | New Era of Consumer Genetics Raises Hope and Concerns |
1428261_0 | Officials said they expected to buy $112 million of United States agricultural products as a result of a four-day trade fair that ended yesterday. American executives have signed contracts for everything from corn and soy meal to cattle and poultry, much of which will be shipped to Cuba by this year. Organizers said they were planning a combined agricultural and health-care exhibit in 2004. They added that makers of farm equipment,currently prohibited by American law from selling to Cuba, had expressed interest in taking part. David Gonzalez (NYT) | World Briefing | Americas: Cuba: A Cash Cow For U.S. |
1428254_2 | Baghdad thwarted the inspectors' work. The Russian and Chinese foreign ministers conferred by telephone today on Iraq, and both emphasized the importance of working within the framework of the United Nations and giving priority to winning Iraq's compliance through diplomacy. France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, reiterated that his country would not support any resolution that gives the United States a ''blank check'' to attack. The French have even invented a word to describe what they dislike about the American-British draft: automaticity. Writing in the newspaper Le Monde, Mr. de Villepin said his government was in agreement that ''Iraq constitutes a potential menace to regional and international security.'' But, he added, ''an action whose stated goal from the outset is regime change would be against international law and open the way to all sorts of abuses.'' A German diplomat said today that ''wording that clearly indicates that the inspection team should not be hindered, that no obstacle should be put in their way, and that they have immediate and unfettered access to whatever site they want -- this would find vast unanimity on the Security Council.'' But he said the current American-British draft created a ''whole new structure'' of inspectors under the control of Washington and London ''and as soon as Iraq violates one of their conditions, the member states would have the right to use all necessary means'' to fight Iraq's non-compliance. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke by telephone with Mr. de Villpin today. The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, was also pressed on whether the administration would accept a formula of two resolutions, one demanding compliance and the second authorizing force in the absence of compliance. ''We've come down on the side of one resolution,'' Mr. Boucher said. But Secretary Powell, in an interview on the PBS program ''The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,'' seemed to hold out the prospect for compromise. ''The United States position is that we believe it would be better to put this in one resolution, but since this is a consultation, we want to hear what our friends have to say,'' he said. Secretary Powell also reiterated President Bush's determination to act should the United Nations fail to do so. ''If Iraq once again violates the will of the international community, action is going to be necessary,'' he said in the television interview. ''And I can't rule out that that action | U.S. IS DISMISSING RUSSIA'S CRITICISM OF STRIKES IN IRAQ |
1428196_0 | The Yanomami Indians have lived precariously in the most remote reaches of the jungle here for thousands of years, hunting with bows and arrows, and warring among themselves and with the few white intruders who have appeared in recent years. But now they are facing a threat to their very existence as a people: the Brazilian Army. As part of a program to strengthen the military's presence along Brazil's vast and largely undefended northern Amazon border, the Brazilian Armed Forces are building new bases and expanding old ones in territories set aside for the Yanomami and other tribes. As their numbers expand, soldiers are increasingly getting Yanomami women pregnant, spreading venereal disease and disrupting patterns of village life that have endured largely unchanged since the Stone Age. ''The destruction has already begun,'' Roberto Angametery, the village chief here, lamented in an interview in the lodge where members of his community live together. ''The soldiers say they are here to protect us, but they have brought diseases and taken our land without asking us. Soon there will be more, and then what will we do? Where will we go?'' Initiated in the mid-1980's, the military's Northern Channel program was shelved during a budget crisis more than a decade ago. But with the United States' decision two years ago to provide more than $1.5 billion in military and other assistance to neighboring Colombia, Brazilians fear that the conflict there will spill over into their territory. Indian advocates, however, argue that the logic of the military expansion is dubious here in Roraima State, which borders instead on Venezuela and Guyana. ''The armed forces are just seizing an opportunity to revive a program that has long been desired but long lain dormant,'' Egon Heck, executive secretary of the Indigenous Missionary Council, a Roman Catholic church group, said in an interview in Brasília, the capital. ''There is nothing to justify the construction of military bases in Roraima, because no concrete guerrilla threat exists there.'' Military officials in the border region, at the headquarters of the Amazon Military Command in Manaus and at the Army Chief of Staff office in Brasília declined to discuss the issues that Yanomami leaders have raised, failing to respond to two weeks of telephone calls, faxes and e-mail messages seeking comment. In a letter, however, the minister of defense, Geraldo Quintão, blamed the tense situation here on what he called ''a | A New Intrusion, of Soldiers, Threatens an Amazon Tribe |
1428096_0 | When a new technology takes off, it seems to fly with the speed of light. So it is with cellphones, now owned by well over half the population and soon to be found in more than 90 percent of American households. The latest trend is to replace one's land line with a cellphone, but that action seems a bit premature, given the erratic nature of many cellphone connections. Still, the potential is there, and when you can carry a phone wherever you go, you can spend many more hours on the phone than you would if a land line was all you had. This raises critical questions that have been asked for nearly a decade with little resolution. How safe are they? What effect do they have on quality of life? Recent bans in New York State and elsewhere on the use of hand-held phones while driving only begin to address these questions, and with limited effectiveness. A Cause of Cancer? Right up front, I must say that it is not possible to prove definitively that anything is safe. Science can only produce evidence that makes it highly unlikely that a hazard exists. Widespread fears that cellphones could increase the risk of brain cancer began in January 1993 when David Raynard, whose wife talked on a cellphone ''all the time'' and subsequently died of brain cancer, appeared on ''Larry King Live'' and told viewers he was suing the cellphone industry on the ground that it was responsible for his wife's illness. Since then, more than a dozen studies have been conducted here and abroad. None have found any credible evidence for a link between cellphone use and any kind of cancer. To be sure, all the studies had limits, and if a relationship exists it may take 30 or 40 years of cellphone use to show it, not the 10 years or less covered by the studies. But there is also biology to consider. Do cellphones generate the kinds of radiation that could conceivably cause cancer? Dr. Robert L. Park of the American Physical Society addressed that question last year in an editorial in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. ''All known cancer-inducing agents -- including radiation, certain chemicals and a few viruses -- act by breaking chemical bonds, producing mutant strands of DNA,'' Dr. Park wrote. ''Not until the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum is reached, beyond | Cellphone: A Convenience, a Hazard or Both? |
1429178_0 | The Rev. Ronald Emery has never heard of Clergy Appreciation Day. He has never received a ''Thank you, Pastor'' greeting card, a testimonial dinner from church members or a car wash for his 10-year-old Mercury. His name does not appear on an engraved Bible, free ticket to Hawaii or Clergy Appreciation Day potted plant. It is not that Mr. Emery goes unappreciated. As pastor of the Shanksville United Methodist Church in Shanksville, Pa., where Flight 93 crashed in the Sept. 11 attacks, he has counseled community members and participated in memorial services amid international recognition. To Mr. Emery, any time church members drop off garden-fresh apples and corn, that is plenty. ''This is what I was called to do,'' he said. ''In seminary they remind us, God calls us to be faithful, not successful.'' For a holiday having its 10th year on Oct. 13, Clergy Appreciation Day passes quietly in most churches, though it is not for lack of effort by church groups, radio stations, Christian retail stores and organizations including Focus on the Family, the evangelical ministry. DaySpring, a subsidiary of Hallmark and leading supplier of Christian greeting cards, now offers approximately 120 clergy appreciation cards, up from about 30 when it first began the line in 1995. Hallmark itself introduced a line of such cards this year. ''Sometimes the public forgets that ministers are people, too,'' said the Rev. H. B. London Jr., vice president of pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, which promotes an entire Clergy Appreciation Month, while emphasizing the second weekend of October. ''In many congregations, each individual thinks of the clergy person as their own private clergy: 'Whenever I need my pastor, rabbi or priest, I expect them to be there, regardless of what other issues they may be facing with other congregants or in their own lives.' '' He added, ''The pressures that come with the assignment are 24/7.'' In 2000, Focus on the Family simply asked people to thank their pastor. In 2001, it asked people to join their pastor. This year's message packs more punch: ''Pray for your pastor.'' ''This holiday could not be more needed than right now, when trust is a commodity in short supply,'' said Msgr. James Moroney, executive director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' committee on the liturgy in Washington, alluding to the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic | An Appreciation Day Passes Quietly |
1432235_4 | advertise local products, whether organic or not. ''We have to educate the public about the value of locally produced,'' said Peter Martinelli, an organic farmer in Bolinas, Calif., who is working with the Marin program, which has developed a label to mark local products. The Amherst group has been running a public awareness campaign since 1999 and produces a guide listing 140 participating farms in western Massachusetts. Mark Lattanzi, the guide's coordinator, said the farms' sales have increased 10 to 40 percent since the program began. Mr. Scowcroft said he was not yet worried that industrial farming will edge out smaller producers. ''Nevertheless,'' he said, ''we need to keep an eye on the family farmer to make sure the resources, however little, are devoted to expansion of farmers' markets or community-supported agriculture.'' And he is excited by the organic explosion, whatever the source. Large growers are selling organic products to retailers who ''we never thought would utter the word,'' he said, adding: ''Frankly, they are bringing it in at prices many organic farmers cannot achieve. Wal-Mart is carrying a phenomenal amount of organic food right now and introducing it to customers who have never seen that word before.'' It is the kind of good news that makes some people nervous. What the Label Can Say, and What It Can't WHEN new Agriculture Department rules take effect on Monday, no organic ingredient can contain hormones, antibiotics, synthetic pesticides, irradiated components, genetically modified organisms or reprocessed sewage. State agencies and private companies will be accredited as organic certifiers. The rules divide organic labeling into four categories: * Products labeled ''100 percent organic'' must contain only organic ingredients. * Those labeled ''organic'' must be at least 95 percent organic by weight. * Processed products whose ingredients are at least 70 percent organic may be labeled ''made with organic ingredients,'' and up to three of those ingredients may be listed on the front of the package. * Processed products with less than 70 percent organic ingredients may list those ingredients on the information panel but may not display the term ''organic'' on the front. Products in the first three categories may display the category descriptions and the percentage of organic content on the front. And an Agriculture Department seal may appear on products in the first two categories, and in their ads. Labels on organic products must name certifying agents. MARIAN BURROS EATING WELL | A Definition at Last, but What Does It All Mean? |
1432352_0 | A lawyer representing 42 adults who say Roman Catholic clergy members in Brooklyn groped, raped and abused them when they were children filed a civil complaint in State Supreme Court yesterday. The suit, against 12 priests, one religious brother and the Diocese of Brooklyn, is thought to be one of the largest clergy sex abuse cases brought in the state in the number of victims and clergy members. The plaintiffs, most of them former altar boys, relate a litany of sexual abuse that they say took place over decades in churches and rectories and on weekend retreats. The suit asserts that Bishop Thomas V. Daily and predecessors, going back at least 50 years, threatened and misled victims and their families, effectively preventing suits from being filed until now, when church officials across the country have begun to acknowledge problems. For that reason, the suit seeks to get around the state's statute of limitations on such claims, which requires a person who claims he was abused as a minor to file suit no later than the age of 21. Legal experts say this type of approach has been used effectively by consumers who sued tobacco companies and other corporations that deliberately withheld information. But the theory of ''fraudulent concealment,'' as it is called, has never been successfully used in New York in an abuse case, although it has been allowed in California and Minnesota. The lawyer representing the 42 people, Michael G. Dowd, said that the recent clergy abuse scandals have made courts more likely to believe that church officials deliberately hid abuses. At a news conference yesterday, Mr. Dowd said the Catholic Church's pattern of suppressing the truth means officials ''have no legal right to avail themselves of the statute of limitations to avoid responsibility for the acts of the people they let run loose as sexual predators in the Diocese of Brooklyn for 40 to 50 years.'' Frank DeRosa, a spokesman for the diocese, declined to comment on the suit, saying diocesan lawyers had not yet reviewed the court papers. Mr. DeRosa said Bishop Daily had been told of the filing but had not had time to prepare a statement. He said the bishop's ''consistent concern has been that the policy of the diocese is followed so that officials meet with people who have been abused and address their concerns.'' The diocese, one of the largest in the country, | Suit Says 42 Were Abused by Clergymen |
1434556_1 | policy as written. Church officials said the new American protocols ignored the church's canon law on statute of limitations, failed to protect the due process rights of accused priests and defined sexual abuse too broadly and ambiguously. The American bishops' plan is subject to approval by the Vatican because some of its elements contradict the canon laws that govern the church. The Americans are asking the Vatican to allow an exception in the United States, but the Vatican is concerned about establishing two different policies for a problem that crosses national boundaries. Church officials have also suggested that the revised American policy could set a precedent that would be adopted by the church in other countries. The Vatican will be represented by four senior officials from the relevant church offices, known as congregations: Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a Colombian who leads the Congregation for Clergy; Monsignor Julian Herranz, a Spaniard who leads the Council for Legislative Texts; Monsignor Tarcisio Bertone, an Italian who is secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Monsignor Francesco Monterisi, an Italian who is secretary of the Congregation for Bishops. The commission has a tight deadline. Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in Rome last week that the joint commission would try to complete its work before the American bishops' next meeting Nov. 11-14. The joint commission will meet in Rome, and a Vatican official said the church would probably announce on Thursday when the meetings will begin. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests wrote to the four American bishops asking to meet with them. Victims' groups, which had criticized the Dallas policy as inadequate, now say they would like to see it preserved and fear that it will be diluted in Rome. ''The message from the Vatican is not about reflection and revision,'' said Susan Archibald, president of the Linkup, another group representing people abused by clergy members. ''It is about maintaining power.'' The American bishops, chosen by Bishop Gregory, have all said publicly that they support the Dallas policy, and since June all have removed past abusers still in ministry. Bishop Lori returned from Dallas and mailed a letter to every Catholic household explaining the policy and promising to implement it in Bridgeport. Cardinal George has met with dozens of abuse victims, and after the Dallas meeting removed eight abusers | Americans and Vatican Officials to Revise Policy on Abuse |
1434598_1 | for involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks detailed his relationship with five other alleged members of the Hamburg Qaeda cell. The defense maintains that he supported friends and acquaintances among the terrorists while remaining ignorant of their plans. A15 French Anti-Crime Bill The French cabinet, as part of a sweeping anti-crime measure, approved tough new penalities against squatters, beggars, prostitutes and Gypsies. The bill has been criticized by civil liberty and leftist groups as unfairly directed at the poor. A6 Ex-Tennis Star on Trial Boris Becker, the former tennis star, went on trial in Germany for tax evasion. He could face three and a half years in jail. A13 Senior Yugoslav Aide Fired Yugoslavia has fired a senior military official and the director of the state trading company Yugoimport as a result of NATO's accusations that a Bosnian Serb company exported military hardware to Iraq via Belgrade. A9 New Blow for Turkish Party Turkey's chief prosecutor moved to outlaw a moderate Islamic political party, whose leader had already been barred from running for office. Public opinion surveys show the party with about 30 percent of the vote, far ahead of its nearest competitor. A5 Iranian Corruption Campaign The Iranian authorities have acknowledged that prostitution has become widespread even though it is banned. The police have arrested 243 members of five ''corruption networks'' and a 74-year-old woman who they said had lured young women into her brothel. A16 NATIONAL A22-33 Two Sought by Authorities In Manhunt for Sniper The manhunt for the roving suburban sniper focused on two men being sought by the police as witnesses, who were reported on the run and the subjects of an intensive East Coast dragnet. A1 Led by President Bush, administration officials pledged the full resources of the federal government in capturing what Mr. Bush called ''a ruthless person on the loose.'' A32 Rumsfeld's Special Intelligence According to Pentagon officials, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his senior advisers established a team of intelligence aides to sift through reports from the nation's spy and law enforcement agencies for information on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. A1 Victims Face Off With Clergy The Vatican's decision to reject portions of the American bishops' new zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse has left victims scrambling to hold on to the gains made through this year of scandal. A31 Challenge for Los Angeles Chief William J. Bratton, the new | NEWS SUMMARY |
1434607_0 | Monsanto and the Scotts Company have withdrawn their application to sell the first genetically modified grass because the Agriculture Department had questions. But the companies said they intended to resubmit the application with the questions answered in a few months. The grass, intended primarily for golf courses, has attracted attention because it would be the first major non-agricultural genetically modified crop. The grass has a gene that allows it to withstand Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, allowing groundskeepers to spray herbicide to kill weeds while leaving the grass intact. The Washington-based International Center for Technology Assessment, an environmental group, opposed the application, saying that the type of grass involved, creeping bentgrass, can be a weed and that giving it resistance to Roundup would make it harder to kill and that the herbicide tolerance gene might spread to other grassy weeds. Jim King, a spokesman for Scotts, said that creeping bentgrass was not a type suitable for consumer lawns and would not be sold that way. He would not reveal what questions the Agriculture Department had regarding the application. But he said that withdrawal of an application is not uncommon and that Scotts hoped to have the grass on the market by late 2003 or 2004. Andrew Pollack(NYT) | Technology Briefing | Biotechnology: Application On Modified Grass Is Withdrawn |
1434473_1 | on technology of 70 years ago, when radios were not able to differentiate well between different types of signals. But the problem of signal interference -- the bane of broadcasters and the rationale behind licensing -- is not some immutable law of physics. ''Radio waves are like light waves -- and light doesn't mess up other light,'' said David P. Reed, an independent consultant in wireless networking, former vice president of the Lotus Development Corporation and an early designer of Internet protocols. With cognitive radio (the term was coined by Joseph Mitola III, a consulting scientist at the Mitre Corporation, to refer to the radio's ability to be ''aware'' of the conditions in which it sends and receives signals), interference would no longer be a problem. Capacity would actually increase as the number of radios in a given area increased. It is a counterintuitive notion, but an appealing one in an era of overcrowded FM radio dials and dropped cellphone calls. ''Cognitive radio gives us the opportunity to utilize the spectrum in a way that was totally impractical before,'' said Edmond J. Thomas, chief of the F.C.C.'s Office of Engineering and Technology. Assuming the current trajectory of development continues, cognitive radios, using the global positioning system to pinpoint location and embedded microprocessors, would be able to accomplish complex tasks that regular radios cannot, Dr. Reed said. ''A cognitive radio will be able to sense its surroundings and the presence of other signals and then adapt -- changing its modulation language and output energy -- in cooperation with the other cognitive radios around it,'' he said. Working together without human intervention, cognitive radios in close proximity would create an efficient wireless network that adapts to the communications needs of the moment. Every wireless device, including cellphones, hand-helds and car radios, would send and receive signals and could pass along traffic for everyone else. (Such a network has been developed for wireless Internet by MeshNetworks, a company in Maitland, Fla.) These radios would encode their signals and broadcast them across a wide set of frequencies rather than just one specific frequency, enabling them to broadcast without interfering with others nearby. When receiving, the radios would use their processors to sort out the encoded signals. Cognitive radios could make even more efficient use of licensed portions of the broadcast spectrum without causing any interference by ''interweaving,'' or automatically shifting frequencies when the license | Thinking of Radio as Smart Enough to Live Without Rules |
1434582_1 | to rigorously test whether the cancer risk occurs with shorter term use scientists will have to conduct another study, with some women taking the drugs for one year, some for two, some three, and so on. Dr. Richard Hodes, the director of the National Institute on Aging, said, ''People who are presuming that there is no increased risk unless you have been taking hormones for four or five years are overinterpreting what the study says.'' The federal study's findings were a shock to many of the six million American women who were taking the study drug, Prempro, which is a combination of estrogen and progestin. The drug's maker, Wyeth, says sales have fallen by 40 percent but added that it did not know how many who dropped Prempro were taking another company's hormone replacement drug and how many had stopped taking hormone replacement altogether. The study, known as the Women's Health Initiative, involved 16,000 postmenopausal women. Half were assigned to take Prempro and the others took a placebo. The study, which had been scheduled to continue until 2005, was stopped in July because scientists noticed that the women taking hormone replacement therapy were at slightly increased risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots and that those risks were larger than the drugs' benefits, a slight decrease in hip fractures and in colon cancer. But as many as 40 percent of the women in the study had already stopped taking their medications, with some having taken them for months and others for years. When Dr. Chlebowski looked at what had happened to that group, he found that its members had the same additional risk of breast cancer as women who had taken Prempro faithfully from when they joined the study until the day they were told to stop. Dr. Chlebowski and others also cautioned against assuming that the risks of hormone replacement therapy end when a woman stops taking the drugs. He said other hormone treatments can have delayed and lasting effects. Women who take the drug tamoxifen, which blocks estrogen's effects in the breast, for five years and then stop are protected from breast cancer for another decade, Dr. Chlebowski said. But tamoxifen also increases the risk of cancer of the uterine lining, and women who take the drug for five years and then stop are at increased risk for this cancer for another decade, he said. | Cancer Risk Of Hormones May Linger |
1435907_3 | colleges can also be sources for career information. ''Community colleges see that as their job,'' said Kay McClenney, an adjunct professor of the community college leadership program at the University of Texas. Ms. McClenney said that community colleges receive state tuition aid, and they can help students apply for federal Pell grants for low-income students, as well as government loans. With any education program, it is important to find out what the program costs and what you are getting for your money, the experts say. ''Look before you waste your money,'' Ms. Ryan, the career counselor, said. ''There are courses that say they are 'certified,' and they're not. Find out if they produce graduates that get jobs.'' In addition, try to determine what you want and need. ''Ask yourself: 'What kind of job am I looking for? What are my core skills? What kind of jobs are in the local area?' '' said Marshall Goldberg, the executive director of the Association of Joint Labor-Management Educational Programs, a nonprofit organization in New York that provides training for unionized workers. In the case of Robert Sellars, a reassessment of his career led him to switch to another. Mr. Sellars, 36, of Fullerton, Calif., was laid off from his job selling plumbing supplies 18 months ago. Last month, his unemployment compensation ran out and he had only $1,000 in the bank. He then decided to go back to school to become a real estate appraiser. Using his credit card, he paid $900 to enroll in a course at the Anthony Schools in Irvine, Calif. After he passes a state exam, which will cost $650, he will get a trainee license in the profession. Then he must work for 2,000 hours as an apprentice with an appraiser before he is licensed in the state of California. ''It never occurred to me to get more education, said Mr. Sellars, who has a bachelor's dress in business administration. ''I already had an education.'' He now subscribes to the theory that learning and job training are a lifelong process. So does Elaine Mitchell, who is hopeful that once she is certified in Web design, she will be more marketable should she face a second layoff. ''If this happens again, it'll make it easier to go out and find another job,'' she said. Still, she intends to keep on learning new skills, just in case. BACK TO SCHOOL | New Skills, and Paying for Them |
1436054_9 | people jumped or fell from the windows of the north tower than from the south. Steadily, the fires weakened the structure of the towers. The Weidlinger analysis created a series of diagrams for the towers, showing how stresses were distributed before they were struck, then after. Immediately after impact, the stress on remaining columns shot up, over a butterfly-shaped pattern around the impact zone on the facade and throughout the core. But none of the columns were stressed to the breaking point. As the fires burned and the columns heated and weakened, the bland matrix of numbers measuring stresses shifted to critical levels, indicating the inevitable approach of the catastrophe the world soon witnessed. Finally, according to the Weidlinger analysis, the columns heated to the point at which the laws of physics dictated the next act: they lost their strength and failed, leading to collapse. Not everyone agrees with those conclusions. Other analysts believe that the trade center's floors, supported by the lightweight trusses, sagged and snapped in the heat, removing critical supports for the columns, which then buckled and led to collapse. The issue remains unresolved, Dr. Osteraas said. A Catalog of Disaster Either way, said Daniel A. Cuoco, an engineer who is president of the Thornton-Tomasetti Group, ''the central portion collapsed on itself and the facade just peeled off,'' a conclusion he reached after his company, which worked for the city at ground zero beginning on Sept. 11, examined hundreds of photographs of the ghastly patterns of destruction and debris that remained where the giant towers had stood. Those photographs, each annotated to specify where and when it was taken, form perhaps the largest repository of ground zero images ever assembled. ''They present a catalog, so to speak, to anyone who has an interest in understanding the disaster,'' said Richard Tomasetti, co-chairman of the Thornton-Tomasetti Group. A darkened subterranean train station where tumbling debris has ripped open the ceiling and fouled the tracks with twisted bars and pulverized concrete. An abandoned, dust-choked, underground newsstand, gutted ductwork and burned-out wiring dangling over shelves still neatly stocked with candy and magazines. A steel canyon carved into what had been the trade center's plaza, the charred and ruddy steel columns that had held up the towers strewn about like tree branches after a hurricane. It is a world that has vanished. But through this strange, adversarial court proceeding, its images remain. | In Data Trove, a Graphic Look at Towers' Fall |
1436020_1 | their finances online. After all, not everyone owns a computer or has a fast Internet connection. About 60 percent of American households have a computer at home and Internet access. Though many more people can use a computer with a fast link at the office, several said they were uncomfortable transmitting sensitive financial information while on the job. Companies that want to eliminate paper are asking for too much too soon, these people suggest. Krista S. Boughey of Hanford, Calif., recently learned that she and her husband, Britt, would have to pay $8 a month to receive paper invoices for their auto and student loans from USAA. Online statements and automatic payments would be free. Although she preferred paper bills, Mrs. Boughey, 26, agreed to the electronic alternative. ''If they're going to charge me if I don't do it their way, I just don't have the time to fight it,'' she said. USAA said it generally does not charge for paper statements. Mrs. Boughey said she worried about her financial information moving across the Internet. ''Even though I know about all the secure things they have now, I'm afraid of getting bills online,'' she said. ''I need to see the papers in front of me and to file them.'' Bills for fixed installments like the Bougheys' are the most likely to disappear from postal routes. After all, many consumers are used to a coupon book without reminders to pay their mortgages and some other routine loans. State Farm warned customers this month that they would have to pay $1 for paper statements. Long-distance and wireless businesses, suffering from the poor economy and the telecommunications industry's troubles, also appear eager to cut off paper. MetroPCS, which offers wireless service in a handful of cities, and Primus, the telecommunications provider, each started charging customers $2 a month this year for mailed bills. Primus said 22,000, or 14 percent, of its customers now view and pay their bills online. ''It's time to change, to educate our customer base to get them to move with the times,'' said Ann Martin, Primus's director of North American sales and operations. ''In order to save costs to the level that the consumers expect, these are the steps to take.'' Ms. Martin and several others pointed out that years ago banks had to compel customers to use automated teller machines by penalizing them for going to tellers. Companies | Want Bills By Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money |
1436013_3 | which fears that oil revenue can be used by Iraq to develop nuclear, chemical or biological arms, Iraq continues to send oil illegally by pipeline to Syria and by truck to Turkey. But the combination of Australian bravado, advanced United States military technology and indirect Iranian cooperation has enabled Washington virtually to close the tap on oil smuggled through the gulf. It is clear that the embargo has irritated the Iraqis. The gulf waters are streaked by oil slicks from small boats that were bottled up near Iraq and dumped their cargo out of frustration. In July, the Baghdad complained to the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, accusing the Australian and American Navies of piracy for systematically boarding every ship going to and from Iraq. The sailors have taken the accusation in stride. Some Australian sailors even have a nickname for themselves, referring to their exploits in the North Arabian Gulf. They call themselves the ''Pirates of the NAG.'' The contest between these ''pirates'' and the smugglers starts at the Iraqi town of Umm Qasr, where Iraqi oil and other cargo is loaded on ships that make their way down the Khawr Abd Allah, the main Iraqi waterway that leads to the northern Persian Gulf. The smugglers have used a variety of tactics to sneak cargo holds of Iraqi oil and other commodities past the allied flotilla, Australian and American officers said. When using larger vessels, the smugglers attached spikes to the hulls to puncture the small, inflatable boats that American and allied navies use to approach them. They hid oil and other cargo under piles of hay or newly laid cement floors. They welded hatches shut to prevent inspection. After allied ships cracked down on smuggling by large, steel-hull ships, the Iraqis tried a new tactic. They flooded the gulf with dhows, wooden boats that are used by local traders and fishermen but can also hold several hundred metric tons of oil each. But the United States and its allies have largely cut off the small boats, too. The tighter embargo has been so effective that it has even halted much of Iraq's export of dates, a valued gulf commodity that pound for pound fetches a higher price than oil. The allied embargo is overseen by Vice Adm. Timothy Keating, who commands the Navy's Fifth Fleet. He in turn has given the Australians command of the multinational flotilla | With Allies Likely and Unlikely, U.S. Navy Stems Flow of Iraqi Oil |
1435915_0 | LIKE many products of the technology boom, online job boards have not exactly gone bust, but they are reinventing themselves. Many are evolving from sites where jobs and résumés were posted into ''career management'' sites that offer expanded services and a more hands-on approach to matching job seekers and employers. During the 1990's, as the Internet promised to streamline things like job searches and hiring, numerous Web sites emerged that gave employers and job seekers access to databases of résumés and job listings. While comprehensive, this method was impersonal. And though volume has advantages, the sheer number of candidates can leave employers feeling overwhelmed. After the dot-com implosion of 2000, many online job boards folded. Those that remained have retrenched, scaling back in some areas, branching out in others and searching for new business models. Some sites, including Webhire, an applicant-tracking service based in Lexington, Mass., moved their focus from the hard-hit technology sector toward sectors that were still hiring, like health care. Other sites, including BrassRing, a jobs board with an emphasis on technology professionals, devised fee services, like creating specialized talent pools of candidates for recruiters awash in résumés. ''Recruiters are completely stressed out,'' said Robin L. Rasmussen, executive vice president of services for BrassRing. BrassRing recently expanded its services to include candidate assessment and ranking, tasks that are usually done by human resources departments. Monster, the largest jobs board, with 13.3 million visits in September, is refocusing its national television advertising on employers rather than on job seekers. A new advertising campaign is aimed at small businesses, which continue to hire even while large companies are laying off workers. At no cost to the applicant, job boards encourage those eager for work to post résumés, which are consolidated into databases. Corporate and independent recruiters typically pay for access to the database. This model still holds, though fees have been dropping and most sites are searching for new sources of revenue, especially because their other main source of revenue, advertising, has also been dwindling. Despite having access to databases with millions of résumés, some recruiters find general job boards inefficient. David B. Kamowski, who recruits health care technology professionals at the executive search firm Witt/Kieffer in Oak Brook, Ill., switched from mainstream job boards to two boards operated by professional groups, which send their members e-mail notices of new job listings. Now, Mr. Kamowski said, about 15 percent | Big Job Sites Try to Think Small |
1435912_1 | cautious investor buys a stock these days, said John A. Blackburn, the dean of admissions at the University of Virginia. ''They're looking for more of a blue chip or something's that's going to run them through the turmoils and the ups and downs of the markets,'' he said. Like the stock market, the job market may get worse before it gets better. The hiring of new college graduates is expected to fall 3.6 percent during the 2002-2003 school year, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a research company in Bethlehem, Pa., that tracks employment of college graduates. Consulting businesses, which had an 89 percent drop in projected college recruitment from 2001 to 2002, expect some of the biggest cutbacks. The financial services sector, engineering firms and state and local governments are also projecting large hiring decreases. On the other hand, the survey found that retailers, defense contractors and federal agencies plan to increase their employee rosters this academic year. Similarly, employers like the Central Intelligence Agency and the Internal Revenue Service are meriting second looks from a student population that once viewed them with suspicion. Since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the C.I.A. has received 136,000 applications from a wide range of students, retirees and professionals in midcareer. That's about double the number it received the year before the attacks, said Paul Nowack, the agency's spokesman. While demand for expertise in difficult languages like Arabic and Farsi has become more robust, some professors suggest that enrollment increases in these areas are more a matter of normal growth than a result of recent global events. Columbia University, for example, has about 500 graduate and undergraduate students pursuing programs in Arabic languages and Islamic cultures this year, said George Saliba, the director of graduate studies in the department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures. That's up from about 430 last year and 400 in the 2000-2001 school year, he said, adding that enrollment has been rising in the last five years. ''I think students have become less parochial in their thinking,'' said Kathy Sims, the director of the U.C.L.A. Career Center. ''They're not as narrowly focused on one career option.'' In some cases, that means pursuing broader liberal arts programs or accepting the fact that a business background may be more welcome in the marketing and buying departments of retail chains | Soon-to-Be Graduates See the Need for Plan B |
1434180_3 | variation in the hard-drive-based car stereo MP3 player category, although in this case the whole unit slides out from under the dashboard and can be attached to a home stereo system, Windows-based PC or Macintosh computer. The Neo Car Jukebox comes in three storage capacities: 20 gigabytes (about $400), 40 gigabytes (about $480) and a whopping 80 gigabytes (about $530) and are respectively capable of holding 400, 800 and 1,600 albums in the MP3 format. Long before MP3 playlists or even Beatles/Stones-mix tapes, radio ruled the road. One of the first affordable car radios was the 5T71 model by the Galvin Manufacturing Company. The 5T71, which cost about $120 at the time, was introduced around 1930. (While the product name was not memorable, the company soon came up with a brand name that better combined the notions of motion and sound: Motorola.) Because AM and FM radio signals are broadcast from land-based towers, they have a limited range. A satellite radio system, on the other hand, beams its signal to the ground from space -- which means that a driver could travel from Boston to San Francisco without having to change the station. The two main content providers are XM Satellite Radio (www.xmradio.com) and Sirius Satellite Radio (www.siriusradio .com), which charge a small subscription fee for monthly service. THE fee includes access to dozens of commercial-free music channels in a variety of genres, but to get the signals a car needs a satellite radio antenna and a receiver. Many satellite-radio-ready head units are already available, and Alpine Electronics (www.alpine-usa.com) recently released its XMA-T200RF Universal XM Satellite Radio Package (about $300), which can also add XM radio to existing automobile sound systems. Head unit prices generally do not include speakers, amplifiers or antennas, which can increase the overall cost by several hundred dollars. For neophytes wanting to price a system, the Car Audio and Video link on the Crutchfield Web site (www.crutchfield .com) provides a wealth of information. The site even offers an interactive questionnaire for the prospective buyer to find stereo systems available for a specific make and model of a car. Although the new technology in car audio systems may seem overwhelming at first, the options abound. Any of these systems allows you to have more control over what is streaming through the speakers; best of all, you may never have to hear another low-budget mattress commercial again. TECHNOLOGY | No Tapes, No Discs, No Top-10 Limit |
1434241_1 | about its hormones studies, and why. The decisions on whether to continue hormone studies were made by independent committees that oversee studies. The questions about hormone replacement arose last spring, when an independent group of experts that periodically examined accumulating data from the Women's Health Initiative, a federal study, decided that it had to stop. Its 16,000 participants, all healthy women, were randomly assigned to take Prempro, a popular combination of estrogen and progestin, or a placebo for comparison. The hope was that the drugs would generally improve women's health. But at a meeting on May 31, about three years before the study was scheduled to end, the committee saw data indicating that the women taking Prempro had slightly more heart attacks and strokes, more blood clots and more breast cancer. Those risks were not outweighed by the benefits -- slightly fewer fractures and a slightly lower risk of colon cancer. While the danger to an individual woman was minuscule, the committee determined that it could not justify subjecting healthy women to the drug. The participants were sent letters telling them to stop taking their drugs immediately. Another part of the study is continuing, however. It involves women who have had hysterectomies and so do not require progestin to offset estrogen's tendency to elicit uterine cancers. These women are taking estrogen alone, and so far there are no findings that tip the balance in favor of overall risk, or benefit. Dr. McGowan, who is chief of the musculoskeletal diseases branch at the arthritis institute, said the termination of the Prempro part of the Women's Health Initiative was enough to stop a nearly completed study of hormone therapy in women with lupus, an autoimmune disease. That study, of 351 postmenopausal women, had begun with high hopes in the mid-1990's. Women with lupus are at increased risk of heart disease and osteoporosis, Dr. McGowan said, and at the time it was hoped that estrogen would help with both conditions. The study was investigating whether it was safe for women with lupus to take the drugs. Some doctors had thought it would make their disease worse. Dr. McGowan said the study was stopped because of the serious questions about the hormone's safety. At the National Institute on Aging, scientists have come to the opposite conclusion. The institute had two studies under way testing whether hormone replacement therapy could prevent or slow the course | Scientists Debating Future Of Hormone Replacement |
1434257_6 | of: if a catastrophe in one tower somehow blocks escape, the bridge opens an alternate route. He recommends finding new ways to put this kind of redundancy into high-rise escape plans. Another idiosyncrasy of the Petronas Towers, one that may make them more stable against catastrophic collapse, could be hard to emulate in other structures. The World Trade Center towers were box-shaped, and tightly clustered rows of steel columns around the facade not only held up nearly half the towers' weight but also provided all of the stiffness needed to resist the force of high winds. Each of the floors that were bolted and welded to those columns both held up the weight of people and office equipment inside and provided lateral support for the columns, preventing them from buckling. But 16 massive concrete columns are arranged in a circle around the outside of each Petronas Tower. And the concrete core not only shares the task of holding up the building's weight with those columns but also provides about half the stiffness against the wind. Floors, of course, still run from core to exterior, but both the strong core and the circular exterior are stable and can stand largely on their own, Dr. Thornton said. When floors began falling in the heat of the fires at the trade center, federal engineers investigating the attacks determined earlier this year, the columns were prone to buckle, setting the conditions for a total collapse. In Dr. Thornton's view, the Petronas Towers could lose several floors and remain standing. Some experts, working for Larry A. Silverstein, the leaseholder at the trade center, have recently offered a rival version of why the towers collapsed, one that says the floors did not contribute to the collapse. ''A circle is a stable shape -- much more stable than a square shape,'' said Dr. Thornton, adding that the choice of that motif originally had nothing to do with stability. Instead, the builders were looking for shapes consistent with Islamic imagery. Which only goes to show, said Richard Tomasetti, co-chairman of the Thornton-Tomasetti Group, that there is likely to be more than one path to safer skyscrapers of the future. ''I do think that there are features in the Petronas Towers that give you an arrow to the future,'' Mr. Tomasetti said. But he added: ''Every building is an individual. I don't think there's a Utopian solution out there.'' | Comparing 2 Sets Of Twin Towers; Malaysian Buildings Offered as Model |
1434175_0 | IT used to be that only the most dedicated car-parts scrounger would set foot in a junkyard. The popular conception of these automotive graveyards was of a field filled with scrap metal, old tires and burned-out car bodies, oil and other automotive fluids mingling underfoot to form a slippery ooze, with a pack of free-ranging Dobermans policing the perimeter. Today's junkyard is a vastly different place. It is no longer called a junkyard, but an auto recycling center. The watchdogs have been replaced with surveillance video cameras and motion detectors. The resident animal is now the computer mouse, which helps to link individual recycling centers with nationwide networks for finding car parts. With recycled parts costing an average of 50 percent less than new parts from automobile dealers, there is certainly a reason to operate these salvage operations as real businesses. These days, many recycled parts even come with warranties. ''Sometimes, we recommend used parts,'' said Dianne Kyrtopoulos of Tech One Automotive, an auto repair shop in North Haven, Conn. ''We just replaced a 1995 Chevy Lumina's V-6 engine for $1,700, including a 90-day, 4,000-mile warranty. A rebuilt would have cost $4,000.'' The approximately 7,000 salvage yards in the United States obtain most of their cars from auctions, where wrecked cars are sold by insurance companies. Though most recycled parts are sold to collision and auto repair shops, it is possible for an individual to buy parts this way. The easiest method is to go to a full-service yard's parts counter and simply tell the sales clerk what you need. Those who are mechanically inclined can save money by shopping at pull-it-yourself yards, where cars are drained of fluids and arranged on stands so customers can remove parts themselves. ''We had a guy and gal who never turned a wrench before,'' recalled Phil Tolley, general manager of Pick-n-Pull, a chain of pull-it-yourself yards based in Sacramento. ''They removed the front clip'' -- the nose of the car, from the windshield to the front bumper -- ''off a '90 Bonneville. They paid $200, saved maybe $1,500.'' Insurance companies are urging greater use of recycled parts to cut costs. ''Insurance carriers have a strict discipline with their contracted repair shops,'' said Joseph M. Holsten, the chief executive of LKQ Inc., a Chicago-based chain of parts recyclers. He said that if a car was three or more model years old, insurers might want | Junkyards Discard an Image, and the Scary Dogs, Too |
1434184_1 | I followed the baby boomer,'' he told The Detroit News earlier this year. Mr. Iacocca, a founder and president of Lido Motors USA, based in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., is building and selling the battery-powered Lido, a so-called neighborhood electric vehicle, or N.E.V. The fiberglass-bodied, street-legal, emission-free vehicle has a top speed of 25 miles an hour and is able to travel 40 miles on a six-hour charge. Lidos start at $10,000; about 500 have been sold since manufacturing began a year ago. Lido's three models -- a four-passenger sedan, a two-passenger with a utility bed and a two-passenger coupe for golf -- have mostly been sold in the Sunbelt to residents of gated communities. Mr. Iacocca says he expects the market to grow as baby boomers retire. ''People are retiring early,'' he told The News. ''There are 15,000 gated retirement communities where you don't need an extra car.'' Mr. Stempel, chairman of Energy Conversion Devices, in Rochester Hills, Mich., is developing a prototype electric car for highway driving. Mr. Stempel could not say how much his vehicle would cost or when it would be ready, and drew a distinction with other electric efforts, which have focused on low-speed models or conversions of existing cars. ''The only thing going out the door right now is money,'' he said. ''But we want to get out a practical, useful vehicle -- not an N.E.V., but a real vehicle. My history is such that I've been associated with real cars.'' A leading American maker of electric cars is Global Electric Motorcars, a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler, which has sold roughly 12,000 electric cars since 1997, two-thirds of them in the last two years. The cars are limited to 25 miles an hour and get about 30 to 35 miles a charge. IN Atlanta, eMotion Mobility plans to market a highway-worthy battery-powered-car version of the DaimlerChrysler Smart City Coupe next year in Atlanta, California and the Northeast. The car will have a range of 70 miles and a top speed of 65 to 70 miles an hour. The battery on the electric car for highway use gets 100 to 120 miles a charge. The company will start by leasing the car for individual trips. The challenge for Mr. Stempel and Mr. Iacocca is not merely to sell their respective cars but to convince people that there is a market for them. That task was made | A Couple of Detroit Doyens Go From Gas to Electric |
1430970_2 | failed to abide by a provision in his contract with the general contractor requiring a review of the scaffolding plan by a licensed engineer. The 130-foot scaffolding, which weighed about 90,000 pounds, was improperly designed and far too heavy to support itself, Mr. Morgenthau said. The load far exceeded manufacturers' recommendations, prosecutors said. They noted that Mr. Minucci's bid for the job -- though not the lowest -- included an offer to build planking at every level of the scaffolding. That meant the work could go faster, but it also meant the scaffolding was far heavier. Mr. Morgenthau said that Mr. Minucci designed the scaffolding himself, ''in violation of building codes, engineering requirements and common sense.'' City building codes require that a licensed engineer or architect design any scaffolding more than 75 feet tall, and Mr. Minucci has no engineering background and no license. Mr. Minucci's company, Tri State Scaffolding & Equipment Supplies Inc., of Deer Park, N.Y., was also indicted on the same charges yesterday. The company was fined $146,600 and cited for violations related to the collapse in April by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Two other contractors that also worked at the site, Nesa Inc. and New Millennium Restoration & Contracting Corporation, received lesser fines and citations from the federal agency. Prosecutors said the investigation would continue, but it would not focus on 215 Park Avenue Associates, the manager of the building. That company, which is partly owned by Stephen L. Green, a brother of Mark Green, a former Democratic mayoral candidate, was cited for three violations of city construction regulations shortly after the collapse. Mr. Morgenthau's office declined to elaborate. Ms. Lancaster said that buildings officials inspected scaffoldings on a ''complaint-driven basis'' and made occasional sweeps, but had no other way of verifying their safety. Most of the 20 workers who were on the Gramercy Park site at the time of the collapse were illegal immigrants from Mexico and South America who were paid in cash at the rate of $7 an hour, prosecutors said. ''We're grateful these indictments were handed down,'' said William Schwitzer, a lawyer who represents eight of the workers in lawsuits against Mr. Minucci and other contractors. ''It doesn't bring these people back, but it does give the families a sense that even though they are illegal and undocumented, that doesn't mean their lives aren't worth something,'' Mr. Schwitzer said. | Contractor Faces Charges In Collapse |
1430918_0 | Prime Minister Tony Blair told Sinn Fein's president, Gerry Adams, today that Irish republicans had to abandon their ''dual strategy'' of combining paramilitary activity with politics if peace in Northern Ireland was to be assured. ''We still in Belfast and elsewhere have got pockets of real and totally unacceptable violence,'' Mr. Blair said. ''We have got a situation where there is still a mix between the political and the paramilitary strategies of the republicans.'' He made his remarks to ITV news after a crisis meeting at 10 Downing Street with Mr. Adams and other leaders of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Mr. Blair called the session after police raids on the homes of Sinn Fein officials and the party's parliamentary offices in Belfast last Friday turned up information that the I.R.A. was conducting espionage and assembling personal details on police constables, army officers, British security personnel and Protestant paramilitary leaders. The blow to the Northern Ireland peace effort is the worst in its crisis-ridden history, and Mr. Blair is expected to have to suspend the home-rule government and reinstall direct rule from London next week. He said today that he still hoped that the Catholic-Protestant power-sharing administration would become the permanent government of Northern Ireland. But it cannot not keep functioning, he said, unless all of the parties are committed to ''exclusively peaceful means.'' ''It is inconsistent with that to have a political party and a paramilitary organization operating as well,'' he said, referring to Sinn Fein and its links to the I.R.A. Emerging from the talks, Mr. Adams described his discussion with the Prime Minister as ''cordial, honest and frank.'' He rejected suggestions that Sinn Fein had been summoned to a meeting that he maintained was being characterized by the press as a cross ''between 'High Noon' and 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.' '' Mr. Adams said that Sinn Fein wanted to see the end of all paramilitary groups, including the I.R.A., and that his party had been pursuing that goal by taking part in the peace effort. Suspending the government in Belfast, he said, is the wrong way to go about it. ''How on earth can they hope to achieve that objective by tearing down the political architecture which was put in place to achieve that and other objectives,'' he asked. David Trimble, first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the leader | Halt Paramilitary Activity, Blair Tells Irish Republicans |
1436203_0 | Environmentalists in this cloud forest of northern Ecuador still dream of halting construction of a new oil pipeline that the builders said could bring spectacular wealth to this poor Andean country. But with the 300-mile-long, privately financed pipeline now 70 percent complete, and long green tubes replacing the palm and canelo trees, even the most die-hard opponents acknowledge that stopping the construction is next to impossible. The announcement this month that the big Düsseldorf bank Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, or WestLB, would continue financing the project, despite an international campaign pressuring it to withdraw a $900 million loan, appeared to remove the last hurdle for the builders of the $1.3 billion pipeline. ''Now, it's full speed ahead,'' said Ian Davidson, local director of Bird Life International, a conservation group that had opposed the project. After two years of acrimony by a strong, well-organized opposition that frequently disrupted construction, such admissions could not be more welcome for the consortium of multinational oil companies building the heavy-crude pipeline, known by its Spanish initials, O.C.P. But now, as the project enters its final stage, with the builders promising that the pipeline will be on tap next June, questions are being raised by oil analysts and economists over just how much economic impact it will have in Ecuador. Two years ago, when President Gustavo Noboa and the oil companies began talks for the O.C.P., it was billed as a mega-project that would, in time, help double national daily oil production to 850,000 barrels, and help gross domestic product grow as much as 2.3 percent a year over the next 20 years. But now, the government and the consortium -- made up of giants like Repsol YPF of Spain and Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, and led by EnCana of Canada -- have scaled back the projections. The builders now say the pipeline will, for the foreseeable future, transport only 220,000 barrels a day, half of capacity. And nearly three-quarters of that crude is oil that is already in production and currently flowing through the country's only other major pipeline, the 30-year-old Trans-Ecuadorian tube known as SOTE, which runs nearly parallel to the new pipe. More exploration is expected to increase production, but the process is lengthy and expensive. This means that for at least a few years, only a few thousand more barrels of oil will be produced. ''All we are going to get is | Oil Pipeline Forges Ahead in Ecuador |
1436244_1 | quotas but also establishing common principles for regulating investment, labor practices and the environment. But here in Brazil, home to 175 million people and Latin America's biggest economy, a large swath of business and political leaders are disillusioned and suspicious about their giant trading partner to the north. President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won a landslide election victory on Sunday, has warned that a free-trade deal would be ''tantamout to an annexation of Brazil by the United States.'' Mr. da Silva added to American annoyance by insisting at least twice that any agreement should include America's bête noire, Cuba. Brazil is crucial to any free-trade agreement for the Americas. It accounts for 40 percent of South America's total economy. It is an American-scale competitor in global agriculture, with farms that are huge and highly mechanized. It is also a growing industrial power: its largest export is no longer coffee but small and medium-sized airplanes, produced by Embraer. It has been a huge magnet for direct foreign investment, drawing in more than $160 billion over the last five years. But Mr. da Silva and his left-wing Workers' Party are hardly the only opponents here to a pan-American, free-trade zone. Many industrial manufacturers, still shielded behind Brazil's own import barriers, see themselves as net losers. Even those who salivate over huge new export opportunities -- sugar growers, soybean farmers, textile producers -- are skeptical. A free-trade pact would eliminate the steep American tariffs of more than 300 percent on tobacco and sugar and more than 100 percent on orange juice. Yet, farmers here are still seething about the farm bill that the United States Congress passed this spring, which authorized more than $100 billion in subsidies for cash crops, including cotton, soybeans and sugar. Cotton farmers say the cotton subsidies sent world prices plunging and wiped out most of their profits this year. Brazil's soybean farmers, who are second only to the United States in production, say they would have suffered an even worse fate had it not been for bad weather conditions and low output in the United States. Food processors like Mr. Furlan are angry about what they consider backdoor protectionism through technical restrictions. Steel producers are furious about ''anti-dumping'' penalties on their products. ''Except for airplanes, all the other big export products face high barriers when you go to the United States,'' said Gilberto Dupas, director of | As U.S. Seeks a Trade Accord, Brazilians Recall Discord |
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