Rape Incites Women to Fight Culture in India

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Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


A candlelight gathering after the cremation on Sunday blocked a road in New Delhi, the city where the Dec. 16 rape occurred.







NEW DELHI — Neha Kaul Mehra says she was only 7 years old the first time she was sexually harassed. She was walking to a dance class in an affluent neighborhood of New Delhi when a man confronted her and began openly masturbating.




That episode was far from the last. Years of verbal and physical sexual affronts left Ms. Mehra, now 29, filled with what she described as “impotent rage.”


Last week, she and thousands of Indian women like her poured that anger into public demonstrations, reacting to news of the gang rape of another young woman who had moved to the city from a small village, with a new life in front of her.


That woman, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, died Saturday from internal injuries inflicted with a metal rod during the rape, which took place on a bus two weeks ago.


In her story and its brutal ending, many women in the world’s largest democracy say they see themselves.


“That girl could have been any one of us,” said Sangeetha Saini, 44, who took her two teenage daughters to a candle-filled demonstration on Sunday in Delhi. Women in India “face harassment in public spaces, streets, on buses,” she said. “We can only tackle this by becoming Durga,” she added, referring to the female Hindu god who slays a demon.


Indian women have made impressive gains in recent years: maternal mortality rates have dropped, literacy rates and education levels have risen, and millions of women have joined the professional classes. But the women at the heart of the protest movement say it was born of their outraged realization that no matter how accomplished they become, or how hard they work, women here will never fully take part in the promise of a new and more prosperous India unless something fundamental about the culture changes.


Indeed, many women in India say they are still subject to regular harassment and assault during the day and are fearful of leaving their homes alone after dark. Now they are demanding that the government, and a police force that they say offers women little or no protection, do something about it.


Ankita Cheerakathil, 20, a student at St. Stephen’s College who attended a protest on Thursday, remembered dreading the daily bus ride when she was in high school in the southern state of Kerala. Before she stepped outside her house, she recalled, she would scrutinize herself in a mirror, checking to see whether her blouse was too tight. At the bus stop, inevitably, men would zero in on the schoolgirls in their uniforms, some as young as 10, to leer and make cracks filled with sexual innuendo.


“This is not an isolated incident,” Ms. Cheerakathil said of the death of the New Delhi rape victim. “This is the story of every Indian woman.”


While the Dec. 16 attack was extreme in its savagery, gang rapes of women have been happening with frightening regularity in recent months, particularly in northern India. Critics say the response from a mostly male police force is often inadequate at best.


Last week, an 18-year-old woman in Punjab State committed suicide by drinking poison after being raped by two men and then humiliated by male police officers, who made her describe her attack in detail several times, then tried to encourage her to marry one of her rapists. Dozens more gang rapes have been reported in the states of Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in recent months.


The government does not keep statistics on gang rape, but over all, rapes increased 25 percent from 2006 to 2011. More than 600 rapes were reported in New Delhi alone in 2012. So far, only one attack has resulted in a conviction.


Sociologists and crime experts say the attacks are the result of deeply entrenched misogynistic attitudes and the rising visibility of women, underpinned by long-term demographic trends in India.


After years of aborting female fetuses, a practice that is still on the rise in some areas because of a cultural preference for male children, India has about 15 million “extra” men between the ages of 15 and 35, the range when men are most likely to commit crimes. By 2020, those “extra” men will have doubled to 30 million.


“There is a strong correlation between masculinized sex ratios and higher rates of violent crime against women,” said Valerie M. Hudson, a co-author of “Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population.” Men who do not have wives and families often gather in packs, Ms. Hudson argues, and then commit more gruesome and violent crimes than they would on their own.


Reporting was contributed by Malavika Vyawahare, Anjani Trivedi, Niharika Mandhana and Saritha Rai.



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Science Topics Find an Audience in Social Media

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The largest and most sophisticated rover landed safely on Mars and the world’s most famous Moon visitor died, but the space event that most captured the public’s imagination in 2012 involved a journey to Earth.




On Oct. 14, YouTube counted 52 million streams of the Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic, record-breaking jump from a balloon 24 miles above the New Mexico desert. YouTube called it “one of the most-viewed live events ever,” and it landed at No. 10 on the video-sharing site’s year-end trending list — the first time a science-related subject made the list, a YouTube spokeswoman said. (Google listed the leap as No. 7 in its Zeitgeist 2012 of trending events.)


And it was far from the only science story to go viral. To put it in 140 characters or less, social media and science found each other in 2012.



Video by redbull

Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128k' - Mission Highlights



In surprising numbers, people posted, viewed and searched for science-related topics last year — sharing news from space and undersea, commenting on new discoveries and uploading photos and video in a full-out embrace of the ability to communicate with thousands of others about global subjects in real time.


The first Twitter message on Aug. 5 from @MarsCuriosity, NASA’s official rover handle — “Gale Crater I Am in You!!!” — was retweeted more than 72,000 times. Photos of the space shuttle Endeavour flying over the West Coast, on its way to its final resting place, ricocheted across the planet. And the director James Cameron’s claim to have sent the “deepest tweet” — from the Mariana Trench, about seven miles below the surface of the Pacific — was rated one of Twitter’s “moments of serendipity and just plain awesomeness” (though it was actually sent by a friend above water). Four science-related events made that list, with the Mars landing at No. 1.In an age of despair over math and science acuity, it appears that what was once considered uninteresting or unfathomable has become cool and exciting.



Video by JPLnews

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation



People now feel that “if they’re not paying attention, they’re missing out on something,” said Kevin Allocca, the trends manager for YouTube.


The rover in particular has picked up followers and likes at amazing speed and volume, though it is the fourth landing of an American space exploration vehicle on the planet.


“We went from 120,000 on Aug. 4 to over 800,000 followers on landing night,” Veronica McGregor, the media relations and social media manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said of its Twitter account. “And then we hit a million really quickly.”


Two months after the landing, the mission was averaging about 30,000 Twitter mentions a month. The Facebook page for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is heading toward a half-million likes, and the hashtag #Curiosity was the fifth most used on Google Plus in 2012.


The trend is, in some ways, self-fulfilling. Social media platforms are growing in popularity. There is also more online content, which is becoming more accessible, entertaining and engaging, Mr. Allocca said. Science subjects are also universal, more likely to attract global audiences. And people who are interested in science and technology tend to be especially comfortable with seeking and sharing information in digital ways.


Still, an epidemic of science geekiness seems to have broken out.


On Facebook, Mr. Baumgartner’s jump ranked higher than Mitt Romney’s announcement of Representative Paul D. Ryanof Wisconsin as his running mate, according to the Talk Meter, a tool that compares chatter on the social site with baseline conversation.


On the Google Zeitgeist 2012 list, “Stratosphere jump” follows “Presidential debate” (No. 6) but surpasses “Penn State scandal” (No. 8) and “Trayvon Martin shooting” (No. 9). “Hurricane Sandy” is No. 1.


NASA (which now has about 1.6 million likes on Facebook) has also become more sophisticated and assertive about doling out information piece by piece to sustain interest. The strategy plays into the strengths of social platforms, which allow users to dip in and out of streams of news and information at their convenience.


NASA’s “Seven Minutes of Terror” video on YouTube, about the difficulties of landing the rover, attracted two million views. And a satirical video made independently of NASA, “We’re NASA and We Know It” — to the tune of “I’m Sexy and I Know It” (chorus: “Crane lower that rover”) — has gotten close to 2.7 million views.



Video by JPLnews

Challenges of Getting to Mars: Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror



There are also more ways for followers to engage in events: helping to name the rover, or picking up a Curiosity Explorer badge on Foursquare for checking in at a NASA visitor center, science museum or planetarium. Ms. McGregor said that NASA, in turn, was paying attention to what its fans want. It was learning that with so many followers just starting to connect with the whole space thing, the agency needs to provide more basic information.


Earthlings have long had a fascination with the unknown. But social media experts say people can now feel as if they are part of the adventure. They can watch events live, then incorporate the developments in their “timelines.” They can follow science — and not have to worry about taking the final exam.



Video by Satire

We're NASA and We Know It (Mars Curiosity)



A recent LiveScience article, “Why We’re Mad for Mars,” tries to explain the renewed popularity of Mars. The answer is simple, noted a commenter, Jerry. “People are explorers,” he wrote. “That is all the article needed to say.”


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Well: Managing Diabetes, Then Told of Cancer

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Nine years ago, Brenda Gray, a former schoolteacher in North Carolina, discovered she had Type 2 diabetes.

Since then, she has learned to manage the disease, diligently taking her medicine and keeping tabs on her blood sugar. But in September, she was told she had skin cancer, and her diabetes spun out of control.

Ms. Gray started an aggressive course of treatment that included radiation therapy. But the treatments weakened her and destroyed her appetite. Unable to eat, she developed dangerously low blood-sugar levels, and about two months ago, Ms. Gray’s daughter had to rush her to a hospital.

“She found me in bed shaking and sweating,” said Ms. Gray, who is 62 and lives in Durham. “When I got to the hospital, they couldn’t understand how I was still standing.”

Cancer and diabetes are two of the leading killers in America. Each can be a devastating diagnosis in its own right, but researchers are finding that the two often occur together. By some estimates, as many as one in five cancer patients also has diabetes.

In a recent joint report, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association noted that people with Type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing cancers of the liver, pancreas, colon and bladder. Researchers with the National Cancer Institute released a similar report last year, which found greater rates of cancer among diabetics, as well as an elevated risk of dying from cancer.

Experts say it is clear from accumulating clinical data that the two share some biological links. The problem results from simple demographics as well: with the rapid rise in Type 2 diabetes and a growing population of cancer survivors, the two diseases are coinciding more frequently in older patients.

“We are going to see a lot greater numbers of people with both diseases,” said Edward Giovannucci, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and an author of the joint report. “By some estimates, the link between diabetes and cancer may quantitatively become even more important than the link between smoking and cancer.”

Already, oncologists say, it is not uncommon to encounter patients struggling to balance cancer treatments with insulin shots and diabetes drugs. Because cancer is generally seen as the more lethal of the two diseases, patients often make it the priority.

“Although cancer is no longer generally a death sentence, for many patients, they see it as that no matter what you say,” said Dr. June McKoy, a geriatric oncologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Suddenly, they put their diabetes on the back burner, and they focus on the cancer.” But high blood sugar can damage kidneys and blood vessels, strain the immune system and worsen cancer prognosis.

Researchers say that the link between the two diseases is complex and driven by many factors. Typically, though, it is diabetes that sets the stage for cancer. “Most cancers don’t cause diabetes,” said Dr. Pankaj Shah, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Mostly diabetes increases the risk of cancer.”

Type 2 diabetes is often preceded by chronically high insulin levels and high blood sugar, fertile conditions for cancer. Insulin is known to fuel cell growth, and cancer cells consume glucose out of proportion to other nutrients. The two diseases share many risk factors as well, including obesity, poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking and advanced age.

Another factor that complicates the relationship is the treatments given to patients. Diabetes drugs can have an impact on cancer prognosis and vice versa. Type 2 diabetics treated with the drug metformin, for example, develop cancer less frequently than diabetics given other medications. A number of clinical trials are now under way to see how well the drug performs as a cancer treatment.

Drugs used against cancer, on the other hand, tend to worsen diabetes. Chemotherapy can wreak havoc on blood sugar levels, and glucocorticoids, which are widely prescribed to alleviate nausea in cancer patients, promote insulin resistance, said Dr. Lorraine L. Lipscombe of Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

Dr. Lipscombe was the lead author of a large study last month that found that breast cancer survivors were 20 percent more likely to receive a diabetes diagnosis than other women. The study found evidence that glucocorticoids and chemotherapy may hasten the onset of diabetes.

“They don’t cause diabetes in everyone, but they can bring out or unmask it in people who might already be vulnerable,” she said.

For diabetics who are used to tightly monitoring their blood sugar levels, the impact of cancer drugs can be alarming. Rigoberto Cortes, 71, a former metal worker in Chicago, has had Type 2 diabetes for over two decades. A year ago, he was told he had Stage 3 colon cancer.

“When I started chemotherapy, my sugar level was going way up and way down like never before,” he said. “I kept asking my oncologist what I should do.”

Mr. Cortes said his oncologist was not very concerned by the blood sugar swings. He eventually got a second opinion and switched doctors. He also lost weight and changed his eating habits, which helped minimize his blood sugar swings.

Although every case is different, the general strategy in treating such patients should be to get the cancer under control first, said Dr. Shah at the Mayo Clinic.

“Diabetes treatment essentially is given to prevent long-term complications,” he added.

At some hospitals, oncologists may take responsibility for managing blood sugar and other diabetes concerns in their cancer patients. But ideally, treatments should be coordinated by a team that includes a certified diabetes educator.

“They go over diet with the patient, review their medication, review their insulin,” said Dr. McKoy of Northwestern. “They can play a big role.”

For a diabetic trying to navigate the world of cancer, or a cancer patient navigating the world of diabetes, such interventions can be crucial. In a study published in October, Dr. McKoy and her colleagues looked at several years of health records for over 200,000 people with Type II diabetes who developed cancer.

Those who underwent a diabetes counseling session after their cancer diagnosis — consisting of two sessions a week for four to six weeks — were more likely to receives tests of hemoglobin A1c levels, a barometer of how well blood sugar has been controlled over time, and to take care of their blood sugar levels. As a result, they had fewer emergency room visits, fewer hospital admissions and lower health care costs.

Ms. Gray, the former schoolteacher in Durham, learned this firsthand. After her recent emergency, she worked with a diabetes educator at Duke University Hospital. Ms. Gray learned tips and strategies to balance the two diseases, including ways to keep her blood sugar normal when cancer treatments ruin her appetite.

“I came into the hospital and they got me back on track,” she said. “I was just so focused on the cancer. It changed everything. But I’ve learned how to face this.”

Read More..

Well: Managing Diabetes, Then Told of Cancer

Label:

Nine years ago, Brenda Gray, a former schoolteacher in North Carolina, discovered she had Type 2 diabetes.

Since then, she has learned to manage the disease, diligently taking her medicine and keeping tabs on her blood sugar. But in September, she was told she had skin cancer, and her diabetes spun out of control.

Ms. Gray started an aggressive course of treatment that included radiation therapy. But the treatments weakened her and destroyed her appetite. Unable to eat, she developed dangerously low blood-sugar levels, and about two months ago, Ms. Gray’s daughter had to rush her to a hospital.

“She found me in bed shaking and sweating,” said Ms. Gray, who is 62 and lives in Durham. “When I got to the hospital, they couldn’t understand how I was still standing.”

Cancer and diabetes are two of the leading killers in America. Each can be a devastating diagnosis in its own right, but researchers are finding that the two often occur together. By some estimates, as many as one in five cancer patients also has diabetes.

In a recent joint report, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association noted that people with Type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing cancers of the liver, pancreas, colon and bladder. Researchers with the National Cancer Institute released a similar report last year, which found greater rates of cancer among diabetics, as well as an elevated risk of dying from cancer.

Experts say it is clear from accumulating clinical data that the two share some biological links. The problem results from simple demographics as well: with the rapid rise in Type 2 diabetes and a growing population of cancer survivors, the two diseases are coinciding more frequently in older patients.

“We are going to see a lot greater numbers of people with both diseases,” said Edward Giovannucci, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and an author of the joint report. “By some estimates, the link between diabetes and cancer may quantitatively become even more important than the link between smoking and cancer.”

Already, oncologists say, it is not uncommon to encounter patients struggling to balance cancer treatments with insulin shots and diabetes drugs. Because cancer is generally seen as the more lethal of the two diseases, patients often make it the priority.

“Although cancer is no longer generally a death sentence, for many patients, they see it as that no matter what you say,” said Dr. June McKoy, a geriatric oncologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Suddenly, they put their diabetes on the back burner, and they focus on the cancer.” But high blood sugar can damage kidneys and blood vessels, strain the immune system and worsen cancer prognosis.

Researchers say that the link between the two diseases is complex and driven by many factors. Typically, though, it is diabetes that sets the stage for cancer. “Most cancers don’t cause diabetes,” said Dr. Pankaj Shah, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Mostly diabetes increases the risk of cancer.”

Type 2 diabetes is often preceded by chronically high insulin levels and high blood sugar, fertile conditions for cancer. Insulin is known to fuel cell growth, and cancer cells consume glucose out of proportion to other nutrients. The two diseases share many risk factors as well, including obesity, poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking and advanced age.

Another factor that complicates the relationship is the treatments given to patients. Diabetes drugs can have an impact on cancer prognosis and vice versa. Type 2 diabetics treated with the drug metformin, for example, develop cancer less frequently than diabetics given other medications. A number of clinical trials are now under way to see how well the drug performs as a cancer treatment.

Drugs used against cancer, on the other hand, tend to worsen diabetes. Chemotherapy can wreak havoc on blood sugar levels, and glucocorticoids, which are widely prescribed to alleviate nausea in cancer patients, promote insulin resistance, said Dr. Lorraine L. Lipscombe of Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

Dr. Lipscombe was the lead author of a large study last month that found that breast cancer survivors were 20 percent more likely to receive a diabetes diagnosis than other women. The study found evidence that glucocorticoids and chemotherapy may hasten the onset of diabetes.

“They don’t cause diabetes in everyone, but they can bring out or unmask it in people who might already be vulnerable,” she said.

For diabetics who are used to tightly monitoring their blood sugar levels, the impact of cancer drugs can be alarming. Rigoberto Cortes, 71, a former metal worker in Chicago, has had Type 2 diabetes for over two decades. A year ago, he was told he had Stage 3 colon cancer.

“When I started chemotherapy, my sugar level was going way up and way down like never before,” he said. “I kept asking my oncologist what I should do.”

Mr. Cortes said his oncologist was not very concerned by the blood sugar swings. He eventually got a second opinion and switched doctors. He also lost weight and changed his eating habits, which helped minimize his blood sugar swings.

Although every case is different, the general strategy in treating such patients should be to get the cancer under control first, said Dr. Shah at the Mayo Clinic.

“Diabetes treatment essentially is given to prevent long-term complications,” he added.

At some hospitals, oncologists may take responsibility for managing blood sugar and other diabetes concerns in their cancer patients. But ideally, treatments should be coordinated by a team that includes a certified diabetes educator.

“They go over diet with the patient, review their medication, review their insulin,” said Dr. McKoy of Northwestern. “They can play a big role.”

For a diabetic trying to navigate the world of cancer, or a cancer patient navigating the world of diabetes, such interventions can be crucial. In a study published in October, Dr. McKoy and her colleagues looked at several years of health records for over 200,000 people with Type II diabetes who developed cancer.

Those who underwent a diabetes counseling session after their cancer diagnosis — consisting of two sessions a week for four to six weeks — were more likely to receives tests of hemoglobin A1c levels, a barometer of how well blood sugar has been controlled over time, and to take care of their blood sugar levels. As a result, they had fewer emergency room visits, fewer hospital admissions and lower health care costs.

Ms. Gray, the former schoolteacher in Durham, learned this firsthand. After her recent emergency, she worked with a diabetes educator at Duke University Hospital. Ms. Gray learned tips and strategies to balance the two diseases, including ways to keep her blood sugar normal when cancer treatments ruin her appetite.

“I came into the hospital and they got me back on track,” she said. “I was just so focused on the cancer. It changed everything. But I’ve learned how to face this.”

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A Year of Market Gains, Despite Political Turmoil

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A year ago, some thought 2012 was destined to be the year that the euro zone — and maybe even the entire European Union — broke up. The banks that supported their governments, and that in turn depended on those same governments for bailouts if they went broke, were deemed to be particularly vulnerable to disaster.


It did not happen, and while the euro zone countries hardly solved their economic problems, the Continent’s stock markets turned out to be good investments in 2012, with bank shares among the best performers. The same could be said about the United States, where the broad stock market posted double-digit gains and Bank of America shares doubled in 2012, albeit from a very depressed level.


Over all, the Standard & Poor’s Euro 350-stock index was up 13 percent for the year, measured in euros, and more than 15 percent measured in dollars. The S.& P. 500 wound up the year with a gain of 13 percent.


It may have been typical of 2012 that it was politician and central bankers — not economic news or corporate developments — that dominated investor attention. As the year ended, the difference was that it was Washington, not Europe, where the squabbles were taking place.


For much of the year, it appeared that the European squabbles were leading nowhere, and by midsummer, markets were pessimistic about the outcome. Finally, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, took decisive action to assure that the banks — and the governments that depended on them — would have access to funds. That did not turn around recessionary conditions in much of the euro zone, but it was enough to turn around financial markets. Prices of government bonds in many of the most troubled countries began to rise. Those who bet that Europe would solve its problems did well in the financial markets.


The accompanying charts show the performance of stocks in 10 economic sectors in both Europe and the United States, both in 2012 and since Oct. 9, 2007, the day that world stock markets peaked before what would turn out to be a world recession and credit crisis.


What stands out is how well financial stocks and consumer discretionary stocks did during 2012. The latter stocks are things purchased by consumers that are likely to do better when the economy is improving. In the United States, the two best such stocks in the S.& P. 500 were PulteGroup, a homebuilder, and Whirlpool, an appliance maker.


But while Europe did better in 2012, it remains much farther from recovering all of the losses experienced since the 2007 peak. The American index is just 9 percent lower than that, while the European index is about a third below where it was then. The only sectors that have completely made up their losses on both sides of the Atlantic are health care and consumer staples. In the United States, the consumer discretionary and information technology sectors have also done so, although the latter sector’s performance is largely because of Apple, whose shares are more than three times as high as they were in 2007.


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Cold-Weather Aid Trickles Into Afghan Camps

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But camp leaders and Afghan government officials criticized the aid delivery as inadequate to protect residents from the weather and to prevent more deaths.


Last winter, more than 100 children died of the cold in refugee camps around Kabul, with 26 dying in the Charahi Qambar camp alone. That is the same camp where the 3-year-old died on Friday; it was the first confirmed death because of the cold this winter.


The distribution of supplies at the camp, which is home to about 900 families in western Kabul, had been scheduled before news reports about the child’s death, said Mohammad Nader Farhad, a spokesman for the United Nations refugees agency in Kabul.


On less than an hour’s notice, the agency convened a news conference with Afghan government officials at the camp to announce the distribution.


Each family was given warm children’s clothing, blankets, tarps, cooking utensils and soap. Separately, other aid groups, financed by the United Nations and other donors, will be distributing charcoal once every month through February, officials said.


United Nations officials acknowledged, however, that the fuel distributions in themselves were not enough to heat the mud and tarp huts throughout the season, and there were no plans to distribute food to the families. In most cases the men, who are largely war-displaced refugees, are unable to find day labor work in the cold weather, so they are usually unable to buy food.


“We are happy to receive this,” said Tawoos Khan, one of the camp representatives. “But we want food, and we need more fuel; we have all run out of firewood and charcoal.” He and other camp officials said large sacks of charcoal were distributed to every family more than two weeks ago, but supplies had run out.


“It’s supplementary,” said Douglas DiSalvo, a protection officer with the United Nations agency who was at the Charahi Qambar camp. “People have some level of support they can achieve for themselves.”


Mr. Farhad said: “The assistance we are providing, at least it is mitigating the harsh winter these families are experiencing right now.”


The estimated 35,000 people in 50 camps in and around Kabul are not classified as refugees from an international legal point of view, but as “internally displaced persons.” Since the United Nations agency’s mandate is to primarily help refugees — defined as those who flee across international borders — has not provided support to the Kabul camps in the past. That changed late last winter when the Afghan government asked it to do so in response to the emergency conditions that were taking so many lives.


This year, the agency is spearheading the effort to supply the camps, along with the Afghan government’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, other United Nations agencies, and several aid groups, in order to prevent a recurrence of the crisis last winter.


Ministry officials, however, criticized the effort on Sunday — even though they were among the sponsors. “We have never claimed that we provided the internally displaced Afghans with sufficient food items, clothing or means of heat. We admit this. What the internally displaced people have received so far is not adequate at all,” said Islamuddin Jurat, a spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.


“Before the arrival of harsh winter, we asked the international community and donor countries to help the internally displaced people, and luckily today U.N.H.C.R. provided them with some humanitarian assistance, but again we believe it’s not sufficient at all,” he added.


Both aid officials and the Afghan government have said they are wary about providing too much aid for fear that it would encourage more people to leave their homes. That fear has also been why the Afghan government has refused to allow permanent buildings to be erected in the camps, many of which are five or more years old.


“The illegal nature of these squatter settlements poses an obstacle to more lasting interventions and improvements,” said Mr. Farhad of the United Nations refugees agency. “Coordination this year has been very strong, and we expect that the multiagency effort will help us to detect and respond to particular problem areas as the winter progresses.”


Little is provided in the way of food aid. The only food aid in the Charahi Qambar camp is a hot lunch program for 750 students at a tented school run by Aschiana, an Afghan aid group.


The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is providing the cold-weather packages to 40,000 families, 5,000 of them in the Kabul camps, at a cost of $6 million. Other Kabul camps will receive distributions in the next two days, Mr. Farhad said.


The packages, which cost about $150 each, include two tarpaulins, three blankets, six bars of soap, a cooking utensils set, and 26 items of clothing ranging from jackets and sweaters to socks and hats, mostly for children.


Taj Mohammad, the father of the child who died, Janan, said Sunday that he believed that his son might have survived if the cold-weather kit had arrived earlier. But like many of the refugees, he was critical of its contents, which he said were hard to sell in exchange for food.


“I didn’t know a package costs $150,” he said. “It’s a lot of money. It would have been much better if they had given us the money, and we would have spent it on what we need the most.”


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YouTube Ban Lifted in Pakistan, for 3 Minutes

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A ban on YouTube, which Pakistan imposed after an anti-Islam video caused riots in much of the Muslim world, was lifted Saturday, only to be reinstated — after three minutes — when it was discovered that blasphemous material was still available on the site.




After months of criticism of the ban, the government decided to allow Pakistanis to have access to YouTube again, saying steps had been taken to ensure that offensive content would not be visible. But those efforts apparently failed, and the authorities quickly backtracked.


The ban was imposed on Sept. 17 following violent protests in response to the video, which was made in the United States and ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad. The government then ordered all telecommunications companies to block Internet material deemed offensive to Muslims and urged people to report such material.


But the ban on YouTube came to be seen as censorship, and a growing number of the estimated 25 million Internet users in the country complained.


“This is purely a naked power play by the government and one that we should resist,” an editorial in The Express Tribune, an English-language daily newspaper in Karachi, Pakistan, said Friday. “This is about controlling our behavior and denying us access to the Internet.”


“We need to make it clear that we do not wish to regress to a dark age when a centralized authority controlled all access to information,” the editorial, observing the 100th day of the ban, went on to say. “Retreating to such an era would essentially mean that we were longer living in a democracy.”


By Friday evening, Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, indicated that the ban would be lifted over the weekend. Mr. Malik said firewalls by government technicians were being installed to block pornographic and blasphemous material.


On Saturday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority directed local Internet service providers to make YouTube accessible. But by the afternoon, Geo, a private television news network that wields immense influence, reported that anti-Islam and blasphemous material was still available on YouTube. The criticism was led by Ansar Abbasi, a right-leaning journalist who often speaks out on morality and religion.


Yielding to the criticism, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf then ordered providers to again block access to the video-sharing site.


The flip-flop drew an immediate rebuke from users and led to a flurry of jokes on Twitter about the government’s dithering and backtracking.


“YouTube is a huge convenience for users, who benefit from it for educational as well as entertainment purposes,” Zubair Kasuri, the editor of Flare, a Karachi-based telecommunications magazine, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Kasuri expressed surprise over the government’s failure to install an effective firewall mechanism despite having months to do so.


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Well: Exercise and the Ever-Smarter Human Brain

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Anyone whose resolve to exercise in 2013 is a bit shaky might want to consider an emerging scientific view of human evolution. It suggests that we are clever today in part because a million years ago, we could outrun and outwalk most other mammals over long distances. Our brains were shaped and sharpened by movement, the idea goes, and we continue to require regular physical activity in order for our brains to function optimally.

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

The role of physical endurance in shaping humankind has intrigued anthropologists and gripped the popular imagination for some time. In 2004, the evolutionary biologists Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard and Dennis M. Bramble of the University of Utah published a seminal article in the journal Nature titled “Endurance Running and the Evolution of Homo,” in which they posited that our bipedal ancestors survived by becoming endurance athletes, able to bring down swifter prey through sheer doggedness, jogging and plodding along behind them until the animals dropped.

Endurance produced meals, which provided energy for mating, which meant that adept early joggers passed along their genes. In this way, natural selection drove early humans to become even more athletic, Dr. Lieberman and other scientists have written, their bodies developing longer legs, shorter toes, less hair and complicated inner-ear mechanisms to maintain balance and stability during upright ambulation. Movement shaped the human body.

But simultaneously, in a development that until recently many scientists viewed as unrelated, humans were becoming smarter. Their brains were increasing rapidly in size.

Today, humans have a brain that is about three times larger than would be expected, anthropologists say, given our species’ body size in comparison with that of other mammals.

To explain those outsized brains, evolutionary scientists have pointed to such occurrences as meat eating and, perhaps most determinatively, our early ancestors’ need for social interaction. Early humans had to plan and execute hunts as a group, which required complicated thinking patterns and, it’s been thought, rewarded the social and brainy with evolutionary success. According to that hypothesis, the evolution of the brain was driven by the need to think.

But now some scientists are suggesting that physical activity also played a critical role in making our brains larger.

To reach that conclusion, anthropologists began by looking at existing data about brain size and endurance capacity in a variety of mammals, including dogs, guinea pigs, foxes, mice, wolves, rats, civet cats, antelope, mongooses, goats, sheep and elands. They found a notable pattern. Species like dogs and rats that had a high innate endurance capacity, which presumably had evolved over millenniums, also had large brain volumes relative to their body size.

The researchers also looked at recent experiments in which mice and rats were systematically bred to be marathon runners. Lab animals that willingly put in the most miles on running wheels were interbred, resulting in the creation of a line of lab animals that excelled at running.

Interestingly, after multiple generations, these animals began to develop innately high levels of substances that promote tissue growth and health, including a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. These substances are important for endurance performance. They also are known to drive brain growth.

What all of this means, says David A. Raichlen, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona and an author of a new article about the evolution of human brains appearing in the January issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology, is that physical activity may have helped to make early humans smarter.

“We think that what happened” in our early hunter-gatherer ancestors, he says, is that the more athletic and active survived and, as with the lab mice, passed along physiological characteristics that improved their endurance, including elevated levels of BDNF. Eventually, these early athletes had enough BDNF coursing through their bodies that some could migrate from the muscles to the brain, where it nudged the growth of brain tissue.

Those particular early humans then applied their growing ability to think and reason toward better tracking prey, becoming the best-fed and most successful from an evolutionary standpoint. Being in motion made them smarter, and being smarter now allowed them to move more efficiently.

And out of all of this came, eventually, an ability to understand higher math and invent iPads. But that was some time later.

The broad point of this new notion is that if physical activity helped to mold the structure of our brains, then it most likely remains essential to brain health today, says John D. Polk, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and co-author, with Dr. Raichlen, of the new article.

And there is scientific support for that idea. Recent studies have shown, he says, that “regular exercise, even walking,” leads to more robust mental abilities, “beginning in childhood and continuing into old age.”

Of course, the hypothesis that jogging after prey helped to drive human brain evolution is just a hypothesis, Dr. Raichlen says, and almost unprovable.

But it is compelling, says Harvard’s Dr. Lieberman, who has worked with the authors of the new article. “I fundamentally agree that there is a deep evolutionary basis for the relationship between a healthy body and a healthy mind,” he says, a relationship that makes the term “jogging your memory” more literal than most of us might have expected and provides a powerful incentive to be active in 2013.

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Well: Exercise and the Ever-Smarter Human Brain

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Anyone whose resolve to exercise in 2013 is a bit shaky might want to consider an emerging scientific view of human evolution. It suggests that we are clever today in part because a million years ago, we could outrun and outwalk most other mammals over long distances. Our brains were shaped and sharpened by movement, the idea goes, and we continue to require regular physical activity in order for our brains to function optimally.

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

The role of physical endurance in shaping humankind has intrigued anthropologists and gripped the popular imagination for some time. In 2004, the evolutionary biologists Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard and Dennis M. Bramble of the University of Utah published a seminal article in the journal Nature titled “Endurance Running and the Evolution of Homo,” in which they posited that our bipedal ancestors survived by becoming endurance athletes, able to bring down swifter prey through sheer doggedness, jogging and plodding along behind them until the animals dropped.

Endurance produced meals, which provided energy for mating, which meant that adept early joggers passed along their genes. In this way, natural selection drove early humans to become even more athletic, Dr. Lieberman and other scientists have written, their bodies developing longer legs, shorter toes, less hair and complicated inner-ear mechanisms to maintain balance and stability during upright ambulation. Movement shaped the human body.

But simultaneously, in a development that until recently many scientists viewed as unrelated, humans were becoming smarter. Their brains were increasing rapidly in size.

Today, humans have a brain that is about three times larger than would be expected, anthropologists say, given our species’ body size in comparison with that of other mammals.

To explain those outsized brains, evolutionary scientists have pointed to such occurrences as meat eating and, perhaps most determinatively, our early ancestors’ need for social interaction. Early humans had to plan and execute hunts as a group, which required complicated thinking patterns and, it’s been thought, rewarded the social and brainy with evolutionary success. According to that hypothesis, the evolution of the brain was driven by the need to think.

But now some scientists are suggesting that physical activity also played a critical role in making our brains larger.

To reach that conclusion, anthropologists began by looking at existing data about brain size and endurance capacity in a variety of mammals, including dogs, guinea pigs, foxes, mice, wolves, rats, civet cats, antelope, mongooses, goats, sheep and elands. They found a notable pattern. Species like dogs and rats that had a high innate endurance capacity, which presumably had evolved over millenniums, also had large brain volumes relative to their body size.

The researchers also looked at recent experiments in which mice and rats were systematically bred to be marathon runners. Lab animals that willingly put in the most miles on running wheels were interbred, resulting in the creation of a line of lab animals that excelled at running.

Interestingly, after multiple generations, these animals began to develop innately high levels of substances that promote tissue growth and health, including a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. These substances are important for endurance performance. They also are known to drive brain growth.

What all of this means, says David A. Raichlen, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona and an author of a new article about the evolution of human brains appearing in the January issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology, is that physical activity may have helped to make early humans smarter.

“We think that what happened” in our early hunter-gatherer ancestors, he says, is that the more athletic and active survived and, as with the lab mice, passed along physiological characteristics that improved their endurance, including elevated levels of BDNF. Eventually, these early athletes had enough BDNF coursing through their bodies that some could migrate from the muscles to the brain, where it nudged the growth of brain tissue.

Those particular early humans then applied their growing ability to think and reason toward better tracking prey, becoming the best-fed and most successful from an evolutionary standpoint. Being in motion made them smarter, and being smarter now allowed them to move more efficiently.

And out of all of this came, eventually, an ability to understand higher math and invent iPads. But that was some time later.

The broad point of this new notion is that if physical activity helped to mold the structure of our brains, then it most likely remains essential to brain health today, says John D. Polk, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and co-author, with Dr. Raichlen, of the new article.

And there is scientific support for that idea. Recent studies have shown, he says, that “regular exercise, even walking,” leads to more robust mental abilities, “beginning in childhood and continuing into old age.”

Of course, the hypothesis that jogging after prey helped to drive human brain evolution is just a hypothesis, Dr. Raichlen says, and almost unprovable.

But it is compelling, says Harvard’s Dr. Lieberman, who has worked with the authors of the new article. “I fundamentally agree that there is a deep evolutionary basis for the relationship between a healthy body and a healthy mind,” he says, a relationship that makes the term “jogging your memory” more literal than most of us might have expected and provides a powerful incentive to be active in 2013.

Read More..

Victim of Gang Rape in India Dies at Hospital in Singapore

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NEW DELHI — A young woman who had been in critical condition since she was raped two weeks ago by several men who lured her onto a bus here died early Saturday, an official at the hospital in Singapore that is caring for her said.




The woman, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student whose rape on Dec. 16 had served as a reminder of the dangerous conditions women face in India, “died peacefully” early Saturday, according to a statement attributed to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore by The Associated Press.


The woman, whose intestines were removed because of injuries caused by a metal rod used during the rape, has not been identified. She was flown to Singapore on Wednesday night after being treated at a local hospital.


Revulsion and anger over the attack have galvanized India, where women regularly face sexual harassment and assault, and where neither the police nor the judicial system is seen as adequately protecting them.


Angry protesters thronged central Delhi after the attack was made public and assembled in other major cities, demanding better protection from the police and better treatment over all for women. Some protesters and politicians have called for the death penalty for rapists.


Top officials now say that change is needed.


“The emergence of women in public spaces, which is an absolutely essential part of social emancipation, is accompanied by growing threats to their safety and security,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a speech on Thursday. “We must reflect on this problem, which occurs in all states and regions of our country, and which requires greater attention.”


Activists and lawyers in India have long said that the police are insensitive when dealing with crimes against women. The result, they say, is that many women do not report cases of sexual violence. India, which has more than 1.3 billion people, recorded 24,000 cases of rape last year, a figure that has increased by 25 percent in the past six years.


On Thursday, Delhi government officials said they would register the names and photographs of convicted rapists on the Delhi police Web site, the beginning of a national registry for rapists.


As the condition of the Delhi rape victim worsened on Friday, the family of an 18-year-old woman in the northern Indian state of Punjab who committed suicide on Wednesday after being raped last month by two men blamed the police for her death.


Relatives of the woman say she killed herself because the police delayed registering the case or arresting the rapists.


If the police “had done their job, she would be alive today,” the woman’s sister, Charanjit Kaur, 28, said in a phone interview. “They didn’t listen to us; they didn’t act.”


On Friday, the Punjab high court intervened, asking the police to explain their delay. Three police officers have been suspended in the case, according to news media reports. Punjab police officials did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.


Ms. Kaur said her sister was abducted by two men from a place of worship near the small town of Badshahpur on Nov. 13 and was drugged and raped repeatedly. When the woman reported the episode at the local police station a few days later, she was asked to describe it in graphic detail and was “humiliated,” her sister said.


Over the next few days, Ms. Kaur said, her mother and sister were repeatedly called to the police station and forced to sit there all day. But the case was not registered for two weeks, as police officials and village elders tried to broker a deal between the men accused of the rape and the victim. In some parts of India, women are commonly married to men who have raped them.


Ms. Kaur said the police told her family that, because they were poor, they would not be able to fight the matter in court. “They kept putting pressure on my family to take money or marry the accused or just somehow settle the matter,” she said.


After no agreement was reached, the police registered the case, but they did not make any arrests. The victim was stalked and harassed by the men accused of the rape, who threatened to kill her and her family if she refused to drop the complaint, her suicide note said.


“They have ruined my life,” the note read, according to Ms. Kaur. The note names two men and a woman who allegedly helped the other two men as they kidnapped her. Those two men have now been arrested, the police said Friday.


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Fear of Amazon Pushes Stores to Offer Same-Day Shipping

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Richard Perry/The New York Times


Arianna Simpson of Shoptiques.com, a retail Web site, made a same-day delivery to a Manhattan office building last week.







Ivy Wu did not immediately need the navy lace cocktail dress she ordered the other day. But when a representative from Shoptiques, an e-commerce site, arrived at her Midtown Manhattan office with the dress only hours after Ms. Wu, 26, had placed her order, “I was really impressed that it was here,” she said.




This holiday season, same-day shipping has replaced free shipping as the new must-have promotion. It’s logistically complicated and money-losing — and may not even be a service that consumers want or need, analysts say. But retailers from Walmart to small shops like Shoptiques are willing to take the risk. Even the Postal Service has introduced a same-day option for retailers. And the reason is simple: fear of Amazon.com.


Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, has hinted that it will expand its same-day shipping service, giving customers the immediate gratification that has been the biggest advantage of brick-and-mortar stores.


For small outfits like Shoptiques, it is not an easy proposition. The courier who showed up at Ms. Wu’s office was the company’s head of boutique operations, who has put aside her regular job this holiday season to make deliveries by hand. Bigger retailers, like Toys “R” Us, Macy’s and Target, have worked with eBay to deliver items the same day, as have other old-line stores. Google has begun testing a local delivery service with several chains.


“There’s lots going on in this space, and it’s all driven by Amazon,” said Tom Allason, founder and chief executive of Shutl, a British same-day delivery service that will expand to the United States next year. “It’s not really being driven by consumers at the moment.”


The same-day delivery idea was a spectacular failure during the dot.com boom. Companies like Kozmo.com and Webvan went under because the services simply cost too much to be profitable. Amazon has offered same-day shipping since 2009, but with limits — only in big cities near Amazon warehouses on certain items ordered in the morning.


The geographical limits exist because Amazon had built warehouses far from major cities to avoid charging sales tax in certain states. But it has now given in on the sales tax fight, and in return, is erecting warehouses near cities like San Francisco, which analysts say is paving the way for faster, more widespread same-day delivery and spurring competitors.


“It’s the old idiom, ‘time is money,’ ” said Lina Shustarovich, an eBay spokeswoman. “How much time are you saving by not going to the store? People want it now, they want it fast.”


Walmart, which is the nation’s biggest retailer but sells just a fraction of what Amazon does online, is testing same-day shipping during the holiday season in five markets. Generally, it gives shoppers a four-hour delivery window and charges $10 for same- or next-day delivery. The idea is “to give customers convenience, by way of combining our online shopping with the local presence of stores,” said Amy Lester, a Walmart spokeswoman for global commerce.


But, Ms. Lester said, the test is showing that consumers often pick next-day delivery rather than same day. She declined to give a specific figure for same-day orders, but said thousands of same- and next-day orders had been placed.


Net-a-Porter, the designer apparel e-commerce site, said its same-day service is quite popular. Its $25 delivery service in the London and New York areas pays for itself, said Alison Loehnis, its managing director. But its clients are accustomed to paying for concierge service, like the customer who ordered clothing to be delivered the same day to her private jet before a vacation.


With the eBay Now iPhone app, introduced this year in San Francisco and New York, customers choose items from physical stores and eBay sends a courier to the store to pick it up and drop it off — at an apartment, office, coffee shop or bar — for a $5 fee.


EBay declined to say whether it loses money on the orders, but analysts who study logistics say it is not profitable.


“The goal with this pilot was never to monetize,” Ms. Shustarovich said. But in the future, it could make money, she said, for example if retailers pay eBay a fee for bringing them customers.


The Postal Service is testing a same-day service in San Francisco that is meant to offset its declining carrier business, a spokesman said. Consumers can order items until 2 p.m. from 1-800-Flowers.com, the first retailer offering the service, and a Postal Service employee will pick up the package and deliver it between 4 and 8 p.m.


Smaller companies are trying different approaches.


TaskRabbit, which offers à la carte personal assistant services, noticed last summer that delivering items from local stores was the most popular task requested.


Now, it charges $10 for delivery from local stores, starting in San Francisco.


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 27, 2012

A photo caption with an earlier version of this post misspelled the given name of an employee of Shoptiques.com who was making a same-day delivery. She is Arianna Simpson, not Arriana.




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Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center

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Chang W. Lee/The New York Times


Senator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center.







NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients.




While the medical center had been treating many outpatients, it had farmed out surgery to other hospitals, which created scheduling problems that forced many patients to have their operations on nights and weekends, when staffing is traditionally low. Some patients and doctors had to postpone not just elective but also necessary operations for lack of space at other hospitals.


The medical center’s Tisch Hospital, its major hospital for inpatient services, between 30th and 34th Streets on First Avenue, had been closed since the hurricane knocked out power and forced the evacuation of more than 300 patients, some on sleds brought down darkened flights of stairs.


“I think it’s a little bit of a miracle on 34th Street that this happened so quickly,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said Thursday.


Mr. Schumer credited the medical center’s leadership and esprit de corps, and also a tour of the damaged hospital on Nov. 9 by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, whom he and others escorted through watery basement hallways.


“Every time I talk to Fugate there are a lot of questions, but one is, ‘How are you doing at NYU?’ ” the senator said.


The reopening of Tisch to surgery patients and associated services, like intensive care, some types of radiology and recovery room anesthesia, was part of a phased restoration that will continue. Besides providing an essential service, surgery is among the more lucrative of hospital services.


The hospital’s emergency department is expected to delay its reopening for about 11 months, in part to accommodate an expansion in capacity to 65,000 patient visits a year, from 43,000, said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, its senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy.


In the meantime, NYU Langone is setting up an urgent care center with 31 bays and an observation unit, which will be able to treat some emergency patients. It will initially not accept ambulances, but might be able to later, Dr. Brotman said. Nearby Bellevue Hospital Center, which was also evacuated, opened its emergency department to noncritical injuries on Monday.


Labor and delivery, the cancer floor, epilepsy treatment and pediatrics and neurology beyond surgery are expected to open in mid-January, Langone officials said. While some radiology equipment, which was in the basement, has been restored, other equipment — including a Gamma Knife, a device using radiation to treat brain tumors — is not back.


The flooded basement is still being worked on, and electrical gear has temporarily been moved upstairs. Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, said that a $60 billion bill to pay for hurricane losses and recovery in New York and New Jersey was nearing a vote, and that he was optimistic it would pass in the Senate with bipartisan support. But the measure’s fate in the Republican-controlled House is far less certain.


The bill includes $1.2 billion for damage and lost revenue at NYU Langone, including some money from the National Institutes of Health to restore research projects. It would also cover Long Beach Medical Center in Nassau County, Bellevue, Coney Island Hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan.


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Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center

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Chang W. Lee/The New York Times


Senator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center.







NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients.




While the medical center had been treating many outpatients, it had farmed out surgery to other hospitals, which created scheduling problems that forced many patients to have their operations on nights and weekends, when staffing is traditionally low. Some patients and doctors had to postpone not just elective but also necessary operations for lack of space at other hospitals.


The medical center’s Tisch Hospital, its major hospital for inpatient services, between 30th and 34th Streets on First Avenue, had been closed since the hurricane knocked out power and forced the evacuation of more than 300 patients, some on sleds brought down darkened flights of stairs.


“I think it’s a little bit of a miracle on 34th Street that this happened so quickly,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said Thursday.


Mr. Schumer credited the medical center’s leadership and esprit de corps, and also a tour of the damaged hospital on Nov. 9 by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, whom he and others escorted through watery basement hallways.


“Every time I talk to Fugate there are a lot of questions, but one is, ‘How are you doing at NYU?’ ” the senator said.


The reopening of Tisch to surgery patients and associated services, like intensive care, some types of radiology and recovery room anesthesia, was part of a phased restoration that will continue. Besides providing an essential service, surgery is among the more lucrative of hospital services.


The hospital’s emergency department is expected to delay its reopening for about 11 months, in part to accommodate an expansion in capacity to 65,000 patient visits a year, from 43,000, said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, its senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy.


In the meantime, NYU Langone is setting up an urgent care center with 31 bays and an observation unit, which will be able to treat some emergency patients. It will initially not accept ambulances, but might be able to later, Dr. Brotman said. Nearby Bellevue Hospital Center, which was also evacuated, opened its emergency department to noncritical injuries on Monday.


Labor and delivery, the cancer floor, epilepsy treatment and pediatrics and neurology beyond surgery are expected to open in mid-January, Langone officials said. While some radiology equipment, which was in the basement, has been restored, other equipment — including a Gamma Knife, a device using radiation to treat brain tumors — is not back.


The flooded basement is still being worked on, and electrical gear has temporarily been moved upstairs. Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, said that a $60 billion bill to pay for hurricane losses and recovery in New York and New Jersey was nearing a vote, and that he was optimistic it would pass in the Senate with bipartisan support. But the measure’s fate in the Republican-controlled House is far less certain.


The bill includes $1.2 billion for damage and lost revenue at NYU Langone, including some money from the National Institutes of Health to restore research projects. It would also cover Long Beach Medical Center in Nassau County, Bellevue, Coney Island Hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan.


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Leaders Meet at White House in Urgent Bid for Fiscal Deal

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T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times


Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, returned to his office after a meeting with the president and congressional leaders on Friday.







WASHINGTON — President Obama and Congressional leaders met for make-or-break talks on the fiscal crisis at the White House on Friday as they struggled to find a way to head off a looming series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts to domestic and military programs.




The president was scheduled to make a public statement at 5:45 p.m. Eastern.


After meeting for just over an hour at the White House, the four Congressional leaders — Speaker John A. Boehner; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader; Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader; and Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader — emerged, one by one, into the chilly dusk. They avoided reporters and cameramen who were waiting and took swiftly to the S.U.V.'s to exit the White House grounds. Mr. Reid was the last to depart, and did not look up at reporters who shouted questions at him from their perch about 50 yards away.


This was the first time the group has met together in weeks to try to reach a resolution as Congress headed toward a rare New Year’s Eve session.


Upon returning to the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi told reporters that the talks were candid and constructive. Mr. McConnell entered the Capitol and headed to the Senate floor where votes were occurring and was immediately surrounded by his fellow Republicans. He spoke to them at length.


The meeting between Mr. Obama and the top lawmakers started with the president reiterating his demand for an extension of tax cuts on incomes below $250,000.


That opening offer lowered expectations on Capitol Hill that a breakthrough could be pending, but behind the scenes, talks continued, focusing on a possibly higher threshold of $400,000. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said sentiment is “jelling” around a new offer, and a source familiar with the negotiations said the president would ask Republican and Democratic leaders what proposal could win majority support in the House and Senate.


The source said that the president would use the opportunity to make the case for a proposal that he believed could pass both the House and Senate, one that included extending lower tax rates for household income of $250,000 or less and an extension of unemployment insurance for two million Americans who are about to lose their benefits. The official said that the president intended to ask the Congressional leaders for a counterproposal or to allow an up-or-down vote on his outlined plan.


The plan was in its early stages and far from being accepted. But Congressional officials say staff-level talks between the White House and the Senate Republican leader centered around a deal that would extend all the expiring Bush income tax cuts up to $400,000 in income.


Some spending cuts would pay for a provision putting off a sudden cut in payments to medical providers treating Medicare patients. The deal would also prevent an expansion of the alternative minimum tax to keep it from hitting more of the middle class. It would extend a raft of already expired business tax cuts, like the research and development credit, and would renew tax cuts for the working poor and the middle class included in the 2009 stimulus law. The estate tax would stay at current levels.


It would not stop automatic spending cuts from hitting military and domestic programs beginning on Wednesday, nor would it raise the statutory borrowing limit, which will be reached on Monday. Congressional aides said those issues would be dealt with early next year in yet another showdown.


White House officials denied that any such offer was developing and said that the president was sticking with his insistence that household income only up to $250,000 would be protected from tax increases.


While neither side was confident of any agreement, some top lawmakers said there was still a chance of a breakthrough that could at least avoid the most far-reaching economic effects. “I am hopeful that there will be a deal that avoids the worst parts of the fiscal cliff; namely, taxes’ going up on middle-class people,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, said Friday on the “Today” show on NBC. “I think there can be. And I think the odds are better than people think that they could be.”


Democrats from high-tax, high-wealth states have pressed the White House and their leaders to accept a threshold higher than the president’s $250,000, but they appear ready to accept anything that can pass.


“I have a very practical standard to apply: whatever threshold we need to avoid the fiscal cliff,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut.


Much of the legislative attention was focused on Mr. McConnell as Democrats pushed him to provide assurances that Republicans would not use procedural tactics to block any measure that the Senate might consider. House Republican leaders have already said they would be willing to consider whatever legislation the Senate could pass when the House convenes beginning Sunday afternoon. If Republicans chose to erect hurdles to any legislation, Congress might not have sufficient time to advance a measure before the deadline on Tuesday.


Mr. McConnell was well aware of the Democratic efforts to put the onus on him. “Make no mistake: the only reason Democrats have been trying to deflect attention onto me and my colleagues over the past few weeks is that they don’t have a plan of their own that could get bipartisan support,” he said on Thursday.


But he also said he was willing to review any proposal that would come from the White House and then “we’ll decide how best to proceed.”


“Hopefully there is still time for an agreement of some kind that saves the taxpayers from a wholly preventable economic crisis,” he added.


As it awaited a proposal on tax and spending issues, the Senate did make some progress on other legislation, sending the president a renewal of antiterrorism surveillance laws and advancing some relief for states and communities hit by Hurricane Sandy this year.


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U.N. Envoy Calls for Transitional Syria Government

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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy on a mission to Damascus seeking an end to the escalating civil conflict in Syria, said Thursday that a transitional government with full executive authority should be established, perhaps within months, and should rule the country until elections could be held.




Mr. Brahimi did not say who would serve in such a government, and he offered no details about the role that President Bashar al-Assad would play — if any — during a transitional period. But his comments suggested that if Mr. Assad remained in the country, he would retain none of his authority.


“All the powers of government should be with this government,” Mr. Brahimi said of the proposed transitional authority.


His comments to reporters in Damascus were his most detailed since he traveled Sunday to Syria, where he met with Mr. Assad and Syrian opposition members in an effort to revive hopes of a political solution to the nearly two-year-old crisis. But even as Mr. Brahimi and other international diplomats warned Thursday of the high cost Syrians would pay if his efforts failed, there was no immediate sign of a new diplomatic formula that would be acceptable to both the government and its opponents.


“The situation is bad and worsening,” Mr. Brahimi said. “The Syrian people are suffering unbearably. We do not speak in a vacuum about theoretical things.”


Over the past month, Mr. Brahimi, as the special Syria representative from the United Nations and the Arab League, has consulted extensively with the United States and Russia in hopes of fulfilling an accord reached in Geneva this summer calling for dialogue between Syria’s government and the opposition.


As a Syrian government delegation met with Russia’s top diplomats in Moscow on Thursday, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, said no specific plan was under discussion.


Russia, a leading ally of the Assad government, has long pointed to the Geneva agreement, which calls for the creation of a transitional government and for talks between the antagonists, as the only acceptable basis for resolving the conflict. However, the agreement does not address Mr. Assad’s fate, which is a crucial problem because many in the opposition say he must step down as a precondition for talks.


In Damascus on Thursday, Mr. Brahimi also denied that he had proposed a specific plan, as many opposition members had asserted in recent days. And he said that the United States and Russia had not reached any agreement that he was pressing Mr. Assad to accept. “I wish there was a U.S.-Russia proposal for me to sell,” he said, adding: “I did not come here to sell.”


The envoy said that the Geneva framework “includes elements that are sufficient for a plan to end the crisis in the next few coming months,” mentioning a peacekeeping force to monitor a cease-fire and the establishment of a transitional government. He said that the transition “should not be allowed to lead to the collapse of the state and its institutions.”


Mr. Brahimi’s comments were met with pessimism by members of the largest opposition coalition, who have long said that any arrangement that left Mr. Assad in the country was unacceptable. They have also called for the dismantling of state institutions tied to repression by the government, especially the security and intelligence services. As insurgent groups make gains against the Syrian military, the political opposition has shown even less willingness to compromise.


“His initiative is very late, and it is very much detached from what’s actually happening on the ground and on the battlefield,” said Ahmad Ramadan, a coalition member who is in Turkey. “We will not discuss any transitional government before Bashar al-Assad steps down.”


In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, on Thursday praised efforts to produce a peaceful transition but ruled out any role for Mr. Assad in the process.


Frederic C. Hof, who served as a special adviser on Syria to the State Department, said in an e-mail that Mr. Brahimi’s efforts amounted to “a long shot.”


“Assad is not yet persuaded that he needs to yield power and get out,” Mr. Hof said. “There is no solution that involves him sticking around, even as a figurehead.”


Even a pact that requires Mr. Assad’s allies and Syrian opposition forces to simply agree to negotiate would be a hard sell, said Dmitri V. Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.


This year, he said, influential policy makers in Moscow favored a process like the one that led to the Dayton Accords to end the Bosnian war of the 1990s. “Bring them together, close the door and don’t let them out until they reach an agreement,” he said.


But Mr. Trenin said he had serious doubts that either Moscow or Washington could induce the two sides in Syria to sit down at the table. “Frankly, I see very little leverage that Russia has over Assad,” he said. “Even if the United States were prepared to lean hard on the opposition, or push them toward some kind of negotiation, I do not see the gulf states or the Turks backing that move.”


In recent weeks, said Mr. Lukashevich, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Moscow has ratcheted up its diplomacy in an effort to “intensify dialogue, not only with the government but also with the opposition groups.”


Top Russian officials met Thursday in Moscow with Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Meqdad. Mr. Brahimi will meet with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in Moscow on Saturday.


Mr. Lukashevich said Russia was open to talks with Syria’s national opposition coalition, which has been recognized by many Western governments as representing the Syrian people.


“We are not rejecting this dialogue,” he said. “On the contrary, we are holding it very vigorously with all opposition groups who are also interested in getting better insight into the Russian approach.”


“It is obviously another question when and at what level they will take place,” he said.


Kareem Fahim reported from Beirut, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.



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App Smart: Apps for the Soundtrack to Your Life - App Smart

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Gone is the heyday of the vinyl record. The cassette tape is all but forgotten. Even the CD is losing its relevance; my children are amused by the idea that a little silver disc has music on it.




All of these sound storage systems are disappearing because of the rise of digital music files and the iPod. But today, the rise of wirelessly connected smartphones and tablets has brought a new way to listen to digitally stored music: streamed from a cloud-technology music service, via an app.


Pandora and Spotify are two apps that get all the attention in this digital streaming radio era, but what if you want to try a different one? There are plenty.


TuneIn Radio Pro ($1 on iOS and Android) is one of the cleverest of these apps. It’s got a very clear interface. Users will mainly focus on the app’s “browse” section, where there is a list of categories of online radio music sources, from local radio to popular “trending” stations alongside categories for talk, music or sports.


Tapping on “music,” for example, takes you to a subcategory list of types of music, and each of these then takes you to a relevant online radio station. You can also search by name for radio stations, shows, songs or artists.


When you’re listening to the radio, the app displays graphics like album covers and other data. If you wish, you can record the audio to play back later inside the app. It’s also clever enough to recommend similar music.


With a tap of an icon you can share music info over Facebook, Twitter or e-mail. I love the app’s ability to find something to listen to based on language — it’s a boon for learning a new one, and it’s great for finding global music that may be different from your usual favorites.


While the app’s “recommended” system does a pretty good job of suggesting stations to listen to based on your previous music choices, it’s not quite as handy as having it concoct a playlist of songs for you.


Rdio (free on iOS and Android) is another streaming app organized in a different way using a very different user interface. It requires a monthly fee because instead of connecting you to free online radio services, it’s simply a vast database of tracks stored by the company. This is its strength: acting like a huge iPod with an amazingly broad array of tracks.


The app tries to help with finding new music and offers you the option of seeing music in “heavy rotation,” which is a fabulous way to discover new music from an eclectic list, or a list of popular tracks or new content. The “recent activity” tab lists what Rdio users have been listening to recently. This system could let you find someone with similar tastes, and thus act as a way to finding even more great music.


When playing a track, Rdio’s interface is similar to TuneInRadio Pro’s, without the “sharing” options. It’s a powerful app, but though its interface is easy on the eye, navigating through it can be confusing. There is lots of swiping up and down among the app’s different sections, and then side-to-side swipes to get to settings or your playlists. The Rdio service is also pretty expensive at $15 a month, although this does include unlimited access.


Shoutcast (free on iOS, and via WinAmp app on Android) is another “radio” style music app, with a minimalist-looking but easy to use interface. You can go with the app’s recommended radio stations, or search among stations that are grouped by category.


You can also search for a particular band or track, then click on the right radio station to listen to it. This can be an interesting experiment. For example, I found it amazing how many stations around the world were playing U2’s “I Will Follow” at the same time.


But the iOS app’s “favorites” facility, like the “recents” one, just lists radio stations, which may not help you remember the genre or track you were listening to that led you to that particular station in the first place. There’s no playlist power either.


Songza (free on iOS and Android) is a popular streaming music app akin to Rdio but with a simplified icon-driven interface similar to Shoutcast’s. As well as letting you “explore” to find music, Songza’s strength is its great “concierge” recommendation system based on mood.


For example, it groups music into such categories as “unwinding” or “a sweaty dance party.” The app then creates a playlist so you can simply leave it running. There’s a great social-sharing angle to this app, including publicly shared playlists, but though it looks wonderful and simple, with easy icons, its interface can be a little awkward to get through.


These apps will probably result in some music discovery for you; they’ve certainly led me to unfamiliar bands. But be aware when using them on the move, as they can eat up your mobile data fast.


Quick Call


Flipboard, the popular news aggregator app, is finally available in an edition that’s compatible with Android tablet devices. It’s free, and just as in the iPad version, the tablet version is optimized to make the most of the graphics on a bigger tablet screen.


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