Saints' suspensions tossed out in bounty case

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Finding fault with nearly everyone tied to the New Orleans Saints' bounty case, from the coaches to Roger Goodell, former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue tossed out the suspensions of four players Tuesday and condemned the team for obstructing the investigation.

In a surprising rejection of his successor's overreaching punishments, Tagliabue wrote that he would "now vacate all discipline to be imposed upon" two current Saints, linebacker Jonathan Vilma and defensive end Will Smith, and two players no longer with the club, Browns linebacker Scott Fujita and free-agent defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove.

Tagliabue essentially absolved Fujita, but did agree with Goodell's finding that the other three players "engaged in conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the game of professional football."

It was a ruling that allowed both sides to claim victory more than nine months after the league first made "Saints bounties" a household phrase: The NFL pointed to the determination that Goodell's facts were right; the NFL Players Association issued a statement noting that Tagliabue said "previously issued discipline was inappropriate."

Vilma, suspended by Goodell for the entire current season, and Smith, suspended four games, have been playing for the Saints while their appeals were pending. Fujita is on injured reserve; Hargrove is not with a team.

Tagliabue, appointed by Goodell to oversee a second round of player appeals, criticized the Saints as an organization that fostered bad behavior and tried to impede the investigation into what the NFL said was a performance pool designed to knock targeted opponents out of games from 2009 to 2011, with thousands of dollars in payouts.

A "culture" that promoted tough talk and cash incentives for hits to injure opponents — one key example was Vilma's offer of $10,000 to any teammate who knocked Brett Favre out of the NFC championship game at the end of the 2009 season — existed in New Orleans, according to Tagliabue, who also wrote that "Saints' coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation."

The former commissioner did not entirely exonerate the players, however.

He said Vilma and Smith participated in a performance pool that rewarded key plays — including hard tackles — while Hargrove, following coaches' orders, helped to cover up the program when interviewed by NFL investigators in 2010.

"My affirmation of Commissioner Goodell's findings could certainly justify the issuance of fines," the ruling said. "However, this entire case has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints' organization."

Tagliabue said he decided, in this particular case, that it was in the best interest of all parties involved to eliminate player punishment because of the enduring acrimony it has caused between the league and the NFL Players Association. He added that he hoped doing so would allow the NFL and union to move forward collaboratively to the more important matters of enhancing player safety.

"To be clear: this case should not be considered a precedent for whether similar behavior in the future merits player suspensions or fines," his ruling said.

Tagliabue oversaw the second round of player appeals to the league in connection with the cash-for-hits program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams from 2009-2011. The players initially opposed his appointment.

Goodell had given Vilma a full-season suspension, while he gave Smith, Fujita and Hargrove shorter suspensions.

Tagliabue cleared Fujita of conduct detrimental to the league.

The former commissioner found Goodell's actions historically disproportionate to past punishment to players for similar behavior, which had generally been reserved to fines, not suspensions. He also stated that it was very difficult to determine whether the pledges players made were genuine, or simply a motivational ploy, particularly because Saints defenders never demonstrated a pattern of dirty play on the field.

"The relationship of the discipline for the off-field 'talk' and actual on-field conduct must be carefully calibrated and reasonably apportioned. This is a standard grounded in common sense and fairness," Tagliabue wrote in his 22-page opinion. "If one were to punish certain off-field talk in locker rooms, meeting rooms, hotel rooms or elsewhere without applying a rigorous standard that separated real threats or 'bounties' from rhetoric and exaggeration, it would open a field of inquiry that would lead nowhere."

Saints quarterback Drew Brees commented on Twitter: "Congratulations to our players for having the suspensions vacated. Unfortunately, there are some things that can never be taken back."

The Saints opened the season 0-4 and are now 5-8 and virtually out of the playoffs after appearing the postseason the three previous seasons, including the franchise's only Super Bowl title to conclude the 2009 season.

Shortly before the regular season, the initial suspensions were thrown out by an appeals panel created by the NFL's collective bargaining agreement. Goodell then reissued them, with some changes, and now those have been dismissed.

Now, with the player suspensions overturned, the end could be near for a nearly 10-month dispute over how the NFL handled an investigation that covered three seasons and gathered about 50,000 pages of documents.

"We respect Mr. Tagliabue's decision, which underscores the due process afforded players in NFL disciplinary matters," the league said in a statement.

"The decisions have made clear that the Saints operated a bounty program in violation of league rules for three years, that the program endangered player safety, and that the commissioner has the authority under the (NFL's collective bargaining agreement) to impose discipline for those actions as conduct detrimental to the league. Strong action was taken in this matter to protect player safety and ensure that bounties would be eliminated from football."

The players have challenged the NFL's handling of the entire process in federal court, but U.S District Judge Ginger Berrigan had been waiting for the latest round of appeals to play out before deciding whether to get involved. The judge issued an order Tuesday giving the NFLPA and Vilma until Wednesday to notify the court if they found Tagliabue's ruling acceptable.

Vilma also has filed a defamation lawsuit against Goodell, which also is being handled by Berrigan. Vilma's lawyers, Peter Ginsberg and Duke Williams, said by email to The Associated Press that they would "pursue the defamation action vigorously."

NFL investigators found that Vilma and Smith were ringleaders of a cash-for-hits program that rewarded injurious tackles labeled as "cart-offs" and "knockouts." Witnesses including Williams also said Vilma made a $10,000 pledge for anyone who knocked then-Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC title game. However, Tagliabue found it was not clear if the pledge was genuine or simply a motivational prop.

"There is more than enough evidence to support Commissioner Goodell's findings that Mr. Vilma offered such a bounty" on Favre, Tagliabue wrote. "I cannot, however, uphold a multi-game suspension where there is no evidence that a player's speech prior to a game was actually a factor causing misconduct on the playing field and that such misconduct was severe enough in itself to warrant a player suspension or a very substantial fine."

The NFL also concluded that Hargrove lied to NFL investigators to help cover up the program. The players have from the beginning denied they ever took the field intending to injure opponents, while Hargrove has said he never lied about a bounty program, because there wasn't one.

Goodell suspended Williams indefinitely, while banning Saints head coach Sean Payton for a full season.

Tagliabue's ruling comes after a new round of hearings that for the first time allowed Vilma's attorneys and the NFLPA, which represents the other three players, to cross-examine key NFL witnesses. Those witnesses included Williams and former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo, who was fired after the 2009 season and whose email to the league, accusing the Saints of being "a dirty organization," jump-started the probe.

"We believe that when a fair due process takes place, a fair outcome is the result," the players' union said in a statement. "We are pleased that Paul Tagliabue, as the appointed hearings officer, agreed with the NFL Players Association that previously issued discipline was inappropriate in the matter of the alleged New Orleans Saints bounty program.

"Vacating all discipline affirms the players' unwavering position that all allegations the League made about their alleged 'intent-to-injure' were utterly and completely false."

Smith said he was pleased that Tagliabue vacated his suspension.

"I continue to maintain that I did not participate in a pay-to-injure program or facilitate any such program," he added. "I appreciate that Mr. Tagliabue did not rush to judgment, taking into consideration all facts presented to him, before ruling — something that was clearly not done by Commissioner Goodell in previous hearings."

A statement released by Vilma's lawyers on his behalf said the linebacker is "relieved and gratified that Jonathan no longer needs to worry about facing an unjustified suspension.

"On the other hand, Commissioner Tagliabue's rationalization of Commissioner Goodell's actions does nothing to rectify the harm done by the baseless allegations lodged against Jonathan. Jonathan has a right and every intention to pursue proving what really occurred and we look forward to returning to a public forum where the true facts can see the light of day."

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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

At William H. Ziegler Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia, students are getting acquainted with vegetables and healthy snacks.

PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”

Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.

Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.

But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”

Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.

Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.

“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”

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Daily Stock Market Activity

Stocks rose on Tuesday, led by gains in technology companies, helping the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to end at its highest level since Election Day.

A 2.18 percent gain, to $541.39, in Apple’s stock lifted the Nasdaq composite index, as the company rebounded from a week in which investors took profits before a possible tax increase next year. Before Tuesday’s trading, Apple shares had lost 25 percent from an intraday high hit in September.

Stocks pared some gains by late afternoon as more news on the negotiations over a fiscal policy in Washington emerged. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said it would be difficult to reach an agreement resolving tax increases and spending cuts before Christmas.

“There’s been a real explosion in anxiety over this thing,” said James Dailey, portfolio manager of Team Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pa. “Because markets have become the way they are, you’ve got people just stepping back.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 78.56 points, or 0.6 percent, to 13,248.44.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 9.29 points, or 0.65 percent, to 1,427.84.

The Nasdaq composite index was up 35.34 points, or 1.18 percent, at 3,022.30.

Other major tech stocks also rose. Texas Instruments gained 4 percent, to $31.01, after raising its profit target late Monday. That helped other chip makers rally. The PHLX Semiconductor index was up 1.9 percent. Microsoft rose 1.41 percent, to $27.32.

Retailers like the luggage maker Tumi Holdings and Michael Kors Holding gained after a positive report from Goldman Sachs Equity Research. Tumi was up 4.73 percent, to $21.92, and Michael Kors gained 2.35 percent, reaching $50.92.

The discount retailers Dollar General and Family Dollar declined. Dollar General, down 7.8 percent, to $42.94, said it expected margins to be under pressure in 2013. Family Dollar shares dropped 8.36 percent, to $64.68.

The Treasury is selling its remaining stake in the insurer American International Group. Shares of AIG were up 5.7 percent at $35.26.

The Fed began a two-day policy-setting meeting on Tuesday. The central bank is expected to announce a new round of Treasury bond purchases when the meeting ends on Wednesday. They will replace its Operation Twist stimulus, which expires at the end of the year.

Interest rates were higher. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note fell 11/32, to 99 23/32, and the yield rose to 1.66 percent, from 1.62 percent late Monday.

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Morsi Spokesman Tries to Clarify Military Order

Petr David Josek/Associated Press

Demonstrators camping out in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Monday.

CAIRO — A day after President Mohamed Morsi formally directed the military to help keep public order and authorized soldiers to arrest civilians, a spokesman on Monday sought to draw distinctions between the order and the forms of martial law that the Egyptian Army had previously imposed.

The spokesman, Khaled al-Qazzaz, said the president empowered the military for the limited purpose of protecting polling stations during Saturday’s constitutional referendum. He also said the president had instructed the army to refer any civilians arrested by soldiers to a civilian court for trial, instead of military tribunals, reversing the blanket authorizations that the Egyptian military has long demanded when it takes on a policing role in the streets.

“This is very different from what happened under the SCAF,” said Mr. Qazzaz, referring to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which ruled Egypt after President Hosni Mubarak was ousted and until Mr. Morsi took office. “There will be no military trials.”

But Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, noted that the text of the order allowed the military to keep taking civilians to military courts. “Had he wanted to,” Ms. Morayef said, “President Morsi could have stipulated that the military’s jurisdiction would have been limited in this case and that every civilian will be referred to a civilian court, but he chose not to.”

Mr. Morsi’s latest assurances were unlikely to comfort his growing cast of opponents, who have taken to the streets in large numbers repeatedly since late November, when he issued a decree putting his decisions above the law. The president was forced to rescind most of his decree, but he has not budged on a central opposition demand: that he cancel the Saturday referendum on the constitutional draft.

Faced with the possibility of the vote, Egypt’s opposition parties on Monday were weighing their approach to the referendum and said they would continue to hold large protests. The biggest opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, said it would announce Tuesday whether it would call for a boycott of the referendum, or instead urge the public to vote down the draft charter, which opposition groups have criticized as deeply flawed and written by a panel representing narrow, Islamist interests.

There appeared to be divisions and flux within the opposition. On Sunday, the opposition used language that seemed to favor a boycott, saying in a statement that it rejected “lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division.” But in an interview broadcast Monday, the coalition’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, said: “We might go to the vote.”

During the interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN, Mr. ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged Mr. Morsi to delay the referendum for a few months, saying that the draft constitution — a “sham,” he called it — did not adequately protect women, freedom of expression or religion.

Mr. ElBaradei asserted that at least half of the country harbored similar reservations about the charter, and insisted that the opposition’s tactics — holding large protests and raising the possibility of a boycott — were not just obstructionism by groups who have struggled to mount a credible challenge to the better-organized Islamist groups.

“We are at a cross in the road,” he said. “It’s not that we’re fighting for the sake of fighting. It’s not that we’re sore losers.”

Mr. ElBaradei left open several possible courses of action, including a boycott. “If need be, we probably will go to the polls and make sure the document will not pass. Even if it will pass, we will continue to fight.”

There were other signs of momentum toward a highly contested vote on Saturday. The April 6th Revolutionary Youth Group, which is not a member of the coalition but coordinates activities with the National Salvation Front, began a campaign urging a no vote, called “Your Constitution does not represent us.”

A group representing administrative court judges said its members would supervise the referendum, under certain conditions, demanding a secure environment and even life insurance policies for judges, possibly smoothing the way for a credible contest. Other judges’ groups have said they would boycott the vote. A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist party that forms the primary base of Mr. Morsi’s support, said on Monday that they believed a sufficient numbers of judges had agreed to supervise the polls, ensuring that the vote could go forward.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo.

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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld. For example:  

Kramer is under investigation for heavy torrenting. Jerry’s new girlfriend writes an extremely graphic blog. George discovers Banh Mi.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

The man behind the account, BuzzFeed’s sports editor Jack Moore, started tweeting out scenarios with his friend, comedian Josh Gondelman, and then decided that the joke merited its own account. Moore is a Seinfeld fanatic himself: “I’m pretty much constantly watching episodes in the background while I’m doing anything,” he told us in an email. “I have a thumb drive with the whole series on it that I keep in my bag pretty much all the time.” 

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So far, the modern-day episode summaries ring true, despite warnings from Gawker last year that classic episodes wouldn’t have worked if the characters just had the use of newfangled technology. “It would be different but not as different as everyone acts like,” Moore wrote to us. “People always say that ‘if they had cell phones Seinfeld couldn’t exist,’ which is true for a certain type of Seinfeld episode, but not as a general rule (which I think the account shows).” 

RELATED: Jon Huntsman Finds His Voice by Sounding Like a Dad on Twitter

The account makes it obvious that Internet apps and 2012 trends would create the same awkward situations that Seinfeld thrived on. For example: 

Kramer uses grinder to meet new friends, doesn’t know it’s a gay hook-up app. Jerry refuses to admit he cried on @wtfpod.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

Elaine has a bad waiter at a nice restaurant, her negative Yelp review goes viral, she gets banned. Kramer accidentally joins the Tea Party.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

George thinks his GF is faking a gluten-intolerance, feeds her real cookies, sending her to the ER. Autocorrect ruins Jerry’s relationship.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

We kind of really want to see some of these made, actually. Reunion special? 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mild sprain has Redskins' RG3 uncertain for Sunday

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — All the medical terms associated with Robert Griffin III's knee injury can be boiled down to one simple message: It's not too bad.

Beyond that, there are still some very important unknowns.

The NFL's top-rated quarterback might or might not play Sunday when the Washington Redskins visit the Cleveland Browns. Coach Mike Shanahan, knowing full well that it makes the other team work extra to prepare for two quarterbacks, will no doubt wait as long as possible to publicly commit one way or the other to Griffin or fellow rookie Kirk Cousins.

"Both of them will have a game plan," Shanahan said Monday.

The interior of Griffin's right knee was the subject of intense scrutiny during Shanahan's weekly news conference, when it was shown that an injury to a franchise player like RG3 can flummox even a seasoned coach. Shanahan initially said Griffin had a "strain of the ACL" before later correcting the diagnosis to a sprained LCL, with the coach stepping away from the podium to demonstrate the location of the ligament involved.

The upshot: Griffin has a mild, or Grade 1, sprain of the lateral collateral ligament located on the outside of the knee, caused when he was hit by defensive tackle Haloti Ngata at the end of a 13-yard scramble late in regulation of the 31-28 overtime win over the Baltimore Ravens.

"When I looked at it on film," Shanahan said, "I thought it would be worse than it was."

The LCL is one of four ligaments in the knee. A Grade 1 sprain typically means the ligament is stretched or has some minor tears and usually doesn't require surgery. Griffin will get multiple treatments daily and will probably have to wear a brace for several weeks.

The next major benchmark is whether Griffin will able to take part when practice resumes on Wednesday.

"You're hoping with rehab it gets better very quickly," Shanahan said. "But we don't know for sure. ... He's definitely not ruled out for the Cleveland game."

Griffin's father, Robert Griffin Jr., said in a text message that his son was "feeling good" and that "we will know by Thursday" whether Griffin III will be able to suit up against the Browns.

The most severe knee injury usually associated with sports is a season-ending torn ACL, the anterior cruciate ligament. Griffin tore the ACL in his right knee while playing for Baylor in 2009, but Shanahan said Griffin's reconstructed ACL "looks great" and that there's "no problem there."

"He's doing good. He's in high spirits," left tackle Trent Williams said after speaking with Griffin on Monday. "It was a pretty nasty, awkward hit, and for him not to be seriously injured is a blessing."

No. 2 overall pick Griffin has become a phenomenon in his debut NFL season, leading the Redskins — a team that went 5-11 last year — to four straight victories to put the record at 7-6, one game behind the first-place New York Giants in the NFC East. His performance Sunday put him atop the league with a 104.2 passer rating, better than Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and everyone else.

Fourth-rounder Cousins might not be much of a drop-off, especially after his super-sub performance against the Ravens. When Griffin left for one play, Cousins converted a third-and-6 with a pass to Pierre Garcon that drew a pass interference penalty on Chris Johnson.

When Griffin left for good later in the drive, Cousins completed two passes in two plays, and his nice pump fake allowed Garcon to get open for an 11-yard touchdown with 29 seconds left in regulation.

Cousins then did his best RG3 impersonation, running the quarterback draw on the 2-point conversion to tie the game.

"You're running the scout team the majority of the time, and you're expected to go in there and perform," Shanahan said. "So there's a lot of pressure on people. Some people can handle it; other people can't. But when you prepare yourself like he has, it didn't surprise me that he was flawless in what he did."

Shanahan defended the decision to have Griffin return to the game for four plays after the injury, saying he left the decision in the hands of Dr. James Andrews, the renowned sports physician who is on the sidelines for most Redskins games.

"He's the one that gives me that information," Shanahan said. "It's way over my head."

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Follow Joseph White on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Vital Signs: Smoking Tied to Less Dense Bones for Girls

Smoking in teenage girls is associated with slower development of bone mineral density, a new study reports.

The scientists studied 262 healthy girls ages 11 to 19, using questionnaires and interviews to assess their smoking habits. The researchers also measured the girls’ bone density at the hip and lumbar spine three times at one-year intervals.

Smokers entered adolescence with the same lumbar and hip bone density as nonsmokers, but by age 19, they were about a year behind on average. After adjusting for other factors that affect bone health — height, weight, hormonal contraceptive use and more — the researchers found that even relatively low or irregular rates of smoking were independently associated with lower bone density.

The study, published last week in The Journal of Adolescent Health, used a sample that fell below national averages for calcium intake and physical activity, so the results may not be generalizable to wider populations.

The lead author, Lorah D. Dorn, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, pointed out that this is only one study and that more research is needed. Still, she said, “It tells me that for care providers — clinicians and parents — this needs to be something they’re vigilant about.”

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Euro Watch: Bonds in Spain and Italy Shaken by Italian Politics

ROME — Italian stock and bond prices fell on Monday after a weekend of political turmoil in Italy gave rise to fears that the country was headed for renewed instability.

Shares of Italian banks, which are big holders of the government’s bonds, were among the hardest hit.

The action occurred in the first day of trading after Prime Minister Mario Monti said over the weekend that he would soon step down after his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, withdrew his party’s support from Mr. Monti and said he would again seek election as prime minister.

Mr. Berlusconi, who was elected prime minister three times, left office a year ago as markets pushed Italy to the brink of financial collapse. Mr. Monti, an economist who was appointed as his temporary successor, has restored Italy’s credibility with investors, who have given the country a break on its borrowing costs. But those gains have come at the cost of painful austerity measures that have worsened the country’s economic situation and given Mr. Berlusconi an opening to attack.

The Milan benchmark index, MIB, fell more than 2 percent on Monday. Italian banks, which remain sensitive to declines in the country’s bond prices, were among the big losers. Intesa Sanpaolo, the most active stock, fell 5.2 percent, as did UniCredit.

Mr. Monti, who joined other leaders in Oslo on Monday to receive the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the European Union, said at a news conference that the market reactions “need not be dramatized.”

“I am confident,” he said, that the Italian elections would result in a government “that will be responsible and oriented toward the E.U. and this will be in line with efforts the Italian government has made so far.”

The decline in bond prices sent their yields, or interest rates, higher — an indicator of the Italian government’s borrowing costs. The spread between interest rates on Italian 10-year sovereign bonds and equivalent German securities, the European benchmark for safety, grew to 3.5 percentage points on Monday. That was up from 3.25 percentage points late Friday, suggesting that investors were growing more wary of holding Italian debt.

The yield on Italian 10-year bonds, which breached 7 percent this year, ended trading on Monday at 4.8 percent, up 29 basis points. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percent.

Bonds of Spain, which is the other big economy of concern in the euro zone, also came under renewed pressure on Monday after Mr. Monti’s announcement.

The spread between Spanish 10-year bonds and equivalent German bonds widened to 4.27 percentage points from 4.16 points on Friday. The yield on the benchmark Spanish 10-year rose 10 basis points, to 5.5 percent; it reached 7.1 percent in July amid concerns that Spain would be forced into a full bailout after having to negotiate a 100 billion euro, or $129 billion, rescue package for its banks in June.

Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economy minister, warned that Italy’s political turmoil would affect his country.

“When doubts emerge over the stability of a neighboring country like Italy, which is also seen as vulnerable, there’s an immediate contagion for us,” he said Monday morning on Spanish national radio.

Asked whether Spain would itself seek further European rescue funding, he instead said, “The help that Spain needs is that the doubts over the future of the euro be removed.”

Speaking before the Nobel ceremony on Monday, the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, said Italy must “continue on the road of structural reforms.” The elections, Mr. Barroso said on Sky News, “must not be used to postpone reforms.”

A dismal economic report on Monday served as a reminder that despite Mr. Monti’s success with investors, the real economy continues to suffer. Italian industrial production fell a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent in October from September, and by 6.2 percent from a year earlier, Istat, the national statistics agency, said.

Some analysts said they thought that Mr. Berlusconi’s re-emergence as a political leader was as responsible for unnerving investors as Mr. Monti’s unexpected decision to resign. Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, a research firm, wrote on Monday in a note that Mr. Berlusconi remained “the boogeyman of investors,” who “epitomizes the dysfunctional nature of Italian politics.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was to meet on Monday with Mr. Monti on the sidelines of the Nobel ceremony, said Georg Streiter, a spokesman for the chancellor.

Ms. Merkel pushed to have Mr. Monti succeed Mr. Berlusconi. But she ended up facing Mr. Monti’s own ideas for economic change, which focused more on growth and job creation than on the austere fiscal discipline championed by Ms. Merkel.

As a rule, the German government does not comment on its partners’ domestic politics, but Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned that an attempt to scale back Italy’s reform push could result in further destabilization in the euro zone.

“Italy cannot remain stagnant on two-thirds of its reform process,” Mr. Westerwelle said through a spokesman. “This would throw not only Italy but the rest of Europe into turbulence.”

Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome and David Jolly from Paris. Raphael Minder contributed reporting from Madrid and Melissa Eddy from Berlin.

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Damascus Is Tested as Clashes Draw Near

Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

A member of Syria's symphony orchestra ahead of a concert in Damascus in November.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Business has been terrible for Abu Tareq, a taxi driver, so last week, without telling his wife, he agreed to drive a man to the Damascus airport for 10 times the usual rate. But, he said later, he will not be doing that again.

On the airport road, he could hear the crash of artillery and the whiz of sniper fire. Dead rebels and soldiers lay on the roadsides. Abu Tareq saw a dog eating the body of a soldier.

“I will never forget this sight,” said Abu Tareq, 50, who gave only a nickname for safety reasons. “It is the road of the dead.”

Damascus, Syria’s capital, is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, a touchstone of history and culture.

Through decades of political repression, the city preserved, at least on the surface, an atmosphere of tranquillity, from its wide downtown avenues to the spacious, smooth-stoned courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque and the vine-draped alleys of the Old City, where restaurants and bars tucked between the storehouses of medieval merchants hummed with quiet conversation.

Now, though, the rumble of distant artillery echoes through the city, and its residents are afraid to leave their neighborhoods. Cocooned behind rows of concrete blocks that close off routes to the center, they huddle in fear of a prolonged battle that could bring destruction and division to a place where secular and religious Syrians from many sects — Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Christian and others — have long lived peacefully.

For more than a week, Syrian rebels and government forces have fought for the airport road, as the military tries to seal off the capital city, the core of President Bashar al-Assad’s power, from a semicircle of rebellious suburbs. Rebels have now kept the pressure on the government for as long as they did during their previous big push toward Damascus last summer. This time, improved supply lines and tactics, some rebels and observers say, may provide a more secure foothold.

But the security forces wield overwhelming firepower, and while they have been unable to subdue the suburbs, some rebel fighters say they lack the intelligence information, arms and communication to advance. That raises the specter of a destructive standoff like the one that has devastated the commercial hub of Aleppo.

“Damascus was the city of jasmine,” Mahmoud, 40, a public-school teacher, said in an interview in the capital. “It is not the city I knew just a few weeks ago.”

Car bombs have ripped through neighborhoods, the targets and attackers only guessed at. Checkpoints choke traffic, turning 20-minute jaunts into three-hour ordeals. Wealthy residents find it quicker and safer to drive to Beirut, Lebanon, for a weekend trip than to the Old City.

Shells have been fired from Mount Qasioun overlooking Damascus, a favorite destination from which to admire the city’s sparkling lights. West of downtown, where the presidential palace stands on a plateau, things are relatively quiet.

Mahmoud, unable to find heating oil and medicine for his sick wife, said his grocer has lectured him daily on shortages and soaring prices. The once-ubiquitous government, he said, now appears to have no role beyond flooding streets with soldiers and security officers, “who are sometimes good and sometimes rude.”

People with roots in other towns have left, he said, “but what about me, who is a Damascene, and has no other city?”

The sense of claustrophobia has grown as rebels have declared the airport a legitimate target and the government has blocked Baghdad Street, a main avenue out of the city. On Sunday, it blocked the highway to Dara’a.

In some outlying neighborhoods and nearby suburbs, the front lines seem to be hardening.

On the route into Qaboun, a neighborhood less than two miles from the center of Damascus, the last government checkpoint in recent days was near the municipal building. Less than a quarter-mile on, rebels controlled the area around the Grand Mosque.

An employee of The New York Times reported from Damascus, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon. Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from Beirut.

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Amazon’s Android Appstore explodes, downloads increase 500% over last year

Amazon’s (AMZN) Appstore is on fire. While the marketplace may not boost as many apps as Google’s (GOOG) Play Store, it has seen substantial growth in the past year. In fact, the company announced on Thursday that its Appstore has seen downloads increase more than 500% since last year. Amazon also revealed that the number of developers utilizing in-app purchasing doubled in the third quarter and that 23 of the top 25 grossing apps now incorporate the technology.

“Amazon offers the best end-to-end solution for app and game developers,” said Aaron Rubenson, Director of Amazon Appstore for Android. “Developers can use Amazon Web Services’ building blocks as the infrastructure for their games. To enhance customer engagement, they can add features like GameCircle’s Leaderboards, Achievements, Friends, and Whispersync. Amazon’s In-App Purchasing allows developers to generate additional income. Finally, since discovery can be a major challenge for app developers, we’re providing more and more ways to help developers reach customers on Amazon, Kindle Fire devices, and in our Appstore. We’re working hard to make lives easier for developers, and to give them more ways to grow their business.”

The success of Amazon’s Appstore is directly related to the success of its Kindle Fire line of tablets. Unlike most Android devices, the Kindle Fire does not include access to Google Play and instead must rely solely on Amazon’s offering for content and applications.

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Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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