In Soldier’s Hearing, Afghans Tell of Horror

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Through a live video feed from half a world away in Afghanistan, in an extraordinary night court session, descriptions of chaos and horror poured into a military courtroom here as if from an open spigot.

Lois Silver/FR 170774 Associated Press, via Associated Press

In a courtroom sketch, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, lower right, is shown during testimony on Friday.

Reuters

Sergeant Bales, left, during a 2011 training exercise in Fort Irwin, California.

“Their brains were still on the pillows,” said Mullah Khamal Adin, 39, staring into the camera with his arms folded on the table, describing the 11 members of his cousin’s family he found dead in the family compound — most of the bodies burned in a pile in one room.

Mr. Adin, in a hearing that started here late Friday, was asked about the smell. Was there an odor of gasoline or kerosene?

Just bodies and burned plastic, he replied through a translator.

The Army’s preliminary hearing in the case against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar Province this year, unfolded last week mostly in the bustling daylight of a working military base an hour south of Seattle. But to accommodate witnesses in Afghanistan, and the 12-and-a-half-hour time difference, the schedule was shifted at week’s end, with testimony through cameras and uplinks in Afghanistan and here at Lewis-McChord starting at 7:30 p.m. Pacific time on Friday and running until shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday.

The attacks, which occurred on March 11 in a deeply poor rural region while most of the victims were asleep, were the deadliest war crime attributed to a single American soldier in the decade of war that has followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and they further frayed the relationship between the American and Afghan governments.

The military says Sergeant Bales, 39, was serving his fourth combat tour overseas when he walked away from his remote outpost in southern Afghanistan and shot and stabbed members of several families in a nighttime ambush on two villages. At least nine of the people he is accused of killing were children, and others were women. After the victims were shot, some of the bodies were dragged into a pile and burned.

“ ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ ” one witness, a farmer named Haji Naim, said he had shouted to the American soldier, whom he described as wearing a blindingly bright headlamp in a house that, without electricity, was pitch black. The gunman said nothing, Mr. Naim said, and simply kept firing.

“He shot me right here, right here, and right here,” he said, indicating wounds from which he has apparently recovered.

Most of the testimony, however graphic, was circumstantial, pointing to a lone American gunman but not directly implicating Sergeant Bales. The villagers testified on the fifth day of a military proceeding known as an Article 32 investigation, held to establish whether there is enough evidence to bring Sergeant Bales before a court-martial. If a court-martial is ordered and the Army decides to continue the prosecution as a capital case, the sergeant could face the death penalty.

Sergeant Bales, a decorated veteran of three tours in Iraq before being sent to Afghanistan last December, was deployed from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He was held at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas before being brought here for the hearing.

Witnesses earlier in the week talked about the blood-soaked clothes that Sergeant Bales was seen wearing when he returned to his base in Kandahar and his comments to fellow soldiers about having done “the right thing.” There was also testimony about the test for steroids in his system that came back positive three days after the killings.

The hearing’s night sessions, which were scheduled to continue on Saturday, were all about the violence that unfolded the night of March 11. Mr. Adin, who was summoned to his cousin’s compound by a telephone call early the next morning, told of boot prints that were on some bodies, including the head of a child who had apparently been shot and stomped or kicked. Mr. Adin talked about a small child who he said appeared to have been “grabbed from her bed and thrown on the fire.” But Mr. Adin never saw the gunman, arriving after the fact.

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Nationals bring back manager Johnson for 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Nationals are bringing back Davey Johnson for one more season as their manager.

Johnson will move into a role as a consultant to the club in 2014. The Nationals announced the arrangement Saturday.

At 70 years old, Johnson will be the oldest manager in the majors in 2013.

Last season, he led the Nationals to their first NL East title and a majors-high 98 wins. Washington lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in an NL division series, blowing a 6-0 lead in Game 5.

Johnson is one of three finalists for the NL manager of the year award. The winner will be announced on Tuesday.

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The New Old Age Blog: The Emotional Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

Let’s talk about the emotional aftermath of the storm that left tens of thousands of older people on the East Coast without power, bunkered down in their homes, chilled to the bone and out of touch with the outside world.

Let’s name the feelings they may have experienced. Fear. Despair. Hopelessness. Anxiety. Panic.

Linda Leest and her staff at Services Now for Adult Persons in Queens heard this in the voices of the older people they had been calling every day, people who were homebound and at risk because of medical conditions that compromise their physical functioning.

“They’re afraid of being alone,” she said in a telephone interview a few days after the storm. “They’re worried that if anything happens to them, no one is going to know. They feel that they’ve lost their connection with the world.”

What do we know about how older adults fare, emotionally, in a disaster like that devastating storm, which destroyed homes and businesses and isolated older adults in darkened apartment buildings, walk-ups and houses?

Most do well — emotional resilience is an underappreciated characteristic of older age — but those who are dependent on others, with pre-existing physical and mental disabilities, are especially vulnerable.

Most will recover from the disorienting sense that their world has been turned upside down within a few weeks or months. But some will be thrown into a tailspin and will require professional help. The sooner that help is received, the more likely it is to prevent a significant deterioration in their health.

The best overview comes from a November 2008 position paper from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry that reviewed the effects of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. After Katrina, “the elderly had the highest mortality rates, health decline and suicide rates of any subgroup,” that document notes. “High rates of psychosomatic problems were seen, with worsening health problems and increased mortality and disability.”

This is an important point: Emotional trauma in older adults often is hard to detect, and looks different from what occurs in younger people. Instead of acknowledging anxiety or depression, for instance, older people may complain of having a headache, a bad stomachache or some other physical ailment.

“This age group doesn’t generally feel comfortable talking about their feelings; likely, they’ll mask those emotions or minimize what they’re experiencing,” said Dr. Mark Nathanson, a geriatric psychiatrist at Columbia University Medical Center.

Signs that caregivers should watch out for include greater-than-usual confusion in an older relative, a decline in overall functioning and a disregard for “self care such as bathing, eating, dressing properly and taking medication,” Dr. Nathanson said.

As an example, he mentioned an older man who had “been sitting in a cold house for days and decided to stop taking his water pill because he felt it was just too much trouble.” Being distraught or distracted and forgetting or neglecting to take pills for chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease can have immediate harmful effects.

Especially at risk of emotional disturbances are older adults who are frail and advanced in age, those who have cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s disease, those with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or major depression, and those with chronic medical conditions or otherwise in poor physical health, according to the geriatric psychiatry association’s position paper.

A common thread in all of the above is the depletion of physical and emotional reserves, which impairs an older person’s ability to adapt to adverse circumstances.

“In geriatrics, we have this idea of the ‘geriatric cascade’ that refers to how a seemingly minor thing can set in motion a functional, cognitive and psychological downward spiral” in vulnerable older adults, said Dr. Mark Lachs, chief of the division of geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Well, the storm was a major thing — a very large disequilibrating event — and its impact is an enormous concern.”

Of special concern are older people who may be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia who are living alone. For this group, the maintenance of ordinary routines and the sense of a dependable structure in their lives is particularly important, and “a situation like Sandy, which causes so much disruption, can be a tipping point,” Dr. Lachs said.

Also of concern are older people who may have experienced trauma in the past, and who may suffer a reignition of post-traumatic stress symptoms because of the disaster.

Most painful of all, for many older adults, is the sense of profound isolation that can descend on those without working phones, electricity or relatives who can come by to help.

“That isolation, I can’t tell you how disorienting that can be,” said Bobbie Sackman, director of public policy for the Council of Senior Centers and Services of New York City. “They’re scared, but they won’t tell you because they’re too proud and ashamed to ask for help.”

The best remedy, in the short run, is the human touch.

“Now is the time for people to reach out to their neighbors in high-rises or in areas where seniors are clustered, to knock on doors and ask people how they are doing,” said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Don’t make it a one-time thing; let the older person know you’ll call or come by again, and set up a specific time so “there’s something for them to look forward to,” Dr. Kennedy said. So-called naturally occurring retirement communities with large concentrations of older people should be organizing from within to contact residents who may not be connected with social services and find out how they’re doing, he recommended.

In conversations with older adults, offer reassurance and ask open-ended questions like “Are you low on pills?” or “Can I run out and get you something?” rather than trying to get them to open up, experts recommended. Focusing on problem-solving can make people feel that their lives are being put back in order and provide comfort.

Although short-term psychotherapy has positive outcomes for older adults who’ve undergone a disaster, it’s often hard to convince a senior to seek out mental health services because of the perceived stigma associated with psychological conditions. Don’t let that deter you: Keep trying to connect them with services that can be of help.

Be mindful of worrisome signs like unusual listlessness, apathy, unresponsiveness, agitation or confusion. These may signal that an older adult has developed delirium, which can be extremely dangerous if not addressed quickly, Dr. Nathanson said. If you suspect that’s the case, call 911 or make sure you take the person to the nearest hospital emergency room.

This is a safe place to talk about all kinds of issues affecting older adults. Would you be willing to share what kinds of mental health issues you or family members are dealing with since the storm so readers can learn from one another?

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DealBook: In Unusual Move, the Delaware Supreme Court Rebukes a Judge

As the chief judge of the Delaware Court of Chancery — the country’s most influential court overseeing business cases — Leo E. Strine Jr. has been called an activist. He has also been called an iconoclast, a genius and a humorist.

But this week, Delaware’s highest court called him out of bounds.

The Delaware Supreme Court issued a stinging rebuke of Judge Strine on Wednesday, criticizing him for what it said was an improper digression in an opinion. Judge Strine’s decision related to a contractual dispute but went off on an 11-page tangent about an obscure issue related to limited liability companies.

“The court’s excursus on this issue strayed beyond the proper purview and function of a judicial opinion,” the Supreme Court wrote, adding, “We remind Delaware judges that the obligation to write judicial opinions on the issues presented is not a license to use those opinions as a platform from which to propagate their individual world views on issues not presented.”

Famous among lawyers for his colorful opinions and courtroom meanderings — which are frequently laced with cultural references, both high and low — Judge Strine has supporters and detractors in the securities class-action bar. The Delaware Court of Chancery exerts a powerful influence on United States business because many large companies are incorporated in Delaware and litigate cases there.

Several lawyers, none of whom would be quoted by name because they all practice before him, said it was only a matter of time before someone sought to rein him in. “I’m only surprised it took this long,” said a corporate litigator from New York who has argued cases in Judge Strine’s courtroom.

The Supreme Court advised Judge Strine that if he wished to “ruminate on what the proper direction of Delaware law should be, there are appropriate platforms, such as law review articles, the classroom, continuing legal education presentations and keynote speeches.”

Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal and judicial ethics at New York University School of Law, said that the court’s admonition was highly unusual.

“You rarely see this type of ruling because judges understand that a judicial opinion has a distinct and narrow function and is not supposed to be a platform for your public agenda or your broader views on the law,” he said.

Reached by e-mail, Judge Strine, whose official title is chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, declined to comment.

The ruling came during a week when Judge Strine’s unique judicial stylings were on prominent display. During a hearing in a lawsuit between the fashion designer Tory Burch and her former husband, Christopher Burch, he described the dispute as a “drunken WASP fest.” At the center of the case is whether Mr. Burch, in starting his own retail stores, C. Wonder, borrowed too heavily from Ms. Burch’s successful chain.

During the hearing, Judge Strine addressed scheduling issues in the case, and said, “I didn’t see any reason to burden anyone’s Hanukkah, New Year’s, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus with this preppy clothing dispute.”

He went on to consider why he gets assigned all the preppy clothing cases, noting that he had recently heard a dispute involving J. Crew. That led to a critique of a certain line of rain boots.

“What’s a duck shoe?” he asked. “You see all these freaks wearing this really ugly — I like L. L. Bean, but those duck shoes are ugly. I mean, there’s no way around it.”

He then said he was puzzled by his son’s recent purchase of a pair of Topsiders. “I’m like, what is this?” Judge Strine asked. “I mean, you know, how do you actually want to wear these things?”

As the hearing continued, Judge Strine suggested that there might be nothing unique about the clothing lines of Mr. Burch and Ms. Burch, who divorced in 2007. He stumped one of the lawyers in the case by quizzing him on Ralph Lauren’s original surname, which is Lifschitz.

After his lengthy sidebar on preppy attire, Judge Strine said he was deep in “an autumnal Cheever phase,” referring to the novelist and short story writer. He then encouraged the lawyers to read Cheever’s works, go see the Broadway revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and watch “Mad Men.”

“We’ll be all geared up and in the mood for this sort of drunken WASP fest,” Judge Strine said, and then proceeded to ask about the litigants’ religion. “Are the Burches WASPs?” he asked.

Robert Isen, the chief legal officer at Tory Burch, hesitated before responding, “Tory Burch is Jewish and Chris is not Jewish.”

The answer did not entirely satisfy Judge Strine. “But not Jewish doesn’t make you a WASP, because it could make you an equally excluded faith like Catholic, right?” he asked. “I mean, that’s not a WASP. You know, a WASP is a WASP.”

Mr. Gillers of N.Y.U. Law said that discussing religion in such a manner was conduct unbecoming of a judge. Even if it is done lightheartedly, he said, it could compromise the public’s confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the judiciary.

“Asking about religion, in my mind, is way off base,” Mr. Gillers said. “It’s certainly not legally relevant, and a judge certainly wouldn’t do that with race or sexual orientation.”

Judge Strine began his career in the early 1990s as a lawyer in the Wilmington, Del., office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He then joined the staff of the Delaware governor Thomas R. Carper, who is now a senator. Judge Strine, who is 48, was named to the Court of Chancery at 34. Many of his opinions are considered among the most influential rulings in corporate law.

A lawyer based in Wilmington, Del., who described himself as a supporter of Judge Strine, said that behind this week’s Supreme Court ruling was a simmering tension between Myron Steele, the chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, and Judge Strine. That conflict appears to have its roots in a disagreement over an arcane subject: the default fiduciary duties of a limited liability company.

This lawyer said that he found Judge Strine’s rapier wit and off-topic asides to be a breath of fresh air in a judiciary that too often can be painfully dull.

“He’s a brilliant dude,” he said. “It’s just Leo being Leo.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 11/10/2012, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: In Unusual Move, the Delaware Supreme Court Rebukes a Judge.

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A Transfer of Power Begins in China

Military delegates arrived for the 18th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. The weeklong meeting precedes the naming of China’s top leader, who will replace Hu Jintao. The meeting also introduces a new generation of party leaders.

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Social media shakes up solitary online FX trading

LONDON (Reuters) – The solitary world of online foreign exchange trading is emerging from the shadows as solo investors turn to specialist social media networks to link up with their peers and seek market-beating strategies.

Individual or retail trading, estimated at 8-10 percent of the $ 2.5 trillion daily spot FX market, used to conjure an image of a lone trader with little contact with the outside world.

But that is changing. Thanks to specially tailored websites known as social trading networks, users are able to see and even copy the trades of top-ranked rivals, swap ideas and gauge the market mood in online chat with a community of contacts.

“In the world of trading there are a lot of signals but social media gives us the market sentiment and it is ideal for chatting to people across the world for trade ideas,” said Patrick Orini, who has been trading FX online since 2004.

Retail forex traders make their deals using personal accounts through brokers such as Alpari, FxPro and IronFX. Increasingly, traders are hooking up their broker accounts with social trading networks, such as eToro, Currensee and Tradeo.

Traders usually pay a subscription to use the service while the social network and the broker might share revenue on trades.

In a system reminiscent of microblog network Twitter, top players who make their trades visible can gather thousands of followers, some of whom pay to copy their strategies.

Orini’s trading account on a social trading network called Tradeo has 500 followers, of whom around 20 copy his trades.

If online investors do well in their trades, they will attract more followers and will be ranked higher on the trader “leaderboard” posted on the site.

Retail FX has grown over the last decade as brokers allow individual traders to take highly leveraged positions previously accessible only to institutional investors. The largest group of market players is based in Japan.

eToro, one the world’s largest social trading platforms has processed more than 20 million trades since it went live at the beginning of 2012.

Tradeo, a social network for forex traders based in Tel Aviv, launched three months ago and, according to its co-founder and CEO Jonathan Adest, the site has posted up to half a billion dollars of trades from around 10,000 traders since then.

“It’s not a broker, but a network for brokers — a bit like an online trading room,” Adest said.

He said Tradeo also combats a key hazard of online trading — inaccurate or bogus information. Traders often swap ideas on comment boards, but anonymity and low security makes it difficult to weed out spam.

“The idea of creating a niche social network for forex traders is to help verify commentators usually found in chat rooms and comment boards,” Adest said.

In its increased use of social media, online forex trading is catching up with developments in the equities market.

Retail equities trading is estimated to account for up to half of trade in UK small companies. Retail FX’s smaller share of the overall market reflects the fact that most trade is over-the-counter and lack of volatility that make it harder to turn a profit.

TWITTER

In the equities market, analysis of Twitter postings and news headlines has been used to predict stock price movements.

London-based hedge fund firm Derwent Capital is launching a new spread betting application for retail traders in January that will use Twitter’s 350 million daily tweets to create a sentiment indicator covering currency pairs and other assets.

Social media makes existing currency market sentiment models more effective, said John Hardy, head of FX strategy at Saxo Bank.

“It would be a new way to measure “sentiment” in real time, something that banks can do already via how people are actually trading…but the Twitter measures might be able to bring new nuances and sophistication,” he said.

Arguably, solo traders who hook up to social trading networks are seeking an edge in the “wisdom of crowds”.

“The reason why so many people, like myself, do share their activity and ideas is to help each other and build the community,” Orini said. “I got so many valuable ideas from other traders, that I’m more than happy to share my ideas as well.”

(Editing by Nigel Stephenson)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Steelers, WR Sanders fined for faking injury

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Sanofi Halves Price of Drug After Sloan-Kettering Balks at Paying It

In an unusual move, a big drug company said on Thursday that it would effectively cut in half the price of a new cancer drug after a leading cancer center said it would not use the drug because it was too expensive.

The move — announced by Sanofi for the colon cancer drug Zaltrap — could be a sign of resistance to the unfettered increase in the prices of cancer drugs, some of which cost more than $100,000 a year and increase survival by a few months at best.

Zaltrap came to market in August at a price of about $11,000 a month. Soon after, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York decided not to use the drug, saying it was twice as expensive but no more effective than a similar medicine, Avastin from Genentech. Both drugs improved median survival by 1.4 months, doctors there said.

Three doctors at Sloan-Kettering publicized the cancer center’s decision last month in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times.

“Ignoring the cost of care is no longer tenable,” they wrote. ”Soaring spending has presented the medical community with a new obligation. When choosing treatments for patients, we have to consider the financial strains they may cause alongside the benefits they may deliver.”

Sanofi executives argued that the price they had set was very similar to that of Avastin. “The intent was not to charge a premium,” Christopher A. Viehbacher, the chief executive of Sanofi, said in an interview last month.

Sloan-Kettering, he said, was basing its price comparison on a dose of Avastin that was half the dose Sanofi used in its own comparison.

On Thursday, Sanofi backed down. “We believe that Zaltrap is priced competitively as used in real-world situations,” it said in a statement. “However, we recognize that there was some market resistance to the perceived relative price of Zaltrap in the U.S. — especially in light of low awareness of Zaltrap in the U.S. market. As such, we are taking immediate action across the U.S. oncology community to reduce the net cost of Zaltrap.”

The move was first reported on Thursday by The Cancer Letter, a newsletter about cancer issues.

Sanofi said it would not change the official price for Zaltrap but would offer discounts of about 50 percent. Zaltrap, which is given intravenously, is not bought directly by patients but is sold to doctors or hospitals, which administer it. The cost is then reimbursed by Medicare or private insurers. Patients could be liable for a co-payment.

Dr. Leonard B. Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at Sloan-Kettering and one of the authors of the Op-Ed article, said Sanofi’s offer of discounts “doesn’t really address the problem from our perspective” because Medicare reimbursement and patient co-payments would still be based on the higher list price, at least for several more months.

Also, he said, the discounts could give doctors and hospitals an incentive to use Zaltrap because they could profit from the difference between the discounted price they pay for the drug and the higher price at which they are reimbursed by insurers.

Dr. Saltz said even at the lower price, he did not foresee Sloan-Kettering doctors using Zaltrap because it was no better than Avastin and might be more toxic.

Dr. Saltz is now a consultant to Genentech and has been one to Sanofi.

Zaltrap, developed by Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company in Tarrytown, N.Y., was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August for use as a second-line treatment for colorectal cancer, meaning after an initial regimen had stopped working. Like Avastin, Zaltrap impedes the formation of blood vessels that nourish cancer cells.

Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Sloan-Kettering and one of the authors of the Op-Ed piece, said the price of Zaltrap reflected a bigger problem — that over all there was little relation between drug prices and the value they provided.

“Normal markets wouldn’t behave like this,” he said on Thursday. “You couldn’t introduce something twice as expensive and no better and still sell it.”

Dr. Lee Newcomer, senior vice president for oncology at UnitedHealthcare, said it was the first time he could recall a company cutting the price of a cancer drug so much. “It was the first time physicians have stood up and said, “Enough is enough,’ ” he said. “And I think that was a watershed moment.”

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Your Money: After the Storm: Managing Your Homeowner’s Claim

Tom Mihalek/Reuters

Mark Baronowski shoveled sand from the living room of a beach front property in Bay Head, N.J., last week. Many victims of Hurricane Sandy are novices when it comes to catastrophic insurance claims.

There is a sort of honeymoon period that occurs after a big storm like Hurricane Sandy, when insurance executives appear on the local news offering reassuring words. Their brightly painted vans pull into residential neighborhoods amid the standing water and debris. Everyone is hopeful. Handshakes and back-patting all around.

That period is about to end. Prices for roofers and construction materials will rise, disadvantageous parsing of policy language will commence and gangs of class-action lawyers will round up aggrieved clients who still have months of homelessness ahead of them. Many claims will take years to settle.

It happens every time, and so it will with this storm. That’s not to say that a majority of people with insurance claims won’t be satisfied with the check they receive or won’t get one quickly.

But when this many people have extensive damage to their most significant asset, billions of dollars are at stake for the companies that have the power to make them whole. So there is no reason for policyholders to be anything but wary until their own big check clears.

Many victims of Hurricane Sandy are novices when it comes to catastrophic insurance claims. So to see what sort of resistance they should expect shortly, I turned to the lawyers and adjusters-for-hire who do nothing but negotiate with insurance companies all day long. Some of them used to work for the companies, in fact.

Here are the things they warn people to watch out for:

THAT INDEPENDENT ADJUSTER Many people with damaged homes have started to meet with representatives who assessed their damaged homes to estimate repair costs. They may have introduced themselves as “independent adjusters,” but this is a misnomer. They represent the insurance company and are not neutral.

In storms like this, large numbers of these freelance claims adjusters parachute in from out of town. In the industry, they are known as storm troopers. They work 18-hour days for a while since no insurance company has enough of its own full-time staff to deploy after a storm like this one. Often, they make enough money not to work for months afterward.

“These guys have a lot of work to do, and it’s a thankless job,” said Matthew Tennenbaum, who used to be an independent adjuster but switched sides and now works for policyholders as a “public” adjuster in Cherry Hill, N.J.

Mr. Tennenbaum worries about the storm troopers’ thoroughness. “They’re going to see 10 properties a day and they’re quickly writing estimates,” he said. “If they spend an extra three or four hours properly writing one estimate, they could have written three more and made more money.”

Though many of them are former builders or contractors, they may not, if time is of the essence, always pull up every floor, explore every inch of the attic or look behind every wall. And they may not know much about your insurance company’s policy.

“The insurance companies hand them a manual, and they may not really understand the manual,” said J. Robert Hunter, the director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who has worked for insurance companies and once ran the federal flood insurance program.  “It’s a crash course at that point.”

  The good news here is that these are not the people who make the final call on your claim. But many policyholders assume that their word is the final word.

WIND VERSUS FLOOD Back at headquarters, other adjusters have their eye on an exclusion that will be crucial for this storm, with its horrific storm surges but relatively mild winds: homeowner’s insurance generally does not cover floods.

Unfortunately, many people do not know this and many more have not purchased or renewed policies with the federal flood insurance program that covers up to $250,000 of flood damage. Researchers from the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, working with colleagues at Florida State, the University of Miami and Columbia University, surveyed people in the storm’s path by telephone three days before it hit.

Among people within a block of a body of water, 46 percent had no flood insurance. In areas that had been evacuated in past storms or where the authorities advised people to leave, 58 percent did not have it. Moreover, 39 percent of all the people who thought they did have flood coverage mistakenly believed that their homeowner’s insurance covered it.

People without coverage but lots of damage from the storm surge might do one of a couple of things. A few stubborn ones will sue, arguing that if the wind drove the surge then it’s not really a flood. Judges haven’t taken kindly to this line of reasoning over the years, but that probably won’t keep people from trying again. The Federal Emergency Management Agency may also offer some assistance.

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Preparing to Step Aside in China, Hu Jintao Warns of Challenges

Changing of the Guard in China:
The New York Times’s Beijing correspondents discuss the challenges ahead for China as the country begins its once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

BEIJING — Capping 10 careful years at the helm of the Communist Party, China’s top leader, Hu Jintao, on Thursday boasted of successes during his tenure while issuing a blunt warning against unrest and political reform.

Mr. Hu, 69, is to step down as the party’s general secretary next week, handing over power to his designated successor, Xi Jinping. His speech at the opening here in Beijing of the Communist Party’s 18th Congress was likely to be his last major address — a chance to write his own eulogy while also setting the course for Mr. Xi.

“He’s worried about how history will view him,” said Qian Gang, who works with the China Media Project of Hong Kong University. “On the whole, he is against reform.”

Formally, Mr. Hu nodded to almost every manner of reform: economic, social, political and environmental. But, in the fashion of his predecessors, this was balanced with warnings of the need to guard against a rise in unrest. It was an unusual admission for a man whose signature slogan is creating for China a “harmonious society.”

“Social contradictions have clearly increased,” said the formal 64-page document issued at the congress. (Mr. Hu’s speech, even at 100 minutes, was only a summary.)

“There are many problems concerning the public’s immediate interests in education, employment, social security, health care, housing, the environment, food and drug safety, workplace safety, public security and law enforcement.”

The solution, Mr. Hu said, was “reform and opening up,” a policy initiated by the man who chose him for the job nearly two decades ago, the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

Mr. Hu also lauded his own contribution to Communist Party ideology: “Scientific Development.” Most of his predecessors have had their own ideologies enshrined as guiding state doctrines. His repetition of the phrase — which means that the party should be pragmatic and follow policies that are demonstrably effective — implied that he, too, would be so honored.

But his caveats to reform were many.

According to Mr. Qian, a leading expert on textual analysis of Chinese leaders’ speeches, Mr. Hu’s speech hit on almost every anti-reform phrase used by Chinese Communist leaders.

He referred to Communist China’s founder three times with the phrase “Mao Zedong Thought,” and said the party must “resolutely not follow Western political systems,” something not mentioned at the last party congress five years ago.

“They don’t say these terms lightly,” Mr. Qian said. “When they mention it, it matters.”

Mr. Hu also coined a new term, pledging that the party will not to follow the “wicked way” of changing the party’s course.

Mr. Hu’s speech is thought to have been drawn up in cooperation with his successor, Mr. Xi. While Mr. Xi is widely thought to be consulting with liberal members of China’s intelligentsia, he either did not oppose Mr. Hu’s direction or was not able to change it.

That is important, observers say, because Mr. Xi will not exercise unrestrained power when he takes over. Besides the other half-dozen members on the Standing Committee of the party’s Politburo, he will also have to listen to the advice of Mr. Hu, Mr. Hu’s own predecessor, Jiang Zemin, and an estimated 20 other “senior leaders.” As if to emphasize their role, these men were seated on the dais next to Mr. Hu. Many of them are in their 70s and 80s and have exercised power for decades.

“Xi Jinping certainly won’t be a Gorbachev,” said Yao Jianfu, a former official and researcher who closely follows Chinese politics and advocates democratic change. “Every aspect of reform has an important precondition — that the Communist Party remains in charge.”

Even though Mr. Hu’s speech was broadcast live on national television and on screens in Beijing subway cars, gauging popular opinion was difficult.

Microbloggers, who are mostly urban and fairly well educated, at times cast scorn on the rhetoric. One blogger listed the Marxist terminology that Mr. Hu used and wrote simply “madness.” Others used laughing emoticons, while some delved closely into the speech for clues to new policies — some noted his fleeting mention of China’s unpopular single-child policy.

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.

Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more per investor.

It puts the firm on the same footing as more established corporate venture funds such as Intel's Intel Capital, which typically invests $300-$500 million a year.

"It puts a lot more wood behind the arrow if we need it," said Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures.

Part of the rationale behind the increase is that Google Ventures is a relatively young firm, founded in 2009. Some of the companies it backed two or three years ago are now at later stages, potentially requiring larger cash infusions to grow further.

Google Ventures has taken an eclectic approach, investing in a broad spectrum of companies ranging from medicine to clean power to coupon companies.

Every year, it typically funds 40-50 "seed-stage" deals where it invests $250,000 or less in a company, and perhaps around 15 deals where it invests up to $10 million, Maris said. It aims to complete one or two deals annually in the $20-$50 million range, Maris said.

LACKING SUPERSTARS

Some of its investments include Nest, a smart-thermostat company; Foundation Medicine, which applies genomic analysis to cancer care; Relay Rides, a carsharing service; and smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks. Last year, its portfolio company HomeAway raised $216 million in an initial public offering.

Still, Google Ventures lacks superstar companies such as microblogging service Twitter or online bulletin-board company Pinterest. The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals.

Soon it could have even more cash to play around with. "Larry has repeatedly asked me: 'What do you think you could do with a billion a year?'" said Maris, referring to Google chief executive Larry Page.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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NHL, union hold labor talks a 3rd straight day

NEW YORK (AP) — The NHL and the players' association returned to the bargaining table Thursday, the third straight day the sides have met in an effort to end the lockout.

The work stoppage reached its 54th day, and this week is considered critical for the hockey season to be saved. The lockout is threatening to force the second cancellation of an NHL season in seven years.

Even if an agreement is reached soon, it isn't clear if any of this season's games that have been called off through Nov. 30 can be rescheduled. The NHL, however, has said a full 82-game season won't be played.

Owners and players already have bargained for about 13 hours over two days this week at an undisclosed site in New York. Little information about the talks has been disclosed by either side.

Thursday afternoon's discussions marked the fourth time in six days that face-to-face negotiations have taken place after both sides rejected proposals Oct. 18. The lockout, which began Sept. 16 after the collective bargaining agreement expired, has forced the cancellation of 327 regular-season games, including the New Year's Day Winter Classic in Michigan.

A second consecutive day of marathon negotiations took place Wednesday, when the sides spent more than five hours discussing the most contentious issues. Coupled with the more than seven hours they spent negotiating Tuesday, owners and players have been together about 13 hours.

"We do not intend to comment on the substance or subject matter," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said the parties met to "discuss many of the key issues," but did not elaborate.

Those issues include revenue sharing between teams and the "make-whole" provision, which involves the payment of player contracts that are already in effect. There is still much to be done to work out the differences to reach a deal that will allow the already delayed and shortened season to begin.

Along with a handful of team owners, eight players attended Wednesday's talks, five fewer than Tuesday. Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and others left New York to try to avoid the impending snowstorm that hit the area, the union said.

In October, the players' association responded to an NHL offer with three of its own, but all of those were quickly dismissed by the league. That led to nearly three weeks without face-to-face discussions, although the parties kept in regular contact by phone.

Both sides have made proposals that included a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenues. The NHL has moved toward the players' side in the "make-whole" provision and whose share of the economic pie that money will come from.

Other core economic issues — mainly the split of hockey-related revenue — along with contract lengths, arbitration and free agency also must be agreed upon.

The union accepted a salary cap in the previous labor pact, which wasn't reached until after the entire 2004-05 season was canceled because of a lockout. The union doesn't want to absorb the majority of concessions this time after the NHL had record revenue that exceeded $3 billion last season.

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Well: The Presidential Health Quiz

Whether it’s George Washington’s teeth or Bill Clinton’s former hamburger habit, Americans have always been fascinated by the health of the president and presidential candidates.

With help from the Web site DoctorZebra, which has compiled an exhaustive list of the medical history of American presidents, we’ve created an Election Day quiz to test your knowledge of presidential fitness and health.

Read More..

States Face Tight Health Care Deadlines

After nearly three years of legal and political threats that kept President Obama’s health care law in a constant state of uncertainty, his re-election on Tuesday all but guarantees that the historic legislation will survive.

Now comes another big hurdle: making it work.

States will need to hustle to put in place the various pieces meant to help their residents meet the contentious requirement of having health insurance by Jan. 1, 2014. The federal government is under immense pressure to provide more guidance, while building its own tools to ensure the law’s success.

With Mitt Romney’s vow to “repeal and replace” the law no longer a threat, its supporters are exulting. Bill Foster, a Democrat elected to the House from a suburban Chicago district, summarized the message of the election this way: “For our district and for our country, the debate on Obamacare is over.’

But Mr. Obama and his allies must now step up efforts to promote and explain it to a public that remains sharply divided and confused about it. In exit polls on Tuesday, nearly half of voters said the law should be either partially or fully repealed..

“There is still a tremendous amount of disinformation out there,” said Jeff Goldsmith, a health industry analyst based in Virginia. “If you actually are going to implement this law, people need to know what’s in it – not just the puppies-and-ice-cream parts, but ‘Here are the broader social changes intended and how they can help you.'”

The health care overhaul still faces resistance from many Republican members of Congress, governors and state legislators. In the 11 weeks before Inauguration Day, Mr. Obama faces crucial choices about strategy that could determine the success of the law in the next few years: Will the administration, for example, try to address the concerns of insurers, employers and some consumer groups who worry that the law’s requirements could increase premiums? Or will it insist on the stringent standards favored by liberal policy advocates inside and outside the government?

Much now depends on the states, where lawmakers will decide in the coming weeks and months whether to build online marketplaces known as insurance exchanges, where individuals and small businesses can shop for health plans, and whether to expand their Medicaid programs to reach many more low-income people.

The clock is ticking on the exchange question in particular: states have until Nov. 16 to decide whether they will build their own exchange or let the federal government run one for them.

So far, only about 15 states and the District of Columbia have created the framework for exchanges through legislation or executive orders; three others have committed to running exchanges in partnership with the federal government. A number of Republican governors, including those in Arizona, Idaho, New Jersey, Virginia and Tennessee, had said they would decide after the election, giving themselves only a 10-day window before the deadline.

“I would expect that starting today there are a significant number of fascinating conversations going on behind closed doors in state capitols all over America,” said John McDonough, a professor of public health at Harvard who helped draft the law.

State efforts to carry out the new law will coincide with epic negotiations between Mr. Obama and Congress over federal spending and taxes.

Some observers believe that costly provisions of the health care law, like federal subsidies to help families with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level pay their insurance premiums, could be scaled back in the name of deficit reduction.

“We know folks on the Hill are talking about this already,” said David Smith, an analyst at Leavitt Partners, a consulting firm that advises states on the law. “There are a lot of competing factors, but they have to find the savings and we believe health care will be one of the places where they will go.”

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Obama’s Other ‘Cliff’ Is in Foreign Policy

For all the talk of a “fiscal cliff” threatening the nation’s finances, President Obama also faces a foreign policy cliff of sorts, with a welter of national security issues that he put on the back burner during the campaign now clamoring for his attention.

Atop that list, administration officials and foreign policy experts say, is the bloody civil war in Syria and the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program. The United States is likely to engage the Iranian government in direct negotiations over the next few months, in perhaps a last-ditch diplomatic effort to head off a military strike on its nuclear facilities.

Administration officials said that they had not set a date for talks and that they did not know if Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would give his blessing. But with Iran’s uranium centrifuges spinning and Israel threatening its own military action, the need to avoid a war may make this high-risk diplomatic effort Mr. Obama’s No. 1 priority.

Syria, too, will demand a pressing response, given the high human toll of the violence and the danger of a spreading regional conflict. Mr. Obama, however, remains leery of being dragged into the conflict, rejecting calls to supply weapons to rebel groups. His reluctance has been partly political, experts say, but he also has strategic qualms.

“At a time when he was running on a platform of ending wars in the Middle East, he did not want to be seen as starting one,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel.

“But if he doesn’t try to intervene in a way that gives him a way to shape a post-Assad regime on the ground,” Mr. Indyk continued, referring to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, “there’s a high risk of descent into chaos in Syria, and a sectarian war that spreads to Lebanon, Bahrain and eventually Saudi Arabia.”

Beyond those flash points, the president will have to grapple with Pakistan, an unstable nuclear state whose relationship with Washington has eroded during his presidency. And he will have to oversee an orderly exit from Afghanistan, where the waning American role threatens to throw the country back into chaos and Islamic militancy.

As he does so, some question whether he will rethink his administration’s heavy reliance on drone strikes to kill people suspected of being extremists, a policy that has proved lethally efficient but has sown deep resentment in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

More broadly, Mr. Obama will face Russia under the aggressive leadership of President Vladimir V. Putin and China with the opposite problem — negotiating a tumultuous change in power after a scandal that tainted the top ranks of its Communist leadership.

None of these problems are new, but many were effectively shelved over the past year as the president waged a bitter re-election battle dominated by his stewardship of the economy. Foreign policy played such a bit part in the election that even in the debate ostensibly devoted to it, Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney detoured into a discussion of high school test scores in Massachusetts.

For reasons of history and political reality, a re-elected Mr. Obama is likely to devote more time to foreign affairs. From Richard M. Nixon to Bill Clinton, presidents have tended to make their bid for statesman status in their second terms. The prospect of continuing gridlock — with the Republicans still controlling the House — gives Mr. Obama all the more reason to favor diplomacy over domestic legislation.

There is also some unfinished business from the past four years, not least Mr. Obama’s frustrated efforts to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But several experts cast doubt on whether the president would throw himself into the role of Middle East peacemaker, as Mr. Clinton did in his second term.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had a fraught relationship with Mr. Obama, faces his own voters early next year, but he seems likely to stay in power with a right-wing government. Such an arrangement could make peacemaking difficult.

“Because he got his fingers burned and was outmaneuvered by Netanyahu, he will wait to see the outcome in the Israeli election,” said Mr. Indyk, who wrote a book about Mr. Obama’s foreign policy, “Bending History.” He added that the president is “going to think long and hard about trying again.”

The added wrinkle for the United States: the Palestinian Authority is likely to petition for nonstate membership in the United Nations next month, a step it had put off until after the election. If the United Nations were to grant it, that would trigger Congress to cut off aid not only to the Palestinian Authority but also to the United Nations itself.

The mere fact of Mr. Obama’s victory does not ease these problems. But as the president himself famously said to Russia’s former president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, at a nuclear conference in South Korea, he may have more room to maneuver in dealing with them.

Ask foreign policy experts for wild cards in a second Obama term and two countries come up: India and Cuba. Little progress was made in opening the door to Havana during the past four years, but hope springs eternal for those who advocate an end to the half-century-old trade embargo. Mr. Obama also is likely to build on his ties to India.

India figures into the biggest geopolitical bet of Mr. Obama’s presidency: the American pivot from the Middle East to China and Asia. With four more years, experts said, Mr. Obama can put meat on the bones of an ambitious, but incomplete, policy.

Here, however, is where the fiscal cliff meets foreign policy. To be credible in reasserting an American presence in Asia, experts said, will require a robust military presence from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea. But unless the White House and Congress can strike some kind of fiscal deal, the Pentagon will face deep automatic cuts in its budget, depriving it of the ability to project power as it once did.

For Mr. Obama to realize his grandest visions abroad, then, he will still have to work with the same House Republicans who thwarted him on the home front in his first term.

Read More..

Apple's shares slide 4 percent to five-month low

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Luck among players shaving head to support Pagano

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Andrew Luck has joined the shaved squad, too.

Nearly three dozen players on the Indianapolis Colts have shaved their heads in a show of support for head coach Chuck Pagano, who is undergoing treatment for a form of leukemia.

Luck became a new member of the no-hair club Wednesday morning. Players and coaches were not available for comment because they were headed to Jacksonville, but a team spokesman confirmed that Luck will indeed look quite different when he takes off his helmet Thursday night.

"Buzzed heads and orange locks in honor of Chuck," team owner Jim Irsay tweeted. He also included a link to a photo showing many of the players who had gotten buzzed.

Indianapolis (5-3) has gone to great lengths to give their ailing coach encouragement.

Reggie Wayne wore orange gloves against Green Bay, the ribbon color used to raise awareness for leukemia. Nameplates above player's lockers at the team complex now include orange stickers with Pagano's initials in the middle of Indy's trademark horseshoe. They sent Pagano a game ball after their surprising win over the Packers on Oct. 4. Irsay has placed signs reading (hash)Chuckstrong in each end zone of Lucas Oil Stadium, and the team has been trying to raise money to support leukemia research.

The newest addition to the agenda came late Tuesday when the team said Wayne, Luck and interim coach Bruce Arians would participate in a fundraiser at Dunaway's, a local restaurant, on Nov. 16. They will sign autographs and take photos with fans to help benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

So when Pagano showed up in the Colts' locker room Sunday without his grayish hair or trademark goatee, player director of engagement David Thornton decided to bring in a barber following Tuesday's practice.

The idea was an immediate hit — and seems to be growing larger by the day.

About two dozen players, including kicker Adam Vinatieri, defensive end Cory Redding, Pro Bowl safety Antoine Bethea and punter Pat McAfee, left the team headquarters Tuesday night with no hair. It's a new look for McAfee, who had a ponytail until last fall when he cut it off and donated the hair to Locks of Love, a cancer charity.

"We haven't been together long... But we're in this together," McAfee wrote in a Twitter message.

On Wednesday morning, more players joined the contingent, including Luck, the No. 1 overall draft pick and this week's AFC offensive player of the week.

At this rate, all of the Colts could have a whole team without hair playing Thursday night at the Jaguars. Arians, one of Pagano's close friends and a prostate cancer survivor, doesn't have any hair, either, though he's donned that look all season.

Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia on Sept. 26 and remained hospitalized for treatment until Oct. 21. He watched the next two Colts games from his home before doctors allowed him to attend Sunday's victory over Miami. Pagano watched the 23-20 victory from the coaches' box and spoke with his team before and after the game.

"I've got circumstances. You guys understand it, I understand it," Pagano said in an emotional postgame speech. "It's already beat. It's already beat. My vision that I'm living is to see two more daughters get married, dance at their weddings and then lift the Lombardi Trophy several times. I'm dancing at two more weddings and we're hoisting that trophy together, men. Congratulations, I love all of you."

On Monday, Pagano's physician, Dr. Larry Cripe of the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, said Pagano was in "complete remission." Cripe said Pagano is still scheduled to have two more rounds of chemotherapy. The second round starts this week and will last four to six weeks, Cripe said.

Arians has said the Colts hope to have Pagano back on the sideline Dec. 30, Indy's regular season finale against Houston.

___

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

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Global Update: Polio Eradication Efforts in Pakistan Focus on Pashtuns

Michael Kamber for The New York Times

Polio will never be eradicated in Pakistan until a way is found to persuade poor Pashtuns to embrace the vaccine, according to a study released by the World Health Organization.

A survey of 1,017 parents of young children found that 41 percent had never heard of polio and 11 percent refused to vaccinate their children against it. The survey was done in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and the only big city in the world where polio persists; it was published in the agency’s November bulletin.

Parents from poor families “cited lack of permission from family elders,” said Dr. Anita Zaidi, who teaches pediatrics at the Aga Khan University in Karachi. Some rich parents also disdained the vaccine, saying it was “harmful or unnecessary,” she added.

Pashtuns account for 75 percent of Pakistan’s polio cases even though they are only 15 percent of the population. Wealthy children are safer because the virus travels in sewage, and their neighborhoods may have covered sewers and be less flood-prone.

Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in next-door Afghanistan, where polio has also never been wiped out. Most Taliban fighters are Pashtun, and some Taliban threatened to kill vaccinators earlier this year. Two W.H.O. vaccinators were shot in Karachi in July.

Rumors persist that the vaccine is a plot to sterilize Muslims. But the eradication drive is recruiting Pashtuns as vaccinators and asking prominent religious leaders from various sects to make videos endorsing the vaccine.

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Investors on Wall St. React Nervously

Henny Ray Abrams/Associated Press

A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. A day after the election, the outlook of continued divided government in Washington and little prospect for compromise unnerved traders.

Business leaders and investors on Wall Street reacted nervously to President Obama’s re-election Wednesday, as the focus shifted quickly from electoral politics to the looming fiscal uncertainty in Washington. A gloomy economic outlook in Europe also prompted selling in markets worldwide.

Stocks were sharply lower in afternoon trading in New York, with both the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average down 2.2 percent, as European shares sank and Asian stocks were mixed. While many executives on Wall Street and in other industries favored Mitt Romney, many had already factored in the likelihood of Mr. Obama winning a second term.

Still, continued divided government in Washington and little prospect for compromise unnerved traders.

“The bottom line is that this looks like a status quo election,” said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. “The problem with that is that it doesn’t resolve some of the main sources of uncertainty that are hanging over the economy.”

Companies in some sectors, like hospitals and technology, could see a short-term pop, said Tobias Levkovich, chief United States equity strategist with Citi. Other areas, like financial services as well as coal and mining, could be hurt as investors contemplate a tougher regulatory environment.

Shares of Alpha Natural Resources, a coal giant, were down 11.8 percent, while Arch Coal was off 11 percent. But HCA Holdings, a hospital operator, was up 8 percent, to $33.39 a share. As a result of Mr. Obama’s victory, Goldman Sachs said it upgraded its rating on HCA to buy from neutral, and raised its price target to $39 from $31. It also raised price targets for Tenet Healthcare and Community Health Systems, although both are still rated neutral.

Goldman downgraded shares of Humana, a leading managed care company, to sell, and its shares fell 9.9 percent. Goldman warned that Humana and other managed care providers could be hurt as health care reform moves forward, especially new rules for health insurers that become effective in 2014.

Mr. Levkovich predicted that the market would remain volatile between now and mid-January. If Congress and the president cannot come up with a plan to cut the deficit, hundreds of billions in Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at the beginning of 2013 while automatic spending cuts will sharply cut the defense budget and other programs.

Known as the fiscal cliff, this simultaneous combination of dramatic reductions in government spending and tax increases could push the economy into recession in 2013, economists fear.

But it was not just the election results driving shares lower — there was more gloomy economic news out of Europe.

The European Union will experience only a very weak economic recovery during 2013 while unemployment will remain at “very high” levels, according to a set of forecasts issued Wednesday by the European Commission.

This year, gross domestic product will shrink by 0.3 percent for the 27 members of the union as a whole and by 0.4 percent for the 17 European Union countries that use the euro, the commission predicted. Growth in 2013 will be a meager 0.4 percent across the union and only 0.1 percent in the euro area, it said.

Not only is that level of growth far slower than even the tepid pace of the recovery in the United States, it also makes it more difficult for debt-burdened European economies to get their financial house in order. As markets neared the close in Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, fell 2.2 percent, while the FTSE 100 index in London was 1.5 percent lower.

The S.&P./ASX 200 in Australia closed up 0.7 percent, as did the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong. The Nikkei 225 stock average in Japan ended trading little changed.

“There’s a huge question mark hanging over what happens in the next few weeks,” said Aric Newhouse, senior vice-president of policy and government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers. “The fiscal cliff is the 800-pound gorilla out there.”

“We can’t wait,” he said. “We think the idea of going over the cliff has to be taken off the table. We’ve got to get to the middle ground.”

For all the anticipation, some observers said the election still left plenty of unanswered questions.

“While we have clarity on the players now, we don’t have any more clarity on what will happen in terms of the fiscal cliff,” Mr. Maki said. “We still have a divided government and they haven’t been able to agree on what to do.”

If the full package of tax increases and spending cuts go into effect, that would equal a $650 billion blow to the economy, Mr. Maki said, equivalent to 4 percent of the gross domestic product.

Mr. Maki envisions a partial compromise, with $200 billion in tax increases and spending cuts. Partly because of that, he estimates, the annual rate of economic growth will dip to 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter. He predicted that if the full fiscal cliff were to hit, the economy would contract in the first half of 2013.

James Kanter contributed reporting.

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Egyptian Vigilantes Crack Down on Abuse of Women

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

A self-appointed citizens patrol that tries to protect women on Cairo’s streets spray-painted a youth for identification last month.

CAIRO — The young activists lingered on the streets around Tahrir Square, scrutinizing the crowds of holiday revelers. Suddenly, they charged, pushing people aside and chasing down a young man. As the captive thrashed to get away, the activists pounded his shoulders, flipped him around and spray-painted a message on his back: “I’m a harasser.”

Egypt’s streets have long been a perilous place for women, who are frequently heckled, grabbed, threatened and violated while the police look the other way. Now, during the country’s tumultuous transition from authoritarian rule, more and more groups are emerging to make protecting women — and shaming the do-nothing police — a cause.

“They’re now doing the undoable?” a police officer joked as he watched the vigilantes chase down the young man. The officer quickly went back to sipping his tea.

The attacks on women did not subside after the uprising. If anything, they became more visible as even the military was implicated in the assaults, stripping female protesters, threatening others with violence and subjecting activists to so-called virginity tests. During holidays, when Cairenes take to the streets to stroll and socialize, the attacks multiply.

But during the recent Id al-Adha holiday, some of the men were surprised to find they could no longer harass with impunity, a change brought about not just out of concern for women’s rights, but out of a frustration that the post-revolutionary government still, like the one before, was doing too little to protect its citizens.

At least three citizens groups patrolled busy sections of central Cairo during the holiday. The groups’ members, both men and women, shared the conviction that the authorities would not act against harassment unless the problem was forced into the public debate. They differed in their tactics: some activists criticized others for being too quick to resort to violence against suspects and encouraging vigilantism.  One group leader compared the activists to the Guardian Angels in the United States.

“The harasser doesn’t see anyone who will hold him accountable,” said Omar Talaat, 16, who joined one of the patrols.

The years of President Hosni Mubarak’s rule were marked by official apathy, collusion in the assaults on women, or empty responses to the attacks, including police roundups of teenagers at Internet cafes for looking at pornography.

“The police did not take harassment seriously,” said Madiha el-Safty, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo. “People didn’t file complaints. It was always underreported.”

Mr. Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne, who portrayed herself as a champion of women’s rights, pretended the problem hardly existed. As reports of harassment grew in 2008, she said, “Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women.”

Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, has presided over two holidays, and many activists say there is no sign that the government is paying closer attention to the problem. But the work by the citizens groups may be having an effect: Last week, after the Id al-Adha holiday, Mr. Morsi’s spokesman announced that the government had received more than 1,000 reports of harassment, and said that the president had directed the Interior Ministry to investigate them.

“Egypt’s revolution cannot tolerate these abuses,” the spokesman quoted Mr. Morsi as saying.

Azza Soliman, the director of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, dismissed the president’s words as “weak.” During the holiday, she said, one of her sons was beaten on the subway after he tried to stop a man who was groping two foreign women. The police tried to stop him from filing a complaint. “The whole world is talking about harassment in our country,” Ms. Soliman said. “The Interior Ministry takes no action.”

For years, anti-harassment activists have worked to highlight the problems in Egypt, but the uprising seemed to give the effort more energy and urgency.

Asmaa Al Zohairy contributed reporting.

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