Philippine Lawmakers Pass Reproductive Health Bill

MANILA — After a ferocious national debate that pitted family members against one another, and some faithful Catholics against their church, the Philippine Congress passed legislation on Monday to help the country’s poorest women gain access to birth control.

Jay Directo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Supporters of a landmark reproductive health bill celebrated as the Philippine Congress passed legislation on Monday to help the country’s poorest women gain access to birth control. 

Jay Directo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Opponents of a reproductive health bill, including a Catholic nun, looked at portraits of Philippine legislators as they passed a landmark measure Monday.

“The people now have the government on their side as they raise their families in a manner that is just and empowered,” said Edwin Lacierda, a spokesman for President Benigno S. Aquino III, who pushed for passage.

Each chamber of the national legislature passed its own version of the measure — by 13 to 8 in the Senate and 133 to 79 in the House of Representatives — and minor differences between the two must be reconciled before the measure goes to Mr. Aquino for his signature.

The measure had been stalled for more than a decade because of determined opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. Roughly four-fifths of Filipinos are Catholic.

Birth control is legal and widely available in the Philippines for people who can afford it, particularly those living in cities. But condoms, birth control pills and other methods can be difficult to find in rural areas, and their cost puts them out of reach for the very poor.

“Some local governments have passed local ordinances that banned the sale of condoms and contraceptives and forbid their distribution in government clinics, where most poor Filipinos turn for health care,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on the issue, adding that the new bill would override such ordinances.

The measure passed on Monday would stock government health centers, including those in remote areas, with free or subsidized birth control options for the poor. It would require sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. The Philippines has one of the highest birthrates in Asia, but backers of the legislation, including the Aquino administration, have said repeatedly that its purpose is not to limit population growth. Rather, they say, the bill is meant to offer poor families the same reproductive health options that wealthier people in the country enjoy.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that half of the 3.4 million pregnancies in the Philippines each year are unintended, and that there are 11 pregnancy-related deaths in the country each day, on average. Most of those could be avoided, the organization says, through improved maternal health care, a need that proponents say the new legislation will directly address.

Catholic Church officials took a hard line against the measure, saying it was out of line with the beliefs of most religious Filipinos. The church equated contraception with abortion, which is illegal in the Philippines.

“These artificial means are fatal to human life, either preventing it from fruition or actually destroying it,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said in a statement on the eve of the votes in Congress.

The statement cited health risks associated with some forms of birth control, but the bishops’ strongest objections have been lodged on moral rather than medical grounds. In a pastoral letter, they said: “The youth are being made to believe that sex before marriage is acceptable, provided you know how to avoid pregnancy. Is this moral? Those who corrupt the minds of children will invoke divine wrath on themselves.”

The legislation prompted a heated national debate in the Philippines over the role that government should play in family planning and women’s health.

“This bill no doubt has inflicted a very wide chasm of division in our society,” said Juan Ponce Enrile, the president of the Senate. “Families are even divided, mother and daughter differing in their views, husband and wife differing in their views.” Mr. Enrile opposed the bill; his son, Juan, a congressman, voted in favor of it.

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Bangladesh Finds Gross Negligence in Factory Fire

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Criminal charges for “unpardonable negligence” should be brought against the owner of the Bangladesh garment factory where a fire killed 112 people last month, according to a preliminary report from a government inquiry submitted Monday.

“The owner of the factory cannot be indemnified from the death of large numbers of workers from this fire,” Main Uddin Khandaker, the official who led the inquiry, said in an interview. “Unpardonable negligence of the owner is responsible for the death of workers.”

The Nov. 24 fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory, where workers were making clothes for global retailers like Walmart and Sears, has focused attention on the unsafe work conditions and low wages at many garment factories in Bangladesh, the No. 2 exporter of apparel after China. The fire also has exposed flaws in the system that monitors the industry’s global supply chain: Walmart and Sears say they had no idea their apparel was being made there.

Mr. Khandaker submitted a 214-page report to Bangladesh’s Home Ministry on Monday, saying that the factory owner, Delowar Hossain, and nine of his midlevel managers and supervisors prevented employees from leaving their sewing machines even after a fire alarm sounded.

Mr. Hossain could not be reached for comment.

The report also stated that the fire was “an act of sabotage,” but it did not provide any evidence.

Some labor advocates found that explanation unconvincing. “They don’t say who did it, they don’t say where in the factory it was done, they don’t say how they learned it,” said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a monitoring group in Washington. “Regardless of what sparked the fire, it is clear that the unsafe nature of this factory and the actions taken by management once the fire started were the primary contributors to the horrendous death toll.”

Bangladeshi officials have been under intense domestic and international pressure to investigate the blaze and charge those deemed responsible. Families of the victims have demanded legal action against Mr. Hossain. Labor advocates have argued that the global brands using the factory also shared in the responsibility for the tragedy.

Fires have been a persistent problem in Bangladesh’s garment industry for more than a decade, with hundreds of workers killed over the years. Mr. Khandaker said his inquiry recommended the creation of a government task force to oversee regular inspections of factories and uphold the rights of workers.

Bangladesh has more than 4,500 garment factories, which employ more than four million workers, many of them young women. The industry is crucial to the national economy as a source of employment and foreign currency. Garments constitute about four-fifths of the country’s manufacturing exports, and the industry is expected to grow rapidly.

But Bangladesh’s manufacturing formula depends on keeping wages low and restricting the rights of workers. The minimum wage in the garment industry is $37 a month, unions are almost nonexistent, and garment workers have taken to the streets in recent years in sometimes violent protests over wages and work conditions.

Workers at Tazreen Fashions had staged small demonstrations in the months before the fire, demanding wages they were owed. On the night of the fire, more than 1,150 people were inside the eight-story building, working overtime shifts to fill orders for various international brands. Fire officials say the fire broke out in the open-air ground floor, where large mounds of fabric and yarn were illegally stored; Bangladeshi law requires that such flammable materials be stored in a room with fireproof walls.

The blaze quickly spread across the length of the ground floor — roughly the size of a football field — as fire and toxic smoke filtered up through the building’s three staircases. The factory lacked a sprinkler system or an outdoor fire escape; employees were supposed to use interior staircases, and many escaped that way.

But on some floors, managers ordered workers to ignore a fire alarm and stay to work. Precious minutes were lost. Then, as smoke and fire spread throughout the building, many workers were trapped, unable to descend the smoke-filled staircases and blocked from escape by iron grilles on many windows. Desperate workers managed to break open some windows and leap to the roof of a nearby building and safety. Others simply jumped from upper floors to the ground.

“We have also found unpardonable negligence of midlevel officials at the factory,” Mr. Khandaker said. “They prevented workers from coming down. We recommend taking proper legal measures against them.”

Mr. Khandaker listed a host of violations at Tazreen Fashions: managers on some floors closed collapsible gates to block workers from running down the staircases, the ground-floor warehouse was illegal and the building’s escape plan improper, and the factory lacked a required closed-circuit television monitoring system. None of the fire extinguishers in the factory appeared to have been used on the night of the fire, suggesting poor preparedness and training.

Moreover, Mr. Khandaker said, the factory lacked a required fire safety certificate. It had applied for an annual renewal, but a certificate had not yet been issued.

Asked about the allegation of sabotage, Mr. Khandaker said that investigators had found no evidence of an electrical short circuit, and that eyewitnesses had suggested possible foul play. He said the report recommended a full criminal investigation into the matter.

“It seems to us that it was sabotage,” he said. “Somebody set the fire.”

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi. Steven Greenhouse contributed reporting from New York.

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Falcons 34, Giants 0: Falcons Rout Giants, Ensuring a Bumpy Playoff Path

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Nothing went right for Eli Manning and the Giants. Manning finished the game with a quarterback rating of 40.7.

ATLANTA — All week, the Giants players said this year could be different. They had lived through the stress that came with spending the final month of last season with their tiptoes on the precipice and, after walloping the New Orleans Saints a week ago, it seemed reasonable to think that this time they really might make the finish a little less dramatic. Maybe, just maybe, they said, they could make it easier on their fans, their coaches and most importantly themselves.

Instead, it was only the Atlanta Falcons who showed Sunday that they are worthy of a new perspective. Often seen as pretenders among the N.F.L.’s elite because of poor postseason performances, the Falcons routed the Giants, 34-0, further establishing their dominance in the N.F.C. and dooming the Giants to the same old story of a white-knuckle endgame.

The Giants no longer hold a home playoff game in their hands. For at the same time as the Giants were getting shut out in the regular season for the first time since 1996, the Washington Redskins — without the wunderkind quarterback Robert Griffin III — beat the Cleveland Browns to move past the Giants and into first place in the N.F.C. East.

While the Giants and the Redskins have the same overall record (8-6), Washington’s superior division record (3-1 to 2-3) gives them the tiebreaker edge. For the third straight season, the Giants lost in Week 15 to hamper their postseason hopes, and they will travel to Baltimore next week with the division title, and even a playoff berth, in doubt.

“After today’s performance, we’ve got a lot of questions to answer,” Justin Tuck said. “I wish had some red shoes, and I could wish myself right to next Sunday.”

Coach Tom Coughlin was even more basic. “Atlanta was very, very good, and we were very, very bad,” he said to open his postgame news conference. He answered a few more questions but then hopped off the makeshift stage; in many ways, there was little else to say.

It was a startling — though not altogether stunning — turn for the Giants, who have appeared to be a serious Super Bowl contender for most of the season but have been undercut by some horrendous performances.

Sunday’s showing, in which they were never competitive against the Falcons, will go up against their meltdown in Cincinnati last month as the most disappointing of the season. Simply put, the Giants struggled in every phase: their offense, which was so effective against the Saints a week ago, never fired; their pass rush rarely ventured into Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan’s peripheral vision, let alone his personal space; and their secondary, which was hampered by injuries to cornerback Prince Amukamara and safety Kenny Phillips, was torched repeatedly for big plays down the field. Even kicker Lawrence Tynes missed his third field-goal attempt in December after missing only three attempts in the previous three months combined.

The demolition was comprehensive. Ryan passed for 270 yards and 3 touchdowns, 8 different players caught passes for Atlanta and running back Michael Turner recorded 52 rushing yards and a score. At one point midway through the second quarter, Ryan’s quarterback rating was 140.7 while Eli Manning’s was 2.8.

Defensive tackle Chris Canty looked pained afterward — both by the result and a neck injury that seemed to limit movement in his right arm — and he did not hesitate to call the game an “embarrassment.” Jason Pierre-Paul used the same word. Linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka said the Giants’ performance was “unacceptable by any standard.”

It was also maddening, particularly because the Giants ripped the Saints, 52-27, just seven days earlier. Even Coughlin was surprised, saying, “What happened? Where are they?” when asked about the offensive fall off.

Of course, this has been a pattern for the Giants. In Week 3, they routed Carolina then lost the next week to Philadelphia. After losing to the Bengals in Week 10, they dominated Green Bay following a bye only to fizzle against Washington. The one-step-forward, one-step-back routine then continued with the rout against New Orleans and this blowout loss to the Falcons.

“Two steps back,” defensive end Osi Umenyiora said, correcting a reporter. “It’s very frustrating. Obviously nothing we did worked.”

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'Hobbit' bests 'Rings' with $84.8 million opening

NEW YORK (AP) — Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" led the box office with a haul of $84.8 million, a record-setting opening better than the three previous "Lord of the Rings" films.

The Warner Bros. Middle Earth epic was the biggest December opening ever, surpassing Will Smith's "I Am Legend," which opened with $77.2 million in 2007, according to studio estimates Sunday. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" also passed the December opening of "Avatar," which opened with $77 million. Internationally, "The Hobbit" also added $138.2 million, for an impressive global debut of $223 million.

Despite weak reviews, the 3-D adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's first novel in the fantasy series was an even bigger draw than the last "Lord of the Rings" movie, "The Return of the King." That film opened with $72.6 million. "The Hobbit" is the first of another planned trilogy, with two more films to be squeezed out of Tolkien's book.

While Jackson's "Rings" movies drew many accolades — "The Return of the King" won best picture from the Academy Awards — the path for "The Hobbit" has been rockier. It received no Golden Globes nominations on Thursday, though all three "Rings" films were nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for best picture.

Particularly criticized has been the film's 48-frames-per-second (double the usual rate), a hyper-detailed look that some have found jarring. Most moviegoers didn't see "The Hobbit" in that version, though, as the new technology was rolled out in only 461 of the 4,045 theaters playing the film.

Regardless of any misgivings over "The Hobbit," the film was a hit with audiences. They graded the film with an "A'' CinemaScore.

"What's really important, what makes this special is the CinemaScore," said Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. "All these things point to a great word of mouth. We haven't even made it to the Christmas holidays yet. Kids are still in school this week."

The strong opening culminated a long journey for "The Hobbit," which was initially delayed when a lawsuit dragged on between Jackson and "Rings" producer New Line Cinema over merchandizing revenue. At one point, Guillermo del Toro was to direct the film with Jackson producing. But eventually the filmmaker opted to direct the movie himself, originally envisioning two "Hobbit" films. The production also went through the bankruptcy of distribution partner MGM and a labor dispute in New Zealand, where the film was shot.

The long delay for "The Hobbit," nearly a decade after the last "Lord of the Rings" film, made it "one of those movies that had everyone scratching their heads as to how it would open," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

"It's been a decade since the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy concluded," said Dergarabedian. "There's been so much anticipation for this film and having Peter Jackson back at the helm just made it irresistible both to fans and the non-initiated alike."

"The Hobbit" was far and away the biggest draw in theaters, with no other new wide release. Paramount's "Rise of the Guardians" continued to draw the family crowd, with $7.4 million, bringing its cumulative total to $71.4 million. The Oscar contender "Lincoln" from Walt Disney crossed the $100 million mark, adding another $7.2 million to bring its six-week total to $107.9 million. And Sony's James Bond film "Skyfall," with another $7 million domestically, drew closer to a global take of $1 billion.

The box office continued to be on the upswing and with anticipated releases like "Les Miserables," ''Django Unchained" and "The Guilt Trip" approaching in the holiday moviegoing season. Dergarabedian expects the year to break the 2009 record of $10.6 billion. With some $10.2 billion in revenue thus far, he said, "We're on track to be in that realm."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $84.8 million ($138.2 million international).

2. "Rise of the Guardians," $7.4 million ($20.1 million international).

3. "Lincoln," $7.2 million.

4. "Skyfall," $7 million ($12.2 million international).

5. "Life of Pi," $5.4 million ($11.5 million international).

6. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2," $5.2 million ($13 million international).

7. "Wreck-It Ralph," $3.3million ($4.7 million international).

8. "Playing for Keeps," $3.2 million ($1.4 million international).

9. "Red Dawn," $2.4 million.

10. "Silver Linings Playbook," $2 million ($370,000 international).

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Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $138.2 million.

2. "Rise of the Guardians," $20. 1 million.

3. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2," $13 million.

4. "Skyfall," $12.2 million.

5. "Life of Pi," $11.5 million.

6. "Wreck-It Ralph," $4.7 million.

7. "26 Years," $3.5 million.

8. "Whatcha Wearin'? (My P.S. Partner)," $3 million.

9. "Tutto Tutto Niente Niente," $2.4 million.

10. "Pitch Perfect," $2.3 million.

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Mislabeled Foods Find Their Way to Diners’ Tables

ATLANTA — The menu offered fried catfish. But Freddie Washington, a pastor in Tuscaloosa, Ala., who sometimes eats out five nights a week and was raised on Gulf Coast seafood, was served tilapia.

Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

Consumers are misled most frequently when they buy fish, investigators say, because diners have such limited knowledge about seafood. 

It was a culinary bait and switch. Mr. Washington complained. The restaurant had run out of catfish, the manager explained, and the pastor left the restaurant with a free dinner, an apology and a couple of gift certificates.

“If I’m paying for a menu item,” Mr. Washington said, “I’m expecting that menu item to be placed before me.”

The subject of deceptive restaurant menus took on new life last week when Oceana, an international organization dedicated to ocean conservation, released a report with the headline “Widespread Seafood Fraud Found in New York City.”

Using genetic testing, the group found tilapia and tilefish posing as red snapper. Farmed salmon was sold as wild. Escolar, which can also legally be called oil fish, was disguised as white tuna, which is an unofficial nickname for albacore tuna.

Every one of 16 sushi bars investigated sold the researchers mislabeled fish. In all, 39 percent of the seafood from 81 grocery stores and restaurants was not what the establishment claimed it was.

“This thing with fish is age old, it’s been going on forever,” said Anne Quatrano, an Atlanta chef who opened Bacchanalia 20 years ago and kick-started the city’s sustainable food movement. “Unless you buy whole fish, you can’t always know what you’re getting from a supplier.”

Swapping one ingredient for a less expensive one extends beyond fish and is not always the fault of the person who sells food to the restaurant. Many a pork cutlet has headed to a table disguised as veal, and many an organic salad is not.

The term organic is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, but many other identifying words on a menu are essentially marketing terms. Unscrupulous chefs can falsely claim that a steak is Kobe beef or say a chicken was humanely treated without penalty.

In cases of blatant mislabeling, a chef or supplier often takes the bet that a local or federal agency charged with stopping deceptive practices is not likely to walk in the door. “This has been going on for as long as I’ve been cooking,” said Tom Colicchio, a New York chef and television personality. “When you start really getting into this stuff, there’s so many things people mislabel.”

At Mr. Colicchio’s New York restaurants, all but about 5 percent of the meat he serves is from animals raised without antibiotics, he said. It costs him about 30 percent more, so he charges more. “Yet I have a restaurant down the street that says they have organic chicken when they don’t, and they charge less money for it,” he said. “It’s all part of mislabeling and duping the public.”

Consumers are misled most frequently when they buy fish, investigators say, because there are so many fish in the sea and such limited knowledge among diners. The Food and Drug Administration lists 519 acceptable market names for fish, but more than 1,700 species are sold, said Morgan Liscinsky, a spokesman with the agency.

Marketing thousands of species in the ocean to a dining public who often has to be coaxed to move beyond the top five — shrimp, tuna, salmon, pollock and tilapia — is not an exact science.

The line between marketing something like Patagonian toothfish as Chilean sea bass or serving langostino and calling it lobster is a fine one.

Robert DeMasco, who owns Pierless Fish, a wholesaler in New York, used a profanity to describe someone who buys farm-raised fish and sells it as wild. “But on some of this, they’re splitting hairs,” he said.

In 2005, a customer sued Rubio’s, a West Coast taco chain, for misleading the public by selling a langostino lobster burrito. The FDA ruled that practice acceptable, which allowed chains like Long John Silver’s and Red Lobster to sell the crustacean called langostino and legally attach the word lobster to it. Maine lobstermen and lawmakers fought the decision unsuccessfully.

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La Comay of ‘SuperXclusivo’ Stirs Anger Over Comments on Man’s Death

It’s been a bad few months for puppets in the media.

WAPA-TV

La Comay, left, with Hector Travieso, co-hosts of “SuperXclusivo,” a Spanish-language program shown in some United States markets.

WAPA-TV

Jose E. Ramos, president of WAPA Television, said the network tried to use La Comay to keep the officials attuned to issues.

In October, Big Bird was dragged into the presidential debate over PBS funds and in November, Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Elmo, left Sesame Street after allegations that he had sex with minors.

The latest puppet scandal involves a gossipy, big-haired crone puppet in Puerto Rico, known as La Comay, who has become one of the most controversial media figures on the island — and one of the most watched. On a recent show, the puppet commented on the murder of a 32-year-old publicist by pointing out that the victim was in an area frequented by prostitutes and wondered whether he was “asking for this.”

The reaction was swift. A Facebook page calling for a boycott of La Comay has drawn more than 72,000 signatures, and prominent advertisers like Walmart and AT&T withdrew their ads from “SuperXclusivo,” the program that features her.

The outrage was in part because of fears over a growing crime wave on the island and a reaction to La Comay, a puppet version of the television program “TMZ” with gossipy segments about celebrities, politics and crime.

La Comay (roughly translated as “the godmother”) was created by Antulio Kobbo Santarrosa, a former comedian and television personality. Since 1999 the show has been broadcast on WAPA Television, an independent Puerto Rican network owned by the private equity firm InterMedia. Before WAPA, Mr. Santarrosa had shows with similar characters on other networks including Telemundo.

“SuperXclusivo” is broadcast on the island but also on the mainland in states with large Puerto Rican populations like New York and Florida. On the hourlong show, La Comay frequently asks viewers to call her show with crime tips, which producers investigate. “We tried to use her to bring out issues that other mediums would not touch,” said Jose E. Ramos, the president of WAPA.

In the last Puerto Rican race for governor, two of the candidates visited the show the night before the election, Mr. Ramos said. “People will report incidents and things that happen on the island to La Comay instead of going to the police and going to the newspapers,” he said.

“She ensures that the police and the government cover the main issues and are on top of the issues, and she does it in a way that is very entertaining, that’s what offends some people,” Mr. Ramos said.

In an e-mail, Mr. Santarrosa said: “We respect our audience and it was never my intention to offend anyone with the information we presented, which had already been presented in other media.” The comments were similar to the ones made by La Comay on her show in the days after the controversy where she tried to apologize to the audience.

The uproar began when, on Dec. 4, “SuperXclusivo” featured a segment on the publicist José Enrique Gómez Saladín, whose disappearance had been extensively covered by local media. On Nov. 29, according to published reports, Mr. Gomez Saladín attended a meeting in San Juan and then called his wife to tell her he was on his way home.

Instead, Mr. Gomez Saladín’s body was found four days later. He had been doused with gasoline, burned and then bludgeoned to death. The case is being handled by the United States Attorney’s Office in Puerto Rico. Four people were arrested on Dec. 4 in connection with the crime. They have been charged on two counts, carjacking resulting in murder and bank fraud. A preliminary hearing is set for Wednesday. The crime, which came less than two weeks after the shooting death of the boxer Hector Camacho, rattled the island.

After the news of the murder, residents began a social media protest for peace called “Todos Somos José Enrique” (We are all José Enrique).

Details of what happened that night remain unclear, with some reports saying Mr. Gomez Saladín had been a victim of a carjacking. But in her Dec. 4 segment, La Comay raised another issue: Mr. Gomez Saladín was on Padial Street in Caguas, a town near San Juan. The street, La Comay said, is “a center of male and female prostitution.”

Couching her statements with the phrase “apparently and allegedly,” La Comay asked, “Was this man, José Enrique, asking for this?” Of the four suspects in the case she asked, “Was he friends with these people? Did he used to be a client of these people?” At the end of her remarks she called for Puerto Rico to reinstate the death penalty.

The remarks created protests against the puppet, her show and the network.

“We didn’t know that this was going to explode the way it did,” said Carlos Rivera, an unemployed I.T. specialist from Puerto Rico who created the Facebook page calling for the boycott of La Comay by advertisers and viewers.

Mr. Ramos of WAPA said the boycotts have not hurt the show’s ratings. “If anything they have increased,” he said. “People want to see what’s going on.”

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Hillary Clinton Suffers a Concussion After Fainting

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered a concussion early last week after fainting and striking her head, the State Department disclosed on Saturday.

As a result, Mrs. Clinton will not testify as scheduled on Thursday before Congressional committees investigating the September attack on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

The fainting episode occurred after Mrs. Clinton, who is being widely discussed as a possible presidential candidate in 2016, became dehydrated because of a stomach virus she contracted during a trip to Europe, according to statements released by Philippe Reines, a close adviser to Mrs. Clinton, and by her doctors.

“Secretary Clinton developed a stomach virus, leading to extreme dehydration, and subsequently fainted,” her doctors, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University, said in their statement on Saturday. “Over the course of this week we evaluated her and ultimately determined she had also sustained a concussion.”

One State Department official said Mrs. Clinton fainted when she was alone at her home in Washington but added that the concussion was not diagnosed until Thursday. He said the concussion was not severe.

Acting on the advice of her doctors, Mrs. Clinton will not go to the State Department this week but will work from home, the State Department’s statement said.

William J. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, both deputy secretaries of state, will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in place of Mrs. Clinton, according to a spokesman for the panel. They are also expected to testify before a House committee about the attack, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

Besides the Congressional hearings, the State Department is preparing for an eventful week on the Benghazi attack, which had led to considerable partisan fighting about what precipitated the attack and what arrangements were made to defend the compound.

On Monday, an independent panel that was established to investigate the attack is expected to present its report to the State Department. The panel, called an accountability review board, is led by Thomas R. Pickering, a veteran diplomat. It includes four other members, including Mike Mullen, the retired admiral who formerly served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The board is authorized by a 1986 law intended to strengthen security at United States diplomatic missions.

The State Department plans to share the report with Congress and will also provide its own recommendations on how security for diplomats can be improved. Mr. Pickering and Admiral Mullen are expected to meet with lawmakers in closed sessions on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday, Mr. Burns and Mr. Nides will testify before the Senate committee, which is led by Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is expected to succeed Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state.

Mrs. Clinton has said that she takes responsibility for the failure to successfully defend the Benghazi compound in the Sept. 11 attack. But she has never been questioned by lawmakers about how decisions were made by the Obama administration to establish the compound and protect it.

When a House oversight committee held a hearing on the Benghazi attack in October, the State Department was represented by a senior management official and a midlevel official from the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The former chief security officer for the embassy in Libya, Eric A. Nordstrom, told that panel that some of his requests for additional security were ignored. But the State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, countered that none of the steps proposed by Mr. Nordstrom would have altered the outcome in Benghazi because the embassy was based in Tripoli.

The political debate over the Benghazi attack has already claimed one victim: the ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice. Ms. Rice had been the Obama administration’s top choice to succeed Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, but last week she withdrew her name from consideration for the job because of the controversy over her initial description of the attack as a spontaneous demonstration that spun out of control.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton canceled a planned trip to Morocco, where she was expected to formally recognize a new Syrian opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. President Obama conveyed the recognition instead in an interview with ABC News.

Last week, State Department officials gave a mixed picture about the severity of Mrs. Clinton’s illness. On Wednesday, a State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, described Mrs. Clinton as having a “very uncomfortable stomach virus.”

The next day, Ms. Nuland said Mrs. Clinton was “under the weather.” Ms. Nuland did say that Mrs. Clinton’s illness had prevented her from making any calls to foreign leaders.

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Huge Wave of Google App Updates Hits iOS, Android

Google just brought iPhone and Android phone users a holiday gift. Google Maps has returned to the iPhone, this time in the form of its own separate app, while Google Currents — the company’s Flipboard-style online magazine app for Android — received a substantial update as well.

Besides the two big updates, about a half-dozen other apps for Android and Google TV received bug fixes and new features, according to Android Police blogger Ryan Whitwam. Here’s a look at what to expect, and where the rough edges still lay.

Google Maps is back

It was technically never there to begin with; the iPhone simply had a “Maps” app included, which used Google Maps’ data. But a few months ago, Apple switched from using Google’s map data to its own, which caused no end of problems as Apple’s data was incorrect much more often. These problems were sometimes hilarious, but in at least one case they were dangerous, as several motorists had to be rescued after becoming stranded inside an Australian national park (where Apple’s maps said the town they were trying to get to was).

Google Maps has also received a thumbs-down from the Victoria police in Australia, but is regarded as more reliable overall. It’s a completely new app this time, and while it has at least one “Android-ism” according to tech expert John Gruber (an Ice Cream Sandwich-style menu button), it’s reported to work well and doesn’t show ads like the YouTube app does.

It does, however, keep asking you to log in to your Google account so that it can track your location data.

Google Currents has a new look and new features

The update to digital magazine app Google Currents brings its features more in line with Google Reader, the tech giant’s online newsreader app which can monitor almost any website for updates. Like Google Reader, Currents can now “star” stories to put them in a separate list, can show which stories you’ve already read, and has a widget to put on your Android home screen. Other added features include new ways to scan editions and stories, and filter out sections you aren’t interested in.

Bugfixes and updates for other Google apps

Google Earth and Google Drive received miscellaneous bugfixes “and other improvements,” while Google Offers (a Groupon competitor) now features a “Greatly improved purchase experience.”

The Google Search app received a slew of additions to its Siri-like Google Now feature, including new cards to help while you are out and about and new voice actions (like asking it to tell you what song is playing nearby). The Field Trip augmented reality app now uses less battery life, and lets you “save cards” and favorite places you visit, as well as report incorrect data to Google. Finally, Google TV Search and PrimeTime for Google TV both received performance and stability updates.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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As Conn. story unfolds, media struggle with facts

NEW YORK (AP) — The scope and senselessness of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting challenged journalists' ability to do much more than lend, or impose, their presence on the scene.

Pressed with the awful urgency of the story, television, along with other media, fell prey to reporting "facts" that were often in conflict or wrong.

How many people were killed? Which Lanza brother was the shooter: Adam or Ryan? Was their mother, who was among the slain, a teacher at the school?

Like the rest of the news media, television outlets were faced with intense competitive pressures and an audience ravenous for details in an age when the best-available information was seldom as reliable as the networks' high-tech delivery systems.

Here was the normal gestation of an unfolding story. But with wall-to-wall cable coverage and second-by-second Twitter postings, the process of updating and correcting it was visible to every onlooker. And as facts were gathered by authorities, then shared with reporters (often on background), a seemingly higher-than-usual number of points failed to pan out:

— The number of dead was initially reported as anywhere from the high teens to nearly 30. The final count was established Friday afternoon: 20 children and six adults, as well as Lanza's mother and the shooter himself.

— For hours on Friday, the shooter was identified as Ryan Lanza, with his age alternatively reported as 24 or 20. The confusion seemed explainable when a person who had spoken with Ryan Lanza said that 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the shooter who had then killed himself, could have been carrying identification belonging to his 24-year-old sibling.

This case of mistaken identity was painfully reminiscent of the Atlanta Olympics bombing case in 1996, when authorities fingered an innocent man, and the news media ran with it, destroying his life. Such damage was averted in Ryan Lanza's case largely by his public protestations on social media, repeatedly declaring "It wasn't me."

— Initial reports differed as to whether Lanza's mother, Nancy, was shot at the school, where she was said to be a teacher, or at the home she shared with Adam Lanza. By Friday afternoon, it was determined that she had been shot at their home.

Then doubts arose about whether Nancy Lanza had any link to Sandy Hook Elementary. At least one parent said she was a substitute teacher, but by early Saturday, an official said investigators had been unable to establish any connection with the school.

That seemed to make the massacre even more confusing. Early on, the attack was said to have taken place in her own classroom and was interpreted by more than one on-air analyst as possibly a way for Adam Lanza to strike back at children with whom he felt rivalry for his mother's affection.

— At first, authorities said Lanza had used two pistols (a Glock and a Sig Sauer) in the attack and left a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle in the trunk of a vehicle. But by Saturday afternoon, the latest information was that all the victims had been shot with the rifle at close range.

— There were numerous versions of what Lanza was wearing, including camouflage attire and black paramilitary garb.

With so many unanswered questions, TV correspondents were left to set the scene and to convey the impact in words that continually failed them.

However apt, the phrase "parents' worst nightmare" became an instant cliche.

And the word "unimaginable" was used countless times. But "imagine" was exactly what the horrified audience was helpless not to do.

The screen was mostly occupied by grim or tearful faces, sparing everybody besides law enforcement officials the most chilling sight: the death scene in the school, where — as viewers were reminded over and over — the bodies remained while evidence was gathered. But who could keep from imagining it?

Ironically, perhaps the most powerful video came from 300 miles away, in Washington, where President Barack Obama delivered brief remarks about the tragedy. His somber face, the flat tone of his voice, the tears he daubed from his eyes, and his long, tormented pauses said as much as his heartfelt words. He seemed to speak for everyone who heard them.

The Associated Press was also caught in the swirl of imprecise information. When key elements of the story changed, the AP issued two advisories — one to correct that Adam Lanza, not his brother, was the gunman, and another that called into question the original report that Lanza's mother taught at the school.

But TV had hours to fill.

Children from the school were interviewed. It was a questionable decision for which the networks took heat from media critics and viewers alike. But the decision lay more in the hands of the willing parents (who were present), and there was value in hearing what these tiny witnesses had to say.

"We had to lock our doors so the animal couldn't get in," said one little boy, his words painting a haunting picture.

In the absence of hard facts, speculation was a regular fallback. Correspondents and other "experts" persisted in diagnosing the shooter, a man none of them had ever met or even heard of until hours earlier.

CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" scored an interview with a former classmate of Lanza's — with an emphasis on "former."

"I really only knew him closely when we were very, very young, in elementary school together," she said.

Determined to unlock Lanza's personality, Morgan asked the woman if she "could have ever predicted that he would one day flip and do something as monstrous as this?"

"I don't know if I could have predicted it," she replied, struggling to give Morgan what he wanted. "I mean, there was something 'off' about him."

The larger implications of the tragedy were broached throughout the coverage — not least by Obama.

"We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," he said, which may have gladdened proponents of stricter gun laws.

But CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes noted, "There's often an assumption that after a horrific event like this, it will spark a fierce debate on the issue. But in recent years, that hasn't been the case."

Appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor" Friday night, Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera voiced his own solution.

"I want an armed cop at every school," he said.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier .

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School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians

T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times

Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination. More Photos »

ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras.

Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing.

“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”

Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.

A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.

After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.

Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them.

“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.”

Ms. Eady and a few dozen other parents say a public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that.

Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga.

Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Mr. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose.

“There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said.

“The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said.

The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums.

The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community.

The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky” are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy.

Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the program, and Mr. Broyles has threatened to sue if the board does not address their concerns.

The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said.

“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.”

Ms. Eady is not convinced.

“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”

Russell Case, a representative of the Jois Foundation, said the parents’ fears were misguided.

“They’re concerned that we’re putting our God before their God,” Mr. Case said. “They’re worried about competition. But we’re much closer to them than they think. We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”

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