North Korea Launches Rocket, Defying Likely Sanctions

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea defied the likelihood of more sanctions by the United Nations Security Council to launch a rocket on Wednesday, demonstrating that the government of its new leader, Kim Jong-un, was pressing ahead to master the technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Unha-3, or Galaxy-3, rocket blasted off from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri on North Korea’s western coast near China on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry said.

“That’s all we can confirm right now,” the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity until his government made an official announcement.

It was not immediately known whether the rocket has succeeded in fulfilling North Korea’s stated goal of putting a satellite into orbit.

North Korea has said its three-stage rocket would carry an earth-observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong-3, or Shining Star-3, and that it was exercising its right to peaceful activity in space.

But Washington and its allies have said they think that North Korea’s rocket program has less to do with putting a satellite into orbit than with developing a delivery vehicle for a nuclear warhead and trying to turn the country into a more urgent threat that Washington must deal with by offering diplomatic and economic concessions.

While North Korea may still have other technological thresholds to cross, like the miniaturizing of its nuclear weapons, a successful launching of a satellite into orbit would suggest that the country had overcome a major hurdle in its efforts to demonstrate its potential of mating its growing nuclear weapons program with intercontinental ballistic missile capability.

A failure would be an embarrassment for the young Mr. Kim, who has been struggling to establish himself a new North Korean leader hailed at home and feared abroad. Whether the launching was successful or not, Mr. Kim, by attempting a second rocket launching in the first year of his rule despite international condemnations, was dashing hopes among some analysts that he might soften North Korea’s confrontational stance. Instead, he was seen as intent on bolstering his father’s main legacy of nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs to justify his own hereditary rule.

Only Monday, it told the rest of the world that it had found a technical glitch with its rocket and needed until Dec. 29 to fix the problem and carry out the launch. . Outside analysts have been speculating what might be going on behind the dark cover North Korean engineers had put up around the launching pad to prevent United States spy satellites from watching.

“A successful test would raise as a top-line national security issue for the Obama administration the specter of a direct North Korean threat to the U.S. homeland,” Victor D. Cha and Ellen Kim wrote in a recent analysis posted on the Web site of the Center For Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Kim hardly needed another failure. The North’s first rocket launched since he took over following the death of his father a year ago broke apart shortly after blast-off in April, forcing his regime to admit to the failure in front of the foreign journalists it had invited to watch the test. This time, North Korea did not invite foreign journalists. Nor did the government announce the launching plan to its domestic audience. South Korean officials said this suggested that the regime intended to cover it up if the satellite launching failed or declare the launching a success regardless of the outcome, as it had before.

The missile capabilities of a country as opaque as North Korea are notoriously hard to assess. United States and South Korean officials have said that all of the North’s four multiple-stage rockets previously launched have exploded in mid-air or failed in their stated goal of thrusting a satellite into orbit. Still, then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in early 2011 that North Korea was within five years of being able to strike the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Wednesday’s unusual winter-time rocket launching came five days before the one-year anniversary of the death of the Mr. Kim’s father, Kim, Jong-il, on Dec. 17, which his son tried to mark with a fanfare aimed at showcasing his dynasty’s achievement in empowering the small and impoverished nation.

It also came a week before its rival, South Korea, was scheduled to elect its new president on Dec. 19.

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California PUC Finalizing Free Cell Phone Service for the Poor

As noted by KGO, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) intends to approve a free lifeline cell phone plan that benefits California‘s poor and homeless residents. Funding for initial setup will come from the federal government.

What are the initial details of the plan?

Qualifying Californians pay an initial $ 20 fee to sign up for a monthly cell coverage plan. It offers 250 free minutes as well as 250 free text messages. From then on, the minutes and message count refill every month as long as the participant qualifies for the program. Assured Wireless — the name of the plan devised by Virgin Mobile, KERN Radio notes — has proposed this coverage to the CPUC.

Unlike the landline lifeline service, which only reduces a phone bill, this cell phone service is actually free of charge for participants. The company notes that plan participants can pay extra for international calling and for the purchase of additional minutes. The phone is free and network service is provided by Sprint. It is not known at this time if paying cell phone service customers will be charged a surcharge or fee to fund the program.

Who benefits from the free cell phone service?

The Coalition on Homelessness notes that those living on the streets will see an immediate benefit. “It’s so huge if you’re living outside you can dial 9-1-1 in the middle of the night; if you need to get in touch with your loved ones, you have a phone, if you’re trying to get in touch with a potential employer,” the Coalition on Homelessness’ Jennifer Friedenbach explained. Low-income wage earners, too, benefit since they no longer have to take money from other budget line items to afford a cell phone.

What is the wage income maximum for a qualifying program participant?

Participants cannot earn more than about $ 15,000 per year to qualify for the free cell phone program.

Is this type of program new?

This is not a new program. There are already 36 states that offer cell phone lifeline programs. The California PUC has thus far been unwilling to approve the program for the State of California.

Why does California need free cell phone service in the first place?

Although the State of California does participate in the federal lifeline landline service via local phone service providers, the number of landlines in service has decreased by 43 percent since 2000. On the flipside, the number of cell phones in use has increased by 123 percent.

What do critics say?

As noted by KERN, there is a question of taxpayer and cell phone customer cost. In other states, Sprint contributes to the program. It then has the option of charging its paying customers a fee that funds the program.

What do proponents say?

As noted by 4-Traders, Assurance Wireless has crunched the numbers for the entire nation and purports, “If all 28.5 million adults eligible for Lifeline Assistance were to take advantage of the program and earn at the same rate and level as [the study] sample, it would result in $ 3.7 billion in fresh income for the poor and near poor.”

What happens next?

As noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, the CPUC has already approved the Golden State’s participation in the program. It now needs to work out the details of Assurance Wireless’ promotional programs to advertise the free cell phone service. Program finalization is tentatively set for two weeks from now.

Sylvia Cochran is a Los Angeles area resident with a firm finger on the pulse of California politics. Talk radio junkie, community volunteer and politically independent, she scrutinizes the good and the bad from both sides of the political aisle.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Saints' suspensions tossed out in bounty case

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tagliabue cleared Fujita of conduct detrimental to the league.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smith said he was pleased that Tagliabue vacated his suspension.

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

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

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

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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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DealBook: HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Money Laundering Charges

Federal and state authorities announced on Tuesday that they had secured a record $1.92 billion payment from HSBC to settle charges that the British banking giant transferred billions of dollars for sanctioned nations, facilitated Mexican drug cartels to launder tainted money and worked with Saudi Arabian banks with ties to terrorist organizations.

The case, a major victory for the government, represents the conclusion of a multi-agency investigation. It convened the Justice Department, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, bank regulators and the Treasury Department.

In a filing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, federal prosecutors said the bank had agreed to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement and to forfeit $1.26 billion. The four-count criminal information filed in the court charged HSBC with failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, failure to conduct due diligence on its foreign correspondent affiliates and violating sanctions and the Trading With the Enemy Act.

“HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures of oversight – and worse – that led the bank to permit narcotics traffickers and others to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through HSBC subsidiaries, and to facilitate hundreds of millions more in transactions with sanctioned countries, ” Lanny A. Breuer, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement.

At a news conference in Brooklyn, Mr. Breuer defended the decision to not indict the bank, calling the action “a very just, very real and very powerful result.”

The deal, which required the bank to admit to the accusations, lasts for five years. If the bank violates the terms of the agreement, prosecutors can move to indict the bank.

In addition to forfeiting the $1.26 billion, HSBC agreed to pay the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced $500 million as part of a civil penalty against the bank, while the Federal Reserve assessed a $165 million civil penalty.

HSBC also entered in a deferred prosecution agreement with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, admitting that it violated New York State law by falsifying the records of New York financial institutions.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said in a statement: “New York is a center of international finance, and those who use our banks as a vehicle for international crime will not be tolerated.”

In a statement, Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive of HSBC, said: “We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes.”

The turmoil at HSBC is playing out amid a broad crackdown on foreign by federal and state authorities to stanch the flow of illegal money across the world. The officials have been working to clamp down the financing pipeline to cartels and terrorist organizations.

For the most part, though, the investigations have centered on so-called sanctions violations. In June, the ING Group reached a $619 million settlement with government authorities to resolve accusations that it had moved billions of dollars through its United States subsidiaries for rogue nations like Iran.

In the latest action, federal and state authorities reached a $327 million agreement with another British bank, Standard Chartered, on Monday. The bank admitted to processing thousands of transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Iranian and Sudanese clients.

Beyond the sanctions violations at HSBC, prosecutors unearthed evidence that the bank enabled Mexican drug cartels to launder money into the American financial system.

Problems for HSBC mounted in July when the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused the bank of exposing the United States “financial system to money laundering and terrorist financing risks.”

At the upper echelons of the organization, the Senate report found, some bank executives had ignored warning signs and permitted the illegal behavior to continue unabated from 2001 to 2010.

The original problems began when agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement spotted questionable trails of money between HSBC’s Mexican and United States operations.

Despite a chorus of warnings from federal banking regulators about the vulnerability of HSBC’s operations throughout the world, the bank didn’t fortify its controls, the Senate report found.

One of HSBC’s branches in the Cayman Islands, the Senate report said, had virtually no oversight despite holding roughly 50,000 client accounts.

Alarmed, a compliance officer complained, Senate investigators found, and asked whether practices at the bank were part of “the School of Low Expectations Banking.”

Particularly concerning to prosecutors was the seeming complicity of senior bank executives, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.

For example, an HSBC executive rallied for the firm to continue dealings with Al Rajhi Bank of Saudi Arabia, even though some of the owners of the firm had substantive links to the financing of terrorism, according to the report.

HSBC’s Mexican operations moved at least $7 billion from 2007 to 2009 into the United States. Such a large volume of money, law enforcement authorities warned, had to include “drug proceeds.”

In July at the Congressional hearings, HSBC executives vowed to reform. As part of that, David Bagley, who served as head of compliance at the British bank since 2002, announced his resignation during the hearings.

HSBC has since on a hiring spree, fortifying its ranks with seasoned executives. On Tuesday, prosecutors praised those efforts, noting that the bank cooperated with the investigation

HSBC brought in Stuart A. Levey as chief legal officer in January. Mr. Levey, a former under secretary at the Treasury Department who focused on terrorism and financial intelligence, has been working out new internal standards that span the company for monitoring and policing the movement of money. In August, the bank hired Robert Werner, who formerly oversaw the group at the Treasury Department that enforces sanctions. In its latest move to improve controls, HSBC promoted Mr. Warner on Tuesday to oversee a special unit dedicated to anti-money laundering.

William Alden and Ben Protess contributed reporting.

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Morsi Spokesman Tries to Clarify Military Order

Petr David Josek/Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo.

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Mild sprain has Redskins' RG3 uncertain for Sunday

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

Beyond that, there are still some very important unknowns.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mobile Apps for Children Fall Short on Disclosure to Parents, F.T.C. Report Says

Several hundred of the most popular educational and gaming mobile apps for children fail to give parents basic explanations about what kinds of personal information the apps collect from children, who can see that data and what they use it for, a new federal report says.

The apps often transmit the phone number, precise location or unique serial code of a mobile device to app developers, advertising networks or other companies, according to the report by the Federal Trade Commission, released Monday. Regulators said such information could be used to find or contact children or track their activities across different apps without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

The agency reviewed 400 of the most popular children’s apps available on Google and Apple platforms, and reported that only 20 percent disclosed their data collection practices.

“The survey results described in this report paint a disappointing picture of the privacy protections provided by apps for children,” the report said.

Regulators said they were investigating whether the practices of certain apps violated a federal law requiring Web site operators to get parents’ permission before collecting or sharing names, phone numbers, addresses or other personal information obtained from children under 13.

The report comes as the agency is preparing to strengthen those protections by requiring site operators to obtain parental consent before collecting many other kinds of personal information from children.

But over the last few months, the agency’s efforts have met with pushback from Apple, Facebook, Google and Viacom as well as from technology associations and marketing industry groups, who say the agency’s proposed solution is so broad that it could inhibit companies from offering sites, apps and other services for children.

In its report, the agency did not disclose the names of apps it found problems with.

“We think this is a systematic problem,” said Jessica Rich, the associate director of the F.T.C.’s division of financial practices, adding that parents should not think “if they avoid certain apps, they are home free.”

Representatives of the app industry said they had already been working with app developers to make disclosures about data collection clearer and simpler for consumers. But “the F.T.C. report is a reminder that there is more work to do,” said Jon Potter, the president of the Application Developers Alliance, an industry group.

The agency’s researchers also reported that most apps failed to tell parents when they involved interactive features like advertising, social network sharing or allowing children to make purchases for virtual goods within the app.

For instance, researchers found that 58 percent of the children’s apps contained ads, even though just 15 percent disclosed this before download. Moreover, of the 24 apps that stated they did not contain in-app advertising, 10 did contain ads, the report said.

Children’s advocates said the report’s findings reinforced the need to strengthen online privacy protections for children. The agency has not substantially revised its regulations based on the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or Coppa, since the law’s introduction more than a decade ago.

“This makes the case as to why we need major revisions,” said James Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy and education group in San Francisco that focuses on children and technology. “It shows that parents don’t have enough information to make good choices.”

The timing of the report suggests that the agency is trying to lay the groundwork for its push for broader children’s online privacy protections. In interviews, agency officials have said the protections needed to be modernized to keep pace with developments in mobile apps, voice recognition, facial recognition and comprehensive online data collection by marketers.

For example, regulators have proposed a longer list of data about children that would require parental consent for Web site operators to collect, including photos, voice recordings and unique mobile device serial numbers. Agency officials have also emphasized that they considered the precise location of a mobile device to be personal information whose collection required parental permission.

If the agency includes these changes in the final version of its updated regulations, apps would need to get parental consent for a number of data collection practices that are in widespread use.

For example, agency researchers reported that almost 60 percent of the children’s apps in the study transmitted a device’s ID number, most commonly to an advertising network or another third party. But only 20 percent of the apps disclosed information about these kinds of practices. Regulators said their concern was that marketers or other entities could use these unique device numbers to follow individual children across multiple apps over time, compiling detailed dossiers on their activities.

“The transmission of kids’ information to third parties that are invisible and unknown to parents raises concerns,” the report said.

Although state and federal regulators, along with industry groups, have been working to improve disclosures for consumers about how mobile apps collect and use their data, progress has been incremental.

Kamala D. Harris, the attorney general of California, signed an agreement this year with seven leading app platforms to make sure apps available through their stores displayed privacy policies. She also recently sent letters to 100 companies whose apps, she said, did not comply with a California law requiring them to post privacy policies.

Last week, Ms. Harris’s office sued Delta Air Lines for not warning users of its Fly Delta app that it collected personal information like a user’s full name, phone number, e-mail address, photographs and location.

App industry associations have also been working to improve transparency for consumers and parents. For instance, the Application Developers Alliance, in a joint project with the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups, has created prototype disclosure notices that apps could voluntarily display before consumers download them.

“I think the app industry continues to work with our members, companies and consumer groups to identify and eventually implement more effective ways of communicating with consumers,” said Mr. Potter, the president of the app developers’ group.

Ms. Rich of the Federal Trade Commission said she hoped the agency’s report would “light a fire” under such efforts. She added that the agency intended to conduct studies regularly on the children’s app market and publicly report its findings.

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Morsi’s Concessions Fail to Quiet Egyptian Opponents

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptian Republican guards stood in front of a barrier near the presidential palace in Cairo, as protesters demonstrated against President Morsi on Sunday.

CAIRO — The political crisis over Egypt’s draft constitution hardened on both sides on Sunday, as President Mohamed Morsi prepared to deploy the army to safeguard balloting in a planned referendum on the new charter and his opponents called for more protests and a boycott to undermine the vote.

Thousands of demonstrators streamed toward the presidential palace for a fifth night of protests against Mr. Morsi and the proposed charter, and the president, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, formally issued an order asking the military to protect such “vital institutions” and to secure the vote.

With the decision to boycott the referendum, the opposition signaled that it had given up hope that it could defeat the draft charter at the polls, and had opted instead to try to undermine the referendum’s legitimacy.

The call for new protests — with major demonstrations expected at the presidential palace again on Tuesday and Friday — ensures that questions about Egypt’s national unity and stability will continue to overshadow debate about the specific contents of the charter. Opponents say the proposed constitution, rushed through an assembly dominated by Islamist allies of the president, fails to adequately protect individual and minority rights and opens the door to greater religious influence over the state.

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have poured into the streets to oppose the charter, crowds have attacked 28 Muslim Brotherhood offices and the group’s headquarters, and at least seven people have died in clashes between Islamist and secular political factions.

The opposition “rejects lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division,” said Sameh Ashour, a spokesman for a coalition that calls itself the National Salvation Front. Holding a referendum “in a state of seething and chaos,” Mr. Ashour said, amounted to “a reckless and flagrant absence of responsibility, risking driving the country into violent confrontations that endanger its national security.”

Whether to ask voters to vote no or to stay home has been the subject of heated debate in opposition circles in the week since Mr. Morsi announced the referendum, to be held on Saturday.

Now the question is whether opponents can translate the energy of the protests against the charter into more votes and seats in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place two months after the referendum.

Both sides acknowledge that President Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has hurt himself and his party politically with the act that first touched off the protests: a decree giving himself authoritarian powers and putting his decisions above the reach of judicial review until the new charter is passed. He suffered even more, they say, when the backlash against the decree and the new constitution led to a night of clashes between his Islamists supporters and their more secular opponents that left at least six dead and hundreds more injured.

Mr. Morsi surprised his critics after midnight on Sunday by withdrawing almost all the provisions of his decree, a step he said he took on the recommendation of about 40 politicians and thinkers he convened on Saturday for a “national dialogue” meant to resolve the crisis. Leading opposition figures were invited to take part, but nearly all declined; according to a list broadcast on state television, most of the attendees were Islamists of various stripes, and the only prominent secular politician on hand was the former presidential candidate Ayman Nour.

A spokesman for the group said at an authorized news conference that, Mr. Morsi was issuing a new, more limited decree that would give immunity from judicial scrutiny only to “constitutional declarations,” a narrow if hazily defined category of actions. His actions under the previous decree would also be protected, including dismissal of the public prosecutor appointed under Hosni Mubarak.

Through the spokesman for the “national dialogue” group, Mohamed Salim el-Awa, Mr. Morsi even signaled a willingness to allow his opponents and allies to negotiate a package of amendments to the constitution that all sides would agree to enact once the draft is approved.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from New York.

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