DealBook: As Losses Mount, R.B.S. Unveils Plan to Sell Assets

LONDON – The Royal Bank of Scotland, hammered by losses, announced plans on Thursday to sell assets and pare back its investment banking business, in an effort to appease regulators and its biggest shareholder, the British government.

R.B.S. said it planned to sell a stake in the Citizens Financial Group, the American lender it bought in 1988, through an initial public offering in two years. The bank will also continue to reduce its investment banking operations, with plans to cut risky assets and eliminate jobs.

The moves are designed to help bolster the bank’s capital levels and refocus its operations, part of a multiyear turnaround effort initiated by its chief executive, Stephen Hester. In the end, R.B.S. will emerge a much smaller bank, largely focused on Britain.

“R.B.S. is four years into its recovery plan,” Mr. Hester said in a statement, “and good progress has been made. We are a much smaller, more focused and stronger bank. Our target is for 2013 to be the last big year of restructuring.”

Like many rivals, R.B.S. is struggling with the legacy of the financial crisis and a spate of legal issues. On Thursday, it reported a bigger-than-expected loss, in part tied to its legal troubles.

The bank, in which the British government holds an 82 percent stake after a bailout in 2008, posted a net loss of £5.97 billion ($9 billion) in 2012, much larger than the £2 billion loss recorded in 2011. Analysts had been expecting a loss of £5.1 billion. For the last quarter of 2012, R.B.S. reported a £2.6 billion loss, up from a £1.8 billion loss in the period a year earlier.

The rising losses reflect the bank’s regulatory and legal problems.

R.B.S. said on Thursday that it had set aside an additional £1.1 billion to compensate clients to which it improperly sold insurance products, bringing the total provision to £2.2 billion. It also estimated it would have to pay £700 million to compensate small businesses to which it improperly sold some interest-rate hedging products.

The bank agreed this year to pay $612 million to British and American authorities to settle accusations of rate-rigging. Since then, Mr. Hester has promised to tighten controls at the bank to limit the risk of future rate manipulation.

The head of R.B.S.’s investment banking division, John Hourican, resigned at the beginning of February as a result of the scandal related to manipulating the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. The bank plans to pay its fine with money clawed back from bonuses.

‘‘Along with the rest of the banking industry we faced significant reputational challenges,’’ Mr. Hester said in the statement. ‘‘We are determined to overcome the cultural and reputational baggage of precrisis times with the same focus we have applied to the financial cleanup from that era.’’

Eager to get back some of the £45.5 billion it invested in R.B.S., the British government recently increased pressure on the bank’s management to speed up the reorganization.

Some analysts said the government could start selling parts of its investment in the bank, even at a loss, before the next general election, which is set for 2015. R.B.S.’s shares are still trading at about half what the government paid for them in 2008. Some lawmakers said they would favor handing out shares to the public instead of a possible sale of the stake on the open market.

Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said there were signs that Mr. Hester’s efforts to turn around the bank had started to pay off, but that “the ongoing absence of a dividend and overhang of the government stake are negatives which need to be resolved.”

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The Lede: Video of Pope Benedict’s Public Farewell

During his final farewell address, Pope Benedict XVI describes the joys and challenges of his papacy via CNN on YouTube.

As our colleagues, Rachel Donadio and Alan Cowell report, Pope Benedict XVI held his final general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, a day before he withdraws from the public for a cloistered life of prayer and meditation.

Before tens of thousands of people gathered in the square, the pope acknowledged the difficulties he faced during his papacy, describing “moments of joy and light but also moments that were not easy.” At times, when the “seas were rough”, he said that “the Lord seemed to sleep.”

From the full text of his address:

When, almost eight years ago, on April 19th, [2005], I agreed to take on the Petrine ministry, I held steadfast in this certainty, which has always accompanied me. In that moment, as I have already stated several times, the words that resounded in my heart were: “Lord, what do you ask of me? It a great weight that You place on my shoulders, but, if You ask me, at your word I will throw out the nets, sure that you will guide me” – and the Lord really has guided me. He has been close to me: daily could I feel His presence.

[These years] have been a stretch of the Church’s pilgrim way, which has seen moments joy and light, but also difficult moments. I have felt like St. Peter with the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee: the Lord has given us many days of sunshine and gentle breeze, days in which the catch has been abundant; [then] there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of the Church it has ever been – and the Lord seemed to sleep. Nevertheless, I always knew that the Lord is in the barque, that the barque of the Church is not mine, not ours, but His – and He shall not let her sink. It is He, who steers her: to be sure, he does so also through men of His choosing, for He desired that it be so. This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. It is for this reason, that today my heart is filled with gratitude to God, for never did He leave me or the Church without His consolation, His light, His love.

An English translation from the Vatican of Pope Benedict XVI’s last general audience before his formal resignation on Thursday.

On Twitter, the pope’s account, @Pontifex, which has more than 1.5 million followers, posted:

If only everyone could experience the joy of being Christian, being loved by God who gave his Son for us!

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) 27 Feb 13

Shortly after he announced his resignation, he asked on Twitter for people “to pray for me and for the church, trusting as always in divine providence.”

From St. Peter’s Square, people posted photographs from the crowd, including a shot of the pope arriving in the so-called popemobile, on his way to deliver his final farewell.

St. Peter’s Square completely full of people! #vatican #pope #last #speaking http://t.co/m2RBoGNDJy

— Marko Style (@MarkoStyle44) 27 Feb 13

This is how close I got to the Pope http://t.co/BfOXkddkrE

— Becca Liudzius (@becksky123) 27 Feb 13

As my colleague, Laurie Goodstein reports, the church faces, among its many challenges as cardinals gather to select a new pope, the wounds caused by sexual abuse cases involving minors all over the world that have been mishandled for years.

In St. Peter’s Square, the pope also spoke briefly in English to the crowd.

The pope spoke in English, and asked Catholics to pray for both him and the new pope.

I offer a warm and affectionate greeting to the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors who have joined me for this, my last General Audience. Like Saint Paul, whose words we heard earlier, my heart is filled with thanksgiving to God who ever watches over his Church and her growth in faith and love, and I embrace all of you with joy and gratitude. During this Year of Faith, we have been called to renew our joyful trust in the Lord’s presence in our lives and in the life of the Church. I am personally grateful for his unfailing love and guidance in the eight years since I accepted his call to serve as the Successor of Peter. I am also deeply grateful for the understanding, support and prayers of so many of you, not only here in Rome, but also throughout the world.

The decision I have made, after much prayer, is the fruit of a serene trust in God’s will and a deep love of Christ’s Church. I will continue to accompany the Church with my prayers, and I ask each of you to pray for me and for the new Pope. In union with Mary and all the saints, let us entrust ourselves in faith and hope to God, who continues to watch over our lives and to guide the journey of the Church and our world along the paths of history. I commend all of you, with great affection, to his loving care, asking him to strengthen you in the hope which opens our hearts to the fullness of life that he alone can give. To you and your families, I impart my blessing. Thank you!

The identity of the new pope will revealed from this balcony after the conclave, likely within 2 weeks. http://t.co/40Q9oWAz3f

— Eric Reguly (@ereguly) 27 Feb 13

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Penn State upsets No. 4 Michigan 84-78

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Jermaine Marshall scored 25 points and Penn State upset No. 4 Michigan 84-78 on Wednesday night for its first Big Ten win of the season.

The Nittany Lions (9-18, 1-14) had lost 18 straight regular-season conference games dating to last season, but they roared back from a 15-point deficit with 10:39 left behind the energetic play of Marshall. The junior guard scored 19 in the second half, including four 3s that whipped Jordan Center fans into a frenzy.

D.J. Newbill added 17 points for Penn State, which hit a season-high 10 3-pointers. Marshall's twisting drive to the basket gave the Nittany Lions a three-point lead before Michigan's Glenn Robinson III misfired on a 3 with 17 seconds left.

Sasa Borovnjak had a memorable Senior Night, hitting two foul shots with 15 seconds left to seal the win. Moments later, Penn State fans rushed the court in delight.

Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 19 points for the Wolverines (23-5, 10-5).

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative. M.R.I. helped pay for previous vaccination campaigns in the country and the GAVI Alliance is helping to finance the upcoming one.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the source of the vaccine and some financing for the campaign. The vaccine and financing is being provided by the GAVI Alliance, not the Measles and Rubella Initiative.

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DealBook: Court Approves Dewey Bankruptcy Plan, Officially Dissolving Firm

Nine months ago, when it filed the largest law firm bankruptcy case in United States history, Dewey & LeBoeuf effectively ceased to exist. But its carcass has languished in court, as restructuring experts handled the messy task of unwinding the firm and negotiating a plan to pay back its creditors.

On Wednesday, a federal bankruptcy judge confirmed that plan, a decision that officially dissolved Dewey, the once-venerable law firm that collapsed after financial problems led to an exodus of its partners.

“The court is very pleased,” said Judge Martin Glenn at the end of a three-hour hearing before a packed courtroom. “I want to congratulate all the professionals.”

Dewey’s liquidation plan lays out how its estate will compensate creditors, which have claims totaling about $550 million. At the heart of the proposal is an innovative arrangement under which about 450 former Dewey partners agreed to return a portion of their pay, raising about $72 million for creditors.

By accepting the deal, former Dewey partners insulate themselves from future lawsuits connected to the firm’s demise.

Al Togut, Dewey’s lead bankruptcy lawyer, who has been involved in a number of law firm bankruptcies, said that the winding down of Dewey had moved far more swiftly — and less contentiously — than previous liquidations of other large law firms.

“Here we are about to make history,” said Mr. Togut, just before Judge Glenn approved the plan. “This the diametric opposite of Finley Kumble, which took 20 years, or Shea & Gould, which took nine years, and even the modern-day Coudert Brothers case, which still isn’t done.”

Also not done is a criminal investigation into possible financial misconduct at Dewey. Steven H. Davis, the firm’s former chairman, and Stephen DiCarmine, the former executive director, are the focus of an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors recently indicated that the inquiry was still active when it raised the issue that Mr. Davis’s criminal lawyer, Barry A. Bohrer, had a conflict of interest in representing him, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The unusual situation arose earlier this month after Mr. Bohrer left his law firm, Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, for another firm, Schulte Roth & Zabel. That posed a conflict of interest, the district attorney’s office advised, because Schulte Roth represented JPMorgan Chase, a Dewey lender and possible victim, in the criminal inquiry, this person said.

Mr. Bohrer declined to comment, and Mr. Davis has previously denied any wrongdoing. Ned Bassen, a lawyer for Mr. DiCarmine, said that his client had done nothing wrong, either criminally or civilly.

While the government investigation continues, the judge’s ruling is the coda of the Chapter 11 case.

Trustees will now begin the process of returning money to Dewey’s creditors, which include the firm’s lenders Citigroup and JPMorgan, as well as a car service company and an executive recruiter. A large portion of the recovery, in addition to the former Dewey partners’ contributions, will come from collecting Dewey’s outstanding legal invoices.

The hearing lacked the drama that many participants had expected after a number of onetime Dewey partners filed protests to the plan this month. Two former Dewey partners accused Martin J. Bienenstock, the former head of Dewey’s bankruptcy practice, of devising a plan that paid him $6 million in 2010 while the pay of rank-and-file partners was deferred and ultimately was subject to being clawed back.

That objection, along with a handful of others, was withdrawn just hours before the session, allowing for a smooth confirmation hearing.

In an e-mail, Mr. Bienenstock, now a partner at the law firm Proskauer Rose, congratulated the advisers on what he called “the most successful and fastest law firm bankruptcy case.” But he criticized those who tried to block the plan.

“A small number of former partners tried to get special deals for themselves by making vicious accusations of fraud against the executive committee that structured the bankruptcy, having zero basis in fact, and predictably no wrongful conduct was proven,” Mr. Bienenstock said.

During the court session, Mr. Togut praised the former Dewey lawyers who signed on to the so-called partnership contribution plan, which he called “a template for future cases.”

The deal forced them to return a portion of their pay, in amounts based on a complex formula tied to their compensation. Those payments range from a minimum of $5,000 for retired partners to $3.5 million for the firm’s highest-paid lawyers.

“What makes this case so important is that this is the first time that such a large and diverse group of law partners accepted responsibility for their failed firm,” Mr. Togut said. “And they did it while they were still hurting, just after the firm failed, while they were trying to start their career and soothe unhappy spouses.”

Most former partners of Dewey, a firm that at its peak had nearly 1,400 lawyers across 26 offices globally, have landed on their feet. About 300 Dewey partners sought new employment as the firm failed; nearly all of them found homes at other large corporate firms. Winston & Strawn hired 23, led by the sports-industry litigator Jeffrey Kessler. Proskauer brought on 13 former Dewey partners.

Though the formal bankruptcy process has ended, the legal fallout from Dewey’s implosion is not over. In addition to the criminal investigation, several Dewey-related civil lawsuits are wending their way through the courts. One former partner has sued Citigroup, accusing the bank of conspiring with Dewey to hide the law firm’s true financial condition in the months before its collapse. A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment.

While most of the firm’s lawyers have found other employment and the bankruptcy process was declared a success, Mr. Togut on Wednesday acknowledged the sadness of Dewey’s demise.

“They say that a good settlement is where no one is happy,” Mr. Togut said. “Well, I can assure you, no one is happy.”

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U.S. Officials Propose Sharing Drone Surveillance Data With Algerian Forces

Hussein Malla/Associated Press

In a cave in Idlib Province, Free Syrian Army fighters did a traditional dance and sang songs critical of President Bashar al-Assad.

 WASHINGTON — The American ambassador to Algeria and senior counterterrorism officials have proposed sharing more information with Algerian security forces to help them kill or capture militants in their own country and in areas just across their borders.

Their approach reflects the growing support within the administration for more forceful action against extremists in the area since the attack on a gas field in eastern Algeria last month left 37 dead, including three Americans, and focused new concerns on terrorist activity in Africa.

Under one plan, information from American surveillance drones would be provided to Algerian forces to enable them to engage in operations both inside Algeria and possibly, in a limited way, across its borders. The United States is already providing surveillance information to the French-led military operation in Mali to help combat militants there who last year seized the northern half of the country.

In a cable to the State Department last week, according to administration officials, Henry S. Ensher, the United States envoy in Algiers, urged that the pursuit of the Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of the gas field attack, be made a priority. Toward that end, he recommended that the Obama administration tell the Algerians that if they allowed the United States to fly unarmed drones over the border area of Algeria as well as over Mali, the Americans would share the information with the Algerian government.

There was broad agreement among policy makers and intelligence officials at a meeting of President Obama’s top national security deputies at the White House last week that Mr. Belmokhtar and members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb should be aggressively pursued, according to one senior American official who insisted on anonymity so he could discuss internal deliberations. But no decision appears to have been reached on whether to make a formal proposal to the Algerians.

The idea of taking stronger action in the region has been supported in recent months by Michael Sheehan, the senior counterterrorism official at the Pentagon, and Daniel Benjamin, who until December was the senior State Department counterterrorism official. In the past, State Department lawyers have questioned whether the military action approved by Congress against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorized efforts to target extremists who were not clearly linked to the group. But according to some officials, those legal arguments  have recently been overcome.  

The United States has long sought Algeria’s cooperation in antiterrorism efforts, and sharing information with a government that has jealously guarded its sovereignty would be a significant step toward that goal. During the siege of the gas plant at In Amenas, Algeria permitted the United States to fly a Predator surveillance drone over the complex, though it insisted that the drone be withdrawn after the assault was over.  

Mr. Obama announced last week that about 100 American troops had arrived in Niger in West Africa, next to Mali, to set up a new drone base to conduct surveillance flights in the region.

American officials also sense a possible change of heart by Algerian officials to move away from their longstanding policy not to conduct military operations outside the nation’s borders. Algerian officials recently told the United States that they were prepared to conduct operations in border areas, one American official said.

Mr. Belmokhtar, 40 — sometimes known as “Laaouar,” or the one-eyed, after he lost an eye to shrapnel —  was deemed to be a menace long before he drew international attention for last month’s attack. As the Algerians pressed their campaign against the militants, he took refuge in Mali, where he engaged in smuggling and kidnapped foreigners for ransom, including Robert Fowler, a Canadian diplomat and United Nations special envoy who was abducted in 2008.

By the spring of 2012, northern Mali had become a gathering place for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Other militant factions in northern Mali included Ansar al-Dine, a group largely made up of members of Mali’s nomadic Tuareg minority. Its leader, Iyad ag Ghali, has been officially designated as a global terrorist, the State Department announced  Tuesday.  The growing extremist presence in Mali became an increasing concern for Mr. Ensher as well as for Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the Africa Command, and counterterrorism officials at the Pentagon and the State Department.

Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington and Adam Nossiter from Lagos, Nigeria.

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Experts: Pistorius violated basic firearms rules

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Even if Oscar Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star athlete violated basic gun-handling regulations and exposed himself to a homicide charge by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it.

Particularly jarring for firearms instructors and legal experts is that Pistorius testified that he shot at a closed toilet door, fearing but not knowing for certain that a nighttime intruder was on the other side. Instead of an intruder, Pistorius' girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was in the toilet cubicle. Struck by three of four shots that Pistorius fired from a 9 mm pistol, she died within minutes. Prosecutors charged Pistorius with premeditated murder, saying the shooting followed an argument between the two. Pistorius said it was an accident.

South Africa has stringent laws regulating the use of lethal force for self-protection. In order to get a permit to own a firearm, applicants must not only know those rules but must demonstrate proficiency with the weapon and knowledge of its safe handling, making it far tougher to legally own a gun in South Africa than many other countries where a mere background check suffices.

Pistorius took such a competency test for his 9 mm pistol and passed it, according to the South African Police Service's National Firearms Center. Pistorius' license for the 9 mm pistol was issued in September 2010. The Olympic athlete and Paralympic medalist should have known that firing blindly, instead of at a clearly identified target, violates basic gun-handling rules, firearms and legal experts said.

"You can't shoot through a closed door," said Andre Pretorius, president of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council, a regulatory body for South African firearms instructors. "People who own guns and have been through the training, they know that shooting through a door is not going to go through South African law as an accident."

"There is no situation in South Africa that allows a person to shoot at a threat that is not identified," Pretorius added. "Firing multiple shots, it makes it that much worse. ...It could have been a minor — a 15-year-old kid, a 12-year-old kid — breaking in to get food."

The Pistorius family, through Arnold Pistorius, uncle of the runner, has said it is confident that the evidence will prove that Steenkamp's death in the predawn hours of Feb. 14 was "a terrible and tragic accident."

In an affidavit to the magistrate who last Friday freed him on bail, Pistorius said he believed an intruder or intruders had gotten into his US$560,000 (€430,000) two-story house, in a guarded and gated community with walls topped by electrified fencing east of the capital, Pretoria, and were inside the toilet cubicle in his bathroom. Believing he and Steenkamp "would be in grave danger" if they came out, "I fired shots at the toilet door" with the pistol that he slept with under his bed, he testified.

Criminal law experts said that even if the prosecution fails to prove premeditated murder, firing several shots through a closed door could bring a conviction for the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide, a South African equivalent of manslaughter covering unintentional deaths through negligence.

Johannesburg attorney Martin Hood, who specializes in firearm law, said South African legislation allows gun owners to use lethal force only if they believe they are facing an immediate, serious and direct attack or threat of attack that could either be deadly or cause grievous injury.

According to Pistorius' own sworn statement read in court, he "did not meet those criteria," said Hood, who is also the spokesman for the South African Gun Owners' Association.

"If he fired through a closed door, there was no threat to him. It's as simple as that," he added. "He can't prove an attack on his life ... In my opinion, at the very least, he is guilty of culpable homicide."

The Associated Press emailed a request for comment to Vuma, a South African reputation management firm hired by the Pistorius family to handle media questions about the shooting.

The firm replied: "Due to the legal sensitivities around the matter, we cannot at this stage answer any of your questions as it might have legal implications for a case that still has to be tried in a court of law." Vuma said on Monday it referred the AP's questions to Pistorius' legal team, which by Tuesday had not replied.

Culpable homicide covers unintentional deaths ranging from accidents with no negligence, like a motorist whose brakes fail, killing another road user, "to where it verges on murder or where it almost becomes intentional," said Hood. Sentences — ranging from fines to prison — are left to courts to determine and are not set by fixed guidelines.

The tough standards for legally acquiring a gun were instituted in part because of a wave of weapons purchases after the end of racist white rule in 1994, said Rick De Caris, a former legal director in the South African police. Under South Africa's white-minority apartheid regime, gun owners often learned how to handle firearms during military service. Many of the new gun owners had little or no firearms training, which brought tragic results, De Caris said.

"People were literally shooting themselves when cleaning a firearm," said De Caris, who helped draft the Firearms Control Act of 2000.

Prospective gun owners must now take written exams that include questions on the law, have to show they can safely handle and shoot a gun and are required to hit a target the size of a glossy magazine in 10 of 10 shots from seven meters (23 feet), said Pretorius of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council.

In his affidavit, Pistorius said he wasn't wearing his prosthetic limbs "and felt extremely vulnerable" after hearing noise from the toilet.

"I grabbed my 9 mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom, I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch-dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed," he testified.

Legal experts said they are puzzled why Pistorius apparently didn't first fire a warning shot to show the supposed intruder he was armed. Also unanswered is why, after he heard noise in his bathroom that includes the toilet cubicle, Pistorius still went toward the bathroom — toward the perceived danger — rather than retreat back into his bedroom.

"He should have tried to get out of the situation," said Hood, the attorney.

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Advanced Breast Cancer May Be Rising Among Young Women, Study Finds

The incidence of advanced breast cancer among younger women, ages 25 to 39, may have increased slightly over the last three decades, according to a study released Tuesday.

But more research is needed to verify the finding, which was based on an analysis of statistics, the study’s authors said. They do not know what may have caused the apparent increase.

Some outside experts questioned whether the increase was real, and expressed concerns that the report would frighten women needlessly.

The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that advanced cases climbed to 2.9 per 100,000 younger women in 2009, from 1.53 per 100,000 women in 1976 — an increase of 1.37 cases per 100,000 women in 34 years. The totals were about 250 such cases per year in the mid-1970s, and more than 800 per year in 2009.

Though small, the increase was statistically significant, and the researchers said it was worrisome because it involved cancer that had already spread to organs like the liver or lungs by the time it was diagnosed, which greatly diminishes the odds of survival.

For now, the only advice the researchers can offer to young women is to see a doctor quickly if they notice lumps, pain or other changes in the breast, and not to assume that they cannot have breast cancer because they are young and healthy, or have no family history of the disease.

“Breast cancer can and does occur in younger women,” said Dr. Rebecca H. Johnson, the first author of the study and medical director of the adolescent and young adult oncology program at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

But Dr. Johnson noted that there is no evidence that screening helps younger women who have an average risk for the disease and no symptoms. “We’re certainly not advocating that young women get mammography at an earlier age than is generally specified,” she said.

Expert groups differ about when screening should begin; some say at age 40, others 50.

Breast cancer is not common in younger women; only 1.8 percent of all cases are diagnosed in women from 20 to 34, and 10 percent in women from 35 to 44. However, when it does occur, the disease tends to be more deadly in younger women than in older ones. Researchers are not sure why.

The researchers analyzed data from SEER, a program run by the National Cancer Institute to collect cancer statistics on 28 percent of the population of the United States. The study also used data from the past when SEER was smaller.

The study is based on information from 936,497 women who had breast cancer from 1976 to 2009. Of those, 53,502 were 25 to 39 years old, including 3,438 who had advanced breast cancer, also called metastatic or distant disease.

Younger women were the only ones in whom metastatic disease seemed to have increased, the researchers found.

Dr. Archie Bleyer, a clinical research professor in radiation medicine at the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who helped write the study, said scientists needed to verify the increase in advanced breast cancer in young women in the United States and find out whether it is occurring in other developed Western countries. “This is the first report of this kind,” he said, adding that researchers had already asked colleagues in Canada to analyze data there.

“We need this to be sure ourselves about this potentially concerning, almost alarming trend,” Dr. Bleyer said. “Then and only then are we really worried about what is the cause, because we’ve got to be sure it’s real.”

Dr. Johnson said her own experience led her to look into the statistics on the disease in young women. She had breast cancer when she was 27; she is now 44. Over the years, friends and colleagues often referred young women with the disease to her for advice.

“It just struck me how many of those people there were,” she said.

Dr. Donald A. Berry, an expert on breast cancer data and a professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas’ M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he was dubious about the finding, even though it was statistically significant, because the size of the apparent increase was so small — 1.37 cases per 100,000 women, over the course of 30 years.

More screening and more precise tests to identify the stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis might account for the increase, he said.

“Not many women aged 25 to 39 get screened, but some do, but it only takes a few to account for a notable increase from one in 100,000,” Dr. Berry said.

Dr. Silvia C. Formenti, a breast cancer expert and the chairwoman of radiation oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center, questioned the study in part because although it found an increased incidence of advanced disease, it did not find the accompanying increase in deaths that would be expected.

A spokeswoman for an advocacy group for young women with breast cancer, Young Survival Coalition, said the organization also wondered whether improved diagnostic and staging tests might explain all or part of the increase.

“We’re looking at this data with caution,” said the spokeswoman, Michelle Esser. “We don’t want to invite panic or alarm.”

She said it was important to note that the findings applied only to women who had metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, and did not imply that women who already had early-stage cancer faced an increased risk of advanced disease.

Dr. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld
, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said he and an epidemiologist for the society thought the increase was real.

“We want to make sure this is not oversold or that people suddenly get very frightened that we have a huge problem,” Dr. Lichtenfeld said. “We don’t. But we are concerned that over time, we might have a more serious problem than we have today.”

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BP Executive Testifies That Rig Explosion Was Known Risk

NEW ORLEANS — On the first day of testimony in the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill trial, BP’s top executive for North American operations at the time of the disaster acknowledged on Tuesday that a well explosion had been identified as a risk before it happened.

“There was a risk identified for a blowout,” said Lamar McKay, the former president of BP America and current chief executive in charge of global upstream operations. “The blowout was an identified risk, and it was a big risk, yes.”

Robert Cunningham, a lawyer for private plaintiffs, tried to pin down Mr. McKay on BP’s responsibility for the 2010 disaster that killed 11 workers and dumped millions of barrels of oil into the gulf. Mr. Cunningham suggested that the British company’s cost-cutting and risk-taking culture were at the heart of the explosion and spill. He pressed Mr. McKay on the fact that a BP report on the accident held contractors responsible, but did not cite management failures.

Mr. McKay repeatedly responded that BP was responsible for designing the well, but that the rig, cement and other contractors shared responsibility for safety on the drilling operations.

“It’s a team effort,” he said. “It’s a shared responsibility to manage the safety and risk.”

Mr. McKay testified for more than an hour at the end of the day and will continue on Wednesday. He told the court that there were risks involved with drilling both in deep waters and in shallow waters, but that a blowout could be more difficult to control, and therefore more damaging, in deep waters. There was little, if anything, in his comments that diverged from what BP executives have said in the past.

After the April 2010 spill, internal BP documents showed that the company had struggled with a loss of “well control” in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig. And for months before that, it had been concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster.

On June 22, 2009, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.

“This would certainly be a worst-case scenario,” Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. “However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur.”

Early in his testimony, Mr. McKay shifted and appeared uncomfortable on the witness stand. He acknowledged that he had never read a textbook on safety system engineering before or after the accident, or a safety report written by a BP consultant who testified earlier in the day.

Mr. McKay was the second witness to appear in a multiphase trial that will determine who was responsible for the accident, whether they were grossly negligent and how much oil was spilled. He followed Robert Bea, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and former safety systems consultant for BP, who largely blamed the company’s culture for the accident.

“It’s a culture of every dollar counts,” Dr. Bea said. “It’s a classic failure of management and leadership.”

The Federal District Court trial in New Orleans is bundling suits brought by the Justice Department, state governments, private businesses and individual claimants against BP and several of its contractors. Decisions on culpability and damages could be a year or more away, but they are likely to have profound effects on environmental law and on the viability of BP as a major oil company with global ambitions.

Under the Clean Water Act, fines against BP could range from $1,100 for every barrel spilled through simple negligence to as much as $4,300 a barrel if the company were found to have been grossly negligent. The federal government has estimated that about four million barrels of oil were spilled, meaning liabilities of as much as $4.4 billion to $17.2 billion. BP has claimed that the amount spilled was at most 3.1 million barrels.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 26, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated Lamar McKay’s title when he headed BP America. He was president, not chief executive. Because of an editing error, the article also misstated the federal government’s estimate of the number of barrels spilled. It is about four million barrels, meaning a liability range of $4.4 billion to $17.2 billion, not 4.9 million barrels and a liability range of $5.4 billion to $21 billion.

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Little Clarity in Italian Vote, Aside from Anger

Italians Head to the Polls:
Italians voted Sunday and Monday in a general election that is being closely watched to see whether a clear winner will emerge.

ROME — Italian voters delivered a rousing anti-austerity message and a strong rebuke to the existing political order in national elections on Monday, plunging the country into political paralysis after results failed to produce a clear winner.

Analysts said that the best-case scenario would be shaky coalition government, which would once again expose Italy and the euro zone to turmoil if markets question its commitment to measures that have kept the budget deficit within a tolerable 3 percent of gross domestic product. News of the stalemate sent tremors through the financial world, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 200 points.

Although analysts blamed the large protest vote on Italy’s political morass and troubled electoral system, the results were also seen as a rejection of the rapid deficit-reduction strategy set by the European Commission and European Central Bank — from a country too big to fail and too big to bail out.

“No doubt Italy has an imperfect political culture, but this election I think is the logical consequence of pursuing policies that have dramatically worsened the economic and social picture in Italy,” said Simon Tilford, the chief economist of the Center for European Reform, a London research institute.

“People have been warning that if they adhere to this policy there will be a political cost, there will be backlash,” he added. “It couldn’t have taken place in a more pivotal country.”

In an election marked by voter anger and low turnout, the center-left Democratic Party appeared to be leading in the Lower House with 29.6 percent, with 99 percent of the votes counted, and in the Senate with one-third of the votes counted by midnight local time.

But that outcome did not give the Democrats a clear victory because the center-right People of Liberty Party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was leading in several populous regions that carry more Senate seats, potentially giving him veto power and raising the prospect of political gridlock.

 Even before the final result, the election was a clear victory for the Five Star Movement of the former comedian Beppe Grillo, which in its first-ever national elections appeared to win about 25 percent of the vote in the Lower House. Italians from both right and left — and the wealthier north and poorer south — were drawn to Mr. Grillo’s opposition to austerity measures and cries to oust the existing political order.

And it was a stinging defeat for the caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, a newly minted politician whose lackluster civic movement appeared to win around 10 percent in both houses. “Grillo had a devastating success; the rest of the situation is very unclear,” said Stefano Folli, a political columnist for the daily business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

Either the Democratic Party and the People of Liberty Party “will form a grand coalition committed to reforms and changing the electoral law, which would be very difficult, or Italy will be ungovernable,” Mr. Folli added.

Mr. Monti’s caretaker government remains in place with full powers until a new government is formed. Appearing on television on Monday evening, Mr. Monti said he felt “tremendous regret” that during his tenure the political parties were not able to change Italy’s electoral law so as to guarantee more political stability. “It is a great responsibility of the political forces, and one of the reasons for the disaffection and distance from and the revindication of the political class,” he added.

Under Italy’s complex electoral laws, it is extremely hard for any one party to gain a strong ruling majority needed to manage an economy with rising unemployment and a credit crunch, let alone push through structural changes to the ossified economy. Instead, the parties have resisted change to protect their own power bases. 

The results of this election would appear to represent new depths of gridlock, and few experts expected any party to form a governing coalition strong enough to prevail for long. Nicolas Véron, an economist and a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based research institute, said that regardless of who ultimately controls the levers of government, “The key question is whether we can have serious structural reform.”

Italy “was a work in progress before the elections,” Mr. Véron added, “and I think investors understand that it will remain a work in progress for some time.”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting from Rome, and Nicola Clark from Paris.

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