Texas Monthly: Sign Language Interpreters Bring Live Music to the Deaf

On the last night of the 2012 Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, the sun set over a crowd of thousands who had stood for hours waiting to see Jack White, the headliner. A figure strode onto the stage, setting off a cascade of cheers.

But it was not Jack White, the singer-guitarist, it was Barbie Parker, the festival’s lead sign language interpreter.

Ms. Parker, a Texas native, and members of her Austin-based company, LotuSIGN, had interpreted more than 20 bands’ sets for deaf and hard of hearing festival attendees that weekend. As evidenced by the positive reception she received, her interpretations had won over a good part of the hearing audience as well.

At live music shows, Ms. Parker, 45, does not just sign lyrics — she communicates the entire musical experience. She mouths the words. She plays air guitar and air drums. She jams along with the bands.

“Music is such a large part of who I am,” she said. “I want to be able to open up that experience.”

Ms. Parker was bored in her accounting job and had two young children when she enrolled in her first formal American Sign Language class at San Antonio College about 20 years ago. She became fascinated with interpretation after reading a book about it at her local library and, in a chance encounter just hours after reading it, met the sister of a friend who happened to be an American Sign Language interpreter.

Ms. Parker is now an integral part of Austin’s deaf community. Her two adult sons are proficient in A.S.L., and her company has provided sign language interpretation at music festivals across the country for several years. Next week, she and other LotuSIGN interpreters will take the stage with artists at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin for the sixth year in a row.

The number of deaf and hard of hearing music fans taking advantage of interpretation at free shows held at Auditorium Shores as part of SXSW has risen noticeably in the past few years, Frank Schaefer, the officer manager for the festival, said in an e-mail. The increase can be attributed, at least in part, to a growing number of interpreters who specialize in that kind of work.

A good interpreter is adept at signing, but Ms. Parker also wants her team to impart the emotions and feelings music conveys. Lauren Kinast, 44, who lost her hearing gradually, attended a Rolling Stones concert signed by LotuSIGN interpreters. Ms. Kinast had listened to the Stones growing up, but when she saw Ms. Parker and a colleague interpret their music, she came away with a greater appreciation of the band.

“Everything made it different, better,” Ms. Kinast typed in an interview. “Having the songs interpreted in my language, understanding the emotions behind it, the meaning behind it, and being a part of the concert experience just took my love for them several notches up.”

Ms. Parker first gained recognition in the mid-2000s for interpreting music at the funeral of the parent of a well-known member of the deaf community in Austin. At one point during the service, she needed to sign an emotional musical performance.

“The singer got inspired, so the interpreting had to get inspired,” Ms. Parker said. The signing seemed to further stir the singer, which further moved Ms. Parker. “There was a kind of reverb,” she said. “The deaf audience was just — I just saw these jaws drop open like, ‘Oh, that’s what it’s like.’ ”

After that, she began receiving requests to interpret at weddings, children’s recitals and, of course, live shows. In 2007, she started her own company, Alive Performance Interpreting, which in 2009 became LotuSIGN.

“They’re five-star interpreters,” said Stacy Landry, the program manager for the local government’s deaf and hard of hearing services in Travis County. (Ms. Parker has obvious clout in the field — her traditional interpreting services were used in January when she intepreted President Obama’s Inaugural Address in Washington.)

LotuSIGN interpreters specialize in analyzing lyrics for the artist’s intent in a song. But sign language interpretation, no matter where it takes place, is about more than translating words into gestures and signs. The interpreter must communicate an overall experience by expressing the speaker’s tone, the meaning behind phrases and idioms, and even if someone’s cellphone interrupts an otherwise-silent lecture hall.

One year, Ms. Parker interpreted at a Sheryl Crow concert held to celebrate of one of Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France titles. He was asked to take over on the drums for one of Ms. Crow’s songs.

“Well,” Ms. Parker said, “he wasn’t any good.”

Ms. Parker let the discomfort show on her face as she imitated Mr. Armstrong’s uneven drumming. She nodded subtly to assure perplexed members of the deaf audience that she was indeed doing this on purpose.

As the audience reacted, Ms. Parker saw a deaf man elbow the hearing man next to him and cringe. The hearing man nodded and made a similar pained face.

“They had this shared experience,” Ms. Parker said. The deaf man was truly part of the crowd.

LotuSIGN is working to mentor others in the hope of expanding access to live events. “You can’t do it without a lot of experience,” Ms. Parker said. “It is the hardest work I have ever done.”

Kathryn Jepsen is the deputy editor of Symmetry magazine.

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Varied Views of a Border

In some spots along the Mexican-American border, a well-fortified fence extends as far as the eye can see, while in others a wall ends abruptly in the ocean. Beyond these images of the United States’ southern border, we are interested in your photos.

An aerial view of the border fence in Tijuana, Mexico, where it meets the Pacific Ocean.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

An aerial view of a Border Patrol vehicle along a section of the border wall south of Mission, Tex., near the Rio Grande. In this case engineers built the wall along an existing levee in the floodplain just north of the river.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

An aerial view of the Rio Grande, which snakes its way through the Rio Grande Valley. Many do not understand the difficulty of building fences or monitoring thick brushland along the river. It is also complicated to block American farmers from accessing the river, which irrigates crops in this agricultural region.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

The rusted old border wall separates Tijuana, Mexico, right, and a Border Patrol-controlled buffer zone, left. Once high volumes of drug trafficking in this impoverished area have diminished significantly.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

The Border Patrol installed an iron fence to keep drug smugglers from using their roads to move drugs. This is an area south of Mission, Tex., where the river is quite narrow and easy to cross or float drugs across.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

A border fence ends in the rugged terrain in East Tijuana. This photograph was taken in the mountains east of San Diego.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

Migrants hoping to arrive in California by boat are traveling more and more northward to elude border patrol. Torrey Pines State Beach (pictured) is more than 30 miles from the border but was once a popular location because of its proximity to the road.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

A woman makes her way back to Mexico at the Nogales Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz.
Joshua Lott for The New York Times.

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In Filing, Casino Operator Admits Likely Violation of an Antibribery Law

 In its annual regulatory report published by the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

 The disclosure comes amid an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the company’s business activities in China.

 It is the company’s first public acknowledgment of possible wrongdoing. Ron Reese, a spokesman for the Sands, declined to comment further.

The company’s activities in mainland China, including an attempt to set up a trade center in Beijing and create a sponsored basketball team, as well as tens of millions of dollars in payments the Sands made through a Chinese intermediary, had become a focus of the federal investigation, according to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in August.

 In its filing, the Sands said that it did not believe the findings would have material impact on its financial statements, or that they warranted revisions in its past statements. The company said that it was too early to determine whether the investigation would result in any losses. “The company is cooperating with all investigations,” the statement said.

 The Sands’ activities in China came under the scrutiny of federal investigators after 2010, when Steven C. Jacobs, the former president of the company’s operations in Macau, filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in which he charged that he had been pressured to exercise improper leverage against government officials. He also accused the company of turning a blind eye toward Chinese organized crime figures operating in its casinos.

 Mr. Adelson began his push into China over a decade ago, after the authorities began offering a limited number of gambling licenses in Macau, a semiautonomous archipelago in the Pearl River Delta that is the only place in the country where casino gambling is legal.

 But as with many lucrative business spheres in China, the gambling industry on Macau is laced with corruption. Companies must rely on the good will of Chinese officials to secure licenses and contracts. Officials control even the flow of visitors, many of whom come on government-run junkets from the mainland.

 As he maneuvered to enter Macau’s gambling market, Mr. Adelson, who is well known in the United States for his financial and political clout, became enmeshed in often intertwining political and business dealings. At one point he reportedly intervened on behalf of the Chinese government to help stall a House resolution condemning the country’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics on the basis of its human rights record.

 In 2004, he opened his first casino there, the Sands Macau, the enclave’s first foreign owned gambling establishment. This was followed by his $2.4 billion Venetian in 2007.

 Some Sands subsidiaries have also come under investigation by Chinese authorities for violations that included using money for business purposes not reported to the authorities, resulting in fines of over a million dollars.

 Success in Macau has made Mr. Adelson, 78, one of the richest people in the world. He and his wife, Miriam, own 53.2 percent of Las Vegas Sands, the world’s biggest casino company by market value. Last year, Forbes estimated his fortune at $24.9 billion.

 Mr. Adelson became the biggest single donor in political history during the 2012 presidential election, giving more than $60 million to eight Republican candidates, including Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, through “super PACs.” He presides over a global empire of casinos, hotels and convention centers.

Michael Luo and Thomas Gaffney contributed reporting.

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U.S. Judges Offer Addicts a Way to Avoid Prison

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Emily Leitch of Brooklyn, with her son, Nazir, 4, was arrested for importing cocaine but went to “drug court” to avoid prison.

Federal judges around the country are teaming up with prosecutors to create special treatment programs for drug-addicted defendants who would otherwise face significant prison time, an effort intended to sidestep drug laws widely seen as inflexible and overly punitive.

The Justice Department has tentatively embraced the new approach, allowing United States attorneys to reduce or even dismiss charges in some drug cases.

The effort follows decades of success for “drug courts” at the state level, which legal experts have long cited as a less expensive and more effective alternative to prison for dealing with many low-level repeat offenders.

But it is striking that the model is spreading at the federal level, where judges have increasingly pushed back against rules that restrict their ability to make their own determination of appropriate sentences.

So far, federal judges have instituted programs in California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington. About 400 defendants have been involved nationwide.

In Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday, Judge John Gleeson issued an opinion praising the new approach as a way to address swelling prison costs and disproportionate sentences for drug trafficking.

“Presentence programs like ours and those in other districts mean that a growing number of courts are no longer reflexively sentencing federal defendants who do not belong in prison to the costly prison terms recommended by the sentencing guidelines,” Judge Gleeson wrote.

The opinion came a year after Judge Gleeson, with the federal agency known as Pretrial Services, started a program that made achieving sobriety an incentive for drug-addicted defendants to avoid prison. The program had its first graduate this year: Emily Leitch, a Brooklyn woman with a long history of substance abuse who was arrested entering the country at Kennedy International Airport with over 13 kilograms of cocaine, about 30 pounds, in her luggage.

“I want to thank the federal government for giving me a chance,” Ms. Leitch said. “I always wanted to stand up as a sober person.”

The new approach is being prompted in part by the Obama administration, which previously supported legislation that scaled back sentences for crimes involving crack cocaine. The Justice Department has supported additional changes to the federal sentencing guidelines to permit the use of drug or mental health treatment as an alternative to incarceration for certain low-level offenders and changed its own policies to make those options more available.

“We recognize that imprisonment alone is not a complete strategy for reducing crime,” James M. Cole, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement. “Drug courts, re-entry courts and other related programs along with enforcement are all part of the solution.”

For nearly 30 years, the United States Sentencing Commission has established guidelines for sentencing, a role it was given in 1984 after studies found that federal judges were giving defendants widely varying sentences for similar crimes. The commission’s recommendations are approved by Congress, causing judges to bristle at what they consider interference with their judicial independence.

“When you impose a sentence that you believe is unjust, it is a very difficult thing to do,” Stefan R. Underhill, a federal judge in Connecticut, said in an interview. “It feels wrong.”

The development of drug courts may meet resistance from some Republicans in Congress.

“It is important that courts give deference to Congressional authority over sentencing,” Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, a member and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. He said sentencing should not depend “on what judge happens to decide the case or what judicial circuit the defendant happens to be in.”

At the state level, pretrial drug courts have benefited from bipartisan support, with liberals supporting the programs as more focused on rehabilitation, and conservatives supporting them as a way to cut spending.

Under the model being used in state and federal courts, defendants must accept responsibility for their crimes and agree to receive drug treatment and other social services and attend regular meetings with judges who monitor their progress. In return for successful participation, they receive a reduced sentence or no jail time at all. If they fail, they are sent to prison.

The drug court option is not available to those facing more serious charges, like people accused of being high-level dealers or traffickers, or accused of a violent crime. (These programs differ from re-entry drug courts, which federal judges have long used to help offenders integrate into society after prison.)

In interviews, the federal judges who run the other programs pointed to a mix of reasons for their involvement.

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IHT Rendezvous: Muslims Seek Dialogue With Next Pope

LONDON — As the Catholic Church’s cardinal electors gather at the Vatican to choose a new pope, Muslim leaders are urging a revival of the often troubled dialogue between the two faiths.

During the papacy of Benedict XVI, relations between the world’s two largest religions were overshadowed by remarks he made in 2006 that were widely condemned as an attack on Islam.

In a speech at Regensburg University in his native Germany, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

In the face of protests from the Muslim world, the Vatican said the pope’s remarks had been misinterpreted and that he “deeply regretted” that the speech “sounded offensive to the sensibility of Muslim believers.”

For many in the Muslim world, however, the damage was done and the perception persisted that Benedict was hostile to Islam.

Juan Cole, a U.S. commentator on the Middle East, has suggested that although the pope backed down on some of his positions, “Pope Benedict roiled those relationships with needlessly provocative and sometimes offensive statements about Islam and Muslims.”

Despite the Vatican’s efforts to renew the interfaith dialogue by hosting a meeting with Muslim scholars, hostilities resumed in 2011 when the pope condemned alleged discrimination against Egypt’s Coptic Christians in the wake of a church bombing in Alexandria.

Al Azhar University in Cairo, the center of Islamic learning, froze relations with the Vatican in protest.

Following the pope’s decision to step down, Mahmud Azab, an adviser on interfaith dialogue to the head of Al Azhar, said, “The resumption of ties with the Vatican hinges on the new atmosphere created by the new pope. The initiative is now in the Vatican’s hands.”

Mahmoud Ashour, a senior Al Azhar cleric, insisted that “the new pope must not attack Islam,” according to remarks quoted by Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, and said the two religions should “complete one another, rather than compete.”

A French Muslim leader, meanwhile, has called for a fresh start in the dialogue with a new pope.

In an interview with Der Spiegel of Germany this week, Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, said of Benedict, “He was not able to understand Muslims. He had no direct experience with Islam, and he found nothing positive to say about our beliefs.”

Reem Nasr, writing at the policy debate Web site, Policymic, this week offered Benedict’s successor a five-point program to bridge the Catholic and Muslim worlds.

These included mutual respect, more papal contacts with Muslim leaders and a greater focus on what the religions had in common.

“There has been a long history of mistrust that can be overcome,” she wrote. “No one should give up just yet.”

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Heat top Grizzlies 98-91 for 13th straight win

MIAMI (AP) — LeBron James endured his worst shooting night of the season, and still delivered the biggest basket of the game.

That's how things are going these days for the Miami Heat.

Dwyane Wade scored 22 points and set up James for a critical 3-pointer in the final half-minute, and the Heat extended their winning streak to 13 games by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 98-91 on Friday night.

"I thought this was one of our better wins of the season," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "It was tough. We had to work for everything. We had to find a different way to win, deal with frustration ... and then make some plays down the stretch."

On a night when he shot just 4 for 14, James finished two rebounds shy of a triple-double, with 18 points and 10 assists. Shane Battier scored 14, Chris Bosh added 13 and Ray Allen had 10 for Miami, which snapped Memphis' eight-game winning streak.

But down the stretch, James — who had 14 points, four rebounds and four assists in the fourth quarter alone — was simply too much to handle.

"He made the big shot and that's all that matters," said Memphis' Marc Gasol, who led all scorers with 24. "He wasn't having the usual (numbers) he normally gets. I think we did a good job. He took a shot like he's supposed to and made it so kudos, move on."

Gasol tied the game with a pair of free throws with 2:44 left, before the Heat scored the next five — and quickly — to build a bit of breathing room. Bosh had a three-point play, and Wade took off in transition for a slam that put Miami up 90-85.

Memphis wasn't done. Gasol made two more free throws, then scored off a dribble-drive with 42.5 seconds left to get the Grizzlies within 90-89.

But that was the last gasp.

On the next Miami possession, James hit a 3-pointer with 24 seconds remaining, and the Heat made free throws from there to close out the win.

"I've got confidence I'm going to knock it down, just like all the other ones I've missed," James said. "I had confidence in those too, but they just don't go down. That's how the ball goes sometimes. But I'm always confident in my next shot. D-Wade gave me a great pass and I was able to knock it down."

The Grizzlies got 14 points from Zach Randolph, who said he was bothered throughout after turning his left ankle on the game's first possession. Mike Conley added 14 for Memphis, which got 10 from Quincy Pondexter.

"I have no problem with the game," Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins said. "We were right there. They just made a few more plays than we did down the stretch."

For the Heat, this week was filled with attention for things like pregame dunking exhibitions and their version of a "Harlem Shake" video — which generated more than 5 million views on YouTube in about 24 hours of being posted.

Then came a basketball game, the likes of which had not been seen in the NBA for almost 20 years.

According to STATS LLC, the most recent time before Friday that there was a game between two teams that were carrying at least 12- and eight-game winning streaks was Dec. 3, 1993, when Atlanta (which had won nine straight) beat Houston (which had won 15 straight).

In fact, the Heat-Grizzlies game was just the eighth in NBA history pitting two teams with active winning streaks of at least eight in a row.

Want more significance? Spoelstra and Hollins were announced earlier in the day as the Eastern and Western Conference coaches of the month, respectively. And news came just before tipoff that James was picked yet again as the East's player of the month, making him 4-for-4 in that department this season.

"Just a residual of team success," Spoelstra said.

Added Hollins: "I'm the head coach and I get the credit and I get the blame, but those guys have been playing extremely well ... coming together with all the turmoil and all the chaos that we've had."

So of course, in a game between the NBA's two hottest teams, the start was ice cold. The teams combined to miss 23 of their first 32 shots.

And for James, things were downright frigid.

After the best shooting month of his career — the three-time MVP made 64 percent of his shots in February, the best month of any NBA player with 200 attempts since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shot 65 percent in March 1983 — James' run in March started in a decidedly different manner.

James made a 3-pointer on his first attempt of the night, then missed his next eight tries, and had just four points after three quarters.

A dunk with 9:19 left in regulation was just his second made field goal of the night, and he hit a runner midway through the fourth to reach double-digit scoring for the 475th straight regular-season game, going back to Jan. 6, 2007.

"You won't see that happening too many times," Wade said. "It was great that on a night where he didn't have it going offensively, he had trust in his guys and didn't force up 20-odd shots. He played to pass and he still was aggressive. We'll take it. We'll take it, him getting those numbers and us getting the win."

NOTES: The Heat had the blessing of team officials when they took a half-hour before practice Thursday to tape the "Harlem Shake" video in their locker room. "We don't need to be serious all the time," Bosh said. ... Battier has at least one 3-pointer in 14 straight games, the fourth-best such streak of his career. ... Miami is at New York on Sunday, facing a Knicks team that has already beaten the Heat twice — by 20 points each time. "Our guys will look forward to playing this game," Spoelstra said.

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Hasbro Expands Transformers Brand Into New Media

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Ryan Yzquierdo, who has been a Transformers fan since he was 7, is introducing his daughter to the franchise.

To Hasbro, no one is too young or too old to play with a Transformers robot, watch a Transformers television show or play a Transformers video game.

The toy maker started the Transformers franchise with a Japanese partner in 1984. The concept — robots disguised as everyday objects — was originally aimed at 5-year-old boys. But as those boys have grown up and had children and even grandchildren, Hasbro has expanded the brand into other media and added new toy lines to appeal to everyone from toddlers to adults.

Take Rescue Bots, for example.

The main Transformers brand contains mature themes, with big robots battling for control of the planet. To engage children ages 3 to 7, Hasbro introduced Rescue Bots in 2011, featuring toy robots as first responders.

“The goal there is to take what you have and bring an age-relevant message, which is to get away from the battle and the fighting and focus on the heroic nature of Transformers,” said Jay Duke, global vice president for the Transformers brand at Hasbro.

That was enough to convince Ryan Yzquierdo, who has been a Transformers fan since he was 7, that Rescue Bots were a good way to introduce Transformers to his 3-year-old daughter.

“Each toy focused on a different motor skill, which was a big selling point for me and my wife,” said Mr. Yzquierdo, who started a Web site, Seibertron.com, devoted to Transformers in 2000.

When buying toys and games for their children, parents often look to favorites from their own childhood. Their nostalgia for beloved toys from their past helps create a bonding experience with their little ones.

Toy makers have long tried to build enduring brands that can be passed down to the next generation. Those intellectual properties are cheaper to develop because the toy companies do not have to pay a licensing fee to an outside partner. They also bring in added revenue through licensing fees paid by other companies, like makers of apparel and school accessories.

In Transformers, Hasbro has one of the most valuable brands among toy makers. In 2011, the year the third Transformers movie was released, Hasbro recorded $960 million in sales from products related to Transformers and Beyblade, a spinning top game, according to the company’s latest annual earnings report.

When it was developed in 1984, Transformers consisted of a toy line and an animated television series.

But in 2007, Hasbro began a new strategy to build the brand into a worldwide franchise that now includes live-action movies, video games, publishing and even theme park rides.

“There are not a lot of brands like that in the world that have that strong emotional resonance across generations,” said John A. Frascotti, global chief marketing officer at Hasbro.

For older boys, Hasbro has extended the brand into mobile apps, video games and comic books. For adults, the company has licensed an annual Transformers convention called BotCon and organizes events at conventions like Comic-Con International in San Diego.

But the growth of the Transformers franchise has had its pitfalls, too. When there is not a Transformers movie rumbling through theaters, the toy line stumbles. Hasbro reported net income of $130.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2012, a 6.3 percent decline from the previous year. Sales in its boys business fell 23 percent in the quarter from the same period in 2011, the year the last Transformers movie came out.

Analysts say it is important for Hasbro to keep the Transformers brand fresh in non-movie years.

“Hasbro focuses on these big, home-run movies. When they don’t have one, they get punished for it,” said Jaime M. Katz, an analyst at Morningstar.

Investors expect sales in the boys category to decline this year as well, but to rebound in 2014 when the next Transformers movie is released, said Felicia R. Hendrix, a Barclays analyst. “The real problem around this is that their boys’ line seems to be very movie-driven,” Ms. Hendrix said, adding that Hasbro should try to make the brand more evergreen.

Toward that end, the company showed previews of two new Transformers toy lines, Beast Hunters and Construct-Bots, last month at the annual Toy Fair in New York. The Beast Hunters theme, which features robots that morph into predatory animals, will encompass several areas, including television, toys and licensing, while Construct-Bots will allow boys to build their own Transformers.

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Jane C. Wright, Pioneering Oncologist, Dies at 93

Dr. Jane C. Wright, a pioneering oncologist who helped elevate chemotherapy from a last resort for cancer patients to an often viable treatment option, died on Feb. 19 at her home in Guttenberg, N.J. She was 93.

Her death was confirmed by her daughter Jane Jones, who said her mother had dementia.

Dr. Wright descended from a distinguished medical family that defied racial barriers in a profession long dominated by white men. Her father, Dr. Louis T. Wright, was among the first blacks to graduate from Harvard Medical School and was reported to be the first black doctor appointed to the staff of a New York City hospital. His father was an early graduate of what became the Meharry Medical College, the first medical school in the South for African-Americans, founded in Nashville in 1876.

Dr. Jane Wright began her career as a researcher working alongside her father at a cancer center he established at Harlem Hospital in New York.

Together, they and others studied the effects of a variety of drugs on tumors, experimented with chemotherapeutic agents on leukemia in mice and eventually treated patients, with some success, with new anticancer drugs, including triethylene melamine.

After her father died in 1952, Dr. Wright took over as director of the center, which was known as the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation. In 1955, she joined the faculty of the New York University Medical Center as director of cancer research, where her work focused on correlating the responses of tissue cultures to anticancer drugs with the responses of patients.

In 1964, working as part of a team at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine, Dr. Wright developed a nonsurgical method, using a catheter system, to deliver heavy doses of anticancer drugs to previously hard-to-reach tumor areas in the kidneys, spleen and elsewhere.

That same year, Dr. Wright was the only woman among seven physicians who, recognizing the unique needs of doctors caring for cancer patients, founded the American Society of Clinical Oncologists, known as ASCO. She was also appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke, led by the heart surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. Its recommendations emphasized better communication among doctors, hospitals and research institutions and resulted in a national network of treatment centers.

In 1967, Dr. Wright became head of the chemotherapy department and associate dean at New York Medical College. News reports at the time said it was the first time a black woman had held so high a post at an American medical school.

“Not only was her work scientific, but it was visionary for the whole science of oncology,” Dr. Sandra Swain, the current president of ASCO, said in a telephone interview. “She was part of the group that first realized we needed a separate organization to deal with the providers who care for cancer patients. But beyond that it’s amazing to me that a black woman, in her day and age, was able to do what she did.”

Jane Cooke Wright was born in Manhattan on Nov. 30, 1919. Her mother, the former Corinne Cooke, was a substitute teacher in the New York City schools.

Ms. Wright attended the Ethical Culture school in Manhattan and the Fieldston School in the Bronx (now collectively known Ethical Culture Fieldston School) and graduated from Smith College, where she studied art before turning to medicine. She received a full scholarship to New York Medical College, earning her medical degree in 1945. Before beginning research with her father, she worked as a doctor in the city schools.

Dr. Wright’s marriage, in 1947, to David D. Jones, a lawyer, ended with his death in 1976. She is survived by their two daughters, Jane and Alison Jones, and a sister, Barbara Wright Pierce, who is also a doctor.

As both a student and a doctor, Dr. Wright said in interviews, she was always aware that as a black woman she was an unusual presence in medical institutions. But she never felt she was a victim of racial prejudice, she said.

“I know I’m a member of two minority groups,” she said in an interview with The New York Post in 1967, “but I don’t think of myself that way. Sure, a woman has to try twice as hard. But — racial prejudice? I’ve met very little of it.”

She added, “It could be I met it — and wasn’t intelligent enough to recognize it.”

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Malaysia Said to Open Fire on Armed Filipinos

MANILA — The Malaysian police opened fire on a group from a Muslim royal clan from the Philippines that has occupied a village in Malaysia and ignored pleas to leave, the group’s leader said Friday.

The group claims the territory in Malaysia’s Sabah State as its own, and has rejected a plea from President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines to leave. The group’s seizure of the coastal village has complicated relations between the Philippines and Malaysia.

The group’s leader, Prince Rajah Mudah Agbimuddin Kiram, told the Philippine radio station DZBB that the Malaysian police had opened fire on members early Friday, according to The Associated Press. He was quoted as saying that the group was fighting back and that there had been Filipino casualties.

The episode began Feb. 12, when the group, which is seeking to revive a historical claim to part of Borneo, arrived by boat from the Philippines and seized the land. The Philippines on Monday sent a navy vessel to the area with medical and diplomatic personnel to pick up the group or escort them back to the Philippines, hoping to resolve the situation.

Mr. Aquino said Tuesday that his government had sent emissaries to meet with Mr. Kiram to resolve the issue.

“These are your people, and it behooves you to recall them,” Mr. Aquino said to the leader in his Tuesday statement. “It must be clear to you that this small group of people will not succeed in addressing your grievances, and that there is no way that force can achieve your aims.”

The Philippines has been coordinating with the Malaysian government to resolve the issue peacefully, but Malaysian police officials in the area where the standoff is taking place had earlier suggested that they were prepared to use force if necessary.

Floyd Whaley reported from Manila, and Gerry Mullany from Hong Kong.

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F-35 Jets Returned to Service by Pentagon

The Pentagon lifted its grounding of the new F-35 jet fighter on Thursday after concluding that a turbine blade had cracked on a single plane after it was overused in test operations.

The office that runs the program said no other cracks were found in inspections of the other engines made so far, and no engine redesign was needed.

It said the engine in which the blade cracked was in a plane that “had been operated at extreme parameters in its mission to expand the F-35 flight envelope.”

The program office added that “prolonged exposure to high levels of heat and other operational stressors on this specific engine were determined to be the cause of the crack.”

All flights were suspended last week for the 64 planes built so far once the crack, which stretched for six-tenths of an inch, was found during a routine inspection.

Pratt & Whitney, which makes the engines, investigated the problem with military experts. The company, a unit of United Technologies, said on Wednesday that the crack occurred after that engine was operated more than four times longer in a high-temperature flight environment than the engines would in normal use.

The F-35, a supersonic jet meant to evade enemy radar, is the Pentagon’s most expensive program and has been delayed by various technical problems. The program could cost $396 billion if the Pentagon builds 2,456 jets by the late 2030s.

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Well: Think Like a Doctor: The Man Who Wobbled

The Challenge: Can you solve the medical mystery of a man who suddenly becomes too dizzy to walk?

Every month, the Diagnosis column of The New York Times Magazine asks Well readers to try their hand at solving a medical mystery. Below you will find the story of a 56-year-old factory worker with dizziness and panic attacks. I have provided records from his two hospital visits that will give you all the information available to the doctor who finally made the diagnosis.

The first reader to offer the correct diagnosis gets a signed copy of my book, “Every Patient Tells a Story,” and the satisfaction of solving a case that stumped a roomful of specialists.

The Patient’s Story:

The middle-aged man clicked his way through the multiple reruns of late-late-night television. He should have been in bed hours ago, but lately he hadn’t been able to get to sleep. Suddenly his legs took on a life of their own. Stretched out halfway to the center of the room, they began to shake and twitch and jump around. The man watched helplessly as his legs disobeyed his mental orders to stop moving. He had no control over them. He felt nauseous, sweaty and out of breath, as if he had been running some kind of race. He called out to his wife. She hurried out of bed, took one look at him and called 911.

The Patient’s History:

By the time the man arrived at Huntsville Hospital, in Alabama, the twitching in his legs had subsided and his breathing had returned to normal. Still, he had been discharged from that same hospital for similar symptoms just two weeks earlier. They hadn’t figured out what was going on then, so they weren’t going to send him home now.

The patient considered himself pretty healthy, but the past year or so had been tough. In 2011, at the age of 54, he had had a mild stroke. He had no medical problems that put him at risk for stroke — no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, no diabetes. A work-up at that time showed that he had a hole in his heart that allowed a tiny clot from somewhere in his body to travel to the brain and cause the stroke. He was discharged on a couple of blood thinners to keep his blood from making more clots. He hadn’t really felt completely well, though, ever since. His balance seemed a little off, and he was subject to these weird panic attacks, in which his heart would pound and he would feel short of breath whenever he got too stressed. Mostly he could manage them by just walking away and focusing on his breathing. Still, he never felt as if he was the kind of guy to panic.

And he had always been quick on his feet. The first half of his career he had been in the steel business — building huge metal trusses and supports. He and his team put together 60-plus tons of steel structures every day. For the past decade he had been machining car parts. After his stroke, work seemed to get a lot harder.

The Dizziness:

A few weeks ago, he stood up and wham — suddenly the whole world went off-kilter. He felt as if he was constantly about to fall over in a world that no longer lay down flat. His first thought was that he was having another stroke. He went straight to his doctor’s office. The doctor wasn’t sure what was going on and sent him to that same emergency room at Huntsville Hospital. After three days of testing and being evaluated by lots of specialists, his doctors still were not sure what was going on. He hadn’t had a heart attack; he hadn’t had a stroke. There was no sign of infection. All the tests they could think of were normal.

The only abnormal finding was that when he stood up, his blood pressure dropped. Why this happened wasn’t clear, but the doctors in the hospital gave him compression stockings and a pill — both could help keep his blood pressure in the normal range. Then they sent him home. He was also started on an antidepressant to help with the panic attacks he continued to have from time to time.

You can read the report from that hospital admission below.

You can also read the consultation and discharge notes from that hospital visit here.

He had been home for nearly two weeks and still he felt no better. He tried to go back to work after a week or so at home, but after driving for less than five miles, he felt he had to turn around. He wasn’t sure what was wrong; he just knew he didn’t feel right. Then his legs started jumping around, and he ended up back in the hospital.

The Doctor’s Exam:

It was nearly dawn by the time Dr. Jeremy Thompson, the first-year resident on duty that night, saw the patient. Awake but tired, the patient told his story one more time. He had been at home, watching TV, when his legs started jumping on their own and he started feeling short of breath. His wife sat at the bedside. She looked just as worried and exhausted as he did. She told the resident that when he spoke that night at home, his speech was slurred. And when the ambulance came, he could barely walk. He has never missed this much work, she told the young doctor. It’s not like him. Can’t you figure out what’s wrong?

The resident had already reviewed the records from the patient’s previous hospital admissions. He asked a few more questions: the patient had never smoked and rarely drank; his father died at age 80; his mother was still alive and well. The patient exam was normal, as were the studies done in the E.R.

The first E.R. doctor thought that his symptoms were a result of anxiety, culminating in a full-blown panic attack. The resident thought that was probably right. In any case he would discuss the case with the attending in a couple of hours during rounds on the new patients. Till then, he told the worried couple, they should just try to get a little sleep.

An Important Clue:

Dr. Robert Centor was definitely a morning person. His cheerful enthusiasm about teaching and taking care of patients made him a favorite among residents. At 7:30 that morning, he stood outside the patient’s door as Dr. Thompson relayed the somewhat frustrating case of the middle-aged man with worsening dizziness and panic attacks. Then they went into the room to meet the patient. He was a big guy, tall and muscular with the first signs of middle-aged thickening around his middle. His complexion had the look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Dr. Centor introduced himself and pulled up a chair as the rest of the team watched. He asked the patient what brought him to the hospital.

“Every time I get up, I get dizzy,” the man replied. Sure, he had had some balance problems ever since his stroke, he explained, but this felt different – somehow worse. He could hardly walk, he told the doctor. He just felt too unstable.

“Can you get up and show us how you walk?” Dr. Centor asked.

“Don’t let me fall,” the patient responded. He carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed. The resident and intern stood on either side as he slowly rose. He stood with his feet far apart. When asked to close his eyes as he stood there, he wobbled and nearly fell over. When he took a few steps, his heel and toes hit the ground at the same time, making a strange slapping sound.

Seeing that, Dr. Centor knew where the problem lay and ordered a few tests to confirm his diagnosis.

You can see the review report and notes for the patient’s second hospital visit below.

Solving the Mystery:

What tests did Dr. Centor order? Do you know what is making this middle-aged man wobble? Enter your guesses below. I’ll post the answer tomorrow.

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Rules and Regulations: Post your questions and diagnosis in the Comments section below. The correct answer will appear tomorrow on Well. The winner will be contacted. Reader comments may also appear in a coming issue of The New York Times Magazine.

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India Ink: India’s Slowing Economy Forces Budget Decisions

NEW DELHI — Not too long ago, when India’s economy was roaring amid predictions of high growth rates for years to come, the finance minister could be forgiven for strutting during budget week. He got to march into India’s Parliament with the ceremonial briefcase bearing a budget stuffed with goodies.

But on Thursday, when the current finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, arrives in Parliament, his steps will be heavier, and the mood is likely to be, too. Faced with slowing growth, persistent inflation and sagging investor confidence, India’s government is pinned between conflicting pressures: economists warn that tough steps are needed to avoid long-term fiscal problems, even as political leaders are leery of introducing unpopular measures before important elections this year.

On Wednesday, the government sought to change the pessimistic narrative, as the Finance Ministry released its annual economic survey and projected that economic growth would jump somewhere above 6 percent during the next fiscal year, predicting that the downturn was “more or less over and the economy is looking up.” Some economists were skeptical, given that similar rosy predictions in recent budgets have proved wrong.

“Let me remind you that last year the economic survey spoke of about 7.6 percent projected growth — and what we had was 5 percent growth,” said Ajay Bodke, head of investment strategy and advisory at Prabhudas Lilladher, a Mumbai brokerage. “That is not just a miss but a humongous miss.”

The consequences of the budget plans are especially high because India, once a darling of global investors and an anointed power-in-waiting, is struggling to regain its lost luster.

India’s estimated 5 percent growth rate for the current fiscal year compares with 8 percent in 2010. Ratings agencies have threatened to downgrade the country’s investment rating to “junk” status. Meanwhile, India’s political class has spent more than three years enmeshed in scandals, as a bickering Parliament has accomplished almost nothing.

“It’s a supercritical moment, actually,” said Rajiv Kumar, an economist with the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “If you get it right, and this is a budget that can shore up the government’s credibility, they can turn it around.”

For investors and business leaders, the question is whether the government will make tough calls to address the country’s large fiscal and account deficits, curb huge subsidies for diesel fuel and petroleum products, unclog bureaucratic bottlenecks on stalled manufacturing, energy and infrastructure projects and create incentives to entice new investment.

Only a year ago, Pranab Mukherjee, then finance minister, unveiled a budget now regarded by many analysts as a major mistake. Desperate to increase revenues, the government spooked investors by giving broad latitude for tax collectors to pursue multinationals for billions of dollars in new, unexpected taxes. Investment slowed markedly, while investors and political opponents complained that India’s coalition government, led by the Indian National Congress Party, was endangering one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

“The economy is in a deep crisis at the moment,” said Yashwant Sinha of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, a former finance minister, “and I only hope the crisis doesn’t become any deeper with more pre-election sops.”

Mr. Sinha and many independent economists warn that the economy cannot afford a repeat of 2008, when the government was preparing for national elections the following year. Then, the pre-election budget was filled with big spending measures, including pay raises for government workers and the forgiveness of billions of dollars in loans to farmers. The government was easily re-elected in 2009, but the new spending contributed to a fiscal deficit that rose to roughly 6 percent, from about 2 percent the previous year.

Neha Thirani Bagri contributed reporting from Mumbai, India.

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Knicks overcome Curry's 54 to beat Warriors

NEW YORK (AP) — Carmelo Anthony scored 35 points, J.R. Smith hit the tiebreaking shot with 1:10 left, and the New York Knicks overcame Stephen Curry's NBA season-high 54 points to beat the Golden State Warriors 109-105 on Wednesday night.

Curry was 18 of 28 from the field, finishing one shy of the NBA record with 11 3-pointers, in a performance that had the crowd hanging on his every shot. But the Knicks finally stopped him with 1:28 to play when Raymond Felton blocked his shot with the score tied at 105.

That led to a jumper by Smith, who finished with 26 points. Anthony followed with another basket and the Knicks hung on to spoil former Knicks star and Warriors coach Mark Jackson's homecoming.

Curry finished with seven assists and six rebounds while passing his previous career best of 42 points, and Kevin Durant's 52-point performance that had been the best in the NBA this season.

But he had little help without All-Star forward David Lee, who was suspended one game for his role in an altercation Tuesday night in Indiana.

Tyson Chandler had 16 points and a career-best 28 rebounds for the Knicks, who won their second straight after a season-high, four-game losing streak. Amare Stoudemire had 14 points and Anthony added eight assists on the day the Knicks learned they could be without reserve forward Rasheed Wallace for the rest of the season because he needs surgery to repair a broken bone in his left foot.

Strutting all over the court whenever one of his 3s swished easily through the nets, Curry easily blew past the 38 points he scored Tuesday in Indiana, which had been his best of the season. That was spoiled when he was fined $35,000 for his role in the skirmish, which was essentially getting thrown to the ground by Roy Hibbert when he tried to intervene.

This performance — the most points by an NBA player in a loss since Kobe Bryant had 58 in a loss to Charlotte on Dec. 29, 2006 — was spoiled along with Jackson's trip back to his old home because of a few mistakes down the stretch.

Curry threw away a pass on the break with about three minutes left, and Jarrett Jack was called for a travel following Smith's go-ahead basket.

Plus, Klay Thompson finished 3 of 13 from the field, missing two straight from deep in the final minute.

Jackson, who grew up in Brooklyn and starred at St. John's before being drafted by the Knicks in 1987, didn't get a chance to coach here last season as an NBA rookie on the bench because of the lockout. He brought his wife, Desiree, to a road game for the first time this season, had his mother in the stands, and got a chance to see people he remembered from playing here years earlier.

He said he hadn't gotten to look ahead much to the game because of the schedule, but clearly enjoyed being back in Madison Square Garden once the day did arrive.

"This is a special place and it was part of my dreams as a kid," he said.

His night turned into Curry's, fans cheering even before the ball left his hand in the second half.

The Knicks, who hadn't played since Sunday, looked ready to blow the Warriors out early. An 11-2 run gave them a 25-11 lead late in the first quarter, which the Warriors trimmed to 27-18 at the end of the period before surging ahead behind Curry.

He scored 12 straight Golden State points, cutting it to 35-34 with his third 3-pointer of the second quarter. He followed Richard Jefferson's 3 with another one, giving the Warriors a 40-37 advantage. The Knicks recovered and went back ahead by nine late in the period before Curry answered with six consecutive points, and New York's lead was 58-55 at the break.

Curry's drive gave the Warriors a two-point lead three minutes into the third quarter, but he didn't score again until hitting a turnaround 3 from 27 feet with 5 seconds left in the period, giving him 38 points again and cutting New York's lead to 84-81.

Already without Andrew Bogut because of a back injury, the Warriors had little size without Lee. Their lineup at one point in the second quarter had nobody taller than 6-foot-9 and Chandler simply climbed over them all night.

He came in leading the league with 4.4 offensive rebounds per game, and grabbed 13 boards in the first quarter alone.

Notes: Chandler was also the last NBA player to grab 13 rebounds in one quarter, hauling in 14 in the third quarter for Dallas on Dec. 1, 2010. ... Wallace, who hasn't played since December, will have surgery this week and the expected recovery time is eight weeks. Coach Mike Woodson said he didn't plan to waive the 38-year-old forward and create a roster spot, instead hoping he could be able to play in the postseason. ... Kenyon Martin, signed last week in part because of the uncertainty around Wallace, made his Knicks debut and was scoreless in limited first-half minutes.

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DealBook: Heinz Case May Involve a Side Bet in London

Regulators have escalated an investigation into suspicious trades placed ahead of the $23 billion takeover of H. J. Heinz, focusing on a complex derivatives bet routed through London, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The development builds on a recent regulatory action on a Goldman Sachs account in Switzerland that bought Heinz options contracts. It also comes a week after the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it opened a criminal inquiry.

An unusual spike in trading volume in Heinz options a day before the deal was announced first attracted the scrutiny of investigators. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also examining fluctuations in ordinary stock trades. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self-regulatory group, recently referred suspicious stock trades to the S.E.C., a person who was briefed on the matter said.

Now the S.E.C. is looking into a more opaque corner of the investing world, examining a product known as a contract-for-difference, a derivative that allows investors to bet on changes in the price of stocks without owning the shares. Such contracts are not regulated in the United States, but are popular in Britain.

The expansion of the Heinz investigation illustrates the growing challenges facing American regulators. Charged with policing the American exchanges, authorities increasingly find themselves having to hunt through a dizzyingly complex global marketplace.

Following a number of prominent crackdowns on insider stock trading, a campaign that scared the markets, investors are seeking subtler and more sophisticated tools to seize on confidential tidbits. Trading operations also flocked overseas, a careful move that forces the S.E.C. to navigate a maze of international regulations before identifying suspect traders.

The Heinz case illustrates the shift, as the S.E.C. relies on Swiss authorities to expose the trader behind the Heinz options bets.

The suspicious options trades were routed through a Goldman Sachs account in Zurich, where laws prevent the firm from sharing details of the account holder’s identity. In a complaint filed two weeks ago, the S.E.C. froze the account of “one or more unknown traders.” A federal judge upheld that freeze last week, a move that will prevent the traders from spending their winnings or moving the money.

The series of well-timed options trades, bets that produced $1.7 million in profits, came just a day before Berkshire Hathaway and the investment firm 3G Capital announced that they had agreed to buy the ketchup maker. News of the deal sent the company’s shares, and the value of the options contracts, soaring.

The S.E.C. called the trading “highly suspicious,” given that there was scant options trading in Heinz in previous months.

“Irregular and highly suspicious options trading immediately in front of a merger or acquisition announcement is a serious red flag,” Daniel M. Hawke, head of the commission’s market abuse unit, said recently.

While the identity remains a secret, the account holder is a Goldman private wealth management client, according to a person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak on the record. Goldman executives in Zurich know the identity of the person, but laws prohibit those executives from sharing the name with American regulators and even Goldman executives outside of Switzerland.

Finma, the Swiss regulator, is the gatekeeper for American regulators. The S.E.C. contacted Finma in an effort to learn more about the trading, and the Swiss regulator has promised to help. It could take weeks to identify the traders.

Goldman has hired outside counsel to advise it on the situation, according to people briefed on the situation who were not authorized to speak on the record. The bank, which is not accused of wrongdoing, is cooperating with the investigation.

An S.E.C. spokesman declined to comment.

The agency’s inquiry may cast a cloud over the Heinz deal. After the traders are identified, the focus will turn to the many insiders who had information on the deal and could have leaked details. Dozens of people had confidential information about the deal, including bankers, lawyers and executives for both the buyers and the seller.

As the agency continues to build its case against the options trades, it also is examining suspicious contracts-for-difference.

Investors increasingly favor the contracts because they require little capital investment and can be traded on margin. They are popular on the London Stock Exchange, where regulators are now focusing some attention.

In essence, the derivatives contracts are a side bet on the price of a stock. They have drawn criticism for being opaque, in part because users are not actually trading the shares of a company, but rather a contract linked to those shares.

Regulators have examined the use of the contracts before when accusations of insider trading have arisen. In 2008, the British Financial Services Authority fined an investor for market abuse, saying the investor had used a contract-for-difference to profit from inside information on the Body Shop, a retailer. The person was making a bet in this case that the shares would fall in value.

Despite the focus on such complex products in the Heinz case, the S.E.C. is also examining more mundane activity in equity trades ahead of the deal.

Finra is helping the agency build its investigation. The group created an Office of Fraud Detection and Market Intelligence as a sort of clearinghouse of information.

A Finra official declined to comment on Wednesday.

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Well: What Housework Has to Do With Waistlines

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

One reason so many American women are overweight may be that we are vacuuming and doing laundry less often, according to a new study that, while scrupulously even-handed, is likely to stir controversy and emotions.

The study, published this month in PLoS One, is a follow-up to an influential 2011 report which used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine that, during the past 50 years, most American workers began sitting down on the job. Physical activity at work, such as walking or lifting, almost vanished, according to the data, with workers now spending most of their time seated before a computer or talking on the phone. Consequently, the authors found, the average American worker was burning almost 150 fewer calories daily at work than his or her employed parents had, a change that had materially contributed to the rise in obesity during the same time frame, especially among men, the authors concluded.

But that study, while fascinating, was narrow, focusing only on people with formal jobs. It overlooked a large segment of the population, namely a lot of women.

“Fifty years ago, a majority of women did not work outside of the home,” said Edward Archer, a research fellow with the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and lead author of the new study.

So, in collaboration with many of the authors of the earlier study of occupational physical activity, Dr. Archer set out to find data about how women had once spent their hours at home and whether and how their patterns of movement had changed over the years.

He found the information he needed in the American Heritage Time Use Study, a remarkable archive of “time-use diaries” provided by thousands of women beginning in 1965. Because Dr. Archer wished to examine how women in a variety of circumstances spent their time around the house, he gathered diaries from both working and non-employed women, starting with those in 1965 and extending through 2010.

He and his colleagues then pulled data from the diaries about how many hours the women were spending in various activities, how many calories they likely were expending in each of those tasks, and how the activities and associated energy expenditures changed over the years.

As it turned out, their findings broadly echoed those of the occupational time-use study. Women, they found, once had been quite physically active around the house, spending, in 1965, an average of 25.7 hours a week cleaning, cooking and doing laundry. Those activities, whatever their social freight, required the expenditure of considerable energy. (The authors did not include child care time in their calculations, since the women’s diary entries related to child care were inconsistent and often overlapped those of other activities.) In general at that time, working women devoted somewhat fewer hours to housework, while those not employed outside the home spent more.

Forty-five years later, in 2010, things had changed dramatically. By then, the time-use diaries showed, women were spending an average of 13.3 hours per week on housework.

More striking, the diary entries showed, women at home were now spending far more hours sitting in front of a screen. In 1965, women typically had spent about eight hours a week sitting and watching television. (Home computers weren’t invented yet.)

By 2010, those hours had more than doubled, to 16.5 hours per week. In essence, women had exchanged time spent in active pursuits, like vacuuming, for time spent being sedentary.

In the process, they had also greatly reduced the number of calories that they typically expended during their hours at home. According to the authors’ calculations, American women not employed outside the home were burning about 360 fewer calories every day in 2010 than they had in 1965, with working women burning about 132 fewer calories at home each day in 2010 than in 1965.

“Those are large reductions in energy expenditure,” Dr. Archer said, and would result, over the years, in significant weight gain without reductions in caloric intake.

What his study suggests, Dr. Archer continued, is that “we need to start finding ways to incorporate movement back into” the hours spent at home.

This does not mean, he said, that women — or men — should be doing more housework. For one thing, the effort involved is such activities today is less than it once was. Using modern, gliding vacuum cleaners is less taxing than struggling with the clunky, heavy machines once available, and thank goodness for that.

Nor is more time spent helping around the house a guarantee of more activity, over all. A telling 2012 study of television viewing habits found that when men increased the number of hours they spent on housework, they also greatly increased the hours they spent sitting in front of the TV, presumably because it was there and beckoning.

Instead, Dr. Archer said, we should start consciously tracking what we do when we are at home and try to reduce the amount of time spent sitting. “Walk to the mailbox,” he said. Chop vegetables in the kitchen. Play ball with your, or a neighbor’s, dog. Chivvy your spouse into helping you fold sheets. “The data clearly shows,” Dr. Archer said, that even at home, we need to be in motion.

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Shimon Peres to Press Obama to Release Jonathan Pollard

JERUSALEM (AP) — President Shimon Peres of Israel said on Tuesday that he would lead an effort during President Obama’s coming visit to press for the release of the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, ending one of the most painful episodes between the two allies.

Mr. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for passing classified material to Israel. He is said to be in poor health, and his case has become a rallying cry in Israel.

But stiff opposition from the American military and intelligence community has deterred a string of American presidents from releasing him.

More than 65,000 Israelis have signed a petition calling on Mr. Obama to free Mr. Pollard, the Facebook page of the United States Embassy in Israel has been flooded with pardon requests, and a nationwide campaign began urging Mr. Peres to push for Mr. Pollard’s release.

Mr. Peres said he would raise the issue in a meeting with Mr. Obama, calling for Mr. Pollard’s release “on humanitarian grounds.”

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Mbakwe, Minnesota take down No. 1 Indiana 77-73

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana was starting to settle in again at No. 1 after weeks of shuffling at the top of the national rankings in this wildly unpredictable season of college basketball.

Trevor Mbakwe and Minnesota stepped forward, flexed their muscles and did their best to push the Hoosiers out.

Mbakwe had 21 points and 12 rebounds to help the Gophers take down top-ranked Indiana 77-73 on Tuesday night, the seventh time the No. 1 team in The Associated Press' poll has lost a game this season.

"We're trying to do big things so we have to learn from this mistake, but we have to dust it off real fast," Hoosiers star Victor Oladipo said.

Andre Hollins added 16 points for the Gophers (19-9, 7-8 Big Ten), who outrebounded Cody Zeller and the Hoosiers by a whopping 44-30 and solidified their slipping NCAA tournament bid with an emphatic performance against the Big Ten leader. The fans swarmed the court as the last second ticked off, the first time that's happened here in years.

"We weren't physical enough on the glass. That's the bottom line," Indiana coach Tom Crean said.

Zeller was held to nine points with four turnovers for the Hoosiers (24-4, 12-3), who have held the No. 1 ranking for 10 of 17 polls this season including the last four. Oladipo scored 16 points, but 14 of the 17 points by Jordan Hulls came before halftime.

"Cody's certainly capable of a lot," Crean said, "and I think he'll bounce back just fine."

Mbakwe, a sixth-year senior, posted his conference-leading seventh double-double. At 24 years old, he was a man among boys in many ways in this game, dominating both ends of the court when the Gophers needed him most. Minnesota had 23 offensive rebounds.

"We did need to play with a sense of urgency, play with a little edge," Gophers coach Tubby Smith said. "I think Trevor set that tone for us."

Elliott Eliason, who played every bit as well as Zeller, the slender sophomore in the post on the other side, scored seven straight points for Minnesota to tie the game at 46 shortly after Oladipo's reverse layup had given the Hoosiers a 44-36 edge, their biggest of the game.

Hollins, who missed eight of his first nine shots, scraped off a high screen by Eliason to pull up for a 3-pointer and give the Gophers a 51-48 lead. Mbakwe got a rebound to keep a key possession alive then grabbed another board to set up his off-balance bank shot to make it 56-53 in favor of Minnesota.

"I didn't feel I was playing up to my potential lately. I just wanted to come out and be aggressive," Mbakwe said.

Mbakwe was called for a loudly questioned blocking foul, his fourth, with 4:39 remaining on Zeller's fast-break layup and free throw that put the Hoosiers up 59-58. But Austin Hollins answered with a pump-fake layup that drew a foul for a three-point play and a two-point advantage for the Gophers.

The Hoosiers didn't lead again, and Joe Coleman's fast-break dunk with 2:35 left gave Minnesota a 68-61 cushion, enough of one to withstand a couple of 3-pointers by Christian Watford and one by Hulls in the closing minutes.

Mbakwe, who played for Crean when they were at Marquette in 2007-08, has had some of his better games against the Hoosiers.

This was his best.

He gave the Gophers and their home crowd a double-shot of energy early with 10 points in the first 6½ minutes, plus a jarring block of Zeller's inside shot that knocked the 7-footer to the court.

"He's a high-level, high-energy, tough guy who plays the game at a desperate level," Crean said. "Obviously I'm biased, but there's no shame in that."

Zeller, Indiana's leading scorer and the second-best shooter in the Big Ten behind Oladipo, was 0 for 4 from the field in the first half with two turnovers, two fouls and two points. The Gophers scored only three points in the last 7 minutes of the half, but they trailed only 34-30.

The Hoosiers are still in position for their first outright Big Ten regular season championship since 1993, with a one-game edge in the loss column over Michigan State, Michigan and Wisconsin. With home games against Iowa and Ohio State, Indiana could still clinch the title before the finale at Michigan on March 10.

For now, though, the Hoosiers have to regroup and re-establish their inside game after the trampling in the paint they endured here.

"They were relentless on the glass. We just didn't do a great job of boxing them out," Oladipo said.

The Gophers were back on their uniquely raised home court, trying desperately to boost spirits that have sagged under the weight of eight losses in their previous 11 games. Smith even had the team meet with a sports psychologist. They hadn't topped 58 points in their previous five games. After being ranked in 11 straight polls, the Gophers didn't get one vote this week.

They'll get a few in the next one.

"We've had a lot of people supporting them, encouraging them. I think they knew how important the game was, but I sensed a very calm, matter-of-fact group of guys," Smith said, adding: "They're very confident about who they are."

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Follow Dave Campbell on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DaveCampbellAP

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Media Decoder Blog: SFX Entertainment Buys Electronic Dance Music Site

SFX Entertainment, the company led by the media executive Robert F. X. Sillerman, has agreed to buy the music download site Beatport, part of the company’s plan to build a $1 billion empire centered on the electronic dance music craze.

Mr. Sillerman declined on Tuesday to reveal the price. But two people with direct knowledge of the transaction, who were not authorized to speak about it, said it was for a little more than $50 million.

Beatport, founded in Denver in 2004, has become the pre-eminent download store for electronic dance music, or E.D.M., with a catalog of more than one million tracks, many of them exclusive to the service. It says it has nearly 40 million users, and while the company does not disclose sales numbers, it is said to be profitable.

The site has also become an all-purpose online destination for dance music, with features like a news feed, remix contests and D.J. profiles. Those features, and its reach, could help in Mr. Sillerman’s plan to unite the disparate dance audience through media.

“Beatport gives us direct contact with the D.J.’s and lets us see what’s popular and what’s not,” Mr. Sillerman said in an interview. “Most important, it gives us a massive platform for everything related to E.D.M.”

Since the company was revived last year, SFX has focused mostly on live events, with the promoters Disco Donnie Presents and Life in Color; recently it also invested in a string of nightclubs in Miami and formed a joint venture with ID&T, the European company behind festivals like Sensation, to put on its events in North America.

In the 1990s, Mr. Sillerman spent $1.2 billion creating a nationwide network of concert promoters under the name SFX, which he sold to Clear Channel Entertainment in 2000 for $4.4 billion; those promoters are now the basis of Live Nation’s concert division.

Matthew Adell, Beatport’s chief executive, said that being part of SFX could help the company extend its business into live events, and also into countries where the dance genre is exploding, like India and Brazil.

“We already are by far the largest online destination of qualified fans and talent in the market,” Mr. Adell said, “and we can continue to grow that.”

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Horse Meat in European Beef Raises Questions on U.S. Exposure

The alarm in Europe over the discovery of horse meat in beef products escalated again Monday, when the Swedish furniture giant Ikea withdrew an estimated 1,670 pounds of meatballs from sale in 14 European countries.

Ikea acted after authorities in the Czech Republic detected horse meat in its meatballs. The company said it had made the decision even though its tests two weeks ago did not detect horse DNA.

Horse meat mixed with beef was first found last month in Ireland, then Britain, and has now expanded steadily across the Continent. The situation in Europe has created unease among American consumers over whether horse meat might also find its way into the food supply in the United States. Here are answers to commonly asked questions on the subject.

Has horse meat been found in any meatballs sold in Ikea stores in the United States?

Ikea says there is no horse meat in the meatballs it sells in the United States. The company issued a statement on Monday saying meatballs sold in its 38 stores in the United States were bought from an American supplier and contained beef and pork from animals raised in the United States and Canada.

“We do not tolerate any other ingredients than the ones stipulated in our recipes or specifications, secured through set standards, certifications and product analysis by accredited laboratories,” Ikea said in its statement.

Mona Liss, a spokeswoman for Ikea, said by e-mail that all of the businesses that supply meat to its meatball maker  issue letters guaranteeing that they will not misbrand or adulterate their products. “Additionally, as an abundance of caution, we are in the process of DNA-testing our meatballs,” Ms. Liss wrote. “Results should be concluded in 30 days.”

Does the United States import any beef from countries where horse meat has been found?

No. According to the Department of Agriculture, the United States imports no beef from any of the European countries involved in the scandal. Brian K. Mabry, a spokesman for the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said: “Following a decision by Congress in November 2011 to lift the ban on horse slaughter, two establishments, one located in New Mexico and one in Missouri, have applied for a grant of inspection exclusively for equine slaughter. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (F.S.I.S.) is currently reviewing those applications.”

Has horse meat been found in ground meat products sold in the United States?

No. Meat products sold in the United States must pass Department of Agriculture inspections, whether produced domestically or imported. No government financing has been available for inspection of horse meat for human consumption in the United States since 2005, when the Humane Society of the United States got a rider forbidding financing for inspection of horse meat inserted in the annual appropriations bill for the Agriculture Department. Without inspection, such plants may not operate legally.

The rider was attached to every subsequent agriculture appropriations bill until 2011, when it was left out of an omnibus spending bill signed by President Obama on Nov. 18. The U.S.D.A.  has not committed any money for the inspection of horse meat.

“We’re real close to getting some processing plants up and running, but there are no inspectors because the U.S.D.A. is working on protocols,” said Dave Duquette, a horse trader in Oregon and president of United Horsemen, a small group that works to retrain and rehabilitate unwanted horses and advocates the slaughter of horses for meat. “We believe very strongly that the U.S.D.A. is going to bring inspectors online directly.”

Are horses slaughtered for meat for human consumption in the United States?

Not currently, although live horses from the United States are exported to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. The lack of inspection effectively ended the slaughter of horse meat for human consumption in the United States; 2007 was the last year horses were slaughtered in the United States. At the time financing of inspections was banned, a Belgian company operated three horse meat processing plants — in Fort Worth and Kaufman, Tex., and DeKalb, Ill. — but exported the meat it produced in them.

Since 2011, efforts have been made to re-establish the processing of horse meat for human consumption in the United States. A small plant in Roswell, N.M., which used to process beef cattle into meat has been retooled to slaughter 20 to 25 horses a day. But legal challenges have prevented it from opening, Mr. Duquette said. Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico opposes opening the plant and has asked the U.S.D.A. to block it.

Last month, the two houses of the Oklahoma Legislature passed separate bills to override a law against the slaughter of horses for meat but kept the law’s ban on consumption of such meat by state residents. California, Illinois, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas prohibit horse slaughter for human consumption.

Is there a market for horse meat in the United States?

Mr. Duquette said horse meat was popular among several growing demographic groups in the United States, including Tongans, Mongolians and various Hispanic populations. He said he knew of at least 10 restaurants that wanted to buy horse meat. “People are very polarized on this issue,” he said. Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, disagreed, saying demand in the United States was limited. Italy is the largest consumer of horse meat, he said, followed by France and Belgium.

Is horse meat safe to eat?

That is a matter of much debate between proponents and opponents of horse meat consumption. Mr. Duquette said that horse meat, some derived from American animals processed abroad, was eaten widely around the world without health problems. “It’s high in protein, low in fat and has a whole lot of omega 3s,” he said.

The Humane Society says that because horse meat is not consumed in the United States, the animals’ flesh is likely to contain residues of many drugs that are unsafe for humans to eat. The organization’s list of drugs given to horses runs to 29 pages.

“We’ve been warning the Europeans about this for years,” Mr. Pacelle said. “You have all these food safety standards in Europe — they do not import chicken carcasses from the U.S. because they are bathed in chlorine, and won’t take pork because of the use of ractopamine in our industry — but you’ve thrown out the book when it comes to importing horse meat from North America.”

The society has filed petitions with the Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration, arguing that they should test horse meat before allowing it to be marketed in the United States for humans to eat.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 25, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated how many pounds of meatballs Ikea was withdrawing from sale in 14 European countries. It is 1,670 pounds, not 1.67 billion pounds.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 25, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the last year that horses were slaughtered in the United States. It is 2007, not 2006.

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AP source: Tom Brady gets 3-year extension

Tom Brady will be a Patriot until he is 40 years old.

Brady agreed to a three-year contract extension with New England on Monday, a person familiar with the contract told The Associated Press. The extension is worth about $27 million and will free up nearly $15 million in salary cap room for the team, which has several younger players it needs to re-sign or negotiate new deals with.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the extension has not been announced.

Sports Illustrated first reported the extension.

The 35-year-old two-time league MVP was signed through 2014, and has said he wants to play at least five more years.

A three-time Super Bowl champion, Brady will make far less in those three seasons than the going rate for star quarterbacks. Brady currently has a four-year, $72 million deal with $48 million guaranteed.

Drew Brees and Peyton Manning are the NFL's highest-paid quarterbacks, at an average of $20 million and $18 million a year, respectively.

Brady has made it clear he wants to finish his career with the Patriots, whom he led to Super Bowl wins for the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons, and losses in the big game after the 2007 and 2011 seasons. By taking less money in the extension and redoing his current contract, he's hopeful New England can surround him with the parts to win more titles.

Among the Patriots' free agents are top receiver Wes Welker and his backup, Julian Edelman; right tackle Sebastian Vollmer; cornerback Aqib Talib; and running back Danny Woodhead.

Brady has been the most successful quarterback of his era, of course, as well as one of the NFL's best leaders. His skill at running the no-huddle offense is unsurpassed, and he's easily adapted to the different offensive schemes New England has concentrated on through his 13 pro seasons.

The Patriots have gone from run-oriented in Brady's early days to a deep passing team with Randy Moss to an offense dominated by throws to tight ends, running backs and slot receivers.

Brady holds the NFL record for touchdown passes in a season with 50 in 2007, when the Patriots went 18-0 before losing the Super Bowl to the Giants. He has thrown for at least 28 touchdowns seven times and led the league three times.

Last season, Brady had 34 TD passes and eight interceptions as the Patriots went 12-4, leading the league with 557 points, 76 more than runner-up Denver.

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