Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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U.S. Designates Syrian Al Nusra Front as Terrorist Group

Manu Brabo/Associated Press

Syrian Army defectors were detained by Syrian rebel fighters while their identities were investigated Monday in the village of Azaz, near the Turkish border.

WASHINGTON — The United States has formally designated the Al Nusra Front, the militant Syrian rebel group, as a foreign terrorist organization.

The move, which was expected, is aimed at building Western support for the rebellion against the government of President Bashar al-Assad by quelling fears that money and arms meant for the rebels would flow to a jihadi group.

The designation was disclosed on Monday in the Federal Register, just before an important diplomatic meeting Wednesday in Morocco on the political transition if Mr. Assad is driven from power. The notice in the register lists the Al Nusra front as one of the “aliases” of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In practical terms, the designation makes it illegal for Americans to have financial dealings with the group. It is intended to prompt similar sanctions by other nations, and to address concerns about a group that could further destabilize Syria and harm Western interests.

France, Britain, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council have formally recognized the Syrian opposition. European Union foreign ministers met Monday with the head of the Syrian opposition coalition, Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib, in Brussels.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that he hoped the European Union would soon grant the group full recognition.

The Al Nusra Front comprises only a small minority of the Syrian rebels, but it includes some of the rebellion’s most battle-hardened and effective fighters.

“Extremist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra are a problem, an obstacle to finding the political solution that Syria’s going to need,” the American ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, said last week in an appearance hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nongovernmental group.

But a growing number of anti-government groups — including fighters in the loose-knit Free Syrian Army that the United States is trying to bolster — have signed petitions or posted statements online in recent days expressing support for the Nusra Front. In keeping with a tradition throughout the uprising of choosing themes for Friday protests, the biggest day for demonstrations because it coincides with Friday Prayer, many called for this Friday’s title to be “No to American intervention — we are all Jabhet al-Nusra.”

Many Syrian fighters consider the Nusra Front a key ally because of its fighters’ bravery and reliable supply of money and arms. It has never come under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, shunning the Western aid and input that other groups have sought, but it coordinates closely with many who do.

Adding to the complication is that some groups in the Free Syrian Army have similar ideologies, follow the strict Salafist interpretation of Islam, and count among them fighters who joined the insurgency in Iraq — though they are not known to share the Nusra Front’s direct organizational connections to Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Nusra Front celebrated another apparent battlefield achievement on Monday, declaring it had captured part of a large base outside the commercial hub of Aleppo. Activist groups and video posted online said that it had fought alongside other Islamic battalions including the Mujahedeen Shura Council and the Muhajireen Group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that tracks events in Syria through a network of activists in the country, said that the rebels had taken control of the command center of the sprawling base and that many soldiers had fled. Videos showed gunmen taking possession of tanks and anti-aircraft weapons.

The decision to designate the group, the register noted, was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Nov. 20, in consultation with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

The State Department appeared to delay the publication of the decision to synchronize it with the expected announcement in Morocco that the United States will formally recognize the Syrian opposition. The United States closed its embassy in Damascus in February because of escalating violence in the capital.

Because Mrs. Clinton is not feeling well, she will not travel to North Africa and the Middle East this week as planned. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will lead the United States delegation at the Morocco meeting, an aide to Mrs. Clinton said Monday.

Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Patriots rout Texans 42-14 in key AFC matchup

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Look out. That familiar sight is the New England Patriots romping through December, looking like a Super Bowl team.

The Patriots rolled over Houston 42-14 on Monday night, stamping themselves once again as the team to fear in the AFC — and making the Texans look like pretenders.

Tom Brady threw for four touchdowns and 296 yards as New England manhandled the team with the league's best record. The Patriots (10-3), who already own the AFC East title, won their seventh straight and moved one game behind the Texans (11-2) for the conference's top seed.

A matchup of the top two scoring teams in the league was a mismatch from the outset. It took take New England only one possession to start its scoring barrage as the Patriots surpassed their average of 35.8 points per game.

Wes Welker's 31-yard punt return and 25-yard reception — the 107th straight game he's had a catch — led to Aaron Hernandez's 7-yard score. That gave Brady 45 consecutive games with a TD pass, third longest in NFL history.

It also set the tone.

Houston, which had won six straight, threatened on its next series, only to have Matt Schaub force a ball into double coverage in the Patriots' end zone. Devin McCourty picked it off and returned it 19 yards, setting up more pinpoint throws by Brady, who finished 21 of 35.

He couldn't miss if he tried, his receivers were so uncovered: Brandon Lloyd for 14 yards, Danny Woodhead for 18, Hernandez for 13, then Lloyd for the 37-yard TD to make it 14-0. Texans defensive coordinator Wade Phillips could only shake his head in disgust at his players' inability to challenge the Patriots.

It got worse. At the end of a 70-yard drive helped by a 26-yard interference call on Danieal Manning, no Texans were lined up to Brady's left in front of Hernandez. A quick snap, a quicker pass and the tight end waltzed into the end zone.

New England was headed for its 20th successive home win in December, and its 21st straight victory in the second half of the schedule.

Houston was headed back home wondering not only how it could measure up to a perennial championship contender in the future, but if it could hold off surging Indianapolis in the AFC South. The Texans have a two-game lead but face the Colts (9-4) on Sunday in Houston, then in the season finale at Indianapolis.

Although the Texans have clinched at least a wild-card berth, they haven't had a truly convincing win since October. This was a convincing defeat, however — although they got on the scoreboard in the third quarter with an 88-yard drive capped by Arian Foster's 1-yard run.

By then the Patriots had their fourth TD, a gorgeous 63-yard throw to Donte' Stallworth, who was re-signed last week to replace injured Julian Edelman. It gave Brady his 18th game with at least four TD passes, moving ahead of Hall of Famer John Unitas for fourth all time.

Brady nearly had a fifth as Woodhead broke free on a screen pass early in the fourth period. Texans standout defensive end J.J. Watt, who was pretty much invisible otherwise, forced a fumble, but the ball soared 11 yards into the end zone, where Lloyd fell on it for a 35-7 lead.

Stevan Ridley made it 42-7 with a 14-yard run. The Texans have allowed 42 points in both losses, the other coming against Green Bay on Oct. 14.

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Study Predicts Future for U.S. as No. 2 Economy, but Energy Independent

WASHINGTON — A new intelligence assessment of global trends projects that China will outstrip the United States as the leading economic power before 2030, but that America will remain an indispensable world leader, bolstered in part by an era of energy independence.

Russia’s clout will wane, as will the economic strength of other countries reliant on oil for revenues, the assessment says.

“There will not be any hegemonic power,” the 166-page report says. “Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.”

The product of four years of intelligence-gathering and analysis, the study, by the National Intelligence Council, presents grounds for optimism and pessimism in nearly equal measure. The council reports to the director of national intelligence and has responsibilities for long-term strategic analysis.

One remarkable development it anticipates is a spreading affluence that leads to a larger global middle class that is better educated and has wider access to health care and communications technologies like the Internet and smartphones. “The growth of the global middle class constitutes a tectonic shift,” the study says, adding that billions of people will gain new individual power as they climb out of poverty. “For the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world.”

At the same time, it warns, half of the world’s population will probably be living in areas that suffer from severe shortages of fresh water, meaning that management of natural resources will be a crucial component of global national security efforts.

The study also warns of the risk that terrorists could mount a computer-network attack in which the casualties would be measured not by the hundreds or thousands killed but by the millions severely affected by damaged infrastructure, like electrical grids being taken down.

At least 15 countries are “at high risk of state failure” by 2030, the report predicts, among them Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen.

The study acknowledges that the future “is malleable,” and it lists important “game changers” that will most influence the global scene through 2030: a crisis-prone world economy, shortcomings in governance, conflicts within states and between them, the impact of new technologies and whether the United States can “work with new partners to reinvent the international system.”

The best-case situation for global security until 2030, according to the study, would be a growing political partnership between the United States and China. But it could take a crisis to bring Washington and Beijing together — something like a nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan resolved only by bold cooperation between the United States and China.

The worst-case situation envisions a stalling of economic globalization that would preclude advancement of financial well-being around the world. That would be a likely outcome after an outbreak of a health pandemic that, even if short-lived, would result in closed borders and economic isolationism.

The chief author and manager of the project, Mathew Burrows, who is counselor for the National Intelligence Council, said the findings had been presented in advance in more than 20 nations to groups of academic experts, business leaders and government officials, including local intelligence officers.

In an interview, Mr. Burrows noted that the audiences in China were far more accepting of the American intelligence assessments — both those predicting China’s economic ascendancy and those warning of political dangers if there was no reform of governance in Beijing — than were audiences in Russia.

To assess the validity of this study, the research and analysis team graded its past work on global trends, an effort undertaken every four years since 1996. Past studies, it found, underestimated the speed with which changes arrived on the global scene.

Concerns were raised that past reports may have suffered “blind spots and biases.” And while grand “isms” like fascism and communism might not be on the horizon, this study noted, previous assessments should have paid greater attention to ideology.

The risk of conflict within a state — like a civil war or an insurgency — is expected to decline in Latin America, but will remain high in sub-Saharan Africa, in parts of the Middle East and South Asia, and in some Asia-Pacific island hot spots, the study warns.

“A more fragmented international system increases the risks” of conflict between states, the study says. “Additionally, increased resource competition, spread of lethal technologies and spillover from regional conflicts increase the potential for interstate conflicts.”

Most worrisome — and already a part of the global security dynamic — is an assessment that future wars in Asia and the Middle East could include nuclear weapons.

Other important demographic trends will be aging populations in Europe, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which could slow their economies further. The report warns that Russia’s economy will join those places in experiencing “slow relative declines.” The United States will benefit from its domestic oil and natural gas supplies and new technologies to tap them, allowing the nation to become energy independent and even a net exporter of fuel.

In general, it found, “the health of the global economy increasingly will be linked to how well the developing world does — more so than the traditional West.”

In addition to China, the developing nations that “will become especially important to the global economy” include Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and Turkey.

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Italy Grapples With Polluting by Ilva, a Giant Steel Maker

Alessandro Penso for The New York Times

The Ilva steel plant, in Taranto, Italy, above, employs thousands of workers but is seen as a health threat by residents and courts.

TARANTO, Italy — Every morning, Graziella Lumino cleans the black soot from her kitchen window, which looks out on the hulking Ilva steel plant where her husband, Giuseppe Corisi, worked for 30 years.

After he died this year at the age of 64 from violent, sudden-onset lung cancer, his friends put a plaque on the wall of their apartment building: “Here lived the umpteenth death from lung cancer. Taranto, March 8, 2012.”

Today, Ilva, which is among the largest plants in Europe and produces more than 30 percent of Italy’s raw steel, is at the heart of a clash over the future of Italian industry, one that pits economic concerns against environmental ones and the power of the government against the judiciary amid Italy’s struggle to compete in a global economy.

After a court ordered sections of the plant closed and steel from it impounded last month, arguing that it had violated environmental laws and was raising serious health concerns in the area, the government passed an emergency decree that would allow it to continue operating while cleaning up its act, saving 20,000 jobs nationwide. Magistrates said that the new law, which must be approved by Parliament, violated the Constitution by allowing the executive branch to circumvent the judiciary.

In many ways, the Ilva plant is an emblem of the Italian economy that the technocratic government of Prime Minister Mario Monti inherited last year and has been trying to repair before elections expected early next year. It is the product of decades of physical and political neglect, an aging industrial giant that came of age in the economic boom of the late 20th century and is struggling to keep pace in the 21st.

For Italy, though, the plant is too big to fail. It produces about 8 percent of European steel — and the government estimates that stopping production would cost the Italian economy more than $10 billion a year.

But the environmental concerns are real. Dark plumes of smoke billow from stacks dominating the landscape, while dust from the plant stains the white tombstones in the local cemetery a rusty pink. An ordinance forbids children from playing in unpaved lots. In 2008, a local farmer was forced to slaughter 2,000 sheep after they were deemed contaminated with dioxin.

Some studies have found that cancer rates in Taranto, an ancient harbor in the heel of Italy’s boot, are over 30 percent higher than the national average, and far higher for certain cancers, particularly of the lungs, kidneys and liver, as well as melanomas.

Bruno Ferrante, the president of Ilva, said that the Riva Group, which owns the plant, has been spending from $325 million to $400 million a year to upgrade the plant since it bought it in 1995.

Mr. Ferrante added that cancer rates had been falling recently — government-approved studies bear that out — but acknowledged that there was more to be done. “The pink dust is certainly a problem, and we are aware of it,” he said.

Arguments about the plant’s economic importance fall on deaf ears here. “Health comes first,” Ms. Lumino said, sitting in her apartment with photos of her husband, including one on a chain that hung from her neck. He was one of many Ilva workers sent into early retirement in 1998 after the plant found evidence of asbestos contamination. “If you have money but not your health, what good is it?” she asked.

Ms. Lumino remembered a time before the plant was built. “There were farms, clean air, olive and almond trees,” she said. “We would picnic by the coast every Easter Monday.”

Even with the new decree, the conflict is far from over. The decree orders the Riva Group to invest $3.8 billion to reduce its emissions and bring the plant up to code before 2016, the deadline for other European countries to modernize.

If Riva fails to do so, the new law would give the government more powers to intervene. If Riva is unable to raise enough money to modernize, it could ask for European Union subsidies or sell the plant, which could jeopardize Italy’s European standing.

Brazilian companies are already eying Ilva, according to Italian news media reports. Mr. Ferrante said that Riva had no intention of selling and had a “pretty significant” ability to borrow more money and also draw on European Union cofinancing.

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

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Memo From Italy: In Italy, Mario Monti Morphs From Technocrat to Politician

ROME — For months, he had flirted with the idea of staying out of politics, but in the end former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi just could not resist. His statement on Saturday that he would seek office again out of a sense of “responsibility” for Italy effectively ended the mandate of Prime Minister Mario Monti, who said he would step down after Parliament passes a budget bill this month.

Mr. Monti’s surprise announcement on Saturday raised the prospect of more political uncertainty and market turmoil for Italy, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, in what is expected to be a gloves-off political campaign. But it also increased the possibility that Mr. Monti might run as a candidate — a shift from the role of an apolitical leader — who is open to governing if no clear winner emerges from elections expected as soon as February.

Three years into Europe’s debt crisis, the new developments in Italy underscored the clash between the economically sound and the politically sustainable. While Mr. Monti, an economist and a former European commissioner, has reassured investors and helped keep Italian borrowing rates down, the tax increases and spending cuts passed by his Parliament have eroded lawmakers’ standing with voters.

Mr. Monti’s grasp of economics and experience in European politics made him a power broker who took regular calls from the White House and worked with France and Spain to wring euro-zone concessions from a reluctant German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

“He’s ushered in a turning point in Italian politics and has been a major influence in Europe,” said Thomas Klau, director of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He has helped turn Italy into a serious country again in the eyes of foreign investors and also many of its own citizens.”

Even if Mr. Monti decides not to run as a political candidate, his decision to step down sets the stage for a battle that pits him — a subtly ironic technocrat who attended Wagner’s “Die Lohengrin” at La Scala on Friday — against Mr. Berlusconi, who made his announcement at the training site of his soccer team, A. C. Milan.

“The war will be between Monti and Berlusconi,” said Massimo Franco, chief political commentator for the newspaper Corriere della Sera. “The moderate votes are in play, not the leftist ones.”

Although Mr. Berlusconi said he was motivated by a sense of responsibility, European leaders and market analysts immediately accused him of the opposite. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, called his return to politics “a threat for Italy and Europe,” the ANSA news agency reported.

With the aid of Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, Mr. Monti calmed the financial markets this year, but investors and European leaders now worry that many of Mr. Monti’s initiatives could be undone by future governments.

In an interview with the business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said that Italy was at risk of being hit by deeper financial problems. “The next elections must not serve as a pretext for putting in doubt how indispensable these measures are,” he said. “The relative calm on the markets does not mean we are out of the crisis.”

Analysts said that Mr. Monti’s decision to step down ahead of schedule was aimed at preventing Mr. Berlusconi from running a campaign that undermined him. Mr. Berlusconi, always attuned to the national mood, even of voters increasingly weary of him, now looks poised to run a populist campaign that will criticize Mr. Monti for foisting unpopular measures on Italians and that may attack the adoption of a single currency for eroding Italian sovereignty.

Stepping down now, rather than early next year, as was expected, also puts Mr. Monti in the fray. “Monti becomes a politician at this point,” said Stefano Folli, a political columnist for Il Sole 24 Ore. “If Monti helps create a space on the ballot for an electoral alliance that recognizes the seriousness of what has been achieved, this could create a new political balance. That’s the challenge.”

Polls show that the center-left Democratic Party is likely to place first in elections, but without enough votes for a majority. But the party remains divided over which ally to choose to form a government.

Mr. Berlusconi is expected to secure enough votes to stay in Parliament and keep his immunity from prosecution in various trials, but not enough votes to govern.

“It is extremely unlikely that we will see a dynamic unfolding which would bring Mr. Berlusconi back to power,” Mr. Klau said. “So even if Mr. Monti were to leave the political stage for good, we would not go back to the political situation we were in before.”

Although Parliament has blocked some of the measures on Mr. Monti’s agenda — in recent weeks, lawmakers have proposed more than 1,500 amendments to the budget bill — the budget is likely to be approved, as is a law that requires Italy to balance its budget each year.

But analysts said that other changes aimed at improving Italy’s competitiveness were at risk. And before the end of the legislative session this month, lawmakers must also vote on a bill that would simplify the tax code, another meant to streamline the cumbersome bureaucracy and a measure that to allow the Ilva steel plant — a major economic engine for Italy — to stay open while it modernizes to meet environmental standards.

As the debt crisis has lingered, such local issues, as well as Italy’s chaotic political system, have taken on international importance.

On Sunday, Ferruccio de Bortoli, the editor in chief of Corriere della Sera, offered his review of the political drama: “The ‘Lohengrin’ at La Scala ended in applause. The Italian tragedy continues. The libretto still needs writing, so does the music. The guaranteed audience is international, but unfortunately not terribly forgiving about the cast. The curtain never falls.”

Reporting was contributed by Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome, Stephen Castle from London and Jack Ewing from Frankfurt.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 9, 2012

An earlier version of this story stated that the the Ilva steel plan was responsible for 8 million euro. The correct number was 8 billion euro.

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Packers beat Lions 27-20, take NFC North lead

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — The Green Bay Packers are a victory away from clinching the NFC North title after beating the Detroit Lions 27-20 on Sunday night.

DaJuan Harris rushed for a score in his first NFL game, Aaron Rodgers added the longest TD run of his career, and Mike Daniels returned a fumble 43 yards as the Packers (9-4) opened a one-game lead over Chicago. Beat the Bears next weekend at Soldier Field, and Green Bay will win the NFC North for a second straight year.

The loss was the fifth straight for Detroit (4-9). This wasn't quite as excruciating as the previous three, though, when the Lions gave up fourth-quarter leads and fell by a total of nine points.

The Packers have won 22 straight at home against the Lions, the longest streak in the NFL.

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You for Sale: Company Envisions ‘Vaults’ for Personal Data

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Michael Fertik, the founder and chief executive of Reputation.com, at its offices in Redwood City, Calif., where he has amassed a database of information collected on millions of consumers.

“YOU are walking around naked on the Internet and you need some clothes,” says Michael Fertik. “I am going to sell you some.”

Naked? Not exactly, but close.

Mr. Fertik, 34, is the chief executive of Reputation.com, a company that helps people manage their online reputations. From his perch here in Silicon Valley, he views the digital screens in our lives, the smartphones and the tablets, the desktops and the laptops, as windows of a house. People go about their lives on the inside, he says, while dozens of marketing and analytics companies watch through the windows, sizing them up like peeping Toms.

By now many Americans are learning that they are living in a surveillance economy. “Information resellers,” also known as “data brokers,” have collected hundreds to thousands of details — what we buy, our race or ethnicity, our finances and health concerns, our Web activities and social networks — on almost every American adult. Other companies that specialize in ranking consumers use computer algorithms to covertly score Internet users, identifying some as “high-value” consumers worthy of receiving pitches for premium credit cards and other offers, while dismissing others as a waste of time and marketing money. Yet another type of company, called an ad-trading platform, profiles Internet users and auctions off online access to them to marketers in a practice called “real-time bidding.”

As these practices have come to light, several members of Congress, and federal agencies, have opened investigations.

At least for now, however, these companies typically do not permit consumers to see the records or marketing scores that have been compiled about them. And that is perfectly legal.

Now, Mr. Fertik, the loquacious, lion-maned founder of Reputation.com, says he has the free-market solution. He calls it a “data vault,” or “a bank for other people’s data.”

Here at Reputation.com’s headquarters, a vast open-plan office decorated with industrial-looking metal struts and reclaimed wood — a discreet homage to the lab where Thomas Edison invented the light bulb — his company has amassed a database on millions of consumers. Mr. Fertik plans to use it to sell people on the idea of taking control of their own marketing profiles. To succeed, he will have to persuade people that they must take charge of their digital personas.

Pointing out the potential hazards posed by data brokers and the like is part of Mr. Fertik’s M.O. Covert online profiling and scoring, he says, may unfairly exclude certain Internet users from marketing offers that could affect their financial, educational or health opportunities — a practice Mr. Fertik calls “Weblining.” He plans to market Reputation.com’s data vault, scheduled to open for business early next year, as an antidote.

“A data privacy vault,” he says, “is a way to control yourself as a person.”

Reputation.com is at the forefront of a nascent industry called “personal identity management.” The company’s business model for its vault service involves collecting data about consumers’ marketing preferences and giving them the option to share the information on a limited basis with certain companies in exchange for coupons, say, or status upgrades. In turn, participating companies will get access both to potential customers who welcome their pitches and to details about the exact products and services those people are seeking. In theory, the data vault would earn money as a kind of authorization supervisor, managing the permissions that marketers would need to access information about Reputation.com’s clients.

To some, the idea seems a bit quixotic.

Reputation.com, with $67 million in venture capital, is not making a profit. Although the company’s “privacy” products, like removing clients’ personal information from list broker and marketing databases, are popular, its reputation management techniques can be controversial. For instance, it offers services meant to make negative commentary about individual or corporate clients less visible on the Web.

And there are other hurdles, like competition. A few companies, like Personal, have already introduced vault services. Also, a number of other enterprises have tried — and quickly failed — to sell consumers on data lockers.

Even so, Mr. Fertik contends Reputation.com has the answer. The company already has several hundred thousand paying customers, he says, and patents on software that can identify consumers’ information online and score their reputations. He intends to show clients their scores and advise them on how to improve them.

“You can’t just build a vault and wish that vendors cared enough about your data to pay for it,” Mr. Fertik says. “You have to build a business that gives you the lift to accumulate a data set and attract consumers, the science to create insights that are valuable to vendors, and the power to impose restrictions on the companies who consume your data.”

THE consumer data trade is large and largely unregulated.

Companies and organizations in the United States spend more than $2 billion a year on third-party data about individuals, according to a report last year on personal identity management from Forrester Research, a market research firm. They spend billions more on credit data, market research and customer data analytics, the report said.

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Doping at U.S. Tracks Affects Europe’s Taste for Horse Meat

PARIS — For decades, American horses, many of them retired or damaged racehorses, have been shipped to Canada and Mexico, where it is legal to slaughter horses, and then processed and sold for consumption in Europe and beyond.

Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

A slaughterhouse in Saint-André-Avellin, Quebec, where meat is processed for sale in Europe.

Lately, however, European food safety officials have notified Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses of a growing concern: The meat of American racehorses may be too toxic to eat safely because the horses have been injected repeatedly with drugs.

Despite the fact that racehorses make up only a fraction of the trade in horse meat, the European officials have indicated that they may nonetheless require lifetime medication records for slaughter-bound horses from Canada and Mexico, and perhaps require them to be held on feedlots or some other holding area for six months before they are slaughtered.

In October, Stephan Giguere, the general manager of a major slaughterhouse in Quebec, said he turned away truckloads of horses coming from the United States because his clients were worried about potential drug issues. Mr. Giguere said he told his buyers to stay away from horses coming from American racetracks.

“We don’t want them,” he said. “It’s too risky.”

The action is just the latest indication of the troubled state of American racing and its problems with the doping of horses. Some prominent trainers have been disciplined for using legal and illegal drugs, and horses loaded with painkillers have been breaking down in arresting numbers. Congress has called for reform, and state regulators have begun imposing stricter rules.

But for pure emotional effect, the alarm raised in the international horse-meat marketplace packs a distinctive punch.

Some 138,000 horses were sent to Canada or Mexico in 2010 alone to be turned into meat for Europe and other parts of the world, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Organizations concerned about the welfare of retired racehorses have estimated that anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the population sent for slaughter may have performed on racetracks in the United States.

“Racehorses are walking pharmacies,” said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, a veterinarian on the faculty of Tufts University and a co-author of a 2010 article that sought to raise concerns about the health risks posed by American racehorses. He said it was reckless to want any of the drugs routinely administered to horses “in your food chain.”

Horses being shipped to Mexico and Canada are by law required to have been free of certain drugs for six months before being slaughtered, and those involved in their shipping must have affidavits proving that. But European Commission officials say the affidavits are easily falsified. As a result, American racehorses often show up in Canada within weeks — sometimes days — of their leaving the racetrack and their steady diets of drugs.

In October, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers found serious problems while auditing the operations of equine slaughter facilities in Mexico, where 80 percent of the horses arrive from the United States. The commission’s report said Mexican officials were not allowed to question the “authenticity or reliability of the sworn statements” about the ostensibly drug-free horses, and thus had no way of verifying whether the horses were tainted by drugs.

“The systems in place for identification, the food-chain information and in particular the affidavits concerning the nontreatment for six months with certain medical substances, both for the horses imported from the U.S. as well as for the Mexican horses, are insufficient to guarantee that standards equivalent to those provided for by E.U. legislation are applied,” the report said.

The authorities in the United States and Canada acknowledge that oversight of the slaughter business is lax. On July 9, the United States Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to an Ohio feedlot operator who sells horses for slaughter. The operator, Ronald Andio, was reprimanded for selling a drug-tainted thoroughbred horse to a Canadian slaughterhouse.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency had tested the carcass of the horse the previous August and found the anti-inflammatory drug phenylbutazone in the muscle and kidney tissues. It also discovered clenbuterol, a widely abused medication for breathing problems that can build muscle by mimicking anabolic steroids.

Because horses are not a traditional food source in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration does not require human food safety information as it considers what drugs can be used legally on horses. Patricia El-Hinnawy, a spokeswoman for the agency, said agency-approved drugs intended for use in horses carried the warning “Do not use in horses intended for human consumption.”

She also said the case against Mr. Andio remained open.

“On the warning letter, the case remains open and no further information can be provided at this time,” Ms. El-Hinnawy said.

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Somber Chávez to Have Surgery and Names Successor

ORURO, Bolivia — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela announced Saturday in Caracas that he would have to undergo another operation for cancer, and he designated his vice president, Nicolás Maduro, as his successor if he should prove unable to continue to lead the country.

Mr. Chávez, appearing somber and contemplative, made the announcement in a televised address from the presidential palace. Mr. Maduro sat to his left, and several other cabinet members were also present.

It was the first time that Mr. Chávez had said publicly whom he wanted as his successor. Mr. Chávez said that he would fly to Havana on Sunday for the operation. The announcement came just weeks after he was elected to a new six-year term, beginning in early January.

He said Saturday that tests immediately after his re-election found no cancer. But he said he later experienced swelling and pain. He went to Cuba on Nov. 27 for what the government said was hyperbaric treatment meant to aid in healing.

Exhaustive tests at the time found “some malignant cells,” Mr. Chávez said.

“With the favor of God, as on the previous occasions, we will be victorious,” he added.

But he acknowledged the possibility that he may not be able to continue as president or begin his new term. If he is unable to do so, the Constitution says that new elections would have to be called within 30 days.

In that case, he said, “my strong opinion, as clear as the full moon, irrevocable, absolute, total” is that “you should elect Nicolás Maduro” as the new president.

“I ask it from my heart,” he added.

Mr. Chávez said that he was in a significant amount of pain and that his doctors had urged him to have the operation no later than Friday, but he had insisted on postponing it so that he could return briefly from Cuba, where he had been undergoing medical treatment. He flew back to Caracas on Friday.

Mr. Chávez first received a cancer diagnosis in June 2011. He had surgery and chemotherapy, but in February he said the cancer had returned. He then had another operation, followed by radiation treatment.

He has refused to say what kind of cancer he has, or exactly where in his body it had appeared.

Mr. Maduro is a former bus driver and legislator who has served for years as Venezuela’s foreign minister.

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