In New Orleans, an unwelcome mat for Goodell

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An effigy of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell dangles from the front porch of a New Orleans home that is otherwise festively decorated with Saints paraphernalia.


With restaurants and bars gearing up for an influx of Super Bowl XLVII visitors, the "Refuse to Serve Roger Goodell" page on Facebook had 107 likes as of Friday.


A portrait of Goodell covers the bull's-eye on the dart board at Parkview Tavern.


And floats in the unabashedly lowbrow Krewe du Vieux parade in the French Quarter last weekend displayed larger-than-life likenesses of Goodell in acts that defy polite description.


New Orleans is celebrating the return of Saints coach Sean Payton after a season of NFL banishment as a result of the "bountygate" scandal — when the team ran a pay-for-hits program. But Goodell, who suspended Payton and other current and former Saints players and coaches last year for their roles in the system, is being ridiculed here with a vehemence usually reserved for the city's scandal-scarred politicians.


"They believe he completely used the Saints as an example of something that was going on league-wide," said Pauline Patterson, co-owner of Finn McCool's, an Irish Bar in the Mid-City neighborhood where the words "Go To Hell Goodell" are visible over the fireplace.


Some of Goodell's critics say the disarray resulting from what they believe were unfair suspensions led to the Saints' 7-9 performance this year — and a missed chance to make history.


"We had a real shot of being the first team in history to host the Super Bowl in our own stadium," Parkview Tavern owner Kathy Anderson said. "He can't give that back to us."


Goodell suspended the coaches and players after an investigation found the Saints had a performance pool offering cash rewards for key plays, including big hits. The player suspensions eventually were overturned, but the coaches served their punishments.


Mayor Mitch Landrieu is among those saying that people in this city, known for its hospitality and history, should mind their manners and remember the not-too-distant past.


"Roger Goodell has been a great friend to New Orleans, and it's a fact that he's one of the people instrumental to making sure that the Saints stayed here after Hurricane Katrina," Landrieu said in a statement. It was a reference to the days after the storm, when 80 percent of the city was underwater and the damaged Superdome became a shelter for thousands of the displaced.


Then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and his second-in-command, Goodell, are credited with working to keep the team from abandoning New Orleans for San Antonio.


"If not for Roger Goodell, we would not have this Super Bowl," Landrieu added. "And we will need him since we want to host another one."


Saints quarterback Drew Brees said the game is validation of everything the city's gone through to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.


"There's no question, yeah. And I think people will see that when they come down, as soon as people come down that haven't been there in a while," Brees said Friday while in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. "The city knows how to entertain, knows how to treat people right. The tourism industry's huge, so we're excited to host this big game. Obviously it's the biggest sporting event in the world, and the city will be ready for it."


But some are in no mood to back off when it comes to Goodell.


Anderson said she understands city leaders' desire to put their best foot forward, but that it also is important for Saints fans to be able to vent.


"Whether I have Roger Goodell's face on my dart board is not going to change anybody's mind about the Super Bowl," Anderson said.


People should not take the barbs too seriously, said Lynda Woolard, a Saints fan who has been tracking some of the barbs on social media. "Nobody's saying there should be violence against the man," Woolard said.


"It's tongue-in-cheek," Patterson agreed.


Still, some diehards are ready to put it all behind them.


Patrick Brower, owner and manager of the Dirty Coast T-shirt shop, said Friday that he's pushing black-and-gold wear at his shop, choosing to unify Saints fans without bashing the commissioner.


"We've got to look forward here," Brower said. "The more time we spend in the past, it's just not beneficial."


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7 Die in Fire at Factory in Bangladesh

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A.M. Ahad/Associated Press


Firefighters and volunteers worked to extinguish the fire at a small garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday.







DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the latest blow to Bangladesh’s garment industry, seven workers died Saturday after a fire swept through a factory here not long after seamstresses had returned from a lunch break. Workers said supervisors had locked one of the factory exits, forcing some people to jump out of windows to save their lives.









Abir Abdullah/European Pressphoto Agency

Relatives mourned beside the bodies of workers killed in the fire at a hospital in Dhaka.






Reuters

People sifted through the wreckage at the Smart Fashions factory.






The fatal fire comes roughly two months after the blaze at the Tazreen Fashions factory left 112 workers dead and focused global attention on unsafe conditions in Bangladesh’s garment industry. Tazreen Fashions, located just outside Dhaka, the capital, had been making clothing for some of the world’s biggest brands and retailers, including Walmart.


In the aftermath of the Tazreen Fashions fire, political and industrial leaders in Bangladesh pledged to quickly improve fire safety and even conducted high-profile, nationwide inspections of many of the country’s 5,000 clothing factories. And global brands promised they would not buy clothes from unsafe factories.


But Saturday’s fire in a densely populated section of Dhaka is a grim reminder that the problems remain. The blaze erupted about 2 p.m. at Smart Garment Export, a small factory that employed about 300 people, most of them young women who were making sweaters and jackets. All seven of the dead workers were women.


Masudur Rahman Akand, a supervisor in the fire department, said the factory’s workers were returning from lunch when the blaze erupted in a storage area. The factory was located on the second floor of a building, above a bakery, and it lacked proper exits and fire prevention equipment, Mr. Akand said.


“We did not find fire extinguishers,” he said. “We did not find any safety measures.”


With smoke filling the factory floor, workers apparently panicked. Mr. Akand said the seven workers who died either suffocated or were trampled by people trying to escape.


Eight other workers were hospitalized with injuries. Some of them told rescuers that many people could not quickly escape because one of the exits was blocked by a locked steel gate. Witnesses said people began jumping out of windows before the gate was unlocked.


Azizul Hoque, a police supervisor, said the investigation was continuing. “We do not know the reason or the source or the origin of the fire,” he said.


It was unclear whether the Smart Garment factory was making clothing for international brands or retailers. Dhaka’s industrial areas are filled with factories, large and small, that produce clothing for much of the Western world.


Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi.



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40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

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Drew Angerer/The New York Times


Pro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday.







WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday for the annual March for Life rally, which culminated in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building.




On a gray morning when the temperature was well below freezing, the crowd pressed in close against the stage to hear more than a dozen speakers, who included Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who recently introduced legislation to withhold financing from Planned Parenthood, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston; and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania and Republican presidential candidate.


Mr. Santorum spoke of his wife’s decision not to have an abortion after they learned that their child — their daughter Bella, now 4 — had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18.


“We all know that death is never better, never better,” Mr. Santorum said. “Bella is better for us, and we are better because of Bella.”


Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said that the march was both somber and hopeful.


“We’ve lost 55 million Americans to abortion,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re starting to win. We’re winning in the court of public opinion, we’re winning in the states with legislation.”


Though the main event officially started at noon, the day began much earlier for the participants, with groups in matching scarves engaged in excited chatter on the subway and gaggles of schoolchildren wearing name tags around their necks. Arriving on the Mall, attendees were greeted with free signs (“Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Personhood for Everyone”) and a man barking into a megaphone, “Ireland is on the brink of legalizing abortion, which is not good.”


The march came two months after the 2012 campaign season, in which social issues like abortion largely took a back seat to the focus on the economy. But the issue did come up in Congressional races in which Republican candidates made controversial statements about rape or abortion. In Indiana, Richard E. Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the Senate, said in a debate that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were something that “God intended,” and in Illinois, Representative Joe Walsh said in a debate that abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother because of “advances in science and technology.” Both men lost, hurt by a backlash from female voters.


Recent polls show that while a majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned entirely, many favor some restrictions. In a Gallup poll released this week, 52 percent of those surveyed said that abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances, while 28 percent said they should be legal under all circumstances, and 18 percent said they should be illegal under all circumstances. In a Pew poll this month, 63 percent of respondents said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned completely, and 29 percent said they did — views largely consistent with surveys taken over the past two decades.


“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”


Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”


“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.


The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”


Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.


Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America started a new Web site, and on Tuesday, its president, Cecile Richards, released a statement supporting abortion rights.


“Planned Parenthood understands that abortion is a deeply personal and often complex decision for a woman to consider, if and when she needs it,” she said. “A woman should have accurate information about all of her options around her pregnancy. To protect her health and the health of her family, a woman must have access to safe, legal abortion without interference from politicians, as protected by the Supreme Court for the last 40 years.”


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 25, 2013

A summary that appeared on the home page of NYTimes.com with an earlier version of this article misstated the day of the march. It took place on Friday, not Thursday.



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The Lede Blog: A 'Black Bloc' Emerges in Egypt

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While using Twitter to narrate events in Tahrir Square on Friday, people in Egypt described tires burning in the street, protesters blocking traffic and hurling rocks, and police officers launching tear gas in an effort to break up crowds that had gathered to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood and the country’s new Islamist president.

Many of the actions described on Friday appeared to hew to a script that has become familiar over the past two years, but some in the crowds of protesters appeared to be using new tactics, dressing from head to toe in black, covering their faces with bandannas or kerchiefs and brandishing black flags as they skirmished with security forces.

“Asked one of them who they are they said we don’t talk to media but we are black bloc,” wrote ‏the British-Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr, adding that a member of the group had “mentioned anarchism.”

An article filed on Thursday by The Associated Press reported the presence of a “previously unknown group calling itself the black block.” The article continued, “Wearing black masks and waving black banners, it warned the Muslim Brotherhood of using its ‘military wing’ to put down protests.”

Although largely new in Cairo, the term “black bloc” has been used for years in the United States and Europe to describe a tactic commonly used by anarchists and anticapitalists during large-scale political demonstrations that occasionally devolve into street fights with the authorities.

Participants in the bloc typically dress in black to foster a sense of unity and to make it difficult for witnesses to differentiate between individuals. Members of the bloc often blend in with larger groups of protesters, then break away, linking arms as they rush down streets.

In the United States, at least, black bloc members usually eschew violence against people but have few compunctions about damaging property.

The tactic received attention during the 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, when youths dressed in black broke windows and spray-painted graffiti on buildings.

In St. Paul, during the 2008 Republican National Convention, black bloc members roamed through the city smashing bank windows and using hammers to batter a police car.

It is unclear whether there are any connections between American and Egyptian black bloc participants, but the site anarchistnews.org posted a message about occurrences in Cairo, quoting the blog Even If Your Voice Shakes.

Last night, anarchism left the graffitied walls, small conversations, and online forums of Egypt, and came to life in Cairo, declaring itself a new force in the ongoing social revolution sparked two years ago with multiple firebombings against Muslim Brotherhood offices. Later, the government shutdown the “Black Blocairo” and “Egyptian Black Bloc” Facebook pages, but they were soon re-launched.

The site went on to say that Egyptian anarchists had firebombed the Shura Council.

As my colleague Robert Mackey reports, an Egyptian journalist, Sarah El Sirgany, wrote on Twitter, “Vendors tell me it was the Black Block group that attempted to storm the Ikhwan Online building sparking the fight.”

Later, she added, “Now those who had continued the fight are heading to Tahrir, flag of Black Block flying high.”

Opinion on the black bloc in Egypt was not united. In a place where sexual assaults and gropings have become common, one Twitter user, Ghazala Irshad ‏@ghazalairshad, seemed to sound an admiring note: “Egypt’s new Black Bloc (self-proclaimed anti-MB militia) has female members too — just saw one running wearing niqab & angle-length skirt.”

But the activist bloggers Gigi Ibrahim ‏and Adel Abdel Ghafar were more skeptical.

This week a man named Ahmed Ibrahim, who has previously posted YouTube videos that appear to be from Egypt, posted a video titled “Black Bloc Egypt.”

Accompanied by driving music the video shows masked people marching while holding aloft black banners, a black flag with an anarchy symbol and an Egyptian flag.

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Apple’s China dilemma: market share or cachet?

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HONG KONG (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s third straight disappointing quarter signals an urgent need for the global technology leader to drum up new revenue – and China may provide the answer.


Now more than ever, analysts say, Apple needs to get it right in the world’s most populous country, where it ranks only sixth in annual smartphone sales and Samsung Electronics remains the runaway leader.






Apple’s best plan of attack remains securing a deal with the country’s top mobile carrier by far, China Mobile Ltd. It also needs to push the development of more localized apps and extend installment financing to bring its pricey smartphones within the reach of an urban populace with an average annual income of just $ 3,500.


But it should resist the temptation to just put out a cheaper iPhone, some analysts say. Introducing a long-rumored lower-cost version of the gadget could backfire by diluting Apple’s premium brand – one of its most valuable assets.


“If you think of Apple, it’s like a bright star in the galaxy, shining so brightly and everyone is looking at it. But it might have dimmed a bit as other stars such as Samsung have popped up,” said TZ Wong, an analyst at research firm IDC.


“I don’t think it’s in Apple’s interest to further dim its star power by stepping into the low-end segment.”


With Apple’s product pipeline guarded with the same zeal accorded state secrets, some analysts are focusing instead on what the world’s largest technology company needs to do to finally become a major player in the world’s No. 2 economy.


While iPhone sales leapt 60 percent last quarter, investors worry that, in the longer term, the company may be pricing itself out of a golden opportunity while Samsung and local rivals from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to ZTE blanket the market with cheaper phones that rival the iPhone in quality and usability.


A deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone carrier with more than 700 million users, will prove instrumental but analysts say that may not happen until the issuance of 4G wireless licenses, which could take place later this year or even in 2014.


“The competitive landscape has definitely cranked up a few notches from a year ago. So there is more urgency for Apple to explore its ways to grow,” IDC’s Wong said.


CEO Tim Cook has made it no secret that China is an area of intense focus for the iPad and iPhone maker, especially given the still-low penetration across the country of smartphones and tablets. Apple has said it will continue to expand its retail network there, and in January, Cook flew to Beijing for at least the second time in a year, to meet with pivotal carrier China Mobile.


A STAR IS DIMMED


On Wednesday, Apple missed revenue forecasts for the third straight quarter after iPhone sales came in below expectations, fanning fears that its dominance of consumer electronics is slipping.


Apple’s revenue in China, including neighboring Hong Kong and Taiwan, totaled $ 7.3 billion in the December quarter, up 60 percent from a year earlier.


But there are signs that Apple’s vaunted cachet in the world’s most populous nation is waning.


Recent product launches for the mini-iPad and the iPhone 5 have drawn a relatively subdued response from Chinese consumers, in stark contrast to the fist-fights and egg-hurling at its Beijing store a year ago when sales of the iPhone 4S were delayed.


Since the iPhone 5 went on sale in mid-December, transactions have fallen by half, according to the Taobao Index, the consumer research data website of Internet giant Alibaba Group.


The iPhone is also losing out as consumers opt for bigger screens to watch Chinese soap operas while travelling on trains, or affordable smartphones in the sub-1,000 yuan ($ 160) category made by local vendors.


“When I started using a bigger screen, there was no turning back for me. Small screens don’t work anymore,” said a business executive surnamed Wen, as he swiped the screen on his Samsung Galaxy Note during lunch in Beijing.


Around half of the more than 60 million smartphones shipped in China in the third quarter last year had screens that were bigger than 4 inches, based on IDC’s latest figures. The iPhone 5 comes with a 4-inch screen, while the Galaxy Note II’s screen is 5.5 inches.


Also, local vendors such as Coolpad smartphone maker Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific (Shenzhen) Co Ltd, which offers cheaper alternatives, and Meizu Technology Co Ltd, known for its minimalist designs, have seen its legion of fans grow.


Price is a key factor, especially in the Chinese market where around 80 percent of the more than one billion mobile phone users are still on 2G networks.


On the online Taobao website, Coolpads and low-end models made by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp are selling at below 1,000 yuan, a sweet spot for many consumers switching from basic phones to smartphones.


Apple has moved to address that, partnering with China Merchants Bank to offer financing and installment options so that buyers can pay with the bank’s credit card when they shop online, media reports said.


Finally, expanding the number of applications customized for China will help grow Apple’s market share but that might need tighter collaboration with Chinese companies, such as Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd.


“Consumers will definitely welcome closer cooperation between Apple and Chinese tech firms to customize the iPhone for the use of apps such as Tencent’s WeChat,” said Frederick Wong, executive director of Avant Capital Management (Hong Kong) Ltd, a fund that invests in Apple-related options.


(Editing by Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Armstrong meeting with USADA appears unlikely

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong's lawyers say the cyclist will talk more about drug use in the sport, just likely not to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that led the effort to strip him of his Tour de France titles.


In a testy exchange of letters and statements revealing the gulf between the two sides, USADA urged Armstrong to testify under oath to help "clean up cycling."


Armstrong's attorneys responded that the cyclist would rather take his information where it could do more good — namely to cycling's governing body and World Anti-Doping Agency officials.


USADA's response to that: "The time for excuses is over."


The letters, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, underscore the continuing feud between Armstrong and USADA CEO Travis Tygart, the man who spearheaded the investigation that uncovered a complex doping scheme on Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service teams.


Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories were taken away last year and he was banned for life from the sport.


In an interview with Oprah Winfrey last week, Armstrong admitted doping, said he owed a long list of apologies and that he would like to see his lifetime ban reduced so he can compete again.


His most realistic avenue toward that might be telling USADA everything he knows in a series of interviews the agency wants started no later than Feb. 6.


That seems unlikely.


Armstrong attorney Tim Herman responded to USADA's first letter, sent Wednesday, by saying his client's schedule is already full, and besides, "in order to achieve the goal of 'cleaning up cycling,' it must be WADA and the (International Cycling Union) who have overall authority to do so."


By Friday night, Herman strongly suggested Armstrong won't meet with USADA at all but intends to appear before the UCI's planned "truth and reconciliation" commission.


"Why would we cooperate (with USADA)?" Herman said in a telephone interview. "USADA isn't interested in cleaning up cycling. Lance has said, 'I'll be the first guy in the chair when cycling is on trial, truthfully, under oath, in every gory detail.' I think he's going testify where it could actually do some good: With the body that's charged with cleaning up cycling," Herman said.


In its last letter to Armstrong, sent Friday evening, USADA attorney William Bock said his agency and WADA work hand-in-hand in that effort.


"Regardless, and with or without Mr. Armstrong's help, we will move forward with our investigation for the good of clean athletes and the future of sport," Bock's letter reads.


The letters confirm a Dec. 14 meeting in Denver involving Armstrong, Tygart and their respective attorneys, which is when, in Tygart's words, Armstrong should have started thinking about a possible meeting with USADA.


"He has been given a deadline of February 6th to determine whether he plans to come in and be part of the solution," Tygart said in a statement. "Either way, USADA is moving forward with our investigation on behalf of clean athletes."


The letters were sent to the AP after details about a Tygart interview with "60 Minutes," being aired Sunday, were made public.


Among Tygart's claims: Armstrong is lying when he says he didn't dope during his 2009-10 comeback.


Tygart said USADA's report on Armstrong's doping included evidence Armstrong was still cheating in those years.


"His comeback was totally clean," Herman said. "It's pretty fashionable to kick Lance Armstrong around right now."


Tygart also reiterated that an Armstrong associate offered USADA a donation of more than $200,000. Armstrong denied that in his interview with Winfrey, too.


In advancing his claim that USADA is only a bit player in the investigation, Herman noted in his letter, sent to USADA on Friday, that most cycling teams are based in Europe.


"I'm pretty sick of people trying to blame a European cycling culture that goes back to the 1920s on one guy," Herman said.


Bock's response to that: "Your suggestion that there is some other body with which Lance should coordinate is misguided," he said in his final letter.


___


AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed to this report.


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Labor Relations Board Rulings Could Be Undone

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By ruling that Mr. Obama’s three recess appointments last January were illegal, the federal appeals court ruling, if upheld, would leave the board with just one member, short of the quorum needed to issue any rulings. The Obama administration could appeal the court ruling, but no announcement was made on Friday.


If the Supreme Court were to uphold Friday’s ruling, issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it would mean that the labor board did not have a quorum since last January and that all its rulings since then should be nullified.


Many Republicans and business groups applauded Friday’s ruling. They often assert that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the board have transformed it into a tool of organized labor. But many Democrats and labor unions say Mr. Obama’s appointments restored ideological balance to the board after it was tipped in favor of business interests under President George W. Bush


Mark G. Pearce, the board’s chairman, issued a statement saying the board disagreed with the ruling and suggested that other appeals courts hearing cases about the constitutionality of Mr. Obama’s appointments could reach a different conclusion.


“In the meantime, the board has important work to do,” said Mr. Pearce, whose agency oversees enforcement of the laws governing strikes and unionization drives. “We will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.”


Unless the Senate confirms future nominees to the board — Senate Republicans have blocked several of Mr. Obama’s board nominees — Mr. Pearce will be the only member left if Friday’s ruling is upheld. The board has five seats.


Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a statement that urged the recess appointees to “do the right thing and step down.” He added, “To avoid further damage to the economy, the N.L.R.B. must take the responsible course and cease issuing any further opinions until a constitutionally sound quorum can be established.”


The three disputed recess appointees included two Democrats, Sharon Block, deputy labor secretary, and Richard Griffin, general counsel to the operating engineers’ union; and one Republican, Terence Flynn, a counsel to a board member. Mr. Flynn resigned last May after being accused of leaking materials about the group’s deliberations. Another Republican member, Brian Hayes, stepped down when his term expired last month.


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HCA Must Pay Kansas City Foundation $162 Million

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HCA, the nation’s largest profit-making hospital chain, was ordered on Thursday to pay $162 million after a judge in Missouri ruled that it had failed to abide by an agreement to make improvements to dilapidated hospitals that it bought in the Kansas City area several years ago.




The judge also ordered a court-appointed accountant to determine whether HCA had actually provided the levels of charitable care that it agreed to at the time.


The ruling came in response to a suit filed in 2009 by a community foundation that was created when HCA acquired the hospitals. Among other things, the foundation was responsible for ensuring that HCA met the obligations outlined in the deal.


The dispute in Kansas City is the second time in recent years that HCA has come under legal fire from officials in communities that sold troubled nonprofit community hospitals to HCA.


In another dispute in New Hampshire in 2011, a judge ruled in HCA’s favor, deciding that Portsmouth Regional Hospital would remain part of HCA after community leaders tried to regain control. During testimony in a 2011 trial, a former hospital official claimed he had difficulties getting HCA to pay for what he and others described as critical equipment and facility upgrades.


In an e-mailed statement, a spokesman for HCA said the company was disappointed in the court’s ruling and intended to appeal. He also added that the two cases were “rare exceptions” and that the company had enjoyed positive relationships with communities across the country.


The suit is among several problems for HCA. The company disclosed last year, for example, that the United States attorney’s office in Miami had subpoenaed documents as part of an inquiry to determine whether unnecessary cardiology procedures had been performed at HCA hospitals in Florida and elsewhere. At stake in that case is whether HCA inappropriately billed Medicare and private insurers for the procedures. HCA has denied any wrongdoing.


Financially, Thursday’s judgment is a slap on the wrist for HCA, which posted net income of $360 million in just the third quarter of last year. But the ruling may reverberate beyond HCA as communities across the country put their troubled nonprofit hospitals up for sale.


In many cases, the buyers with the deepest pockets have been profit-making hospital chains that want to convert the community hospitals to profit status, typically agreeing to spend money to fix them and to maintain certain levels of charitable care in the community.


In 2011, for instance, Vanguard Health Systems, which went public that year and has as its largest shareholder the private equity firm Blackstone Group, bought eight hospitals in Detroit. As part of that deal, Vanguard Health agreed to spend $850 million over five years to fix and maintain the hospitals.


The trouble in the Kansas City area began a year after HCA acquired a dozen hospitals from Health Midwest in 2003 for $1.125 billion. As part of the deal, HCA agreed to make $300 million in capital improvements in the first two years and an additional $150 million in the following three. The hospital chain also agreed to maintain the levels of care that had been provided to low-income individuals and families in the area for 10 years.


But when the members of the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, a nonprofit created from the proceeds of the sale of the hospital, received their first report from HCA in 2004 they discovered the hospital was already way behind.


Of the $300 million it was supposed to spend in the first two years, its own documents showed it had spent only about $50 million, according to Mark G. Flaherty, one of the founding members of the foundation and its general counsel.


HCA’s reports to the foundation also indicated that the level of charitable care it provided at the system’s large inner-city hospital had fallen while charitable care provided at the more affluent suburban hospital had risen sharply, Mr. Flaherty said.


“That was a big red flag to us,” he said.


After repeatedly asking HCA executives for explanations but receiving none, the foundation sued HCA in 2009. The case went to trial for several weeks in 2011.


HCA argued in the trial that it had met its obligation to spend money on hospital facilities by building two new hospitals at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than repairing older facilities. But Judge John Torrence of Jackson County Circuit Court ruled that the agreement called for improvements to existing hospitals.


He said HCA still owed $162 million of the $300 million it had agreed to spend between 2003 and 2005. He then named a court-appointed forensic accountant to determine whether HCA had met its other capital commitments and whether it provided the charitable care it had said it would.


HCA’s own written statements claimed “differing amounts,” the judge wrote in his ruling. One HCA report said it provided $48 million in charitable care to the area in 2009 while another report on its Web site said it provided more than $87 million. The annual report to the foundation claimed it provided $185 million in uncompensated and charity care that year, the judge wrote.


During the trial, when asked about the widely differing numbers, the president of HCA’s Midwest division and other HCA executives had no explanation.


The money will be paid to the foundation, which will use it to create grants to provide care for uninsured or underinsured families in the area. It is unclear whether the spending on improvements will occur.


Depending on what the court-appointed accountant discovers, HCA may owe even more money, said Paul Seyferth of Seyferth Blumenthal & Harris, which represents the foundation.


“We think they’re going to have a tremendously difficult time convincing anybody that they spent what they claim they spent,” Mr. Seyferth said.


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The Lede Blog: Tear Gas in Tahrir Two Years After Revolution's Start

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Last Updated, 11:28 p.m. Bloggers in Cairo reported that tear gas was fired into Tahrir Square by the police Thursday night, as Egypt braced for a day of protests to mark the second anniversary of the revolution that began on Jan. 25, 2011.

As the Cairene blogger who writes as The Big Pharaoh explained, officers from the Central Security Forces fired the gas at protesters after the crowd started to pull down a wall blocking an entrance to the square on Qasr al-Aini Street.

The activist Sherief Gaber, who writes as @cairocitylimits, pointed to video of cheers erupting from the crowd as the wall was torn down on Thursday.

Hours after the fighting began, The Big Pharaoh called the clashes “useless,” coming on the eve of planned demonstrations in the same area to note continuing dissatisfaction with Egypt’s postrevolutionary government.

After the wall was destroyed, the Cairo daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that soldiers had been deployed to build a new one on the same street.

At about 6 a.m. on Friday morning, The Big Pharaoh posted an image of clouds of tear gas in Tahrir Square and expressed his amazement that the police had apparently continued firing canisters throughout the night.

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Samsung puts lid on capex for first time since financial crisis

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SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co turned cautious on spending for the first time since the global financial crisis, keeping its annual investment plan unchanged at 2012 levels, as demand for computer chips wanes and the smartphone market slows.


Samsung, one of the industry’s most aggressive spenders, has ramped up capital expenditure every year since 2004 except 2009 to meet soaring demand for its array of consumer electronics and mobile devices. It sold a record 700,000 smartphones a day in the last quarter.






But with the personal computer market shrinking for the first time in 11 years, the global smartphone market growing more slowly, and Apple Inc moving to buy fewer of Samsung‘s microprocessors used in the iPhone and iPad, the South Korean IT giant is now forced to keep a lid on spending.


“Overall its earnings momentum remains intact, and smartphone shipments will continue to grow even in the traditionally weak first quarter, as Samsung’s got a broader product line-up and Apple appears to be struggling in pushing iPhone volumes aggressively,” said Lee Se-chul, a Seoul-based analyst at Meritz Securities.


Samsung, which reported a record quarterly and annual profit on Friday, said it would keep 2013 capital expenditure unchanged from 2012.


“The key word for us in investment in 2013 is flexibility. We’ll decide as the market demand dictates,” Robert Yi, head of Samsung’s investor relations, told analysts.


Data from the company shows Samsung started to slow down planned investment in the last quarter.


Samsung said it spent 4.4 trillion won in October-December, pushing its 2012 investment to a record 23 trillion won ($ 21.5 billion). But the company said in October that it was on course to spend 25 trillion won in 2012.


Analysts had expected a 4-20 percent cut in Samsung’s 2013 capital spending.


By contrast, Taiwanese rival TSMC is planning to raise its capital expenditure to $ 9 billion this year, aimed in part at winning Apple orders away from Samsung.


Shares in Samsung fell 2.1 percent as of 0250 GMT, lagging a 1.1 percent decline in the wider market.


RECORD EARNINGS


Samsung had poured money into factories to boost production of chips and panels used in Apple products and its Galaxy range devices, pushing its operating profit to 8.84 trillion won in the last quarter. The 89 percent increase from a year earlier was in line with its earlier estimate.


Profit at its mobile devices division, which makes phones, tablets and cameras, more than doubled to 5.44 trillion won in the quarter from a year earlier, lifted by a broader offering of smartphones – from the very cheap to the very expensive.


The division accounted for 62 percent of Samsung’s overall fourth-quarter profit, up from 55 percent a year earlier.


Samsung is also seeing strong sales of its Note phablet, which analysts expect to help Samsung get through any seasonal weakness better than rivals.


Samsung, which doesn’t provide a breakdown of smartphone sales, is estimated to have sold around 63 million smartphones in the last quarter, including 15 million Galaxy S IIIs and 7 million Note IIs.


The company also said 2012 operating profit rose 86 percent to an all-time high of 29 trillion won.


SAMSUNG VS APPLE


Samsung sold 213 million smartphones last year and enlarged its share of the global market to 30.4 percent from around 20 percent in 2011, a report by market research firm Strategy Analytics showed on Friday. The sharp increase reflects Samsung’s aggressive marketing of its wide product range.


Apple’s share of the market shrank slightly to 19.4 percent from 19.0 percent in 2011, according to the report.


Globally, sales of smartphones surged 42.7 percent last year to 700 million, Strategy Analytics said.


Samsung said on Friday it expects the global smartphone segment to shrink in January-March from the seasonally strong fourth quarter, and that growth of the overall handset market will slow to the mid single-digits this year.


The forecast is in line with industry estimates, with signs of a slowdown having already emerged.


Apple shipped 47.8 million iPhones in the three months ended December, a record that nonetheless disappointed many analysts accustomed to years of outperformance. The Cupertino, California-based company also missed Wall Street’s revenue forecast for a third straight quarter as iPhone sales lagged expectations.


Apple shares have dropped by more than a third since mid-September as investors fret that its days of hyper growth are over and its devices are no longer as ‘must-have’ as they were.


By contrast, shares in Samsung have risen 12 percent in the same period as the company once seen as quick to copy the ideas of others now sets the pace in innovation.


At the world’s biggest electronics show in Las Vegas this month, Samsung unveiled a prototype phone with a flexible display that can be folded almost like paper, and a microchip with eight processing cores, creating a buzz that these may be used in the next Galaxy range.


“It’s very probable to us that the Exynos 5 Octa (processor) will find its way into the Galaxy S4,” UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudois wrote in a recent note.


“It also looked as if the curved display is close enough to finished product. We came away even more convinced that displays will provide significant differentiation to Samsung devices, and application processors will materially grow over time,” Gaudois said. ($ 1 = 1066.2000 Korean won)


(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Ryan Woo)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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