House approves $9.7 billion in Sandy disaster aid

WASHINGTON — Responding to the political storm over delays in disaster aid to the Northeast, the House on Friday approved a $9.7-billion flood insurance bill, the first segment of a possible $60-billion Superstorm Sandy recovery package.

The measure’s approval comes after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Pete King of New York, among others, publicly slammed House Speaker John Boehner, a fellow Republican, for putting off a vote on a relief measure in the closing days of the 112^thCongress.

The 354-67 vote sent the bill to the Senate, where it could be approved by the end of the day. 

But Democrats were still fuming that it has taken 68 days for the House to act – and that a  broader relief bill still must be approved.

"Talk about fiddling while New York City burns,’’ said Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), calling the delay an "embarrassment’’ to the House. 

"How dare you come to this floor and make people think everything is OK,’’ Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) told Republicans.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), among the Northeast lawmakers who complained earlier this week about congressional inaction on a relief bill, called the vote a "key step in getting critical federal assistance to the residents, businesses and communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

“This week’s events make it clear that the need for help is real and that any additional delays in providing federal aid will be met with fierce resistance from myself, members of the delegation, and Gov. Christie,’’ he added.

The larger aid package, due to come before the House on Jan. 15, would fund such things as repairing roads, the electric grid, transportation system and Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty has been closed since the storm hit, and shoring up defenses against future storms.

That measure, expected to cost $51 billion, could still run into resistance from conservative lawmakers, some of whom have sought to offset the new spending with budget cuts elsewhere.

The conservative Club for Growth urged a no vote on the flood insurance measure, saying, "Congress should not allow the federal government to be involved in the flood insurance industry in the first place, let alone expand the national flood insurance program's authority."

The measure approved Friday  would increase the borrowing authority for the national flood insurance program to cover insurance claims for flood damage.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has warned that without congressional action, funds available to pay claims would be exhausted next week.   

Sandy, which was a hurricane before the center of the storm made landfall  Oct. 29 in New Jersey, caused more than 125 deaths in the United States.

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Richard.simon@latimes.com

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CIA Official Who Destroyed Torture Tapes Squirms at <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em> Abuse

Jose Rodriguez thinks the new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden is “well worth seeing.” But the retired CIA veteran has reservations about its gut-churning portrayal of the CIA’s treatment of detainees. Which is rich, coming from the man who destroyed the video footage documenting many of those brutal agency interrogations.

In an op-ed for the Washington Post on Friday, the former chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and its clandestine service takes issue with Zero Dark Thirty’s torture scenes. Those scenes are admittedly hard to watch. They show terrified, disoriented and bloodied detainees kept awake for days on end by having their arms painfully suspended from the ceilings of secret jails; stuffed into tiny wooden boxes when they don’t cooperate with their inquisitors; and waterboarded on soiled mattresses while interrogators bark questions. They also largely match up with the minimal public disclosure of how the post-9/11 program actually operated.

But they offend Rodriguez, who describes himself as “intimately involved in setting up and administering” a program he has steadfastly denied amounted to torture. Most CIA detainees weren’t subject to what he euphemistically calls “enhanced interrogation.” Those who were experienced “harsh measures for only a few days or weeks at the start of their detention.” And director Kathryn Bigelow left out all the bureaucratic red tape CIA interrogators encountered: “To give a detainee a single open-fingered slap across the face, CIA officers had to receive written authorization from Washington.”

Except there’s a problem with Rodriguez’s account that he sidesteps in calling the film inaccurate. While at the CIA, Rodriguez himself destroyed nearly 100 video recordings of brutal interrogations, including those of two al-Qaida figures who most definitely were subjected to “harsh measures,” Abu Zubaydah and 9/11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. If Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal are in the dark about torture — like the rest of the country — Rodriguez is a big part of the reason why.

It took a Justice Department inquiry to reveal even the outlines of the destruction of the torture tapes. In 2009, the government disclosed that Rodriguez in 2005 ordered the destruction of 92 videotapes of interrogation footage totaling hundreds of hours’ worth of footage. As the New York Times noted, Rodriguez’s order came at a time when “Congress and the courts were intensifying their scrutiny of the agency’s detention and interrogation program.” The destruction was a deliberative process: Rodriguez wrote in his memoir last year that he used a shredded packing “five spinning and two stationary blades” capable of chewing through “hundreds of pounds of material in a single hour.”

Rodriguez claims he ordered the destruction on his own after his bosses vacillated on whether the tapes ought to be destroyed. His stated rationale for liquidating evidence that was relevant to a potential criminal investigation was to protect his interrogators. It had the effect of destroying a major aspect of the historical record. When Rodriguez swears in his op-ed that the torture program worked as he says it did, he left observers with few independent ways to check his claims.

Ultimately, a Justice Department special prosecutor opted to abandon criminal cases against CIA interrogators who had received authorization from senior government officials for the interrogation program. Rodriguez himself never faced criminal charges for the destruction of the tapes.

Despite the destruction, Rodriguez’s insider account isn’t the only one that has survived. Phil Zelikow, a former aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told Danger Room last year that the CIA’s brutal interrogations amounted to “war crimes,” an assessment he conveyed during an internal 2006 debate about the CIA program. One of the CIA interrogators involved in the program’s early days has lamented that he “destroyed a man’s life” through the abusive techniques.

There are other reasons to doubt aspects of Rodriguez’s accounts. He writes that “When the detainee became compliant, the techniques stopped — forever.” But three powerful senators who helped helm a four-year classified study of the CIA program, Dianne Feinstein, John McCain and Carl Levin, wrote to the CIA on December 19 that “The CIA detainee who provided the most accurate information about the courier [to Osama bin Laden] provided the information prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques.”

Feinstein, McCain and Levin have now turned their focus to the CIA’s cooperation with a movie that they believe conveys the mistaken impression that torture led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Rodriguez makes no secret of what he thinks about Congress prying into the CIA’s dark corners. He singles out a scene in Zero Dark Thirty when an agency employee threatens to alert a congressional committee about her boss’s seeming failures. “Now that,” Rodriguez writes, “would be torture.”

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Actor Dempsey: Coffee chain bid appears successful

SEATTLE (AP) — Actor Patrick Dempsey said it appears his bid to buy a small coffee chain has prevailed in a bankruptcy auction that included Starbucks Corp.

Late Thursday night, Dempsey announced that his company, Global Baristas LLC, made the winning bid for Tully’s Coffee. He noted in a KOMO-TV interview that a bankruptcy judge will have the final say on Jan. 11. Still, Dempsey tweeted “We got it! Thank you Seattle!”

Dempsey’s company will pay $ 9,150,000 for Tully’s and complete the purchase later this month after the court hearing, he said in a statement.

“I’m thrilled that we won and I’m even more excited about saving Tully’s Coffee and its hundreds of jobs,” he said. “Tully’s is a great company with committed employees, and with its base in Seattle, one of the world’s greatest cities, I’m confident we will be able to successfully build the brand and help grow the economy. “

Tully’s Coffee has 47 company-owned locations in Washington and California. The company, with more than 500 employees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.

Dempsey, who gained the nickname “McDreamy” on the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy” set in a fictional Seattle hospital, has said he wants to rescue the chain.

“Seattle has been very good to me over my career, and I am honored to have the privilege to own Tully’s and work closely with the company’s employees,” he said in his statement.

After Thursday’s auction, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson confirmed his company participated and “is currently in a back-up position” for some of Tully’s assets. The final certification of the winning bid won’t occur until the Jan. 11 bankruptcy court hearing, Hutson said.

“We have to wait until next week to make sure everything — I believe the 11th — to make sure it’s all finalized,” Dempsey told KOMO-TV.

The Starbucks spokesman said his company made an offer for 13 of Tully’s company-owned stores in the Puget Sound region plus 12 outlets at Boeing Co. sites. Hutson said another bidder made an offer for all other assets — and is in a back-up position for those.

Also in the running was Baristas Coffee, which operates a chain of drive-thru espresso stands featuring female employees in skimpy outfits.

Both Starbucks and Tully’s are based in Seattle.

The auction process was not public.

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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U.S. Continues to Add Jobs at Slow Pace, Report Shows

Despite their concerns about looming tax increases and government spending cuts, American employers added 155,000 jobs in December, about apace with job growth over the last year, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

The biggest gains were in health care, food services, construction and manufacturing, with the latter two probably helped by rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. Government payrolls fell modestly once again, the report said. The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, the same as in November, whose rate was revised up from 7.7 percent.

“It’s not a home-run report by any stretch, but it’s constructive,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. “It’s another month of fairly stable, solid, moderate job creation.”

Over the course of 2012, the country added 1.8 million jobs, despite continued job losses in the government sector and anxiety related to the presidential election and scheduled tax increases and spending cuts. 

Economists are unsure of what the rest of the year holds for the American job market, but most are forecasting more of the same: hiring fast enough to stay just ahead of population growth, but still too slow to make a sizable dent in the 12.2-million-person backlog of unemployed workers.

At the current pace of job growth, it would take seven years to get the unemployment rate back to where it was when the recession began in December 2007, according to one calculation. A number of encouraging trends in the economy suggest that businesses have good reason to speed up hiring, including the housing recovery, looser credit for small businesses, a rebound in China and pent-up demand for new autos. Friday’s report also showed slightly faster wage growth and longer working hours in December, both of which bode well for hiring.

But Congress’s last-minute deal earlier this week to raise taxes will offset some of these sources of growth, since higher taxes trim how much money consumers have available to spend each week.

“Job creation might firm a little bit, but it’s still looking nothing like the typical recovery year we’ve had in deep recessions in the past,” Mr. Ryding said. “There’s nothing in the deal to do that and nothing in this latest jobs report to suggest that. We’re a long way short of the 300,000 job growth that we need."

The fiscal compromise also renewed for a year the federal government’s emergency unemployment benefits program. That allows workers to continue receiving unemployment benefits for up to 73 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate in the state where they live, and acts as a stimulus to the American economy because unemployment benefits are spent almost immediately.

The extension has proved to be a tremendous relief to the two million workers who would have otherwise abruptly lost their benefits this week.

“We woke up on Wednesday morning and saw the news and just said, ‘thank God, thank God, thank God,’ and then went out and went food shopping because we knew we had money coming in,” said Gina Shadis, 56, of Newton, N.J.

Both she and her husband, Stephen, were laid off within the last 14 months from jobs they had held for more than a decade: she from a quality assurance manager position at an environmental testing lab, and he as foreman and senior master technician at an auto dealership. They are now each receiving $548 per week in federal jobless benefits, or about a quarter of their pay at their most recent jobs.

“It has just been such a traumatic time,” she said. “You know you wake up in the morning with shoulders tense and head aching because you didn’t sleep the night before from worrying.”

While Congress’s deal on New Year’s Day brought clarity to tax and unemployment benefits policies, lawmakers have still not settled their disputes about federal spending cuts and the debt ceiling. Economists worry that the lingering uncertainty over these issues could discourage businesses from investing in more workers or equipment.

“We may be seeing the calm before the storm right now,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors, noting that a recent survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found that alarmingly few small companies plan to hire in the coming months. “Small businesses are wringing their hands in horror at what’s going on in Washington.”

In the meantime, more than six million workers have exhausted their unemployment benefits altogether since the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Employment Law Project, a labor advocacy group.

Millions of workers are sitting on the sidelines and so are not counted in the total tally of unemployed. Some are merely waiting for the job market to improve, and others are trying to invest in skills to appeal to employers who are already hiring.  

“I have a few prospects who say they want me to work for them when I graduate,” said Jordan Douglas, a 24-year-old single mother in Pampa, Tex., who is enrolled in a special program that allows her to receive jobless benefits while attending school full time to become a registered nurse. She gets $792 in benefits every two weeks, a little less than half of what she earned in an administrative position at the nursing home that laid her off last year.

She calculates that her federal jobless benefits will run out the very last week of nursing school.

“This had to have been a sign from God that I had to do this since it all worked out so well,” she said.

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Bieber urges crackdown on paparazzi after photographer's death

Justin Bieber and his collection of exotic cars have been tantalizing targets for celebrity photographers ever since the young singer got his driver's license.

A video captured the paparazzi chasing Bieber through Westside traffic in November. When Bieber's white Ferrari stops at an intersection, the video shows the singer turning to one of the photographers and asking: "How do your parents feel about what you do?"

A few months earlier, he was at the wheel of his Fisker sports car when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over for driving at high speeds while trying to outrun a paparazzo.

This pursuit for the perfect shot took a fatal turn Tuesday when a photographer was hit by an SUV on Sepulveda Boulevard after taking photos of Bieber's Ferrari. And the singer now finds himself at the center of the familiar debate about free speech and the aggressive tactics of the paparazzi.

Since Princess Diana's fatal accident in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by photographers, California politicians have tried crafting laws that curb paparazzi behavior. But some of those laws are rarely used, and attorneys have challenged the constitutionality of others.

On Wednesday, Bieber went on the offensive, calling on lawmakers to crack down.

"Hopefully this tragedy will finally inspire meaningful legislation and whatever other necessary steps to protect the lives and safety of celebrities, police officers, innocent public bystanders and the photographers themselves," he said in a statement.

It remained unclear if any legislators would take up his call. But Bieber did get some support from another paparazzi target, singer Miley Cyrus.

She wrote on Twitter that she hoped the accident "brings on some changes in '13 Paparazzi are dangerous!"

Last year, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threw out charges related to a first-of-its-kind anti-paparazzi law in a case involving Bieber being chased on the 101 Freeway by photographer Paul Raef. Passed in 2010, the law created punishments for paparazzi who drove dangerously to obtain images.

But the judge said the law violated 1st Amendment protections by overreaching and potentially affecting such people as wedding photographers or photographers speeding to a location where a celebrity was present.

The L.A. city attorney's office is now appealing that decision.

Raef's attorney, Dmitry Gorin, said new anti-paparazzi laws are unnecessary.

"There are plenty of other laws on the books to deal with these issues. There is always a rush to create a new paparazzi law every time something happens," he said. "Any new law on the paparazzi is going to run smack into the 1st Amendment. Truth is, most conduct is covered by existing laws. A lot of this is done for publicity."

Coroner's officials have not identified the photographer because they have not reached the next of kin. However, his girlfriend, Frances Merto, and another photographer identified him as Chris Guerra.

The incident took place on Sepulveda Boulevard near Getty Center Drive shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday. A friend of Bieber was driving the sports car when it was pulled over on the 405 Freeway by the California Highway Patrol. The photographer arrived near the scene on Sepulveda, left his car and crossed the street to take photos. Sources familiar with the investigation said the CHP told him to leave the area. As he was returning to his vehicle, he was hit by the SUV.

Law enforcement sources said Wednesday that it was unlikely charges would be filed against the driver of the SUV that hit the photographer.

Veteran paparazzo Frank Griffin took issue with the criticism being directed at the photographer as well as other paparazzi.

"What's the difference between our guy who got killed under those circumstances and the war photographer who steps on a land mine in Afghanistan and blows himself to pieces because he wanted the photograph on the other side of road?" said Griffin, who co-owns the photo agency Griffin-Bauer.

"The only difference is the subject matter. One is a celebrity and the other is a battle. Both young men have left behind mothers and fathers grieving and there's no greater sadness in this world than parents who have to bury their children."

Others, however, said the death focuses attention on the safety issues involving paparazzi

"The paparazzi are increasingly reckless and dangerous. The greater the demand, the greater the incentive to do whatever it takes to get the image," said Blair Berk, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented numerous celebrities. "The issue here isn't vanity and nuisance, it's safety."

richard.winton@latimes.com

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

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School Design May Affect a Child's Grades

By Ian Steadman, Wired UK

A study of school design has discovered that school layouts can influence a child’s development by as much as 25 percent — positively or negatively — over the course of an academic year.

The 751 pupils using 34 classrooms across seven primary schools in Blackpool were studied over the 2011-12 academic year by the University of Salford’s School of the Built Environment and architecture firm Nightingale Associates. Standardised data — such as age, gender and academic performance — were collected on each child at the start and end of the year, while each classroom was rated for quality on ten different environmental factors, such as orientation for natural light, shape, colour, temperature and acoustics.

The results, published in Building and the Environment, revealed that the architecture and design of classrooms has a significant role to play in influencing academic performance. Six of the environmental factors — colour, choice, connection, complexity, flexibility and light — were clearly correlated with grade scores.

Architect Peter Barrett, the study’s lead author, said: “This is the first time a holistic assessment has been made that successfully links the overall impact directly to learning rates in schools. The impact identified is in fact greater than we imagined.” According to the results, once the differences between the “worst” and “best” designed classrooms looked at in the study were taken into account, it was found the be the equivalent to the progress a typical pupil would be expected to make over a year.

The results are particularly interesting as the coaltion U.K. government has introduced a controversial range of standardised templates for new school buildings, with the expressed purpose of reducing the costs of hiring architects. An insistence on a range of strictly-defined design features — including a ban on curved walls and certain kinds of insulated wall and ETFE roofs, sticking to one size for windows and doors, encouraging stacking of blocks on top of each other, and an emphasis on “basic” finishes to interior decorations like balustrades — replaces the previous Labour government’s more architecturally extravagant Building Schools for the Future programme, which was cancelled by education secretary Michael Gove.

He has claimed that his department’s new Priority School Building Programme, and its basic plans, will put an end to a situation which he believes existed only to “make architects richer”.

Unsurprisingly, the design proposals have been met with disapproval from architects. The Royal Institute of British Architects issued a statement criticising the templates for introducing a “one size fits all” format that ignored the needs for flexibility in modern teaching environments. It also worried that the standard corridors would be too small for large numbers of students, the environmental impact of the buildings would be higher than expected, and that the templates ignored the statutory requirement to be accessible for students and teachers with disabilities.

Source: Wired.co.uk

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Putin gives tax exile Depardieu Russian citizenship

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard Depardieu, the French movie star who is quitting his homeland to avoid a tax hike on the rich, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

The “Cyrano de Bergerac” actor bought a house across the border in Belgium last year to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires in France planned by Socialist President Francois Hollande but said he could also seek tax exile elsewhere.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Depardieu had applied for citizenship after Putin told reporters last month the actor would be welcome in Russia. “The citizenship could not have been granted to him without (such an) appeal,” Peskov added.

Russia has a flat income tax rate of 13 percent, compared to the 75 percent on income over 1 million euros ($ 1.32 million) that Hollande wants to impose in France.

Asked, whether Depardieu had plans to move to Russia, Peskov said it was up to him and was “absolutely not mandatory”. Putin did not speak to Depardieu before taking the decision, he added.

Depardieu’s publicist Francois Hassan Guerrar told Reuters he did not want to comment on the Russian announcement.

Depardieu, 63, had told friends he was considering three options to escape France’s new tax regime: settling in Belgium, relocating to Montenegro, where he has a business, or moving to Russia, French daily Le Monde reported in December.

Depardieu has also said he plans to hand in his French passport and social security card.

“Putin has already sent me a passport,” Le Monde quoted the actor as jokingly saying in December.

WELCOME IN RUSSIA

Depardieu is well-known in Russia where he has appeared in many advertising campaigns. He worked in the country in 2011 on a film about the eccentric Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.

In 2012 he was one of several Western celebrities invited to celebrate the birthday of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader.

Muscovites said they would welcome Depardieu. “He is a normal guy, he is fond of drinking too, I suppose, the Russian way, so let him come here,” said resident Lev Nikolaevich.

Putin has in the past touted good relations with France, which he visited in the summer, but the two nations have disagreed sharply on Syria and Putin is a frequent critic of the West. He had a tense summit with the EU last month and wants the bloc to move faster toward visa-free travel.

Russia does not require people to hand in their foreign passports once they acquire a Russian one. Many Russians have citizenship of other countries and travel without problems.

Depardieu could also request Belgian nationality but has not yet made such a request, said Georges Dallemagne, head of Belgium’s parliamentary committee that oversees naturalizations.

“As a Russian he could certainly remain in Belgium, he would possibly need the necessary visas but for a short period he could stay here,” said Dallemagne.

“He would need to request a residency permit for longer stays but as a Russian he should be able to get that. It depends on certain factors,” Dallemagne added.

France’s Constitutional Council last month blocked the planned 75 percent tax rate due to the way it would be applied – but Hollande plans to propose redrafted legislation which will “still ask more of those who have the most”.

(Writing by Megan Davies; Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman, Nikolai Isayev and Alexander Fedorov in Moscow, Catherine Bremer in Paris and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Belgium; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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The Long Life of the ‘Perfect’ Woman

What did happen to Elsie Scheel, the “perfect” woman mentioned in an article in Wednesday’s New York Times that described how people considered overweight had a slightly lower risk of dying than those of normal weight?

A century ago, at age 24, Miss Scheel was the subject of a spate of news media coverage after the “medical examiner of the 400 ‘co-eds’ ” at her college, Cornell University, described her as the epitome of “perfect health,” according to a 1912 New York Times article. That article and others also gave her dimensions: 5-foot-7 and 171 pounds, which would have corresponded to a body mass index of 27, putting Miss Scheel in the overweight category. Miss Scheel, it turns out, lived a long life, dying in 1979 in St. Cloud, Fla., three days shy of her 91st birthday.

But though it may be tempting to conclude that Miss Scheel’s longevity exemplifies the benefits of a not-too-low B.M.I, her case is only one anecdote, of course. And, according to family members and to hints provided in early articles, she was a person who valued being active and athletic, had a strong and confident attitude, and, as a daughter of a doctor and a mother of a doctor, may have been steeped in healthy habits that were much more relevant to her survival than her weight.

“She never took an aspirin or a Tylenol,” a granddaughter, Karen Hirsh Meredith, of Broken Arrow, Okla., said in an interview Wednesday. She kept up hobbies like stamp collecting and wrote pieces for the St. Cloud newspaper. And, Ms. Meredith said, “she was still driving late in life.”

Ms. Meredith said she did not recall her grandmother having any illnesses or being hospitalized except for shortly before she died, when she went into the hospital with stomach pain. She ended up having surgery for a perforated bowel and died the next day, Ms. Meredith said.

A death notice said Miss Scheel, who was Mrs. Hirsh when she died, had been a “practical nurse,” although Ms. Meredith said the family believed she did not work after she had children. In 1918 she married Frederick Rudolph Hirsh, an architect who supervised the building of the New York Public Library and who was a widower with two children, Frederick Jr. and Mary. He died in 1933 at 68, leaving his wife to raise a son, John, and a daughter, Elise. She moved to Florida from Mount Vernon, N.Y., in the 1940s and never remarried.

Miss Scheel’s mother, Sophie Bade Scheel, a physician educated at New York Medical College, maintained an active medical practice at a time when relatively few women did. And Miss Scheel may have benefited from good genes: her three siblings were 79, 88 and 93 when they died.

Published reports from 1912 and 1913 provide glimpses of the type of person Miss Scheel was and of her immediate-post-"perfect” experience.

She participated in many sports, playing basketball at Cornell. “I play a guard, where my weight helps,” she told a newspaper. She was a suffragette and, the Times article said, “doesn’t know what fear is.”

She ate only three meals every two days, loved beefsteak and shunned candy and caffeine. An article in The Oregonian asked her about her advice for healthy living, reporting that “Miss Scheel feels that the average girl does too much of the wrong sort of thing — too many dances and not enough good bracing tramps. I just got back from a 25-mile tramp to Enfield Falls.”

Some of the news media coverage was catty, even brutal. And it was extremely detailed. Her particulars — the size of her chest, waist and hips — were compared to the Venus de Milo.

A day after the Times article, The New York Herald ran a story about Miss Scheel above the fold on its front page: “Brooklyn Venus Much Too Large is Verdict of Physical Culturists.” These “physical culturists” claimed that Miss Scheel’s weight and height “cannot be reconciled with the accepted ideal of female beauty.”

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Car Sales End Strong Year on Modest Note

DETROIT – Automakers ended 2012 with modest sales results in the United States, capping a strong year and promising more growth in 2013.

Based on early reports Thursday, analysts predicted a 10 percent increase overall for the industry for December, a gain that would put the year’s sales at about 14.5 million – the best performance since 2007.

The three Detroit car companies all posted sales gains in December, solidifying improvements made throughout year because of consumers replacing their aging cars and trucks.

General Motors, the largest American automaker, said its December sales increased 4.9 percent, primarily because of new products such as the Cadillac ATS sedan and higher incentives on its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups.

The company had been losing ground in the high-profit pickup truck segment until it added discounts to the Silverado, which posted a 6.1 percent sales increase in December, and the Sierra, which was up 13.4 percent.

For the year, G.M. sold 2.59 million vehicles, an increase of 3.7 percent from 2011. That lagged the overall gains in the market, which were about 14 percent industrywide for the year.

G.M.'s head of United States sales, Kurt McNeil, said the company expects significant growth in 2013, with industry sales as high as 15.5 million. He noted that the resolution of fiscal negotiations in Washington removed some potential concerns for consumers shopping for new vehicles.

“We are especially pleased that the politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington were able to compromise,” Mr. McNeil said in a conference call with analysts and media Thursday. “The short-term crisis has passed.”

Ford Motor Company reported a slight sales increase of 1.9 percent in December as safety recalls for its new Escape SUV and Fusion sedan depressed results.

Ford said that sales of the Fusion dropped 10.8 percent during the month and Escape sales slid 21.3 percent. The company has been plagued with multiple recalls on engines and other parts on the vehicles, which are usually among its strongest sellers.

The drop was mitigated by strong results for Ford’s two smallest cars, the Focus, which increased in sales by 58.3 percent, and the Fiesta, which was up by 52.8 percent.

For all of 2012, Ford’s United States sales increased 4.7 percent to 2.25 million vehicles. Ken Czubay, head of Ford’s domestic sales and marketing, said the company’s small-car sales were its best in more than a decade.

Ford predicted that industry sales in 2013 could reach 16 million vehicles, as more Americans replace older models with new, more fuel-efficient ones.

Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit companies, was again the star performer in December, with a 10 percent increase.

The company’s new compact car, the Dodge Dart, showed improvement with a 36 percent gain from the prior month. In fact, much of Chrysler’s lineup – ranging from Jeep SUVs to the tiny Fiat 500 micro-car – posted sales records for the month of December.

For the year, Chrysler sold 1.65 million vehicles, a 21 percent increase from 2011.

The major foreign automakers were expected to report results later in day. In a partial report, Toyota, the biggest of the Japanese manufacturers, said that it sold 2 million vehicles in the United States during 2012, a 26.6 percent increase from the year before.

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