Citing Affair, Petraeus Resigns as C.I.A. Director

WASHINGTON — David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and one of America’s most decorated four-star generals, resigned on Friday after an F.B.I. investigation uncovered evidence that he had been involved in an extramarital affair.

Mr. Petraeus issued a statement acknowledging the affair after President Obama accepted his resignation and it was announced by the C.I.A. The disclosure ended a triumphant re-election week for the president with an unfolding scandal.

Government officials said that the F.B.I. began an investigation into a “potential criminal matter” several months ago that was not focused on Mr. Petraeus. In the course of their inquiry into whether a computer used by Mr. Petraeus had been compromised, agents discovered evidence of the relationship as well as other security concerns. About two weeks ago, F.B.I. agents met with Mr. Petraeus to discuss the investigation.

Administration and Congressional officials identified the woman as Paula Broadwell, the co-author of a biography of Mr. Petraeus. Her book, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” was published this year. Ms. Broadwell could not be reached for comment.

Ms. Broadwell, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, spent 15 years in the military, according to a biography that had appeared on her Web site. She spent extended periods of time with Mr. Petraeus in Afghanistan, interviewing him for her book, which grew out of a two-year research project for her doctoral dissertation and which she promoted on a high-profile tour that included an appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.”

Married with two children, she has described Mr. Petraeus as her mentor.

Senior members of Congress were alerted to Mr. Petraeus’s impending resignation by intelligence officials about six hours before the C.I.A. announced it. One Congressional official who was briefed on the matter said that Mr. Petraeus had been encouraged “to get out in front of the issue” and resign, and that he agreed.

As for how the affair came to light, the Congressional official said that “it was portrayed to us that the F.B.I. was investigating something else and came upon him. My impression is that the F.B.I. stumbled across this.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation did not inform the Senate and House Intelligence Committees about the inquiry until this week, according to Congressional officials, who noted that by law the panels — and especially their chairmen and ranking members — are supposed to be told about significant developments in the intelligence arena. The Senate committee plans to pursue the question of why it was not told, one official said.

The revelation of a secret inquiry into the head of the nation’s premier spy agency raised urgent questions about Mr. Petraeus’s 14-month tenure at the C.I.A. and the decision by Mr. Obama to elevate him to head the agency after leading the country’s war effort in Afghanistan. White House officials said they did not know about the affair until this week, when Mr. Petraeus informed them.

“After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,” Mr. Petraeus said in his statement, expressing regret for his abrupt departure. “Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation.”

Mr. Petraeus’s admission and resignation represent a remarkable fall from grace for one of the most prominent figures in America’s modern military and intelligence community, a commander who helped lead the nation’s wartime activities in the decade after the Sept. 11 attacks and was credited with turning around the failing war effort in Iraq.

Mr. Petraeus almost single-handedly forced a profound evolution in the country’s military thinking and doctrine with his philosophy of counterinsurgency, focused more on protecting the civilian population than on killing enemies. More than most of his flag officer peers, he understood how to navigate Washington politics and news media, helping him rise through the ranks and obtain resources he needed, although fellow Army leaders often resented what they saw as a grasping careerism.

 Reporting was contributed by Peter Baker, Helene Cooper, Michael S. Schmidt, Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 9, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that David H. Petraeus was expected to remain in President Obama’s cabinet. The C.I.A. director is not a cabinet member in the Obama administration.

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Lakers rout Warriors 101-77 after Brown's firing

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A few hours after the Los Angeles Lakers' top brass abruptly fired coach Mike Brown and threw their season into turmoil before mid-November, Brown's former players demonstrated why there's still ample reason to think this team can be saved.

The Lakers should find out soon whether Phil Jackson gets the chance to do the saving — again.

Kobe Bryant scored 27 points, Pau Gasol added 14 points and 16 rebounds, and the Lakers doubled their win total with a 101-77 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday night.

Jordan Hill scored 14 points for the Lakers, who were uniformly stunned by Brown's dismissal after just 18 months on the job. Following a bumpy first half against Golden State under interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff, they pulled away in the third quarter with a 25-9 run led by Bryant, who also had nine rebounds and seven assists.

"I think everybody didn't know how to react to it emotionally," Bryant said. "Everybody had to just go about their business and play basketball. ... A lot of the emotion that was picked up was kind of unleashed when we played."

The comfortable victory capped one of the most tumultuous days in recent history for a franchise that's never short on drama. With the high-priced veteran club off to a Western Conference-worst 1-4 start following a winless preseason, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and owner Jim Buss abruptly dismissed Brown, informing players during their morning shootaround.

Bickerstaff ran the Lakers as the interim coach, but the veteran NBA bench boss isn't likely to be a candidate for the full-time job. Kupchak is searching for a replacement, possibly making a selection before the Lakers' next game on Sunday against Sacramento.

The Lakers' crowd quickly made its choice known: A chant of "We want Phil!" rose out of the stands while Bryant shot a free throw in the third quarter, and echoed a few more times later in the half.

"I can understand why," Bickerstaff said. "The guy's got the rings."

Jackson, the 11-time NBA champion coach who won five rings in two previous stints running the Lakers, is near the top of Kupchak's list again, the GM acknowledged. Mike D'Antoni, the former Knicks and Suns coach, also is thought to be a prime candidate.

Bryant said he would be thoroughly happy with Jackson, D'Antoni or former Lakers assistant coach Brian Shaw in charge. Bryant's injury struggles during Jackson's final season would give him particular motivation for a third stint together.

"I wasn't able to give him my real self because I was playing on one leg," Bryant said. "It's always kind of eaten away at me that in the last year of his career ... I couldn't give him everything I had because I was playing on one knee."

Dwight Howard had six points and eight rebounds while playing just 24 minutes for the Lakers in his ongoing return from offseason back surgery. Steve Nash, the other major addition to the club, watched from behind the bench, missing his fourth straight game with a small fracture in his leg. Nash will be out for at least another week, the Lakers announced after the game.

After the protracted drama between Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy and the six-time All-Star center, Howard met questions about the Lakers' coaching staff with a smile and silence.

"I'm going to keep that to myself," Howard said. "I learned my lesson last year."

Brown never got the chance to integrate the two stars into his new offense while they were dogged by health issues. Kupchak and Buss still needed to see more progress than the Lakers managed in the past six weeks, particularly on defense — and they saw it against the Warriors, who managed just 33.7 percent shooting and made 19 turnovers.

"We were just out of sync, no excuse," Golden State coach Mark Jackson said. "If you're going to beat a good team on the road, you've got to take care of the basketball. We came in with the mindset to run, and they outscored us even in fast-break points. Just disappointed overall."

Stephen Curry scored 18 points and Klay Thompson had 15 for the Warriors, who have lost five straight to the Lakers overall, and nine in a row at Staples Center since March 2008.

"I think we played well, but the score doesn't say that," Curry said. "Defensively, we did a pretty good job. We're just undersized down there, trying to battle the boards and the paint."

The Lakers' offensive struggles evaporated in the third quarter while they leaped to an 18-point lead over the undermanned Warriors, who struggled to contend inside without injured center Andrew Bogut.

Darius Morris had career highs of 10 points and five rebounds while playing the majority of the Lakers' minutes at point guard. Los Angeles' reserves have been largely ineffective during Brown's tenure, but Morris and Hill led a spirited effort against the Warriors, outscoring their counterparts with Golden State 37-17.

NOTES: Lakers F Devin Ebanks was inactive after getting arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs early Friday morning. Rookie Darius Johnson-Odom made his NBA debut in the final minutes. ... Warriors C Andris Biedrins came up roughly 2 feet short on an airballed free throw in the first half. The Latvian veteran has a career free throw shooting percentage just over 50 percent. ... Brown went 42-29 with the Lakers, coaching them to the second round of the playoffs during the strike-shortened season before his abbreviated start to this fall.

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The New Old Age Blog: More Time to Enroll in Medicare If You Live in Storm Areas

Medicare beneficiaries battered by Hurricane Sandy have one fewer problem to worry about: Federal officials have extended the Dec. 7 deadline to enroll in a private medical or drug plan for next year for those still coping with storm damage.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “understands that many Medicare beneficiaries have been affected by this disaster and wants to ensure that all beneficiaries are able to compare their options and make enrollment choices for 2013,” Arrah Tabe-Bedward, acting director for the Medicare Enrollment and Appeals Group, wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to health insurance companies and state health insurance assistance programs.

Beneficiaries hit by the storm can still enroll after the Dec. 7 midnight deadline if they call Medicare’s 24-hour information line: 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227). Representatives will be able to review available plans and complete the enrollment process over the phone.

“We are committed to giving people with Medicare the information and the time they need to make important decisions about their coverage,” a Medicare spokeswoman, Isabella Leung, said in an e-mail message. Medicare officials have not set a new deadline but have encouraged beneficiaries to make their decisions soon if possible.

People currently in a plan will be automatically re-enrolled for next year in the same plan.

The extra time also applies to any beneficiaries who normally get help from family members or others to sort through dozens of plans, but who have been unable to do so this year because they live in areas affected by the storm. Neither beneficiaries nor those who provide them assistance will be required to prove that they experienced storm damage.

“This is a really important recognition by CMS to accommodate Medicare enrollees affected by Hurricane Sandy,” said Leslie Fried, director for policy and programs at the National Council on Aging, an advocacy group in Washington.

After the hurricane, the Obama administration declared Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island “major disaster areas,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In addition, FEMA issued emergency declarations for parts of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

More than four million older people in those states are enrolled in drugs-only plans, and more than 2.8 million have Medicare Advantage policies, which includes medical and drug coverage.

Susan Jaffe is a writer for Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Obama Says Vote Validates His Efforts on Taxes

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he would insist that tax increases on affluent Americans be part of any agreement to avoid a year-end fiscal crisis, setting up a possible confrontation with Congressional Republicans who say they will oppose a rise in tax rates for the rich.

In his first remarks from the White House since his re-election, Mr. Obama made it clear that he believed his victory had validated his relentless campaign call for wealthier Americans to pay more and that he expected Republicans to heed that message.

“I just want to point out this was a central question during the election,” he said in brief remarks in the East Room. “It was debated over and over again. And on Tuesday night, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach.”

Mr. Obama said he had invited Congressional leaders to the White House next week to begin talks as they return for a lame-duck session of Congress. He said he was willing to make some concessions as long as the final fiscal bargain was properly balanced between new tax revenue and spending cuts.

“I’m not wedded to every detail of my plan,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m open to compromise.”

At the same time, he encouraged Congress to quickly pass an extension of the existing lower rates for those making under $250,000 even while the broader negotiations take place.

“While there may be disagreement in Congress over whether or not to raise taxes on folks making over $250,000 a year, nobody — not Republicans, not Democrats — want taxes to go up for folks making under $250,000 a year,” he said. “So let’s not wait.”

The president’s comments came shortly after Speaker John A. Boehner, who had been striking a conciliatory tone since Republican election losses in the Senate and the House, told reporters that Republicans had won a mandate of their own by retaining control of the House and that he supported continuing rates enacted in the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels.

“Raising tax rates will slow down our ability to create the jobs that everyone says they want,” said Mr. Boehner, who said he favored generating any new federal revenue to offset the deficit by closing tax loopholes and limiting deductions.

“It’s clear that there are a lot of special interest loopholes in the tax code, both corporate and personal,” he said. “It’s also clear that there are all kinds of deductions, some of which make sense; others don’t. And by lowering rates and cleaning up the tax code, we know we’re going to get more economic growth.”

The president and Mr. Boehner were careful with their language and left room for compromise despite their fundamental differences about shifting more of the tax burden to high-income Americans. Mr. Boehner would not be very specific on what his goal might be for raising new federal tax dollars.

“I don’t want to box myself in,” he said. “I don’t want to box anybody else in. I think it’s important for us to come to an agreement with the president. But this is his opportunity to lead.”

The speaker, who has struggled with his more conservative rank and file in the past, said he was confident that he could pass a deal if one was reached with the White House. “When the president and I have been able to come to an agreement, there has been no problem getting it passed here in the House,” he said.

House Republican leadership aides found some positive signals in Mr. Obama’s combative tone. They noted that he never specified he wants tax rates to rise, only that he wants additional revenues generated by taxes on the rich. That would give both sides the latitude to devise a restructured tax code that eliminates or limits tax deductions and credits for the rich — or that follows Mitt Romney’s proposal to cap deductions at a set limit for rich households, though many analysts say that approach alone cannot raise the revenue Democrats want.

Any agreement to avert a fiscal crisis in January, when hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic tax increases and spending cuts kick in, now revolves around the definition of tax increases. Mr. Boehner is holding the line against any increase in tax rates, even for the richest Americans, who currently are in the 35 percent tax bracket. But he is leaving open the possibility of a tax overhaul that raises more revenue than the existing code.

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A Transfer of Power Begins in China

Military delegates arrived for the 18th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. The weeklong meeting precedes the naming of China’s top leader, who will replace Hu Jintao. The meeting also introduces a new generation of party leaders.

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Feds drop sex abuse case against Syracuse's Fine

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — Federal authorities have dropped their investigation into sexual abuse claims that cost a Syracuse University assistant basketball coach his job, threw a top-ranked team into turmoil and threatened the career of Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim.

After a probe spanning nearly a year, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian said Friday there was not enough evidence to support claims that Bernie Fine had molested a boy in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room.

"The nature and seriousness of these allegations, which involved conduct typically committed in private with individuals who are reluctant to come forward, warranted a thorough federal investigation," Hartunian said.

It wasn't clear yet whether Fine, 66, could get his job back.

His lawyers, Karl Sleight, Donald Martin and David Botsford, said in a statement that they were not surprised by the decision.

"The damage inflicted upon Bernie and his family is simply immeasurable," the lawyers said. "Bernie hopes and prays that the lesson learned and remembered is that a rush to judgment has irreversible consequences."

The investigation erupted in the glare of a spotlight on child abuse shone by the Penn State University scandal that broke shortly beforehand. Two former Syracuse ballboys, Bobby Davis and Michael Lang, came forward Nov. 17 and accused the longtime assistant of fondling them when they were teens. Davis said the sexual contact continued for years.

But the claims by Davis and Lang had happened too long ago to be prosecuted. Ten days later, though, a third man, 23-year-old Zachary Tomaselli, of Lewiston, Maine, went public with an accusation that Fine had molested him in 2002 in a hotel room when the team played in Pittsburgh. The same day, ESPN aired an audiotape in which Fine's wife, Laurie, apparently acknowledged to Davis she knew about the molestation he alleged.

Fine, who denied the allegations, was fired Nov. 27, and the federal government began investigating Tomaselli's claim, the only one that fell within the statute of limitations. The federal statute of limitations that went into effect in 2002 allows prosecution until the victim reaches age 25; Tomaselli was 23 when he made his claims.

Hartunian, in his statement, said closing the investigation doesn't mean something did or did not happen, only that there wasn't enough admissible evidence to get a conviction. He said that people should come forward with tips if they have any more information.

Davis had made the same accusation against Fine to the university and Syracuse police a decade before, but the police couldn't investigate because of the statute of limitations, and the school said its probe turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. Davis did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.

From the start, there were doubts.

When Davis and Lang came forward in November, Boeheim angrily defended his assistant of 35 years and said the accusers were only out for money, seeking to cash in on the publicity generated by the Penn State scandal, in which former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with sexually abusing several boys.

Another accuser, Floyd Van Hooser, said Fine abused him for years but later said he was lying.

That left Tomaselli, who was himself accused of sexually abusing a boy at a camp in 2010 and whose father had said the boy was lying. Tomaselli was eventually convicted of sexual abuse and started a prison sentence of three years and three months in April.

Before he went behind bars, Tomaselli took the media on a wild spin, repeatedly lying in a bid, he said, to keep his name in print:

— He said Fine had made harassing phone calls to him, and Tomaselli got an order of protection. Then he said that was a lie.

— He said he had lied about the whole thing, that Fine had never touched him.

— He reverted to his old claim and insisted Fine abused him.

Tomaselli is serving a prison sentence of more than three years in Maine and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Justin Leary, was in court and could not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There were other sordid claims to come out, including that Fine's wife had sex with players and that Boeheim knew, or should have known, of his assistant's behavior.

While his No. 1-ranked Orange continued to rack up wins — they wouldn't drop their first game until Jan. 21 — Boeheim endured criticism and scrutiny and was questioned during news conferences about the case.

Boeheim, who just completed his 36th year coaching Syracuse, vehemently supported his longtime assistant when the accusations broke and said Davis was lying. "The Penn State thing came out, and the kid behind this is trying to get money," he told the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Amid criticism from victims' rights advocates, Boeheim apologized and said he spoke out of loyalty and was basing his comments on a 2005 university investigation that failed to corroborate Davis' claims.

Boeheim referred questions to the university's press office. University spokesman Kevin Quinn said that Syracuse appreciated the work done by the U.S. attorney's office and that the decision to fire Fine was appropriate.

"It was made in the best interest of the university," Quinn said.

Davis and Lang sued Boeheim and the university for defamation, but a judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying Boeheim's defense of his friend was clearly opinion. Gloria Allred, the lawyer who represented the two men, did not immediately comment.

Fine, who put his Syracuse home on the market in March, has been in Florida and was recently hired as a consultant for an Israeli basketball team.

Laurie Fine has sued ESPN, alleging defamation and claiming the network knew that Davis was lying and ruined her life. That suit is pending.

The university's prompt response to the allegations was done in good faith but was flawed because, among other things, there was no direct contact with law enforcement, a special committee of the university's board of trustees said in a report released in July.

Davis met Fine in the early 1980s at a park that was a basketball hangout for kids in a working-class neighborhood. After he became a ball boy in 1983 around age 11, Davis said, he went everywhere with Fine.

Fine turned into a father figure, and as Davis spent more time at the older man's house — actually living there sometimes — the abuse escalated from touching outside the pants to inside, according to Davis.

During an interview in December with The Associated Press, Davis said the abuse would sometimes occur in Fine's campus office with secretaries just beyond the closed door, at Syracuse basketball camp and at a fraternity house.

Some of the abuse would occur in Davis' bed in Fine's basement while Fine's wife was home, Davis said.

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Ask an Expert: Wondering About Alzheimer’s? Ask Here

This week’s Ask the Expert features Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, who will answer questions related to Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss. He is a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and an author of “The Alzheimer’s Action Plan.” Dr. Doraiswamy has also served as an adviser to government agencies, advocacy groups and businesses.

About five million Americans today live with Alzheimer’s disease, and a new diagnosis is made about every 70 seconds. Cases are expected to triple over the coming decades as baby boomers age.

Misperceptions and misdiagnoses are common about Alzheimer’s, which ranks second to only cancer among diseases that adults fear the most. Many people do not understand that there are dozens of causes for memory loss besides Alzheimer’s, including many that can be fully reversed if caught early.

Among the questions Dr. Doraiswamy is prepared to answer:

What are the best tests to determine if it is or isn’t Alzheimer’s?

How do you determine your own risk?

What are the family-care options? Medications for memory? Medications for behavior problems? Preventive strategies?

What has been learned from the latest clinical trials?

How can you improve your memory?

Please leave your questions in the comments section. (We regret that not all questions can be answered here.) Dr. Doraiswamy’s responses will be posted on Wednesday.

You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming.

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Heavy Lending Creates a Surge in Chinese Economy

BEIJING — The Chinese economy grew faster than expected last month even as inflation slowed, official statistics showed on Friday, as the government continued heavy lending through its state-owned banks to rekindle growth.

The latest data, including industrial production, retail sales, fixed-asset investment and electricity generation, were stronger than most economists had anticipated. They presented a consistent picture of an economy that is starting to show real growth again after a very weak spring and summer.

“It has become increasingly clear that the Chinese economy is now moving in a better direction,” Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said at a news conference Thursday, before the October figures were publicly released.

Bank economists increasingly agree. “October’s growth data delivered pleasant upside surprises across the board, providing fresh evidence that the economy has indeed bottomed out thanks to the filtering through of Beijing’s policy easing,” Sun Junwei, a China economist at HSBC, wrote in a research report Friday afternoon.

To be sure, the economic statistics released by the government Friday showed a return to the fairly strong economic expansion that prevailed through much of last year and early this year, and not a return to the torrid, double-digit growth that China has enjoyed for much of the last decade.

Australia & New Zealand Banking said in a research note that the latest figures were consistent with 8 percent economic growth in the last quarter of this year and even faster expansion in the first quarter of next year.

Growth had weakened to 7.4 percent in the third quarter and 7.6 percent in the second quarter, according to official statistics. Many economists have been suspicious that even the figures from earlier this year might have been overstated, given the weakness in categories like electricity generation, which grew barely at all in the second quarter and only slowly in the third quarter.

By contrast, the economic expansion this autumn appears more broadly based. Business executives have begun to describe recovering exports and domestic sales, and cranes have begun moving again on the skylines of big cities like Guangzhou and Beijing.

Steel mills and concrete factories are busier. Power generation increased 6.4 percent last month from the same period a year ago, its strongest gain since March, although still well below the double-digit annual gains in previous years.

But the renewed growth has been fueled by rapidly mounting debt, as state-owned banks and the central bank have funneled hundreds of billions of dollars in additional lending to state-owned enterprises and government agencies to finance further investment projects.

Stock markets in China, Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea were all down about half a percent in late afternoon trading, or about half the loss Thursday on Wall Street, as good news from China seemed to partially offset global worries about the so-called fiscal cliff in the United States and economic troubles in Europe.

The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said Friday that industrial production had risen 9.6 percent in October from the same month a year earlier, compared with 9.2 percent in September and 8.9 percent in August. Retail sales were up 14.5 percent in October from a year earlier, compared with 14.2 percent in September, even though slower inflation at the consumer level was acting as a brake on the increase in retail sales.

Fixed-asset investment was up 20.7 percent for the first 10 months of this year, after having been up 20.5 percent for the first nine months of this year. China releases only year-to-date figures for fixed-asset investment, partly because of the difficulty in tracking when money is actually spent on big construction projects.

Consumer prices were up only 1.7 percent in October from a year ago, compared with an increase of 1.9 percent in September. Western economists had expected inflation in China to stay steady in October instead of slowing.

Producer prices were down 2.8 percent in October from a year ago, a slightly faster pace than the 2.7 percent decrease that economists had expected but not as fast a decline as in September, when they were down 3.6 percent.

China has begun a once-a-decade leadership transition at its Party Congress, which began in Beijing on Thursday and will last through the middle of the coming week.

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Preparing to Step Aside in China, Hu Jintao Warns of Challenges

Changing of the Guard in China:
The New York Times’s Beijing correspondents discuss the challenges ahead for China as the country begins its once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

BEIJING — Capping 10 careful years at the helm of the Communist Party, China’s top leader, Hu Jintao, on Thursday boasted of successes during his tenure while issuing a blunt warning against unrest and political reform.

Mr. Hu, 69, is to step down as the party’s general secretary next week, handing over power to his designated successor, Xi Jinping. His speech at the opening here in Beijing of the Communist Party’s 18th Congress was likely to be his last major address — a chance to write his own eulogy while also setting the course for Mr. Xi.

“He’s worried about how history will view him,” said Qian Gang, who works with the China Media Project of Hong Kong University. “On the whole, he is against reform.”

Formally, Mr. Hu nodded to almost every manner of reform: economic, social, political and environmental. But, in the fashion of his predecessors, this was balanced with warnings of the need to guard against a rise in unrest. It was an unusual admission for a man whose signature slogan is creating for China a “harmonious society.”

“Social contradictions have clearly increased,” said the formal 64-page document issued at the congress. (Mr. Hu’s speech, even at 100 minutes, was only a summary.)

“There are many problems concerning the public’s immediate interests in education, employment, social security, health care, housing, the environment, food and drug safety, workplace safety, public security and law enforcement.”

The solution, Mr. Hu said, was “reform and opening up,” a policy initiated by the man who chose him for the job nearly two decades ago, the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

Mr. Hu also lauded his own contribution to Communist Party ideology: “Scientific Development.” Most of his predecessors have had their own ideologies enshrined as guiding state doctrines. His repetition of the phrase — which means that the party should be pragmatic and follow policies that are demonstrably effective — implied that he, too, would be so honored.

But his caveats to reform were many.

According to Mr. Qian, a leading expert on textual analysis of Chinese leaders’ speeches, Mr. Hu’s speech hit on almost every anti-reform phrase used by Chinese Communist leaders.

He referred to Communist China’s founder three times with the phrase “Mao Zedong Thought,” and said the party must “resolutely not follow Western political systems,” something not mentioned at the last party congress five years ago.

“They don’t say these terms lightly,” Mr. Qian said. “When they mention it, it matters.”

Mr. Hu also coined a new term, pledging that the party will not to follow the “wicked way” of changing the party’s course.

Mr. Hu’s speech is thought to have been drawn up in cooperation with his successor, Mr. Xi. While Mr. Xi is widely thought to be consulting with liberal members of China’s intelligentsia, he either did not oppose Mr. Hu’s direction or was not able to change it.

That is important, observers say, because Mr. Xi will not exercise unrestrained power when he takes over. Besides the other half-dozen members on the Standing Committee of the party’s Politburo, he will also have to listen to the advice of Mr. Hu, Mr. Hu’s own predecessor, Jiang Zemin, and an estimated 20 other “senior leaders.” As if to emphasize their role, these men were seated on the dais next to Mr. Hu. Many of them are in their 70s and 80s and have exercised power for decades.

“Xi Jinping certainly won’t be a Gorbachev,” said Yao Jianfu, a former official and researcher who closely follows Chinese politics and advocates democratic change. “Every aspect of reform has an important precondition — that the Communist Party remains in charge.”

Even though Mr. Hu’s speech was broadcast live on national television and on screens in Beijing subway cars, gauging popular opinion was difficult.

Microbloggers, who are mostly urban and fairly well educated, at times cast scorn on the rhetoric. One blogger listed the Marxist terminology that Mr. Hu used and wrote simply “madness.” Others used laughing emoticons, while some delved closely into the speech for clues to new policies — some noted his fleeting mention of China’s unpopular single-child policy.

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NHL, union holding labor talks a 3rd straight day

NEW YORK (AP) — The NHL and the players' association resume negotiations Thursday afternoon, the third straight day the sides are meeting in an effort to end the lockout.

This is the 54th day of the lockout, and this week is considered critical for the hockey season to be saved.

Owners and players already have bargained for about 13 hours over two days this week at an undisclosed site in New York. Little information about the talks has been disclosed by either side.

This marks the fourth time in six days that face-to-face negotiations have taken place after both sides rejected proposals Oct. 18.

The lockout began Sept. 16 after the collective bargaining agreement expired. It has forced the cancellation of 327 regular-season games, including the New Year's Day Winter Classic in Michigan.

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After Loss, Fight to Label Modified Food Continues

LOS ANGELES — Advocates for the labeling of genetically modified food vowed to carry their fight to other states and to the federal government after suffering a defeat in California on Tuesday.

A ballot measure that would have made California the first state in the nation to require such labeling was defeated, 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent. Support for the initiative, which polls said once was greater than 60 percent, crumbled over the last month under a barrage of negative advertisements paid for by food and biotechnology companies.

The backers of the measure, known as Proposition 37, said on Wednesday that they were encouraged it had garnered 4.3 million votes, even though they were outspent about five-to-one by opponents. They are now gathering signatures to place a similar measure on the ballot in Washington State next year.

Declaring that more than four million Californians are “on record believing we have a right to know what is in our food,” Dave Murphy, co-chairman of the Proposition 37 campaign and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, an advocacy group, said on Wednesday: “We fundamentally believe this is a dynamic moment for the food movement and we’re going forward.”

Still, there is no doubt the defeat in California has robbed the movement of some momentum. Until Tuesday’s vote, labeling proponents had been saying that a victory in California, not a defeat, would spur action in other states and at the federal level.

The defeat greatly reduces the chances that labels will be required, according to L. Val Giddings, a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington organization supporting policies that favor innovation. “I see little potential that the defeat in California could result in any increase in pressure for labels. ”

Dr. Giddings, who is a supporter of biotech crops, said it would now be more difficult for labeling proponents to raise money. “What justification can they present to their funders to pour more money down this drain?” he said.

The election in California was closely watched because it had national implications. It could have led to a reduction in the use of genetically modified crops, which account for more than 80 percent of the corn, soybeans and sugar beets grown in the United States. That is because food companies, fearing that some consumers would shun products labeled genetically engineered, would instead reformulate their products to avoid such ingredients.

With so much at stake, food and biotechnology companies amassed $46 million to defeat the measure, according to MapLight, an organization that tracks campaign contributions. Monsanto, the largest supplier of genetically engineered seeds, contributed $8.1 million. Kraft Foods, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola each contributed at least $1.7 million.

The backers of Proposition 37 raised only $9.2 million, mainly from the organic and natural foods business.

The proponents argued that people have a right to know what is in their food. They said that genetically engineered crops have not been adequately tested and that dozens of countries require labeling.

The Food and Drug Administration does not require labeling of a food just because it is genetically modified, saying there is no material difference between such foods and their conventional counterparts.

The big food and biotechnology companies argued that numerous expert reviews have shown the crops to be safe. For the most part, they did not directly attack the notion of consumers’ right to know. Rather they said Proposition 37 was worded in a way that would lead to red tape, increases in food prices and numerous lawsuits against food companies and supermarkets.

Some backers of labeling will shift their focus to Washington, hoping to get the F.D.A. to change its mind and require labeling.

“We think that attention is now going to shift back to Washington, with a whole lot more to discuss and a whole lot more people interested,” said Gary Hirshberg, the chairman of Stonyfield, an organic yogurt company.

Mr. Hirshberg is also chairman of Just Label It, a group that submitted a petition with more than one million signatures to the F.D.A. asking it to require labeling. So far, however, the F.D.A. has shown little propensity to overturn its policy. And bills in Congress to require labeling have failed to gain much support.

Proposition 37 has no doubt raised awareness, however, which might prompt some consumers to seek foods that do not contain genetically engineered ingredients.

“Everything you buy in the grocery is a vote,” said Sara Hadden of Hermosa Beach, who organized street-corner rallies in favor of Proposition 37. “That’s the vote that really counts.”

One question is whether food firms, having narrowly escaped a disruption of their business on Tuesday, will make changes on their own — like voluntarily labeling or reducing their use of genetically modified crops.

If that is being considered, the food companies are not letting on. In a statement Wednesday, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents big food companies, called the defeat of Proposition 37 “a big win for California consumers, taxpayers, businesses and farmers.”

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DealBook: On Wall Street, Time to Mend Fences With Obama

Del Frisco’s, an expensive steakhouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Boston harbor, was a festive scene on Tuesday evening. The hedge fund billionaires Steven A. Cohen, Paul Singer and Daniel Loeb were among the titans of finance there dining among the gray velvet banquettes before heading several blocks away to what they hoped would be a victory party for their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

The next morning was a cold, sobering one for these executives.

Few industries have made such a one-sided bet as Wall Street did in opposing President Obama and supporting his Republican rival. The top five sources of contributions to Mr. Romney, a former top private equity executive, were big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Wealthy financiers — led by hedge fund investors — were the biggest group of givers to the main “super PAC” backing Mr. Romney, providing almost $33 million, and gave generously to outside groups in races around the country.

On Wednesday, Mr. Loeb, who had supported Mr. Obama in 2008, was sanguine. “You win some, you lose some,” he said in an interview. “We can all disagree. I have friends and we have spirited discussions. Sure, I am not getting invited to the White House anytime soon, but as citizens of the country we are all friendly.”

Wall Street, however, now has to come to terms with an administration it has vilified. What Washington does next will be critically important for the industry, as regulatory agencies work to put their final stamp on financial regulations and as tax increases and spending cuts are set to take effect in the new year unless a deal to avert them is reached. To not have a friend in the White House at this time is one thing, but to have an enemy is quite another.

“Wall Street is now going to have to figure out how to make this relationship work,” said Glenn Schorr, an analyst who follows the big banks for the investment bank Nomura. “It’s not impossible, but it’s not the starting point they had hoped for.”

Traditionally, the financial industry has tended to support Republican candidates, but, being pragmatic about power, has also donated to Democrats. That script got a rewrite in 2008, when many on Wall Street supported Mr. Obama as an intelligent leader for a country reeling from the financial crisis. Goldman employees were the leading source of campaign donations for Mr. Obama, who reaped far more contributions — roughly $16 million — from Wall Street than did his opponent, John McCain.

The love affair between Wall Street and Mr. Obama soured soon after he took office and championed an overhaul in financial regulations that became the Dodd-Frank Act.

Some financial executives complained that in meetings with the president, they found him uninterested and disengaged, while others on Wall Street never forgave Mr. Obama for calling them “fat cats.”

The disillusionment with the president spawned reams of critical commentary from Wall Street executives.

“So long as our leaders tell us that we must trust them to regulate and redistribute our way back to prosperity, we will not break out of this economic quagmire,” Mr. Loeb wrote in one letter to his investors.

The rhetoric at times became extreme, like the time Steven A. Schwarzman, co-founder of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, compared a tax proposal to “when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” (Mr. Schwarzman later apologized for the remark.)

Mr. Loeb was not alone in switching allegiances in the recent presidential race. Hedge fund executives like Leon Cooperman who had supported Mr. Obama in 2008 were big backers of Mr. Romney in 2012. And Wall Street chieftains like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who have publicly been Democrats in the past, kept a low profile during this election. But their firms’ employees gave money to Mr. Romney in waves.

Starting over with the Obama White House will not be easy. One senior Wall Street lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wall Street “made a bad mistake” in pushing so hard for Mr. Romney. “They are going to pay a price,” he said. “It will soften over time, but there will be a price.”

Mr. Obama is not without supporters on Wall Street. Prominent executives like Hamilton James of Blackstone, and Robert Wolf, a former top banker at UBS, were in Chicago on Tuesday night, celebrating with the president.

“What we learned is the people on Wall Street have one vote just like everyone else,” Mr. Wolf said. Still, while the support Wall Street gave Mr. Romney is undeniable, Mr. Wolf said, “Mr. Obama wants a healthy private sector, and that includes Wall Street.

“If you look at fiscal reform, infrastructure, immigration and education, they are all bipartisan issues and are more aligned than some people make it seem.”

Reshma Saujani, a former hedge fund lawyer who was among Mr. Obama’s top bundlers this year and is planning to run for city office next year, agreed.

“Most people in the financial services sector are social liberals who support gay marriage and believe in a woman’s right to choose, so I think many of them will swing back to Democrats in the future,” she said.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 8, 2012

An earlier version of this article misidentified Reshma Saujani as a male.

A version of this article appeared in print on 11/08/2012, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: On Wall Street, Time to Mend Fences With Obama.

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Divided U.S. Gives Obama More Time

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Americans voted to give President Obama a second chance to change Washington. More Photos »

Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Tuesday, overcoming powerful economic headwinds, a lock-step resistance to his agenda by Republicans in Congress and an unprecedented torrent of advertising as a divided nation voted to give him more time.

In defeating Mitt Romney, the president carried Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin, a near sweep of the battleground states, and was holding a narrow advantage in Florida. The path to victory for Mr. Romney narrowed as the night wore along, with Mr. Obama winning at least 303 electoral votes.

A cheer of jubilation sounded at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago when the television networks began projecting him as the winner at 11:20 p.m., even as the ballots were still being counted in many states where voters had waited in line well into the night. The victory was far narrower than his historic election four years ago, but it was no less dramatic.

“Tonight in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back,” Mr. Obama told his supporters early Wednesday. “We know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come.”

Mr. Obama’s re-election extended his place in history, carrying the tenure of the nation’s first black president into a second term. His path followed a pattern that has been an arc to his political career: faltering when he seemed to be at his strongest — the period before his first debate with Mr. Romney — before he redoubled his efforts to lift himself and his supporters to victory.

The evening was not without the drama that has come to mark so many recent elections: For more than 90 minutes after the networks projected Mr. Obama as the winner, Mr. Romney held off calling him to concede. And as the president waited to declare victory in Chicago, Mr. Romney’s aides were prepared to head to the airport, suitcases packed, potentially to contest several close results.

But as it became increasingly clear that no amount of contesting would bring him victory, he called Mr. Obama to concede shortly before 1 a.m.

“I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters,” Mr. Romney told his supporters in Boston. “This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.”

Hispanics made up an important part of Mr. Obama’s winning coalition, preliminary exit poll data showed. And before the night was through, there were already recriminations from Republican moderates who said Mr. Romney had gone too far during the primaries in his statements against those here illegally, including his promise that his get-tough policies would cause some to “self-deport.”

Mr. Obama, 51, faces governing in a deeply divided country and a partisan-rich capital, where Republicans retained their majority in the House and Democrats kept their control of the Senate. His re-election offers him a second chance that will quickly be tested, given the rapidly escalating fiscal showdown.

For Mr. Obama, the result brings a ratification of his sweeping health care act, which Mr. Romney had vowed to repeal. The law will now continue on course toward nearly full implementation in 2014, promising to change significantly the way medical services are administrated nationwide.

Confident that the economy is finally on a true path toward stability, Mr. Obama and his aides have hinted that he would seek to tackle some of the grand but unrealized promises of his first campaign, including the sort of immigration overhaul that has eluded presidents of both parties for decades.

But he will be venturing back into a Congressional environment similar to that of his first term, with the Senate under the control of Democrats and the House under the control of Republicans, whose leaders have hinted that they will be no less likely to challenge him than they were during the last four years.

Michael Cooper and Allison Kopicki contributed reporting.

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End in sight? NHL, players bargain deep into night

NEW YORK (AP) — The NHL and the players' association did all their talking at the bargaining table, far away from the public eye. With another round of talks scheduled just one day after more than seven hours of negotiations, perhaps progress is being made.

There was already common ground before negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement began Tuesday and lasted deep into the night. The players' union adhered to the league's request to keep the meeting location in New York a secret, and with no outside distractions, the sides talked and talked from afternoon until night.

Once they broke for the day, neither side gave any hint of what was discussed or if progress was made, but both pointed to the next round of talks.

"With meetings scheduled to resume Wednesday, the league will not characterize the substance or detail of the discussions until their conclusion," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

The marathon session highlighted Day 52 of the lockout and provided at least a glimmer of hope that maybe it will end soon.

Daly and union special counsel Steve Fehr, who conducted a long one-on-one session on Saturday, were joined on Tuesday by Commissioner Gary Bettman, NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, a handful of team owners, and 13 players including Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who has been an active participant in the process.

The union did its talking Tuesday before negotiations began.

"We're hopeful that we'll start bargaining and we'll continue bargaining until we find a way to make a deal," Donald Fehr said early Tuesday afternoon. "Sometimes that goes in rather long sessions with short breaks and sometimes you take a few hours or half a day or a day to work on things before you come back together. I don't know which it will be.

"We certainly hope we'll be continuing to meet on a regular basis. I hope they do, too. I'm just not making any predictions."

His hope was met — at least for one day.

Fehr's brother, Steve, met with Daly on Saturday in a secret location, and neither provided many details of what was discussed, but both agreed that the meeting was productive. That was proven when the sides agreed to quickly meet again Tuesday. Until Saturday, there had been no negotiations since talks broke off Oct. 18.

"The players' view has always been to keep negotiating until we find a way to get agreement and you sort of stay at it day by day, so it's very good to be getting back to the table," Donald Fehr said. "We hope that this time it produces more progress than we've seen in the past, and that we can find a way to make an agreement and to get the game back on the ice as soon as possible.

"We're hopeful that we'll start bargaining and we'll continue bargaining until we find a way to make a deal."

Time is becoming a bigger factor every day a deal isn't reached. The lockout, which went into effect Sept. 16 after the previous collective bargaining agreement expired, has already forced the cancellation of 327 regular-season games — including the New Year's Day outdoor Winter Classic in Michigan.

Whether any of the games that have been called off through Nov. 30 can be rescheduled if an agreement is made soon hasn't been determined. But the NHL has already said that a full 82-game season won't be played.

Back in October, the players' association responded to an NHL offer with three of its own, but all of those were quickly dismissed by the league — leading to nearly three weeks without face-to-face discussions. Daly and Steve Fehr kept in regular contact by phone and agreed to meet again last weekend.

The NHL has moved toward the players' side in the contentious issue of the "make-whole" provision, which involves the payment of player contracts that are already in effect and whose share of the economic pie that money will come from.

Other core economic issues — mainly the split of hockey-related revenue — along with contract lengths, arbitration and free agency will also need to be agreed upon before a deal can be reached.

The players' association accepted a salary cap in the previous CBA, which wasn't reached until after the entire 2004-05 season was canceled because of a lockout. The union doesn't want to absorb the majority of concessions this time after the NHL recorded record revenue that exceeded $3 billion last season.

"The issues the players are concerned about remain the same," Donald Fehr said. "The players haven't seen any need to go backward, given the history of the last negotiations and given the level of revenue increase since then. Player-contracting rights are very important to them.

"Before we have any agreement, both sides have to see everything on paper and make sure that they all understand it right. That's about all I can say about it at this stage. I don't want to prejudge or indicate that I have any particular impressions or expectations. That's what the meetings are for."

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Alarm Over India’s Dengue Fever Epidemic

Enrico Fabian for The New York Times

A man at the Yamuna River, an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Filthy standing water abounds in New Delhi. More Photos »

NEW DELHI — An epidemic of dengue fever in India is fostering a growing sense of alarm even as government officials here have publicly refused to acknowledge the scope of a problem that experts say is threatening hundreds of millions of people, not just in India but around the world.

India has become the focal point for a mosquito-borne plague that is sweeping the globe. Reported in just a handful of countries in the 1950s, dengue (pronounced DEN-gay) is now endemic in half the world’s nations.

“The global dengue problem is far worse than most people know, and it keeps getting worse,” said Dr. Raman Velayudhan, the World Health Organization’s lead dengue coordinator.

The tropical disease, though life-threatening for a tiny fraction of those infected, can be extremely painful. Growing numbers of Western tourists are returning from warm-weather vacations with the disease, which has reached the shores of the United States and Europe. Last month, health officials in Miami announced a case of locally acquired dengue infection.

Here in India’s capital, where areas of standing water contribute to the epidemic’s growth, hospitals are overrun and feverish patients are sharing beds and languishing in hallways. At Kalawati Saran Hospital, a pediatric facility, a large crowd of relatives lay on mats and blankets under the shade of a huge banyan tree outside the hospital entrance recently.

Among them was Neelam, who said her two grandchildren were deathly ill inside. Eight-year-old Sneha got the disease first, followed by Tanya, 7, she said. The girls’ parents treated them at home but then Sneha’s temperature rose to 104 degrees, a rash spread across her legs and shoulders, and her pain grew unbearable.

“Sneha has been given five liters of blood,” said Neelam, who has one name. “It is terrible.”

Officials say that 30,002 people in India had been sickened with dengue fever through October, a 59 percent jump from the 18,860 recorded for all of 2011. But the real number of Indians who get dengue fever annually is in the millions, several experts said.

“I’d conservatively estimate that there are 37 million dengue infections occurring every year in India, and maybe 227,500 hospitalizations,” said Dr. Scott Halstead, a tropical disease expert focused on dengue research.

A senior Indian government health official, who agreed to speak about the matter only on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that official figures represent a mere sliver of dengue’s actual toll. The government only counts cases of dengue that come from public hospitals and that have been confirmed by laboratories, the official said. Such a census, “which was deliberated at the highest levels,” is a small subset that is nonetheless informative and comparable from one year to the next, he said.

“There is no denying that the actual number of cases would be much, much higher,” the official said. “Our interest has not been to arrive at an exact figure.”

The problem with that policy, said Dr. Manish Kakkar, a specialist at the Public Health Foundation of India, is that India’s “massive underreporting of cases” has contributed to the disease’s spread. Experts from around the world said that India’s failure to construct an adequate dengue surveillance system has impeded awareness of the illness’s vast reach, discouraged efforts to clean up the sources of the disease and slowed the search for a vaccine.

“When you look at the number of reported cases India has, it’s a joke,” said Dr. Harold S. Margolis, chief of the dengue branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Neighboring Sri Lanka, for instance, reported nearly three times as many dengue cases as India through August, according to the World Health Organization, even though India’s population is 60 times larger.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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Fiscal Impasse Leads to Pullback After Election

Business leaders and investors on Wall Street reacted nervously to President Obama’s re-election Wednesday, as the focus shifted quickly from electoral politics to the looming fiscal uncertainty in Washington. A gloomy economic outlook in Europe also prompted selling in markets worldwide.

Stocks were sharply lower in New York, with both the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average down 2.4 percent, as European shares sank and Asian stocks were mixed. While many executives on Wall Street and in other industries favored Mitt Romney, many had already factored in the likelihood of Mr. Obama winning a second term.

Still, continued divided government in Washington and little prospect for compromise unnerved traders.

“The bottom line is that this looks like a status quo election,” said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. “The problem with that is that it doesn’t resolve some of the main sources of uncertainty that are hanging over the economy.”

Companies in some sectors, like hospitals and technology, could see a short-term pop, said Tobias Levkovich, chief United States equity strategist with Citi. Other areas, like financial services as well as coal and mining, could be hurt as investors contemplate a tougher regulatory environment.

Shares of Alpha Natural Resources, a coal giant, were down 11.8 percent, while Arch Coal was off 11 percent. But HCA Holdings, a hospital operator, was up 8 percent, to $33.39 a share. As a result of Mr. Obama’s victory, Goldman Sachs said it upgraded its rating on HCA to buy from neutral, and raised its price target to $39 from $31. It also raised price targets for Tenet Healthcare and Community Health Systems, although both are still rated neutral.

Goldman downgraded shares of Humana, a leading managed care company, to sell, and its shares fell 9.9 percent. Goldman warned that Humana and other managed care providers could be hurt as health care reform moves forward, especially new rules for health insurers that become effective in 2014.

Mr. Levkovich predicted that the market would remain volatile between now and mid-January. If Congress and the president cannot come up with a plan to cut the deficit, hundreds of billions in Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at the beginning of 2013 while automatic spending cuts will sharply cut the defense budget and other programs.

Known as the fiscal cliff, this simultaneous combination of dramatic reductions in government spending and tax increases could push the economy into recession in 2013, economists fear.

But it was not just the election results driving shares lower — there was more gloomy economic news out of Europe.

The European Union will experience only a very weak economic recovery during 2013 while unemployment will remain at “very high” levels, according to a set of forecasts issued Wednesday by the European Commission.

This year, gross domestic product will shrink by 0.3 percent for the 27 members of the union as a whole and by 0.4 percent for the 17 European Union countries that use the euro, the commission predicted. Growth in 2013 will be a meager 0.4 percent across the union and only 0.1 percent in the euro area, it said.

Not only is that level of growth far slower than even the tepid pace of the recovery in the United States, it also makes it more difficult for debt-burdened European economies to get their financial house in order. As markets neared the close in Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, fell 2.2 percent, while the FTSE 100 index in London was 1.5 percent lower.

The S.&P./ASX 200 in Australia closed up 0.7 percent, as did the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong. The Nikkei 225 stock average in Japan ended trading little changed.

“There’s a huge question mark hanging over what happens in the next few weeks,” said Aric Newhouse, senior vice-president of policy and government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers. “The fiscal cliff is the 800-pound gorilla out there.”

“We can’t wait,” he said. “We think the idea of going over the cliff has to be taken off the table. We’ve got to get to the middle ground.”

For all the anticipation, some observers said the election still left plenty of unanswered questions.

“While we have clarity on the players now, we don’t have any more clarity on what will happen in terms of the fiscal cliff,” Mr. Maki said. “We still have a divided government and they haven’t been able to agree on what to do.”

If the full package of tax increases and spending cuts go into effect, that would equal a $650 billion blow to the economy, Mr. Maki said, equivalent to 4 percent of the gross domestic product.

Mr. Maki envisions a partial compromise, with $200 billion in tax increases and spending cuts. Partly because of that, he estimates, the annual rate of economic growth will dip to 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter. He predicted that if the full fiscal cliff were to hit, the economy would contract in the first half of 2013.

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Egyptian Vigilantes Crack Down on Abuse of Women

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

A self-appointed citizens patrol that tries to protect women on Cairo’s streets spray-painted a youth for identification last month.

CAIRO — The young activists lingered on the streets around Tahrir Square, scrutinizing the crowds of holiday revelers. Suddenly, they charged, pushing people aside and chasing down a young man. As the captive thrashed to get away, the activists pounded his shoulders, flipped him around and spray-painted a message on his back: “I’m a harasser.”

Egypt’s streets have long been a perilous place for women, who are frequently heckled, grabbed, threatened and violated while the police look the other way. Now, during the country’s tumultuous transition from authoritarian rule, more and more groups are emerging to make protecting women — and shaming the do-nothing police — a cause.

“They’re now doing the undoable?” a police officer joked as he watched the vigilantes chase down the young man. The officer quickly went back to sipping his tea.

The attacks on women did not subside after the uprising. If anything, they became more visible as even the military was implicated in the assaults, stripping female protesters, threatening others with violence and subjecting activists to so-called virginity tests. During holidays, when Cairenes take to the streets to stroll and socialize, the attacks multiply.

But during the recent Id al-Adha holiday, some of the men were surprised to find they could no longer harass with impunity, a change brought about not just out of concern for women’s rights, but out of a frustration that the post-revolutionary government still, like the one before, was doing too little to protect its citizens.

At least three citizens groups patrolled busy sections of central Cairo during the holiday. The groups’ members, both men and women, shared the conviction that the authorities would not act against harassment unless the problem was forced into the public debate. They differed in their tactics: some activists criticized others for being too quick to resort to violence against suspects and encouraging vigilantism.  One group leader compared the activists to the Guardian Angels in the United States.

“The harasser doesn’t see anyone who will hold him accountable,” said Omar Talaat, 16, who joined one of the patrols.

The years of President Hosni Mubarak’s rule were marked by official apathy, collusion in the assaults on women, or empty responses to the attacks, including police roundups of teenagers at Internet cafes for looking at pornography.

“The police did not take harassment seriously,” said Madiha el-Safty, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo. “People didn’t file complaints. It was always underreported.”

Mr. Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne, who portrayed herself as a champion of women’s rights, pretended the problem hardly existed. As reports of harassment grew in 2008, she said, “Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women.”

Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, has presided over two holidays, and many activists say there is no sign that the government is paying closer attention to the problem. But the work by the citizens groups may be having an effect: Last week, after the Id al-Adha holiday, Mr. Morsi’s spokesman announced that the government had received more than 1,000 reports of harassment, and said that the president had directed the Interior Ministry to investigate them.

“Egypt’s revolution cannot tolerate these abuses,” the spokesman quoted Mr. Morsi as saying.

Azza Soliman, the director of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, dismissed the president’s words as “weak.” During the holiday, she said, one of her sons was beaten on the subway after he tried to stop a man who was groping two foreign women. The police tried to stop him from filing a complaint. “The whole world is talking about harassment in our country,” Ms. Soliman said. “The Interior Ministry takes no action.”

For years, anti-harassment activists have worked to highlight the problems in Egypt, but the uprising seemed to give the effort more energy and urgency.

Asmaa Al Zohairy contributed reporting.

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Brees, Robinson lead Saints past Eagles 28-13

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two teams with the same record. Two teams heading in strikingly different directions.

Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints appear to be on the rise again.

Michael Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles are down, and nearly out.

Brees threw two touchdown passes, extending his NFL record streak to 51 games in a row, while Vick was sacked seven times and took an awful beating as the Saints romped to a 28-13 victory over the Eagles on Monday night.

Not that Philadelphia didn't have its chances. But four first-and-goals resulted in two measly field goals, a tipped pass led to Patrick Robinson's 99-yard interception return for a New Orleans touchdown, and the Eagles messed up a trick play when they had the home team totally fooled, costing them a score.

"As coaches and as players, we obviously have to do a better job," embattled coach Andy Reid said of the Eagles (3-5), who are mired in a four-game losing streak. "That starts with me."

The Saints (3-5) revolve around Brees, of course, and he played much better than he did the previous week in a 34-14 loss to Denver. But his performance was more efficient than spectacular, as New Orleans seemed intent on proving it's not just a one-man team.

The NFL's worst-ranked running game relied on a trio of backs — Chris Ivory, Mark Ingram and Pierre Thomas — and finished with 140 yards, nearly double its season average. Ivory had a 22-yard touchdown run.

The defense came up with two huge turnovers near its own end zone. There was Robinson's interception and return, which matched Darren Sharper's franchise record. Then, with just over 3 minutes left and the Eagles down to their last gasp, Brent Celek caught a pass at the New Orleans 8 but fumbled it away.

The Saints recovered, and the Superdome celebration was on.

"There are defining moments throughout a season," Brees said. "Big plays, big wins, that kind of bring you together and let you see a vision of what you can be, what you can accomplish. Here we are the midway point. It's gone by fast.

"This," he added, "is the type of momentum we want going into the second half of the season."

Another dismal performance by the Eagles is sure to keep the heat on Vick and Reid.

Vick threw a 77-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson in the third quarter, but that was about the only highlight for the visiting team. The elusive quarterback matched his career high for sacks; he also went down seven times when playing for the Atlanta Falcons against the New York Giants on Oct. 15, 2006.

"It's very frustrating," Vick said. "These are games that we have the opportunity to win, or get back in the game. At this point, everything has to be dead on. You can't miss, and you almost have to be perfect on every drive."

Philadelphia was far from perfect, but sure had plenty of chances. The Eagles outgained New Orleans and finished with 447 yards — the eighth straight team to put up more than 400 on the Saints.

But the offensive line just couldn't keep Vick upright, a problem that got worse after right tackle Todd Herremans went down in the first half with a strained ankle tendon. He didn't return.

"These are correctable mistakes," Reid said, repeating a familiar theme. "With some of those sacks you can look at coverage, and with some of them you can look at play calling, but we have to do better. The bottom line is we have to block the guys and do a better job."

Rubbing salt in the wound, Philadelphia squandered a chance to get back in the game with a unique trick play on a kickoff return. Riley Cooper laid flat in the end zone, unseen by the Saints, then popped up to take a cross-field lateral from Brandon Boykin.

Cooper streaked down the sideline for an apparent touchdown. Only one problem — Boykin's lateral was actually an illegal forward pass by about a yard, and the officials caught it. Cooper stood with his hands on his hips, in disbelief, when he saw the yellow flag.

Brees kept his record touchdown streak going, hooking up with Marques Colston on a 1-yard scoring pass and Jimmy Graham from 6 yards out.

The Saints quarterback finished 21 of 27 for 239 yards, a big improvement on his 22-of-42 showing against the Broncos.

Meanwhile, a Saints defense that had endured much ridicule kept the heat on Vick, and the brutal pounding made it tough for No. 7 to establish any rhythm. He finished 22 of 41 for 272 yards and really couldn't be blamed for Robinson's interception, which went off the hands of Celek, the first major miscue on a tough night for the tight end.

Cameron Jordan had three sacks, matching his total for the season, while Will Smith took down Vick twice — also matching his sack total through the first seven games.

Reid moved quickly to snuff out any talk about replacing Vick, which has become a weekly ritual.

"Michael Vick will be the quarterback," the Eagles coach said.

The Saints raced to a 21-3 halftime lead, putting the Eagles in a big hole for the second straight game. Over the last two weeks, they have been outscored 45-10 in the first and second quarters.

New Orleans was on the verge of blowing it open when it took the second-half kickoff and drove deep into Philadelphia territory. But the Eagles defense came up with a big turnover, as Brandon Graham stripped the ball from Brees and fell on it at the Eagles 17. Two plays later, Vick found Jackson wide open down the right side on a deep throw, and he took it the rest of the way for a touchdown.

Rookie Travaris Cadet, filling in on returns for the injured Darren Sproles, fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Philadelphia recovered again. Vick broke off a 14-yard run to the 8, but yet another sack stifled the drive.

The Eagles settled for Alex Henery's second field goal from 37 yards.

It was that kind of night for the Eagles.

NOTES: Graham led the Saints with a season-high eight catches for 72 yards. ... Jackson finished with 100 yards receiving on just three catches. ... Philadelphia's LeSean McCoy had 19 carries for 119 yards, but only 18 yards came after halftime. ... New Orleans gave up a season low in points. The previous best was a 31-24 victory over San Diego. ... The Saints lost two players to injuries. OT Zach Strief (groin) went down in the third quarter, and DE Junior Galette (ankle) was hurt in the first. Neither returned.

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Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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Run Well: Lessons From a Marathon Not Run

Thousands of runners who had trained for months didn’t get to run the canceled New York City Marathon this weekend. I feel their pain because four weeks ago I went through similar emotions. All that rigorous training. It felt unfair, a cruel joke. Runners train to run.

My marathon plan began a year ago. After five episodes of atrial fibrillation, I lay on a gurney at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York as medical assistants prepared me for a pulmonary ablation. The procedure went perfectly, and afterward, I felt a renewed desire to return to running, the sport I had fallen in love with as a hyperactive 18-year-old.

Could I stage a marathon comeback? I had run nearly 30 marathons. The last competitive one was 14 years ago. But now I wanted to test my limits again, to run as fast as my present body could carry me. I did everything I could to take chance out of the equation, including starting my training in March and joining the competitive Central Park Track Club.

As the months ticked by and my condition improved, I re-examined all I knew about marathoning. With the patient help of the Central Park coach Tony Ruiz, I discovered an older runner’s version of the training I used to do. Nearly half a lifetime ago, I had run the New York City Marathon in 2:46. Now, older, slower and heavier, I would need to be smarter.

I learned to minimize impact on my joints by running on softer terrain. On long runs, the staple of any marathon training regime, I grew patient with pace.

One can never fully control what will happen during the 26.2 miles of the race, but one can rehearse what energy drinks to take and how often, what to eat before the run and dozens of other such details. By October, I had honed these routines. Running the marathon would be like performing the symphony I had practiced hundreds of times.

Then, four weeks ago, five days before completing my last week of serious training, a soccer ball came rolling toward me. When I kicked it back to the fellow who had lost it, my groin muscle, used to functioning one way, didn’t like the position I had suddenly put it in and rebelled: it promptly flared up, leaving me to hobble off the track as my teammates began their workout. I managed to climb onto a bus and reach an emergency room, where I was pleased to learn I didn’t have a hernia but not so pleased when a doctor told me I had likely torn an adductor muscle.

A week later, an M.R.I. confirmed that I had torn the adductor longus, a long, sensitive muscle that plays a supportive though important role to the tougher adductor magnus. A doctor recommended surgery. As my leg turned black and blue and reddish from the back of my knee to my right buttock, my marathon dreams were crushed. Months of training evaporated in an instant. I wouldn’t be able to show off all my hard work, wouldn’t be able to sweat and wave and rejoice and cry through the city I loved.

As dramas go, this is more pathos than tragedy. One reads about breast cancer survivors going from deadly prognosis one year to the finish line of the marathon the next, and runners from war-torn countries lifting themselves from abject poverty onto the winner’s podium of the world’s major marathons. Then this monstrous Sandy hits and people living just a few miles from me have far, far greater needs than any possible need I have to return to form.

Yet the storm and that soccer ball have kicked me back to running essentials. It has reminded me that running centers and stimulates my life, making me more positive, more capable and willing to do good in the world.

The writer Haruki Murakami writes in his book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”: “Running is both exercise and metaphor.” Perhaps it takes slowing down a moment, even being sidelined, to recognize and grow from the parallels.

Yes, it’s frustrating not reaching my goal, after investing so much time and rising to a high level of fitness. But hadn’t I lost 20 pounds, refound fast-twitch muscles that I dearly missed and learned to de-stress through the patient discipline of months of running? Did I really need the photo op on a public stage to prove what I had achieved?

Coach Tony posted this on Facebook: “Just finished my volunteer shift today, and it was truly an eye-opening experience. People were grabbing, opening and gulping down water like it was the blood of Jesus! And as disturbing as the marathon cancellation was, and it was very disturbing, it pales compared to what I witnessed today.”

Like thousands of others, I was not on the starting line of the New York City Marathon on Sunday. I missed the race because of injury. Most people missed it because of circumstance. Yet we may have learned similar lessons. By starting my training so early, I thought I could eliminate chance, but it is chance that makes running and life most challenging. And I learned that fixating too strongly on a goal is a sure-fire way to eliminate the joy of pursuing it. Life — and always tragedy — trumps running, and that’s the way it should be.

Charles Lyons is a multimedia journalist and filmmaker.

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Antwerp Journal: Antwerp’s Diamond Industry Facing Challenges

Colin Delfosse for The New York Times

Indian businessmen in the diamond district of Antwerp, Belgium.

ANTWERP, Belgium — Step off the train here and you cannot miss the signs on the stores: Diamond World, Diamond Gallery, Diamond Creations or simply, Diamonds. Of late, there are the banners and posters reading simply, “Antwerp Loves Diamonds.”

Though this Belgian port has had a love affair with diamonds for centuries, of late it seems to be losing some of its passion. For years now, much of the lucrative but labor-intensive business of cutting and polishing stones has been drifting to low-wage centers in the developing world, like Mumbai, Dubai and Shanghai.

More ominously, in recent years, diamond traders have been accused of a range of violations, including tax fraud, money laundering and cheating on customs payments when buying and selling stones.

Local business leaders recognize the threat. This year, they embarked on what local newspapers described as a “charm offensive.” In a 160-page program, titled Project 2020, the World Diamond Center, a trade-promotion group, outlined plans to draw business back to Antwerp by simplifying and accelerating trading via online systems. That, the industry hopes, will win back some of the polishing business lost to Asian countries with new technology, like fully automated diamond polishers, and generally burnish the image of the diamond business in the public’s jaded eye.

“This is our strength,” said Ari Epstein, 36, a lawyer who is chief executive of the World Diamond Center and the son of a diamond trader, whose father emigrated from a village in Romania in the 1960s. “We have the critical mass so that every diamond finds a buyer and seller.”

Antwerp has by no means fallen out of love with the gems. In all, the market employs 8,000 people and creates work indirectly for 26,000 others as insurers, bankers, security guards and drivers. Last year, turnover in the local diamond business amounted to $56 billion, Mr. Epstein said, its best year ever.

While total revenues are expected to drop this year because of the troubled world economy, he acknowledged, a stroll along Hoveniersstraat, or Gardner’s Street, leads through the heart of the market, where almost 85 percent of the world’s uncut diamonds are still traded.

“I come here once a month,” said Sheh Kamliss, a trader in his 30s, who travels from his native India to buy uncut stones and sell polished diamonds. “This is the international market,” he added, chatting with fellow Indian traders outside the Diamond Club of Antwerp, one of many locations where deals are struck.

On any given day but Friday or the Jewish holidays, Hoveniersstraat, with its tiny Sephardic synagogue, is liberally sprinkled with Orthodox Jewish traders, many of them Hasidim.

But their once dominant presence has been squeezed by the arrival of traders from new markets, like Mr. Kamliss. Now people from about 70 nations are present, including Indians, Israelis, Lebanese, Russians, Chinese and others. Along neighboring Lange Herentalsestraat, Rachel’s Kosher Restaurant is now flanked by the Bollywood Indian Restaurant and the Shanti Shop Indian supermarket. In the nearby Jewish quarter, Patel’s Cash & Carry recently installed itself right next to Moszkowitz, the butcher.

Some here say this globalization of the business has opened the door to abuse.

Omega Diamonds, a major market maker, came under investigation and its executives fled Belgium when an employee-turned-whistle-blower revealed in 2006 how Omega had traded diamonds out of Africa for years, avoiding taxes by transacting deals through Dubai, Tel Aviv and Geneva, then moving the profits back to Belgium.

“Because of global changes, the trade routes have changed,” said David Renous, 47, the whistle blower, who is now writing a book on the subject. “New hubs, like Dubai, the Singapore of the Middle East, sometimes close their eyes to criminality.”

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