High Cost Leads Canada to Study Plans to Buy F-35s

Canada said Wednesday that it would reconsider plans to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets after an independent audit found that the sophisticated stealth planes would cost substantially more than the government had promised.

The decision was an unusual step back by Stephen Harper, the prime minister, who has been a strident defender of the purchase despite widespread public criticism of the price. Two cabinet ministers said an independent panel would review a variety of options, including a version of Boeing’s Super Hornet fighter as well as sticking with the F-35, made by Lockheed Martin.

“We have hit the reset button and are taking the time to do a complete assessment of all available aircraft,” Rona Ambrose, the public works minister, told reporters in Ottawa.

The announcement came after the auditor, KPMG, estimated that Canada would spend $45.8 billion to buy and operate the planes over 42 years, the expected life span.

When Peter MacKay, the defense minister, first announced Canada’s plan to buy the F-35 in 2010, he said the purchase price was $9 billion, but declined to provide operating cost estimates. The next year during an election campaign, the Conservatives put the total cost over 20 years at $16 billion.

If Canada were to back out of the project, it would be a blow to Lockheed and the Pentagon, which is counting on foreign sales to help reduce the cost of building each of the planes.

The F-35 was conceived as the Chevrolet of the sky, a radar-evading aircraft that could be built relatively cheaply and adapted to the needs of the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

But almost from the start, development of the planes and their sophisticated gear proved far more costly and difficult than anticipated.

The plane is now projected to be the most expensive weapons program in history, with the Pentagon spending $396 billion to buy 2,443 planes by the late 2030s. The United States is counting on 10 allies to buy at least 700 more.

To meet the Pentagon’s targets of $79 million to $106 million a plane, depending on the model, Lockheed needs to increase its economies of scale by spreading the costs across as many planes as possible. Canada’s hesitancy about the project could add to worries among the allies about the plane’s cost.

This year, economically troubled Italy cut its planned F-35 order by 30 percent. Britain and Australia have delayed decisions on how many F-35s to buy. And lawmakers in the Netherlands are also questioning the jet’s cost.

The Pentagon and Lockheed have stepped up their efforts to reassure those countries and persuaded two others, Israel and Japan, to sign on.

“You have to wonder when a slip becomes a slide with this program,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. “This is not a simple question of a fighter from a new generation all by itself in the market. There is price pressure and there’s a growing cost-consciousness among all customers.”

Until recently, the ruling Conservative Party in Canada swiftly rejected any suggestion that the country not buy the F-35s. Two years ago, Mr. Harper said that critics of the acquisition were “playing politics with the lives of our men and women in uniform.”

But after the office of the Auditor General of Canada released a report in March indicating that the planes would cost much more than the $16 billion the government had indicated, Mr. Harper’s aides began edging away from the program and hired KPMG to produce the new cost estimates.

Ms. Ambrose and Mr. MacKay repeatedly used the word “reset” on Wednesday and avoided questions about what that step would mean in evaluating alternatives. The ministers and officials, however, did make it clear that no decision had been made to start a formal competition among aircraft manufacturers and acknowledged that it remained possible that Canada would stick with the F-35.

The review, Mr. MacKay said, would “ensure that a balance is maintained between the military needs and taxpayer interests.”

Canada’s concerns about the costs of the F-35s come as American officials worry that the F-35’s huge price tag could make it a target for budget cutters in Washington as well. The Pentagon has already slowed the program to fix technical problems and reduce the immediate costs.

Pentagon and Lockheed officials sought on Wednesday to play down the developments in Canada.

Lt. Col. Melinda F. Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the KPMG cost estimate for Canada was in line with the Pentagon’s current projections for the cost of the planes.

She said that Canada’s decision to review its options seemed similar to a high-level review the Pentagon conducted in 2010 when problems were mounting with the planes. Top Pentagon officials determined then that they had no alternative that could provide the same capability.

Lockheed issued a statement noting it had worked with Canada’s armed forces for 50 years and looked forward to continuing the relationship.

The KPMG study said that if Canada wanted to stick to the original $9 billion price, it would be able to buy only 55 planes.

Possible alternatives to the F-35 include an updated version of Boeing’s F/A-18 Hornet, called the Super Hornet, and several European models. The Royal Canadian Air Force currently flies CF-18s, a version of the Hornet. While some of Canada’s jets date back about 30 years, Mr. MacKay said Wednesday that the fleet could be kept operational for at least another decade.

In the past, Mr. MacKay and others have emphasized the need for Canada’s next generation of fighters to include the radar-evading stealth technology found on the F-35. But several military analysts in Canada have noted that the country’s air force had not been actively involved in first strikes, where stealth would be most crucial. Others have questioned using the single-engine F-35 for patrols in remote Arctic regions, a primary mission for Canada’s military.

Separately on Wednesday, the government also reduced its estimate of business that Canadian companies were likely to win from F-35 contracts to $9.8 billion from $12 billion.

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Cheikh Modibo Diarra, Mali’s Prime Minister, Resigns After Arrest

BAMAKO, Mali — Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister at his residence late Monday night, signaling new turmoil in a West African nation racked by military interference and an Islamist takeover in the north.

Associated Press

Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared on state television and announced his government’s resignation on Tuesday.

Hours later, Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared grim-faced on national television to announce his government’s resignation. A spokesman for soldiers who seized power earlier in the year — and later nominally relinquished it to Mr. Diarra — confirmed the prime minister’s arrest on Tuesday morning, accusing him of “playing a personal agenda” while the country faced a crisis in the north. The soldiers arrived at Mr. Diarra’s home around 11 p.m. Monday as he was preparing for a flight to Paris for a medical checkup, said the military spokesman, Bakary Mariko. The prime minister was taken to the military encampment at Kati, just outside Bamako, the capital, where Capt. Amadou Sanogo, the officer who led the March military coup, and others told him “there were proofs against him that he was calling for subversion,” Mr. Mariko said.

On Tuesday morning, the streets of Bamako appeared calm following what appeared to be the country’s second coup d’état in less than a year. But the new upheaval is likely to be considered a setback to Western efforts to help Mali regain control of territory lost to Qaeda-linked militants earlier in the year.

The West has watched with growing alarm as Islamist radicals have constructed a stronghold in the country’s vast north. The United Nations, regional African bodies, France and the United States have tried to aid the faltering Malian Army in a military strike to take back the lost north. Those efforts have so far not coalesced into a coherent plan, despite numerous meetings and United Nations resolutions. More meetings at the United Nations are planned for later this month.

The latest political turmoil in the capital will almost certainly slow down any campaign in the north, however. Already, the United States has expressed reluctance to provide too much direct military assistance, given the shakiness of the political order here. Those doubts are only likely to increase following the latest upheaval.

Mr. Diarra — appointed last spring as a caretaker prime minister until new elections could be organized — was known to disagree with Captain Sanogo on military policy.

He has been an advocate of immediate international military assistance to recapture the north from the Islamists. Captain Sanogo has rebuffed suggestions that the Malian military is incapable of handling the job on its own. Indeed, the captain for weeks resisted the notion that troops from other African nations should even approach the capital.

While Mr. Diarra has made the rounds of foreign capitals, pleading for help to fight the increasingly aggressive Islamists, military leaders have remained at the Kati base, grumbling.

That conflict was evident in the declarations of the military’s spokesman on Tuesday. “Since he has been in power, he has been working simply to position his own family,” Mr. Mariko said. “There has been a paralysis in government.”

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NHL, union to return to bargaining

TORONTO (AP) — The NHL and its players' union will return to bargaining Wednesday at an undisclosed location in an effort to save the hockey season.

The Canadian Press on Tuesday reported the resumption of talks, citing unidentified people on both sides of the dispute.

Tuesday marked the 87th day of the lockout. Wednesday's session will be the first meeting since the sides blamed each other after talks broke off last week.

Until then, they appeared to be making progress during three days in New York in which they exchanged proposals. Union executive director Donald Fehr maintains there are agreements on almost all the important issues.

The NHL eliminated 16 more days from the regular-season schedule Monday, canceling games through Dec. 30 in addition to the New Year's Day Winter Classic and the All-Star Game, which were already wiped out.

In all, more than 40 percent of the regular season that was scheduled to begin Oct. 11 has been scratched.

The latest cancellations were generally regarded as both bad news and good news.

While losing another two weeks hurts the league and the players, the fact that the NHL did not take more games off the schedule sparked speculation owners are holding out hope of making a deal that could start the season in early January.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has said the league would not want to play anything less than a 48-game season, which is what it had after 1994-95 lockout ended.

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Concussion Liability Issues Could Stretch Beyond N.F.L.

Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee, via Associated Press

Insurers could raise premiums with a higher risk of lawsuits for concussions, like the one 49ers quarterback Alex Smith sustained a month ago.

As the N.F.L. confronts a raft of lawsuits brought by thousands of former players who accuse the league of hiding information about the dangers of concussions, a less visible battle that may have a more widespread effect in the sport is unfolding between the league and 32 of its current and former insurers.

The dispute revolves around how much money, if any, the insurers are obliged to pay for the league’s mounting legal bills and the hundreds of millions of dollars in potential damages that might stem from the cases brought by the retired players.

Regardless of how it is resolved, the dispute could hurt teams, leagues and schools at all levels if insurers raise premiums to compensate for the increased risk of lawsuits from the families of people who play hockey, lacrosse and other contact sports.

The N.F.L., which generates about $9 billion a year, may be equipped to handle these legal challenges. But colleges, high schools and club teams may be forced to consider severe measures in the face of liability issues, like raising fees to offset higher premiums; capping potential damages; and requiring players to sign away their right to sue coaches and schools. Some schools and leagues may even shut down teams because the expense and legal risk are too high.

“Insurers will be tightening up their own coverage and make sports more expensive,” said Robert Boland, who teaches sports law at New York University. “It could make the sustainability of certain sports a real issue.”

The N.F.L. contends that the insurers, some of whom wrote policies in the 1960s, have a duty to defend the league, which has paid them millions of dollars in premiums. The question for the N.F.L. is not whether the insurers are required to help the league, but rather what percent of the league’s expenses each insurer is obliged to cover.

The 32 insurance companies have varying arguments against the league. Some wrote policies for a limited number of years and contend their obligations should also be limited. Others contend they wrote policies for the N.F.L.’s marketing arm — for licensing disputes, for example — not the league itself.

A few of the companies went bankrupt or merged with rivals. Some insurers wrote primary policies that covered up to the first $1 million of claims; the rest insured obligations in excess of that amount.

Creating a formula for how to apportion liability will in some cases depend on the broader case between the league and its players now in federal court in Pennsylvania. If the N.F.L. persuades the judge to dismiss the case, the league will be left trying to recoup its legal costs from the insurers. If the judge allows the players’ case to proceed, the definitions of when, how and whether a player’s concussions led to his illness will become critical in shaping the insurers’ exposure, and could take years to sort out.

“This is baby step 1 in the process for everyone figuring how deep in the soup they are,” said Christopher Fusco, a lawyer who has worked on similar insurance cases but is not involved in the N.F.L. litigation. “Baby step 2 will be to figure out the facts.”

Fusco and other lawyers said the facts would largely come from the underlying suit between the league and the more than 3,000 retired players, including determining when the players sustained the head trauma and their injuries. This will probably be a long process because many of the retired players in the underlying suit, some of whom are now having memory loss, played decades ago, when concussions were often undiagnosed or not recorded.

Many of the insurance companies named in the suits declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation. The N.F.L. also did not comment.

The two-tiered battle between the league and its former players and insurers echoes the litigation stemming from asbestos claims because both cases center on long-tail claims, or injuries that could take years to manifest themselves.

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Daily Stock Market Activity

Wall Street traded sharply higher Tuesday after unexpectedly cheery data out of Europe and as the Federal Reserve was set to begin its two-day policy meeting.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index added 1 percent in morning trading, while the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.9 percent and the Nasdaq composite index was up 1.5 percent.

The stock market has entered a traditionally quiet period heading into the end of the year, with thinner trading volumes and fewer large fluctuations likely.

Though the pace of talks quickened in Washington to avert impending tax increases and spending cuts, senior politicians on both sides cautioned that an agreement on all the outstanding issues remained uncertain.

The lack of progress in negotiations about the “fiscal cliff” has kept investors from making aggressive bets in recent weeks, though most expect a deal will eventually be reached.

In Germany, analyst and investor sentiment rose sharply in December, entering positive territory for the first time since May, a leading survey showed. The data helped drive European shares higher. The DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.6 percent in afternoon trading, while the FTSE 100 in London gained 0.2 percent.

“We’ve been getting a lot of the beginning of our day from seeing what Europe has been doing, and I think that’s going to hold true today,” said Kim Caughey Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

The Fed began its two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Tuesday. The central bank was expected to announce a new round of Treasury securities purchases on Wednesday, according to a Reuters survey of analysts. The program would replace its so-called Operation Twist stimulus effort, which expires at the end of the year.

The Treasury Department sold its remaining stake in the American International Group, bringing an end to a government ownership role about four years after a $182 billion bailout. A.I.G.'s shares were up 4 percent in morning trading.

Two firms raised their price targets for Urban Outfitters, sending the retailer’s shares up 6 percent.

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U.S. Forecast as No. 2 Economy, but Energy Independent

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

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

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

One remarkable development it anticipates is a spreading affluence that leads to a larger global middle class that is better educated and has wider access to health care and communications technologies like the Internet and smartphones. The report assesses global trends until 2030.

“The growth of the global middle class constitutes a tectonic shift,” the study says, adding that billions of people will gain new individual power as they climb out of poverty. “For the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world.”

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

But these developments also bring significant risks, allowing radicalized groups to enter world politics on a scale even more violent than that of current terrorist organizations by adopting “lethal and disruptive technologies,” including biological weapons and cyberweapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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RG3 hurts knee, but Skins beat Ravens 31-28 in OT

LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — This, of course, is the sort of thing everyone associated with — and rooting for — the Washington Redskins worries about: Robert Griffin III limping to the sideline after a knee-spraining hit.

With the Redskins driving while trailing the Baltimore Ravens late in the fourth quarter of a game Washington would wind up winning 31-28 in overtime Sunday, Griffin was slow to rise after being tackled at the end of a 13-yard scramble.

"I screamed. Like a man, of course," Griffin said with a laugh, before acknowledging: "It hurt really bad."

He left for one play, then returned for four more. But by then, the No. 2 overall pick in this year's NFL draft was hopping on his left leg, keeping all weight off his injured right one. Eventually, Griffin knelt on the turf, unable to continue.

"I knew I needed to get out at that point," said last year's Heisman Trophy winner, who had an MRI exam later Sunday that didn't show significant ligament damage. "I couldn't move. At some point, you have to do what's right for the team. And if I'm playing the rest of that game, I probably would have hurt myself even more."

Said Redskins coach Mike Shanahan: "I could see that he was hurting the second time he came out. You could see his face."

So whatever euphoria the Redskins (7-6) and their fans might have been feeling following a fourth consecutive victory was mixed with concern about the sight of the man they call RG3 hobbling around on the sideline with a thick, black brace on his right knee as Kai Forbath kicked a 34-yard field goal to end the game.

"We're happy that we won, obviously," left tackle Trent Williams said. "But that is concerning, knowing he went down. Everyone wants to know how he's doing."

About three hours after the game, an answer arrived: Team spokesman Tony Wyllie said the MRI showed that while Griffin sprained his knee, "everything is clear" in terms of a major knee injury. Wyllie specifically ruled out a season-ending ACL tear, such as the one Griffin had on the same knee while playing in college at Baylor in 2009.

Still, because a sprained knee, by definition, means at least one of the several ligaments is damaged in some way, it's not clear what Griffin's status for next week at the Cleveland Browns will be.

"Everybody's praying for me. I feel pretty good right now about the whole situation," said Griffin, who left a game earlier this season because of a concussion.

With Griffin done for the day, and Baltimore — now 9-4 after its first consecutive losses since early in the 2009 season — leading 28-20, fellow rookie QB Kirk Cousins stepped in. Cousins, a fourth-round pick who only played in one other game this season, threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Pierre Garcon with 29 seconds remaining in regulation, then ran a quarterback draw for the tying 2-point conversion.

"He's ice. Like they used to say about Larry Bird, he got ice water in his veins. That's the best thing you can say about Kirk," receiver Joshua Morgan said.

Griffin heard the call for Cousin's draw through his headphones while getting treatment on the sideline.

"It was awesome," said Griffin, who was 15 for 26 for 246 yards and a touchdown pass, along with 34 yards on seven carries, adding to his single-season record for rushing by a rookie quarterback.

Ravens safety Ed Reed said his defense was ready for that 2-point play, actually, but "we didn't execute."

The Ravens got the ball first in overtime but went three-and-out. Yet another Redskins rookie, Richard Crawford, returned the punt 64 yards to set up Forbath, who is now 14 for 14 to start his NFL career; each got a game ball from Shanahan.

While Washington remained one game behind the New York Giants (8-5) in the race for the NFC East title, the Ravens wasted a chance to clinch the AFC North — and even missed out on an opportunity to assure themselves of a playoff berth.

Joe Flacco completed 16 of 21 passes for 182 yards and three first-half TD passes that built a 21-14 lead. But Baltimore's first four drives of the second ended with Flacco's fumble, his interception deep in Washington's territory, and two three-and-outs.

"As a leader on this team I like to finish teams out," said Ray Rice, who finished with 121 yards on 20 carries but picked up a left hip pointer. "I don't want to be known as, 'Yeah, we get them close in the fourth quarter, and the Ravens are going to give it away.' That's never been us. That's not going to be us."

Rice's 7-yard touchdown run with 4:47 to play in the fourth quarter put the Ravens up by eight points, before Griffin started the trying drive — and Cousins finished it.

Forbath's winning kick prompted a wild on-field celebration by many Redskins. Not Griffin, though. He gingerly walked toward the locker room, a brace on his knee, and flashed a thumb's up to raucous spectators in the stands.

Later, around the Redskins announced the results of his good-news MRI, Griffin tweeted: "Your positive vibes and prayers worked people!!!!"

NOTES: Cousins completed both passes he threw. ... Ravens RG Marshal Yanda sprained his right ankle and was wearing a black walking boot on that foot in the locker room. Other injuries for Baltimore: LB Jameel McClain had a neck injury, but X-rays were negative. ... Washington's 186 yards were the most by any NFL team in the first quarter this season and the most by the franchise in that quarter since 1997. ... The Redskins hadn't won four games in a row since 2008.

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Connect with Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells

PHILIPSBURG, Pa. — Emma Whitehead has been bounding around the house lately, practicing somersaults and rugby-style tumbles that make her parents wince.

It is hard to believe, but last spring Emma, then 6, was near death from leukemia. She had relapsed twice after chemotherapy, and doctors had run out of options.

Desperate to save her, her parents sought an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, one that had never before been tried in a child, or in anyone with the type of leukemia Emma had. The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.

The treatment very nearly killed her. But she emerged from it cancer-free, and about seven months later is still in complete remission. She is the first child and one of the first humans ever in whom new techniques have achieved a long-sought goal — giving a patient’s own immune system the lasting ability to fight cancer.

Emma had been ill with acute lymphoblastic leukemia since 2010, when she was 5, said her parents, Kari and Tom. She is their only child.

She is among just a dozen patients with advanced leukemia to have received the experimental treatment, which was developed at the University of Pennsylvania. Similar approaches are also being tried at other centers, including the National Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“Our goal is to have a cure, but we can’t say that word,” said Dr. Carl June, who leads the research team at the University of Pennsylvania. He hopes the new treatment will eventually replace bone-marrow transplantation, an even more arduous, risky and expensive procedure that is now the last hope when other treatments fail in leukemia and related diseases.

Three adults with chronic leukemia treated at the University of Pennsylvania have also had complete remissions, with no signs of disease; two of them have been well for more than two years, said Dr. David Porter. Four adults improved but did not have full remissions, and one was treated too recently to evaluate. A child improved and then relapsed. In two adults, the treatment did not work at all. The Pennsylvania researchers were presenting their results on Sunday and Monday in Atlanta at a meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

Despite the mixed results, cancer experts not involved with the research say it has tremendous promise, because even in this early phase of testing it has worked in seemingly hopeless cases. “I think this is a major breakthrough,” said Dr. Ivan Borrello, a cancer expert and associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. John Wagner, the director of pediatric blood and marrow transplantation at the University of Minnesota, called the Pennsylvania results “phenomenal” and said they were “what we’ve all been working and hoping for but not seeing to this extent.”

A major drug company, Novartis, is betting on the Pennsylvania team and has committed $20 million to building a research center on the university’s campus to bring the treatment to market.

Hervé Hoppenot, the president of Novartis Oncology, called the research “fantastic” and said it had the potential — if the early results held up — to revolutionize the treatment of leukemia and related blood cancers. Researchers say the same approach, reprogramming the patient’s immune system, may also eventually be used against tumors like breast and prostate cancer.

To perform the treatment, doctors remove millions of the patient’s T-cells — a type of white blood cell — and insert new genes that enable the T-cells to kill cancer cells. The technique employs a disabled form of H.I.V. because it is very good at carrying genetic material into T-cells. The new genes program the T-cells to attack B-cells, a normal part of the immune system that turn malignant in leukemia.

The altered T-cells — called chimeric antigen receptor cells — are then dripped back into the patient’s veins, and if all goes well they multiply and start destroying the cancer.

The T-cells home in on a protein called CD-19 that is found on the surface of most B-cells, whether they are healthy or malignant.

A sign that the treatment is working is that the patient becomes terribly ill, with raging fevers and chills — a reaction that oncologists call “shake and bake,” Dr. June said. Its medical name is cytokine-release syndrome, or cytokine storm, referring to the natural chemicals that pour out of cells in the immune system as they are being activated, causing fevers and other symptoms. The storm can also flood the lungs and cause perilous drops in blood pressure — effects that nearly killed Emma.

Steroids sometimes ease the reaction, but they did not help Emma. Her temperature hit 105. She wound up on a ventilator, unconscious and swollen almost beyond recognition, surrounded by friends and family who had come to say goodbye.

But at the 11th hour, a battery of blood tests gave the researchers a clue as to what might help save Emma: her level of one of the cytokines, interleukin-6 or IL-6, had shot up a thousandfold. Doctors had never seen such a spike before and thought it might be what was making her so sick.

Dr. June knew that a drug could lower IL-6 — his daughter takes it for rheumatoid arthritis. It had never been used for a crisis like Emma’s, but there was little to lose. Her oncologist, Dr. Stephan A. Grupp, ordered the drug. The response, he said, was “amazing.”

Within hours, Emma began to stabilize. She woke up a week later, on May 2, the day she turned 7; the intensive-care staff sang “Happy Birthday.”

Since then, the research team has used the same drug, tocilizumab, in several other patients.

In patients with lasting remissions after the treatment, the altered T-cells persist in the bloodstream, though in smaller numbers than when they were fighting the disease. Some patients have had the cells for years.

Dr. Michel Sadelain, who conducts similar studies at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, said: “These T-cells are living drugs. With a pill, you take it, it’s eliminated from your body and you have to take it again.” But T-cells, he said, “could potentially be given only once, maybe only once or twice or three times.”

The Pennsylvania researchers said they were surprised to find any big drug company interested in their work, because a new batch of T-cells must be created for each patient — a far cry from the familiar commercial strategy of developing products like Viagra or cholesterol medicines, in which millions of people take the same drug.

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Bloomberg Weighs Making a Run for Financial Times

Not long ago, The Financial Times would have been the crown jewel of any media company, instantly conferring prestige and influence on its owner. Now, given the likely bidders, one of the world’s most respected and distinctive financial newspapers could end up as a trophy to help sell more computer terminals.

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News, via Getty Images

Like most newspapers, The Financial Times is struggling with an industrywide decline in print advertising revenue.

Pearson, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

John Fallon, who is to succeed Marjorie Scardino as chief of Pearson in January, does not share her fondness for print.

Michael R. Bloomberg is weighing the wisdom of buying The Financial Times Group, which includes the paper and a half interest in The Economist, according to three people close to Mr. Bloomberg who spoke on the condition of anonymity to divulge private conversations.

Mr. Bloomberg has long adored The Economist, and his affinity for The Financial Times, at least as a reader, has deepened lately. Its bisque-colored pages, once rarely seen in the thick stack of newspapers Mr. Bloomberg carries under his arm all day, have become a mainstay. Friends say he favors its generally short, punchy and to-the-point articles, which match his temperament.

In October, Mr. Bloomberg visited the London headquarters of The Financial Times, a few blocks away from Bloomberg L.P.’s giant new London complex, which is still under construction. When an editor asked if he would buy the paper, Mr. Bloomberg replied, “I buy it every day.”

He has spoken openly with friends and aides about the potential benefits and pitfalls of making such a costly acquisition in an industry he admires deeply as a reader but sneers at as a businessman, these same people said. And he has recently taken to rattling off circulation figures and “penetration” rates for the paper.

“It’s the only paper I’d buy,” he has said to one associate. “Why should I buy it?” he has asked another.

His ambivalence speaks to the troubles facing the newspaper business, and to the complex motivations of the mayor himself. Drawn to power and prominence, Mr. Bloomberg is wrestling with his affection for the paper as its potential publisher and his wariness of an investment that could mar his company’s reputation for achieving outsize profits. Pearson, the parent company of The Financial Times Group, does not break out separate financial results for the paper, but analysts estimate that it loses money. A spokesman for the mayor declined to comment on his conversations about the paper.

For Thomson Reuters, the other likely bidder, the calculation is somewhat different. Unlike Mr. Bloomberg, who started his financial information company in 1982, James C. Smith, president and chief executive of Thomson Reuters, came up through Thomson’s regional newspapers and has ink in his veins. A replica of an old-fashioned printing press is on display in his corner office overlooking Times Square.

But the company has been hurt financially after its newest desktop terminal product struggled to catch on. In the first nine months of 2012, the company reported revenue of $9.88 billion, a 3 percent decrease from the period a year earlier. A company spokesman declined to comment.

The Financial Times could expand the Thomson Reuters brand and give its reporters additional exposure since, unlike Bloomberg, which bought Businessweek in 2009, the company does not own a regular magazine. Thomson Reuters, partly a British company, and The Financial Times also have large footprints in Asia.

But first, the paper needs to be put on the block. Pearson is about to lose two of its top executives, raising speculation the paper could be for sale. Analysts value The Financial Times Group at about $1.2 billion, well within the reach of Bloomberg L.P., which in 2011 had revenue of $7.6 billion, and Thomson Reuters, which posted revenue of $13.8 billion.

The paper has a successful digital strategy, and analysts have said that its strict online pay wall is considered a financial success. But like most newspapers, it is struggling in an industrywide decline in print advertising revenue. In the three months ending Oct. 1, the paper’s total paid circulation exceeded 600,000, more than half of which was from digital subscriptions. In its most recent earnings report, Pearson said it expected profit to decline because of a sluggish advertising market and “the shift from print to digital.”

Marjorie Scardino, Pearson’s longtime chief executive, who once said the paper would be sold “over my dead body,” is departing on Dec. 31. Rona Fairhead, chief executive of The Financial Times Group, will leave at the end of April. Both executives had championed the print businesses. A successor to Ms. Fairhead has yet to be named, though one person close to the company pointed to John Ridding, the chief executive of the paper.

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Changes to Agriculture Highlight Cuba’s Problems

HAVANA — Cuba’s liveliest experiment with capitalism unfolds every night in a dirt lot on the edge of the capital, where Truman-era trucks lugging fresh produce meet up with hundreds of buyers on creaking bicycle carts clutching wads of cash.

“This place, it feeds all of Havana,” said Misael Toledo, 37, who owns three small food stores in the city. “Before, you could only buy or sell in the markets of Fidel.”

The agriculture exchange, which sprang up last year after the Cuban government legalized a broader range of small businesses, is a vivid sign of both how much the country has changed, and of all the political and practical limitations that continue to hold it back.

President Raúl Castro has made agriculture priority No. 1 in his attempt to remake the country. He used his first major presidential address in 2007 to zero in on farming, describing weeds conquering fallow fields and the need to ensure that “anyone who wants can drink a glass of milk.”

No other industry has seen as much liberalization, with a steady rollout of incentives for farmers. And Mr. Castro has been explicit about his reasoning: increasing efficiency and food production to replace imports that cost Cuba hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a matter “of national security.”

Yet at this point, by most measures, the project has failed. Because of waste, poor management, policy constraints, transportation limits, theft and other problems, overall efficiency has dropped: many Cubans are actually seeing less food at private markets. That is the case despite an increase in the number of farmers and production gains for certain items. A recent study from the University of Havana showed that market prices jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2011 alone. And food imports increased to an estimated $1.7 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2006.

“It’s the first instance of Cuba’s leader not being able to get done what he said he would,” said Jorge I. Domínguez, vice provost for international affairs at Harvard, who left Cuba as a boy. “The published statistical results are really very discouraging.”

A major cause: poor transportation, as trucks are in short supply, and the aging ones that exist often break down.

In 2009, hundreds of tons of tomatoes, part of a bumper crop that year, rotted because of a lack of transportation by the government agency charged with bringing food to processing centers.

“It’s worse when it rains,” said Javier González, 27, a farmer in Artemisa Province who described often seeing crops wilt and rot because they were not picked up.

Behind him were the 33 fertile, rent-free acres he had been granted as part of a program Mr. Castro introduced in 2008 to encourage rural residents to work the land. After clearing it himself and planting a variety of crops, Mr. Gonzalez said, he was doing relatively well and earned more last year than his father, who is a doctor, did.

But Cuba’s inefficiencies gnawed at him. Smart, strong, and ambitious, he had expansion plans in mind, even as in his hand he held a wrench. He was repairing a tractor part meant to be grading land. It was broken. Again.

The 1980s Soviet model tractor he bought from another farmer was as about good as it gets in Cuba. The Cuban government maintains a monopoly on selling anything new, and there simply is not enough of anything — fertilizer, or sometimes even machetes — to go around.

Government economists are aware of the problem. “If you give people land and no resources, it doesn’t matter what happens on the land,” said Joaquin Infante of the Havana-based Cuban National Association of Economists.

But Mr. Castro has refused to allow what many farmers and experts see as an obvious solution to the shortages of transportation and equipment: Let people import supplies on their own. “It’s about control,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research group.

Other analysts agree, noting that though the agricultural reforms have gone farther than other changes — like those that allow for self-employment — they remain constrained by politics.

“The government is not ready to let go,” said Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College. “They are sending the message that they want to let go, or are trying to let go, but what they have is still a mechanism of control.”

For many farmers, that explains why land leases last for 10 years with a chance to renew, not indefinitely or the 99 years offered to foreign developers. It is also why many farmers say they will not build homes on the land they lease, despite a concession this year to allow doing so.

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