Syrian Jet Strikes Close to Border With Turkey

Murad Sezer/Reuters

Syrians fled from Ras al-Ain after an airstrike by Syrian forces on Monday.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — A Syrian MIG-25 jet bombed the rebel-held town of Ras al-Ain a few yards from the Turkish border on Monday, Syrian witnesses said.

Veli Gurgah/Anadolu Agency, via European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke rose from Ras al-Ain as it was bombed.

Murad Sezer/Reuters

Syrians crossed into Turkey after the airstrike.

Murad Sezer/Reuters

A boy was wounded in the attack.

The attack demolished at least 15 buildings and killed many civilians, Nezir Alan, a doctor who witnessed the bombing, said. Local officials, quoted by The Associated Press, said at least six people were killed, but Dr. Alan said the toll was higher.

“We pulled bodies of 12 people from the rubble and are now trying to reach bodies of 8 others,” he said in a telephone interview. “There are around 70 injured, 50 of whom were in critical condition, and they are being transferred to Turkish hospitals across the border.”

Turkish fighter jets were seen in Turkish airspace shortly after the explosion, and a Syrian helicopter hovered above Ras al-Ain, which is only few yards from Ceylanpinar, a Turkish border town, Syrian witnesses said. “The plane appeared in seconds, dropped a bomb and killed children. Here is total chaos,” Dr. Alan said.

Ambulances were rushed to Ceylanpinar, Haber Turk, a private news television station, reported.

Windows of shops and houses in Ceylanpinar were shattered, and people on both sides of the border were seen running in panic, while military vehicles raced down streets as a huge cloud of smoke hung over the area, Haber Turk footage showed minutes after the explosion.

There were no immediate reports of any deaths or injuries on the Turkish side of the border.

Clashes in Ras al-Ain have intensified in recent days, prompting thousands of Syrians to seek refuge in Turkey.

Civilians in Ceylanpinar and other nearby towns were advised not to travel in areas close to the border.

Five Turkish civilians were killed in October when a Syrian shell landed in Akcakale, another border town about 75 miles west of Ceylanpinar, an act that prompted the Turkish Parliament to revise engagement rules and allow the military to retaliate in case of a direct threat from the border region.

The Turkish Army has increased its deployment along the 550-mile border with Syria since June, after Syria shot down a Turkish military jet, straining already tense relations between Ankara and Damascus.

The Turkish government is also considering asking NATO to station Patriot missiles in its border region to counter potential attacks from Syria.

Read More..

Hurricane Sandy and the Disaster-Preparedness Economy

Jeffrey Phelps for The New York Times

An assembly line at a Generac Power Systems plant. Generac makes residential generators, coveted items in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

FOLKS here don’t wish disaster on their fellow Americans. They didn’t pray for Hurricane Sandy to come grinding up the East Coast, tearing lives apart and plunging millions into darkness.

But the fact is, disasters are good business in Waukesha. And, lately, there have been a lot of disasters.

This Milwaukee suburb, once known for its curative spring waters and, more recently, for being a Republican stronghold in a state that President Obama won on Election Day, happens to be the home of one of the largest makers of residential generators in the country. So when the lights go out in New York — or on the storm-savaged Jersey Shore or in tornado-hit Missouri or wherever — the orders come pouring in like a tidal surge.

It’s all part of what you might call the Mad Max Economy, a multibillion-dollar-a-year collection of industries that thrive when things get really, really bad. Weather radios, kerosene heaters, D batteries, candles, industrial fans for drying soggy homes — all are scarce and coveted in the gloomy aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and her ilk.

It didn’t start with the last few hurricanes, either. Modern Mad Max capitalism has been around a while, decades even, growing out of something like old-fashioned self-reliance, political beliefs and post-Apocalyptic visions. The cold war may have been the start, when schoolchildren dove under desks and ordinary citizens dug bomb shelters out back. But economic fears, as well as worries about climate change and an unreliable electronic grid have all fed it.

 Driven of late by freakish storms, this industry is growing fast, well beyond the fringe groups that first embraced it. And by some measures, it’s bigger than ever.

Businesses like Generac Power Systems, one of three companies in Wisconsin turning out generators, are just the start.

The market for gasoline cans, for example, was flat for years. No longer. “Demand for gas cans is phenomenal, to the point where we can’t keep up with demand,” says Phil Monckton, vice president for sales and marketing at Scepter, a manufacturer based in Scarborough, Ontario. “There was inventory built up, but it is long gone.”

Even now, nearly two weeks after the superstorm made landfall in New Jersey, batteries are a hot commodity in the New York area. Win Sakdinan, a spokesman for Duracell, says that when the company gave away D batteries in the Rockaways, a particularly hard-hit area, people “held them in their hands like they were gold.”

Sales of Eton emergency radios and flashlights rose 15 percent in the week before Hurricane Sandy — and 220 percent the week of the storm, says Kiersten Moffatt, a company spokeswoman. “It’s important to note that we not only see lifts in the specific regions affected, we see a lift nationwide,” she wrote in an e-mail. “We’ve seen that mindfulness motivates consumers all over the country to be prepared in the case of a similar event.”

Garo Arabian, director of operations at B-Air, a manufacturer based in Azusa, Calif., says he has sold thousands of industrial fans since the storm. “Our marketing and graphic designer is from Syria, and he says: ‘I don’t understand. In Syria, we open the windows.’ ”

But Mr. Arabian says contractors and many insurers know that mold spores won’t grow if carpeting or drywall can be dried out within 72 hours. “The industry has grown,” he says, “because there is more awareness about this kind of thing.”

Retailers that managed to stay open benefited, too. Steve Rinker, who oversees 11 Lowe’s home improvement stores in New York and New Jersey, says his stores were sometimes among the few open in a sea of retail businesses.

Predictably, emergency supplies like flashlights, lanterns, batteries and sump pumps sold out quickly, even when they were replenished. The one sought-after item that surprised him the most? Holiday candles. “If anyone is looking for holiday candles, they are sold out,” he says. “People bought every holiday candle we have during the storm.”

If the hurricane was a windfall for Lowe’s, its customers didn’t seem to mind. Rather, most appeared exceedingly grateful when Mr. Rinker, working at a store in Paterson, N.J., pointed them toward a space heater, or a gasoline can, that could lessen the misery of another day without power.

Read More..

Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

Read More..

Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

Read More..

Changing of the Guard: Chinese Communist Party Faces Calls for Democracy

BEIJING — As the Communist Party’s 18th Congress approached, Li Weidong, a scholar of politics, made plans to observe a historic leadership battle in one of the world’s great nations.

Instead of staying in Beijing to monitor China’s once-a-decade transfer of power, Mr. Li boarded a plane.

“I’m going to the United States to study the elections,” Mr. Li said in a telephone interview during a stopover in Paris. After witnessing the American presidential election on Tuesday, Mr. Li went on the radio for another interview. “I still think China’s politics remain prehistoric,” he said. “I often joke that the Chinese civilization is the last prehistoric civilization left in the world.”

With China at a critical juncture, there is a rising chorus within the elite expressing doubt that the 91-year-old Communist Party’s authoritarian system can deal with the stresses bearing down on the nation and its 1.3 billion people. Policies introduced after 1978 by Deng Xiaoping lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and transformed the country into the world’s second-largest economy. But the way party leaders have managed decades of growth has created towering problems that critics say can no longer be avoided.

Many of those critics have benefited from China’s stunning economic gains, and their ranks include billionaires, intellectuals and children of the party’s revolutionary founders. But they say the party’s agenda, as it stands today, is not visionary enough to set China on the path to stability. What is needed, they say, is a comprehensive strategy to gradually extricate the Communist Party, which has more than 80 million members, from its heavy-handed control of the economy, the courts, the news media, the military, educational institutions, civic life and just the plain day-to-day affairs of citizens.

Only then, the critics argue, can the government start to address the array of issues facing China, including rampant corruption, environmental degradation, and an aging population whose demographics have been skewed because of the one-child policy.

“In order to build a real market economy, we have to have real political reform,” said Yang Jisheng, a veteran journalist and a leading historian of the Mao era. “In the next years, we should have a constitutional democracy plus a market economy.”

For now, however, party leaders have given no indication that they intend to curb their role in government in a meaningful way.

“We will never copy a Western political system,” Hu Jintao, the departing party chief, said in a speech on Thursday opening the weeklong congress.

The party’s public agenda, which Mr. Hu described in detail in his 100-minute address, was laid out in a 64-page report that is in part intended to highlight priorities for the new leaders, who will be announced later this month. Much of the document had retrograde language that emphasized ideology stretching back to Mao and had little in the way of bold or creative thinking, said Qian Gang, the director of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong.

Most telling, there was no language signaling that the incoming Politburo Standing Committee, the group that rules China by consensus, would support major changes in the political system, whose perversions many now say are driving the nation toward crisis.

While Chinese who are critical of the current system generally do not expect a wholesale adoption of a Western model, they do favor at least an openness to bolder experimentation.

“To break one-party rule right now is probably not realistic, but we can have factions within the party made public and legalized, so they can campaign against each other,” said Mr. Yang, who added that there was no other way at the moment to ensure political accountability.

Only in the last few years has the idea of liberalizing the political system gained currency, and urgency, among a broad cross-section of elites. Before that, as the West foundered at the onset of the global financial crisis, many here pointed to the triumph of a “China model” or “Beijing consensus” — a mix of authoritarian politics, a command economy and quasi-market policies.

But the way in which China weathered the crisis — with the injection of $588 billion of stimulus money into the economy and an explosion of lending from state banks — led to a spate of large infrastructure projects that may never justify their cost. As a result, many economists now say that China’s investment-driven, export-oriented economic model is unsustainable and needs to shift toward greater reliance on Chinese consumers.

Constant lip-service is paid to that goal, and on Saturday, Zhang Ping, a senior official, reiterated that stance. But it will not be easy for the new leaders to carry it out. At the root of the current economic model is the political system, in which party officials and state-owned enterprises work closely together, reaping enormous profits from the party’s control of the economy. Under Mr. Hu’s decade-long tenure, these relationships and the dominance of state enterprises have only strengthened.

“What happens in this kind of economy is that wealth concentrates where power is,” said Mr. Yang, the journalist.

The 400 or so incoming members of the party’s Central Committee, Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee, as well as their friends and families, have close ties to the most powerful of China’s 145,000 state-owned enterprises. The growing presence of princelings — the children of notable Communist officials — in the party, the government and corporations could mean an even more closely meshed web of nepotism. It is a system that Xi Jinping, anointed to be the next party chief and president and himself a member of the “red nobility,” would find hard to unravel, even if he wanted to.

Mia Li contributed research.

Read More..

Black Friday Deals Will Start Earlier This Year

There was an outcry last year when some retailers opened at midnight on Thanksgiving, with workers and shoppers saying the holiday should be reserved for family, not spent lining up for the start of the Christmas shopping season.

This year, retailers are responding to the criticism by opening even earlier on Thanksgiving evening — and a handful are even planning to be open all day.

The lesson of 2011 was clear: earlier shopping hours were good for the top line. Retailers said their midnight openings drew a younger crowd who wanted to party — and shop — late rather than get up early. At Macy’s Herald Square store in Manhattan, for instance, about 9,000 people were in line as it opened, compared with 7,000 for an early Friday opening the previous year.

“We got customer feedback that says, ‘I like to shop earlier so I can go to bed earlier,’ so as we looked at the balance of being competitive in the marketplace and being customer-centric,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer for Wal-Mart, which will put its first doorbuster items on sale at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Just a few years ago, most major stores opened about 5 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, usually the busiest shopping day of the year. This year, not only are the openings scattered across two days, but several retailers are offering staggered deals — some items at a certain time, other items a few hours later, still others over the weekend.

“We had Black Friday pretty cleanly teed up, with, here are the ads, here are the stores opening Friday morning, pick a retailer and go,” said Brad Wilson, who lists Black Friday ads at BradsDeals. “Now you have this multiday affair, and you can go at different times.”

Kmart has perhaps the most confusing hours. Like last year, it will open at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving. It will then stay open until 4 p.m., close from 4 to 8 p.m., reopen at 8, stay open until 3 a.m. on Friday, close from 3 to 5 a.m., reopen at 5, and then stay open until 11 p.m. on Friday.

Sears, which was closed on Thanksgiving last year, will open at 8 p.m. on Thursday night.

Sears Holdings, which owns both Sears and Kmart, said in a news release that customers wanted “more flexible Black Friday in-store shopping times.”

Lord & Taylor was closed last year on Thanksgiving, but this year it will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Walmart, which is generally open 24 hours anyway, is offering the first deals on Thanksgiving two hours earlier than last year. Mr. Mac Naughton said customer feedback and competitiveness with other retailers were factors.

Target, which last year got angry feedback from employees when it opened at midnight on Thanksgiving, this year moved it up three hours to 9 p.m., according to a holiday circular posted online on Friday.

Some workers object to Thanksgiving Day holiday openings, saying it cuts into family time. It shows “disregard for all of our families,” said Mary Pat Tifft, a Walmart employee in Kenosha, Wis., who is part of the union-backed OUR Walmart group, in a statement. But in many cases, it can also mean a higher hourly pay rate for holiday duty.

Now, the handful of retailers who are holding off until midnight on Thanksgiving suddenly look like the respectful ones.

“We believe that Thanksgiving Day is a time to spend and celebrate with family, and we want our associates to do so,” said Jim Sluzewski, a spokesman for Macy’s, which will open at midnight. Kohl’s will also open at midnight Thanksgiving, as will Best Buy, according to a circular posted online Friday.

Companies are also sprinkling sales throughout the weekend in an effort to keep traffic coming.

After its initial 8 p.m. sale, Walmart will put another set of items on sale at 10, and a third group at 5 a.m. Friday. “Whether they like to start early, stay up late, or go to bed early and get up early, we’re going to have three different events that will meet their needs,” Mr. Mac Naughton said. Then, Walmart will “kick off a weekend full of savings with more specialty offers” on items like jewelry, sewing machines and tools.

Target, after its 9 p.m. doorbuster special, will offer a free gift card for purchases made between 4 a.m. and noon on Friday, according to the circular posted on Mr. Wilson’s site and elsewhere. (Target declined to confirm the authenticity of the circular, saying it had not yet publicly announced holiday details.)

Sears will do a second wave of promotions at 4 a.m. on Friday, eight hours after it opens. Sports Authority will do some doorbusters at its midnight opening, then put numerous others on sale over the weekend. And Ace Hardware is offering different percentages or dollars off, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Mr. Wilson of BradsDeals says the retailers may be intentionally trying to confuse shoppers. “They’re trying to introduce more variables,” he said, to make it harder to figure out exactly which is the best deal.

All of the twists and turns, though, may just end up frustrating consumers.

Only 6 percent of shoppers plan to hit stores on Thanksgiving night, and just under one-fifth will go to stores on Black Friday, according to a new survey from Ipsos and Offers.com, accurate within three percentage points.

At least one major retailer is going against the grain. Sam’s Club, which last year opened at 5 a.m. on Black Friday, this year is opening two hours later, at 7 a.m., and offering coffee and pastries to shoppers.

“If they want to chill out on Thanksgiving day and not go out and get into the rat race of everything, they can do that,” said Todd Harbaugh, executive vice president for operations at Sam’s Club. “Our members said they want hassle-free shopping.”

Read More..

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.

Read More..

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.

Read More..

Bits Blog: On Twitter, Steve Jobs Is Immortal

Steve Jobs is gone, but on Twitter his @name lives on. And on.

The chief executive of Apple, who died in 2011, is memorialized on Twitter by about a thousand fans, parodists, traffic seekers, unrepentant haters and crypto-historians, among others. The accounts use his name as either as a title or, with many variations, as an address.

The copycats include @FakeSteveJobs, @FauxSteve and @SteveJobsFalso, a collection of admitted imposters who are following in the footsteps of a parody Web site that was active from 2006 to 2011. Other versions include @RememberSteve, @PulseonJobs and @RealSteveJobs. There are a couple of @BlackSteveJobs, plus Twitter accounts by various articles of clothing and body parts.

Several of the accounts are operated by start-ups hoping to generate attention for themselves. Their tweets contain links to corporate Web pages. Some of the accounts are in languages like Arabic, Thai or Japanese. Many others use Mr. Jobs’s name for the account but have a different address.

Searching the name “Steve Jobs” on Twitter yields about 1,080 accounts, some of which are unrelated to the Apple co-founder; there are people on Twitter who are really named Steve Jobs.

Twitter does not keep score of how many of its 140 million accounts are fakes, but it generally supports the idea of parody accounts. “It’s very helpful for political dissidents, who can’t write under their own name,” said Rachael Horwitz, a company spokeswoman. She also noted that Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, has a parody account. Jack Dorsey, the chairman of the company’s board, is likewise roasted.

Possibly for his close identification with technology, Mr. Jobs does appear to be the most popular identity on Twitter to leverage. President Obama has about 600 versions of his name, either through the “@” address, or in the name of the account. Given much of the venom of the recent election, several of these accounts are remarkably ugly, certainly worse than the treatment afforded Mr. Jobs. Michelle Obama, who like the president has an official and verified Twitter account, has about 500 copycats.

Bill Gates, Mr. Jobs’s longtime nemesis and eventual frenemey, does better than the president and first lady, with about 840 imitators and parodists. There is also a Klingon version of him, which to date Mr. Jobs’s name does not appear to share. There also appear to be a lot more people on Twitter who are simply named “Bill Gates,” a characteristic that must fill their lives with a lot of predictable humor.

Justin Beiber gets a mere 240 people hoping for a bit of his lustre. John Lennon, Mr. Jobs’ idol, has fewer than 100.

Twitter will take down parody accounts, but usually when it is not clear that they are parodies. That is not a problem in the case of most public figures. “It’s a form of speech,” Ms. Horwitz said. On the Internet, everyone needs a thicker skin. The situation does come up enough that the company has published formal policies on acceptable parody and fan accounts , along with impersonation.

There are parody accounts for Oracle’s chief executive, Larry Ellison; for Larry Page, the chief executive and co-founder of Google; and for Mark Zuckerberg, the chief of Facebook. With so many parody accounts around, some technology chief executives may worry if they are not being parodied.

Read More..

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.

Read More..