U.S. Embassy Denies Intervening in Mexico Cabinet Choice

The United States Embassy in Mexico on Friday issued a statement denying an article in The New York Times that reported that Ambassador Anthony Wayne had met with senior Mexican officials to discuss American concerns about the possible appointment of Gen. Moisés García Ochoa of Mexico as that country’s defense secretary.

“Despite significant reporting in the Mexican press during the presidential transition about the potential candidates to head Mexico’s military,” the statement read, “Ambassador Wayne did not discuss Gen. Moisés García Ochoa with Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, now secretary of government, or Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín, now secretary for agrarian, territorial and urban development (SEDATU), as reported in the New York Times story.”

The embassy’s statement comes 11 days after the Times article about Washington’s exchanges with Mexico regarding General García Ochoa. It follows an avalanche of outrage in the Mexican news media, whose columnists and commentators have accused the United States of “vetoing” General García’s nomination and of infringing on Mexican sovereignty. Some in the news media have called on Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, to rethink the terms of his government’s cooperation with the Obama administration on security matters.

The embassy statement on Friday also came after an earlier statement by William Ostick, a State Department spokesman, that did not dispute the facts in the Times’ account.

On Feb. 4, The Times reported that some senior American officials suspected General García Ochoa of skimming money from multimillion-dollar defense contracts. It reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration suspected the general of having links to drug traffickers dating back to the late 1990s. And the newspaper reported that Ambassador Wayne discussed those concerns with Mexican officials.

In the end, General García Ochoa was passed over for his government’s top military job. The Times reported that it was unclear whether American concerns played a role in Mexico’s decision.

The Mexican government made no statement to The Times on the article. But Mr. Osorio Chong denied to Mexican newspapers that the United States had vetoed or made suggestions on any appointment, and Mr. Ramírez Marín has told Mexican reporters that while he and Mr. Chong were present at a meeting with the ambassador before the inauguration to discuss relations, the general’s possible appointment was not discussed.

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Different looks for Heat, Lakers at All-Star break

HOUSTON (AP) — The last All-Star game in Houston was a glimpse of what Miami Heat games would become.

LeBron James scored 29 points and was the MVP. Dwyane Wade added 20 and made the go-ahead basket to cap a huge comeback, and the Eastern Conference beat the West 122-120 in 2006.

"I had a pretty good experience the first time around, looking for the same thing this time," Wade said Friday.

The way things are going for the Heat, why not?

And think about this: James was already the best player that night, and he was nowhere near the player he is today.

"I'm a better player. At that point in time, I wasn't a complete basketball player. I couldn't shoot as well as I can now, I never posted up back then," James said. "More games, more playoff games, more knowledge. You continue to learn each and every day, it makes you a better player. That's what you want, to become a better player. That's what I want. I want to be the greatest of all-time. I try to do whatever it takes to get me in that position.

"Seven years, I've tried to improve each and every year."

Back where they first teamed up as All-Stars, Wade, James and Chris Bosh will start together for the East on Sunday night, another highlight for the NBA champions.

Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers aren't having nearly as much fun in a season so disappointing that Bryant was asked Friday if the All-Star weekend was a "retreat" for him.

"I don't know if it's a retreat, it's just more of an opportunity to get some rest, regroup, put the first half of the season behind us and move on," he said.

As Wade knows, the All-Star break can be just that — a break — from a forgettable season.

He arrived for the 2008 All-Star game with a 9-43 record after the Heat lost on Valentine's Day to the Chicago Bulls, on their way to a 15-win debacle just two years after they won the NBA title.

"I put all that aside, though, and I came and I enjoyed the weekend, and when I went back to Miami, it was like, 'Oh my God, we're back in it,'" Wade said. "But All-Star weekend, you just enjoy being an All-Star. You enjoy being around the guys. You can kind of forget about that a little bit, unless you have the cameras and the microphones in front of you asking you questions about it, but besides that you try to enjoy it."

This time, the Heat celebrated Valentine's Day in Oklahoma City with a 110-100 victory over the Thunder, the team they beat in five games last summer for the title. They have won seven in a row, James is playing arguably the best basketball of his career, and they can relax and reminisce as they return to Houston.

"It's really indescribable," Bosh said, "just to not only win a championship with great guys, be in a great locker room, and just to have fun doing it, but just to be an All-Star every year, play with great teammates. I mean to play in front of a lot people in arenas every night. I don't take those things for granted."

James just ran off an NBA-record six straight games with at least 30 points and 60 percent shooting from the field, and seems to be distancing himself from anyone else that can take the MVP award he won last year for the third time in four years.

"He's doing well," Bosh said in a Texas-sized understatement. "That's the best way to put it."

Bosh was chosen as a starter Friday by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who will lead the East. He replaces Boston guard Rajon Rondo, who pulled out with a torn ACL.

Bryant and Howard are still here, away from a Los Angeles season that's been anything but a Hollywood story.

Considered a title contender after acquiring Howard and Steve Nash in the summer, the Lakers fell to 25-29 after they were blown out Wednesday by the rival Clippers, who opened a 13-game lead over them in the Pacific Division standings.

Smiling as he sat with his daughter, Natalia, Bryant laughed that he wished the All-Star break was a chance for the Lakers to "hit the reset button" on what he's said has been a most difficult season.

"Hopefully there's an easy button like in the commercial when we come back in the second half of the season and things are a little easier for us," he said.

Howard has battled injuries to his back and shoulder and has been nothing like the player who has been the NBA's dominant big man in recent years. He said at times he hasn't been having fun and has tried to ignore all the bad news around the team.

"You just try to stay away from the tube and do as much as I can to rehab my back and my shoulder and my mind, and really just get away from everything when I'm not playing basketball," he said.

If he's looking for a chance to enjoy himself this season, it may get no better than the next few days.

"It's a great weekend, it's an unbelievable weekend for the fans to be able to put all their favorite players together in one venue," James said. "We have a great time with it."

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Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.

A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”

Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.

Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.

The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”

While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.

“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”

Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.

“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”

Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.

“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”

For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.

“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”

“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.

That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.

Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.

Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.

“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”

Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.

As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.

“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”

She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.

“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”

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Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case

Aaron P. Bernstein for The New York Times

Vernon Hugh Bowman, an Indiana farmer, is challenging Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, over genetically modified crops.

With his mere 300 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh Bowman said, “I’m not even big enough to be called a farmer.”

Yet the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday against the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto, in a Supreme Court case that could have a huge impact on the future of genetically modified crops, and also affect other fields from medical research to software.

At stake in Mr. Bowman’s case is whether patents on seeds — or other things that can self-replicate — extend beyond the first generation of the products.

It is one of two cases before the Supreme Court related to the patenting of living organisms, a practice that has helped give rise to the biotechnology industry but which critics have long considered immoral. The other case, involving a breast cancer risk test from Myriad Genetics, will determine whether human genes can be patented. It is scheduled to be heard April 15.

Monsanto says that a victory for Mr. Bowman would allow farmers to essentially save seeds from one year’s crop to plant the next year, eviscerating patent protection. In Mr. Bowman’s part of Indiana, it says, a single acre of soybeans can produce enough seeds to plant 26 acres the next year.

Such a ruling would “devastate innovation in biotechnology,” the company wrote in its brief. “Investors are unlikely to make such investments if they cannot prevent purchasers of living organisms containing their invention from using them to produce unlimited copies.”

The decision might also apply to live vaccines, cell lines and DNA used for research or medical treatment, and some types of nanotechnology.

Many organizations have filed briefs in support of Monsanto’s position — universities worried about incentives for research, makers of laboratory instruments and some big farmer groups like the American Soybean Association, which say seed patents have spurred crop improvements. The Justice Department is also supporting Monsanto’s argument.

BSA/The Software Alliance, which represents companies like Apple and Microsoft, said in a brief that a decision against Monsanto might “facilitate software piracy on a broad scale” because software can be easily replicated. But it also said that a decision that goes too far the other way could make nuisance software patent infringement lawsuits too easy to file.

Some critics of biotechnology say that a victory for Mr. Bowman could weaken what they see as a stranglehold that Monsanto and some other big biotech companies have over farmers, which they say has led to rising seed prices and the lack of high-yielding varieties that are not genetically engineered.

Patents have “given seed companies enormous power, and it’s come at the detriment of farmers,” said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, which was an author of a brief on the side of Mr. Bowman. “Seed-saving would act as a much needed restraint on skyrocketing biotech seed prices.”

Farmers who plant seeds with Monsanto’s technology must sign an agreement not to save the seeds, which means they must buy new seeds every year.

Monsanto has a reputation for vigorously protecting its intellectual property.

The Center for Food Safety, which has tracked the cases, said Monsanto had filed more than 140 patent infringement lawsuits involving 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses, and had so far received $23.67 million in recorded judgments. The center says there are many other cases in which farmers settled out of court or before a suit was filed.

Monsanto says it must stop infringers to be fair to the large majority of farmers who do pay to use its technology.

But Monsanto typically exercises no control over soybeans or corn once farmers sell their harvested crops to grain elevators, which in turn sell them for animal feed, food processing or industrial use.

Mr. Bowman said that for his main soybean crop, he honored Monsanto’s agreement, buying new seeds each year containing the Roundup Ready gene, which makes the plants immune to the herbicide Roundup. That technology is hugely popular, used in more than 90 percent of the nation’s soybeans, because it allows farmers to spray fields to kill weeds without hurting the crop.

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Meteorite Fragments Are Said to Rain Down on Siberia; 400 Injuries Reported

MOSCOW – A shower of falling objects, tentatively identified as fragments of a meteorite, was reported in Siberia early on Friday, damaging buildings across a vast swath of territory. More than 400 people were reported to have been injured, most from breaking glass.

But four hours after the objects fell to earth, emergency officials had reported no deaths.

Yelena Smirnykh, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations, told Ekho Moskvy radio that she believed the meteorite broke apart and fell in several places. Another government expert, who spoke to Moscow FM radio station, said he believed it may have been a bolide, a type of fireball meteor that explodes in the earth’s atmosphere because of its composition or angle of entry and can be observed from the ground.

However, the governor of the Ural region reported that a search team had found an impact crater on the outskirts of a city about 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk, which would indicate the meteor did not explode in the atmosphere. Several fragments were also reported to have hit the earth around the city of Satka.

Dozens of amateur videos of the event were broadcast on Friday morning. They showed bright objects streaking through a clear morning sky, leaving a thick trail of white vapor.

Video clips from the city of Chelyabinsk showed an early morning sky illuminated by a brilliant flash, followed by the sound of breaking glass and multiple car alarms apparently triggered by the impact, which was powerful enough to shatter dishes and televisions inside people’s homes.

Dozens of amateur videos of the event were broadcast on Friday morning. They showed bright objects streaking through a clear morning sky, leaving a thick trail of white vapor.

“I saw a flash in the window, turned toward it and saw a burning cloud, which was surrounded by smoke and was going downward – it reminded me of what you see after an explosion,” said Maria Polyakova, 25, head of reception at the Park-City Hotel in Chelyabinsk.

She said the explosion occurred shortly thereafter, shattering the thick glass doors on the hotel’s first floor. She said the hotel was evacuated, but that there was no panic. Emergency officials in Chelyabinsk reported that at least four people were injured by broken glass at a school, according to the Interfax news agency. Authorities said windows facing the point of impact broke throughout the city.

“Now we have many calls about trauma, cuts and bruises,” Igor Murog, a deputy governor of the Ural region, told Interfax.

A video made outside a building in Chelyabinsk captured a blast strong enough to break windows far from the point of impact and the astonished voices of witnesses who were uncertain what it was they had just seen.

“Maybe it was a rocket,” said one man, who rushed outside onto the street along with his co-workers when the object hit, far out of sight. A man named Artyom, who spoke to the Moscow FM radio station, said the explosion was enormous.

“I was sitting at work and the windows lit up and it was as if the whole city was illuminated, and I looked out and saw a huge streak in the sky and it was like that for two or three minutes and then I heard these noises, like claps,” he said. “And then all the dogs started barking.”

On impact, he said balconies shook and windows shattered. He said he did not believe it was a meteorite. “We are waiting for a second piece, that is what people are talking about now,” he said.

There were reports that falling objects were visible as far away as Yekaterinburg, 125 miles southeast of Chelyabinsk. A police official told Interfax that authorities had identified one meteorite’s point of impact, in a sparsely populated area around 50 miles outside the city of Satka.

Siberia stretches the length of Asia and there is a history of meteor and asteroid showers there. In 1908 a powerful explosion was reported near the Tunguska River in central Siberia, its impact so great that trees were flattened for 25 miles around. Generations of scientists have studied that event, analyzing particles that were driven into the earth’s surface as far away as the South Pole. A study published in the 1980s concluded the object weighed a million tons.

Viktor Klimenko contributed reporting.

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Pistorius at court for bail hearing in murder case

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius has arrived at a courthouse for his bail hearing in the murder case of his girlfriend as South Africans braced themselves for the latest development in a story that has stunned the country.

The Paralympic superstar was earlier seen leaving a police station in a dark suit with a charcoal gray jacket covering his head as he got into a police vehicle.

Dozens of photographers and TV camera operators crowded into Courtroom C at Pretoria Magistrate's Court, where proceedings were due to begin at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT). Pretoria chief magistrate Desmond Nair is to hear Pistorius' bail application.

Model Reeva Steenkamp was shot and killed at Pistorius' upmarket home in an eastern suburb of the South African capital in the predawn hours of Thursday.

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Well: Ask Well: Swimming to Ease Back Pain

Many people find that recreational swimming helps ease back pain, and there is research to back that up. But some strokes may be better than others.

An advantage to exercising in a pool is that the buoyancy of the water takes stress off the joints. At the same time, swimming and other aquatic exercises can strengthen back and core muscles.

That said, it does not mean that everyone with a case of back pain should jump in a pool, said Dr. Scott A. Rodeo, a team physician for U.S.A. Olympic Swimming at the last three Olympic Games. Back pain can have a number of potential causes, some that require more caution than others. So the first thing to do is to get a careful evaluation and diagnosis. A doctor might recommend working with a physical therapist and starting off with standing exercises in the pool that involve bands and balls to strengthen the core and lower back muscles.

If you are cleared to swim, and just starting for the first time, pay close attention to your technique. Work with a coach or trainer if necessary. It may also be a good idea to start with the breaststroke, because the butterfly and freestyle strokes involve more trunk rotation. The backstroke is another good option, said Dr. Rodeo, who is co-chief of the sports medicine and shoulder service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

“With all the other strokes, you have the potential for some spine hyperextension,” Dr. Rodeo said. “With the backstroke, being on your back, you don’t have as much hyperextension.”

Like any activity, begin gradually, swimming perhaps twice a week at first and then progressing slowly over four to six weeks, he said. In one study, Japanese researchers looked at 35 people with low back pain who were enrolled in an aquatic exercise program, which included swimming and walking in a pool. Almost all of the patients showed improvements after six months, but the researchers found that those who participated at least twice weekly showed more significant improvements than those who went only once a week. “The improvement in physical score was independent of the initial ability in swimming,” they wrote.

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DealBook: S.E.C. Is Said to Be Investigating Trading Before Heinz Deal

Regulators are scrutinizing unusual trading surrounding the planned $23 billion takeover of the food company H. J. Heinz, raising questions about potential illegal activity in one of the biggest deals in recent memory, a person briefed on the matter said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission opened an insider trading inquiry on Thursday as Berkshire Hathaway and the investment firm 3G Capital agreed to pay $72.50 a share for Heinz, this person said. Regulators first noticed a suspicious spike in trading on Wednesday.

If the S.E.C.’s preliminary inquiry turns into a broader investigation, it could cast a shadow over the deal. As part of the process, authorities would turn their focus toward the limited universe of insiders who could have tipped off traders about the deal.

The agency’s inquiry is expected to be centered on options trading in Heinz, activity that soared this week as news of the deal circulated Wall Street. In what is known as a call option, investors can place a bullish bet on a stock, without actually committing to buy the shares. Instead, investors have the opportunity to buy at a given price and future date.

As recently as Tuesday, there was scant activity in Heinz options. But by Wednesday, as the companies were putting the finishing touches on the deal, options trading jumped, data from Bloomberg shows.

The price of Heinz’s stock soared after the deal was announced. The stock finished up nearly 20 percent on Thursday to close at $72.50, matching the offer price.

The S.E.C. is focusing on the sudden leap in options trading Wednesday, building on a related case it filed last year that also involved 3G, a company with Brazilian roots. In September, the agency obtained an emergency court order to freeze the assets of a Brazilian man suspected of insider trading around 3G Capital’s takeover of Burger King. The trader, a Brazilian citizen who worked at Wells Fargo in Miami, reportedly received the tip from a 3G investor.

Neither the company nor any individual at 3G has been accused of any wrongdoing in that case or in the Heinz inquiry.

While the inquiry is in its early stages, the person briefed on the matter said that regulators could take relatively prompt action. If it is concerned that traders might move the money overseas, the S.E.C. could ask a federal court to freeze the traders’ assets.

The S.E.C. routinely opens inquiries into trading activity after major mergers are announced, but often does not bring charges. The agency, however, has renewed its focus on insider trading, mounting dozens of cases in recent years.

An S.E.C. spokesman declined to comment. Bloomberg News earlier reported that S.E.C. investigators were reviewing the surge in Heinz options trading.

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Woman Found Fatally Shot at Home of Pistorius

Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Oscar Pistorius, the South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, has been arrested after a woman was shot dead at his home.

JOHANNESBURG — South African police and media reports said on Thursday that Oscar Pistorius, a Paralympic gold medal sprinter nicknamed Blade Runner, was being questioned after his girlfriend was fatally shot at his home in Pretoria, possibly mistaken for an intruder. Police said a man had been arrested, but did not identify him by name.

Mr. Pistorius, 26, who races using carbon fiber prosthetic blades, won two gold medals and a silver at last year’s Paralympic Games in London. He was the first double amputee to also run in the Olympics, where reached the 400-meter semifinal and competed in the 4x400-meter relay.

He is one of South Africa’s best-known athletes.

“We found a 9-mm pistol at the scene. A 26-year-old man was taken into custody,” a police spokeswoman, Katlego Mogale, told Reuters without giving further detail.

Capt. Sarah Mcira, another police spokeswoman, said: “There is a woman who was shot by Oscar Pretorius.”

Johannesburg’s Talk Radio 702 said the victim was thought to have been struck in the head and arm in circumstances that have not been fully explained. But the radio said she may have been mistaken for a burglar.

In the Paralympics last September, Mr. Pistorius won individual gold, when he successfully defended his Paralympic 400 meter title. He had lost his 100- and 200-meter titles, but was part of the gold medal-winning 4x100 meter relay team. He same second in the 200 meter race.

After that contest, Mr. Pistorius damaged his reputation among his followers by criticizing the winner, Alan Oliveira of Brazil, raising questions about the length of the winner’s blades. Mr. Pistorius later apologized and praised the gold medalist in the 100 meter race, Jonnie Peacock of Britain. Mr. Pistorius, who was born without fibulas, had both legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday and he battled for many years to compete against able-bodied athletes. In 2008, he qualified for the Beijing Games but was ruled ineligible by track’s world governing body because his blades were deemed to give him a competitive advantage.

South African journalists said Mr. Pistorius lived in an upscale, walled complex near the South Africa capital of Pretoria and said his girlfriend was a fashion model. South Africa has a high crime rate. and elaborate security precautions, as well as personal weapons, are not uncommon.

A reporter outside the complex on Thursday said it was protected by high walls and razor wire.

Lydia Polgreen reported from Johannesburg, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 14, 2013

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly in one reference to the sprinter at whose home a woman was fatally shot. He is Oscar Pistorius, not Pretorias.

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Pistorius arrested after woman shot at his home

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius was arrested Thursday after a 30-year-old woman was shot dead at his home in South Africa.

Police said the 26-year-old Pistorius, a double-amputee known as "Blade Runner," was taken into custody after the shooting early Thursday morning at his home in a gated complex.

Lt. Col. Katlego Mogale told The Associated Press that police received a call that there had been a shooting at the runner's home. Mogale said when police arrived, they found paramedics trying to revive the woman, who had been shot an unspecified number of times. Mogale, who was at the scene, said the woman died at the home. Police have not released the name of the woman.

Officers found a 9-mm pistol at Pistorius' home. Mogale said Pistorius was expected to appear in court later Thursday.

Several South African media outlets reported that the woman was Pistorius' girlfriend and that he may have mistaken her for a burglar and shot her, but police did not clarify the woman's relationship to Pistorius.

South Africa's Sports Confederation and Olympic committee released a statement saying they had been "inundated" with requests for comment, but were not in a position to give out any details of the shooting.

"SASCOC, like the rest of the public, knows no more than what is in the public domain, which is there has been an alleged fatal shooting on the basis of a mistaken identity and an apparent assumption of a burglary," the South African Olympic committee said. "The organization is in no position to comment on the incident other than to say our deepest sympathy and condolences have been expressed to the families of all concerned."

SACOC said it would be inappropriate to comment because of the ongoing police investigation.

Pistorius made history in London last year when he became the first double-amputee track athlete to compete in the Olympic Games. He is one of South Africa's and the world's most famous athletes.

Having had both his legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday because of a congenital condition, he campaigned for years to be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes. Having initially been banned because of his carbon fiber blades — which critics said gave him an unfair advantage — he was cleared by sport's highest court in 2008 and allowed to run at the top events.

He competed in the 400 meters and on South Africa's 4x400 relay team at the London Games, making history after being have his selection confirmed on South Africa's team at the very last minute. He also retained his Paralympic title in the 400 meters in London.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

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Use of Morning-After Pill Is Rising, Report Says

The use of morning-after pills by American women has more than doubled in recent years, driven largely by rising rates of use among women in their early 20s, according to new federal data released Thursday.

The finding is likely to add to the public debate over rules issued by the Obama administration under the new health care law that require most employers to provide free coverage of birth control, including morning-after pills, to female employees. Some religious institutions and some employers have objected to the requirement and filed lawsuits to block its enforcement.

Morning-after pills, which help prevent pregnancy after sex, were used by 11 percent of sexually active women from 2006 to 2010, the period of the study. That was up from just 4 percent in 2002. Nearly one in four women between the ages of 20 and 24 who had ever had sex have used the pill at some point, the data show.

Morning-after pills are particularly controversial among some conservative groups who contend they can cause abortions by interfering with the implantation of a fertilized egg that the groups regard as a person.

Medical experts say that portrayal is inaccurate, and that studies provide strong evidence that the most commonly used pills do not hinder implantation, but work by delaying or preventing ovulation so that an egg is never fertilized in the first place, or thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble moving.

This month, the Obama administration offered a proposal that could expand the number of groups that do not need to provide or pay for birth control coverage. But the proposal did not end the political fight over the issue, which legal experts say may end up in the Supreme Court.

The new data was released by the National Center for Health Statistics and based on interviews with more than 12,000 women from 2006 to 2010. Researchers asked sexually active women if they had ever used emergency contraception, “also known as Plan B, Preven or morning-after pills,” as well as about their use of other forms of birth control.

Over all, 99 percent of sexually active women ages 15 to 44 have used contraception at some point in their lives, or about 53 million women, up slightly from 2002. An earlier report found that 62 percent of all women of reproductive age were currently using some form of birth control.

The new report found that 98.6 percent of sexually active Catholic women had used contraception at some point, but the data did not show how many Catholic women currently use contraception.

Condom use has risen markedly. More than 93 percent of women said they had partners who had used condoms at some point, compared with 82 percent of women in 1995, a likely effect of strong public advocacy for condom use during the AIDS epidemic.

In contrast, women who had used intrauterine devices, or IUDs, at some point in their lives declined to about 8 percent from 10 percent in 1995. The use of birth control pills has remained steady since 1995 at 82 percent.

Eighty-nine percent of white women said they had used birth control pills at some point, compared with 67 percent of Hispanic women, 78 percent of black women and 57 percent of Asian women.

Education played a role in the type of contraception used. Forty percent of women without a high school diploma said they chose sterilization, while just 10 percent of women with a bachelor’s degree said they used that method. Those without a high school diploma were also far more likely to use three-month injectables, like Depo-Provera — 36 percent compared with 13 percent of women with a college degree.

About 12 percent of college graduates said they had used emergency contraception, while 7 percent of women with only a high school degree said they had used it.

Educated women were far more likely to have practiced periodic abstinence based on the menstrual cycle. About 28 percent of women with a master’s degree or higher had practiced this method, while just 13 percent of women without a high school diploma had, the report found.

White women, American-born Hispanic women and black women were most likely to practice withdrawal, with more than half of women in each group saying they have used that method. Just 44 percent of foreign-born Hispanics said they practiced withdrawal.

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Japanese Economy Contracts and Remains in Recession

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s economy remained mired in recession late last year, shrinking 0.4 percent in annualized terms for the third straight quarter of contraction on feeble demand at home and overseas.

The government reported Thursday that growth for all of 2012 was 1.9 percent, after a 0.6 percent contraction in 2011 and a 4.7 percent increase in 2010 and a 5.5 percent contraction in 2009.

The figures were worse than expected, as many analysts had forecast the economy may have emerged from recession late last year as the Japanese yen weakened against other major currencies, giving a boost to Japanese export manufacturers.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in late December, is championing aggressive spending and monetary stimulus to help get growth back on track. He has lobbied the central bank to set an inflation target of 2 percent, aimed at breaking out of Japan’s long bout of deflation, or falling prices, that he says are inhibiting corporate investment and growth.

But the Bank of Japan was not expected to announce any major new initiatives from a policy meeting on Thursday. The current central bank governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, is due to leave office on March 19, and Mr. Abe is expected to appoint as his successor an expert who favors his more activist approach to monetary policy.

Last year began on an upbeat note with annual growth in the first quarter at 6 percent as strong government spending on reconstruction from the March 2011 tsunami disaster helped spur demand. But the economy contracted in the second quarter and deteriorated further as frictions with China over a territorial dispute hurt exports to one of Japan’s largest overseas markets.

Despite the dismal data for last year, many in Japan expect at least a temporary bump to growth from higher government spending on public works and other programs. An index measuring consumer confidence, released this week, jumped to its highest level since 2007, the biggest increase in a single month.

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India Ink: India's Capital City Celebrates 'Design Week'

Art lovers have the India Art Fair and Francophiles have Bonjour India. And now interior design enthusiasts have a week to call their own in New Delhi.

India Design 2013, organized by Ogaan Publications, the company behind ELLE and ELLE Décor, celebrates design and decoration in India. An exhibition at the NSIC Grounds in the Okhla Industrial Estate will feature speakers like Anita Lal, the founder of Good Earth, a leading luxury home décor chain in India, and Lidewij Edelkoort, an internationally renowned Dutch trend forecaster. The exhibition will run through Sunday.

On this past Monday, over 60 venues all over the city opened up their space for a satellite event called “Style in the City,” including art galleries, restaurants and even salons.

For instance, Nature Morte and the Oberoi Gurgaon have collaborated with Divya Thakur of Design Temple, a graphic and product designer studio, to curate a special exhibition called “Sense and Sensuality.” Everything will be for sale and priced at under 25,000 rupees ($460).

The main action will be at the weekend exhibition, spread over 8,000 square meters. Here are some displays worth seeking out:

Pinakin Patel: Pinakin Patel, a self-taught architect and designer, is known for his modern take on Indian design, like his interpretation of jalli, an ornamental pattern made popular by the Mughals. His stainless steel jhoola (swing) won the coveted Elle Décor International Design Award in 2004, and he is the man behind Hara Villa, prefabricated one-bedroom luxury holiday homes that run completely on solar power.

Sunil Sethi Design Alliance: Sunil Sethi has been in the business of sourcing and representing Indian design for over 25 years, working with the Conran Shop, Armani Casa and Selfridges. In the concept area of the exhibition, he is working in a design alliance with the Italian designer Paola Navone to curate a mesmerizing display of home décor products that show off the best of Indian handmade craftsmanship. Quilts, furniture, tableware, glassware will be combined with over 100,000 flowers.

In the main hall, Mr. Sethi will show “Floored by Art,” featuring limited-edition floor art by some of India’s leading artists, like S.H. Raza, T. Vaikuntham and Bose Krishnamachari, as well by fashion designers like Manish Arora and Rajesh Pratap Singh.

Peter D’Ascoli: Having worked in New York with Diane von Furstenberg as studio director and then Covington Fabrics as creative director, Mr. D’Ascoli moved to New Delhi to open his studio, finding a gap in the Indian market for luxury and bespoke upholstery. Though he sources some of fabrics in Europe and his work displays a definite old world European touch, all his designs, embroideries and weaving techniques are done in India. The D’Ascoli Studio has supplied fabrics to Pierre Frey in Paris, Baker Interiors of America and the celebrity decorator Kathryn Ireland, and it is now working closely with Indian architects and interior designers.

The Klove Studio: The product design studio is best known for its lighting installations, which use hand-blown glass, wood and metal. Inspired heavily by Indian jewelry, the studio turns furniture into pieces of collectible art. For India Design 2013, the company has designed a four-by-three-meter wall installation inspired by a prayer space called Devalaya, one of its most ambitious projects.

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No. 8 Michigan State routs No. 4 Michigan 75-52

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State has muddled through much of its season, finding ways to win games short on style with gritty substance.

The eighth-ranked Spartans, though, showed their potential in an impressive 75-52 win over No. 4 Michigan on Tuesday night in the rivalry's first matchup of top 10 teams.

"The sky is the limit," guard Keith Appling said.

If Michigan State can play anything like it did against the Wolverines, Appling might be right.

The Spartans (21-4, 10-2 Big Ten) broke a first-place tie in the conference with No. 1 Indiana, which plays at Michigan State next Tuesday after the Spartans try to avoid a letdown Saturday night at Nebraska.

Appling acknowledged he was a little bit surprised by the lopsided victory — the school's largest since beating Michigan by 27 points in 2002 — but shrugged off the significance of it with much of the regular season remaining.

"We just have to take it for what it is and prepare for our next game," Appling said.

The Wolverines (21-4, 8-4) have lost three of four, but the closely contested setbacks on the road against the Hoosiers and at Wisconsin were nothing like the latest when they were held to a season-low points total.

"They bullied us — point blank," said Tim Hardaway Jr., who matched a career low with two points.

Michigan State didn't trail once, led by as many as 16 points in the first half and enjoyed 30-point leads in the second.

"We probably played our best game in three years," Spartans coach Tom Izzo said. "And, they probably played one of their worst."

Michigan coach John Beilein agreed.

"That was the worst we've played in a long, long time and credit Michigan State for that," he said.

Burke scored 18 points for the Wolverines and didn't get much help from his teammate offensively, or defensively.

"It was an embarrassing loss," Burke said.

Hardaway Jr. was held scoreless until making a layup in the opening minute of the second half — after turning down Beilein's suggestion to work on his shot during halftime warmups — and didn't score again. Hardaway was 1 of 11 from the field.

"He's been playing as good as any player in the country," Beilein said. "He had a bad night, credit Michigan State's defense. Tim had a bad night and Tim Hardaway will bounce back like he always has."

Glen Robinson III was 1 of 4 and scored two points to match his season low.

The Wolverines, who pride themselves on taking care of the basketball, had a season-high 16 turnovers and didn't have much success getting the ball away from the turnover-prone Spartans. Michigan made fewer than 40 percent of its shots and scored one fewer point than it did in a three-point loss at Ohio State.

"Maybe we got exactly what we deserve and it's medicine for the future," Beilein said.

Everything went right for Michigan State, which had just eight turnovers and made 48-plus percent of its shots.

Gary Harris scored 17 points, making five 3-pointers, and Derrick Nix had his way on the inside, scoring 14 points as part of a balanced offense.

Appling had 11 points and Branden Dawson scored 10 before leaving the court late in the game because Michigan's Mitch McGary hit him in the face inadvertently with his right arm.

Izzo said Dawson got hit in the nose and had a cut on his lip.

"I do think he's going to be OK," Izzo said.

Matt Costello scored a season-high eight points and fellow freshman Denzel Valentine had seven points to help Michigan State win its second straight in the series after losing three in a row following a run of dominance for the Spartans.

White-clad fans in the stands were fired up before the game even started and they stayed enthusiastic, standing for much of the game, because the home team gave them plenty of reasons to cheer from start to finish.

"The crowd was just awesome," Izzo said. "It kind of reminded me of back in the day."

In the first matchup of 20-win teams in Division I basketball this season, Michigan State showed it might not be a rebuilding this season.

Michigan, meanwhile, has been humbled since being ranked No. 1 last month for the first time since the 1992-92 season.

"It was a big step for us, but don't think that's the real Michigan team because it's not," Izzo said.

___

Follow Larry Lage on Twitter: http://twitter.com/larrylage

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Well: Getting the Right Dose of Exercise

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

A common concern about exercise is that if you don’t do it almost every day, you won’t achieve much health benefit. But a commendable new study suggests otherwise, showing that a fairly leisurely approach to scheduling workouts may actually be more beneficial than working out almost daily.

For the new study, published this month in Exercise & Science in Sports & Medicine, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham gathered 72 older, sedentary women and randomly assigned them to one of three exercise groups.

One group began lifting weights once a week and performing an endurance-style workout, like jogging or bike riding, on another day.

Another group lifted weights twice a week and jogged or rode an exercise bike twice a week.

The final group, as you may have guessed, completed three weight-lifting and three endurance sessions, or six weekly workouts.

The exercise, which was supervised by researchers, was easy at first and meant to elicit changes in both muscles and endurance. Over the course of four months, the intensity and duration gradually increased, until the women were jogging moderately for 40 minutes and lifting weights for about the same amount of time.

The researchers were hoping to find out which number of weekly workouts would be, Goldilocks-like, just right for increasing the women’s fitness and overall weekly energy expenditure.

Some previous studies had suggested that working out only once or twice a week produced few gains in fitness, while exercising vigorously almost every day sometimes led people to become less physically active, over all, than those formally exercising less. Researchers theorized that the more grueling workout schedule caused the central nervous system to respond as if people were overdoing things, sending out physiological signals that, in an unconscious internal reaction, prompted them to feel tired or lethargic and stop moving so much.

To determine if either of these possibilities held true among their volunteers, the researchers in the current study tracked the women’s blood levels of cytokines, a substance related to stress that is thought to be one of the signals the nervous system uses to determine if someone is overdoing things physically. They also measured the women’s changing aerobic capacities, muscle strength, body fat, moods and, using sophisticated calorimetry techniques, energy expenditure over the course of each week.

By the end of the four-month experiment, all of the women had gained endurance and strength and shed body fat, although weight loss was not the point of the study. The scientists had not asked the women to change their eating habits.

There were, remarkably, almost no differences in fitness gains among the groups. The women working out twice a week had become as powerful and aerobically fit as those who had worked out six times a week. There were no discernible differences in cytokine levels among the groups, either.

However, the women exercising four times per week were now expending far more energy, over all, than the women in either of the other two groups. They were burning about 225 additional calories each day, beyond what they expended while exercising, compared to their calorie burning at the start of the experiment.

The twice-a-week exercisers also were using more energy each day than they had been at first, burning almost 100 calories more daily, in addition to the calories used during workouts.

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

“We think that the women in the twice-a-week and four-times-a-week groups felt more energized and physically capable” after several months of training than they had at the start of the study, says Gary Hunter, a U.A.B. professor who led the experiment. Based on conversations with the women, he says he thinks they began opting for stairs over escalators and walking for pleasure.

The women working out six times a week, though, reacted very differently. “They complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time,” Dr. Hunter says. They did not report feeling fatigued or physically droopy. Their bodies were not producing excessive levels of cytokines, sending invisible messages to the body to slow down.

Rather, they felt pressed for time and reacted, it seems, by making choices like driving instead of walking and impatiently avoiding the stairs.

Despite the cautionary note, those who insist on working out six times per week need not feel discouraged. As long as you consciously monitor your activity level, the findings suggest, you won’t necessarily and unconsciously wind up moving less over all.

But the more fundamental finding of this study, Dr. Hunter says, is that “less may be more,” a message that most likely resonates with far more of us. The women exercising four times a week “had the greatest overall increase in energy expenditure,” he says. But those working out only twice a week “weren’t far behind.”

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Media Decoder Blog: Comcast Buys Rest of NBC in Early Sale

8:53 p.m. | Updated Comcast gave NBCUniversal a $16.7 billion vote of confidence on Tuesday, agreeing to pay that sum to acquire General Electric’s remaining 49 percent stake in the entertainment company. The deal accelerated a sales process that was expected to take several more years.

Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, said the acquisition, which will be completed by the end of March, underscored a commitment to NBCUniversal and its highly profitable cable channels, expanding theme parks and the resurgent NBC broadcast network.

“We always thought it was a strong possibility that we’d some day own 100 percent,” Mr. Roberts said in a telephone interview.

He added that the rapidly changing television business and the growing necessity of owning content as well as the delivery systems sped up the decision. “It’s been a very smooth couple of years, and the content continues to get more valuable with new revenue streams,” he said.

Comcast also said that NBCUniversal would buy the NBC studios and offices at 30 Rockefeller Center, as well as the CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Those transactions will cost about $1.4 billion.

Mr. Roberts called the 30 Rockefeller Center offices “iconic” and said it would have been “expensive to replicate” studios elsewhere for the “Today” show, “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” and other programs produced there. “We’re proud to be associated with it,” Mr. Roberts said of the building.

With the office space comes naming rights for the building, according to a General Electric spokeswoman. So it is possible that one of New York’s most famous landmarks, with its giant red G.E. sign, could soon be displaying a Comcast sign instead.

When asked about a possible logo swap on the building, owned by Tishman Speyer, Mr. Roberts told CNBC, that is “not something we’re focused on talking about today.” Nevertheless, the sale was visible in a prominent way Tuesday night: the G.E. letters, which have adorned the top of 30 Rock for several decades, were not illuminated for an hour after sunset. But the lights flickered back on later in the evening.

Comcast, with a conservative, low-profile culture, had clashed with the G.E. approach, according to employees and executives in television. Comcast moved NBCUniversal’s executive offices from the 52nd floor to the 51st floor — less opulent space that features smaller executive offices and a cozy communal coffee room instead of General Electric’s lavish executive dining room.

Comcast took control of NBCUniversal in early 2011 by acquiring 51 percent of the media company from General Electric. The structure of the deal gave Comcast the option of buying out G.E. in a three-and-a-half to seven-year time frame. In part because of the clash in corporate cultures, television executives said, both sides were eager to accelerate the sale.

Price was also a factor. Mr. Roberts said he believed the stake would have cost more had Comcast waited. Also, he pointed to the company’s strong fourth-quarter earnings to be released late Tuesday afternoon, which put it in a strong position to complete the sale.

Comcast reported a near record-breaking year with $20 billion in operating cash flow in the fiscal year 2012. In the three months that ended Dec. 31, Comcast’s cash flow increased 7.3 percent to $5.3 billion. Revenue at NBCUniversal grew 4.8 percent to $6 billion.

“We’ve had two years to make the transition and to make the investments that we believe will continue to take off,” Mr. Roberts said.

The transactions with General Electric will be largely financed with $11.4 billion of cash on hand, $4 billion of subsidiary senior unsecured notes to be issued to G.E. and a $2 billion in borrowings.

Even with the investment in NBCUniversal, Comcast said it would increase its dividend by 20 percent to 78 cents a share and buy back $2 billion in stock in 2013.

When it acquired the 51 percent stake two years ago, Comcast committed to paying about $6.5 billion in cash and contributed all of its cable channels, including E! and some regional sports networks, to the newly established NBCUniversal joint venture. Those channels were valued at $7.25 billion.

The transaction made Comcast, the single biggest cable provider in the United States, one of the biggest owners of cable channels, too. NBCUniversal operates the NBC broadcast network, 10 local NBC stations, USA, Bravo, Syfy, E!, MSNBC, CNBC, the NBC Sports Network, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Universal Studios, and a long list of other media brands.

Mr. Roberts and Michael J. Angelakis, vice chairman and chief financial officer for the Comcast Corporation, led the negotiations that began last year with Jeffrey R. Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, and Keith Sharon, the company’s chief financial officer. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Centerview Partners and CBRE provided financial and strategic advice.

The sale ends a long relationship between General Electric and NBC that goes back before the founding days of television. In 1926, the Radio Corporation of America created the NBC network. General Electric owned R.C.A. until 1930. It regained control of R.C.A., including NBC, in 1986, in a deal worth $6.4 billion at the time.

In a slide show on the company’s “GE Reports” Web site titled “It’s a Wrap: GE, NBC Part Ways, Together They’ve Changed History,” G.E. said the deal with Comcast “caps a historic, centurylong journey for the two companies that gave birth to modern home entertainment.”

Mr. Immelt has said that NBCUniversal did not mesh with G.E.’s core industrial businesses. That became even more apparent when the company became a minority stakeholder with no control over how the business was run, according to a person briefed on G.E.’s thinking who could not discuss private conversations publicly.

“By adding significant new capital to our balanced capital allocation plan, we can accelerate our share buyback plans while investing in growth in our core businesses,” Mr. Immelt said in a statement. He added: “For nearly 30 years, NBC — and later NBCUniversal — has been a great business for G.E. and our investors.”

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North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test

Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press

South Korean army soldiers patroled along a barbed-wire fence at the Imjingak Pavilion, near the demilitarized zone of Panmunjom, in Paju, South Korea, on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it had conducted its third, long-threatened nuclear test, according to the official KCNA news service, posing a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

The KCNA said it used a “miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously” and that the test “did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment.”

The test led to a crescendo of international condemnation Tuesday, with President Obama calling it a “highly provocative act” that demands “swift and credible action by the international community” against North Korea. Russia, Britain, South Korea and the United Nations similarly swiftly condemned the blast. The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting at 9 a.m. New York time to take up the matter.

Preliminary estimates by South Korea suggested the test was much more powerful than the previous two conducted by the North.

Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said Tuesday’s blast generated an explosive yield of between six and seven kilotons, far greater than the yield of less than one kiloton detected in the North’s 2006 test and an estimated yield of two to six kilotons in its 2009 test. But it appeared less powerful than the first bomb the United States dropped on Japan, in Hiroshima in 1945, which had an explosive yield of 15 kilotons.

The test is the first under the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and an open act of defiance to the Chinese, who urged the young leader not to risk open confrontation by setting off the weapon. In a statement issued several hours after the blast, China expressed its “staunch opposition” to the test but called for “all parties concerned to respond calmly.” And it was unclear how China would act at the United Nations Security Council as it convenes Tuesday.

The nuclear test came the same day President Obama is to use his State of the Union address to call for drastically reducing nuclear arms around the world, potentially bringing the number of deployed American weapons to roughly 1,000 from the current 1,700.

Even before Pyongyang conducted Tuesday’s test, the Obama administration had already threatened to take additional action to penalize the North through the United Nations. But the fact is that there are few sanctions left to apply against the most unpredictable country in Asia. The only penalty that would truly hurt the North would be a cutoff of oil and other aid from China. And until now, despite issuing warnings, the Chinese have feared instability and chaos in the North more than its growing nuclear and missile capability, and the Chinese leadership has refused to participate in sanctions.

Mr. Kim, believed to be about 29, appears to be betting that even a third test would not change the Chinese calculus.

The test set off a scramble among Washington’s Asian allies to assess what the North Koreans had done.

The United States sent aloft aircraft equipped with delicate sensors that may, depending on the winds, be able to determine whether it was a plutonium or uranium weapon. The Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, said Japan had ordered the dispatch of an Air Self-Defense Force jet to monitor for radioactivity in Japanese airspace.

Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, told Parliament that the country was considering “its own actions, including sanctions, to resolve this and other issues.”

But the threat may be largely empty, because trade is limited and the United States and its allies have refrained from a naval blockade of North Korea or other steps that could revive open conflict, which has been avoided on the Korean Peninsula since an armistice was declared 60 years ago.

It may take days or weeks to determine independently if the test, was successful. American officials will also be looking for signs of whether the North, for the first time, conducted a test of a uranium weapon, based on a uranium enrichment capability it has been pursuing for a decade. The past two tests used plutonium, reprocessed from one of the country’s now-defunct nuclear reactors. While the country has only enough plutonium for a half-dozen or so bombs, it can produce enriched uranium well into the future.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, South Korea. Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Beijing, Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo, and Chris Buckley and Gerry Mullany contributed from Hong Kong.

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Jayhawks back to winning ways with rout of K-State

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Bill Self was the first to acknowledge that folks around Kansas had grown spoiled.

It's only natural when one of the marquee programs in college basketball, one built upon iconic names such as James Naismith and Phog Allen, rattles off eight consecutive conference championships and throws in another national title along the way.

So when the Jayhawks scuffled to three straight losses, including an embarrassing defeat at TCU, it seemed as if the world was collapsing around the walls of Allen Fieldhouse.

"I think we just got spoiled, just like everyone around here does, that this can't happen to us," Self said matter-of-factly, "and we just let it happen."

On Monday night, they finally put an end to it.

Ben McLemore scored 30 points on his 20th birthday, Jeff Withey dominated in the paint and the No. 14 Jayhawks routed No. 10 Kansas State 83-62 to forge a tie for first place in the Big 12 between the bitter in-state rivals.

"I think it'll help us down the road, which is obviously the most important," Self said of the morass, which in reality had extended all the way back to the start of conference play. "We still control our own destiny, even though it will be difficult, without question."

One thing the Jayhawks (20-4, 8-3) have to their advantage is two wins over the Wildcats (19-5, 8-3), who had used a four-game winning streak to take over first place.

Rodney McGruder had 20 points and Angel Rodriguez added 17 for the Wildcats on Monday night, but they never seemed to be in the game despite entering the Phog as the higher-ranked team for the first time since Feb. 20, 1982.

The Jayhawks used two big runs in the first half to take a 47-29 lead at the break, and then thwarted every rally that the veteran Wildcats tried to muster down the stretch.

The result has become predictable: Kansas won for the 11th time in the last 12 games between the rivals, and for the 46th time in their last 49 meetings, prompting the student section to chant "This is our state!" once again in the closing minutes.

"Last week is over. We're going to learn from that," Withey said. "We met so many times and we talked about that so many times, and it's not going to happen again."

Most of the Jayhawks' struggles the past two weeks have centered on their offense, which had produced just 13 points in the first half in that loss to TCU last Wednesday night.

That wasn't much of a problem against the Wildcats.

McLemore, Kansas' star freshman, was 9 of 13 from the field and 6 of 10 from 3. Withey had 17 points, 10 boards and five blocked shots. Kevin Young had 13 points and Travis Releford 10.

Even backup guard Naadir Tharpe got into the act with seven points, eight assists and only one turnover, putting an exclamation mark on the quintessential get-right kind of game for Kansas.

"In the game of basketball, or any sport, it's not always who you're playing but when you're playing them," Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said. "They had a very tough week. They probably hung their head for a while. They got their head up. It's always a good remedy to come home."

Young got the Jayhawks off to a fast start with a dunk off a nifty feed from Tharpe, one of six assists he had in the first half. Withey was the recipient of Young's feed on the next trip, and McLemore's 3-pointer from the wing forced the Wildcats to call time out.

It didn't do much to ebb the tide.

Kansas used a 14-3 run to gain control, and then a 12-3 charge fueled by Tharpe and McLemore to take a 40-19 lead with 3:26 remaining in the first half.

Kansas ended up shooting 58.6 percent from the field, and 5 of 10 from beyond the arc, in building a 47-29 halftime advantage. It was the most points the offensively troubled Jayhawks had scored in a half since putting up 53 in the first half against American on Dec. 29.

"We just played as a team," McLemore said. "Went out there and gave it our all. It started on the defensive end. We got some stops and created on the offensive end."

Kansas State drew within 58-43 with 14:04 left, but Withey snuffed out the comeback.

The reigning Big 12 defensive player of the year swatted away a shot by McGruder and, moments later, threw down a massive dunk over Jordan Henriquez — a fellow 7-footer — before finishing off the three-point play. Withey then rejected McGruder at the other end, and Travis Releford had the putback that restored the Jayhawks' 20-point lead at 63-43 with 11:59 to go.

The Jayhawks put the game on cruise control down the stretch, giving Weber — who once followed Self as the man in charge at Illinois — his third loss in three tries against Kansas, and the Wildcats their sixth straight defeat in Lawrence.

Talk about things getting back to normal.

"First of all, losing three in a row is not — I understand it's not forgivable. It's a terrible, terrible deal. But what we're going through is what 99 percent of teams in America go through," Self said. "There's only 1 percent that doesn't go through this kind of stretch. And we're spoiled because it's been a long time since we went through one of these stretches."

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Bloomberg Lauds Companies for Cutting Salt Content

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in the midst of a long-running campaign to change the eating habits of New Yorkers and consumers across the country, declared a victory against salt on Monday, as 21 companies, from Kraft and Goya to FreshDirect, said they had met the first stage in reductions in salt content in foods.

After focusing on reducing trans fats and smoking, Mr. Bloomberg turned his attention to salt in 2010, announcing that about 30 companies had signed up to reduce salt in foods by 25 percent within five years, as a way of lowering consumers’ blood pressure and saving lives lost to heart attack and stroke.

“These companies have a huge presence on our shelves and in our diets,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference at City Hall as he announced the results, surrounded by a half-dozen executives of food companies.

The first stage focused on the low-hanging fruit — salsa, dips, bacon, ketchup, barbecue sauce, cold cuts, processed cheese, salad dressing, canned beans and pizza — foods whose salt content is so high that reducing it up to a point probably would not be noticed by many consumers.

Mr. Bloomberg called them “some of America’s most beloved and iconic foods,” suggesting that the cuts might have a disproportionately salutary effect. But Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, said he did not know how much salt the results so far had removed from the average person’s diet.

One side effect of the salt reduction drive is that food companies are looking for salt substitutes to make food taste better.

The main way to do that is to add potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, said Russ Moroz, vice president for research at Kraft Foods. But because potassium tends to have a bitter, mineral taste, other ingredients have to be added. He said these were proprietary secrets, and he declined to name them.

Potassium is good, Dr. Farley said, because it lowers blood pressure and most people do not get enough of it. It is removed from fruits and vegetable during processing, he said. Mr. Bloomberg said he thought fears of additives were overdone.

But a salt industry scientist said Monday that too much potassium could be bad for the kidneys, and that the “cocktail of chemical constituents” added to balance the bitterness and enhance the salty taste could present unknown risks, as those ingredients were undisclosed.

“They do it with one eye on the lab and the other eye on the label,” said Morton Satin, vice president for science and research at the Salt Institute, a trade association. “They make sure it’s below the level that the F.D.A. requires for it to be on the label.”

Mr. Satin said that the link between high blood pressure and salt was just “a theory,” and that reducing salt too much could have harmful effects, like iodine deficiency in children, a cause of mental retardation, and diabetes.

Some companies said reducing salt proved to be a popular marketing tool. Goya reported that it had reduced salt in its regular canned beans by 5 or 6 percent, without any drop in sales. “We tasted them, and you really wouldn’t notice the difference,” Joseph Perez, senior vice president of Goya Foods, said Monday.

Mr. Bloomberg said it might surprise many people to know that bread and rolls were the “biggest contributor” to salt in the diet. Eating a muffin, he said, could be worse than eating a small bag of Lays potato chips.

Bread makers are hard to spot on the list of companies that have pledged to reduce salt, perhaps, Mr. Satin said, because it is more difficult to make bread without salt. However, some companies, like Au Bon Pain, have reduced salt in some baked goods.

On an irreverent note, Mr. Bloomberg said that he loved Subway sandwiches and would eat his favorite, the Italian B.M.T. — it includes salami, pepperoni and ham — regardless of the salt content, but that he was glad that it now contained 27 percent less.

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Bits: Where the Singles Are: A Dating Guide by ZIP Code

At Trulia, a residential real estate Web site, the analysts are constantly crunching data — home and apartment listings, prices, school ratings, crime rates and other numbers.

With Valentine’s Day coming this week, Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist and head of analytics, decided to sift through household, gender, city and neighborhood data in America. If you’re looking for someone single of the opposite sex, where are your chances best and worst, statistically speaking?

He posted his findings on the Trulia Trends site on Monday.

According to Trulia’s analysis, men living alone most outnumber women living alone in Las Vegas; Honolulu; Palm Bay, Fla.; Gary, Ind.; and San Jose, Calif.

Women most outnumber men in Bethesda, Md.; Washington; Boston; New York; and Raleigh, N.C.

At the broader metropolitan level, Mr. Kolko said in an interview, labor markets are typically the determining factor. Men outnumber women in regions that have a higher proportion of technology, manufacturing and construction jobs. Women outnumber men most in places with more professional services jobs and in bigger cities.

The data sets for many thousands of ZIP codes, Mr. Kolko explained, all came from the 2010 census and were downloaded onto a laptop, then sliced, diced and manipulated using Stata data analysis and statistical software.

The data was massaged a bit. Only people living alone were counted; an earlier survey showed singles prefer to date someone who lives alone. And this time, Mr. Kolko factored out the gay and lesbian population, using the assumption that the share of gay or lesbian singles in neighborhoods would be roughly equal to same-sex couples living in those neighborhoods. (Last year, Mr. Kolko did an analysis of the ZIP code neighborhoods with the highest shares of gays and lesbians.)

Local industries may play a large role in gender populations for cities as a whole. But neighborhoods, Mr. Kolko said, are a more genuine reflection of where people want to live. So for each of the 10 largest metropolitan areas, he calculated the ZIP codes with the highest ratio of men to women, and women to men.

Men, Mr. Kolko observed, tend to settle near downtown or in recently redeveloped neighborhoods like the Waterfront in Boston or Long Island City in New York. Women are more likely to live in residential areas, including the Marina in San Francisco and Queen Anne in Seattle, and neighborhoods that are seen as safe and are more affluent, like the Upper East Side of New York and Upper Connecticut Avenue in Washington.

More women in high-income neighborhoods? Is this another sign of the much-discussed trend of women doing better than men? Mr. Kolko did not push the data that far. “It probably says more about where men and women choose to live in a given city rather than which gender is more successful,” he said.

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India Ink: Message From a Sadhu: Detach From Family to Avoid Sadness

ALLAHABAD, Uttar Pradesh — Do your duty, but stop worrying so much about parents, wife and children.

That was the message of the 60-year-old Hindu mystic Maheshanand Giri from the Shri Panchayati Mahanirvani Akhara as he sat outside of a yellow and red tent set up on the vast grounds of the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad this weekend.

Attachments bring sadness, he said.

“Getting rid of attachments is the first step to salvation,” he said, sitting beside a small wood fire. “If your family is sick, if your father dies, then you will feel sadness.”

The mystics who come to the Kumbh are part of religious orders that were once mercenary armies that terrified parts of northern India centuries ago, according to William Pinch, a professor of history at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

“They are the ghosts of armies past,” Dr. Pinch said in an interview. “And they were often employed as assassins.”

These armies often stole or bought children to fill their ranks, Dr. Pinch said. And the rituals of joining the orders usually involved cutting all ties to family, he said.

“The rituals that they undergo when they join the order are a separation from caste society, which involves a social death,” Dr. Pinch said. “The order becomes your family.”

Ascetics are often thought by Westerners to be peace-loving monks, but Hindu sadhus generally revere Lord Shiva, who could lift mountains with one finger and was known to sever heads. At the Kumbh, the sadhus brandished ceremonial tridents, swords and spears. Some waved around baseball bats, and their celebrations during the procession to the Ganges were decidedly warlike.

But in his tent, Mr. Giri’s message to those who had little appetite for abandoning their family was to take a somewhat more detached view of loved ones.

“With your wife, you should stop having sex after you have your children,” he said. “And with your children, you should do your duty but draw a line in your attachment. If you are too attached, you will not be happy.”

He said he was particularly angry about the proliferation of pornography through cell phones and the Internet. “The government should do something to stop this,” he said.

But a fondness for coffee is allowed, he said, even though some may call it an unhealthy addiction.

“Drinking coffee is your choice. It’s not an attachment,” he said. “It’s O.K. to drink coffee.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting from Allahabad.

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Snedeker on the rise with Pebble win

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Everything about Brandt Snedeker moves at warp speed, including his rapid rise into golf's elite.

He talks so fast that he always seems to be a few words short of a complete sentence. He plays fast, giving his hips a quick swivel to set his position before pulling the trigger. Even his putts go into the hole quickly, most of them struck with purpose instead of hope.

But when he reached the 18th tee box at Pebble Beach, he had to wait for the fairway to clear before taking a victory stroll up one of the prettiest closing holes in golf.

And that was OK with him.

"There's not much better place to be on the planet with a three-shot lead on that tee box," Snedeker said Sunday. "It felt pretty special there."

Indeed, Snedeker is in a special place.

With his 10th consecutive round in the 60s, Snedeker finally had a trophy to show for his astounding start to the 2013 season. He knew the opening seven holes were critical, and he made an eagle and three birdies to build a quick lead. He realized a late birdie would give him a cushion, and he fired at the flag on the par-3 17th to 10 feet below the cup and holed the putt. He closed with a 7-under 65 for a two-shot win over Chris Kirk in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

It was the fifth win of his career, and his fourth in the last 22 months. But it's the last six months that have really turned heads.

He captured the $10 million FedEx Cup prize with a win at the Tour Championship, where he held off the likes of Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Luke Donald going into the final round. He played in his first Ryder Cup. He started this year with a third-place at Kapalua, and runner-up finishes in consecutive weeks to Woods and Phil Mickelson, both of whom had big leads going into the final round.

Go back to the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs last August and Snedeker now has six top 3s in his last nine starts. Since missing the cut at the PGA Championship, he has broken par in 33 out of 37 rounds. No wonder he now is No. 4 in the world, the best ranking of his career.

"Just hard to put into words, to have a stretch of golf like I had the last couple of months," Snedeker said. "Something you dream about. Something you think that you can do, but you don't really know until you actually put it together. And I have.

"I'm really enjoying this, and hopefully can parlay this into the best year of my career."

Snedeker set the tournament record at 19-under 267, one shot better than Mickelson (2007) and Mark O'Meara (1997), who each had a 20-under 268 when Poppy Hills (par 72) was part of the rotation. It has been replaced by Monterey Peninsula, which is a par 70.

Chris Kirk closed with a 66 to finish alone in second, though he was never closer than two shots of the lead on the back nine and finished with a birdie. Kirk finished on 269, a score that would have been good enough to win all but four times at Pebble Beach since this tournament began in 1937.

"We've had a lot of tournaments like that on tour this year where somebody has really just kind of blitzed the field," Kirk said. "I felt like I played well enough to win a golf tournament and came up a little bit short."

Snedeker could have said the same thing — except for Woods at Torrey Pines, and Mickelson going obscenely low to win the Phoenix Open.

He wasn't about to take a back seat to anyone at Pebble Beach.

Snedeker started the final round tied with James Hahn, a 31-year-old rookie from the Bay Area, with Kirk one shot behind. He set the tone early with a 4-iron into the par-5 second hole that was on the edge of the left green. It hit the collar and kicked slightly to the right, rolling toward the pin until it settled 4 feet behind the cup.

"Kind of lucky, but it was a good shot, and to end up where it did was a great way to start the day," he said.

Hahn hit his approach high and pure, and it nearly hit Snedeker's ball before stopping 6 feet away. Hahn missed. Snedeker made. It was like that over the front nine.

Snedeker started to pull away with a 3-wood that came off the edge of the green, ran by the cup and stopped 20 feet away for a two-putt birdie. Then, he holed a 15-foot birdie putt on the seventh and was on his way.

Most impressive about Snedeker this week was bouncing back from bogey. He made five bogeys for the entire week, and four times made birdie on the next hole. On Sunday, his lone mistake was knocking an 18-foot birdie off the green and three-putting for bogey at No. 9.

The answer, like everything else about him, was fast and furious.

He knocked in a 25-foot birdie putt on the 10th, and then holed from 15 feet for birdie on the 12th. Right when it looked as though he would make another bogey on the par-3 12th, he made par from just short of 10 feet.

There's a reason Snedeker led the PGA Tour in putting last year, though it's his driving that has vastly improved. Snedeker studied some statistics last year that showed his odds of hitting the green go way up when he starts in the fairway. And once he's on the green, he's tough to beat.

Hahn, who shot 70 and tied for third, was looking forward to learning something from his debut in the final group, and he saw Snedeker put on a clinic.

"I learned that he is a better guy than he is a golfer. The dude is world class," Hahn said. "He's obviously one of the best, if not the best golfer right now, and possibly for the last year. But how he conducts himself as a person on an off the golf course, that's also world class. He deserved to win today. ... I'm sure if you ask him, it was never a doubt that he was going to win the golf tournament."

Snedeker concurred.

"I definitely didn't want to do anything but win today," he said. "I was out there for one purpose and one purpose only, and I was extremely focused all day. I did a great job of staying patient and I did a great job of playing the golf course the way you're supposed to play it."

And the outcome was just what he expected. The way he has been playing, it shouldn't have been any surprise to anyone.

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