Sign of a Comeback: U.S. Carmakers Are Hiring

Tony Dejak/Associated Press

Joseph R. Hinrichs, head of Ford's Americas region, with a two-liter EcoBoost engine at the Cleveland plant.

DETROIT — A few years ago, American automakers cut tens of thousands of jobs and shut dozens of factories simply to survive.

But since the recession ended and General Motors and Chrysler began to recover with the help of hefty government bailouts and bankruptcy filings, all three Detroit car companies including Ford Motor Company have achieved one of the unlikeliest comebacks among industries devastated during the financial crisis.

Now steadily rising auto sales and two-tier wage concessions from labor have spurred a wave of new manufacturing investments and hiring by the three Detroit automakers in the United States. The latest development occurred on Thursday, when Ford said it was adding 450 jobs and expanding what had been a beleaguered engine plant in Ohio to feed the growing demand for more fuel-efficient cars and S.U.V.’s in the American market.

Ford, the nation’s second-largest automaker after G.M., said it would spend $200 million to renovate its Cleveland engine plant to produce small, turbocharged engines used in its top-selling models. Ford plans to centralize production of its two-liter EcoBoost engine — used in popular models like the Fusion sedan and Explorer S.U.V. — at the Cleveland facility by the end of next year.

Its move to expand production in the United States is yet another tangible sign of recovery among the Detroit auto companies. Industrywide sales in the United States are expected to top 15 million vehicles this year after sinking beneath 11 million in 2009.

Last month, G.M. announced plans to invest $600 million in its assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan., one of the company’s oldest factories in the country. And Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit car companies, is adding a third shift of workers to its Jeep plant in Detroit.

The biggest factor in the market’s revival has been the need by consumers to replace aging, gas-guzzling models. “Pent-up demand and widespread access to credit are keeping up the sales momentum,” said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with the auto research site Edmunds.com.

And Joseph R. Hinrichs, the head of Ford’s Americas region, explained in an interview that the company’s Ohio revival plan was “all based on increased demand.”

“We’re putting the capacity here because that’s where we need it most,” he said.

Yet even though Ford is enjoying a resurgence in the United States, it is racing to reduce costs in its troubled European division. The workers in Spain who were building the small EcoBoost engines that have been shipped to America will be moved to an assembly plant that is taking on work from a plant to be closed in Belgium.

While Ford survived the industry’s financial crisis without government help, it still cut thousands of jobs and shuttered several factories to reduce costs and bring production more in line with shrinking sales.

But now, the burst of showroom business has prompted automakers to increase output at remaining plants. In Ford’s case, the company added about 8,000 salaried and hourly jobs last year, and has said it plans to hire about 2,200 white-collar workers in 2013. Ford is also moving some vehicle production from Mexico to a Michigan plant, where it will add 1,200 jobs.

The investment in Cleveland is indicative of how Ford and other carmakers have trimmed domestic labor costs and improved productivity since the recession. Just a few years ago, the company was forced to consolidate two engine plants into one in northern Ohio, and close a major component operation. “No question we have been through a lot in northern Ohio,” Mr. Hinrichs said. “But now our North American business is very competitive with the best in the world.”

Mr. Hinrichs said that a new local agreement with the United Automobile Workers union in Cleveland paved the way for the expansion. Currently the plant employs about 1,300 workers.

The Detroit companies are also benefiting from their ability to hire lower-paid, entry-level workers as part of their national contract with the U.A.W. Many of the 450 new workers at the Cleveland plant will start at $16 an hour, compared to about $28 for veteran union members, and some of the new engine plant workers could include employees from other Ohio plants.

“With our competitive labor agreements, we can bring business back to the U.S. from Spain and Mexico,” Mr. Hinrichs said.

Employment still falls far short of levels in the 1990s, when cheap gas and the popularity of S.U.V.’s led to big profits in Detroit.

The auto manufacturing sector employed 1.1 million people in the United States as recently as 1999, according to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. About one-third of those jobs were in the final assembly of vehicles, and the balance in the production of auto parts.

Employment dropped as low as 560,000 in 2009. Since then, about 90,000 jobs have been added, the report said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 21, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article gave a false impression of sales among the Detroit auto companies. Overall auto sales in the United States are expected to top 15 million this year, not sales among the Detroit automakers.

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Feb. 21

NEWS In a little-noticed trial in a small courtroom in Cyprus, a 24-year-old man provided a rare look inside a covert global war between Israel and Iran, admitting that he is an operative of the militant group Hezbollah, for which he acted as a courier in Europe and staked out locations that Israelis were known to frequent. Nicholas Kulish reports from Limassol, Cyprus.

The chief executive of an American tire company touched off a furor in France on Wednesday as he responded to a government plea to take over a Goodyear factory slated for closing in northern France. Liz Alderman reports from Paris.

A potentially lucrative market beckons Iceland if the country can find a way to export and transmit electricity across 1,000 miles of frigid sea to the European Union. Andrew Higgins reports from Krafla, Iceland.

China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the murders of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper. Jane Perlez reports from Beijing.

The recent flooding in Jakarta has exposed the city’s weak infrastructure and provided a test for its new leader, Joko Widodo. Sara Schonhardt reports from Jakarta.

The Daily Mail set out after the British historical novelist Hilary Mantel for what the tabloid said was “an astonishing and venomous attack” on the Duchess of Cambridge. John Burns reports from London.

Spain is no longer under imminent threat from financial markets, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told lawmakers Wednesday, but instead is on track to repair its public finances, as shown by an “unprecedented” decline in its budget deficit last year. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.

Promises of lower taxes and tax amnesties have taken hold among many of Italy’s party parties as a key election looms. Elisabetta Povoledo reports from Rome.

President Obama hopes to introduce an emissions trading system in the United States, but a similar scheme in Europe has not had the intended effect of encouraging companies to reduce pollutants. Stanley Reed reports from London.

Porto Nuova, a large redevelopment in Milan with 30 skyscrapers, a giant park and other amenities, will soon have new shops for some of the city’s best-known fashion labels. J J. Martin reports from Milan.

ARTS The Jewish Museum of Vienna has come under fire for its delay in returning many items looted by the Nazis. Patricia Cohen reports.

SPORTS Giampaolo Pozzo owns soccer teams in Italy, Spain and England, with players shuttling back and forth. That method has brought success to Watford, the English club. Rob Hughes writes from London.

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Police: Pistorius detective faces charges himself

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — The lead investigator in the murder case against Oscar Pistorius faces attempted murder charges himself over a 2011 shooting, police said Thursday in another potentially damaging blow to the prosecution.

Prosecutors said they were unaware of the charges against veteran detective Hilton Botha when they put him on the stand in court to explain why Pistorius should not be given bail in the Valentine's Day shooting death of his girlfriend.

Prosecutors say Pistorius intentionally killed model Reeva Steenkamp and have charged him with premeditated murder. Pistorius says he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder and that the shooting was accidental.

Police Brig. Neville Malila told The Associated Press that Botha — who gave testimony in the Pistorius bail hearing on Wednesday — is scheduled to appear in court in May on seven counts of attempted murder related to an incident in October 2011 when Botha and two other police officers fired at a minibus they were trying to stop.

Malila said police had learned Wednesday, the same day that Botha appeared in court to oppose Pistorius' bail application, that the charges against Botha and the two others had been reinstated by the Director of Public Prosecutions. They were initially dropped following the shooting incident.

Malila said police were now waiting for details from the Botha case file from the public prosecutor.

Medupe Simasiku, the spokesman for the prosecutors charging Pistorius with premeditated murder, said he couldn't say how the charges against Botha would affect their case against Pistorius.

In the state case against the Olympic athlete, Botha offered often confused testimony and conceded that nothing in Pistorius' account the Steenkamp shooting contradicted the police's version.

Simasiku said that based on the reinstated accusation against Botha, "we can take action and see if we remove him from the investigation or if he stays."

Botha was the lead investigator in an assault claim against Pistorius in 2009. Pistorius' lawyers said police arrested the athlete and held him overnight at a police station and said they will pursue a lawsuit against police for wrongful arrest.

The current case against Pistorius, which is still only in a bail hearing, has riveted much of the world. Pistorius, 26-year-old the man known as the Blade Runner for his carbon-fiber running prosthetic legs, says he fired shots through the locked door of a toilet enclosed inside his bathroom because he thought there was an intruder in there.

Steenkamp was hit three times, in the head, right elbow and right hip, police say, and prosecutors argue Pistorius intended to kill his 29-year-old girlfriend after a fight in the early hours of Valentine's Day.

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AP Sports Writer Gerald Imray in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

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In Reversal, Florida to Take Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion

MIAMI — Gov. Rick Scott of Florida reversed himself on Wednesday and announced that he would expand his state’s Medicaid program to cover the poor, becoming the latest — and, perhaps, most prominent — Republican critic of President Obama’s health care law to decide to put it into effect.

It was an about-face for Mr. Scott, a former businessman who entered politics as a critic of Mr. Obama’s health care proposals. Florida was one of the states that sued to try to block the law. After the Supreme Court ruled last year that though the law was constitutional, states could choose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover the poor, Mr. Scott said that Florida would not expand its programs.

Mr. Scott said Wednesday that he now supported a three-year expansion of Medicaid, through the period that the federal government has agreed to pay the full cost of the expansion, and before some of the costs are shifted to the states.

“While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost, I cannot in good conscience deny Floridians that needed access to health care,” Mr. Scott said at a news conference. “We will support a three-year expansion of the Medicaid program under the new health care law as long as the federal government meets their commitment to pay 100 percent of the cost during that time.”

He said there were “no perfect options” when it came to the Medicaid expansion. “To be clear: our options are either having Floridians pay to fund this program in other states while denying health care to our citizens,” he said, “or using federal funding to help some of the poorest in our state with the Medicaid program as we explore other health care reforms.”

Mr. Scott said the state would not create its own insurance exchange to comply with another provision of the law.

His reversal sent ripples through the nation, especially given the change in tone and substance since the summer, when he said he would not create an exchange or expand Medicaid.

“Floridians are interested in jobs and economic growth, a quality education for their children, and keeping the cost of living low,” Mr. Scott said in a statement at the time. “Neither of these major provisions in Obamacare will achieve those goals, and since Florida is legally allowed to opt out, that’s the right decision for our citizens.”

Mr. Scott now joins the Republican governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio, who have decided to join the Medicaid expansion. Some, like Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, were also staunch opponents of Mr. Obama’s overall health care law.

Shortly before his announcement, the governor received word from the federal government that it planned to grant Florida the final waiver needed to privatize Medicaid, a process the state initially undertook as a pilot project. Mr. Scott, who is running for re-election next year, has heavily lobbied for the waiver, arguing that Florida could not expand Medicaid without it.

Mr. Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion is significant, but is far from the last word. The program requires approval from Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature, which has been averse to expanding Medicaid under the health care law. The Legislature’s two top Republican leaders said that before making a decision they would consider recommendations from a select committee, which has been asked to review the state’s options.

“The Florida Legislature will make the ultimate decision,” Will Weatherford, the state House speaker, said. “I am personally skeptical that this inflexible law will improve the quality of health care in our state and ensure our long-term financial stability.”

Medicaid, which covers three million people in Florida, costs the state $21 billion a year. The expansion would extend coverage to one million more people.

Mr. Scott’s reversal is sure to anger his original conservative supporters.

The governor “was elected because of his principled conservative leadership against Obamacare’s overreach,” said Slade O’Brien, state director for Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative advocacy organization. “Hopefully our legislative leaders will not follow in Governor Scott’s footsteps, and will reject expansion.”

During his announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Scott said his mother’s recent death and her lifetime struggle to raise five children “with very little money” played a role in his decision.

“Losing someone so close to you puts everything in a new perspective, especially the big decisions,” he said.

Michael Cooper contributed reporting from New York.

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The Trade: A Revolving Door in Washington With Spin, but Less Visibility

Obsess all you’d like about President Obama’s nomination of Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Who heads the agency is vital, but important fights in Washington are happening in quiet rooms, away from the media gaze.

After a widely praised stint as a tough United States attorney, Ms. White spent the last decade serving so many large banks and investment houses that by the time she finishes recusing herself from regulatory matters, she may be down to overseeing First Wauwatosa Securities.

Ms. White maintains she can run the S.E.C. without fear or favor. But the focus shouldn’t be limited to whether she can be effective. For lobbyists, the real targets are regulators and staff members for lawmakers.

Ms. White, at least, will have to sit for Congressional testimony, answer occasional questions from the media and fill out disclosure forms. Staff members, however, work in untroubled anonymity for the most part. So, while everyone knows there’s a revolving door — so naïve to even bring it up! — few realize just how fluidly it spins.

Take what happened late last month as Washington geared up for more fights about the taxing, spending and the deficit. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, decided to bolster his staff’s expertise on taxes.

So on Jan. 25, Mr. Reid’s office announced that he had appointed Cathy Koch as chief adviser to the majority leader for tax and economic policy. The news release lists Ms. Koch’s admirable and formidable experience in the public sector. “Prior to joining Senator Reid’s office,” the release says, “Koch served as tax chief at the Senate Finance Committee.”

It’s funny, though. The notice left something out. Because immediately before joining Mr. Reid’s office, Ms. Koch wasn’t in government. She was working for a large corporation.

Not just any corporation, but quite possibly the most influential company in America, and one that arguably stands to lose the most if there were any serious tax reform that closed corporate loopholes. Ms. Koch arrives at the senator’s office by way of General Electric.

Yes, General Electric, the company that paid almost no taxes in 2010. Just as the tax reform debate is heating up, Mr. Reid has put in place a person who is extraordinarily positioned to torpedo any tax reform that might draw a dollar out of G.E. — and, by extension, any big corporation.

Omitting her last job from the announcement must have merely been an oversight. By the way, no rules prevent Ms. Koch from meeting with G.E. or working on issues that would affect the company.

The senator’s office, which declined to make Ms. Koch available for an interview, says that she will support the majority leader in his efforts to close corporate tax loopholes. His office said in a statement that the senator considered her knowledge of the private sector to be an asset and that she complied with “all relevant Senate ethics rules and disclosures.”

In a statement, the senator’s spokesman said, “The impulse in some quarters to reflexively cast suspicion on private sector experience is part of what makes qualified individuals reluctant to enter public service.”

Over in bank regulatory land, meanwhile, January was playing out like a Beltway remake of “Freaky Friday.”

Julie Williams, chief counsel for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and a major friend of the banks for years, had been recently shown the door by Thomas J. Curry, the new head of the regulator. Banking reform advocates took that to be an omen that a new era might be dawning at the agency, which has often been a handmaiden to large banks.

Ms. Williams, of course, landed on her feet. She’s now at the Promontory Financial Group, a classic Washington creature that is a private sector mirror image of a regulatory body. Promontory is the Shadow O.C.C. The firm was founded by a former head of the agency, Eugene A. Ludwig, and if you were to walk down the halls swinging a copy of the Volcker Rule, you would be sure to hit a former O.C.C. official. Promontory says only about 5 percent of its employees come from the O.C.C., but concedes that more than a quarter are former regulators.

Promontory, as the firm explains on its Web site, “excels at helping financial companies grapple with and resolve critical issues, particularly those with a regulatory dimension.” But it plays for the other team, too, by helping the O.C.C. put into effect regulatory reviews. The dreary normality of this is a Washington scandal in the Michael Kinsley sense: a perfectly legal one.

Promontory, which demurred on a request to talk with Ms. Williams, has a different view. The firm doesn’t lobby or help in litigation. It argues that after banks stop fighting regulators and lobbying against rules, then they come to Promontory to figure out how to fix their problems and comply.

“We are known in the industry as the tough-love doctors,” said Mr. Ludwig, the chief executive of Promontory. “I am deeply committed to financial stability, and the only way to have stability is to do the right thing in both the spirit and letter of the law.”

Hmm. Remember the Independent Foreclosure Review, the program that the O.C.C. and other federal bank regulators trumpeted as the largest effort to compensate victims of big banks’ foreclosure abuses? As my colleague at ProPublica, Paul Kiel, detailed last year, that review involved consultants like Promontory essentially letting banks decide who was victimized. How well did that work? So well that the regulators had to scuttle the program because it hadn’t given one red cent to homeowners but somehow, I don’t know how, managed to send more than $1.5 billion to consultants — including Promontory.

Promontory maintains that it complied with the conditions set out by the O.C.C. And the review was replaced by a settlement, which the regulators say will compensate victims — though the average payout is small beer.

Who, exactly, makes the rules at the O.C.C.? I mentioned “Freaky Friday.” That’s because at the agency, Ms. Williams is being replaced by Amy Friend. And where is Ms. Friend coming from? Wait for it … Promontory. In March, maybe they’ll do the switcheroo back.

The O.C.C. didn’t make Ms. Friend available but said that her “talent, integrity and commitment to public service are beyond reproach” and would be subject to the rule requiring her to recuse herself for a year on matters specifically relating to her former employer.

I spoke with people who said she was a smart and dedicated public servant, an expert on the Dodd-Frank Act who can help complete the scandalously long list of unfinished rules and expedite its adoption.

“Amy Friend is absolutely rowing in the right direction,” said a Senate staff member who worked on efforts to push for stronger financial regulation.

Let’s hope so.

But people also described Ms. Friend as pragmatic. In Washington, that’s the ultimate compliment. Sadly, that has come to mean someone who seeks compromise and never pushes for an overhaul when a quarter-measure will do.

Washington today resembles something like the end of “Animal Farm.” People move from one side of the table to the other and up and down the Acela corridor with ease. An outsider looking at a negotiating table would glance from lobbyist to staff member, from colleague to former colleague, from pig to man and from man to pig and find it impossible to say which is which.

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Bulgarian Government Is Reported Set to Resign

The government of Bulgaria will resign Wednesday afternoon following a week of sometimes violent protests, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said in a surprise announcement to Parliament. "The people gave us power and today we are returning it," he said, according to local news reports.

The mass protests were triggered by electricity price increases and corruption scandals, including one over the nominee to head the state electricity regulatory commission, which sets rates. She was alleged to have sold cigarettes illegally online and her nomination was later withdrawn.

Protests in cities around the country on Sunday night were believed to be the biggest the country had seen in 16 years.

Trying to appease the protesters, the prime minister said Tuesday that the license of the Czech utility CEZ, which provides power to many residential customers in Bulgaria, would be withdrawn.

Opposition political parties had been attempting to exploit public anger over the government’s austerity measures as general elections planned for July approached. They are now likely to be held earlier.

Mr. Borisov citied beatings of protesters Tuesday by the police as one reason for his decision.

"Every drop of blood for us is a stain," he said. "I can’t look at a Parliament surrounded by barricades, that’s not our goal, neither our approach, if we have to protect ourselves from the people."

Mr. Borisov said he would not participate in an interim government.

After the announcement, members of his party left Parliament and the speaker called a recess because of the lack of a quorum.

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Detective in court: Pistorius a flight risk

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — A detective has testified that Oscar Pistorius is a flight risk and shouldn't be granted bail.

Hilton Botha also said in the star athlete's bail hearing Wednesday that Pistorius illegally possessed .38-caliber ammunition in a safe in his bedroom. Pistorius is charged with premeditated murder for the Valentine's Day shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp with a 9 mm pistol. The policeman testified that Pistorius did not have a license for a .38-caliber weapon and consequently possession of that ammunition was illegal.

Pistorius argued in a court affidavit Tuesday that the shooting was accidental and he thought the model was an intruder in his home.

The detective says all Pistorius would say after the shooting was "he thought it was a burglar."

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Well: No Consensus on Plantar Fasciitis

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

There are more charismatic-sounding sports injuries than plantar fasciitis, like tennis elbow, runner’s knee and turf toe. But there aren’t many that are more common. The condition, characterized by stabbing pain in the heel or arch, sidelines up to 10 percent of all runners, as well as countless soccer, baseball, football and basketball players, golfers, walkers and others from both the recreational and professional ranks. The Lakers star Kobe Bryant, the quarterback Eli Manning, the Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney all have been stricken.

But while plantar fasciitis is democratic in its epidemiology, its underlying cause remains surprisingly enigmatic. In fact, the mysteries of plantar fasciitis underscore how little is understood, medically, about overuse sports injuries in general and why, as a result, they remain so insidiously difficult to treat.

Experts do agree that plantar fasciitis is, essentially, an irritation of the plantar fascia, a long, skinny rope of tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot, attaching the heel bone to the toes and forming your foot’s arch. When that tissue becomes irritated, you develop pain deep within the heel. The pain is usually most pronounced first thing in the morning, since the fascia tightens while you sleep.

But scientific agreement about the condition and its causes ends about there.

For many years, “most of us who treat plantar fasciitis believed that it involved chronic inflammation” of the fascia, said Dr. Terrence M. Philbin, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at the Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Center in Westerville, Ohio, who specializes in plantar fasciitis.

It was thought that by running or otherwise repetitively pounding their heels against the ground, people strained the plantar fascia, and the body responded with a complex cascade of inflammatory biochemical processes that resulted in extra blood and fluids flowing to the injury site, as well as enhanced pain sensitivity.

But instead of lasting only a few days and then fading, as acute inflammation usually does, the process can become chronic and create its own problems, causing tissue damage and continuing pain.

This progression is also what experts believed was happening when people developed chronic Achilles tendon pain, tennis elbow or other lingering, overuse injuries.

But when scientists actually biopsied fascia tissue from people with chronic plantar fasciitis, “they did not find much if any inflammation,” Dr. Philbin said. There were virtually none of the cellular markers that characterize that condition.

“Plantar fasciitis does not involve inflammatory cells,” said Dr. Karim Khan, a professor of family practice medicine at the University of British Columbia and editor of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, who has written extensively about overuse sports injuries.

Instead, plantar fasciitis more likely is caused by degeneration or weakening of the tissue. This process probably begins with small tears that occur during activity and that, in normal circumstances, the body simply repairs, strengthening the tissue as it does. That is the point of exercise training.

But sometimes, for unknown reasons, this ongoing tissue damage overwhelms the body’s capacity to respond. The small tears don’t heal. They accumulate. The tissue begins subtly to degenerate, even to shred. It hurts.

By and large, most sports medicine experts now believe that this is how we develop other overuse injuries, like tennis elbow or Achilles tendinopathy, which used to be called tendinitis. The suffix “itis” means inflammation. But since the injury isn’t thought to involve chronic inflammation, its name has changed.

This has not yet happened with plantar fasciitis, and may not, given what a mouthful fasciopathy would be.

The evolving medical opinions about plantar fasciitis matter, beyond nomenclature, though, because treatments depend on causes. At the moment, many physicians rely on injections of cortisone, a steroid that is both a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory, to treat plantar fasciitis. And cortisone shots do reduce the soreness. In a study published last year in BMJ, patients who received cortisone injections reported less heel pain after four months than those whose shots had contained a placebo saline solution.

But whether those benefits will last is unknown, especially if plantar fasciitis is, indeed, degenerative. In studies with people suffering from tennis elbow, another injury that is now considered degenerative, cortisone shots actually slowed tissue healing.

We need similar studies in people with plantar fasciitis, Dr. Khan said. “They have not been done.”

Thankfully, most people who develop plantar fasciitis will recover within a few months without injections or other invasive treatments, Dr. Philbin said, if they simply back off their running mileage somewhat or otherwise rest the foot and stretch the affected tissues. Stretching the plantar fascia, as well as the Achilles tendon, which also attaches to the heel bone, and the hamstring muscles seems to result in less strain on the fascia during activity, meaning less ongoing trauma and, eventually, time for the body to catch up with repairs.

To ensure that you are stretching correctly, Dr. Philbin suggests consulting a physical therapist, after, of course, visiting a sports medicine doctor for a diagnosis. Not all heel or arch pain is plantar fasciitis. And comfort yourself if you do have the condition with the knowledge that Kobe Bryant, Eli Manning and Ryan Hall have all returned to competition and Mr. Romney still runs.

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Boeing Engineers Approve Pact, but Tech Workers Say No

SEATTLE (AP) — The union representing Boeing Co.'s engineers and technical workers delivered a split decision on a new contract Tuesday, with the engineers accepting their offer and the technical workers rejecting theirs and authorizing a future strike.

The union had recommended that both units reject the contract offer because it would not provide pensions to new employees. They would have a 401k retirement plan instead.

The union called that unacceptable, but the Chicago-based airplane-maker said the change was important to the company's future.

The vote came as the company is trying to solve battery problems that have grounded its new 787s. The engineers and technical workers in the union work on plans for new planes and solve problems that arise on the factory floor.

While a strike by the technical workers is not imminent, the vote means the negotiating team can call one at any time, said Bill Dugovich, spokesman for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.

The engineers' vote means those 15,500 employees have a new four-year contract in place, Dugovich said. Union negotiators hope to resume contract talks soon on behalf of the 7,400 technical workers, he said.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Ray Conner said in a statement that the company was pleased with the engineers' vote but "deeply disappointed" in the technical workers' rejection of what he called the company's "best and final" offer.

"The realities of the market require us to make changes so we can invest in new products and keep winning in this competitive environment ..." Conner said in his statement. "That's why our proposal to move future hires to an enhanced 401(k)-style retirement plan is so important, as we have repeatedly emphasized over the course of these negotiations."

Union members rejected one previous contract offer in October. SPEEA last went on strike for 40 days in 2000.

"With this second rejection by technical workers of Boeing takeaways, it's time for the company to stop wasting resources and improve its offer to reflect the value and contributions technical workers bring to Boeing," SPEEA Executive Director Ray Goforth said in a statement. "That way, we can avoid a strike and focus on fixing the problems of the 787 and restoring customer confidence in Boeing."

The latest labor unrest is happening as U.S. regulators launch an open-ended review of the 787's design and construction. Last month, a battery on a parked 787 caught fire in Boston. On Jan. 16, another 787 made an emergency landing in Japan after another battery problem.

All 50 787s that Boeing had delivered so far are grounded until the issue is resolved.

The union's nearly 23,000 employees are mostly in the Puget Sound region. Union leaders believe a strike would shut down Boeing production lines in Everett, Wash., where its big planes are made, as well as in Renton, Wash., where it cranks out the widely used 737.

The factory-floor assembly work is done by the members of the International Association of Machinists. The Machinists approved a new, four-year contract in December 2011, after a walkout in 2008 that contributed to a 3½-year delay in delivering the first 787.

It was also a factor in Boeing opening a plant in South Carolina, where laws make it more difficult to unionize.

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IHT Rendezvous: Women Killed as 'Witches,' in Papua New Guinea, in 2013

BEIJING — “They’re going to cook the sanguma”, or witchcraft, “mama!”

This terrifying cry by Papua New Guinean children opens “It’s 2013, and They’re Burning ‘Witches’,” a long and eloquent report in The Global Mail, an Australia-based online news site.

It was published last week before news shot around the world on Tuesday that the police in Papua New Guinea, in another case, had charged two people with torturing and killing a 20-year-old mother, Kepari Leniata, whom they accused of being a witch. Ms. Leniata was “stripped, tortured with a hot iron rod, doused in gasoline and set alight on a pile of car tires and trash” earlier this month in front of a crowd of hundreds of people, including young children, The Associated Press reported.

Why?

“Leniata had been accused of sorcery by relatives of a 6-year-old boy who had died in a hospital. Ware and Watea are believed to be the boy’s mother and uncle, police said in a statement,” The A.P. reported.

The year 2013 or not, such violence against women is not that uncommon in Papua New Guinea, where “witches” (in reality just women, often older ones) may be blamed when things go wrong, a reflection of the powerful belief in sorcery in the Pacific nation just north of Australia. A key reason for identifying a woman as a witch and attacking her is when a man, or child, dies unexpectedly.

But there may be other reasons. As the Australian international television station Australia Network reported, in a resource-rich country undergoing a boom, accusing her of being a witch is an easy way to take her land.

Dame Carol Kidu, a Papua New Guinean politician, told the station: “There are other things involved nowadays, like greed, acquisition of people’s properties and land, and all sorts of things might be all tied up in all of this, using – killing the sorcerers as a reason to acquire land. So it needs to be investigated and we need to work out how we can deal with it. It is a very complex issue.”

The United Nations also found that accusations of sorcery can be used to kill women for a range of motives: “The U.N. Human Rights agency says they’ve seen an increase in these types of killings as well as torture and rape. They say the accusations are often used to deprive women of land and property,” U.N. radio reported recently.

What lies behind the ferocity? Traditional beliefs, alcohol and drug use among men, and uneven development in a country that is in the middle of a mining boom where, as The Global Mail wrote, “the wealth bypasses the vast majority.”

It writes: “enduring tradition widely resists the notion that natural causes, disease, accident or recklessness might be responsible for a death. Rather, bad magic is the certain culprit.”

The dead person if often a man; the culprit is a woman. Or, a “witch.”

“When people die, especially men, people start asking ‘Who’s behind it?’ not ‘What’s behind it?’” said Philip Gibbs, a longtime resident, anthropologist, sorcery specialist and Catholic priest who was quoted by The Global Mail.

But in its report, the news site was careful to point out that while many Papua New Guineans believe in sorcery to some degree, that doesn’t mean they support the lynchings.

“In the words of the editor of the national daily Post Courier, Alexander Rheeney, city and country folk alike overwhelmingly ‘recoil in fear and disgust’ at lynch mobs pursuing payback, and at the kind of extremist cruelty that Sister Gaudentia was about to witness,” it wrote, referring to the “cooking” that the children were shouting about.

That’s Sister Gaudentia, a Swiss nun who tries to save “Angela,” a woman accused of witchcraft in the Global Mail article. The article includes powerful photos of accused “witches” (warning – they are graphic, showing machete injuries or healed, hacked-off limbs.)

Hearing the children shout that a witch was about to be cooked, Sister Gaudentia rushed after them. “Two days earlier, she had tried to rescue Angela (not her real name), an accused witch, when she was first seized by a gang of merciless inquisitors looking for someone to blame for the recent deaths of two young men.”

“Angela” was luckier than Ms. Leniata.

She had no male relatives to protect her (a common profile for accused “witches”) and was horribly tortured, but lived, the article says. A “sorcery survivor,” today she is in hiding with her small son.

“Those victims who lived to tell the tale owe their lives either to individual police members or to a strong church leader who intervened for them,” Mr. Gibbs, the anthropologist and priest, told the Global Mail.

“In effect it means that, if sufficiently motivated to act, the power of the police and civil authorities, or the power of the church, can be enough to defend a person who is otherwise powerless,” he said.

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