Scientists identify remains as those of King Richard III

LONDON -- More than 500 years after his death in battle, scientists announced Monday that they had definitively identified a skeleton unearthed in central England last summer as that of Richard III, the medieval king portrayed by William Shakespeare as a homicidal tyrant who killed his two young nephews in order to ascend the throne.

DNA from the bones, found beneath the ruins of an old church, matches that of a living descendant of the monarch's sister, researchers said.

"Rarely have the conclusions of academic research been so eagerly awaited," Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the excavation, told a phalanx of reporters Monday morning. "Beyond reasonable doubt, the individual exhumed ... is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England."

PHOTOS: Remains of King Richard III

The dramatic announcement capped a brief hunt for Richard's remains, the progress of which has been closely charted by international media and whose success has been barely short of miraculous.

Working from old maps of Leicester, about 100 miles northwest of London, archaeologists from the local university had less than a month to dig in a small municipal parking lot -- one of the few spaces not built over in the crowded city center. The team stumbled on the ruins of the medieval priory where records say Richard was buried, then found the bones a few days later last September.

"It was an extraordinary discovery that stunned all of us," Buckley said.

The nearly intact skeleton bore obvious traces of trauma to the skull and of scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that matched contemporary descriptions of Richard's appearance. The feet were missing, almost certainly the result of later disturbance, and the hands were crossed at the wrist, which suggests that they may have been tied.

Scientists at the University of Leicester, which pioneered the practice of DNA fingerprinting, were able to extract samples from the bones and compare them to a man descended from Richard III's sister Anne. The match through the maternal line was virtually perfect.

"The DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III," said Turi King, the project’s geneticist.

Richard reigned from 1483 to 1485, and occupies a unique place in England's long line of colorful rulers. He was the last English king to be killed in combat, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, by his successor, Henry VII. His death ended the Plantagenet dynasty and ushered in the long era of the Tudors, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Jo Appleby, an osteologist at the university, said the skeleton belonged to an adult male in his late 20s to late 30s; Richard III was 32 when he died. The man would have stood 5-foot-8 at full height, but the curved spine would have made him appear shorter.

The skull was riddled with wounds strongly indicative of death in battle, including two blows from bladed weapons, either of which would have been fatal, Appleby said.

Richard III is one of England's most controversial monarchs, reviled by some as a bloodthirsty despot who stopped at nothing to gain power, but revered by others who insist that he has been unfairly maligned. His supporters note that the repugnant portrait of Richard in today's popular imagination is based almost entirely on accounts from the time of the usurping Tudors, especially Shakespeare's indelible characterization of him as a "deform'd, unfinish'd" man without scruples.

Fans say Richard III was an enlightened, capable ruler whose important social reforms included the presumption of innocence for defendants and the granting of bail, which remain pillars of the legal system in Britain and the U.S.

However, what happened to Richard's two nephews, who were his rivals for the throne and who were locked up in the Tower of London as young boys, never to be seen again, remains a mystery.

ALSO:

Race to unearth a royal mystery

Bones found in hunt for King Richard III's remains

Netanyahu officially asked to put together new Israeli government

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Navy's Next-Gen Binoculars Will Recognize Your Face

Take a close look, because the next generation of military binoculars could be doing more than just letting sailors and soldiers see from far away. The Navy now wants binoculars that can scan and recognize your face from 650 feet away.

That’s according to a Jan. 16 contract announcement from the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which is seeking a “Wireless 3D Binocular Face Recognition System.” During a testing period of 15 months, the plan is to improve “stand-off identification of uncooperative subjects” during daylight, using binoculars equipped with scanners that can read your mug from “100 to 200 meters” away, or about 328 to 650 feet. After scanning your mug, the binoculars then transmit the data to a database over a wireless network, where the data is then analyzed to determine a person’s identity. The no-bid contract, for an unspecified amount of money, went to California biometrics firm StereoVision Imaging.

“High level, it’s a surveillance and identification system,” Greg Steinthal, StereoVision’s president, tells Danger Room. “It’s using the ubiquitous binocular for real-time identification. The data point here is that this is to be used to add objectivity to an operation that’s highly subjective. So this is not intended for kinetic action to go arrest or detain someone. It’s more a tool to put other eyes on him or her.”

It helps that the technology — at least in a more limited form — already exists. StereoVision has developed a face-recognizing binocular system called 3DMobileID, with a maximum distance of around 328 feet, or 100 meters. “You have an unfair advantage,” the company touts in one promotional video, showing images of a human face being scanned at a distance, before the background is stripped out for a blue screen and then matched up to a database.

Depending on how well the binoculars work — and there’s reason to be cautious — it could give the Navy the ability to take advanced facial recognition into a much more portable and long-distance version than many current systems. Facebook uses the technology to match faces when users upload new photos. Google has its own version as well for its its Picasa photo service, and Apple has been researching face recognition as a way to unlock smartphones. (There are apps for iOS that do this, too.)

But the ranges on most systems also tend to max out at a few feet. For the military, that can be dangerous. Close-range biometric scanners (iris scanners are currently used by soldiers in Afghanistan) can pose a danger to the operator, as a person walking up to have their features scanned from a few inches away could be preparing to detonate an explosive vest. And what if a person happens to be on the move, or is bobbing and weaving through a crowd? That can render the scanners ineffective. Once upon a time, many face scanners also depended on the relatively crude practice of scanning 2-D images of the human face, which are an imprecise method when there are varying lighting conditions.

But the key to solving many of these problems could be a simple upgrade: StereoVision’s system scans in 3-D. When the system first scans you, it creates a 3-D model of your face instead of a 2-D image. That allows the system to isolate your face from a crowd, sharpen the image — which boosts the range — and then compares the image to a database. A filter also adjusts for varying degrees of light by smoothing out light across the face into a uniform pattern.

Now for the flaws in the system. The binoculars are not intended to work at night, and have difficulty scanning faces in twilight. When the binoculars can’t draw an image, it gives off a an audible beep to the operator, which is helpful. Otherwise, the process takes “about five to 10 seconds,” says Steinthal.

It’s also less effective when a subject is on the move. “[It] depends on how fast the target is walking,” Steinthal says. “We’re at walking, one-and-half meters per second. Somebody running? We’re not going to be able to do that right now.”

The concept of binoculars that scan and identify is also — perhaps unnervingly — not limited to the military. For one, StereoVision’s binoculars were developed in part with a $409,226 contract from the National Institute of Justice, and face scanners are a popular research topic for the FBI more broadly.

The FBI is spending $1 billion on a program called Next Generation Identification based around developing face scanners and combining the technology with other biometrics like the iris, voice, and fingerprints. A static face recognition system has also been installed at Toucumen International Airport in Panama City that can scan travelers’ faces and match them to criminal databases maintained by the FBI and Interpol. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the San Diego Police Department have also tested out the binoculars, according to Steinthal, and are intended there for gang enforcement units and even to track “celebrity stalkers” in the L.A. area. Maybe if the FBI wants its special agents to also have some pretty far-out binoculars too, it should take a peek.

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Ed Koch remembered as quintessential New York City mayor

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch was memorialized on Monday as an in-your-face, wisecracking leader who helped transform the city from a symbol of urban decay to the vital, glittering metropolis it is today.

As Koch’s casket was led out of Temple Emanu-El, a soaring Fifth Ave. synagogue opposite Central Park, an organ played Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” while mourners including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and a who’s who of New York politics stood and applauded.

Koch died on Friday at the age of 88 in Manhattan — the only place other than heaven he could imagine living, as he was known to say.

“I come today with the love and condolences of 8.4 million New Yorkers who really are grieving with you at this moment,” said the city’s current mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

Speakers joked about the famously attention-loving Koch’s obsession with stage-managing his passing. His grave-stone, complete with an epitaph and a bench bearing Koch’s name, has been ready since 2008, and his friends said he had been planning the funeral for years.

“We started talking about his death in the ’80s,” said his former chief of staff Diane Coffey.

As mayor from 1978 to 1989, Koch, with his trademark phrase “How’m I Doin?”, was a natural showman and tireless promoter of both himself and the city. He helped repair the city’s finances as it teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, and later led a building renaissance that would see 200,000 units of affordable housing erected or rehabilitated in some of the city’s most crime-infested areas.

He could also be a divisive figure. His determination to shut Sydenham, a poorly-performing Harlem hospital that was one of the only city hospitals employing black doctors, angered black New Yorkers. And AIDS activists said he was too slow to react to the epidemic that ravaged the city’s gay population in the 1980s.

Tall, nearly bald and speaking with a high-pitched voice, Koch was an unmistakable presence. He was famously argumentative, and rarely walked away from verbal jousting.

His friend James Gill remembered Koch’s response to someone who had written a letter criticizing the former mayor.

“You are entitled to your opinion of me and I am entitled to my opinion of you,” Koch replied. “My opinion of you is that you are a fool.”

His nephews and grand-nephew and grand-niece remembered Koch, who never married, as devoted “Uncle Eddie” – eager to hear what they thought of his appearances on talk shows but also happy join his 11-year-old grand-niece for a manicure.

Clinton read from a stack of letters Koch had sent him over the years and said Koch had “a big brain, but he had an even bigger heart.”

Koch remained relevant in politics long after 1989, when he lost the Democratic nomination to David Dinkins for what would have been a record fourth term as mayor. But when asked if he would run for office again, he liked to say, “The people threw me out and the people must be punished.”

His endorsement was coveted by candidates decades after he left office. And his unwavering and loud support of Israel made Koch “one of the most influential and important American Zionists,” said former Ambassador Ido Aharoni.

At Monday’s memorial, Bloomberg noted the synagogue Koch had chosen for the funeral stood just a few blocks from the midtown bridge that had been renamed to honor him. Last year, the city released a video of Koch standing at the bridge’s entrance ramp, calling out to approaching cars: “Welcome to my bridge! Welcome to my bridge!”

“No mayor, I think, has ever embodied the spirit of New York City like he did. And I don’t think anyone ever will,” Bloomberg said. “Tough and loud, brash and irreverent, full of humor and chutzpah – he was our city’s quintessential mayor.”

(Reporting By Edith Honan; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Alden Bentley)

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.

How I feared chemo, afraid
It would change me.
It did.
Something dissolved inside me.
Tears began a slow drip;
I cried at the news story
Of a lost boy found in the woods …
At the surprising beauty
Of a bright leaf falling
Like the last strand of hair from my head

Ms. Potvin, now 47 and living in Derry, N.H., recently published “Sound Travels on Water” (Finishing Line Press), a collection of poems about her experience with cancer. And she has organized the Prickly Pear Poetry Project, a series of workshops for cancer patients.

“The creative process can be really healing,” Ms. Potvin said in an interview. “Loss, mortality and even hopefulness were on my mind, and I found that through writing poetry I was able to express some of those concepts in a way that helped me process what I was thinking.”

In April, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, whose members include both medical doctors and therapists, is to hold a conference in Chicago with sessions on using poetry to manage pain and to help adolescents cope with bullying. And this spring, Tasora Books will publish “The Cancer Poetry Project 2,” an anthology of poems written by patients and their loved ones.

Dr. Rafael Campo, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, says he uses poetry in his practice, offering therapy groups and including poems with the medical forms and educational materials he gives his patients.

“It’s always striking to me how they want to talk about the poems the next time we meet and not the other stuff I give them,” he said. “It’s such a visceral mode of expression. When our bodies betray us in such a profound way, it can be all the more powerful for patients to really use the rhythms of poetry to make sense of what is happening in their bodies.”

On return visits, Dr. Campo’s patients often begin by discussing a poem he gave them — for example, “At the Cancer Clinic,” by Ted Kooser, from his collection “Delights & Shadows” (Copper Canyon Press, 2004), about a nurse holding the door for a slow-moving patient.

How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

In Ms. Potvin’s case, poems related to her illness were often spurred by mundane moments, like seeing a neighbor out for a nightly walk. Here is “Tumor”:

My neighbor walks
For miles each night.
A mantra drives her, I imagine
As my boys’ chant did
The summer of my own illness:
“Push, Mommy, push.”
Urging me to wind my sore feet
Winch-like on a rented bike
To inch us home.
I couldn’t stop;
Couldn’t leave us
Miles from the end.

Karin Miller, 48, of Minneapolis, turned to poetry 15 years ago when her husband developed testicular cancer at the same time she was pregnant with their first child.

Her husband has since recovered, and Ms. Miller has reviewed thousands of poems by cancer patients and their loved ones to create the “Cancer Poetry Project” anthologies. One poem is “Hymn to a Lost Breast,” by Bonnie Maurer.

Oh let it fly
let it fling
let it flip like a pancake in the air
let it sing: what is the song
of one breast flapping?

Another is “Barn Wish” by Kim Knedler Hewett.

I sit where you can’t see me
Listening to the rustle of papers and pills in the other room,
Wondering if you can hear them.
Let’s go back to the barn, I whisper.
Let’s turn on the TV and watch the Bengals lose.
Let’s eat Bill’s Doughnuts and drink Pepsi.
Anything but this.

Ms. Miller has asked many of her poets to explain why they find poetry healing. “They say it’s the thing that lets them get to the core of how they are feeling,” she said. “It’s the simplicity of poetry, the bare bones of it, that helps them deal with their fears.”

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Have you written a poem about cancer? Please share them with us in the comments section below.

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DealBook: Dell Nears a Buyout Deal of More Than $23 Billion

Dell Inc. neared an agreement on Monday to sell itself to a group led by its founder and the investment firm Silver Lake for more than $23 billion, people briefed on the matter said, in what would be the biggest buyout since the financial crisis.

If completed, a takeover would be the most radical attempt yet by Michael S. Dell to revive the company that bears his name. Such is the size of the potential deal that Mr.
Dell has called upon Microsoft, one of his most important business partners, to shore up the proposal with additional financial muscle. The question will now turn to whether taking the personal computer maker private will accomplish what years of previous turnaround efforts have not.

The final details were being hammered out on Monday evening, and a deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday. Still, last-minute snags could cause the negotiations to collapse, the people briefed on the matter cautioned.

The consortium is expected to pay between $13.50 and $13.75 a share, these people said. Mr. Dell is expected to contribute his nearly 16 percent stake to the deal, worth about $3.8 billion under the current set of terms. He is also expected to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars in fresh capital from his own fortune.

Silver Lake would likely contribute roughly $1 billion, these people added. Microsoft is expected to put in about $2 billion, though that would likely come in the form of preferred shares or debt.

Dell is also expected to bring home some of the cash that is currently held in offshore accounts to help with the financing.

A spokesman for Dell declined to comment.

For decades, Dell benefited from its status as a pioneer in the market for personal computers. Founded in 1984 in a dormitory room at the University of Texas, the company grew into one of the biggest computer makers in the world, built on the simple premise that customers would flock to customize their machines.

By the late 1990s, its fast-rising stock created a company worth $100 billion and minted a class of “Dellionaires” whose holdings made for big fortunes, at least on paper. Mr. Dell himself amassed a fortune worth an estimated $16 billion and formed a quietly powerful investment firm to manage those riches.

But since then, growing competition has sapped Dell’s strength. Rivals like Lenovo and Samsung have made the PC-making business less profitable. Last month, the market research firm Gartner reported that Dell sold 37.6 million PCs worldwide in 2012, a 12.3 percent drop from the previous year’s shipments. Perhaps more significant is the emergence of the smartphone and the tablet, two classes of devices that have eaten away at sales of traditional computers.

Mr. Dell has sought to move the company into the more lucrative and stable business of providing corporations with software services, spending billions of dollars on acquisitions to lead that transformation. The aim is to refashion Dell into something more like I.B.M. or Oracle. Even so, manufacturing PCs still makes up half of the company’s business.

The company’s stock had fallen in 59 percent in the 10 years ended Jan. 13, the last business day before word of the buyout talks emerged. That has actually made Dell more tempting as a takeover target for its founder and Silver Lake, which see it as undervalued.

A Dell deal would be a watershed moment for the leveraged buyout industry: It would be the largest takeover since the Blackstone Group paid $25 billion for Hilton Hotels in the summer of 2007. No leveraged buyout since the financial crisis has surpassed the $7.2 billion that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and others paid for the Samson Investment company, an oil and gas driller, in the fall of 2011.

Private equity executives have hungered for the chance to strike a deal worth more than $10 billion, an accomplishment believed difficult because of the sheer size of financing required. Dell will take on more than $15 billion in debt, an enormous amount arranged by no fewer than four banks.

Leading the charge for Dell is Silver Lake, known as one of the biggest investors in technology companies.

But the debt markets have been soaring over the past two years, as the cost of junk bonds has stayed low. Persistent low interest rates has prompted debt buyers to seek investments that carry higher yields

Dell was unusually well-placed to make a deal with private equity. The company carries $4.9 billion in long-term debt, which some analysts have regarded as a manageable amount. And its management has signaled a willingness to bring back at least some of the company’s cash horde that is held overseas, despite potentially ringing up a hefty tax bill.

And then there is the matter of Mr. Dell’s stake. Advisers to Dell have taken pains to structure the transaction to avoid the potential conflicts of interest involved in a chief executive taking his company private, the people briefed on the matter said.

A special committee of Dell’s board has hired an independent investment bank, Evercore Partners, as an adviser who will seek out alternative takeover bids.
It is unclear whether the company’s biggest investors will accept a deal at the levels that the buyer consortium is advocating. Shares of Dell fell 2.6 percent, to $13.27, on Monday after reports of the proposed price range emerged.

Still, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, A. M. Sacconaghi, wrote in a research note last month that he believed Mr. Dell was likely to succeed in at least taking the company private.

“Net net, we believe that if a deal goes to a shareholder vote it will likely be approved,” he wrote — cautioning that victory is dependent on activist investors not clamoring for a significantly higher price.

But going private may not solve all of the company’s problems. Mr. Sacconaghi said that a leveraged buyout makes sense so long as Dell is able to stanch bleeding in its PC business and bring back some of its overseas cash over time.

The bigger question is whether Mr. Dell will undertake more drastic changes at the company once it is away from the glare of the public markets. Analysts at Barclays wrote last month that shedding unattractive businesses, like its consumer PC arm, would make a take-private more attractive.

Absent big moves, the strain of the additional debt could starve Dell of the cash it needs to tackle additional acquisitions to complete its transformation into an enterprise software company.

Biggest Private Equity-Backed Leveraged Buyouts

DEAL, IN BILLIONS	TARGET	BUYER	ANNOUNCED
Source: Thomson Reuters *At time of deal, including assumption of debt, not adjusted for inflation.
$44.3	TXU	Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs	February 2007
37.7	Equity Office Properties Trust	Blackstone Group	November 2006
32.1	HCA	Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Merrill Lynch Global Private	July 2006
30.2	RJR Nabisco	Kohlberg Kravis Roberts	October 1988
30.1	BAA	Grupo Ferrovial SA, Caisse de Depot et Placement and GIC Special Invest	March 2006
27.6	Harrah’s Entertainment	Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Management	October 2006
27.4	Kinder Morgan	GS Capital Partners, The Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings	May 2006
27.2	Alltel	TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners	May 2007
27.0	First Data	Kohlberg Kravis Roberts	April 2007
26.7	Hilton Hotels	Blackstone Group	July 2007

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Medical clinic workers struggle with burnout

Every day after work, Sandeep Lehil changes out of her lab coat and blue scrubs and sits cross-legged on a large, black pillow in her airy, quiet Los Feliz apartment. She takes two deep breaths and tries not to think about the patients she so desperately wants to help.

She pushes out thoughts of the man with heart problems who left her exam room in an ambulance. And the patient who walked out when she told him his tests indicated he could have HIV. And the woman who Lehil fears is addicted to pain pills.

"Meditation is the only thing that keeps me sane," said Lehil, a nurse practitioner in South Los Angeles. "It's like clearing your head of the anxieties and troubles you've had that day."

Lehil, 28, and others like her at community clinics throughout the U.S. are key players in the push to lower the nation's healthcare spending. They conduct physicals, refill medications and manage chronic diseases for low-income patients, providing the care necessary to keep them from requiring more costly medical treatment.

The jobs are demanding — providers spend long hours treating patients who have multiple chronic illnesses and often have gone years without care. Administrators have trouble finding enough doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants to staff their clinics.

That is expected to cause a major roadblock next year, when the bulk of the national healthcare reform law takes effect, aiming to help 30 million uninsured Americans gain coverage. In preparation, clinics — expected to get an influx of new patients — are stepping up recruitment and trying to hold on to the care providers they have. But burnout is common, and staff members often leave for less-stressful, higher-paying positions elsewhere.

"The workforce shortage is certainly one of the top challenges we are facing currently, and the expansion hasn't even occurred yet," said Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president of the California Primary Care Assn., which represents community clinics.

Lehil graduated in May from Johns Hopkins University with a master's degree in nursing and an idealistic goal: to make a difference in a medically underserved community. In July she started as a nurse practitioner at T.H.E. Clinic, a community health center in South Los Angeles.

Lehil said the work is fulfilling but draining, and busier than she ever could have anticipated. By the end of the week, she said, "it's almost like running on empty."

T.H.E. Clinic has eight full-time providers but needs 11. There are ongoing advertisements, and the clinic is "constantly fighting" for family practice providers, often competing with nearby centers, said human resources director Lilia Marin-Alvarez. To find new clinicians, T.H.E. Clinic and others rely heavily on the National Health Service Corps, which offers scholarships and loan repayment for those willing to work in underserved areas.

While still in school, Lehil saw an ad for T.H.E. Clinic. The name — To Help Everyone — immediately appealed to her. Lehil interviewed and, soon after, accepted a job offer. Now, Marin-Alvarez said she just has to make sure Lehil stays.

Lehil speaks quickly and walks with purpose. She wears Crocs, red-rimmed glasses and a loose ponytail, and she has several tattoos, including the infinity sign on her wrist and a flock of birds on her back. A stethoscope rests on her neck and two silver bangles on her wrist.

Raised in a tight-knit, professional Indian family in San Jose, Lehil attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate and majored in public health. Her parents wanted her to be a doctor, but she decided to become a nurse practitioner, in part because medical school would have taken too long.

When Lehil started working at T.H.E. Clinic, she wondered how she could possibly see two dozen or more patients in a day. "It's not like they have one thing wrong with them," she said.

She took the time she needed, but it resulted in longer waits. When her patients became frustrated, Lehil just apologized and smiled.

During the first few weeks, she left each Friday with a dull headache, which she tried to shake off before Monday morning. To better manage the stress, Lehil started meditating an hour a day, at home and at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. She also moved to Los Feliz so she could take walks in Griffith Park in her free time.

On a Tuesday in the fall, Lehil arrives at work before 8 a.m. so she can get a head start on reviewing lab results and medications for the patients she expects to see that day. Hand sanitizer, a bottle of water and a clipboard filled with papers sit on her desk. She picks up a thermos and takes a sip. She wants to switch to green tea, but not today. She has 15 patients scheduled for this morning and 12 others this afternoon. "Today's a black tea day," she said.

For 10 hours, she moves quickly from one patient to the next, starting every visit the same way: "Hi, I'm Sandeep. I'm here to help you."

To save time each day, Lehil starts triaging, addressing her patients' most urgent health issues and saving the others for future visits. This morning, Mitchell Chambers, an expressive and friendly man, has come to see her. He has high blood pressure, is at risk for diabetes and has undergone open heart and gastric bypass surgeries. She notes all of it in his chart but focuses on one thing: his high cholesterol, which hasn't been treated.

She hands him a flier about nutrition and urges him to stop smoking and start exercising. She also writes him a prescription. Chambers, 50, makes a thumbs-up sign and promises to try to follow her instructions. "I'm in your hands," he says.

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Wheatley Crater on Venus

Magellan radar image of Wheatley crater on Venus. This 72 km diameter crater shows a radar bright ejecta pattern and a generally flat floor with some rough raised areas and faulting. The crater is located in Asteria Regio at 16.6N,267E.

Image: NASA/GSFC [high-resolution]

Caption: NASA

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Keys sings national anthem on piano at Super Bowl

Alicia Keys performed a lounge-y, piano-tinged — and live — version of the national anthem ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday.

The Grammy-winning singer played the piano as she sang “The Star Spangled Banner” in a long red dress with her eyes shut. Her publicist said the performance was live, days after halftime performer Beyonce admitted singing along to a prerecorded track at the Inauguration.

Keys’ version was soft and featured additional lyrics: She added “living in the home” before belting “home of the brave” as she finished the song.

Before Keys hit the field, Jennifer Hudson performed “America the Beautiful” with the 26-member Sandy Hook Elementary School chorus, a performance that had some players on the sideline on the verge of tears.

The students wore green ribbons on their shirts in honor of the 20 first-graders and six adults who were killed in a Dec. 14 shooting rampage at the school in Newton, Conn.

The students began the song softly before Hudson, whose mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew were shot to death five years ago, jumped in with her gospel-flavored vocals. She stood still in black and white as the students moved to the left and right, singing background.

Keys and Hudson warmed up the field for Beyonce, who is set to perform at the half-time show.

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Matt Eich for The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 3, 2013

An earlier version of a quote appearing with the home page presentation of this article misspelled the name of a medication. It is Adderall, not Aderall.

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Teen Vogue, a Survivor at 10 Years

Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Amy Astley, the editor in chief of Teen Vogue, said her readers are sophisticated young women interested in the fashion world.

After a long day of classes, homework and college preparation, Susannah Davies, a 17-year-old high school junior, takes a break by flipping through her print copy of Teen Vogue, the fashion magazine she has subscribed to since the sixth grade.

According to fourth-quarter data from the Publisher’s Information Bureau, Teen Vogue’s advertising pages rose by 8.3 percent compared with the same period the year before.

She reads articles on topics like how to handle “crazy, poofy” hair, how to pair denim vests with leggings and leather boots, and the stress of applying to college. She enters contests to win clothes and rips out photos of models to make collages to hang in her room and post on Instagram.

“Teen Vogue really hits the spot of what teenagers are concerned about,” Ms. Davies said. “I look to be inspired.”

As Teen Vogue releases its 10th anniversary March issue just in time for Fashion Week, it is celebrating not just a milestone, but readers like Ms. Davies, who have remained loyal during a decade when other, often well-financed teenage magazines largely disappeared.

The few magazines left are trying to draw from a pool of teenage readers who grew up devouring media digitally and whose appetite for celebrity news has shifted their attention away from conventional teenage titles.

Like many magazines, Teen Vogue, published by Condé Nast, has weathered shrinking newsstand sales, which are half what they were when the magazine began. It also remains behind Seventeen, which has double the circulation, and according to the youth research firm TRU, is the most read magazine and most visited Web site for teenagers.

But Teen Vogue has established a following among fashion-conscious teenagers eager to study what brands the Obama daughters are wearing and to collect the magazine’s covers, which feature the likes of the boy band One Direction. These readers are providing the magazine solid profits in an otherwise declining magazine market.

According to fourth-quarter data from the Publisher’s Information Bureau, Teen Vogue’s advertising pages rose by 8.3 percent compared with the same period the year before. Its pages are filled with fashion advertisers as economically diverse as Louis Vuitton and Aeropostale. During the same time, Vogue’s advertising pages rose by only 0.3 percent and magazines over all saw advertising pages decline by 7.2 percent.

Over the last decade, Teen Vogue has outlasted YM, Elle Girl, Teen People, Cosmo Girl! and Teen, which all folded. While Teen Vogue’s total circulation remains down from its peak of 1.5 million in 2005, according to Alliance for Audited Media, it has hovered at slightly over one million for the last five years. Magazine industry experts say that’s notable because its editors are catering to a readership with a narrow age range that outgrows the magazine every few years.

“It’s always been such a volatile market because your audience morphs so rapidly,” said John Harrington, an industry consultant.

Teen Vogue was introduced when many magazine publishers were trying to appeal to the children of baby boomers entering their teen years.

Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, had been inspired by her own teenage daughter’s take on fashion and asked Amy Astley, the magazine’s beauty director at the time, to design some test issues of a teenage version of Vogue.

Ms. Astley, the mother of daughters ages 10 and 13, became the editor in chief of the new magazine, and learned early on that Teen Vogue attracted what she described as “an audience of sophisticated young women who wanted to see fashion presented in a way not seen in other magazines.”

Ms. Astley said she was quickly flooded with questions on what she described as “evergreen issues” — like trying to be perfect, sibling rivalries and critical mothers. She also realized how much her readers wanted to connect with the brand and how much information they wanted about how to break into the fashion industry.

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