Recipes for Health: Red Cabbage, Carrot and Broccoli Stem Latkes — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I love finding things to do with broccoli stems. I find that allowing the cabbage mixture to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before forming the latkes allows the cabbage to soften a bit, and the latkes hold together better.

5 cups shredded red cabbage

1/2 pound carrots, shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 1/2 cups shredded peeled broccoli stems

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

2 teaspoons caraway seeds

1 teaspoon baking powder

Salt to taste

3 tablespoons oat bran

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cornmeal

2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

3 eggs, beaten

About 1/4 cup canola, grape seed or rice bran oil

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment and place a rack over another sheet pan.

2. In a large bowl mix together the shredded cabbage, carrots, broccoli stems, baking powder, sesame seeds, caraway seeds, salt, oat bran, flour, cornmeal and buckwheat flour. Taste and adjust salt. Add the eggs and stir together. Let the mixture sit for 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Begin heating a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Take a 1/4 cup measuring cup and fill with 3 tablespoons of the mixture. Reverse onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining latke mix. You should have enough to make about 30 latkes.

4. Add the oil to the pan and heat for 3 minutes or until hot. When it is hot (hold your hand a few inches above – you should feel the heat), slide a spatula under one portion of the latke mixture and transfer it to the pan. Press down with the spatula to flatten. Repeat with more mounds. In my 10-inch pan I can cook four at a time without crowding; my 12-inch pan will accommodate four or five. Cook on one side until golden brown, about four to five minutes. Slide the spatula underneath and flip the latkes over. Cook on the other side until golden brown, another two to three minutes. Transfer to the rack set over a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm.

5. Serve hot topped with low-fat sour cream, Greek yogurt or crème fraîche.

Yield: about 30 latkes, serving 6

Advance preparation: You can prep the ingredients and combine everything except the eggs and salt several hour ahead. Refrigerate in a large bowl. Do not add salt until you are ready to cook, or the mixture will become too watery, as salt draws the water out of the vegetables.

Nutritional information per serving: 226 calories; 14 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 4 grams polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 93 milligrams cholesterol; 20 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 151 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 7 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Degrees of Debt: Colleges’ Debt Falls on Students After Construction Binges

John Freidah for The New York Times

Harvard University continues to expand its Allston campus as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to maintain its position atop the academic heap.

Some call it the Edifice Complex. Others have named it the Law of More, or the Taj Mahal syndrome.

A decade-long spending binge to build academic buildings, dormitories and recreational facilities — some of them inordinately lavish to attract students — has left colleges and universities saddled with large amounts of debt. Oftentimes, students are stuck picking up the bill.

Overall debt levels more than doubled from 2000 to 2011 at the more than 500 institutions rated by Moody’s, according to inflation-adjusted data compiled for The New York Times by the credit rating agency. In the same time, the amount of cash, pledged gifts and investments that colleges maintain declined more than 40 percent relative to the amount they owe.

With revenue pinched at institutions big and small, financial experts and college officials are sounding alarms about the consequences of the spending and borrowing. Last month, Harvard University officials warned of “rapid, disorienting change” at colleges and universities.

“The need for change in higher education is clear given the emerging disconnect between ever-increasing aspirations and universities’ ability to generate the new resources to finance them,” said an unusually sobering introduction to Harvard’s annual report for the fiscal year ended in June.

The debate about indebtedness has focused on students and graduates who have borrowed tens of thousands of dollars and are struggling to keep up with their payments. Nearly one in every six borrowers with a student loan balance is in default.

But some colleges and universities have also borrowed heavily, spending money on vast expansions and amenities aimed at luring better students: student unions with movie theaters and wine bars; workout facilities with climbing walls and “lazy rivers”; and dormitories with single rooms and private baths. Spending on instruction has grown at a much slower pace, studies have shown. Students end up covering some, if not most, of the debt payments in the form of higher tuition, room and board and special assessments, while in some instances state taxpayers pick up the costs.

Debt has ballooned at colleges across the board — public and private, elite and obscure. While Harvard is the wealthiest university in the country, it also has $6 billion in debt, the most of any private college, the data compiled by Moody’s shows.

At the Juilliard School, which completed a major renovation a few years ago, debt climbed to $195 million last year, from $6 million in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2002. At Miami University, a public institution in Ohio that is overhauling its dormitories and student union, debt rose to $326 million in 2011, from $66 million in 2002, and at New York University, which has embarked on an ambitious expansion, debt was $2.8 billion in 2011, up from $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the Moody’s data.

The pile of debt — $205 billion outstanding in 2011 at the colleges rated by Moody’s — comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in academia. After years of robust growth, enrollment is flat or declining at many institutions, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. With outstanding student debt exceeding $1 trillion, students and their parents are questioning the cost and value of college. And online courses threaten to upend the traditional collegiate experience and payment model.

At the same time, the financial crisis and recession created a new and sometimes harrowing financial calculus. Traditional sources of revenue like tuition, state appropriations and endowment returns continue to be squeezed, even as the costs of labor, health care for employees, technology and interest on debt have generally increased.

Students are requiring more and more financial aid, a trend that many believe is unsustainable for all but the wealthiest institutions.

“We’ve had a lot more downgrades than upgrades in the last five years,” said John C. Nelson, managing director of the higher education and health care practice at Moody’s, which has a negative outlook on all but the top state universities and private schools. “There is going to be a thinning out of the ranks.”

For now, the worst financial struggles are confined to stand-alone professional schools and small, tuition-dependent private colleges. For instance, $63 million in debt has left Mount St. Mary’s University, a small Roman Catholic college in Maryland, with thin financial resources and junk-rated credit, according to a Moody’s rating in March.

“We borrowed a lot of money, but we had no choice,” said Thomas H. Powell, the university’s president, who maintains, despite the credit rating, that it has regained its footing and has no need for additional debt. “I wasn’t going to watch the buildings fall down.”

Almost no one is predicting colleges will experience default rates on par with those of indebted students and graduates, at least not anytime soon. While payments on debt principal and interest have increased over all, they remain a manageable piece of the expense pie for most institutions, partly because of historically low interest rates, financial analysts said.

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IHT Special: Internet-Driven Fame and Fortune for Mideast Comedians

DUBAI — While the world watched the demise of Egypt’s political leadership last year, some Egyptians were tuning online to YouTube clips lampooning the Egyptian state channel’s fumbling version of the events.

In early 2011, Bassem Youssef began filming clips in his laundry room to provide comic relief amid a crumbling political situation in his home country. His work struck a chord with a wide audience. A year and tens of millions of views later, Mr. Youssef — a heart surgeon by profession — is now the host of Egypt’s first live political satire show on television.

His bold show — modeled after Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” — tackles topics that were once taboo under the regime of the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, including political corruption and religious extremism.

Money has been quick to follow the success. At one point, he received financial backing from the Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris while his show aired on ONtv, a liberal Egyptian channel. Since then, the show “El Bernameg,” meaning “The Program” in Arabic, has moved to CBC, another Egyptian channel with a wider audience, airing an episode every Friday. It has secured sponsors and a brand-new venue.

“We were always afraid, and when we started, there were always problems with the military, because we use satire and humor as stinging weapons of truth,” Mr. Youssef said via a Skype call from Cairo.

“We’re doing something right because now we get bigger budgets that have gone to renovating the theater where we film and to our researchers and writers,” he said.

When he appeared as a guest on “The Daily Show” this year, Mr. Youssef said there was more money in comedy than in cardiology. It seemed like a joke, but similar examples of Internet-driven fame and fortune are cropping up across the region, from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates, as political satire and sophisticated forms of comedy turn into widely watched and profitable entertainment.

“Stand-up content is what feeds into movies, talk shows and witty sitcoms,” said Jamil Abu-Wardeh, managing director of J.A.W. Media, a creative agency that produces original content for Web, television and stage, and founder of www.standub.com, a resource for all things funny in the region.

Mr. Abu-Wardeh also produced the Axis of Evil comedy tour, which introduced stand-up comedy to the Middle East.

“Stand-up comedy is evolving into a real industry today,” he said.

Comedy has always had a role in Arab entertainment. Egyptian and Kuwaiti theater plays were the most popular — featuring popular actors. Slapstick sketches dominated television comedy.

Since being introduced by the Axis tour and Mr. Abu-Wardeh’s team, a stand-up culture featuring a quick-witted comic on stage with a microphone, slowly evolved and gave rise to the variety now seen in the region today, including political satire.

This shift happened in parallel with the rise of YouTube over the past several years, giving audiences the opportunity to choose between entertainment programmed by broadcasters on television and unknown funny clips by random people online.

The changes have penetrated even the most conservative countries. While experimenting with small, local stand-up events in Saudi Arabia, Fahad Albutairi and his producer, Ibraheem al-Khairallah, began a YouTube channel called La Yekthar last year, on which they posted satirical clips.

They created an alligator mascot that has become a branding tool. Millions of views online led to ticketed events, and eventually, the team started a full-fledged video and events production company called Luxury Events KSA. Mr. Khairallah, whose day job is in advertising, managed to convince the telecommunications operator Mobily to sponsor a full month of comedy events.

Now, soft drink and electronics brands want to be in their coveted “presenting sponsor” slots. Comedy is winning a big chunk of the audience. Statistics from Argaam.com, which is an online statistics portal with data on different sectors, including media and stock markets, show that comedy attracts an average of 40 percent of the four million Saudi YouTube views per day.

Comedy has become a serious business.

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U.S. federal agency to test RIM’s BlackBerry 10

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion said a U.S. federal agency, which recently outlined plans to move away from BlackBerry in favor of Apple Inc’s iPhone, is now set to begin testing RIM‘s new BlackBerry 10 platform and devices.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), will early next year begin a pilot program on RIM’s new line of BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10), which allows corporations and government users to run the new devices on their networks, a RIM spokeswoman said late on Wednesday.

The news, which comes just as shares of the embattled company rallied to their highest close in seven months, signals that RIM’s BlackBerry 10 platform is gaining some traction ahead of its official launch next month.

RIM, a one-time pioneer in the smartphone industry, has lost market share in recent years to the iPhone and devices powered by Google Inc’s market-leading Android operating system, even among the business audience who once used BlackBerry devices exclusively.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM is now seeking to persuade both corporations and government users to stick with its smartphones, which have long been valued for their strong security features. It promises that its new line of devices, which will be powered by the BlackBerry 10 operating system, will be both smoother and faster than previous BlackBerry phones.

RIM is betting that these new devices – to be launched on January 30 – will revive its fortunes. But that may well depend to a large extent on the response from enterprise customers, many of whom have recently begun to flee to rival platforms.

ICE is one such example. The agency, in October, announced plans to end a long relationship with RIM, stating that its now aging line-up of BlackBerry devices could “no longer meet the mobile technology needs of the agency.

At the time, ICE outlined intentions to buy iPhones for more than 17,600 employees. It is not immediately clear whether the agency plans to revisit this plan or whether its intends to use RIM’s new BES 10 platform to manage both iPhones and BlackBerry devices. A spokeswoman for the agency was not immediately able to comment on the pilot program or the agency’s plans.

SHARES SURGE

The news comes soon after yet another rally in RIM shares on Wednesday, after Eric Jackson – a long-time bear on RIM’s stock – penned an opinion piece on his now bullish stance on the company.

Jackson, the founder of Ironfire Capital, in his piece, said parallels drawn by some analysts between RIM and its now-defunct rival Palm are flawed, as Palm never had the kind of installed subscriber base that RIM enjoys.

In his article, published on Wednesday on the TheStreet.com, Jackson contends that RIM’s new BlackBerry 10 devices have much better odds of success than Palm’s Pre device, which failed to capture a following despite positive reviews on the device and its operating system.

Jackson, who was short RIM’s stock for an extended period, argues that the positive sentiment building in RIM’s stock ahead of the launch of the make-or-break line of devices is unlikely to dissipate in a hurry, as a large portion of RIM’s 80 million subscribers are likely to upgrade to BB10 when the new devices are launched. Jackson said he now has a long position in RIM.

Shares in the company rose 5.6 percent to close at $ 13.31 on the Nasdaq – their highest close since May 1. Its Toronto-listed shares rose 5.8 percent to close at C$ 13.14.

The stock has more than doubled in price since September 24, when the shares were trading slightly above the $ 6 level in both New York and Toronto. The wave of optimism around BB10 has in recent weeks been bolstered by a number of analyst upgrades on the stock.

(Editing by Dan Grebler and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Williams testified he wanted to stop bounties

Former New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams testified that he tried to shut down the team's bounty system when the NFL began investigating but was overruled by interim Saints head coach Joe Vitt, according to transcripts from appeals hearings obtained by The Associated Press.

According to the transcripts, Williams said that then-assistant Vitt responded to a suggestion that the pay-for-pain setup be abandoned with an obscenity-filled speech about how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "wasn't going to ... tell us to ... stop doing what won us the Super Bowl. This has been going on in the ... National Football League forever, and it will go on here forever, when they run (me) out of there, it will still go on."

Williams and Vitt were among a number of witnesses whose testimony was heard by former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who on Tuesday overturned four player suspensions in the case. Tagliabue was appointed by Goodell to handle the final round of appeals. The AP obtained transcripts of Tagliabue's closed-door hearings through a person with a role in the case.

Vitt was a Saints assistant who was banned for six games for his part in the scandal but now is filling in for head coach Sean Payton, who was suspended for the entire season. Williams was suspended indefinitely by Goodell. Others who testified included former defensive assistant Mike Cerullo, the initial whistleblower and considered a key NFL witness.

Transcripts portray the former coaching colleagues, all part of the Saints' 2010 Super Bowl championship, as bitterly disagreeing with one another and occasionally contradicting how the NFL depicted the bounty system.

Vitt, Williams and Cerullo appeared separately before Tagliabue and were questioned by lawyers for the NFL and lawyers representing the players originally suspended by Goodell: Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith, Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.

Tagliabue's ruling found that "Saints' coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation. ..."

The transcripts, which could be entered as evidence in Vilma's pending defamation case against Goodell, include numerous testy, and sometimes humorous, exchanges between witnesses and attorneys — and between Tagliabue and the attorneys.

Offering to take a lie detector test, Vitt challenged versions given by Williams and Cerullo. Vitt vowed to sue Cerullo and described Williams as "narcissistic." He referred to both as disgruntled former employees who were fired, even though, publicly, the Saints said Williams' departure for St. Louis was by mutual agreement. Vitt depicted Cerullo as incompetent and said he missed work numerous times and offered bizarre, fabricated excuses for his absences.

Vitt was asked whether he oversaw Cerullo's attempts to destroy evidence related to bounties, which the NFL determined the Saints sanctioned from 2009 to 2011, with thousands of dollars offered for hits that injured opponents and knocked them out of games.

"No. The answer is no," Vitt said. "Cerullo is an idiot."

Williams referred to the case as "somewhat of a witch hunt." He said he wants to coach in the NFL again, "took responsibility so that nobody else had to," and that Vilma has "been made a scapegoat."

Williams stood by his earlier sworn statement that Vilma pledged a $10,000 bounty on quarterback Brett Favre in the Saints' game against the Minnesota Vikings for the NFC championship. But Williams also said that the performance pool he ran was aimed at team bonding, not bounties, and that he saw a difference between asking players to hit hard legally, which he said he did, and asking them to purposely injure an opponent, which he said no one in the organization condoned.

"The game is about a mental toughness on top of a physical toughness," Williams testified at one point. "You know, it's not golf."

Williams, however, acknowledged he suggested Favre should be knocked out of the game.

"We want to play tough, hard-nosed football and look to get ready to play against the next guy. ... Brett is a friend of mine, and so that's just part of this business," Williams said. "You know, at no time, you know, are we looking to try to end anybody's career."

Williams described player pledges to the pool as "nominal" and said they rarely kept the money they earned, either putting it back in the pool or offering it as tips to equipment personnel. In the case of the large amounts pledged during the playoffs, Williams described it as "air" or "funny money" or "banter," adding that he never actually saw any cash collected or distributed and had no idea what would have happened to the money if Cerullo collected it.

Cerullo testified that league investigators misrepresented what he told them, and that, during the playoffs following the 2009 regular season, he kept track of large playoff pledges on note pads but didn't collect the money.

Cerullo said hits for cash started with Williams telling the staff that "Sean kind of put him in charge of bringing back a swagger to the defense ... so he wanted to brainstorm with us as coaches what we thought we could do. ... At one point in one of those meetings, Joe Vitt suggested (his previous teams) had a pay-for-play, pay-for-incentive program that the guys kind of bought into and kind of had fun with, and, you know, that was his suggestion. At that point, Gregg also admitted that other places he was at, they had the same type of thing. And at that point, Gregg kind of ran with it."

Cerullo described pregame meetings during the playoffs, when the Saints faced quarterback Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals and then Favre.

He said Vitt told players Warner "should have been retired" and "we're going to end the career tomorrow of Kurt Warner." Cerullo also quoted Vitt as saying of Favre: "That old man should have retired when I was there. Is he retiring, isn't he retiring — that whole (thing) is over, you know, tomorrow. ... We'll end the career tomorrow. We'll force him to retire. ..."

Cerullo testified that, once word came that the NFL was investigating, Williams told him to delete computer files about bounty amounts and that Vitt checked on his progress.

Asked what motivated him to come forward as a whistleblower with an email to the league in November 2011, Cerullo replied: "I was angry for being let go from the Saints."

Later, he testified: "I was angry at Joe Vitt, and I wanted to show that I was fired for lying and I witnessed Joe Vitt lying and he still had a job. So, that was my goal of reaching out to the NFL."

The transcripts also portray Tagliabue's command of the proceedings, including his efforts to rein in the lawyers.

"I'm going to intervene much more significantly, going forward," Tagliabue interjected at one point, "because I am extremely concerned that this is getting to be cumulative, confusing and useless, and I do not preside over proceedings that are cumulative, confusing and useless."

There also were lighter moments, such as when Tagliabue announced: "I thought I was going to get through this proceeding only by drinking coffee. I'm getting to the point where I need a Bloody Mary."

___

Connect with Brett Martel on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brettmartel

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

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Recipes for Health: Cabbage, Carrot and Purple Kale Latkes — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

These latkes are nutrient-dense, packed with health promoting sulfur compounds as well as vitamins K, A, C, and manganese, tryptophan, calcium, copper, vitamin B6, iron, and potassium. In order for this mix to hold together it requires a little more egg and flour; I use a combination of cornmeal, all-purpose and buckwheat.

5 cups finely shredded cabbage (about 1 1/4 pounds, or half of a small cabbage)

2 cups finely chopped purple kale or curly green kale

7 to 8 ounces carrots, peeled and grated (about 1 1/2 cups)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 serrano chili, seeded and minced

1 teaspoon baking powder

Salt to taste

2 teaspoons cumin seeds, lightly toasted and coarsely ground or crushed

3 tablespoons oat bran

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cornmeal

2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

3 eggs, beaten

About 1/4 cup canola, grape seed or rice bran oil

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment. Place a rack over another sheet pan.

2. In a large bowl mix together the cabbage, kale, cilantro, chili, baking powder, salt, cumin, oat bran, flour, cornmeal and buckwheat flour. Taste and adjust salt. Add the eggs and stir together. Let the mixture sit for 10 to 15 minutes, then stir again.

3. Begin heating a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Take a 1/4 cup measuring cup and fill with 3 tablespoons of the mixture. Reverse onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining latke mix. You should have enough to make about 20 latkes.

4. Add the oil to the pan and when it is hot (hold your hand a few inches above – you should feel the heat), slide a spatula under one portion of the latke mixture and transfer it to the pan. Press down with the spatula to flatten. Repeat with more mounds. In my 10-inch pan I can cook four at a time without crowding; my 12-inch pan will accommodate four or five. Cook on one side until golden brown, about three to four minutes. Slide the spatula underneath and flip the latkes over. Cook on the other side until golden brown, another three minutes. Transfer to the rack set over a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm.

5. Serve hot topped with low-fat sour cream, Greek style yogurt or crème fraîche.

Yield: About 30 latkes, serving 6

Advance preparation: You can prep the ingredients and combine everything except the eggs and salt several hour ahead. Refrigerate in a large bowl. Do not add salt until you are ready to cook, or the mixture will become too watery as salt draws the water out of the vegetables.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 206 calories; 13 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 93 milligrams cholesterol; 20 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 148 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 7 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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U.S. Will Recognize Syrian Rebels, Obama Says

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Tuesday that the United States would formally recognize a coalition of Syrian opposition groups as that country’s legitimate representative, in an attempt to intensify the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to give up his nearly two-year bloody struggle to stay in power.

Manu Brabo/Associated Press

Opposition fighters looked at a Syrian Army jet on Tuesday.

Mr. Obama’s announcement, in an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News on the eve of a meeting in Morocco of the Syrian opposition leaders and their supporters, was widely expected.

But it marks a new phase of American engagement in a bitter conflict that has claimed at least 40,000 lives, threatened to destabilize the broader Middle East and defied all outside attempts to end it. The United States had for much of the civil war largely sat on the sidelines, only recently moving more energetically as it appeared the opposition fighters were beginning to gain momentum — and radical Islamists were playing a growing role.

Experts and many Syrians, including rebels, say the move may well be too little, too late. They note that it is not at all clear if this group will be able to coalesce into a viable leadership, if it has any influence over the fighters waging war with the government or if it can roll back widespread anger at the United States.

“The recognition is designed as a political shot in the arm for the opposition,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow and Syrian expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But it’s happening in the context of resentment among the Syrian opposition, especially armed elements, of the White House’s lack of assistance during the Syrian people’s hour of need. This is especially true among armed groups.”

The announcement puts Washington’s political imprimatur on a once-disparate band of opposition groups, which have begun to coalesce under pressure from the United States and its allies, to develop what American officials say is a credible transitional plan to govern Syria if Mr. Assad is forced out.

Moreover, it draws an even sharper line between those elements of the opposition that the United States champions and those it rejects. The Obama administration coupled its recognition with the designation hours earlier of a militant Syrian rebel group, the Nusra Front, as a foreign terrorist organization, affiliated with Al Qaeda.

“Not everybody who is participating on the ground in fighting Assad are people that we are comfortable with,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on the ABC program “20/20.” “There are some who I think have adopted an extremist agenda, an anti-U.S. agenda.”

But Mr. Obama praised the opposition, known formally as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, for what he said was its inclusiveness, its openness to various ethnic and religious groups, and its ties to local councils involved in the fighting against Mr. Assad’s security forces.

“At this point we have a well-organized-enough coalition — opposition coalition that is representative — that we can recognize them as the legitimate representative of Syrian people,” he said.

The United States is not the first to make this step. Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council have also recognized the Syrian opposition group. But experts note that the support has done nothing to change the military equation inside Syria, where Mr. Assad has stubbornly clung to power despite gains by rebel fighters. Mr. Assad continues to rely on air power and artillery to pummel rebel positions even as fighting has spread into his stronghold of Damascus.

Mr. Obama notably did not commit himself to providing arms to the rebels or to supporting them militarily with airstrikes or the establishment of a no-fly zone, a stance that has led to a rise of anti-American sentiment among many of the rebels.

That is the kind of half-step that has led to mounting frustration in Syria, peaking this week with the blacklisting of the Nusra Front. Far from isolating the group, interviews with Syrian rebels and activists show, it has for now appeared to do the opposite. It has united a broad spectrum of the opposition — from Islamist fighters to liberal and nonviolent activists who fervently oppose them — in anger and exasperation with the United States.

The United States has played an active role behind the scenes in shaping the opposition, insisting that it be broadened and made more inclusive. But until Mr. Obama’s announcement, the United States had held off on formally recognizing the opposition, asserting that it wanted to use the lure of recognition to encourage the rebel leaders to flesh out their political structure and fill important posts.

Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon. Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut.

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Proper jailbreak for iOS 6 reportedly coming December 22nd

The speed at which a jailbreak for a new iOS device is released has slowed down considerably over the last few years. A tethered jailbreak  for devices running iOS 6 has been out September, but most people have been holding out for the untethered version – a hack that doesn’t erase everything upon reboot. A new jailbreak developer called “Dream JB” claims he will release a proper untethered jailbreak for devices running iOS 6 or 6.0.1 including the iPhone 5, iPad mini and iPad 4 on December 22nd. Dream JB also promises to release a video on Wednesday as proof. According to his website’s FAQ page, the jailbreak will be a one-click process and will differ from previous jailbreak methods in the past by using a prepared “Webkit exploit” and “userland exploit.” After it’s all done, Cydia, the App Store’s alternative for jailbroken smartphones, can be installed on the device. Unfortunately, the jailbreak won’t support Apple TV boxes.

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Saints' suspensions tossed out in bounty case

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Finding fault with nearly everyone tied to the New Orleans Saints' bounty case, from the coaches to Roger Goodell, former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue tossed out the suspensions of four players Tuesday and condemned the team for obstructing the investigation.

In a surprising rejection of his successor's overreaching punishments, Tagliabue wrote that he would "now vacate all discipline to be imposed upon" two current Saints, linebacker Jonathan Vilma and defensive end Will Smith, and two players no longer with the club, Browns linebacker Scott Fujita and free-agent defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove.

Tagliabue essentially absolved Fujita, but did agree with Goodell's finding that the other three players "engaged in conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the game of professional football."

It was a ruling that allowed both sides to claim victory more than nine months after the league first made "Saints bounties" a household phrase: The NFL pointed to the determination that Goodell's facts were right; the NFL Players Association issued a statement noting that Tagliabue said "previously issued discipline was inappropriate."

Vilma, suspended by Goodell for the entire current season, and Smith, suspended four games, have been playing for the Saints while their appeals were pending. Fujita is on injured reserve; Hargrove is not with a team.

Tagliabue, appointed by Goodell to oversee a second round of player appeals, criticized the Saints as an organization that fostered bad behavior and tried to impede the investigation into what the NFL said was a performance pool designed to knock targeted opponents out of games from 2009 to 2011, with thousands of dollars in payouts.

A "culture" that promoted tough talk and cash incentives for hits to injure opponents — one key example was Vilma's offer of $10,000 to any teammate who knocked Brett Favre out of the NFC championship game at the end of the 2009 season — existed in New Orleans, according to Tagliabue, who also wrote that "Saints' coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation."

The former commissioner did not entirely exonerate the players, however.

He said Vilma and Smith participated in a performance pool that rewarded key plays — including hard tackles — while Hargrove, following coaches' orders, helped to cover up the program when interviewed by NFL investigators in 2010.

"My affirmation of Commissioner Goodell's findings could certainly justify the issuance of fines," the ruling said. "However, this entire case has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints' organization."

Tagliabue said he decided, in this particular case, that it was in the best interest of all parties involved to eliminate player punishment because of the enduring acrimony it has caused between the league and the NFL Players Association. He added that he hoped doing so would allow the NFL and union to move forward collaboratively to the more important matters of enhancing player safety.

"To be clear: this case should not be considered a precedent for whether similar behavior in the future merits player suspensions or fines," his ruling said.

Tagliabue oversaw the second round of player appeals to the league in connection with the cash-for-hits program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams from 2009-2011. The players initially opposed his appointment.

Goodell had given Vilma a full-season suspension, while he gave Smith, Fujita and Hargrove shorter suspensions.

Tagliabue cleared Fujita of conduct detrimental to the league.

The former commissioner found Goodell's actions historically disproportionate to past punishment to players for similar behavior, which had generally been reserved to fines, not suspensions. He also stated that it was very difficult to determine whether the pledges players made were genuine, or simply a motivational ploy, particularly because Saints defenders never demonstrated a pattern of dirty play on the field.

"The relationship of the discipline for the off-field 'talk' and actual on-field conduct must be carefully calibrated and reasonably apportioned. This is a standard grounded in common sense and fairness," Tagliabue wrote in his 22-page opinion. "If one were to punish certain off-field talk in locker rooms, meeting rooms, hotel rooms or elsewhere without applying a rigorous standard that separated real threats or 'bounties' from rhetoric and exaggeration, it would open a field of inquiry that would lead nowhere."

Saints quarterback Drew Brees commented on Twitter: "Congratulations to our players for having the suspensions vacated. Unfortunately, there are some things that can never be taken back."

The Saints opened the season 0-4 and are now 5-8 and virtually out of the playoffs after appearing the postseason the three previous seasons, including the franchise's only Super Bowl title to conclude the 2009 season.

Shortly before the regular season, the initial suspensions were thrown out by an appeals panel created by the NFL's collective bargaining agreement. Goodell then reissued them, with some changes, and now those have been dismissed.

Now, with the player suspensions overturned, the end could be near for a nearly 10-month dispute over how the NFL handled an investigation that covered three seasons and gathered about 50,000 pages of documents.

"We respect Mr. Tagliabue's decision, which underscores the due process afforded players in NFL disciplinary matters," the league said in a statement.

"The decisions have made clear that the Saints operated a bounty program in violation of league rules for three years, that the program endangered player safety, and that the commissioner has the authority under the (NFL's collective bargaining agreement) to impose discipline for those actions as conduct detrimental to the league. Strong action was taken in this matter to protect player safety and ensure that bounties would be eliminated from football."

The players have challenged the NFL's handling of the entire process in federal court, but U.S District Judge Ginger Berrigan had been waiting for the latest round of appeals to play out before deciding whether to get involved. The judge issued an order Tuesday giving the NFLPA and Vilma until Wednesday to notify the court if they found Tagliabue's ruling acceptable.

Vilma also has filed a defamation lawsuit against Goodell, which also is being handled by Berrigan. Vilma's lawyers, Peter Ginsberg and Duke Williams, said by email to The Associated Press that they would "pursue the defamation action vigorously."

NFL investigators found that Vilma and Smith were ringleaders of a cash-for-hits program that rewarded injurious tackles labeled as "cart-offs" and "knockouts." Witnesses including Williams also said Vilma made a $10,000 pledge for anyone who knocked then-Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC title game. However, Tagliabue found it was not clear if the pledge was genuine or simply a motivational prop.

"There is more than enough evidence to support Commissioner Goodell's findings that Mr. Vilma offered such a bounty" on Favre, Tagliabue wrote. "I cannot, however, uphold a multi-game suspension where there is no evidence that a player's speech prior to a game was actually a factor causing misconduct on the playing field and that such misconduct was severe enough in itself to warrant a player suspension or a very substantial fine."

The NFL also concluded that Hargrove lied to NFL investigators to help cover up the program. The players have from the beginning denied they ever took the field intending to injure opponents, while Hargrove has said he never lied about a bounty program, because there wasn't one.

Goodell suspended Williams indefinitely, while banning Saints head coach Sean Payton for a full season.

Tagliabue's ruling comes after a new round of hearings that for the first time allowed Vilma's attorneys and the NFLPA, which represents the other three players, to cross-examine key NFL witnesses. Those witnesses included Williams and former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo, who was fired after the 2009 season and whose email to the league, accusing the Saints of being "a dirty organization," jump-started the probe.

"We believe that when a fair due process takes place, a fair outcome is the result," the players' union said in a statement. "We are pleased that Paul Tagliabue, as the appointed hearings officer, agreed with the NFL Players Association that previously issued discipline was inappropriate in the matter of the alleged New Orleans Saints bounty program.

"Vacating all discipline affirms the players' unwavering position that all allegations the League made about their alleged 'intent-to-injure' were utterly and completely false."

Smith said he was pleased that Tagliabue vacated his suspension.

"I continue to maintain that I did not participate in a pay-to-injure program or facilitate any such program," he added. "I appreciate that Mr. Tagliabue did not rush to judgment, taking into consideration all facts presented to him, before ruling — something that was clearly not done by Commissioner Goodell in previous hearings."

A statement released by Vilma's lawyers on his behalf said the linebacker is "relieved and gratified that Jonathan no longer needs to worry about facing an unjustified suspension.

"On the other hand, Commissioner Tagliabue's rationalization of Commissioner Goodell's actions does nothing to rectify the harm done by the baseless allegations lodged against Jonathan. Jonathan has a right and every intention to pursue proving what really occurred and we look forward to returning to a public forum where the true facts can see the light of day."

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