Philippines May Curb Pursuit of Marcos WealthPhilippines May Curb Pursuit of Marcos Wealth

MANILA — A commission that has been pursuing the wealth of the former dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos should be abolished, despite the fact that much of his allegedly ill-gotten wealth has not been recovered, the agency’s head said on Wednesday.

Andres Bautista, the chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, told reporters on Wednesday that he has recommended to President Benigno S. Aquino III that the special commission be phased out.

“Our recommendation was to wind down work,” said Mr. Bautista, noting that it is more efficient, and less costly for the government, if the Department of Justice handles the hunt for assets and any future cases against Marcos associates. In an earlier interview with Agence France-Presse, Mr. Bautista said, “It has become a law of diminishing returns at this point.”

Mr. Marcos led the Philippines from 1965 to until 1986, when he was overthrown by the bloodless popular revolt known as “People Power.” He declared martial law for part of his time in office and empowered his flamboyant wife, Imelda, to help rule the country.

Investigators have accused the Marcos family and their associates a of plundering an estimated $10 billion from the Philippines while millions of Filipinos suffered in grinding poverty. In particular, Mr. Marcos’s wife, Imelda R. Marcos, was noted for extravagant displays of wealth that included lavish shopping trips to New York City with a huge entourage, spending millions on jewelry and art.

But in recent years, members of the Marcos family, including Mrs. Marcos, have taken prominent political posts, complicating the commission’s efforts.

The commission was created after the pro-democracy leader Corazon C. Aquino, the current president’s mother, came to power in 1986, and it was charged with the worldwide pursuit of the ill-gotten assets of the Marcos family and their associates.

According to one analyst, the abolition of the commission will effectively end the pursuit of that wealth — much of which, by all accounts, remains unrecovered.

“If a special body with extraordinary powers specifically tasked with finding the hidden wealth of Marcos cannot do it, then who else is going to?” asked Edre U. Olalia, the secretary general of the human rights organization National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers. “The government is giving up the fight.”

Mr. Olalia said a special commission was still needed because the Marcos family and their associates had the resources to hire top defense lawyers who could thwart or delay government cases. He said the family was expert at hiding wealth overseas and at using influence within the government to obstruct the investigations.

Mrs. Marcos, 83, is now a member of the House of Representatives, while her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is a senator. Her daughter, Imee Marcos, is the governor of a northern province where the family is still well regarded.

Former President Marcos died in exile in the United States in 1989.

Some of the largest companies in the Philippines are controlled by people who were his close associates, and have been accused by investigators of helping the family plunder billions from the country.

No member of the Marcos family, who all deny wrongdoing, has been convicted in connection with plundered wealth, nor have any of their associates.

“The Marcos family is back in power, and they have no fear of conviction,” Mr. Olalia said. “They are prancing around with their wealth, saying they are a poor family being prosecuted by the government.”

Mr. Bautista, the head of the commission, noted that the agency had recovered 164 billion pesos (about $4 billion) since its creation, including a 150-carat ruby and a diamond tiara, hundreds of millions of dollars hidden in Swiss bank accounts and prime real estate in New York City. It worked recently with New York authorities to indict Vilma Bautista, Mrs. Marcos’s former social secretary, and to recover several valuable paintings, including one from the water lily series by Claude Monet.

President Aquino and both houses of the Philippine congress would have to agree for the commission to be abolished. On Wednesday, lawmakers disagreed about its fate.

“Everybody agrees that the hunt and recovery was not going to be a walk in the park,” said Senator Francis Escudero. “But it’s disappointing that they are throwing in the towel.”

But another senator, Joker Arroyo, noted that the agency was intended from the beginning to have a limited mandate.

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Apple testing new iPhone, iOS 7: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc has started testing a new iPhone and the next version of its iOS software, news website The Next Web reported.

Apple shares were up 2.6 percent at $ 546.06 in premarket trading. The stock closed at $ 532.17 on the Nasdaq on Monday.

Application developers have found in their app usage logs references to a new iPhone identifier, iPhone 6.1, running iOS 7 operating system, the website reported. (http://r.reuters.com/fyd94t)

Apple‘s iPhone 5 bears the identifiers “iPhone 5.1″ and “iPhone 5.2″ and is powered by iOS 6 operating system.

Developer logs show that the app requests originate from an internet address on Apple’s Cupertino campus, suggesting that Apple engineers are testing compatibility for some of the popular apps, the website said.

“Although OS and device data can be faked, the unique IP footprint leading back to Apple’s Cupertino campus leads us to believe this is not one of those attempts,” the website said.

Apple launched iPhone 5 in September and it has been reported that the new iPhone will be released in the middle of 2013.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore)

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Stanford holds off Wisconsin 20-14 in Rose Bowl

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Andrew Luck, Toby Gerhart and coach Jim Harbaugh started Stanford's improbable football renaissance, yet they never stood in the center of the Rose Bowl with the West Coast's most coveted trophy raised above their heads.

In fact, the last Stanford team to do what the Cardinal did Tuesday night had a defense known as the Thunderchickens.

Forty years after Stanford's last Rose Bowl victory, the favored Cardinal lived up to the legacy created by Luck, Harbaugh and every Thunderchicken that came before them by winning the bowl game that matters most to any Pac-12 team.

Stepfan Taylor rushed for an early touchdown, Kevin Hogan passed for 123 yards and No. 8 Stanford's defense shut out the Badgers in the second half of a 20-14 victory in the 99th Rose Bowl.

"I had heard that 1972 was our last win," said Hogan, the freshman quarterback who won Stanford's last five games. "It's been too long since we've had one at The Farm. It's a great feeling."

Instead of slipping back off the college football map when their biggest names graduate to NFL glory, the Cardinal (12-2) have just kept getting better under coach David Shaw. After winning the Orange Bowl two years ago and losing the Fiesta Bowl in overtime last season, Stanford followed up with its first conference title and its first trip to the Granddaddy of Them All in 13 years.

Stanford's unique combination of brains and brawn was too much for its opponents during eight straight wins to close the season.

"We've been in BCS games the past two years, but neither of those mean as much as this one did," said Zach Ertz, the tight end who had three catches for 61 yards. "This is the one we play for every year. It shows Stanford is here to stay."

Usua Amanam capped the defensive performance with an interception that stopped Wisconsin's final drive at midfield with 2:30 to play in a grind-it-out game. Stanford allowed the Badgers just 82 yards and four first downs after halftime.

"There's a sense of accomplishment, because we got somewhere we hadn't been yet," said linebacker Shayne Skov, who made eight tackles while leading Stanford's second-half shutout. "If you looked at our goals at the beginning of the season, this was on top of the list, and we got it done. We're extremely satisfied."

The Cardinal finished with 12 victories for just the second time in school history — and the second time in the last three years.

Stanford clamped down on the Big Ten champion Badgers (8-6), who lost the Rose Bowl in heartbreaking fashion for the third consecutive season. Montee Ball rushed for 100 yards and his FBS-record 83rd touchdown, but Wisconsin couldn't score after the final seconds of the first half.

With an impressive defense of its own, Wisconsin stayed in position for an upset in the one-game return of Hall of Fame coach Barry Alvarez, who was back on the Badgers' sideline in his red sweater-vest seven years after hanging up his whistle.

"This group of kids has been through a lot, and they competed extremely hard against a very high-quality team," said Alvarez, who nearly pulled off a stunner while bridging the gap between coaches Bret Bielema and Gary Andersen. "We've played three very good football games (at the Rose Bowl). These guys played hard. In fact, most people would like to get here once. But we just didn't get it done."

Kelsey Young took his only carry 16 yards for a score on Stanford's opening possession, and Taylor scored on the second drive after a big catch by Ertz. Wisconsin kept the Cardinal out of the end zone for the final 51 minutes, holding them to three points in the second half, but Stanford's defense didn't need any more help.

When Bielema abruptly left Wisconsin for Arkansas after winning the Big Ten title game, Alvarez agreed to coach his fourth Rose Bowl before handing off his program to Andersen, who met with Alvarez on the field before the game. But the Badgers' third consecutive January in Pasadena ended in much the same way as the last two: With the offense failing to get the late score the Badgers desperately needed.

"This stings just as much, because we fell extremely short when we had the opportunity to win," Ball said. "We had numerous opportunities to capitalize on big plays, and we fell short. ... This is not the way we want to be remembered. Speaking for the entire senior group, this is not the way we wanted to go out."

Curt Phillips went 10 for 16 for 83 yards passing and that crucial interception for Wisconsin, doing more with 64 yards on the ground. Jordan Fredrick caught his first career TD pass right before halftime, but no Badgers receiver had more than Jared Abbrederis' three catches.

And though Ball became the first player to score touchdowns in three Rose Bowls, the powerful back fell short of Ron Dayne's career Rose Bowl rushing record, swarmed under by waves of tacklers from one of the toughest defenses in the nation — a defense that shut down the top-ranked Ducks in mid-November to pave Stanford's path to Pasadena.

Wisconsin became the first five-loss team to make the Rose Bowl by steamrolling Nebraska in the conference title game, becoming the first Big Ten team in three straight Rose Bowls since Michigan in the late 1970s.

With the Rose Bowl filled with fans wearing the schools' near-identical cardinal-and-white gear, Stanford went up 14-0 on Taylor's 3-yard TD run just 8½ minutes in. Wisconsin briefly got rolling behind Ball, who rushed for 296 yards in his first two Rose Bowls.

Stanford stopped James White inside the 1 on fourth down early in the second quarter, but Ball scored on the next drive. The Badgers then mounted an 85-yard drive in the waning minutes of the first half ending with Fredrick's short TD catch.

After a scoreless third quarter, Wisconsin's personal foul on a fair-catch punt return finally sparked the Cardinal early in the fourth. Stanford got inside the Wisconsin 5 before stalling, and Jordan Williamson's short field goal put the Cardinal up by six points with 4:23 to go.

The Badgers got to midfield, but Phillips threw behind Jacob Pedersen, and Amanam easily made the pick.

"I just happened to be at the right place at the right time," Amanam said. "We were able to kind of seal the game on that one."

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Safed Journal: New Insights on Marijuana in Israel, Where It’s Illegal

Baz Ratner/Reuters

Tikkun Olam, a medical marijuana farm in Israel, blends the high-tech and the spiritual.

SAFED, Israel — Among the rows of plants growing at a government-approved medical marijuana farm in the Galilee hills in northern Israel, one strain is said to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all.

Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but farms like this one, at a secret location near the city of Safed, are at the cutting edge of the debate on the legality, benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis. Its staff members wear white lab coats, its growing facilities are fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for controlling light and humidity, and its grounds are protected by security cameras and guards.

But in addition to the high-tech atmosphere, there is a spiritual one. The plantation, Israel’s largest and most established medical marijuana farm — and now a thriving commercial enterprise — is imbued with a higher sense of purpose, reflected by the aura of Safed, an age-old center of Jewish mysticism, as well as by its name, Tikkun Olam, a reference to the Jewish concept of repairing or healing the world.

There is an on-site synagogue in a trailer, a sweet aroma of freshly harvested cannabis that infuses the atmosphere and, halfway up a wooded hillside overlooking the farm, a blue-domed tomb of a rabbinic sage and his wife.

In the United States, medical marijuana programs exist in 18 states but remain illegal under federal law. In Israel, the law defines marijuana as an illegal and dangerous drug, and there is still no legislation regulating its use for medicinal purposes.

Yet Israel’s Ministry of Health issues special licenses that allow thousands of patients to receive medical marijuana, and some government officials are now promoting the country’s advances in the field as an example of its pioneering and innovation.

“I hope we will overcome the legal obstacles for Tikkun Olam and other companies,” Yuli Edelstein, the minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs, told journalists during a recent government-sponsored tour of the farm, part of Israel’s effort to brand itself as something beyond a conflict zone. In addition to helping the sick, he said, the effort “could be helpful for explaining what we are about in this country.”

Israelis have been at the vanguard of research into the medicinal properties of cannabis for decades.

In the 1960s, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni at the Weizmann Institute of Science isolated, analyzed and synthesized the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Later, Professor Mechoulam deciphered the cannabinoids native to the brain. Ruth Gallily, a professor emerita of immunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied another main constituent of cannabis — cannabidiol, or CBD — considered a powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety agent.

When Zach Klein, a former filmmaker, made a documentary on medical marijuana that was broadcast on Israeli television in 2009, about 400 Israelis were licensed to receive the substance. Today, the number has risen to about 11,000.

Mr. Klein became devoted to the subject and went to work for Tikkun Olam in research and development. “Cannabis was used as medicine for centuries,” he said. “Now science is telling us how it works.”

Israeli researchers say cannabis can be beneficial for a variety of illnesses and conditions, from helping cancer patients relieve pain and ease loss of appetite to improving the quality of life for people with post-traumatic stress disorder and neuropsychological conditions. The natural ingredients in the plant, they say, can help with digestive function, infections and recovery after a heart attack.

The marijuana harvest, from plants that can grow over six feet tall, is processed into bags of flowers and ready-rolled cigarettes. There are also cannabis-laced cakes, cookies, candy, gum, honey, ointments and oil drops. The strain known as Eran Almog, which has the highest concentration of THC, is recommended for severe pain. Avidekel, a strain rich in CBD and with hardly any psychoactive ingredient, allows patients to benefit from the drug while being able to drive and to function at work.

Working with Hebrew University researchers, the farm has also developed a version in capsule form, which would make exporting the drug more practical, should the law allow it.

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The 30-Minute Interview : The 30-Minute Interview: Li Chung Pei

Mr. Pei, 63, is a founding partner, along with his brother Chien Chung Pei, of Pei Partnership Architects. The firm, based in New York, has been involved in a wide range of projects worldwide. Before starting the firm in 1992, Mr. Pei, who goes by the name Sandi, had worked at his father’s firm, I. M. Pei & Partners.

Interview conducted by

VIVIAN MARINO

Q. You go by the name Sandi. How did you get that nickname?

A. Sandi means third brother in Chinese.

Q. Your brother Chien Chung, known as C. C., is also a partner. What are your roles in the firm?

A. We share in all of the responsibilities of the firm, both administrative and design. He designs his projects, and I design my projects, but we collaborate as well. In other words, we look over each other’s work.

Q. How many projects are you working on now?

A. I have four projects; my brother also has about four projects. So we have about eight ongoing projects either in advance design or construction.

I’m doing a bank headquarters in China — this will actually be our third bank headquarters — and we’re doing some villas in China. I just finished a very large project for BMW, and we’re also doing hotels. We have one in Toronto, one in Indonesia, an office building in São Paulo.

Q. So business is good?

A. We’re very busy. We have more than we could actually handle in some respects. It’s not a very large firm — we have 35 architects in this office — so we don’t need an enormous amount of projects to keep ourselves going. We have the advantage of being able to select our projects for the kind of opportunities they present. But when you have the name in your practice people always come to you.

Q. Has it been hard living up to that name?

A. I think as you get older you realize that what at one time seemed to be a handicap is really such a tremendous advantage. I am so grateful for what I’ve been able to do for the fact that people have entrusted to me so much because of the respect they have for my father. To me that’s just an enormous advantage, or benefit. I can’t think of any disadvantages looking back now. It’s just been terrific for us.

Q. Was your father your mentor?

A. Oh, I would say so. For sure, for sure. He didn’t take a very active role in persuading me or encouraging me to do this, but I think once I decided he was very pleased. I remember his office was down on 47th street and Madison Avenue and I would go over there quite often.

Q. What have you learned from him?

A. Well, he continues to be a great example. I think mostly it was just by his example, by the work he’s done. But he was also a terrific father — very, very supportive and nurturing — and I think he taught me a lot of values and valuable lessons that had nothing to do with architecture.

Q. Is your father involved in the business any more?

A. My father’s almost 96. Not so active, but he’s well.

He’s retired — he’s earned that. It took a long time for him to retire. It’s hard when you’re an architect to put down the pencil. Even when he declared his retirement he continued to practice. He did some of the most notable and recognizable buildings after that, most recently the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Centurion and also the Suzhou Museum in China.

Q. He collaborated with you on the Centurion. What was his role there?

A. Initially, it was developing the overall concept of the building and the basic form that the building was going to take. But the project was a full collaboration with me, my firm.

Q. That was your first ground-up building in New York.

A. That’s right.

Q. Do you have any other projects in the works there?

A. Not presently. There’s a possibility of one, which I can’t speak about. But there’s a large project that we’re doing in Toronto, so not too far. We hope to be doing more, and we have been reaching out and have been approached.

The firm has primarily been working in Asia, the Persian Gulf and South America, and we have projects in the Pacific Rim, in Chicago and Toronto, so we are moving away from the center being in China to other areas.

Q. Do you have a favorite building in New York?

A. Oh I would say still today my favorite building is the Rockefeller Center — the entire urban design. This is what I aspire to.

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Residents Flee Bangui, Capital of Central African Republic

Sia Kambou/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Soldiers from Republic of Congo arrived at Central African Republic's capital Bangui Monday. A regional force is bolstering the country's troops.

JOHANNESBURG — As efforts to broker a deal to stop a rebel advance failed, residents of the capital of the Central African Republic were packing up their belongings and fleeing into the country’s vast hinterlands, fearing a major battle between government troops and guerrilla fighters.

Rebels rejected an offer from the country’s president, François Bozizé. It was brokered by the African Union and proposed forming a government of national unity. But the rebels balked, saying that previous agreements with the president had been made and quickly broken.

“Bozizé speaks, but does not keep his word,” said a rebel spokesman, Juma Narkoyo. “That is why we have taken up arms to make our voices heard.”

The rebel coalition, known as Seleka, is made up of several groups of fighters opposed to the government of Mr. Bozizé, who came to power after a brief civil war in 2003 and has had a tenuous grip on the presidency ever since, winning two elections but facing a constant threat of rebellions aimed at toppling him.

The Seleka rebels say that Mr. Bozizé has not lived up to the terms of a peace agreement signed in 2007. Mr. Narkoyo said the rebels had no plans to seize the capital, Bangui, but in the past they have advanced despite claims that they would stay put.

Government officials, meanwhile, said that the rebels were not actually from the Central African Republic, but were instead foreign provocateurs bent on destabilizing one of the most fragile nations in Africa in order to exploit its mineral wealth.

“They are Chadians, Sudanese and Nigerians,” said Louis Oguéré Ngaïkouma, secretary general of Mr. Bozizé’s political party. “It is a conspiracy against the people of the Central African Republic and its president to steal our riches.”

Suspicion of one’s neighbors is no idle thing in this part of Africa, where local wars often become wider conflagrations. The Democratic Republic of Congo, which lies to the south of the Central African Republic, has been caught up in one of the deadliest conflicts of the last half-century as Rwandan, Ugandan and Congolese troops fought over the country’s bounty of diamonds, coltan and tin.

War in Sudan, which lies north of the Central African Republic, has also spilled over into its neighbors, especially Chad, which also borders the Central African Republic.

Hugues Kossi, a college student in Bangui, said he feared all-out war in his city.

“I am afraid of combat and stray bullets,” he said. But he said he was also tired of the poverty and misrule of Mr. Bozizé’s government.

“It is bad governance that has led us to this situation,” Mr. Kossi said.

The United States has closed its embassy in Bangui and evacuated its staff members. The French government has said it will not help Mr. Bozizé fight the rebels, but that it has deployed an extra contingent of soldiers from a neighboring country to help protect French citizens.

Christian Panika contributed reporting from Bangui, Central African Republic.

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Relive the Paralympics’ Most Inspiring Moment of the Year

Back in July, we covered how social media would be critical to the success of the 2012 Paralympic Games. The Paralympics ended in September, but the International Paralympic Committee is still using the web to shine a light on unheralded athletes and tell stories of remarkable inspiration.

[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]

The committee revealed its top moment of 2012 in a video posted to YouTube on Sunday. It profiles Italian cyclist Alex Zanardi winning gold in London after losing his legs in an auto racing accident in 2001. The image of a triumphant Zanardi lifting his hand-cycling tricycle above his head with one arm post-race is nothing short of astounding.

[More from Mashable: NBA Star’s Kick to the Groin Sparks Online Debate]

For a longer look at Zanardi’s amazing achievement and to relive one of 2012′s sweetest sports moments, watch the full video above.

BONUS: 2012′s best sports social media moments

1. Devin McCourty Tweets While Playing in the Super Bowl (Sort of)

As New England Patriot Devin McCourty took on the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, his followers were still able to receive real-time updates from his social feeds. But he wasn’t sneaking tweets between plays or during timeouts. Devin and twin brother Jason, who plays for the Tennessee Titans, share their Twitter and Facebook accounts. The Super Bowl showcased one of the more creative approaches to social media in the sports world.

Image courtesy of Devin and Jason McCourty’s Instagram.

Click here to view this gallery.

Thumbnail image credit Getty Images/AFP/Leon Neal

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Reid among 7 NFL coaches sacked in firing frenzy

Andy Reid is the winningest coach in the history of the Philadelphia Eagles. Lovie Smith led the Chicago Bears to the 2007 Super Bowl.

Now they're looking for work.

Seven coaches and five general managers were fired Monday in a flurry of pink slips that were delivered the day after the regular-season ended.

Ken Whisenhunt is out after helping Arizona reach the Super Bowl following the 2008 season. Also gone: Norv Turner in San Diego, Pat Shurmur in Cleveland, Romeo Crennel in Kansas City and Chan Gailey in Buffalo.

Three teams made it a clean sweep, saying goodbye to the GM along with the coach — San Diego, Cleveland, Arizona. General managers also were fired in Jacksonville and New York, where Rex Ryan held onto his coaching job with the Jets despite a losing record.

Reid was the longest tenured of the coaches, removed after 14 seasons and a Super Bowl appearance in 2005 — a loss to New England. Smith spent nine seasons with the Bears.

Turner has now been fired as head coach by three teams. San Diego won the AFC West from 2006-09, but didn't make the postseason the last three years under Turner and GM A.J. Smith.

"Both Norv and A.J. are consummate NFL professionals, and they understand that in this league, the bottom line is winning," Chargers President Dean Spanos said in a statement.

Whisenhunt was fired after six seasons. He had more wins than any other coach in Cardinals history, going 45-51, and has one year worth about $5.5 million left on his contract. GM Rod Graves had been with Arizona for 16 years, nine in his current position. A 5-11 record after a 4-0 start cost him and Whisenhunt their jobs.

Gailey was dumped after three seasons with the Bills; Shurmur after two; and Crennel had one full season with the Chiefs.

Reid took over a 3-13 Eagles team in 1999, drafted Donovan McNabb with the No. 2 overall pick and quickly turned the franchise into a title contender.

But the team hasn't won a playoff game since 2008 and after last season's 8-8 finish, owner Jeffrey Lurie said he was looking for improvement this year. Instead, it was even worse. The Eagles finished 4-12.

"When you have a season like that, it's embarrassing. It's personally crushing to me and it's terrible," Lurie said at a news conference. He said he respects Reid and plans to stay friends with him, "but, it is time for the Eagles to move in a new direction."

Shurmur went 9-23 in his two seasons with the Browns, who will embark on yet another offseason of change — the only constant in more than a decade of futility. Cleveland has lost at least 11 games in each of the past five seasons and made the playoffs just once since returning to the NFL as an expansion team in 1999.

"Ultimately our objective is to put together an organization that will be the best at everything we do," Browns CEO Joe Banner said. "On the field, our only goal is trying to win championships."

Crennel took over with three games left in the 2011 season after GM Scott Pioli fired Todd Haley. Kansas City will have the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft as a result of having one of the worst seasons in its 53-year history. The only other time the Chiefs finished 2-14 was 2008, the year before Pioli was hired.

"I am embarrassed by the poor product we gave our fans this season, and I believe we have no choice but to move the franchise in a different direction," Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said in a statement.

Gailey, the former Dallas Cowboys coach, compiled a 16-32 record in his three seasons in Buffalo, never doing better than 6-10.

"This will probably be, and I say probably, but I think it will be the first place that's ever fired me that I'll pull for," Gailey said.

Smith and the Bears went 10-6 this season and just missed a playoff spot. But Chicago started 7-1 and has struggled to put together a productive offense throughout Smith's tenure. His record was 81-63 with the Bears, and he took them to one Super Bowl loss and to one NFC championship game defeat.

Receiver and kick return standout Devin Hester was bitter about Smith's firing.

"The media, the false fans, you all got what you all wanted," Hester said as he cleared out his locker. "The majority of you all wanted him out. As players we wanted him in. I guess the fans — the false fans — outruled us. I thought he was a great coach, probably one of the best coaches I've ever been around."

The fired GMs included Mike Tannenbaum of the Jets; Gene Smith of the Jaguars; Tom Heckert of the Browns; Smith of the Chargers and Graves of Arizona.

"You hope that those guys that obviously were victims of black Monday land on their feet," Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. "You've got guys that have been to Super Bowls and won championship games and all of a sudden they've forgot how to coach, I guess."

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hispanic women in the United States, who have generally had the highest fertility rates in the country, are choosing to have fewer children. Both immigrant and native-born Latinas had steeper birthrate declines from 2007 to 2010 than other groups, including non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians, a drop some demographers and sociologists attribute to changes in the views of many Hispanic women about motherhood.

As a result, in 2011, the American birthrate hit a record low, with 63 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, led by the decline in births to immigrant women. The national birthrate is now about half what it was during the baby boom years, when it peaked in 1957 at 122.7 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The decline in birthrates was steepest among Mexican-American women and women who immigrated from Mexico, at 25.7 percent. This has reversed a trend in which immigrant mothers accounted for a rising share of births in the United States, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Center. In 2010, birthrates among all Hispanics reached their lowest level in 20 years, the center found.

The sudden drop-off, which coincided with the onset of the recession, suggests that attitudes have changed since the days when older generations of Latinos prized large families and more closely followed Roman Catholic teachings, which forbid artificial contraception.

Interviews with young Latinas, as well as reproductive health experts, show that the reasons for deciding to have fewer children are many, involving greater access to information about contraceptives and women’s health, as well as higher education.

When Marucci Guzman decided to marry Tom Beard here seven years ago, the idea of having a large family — a Guzman tradition back in Puerto Rico — was out of the question.

“We thought one, maybe two,” said Ms. Guzman Beard, who gave birth to a daughter, Attalai, four years ago.

Asked whether Attalai might ever get her wish for a little brother or sister, Ms. Guzman Beard, 29, a vice president at a public service organization, said: “I want to go to law school. I’m married. I work. When do I have time?”

The decisions were not made in a vacuum but amid a sputtering economy, which, interviewees said, weighed heavily on their minds.

Latinos suffered larger percentage declines in household wealth than white, black or Asian households from 2005 to 2009, and, according to the Pew report, their rates of poverty and unemployment also grew more sharply after the recession began.

Prolonged recessions do produce dips in the birthrate, but a drop as large as Latinos have experienced is atypical, said William H. Frey, a sociologist and demographer at the Brookings Institution. “It is surprising,” Mr. Frey said. “When you hear about a decrease in the birthrate, you don’t expect Latinos to be at the forefront of the trend.”

D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report, said that in past recessions, when overall fertility dipped, “it bounced back over time when the economy got better.”

“If history repeats itself, that will happen again,” she said.

But to Mr. Frey, the decrease has signaled much about the aspirations of young Latinos to become full and permanent members of the upwardly mobile middle class, despite the challenges posed by the struggling economy.

Jersey Garcia, a 37-year-old public health worker in Miami, is in the first generation of her family to live permanently outside of the Dominican Republic, where her maternal and paternal grandmothers had a total of 27 children.

“I have two right now,” Ms. Garcia said. “It’s just a good number that I can handle.”

“Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more,” she added. “I think living in the United States, I don’t have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now.”

But that has not been easy. Even with health insurance, Ms. Garcia’s preferred method of long-term birth control, an IUD, has been unaffordable. Birth control pills, too, with a $50 co-payment a month, were too costly for her budget. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing is condoms.”

According to research by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the overwhelming majority of Latinas have used contraception at some point in their lives, but they face economic barriers to consistent use. As a consequence, Latinas still experience unintended pregnancy at a rate higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to the institute.

And while the share of births to teenage mothers has dropped over the past two decades for all women, the highest share of births to teenage mothers is among native-born Hispanics.

“There are still a lot of barriers to information and access to contraception that exist,” said Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas, 36, the executive director of the institute, who has one son. “We still need to do a lot of work.”

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Senate Passes Tax Increases on Wealthy Americans

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday after a meeting with Senate Democrats on the fiscal negotiations.

WASHINGTON — The Senate, in a predawn vote two hours after the deadline passed to avert automatic tax increases, overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday that would allow tax rates to rise only on affluent Americans while temporarily suspending sweeping, across-the-board spending cuts.

The deal, worked out in furious negotiations between Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, passed 89 to 8, with just three Democrats and five Republicans voting no. Although it lost the support of some of the Senate’s most conservative members, the broad coalition that pushed the accord across the finish line could portend swift House passage as early as New Year’s Day.

Quick passage before the markets reopen on Wednesday would be likely to negate any economic damage from Tuesday’s breach of the “fiscal cliff” and largely spare the nation’s economy from the one-two punch of large tax increases and across-the-board military and domestic spending cuts in the New Year.

“This shouldn’t be the model for how to do things around here,” Mr. McConnell said just after 1:30 a.m. “But I think we can say we’ve done some good for the country.”

Mr. Biden, after a late New Year’s Eve meeting with leery Senate Democrats to sell the accord, said: “You surely shouldn’t predict how the House is going to vote. But I feel very, very good.”

The eight senators who voted no included Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and a potential presidential candidate in 2016, two of the Senate’s most ardent small-government Republicans, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who as a former Finance Committee chairman helped secure passage of the Bush-era tax cuts, then opposed making almost all of them permanent on Tuesday. Two moderate Democrats, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Michael Bennet of Colorado, also voted no, as did the liberal Democrat Tom Harkin, who said the White House had given away too much in the compromise. Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, also voted no.

The House Speaker, John A. Boehner, and the Republican House leadership said the House would “honor its commitment to consider the Senate agreement.” But, they added, “decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members — and the American people — have been able to review the legislation.”

Even with that cautious assessment, Republican House aides said a vote Tuesday was possible.

Under the agreement, tax rates would jump to 39.6 percent from 35 percent for individual incomes over $400,000 and couples over $450,000, while tax deductions and credits would start phasing out on incomes as low as $250,000, a clear victory for President Obama, who ran for re-election vowing to impose taxes on the wealthy.

Just after the vote, Mr. Obama called for quick House passage of the legislation.

“While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay,” he said.

Democrats also secured a full year’s extension of unemployment insurance without strings attached and without offsetting spending cuts, a $30 billion cost. But the two-percentage point cut to the payroll tax that the president secured in late 2010 lapsed at midnight and will not be renewed.

In one final piece of the puzzle, negotiators agreed to put off $110 billion in across-the-board cuts to military and domestic programs for two months while broader deficit-reduction talks continue. Those cuts begin to go into force on Wednesday, and that deadline, too, might be missed before Congress approves the legislation.

To secure votes, Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, also told Democrats the legislation would cancel a pending Congressional pay raise — putting opponents in the politically difficult position of supporting a raise — and extend an expiring dairy policy that would have seen the price of milk double in some parts of the country.

The nature of the deal ensured that the running war between the White House and Congressional Republicans on spending and taxes would continue at least until the spring. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner formally notified Congress that the government reached its statutory borrowing limit on New Year’s Eve. Through some creative accounting tricks, the Treasury Department can put off action for perhaps two months, but Congress must act to keep the government from defaulting just when the “pause” on pending cuts is up. Then in late March, a law financing the government expires.

Jennifer Steinhauer and Robert Pear contributed reporting.

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