Hospital Death in Ireland Renews Fight Over Abortion

DUBLIN — The death of a woman who was reportedly denied a potentially lifesaving abortion even while she was having a miscarriage has revived debate over Ireland’s almost total ban on abortions.

The woman, Savita Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, was 17 weeks pregnant when she sought treatment at University Hospital Galway on Oct. 21, complaining of severe back pain.

Dr. Halappanavar was informed by senior hospital physicians that she was having a miscarriage and that her fetus had no chance of survival. However, despite repeated pleas for an abortion, she was told that it would be illegal while the fetus’s heart was still beating, her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, said.

It was not until Oct. 24 that the heartbeat ceased and the remains of the fetus were surgically removed. But Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood disease, septicemia. She was admitted to intensive care but never recovered, dying on Oct. 28.

Mr. Halappanavar, in an interview with The Irish Times from his home in India, said his wife was told after one request, “This is a Catholic country.”

Two investigations into the case have been announced, and politicians have been quick to express their condolences and to call for legal clarity. Kathleen Lynch, a junior health minister, said medical professionals needed guidelines to deal with such circumstances.

In a statement, the hospital said it would cooperate fully with any inquest but that it had not started its own review because it wanted to consult the woman’s family first.

Mr. Halappanavar told the newspaper that he still could not believe his wife was dead. “I was with her those four days in intensive care,” he said. “They kept telling me: ‘She’s young. She’ll get over it.’ But things never changed; they only got worse. She was so full of life. She loved kids.

“It was all in their hands, and they just let her go. How can you let a young woman go to save a baby who will die anyway?”

But Mr. Halappanavar said he saw no use in being angry. “I’ve lost her,” he said. “I am talking about this because it shouldn’t happen to anyone else.”

Medical professionals were less forgiving. During a miscarriage, the cervix is opened, exposing the woman to infection, and the longer the miscarriage persists, the greater the risk, said a prominent medical commentator here, Dr. Muiris Houston. While Dr. Halappanavar’s death was “on the rare end of the spectrum,” and the facts surrounding the case are not all known, Dr. Houston said, she “undoubtedly needed to go to theater,” meaning to surgery.

“If she had gone to theater earlier she might still have died, but perhaps not,” he said. “Medicine is now increasingly driven by guidelines, and the question must be, ‘Did the hospital have protocols in place when a woman presented with such a condition?’ ”

The legal issues are, if anything, more clouded. In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that abortion was permissible in cases where there was a “real and substantial risk” to the life of a pregnant woman — including the possibility of suicide. But 20 years later, the Irish government has still not passed a law to this effect.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights found that Ireland was in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to provide an accessible and effective procedure to ascertain whether a woman qualified for a legal abortion.

In response, the current coalition government commissioned a report from an expert group on the issue. It was initially expected in July, but was then postponed until September — a deadline also missed. Given the divisiveness of the abortion issue in Ireland, which has prompted two bitterly fought referendums, successive governments have avoided passing any legislation.

The report was eventually delivered Tuesday night, hours before news broke of Dr. Halappanavar’s death. The government warned people not to link the two, but inevitably the death has led to calls for urgent reform.

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Greece Looks at Offering Creditors a Buyback to Lower Its Debt

LONDON — As Greece’s creditors bicker over the terms of its bailout, the government is examining a more radical approach that could reduce the country’s escalating debt pile in one fell swoop.

Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

An anti-austerity protest on Wednesday in Athens. The government this month narrowly secured parliamentary approval for yet another round of spending cuts and tax increases.

Fotis Plegas G./European Pressphoto Agency

Charles Dallara of the Institute of International Finance argues that the real issue is Greece’s inability to revive its economy.

Essentially, Greece would propose that its private sector bondholders sell back their sovereign debt holdings for a small profit, but at a price favorable to Greece. The move takes a page from the playbook Greece used earlier this year in which the government pressured banks and other private holders to take a loss on their sovereign bonds so Greece could ease its debt load. This time, they would not be forced to take a haircut, but some would most likely balk at being forced to accept a new deal.

The aim is to further reduce an ever-increasing sovereign debt burden that is fast approaching 200 percent of gross domestic product, far beyond Europe’s ideal of 60 percent or less.

Many different strategies about how to address Greece’s debt load are being discussed by its creditors, with the buyback option being just one of several. The government this month narrowly secured parliamentary approval for yet another round of spending cuts and tax increases, putting Greece on the verge of receiving 31 billion euros, or $39 billion, in desperately needed bailout loans. The euro zone is also weighing measures — like extending loan maturities and paring interest rates — that would further ease the country’s financial burden.

While the most pressing need is securing the 31 billion euros Greece needs to survive, arriving at a long-term solution for its bloated sovereign debt is also seen as crucial, given that the economy continues to shrink. An estimate released Wednesday showed Greece’s economy contracted by 7 percent in the third quarter — which makes the debt relative to economic output all the more onerous.

 To that end, a small circle of lawyers and bankers are suggesting that Greece offer to buy back its deeply discounted debt at a price of 27 to 33 euro cents, compared to the 25-cent level where it currently trades. If investors hold out for a higher price, the government could invoke collective action clauses (C.A.C.’s) in the bond contracts that, in theory, would prevent a bidding war, thus allowing the country to retire as much as 40 billion euros of its 340 billion euros in debt.

For example, the 62 billion euros’ worth of new bonds that Greece issued as part of its landmark debt restructuring deal reached with private bondholders in March are now valued at about 15 billion euros, or $19 billion. If Greece were to borrow the money to buy back this debt, it could retire 30 billion to 40 billion euros’ worth of its obligations, depending on the ultimate price it pays.

While borrowing such an amount would be a challenge, Germany — the biggest euro zone economy and thus the biggest contributor to the Greek bailout — could take the view that this would be a better way to reduce Greek debt than to ask taxpayers to swallow a loss via a write-down of public sector bailout loans.

Unlike the last time around, when the protracted wrangling between the Greek government and private bondholders centered on banks, hedge funds and other investors’ accepting a reduction in the bonds’ value, they will not have to suffer a large loss on their bond holdings. Depending on the price, however, they may have to forgo some further upside if the bonds continue to rally after the buyback.

If successful, the debt buyback could significantly reduce Greece’s debt and afford the country a realistic chance of meeting the target of a debt ratio of 120 percent of G.D.P. by 2020 that the International Monetary Fund has set as a condition for it to lend more money. European leaders have said that this benchmark is too stringent and needs to be relaxed.

Of course, the idea has infuriated the many hedge funds that in past months have scooped up more than 22 billion euros’ worth of Greek bonds at rock-bottom prices. With many sitting on big profits after the recent market rally, they are in no mood to sell out cheaply, especially if Greece resorts to wielding a legal cudgel to complete the deal.

“It’s really the dumbest thing that Greece can do right now,” said Hans Humes of Greylock Capital, who has been one of the more aggressive investors in terms of accumulating discounted Greek bonds.

Collective action clauses are legal riders in bond contracts that can make it easier for a debtor country to restructure its loans by forcing holdouts to accept the country’s proposal for a bond swap if a certain majority of creditors agree to it. They were used to great effect during the 100 billion euro restructuring of Greece’s private sector debt earlier this year.

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Israelis Kill Hamas Military Commander in Gaza

Reuters

Palestinians extinguished a fire after an Israeli air strike on the car carrying Ahmed Al-Jaabari, who ran Hamas's military wing, on Wednesday in Gaza City.

GAZA — An Israeli airstrike blew up a car carrying the commander of the Hamas military wing in Gaza on Wednesday, making him the most senior official of the group to be killed by the Israelis since their invasion of Gaza four years ago.

The death of the commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was on Israel’s most-wanted list of Palestinian militants, was confirmed by Hamas and Israeli officials. The Israeli military said it had ordered the airstrike in response to days of rocket fire launched from Gaza into Israeli territory.

Hamas and medical officials in Gaza said Mr. Jabari and a companion were in his car in Gaza City when the airstrike took place. Israeli news media said the companion was Mr. Jabari’s son, but there was no immediate confirmation.

Mr. Jabari’s death raised the prospect of further escalation in the renewed hostility between Israel and Hamas, the militant organization regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that Mr. Jabari had been targeted because he “served in the upper echelon of the Hamas command and was directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the state of Israel in the past number of years.”

The statement said the purpose of the attack was to “severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership as well as its terrorist infrastructure.”

The statement did not specify how the Israelis knew Mr. Jabari was in the car but said the operation had been “implemented on the basis of concrete intelligence and using advanced capabilities.”

Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, a year after the Israelis withdrew from the territory captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But Israeli forces went back into Gaza in the winter of 2008-09 in response to what they called a terrorist campaign by Palestinian militants there to launch rockets into Israel. The three-week military campaign left hundreds of Palestinians dead.

Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, considered Mr. Jabari responsible for what it called “all anti-Israeli terror activity” emanating from Gaza. Israel had made at least one previous attempt to kill him.

He was also known for personally escorting Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza, to Egyptian intermediaries last year as part of a prisoner exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Video of the handoff to Egypt showed Mr. Jabari standing near Mr. Shalit.

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Facebook stock up as lock-up expires on largest block of shares

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Shares of Facebook Inc jumped 10 percent in early trading on Wednesday, even as the biggest block of shares held by insiders became eligible for sale for the first time since the social media company’s disappointing debut in May.

In heavy morning trading, Facebook gained $ 2.02 to $ 21.89.

“While the lock-up is expiring, there is nothing requiring anybody to sell,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. “Given the low price, these long-term holders are deciding to hold the stock and that is lifting it here as the fear of the expiration subsides.”

Roughly 800 million Facebook shares could begin trading on Wednesday after restrictions on insider selling were lifted on the biggest block of shares since the May initial public offering.

The lock-up expiration greatly expanded the 921 million-share “float” available for trading on the market until now.

Facebook, the world’s No. 1 online social network, became the only U.S. company to debut with a market value of more than $ 100 billion. But its value has dropped nearly 50 percent since the IPO on concerns about its long-term money-making prospects.

Insider trading lock-up provisions started to expire in August, and the rolling expirations have added to the pressure on Facebook’s stock.

Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said he didn’t expect Facebook insiders to sell all of their shares as the lock-ups expired.

“I would expect heavy volumes over the next few weeks, but not undigestible volumes,” said Wieser. By his estimates, roughly 486 million of the nearly 800 million newly freed Facebook shares will be sold.

There is some evidence that the heavy interest in shorting the stock was dissipating, given the poor performance since it first sold shares in May.

According to Markit’s Data Explorers, about 28 percent of the shares available for short-selling were being borrowed for that purpose, down from a high of more than 80 percent in early August.

Similarly, SunGard’s Astec Analytics, which also tracks interest in shorting, noted in a comment on Tuesday that the cost of borrowing Facebook shares is down more than 50 percent since the beginning of the month.

“Everything would seem to indicate the market is losing its appetite to short Facebook,” wrote Karl Loomes, market analyst at Astec.

Several members of Facebook’s senior management have sold millions of dollars worth of shares in recent weeks through pre-arranged stock trading plans as lock-up restrictions expired.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has sold roughly 530 million shares this month, netting just over $ 11 million, though she still owns roughly 20 million vested shares in Facebook.

In August, Facebook board member Peter Thiel sold roughly $ 400 million worth of Facebook stock, the majority of his stake, when an earlier phase of lock-up restrictions expired.

Facebook’s 28-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has committed to not sell any shares before September 2013.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dave Matthews Band pledges $1M for Sandy relief

NEW YORK (AP) — The Dave Matthews Band is giving $1 million to help Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts.

The band announced Wednesday that the Nov. 30 opening show of its winter tour at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J., will be a benefit concert. All ticket and merchandise sales will go to the Bama Works Sandy Relief Fund, established at the Community Foundation of New Jersey.

Sandy's assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages in New Jersey and New York.

The Grammy-winning group will wrap up its tour Dec. 22 in Philadelphia. Tickets are still on sale for the Nov. 30 show, which features Jimmy Cliff.

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Online:

http://davematthewsband.com/

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Lance Armstrong Cuts Officials Ties With His Livestrong Charity

In the wake of being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, Lance Armstrong last week cut all official ties with Livestrong, the charity he founded 15 years ago while he was treated for testicular cancer.

On Nov. 4, he resigned from the organization’s board of directors; he had previously stepped down as the chairman of the board Oct. 17. He has distanced himself from the charity to try to protect it from any damage caused by his doping controversy, the new board chairman, Jeff Garvey, said in a statement.

“Lance Armstrong was instrumental in changing the way the world views people affected by cancer,” Garvey said. “His devotion to serving survivors is unparalleled, and for 15 years, he committed himself to that cause with all his heart.”

Garvey said that the Armstrong family had donated nearly $7 million to the foundation and that the organization under Armstrong had raised close to $500 million to serve cancer survivors.

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency made public its evidence in its doping case against Armstrong, saying he had doped and encouraged his teammates to dope so they could help him win races. He was subsequently barred from Olympic sports for life and was stripped of all the cycling titles he won from August 1998 on.

Since then, Armstrong has spent several weeks in Hawaii, out of the public eye. On Saturday, though, he posted a photograph on Twitter showing him at home in Austin, Tex. He is lounging on a couch with his seven yellow Tour jerseys framed on the wall in the background.

In the post, he said, “Back in Austin and just layin’ around.” The photograph had more than 400,000 page views as of Monday evening, with many people posting negative comments on the page.

“Lance, you have no moral conscious and it’s obvious many of your followers don’t either,” said one person who went by the Twitter handle “irobot,” who also posted that Armstrong needed “professional help.”

A person posting under the name “Aumann” said: “An art thief enjoying all his da Vincis.”

Other people posted words of support, including many who said they still thought Armstrong was the top cyclist in history.

“TomShelton” said of Armstrong’s seven Tour titles, “You earned all 7 of them no matter what is being said about you!”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 13, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated Jeff Garvey’s estimate of the sum the Livestrong charity had raised to serve cancer survivors. It was close to $500 million, not close to $300 million.

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Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Linked to Petraeus Scandal

PERTH, Australia — Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has become ensnared in the scandal over an extramarital affair acknowledged by David H. Petraeus, a former general. General Allen is being investigated for what a senior defense official said early Tuesday was “inappropriate communication” with Jill Kelley, a woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Mr. Petraeus’s lover as a rival for his attentions.

In a statement released to reporters on his plane en route to Australia early Tuesday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said that the F.B.I. on Sunday had referred “a matter involving” General Allen to the Pentagon.

Mr. Panetta turned the matter over to the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct an investigation into what a defense official said were 20,000 to 30,000 pages of documents, many of them e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley, who is married and has children.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said on Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received,  examined all of her e-mails as a routine step.

“When you get involved in a cybercase like this, you have to look at everything,” the official said, suggesting that Ms. Kelley may not have considered that possibility when she filed the complaint. “The real question is why someone decided to open this can of worms.”

The official would not describe the content of the e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley or say specifically why F.B.I. officials decided to pass them on to the Defense Department. “Generally, the nature of the e-mails warranted providing them to D.O.D.,” he said.

Under military law, adultery can be a crime.

The defense official on Mr. Panetta’s plane said that General Allen, who is also married, told Pentagon officials he had done nothing wrong. Neither he nor Ms. Kelley could be reached for comment early Tuesday. Mr. Panetta’s statement praised General Allen for his leadership in Afghanistan and said that “he is entitled to due process in this matter.”

But the Pentagon inspector general’s investigation opens up what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military and became director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of the affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Although General Allen will remain the commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Panetta said that he had asked President Obama to delay the general’s nomination to be the commander of American forces in Europe and the supreme allied commander of NATO, two positions he was to move into after what was expected to be easy confirmation by the Senate. Mr. Panetta said in his statement that Mr. Obama agreed with his request.

Gen. Joseph A. Dunford, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps who was nominated last month by Mr. Obama to succeed General Allen in Afghanistan, will proceed as planned with his confirmation hearing. In his statement, Mr. Panetta urged the Senate to act promptly on his nomination.

The National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr. Obama also believes that the Senate should swiftly confirm General Dunford.

The defense official said that the e-mails between Ms. Kelley and General Allen spanned the years 2010 to 2012. The official could not explain why there were so many pages of e-mails and did not specify their content. The official said he could not explain how the e-mails between Ms. Kelley and General Allen were related to the e-mails between Mr. Petraeus and his lover, Paula Broadwell, and e-mails between Ms. Broadwell and Ms. Kelley.

In what is known so far, Ms. Kelley went to the F.B.I. last summer after she was disturbed by harassing e-mails. The F.B.I. began an investigation and learned that the e-mails were from Ms. Broadwell. In the course of looking into Ms. Broadwell’s e-mails, the F.B.I. discovered e-mails between Ms. Broadwell and Mr. Petraeus that indicated that they were having an extramarital affair. Ms. Broadwell, officials say, saw Ms. Kelley as a rival for her affections with Mr. Petraeus.

The defense official said he did not know how General Allen and Ms. Kelley knew each other. General Allen has been in Afghanistan as the top American commander since July 2011, although before that he lived in Tampa as the deputy commander for Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.

The defense official said that the Pentagon had received the 20,000 to 30,000 pages of documents from the F.B.I. and was currently reviewing them.

The defense official said that at 5 p.m. Washington time on Sunday, Mr. Panetta was informed by the Pentagon’s general counsel that the F.B.I. had the thousands of pages of e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley. Mr. Panetta was at the time on his plane en route from San Francisco to Honolulu, his first stop on a weeklong trip to the Pacific and Asia. Mr. Panetta notified the White House and then the leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees.

General Allen is now in Washington for what was to be his confirmation hearing as commander in Europe. That hearing, the official said, will now be delayed.

After arriving in Perth Mr. Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia for a United States-Australian security and diplomatic conference. Asked by a reporter while pausing for photos with Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Gillard if General Allen could remain an effective commander while under investigation, Mr. Panetta said nothing.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also in Perth for the defense meetings and had no comment on the investigation of General Allen. “I do know him well and I can’t say,” General Dempsey said of General Allen late on Tuesday after returning from an official dinner with the Australian officials, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Panetta.

Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington.

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Day-Lewis heeded inner ear to find Lincoln's voice

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A towering figure such as Abraham Lincoln, who stood 6 feet 4 and was one of history's master orators, must have had a booming voice to match, right? Not in Daniel Day-Lewis' interpretation.

Day-Lewis, who plays the 16th president in Steven Spielberg's epic film biography "Lincoln," which goes into wide release this weekend, settled on a higher, softer voice, saying it's more true to descriptions of how the man actually spoke.

"There are numerous accounts, contemporary accounts, of his speaking voice. They tend to imply that it was fairly high, in a high register, which I believe allowed him to reach greater numbers of people when he was speaking publicly," Day-Lewis said in an interview. "Because the higher registers tend to reach farther than the lower tones, so that would have been useful to him."

"Lincoln" is just the fifth film in the last 15 years for Day-Lewis, a two-time Academy Award winner for best actor ("My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood"). Much of his pickiness stems from a need to understand characters intimately enough to feel that he's actually living out their experiences.

The soft, reedy voice of his Lincoln grew out of that preparation.

"I don't separate vocal work, and I don't dismember a character into its component parts and then kind of bolt it all together, and off you go," Day-Lewis said. "I tend to try and allow things to happen slowly, over a long period of time. As I feel I'm growing into a sense of that life, if I'm lucky, I begin to hear a voice.

"And I don't mean in a supernatural sense. I begin to hear the sound of a voice, and if I like the sound of that, I live with that for a while in my mind's ear, whatever one might call it, my inner ear, and then I set about trying to reproduce that."

Lincoln himself likely learned to use his voice to his advantage depending on the situation, Day-Lewis said.

"He was a supreme politician. I've no doubt in my mind that when you think of all the influences in his life, from his childhood in Kentucky and Indiana and a good part of his younger life in southern Illinois, that the sounds of all those regions would have come together in him somehow.

"And I feel that he probably learned how to play with his voice in public and use it in certain ways in certain places and in certain other ways in other places. Especially in the manner in which he expressed himself. I think, I've no doubt that he was conscious enough of his image."

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Well: A Vegetarian Thanksgiving Table

Every year, Well goes vegetarian for Thanksgiving to celebrate the fall harvest and the delicious vegetable dishes that take up most of the space on holiday tables.

This year, we have another terrific lineup of vegan and vegetarian recipes from some of your favorite food writers and chefs. Cooking up a meat-free celebration will inspire you to be more creative in the kitchen all year round, preparing vegetarian and vegan main courses and side dishes that burst with the flavors of the seasonal harvest. Even if you still plan to serve a traditional bird (although plenty of people skip the turkey), Well’s Vegetarian Thanksgiving series will give you some new recipes and inspiration for meat-free cooking to be enjoyed by all the omnivores and herbivores at your table.

To kick off Well’s 2012 Vegetarian Thanksgiving, I asked my favorite vegan chef, Chloe Coscarelli, to offer some of her fall favorites. I first learned about Ms. Coscarelli when I saw her bake her way to victory with dairy-free and egg-free vegan cupcakes on the popular Food Network program “Cupcake Wars.” Since then, she has released a new cookbook, “Chloe’s Kitchen,’’ appeared on the “Today” show and other programs and now plans to release another book, “Chloe’s Vegan Desserts,” in February.

The key to successful vegan cooking, says Ms. Coscarelli, is not to try to replicate meat and cheese dishes with fake no-meat products. Instead, the goal is to develop dishes with rich, satisfying flavors and textures that will make you forget you’re eating vegan food.

“It’s more about finding other flavors,” she said. “That’s a huge principle of my cooking and my recipes. I’m not throwing a bunch of fake cheese and fake meat on top of something and calling it a pizza.’’

I wanted to start our Vegetarian Thanksgiving series with recipes from Ms. Coscarelli because I have had so much success making many of her dishes. Her chocolate pumpkin bread pudding, made with coconut milk and organic canned pumpkin, is now a personal holiday favorite. At my house, we fill our plates with her Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Hazelnuts and love her Harvest-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.

One of my favorites, a homemade fall pizza prepared with squash, caramelized onions and a decadent garlic and white bean purée, is featured below. Ms. Coscarelli also offers a unique vegan take on mashed yams (no butter!) and a delicious cauliflower and black-eyed pea dish that may become a new holiday tradition.

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Roasted Apple, Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Pizza

This fall vegetable pizza is a great vegetarian main course, or it can be cut into pieces as an appetizer. The creamy consistency of the white bean purée makes this dish seem like a decadent treat, and you won’t even notice that it doesn’t have cheese.

Garlic White Bean Purée:
1 (15-ounce) can cannellini or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 tablespoons water

Pizza toppings:
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup spinach
1 apple, peeled and thinly sliced

Pizza dough (store-bought is fine, or make your own)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the Garlic White Bean Purée by blending the beans, oil, lemon juice, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper in a food processor. Add water, as needed, until a smooth consistency forms. Set aside. Can be made two days in advance.

2. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat and sauté onions until soft and lightly caramelized, about 20 to 30 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.

3. While the onions are cooking, toss remaining 2 tablespoons oil with squash and season generously with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large-rimmed baking sheet and roast for 30 to 35 minutes until squash is fork-tender, turning once or twice with a spatula. Remove from oven and set aside. Turn heat up to 450 degrees.

4. Prepare pizza. Brush a large-rimmed baking sheet (approximately 9 by 13 inches) with oil. Stretch homemade or store-bought pizza dough into a rectangle and fit it into the prepared baking sheet. Spread a layer of the Garlic White Bean Purée evenly over the rolled-out dough. (You may not want to use all of it.) On top of the dough, arrange the spinach, caramelized onions, roasted butternut squash and apple slices. Season with salt and pepper, and brush the edges of the crust with olive oil.

5. Bake at 450 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes, rotating midway, until the crust is slightly browned or golden. Let cool, slice and serve.

Yield: 4 servings

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Coconut Mashed Yams With Currants

Try these easy butter-free, dairy-free mashed yams, dressed up with creamy coconut and an infusion of warm autumn spices. Every so often you’ll catch a plump currant that will make that bite even better.

3 large garnet or other yams, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup canned coconut milk, mixed well before measuring
1/3 cup maple syrup or packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/3 cup currants, soaked in warm water for 10 to 15 minutes and drained

1. Place yam pieces in a large pot and cover with cold water. Cover and bring to a boil. Cook until fork-tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain and return to pot.

2. Add coconut milk, maple syrup, salt and spices, and mash with a potato masher until smooth. Adjust seasoning to taste. Add more coconut milk for a creamier texture and more maple syrup for a sweeter flavor. Mix in currants and serve.

Yield: 6 servings

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Southern Skillet Black-Eyed Peas and Cauliflower With Quick Biscuits

Add a new flavor to your Thanksgiving table with this sweet and saucy black-eyed pea dish. Leftovers can be eaten in a bun, sloppy-Joe style. The biscuits are easy — no rolling or folding required.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 cups cauliflower florets, roughly chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 (15-ounce) cans black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 (14-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup packed brown sugar or maple syrup
2 tablespoons white or apple cider vinegar
Quick Biscuits, recipe below
Whipped Maple “Butter,”recipe below

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat and sauté onions and green peppers until soft. Add cauliflower and cook, stirring frequently, until it is lightly browned, about 5 to 8 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, cinnamon, cayenne and salt, and cook a few more minutes.

2. Stir in black-eyed peas, tomato sauce, water, soy sauce, brown sugar and vinegar. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes. Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve in soup bowls with biscuits and whipped maple “butter” on the side.

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Quick Biscuits With Maple “Butter”

Quick Biscuits
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegan margarine, plus extra for brushing
3/4 cup soy, almond or rice milk

Whipped Maple “Butter”
1 cup vegan margarine, at room temperature
1/4 cup maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. You can make the dough by hand or using a food processor.

2. By hand: Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add margarine and cut it roughly into flour using a pastry cutter, until mixture is the texture of coarse meal with a few larger margarine lumps. Work quickly so the margarine does not melt. Add nondairy milk and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined. Do not overwork.

3. Food processor: Combine flour, baking powder and salt in the food processor and pulse for about 5 seconds until ingredients are combined. Add margarine and pulse in the food processor until mixture is the texture of coarse meal with a few larger margarine lumps. Work quickly so the margarine does not melt. Add nondairy milk and pulse a few times until just combined. Do not overwork.

4. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat into an oblong shape, about 1 inch thick. Using a 2 1/2-inch floured cookie or biscuit cutter, cut the biscuits out and place them on a baking sheet. Brush the tops lightly with melted margarine and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until they begin to turn golden. Remove biscuits from oven immediately and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

5. Make the maple “butter.” In a mixing bowl, using a whisk or electric mixer, whip margarine with maple syrup until light and fluffy. Refrigerate until serving.

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Square Feet: A Wounded Wall Street Is Expected to Stay Put

Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A businessman made his way Monday into One New York Plaza in Manhattan's financial district, where the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy was still underway.

More than two weeks after Hurricane Sandy came ashore in Manhattan, sending an 11-foot surge of seawater over much of the southern tip of the island, the financial district is still in tatters.

Dozens of office buildings that were flooded by the storm still lack power and are off-limits to tenants, and many streets are a chaotic mess of generators, work crews and pumps.

Still trying to gauge the extent of the damage, many landlords have been vague about when their buildings will reopen. And some tenants, who have been uprooted to tiny conference rooms in New Jersey or industrial spaces in Brooklyn, are weighing whether to come back to the neighborhood at all.

But despite the uncertainty and destruction, many analysts don’t expect the bulk of tenants to pack up and leave for good, nor do they think that future tenants will rule out the neighborhood over fears they might get flooded.

“I don’t think it will become an overriding factor in the location decision,” said John Wheeler, the head downtown broker for Jones Lang LaSalle, echoing other top brokers. “I guess time will tell if I’m being too sanguine about this.”Brokers add that the neighborhood remains a compelling place to locate a business. Even with some train lines hampered by storm damage, it is still amply served by mass transit, with more than a dozen subway lines and ferry service. The new apartments and condos built in recent years, along with new boutiques and restaurants, also mean that many people can now live a few blocks from their office.

Besides, rents are notably competitive with other business districts in Manhattan, at about $40 a square foot in the financial district, compared with $65 in midtown, according to Cassidy Turley, the brokerage, though the downtown figure is expected to climb when the two new World Trade Center buildings come online.

Complicating the prognosis about the neighborhood’s long-term health is the fact that getting an exact handle on the extent of damage has been tricky. Many major landlords have been reluctant to respond to even basic questions about the status of their buildings. And many brokers have refused to discuss individual properties.

And while the city’s Buildings Department declared early last week that nine downtown buildings were completely off-limits, and another 445 were partially habitable, it did not differentiate between commercial and residential structures.

Jones Lang LaSalle has been one of the few brokerages to tackle the issue. It concluded that a hefty 20 percent of all the major office buildings below Canal Street are closed, or 37 out of 183, according to data compiled as of Monday. And those shuttered buildings, most of which are east of Broadway, represent 29.2 million square feet of space, the data shows.

Anecdotal evidence, too, suggests the damage has been severe. Late last week, the Water Street corridor, which runs along the East River, appeared alarmingly hard-hit.

Men in white hazmat outfits pushed garbage bins on streets, which rumbled with the sounds of generators. Several traffic lights were still dark. Clumps of yellow hoses snaked up escalators and through lobbies. And security guards, protecting against looters, were more numerous than people wearing suits.

Among the buildings confirmed closed were: 99 Wall Street, 199 Water Street, One Wall Street Plaza and 180 Maiden Lane. Others that appear to be closed include 55 Water Street, 85 Broad Street, 7 Hanover Square and 10 Hanover Square, among others. Four New York Plaza, where The Daily News is based, could be closed for a year, though One New York Plaza, whose basement shopping center took on 30 feet of water, should reopen in two weeks, according to a spokeswoman for the building’s landlord, Brookfield Office Properties.

Going forward, some tenants are concerned that floods will become a regular occurrence; after all, just 15 months ago, the city was soaked by Tropical Storm Irene. These tenants say their fears were confirmed by comments that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made after Hurricane Sandy about how destructive weather events are likely to recur.

“He was like, ‘If you don’t believe in global warming, wake up and see what’s happening here,’ and he was right,” said Andrea Katz, a development director for WBAI, the public radio station, which has a 10,000-square-foot space at 120 Wall Street. The lower floors of the Art Deco building, which is at South Street and owned by Silverstein Properties, were flooded by Hurricane Sandy.

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