Another Look at a Drink Ingredient, Brominated Vegetable Oil

James Edward Bates for The New York Times

Sarah Kavanagh, 15, of Hattiesburg, Miss., started an online petition asking PepsiCo to change Gatorade’s formula.

Sarah Kavanagh and her little brother were looking forward to the bottles of Gatorade they had put in the refrigerator after playing outdoors one hot, humid afternoon last month in Hattiesburg, Miss.

But before she took a sip, Sarah, a dedicated vegetarian, did what she often does and checked the label to make sure no animal products were in the drink. One ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, caught her eye.

“I knew it probably wasn’t from an animal because it had vegetable in the name, but I still wanted to know what it was, so I Googled it,” Ms. Kavanagh said. “A page popped up with a long list of possible side effects, including neurological disorders and altered thyroid hormones. I didn’t expect that.”

She threw the product away and started a petition on Change.org, a nonprofit Web site, that has almost 200,000 signatures. Ms. Kavanagh, 15, hopes her campaign will persuade PepsiCo, Gatorade’s maker, to consider changing the drink’s formulation.

Jeff Dahncke, a spokesman for PepsiCo, noted that brominated vegetable oil had been deemed safe for consumption by federal regulators. “As standard practice, we constantly evaluate our formulas and ingredients to ensure they comply with federal regulations and meet the high quality standards our consumers and athletes expect — from functionality to great taste,” he said in an e-mail.

In fact, about 10 percent of drinks sold in the United States contain brominated vegetable oil, including Mountain Dew, also made by PepsiCo; Powerade, Fanta Orange and Fresca from Coca-Cola; and Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda, made by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

The ingredient is added often to citrus drinks to help keep the fruit flavoring evenly distributed; without it, the flavoring would separate.

Use of the substance in the United States has been debated for more than three decades, so Ms. Kavanagh’s campaign most likely is quixotic. But the European Union has long banned the substance from foods, requiring use of other ingredients. Japan recently moved to do the same.

“B.V.O. is banned other places in the world, so these companies already have a replacement for it,” Ms. Kavanagh said. “I don’t see why they don’t just make the switch.” To that, companies say the switch would be too costly.

The renewed debate, which has brought attention to the arcane world of additive regulation, comes as consumers show increasing interest in food ingredients and have new tools to learn about them. Walmart’s app, for instance, allows access to lists of ingredients in foods in its stores.

Brominated vegetable oil contains bromine, the element found in brominated flame retardants, used in things like upholstered furniture and children’s products. Research has found brominate flame retardants building up in the body and breast milk, and animal and some human studies have linked them to neurological impairment, reduced fertility, changes in thyroid hormones and puberty at an earlier age.

Limited studies of the effects of brominated vegetable oil in animals and in humans found buildups of bromine in fatty tissues. Rats that ingested large quantities of the substance in their diets developed heart lesions.

Its use in foods dates to the 1930s, well before Congress amended the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to add regulation of new food additives to the responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration. But Congress exempted two groups of additives, those already sanctioned by the F.D.A. or the Department of Agriculture, or those experts deemed “generally recognized as safe.”

The second exemption created what Tom Neltner, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ food additives project, a three-year investigation into how food additives are regulated, calls “the loophole that swallowed the law.” A company can create a new additive, publish safety data about it on its Web site and pay a law firm or consulting firm to vet it to establish it as “generally recognized as safe” — without ever notifying the F.D.A., Mr. Neltner said.

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State of the Art: Google Maps App for iPhone Goes in the Right Direction - Review

It was one of the biggest tech headlines of the year: in September, Apple dropped its contract with Google, which had always supplied the data for the iPhone’s Maps app. For various strategic reasons, Apple preferred to write a new app, based on a new database of the world that Apple intended to assemble itself.

As everybody knows by now, Apple got lost along the way. It was like a 22-car pileup. Timothy Cook, Apple’s chief executive, made a quick turn, publicly apologizing, firing the executive responsible and vowing to fix Maps. For a company that prides itself on flawless execution, it was quite a detour.

Rumors swirled that Google would create an iPhone app of its own, one that would use its seven-year-old, far more polished database of the world.

That was true. Today, Google Maps for the iPhone has arrived. It’s free, fast and fantastic.

Now, there are two parts to a great maps app. There’s the app itself — how it looks, how it works, what the features are. In this regard, few people complain about Apple’s Maps app; it’s beautiful, and its navigation mode for drivers is clear, uncluttered and distraction-free.

But then there’s the hard part: the underlying data. Apple and Google have each constructed staggeringly complex databases of the world and its roads.

The recipe for both companies includes map data from TomTom, satellite photography from a different source, real-time traffic data from others, restaurant and store listings from still more sources, and so on. In the end, Apple says that it incorporated data from at least 24 different sources.

Those sources always include errors, if only because the world constantly changes. Worse, those sources sometimes disagree with one another. It takes years to fix the problems and mesh these data sources together.

So the first great thing about Google’s new Maps is the underlying data. Hundreds of Google employees have spent years hand-editing the maps, fixing the thousands of errors that people report every day. (In the new app, you report a mistake just by shaking the phone.) And since 2006, Google’s Street View vehicles have trawled 3,000 cities, photographing and confirming the cartographical accuracy of five million miles of roads.

You can sense the new app’s polish and intelligence the minute you enter your first address; it’s infinitely more understanding. When I type “200 W 79, NYC,” Google Maps drops a pin right where it belongs: on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Apple’s Maps app, on the other hand, acts positively drunk. It asks me to clarify: “Did you mean 200 Durham Road, Madison, CT? Or 200 Madison Road, Durham, CT?”

Um, what?

And then there’s the navigation. Lots of iPhone owners report that they’ve had no problem with Apple’s driving instructions, and that’s great. But I’ve been idiotically misdirected a few times — and the trouble is, you never know in advance. You wind up with a deep mistrust of the app that’s hard to shake. Google’s directions weren’t great in the app’s early days either, and they’re still not always perfect. But after years of polishing and corrections, they’re right a lot more often.

The must-have features are all here: spoken driving directions, color-coded real-time traffic conditions, vector-based maps (smooth at any size). But the new app also offers some incredibly powerful, useful features that Apple’s app lacks.

Street View, of course, lets you see a photograph of a place, and even “walk” down the street in any direction. Great for checking out a neighborhood before you go, scoping out the parking situation or playing “you are there” when you read a news article.

Along with driving directions, Google Maps gives equal emphasis to walking directions and public transportation options.

This feature is brilliantly done. Google Maps displays a clean, step-by-step timeline of your entire public transportation adventure. If you ask for a route from Westport, Conn., to the Empire State Building, the timeline says: “4:27 pm, Board New Haven train toward Grand Central Terminal.” Then it shows you the names of the actual train stops you’ll pass. Then, “5:47 pm, Grand Central. Get off and walk 2 min.” Then, “5:57 pm, 33rd St: Board the #6 Lexington Avenue Local towards Brooklyn Bridge.” And so on.

Even if public transportation were all it did, Google Maps would be one of the best apps ever. (Apple kicks you over to other companies’ apps for this information.)

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

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'Lincoln,' 'Les Mis,' 'Playbook' lead SAG awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Civil War saga "Lincoln," musical "Les Miserables" and comic drama "Silver Linings Playbook" boosted their Academy Awards prospects Wednesday with four nominations apiece for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

All three films were nominated for overall performance by their casts. Also nominated for best ensemble cast were the Iran hostage-crisis thriller "Argo" and the British retiree adventure "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."

Directed by Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln" also scored individual nominations for Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role as best actor, Sally Field for supporting actress as Mary Todd Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones for supporting actor as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

"Les Miserables," from "The King's Speech" director Tom Hooper, had nominations for Hugh Jackman for best actor as Victor Hugo's long-suffering hero Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway for supporting actress as a woman fallen into prostitution, plus a nomination for its stunt ensemble.

"Silver Linings Playbook," made by "The Fighter" director David O. Russell, also had lead-acting nominations for Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as lost souls who find a second chance at love and Robert De Niro for supporting actor as a football-obsessed dad.

Besides Lawrence, best-actress nominees are Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst pursuing Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty;" Marion Cotillard as a woman who finds romance after tragedy in "Rust and Bone;" Helen Mirren as Alfred Hitchcock's strong-willed wife in "Hitchcock;" and Naomi Watts as a woman caught in the devastation of a tsunami in "The Impossible."

Joining Cooper, Day-Lewis and Jackman in the best-actor field are John Hawkes as a polio victim aiming to lose his virginity in "The Sessions" and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."

One of the year's most-acclaimed films, Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master," earned only one nomination, supporting actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman as a mesmerizing cult leader. The film was snubbed on nominations for ensemble, lead actor Joaquin Phoenix and supporting actress Amy Adams.

Other individual performances overlooked by SAG voters include Anthony Hopkins in the title role of "Hitchcock," Keira Knightley in the title role of "Anna Karenina," Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt in "Hyde Park on Hudson" and "Argo" director Ben Affleck, who also starred in the film.

The SAG Awards will be presented Jan. 27. The guild nominations are one of Hollywood's first major announcements on the long road to the Feb. 24 Oscars Awards, whose nominations will be released Jan. 10.

Nominations for the Golden Globes, the second-biggest film honors after the Oscars, come out Thursday.

Maggie Smith had four individual and ensemble nominations. Along with sharing the ensemble honor for "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," Smith joined the cast of "Downton Abbey" among TV ensemble contenders and had nominations for supporting film actress as a cranky retiree in "Marigold Hotel" and TV drama actress for "Downton Abbey."

Nicole Kidman earned two individual nominations, as supporting film actress as a woman smitten with a prison inmate in "The Paperboy" and best actress in a TV movie or miniseries as war correspondent Martha Gellhorn in "Hemingway & Gellhorn."

Bryan Cranston had three overall nominations, as best actor in a TV drama for "Breaking Bad," an ensemble honor for that show and a film ensemble honor for "Argo."

Along with "Breaking Bad" and "Downton Abbey," best TV drama ensemble contenders are "Boardwalk Empire," ''Homeland" and "Mad Men." TV comedy ensemble nominees are "30 Rock," ''The Big Bang Theory," ''Glee," ''Modern Family," ''Nurse Jackie" and "The Office."

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Online:

http://www.sagawards.org

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Chris Bliss Builds Monument to Bill of Rights

PHOENIX — It started as a joke about 10 years ago. Chris Bliss, a juggler and stand-up comedian of viral Internet fame, had been scanning the headlines for inspiration and discovered the controversy over a granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of Alabama’s state judicial building.

“Instead of arguing over whether to leave up or take down these displays of the Ten Commandments,” read his ensuing comedy routine, “my suggestion is to put up displays of the Bill of Rights next to them and let people comparison shop.”

Funny or not, the idea intrigued him, so Mr. Bliss set out to search for Bill of Rights monuments, only to find there were none. He decided to try to build one, and to do it in Arizona, “a place that’s known as contentious, a backwater, even,” he said. As he spoke early Wednesday, the monument was beginning to take shape on a knoll overlooking the State Capitol, in a plaza full of other monuments and memorials honoring women, veterans and, yes, the Ten Commandments.

Before it could happen, though, Mr. Bliss, who left Phoenix for Austin, Tex., three years ago, had to figure out a way to get the Legislature to approve the monument on a slice of public land. In 2005, he was a guest on a radio show hosted by Kyrsten Sinema, then a freshman state representative, and asked if she would sponsor a bill.

“I’m a Democrat, and this is Arizona,” Ms. Sinema recalled telling him. “You need a Republican to push this legislation for you.” (Republicans have been the majority in the Legislature for at least 40 years.)

“I don’t like ‘no’s’ for answers,” Mr. Bliss said.

Ms. Sinema, who was elected to Congress last month, devised a strategy. If the legislation were to be approved, she said in an interview, it would need the support of a staunch Republican, preferably in the Senate, which is where many bills sponsored by Democrats customarily implode. She zeroed in on Karen S. Johnson, whom she described as “Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.” (Ms. Johnson, who left the Legislature in 2008, prefers the “conservative” label.)

“Hey, for heaven’s sake, how could anybody not be supportive of this?” said Ms. Johnson, who is perhaps better known for sponsoring a bill that would have allowed people bearing concealed-weapon permits to carry guns at public colleges and universities.

She had no qualms about putting her name next to Ms. Sinema, who at 28 was the Legislature’s youngest member — as well as an openly bisexual lawmaker whom “a lot of people liked to pick on,” as Ms. Sinema put it.

The bill stipulated that the project had to be paid through private donations. On Mother’s Day, Mr. Bliss raised more than $100,000 through a benefit concert here, out of $375,000 he has raised so far. (He said there is still about $10,000 to go.)

The concert brought together some big names in both comedy and civil rights. One of them, Dick Gregory, 80, had marched alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and staged hunger strikes in the name of racial equality. Another, Tom Smothers, 75, was a star of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” a top-rated show on CBS from 1967 to 1969 before it was canceled over the provocative tone of its political commentary, particularly on the Vietnam War.

The bill passed unanimously in the Arizona House and Senate in 2006, which is unusual for a legislative body that remains politically divided. It was an encouraging moment for Mr. Bliss, who said it “confirmed it was a mission worth committing to.” Since then, a commemorative Bill of Rights display has been unveiled outside the Poweshiek County Courthouse in Montezuma, Iowa, and another has been approved in Everett, Wash. Mr. Bliss has also begun raising money for a monument outside the Texas Supreme Court building in Austin.

The lead sculptor for the monument here, Joseph Kincannon, has carved 10 slabs of limestone, one for each amendment. They are planted outside the Capitol and will be dedicated on Saturday. Each slab is undulating and unique – the First Amendment resembles the tip of a key; the Second Amendment, a pregnant woman’s profile.

Mr. Kincannon trained at the stone yard at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. He worked there for 27 years, carving and building its ornate south tower. He said he wanted the monument’s pieces “to have movement when they were next to each other” so they would become “inviting to the eye.”

The blocks of limestone came from a quarry near Austin, where they were milled and carved over the summer. The heaviest, at approximately 7,000 pounds, carries the imprint of the Fifth Amendment, which protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. The lightest, at 2,500 pounds, offers the Third Amendment, which prohibits quartering soldiers in private homes without the homeowner’s consent.

Mr. Kincannon has read the material over and over, and from many angles. To him, the project was never about the significance behind the words, but about making them “comfortable to read,” he said.

For Mr. Bliss, however, it is all about the words’ meaning. He envisions the monument as a place for learning and reflection, “our bedrock principles broken up in 10 digestible bites,” he said.

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WebMD to cut 14 percent of workforce to reduce expenses

(Reuters) – Health information website WebMD Health Corp said it will cut around 250 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs.

The company, which had about 1700 employees according to Thomson Reuters data, said it would take a charge of about $ 6 million to $ 8 million in the fourth quarter, primarily on severance and other restructuring-related costs.

WebMD, which is a popular and long-trusted destination for checking health and disease related information, has lost its sheen for investors in recent times as it struggled to convert its growing user base into a steady revenue stream.

The company named a former Pfizer Inc executive Cavan Redmond as CEO earlier this year, entrusting the industry veteran with the task of reviving the website’s flagging business.

Its previous CEO, Wayne Gattinella, resigned after the company took itself off the auction block in January.

WebMD also said on Tuesday that it plans to streamline its operations and focus resources on increasing user engagement, customer satisfaction and innovation, and expects these efforts to reduce annualized operating expenses by about $ 45 million.

While most of the job cuts will be effective at the end of the year, other cost saving actions will be implemented in the first quarter of 2013, the company said in a statement.

The company reported a third-quarter loss in November, compared with a profit in the year-ago quarter, and said revenue fell 13 percent.

WebMD’s shares, which have lost nearly 40 percent of their value over the past six months, were down about 2 percent in premarket trade. They closed at $ 13.85 on Monday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Luke Bryan cleans up at ACAs with 9 awards

Luke Bryan didn't want the American Country Awards to end.

He cleaned up during the fan-voted show, earning nine awards, including artist and album of the year. His smash hit "I Don't Want This Night To End" was named single and music video of the year.

Miranda Lambert took home the second most guitar trophies with three. Jason Aldean was named touring artist of the year. Carrie Underwood won female artist of the year, and a tearful Lauren Alaina won new artist of the year.

Bryan, Aldean, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and Trace Adkins with Lynyrd Skynrd were among the high-energy performances.

The third annual ACAs were held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas Monday night.

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Online: http://www.theACAs.com

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Follow http://www.twitter.com/AP_Country for the latest country music news from The Associated Press.

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Mind: A Compromise on Defining and Diagnosing Mental Disorders

They plotted a revolution, fell to debating among themselves, and in the end overturned very little except their own expectations.

But the effort itself was a valuable guide for anyone who has received a psychiatric diagnosis, or anyone who might get one.

This month, the American Psychiatric Association announced that its board of trustees had approved the fifth edition of the association’s influential diagnostic manual — the so-called bible of mental disorders — ending more than five years of sometimes acrimonious, and often very public, controversy.

The committee of doctors appointed by the psychiatric association had attempted to execute a paradigm shift, changing how mental disorders are conceived and posting its proposals online for the public to comment. And comment it did: Patient advocacy groups sounded off, objecting to proposed changes in the definitions of depression and Asperger syndrome, among other diagnoses. Outside academic researchers did, too. A few committee members quit in protest.

The final text, which won’t be fully available until publication this spring, has already gotten predictably mixed reviews. “Given the challenges in a field where objective lines are hard to draw, they did a solid job,” said Dr. Michael First, a psychiatrist at Columbia who edited a previous version of the manual and was a consultant on this one.

Others disagreed. “This is the saddest moment in my 45-year career of practicing, studying and teaching psychiatry,” wrote Dr. Allen Frances, the chairman of a previous committee who has been one of the most vocal critics, in a blog post about the new manual, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM5.

Yet many experts inside and outside the process said the final document was not radically different from the previous version, and its lessons more mundane than the rhetoric implied. The status quo is hard to budge, for one. And when changes do happen, they are not necessarily the ones that were intended.

The new manual does extend the reach of psychiatry in some areas, as many critics feared it might. Hoarding is now a mental disorder (previously it was considered a symptom of obsessive-compulsive behavior). “Premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” a severe form of premenstrual syndrome, is also new (it was previously in the appendix).

And binge-eating disorder (also formerly in the appendix), a kind of severe, highly distressing gluttony, is now a full-blown diagnosis. This one by itself could tag millions of people considered healthy, if often overindulgent, with a psychiatric label, some experts said.

But the deeper story is one of compromise. It is most evident in how the committee handled three of the thorniest diagnoses in psychiatry: autism, depression and pediatric bipolar disorder.

The group working on depression declared early on that it wanted to eliminate the so-called bereavement exclusion, which stated that grieving the loss of a loved one should not be considered a clinical disorder, though it shares many of the same outward signs. Grief has always been a normal reaction to death, not a kind of depression.

Advocacy and support groups, such as those representing people who have lost a child, objected furiously to the idea that the bereaved might be given a diagnosis of depression.

“This was just astonishing, that they would eliminate the exclusion, and a distortion of the research on the subject,” said Jerome Wakefield, a professor of social work and psychiatry at New York University, who did not work on the manual.

In the end the committee cut a deal. It eliminated the grief exclusion but added a note in the text, reminding doctors that any significant loss — of a job, a relationship, a home — could cause depressive symptoms and should be carefully investigated.

“It’s like they took it all back,” Dr. Wakefield said. “I don’t like the way it was done — in a footnote — but it’s there.”

The debate over autism was even more furious, and it resulted in a similar rapprochement.

From the outset, the committee intended to tighten the definition of autism and simplify it, eliminating related labels like Asperger syndrome and “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified,” or PDD-NOS. The rate of diagnosis of such conditions has exploded over the past decade, in part due to the vagueness of the definitions, and the committee wanted to draw clearer boundaries.

It proposed a single “autism spectrum disorder” category, with stricter requirements.

Some outside researchers raised concerns. In January one of them, Dr. Fred Volkmar of the Yale School of Medicine, who had quit the committee in protest, presented research suggesting that 45 percent or more of people who currently had an autism or related diagnosis would not have one under the proposed revision.

Autism groups reacted immediately, fearing that the change in the diagnosis would deny services to children and families who need them.

The committee countered with its own study, suggesting that the new definition would exclude about 10 percent of people currently with a diagnosis. And again, the experts took a half step back.

The new, streamlined definition was approved, but with language that took into account a person’s diagnostic history. “It’s explicit that anyone who’s had an Asperger’s or autism or PDD-NOS diagnosis before is now included,” said Catherine Lord, a committee member who worked on the new definition and who is director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain in New York. “Essentially everyone gets in.”

Pediatric bipolar disorder posed a different challenge.

In the 1990s and 2000s, psychiatrists began giving aggressive, explosive children a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in increasing numbers. The trend appalled many patient advocates and doctors.

Bipolar disorder, which is characterized by episodes of depression and mania, had previously been an adult problem; now the diagnosis is given to children as young as 2 — along with powerful psychiatric drugs and tranquilizers that also cause rapid weight gain. The committee wanted to stop the trend in its tracks, said experts who were involved.

Most of the children treated for bipolar disorder did not have it, recent research found. The committee settled on an alternative label: “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder,” or D.M.D.D., which describes extreme hostility and outbursts beyond normal tantrums.

“They essentially wanted to have some place for these kids, and D.M.D.D. was all they had in their kit,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist at Stony Brook University Medical Center, who provided some outside consultation. “These are mostly kids who have A.D.H.D. or what we would call oppositional defiant disorder, but with this explosive feature. They need help; you can’t wait forever. The question was what to call it, without pretending we know enough to saddle them with a lifelong diagnosis” like bipolar disorder.

D.M.D.D. has its own problems, as many experts were quick to point out. It could be a symptom of an underlying condition, as Dr. Carlson argues. It could “medicalize” frequent temper tantrums. It’s brand new, and no one knows how it will play out in practice.

But it is now in the book — because it was the best solution available, experts inside and outside of the revision process said.

From beginning to end, many experts said, the process of defining psychiatric diagnoses is very much like finding the right one for an individual: it’s a process of negotiation, in many cases.

“That’s one of the take-aways from all this, and I think it’s a good one,” Dr. Carlson said. “A diagnosis is a hypothesis. It’s a start, and you have to start somewhere. But that’s all it is.”

One of the committee’s most ambitious proposals was perhaps the least noticed: a commitment to update the book continually, when there’s good reason to, rather than once every decade or so in a giant heave. That was approved without much fanfare.

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Moroccans Fear That Flickers of Democracy Are Fading

TANGIER, Morocco — Until recently, politics in Morocco involved red carpets and speeches in high Arabic that the average citizen could not understand. But on a campaign swing this fall through a working-class area of this port city, Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane stood on a makeshift podium in a muddy vacant lot.

He spoke without notes, kissed babies passed forward by the crowd and promised, as he has done all along, to fight corruption and return the government to the people.

“We will get stronger with the help of God and accomplish what we wanted,” he told the crowd, which roared its approval.

But more and more Moroccans are questioning his ability to do that, wondering whether Morocco’s version of the Arab Spring brought anything more than cosmetic changes to this impoverished country, which has been one of America’s most stable and staunch allies in a region marked by turmoil.

A year ago, it seemed Moroccans were giddy with the sense that they had found a gentle, negotiated answer to the popular uprisings in the streets. The country’s king, Mohammed VI, 49, defused angry protesters by volunteering to share his power. Within months, Morocco had a new Constitution.

Mr. Benkirane’s moderate Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party, won a plurality in parliamentary elections in November. Western governments heaped praise on the election process, satisfied that this strategically important country, just 12 miles south of Spain and atop a changing and uncertain continent, was settling in to a new more democratic order. (This week Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to visit Morocco for a meeting of the Friends of Syria.)

But these days, many here are questioning whether the king and his entourage really gave up anything at all. Telquel, perhaps the country’s most influential magazine, ran a cover story this fall saying that the palace had gradually taken back its concessions: the king’s shadow cabinet was interfering at will and was even sending its own emissaries to the United States and Brussels when Moroccan interests needed tending to. Mr. Benkirane, the magazine pointed out, had publicly admitted that the king’s advisers sometimes met with government officials without consulting him.

Some also point to a quiet clamping down on political activists. In October, the United Nations said there was evidence of a recent spike in reports of torture in Morocco. About 70 protesters associated with the pro-democracy February 20 Movement are still in prison. In May, a popular rapper was sentenced to a year in jail for a song about police corruption. And six political activists testified at a hearing in September that they had been physically — and sexually — abused after being arrested for protesting in July.

In other countries rocked by Arab Spring uprisings, tensions today are being felt largely over the role of Islam in government. These issues have come up in Morocco, too. But here, the larger tensions appear to be over the power of the old guard. Many Moroccans will not criticize the king, instead focusing on the network of power and privilege that surrounds him and the corruption that they believe sucks any hope of prosperity from this country.

The problems Morocco faces are enormous. The country has invested heavily in infrastructure: superhighways are everywhere and there are plans for a high-speed train, too. But 40 percent of the population cannot read or write. Forbes has estimated the king’s fortune to be more than $2 billion. But the average income here is low, roughly half of what it was in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring first took off.

Mr. Benkirane took office showing a flare for the dramatic. He quickly slashed ministerial salaries and perquisites, and he refused to move to the prime minister’s mansion. He also took on Morocco’s notorious cronyism. To widespread amazement, his government published the names of those who had been given lucrative bus licenses. Since then, however, his efforts have foundered.

Some critics say the prime minister has been outmaneuvered at every turn. Once last spring, Mr. Benkirane seemed to lash out at the king and his entourage, suggesting that protesters could easily return to the streets. But soon after, he said the remarks had been misunderstood.

Aida Alami contributed reporting.

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Hug It Out: Public Charter and District Schools Given $25 Million to Get Along

If you need a loan, ask Bill and Melinda Gates. Or better yet, ask one of the seven cities that are splitting a new $ 25 million grant courtesy of the couple’s philanthropic foundation.

The funds are going to promote cross collaboration between charter and district schools, which have previously operated in a strict and contentious independence from one another.

The foundation announced the award this week, and the cities benefiting are Boston, Denver, Hartford (CT), New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia and Spring Branch (TX).

How did they get so lucky? They’re among a group of 16 communities that signed the Gates-sponsored “District-Charter Collaboration Compacts” pledging for an open-source collaboration between public charter and district public schools.

Communication between these two models is unusual to say the least; they’ve had a long and illustrious history of battling each other over tax dollars, students and even building space.

But when charter schools first opened 20 years ago, their original purpose was to create an experimental educational space which would then share its best methods with public district schools. Instead, the two grew into rivals and critics of each are vehemently opposed to the other.

Among the complaints, charter schools are seen as selfishly siphoning off the most motivated students from the district while upholding a rich-poor educational divide and failing to live up to the promise of a better education. Others say its district schools that are the issue for their unionized teacher complacency and a consistent inability to keep a large margin of students from falling through the cracks.

In truth, neither system is a slam-dunk, and both are experiencing closures nationwide due to underperformance.

The goal of the District-Charter Collaboration Compacts is to restore the original relationship of the two camps, effectively establishing a regular protocol of sharing their best practices, innovations and resources.

Don Shalvey, the deputy director at teh Gates Foundation told The New York Times, “It took Microsoft and Apple 10 years to learn to talk. So it’s not surprising that it took a little bit longer for charters and other public schools. It’s pretty clear there is more common ground than battleground.”

But what will this grand collaboration yield? If all goes according to plan, students from both camps will benefit from new teacher effectiveness practices, college-ready tools and supports, and innovative instructional delivery systems.

According to the Gates Foundation, only one-third of students meet the criteria of college ready by the time they graduate. And most of the kids who don’t are often minority students from lower income areas. By creating collaborative aims with charter and district, kids from all over can have access to a wider swath of teaching frameworks and curriculums. 

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Public Dollars for Private Schools? Voices from the Voucher Debate

• School Vouchers: The Debate Heats Up Across the U.S.

• Howard Fuller: One of the Most Powerful Educators in America

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A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

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Singer feared dead in Mexican plane crash

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's music world mourned Jenni Rivera, the U.S.-born singer presumed killed in a plane crash whose soulful voice and openness about her personal troubles had made her a Mexican-American superstar.

Authorities have not confirmed her death, but Rivera's relatives in the U.S. say they have few doubts that she was on the Learjet 25 that disintegrated on impact Sunday in rugged territory in Nuevo Leon state in northern Mexico.

"My son Lupillo told me that effectively it was Jenni's plane that crashed and that everyone on board died," her father, Pedro Rivera, told dozens of reporters gathered in front of his Los Angeles-area home. "I believe my daughter's body is unrecognizable."

He said that his son would fly to Monterrey Monday.

Messages of condolence poured in from fellow musicians and celebrities.

Mexican songstress and actress Lucero wrote on her Twitter account: "What terrible news! Rest in peace ... My deepest condolences for her family and friends." Rivera's colleague on the Mexican show "The Voice of Mexico," pop star Paulina Rubio, said on her Twitter account: "My friend! Why? There is no consolation. God, please help me!"

Born in Long Beach, California, Rivera was at the peak of her career as perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated regional style influenced by the norteno, cumbia and ranchero styles.

A 43-year-old mother of five children and grandmother of two, the woman known as the "Diva de la Banda" was known for her frank talk about her struggles to give a good life to her children despite a series of setbacks.

She was recently divorced from her third husband, was once detained at a Mexico City airport with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, and she publicly apologized after her brother assaulted a drunken fan who verbally attacked her in 2011.

Her openness about her personal troubles endeared her to millions in the U.S. and Mexico.

"I am the same as the public, as my fans," she told The Associated Press in an interview last March.

Rivera sold 15 million records, and recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year for "Joyas prestadas: Banda." She was nominated for Latin Grammys in 2002, 2008 and 2011.

Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said "everything points toward" the wreckage belonging to the plane carrying Rivera and six other people to Toluca, outside Mexico City, from Monterrey, where the singer had just given a concert.

"There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human" in the wreckage found in the state of Nuevo Leon, Ruiz Esparza said. The impact was so powerful that the remains of the plane "are scattered over an area of 250 to 300 meters. It is almost unrecognizable."

A mangled California driver's license with Rivera's name and picture was found in the crash site debris.

No cause was given for the plane's crash, but its wreckage was found near the town of Iturbide in Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental, where the terrain is very rough.

The Learjet 25, number N345MC, took off from Monterrey at 3:30 a.m. local time and was reported missing about 10 minutes later. It was registered to Starwood Management of Las Vegas, Nevada, according to FAA records. It was built in 1969 and had a current registration through 2015.

Also believed aboard the plane were her publicist, Arturo Rivera, her lawyer, makeup artist and the flight crew.

Though drug trafficking was the theme of some of her songs, she was not considered a singer of "narco corridos," or ballads glorifying drug lords like other groups, such as Los Tigres del Norte. She was better known for singing about her troubles in love and disdain for men.

Her parents were Mexicans who had migrated to the United States. Two of her five brothers, Lupillo and Juan Rivera, are also well-known singers of grupero music.

She studied business administration and formally debuted on the music scene in 1995 with the release of her album "Chacalosa". Due to its success, she recorded two more independent albums, "We Are Rivera" and "Farewell to Selena," a tribute album to slain singer Selena that helped expand her following.

At the end of the 1990s, Rivera was signed by Sony Music and released two more albums. But widespread success came for her when she joined Fonovisa and released her 2005 album titled "Partier, Rebellious and Daring."

Besides being a singer, she is also a businesswoman and actress, appearing in the indie film Filly Brown, which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, as the incarcerated mother of Filly Brown.

She was filming the third season of "I love Jenni," which followed her as she shared special moments with her children and as she toured through Mexico and the United States. She also has the reality shows: "Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis and Raq-C" and her daughter's "Chiquis 'n Control."

In 2009, she was detained at the Mexico City airport when she declared $20,000 in cash but was really carrying $52,167. She was taken into custody. She said it was an innocent mistake and authorities gave her the benefit of the doubt and released her.

In 2011, her brother Juan assaulted a drunken fan at a popular fair in Guanajuato. In the face of heavy criticism among her fans and on social networks, Rivera publicly apologized for the incident during a concert in Mexico City, telling her fans: "Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects."

On Saturday night, Rivera had given a concert before thousands of fans in Monterrey. After the concert she gave a press conference during which she spoke of her emotional state following her recent divorce from former Major League Baseball pitcher Esteban Loaiza, who played for teams including the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.

"I can't get caught up in the negative because that destroys you. Perhaps trying to move away from my problems and focus on the positive is the best I can do. I am a woman like any other and ugly things happen to me like any other woman," she said Saturday night. "The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up."

Rivera had announced in October that she was divorcing Loaiza after two years of marriage.

There have been several high-profile crashes involving Learjets, known as swift, longer-distance passenger aircraft popular with corporate executives, entertainers and government officials.

A Learjet carrying pro-golfer Payne Stewart and five others crashed in northeastern South Dakota in 1999. Investigators said the plane lost cabin pressure and all on board died after losing consciousness for lack of oxygen. The aircraft flew for several hours on autopilot before running out of fuel and crashing in a corn field.

Former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker was severely injured in a 2008 Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people.

That same year, a Learjet slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, killing Mexico's No. 2 government official, Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, and eight others on the plane, plus five people on the ground.

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Associated Press Writer Galia Garcia-Palafox and Olga R. Rodriguez contributed to this report from Mexico City.

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