Senate Hearing to Focus on Gun Violence

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Former Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark E. Kelly, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — Speaking slowly but with discernible passion, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically injured in a mass shooting in Arizona in 2011, addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in its first hearing since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., last month.

Ms. Giffords, who entered a packed hearing room on Capitol Hill, walked slowly by the senators gathered to hear testimony from several witnesses, including her husband Mark E. Kelly, and kissed some of them on the cheeks as she passed.

“This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities,” Ms. Giffords began. “For Democrats and Republicans. Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard. But the time to act is now,” she said, emphasizing the last word. “You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you.” With that, Ms. Giffords made her way quietly out of the room.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the committee, then began his opening remarks, noting that “the Second Amendment is secure and will remain secure and protected. In two recent cases, the Supreme Court has confirmed that the Second Amendment, like other aspects of our Bill of Rights, secures a fundamental individual right. Americans have the right to self-defense and to have guns in their homes to protect their families. No one can or will take those rights or our guns away. Second Amendment rights are the foundation on which our discussion rests. They are not at risk. But lives are at risk when responsible people fail to stand up for laws that will keep guns out of the hands of those who will use them to commit mass murder. I ask that we focus our discussion on additional statutory measures to better protect our children and all Americans.”

The first Republican to speak, immediately after Mr. Leahy, was Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who argued that legislation must address violence in video games and said that ample research underscored that the expired ban on assault weapon had been ineffective.

The first witness to speak was Mr. Kelly, who revisited the horror of the day his wife was shot, and its aftermath. “She struggles to walk and she is partially blind,” he said, “and a year ago she left the job she loves serving the people of Arizona.”

Pointing out that he and Ms. Giffords remain gun owners he said, “We aren’t here as victims, we are speaking to you here today as Americans.” Ms. Gifford’s and Mr. Kelly’s group, Americans for Responsible Solution, seeks changes to gun laws that would better weed out mentally ill and criminal gun buyers through improvements to the background check system.

“When dangerous people get dangerous guns we are all the more vulnerable,” he said.

Also testifying Tuesday is Wayne La Pierre, who is the head of the National Rifle Association.

The N.R.A. on Tuesday released Mr. La Pierre’s testimony, in which he reiterates his call for armed security in schools and his resistance to new gun control measures.

“It’s time to throw an immediate blanket of security around our children,” the testimony reads. “About a third of our schools have armed security already — because it works. And that number is growing. Right now, state officials, local authorities and school districts in all 50 states are considering their own plans to protect children in their schools.”

Mr. La Pierre adds: “In addition, we need to enforce the thousands of gun laws that are currently on the books. Prosecuting criminals who misuse firearms works. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a dramatic collapse in federal gun prosecutions in recent years. Over all in 2011, federal weapons prosecutions per capita were down 35 percent from their peak in the previous administration. That means violent felons, gang members and the mentally ill who possess firearms are not being prosecuted. And that’s unacceptable.”

The N.R.A. on Tuesday urged its members to attend the hearing and show support for gun rights. Earlier this week during a hearing of a Connecticut State General Assembly task force, supporters of gun rights heckled the father of a child killed in Newtown who raised questions about the state’s restrictions on assault weapons.

Scores of regular people lined the hallways of the Hart Senate Office Building on Wednesday morning, waiting to enter and signaling the most intense interest in a Congressional hearing since the days of the debate over the health care law, and perhaps the Iraq war. Several law enforcement officials lined a front row of seats in the hearing room.

Many Democrats have hoped to harness the emotional impact of the Newtown tragedy, and recent polling that suggests many Americans including gun owners support some new legislation aimed at stemming at least illegal gun use, to pursue legislation that has become, in many ways, the third rail of American politics.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has already introduced legislation that would ban the sale and manufacture of 157 types of semiautomatic weapons, as well as ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines were among the proposals being pushedby President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

But Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has introduced his own far more modest measure that would give law enforcement officials more tools to investigate so-called straw purchasing of guns, in which people buy firearms for others who are prohibited from obtaining them on their own.

Other senators are pushing their own bills. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, and Senator Mark Steven Kirk, Republican of Illinois, have agreed to work together on gun trafficking legislation that would seek to crack down on illegal guns. Mr. Kirk is also working on a background check proposal with Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who is considered somewhat of a bellwether among Democrats with strong gun-rights records.

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RIM starts glitzy BlackBerry 10 launch parties

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Wednesday kicked off a string of global launch parties for a long-delayed line of smartphones it says will put it on the comeback trail in a market it once dominated.

The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple‘s iPhone and devices using Google‘s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.

They boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large app library.

(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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Rihanna on dating Brown: A mistake? My mistake

NEW YORK (AP) — Rihanna says if dating Chris Brown is mistake, she's OK with that.

The singer tells Rolling Stone in an interview that dating Brown makes her happy and "if it's a mistake, it's my mistake." She adds that she's ready to go public with her singer-boyfriend.

Four years ago, Brown attacked Rihanna and was charged with a felony. But rumors about their relationship emerged after the singers collaborated on songs and appeared in photos together.

Rihanna says she knows that her history with 23-year-old Brown is "not the cutest puzzle in the world." The 24-year-old also vows that Brown is "disgusted" by what he did in the past. She says the two have matured and they "know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that."

The magazine's new issue hits newsstands Friday.

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Phys Ed: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.

The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal ski gear and schuss or ride down the slopes at their preferred speed. Although they hadn’t informed the volunteers, their primary aim was to determine whether wearing a helmet increased people’s willingness to take risks, in which case helmets could actually decrease safety on the slopes.

What they found was reassuring.

To many of us who hit the slopes with, in my case, literal regularity — I’m an ungainly novice snowboarder — the value of wearing a helmet can seem self-evident. They protect your head from severe injury. During the Big Air finals at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., this past weekend, for instance, 23-year-old Icelandic snowboarder Halldor Helgason over-rotated on a triple back flip, landed head-first on the snow, and was briefly knocked unconscious. But like the other competitors he was wearing a helmet, and didn’t fracture his skull.

Indeed, studies have concluded that helmets reduce the risk of a serious head injury by as much as 60 percent. But a surprising number of safety experts and snowsport enthusiasts remain unconvinced that helmets reduce overall injury risk.

Why? A telling 2009 survey of ski patrollers from across the country found that 77 percent did not wear helmets because they worried that the headgear could reduce their peripheral vision, hearing and response times, making them slower and clumsier. In addition, many worried that if they wore helmets, less-adept skiers and snowboarders might do likewise, feel invulnerable and engage in riskier behavior on the slopes.

In the past several years, a number of researchers have attempted to resolve these concerns, for or against helmets. And in almost all instances, helmets have proved their value.

In the Innsbruck speed experiment, the researchers found that people whom the questionnaires showed to be risk takers skied and rode faster than those who were by nature cautious. No surprise.

But wearing a helmet did not increase people’s speed, as would be expected if the headgear encouraged risk taking. Cautious people were slower than risk-takers, whether they wore helmets or not; and risk-takers were fast, whether their heads were helmeted or bare.

Interestingly, the skiers and riders who were the most likely, in general, to don a helmet were the most expert, the men and women with the most talent and hours on the slopes. Experience seemed to have taught them the value of a helmet.

Off of the slopes, other new studies have brought skiers and snowboarders into the lab to test their reaction times and vision with and without helmets. Peripheral vision and response times are a serious safety concern in a sport where skiers and riders rapidly converge from multiple directions.

But when researchers asked snowboarders and skiers to wear caps, helmets, goggles or various combinations of each for a 2011 study and then had them sit before a computer screen and press a button when certain images popped up, they found that volunteers’ peripheral vision and reaction times were virtually unchanged when they wore a helmet, compared with wearing a hat. Goggles slightly reduced peripheral vision and increased response times. But helmets had no significant effect.

Even when researchers added music, testing snowboarders and skiers wearing Bluetooth-audio equipped helmets, response times did not increase significantly from when they wore wool caps.

So why do up to 40 percent of skiers and snowboarders still avoid helmets?

“The biggest reason, I think, is that many people never expect to fall,” says Dr. Adil H. Haider, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-author of a major new review of studies related to winter helmet use. “That attitude is especially common in people, like me, who are comfortable on blue runs but maybe not on blacks, and even more so in beginners.”

But a study published last spring detailing snowboarding injuries over the course of 18 seasons at a Vermont ski resort found that the riders at greatest risk of hurting themselves were female beginners. I sympathize.

The takeaway from the growing body of science about ski helmets is in fact unequivocal, Dr. Haider said. “Helmets are safe. They don’t seem to increase risk taking. And they protect against serious, even fatal head injuries.”

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, of which Dr. Haider is a member, has issued a recommendation that “all recreational skiers and snowboarders should wear safety helmets,” making them the first medical group to go on record advocating universal helmet use.

Perhaps even more persuasive, Dr. Haider has given helmets to all of his family members and colleagues who ski or ride. “As a trauma surgeon, I know how difficult it is to fix a brain,” he said. “So everyone I care about wears a helmet.”

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BlackBerry 10’s Debut Is a Critical Day for Research in Motion

OTTAWA — Research in Motion’s introduction on Wednesday of a new BlackBerry phone will be the most important event in the company’s history since 1996, when its founders showed investors a small block of wood and promised that a wireless e-mail device shaped like that would change business forever.

Now with just 4.6 percent of the global market for smartphones in 2012, according to IDC, RIM long ago exchanged dominance for survival mode. On Wednesday, the company will introduce a new line of smartphones called the BlackBerry 10 and an operating system of the same name that Thorsten Heins, the president and chief executive of RIM, says will restore the company to glory.

But Frank Mersch, who became one of RIM’s earliest investors after seeing the block of wood, is far less excited by what he sees this time around.

“You’re in a very, very competitive market and you’re not the leader,” Mr. Mersch, now the chairman and a vice president at Front Street Capital in Toronto, said of RIM. “You have to ask: ‘At the end of the day are we really going to win?’ I personally think the jury’s out on that.”

The main elements of the new phones and their operating system are already well known. Mr. Heins and other executives at RIM have been demonstrating the units for months to a variety of audiences. App developers received prototype versions as far back as last spring.

While analysts and app developers may be divided about the future of RIM, there is a consensus that BlackBerry 10, which arrives more than year behind schedule, was worth the wait.

Initially RIM will release two variations of the BlackBerry 10, one a touch-screen model that resembles many other phones now on the market. The other model is a hybrid with a keyboard similar to those now found on current BlackBerrys as well as a small touch screen.

The real revolution, though, may be in the software that manages a person’s business and personal information. It is clearly designed with an eye toward retaining and, more important, luring back, corporate users.

Corporate and government information technology managers will be able to segregate business-related apps and data on BlackBerry 10 handsets from users’ personal material through a system known as BlackBerry Balance. It will enable an I.T. manager to, among other things, remotely wipe corporate data from fired employees’ phones while leaving the newly jobless workers’ personal photos, e-mails, music and apps untouched. The system can also block users from forwarding or copying information from the work side of the phone.

Messages generated by e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging and LinkedIn accounts are automatically consolidated into a single in-box that RIM calls BlackBerry Hub.

Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research, called the new phones “beautiful” and described the operating system as “a giant leap forward” from RIM’s current operating system. Ray Sharma, who followed RIM’s glory years as a financial analyst but who now runs XMG Studio, a mobile games developer in Toronto, has been similarly impressed.

But both men are among many analysts who question the ability of BlackBerry 10, whatever its merits, to revive RIM’s fallen fortunes.

“If it’s good, it will help inspire the upgrade cycle,” Mr. Sharma said. “But it has to be great in order to inspire touch-screen users to come back. If it’s good, not great, I will be concerned.”

Mr. Golvin was more blunt. “They’ll need to prove themselves in the face of a simultaneous onslaught of marketing from Microsoft, not to mention the continued push from Apple plus Google and its Android partners,” he wrote. “This is a gargantuan challenge for a company of RIM’s size.”

In the year since he took over from the founders, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, Mr. Heins has certainly remade RIM. He cut 5,000 jobs in a program to reduce operating costs by about $1 billion a year. Along the way, he also replaced RIM’s senior management and straightened out its balance sheet. While unprofitable, RIM remains debt-free and holds $2.9 billion in cash.

With BlackBerry 10, RIM not only started over with its operating system, it also rebuilt the company through acquisitions. Its core operating system comes from QNX Software Systems, the design of the user interface is largely the work of the Astonishing Tribe in Sweden while other main components, like the touch-screen technology, came from smaller companies that are now part of RIM.

Integrating all of those acquisitions, analysts and former RIM employees say, added to the delays that plagued BlackBerry 10.

Now that the new phones are finally here, Mr. Heins is counting on RIM’s remaining base of 79 million users globally to eagerly upgrade. But where those customers reside may be as important in their numbers in determining the success of that plan.

In the United States, which leads the world in setting smartphone trends, about 11 million BlackBerry users switched to other phones between 2009 and the middle of last year, according to an analysis by Horace Dediu on Asymco, a wireless industry blog he founded.

Until the final months of 2012, RIM continued to increase its subscriber base through sales of low-cost handsets to less developed countries like Nigeria and Indonesia. Although BlackBerry 10 will be made available worldwide, the initial phones will be too expensive for a majority of BlackBerry fans in those regions.

RIM may also have confused its loyalists, particularly in North America and Europe, in the run-up to the BlackBerry 10 debut. Many of those users stuck with BlackBerrys because of their physical keyboards. But public demonstrations for BlackBerry 10 were centered on the touch-screen-only version and its virtual keyboard.

While some corporations have remained loyal to BlackBerry, RIM not only has to sell them on the new handsets, it also must persuade them to upgrade server software to accommodate the new operating system, a costly and time-consuming process. Companies whose employees continue to use older BlackBerrys will have to run two separate BlackBerry servers.

Mr. Heins’s pitch to those corporations is that the BlackBerry 10 server software will also allow them to manage and control data on employees’ Android phones and iPhones. But any corporation or organization that allows those phones to connect with its systems long ago installed mobile device management software from other companies, including Good Technology and SAP. RIM is likely to find that the competition in device management software is as severe as it is in the handset business.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 30, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated part of the name of the Toronto company where Frank Mersch is the chairman and a vice president. It is First Street Capital, not Front Street Capital. An earlier version of this correction misspelled Frank Mersch’s surname as Mersh.

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The Caucus: LaHood to Leave Transportation Department

Ray LaHood, the former Republican congressman from Illinois who has run the nation’s Transportation Department under President Obama, will not serve a second term, he told department employees in a letter on Tuesday.

“I’ve told President Obama, and I’ve told many of you, that this is the best job I’ve ever had. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work with all of you,” Mr. LaHood wrote. He cited the department’s efforts to curb distracted driving and to increase the efficiency of automobiles by raising emissions standards.

As transportation secretary, Mr. LaHood was at the center of efforts to reduce fatigue among pilots and called for greater investment in high-speed rail. He also pushed for large fines against Toyota for safety problems and for a new transportation bill in Congress.

“We have made great progress in improving the safety of our transit systems, pipelines, and highways, and in reducing roadway fatalities to historic lows,” he said. “We have strengthened consumer protections with new regulations on buses, trucks, and airlines.”

Mr. LaHood’s decision makes him the latest in a series of members of the president’s original cabinet to announce their departure in the last several weeks.

In a statement, Mr. Obama praised Mr. LaHood, the sole Republican to serve in his first-term cabinet, as a public servant who has been more interested in practical solutions than in partisan politics.

“Years ago, we were drawn together by a shared belief that those of us in public service owe an allegiance not to party or faction, but to the people we were elected to represent,” the president wrote. “And Ray has never wavered in that belief.”

Several people have been mentioned as possible replacements for Mr. LaHood at the Transportation Department. Among them: Antonio Villaraigosa, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles; Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania; Debbie Hersman, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board; and Jennifer Granholm, the former Democratic governor of Michigan.

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Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.

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Cricket-Australia board play straight bat to Warne twitter rant

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland has defended the organisation following a scathing attack aimed at them by spin great Shane Warne, who panned the board in a series of Twitter rants.

Sutherland added that he was prepared to meet with Warne and discuss the 43-year-old’s criticism of CA’s player rotation policy and his claim that “rubbish” decisions were turning Australian cricket into a “big joke”.

After venting his initial anger on Monday, Warne reiterated his views a day later.

“As I said last night we need cricket people running the team & who understand cricket & what’s required at the top level, not muppets,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

Warne questioned the logic of having former rugby union international Pat Howard as the board’s high performance manager but Sutherland threw his weight behind the former Wallaby back.

“I have every confidence in Pat Howard and his team, and what they’re doing,” Sutherland told local media on Tuesday.

“Personally I find it a little bit disappointing to read about that (Warne’s criticisms) in the fashion that I have.

“Ideally you’d like to be able to sit down with Shane and understand a little bit more deeply his opinions.”

Australia won all three tests in a recent series against Sri Lanka but were held 2-2 in the subsequent one-day internationals after resting skipper Michael Clarke for the first two matches.

The hosts, however, lost both Twenty20 internationals and were left debating the merits of a controversial rotation policy CA has introduced to manage injuries and the workload of their frontline players.

While Warne insisted Australia needed to field their best 11 players every time they stepped out, fast bowling great Dennis Lillee has backed CA’s approach.

“He’s 100 percent in agreement with the selection panel with managing the load and development of players,” Sutherland said of Lillee, who captured 355 wickets in 70 tests.

“Who’s right here?

“You’ve got Shane Warne saying one thing, Dennis Lillee saying another. It’s not a black and white issue.”

Warne retired from test cricket in 2007 after taking 708 wickets in 145 tests. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by John O’Brien)

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Rupert Sanders' wife files for divorce in LA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rupert Sanders' wife has filed for divorce five months after it was revealed the director had a brief affair with actress Kristen Stewart.

Liberty Ross, Sanders' wife of more than nine years, filed for divorce Friday in Los Angeles citing irreconcilable differences.

Ross' filing cites irreconcilable differences for the couple's breakup. They have two children, an 8-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son.

The model-actress is seeking joint custody of the children and spousal support from her estranged husband, who directed Stewart in "Snow White and the Huntsman."

TMZ, which first reported the filing, stated that Sanders also filed divorce paperwork but it was not available on Monday.

Stewart, who has been dating "Twilight" co-star Robert Pattinson, apologized for her fling with Sanders in July after it was revealed by US Weekly.

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Well: Celery Recipes for Health

For many people, celery is best used as a garnish, part of a snack tray or perhaps to stir a Bloody Mary. But to Martha Rose Shulman, the Recipes for Health columnist, celery can be a main course. She writes:

I’m a big fan of celery, both raw and cooked, as the main ingredient or as one of several featured ingredients in a dish. You can do the traditional thing with raw celery and dice it up and add it to a potato, tuna or egg salad, or you can make a celery salad, slicing the branches as thin as you can get them and tossing them with herbs, radishes, oil and vinegar, and blue cheese. If you are cooking with celery, don’t stop at one branch when you make soup. The celery contributes a wonderful herbal flavor dimension. It retains its texture for a long time when you cook it, so I used it as the main vegetable in a risotto and loved the way it stood up to the creamy rice.

Here are five ways to move celery off the snack tray and on to center plate.

Lentil, Celery and Tomato Minestrone: With extra celery, traditional minestrone soup takes on a whole new layer of flavor.

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Pan-Cooked Celery With Tomatoes and Parsley: A way to serve celery as a side dish, or as a topping for grains or pasta.

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Celery and Radish Salad With Gorgonzola: Use the delicate hearts of celery for this light and delicious salad.

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Celery Risotto With Dandelion Greens or Kale: Celery contrasts nicely with the rice in this aromatic risotto.

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Puréed Broccoli and Celery Soup: A broccoli soup with an added dimension of flavor.

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Appeals Court Suspends Peugeot's Job-Cut Plan

PARIS — PSA Peugeot Citroën, the struggling French automaker, has been ordered by an appeals court to temporarily halt carrying out its plan to shed workers in France. But the company said the ruling would not affect its overhaul in the long run.

Lionel Bonaventure/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Striking workers at the P.S.A. Peugeot Citroën plant in Aulnay-sous-Bois, France, on Monday.

The Paris Court of Appeals partially overturned a September decision by a lower tribunal, agreeing with a union complaint that Peugeot had failed to adequately discuss its revamping plans with workers at Faurecia Intérieurs Industries, an auto parts maker in which it owns a majority stake.

The appeals court reached the decision Monday, but did not make it public until Tuesday.

The appeals court held that Faurecia — which is also seeking to cut jobs — must formally consult with its workers before Peugeot can begin putting its own plan into effect. Faurecia said Tuesday that it would begin the consultation process “without delay.”

A Peugeot spokesman, Pierre-Olivier Salmon, said the decision would have little practical effect on the company's plans because “we’re only in the negotiation phase now, anyway.” The appeals court left untouched the tribunal’s dismissal of the union’s request to overturn Peugeot’s restructuring plan.

Peugeot is battling to regain its footing in a European auto market that shrank by more than 8 percent last year. It is particularly vulnerable to the slump because it does not have a large presence in high-profit luxury vehicles and is dependent on the European market, including southern European countries that have been badly dented by the sovereign debt crisis.

The company said last year that it would close its plant in Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris, and was aiming to cut 8,000 jobs of the roughly 97,000 people it employs in France. Peugeot said it hoped to achieve the staff cuts mainly by offering early retirement and buyouts. It has also said it will not replace some other departing workers as it seeks to reduce its total French work force by around 11,200 jobs by mid-2014. Strikes and other industrial actions have become common, with union employees on Monday interrupting production at the Aulnay facility for a time.

The French company last year sold a 7 percent stake to General Motors, which has its own problems in Europe with its struggling Adam Opel unit. The two companies have formed a loose alliance to cooperate on vehicle projects and logistics.

Peugeot’s legal setback serves to illustrate the difficulty of streamlining operations in France, particularly in an industry that the government views as a strategic priority amid wide concerns for the country’s competitiveness. President François Hollande, a Socialist, has said Peugeot restructuring plan was “not acceptable.”

Monday’s ruling also shows how seriously courts here take companies’ legal obligations to workers. Earlier this month, a court threw out the overhaul plans of Le Crillon, a landmark luxury hotels in Paris, just months before it was to close for a two-year renovation. The hotel’s owner, the tribunal found, had failed to adequately consult with its 360 employees.

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