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Japan Pool, via Jiji Press
A Japanese patrol plane, pictured in 2011, flying over the disputed islands in the East China Sea.
BEIJING — China sent fighter jets on the first patrols of its new air defense zone over disputed islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the state news agency, Xinhua, said.
The patrols followed announcements by Japan and South Korea that their military planes had flown through the zone unhindered by China.
The tit-for-tat flights between China on one side and South Korea and Japan on the other heightened the tensions over the East China Sea where China and Japan are at loggerheads over islands they both claim.
The airspace in the new zone announced by China last week overlaps a similar zone declared by Japan more than 40 years ago. Both zones are over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.
China has said that noncommercial aircraft entering the zone without prior notification would face "defensive emergency measures."
China would take "relevant measures according to different air threats" to defend the country's airspace, Xinhua reported.
In a direct challenge to earlier threats by China that it could take military action against foreign aircraft entering the zone, the United States sent two unarmed B-52 bombers to fly through the airspace for more than two hours overnight Monday. The Chinese military said it had monitored the flight path of the American planes, and China appeared to backpedal from its initial threats of action.
In an unusually strong editorial in English, Global Times, a newspaper that often strikes a nationalist tone, said in Friday's editions: "Maybe an imminent conflict will be waged between China and Japan. Our ultimate goal is to beat its willpower and ambition to institute strategic confrontation against China."
Elsewhere, the paper said that the United States was not the target of the new zone.
Responding to the situation, the State Department said, "We have urged the Chinese to exercise caution and restraint, and we are consulting with Japan and other affected parties throughout the region."
Analysts have said that China's declaration of the new zone is meant to whittle away at Japan's hold on the islands. But the unexpected move is also seen as another attempt by an increasingly assertive China to establish itself as the dominant regional power, displacing the United States.
China had seemed to be stepping back this week from its original harsh tone, when it said aircraft entering the airspace needed to file flight plans in advance or face the possibility of military action. On Wednesday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said China would decide on a case-by-case basis how strongly to respond to those who break its rules.
In a further clarification of its original stance, the People's Liberation Army said Thursday that the new air zone was "not a territorial airspace" and did not mean that China would take immediate military action against aircraft that entered the zone.
At a monthly briefing for Chinese reporters, a spokesman, Yang Yujun, said it was "incorrect" to suggest China would shoot down planes in the zone. On Thursday, Japan's top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said that the Chinese had not been notified of the Japanese flights, and reported that China had not scrambled its fighter jets to intercept them.
The South Korean government announced that it, too, had flown aircraft through the zone without alerting Beijing. Chinese officials said they had monitored the flight by what the South Koreans described as a surveillance aircraft. Like Japan, South Korea claims sovereignty over some territory in seas beneath the airspace, but Seoul enjoys warmer ties with Beijing than does Tokyo.
During a previously scheduled defense meeting on Thursday, South Korea asked China to change the boundaries of the new zone, according to the South Korean Yonhap news agency. But China rejected the request, said a spokesman for South Korea's Defense Ministry, Kim Min-seok, according to the Yonhap report.
Jane Perlez reported from Beijing, and Martin Fackler from Tokyo. Gerry Mullany contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Robert Pear from Washington.
Leon Halip/Getty Images
Reggie Bush ran for 117 yards as the Lions won on Thanksgiving for the first time since 2003.
DETROIT — The Thanksgiving Day football game is always marked on the calendar long in advance by fans here, and with hope. But over the last 10 years, the Detroit Lions could not deliver a win, often losing in heartbreaking or spectacular fashion.
That came to an end Thursday.
For the first time since 2003, the Lions won on Thanksgiving, and they did it in a 40-10 blowout over the rival Green Bay Packers in a game with playoff implications. The Lions' win kept them in first place in the N.F.C. North.
Even Lions Coach Jim Schwartz was talking tradition after the game. "It's big," he said.
Early in Thursday's game, it seemed as if the Lions were doing everything they could to stick with their tradition of losing.
On the first drive of the game, running back Reggie Bush fumbled inside the Packers' 10-yard line after Detroit had easily gone 70 yards.
Two Lions possessions later, early in the second quarter, Detroit's Matthew Stafford was sacked by Nick Perry inside his own 20 and fumbled. Morgan Burnett picked up the ball at the 1-yard line and walked into the end zone to give the Packers a 10-3 lead.
In all, the Lions had three turnovers on their first four possessions. But then their offensive fortunes started to turn.
Stafford found the former Packer Jeremy Ross midway through the second quarter for the first touchdown of Ross's career, a 5-yard grab.
Ross was cut by the Packers on Sept. 23 after he had problems on several kickoff returns, including a crucial fumble in a 34-30 loss against the Bengals in Week 3. On Thursday, though, soon after his touchdown, he returned a punt 35 yards to give the Lions excellent field position, which led to a 1-yard rushing score by Bush.
The Lions then took control, finishing the game by scoring 37 straight points, 23 in the second half.
Bush bounced back from his fumble to play one of his better games this season, finishing with 117 rushing yards and 65 receiving yards.
"It was tough at first, but like I said, I leaned on my teammates," Bush said. "They kept believing in me.
"They gave me the ball the next drive, first play," after the fumble, he added, "so I think that spoke volumes about their belief and trust in me."
Stafford completed 22 of 35 passes for 330 yards and 3 touchdowns, and Calvin Johnson had six receptions for 101 yards and a touchdown.
The Packers' offense was downright awful.
Green Bay struggled to do much of anything in the first half, despite the Lions' turnovers. The Packers mustered only 43 first-half yards and finished the game with 126 net yards, compared with the Lions' 561.
Quarterback Matt Flynn was making his first start for the Packers since the last game of the 2011 season, when he threw for 480 yards and 6 touchdowns.
Last year, after signing with the Seattle Seahawks, he lost his starting spot to the rookie Russell Wilson in the preseason and appeared in just three regular-season games. He had stints with Oakland and Buffalo this season before the Packers signed him on Nov. 12.
On Thursday, Detroit kept up the pressure all game, recording seven sacks, and Flynn had difficulty finding any sort of rhythm in the pocket. He completed 3 of 8 passes for 45 yards in the first half, and the second half was not much better. Flynn finished the game 10-of-20 passing for 139 yards, with one interception.
Schwartz, the Lions' coach, said, "I thought whether we were blitzing or four-man pass rushing, we were putting pretty good pressure on the quarterback."
After a win over the Bears on Nov. 10, the Lions seemed to have momentum, with a 6-3 record and with both Green Bay and Chicago missing their starting quarterbacks because of injuries. But consecutive losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, teams that have a 6-14 record otherwise, allowed the Bears and the Packers to stick around in the hunt for the N.F.C. North title.
Green Bay could not capitalize Thursday, dropping to 5-6-1 and continuing its free-fall without the team's franchise player and star quarterback, Aaron Rodgers. The Packers began the season 5-2, but since Rodgers fractured his collarbone Nov. 4 against Chicago, they have gone 0-4-1 and started three different quarterbacks.
The Lions' victory improved their record to 7-5 and puts them back in control in their division.
"I think we are going to play with that same urgency that we played with today," center Dominic Raiola said. "We are not going to take that foot off the gas. There is no relaxing."
Faisal Mahmood/Reuters
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief, with Chinese soldiers in Pakistan in 2011.
LONDON — When he leaves his post on Friday, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the inscrutable Pakistani Army chief and former spymaster, will end a nearly decade-long chapter as the focus of American fears and frustrations in Pakistan, the reluctant partner in a contentious and often ill-tempered strategic dance.
Suspicious American officials frequently accused him, and the 600,000-member army he led, of double-dealing and bad faith: supporting the Afghan Taliban, allying with militant groups who bombed embassies and bases, and sheltering Osama bin Laden.
Those accusations were made in private, usually, but exploded into the open in late 2011 when Adm. Mike Mullen, the American military chief who sought to befriend General Kayani over golf and dinners, issued an angry tirade to Congress about Pakistani duplicity.
The taciturn General Kayani weathered those accusations with a sang-froid that left both allies and enemies guessing about what, or whom, he knew. But few doubted that he nursed grievances, too — about C.I.A. covert operations, the humiliating raid that killed Bin Laden, and perceived American arrogance and inconstancy.
General Kayani, 61, steps down with those arguments still lingering. And reckoning with his legacy exposes a cold truth at the heart of the turbulent American-Pakistani relationship: that after years of diplomatic effort, and billions of dollars in aid, the countries' aims and methods remain fundamentally opposed — particularly when it comes to the endgame next door in Afghanistan.
"We have almost no strategic convergences with Pakistan, at any level," admitted a senior American defense official. "You'll never change that, and it's naïve to think we can do it with an appeal to the war on terror."
Seen through Pakistani eyes, however, General Kayani was a more tangible, even positive, force. Despite his personal antipathy for the country's civilian leadership, he restrained army meddling in politics and tolerated increased criticism in the news media. After the country's first successful completion of a democratic election cycle, Pakistanis can dare to imagine that a long era of military coups might be over.
Further, he was at least partly successful in refocusing the army's monomaniacal attention on India, the old enemy, toward a new threat posed by the militants lurking in the country's remote areas.
Still, in other respects, Pakistan's bullying military class has remained unchanged, particularly in its dismal record on rights abuses. General Kayani's soldiers and spies have prosecuted a dirty war against separatists in Baluchistan Province, cultivated contacts with sectarian militias, and intimidated and bloodied rights campaigners and journalists.
For all that, his authority was never seriously challenged. "He's one of the most powerful generals Pakistan has ever had," said Vali R. Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Now, as he hands off to his successor, at a time of diminishing American engagement in the region, the largest question about the enigmatic general is how much of that legacy will endure.
In many ways, General Kayani was the antithesis of the swaggering general and junta leader he succeeded, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and his mandate after taking the top army post in 2007 was to repair the prestige that was tarnished under General Musharraf's watch. He has been quiet and philosophical where General Musharraf was loquacious and boastful. Foreigners complained that his reserve could be unnerving, and that he mumbled. In meetings, he sat like a perched eagle, occasionally darting out for a cigarette.
Those who knew him well said his public reserve was simply a tactic: In private, with small groups he trusted or needed, he could be blunt and forceful.
"He was the anti-Musharraf," said Shuja Nawaz, the author of "Crossed Swords," a history of the Pakistani Army.
But the rise of the Pakistani Taliban posed an immediate challenge. The Taliban's drive to destroy the security forces and central government shook the Pakistani military's jihadist sympathies, through unprecedented violence: the beheading of soldiers, the assassination of senior generals, and even suicide bombings against the feared military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.
Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports, via Reuters
Cowboys cornerback Brandon Carr beat Raiders receiver Jacoby Ford to a pass for an end-zone interception in the fourth quarter.
ARLINGTON, Tex. — The Dallas Cowboys should know better than to take success for granted. Mired in mediocrity for several seasons, they have teased and tortured fans while manufacturing playoff runs late into December.
It has all proved a mirage, glossed over by the glamour of the America's Team brand and the flashiness of AT&T Stadium and its gigantic video board. The Cowboys again find themselves at that critical juncture after beating the Oakland Raiders, 31-24, a Thanksgiving Day launch point that puts them in firm control of their playoff chances.
The victory means Dallas is alone in first place in the N.F.C. East, a half-game ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles. Behind three touchdown runs by DeMarco Murray, the Cowboys (7-5) inched two games above .500 for the third time in three years. Dallas was 8-6 each of the past two seasons and was poised to reach the postseason. But both times, they finished with consecutive losses, a failure to close that will loom over expectations for their last four games.
"Yeah, but you have to be careful about taking a global point of view," Cowboys Coach Jason Garrett said when asked if he liked how his team was positioned.
After a lackluster first half, the Cowboys looked more like the team that ended the Giants' four-game winning streak on Sunday. Tony Romo engineered two balanced and efficient drives and finished 23 of 32 for 225 yards and a touchdown. The Cowboys' running attack suddenly became a two-pronged effort, with Murray gaining 63 yards on 17 carries and Lance Dunbar providing 82 yards on 12 attempts.
"More than anything you've just got to keep stacking wins together and see where you're at at the end," said Romo, who was playing with an illness that hit him Wednesday night. "I think we're playing some of our better football right now."
Defensively, the Cowboys came up with a signature stop, stifling a fourth-quarter Raiders scoring chance on Brandon Carr's interception in the end zone. Matt McGloin completed 18 of 30 passes for 255 yards for the Raiders (4-8), but he was mostly grounded in the second half as the Cowboys tightened their coverages.
"We had the mentality that we can't lose this game," DeMarcus Ware said. "If we lose this game, it's back to being the old team, up and down. We're in a good position. But we can't get comfortable at all. We lose one game, we're back to Square 1 again."
Dallas took control with its first two possessions of the second half. Trailing by 21-14, the Cowboys went 87 yards in 10 plays, scoring on Romo's 4-yard pass to Dez Bryant. They followed that with a 65-yard, 9-play drive and took a 28-21 lead on Murray's 7-yard run early in the fourth quarter.
The Raiders ground out a 21-14 halftime lead largely by converting 7 of 9 third-down chances and holding a possession edge of 7 minutes 22 seconds. Rashad Jennings scored on a pair of 1-yard runs, the second putting Oakland ahead, 21-7, with two minutes left in the second quarter.
The Raiders' game plan also included keeping the rookie quarterback McGloin in a comfort zone of safe play calls, and he responded with 146 yards on 11-of-15 passing in the first half for a rating of 103.8.
Romo was 11 of 20 for 124 yards but could not manufacture a big play or complete a pass to Bryant or Jason Witten until midway through the second quarter.
The Cowboys showed up for their annual Thanksgiving game four days after an emotional victory over the Giants, and with an opportunity to nudge ahead in the N.F.C. East heading into a 10-day break before their next game at Chicago.
But Dallas stumbled around offensively, managing only 53 total yards, until it put together a 73-yard drive on its last possession of the first half. Murray scored on a 4-yard run with 10 seconds remaining to gain some traction against an Oakland defense that held the Cowboys to 12 yards rushing and 8 first downs in the opening half.
The Raiders were energized from the start, taking a 7-0 lead after Greg Jenkins returned Terrance Williams's fumble on the opening kickoff 23 yards for a touchdown. Kaelin Burnett had ripped the ball free just as Williams's knee appeared to hit the turf, causing a chorus of boos from the announced crowd of 87,572 as the replay was shown from several angles on the stadium's video board.
Jenkins helped squander Oakland's momentum late in the first quarter. He pinned the Raiders against their end zone by fair-catching a punt at the 5-yard line, and on first down McGloin fumbled the snap. Kyle Wilbur recovered the ball at the 2-yard line, and Murray scored on the next play to tie the game at 7-7.
The Cowboys sit, once again, at two games above mediocrity and with a schedule that seems in their favor. They will face the struggling Bears and the fading Green Bay Packers, followed by division games against the Washington Redskins and the Eagles in a Dec. 29 season finale in which a playoff berth might be at stake.
Also at stake: whether or not the Cowboys will tease or torture their fans once again.
"We did start slow," Carr said, "but this team, it's starting to get to the point where there is no panic anymore."
Julio Cortez/Associated Press
A young girl tries on shoes at Kmart on Thursday. Every year, more stores are opening on Thanksgiving and keeping their doors open for longer hours.
Before most Thanksgiving turkeys even approached the oven on Thursday, a small line of tents had formed in front of a Best Buy in Falls Church, Va., their inhabitants waiting for the holiday deals to begin. First in line was William Ignacio, who pitched his tent at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
Traditionally, the holiday shopping season kicks off on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. But every year, more stores are opening on the holiday itself and keeping their doors open longer, beginning in the predawn hours, and shoppers are taking advantage, whether before dinner or after.
"Thanksgiving dinner is over," said Becky Solari, 18, standing in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Ill. "And there's nothing else to do."
In Annandale, Va., rock salt had been sprinkled on the parking lot in front of the Kmart that opened at 6 a.m. Though the temperature was just below freezing, a handful of shoppers were lured out of bed for discounted electronics or to browse in advance of Friday's sales.
Under a "Mas Navidad" sign near the customer service desk, Cindy Kennedy, 39, said she did not see why people would object to Thanksgiving store hours and people working the holiday. Northern Virginia is home to many immigrants, like her husband, who is from El Salvador, she said.
"Not everybody celebrates Thanksgiving," Mrs. Kennedy said. "It's not a world holiday."
More than 400 people were lined up in 28-degree weather outside a Target in Schaumburg, just before the store opened Thursday night at 8.
"My TV from last year is in beautiful, perfect condition, but this one is bigger and better," said Ruben Calderon, an annual Black Friday shopper who planned to buy a 50-inch LED TV and some Xbox games at Target on Thursday. "In all my years of doing this, I have never seen a deal on a TV that's this good."
This is a critical time of year for retailers, given that holiday season shopping generally accounts for about 20 percent of the retail industry's annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year, nearly 140 million people shopped through the Thanksgiving weekend, the federation said.
But with many Americans still struggling with stagnant wages, retail executives have warned of a lackluster holiday season. Anxiety about low traffic — in-store and online — coupled with tight budgets has spurred strenuous competition for the lowest possible price.
In a hurry to get to customers first, retailers introduced promotions not just a few hours early this year, but days and even weeks ahead. Walmart.com kicked off its holiday season on Nov. 1, for example.
According to the retail federation, 53.8 percent of shoppers surveyed during the first week of November said they had already started their holiday shopping.
"The early push is definitely noteworthy," said Traci Gregorski, a vice president for marketing at Market Track, a retail promotion and pricing analysis firm. "There has been a lot of messaging around 'Don't wait until Black Friday.' "
And those who stayed home could easily browse the web. "Black Friday 2013 is here!" Amazon declared on Thursday. "Black Friday starts now online!" Walmart.com's home page advertised. As of 9 p.m., online sales were up more than 11 percent over Thanksgiving Day last year, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. Mobile traffic increased even more sharply, up more than 31 percent. Smartphones accounted for 24 percent of all online traffic, IBM found.
Friday's accompanying discounts, however, are still likely to draw out plenty of shoppers. According to a recent CBS News poll, Black Friday remains the most popular day to shop. A third of those surveyed said they planned to do some holiday shopping over Thanksgiving weekend.
"I'm about to get myself a MacBook," Tony Portillo, 15, said, standing in front of the Best Buy overnight campsite in Falls Church, Va.
"You can't afford one!" came a voice from inside the tent, which was intended to sleep five people but on this below-freezing night was home to eight teenagers.
"Next time we need a bigger tent," said Mr. Portillo, who planned to wait until 6 p.m. for Best Buy to open.
"We didn't sleep at all," said Alex Ramos, 14. "It's kind of fun."
Ken Maguire contributed reporting from Falls Church, Va.; Kimiya Shokoohi from Los Angeles; Alan Blinder from Alpharetta, Ga.; Idalmya Carrera from Chicago; and Jada F. Smith from Hyattsville, Md.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — When DeAndre Thornton stretched every bit of his angular 6-foot-5 frame to catch a pass over the middle of the field, he could not immediately pull the ball down to protect himself. And so, when the hit arrived, with all the fury a 205-pound opponent with a running start could muster, the crunch of shoulder pads and helmets reverberated beyond the sidelines.
Hits like these, despite attempts to bar them from the game, occur at all levels of football. But they resonate loudly at places like Arlington High School here, where the increasingly common questions about the consequences of playing football are more than academic exercises.
Just before the season, one of Thornton's teammates, Tyler Lewellen, a popular, outgoing junior defensive back, died from severe head trauma five days after collapsing on the sideline during a scrimmage with another team. He was one of more than a dozen high school players in the United States who died this year as a direct result of playing football.
Three days after Lewellen's death, Arlington played its first game. Eight days after that, his teammates were among the 800 people who turned out for Lewellen's funeral. In the time since, the Lions, along with their coaches and parents, have been working through their grief with hugs, tears and laughter, while clinging uncertainly to football.
Some players struggled with newfound fears in a sport that demands fearlessness. Others considered quitting — or simply cried because they missed their friend. Many felt a burden of honoring Lewellen with their play on the field, the sting of losing games numbed by the experience of real loss.
"I understand the kids who want to quit," said Ryan McCarthy, a 26-year-old assistant coach to his father, Coach Pat McCarthy. "I'm faking it every day, trying to be the energy guy. The chance to connect with the kids — I don't know what bigger impact I can have on my community than that. But for the first time in my life, I'm questioning my own plan in life. I'm in it for the connection, but I don't want to get close again. It's been a nightmare."
When Thornton lay on the field, emotions that lingered just below the surface rose up. They were visible in the somber faces on the sideline and also up in the stands, where Thornton's sister, Sabria, 20, burst into tears and teammates' mothers rushed over to reassure Thornton's mother, Jacinta Ramirez. She was busy talking to herself: Come on, DeAndre, get up.
On the field, Jim Clover, the trainer, scolded Pat McCarthy when he tried to remove Thornton's helmet. Clover was concerned there could be a spinal injury, but McCarthy was sure Thornton had the wind knocked out of him and needed his helmet off to help breathe.
After a few minutes, Thornton sat up, was helped to his feet and slowly walked to the bench.
He sat there, slightly dazed and uncomfortable, but answered Clover's questions and took a few tests, like standing on one foot with his eyes closed for 20 seconds. Clover typed the results into an application on his phone and asked Thornton if he wanted to keep playing.
"Yes," Thornton said, the most alert he had been.
'I Was Mad at Football'
That incident, which occurred this month, in the Lions' final game, laid bare their vulnerabilities. More often, there have been questions.
The most prominent one had rarely been asked in this diverse working-class community, which has a strong bond with football: Why were they playing? .
"I was mad at football," said Remmy Nerio, a junior who missed two days of practice, certain that he would switch to water polo. "The first week, I wasn't going hard and it freaked me out. I wasn't scared, but Tyler was my best friend. We had classes together. We ate together. I didn't know if I really wanted to play anymore."
One day at lunch, Ryan McCarthy joined Trevor Fedoruk, a senior captain who was sitting on the lunch benches by himself, his head down. Fedoruk, who is doing a physics project on how helmets compress, was staring at his phone, which had Lewellen's number on it, and looking down to hide his tears. Fedoruk saw everyone sitting with friends and realized he missed one of his.
Reuters
The disputed islands in the East China Sea are known as the Diaoyu by China and as the Senkaku by Japan.
BEIJING — China has permitted rare street protests and sent armadas of fishing boats to show its growing national interest in a small string of islands in the East China Sea. Earlier this year, the Chinese military locked its radar on a Japanese navy vessel.
Each step seemed like a measured escalation in the long-running territorial dispute, intended to press Japan to negotiate over jurisdiction of the islands. But they also seemed calibrated to avoid a sharp international backlash — or to raise expectations too high at home.
But by imposing a new air defense zone over the islands last weekend, Beijing may have miscalculated. It provoked a quick, pointed challenge from the United States, set off alarm bells among Asian neighbors and created a frenzy of nationalist expression inside China on hopes that the new leadership team in Beijing would push for a decisive resolution of the longstanding dispute.
On Wednesday, after the Pentagon sent two B-52 bombers defiantly cruising around China's new air defense zone for more than two hours, Beijing appeared to backpedal. The overflights went unchallenged, and some civilian airlines ignored China's new assertion of air rights.
"We will make corresponding responses according to different situations and how big the threat is," the spokesman at the Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, said when asked about China's lack of enforcement against the American planes.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has suggested that it intends to make a more robust defense of its national interests, including in maritime disputes, to match its rising economic and military power. But even some Chinese analysts say they wonder if the new leadership team fully anticipated the response to the latest assertion of rights — or had in mind a clear Plan B if it met with strong resistance.
"I believe Xi Jinping and his associates must have predicted the substance of this reaction; whether they underestimated the details of the reaction, I'm not sure," said Shi Yinhong, an occasional adviser to the government and a professor of international relations at Renmin University.
China does appear determined to escalate the issue of the uninhabited islands, known as Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan, as a way of forcing the Japanese to negotiate and give up control of territory that has symbolic and strategic value for both countries. In the long term, China has not tried to disguise its goal of weakening the alliance between the United States and Japan and supplanting the United States as the dominant naval power in the Western Pacific.
Beijing is especially frustrated that its previous, more cautious steps to convince Japan of the seriousness of its claim to the islands have not prompted Japan, which administers them, to negotiate in earnest.
"Japan always has the backing of the United States and shows unbelievable arrogance to the Chinese proposal to have talks on a bilateral basis," said Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Beijing University and one of China's more moderate voices on Japan. "Japan's arrogance is unacceptable."
But if China has been trying to drive a wedge between Washington and the Japanese government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, their strategy seems to have backfired, at least for now.
The United States had for months seemed reluctant to get involved or take sides in a dispute that carries so much emotional weight for China. American officials complained that some Japanese leaders had made nationalist gestures that antagonized China, worsening the tensions. And the Obama administration dodged requests by Japanese leaders to take a clearer stance in their favor.
That hesitation seems to have largely vanished since China pronounced it was expanding its hold on the region's airspace.
With the flyover by the B-52s, the United States has shown it is more willing to work with Japan in opposing China's efforts to unilaterally force a change in the status quo, even if the United States still takes a neutral stance in the islands dispute itself. Hours after China declared its new air zone, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reaffirmed that the United States would stand by its security treaty obligations to aid Japan if it was attacked.
Martin Fackler contributed reporting from Tokyo, and Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea.
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PRICE, Utah — For generations, coal has been the lifeblood of this mineral-rich stretch of eastern Utah. Mining families proudly recall all the years they toiled underground. Supply companies line the town streets. Above the road that winds toward the mines, a soot-smudged miner peers out from a billboard with the slogan "Coal = Jobs."
But recently, fear has settled in. The state's oldest coal-fired power plant, tucked among the canyons near town, is set to close, a result of new, stricter federal pollution regulations.
As energy companies tack away from coal, toward cleaner, cheaper natural gas, people here have grown increasingly afraid that their community may soon slip away. Dozens of workers at the facility here, the Carbon Power Plant, have learned that they must retire early or seek other jobs. Local trucking and equipment outfits are preparing to take business elsewhere.
"There are a lot of people worried," said Kyle Davis, who has been employed at the plant since he was 18.
Mr. Davis, 56, worked his way up from sweeping floors to managing operations at the plant, whose furnaces have been burning since 1954.
"I would have liked to be here for another five years," he said. "I'm too young to retire."
But Rocky Mountain Power, the utility that operates the plant, has determined that it would be too expensive to retrofit the aging plant to meet new federal standards on mercury emissions. The plant is scheduled to be shut by April 2015.
"We had been working for the better part of three years, testing compliance strategies," said David Eskelsen, a spokesman for the utility. "None of the ones we investigated really would produce the results that would meet the requirements."
For the last several years, coal plants have been shutting down across the country, driven by tougher environmental regulations, flattening electricity demand and a move by utilities toward natural gas.
This month, the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country's largest public power utility, voted to shut eight coal-powered plants in Alabama and Kentucky and partly replace them with gas-fired power. Since 2010, more than 150 coal plants have been closed or scheduled for retirement.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the stricter emissions regulations for the plants will result in billions of dollars in related health savings, and will have a sweeping impact on air quality.
In recent weeks, the agency held 11 "listening sessions" around the country in advance of proposing additional rules for carbon dioxide emissions.
"Coal plants are the single largest source of dangerous carbon pollution in the United States, and we have ready alternatives like wind and solar to replace them," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, which wants to shut all of the nation's coal plants.
"We have a choice," he said, "which in most cases is cheaper and doesn't have any of the pollution."
Coal's downward turn has hit Appalachia hardest, but the effects of the transition toward other energy sources has started to ripple westward.
Mr. Eskelsen said Rocky Mountain Power would place some of the 70 Carbon facility employees at its two other Utah coal plants. Other workers will take early retirement or look for different jobs.
Still, the notion that this pocket of Utah, where Greek, Italian and Mexican immigrants came to mine coal more than a century ago, could survive without it, is hard for people here to comprehend.
"The attack on coal is so broad-reaching in our little community," said Casey Hopes, a Carbon County commissioner, whose grandfather was a coal miner. "The power plants, the mines — they support so many smaller businesses. We don't have another industry."
Like others in Price, Mr. Hopes voiced frustration with the Obama administration, saying it should be investing more in clean coal technology rather than discarding coal altogether.
Annual Utah coal production, though, has been slowly declining for a decade according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
Last year, mines here produced about 17 million tons of coal, the lowest level since 1987, though production has crept up this year.
"This is the worst we've seen it," said David Palacios, who works for a trucking company that hauls coal to the power plants, and whose business will slow once the Carbon plant closes.
Mr. Palacios, president of the Southeastern Utah Energy Producers Association, noted that the demand for coal has always ebbed and flowed here.
"But this has been two to three years we're struggling through," he said.
Compounding the problem, according to some mining experts, is that until now, most of the state's coal has been sold and used within the region, rather than being exported overseas. That has left the industry here more vulnerable to local plant closings.
Cindy Crane, chairwoman of the Utah Mining Association, said demand for Utah coal could eventually drop as much as 50 percent. "For most players in Utah coal, this a tough time," said Ms. Crane, vice president of PacifiCorp, a Western utility and mining company that owns the Carbon plant.
Mr. Nilles of the Sierra Club acknowledged that the shift from coal would not be easy on communities like Carbon County. But employees could be retrained or compensated for lost jobs, he said, and new industries could be drawn to the region.
Washington State, for example, has worked with municipalities and utilities to ease the transition from coal plants while ensuring that workers are transferred to other energy jobs or paid, if nearing retirement, Mr. Nilles said.
"Coal has been good to Utah," Mr. Nilles said, "but markets for coal are drying up. You need to get ahead of this and make sure the jobs don't all leave."
For many here, coal jobs are all they know. The industry united the area during hard times, too, especially during the dark days after nine men died in a 2007 mining accident some 35 miles down the highway. Virtually everyone around Price knew the men, six of whom remain entombed in the mountainside.
But there is quiet acknowledgment that Carbon County will have to change — if not now, soon.
David Palacios's father, Pete, who worked in the mines for 43 years, has seen coal roar and fade here. Now 86, his eyes grew cloudy as he recalled his first mining job. He was 12, and earned $1 a day.
"I'm retired, so I'll be fine. But these young guys?" Pete Palacios said, his voice trailing off.
Clifford Krauss contributed reporting from Houston.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday announced a one-year delay in a major element of the new health care law that would allow small businesses to buy insurance online for their employees through the new federal marketplace.
It was yet another setback for the rollout of the health care law and resulted, in part, from the well-documented problems of the insurance marketplace website. Administration officials said they had to focus on the basic functions of the website, so that individuals could shop for insurance, before offering online enrollment for small businesses. In the meantime, businesses and their employees can apply through brokers.
Many employees of small businesses are uninsured, and the businesses themselves are much less likely than big companies to provide coverage to workers and their families.
The latest delay, coming just as the White House was boasting of major improvements in the health insurance website, HealthCare.gov, opens the door to more complaints about the health care law and could increase pressure to delay other provisions.
"The president bit off more than he can chew with this health care law, and small businesses are now forced to bear the consequences," said Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio. "Business owners across the country are already having health care plans for their employees canceled by this law, and now they're told they won't have access to the system the president promised them to find different coverage. Instead, they'll have to resort to a system you'd expect to see in the 1950s."
It was not the first delay for small businesses. The administration had previously delayed online enrollment for them to the end of this month from Oct. 1.
The date has now been pushed back to November 2014 for coverage that takes effect in January 2015, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
The announcement, just before Thanksgiving, was reminiscent of the way the White House announced, just before the Fourth of July weekend, a one-year delay in the requirement for larger employers to offer health insurance to employees.
The marketplace for small businesses — the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP exchange — was one of the few provisions of the 2010 law with some Republican support, and it was originally championed by Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine.
John C. Arensmeyer, the chief executive of Small Business Majority, an advocacy group that supports the health care law, said, "It's disappointing that the online portion of the federal small business marketplace through Healthcare.gov will be delayed, and it's important it get up and running as soon as possible."
The marketplace, he said, "is still the most important provision in the Affordable Care Act for small businesses."
For years, small businesses have had difficulty getting affordable insurance. Many owners cite the rising cost of health insurance as their top concern.
The administration said that small businesses and their employees seeking coverage in the federal exchange could still apply and enroll through an agent or broker, as many do now. "Agents and brokers are essential to making this happen," an administration official said.
However, the high-tech capability once promised by the White House will not be available until late next year.
"The agent, broker or insurer will help the employer fill out a paper application for SHOP eligibility and send it in to the SHOP marketplace," the administration said. The insurer can also tell employers what premiums they would have to pay and can enroll employees.
Some small businesses may qualify for tax credits worth up to 50 percent of their premium costs. The tax credits will be available only for plans purchased through the small business exchange.
Amanda L. Austin, a lobbyist at the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group, said she had heard rumors that the online small business exchange might be delayed, but was surprised that it had been put off for a year. "That's pretty significant," Ms. Austin said. "The online exchange is a key component of the Affordable Care Act, and administration officials have hailed it as the answer to small businesses' health care concerns."
While the online exchange is being delayed, she said, "many small businesses face higher premiums in 2014 because of new taxes, including a new federal tax on the health insurance they purchase."
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that the website was "vastly improved each and every day," with hardware upgrades and software fixes that produced lower error rates and faster response times for users.
An employer using the SHOP exchange must offer coverage to all full-time employees — generally those working at least 30 hours a week, on average.
In April, the Obama administration delayed a requirement that SHOP exchanges offer a variety of competing insurance plans to employees. The administration cited "operational challenges" as a reason for that delay.
Congress had wanted to provide small business employees with a range of health plan options. While some state-run exchanges will allow employers to offer such choices to employees, the federal exchange will not do so until 2015.
E. Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation, said, "If the law is so burdensome for the administration to implement, just think how hard it is for small businesses."
In a separate announcement, officials at the Health and Human Services Department said Wednesday that they would replace the contractor that manages computer servers handling the enormous load of data collected by HealthCare.gov.
Terremark, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications that now provides the service, will be replaced in March by Hewlett-Packard, officials said. A spokeswoman at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the change had been planned at least since July. Issues related to the raw computing capacity of the servers provided by Terremark have been cited as a factor in the website problems. A spokesman for Verizon declined to comment.
The problems engulfing President Obama's health care law are remarkable because administration officials had repeatedly brushed aside doubts about whether they would be ready.
Testifying before a congressional panel on Oct. 29, Marilyn B. Tavenner, the administrator of the Medicare agency, said, in response to a question, that the website for the small business exchange would be in operation by the end of this month.
Eric Lipton contributed reporting.
The tumbling Nets lost again, but this time, at least, the defeat came through bizarrely entertaining means.
The Nets fell behind by 27 points during a disastrous first half, and fans at Barclays Center were soon chatting away, losing interest, as if watching some unknown opening act at a concert. Gradually, the Nets awakened, catalyzed by Mirza Teletovic, a scarcely used reserve forward, who scored a career-high 17 points to put them on the verge of an unthinkable win.
And then came a shadowy incident involving a dark liquid.
After all this, the Brooklyn crowd was pulsating, primed for a cathartic burst. Instead, the Nets slumped to a 99-94 loss against the Los Angeles Lakers, watching their record spiral further, to 4-11.
"The Lakers came out, and they hit us right off the bat," Coach Jason Kidd said. "But the guys kept fighting."
Teletovic scored 14 points in the fourth quarter, and Alan Anderson dunked with 9.8 seconds remaining to cut the Lakers' lead to 95-94.
But it appeared that the Nets would require some type of supernatural intervention to prevail — and Kidd seemed to take it upon himself to provide it in sketchy, if admirably clever, means. With 8.3 seconds left on the clock, Jodie Meeks sank his first of two free throws, pushing the Lakers' lead to 96-94.
As Meeks was preparing to shoot his second free throw, Tyshawn Taylor and Kidd collided clumsily near the Nets' bench, and a drink tumbled from Kidd's hands and onto the floor. The game was paused for several seconds while the liquid was wiped up, and during that time the assistant coach John Welch sketched out a final play for the Nets, who had no timeouts left.
It seemed too fortuitous to be true — and perhaps it was. Television replays appeared to show Kidd mouthing the phrase "Hit me," before averting his eyes and running into Taylor. After the game, Kidd blamed the commotion around the bench as he scrambled to try to substitute players into the game.
"Sweaty palms," Kidd said. "I was never good with the ball."
Taylor, too, denied there was any gamesmanship — though he did acknowledge the possible helpful ramifications.
"It might ice a free-throw shooter and be a timeout when you don't have one," Taylor said. "But that wasn't the thought process."
Taylor laughed and added: "He was just in my way. 'Coach, get out of my way, bro!' "
After Meeks made his second free throw, Paul Pierce came off a screen with 2.2 seconds left and had an open look at a potential game-tying 3-pointer. But it missed, foiling Kidd's apparent gambit.
The Nets were in that position thanks to Teletovic, who exceeded 20 minutes on the floor for just the second time this season and added five rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block to his career-high point total.
"I can really do much more things than just shoot 3-pointers," said Teletovic, who sank four of them. "This is what we need, and this is what I try to bring every night, as much as I can."
The Nets outscored the Lakers, 28-23, during the third quarter, which augured well for the home team. Entering Wednesday, the Nets had won all four games in which they had outscored their opponents during the third quarter and lost all 10 times they were outscored. But the trend did not hold up Wednesday.
The Lakers extended their winning streak against the Nets to 11 games. The understaffed Lakers — playing without Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash — have survived this season on 3-point shooting, and it was an ominous sign for the lifeless Nets when the Lakers opened the game hitting their first three attempts from beyond the arc.
The Lakers' dominance bled seamlessly into the second quarter. They went up as much as 27 points — though the Nets did engineer a 15-0 run that helped them cut the deficit to 14 points entering halftime.
The Nets' immediate future remains murky. They are playing short-handed, missing four key players, and there has been little indication about when they might return.
"They're day to day," Kidd said before the game, using words he has repeated almost indiscriminately this season. "These are injuries that, they can come back anytime. So we just take it day by day, and we'll see how they feel tomorrow."
Brook Lopez missed his seventh consecutive game and Deron Williams his fourth; both players are battling sprained left ankles. The Nets were also without the backups Jason Terry, who missed his fourth straight game with a sore left knee, and Andrei Kirilenko, who skipped his ninth consecutive game with a sore back.
Without them, the Nets pulled out all the stops, some shadier than others, and got a stirring game from a rarely used reserve, but still fell short on a wild night.
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The Obama administration on Tuesday moved to curb political activity by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, with potentially major ramifications for some of the biggest and most secretive spenders in American politics.
New rules proposed by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service would clarify both how the I.R.S. defines political activity and how much nonprofits are allowed to spend on it. The proposal covers not just television advertising, but bread-and-butter political work like candidate forums and get-out-the-vote drives.
Long demanded by government watchdogs and Democrats who say the flow of money through tax-exempt groups is corrupting the political system, the changes would be the first wholesale shift in a generation in the regulations governing political activity by nonprofits.
The move follows years of legal and regulatory shifts, including the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010, that have steadily loosened the rules governing political spending, particularly by those with the biggest bank accounts: corporations, unions and wealthy individuals.
But the proposal also thrusts the I.R.S. into what is sure to be a polarizing regulatory battle, with some Republicans immediately criticizing the proposal on Tuesday as an attack on free speech and a ploy to undermine congressional investigations into the agency's handling of applications from Tea Party groups.
"Before rushing forward with new rules, especially ones that appear to make it harder to engage in public debate, I would hope Treasury would let all the facts come out first," said Representative David Camp of Michigan, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Political spending by tax-exempt groups — from Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, to the League of Conservation Voters — skyrocketed to more than $300 million in 2012 from less than $5.2 million in 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Much of the money has been funneled through chains of interlinked nonprofit groups, making it even harder to determine the original source.
And unlike political parties and "super PACs," political nonprofits are permitted to keep the names of donors confidential, making them the vehicle of choice for deep-pocketed donors seeking to influence campaigns in secret.
The new rules would not prohibit political activity by nonprofits.
But by seeking to establish clearer limits for campaign-related spending by groups claiming tax exemption, the I.R.S. proposal could have an enormous impact on some of the biggest groups, forcing them to either limit their election spending or register as openly political organizations, such as super PACs.
A spokesman for Crossroads declined to comment, as did officials at other political nonprofits.
Nick Ryan, the founder of the American Future Fund, which spent at least $25 million on political advertising last year, said, "Unfortunately, it appears that the same bureaucrats that attempted to suppress the speech of conservative groups in recent years has now put together new rules that apply to (c)4 groups but do not apply to liberal groups like labor unions."
"I wish I could say I am surprised," Mr. Ryan added, "but I am not." The final rules are unlikely to be issued until after the 2014 election, after a public comment period.
The administration's proposal would apply to nonprofits organized under Section 501(c)4 of the tax code, which are granted tax exemption in exchange for devoting themselves to the promotion of "social welfare."
Under current rules, promoting social welfare can include some political activity, along with unlimited amounts of lobbying. Some of the largest political nonprofits — like Americans for Prosperity, backed by the conservative philanthropists Charles and David Koch — have used that provision to justify significant expenditures on political ads.
But under the new proposal, a broad swath of political work would be classified as "candidate-related political activity" and explicitly excluded from the agency's definition of social welfare. Those activities include advertisements that mention a candidate within 60 days of an election as well as grants to other organizations making candidate-related expenditures.
"Depending on the details, this could be dramatic," said Marcus S. Owens, a former chief of the I.R.S.'s exempt organizations division.
The rules could also affect more traditional conservative and liberal advocacy organizations, including Tea Party groups whose complaints of harassment by I.R.S. employees prompted the resignation of several high-ranking I.R.S. officials last spring. Distributing voter guides, for example, would automatically count as political activity.
Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, a watchdog group, praised the proposal as "an important step forward." He added, "Enormous abuses have taken place under the current rules, which have allowed groups largely devoted to campaign activities to operate as nonprofit groups in order to keep secret the donors funding their campaign activities."
Administration officials described the new proposal as a response to complaints — including objections from the Treasury's own inspector general after the Tea Party controversy — that the existing regulations were too vague, leading to inconsistent or arbitrary enforcement. The I.R.S. would be better equipped to enforce the rules, the officials said, if they were clearer, while nonprofit groups would be better able to comply.
"This proposed guidance is a first critical step toward creating clear-cut definitions of political activity by tax-exempt social welfare organizations," said Mark J. Mazur, the assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy.
The final guidance could also include a more precise definition of how much political activity a 501(c)4 group is permitted to engage in while still maintaining its tax exemption.
Many election lawyers and their clients use an unofficial rule of thumb: If a tax-exempt group spends less than 50 percent of its budget on political activity, then its primary purpose is not winning campaigns.
Some activists have argued that a rule requiring 501(c)4s to spend no more than 15 percent of their budgets on political activities would be closer to the letter and spirit of existing law.
Some lawyers said they worried that the new rules, particularly those that could apply to grass-roots organizing, could unfairly burden bona fide social welfare groups. Others suggested that tighter restrictions on social welfare groups would only hasten the migration of political money into other kinds of entities whose campaign spending is not subject to I.R.S. jurisdiction.
Mr. Owens, now a tax lawyer in Washington, said the I.R.S. proposal would have one certain consequence: more business.
"I'm looking forward to a very profitable new year," he said.
Eric Lipton contributed reporting.
ORLANDO, Fla. — "Hello everybody!" James L. Dolan shouted into the microphone in front of about 100 people who had arrived early at the Amway Center for an Eagles concert.
Most of the crowd had never heard of the opening band, J D & The Straight Shot, so Dolan introduced the group. "We're a band from New York City," he said.
That much was true. But what Dolan did not mention was that, in addition to being the band's rumble-voiced lead singer, he is the president and chief executive of Cablevision, and the owner of the Knicks.
As Dolan's band performed here on Saturday, a night after performing at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, his basketball team, the second-most expensive in the league, was in the midst of another dispiriting loss. The Knicks are a shambling, desultory group these days, stumbling through an opening month that has been worse than even pessimistic fans feared.
But as the Knicks fell to the Wizards in Washington and their fans burned, Dolan and his band fiddled through covers of '70s songs like "Let It Roll" and "White Bird."
"This is someone wealthy who is having a good time," Randy Sturdevant, a retired electrical contractor, said to his wife during the show. "This is some rich guy's hobby."
The band plays a mixture of blues and rock. In 2011, The New York Times' pop music critic, Jon Pareles, described Dolan as a "karaoke-grade singer." Dolan's son, Aidan, plays guitar in the band. But the other band members are seasoned musicians who have played with Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Bon Jovi, among others.
Dolan's moonlighting gigs are hardly a secret in the basketball world, although the fact he was playing in N.B.A. arenas this past weekend, and not some small New York club, would probably catch any number of people by surprise, including a lot of people who root for the Knicks. One of those fans, apparently, has hijacked the Wikipedia page for Dolan's band, renaming songs with titles like "Can't Make the Knicks Win," "Wasting Knicks Fans Time," "Reunion with Isiah in Hell" and "Try Selling the Knicks."
Dolan has, in fact, recorded a song called "Fix the Knicks," which appeared on the band's 2011 album. It begins with the line: "Everywhere I go, I hear everybody say, What you gonna do to make that team play?"
J D & The Straight Shot did not play "Fix the Knicks" on Saturday — perhaps because it would be hard to know where to start.
A team that played harmoniously for much of last season in going 54-28 is completely out of sync this time around. The extra pass is not being made, the defense is too often lax. Home-court advantage has been abandoned, with the Knicks having lost their last six games at Madison Square Garden.
And the individual headaches are many. Amar'e Stoudemire is owed $45 million through this season and next, but has turned into something of an afterthought because of his damaged knees.
Iman Shumpert, a young player who was seen to have a big upside because he can both defend and score, has instead turned into an underperforming mystery and the subject of trade rumors. In Monday's loss to Portland, he failed to register a point, rebound or assist in 23 minutes of action.
Tyson Chandler, a rock in the middle for the Knicks, is out indefinitely with a leg injury. Carmelo Anthony, the team's one bona-fide star, will opt out of his contract at the end of the season and could sign elsewhere.
All of this has resulted in a disorienting 3-10 record going into Wednesday's game in Los Angeles against the Clippers. The notion that the Knicks might be able to contend for a championship this season already seems far-fetched.
In Dolan's long run as the man in charge of the Knicks, the team has never won a title, and has often been inept. But if he has proved hapless at turning the Knicks into a consistently competitive team, he has shown some success in promoting J D & the Straight Shot. He has also appeared willing to flex his corporate muscle to boost the band.
One of the band's songs, "Can't Make Tears," has been used in the show "Hell on Wheels," which airs on AMC — a channel controlled by Cablevision. Joe Gayton, one of the show's creators, said Dolan is a huge fan of the show and let it be known he wanted one of his songs featured on it. Gayton and the producers complied. "Can't Make Tears" was also made into a music video, using various scenes from "Hell on Wheels."
The band has also opened for Willie Nelson and at other venues for the Eagles. Indeed, the Eagles played a three-night stand at the Garden earlier this month, although J D & The Straight Shot did not perform at those shows.
And on Saturday night, Dolan announced from the stage that one of the band's songs would be featured in an upcoming Meryl Streep movie, "August: Osage County."
Asked whether Dolan was using his corporate position to promote his band, and whether it was disconcerting for him to be on the road performing while his team was struggling, Barry Watkins, the Garden's executive vice president of communications, responded that The Times was pursuing a "line of unfair questioning."
"Everyone has time off of their jobs and spends free time in ways they choose," he said. "We see no reason to comment further."
Meanwhile, those in attendance Saturday night, whether they realized who Dolan was or not, seemed to more or less enjoy his band's performance.
"It was excellent music, and he seems to have a great personality," said Sturdevant, the retired contractor. "Even though you might be able to buy your way onto that stage, the Eagles would still only allow someone good to open for them."
As the set wound down, Dolan even told the audience — which by then had grown to several thousand — that they could receive a free CD in return for their email address.
"We want to thank the Eagles for letting us open up for them," Dolan said. "They're truly gracious and we're truly grateful."
Kyodo, via Reuters
A group of islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea, are in a disputed air zone.
WASHINGTON — Defying China, two long-range American bombers flew through contested airspace over the East China Sea, days after the Chinese announced they were claiming the right to police the sky above a vast area that includes islands at the center of a simmering dispute with Japan.
Pentagon officials said Tuesday that the B-52s were on a routine training mission planned long in advance of the Chinese announcement on Saturday that it was establishing an "air defense identification zone" over the area. But the message was clear.
A senior Pentagon official said that the mission overnight Monday from Guam "was a demonstration of long-established international rights to freedom of navigation and transit through international airspace." The official said the unilateral Chinese declaration of expanded control "was provocative," and "only increases the risk of miscalculation in the region."
There was no immediate Chinese response to the flights conducted without prior notification as demanded under the new declaration from Beijing, which asserted the right to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against any aircraft that enter the area. The unexpected announcement by China was among its boldest moves yet in a struggle for power in Asia with the United States, and by extension its regional allies including Japan. The United States, long the dominant power in the region, has been scrambling to shore up its influence there, promising, in what it called a "pivot" to Asia in 2011, to refocus its energies after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan diverted its time and resources.
Having Japan in the mix only adds volatility. The country has its own tangled history with China, which has sped past Japan as an economic power and which retains bitter memories of imperial Japan's military invasion last century. Under its conservative leader, Shinzo Abe, Japan has refused to back down in the dispute with China over the uninhabited islands, which Japan has long controlled.
For the White House, the flare-up could prove a major distraction for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as he embarks on a weeklong tour of China, Japan and South Korea. Administration officials are eager to focus on issues like North Korea and an American-led trans-Pacific trade deal meant to bolster economic ties in the region even as China woos its neighbors with aid and investment.
The islands, called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, are currently administered by the Japanese, who consider the airspace above the islands to be theirs. American officials have been increasingly worried about the standoff, which they fear could lead to conflict. By treaty the United States is obligated to defend Japan if it is attacked.
But both China and America's Asian allies know that Washington's focus has been elsewhere, a reality that became evident when President Obama had to cancel a trip to an Asian summit meeting during the recent American government shutdown.
Pressed on whether the Chinese move represents an overt attempt to fill an American security void in the region, Pentagon officials responded by pointing to the American response to the catastrophic typhoon that struck the Philippines this month. The United States quickly moved in hundreds of Marines, dozens of transport aircraft and an entire aircraft carrier strike group. China's offer of military assistance was feeble by comparison.
However, Mr. Obama is fielding a new national security team with views on Asia that are still coalescing and with relatively little experience in the region.
In her first major speech on Asia policy last week, Mr. Obama's national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, did not mention the mutual defense clause in the treaty between the United States and Japan — an omission her colleagues dismissed as irrelevant, since American officials reiterate it religiously, but which troubled some in Japan.
But Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wasted no time in responding to the initial Chinese declaration, issuing a statement on Saturday reiterating that the United States was "steadfast in our commitments to our allies and partners." He also repeated that the mutual defense treaty with Japan applies to the disputed islands.
American officials said Tuesday that the United States military would continue to stage a standard cycle of training flights over the East China Sea. The flight by the bombers was first reported Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal.
The move by China on Saturday appeared to be another step in its efforts to intensify pressure on Japan over the contested islands. In the past year, Chinese paramilitary ships have made almost daily incursions into the waters around the islands, including waters claimed by Japan. The incursions have led to a constant game of cat-and-mouse on the high seas in which the Japanese Coast Guard pursues the Chinese ships, with both sides using bullhorns and electronic sign boards to tell the other to stay out of its territorial waters.
Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington, Martin Fackler from Tokyo, and Jane Perlez from Beijing.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 26, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a Japanese airline. It is All Nippon Airways, not All Nippon Airlines.
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) made a breakthrough early on Wednesday in talks about forming a "grand coalition" government, two top conservative politicians said on their Twitter accounts.
Germany's two biggest political forces negotiated through the night and reached a breakthrough at about 5 a.m. (0400 GMT), said senior Merkel lawmaker Michael Grosse-Broemer and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the conservative premier of Saarland state.
Two months after Merkel's election victory and a month after coalition talks began, the agreement, if confirmed, would enable her to form a government by Christmas - if the SPD gets approval in a vote among more than 474,000 party members.
The party leaders are expected to present details of a deal at a news conference on Wednesday, the deadline set by Merkel. But they may wait two more weeks to announce the allocation of cabinet posts.
(Reporting by Stephen Brown, Erik Kirschbaum and Andreas Rinke)
The United States on Tuesday announced one of the biggest settlements ever made for corporate misbehavior overseas, chronicling a litany of charges against a leading energy services provider. The charges included bribery and kickbacks in the Middle East and Africa and systematic defiance of economic sanctions on Iran and three other countries.
The announcement came two days after the United States and other world powers reached a breakthrough agreement with Iran that eases, at least temporarily, some of the sanctions over its disputed nuclear program. The timing of the announcement seemed to be partly intended to send a signal that the Obama administration still considers Iran subject to economic isolation, despite the atmosphere of rapprochement embodied in the nuclear agreement.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said the company that settled, Weatherford International Ltd., a Swiss provider of oil and gas services that operates in more than 100 countries, had agreed to pay more than $250 million to resolve charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other laws from 2002 to 2011.
The settlement included $91 million in fines and penalties related to illicit dealings with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria that violated a range of American sanctions on those countries from 2003 to 2007. The Treasury Department, in its own announcement, said the settlement was the largest for sanctions violations outside the banking industry.
A number of federal agencies, including the S.E.C., the Treasury, and the Justice and Commerce Departments, collaborated on the investigation into Weatherford's behavior, described in the Treasury announcement as "egregious actions which compromised U.S. sanctions."
Weatherford, which had acknowledged that it was under investigation and that it was cooperating, said in a statement from its global headquarters in Geneva that it had set aside the money for the settlement and wanted to move on.
"This matter is now behind us," Bernard J. Duroc-Danner, the company's chairman, president and chief executive, said in the statement. "With the internal policies and controls currently in place, we maintain a best-in-class compliance program and uphold the highest of ethical standards as we provide the industry's leading products and services to our customers worldwide."
In papers filed in federal court in Houston, where Weatherford has significant operations, the S.E.C. said the company had authorized "bribes and improper travel and entertainment for foreign officials in the Middle East and Africa to win business." It said the misconduct also included kickbacks paid in Iraq to obtain contracts under the famously corrupt and now defunct United Nations oil-for-food program, which was established in the mid-1990s and ended in 2003 after the American-led invasion of Iraq.
Weatherford's bribery transgressions, according to the complaint, included the creation of a Middle East "slush fund" to pay foreign officials; payments to Algerian officials for a World Cup tournament trip, a daughter's honeymoon and a religious pilgrimage; and misappropriation of funds by managers in Italy for items like golf equipment and perfume.
Weatherford employees also created false accounting and inventory records from 2002 to 2007 to hide "illegal commercial sales to Cuba, Syria, Sudan and Iran," the complaint said. Both the sales and the efforts to conceal them, it said, violated a range of export control laws and regulations concerning those countries.
Treasury officials said the timing of the announcement was unrelated to the nuclear agreement, which was announced on Sunday in Geneva and gives Iran relief, for the first time in 10 years, from some of the sanctions imposed against it.
Israel and other critics of that agreement have called it deeply flawed, saying that Iran made few concessions in exchange for billions of dollars of badly needed cash that has been frozen in bank accounts abroad, and for inducements that could begin to unravel other sanctions.
The Obama administration has countered that all major sanctions remain in place, that the relief is reversible and that the agreement does not signal the end of Iran's economic isolation, or any relaxation of the enforcement of remaining sanctions.
"Today's action underscores our deep commitment to target those who seek to violate our sanctions," Adam J. Szubin, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which supervises the administration of sanctions, said in the announcement of the Weatherford settlement.
Critics of the agreement with Iran welcomed the Weatherford settlement but noted that it applied to behavior that had been halted years ago.
"The real question is whether the Treasury Department will be permitted politically to enforce current sanctions for current illicit activity," said Mark Wallace, the chief executive of United Against Nuclear Iran, a New York-based group that has pushed for stronger sanctions on Iran.
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Mr. Lanza refused to speak even to his mother, communicating with her only by email, even though their bedrooms shared the same floor of their house on Yogananda Street.
He would not eat unless his food was arranged in a particular way on his plate. He hated birthdays and holidays, and forbade his mother from putting up a Christmas tree.
He also made her get rid of a cat he did not like.
No one else was allowed into his room, including his mother, who nevertheless did her son's laundry daily because he changed his clothes often.
Among their few outings together were trips to the shooting range. She planned to buy him a gun for Christmas last year.
Mr. Lanza, 20, could not connect with people but obsessed over "Dance Dance Revolution," an interactive video game he played in the lobby of a nearby movie theater, spending as long as 10 hours at a time trying to follow dance routines as they flashed on the screen.
Last year, four days before her son killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School and then shot himself, Ms. Lanza cooked him some of his favorite meals and then left for a three-day trip to New Hampshire.
Ms. Lanza returned on Dec. 13 at 10 p.m.
The next morning, her son shot and killed her in her bed.
A 48-page report released on Monday by the state's attorney in Danbury, Stephen J. Sedensky III, offers a vivid and chilling portrait of the young man responsible for one of the nation's worst mass shootings, and chronicles his rampage in the school.
But what it does not answer is why.
The long-awaited report does not suggest a motive for Mr. Lanza's actions, even as it offers a glimpse into his strange, troubled life. It comes nearly a year after the shooting set off a national discussion about gun control, mental health and violence in American popular culture.
In that time, families of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims have struggled to put their lives back together, the town has tried to heal and the school has been razed. But, until Monday, little information compiled by investigators had been publicly released.
Even basic facts, like the path Mr. Lanza took inside the school, were kept secret.
After the shooting, the Connecticut General Assembly passed bills to limit what could be made public. The state also fought to prevent the release of the recordings of the emergency calls to 911 from people inside the school. At a hearing on Monday before the report's release, Judge Eliot Prescott of New Britain Superior Court said that he would review the tapes and soon decide whether to release them.
The report was based on voluminous evidence and interviews conducted by the Connecticut State Police and the state's attorney's office, along with federal authorities. It marks the end of the investigation.
Investigators struggled to make sense of "contradictory" descriptions of Mr. Lanza by those who knew him.
The report notes that while "significant mental health issues" affected his ability to live a normal life and interact with others, it remained unclear if they contributed in any way to his actions last December. Mr. Lanza received a diagnosis in 2005 of an autism variant known as Asperger's syndrome, but there is no evidence that people with Asperger's are more likely than others to commit violent crimes.
Mr. Lanza was treated by mental health professionals, according to the report, but none of them saw anything that predicted his future behavior.
"Tutoring, desensitization and medication were recommended," the report said. "The shooter refused to take suggested medication and did not engage in suggested behavior therapies."
There were reports of troubling behavior as early as the fifth grade, when Mr. Lanza produced "The Big Book of Granny" for a class project. The main character had a gun in her cane and shot people.
In 2006, as a seventh grader, Mr. Lanza was described by a teacher as intelligent but obsessed with violent imagery.
Joseph Berger reported from Newtown, and Marc Santora from New York. Elizabeth Maker contributed reporting from Newtown, and Kristin Hussey from New Britain, Conn.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 25, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the Connecticut city from which Kristin Hussey contributed reporting. It is New Britain, not Bridgeport.
LOS ANGELES — Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley millionaire, rose to fame by promoting a ballot initiative that essentially eliminated bilingual education in California. He went on to become publisher of The American Conservative, a libertarian-leaning magazine.
But after decades in the conservative movement, Mr. Unz is pursuing a goal that has stymied liberals: raising the minimum wage. He plans to pour his own money into a ballot measure to increase the minimum wage in California to $10 an hour in 2015 and $12 in 2016, which would make it by far the highest in the nation. Currently, it is $8 — 75 cents higher than the federal minimum.
Using what he sees as conservative principles to advocate a policy long championed by the left, Mr. Unz argues that significantly raising the minimum wage would help curb government spending on social services, strengthen the economy and make more jobs attractive to American-born workers.
"There are so many very low-wage workers, and we pay for huge social welfare programs for them," he said in an interview. "This would save something on the order of tens of billions of dollars. Doesn't it make more sense for employers to pay their workers than the government?"
Mr. Unz plans to submit the ballot language to the California secretary of state on Tuesday, declaring his intention to gather enough signatures to place it on the ballot in 2014.
Labor union leaders and top Democrats in the state said they were not aware of the plan, though Mr. Unz said he would welcome their help.
President Obama has called for raising the federal minimum wage to $9 from $7.25, but has received little support from Congress.
"At the very least, this is a way to capture the attention of people and have a debate," Mr. Unz said.
Mr. Unz has spent nearly $1 million on previous ballot measures and said he was prepared to spend some of his own fortune on this initiative as well. He added, though, that he expected the cost to be "minimal" because he anticipates widespread support.
But businesses would almost certainly spend to defeat the measure.
Earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed legislation to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2016. The California Chamber of Commerce labeled the bill a "job killer" and said that such a large increase would raise the unemployment rate and put the state's precarious economic recovery at risk. A spokeswoman for the group declined to comment on Mr. Unz's proposal on Monday.
Mr. Unz brushes aside such criticism, saying the size of California's economy — which, at roughly $1.9 trillion, is bigger than most countries' — would prevent any large-scale movement of jobs to other states. Instead, he argues, it presents the best test case for the kind of national minimum wage increase he has advocated for years.
National polls suggest raising the minimum wage is popular, and Mr. Unz said he believed such a measure would pass easily in California, where an estimated 1.6 million residents earn less than $10 an hour. But it could cost millions to gather the nearly 750,000 signatures needed to get it on the ballot.
Mr. Unz entered politics in 1994 as a challenger to Gov. Pete Wilson for the Republican nomination, at one point accusing Mr. Wilson of being a closet Democrat. After his ballot measure against bilingual education passed in 1998 — he argued that such education kept students from learning English effectively and forced children to stay with other speakers of their native language — Mr. Unz backed similar successful measures in Arizona and Massachusetts. He became publisher of The American Conservative in 2007, writing opinion articles on the minimum wage, immigration and urban crime.
He left that post this year amid what he said were "ideological and administrative" differences. Officials at the magazine declined to comment.
Mr. Unz wrote in the magazine last year that manufacturing "sweatshops" that rely on immigrant workers, including those in the country illegally, were among the few industries that would be devastated by a higher minimum wage. "There's a legitimate argument to be made that those kinds of businesses have no place in our economy," he said, "and getting rid of them would eliminate the low-rung jobs that bring in new poor immigrants."
Mr. Unz also argues that increasing the minimum wage would help eliminate what he calls an education bubble: More people are taking on huge debt to attend college, even though they may not be able to find a high-paying job afterward. If the floor of low-wage jobs is raised, he says, more people will find such jobs attractive.
While unions have backed similar voter initiatives in San Jose and Long Beach, Calif., labor officials are now focused on permanently tying the minimum wage to the rate of inflation, and said the measure Mr. Unz is proposing could be a distraction. Steve Smith, a spokesman for the California Labor Federation, was hardly enthusiastic when informed of Mr. Unz's plans.
"He has not shown a great deal of support for workers' issues in the past and was nowhere to be seen in the legislative debate here, so it's not really clear what the motivation is here," Mr. Smith said. "But he is saying some things that are the same as what we've been saying all along."
