Fair Game: New York Fed Agreed to Testify for Bank of America

A.I.G., which is suing Bank of America to recover losses it suffered on those securities, has calculated the value of the fraud claims at $7 billion.

Late on Thursday, a copy of the actual agreement came to light. It was filed by Bank of America in a California court that is hearing the matter of who owns those fraud claims — A.I.G. or the New York Fed. The agreement was also filed by the New York Fed in a related lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, where the New York Fed asked that the court keep the agreement under seal.

A reading of the document makes it clear why.

The agreement spells out the terms of a deal in which the New York Fed received $43 million from Bank of America’s Countrywide unit. The money changed hands to settle a narrow dispute involving cash flows on several mortgage securities held by an investment vehicle, known as Maiden Lane II. That vehicle was created by the New York Fed as part of the rescue of A.I.G., which had held the Countrywide securities. The previously confidential agreement released Bank of America from all litigation claims on the securities held by Maiden Lane II.

But in exchange for that $43 million, the New York Fed did something else for Bank of America. It agreed to testify on behalf of the bank in its legal battle against A.I.G. over fraud claims.

In that matter, Bank of America has argued that A.I.G. has no right to sue it for fraud because A.I.G. sold the securities to Maiden Lane II and so transferred the litigation rights to the New York Fed. A.I.G., however, maintains that the Maiden Lane agreement never specified the transfer of the right to sue for fraud and that an explicit transfer is required by New York law, which governs the agreement. The New York Fed provided Bank of America with two affidavits supporting the bank’s view of who owned the mortgage securities’ fraud claims.

Two weeks ago, it was unclear why the New York Fed gave Bank of America the affidavits. But now, its promise to testify “as needed,” shown in the formerly confidential settlement, addresses that oddity. It was a contractual obligation.

Interestingly, the New York Fed did not tell the California court that its affidavits came about because of its deal with Bank of America. The affidavits came from James M. Mahoney, a vice president at the New York Fed, and Stephanie A. Heller, its deputy general counsel.

But those affidavits differ from the position taken earlier by Thomas C. Baxter Jr., the New York Fed’s general counsel. In a letter to A.I.G. in October 2011, Mr. Baxter said that he and his colleagues “agree that A.I.G. has the right to seek damages” under securities laws for the instruments it sold to Maiden Lane II.

Michael Carlinsky, A.I.G.’s lawyer at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said on Friday that he found it “disturbing” that the New York Fed made a contract to “assist Bank of America in its defense of A.I.G.’s lawsuit.”

Also on Friday, I asked the New York Fed why it had included this promise of legal support for Bank of America in the settlement agreement. Jack Gutt, a spokesman, said in a statement that the New York Fed had intended to hold the litigation rights and that the declarations were true.

“The New York Fed did not agree to provide the declarations to benefit B. of A., but rather because doing so helped the New York Fed obtain the best possible settlement” for Maiden Lane II, Mr. Gutt said. “In agreeing to this provision as part of what the New York Fed believed was a favorable settlement agreement, the New York Fed was concerned exclusively with advancing the taxpayer interest.”

I also asked a Bank of America spokesman whether the bank had paid more in the settlement because of the New York Fed’s promise to testify. He declined to answer that question, saying, “Countrywide provided fair value for a complete release of claims by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Fed agreed to provide testimony standing behind what it had formally represented to Countrywide regarding the assignment of claims from A.I.G.”  

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England Develops a Voracious Appetite for a New Diet

LONDON — Visitors to England right now, be warned. The big topic on people’s minds — from cabdrivers to corporate executives — is not Kate Middleton’s increasingly visible baby bump (though the craze does involve the size of one’s waistline), but rather a best-selling diet book that has sent the British into a fasting frenzy.

“The Fast Diet,” published in mid-January in Britain, could do the same in the United States if Americans eat it up. The United States edition arrived last week.

The book has held the No. 1 slot on Amazon’s British site nearly every day since its publication in January, according to Rebecca Nicolson, a founder of Short Books, the independent publishing company behind the sensation. “It is selling,” she said, “like hot cakes,” which coincidentally are something one can actually eat on this revolutionary diet.

With an alluring cover line that reads, “Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer,” the premise of this latest weight-loss regimen — or “slimming” as the British call “dieting” — is intermittent fasting, or what has become known here as the 5:2 diet: five days of eating and drinking whatever you want, dispersed with two days of fasting.

A typical fasting day consists of two meals of roughly 250 to 300 calories each, depending on the person’s sex (500 calories for women, 600 for men). Think two eggs and a slice of ham for breakfast, and a plate of steamed fish and vegetables for dinner.

It is not much sustenance, but the secret to weight loss, according to the book, is that even after just a few hours of fasting, the body begins to turn off the fat-storing mechanisms and turn on the fat-burning systems.

“I’ve always been into self-experimentation,” said Dr. Michael Mosley, one of the book’s two authors and a well-known medical journalist on the BBC who is often called the Sanjay Gupta of Britain.

He researched the science of the diet and its health benefits by putting himself through intermittent fasting and filming it for a BBC documentary last August called “Eat, Fast and Live Longer.” (The broadcast gained high ratings, three million viewers, despite running during the London Olympics. PBS plans to air it in April.)

“This started because I was not feeling well last year,” Dr. Mosley said recently over a cup of tea and half a cookie (it was not one of his fasting days). “It turns out I was suffering from high blood sugar, high cholesterol and had a kind of visceral fat inside my gut.”

Though hardly obese at the time, at 5 feet 11 inches and 187 pounds, Dr. Mosley, 55, had a body mass index and body fat percentage that were a few points higher than the recommended amount for men. “Given that my father had died at age 73 of complications from diabetes, and I was now looking prediabetic, I knew something had to change,” he added.

The result was a documentary, almost the opposite of “Super Size Me,” in which Dr. Mosley not only fasted, but also interviewed scientific researchers, mostly in the United States, about the positive results of various forms of intermittent fasting, tested primarily on rats but in some cases human volunteers. The prominent benefits, he discovered, were weight loss, a lower risk of cancer and heart disease, and increased energy.

“The body goes into a repair-and-recover mode when it no longer has the work of storing the food being consumed,” he said.

Though Dr. Mosley quickly gave up on the most extreme forms of fasting (he ate little more than one cup of low-calorie soup every 24 hours for four consecutive days in his first trial), he finally settled on the 5:2 ratio as a more sustainable, less painful option that could realistically be followed without annihilating his social life or work.

“Our earliest antecedents,” Dr. Mosley argued, “lived a feast-or-famine existence, gorging themselves after a big hunt and then not eating until they scored the next one.” Similarly, he explained, temporary fasting is a ritual of religions like Islam and Judaism — as demonstrated by Ramadan and Yom Kippur. “We shouldn’t have a fear of hunger if it is just temporary,” he said.

What Dr. Mosley found most astounding, however, were his personal results. Not only did he lose 20 pounds (he currently weighs 168 pounds) in nine weeks, but his glucose and cholesterol levels went down, as did his body fat. “What’s more, I have a whole new level of energy,” he said.

The documentary became an instant hit, which in turn led Mimi Spencer, a food and fashion writer, to propose that they collaborate on a book. “I could see this was not a faddish diet but one that was sustainable with long-term health results, beyond the obvious weight-loss benefit,” said Ms. Spencer, 45, who has lost 20 pounds on the diet within four months and lowered her B.M.I. by 2 points.

The result is a 200-page paperback: the first half written by Dr. Mosley outlining the scientific findings of intermittent fasting; the second by Ms. Spencer, with encouraging text on how to get through the first days of fasting, from keeping busy so you don’t hear your rumbling belly, to waiting 15 minutes for your meal or snack.

She also provides fasting recipes with tantalizing photos like feta niçoise salad and Mexican pizza, and a calorie counter at the back. (Who knew a quarter of a cup of balsamic vinegar added up to a whopping 209 calories?)

In London, the diet has taken off with the help of well-known British celebrity chefs and food writers like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who raved about it in The Guardian after his sixth day of fasting, having already lost eight pounds. (“I feel lean and sharper,” he wrote, “and find the whole thing rather exhilarating.”)

The diet is also particularly popular among men, according to Dr. Mosley, who has heard from many of his converts via e-mail and Twitter, where he has around 24,000 followers. “They find it easy to work into their schedules because dieting for a day here and there doesn’t feel torturous,” he said, adding that couples also particularly like doing it together.

But not everyone is singing the diet’s praises. The National Health System, Britain’s publicly funded medical establishment, put out a statement on its Web site shortly after the book came out: “Despite its increasing popularity, there is a great deal of uncertainty about I.F. (intermittent fasting) with significant gaps in the evidence.”

The health agency also listed some side effects, including bad breath, anxiety, dehydration and irritability. Yet people in London do not seem too concerned. A slew of fasting diet books have come out in recent weeks, notably the “The 5:2 Diet Book” and “The Feast and Fast Diet.”

There is also a crop of new cookbooks featuring fasting-friendly recipes. Let’s just say, the British are hungry for them.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 2, 2013

A previous version of this article referred incorrectly to the national health care body in Britain. It is the National Health Service, not the National Health System.

In addition, a previous version referred imprecisely to the Balsamic ingredient that has 209 calories in a quarter cup. It is Balsamic vinegar dressing, not Balsamic vinegar.

Read More..

England Develops a Voracious Appetite for a New Diet

LONDON — Visitors to England right now, be warned. The big topic on people’s minds — from cabdrivers to corporate executives — is not Kate Middleton’s increasingly visible baby bump (though the craze does involve the size of one’s waistline), but rather a best-selling diet book that has sent the British into a fasting frenzy.

“The Fast Diet,” published in mid-January in Britain, could do the same in the United States if Americans eat it up. The United States edition arrived last week.

The book has held the No. 1 slot on Amazon’s British site nearly every day since its publication in January, according to Rebecca Nicolson, a founder of Short Books, the independent publishing company behind the sensation. “It is selling,” she said, “like hot cakes,” which coincidentally are something one can actually eat on this revolutionary diet.

With an alluring cover line that reads, “Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer,” the premise of this latest weight-loss regimen — or “slimming” as the British call “dieting” — is intermittent fasting, or what has become known here as the 5:2 diet: five days of eating and drinking whatever you want, dispersed with two days of fasting.

A typical fasting day consists of two meals of roughly 250 to 300 calories each, depending on the person’s sex (500 calories for women, 600 for men). Think two eggs and a slice of ham for breakfast, and a plate of steamed fish and vegetables for dinner.

It is not much sustenance, but the secret to weight loss, according to the book, is that even after just a few hours of fasting, the body begins to turn off the fat-storing mechanisms and turn on the fat-burning systems.

“I’ve always been into self-experimentation,” said Dr. Michael Mosley, one of the book’s two authors and a well-known medical journalist on the BBC who is often called the Sanjay Gupta of Britain.

He researched the science of the diet and its health benefits by putting himself through intermittent fasting and filming it for a BBC documentary last August called “Eat, Fast and Live Longer.” (The broadcast gained high ratings, three million viewers, despite running during the London Olympics. PBS plans to air it in April.)

“This started because I was not feeling well last year,” Dr. Mosley said recently over a cup of tea and half a cookie (it was not one of his fasting days). “It turns out I was suffering from high blood sugar, high cholesterol and had a kind of visceral fat inside my gut.”

Though hardly obese at the time, at 5 feet 11 inches and 187 pounds, Dr. Mosley, 55, had a body mass index and body fat percentage that were a few points higher than the recommended amount for men. “Given that my father had died at age 73 of complications from diabetes, and I was now looking prediabetic, I knew something had to change,” he added.

The result was a documentary, almost the opposite of “Super Size Me,” in which Dr. Mosley not only fasted, but also interviewed scientific researchers, mostly in the United States, about the positive results of various forms of intermittent fasting, tested primarily on rats but in some cases human volunteers. The prominent benefits, he discovered, were weight loss, a lower risk of cancer and heart disease, and increased energy.

“The body goes into a repair-and-recover mode when it no longer has the work of storing the food being consumed,” he said.

Though Dr. Mosley quickly gave up on the most extreme forms of fasting (he ate little more than one cup of low-calorie soup every 24 hours for four consecutive days in his first trial), he finally settled on the 5:2 ratio as a more sustainable, less painful option that could realistically be followed without annihilating his social life or work.

“Our earliest antecedents,” Dr. Mosley argued, “lived a feast-or-famine existence, gorging themselves after a big hunt and then not eating until they scored the next one.” Similarly, he explained, temporary fasting is a ritual of religions like Islam and Judaism — as demonstrated by Ramadan and Yom Kippur. “We shouldn’t have a fear of hunger if it is just temporary,” he said.

What Dr. Mosley found most astounding, however, were his personal results. Not only did he lose 20 pounds (he currently weighs 168 pounds) in nine weeks, but his glucose and cholesterol levels went down, as did his body fat. “What’s more, I have a whole new level of energy,” he said.

The documentary became an instant hit, which in turn led Mimi Spencer, a food and fashion writer, to propose that they collaborate on a book. “I could see this was not a faddish diet but one that was sustainable with long-term health results, beyond the obvious weight-loss benefit,” said Ms. Spencer, 45, who has lost 20 pounds on the diet within four months and lowered her B.M.I. by 2 points.

The result is a 200-page paperback: the first half written by Dr. Mosley outlining the scientific findings of intermittent fasting; the second by Ms. Spencer, with encouraging text on how to get through the first days of fasting, from keeping busy so you don’t hear your rumbling belly, to waiting 15 minutes for your meal or snack.

She also provides fasting recipes with tantalizing photos like feta niçoise salad and Mexican pizza, and a calorie counter at the back. (Who knew a quarter of a cup of balsamic vinegar added up to a whopping 209 calories?)

In London, the diet has taken off with the help of well-known British celebrity chefs and food writers like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who raved about it in The Guardian after his sixth day of fasting, having already lost eight pounds. (“I feel lean and sharper,” he wrote, “and find the whole thing rather exhilarating.”)

The diet is also particularly popular among men, according to Dr. Mosley, who has heard from many of his converts via e-mail and Twitter, where he has around 24,000 followers. “They find it easy to work into their schedules because dieting for a day here and there doesn’t feel torturous,” he said, adding that couples also particularly like doing it together.

But not everyone is singing the diet’s praises. The National Health System, Britain’s publicly funded medical establishment, put out a statement on its Web site shortly after the book came out: “Despite its increasing popularity, there is a great deal of uncertainty about I.F. (intermittent fasting) with significant gaps in the evidence.”

The health agency also listed some side effects, including bad breath, anxiety, dehydration and irritability. Yet people in London do not seem too concerned. A slew of fasting diet books have come out in recent weeks, notably the “The 5:2 Diet Book” and “The Feast and Fast Diet.”

There is also a crop of new cookbooks featuring fasting-friendly recipes. Let’s just say, the British are hungry for them.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 2, 2013

A previous version of this article referred incorrectly to the national health care body in Britain. It is the National Health Service, not the National Health System.

In addition, a previous version referred imprecisely to the Balsamic ingredient that has 209 calories in a quarter cup. It is Balsamic vinegar dressing, not Balsamic vinegar.

Read More..

Jennifer Sultan Pleads Guilty to Selling Prescription Drugs

At the height of dot-com mania 13 years ago, Jennifer Sultan and a few colleagues sold their small technology company for $70 million in stock and cash. She and her boyfriend rented a large house in the Hamptons for the summer and bought a spacious loft near Union Square.

John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

Jennifer Sultan faced 15 years to life on the top charge against her, and a potential for more prison time on other counts.

In the years since, that temporary flush of wealth evaporated and Ms. Sultan, 38, developed an addiction to prescription painkillers.

On Friday, she sat handcuffed in a courtroom at State Supreme Court in Manhattan. In exchange for a promise of a four-year prison sentence, she pleaded guilty to selling prescription painkillers and conspiring to sell a firearm.

She was arrested last July and accused of being part of a ring that sold prescription drugs and guns. Four others arrested with Ms. Sultan had already pleaded guilty. One, Nicholas Mina, a former New York City police officer, agreed to serve more than 15 years in prison as part of a plea bargain under which he admitted stealing guns from his colleagues’ precinct house lockers and selling them. Mr. Mina was also addicted to prescription painkillers.

Though Ms. Sultan’s lawyer said she had hoped for less than four years, she faced 15 years to life in prison on the top count against her and the potential for more prison time on other charges. She said little in court but smiled broadly several times as she spoke quietly with her lawyer, Frank Rothman.

“She was happy to be done with it, but she was not happy with the sentence,” Mr. Rothman said afterward.

Ms. Sultan grew up in West Long Branch, N.J., five miles north of Asbury Park, and graduated from New York University in 1996. She and her boyfriend at the time, Adam Cohen, worked at a company, Live Online, that was an early pioneer in live streaming events on the Internet.

After the sale of Live Online, efforts by Ms. Sultan and Mr. Cohen to start other technology companies failed. Ms. Sultan explored other interests, including acupuncture and holistic health.

Early last year, a city narcotics investigator discovered an advertisement Ms. Sultan had placed on Craigslist offering prescription painkillers for sale. She and Mr. Cohen were still living in the penthouse loft near Union Square that they bought after the sale of Live Online.

Five times from February through June, she sold pills to an undercover officer, according to her indictment. One sale took place at the Starbucks on Union Square. In another, she sold 183 oxycodone tablets to the officer for $4,400 at a Starbucks in the Flatiron district near the school where she was studying acupuncture.

A separate investigation into the ring that sold stolen guns and pain medication picked up Ms. Sultan sending a text message to the man accused of being the ringleader, Ivan Chavez, saying she wanted to sell him a .357 Magnum handgun for $850, according to a separate indictment obtained by the Manhattan district attorney.

Mr. Chavez was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Ms. Sultan and Mr. Cohen, who was not accused of participating in the drug and guns ring, filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Last August, the bankruptcy judge ordered them to vacate the loft to allow a bankruptcy trustee to sell it. The 5,600-square-foot loft is still listed for sale at just under $6 million.

She has been incarcerated since her arrest in July because she was unable to raise $85,000 for bail. With credit for good behavior and time served since her arrest, Ms. Sultan could be released from prison in about two years.

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Seized Arms Off Yemen Raise Alarm Over Iran

An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a development that could signal an escalation of Iran’s support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the United States.

Among the items aboard the dhow, according to a review of factory markings on weapons and their packing crates, were 10 Chinese heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, most of them manufactured in 2005.

The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they had been assembled at a factory represented by the state-owned China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

The Chinese missiles were part of a larger shipment interdicted by American and Yemeni forces in January, which American and Yemeni officials say was intended for the Houthi rebels in northwestern Yemen. But the presence of the missiles in the seized contraband complicates an already politically delicate case.

The shipment, which officials portray as an attempt to introduce sophisticated new antiaircraft systems into the Arabian Peninsula, has raised concerns in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, as the weapons would have posed escalated risks to civilian and military aircraft alike.

And it has presented the Obama administration with a fresh example of Iran’s apparent transfer of modern missiles from China to insurgents in the larger regional contest between Sunni-led and Shiite-led states, in which the American military has often been entwined.

The United States has previously accused Iran, a Shiite-led theocracy, of sending weapons to the Houthis, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Saudi Arabia, an American ally, is considered the leading Sunni power in the region. Both sides have aided and equipped groups or governments they deem aligned with their interests, helping to fuel violence in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Sudan and elsewhere.

Iran has rejected the allegations as “baseless and absurd.” Neither the Iranian government nor the Chinese firm that markets QW missiles answered written requests for comment.

The government of Yemen has asked the United Nations to investigate the shipment and report the findings to the Security Council. Yemeni news media reported that United Nations experts were in Yemen last week.

The analysis of the weapons’ markings and origins was based on photographs taken when Yemeni officials briefly displayed the weapons to journalists.

Concerns over sophisticated Chinese missiles reaching Iran’s proxies have considerable regional history. They are part of both the larger worries over antiaircraft weapons set loose by conflicts across the Middle East in the past decade and the lingering frustration in Washington over China’s military aid to Iran.

In 2008, late in the Bush administration, the United States complained to China about two similar antiaircraft missiles that were recovered from Shiite militants in Iraq, according a diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks.

“We have demarched China repeatedly on its conventional arms transfers to Iran, urging Beijing to stop,” the cable noted.

The cable said the QW-1 missiles recovered in Iraq had been manufactured in China in 2003.

Like the American-made Stinger, China’s QW series is part of a class of weapons known as man-portable air-defense systems, or manpads. The cable instructed American diplomats to warn China of the “unacceptably high risk that any military equipment sold to Iran, especially weapons like manpads, that are highly sought-after by terrorists, will be diverted to nonstate actors who threaten U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as civilians across the region.”

The latest discovery of Chinese manpads came after the United States Navy detected the dhow, the Jeehan 1, as it took on cargo in an Iranian military-controlled port. The vessel then embarked on a high-seas smuggling run, according to accounts by Yemeni and American officials.

The vessel tied off on a pier in the harbor on Lesser Tunb Island, a tiny spit of land just west of the Strait of Hormuz that is claimed by both Iran and the United Arab Emirates, officials familiar with its voyage said. The island is occupied by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

After passing eastward through the strait and heading south along the Arabian Peninsula, the dhow was stopped on Jan. 23 by the American destroyer Farragut and a Yemeni boarding team off the coast of Al Ghaydah.

The dhow’s Iranian crew initially insisted the vessel was Panamanian-flagged and carried only fuel, an American official said. The military cargo, which included many ammunition crates that had been painted over with white or black paint, was found in hidden compartments, American officials said.

That cargo also included 316,000 cartridges for Kalashnikov rifles, nearly 63,000 cartridges for PK machine guns or the Dragunov series of sniper rifles, more than 12,000 cartridges for 12.7-millimeter DShK machine guns and 95 RPG-7 launchers.

The rifle cartridges were packaged in crates strongly resembling packaging used by Iran’s Defense Industries Organization, another firm under American sanction, according to James Bevan, director of Conflict Armament Research, a private arms-tracking firm that has documented the spread of Iranian ammunition in East and West Africa.

The vessel also carried 10 SA-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles with two gripstocks for firing them, nearly 17,000 sticks of Iranian-made C-4 plastic explosives, 48 Russian PN-14K night vision goggles, and 10 LH80A laser range finders made, according to their placards, by the state-run Iran Electronics Industries, also under American sanction.

The original provenance of the SA-7s was not clear, though the crates they were in had stenciling in Bulgarian.

The captain and crew of the Jeehan 1 remain in Yemeni detention, and the dhow has been impounded under Yemeni custody, a Yememi official said.

An American official called the shipment “deeply disturbing” and said it “clearly appeared to violate” Security Council resolutions prohibiting Iran from exporting arms.

Two independent arms-trafficking researchers who have reviewed photographs and written a summary of the markings on the missiles and crates said the weapons appeared to be of Chinese origin.

Matthew Schroeder, an analyst for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington and the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, said that this was the first time to his knowledge that the QW-1M had left state control.

“If so, and these missiles were indeed bound for insurgents, this shipment is extremely worrisome, both from a regional security and a global counterterrorism perspective,” he said.

Unlike many older shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles seen in insurgent hands around the world, the QW-1M is believed by analysts to have a seeker head more resistant to countermeasures intended to deceive it.

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Detroit Car Sales Climb Again

DETROIT – Sales of new vehicles in the United States rose modestly in February, as consumers continued to buy more fuel-efficient cars and as businesses replaced aging pickup trucks with newer models.

Auto executives said overall industry sales for the month would improve about 2 percent over the strong results reported in the same period a year ago.

The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate – a closely watched indicator for the industry – is expected to total about 15.5 million vehicles for February.

That seasonal rate bodes well for the industry going forward, as automakers ratchet up production to meet demand for their new products.

The Detroit auto companies all posted positive results during the month.

General Motors, the largest American automaker, said it sold 224,000 vehicles in February, a 7 percent increase from the same month in 2012.

All of G.M.'s domestic brands – Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick – had higher year-over-year sales. Cadillac led the way with a 20 percent gain, primarily because of healthy sales of the new ATS compact sedan.

G.M. also reported increases in sales of its newest small cars, like the Buick Verano and the Chevrolet Spark. But its most prominent gains were in pickup trucks.

The company said that sales of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup rose 29 percent, and the GMC Sierra increased 25 percent. Executives attributed the performance to a surge in housing starts and the need for construction companies to replace older pickups.

“A significant tailwind for our industry is new home construction, which is creating jobs and fueling the demand for pickups,” said Kurt McNeil, G.M.'s vice president of United States sales operations.

The Ford Motor Company, the second-biggest Detroit auto company, said it sold 195,000 vehicles during the month, a 9 percent gain from a year ago.

Ford said that many of its gains came from sales of sport utilities such as the Escape and Explorer. The company’s redesigned midsize sedan, the Fusion, also had a good month, with a 28 percent improvement over last year.

Like G.M., Ford also benefitted from the surging demand for pickups. Ford said that it sold 54,000 F-series trucks during the month, a 15 percent increase from February of 2012.

Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit automakers, saw its growth rate slow somewhat after several months of reporting double-digit increases.

The company said that it sold 139,000 vehicles in February, a 4 percent improvement over a year earlier. That is a smaller increase than Chrysler has reported in previous months.

“In spite of a cautious ramp-up of some of our most popular products, which limited inventory last month, we still managed to record our strongest February in five years,” said Reid Bigland, head of United States sales for Chrysler.

Chrysler’s best performers during the month were passenger cars such as the new Dodge Dart. Sales of its Ram pickup increased 3 percent, while sales of its Jeep SUVs dropped 16 percent.

The big Japanese automakers were to report results later Friday. Analysts expected Toyota and Honda to continue their steady comeback from inventory disruptions because of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan two years ago.

Volkswagen, the German automaker that is rapidly expanding its American operations, said it sold 31,000 vehicles in February, a 3 percent increase from a year earlier.

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Think Like a Doctor: The Man Who Wobbled

The Challenge: Can you solve the medical mystery of a man who suddenly becomes too dizzy to walk?

Every month, the Diagnosis column of The New York Times Magazine asks Well readers to try their hand at solving a medical mystery. Below you will find the story of a 56-year-old factory worker with dizziness and panic attacks. I have provided records from his two hospital visits that will give you all the information available to the doctor who finally made the diagnosis.

The first reader to offer the correct diagnosis gets a signed copy of my book, “Every Patient Tells a Story,” and the satisfaction of solving a case that stumped a roomful of specialists.

The Patient’s Story:

The middle-aged man clicked his way through the multiple reruns of late-late-night television. He should have been in bed hours ago, but lately he hadn’t been able to get to sleep. Suddenly his legs took on a life of their own. Stretched out halfway to the center of the room, they began to shake and twitch and jump around. The man watched helplessly as his legs disobeyed his mental orders to stop moving. He had no control over them. He felt nauseous, sweaty and out of breath, as if he had been running some kind of race. He called out to his wife. She hurried out of bed, took one look at him and called 911.

The Patient’s History:

By the time the man arrived at Huntsville Hospital, in Alabama, the twitching in his legs had subsided and his breathing had returned to normal. Still, he had been discharged from that same hospital for similar symptoms just two weeks earlier. They hadn’t figured out what was going on then, so they weren’t going to send him home now.

The patient considered himself pretty healthy, but the past year or so had been tough. In 2011, at the age of 54, he had had a mild stroke. He had no medical problems that put him at risk for stroke — no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, no diabetes. A work-up at that time showed that he had a hole in his heart that allowed a tiny clot from somewhere in his body to travel to the brain and cause the stroke. He was discharged on a couple of blood thinners to keep his blood from making more clots. He hadn’t really felt completely well, though, ever since. His balance seemed a little off, and he was subject to these weird panic attacks, in which his heart would pound and he would feel short of breath whenever he got too stressed. Mostly he could manage them by just walking away and focusing on his breathing. Still, he never felt as if he was the kind of guy to panic.

And he had always been quick on his feet. The first half of his career he had been in the steel business — building huge metal trusses and supports. He and his team put together 60-plus tons of steel structures every day. For the past decade he had been machining car parts. After his stroke, work seemed to get a lot harder.

The Dizziness:

A few weeks ago, he stood up and wham — suddenly the whole world went off-kilter. He felt as if he was constantly about to fall over in a world that no longer lay down flat. His first thought was that he was having another stroke. He went straight to his doctor’s office. The doctor wasn’t sure what was going on and sent him to that same emergency room at Huntsville Hospital. After three days of testing and being evaluated by lots of specialists, his doctors still were not sure what was going on. He hadn’t had a heart attack; he hadn’t had a stroke. There was no sign of infection. All the tests they could think of were normal.

The only abnormal finding was that when he stood up, his blood pressure dropped. Why this happened wasn’t clear, but the doctors in the hospital gave him compression stockings and a pill — both could help keep his blood pressure in the normal range. Then they sent him home. He was also started on an antidepressant to help with the panic attacks he continued to have from time to time.

You can read the report from that hospital admission below.

You can also read the consultation and discharge notes from that hospital visit here.

He had been home for nearly two weeks and still he felt no better. He tried to go back to work after a week or so at home, but after driving for less than five miles, he felt he had to turn around. He wasn’t sure what was wrong; he just knew he didn’t feel right. Then his legs started jumping around, and he ended up back in the hospital.

The Doctor’s Exam:

It was nearly dawn by the time Dr. Jeremy Thompson, the first-year resident on duty that night, saw the patient. Awake but tired, the patient told his story one more time. He had been at home, watching TV, when his legs started jumping on their own and he started feeling short of breath. His wife sat at the bedside. She looked just as worried and exhausted as he did. She told the resident that when he spoke that night at home, his speech was slurred. And when the ambulance came, he could barely walk. He has never missed this much work, she told the young doctor. It’s not like him. Can’t you figure out what’s wrong?

The resident had already reviewed the records from the patient’s previous hospital admissions. He asked a few more questions: the patient had never smoked and rarely drank; his father died at age 80; his mother was still alive and well. The patient exam was normal, as were the studies done in the E.R.

The first E.R. doctor thought that his symptoms were a result of anxiety, culminating in a full-blown panic attack. The resident thought that was probably right. In any case he would discuss the case with the attending in a couple of hours during rounds on the new patients. Till then, he told the worried couple, they should just try to get a little sleep.

An Important Clue:

Dr. Robert Centor was definitely a morning person. His cheerful enthusiasm about teaching and taking care of patients made him a favorite among residents. At 7:30 that morning, he stood outside the patient’s door as Dr. Thompson relayed the somewhat frustrating case of the middle-aged man with worsening dizziness and panic attacks. Then they went into the room to meet the patient. He was a big guy, tall and muscular with the first signs of middle-aged thickening around his middle. His complexion had the look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Dr. Centor introduced himself and pulled up a chair as the rest of the team watched. He asked the patient what brought him to the hospital.

“Every time I get up, I get dizzy,” the man replied. Sure, he had had some balance problems ever since his stroke, he explained, but this felt different – somehow worse. He could hardly walk, he told the doctor. He just felt too unstable.

“Can you get up and show us how you walk?” Dr. Centor asked.

“Don’t let me fall,” the patient responded. He carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed. The resident and intern stood on either side as he slowly rose. He stood with his feet far apart. When asked to close his eyes as he stood there, he wobbled and nearly fell over. When he took a few steps, his heel and toes hit the ground at the same time, making a strange slapping sound.

Seeing that, Dr. Centor knew where the problem lay and ordered a few tests to confirm his diagnosis.

You can see the review report and notes for the patient’s second hospital visit below.

Solving the Mystery:

What tests did Dr. Centor order? Do you know what is making this middle-aged man wobble? Enter your guesses below. I’ll post the answer tomorrow.

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Rules and Regulations: Post your questions and diagnosis in the Comments section below. The correct answer will appear tomorrow on Well. The winner will be contacted. Reader comments may also appear in a coming issue of The New York Times Magazine.

Friday March 1, 1:21 p.m. | Updated Thanks for all your responses! You can learn the correct diagnosis at “Think Like a Doctor: The Wobble Solved!”

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Think Like a Doctor: The Man Who Wobbled

The Challenge: Can you solve the medical mystery of a man who suddenly becomes too dizzy to walk?

Every month, the Diagnosis column of The New York Times Magazine asks Well readers to try their hand at solving a medical mystery. Below you will find the story of a 56-year-old factory worker with dizziness and panic attacks. I have provided records from his two hospital visits that will give you all the information available to the doctor who finally made the diagnosis.

The first reader to offer the correct diagnosis gets a signed copy of my book, “Every Patient Tells a Story,” and the satisfaction of solving a case that stumped a roomful of specialists.

The Patient’s Story:

The middle-aged man clicked his way through the multiple reruns of late-late-night television. He should have been in bed hours ago, but lately he hadn’t been able to get to sleep. Suddenly his legs took on a life of their own. Stretched out halfway to the center of the room, they began to shake and twitch and jump around. The man watched helplessly as his legs disobeyed his mental orders to stop moving. He had no control over them. He felt nauseous, sweaty and out of breath, as if he had been running some kind of race. He called out to his wife. She hurried out of bed, took one look at him and called 911.

The Patient’s History:

By the time the man arrived at Huntsville Hospital, in Alabama, the twitching in his legs had subsided and his breathing had returned to normal. Still, he had been discharged from that same hospital for similar symptoms just two weeks earlier. They hadn’t figured out what was going on then, so they weren’t going to send him home now.

The patient considered himself pretty healthy, but the past year or so had been tough. In 2011, at the age of 54, he had had a mild stroke. He had no medical problems that put him at risk for stroke — no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, no diabetes. A work-up at that time showed that he had a hole in his heart that allowed a tiny clot from somewhere in his body to travel to the brain and cause the stroke. He was discharged on a couple of blood thinners to keep his blood from making more clots. He hadn’t really felt completely well, though, ever since. His balance seemed a little off, and he was subject to these weird panic attacks, in which his heart would pound and he would feel short of breath whenever he got too stressed. Mostly he could manage them by just walking away and focusing on his breathing. Still, he never felt as if he was the kind of guy to panic.

And he had always been quick on his feet. The first half of his career he had been in the steel business — building huge metal trusses and supports. He and his team put together 60-plus tons of steel structures every day. For the past decade he had been machining car parts. After his stroke, work seemed to get a lot harder.

The Dizziness:

A few weeks ago, he stood up and wham — suddenly the whole world went off-kilter. He felt as if he was constantly about to fall over in a world that no longer lay down flat. His first thought was that he was having another stroke. He went straight to his doctor’s office. The doctor wasn’t sure what was going on and sent him to that same emergency room at Huntsville Hospital. After three days of testing and being evaluated by lots of specialists, his doctors still were not sure what was going on. He hadn’t had a heart attack; he hadn’t had a stroke. There was no sign of infection. All the tests they could think of were normal.

The only abnormal finding was that when he stood up, his blood pressure dropped. Why this happened wasn’t clear, but the doctors in the hospital gave him compression stockings and a pill — both could help keep his blood pressure in the normal range. Then they sent him home. He was also started on an antidepressant to help with the panic attacks he continued to have from time to time.

You can read the report from that hospital admission below.

You can also read the consultation and discharge notes from that hospital visit here.

He had been home for nearly two weeks and still he felt no better. He tried to go back to work after a week or so at home, but after driving for less than five miles, he felt he had to turn around. He wasn’t sure what was wrong; he just knew he didn’t feel right. Then his legs started jumping around, and he ended up back in the hospital.

The Doctor’s Exam:

It was nearly dawn by the time Dr. Jeremy Thompson, the first-year resident on duty that night, saw the patient. Awake but tired, the patient told his story one more time. He had been at home, watching TV, when his legs started jumping on their own and he started feeling short of breath. His wife sat at the bedside. She looked just as worried and exhausted as he did. She told the resident that when he spoke that night at home, his speech was slurred. And when the ambulance came, he could barely walk. He has never missed this much work, she told the young doctor. It’s not like him. Can’t you figure out what’s wrong?

The resident had already reviewed the records from the patient’s previous hospital admissions. He asked a few more questions: the patient had never smoked and rarely drank; his father died at age 80; his mother was still alive and well. The patient exam was normal, as were the studies done in the E.R.

The first E.R. doctor thought that his symptoms were a result of anxiety, culminating in a full-blown panic attack. The resident thought that was probably right. In any case he would discuss the case with the attending in a couple of hours during rounds on the new patients. Till then, he told the worried couple, they should just try to get a little sleep.

An Important Clue:

Dr. Robert Centor was definitely a morning person. His cheerful enthusiasm about teaching and taking care of patients made him a favorite among residents. At 7:30 that morning, he stood outside the patient’s door as Dr. Thompson relayed the somewhat frustrating case of the middle-aged man with worsening dizziness and panic attacks. Then they went into the room to meet the patient. He was a big guy, tall and muscular with the first signs of middle-aged thickening around his middle. His complexion had the look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Dr. Centor introduced himself and pulled up a chair as the rest of the team watched. He asked the patient what brought him to the hospital.

“Every time I get up, I get dizzy,” the man replied. Sure, he had had some balance problems ever since his stroke, he explained, but this felt different – somehow worse. He could hardly walk, he told the doctor. He just felt too unstable.

“Can you get up and show us how you walk?” Dr. Centor asked.

“Don’t let me fall,” the patient responded. He carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed. The resident and intern stood on either side as he slowly rose. He stood with his feet far apart. When asked to close his eyes as he stood there, he wobbled and nearly fell over. When he took a few steps, his heel and toes hit the ground at the same time, making a strange slapping sound.

Seeing that, Dr. Centor knew where the problem lay and ordered a few tests to confirm his diagnosis.

You can see the review report and notes for the patient’s second hospital visit below.

Solving the Mystery:

What tests did Dr. Centor order? Do you know what is making this middle-aged man wobble? Enter your guesses below. I’ll post the answer tomorrow.

---

Rules and Regulations: Post your questions and diagnosis in the Comments section below. The correct answer will appear tomorrow on Well. The winner will be contacted. Reader comments may also appear in a coming issue of The New York Times Magazine.

Friday March 1, 1:21 p.m. | Updated Thanks for all your responses! You can learn the correct diagnosis at “Think Like a Doctor: The Wobble Solved!”

.

Read More..

Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Starry Night

Stars, galaxies, meteors and satellites were the subject of App Smart this week as I tested out astronomy apps to help identify objects in the night sky. These apps typically use your phone or tablet’s sensors to display a view of what you’re pointing your device at in the sky in real time, helping you identify planets and constellations. Here are more apps like this to try out:

Star Walk — 5 Stars Astronomy Guide is a popular iOS app, costing $3. It has the same kind of dynamic star display as other apps in its class, and it’s easy to use. It’s also jam-packed with imagery and data on the 200,000 stars and planets in its database, and has a calendar so you can keep track of interesting celestial events. I particularly like the beautiful imagery it uses to show constellations and detail on the planets.

SkySafari 3 may be useful for more experienced star gazers. It has data on 120,000 stars and 220 star clusters, nebulae and galaxies, as well as detailed information pages written by professional astronomers. The basic version costs $3 on iOS, but there’s a Plus edition for $15 that has data on 2.5 million stars and can control some wired and wireless telescopes. The Pro edition is $40 and has many more stars and features but is aimed at the serious amateur astronomer.

Alternatively, and much more simply, there’s SkEye Astronomy, available as a free Android app. It has a businesslike feel, and is slightly sparing on user interface touches like icons. But it is powerful, and essentially works in much the same way as Star Walk or SkySafari does. There’s a $9 SkEye Pro version that has more stars in its database and can help you spot satellites too. But the free edition is fine for the casual astronomer. The app is not ideal you’re a complete beginner, however, as it lacks the kind of detailed background data on stars and so on that similar apps have.

The benefit to stargazing apps like these is that they also work during the day, or in a city that’s too light-polluted to let you see more than a handful of stars. This means you can turn them on at any time to learn more about astronomy.

Quick call: The Popular instant messaging app WhatsApp has been updated to a new version for Windows Phone 8. It has better support for Windows Live Tile displays and extras like a back-up system.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: March 1

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