Wall Street ends flat as investors pull back

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended mostly flat on Wednesday, taking another pause in the recent rally that has driven the S&P 500 to five-year highs, as transportation and technology shares lost ground.

Transportation stocks were among the worst performers. Shares of CH Robinson Worldwide fell 9.7 percent to $60.50 and the stock was the biggest percentage loser on the Nasdaq 100 after the freight transport company posted a lower-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit.

Without a strong catalyst, the market could struggle to continue its rally, analysts said. The benchmark S&P 500 index has advanced 6 percent this year, reaching its highest since December 2007, while the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> has risen above 14,000 recently.

Bank of America-Merrill Lynch analysts see a near-term pullback likely, based on strong equity inflows at the start of the year, said Dan Suzuki, the bank's equity strategist in New York.

"The fact that we've gone since November without seeing one, from a timing perspective, it wouldn't be a surprise to see one now."

With fourth-quarter earnings nearing an end, the market will be losing one of its big supports, said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago. "That's one thing that's been holding the market up," he said.

Shares of Time Warner Inc jumped 4.1 percent to $52.01 after reporting higher fourth-quarter profit that beat Wall Street estimates, as growth in its cable networks offset declines in film, TV entertainment and publishing units.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 7.22 points, or 0.05 percent, at 13,986.52. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.83 points, or 0.05 percent, at 1,512.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 3.10 points, or 0.10 percent, at 3,168.48.

Amazon.com shares, down 1.7 percent at $262.22, led the decline on the Nasdaq.

Also causing some strain on the market, investors have been speculating about leadership changes in Spain and Italy and watching for comments from European leaders, analysts said. European Central Bank policymakers are due to meet Thursday.

The Dow Jones Transportation average <.djt> was down 0.2 percent after hitting another record high on Tuesday. The average is up 10.7 percent for the year so far and has made a series of new highs since mid-January.

According to Thomson Reuters data, of 301 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 68.1 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters. In terms of revenue, 65.8 percent of companies have topped forecasts.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 4.7 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Walt Disney Co's stock was up 0.4 percent at $54.52, after the company beat estimates for quarterly adjusted earnings and gave an optimistic outlook for the next few quarters.

Volume was roughly 6.5 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by roughly 17 to 12 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Japan Spends Heavily to Keep Whaling Industry Afloat, Report Says

TOKYO — A wildlife conservation group said in a report on Wednesday that Japan has been propping up its whaling industry with nearly $400 million in tax money in recent years, stepping up subsidies even as consumption of whale meat here has slumped.

The report, compiled by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, in Yarmouth Port, Mass., challenges assertions by the Japanese government that whaling is a tradition with wide support among Japanese consumers.

Instead, government figures tallied in the report paint a picture of a struggling industry employing fewer than 1,000 people and dependent on public handouts, including money meant for reconstruction after the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.

Most Japanese consumers have turned away from whale meat. The industry shipped just 5,000 tons in 2011, compared with 233,000 tons at the peak in 1962, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Demand this year is so low that the industry has cut its planned shipments by half, to 2,400 tons.

“Whaling is unprofitable, and survives only with substantial subsidies, something cultural and nationalist arguments for whaling obscure,” said Patrick Ramage, the director of the animal welfare fund’s whale program. He said the country would be better off economically and ecologically if it promoted whale-watching tourism instead of hunting whales.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency declined to comment on the report, saying it had not yet studied its contents.

But an official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there was “nothing wrong with these subsidies, which fund an important program,” though it was “not the government’s responsibility to make whaling economically viable.”

A world moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1986, but Japan has taken advantage of an exception allowing whaling for research purposes to continue hunting, though environmental activists who chase whaling boats have made those hunts increasingly difficult. Japan has captured and killed more than 14,000 whales since the moratorium began.

The meat from the whales is sold off as “byproducts” of research, and it makes its way to supermarkets, restaurants and even school lunches. A government Web site says the most popular whale dishes are fried whale, whale sashimi and medium-rare whale steak.

According to figures from the Institute of Cetacean Research, the nonprofit organization set up to run the whaling program, income from whale meat has failed to cover the costs of whaling for the past five years. So subsidies have been increased, and some disaster aid has been diverted to the industry, prompting a public outcry.

The dire financial picture prompted the government to announce a plan last year to cut costs by reducing the annual catch and to sell more whale meat directly to schools for lunches. But experts doubt that those measures will make the whaling industry self-sufficient again. 

“The Japanese government has desperately defended whaling for years, but the question has increasingly become: for what?” said Yusuke Saskata, a professor of environmental economics at Kinki University in Osaka. “Supporting whaling culture is one thing, but maintaining whaling at this scale makes no sense.”

Hisako Ueno contributed research.

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Leeza Gibbons: I Count My Blessings - Not My Stretch Marks

By Mike Fleeman

02/06/2013 at 07:30 PM EST

When TV personality Leeza Gibbons married Steven Fenton in 2011, she joked that she was finally embracing "my inner cougar" – on their first date he was 38 and she was 51.

Now approaching their two-year anniversary in April, Gibbons has given a little more thought to the dynamics of their relationship and concludes that "the term cougar has so much energy around it that doesn't really fit."

"We laugh about it all the time," Gibbons, now 55, tells PEOPLE. (Fenton is a longtime talent manager and former president of the Board of Education in Beverly Hills.) "I always joke that emotionally and with regard to maturity, he's much older than I am."

The theme of starting over – "rebooting your life," as Gibbons calls it – runs through her new book, Take 2: Your Guide to Creating Happy Endings and New Beginnings.

She's had much to draw on from her own life: She's been divorced (this is her fourth marriage), had high-profile jobs at Entertainment Tonight, Extra and Leeza, and seen her kids grow older. She became an activist for family caregivers as her mother and grandmother both had Alzheimer's.

She writes about navigating change, basking in one's past, handling disappointments, "test-driving our dreams," learning how to say no and embracing the "Goddess Quotient" – how to be "a good girlfriend to yourself."

As for her own big new beginning, Gibbons remembers how just a couple of years ago she privately worried about the age difference.

"I did play out all those fears," she says. "I went through the list: I've got kids, there's a lot in my life that is big and complicated, he should be starting a young family. I went through all of it. I decided that I needed to count my blessings and not my stretch marks. I recognized that my work in the relationship was not to decide what he felt about it."

In the end, she says, "It was up to Steven to decide how to receive. He didn't need me to protect him from our age difference. Now two years later, there's so much respect and so much fun and so much faith in each other. We truly are our biggest supporters. That's really love"

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New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Wall Street bounces back after sell-off; results a boost

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Tuesday, recovering a day after the market's biggest sell-off since November, as stronger-than-expected earnings brightened the profit picture.

Dell Inc's stock rose after the world's No. 3 computer maker agreed to be taken private in a $24.4 billion deal, the largest leveraged buyout since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The stock gained 1.1 percent to $13.42.

All 10 S&P sectors were higher, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained more than 1 percent.

The market's bounce follows a sell-off on Monday that gave the S&P 500 its biggest percentage decline since mid-November. The benchmark remains up 6 percent since the start of the year and is less than 4 percent away from its all-time closing high of 1,565.15 from October 2007.

Analysts said fourth-quarter results have been among factors helping to boost stocks. On Tuesday, Archer Daniels Midland reported revenue and adjusted fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations, boosted by strong global demand for oilseeds. Shares rose 3.3 percent to $29.38.

"There's not a huge upside surprise by any means, but we're definitely seeing slightly better-than-expected earnings overall," said Bryant Evans, portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 99.22 points, or 0.71 percent, at 13,979.30. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 15.58 points, or 1.04 percent, at 1,511.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 40.41 points, or 1.29 percent, at 3,171.58.

The market shot higher at the start of the year after U.S. lawmakers were able to come to a last-minute agreement to avoid a national "fiscal cliff," but questions on spending cuts remain.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to pass a small package of spending cuts and tax reforms. Though the plan was quickly rebuffed by Republican leaders, investors are looking for an agreement.

"I think there's some hopefulness out there that a reasonable compromise will be made," Evans said.

Also in earnings, Estée Lauder Cos Inc reported a higher quarterly profit and raised its full-year profit forecast. The stock rose 6 percent to $64.71.

With results in from more than half of the S&P 500 companies, 69 percent have beaten profit expectations, compared with the 62 percent average since 1994 and the 65 percent average over the past four quarters. Sixty-six percent of companies have beaten on revenue.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to rise 4.5 percent, according to the data, above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season.

On the down side, McGraw-Hill shares slumped 10.7 percent to $44.92 after the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit seeking $5 billion over mortgage bond ratings. Standard & Poor's, a McGraw Hill unit, was accused of inflating ratings and understating risk out of a desire to gain more business from investment banks.

On Monday, McGraw-Hill stock suffered its worst one-day decline since the 1987 market crash.

Volume was roughly 6.7 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 11 to 4 and on the Nasdaq by about 3 to 1.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Tsunami Fear After Quake Off Solomons

Residents of islands from the South Pacific to Australia were preparing Wednesday for the possible effects of a tsunami set off by an 8.0-magnitude earthquake off the Solomon Islands, according to scientists and news reports from the area.

“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on its Web site.

The earthquake struck around 11 a.m. Australian time in the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the Solomon chain.The center said the tsunami warning was limited to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna.

But a lesser alert, a tsunami watch, was declared for American Samoa, Australia, Guam, the Northern Marianas, New Zealand and eastern Indonesia.

In New Zealand, thousands of people were at the beach, swimming in the sea on a glorious summer day on Waitangi Day, a national holiday — quite oblivious to the potential for a tsunami. No tsunami sirens had been set off.

Scientific advisers in Wellington. the capital, were investigating the threat of a tsunami reaching New Zealand shores.

The Associated Press in Sydney reported that the quake had occurred near Lata in Temotu Province, where the population is around 30,000.

The warning said the tsunami had the potential to be “destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also be a threat to more distant coasts.”

The center estimated tsunami wave arrival times at various points in the area.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site Wednesday that the Solomon Islands’ National Disaster Management office had advised those living in low-lying areas, especially Makira and Malaita, to move to higher ground.

A Solomons hospital director said villages had been destroyed by the quake, Agence France-Presse reported.

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Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Is No Reason to Speed Divorce, says Kris Humphries

By Mike Fleeman

02/05/2013 at 09:20 PM EST

Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian

Seth Browarnik/StarTraks

Kim Kardashian's baby is not even born yet and already is being drawn into mama's divorce.

Kardashian, carrying boyfriend Kanye West's child, has bristled at what she sees as stall tactics by estranged husband Kris Humphries to close the legal books on their 72-day marriage.

But Humphries's lawyer Marshall W. Waller writes that "what is really going on here is that an 'urgency' in the form of an apparently unplanned pregnancy" is being used by Kardashian as "an opportunity to gain a litigation advantage (to) prematurely set this matter for trial."

He adds parenthetically that the pregnancy is "something (Humphries) had nothing to do with."

Waller explains his reasoning for calling the pregnancy as unplanned: "Indeed, why would (she) plan to get pregnant in the midst of divorce proceedings?"

Kardashian, herself, recently addressed the timing.

"God brings you things at a time when you least expect it," she said last month. "I'm such a planner and this was just meant to be. What am I going to? Wait years to get a divorce? I'd love one. It's a process."

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Asian shares drop on euro zone worry, soft U.S. data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares slid on Tuesday as investors saw opportunities to cash in from recent strong rallies in the face of weak U.S. data and worries that a potential political shake-up could disrupt the eurozone's efforts to resolve its debt crisis.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> tumbled 0.8 percent, dragged lower by a steep 1.8 percent fall in Hong Kong shares <.hsi>.

The euro took the brunt of renewed focus on the euro zone problems, having risen 2.3 percent so far this year against the U.S. dollar, up about 5.4 percent against sterling and 1.8 percent higher against the Australian dollar.

The euro eased 0.1 percent to $1.3496, retreating further from Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711, ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday.

The euro's fall helped euro/crosses recover, underpinning such currencies as the Australian dollar against the U.S. unit.

Aussie eased 0.1 percent to $1.0423 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate steady at 3.0 percent, as expected, having just cut in December.

Spain's opposition party on Sunday called for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign over a corruption scandal, an allegation Rajoy denies, pushing Spanish 10-year bond yields to six-week highs.

In Italy, 10-year Italian government bond yields hit their highest since late December, as chances of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regaining power raised worries about Rome's ability to fix its fiscal problems.

"Markets have been increasingly comfortable with European risks over the past few months and are largely not positioned for this increase in political problems. The outcomes in Spain and Italy are far from certain and may represent stumbling blocks for further expansion in risk appetite," Barclays Capital said in a research note.

The yen took a breather, firming from lows against a broad range of currencies.

The dollar was down slightly at 92.31 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 93.185 on Monday, while the euro eased 0.1 percent to 124.61 yen, off its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 hit on Friday.

"Markets are broadly undergoing a correction and the euro is definitely facing profit-taking, given the pace of its climb. Worries about the euro zone debt crisis always remain a downside risk for the euro, and could push it lower to $1.32-$1.33," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan at UBS in Tokyo. "But the trend is still upward for dollar/yen, cross/yen. The dollar could reach 95 yen by the end of the month."

As long as markets hold out expectations for the Bank of Japan to implement aggressive monetary easing to beat decades of deflation in Japan, the yen will stay pressured. Any correction to the dollar's rise against the yen was also be seen as shallow, with many traders and analysts seeing a firm floor around 87-88 yen.

Relatively positive data from China on Tuesday failed to change the bearish mood, weighed down by a fall in overnight U.S. equities, which have rallied 6 percent so far this year, on discouraging U.S. factory orders and euro zone jitters.

The HSBC services purchasing managers' index rose to a four-month high of 54 in January from December's 51.7, underlining confidence in the world's second-biggest economy, which is expected to grow 8.1 percent this year, off a 13-year low of 7.8 percent hit in 2012.

"The data globally is unquestionably better but the recovery still seems gradual. (China) hit the bottom and they had a bit of a bounce but nothing much else happened. We don't really seem to have preconditions for a much stronger bounce than that (8 percent growth)," said Richard Yetsenga, Head of Global Markets at ANZ Research.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> fell 1.3 percent, after scaling a 33-month high on Monday. <.t/>

U.S. stocks slid on Monday, leaving the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> at its worst day since November after the index rose just 60-odd points away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 on Friday.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Kerry Pledges to Protect Diplomats on 1st Day at State Dept.

Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency

Secretary of State John Kerry, center, greeted hundreds of State Department employees in Washington on Monday.

WASHINGTON — In his first day at the office as secretary of state on Monday, John Kerry sought to send the message that he had an affinity for the nation’s diplomats and would look after their security.

“Exhilarating to walk into @StateDept today,” Mr. Kerry, who is the son of a diplomat, posted on Twitter. “Dad on mind! JK.”

Speaking to the hundreds of staff members who greeted him in the State Department lobby, Mr. Kerry recalled Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the three other Americans who died in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

“Everything I do will be focused on the security and safety of our people,” said Mr. Kerry.

To underscore that point, Mr. Kerry later in the day took a short drive across the Potomac River to visit the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security in Rosslyn, Va.

In his confirmation hearing on Jan. 24, Mr. Kerry suggested that he planned to make a diplomatic push on Israeli-Palestinian issues, an area that has not received sustained high-level attention by the Obama administration since a failed effort to broker talks between the two sides in 2010.

That has led to speculation that Mr. Kerry’s first overseas trip may be to the Middle East. Even before arriving for work on Monday, he made a round of calls to Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

On Sunday, Mr. Kerry spoke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he praised for releasing frozen tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, and on Saturday with Israel’s president, Shimon Peres.

He also spoke with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and indicated that he would press Congress to provide almost $500 million in assistance to the authority.

A spokesman for Mr. Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told reporters that Mr. Kerry had promised to visit the Middle East “to preserve the political path,” though no date for the trip was announced.

In other Sunday calls, Mr. Kerry spoke to the foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea. On Monday, he continued the calls, which have included the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Mexico and Canada. Mr. Kerry, who is an avid user of Twitter, posted a photo of himself on the phone with William Hague, the British foreign secretary.

Much of Mr. Kerry’s day, however, was spent reaching out to the American diplomats he has been eager to lead.

Mr. Kerry has brought his own press adviser to the State Department, Glen Johnson, a former reporter for the Boston Globe who has covered Mr. Kerry and Massachusetts politics for years. But there were also indications that some top-level senior State Department officials who had worked with Hillary Rodham Clinton would stay on.

Mr. Kerry’s effort at outreach extended to members of a youth orchestra from Afghanistan as well. After hearing the orchestra was playing in a State Department auditorium, Mr. Kerry showed up at the event and volunteered that he had played guitar as a teenager in a rock band called the Electras.

During his morning in the State Department lobby, Mr. Kerry reached even further back in his past, brandishing the diplomatic passport that he had been given when he was 11 years old and that he used when his father was assigned to post-World War II Germany. The young Mr. Kerry used to bicycle around Berlin and once used his passport to cross into the Russian sector.

“When my dad learned what I had done he was not enthralled,” Mr. Kerry recalled, prompting a wave of laughter in the audience. “I was told I could’ve been an international incident. He could’ve lost his job. And my passport, this very passport, was promptly yanked, and I was summarily grounded. Anyway, lessons learned.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 4, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the day on which John Kerry called Shimon Peres, Israel’s president. It was on Saturday, not on Sunday.

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