Top detective appointed new Pistorius investigator

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — South Africa's top detective was appointed lead investigator in the Oscar Pistorius case Thursday, replacing a veteran policeman who was charged with attempted murder in the latest shock development to hit a case being watched closely by the nation.

National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega promised that a team of "highly skilled and experienced" officers would investigate the killing of Pistorius' 29-year-old girlfriend. Pistorius, 26, has been charged with premeditated murder in the case.

The decision to put police Lt. Gen. Vinesh Moonoo in charge came soon after word emerged that the initial chief investigator, Hilton Botha, is facing attempted murder charges, and a day after he offered testimony damaging to the prosecution in Pistorius' bail hearing.

Pistorius, an Olympic runner whose lower legs were amputated when he was less than a year old, killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day. He claims he mistook her for an intruder when he shot her through a locked door in a bathroom in his home. Prosecutors say the shooting happened after the couple got into an argument and allege the killing was deliberate, carried out with no mercy.

Botha acknowledged Wednesday in court that nothing in Pistorius' version of the fatal shooting of Steenkamp contradicted what police had discovered, even though there have been some discrepancies. Botha also said that police had left a 9 mm slug in the toilet and had lost track of allegedly illegal ammunition found in Pistorius' home.

"This matter shall receive attention at the national level," Phiyega told reporters soon after the end of proceedings in the third day of Pistorius' bail hearing. The case has riveted South Africa and much of the world and has placed the country's judicial system under close scrutiny.

Bulewa Makeke, spokeswoman for South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority, said the attempted murder charges had been reinstated against Botha on Feb. 4. Police say they found out about it after Botha testified in Pistorius' bail hearing Wednesday.

Botha and two other police officers had seven counts of attempted murder reinstated against them in relation to a 2011 shooting incident. Botha and his two colleagues allegedly fired shots at a minibus they were trying to stop.

Asked about Botha's court performance and handling of the investigation, Phiyega said South Africa's police force "can stand on its own" compared to others around the world.

Makeke, the spokeswoman for the national prosecution office, had said before Botha was dismissed from the Pistorius case that he should be taken off, but added that it was up to the police force to make that decision.

Makeke indicated the charges were reinstated against Botha because more evidence had been gathered. She said the charge against Botha was initially dropped "because there was not enough evidence at the time."

Pistorius' main sponsor Nike, meanwhile, suspended its contract with the multiple Paralympic champion, following eyewear manufacturer Oakley's decision to suspend its sponsorship. Nike said in a brief statement on its website: "We believe Oscar Pistorius should be afforded due process and we will continue to monitor the situation closely."

The judge is still trying to decide whether to grant Pistorius bail, and under what conditions.

During Thursday's bail hearing, Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair asked the defense of Pistorius' bail application: "Do you think there will be some level of shock if the accused is released?"

Defense lawyer Barry Roux responded: "I think there will be a level of shock in this country if he is not released."

Opposing bail, prosecutor Gerrie Nel painted a picture of a man "willing and ready to fire and kill," and said signs of remorse from Pistorius do not mean that the athlete didn't intend to kill his girlfriend.

"Even if you plan a murder, you plan a murder and shoot. If you fire the shot, you have remorse. Remorse might kick in immediately," Nel said.

As Nel summed up the prosecution's case opposing bail, Pistorius began to weep in the crowded courtroom, leading his brother, Carl Pistorius, to reach out and touch his back.

"He (Pistorius) wants to continue with his life like this never happened," Nel went on, prompting Pistorius, who was crying softly, to shake his head. "The reason you fire four shots is to kill," Nel persisted.

Earlier Thursday, Nair questioned Botha over delays in processing records from phones found in Pistorius' house following the killing of Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and budding reality TV contestant.

"It seems to me like there was a lack of urgency," Nair said as the efficiency of the police investigation was questioned.

Botha is himself to appear in court in May to face seven counts of attempted murder. Botha was dropped from the case but not suspended from the police force, Phiyega said, and could still be called by defense lawyers at trial.

Pisatorius' behavior Thursday reflected the change of mood in the courtroom as his defense lawyers attacked police procedures and maintained his innocence.

Pistorius, in the same gray suit, blue shirt and gray tie combination he has worn throughout the bail hearing, stood ramrod straight in the dock, then sat calmly looking at his hands. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the athlete had been slumped over and sobbing uncontrollably at times as detail was read out of how Steenkamp died in his house.

"The poor quality of the evidence offered by investigative officer Botha exposed the disastrous shortcomings of the state's case," Roux said Thursday. "We cannot sit back and take comfort that he is telling the truth."

Roux also raised issue of intent, saying the killing was not "pre-planned" and referred to a "loving relationship" between the two.

He said an autopsy showed that Steenkamp's bladder was empty, suggesting she had gone to use the toilet as Pistorius had claimed. Prosecutors claim Steenkamp had fled to the toilet to avoid an enraged Pistorius.

"The known forensics is consistent" with Pistorius' statement, Roux said, asking that bail restrictions be eased for Pistorius.

But the prosecutor said Pistorius hadn't given guarantees to the court that he wouldn't leave the country if he was facing a life sentence. Nel also stressed that Pistorius shouldn't be given special treatment.

"I am Oscar Pistorius. I am a world-renowned athlete. Is that a special circumstance? No." Nel said. "His version (of the killing) is improbable."

Nel said the court should focus on the "murder of the defenseless woman."

Botha testified Thursday that he had investigated a 2009 complaint against Pistorius by a woman who claimed the athlete had assaulted her. He said that Pistorius had not hurt her and that the woman had actually injured herself when she kicked a door at Pistorius' home.

The hearing is to continue Friday morning.

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AP Sports Writer Gerald Imray contributed to this report from Johannesburg.

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Well: Getting Patients to Think About Costs

A colleague and I recently got into a heated discussion over health care spending. It wasn’t that he disagreed with me about the need to rein in costs; but he said he was frustrated every time he tried to do so.

Earlier that week, for example, he had tried to avoid ordering a costly M.R.I. scan for a patient who had been suffering from headaches. After a thorough examination, my colleague was convinced the headaches were the result of stress.

But the patient was not.

“She wouldn’t leave until she got that M.R.I.,” my colleague said. Even after he had explained his conclusions several times, proposed a return visit in a month to reassess the situation and ran so far overtime that his office nurse knocked on the door to make sure nothing had gone awry, the patient continued to insist on getting the expensive study.

When my colleague finally evoked cost – telling the woman that while an M.R.I. might ferret out rare causes, it didn’t make sense to spend the enormous fee on something of such marginal benefit – the woman became belligerent. “She yelled that this was her head we were talking about,” he recalled. “And expensive tests like this were the reason she had health insurance.”

Face flushed, he paused to take a deep breath. “Yeah, I may be all for controlling costs,” he finally said. “But are our patients?”

According to a new study in the journal Health Affairs, his concern about patients may not be far off the mark.

A growing number of initiatives aimed at controlling spiraling health care costs have been championed in recent years, aiming to replace the current model in which doctors are reimbursed for every office visit, test or procedure performed. These programs range from pay-for-performance, where doctors can earn more money by meeting predetermined quality “goals” like controlling patients’ blood sugar or high blood pressure, to accountable care organizations, where clinicians and hospitals in partnership are paid a lump sum to cover all care.

Their uninspired monikers aside, all of these plans share one defining feature: doctors are to be the key agents of change. Whether linked with quality measures, bundled payments or satisfaction scores, it is the doctors’ behavior and choice of treatments that result in savings, goes the thinking.

But as the new study reveals, doctors need to take into account more than just symptoms and diseases when deciding what to prescribe and offer. They must also consider their patients’ opinions and willingness to be cost conscious when it comes to their own care.

The researchers conducted more than 20 patient focus groups and asked the participants to imagine themselves with various symptoms and a choice of diagnostic and treatment options that varied only slightly in effectiveness but significantly in cost. They were asked, for example, to choose between an M.R.I. or a CT scan for a severe long-standing headache, with the M.R.I. being much more expensive but also more likely to catch some extremely rare problems.

When it came to their own treatment, “patients for the most part did not want cost to play any role in decision-making,” said Dr. Susan Dorr Goold, one of the study authors and a professor of internal medicine and health management and policy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Most did not want their doctors to take expenditures into account, and many made it clear that they would ask for the significantly more expensive medications, procedures or diagnostic studies, even if those options were only slightly better than the cheaper alternatives. “That puts doctors, whose primary responsibility is to their individual patients, in a very difficult position.”

A majority of the participants refused to consider the expenses borne by insurers or by society as a whole when making their choices. Some doubted that one individual’s efforts would have any real overall impact and so gave up considering cost-savings altogether. Others said they would go out of their way to choose the more expensive options, viewing such decisions as acts of defiance and a kind of well-deserved “payback” after years of paying insurance premiums.

Underlying all of these comments was the belief that cost was synonymous with quality. Even when the focus group leaders reminded participants that the differences between proposed options were nearly negligible, participants continued to choose the more expensive options as if it were beyond question that they must be more efficacious or foolproof.

The study’s findings are disheartening. But Dr. Goold and her co-investigators believe that public beliefs and attitudes about cost and quality can be changed. They cite the dramatic transformation in attitudes about end-of-life care as an example of how initiatives to improve understanding can lead people to make higher quality and more cost-effective decisions, like choosing hospices over hospitals.

“We need to begin to talk about these issues in a way that doesn’t turn it into a discussion pitting money against life, and we need to find ways of getting people to think about not spending money on things that offer marginal benefit” Dr. Goold said. “Because it’s going to be tough otherwise trying to implement any cost-saving measures, if patients don’t accept them.”

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DealBook: Carlyle's Profit Fell in 4th Quarter as Growth Slowed

11:18 a.m. | Updated Most of the publicly traded private equity giants proudly reported glowing fourth-quarter earnings.

The Carlyle Group isn’t one of them.

On Thursday, the alternative investment giant disclosed a 28 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit from the period a year earlier, as the growth of its portfolio companies slowed. That sent the company’s stock down more than 8 percent by midmorning, to $33.70.

Carlyle reported fourth-quarter profit of $182 million, expressed as economic net income, compared with $254 million in the year-earlier period. That amounts to 47 cents per unit. Analysts surveyed by Capital IQ had expected about 66 cents per unit, on average.

And Carlyle’s distributable earnings, a measure the firm prefers because it tracks actual payouts to its limited partners, fell 24 percent, to $188 million. Using generally accepted accounting principles, Carlyle earned $12 million in net income.

The results fall short of those of rivals like the Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Private equity firms in general have gained from improvements in the markets, which have lifted the valuations of their portfolios and bolstered their core business of buying and selling companies.

Carlyle attributed the decline in economic net income to a smaller appreciation in the value of its portfolio. It reported a 4 percent gain for the quarter, compared with a 7 percent increase in the period a year earlier.

The decision to delay reaping carried interest from its latest mainstay fund, Carlyle Partners V, weighed on distributable earnings. The company opted to hold off, given the relative freshness of the fund and the influx of new investments like the buyouts of the TCW Group and Getty Images.

Carlyle highlighted its strong fund-raising and gains from selling investments. The firm raised $4.6 billion in new money for the quarter and $14 billion for the year, compared with a total of $6.6 billion raised in all of 2011. It generated $6.8 billion in realized proceeds for the quarter and $18.7 billion for the year, compared with $17.6 billion in 2011.

“We had another excellent year,” David M. Rubenstein, one of Carlyle’s co-chief executives, said in a statement. “Our performance over the past two years was marked by steady, continuous progress across our business.”

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Former Lebanon Minister and Syrian Co-Defendant Could Face Death Penalty

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A Lebanese military court judge on Wednesday charged a former government information minister and his suspected Syrian accomplice of a conspiracy to kill Lebanese political and religious leaders and foment sectarian strife, recommending the death penalty for both.

The announcement about the defendants, Michel Samaha, the former minister, and Mr. Mamlouk, a Syrian security official, came amid increased sectarian tensions in Lebanon that are directly tied to the nearly two-year-old conflict in neighboring Syria, which occupied Lebanon for nearly three decades until 2005 and still deeply polarizes Lebanese politics.

Lebanese officials have said explosives were found in a car belonging to Mr. Samaha, who was arrested on Aug. 9. Mr. Mamlouk was accused of plotting with Mr. Samaha to transport the explosives into the country. An arrest warrant for Mr. Mamlouk was issued this month. His whereabouts is unclear.

It also was unclear how long a trial would last or whether the judge’s recommendations of punishment would be followed if the pair were found guilty. But the Lebanese government’s handling of the politically sensitive case carries its own risks of aggravating sectarian tensions in this country.

On Tuesday, a group claiming to represent a faction of Syrian rebels threatened to lob mortar shells into Lebanon to attack Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that is also Lebanon’s most powerful political party, in retaliation for what rebels say is a Hezbollah military campaign against rebels in Syria. The statement warned Lebanese citizens, especially in the Shiite, pro-Hezbollah border town of Hermel, to stay away from Hezbollah positions that it said were shelling the rebels across the border.

A cross-border skirmish between Hezbollah and Syrian rebels could be a dangerous escalation in Lebanon, which has struggled to stay out of the conflict in Syria.

Representatives of the main group of rebel fighters, the Free Syrian Army, issued conflicting statements, with one saying the threat was a provocation fabricated by Hezbollah, and another confirming it and giving Hezbollah 48 hours to end its attacks or face retaliation.

Hezbollah is closely allied to the Syrian government, while its Sunni rivals in Lebanon largely support the majority Sunni rebels. Rebels say Hezbollah has stepped up its military activity inside Syria, taking over numerous villages near the border. Hezbollah says its fighters have been active only in Syrian villages where Lebanese citizens live and are defending themselves.

With the Syrian conflict threatening to destabilize the region, Russia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that his country would work with the Arab League to bring about direct talks between Syria’s government and the armed opposition in a bid to end the deadly civil war.

Speaking after a meeting with Arab League officials in Moscow, the minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, told reporters there were “signs of tendencies for dialogue from both the side of the government and the opposition,” Agence France-Presse reported.

Russia has long called for a political solution, but Mr. Lavrov’s statement seemed to indicate a new level of engagement in pushing for talks. Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallam, is scheduled to visit Moscow on Monday for talks, and the president of Syria’s main opposition coalition, Moaz al-Khatib, is expected to visit Moscow in March, Mr. Lavrov said.

Yet it is unclear whether Mr. Moallem and Mr. Khatib have the full backing of their own sides for talks. Mr. Khatib’s group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, insists that it will speak only with members of Mr. Assad’s government without “blood on their hands.” Lakhdar Brahimi, the special Syria peace envoy representing the United Nations and the Arab League, has appeared to support Mr. Khatib’s position, calling on the government to send an “acceptable delegation.”

But on Wednesday, Mr. Lavrov said that the two sides should not impose preconditions or “say that I am going to talk to this person but not that one.” He was speaking after a meeting of the Russia-Arab Forum from which the representatives of the rebels’ main Arab backers, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were absent.

In Syria on Wednesday, rebel shells appeared to reach new areas in Damascus, activists and witnesses reported. Goran Tomasevic, a photographer for The Associated Press who has recently produced images of fighting in the Damascus suburbs as one of the few foreign journalists with rebel fighters there, described a deadly stalemate between two well-coordinated fighting forces that he said was reminiscent of wars that gutted cities like Sarajevo and Stalingrad.

“Rebel fighters in Damascus are disciplined, skilled and brave,” he wrote in an account published on Wednesday. “In a month on the front-line, I saw them defend a swath of suburbs in the Syrian capital, mount complex mass attacks, manage logistics, treat their wounded.”

But, he added, “as constant, punishingly accurate, mortar, tank and sniper fire attested,” government soldiers, often fighting at close range, “are also well drilled, courageous — and much better armed.”

Both state media and opposition activists reported on Wednesday that mortar rounds had hit the Tishreen sports stadium in the downtown neighborhood of Baramkeh. The state news agency, SANA, said the explosion killed an athlete from the Homs-based Al Wathba soccer team as he was practicing.

Government forces hit a rebel command center in a suburb east of the capital on Wednesday, injuring a founder of the Liwaa al-Islam brigade, Sheik Zahran Alloush, the brigade said in a statement.

It said the attack “won’t stop or weaken the will of the battalion” and asked for “God’s help to reach the criminals for retribution.”

Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.

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Well: Caffeine Linked to Low Birth Weight Babies

New research suggests that drinking caffeinated drinks during pregnancy raises the risk of having a low birth weight baby.

Caffeine has long been linked to adverse effects in pregnant women, prompting many expectant mothers to give up coffee and tea. But for those who cannot do without their morning coffee, health officials over the years have offered conflicting guidelines on safe amounts during pregnancy.

The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 300 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to about three eight-ounce cups of regular brewed coffee. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated in 2010 that pregnant women could consume up to 200 milligrams a day without increasing their risk of miscarriage or preterm birth.

In the latest study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, researchers collected data on almost 60,000 pregnancies over a 10-year period. After excluding women with potentially problematic medical conditions, they found no link between caffeine consumption – from food or drinks – and the risk of preterm birth. But there was an association with low birth weight.

For a child expected to weigh about eight pounds at birth, each day that the mother consumed 100 milligrams of caffeine from any source equated to a loss of between three-quarters of an ounce to an ounce in birth weight. Even after the researchers excluded from their analysis smokers, a group that is at higher risk for complications and also includes many coffee drinkers, the link remained.

One study author, Dr. Verena Sengpiel of the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, said the findings were not definitive because the study was observational, and correlation does not equal causation. But they do suggest that women might put their caffeine consumption “on pause” while pregnant, she said, or at least stay below two cups of coffee per day.

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State of the Art: Sony’s RX1 Camera: Compact, Full-Framed and Expensive, Too

When you’re shopping for a camera, you have a million specs and features to consider. Size, weight, battery life, megapixels, zoom power. ... Can you guess which aspect consumers consider most important?

The color of the body. (“Ooh, I like the shiny red one!”)

The camera buyer for a national electronics chain told me that. We both slapped our foreheads.

Please. If you’re buying a camera, shouldn’t picture quality be the most important detail?

If so, what you should care most about is the flat, rectangular light sensor inside the “film.” In general, the bigger the sensor, the happier you’ll be with the results and the more you’ll pay.

At the low end, snapshot cameras with tiny sensors (0.4 inches diagonal) cost $150 but give you blurry, grainy low-light shots. At the high end, those professional, big, black S.L.R. cameras cost $2,000 to $6,000 but come with full-frame sensors. That is, these sensors are as big as an old piece of 35-millimeter film (1.7 inches). They deliver unparalleled low-light quality, richness of color, detail and soft-focused backgrounds.

(You can buy cameras with even bigger sensors — medium-format cameras that cost $20,000 and military cameras that cost millions — but let’s say you live in the real world.)

All of this explains why Sony’s 2013 camera/camcorder lineup is so startling. The company has put full-frame sensors into three new cameras, at prices and body sizes that nobody has ever attained.

For example, there’s the A99, which Sony says is the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame S.L.R. It’s meant to compete with professional cameras like the Canon 5D Mark III ($3,200) and Nikon D800 ($3,000) — for $2,800. (These prices are for the bodies only.)

The A99 is sort of homely, but it has a long list of distinguishing features: fast, continuous focusing, even while filming or shooting something running at you; two memory-card slots; built-in GPS function that stamps every photo with your location; 1080p, 60-frames-a-second high-definition video; microphone and headphone jacks; and an electronic viewfinder whose video shows you the results of your adjustments in real time.

Sony says the A99 is also the only full-frame camera with a screen that flips out and tilts.

Then there’s the VG900, Sony’s first full-frame camcorder. It costs $3,300 — about $10,000 less than any other full-frame camcorder, Sony says. And its sensor is about 45 times as big as a standard camcorder’s sensor.

Now, a huge sensor may not seem to make sense in a camcorder. One frame of hi-def video has only about two megapixels of resolution; what’s the point of stuffing a 24-megapixel sensor into the camcorder?

Answer: It’s about picture quality. A big sensor gives you amazing low-light video, gorgeous blurry backgrounds, greater dynamic range and better color.

Thousands of filmmakers use full-frame S.L.R. still cameras to shoot video, because of the superior quality and because they can use different lenses for different video effects. S.L.R-based camcorders like Sony’s VG900 offer the same features in a camcorder shape. They’re much more comfortable to hold, and their buttons are better placed for video operation.

The VG900 accepts Sony’s E-mount camera lenses, of which there are 13; they don’t quite exploit the full area of that jumbo sensor. But the camera comes with an adapter for the older, more plentiful A-mount lenses. Alas, those lenses don’t autofocus with that adapter.

The most astonishing new full-frame Sony, though, is the RX1. It’s the world’s first compact full-frame camera.

Now, you’re forgiven if you just spewed your coffee. “Compact” and “full-frame” have never gone together before. Everyone knows why: a big sensor requires a big lens, meaning a big camera. You can’t change the laws of physics, no matter how much photographers would love it.

E-mail: pogue @nytimes.com

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 19

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Pistorius: Thought lover an intruder in shooting

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius wept Tuesday as his defense lawyer read the athlete's account of how he shot his girlfriend to death on Valentine's Day, claiming he had mistaken her for an intruder.

Prosecutors, however, told a packed courtroom that the double-amputee known as the Blade Runner intentionally and mercilessly shot and killed 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp as she cowered inside a locked bathroom.

Pistorius told the Pretoria Magistrate's Court at a bail hearing he felt vulnerable in the presence of an intruder inside the bathroom because he did not have his prosthetic legs on, and fired into the bathroom door.

The Valentine's Day shooting in Pistorius' home in Pretoria shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized him for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.

In a major point of contention emerged even during Tuesday bail hearing, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said Pistorius took the time to put on his prostheses, walked seven meters (yards) from the bed to the enclosed toilet inside his bathroom and only then opened fire. Three of the bullets hit Steenkamp of the four that were fired into the door, Nel said.

Pistorius said in his sworn statement that after opening fire, he realized that Steenkamp was not in his bed.

"It filled me with horror and fear," Pistorius said. The 26-year-old Olympian said he put on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick down the door before finally bashing it in with a cricket bat. Inside, he said he found Steenkamp, slumped over. He said he lifted her bloodied body into his arms and tried to carry her downstairs to seek medical help.

But by then, it was too late.

"She died in my arms," the athlete said.

Nel charged Pistorius with premeditated murder and said the athlete opened fire after the couple engaged in a shouting match and she fled to the bathroom.

"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," Nel said. "It must have been horrific."

A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.

Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled that Pistorius must face the harshest bail requirements available in South African law. That means Pistorius' lawyers must offer "exceptional" reasons for the athlete to be free before trial, besides simply giving up his two South African passports and posting a cash bond.

Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.

"We submit it is not even murder," he said. "There is no concession this is a murder."

Pistorius' emotional outbursts again played a part in how the hearing progessed, as it did during an initial hearing Friday. At one point, Nair stopped the hearing after Pistorius wept as Roux read a portion of the athlete's statement describing how Steenkamp bought him a Valentine's Day present, but wouldn't let him open it the night before.

"Maintain your composure," the magistrate said. "You need to apply your mind here."

Pistorius' voice quivered when he answered: "Yes, my lordship."

Affidavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp described the two as a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans in order to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home, in a gated neighborhood.

Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging that Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.

As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.

South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Professor Rachel Jewkes of the council said at least three women are killed by a partner every day in this country of 50 million.

Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.

What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle Mike Steenkamp, the family's spokesman, said after her memorial.

He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.

Pistorius has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.

On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says: "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"

And Clarins Group, which owns Thierry Mugler Perfumes, said in an email that "out of respect and compassion for the families involved in this tragedy, Thierry Mugler Perfumes have taken the decision to withdraw all of their advertising campaigns featuring Oscar Pistorius."

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Ask Well: Coaxing Parents to Take Better Care of Themselves

Dear Reader,

Your dilemma of wanting to get your parents to change their ways to eat better and exercise reminds me of an old joke:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Sounds like your parents may be about as motivated as the light bulb right now. Still, there are things you can do to encourage them to move in a healthier direction. But the first step should not be to hand them a book. Unless you lay some prior groundwork, that gesture may seem almost as patronizing as an impatient tone of voice – and probably as likely to backfire.

Instead, start a conversation in a caring, nonjudgmental way. Ask, don’t tell. “Say, ‘You know, I might not know what I am talking about, but I am really concerned about you,” suggested Kevin Leman, a psychologist in Tucson, Ariz., and author of 42 books on changing behavior in families and relationships. Ask simply if there is anything you can do to help.

Leading by example is also more effective than lecturing. “The son can role-model health by inviting his parents to dinner and serving healthful items that he is fairly certain they will find acceptable, or ask them if they are interested in going out dancing with him and his wife,” suggested Ann Constance, director of the Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network in Michigan.

Pleasure is a better motivator for change than pain or threats. Use the grandchildren as bait. Ask if they want to take the grandchildren to the zoo or a park that would require a good bit of walking around for everyone. Or the grandchildren could ask them to come along on one of those 2K fund-raiser-walks that many schools hold. After all, a day with the grandchildren is always a pleasure in itself. (O.K., usually a pleasure.)

Tempted to give them the gift of a health club membership? “Save your money,” Dr. Leman said. Try a more indirect (and cheaper) approach. Create a mixed-tape of up-tempo music from their era. (“Songs they listened to from the ages of 12-to-17, which is what we all listen to for the rest of our lives,” said Dr. Leman) They will enjoy it any time — maybe even while walking.

If you really want someone you love to make a change, the key is to ask them to do something small and easy first because that increases the chances they will do something larger later. Psychologists call that “the foot in the door technique,” said Adam Davey, associate professor of public health at Temple University in Philadelphia, referring to a classic 1966 experiment called “Compliance Without Pressure.” In the study, which has been duplicated by others in many forms, researchers asked people to sign a petition or place a small card in a window in their home or car about keeping California beautiful or supporting safe driving. About two weeks later, the same people were asked to put a huge sign that practically covered their entire front lawn advocating the same cause.

“A surprisingly large number of those who agreed to the small sign agreed to the billboard,” because agreeing to the first small task built a bond between asker and askee “that increases the likelihood of complying with a subsequent larger request,” Dr. Davey explained.

Any plan for behavioral change is most likely to succeed if it is very specific, measurable and achievable, according to Ms.Constance.

And the new behavior should also be integrated into daily life — and repeated until it becomes a habit. For example, if you want to walk more, start with a 10-minute walk after dinner on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Ms. Constance suggested. The next week, bump it up to 12 minutes.

Don’t give up, even if you meet initial resistance — it is never too late for your parents or you or any of us to change. “Taking up an exercise program into one’s 80s and 90s to build strength and flexibility can result in very tangible and enduring benefits in a surprisingly short time,” insisted Dr Davey.

As for instructive reading, Dr. Leman is partial to one of his own books, “Have a New You by Friday,” and Dr. Davey recommends “Biomarkers: The 10 Keys to Prolonging Vitality,” by William Evans. Ms. Constance recommends the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site on physical activity and exercise tips for the elderly, as well as the National Institute of Health’s site on the DASH diet.

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Obama to Turn Up Pressure for Deal on Budget Cuts

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama spoke at a White House auditorium surrounded by emergency responders.

WASHINGTON — President Obama, back from his three-day golf getaway, on Monday made use of his bully pulpit, while Congress remains out all week, to turn up the pressure for a bipartisan agreement to avoid indiscriminate across-the-board budget cuts that will otherwise hit March 1.

Speaking in a White House auditorium surrounded by blue-uniformed emergency responders to illustrate some of the jobs threatened if the cuts were to take effect, Mr. Obama warned that military readiness and vital domestic services would be hurt “if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place.”

“Changes like this affect our responsibility to respond to threats in unstable parts of the world,” the president said. “These cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction — people will lose their jobs.”

Some Republicans in Congress have proposed alternative savings that would spare any cuts in military spending but not in domestic accounts. Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats are calling for a mix of spending cuts and additional tax revenues by closing some tax breaks for wealthy investors and corporations.

Mr. Obama’s comments were among his harshest toward Republicans, and reflected the political frame that he has devised to try to force Republicans into compromising with him by supporting some higher revenues — something they so far refuse to do.

“The ideas that the Republicans have proposed ask nothing of the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations, so the burden is all on first responders or seniors or middle-class families,” Mr. Obama said, adding that those proposals would “slash Medicare and investments that create good middle-class jobs.”

“So now Republicans in Congress face a simple choice,” he added. “Are they willing to compromise to protect vital investments in education and health care and national security and all the jobs that depend on them, or would they rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk just to protect a few special-interest tax loopholes that benefit only the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations?”

Republicans, seeking to put blame on Mr. Obama if the cuts occur, have repeatedly noted that the White House proposed the sequester idea during debt talks in mid-2011. But both parties overwhelmingly supported the proposal as part of their deal. And as Mr. Obama said on Tuesday, the purpose of the sequester was to threaten something so unthinkable that the two parties would come together to agree on an alternative.

The president’s latest deficit reduction push comes as the heads of his 2010 deficit reduction commission — former Senator Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton — unveil a new plan that would reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion through a series of spending cuts and an overhaul of the tax system.

When Congress returns from a winter recess next week, just days remain before the deadline for the so-called sequester of spending cuts, a deadline that already was moved once — at the start of the year — to allow more time for the two parties to negotiate.

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