South Korea’s Park Geun-hye Warns North Against Nuclear Pursuits

Park Jin-Hee/Getty Images

Park Geun-Hye, South Korea's president, salutes during her inauguration ceremony in front of the National Assembly building on Monday in Seoul.

SEOUL, South Korea — The country’s new president, Park Geun-hye, was sworn into office on Monday, facing far more complicated fissures both within South Korea and with North Korea than her father did during his Cold War dictatorship, which ended with his assassination 33 years ago.

Ms. Park, 61, is the first child of a former president to take power here, as well as the first woman, a remarkable turn for a country where Parliament, the cabinet and corporate board rooms are predominantly male and the gender income gap is the widest among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In her address, Ms. Park called for the revival of an economic boom her father, Park Chung-hee, had once overseen and urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

After the ceremony, in front of the National Assembly, her motorcade moved through a downtown Seoul packed with well-wishers. Her return to the presidential Blue House, her childhood home, was a triumphant moment for her and old South Koreans loyal to her father. His quashing of dissent and censorship of the press in his 18-years of iron-fisted rulewere much maligned among South Koreans during the country’s struggle for democracy.

She was elected Dec. 19, thanks largely to the support of South Koreans in their 50s and older who grew disenchanted with fractured politics and recalled how, South Korea under the dictatorship had begun its evolution from a country where per-capita income was just $100 a year into what is now a global economic powerhouse whose smartphones, cars and ships are exported around the world.

But while her father, Ms. Park begins a single, five-year term facing sharp criticism from younger and liberal South Koreans who have no fear of speaking out. When she named Queen Elizabeth I of Britain as her role model, they filled blogswith derision for her sense of entitlement. They openly called her election a return to the past, arguing that the seeds of some of the country’s biggest problems, such as the unruly influence of family controlled conglomerates, were sown under her father and accused her of glorifying his rule.

South Korea’s political rivalries are freewheeling, evidenced most recently by the arrest of a 76-year-old Christian pastor last week who claimed that Ms. Park had sex with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during her visit to Pyongyang in 2002. His videotaped allegations were circulated widely through the Internet.

Meanwhile, two weeks before Ms. Park’s inauguration, North Korea detonated an underground nuclear device, testing her campaign promise to reach out to the North to help end five years of diplomatic silence and high tension on the divided Korean Peninsula under her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, a fellow conservative.

In her inaugural address, “North Korea’s recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people, and there should be no mistake that the biggest victim will be none other than North Korea itself.”

Speaking before a large crowd that was entertained by the rapper Psy of “Gangnam Style” fame on the lawn in front of the National Assembly, she urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay, “instead of wasting its resources on nuclear and missile development and continuing to turn its back to the world in self-imposed isolation.”

Ms. Park invoked her father’s era, calling for a “second miracle on the Han River.” The first was the transformation under him of Seoul, the capital city, which straddles the river, from the rubble of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrialized metropolis. He nurtured a handful of family controlled companies, such as Samsung and Hyundai, as engines of an export-driven economy. These companies have grown into globally recognized conglomerates.

Now, decades later, his daughter vowed to bring South Korea’s slowing economy “rejuvenation” and “revival,” terms favored under her father. But she nodded to the biggest complaints of ordinary South Koreans — widening economic inequality and the conglomerates’ overpowering expansion at the cost of smaller businesses — grievances, saying the second Han River miracle should be based on “economic democratization.”

Ms. Park promised to end unfair practices by big businesses and strengthen small and medium-sized enterprises so that “such businesses can prosper alongside large companies.”

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Well: Ask Well: The Nutrients in Fruits and Veggies

The colorful skin of an apple, grape or tomato is certainly chockfull of nutrients. But by no means are the outer layers of most fruits and vegetables the prime source of their nutrition.

Part of what makes some fruits and vegetables so rich with color – wax and pesticides notwithstanding – are pigments in the skin that have healthful antioxidant properties. Resveratrol, for example, is found in the skin of red grapes and other fruits. But lycopene, one of the pigments that gives tomatoes and bell peppers their deep red color, is distributed throughout.

Indeed, many vitamins and nutrients are found in the skin as well as the flesh. Take apples. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a large red apple with its skin intact contains about 5 grams of fiber, 13 milligrams of calcium, 239 milligrams of potassium, and 10 milligrams of vitamin C. But remove the skin, and it still contains about 3 grams of fiber, 11 milligrams of calcium, 194 milligrams of potassium, and plenty of its vitamin C and other nutrients.

Another example is the sweet potato. The U.S.D.A. says that a 100-gram serving of sweet potato cooked with its skin contains 2 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and 20 milligrams of vitamin C. But the same sized serving of sweet potato without skin that has been boiled — a process that further leaches away some of its nutrients — still boasts 1.4 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of fiber, and 13 milligrams of vitamin C.

You can lose the skin, in other words, without losing all the benefits.

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DealBook: Japan to Sell $10 Billion Stake in Cigarette Firm

TOKYO – The Japanese government is set to loosen its grip on Japan Tobacco, the world’s third-largest tobacco company, by selling a third of its stake in a sale that will net the country about $10 billion.

The Finance Ministry, which owns just over 50 percent of the former state monopoly, will sell 333 million of its shares in the cigarette manufacturer, according to a company statement issued on Monday.

The deal will be priced next month, from March 11 to 13, the statement said. In the run-up to the sale, Japan Tobacco will buy back up to 250 billion yen ($2.7 billion) of its shares.

Under laws passed in 2011 after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, proceeds of the sale of Japan Tobacco shares will go toward rebuilding the country’s battered northeast coast. The reconstruction costs have threatened to weigh on Japan’s public finances at a time when public debt is twice the size of its economy.

It is an opportune time for the Japanese government to sell. Japan’s stock market has rallied since mid-November, and Japan Tobacco’s shares have tracked the market’s ascent, climbing 20 percent in the last three months.

Shares in Japan Tobacco closed 1.43 percent higher on Monday, at 2,901 yen, before the planned sale was announced. At that price, the government’s share sale would be valued at roughly 967 billion yen.

Japan has already been reducing its stake and involvement in the cigarette maker, which traces its origins to a Finance Ministry bureau set up in 1898 to create a national tobacco monopoly that lasted until 1985.

Even after the company went public, the Finance Ministry held two-thirds of its shares until 2004, when it reduced its stake to 50.1 percent, or roughly one billion shares. Other investors in Japan Tobacco include Mizuho Trust & Banking, Goldman Sachs and the Children’s Investment Fund Management.

The position in Japan Tobacco has put the government in a controversial position.

The government has squeezed more funds from its smokers, raising the price of a pack of cigarettes about 40 percent in 2010, its single largest increase in tobacco taxes. Still, cigarettes remain relatively cheap in Japan, at about $4.30 a pack.

But antismoking advocates have blamed the Japanese government’s continued ownership of Japan Tobacco – whose brands include Camel, Winston and Mild Seven – for the country’s delay in passing laws to protect nonsmokers from cigarette smoke, for example, and more stringently regulating of tobacco-related marketing.

In a 2012 report, the Washington-based Global Business Group on Health said Japan’s ownership of Japan Tobacco shares “leads to a national conflict of interest, in which the government treats smoking as a behavioral issue rather than a health concern.”

Though smoking rates have started to decline in recent years, the Japanese remain heavy smokers, consuming about 1,841 cigarettes a person, according to data compiled last year by the World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society. That compared with about 1,000 cigarettes a person in the United States.

To make up for declining cigarette consumption at home, Japan Tobacco has aggressively expanded overseas, acquiring Britain’s Gallaher Group in 2007 for $15 billion, and adding the Silk Cut and Benson & Hedges brands to its portfolio. The company has also made a push into packaged foods and soft drinks, as well as pharmaceuticals.

The government’s sale of Japan Tobacco shares is part of a wider effort to raise money to finance reconstruction from the country’s natural and nuclear disasters in 2011. The government also plans to sell shares of Japan Post Holdings, which runs the country’s postal system and also acts as its biggest bank.

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In Last Sunday Address as Pope, Benedict Says He Will Continue to Serve

Andrew Medichini/Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI delivered his final Sunday address from the window of his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square.

VATICAN CITY — In his last Sunday blessing before he retires, Pope Benedict XVI reassured Catholics that he was not abandoning them but would continue to serve the church even in his retirement.

Romans, pilgrims and curious tourists filled St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for Benedict’s second-to-last public appearance before he steps down on Thursday, the first pope in six centuries to do so willingly.

Reading from prepared remarks as he stood at the window of the Apostolic Palace, Benedict that said he was being called by God “to climb up on the mountain” and to dedicate himself more to “prayer and meditation.”

“This doesn’t mean abandoning the church,” the pope added, to the applause of the crowd. “On the contrary, if God asks me, this is because I can continue to serve” the church “with the same dedication and the same love which I have tried to do so until now, but in a way more suitable to my age and to my strength.”

Cardinals from around the world have begun gathering in Rome to greet Benedict before he retires at 8 p.m. on Thursday. At that point, the cardinals will meet to discuss when to begin the conclave to elect his successor.

One member of the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Jan Cartwright, 61, said she had traveled to Rome from Wales. “We’ve come for the rugby, but we’re Catholic, and it is history, isn’t it,” she said.

Ms. Cartwright said she was surprised that the pope had decided to resign. “We have the queen,” she said. “No one in the royal family would step down, they just go on until they die, really.” But she said she admired Benedict’s decision. “I think it’s a brave thing to do,” she said. “He’s an old man.”

Maria Concetta Campanella from Rome was also in the crowd. “It’s a historic moment,” she said. “It teaches us humility. He teaches us that we can’t sit in our chairs forever, that when the time is right, we have to leave the chair.”

Vito Ugo, an Augustinian monk holding a Brazilian flag, was taking pictures with two of his fellow monks, all dressed in long black robes. “We feel great emotion to be here,” he said.

Asked whether he hoped the cardinals would elect a South American pope in the conclave, Brother Ugo smiled. “It’s what God wants,” he said humbly.

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Daytona ready for race, willing to relocate fans

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Fans feeling unsafe after the horrific crash at Daytona International Speedway can change seats for NASCAR's biggest race.

Track President Joie Chitwood said Sunday workers successfully repaired a section of fence — 54 feet wide and 22 feet high — that was shredded Saturday when Kyle Larson's car went airborne on the final lap of a second-tier race and crashed through the barrier that separates cars from fans. Large pieces of debris, including a tire, sprayed into the upper and lower section of the stands.

The crash injured more than 30 people, raising more questions about fan safety at race tracks.

Halifax Health spokesman Byron Cogdell said seven people with crash-related injuries remained hospitalized Sunday in Daytona Beach in stable condition. The six people brought to a different Halifax hospital in Port Orange with crash-related injuries had all been discharged by Sunday morning, Cogdell said.

A spokeswoman at Florida Memorial Medical Center would not release information Sunday on the patients brought to that hospital.

Chitwood, meanwhile, said if any fans are uncomfortable with their up-close seating for Sunday's Daytona 500, officials will work to move them.

"If fans are unhappy with their seating location or if they have any incidents, we would relocate them," Chitwood said Sunday. "So we'll treat that area like we do every other area of the grandstand. If a fan is not comfortable where they're sitting, we make every accommodation we can."

Larry Spencer of Nanticoke, Pa., said Sunday he's not sure he wants to ever sit that low again after his 15-year-old brother, Derrick, needed three stitches in his cheek after being hit by metal debris flying from the crash. They sat close to the fence Saturday, but returned for the Daytona 500 with tickets dozens of rows farther away from the track.

"I thought it was just neat to see the cars going by that close," Spencer said. "After yesterday, though, I definitely will reconsider sitting lower ever again."

The tire that flew into the stands landed a couple of rows above where they had been standing. After the crash, looking around at the people seriously injured, Spencer said he decided to take his brother to a hospital himself so that speedway crews and paramedics could focus on the people who needed more help.

"The only way to describe it was like a bomb went off, and the car pretty much exploded," Spencer said.

Track workers finished repairs about 2 a.m. Sunday, having installed a new fence post, new metal meshing and part of the concrete wall.

Officials decided not to rebuild the collapsed cross-over gate, which allows fans to travel between the stands and the infield before races.

Daytona has a grandstand remodel planned. Chitwood said the injuries could prompt a redesign that might include sturdier fences or stands further away from the on-track action.

"It's tough to connect the two right now in terms of a potential redevelopment and what occurred," Chitwood said. "We were prepared yesterday, had emergency medical respond. As we learn from this, you bet: If there are things that we can incorporate into the future, whether it's the current property now or any other redevelopment, we will.

"The key is sitting down with NASCAR, finding out the things that happened and how we deal with them."

Daytona reexamined its fencing and ended up replacing the entire thing following Carl Edwards' scary crash at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama in 2009. Edwards' car sailed into the fence and spewed debris into the stands.

"We've made improvements since then," Chitwood said. "I think that's the key: that we learn from this and figure out what else we need to do."

NASCAR plans to take what remained of Larson's sheared car along with debris back to its research and development center in Charlotte, N.C., for testing.

"We'll bring in the best and brightest," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR's senior vice president for racing operations. "Anything we can learn will be put in place. ... Fans are our first priority. Obviously we want everybody to be safe at an event. We've talked to the speedway. We're confident in what's in place at today's event. Certainly still thinking about those affected, but we're confident to move forward for this race."

The 12-car crash began as the front-runners approached the checkered flag. Leader Regan Smith attempted to block Brad Keselowski for the win, triggering a pileup that could have been much worse.

Larson's burning engine wedged through a gaping hole in the fence. Parts and pieces of his car sprayed into the stands, including a tire that cleared the top of the fence and landed midway up the spectator section closest to the track.

The 20-year-old Larson stood in shock a few feet from his car as fans in the stands waved frantically for help. Smoke from the burning engine briefly clouded the area, and emergency vehicles descended on the scene.

Ambulance sirens could be heard wailing behind the grandstands at a time the race winner would typically be doing celebratory burnouts.

"It was freaky. When I looked to my right, the accident happened," Rick Harpster of Orange Park said. "I looked over and I saw a tire fly straight over the fence into the stands, but after that I didn't see anything else. That was the worst thing I have seen, seeing that tire fly into the stands. I knew it was going to be severe."

In 1987, Bobby Allison's car lifted off the track at Talladega while running over 200 mph, careening into the steel-cable fence and scattering debris into the crowd. That crash led to the use of horsepower-sapping restrictor plates at Talladega and its sister track in Daytona, NASCAR's fastest layouts.

As a result, the cars all run nearly the same speed, and the field is typically bunched tightly together — which plenty of drivers have warned is actually a more dangerous scenario than higher speeds.

"That's one of the things that really does scare you," Allison said Sunday. "But it's always a possibility because of the speeds, where they are."

___

Associated Press writer Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

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The Texas Tribune: Advocates Seek Mental Health Changes, Including Power to Detain

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

The Sherman grave of Andre Thomas’s victims.

SHERMAN — A worried call from his daughter’s boyfriend sent Paul Boren rushing to her apartment on the morning of March 27, 2004. He drove the eight blocks to her apartment, peering into his neighbors’ yards, searching for Andre Thomas, Laura Boren’s estranged husband.

Expanded coverage of Texas is produced by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization. To join the conversation about this article, go to texastribune.org.

For more articles on mental health and criminal justice in Texas, as well as a timeline of the Andre Thomas case: texastribune.org

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

Laura Boren

He drove past the brightly colored slides, swings and bouncy plastic animals in Fairview Park across the street from the apartment where Ms. Boren, 20, and her two children lived. He pulled into a parking spot below and immediately saw that her door was broken. As his heart raced, Mr. Boren, a white-haired giant of a man, bounded up the stairwell, calling out for his daughter.

He found her on the white carpet, smeared with blood, a gaping hole in her chest. Beside her left leg, a one-dollar bill was folded lengthwise, the radiating eye of the pyramid facing up. Mr. Boren knew she was gone.

In a panic, he rushed past the stuffed animals, dolls and plastic toys strewn along the hallway to the bedroom shared by his two grandchildren. The body of 13-month-old Leyha Hughes lay on the floor next to a blood-spattered doll nearly as big as she was.

Andre Boren, 4, lay on his back in his white children’s bed just above Leyha. He looked as if he could have been sleeping — a moment away from revealing the toothy grin that typically spread from one of his round cheeks to the other — except for the massive chest wound that matched the ones his father, Andre Thomas (the boy was also known as Andre Jr.), had inflicted on his mother and his half-sister as he tried to remove their hearts.

“You just can’t believe that it’s real,” said Sherry Boren, Laura Boren’s mother. “You’re hoping that it’s not, that it’s a dream or something, that you’re going to wake up at any minute.”

Mr. Thomas, who confessed to the murders of his wife, their son and her daughter by another man, was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death at age 21. While awaiting trial in 2004, he gouged out one of his eyes, and in 2008 on death row, he removed the other and ate it.

At least twice in the three weeks before the crime, Mr. Thomas had sought mental health treatment, babbling illogically and threatening to commit suicide. On two occasions, staff members at the medical facilities were so worried that his psychosis made him a threat to himself or others that they sought emergency detention warrants for him.

Despite talk of suicide and bizarre biblical delusions, he was not detained for treatment. Mr. Thomas later told the police that he was convinced that Ms. Boren was the wicked Jezebel from the Bible, that his own son was the Antichrist and that Leyha was involved in an evil conspiracy with them.

He was on a mission from God, he said, to free their hearts of demons.

Hospitals do not have legal authority to detain people who voluntarily enter their facilities in search of mental health care but then decide to leave. It is one of many holes in the state’s nearly 30-year-old mental health code that advocates, police officers and judges say lawmakers need to fix. In a report last year, Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy organization, called on lawmakers to replace the existing code with one that reflects contemporary mental health needs.

“It was last fully revised in 1985, and clearly the mental health system has changed drastically since then,” said Susan Stone, a lawyer and psychiatrist who led the two-year Texas Appleseed project to study and recommend reforms to the code. Lawmakers have said that although the code may need to be revamped, it will not happen in this year’s legislative session. Such an undertaking requires legislative studies that have not been conducted. But advocates are urging legislators to make a few critical changes that they say could prevent tragedies, including giving hospitals the right to detain someone who is having a mental health crisis.

From the time Mr. Thomas was 10, he had told friends he heard demons in his head instructing him to do bad things. The cacophony drove him to attempt suicide repeatedly as an adolescent, according to court records. He drank and abused drugs to try to quiet the noise.

bgrissom@texastribune.org

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent.

With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps on interest rates.

While the banks, which include giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely. In some cases, the banks allow lenders to tap checking accounts even after the customers have begged them to stop the withdrawals.

“Without the assistance of the banks in processing and sending electronic funds, these lenders simply couldn’t operate,” said Josh Zinner, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which works with community groups in New York.

The banking industry says it is simply serving customers who have authorized the lenders to withdraw money from their accounts. “The industry is not in a position to monitor customer accounts to see where their payments are going,” said Virginia O’Neill, senior counsel with the American Bankers Association.

But state and federal officials are taking aim at the banks’ role at a time when authorities are increasing their efforts to clamp down on payday lending and its practice of providing quick money to borrowers who need cash.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are examining banks’ roles in the online loans, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Benjamin M. Lawsky, who heads New York State’s Department of Financial Services, is investigating how banks enable the online lenders to skirt New York law and make loans to residents of the state, where interest rates are capped at 25 percent.

For the banks, it can be a lucrative partnership. At first blush, processing automatic withdrawals hardly seems like a source of profit. But many customers are already on shaky financial footing. The withdrawals often set off a cascade of fees from problems like overdrafts. Roughly 27 percent of payday loan borrowers say that the loans caused them to overdraw their accounts, according to a report released this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts. That fee income is coveted, given that financial regulations limiting fees on debit and credit cards have cost banks billions of dollars.

Some state and federal authorities say the banks’ role in enabling the lenders has frustrated government efforts to shield people from predatory loans — an issue that gained urgency after reckless mortgage lending helped precipitate the 2008 financial crisis.

Lawmakers, led by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, introduced a bill in July aimed at reining in the lenders, in part, by forcing them to abide by the laws of the state where the borrower lives, rather than where the lender is. The legislation, pending in Congress, would also allow borrowers to cancel automatic withdrawals more easily. “Technology has taken a lot of these scams online, and it’s time to crack down,” Mr. Merkley said in a statement when the bill was introduced.

While the loans are simple to obtain — some online lenders promise approval in minutes with no credit check — they are tough to get rid of. Customers who want to repay their loan in full typically must contact the online lender at least three days before the next withdrawal. Otherwise, the lender automatically renews the loans at least monthly and withdraws only the interest owed. Under federal law, customers are allowed to stop authorized withdrawals from their account. Still, some borrowers say their banks do not heed requests to stop the loans.

Ivy Brodsky, 37, thought she had figured out a way to stop six payday lenders from taking money from her account when she visited her Chase branch in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn in March to close it. But Chase kept the account open and between April and May, the six Internet lenders tried to withdraw money from Ms. Brodsky’s account 55 times, according to bank records reviewed by The New York Times. Chase charged her $1,523 in fees — a combination of 44 insufficient fund fees, extended overdraft fees and service fees.

For Subrina Baptiste, 33, an educational assistant in Brooklyn, the overdraft fees levied by Chase cannibalized her child support income. She said she applied for a $400 loan from Loanshoponline.com and a $700 loan from Advancemetoday.com in 2011. The loans, with annual interest rates of 730 percent and 584 percent respectively, skirt New York law.

Ms. Baptiste said she asked Chase to revoke the automatic withdrawals in October 2011, but was told that she had to ask the lenders instead. In one month, her bank records show, the lenders tried to take money from her account at least six times. Chase charged her $812 in fees and deducted over $600 from her child-support payments to cover them.

“I don’t understand why my own bank just wouldn’t listen to me,” Ms. Baptiste said, adding that Chase ultimately closed her account last January, three months after she asked.

A spokeswoman for Bank of America said the bank always honored requests to stop automatic withdrawals. Wells Fargo declined to comment. Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for Chase, said: “We are working with the customers to resolve these cases.” Online lenders say they work to abide by state laws.

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Italy Set to Vote for a New Parliament

ROME — As Italian voters head to the polls on Sunday and Monday to elect a new Parliament and three regional governments, the prevailing mood is one of anger and disillusionment.

The fledgling, anti-establishment parties that campaigned on promises of radical change could benefit from the voters’ discontent, but the lack of a clear winner could also leave Italy mired in uncertainty.

“Italians feel frustration, anger, but also some hope for renewal,” said Nicola Piepoli, who runs a polling company. They are frustrated, he said, because their taxes are rising but they see no improvements in their “economic and social life,” and they are angry because candidates did not address “concrete problems” during the campaign, focusing instead on “futile, absurd things.”

“But many still hope for some change,” Mr. Piepoli added, explaining the growing support for populists like the comedian Beppe Grillo and his Five Star Movement, and for smaller parties like Civil Revolution, led by Antonio Ingroia, a former prosecutor, and Act to Stop the Decline, a movement guided by Oscar Giannino, a journalist.

Mostly though, the mood is dark among Italians fed up with protracted political scandals and disinclined to believe election promises because they are so rarely fulfilled.

(On Friday, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, campaigning to return to office, made a new promise: he said that if he won, he would personally refund an unpopular property tax paid by Italians in 2012. “I will take four billion euros of my own fortune and give it to Italians,” he said on television, a pledge of about $5.3 billion.)

“There’s no one to vote for, and if I went to the polls I’d choose the least-worst candidate, so I prefer not to vote,” said Concetta Rossi, a recruiter for hotel employees in Rome. “It’s never been this bad.”

The center-left Democratic Party, led by Pier Luigi Bersani, a low-key former industry minister, is expected to place first but is unlikely to win enough seats to govern without a coalition. The centrist movement backing the current prime minister, Mario Monti, is a possible ally, but even together they might not prevail in the Senate because the electoral law allocates seats based on regional votes. Lombardy and Sicily, where polls suggest that the right is strong, are crucial.

For the past year, Mr. Bersani, a former Communist who has played up his Catholic upbringing, has supported Mr. Monti’s reformist agenda, though sometimes grudgingly. He has backed Mr. Monti’s commitments to the European Union for greater fiscal responsibility, but would review policies that might have hurt workers and retirees.

Investors and economic analysts have their own concerns about the potential instability that could emerge in the absence of a strong government.

In its 15 months in office, Mr. Monti’s technocratic government tried to pass much-needed reforms, but it failed to stimulate the economic growth required to pull Italy out of a persistent recession. On Friday, the European Commission said in its winter forecast that Italy’s economy would shrink by 1 percent in 2013, double its November estimate.

Gains made by anti-establishment parties, including the Five Star Movement, could stall Mr. Monti’s overhauls, and a strong showing by the center-right party led by Mr. Berlusconi could derail the austerity measures meant to keep Italy on a fiscally responsible track.

“The fear remains that the general election produces a significant no-confidence vote on the current austerity plan and the need to reform further,” Raj Badiani, an economist with IHS Global Insight, wrote in a research report last week. “Without the prospect of a stable coalition government with a credible reform agenda, Italy could be forced to reconstruct a technocratic government to keep the markets at bay.”

Alessandro Amadori, the director of Coesis, which conducts marketing and opinion polls, said the “emotional mapping” of Italy highlighted the population’s “disenchantment and rage,” and even its resignation. “People don’t think that much will change. They hope for a sign, but they don’t have high expectations.”

Mr. Amadori added: “These elections will probably mark a moment of transition, rather than long-term change. Italians are looking for something that will shake things up, but what will emerge, we still don’t know.”

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Jeter resumes on-field running drills in Tampa

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Yankees captain Derek Jeter has practiced on-field running and agility drills for the first time since breaking his ankle last fall.

Jeter worked out at Steinbrenner Field on Saturday with players that didn't travel for the Yankees' spring training opener against Atlanta.

The 38-year-old broke his left ankle lunging for a grounder in the AL championship series opener against Detroit on Oct. 1 and had surgery a week later. He expects to be ready for opening day against Boston on April 1.

Jeter had a resurgent season in 2012, leading the American League with 216 hits and batting .316 with 15 homers and 58 RBIs. He first injured his ankle in mid-September and fouled balls off his foot several times after that.

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

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