Report: Lance Armstrong weighing doping confession

Lance Armstrong reportedly is weighing confessing to using performance-enhancing drugs. (Thao Nguyen / Associated Press / February 15, 2011)

By Lance Pugmire

January 5, 2013, 7:11 a.m.

Lance Armstrong reportedly is weighing confessing to using banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his run of seven Tour de France titles.

Armstrong, who was stripped in October of his Tour titles and banned for life from competition by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, is pursuing the admission as a route to regain his eligibility to compete, the New York Times first reported Friday.

Armstrong’s attorney, Tim Herman, told the newspaper, “I suppose anything is possible. Right now, that’s not really on the table.”

Citing pressure from the cancer-fighting charity he helped create, Livestrong, Armstrong, 41, reportedly has held discussions with his longtime nemesis, USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart, in an attempt to negotiate a lifting of the ban, one person told the New York Times.

Armstrong has competed in triathlons and running events since his lifetime ban took effect.

Efforts to reach Tygart and Armstrong’s representatives Friday night were not immediately successful.

The World Anti-Doping Code allows for lightened punishment for those who fully detail their doping protocol in a confession.

Armstrong lost a slew of endorsement deals after he was banned, and any confession would probably leave him in jeopardy of perjury accusations since he has given sworn statements denying he used banned substances in prior legal cases.

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Colorful Lunar Mare

Galileo false-color image of the Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Serenitatis areas of the Moon. The picture was made from four exposures taken during Galileo's second Earth/Moon flyby.

The colors are enhanced to highlight compositional differences.

Mare Tranquillitatis at left appears blue due to titanium enrichment. Orange soil in Mare Sarenitatis at lower right indicates lower titanium. Dark purple areas at left center mark the Apollo 17 landing site, composed of explosive volcanic deposits.

Red lunar highlands indicate low iron and titanium. Mare Serenitatis is roughly 1300 km across and North is at 5:00. The 95 km diameter crater Posidonius, centered at 32 N, 30 E, is at the middle of the bottom of the frame.

Image: NASA [high-resolution]

Caption: NASA

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Venezuela searches for fashion boss Missoni’s plane

CARACAS/MILAN (Reuters) – Venezuelan emergency services mounted a sea and air rescue mission on Saturday after a plane carrying fashion executive Vittorio Missoni went missing off the coast of Venezuela.

The plane carrying Missoni, 58, his wife, Maurizia Castiglioni, another couple and two Venezuelan crew members disappeared after taking off from the resort of Los Roques, an archipelago off the coast of Venezuela, Italian media said.

“It disappeared yesterday. They have been looking for it with helicopters and ships, but have not found anything yet. They are still searching for it this morning,” the Italian consul in Venezuela, Giovanni Davoli, told Reuters by phone.

Missoni is the oldest son of the founders of the fashion house famous for its exuberantly coloured knits, featuring bold stripes and zigzags. He is co-owner with siblings Luca and Angela, who handle the technical and design sides of the firm.

“The Missoni family has been informed by the Venezuelan consulate that Vittorio Missoni and his wife are missing, but we don’t know any more,” said Missoni spokeswoman Maddalena Aspes.

Other members of the Missoni family are travelling back to Italy from a holiday in France, Aspes said.

Missoni and his siblings took over managing the company from their parents Ottavio and Rosita in 1996, aiming to relaunch the brand to a larger, younger market as rivals Gucci and Burberry have done. Under Vittorio’s tenure, Missoni has opened hotels in Edinburgh and Kuwait and launched the Missoni Home collection.

By 2011, the brand’s appeal was wide enough for U.S. mass-market retailer Target to ask it to design a collection.

The brand will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year.

(Reporting by Jennifer Clark and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Scare Amplifies Fears That Clinton’s Work Has Taken Heavy Toll

Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski

Hillary Rodham Clinton with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi in Cairo in July.

WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow after slipping in a State Department garage in June 2009, she returned to work in just a few days. Her arm in a sling, she juggled speeches and a trip to India and Thailand with physical therapy, rebuilding a joint held together with wire and pins.

It was vivid evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s indomitable stamina and work ethic — as a first lady, senator, presidential candidate and, for the past four years, the most widely traveled secretary of state in American history.

But after a fall at home in December that caused a concussion, and a subsequent diagnosis of a blood clot in her head, it has taken much longer for Mrs. Clinton to bounce back. She was released from a hospital in New York on Wednesday, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. On Thursday, she told colleagues that she hoped to be in the office next week.

Her health scare, though, has reinforced the concerns of friends and colleagues that the years of punishing work and travel have taken a heavy toll. Even among her peers at the highest levels of government, Mrs. Clinton, 65, is renowned for her grueling schedule. Over the past four years, she was on the road for 401 days and spent the equivalent of 87 full days on a plane, according to the State Department’s Web site.

In one 48-hour marathon in 2009 that her aides still talk about, she traveled from talks with Palestinian leaders in Abu Dhabi to a midnight meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, then boarded a plane for Morocco, staying up all night to work on other issues, before going straight to a meeting of Arab leaders the next morning.

“So many people who know her have urged me to tell her not to work so hard,” said Melanne S. Verveer, who was Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff when she was first lady and is now the State Department’s ambassador at large for women’s issues. “Well, that’s not easy to do when you’re Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t spare herself.”

It is not just a matter of duty, Ms. Verveer and others said. Mrs. Clinton genuinely relishes the work, pursuing a brand of personal diplomacy that, she argues, requires her to travel to more places than her predecessors.

While there is no medical evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s clot was caused by her herculean work habits, her cascade of recent health problems, beginning with a stomach virus, has prompted those who know her best to say that she desperately needs a long rest. Her first order of business after leaving the State Department in the coming weeks, they say, should be to take care of herself.

Some even wonder whether this setback will — or should — temper the feverish speculation that she will make another run for the White House in 2016.

“I am amazed at the number of women who come up to me and tell me she must run for president,” said Ellen Chesler, a New York author and a friend of Mrs. Clinton’s. “But perhaps this episode will alter things a bit.”

Given Mrs. Clinton’s enduring status as a role model, Ms. Chesler said women would be watching which path she decides to take, as they plan their own transitions out of the working world.

“Do remember that women of our generation are really the first to have worked through the life cycle in large numbers,” she added. “Many seem to be approaching retirement with dread.”

For now, aides say, Mrs. Clinton’s focus is on wrapping up her work at the State Department. She would like to take part in a town hall-style meeting, thank her staff and sit for some interviews. But first she has to get clearance from her doctors, who are watching her to make sure that the blood thinners they have prescribed for her clot are working.

Speaking to a meeting of a foreign policy advisory board from her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton said she was crossing her fingers and encouraging her doctors to let her return next week. “I’m trying to be a compliant patient,” she said, according to a person who was in the room. “But that does require a certain level of patience, which I’ve had to cultivate over the last three and a half weeks.”

While convalescing, Mrs. Clinton has spoken with President Obama and has held a 30-minute call with Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, whom Mr. Obama nominated as her successor.

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After Fiscal Deal, Tax Code May Be Most Progressive Since 1979

WASHINGTON — With 2013 bringing tax increases on the incomes of a small sliver of the richest Americans, the country’s top earners now face a heavier tax burden than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president.

The last-minute deal struck by the departing 112th Congress raised taxes on a handful of the highest-earning Americans, with about 99.3 percent of households experiencing no change in their income taxes. But the Tax Policy Center estimates that the average family in the top 1 percent will pay a federal tax rate of more than 36 percent this year, up from 28 percent in 2008. That is the highest rate since 1979, at least.

By some measures, the tax code might now be the most progressive in a generation, tax economists said, while noting that every American is paying a lower burden currently than they did then. In fact, the total federal tax rate is still vastly lower for the very rich than it was at any point in the 1940s through 1970s. It has risen from historical lows, but is still closer to those lows than where it was in the postwar decades.

“We made the system more progressive by raising rates at the top and leaving them for everyone else,” said Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a research group based in Washington. “The offsetting issue is that the rich have gotten a lot richer.”

Indeed, over the last three decades the bulk of pretax income gains have gone to the wealthy — and the higher up on the income scale, the bigger the gains, with billionaires outpacing millionaires who outpaced the merely rich. Economists doubted that the tax increases would do much to reverse that trend.

With the recovery failing to improve incomes for millions of average Americans and the country running trillion-dollar deficits, President Obama made “tax fairness” a centerpiece of his re-election campaign. In the heated negotiations with House Speaker John A. Boehner, that translated into the White House’s insistence on tax increases for the top 2 percent of households and a continuation of tax breaks and cuts for a vast number of taxpayers.

Republicans resisted increasing tax rates and aimed for lower revenue targets, arguing that spending was the budget’s primary problem and that no American should see his or her taxes go up too much in such a sluggish economy. But ultimately they relented, and Congress cut a last-minute deal.

“A central promise of my campaign for president was to change the tax code that was too skewed towards the wealthy at the expense of working middle-class Americans,” Mr. Obama said after Congress reached an agreement.

That deal includes a host of tax increases on the rich. It raises the tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent on income above $400,000 for individuals, and $450,000 for couples. The rate on dividends and capital gains for those same taxpayers was bumped up 5 percentage points, to 20 percent. Congress also reinstated limits on the amount households with more than $300,000 in income can deduct. On top of that, two new surcharges — a 3.8 percent tax on investment income and a 0.9 percent tax on regular income — hit those same wealthy households.

As a result of the taxes added in both the deal and the 2010 health care law, which came into effect this year, taxpayers with $1 million in income and up will pay on average $168,000 more in taxes. Millionaires’ share of the overall federal tax burden will climb to 23 percent from 20 percent.

The result is a tax code that squeezes hundreds of billions of dollars more from the very well off — about $600 billion more over 10 years — while leaving the tax burden on everyone else mostly as it was. And the changes come after 30 years of both Republican and Democratic administrations doing the converse: zeroing out federal income taxes for many poor working families while also reducing the tax burden for households on the higher end of the income scale.

“Back at the end of the Carter and beginning of the Reagan administrations, we had a pretty severe income-tax burden for people at a low level of income. It was actually kind of appalling,” said Alan D. Viard, a tax expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center research group in Washington. “Policy makers in both parties realized that was bad policy and started whittling away at it” by expanding credits and tinkering with tax rates.

After those changes and the new law, comparing average tax rates for poor households and wealthy households, 2013 might be the most progressive tax code since 1979. But economists cautioned that measuring progressivity is tricky. “It’s not like there is some scientific measure of progressivity all economists agreed upon,” said Leonard E. Burman, a professor of public affairs at Syracuse University. “People look at different numerical measures and they’ve changed in different ways at different income levels.”

Mr. Viard said that over time the code had become markedly more progressive for the poor compared with the middle class. But it arguably did not become much more progressive for the rich compared with the middle class, or the very rich compared with the rich, in part because of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts on investment income.

An anesthesiologist who earns a $500,000 salary subject to payroll and income taxes might pay a higher tax rate than a hedge fund manager making $1 billion subject mostly to capital-gains taxes, for instance.

Economists are also divided on the ultimate effect of those tax increases on the wealthy to income growth and income inequality in the United States. The recession hit the incomes of the rich hard, but they have snapped back much more strongly than those for middle or low-income workers.

“I’d still rather be really rich, even if I’m getting taxed much more than a low-income person” would be, Mr. Williams of the Tax Policy Center added.

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Economy maintains job growth as unemployment holds at 7.8%

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. job market continued to show slow and steady improvement in December as employers added 155,000 jobs last month, in line with analysts' expectations and at the average monthly pace for the last two years.

The jobless rate held steady at 7.8% as November's unemployment figure was revised up from the initial estimate of 7.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The good news in the report is that worries about the so-called fiscal cliff of tax hikes and budget cuts didn't derail hiring last month, as some had feared it could. Healthcare hiring was very strong, manufacturing bounced back and construction added a solid batch of jobs, although part of that was likely due to recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy that struck the Northeast in late October.

On the other hand, some analysts were hoping for stronger overall job growth last month, closer to 200,000, as there were some indications earlier this week that hiring in the private sector might have accelerated. But the retail sector cut back its staffing, as did the information industry. Government employers, mostly local schools, shed 13,000 from its payrolls. Temporary-help employment was flat.

The nation's unemployment rate of 7.8%, also matched in September, is the lowest since January 2009. Unlike November, last month workers didn't exit the job market. The labor force actually grew. More reported having jobs, but the ranks of the unemployed also increased, to 12.2 million last month.

Almost 40% of the unemployed said they had been without jobs for six months or longer -- a statistic that has shown little improvement over the years, which is particularly worrisome as more of these workers will find it increasingly difficult to find work as their skills atrophy and they become discouraged.

Analysts were expecting job growth of about 150,000 in December, which is about what the economy has been generating on average for the last two years. Although that is a decent pace, certainly enough to absorb new entrants into the labor force, it's not strong enough to bring down unemployment quickly and create opportunities for the large number of jobless workers.

As of December, the nation had about 134 million payroll jobs -- still 4 million fewer than at the end of 2007 when the economy began its descent into recession.

Looking ahead, economists aren't expecting any pickup in hiring in the near term. In fact, job growth could slide back a bit, analysts say, until policymakers resolve the thorny issues of raising the debt ceiling and budget deficit problems. Lawmakers averted most of the "fiscal cliff" earlier in the week, but they let payroll taxes rise to previous rates, which is expected to slow consumer spending a bit and could take a bite out of hiring in the next few months.

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Forget the Internet of Things: Here Comes the Internet of <em>Cars</em>

What if large groups of people could go beyond ridesharing – replacing traditional car ownership altogether through on-demand access to the cars they want: a convertible in the summer, an SUV for winter ski trips?

What if driving skills could be computed as a score that warned us of bad drivers nearby – real time, on the road – also enabling navigation systems to offer safer alternative routes? Imagine if we could get rid of traffic jams and accidents altogether. Or how about if our cars picked up our groceries on their own – and dropped us off at the airport like a self-contained limo service?

What if automakers could subsidize our car purchases by working with telecommunications and other companies that want to capitalize on the lifetime revenue opportunity of a connected driver? Consider also the possibilities for insurance providers to charge higher premiums (for those who drive their cars themselves), or for local governments to monitor personal CO2 usage (in exchange for not taxing or tolling public roads).

Whether you embrace or object to these scenarios, they’re not too far away. This isn’t just an evolution of technology-enabled, connected vehicles. This goes beyond self-driving cars. And it’s more than a simple sensor-network: This is the era of smart mobility — an Internet of Cars.

Basically, cars have become the “ultimate mobile device” and we, the people, are becoming “connected drivers”. These aren’t just buzzwords: As a longtime strategic adviser and analyst of this space, I’ve been using these terms since 1998 to describe this fundamental transformation of the automobile. And it’s coming within this decade. For example, by 2016, most buyers in mature automotive markets (U.S., Western Europe) will consider vehicles’ ability to access web-based information a key criterion when purchasing an automobile. For premium vehicle brand buyers, this tipping point will be reached even sooner: 2014. That’s just one year away.

The connected vehicle is leading the automotive industry to its most significant innovation phase … since the creation of the automobile itself.

The Era of Smart Mobility Is Going to Change Everything

But what is it? “Connected vehicles” are cars that access, consume, create, enrich, direct, and share digital information between businesses, people, organizations, infrastructures, and things. Those “things” include other vehicles, which is where the Internet of Things becomes the Internet of Cars.

As these vehicles become increasingly connected, they become self-aware, contextual, and eventually, autonomous. Those of you reading this will probably experience self-driving cars in your lifetime — though maybe not all three of its evolutionary phases: from automated to autonomous to unmanned.

Those of you reading this will probably experience self-driving cars in your lifetime.

We still need to address a number of technology, engineering, legislative, and market issues to develop successful offerings here. But this automotive era builds on current and related industry trends such as the convergence of digital lifestyles, the emergence of new mobility solutions, demographic shifts, and the rise of smartphones and the mobile internet.

Consumers now expect to access relevant information wherever they are … including in the automobile. At the same time, these technologies are making new mobility solutions – such as peer-to-peer car sharing – more widespread and attractive. This is especially important since vehicle ownership in urban areas is expensive and consumers, especially younger ones, don’t show the same desire for vehicle ownership as older generations do.

To be successful, connected vehicles will draw on the leading technologies in sensors, displays, on-board and off-board computing, in-vehicle operating systems, wireless and in-vehicle data communication, machine learning, analytics, speech recognition, and content management. (That’s just to name a few.) All of this leads to considerable benefits and opportunities: reduced accident rates, increased productivity, improved traffic flow, lowered emissions, extended utility for EVs, new entertainment options, and new marketing and commerce experiences.

Besides providing automobiles and drivers with new function, connected vehicles will also expand automotive business models to include a much broader set of industries — IT, retail, financial services, media, consumer electronics. This is significant, because it could challenge the traditional automotive business model: Rather than focusing only on the sale and maintenance of a vehicle, companies will focus on the sum of business opportunities the automobile represents.

Consumers, especially younger ones, don’t show the same desire for vehicle ownership as older generations do.

But What Do Consumers Want?

Do people even want all this? Or is this just a case of business thinkers, technologists, and early adopters making predictions in an echo chamber? It’s not.

Consumers do show a strong interest in the features of a connected vehicle. For example, from analyses Gartner conducted over the last year, we found that of all U.S. vehicle owners:

• Almost half (46%) are interested in safely accessing mobile applications inside the vehicle. These applications include receiving on-demand wireless map or software updates, finding available parking spots, and conducting local searches; nearly 40% would also opt for remote diagnostic capabilities that alert them when parts need replacement.


• More than one-third are interested in a self-driving, autonomous vehicle.


• Thirty percent are likely to opt for a vehicle that allows them to tether their smartphone to get internet connection there.

Our increasingly digital “lifestyles” may also force consumers to re-evaluate personal transportation choices. For example: The combined cost of a monthly mobile and residential internet plan might be competing with the cost of filling up a car at the gas station.

These tradeoffs are even more important to younger vehicle owners (18- to 24-year-olds) than older ones (54+ years). The younger group is more likely (30%) to choose internet access over having a vehicle (compared to just 12% of the older group), and about the same percentages are likely to use a car-sharing service as an alternative to vehicle ownership.

The cost of a monthly mobile and residential internet plan competes with the cost of filling up a car at the gas station.

Obviously, connected vehicle applications have to be safe, reliable, and non-distracting to wow consumers on an emotional level and convince them on a rational level. Simply copying interfaces from other mobile devices will not be enough – buttons in cars actually work great for certain functions. The automotive industry will need to innovate new experiences and integrate systems thoroughly so consumers don’t feel they can get the same results with just an iPad on the passenger seat.

But the fact remains that automobiles are here to stay, and they’re going to be connected. The innovations and changes described here will mature relatively quickly over the next two decades. For example, I predict that by 2016 at least three companies will have announced concrete plans for upcoming product launches offering advanced autonomous vehicle technology.

This isn’t pie-in-the-sky — just consider a few recent advancements in the automotive connectivity space: Avis acquiring Zipcar; the first over-the-air automotive software patch by Tesla; Intel getting significantly involved in the connected vehicle value-chain; big telcos like Sprint extending their reach into automotive; a high-ranking Apple executive taking a seat on a carmaker’s board. All of these moves signal the trend.

And for those who are also passionate about automobiles and driving, the era of the connected vehicle will open a mesmerizing new world. You know that immediate connection between our senses and the stimulatory triggers of a car: sounds, speed, sights? Imagine that feeling, and so much more. I am optimistic that the automotive industry and technology companies will preserve this fascination of the automobile – it is, after all, an immersive experience.

But if you don’t like this dawning era of the connected vehicle, you should get your (unconnected) dream car now.

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Adele’s “21″ scores again, beating Swift for 2012′s top album

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British singer Adele‘s Grammy-winning “21″ scored a rare feat in 2012 as it topped U.S. album sales for a second straight year, beating out U.S. country-pop star Taylor Swift‘s “Red, Nielsen Soundscan said on Thursday.

It was the first time a single album had been a top-seller for two years in a row since Nielsen began tracking album sales in 1991, the organization said.

But U.S. album sales overall fell 4 percent in 2012 to 315.96 million albums, after 2011 saw a rare 3 percent bump in sales.

Adele’s “21″ sold 4.41 million units in the United States in 2012 to top Swift’s “Red,” which sold 3.11 million copies. In 2011, “21″ sold 5.82 million units.

“It’s a sort of a once-in-a-lifetime album,” Keith Caulfield, associate director of charts at Billboard, told Reuters of “21.” “Only a few of these albums come along in history.”

The heartbreak record, with hits like “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You,” earned Adele six Grammy Awards in early 2012, boosting the profile of the 24-year-old singer and songwriter, who records on indie label XL Recordings.

The album sold at a furious pace, reaching the 10 million albums-sold plateau in the span of two years, Caulfield noted. The last album to achieve that feat was boy band ‘N Sync’s “No Strings Attached,” which was released in 2000.

“It’s really the right combination of artistry and hit singles,” Caulfield said of “21′s” success.

“She really crossed over from pop to Latin to adult contemporary to dance,” he added. “Young and old consumers bought it, and because of its mixture of fans, she was able to sell it as well as she did.”

Adele’s success came despite the drop in 2012 U.S. album sales.

“Last year (2011) was a fluke,” Caulfield said. “A year gain in album sales is a mega achievement. … It’s the way the market works now, people buy songs and not albums.”

Indeed, digital song sales rose 5 percent in 2012 to a record high 1.336 billion downloads.

The year’s best-selling albums in the United States had a particularly British flavor as Swift was the lone American in the top five. Swift records for the independently owned Nashville-based Big Machine, distributed by Universal Music Group.

British boy band One Direction’s “Up All Night,” released in 2011 on Sony Music Entertainment’s SYCO/Columbia label, placed third with 1.62 million units sold, while their 2012 follow-up, “Take Me Home,” took the fifth spot with 1.34 million units sold.

Britain’s folk revivalists Mumford & Sons, on indie record label Glassnote, placed fourth with their album “Babel” selling 1.46 million units.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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U.S. Continues to Add Jobs at Slow Pace, Report Shows

Despite their concerns about looming tax increases and government spending cuts, American employers added 155,000 jobs in December, about apace with job growth over the last year, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

The biggest gains were in health care, food services, construction and manufacturing, with the latter two probably helped by rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. Government payrolls fell modestly once again, the report said. The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, the same as in November, whose rate was revised up from 7.7 percent.

“It’s not a home-run report by any stretch, but it’s constructive,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. “It’s another month of fairly stable, solid, moderate job creation.”

Over the course of 2012, the country added 1.8 million jobs, despite continued job losses in the government sector and anxiety related to the presidential election and scheduled tax increases and spending cuts. 

Economists are unsure of what the rest of the year holds for the American job market, but most are forecasting more of the same: hiring fast enough to stay just ahead of population growth, but still too slow to make a sizable dent in the 12.2-million-person backlog of unemployed workers.

A number of encouraging trends in the economy suggest that businesses have good reason to speed up hiring, including the housing recovery, looser credit for small businesses, a rebound in China and pent-up demand for new autos. Friday’s report also showed slightly faster wage growth and longer working hours in December, both of which bode well for hiring.

But Congress’s last-minute deal earlier this week to raise taxes will offset some of these sources of growth, since higher taxes trim how much money consumers have available to spend each week.

“Job creation might firm a little bit, but it’s still looking nothing like the typical recovery year we’ve had in deep recessions in the past,” Mr. Ryding said. “There’s nothing in the deal to do that and nothing in this latest jobs report to suggest that. We’re a long way short of the 300,000 job growth that we need."

The fiscal compromise also renewed for a year the federal government’s emergency unemployment benefits program. That allows workers to continue receiving unemployment benefits for up to 73 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate in the state where they live, and acts as a stimulus to the American economy because unemployment benefits are spent almost immediately.

The extension has proved to be a tremendous relief to the two million workers who would have otherwise abruptly lost their benefits this week.

“We woke up on Wednesday morning and saw the news and just said, ‘thank God, thank God, thank God,’ and then went out and went food shopping because we knew we had money coming in,” said Gina Shadis, 56, of Newton, N.J.

Both she and her husband, Stephen, were laid off within the last 14 months from jobs they had held for more than a decade: she from a quality assurance manager position at an environmental testing lab, and he as foreman and senior master technician at an auto dealership. They are now each receiving $548 per week in federal jobless benefits, or about a quarter of their pay at their most recent jobs.

“It has just been such a traumatic time,” she said. “You know you wake up in the morning with shoulders tense and head aching because you didn’t sleep the night before from worrying.”

While Congress’s deal on New Year’s Day brought clarity to tax and unemployment benefits policies, lawmakers have still not settled their disputes about federal spending cuts and the debt ceiling. Economists worry that the lingering uncertainty over these issues could discourage businesses from investing in more workers or equipment.

“We may be seeing the calm before the storm right now,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors, noting that a recent survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found that alarmingly few small companies plan to hire in the coming months. “Small businesses are wringing their hands in horror at what’s going on in Washington.”

In the meantime, more than six million workers have exhausted their unemployment benefits altogether since the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Employment Law Project, a labor advocacy group.

Millions of workers are sitting on the sidelines and so are not counted in the total tally of unemployed. Some are merely waiting for the job market to improve, and others are trying to invest in skills to appeal to employers who are already hiring.  

“I have a few prospects who say they want me to work for them when I graduate,” said Jordan Douglas, a 24-year-old single mother in Pampa, Tex., who is enrolled in a special program that allows her to receive jobless benefits while attending school full time to become a registered nurse. She gets $792 in benefits every two weeks, a little less than half of what she earned in an administrative position at the nursing home that laid her off last year.

She calculates that her federal jobless benefits will run out the very last week of nursing school.

“This had to have been a sign from God that I had to do this since it all worked out so well,” she said.

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