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Juarez’ Mayor: Running the Most Dangerous City in the Americas

Juarez Mayor: Running the Most Dangerous City in the Americas

Jose Reyes Ferriz, mayor of the Mexican border city of Juarez, presides over what may be the western hemisphere’s most dangerous town, certainly the hardest hit by Mexico’s drug-war terror. Since the start of last year, Juarez has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders. Reyes this month requested thousands of federal army soldiers to rein in the violence, which has subsided for the moment — giving him a chance to rebuild Juarez’s corrupt police force. He talked with TIME’s Tim Padgett this week about his police reform, drug-cartel death threats against him and comparisons of Juarez to Baghdad.

TIME: Why have the cartels issued death threats against you
REYES: Organized crime here had infiltrated our police so deeply, and it was clear they didn’t want a clean-up of the force. But it had to be done, and no other Mexican city has done such a widespread clean-up. And that caused the threats. Four weeks ago on a Sunday came the first public threat against me; but it was something we knew had been brewing for a while so I wasn’t completely surprised or upset. I knew the consequences of the decisions I’d made.

The violence is a consequence of the Mexican political class’s utter neglect of law enforcement, especially when the country was ruled by your party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party . Will that finally change now
That’s a key issue. As a country we really underestimated the value of police and looked down on police. That forced the issues we have now, particularly in Juarez. Our police department barely grew the past 15 years: we should have a force of 4,000 officers, but we have only 1,600. We knew about police corruption but as a society did nothing to force the clean-up of our department. Now it’s become extremely difficult to do. It cost the lives of 50 people in city government last year, including two police directors.

Right now, with the military on your streets, things seem safer. But the soldiers can only stay so long. Can you really build a new, larger, reliable police force before they leave
Yes, we can. About half [of the old force] are now out; most didn’t pass the new “confidence exam.” Our agreement with the federal government is that we’ll have 3,000 new officers in place by the end of the year. So we’re starting a huge recruitment effort. They’ll have to have high school diplomas — we’re hoping about 500 will be college graduates. They’re going to be some of the best paid in the country and eligible for subsidized housing for the first time.

Are Washington and Mexico City focusing enough attention and resources under the anti-drug Merida Initiative toward local police reform
The U.S. needs to assure that enough money is put toward making the police forces along the border sufficiently robust — precisely so they’ll be the first line of defense for the U.S., just as it’s equally important that U.S. border police be better able to stop the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico. The U.S. also needs to be able to share more information with Mexico — like intelligence about [U.S.-based] gangs like Barrio Azteca, whose members are used by the Mexican drug cartels to commit so much of the violence here.

Do you feel the Obama Administration, which this week announced plans to bring more federal agents to the border in large part for those purposes, is doing more than previous U.S. administrations to help your efforts
Oh yeah. The previous Administration clearly felt that the problems with Mexico could be solved by building a big wall between the two countries to keep the problems here out of the U.S. That is clearly wrong, and President Obama recognizes that. His efforts are directed at the proper solutions for Mexico’s problems — which at the end of the day become problems for the U.S. If we don’t attack those problems now, the violence will escalate and go into the U.S. And [Mexican] President [Felipe] Calderon, of course, has been very involved in the effort to find solutions to Juarez’s problems.

What was this city like before the soldiers arrived
People didn’t want to go outside. Most people stayed at home; most parents didn’t want their kids to go to parties. Our city normally has vibrant night life, and that all but stopped for most of the past year.

How do you feel about the comparisons between Juarez and Baghdad
Well, it was a situation where the numbers were there. The situation was there. We tried to keep information flowing to remind people that of the 1,600 [killed last year] only 30 were innocent civilians. More recently, as we’ve put pressure on the police, we’re seeing what we call “opportunistic” crimes like kidnapping and extortion.

There have been reports that you and your family live part of each week now across the border in El Paso, that U.S. law enforcement has helped screen your bodyguards.
I now have six bodyguards who carry assault weapons instead of guns. But I live in Juarez, I work in Juarez, I sleep in Juarez. [The reports] were fueled by El Paso Mayor John Cook, a good friend of mine, who said when the threats started that if the [Juarez] mayor wants to come to El Paso we’ll provide security for him. I told him I didn’t need it.

Despite its current troubles, Juarez has a history of leading change in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution and maquiladora assembly plants began here; Juarez was the first city to elect an opposition mayor during the PRI’s rule. Will it be the first to create a model police force
I think that is what’s happening. We, of course, didn’t choose these circumstances that are forcing us to do it.

On ‘nakation,’ forget worries and clothes

Promoters say nude vacations offer a complete escape from stress and the norm.
There’s something about being naked that makes a person forget a layoff, pay cut or a shrunken retirement account.

At least that’s how the promoters of nude travel see it. The economic recession is “doing us a lot of favors, maybe because there’s the idea that if you’ve lost the shirt off your back, you should go nude,” said Erich Schuttauf, executive director of the American Association for Nude Recreation. He added: “You go to a [nudist resort] and when you take off all your clothes, all the cues that tie you to the workaday world — the ties, the suits and everything — when that’s gone, your body says it’s time to relax. You get in that mode faster.” While some nude-resort owners say they’re cutting back because of the recession, others said they’re on par with last year’s budgets or are expanding their services. Overall, being naked brings in big bucks. According to Schuttauf, the industry is valued at more than $400 million annually. Boom or bust, here are Schuttauf’s top five places to forget your worries — and your swimsuit. “Typically, sunblock is all that you need,” he said. Cypress Cove, Kissimmee, Florida Near Disney World and Orlando, Florida, the Cypress Cove Resort offers a range of recreational activities, including biking, a lakeside beach and a small golf course.

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The resort’s location and nice weather make it attractive, said Ted Hadley, manager of the 300-acre resort, which features a hotel, camp sites and permanent residences. Hadley said the resort is faring well, compared with years past. For many, nude vacations are like an addiction or a necessity, he said. “It’s something that [nudists] really enjoy and something they’re not going to give up unless they absolutely have to,” he said. The resort is “a place where they come to relax and unwind and relieve themselves of stress.” Turtle Lake Resort, Union City, Michigan In a business where sunshine and warmth are pretty darn important, Michigan’s Turtle Lake Resort has to get a little creative to keep clothes-free customers coming. One of its prime features is an 11,000-square-foot clubhouse — with a BYOB policy, a dance floor and plenty of heat pumped in. The resort also offers a lagoon, tennis courts and volleyball. Attendance for last year was up 9 percent, compared with projections, said Mark Hammond, general manager and co-owner of the resort. And despite the frigid Michigan weather, the resort is a year-round draw, Hammond said. During winter months, it offers rooms for $42 to $90 per night. “We’re nudists, we’re not stupid,” he said. “When it gets cold, we put our clothes on.” Sun Meadow, Worley, Idaho Near Spokane, Washington, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the Sun Meadow resort is another cold-climate nudist retreat with ample side attractions. Schuttauf said its finest attributes are its indoor pool, meeting space and music. Cabins, RV sites and a limited number of hotel rooms are available. Laguna del Sol, Wilton, California With 1,600 members, Laguna del Sol, near Sacramento, California, is among the largest nudist resorts in the country, Schuttauf said. The resort features theme vacations, including “Nude Stock.” The resort offers four pools, three spas and a fitness center. And if you’re not ready to dive into a naked vacation just yet, the resort offers free tours between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Avalon, Paw Paw, West Virginia Avalon resort, in northeastern West Virginia, takes ordinary activities to a nude level. The resort offers a library for naked reading, a naked fishing pond, naked wine tastings and naked hikes (through the snow, no less, and making snow angels is encouraged). Avalon also hosts a “Nude Year’s Eve” gala, according to its Web site. Men are asked to wear a cummerbund and bow tie only.

Top 10 movie car chase scenes

Which star do you most associate with car-chase movies: Steve McQueen or Michael Caine? Gene Hackman or Burt Reynolds?

Although most car-chase movies pack some serious A-list talent, we like to think that in many cases the real star in this particular movie genre is the car: from McQueen’s super-tight Ford Mustang in “Bullitt” to the stripped-down Dodge Charger in Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof.” But which movie has the best car-chase scene in history We take a look. 10. “Cannonball Run” (1981) Almost everyone knows that Hollywood’s cheesy celebration of America’s intercoastal car culture is one big car chase involving spectacular cars, including a Ferrari 308 GTS, an Aston Martin DB5 and a gorgeous opening sequence where a Lamborghini Countach makes short work of a Pontiac Firebird police cruiser. But perhaps less well known is the original coast-to-coast sprint run undertaken by speed racer Erwin George Baker in 1914. The 11-day drive made his name in the New York press, who forever associated him with the Chicago Express steam train christened “The Cannon Ball.” Trivia: The ambulance driven in the movie by Burt Reynolds and sidekick Dom DeLuise was a modified Dodge Tradesman used by Car and Driver editor Brock Yates when he tried to resurrect the famous race in the 1970s, as part of a protest against the onset of 55 mph speeding limits nationwide. 9. “Death Proof” (2007)

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Quentin Tarantino continues to push the limits of speed and taste in “Death Proof.” The film is a stock car- and violence-infused tale that features for a quarter of its run-time a fantastic chase sequence involving a stripped down bad-ass 1969 Dodge Charger and a heavily modified 1970 Dodge Challenger with a girl — actress and former stuntwoman Zoe Bell — splayed on its hood. Apparently, Tarantino came upon the idea for a “death proof” car after filming the car-crash scene in Pulp Fiction and telling a friend he wanted to buy a Volvo for safety reasons. AOL Autos: 1969 Dodge Charger The friend informed him that a decent movie stunt team could easily “death proof” any car for him. Hence was born the “Death Proof” movie concept. And Stuntman Mike. Doesn’t that name still give you chills 8. “The Fast and the Furious” (2001) Car chases ostensibly over a half mile, otherwise known as street racing, received attention when “The Fast and Furious” lifted the lid on a high-adrenaline Tokyo Drift racing scene that burgeoned in popularity in Japan and the U.S. in the late 1990s. The movie explored the phenomenon through a fictional world of ultra-hip hijackers who used heavily modified Japanese cars to steal high-end electronic components. It’s a cops and criminals yarn with a high-octane twist that features some seriously customized old-school cars including a Honda Civic, Toyota Supra and a Mazda RX7 — though if you look closely, a retro Dodge Charger also features, too. AOL Autos: Honda Civic Tokyo Drift racing, where drivers work in teams while skidding all four wheels around a tight circuit, now features at many events on the IRL circuit, catching a tailwind from the movie’s popularity. Look out for the new “Fast and Furious” film soon. 7. “Mad Max II: The Road Warrior” (1981) You’d be hard pressed to name any of Mel Gibson’s cobbled-together vehicles in his 1981 sequel to “Mad Max” — which may boast the highest number of chopped and recharged V8s outside of Havana, Cuba — but that doesn’t stop “The Road Warrior” being considered a car-chase classic and one of the best action movies out there. Motley collections of cut-throat bandits, nomads and braggarts populate Australia’s barren, dystopian landscape and blow-up any number of heavy machines, including police cars, motorbikes and a big-rig fuel tanker. It’s all in their quest for that all-important and — in a post-apocalyptic world — rare substance: fuel. The explosive 20-minute chase scene to end the movie still exhilarates nearly 30 years after the movie’s release. And don’t we all want an engine intake like Max’s infamous “blower” 6. “Vanishing Point” (1971) A Dodge Challenger R/T gives you some serious leverage when you’re involved in a bump-and-run two-car contest on a one-track road in the middle of the American west — and it’s the only road out of the desert heat. AOL Autos: Dodge Challenger Stanley Kowalski, a renegade Barry Newman, used five separate first-generation Challengers, including the 375-horsepower 440 Magnum, to full effect in forcing numerous hapless drivers off the road on the hazard-ridden 15-hour sprint from Denver, Colorado, to San Francisco, California, as he’s pursued by cops, racers and bandits alike. Dodge released its highly anticipated and heavily retrofitted Challenger update in 2008, with the film’s cult following no doubt waiting patiently for any word on a commemorative “Vanishing Point” model. 5. “Gone in 60 Seconds” (1974) We’re not talking about the remake starring Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie, which boasts some pretty spectacular car-chase sequences itself, but the 1974 original that features a 34-minute chase sequence over the Long Beach, California, ports complex that some consider the best ever captured on celluloid. A mediocre cast and stilted dialog may put off many, but the film that centers around a group of car thieves and their bid to steal 48 cars over a couple of days accomplishes what it set out to do: Exhilarate viewers in movie theaters and destroy as many cars as possible (in this case, 93). An amazing collection of Ford Mustangs, Rolls-Royces and Cadillac limos make up the list that car thief H.B. “Toby” Halicki — who did all his own stunts — is given to steal for a South American drug lord. Few, though, compare to the film’s famous 1967 Ford Mach 1 Mustang, christened “Eleanor” and driven by Halicki, that even makes it into the 2000 remake. 4. “The French Connection” (1971) Gene Hackman bumping and weaving his way around the intersection of Stillwell Avenue and 86th St of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, while pursuing a bandit on a subway train offers to this day a fantastic driver’s eye perspective of driving through New York at rush hour. We’re just kidding. But the chase featuring a 1971 Pontiac LeMans remains a classic as a result of its impromptu crashes that weren’t supposed to be part of the action but were left in the sequence after several stunt drivers mistimed their entrance into the car chase, striking Hackman’s car instead of narrowly avoiding it as he chases a train-bound drug dealer. The sequence took several days to shoot even though the chase’s screen time is barely two-and-a-half minutes. Director William Friedkin also put together a similarly fantastic car chase in 1985’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” 3. “The Italian Job” (1969) Michael Caine’s famous “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off,” has become a familiar refrain among “Italian Job” fans who love the British actor’s Cockney twang and the 1969 comic car caper that saw a collection of car thieves attempting a high-stakes bank heist in the Italian city of Turin. Indescribably hip on its release, and a personification of Cool Britannia, the famous car chase featuring three red-white-and-blue Minis motoring through tight streets — and even indoors — was a landmark in quirky and fun car-chase sequencing and cinematography. The 2003 remake cleverly twinned audience appeal with the film following the 2001 release of BMW’s new MINI Cooper that featured in the updated film, leading some to suggest it was merely a two-hour commercial for the new model. AOL Autos: MINI Cooper Trivia: Turin, or Torino, forms part of Italian car giant Fiat’s moniker– Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino. 2. “Ronin” (1998) Although it will never be regarded as Robert de Niro’s best dramatic performance, 1998’s “Ronin” doesn’t land on our list for its dialogue. In unbelievable realism, viewers are treated to chase scenes with sport sedans such as a BMW M5, Peugeot 406 and, perhaps most famously, an Audi S8. Plenty of police cars, trucks and motorcycles meet their end and more than 300 stunt drivers were employed to give the real-time chases scene an air of metal-crunching realism amid a character-driven plot that involves CIA operatives, mercenaries and multiple double-crosses surrounding a mysteriously valuable briefcase. There are few actors that can capture the mixture of terror and exhilaration involved in a car chase quite like De Niro, while Jean Reno is the only actor who could make driving a Peugeot an exercise in steely manhood. Director John Frankenheimer pretty nearly perfected the art of filming gritty car chase sequences in 1966’s “Grand Prix.” 1. “Bullitt” (1968) “Bullitt” is perennially voted one of the best car movies of all time and we’re comfortable following suit. In the 1968 classic, real-life racing enthusiast Steve McQueen barrels after bad guys on the streets of San Francisco in an epically cool 1968 Ford Mustang in a delicious “Highland Green” color. AOL Autos: Ford Mustang In a cityscape that gets most drivers nervous for its ups and downs, San Francisco proves the ultimate car chase backdrop. Lieutenant Frank Bullitt is not only one of the coolest cops of all time, he proves to be one of the best wheelmen we’ve ever seen. This is a must-see film and hands-down the best car chase movie of all time.

UK ready to send more troops to Afghanistan

Britain currently has 8,300 troops in Afghanistan.
Britain is prepared to send more troops to Afghanistan, the head of the British Army said in an interview published Friday.

Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, did not say how many troops he would be prepared to deploy. Britain currently has 8,300 troops in Afghanistan. Dannatt told The Times newspaper that elements of the 12th Mechanized Brigade had been “earmarked for Afghanistan.” He said there are no plans to send the whole brigade of 4,000 troops. “If we’re asked for more and we say we can, it’s not going to be 4,000 — it’s going to be something in between” that and the current troop level, Dannatt told the Times. The Ministry of Defense confirmed his remark. British defense sources told The Times that a rise of 1,700 to 2,000 was “the uppermost ceiling.”

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U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce a new strategy for Afghanistan on Friday that includes sending another 4,000 troops to the country with hundreds of civilian specialists, senior administration officials told CNN. The troops — which are in addition to the 17,000 that the president announced earlier would be sent to Afghanistan — will be charged with training and building the Afghan Army and police force. The plans include doubling the Army’s ranks to 135,000 and the police force to 80,000 by 2011, the officials said. Military officials told CNN earlier that the Afghan government had requested the additional troops.

Can Pakistan Be Untangled from the Taliban?

In Washington, a New York Times report that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency is directly assisting militant groups fighting against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has barely raised an eyebrow. Veteran Pakistan watchers here have known — or suspected — as much for several years. “It confirms what a lot of us have been saying for a long time,” says Lisa Curtis, South Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation. In the area of cooperation with the U.S. on counterterrorism, Curtis says, “the Pakistanis have the initiative — they play us.” Adds Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution: “The problem from the beginning has been that elements [of the ISI] have gone off and done things they think are in [Pakistan’s] national interest — and nobody wants to stop them.”

Although the ISI’s association with the Taliban has hardly been a secret, some observers caution against rushing to judgment. Robert Grenier, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, says “this is a very complicated, very nuanced situation.” Grenier, now with the security firm Kroll Associates, explains that the ISI operatives who have links to “people we regard as enemies are not so much trying to aid them against America as preparing for a future when Americans and NATO are no longer in Afghanistan.” In such a future, “the Pakistanis would be reluctant to concede the field to people whom they regard as enemies, like elements of the Northern Alliance and the Indians.”

But, Grenier adds, the Pakistanis may be in for a rude shock if they think they can depend on relationships with anti-American warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. “Hekmatyar is a bad player, and if the Pakistanis think they can get into this dance with him and win, they are mistaken,” he says. “And that’s even more true of Haqqani.”

More remarkable than the report itself was its timing: the Obama Administration is about to announce the conclusion of a comprehensive review of Afghanistan policy, and Congress is discussing massive new aid — worth $1.5 billion a year for five years — for Pakistan. For U.S. officials — a group that provided a substantial part of the Times’s sourcing for its story — to drop their long reticence on the subject of the ISI’s duplicity at this particular juncture suggests, to some observers, an effort to put some pressure on Islamabad. “It seems like a prelude to a new strategy, which may include asking Pakistan to do something” in the province of Baluchistan, where the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is hiding in plain sight.

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment. But it announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the location or capture of Haqqani’s son Sirajuddin. A similar amount is being offered for information on Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, and a $1 million bounty for information on al-Qaeda propagandist Abu Yahya al-Libi.

Shuja Nawaz, a South Asia expert at the Atlantic Council, points out that Pakistan has had a relationship with Hekmatyar and Haqqani for decades, stretching back to the 1970s, before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Nawaz argues that if ISI operatives are indeed helping these warlords and the Afghan Taliban, “it has to be happening with full knowledge of the [Pakistani] authorities — the leadership of the ISI, the military, the government.”

Another possibility, Nawaz says, is that the warlords and the Taliban are getting help from contractors hired in the tribal areas by the ISI. “These are people with a history of local relationships, and they are likely to be ambivalent,” he says.

Global Trade: The Road to Ruin

In Shanghai not long ago, I took a walk from my hotel along Nanjing Road to the Bund, the promenade on the banks of the Huangpu where visitors from China’s hinterland gather to gaze across the river, awestruck, at the ultramodern skyscrapers of Pudong that have transformed the city’s skyline in not much more than a decade. It wasn’t what was on the far side, though, that got my attention: it was the traffic on the river itself, great container ships, chuffing lighters, bulk carriers, every sort of waterborne vessel you could imagine carrying every imaginable cargo, churning up the waters.

It’s not what one is used to in the West. In the U.S. and Europe, we have prettified our rivers, turning city waterfronts into places where genteel folk ride their bikes or snack in the open air. But in Asia — not just in Shanghai, but along the Chao Phraya in Bangkok, or in Hong Kong’s harbor — waterways are not pretty at all. They are busy places of work and commerce, the arteries of trade, that age-old process of exchange that, more than anything else, has lifted millions of Asians out of poverty in two generations.

At least, they were. The economic crisis has hit world trade hard. Ports throughout the world are dramatically less busy than they were just a few months ago; air traffic is way down. Exports from Japan were almost 50% less in February compared with the same month in 2008; China’s exports were down 26% in February. The World Trade Organization is predicting global trade will shrink by 9% this year, the steepest annual decline since World War II. This contraction is not only deep, it is also a latter-day rarity: global trade has increased continuously year after year since 1982.

The main culprits are not hard to divine.
As households in the rich world, battered by a collapse in the values of their assets, start saving again, their appetite for new cars and consumer electronics has diminished. And as banks try to rebuild their shattered balance sheets, capital that would once have been used to finance trade is staying in their vaults.

But if reduced demand and financial flows explain the immediate cause of the downturn in trade, a different — and potentially more damaging — specter looms: the return of protectionism. In a recent report, the World Bank found that although the G-20 nations pledged themselves to avoid protectionist measures when they met in Washington last November, no fewer than 17 of them have, since then, “implemented measures whose effect is to restrict trade at the expense of other countries.”

The bank listed some of those measures: Russia has raised tariffs on used cars, Argentina imposed new licensing arrangements for imports, China banned Irish pork, India banned Chinese toys. No fewer than 13 countries have granted subsidies to various parts of the automobile industry. And the bank didn’t mention the nasty spat that has broken out between the U.S and Mexico; the U.S. has stopped a program that allowed Mexican trucks on American roads, and Mexico has retaliated with tariff increases. Said World Bank president Robert Zoellick: “Leaders must not heed the siren song of protectionist fixes. Economic isolationism can lead to a negative spiral of events such as those we saw in the 1930s, which made a bad situation much, much worse.”

Zoellick got it just about right. Economic historians will long argue about the relative impact of trade restrictions — led by the U.S. Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 — on the scale of the Great Depression. The U.S. economy was much less integrated into a global economic system then than it is now. But given the retaliation from America’s trading partners after the new tariffs were applied, few would argue with Zoellick’s assessment that the contraction of trade in the 1930s made the long downturn worse than it needed to be. “Protectionism,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told TIME recently, “is the road to ruin.”

See pictures of the global financial crisis.

Read TIME’s special report on The G-20.

Want to Save Money? Carry Around $100 Bills

For shoppers in today’s economy, there’s just too much temptation out there.
Sure, your pockets are tight. But there are clearance sales in every store,
and deep discounts down every aisle. So how do you stop yourself from
spending? Especially when you know that, during this awful downturn, you
should be saving every last penny?

Just arm yourself with $100 bills.

According to a new study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, shoppers are less likely to spend their dough if they are carrying
cash in large denominations. This so-called “denomination effect” can be a
powerful predictor of consumer spending habits. Through a series of
experiments, the study shows that if people have an equivalent amount of
money, say $100, the folks with a Ben Franklin in their pockets might not
part with it, while those carrying Andrew Jacksons and George Washingtons
more easily give up that cash.

What’s driving the denomination effect First off, some consumers see large
bills as more sacrosanct than a bunch of chump change. “People tend to
overvalue bigger bills,” says Joydeep Srivastava, a marketing professor at
the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and a
co-author of the study. “There’s a psychological cost associated with
spending a $100 bill that’s not there with spending smaller bills.” We tend
to isolate the cash in our minds. Each $20 is a separate, less valuable
entity than that single $100 bill. So it’s easier to part with five of those
twenties than a single precious hundred in our pockets.

Further, consumers fear that once they break that large bill, they won’t be
able to stop spending the rest. “Once that barrier is passed, it’s like a
dam gets broken,” says Srivastava. “And we’ve found that when people decide to spend, they’ll spend more with the bigger bill than with the smaller
bill.” Researchers have labeled this phenomenon the “what the hell” effect:
I’ve broken the hundred, it’s gone from my wallet, what the hell, I may as well
blow off the rest. So consumers, afraid that the “what the hell” effect will
drain their wallets, hold on to those large denominations.

For example, in one experiment the researchers gave 89 undergraduate
business-school students from Cal-Berkeley and the University of Maryland a
dollar. They told the students they could keep the money or use it to buy
candy. About half of the students were given a dollar bill, while another
half were given four quarters. Only 26% of the students who got the bill
spent the money, while 63% of the students given quarters bought some candy.
However, once they decided to spend, the students with the paper made bigger
purchases.

The “what the hell” effect even crosses the Pacific. The researchers ran a
similar test in China that yielded comparable results. They gave 150
housewives 100 yuan that they could either save or use to buy soap,
shampoo, bedding and pots and pans. Half the women received the 100 yuan in
a single bill, while the other half got it in the form of a 50-yuan bill,
two 20-yuan notes and a 10-yuan bill. Over 90% of the women who received
the smaller bills spent the money. Meanwhile, just 80% of the women given a
single note spent the cash. But among those who spent, the small-bill group
spent an average of 56.76 yuan, while the large-bill group spent 67.67 yuan.

Since shoppers with bigger bills are less likely to make purchases, frugal
consumers can carry hundreds as a form of self-control. From a
recession-fighting perspective, however, self-control is Satan. The U.S.
government is desperate for consumers to start spending again. So maybe the
Obama Administration is approaching the economic stimulus the wrong way.
Forget about tax cuts and grants to state governments. Just give the people
a bunch of $1 bills.

See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.

See the Cartoons of the Week.

Crabs ‘feel and remember pain’ suggests new study

No thanks for the memories: The scientific study applied mild electric shocks to hermit crabs to determine if they could 'feel' pain.
New research suggests that crabs not only suffer pain but that they retain a memory of it.

The study, which was carried out by Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University, Belfast, looked at the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks. It was published in the journal “Animal Behaviour.” Professor Elwood, whose previous work showed that prawns endure pain, said his research highlighted the need to investigate the treatment of crustaceans used in food industries. Hermit crabs have no shell of their own so inhabit other structures, usually empty mollusc shells. In the research, wires were attached to shells to deliver the small shocks to the abdomen of some of the crabs within the shells. The only crabs to get out of their shells were those which had received shocks, indicating that the experience is unpleasant for them. The research suggests that this response is not just a reflex, but that central neuronal processing takes place. Hermit crabs are known to prefer some species of shells to others and it was found that that they were more likely to come out of the shells they least preferred. The main aim of the experiment was to deliver a shock just under the threshold that causes crabs to move out of the shell, to see what happened when a new shell was then offered.

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Crabs that had been shocked but had remained in their shell appeared to remember the experience of the shock because they quickly moved towards the new shell, investigated it briefly and were more likely to change to the new shell compared to those that had not been shocked. “There has been a long debate about whether crustaceans including crabs, prawns and lobsters feel pain,” said Professor Elwood in a press statement. “We know from previous research that they can detect harmful stimuli and withdraw from the source of the stimuli but that could be a simple reflex without the inner ‘feeling’ of unpleasantness that we associate with pain. “This research demonstrates that it is not a simple reflex but that crabs trade-off their need for a quality shell with the need to avoid the harmful stimulus. “Such trade-offs are seen in vertebrates in which the response to pain is controlled with respect to other requirements. Humans, for example, may hold onto a hot plate that contains food whereas they may drop an empty plate, showing that we take into account differing motivational requirements when responding to pain. “Trade-offs of this type have not been previously demonstrated in crustaceans. The results are consistent with the idea of pain being experienced by these animals.” Previous work at Queen’s University found that prawns show prolonged rubbing when an antenna was treated with weak acetic acid but this rubbing was reduced by local anesthetic. According to Queen’s University the findings from both studies are consistent with observations of pain in mammals. But Professor Elwood says that in contrast to mammals, little protection is given to the millions of crustaceans that are used in the fishing and food industries each day. “More research is needed in this area where a potentially very large problem is being ignored,” said Elwood. “Legislation to protect crustaceans has been proposed but it is likely to cover only scientific research. Millions of crustacean are caught or reared in aquaculture for the food industry. “There is no protection for these animals (with the possible exception of certain states in Australia) as the presumption is that they cannot experience pain. “With vertebrates we are asked to err on the side of caution and I believe this is the approach to take with these crustaceans.”

Murder case brings ‘Foxy Knoxy’ infamy in Italy

Both Raffaele Sollecito (left) and Amanda Knox deny charges of murder and sexual assault.
The Italian media call her "Foxy Knoxy" and portray her as a "devil with an angel’s face," and there are 11 Facebook pages dedicated to her, all in Italian.

Amanda Knox, 21, is an American college student from Seattle, Washington, who is on trial for murder in Perugia, Italy. The case has given Knox almost pop star status there. She was voted the top woman in an online “person of the year” poll by an Italian TV channel in December, beating out Carla Bruni, the Italian-born French first lady. Seven of the 11 Facebook pages champion her innocence; four seem convinced that Knox is pure evil. A sampling of comments: “No to Amanda. No to her superstardom” … “She’s a sociopath” …”Everyone is not sure if she is guilty or not and that she will lead us to a new existential awareness. Please shout with me your anger. … Let’s say no. Let’s say Knox.” Knox and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24, are accused of killing and sexually assaulting one of Knox’s roommates, British exchange student Meredith Kercher, on November 1, 2007. Knox and Sollecito are due back in court today. The last time Knox appeared before the panel of eight judges, she wore a T-shirt quoting The Beatles: “All you need is love.” Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini alleges that Kercher, 21, was killed because she refused to participate in a drug-fueled sex game played by Knox, Sollecito, and a third man, Ivory Coast native Rudy Hermann Guede. In court papers, prosecutors stated that Sollecito held Kercher by her wrists while Knox poked at her with a knife and Guede sexually assaulted her. The case is being tried in Perugia, a university town about 115 miles north of Rome that is better known for its chocolate than for its scandalous murder trials.

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According to the prosecutor’s office, Kercher had been in Italy for two months as part of a year-long course with Leeds University, where she was working toward a degree in European Studies. She shared a house with Knox, a University of Washington student in the same exchange program, and two Italian housemates. The crime scene, which has become a tourist attraction, has been broken into twice, police say. Knox and Sollecito were arrested November 6, 2007, and were kept in prison while an investigation continued. The judge overseeing the investigation found both were capable of committing the crime again, fleeing the country or tampering with the evidence. Police sought charges in July 2008, and they were ordered to trial in October. The trial began January 16 and has been held mostly on weekends. Italian newspapers assigned their top crime reporters, and the case has received unprecedented international coverage. Knox has appeared on the cover of People magazine, which shares a corporate parent with CNN. A random sampling of women on the streets of Rome showed that all of them had heard of the case and most believed Knox and Sollecito were at the very least implicated in the slaying. The superheated publicity surrounding the case helped make Knox a household name in Italy. She is usually portrayed as a femme fatale. Consider these headlines: • “Sex, lies and stabbings” • “Lovers without any inhibitions” • “And in prison, she even tries to sun tan” Italian journalists also have plastered their newspapers with photos they found of Knox on the Internet, especially images that showed her as a “wild girl.” They pounced on the “Foxy Knoxy” they found on her MySpace page, even though her parents later explained the high school moniker came from the way Knox played soccer, quick like a fox. Although Italian law limits the publication of court and police records, the media ban is less strict than in many European countries. While it is not exactly legal to publish police investigative reports, no journalist has gone to jail in Italy for doing it. Among the items leaked: Knox’s diary, various police interrogations, photos of Kercher’s body, video of Kercher’s body (which wound up on YouTube but has been pulled), and video of the Italian forensic police carrying out their investigation. Eventually, even the leaks made headlines, leading to more speculation. Knox can do no right in the Italian media. If she appears reserved and timid in court, she is portrayed as someone with plenty to hide. If she smiles or laughs in court, she’s called disrespectful. As far as the Italian media is concerned, Knox is the mastermind who manipulated those around her and seduced her Italian boyfriend and led him astray. While Knox and Sollecito’s preliminary hearings were being held in October, Guede was convicted of murder after a fast-track trial. His lawyers had hoped that the speedy resolution of the case would give him a break at sentencing. He got 30 years in prison. According to testimony at Guede’s trial, his fingerprints were found in the house, and his DNA was linked to Kercher’s body. He has never denied being in the house the night of the slaying but insists he didn’t kill her. He says he had an “appointment” with her that night and was in the bathroom when she was killed. Sollecito and Knox say they weren’t at the house the night of the slaying. They say they both were at Sollecito’s house. But the alibi has been contradicted by witnesses at the trial. Eighty-six media outlets sent 140 journalists to cover the opening of the trial in January, but publicity has waned since then. The Italian 24-hour news channel TG24 no longer breaks into its programming with multiple updates. Knox, for now, has been relegated to the pages preceding the sports or weather report. But Italians love their murder cases, and attention has shifted to other crime news. A mother is accused of killing her toddler son, a husband and wife are accused of multiple killings. Their courtrooms are now filled with spectators who wait in line an hour or more. The Perugia courtroom still is packed, but the long line is gone. That is likely to change, however, as testimony draws to a close next month.

Bodies found at Turkish helicopter crash site

Forty-eight hours after a harrowing distress call from a helicopter crash survivor in the mountains of eastern Turkey, Turkey’s interior minister said Friday that rescuers have finally discovered the wreckage.

Six people were aboard the helicopter when it went down Wednesday. At least three were killed and the fate of the other three was not immediately known. The rescue effort, which involved thousands of soldiers, police and volunteers, has been severely hampered by deep snow and high mountains. One of the rescuers who reached the wreckage Friday afternoon said he could see the bodies of three passengers, including the news reporter whose emergency call was the last communication from the aircraft after the crash. “The helicopter broke into pieces, and the wreckage is spread across the ground,” Abidin told CNN sister network CNN Turk by telephone. He said the visibility was terrible because of heavy snow. Abidin added that the rescue party had to build a fire to stay warm, and that they themselves were now waiting for a helicopter to transport them away from the frigid mountaintop. The rented helicopter was taking Muhsin Yazicioglu, the leader of a small ultra-nationalist political party, back from a campaign rally on Wednesday when it crashed.

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Turkish political parties have suspended campaign rallies in the wake of the crash. Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the helicopter crashed, one of the survivors managed to make a cell phone call to an emergency service. Reporter Ismail Gunes pleaded by phone, saying, “I’m starting to freeze. I feel cold. It is snowing. I am inside the helicopter. I guess the people here died. Erhan, brother. Erhan, brother. Nothing. No sound from anyone. So bad.” A female dispatcher tells Gunes that the police are trying to locate him. He then calls out again: “Erhan, brother. Brother, try to (open your eyes). He is lying, moaning.” Watch the search through snow and ice for helicopter » “Is there any other sound from anyone” the dispatcher asks. “No, no,” Gunes says. “My foot is broken badly. Miss, haven’t you located us yet We will freeze here. I guess the other people are dead. I can’t move my foot. It is broken really badly. When will you determine our location, miss”

The crash happened in a mountainous region of eastern Turkey amid rough terrain and adverse weather conditions, officials and media reports said. It also occurred just days before municipal elections across the country.