Syrian Government Beset by Battles and Diplomatic Setbacks

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

A kitchen in a residence in Aleppo, Syria, damaged Sunday in fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government forces.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fierce fighting on the battlefield and setbacks on the diplomatic front increased pressure on the embattled Syrian government on Monday as fresh signs emerged of a worsening battle for control of the capital.

A senior Turkish official said that Russia had agreed on Monday to a new diplomatic approach that would seek ways to persuade President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power, a possible weakening in Russia’s steadfast support for the government. Fighting raged around Damascus, the Syrian capital, and its airport, disrupting commercial flights for a fourth straight day.

A prominent Foreign Ministry spokesman was said to have left the country amid reports of his defection, and both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued warnings that any use of chemical weapons by a desperate government would be met with a strong international response. A Western diplomat confirmed that there were grave concerns in United States intelligence circles that Syrian leaders could resort to the use of the weapons as their position deteriorates.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry, repeating earlier statements, told state television that the government “would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances.”

The United Nations said it was withdrawing nonessential international staff from Syria, and the European Union said it was reducing activities in Damascus “to a minimum,” as security forces pummeled the suburbs with artillery and airstrikes in a struggle to seal off the city from its restive outskirts and control the airport road. A senior Russian official spoke for the first time in detail about the possibility of evacuating Russian citizens.

Mr. Assad has held on longer than many had predicted at the start of the 21-month uprising. He still has a strong military advantage and undiminished support from his closest ally, Iran. Military analysts doubt the rebels are capable of taking Damascus by force, and one fighter interviewed on Monday said the government counteroffensive was inflicting heavy losses. There were still no firm indications from Russia that it was ready to join Turkey and Western nations in insisting on Mr. Assad’s immediate departure.

But the latest grim developments follow a week of events that suggested the Assad government was being forced to fight harder to keep its grip on power. Rebels threatened its vital control of the skies, using surface-to-air missiles to down a fighter plane and other aircraft. The opposition also gained control of strategic military bases and their arsenals, and forced the government to shut down the Damascus airport periodically. The Internet was off for two days.

A Russian political analyst with contacts at the Foreign Ministry said that “people sent by the Russian leadership” who had contact with Mr. Assad two weeks ago described a man who has lost all hope of victory or escape.

“His mood is that he will be killed anyway,” Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a Russian foreign affairs journal and the head of an influential policy group, said in an interview in Moscow, adding that only an “extremely bold” diplomatic proposal could possibly convince Mr. Assad that he could leave power and survive.

“If he will try to go, to leave, to exit, he will be killed by his own people,” Mr. Lukyanov said, speculating that security forces dominated by Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect would not let him depart and leave them to face revenge. “If he stays, he will be killed by his opponents. He is in a trap. It is not about Russia or anybody else. It is about his physical survival.”

Many observers — United Nations personnel in Syria, Arab diplomats and opposition activists — stress that it is difficult to reliably assess the state of the government. But taken together, the day’s events suggested that the government’s position was declining more sharply than it had in months and that an international scramble to find a solution to the crisis was intensifying.

Nabil al-Araby, the head of the Arab League, said on Monday that the government could fall at “any time,” Agence France-Presse reported.

“I think there will be something soon,” he said. “Facts on the ground indicate very clearly now that the Syrian opposition is gaining, politically and militarily.”

The Arab League has long called for Mr. Assad to step down. But Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful ally, has held out the possibility of his staying in power during a transition, so the Russian government’s apparent shift of emphasis carried more weight.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Sebnem Arsu in Istanbul, Peter Baker in Washington, Hwaida Saad, Neil MacFarquhar and Hania Mourtada in Beirut and Christine Hauser in New York.

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$120 tablet that runs both Android and Linux to launch in early 2013

For anyone who has ever used his or her Android tablet and wished that it could double as a desktop-style device, PengPod has a product just for you. Ars Technica reports that the new PengPod tablet, which runs both Android and Linux, has met its crowd-sourced fundraising goals and will so on sale in January for $ 120 a 7-inch model and $ 185 for a 10-inch model. According to Ars, the tablet will be able to “dual-boot Android 4.0 and a version of Linux with the touch-friendly KDE Plasma Active interface.” Overall, the tablet received funding of nearly $ 73,000, or around 49% more than the $ 49,000 that the company had been seeking.

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RG3, Redskins closing in on Giants with 17-16 win

LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — Robert Griffin III went down, the ball popped out, and the Washington Redskins scored a touchdown.

Look out, New York Giants and the rest of the NFC East. If the rookie quarterback keeps getting those kinds of breaks, it'll be hard to keep him out of the title hunt for years to come.

As it is, RG3 has the Redskins within a game of first place, leading a fourth-quarter rally in a 17-16 Monday night victory over the Giants, giving Washington a three-game winning streak in which it has dispatched division rivals — Philadelphia, Dallas and now New York — one by one.

"We know that our backs are against the wall," Griffin said. "And even though we won tonight, our backs are still against the wall."

The Redskins (6-6) appeared out of the running at 3-6 a month ago, but Griffin is proving his team can never be counted out when he's on the field.

With the Giants (7-5) losing three of four and the Cowboys (6-6) also at .500, the division is up for grabs.

Griffin did get another of his goals accomplished Monday by assuring Washington will win more games than last season's 5-11 team.

"You can put a check by that one, but there's a lot more goals that this team is stretching for and striving for," Griffin said.

Griffin completed 13 of 21 passes for 163 yards and ran five times for 72 yards, breaking Cam Newton's NFL record for yards rushing by a rookie quarterback.

His top target again was Pierre Garcon, who had eight receptions for 106 yards and a touchdown, showing no signs of the painful toe injury that forced him to miss six of the season's first nine games.

Alfred Morris ran for 124 yards on 22 carries, becoming the second Redskins rookie to run for 1,000 yards. Reggie Brooks had 1,063 in 1993.

Washington also ended a 10-game home losing streak in Monday night games, with Griffin again showing his knack for winning on a big stage.

Eli Manning completed 20 of 33 passes for 280 yards and a touchdown for the Giants, who had won 26 in a row on the road when holding a halftime lead.

They were ahead 13-10 at the break Monday against the Redskins, but they failed to finish the job for the first time since blowing a 21-0 halftime lead in a 24-21 loss to Tennessee in 2006.

Ahmad Bradshaw ran for 103 yards on 24 carries, and Victor Cruz had five catches for 104 yards for the Giants, who were uncharacteristically penalty-prone, getting flagged nine times for 73 yards.

The Giants moved the ball well all game, but the drives produced three field goals by Lawrence Tynes and only one touchdown — Manning's 4-yard pass to Martellus Bennett late in the first half.

The game's final score was Griffin's 8-yard pass to Garcon early in the fourth quarter, but the Redskins' first touchdown was one of the evening's crazy moments.

On second-and-2 from the New York 28, Griffin ran to his left and was being tackled by Stevie Brown after what would have been a 12-yard gain.

But as Griffin fell with his back to the ground, the ball popped out and went right on the fly to Washington receiver Joshua Morgan 3 yards farther upfield. Morgan then ran 13 yards for the score.

"We didn't run (that play) in practice because we wanted to save it for the game," Griffin said with a grin. "I knew he was going to be there for it. ... Joshua did a good job being in the spot where he was supposed to be."

It was the second time this season that a Griffin fumble has turned into Redskins touchdown. Garcon recovered one in the end zone in a win over Tampa Bay.

Another fumble by the Redskins — this one by Morris in the third quarter — was recovered by the Giants and set off mayhem. New York defensive tackle Linval Joseph yanked at Redskins center Will Montgomery's leg. Montgomery kicked at Joseph in response, and Joseph stomped at Montgomery. Joseph and a Redskins player were whistled for offsetting unnecessary roughness penalties.

Giants safety Tyler Sash left in the first half with a hamstring injury and eventually was ruled out for the game, and New York right tackle Sean Locklear was carted off with an injury in the fourth quarter.

Redskins linebacker London Fletcher and left tackle Trent Williams, who were limited in practice by injuries Friday and Saturday, both started. The 37-year-old Fletcher extended his consecutive games streak to 236 — every game in his 15-year NFL career.

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With Some Hospitals Closed After Hurricane Sandy, Others Pick Up Slack

A month after Hurricane Sandy struck New York City, unexpectedly shutting down several hospitals, one Upper East Side medical center had so many more emergency room patients than usual that it was parking them in its lobby.

White and blue plastic screens had been set up between the front door and the elevator banks in the East 68th Street building of that hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. The screens shielded 10 gurneys and an improvised nursing station from the view of people obliviously walking in and out of the soaring, light-filled atrium.

“It’s like a World War II ward,” Teri Daniels, who had been waiting a day and a half with a relative who needed to be admitted, said last week.

Since the storm, a number of New York City hospitals have been scrambling to deal with a sharp increase in patients, forcing them to add shifts of doctors and nurses on overtime, to convert offices and lobbies to use for patients’ care, and even, in one case, to go to a local furniture store to buy extra beds.

At Beth Israel Medical Center, 11 blocks south of the Bellevue Hospital Center emergency room, which was shuttered because of storm damage, the average number of visits to the E.R. per day has risen to record levels. Visits have increased by 24 percent this November compared with last, and the numbers show no sign of dropping. Hospital admissions have risen 12 percent compared with last November.

Most of the rise in volume is from patients who had never been to Beth Israel before. An emergency room doctor at the hospital described treating one patient who said he had been born at Bellevue and had never before gone anywhere else.

Emergency room visits have gone up 25 percent at NewYork-Presybterian/Weill Cornell, which in Bellevue’s absence is the closest high-level trauma center — treating stab wounds, gun wounds, people hit by cars and the like — in Manhattan from 68th Street south. Stretchers holding patients have been lined up like train cars around the nursing station and double-parked in front of stretcher bays.

In Brooklyn, some patients in Maimonides Medical Center’s emergency room who need to be admitted are waiting two or three days for a bed upstairs, instead of four or five hours. Almost every one of the additional 1,100 emergency patients this November compared with last November came from four ZIP codes affected by the storm and served by Coney Island Hospital, a public hospital that was closed because of storm damage.

The number of psychiatric emergency patients from those same ZIP codes has tripled, in a surge that began three days before the hurricane, perhaps fueled by anxiety, as well as by displacement from flooded adult homes or programs at Coney Island Hospital, doctors said.

The Maimonides psychiatric emergency room bought five captain’s beds — which do not have railings that can be used for suicide attempts — at a local furniture store, to accommodate extra patients. The regular emergency room had to buy 27 new stretchers after the hurricane, “and we probably need a few more,” the department’s chief, Dr. John Marshall, said.

The emergency room and inpatient operations of four hospitals remain closed because of flooding and storm damage. Besides Bellevue and Coney Island, NYU Langone Medical Center and the VA New York Harbor Healthcare System, both near Bellevue on the East Side of Manhattan, are closed.

While the surge in traffic to other hospitals has been a burden, it has also been a boon, bringing more revenue.

On the Upper East Side, the storm has helped Lenox Hill Hospital, which has a history of financial problems. It took two or three wards that had been turned into offices and converted them back to space for patients. Emergency room visits are up 10 percent, and surgery has been expanded to seven days a week from five.

“We usually operate at slightly over 300 beds, and now we’re at well over 550,” Carleigh Gustafson, director of emergency nursing, said.

Conversely, administrators at the shuttered hospitals, especially NYU Langone, a major teaching center, worry that their patients and doctors are being raided, with some never to return.

NYU’s salaried doctors are being paid through January, on the condition that they do not take another job. But at the same time, they need a place to practice, so NYU administrators have been arranging for them to work as far away as New Jersey until the hospital reopens. Lenox Hill alone has taken on close to 300 NYU doctors, about 600 nurses, and about 150 doctors in training, fellows and medical students.

Obstetricians and surgeons from the closed hospitals have been particularly disadvantaged, since they are dependent on hospitals to treat their patients. Many displaced surgeons have been reduced to treating only the most desperately ill, and operating on nights and weekends, when hospitals tend to be least well staffed.

“I think there’s no question that a lot of people have postponed anything that they can postpone that is elective,” said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, senior vice president at NYU.

In mid-November, Dr. Michael L. Brodman, chairman of obstetrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center, sent out a memo saying his department had taken on 26 NYU physicians, as well as nurses and residents, but “clearly, that is too much for us to handle long term.”

Since then, 15 of the physicians have gone to New York Downtown Hospital, while Mount Sinai has retained 11 doctors and 26 nurses.

“We are guests in other people’s homes,” Dr. Brotman of NYU said, “and we are guests who have to some degree overstayed their welcome.”

Joanna Walters contributed reporting.

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More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers

Barbies are for girls and construction sets are for boys. Or are they?

For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.

It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both girls — and their fathers — in mind.

“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set.

Consumer surveys show that men are increasingly making the buying decisions for families, reflecting the growth in two-income households and those in which the women work and the men stay home. One-fifth of fathers with preschool-age children and working wives said they were the primary caretaker in 2010, according to the latest Census Bureau data. And 37.6 percent of working wives earned more than their husbands in 2011, up from 30.7 percent 10 years earlier.

“Kids are going to grow up with dads that give them baths and drive them to soccer and are cutting up oranges for team snacks,” said Liz Ross, president for North America of BPN, part of the IPG Mediabrands holding company, which recently completed a study on male consumers. “What will go away, albeit slowly, is the image or the perception of the befuddled dad.”

The change is having consequences beyond toys. Consumer products have traditionally been marketed to appeal to women, and stores have been designed for women’s sensibilities. Now, some brands and stores are catering directly to male decision-makers. Sears is reorganizing stores to put tools next to work wear, for instance, based on men’s preferences. Procter & Gamble is working on men’s grooming aisles at top retailers, a nod to the fact that women are no longer choosing shampoos or shaving creams for their husbands. With the selling point that it helps girls develop spatial reasoning, the Barbie set, a joint effort of Mattel and the toy company Mega Bloks, is also meant to pique fathers’ interest.

“Dad is a bigger influencer in terms of toy purchases over all, and this sets up well for that, because the construction category is something Dad grew up with and definitely has strong feelings and emotions about,” said Vic Bertrand, chief innovation officer of Mega Brands, Mega Bloks’ parent company.

Construction sets for girls are a speedy growth category, thanks to Lego’s introduction of its Friends line in January. Despite criticism that those sets were sexist — themes include a beauty shop and a fashion studio — Lego’s chief executive said in August that the company sold twice as many of the sets in the first half of the year as it had expected, and retailers like Amazon and Target have named them hot holiday toys.

Anne Marie Kehoe, vice president of toys for Walmart U.S., said that, with the Barbie addition, construction toys aimed at girls will represent about 20 percent of the toy construction category by the end of this year, while last year there were just a handful of products.

Research shows that playing with blocks, puzzles and construction toys helps children with spatial development, said Dr. Susan C. Levine, chairwoman of the psychology department at the University of Chicago and co-principal investigator at the National Science Foundation’s Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center. Even controlling for other skills such as verbal and numerical skills, she said, children with better spatial thinking are more likely to eventually go into mathematics, engineering, science and technology.

She said that a set aimed at girls could be beneficial, if only because it might increase girls’ likelihood of participating in construction activities.

Dr. O’Brien, the consultant on the new Barbie set, said adults had traditionally been “the limiting factor” in why girls have not played with those toys as often.

Recently, she said, there has been a shift in attitudes, as parents study research on development and spatial play. “For this particular product, one of the advantages is you can appeal to both moms and dads,” she said of the construction set.

During her research, Dr. O’Brien said, she watched a grandfather jump in to explain building principles to his granddaughter, who was playing with the Barbie. Still, the construction set is not exactly dump trucks and dirt. It remains “unapologetically all girl,” said Stephanie Cota, senior vice president of global marketing for Barbie, girls’ brands and games at Mattel.

The Mega Bloks building pieces are pink (Pantone 219, the signature Barbie color), and the construction choices are scenes like a fashion boutique, a mansion and an ice cream cart. Each set comes with a small Barbie figure that can be snapped into the scene.

Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, still leans heavily on Barbie, one of its most popular and longest-running franchises. However, pressure to update Barbie has been high — Mattel has introduced Barbies with video cameras and digital cameras in recent years.

Yet sales of Barbie in North America through September fell 1 percent, even as sales of Mattel’s other girl brands, like Disney Princess dolls, rose 44 percent. Mega Brands makes just a fraction of what its larger rival Lego does, and had revenues of about $376 million last year.

The Barbie brand, which tends to raise feminists’ ire for its overly sexualized dolls, not to mention the 1992 version saying “Math class is tough,” has already taken some high-arched steps toward gender equality. A computer-engineer Barbie was introduced two years ago, for instance, with the support of the Society of Women Engineers.

This time, though, the introduction appears to be a response more to market changes than to critics.

Girls “don’t necessarily care about, ‘That’s a boy toy; that’s not for me,’ ” said Ms. Cota of Mattel. “Now, more so than ever, girls are looking at what’s fun, what they like.”

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Suspected Gaza Collaborators Face a Grisly Fate

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — When Fadel Shalouf’s family went to pick up his body at the morgue the day after he was executed on a busy Gaza street corner, they found his hands still cuffed behind his back. Hamas, the militant faction that rules Gaza, did not provide a van to carry the body to burial, so they laid him on two men’s laps in the back of a sedan.

It was an undignified end to a short, shrouded life. Mr. Shalouf, his family insisted, was an illiterate fisherman with a knack for designing kites when he was arrested at 19 by Gaza’s internal security service. Yet he was convicted in a Hamas court in January 2011 of providing Israel with information that led to the 2006 assassination of Abu Attaya, commander of the Popular Resistance Committees.

During last month’s intense eight-day battle with Israel, the military wing of the Hamas government brutally and publicly put an end to Mr. Shalouf, 24, and six other suspected collaborators. The vigilante-style killings by masked gunmen — with one body dragged through a Gaza City neighborhood by motorcycle and another left for crowds to gawk over in a traffic circle — highlighted the pathetic plight of collaborators, pawns preyed on by both sides in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Fadel lived poor and died poor,” said his cousin Ahmed Shalouf, 28. “They left the bodies for a few hours in the streets, people spitting on them, throwing stones. They did not execute only Fadel. They executed all of us.”

For Israel, despite its advanced technology for tracking terrorists, human sources remain an essential intelligence tool that allows for pinpoint strikes like the one that felled Ahmed al-Jabari, operations commander of Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigades, at the start of the recent escalation. To Hamas, they are the enemy within, and vigorous prosecution as well as the occasional high-profile lynching are powerful psychological tools to enforce loyalty and squelch dissent.

Former intelligence officials and experts on the phenomenon said many collaborators are struggling souls who are blackmailed into service by an Israeli government with great leverage over their lives. Some are enlisted when they apply for permits to seek medical treatment in Israel, for example, or in exchange for better conditions or early release from Israeli jails. Others are threatened with having behavior shunned in their religious Islamic communities — alcohol use, perhaps, or adultery — exposed.

“There is no substitute to a human source, because a human source goes into their house, sometimes even into their minds,” said Yaakov Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. “With all the technology — drones, you name it — you need a background, and you need the assistance from a human source.”

Mr. Peri said Palestinian collaborators might be given money for expenses or a small salary, but “you’ll never be a rich guy.”

Hillel Cohen, a research fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who has written two books on the subject, said some Gaza collaborators “do it just for some money” and “some to be part of a big story”; few are actually supportive of Israel, he said, but many have problems with Hamas.

“I interviewed a lot of collaborators, and they have a kind of inferiority complex,” Mr. Cohen explained. “They see the West, Israel, as much better than the Arab. I hear expressions like, ‘We’re worth nothing.’ Sometimes it comes from there, and sometimes it’s part of what the Israeli officers put in their minds.”

Collaboration has underpinned Israeli-Palestinian relations since before there was a modern state of Israel, dating back at least to the Jewish underground that operated during the British Mandate era in the 1930s. The Oslo Accords signed by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in 1994 even made two villages — one in Gaza, one in the West Bank — safe refuges for about 1,500 Bedouins suspected of spying.

The very definition of collaboration has expanded in recent years. Some in Hamas and more militant groups consider the Palestinian Authority to be aiding the enemy when it coordinates security services in the West Bank with Israel. Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 after winning elections, members of the rival Fatah faction who live here have almost universally been under suspicion. Selling land to Jews can be punishable by death.

Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza, and Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem.

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Chris Brown Returns To Twitter, Instragrams Photo Of Scantily Clad Rihanna

Breezy’s back with a bang.

Chris Brown has returned to Twitter, after deleting his account last Sunday following an expletive-laced online fight with comedian Jenny Johnson.

PLAY IT NOW: Rihanna Discusses Her Fashion Sense & Tattoos

While the “Don’t Wake Me Up” singer still boasts 7.7 million followers, he has yet to grace the Twittersphere with a post since reactivating his account on Saturday.

However, the 23-year-old has been active on his Instragram account (with a handle we can’t repeat – you’ve been warned!), posting a photo of himself smoking, while a scantily clad Rihanna lays next to him with the caption, “What would music today sound like if these kids didn’t exist?”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Rihanna: Burning Up The Stage!

Rihanna hasn’t been shy about sharing photos of Chris either.

In the last week she’s posted multiple photos of her seemingly-on-again beau – one with Chris lying shirtless on a bed, as well as a shot of her hugging the singer with the caption, “I don’t wanna leave! Killed it tonight baby!!!”

Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Chris Brown

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Romo sets TD mark as Cowboys beat Eagles, 38-33

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Tony Romo had three touchdown passes and broke Troy Aikman's career franchise record. The Dallas Cowboys needed all of them to stay alive for what really made the three-time Super Bowl winner famous: the playoffs.

All three of Romo's scoring tosses came in the second half and offset strong games from Philadelphia's rookie duo of Bryce Brown and Nick Foles, and the Eagles dropped their eighth straight game with a 38-33 loss Sunday night.

The Cowboys (6-6) trailed 27-24 when Romo led an 86-yard drive that was sparked by a 35-yard pass to Dez Bryant on third down. Bryant gave Dallas the lead when took a screen pass from the 6 and got inside the pylon with 5:40 remaining.

"It's about winning games," Romo said. "We desperately had to have this win tonight, and our team fought like heck to get a win."

Romo broke Aikman's record with his 166th touchdown pass in the third quarter, when Bryant took a short pass after a scramble by Romo and weaved through the Philadelphia defense for a 23-yard score.

"He made a lot of good throws, different kinds of throws in the ballgame," Dallas coach Jason Garrett said.

The Eagles' slide continued despite 169 yards rushing and two touchdowns from Brown a week after he set a team rookie record with 178 yards on the ground.

After Romo's go-ahead touchdown pass, Dallas went up by 11 when Morris Claiborne returned a fumble by Brown 50 yards for a touchdown.

Brown's fumble snapped a streak of eight straight scoring drives by both teams. It was the second straight week that he mixed big runs with critical fumbles after losing the ball twice in last week's loss to Carolina.

Philadelphia (3-9) had a chance for an improbable rally when Damaris Johnson returned a punt 98 yards with 31 seconds left. After a failed 2-point conversion, the Cowboys recovered the onside kick and ran out the clock.

Foles, making his third start in Michael Vick's place, led the Eagles to a 27-24 lead early in the fourth quarter on a 43-yard field goal by Alex Henery, who now has the longest current field goal streak at 21 after Cleveland's Phil Dawson had a kick blocked Sunday.

Romo had another response, and ended up completing all 10 passes in the second half and his last 12 overall. He was 22 of 27 for 303 yards with no interceptions and a passer rating of 150.5.

Dallas running back DeMarco Murray, who started after missing six games with a sprained right foot, finished with 83 yards and a touchdown.

Brown, who started his first game since high school when he filled in for LeSean McCoy last week, went in untouched on both of his scoring plays in the first half. He scooted around the left side for a 7-0 lead and trotted through a big hole up the middle to make it 14-3 midway through the second quarter.

Vick and McCoy are sidelined by concussions.

Philadelphia was in front after the first quarter for the first time all season, but Dan Bailey got the Cowboys on the board with a 39-yard field goal early in the second. DeMarco Murray's 1-yard touchdown run trimmed the Eagles' lead to 14-10 with 41 seconds left in the half.

Romo overcame a holding penalty and an 8-yard loss when Kevin Ogletree fumbled a handoff on a reverse by completing third-down passes to Jason Witten, Bryant and Miles Austin. Romo then found Witten all alone in the middle of the field for 28 yards to the 1, setting up Murray's score.

The Eagles answered by driving 52 yards in 35 seconds to a 43-yard field goal by Henery on the last play of the half. Foles completed a 29-yard pass to Jason Avant to get the Eagles in scoring range.

Brown got Philadelphia's first scoring drive going with a 42-yard run up the middle and finished it with a 10-yard run.

Trailing 7-3 early the second quarter, the Cowboys went three and out after a third-down completion from Romo to Witten was overturned on a challenge by Eagles coach Andy Reid. Replay showed the ball hitting the turf as Witten grabbed it.

Two plays later, Brown went 39 yards down the sideline and later scored from 5 yards out.

The Cowboys welcomed Murray back by running him three straight times to start the game after calling 52 straight pass plays from the second quarter to the end of a Thanksgiving loss to Washington. The first time Murray went to the sideline, Romo was sacked by Brandon Graham on third-and-3.

After the first Philadelphia touchdown, the Cowboys drove down the field for Bailey's field goal. Romo found Witten for 11 yards on third-and-10 and escaped pressure to complete a pass to Cole Beasley for 13 yards to the Eagles 41. Romo also had a 15-yard scramble.

Not only did Dallas get Murray back, but the offensive line was closer to full strength. Center Ryan Cook returned after missing time with a knee injury, which allowed Mackenzy Bernadeau to return to guard after two starts at center.

NOTES: The Cowboys snapped an eight-game losing streak on Sunday night. ... Foles' first two career TD passes were against Dallas, and both were to Riley Cooper. ... Heisman Trophy contender Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M watched the game from a suite. His next game will be at Cowboys Stadium, against Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 4.

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Call That Kept Nursing Home Patients in Sandy’s Path

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Workers were shocked that nursing and adult homes in areas like Rockaway Park, Queens, weren’t evacuated.

Hurricane Sandy was swirling northward, four days before landfall, and at the Sea Crest Health Care Center, a nursing home overlooking the Coney Island Boardwalk in Brooklyn, workers were gathering medicines and other supplies as they prepared to evacuate.

Then the call came from health officials: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, acting on the advice of his aides and those of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, recommended that nursing homes and adult homes stay put. The 305 residents would ride out the storm.

The same advisory also took administrators by surprise at the Ocean Promenade nursing home, which faces the Atlantic Ocean in Queens. They canceled plans to move 105 residents to safety.

“No one gets why we weren’t evacuated,” said a worker there, Yisroel Tabi. “We wouldn’t have exposed ourselves to dealing with that situation.”

The recommendation that thousands of elderly, disabled and mentally ill residents remain in more than 40 nursing homes and adult homes in flood-prone areas of New York City had calamitous consequences.

At least 29 facilities in Queens and Brooklyn were severely flooded. Generators failed or were absent. Buildings were plunged into a cold, wet darkness, with no access to power, water, heat and food.

While no immediate deaths were reported, it took at least three days for the Fire Department, the National Guard and ambulance crews from around the country to rescue over 4,000 nursing home and 1,500 adult home residents. Without working elevators, many had to be carried down slippery stairwells.

“I was shocked,” said Greg Levow, who works for an ambulance service and helped rescue residents at Queens. “I couldn’t understand why they were there in the first place.”

Many sat for hours in ambulances and buses before being transported to safety through sand drifts and debris-filled floodwaters. They went to crowded shelters and nursing homes as far away as Albany, where for days, they often lacked medical charts and medications. Families struggled to locate relatives.

The decision not to empty the nursing homes and adult homes in the mandatory evacuation area was one of the most questionable by the authorities during Hurricane Sandy. And an investigation by The New York Times found that the impact was worsened by missteps that officials made in not ensuring that these facilities could protect residents.

They did not require that nursing homes maintain backup generators that could withstand flooding. They did not ensure that health care administrators could adequately communicate with government agencies during and after a storm. And they discounted the more severe of the early predictions about Hurricane Sandy’s surge.

The Times’s investigation was based on interviews with officials, health care administrators, doctors, nurses, ambulance medics, residents, family members and disaster experts. It included a review of internal State Health Department status reports. The findings revealed the striking vulnerability of the city’s nursing and adult homes.

On Sunday, Oct. 28, the day before Hurricane Sandy arrived, Mr. Bloomberg ordered a mandatory evacuation in Zone A, the low-lying neighborhoods of the city. But by that point, Mr. Bloomberg, relying on the advice of the city and state health commissioners, had already determined that people in nursing homes and adult homes should not leave, officials said.

The mayor’s recommendations that health care facilities not evacuate startled residents of Surf Manor adult home in Coney Island, said one of them, Norman Bloomfield. He recalled that another resident exclaimed, “What about us! Why’s he telling us to stay?”

The commissioners made the recommendation to Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo because they said they believed that the inherent risks of transporting the residents outweighed the potential dangers from the storm.

In interviews, senior Bloomberg and Cuomo aides did not express regret for keeping the residents in place.

“I would defend all the decisions and the actions” by the health authorities involving the storm, said Linda I. Gibbs, a deputy mayor. “I feel like I’m describing something that was a remarkable, lifesaving event.”

Dr. Nirav R. Shah, the state health commissioner, who regulates nursing homes, said: “I’m not even thinking of second-guessing the decisions.”

Still, officials in New Jersey and in Nassau County adopted a different policy, evacuating nursing homes in coastal areas well before the storm.

Contradictory Forecasts

The city’s experience with Tropical Storm Irene last year weighed heavily on state and city health officials and contributed to their underestimating the impact of Hurricane Sandy, according to records and interviews.

Before Tropical Storm Irene, the officials ordered nursing homes and adult homes to evacuate. The storm caused relatively minor damage, but the evacuation led to millions of dollars in health care, transportation, housing and other costs, and took a toll on residents.

As a result, when Hurricane Sandy loomed, the officials were acutely aware that they could come under criticism if they ordered another evacuation that proved unnecessary.

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A Spate of Rebranding for Spanish-Language Television

It’s a race to be the best of the second best. On Monday, Univision, the dominant Spanish-language network in the United States, will announce a new name and look for its second-largest network, TeleFutura. The move is a direct shot at Telemundo, a rival for second place among domestic Spanish-speaking viewers.

RTI Colombia

A scene from the new show “Quien Eres Tu” on Univision’s newly named UniMás network.

Telemundo

Telemundo’s redesigned “T” logo.

John Van Beekum for The New York Times

"We have been focused on making TeleFutura the undisputed No. 2 Spanish-language network in the U.S. behind Univision,” said Cesar Conde, the president of Univision Networks.

The new name for the network will be UniMás. The network will offer new content and a consumer marketing campaign aimed at a younger, male Latino demographic. The rebranding of TeleFutura is also the latest effort from Univision to connect all of its properties under the Univision brand. The moves will be announced at an industry event in New York City on Monday, and the revamped network will make its debut on Jan. 7.

“We have been focused on making TeleFutura the undisputed No. 2 Spanish-language network in the U.S. behind Univision,” César Conde, the president of Univision Networks, said in an interview. “This new brand positioning is going to really identify and connect UniMás with the main mother ship brand of Univision.”

The rebranding of TeleFutura is just one of many Spanish-language television changes this year.

Many of the efforts may appear to be geared toward consumers, but they are also an attempt by the networks to attract dollars from advertisers wanting to cater to the growing Hispanic marketplace.

“Media companies are being forced to change because audience behavior is changing pretty radically,” said Karl Heiselman, the chief executive at Wolff Olins, the advertising agency that worked with Univision on a redesigh of its tulip logo, unveiled in October. “The Hispanic market is not the old stereotype of the past at all. It’s incredibly young and tech savvy.”

The Univision parent company presented a refreshed three-dimensional version of the green, blue, red and purple tulip logo, along with a new tag line “The Hispanic Heartbeat of America.”

“There was a huge opportunity for Univision to tell a more relevant contemporary story, not only to their audience but to a new audience and to their advertisers,” said Jordan Crane, a creative director at Wolff Olins. “When it was first done, the world was more flat. Now we have so many different platforms that this identity has to live on.”

In November, Univision announced a new logo for its Galavisión unit to celebrate that network’s 33rd anniversary. The new logo included a line underneath clearly identifying Galavisión as “A Univision Network” and connecting it further to the parent company. The new logo was designed by PMcD Design and featured an orange “G” and the tagline in gray.

At Advertising Week this fall, Telemundo announced a major rebranding effort of its own, including a new fire-red “T” logo that replaced its 11-year old blue “T” logo. The network, owned by NBCUniversal, will start the campaign this month with marketing initiatives including commercials featuring network personalities. The ads will run on networks like A&E, Bravo, CNBC, Lifetime and MTV. The network’s morning show, “Un Nuevo Dia,” will be live from Times Square on Dec. 10.

“It is the year of the brands in the Hispanic space,” said Jacqueline Hernández, the chief operating officer for Telemundo. “When you’re doing a brand refresh, your goal is to keep, maintain and attract.”

The new campaign, created by the DixonBaxi Creative Agency, features bold hues of yellow, purple, blue and red and centers on the Spanish word “te,” the informal pronoun for “you,” with phrases like “Te sorprende” and “Te informa” (It surprises you. It informs you).

But despite all of UniVision’s branding efforts, content is still king. And while Univision attracts a significant portion of domestic Spanish-language television viewers, TeleFutura will have some catching up to do if it expects to compete with Telemundo. According to data from Nielsen, from Sept. 24 through Nov. 25, Univision averaged 3.7 million viewers in prime time, Telemundo had 1.2 million viewers and TeleFutura had 710,000.

Univision hopes to counter that momentum by striking content partnerships that hit close to Telemundo’s turf, including a multiyear agreement with the Colombian production company Caracol Televisión, which at the end of this year will cease to offer Telemundo first right of refusal on content.

Univision will also benefit from a new agreement with RTI Colombia, which distributes content through the Univision partner Televisa. Telemundo owns a 40 percent share in RTI, but new shows including “Quien Eres Tú” (Who are you?), from RTI, and “Made in Cartagena,” from Caracol, will make their debut on UniMás. A third dramatic series, a boxing-themed show called “Cloroformo” from Televisa, is also part of the new production slate.

While the network is setting its sights on edgier, alternative content, many of the shows will still feature the essential ingredient in many Spanish-language series: romance.

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