DealBook: Hormel to Buy Skippy Peanut Butter

The Hormel Foods Corporation said on Thursday that it had agreed to buy the Skippy peanut butter business from Unilever for $700 million.

Unilever, the British-Dutch food and consumer products giant, announced in October that it was considering selling Skippy, the No. 2 peanut butter brand in the United States, behind J.M. Smucker’s Jif. Skippy has annual sales of roughly $370 million, with $100 million of that coming from outside the United States. It is the leading peanut butter brand in China.

It is the biggest acquisition by Hormel, known primarily for its fresh, cured, smoked and frozen meats. Nonfrozen grocery products account for 14 percent of its annual revenue, according to Thomson Reuters data. Its brands include Chi-Chi’s, Dinty Moore, El Torito and perhaps its best known, Spam.

The last big purchase by Hormel, based in Austin, Minn., was its $334 million acquisition of the Turkey Store Company in 2001, according to Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ data. The company said it expected that the Skippy acquisition would add 13 to 17 cents to earnings per share in its 2014 fiscal year.

The acquisition includes Unilever’s Skippy production plants in Little Rock, Ark., and in Weifang, China, Unilever said in a statement.

Jeffrey M. Ettinger, chief executive of Hormel, said in a statement: “The acquisition of the Skippy peanut butter business represents a significant opportunity for Hormel Foods. It allows us to grow our branded presence in the center of the store with a nonmeat protein product and it reinforces our balanced portfolio.”

Unilever has a huge portfolio of food and household goods brands, including Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap and Lipton and PG Tips teas. It has shed brands in North America and Europe to focus on faster-growing emerging markets, which now account for more than half the conglomerate’s sales.

Barclays is advising Hormel Foods.

Lazard and the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore advised Unilever.

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IHT Rendezvous: Hoping to End Decades-long Kurdish Conflict, Turkey Calls on Archenemy

LONDON — Turkish intelligence agents have been making the short hop from Istanbul across the Sea of Marmara to the prison Island of Imrali in recent weeks for talks with a jailed Kurdish separatist leader who was once Turkey’s most wanted man.

Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the P.K.K., has been languishing on Imrali since he was captured in Nairobi, Kenya in 1999 while on the run. He is serving a life term after a death sentence was commuted.

Now the Turkish government wants his help to end a resurgent war with P.K.K. rebels that has claimed around 900 lives in the last year and a half.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, revealed the dialog last week when he told state-run TRT television, “I cannot hold such meetings myself as a politician but the state has agents and they do.”

In an acknowledgement that the latest escalation in a three-decade battle against the Kurdish insurgents was probably unwinnable, Yalcin Akdogan, a senior adviser to Mr. Erdogan, said this week that the talks were aimed at persuading the P.K.K. to disarm.

“The government supports any dialog to this end that could result in a halt to violence,” Mr. Akdogan said in a television interview. “You cannot get results and abolish an organization only with armed struggle.”

The strategy of seeking a deal with the P.K.K. has implications for Turkey’s policy in neighboring Syria, where Kurdish militants linked to the organization have taken over territory vacated by retreating government forces.

Turkey “fears that an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would become a haven for Kurdish militants to carry out cross-border attacks in the Kurdish areas in southeastern Turkey,” my colleague Tim Arango wrote recently in a report from the border region.

Tensions over Syria and the Kurdish issue have also led to a souring of Turkey’s relations with Iran and the Iraqi government in Baghdad, as Ankara struggled to cope with the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring.

There is a question mark over how much authority the jailed Mr. Ocalan has over the P.K.K. leadership, which is based in the Qandil mountains in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. “He remains a figure of symbolic importance,” Mr. Akdogan said of the P.K.K. founder. “But we still have to wait and see how Qandil will react.”

Mr. Ocalan’s capture in 1999 was a cause of national celebration among Turks after the worst years of a war that has cost 40,000 lives, including those of Turkish and Kurdish civilians. The P.K.K. is regarded as a terrorist organization by, among others, the United States and the European Union.

However, the Turkish authorities have not shrunk from dealing with Mr. Ocalan in the past to intervene in Kurdish matters.

In November, he saved the authorities from an escalating crisis that threatened to worsen tensions with the Kurds by calling on hundreds of his imprisoned supporters to halt a two-month hunger strike. The protesters had been demanding an end to Mr. Ocalan’s isolation and improved rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which makes up 20 percent of its population.

Andrew Finkel wrote in the IHT’s Global Views opinion section that the intervention signaled the resumption of Mr. Ocalan’s career.

Mr. Ocalan is now reportedly demanding direct contact with the P.K.K.’s leadership and improved prison conditions as the price for his cooperation in persuading the militants to lay down their arms.

Some observers have cast doubt on the government’s strategy of dealing with Mr. Ocalan while failing to carry out reforms in favor of the country’s Kurdish minority.

David Rohde wrote in a Rendezvous article at the weekend that more than 10,000 Kurds were imprisoned in Turkey on various terrorism charges.

According to Hugh Pope, project director of the International Crisis Group in Turkey, the government of Mr. Erdogan is putting the cart before the horse. “They need to find a Kurdish settlement first before cutting a deal with the P.K.K.,” he told Rendezvous from Istanbul.

That would include instituting promised reforms that would give equality to Turkey’s Kurdish citizens, including the right to a Kurdish-language education.

“The P.K.K. wants to do a deal and obviously Ocalan is desperate to get out of jail,” Mr. Pope said. “He may be an essential ingredient but he’s not the magic key.”

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Tech Giants, Learning the Ways of Washington, Brace for More Scrutiny

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Nadine Wolf demonstrated against online piracy legislation a year ago in New York. The measures were defeated.

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley lobbied hard in Washington in 2012, and despite some friction with regulators, fared fairly well. In 2013, though, government scrutiny is likely to grow. And with this scrutiny will come even greater efforts by the tech industry to press its case in the nation’s capital and overseas.

In 2012, among other victories, the industry staved off calls for federal consumer privacy legislation and successfully pushed for a revamp of an obscure law that had placed strict privacy protections on Americans’ video rental records. It also helped achieve a stalemate on a proposed global effort to let Web users limit behavioral tracking online, using Do Not Track browser settings.

But this year is likely to put that issue in the spotlight again, and bring intense negotiations between industry and consumer rights groups over whether and how to allow consumers to limit tracking.

Congress is likely to revisit online security legislation — meant to safeguard critical infrastructure from attack — that failed last year. And a looming question for Web giants will be who takes the reins of the Federal Trade Commission, the industry’s main regulator, this year. David C. Vladeck, the director of the commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, has resigned, and there have been suggestions that its chairman, Jon Leibowitz, would step down.

The agency is investigating Google over possible antitrust violations and will subject Facebook to audits of its privacy policy for the next 20 years. Its next steps could serve as a bellwether of how aggressively the commission will take on Web companies in the second Obama administration.

“Now that the election is over, Silicon Valley companies each are thinking through their strategy for the second Obama administration,” said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and a former White House privacy official. “The F.T.C. will have a new Democratic chairman. A priority for tech companies will be to discern the new chair’s own priorities.”

In early 2012, an unusual burst of lobbying by tech companies helped defeat antipiracy bills, which had been backed by the entertainment industry. Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Google feared that the bills would force them to police the Internet.

At the end of the year, Silicon Valley also got its way when the Obama administration stood up against a proposed global treaty that would have given government authorities greater control over the Web.

The key to the industry’s successes in 2012 was simple: it expanded its footprint in Washington just as Washington began to pay closer attention to how technology companies affect consumers. “Privacy and security became top-tier important policy issues in Washington in 2012,” said David A. Hoffman, director of security policy and global privacy officer at Intel.

“Industry has realized it is important to be engaged,” he continued, “to make sure government stakeholders are fully informed and educated about the role that new technology plays and to make sure any action taken doesn’t unnecessarily burden the innovation economy while still protecting individual trust in new technology.”

At the end of 2012, tech companies were on track to have spent record amounts on lobbying for the year. In the first three quarters, they spent close to $100 million, which meant that they were likely to surpass the $127 million they spent on lobbying in 2011, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based nonpartisan group that tracks corporate spending. Even the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz hired a lobbyist in Washington: Adrian Fenty, a former mayor of the city.

Technology executives and investors also made generous contributions in the 2012 presidential race, luring both President Obama and Mitt Romney to Northern California for fund-raisers and nudging them to speak out on issues like immigration overhaul and lower tax rates.

In a blog post in November, the center said Silicon Valley’s lobbying expenditures have ballooned in recent years, even as spending by other industries has fallen.

Facebook more than doubled its lobbying outlay in the year, reporting close to $2.6 million through the third quarter of 2012. Google spent more than any other company in the industry, doling out more than $13 million in the same period and more than double its nearest competitor, Microsoft, which spent just over $5.6 million in the same period.

Among Google’s advocates on Capitol Hill is a former Republican congresswoman, Susan Molinari, who heads Google’s office in Washington.

Google has particular reason to be engaged. It faces a wide-reaching antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, just as Microsoft did a decade ago. At issue is whether Google’s search engine results favor Google products over its rivals’.

Although the agency was ready to settle that case before the holidays, without harsh remedies, late last month it shelved the inquiry and put stronger penalties back in play. A resolution is expected in January.

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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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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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Tax Deal’s Passage Ends Latest Standoff

WASHINGTON — Ending a climactic fiscal showdown in the final hours of the 112th Congress, the House late Tuesday passed and sent to President Obama legislation to avert big income tax increases on most Americans and prevent large cuts in spending for the Pentagon and other government programs.

The measure, brought to the House floor less than 24 hours after its passage in the Senate, was approved 257 to 167, with 85 Republicans joining 172 Democrats in voting to allow income taxes to rise for the first time in two decades, in this case for the highest-earning Americans. Voting no were 151 Republicans and 16 Democrats.

The bill was expected to be signed quickly by Mr. Obama, who won re-election on a promise to increase taxes on the wealthy.

Mr. Obama strode into the White House briefing room shortly after the vote, less to hail the end of the fiscal crisis than to lay out a marker for the next one. “The one thing that I think, hopefully, the new year will focus on,” he said, “is seeing if we can put a package like this together with a little bit less drama, a little less brinkmanship, and not scare the heck out of folks quite as much.”

In approving the measure after days of legislative intrigue, Congress concluded its final and most pitched fight over fiscal policy, the culmination of two years of battles over taxes, the federal debt, spending and what to do to slow the growth in popular social programs like Medicare.

The decision by Republican leaders to allow the vote came despite widespread scorn among House Republicans for the bill, passed overwhelmingly by the Senate in the early hours of New Year’s Day. They were unhappy that it did not include significant spending cuts in health and other social programs, which they say are essential to any long-term solution to the nation’s debt.

Democrats, while hardly placated by the compromise, celebrated Mr. Obama’s nominal victory in his final showdown with House Republicans in the 112th Congress, who began their term emboldened by scores of new, conservative members whose reach to the right ultimately tipped them over.

“The American people are the real winners tonight,” Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said on the House floor, “not anyone who navigates these halls.”

Not a single leader among House Republicans came to the floor to speak in favor of the bill, though Speaker John A. Boehner, who rarely takes part in roll calls, voted in favor. Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the No. 3 Republican, voted no. Representative Paul D. Ryan, the budget chairman who was the Republican vice-presidential candidate, supported the bill.

Despite the party divisions, many Republicans in their remarks characterized the measure, which allows taxes to go up on household income over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples but makes permanent tax cuts for income below that level, as a victory of sorts, even as so many of them declined to vote for it.

“After more than a decade of criticizing these tax cuts,” said Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, “Democrats are finally joining Republicans in making them permanent. Republicans and the American people are getting something really important, permanent tax relief.”

The dynamic with the House was a near replay of a fight at the end of 2011 over a payroll tax break extension. In that showdown, Senate Democrats and Republicans passed legislation, and while House Republicans fulminated, they were eventually forced to swallow it.

On Tuesday, as they got a detailed look at the Senate’s fiscal legislation, House Republicans ranging from Midwest pragmatists to Tea Party-blessed conservatives voiced serious reservations about the measure, emerging from a lunchtime New Year’s Day meeting with their leaders, eyes flashing and faces grim, insisting they would not accept a bill without substantial savings from cuts.

The unrest reached to the highest levels as Mr. Cantor told members in a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol that he could not support the legislation in its current form.

Mr. Boehner, who faces a re-election vote on his post on Thursday when the 113th Congress convenes, had grave concerns as well, but he had pledged to allow the House to consider any legislation that cleared the Senate. And he was not eager to have such a major piece of legislation pass with mainly opposition votes, and the outcome could be seen as undermining his authority.

Robert Pear and Peter Baker contributed reporting.

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In Hong Kong, Rival Protests Are Divided Over LeaderIn Hong Kong, Rival Protests Are Divided Over Leader

HONG KONG — Thousands of demonstrators in rival marches crowded through Hong Kong’s main shopping district on Tuesday to praise or condemn the city’s chief executive, who appears to retain the confidence of leaders in Beijing despite a series of controversies at home.

The New Year’s Day marches underlined deep political divisions in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous territory that Britain returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Critics of the chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, accuse him of misleading the public on a controversial real estate issue, and of being a puppet installed by Beijing. Many of his critics also favor greater democracy for Hong Kong, where the chief executive is now chosen by a 1,200-member panel packed with Beijing loyalists; the general public elects half the legislature, while the other half is chosen by business leaders and other groups that also tend to follow Beijing’s wishes.

Mr. Leung’s backers, mainly organized by groups with lavish financial support from Beijing, contend that he is beginning to address deep-seated social issues here. They also tend to suggest that democracy is a Western concept that may not be compatible with local culture or with rapid economic development.

Supporters of Mr. Leung roughed up two local journalists at a separate rally on Sunday; many Beijing loyalists accuse Hong Kong journalists of being biased in favor of democracy. But the marches on Tuesday were largely peaceful. Organizers of the follow-up march in favor of Mr. Leung on Tuesday estimated their crowd at 60,000 people, while the police put the number at only 8,000. Demonstrators seeking Mr. Leung’s resignation were more numerous, with organizers estimating their ranks at 130,000, while the police estimated 17,000.

Mr. Leung, who took office as chief executive on July 1, has faced heavy criticism for concealing during last winter’s election campaign that he had secretly expanded his $64 million home without receiving government planning permission or paying real estate fees due on the expansion.

Mr. Leung has been widely accused of hypocrisy because he won the election partly by criticizing his opponent, Henry Tang, for the unauthorized construction of a huge basement under a villa owned by Mr. Tang’s wife. That construction was also done without government planning permission, which is difficult to obtain, and without making a large payment to the government, which owns virtually all the land in Hong Kong and collects hefty lease payments based mainly on the square footage of developments.

Mr. Leung apologized this autumn for concealing his construction — he even built a false wall to hide his extension right before running for the territory’s top office. But he pointed out that he had not addressed his own compliance with Hong Kong real estate laws during the campaign.

“In fact, in my memory, I did not say I had no illegal structure,” he told the legislature.

Many Hong Kong residents blame growing immigration and tourism from mainland China for driving housing prices to unaffordable levels, causing overcrowding in local schools and making it hard for young people to find jobs. Mr. Leung has addressed these issues in his first six months in office by imposing steep taxes this autumn on short-term real estate investments by anyone who is not a permanent resident. He has also banned local hospitals, starting on New Year’s Day, from scheduling any more births for mainland mothers.

Continued support for Mr. Leung from Beijing makes it unlikely that he will be forced to resign. When the legislature took up a no-confidence measure three weeks ago, a majority of the lawmakers elected by the general public voted against Mr. Leung, but a majority of lawmakers representing business leaders and other social groups supported him. To pass, a majority of both groups was required.

In separate meetings with Mr. Leung nearly two weeks ago in Beijing, President Hu Jintao of China and Xi Jinping, who became the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party in November and is slated to become China’s next president in March, each said separately that they “affirm” support for Mr. Leung and his administration.

“You have a heavy workload and it is exhausting,” Mr. Xi said. “The central government affirms your work.”

Sprinkled among the protesters against Mr. Leung were a few people carrying the colonial Hong Kong flag that flew over the city during British rule. Beijing officials have asked Hong Kong residents not to display the flag, which they regard as a symbol of past foreign domination and humiliation of China.

Steveny Chan, a young woman who identified herself only as an office worker and carried a roughly 3-foot by 2-foot colonial flag, said that she did not favor the return of Hong Kong to British rule. She said that she was displaying the flag as a nostalgic symbol of a time when the Hong Kong economy seemed to offer more opportunities for young people, and when the people of Hong Kong seemed to enjoy growing autonomy to decide their own fates.

“We’re missing the golden old days of Hong Kong,” she said.

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: How to Cut a LinkedIn Connection

I accepted a LinkedIn invitation from someone who looked like a good professional contact, but has just been spamming me with messages. How do I get rid of this person?

Although the LinkedIn social-networking site skews more toward people looking to make business connections, it can still suffer from the same annoyances that plague Facebook, Twitter, and other services. If you need to dump someone you have connected with on the site, start by logging into your LinkedIn account on the Web.

At the top of your profile page, click the Contacts link. On the right side of the Contacts page, click Remove Connections. When your list of LinkedIn contacts appears, turn on the checkbox next to the name or names of the people you wish to remove. Click the Remove Connection button. Your newly severed connection is not notified that you have parted ways.

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Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hispanic women in the United States, who have generally had the highest fertility rates in the country, are choosing to have fewer children. Both immigrant and native-born Latinas had steeper birthrate declines from 2007 to 2010 than other groups, including non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians, a drop some demographers and sociologists attribute to changes in the views of many Hispanic women about motherhood.

As a result, in 2011, the American birthrate hit a record low, with 63 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, led by the decline in births to immigrant women. The national birthrate is now about half what it was during the baby boom years, when it peaked in 1957 at 122.7 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The decline in birthrates was steepest among Mexican-American women and women who immigrated from Mexico, at 25.7 percent. This has reversed a trend in which immigrant mothers accounted for a rising share of births in the United States, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Center. In 2010, birthrates among all Hispanics reached their lowest level in 20 years, the center found.

The sudden drop-off, which coincided with the onset of the recession, suggests that attitudes have changed since the days when older generations of Latinos prized large families and more closely followed Roman Catholic teachings, which forbid artificial contraception.

Interviews with young Latinas, as well as reproductive health experts, show that the reasons for deciding to have fewer children are many, involving greater access to information about contraceptives and women’s health, as well as higher education.

When Marucci Guzman decided to marry Tom Beard here seven years ago, the idea of having a large family — a Guzman tradition back in Puerto Rico — was out of the question.

“We thought one, maybe two,” said Ms. Guzman Beard, who gave birth to a daughter, Attalai, four years ago.

Asked whether Attalai might ever get her wish for a little brother or sister, Ms. Guzman Beard, 29, a vice president at a public service organization, said: “I want to go to law school. I’m married. I work. When do I have time?”

The decisions were not made in a vacuum but amid a sputtering economy, which, interviewees said, weighed heavily on their minds.

Latinos suffered larger percentage declines in household wealth than white, black or Asian households from 2005 to 2009, and, according to the Pew report, their rates of poverty and unemployment also grew more sharply after the recession began.

Prolonged recessions do produce dips in the birthrate, but a drop as large as Latinos have experienced is atypical, said William H. Frey, a sociologist and demographer at the Brookings Institution. “It is surprising,” Mr. Frey said. “When you hear about a decrease in the birthrate, you don’t expect Latinos to be at the forefront of the trend.”

D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report, said that in past recessions, when overall fertility dipped, “it bounced back over time when the economy got better.”

“If history repeats itself, that will happen again,” she said.

But to Mr. Frey, the decrease has signaled much about the aspirations of young Latinos to become full and permanent members of the upwardly mobile middle class, despite the challenges posed by the struggling economy.

Jersey Garcia, a 37-year-old public health worker in Miami, is in the first generation of her family to live permanently outside of the Dominican Republic, where her maternal and paternal grandmothers had a total of 27 children.

“I have two right now,” Ms. Garcia said. “It’s just a good number that I can handle.”

“Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more,” she added. “I think living in the United States, I don’t have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now.”

But that has not been easy. Even with health insurance, Ms. Garcia’s preferred method of long-term birth control, an IUD, has been unaffordable. Birth control pills, too, with a $50 co-payment a month, were too costly for her budget. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing is condoms.”

According to research by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the overwhelming majority of Latinas have used contraception at some point in their lives, but they face economic barriers to consistent use. As a consequence, Latinas still experience unintended pregnancy at a rate higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to the institute.

And while the share of births to teenage mothers has dropped over the past two decades for all women, the highest share of births to teenage mothers is among native-born Hispanics.

“There are still a lot of barriers to information and access to contraception that exist,” said Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas, 36, the executive director of the institute, who has one son. “We still need to do a lot of work.”

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Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hispanic women in the United States, who have generally had the highest fertility rates in the country, are choosing to have fewer children. Both immigrant and native-born Latinas had steeper birthrate declines from 2007 to 2010 than other groups, including non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians, a drop some demographers and sociologists attribute to changes in the views of many Hispanic women about motherhood.

As a result, in 2011, the American birthrate hit a record low, with 63 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, led by the decline in births to immigrant women. The national birthrate is now about half what it was during the baby boom years, when it peaked in 1957 at 122.7 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The decline in birthrates was steepest among Mexican-American women and women who immigrated from Mexico, at 25.7 percent. This has reversed a trend in which immigrant mothers accounted for a rising share of births in the United States, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Center. In 2010, birthrates among all Hispanics reached their lowest level in 20 years, the center found.

The sudden drop-off, which coincided with the onset of the recession, suggests that attitudes have changed since the days when older generations of Latinos prized large families and more closely followed Roman Catholic teachings, which forbid artificial contraception.

Interviews with young Latinas, as well as reproductive health experts, show that the reasons for deciding to have fewer children are many, involving greater access to information about contraceptives and women’s health, as well as higher education.

When Marucci Guzman decided to marry Tom Beard here seven years ago, the idea of having a large family — a Guzman tradition back in Puerto Rico — was out of the question.

“We thought one, maybe two,” said Ms. Guzman Beard, who gave birth to a daughter, Attalai, four years ago.

Asked whether Attalai might ever get her wish for a little brother or sister, Ms. Guzman Beard, 29, a vice president at a public service organization, said: “I want to go to law school. I’m married. I work. When do I have time?”

The decisions were not made in a vacuum but amid a sputtering economy, which, interviewees said, weighed heavily on their minds.

Latinos suffered larger percentage declines in household wealth than white, black or Asian households from 2005 to 2009, and, according to the Pew report, their rates of poverty and unemployment also grew more sharply after the recession began.

Prolonged recessions do produce dips in the birthrate, but a drop as large as Latinos have experienced is atypical, said William H. Frey, a sociologist and demographer at the Brookings Institution. “It is surprising,” Mr. Frey said. “When you hear about a decrease in the birthrate, you don’t expect Latinos to be at the forefront of the trend.”

D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report, said that in past recessions, when overall fertility dipped, “it bounced back over time when the economy got better.”

“If history repeats itself, that will happen again,” she said.

But to Mr. Frey, the decrease has signaled much about the aspirations of young Latinos to become full and permanent members of the upwardly mobile middle class, despite the challenges posed by the struggling economy.

Jersey Garcia, a 37-year-old public health worker in Miami, is in the first generation of her family to live permanently outside of the Dominican Republic, where her maternal and paternal grandmothers had a total of 27 children.

“I have two right now,” Ms. Garcia said. “It’s just a good number that I can handle.”

“Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more,” she added. “I think living in the United States, I don’t have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now.”

But that has not been easy. Even with health insurance, Ms. Garcia’s preferred method of long-term birth control, an IUD, has been unaffordable. Birth control pills, too, with a $50 co-payment a month, were too costly for her budget. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing is condoms.”

According to research by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the overwhelming majority of Latinas have used contraception at some point in their lives, but they face economic barriers to consistent use. As a consequence, Latinas still experience unintended pregnancy at a rate higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to the institute.

And while the share of births to teenage mothers has dropped over the past two decades for all women, the highest share of births to teenage mothers is among native-born Hispanics.

“There are still a lot of barriers to information and access to contraception that exist,” said Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas, 36, the executive director of the institute, who has one son. “We still need to do a lot of work.”

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