The Neediest Cases: Disabled Young Man and His Protective Mother Deal With Life’s Challenges

Though he would prefer to put his socks on without his mother’s help, Zaquan West, 25, does not have a choice.

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Joann West is a constant caretaker for her son, Zaquan. Though Ms. West works as a receptionist, the family fell behind on rent.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,104,694

Recorded Thursday:

$137,451

*Total:

$3,242,145

Last year to date:

$2,862,836

*Includes $596,609 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

A genetic disorder has encumbered Mr. West all his life, but he has needed assistance with this particular task since only last year. In November 2011, he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his left thigh that was as big as a football, but he was left less flexible.

“He doesn’t do well with disability, with the label,” his mother, Joann West, 55, said. “He doesn’t tell people that he has a disability. If they can’t see it, they just can’t see it.”

When her son was 13 months old, Ms. West learned he had neurofibromatosis, a disorder that causes tumors to grow on the nerves and, in some cases, to infringe on vital organs, or as was the case last year, to become malignant. It also creates large bumps on the skin known as nodules.

At ages 5 and 8, Zaquan had operations to remove neurofibromatosis clusters that were eating away at his left hip bone. The disease has left his left leg a few inches shorter than his right. After each operation, he had to relearn how to walk.

Because of his physical disability, he was placed in a special-education class at school and given the same homework every night, his mother said.

“I advocated for him,” Ms. West said. “I kept fighting, because he was no dummy. He was physically impaired, not mentally. I went out of my way to try to give him a better life. The system would have failed him more than it did if I hadn’t stepped in.” Her efforts led to his being moved from a special-education classroom to a regular one in second grade.

Ms. West, a single mother, acknowledges that her protective instincts made her a very controlling parent, and she did not allow Zaquan out of the house much, which limited his friendships.

“I was afraid for him,” she said. “The streets, they don’t care about your disability.”

When Mr. West entered high school, it was the first time he had truly been away from his mother’s watchful eyes. He began skipping class, often going to the park or wandering their Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood with truant friends. He eventually dropped out of school.

“It was just me being out on my own and making my own choices,” Mr. West recalled.

Though she did not agree with her son’s decisions, Ms. West said that his need to explore was in some ways a result of her actions. “At a point, I stepped back,” she said, “to allow him to do certain things on his own and do what he wanted to do.”

In 2007, a couple of years after he dropped out, Mr. West joined the Door, an organization focused on empowering young people to reach their potential. There, he obtained his high school equivalency diploma.

Today, Mr. West is job hunting so that he can help pay his and his mother’s expenses.

But paying the monthly bills has become a struggle, Ms. West said, in part because of a recent change in her budget. In August, after an increase in income, they stopped receiving $324 a month in food stamps. The additional income did not cover all their expenses, however, and Ms. West eventually fell behind in the rent on their apartment.

Ms. West, who has been employed in various administrative jobs, currently works as a receptionist for Howie the Harp Advocacy Center, an agency that provides employment help to people with psychiatric disabilities. Her annual salary is about $25,000 before taxes. Her son receives $646 in Social Security disability benefits. After the family’s food stamps were cut off, Mr. West applied individually, and he now receives $200 in food stamps each month.

With the addition of Mr. West’s disability benefits and food stamps, their net monthly income is $2,213. Their contribution for the Section 8-subsidized apartment Ms. West has lived in for the past 30 years is $969.

Knowing she was in need of help, Ms. West’s boss told her about the Community Service Society, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. And the society drew $1,598 from the fund to cover her debt.

Ms. West remains a constant caretaker for her independent-minded son, who, she says, has come to accept her help grudgingly. She says that even if they are not on speaking terms after a disagreement, she is there to lend him a hand.

Both are continuing to deal with the inevitable challenges: Mr. West is awaiting word from doctors on whether a new growth in his lungs is cancerous. But one of his greatest assets, given all that he has overcome, is that he is comfortable in his own skin.

“I’m just always going to be me,” he said, “so why deal with somebody else?”

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Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.

Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

The campaigns by Mr. Penn, 58, a longtime political operative known for his brusque personality and scorched-earth tactics, are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas.

Microsoft has long attacked Google from the shadows, whispering to regulators, journalists and anyone else who would listen that Google was a privacy-violating, anticompetitive bully. The fruits of its recent work in this area could come next week, when the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce the results of its antitrust investigation of Google, a case that echoes Microsoft’s own antitrust suit in the 1990s. A similar investigation by the European Union is also wrapping up. A bad outcome for Google in either one would be a victory for Microsoft.

But Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has realized that it cannot rely only on regulators to scrutinize Google — which is where Mr. Penn comes in. He is increasing the urgency of Microsoft’s efforts and focusing on their more public side.

In an interview, Mr. Penn said companies underestimated the importance of policy issues like privacy to consumers, as opposed to politicians and regulators. “It’s not about whether they can get them through Washington,” he said. “It’s whether they can get them through Main Street.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions specifically, but said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition.”

In Washington, Mr. Penn is a lightning rod. He developed a relationship with the Clintons as a pollster during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, when he helped identify the value of “soccer moms” and other niche voter groups.

As chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president, he conceived the “3 a.m.” commercial that raised doubts about whether Barack Obama, then a senator, was ready for the Oval Office. Mr. Penn argued in an essay he wrote for Time magazine in May that “negative ads are, by and large, good for our democracy.”

But his approach has ended up souring many of his professional relationships. He left Mrs. Clinton’s campaign after an uproar about his consulting work for the government of Colombia, which was seeking the passage of a trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, then a senator, opposed.

“Google should be prepared for everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them,” said a former colleague who worked closely with Mr. Penn in politics and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Actually, they should be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at them, too.”

Hiring Mr. Penn demonstrates how seriously Microsoft is taking this fight, said Michael A. Cusumano, a business professor at M.I.T. who co-wrote a book about Microsoft’s browser war.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to do whatever they can to halt Google’s advance, just as their competition did to them,” Professor Cusumano said. “I suppose that if Microsoft can actually put a doubt in people’s mind that Google isn’t unbiased and has become some kind of evil empire, they might very well get results.”

Nick Wingfield reported from Seattle and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

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Voters in Egypt Cast Ballots on Draft Constitution

CAIRO — Egyptians voted on Saturday in a referendum on an Islamist-backed draft constitution, even as they doubted that the results would end three weeks of violence, division and distrust between the Islamists and their opponents over the ground rules of Egypt’s promised democracy.

By midmorning Saturday, long lines had formed outside polling stations around the capital and the country. Military officers were on hand to ensure security. Despite a new outbreak of fighting over the charter in Alexandria and opposition warnings of chaos, by late afternoon the streets were free of protests for the time in weeks. Many expressed their confidence in the integrity of the vote, but continued to criticize the process that produced the charter.

Even as they waited to cast their ballots, voters continued to spar. Some said that Egypt’s new Islamist leaders had unfairly steamrolled the charter over the objections of other parties and the Coptic Christian church; others blamed the Islamists opponents for refusing to negotiate in an effort to undermine democracy because it went against them. Many expressed discontent with political leaders on both sides of the fight.

“Neither group can accept its opposition,” said Ahmed Ibrahim, 40, a government clerk waiting to vote in a middle-class neighborhood in the Nasr City area. Whatever the outcome, he said, “one group in their hearts will feel wronged, and the other group will gloat over their victory, and so the wounds will remain.”

The referendum on a new constitution once promised to be a day when Egyptians realized the visions of democracy, pluralism and national unity that defined the 18-day-revolt against the former leader Hosni Mubarak. But then came nearly two years of a chaotic political transition, in which Islamists, liberals, leftists, the military and the courts all jockeyed for power over an ever-shifting timetable.

On Saturday, Egyptians voted on a rushed revision of the old Mubarak charter that many international experts faulted as a missed opportunity, stuffed broad statements about Egyptian identity but riddled with loopholes about the protection of rights.

Many voters waiting in line on Saturday said they rejected the exploitation of the emotional issue of religion by both sides: the Islamists who sought to frame the debate over the constitution as a debate over Islamic law, and opponents who accused President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood of laying the groundwork for a theocracy.

“It is not about these emotional issues,” said Talan Hassaballah, a businessman waiting to vote in the Nasr City neighborhood. “I am going to vote no, but not because I disagree with the Muslim Brotherhood or the president.”

Like most who said they would vote against the referendum, he faulted its provisions on issues of “social justice,” like guarantees of human rights, workers’ rights and social services. “They are vague,” he said.

Egypt’s Christian minority, believed to make up about 10 percent of the population, were particularly critical during the the debate. Muslim satellite networks often faulted angry Christians for provoking violence, and Christians were surprised that the Islamists leaders of the constitutional assembly had pushed out the charter even after the official representatives of the Coptic Church had withdrawn in protest.

“The entire Christian community was offended,” Nagwa Albert, 56, said after she voted against the charter. Speaking of the Islamist leaders’ statements to rally support for the charter, she said: “It feels like the beginning of a war.”

In the Cairo neighborhood of Shubra, Muslim and Christian voters each took turns approaching journalists to try to contradict the group’s depiction of the constitutional debate. Sarwat Mikhail, a 53-year-old Christian, blamed Mr. Morsi for recklessly rushing to ratify the charter. “We still have not found someone who respects us, and fears for his people,” he said.

Nadra Mandoor, a 49-year-old Muslim lawyer next to him, insisted that her Christian neighbors misconstrued the charter. Opposition leaders, she said, “do not want the country to move forward,” she said. “Do we respect the dictatorship of the minority?”

Several Muslims voting against the referendum said they were offended at Friday Prayer by imams who had urged them to vote ‘yes’ in the name of religion. In Alexandria, one such appeal by an ultraconservative sheikh set off a street fight that injured more than a dozen people, until riot police broke it up with tear gas.

Mayy El-Sheikh and Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

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Wall Street Edgy in Early Going

Stock indexes on Wall Street started the day negative before turning flat after data showed consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, while technology shares fell.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 0.2 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average added 0.1 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 0.7 percent in early trading.

Economic data out of China showed that manufacturing in the world’s second-largest economy grew at its fastest pace in 14 months in December. That indicated China’s economy was on the mend, encouraging news for key trading partners such as the United States.

However, in Europe, the euro zone’s manufacturing and services sectors showed only small signs of improvement and remained in contraction territory.

President Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a “frank” meeting Thursday to try to break an impasse in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff,” tax increases and spending cuts set to begin in early in 2013.

Frustration has mounted over the lack of progress in the discussions, with traders’ worries reflected in a 0.6 percent drop in the S.&P. 500 on Thursday. Investors are concerned that without a deal, the economy could tip back into recession.

Shares of Adobe Systems were up 5.8 percent after the company said it expected profit and earnings to grow from 2013 on.

Sprint Nextel’s $2.1 billion offer to buy out Clearwire appeared to be running into trouble on Thursday, as some shareholders said they wanted more money, while Softbank set a cap on how much Sprint could pay. Clearwire shed 1.6 percent to $3.11 in light premarket trading.

Apple’s iPhone 5 was released in China on Friday but its longer-term hopes may depend on new technology being tested by China’s top telecommunications carrier. Shares of Apple were down 1.7 percent.

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HealthBridge Managemant Ordered to Reinstate Striking Workers

A federal judge in Hartford has ordered a Connecticut nursing home chain to reinstate nearly 600 workers who have been on strike since July 3, and to rescind the pension and health care cuts it had imposed.

Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the United States District Court in Connecticut ruled on Tuesday night that the nursing homes’ owner, HealthBridge Management, had broken the law by refusing to bargain in good faith and by imposing the cuts before a true negotiating impasse had been reached.

Judge Chatigny issued an injunction that ordered HealthBridge to reinstate the workers by next Monday, even if it means ousting hundreds of the replacement workers hired to run the nursing homes after the strike began.

“Everybody is quite happy about the decision,” said Vern Scatliffe, a nurse’s aide, as he picketed outside Danbury Health Care Center, one of the five nursing homes — the others are in Milford, Newington, Stamford and Westport — where the workers walked out to protest the cuts HealthBridge had imposed. “The judge’s order is a big relief to me. I can now go back to work and earn my living again.”

Saying the company was disappointed by the judge’s decision, Lisa Crutchfield, a HealthBridge spokeswoman, said it had filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the injunction.

“We are acting in the best interests of our residents — their well-being is paramount to us,” she said. Ms. Crutchfield said the order to reinstate the strikers would “expose residents to the very people who sought to do them harm” during the walkout. HealthBridge has accused the strikers of several acts of sabotage, including changing the names on several patients’ doors and wheelchairs and switching the names of some residents in Alzheimer’s units.

Deborah Chernoff, a spokeswoman for the strikers’ union, the New England Health Care Employees Union, said it had opposed any sabotage. She suggested that the allegations themselves were suspicious, noting that they were first made two weeks after the strike began.

The strike began after HealthBridge declared the negotiations deadlocked and then imposed changes that included freezing the workers’ pensions, requiring many to pay at least $6,000 more a year for family health coverage and eliminating six paid sick days and a week’s vacation for many workers.

Two weeks after the strike began, the striking employees, who belong to a branch of the Service Employees International Union, offered to return to work, but the company refused to take them back. Judge Chatigny said it was “just and proper” to reinstate them “because there is a pressing need to restore the status quo” from before the company made the changes, which he found to be illegal.

The judge acted only after the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Hartford sought an injunction.

David Pickus, president of the strikers’ union, said, “This ruling is a decisive victory for workers and a sign that HealthBridge cannot get away with its unfair and illegal treatment of its employees.”

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HealthBridge Managemant Ordered to Reinstate Striking Workers

A federal judge in Hartford has ordered a Connecticut nursing home chain to reinstate nearly 600 workers who have been on strike since July 3, and to rescind the pension and health care cuts it had imposed.

Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the United States District Court in Connecticut ruled on Tuesday night that the nursing homes’ owner, HealthBridge Management, had broken the law by refusing to bargain in good faith and by imposing the cuts before a true negotiating impasse had been reached.

Judge Chatigny issued an injunction that ordered HealthBridge to reinstate the workers by next Monday, even if it means ousting hundreds of the replacement workers hired to run the nursing homes after the strike began.

“Everybody is quite happy about the decision,” said Vern Scatliffe, a nurse’s aide, as he picketed outside Danbury Health Care Center, one of the five nursing homes — the others are in Milford, Newington, Stamford and Westport — where the workers walked out to protest the cuts HealthBridge had imposed. “The judge’s order is a big relief to me. I can now go back to work and earn my living again.”

Saying the company was disappointed by the judge’s decision, Lisa Crutchfield, a HealthBridge spokeswoman, said it had filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the injunction.

“We are acting in the best interests of our residents — their well-being is paramount to us,” she said. Ms. Crutchfield said the order to reinstate the strikers would “expose residents to the very people who sought to do them harm” during the walkout. HealthBridge has accused the strikers of several acts of sabotage, including changing the names on several patients’ doors and wheelchairs and switching the names of some residents in Alzheimer’s units.

Deborah Chernoff, a spokeswoman for the strikers’ union, the New England Health Care Employees Union, said it had opposed any sabotage. She suggested that the allegations themselves were suspicious, noting that they were first made two weeks after the strike began.

The strike began after HealthBridge declared the negotiations deadlocked and then imposed changes that included freezing the workers’ pensions, requiring many to pay at least $6,000 more a year for family health coverage and eliminating six paid sick days and a week’s vacation for many workers.

Two weeks after the strike began, the striking employees, who belong to a branch of the Service Employees International Union, offered to return to work, but the company refused to take them back. Judge Chatigny said it was “just and proper” to reinstate them “because there is a pressing need to restore the status quo” from before the company made the changes, which he found to be illegal.

The judge acted only after the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Hartford sought an injunction.

David Pickus, president of the strikers’ union, said, “This ruling is a decisive victory for workers and a sign that HealthBridge cannot get away with its unfair and illegal treatment of its employees.”

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DealBook: Yahoo Shakes Up Its Board

Yahoo announced a number of changes to its board on Thursday, including the addition of Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal.

The company also said two directors were stepping down: Brad Smith, the chief executive of Intuit, and David W. Kenny, chief executive of the Weather Channel.

Yahoo’s latest board changes signal its continued push to become a top technology company once more, a strategy it began in July, when it hired Marissa Mayer away from Google to become its new chief executive.

Since taking over, Ms. Mayer has emphasized ways to modernize Yahoo staples like its e-mail and the Flickr photo service, to help the company square off against ever-newer competitors.

Bringing in Mr. Levchin is intended to help with that push and show a commitment to developing enticing new offerings. He served as PayPal’s chief technology officer before forming Slide, a company that eventually helped produce Web applications for Facebook. Google bought Slide for about $180 million two years ago, and Mr. Levchin left the Internet giant when it closed Slide last year.

“Max is someone I’ve admired throughout my career for his phenomenal sense for great products and keen focus on user experiences,” Ms. Mayer said in a statement. “I’m confident that his strong product and technology expertise will be a tremendous asset to Yahoo as we work to transform the world’s daily habits.”

He will serve as the fourth director nominated by Daniel S. Loeb, the activist hedge fund manager who joined Yahoo’s board in May after mounting a prominent challenge to the company’s directors. Mr. Loeb’s other directors, besides himself, are Michael J. Wolf, a media consultant, and Harry J. Wilson, a turnaround expert who served on the Obama administration’s automotive task force.

Since joining Yahoo’s board, Mr. Loeb has helped orchestrate a number of changes, including hiring Ms. Mayer.

Mr. Loeb was introduced to Mr. Levchin by Mr. Wolf, who had served on Slide’s board of advisers. They met in Silicon Valley ahead of the proxy fight, when Mr. Loeb was recruiting candidates for Yahoo board seats.

One of the departing directors, Mr. Smith, was a main supervisor of Yahoo’s turnaround efforts, including its talks with private equity firms about a capital infusion into the Web company and its eventual deal to sell some of its stake in Alibaba back to its Chinese Internet partner.

The other, Mr. Kenny, became the Weather Channel’s chief executive in January and was formerly the president of Akamai Technologies. Mr. Kenny had briefly considered campaigning for Yahoo’s top spot last year.

Both men were stepping down to focus on their respective companies, according to Yahoo.

“Both David and Brad played critical roles in bringing me to Yahoo, so I’m especially grateful for the opportunity and trust they’ve placed in me,” Ms. Mayer said. “We will miss their leadership and partnership, and I know I speak for everyone at Yahoo in wishing them the best.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 12/14/2012, on page B6 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Yahoo Shakes Up Its Board And Adds PayPal Co-Founder.

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Panetta Orders Deployment of U.S. Anti-Missile Units in Turkey

Bernd Wustneck/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

German soldiers with a Patriot missile battery earlier this month in Bad Suelze, Germany.

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta signed an official deployment order on Friday to send 400 American military personnel and two Patriot air defense batteries to Turkey as cross-border tensions with Syria intensify.

The American batteries will be part of a broader push to beef up Turkey’s defenses that will also include the deployment of four other Patriot batteries — two from Germany and two from the Netherlands.

All six units will be under NATO’s command and are scheduled to be operational by the end of January, according to officials in Washington.

George Little, the Pentagon spokesman, said Mr. Panetta signed the order as he flew from Afghanistan to this air base in southern Turkey, close to the border with Syria.

“The United States has been supporting Turkey in its efforts to defend itself,” Mr. Little said.

The order “will deploy some 400 U.S. personnel to Turkey to support two Patriot missile batteries,” Mr. Little added, and the personnel and Patriot batteries will arrive in Turkey “in coming weeks.” He did not disclose where the Patriots would be located.

After landing at Incirlik Friday, Mr. Panetta told a gathering of American Air Force personnel of his decision to deploy the Patriots.

He said the United States was working with Turkey, Jordan and Israel to monitor Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons, and warned of “serious consequences” if Syria used them, but he did not offer any specifics.

“We have drawn up plans for presenting to the president,” Mr. Panetta said. “We have to be ready.”

Turkey, which has been supporting the Syrian opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, has been worried it is vulnerable to Syrian missiles, including Scuds that might be tipped with chemical weapons. Those concerns were heightened by reports of increased activity at some of Syria’s chemical sites, though Mr. Panetta said this week that intelligence about chemical weapons activity in Syria had “leveled off.”

The recent Scud missile attacks mounted by forces loyal to Mr. Assad against rebels in northern Syria have only added to Turkey’s concerns. The Scud missiles fired at the rebels were armed with conventional warheads, but the attacks showed that the Assad government is prepared to use missiles as it struggles to slow rebel gains.

Syria denied Thursday that it had fired Scud missiles this week. But NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that the intelligence gathered by the alliance indicated that they were Scud-type missiles. “In general, I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse,” he said. “I think now it’s only a question of time.”

NATO foreign ministers last week endorsed the decision to send Patriot batteries to Turkey. The details of how many each nation would send were not worked out until this week, officials said.

In preparation for the deployment, allied officials had conducted surveys of 10 potential sites, mostly in southeastern Turkey, that could be defended by one or more Patriot batteries.

But NATO nations do not have enough batteries to cover all of the sites. With tensions building with Iran and North Korea defying the United States and its Asian allies by launching a long-range rocket, American officials did not want to send more than a few Patriot batteries to Turkey, especially since it is not clear how long they will be needed.

But NATO diplomats said that the goal was to show enough of a commitment to Turkey’s defense to deter a Syrian attack.

It will take three weeks to ship and deploy the two American Patriot batteries, a Defense Department official said.

One allied official said it might be possible to speed up the deployment of the German and Dutch batteries if necessary. Each of those nations will also send up to 400 troops.

The United States, Germany and the Netherlands are the only NATO members that have the advanced PAC-3 Patriot system.

The Patriot batteries in Turkey will be linked to NATO’s air-defense system. The response by the missile batteries would be nearly automatic, firing interceptor missiles to destroy the target by ramming into it, a tactic the military calls “hit to kill.”

Thom Shanker reported from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, and Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.

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Stocks in Wait-and-See Mode

Stocks on Wall Street opened little changed on Thursday after data showed first time claims for jobless benefits fell sharply last week, but investors were cautious about making aggressive bets in the midst of ongoing “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

The three main stock indexes — the Standard & Poor’s 500, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite index — were all flat in morning trading.

European shares were slightly lower by afternoon. Finance ministers in the European Union reached a deal to make the European Central Bank the bloc’s top banking supervisor. The move could boost confidence in leaders’ ability to tackle the region’s sovereign debt crisis.

Still, global equities gains were likely to be constrained as the set of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to come into effect in the United States in the new year remained at the forefront of investors’ minds. Negotiators on Wednesday warned the showdown over reaching a deal on the so-called fiscal cliff could drag on past Christmas.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced a fresh bout of stimulus for the American economy, but markets focused on comments from Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, who reiterated that monetary policy would not be enough to offset going over the fiscal cliff.

Investors were worried that doing so could send the economy back into recession, though most expect a deal will be struck eventually.

“Obviously, people still have their eyes on the ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations,” said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Ill. “It’s just a wait-and-see mode.”

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, pointing to healing in the labor market.

Separate reports showed producer prices fell more than expected in November, while retail sales rebounded.

Shares of Best Buy surged more than 15 percent after a report that the company’s founder is expected to make a fully financed offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.

Sprint Nextel offered $2.1 billion to buy the rest of Clearwire Corp to get full ownership of its wireless spectrum. Shares of Clearwire jumped 11.6 percent, while Sprint slipped 0.7 percent.

CVS Caremark gained 4.9 percent after it said it expects higher earnings next year.

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Another Look at a Drink Ingredient, Brominated Vegetable Oil

James Edward Bates for The New York Times

Sarah Kavanagh, 15, of Hattiesburg, Miss., started an online petition asking PepsiCo to change Gatorade’s formula.

Sarah Kavanagh and her little brother were looking forward to the bottles of Gatorade they had put in the refrigerator after playing outdoors one hot, humid afternoon last month in Hattiesburg, Miss.

But before she took a sip, Sarah, a dedicated vegetarian, did what she often does and checked the label to make sure no animal products were in the drink. One ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, caught her eye.

“I knew it probably wasn’t from an animal because it had vegetable in the name, but I still wanted to know what it was, so I Googled it,” Ms. Kavanagh said. “A page popped up with a long list of possible side effects, including neurological disorders and altered thyroid hormones. I didn’t expect that.”

She threw the product away and started a petition on Change.org, a nonprofit Web site, that has almost 200,000 signatures. Ms. Kavanagh, 15, hopes her campaign will persuade PepsiCo, Gatorade’s maker, to consider changing the drink’s formulation.

Jeff Dahncke, a spokesman for PepsiCo, noted that brominated vegetable oil had been deemed safe for consumption by federal regulators. “As standard practice, we constantly evaluate our formulas and ingredients to ensure they comply with federal regulations and meet the high quality standards our consumers and athletes expect — from functionality to great taste,” he said in an e-mail.

In fact, about 10 percent of drinks sold in the United States contain brominated vegetable oil, including Mountain Dew, also made by PepsiCo; Powerade, Fanta Orange and Fresca from Coca-Cola; and Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda, made by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

The ingredient is added often to citrus drinks to help keep the fruit flavoring evenly distributed; without it, the flavoring would separate.

Use of the substance in the United States has been debated for more than three decades, so Ms. Kavanagh’s campaign most likely is quixotic. But the European Union has long banned the substance from foods, requiring use of other ingredients. Japan recently moved to do the same.

“B.V.O. is banned other places in the world, so these companies already have a replacement for it,” Ms. Kavanagh said. “I don’t see why they don’t just make the switch.” To that, companies say the switch would be too costly.

The renewed debate, which has brought attention to the arcane world of additive regulation, comes as consumers show increasing interest in food ingredients and have new tools to learn about them. Walmart’s app, for instance, allows access to lists of ingredients in foods in its stores.

Brominated vegetable oil contains bromine, the element found in brominated flame retardants, used in things like upholstered furniture and children’s products. Research has found brominate flame retardants building up in the body and breast milk, and animal and some human studies have linked them to neurological impairment, reduced fertility, changes in thyroid hormones and puberty at an earlier age.

Limited studies of the effects of brominated vegetable oil in animals and in humans found buildups of bromine in fatty tissues. Rats that ingested large quantities of the substance in their diets developed heart lesions.

Its use in foods dates to the 1930s, well before Congress amended the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to add regulation of new food additives to the responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration. But Congress exempted two groups of additives, those already sanctioned by the F.D.A. or the Department of Agriculture, or those experts deemed “generally recognized as safe.”

The second exemption created what Tom Neltner, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ food additives project, a three-year investigation into how food additives are regulated, calls “the loophole that swallowed the law.” A company can create a new additive, publish safety data about it on its Web site and pay a law firm or consulting firm to vet it to establish it as “generally recognized as safe” — without ever notifying the F.D.A., Mr. Neltner said.

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