State of the Art: A Review of Cookoo, G-Shock and Other Smartwatches

Clockwise from top left: The Cookoo, I'm Watch, Meta Watch, Casio G-Shock GB-6900 and Martian.

Every time you look, our computers have moved closer to us.

In the beginning, they existed only in corporate headquarters. Then came the desktop PC — three feet away. Then the laptop — one foot. Then the smartphone — in our pockets. What’s next — computers on our wrists?

Exactly. As though by silent agreement, the gadget industry seems to have decided that 2013 will be the year of the smartwatch.

The central idea is sound. You already have an iPhone or Android phone. Wouldn’t it be neat if your watch could communicate with it wirelessly?

Imagine: the watch could beep or vibrate whenever you get an incoming call, text message or e-mail. No more, “Sorry I didn’t get your call; my phone was in my backpack.” No more fumbling for your phone when that would be inconvenient or unsafe — like while you’re skiing, skateboarding or driving.

These watches can also make your phone beep loudly when it’s lost in the house. That’s much quicker than using Find My iPhone, which involves logging into a Web site.

They can also serve as a digital “leash”: if you wander away, accidentally leaving your phone on some restaurant table, the watch buzzes to warn you.

I tested the Meta Watch ($180), Cookoo ($130), Casio G-Shock GB-6900 ($180), Martian ($300), and I’m Watch ($400, coming in July). More contenders, like a Kickstarter favorite, Pebble Watch, are on the way. (The Martian, Cookoo and Meta Watch also began life on Kickstarter, the Web site where inventors seek financing from the public.) Even Apple is said to be toying with an iWatch.

The designs are all over the map. Some have touch screens. Some look like regular analog watches; others are basically iPod Nanos with straps. Some require daily charging; others take watch batteries.

They do have some things in common. First, these early smartwatches are thick and chunky — a desirable quality in a stew, maybe, but not for the delicate of wrist.

Second, they communicate with your phone over Bluetooth. You have to “pair” the watch to your phone on the first day — and whenever you exit Airplane Mode. Most models require a companion phone app for this purpose.

Most of these watches use Bluetooth 4.0, which means your phone will lose only a small amount of battery charge each day — maybe 5 or 10 percent — but only recent models, like the iPhone 4S and 5, are compatible.

Finally, the instruction manuals are terrible or nonexistent; it’s as if, in their zeal to make these things work, the companies forgot all about explaining it to you.

Wrists ready? Here we go.

CASIO G-SHOCK GB-6900 ($180). This watch closely resembles Casio’s other G-Shocks: popular, masculine, rugged, waterproof digitals.

But this one can beep or vibrate when calls or e-mail come to your iPhone (Android is in the works) — though not, alas, text messages. There’s no Caller ID; a cramped scrolling display says only “Incoming call.” For e-mail, the sender’s address scrolls slowly. You can dismiss these alerts with a double-tap on the glass — that’s the only thing this watch’s “touch screen” does.

The watch can also set itself as you cross time zones by checking in with your phone.

These limited functions are solid and power-stingy; one watch battery lasts two years. The watch has four buttons — the usual user-hostile digital watch assortment, like Mode, Adjust and Split/Reset — but they get the job done.

COOKOO WATCH ($130). The round face and analog hands offer spartan good looks; only the watch’s alarming thickness (three-quarters of an inch) and four edge buttons let you know that it’s not a Swatch.

There’s no screen. Instead, icons dimly appear on the watch’s black background as notifications of incoming calls, calendar reminders or Facebook posts. (E-mail and text notifications are coming soon, says the company.) If you want to know what they are or who they’re from, you have to get out your phone.

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

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Gaza militants break cease-fire with rocket attack into Israel

Israeli police remove the remains of a rocket in the town of Ashkelon. (EPA / February 26, 2013)

By Edmund Sanders

February 26, 2013, 12:05 a.m.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian unrest spread Tuesday to the Gaza Strip, where militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, shattering one of the longest periods of quiet along that border in recent memory.

It was the first rocket fired since the signing of a November cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, ending their eight-day clash.

The morning attack came as Palestinians in the West Bank protest the death of 30-year-old Arafat Jaradat, a gas station attendant who died suddenly in Israeli custody after being arrested for throwing rocks at an Israeli settler.

Palestinians claim Jaradat was tortured to death. Israelis say the exact cause of his Feb. 23 death has not yet been determined.

The Grad rocket fired early Tuesday landed in an open area near the Israeli city of Ashkelon, causing no damage or injuries.

ALSO:

Palestinians at funeral protest death of prisoner

Syria ready to talk to rebels, foreign minister says

U.S. military denies abducting, killing civilians in Afghan province

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Stuxnet Missing Link Found, Resolves Some Mysteries Around the Cyberweapon

As Iran met in Kazakhstan this week with members of the UN Security Council to discuss its nuclear program, researchers announced that a new variant of the sophisticated cyberweapon known as Stuxnet had been found, which predates other known versions of the malicious code that were reportedly unleashed by the U.S. and Israel several years ago in an attempt to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.

The new variant was designed for a different kind of attack against centrifuges used in Iran’s uranium enrichment program than later versions that were released, according to Symantec, the U.S-based computer security firm that reverse-engineered Stuxnet in 2010 and also found the latest variant.

The new variant appears to have been released in 2007, two years earlier than other variants of the code were released, indicating that Stuxnet was active much earlier than previously known. A command-and-control server used with the malware was registered even earlier than this, on Nov. 3, 2005.

Like three later versions of Stuxnet that were released in the wild in 2009 and 2010, this one was designed to attack Siemens PLCs used in Iran’s uranium enrichment program in Natanz.

But instead of changing the speed of spinning centrifuges controlled by the PLCs, as those later versions did, this one focused on sabotaging the operation of valves controlling the flow of uranium hexaflouride gas into the centrifuges and cascades — the structure that connects multiple centrifuges together so that the gas can pass between them during the enrichment process. The malware’s goal was to manipulate the movement of gas in such a way that pressure inside the centrifuges and cascade increased five times the normal operating pressure.

“That would have very dire consequences in a facility,” says Liam O’Murchu, manager of security response operations for Symantec. “Because if pressure goes up, there’s a good chance the gas will turn into a solid state, and that will cause all sorts of damage and imbalances to the centrifuges.”

The new finding, described in a paper released by Symantec on Tuesday (.pdf), resolves a number of longstanding mysteries around a part of the attack code that appeared in the 2009 and 2010 variants of Stuxnet but was incomplete in those variants and had been disabled by the attackers.

The 2009 and 2010 versions of Stuxnet contained two attack sequences that each targeted different models of PLCs made by Siemens being used in Iran’s uranium enrichment plant — the Siemens S7-315 and S7-417 models of PLC.

In these later variants of Stuxnet, however, only the 315 attack code worked. The 417 attack code had been deliberately disabled by the attackers and was also missing important blocks of code that prevented researchers from determining definitively what it was designed to do. As a result, researchers have long guessed that it was used to sabotage valves, but couldn’t say for certain how it affected them. There were also mysteries around why the attack code was disabled — was it disabled because the attackers had failed to finish the code or had they disabled it for some other reason?

The 2007 variant resolves that mystery by making it clear that the 417 attack code had at one time been fully complete and enabled before the attackers disabled it in later versions of the weapon. And because the 2007 variant only contained the 417 attack code — with no code attacking the Siemens 315 PLC — it appears that the attackers disabled the 417 code in later versions because they wanted to change their tactics, dropping their focus on sabotaging the valves in order to focus instead on sabotaging the spinning centrifuges.

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Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal

VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.

Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.

Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with Priklopil, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.

The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.

The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.

One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”

The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.

GREY AREAS

Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”

The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.

Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.

In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”

The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.

“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.

“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”

The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.

“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.

The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.

The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.

The film goes on general release on Thursday.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Recipes for Health: Roasted Carrots and Scallions — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I bought incredibly sweet, thick red scallions and multicolored bunches of carrots from a farmer at my market and roasted them with fresh thyme. Then I sprinkled on some crushed toasted hazelnuts, which contributed a nice crunchy texture and nutty finish to the dish. If you have a bottle of hazelnut oil or walnut oil on hand, a small drizzle just before serving is a welcome touch.

1 ounce hazelnuts (about 1/4 cup)

1 pound carrots, preferably young small carrots, any color (but a mix is nice)

1 bunch white or purple spring onions or scallions

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Optional: a drizzle of hazelnut oil or walnut oil for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast for 8 to 10 minutes, until they smell toasty and they are golden all the way through (cut one in half to check). Remove from the oven and turn up the heat to 425 degrees.

2. Immediately wrap the hazelnuts in a clean, dry dish towel. Rub them in the towel to remove the skins. Then place the skinned hazelnuts in a plastic bag or, if you have one, a disposable pastry bag and set on your work table in one layer. Use a rolling pin to crush the nuts by rolling over them with the pin. Set aside.

3. Line a sheet pan with parchment or oil a baking dish large enough to fit all of the vegetables in a single layer. If the carrots are small, just peel and trim the tops and bottoms. If they are medium-sized, peel, cut in half and cut into 4-inch lengths. Quarter large carrots and cut into 4-inch lengths. Trim the root ends and greens from the spring onions or scallions. If they are bulbous, cut them in half. Season with salt and pepper, add the thyme and olive oil and toss well, either directly on the pan or in the dish or in a bowl. Spread in an even layer in the baking dish or on the baking sheet.

4. Roast in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. The onions may be done after 10 minutes – they should be soft and lightly browned. Remove them from the pan if they are and hold on a plate. When the carrots and onions are tender and browned in places, remove from the oven. Add the onions back into the mix if you removed them and toss together. Sprinkle on the toasted ground hazelnuts, drizzle on the optional nut oil, and serve.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The vegetables can hold for a few hours once roasted; cover and reheat in a medium oven.

Nutritional information per serving: 171 calories; 11 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 16 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 89 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 2 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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DealBook: Wall Street Pay Rises – for Those Who Still Have a Job

It’s nice work – if you can get it.

Wall Street has cut thousands of jobs over the past year or so. On Tuesday, JPMorgan Chase, one of the country’s biggest banks, announced that it was eliminating 4,000 more jobs through layoffs and attrition, adding its name to a string of large banks that continue to cut jobs to reduce expenses.

The good news? For the employees who remain, pay is up, according to a report released Tuesday by the New York State comptroller.

This may seem surprising given the outcry over high compensation during the financial crisis. In recent years, however, faced with greater regulation, a slow economic recovery and the loss of once big moneymaking businesses like selling products tied to mortgages, the banks have tried instead to cut people rather than pay, which they argue is needed in order to retain talent that might otherwise leave for better paying jobs at hedge funds or elsewhere.

The average cash bonus for people employed in New York City in the financial industry rose by roughly 9 percent, to $121,900, in 2012 and cash bonuses in total are forecast to increase by roughly 8 percent to $20 billion this year, said Thomas P. DiNapoli, the comptroller.

In recent years some firms have deferred cash payments to employees, and Mr. DiNapoli said part of the increase in the 2012 numbers was cash promised in recent years was actually paid out in 2012. He said that it was “tough” to break out what percentage of the total are deferrals but he believed that it was still a small part of the total.

All told, the average pay package for securities industry employees in New York was $362,900 in 2011, the last year for which data is available, almost unchanged from 2010.

Wall Street jobs are harder to get than they were just a few years ago, but for those who can get their foot in the door finance remains the best paying sector in New York City, Mr. DiNapoli told reporters during a confernce call

“Profits and bonuses rebounded in 2012, but the industry is still restructuring. Despite its smaller size, the securities industry is still a very important part of the New York City and New York state economies,” he said.

The current economic recovery, he said, is being driven by industries other than Wall Street, which he said has regained only 30 percent of the jobs lost during the downturn. The securities industry in New York City lost 28,300 jobs during the financial crisis and has added only 8,500 since, a net loss of 19,800 jobs. New York City financial industry employment totaled 169,700 at the end of 2012.

Before the start of the financial crisis, business and personal income tax collections from Wall Street related activities accounted for up to 20 percent of New York State tax revenues. In 2012, that contribution fell to just 14 percent.

“Wall Street is still in transition, but it is very slowly adjusting to changes in its economic and regulatory environment,” he said.

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Oscars 2013: An 'Argo' night at Academy Awards

For the second straight year, the movie business fell for itself.

"Argo" — in which a Hollywood producer and makeup artist help engineer the rescue of six Americans from Iran — won the top prize at the 85th Academy Awards, one year after the silent film story "The Artist" took the best picture Oscar.

"I never thought I'd be back here. And I am," producer-director Ben Affleck said in accepting the best picture trophy Sunday night, 15 years after he won an original screenplay Oscar for "Good Will Hunting" and then saw his career fall into a tailspin that included "Gigli" and "Daredevil."

FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2013 | Winners

"It doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life. That's going to happen," said Affleck, who wasn't nominated for directing "Argo," one of nine films in the best picture race. "All that matters is that you've got to get up."

"Argo," which became the first movie to win best picture without its director being nominated since 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy," collected two other Academy Awards, for editing and adapted screenplay. But it was not the evening's most recognized film: That honor went to Ang Lee's "Life of Pi," which won four Oscars — for directing, visual effects, cinematography and score.

"Thank you, movie god," said Lee, whose movie came into the evening with 11 nominations, one behind Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln." The film about the 16th president helped Daniel Day-Lewis make movie history, as he became the only man to ever win three lead actor statuettes. "Lincoln" won one other prize, for production design.

The song-and-dance heavy ceremony, hosted by Seth MacFarlane, hewed closely to a traditional awards show script, but there were several surprises. First Lady Michelle Obama, who joined the ABC telecast from the White House, announced "Argo" as the best picture. And the ceremony featured only the sixth tie in Oscar history and the first since 1994, with the sound editing award split between "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Skyfall." For the first time in Oscar history, six best picture nominees were $100-million blockbusters.

The ceremony was billed as a tribute to music in film, and boasted a number of extravagant musical numbers — including a medley of songs from movie musicals and an appearance by Barbra Streisand, who sang "The Way We Were." The telecast also paid homage to the long running James Bond series, with Adele singing the theme from "Skyfall" and Dame Shirley Bassey performing the theme from 1964's "Goldfinger."

Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Red carpet | Highlights

Jennifer Lawrence, 22, nabbed the lead actress prize for her role as an emotionally unstable widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" — and promptly tripped over her long dress walking up the stairs to accept her statuette. The crowd quickly gave her a standing ovation. "You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's embarrassing," Lawrence said to the applauding crowd at the Dolby Theatre.

The evening's very first award — for supporting actor — was a shocker, with long shot Christoph Waltz winning for his role as bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" over favored contenders Robert De Niro ("Silver Linings Playbook") and Tommy Lee Jones ("Lincoln"). Waltz, who won the same award three years ago for Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," dedicated his prize to his writer-director, who also won the Oscar for original screenplay. "We participated in a hero's journey — the hero being Quentin," Waltz said.

Tarantino pulled off a mild surprise with the screenplay triumph for his slave-revenge tale. He dedicated his award to his eclectic cast of actors. "I actually think if people know my movies 30-50 years from now it's because of the characters I create," Tarantino said.

Anne Hathaway's supporting actress win for her emotionally raw portrayal of a doomed seamstress in "Les Misérables" was hardly as startling. The 30-year-old had been the odds-on favorite to win since the film first screened for members of the Motion Picture Academy in late November. "It came true," she stage-whispered as she picked up her trophy for her performance, the centerpiece of which is the lament "I Dreamed a Dream."

Oscars 2013: Backstage | Quotes | Best & Worst moments

Some of the evening's wins were bittersweet.

The animated feature Oscar was shared by "Brave" directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, an unusual pairing given that Chapman was fired from the Pixar Animation Studios film and replaced by Andrews in the middle of production. "Making these are a struggle — it's a battle, it's a war," Andrews said backstage. "I was very happy it was him who took my place," Chapman said.

Rhythm & Hues Studios, the company behind "Life of Pi's" visual effects win, recently filed for bankruptcy and laid off hundreds of its employees. As Oscar winner Bill Westenhofer addressed the situation in his acceptance speech, he ran over time and the theme from "Jaws" began to play him off the stage. His microphone was cut off just as he said the words "I urge you all…"

William Goldenberg was a double nominee in the film editing category — he worked on both "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" — and won the prize for Affleck's CIA drama.

"Working at my father's deli, I had to do a million things at one time," Goldenberg said backstage about the best training for his job. "It really does prepare you for the multitasking it takes to be in an editing room."

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Darpa Wants to Rethink the Helicopter to Make It Go <em>Way</em> Faster

Helicopters are great. They’re maneuverable in very tight spaces, they haul heavy things relative to their small sizes — and, very importantly, they take off and land vertically, removing the need for a big airstrip or aircraft-carrier deck. That function is so important to the military that the U.S. designed fixed-wing aircraft to do the same thing, like the Marines’ iconic Harrier jet or their weird tilt-rotor Osprey.

And they actually all suck, according to the Pentagon’s blue-sky researchers at Darpa, who are launching an effort to blow up and re-imagine helicopters, jump jets and tilt-rotors. It’s time to make these “VTOL” aircraft — the collective term for Vertical Take-Off and Landing — way, way faster, without sacrificing their ability to hover or other functionality.

Like any aircraft, VTOLs are most vulnerable to enemy attack when they’re taking off and landing. But unlike other aircraft, they’re slow to ascend and descend, a particular problem when an adversary lurking nearby knows exactly what pattern the VTOLs will use to get off the ground and back onto it. And when they’re flying, they’re not going nearly as fast as something with, say, a jet engine. It’s a problem the U.S. military has often encountered in warzones. Anyone who’s taken a ride on a Blackhawk or a Chinook in Afghanistan or Iraq has been very thankful for the guy with the .50-caliber gun hanging out the open back of the helo.

Hence Darpa’s newest aircraft program. It’s called the VTOL X-Plane and officially launches Monday. The idea is to rethink the designs of anything that takes off and lands vertically, to make it faster; hover and cruise more efficiently; and haul more stuff. By the time it’s done in 52 months, it just might result in an aircraft that doesn’t look at all like a helicopter, jump jet or tilt-rotor.

“What we’re interested in doing is flying much faster than we have been able to do with helicopters,” program manager Ashish Bagai told reporters on a conference call. Helos and other VTOL aircraft typically max out at 170 knots. Bagai wants the X-Plane to do 300. “We want to fly at improved efficiencies, both in hover and at forward flight,” he said, “and we want to demonstrate this is possible without sacrificing the ability to do useful work. And to do this concurrently is a very big challenge.”

It’s also not springing up from specific improvements in helicopter or other VTOL capability in the aerospace industry. Nor does it arise from any tech innovations Darpa sees on the horizon. “We have seen in the community a few isolated and novel approaches to addressing this problem but we’re in danger of suffering an attrition in our technology bases,” Bagai said. “This is an opportunity Darpa would like to put forth to advance the state of the art, well beyond where we are today.”

Good luck with that. Helicopters usually get faster by adding power and messing with the rotor placements. (See, for instance, Sikorsky’s funky ’70s-era designs.) But that typically compromises their ability to hover. Nor, Bagai conceded, have fixed-wing VTOLs cracked the speed/hover/power problem. And the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor has endured more than its fair share of challenges.

All of which raises questions about the VTOL X-Plane’s ability to actually deliver on its promises. Bagai thinks there’s an opportunity for “hybridization” by mashing up the fixed-wing and helicopter design communities, but like many Darpa projects, the program will pulse those communities rather than take advantage of improvements on the cusp of maturity.

Darpa’s setting a “very aggressive” development schedule, Bagai said, that’s targeting a flight test in 42 months. Ten months later, when the program ends, “we want to have demonstrated all our key objectives and have a flying aircraft available,” he said. If it fails, helicopters, jump jets and tilt-rotors won’t be any worse off. If it succeeds, the VTOL X-Plane pretty much represents their next generation.

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Quvenzhané Wallis to play title role in “Annie” movie

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis will play the title role in “Annie,” Sony’s Columbia Pictures announced on Sunday.

“Annie” is due to hit theaters in 2014 during the winter holiday season, and is based on the stage play about an orphan’s adventures in finding her family and a better life while overcoming the schemes of orphanage mistress Miss Hannigan.

President of production at Columbia Pictures Hannah Minghella expressed confidence in Wallis’ talent and star power.

“With the recent Academy Award nomination and critical acclaim, Quvenzhané Wallis is a true star and we believe her portrayal as Annie will make her a true worldwide star,” she said.

“She is an extraordinary young talent with an amazing range, not only as an actress but as a singer and dancer, and we can’t wait for audiences to further discover her.”

Among the film’s co-producers are Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. Carter’s 1998 Grammy-winning album “Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life” contains a hip-hop version of “It’s a Hard Knock Life,” a song from the original Broadway musical “Annie.”

The hit musical was first made into a film starring Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan in 1982. A made-for-TV version with Kathy Bates in the same role aired on ABC in 1999, and earned two Emmy awards.

Wallis is the youngest actress to ever be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. She was nominated for her role as Hushpuppy in indie drama “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which also earned a nod for Best Picture. “Beasts” is Wallis’ first acting job.

Among her other firsts, she will also be the first African-American actress to play Annie, who has been traditionally portrayed as a freckle-faced redhead.

Later this year, she will star alongside Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender in Steve McQueen’s historical drama “Twelve Years a Slave,” based on the book by Solomon Northup.

(Editing by Eric Walsh and Jackie Frank)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Root Vegetable Sweetness — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Last week I got a Facebook message from a Recipes for Health fan that said: “Help! Drowning in pounds of root vegetables from CSA…would love recipes for sweet potatoes, yellow potatoes, and carrots…” Since root vegetables and tubers keep well and can be cooked up into something delicious even after they have begun to go limp in the refrigerator, this week’s Recipes for Health should be useful. Root vegetables, tubers (potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are called yams by most vendors – I mean the ones with dark orange flesh), winter squash and cabbages are the only local vegetables available during the winter months in colder regions, so these recipes will be timely for many readers.

Roasting is a good place to begin with most root vegetables. They sweeten as they caramelize in a hot oven. I roasted baby carrots and thick red scallions (they may have been baby onions; I didn’t get the information from the farmer, I just bought them because they were lush and pretty) together and seasoned them with fresh thyme leaves, then sprinkled them with chopped toasted hazelnuts. I also roasted a medley of potatoes, including sweet potatoes, after tossing them with olive oil and sage, and got a wonderful range of colors, textures and tastes ranging from sweet to savory.

Sweet winter vegetables also pair well with spicy seasonings. I like to combine sweet potatoes and chipotle peppers, and this time in a hearty lentil stew that we enjoyed all week.

Spicy Lentil and Sweet Potato Stew With Chipotles

The sweetness of the sweet potatoes infuses this Mexican-inspired lentil dish along with the heat of the chipotles, which also have a certain sweetness as well because of the adobo sauce they are packed in. The combination, with the savory lentils, is a winner.

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

Salt to taste

2 teaspoons cumin seeds, lightly toasted and ground

2 medium carrots, diced

1 1/2 cups brown or green lentils, rinsed

6 cups water

2 medium-size sweet potatoes (aka yams, with dark orange flesh, 1 to 1 1/4 pounds), peeled and cut in large dice

1 to 2 chipotles in adobo, seeded and chopped (to taste)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley (to taste)

Lime wedges for serving

1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven and add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until it softens, about 5 minutes, and add the garlic and a generous pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, until the garlic smells fragrant, about 30 seconds, and add the ground cumin seeds and carrots. Stir together for a minute, then add the lentils, water, sweet potatoes, chipotles, tomato paste, salt to taste and the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 40 to 45 minutes, until the lentils and sweet potatoes are tender and the broth fragrant. Taste and adjust seasoning. Stir in the cilantro or parsley, simmer for another minute, and serve, passing lime wedges so diners can season their lentils with a squeeze of lime juice if desired.

Yield: Serves 6 to 8

Advance preparation: This will be good for three or four days but it will thicken as the lentils continue to swell. If you want to thin it out, add water or stock.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 320 calories; 3 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 59 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams dietary fiber; 119 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 19 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 240 calories; 2 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 1 gram monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 44 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 89 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 14 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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