China Looks to Aerospace Industry in a Bid for Growth

TIANJIN, China — When Airbus executives arrived here seven years ago scouting for a location to assemble passenger jets, the broad, flat expanse next to Tianjin Binhai International Airport was a grassy field.

Now, Airbus, the European aerospace giant, has 20 large buildings and is churning out four A320 jetliners a month for mostly Chinese state-controlled carriers. The company also has two new neighbors — a sprawling rocket factory and a helicopter manufacturing complex — both producing for the Chinese military.

The rapid expansion of civilian and military aerospace manufacturing in Tianjin reflects China’s broader ambitions.

As Beijing’s leaders try to find new ways to invest $3 trillion of foreign reserves, the country has been aggressively expanding in industries with strong economic potential. The Chinese government and state-owned companies have already made a major push into financial services and natural resources, acquiring stakes in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone and buying oil and gas fields around the world.

Aerospace represents the latest frontier for China, which is eyeing parts manufacturers, materials producers, leasing businesses, cargo airlines and airport operators. The country now rivals the United States as a market for civilian airliners, which China hopes to start supplying from domestic production. And the new leadership named at the Party Congress in November has publicly emphasized long-range missiles and other aerospace programs in its push for military modernization.

If Boeing’s difficulties with its recently grounded aircraft, the Dreamliner, weigh on the industry, it could create opportunity. Chinese companies, which have plenty of capital, have been welcomed by some American companies as a way to create jobs. Wall Street has been eager, too, at a time when other merger activity has been weak.

Washington is trying to figure out what to do about China’s deal-making broadly. “Many of these transactions raise important security issues for our country,” said Michael R. Wessel, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was created by Congress to monitor the bilateral relationship. “China’s interest in promoting these investments isn’t necessarily consistent with our own interests, and it’s appropriate to thoroughly examine the transactions.”

In aerospace, the Chinese deal-makers have deep ties to the military, raising additional issues for American regulators. The main contractor for the country’s air force, the state-owned China Aviation Industry Corporation, known as Avic, has set up a private equity fund to purchase companies with so-called dual-use technology that has civilian and military applications, with the goal of investing up to $3 billion. In 2010, Avic acquired the overseas licensing rights for small aircraft made by Epic Aircraft of Bend, Ore., using lightweight yet strong carbon-fiber composites — the same material used for high-performance fighter jets.

Provincial and local government agencies in Shaanxi province, a hub of Chinese military aircraft testing and production, have set up another, similar-sized fund for acquisitions. Last month, a consortium of Chinese investors, including the Shaanxi fund, struck a $4.23 billion deal with the American International Group to buy 80 percent of the International Lease Finance Corporation, which owns the world’s second-largest passenger jet fleet.

“There has always been an obvious cross-fertilization of ideas, expertise and money between the civilian and military,” said Martin Craigs, a longtime aerospace executive in Asia who is now the chairman of the Aerospace Forum Asia, a nonprofit group in Hong Kong. He added that Chinese companies had been actively hiring senior American and European aerospace engineers, so national security concerns could be circumvented by hiring the right people.

The push into aerospace coincides with growing worries in the West and across Asia about China’s increasingly assertive territorial claims, including the dispatch of Chinese warships to waters long patrolled by Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Coincidentally, hours after the A.I.G. deal was announced, two Chinese navy destroyers and two frigates showed up in disputed waters patrolled by Japan. China and Japan have stepped up public criticisms of each other since. And the Obama administration has begun a strategic “pivot,” shifting military forces from the Mideast back to the western Pacific, a move that Chinese officials have criticized as an attempt to contain their country.

Such confrontations in the region are drawing attention to China’s deal-making ambitions.

In October, a $1.79 billion bid by a business linked to Beijing’s municipal government to acquire the corporate jet and propeller plane operations of bankrupt Hawker Beechcraft in Wichita, Kan., fell apart over national security concerns in Washington. Executives found it hard to disentangle the civilian operations from the company’s military contracting business.

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IHT Rendezvous: Can Armstrong Be Redeemed? How About Galliano?

LONDON — While Lance Armstrong was (not quite) baring his soul to Oprah Winfrey this week, a very different celebrity, the disgraced London fashion designer John Galliano, was taking a small step on the path to redemption.

Two years after he was ousted from Dior in the wake of his arrest for a drunken, anti-Semitic rant in a Paris bar, Mr. Galliano is to make a modest comeback at the New York design studio of Oscar de la Renta.

As Eric Wilson writes over at On the Runway, many had speculated that the man described as “the prince of romantic glamor” would never work in the fashion industry again after his downfall in 2011.

However, with the support of fashion luminaries like Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington of Vogue, he appears set for rehabilitation.

“As far as a comeback strategy, working for Mr. de la Renta in a casual capacity, practically an intern, is, in effect, a way of testing the waters,” Mr. Wilson writes.

The downfall of Mr. Galliano, born in Gibraltar and raised in London,  came after two patrons of a bar in the Marais district of Paris accused him of making an anti-Semitic slur.

An online video later surfaced that showed a previous incident in which a bleary Mr. Galliano told fellow customers in the same bar, “I love Hitler” and, “People like you would be dead.” “Your mothers, your forefathers” would all be “gassed,” he said.

All the more surprising, then, that among those who welcomed the 52-year-old designer’s return was Abraham H. Foxman, leader  of the Anti-Defamation League, the American anti-Semitism watchdog group.

Mr. Foxman said on Friday, “Mr. Galliano has worked arduously in changing his worldview and dedicated a significant amount of time to researching, reading and learning about the evils of anti-Semitism and bigotry.”

The Anti-Defamation League had met the designer on numerous occasions and said it hoped to work with him in the future as a spokesman against bigotry.

A Paris court fined Mr. Galliano €6,000, or $8,000, for racial insults after he offered his apologies, and last year President François Hollande of France stripped him of the Légion d’Honneur that he was awarded in 2009.

The designer’s behavior was widely blamed on drug and alcohol addiction, which he’s sought treatment for over the last two years.

“Under intense pressure to produce at least eight full collections a year, Galliano — like so many other artists — reached for sustenance and oblivion,” Suzy Menkes, the I.H.T.’s fashion editor, wrote in November.

Another celebrity who has admitted to turning to drugs, but for very different reasons, is Lance Armstrong, the disgraced American cycling superstar.

Summing up the response among cycling and anti-doping officials, my colleague Ian Austen wrote: “Many characterized Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey as being more self-serving than revelatory.”

Has Mr. Armstrong done enough to pave the way for an eventual comeback or were his television appearances indeed self-serving? And what about Mr. Galliano? Should his repentance for his unpardonable remarks lead to a second chance at success? Does either celebrity — or both — deserve redemption? Tell us what you think.

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Ryan, Falcons take early 10-0 lead over 49ers

ATLANTA (AP) — Matt Ryan threw a 46-yard touchdown pass to Julio Jones and Matt Bryant added a 35-yard field goal to give the Atlanta Falcons a 10-0 lead over the San Francisco 49ers in the first quarter of Sunday's NFC championship game.

Ryan moved the Falcons 80 yards on seven plays on Atlanta's opening drive. Ryan completed passes of 13 yards to Jones and 16 yards to Roddy White on the drive.

On second-and-9 from the 49ers 46, Ryan faked a handoff to Jacquizz Rodgers. San Francisco safety Dashon Goldson bit on the fake, allowing Jones to run past Goldson. Jones was open for the deep pass as safety Donte Whitner trailed on the play.

Ryan completed a 27-yard pass to Jones to set up Bryant's field goal to end the Falcons' second drive. Jones beat Goldson on the catch.

Following the two possessions, Jones already had five catches for 100 yards and a touchdown.

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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N.T.S.B. Rules Out a Cause for Battery Fire on 787 Dreamliner

Federal investigations said Sunday that they had ruled out excessive voltage as the cause of a battery fire on a Boeing 787 in Boston this month, widening the mystery into what led to the grounding of the world’s most technologically advanced jet after a second battery-related problem last week.

With investigators focused on the plane’s lithium-ion batteries, the National Transportation Safety Board said an examination of the data from the plane’s flight recorder indicated that the battery “did not exceed the designed voltage of 32 volts.” The fire aboard a Japan Airlines plane on Jan. 7 at Logan International Airport in Boston occurred after the passengers had gotten off.

Last week, a battery problem on another 787 forced an All Nippon Airways jetliner to make an emergency landing in Japan. That episode prompted aviation authorities around the world to ground the plane, also known as the Dreamliner. The Federal Aviation Administration said last week that it would not lift the ban until Boeing could show that the batteries were safe.

The safety board did not address the grounding issue or provide a timetable for its investigation, which industry experts said could take months.

But with investigators on a global quest to find out what went wrong, the safety board’s statement could mean that there might not be a rapid resumption of 787 flights. The 787 first entered service in November 2011 after more than three and a half years of production delays. Eight airlines currently own 50 787s, including United Airlines.

On Friday, Japanese safety officials, who are in charge of investigating the second battery problem, suggested that overcharging a battery might have caused it to overheat. Pilots decided to make an emergency landing 20 minutes after takeoff after receiving several alarms about the battery and smelled smoke in the cockpit.

That investigation is conducted by Japan’s transportation safety board. American investigators are helping with the inquiry.

Speaking after the American safety board’s statement on Sunday, a Japanese investigator said their inquiry was not as far along as the American one.

“The N.T.S.B.'s investigation started earlier,” the inspector, Hideyo Kosugi, told Reuters. “We still haven’t taken X-rays or CT-scans of the battery. In our case, both the battery and the surrounding systems are still stored,” at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

The GS Yuasa Corporation of Japan, one of the world’s leading lithium-ion battery manufacturers, makes the batteries for the 787, and Thales, of France, makes the control systems for the battery. The battery is part of a complex electrical system that powers the 787. Like many other components and structures, Boeing outsourced much of the manufacturing to partners around the world.

The safety board typically conducts investigations through a process of elimination, and rules out possible causes along the way.

It said that the lithium-ion battery that powered the auxiliary power unit, a small jet engine used on the ground, had been examined in the safety board’s Materials Laboratory in Washington.

The battery was first X-rayed and put through a CT scan. Investigators then disassembled it into its eight individual cells for detailed examination and documentation. Three of the cells were selected for more detailed radiographic examination.

Investigators have also examined several other components that they removed from the airplane, including wire bundles and battery management circuit boards as well as the battery management unit, the controller for the auxiliary power unit, the battery charger and the power start unit.

On Tuesday, investigators will convene in Arizona to test and examine the battery charger and download nonvolatile memory from the auxiliary power unit controller. Several other components have been sent for download or examination to Boeing’s facility in Seattle and to the manufacturer in Japan.

The plane’s charger and start power will be sent to Securaplane, a maker of aircraft avionics and electrical systems, which is based in Tucson, and where they will be tested. The controller for the auxiliary power unit will be test in Phoenix where its maker, Pratt & Whitney Power, is based.

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Africa Must Take Lead in Mali, France Says

Marco Gualazzini for The New York Times

A French armored vehicle patrolled a strategic bridge over the Niger River in Markala, Mali, on Saturday.

PARIS — With French officials saying confidently on Saturday that an advance by Islamist militants on Bamako, Mali’s capital, had been halted, France’s foreign minister told African leaders that “our African friends need to take the lead” in a multilateral military intervention in Mali.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius spoke in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at a summit meeting to discuss how to accelerate the involvement of West African troops in Mali, although he acknowledged that it could be some weeks before they were there in force.

“Step by step, I think it’s a question from what I heard this morning of some days, some weeks,” Mr. Fabius said, referring to the time frame when the bulk of troops from the Economic Community of West African States, the regional group known as Ecowas, would arrive.

“We must, as quickly as possible, furnish the logistical and financial means required by the Malian Army and Ecowas,” he said.

France intervened militarily last week after the Malian government said it was afraid that Islamist militants could continue their push south and take over Bamako with little opposition from a dispirited army.

But once the situation is more stable, France wants African troops to do most of the work to wrest the north of Mali from the Islamists, as called for under a United Nations Security Council resolution passed in December.

French officials conceded, however, that there were disputes over how African participation would be paid for and about the best way to transport troops to Mali. In Paris, French officials said that the United States, while willing to help ferry African troops, wanted to bill France for the use of transport aircraft, which officials said would not go down well with the French.

But the officials said that France and the United States were sharing intelligence about Mali and the Sahel region garnered from drones and other means, and discussions with Washington continued amicably.

The African troops also need equipment and training, and Mr. Fabius pointed to a donors’ summit meeting in Ethiopia scheduled for Jan. 29 as “a key moment.” He called on “all partners of African development” to “make generous contributions to this work of solidarity, peace and security.”

The French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Saturday that France now had 2,000 troops in Mali, with more in the region, and that France was likely to add to its forces there. He said the Mali operation could involve at least 4,000 soldiers in the region, and French officials said that they would put no fixed limit on the number of troops that might be required to restore the territorial integrity of Mali and drive back the Islamist fighters, who have ties to Al Qaeda.

The French officials emphasized that the targets of the mission were the Islamists, not the Tuaregs or other Malians fighting for more autonomy or independence in the north. They also said that Islamist terrorists in Mali had made four or five efforts to carry out operations in France in the last few years.

Despite reports of French forces fighting on the ground in and around the village of Diabaly, Mr. Le Drian said that “there has been no ground combat” there, only airstrikes. He dismissed reports from Malian Army sources that French troops were fighting or even in the town. “I think someone is hallucinating,” he said. “There has been no fighting on the ground in Diabaly.”

Residents have told local news agencies that the Islamists have left Diabaly, which they seized as an important way station on the road to the administrative capital, Ségou, north of Bamako.

French airstrikes have halted the Islamist advance toward Mopti and nearby Sévaré, French officials said, while they confirmed that the village of Konna, north of Mopti, was now back in the hands of Mali’s government. The French have also sent troops along with Malian forces to secure a bridge over the Niger River at Markala, north of Ségou.

Also on Saturday, Human Rights Watch said it had received what it called credible reports of abuses, including killings, being committed by Malian security forces around Niono against Tuareg and Arab civilians, who are associated with the rebellion in the north. The Islamists have also been condemned for abuses, including stoning of women.

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Nintendo’s Wii U problems turn into a crisis

In just a week, the problems Nintendo’s (NTDOY) new home console is facing have cascaded into something sinister. The traditional post-New Year slump hit Nintendo’s home market in the week ending January 12 and exposed cruelly how weak the consumer interest in Wii U truly is. According to Famitsu, Wii U sales slumped from a pace of 70,000 per week to just 21,000. The ancient PlayStation 3 sold the exact same number of units, which is nothing short of a debacle for Nintendo. The hot portable console 3DS saw its sales slow down from 305,000 units to 106,000 units.  This means that Nintendo’s portable machine is now outselling the brand new home console by a 5-to-1 margin in Japan.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

No matter how weak the Wii U sales are now, they are likely to get worse. The launch dates of key games seem to be slipping from March quarter to June quarter, including the important Pikmin, Wario and Wii Fit franchises. The Wii U now must depend on Rayman and Lego City in coming months.

[More from BGR: Paid apps are history]

This is a scary prospect, because it now seems that Sony (SNE) is planning to unveil the PlayStation 4 in May and Microsoft (MSFT) is expected to announce the Xbox 720 in June. Nintendo rushed its console out in late 2012 to get a running start before the big guns of the home console industry grab the consumer interest with their new machines. That gambit may now be about to backfire in a spectacular manner. As demand for Wii U is already fizzling in Japan and key games slip from the first quarter of 2013, Wii U faces a very hard January-March period. Sony and Microsoft are then inevitably going to start leaking information about their new consoles in April-May time frame in the run-up to their big unveilings in the second half of the spring quarter.

The clock is ticking for Wii U. If consumers start smelling the scent of the grave emanating from the console just when Sony and Microsoft roll out their new gear, Wii U could face a sudden rejection in the market place by early summer. Nintendo needs some big new titles to revive its home machine very soon.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Ex-Ravens WR Evans still feels part of team

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — While Lee Evans awaits another chance in the NFL, he'll be rooting for the Baltimore Ravens in Sunday's AFC championship rematch with New England.

The wide receiver who couldn't hold onto a pass in the end zone a year ago — which likely would have sent the Ravens into the Super Bowl — has no regrets. Except, maybe, that he's not part of the Ravens this time around.

Evans says in an email that he "wishes he made the touchdown catch, but is thankful for the overall journey. You play the game to win and celebrate the joy with your teammates."

With 27 seconds to go, Joe Flacco connected with Evans in the deep right corner of the end zone, but defensive back Sterling Moore knocked the ball to the ground.

Soon after, Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal that would have forced overtime.

Evans says he has not gotten depressed over the play — Moore did make a strong strip after Evans got two hands on the ball.

"Give him credit for the play he made," Evans said.

Unfortunately for Evans, he's remembered as much for that incompletion as he is for two 1,000-yard receiving seasons in seven years with the Bills, and 43 touchdown catches.

"My goal is to play in the NFL again," said Evans, who was cut in the preseason last summer by Jacksonville, a team not exactly overloaded with receivers. "And if I am afforded that opportunity, I will be fully prepared and absolutely capable of competing at the highest level."

Cundiff hooked up with Washington and then San Francisco this season, but was cut by the 49ers on Friday without kicking for them as they stuck with veteran David Akers, who had been struggling.

Evans said he will be in front of his TV on Sunday watching the title games. He likes what he's seen from Baltimore (12-6) and knows the Ravens' recent postseason history; they've won a playoff game in each of the last five seasons and will be in their third AFC championship match in those five years.

But he also knows how tough the Patriots (13-4) are at home, particularly in January.

"It is a chess match between a defense that goes hard after the quarterback and gets after you on every play," Evans said, "and an offense that seeks to exploit their match-ups while always trying to capitalize on a defense's mistakes."

Evans' only season with the Ravens was marred by injury and he made only four receptions. He did help mentor Torrey Smith, Baltimore's top draft pick in 2011 who came into the league with the same kind of speed and game-breaking ability that made Evans the 13th overall pick in the 2004 draft out of Wisconsin.

He's seen Smith develop into a dangerous weapon for Flacco, and veteran Anquan Boldin has been superb in the playoffs. Kick returner Jacoby Jones got free on the 70-yard TD pass in the final minute of regulation that tied Denver in last weekend's divisional-round win.

"I saw growth in him this year as both a man and a player," Evans said of Smith. "He is a great guy who gets the most out of his abilities. His play really highlighted the improvements he made toward being a more fluid route runner and a sure-handed pass catcher."

Evans is particularly impressed by Flacco, the only quarterback to win a playoff game in his first five pro seasons.

"Joe's record speaks for itself," Evans said. "He does not get the credit he deserves for how important he is to making the Ravens' offense go."

A part of Evans will share in the Ravens' excitement if they win Sunday "after fully understanding what it feels like to be on the losing side."

"Life brings you highs and lows," he said, "and you have to keep that in perspective."

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Personal Health: That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work

When people fall in love and decide to marry, the expectation is nearly always that love and marriage and the happiness they bring will last; as the vows say, till death do us part. Only the most cynical among us would think, walking down the aisle, that if things don’t work out, “We can always split.”

But the divorce rate in the United States is half the marriage rate, and that does not bode well for this cherished institution.

While some divorces are clearly justified by physical or emotional abuse, intolerable infidelity, addictive behavior or irreconcilable incompatibility, experts say many severed marriages seem to have just withered and died from a lack of effort to keep the embers of love alive.

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Jane Brody speaks about love and marriage.

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I say “embers” because the flame of love — the feelings that prompt people to forget all their troubles and fly down the street with wings on their feet — does not last very long, and cannot if lovers are ever to get anything done. The passion ignited by a new love inevitably cools and must mature into the caring, compassion and companionship that can sustain a long-lasting relationship.

Studies by Richard E. Lucas and colleagues at Michigan State University have shown that the happiness boost that occurs with marriage lasts only about two years, after which people revert to their former levels of happiness — or unhappiness.

Infatuation and passion have even shorter life spans, and must evolve into “companionate love, composed more of deep affection, connection and liking,” according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside.

In her new book, “The Myths of Happiness,” Dr. Lyubomirsky describes a slew of research-tested actions and words that can do wonders to keep love alive.

She points out that the natural human tendency to become “habituated” to positive circumstances — to get so used to things that make us feel good that they no longer do — can be the death knell of marital happiness. Psychologists call it “hedonic adaptation”: things that thrill us tend to be short-lived.

So Dr. Lyubomirsky’s first suggestion is to adopt measures to avert, or at least slow down, the habituation that can lead to boredom and marital dissatisfaction. While her methods may seem obvious, many married couples forget to put them into practice.

Building Companionship

Steps to slow, prevent or counteract hedonic adaptation and rescue a so-so marriage should be taken long before the union is in trouble, Dr. Lyubomirsky urges. Her recommended strategies include making time to be together and talk, truly listening to each other, and expressing admiration and affection.

Dr. Lyubomirsky emphasizes “the importance of appreciation”: count your blessings and resist taking a spouse for granted. Routinely remind yourself and your partner of what you appreciate about the person and the marriage.

Also important is variety, which is innately stimulating and rewarding and “critical if we want to stave off adaptation,” the psychologist writes. Mix things up, be spontaneous, change how you do things with your partner to keep your relationship “fresh, meaningful and positive.”

Novelty is a powerful aphrodisiac that can also enhance the pleasures of marital sex. But Dr. Lyubomirsky admits that “science has uncovered precious little about how to sustain passionate love.” She likens its decline to growing up or growing old, “simply part of being human.”

Variety goes hand in hand with another tip: surprise. With time, partners tend to get to know each other all too well, and they can fall into routines that become stultifying. Shake it up. Try new activities, new places, new friends. Learn new skills together.

Although I’ve been a “water bug” my whole life, my husband could swim only as far as he could hold his breath. We were able to enjoy the water together when we both learned to kayak.

“A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a hug, an arm around the shoulder — the science of touch suggests that it can save a so-so marriage,” Dr. Lyubomirsky writes. “Introducing more (nonsexual) touching and affection on a daily basis will go a long way in rekindling the warmth and tenderness.”

She suggests “increasing the amount of physical contact in your relationship by a set amount each week” within the comfort level of the spouses’ personalities, backgrounds and openness to nonsexual touch.

Positive Energy

A long-married friend recently told me that her husband said he missed being touched and hugged. And she wondered what the two of them would talk about when they became empty-nesters. Now is the time, dear friend, to work on a more mutually rewarding relationship if you want your marriage to last.

Support your partner’s values, goals and dreams, and greet his or her good news with interest and delight. My husband’s passion lay in writing for the musical theater. When his day job moved to a different city, I suggested that rather than looking for a new one, he pursue his dream. It never became monetarily rewarding, but his vocation fulfilled him and thrilled me. He left a legacy of marvelous lyrics for more than a dozen shows.

Even a marriage that has been marred by negative, angry or hurtful remarks can often be rescued by filling the home with words and actions that elicit positive emotions, psychology research has shown.

According to studies by Barbara L. Fredrickson, a social psychologist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a flourishing relationship needs three times as many positive emotions as negative ones. In her forthcoming book, “Love 2.0,” Dr. Fredrickson says that cultivating positive energy everyday “motivates us to reach out for a hug more often or share and inspiring or silly idea or image.”

Dr. Lyubomirsky reports that happily married couples average five positive verbal and emotional expressions toward one another for every negative expression, but “very unhappy couples display ratios of less than one to one.”

To help get your relationship on a happier track, the psychologist suggests keeping a diary of positive and negative events that occur between you and your partner, and striving to increase the ratio of positive to negative.

She suggests asking yourself each morning, “What can I do for five minutes today to make my partner’s life better?” The simplest acts, like sharing an amusing event, smiling, or being playful, can enhance marital happiness.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 18, 2013

The Personal Health column on Tuesday, about making marriages last, misspelled the given name of a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies happiness. She is Sonja Lyubomirsky, not Sonya.

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Corner Office: Kon Leong of ZL Technologies, on Encouraging Creativity

This interview with Kon Leong, co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies, an e-mail and file archiving company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. Tell me about some important leadership lessons you’ve learned.

A. One of my early jobs was selling computer hardware. What I learned about selling was probably more valuable than my M.B.A. I had seen selling as a process just about logic. Then I realized that has nothing to do with it.

Q. What was the insight?

A. You have to present your story in their context, not yours. They don’t really care if you’re standing on top of a robot and quoting equations. If they’re in the deep part of the forest, you’ve got to talk the language of the deep forest. Salesmanship is more like a language unto itself. There is no right or wrong. It’s what you make of it, and what’s black can be gray, and what’s gray can be white. It depends on your framework. The challenge is to share the same framework so that you’re seeing the same page in the same way.

Q. How do you hire? If you were interviewing me for a job, what would you ask me?

A. I would want to know your goals for the job. Is it money? Learning? Fulfillment? What is it? I would try to figure out if our environment suits your goals. I would not try to sell you to get you to take the job. I also will ask, “How curious are you?”

Q. I imagine that most people simply say, “Very.”

A. But then I’d ask, “Outside the headlines, what were some of the most interesting things you’ve noted in the last couple of weeks, and tell me why, and what did you do about it?” That would reflect what you think is interesting, and that tells me a fair bit. If you can cite many disparate topics, that’s a step in the right direction. The point is, we’re trying to find the right fit. In a fast-changing environment, you need to learn more and more and more. There’s so much to learn, and you can’t be taught all the permutations and combinations of the answers, so you have to learn on your own. And to learn on your own, you need curiosity.

Q. What other questions?

A. I’ll ask: How willingly do you accept stuff, and how willing are you to question things? How creative are you in finding your own answers? For example, everyone knows in school that you cannot divide by zero. Why? I try to find if they’ve actually questioned things like that at any time. The point is, we’re usually handicapped by our own borders, and we will not think beyond them. I think there’s one rule of thumb in creativity: when you’re brainstorming, you have to suspend disbelief. That’s a key ingredient. There’s time enough to challenge it and poke holes, but not at the time of generation.

I’ll also change the subject to one where they have some expertise. So I’ll ask what their passions are, and then I’ll ask questions. If it’s ornithology, I’ll start talking about the evolution of birds and ask questions like, “How do you think reptiles got feathers?”

Q. What else do you look for when hiring?

A. Brains and drive. Those are the basics. Without them, it’s probably going to be a long shot. After we work through that, then it’s curiosity and attitude.

Q. How do you get at the question of attitude?

A. Are you willing to learn from your mistakes? Do you do that automatically? Are you willing to set the bar higher? Are you able to deal with failure? Can you bounce back from it?

Q. What’s your take on the standard interview question about strengths and weaknesses?

A. I never really ask about weaknesses, because it’s meaningless. I ask more about strengths, but I ask it from a different angle. I’m more interested in the answers from a more personal perspective as opposed to a professional environment. I’ll typically ask: How would you describe yourself in three words outside the work environment? And then: What do you consider your natural strength? What do you do that comes without any effort, that your peers struggle with and can’t even match? What is natural for you? Other skills emanate from that natural core. Someone once answered that question by saying, “People tend to just come and talk to me.” That really intrigued me.

Q. What’s your natural strength?

A. I can zoom in, zoom out.

Q. What’s it like to work for you day to day?

A. Certain aspects of my management style are extremely frustrating. There are many, many questions posed to me, many decisions asked of me. I try not to make them. I respond with more questions, because I want them to find the answer. It can be very frustrating to my employees, but I’m trying to get others to scale up and learn. They understand and accept my approach, but many still feel frustrated because they just want the answer.

Q. What is your advice for students who are graduating from college?

A. I tell all of them two things, and that goes for both undergrads and M.B.A.’s. First, experiment. If you’re 22 years old as an undergrad or if you’re 27 just out of your M.B.A., in both cases you’ve got a clean slate. You can go in any direction. So experiment. That can also mean taking a lower salary in order to experiment.

This is all in hindsight, of course, because I didn’t do it. I went to Wall Street after getting my M.B.A. If you experiment in different jobs and functions in those two or three years out of school, you will have a much better shot at finding your sweet spot. And the sweet spot is the intersection between what you’re really good at and what you love to do. If you can find that intersection, you are set. A lot of people would kill for that because, at 65, they’re retiring and never found it.

So don’t put so much emphasis on initial compensation. Don’t listen to all the harping from the family. Try to find your sweet spot and, once you find it, invest in that. You don’t want to get degrees just to do work you don’t really like. If you’re miserable, even if you make a lot of money, that’s still 40 years of your life.

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