Protesters slam Egypt government two years after revolution

CAIRO -- Young men and boys clashed with security forces as tens of thousands of Egyptians protested Friday against the Islamist-led government’s failure to fix the economy and heal the politically divided nation two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

The anniversary of the revolution that led to Mubarak’s downfall was marked more by rancor than joy as familiar and troubling scenes played out across the country: Rock-throwing youths lunging at police through clouds of tear gas while peaceful demonstrators waved banners and shouted epithets against those in power.

President Mohamed Morsi has been engulfed by months of anger from secularists, who claim he and his Muslim Brotherhood party have turned increasingly authoritarian in a bid to advance an Islamic state at the expense of social justice. The protests were the latest reminder of the volatile politics and persistent mistrust that threaten Egypt’s transition.

PHOTOS: 2011 Egyptian protests

“Morsi is finished,” said Tarik Salama, an activist. “A big part of the population hates him now. It’s too late for him to turn around and say, ‘Hey guys, I love you.’ He’s in the same place as Mubarak was two years ago.

"Morsi’s biggest problem is that he failed to unify the country. A lot of people voted for him, but he failed.”

One banner raised in Tahrir read: "Two years since the revolution, and Egypt still needs another revolution." Protest chants harked back to the 18-day revolt that toppled Mubarak but were now directed at Morsi: “Leave, leave.”

The days ahead may prove more violent. Many of the youths clashing with police in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities are angry over an economy that offers little hope. They have been joined by hard-core soccer fans, known as Ultras, demanding that police officials be held accountable in the deaths of 74 soccer fans killed last year in a stadium riot.

A court verdict in that case is expected Saturday.

In recent days, youths in Cairo have battled police with stones and gasoline bombs around high cement barricades blocking streets leading from Tahrir Square to the parliament. Young men pulled part of the wall down but police drove them back, firing steady volleys of tear gas that cloaked the square and drifted over the Nile.

“These young men and kids have no jobs,” said Salama. “The young in Egypt feel there is no future for them. This is the big danger.”

By dusk Friday, youths with rags and scarves over their faces hurled stones and rushed barriers, preparing for another night of clashes. The unrest spurred the emergence of an anarchist group, known as the Black Bloc, whose masked, black-clad members threw Molotov cocktails and attempted to overrun the presidential palace and the upper house of parliament or Shura Council.  

More than 60 protesters and at least 30 police have been injured nationwide since early Friday in clashes that also led to attacks on offices of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The backlash against Morsi intensified in November when he expanded his presidential powers and, sidestepping the courts, pushed through a referendum on an Islamist-backed constitution. The liberal opposition, which has long been disorganized, attacked him for spoiling promises of democracy that inspired the 2011 revolution.

Morsi has said his actions were an effort to root out Mubarak-era loyalists from the government and propel the country toward parliamentary elections in the spring. But his biggest challenge, perhaps, is Egypt’s troubled economy that has lost more than half of its foreign reserves and worsened conditions for about 40% of Egyptians who live on $2 a day.

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Court: WikiLeaks Suspects Denied List of Companies Who Received Orders for Records

A federal appeals court has ruled that three suspects targeted in a WikiLeaks investigation have no right to know from which companies, other than Twitter, the government sought to obtain their records.

The ruling, published Friday, upholds a magistrate’s earlier decision that “there exists no right to public notice of all the types of documents filed in a sealed case” and likens the 2703(d) orders in question to grand jury proceedings, which are not subject to public access.

“In fact, they are a step removed from grand jury proceedings, and are perhaps even more sacrosanct,” the judges for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals noted in their decision (.pdf). “Because secrecy is necessary for the proper functioning of the criminal investigations at this § 2703(d) phase, openness will frustrate the government’s operations.”

Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp had sought to obtain a docket list indicating all of the 2703(d) orders the government issued in relation to their case after discovering that the government had issued such an order to Twitter in Dec. 2010, and to Google and Sonic.net in January and April 2011.

Prosecutors had used a 2703(d) order in December 2010 to seek information from Twitter about accounts belonging to the three, as well as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Gonggrijp is a Dutch hacker and activist and Jonsdottir was a member of Iceland’s parliament at the time. Appelbaum has served as a U.S. spokesman for WikiLeaks in the past, and both Gonggrijp and Jonsdottir helped WikiLeaks in preparing publication of the “Collateral Murder” video, a video allegedly leaked by former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning that showed a U.S. Apache gunship firing on and killing Iraqi civilians and injuring two children. WikiLeaks published the video in April 2010.

A number of sealed dockets in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, suggested that there were at least four Justice Department records demands issued in the same manner as the the one sent to Twitter. In May 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, asked a federal judge to open those dockets to the public.

They argued that the documents were subject to the right of public access to judicial records under the First Amendment and common law, and that it was an issue of public interest and national importance to understand the nature and scope of the government’s electronic surveillance of internet activities. The transparency of 2703(d) orders and motions, they said, “would ensure fairness, decrease bias, improve public perception of the justice system, and enhance the chances that the orders are well-justified and not overbroad.”

The order to Twitter had sought full contact details for the accounts of the three targets (phone numbers and addresses), IP addresses used to access the accounts, connection records (“records of session times and durations”) and data transfer information, such as the size of data files sent to someone else and the destination IP.

The secret orders to Google and Sonic.net only pertained to Appelbaum. The initial order to Twitter remained sealed until Twitter succeeded to convince a judge to lift the seal to notify the suspects that their records were being sought so that they could fight the order. Both Sonic and Google asked the court to lift the seal on the orders so that Appelbaum could be told about the requests. A court agreed to unseal the Sonic order in August 2011.

The order to Google directed the search giant to hand over the IP address Appelbaum used to log into his Gmail account as well as the email and IP addresses of anyone he communicated with going back to Nov. 1, 2009. That’s the month that Bradley Manning is believed to have first made contact with WikiLeaks before allegedly leaking the “Collateral Murder” video and another U.S. Army video, as well as more than a million classified and otherwise sensitive military and U.S. State Department documents. The order to Sonic sought the same type of information, including the email addresses of people with whom Appelbaum communicated, but did not seek the content of that correspondence.

Sonic told the Wall Street Journal that it sought to fight the order but lost, and was forced to turn over the requested information. Challenging the order was “rather expensive, but we felt it was the right thing to do,” Sonic’s chief executive, Dane Jasper, told the newspaper.

Google has never disclosed if it fought the order that it received.

“Obviously, we follow the law like any other company,” a Google spokeswoman told CNET. “When we receive a subpoena or court order, we check to see if it meets both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying. And if it doesn’t, we can object or ask that the request is narrowed.”

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It’s a “Mini-Buble” for singer Michael Bublé and wife

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Canadian jazz singer Michael Bublé and his Argentinian actress wife, Luisana Lopilato, are expecting their first baby together, Lopilato said in a video posted to YouTube on Thursday.

The video shows what appears to be an ultrasound of a fetus with the words “Mini Buble !!!” attached to the image. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Q0tUPjPDFo

A written statement that also is part of the 21-second video says, “We’re having a baby Bublé!!!”

Bublé, 37, is a three-time Grammy Award winner known for such songs as “Haven’t Met You Yet,” “Home” and “Save the Last Dance for Me.”

He and Lopilato, 25, were married in 2011. She has starred in such Spanish-language television series as “Chiquititas, la historia” and “Rebelde Way” and has also worked as a model.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis, editing by Jill Serjeant and David Brunnstrom)

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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Court Rejects Recess Appointments to Labor Board

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that President Obama violated the Constitution when he made three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board last January.

The three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Mr. Obama did not have the power to bypass the Senate and make the appointments.

The Obama administration has repeatedly asserted that the appointments to the N.L.R.B. were legitimate because he made them when the Senate was away during a 20-day holiday recess a year ago. The appeals court strongly disagreed, ruling that the Senate was technically in session because it was gaveled in and out every few days as part of a tactic that created “pro forma” sessions.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have used the tactic of “pro forma” session to block presidents from making recess appointments.

The court’s decision also raises doubts about the legitimacy of Mr. Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Mr. Cordray’s appointment, which is being challenged in a separate lawsuit, was also made last January under the same recess circumstances. On Thursday, Mr. Obama announced he was again nominating Mr. Cordray to that position, voicing hope that Senate Republicans would not block confirmation this time, as they did with the previous nomination of Mr. Cordray.

The White House criticized Friday’s ruling, saying it would severely weaken the president’s ability to make recess appointments when Republicans have threatened filibusters to block many of his nominations.

“The decision is novel and unprecedented, and it contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said at the daily press briefing. “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.”

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, applauded the ruling, saying the court “reaffirmed that the Constitution is not an inconvenience, but the law of the land.” He added that letting “the president decide when the Senate is in recess would demolish the checks and balances” in the advise-and-consent process.

Mr. McConnell and 41 other Republican senators had filed an amicus brief in the case, challenging the validity of the appointments.

Many Republicans and business associations have derided the labor board under Mr. Obama, saying it has become a tool of organized labor. But many Democrats and labor unions have responded that Mr. Obama’s appointments had merely restored ideological balance to the board after it had favored business interests under President George W. Bush.

The Obama administration is likely to appeal Friday’s ruling to the United States Supreme Court.

But if the ruling is upheld, it would invalidate scores of decisions that the labor board has made since last January.

The board would be left with just one validly appointed member — its chairman, Mark Gaston Pearce — who was confirmed by the Senate. Under a 2010 Supreme Court decision, the labor board, which has five seats, is authorized to issue decisions only when it has three or more sitting members.

On Jan. 4, 2012, Obama made the three recess appointments to the labor board. They were two Democrats — Deputy Labor Secretary Sharon Block; Richard Griffin, general counsel to the operating engineers union — and one Republican, Terence Flynn, a counsel to an N.L.R.B. member. Mr. Flynn resigned from the board last May after he was accused of leaking materials about the N.L.R.B.'s internal deliberations.

The three federal judges who issued Friday’s ruling were all Republican appointees. The decision was written by David B. Sentelle, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan who is chief judge of the federal appellate court in Washington, D.C.

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Bell council members took pay for 'sham' board meetings, D.A. says

Opening statements began Thursday in the trial against six former Bell council members accused of paying themselves extraordinarily high salaries for their part-time work, largely by collecting pay for serving on boards and commissions that rarely, if ever, met.

Deputy Dist. Atty Edward Miller walked the jury through a PowerPoint presentation that listed how often the four agencies met. One screen shot read, “Agendas for each had one item. Pay raises.”

Between 2006 and 2007, Miller said the total meeting time for all of the boards was 34 minutes.

FULL COVERAGE: Bell trial

“The evidence will show that they worked less minutes than my opening statement will take this morning,” he said.

He pointed out that the Solid Waste Authority met for just two minutes one year.

“This was a sham from the beginning,” he said. “The two minutes was just to pass a resolution to establish their pay. They did nothing else that year.”

The prosecutor said the former council members cost the city $1.3 million with their inflated salaries.

Later, Miller turned to the jury of eight women and four men and said, “So how did they get away with it? Well, unfortunately, participation by the community in Bell city politics wasn’t very good.”

The corruption case in Bell exploded more than two years ago when The Times revealed that council members were making about $100,000 a year. The town’s chief administrator, Robert Rizzo, was being compensated nearly $1 million for running the largely immigrant city of about 35,000 residents.

Rizzo, along with former assistant city manager Angela Spaccia, will stand trial later this year.

Authorities said their investigation showed that the elected leaders and top administrators had been raiding the city treasury by drawing huge salaries, lending out city money and imposing illegal taxes on residents of the L.A. County city.

Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal all face potential prison terms if convicted.

The trial drew a few Bell residents, including Donna Gannon, who has lived in the city for more than 35 years. Gannon, 59, said she plans to run for city council and wanted to attend the hearing to learn more about the charges against the defendants. She hopes to relay the information to residents.

“There’s a lot of information we don’t know and are still confused about,” she said. “Right now we’re in the dark. There’s still an elephant in the room, and we’re here to learn the details.”

After the lunch break, opening statements will be heard from all six defense attorneys. One said he was not impressed by Miller’s remarks.

“There were no surprises,” Hernandez’s attorney, Stanley L. Friedman, said. “Where’s the beef?”

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Here's How the Military Will Finally Accept (Most) Women in Combat

Congratulations, women in the military! You’re about to get more opportunities to fight in the wars of the future. Someday. After a long, long process of review.

As of Thursday afternoon, by act of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 1994 Direct Combat Exclusion Rule for women is no more. But it won’t be gone gone until 2016. Between now and then, the services will present plans for gender integration, due May 15, and then gradually integrate women into combat occupations — as well as assess which tasks they’re going to keep all-male.

Lots of the military’s most wired jobs are already open to women. Women in the Air Force can be drone pilots, for instance, as only elite special-operations jobs in the flying service are male-only. (The Air Force is already 99 percent gender integrated.) Crucial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance positions are performed by women every day. So are cybersecurity tasks. Women serve on massive ballistic-missile submarines. And the wars of the past 11 years have proven that even officially non-combat roles like truck driving become combat roles the instant an insurgent decides to attack.

“Female servicemembers have faced the reality of combat,” Panetta recognized in a Thursday press conference at the Pentagon.

Across the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, there are about 237,000 positions excluded to women in the combat professions. They break down in two ways. First are the 184,000 positions excluded by specialty: infantry, artillery, serving on small fast-attack submarines, things like that. Then there are 53,000 positions inside combat units that exclude women — even though the jobs themselves, like medics or headquarters staffs, are open to women in other units.

The whole purpose of lifting the ban is to open those jobs up — or to figure out which ones the services really, really believe they can’t.

That is: the presumption inside the services will officially be that all combat roles ought to be open for women. Any service that wants to keep a combat role all-male will have to satisfy the Secretary of Defense that it’s got a good reason. “The burden used to be that we would say, ‘Why should a woman serve in a particular specialty?’,” Dempsey said. “Now it’s ‘Why shouldn’t a woman serve in a particular specialty?’”

And before combat units get fully integrated, Dempsey and Panetta indicated they expect women to fill leadership slots, both officers and enlisted, so women can see they have a career path upward and can “compete for command” with men.

For the next several months, and particularly over the summer, the services will reevaluate the standards they have in place for these combat positions, particularly the physical-fitness standards. A host of Defense Department officials swore to reporters on Thursday morning at the Pentagon that they’ll neither lower physical-fitness standards nor establish different standards by gender, something they say would violate federal law, anyway.

So the likely outcome of those tests is to find which jobs will remain excluded to women. An example a senior Marine official cited involved a loader on a tank crew. Loading a tank round requires a certain degree of upper body strength. You need to hoist a 50-odd pound, 120-mm round, removing it from its rack and loading it into the breach — here’s a video demonstration — all in a space that doesn’t really allow a lot of lower body strength to supplement. When the Army and Marine Corps explore job openings for women, that’s what they’ll test — whether a soldier or marine can do that, repeatedly, in relevant and realistic conditions, regardless of gender. (Although Dempsey mentioned one of his tank gunners when he was a division commander in Iraq was named Amanda.)

“For us it comes down to, it’s the physical standard and can they do it,” the Marine official said. “Those that can will have a greater opportunity and we’ll have a bigger pool to draw from. Those that can’t, no harm, no foul.” Or, as Panetta put it: “There are no guarantees of success. Not everyone is going to be able to be a combat soldier. But everyone is entitled to a chance.”

There’s also a reality the military will need to face: this is a cultural change, much like allowing open gay and lesbian service was. And while Dempsey and Panetta talk about moving “expeditiously” to integrate the combat professions, the services will likely want to move more deliberately. Gen. Robert W. Cone, who runs the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, advocates integrating field artillery positions first — suggesting that allowing women into infantry positions will happen closer to 2016 than 2013.

Dempsey made a subtle argument that touched one of the most explosive issues the military faces: a spate of sexual harassment and sexual abuse cases, some of which have involved general officers. While Dempsey didn’t present gender integration as a panacea, he expected it to have an ameliorative effect on one of the military’s persistent sources of dishonor.

“When you have one part of the population that’s designated as warriors, and another part of the population that’s designated as something else, I think that disparity begins to establish a psychology that, in some cases, led to that environment,” he said. “The more we can treat people equally, the more likely they are to treat each other equally.”

That won’t satisfy people who argue that treating people equally is not the military’s central function; winning wars is. Panetta has a response to that: “I fundamentally believe our military is more effective when success is not based solely on ability, on qualifications and on performance.” And it might take years to fully put that proposition to the test, but Panetta has in a big way staked his legacy at the Pentagon upon it.

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Fox orders “Sleepy Hollow,” two other drama pilots

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ichabod Crane will ride again – this time on Fox.

The network has given a pilot order to an adaptation of the “Sleepy Hollow” legend from “Fringe” and “Transformers” team Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, the network said Tuesday.

A modern-day supernatural thriller based on the Washington Irving tale, “Sleepy Hollow” will be written and executive-produced by Kurtzman and Orci, with Heather Kadin and Len Wiseman also executive-producing. The series comes from K O Paper Products in association with Twentieth Century Fox TV.

Fox also ordered two other drama pilots on Tuesday, including “Delirium,” from writer/executive producer Karyn Usher (“Bones,” “Prison Break.”). Produced by Chernin Entertainment in association with Twentieth Century Fox TV, “Delirium” is based on a best-selling trilogy “about a world where love is deemed illegal and is able to be eradicated with a special procedure.” With just 95 days to go before undergoing her scheduled procedure, the drama’s protagonist, Lena Holoway “does the unthinkable: she falls in love.”

Peter Chernin and Katherine Pope are also serving as executive producers on “Delirium.”

A third pilot, “The List,” revolves around the murders of members of the Federal Witness Security Program, and the U.S. Marshal who leads the hunt for a person who stole a file with the identities of every member of the program. Paul Zbyszewski (“Lost,” “Hawaii 5-0″) is writing and executive-producing, with “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer also executive-producing. “The List” is being produced by Twentieth Century Fox TV.

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Question Mark: Why Am I Making So Many Pit Stops?

There are those who have suggested that this feature appears to take an unseemly delight in the decline of the human body: ears that don't hear as well, spines that compress and curve, nose sensors that fade. And did we mention those hairs that start growing out of places other than the head? So we are happy to report on one thing baby boomers may find they do as well as well as ever: urinating. In fact, not only are they still doing it, they may well be doing it more often than ever. A lot more often.

Herman Wouters

Older men may feel more affinity for this  famous fountain in Brussels than they'd like.

Um, wait a minute. It turns out this may be another one of those decline-of-the-human body pieces. Because for many people, their bedtime routine may now consist of reading, a strategic dash to the bathroom right before lights out, and a plea to Neptune to hold back the waters so they will make it through the night without having to get up.

Even if they do manage to do that, they may feel chagrined if they are parents and see their children roll out of bed, eat breakfast and head off to school without making a single pit stop. Your children may not be better people. But they may have better kidneys, said Dr. Sharon A. Brangman, a professor of medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

People may urinate more as they get older for a number of reasons, including medical problems like hypertension or diabetes. It may also be a symptom of infection. “That’s often the first thing we look at when people complain of frequent urination,” said Dr. Tomas Griebling, vice chairman of urology at the University of Kansas and a spokesman for the American Urological Association. Some medicines can also be the cause.

Getting older, Dr. Griebling said, does not necessarily mean more trips to the bathroom. But many people do notice that they have to go more often, and often the explanation lies with normal changes in the body.

As people age, their kidneys may become less adept at concentrating urine and may draw in more water from elsewhere in the body, said Dr. Brangman, a past president of the American Geriatrics Society. This means more urine is produced and sent on to the bladder which, as it happens, is not getting any younger, either, and may be losing some storage capacity. The urethra, through which the urine exits the body, may also be shortening and its lining thinning.

Adding to the problem is that as people age, their bodies produce less of a hormone, aldosterone, that lets them retain fluid. In women, estrogen levels also drop, a change associated with increased urination. And in men, as the prostate gets bigger, it may become harder to urinate, or to do so completely. (Men and women may also develop some incontinence, especially common in women who have borne children.)

Increased urination knows no time of day, but people seem to notice it more at night. The National Sleep Foundation says that when it surveyed people ages 55 to 84, two-thirds reported losing sleep at least a few times a week because of the problem.

Questions about aging? E-mail boomerwhy@nytimes.com

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.

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City Officials Push Pension Funds to Divest From Gun Makers

Fresh from persuading a $5 billion pension fund in Chicago to divest from companies that make firearms, the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, on Thursday urged the chief executives of two major banks to stop financing companies “that profit from gun violence.”

Mr. Emanuel sent letters to TD Bank, which provides a $60 million credit line to Smith & Wesson, and to Bank of America, which provides a $25 million line to Sturm, Ruger & Company, asking the C.E.O.’s to push the companies to “find common ground with the vast majority of Americans who support a military weapons and ammunition ban.”

Mr. Emanuel’s effort to enlist banks in the gun control campaign is just one example of a new willingness by a public official, galvanized by last month’s carnage in Newtown, Conn., to wield the power of the purse.

New York State’s big public pension fund and California’s fund for teachers have already frozen or divested their gun holdings, and California’s fund for other public workers, known as Calpers, is expected to take up the issue in February. New York City’s public advocate has put pressure on banks and investment firms by ranking their gun holdings by size and calling those with the 12 biggest stakes the Dirty Dozen.

“Elected leaders understand that this is a tool of government with huge ramifications,” said the public advocate, Bill de Blasio, who is a trustee of the city’s $45 billion pension fund. “What happened in Newtown sort of crystallized this.”

In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael A. Nutter has prepared a wide-ranging set of principles that companies would have to adopt before receiving city pension money. He calls them the Sandy Hook Principles, after the Newtown elementary school where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults with an assault-style weapon on Dec. 14. They are modeled on the approach the city took more than a decade ago to put pressure on companies doing business in South Africa under apartheid.

Mr. Nutter, who is also the president of the United States Conference of Mayors, said he hoped the approach would spread to other cities. First, however, he must persuade Philadelphia’s pension trustees to adopt the principles. That may be a struggle. Several unions have representatives on the city’s pension board, and they are already battling with the mayor over concessionary contract negotiations.

How successful Mr. Emanuel, himself a one-time investment banker, will be with bank executives is also uncertain. He cannot make them sever business relationships. He told the Bank of America chief, Brian T. Moynihan, and the TD Bank chief, Bharat B. Masrani, that the trustees of Chicago’s main pension fund had just voted to unload more than $1 million worth of gun stocks, and said it was time for the bankers to get on board. “We can no longer wait,” he wrote.

A spokesman for Bank of America declined to comment on Mr. Emanuel’s letter. A spokeswoman for TD Bank said she had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on it.

Mr. de Blasio said he had already seen results from his Dirty Dozen list, a ranking of the New York-based financial services companies with the biggest holdings of firearms manufacturers. Compiled from filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the list includes hedge funds, banks, investment firms and an insurance company.

The day after he unveiled the list at a news conference, he said, he received a phone call from Laurence D. Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, which Mr. de Blasio ranked second with gun holdings of about $346 million.

“Obviously, he was concerned about how the public saw the firm,” said Mr. de Blasio, who is running to succeed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an outspoken gun control advocate. He said Mr. Fink told him that BlackRock would start offering its clients funds with no exposure to firearms.

BlackRock does not actively pick weapons manufacturers as an investment strategy, a spokesman said. Rather, it offers index funds to its clients and buys the stakes as it duplicates the makeup of stock indexes that include gun manufacturers. The spokesman confirmed that BlackRock could offer its institutional clients the same index funds as before, with the gun assets stripped out. He did not say whether the offering had been made in response to Mr. de Blasio’s list.

The biggest gun investor on the list, with at least $706 million in gun holdings, was Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm that created a small conglomerate called the Freedom Group out of a number of smaller makers of guns, ammunition and shooting accessories.

The Freedom Group is the manufacturer of the Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle that the Newtown gunman, Adam Lanza, used before taking his own life. Cerberus said last month that it would sell the group, and Mr. de Blasio said he would remove Cerberus from his list when the sale was closed.

The third biggest institution, with $140 million in gun holdings, was State Street Corporation, a large provider of custodial banking services.

On Tuesday, the board of New York City’s pension fund considered a resolution from Mr. de Blasio to divest from all weapons makers, given that the massacre in Newtown stirred nationwide revulsion that could erode the value of their stocks.

Instead, the trustees voted in favor of another resolution, introduced by the Bronx borough president, Rubén Díaz Jr., to divest only from makers of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Mr. Díaz’s resolution also called for the New York City comptroller to prepare a report for the board on what the investments consisted of and how to minimize any losses from the divestment process.

Although pension trustees have a fiduciary duty to be prudent stewards of the money they control, they are often unaware of exactly what is in their investment portfolios. They rely on staff and outside consultants to track specific investments and make recommendations. Outside investment firms are typically told to invest large blocks of money according to general principles, and to strive for certain benchmarks, rather than picking specific assets.

The pension funds that elected to place millions of dollars with Cerberus, for example, were not told beforehand that it was going to buy gun companies and put them together under a common name with a new marketing plan.

Many public pension trustees remain unconvinced that divesting from weapons manufacturers is consistent with their duty to protect the interests of their current and future retirees. Union representatives in particular often say that their job is to get maximum benefits for their members.

“It’s understandable why the trustees of public funds might want to shy away from this sort of thing,” said Amer Ahmad, the Chicago comptroller, who pushed that city’s main pension board to divest on Wednesday. “People understandably fear that there are constraints or limits to their fiduciary responsibility. But to the contrary, the mayor and I have made a long and, I feel, persuasive case that if we don’t act, we are actually failing in our fiduciary duty.”

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