Ex-Stanford Executive Gets 5 Years in $7 Billion Swindle

HOUSTON (AP) — The star prosecution witness at the fraud trial of Texas financier R. Allen Stanford expressed remorse Tuesday before being sentenced to five years in prison for helping to bilk investors out of more than $7 billion in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

James M. Davis had faced up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2009 to three fraud and conspiracy charges. At Stanford's trial last year, Davis testified that as chief financial officer of Stanford's companies he helped the financier to fake his bank's profits and fabricate documents to hide the fraud.

In a brief statement, Davis said he will feel remorse and regret for the rest of his life.

"I am ashamed and I'm embarrassed," Davis, 64, said at the sentencing hearing in Houston federal court. "I've perverted what was right and I hurt thousands of investors. I betrayed their trust and also associates and neighbors and friends and my family."

Many of the dramatic details at Stanford's trial — including testimony about bribes and blood oaths — came from Davis, who portrayed his ex-boss as the leader of the fraud who burned through billions of CD deposits. Stanford, a one-time billionaire, was convicted in March on 13 fraud-related counts and sentenced to 110 years in prison.

Prosecutor Jason Varnado had asked for Davis to get a 10-year prison term. He told U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner that while Davis' cooperation in the case was outstanding, he only came to authorities after Stanford's business empire was shut down and he had no other options. Davis' sentence should reflect the severity of his crimes, Varnado said.

"Mr. Davis for 20 years lied and deceived thousands of investors, employees and the public, and helped Allen Stanford commit one of the largest frauds in American history," he said.

Defense attorney, David Finn, said Davis' cooperation contributed greatly to the government's efforts to locate and secure funds for investors.

"I'm not here to tell your honor my client was a saint," Finn said. "He was remorseful, contrite and tried to make amends for the injuries he's inflicted."

Prosecutors say Stanford persuaded investors to buy certificates of deposit from his bank in Antigua, then used that money to bankroll a string of failed businesses and his lavish lifestyle, including a fleet of private jets and yachts.

Stanford's defense attorneys accused Davis of being behind the fraud and tried to discredit him by calling him a liar and tax cheat and telling jurors of his extra marital affairs.

On Tuesday, Hittner ordered Davis to report to federal prison within 60 days, allowing him time to meet with investors who have filed lawsuits against banks, law firms and others accused in the fraud.

Angela Shaw, a Dallas-area woman, founded the Stanford Victims Coalition after three generations of her family lost $4.5 million in the fraud.

Shaw said that Davis' sentence was "a little light" but she was grateful that Davis was willing to provide more details about how the fraud worked to help her group with their lawsuits.

"Hopefully his cooperation will lead to substantial recovery," Shaw said.

A receiver appointed by a federal judge in Dallas to oversee the recovery of funds from Stanford's business empire earlier this month announced a plan to make an initial distribution of $55 million to investors who lost money in the scheme. Shaw's group has been critical of the proposed distribution, saying it represents a recovery of one cent on the dollar for investors and that a majority of money recovered has been spent on expenses. The plan has yet to be approved.

Another top executive in Stanford's now-defunct empire — former chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt — was sentenced to three years in prison in September after pleading guilty to one count of obstruction of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proceeding.

Gilbert Lopez, the ex-chief accounting officer, and Mark Kuhrt, the ex-global controller, were convicted in November of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud. They are set to be sentenced Feb. 14.

A former Antiguan financial regulator was also indicted and awaits extradition to the U.S.

___

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President Obama opens second term

President Obama's full inaugural speech.

WASHINGTON – After Barack Obama publicly took the oath of office for his second term on Monday, he strongly defended the ideology of his party as he urged Americans to accept compromise as a path toward solving the nation’s problems.

“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time,” Obama said shortly after taking the oath from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.  “Decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay.  We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”

Just over 18 minutes -- relatively short by historical standards -- the address hit several major policy priorities that Obama hopes to pursue.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s second inauguration

For the first time ever, an inaugural address mentioned the rights of gay Americans, as Obama declared that America’s “journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

The president also insisted on the need to “respond to the threat of climate change” – a subject he largely avoided after a stinging loss in Congress early in his first term.

“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” he said.  “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.

“That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.”

Obama wove those specific policy pledges, along with brief reminders of his proposals for gun control and immigration reform, into a text that, overall, amounted to a strong reaffirmation of the core of liberal, Democratic politics and its belief in the positive role that government can play in the nation’s life.

In a nod to those who do not share that outlook, he noted that Americans “have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.”

But, he said, “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

“We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few,” he said. “The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us.  They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

PHOTOS: Past presidential inaugurations

“We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own,” he declared.

At the conclusion, Obama walked back into the Capitol building, then turned for a moment to look out at the national Mall, filled with hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Americans. “I want to see this again,” he could be heard saying.

Shortly afterward, he signed the Capitol’s guest book, then, with the bipartisan congressional leadership looking on, signed the formal paperwork to submit the nominations of his choices for several Cabinet posts, the secretaries of State, Defense and Treasury and the head of the CIA.

The speech culminated a ceremony heavily laced with references to the country’s long struggle toward equality for its African American citizens.

From an invocation by the widow of a slain leader of the civil rights movement that opened the formal proceedings to the two Bibles on which Obama took the oath, one of which belonged to Abraham Lincoln and the other to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the symbols of the nation’s 57^th inaugural ceremony traced the historic arc that led toward the nation’s first black president.

GALLERY: Inauguration gowns through the years

Four years ago, Obama took office with the country in the midst of two wars and the worst economic crisis in more than half a century. His second inauguration arrives with one war over, the other winding down and the economy recovering, but with Washington dominated by a bitter political stalemate that reflects a deep partisan divide in the nation.

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A 'Courage Board' for All Conditions

Rating: 9/10 Nearly flawless; buy it now

It’s easy to guess what The Hovercraft was built for just by looking at it: The short swallowtail and the big blunted nose all scream “powder hound.”

I did my first series of tests in early December up in Lake Tahoe, and there was a lot more crust, ice and grooms than powder, so I took it out without expecting much. I got waaay more than I figured I would: The board held its edge just fine in the groomers, but there was no surprise there. The shock came when I crossed over to the shaded side of the mountain, when the soft groomers turned into icy crud. I was fully expecting the Jones to sketch out and leave me butt-checking all over the place, but The Hovercraft’s edge sliced right into the ice and held it as well as it did the soft stuff. No transition, no adjustments — the board just went from soft snow to ice without skipping a beat.

It was so odd that it took me most of the morning before I really trusted it. But by lunchtime, I was flying down the mountain at speeds I wouldn’t dare with any of the other boards we tested. The board’s great bite is thanks to the Jones’ underfoot camber and so-called Magne-Traction edges, which essentially act like a serrated blade to bite into hard snow. These features combine to give the board a huge amount of precision and control in hard snow.

A few weeks later, I was finally able to take it out on Mt. Shasta’s backcountry to hit some deep stuff. It excelled there as well (entirely as expected) thanks to the rockered and blunted nose, which let the board float on top of the soft stuff, while the short, stiff tail made it easy to kick back and keep the nose up.

Bottom line: I’ve never seen a board perform so well in such a wide range of snow conditions. During my multi-mountain testing session of The Hovercraft snowboard, I let one of my friends ride it. He echoed my own thoughts with one simple statement: “This thing just does whatever you ask it to do.”

WIRED Simply some of the best all-mountain performance I’ve seen. Great float on powder, plus a locked-in grip on ice and crud. Seamlessly transitions from soft to hard snow. Shockingly lightweight construction.

TIRED Blunt nose and swallowtail design means you’re not gonna be riding a lot of switch.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt mines the humor in porn for “Don Jon”

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) – After a remarkable run with leading roles in films such as “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Inception,” actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt stepped behind the camera to direct “Don Jon’s Addiction,” a raunchy comedy that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

“Don Jon’s Addiction,” which Gordon-Levitt also wrote and stars in, leads a slate of films about sex on this year’s Sundance roster.

The film follows the story of Jon, a handsome young man who is unable to maintain a relationship, due to his addiction to pornography.

When Jon meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a beautiful but high-maintenance woman obsessed with Hollywood romantic comedies, and Esther (Julianne Moore), an emotionally fragile widow, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

Gordon-Levitt, 31, a former child star who has risen through the ranks of television and independent film to become one of Hollywood’s most bankable actors, said he thought it would be “hilarious” to pair a porn addict with a woman addicted to romance films.

“I wanted to tell a love story, and in my observations, what gets in the way of love most the time is how people objectify each other,” the actor told Reuters on Saturday.

While the story uses pornography as a device, Gordon-Levitt emphasized it was not meant as a commentary on porn addiction.

“I wasn’t really focused on porn or porn addiction. It was really, to me, more of a metaphor,” he said. “It is astonishing how prevalent it is in our culture today.”

Moore said the story reflected what is happening in modern society and culture.

“Both (characters) create expectations that people can’t authentically meet in a relationship,” Moore said. “We have so much of that in our lives right now in the world, with all the media influences, so people are growing up with this expectation that this is how you have a relationship.”

“Don Jon” and other festival films such as “The Look of Love,” “Lovelace,” “kink” and “Interior. Leather Bar,” explore the ways sex affects individuals and their ability to form relationships.

Actor Tony Danza, who worked with Gordon-Levitt in the 1994 film “Angels in the Outfield” and plays his father in “Don Jon,” said the film would spark conversation.

“It’s just an uncomfortable subject, which lights everyone’s fire,” Danza said. “It exposes human nature, albeit with a sometimes uncomfortable subject. But he exposes a real slice of human nature, and it’s really prevalent right now.”

MODERN DAY DON JUAN

Gordon-Levitt, who founded the HitRECord project that brings together an online community of creative artists, said he found inspiration for “Don Jon’s” humor on social media platforms.

“If you go on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and you look at the humor on there, you might call it smutty, you might call it raunchy, but there’s also a sort of honesty to it,” he said.

Gordon-Levitt said he set out to shake up assumptions about porn addiction by playing his character “Jon” against type. Instead of playing a socially awkward guy who turns to porn because he cannot connect with women, “Jon” is a buff lothario. While he has plenty of female companions, Jon’s porn addiction warps his views and expectations of women and sabotages his relationships.

Jon is portrayed as an Italian-American, but Gordon-Levitt said the “archetype is beyond ethnicity.”

“I thought, ‘who is the current-day Don Juan,’ and the first thing I thought of was that guy with too much gel in his hair and a gym body … I loved it instantly and thought it would be so funny to play that part.”

Gordon-Levitt said he hoped audiences come away from the film “wanting to engage with each other.”

“I would hope people … examine each other as unique individuals as opposed to items on a checklist, and I hope they have a great time and laugh,” he said. “And I hope they go home and have transcendent sex.”

(Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Well: Really? In Children, Flu Vaccine Can Prevent Ear Infection

Really?

Anahad O’Connor tackles health myths.

THE FACTS

For many children, flu season means an increased risk of ear infections as well.

Although many people do not realize it, the middle ear has a direct link to the upper respiratory tract: the auditory, or Eustachian, tube. Infections in the nose or sinus cavities thus can spread to the ear.

Ear infections are a common scourge of childhood. Most children under the age of 8 will have at least one, and over a quarter will experience them chronically.

Although ear infections can strike at any time, they do show some seasonal variation. In a large study published in December, researchers looked at more than 270,000 cases of acute ear infections. They found that ear infections increased along with the flu and illnesses caused by two other respiratory viruses (though not the common cold).

So does that mean that vaccinating against the flu might prevent ear infections in children? Some researchers think so.

In a report published in 2011, scientists pooled data from eight randomized studies of 24,000 children between the ages of 6 months and 7 years. They found that those who received the FluMist vaccine, a nasal spray made with live but weakened flu virus, had a significantly lower risk of acute ear infections compared with children who received a placebo. Among children who ultimately got the flu, those who had been vaccinated had a 40 percent reduction in ear infections compared with children who were given a placebo.

A study published last year also found that the flu vaccine reduced the incidence of acute ear infections in children. FluMist appears to be more effective than the shot, but scientists say more research is needed.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The flu vaccine appears to reduce the likelihood of ear infections in children.

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Maloof Family Selling Sacramento Kings to Seattle Investor

The Sacramento Kings, one of the N.B.A.’s most troubled and well-traveled franchises, may be on the move again.

The Maloof family has agreed to sell a controlling stake in the Kings to an investment group led by Christopher Hansen, a hedge fund manager who intends to move the team to Seattle by next season and rechristen them as the SuperSonics.

The sale and relocation must be ratified by the N.B.A. board of governors, a process that could take several weeks, while the league’s advisory and finance committee evaluates the deal. Although the board will meet next month during the All-Star break in Houston, a vote on the Kings sale will probably not come until April.

The Hansen group will purchase 65 percent of the team, which includes the Maloofs’ share. The remaining 35 percent is held by minority shareholders. Assuming an enterprise value of $525 million, the 65 percent stake would cost about $340 million, said people informed of the deal.

 It is unclear whether this amount includes the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento or the money needed to pay off the Maloofs’ loans from the city of Sacramento and the N.B.A. The board of governors would also need to set a relocation fee, which can be any number they choose.

The Hansen group has until March 1 to apply for relocation for the 2013-14 season. It is expected to file the necessary paperwork by then.

In a twist, Clay Bennett, who moved the SuperSonics from Seattle to Oklahoma City (where they were renamed the Thunder), is the chairman of the N.B.A.’s relocation committee.

 The Hansen group’s bid is unlikely to face serious hurdles. Hansen and his fellow investors have deep pockets and the N.B.A. would like to have a team in Seattle, the nation’s 12th largest television market. The Maloofs own their own arena, so Hansen’s group would not have to break a lease if it chose to move the team.

 “There are pieces that make sense,” said Marc Ganis, the president of SportsCorp, which brokers team sales but is not working with the Hansen group. “By all of their machinations, the Maloofs have killed the potential for the team in Sacramento.”

 The Kings have long been rumored to be on the market. The team has not qualified for the playoffs since 2006 and is near the bottom of the standings in the Western Conference this season. The Sleep Train Arena is one of the oldest in the league and is obsolete by modern standards. Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento and a former N.B.A. star, brokered a deal with the Maloofs and the N.B.A. for a new arena last year, but the family later withdrew from the arrangement.

Until recently, the Maloofs had opposed selling the team, despite widespread reports of their financial struggles. Two years ago the Maloofs looked to move the team to Anaheim, while retaining controlling interest. They had discussions last year with Virginia Beach.

Johnson has vowed to line up local investors to buy the Kings and keep them in Sacramento, in a new arena that would include public financing. Commissioner David Stern has said he will give Johnson a chance to speak to the board of governors — most likely in April — to present an alternative plan for local ownership.

Hansen has promised to bring a pro basketball team back to Seattle, where he grew up. The Sonics moved to Oklahoma City before the 2008-9 season, after repeated failed attempts to secure a deal for a new arena to replace the aging KeyArena. While the Thunder have been a success in Oklahoma City, Seattle is the largest market without an N.B.A. team.

Hansen has said he would like to bring a basketball team as well as a pro hockey team to Seattle to play in a new arena that would be built downtown. Last year the Seattle City Council and King County Council approved plans for a new arena near Safeco Field, pending the acquisition of a new team.

When asked recently about the possibility of an N.H.L. team moving to Seattle, Gary Bettman, the league’s commissioner, said it was “not something we’re thinking about at the moment.”

The Kings are one of the most road-weary teams in the N.B.A. They began as the Rochester Royals, moved to Cincinnati in 1957 and then to Kansas City, Mo., in 1972, where they became the Kings and played some of their games in Omaha. In 1985 the Kings arrived in Sacramento.

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U.S., other nations await Algeria death toll

CAIRO—

The U.S., Britain and other countries sought to learn the fate of their citizens Sunday after Algeria announced that the death toll from a hostage crisis at a remote gas refinery was expected to rise beyond a previous estimate of 23.

It was another painstaking day for security officials trying to determine how a band of Islamist militants overran the gas complex last week, and for families and nations awaiting word of new deaths. Britain confirmed that three of its citizens were killed and three are unaccounted for.

Algerian officials said security teams defusing mines and explosive booby-traps at the Sahara Desert site had found “numerous” bodies, according to the Associated Press. Algerian communications minister Mohamed Said Belaid was quoted by the state news agency as saying: "I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up."

As many as seven U.S. hostages are missing, along with about 14 Japanese. Other captives included Norwegians, Malaysians and French. Algerian officials said a final death count would be released in the coming hours.

Nearly 700 Algerians and 107 foreigners had been freed or had escaped from the gas field in eastern Algeria during the four-day, bloody ordeal that ended Saturday. Officials said at least 23 hostages and 32 militants had been killed. But discrepancies remained over the nationalities of the dead and the exact number of those who died.

“The priority now must be to get everybody home from Algeria," said British Prime Minister David Cameron. "This is a stark reminder once again of the threat we face from terrorism the world over. We have had successes in recent years in reducing the threat from some parts of the world, but the threat has grown particularly in northern Africa.”

Cameron, who had earlier appeared irritated that the Algerians did not inform foreign capitals before troops first stormed the refinery Thursday, tempered his criticism.

"People will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events,” he said. “But I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack. And I'd also say that when you’re dealing with a terrorist incident on this scale, with up to 30 terrorists, it is extremely difficult to respond and to get this right in every respect.”

 The natural gas complex at In Amenas -- near the Libyan border -- is operated by BP, Statoil and Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company. BP said four of its employees were missing.

Militants linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb raided the facility before dawn Wednesday. They claimed it was to avenge French airstrikes on Islamic rebels in neighboring Mali. But officials from the U.S. and other countries indicated the attack was planned ahead of this month’s French military action. 

Belaid said the militants were "nationals of Arab and African countries, and of non-African countries."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

(Times staff writer Henry Chu in London contributed to this report)     

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Soap Bubble Nebula

Informally known as the "Soap Bubble Nebula", this planetary nebula (officially known as PN G75.5+1.7) was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich on July 6th, 2008. It was noted and reported by Keith Quattrocchi and Mel Helm on July 17th, 2008. This image was obtained with the Kitt Peak Mayall 4-meter telescope on June 19th, 2009 in the H-alpha (orange) and [OIII] (blue) narrowband filters. In this image, north is to the left and east is down.

PN G75.5+1.7 is located in the constellation of Cygnus, not far from the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It is embedded in a diffuse nebula which, in conjunction with its faintness, is the reason it was not discovered until recently. The spherical symmetry of the shell is remarkable, making it very similar to Abell 39.

Image: T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF [high-resolution] Read NOAO Conditions of Use before downloading

Caption: NOAO

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Singer Randy Travis reaches plea deal in assault case: TV

DALLAS (Reuters) – Country music singer Randy Travis has reached a plea agreement in a misdemeanor assault case arising from an altercation last summer in a Texas church parking lot, KTVT-TV reported on Saturday.

The Grammy winner will serve 90 days of deferred adjudication under a plea he entered on Friday in a municipal court in Plano, a Dallas suburb, the CBS-affiliated station in Dallas/Forth Worth reported.

Deferred adjudication lets a defendant plead “guilty” or “no contest” in exchange for meeting requirements such as probation during the period. The defendant may avoid a formal conviction or have his case dismissed once the requirements are met.

Police said Travis assaulted a man in the parking lot of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano on August 23 while attempting to intervene in a disagreement between a woman, who is now his fiancée, and her estranged husband.

Travis pleaded not guilty to the charge last month. He filed a lawsuit in a Collin County court against the man he was charged with assaulting, saying the incident was an attempt to injure and embarrass Travis, the TV station reported.

Attempts to contact Travis’ attorney on Saturday were unsuccessful.

The 53-year-old singer still faces charges of driving while intoxicated in an August 7 incident near his hometown of Tioga, about 60 miles north of Dallas.

Authorities are still investigating alleged threats he made to troopers who took him to jail, and no charges have been filed.

(Reporting by Marice Richter; Writing Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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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