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Opinion.................. A15-17Property Report .. C6-8Sports.............................. D6Careers........................ B6,7U.S. News................. A2-8Weather Watch........ B8World News....... A10-13

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What’sNews

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World-Widen Taliban gunmen stormeda military-run school innorthwestern Pakistan andkilled at least 141 people,mainly children. A1n Jeb Bush announcedplans to “actively explore” apresidential campaign, kick-starting the 2016 race. A1nAmerica’s pessimism on theeconomy is waning, but viewson race relations have turnedmore dour, a poll found.A4n The Senate voted to extenda raft of temporary tax breaksthrough year’s end, ending aprotracted struggle. A6n Congress ended the yearwithout extending a terror-ism insurance program thatis slated to expire. A6n Turkish soccer fans whoparticipated in antigovernmentprotests went on trial, chargedwith plotting a coup. A10n Australians paid tribute totwo people who died in Mon-day’s hostage crisis. Ques-tions remained about thestandoff’s final moments. A13n Ukraine plans fresh bud-get cuts and economic over-hauls in a bid to secure addi-tional international aid. A12n U.S. teenagers are morelikely to use electronic ciga-rettes than traditional ones,a survey showed. A8n The FDA urged consum-ers to avoid using pure caf-feine powder, which hasbeen linked to two deaths. A8n A Pennsylvania man sus-pected of murdering his ex-wife and five of her relativeswas found dead. A8

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The Russian ruble contin-ued its slide, fueling a

selloff in emerging-marketcurrencies and stocks. The Dowshed 0.7% after a volatile ses-sion and the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to its lowestlevel since May 2013. A1, C1, C4 U.S. oil prices broke afour-session losing streak, butBrent crude, a global pricegauge, settled down 2%. C4 A Pimco emerging-marketfund has stumbled over alarge bet on bonds issued byRussian corporations. C1n Sony Pictures executiveswill let theater operators de-cide whether or not to play“The Interview” after threatsof physical attacks surfaced. B1n U.S. prosecutors are closeto a deal with Alstom thatwould require the French com-pany to pay about $700millionto settle a bribery probe. B1n U.S. banks relaxed loan-underwriting standards forthe third straight year, a reg-ulator’s report said. C1n A November dip in homebuilding in the U.S. didn’tdent overall optimism in thebroader housing market. A2n Apple didn’t suppresscompetition for its iPod mu-sic players, a jury in a class-action suit ruled. B4n Spain’s Repsol sealed adeal to acquire Canada’s Tal-isman for $8.3 billion. B2n American Apparel termi-nated the employment ofCEO Dov Charney. B2n Puma said it would launcha multiyear partnership withpop star Rihanna. B6

Business&Finance

MOSCOW—As Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin has ratch-eted up the conflict with theWest for most of the year, theeconomic fallout on ordinaryRussians has been limited.

Suddenly, though, the plung-ing ruble is reawakening fears ofrising prices and the kind of fi-nancial crisis Mr. Putin hassought to put behind his coun-try. As the ruble hit a recordlow, falling as much as 20%against the dollar Tuesday, Mos-cow residents rushed to buyelectronics and other big-ticketitems and drained rubles fromATMs to swap them for dollarsand euros—signaling a new feel-ing of vulnerability among Rus-sians and a fresh challenge totheir leader.

From St. Petersburg to Sibe-ria, money changers ran out offoreign currency and were rais-ing exchange rates. Sberbank,Russia’s state savings bank, andAlfa Bank, Russia’s largest pri-vate lender, said they were expe-riencing a rush for dollars andeuros.

“The demand is enormous.People are bringing piles, hugepiles of cash. It is madness,” saidKamila Asmalova, a manager ata Moscow branch of Sberbank.The branch ran out of foreigncurrency by 2 p.m., she said.

Lanta Bank, a midsize Mos-cow lender, said its foreigncounterparts would be unable tosend foreign currency Wednes-

PleaseturntopageA12

By James Marson,Olga Razumovskaya

and Alexander Kolyandr

Russia’sEconomicStrugglesTest Putin

Taliban gunmen stormed amilitary-run school in northwest-ern Pakistan and killed at least141 people, methodically shoot-ing schoolchildren in the headand setting fire to some victimsin a horrifying 9-hour rampage.

Shahrukh, a 17-year-old survivorof Tuesday’s attack in Peshawar,said many students were assem-bled in the school auditoriumwhenthe gunmen burst in and startedspraying bullets. He was shot inboth legs and fell to the ground.

“I saw them set one of ourteachers on fire in front of me,”he said.

The scale and level of brutal-ity in the massacre marked agrim milestone in Pakistan’sseven-year battle against Isla-

mist insurgents. Of the 141 killed,132 were schoolchildren. Fifteenbodies of students were burnedso badly they couldn’t be imme-diately identified when theywere brought to the city’s Com-bined Military Hospital, securityofficials said.

Amir Ameen, 18 years old,said he and 11 other studentswere taking an exam when twogunmen entered their classroom.They shot students one by one,mostly in the head, he said from

his bed at Peshawar’s Lady Read-ing Hospital.

The attackers shouted “Allahuakbar” or “God is great” overand over as they shot each stu-dent, Mr. Ameen said.

The gunmen shot the teacherin his classroom and her 2-year-old daughter, who she was cra-dling in her arms, Mr. Ameensaid.

“I am the only survivor frommy class. I was hit in the stom-ach. I just played dead when theychecked on me,” he said.

For the U.S., the attack fueledconcerns about violence and ter-rorists finding safe havens alongthe Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The Pakistani Taliban claimedresponsibility, saying the attack

was to avenge a major Pakistanimilitary operation this year toclear Taliban strongholds in theNorthWaziristan tribal area alongthe Afghan border. All seven at-tackers, who wore suicide vestspacked with explosives, werekilled, the military said.

The assault began when asquad of gunmen entered theArmy Public School on WarsakRoad in Peshawar, capital of theKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa province,around 11 a.m. and took controlof buildings, according to secu-rity officials.

Army and police personnelsurrounded the school buildingshortly after the attack began.

“There were trails of bulletPleaseturntopageA10

By Qasim Nauman andSafdar Dawar in

Peshawar, Pakistan, andSaeed Shah in

Islamabad, Pakistan

Taliban Massacre StudentsAtLeast 141Killed inRampageGroup SaidWas toAvenge PakistanMilitaryOperation

ZohraBe

nsem

ra/R

euters

JOLIET, Ill.—When Sears Holdings Corp. openeda test store in 2009 called Mygofer in this workingclass city 45 miles southwest of Chicago, it billed itas a revolutionary combination, one that wouldmeld the convenience of the Internet with the in-stant gratification of a bricks-and-mortar store.

The company gutted an 80,000-square-footKmart—but enticing rows of clothes and electronicswasn’t part of the plan. The idea of Mygofer was tohave shoppers place their orders at computers atthe front of the store, then pick up their goods at adelivery bay out back.

Sears Chief Executive Edward Lampert, who waschairman at the time, hoped to roll out hundreds ofthe stores if the experiment succeeded.

But in the four years it was open, Mygofernotched an unusual distinction: On some days, morepeople returned goods than bought them.

Shoppers were thrown by the format. “You

BY SUZANNE KAPNER

ATTENTION SHOPPERS

Sears Bets Big on TechnologyAt Expense of Stores

The late comedian George Car-lin drew up a list of seven wordsyou can never say on broadcasttelevision. No one has ever triedto enumerate the combinations ofletters and numbers that can’t beprinted on a government-issuedvanity license plate.

Policing that seven-letter me-dium falls to a group of state mo-tor vehicle employees who have aknack for solving word puzzles, a

Mencken-like command of mod-ern slang, and the disposition ofa barroom bouncer.

Phonetically arranged charac-ters that sound like four-letterwords are the easiest to weedout. Vanity reviewers know toflag certain colors, area codes andother numbers associated withstreet gangs and Adolf Hitler.

Other submissions require atrained eye—or the help of on-line slang references—to un-scramble.

Take, for example, the term UEJIT. A DMV reviewer in Califor-nia recently rejected it saying itsounds too much like the wordthat an Irish driver might blurtout to a motorist who cut himoff (“You eejit,” meaning, “youidiot”).

A221X got a thumbs down inCalifornia. The number 221 is apolice code for a “person with agun” and X refers to a woman.Putting that together, the platesays: A woman with a gun.

Gun references in the stateare purged as “terms of hostil-ity.” So are words related to ex-plosions, a restriction thatdoomed one request from afootball fan who wanted hisplate to say LGN BOOM inhonor of the Seattle Seahawks.(“Legion of Boom” is a nick-name for the team’s defensivebacks.)

Some California rejectionswere released in response to afreedom of information requestby MuckRock, an investigative

PleaseturntopageA14

BY JACOB GERSHMAN

Policing Vanity License Plates Is No Job for an EJITi i i

It Takes a Trained Eye, a Wide Vocabulary and a Dirty Mind

couldn’t see and touch things,” recalls Joyce Honk-isz, a retiree who visited the store once but didn’tbuy anything.

Internal projections had called for Mygofer tobuild over four years so that it would eventuallygenerate $8 million in annual sales—on par with atypical Kmart, according to people who worked onthe project. Annual sales struggled to top $1 million,these people said.

During an interview, Mr. Lampert acknowledgedthat “going to a store where there were no productsmay have been weird for shoppers.” He said that theidea was ahead of its time.

Shuttered in 2013, Mygofer might be written offas just another failed retail experiment. But its de-mise helps illustrate the strategic misdirection thatcontinues to dog the combined Sears/Kmart opera-tions. The ill-fated project, meanwhile, has onlyfueled Mr. Lampert’s desire to ramp up new technol-ogies—even as he curtails some of the mundane in-

PleaseturntopageA14

Sony Frees Theaters to Skip Movie

ColumbiaPictures/Everett

Collection

Relatives mourn Mohammed Ali Khan, 15 years old, who was killed during an attack by Taliban gunmen on his school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

BAD REVIEW: Amid terror threats, Sony Pictures is letting theateroperators decide whether to play its forthcoming comedy film ‘TheInterview,’ starring Seth Rogen, center, James Franco and Diana Bang. B1

Jeb Bush, the son and brotherof past presidents, kick-startedthe 2016 presidential race Tues-day by announcing plans to “ac-tively explore” a presidentialcampaign, an unexpectedly earlydeclaration that ramps up pres-sure on potential rivals and re-shuffles the policy debate.

The move by the 61-year-oldformer Florida governor essen-tially marks the beginning of thepresidential sweepstakes. With anational profile, access to bigdonors and iconic status in thenation’s largest swing state, Mr.Bush’s move puts instant pres-sure on a sprawling field of asmany as two dozen other Repub-

licans weighing 2016 bids. Hisonline announcement amountsto a pre-emptive strike againstefforts by New Jersey Gov. ChrisChristie and allies of the 2012GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, tolock in major donors or at leastkeep them on the sidelines.

Mr. Bush’s step toward a cam-paign also threatens to under-mine the aspirations of FloridaSen. Marco Rubio, his onetimeprotégé, who shares the samehome state and an overlappingpolitical network there.

“I think Jeb is trying to clearthe field,” said Bobbie Kilberg, aprominent Republican donor

PleaseturntopageA4

BY BETH REINHARDAND PATRICK O’CONNOR

Bush Nears a 2016 Run,Pressuring GOP Rivals

West weighs new sanctions... A12 Ukraine cuts budget................. A12 Russian bonds trip up fund..... C1

Bush’s conservative record..... A4 Economic gloom lifts in poll .. A4

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