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Dr. Deepak Srivastava discussing stem cell work with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. Related Times Topics: Stem Cells Guidelines proposed by the National Institutes of Health to carry out an order made last month by President Obama would allow research with federal financing only on stem cells derived from surplus embryos at fertility clinics. The money would still be prohibited for stem cell lines created solely for research purposes and for embryos created through a technique known as therapeutic cloning. During the campaign last year, President Obama said he supported "therapeutic cloning of stem cells," a policy his administration rejected Friday. A White House spokesman, Reid Cherlin, said the president "directed N.I.H. to formulate the best method for moving forward with stem cell research, both ethically and scientifically," in an independent process. Many scientists praised the new guidelines as an expected compromise. "I think it's a big step forward," said Richard O. Hynes, a cancer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "although there are aspects of stem cell research that will still be outside federal funding." Others called the proposed rules a sellout. "I'm disappointed," said Dr. Irving Weissman, the director of the Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute at Stanford University. Dr. Weissman accused the health institutes of "putting this ideological barrier in the way" of treating disease. Abortion opponents predicted that the administration would soon embrace less restrictive stem cell policies. "This is clearly part of an incremental strategy to desensitize the public to the concept of killing human embryos for research purposes," said Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee. The acting director of the health institutes, Dr. Raynard S. Kington, said that in writing the guidelines, officials had taken into account ethical considerations and "broad public support" for the use of discarded embryos from fertility clinics. "As science changes," Dr. Kington said, "we will take note of that and, when appropriate, reconsider the guidelines." Sitting on more than $10 billion in stimulus money, health institute officials have been eager to expand financing for stem cell research. Under restrictions put in place by President George W. Bush, just 21 stem cell lines have been eligible for federal financing. But researchers using private money have created more than 700 stem cell lines, some with specific diseases or mutations, many of which may now be eligible for federal financing. Some scientists said new rules requiring that donors be informed of all options could render too many new cell lines ineligible. And the rules could make ineligible for future federal financing even some cell lines approved by Mr. Bush.

The youngest son of the ailing North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, has begun an apprenticeship in the country's most powerful governing agency, a South Korean news report said. Kim Jong-un, in his mid-20s and lately considered by many analysts in Seoul as a likely successor to his father, was recently given a low-ranking job at the National Defense Commission, according to Yonhap, a South Korean news agency, quoting anonymous sources in its report. Yonhap saw the move as an indication that an active grooming of the son as the next leader has begun. His father was similarly prepared decades ago by assuming low-level jobs with the ruling Workers Party of Korea. Mr. Kim took over the North Korean helm when his father, President Kim Il-sung, died in 1994. Like most news about the inner workings of the Kim family, the latest report could not be independently confirmed. South Korean media often carry conflicting reports about the Kim family. Yonhap had earlier reported that Kim Jong-un would be elected to the rubber-stamp Parliament in March as a way to speed up his apprenticeship. That didn't happen. Media reports about Mr. Kim's three known sons, especially about Jung-un, have spiked in recent weeks. Mr. Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke in August, is said to be focusing now on securing a succession of power for one of his sons. Earlier this month, the Parliament re-elected Mr. Kim as chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission. Two of his most trusted aides - Oh Geung-nyeol, a general, and Jang Seong-taek, Mr. Kim's brother-in-law - also were elected to the commission. The appointments of Mr. Oh and Mr. Jang have led to reports about their possible roles in choosing Mr. Kim's successor, or in one of them becoming the leader himself in the post-Kim era. But those reports, too, were based mostly on conjecture by outside analysts. Experts often vary widely in their theories about Mr. Kim's motives. Only a few years ago, many analysts, as well as news outlets in South Korea, had dismissed Mr. Jang, believing him to be persona non grata in the regime because he had suddenly disappeared from the public scene. But about a year ago, he returned to politics.

Blending the styles of an art installation with a boutique hotel, the Rough Luxe has distressed walls, contemporary art and reclaimed furniture alongside crisp linens and slick bathrooms. Set in a row of Georgian town houses minutes from St. Pancras International Station, the nine-room hotel was salvaged from the remains of one of the area's many nondescript guesthouses. Last year, during a renovation, layers of wallpaper and paint were peeled away, leaving in their wake an organic collage of original handpainted mosaic wallpaper and plaster. The designer, Rabih Hage, decided to stop there. The effect is almost industrial, like the interior of a guerrilla warehouse art gallery. The hotel's small reception area, the only public space other than the breakfast room, sets the tone with a giant photograph of Gilbert and George, a contemporary art duo based in England, hovering over a 1970s built-in cabinet. King's Cross is a chaotic transportation hub where five major roads intersect beside a tangle of rail and subway routes. The immediate surrounds, riddled with budget food chains and dingy hotels, thrives on the transient population of commuters and tourists. But the arrival of the Eurostar at St. Pancras International in 2007 - central London's gateway to Europe, with Paris just over two hours away - is helping to transform the area. Set among the back streets of Grays Inn Road and Swinton Street are a smattering of destination restaurants. Acorn House, where painstakingly sourced local ingredients are whipped together by trainee chefs, is very popular. Despite pockets of gentrification, the area still has enough edge to stave off the well-dressed specter of predictability. Scala (275 Pentonville Road; 44-207-833-2022; www.scala-london.co.uk), a trendy music and dance spot, hosts regular late-night parties. At the Rough Luxe, no two rooms are alike, each having been individually styled by Mr. Hage, the hotel's designer. Arranged around my comfortable bed, amply coated in fine linens, the artwork - by Aki Kuroda, a Japanese painter - provided flashes of bright red against the scabrous wall. Much of the antique furniture found throughout the hotel was purchased at an auction of the Savoy Hotel's throwaways. Several rooms have photographs of palatial interiors by Massimo Listri, which creates an enlarging effect, similar to a mirror, to what are comfortably-sized doubles, but definitely on the small side. Three rooms come with a private bathroom, including mine (Room 5), and it had a giant photograph of an eccentrically dressed Philippe Starck posing against a bright orange wall. Most of the bathrooms have a luxurious feel with glass-encased showers and rainfall shower heads, and chrome faucets over marble basins. Room 8's en-suite bathroom has a spectacular freestanding copper bathtub. In a hotel that deliberately forgoes substance in favor of style, there are few added extras. Indeed, the television sets in each room are retro 1980s collectors' items, with a penchant for static. But Leo Rabelo, the affable general manager, was on permanent call for dinner recommendations and sightseeing advice. A Continental breakfast, included in the price of the room, was a treat delivered from Ottolenghi, a popular international deli and restaurant in Islington, and served on a table made of salvaged wood from Brighton Pier. THE BOTTOM LINE Many hotels claim to be original, but Rough Luxe actually is. Those wanting to be pampered need not apply. The emphasis here is on experience rather than indulgence. And the location is certainly one to watch - King's Cross may not be as vibrant as Shoreditch or Soho, but there's every chance that it will be. The rates, starting at GBP155 a night, or $232.50 at $1.50 to the pound, seem a little more luxe than rough, but if the hotel were set in a more salubrious corner of London, no one would balk at being charged double. Rough Luxe Hotel, 1 Birkenhead Street, London WC1; 44-207-837-5338; www.roughluxe.co.uk.

ON a rainy day in the late 17th century, an enterprising agent of the British East India Company named Job Charnock sailed along the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganges that flows from high in the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal, and pitched a tent on its swampy banks. The company bought three riverside villages. Soon they would become a port - flowing with opium, muslin and jute - and then, as the capital of British India until 1912, draw conquerors, dreamers and hungry folk from all over the world. Calcutta, India's first modern city, was born. Over the years, it acquired many names: City of Palaces, Black Hole, Graveyard of the British Empire. In 2001, it was christened Kolkata - slower, rounder, ostensibly more Bengali-sounding. To me, it has always been the city of green shutters. They are a singular fixture of old Calcutta houses. They glow in the steamy heat of the afternoon. Trees sometimes sprout from moldy ledges. I left Calcutta when I was small and promptly forgot what I knew, such is the thick velvet curtain the immigrant child draws over memory. Every few summers, when my family returned for holidays, I would be escorted from one relative's house to another, scolded for being too thin, and force-fed heaps of sweets. On Park Street, I would be invariably accosted by a hungry, barefoot child. The only thing more confounding than going to Calcutta was coming home to suburban Southern California; how do you explain the city of dreadful night (Rudyard Kipling's phrase, not mine) to friends who had spent the summer listening to Olivia Newton-John? In the last four years, over several reporting trips there, the city has revealed itself to me slowly, opening one sleepy eye at a time. Calcutta today is as parochial as it is modern. It lives in the past as much as it lets its past decay. India's first global city, it is littered with the remains of many worlds: the rickshaws that the Chinese brought; an Armenian cemetery; dollops of jazz left by Americans in the war years. It is as much a walker's city as a talker's: It has great eavesdropping potential, even if you understand only English, and it is perfectly acceptable to start up a conversation with strangers, whether about the rain or Shakespeare.

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