BETTE ARNOLD: A Boston Delight!

Boston Globe Obit

Halfway through her run as proprietor of Bette’s Rolls Royce, a restaurant near Faneuil Hall famous for the eponymous car she let lounge out front collecting thousands of dollars of parking tickets, Bette Arnold took part in the 1975 edition of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Some used the event as an occasion to make points about the school busing debate that roiled the city. Not Bette. Clad in a green body stocking, she rode the route atop the hood of her yellow 1963 Rolls, offering advice to politicians who would have welcomed the kinds of cheers that greeted her appearance.

“I always dress for the occasion,’’ she told the Globe. “Today I got more compliments than I can remember, because of my costume, you know. I think I could have been elected mayor.’’

Bette Jeanne Berman Arnold Charles — best to just call her Bette — knew how to run a business and was an attention-grabbing advertisement for her restaurant, which helped turn the area around Faneuil Hall into a destination for diners and the nightlife crowd.

After dividing her time in recent years between Boston and a summer place in New Seabury, Bette died Sunday in the Epoch of Weston senior health care center of complications of circulatory ailments. She was 90, but to nary a dissenting view, she insisted most of her life that she was “29 and holding steady.’’

Bette had a “good figure’’ and “sensational legs,’’ and lest anyone forget, she put that in her résumé, which, needless to say, was livelier than the average curriculum vitae.

Along with managing the restaurant, she would sing for patrons, including celebrities such as actress Shirley MacLaine. Bette hosted dinners at the State House and coordinated annual Christmas dinners for hundreds of disabled children. She sang throughout New England and rolled along in nearly every Boston parade for years, perched on her Rolls, creating a presence that prompted a few dozen television programs, magazines, and newspapers to feature her in stories.

Running Bette’s Rolls Royce for a decade was one of many careers. In her late teens, she started singing with her first husband’s big band, before branching into managing and booking musicians, starting a bus company, and investing in real estate by buying rental properties.

Then in 1970, Bette noted in her résumé, she “originated, designed, and built what has now become the most popular — and one of the best known — restaurants in Boston.’’

“Modesty wasn’t her long suit,’’ noted her daughter, Judith A. Cowin, a former justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.

“She was determined, tenacious, flamboyant, and did not care about the rules,’’ her daughter said. “She was going to do things her way and be a success in the best way that she could. She also was a person with a huge heart, very loving and affectionate. She gave of herself freely to people who are now all over the world and love her dearly for things she did for them when they were young.’’

Among the rules for which Bette had little use were Boston’s parking regulations. She accumulated a pile of tickets for leaving her Silver Cloud model convertible Rolls-Royce in front of the restaurant, sometimes day and night. To bail the car out of the impound lot in 1973, she brought a stack of crisp 20-dollar bills to the Boston Municipal Court clerk and handed them to him, bill after bill, to pay $2,035 in fines assessed over the previous two years.

“I’m laughing with tears in my eyes,’’ she told the Globe.

Four years later, she requested a jury trial to fight another batch of tickets and ended up paying about $1,500 more than the original amount when she lost and the judge imposed higher fines. The judge also insisted she pay immediately with a certified check, rather than the personal check, sporting an image of a yellow Rolls-Royce, that she wanted to use.

She told the Globe in 1977 that keeping her Rolls in front of the restaurant was necessary. “I lose up to 40 percent of my business when it’s not there,’’ she said. Boston, she said, discriminated by ticketing her car when vendors and other business vehicles were allowed to park illegally without being fined. Unmoved, the city kept giving her tickets. It didn’t help that the Rolls and its parking spot were visible from the window of the mayor’s office in the old City Hall.

Except, perhaps, for guidance about parking regulations, friends often sought her counsel on a variety of matters.

“She was an excellent businesswoman,’’ her daughter said. “She was a very smart woman, period.’’

Bette Berman grew up in Brighton, the older of two sisters whose mother had been a piano accompanist and whose father ran parking lots. She graduated from Girls Latin School and from Simmons College, where she majored in psychology.

By then, she had met Chappie Arnold and was singing with his band and other ensembles. They married in 1941 and had two daughters, one of whom, Joyce Arnold Rusoff, who was known as Jackie, died in a 1970 auto accident.

Along with their own band, the Arnolds managed other artists and worked as booking agents. Then they got an idea when their children began reaching school age.

“When they had to take me to school, they realized many people didn’t have transportation for their children,’’ their daughter said, “and that’s when they started a bus company.’’

The marriage to Chappie Arnold ended in divorce, though until his death in 1988, he remained friends with Bette and Robert Charles, whom she married in 1975. With him, she ran another bus company.

“Despite all the demands on her time, she was a wonderful, wonderful mother and spent tons of time with her children, teaching us everything we needed to know, including values,’’ her daughter said. “She was also a super grandmother. She took our children all over the world traveling when they were teenagers.’’

In addition to her husband and daughter, Bette leaves three grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and two step-great-grandchildren.

A graveside service will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday in Newton Cemetery.

After selling the restaurant and the Rolls-Royce in 1980, Bette and her second husband traveled often, living for months at a time in places such as London and Paris. They crisscrossed Europe in a station wagon, and also visited Egypt, India, and countries in Asia.

Even in retirement, she kept a pace that would exhaust many.

“The most important thing in this life is to have a good time,’’ she told the Globe in 1975, while running the restaurant. “I have a great time. I’m up 20 hours a day. Who needs sleep? Sleep you’ll get plenty of in eternity.’’

Bryan Marquard can be reached at bmarquard@globe.com.

Mother told school slain son was sick
By Peter Schworm and Travis Andersen Boston Globe

Julianne McCrery, 42, was arraigned yesterday in New Hampshire on second-degree murder charges, and her defense attorney described her as “distraught and suicidal’’ and disappointed that her charges are not punishable by death.

“She told me she would prefer the death penalty, because that would get her to heaven sooner,’’ said George Murphy, who represented McCrery at a morning hearing yesterday in Massachusetts.

Authorities believe McCrery killed her son Saturday. The following Tuesday, she called the school to say he was very ill and might have appendicitis, said Pat Lamb, director of security for the Irving school system, where Camden Pierce Hughes was in kindergarten.

The next day, about an hour before she was taken into custody at a Chelmsford rest stop, McCrery told school officials that the boy was feeling better and would probably return to school next week.

“It’s bizarre,’’ Lamb said. “We were expecting him back soon. Such a bright boy. Everyone loved him.’’

The disturbing revelation may shed light on McCrery’s state of mind after she abruptly left home in Texas, traveling 2,000 miles to New England and, authorities say, killing her son.

McCrery’s friends and relatives said they were at a loss over what brought McCrery to New England, but Murphy said he believed she came for the express purpose of killing her son and herself.

“I don’t think she was here to look at Boothbay Harbor; I don’t believe she was here for a trip,’’ he said. “I believe she was here to bring both her son and herself to heaven.’’

McCrery gave a statement to police that was more than two hours long, which Murphy said police had characterized as a confession.

“I don’t think she has much to hide,’’ he said. McCrery had tried to kill herself in the past few days, Murphy said, and court documents indicated she was suicidal.

Those who knew McCrery described her as a deeply troubled woman with a history of substance abuse and depression, but said it was hard for them to believe she could have harmed her son.

Her mother, LuRae McCrery, said her daughter loved her son unconditionally and never seemed overwhelmed by the demands of raising a young boy on her own. She did not know who the boy’s father was, said McCrery.

“She loved him completely,’’ she said. “She did. She would do anything for him. I don’t know how this could have happened.’’

McCrery, who said her daughter and grandson used to live with her in Nebraska, was stunned to learn that her daughter had been charged with murder and was struggling to make sense of it all.

“I was hoping it was an accident,’’ she said. “Oh, God, it’s all just unreal. It’s like watching a movie or something.’’

McCrery said her daughter called her early yesterday morning, but she missed the call. In a brief message, the daughter said she was in jail and asked her mother to “pray for me.’’

The death of the young boy, who went unidentified for days, prompted an outpouring of sympathy in South Berwick, Maine, where his body was found wrapped in a blanket. On Wednesday, when the boy was identified, images posted online of the boy gleefully riding his tricycle, getting a lollipop stuck in his hair, and posing in a tuxedo with delighted innocence appeared as painful contrasts to his ultimate fate.

McCrery described her grandson as a precious boy who loved to read, and the pastor at the church Julianne McCrery and her son attended recalled him as a smart, spirited youngster.

Students and teachers at Camden’s school were shocked by his death, and grief counselors were on hand, Lamb said.

“He was like a lightbulb,’’ Lamb said. “When he came in, the whole place lit up.’’

Lamb said he attended school regularly and always came to class ready to learn.

Yet, Lamb recalled that the boy’s mother had taken him out of school for a time last fall while she traveled to Washington.

Prosecutors in New Hampshire, where the boy was believed to have been slain, said that preliminary findings of an autopsy indicated that Camden had been asphyxiated.

At the Stone Gable Inn in Hampton, N.H., one guest said McCrery checked in Friday afternoon without any luggage and looked upset.

“She was crying,’’ said the guest, who would only give his first name, Steve.

A woman who would only give her name as Donna said she pulled into the parking lot Friday to pick up a friend and saw McCrery and her son standing out front.

“She did look upset,’’ she said. “She wasn’t crying, but she just looked like something was bothering her.’’

She later saw McCrery take her son by the hand and walk away from the area.

The room where they stayed was empty yesterday, with both beds stripped. Three square pieces of blue carpeting were either cut or torn. There were no visible signs of blood or struggle.

In court yesterday, McCrery wore light-blue surgical scrubs with her hands handcuffed in front of her. As she left, escorted by state troopers, she looked down at the floor, appearing distressed.

Senior New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Susan G. Morrell said after the hearing that prosecutors were hoping to “bring some closure’’ to the boy’s family.

Public defender Monica Kieser declined to speak with reporters outside the courtroom except to say she thought the case was tragic.

In Massachusetts, Murphy said he had asked McCrery questions to gauge whether she was mentally competent, and she seemed to answer appropriately.

McCrery is due back in court for a probable cause hearing Thursday.

She was taken into custody Wednesday after a truck driver spotted her blue pickup truck at a rest stop on Interstate 495 in Chelmsford. Stephen Scipione said yesterday he knew police had been looking for a blue truck with a Navy insignia, and immediately called police when he saw that the vehicle matched the description.

“I knew they were looking for one that said ‘Navy,’ ’’ the 45-year-old recalled. “That’s what gave it away. Whoever left that as a description did a good job.’’

It was unknown where McCrery, who had worked as a school bus and delivery driver, was headed or why she left her life in Texas so abruptly.

Her mother said her daughter would occasionally leave town abruptly and drive long distances to visit friends.

She recalled a time she left on the spur of the moment and drove some 2,000 miles to Washington state, just to see a friend. “She was prone to be impulsive like that,’’ she said.

McCrery said she saw her daughter on television news last night and said she looked scared and exhausted.

“This is all just beyond . . .’’ she said, her words fading into a deep sigh. “Just beyond.’’

At the Westwood trailer park in Irving, where Julianne McCrery lived in a simple $4,000 mobile home with her son, fellow residents said the mother and son’s existence was meager and honest.

Betty Horton, who manages the complex and has lived there for 37 years, said McCrery spent a lot of time with her son.

“If he was outside, she was outside with him,’’ Horton said. “He was always clean, always healthy looking. She took care of him; she watched him.

“She never caused any problems, made any noise, or had people coming and going around here,’’ she said. “I don’t know a bad thing about her. She was fantastic, a lot better than some of the other tenants. She just adored that child.’’

John Ellement and John M. Guilfoil of the Globe staff contributed to this article

Mother is charged in death of boy found on Maine road
By Maria Cramer, Travis Andersen, and John M. Guilfoil, Globe Staff

CONCORD — A Texas woman taken into custody earlier Wednesday in Chelmsford was arrested late Wednesday night on charges that she suffocated her 6-year-old son. The arrest came four days after the child was found dead on a Maine back road in an episode that shocked the region.
Julianne McCrery, 42, of Irving, was charged late Wednesday night with second-degree murder in the death of her son, Camden Pierce Hughes, New Hampshire Attorney General Michael A. Delaney said in a statement.

McCrery was also charged as a fugitive from justice and is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Concord District Court in Massachusetts, according to Delaney.
He said Maine’s chief medical examiner has determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation, but said the final determination is pending further study.
Delaney said McCrery killed her son on Saturday in Hampton, N.H., hours before his body was discovered on a dirt road in South Berwick, Maine.

State Police in New Hampshire were reportedly investigating a hotel room in Hampton Wednesday where McCrery is believed to have stayed, possibly with her son.
For days, the identity of the boy remained a mystery, confounding police and riveting New England.

Just after 10 a.m. on Wednesday, investigators began to get some answers. Someone at a Chelmsford rest stop spotted a woman in a pickup truck matching the description of the vehicle seen leaving the Maine road just before the grisly discovery. State Police responded and took McCrery into custody.
Relatives described McCrery as a troubled woman who had struggled with depression and once attempted suicide, and her child as a bright, blue-eyed boy who loved to read and never knew who his father was.

’’She loved that little boy,’’ McCrery’s mother, LuRae McCrery, said in a telephone interview from her Nebraska home. ’’Juli and Cam were so close. Her whole life was raising her son. That’s why I just can’t make sense of this.’’
After being taken into custody Wednesday morning, McCrery was kept at State Police headquarters in Concord for most of the day, said David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police.
Late in the afternoon, McCrery walked out the back of the brick building, dressed in what looked like pajama bottoms and flanked by paramedics, who escorted her to Emerson Hospital for medical issues Procopio said were not urgent.

State Police in Maine had received more than 100 tips and assigned a dozen officers since Saturday, when a couple found the boy’s body, covered by a blanket, in a remote wooded section of South Berwick.
The discovery horrified and saddened residents of this town of about 7,000 on the New Hampshire border and bewildered police, who called on the public to help identify a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup truck seen on the road before the boy’s body was found.

The truck had some type of naval insignia, according to Maine State Police, who enlisted the help of the US Navy in the case.
McCrery is also the mother of a 23-year-old man, Ian, who is in the Navy and stationed on the USS Oak Hill in Norfolk, Va., according to McCrery’s former boyfriend, Robert Miller, who spoke by telephone on Wednesday.
McCrery made a living by delivering car parts for a company based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Miller said that when he last spoke with McCrery Tuesday, she did not mention that she was in New England. She said nothing about Camden or that anything was wrong, Miller said.
’’I asked her if they were coming back [to my place], and she said she didn’t know,’’ Miller said. ’’I just assumed she was at work.’’
But LuRae McCrery said that Miller later called the company and learned that Julianne McCrery had been fired about a month ago. She had been pretending to go to work, LuRae McCrery said.

’’I think she got to the end of her rope,’’ McCrery said.

Miller said that the mother and child had recently been suffering from a serious cough and that McCrery sounded ill on the phone.
McCrery’s mother said her daughter had also complained the two were ill, but in their phone conversations she made it sound as if she were still in Texas.
’’We’ve been talking every day,’’ she said. ’’I have no idea why she went to Maine. I don’t think she knew anyone in that part of the country. I don’t have a clue.’’
Miller, 49, who lives in Irving, said McCrery and her younger son moved in with him about two years ago. But McCrery would often leave for stretches of time after they would argue, Miller said.

She left for the last time a couple of months ago, but remained in the area. They had stayed in touch and talked about reconciling, Miller said.
’’I’m the only daddy [Camden] has ever had,’’ Miller said. ’’Her and I and [Camden] had a very strong faith in Christ. That’s why I know he’s in a better place, and I’m glad he’s there.’’
He said that the three of them regularly attended First Baptist Church Irving and that McCrery was baptized there about two years ago.

McCrery doted on her child, Miller said, reading to him and encouraging him to excel in school. The boy had been placed in the gifted and talented program in his kindergarten class at W.T. Hanes Elementary School in Irving, Miller said.
Several short videos McCrery posted show images of her young son straddling a tricycle or toddling around his room, a lollipop stuck to his blond hair.
In one video, Miller is seen pushing Camden as he tries to peddle his tricycle. His mother giggles from behind the camera.
’’You’re doing it!’’ his mother says, as her son beams. ’’I’m doing it!’’ he shouts.
If McCrery had anything to do with the boy’s death, Miller said, it was an accident.
’’She wasn’t capable of hurting him in any way whatsoever,’’ he said.
But McCrery had struggled with substance abuse and alcohol, and had tried to kill herself before Camden was born, Miller said.
’’She has been known to have bouts of depression,’’ LuRae McCrery said. ’’But she is very good at hiding it.’’

McCrery was arrested in 2003 on a prostitution charge and in 2004 for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to Dallas County court records. In both cases, the charges were dismissed after she completed probationary programs, records show.
McCrery self-published a book through a Canadian publisher titled, ’’Good Night, Sleep Tight: How to Fall Asleep and Go Back to Sleep when You Wake Up,’’ about a year ago.
A short biography for the book says McCrery was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1969 and moved to Dallas in the early 1980s.
’’Driving a school bus and then somehow graduating to a cement mixer certainly gave her character beyond her years and a definite need for a good night’s sleep!’’ the biography says.
McCrery did not know who Camden’s father was, her mother said. She had been married but divorced almost a decade ago.
The family is grief-stricken over Camden’s death, LuRae McCrery said.
’’He could read as well as any second-grader,’’ she said, her voice wavering with emotion. ’’Just a sweet little boy.’’
Prosecutors will begin extradition procedures to New Hampshire, a process McCrery can fight, Procopio said.
In South Berwick, residents, many of them crying and clutching their children, left toy cars, baseballs, and stuffed animals at a growing makeshift memorial at the scene.
’’My heart goes out to that little boy,’’ said Desiree Mix, 22, as she walked with her 1-year-old son along Main Street.
’’I just wish I had known that family and could have taken him in, knowing the circumstances,’’ Mix said. ’’There’s a lot of people that want kids and can’t have kids.
’’It’s too bad somebody had to go to that measure and do something like that.’’
Peter Schworm and John R. Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com; Andersen at tandersen@globe.com.

Identity of boy found dead in Maine is still unknown
By Brian MacQuarrie Boston Globe

SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — State Police have more than 100 tips and a dozen investigators poring over evidence. But the blanket-covered body of a young boy, discovered Saturday in a remote, wooded section of this small town, remained unidentified yesterday.
The death of the boy, estimated to be 4 to 6 years old, is shocking enough for this community on the New Hampshire border. But the deepening mystery about the boy’s identity has baffled and saddened residents who cannot understand why no one has reported him missing and how someone could have abandoned his 45-pound body off a cratered dirt road.

“It’s enough to make you sick,’’ said Sid Hall, who lives near where the body was discovered. “I can’t imagine in my mind why someone would do something like that, but there are some sick puppies around.’’

Yesterday, authorities called the discovery a suspicious death, instead of a homicide. They would not divulge the results of an autopsy con ducted Sunday on the boy, who was 3 feet 8 inches tall with blue eyes and dark blond hair.

State Police appealed again for information concerning the boy, a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck seen on the dirt road Saturday morning, or new reports of missing children. “Somebody out there knows who this boy is,’’ said Colonel Robert Williams, commander of the State Police.

The grim discovery rekindled memories of the 1997 killing of Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old boy from East Cambridge, Mass., whose body was found here in a Rubbermaid container in the Great Works River.

“It’s pretty devastating to hear of a child discarded,’’ said Katie Severson of Berwick, who wiped away tears as she placed flowers near the place where the body was found.

“It just felt right to come down and pay my respects to this boy and let him know I was thinking of him and that he has a place in my heart,’’ said Severson, as her 3-year-old daughter, Natalie, sat quietly in a car seat.

State Police Lieutenant Brian McDonough, chief of the criminal division for southern Maine, called the case “extremely unusual.’’ Schools in the area have not reported an unexplained empty seat in the classroom, a widely circulated computer-generated photo of the boy has not yielded his identity, and his parents have yet to notify the Maine police.

“This boy’s face is the best-known face in New England today,’’ said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the State Police.

Authorities are widening their search from the immediate area in ever-expanding circles, McCausland said. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also is providing help.

Investigators yesterday posted “No Trespassing’’ signs at the beginning of a long dirt driveway leading to the home of the man who Hall said discovered the boy’s body. Authorities think the child was dead about 10 hours before the body was found.

“He said he had been just out walking in the woods and found the body,’’ Hall said. “[He] was just about in tears when he was telling me about it. He said he’d just found a body of a little boy, and it was covered up with a blanket.’’ Authorities said the boy was wearing a gray camouflage hooded sweatshirt with the brand name “Faded Glory,’’ tan pants, and “Lightning McQueen’’ black sneakers.

Police, who would not identify who found the boy, said the person who made the discovery reported seeing the pickup truck, with a light-colored license plate, on the road at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. No residents on Dennett Road, where the body was found, own such a vehicle, McCausland said. Videos from surveillance cameras from stores and highways are being examined, police said. “As long as they continue, we have something to follow up and look into,’’ McDonough said.

Police believed they had a promising tip yesterday about a missing child who seemed to match the boy’s description, McDonough said. But those hopes were soon dashed when a follow-up check failed to produce a match, police said.

“There is a lot that we still don’t know and need to learn,’’ McDonough said.

In the absence of solid information, speculation is spreading through town. Some residents believe the boy was slain; others say he had been ill or died accidentally; and a few locals suspect the parents must live locally to have known such a remote spot to place the body.

At Lowery’s, a patio furniture store outside town on Route 4, Marlene Lowery offered this assessment: “We just think it might be somebody who brought him into the state.’’

As authorities did their work, mothers clutched their children a little closer, others shook their head, and the thought that a dead boy could remain unknown in an age of instant information seemed incredible to townspeople.

“How anyone could dump a little child, I don’t know,’’ said Christine Bilodeau of Eliot, who had driven to the scene with her husband, Raymond.

Down the road, Julie Vigue held one of her three children on her hip. A tire swing hung in the yard, a hand-hammered treehouse sat off the ground, and tall pines added to a sense of peaceful, rural solitude. “They’ve been at our side nonstop for the last three days,’’ Vigue said of her children. “It’s very sad.’’

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company

Raiders knew mission a one-shot deal

By KIMBERLY DOZIER AP

WASHINGTON — Those who planned the secret mission to get Osama bin Laden in Pakistan knew it was a one-shot deal, and it nearly went terribly wrong.

The U.S. deliberately hid the operation from Pakistan, and predicted that national outrage over the breach of Pakistani sovereignty would make it impossible to try again if the raid on bin Laden's suspected redoubt came up dry.

Once the raiders reached their target, things started to go awry almost immediately, officials briefed on the operation said.

Adding exclusive new details to the account of the assault on bin Laden's hideout, officials described just how the SEAL raiders loudly ditched a foundering helicopter right outside bin Laden's door, ruining the plan for a surprise assault. That forced them to abandon plans to run a squeeze play on bin Laden — simultaneously entering the house stealthily from the roof and the ground floor.

Instead, they busted into the ground floor and began a floor-by-floor storming of the house, working up to the top level where they had assumed bin Laden — if he was in the house — would be.

They were right.

The raiders came face-to-face with bin Laden in a hallway outside his bedroom, and three of the Americans stormed in after him, U.S. officials briefed on the operation told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a classified operation.

U.S. officials believe Pakistani intelligence continues to support militants who attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and actively undermine U.S. intelligence operations to go after al-Qaida inside Pakistan. The level of distrust is such that keeping Pakistan in the dark was a major factor in planning the raid, and led to using the high-tech but sometimes unpredictable helicopter technology that nearly unhinged the mission.

Pakistan's government has since condemned the action, and threatened to open fire if U.S. forces enter again.

On Monday, the two partners attempted to patch up relations, agreeing to pursue high-value targets jointly.

The decision to launch on that particular moonless night in May came largely because too many American officials had been briefed on the plan. U.S. officials feared if it leaked to the press, bin Laden would disappear for another decade.

U.S. special operations forces have made approximately four forays into Pakistani territory since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, though this one, some 90 miles inside Pakistan, was unlike any other, the officials say.

The job was given to a SEAL Team 6 unit, just back from Afghanistan, one official said. This elite branch of SEALs had been hunting bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan since 2001.

Five aircraft flew from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, with three school-bus-size Chinook helicopters landing in a deserted area roughly two-thirds of the way to bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, two of the officials explained.

Aboard two Black Hawk helicopters were 23 SEALs, an interpreter and a tracking dog named Cairo. Nineteen SEALs would enter the compound, and three of them would find bin Laden, one official said, providing the exact numbers for the first time.

Aboard the Chinooks were two dozen more SEALs, as backup.

The Black Hawks were specially engineered to muffle the tail rotor and engine sound, two officials said. The added weight of the stealth technology meant cargo was calculated to the ounce, with weather factored in. The night of the mission, it was hotter than expected.

The Black Hawks were to drop the SEALs and depart in less than two minutes, in hopes locals would assume they were Pakistani aircraft visiting the nearby military academy.

One Black Hawk was to hover above the compound, with SEALs sliding down ropes into the open courtyard.

The second was to hover above the roof to drop SEALs there, then land more SEALs outside — plus an interpreter and the dog, who would track anyone who tried to escape and to alert SEALs to any approaching Pakistani security forces.

If troops appeared, the plan was to hunker down in the compound, avoiding armed confrontation with the Pakistanis while officials in Washington negotiated their passage out.

The two SEAL teams inside would work toward each other, in a simultaneous attack from above and below, their weapons silenced, guaranteeing surprise, one of the officials said. They would have stormed the building in a matter of minutes, as they'd done time and again in two training models of the compound.

The plan unraveled as the first helicopter tried to hover over the compound. The Black Hawk skittered around uncontrollably in the heat-thinned air, forcing the pilot to land. As he did, the tail and rotor got caught on one of the compound's 12-foot walls. The pilot quickly buried the aircraft's nose in the dirt to keep it from tipping over, and the SEALs clambered out into an outer courtyard.

The other aircraft did not even attempt hovering, landing its SEALs outside the compound.

Now, the raiders were outside, and they'd lost the element of surprise.

They had trained for this, and started blowing their way in with explosives, through walls and doors, working their way up the three-level house from the bottom.

They had to blow their way through barriers at each stair landing, firing back, as one of the men in the house fired at them.

They shot three men as well as one woman, whom U.S. officials have said lunged at the SEALs.

Small knots of children were on every level, including the balcony of bin Laden's room.

As three of the SEALs reached the top of the steps on the third floor, they saw bin Laden standing at the end of the hall. The Americans recognized him instantly, the officials said.

Bin Laden also saw them, dimly outlined in the dark house, and ducked into his room.

The three SEALs assumed he was going for a weapon, and one by one they rushed after him through the door, one official described.

Two women were in front of bin Laden, yelling and trying to protect him, two officials said. The first SEAL grabbed the two women and shoved them away, fearing they might be wearing suicide bomb vests, they said.

The SEAL behind him opened fire at bin Laden, putting one bullet in his chest, and one in his head.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

Back at the White House Situation Room, word was relayed that bin Laden had been found, signaled by the code word "Geronimo." That was not bin Laden's code name, but rather a representation of the letter "G." Each step of the mission was labeled alphabetically, and "Geronimo" meant that the raiders had reached step "G," the killing or capture of bin Laden, two officials said.

As the SEALs began photographing the body for identification, the raiders found an AK-47 rifle and a Russian-made Makarov pistol on a shelf by the door they'd just run through. Bin Laden hadn't touched them.

They were among a handful of weapons that were removed to be inventoried.

It took approximately 15 minutes to reach bin Laden, one official said. The next 23 or so were spent blowing up the broken chopper, after rounding up nine women and 18 children to get them out of range of the blast.

One of the waiting Chinooks flew in to pick up bin Laden's body, the raiders from the broken aircraft and the weapons, documents and other materials seized at the site.

The helicopters flew back to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and the body was flown to a waiting U.S. Navy ship for bin Laden's burial at sea, ensuring no shrine would spring up around his grave.

When the SEAL team met President Barack Obama, he did not ask who shot bin Laden. He simply thanked each member of the team, two officials said.

In a few weeks, the team that killed bin Laden will go back to training, and in a couple months, back to work overseas.

IMF head taken into custody in NY over alleged sex assault
By Zachary A. Goldfarb

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was removed from a Paris-bound flight on Saturday afternoon minutes before takeoff after a New York City hotel housekeeper accused him of sexual assault, the police said.

As of about 10 p.m., Strauss-Kahn, 62, had not been charged with a crime, said Det. Brian Sessa of the New York City Police Department.

Strauss-Kahn was being questioned after a 32-year-old chambermaid complained that a naked Strauss-Kahn sexually attacked her in his Manhattan hotel room, the police said. The maid, who said she broke free, suffered minor injuries, police said.

The development creates immediate uncertainty for the Washington-based IMF, which has been playing an important role in keeping the global economy stable in the wake of the financial crisis.

It also promises to stir up politics in France, where Strauss-Kahn is widely believed to be considering challenging French president Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election. Polls have shown he has strong odds of defeating Sarkozy.

An IMF spokesman had no immediate comment.

About 10 minutes before Air France Flight 23 was to take off , officers with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey boarded the plane and removed Strauss-Kahn, the authorities said. They did not handcuff him.

The officers were acting at the behest of the New York police and turned over the French national to the police shortly thereafter. He was not placed under arrest, the authorities said. The Associated press reported that a top police spokesman said that the Strauss-Kahn had been staying at the Sofitel near Times Square.

An economist and lawyer who has gained prominence while captaining the IMF through one of the world’s worst financial crises, Strauss-Kahn joined the organization in 2007 with the support of many European nations and the United States.

He had served as France’s finance minister and is the subject of intense speculation in France that he will declare his candidacy for president as a member of the Socialist Party. He unsuccessfully ran for his party’s nomination in the last election.

At the IMF, Strauss-Kahn has overseen a number of crucial emergency loan packages for despairing economies, most recently for Greece and Pakistan.

The IMF is also being eyed to help orchestrate potential bailouts for Portugal and Ireland as Europe suffers a painful debt crisis. The organization is also working to help Egypt as that country tries to keep its economy stable amid the government upheaval.

“This sordid episode — no matter how it ultimately plays out — will spell the end of Strauss-Kahn as an effective leader of the IMF, even if he retains his position, which is highly unlikely,” said Eswar Shanker Prasad, an international economics professor at Cornell. “With Strauss-Kahn’s departure, the IMF can no longer be counted on to watch Europe’s back as it becomes increasingly clear that the EU-IMF program in Greece is not working.”

In 2008, Strauss-Kahn was investigated on suspicion that he might have abused his authority in an extramarital affair with an economist who had left the IMF with financial compensation. He kept his position but acknowledged that he had made a “serious error of judgment.”

As a member of the Socialist Party, Strauss-Kahn has been criticized in France as enjoying a lavish lifestyle with expensive cars and suits, which he has denied.

Strauss-Kahn has been helping to transform the IMF after the financial crisis. He wants the organization to have the power to probe financial firms around the world and demand more data. And he is pursuing better indicators of when a country might be going off track economically.

The United States is the biggest shareholder in the IMF and makes its largest financial contribution each year.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who represents the United States at the IMF, has been pushing the organization to pressure China to allow its currency to increase in value, which the country has resisted. Allowing the renminbi to appreciate would make it easier for American companies to sell in China.

Under Strauss-Kahn, the IMF has exerted only modest pressure on that nation, aware that China is an important emerging power. The IMF, which once had as many as 3,000 employees before down-sizing, is based near Foggy Bottom. Strauss-Kahn’s deputy, John Lipsky, has already announced his departure for later this summer.

Google’s Digital Music Service Falls Short of Ambition

By BEN SISARIO NY TIMES
Google had big plans for its new digital music service. It wanted an online store to compete with iTunes and Amazon, as well as a “smart locker” storage system in which the company would stream music to its millions of users from a gigantic central jukebox.

But the service that the company unveiled on Tuesday, called Music Beta by Google, fell short of those ambitions. There is no store, the streaming function comes with restrictions, and, like Amazon’s Cloud Drive service announced in March, using it requires a long upload process.

What came between Google and its ambitions was an obstacle familiar to many digital music start-ups: despite months of negotiations, the company could not obtain licenses from the major record companies.

In interviews, Google executives put the blame squarely on the labels. “Generally there were demands on the business side that we think were unreasonable and don’t enable us to have a sustainable, scalable music business,” said Zahavah Levine, director of content partnerships for Google’s Android unit and the lead negotiator with the labels.

Music Beta was introduced on Tuesday at Google I/O, a developers’ conference in San Francisco.

Neither Google nor the labels would specify which points they stumbled over. But their disagreement follows a long pattern of friction in which the labels demand high prices for licenses or withhold the licenses altogether. The stubbornness of the labels has earned them a particular caricature in Silicon Valley: the bridge troll, demanding payment for passage.

“They tend to not look at these things as opportunities, but as someone taking advantage of their business,” said Fred Goldring, a former top music lawyer who invests in media and technology companies. “Until they figure out how they’re going to deal new technology on their terms, they don’t make a move. And when they finally do, it’s usually too late.”

The labels believe they are protecting their content and maximizing income for themselves and their artists. But as technology companies and industry analysts see it, the labels’ conservatism in striking deals that involve their licenses hinders technological development and ultimately harms the marketplace by reducing consumer choice.

“The history of the digital music marketplace is littered with the ramifications of record label conservatism,” said Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Music Beta, which Google is offering by invitation only while in its trial state, will allow users to store 20,000 songs at no charge and stream them to Android phones, tablets and other devices. As with Amazon’s Cloud Drive, the company does not need special licenses as long as it stores each user’s files separately and then streams them back only to that user, intellectual property lawyers say.

But to sell music, or to operate a master jukebox of every available song and then matching users’ collections to it — widely viewed as the most efficient form of cloud music — Google would need licenses from the labels. Google’s plans were described by many record label executives who have been in discussions with them but spoke on condition of anonymity because their talks were private.

Google and Amazon have not been the only companies negotiating with the labels for cloud music services. Apple is preparing its own, and Spotify, a popular European subscription service, has been locked in talks for two years over American distribution rights. In most of these cases the disagreements are over lump upfront payments or concerns that a service that charges users too little could cannibalize other sales and devalue music overall, executives say.

Ted Cohen, a consultant and former major-label executive, said that when both sides of such negotiations have bad faith, customers suffer. “Neither side is playing fair with the other,” he said. “They go into the negotiations believing that the other side of dishonorable. It’s rare that both sides see that the common goal is to create a consumer experience that people value and are willing to pay for. Things don’t come to market because of this.”

But whether Google and Amazon have abandoned their bigger plans or were just scaling them back temporarily was unclear. In an interview, Ms. Levine denied that the abrupt introduction of Music Beta was a negotiating tactic. But music executives said that since Amazon introduced Cloud Drive — with almost no advance notice to the labels — it has been in discussions over licenses, and these executives, speaking anonymously, said they expected Google to eventually return to the negotiating table.

A more robust digital music service would attract more users to Google. But Mr. Goldring said that it was the labels that really needed to strike a deal.

“At the end of the day they’re clearly hurting themselves,” he said, “because they’re leaving money on the table.”

Claire Cain Miller contributed reporting.

Fountains of Optimism for Life Way Out There

GUY GUGLIOTTA NY TIMES
For those who hunt for life on other worlds, water in its liquid form is perhaps the leading indicator. Life as we know it on Earth is based on water and carbon. And if organisms can prosper here in nasty environments — in geysers, in the depths of the sea, in toxic waste, in water that is too hot, too cold, too acidic or too alkaline — why could they not prosper out there?

Scientists for years regarded liquid water as a solar system rarity, for there was no place apart from Earth that seemed to have the necessary physical attributes, except perhaps Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa, which probably concealed a subterranean ocean.

The past 20 years of space exploration, however, have caused what the astrobiologist David Grinspoon calls a sea change in thinking. It now appears that gravity, geology, radioactivity and antifreeze chemicals like salt and ammonia have given many “hostile” worlds the ability to muster the pressures and temperatures that allow liquid water to exist. And research on Earth has shown that if there is water, there could be life.

On Mars and Venus, on Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan, and even on two outer-belt asteroids, researchers have shown that the presence of liquid water is possible and even likely. Proof of life, of course, will come only when something — or someone — puts a drop of alien water under a microscope and sees a microbe.

“Water and carbon-based life works well,” Dr. Grinspoon said. “That doesn’t mean it’s the only way, but it’s the only way we know, and it gives us something to look for.”

Finding water in space, in the form of ice, has never been a problem. Hydrogen is the most common element in the solar system, and oxygen is not far behind. When the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago, a spiraling disc of dust and gas spun out from the Sun to produce the planets, their moons, and an enormous cloud of comets, planetoids and other bits of cosmic flotsam. Nature endowed much of this debris with a generous helping of water ice.

Liquid water is another matter. The heat of the Sun may melt the ice, but in the vacuum of space there is little or nothing on the surface of most solar system objects to keep the heated molecules together, so they flash instantly away as water vapor. This process is called sublimation.

The physics of sublimation are unforgiving. Liquid water needs a delicate balance of temperature and pressure. Ice must be able to melt without boiling off, but the water must stay warm enough that it does not refreeze. On Earth, with a sea level atmospheric pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch, water is liquid between 32 and 212 degrees Fahrenheit. On the unshadowed parts of our Moon, where the atmospheric pressure is zero and daytime temperatures can exceed 260 degrees Fahrenheit, the surface ice is long gone.

Ice survives at very low temperatures, however, and the chunks of debris that linger in the chill reaches of deep space beyond Neptune make up the biggest source of water in the solar system today. These dirty snowballs re-enter the planetary system periodically as comets. When they get close enough to the Sun, the ice begins to sublimate, giving the comets their characteristic tail of dust and water vapor.

Many scientists say it is likely that much of the ice in the inner solar system came from comets. On Earth, cometary impacts early in the planet’s history could have provided this raw material, and the Sun and atmospheric pressure would have done the rest. Earth is the only place in the solar system so far discovered where liquid is the default state of surface water. And Earth is where life proliferates.

But it is maybe not the only place. Dr. Grinspoon has theorized that Venus, whose spectacular volcanism boiled off all its surface water long ago, nevertheless harbored liquid moisture in the noxious clouds of sulfuric acid that cloak the planet. In 2008 the European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbiter measured water vapor in the clouds. About 30 miles above the surface in the Venusian mist, where temperatures are about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, extremophiles could find a comfort zone.

Another improbable venue for liquid water is the outer limits of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. There, using infrared telescopes, two teams of astronomers working separately in 2008 and 2009 found water ice on the surface of the asteroid 24 Themis, about 280 million miles from the Sun. Last year, the teams joined forces and found ice on a second asteroid, 65 Cybele, which, with a diameter of 180 miles, was about 1.5 times as large as 24 Themis and 45 million miles farther out.

For ice to endure on like objects with no atmosphere that close to the Sun, there must be a mechanism to replenish what is lost to sublimation. Humberto Campins, a University of Central Florida astrophysicist and leader of one of the discovery teams, suggested that the patchy ice was a thin coating of frost from a reservoir hidden below the asteroids’ topsoil regolith.

When the asteroid faced the Sun, heat penetrated the topsoil, causing subsurface ice to sublimate and migrate as water vapor to the surface, where it froze at night only to sublimate again during the day. In a variation on this theme, Dr. Campins said, meteorites could be churning up the asteroid topsoil, thus bringing ice closer to the surface. This process is called “impact gardening.”

“We suspect that something like this is happening,” Dr. Campins said, but acknowledged a third possibility: The asteroids could contain enough radioactive isotopes to melt ice deep below the surface, creating liquid water that seeps upward before vaporizing.

“You need sufficient pressure and temperature,” he said. “But conceptually it’s possible.” Pressure would come from the asteroids’ interior gravity, allowing water to exist once the isotopes melt the ice.

Radioactivity is a widespread phenomenon and a likely source of heat energy elsewhere in the solar system. Another heat source is friction, caused most commonly by tidal pressure or wobbling of an object on its axis.

The evidence that Jupiter’s moon Europa harbors an enormous liquid ocean beneath its icy shell has arisen in part from observations suggesting that tidal forces create heat by stretching and compressing the moon as it rotates around Jupiter in an eccentric orbit.

Recently scientists have been able to study tidal forces up close during fly-bys of Saturn’s moon Enceladus by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. In 2005 Cassini found that Enceladus, with a diameter of only 300 miles, was spewing water ice grains from cracks in its south polar region. The grains were the “dust” that formed Saturn’s E-ring, and scientists soon began to suspect strongly that the particles came from a subsurface liquid water source.

“I wouldn’t say it’s virtually certain, but I’d give it 80 percent or 90 percent,” said John Spencer, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, a member of Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer team. “Things may be a lot stranger than we imagine, but basically, I suspect we have an ocean.”

More disputed is the theory that low-temperature “cryo-volcanoes” on Saturn’s largest moon, the hydrocarbon-rich Titan, may be belching slushy lava composed of liquid water and ammonia, or some other low-temperature mixture, that freezes on the moon’s surface.

“Titan has hydrocarbon sand dunes and methane lakes, and the cryo-volcanism could be hydrocarbon,” said Jeffrey Kargel, a University of Arizona planetary scientist. “We would have to go there to know for sure.” Still, he added, “there pretty much has to be water ice” on Titan, since there is ice everywhere else in the solar system where it is cold enough. Titan has a regular orbit, so tidal friction would be minimal. For liquid water to exist, there would have to be a radioactive heat source and antifreeze compounds.

Antifreeze is what Nilton Renno of the University of Michigan was looking for to explain the unforeseen event that befell NASA’s Phoenix Lander on the arctic plains of Mars in 2008. Hydrazine thrusters that arrested the lander’s descent had blown aside seven inches of Martian topsoil, exposing the expected layer of ice that lay below.

But four days later, something unexpected happened. Cameras examining the ice discerned a number of blisterlike globules on one of the spacecraft struts. A few days after that, the camera looked again. The globules remained.

Although Dr. Renno, the atmospheric science team leader for Phoenix, did not immediately report it, he suspected he was observing droplets of liquid water. It would have to be salty enough not to vaporize in the Martian atmosphere or freeze at surface temperatures below minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.

For that there needed to be antifreeze. Salt was the likeliest source: “Suppose you have a swimming pool, and you fill it with saltwater,” Dr. Renno said. “When the pool cools down and starts to freeze, pure water becomes ice. The remaining water becomes more saline. It becomes harder to freeze as the salt concentration becomes stronger.”

Evidence arrived in two steps. First, the lander’s instruments found high salt concentrations in soil surrounding the spacecraft. Then, three weeks after touchdown, the Lander’s robotic arm dug a trench in the ice and encountered a soft layer that contrasted with nearby hard ice patches that the lander penetrated with a drill. The slush was a second source of water, and like the first, “probably filled with salt,” Dr. Renno said. “It was almost like ice cream.”

Meanwhile, “we kept taking pictures” of the strut, and 44 days after touchdown the largest droplet disappeared, Dr. Renno recalled. “It grew too large, and dripped off.”

N.Y. firm in deal for Faneuil Hall shops
By Jenn Abelson Boston Globe
The historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace is expected to change hands after a group of New York investors struck a deal with General Growth Properties to buy the lease to the trophy Boston property.

Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., a private real estate investment firm in Manhattan, had the winning bid, estimated at about $136 million, and edged out Genesis Management Group of Boston, according to local executives briefed on the proposals. Ashkenazy Acquisition, on its website, says the business has over 13 million square feet of retail, office, and residential properties in its portfolio, including Union Station in Washington, D.C., and Rivercenter Mall in San Antonio.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace is owned by the City of Boston, which leases out three of its four buildings, Quincy Market, North Market, and South Market, to General Growth. The deal, detailed in a meeting yesterday to city officials, comes more than two years after the struggling Chicago mall operator first put the shopping center up for sale. New management at Faneuil Hall Marketplace could come as a welcome change to merchants and city officials who have battled for years with General Growth over the direction of the outdoor mall and the loss of local shop owners.

“It’s really an opportunity to start fresh,’’ said Brenda McKenzie of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, who met yesterday with a General Growth executive and Mayor Thomas M. Menino to discuss the plans.

“Given that Ashkenazy focuses on specialty markets and historic marketplaces, we see an opportunity for a closer fit. Their interests are more closely aligned with the mayor’s and the merchants’.’’

General Growth, which recently exited bankruptcy protection, declined to comment.

Cubie Dawson of Ashkenazy Acquisition said of the agreement: “I don’t know if that has been finalized.’’

The sale of Faneuil Hall Marketplace is part of General Growth’s larger effort to dispose of roughly 125 properties that do not fit in with its portfolio, according to McKenzie, the BRA’s director of economic development. These are mostly specialty centers or festival markets similar to Faneuil Hall. The real estate investment trust took over Faneuil Hall through its $7.2 billion acquisition of Rouse Co. in 2004.

General Growth is required, as part of its agreement with the city, to notify Boston officials if there is a transfer of the lease. The city does not have the authority to reject the deal unless there is a legal problem with the arrangement.

Menino is hoping to meet with Ashkenazy principals in the next week to discuss Faneuil Hall’s future, McKenzie said. The New York firm reached out to Boston officials to express interest two years ago when General Growth, facing mounting debt problems, first put the premier property up for sale.

Menino’s goals are to ensure the new marketplace operators invest in needed renovations and keep a fresh, interesting range of retailers that include local merchants.

“Obviously, it is important to have a mix of tenants and to make sure the center has a Boston flavor,’’ McKenzie said.

Merchants at the marketplace have long been at odds with General Growth because of soaring rents and a preference for national retailers.

Earlier this year, General Growth began cracking down on struggling tenants, including beginning eviction procedures against celebrity chef Todd English’s Kingfish Hall restaurant after it fell behind by tens of thousands of dollars in rent.

English, in a statement, said he is in the “final stages of ongoing negotiations’’ toward a lease that will involve changing the concept at the Kingfish location.

“We have a great plan for seamlessly transitioning to what we believe will ultimately be a better fit for Faneuil Hall and our valued clientele who visit us there,’’ the statement said. “We have enjoyed working with General Growth and look forward to forging ahead with this new team.’’

Carol Troxell of the Faneuil Hall Merchants Association said the retailers are optimistic that the new landlord will work to preserve the integrity and historic nature of the marketplace.

“We also hope that long-term, vested merchants will be recognized for their loyalty to the marketplace and given reasonable leases commensurate with that loyalty, ’’ Troxell said.

Paul Grant, president and chief executive of Genesis Management Group, said the local real estate firm has made several bids for Faneuil Hall Marketplace and believes the company, with its Boston roots, is uniquely qualified to turn around the project locally.

Genesis has worked on several high-profile projects in Boston, including Long Wharf, Copley Place, and the John J. Moakley Federal Courthouse.

“We’re ready to close if there is an opportunity,’’ Grant said. “It’s a project we’d love to do.’’

Jenn Abelson

There’s a jolt hitting coffee drinkers, and it isn’t just the caffeine.

Boston Globe
The price of coffee beans is at a historic high, as droughts and heavy rain in the world’s leading coffee-producing regions limit supply, while a growing taste for coffee over tea in Asia fuels demand.

Restaurants and cafes have raised their prices, tacking on anywhere from 5 to 20 cents a cup in recent weeks. The escalating price of the popular Arabica bean has affected almost all coffees, from Maxwell House to organic blends.

“I’ve been here for five years, and this is the most significant increase,’’ said Dave Maffucci, a barista for a Peet’s Coffee and Tea in Wellesley, one of five locations the chain has in Massachusetts. Two weeks ago the price of a large cup of joe went up 20 cents to $2.25, a 10 percent jump.

So far, few business owners have reported a decline in sales or a customer backlash. Coffee drinkers, it seems, are a loyal — or addicted — bunch.

“Even during the Great Depression, coffee sales didn’t drop,’’ said Meghan Hubbs, co-owner at Equal Exchange, a West Bridgewater fair-trade roaster and importer that supplies beans to 70 cafes and restaurants in the state and owns cafes in Boston and Seattle.

Last week, at its own cafe in Boston, the price of an eight-ounce cup of coffee went up 10 cents, to $1.60, and 25 cents for a small latte, to $2.50, as the price of milk has also soared.

“In the long run, a specialty coffee drink is not going to be the thing people are going to take a hard look at,’’ Hubbs added.

The price hike is the result of more than just floods and droughts in coffee-growing areas. Also contributing is a weak US dollar, rising prices for fuel and fertilizer, and speculation in the coffee bean market.

And as emerging markets like Asia develop a java jones, global demand skyrockets. Starbucks, for example, plans to open 1,500 stores in China by 2015.

Last week the price of Arabica bean per pound surged to $2.88 on the C market, the global commodity futures market that sets prices for green Arabica beans, compared to $1.38 a year ago.

Coffee experts say the increase indicates that the beverage has become more valuable.

“We’ve gotten used to a really cheap cup of coffee. It’s not really an accurate reflection of someone’s labor,’’ said Daniele Giovannucci, cofounder of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment, a consortium that measures the impact of agricultural practices across the globe. “This price level is a way of finally valuing what is an extraordinary crop.’’

A decade ago, “you could never sell a cup of coffee for more than a dollar,’’ said Giovannucci. “Now we have $4 lattes. People are surprised by the evolution of what consumers are willing to pay.’’

Some big chains like Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s have been able to hold down prices because they buy in bulk and their size gives them purchasing power.

And in some cases, franchisees absorb the costs.

Clayton Turnbull, who owns 18 Dunkin’ Donuts in Greater Boston, has not raised his prices since the beginning of the year. “We’ve taken a hit and hope we can outrun the trend,’’ he said. His strategy is to lure customers in with other products to offset the increase.

But many coffee vendors have gone with price hikes, another hit for consumers who are already faced with record-high food and fuel costs.

“We’ve been brewing more coffee at home and driving a little less,’’ said Paul Simmons of Somerville, who started curtailing his cafe visits when the price of coffee started to creep up last year. “Most people trying to keep a budget have realized they’re getting squeezed more.’’

Some, nevertheless, are inured. “To pay these prices for coffee is ridiculous,’’ said Dover coffee drinker Andrea diMarco, “but I still won’t cut it out.’’

Still, raising prices can be nerve-racking for owners. Rebecca Fitzgerald, chief operating officer for George Howell Coffee Company in Acton, said the business employs a formula based on whether it thinks coffee bean prices will remain high. Then the company factors in other costs, from labor to rent to the price of cups and cream.

With all that in mind, the company is weighing a 15- to 25-cent price increase at Taste Coffee House in Newton, a cafe the company manages. “You have to balance margins and think about retaining customers at the same time,’’ Fitzgerald said. “There’s also a gut feeling of what I can do and not lose my customers.’’

Starbucks Corp. began rolling out price increases on specialty drinks in October. In March the company bumped packaged coffee up 12 percent in grocery stores. But the Seattle coffee giant has “no plans to take other pricing increases right now,’’ said Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz in an e-mail.

Even though Starbucks recently reported a 10 percent revenue increase in its second quarter, analysts say all coffee companies are proceeding with caution.

“What Starbucks doesn’t want to do is wreck a year of market-share gains by jacking up the price,’’ said restaurant equities analyst Steve West, of Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in St. Louis.

It’s not just designer coffee that’s costing more. The price for a bottomless cup of joe at Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe in the South End went up 20 cents to $2.25 in April and “no one’s said a word,’’ noted Marie Fuller, who runs Charlie’s with her family. Customers, she figured, are used to seeing prices go up.

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.