Lord Boateng's son is guilty of party sex attack on sleeping woman

The son of Britain’s first black Cabinet minister was facing jail last night after being convicted of sexually assaulting a sleeping woman.
Benjamin Boateng attacked the  22-year-old stranger when she was ‘dead to the world’ – passed out on a sofa after a drunken night out.
Now it can be revealed that the 27-year-old, whose father is Lord Boateng, was accused of raping another vulnerable drunken girl in similar circumstances after a party in South Africa.
Boateng, whose father was then Britain’s High Commissioner to South Africa, was alleged to have twice raped an 18-year-old girl in Cape Town after a New Year’s Eve party in 2006.
But he was cleared after a fast-track investigation.
The alleged sex attack was not mentioned to the jury at Kingston Crown Court who found him guilty by a majority of 10-2.
Former actor Boateng, who has appeared on The Bill and Grange Hill, is now an art curator and self-styled entertainment agent.
He appeared shocked yesterday as he was convicted of a serious sexual assault.
Judge Fergus Mitchell warned him that the charge carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
He said: ‘He has not been to prison before but it is almost certainly where he is going.
'This charge carries a maximum of life imprisonment.
‘I must say I agree with the jury verdict. It was a convincing and true witness who was attacked skilfully, if I may say so.’
Earlier, Boateng, who was on bail, sauntered into court late, casually dressed, infuriating the judge who remanded him into custody for continually being late to court.

During the six-day trial, his victim, now 23, wept as she told the court how she was attacked by Boateng after ending up at a house party at the end of a night out clubbing with friends on September 19 last year.
The girl, who had been drinking champagne and vodka, passed out on a sofa and was ‘dead to the world’ when Boateng climbed on top of her and undressed her.
He covered her with a quilt and exposed himself.

She woke in shock to find a stranger sexually assaulting her and screamed: ‘How can you do that when I was asleep? I don’t know who you are.’
Sobbing, she told jurors: ‘I said: “Where am I?” He said: “You are in Battersea, babes”.
‘I got the shock of my life. I said: “Who the hell are you?” My knickers had been pulled down as well. I pushed him off and I ran out.’
The woman fled the flat in tears and called the police after being violently sick four times.
When he was confronted, Boateng denied any wrongdoing.
Heather Norton, prosecuting, said: ‘Mr Boateng’s attitude was effectively, “What is the problem? We have only been kissing?”’
Boateng told jurors he was not attracted to the woman. He said he had placed the quilt over her ‘because that is the normal thing to do when you see a young lady asleep’, before he fell asleep.
He said he was in a state of ‘disbelief’ when she ‘hysterically’ accused him of touching her.
But the jury rejected his account.
Boateng’s father was not in court to see his son convicted.
Lord Boateng, 60, was an MP for 18 years before becoming a Cabinet minister in May 2002, when Tony Blair made him Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
The father-of-five then served as the British High Commissioner to South Africa from 2005 to 2009 and joined the House of Lords last year.
Boateng, who lives in Marylebone, was released on bail pending sentencing next month.
Detective Inspector Sian Thomas, who led the investigation, said: ‘I would like to pay tribute to the victim who was courageous in coming forward and reporting this incident to the police and giving evidence against him in court.’
Part of his bail conditions state he may not go to the Jet Black nightclub.

Biggest Strike Yet Brings Greece to Halt

The 48-hour walkout by Greek workers on Wednesday and Thursday has been dubbed "the mother of all strikes" by leading Greek daily Ta Nea. The biggest strikes since the debt crisis began in the country almost two years ago saw tens of thousands of protesters ringing parliament on Wednesday as part of massive demonstrations against the latest raft of austerity measures — measures that parliament is expected to pass into law on Thursday. The Greek parliament approved the measures in principle on Wednesday despite the protests outside.

By late afternoon, the largely peaceful rally had devolved into street fights between riot police and hooded youths. One demonstrator, Evangelia Trifona, sat on the steps of a store with smashed windows, her eyes red and watery from tear gas. (See TIME's photo-essay "Protesters Bring Athens to a Halt.")

Trifona, a 59-year-old housewife, started venturing to demonstrations a couple of months ago, after she stopped believing that the austerity measures were going to led anywhere good. A few months ago, her husband, a retired schoolteacher, saw his pension cut by a third. Then the restaurant they ran in Crete failed. Now they can no longer pay their mortgage. She's afraid she and her husband are going to be homeless.

"I'm coming back tomorrow," she said, coughing into a handkerchief. "I want someone to hear me, to know I exist. I feel like no one in parliament is listening to me or cares about me." (See TIME's photo-essay "Outrage in Athens.")

The strikes shuttered government offices, public services, shops and even bakeries. Taxi drivers walked off the job, as did air-traffic controllers (though they shortened their work stoppage from 48 hours to 12). Hundreds of riot police have cordoned off the area around parliament, the target of Greeks' anger over new measures that include further salary and job cuts in the public sector, a controversial new property tax, and slashes to pensions.

The European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — a group which Greeks call the "troika" — say Greece must adopt even harsher austerity measures to keep receiving billions in international bailout loans. Without those loans, the country would not be able to pay its bills and would default on its massive sovereign debt, which is now 162% of gross domestic product. Euro-zone leaders are set to discuss the debt crisis at a summit on Oct. 23. They are maneuvering to set up a rescue agreement that will find new ways to reduce Greek debt, protect banks exposed to economically troubled euro-zone countries, and include a rescue fund to keep the crisis from spreading.

But the issue of how to handle the Greek crisis continues to vex euro-zone leaders. Some economists say the medicine of austerity is actually killing the patient by stalling Greece's weak economy. The country's deep recession is in its third year, and the official unemployment rate rose to 16.5% this summer, one of the highest on record for Greece.

Personal bankruptcies are also on the rise as people struggle to pay bills and mortgages on reduced salaries and pensions. Many Greeks say they're so squeezed they won't be able pay the new property tax demanded by lenders. "Nearly all of our neighbors are having the same problem," says Roula Korobili, a retired secretary whose family of four survives on her $1,000 monthly pension. "We're just ready to throw up our hands."

But the most politically sensitive item in the new austerity package is a provision that would reduce the power of collective bargaining in some sectors, including banking, journalism and manufacturing. Unions strongly oppose the measure. They say it's bad for workers and is the first step towards dismantling the national minimum wage, which, at around €740 ($1,000) net pay, is higher than in most European countries — Spain's is €641.50 ($880), while Portugal's is €485 ($670).

Louka Katseli, who was ousted as Labor Minister this summer but is still in parliament, was planning to vote against the provision. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos says it must pass because international lenders have demanded that Greece make its labor market more flexible. (See more on the Greek Meltdown: Putting the Hell in Hellas.)

The schism over collective bargaining isn't just about the working class and the minimum wage. It's also about the power of Greece's labor unions, which have been part of the country's political machinery for years. Platon Tinios, a professor of economics at the University of Piraeus, says labor unions "as they currently exist in Greece have hurt, not helped the country." They hang on to bureaucracy that strangles the country but benefits them, he says.

"This particular legislation is actually moving away from centralization," adds Tinios. "And I think this is what the unions are particularly worried about. They might lose control. They're afraid things will be happening further away from their reach."

Unions have in the past been especially supportive of the ruling center-left PASOK party, which is now trailing the main opposition, center-right New Democracy party in public opinion polls. Union leaders now deride PASOK as traitors, while Finance Minister Venizelos likened the chronic strikes to "blackmail" at a critical time for Greece.

A two-week strike by sanitation workers has left the streets of Athens piled high with trash. The capital's exasperated mayor, George Kaminis, is trying to hire private workers to pick up the rotting garbage after the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention warned that it would turn into a public-health hazard. Sanitation worker unions have threatened violence if private contractors come in. Kaminis is now appealing to the army for help. (See if the Greek cuts have gone too far.)

Meanwhile, Prime Minister George Papandreou has appealed for unity on the crisis. "We must persevere in this war as people, as a government, as a parliamentary group in order for the country to win it," he told his cabinet on Tuesday.

But as she joined in the protests on Wednesday, housewife Evangelia Trifona saw no victory for Greece in this war. She shook her head as she watched riot police and angry demonstrators fight on a street where she once took her daughter for shopping and souvlaki. The crowed yelled at the police, who doused them with tear gas again. Trifona covered her face with the sleeve of her cardigan. "Shame on you," she coughed at a young officer. "We're running out of hope. Can't you see?"

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097268,00.html#ixzz1bIh2adRf

'Shop around to get the best deal': Households told to ditch loyalty as profits-per-customer rocket from ￡15 a year to ￡125

Letters are to be sent to millions of British customers offering them advice on how to reduce their energy bills.
They will be told how to lower costs by switching to different payment methods and taking advantage of free or subsidised insulation.
They will also be encouraged to check whether their supplier's rivals offer better deals - and will be given information on how to switch.
Energy firm bosses agreed the measures, aimed at reducing household energy bills, after a summit meeting at which David Cameron told them action was 'absolutely vital'.
Chief executives of the 'big six' suppliers were brought together with consumer groups and watchdog Ofgem to discuss concerns over price rises with ministers.
The Prime Minister told them it was 'absolutely vital' that consumers struggling already with rising food and petrol prices were not also hit by higher fuel bills.
Ministers were determined to be seen taking action on the issue after Labour leader Ed Miliband made tackling the 'rigged' energy market one of his key policies.
Mr Miliband said at the weekend that firms should use soaring profits to cut 'crippling' bills after figures suggested annual profits per customer had risen to ￡125 - from just ￡15 in June.
Those figures, produced by Ofgem, were disputed by suppliers. Among the measures agreed at the summit, held at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills with Energy Secretary Chris Huhne, were:
Letters to be sent to eight million consumers who could save ￡100 by switching from the quarterly credit billing system
Government letters to four million vulnerable households - paid for by energy firms - informing them they were eligible for free insulation
A campaign to encourage people to consider switching supplier and a commitment to provide energy use data in electronic form to aid making comparisons
A report by Ofgem before the end of the year recommending ways to improve conduct and transparency in the industry
Speaking afterwards, Mr Cameron said: 'We are making energy companies be competitive.
'They're permanently being watched by Ofgem to make sure it is a competitive market, and we are making them make their energy available so that others can come in and provide customers with a good service.
'We're also writing to millions of customers today to encourage them to shop around to get the cheapest possible deal they can for their energy.
'So this is about the Government, about the Citizens Advice Bureau, about other organisations, all working together to help people to keep their energy bills down.'
The summit came as environmentalists said an over-reliance on fossil fuels could push up household bills by around ￡300 a year by 2020.
It also came on the day that Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said householders in Britain were enjoying 'relatively good electricity and gas prices' compared to other countries.
Mr Huhne also reminded consumers, before the meeting, that energy companies 'are not the Salvation Army, they are trying to make profits for their share-holders'.
In remarks sure to anger cash-strapped householders who are paying higher energy bills than ever before, he said he wanted a clearer, fairer and much more competitive retail market to enable customers to switch tariffs easily and benefit from better deals.
His comments come a few weeks after he pointed the finger at lazy consumers who he said 'do not bother' to hunt for bargains on gas and electricity.
Before the meeting, Prime Minister David Cameron said he would 'read the riot act' to Britain’s energy giants which he summoned to Downing Street to drive down prices over the winter.
He said he would unveil the four-point plan to help cash-strapped consumers.
He stepped in after regulator Ofgem found widespread overcharging and a lack of transparency about which of the dozens of different tariffs each household should be on.
However, Labour leader Ed Miliband accused the Government of 'engaging in window dressing and not real change'.
Figures last week showed annual bills have now risen to ￡1,345 a year for the average household – double the ￡740 of five years ago.
A report published today by green group Friends of the Earth says if gas and coal costs rise in the coming decade by the same amount as they did between 2000 and 2010, the nation would face an additional bill of ￡8billion a year by 2020 to generate electricity, costing the average householder an extra ￡300.
Electricity bills rose by 30 per cent in real terms between 2000 and 2010, while gas bills jumped 78 per cent. The rises were largely due to increased costs of coal, which rose by 71 per cent, and natural gas, which rose 90 per cent, in the decade, Friends of the Earth said.
Mr Huhne told the BBC earlier today: 'At the moment we've had some very big increases in electricity and gas prices, principally because of the very sharp increases in prices on the world markets.
'But consumers are not powerless. They can save up to ￡200 by switching, and that's absolutely key to try and help them make the market more competitive, because the best guarantee that you're getting value for money is to have more people bidding for your business.'
He said the Government is working with Ofgem to simplify 'dramatically' the number of tariffs.
'I'm determined that we have a much clearer, fairer and much more competitive retail market so that consumers can switch more easily with simpler tariffs and get better deals, and so we get new entrants into the market and that's what we're doing with the electricity market reform to bring new competition into the market,' he said.
'These companies are not the Salvation Army, they are trying to make profits for their share-holders, and that's important that we in the Government work with Ofgem to make sure that these are genuinely fair and competitive markets.'
The Prime Minister said he would pile pressure on the Big Six – British Gas, EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern – to ensure consumers know about the potential savings they could make from checking they are on the cheapest energy deal and switching supplier.
He said he would demand that they sign up to an agreement to provide prompts on how to find the cheapest tariffs, to appear on all bills within weeks.
Mr Cameron also said he would insist that free or heavily subsidised insulation, delivered by the energy companies, is available to the most vulnerable households this winter.
The Leader of the Opposition said that increased transparency was needed to stop the 'fast buck culture' of energy companies and allow consumers to receive a 'fair deal'.
'This is a rigged market,' he said. 'This is a market that isn't working to the benefit of consumers. We need big reform.'
There is widespread public anger at the Big Six because their profits have soared while consumers have suffered. Three months ago they were making ￡15 a year from customers, now the figures is ￡125.
Power firm SSE seemingly heeded his call last week by announcing its power will be sold on the open market - rather than going straight to its own supply arm.
Experts estimate the move could bring significant savings for customers if the other five major players in the industry followed suit.
Today a Friends of the Earth-organised protest will see spoof representatives of the Big Six energy companies gather outside London's Liverpool Street Station to thank consumers for supporting sky-high profits through spiraling bills.
Friends of the Earth said the Big Six energy companies were not investing enough in green energy in the face of uncertainty over Government policy, while the market made it hard for new entrants to come in and compete, and pricing structures were hard to understand.
Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins said: 'The big energy companies have a lot to be thankful for - surging profits, bumper executive payouts and a Government that's bending over backwards to allow them to keep Britain addicted to fossil fuels.
'The Big Six are tipping the UK's energy system in favour of expensive gas while neglecting investment in clean energy and slashing energy waste which would give consumers a better deal in the long run.
'David Cameron must urgently set up a public inquiry into the power of the Big Six energy companies - ending their stranglehold over the UK's energy system will be good for consumers, good for business and good for the planet.'
In a joint article for the website moneysavingexpert.com, Mr Cameron and Mr Huhne said: ‘Energy bills have increased by more than ￡100 for most people since this summer. These price rises couldn't come at a worse time for consumers who are already feeling the pinch from rising petrol prices and the cost of the weekly shop.
‘Today we are bringing together the industry, consumer groups and Ofgem for an Energy Summit that will focus on getting people the help they need to reduce their bills in time for this winter.
‘Our intention is for today's Summit to be the start of a much more active engagement with consumers, with us all working harder and faster to deliver an energy market that is trusted, simple and transparent. A market that puts the consumer first and gets these energy bills down as much as possible.
‘We are determined that everything that can be done will be done to help people bring their energy bills down.’
A Downing Street source said: ‘The Prime Minister wants to play a central role in sorting this out. He is determined that the big six energy companies do more to ensure that consumers don’t pay over the odds.’
Citizens Advice Chief Executive Gillian Guy welcomed the summit. She said: ‘This summit must make it easier for customers to spend less on heating their homes. Big hikes in energy prices are a real worry for our clients and they’re looking for ways to cut costs.
‘In the last six months, double the number of people came to us for advice on saving money on energy bills compared last year.’
But Shadow Energy Secretary Caroline Flint said: ‘The Government's warm words won't heat homes during a bitter winter.
‘They're unable to take on vested interests, they won't tackle the spiraling prices imposed by the energy giants, they won't investigate the mis-selling of energy and they won't help the pensioners whose winter fuel payments have been cut.
‘Unless the out of touch Government gets to grips with the real issues at the Energy Summit, their only promise is a cold, costly winter for all.’

JAILED... STUDENT SHOPPED BY HIS MOTHER FOR TAKING THE FAMILY YACHT

A UNIVERSITY student who stole his family’s ￡10,000 yacht has been jailed for nine months after being reported to police by his mother.
Oliver Sloley, 22, and a friend took the 30ft vessel to sea but got into difficulty off the coast of Cornwall.
He issued a mayday call but was so inexperienced he could not give his correct bearings and was only located by lifeboat crews after firing a flare.
Sloley, who was in his second year studying geology at Plymouth University at the time of the theft, was towed to harbour and later faced the wrath of his mother.
He admitted taking the yacht without consent and a string of other charges.
As he began his jail sentence last night his mother Annabel, 47, of Penzance, Cornwall, said she had felt duty-bound to shop her son to the police – a decision she described as “hell”.
“That’s the only way I can describe it, absolute hell,” she said.
“It’s not what you want as a parent but have to do what you feel is right. It’s not even the fact it was my boat, it was the fact the lifeboat crew got involved and spent three hours searching for them when they should be saving people’s lives who have got in difficulty through no fault of their own.”
Mrs Sloley was away for the weekend when Oliver took the boat from its moorings at Restronguet, near Falmouth, last August despite the engine being faulty and having no lifejackets.
He and his friend – neither of whom had any navigational experience – managed to sail several miles along the coast and round the treacherous Lizard peninsula.
They got into a difficulty a few hours later and called for help but were unable to give a correct position.
The Penlee lifeboat was launched and spent 90 minutes searching for them until the a ferry spotted a flare. Lifeboat crews then managed to tow the yacht back into Newlyn harbour.
Mrs Sloley added: “The Lizard is not a place to play. Had someone fallen in it could have been very different. I was not in Cornwall at the time and it was quite a shock to be told your son has stolen your boat and had to be rescued.
Taking him to court was very difficult. It was horrible, but I am of the mind that once my mind is made up then that’s it.”
She added: “He has accepted he was in the wrong and that’s it as far as we’re concerned.”
Joss Ticehurst, defending, said: “He has wasted his future to a very great extent.”
Sentencing him at Truro Crown Court, Judge Christopher Elwen said: “For some reason best known to yourself you decided to wreck your life, and possibly your prospects for the future.”

400% HIKE IN PARKING FEES TO BOOST COUNCIL COFFERS

PARKING charges are soaring by up to 400 per cent despite a pledge by the Government to end the war on drivers, it was revealed yesterday.
A shock survey found cash-strapped councils are still -targeting drivers to plug holes in their budgets.
Campaigners say the endless rise in parking charges and permit fees amounts to a local authority stealth tax.
The biggest increase has hit parking permits, which were originally introduced to help local residents and charged at rates set up to cover council administration costs.
Surrey County Council has banged up its permit charge in Woking by a staggering 400 per cent, from ￡10 to ￡50.
Parts of Cambridge have suffered an 85 per cent rise while charges at Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, have doubled over the past year. Manchester raised tariffs 23 per cent.
AA president Edmund King said: “Raising parking charges is another attack on the motorist, who is already -suffering record fuel and insurance prices.
“Residents’ permits are a poll tax on wheels.” Former Labour MP Andrew Dismore said: -“Residents’ permits were introduced to ensure that -residents could park in their own street.
“Now councils are screwing money from car-owning residents.
“They should carefully scrutinise whether they are being used as cash cows to replace lost income. It’s a council tax increase by stealth.”
Out of 96 councils which responded to the survey, 57 had increased parking charges or extended the hours when they applied. The average rise was found to be 44 per cent.
Westminster Council, in London, estimates new fees will bring in an extra ￡7million a year. It plans to raise the cost of parking in bays to as much as ￡4.80 an hour. The hours of enforcement are also being increased and motorists are now being charged to park in London on Sundays.
Councils are also bumping up charges at pay-and-display car parks while others have scrapped free bank holiday parking.
In south-west London, Richmond upon Thames put charges up by 15 per cent.
The soaring charges come despite Whitehall guidance brought in by Labour aimed at encouraging councils to penalise motorists being dustbinned by the Government.
Under Labour charges rose up to tenfold, crippling town centres and driving motorists to out-of-town supermarkets.
Keith Peat, of the Association of British Drivers, said: “When councils grant permission for retail parks and supermarkets they insist there are huge car parks to go with it, where parking is free – yet they think local -traders can operate under a different regime.
“It is very, very short-sighted. What they should be looking at is introducing free car parks to bring in business.”
Local Government Minister Bob Neill insisted there was now “no excuse to use parking as a cash cow”.
He added: “Parking charges should not be used as a way to raise revenue by stealth and forward-thinking councils will keep them down to help local high streets and local shops.”

BEEF BOURGUIGNON

A rich and hearty slow cooked French stew. Serve with mashed potatoes and green vegetables.
INGREDIENTS
Serves 4-6
1 tablespoon plain flour
Salt and black pepper
800g lean diced beef steak
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 large onions, peeled and cut into chunks
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried herbes de Provence
125g smoked diced bacon
1 bottle Bordeaux wine
1 Oxo beef stock cube
200g button mushrooms
2 bay leaves, optional
1 sprig parsley, optional

METHOD
Place the plain flour in a large plastic bag or on a plate and sprinkle with salt and black pepper.

Add the beef and toss in the seasoned fl our to coat. Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole dish and add the beef.

Fry for 5-6 minutes, turning occasionally until the beef is browned on all sides. Using a slotted spoon, remove the beef from the pan and set aside.

Add the onions, carrots and celery to the pan and fry over a low heat for approximately 5-10 minutes until lightly browned and beginning to soften a little.

Add the garlic, herbs and bacon and fry for another 2-3 minutes. Return the beef to the pan and stir well. Then gradually pour in the wine, crumble in the stock cube and add the bay leaves if using.
Bring to the boil stirring well. Cover and simmer on a low heat for 11/2 hours or place in the oven at 180C/ 160C fan/gas 4 for 11/2 hours.

Remove the lid and add the mushrooms then continue to cook for another 30 minutes until the meat is meltingly tender.

Sprinkle with parsley just before serving. If desired, serve it with crusty wholewheat French or sourdough bread instead of the usual potatoes and vegetables.

RUGBY WORLD CUP 2011: FRANCE - FROM A FARCE TO A FORCE

Strange to relate, their defence coach Dave Ellis’s appraisal of that game is by no means as negative as the bald fact of losing might suggest.
He even rejects the truism that the French are reliable only in their inconsistency.
“If you look at northern hemisphere rugby over the last decade, France are the most consistent team,” said Ellis.
“While I’ve been with them they’ve won five Six Nations titles and three Grand Slams.
“But they are quite capable of having an off-day and then going from the basement to the penthouse in seven days. Everyone expects a backlash. The mood is good.
“The culture of the players and the game in France is to rely on a flood of emotion. When you look at what has happened over our first four World Cup games, they haven’t really had to put that emotion in gear.”
Yet by any type of standards it has been a truly calamitous campaign, with a perverse chance of redemption, which France, now at their lowest-ever international ranking of eighth, scarcely deserve.
“The context of this match will make England very tough opponents,” said Ellis.
“They haven’t shown a great deal yet in the games they’ve won but they have been winning.
“When we played them at the Stade de France to win the 2010 Grand Slam, we did it by winning ugly. This is something we have taken from England.”

Physics 'error' leads to Nobel Prize

Adam Riess was sure he'd spotted a blatant error in his results. It was 1997, and the young post-doc's measurements of distant, exploding stars implied that the universe was expanding at a faster and faster rate, instead of slowing down, as he had expected.

It wasn't an error at all. Instead, what was at fault were some basic assumptions about the workings of the universe.

On Tuesday, the Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist received the Nobel Prize in physics for the revolutionary discovery and its implications, along with team leader Brian Schmidt of Australian National University and astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who had reached the same conclusion independently.

PHOTOS: The 2011 Nobel Prizes

At the time of their work, astrophysicists believed that the rate of expansion of the universe — set in motion by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago — would be slowing down as matter was pulled together by gravity. The goal at the time was to figure out how rapid the deceleration was.

What the two teams found instead was that the expansion of the universe was accelerating — an observation that could best be explained by the existence of a mysterious "dark energy" that pushes matter farther and farther apart.

Many scientists had thought that, just as the universe started with the Big Bang, it would end with a Big Crunch — with gravity pulling all the matter in the universe inward.

To measure the rate of deceleration, the two teams were tracking the movement of very bright exploding stars called Type 1a supernovae.

As the universe expands, the light waves we observe get stretched, and their hue shifts into the redder parts of the spectrum. The scientists looked at this "redshift" to see how far the supernovae (and thus, their surrounding galaxies) had traveled, and compared it to how dim — and thus how far away — they were.

Perplexingly, both teams' measurements suggested that the supernovae were farther away than they should have been. They weren't slowing down — they were speeding up.

The two teams proposed that the acceleration could be explained by the repulsive force of dark energy, which is now estimated to make up 73% of the universe. (Dark matter, which is unrelated to dark energy, makes up 23% of the universe, and all visible matter a mere 4%.)

"As far as fundamental significance for the foundations of physics and how we view the world, I think it's absolutely one of the major discoveries of the 20th century," said MIT theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, one of the winners of the 2004 Nobel Prize for physics.

The work was, in a way, an affirmation of a proposal by Albert Einstein in 1917 for a "cosmological constant" — a sort of anti-gravity effect he used to make the general theory of relativity agree with the idea of a static universe.

When further observations showed the universe was not static, but expanding, Einstein threw the idea out of his equations, calling the constant the "biggest blunder" of his career.

Dark energy remains an unexplained force in physics — one that, if better understood, could potentially help reconcile inconsistencies between two of the field's key theories, quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity, Riess said. General relativity deals with the forces acting on objects on a large scale, while quantum physics deals with such interactions on a subatomic scale, but neither can fully explain both.

Riess said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he received the call from Stockholm in the wee hours as he was lying in bed awake listening to his 10-month-old son alternately crying and sleeping. He said he suspected who might be calling because of the early hour.

Perlmutter said he was roused not by a Nobel Prize Committee official but by the press.

"It's interesting to wake up at 3 in the morning by someone saying they're a reporter and they want to know how you feel," he said during a news conference. "I felt fine, but I said, 'Well, why do you ask?'"

Competition between the two teams was intense, said UC Berkeley astrophysicist Alex Filippenko, who worked with Perlmutter's team before moving to Schmidt's.

"The good thing is, both teams worked faster because both teams wanted to be first," he said. "And the quality of the work improved, because both teams wanted to be best."

Riess, who was working at UC Berkeley at the time, said that despite the rivalry the teams stayed in regular contact — including playing the occasional good-natured game of mud football.

The three scientists have earned other awards for the work; they also shared the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy, nicknamed the "Nobel of the East." Half of the $1.5-million awarded with the Nobel will go to Perlmutter; the other half will be shared by Riess and Schmidt.

But Perlmutter is the only one who will receive one of the most famous Nobel perks: UC Berkeley faculty members who receive Nobel prizes earn a coveted lifetime parking permit on campus.