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The laws will be among the strongest in the country, said Kevin Outterson, a law professor at Boston University and a member of the expert panel that advised the state on how to curb abuses by companies like the New England Compounding Center, the Framingham pharmacy that made the tainted drug responsible for the nationwide meningitis outbreak.

The legislation would establish strict licensing requirements for compounding sterile drugs; let the state assess fines against pharmacies that break its rules; protect whistle-blowers who work in compounding pharmacies; and reorganize the state pharmacy board to include more members who are independent of the industry and fewer who are part of it.

Alec Loftus, a spokesman for the state's Office of Health and Human Services, said that Mr. Patrick expected the new legislation to be passed quickly.

Daniel Carpenter, a professor of government at Harvard, said the proposed laws seemed sound and comprehensive. But he warned that if other states did not take similar steps, compounding pharmacies engaging in shoddy practices would just move to places with the weakest laws and the least oversight.

"The remaining question is not what Massachusetts is doing or will do, but will there be a minimum level of regulation like this in the rest of the states?" Professor Carpenter said.

The meningitis outbreak, first detected in September, was caused by contaminated batches of a steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, made by the New England Compounding Center. The drug was injected into about 14,000 people's spinal area to treat back and neck pain.

As of Dec. 28, 656 people in 19 states had become ill with meningitis or other infections, like severe internal abscesses in the area where the drug was injected. Some have had both meningitis and spinal infections. The case count is expected to keep rising. Thirty-nine have died.

The New England Compounding Center was shut down, and inspections found extensive contamination. Investigations uncovered a long history of questionable practices that had drawn warnings from the state and the Food and Drug Administration.

On Dec. 21, the company announced that it had filed for bankruptcy. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against it.

At the heart of the problem have been gaps in regulation that have allowed such companies to avoid both state and federal controls. The company called itself a pharmacy, and pharmacies are generally regulated by states, while large drug companies are regulated federally, by the Food and Drug Administration.

Compounding pharmacies mix their own drug preparations, like skin creams and cough syrups, supposedly for individual patients with special needs. But the New England Compounding Center began to act like a manufacturer, making and shipping large amounts of injectable drugs, for which sterility is essential. No state law required it to obtain a license for this type of large-scale compounding, to follow good manufacturing processes or to let the state know it was shipping all over the country.

Dr. Lauren Smith, interim commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said the company "was a manufacturer in pharmacy clothing."

Governor Patrick said, "The tragic meningitis outbreak has shown us all that the board's governing authority has not kept up with an industry that has evolved from corner drugstores to the types of large manufacturers that have been at the center of so much harm."

Dr. Smith said she thought the most important part of the new legislation was the requirement of a license for sterile compounding. "Now we are going to have the ability to develop specialty licenses that will allow us to track and identify those pharmacies that are engaged in different practices that could potentially put higher numbers of individuals at risk, such as those who engage in sterile compounding," she said.

Professor Carpenter said a particularly powerful part of the proposal is that it requires licensure for out-of-state pharmacies that ship medication to Massachusetts. The state, he said, is a huge market for injectable drugs.

"Basically, if you think about the large hospitals, the amount of medical care that goes on in the state, it's in a sense using the purchasing power of the state of Massachusetts to induce changes elsewhere," he said.

The state has also taken other steps recently to rein in compounding, apart from the new legislation. It began conducting surprise inspections, and has required compounding pharmacies to report how much medication they are shipping and where, so that it can keep tabs on those that begin acting like manufacturers. It also requires the pharmacies to report when they become subjects of regulatory actions by other states or the federal government.

It has been too warm for December hockey in the Arctic, the latest sign that climate change is altering the environment and the way people live — especially in the far north, where the effects of rising temperatures are most pronounced.

Nine of the 14 villages in Nunavik, a region in northernmost Quebec, have installed cooling systems at community arenas within the last five years.

In Canada's Nunavut Territory, towns including Arviat, Igloolik, Sanikiluaq and Repulse Bay have resorted to cooling systems. A system is also being installed at the community arena in Cape Dorset, a hamlet of 1,400 just 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

"We used to have natural ice in the arena in October, but that hasn't happened for a long time," said Mike Hayward, a Cape Dorset town official. Now the ice isn't fit for hockey until mid-January, he said. That is why a cooling system is being installed in the building.

The Canadian environmental ministry reports that the country is warming more than twice as fast as the world as a whole, with annual average temperatures in Canada up about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1948. The warming in winter is even faster, almost 6 degrees Fahrenheit over the same period, and scientists have documented a substantially shorter outdoor skating season as a result.

A study published last year by climate scientists at McGill and Concordia universities in Montreal warned that natural ice for skating could disappear from southern Alberta and British Columbia by midcentury and be significantly diminished throughout the rest of the country.

"The ability to skate and play hockey outdoors is a critical component of Canadian identity and culture," the study said. "Wayne Gretzky learned to skate on a backyard skating rink; our results imply that such opportunities may not be available to future generations of Canadian children."

The last several winters have been remarkably warm in Canada, and the winter of 2011-12 was the warmest in the historical record, with temperatures as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in parts of the country. Last January, the winter warmth disrupted the N.H.L. All-Star Game festivities in Ottawa, as mild temperatures denied visitors the wintertime tradition of skating on the Rideau Canal.

The warming trend has been especially noticeable in the Canadian Arctic.

In Cape Dorset, Hayward noted, it rained on Christmas Day in 2010. Last month, on the first day of winter, it was only about 27 degrees.

"There's been a big change over the past few years, to the point where without these systems now, it would not be possible for the villages to make their ice inside the arenas," said Joe Juneau, a former N.H.L. player who has run a youth hockey program in Nunavik since 2006.

"When I started the program, I remember some of the villages starting building their ice in early November," said Juneau, who holds an aeronautical engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "Now it's very problematic. Without these systems, it would not be possible anymore for communities to have natural ice in their arenas."

Hockey in the far north is a relatively recent phenomenon, helped largely by government-backed recreational programs and arena construction over the last two decades. Juneau initiated the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program to encourage children to stay in school and away from alcohol and drug consumption. More than 1,000 children are involved, and a handful have gone to Montreal to pursue a higher level of play while attending high school.

Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, has had an arena since the mid-1980s and produced the N.H.L.'s first Inuit player, Jordin Tootoo. When he grew up there was only one team per age group. The hockey program in Iqaluit, the territorial capital, produced a minor league goalie, Paul Dainton, formerly of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who played this season with the Springfield Falcons of the A.H.L.

Those and other Nunavut towns have busy senior men's leagues, and tournaments among the territory's communities are a winter highlight.

But the warming climate has forced arena managers in the far north to forgo natural ice and turn to artificially made ice for longer ice seasons.

Some rinks installed concrete floors to promote cooling, but others employed newer technologies. The new cooling plants in many Nunavut rinks use a thermosiphon system, in which metal pipes below the arena floor send warm air outside the building.

The rinks across Nunavik and in Cape Dorset use a less expensive refrigeration system called Eco-Ice, which employs compressors standing outside the building to draw cool air in, force warm air out, and keep the building interior at a constant temperature of minus-3 Celsius, or 26.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Eco-Ice systems were installed in Nunavik because the communities wanted to extend the hockey season for the kids," said Frédéric Gagné, director of the municipal public works department for the region.

"With global warming, it's getting pretty difficult for northern communities to make ice," said François Bilodeau of LeProhon Group, the Quebec manufacturer of the Eco-Ice system, which has been installed in 42 rinks across Canada in the last 15 years.

"If it wasn't getting so warm, we would probably not be in business," he said.

A multilingual former military officer, he says he is among many friends and colleagues who feel trapped: disenchanted with President Bashar al-Assad, disgusted by the violence engulfing Syria and equally afraid of the government and the rebels, with both sides, as he puts it, ready to sacrifice "the innocents."

Mr. Assad remains in power in part because two years into the uprising, a critical bloc of Syrians remains on the fence. Among them are business owners who drive the economy, bankers who finance it, and the security officials and government employees who hold the keys to the mundane but crucial business of maintaining an authoritarian state. If they abandoned the government or embraced the rebels en masse, they might change the tide. Instead, their uncertainty contributes to the stalemate.

The Egyptian and Tunisian rebellions that inspired Syria's initially peaceful uprising reached tipping points within weeks, with far less bloodshed. In those cases, widespread desire for change overwhelmed the fear of the unknown, and toppled governments — or rather, the dictatorial cliques that headed them — fell.But in Syria, each side has bloodied the other while many stay on the sidelines, and a core contingent of supporters feels obligated to stick with the government even as their doubts grow. That is in part because the government's ruthless crackdown has made protest far more risky than in other uprisings. But it is also because of doubts, among the urban elite and others, about the direction of the revolution and how a rebel-ruled Syria would look.

"Me and my neighbors, we were the first to go down to the street and scream that we want a country, a real country, not a plantation," said Samar Haddad, who runs a Syrian publishing house. "But this armed revolution, I refuse it as much as I refuse the regime."

Ms. Haddad, who is in her late 40s and now spends much of her time outside Damascus, said that she and her circle of intellectuals and professionals embrace unarmed Syrian protesters as heroes, but believe that the armed rebellion is creating warlords and cycles of revenge that will be hard to uproot.

The fence sitters include government employees, security forces, intellectuals and wealthy Syrians. Some, including members of Mr. Assad's minority Alawite sect, say they fear the rule of Islamists, or the calls for vengeance from some factions of the Sunni Muslim-dominated uprising.

Some are former soldiers who say they defected only to be disappointed by rebels who lack discipline or obsess about religious ideology. One young man, Nour, said he gave up on revolution when he tried to join an Islamist brigade, Al Tawhid, but was rejected for wearing skinny jeans.

Others, like the Damascus civil servant, a Sunni, simply fear a post-Assad vacuum and are confused about the safest course for their families and the country.

Fewer and fewer Syrians appear to believe the government can restore order; the fraying of the country has become hard to miss. This has resulted in countless private debates over how to survive — amid growing alarm that without a political settlement or intervention, endless fighting will gut the Syrian state.

For those who support neither Mr. Assad nor his opponents, life has become a fearful wait.

In Damascus, little gets done in offices that tremble with explosions and empty out by dusk. Government salaries are still paid, the civil servant said, but fewer workers show up. Ms. Haddad said her publishing employees still come to work, in what has become an act of defiance to show that life goes on.

Many people express a wish for a political solution — perhaps a transitional government involving moderate government officials — but believe that decisions are being made by armed men on both sides who refuse to compromise.

"Both sides have the same mind," said Abu Tony, a shopkeeper in central Damascus who favors a compromise and gave only a nickname for safety reasons.

"This is not life," he said, "to spend half of the day without electricity, without heating oil and without even bread just because the two sides refuse to give up some of their demands."

Ms. Haddad said she and like-minded friends were trying quietly to build civil society. But she said: "We feel depressed, useless, helpless. We are not the decision makers."

Even as some Alawites grow frustrated with Mr. Assad — believing he has poisoned their future in Syria — many believe there is no safe place for them on the other side. In part for this reason, there have not been mass defections by senior Alawite military officers.

But even Sunni soldiers under strong pressure to defect sometimes feel that "we can't offer them much," said one rebel commander based in the northern province of Idlib.

He said many were in touch with colleagues who defected earlier, who recount months without salaries, and the humiliation of former colonels commanded by junior fighters with swollen egos.

One such disappointed defector is Nour, who said he served in the feared Fourth Division commanded by Mr. Assad's brother Maher. He said he defected after security forces raped and killed his fiancée and many friends begged him to join the rebels.

But he was let down, first by fighters who drank and took drugs and offered him money for sexual acts; then by Al Tawhid Brigade, whose fighters, he said, taunted him, saying "You want to join us and you're wearing skinny trousers?" He said he had decided to stay in Turkey and avoid both sides in the conflict.

The Damascus civil servant and would-be defector — who has talked for months about defecting, first to rebels from his hometown and then to a reporter — said he hesitates over many questions about the rebels and their plans: "Are the people aware enough? Can they practice self-control? Can the rebels set up a security zone?"

"Many questions need answers," he said.

The government, he added, long ago stopped forcing him to attend pro-Assad demonstrations, but rebel supporters call him a traitor for asking questions.

"Why should I join a group where I am obliged to curtsy?"

"The House has confirmed that clergy in civil partnerships, and living in accordance with the teaching of the church on human sexuality, can be considered as candidates for the episcopate," or the office of bishop, Bishop Graham James of Norwich said in a statement.

The issue has been simmering here for years, most publicly in 2003, when the Rev. Jeffrey John, a Church of England priest who was in a long-term relationship with another male priest, was appointed bishop of Reading. Though the pair said they were celibate, the appointment provoked fury here and abroad, and Mr. John was pressed to step down.

He subsequently became the dean of St. Albans, and in 2007 entered into a civil partnership with his companion, the Rev. Grant Holmes.

The new policy was introduced in December, when the House of Bishops, a body within the church, published a list of recent decisions. One of those was to lift the ban on clergymen in civil partnerships becoming bishops. In 2005, the church ruled that people in civil partnerships could become clergy members, but the ruling did not apply to bishops.

The decision does not affect women in the church, who are not allowed to become bishops at all.

Nor does the policy have any bearing on gay priests not in civil partnerships, since they are also expected to be celibate, said a spokesman for the Church of England, the Rev. Arun Arora.

"The church makes a big distinction between sexual orientation and practice," he said in an interview. "The bottom line is that we have no issue with sexuality — God loves you either way, and you can serve in the ministry. But when it comes to sex, the only way we understand it is that it should be expressed within the confines of marriage — whether you're straight or gay."

The British government has proposed allowing same-sex marriage, but, Mr. Arora said, that would not affect the church definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The issue has caused furious divisions within the worldwide Anglican Communion, whose members range from very conservative to very liberal — the Episcopal Church in the United States already allows gay clergy members, as well as women, to serve as bishops, for instance. Evangelical groups condemned the move, saying that the issue should have been taken up with the General Synod, the Church of England's legislative body.

"That would be a major change in church doctrine and therefore not something that can be slipped out in the news," Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform, a conservative church group, told the BBC. "It is something that has got to be considered by the General Synod."

In his statement explaining the decision, Bishop James said that "all candidates for the episcopate undergo a searching examination of personal life and discipline."

He added that "it would be unjust to exclude from consideration for the episcopate anyone seeking to live fully in conformity with the church's teaching on sexual ethics or other areas of personal life and discipline."