Berman frequently said that girls were "time-wasters," impediments to achievement — a view that stood out in part because few other teachers even acknowledged the boys' preoccupation with the opposite sex.
President Wilson felt obliged to acknowledge the boy as theirs and sent the couple a note that simply said, "With congratulations to the baby.
Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, acknowledged the death of the boy in a briefing to the Israeli cabinet on Sunday morning, saying that the boy was "uninvolved" in the fighting, according to a statement from Mr. Barak's office.
Israeli soldiers are stationed at the end of his street in the volatile city of Hebron 24 hours a day, yet none has ever acknowledged the skinny, bespectacled boy by name as he makes his way home from school.
The editors concluded, and the photographer acknowledged, that the boy's gesture had not been spontaneous.
The prosecutor, Louis Miville-Deschnes, acknowledged that the boy made no attempt to damage computers or to retrieve or manipulate confidential data.
Sheriff Randall Boyce of Bedford County, who on Monday acknowledged that the boy probably had dual American and Russian citizenship, said he had been told by the Hansens' lawyer that they would speak only if they were charged with a crime.
The writer, a freelancer, then acknowledged that the boy in the article was a composite, a blend of several boys he interviewed, including one named Youssouf Malé and another, the boy in the picture, identified by Save the Children as Madou Traoré.
Mr. Ridge acknowledged the troubling moral of the "boy who cried wolf" but added, "I think you can fairly assume that the experts view this tied in, this information somehow related to Al Qaeda or bin Laden, or else we wouldn't have ramped it up".
In a statement on Sunday, the boy's family acknowledged the dilemma faced by zoo staff.
