Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

A man injured by bombing in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday that also killed one person.

GAZA CITY — Israel broadened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday from mostly military targets to centers of government infrastructure, obliterating the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister with a barrage of five bombs before dawn.

The attack, one of several on government installations, came a day after the prime minister, Ismail Haniya, hosted his Egyptian counterpart in that very building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world. That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.

But as the fighting ended its fourth day, with Israel continuing preparations for a ground invasion, the conflict showed no sign of abating. Gaza militants again fired long-range missiles at Tel Aviv, among nearly 60 that soared into Israel on Saturday. Israel said it hit more than 200 targets overnight in Gaza, and continued with afternoon strikes on the home of a Hamas commander and on a motorcycle-riding militant.

The White House reiterated its strong support for Israel, with Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, describing rocket fire from Gaza as “the precipitating factor for the conflict.”

“We believe Israel has a right to defend itself, and they’ll make their own decisions about the tactics that they use in that regard,” Mr. Rhodes told reporters on Air Force One en route to Asia.

Hamas health officials said 45 Palestinians had been killed and 385 wounded since Wednesday’s escalation in the cross-border battle. In Israel, 3 Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were also wounded on Saturday.

Two rockets were fired at Tel Aviv on Saturday. One landed harmlessly, probably at sea. The other was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system in the sky above the city. An Iron Dome antimissile battery had been hastily deployed near the city on Saturday in response to the threat of longer-range rockets.

Since Wednesday, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said, while 500 have struck Israel. The American-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground.

There have been failures — on Saturday a rocket crashed into an apartment block in the southern port city of Ashdod, injuring five people — but officials have put its success rate at 90 percent.

Analysts said there is no clear end to the conflict in sight, since Israel neither wants to re-engage in Gaza nor to eliminate Hamas and leave the territory to the chaos of more militant factions.

“Ultimately,” said Efraim Halevy, a former chief of Israel’s intelligence service, “both sides want Hamas to remain in control, strange as it sounds.”

But Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University here, cautioned that “there is no military solution to the Gaza problem.”

“There has to be a political settlement at the end of this,” he said. “Without that, this conflict is just going to go on and on.”

President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt said late Saturday night that “there could be a cease-fire soon,” after he and other members of his government spent the day in meetings with the Turkish premier, the Qatari prince, the political leaders of Hamas and other Gaza factions. But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, denied reports that a truce was imminent.

It was unclear whether the deal under discussion would solely suspend the fighting or include other issues. Hamas — which won elections in Gaza in 2006 and took full control in 2007 but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States — wants to turn its Rafah crossing with Egypt into a free-trade zone and seeks Israel’s withdrawal from the 1,000-foot buffer it patrols on Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.

Mr. Rhodes said the Turkish and Egyptian leaders “have the ability to play a constructive role in engaging Hamas and encouraging a process of de-escalation.”

Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, spoke Saturday with the leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, according to a statement from his office.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

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Sarah Michelle Gellar Names Son Rocky

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

11/17/2012 at 07:00 PM ET

Claire Greenway/Getty

Update: The couple have named their son Rocky James Prinze, a source close to the family confirms to PEOPLE.

Originally posted Sept. 24: Hello, little Prinze.

Sarah Michelle Gellar ”had a baby boy last week in Los Angeles,” her rep tells PEOPLE.

She and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. “are thrilled to announce” the news, the rep confirms to Access Hollywood, adding that ”mother and baby are doing great.”

The newborn joins the couple’s daughter Charlotte Grace at home.

Their 3-year-old, who was spotted out with a still-pregnant Gellar last Tuesday, “is very excited to be a big sister,” the rep adds.

“They are thrilled that Charlotte [has] a little brother,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE in July.

“They love their little girl more than anything in the world and know that love will only multiply.”

Gellar, 35, and Prinze, 36, were married in September 2002.

– Sarah Michaud with reporting by Charlotte Triggs

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Pasadena considers whether to host NFL team at Rose Bowl

Many Pasadena residents who live near the Rose Bowl complain that the city's proposal to host an NFL team for up to five years would invite massive traffic jams, unleash rowdy fan behavior and displace recreational users from the Arroyo Seco.

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and others say the prospect of millions of dollars in public revenue and game-related local spending is a windfall well worth the inconveniences.

On Monday, the City Council will hold a public hearing to decide what course the city may pursue.

Both the disaster and money-making scenarios are speculative. No NFL team has committed to Southern California despite years of talk, and the Los Angeles Coliseum is another option as a temporary home while a permanent new NFL stadium is built.

But if talks with the NFL are to begin, Pasadena leaders must pass an ordinance to increase the number of large events allowed at the Rose Bowl from 12 to 25 each year, approve an associated environmental study and adopt a "statement of overriding considerations" that pro football's potential benefits outweigh its downsides.

A Nov. 5 report by Barrett Sports Group, a Manhattan Beach consulting firm hired by the city, estimates that NFL games would raise $5 million to $10 million a year for the city-owned stadium, where costs for an ongoing renovation have spiraled to nearly $195 million. The gap between the funds Rose Bowl officials have and what they estimate they need has reached $30 million.

City Council members declined to say how they would vote on Monday, but several said the renovation cost was a factor.

Councilwoman Margaret McAustin said the city would seek to reduce impacts on Rose Bowl neighbors if it decided to go ahead with the plan.

"It's not that we'll do this at all costs … [but] we have to keep in mind that the Rose Bowl is a football stadium," she said. "We're not spending $200 million to preserve it as a museum."

Mayor Bill Bogaard, who opposed a 2005 plan to bring pro football to the Rose Bowl permanently and give the NFL control over stadium renovations, said he was giving this plan serious thought. "That funding gap would be relieved if we were to strike the right deal with the NFL," he said.

But the right deal remains elusive, said Linda Vista-Annandale Assn. President Nina Chomsky, an opponent of the plan.

"They are trying to more than double the amount of events at the Rose Bowl without any contract or deal that tells us what the full impacts will be, so any attempt to mitigate those impacts is speculative," Chomsky said.

The city's 688-page environmental study found that NFL games would result in "significant and unavoidable" traffic congestion, emissions, noise and disruptions in the central Arroyo Seco.

The arrival of more than 25,000 vehicles during eight home games, two preseason games and possible playoff matches would disrupt joggers and prompt the Kidspace Museum, Rose Bowl Aquatic Center and Brookside Golf Course to go dark on those Sundays.

Chomsky added that back-to-back college and pro games would clog the area for entire weekends.

Sixty-four letters and two petitions were submitted as public comment on the environmental study, most against the proposal.

Several writers expressed fears that NFL games would attract alcohol-fueled and criminal mischief, with one Arroyo resident imagining "ever-expanding cultural crassness" on game days.

Contemporary Services Corp., which handles security at the Rose Bowl and stadiums throughout the country, countered in a Nov. 5 report to the city that "our experience has indicated that NFL fans are generally more orderly than college football fans."

joe.piasecki@latimes.com

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Israel Sticks to Tough Approach in Conflict With Hamas

TEL AVIV — With rockets landing on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday and the Egyptian prime minister making a solidarity visit to Gaza, the accelerating conflict between Israel and Hamas — reminiscent in many ways of so many previous battles — has the makings of a new kind of Israeli-Palestinian face-off.

The combination of longer-range and far deadlier rockets in the hands of more radicalized Palestinians, the arrival in Gaza and Sinai from North Africa of other militants pressuring Hamas to fight more, and the growing tide of anti-Israel fury in a region where authoritarian rulers have been replaced by Islamists means that Israel is engaging in this conflict with a different set of challenges.

The Middle East of 2012 is not what it was in late 2008, the last time Israel mounted a military invasion to reduce the rocket threat from Gaza. Many analysts and diplomats outside Israel say the country today needs a different approach to Hamas and the Palestinians based more on acknowledging historic grievances and shifting alliances.

“As long as the crime of dispossession and refugeehood that was committed against the Palestinian people in 1947-48 is not redressed through a peaceful and just negotiation that satisfies the legitimate rights of both sides, we will continue to see enhancements in both the determination and the capabilities of Palestinian fighters — as has been the case since the 1930s, in fact,” wrote Rami G. Khouri, a professor at the American University of Beirut in an online column. “Only stupid or ideologically maniacal Zionists fail to come to terms with this fact.”

But the Israeli government and the vast majority of its people have drawn a very different conclusion. Their dangerous neighborhood is growing still more dangerous, they agree. That means not concessions, but being tougher in pursuit of deterrence, and abandoning illusions that a Jewish state will ever be broadly accepted here.

“There is a theory, which I believe, that Hamas doesn’t want a peaceful solution and only wants to keep the conflict going forever until somehow in their dream they will have all of Israel,” Eitan Ben Eliyahu, a former leader of the Israeli Air Force, said in a telephone briefing. “There is a good chance we will go into Gaza on the ground again.”

What is striking in listening to the Israelis discuss their predicament is how similar the debate sounds to so many previous ones, despite the changed geopolitical circumstances. In most minds here, the changes do not demand a new strategy, simply a redoubled old one.

The operative metaphor is often described as “cutting the grass,” meaning a task that must be performed regularly and has no end. There is no solution to security challenges, officials here say, only delays and deterrence. That is why the idea of one day attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, even though such an attack would set the nuclear program back only two years, is widely discussed as a reasonable option. That is why frequent raids in the West Bank and surveillance flights over Lebanon never stop.

And that is why this week’s operation in Gaza is widely viewed as having been inevitable, another painful but necessary maintenance operation that, officials here say, will doubtless not be the last.

There are also those who believe that the regional upheavals are improving Israel’s ability to carry out deterrence. One retired general who remains close to the military and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that with Syria torn apart by civil war, Hezbollah in Lebanon discredited because of its support for the Syrian government, and Egypt so weakened economically, Israel should not worry about anything but protecting its civilians.

“Should we let our civilians be bombed because the Arab world is in trouble?” he asked.

So much was happening elsewhere in the region — the Egyptian and Libyan revolutions, the Syrian civil war, dramatic changes in Yemen and elections in Tunisia — that a few rockets a day that sent tens of thousands of Israeli civilians into bomb shelters drew little attention. But in the Israeli view, the necessity of a Gaza operation has been growing steadily throughout the Arab Spring turmoil.

In 2009, after the Israeli invasion pushed Hamas back and killed about 1,400 people in Gaza, 200 rockets hit Israel. The same was true in 2010. But last year the number rose to 600, and before this week the number this year was 700, according to the Israeli military. The problem went beyond rockets to mines planted near the border aimed at Israeli military jeeps and the digging of explosive-filled tunnels.

“In 2008 we managed to minimize rocket fire from Gaza significantly,” said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman. “We started that year with 100 rockets a week and ended it with two a week. We were able to give people in our south two to three years. But the grass has grown and other things have as well. Different jihadist ideologies have found their way into Gaza, including quite a few terrorist organizations. More weapons have come in, including the Fajr-5, which is Iranian made and can hit Tel Aviv. That puts nearly our entire population in range. So we reached a point where we cannot act with restraint any longer.”

Gazans see events in a very different light. The problem, they say, comes from Israel: Israeli drones fill the Gazan skies, Israeli gunboats strafe their waters, Palestinian militants are shot at from the air, and the Gaza border areas are declared off limits by Israel with the risk of death from Israeli gunfire.

But there is little dissent in Israel about the Gaza policy. This week leaders of the leftist opposition praised the assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas military commander, on Wednesday. He is viewed here as the equivalent of Osama bin Laden. The operation could go on for many days before there is any real dissent.

The question here, nonetheless, is whether the changed regional circumstances will make it harder to “cut the grass” in Gaza this time and get out. A former top official who was actively involved in the last Gaza war and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said it looked to him as if Hamas would not back down as easily this time.

“They will not stop until enough Israelis are killed or injured to create a sense of equality or balance,” he said. “If a rocket falls in the middle of Tel Aviv, that will be a major success. But this government will go back at them hard. I don’t see this ending in the next day or two.”

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Khloé Kardashian and Lamar Odom Will Be Apart for Thanksgiving

TV Watch

The X Factor

By Andrea Billups

11/16/2012 at 08:00 PM EST

Lamar Odom and Khloé Kardashian

Denise Truscello/Wireimage

As most Americans sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, he'll be on the court with the Los Angeles Clippers in New York and she'll be on the stage in Los Angeles.

But even if Khloé Kardashian, 28, and her basketball star husband Lamar Odom, 33, won't be together this year for the family holiday, they remain connected and supportive as both continue their busy careers.

"Honestly, I'm fine with it, because I'm obsessed with my husband – in a healthy way – but he's on the road. He has a game in Brooklyn, so I don't feel guilty, like, 'I'm not going to be able to cook for him!' " Kardashian told PEOPLE from the set of The X Factor on Thursday.

"So, he'll be on the road. He'll be working anyway. So, I feel better about that, and my sister Kim will be here. And I think my mom will come here that night, too. Thanksgiving at The X Factor!"

Wherever her husband may be, Kardashian says Odom lovingly takes time to watch her show, even if it's a replay on YouTube, where he often makes fun of her voice. Odom, she adds, has also given her other advice, chiding her for being a bit ... overexposed.

"The only tip he gave me was don't show your nipples anymore," Kardashian joked. He said, "Please do not have your [breasts] out." I said, 'Oh, good tip.' "

As she gets emotionally invested in the show's talented contestants and in watching their gut-wrenching departures, Kardashian says she is also trying to improve her own skills co-hosting the show with Mario Lopez. Her famous siblings have been supportive thus far, offering their own tips.

"I'm still learning. I'm still just trying to get better, and better every week," she said of her new role. "I like constructive criticism, but still it's only a one or two-hour show, and there's still so many people. I just don't have time to just talk, and be myself yet."

"And right now, it's so technical. I feel like, when more people go, there's going to be more time to fill. And I feel like that's where I can kind of do my thing."

• Reporting by Patrick Gomez

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Aviator loses his pilot's license again

David G. Riggs, a local aviator whose flight privileges were revoked after he buzzed the Santa Monica Pier in 2008, lost his pilot's license again this week for illegally selling rides to the public in a Soviet-era military jet.

The enforcement action by the Federal Aviation Administration stems from an accident in Nevada on May 18 in which an Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros crashed in the desert, killing a veteran pilot and a passenger who had purchased a ride in the two-seat trainer.

Authorities said Riggs was flying with another passenger in his own L-39 next to the ill-fated plane shortly before it crashed.

Both high-performance aircraft had flown that day from Van Nuys Airport to the Boulder City Municipal Airport, where eight people who had bought flights were set to take turns riding in the Czechoslovakian-built jets. Investigators said Riggs took three of them on separate flights and was prepared to take a fourth for a ride.

FAA officials issued an emergency revocation order against Riggs on Tuesday. A copy of the document was obtained Friday by The Times.

The order states that Riggs violated federal regulations that forbid the operators of experimental or exhibition aircraft from selling rides unless they have permission from the government. It says that two weeks before the flights in question, Riggs assured FAA inspectors in Van Nuys that he would not carry passengers for compensation.

"In this case, you were willing to sacrifice the safety of others for your own personal financial gain," the order states. "Your enforcement history of deliberately compromising aviation safety demonstrates that you lack the qualifications to hold any FAA issued pilot certificate."

Under the emergency order, Riggs must surrender his flight certificates to the FAA immediately, but he has the right to appeal the year-long revocation to a federal administrative law judge.

Riggs first lost his flight privileges for making several low-level passes over the Santa Monica Pier in an L-39 on Nov. 8, 2008. FAA officials said he streaked along the beach at low altitude and then pulled up or turned away abruptly when he reached the pier, endangering the public. His pilot certificate was reinstated after the year-long penalty period.

Killed in the Boulder City crash were Richard Winslow, 65, of Palm Desert and Douglas E. Gilliss, 65, of Solana Beach, a former U.S. Air Force captain with years of experience flying vintage military jets. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have been investigating the accident.

dan.weikel@latimes.com

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Israeli Attacks Are Test of Loyalty for Egypt’s Morsi

CAIRO — The escalating conflict in Gaza has confronted President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt with a wrenching test of his commitments — to his fellow Islamists of the militant group Hamas and to Egypt’s landmark peace agreement with Israel.

Over two days, Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who has denounced Israelis as “vampires” for the killing of Palestinian civilians, seemed to reach for every diplomatic gesture he could make without jeopardizing the treaty.

“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, Egyptian government and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and bloodshed of the Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi declared on Thursday in a televised address. “Israelis must recognize that we do not accept this aggression.”

But with Israel and Hamas increasing their attacks and a possible Israeli ground assault looming, Mr. Morsi finds himself in a tighter bind. As Egypt’s first freely elected president, he faces popular demands for a radical break with former President Hosni Mubarak’s perceived acquiescence during an Israeli assault against the Palestinians in 2009. But at the same time, Mr. Morsi desperately needs to preserve the stability of the cold peace with Israel in order to secure Western aid and jump-start his moribund economy.

Aware of his divided loyalties, both sides appear to be testing him. Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, is pushing to see how much support it can draw from its ideological big brother now that it governs the largest Arab state. And Israel’s hawkish leadership seems determined to probe the depth of Mr. Morsi’s stated commitment to the peace treaty as well.

“We are testing the Egyptians,” said Professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University. “The Americans are with us on Hamas. Obviously Morsi supports Hamas and not us.”

Mr. Morsi has so far taken diplomatic steps to signal his displeasure with Israel. He recalled Egypt’s ambassador to Tel Aviv and dispatched his prime minister on a solidarity mission to Gaza. He appealed to President Obama, the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab League to try to stop the violence.

Mr. Morsi also opened Egypt’s borders and hospitals to Gaza residents injured in the clashes and offered military helicopters to transport them. He met with top generals, and Egyptian state media reported that they were inspecting air bases and preparing land defenses near the Gaza border. He has not, however, threatened to provide military support to Hamas or direct action against Israel.

Inside Egypt, the alacrity of Mr. Morsi’s response so far appears to have rallied the public behind him. Opposition to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and treatment of their residents may be the only cause binding together Islamists, their secular critics and even the leadership of Egypt’s Coptic Christian church. Some of Mr. Morsi’s rivals, including the former presidential candidate Amr Moussa, have commended his actions.

“He is doing everything he can within the legal obligations of Egypt’s relationship with Israel,” said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University of Cairo, arguing that Mr. Morsi’s swift action would enable him to hold at bay the inevitable calls for Egypt to go further.

Still, popular anger and demands for more action could grow, especially if Israel initiates a ground invasion of Gaza. The Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Mr. Morsi for president, issued a statement denouncing “the criminal aggression” and blaming Arab states for “watching the shedding of Palestinian blood without moving a muscle.”

“We think the least that could be done is to sever diplomatic and commercial relations with this cruel entity,” the Brotherhood statement added, referring to Israel. “The Egyptian government has to be the first to do this in order to set an example for Arabs and Muslims.”

The ultraconservative Islamists of the Al Nour party charged that Mr. Morsi’s steps “weren’t enough” and that “additional steps are necessary to deter the perpetrator and to legally pursue the criminals until revenge is exacted against them.”

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Sina’s profit beats on Weibo; co forecasts weak 4th-quarter revenue

(Reuters) – Chinese internet company Sina Corp eked out a profit in the third quarter that beat analysts’ estimates as strong advertising sales on its microblogging platform offset weaker website advertising but it forecast current-quarter revenue below expectations.

Shares of the company fell 6 percent to $ 49.72 in extended trading. They closed at $ 53.10 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

Sina expects adjusted net revenue to range between $ 132 million and $ 136 million in the fourth quarter, with advertising revenues forecast to increase between 6 percent and 8 percent from a year earlier.

Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $ 151.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sina, which makes most of its revenue from online advertising both on its website and through its microblogging platform, Weibo, is facing stiff headwinds this year as firms slash advertising budgets due to a worsening economic outlook.

Analysts said the spat between Japan and China over a few uninhabited islands in the East China Sea may have affected Sina’s website advertising sales as Japanese automakers cut back on advertising in China.

Net profit was $ 9.9 million for the September quarter, compared to a loss of $ 336.3 million a year earlier. The profit beat analysts’ expectations of $ 7.5 million.

Sina’s advertising revenue rose 19 percent to $ 120.6 million in the third quarter, while non-advertising revenue rose 9 percent to $ 31.8 million. Overall net revenue was $ 152.4 million, up from $ 130.3 million, a year earlier.

The company started monetizing Weibo by offering special services to business accounts and selling VIP memberships to regular users earlier this year.

Weibo contributed about 10 percent to total advertising revenue in the second quarter and had 368 million registered accounts.

(Reporting By Melanie Lee in Shanghai & Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Cesar Millan Reveals: I Attempted Suicide

People Pets

11/15/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Cesar Millan with dog Daddy

Meredith Jenks

It seemed Cesar Millan had been on top of the world, but then it all came crashing down.

In 2010, the trainer and television personality known as the Dog Whisperer was working with celebrity clients, had a hit show and was becoming an international advocate for bully breeds.

Millan, 43, was dealt his first loss when Daddy, the 16-year-old pit bull who had been Millan's best example of a "calm, submissive" dog, died in February.

Then, in June of that year, Millan learned that his wife of 16 years, Ilusion Millan, had filed for divorce.

"I was at the lowest level I had ever been emotionally and psychologically," Millan wrote on his blog in August of this year.

So low, in fact, that he attempted suicide, a revelation Millan makes in Cesar Millan: The Real Story, a documentary airing on Nat Geo Wild on Nov. 25.

"Daddy was my Tibet, my Himalaya, my Gouda, my Buddha, my source of calmness," Millan tells the Associated Press.

After surviving the overdose, Millan opted for work, exercise and affection over antidepressants. His recovery progressed further when he met Jahira Dar, a woman Millan calls "the one."

He plans to propose soon. "I am a traditional guy, so I like to do the whole parent thing," Millan said. "I know they are going to say yes, but I like the whole Cinderella story."

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and the biggest jump over 15 years was in Oklahoma, according to a new federal report issued Thursday.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled, and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama also saw dramatic increases since 1995, the study showed.

The South's growing weight problem is the main explanation, said Linda Geiss, lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

"The rise in diabetes has really gone hand in hand with the rise in obesity," she said.

Bolstering the numbers is the fact that more people with diabetes are living longer because better treatments are available.

The disease exploded in the United States in the last 50 years, with the vast majority from obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. In 1958, fewer than 1 in 100 Americans had been diagnosed with diabetes. In 2010, it was about 1 in 14.

Most of the increase has happened since 1990.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body has trouble processing sugar; it's the nation's seventh leading cause of death. Complications include poor circulation, heart and kidney problems and nerve damage.

The new study is the CDC's first in more than a decade to look at how the nationwide boom has played out in different states.

It's based on telephone surveys of at least 1,000 adults in each state in 1995 and 2010. Participants were asked if a doctor had ever told them they have diabetes.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi — the state with the largest proportion of residents who are obese — has the highest diabetes rate. Nearly 12 percent of Mississippians say they have diabetes, compared to the national average of 7 percent.

But the most dramatic increases in diabetes occurred largely elsewhere in the South and in the Southwest, where rates tripled or more than doubled. Oklahoma's rate rose to about 10 percent, Kentucky went to more than 9 percent, Georgia to 10 percent and Alabama surpassed 11 percent.

An official with Oklahoma State Department of Health said the solution is healthier eating, more exercise and no smoking.

"And that's it in a nutshell," said Rita Reeves, diabetes prevention coordinator.

Several Northern states saw rates more than double, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

The study was published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://tinyurl.com/cdcdiabetesreport

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Investigation of LAFD response times finds deeper flaws

A long-awaited review of Los Angeles Fire Department response times has found that the agency used inaccurate data "that should not be relied upon until they are properly recalculated and validated." The data were used to make critical reductions in fire station staffing last year.

Although the Fire Department has previously acknowledged some mistakes in its data, the 32-page report by a task force formed by Fire Chief Brian Cummings found more widespread problems and delved more deeply into factors that contributed to the faulty figures. Among other things, the experts found systemic flaws in a 30-year-old computerized dispatch network and a lack of adequate training for firefighters assigned to complex data analysis.

The Fire Department and city leaders rely on the data to make decisions about where to place fire personnel who respond to life-and-death emergencies.

"The statistical analysis of data by LAFD department staff who are not trained in this field led in part to inaccurate reporting," the report said.

The inquiry was launched after department officials acknowledged earlier this year that LAFD performance reports released to City Hall leaders and the public made it appear rescuers were getting to emergencies faster than they actually were.

The task force report, scheduled to be discussed Tuesday by the Fire Commission, said the department has corrected the computer system flaws that led to the inaccurate figures.

"The No. 1 goal was to restore confidence in the Fire Department's statistics in the eyes of the public and city leaders," said Fire Commissioner Alan Skobin, who helped oversee the report. "We now have the ability to identify and pull out accurate data."

Still, the report paints a picture of a department woefully behind in using technology to help speed up emergency responses and improve efficiency by analyzing thousands of dispatch records that churn through the department's computer system each day.

Fire Department Battalion Chief Armando Hogan said the report's recommendations have to be reviewed. "This is going to take more vetting. We want to make sure we get it right and we're not rushing," he said.

The report recommends installing GPS devices on fire units so dispatchers know their location at all times, an upgrade that has been discussed since at least 2009.

This could ensure that the closest rescuers are sent to those in need.

The task force also said upgrades or replacement of the aging computer system at the heart of dispatch operations may be needed, as well as working with professional analysts to scrutinize the data.

Some money has been set aside to help pay for the GPS upgrade and the dispatch system changes. But whether all the changes raised in the report could be funded is unclear, given that the LAFD is already projected to run a $5.2-million deficit in its current budget.

The report's findings in some ways parallel recent investigations by City Controller Wendy Greuel and Jeffrey Godown, an expert brought in by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as questions grew about the department's performance figures.

The task force includes members of the chief's own staff, as well as experts from USC, the Rand Corp. and the Los Angeles Police Department's COMPSTAT unit, which is recognized for its crime data analysis. Indeed, the Fire Department hopes to roll out its own version of the LAPD's data reporting system, called FIRESTATLA. It would allow managers, elected officials and the public access to regularly updated reports on detailed response times and other statistics by neighborhood, Fire Commissioner Skobin said. The new system is estimated to cost up to $500,000, he said.

In March, fire officials acknowledged that they had changed the way in which they evaluated response times without telling the public or city officials. Their method made it appear that crews surpassed national standards more frequently than they actually did.

Those faulty statistics were used by Cummings and other top fire officials to push for a new cost-cutting deployment plan that shut down firetrucks and ambulances at more than one-fifth of the city's 106 firehouses. Cummings initially defended the department's data when questions arose about its accuracy.

Later, he acknowledged that yet another set of numbers used in reports on the proposed deployment changes were projections, not actual response times. Some council members said they might not have voted for the budget cuts had they been aware that projections were used.

The report comes after a series of Times reports on problems or delays in processing 911 calls, dispatching units and summoning the nearest medical rescuers from other jurisdictions.

On Thursday, The Times reported that waits for medical aid vary dramatically across Los Angeles' diverse neighborhoods. Residents in many of the city's most exclusive hillside communities can wait twice as long for rescuers to arrive than people who live in more densely packed areas in and around downtown, according to the analysis that mapped out more than 1 million dispatches since 2007.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents many hillside communities, said he would call on the LAFD to identify what new resources are needed to improve response times across the city. "The long-term solution will require a combination of additional resources and the construction of new fire stations," he said. "There's just no other way around this reality."

ben.welsh@latimes.com

robert.lopez@latimes.com

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

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Changing of the Guard: Corruption in China Military Poses Test

Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

Hostesses posed outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday as the Communist Party Congress closed.

BEIJING — An insider critique of corruption in China’s military, circulating just as new leadership is about to take over the armed forces, warns that graft and wide-scale abuses pose as much of a threat to the nation’s security as the United States.

Col. Liu Mingfu, the author of the book, “Why the Liberation Army Can Win,” is not a lone voice.

Earlier this year, a powerful army official gave an emotional speech describing corruption as a “do-or-die struggle,” and days later, according to widely published accounts, a prominent general, Gu Junshan, a deputy director of the logistics department, was arrested on suspicion of corruption. He now awaits trial. The general is reported to have made huge profits on illicit land deals and given more than 400 houses intended for retired officers to friends.

Those excesses may be mere trifles compared with the depth of the overall corruption, the speech by Gen. Liu Yuan, an associate of the presumptive new party leader, Xi Jinping, suggested.

For Mr. Xi, who boasts a military pedigree from his father — a guerrilla leader who helped bring Mao Zedong to power in 1949 — China’s fast modernizing army will be a bulwark of his standing at home and influence abroad.

But the depth of graft and brazen profiteering in the People’s Liberation Army poses a delicate problem for the new leader, one that Colonel Liu and others have warned could undermine the status of the Communist Party.

As part of the nation’s once-a-decade handover of power, Mr. Xi is also expected to assume the chairmanship of the 12-member Central Military Commission immediately. Hu Jintao, the departing party leader, is expected to break precedent and not retain his position atop the body, which oversees the armed forces, for an extended period after his retirement, unlike previous leaders.

Recent territorial disputes with Japan and Southeast Asian neighbors have raised nationalist sentiment in China, and the popular desire for a strong military could make it politically dangerous for Mr. Xi to embark on a campaign that unmasks squandering of public funds.

In his opening speech to the 18th Party Congress, Mr. Hu said China would aim to become “a maritime power.” It was one of the few references in the address about foreign affairs, and one that suggested the government would continue the double-digit increases in expenditures for the military.

But along with the modernization and bigger budgets has come more corruption, a problem that pervades China’s ruling party and its government.

For the first time in the history of the People’s Liberation Army, Chinese analysts say, the land-based army has had to give up its dominance of the military commission.

The former commander of the air force, Xu Qiliang, will be a vice chairman, giving the air force new weight in big decisions, they said. An army general, Fan Changlong, the former commander of the Jinan Military Region, will also be a vice chairman.

These two men will run the day-to-day operations of the military, Chinese analysts said.

In his book, Colonel Liu, a former professor at China’s National Defense University, wrote that the army had not been tested in decades and had grown complacent. “As a military that has not fought a war for 30 years, the People’s Liberation Army has reached a stage in which its biggest danger and No. 1 foe is corruption,” he wrote.

Colonel Liu first became prominent in 2010 with the publication of his book “The China Dream,” an ultranationalist tract arguing that China should build the world’s strongest military and move swiftly to supplant the United States as the global “champion.”

In his new work, the colonel drew a parallel with 1894, when China’s forces were swiftly defeated by a rapidly modernizing Japan, even though the Chinese were equipped with expensive ships from Europe. Historians often attribute the defeat to corruption.

Another retired army officer, and a member of the aristocratic class known as the princelings, said that corruption existed throughout the military but that the new commission would probably refrain from a sustained campaign against it.

Bree Feng contributed research.

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Android 4.2 For Nexus 7, Galaxy Nexus Now Available

When Google’s Nexus 10 tablet was unveiled recently, it was running Android 4.2, a new version which adds several features. That version is coming to your Nexus 7 or Galaxy Nexus device as well. Here’s what Android 4.2 brings, where to get it, and which Nexus devices are missing out.

​New features in Android 4.2

Mashable’s Christina Warren has the scoop on what Android 4.2′s bringing. Flashy additions include Daydream, a sort of screensaver for your smartphone or tablet, and Photo Sphere, a new way to take panoramic photographs that capture the whole world around you. Right now you can only see Photo Sphere images on Google+ or in Google Maps, but according to David Ruddock of the Android Police blog Google has made it so “Anyone could, in theory, build a Photo Sphere viewer.”

Less immediately noticeable improvements include a Swype-style gesture keyboard, where you don’t need to type individual letters, and a feature that lets multiple people share the same Android tablet without their apps and things getting in each others’ way. You’ll also be able to mirror your Android device’s screen on your HDTV, Apple AirPlay style, although instead of an Apple TV box you’ll need a third-party wireless display adapter.

​Who’s getting the upgrade now

Nexus 7 owners are already beginning to receive the Android 4.2 upgrade over the air. Your tablet will automatically check for it every so often, but if you want to hurry it along you can go to Settings -> About tablet -> System updates, and tell it to check again. You can also download it from Google and manually install it using Liam Spradlin’s instructions, although this is not recommended unless you’re an experienced Android hacker and are using the Wi-Fi version of the Nexus 7.

Galaxy Nexus owners who bought their phones from a wireless carrier have had to wait an unusually long time for upgrades, as long as several months after a new Android version’s announced. If you bought your Galaxy Nexus phone from a wireless carrier, an upgrade probably won’t be available anytime soon. People who purchased their Galaxy Nexus from the Google Play store are reporting that they are getting the upgrade, though, and Spradlin again has instructions for how to install manually if you are using a Galaxy Nexus bought from the Google Play store.​

Who’s being left out

While announcing that Android 4.2′s programming code was being released to the Android Open-Source Project, Google rep Jean-Baptiste Queru said “There is no support for 4.2 on Nexus S and Xoom.” The Nexus S was a Nexus smartphone released about two years ago, in late 2010, while the Motorola Xoom was the first tablet released (in early 2011) running the Honeycomb version of Android. The Xoom was not an official Nexus device, but was also made in close partnership with Google, and showcased the latest Android software.

Both devices received upgrades to Android 4.1, the first Jelly Bean version. It looks like this is where the upgrade train ends for them, though, after almost two years of support. In contrast, Apple’s iPhone 3GS, released in mid-2009, just recently received an upgrade to the latest version of iOS.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Hope Solo Weds Jerramy Stevens Amid Assault Allegations?

By Dahvi Shira

11/14/2012 at 06:35 PM EST

Jerramy Stevens and Hope Solo

NFL/Getty; Jeff Vinnick/Getty

One day after former Seattle Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his fiancée, U.S. women's soccer team goalkeeper Hope Solo, the pair reportedly tied the knot.

"Confirmed," Sportsradio 950 AM and 102.9 FM radio host Dave Mahler Tweeted on Tuesday. "Jerramy Stevens and Hope Solo were married tonight. Events of yesterday morning didn't change plans."

The pair, who had only been dating for about two months, applied for a marriage license last Thursday. According to court documents, the athletes were arguing over whether to wed in Florida or Washington State.

Stevens, 33, was reportedly released from custody by a Kirkland, Wash., Municipal Court judge on Tuesday after determining there wasn't enough evidence to hold the former football star.

All of the former Dancing with the Stars contestant's social media pages have gone silent since Nov. 6., and calls to her rep have not been returned.

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New gene triples risk for Alzheimer's disease

Scientists have identified a new gene variant that seems to strongly raise the risk for Alzheimer's disease, giving a fresh target for research into treatments for the mind-robbing disorder.

The problem gene is not common — less than 1 percent of people are thought to have it — but it roughly triples the chances of developing Alzheimer's compared to people with the normal version of the gene. It also seems to harm memory and thinking in older people without dementia.

The main reason scientists are excited by the discovery is what this gene does, and how that might reveal what causes Alzheimer's and ways to prevent it. The gene helps the immune system control inflammation in the brain and clear junk such as the sticky deposits that are the hallmark of the disease. Mutations in the gene may impair these tasks, so treatments to restore the gene's function and quell inflammation may help.

"It points us to potential therapeutics in a more precise way than we've seen in the past," said Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, which had no role in the research. Years down the road, this discovery will likely be seen as very important, he predicted.

It is described in a study by an international group published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

Until now, only one gene — ApoE — has been found to have a big impact on Alzheimer's risk. About 17 percent of the population has at least one copy of the problem version of this gene but nearly half of all people with Alzheimer's do. Other genes that have been tied to the disease raise risk only a little, or cause the less common type of Alzheimer's that develops earlier in life, before age 60.

The new gene, TREM2, already has been tied to a couple other forms of dementia. Researchers led by deCODE Genetics Inc. of Iceland honed in on a version of it they identified through mapping the entire genetic code of more than 2,200 Icelanders.

Further tests on 3,550 Alzheimer's patients and more than 110,000 people without dementia in several countries, including the United States, found that the gene variant was more common in Alzheimer's patients.

"It's a very strong effect," raising the risk of Alzheimer's by three to four times — about the same amount as the problem version of the ApoE gene does, said Dr. Allan Levey, director of an Alzheimer's program at Emory University, one of the academic centers participating in the research.

Researchers also tested more than 1,200 people over age 85 who did not have Alzheimer's disease and found that those with the variant TREM2 gene had lower mental function scores than those without it. This adds evidence the gene variant is important in cognition, even short of causing Alzheimer's.

"It's another piece in the puzzle. It suggests the immune system is important in Alzheimer's disease," said Andrew Singleton, a geneticist with the National Institute on Aging, which helped pay for the study.

One prominent scientist not involved in the study — Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and director of an Alzheimer's research program at Massachusetts General Hospital — called the work exciting, but added a caveat.

"I would like to see more evidence that this is Alzheimer's" rather than one of the other dementias already tied to the gene, Tanzi said. Autopsy or brain imaging tests can show whether the cases attributed to the gene variant are truly Alzheimer's or misdiagnosed, he said.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Man named in Scouting abuse dies at 66

A University of Pittsburgh educator and AIDS researcher who was the subject of a recent Los Angeles Times story about alleged sexual abuse in the Boy Scout troop he led in the mid-1970s has died six weeks after suffering a massive stroke.

"It was with great sadness that we announce the passing of Rodger L. Beatty," read a Facebook message his family posted late Monday. Beatty, 66, had been hospitalized or in hospice care since a Sept. 28 stroke left him largely unable to communicate.

His friends and family said they were stunned by allegations, detailed Oct. 21 in The Times, that Beatty abused five boys in the troop he led in Newport, Pa., more than three decades ago. The boys, all 13 or 14 at the time, submitted handwritten accounts describing repeated molestations by Beatty at his house and on camping trips.

The statements, which are included in the Boy Scouts of America's "ineligible volunteer" file barring Beatty from Scouting in 1976, were corroborated in recent interviews with the newspaper by two of the former Scouts, Carl Maxwell Jr. and Mike Kunkel, both now 50. Two of the other former Scouts are dead and a third could not be reached.

The Times attempted to contact Beatty in early September, more than two weeks before he fell ill. He did not respond to repeated email and phone messages.

Beatty, then a county drug and alcohol counselor, resigned the day the accusations surfaced and abruptly left town, citing increased job demands. He was among hundreds of suspected molesters, many of whom were respected in their communities, who were never reported to authorities by the Scouts, according to The Times' review of 1,900 of the organization's confidential files.

Beatty went on to earn a graduate degree in community psychology from Penn State University and a doctorate in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, according to a 2011 resume and his University of Pittsburgh biography.

He worked for more than three decades in public health programs, some tailored to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and had held several jobs with the Pennsylvania Department of Health. In 1998, he became an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Graduate School of Public Health's department of infectious diseases and microbiology.

Dozens of his friends and colleagues offered their sympathies on Facebook on Tuesday. "Rest in Peace dear Rodger ... So very sorry," one wrote. "To all who hold Rodger near to their hearts, may you find comfort and peace in the many beautiful memories that you have had with this gentle man."

For his part, Kunkel said he takes no joy from Beatty's death.

"I don't wish ill on anybody," he said. "But because of his actions, I would never mourn the guy."

kim.christensen@latimes.com

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White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — Conflicting portrayals of e-mails written by Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, emerged Tuesday after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other officials traveling with him to Australia overnight on Monday disclosed the inquiry into General Allen’s e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s lover, as a rival for his attentions.

Mr. Panetta, along with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred the Allen matter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, according to Mr. Panetta’s aides, after a team of military and civilian lawyers reviewed what defense officials say are thousands of pages of documents, including hundreds of e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley, that the F.B.I. forwarded to the Pentagon.

Associates of General Allen said Tuesday that the e-mails were innocuous. Some of them used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way, the associates said. “If you know Allen, he’s just the kind of guy to respond dutifully to every e-mail he gets — ‘you’re the best,’ ‘you’re a sweetheart,’ that kind of thing,” according to a senior American official who is familiar with the investigation.

Even so, other Pentagon officials briefed on the content of the e-mails said that some of the language did, on initial reading, seem “overly flirtatious” and warranted further inquiry.

The Pentagon’s top lawyer, Jeh Johnson, recommended sending the matter to the inspector general, senior defense officials said. An inappropriate communication could violate military rules.

Senior officials in the Obama administration and lawmakers from both parties expressed shock at what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military to become director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of his affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

President Obama, however, voiced support for General Allen through his spokesman on Tuesday. “The president thinks very highly of General Allen,” the spokesman, Jay Carney, said at a White House news briefing. “He has faith in General Allen.”

But the matter has created enough concern that General Allen’s recent nomination to become NATO’s top military officer was delayed at Mr. Panetta’s request, pending the investigation’s outcome.

Aides traveling with Mr. Panetta, reacting to anger from some of General Allen’s associates who said he was being unfairly treated, described Mr. Panetta as having great respect for General Allen. But they said that Mr. Panetta had little choice in referring the matter to the inspector general. General Dempsey informed General Allen of the investigation on Monday from Perth, where he had traveled for a security meeting that Mr. Panetta is also attending.

General Allen, a Marine, succeeded Mr. Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011. He also served as Mr. Petraeus’s deputy when both officers led the military’s Central Command, based in Tampa, from 2008 until 2010.

General Allen’s connection to the scandal appears to have originated with an e-mail he received from an account that was registered under a fake name and has now been linked to Ms. Broadwell, according to a senior American official. The e-mail warned General Allen to be wary of Ms. Kelley and was vaguely threatening. Though he did not know who had written the e-mail, he was concerned and passed it on to Ms. Kelley. She then discussed it with an agent she knew at the F.B.I.’s field office in Tampa, whose cybercrime unit opened an investigation that eventually linked Ms. Broadwell to General Petraeus.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her e-mails as a routine step. Officials familiar with the investigation said it covers 20,000 to 30,000 page of documents, but Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of that number, since some might be from e-mail chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.

On Monday night, F.B.I. agents searched Ms. Broadwell’s home in Charlotte, N.C., and local television news crews filmed them carrying away boxes of material in what officials said was part of that continuing investigation.

The defense official said that the e-mails between Ms. Kelley and General Allen spanned the years 2010 to 2012.

American officials familiar with the social dynamics at the upper echelons of the Central Command described Ms. Kelley as wealthy socialite who knew “almost every” high-ranking officer serving in Tampa. Her ties were close enough that Mr. Petraeus and General Allen both intervened last September in a messy custody dispute on behalf of Ms. Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie Khawam.

A senior official said Ms. Kelley was close to both General Allen and his wife. She would often send e-mails, hundreds over the course of any given year, to the couple about parties or people she had met or trips she was considering. General Allen was never alone with Ms. Kelley,  the official said, and while he may have been “affectionate in a few e-mails with her, there’s nothing he’s embarrassed about or embarrassed to tell his wife about.” 

Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Perth, Australia. Matt Rosenberg, Thom Shanker and Ron Nixon contributed reporting from Washington.

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FTC chief: Kids’ Internet privacy rules done by year’s end

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Regulators will likely finish a long-awaited update to rules protecting children’s online privacy by the end of the year, the head of the Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday.

The original rules were developed when most computers were large beige boxes sitting under office desks instead of smartphones slung into backpacks and permeating most aspects of daily life.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the agency was moving forward on two issues: self-regulatory “do not track” guidance, and regulations to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.

The law requires that website and online service operators obtain verifiable consent from parents before collecting information about children.

Leibowitz, who is thought keen to leave the agency within months, said he was more confident of finishing an update of COPPA’s rules, which were written following the 1998 legislation.

Under revised rules, the FTC would make websites, mobile apps and data brokers all responsible for getting parental consent before collecting data about children aged 12 and younger. Currently it is unclear who has the responsibility.

Data brokers buy and sell consumer data.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO Conference in Washington, Leibowitz said the process would most likely be done by the end of the year.

“We are looking at all the comments that came in and weighing how to tweak the regulation,” he said.

Leibowitz was slightly less optimistic about the fate of “do not track,” an effort to allow Internet users to tell companies they did not want to be tracked online.

Some large technology companies, like Microsoft and Google, have agreed to let consumers opt out of being tracked, but advertisers have pushed back hard.

“We’re still making forward progress,” Leibowitz said when asked if the efforts would be done by the end of the year. “We continue to be optimistic. It’s not a certainty though.”

(Reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by Ros Krasny and Kenneth Barry)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dancing Eliminates Two More Couples

TV Watch

11/13/2012 at 09:05 PM EST

Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy

Craig Sjodin/ABC

It was another week of double trouble on Dancing with the Stars.

Two all-star couples got the boot on Tuesday night, following Monday's Veteran's Day tribute.

Combining their scores from Monday and the previous elimination-free week, Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy were again in the bottom spot, just below Apolo Ohno and Karina Smirnoff.

Gilles Marini and Peta Murgatroyd were uncharacteristically in the bottom three.

Read on to find out of any of these couples were among the two who were forced to hang up their dancing shoes:

The first to go were Alley and Chmerkovskiy.

"The second time around was very special to me," said Alley. "I learned more about dancing, believe it or not."

They were followed by a mild shock, with the departure of usually high-scoring Marini and Murgatroyd, who couldn't overcome the recent rough patch.

"In the end, it was just an incredible experience," said Marini.

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Brown taps ex-Marine general to head California parks department

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday tapped a decorated retired Marine Corps officer to run the state Parks and Recreation Department, which was rocked by a financial scandal last summer.

Former Maj. Gen. Anthony L. Jackson will replace Ruth Coleman, who resigned in July following revelations that parks officials had stashed more than $54 million away without informing the governor's office, even as dozens of parks were slated for closure because of budget cuts.

The governor alluded to the scandal in a statement announcing Jackson's appointment Tuesday.

"Under Maj. Gen. Jackson's leadership, I am confident that the stewardship of California's beaches, forests, estuaries, dunes and wetlands is in good hands," Brown said, "and that the confidence and trust of Californians in our parks department will be restored."

Jackson will oversee a department with a $584-million budget that has been plagued in recent years by infighting, mismanagement and low morale, culminating in the scandal that led to the departure of Coleman and other agency officials.

"His first job will be to reestablish the esprit de corps of the department," said Rusty Areias, who was parks director under Gov. Gray Davis and applauded Jackson's selection.

Through a spokesman, Jackson declined to comment.

A 35-year military veteran with a commanding presence and a death-grip handshake, Jackson was one of the highest-ranking African Americans in the Marine Corps. He oversaw operations at six Marine bases in California and one in Yuma, Ariz.

He has been a proponent of the military's need to continue to invest in alternative energy sources to power its bases and its vehicle fleets, for environmental and national security reasons.

San Diego lawyer Michael Neil, a retired Marine brigadier general and decorated Vietnam veteran, said that Jackson's leadership experience running far-flung Marine installations — with varied terrain and environmental concerns, as well as budgetary constraints and personnel issues — makes him an excellent choice to straighten out the state parks system.

"He knows how to run things," Neil said. "He knows how to command people, he knows how to get the best out of people. He will do an excellent job."

Jackson will be charged with overseeing the operation of more than 280 parks covering about 1.4 million acres, 15,000 campsites and 3,000 miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails.

His appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. He is to be paid $150,112 a year.

anthony.york@latimes.com

Times staff writer Tony Perry in San Diego contributed to this report.

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Afghan Warlord Ismail Khan’s Call to Arms Rattles Kabul

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Supporters of Ismail Khan gathered outside Herat city on Nov. 1.

HERAT, Afghanistan — One of the most powerful mujahedeen commanders in Afghanistan, Ismail Khan, is calling on his followers to reorganize and defend the country against the Taliban as Western militaries withdraw, in a public demonstration of faltering confidence in the national government and the Western-built Afghan National Army.

Mr. Khan is one of the strongest of a group of warlords who defined the country’s recent history in battling the Soviets, the Taliban and one another, and who then were brought into President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet as a symbol of unity. Now, in announcing that he is remobilizing his forces, Mr. Khan has rankled Afghan officials and stoked fears that other regional and factional leaders will follow suit and rearm, weakening support for the government and increasing the likelihood of civil war.

This month, Mr. Khan rallied thousands of his supporters in the desert outside Herat, the cultured western provincial capital and the center of his power base, urging them to coordinate and reactivate their networks. And he has begun enlisting new recruits and organizing district command structures.

“We are responsible for maintaining security in our country and not letting Afghanistan be destroyed again,” Mr. Khan, the minister of energy and water, said at a news conference over the weekend at his office in Kabul. But after facing criticism, he took care not to frame his action as defying the government: “There are parts of the country where the government forces cannot operate, and in such areas the locals should step forward, take arms and defend the country.”

President Karzai and his aides, however, were not greeting it as an altruistic gesture. The governor of Herat Province called Mr. Khan’s reorganization an illegal challenge to the national security forces. And Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, tersely criticized Mr. Khan.

“The remarks by Ismail Khan do not reflect the policies of the Afghan government,” Mr. Faizi said. “The government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not want any irresponsible armed grouping outside the legitimate security forces structures.”

In Kabul, Mr. Khan’s provocative actions have played out in the news media and brought a fierce reaction from some members of Parliament, who said the warlords were preparing to take advantage of the American troop withdrawal set for 2014.

“People like Ismail Khan smell blood,” Belqis Roshan, a senator from Farah Province, said in an interview. “They think that as soon as foreign forces leave Afghanistan, once again they will get the chance to start a civil war, and achieve their ominous goals of getting rich and terminating their local rivals.”

Indeed, Mr. Khan’s is not the only voice calling for a renewed alliance of the mujahedeen against the Taliban, and some of the others are just as familiar.

Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik commander who is President Karzai’s first vice president, said in a speech in September, “If the Afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, then call upon the mujahedeen.”

Another prominent mujahedeen fighter, Ahmad Zia Massoud, said in an interview at his home in Kabul that people were worried about what was going to happen after 2014, and he was telling his own followers to make preliminary preparations.

“They don’t want to be disgraced again,” Mr. Massoud said. “Everyone tries to have some sort of Plan B. Some people are on the verge of rearming.”

He pointed out that it was significant that the going market price of Kalashnikov assault rifles had risen to about $1,000, driven up by demand from a price of $300 a decade ago. “Every household wants to have an AK-47 at home,” he said.

“The mujahedeen come here to meet me,” Mr. Massoud added. “They tell me they are preparing. They are trying to find weapons. They come from villages, from the north of Afghanistan, even some people from the suburbs of Kabul, and say they are taking responsibility for providing private security in their neighborhood.”

Habib Zahori and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Herat, Afghanistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul.

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