Chris Daughtry Makes 'Every Moment Count' with His Family

There was a time that Chris Daughtry stayed out every night, jamming onstage until dawn. But the rocker tells PEOPLE that those days are fewer and further between — replaced with the responsibilities of fatherhood and a growing social awareness.

“Being a father has made me grow up,” Daughtry, 33, says. “Life is about more than just me. I’ve got a great wife, great kids and a great life now.”

Sitting in his North Carolina home with his 2-year-old twins, Noah James and Adalynn Rose, Daughtry seems every bit the doting dad. As the toddlers start getting restless, he knows exactly what they need. “It’s almost nap time,” he says. “We like to keep them on a schedule.”

Brian Doben

“I have been blessed a lot in life,” says Daughtry, “and it’s the least I can do to give back.” Case in point: he teamed up with DC entertainment to be an ambassador for the We Can be Heroes giving campaign to fight hunger in the Horn of Africa.

It was a perfect fit for Daughtry, a lifelong comic fan who has Batman’s famous masks displayed in his home studio. “I always wanted to be a superhero,” he laughs. “That’s why I work out so much. So teaming up with DC Comics for a charitable campaign just made sense to me.”

Brian Doben

Daughtry, who homeschools his older kids with his wife, Deanna, was also touched by the Sandy Hook school shooting.

“As a father, I was just heartbroken,” he says, “I can’t even imagine what these families are going through.” Compelled to action, Daughtry decided to donate 100 percent of the proceeds of his song “Gone Too Soon” to the Connecticut School Shooting Victims Fund.

The tragedy has reminded Daughtry of the importance of family. “I’m not the type to give a lot of advice,” he says. “But to be a good dad, you have to be present. When I’m home, I’m home. I don’t work at home unless it’s after the kids go to bed. I don’t want my kids to say, ‘My dad never had time for me.’ They understand that there is a time I have to work, but when I come home, they need my undivided attention. I try to make every moment count.”

Brian Doben

And as for romance with Deanna, his wife of 12 years? “We just like to have movie night at home,” he says. “Sometimes we go out to a nice restaurant or something, but usually when we’re talking about what to do, she’s like, ‘Let’s just stay in.’ I love that. We sit together on the couch and watch a movie, and I feel very close to her.”

Adds Deanna: “I love to see Chris as a husband and father. He really has his priorities together, and we both have committed to put the kids first. But he’s good at finding time for us to ‘date,’ which is good for us, and also good for the kids.”

After spending the holidays with family, Daughtry will return to the road on Jan. 25 for a three-week tour with 3 Doors Down. “I love getting on stage. I love the camaraderie of being on tour,” he says. “I enjoy my time on the road, but when it’s over, I can come back home and just be Dad.”

Brian Doben

– Steve Helling

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Q&A: Scramble for vaccine as flu season heats up

WASHINGTON (AP) — Missed flu-shot day at the office last fall? And all those "get vaccinated" ads? A scramble for shots is under way as late-comers seek protection from a miserable flu strain already spreading through much of the country.

Federal health officials said Friday that there is still some flu vaccine available and it's not too late to benefit from it. But people may have to call around to find a clinic with shots still on the shelf, or wait a few days for a new shipment.

"We're hearing of spot shortages," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Colorado offers an example. Kaiser Permanente, which has 535,000 members in the state, stopped giving flu shots this week. But it expected to resume vaccinations when new shipments arrive, expected this weekend.

Some questions and answers about flu vaccines:

Q: Are we running out of vaccine?

A: It's January — we shouldn't have a lot left. The traditional time to get vaccinated is in the fall, so that people are protected before influenza starts spreading.

Indeed, manufacturers already have shipped nearly 130 million doses to doctors' offices, drugstores and wholesalers, out of the 135 million doses they had planned to make for this year's flu season. At least 112 million have been used so far.

The nation's largest manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, said Friday that it still has supplies of two specialty vaccines, a high-dose shot for seniors, and an under-the-skin shot for certain adults, available for immediate shipment. But it also is working to eke out a limited supply of its traditional shots — some doses that it initially hadn't packaged into syringes, said spokesman Michael Szumera. They should be available late this month.

And MedImmune, the maker of the nasal spray vaccine FluMist, said it has 620,000 extra doses available.

Q: Can't they just make more?

A: No. Flu vaccine is complicated to brew, with supplies for each winter made months in advance and at the numbers expected to sell. Although health officials recommend a yearly flu vaccination for nearly everybody, last year 52 percent of children and just 39 percent of adults were immunized. Most years, leftover doses have to be thrown out.

Q: Should I still hunt for a vaccine?

A: It does take two weeks for full protection to kick in. Still, health officials say it's a good idea to be vaccinated even this late, especially for older people, young children and anyone with medical conditions such as heart or lung diseases that put them at high risk of dangerous flu complications. Flu season does tend to be worst in January and February, but it can run through March.

Q: I heard that a new flu strain is spreading. Does the vaccine really work?

A: Flu strains constantly evolve, the reason that people need an updated vaccine every year. But the CDC says this year's is a good match to the types that are circulating, including a new kind of the tough H3N2 strain. That family tends to be harsher than other flu types — and health officials warned last fall that it was coming, and meant this winter would likely be tougher than last year's flu season, the mildest on record.

Q: But don't some people get vaccinated and still get sick?

A: Flu vaccine never is 100 percent effective, and unfortunately it tends to protect younger people better than older ones. But the CDC released a study Friday showing that so far this year, the vaccine appears 62 percent effective, meaning it's working about as well as it has in past flu seasons.

While that may strike some people as low, Frieden said it's the best protection available. "It's a glass 62 percent full," he said. "It's well worth the effort."

Q: What else can I do?

A: Wash your hands often, and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Viruses can spread by hand, not just through the air. Also, cough in your elbow, not your hand. When you're sick, protect others by staying home.

And people who are in those high-risk groups should call a doctor if they develop symptoms, added CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. They might be prescribed antiviral medication, which works best if given within the first 48 hours of symptoms.

___

AP Medical Writers Lindsey Tanner and Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.

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American who fought with Taliban wins prayer ruling

SAN FRANCISCO — John Walker Lindh, the Marin County man imprisoned for fighting with the Taliban, has won the right to have daily communal Muslim prayer in the U.S. prison unit where he is incarcerated.

An Indiana judge, ruling in a lawsuit brought by Lindh, ordered a Terre Haute prison warden to end a ban on daily group prayer for Lindh and more than 40 other Muslim inmates. The judge said the ban violated a federal law that protects the religious rights of prison inmates.

Lindh, who converted to Islam while living with his family in San Anselmo, is serving a 20-year prison sentence. He was captured in Afghanistan and later pleaded guilty to supplying services to the Taliban and carrying an explosive.

Now housed in a prison unit for inmates whose communications are closely monitored, Lindh contended that the ban on daily group prayer violated his right to practice his religion. He said he adheres to the Hanbali school of Islam, which requires five communal prayers daily.

U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson said in her ruling Friday that Lindh was now considered a low-risk inmate and had committed only minor, nonviolent infractions. Prisoners in his closely monitored unit are permitted to be out of their cells most of the day and can play cards, watch television and exercise, the judge said.

"While no disruptive episodes have occurred in the [unit] as a result of small group prayers, a fight has occurred over a remote control and one has occurred when the victim was reading," the judge said.

Lindh's prison infractions have included speaking Arabic to another inmate, participating in an unauthorized prayer meeting and ignoring an order to unfold his pants leg because he said that Islam prohibited wearing pants below the ankles, according to the judge's ruling.

Lindh is expected to be released in 2019.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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Kate Middleton Portrait Draws Complaints

Sang Tan/Associated Press

Journalists talked on Friday to the artist Paul Emsley, in right background, at the unveiling of his portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge in London.

LONDON — They did not necessarily know much about art, but they knew they did not like the way the Duchess of Cambridge looked in her new portrait.

Reuters

The biggest complaint about Paul Emsley's portrait of Kate Middleton is that it puts about 20 years, and possibly 20 pounds, on the duchess.

“She looks like the head bouncer in a security firm,” one commenter posted on The Daily Telegraph’s Web site.

The painting, by Paul Emsley, was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery on Friday, and if nothing else, it successfully brought out the inner art critic in even non-art critics.

“I hate to be negative,” someone posted on The Guardian’s Web site, “but it’s really tragically awful.”

Mr. Emsley, who was commissioned by the gallery to produce the work, won the BP Portrait Award in 2007 for a painting of Michael Simpson, a fellow artist. The duchess sat for him twice, and he continued painting from photographs he took.

The biggest complaint about the work, a head-and-shoulders portrait, is that it puts about 20 years, and possibly 20 pounds, on the duchess, who is 31 and as slender as they come (despite being pregnant). It is somewhat hazy, as if it were a photograph that had been heavily airbrushed to disguise the subject’s age wrinkles.

Alastair Adams, the president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, told the BBC that the painting was admirably “straightforward and very pure.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Emsley, who is unlikely to produce another work that generates this degree of interest anytime soon, most art critics begged to differ.

“It looks as if the painter asked the subject to ‘say cheese!’ and then told her to scram and buy some clothes while he painted the photograph,” David Lee, former editor of Art Review magazine, said in The Daily Mail. “It is perfectly adequate for the boardroom of a supermarket but entirely inadequate for a national collection.”

Waldemar Januszczak, the art critic for The Times of London, said it was the boring type of royal painting “we’ve been really churning out for the last few hundred years in Britain.”

In The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins said the painting made the duchess look undead, like a character in one of the “Twilight” movies. And the Daily Telegraph critic Mark Hudson compared the work to a “mawkish book illustration” that could have happily been used on the cover of a romance novel.

“If Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, had a portrait painted of himself in a similar idiom, we’d all be crowing from the rafters about the pitiful taste of foreign despots,” he wrote.

The general feeling was that although the painting did not reach the same level of badness as the fresco of Jesus Christ that was disastrously restored by a churchgoer in Spain, it was no Mona Lisa. On the other hand, it provided a fine opportunity for the public to engage in one of its favorite activities: finding novel ways to ridicule things connected to the royal family.

“Sneering at royal portraits is part of British culture,” Mr. Hudson said, “and it might almost be that Mr. Emsley has sacrificed himself to allow that tradition to continue.”

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In gun debate, video game industry defends itself

WASHINGTON (AP) — The video game industry, blamed by some for fostering a culture of violence, defended its practices Friday at a White House meeting exploring how to prevent horrific shootings like the recent Connecticut elementary school massacre.

Vice President Joe Biden, wrapping up three days of wide-ranging talks on gun violence prevention, said the meeting was an effort to understand whether the U.S. was undergoing a “coarsening of our culture.”

“I come to this meeting with no judgment. You all know the judgments other people have made,” Biden said at the opening of a two-hour discussion. “We’re looking for help.”

The gaming industry says that violent crime, particularly among the young, has fallen since the early 1990s while video games have increased in popularity.

There are conflicting studies on the impact of video games and other screen violence. Some conclude that video games can desensitize people to real-world violence or temporarily quiet part of the brain that governs impulse control. Other studies have concluded there is no lasting effect.

Cheryl Olson, a participant in Biden’s meeting and a researcher of the effect of violent video games, said there was concern among industry representatives that they would be made into a scapegoat in the wake of the Connecticut shooting.

“The vice president made clear that he did not want to do that,” Olson said.

Biden is expected to suggest ways to address violence in video games, movies and on television when he sends President Barack Obama a package of recommendations for curbing gun violence Tuesday. The proposals are expected to include calls for universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Obama appointed Biden to lead a gun violence task force after last month’s shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 children and six educators dead.

Gun-safety activists were coalescing around expanded background checks as a key goal for the vice president’s task force. Some advocates said it may be more politically realistic — and even more effective as policy — than reinstating a ban on assault weapons.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said some 40 percent of gun sales happen with no background checks, such as at gun shows and by private sellers over the Internet or through classified ads.

“Our top policy priority is closing the massive hole in the background check system,” the group said.

While not backing off support for an assault weapons ban, some advocates said there could be broader political support for increasing background checks, in part because that could actually increase business for retailers and licensed gun dealers who have access to the federal background check system.

“The truth is that an assault weapons ban is a very important part of the solution — and it is also much tougher to pass,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines are also seen by some as an easier lift politically than banning assault weapons.

The National Rifle Association adamantly opposes universal background checks, as well as bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines — all measures that would require congressional approval. The NRA and other pro-gun groups contend that a culture that glamorizes violence bears more responsibility for mass shootings than access to a wide range of weapons and ammunition.

In a 2009 report, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared, “The evidence is now clear and convincing: Media violence is one of the causal factors of real-life violence and aggression.”

The report focused on all types of media violence. But for video games in particular, the pediatricians cited studies that found high exposure to violent ones increased physical aggression at least in the short term, and warned that they allow people to rehearse violent acts. On the other hand, it said friendly video games could promote good behavior.

A wide spectrum of the video game industry was represented at the meeting with the vice president, including the makers of violent war video games like “Call of Duty” and “Medal of Honor” and a representative from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which sets age ratings that on every video game package released in the United States.

The vice president met Thursday with representatives from the entertainment industry, including Motion Picture Association of America and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. In a joint statement after the meeting, a half-dozen said they “look forward to doing our part to seek meaningful solutions” but offered no specifics.

Biden, hinting at other possible recommendations to the president, said he is interested in technology that would keep a gun from being fired by anyone other than the person who bought it. He said such technology may have curtailed what happened last month in Connecticut, where the shooter used guns purchased by his mother.

The vice president has also discussed making gun trafficking a felony, a step Obama can take through executive action. And he is expected to make recommendations for improving mental health care and school safety.

“We know this is a complex problem,” Biden said. “We know there’s no single answer.”

The president plans to push for the new measures in his State of the Union address, scheduled for Feb. 12.

___

Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

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Britney & Jason's Love Story in 6 Sweet Shots

From a snuggle in the surf to a surprise engagement, see the former couple's most romantic moments

Credit: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage

Updated: Friday Jan 11, 2013 | 07:00 AM EST
By: Cara Lynn Shultz

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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.

"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."

The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.

"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."

Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.

Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.

At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.

Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.

And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.

So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.

"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."

Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.

Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.

"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.

Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.

Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.

"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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DWP will allow customers to sell back excess solar energy

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers for the first time will be able to sell back excess solar energy created on rooftops and parking lots under a new program approved Friday by the city utility's board of commissioners.

Described as the largest urban rooftop solar program of its kind in the nation, the so-called feed-in-tariff program would pay customers 17 cents per kilowatt hour for energy produced on their own equipment. The DWP has already accepted more than a dozen applicants and will be taking dozens more as it accepts contracts for up to 100 megawatts of solar power through 2016.

Environmentalists, business supporters and solar vendors were thrilled by the vote. Feed-in-tariff programs help generate jobs and economic activity while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, they say.

"Today's vote is a major step forward for the economic and environmental sustainability of Los Angeles," said Mary Leslie, President of the Los Angeles Business Council, a group advocating the Clean LA Solar program since 2009.

Fred Pickel, the city's ratepayer advocate, told commissioners that 17 cents per kilowatt hour was above market rates and could force significant rate increases on DWP customers. Higher DWP bills could drive jobs away, Pickel told the board.

But the board unanimously decided to move ahead, and to reassess the program at regular intervals.

In March, the commission will decide whether to add an additional 50 megawatts of energy to the buyback program. The full 150-megawatt program would create enough solar energy to power 34,000 Los Angeles homes, advocates say.

Once qualified, DWP customers with large multi-family dwellings, warehouses, school facilities and parking lots can sell solar energy at 17 cents per kilowatt hour. The DWP is offering a tiered-pricing schedule that drops to 13 cents per kilowatt hour as energy contracts are reserved, DWP officials said.

Single-family homes generally don't produce enough energy to qualify.

Some of the contracts will be set aside for smaller solar producers to give them a better shot at winning slots, officials said. Customers participating in other solar-incentive initiatives, such as net-metering, do not qualify for the buyback contracts, DWP officials said.

Environmental groups have long pushed for a feed-in-tariff, arguing that it would spur more commercial property owners to go solar. Sacramento and San Diego have their own versions, and Florida is experimenting with buybacks.

Evan Gillespie, campaign representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, said the vote will allow the DWP to curtail its dependence on out-of-state energy generators. In addition, it promises 4,500 jobs and $500,000 in new economic activity for the city, he said.

"In the 21st century, it is simply unacceptable for 40% of L.A.'s energy to come from aging out-of-state polluting coal-fired power plants,'' Gillespie said.

Following the vote, Toronto-based Solar Provider Group announced that it would expand its operations in Los Angeles by opening an office and hiring 30 people. The company plans to invest up to $50 million by the end of 2016, said president Christian Wentzel.

"This program provides us with the stability we need to enter the U.S. solar market,'' he said.

DWP staffers recommended a 17-cents-per-kilowatt-hour rate as a starting point to reflect the relatively higher cost of buying solar energy compared to other commodities. The cost of getting the program up and running will raise the average residential monthly electric bill by about 4 cents, according to a staff report.

The DWP will hire an administrator and about 30 other people to operate the program, but most of those costs will be reimbursed by program participants, the report said.

Expanding local solar power is a key strategy for the DWP to meet the state-mandated renewable energy level of 33% by 2020.

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

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World Briefing | Asia: Sri Lanka: Beheading Stirs Protest

Sri Lanka recalled its envoy to Saudi Arabia after the execution of a Sri Lankan housemaid over the death of an infant in her care, the government said Thursday. The woman, Rizana Nafeek, was beheaded on Wednesday morning, inciting protests by hundreds of women in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government had appealed the death sentence, but the Saudi Supreme Court upheld it in 2010. Saudi households are highly dependent on housemaids from Africa and South Asia.

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Audrey Hepburn: Remembering the Private Legend

By Elizabeth McNeil

01/10/2013 at 07:35 PM EST

Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985

Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund

She captivated the world with her doe-eyed beauty, but behind the Givenchy glamour, there was an Audrey Hepburn few people knew.

She thought her nose too big, her feet too large and her neck too long. She loved to shop for groceries (but not clothes), didn't wear makeup at home, never went to the gym and enjoyed two fingers of Scotch every night. 

"She was not this ethereal creature," says Robert Wolders, 76, the Dutch actor who was her companion for the last 13 years of her life. "She was an earthy woman with a ribald sense of humor."

What Hepburn had, adds Wolders, "was more than beauty. It was this extraordinary mystique."

Hepburn left Hollywood at age 34 at the height of her fame, moving into a 1732 farmhouse in Tolochenaz, a small Swiss village, where she found happiness raising two sons and purpose in her charity work for UNICEF. 

Two decades after her death from abdominal cancer at 63 on Jan. 20, 1993, her children and her last love remember the Audrey they adored. 

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