Murder case against tennis umpire is dropped

From the beginning, the death of professional tennis umpire Lois Goodman's husband was beset by contradictions.

When Alan Goodman, 80, was found dead in April at the couple's Woodland Hills condominium, paramedics noticed a suspicious cut to the side of his head. But Los Angeles police initially agreed with Lois Goodman's account that her ailing husband had fallen down a flight of stairs.

Days later, a coroner's investigator found that the injuries were consistent with being struck by a sharp object. That ultimately led to Goodman's dramatic arrest at a luxury Manhattan hotel as she prepared for the U.S. Open tennis tournament, with authorities claiming she bludgeoned her husband with a coffee mug.

PHOTOS: Murder case against tennis umpire is dropped

On Friday, prosecutors abruptly dropped a murder charge against her. Officials would say only that prosecutors received "additional information," declining to elaborate.

But law enforcement sources told The Times that medical experts consulted by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office concluded that the death could be the result of an accident, contradicting the coroner's determination that it was a homicide.

The finding added to a long list of problems with the case, the sources said, that included a lack of a clear motive as well as other physical evidence that could help the defense. Moreover, genetic tests found none of Goodman's DNA on the piece of the coffee mug that prosecutors had alleged she used to kill her husband.

After she left the courtroom Friday a free woman, Goodman, 70, insisted she was innocent and said she wanted to get back on the professional tennis tour, where she has been a fixture for decades.

"I feel wonderful," she said, standing in the rain outside the Van Nuys courthouse, flanked by her attorneys. "I just feel I have been treated fairly now and it was just a tragic accident."

The dismissal raised questions about how the case was investigated and whether both detectives and prosecutors rushed to charge Goodman. Last year, the LAPD acknowledged detectives had wrongly arrested a man in the high-profile beating of a San Francisco Giants baseball fan outside Dodger Stadium.

One of Goodman's attorneys, Robert Sheahen, criticized the LAPD's investigation, saying crime scene evidence undercut the theory that Alan Goodman's death was a homicide.

A prominent medical expert, he said, told the defense team that Goodman was more likely to have died from heart failure, noting that his heart was four times the size of a normal heart. Blood evidence showed that an injured Goodman was downstairs at some point but was upstairs in bed by the time paramedics arrived, Sheahen said. Lois Goodman — who suffered from bad knees, a torn rotator cuff, rheumatoid arthritis and severe back pain — was in no physical condition to move her 160-pound husband, the attorney said.

"She would have needed a forklift to take the body up the stairs. It was ridiculous," Sheahen said.

The LAPD declined to comment on details of the case, but LAPD Chief Charlie Beck released a brief statement.

"I am aware that the district attorney today declared that they are not ready to proceed in the Alan Goodman homicide trial and asked the court to dismiss the case without prejudice," Beck said. "This is still considered an open case, and our Topanga-area homicide detectives will continue their investigation."

Sources told The Times that prosecutors would review any new compelling evidence in the case and determine whether to refile charges but believed that would be unlikely. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, said there were obvious problems from the outset, noting that the coroner was never called to the crime scene. Some inside the district attorney's office, they said, had questioned the public way in which Goodman was arrested. New York police took Goodman into custody after she had finished breakfast at a Midtown Sheraton and then walked her past photographers.

Steve Meister, a defense attorney and former Los Angeles County prosecutor, said district attorney's officials deserve credit for dismissing the case when they realized they did not have enough evidence to proceed. Nevertheless, he said, the office should examine whether prosecutors could have anticipated the problems before they decided to file criminal charges.

"There needs to be a ... thoughtful, honest internal review process to figure out what went wrong here, because something clearly did," Meister said.

From the outset, Lois Goodman told police she came home and found her husband dead in bed. She said she believed he crawled there after falling down the stairs and onto a coffee cup he was carrying.

At a court hearing earlier this year, a prosecutor accused her of plotting to kill her husband by wielding the broken coffee mug like an "improvised knife." Shards from the mug were found embedded in his wounds. Prosecutors alleged that she left him to die and went off to "tennis and to get her nails done."

A search warrant executed four days after the death turned up blood throughout the home "inconsistent with accidental death," an LAPD detective wrote in the warrant affidavit. Stains on carpets, the refrigerator door, inside a linen closet and on the wall leading to the garage suggested "a mobile victim" who, police theorized, would have called for help.

They also found that Lois Goodman, married to her husband for nearly 50 years, was communicating on the Internet with another man, according to the warrant. One email described in the warrant included cryptic remarks about her "terminating a relationship" and having "alternative sleeping arrangements," though exactly what she meant remains unclear.

But Lois Goodman's supporters described her as a loving wife who cared for her aging husband. And her lawyers said she passed a lie-detector test administered by a former FBI examiner in which she denied killing her husband.

Hours after the court hearing, a bail bonds official cut off the electronic ankle bracelet that Lois Goodman was required to wear while she was out on bail.

"I didn't do anything. I would never hurt my husband," Goodman said, her eyes filling with tears. "I loved him and I was his caretaker, and he came first and I came second."

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

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Twitter in legal spat over data clampdown

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc‘s steadily tightening grip over the 140-character messages on its network has set off a spirited debate in Silicon Valley over whether a social media company should or should not lay claim over its user-generated content.

That debate has now landed in court.

A San Francisco judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order compelling Twitter to continue providing access to its “Firehose” – the full daily stream of some 400 million tweets – to PeopleBrowsr Inc, a data analytics firm that sifts through Twitter and resells that information to clients ranging from technology blogs to the U.S. Department of Defense.

As part of a broader revenue-generating strategy, Twitter in recent months has begun clamping down on how its data stream may be accessed, to the dismay of many third-party developers who have built businesses and products off of Twitter’s Firehose.

PeopleBrowsr, which began contracting Firehose access in July 2010, has continued to buy Twitter data on a month-to-month basis until this July, when Twitter invoked a clause in the agreement that allowed for terminating the contract without cause.

The court’s decision to extend the two San Francisco-based companies’ contract has not settled the legal spat; a judge will hear PeopleBrowsr’s arguments for a preliminary injunction against Twitter on January 8.

But the case could provide the first, in-depth look at issues surrounding one of the Internet industry’s most prominent players in Twitter.

In a court filing, PeopleBrowsr founder John David Rich argued the Twitter move was a “commercial disaster” for his business and contradicted the spirit of repeated public statements that Twitter has made regarding its data.

“Twitter has repeatedly and consistently promised that it would maintain an ‘open ecosystem’ for its data,” Rich said in his company’s request for a temporary injunction.

In its response, Twitter’s lawyers argued: “This is Contracts 101.”

Twitter said in a statement after the court decision: “We believe the case is without merit and will vigorously defend against it.”

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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JLo tones down concert in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Jennifer Lopez wowed thousands of fans in Indonesia, but they didn't see as much of her as concertgoers in other countries — the American pop star toned down both her sexy outfits and her dance moves during her show in the world's most populous Muslim country, promoters said Saturday.

Lopez's "Dance Again World Tour" was performed in the country's capital, Jakarta, on Friday in line with promises Lopez made to make her show more appropriate for the audience, said Chairi Ibrahim from Dyandra Entertainment, the concert promoter.

"JLo was very cooperative ... she respected our culture," Ibrahim said, adding that Lopez's managers also asked whether she could perform her usual sexy dance moves, but were told that "making love" moves were not appropriate for Indonesia.

"Yes, she dressed modestly ... she's still sexy, attractive and tantalizing, though," said Ira Wibowo, an Indonesian actress who was among more than 7,000 fans at the concert.

Another fan, Doddy Adityawarman, was a bit disappointed with the changes.

"She should appear just the way she is," he said, "Many local artists dress even much sexy, much worse."

Lopez changed several times during her 90-minute concert along with several dancers, who also dressed modestly without revealing their chests or cleavage.

Most Muslims in Indonesia, a secular country of 240 million people, are moderate. But a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

They have pushed through controversial laws — including an anti-pornography bill — and have been known to attack anything perceived as blasphemous, from transvestites and bars to "deviant" religious sects.

Lady Gaga was forced to cancel her sold-out show in Indonesia in May following threats by Islamic hard-liners, who called her a "devil worshipper."

Lopez will also perform in Muslim-majority Malaysia on Sunday.

"Thank you Jakarta for an amazing night," the 43-year-old diva tweeted to her 13 million followers Saturday.

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Seeking a fix for California's gasoline market problems

California will always be at risk of gasoline price spikes caused by disruptions at refineries because it is a “fuel island,” stranded by time and distance from quick delivery of gasoline from outside the state. Without interstate pipelines, California relies primarily on maritime tankers for oil and gasoline imports, which cannot move fast enough to make up for a sudden drop in supply.

Spikes in California gasoline prices experienced in 2012 were in large part due to significant, unplanned outages at three major oil refineries. When the most recent outage occurred, in Torrance on October 1, the wholesale price for gasoline followed a pattern typical of such price spikes – rising, peaking and starting to decline within a week, fewer days than it would take a gasoline shipment to arrive at a California port.

Although the state’s clean-air requirements add to the price of gasoline, the health benefits are substantial, and studies show their value exceeds the additional cost at the pump. Furthermore, the requirements are not the primary driver of price spikes, nor do they prohibit importing gasoline from elsewhere.

In fact, refiners outside California can, and sometimes do, make gasoline that meets the state’s specifications. That said, in the wake of the recent price spike, the state eased summer-blend fuel requirements, which benefited motorists by allowing in-state refiners to immediately boost gasoline production by 3% to 5%.

But there is a larger lesson here: It’s time to think beyond the gas tank.

Instead of running on fossil fuels and driving toward empty, California needs to diversify its array of transportation fuels to include more electricity, biofuels, natural gas, propane and hydrogen.

The California Energy Commission is working to do just that as it helps the state meet ambitious climate change goals. The commission supports the development and use of new vehicle technology and alternative and renewable fuels through competitive awards of AB 118 funds — made available through legislation adopted in 2007 and funded by a small surcharge on vehicle and boat registrations and smog-check and license plate fees.

The commission has awarded more than $250 million to more than 120 clean transportation projects across the state. These awards have leveraged more than $500 million in private and public investment.

These investments support a wide range of projects, including the installation of about 6,000 electric vehicle charging stations and the rollout of hundreds of alternative fuel vehicles on the road. These investments also support the innovative development of biofuels made from algae and restaurant and agricultural waste.

The efforts are already paying off: They are reducing gasoline dependency, creating more than 5,000 long-term jobs, bolstering energy security and economic competitiveness, and reducing the risk of lung cancer and asthma for all Californians by cleaning up the air.

In the longer term, these crucial investments will lead to more options for consumers and smooth out the road to a clean transportation future for California.

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Small union is causing big problems for ports

The small band of strikers that has effectively shut down the nation's busiest shipping complex forced two huge cargo ships to head for other ports Thursday and kept at least three others away, hobbling an economic powerhouse in Southern California.

The disruption is costing an estimated $1 billion a day at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, on which some 600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods.

"The longer it goes, the more the impacts increase," said Paul Bingham, an economist with infrastructure consulting firm CDM Smith. "Retailers will have stock outages, lost sales for products not delivered. There will be shutdowns in factories, in manufacturing when they run out of parts."

Despite the union's size — about 800 members of a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — it has managed to flex big muscles. Unlike almost anywhere else in the nation, union loyalty is strong at the country's ports. Neither the longshoremen nor the truckers are crossing the tiny union's picket lines.

The strike started at the L.A. port's largest terminal Tuesday and spread Wednesday to 10 of the two ports' 14 cargo terminals. These resemble seaside parking lots where long metal containers are loaded and unloaded with the help of giant cranes.

The union contends that the dispute is over job security and the transfer of work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other countries. The 14-employer management group says that no jobs have been outsourced and that the union wants to continue a practice called "featherbedding," or bringing in temporary workers even when there is no work.

The two sides haven't met since negotiations broke down Monday, but they were scheduled to begin talking again Thursday night. The union has worked without a contract for 21/2 years.

The clerical workers are a vital link in the supply chain. They handle the immense flow of information that accompanies each cargo ship as well as every item in the freight. One shipload of shoes, toys and other products is enough to fill five warehouses.

Logistics clerk Trinie Thompson, 41, normally spends her days working with railroad lines and trucking companies to ensure that the right containers are sent along to their proper destinations. On Thursday, she was walking the picket lines at the docks.

"We will be setting up trains to Houston, trains to Dallas, to Chicago, to the Pacific Northwest," said Thompson, who has worked for 10 years for Eagle Marine Services terminal, which is affiliated with the giant APL shipping line.

"For a typical container ship, we will have to set up multiple trains. We might be sending 200 to 300 containers to Chicago alone, and there will be paperwork for all of them."

The strike comes at a time of simmering labor unrest at other U.S. ports, underscoring the unusual power labor holds in maritime trade.

On the East Coast and Gulf Coast, another group of shipping lines and terminal operators called the United States Maritime Alliance has repeatedly failed to reach agreement on a new labor contract with the International Longshoremen's Assn. A strike that might have involved dozens of ports was avoided only after both sides agreed to extend negotiations past the September end of their current contract.

A strike also was narrowly avoided at Portland, Ore., only a few days ago in a dispute between grain shippers and union workers.

Operations at Oakland International Airport and at the Port of Oakland, the third-largest port in the state behind Los Angeles and Long Beach, were affected by a brief strike this month.

Maritime unions "have successfully organized one of the most vital links in the supply chain, and it's a tradition they nurture with all of their younger workers," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a UC Santa Barbara history professor and workplace expert. "They have a very strong ideological sense of who they are, and for now they are strong."

In Los Angeles and Long Beach, the 800 clerical workers have been able to shut down most of the ports because the 10,000-member dockworkers union is honoring the picket lines. Work continues at only four cargo terminals, where the office clerical unit has no workers.

"Longshoremen stand up when other workers need our help," said Ray Ortiz Jr., a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Coast Committee. "Sure, it's a sacrifice to give up a paycheck when you refuse to cross the picket line, but we believe it's in the long-term interest of the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor area to retain these good local jobs."

Stephen Berry, lead negotiator for the shipping lines and cargo terminals, said the clerical workers have been offered a deal that includes "absolute job security," a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks' paid vacation and a generous pension increase.

At a news conference Thursday, Berry denounced the tactics by the clerical workers, calling them "irresponsible."

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Apple overcomes last hurdle, iPhone 5 cleared for sale in China as Android continues to dominate

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Adkins explains Confederate flag earpiece

NEW YORK (AP) — Trace Adkins wore an earpiece decorated like the Confederate flag when he performed for the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting but says he meant no offense by it.

Adkins appeared with the earpiece on a nationally televised special for the lighting on Wednesday. Some regard the flag as a racist symbol and criticized Adkins in Twitter postings.

But in a statement released Thursday, the Louisiana native called himself a proud American who objects to any oppression and says the flag represents his Southern heritage.

He noted he's a descendant of Confederate soldiers and says he did not intend offense by wearing it.

Adkins — on a USO tour in Japan — also called for the preservation of America's battlefields and an "honest conversation about the country's history."

___

Online:

http://www.traceadkins.com

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The New Old Age Blog: Forced to Choose: Nursing Home vs. Hospice

An older person, someone who will die within six months, leaves a hospital. Where does she go?

Almost a third of the time, according to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco, records show she takes advantage of Medicare’s skilled-nursing facility benefit and enters a nursing home. But is that the best place for end-of-life care?

In terms of monitoring her vital signs and handling IVs — the round-the-clock nursing care the skilled-nursing facility benefit is designed to provide — maybe so. But for treating end-of-life symptoms like pain and shortness of breath, for providing spiritual support for her and her family, for palliative care that helps her through the ultimate transition – hospice is the acknowledged expert.

She could receive hospice care, also covered by Medicare, while in the nursing home. But since Medicare only rarely reimburses for both hospice and the skilled-nursing facility benefit at the same time, this hypothetical patient and her family face a financial bind. If she opts for the hospice benefit, which does not include room and board at the nursing home, then she will be on the hook for hundreds of dollars a day to remain in the facility.

She could use the hospice benefit at home, of course. But, “we know these patients are medically complex,” said Katherine Aragon, lead author of the study in The Archives of Internal Medicine, and now a palliative care specialist at Lawrence General Hospital in Massachusetts. “And we know that taking care of someone near the end of life can be very demanding, hard for families to manage at home.” And that assumes the patient has a family or a home.

For some patients, a nursing home, though possibly dreaded, is the only place that can provide 24/7 care.

But if she uses the skilled-nursing facility benefit to pay for room and board in a facility, she probably has to forgo hospice. (The exception: if she was hospitalized for something unrelated to her hospice diagnosis. If she has cancer, then trips and breaks a hip, she can have both nursing home coverage and hospice. If cancer itself caused the bone to fracture, no dice.)

Let’s acknowledge that these are lousy choices.

The study, using data from the National Health and Retirement Study from 1994 through 2007, looked at more than 5,000 people who initially lived in the community – that is, not in a facility. About 30 percent used the skilled-nursing facility benefit during the final six months of life; those people were likely to be over 85 and family members said, after their deaths, that they had expected them to die soon. (The benefit is commonly referred to as S.N.F., which people in the field pronounce as “sniff”).

The choice to use S.N.F. had ongoing repercussions. Almost 43 percent of those who used it died in a nursing home and almost 40 percent in a hospital. Just 11 percent died at home, though that is where most people prefer to die, studies repeatedly show.

Among those who didn’t use the S.N.F. benefit, more than 40 percent died at home.

In effect, nursing homes were providing end-of-life care, expensively and probably not so well, for almost a third of the elderly population.

The skilled-nursing facility benefit, Dr. Aragon pointed out in an interview, is meant to provide rehabilitation. “The hope is that someone will get stronger and go home,” she said.

Sometimes, of course, that is what happens.

“What we may be missing is that this patient is on an end-of-life trajectory,” she continued. “Maybe they can’t get stronger.”

Moreover, Dr. Aragon pointed out, nursing homes often have financial incentives to keep re-hospitalizing patients. After three days in a hospital, the skilled-nursing facility benefit starts anew, and it reimburses at a higher level than Medicaid, which pays for most nursing home care.

Because this unhappy choice between hospice care and nursing home reimbursement reflects federal policy, there may be little that individual families can do. If physicians are willing to honestly discuss their patients’ prognosis, to assess whether a nursing home stay will lead to rehabilitation or whether it is where a patient will likely die, sooner rather than later, families may have some personal options.

If they knew that death was likely within a few months, they might try to provide care at home with hospice help for that limited time, difficult as that is. Or they might be able to muster enough money to pay for a few months in a nursing home, so that their parent can be a resident and still receive hospice care.

But these are still lousy choices. “Palliative care should be part of nursing home care,” said Alexander K. Smith, the study’s senior author and a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “And that regulation that prevents concurrent use of the S.N.F. benefit and hospice isn’t in the interest of patients and families.”

Coming up in a future post: Experimenting with a concurrent-coverage option.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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Windows 8 hasn't lifted U.S. tablet or PC sales, NPD says

Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 8 has not given a boost to U.S. sales of PCs and tablet computers, according to the NPD Group.

Since the highly anticipated operating system was launched Oct. 26, Windows device sales have fallen 21% compared with the same period last year, the market research firm said.

Notebook sales, which have been weak throughout most of 2012, were down 24%, and desktop sales dropped 9%.

Through Nov. 17, Windows 8 had captured just 58% of Windows computing-device unit sales. That compared with 83% for Windows 7 in the four weeks after that operating system's debut, NPD said.

Windows 8 tablet sales have "been almost nonexistent," with unit sales representing less than 1% of all Windows 8 device sales to date, NPD said Thursday.

"After just four weeks on the market, it's still [too] early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "We still have the whole holiday selling season ahead of us, but clearly Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for."

Baker went on to say that a sluggish back-to-school shopping season left a lot of inventory unsold, which hurt initial sales for Windows 8 devices.

Average selling prices of Windows computing devices have jumped significantly compared with last year, NPD said. Last year, overall prices were $433; this year's average selling price during the last four weeks was $477.

"The strong performance of Windows 8 notebooks with touch screens, where Windows 8 truly shines, offers some reason for optimism," Baker said. "These products accounted for 6% of Windows 8 notebook sales at an average price of $867, helping to reestablish a premium segment to the Windows consumer notebook market."

NPD said its research excluded sales of the Surface with Windows RT tablet, which also launched Oct. 26. Microsoft has not specified how many it has sold.

On Thursday, Microsoft announced the pricing for a premium version of that tablet.

Surface with Windows 8 Pro, which will be available in January, will cost $899 for a 64GB version and $999 for a 128GB version, the Redmond, Wash., company said.

The premium tablet looks much like the Surface with Windows RT model currently on the market. Both include dark titanium VaporMG casings, dual 2x2 MIMO antennas and kickstands.

But the Surface Pro has Intel Corp.'s next-generation Core i5 processor, which should give the tablet a graphics boost for its 10.6-inch display that runs at a full-HD resolution. The Surface Pro also includes a full-size USB 3.0 port and a Surface pen with Palm Block technology. It will run current Windows 7 desktop applications.

"It's a full PC AND a tablet," Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft Surface, said in a blog post.

The device weighs less than 2 pounds and is less than 14 millimeters thick.

andrea.chang@latimes.com

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Powerball's $580-million jackpot inspires wishes, dreamers

Don't bother telling Wednesday night's Powerball winners  that a lottery is just a tax on those who flunked math. With a winning ticket in hand, or even just the dream of one, who cares if the odds against them exceeded 175 million to 1? 

Last-minute ticket-buying pushed the jackpot to nearly $580 million, which is how much a single winner would get if he or she took the money in annual payments over 30 years.  

The winning numbers: 5-16-22-23-29, and the Powerball:  06. 

Hours after the 8 p.m. drawing, officials said winning tickets had been sold in Arizona and Missouri.

No one had won since Oct. 6, causing the jackpot to roll over 16 times. It  grows at least $10 million every time no one wins, lottery officials said. 

To play Powerball, one must pick five unique numbers from 1 through 59, and a Powerball number from 1 through 35. The odds of winning are 1 in 175,223,510. 

Powerball tickets aren't sold in California, but some feverish residents reportedly drove or flew to one of 42 participating states  to buy a chance at a fortune. The District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands also participate. 

Maybe the next time the jackpot soars, out-of-state travel won't be necessary. On Thursday, the California State Lottery Commission is expected to adopt regulations to join the Powerball lottery. If so, California retailers could start selling the $2 tickets in April.

[Updated, 10:45 p.m., Nov. 28: An earlier version of this post said the jackpot would exceed $550 million.  Late Wednesday, the Associated Press reported, Powerball officials said it would be nearly $580 million. And early Thursday EST, lottery officials said winning tickets had been sold in Arizona and Missouri.]

 ALSO:

Zig Ziglar dies at 86; motivational speaker inspired millions

Nanny, in hospital, pleads not guilty to murder of 2 children

Texas moves to seize polygamist Warren Jeffs' ranch compound 

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Tougher UAE Internet dissent law shuts door to free speech: HRW

DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates has “effectively closed the country’s remaining forum for free speech” with a decree issued earlier this month that tightened the law on online dissent, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

The U.S.-allied UAE, a Gulf trading and tourism hub and big oil producer, has not seen the serious unrest that has toppled four Arab heads of state since early last year. But it has shown little tolerance of open dissent, and more than 60 members of an Islamist group have been detained since the start of the year.

The decree by President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan imposes prison sentences for anyone who derides or caricatures the Gulf Arab country’s rulers or state institutions on the web, the state news agency WAM reported on November 12.

“The UAE’s cybercrimes decree reflects an attempt to ban even the most tempered criticism,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“The determination to police and punish online dissent, no matter how mild, is incompatible with the image UAE rulers are trying to promote of a progressive, tolerant nation.”

A source close to the UAE government said on Wednesday the decree aimed to address technological advances in communications that could affect the rights and beliefs of people.

“This decree does not restrict freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the UAE constitution,” the source said. “The decree represents an extension of legislation to cover a wide variety of potential offences in many fields, including terrorism, human trafficking, money laundering and identity theft.”

POSSIBLE PRISON TERMS

WAM said the amendments “stipulate penalties of imprisonment on any person who creates or runs an electronic website or uses any information technology medium to deride or damage the reputation or stature of the state or any of its institutions”.

This included the president, the vice president, any of the rulers of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, crown princes, deputy rulers, the national flag, the national anthem, the emblem of the state or any of its symbols.

Social networking sites have enlivened public discourse in the UAE, a major oil exporter and business hub, where state media are tightly controlled and freedom of speech restricted.

People across UAE society, from ruling family members to ministers, government supporters and dissidents, make use of sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The amendments announced on November 12 cover a wide range of offences, including outlawing the use of the Internet for human trafficking and prostitution.

But they include jail terms for “any person publishing any information, news, caricatures or any other kind of pictures that would pose threats to the security of the state and to its highest interests or violate its public order,” said WAM.

In addition, anyone who uses the Internet “to call for demonstrations, marches and similar activities without a license being obtained in advance from the competent authorities” could also face imprisonment.

Human Rights Watch said the decree’s vaguely worded provisions provide a legal basis to prosecute and jail people who use information technology to criticize senior officials, demand political reforms or organize unlicensed demonstrations.

“Although some provisions are aimed at preventing the proliferation of racist or sectarian views online, the principal effect of the law is severe restrictions on the rights to free expression and free association and assembly,” the New York-based watchdog said.

(Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lindsay Lohan arrested on assault charge in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — Actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested Thursday after police said she hit a woman during an argument at a New York City nightclub.

The "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday" star was arrested at 4 a.m. and charged with third-degree assault.

She allegedly got into the spat with another woman at Club Avenue, in Manhattan's Chelsea section. She struck the woman in face with her hand, police said. The victim did not require medical attention.

Her publicist did not immediately return a call for comment.

The arrest is Lohan's latest brush with law enforcement in New York City.

She was involved in a NYPD investigation in September after alleging a man had assaulted her in a New York hotel, but charges against the man were later dropped.

Also in September, the actress was accused of clipping a man with her car outside another Manhattan nightclub, but prosecutors chose not to move ahead with charges.

In October, police were called to her childhood home on Long Island after a report of fight between her and her mother. An investigation revealed "no criminality."

The actress was also involved in a car accident in California this summer that sent her and an assistant to a hospital, but didn't result in serious injuries for anyone. The accident remains under investigation.

In May, she was cleared of allegations that she struck a Hollywood nightclub manager with her car.

Lohan remains on informal probation for taking a necklace from a jewelry store without permission last year. That means she doesn't have to check in with a judge or probation officer but could face a jail term if arrested again.

Her latest film, "Liz & Dick," in which she portrays screen icon Elizabeth Taylor, premiered on Lifetime on Sunday.

Lohan also recently filmed "The Canyons," an indie film written by "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" author Bret Easton Ellis.

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The New Old Age Blog: New Help for Hoarders

There were times, Sandra Stark remembers, when she couldn’t use her kitchen or sit on her sofa. Her collections — figurines, vases, paperweights — had overtaken every closet, drawer and surface. Stacks of clothing and old magazines added to the clutter.

Her daughters came in and threw everything away — to Ms. Stark’s horror — but a year later her home was again barely navigable. “I couldn’t throw out my garbage,” she said. “I put it in plastic bags, but I couldn’t take it out.”

A drop-in support group sponsored by the Mental Health Association of San Francisco helped her begin to control her hoarding behavior, and she has made considerable headway. “My bedroom is still a work in progress,” said Ms. Stark, 67. “But I can cook again.”

She has become a trained peer responder who works with others with this disorder. Many of the Mental Health Association’s clients are older adults: A woman in her 70s occupies one small room because the rest of her spacious house — leaking and mildewed — is filled with stuff she can’t discard. An 87-year-old, a compulsive thrift-store shopper, faces eviction because the city health department says she has created a safety hazard. “I’ll say, ‘Of these dozen black leather coats, pick two,’” Ms. Stark said, mapping her strategy to help keep the woman in her home.

Researchers are not sure if hoarding intensifies with age, but the problems it creates certainly do. “The older you get, the more stuff you’ve been able to accumulate,” said Randy Frost, co-author of the book “Stuff” and a Smith College psychologist. “And older people are less physically able to deal with it.” They are more prone to falls as they try to maneuver between piles of possessions and in a crisis, emergency crews may have trouble even entering their dwellings.

When I last wrote about hoarding almost three years ago (uncorking a wave of readers’ lamentation), I couldn’t offer much in the way of help except to steer people to the OCD Foundation. Though hoarding may not be a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, its site remains useful.

At the time, experts knew what didn’t solve the problem, namely psychoactive drugs or “dumpster therapy,” in which well-meaning friends or family toss hoarders’ possessions, in a temporary fix that doesn’t change their behavior. But researchers were only starting to figure out what did work.

“This is an area in which there haven’t been a lot of answers,” said Eduardo Vega, executive director of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco. Now, “there’s a lot more hope and good will.”

Across the country, for example, cities, counties and states have formed about 80 hoarding task forces so that housing and health departments, senior service agencies, law enforcement and emergency units can coordinate their responses.

On the mental health front, the revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V is scheduled for publication in the spring, and many expect it will recognize hoarding as a distinct disorder with diagnostic criteria and a numeric code. That will make psychologists and other professionals more aware of the problem and, Mr. Vega said, “it will be easier to get insurers and providers to pay for treatment.”

Increasingly, there is treatment. Researchers have published studies showing that cognitive behavioral therapy can help, by encouraging people to reevaluate their attachment to possessions and supporting their decisions to start discarding.

Among patients in therapy groups, Dr. Frost has shown, 70 to 80 percent showed some improvement, he said. “That doesn’t mean they’re freed of symptoms, but their lives are improved and the behavior significantly reduced.”

Questions remain; several published studies use small samples that are heavily comprised of females, though hoarding may be more common among men. It is not clear, Dr. Frost said, whether cognitive therapy is as effective among older adults. And it is easier to find an individual therapist or a group in major cities than elsewhere. (Here’s a locator.)

But Dr. Frost and his co-authors have published a workbook called “Buried in Treasures,” along with a free facilitator’s guide, that allows people with hoarding disorders to form their own 15-session action workshops, led by peers rather than professionals. That approach, too, has brought measurable improvement (when used in groups, not individually), a study shows. “Here’s a way people can start working on this on their own,” Dr. Frost said.

Diagnostic criteria, treatment centers, workbooks, published research — all this is more than mental health professionals could offer years back. Still, compulsive hoarding remains a stubborn problem, a safety risk for older people and a heartache for their families.

“It’s really difficult for adult children,” who worry about their parents, but can’t induce them to change, Dr. Frost said. “There may be a history of animosity. Many report they grew up feeling their hoarding parents cared more about their possessions than about them.” The children, young or grown, could probably use a support group, too.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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Starbucks' $7-a-cup coffee: Can you tell the difference?

Some coffee aficionados have a difficult decision to make: Spend $7 on a full lunch or on a single cup of Starbucks coffee?

The brew in question: the Seattle giant's new Costa Rica Finca Palmilera, its most expensive offering ever and also one of its rarest. The coffee is part of the company's Reserve line and costs $7 for a grande — a 16-ounce cup.

An 8-ounce package of beans costs $40.

The uber-premium beans and brew are available only in 46 Starbucks stores in Portland and Seattle, a licensed store in Idaho and Starbucks' Roy Street Coffee & Tea offshoot in Washington.

With a limited quantity of beans available, the company said it will not expand the offering beyond the Pacific Northwest to its more than 11,000 Starbucks stores nationwide.

Online, Starbucks already has sold out of a similar premium offering — the Costa Rica Tarrazu Geisha, listed on the website as having "rose petal aromas with ripe banana and subtle red current notes and silky mouth feel." The 450 half-pound bags of beans available were snapped up within 24 hours after being offered Nov. 8.

Both kinds of beans are known as Geisha heirloom varietals, which were first discovered in Ethiopia before making their way to Central America in the 1950s.

Starbucks justifies the high price by explaining that Geisha plants don't produce many cherries, making the beans extremely rare and also full of concentrated flavor. This is the company's first go-round with Geisha beans.

Starbucks is working through 3,800 pounds of Finca Palmilera beans, which feature notes of white peach and pineapple, company spokeswoman Alisa Martinez said.

"It leaves a tingly, kind of light feeling," she said. "It's a very exquisite coffee."

But try telling that to the consumers pranked this week by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who set up a fake taste test in Hollywood asking people to distinguish between standard coffee and what was supposedly the Finca Palmilera brew. Turns out, both cups contained the same basic Joe.

"I feel like this is a test to find out just how stupid we are," Kimmel said on his show. "Although, while it's ridiculous to spend $7 on a cup of coffee, it's actually not that much more ridiculous to spend $4 on a cup of coffee."

tiffany.hsu@latimes.com

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Twin car bombs in Damascus kill at least 34 people

Dozens of people were killed Wednesday morning in four consecutive explosions that rocked a pro-regime suburb of the Syrian capital.

Twin car bombings first struck Jaramana around rush hour near the town’s main square. An eyewitness told activists that the first bomb went off near the entrance of a building and as people gathered to help the injured a nearby Mercedes also exploded. Witnesses reported many bodies lying in the street and photos from the scene showed damaged buildings and cars under rubble.

Soon after planted explosives were set off on the nearby Qariyat highway, said Damascus activist Alexia Jade.

The Syrian Arab News Agency reported that the last two explosions happened in Damascus in the Nahda and Qerayyat neighborhoods.

The opposition reported 45 people were killed, mostly civilians, and state media said the death toll was 34. Many more are injured, some in critical condition.

Jaramana is a mostly pro-government town but has also become a safe haven for many refugees fleeing violence in nearby areas. But this was not the first time the town has been attacked.

State media blamed the bombings on “terrorists,” the catch-all term the government has used to describe the opposition since the beginning of the uprising last year.

Opposition activists said no rebel group had claimed responsibility for the bombings and they pinned the blame on the government. Ambulances and state media were on the scene almost immediately, they said.

“Checkpoints surround Jaramana from all sides and are manned by the People’s Committee, so where did the car bombs enter from?” Jade said. “It is just a message of fear for the residents of Jaramana.”

Jaramana's hospital was inundated with victims and many had to be transferred elsewhere.

Schools that were already in session closed for the day and parents rushed to pick up their children, Jade said.

Roads around the town were closed in the wake of the bombings and security forces and members of the pro-regime People’s Committee were patrolling throughout the area, activists reported.

“Till this moment indications are that the regime was behind it,” Jade said. “And if (a rebel group) claims responsibility I’m going to be angry, because there are civilians lying in the street.”

ALSO:

Yasser Arafat's grave dug up in poisoning probe 

Egyptians pour into Tahrir Square to protest presidential decree

Kim Jong Un 'sexiest man,' Onion says; China's People's Daily buys it

-- Times staff in Amman, Jordan

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Nokia wins tribunal ruling on wireless patents

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Nokia has won its dispute with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) over use of its patents related to wireless local access network (WLAN) technology, the Finnish company said on Wednesday.

Announcing that an arbitrator had ruled in its favor, Nokia said: “It found that RIM was in breach of contract and is not entitled to manufacture or sell WLAN products without first agreeing royalties.”

Nokia, which is trying to boost its royalty income as its phone business tumbles, said that it had filed cases in the United States, Britain and Canada to enforce the arbitrator’s ruling.

“This could have a significant financial impact, as all BlackBerry devices support WLAN, although the volumes are currently very low in these countries,” IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said.

RIM was not immediately available to comment.

Nokia said it signed a cross-license agreement with RIM covering standards-essential cellular patents in 2003; a deal that was amended in 2008. RIM sought arbitration in 2011, arguing that the license should be extended to cover WLAN patents.

Nokia, along with Ericsson and Qualcomm, is among the leading patent holders in the wireless industry. Patent royalties generate annual revenue of about 500 million euros ($ 646 million) for Nokia.

Based on a Nortel patent sale and Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, some investors and analysts say that Nokia’s patent portfolio alone merits its current share price of 2.50 euros.

However, the patent market has cooled since those deals were made and industry experts say that fair value of patents in large portfolios is $ 100,000 to $ 200,000, pricing Nokia’s portfolio at up to 0.50 euros per share. ($ 1 = 0.7733 euros)

(Editing by David Goodman)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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In elf ears and wizard hats, 'Hobbit' fans rejoice

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Wearing elf ears and wizard hats, sitting atop their dad's shoulders or peering from balconies, tens of thousands of New Zealanders watched their favorite "Hobbit" actors walk the red carpet Wednesday at the film trilogy's hometown premiere.

An Air New Zealand plane freshly painted with "Hobbit" characters flew low over Wellington's Embassy Theatre, eliciting roars of approval from the crowd.

Sam Rashidmardani, 12, said he came to see Gollum actor Andy Serkis walk the red carpet — and he wasn't disappointed.

"It was amazing," Rashidmardani said of the evening, adding his Gollum impression: "My precious."

British actor Martin Freeman, who brings comedic timing to the lead role of Bilbo Baggins, said he thought director Peter Jackson had done a fantastic job on "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey."

"He's done it again," Freeman said in an interview on the red carpet. "If it's possible, it's probably even better than 'The Lord of the Rings.' I think he's surpassed it."

While it is unusual for a city so far from Hollywood to host the premiere of a hoped-for blockbuster, Jackson's filming of his lauded 'LOTR' trilogy and now "The Hobbit" in New Zealand has helped create a film industry here. The film will open in theaters around the world next month.

One of the talking points of the film is the choice by Jackson to shoot it using 48 frames per second instead of the traditional 24 in hopes of improving the picture quality.

Some say the images come out too clear and look so realistic that they take away from the magic of the film medium. Jackson likens it to advancing from vinyl records to CDs.

"I really think 48 frames is pretty terrific and I'm looking forward to seeing the reaction," Jackson said on the red carpet. "It's been talked about for so long, but finally the film is being released and people can decide for themselves."

Jackson said it was strange working on the project so intimately for two years and then having it suddenly taken away as the world got to see the movie.

"It spins your head a little bit," he said.

Aidan Turner, who plays the dwarf Kili in the movie, said his character is reckless and thinks he's charming.

"I don't get to play real people it seems, I only get to play supernatural ones," he said. "So playing a dwarf didn't seem that weird, actually.

Perhaps the most well-known celebrities to walk the carpet were Cate Blanchett and Elijah Wood, who reprise their roles in the LOTR in the "Hobbit."

"Mostly I came here to see everyone. I like them all," said fan Aysu Shahin, 16, adding that Wood was her favorite. She said she wanted to see the movie "as soon as possible. I'm excited for it."

At a news conference earlier in the day, Jackson said many younger people are happy to watch movies on their iPads.

"We just have to make the cinema-going experience more magical and more spectacular to get people coming back to the movies again," he said.

Jackson said only about 1,000 of the 25,000 theaters that will show the film worldwide are equipped to show 48 frames, so most people will see it in the more traditional format. The movie has also been shot in 3D.

A handful of animal rights protesters held signs at the premiere.

The protest by the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals comes after several animal wranglers said three horses and up to two dozen other animals had died during the making of the movies because they were housed at an unsafe farm.

Jackson's spokesman earlier acknowledged two horses had died preventable deaths at the farms but said the production company worked quickly to improve stables and other facilities and that claims of mistreatment were unfounded.

"No mistreatment, no abuse. Absolutely none," Jackson said at the news conference.

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The New Old Age Blog: Doctor's Orders? Another Test

It is no longer news that Americans, and older Americans in particular, get more routine screening tests than they need, more than are useful. Prostate tests for men over 75, annual Pap smears for women over 65 and colonoscopies for anyone over 75 — all are overused, large-scale studies have shown.

Now it appears that many older patients are also subjected to too-frequent use of the other kind of testing, diagnostic tests.

The difference, in brief: Screening tests are performed on people who are asymptomatic, who aren’t complaining of a health problem, as a way to detect incipient disease. We have heard for years that it is best to “catch it early” — “it” frequently being cancer — and though that turns out to be only sometimes true, we and our doctors often ignore medical guidelines and ongoing campaigns to limit and target screening tests.

Diagnostic tests, on the other hand, are meant to help doctors evaluate some symptom or problem. “You’re trying to figure out what’s wrong,” explained Gilbert Welch, a veteran researcher at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

For these tests, medical groups and task forces offer many fewer guidelines on who should get them and how often — there is not much evidence to go on — but there is general agreement that they are not intended for routine surveillance.

But a study using a random 5 percent sample of Medicare beneficiaries — nearly 750,000 of them — suggests that often, that is what’s happening.

“It begins to look like some of these tests are being routinely repeated, and it’s worrisome,” said Dr. Welch, lead author of the study just published in The Archives of Internal Medicine. “Some physicians are just doing them every year.”

He is talking about tests like echocardiography, or a sonogram of the heart. More than a quarter of the sample (28.5 percent) underwent this test between 2004 and 2006, and more than half of those patients (55 percent) had a repeat echocardiogram within three years, most commonly within a year of the first.

Other common tests were frequently repeated as well. Of patients who underwent an imaging stress test, using a treadmill or stationery bike (or receiving a drug) to make the heart work harder, nearly 44 percent had a repeat test within three years. So did about half of those undergoing pulmonary function tests and chest tomography, a CAT scan of the chest.

Cytoscopy (a procedure in which a viewing tube is inserted into the bladder) was repeated for about 41 percent of the patients, and endoscopy (a swallowed tube enters the esophagus and stomach) for more than a third.

Is this too much testing? Without evidence of how much it harms or helps patients, it is hard to say — but the researchers were startled by the extent of repetition. “It’s inconceivable that it’s all important,” Dr. Welch said. “Unfortunately, it looks like it’s important for doctors.”

The evidence for that? The study revealed big geographic differences in diagnostic testing. Looking at the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, it found that nearly half the sample’s patients in Miami had an echocardiogram between 2004 and 2006, and two thirds of them had another echocardiogram within three years — the highest rate in the nation.

In fact, for the six tests the study included, five were performed and repeated most often in Florida cities: Miami, Jacksonville and Orlando. “They’re heavily populated by physicians and they have a long history of being at the top of the list” of areas that do a lot of medical procedures and hospitalizations, Dr. Welch said.

But in Portland, Ore., where “the physician culture is very different,” only 17.5 percent of patients had an echocardiogram. The places most prone to testing were also the places with high rates of repeat testing. Portland, San Francisco and Sacramento had the lowest rates.

We often don’t think of tests as having a downside, but they do. “This is the way whole cascades can start that are hard to stop,” Dr. Welch said. “The more we subject ourselves, the more likely some abnormality shows up that may require more testing, some of which has unwanted consequences.”

Properly used, of course, diagnostic tests can provide crucial information for sick people. “But used without a good indication, they can stir up a hornet’s nest,” he said. And of course they cost Medicare a bundle.

An accompanying commentary, sounding distinctly exasperated, pointed out that efforts to restrain overtesting and overtreatment have continued for decades. The commentary called it “discouraging to contemplate fresh evidence by Welch et al of our failure to curb waste of health care resources.”

It is hard for laypeople to know when tests make sense, but clearly we need to keep track of those we and our family members have. That way, if the cardiologist suggests another echocardiogram, we can at least ask a few pointed questions:

“My father just had one six months ago. Is it necessary to have another so soon? What information do you hope to gain that you didn’t have last time? Will the results change the way we manage his condition?”

Questions are always a good idea. Especially in Florida.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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UCLA Medical Center gets failing grade on patient safety

A national report card on patient safety gave a failing grade to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, one of the country's most prestigious hospitals and one of only 25 nationwide to receive such low marks.

In a report issued Wednesday, the Leapfrog Group, an employer-backed nonprofit group focused on healthcare quality, gave a letter grade of F to UCLA Medical Center for performing poorly on several measures tied to preventing medical errors, patient infections and deaths.

Leapfrog withheld a failing grade for UCLA in June when it released its first-ever hospital safety scores to give low-performing hospitals time to show improvement.

Officials at UCLA disputed the failing grade and they said one patient death in 2010 unfairly lowered its grade from a C to an F under Leapfrog's methodology.

"UCLA is not an F hospital in quality and safety," said Tom Rosenthal, chief medical officer at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. "It is not a fair scoring system and it does a disservice to the public."

This debate over UCLA's score comes amid a proliferation of healthcare ratings by outside organizations trying to provide more information to consumers and employers. These scores are also taking on greater importance as some insurers and employers use them as one factor in determining whether a hospital or doctor should be included in a provider network.

Given those stakes, the California Hospital Assn. has called on Leapfrog and other rating organizations to offer more details on how their scores are tabulated and to focus on reliable measures that can assess patient care. Some highly regarded hospitals across the country, such as UCLA, fare well in one ranking and then poorly in the next.

Leapfrog gave an F to one other area hospital, Western Medical Center Anaheim. The hospital said it disagreed with Leapfrog's rating methods and added that it "continuously adds new systems to enhance our patient care."

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center received an A in Leapfrog's June report, but its grade dropped to a C on this latest review, which included more recent data from last year. Thirty Kaiser Permanente hospitals received an A and one got a B from Leapfrog.

Experts urge consumers to use these score cards as one tool in evaluating a hospital and to discuss any specific concerns with their doctor and other medical providers.

Leapfrog estimates that 180,000 Americans die annually from hospital accidents, errors and infections, and it says hospitals need to do more to protect patients from harm. Its hospital safety score is derived from 26 measures of publicly reported data.

Rosenthal said UCLA scores well on healthcare quality and patient outcomes on numerous measures tracked by the federal government and other rating organizations, suggesting that Leapfrog's methods are potentially flawed.

He said a liver transplant patient died during surgery in 2010 from an air embolism, one of several preventable medical errors that Leapfrog and other groups regularly track. Rosenthal said the patient's death was a regrettable mistake, but that error hasn't occurred since then.

Leah Binder, Leapfrog's president and chief executive, said her group's scoring methods are statistically valid and devised by a panel of leading experts in patient safety. She said UCLA scored poorly in several areas of patient care, such as foreign objects left in a patient during surgery and pressure ulcers.

"It isn't just one incident that gave them a score so far below the national average," Binder said. "We see it all the time that a hospital might have a stellar reputation, but behind the scenes they aren't safe for many of their patients."

On pressure ulcers, Rosenthal said, UCLA looked worse than its actual performance because of over-reporting in the hospital billing data that was reviewed by Leapfrog.

Overall, Leapfrog gave an A or B to 1,468 hospitals, or 56% of the 2,618 reviewed nationwide. The group issued a C to 1,004 hospitals, or 38%. At the bottom, 146 hospitals, or 6%, were labeled D or F.

Leapfrog reviewed 246 hospitals in California. The ratings are available online at http://www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.

chad.terhune@latimes.com

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Much talk, little action on 'fiscal cliff' as Congress returns

WASHINGTON — Congress returned to a lame-duck session with no signs of quick compromise to ease the nation's budget deadlock, and the White House rolled out a strategy Monday to marshal popular support for raising taxes on the wealthiest tier of income earners.

Closed-door talks by senior aides produced no clear progress despite President Obama's private phone call over the weekend to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) in an effort to forge a deficit reduction deal in the five weeks before current tax rates expire, which would lead to tax increases for most Americans.

Familiar lines began to form as both sides jockeyed to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, the combination of $500 billion in automatic federal tax increases and spending cuts that economists warn could send the nation back into recession next year.

But the battle assumed new contours as some senior Republican lawmakers distanced themselves from their party's strict anti-tax pledge and Obama took his case public. He warned that the threat of a tax hike on ordinary Americans could dampen winter holiday spending and create a crisis in consumer confidence.

"The president has called on Congress to take action and stop holding the middle class and our economy hostage over a disagreement on tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000 per year," the White House said in a statement.

Obama got a boost from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who said wealthier Americans, including himself, should pay more taxes. He dismissed Republican arguments that such tax increases would hamper investment.

"In recent years, my gang has been leaving the middle class in the dust," Buffett wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. "Let's forget about the rich and ultrarich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if — gasp — capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased."

The broad outline of a deal could be seen, although any accord appeared far from imminent.

Over the last week, three top Republican lawmakers — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Rep. Peter T. King of New York — all indicated they were willing to raise some taxes in exchange for an agreement from Democrats to curb spending. They broke publicly with conservative stalwart Grover Norquist, the influential president of Americans for Tax Reform.

"It's fair to ask my party to put revenue on the table," Graham said on ABC's "This Week." "I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country — only if Democrats will do entitlement reforms."

A framework for a compromise had emerged after the Nov. 6 election. Boehner proposed a two-step process that would put a down payment on deficit reduction this year and set targets for undertaking a comprehensive overhaul of taxes and entitlement spending in 2013.

In the days since, however, talks have become "slow," according to one congressional aide. Republicans insist that new revenue must come from economic growth, which they believe would be produced by revamping the tax code to lower all tax brackets — an approach Democrats reject as "fairy tale" economics.

Democrats are unwilling to discuss cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or other government programs unless Republicans put upfront revenue on the table, aides said.

Frustrations over the standoff have grown, and one lawmaker, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), proposed his own solution Monday — capping itemized deductions at $50,000 in exchange for changes to Medicare and cuts to other government programs.

Such an approach is in line with proposals being discussed, though Obama has promised the tax increases would hit incomes only above $250,000 for couples or $200,000 for singles.

No talks among the principal players are scheduled this week, even though both sides say they want to avoid brinkmanship as they push toward a Christmas deadline. All tax rates expire on Dec. 31, which would result in automatic tax increases; spending cuts are set for Jan. 2.

Aides to the president acknowledged they didn't hold high hopes after Obama spoke to Boehner over the weekend. But they didn't go so far as to echo Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who used the word "impasse" Monday in discussing the long pursuit of a grand budget deal.

"We remain confident we can achieve an agreement," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. "We remain hopeful and optimistic we can reach a deal."

Staff negotiations continue, and the White House's Council of Economic Advisers said Monday the automatic tax increases would not only hurt the rest of the holiday shopping season, but they could also trim consumer spending by about $200 billion in 2013. Overall, the council warned, economic growth could drop by 1.4 percentage points.

That's no small matter, said the council's chairman, Alan Krueger, given the role retail sales play in the economy. The American economy has grown at an average annual rate of just over 2% since the recovery began in 2009.

The report is broadly consistent with forecasts by the Congressional Budget Office and leading private economists, and it comes after retailers amassed a record $59.1 billion in sales from Thanksgiving through Sunday, up from $52.4 billion a year earlier, according to estimates from the National Retail Federation.

But the White House report warned that "the hard-earned rise in consumer confidence will be at risk if the middle-class tax cuts are not soon extended with a minimum of political drama."

Publicly and behind closed doors, White House officials expressed hope that the political environment would improve over the coming week.

Obama will meet with business leaders at the White House this week in an attempt to build support for his agenda.

On Friday, the president plans to travel to Montgomery County in Pennsylvania to visit a local business that "depends on middle-class consumers during the holiday season," the White House said. The business, Rodon Group, is the sole American manufacturer for K'NEX Brands, a construction toy company whose products include Tinkertoy, K'NEX and Angry Bird building sets.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

christi.parsons@latimes.com

Times staff writer Don Lee contributed to this report.

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India: 2 policemen suspended, magistrate transferred for arrest of 2 women over Facebook post

NEW DELHI – An Indian official says two senior policemen have been suspended for arresting two women over a Facebook post criticizing the shutdown of Mumbai for the funeral of a powerful politician.

Maharashtra state Home Minister R.R. Patil said Tuesday the policemen were suspended indefinitely and the magistrate who registered the case against the women has been transferred to another district.

Police also arrested nine men who vandalized a medical clinic run by the uncle of one of the women, Patil said.

One of the women had posted a Facebook comment complaining that Mumbai had come to a standstill after the death of rightwing leader Bal Thackeray. Her friend “liked” the post.

Their arrest last week was seen as a misuse of Internet laws and an attempt to curb freedom of expression.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Berry's ex says he was threatened before fight

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Halle Berry's ex-boyfriend claims the actress's fiance threatened to kill him during a Thanksgiving confrontation that left him with a broken rib, bruised face and under arrest.

Gabriel Aubry's claims are included in court filings that led a judge Monday to grant a restraining order against actor Olivier Martinez, who is engaged to the Oscar-winning actress.

Aubry, 37, was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery after his confrontation with Martinez on Thursday, but he states in the civil court filings that he was not the aggressor and that he was threatened and attacked without provocation. Martinez told police that Aubry had attacked first, the filings state.

A representative for Martinez could not be immediately reached for comment.

Aubry's filing claims Martinez threatened him the day before the fight at an event at his daughter's school that he and the actors attended. Aubry, a model, has a 4-year-old daughter with Berry and the former couple have been engaged in a lengthy custody battle.

The proceedings have been confidential, but Aubry states a major aspect of the case was Berry's wish to move to Paris and take her daughter with her. The request was denied Nov. 9, Berry's court filings state, and Aubry shares joint custody of the young girl.

Aubry claims Martinez told him, "You cost us $3 million," while he was punched and kicked him in the driveway of Berry's home. Aubry had gone to the home to allow his daughter to spend Thanksgiving with her mother, the filings state. Aubry claims Martinez threatened to kill him if Aubry didn't move to Paris.

Berry was not in the driveway during the confrontation and neither was their daughter, the documents state.

Photos of Aubry's face with cuts and a black eye were included in his court filing.

A judge set a hearing for Dec. 17 to consider whether a three-year restraining order should be granted. Aubry has a Dec. 13 court date for the possible battery case, which has not yet been filed by prosecutors.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

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The New Old Age Blog: New Efforts to Close Hospitals' Revolving Doors

In the past, the only thing a patient was sure to get after a hospital stay was a bill. But as Medicare cracks down on high readmission rates, hospitals are dispatching nurses, transportation, culturally specific diet tips, free medications and even bathroom scales to patients deemed at risk of relapsing.

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., has nurses visit high-risk patients at their home within two days of leaving the hosital. Teresa De Peralta, a nurse practitioner who runs the program, said they frequently find that patients don’t realize a drug they were prescribed in the hospital does the same thing as one they have already been taking.

“When medications are changed, they don’t want to throw things out, they think it’s a waste,” Ms. De Peralta said. “We actually go through the cupboards and painstakingly write out in big letters what they should be taking during the day.”

Many hospital officials say their efforts to keep patients healthy after discharge have been spurred by new financial penalties Medicare started imposing in October on places with too many readmissions. Increasingly, hospitals are no longer leaving to patients the responsibility for setting up follow-up appointments or filling new prescriptions.

And hospitals are not assuming that personnel in nursing homes and other facilities know how to properly care for their patients and follow the hospital discharge instructions.

Patients taking the wrong dose or mixing medicines that react badly often end up back in the hospital. A survey of 377 elderly patients at Yale-New Haven Hospital, published this year in The Journal of General Internal Medicine, discovered that 81 percent of the patients either didn’t understand what all their prescriptions were for; were prescribed the wrong drug or the wrong dose; were taken off a drug they needed, or never picked up a new prescription.

Dr. Leora Horwitz, the study’s leader, said patients who were called a week after their discharge and were asked what changes to their medication they were supposed to make “overwhelmingly” couldn’t tell them.

A big part of reducing readmissions is making sure that patients understand early warning signs that their health is deteriorating. Sun Health Care Transitions, a foundation-supported program in Sun City, Ariz., gives scales to some patients with congestive heart failure because small weight gains indicate they are retaining water, a sign that their heart isn’t pumping adequately.

“We have them keep a log,” said Jennifer Drago, a Sun Health vice president. “We want them to be looking for a two-pound daily weight gain, or five pounds over the week.”

Patients whose weight creeps up are quickly sent back to their doctor. Debra Richards, director of case management at Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center, one of the hospitals Sun Health is assisting, said, “That program has helped us quite a bit.”

Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Md., has started taking patients’ cultural backgrounds into consideration when doling out advice about maintaining their health. For example, the hospital encourages Salvadoran patients to substitute olive oils for the palm oils their cuisine traditionally calls for, to roast or bake meat instead of frying it and to use sugar substitutes when making horchata, a popular Central American drink.

When Hackensack University Medical Center sent staff members to teach caregivers how to take care of their patients, one place “didn’t even know what a low-salt diet was,” even though that’s a critical part of keeping heart failure patients from retaining fluids, said Dr. Charles Riccobono, chief quality and safety officer at the New Jersey hospital.

Aurora Health Care, a Milwaukee-based health system, now places its own nurse practitioners in several nursing homes to watch over Aurora’s discharged patients. Aurora says readmission rates of those patients have decreased, in some months by as much as half.

Dr. Eric Coleman, a Denver geriatrician whose ideas on reducing readmissions have been adopted by a number of hospitals and Medicare, said that while some hospital changes are “exciting and new,” others are “relabeling old wine in new bottles.”

“Yesterday we had ‘discharge planning’ and today we have a ‘rapid response transition team,’ and content-wise they’re doing the same thing,” Dr. Coleman said. “But it’s a nice thing to report out to the board of trustees.”

Jordan Rau is a reporter for Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Military's dogs of war also suffer post-traumatic stress disorder

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas — Not long after a Belgian Malinois named Cora went off to war, she earned a reputation for sniffing out the buried bombs that were the enemy's weapon of choice to kill or maim U.S. troops.

Cora could roam a hundred yards or more off her leash, detect an explosive and then lie down gently to signal danger. All she asked in return was a kind word or a biscuit, maybe a play session with a chew toy once the squad made it back to base.

"Cora always thought everything was a big game," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Garry Laub, who trained Cora before she deployed. "She knew her job. She was a very squared-away dog."

PHOTOS: Military dogs

But after months in Iraq and dozens of combat patrols, Cora changed. The transformation was not the result of one traumatic moment, but possibly the accumulation of stress and uncertainty brought on by the sharp sounds, high emotion and ever-present death in a war zone.

Cora — deemed a "push-button" dog, one without much need for supervision — became reluctant to leave her handler's side. Loud noises startled her. The once amiable Cora growled frequently and picked fights with other military working dogs.

When Cora returned to the U.S. two years ago, there was not a term for the condition that had undercut her combat effectiveness and shattered her nerves. Now there is: canine post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Dogs experience combat just like humans," said Marine Staff Sgt. Thomas Gehring, a dog handler assigned to the canine training facility at Lackland Air Force Base, who works with Cora daily.

Veterinarians and senior dog handlers at Lackland have concluded that dogs, like humans, can require treatment for PTSD, including conditioning, retraining and possibly medication such as the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. Some dogs, like 5-year-old Cora, just need to be treated as honored combat veterans and allowed to lead less-stressful lives.

Walter Burghardt Jr., chief of behavioral medicine and military working-dog studies at Lackland, estimates that at least 10% of the hundreds of dogs sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops have developed canine PTSD.

Cora appears to have a mild case. Other dogs come home traumatized.

"They're essentially broken and can't work," Burghardt said.

There are no official statistics, but Burghardt estimates that half of the dogs that return with PTSD or other behavioral hitches can be retrained for "useful employment" with the military or law enforcement, such as police departments, the Border Patrol or the Homeland Security Department.

The others dogs are retired and made eligible for adoption as family pets.

The decision to officially label the dogs' condition as PTSD was made by a working group of dog trainers and other specialists at Lackland. In most cases, such labeling of animal behavior would be subjected to peer review and scrutiny in veterinary medical journals.

But Burghardt and others in the group decided that they could not wait for that kind of lengthy professional vetting — that a delay could endanger those who depend on the dogs.

Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the military has added hundreds of canines and now has about 2,500 — Dutch and German shepherds, Belgian Malinois and Labrador retrievers — trained in bomb detection, guard duty or "controlled aggression" for patrolling.

Lackland trains dogs and dog handlers for all branches of the military. The huge base, located in San Antonio, has a $15-million veterinary hospital devoted to treating dogs working for the military or law enforcement, like a Border Patrol dog who lost a leg during a firefight between agents and a suspected drug smuggler.

"He's doing fine, much better," the handler yelled out when asked about the dog's condition.

Cora received her initial training here and then additional training with Laub at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Before they could deploy, however, Laub was transferred to Arkansas, and Cora shipped off to Iraq with a different handler, much to Laub's regret.

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Betfair pulls out of Greece over permits row

LONDON (Reuters) – Online gambling exchange Betfair said it would withdraw from the Greek market until there was greater clarity on gaming regulation in the country.

Betfair, which has not yet applied for a permit to operate in Greece, questioned the cost and conditions attached to permits required by gaming firms to trade in the country.

“According to legal advice received, the value of these permits is unclear and we consider the gambling legislation in the country to be inconsistent with European law,” Betfair said on Monday.

“The associated fiscal conditions attached to these permits, which may include payment of taxes on historical revenues, make the market economically unattractive.”

Earlier this month the Greek Gaming Commission said gambling firms operating in Greece without a permit would face financial penalties and criminal sanctions.

Betfair said it believes there are “significant issues with the legality of this decision” by the Greek Gaming Commission.

It added that it was disappointed the European Commission had not moved to prevent what Betfair calls “protectionist behavior.”

Earlier this month Betfair, which launched 12 years ago and operates an exchange system that allows gamblers to bet against each other rather than the bookmaker, withdrew its online sports betting exchange in Germany because of a tax levied on stakes on sports events from July 2012.

The European Commission last month said it was not proposing EU-wide legislation to regulate online gambling.

Prior to Betfair’s decision to withdraw from the market, it had been expected to generate 13 million pounds ($ 20.81 million) of revenue from the Greek market in the current financial year.

($ 1 = 0.6246 British pounds)

(Reporting by Rhys Jones; editing by James Davey)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Rolling Stones mark 50th year with London show

LONDON (AP) — The Rolling Stones made a triumphant return to the London stage on Sunday night in the first of five concerts to mark the 50th anniversary of their debut as an American-oriented blues band.

They showed no signs of wear and tear — except on their aging, heavily lined faces — as frontman Mick Jagger swaggered and strutted through a stellar two-and-a-half hour show. He looked remarkably trim and fit and was in top vocal form.

The Stones passed the half-century mark in style at the sometimes emotional gig that saw former bassist Bill Wyman and guitar master Mick Taylor join their old mates in front of a packed crowd at London's 02 Arena.

It was the first of five mega-shows to mark the passage of 50 years since the band first appeared in a small London pub determined to pay homage to the masters of American blues.

Jagger, in skin-tight black pants, a black shirt and a sparkly tie, took time out from singing to thank the crowd for its loyalty.

"It's amazing that we're still doing this, and it's amazing that you're still buying our records and coming to our shows," he said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Lead guitarist Keith Richards, whose survival has surprised many who thought he would succumb to drugs and drink, was blunter: "We made it," he said. "I'm happy to see you. I'm happy to see anybody."

But the band's fiery music was no joke, fuelled by an incandescent guest appearance by Taylor, who played lead guitar on a stunning extended version of the ominous "Midnight Rambler," and Mary J. Blige, who shook the house in a duet with Jagger on "Gimme Shelter."

The 50th anniversary show, which will be followed by one more in London, then three in the greater New York area, lacked some of the band's customary bravado — the "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band" intro was shelved — and there were some rare nostalgic touches.

Even the famously taciturn Wyman briefly cracked a smile when trading quips with Richards and Ronnie Wood.

The concert started with a brief video tribute from luminaries like Elton John, Iggy Pop and Johnny Depp, who praised the Stones for their audacity and staying power. The Stones' show contained an extended video homage to the American trailblazers who shaped their music: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and others. The montage included rare footage of the young Elvis Presley.

The Stones began their professional career imitating the Americans whose music they cherished, but they quickly developed their own style, spawning hundreds — make that thousands — of imitators who have tried in vain to match their swagger and style.

The concert began with some early Stones' numbers that are rarely heard in concert, including the band's cover of the Lennon-McCartney rocker "I Wanna Be Your Man" and the Stones original "It's All Over Now."

They didn't shy away from their darker numbers, including "Paint It Black" and "Sympathy for the Devil" — Jagger started that one wearing a black, purple-lined faux fur cape that conjured up his late '60s satanic image.

He even cracked a joke about one of the band's low points, telling the audience it was in for a treat: "We're going to play the entire "Satanic Majesty's Request" album now," he said, referring to one of the band's least-loved efforts, a psychedelic travesty that has been largely, mercifully, forgotten.

He didn't make good on his threat.

He also made fun of the sky-high ticket prices, which had exposed the band to some criticism in the London press.

"How are you doing up in the cheap seats," he said, motioning to fans in the upper rows of the cavernous 02 Arena. "Except they're not cheap seats, that's the problem."

But Jagger seemed more mellow than usual, chatting a bit about the good old days and asking if there was anyone in the crowd who had seen them in 1962, when they first took to the stage.

He said 2012 had been a terrific year for Britain and that the Stones nearly missed the boat, playing no role in the celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics, or the new James Bond film.

"We just got in under the wire," he said. "We feel pretty good."

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