When home security salesman comes knocking, beware

Door-to-door sellers of home alarm systems are required by the state to have passed a criminal background check and have been licensed by the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. (Robert F. Bukaty, Associated Press / December 2, 2012)

By Scott J. Wilson, Los Angeles Times

December 2, 2012

If someone comes to your door selling home security systems, be wary: They could be breaking the law and they could be trying to scam you, according to the state Department of Consumer Affairs. Key things to know:

• Anyone selling home alarm systems door-to-door in California is required to have passed a criminal background check and have been licensed by the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. But in reality, warned the consumer agency, many sellers have done neither. Before listening to the pitch, ask to see the salesperson's state registration card.

• Beware of pressure to sign a contract immediately. Homeowners are sometimes pushed to sign overpriced alarm contracts that last for as long as five years, automatically roll over to a new term and give limited opportunity to cancel, the department said. Some contracts stipulate an early termination fee of several thousand dollars.

• In one scam, a salesperson finds a home with an alarm company sign or sticker and claims to be there to replace or upgrade the system. Or the salesperson may tell you that your company has gone out of business and he or she represents the new company. In both cases, state officials said, you will be told you must sign a new contract.

• Note that legitimate alarm companies also sometimes go door to door. "The challenge for the homeowner who answers the front door is to be certain the salesperson represents a reputable company and is not a scam artist," the department said. Call (800) 952-5210 to check whether a business or person is licensed and see whether any complaints have been filed.

• State law gives you a three-day window after signing to cancel a home security contract and get your money back. Deliver your cancellation letter in person or send it by certified mail. To lodge a complaint against an alarm company, visit http://www.bsis.ca.gov and click on "File a Complaint."

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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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