FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

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

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Memphis Aims to Be a Friendlier Place for Cyclists

Lance Murphey for The New York Times

The Shelby Farms Greenline, which replaced a Memphis rail line.

MEMPHIS — John Jordan, a 64-year-old condo appraiser here, has been pedaling his cruiser bicycle around town nearly every day, tooling about at lunchtime or zipping to downtown appointments.

“It’s my cholesterol-lowering device,” said Mr. Jordan, clad in a leather vest and wearing a bright white beard. “The problem is, the city needs to educate motorists to not run over” the bicyclists.

Bike-friendly behavior has never come naturally to Memphis, which has long been among the country’s most perilous places for cyclists. In recent years, though, riders have taken to the streets like never before, spurred by a mayor who has worked to change the way residents think about commuting.

Mayor A. C. Wharton Jr., elected in 2009, assumed office a year after Bicycling magazine named Memphis one of the worst cities in America for cyclists, not the first time the city had received such a biking dishonor. But Mr. Wharton spied an opportunity.

In 2008, Memphis had a mile and a half of bike lanes. There are now about 50 miles of dedicated lanes, and about 160 miles when trails and shared roads are included. The bulk of the nearly $1 million investment came from stimulus money and other federal sources, and Shelby County, which includes Memphis, was recently awarded an additional $4.7 million for bike projects.

In June, federal officials awarded Memphis $15 million to turn part of the steel truss Harahan Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River, into a bike and pedestrian crossing. Scheduled to open in about two years, the $30 million project will link downtown Memphis with West Memphis, Ark.

“We need to make biking part of our DNA,” Mr. Wharton said. “I’m trying to build a city for the people who will be running it 5, 10, 15 years from now. And in a region known to some for rigid thinking, the receptivity has been remarkable.”

City planners are using bike lanes as an economic development tool, setting the stage for new stores and enhanced urban vibrancy, said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bike-pedestrian coordinator, a position the mayor created.

“The cycling advocates have been vocal the past 10 years, but nothing ever happened,” Mr. Wagenschutz said. “It took a change of political will to catalyze the movement.”

Memphis, with a population of 650,000, is often cited among the unhealthiest, most crime-ridden and most auto-centric cities in the country. Investments in bicycling are being viewed here as a way to promote healthy habits, community bonds and greater environmental stewardship.

But as city leaders struggle with a sprawling landscape — Memphis covers about the same amount of land as Dallas, yet has half the population — their persistence has run up against another bedeviling factor: merchants and others who are disgruntled about the lanes.

A clash between merchants and bike advocates flared last year after the mayor announced new bike lanes on Madison Avenue, a commercial artery, that would remove two traffic lanes. Many merchants, like Eric Vernon, who runs the Bar-B-Q Shop, feared that removing car lanes would hurt businesses and cause parking confusion. Mr. Vernon said that sales had not fallen significantly since the bike lanes were installed, but that he thought merchants were left out of the process.

On McLean Boulevard, a narrow residential strip where roadside parking was replaced by bike paths, homeowners cried foul. The city reached a compromise with residents in which parking was outlawed during the day but permitted at night, when fewer cyclists were out. Mr. Wagenschutz called the nocturnal arrangement a “Cinderella lane.”

Some residents, however, were not mollified. “I’m not against bike lanes, but we’re isolated because there’s no place to park,” said Carey Potter, 53, a longtime resident who started a petition to reinstate full-time parking.

The changes have been panned by some members of the City Council. Councilman Jim Strickland went as far as to say that the bike signs that dot the streets add “to the blight of our city.”

Tensions aside, the mayor’s office says that the potential economic ripple effect of bike lanes is proof that they are a sound investment.

A study in 2011 by the University of Massachusetts found that building bike lanes created more jobs — about 11 per $1 million spent — than any other type of road project. Several bike shops here have expanded to accommodate new cyclists, including Midtown Bike Company, which recently moved to a location three times the size of its former one. “The new lanes have been great for business,” said the manager, Daniel Duckworth.

Wanda Rushing, a professor at the University of Memphis and an expert on urban change in the South, said bike improvements were of a piece with a development model sweeping the region: bolstering transportation infrastructure and population density in the inner city.

“Memphis is not alone in acknowledging that sprawl is not sustainable,” Dr. Rushing said. “Economic necessity is a pretty good melding substance.”

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Cedd Moses operates some of the hippest bars in downtown L.A.

The gig: Founder and chief executive of the 213 Nightlife Group, which operates some of hippest cocktail lounges in downtown Los Angeles, including Seven Grand Whiskey Bar, the Golden Gopher and the Broadway Bar. The bars owned by Cedd Moses, 52, are typically converted from dilapidated empty buildings. They have contributed to the revitalization of the downtown area and helped promote an emerging craft cocktail culture in Los Angeles. "People thought I was crazy," Moses said. "I was making a good living at the time, but I left to go pour drinks on skid row."

Background: Moses was born in Bristol, Va., a town in the Blue Ridge Highlands of southwestern Virginia on the border with Tennessee. But he was raised in Venice during the burgeoning art scene of the 1960s, and most members of his family are artists. His father is the famous Abstract Expressionist painter Ed Moses, who taught him to be fearless in professional life. "I saw how successful my father was at doing something he loved," Moses said. "I wanted that in my career."

Investments: After graduating from UCLA with degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science, Moses worked as a money manager for Portfolio Advisory Services, a Los Angeles investment management company. Living in Venice in 1996, Moses and a friend from his high school grew tired of running to Hollywood to hit nightspots. "There were no decent bars on the Westside at that time," he said. "They were either complete dive bars or hotel bars that felt too snooty."

First step: Moses and his buddy decided to fix the problem themselves. With $25,000 each, they opened Liquid Kitty in West L.A. Moses refined the bar into what he liked: low-key lighting, robust underground music selection and martinis that nearly knock customers off their bar stools. "Even back then, I wanted a bar that's less trendy and more timeless," Moses said. It was an immediate hit.

The leap: The success of Liquid Kitty enabled Moses to open a lounge in Beverly Hills, a swanky martini spot called C-Bar. He was still working as a money manager but by then he had moved to Silver Lake and began to look eastward. "It felt like the Eastside was more of my home," Moses said. "I went downtown a lot and saw huge potential."

Major cities such as New York and Chicago have sprawling downtown neighborhoods flush with hip nightspots, but downtown Los Angeles was downtrodden and barren, he said. So in 1999, after the city approved the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, Moses set up 213 Nightlife Group with the intention of establishing 10 bars in the downtown area. "I wanted to create downtown as more of destination spot," he said, "Somewhere people could bar hop and go from one place to another."

The payoff: Moses quit his day job and dedicated himself to running his latest venture, the Golden Gopher, a former biker bar with a liquor license that was first issued in 1905. His formula proved true once again. The Golden Gopher has muted lighting, exposed brick and glossy black tile, giving it a gritty dive-bar feel. But the drinks are made from top-shelf liquor, drawing a clientele that can afford them.

Today about 200 people work at the 10 bars and two restaurants that comprise 213 Nightlife Group, which Moses owns with Mark Verge and Eric Needleman.

Word to the wise: "A good bar has to feel like it's been there a while. It has to feel like it's part of the fabric of the neighborhood," Moses said. "If you're gearing toward making something cool, you're probably going to fail."

With Cole's French dip restaurant, Moses took a place that had been housed since 1908 in the basement of the Pacific Electric building, once the nerve center of the Pacific Electric railway network. It had fallen on hard times, but Moses restored the original glass lighting, penny-tile floors and 40-foot mahogany bar to get the place back on its feet. "Seeing a place get restored is a great feeling," he said. "That was part of my vision when we first started."

Spare time: When he's not inside a bar or boardroom, Moses can be found playing squash or at the horse racing track. He's also on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Conservancy and chairman of the American Arts Documentary Foundation, a nonprofit organization that documents contemporary art

Next leap: Moses is taking one of his best-known downtown spots, Seven Grand Whiskey Bar, and expanding the brand. The bar, with its hunting-lodge decor and first-rate whiskey selection, has already opened a location in San Diego. Another one is expected to open at Los Angeles International Airport sometime next year.

"You can't be afraid to take risks," Moses said. "In business in general, you must follow your passion. You'll have a better chance of being successful."

william.hennigan@latimes.com

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Russian ban on U.S. adoptions meant to cast Americans as abusers

Anyone unfamiliar with the hyperbole of post-Cold War politics might be perplexed by Moscow’s move to outlaw American adoption of Russian orphans.

More than 60,000 Russian children once condemned to a hellish institutional life have been brought into U.S. homes over the last two decades, most of them suffering disabilities that would have gone untreated had they been left in the Dickensian orphanages of their homeland. The disabled remain victims of stigma in Russia, while a struggling economy and the Stalin-era brand of orphans being “children of the enemies of the people” continue to dissuade Russians from adopting their own unfortunates.

But Russians’ inability and unwillingness to take care of their legions of unwanted children is nevertheless the source of deep embarrassment and wounded national pride, Russia experts say. And having Americans swooping in and rescuing them by the thousands each year nurtures an inferiority complex that has only deepened since the superpower rivalry purportedly ended with the Soviet Union's 1991 breakup.

Nationalist lawmakers in the State Duma overwhelmingly approved the U.S. adoption ban last week, and the upper house of the legislature passed it unanimously on Wednesday. President Vladimir Putin signed the law Friday, and it will take effect on New Year’s Day.

Putin’s parliamentary allies pushed through the ban by conjuring up an image of American adoptive parents as sinister hunters of transplant organs, child sex slaves and sacrificial soldiers for foreign aggressions, perhaps even against Russia.

Like most good lies, the sickening picture of American motives painted to get the adoption ban passed was built on a morsel of truth. The measure was named the Dima Yakovlev Act, in memory of the Russian-born toddler who died of heatstroke in 2008 when his American adoptive father left him locked in a car for hours.

Dima was one of 19 Russian-born children to die from accidents or neglect after being brought to the United States over a span of more than 15 years, according to the Moscow-based advocacy group Right of the Child. The agency, which opposed the U.S. adoption ban, reports that at least 1,200 accidental or abuse deaths occurred over that same time among children adopted by Russian families.

Russia has about 740,000 children in state care, UNICEF reports, and the United States is the most frequent destination for foreign adoptions, taking in about 3,000 on average each year. Fewer than 7,000 are adopted by Russian families each year, or less than 1% of those dependent on state care, Right of the Child Director Boris Altshuler has calculated.

The U.S. adoption cutoff is widely seen as retaliation for the Magnitsky Act, a bill President Obama signed into law two weeks ago that sanctions Russian officials for alleged human rights abuses. The bill was named for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after being arrested and beaten for blowing the whistle on $230 million in tax graft by Russian police.

Putin bridles at any U.S. allegation of abuse by Russian officials and believes moves to punish his government are part of an elaborate scheme to undermine and dominate Russia, said Steven Fish, a political science professor and Russian expert at UC Berkeley.

The adoption ban is “an asymmetrical move ... and is very much a product of this prickly wounded nationalism,” Fish said. “These kids are now just going to be caught in a system that already can’t take care of them.”

Adoption has always been a sensitive issue in Russia, he said, because having to depend on American largess to provide adequate care for orphans casts the country and its leadership as "weak and poor.”

Letting a few thousand young Russians leave for new lives with U.S. families each year also plays into the nationalist hysteria over Russia’s demographic crisis, Fish added. He blamed rampant alcoholism for Russian men’s persistently low life expectancy as a far larger  contributing factor to the annual population shrinkage of 150,000.

Paul Gregory, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, said  Putin’s followers have churned up public animosity toward U.S. adoptions by resurrecting the Soviet-era propaganda tactic of casting the United States as a dangerous and depraved nation.

“Clearly they want to say that if we’re cracking down on their rights abuses that it’s even worse in the United States. They come up with rather ridiculous cases of cross burnings, and bombings of Jewish synagogues and civil rights abuses to prove that the Magnitsky death in prison was nothing bad at all compared to what goes on here,”  Gregory said. “What they fail to mention is that the persecution and prosecution of Magnitsky was done by the Russian government, whereas these unfortunate actions in the United States were done by fringe groups or crazies.”

The Magnitsky Act bars any Russian official associated with the lawyer’s treatment or with other alleged rights abuses from travel to the United States or access to its financial institutions.

The Russian political leadership’s overreaction to the Magnitsky censure, Gregory said, shows that it has yet to overcome its terrible history under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin of mistreating the children of political opponents. 

"Putin's not going to shed a tear over it," Gregory said of the 1,500 pending U.S. adoptions likely to be blocked by the new law. "He’s going to look at this ban as a weapon in his arsenal of retaliations for the Magnitsky Act, something we can see is really causing those in the leadership some pain.”

ALSO:

Putin inclined to sign U.S. adoptions ban

Attack on Afghanistan police post kills 4

Nelson Mandela home from hospital but still under medical care

A foreign correspondent for 25 years, Carol J. Williams traveled to and reported from more than 80 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

carol.williams@latimes.com

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Katie Holmes' Broadway play 'Dead Accounts' closes

NEW YORK (AP) — Katie Holmes' return to Broadway will be much shorter than she would have liked.

The former Mrs. Cruise's play "Dead Accounts" will close within a week of the new year. Producers said Thursday that Theresa Rebeck's drama will close on Jan. 6 after 27 previews and 44 performances.

The show, which opened to poor reviews on Nov. 29, stars Norbert Leo Butz as Holmes' onstage brother who returns to his Midwest home with a secret. Rebeck created the first season of NBC's "Smash" and several well-received plays including "Seminar" and "Mauritius."

Holmes, who became a star in the teen soap opera "Dawson's Creek," made her Broadway debut in the 2008 production of "All My Sons." She was married to Tom Cruise from 2006 until this year.

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Online: http://www.deadaccountsonbroadway.com

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The New Old Age Blog: United States Lags in Alzheimer's Support

This month, the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report examining how five nations — the United States, Australia, France, Japan and Britain — are responding to growing numbers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Every country has a strategy, but some are much further ahead than others. Notably, France began addressing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in 2001 and is in the midst of carrying out its third national plan. (Scroll down at this link to find the English version of the 2008-2012 French plan.)

By contrast, the United States released its first national plan to address Alzheimer’s in May.

The Senate report highlights several trends under way in all five countries, including efforts to coordinate research more effectively, diagnose Alzheimer’s disease more reliably and improve training in dementia care by medical practitioners.

Most relevant to readers of this blog is another trend with increasing international scope: an accelerating effort to keep patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia at home and arrange for care and treatment there, rather than in institutions.

Anyone who’s followed reader response to Jane Brody’s column this week on aging in place knows the burden that this can place on families, especially if government support for home-based services (companions or home health aides who help with bathing, dressing, toileting and other tasks), adult day care or respite care is scarce or nonexistent, as is the case for most middle-class families in the United States.

Is care at home for patients with Alzheimer’s necessarily more humane? Only if caregivers have the resources — financial, physical and emotional — to handle this draining, exhausting, immeasurably difficult job. And only if the institutions that serve people with more advanced forms of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia are so poorly financed, staffed and operated that we wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving loved ones in their care.

Three charts in the new Senate report underscore the extent to which the United States differs from other countries in what is expected of family caregivers. The first, on Page 60, shows countries’ support for paid long-term care services for residents age 65 and older. This includes all residents who need long-term care, including those with Alzheimer’s disease, other forms of dementia and other disabling chronic illnesses. Not included are services provided by unpaid family caregivers.

Look at where the United States ranks compared with Australia, Japan, France and the 30 other developed countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Paid support for long-term care is much less in our country than in theirs.

The second chart, on Page 64, gives a sense of how much paid support for long-term care is provided in people’s homes. Again, the data is not specific to Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, although these are primary reasons older adults need long-term care.

And again, the United States falls short in terms of the amount of paid care it provides in home settings, even though older people tend to prefer these settings over institutions.

The third chart, on Page 75, brings results in the other two down to the level of families. When paid long-term care support is scarce or unavailable, you would expect a heavier load to fall on unpaid caregivers, and this is what the chart shows. Look at the number of caregivers in the United States who put in 10 to 19 hours a week (34.2 percent) or 20 hours or more a week (30.5 percent), and compare those with similar figures for France, Australia and Britain, all of which provide more paid long-term care than we do. Where are informal caregivers working the hardest? Right here at home in the United States.

For me, the take-away is clear. Other countries with which the United States is closely aligned have embraced long-term care as an essential social responsibility while we have not. Unless and until we do so, caregivers here will be among the most harried, stressed and burdened among wealthy, developed countries in the world.

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China becoming mighty oak of world's paper industry

JIN JILING, China — In silent, temperature-controlled labs in a desolate part of Hainan, China's most tropical province, rows of women in medical masks and lab coats clone trees that grow freakishly fast.

The trees have official names, such as APP-22 or DH32-29, but Wending Huang, Asia Pulp & Paper Co.'s chief forester in China, calls them his "Yao Mings" after the towering Chinese basketball star. The tiny green tissue samples, methodically implanted in petri jars, will become hardwood eucalyptus trees that need only four to six years to reach full height, up to 90 feet or more.

The test-tube forests have helped undo the long-standing natural advantage of papermaking states such as Wisconsin, where hardwood trees are plentiful but can take up to 10 times as long to reach harvesting height.

What's more, boosted by billions in government subsidies, China has been building massive new mills with automated machines that can produce a mile of glossy publishing-grade paper a minute.

Over the course of the last decade, China tripled its paper production and in 2009 overtook the United States as the world's biggest papermaker. It can now match the annual output of Wisconsin, America's top papermaking state, in the span of three weeks.

China also created the world's biggest and most efficient paper recycling scheme. It now buys about 27 million tons of scrap paper and used cardboard from around the world each year, then de-inks and re-pulps it for about two-thirds of its own paper and cardboard production.

But that is still not enough — for China's needs or its ambition.

China imports the vast majority of virgin timber and processed pulp from around the world — 14.5 million tons last year from places like Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam. That has earned the ire of environmental groups, which say China's insatiable appetite for wood pulp is destroying the world's forests. It has drawn the fire of politicians who accuse China of unfairly subsidizing its mills and dumping paper on the U.S. market, putting domestic operations out of business and an entire industry at risk.

With 20 modern mega-mills spread across China, Indonesia-based Asia Pulp & Paper is at the center of the accusations.

It is an unusual place to find a guy from Wisconsin.

Jeff Lindsay, 52, is a 20-year veteran of that state's paper industry who was recruited by Asia Pulp & Paper in 2011 to run its growing portfolio of patents.

He holds a doctorate in chemical engineering, was on the faculty of the now-defunct Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton, Wis., and later joined Kimberly-Clark Corp., which gave the world Kleenex. He holds 130 patents and co-authored a 2009 book, "Conquering Innovation Fatigue," which took aim at barriers to U.S. innovation.

He noted that paper was invented in China (AD 105) and remains a potent national symbol. It is taught in Chinese classrooms as one of the four "great inventions," along with the compass (200 BC), gunpowder (AD 850) and printing presses with movable type (1313).

"These inventions came from China," Lindsay said. "When people go pointing their finger at the Chinese paper industry or saying we shouldn't be buying paper from China — paper came from China."

The West, he says, is in denial about the competitive edge offered by Chinese science, engineering and ingenuity. "You have to innovate to survive in this world," he said.

A heavy infusion of government money helped fund innovation. The Washington-based Economic Policy Institute estimates that the Chinese government doled out at least $33 billion in subsidies to its paper industry from 2002 to 2009 — the period that coincides with its stunning growth.

Schmid writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Emily Yount contributed to this report.

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Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day

Title Post: Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

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DC police investigating 'Meet the Press' incident

WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia police say they are investigating an incident in which NBC News reporter David Gregory displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine on "Meet the Press."

Police spokesman Tisha Gant said Wednesday the department is investigating whether Gregory may have violated D.C. firearms laws that ban the possession of high-capacity magazines. She declined to comment further.

While interviewing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday's program, Gregory held an object, apparently as a prop to make a point, and said it was a magazine that could hold 30 rounds.

High-capacity ammunition magazines are banned in the District of Columbia, regardless of whether they're attached to a firearm. "Meet the Press" is generally taped in Washington.

An email seeking comment from NBC was not immediately returned.

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Creating the Ultimate Housework Workout

Robert Wright for The New York Times

Chris Ely, an English butler, and Carol Johnson, a fitness instructor at Crunch NYC, perfecting a houseworkout.

CAN housework help you live longer? A New York Times blog post by Gretchen Reynolds last month cited research linking vigorous activity, including housework, and longevity. The study, which tracked the death rates of British civil servants, was the latest in a flurry of scientific reports crediting domestic chores with health benefits like a lowered risk for breast and colon cancers. In one piquant study published in 2009, researchers found that couples who spent more hours on housework had sex more frequently (with each other) though presumably not while vacuuming. (The report did not specify.)

Intrigued by science that merged the efforts of a Martha with the results of an Arnold (a buffer buffer?), this reporter challenged a household expert and a fitness authority to create the ultimate housework workout — a houseworkout — in her East Village apartment. Perhaps she could add a few years to her own life while learning some fancy new moves for her Swiffer. Christopher Ely, once a footman at Buckingham Palace, and Brooke Astor’s longtime butler, was appointed cleaner-in-chief. Mr. Ely is a man who approaches what the professionals call household management with the range and depth of an Oxford don. Although he is working on his memoirs (he described his book as a room-by-room primer with anecdotes from his years in service), he was happy enough to put his writing aside for an afternoon. His collaborator was Carol Johnson, a dancer and fitness instructor who develops classes at Crunch NYC, including those based on Broadway musicals like “Legally Blonde” and “Rock of Ages.”

Mr. Ely arrived first, beautifully dressed in dark gray wool pants, a black suit coat and a crisp white shirt with silver cuff links. He cleans house in a white shirt? “I know how to clean it,” he countered, meaning the shirt. When Ms. Johnson appeared (in black spandex and a ruffly white chiffon blouse, which she switched out for a Crunch T-shirt), theory, method and materials were discussed.

“If you’re dreading the laundry,” Ms. Johnson said, “why not create a space where it’s actually fun to do by putting on some music?” If fitness is defined by cardio health, she added, it will be a challenge to create housework that leaves you slightly out of breath. “I’m thinking interval training,” she said. As it happens, one trend in exercise has been workouts that are inspired by real-world chores, or what Rob Morea, a high-end Manhattan trainer, described the other day as “mimicking hard labor activities.” In his NoHo studio, Mr. Morea has clients simulate the actions of construction workers hefting cement bags over their shoulders (Mr. Morea uses sand bags) or pushing a wheelbarrow or chopping wood.

Mr. Ely averred that service — extreme housekeeping — is physically demanding, with sore feet and bad knees the least of its debilitating byproducts. Mr. Ely still suffers from an injury he incurred while carrying a poodle to its mistress over icy front steps in Washington When the inevitable occurred, and Mr. Ely wiped out, he threw the dog to his employer before falling hard on his backside. And the right equipment matters: After two weeks’ employ in an Upper East Side penthouse, he was handed a pair of Reeboks by his new boss, the better to withstand the apartment’s wall-to-wall granite floors. (For cleaning, Mr. Ely wears slippers, deck shoes or socks.)

Mr. Ely, whose talents and expertise are wide-ranging (he can stock a wine cellar, do the flowers, set a silver service, iron like a maestro and clean gutters, as he did once or twice at Holly Hill, Mrs. Astor’s Westchester estate), is a minimalist when it comes to materials. He favors any simple dish detergent as a multipurpose cleaner, along with a little vinegar, for glass, and not much else. “Dish detergent is designed for cutting grease; there’s nothing better,” he said. He’s anti-ammonia, anti-bleach. He said bleach destroys fabric, particularly anything with elastic in it. “Knickers and bleach are a terrible combination,” he said. “I had a boss who thought he had skin cancer. His entire trunk had turned red and itchy.” It seems his underpants were being washed in bleach. (Collective wince.) “It’s horrible stuff.”

As for tools, he likes a cobweb cleaner — this reporter had bought Oxo’s extendable duster, which has a fluffy orange cotton duster that snaps onto a sort of wand, but Mr. Ely prefers the kind that looks like a round chimney brush. (If you live in a house, he also suggests leaving the cobwebs by the front and back doors, so the spiders can eat any mosquitoes coming or going.) Choose a mop with microfiber fronds (he suggested the O Cedar brand) because it dries quickly and doesn’t smell. And a sturdy vacuum. Also, stacks of microfiber cloths or a terry cloth towel ripped up.

But first, to stretch. Ms. Johnson took hold of this reporter’s Bona floor mop (it’s like a Swiffer, but with a reusable washcloth) and Mr. Ely followed along with an old-fashioned string mop. Though Mr. Ely has a kind of loose-limbed elegance, he is not exactly limber. He grimaced as he parroted Ms. Johnson, who used her mop as Gene Kelly did his umbrella, stretching her arms overhead, one by one, twisting from side to side, sucking in her stomach, rising up on tip toes. (Mr. Ely said his old poodle-hurling injury was kicking in.) Ms. Johnson adjusted his chin — “You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep sticking your neck out,” she warned — and Mr. Ely raised a black-socked foot napped with cat hair and chastised this reporter: “Would you look at that?” (The cat had vanished early on, but his “debris,” as Mr. Ely put it, was still very much in evidence. The reporter hung her head. Did she know that cat spit is toxic? Mr. Ely wondered.)

“We’re warming up the spine,” said Ms. Johnson. “Squeeze your abdominals.”

Mr. Ely looked worried: “I don’t think I have abdominals!”

MR. ELY’S technique is to clean a room from top to bottom. That means he begins with the cobweb cleaner, wafting it along ceiling corners, moldings, soffits and, uh, the top of the fridge (major dust harvest there). His form was pretty, like a serve by Roger Federer, if not exactly aerobic. For Mr. Ely kept stopping to lecture this reporter — on condensation; on the basic principles of heat transfer and why one needs to vacuum the refrigerator coils; on the movement of moist air in a kitchen; on floor care, which involved a long story about a Belgian monastery whose inhabitants never washed the kitchen floor; on how to dust the halogen spot lights (use a cotton cloth, not a microfiber one, and make sure the lights are off, and cool).  “I do rabbit on, don’t I?” he said. Ms. Johnson gamely hustled him along, noting that anytime you raise your arms over your head you can raise your heart rate. “What about a balance exercise?” she cajoled, executing a neat series of leg lifts. “That’s good for the butler’s booty!”

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