Hackers target Western news organizations in China

More than 30 journalists and executives at Western news organizations in China, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, have had their computers hacked, according to the news organizations and a security firm that monitors such attacks.

Over the last four months, the hackers managed to infiltrate the Times' computers, the newspaper reported Thursday. It said hackers had penetrated its computers and obtained passwords for reporters and other employees.

The hackers have been blocked and security tightened to prevent another attack, which followed an investigation by the paper into finances of relatives of Wen Jiabao, China's premier.

Mandiant Corp., a security firm brought into the case by the Times, said it found that hackers using techniques associated with the Chinese military stole emails, contacts and files from 30 journalists and executives and maintained a short list of journalists whose accounts have been repeatedly attacked.

That finding, first reported in the New York Times, was part of a December report that was expected to be made public soon, a Mandiant spokeswoman said Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal said that it too had been targeted by Chinese hackers.

Paula Keve, spokeswoman for the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones & Co., said: "Evidence shows that infiltration efforts target the monitoring of the Journal's coverage of China, and are not an attempt to gain commercial advantage or to misappropriate customer information."

Bloomberg News was targeted as well — after it published an article June 29 about the wealth of relatives of Xi Jinping, the current general secretary of the Communist Party and the person expected to become president in March. No computer breach took place.

"Our security was not compromised," Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg, said Thursday.

"Newspapers and journalists are high-value targets," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International studies. "They have really good sources, and they don't publish everything."

But they are just one target in many. Cyber-security experts say the United States has become increasingly vulnerable to foreign hackers who could target the nation's power grid, gas pipelines and other crucial infrastructure.

Those same hackers routinely and aggressively break into a wide range of corporate America's computers, including those of oil and financial companies.

Yet corporations have blocked legislation on Capitol Hill that would require higher standards to protect against breaches, saying it would be too costly and burdensome.

The full extent of how deeply hackers have penetrated into corporate America is not known. Companies are usually reluctant to talk publicly about attacks or to share information with the government.

"We know that every Fortune 500 company has had a problem, and probably every Fortune 1,000 company has had a problem too," Lewis said.

High-profile attacks like the ones that targeted Internet search giant Google Inc. three years ago may make it seem as if computer networks in the U.S. are under rising attack, but Lewis said networks are just under "sustained" attack.

"It's as bad as it can be. What's happening is that people are noticing it. That's a big change," Lewis said. "Four years ago nobody could spell cyber-security. Now everyone's waking up to the fact that the networks we depend on are totally insecure."

Cybersecurity experts said they are optimistic that the U.S. government is developing a cyber arsenal capable of repelling attacks.

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, said the Defense Department has a growing ability to defend against sophisticated attacks — to protect crucial infrastructure and the Defense Department itself. It also has developed a "cyber offense," the ability to "project power" and to carry out sophisticated attacks itself, Paller said.

The hackers routed their attacks through computers at U.S. universities, according to the New York Times. Hackers installed malicious software that allowed them to enter the newspaper's computers. The software, known as malware, was "identified by computer security experts as a specific strain associated with computer attacks originating in China," the newspaper said.

Chinese officials denied they were responsible.

"Chinese laws prohibit any action including hacking that damages Internet security," China's Ministry of National Defense told the New York Times. It added: "To accuse the Chinese military of launching cyber attacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless."

Eileen M. Murphy, the Times' vice president for corporate communications, said Thursday the newspaper stood by the story.

michael.muskal@latimes.com

jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Man behind Manti Te'o hoax wants to 'heal'

The 22-year-old Palmdale man who created Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend broke his silence for the first time, saying he perpetrated the elaborate hoax to build a relationship with the football star.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo pretended to be Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, for months, communicating on the phone and through social media. Tuiasosopo went so far as to disguise his voice to sound like a woman's when he spoke to Te'o on the phone, his attorney, Milton Grimes, said in an interview with The Times.

Grimes said his client decided to come clean about the hoax in an attempt to "heal."

"He knows that if he doesn't come out and tell the truth, it will interfere with him getting out of this place that he is in," Grimes said.

TV talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw, who spoke with Tuiasosopo for an interview set to air this week, described the 22-year-old as "a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love" with Te'o. McGraw, speaking on the "Today" show, said he asked Tuiasosopo about his sexuality, and Tuiasosopo said he was "confused."

In a short clip of the "Dr. Phil" interview, Tuiasosopo told McGraw that he wanted to end his relationship with Te'o because he "finally realized that I just had to move on with my life."

"There were many times where Manti and Lennay had broken up before," Tuiasosopo said. "They would break up, and then something would bring them back together, whether it was something going on in his life or in Lennay's life — in this case, in my life."

Tuiasosopo's comments add another twist to a story so bizarre that reporters from across the country have converged on Tuiasosopo's home in the Antelope Valley. News of the hoax was first reported earlier this month on the website Deadspin.com.

Tuiasosopo, the report said, was the mastermind behind the hoax and used photos from an old high school classmate and social media to connect Kekua with Te'o.

During the college football season, Te'o repeatedly spoke to the media, including The Times, about his girlfriend, the car accident that left her seriously injured and the leukemia that led to her September death. The tale became one of the most well-known sports stories of the year as Te'o led his team to an undefeated season and championship berth.

Te'o has denied any role in the ruse, saying he spent hours on the phone with a woman he thought was Kekua.

Those who know Tuiasosopo said they were baffled when they first learned of his involvement in the hoax. Neighbors and former high school coaches described him as popular, faith-driven and family-oriented.

"I've done a lot of thinking about it," Jon Fleming, Tuiasosopo's former football coach at Antelope Valley High, said in the days after the ruse was revealed. "It's all speculation. He's goofy just like any other kid. The question that comes up in my mind is: 'What could he possibly gain from doing something like this?' It would really surprise me. What would he gain?"

Te'o said in an interview with ESPN that Tuiasosopo called to apologize for the hoax.

"I hope he learns," Te'o said. "I hope he understands what he's done. I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough."

Diane O'Meara, the Long Beach woman whose photos were used to represent the fake girlfriend, said in an interview with The Times that Tuiasosopo was a high school classmate.

She said he repeatedly asked her for photos and videos of herself.

O'Meara, 23, said that during a six-day period in December, Tuiasosopo contacted her through social media, texting and phone calls about 10 times, asking her to send a photo of herself. Then, after she sent the photo, in part to "get this guy off my back," she said Tuiasosopo messaged her asking for a video clip or another photo.

By that time, his requests were "kind of annoying, kind of pestering," O'Meara said.

Tuiasosopo is seeing a medical professional and "feels as though he needs therapy," Grimes said.

"Part of that therapy is to … tell the truth," he added. "He did not intend to harm [Te'o] in any way. It was just a matter of trying to have a communication with someone."

Grimes said he warned his client that he could face legal consequences for admitting that he falsified his identity on the Internet. But Tuiasosopo insisted that going public was something he had to do.

"This is part of my public healing," Grimes quoted Tuiasosopo as saying.

matt.stevens@latimes.com

ann.simmons@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

Times staff writers Kevin Baxter and Lance Pugmire contributed to this report.

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Nintendo chief rules out price cuts for Wii U

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo‘s president Thursday ruled out price cuts for its new Wii U home console as a way to boost sales, vowing to become profitable again in its core businesses as smartphones and tablets increasingly threaten specialized game machines.

Satoru Iwata, speaking at a Tokyo hotel to investors and reporters a day after earnings were released, acknowledged the sales momentum for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS hand-held game machine, had run out of steam during the key year-end shopping season, especially in the U.S.

But he said no price cuts were in the works. Price cuts are common in the gaming industry to woo buyers, but the move can backfire by trimming revenue. The Wii U now sells for about $ 300 in the U.S. and 25,000 yen in Japan.

“We are already offering it at a good price,” he said.

Iwata said he expects operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 2014, promising that as “a commitment.”

But he acknowledged more work was needed to have consumers understand the Wii U, which went on sale globally late last year, as well as producing more game software to draw buyers.

All game machines have suffered in recent years from the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices that have become more sophisticated and offer games and other forms of entertainment.

Nintendo returned to net profit for the April-December period of 2012 from deep losses the previous year, but that was due to a perk from a weaker yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Nintendo.

Its operating result, which removes currency fluctuations, was a loss of 5.86 billion yen ($ 64 million), and Nintendo expects that to swell to a 20 billion yen ($ 220 million) loss for the full business year ending March 2013 as sales of its game consoles fall short of expectations.

Iwata said Nintendo is preparing more game software, including those developed in-house, for the end of this year.

Kyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, lowered its full year sales forecast Wednesday to 670 billion yen ($ 7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($ 8.9 billion). It also said it was going to sell fewer Wii U consoles for the fiscal year through March than its previous projection. The Wii U has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii.

The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.

Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.

Iwata said last year holiday sales quickly dissipated in the U.S. and some European nations, including Great Britain, the key market. He said the U.S. home console sales were the worst for Nintendo in nearly a decade.

He said Nintendo needs hit games to push console sales, and the company remains confident Wii U will prove more popular with time.

“The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,” he said of the need for both game software and machine hardware.

“I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business,” said Iwata.

He declined to say what he would do if the company failed to attain the promised operating profits.

Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. That machine is also struggling in most global markets.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famed game designer, said what was missing were games for the Wii U that made its appeal clear. The progress in smartphones has also posed a challenge for Nintendo, he said.

“People have to try it to see it is fun,” Miyamoto said of Wii U.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

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Patty Andrews of Andrews Sisters rallied troops

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patty Andrews never served in the military, but she and her singing sisters certainly supported the troops.

During World War II, they hawked war bonds, entertained soldiers overseas and boosted morale on the home-front with tunes like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" and "I Can Dream, Can't I?"

Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio, died Wednesday at 94 of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement.

"When I was a kid, I only had two records and one of them was the Andrews Sisters. They were remarkable. Their sound, so pure," said Bette Midler, who had a hit cover of "Bugle Boy" in 1973. "Everything they did for our nation was more than we could have asked for. This is the last of the trio, and I hope the trumpets ushering (Patty) into heaven with her sisters are playing 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.'"

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time" with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" in 1937 and continuing with "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar," ''Rum and Coca-Cola" and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records.

Other sisters, notably the Boswells, had become famous as singing acts, but mostly they huddled before a microphone in close harmony. The Andrews Sisters — LaVerne, Maxene and Patty — added a new dimension. During breaks in their singing, they cavorted about the stage in rhythm to the music.

Their voices combined with perfect synergy. As Patty remarked in 1971: "There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene's was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts."

Kathy Daris of the singing Lennon Sisters recalled on Facebook late Wednesday that the Andrews Sisters "were the first singing sister act that we tried to copy. We loved their rendition of songs, their high spirit, their fabulous harmony."

The Andrews Sisters' rise coincided with the advent of swing music, and their style fit perfectly into the new craze. They aimed at reproducing the sound of three harmonizing trumpets.

Unlike other singing acts, the sisters recorded with popular bands of the '40s, fitting neatly into the styles of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Guy Lombardo, Desi Arnaz and Russ Morgan. They sang dozens of songs on records with Bing Crosby, including the million-seller "Don't Fence Me In." They also recorded with Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Danny Kaye, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Red Foley.

The Andrews' popularity led to a contract with Universal Pictures, where they made a dozen low-budget musical comedies between 1940 and 1944. In 1947, they appeared in "The Road to Rio" with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

The trio continued until LaVerne's death in 1967. By that time the close harmony had turned to discord, and the sisters had been openly feuding.

Midler's cover of "Bugle Boy" revived interest in the trio. The two survivors joined in 1974 for a Broadway show, "Over Here!" It ran for more than a year, but disputes with the producers led to the cancellation of the national tour of the show, and the sisters did not perform together again.

Patty continued on her own, finding success in Las Vegas and on TV variety shows. Her sister also toured solo until her death in 1995.

Her father, Peter Andrews, was a Greek immigrant who anglicized his name of Andreus when he arrived in America; his wife, Olga, was a Norwegian with a love of music. LaVerne was born in 1911, Maxine (later Maxene) in 1916, Patricia (later Patty, sometimes Patti) in 1918.

All three sisters were born and raised in the Minneapolis area.

Listening to the Boswell Sisters on radio, LaVerne played the piano and taught her sisters to sing in harmony; neither Maxene nor Patty ever learned to read music. All three studied singers at the vaudeville house near their father's restaurant. As their skills developed, they moved from amateur shows to vaudeville and singing with bands.

After Peter Andrews moved the family to New York in 1937, his wife, Olga, sought singing dates for the girls. They were often turned down with comments such as: "They sing too loud and they move too much." Olga persisted, and the sisters sang on radio with a hotel band at $15 a week. The broadcasts landed them a contract with Decca Records.

They recorded a few songs, and then came "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," an old Yiddish song for which Sammy Cahn and Saul Kaplan wrote English lyrics. (The title means, "To Me You Are Beautiful.") It was a smash hit, and the Andrews Sisters were launched into the bigtime.

In 1947, Patty married Martin Melcher, an agent who represented the sisters as well as Doris Day, then at the beginning of her film career. Patty divorced Melcher in 1949 and soon he became Day's husband, manager and producer.

Patty married Walter Weschler, pianist for the sisters, in 1952. He became their manager and demanded more pay for himself and for Patty. The two other sisters rebelled, and their differences with Patty became public. Lawsuits were filed between the two camps.

Patty Andrews is survived by her foster daughter, Pam DuBois, a niece and several cousins. Weschler died in 2010.

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.

I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common in menopausal women. I can always find my car in the parking lot, although lots of “normal” folk can’t.

Rather, I suddenly can’t remember the name of someone with whom I’ve worked for years. I cover by saying “sir” or “madam” like the Southerner I am, even though I live in Vermont and grown people here don’t use such terms. Better to think I’m quirky than losing my faculties. Sometimes I’ll send myself an e-mail to-do reminder and then, seconds later, find myself thrilled to see a new entry pop into my inbox. Oops, it’s from me. Worse yet, a massage therapist kicked me out of her practice for missing three appointments. I didn’t recall making any of them. There must another Nancy.

Am I losing track of me?

Equally worrisome are the memories increasingly coming to the fore. Magically, these random recollections manage to circumnavigate my imagined build-up of beta-amyloid en route to delivering vivid images of my father’s first steps down his path of forgetting. He was the same age I am now, which is 46.

“How old are you?” I recall him asking me back then. Some years later, he began calling me every Dec. 28 to say, “Happy birthday,” instead of on the correct date, Dec. 27. The 28th had been his grandmother’s birthday.

The chasms were small at first. Explainable. Dismissible. When he crossed the street without looking both ways, we chalked it up to his well-cultivated, absent-minded professor persona. But the chasms grew into sinkholes, and eventually quicksand. When we took him to get new pants one day, he kept trying on the same ones he wore to the store.

“I like these slacks,” he’d say, over and over again, as he repeatedly pulled his pair up and down.

My dad died of Alzheimer’s last April at age 73 — the same age at which his father succumbed to the same disease. My dad ended up choosing neurology as his profession after witnessing the very beginning of his own dad’s forgetting.

Decades later, grandfather’s atrophied brain found its way into a jar on my father’s office desk. Was it meant to be an ever-present reminder of Alzheimer’s effect? Or was it a crystal ball sent to warn of genetic fate? My father the doctor never said, nor did he ever mention, that it was his father’s gray matter floating in that pool of formaldehyde.

Using the jarred brain as a teaching tool, my dad showed my 8-year-old self the difference between frontal and temporal lobes. He also pointed out how brains with Alzheimer’s disease become smaller, and how wide grooves develop in the cerebral cortex. But only after his death — and my mother’s confession about whose brain occupied that jar — did I figure out that my father was quite literally demonstrating how this disease runs through our heads.

Has my forgetting begun?

I called my dad’s neurologist. To find out if I was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have to look for proteins in my blood or spinal fluid and employ expensive neuroimaging tests. If he found any indication of onset, the only option would be experimental trials.

But documented confirmation of a diseased brain would break my still hopeful heart. I’d walk around with the scarlet letter “A” etched on the inside of my forehead — obstructing how I view every situation instead of the intermittent clouding I currently experience.

“You’re still grieving your father,” the doctor said at the end of our call. “Sadness and depression affect the memory, too. Let’s wait and see.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that two people at my father’s funeral made some insensitive remarks.

“Nancy, you must be scared to death.”

“Is it hard knowing the same thing probably will happen to you?”

Maybe the real question is what to do when the forgetting begins. My dad started taking 70 supplements a day in hopes of saving his mind. He begged me to kill him if he wound up like his father. He retired from his practice and spent all day in a chair doing puzzles. He stopped making new memories in an all-out effort to preserve the ones he already had.

Maybe his approach wasn’t the answer.

Just before his death — his brain a fraction of its former self — my father managed to offer up a final lesson. I was visiting him in the memory-care center when he got a strange look on his face. I figured it was gas. But then his eyes lit up and a big grin overtook him, and he looked right at me and said, “Funny how things turn out.”

An unforgettable moment?

I can only hope.

---

Nancy Stearns Bercaw is a writer in Vermont. Her book, “Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory,” will be published in April 2013 by Broadstone.

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Avery Dennison to sell business units for $500 million

Avery Dennison Corp. has agreed to sell two of its businesses for $500 million in cash to CCL Industries Inc., a Canadian maker of specialty packaging, the Pasadena company said.

The proposed sale announced Wednesday comes three months after Minnesota-based 3M abandoned its plans to purchase Avery Dennison's office and consumer products unit. The U.S. Department of Justice had opposed that deal because of antitrust concerns.

Now, Toronto-based CCL has agreed to acquire the unit, which had sales of $730 million in 2012. The division's products include Hi-Liters and Marks-A-Lot markers as well as binders. CCL also agreed to acquire Avery's designed and engineered solutions division, which makes pressure-sensitive labels for packaging and posted 2012 sales of $180 million.

"CCL is one of our largest customers, and we have a long-standing relationship with them," said Avery Dennison Chief Executive Dean A. Scarborough. "We are pleased that they will become the steward of the Avery brand for office products."

Quiz: How much do you know about California's economy?

The transaction, expected to close this year if approved by regulators, would be CCL's largest acquisition.

"This acquisition has the potential to transform our company at many levels," said Geoffrey Martin, chief executive of CCL.

Avery Dennison on Wednesday also reported fourth-quarter net income of $49 million, or 48 cents a share, up from $22.2 million, or 21 cents, a year earlier. Excluding certain items, earnings were 54 cents a share compared with the 48 cents expected by analysts. Sales rose 5.3% to $1.53 billion.

Avery Dennison shares rose $2.30, or 6.4%, to $38.44.

ricardo.lopez2@latimes.com

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South Korea successfully launches satellite into orbit

SEOUL -- In danger of falling behind in the space race on the Korean peninsula, Seoul announced Wednesday it had successfully launched a rocket into space.

Pressure had been mounting ever since mid-December when Communist archrival, North Korea, managed to launch a multi-stage rocket and put a satellite into orbit.

South Korea's Satellite Launch Vehicle-1, which is also known as Naro, blasted off at 4 p.m. local time from a space center in Jeolla province on the Southwestern coast.

"Five hundred forty seconds after the launch, Naro successfully separated the satellite," South Korean Science and Technology Minister Lee Joo-ho said at a press briefing Wednesday. "After analyzing various data we have confirmed that [the satellite] has been successfully put into orbit." 

South Korean officials said the launch made them the 13th country to get a satellite into orbit from their own territory. Iran on Monday announced as well that it had launched a live monkey into space using its own technology.

The sky was clear and the weather had warmed up on Wednesday afternoon at the space center, where some 3,000 people had gathered to observe their country’s latest attempt to launch Naro. The crowd excitedly cheered and waved the national flag during the countdown.

Two previous attempts to launch the space vehicle in 2009 and 2010 ended in failures. The third attempt was to take place in October, but it was delayed due to damaged rubber seal that caused a fuel leak. The next try came in November, but it was canceled seventeen minutes before the rocket was fired off due to a technical glitch.

The failures looked all the more embarrassing after North Korea's, with an economy less than one-twentieth the size of South Korea's, successful launch on Dec. 12 of the Unha-3 rocket. What North Koreans have dubbed "peaceful satellite launch" was a part of the legacy of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il who passed away in December 2011.

The international community condemned North Korea as their rocket launch was suspected to be a cover for a test of ballistic missile technology.

Lee Sang-ryul, a South Korean scientist with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said the launches seven weeks apart were not comparable because the South Korean objective was purely scientific.

"The exterior of Unha-3 and Naro seems to be very much alike. It is about the same weight, the shapes are similar, and the fact that it puts a satellite in the orbit is the same. However, I believe North Korea's purpose is not to develop a satellite launch vehicle but a weapons development," South Korean television quoted Lee as saying Wednesday.

North Korea said earlier this month it would also conduct a nuclear test and that "the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire...are targeted at the United States, the arch enemy of the Korean people."

Independent scientists say that the North Korean satellite was not a complete success because the transmitter failed during the launch, but that it achieved a reasonably accurate orbit.

"Most countries when they launch their first satellite, don't get too close," said with Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a recent interview. However, he added that South Koreans shouldn't feel that North Korea has beaten them.

"It is difficult, but it is basically high-tech plumbing," said McDowell. "It is not as sophisticated as creating the industrial base to make a Samsung monitor."

South Korea's Naro space program began in 2002 with the help of Russian technology.  The South had so far sent about ten satellites into space, but they were all launched from foreign rockets overseas.

--Barbara Demick is reporting from Beijing.

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RIM to debut new BlackBerry smartphones in a heavily hyped unveiling

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Following several delays and much anticipation, the new BlackBerry smartphones will be unveiled this morning in New York.

Research In Motion (TSX:RIM), the company behind the once dominant smartphones, is holding a splashy event in Manhattan to usher in the new devices, which were originally due for release last year.

The debut is expected to showcase the device as well as provide key launch details.

That will likely include its release date, which is expected in the next four to six weeks, the phone’s features and how much it will cost.

The company says the new BlackBerry will be released first in a touchscreen version, while a keypad alternative will follow in the weeks or months afterward.

The new phone launch is RIM’s attempt to regain its position in the highly competitive North American and European smartphone markets, which are now dominated by iPhone and Android devices.

While the first hurdles to overcome are the opinions of tech analysts and investor reaction, the true measure of success — actual sales of the phones — is still weeks away.

The BlackBerry has dramatically lost marketshare in recent years after a series of blunders.

Several network outages left customers without the use of the smartphones they had come to rely on, while the BlackBerry’s hardware hasn’t received a significant upgrade in years.

RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins has already offered a glimpse of some features on the new devices. They include BlackBerry Balance technology, which allows one phone to operate as both a business and personal device entirely separate from each other.

The new BlackBerry will also let users seamlessly shift between the phone’s applications like they’re flipping between pages on a desk.

In the coming weeks, RIM will launch an advertising blitz to promote the phones, including aggressive social media campaigning, which includes plugs from celebrities on their Twitter accounts, and a 30-second advertisement on the Super Bowl, the most watched television program of the year.

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Actor Jason London arrested after Ariz. bar fight

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities say actor Jason London has been arrested on suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct after an Arizona bar fight.

Scottsdale police say London allegedly sneezed on a man who then asked him to apologize, but London refused and instead hit the man in the face.

The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/VoULau ) says the two men were escorted out of the bar, but London began pushing and cursing at firefighters trying to treat him and appeared extremely drunk. He was arrested early Monday.

London's Twitter account says "some guy thought I was hitting on his girl" and that several large bouncers beat him, breaking bones in his face. London added, "the truth will win" and "I hate Arizona."

London is best known for the 1993 movie "Dazed and Confused."

___

Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com

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The New Old Age Blog: For Some Caregivers, the Trauma Lingers

Recently, I spoke at length to a physician who seems to have suffered a form of post-traumatic stress after her mother’s final illness.

There is little research on this topic, which suggests that it is overlooked or discounted. But several experts acknowledge that psychological trauma of this sort does exist.

Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and author of “The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers” (The Guilford Press, 2006), often sees caregivers who struggle with intrusive thoughts and memories months and even years after a loved one has died.

“Many people find themselves unable to stop thinking about the suffering they witnessed, which is so powerfully seared into their brains that they cannot push it away,” Dr. Jacobs said.

Flashbacks are a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, along with feelings of numbness, anxiety, guilt, dread, depression, irritability, apathy, tension and more. Though one symptom or several do not prove that such a condition exists — that’s up to an expert to determine — these issues are a “very common problem for caregivers,” Dr. Jacobs said.

Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, a professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine who treats many caregivers, said there was little evidence that caregiving on its own caused post-traumatic stress. But if someone is vulnerable for another reason — perhaps a tragedy experienced earlier in life — this kind of response might be activated.

“When something happens that the individual perceives and reacts to as a tremendous stressor, that can intensify and bring back to the forefront of consciousness memories that were traumatic,” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said. “It’s more an exacerbation of an already existing vulnerability.”

Dr. Judy Stone, the physician who was willing to share her mother’s end-of-life experience and her powerful reaction to it, fits that definition in spades.

Both of Dr. Stone’s Hungarian parents were Holocaust survivors: her mother, Magdus, called Maggie by family and friends, had been sent to Auschwitz; her father, Miki, to Dachau. The two married before World War II, after Maggie left her small village, moved to the city and became a corset maker in Miki’s shop.

Death cast a long shadow over the family. During the war, Maggie’s first baby died of exposure while she was confined for a time to the Debrecen ghetto. After the war, the family moved to the United States, where they worked to recover a sense of normalcy and Miki worked as a maker of orthopedic appliances. Then he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 50.

“None of us recovered from that,” said Dr. Stone, who traces her interest in medicine and her lifelong interest in fighting for social justice to her parents and trips she made with her father to visit his clients.

Decades passed, as Dr. Stone operated an infectious disease practice in Cumberland, Md., and raised her own family.

In her old age, Maggie, who her daughter describes as “tough, stubborn, strong,” developed macular degeneration, bad arthritis and emphysema — a result of a smoking habit she started just after the war and never gave up. Still, she lived alone, accepting no help until she reached the age of 92.

Then, in late 2007, respiratory failure set in, causing the old woman to be admitted to the hospital, then rehabilitation, then assisted living, then another hospital. Maggie had made her preferences absolutely clear to her daughter, who had medical power of attorney: doctors were to pursue every intervention needed to keep her alive.

Yet one doctor sent her from a rehabilitation center to the hospital during respiratory crisis with instructions that she was not to be resuscitated — despite her express wishes. Fortunately, the hospital called Dr. Stone and the order was reversed.

“You have to be ever vigilant,” Dr. Stone said when asked what advice she would give to families. “You can’t assume that anything, be it a D.N.R. or allergies or medication orders, have been communicated correctly.”

Other mistakes were made in various settings: There were times that Dr. Stone’s mother had not received necessary oxygen, was without an inhaler she needed for respiratory distress, was denied water or ice chips to moisten her mouth, or received an antibiotic that can cause hallucinations in older people, despite Dr. Stone’s request that this not happen. “People didn’t listen,” she said. “The lack of communication was horrible.”

It was a daily fight to protect her mother and make sure she got what she needed, and “frankly, if I hadn’t been a doctor, I think I would have been thrown out of there,” she said.

In the end, when it became clear that death was inevitable, Maggie finally agreed to be taken off a respirator. But rather than immediately arrange for palliative measures, doctors arranged for a brief trial to see if she could breathe on her own.

“They didn’t give her enough morphine to suppress her agony,” Dr. Stone recalled.

Five years have passed since her mother died, and “I still have nightmares about her being tortured,” the doctor said. “I’ve never been able to overcome the feeling that I failed her — I let her down. It wasn’t her dying that is so upsetting, it was how she died and the unnecessary suffering at the end.”

Dr. Stone had specialized in treating infectious diseases and often saw patients who were critically ill in intensive care. But after her mother died, “I just could not do it,” she said. “I couldn’t see people die. I couldn’t step foot in the I.C.U. for a long, long time.”

Today, she works part time seeing patients with infectious diseases on an as-needed basis in various places — a job she calls “rent a doc” — and blogs for Scientific American about medical ethics. “I tilt at windmills,” she said, describing her current occupations.

Most important to her is trying to change problems in the health system that failed her mother and failed her as well. But Dr. Stone has a sense of despair about that: it is too big an issue, too hard to tackle.

I’m grateful to her for sharing her story so that other caregivers who may have experienced overwhelming emotional reactions that feel like post-traumatic stress realize they are not alone.

It is important to note that both Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Gallagher-Thompson report successfully treating caregivers beset by overwhelming stress. It is hard work and it takes time, but they say recovery is possible. I’ll give a sense of treatment options they and others recommend in another post.

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