India Executes Man Tied to 2001 Attack on Parliament

MUMBAI — India on Saturday hanged a man who was convicted of a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament that killed nine people.

The hanging of Afzal Guru, a 43-year-old militant with the group Jaish-e-Mohammad, came more than a decade after the Dec. 13, 2001, suicide attack on India’s Parliament in which five gunmen opened fire, killing nine people, including security officials and a journalist. The execution drew protests from human rights groups concerned about the growing use of capital punishment in such cases.

Mr. Guru was convicted of conspiracy in the plot and sentenced to death by a special court in 2002. In 2004, the Supreme Court of India upheld the death sentence.

After the execution, clashes broke out in Mr. Guru’s hometown Sopore, in the northern part of the Kashmir, and police and paramilitary units were called to restore order. Days before the execution, President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected a mercy plea by Mr. Guru’s wife, according to reports from The Press Trust of India, paving the way for Mr. Guru’s hanging in the Tihar Jail complex, officials said.

The clashes in Mr. Guru’s hometown after his death came despite the region in Kashmir being placed under strict curfew in the anticipation of trouble from separatist leaders, according to reports. Authorities in the Srinagar asked citizens to remain indoors. They also closed the national highway for one day.

Omar Abdullah, the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, appealed for peace and calm.

“I understand there is certain degree of angst and there are some people who would like to take advantage of the situation,” Mr. Abdullah said. “I appeal to the people to allow us to get through this with peace and not to restore to violent protests.”

Congress Party officials said that the execution was a sign that India would not tolerate acts of terror.

“Anybody committing any acts of terror will be punished,” a Congress Party spokesman, Rashid Alvi, said. “People of our country and government have zero tolerance for terrorism.”

But the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party criticized the government’s delay in carrying out the execution.

“The attack on the Indian Parliament happened in 2001, that is 12 years ago, which was an attack on India,” the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said.

On Nov. 21, 2012, India hanged Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman from the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, ending an eight-year moratorium on the death penalty and drawing criticism from rights groups, which they reiterated Saturday.

“The hanging of Afzal Guru, following closely behind the hanging of Ajmal Kasab in November, shows a very worrying trend by the Indian government,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment.”

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Minka Kelly: 'I'm Not Worthy' of Acting with Oprah

By Jennifer Cress

02/08/2013 at 07:40 PM EST

Minka Kelly as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Pacific Coast News

It's intimidating enough to play Jackie O, but Minka Kelly felt even more pressure to perform when she found out who was joining the cast of her latest film, The Butler.

"I'm not worthy. I feel so lucky and grateful. I was like, 'What am I doing here?!' " Kelly tells PEOPLE of starring alongside Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker, John Cusack, Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda and more in the upcoming film, which tells the story of a butler who served eight presidents.

The movie also features another major star: the one and only Oprah Winfrey. "I didn't get to meet Oprah because our shooting schedules were different, but she's a pretty loved lady," Kelly says. "I have yet to hear a bad thing about her!"

Kelly found that the most difficult part of playing Jackie Kennedy was nailing the former first lady's distinct accent. "I think she spoke in a way she thought she should speak, so getting that down was hard. There's a musicality and rhythm to the way she speaks," Kelly explains. "I went to sleep listening to her."

Another tough task? Slipping into the retro costumes. "My body is so different from her because I have curves, so fitting into those vintage clothes was actually really hard," she shares. "Also it was hot – and there was a lot of wool!"

Jennifer Graylock / Getty

But Kelly had no issue slipping into the stunning Oscar de la Renta gown (left) she strutted down the runway in at the Red Dress Collection fashion show in N.Y.C. on Wednesday night. The actress walked for the second year in a row in honor of The Heart Truth campaign, which encourages women to monitor their heart health.

For the month of February, Diet Coke will donate $1 for every person who uploads a heart-inspired photo to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #showyourheart. Visit to dietcoke.com/showyourheart for more information.

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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State fires contractor on tech project

SACRAMENTO – The state has fired the contractor on one of its biggest and most troubled technology projects after deep problems with the system were revealed.

The decision to terminate the contract Friday stalls the costly effort to overhaul an outdated and unstable computer network that issues paychecks and handles medical benefits for 240,000 state employees. The $371-million upgrade, known as the 21st Century Project, has fallen years behind schedule and tripled in cost.

The state has already spent at least $254 million on the project, paying more than $50 million of that to the contractor, SAP Public Services. The company was hired three years ago after the job sputtered in the hands of a previous contractor, BearingPoint.

But when SAP's program was tested last summer, it made errors at more than 100 times the rate of the aging system the state has been struggling to replace, according to state officials.

"It would be totally irresponsible to move forward," said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the California controller.

The Times highlighted problems with the state's 21st Century Project in December, soon after officials sent a letter to SAP saying the overhaul was "in danger of collapsing."

During a trial run involving 1,300 employees, Roper said, some paychecks went to the wrong person for the wrong amount. The system canceled some medical coverage and sent child-support payments to the wrong beneficiaries.

Roper said the state also had to pay $50,000 in penalties because money was sent to retirement accounts incorrectly.

"State employees and their families were in harm's way," he said. "Taxpayers were in harm's way."

The controller's office, which oversees the upgrade, will try to recoup the money paid to SAP, Roper said. Meanwhile, officials will conduct an autopsy on the system to determine what can be salvaged.

And Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) called for a hearing to examine how so much money could be spent on the project with "apparently little to show for it."

A spokesman for SAP, Andy Kendzie, said the company was "extremely disappointed" that the controller terminated the contract.

"SAP stands behind our software and actions," Kendzie said in a statement. "SAP also believes we have satisfied all contractual obligations in this project."

Kendzie did not directly address the controller's concerns about errors during testing, nor did he say whether the company would fight any state effort to recover the $50 million.

Other California entities have struggled with SAP's work.

A $95-million plan to upgrade the Los Angeles Unified School District's payroll system with SAP software became a disaster in 2007, when some teachers were paid too much and others weren't paid at all.

More recently, Marin County officials decided to scrap their SAP-developed computer system, saying it never worked right and cost too much to maintain.

Both of those projects were managed by Deloitte Consulting.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

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India Ink: Power Outage at Delhi Airport Affects Flights

An electrical power failure at the Indian capital’s main airport disrupted the radar system on Friday, delaying some flights.

“There was a power failure,” which was rectified quickly, said Harbhajan Singh, the public relations officer of the Airports Authority of India.

He explained that the Indira Gandhi International Airport has a three-tier system for electricity so when the power went out, the airport switched from the main supply to one of its two standby sources. The Airports Authority said in a statement that the power supply switched over from 12:21 p.m. to 12:31 p.m., but travelers reported experiencing much longer delays.

The power failure affected the servers that control the radar system, said Arun Mishra, director general of Civil Aviation, the regulatory body for airlines.

Mr. Mishra said the servers were affected for about 30 minutes in the morning, starting from about 6:50 a.m.

The Airports Authority of India denied in a statement that the radar system had failed, saying that flight arrivals had continued normally, although a few departures were delayed.

A spokesman from Air India said that four of the national air carrier’s flights were delayed by 10 minutes because of the radar problem.

Two New York Times reporters aboard an Allahabad-bound flight operated by the domestic airline Spicejet had to wait for an hour and a half on the runway before the plane took off from the Delhi airport.

The same airport last month handled 73 flights within an hour, which is believed to be a record for an Indian airport, according to a Press Trust of India report.

Spokespersons at the ministries of Civil Aviation and Home Affairs said that they had no immediate information about the power failure.

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American Idol: Early Favorites Eliminated in Hollywood

TV Watch

American Idol

By Steve Helling

02/07/2013 at 10:30 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

Michael Becker/FOX.

At the beginning of Thursday's American Idol, there were 43 men left in the competition. The next hour was a bloodbath, with many tears and a few tantrums – as well as some standout performances. Curtis Finch Jr., for example, performed a version of Christina Perri's "Jar Of Hearts" that was arguably the strongest of the evening. It may be the season's most overdone song, yet Finch successfully infused it with a rising gospel vibe.

Like every reality show, the contestants learned valuable life lessons as they fought to stay in the game. Here are five:

1. Never Let Them See You Sweat
Paul Jolley looked like he was going to throw up when he took the stage. "I'm so nervous," he said as he fought back tears. The judges watched quietly as he pulled himself together and gave a strong performance of Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away." He advanced, but not before Nicki Minaj criticized him for showing his nerves. "You walked out so defeated and that really irritated me," she said. "Just give us one minute of professionalism."

2. Be Funny and Unexpected
Admit it: It was kind of funny watching Gurpreet Singh Sarin nail "Georgia On My Mind." The judges liked him, perhaps because he doesn't fit any mold. Neither does Charlie Askew, who worked his quirky awkwardness into an intriguing version of Gotye's "Somebody that I Used To Know," complete with a spoken-word intro. "I am obsessed with you," Minaj said, prompting Askew to respond, "Baby, I could say the same thing." She ate it up.

3. Too Much of A Good Thing Can Be Lethal
Matheus Fernandes, one of the standouts from the Los Angeles auditions, was eliminated after a shaky rendition of Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger." The 4'9" contestant made one too many self-depreciating comments about his height, prompting Minaj to say, "Sometimes things can go from being inspiring to becoming you wanting a pity party." When Carey called him a "good person," his face said it all – Fernandes knew he wouldn't be advancing to the next round. In contrast, Lazaro Arbos said nary a word about his stutter, yet he advanced easily, despite an unspectacular rendition of Lady Gaga's "Edge of Glory."

4. If You Lose, Lose Gracefully
The night's "Sour Grapes Award" goes to Papa Peachez, who performed a karaoke-worthy version of Gaga's "Yoü and I." Minaj was unimpressed. "I'm so disappointed," she said. "I don't know why you chose that song." After he was eliminated, Peachez decided he didn't want to win American Idol, after all. "This isn't the competition for me," he said. "I just don't like singing other people's songs."

5. Big Risks Can Reap Big Rewards
Nick Boddington was eliminated in Las Vegas last season, so he came back determined to take some risks. He accompanied himself on the piano while singing Grace Potter's "Stars." It was a strong performance that the judges loved.

After the dust settled, 28 contestants remained. The judges corralled them onto the stage and announced that they would eliminate eight more male contestants next week, after the ladies' auditions.

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Big Bear locked down amid manhunt

The bustling winter resort of Big Bear took on the appearance of a ghost town Thursday as surveillance aircraft buzzed overhead and police in tactical gear and carrying rifles patrolled mountain roads in convoys of SUVs, while others stood guard along major intersections.

Even before authorities had confirmed that the torched pickup truck discovered on a quiet forest road belonged to suspected gunman Christopher Dorner, 33, officials had ordered an emergency lockdown of local businesses, homes and the town's popular ski resorts. Parents were told to pick up their children from school, as rolling yellow buses might pose a target to an unpredictable fugitive on the run.

By nightfall, many residents had barricaded their doors as they prepared for a long, anxious evening.

PHOTOS: A tense manhunt amid tragic deaths

"We're all just stressed," said Andrea Burtons as she stocked up on provisions at a convenience store. "I have to go pick up my brother and get him home where we're safe."

Police ordered the lockdown about 9:30 a.m. as authorities throughout Southern California launched an immense manhunt for the former lawman, who is accused of killing three people as part of a long-standing grudge against the LAPD. Dorner is believed to have penned a long, angry manifesto on Facebook saying that he was unfairly fired from the force and was now seeking vengeance.

Forest lands surrounding Big Bear Lake are cross-hatched with fire roads and trails leading in all directions, and the snow-capped mountains can provide both cover and extreme challenges to a fugitive on foot. It was unclear whether Dorner was prepared for such rugged terrain.

Footprints were found leading from Dorner's burned pickup truck into the snow off Forest Road 2N10 and Club View Drive in Big Bear Lake.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said that although authorities had deployed 125 officers for tracking and door-to-door searches, officers had to be mindful that the suspect may have set a trap.

"Certainly. There's always that concern and we're extremely careful and we're worried about this individual," McMahon said. "We're taking every precaution we can."

PHOTOS: A fugitive's life on Facebook

Big Bear has roughly 400 homes, but authorities guessed that only 40% are occupied year-round.

The search will probably play out with the backdrop of a winter storm that is expected to hit the area after midnight.

Up to 6 inches of snow could blanket local mountains, the National Weather Service said.

Gusts up to 50 mph could hit the region, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Moede, creating a wind-chill factor of 15 to 20 degrees.

Extra patrols were brought in to check vehicles coming and going from Big Bear, McMahon said, but no vehicles had been reported stolen.

"He could be anywhere at this point," McMahon said. When asked if the burned truck was a possible diversion, McMahon replied: "Anything's possible."

Dorner had no known connection to the area, authorities said.

Craig and Christine Winnegar, of Murrieta, found themselves caught up in the lockdown by accident. Craig brought his wife to Big Bear as a surprise to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. Their prearranged dinner was canceled when restaurant owners closed their doors out of fear.

"It's definitely scary," Christine Winnegar said.

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India Ink: Economic Growth in India to Fall to Five Percent

India’s Gross Domestic Product is expected to drop significantly to 5 percent for the fiscal year ending in March 2013, according to advance estimates released by India’s Central Statistics Office on Thursday, declining from 6.2 percent growth rate seen in 2011-2012.

The estimate by the Central Statistics Office represents a marked drop from earlier growth projections issued by the government for this year. In January, the central bank projected G.D.P. growth of 5.5 percent for the current fiscal year, a decline from an earlier estimate of 5.8 percent.

The provisional estimates are contingent upon the “anticipated level of agricultural and industrial production, analysis of budget estimates of government expenditure and performance of key sectors like, railways, transport other than railways, communication, banking and insurance, available so far,” the report said.

According to the preliminary data released on Thursday, national income registered a growth rate of 4.2 percent in the current fiscal year as compared to 6.1 percent in the previous year, and per capita income grew at a rate of 2.9 percent as compared to 4.7 percent growth last year. Meanwhile, capital investment in the country is expected to drop to 2.48 percent from 4.39 percent in the previous year.

Slow growth may be attributed to the sluggish performance of the manufacturing, agriculture and services sector. The manufacturing sector is expected to grow by 1.9 percent this year, while India’s farm sector is projected to grow at an estimated 1.8 percent.

The services sector saw a decline in its growth rate from previous years, expanding by 6.6 percent, the lowest in over a decade. Other sectors that are expected to have performed relatively poorly include electricity, gas & water supply (4.9 percent growth) and mining and quarrying (0.4 percent growth).

Sectors that have performed relatively well with a growth rate of over 5 percent are construction, the trade, hotels, transport and communication sector, the financing, insurance, real estate and business services sector, and the community, social and personal services sector.

As India prepares to for a national election in 2014, slowing economic growth is putting pressure on the current government to push for reform. The projection of 5 percent GDP growth is the lowest figure since 2002-2003 when the GDP grew at 4 percent, after which the Indian economy has grown at an average of 6 percent each year.

This year, the government has taken measures to rein in the fiscal deficit to 5.3 percent of  GDP, has raised the price of fertilizer and diesel, and has allowed further foreign investment in the retail sector by opening up the insurance, pension and aviation sectors for foreign investment. On Jan. 29, India’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate for the first time in nine months to fuel higher growth.

If India continues on the reform path, analysts believe that strong growth will resume in the coming year.

“The government’s advance estimates for real GDP growth at 4.9% is disappointing, especially coming on the back of a downward revision in growth for FY2012 from 6.5 percent to 6.2 percent,” said Ms. Bhupali Gursale, an economist at Angel Broking. “On a positive note though, with the government pushing ahead its reform agenda, the outlook for growth in FY2014 is likely to improve.”

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Bethenny Frankel's 'Happy' Night Out in N.Y.C.

Caught in the Act

02/07/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Bethenny Frankel

Justin Steffman/Splash News Online

It's business as usual for Bethenny Frankel.

The reality TV star stepped out for dinner at Indochine in New York on Monday night.

Dressed all in black, the "very chic"-looking Skinnygirl mogul dined at a table in the center of the restaurant with a gentleman around 8 p.m.

But although the evening "didn't look romantic," an onlooker tells PEOPLE, Frankel, who recently separated from husband Jason Hoppy, "did look refreshed and happy to be out and about."

As Frankel and her companion – a middle-aged balding man – enjoyed their meals, the pair was "deep in conversation that looked fairly serious," the source adds. "She seemed very focused on whatever they were discussing."

– Jennifer Garcia

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New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Village mourns latest victim of runaway tour bus crash

MOUNTAIN HOME VILLAGE — Smoke from the warm fire inside Fred Richardson's home hung in the mountain air outside his house Wednesday, masking the heartbreak inside and throughout the tiny creekside town where he lived for seven decades.

His son, Steve, grieved silently on the front porch. Along with the wind sifting through the pines and sycamores, the only other sound came from traffic winding down the mountain highway just a few blocks away — the same highway that took his father's life.

Richardson, 72, was driving to his home in the San Bernardino Mountains on Sunday evening, after wrapping up a landscaping job in Yucaipa, when an out-of-control tour bus traveling down California 38 from Big Bear smashed into his Ford pickup truck.

Richardson clung to life until Wednesday morning, when he died of massive head and chest trauma. He was the eighth fatality resulting from the horrific crash, which killed seven bus passengers.

"We're all still struggling," his son said before turning to go inside with the rest of the family.

Down the street, Richardson's older sister, Jan Fagerstedt, shared her fondest memories. Since he was a toddler, her little brother loved to fish for rainbow trout in the nearby creeks. He was a church deacon. He delivered firewood to homebound neighbors, and once helped save the town from a raging flood.

"He was the most warm-hearted man you'd ever met," she said, pausing to gather strength. "He lived a life. He lived a good moral life.... I miss my brother so."

The night of the deadly crash, Fagerstedt was outside gathering kindling when she heard commotion on the highway less than 100 feet from her home.

"I heard this terrible loud honking. I jumped. And I went in and told my husband, 'You know, I think we have a runaway truck,' " she recalled. "But it had to be that bus. A little while later that accident happened. So that bus went by here, and I heard it. And I thought, 'I hope nobody's in the way.' "

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and California Highway Patrol on Wednesday began a "full mechanical breakdown" of the tour bus and other vehicles involved in Sunday's crash. Investigators continue to pore over maintenance records and interview employees of the bus company, Scapadas Magicas in National City, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.

The investigation will focus heavily on the brakes and other mechanical equipment of a bus that has a history of safety violations, including faulty brakes.

CHP spokesman Mario Lopez said the bus driver, Norberto Perez, has been released from the hospital. The 52-year-old San Ysidro man has not been charged in connection with the accident, Lopez said.

The tour bus left Tijuana early Sunday with 38 passengers, including children, and was returning from the ski resort town of Big Bear Lake when the driver lost control on the sweeping, downhill bends of the mountain road. The bus clipped a sedan and then flipped, ejecting passengers, before hitting Richardson's pickup truck.

News of Richardson's death Wednesday overwhelmed his hometown. Fewer than 100 families live amid the narrow snaking roads of Mountain Home Village, a town hidden in the folds of the San Bernardino Mountains. Some homes, Richardson's among them, were hand-crafted with stones hauled up from nearby Mountain Home Creek.

California 38 used to wind right through town. And it has brought heartache to the Richardson family before.

In the 1960s, Fred Richardson's 4-year-old niece was struck and killed by a passing car after she stepped out of the town market. Another niece, Beaumont City Councilwoman Brenda Knight, was with her cousin when it happened.

"It just doesn't seem fair that a family should suffer so," she said.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ari Bloomekatz contributed to this report.

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Ipswich Journal: Paul Mason Is One-Third the Man He Used to Be

Paul Nixon Photography

Paul Mason in 2012, two years after gastric bypass surgery stripped him of the unofficial title of “the world’s fattest man.”

IPSWICH, England — Who knows what the worst moment was for Paul Mason — there were so many awful milestones, as he grew fatter and fatter — but a good bet might be when he became too vast to leave his room. To get him to the hospital for a hernia operation, the local fire department had to knock down a wall and extricate him with a forklift.

That was nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Mason weighed about 980 pounds, and the spectacle made him the object of fascinated horror, a freak-show exhibit. The British news media, which likes a superlative, appointed him “the world’s fattest man.”

Now the narrative has shifted to one of redemption and second chances. Since a gastric bypass operation in 2010, Mr. Mason, 52 years old and 6-foot-4, has lost nearly two-thirds of his body weight, putting him at about 336 pounds — still obese, but within the realm of plausibility. He is talking about starting a jewelry business.

“My meals are a lot different now than they used to be,” Mr. Mason said during a recent interview in his one-story apartment in a cheerful public housing complex here. For one thing, he no longer eats around the clock. “Food is a necessity, but now I don’t let it control my life anymore,” he said.

But the road to a new life is uphill and paved with sharp objects. When he answered the door, Mr. Mason did not walk; he glided in an electric wheelchair.

And though Mr. Mason looks perfectly normal from the chest up, horrible vestiges of his past stick to him, literally, in the form of a huge mass of loose skin choking him like a straitjacket. Folds and folds of it encircle his torso and sit on his lap, like an unwanted package someone has set there; more folds encase his legs. All told, he reckons, the excess weighs more than 100 pounds.

As he waits to see if anyone will agree to perform the complex operation to remove the skin, Mr. Mason has plenty of time to ponder how he got to where he is. He was born in Ipswich and had a childhood marked by two things, he says: the verbal and physical abuse of his father, a military policeman turned security guard; and three years of sexual abuse, starting when he was 6, by a relative in her 20s who lived in the house and shared his bed. He told no one until decades later.

After he left school, Mr. Mason took a job as a postal worker and became engaged to a woman more than 20 years older than him. “I thought it would be for life, but she just turned around one day and said, ‘No, I don’t want to see you anymore — goodbye,’ ” he said.

His father died, and he returned home to care for his arthritic mother, who was in a wheelchair. “I still had all these things going around in my head from my childhood,” he said. “Food replaced the love I didn’t get from my parents.” When he left the Royal Mail in 1986, he said, he weighed 364 pounds.

Then things spun out of control. Mr. Mason tried to eat himself into oblivion. He spent every available penny of his and his mother’s social security checks on food. He stopped paying the mortgage. The bank repossessed their house, and the council found them a smaller place to live. All the while, he ate the way a locust eats — indiscriminately, voraciously, ingesting perhaps 20,000 calories a day. First he could no longer manage the stairs; then he could no longer get out of his room. He stayed in bed, on and off, for most of the last decade.

Social service workers did everything for him, including changing his incontinence pads. A network of local convenience stores and fast-food restaurants kept the food coming nonstop — burgers, french fries, fish and chips, even about $22 worth of chocolate bars a day.

“They didn’t deliver bags of crisps,” he said of potato chips. “They delivered cartons.”

His life became a cycle: eat, doze, eat, eat, eat. “You didn’t sleep a normal sleep,” he said. “You’d be awake most of the night eating and snacking. You totally forgot about everything else. You lose all your dignity, all your self-respect. It all goes, and all you focus on is getting your next fix.”

He added, “It was quite a lonely time, really.”

He got infections a lot and was transported to the hospital — first in a laundry van, then on the back of a truck and finally on the forklift. For 18 months after a hernia operation in 2003, he lived in the hospital and in an old people’s home — where he was not allowed to leave his room — while the local government found him a house that could accommodate all the special equipment he needed.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 6, 2013

The headline on an earlier version of this article misstated Paul Mason’s current weight relative to what he weighed nearly a decade ago. He is now about one-third, not two-thirds, the weight he was then.

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Snoop Dogg Gets the Party Started with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence

Caught in the Act

02/06/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence, inset: Snoop Lion (Dogg)

Valerie Goodloe/PictureGroup; Frederick M. Brown/Getty

Guess the "O" in "O.G." stands for Oscar.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence both attended the Hollywood Reporter's Nominees' Night 2013 at Spago in Beverly Hills on Monday.

It was a low-key affair at first, with Affleck holding court in a central area of the soiree, where he was animated while chatting with people and seemed excited and genuinely happy.

The Argo star and director, looking handsome in a suit, also obliged guests who approached him for photos.

Lawrence was spotted embracing her Silver Linings Playbook costar Julia Stiles. "You're so stunning!" Stiles told Lawrence just before taking a snapshot together.

As the evening continued, it was clear that Lawrence was the darling of event. Fellow guests were going up and telling her she is beautiful and they're so proud of her and Lawrence was ever the gracious guest, chatting with anyone who approached her.

But it wasn't until Snoop Lion (Dogg) arrived, who went by the deejay name Snoopadelic, that the party really went into full gear. After a lengthy intro that included a clip-filled video, Snoop emerged, gave an intro of his own – he praised Argo and shouted for Affleck to come take a photo with him before the night's end – and began playing an eclectic mix of songs, which included everything from Pat Benatar to 2 Chainz.

– Dahvi Shira

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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California high court seems inclined to uphold bans on pot shops

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court appeared inclined Tuesday to uphold municipal bans against medical marijuana dispensaries.

Meeting for oral arguments, the state high court considered the legality of a ban on dispensaries by the city of Riverside. Several justices noted that the state Constitution gives cities wide policing power over land use and suggested that the state's medical marijuana laws have not undercut that authority.

"The Legislature knows how to say 'Thou Shall Not Ban Dispensaries,' " Justice Ming W. Chin said. "They didn't say that."

The court's ruling, due in 90 days, will determine the fate of about 200 local bans on cannabis dispensaries. If the justices uphold the bans, more such measures are anticipated. Medical marijuana advocates said that outcome would force tens of thousands of patients to drive long distances or resort to the black market.

But the justices appeared more focused on the regulatory rights of cities than on patient access to cannabis.

Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said she viewed the case as a test of the "authority historically invested in municipalities" over land use.

J. David Nick, representing a dispensary, argued that municipalities could regulate, but not prohibit, an activity the state has permitted. He said the goal of the medical marijuana laws was to provide for uniformity from county to county.

"You can pass local laws, but they have to be consistent" with the state laws intended to make medical marijuana available, Nick told the court during the televised hearing.

Justice Marvin R. Baxter seemed skeptical.

"If the Legislature wanted to prevent localities from banning the dispensaries, why didn't it say so expressly?" he asked.

Justice Goodwin Liu noted that state medical marijuana laws provided limited immunity from state sanctions, not from local rules. The laws' "language doesn't seem to get you very far," Liu told the dispensary attorney.

Some justices suggested that the Legislature might not have legal authority to prevent cities from banning dispensaries through zoning.

Justice Carol A. Corrigan noted that the California Constitution confers on local governments the right to police their borders. "It is not for the Legislature to try to retract that which it does not confer," she said.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard appeared to agree. She said municipalities had a "preexisting power" to regulate land use that is independent of the state's medical cannabis laws.

But Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar observed that local bans on dispensaries might thwart the intent of the medical marijuana laws. Although the Legislature has given cities the right to regulate dispensaries, it was "debatable" whether regulation means outright prohibitions, she said.

Even considering Werdegar's remarks, Los Angeles Special Assistant City Atty. Jane Usher said the court seemed headed for a unanimous decision in favor of permitting bans. Usher said Los Angeles does not plan to introduce any new regulations until voters consider three medical marijuana measures on the May ballot.

Joe Elford, chief legal counsel for a medical marijuana advocacy group, said he was disappointed that the hearing failed to elicit much concern for patients.

"I didn't really feel like the patients' voices were heard," he said. He agreed that the court was likely to give municipalities discretion to ban dispensaries but expressed hope that the ruling would otherwise affirm their legality.

"I am hopeful the court will let them know it is a discretion, not an obligation, and they can do the right thing if they chose," Elford said.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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India Ink: The Mumbai/New York Photo Project: Meet the 'Wallas'

While much has changed in New York and Mumbai over the past 50 years, the bazaar, or the marketplace, is still the center of commercial activity for both these cities.

In both these cities, the commercial capitals of their respective nations, you can get almost anything you want, at any time, day or night – as long as you know the right person to procure it, or “walla” in India. And in both cities, sometimes these wallas drive a hard bargain. In this edition of the Mumbai/New York photo project, Nisha Sondhe documents some of these marketplaces where products and services range from the brilliant to the bizarre.

In Mumbai, the wholesale flower market in Dadar, where one can buy flowers brought in from all over Maharashtra and Gujarat, opens each morning at 4:30 and closes at 8 p.m. The market, under the overpass next to Dadar station, is a window into India’s thriving flower trade. The Chelsea flower district, a century-old institution in Manhattan, is hub for unusual flowers, exotic plants, vases and garden accessories. This market opens at 5 a.m. and is also best visited early in the day, when the produce is the freshest.

Crawford Market, established in 1869 by the first municipal commissioner of Mumbai, Arthur Crawford, is still the best place for wholesale bargains in the city.

The market, which is now called the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market, was in danger of being demolished a few years ago but was saved thanks to the efforts of conservationists. While the market is traditionally meant for wholesale fruit and vegetable trading, these days many stores are stocked with foreign goods like Camay soap, Kraft cheese, Fa deodorant or a pack of Pampers diapers.

Change is also under way at New York’s Chelsea Market, which specializes in gourmet food and is housed in a collection of industrial buildings that once was home to the National Biscuit Company, or Nabisco. In November, the owner of Chelsea Market, Jamestown Properties, an acquisition and management firm based in Cologne, Germany, and Atlanta, ignited public outrage when the city approved plans to add office towers to the landmark structure. Construction on the towers is scheduled to begin in 2015.

The market, which attracts approximately 120,000 visitors a week, sells products ranging from fine foods and baked goods, to books, flowers and kitchen accessories.

Dhobi Ghat, a famous open-air laundry where dhobis (washerfolk) wash and dry clothes in full view of the public, is a source of much fascination for visitors to Mumbai. Rows upon rows of concrete wash pens come together to make the world’s largest outdoor laundry.

Meanwhile, laundromats in New York, while not as visually interesting, have their own inherent drama. They are places where “irregular things happen,” according to a New York Times article, and where people “flirt, debate, gossip, argue, break up, discover love, loiter, do business and just about anything else that can be squeezed into 27-minute heavy-soil cycles.” In the older apartment buildings in New York City, personal washing equipment was often prohibited, and the city now has 2,654 self-service laundries to fulfill that need.

The act of washing clothes has inspired art as well. In 2011, a dhobi is one of the main characters in “Dhobi Ghat: Mumbai Diaries,” a 2011 movie directed by Kiran Rao, and a 1985 cable TV movie directed by Robert Altman, “Laundromat,” explored the drama that ensues when two women air out their dirty laundry.

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Eva Longoria Reveals Valentine's Day (and Upcoming Birthday!) Plans

Caught in the Act

02/05/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Eva Longoria

Denise Truscello/WireImage

Eva Longoria already knows what she'll be doing on Valentine's Day.

The actress visited the new restaurant and nightclub, She by Morton's, in Las Vegas – in which she is a part owner – on Saturday night, and revealed what's on her agenda for the heartfelt holiday.

"Eva said she would be spending Valentine's Day with her girlfriends – like she always does," a source tells PEOPLE. But that's not the only thing on her agenda. The former Desperate Housewives star also said she's also made plans for her March birthday.

"She's taking a charity trip to South America, which she is really excited about," the source says. "She joked that you shouldn't celebrate birthdays after a certain age because we don't want to remind people how old we are!"

– Patrick Gomez

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Teacher is charged with child molestation, battery

City prosecutors Monday charged a Tarzana-area middle school teacher with more than half a dozen counts of misdemeanor child molestation in connection with the alleged sexual battery of three girls, authorities said.

Jason Leon, 32, who taught at Portola Middle School, is being held at Van Nuys Jail in lieu of $35,000 bail. He faces four counts of child molestation and three counts of battery. If convicted on all charges, Leon could face a maximum sentence of up to 51/2 years and $26,000 in fines, the Los Angeles city attorney's office said.

Leon is expected to be arraigned in Van Nuys Superior Court on Tuesday unless he posts bail, authorities said.

"Working with LAPD and the school district, this office will aggressively prosecute adults who prey upon our children," said City Atty. Carmen Trutanich. "Our schools should be one of the safest of places in the community for our children, and I will do everything within my authority to ensure their safety."

Leon was taken into custody Monday morning by LAPD officers after an eight-month investigation with L.A. Unified School Police.

The investigation began after a 13-year-old female student at Portola Middle School reported that Leon touched her inappropriately on the last day of class, June 15, 2012.

Another 13-year-old student also reported that on both June 15, 2012, and several days earlier, Leon had touched her. A third student at the school also told authorities she had been abused by Leon on several occasions in 2010, when she was 14, city prosecutors said.

Late Monday afternoon, L.A. Unified officials issued a statement saying that Leon was removed from the campus in June 2012, when the misconduct allegation first surfaced. Since then, he has been assigned to "a non-school location with no contact with students."

"At that time, parents and guardians were notified within 72 hours of his removal," school officials said. "A second notification indicating the arrest was sent" Monday.

Leon, who taught history and communications, began his L.A. Unified career in August 2006 as a probationary teacher at Portola before being permanently hired in 2007.

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

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India Ink: Five Questions For: Author Jamil Ahmad

Jamil Ahmad is the author of “The Wandering Falcon,” a novel that delves into the lives of the tribal population living in the border region of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. This is the debut novel of the former Pakistani bureaucrat, now in his 80s. He has spent more than 20 years in the Balochistan and Frontier provinces in Pakistan during his service.

The novel was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011 and was also a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature this year.

India Ink interviewed Mr. Ahmad during the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Why does the Jaipur Literature Festival matter to you?

When I got the invite, there was a feeling that I should make it. My family was very involved, and they felt that I should be here.

What are the occupational hazards of being a writer?

I don’t think there are any.

What is your writing ritual?

I had time on my hands. I wrote in longhand, and my wife typed it with a manual typewriter, which was a German make.

The manuscript took 40 years to publish. I started writing in 1971, finished in ’73.

The Atlantic wanted to publish a short story. One British publisher said, “Change it to nonfiction.” Another British publisher said, “Change it to the modern idiom.” Tribes don’t speak English! The tribes had their own language. Their entire language has changed now.

Then I lost track. It was sheer luck that Penguin India published my work.

How do you deal with critics?

I am not disturbed by them. I reread them. Good reviews sometimes puff you up. Some reviews in India have been far too complimentary. It is ironic that of the negative reviews, the majority came from Pakistan.

Why should we read “The Wandering Falcon”?

People should buy it if they find the cover attractive when they see it in a bookstore. It is a short book, about 200 pages. It is an easy read.

I want people to understand that tribes are not savage. Left to themselves, the tribes will adjust to changes in the periphery. There should not be attempts to socially engineer them.

(The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

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Estonian pleads guilty in U.S. court to Internet advertising scam

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Estonian man pleaded guilty on Friday in U.S. federal court for his role in a massive Internet scam that targeted well-known websites such as iTunes, Netflix and The Wall Street Journal.

The scheme infected at least four million computers in more than 100 countries, including 500,000 in the United States, with malicious software, or malware, according to the indictment. It included a large number of computers at data centers located in New York, federal prosecutors said.

Valeri Aleksejev, 32, was the first of six Estonians and one Russian indicted in 2011 to enter a plea. They were indicted on five charges each of wire and computer intrusion. One of the defendants, Vladimir Tsastsin, was also charged with 22 counts of money laundering.

In U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday, Aleksejev pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 25 years in prison, deportation and the forfeiture of $ 7 million.

The scam had several components, including a “click-hijacking fraud” in which the malware re-routed searches by users on infected computers to sites designated by the defendants, prosecutors said in the indictment. Users of infected computers trying to access Apple Inc’s iTunes website or Netflix Inc‘s movie website, for example, instead ended up at websites of unaffiliated businesses, according to the indictment.

Another component of the scam replaced legitimate advertisements on websites operated by News Corp’s The Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com Inc and others with advertisements that triggered payments for the defendants, prosecutors said.

The defendants reaped at least $ 14 million from the fraud, prosecutors said. However, Aleksejev’s lawyer, William Stampur, said in court on Friday that Aleksejev has no assets.

Estonian police arrested Aleksejev and the other Estonians in November 2011. One other Estonian, Anton Ivanov, has been extradited, and the extradition of the other four is pending, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. The Russian, Andrey Taame, remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Aleksejev told Magistrate Judge James Francis he assisted in blocking anti-virus software updates on infected computers. Francis asked Aleksejev if he knew what he was doing was illegal.

“I thought it was wrong,” Aleksejev said in broken English after a long pause. “But of course I didn’t know all the laws in the U.S.”

Francis set a tentative sentencing date of May 31 for Aleksejev.

The case is USA v. Tsastsin et al, U.S. District Court in Manhattan, No. 11-00878.

(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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What Football Game? Beyoncé Rocks the Superdome in Leather & Lace

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/03/2013 at 09:06 PM ET

One thing was certain going into Super Bowl XLVII: Beyoncé was going to put on a killer halftime show, and she was going to look amazing doing it. And if she practiced until her feet bled, there was no sign of it as she danced in her towering heels.

To strut out onstage during ‘Crazy In Love,’ the star wore an uncharacteristically demure belted lamé mini with wide lapels, but she quickly tore it away to reveal a leather bodysuit with a black lace skirt worn over her signature fishnets. She completed the look with thigh-highs and sexy black booties.

Destiny’s Child fans missing the trio’s epic matching outfits were given a treat when Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams proved the rumors true, joining Beyoncé onstage for a medley that included ‘Bootylicious’ and ‘Single Ladies.’ Their costumes echoed Bey’s: Rowland wore a revealing V-neck Emilio Pucci bodysuit, while Williams was glam in a tough-girl ribbed leather mini.

And to ensure that Beyoncé’s hair was supremely whip-able (as demonstrated during ‘Baby Boy’ and ‘Halo’), stylist Kim Kimble gave her a “soft glam” look by curling it, then brushing out the curls and smoothing them with Kimble Hair Care Brazilian Nut and Acai serum. She sprayed it with L’Oréal’s classic Elnett hairspray to ensure it wouldn’t budge no matter what the superstar put it through.

Tell us: What did you think of Beyoncé’s Super Bowl outfit — and the Destiny’s Child reunion looks?

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: VOTE ON MORE STAR STYLE HERE!

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Read More..

Slaying casts light on Hollywood's transgender prostitutes

The last that Cassidy Vickers' street friends saw of him was about 10 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2011, outside the Donut Time shop on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood.

He was waving and saying he'd be back in a bit.

A transgender prostitute whose legal name was Nathan, Cassidy had come down from the San Francisco Bay Area to work the Hollywood streets.

That night, on Lexington Avenue, 10 blocks from the doughnut shop, Vickers was shot to death by a man on a bike.

Vickers' death was part of a series of crimes by a man police are now calling the Western Bandit for his armed robberies late at night in the vicinity of Western Avenue from Hollywood to South Los Angeles. Detectives believe he has recently resurfaced, committing six more street robberies from June to October, and then two more last month.

"This is a huge concern for us, and for the safety of the public," said Lt. John Radtke of the Los Angeles Police Department. Radtke, supervisor of West Bureau homicide detectives, said a "signature aspect" of the crimes, which he declined to specify, has led investigators to believe the same man has appeared three times to commit crimes.

His victims, Radtke said, range from transgender prostitutes to people coming home from work late at night. Besides Vickers, two other victims have been transgender women, neither of whom was hurt. Detectives don't believe he's specifically targeting transgender prostitutes.

"My feeling is he's out there robbing and desperate to get his money and he takes whoever he encounters," Radtke said.

Still, the case of the Western Bandit casts light on the world of transgender streetwalkers, which has changed radically in recent years, leaving only the most vulnerable on the street at night — people like Nathan "Cassidy" Vickers.

Vickers grew up in a tidy, four-bedroom house in East Palo Alto, a working-class black and Latino town south of San Francisco.

In the years after high school, he came out as a gay man, said his mother, Mitzy Thompson, though "he had some of the 'hood in him," dressing in baggy pants, with braided hair and two fake gold front teeth.

His friends remember a funny, talkative and loyal gay man attempting to find his way in a tough town like East Palo Alto.

He left, eventually living in Las Vegas and, briefly, New York. He then returned to the Bay Area, where he worked for years cleaning rooms in hotels.

Sometime in 2010 he began going to Oakland parties in drag and from there, desperate for cash, working as a prostitute.

Cross-dressing, for Vickers, "was 90% economic; 10% because he liked the attention," said Nelee Webb, a friend and former roommate. Unemployment "took his self-esteem. He felt 'This is my last resort.' "

By early 2011, Vickers was traveling the Hollywood-Bay Area circuit that has for years been followed by many transgender prostitutes.

He remained Nathan in East Palo Alto, but became Cassidy while working Hollywood's transgender prostitute strip: Santa Monica Boulevard.

According to a report by the city attorney's office, Cassidy Vickers was arrested for soliciting prostitution, a month before he died, on nearby Lexington Avenue, which is where many transgender prostitutes hang out.

Several blocks of Lexington, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard and lined with small bungalows and crowded apartments, have been a strip for male hookers dressed as women for at least two decades. The scene reached its zenith in the mid-1990s. But it has declined in the era of Internet sites that match johns with prostitutes.

"It's a street of no return," said Elena Pupo, a Venezuelan transgender woman and advocate for the community.

Vickers had no home, no cosmetic surgery. He was, said a friend who asked not to be identified, a handsome man, "but wasn't really an attractive looking female."

He was the kind of vulnerable night denizen that the Western Bandit appears to target. Working late at night, he slept in bushes on a street between Donut Time and Lexington, or in a booth at the X-Spot adult bookstore in the strip mall behind the doughnut shop, Amber said.

The last time Amber saw Vickers, he seemed happier and more exuberant — the kind of outgoing person that Bay Area friends describe. "She felt good about herself that day," Amber said.

An hour later, Amber said, police cars descended on the Donut Time strip mall. Officers circulated a picture of Vickers asking the streetwalkers who heshe was.

More than a hundred people attended Vickers' funeral in East Palo Alto. Thompson didn't know many of them. She was startled to see a few were men with women's breasts and clothes.

Nevertheless, Thompson dressed her son's body in a man's suit — burgundy, his favorite color. His face, bewhiskered for years, was clean-shaven — the way he kept it as a woman when he died. Thompson said she learned of her son's cross-dressing only after his death, from a Facebook video he'd posted.

For police, Vickers' story is one they've seen all too often.

"It's the age-old Hollywood story," said Brett Goodkin, the Los Angeles police homicide detective called to Lexington that night. "People come to Hollywood … so they can be somebody else. In Nathan's case, he could be himself in Hollywood. That was his Hollywood dream. It ended like so many others."

sam.quinones@latimes.com

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China May (or May Not) Be Behind the Twitter Hack

You may not have heard, but roughly 250,000 Twitter accounts may have been compromised by hackers. There’s a theory that — if you read between the lines — Twitter is implying the Chinese are to blame for compromising their security. 

RELATED: The Chinese Want to Know Why Their News Is on Twitter and They Aren’t

Twitter revealed that roughly a quarter million accounts may have been compromised by hackers in a blog post Friday evening. (A classic Friday evening news dump if there ever was one; they got a $ 10 billion valuation the same day.) 

RELATED: A Punk Prince, Women in the Military, a New Tennis Controversy

Bandits might have made away with “usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.” They think. A Twitter representative stressed to the Verge that they’re still investigating; there’s a chance we’re all safe. 

RELATED: World Languages Mapped by Twitter

But was China behind it all?! That’s an emerging theory. We don’t know who was behind it. Twitter doesn’t say directly. None of the usual suspects have claimed ownership of the attack. (Yet.)

RELATED: The Good, the Bad, and the Fuzzy of Twitter’s New Censorship Rules

But Twitter mentions the New York Times and Wall Street Journal hacks in their opening paragraph, apropos of nothing, really. It could mean the company was just trying to show they’re not alone in being targeted — look at these bullies picking on these other kids, too. Or it could mean they’re subtly implying China is behind it all. 

RELATED: Did the Berlin Wall’s Fall Save China?

The last paragraph in Twitter’s statement is where the theory really gets its legs. Emphasis ours: 

This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users. 

So, did they do it? These sophisticated hackers who targeted other companies and organizations sure sounds like they’re implying it was China.

Was it China in the basement with the Cheetos and Red Bull and impressive coding skill? We don’t know for sure, but we’re definitely looking for any and every clue we can find. 

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Busy Philipps Feels No Pressure to Bounce Back After Baby

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Busy Philipps may be willing to dish out style advice to fellow expectant mamas — but she’s not about to start breaking out the postpartum weight loss lectures.

Currently pregnant with her second child, the Cougar Town star admits that while her celebrity status opens her up for public scrutiny, she’s not planning a big bounceback after baby.

“Like most things in this business, I think that you have to do what’s right for you and you can’t be too concerned about what some magazine is going to write about you,” Philipps, 33, tells HuffPost Celebrity.

“We’re in a business where a lot of people are blessed with pretty incredible bodies, that they work hard for or comes naturally, and not everybody has the same body.”

According to Philipps, staying healthy is priority during pregnancy and women “should be given a break” when it comes to packing on the extra pounds — especially by those dubious doctors!

“It’s interesting when people make comments about celebrities’ weight gain or lack of weight gain as if they’re a medical professional that’s treating that celebrity,” she notes. “Like, ‘This doctor does not treat Jessica Simpson, but thinks her weight is unhealthy.’ If you don’t treat her, then how do you know?”

After the arrival of daughter Birdie Leigh, now 4, the actress took her time regaining her post-baby bod — a journey, she says, lasted almost a year — preferring to instead instill a positive attitude (and approach) in her little girl.

“I wanted to be healthy for her and have a healthy body image so that she hopefully grows up to see that her self worth isn’t defined by how thin she is,” Philipps explains.

“Thrilled to be expecting another baby with husband Marc Silverstein, Philipps wasn’t sure if expanding their tight-knit trio was even in the cards for the couple. No one, however, was more ecstatic over the news than the big sister-to-be, whose wish is finally coming true.

“My daughter is very excited … it’s actually something that she has asked for for quite some time,” she says. “My husband and I were on the fence about whether or not we were going to add to our family, but now that we’re on our road, we’re really excited.”

– Anya Leon

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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