This bus' next stop: doing good









Maybe you want to help others. Maybe you long to lend a hand. But you're not sure where and you're not sure how and you don't know who to call.


You could ask around. Or you could book a seat on the Do Good Bus.


You will pay $25. You will get a box lunch. You will put yourself in the hands of a stranger.





When the bus takes off, you will not know where you are going — only that when you get there, you will be put to work.


You find yourself on this weekday afternoon one of an eclectic group, gathered a little shyly on an East Hollywood curb.


There's a Yelp marketer, a grad student, an actor, a novelist, a Manhattan Beach mother with her son and daughter, who just got home from prep school and college.


You see a school bus pull up. You step on board. It feels nostalgic, like day camp or a field trip.


Rebecca Pontius welcomes you, wearing jeans and sneakers and a black fleece vest. She looks like the kind of person who would plunge her hands deep into dirt, who wouldn't be afraid of the worms, who could lead you boldly.


The bus takes off, and Pontius stands toward the front, sure-footed. She founded the Do Good Bus, she tells you, to 1) build awareness, 2) build community, 3) encourage continued engagement.


Oh, she says, and to 3a) have fun. Hence the element of mystery, the faux holly branches that decorate some of the rows of seats, the white felt reindeer antlers she's wearing on her head.


She smiles a wide, toothy smile that makes you automatically reciprocate.


So you go along when she asks you to play get-to-know-you games. Even though you're embarrassed, you don't object when she assigns you one of the 12 days of Christmas to sing and act out when it's your turn.


Everyone's singing and laughing as the bus fits-and-starts down the freeway.


Maids-a-milking, geese-a-laying, bus-a-exiting somewhere in South Los Angeles.


It stops outside a boxy blue building — the Challengers Boys and Girls Club — where, finally, Pontius tells you you'll be helping children in foster care build the bicycles that will be their Christmas gifts.


She did it last year, she says. It was great. And she's brought along some powder that turns into fake snow, which the kids will like.


You step inside a large gym, where nothing proceeds quite as expected.


It's the holiday season, so way too many volunteers have shown up. The singer Ne-Yo is coming to lead a toy giveaway. There's a whole roomful of presents the children can choose from, including pre-assembled bikes — which means no bikes will need to be built.


You stand and you sit and you wait. Then the kids come. You try to help where you can — making sure they get in the right lines, handing out raffle tickets.


You see their joy at getting gifts, which is nice. You're in a place you might not ordinarily be, which is interesting. And as the children head out, you offer them snow. You put the powder in their cupped hands. You add water. The white stuff grows and begins to look real. It's even cold.


It makes them go wide-eyed. It makes them laugh. And you feel such moments of simple happiness are something.


It's chilly as you wait to get back on the bus. You get in a group hug with your fellow bus riders, who seem like old friends.


On the trip back in the dark, Pontius plays Christmas music. She serves you eggnog in Mason jars.


And she says she's sorry your help wasn't more needed today.


She promises the January ride will be more hands-on.


Come or don't, she tells you. But whatever you do, find a way to do something.


nita.lelyveld@latimes.com


Follow City Beat @latimescitybeat on Twitter or at Los Angeles Times City Beat on Facebook.





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Ashton Kutcher files for divorce from Demi Moore


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ashton Kutcher filed court papers Friday to end his seven-year marriage to actress Demi Moore.


The actor's divorce petition cites irreconcilable differences and does not list a date that the couple separated. Moore announced last year that she was ending her marriage to the actor 15 years her junior, but she never filed a petition.


Kutcher's filing does not indicate that the couple has a prenuptial agreement. The filing states Kutcher signed the document Friday, hours before it was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.


Kutcher and Moore married in September 2005 and until recently kept their relationship very public, communicating with each other and fans on the social networking site Twitter. After their breakup, Moore changed her name on the site from (at)mrskutcher to (at)justdemi.


Kutcher currently stars on CBS' "Two and a Half Men."


Messages sent to Kutcher's and Moore's publicists were not immediately returned Friday.


Moore, 50, and Kutcher, 34, created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations' efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.


Moore was previously married to actor Bruce Willis for 13 years. They had three daughters together — Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle — before divorcing in 2000. Willis later married model-actress Emma Heming in an intimate 2009 ceremony at his home in Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands that attended by their children, as well as Moore and Kutcher.


Kutcher has been dating former "That '70s Show" co-star Mila Kunis.


The divorce filing was first reported Friday by People magazine.


___


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


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The Neediest Cases: The Daughter of a Sick Woman Falls Prey to a Craigslist Scam





Sitting side by side on their living room sofa, Patricia Morales and her daughter, Katherine, could be any mother-daughter duo. Both have dark hair, dark eyes and welcoming, infectious smiles.







Librado Romero/The New York Times

Patricia Morales, 62, at home in the Bronx. Her treatment for ailments like rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis C led to depression.






2012-13 Campaign


Previously recorded:

$3,375,394



Recorded Wednesday:

182,251



*Total:

$3,557,645



Last year to date:

$3,320,812




*Includes $709,856 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

The Neediest CasesFor the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.


Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.







The Youngest Donors


If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.





But the ties that bind them go beyond their genes, beyond the bodies they were born with.


“It’s called a neck ring. It’s a silver curved barbell, one inch,” Katherine, 20, said as she swept aside her shoulder-length black hair to show the piercing in the back of her neck, a show of solidarity with her mother. She had it done when she was 16. “I wanted to know what it felt like for my mom.”


Her mother then turned around and outlined with her finger two lengthy scars that run down her back.


“I’ve had a lot of physical problems,” Ms. Morales, 62, said. Shaking her head at her daughter’s piercing, she added, “I’ve had rods put in my upper and lower spine, but I could never do that.”


The rods were surgically planted to treat herniated discs, the result of having a cruel combination of osteoporosis, hepatitis C, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. Morales contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she received in 1972 after the birth of her only son, she said.


“I didn’t even know about it until 10 years ago,” she said. “My liver blood count was a little high.”


Since the diagnosis, Ms. Morales, a former schoolteacher, has ridden the arduous highs and lows common to patients with hepatitis C. Her treatments for the disease, which debilitates the liver over time, have included pills and injections that can cause depression. Ms. Morales, a single parent, found an unforgiving salve in alcohol.


“I was depressed; I was totally drunk,” she said. “I didn’t want to live anymore.”


Then, about a year ago, she reached a turning point when visiting her hepatitis C specialist.


“I was 210 pounds,” she said. “The doctor said: ‘You have to stop drinking. You have to lose weight.’ ”


To help combat the depression, her doctor referred her to Jewish Association Serving the Aging, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She began weekly counseling sessions with a social worker and started taking an antidepressant medication. The federation drew about $600 from the fund in May so that Ms. Morales could buy a mattress.


“I had a horrible bed,” she said. “I felt like I was sleeping on rocks, and with rods in my back, I was waking up every hour.”


After several months of therapy and starting a diet, Ms. Morales was on her way to losing 60 pounds. Today, she weighs 148.


Light was starting to show itself again when the family took an unexpected financial hit this summer. While taking time off from attending Hostos Community College, Katherine Morales looked for work on Craigslist.


“I saw my mom, and I realized I needed to get a job,” Katherine said shyly. “This guy asked me to be his personal assistant, and he asked me to wire money.”


Offering $400 a week, the man requested help transferring almost $2,000 from what he said was his wife’s account. He transferred the money to Katherine’s account, asking her to wire it to a bank account in Malaysia.


Shortly after she wired the money, the bank froze the account, which Katherine and her mother shared. It was then that Katherine realized she had been the victim of a scam. The money transferred into her account turned out to have been stolen, and she was responsible for repaying it.


Katherine went to detectives immediately with more than 20 pages of evidentiary e-mails, but found that she was unable to file a complaint.


“They told me it wasn’t enough,” she said. “These things happen all the time.”


They lost almost $2,000.


Ms. Morales lives on a fixed income. She receives just over $700 a month from Social Security and $200 month in food stamps. The rent for the apartment she shares with her daughter in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx is $230, and Ms. Morales has a monthly combined phone and cable bill of $140. Ms. Morales has a son, but he is unable to help the family.


Falling behind on her bills, Ms. Morales turned once again to JASA for help paying a combined phone and cable bill of nearly $200, a grant the agency drew from the Neediest Cases Fund.


“It was terrible, because my intention was to help my mom,” said Katherine, who has since found a part-time job at a vitamin shop.


Ms. Morales has been feeling much better, but she is nervous about an appointment with her hepatitis C specialist in January.


“I’m taking things one day at a time, but I’m looking forward to someone taking care of me,” she said. “I want to live a little bit longer, but not that long.”


“Why are you putting a time limit on it?” Katherine said, jokingly. “Seventy’s the new 20!” she added, nudging her mother in the side. “Remember, the doctor said you wouldn’t live past your late 50s, but you did.”


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Stores hope last-minute Christmas shoppers revive holiday sales









With three days left until Christmas, last-minute shoppers are surging into malls in a mad dash for gifts as retailers extend store hours and trot out steep discounts in a final holiday-season push.


Merchants are hoping procrastinators will give them a boost this weekend. Many stores saw a worrying drop in sales in recent weeks after a robust start on Black Friday. Several are rolling out promotions as they try to make up for lost steam.


Toys R Us stores nationwide began an 88-hour, all-day-all-night marathon Friday that continues until 10 p.m. Christmas Eve. Macy's is welcoming shoppers for 48 straight hours at most of its stores on this final weekend before Christmas. Target is staying open until midnight Sunday.





At the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles' Fairfax district, shoppers swarmed the stores and cars jammed the parking lots. Christmas carols blasted from speakers. And fake reindeer and a sleigh arced overhead.


"The panic is coming in waves," sighed Angie Hill, 44, of Huntington Beach. "I've barely just started. There's still a lot of people left to buy gifts for."


The marketing director said she normally starts shopping weeks before Christmas, but a new job left her with little free time. She pointed to bags holding a magic kit for her son and exercise clothes for her husband — the very first gifts she had bought for the big day. "My shopping list is getting bigger every minute."


She's not alone. Two-thirds of Americans — 132 million people — haven't yet finished their holiday shopping, according to a survey released this week by Consumer Reports. About 14% have yet to start buying gifts, and 9% — or 17 million people — will still be rushing to cross items off their Christmas lists on Christmas Eve.


"People are very focused. They have their list and it's bam, bam, bam! They are trying to check off what they need, get in and get out," said Kim Freeburn, a district vice president of Macy's stores. "It's an intense customer this weekend."


Both the Grove and the Americana at Brand shopping mall in Glendale have been besieged with shoppers over the last few weeks and expect a similar surge in the last few days before Christmas, said Paul Kurzawa, chief operating officer of Caruso Affiliated, which owns both shopping centers.


"The last few weeks have been phenomenal, and this weekend is a continuation of that as people rush in for last-minute gift buying," he said. "You have the last weekend and you get an extra bite on Monday as well."


So far, the average American has spent $340 on presents, the Consumer Reports survey said. An earlier report from Gallup found that shoppers planned to shell out $770 apiece for the holiday. The National Retail Federation predicted total holiday spending of $586.1 billion this year, up 4.1% from last year. It's a crucial time for merchants, which can make up to 40% of their annual sales during the season.


"Holiday sales have been off for weeks," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group. He blamed a lack of exciting merchandise and a hyped-up Black Friday that may have pulled sales earlier into the season. "The bad news is this year will be based on price more than merchandise, as consumers have been groomed to wait to be rewarded with better discounts."


CeCe Solorzano, 30, says she always waits until the weekend before Christmas to scoop up the best discounts.


"I'm going to shop all day tomorrow and the weekend. Hopefully I'll be done on the 24th of December," said the Santa Clarita marketing specialist, who has to find presents for a dozen friends and family members. "I've really waited until the last possible moment this year, but the longer you wait, the better the deals."


Target just rolled out its "Last Minute Sale" that will run until Christmas Eve and is focused on popular gadgets and toys such as iPod Nanos and Easy-Bake Ovens.


"We see those last-minute panicked guests" but also shoppers buying treats for themselves, spokeswoman Donna Egan said. "We try to accommodate the surge of guests, procrastinators or not."


At the Best Buy store in Westfield Culver City, there will be one cash register on Christmas Eve dedicated just to buying gift cards, general manager Margie Kenney said. "It's a huge day for gift cards," she said. "Everything is out of stock, so you're like, 'Give me a gift card.'"


Unless shoppers this weekend go over the top, it's shaping up to be a modest holiday season, said Kamalesh Rao, director of economic research at MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.


"That's in keeping with retail sales growth this year," he said. "There is a possibility if you have a strong weekend it could make up a little bit, since the last couple of days is pretty important, especially for sectors like jewelry."


Expect to see Christian Moreno, 43, and his wife, Hilda, out at the malls every day until Dec. 25. Between their two families, the couple have 34 people to shop for every year.


"We're a huge family," said Moreno, who works as a superintendent at the L.A. and Ontario international airports. "It's a lot of presents left to find."


shan.li@latimes.com





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Obama to nominate John Kerry to be next secretary of State









WASHINGTON – President Obama will nominate John F. Kerry, the five-term senator from Massachusetts, to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State, White House sources confirmed, choosing a longtime political ally who shares much of his foreign policy worldview and is likely to sail through confirmation hearings.


Obama settled on the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee shortly after the wrenching withdrawal of Susan Rice, his envoy to the United Nations, as the top candidate for the post. He delayed the announcement to avoid interfering with national mourning over the mass slaying at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.


Kerry, 69, has chaired the Senate Foreign Relatons Committee since 2009. His selection gives the White House a veteran foreign policy hand who has demonstrated his willingness to work with Obama’s inner circle of advisors over the last four years.





The Cabinet position will give Kerry a decorated Vietnam veteran who later helped lead veterans opposed to the war, a career-capping assignment that he has long sought.


But it also risks the loss of what has been a reliable Democratic seat in the Senate. Democrats control the Senate by a 55-45 margin but face midterm elections in two years that could sharply narrow those numbers.


Scott Brown, a Republican who lost his Senate seat in last month’s election but remains popular in the commonwealth, could run again in a special election next year. Several Democrats have indicated interest, including Edward Kennedy Jr., son of the late senator.


Rice withdrew her name from consideration on Dec. 15 after a tenacious campaign by Republicans who said her public comments misled the country after armed militants killed four Americans at the the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in September.


Kerry was the only other leading candidate for the post, and his nomination is expected to easily win Senate approval. Several GOP lawmakers who led the opposition to Rice, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), urged Obama to choose Kerry instead.


White House officials concede they owe a special obligation to Kerry for all he has done for Obama in politics and diplomacy. In 2004, when Kerry was running for president, he chose Obama to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, providing the obscure state senator from Illinois an invaluable introduction to American voters.


Republican hawks could raise questions about Kerry’s resistance to U.S. military intervention abroad in some conflicts. And a group of Vietnam "swift boat" veterans who opposed his presidential campaign have vowed to voice their objections again.


Kerry has shared Obama’s interest in trying to talk without preconditions to adversary regimes, and he shares Obama’s desire to shift the U.S. military from the grueling ground wars of the last decade to a “light footprint” abroad.


Kerry “would much rather solve problems by negotiations and diplomacy than by war,” said Jonah Blank, a former Kerry aide and South Asia specialist. “He’s seen war: He knows it ain’t pretty, and very often it doesn’t work.”


At the beginning of the Obama’s first term, Kerry sought to help the White House work out a broad Mideast peace deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad – a mission that continues to come under strong criticism by Republican hawks.


Kerry also acted on Obama’s behalf as a diplomatic middleman in sensitive talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and helped sooth relations with Pakistani leaders after a period of intense turmoil.


Kerry, whose father was a foreign service officer, has traveled widely and has shown himself willing to take on the wearying drudgery of diplomacy. Also like Mrs. Clinton, he has shown an ability to talk to foreign leaders as fellow politicians, a valuable asset.


Another arguable advantage: Kerry, a tall man with a stentorian voice and what is sometimes described as a patrician bearing, looks and sounds the part of America’s top diplomat.


Rudy DeLeon, a former Senate Democratic aide and Pentagon official during the Bill Clinton administration, said Kerry will come to the job well versed on the issues and with relationships that will be valuable to the White House.


“The Senate is going to be a key participant in much that the administration does on foreign policy, so his relationships there will be an asset,” said DeLeon, now with the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-leaning think tank. “And he has ties to world leaders from China to the Middle East.”


Obama has let slip to aides that he has sometimes found Kerry long-winded. Still, it is clear Obama is comfortable working with him and Kerry has won points by being a good partner to Clinton.


One issue for Kerry will be whether he becomes frustrated with how the administration’s foreign policy has been highly centralized in a small team around Obama.


But foreign policy experts believe Kerry -- like Clinton -- will be willing to take orders from the West Wing as long as he believes his views are being considered.


Kerry is less interested in management, and is likely to need a strong deputy with management skills to oversee running of the State Department.


Kerry’s accomplishments as committee chairman include legislation he pushed, with ranking member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Valley Village), to restructure and expand aid to Pakistan. Kerry was also an important advocate for the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.


Secretary Clinton has indicated that she is willing to remain in her post beyond Obama’s inauguration if necessary. But the selection of Kerry may make that unnecessary.


paul.richter@latimes.com





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Country singer Tate Stevens wins Fox's 'X Factor'


NEW YORK (AP) — Tate Stevens, who was mentored by music exec L.A. Reid on the second season of "The X Factor," has won the Fox singing competition.


The 37-year-old country singer from Belton, Mo., beat runner-up Carly Rose Sonenclar, a 13-year-old schoolgirl from Westchester, N.Y., and teenage girl group Fifth Harmony on the finale that aired live Thursday night.


Stevens wins a $5 million recording contract.


More than 35 million votes were cast by viewers after Wednesday's performance show.


Besides Reid, judges this season included Demi Lovato, Britney Spears and series creator Simon Cowell.


Thursday's show was also the grand finale for Reid. Earlier this month, he said he wouldn't be returning to "The X Factor" next year. No replacement has been announced.


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Stocks fall sharply after Republicans cancel vote









Stocks fell on Wall Street Friday after House Republicans called off a vote on tax rates and left federal budget talks in disarray 10 days before sweeping tax increases and government spending cuts take effect.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 106 points at 13,206 after the first hour of trading.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 12 points at 1,431. The Nasdaq composite index fell 32 to 3,018. All three indexes are still positive for the week.





The House bill would have raised taxes on Americans making at least $1 million per year and locked in decade-old tax cuts for Americans making less. Taxes will rise for almost all Americans on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.

House Speaker John Boehner had presented what he called "Plan B" while he negotiated with the White House on avoiding the sweeping tax increases and spending cuts, a combination known as the "fiscal cliff."

But Boehner scrapped a vote on the bill Thursday night after it became clear that it did not have enough support in the Republican-led House to secure passage. He called on the White House and the Democratic-led Senate to work something out.

The market opened sharply lower, then recovered some ground in mid-morning trading after Boehner told reporters that he was still open to talks with President Obama to get a deal done. The Dow had been down as much as 154 shortly after the opening bell. Before the market opened, stock index futures suggested that the Dow could lose as much as 200 points when trading opened.

"It's all `fiscal cliff' related," Sal Arnuk, a partner at Themis Trading. Arnuk said the initial sharp drop in the market might have been an overreaction. "It's not a surprise that they weren't able to come to an agreement. I don't think most of Wall Street anticipated that they would come to an agreement."

Technology stocks were among the hardest hit in early trading. Tech stocks in the S&P 500 were down 0.9 percent as a group. Apple, the most valuable company in the country, fell $4.27 to $517.46.

It was not the first time that Wall Street worried about the "fiscal cliff" talks.

On the day after the election, when voters returned divided government to power, the Dow dropped 312 points. On Nov. 14, when President Barack Obama insisted on higher tax rates for the wealthy, the Dow dropped 185 points.

Stocks closed sharply lower Friday in Asia after House Republicans canceled their vote. The Nikkei index in Japan fell almost 1 percent, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped 0.7 percent. Stocks were also lower in Europe.

In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 0.06 percentage point to 1.74 percent, an indication that investors were moving money out of stocks and into ultra-safe government bonds.

The price of oil fell $2.02, or 2.2 percent, to $88.12 per barrel.

Among stocks making big moves:

— Walgreen slumped 98 cents to $36.57 after the nation's largest drugstore chain filled fewer prescriptions and absorbed costs tied to acquisitions and Superstorm Sandy. The results were worse than financial analysts had been expecting.

— Blackberry maker Research in Motion dropped 15 percent, or $2.14, to $11.81 after the company said it won't generate as much revenue from telecommunications carriers once it releases the new BlackBerry 10.

— Nike jumped $5.32 to $104.32 after the world's largest athletic gear maker said strong demand in North America led to a 7 percent increase in revenue in the three months ended Nov. 30, balancing out economic weakness in Europe and a slowdown in growth in China.

— Micron Technology dropped 8 percent, the biggest decline in the S&P 500 index. The semiconductor maker reported a loss late Thursday as weaker demand for personal computers and an oversupply of certain chips hurt its sales. The stock was off 55 cents at $6.24.





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Fearful 'end of world' calls, emails flood NASA as Dec. 21 nears









If there's one government agency really looking forward to Dec. 22, it's NASA.


The space agency said it has been flooded with calls and emails from people asking about the purported end of the world — which, as the doomsday myth goes, is apparently set to take place Friday, Dec. 21.


The myth might have originated with the Maya calendar, but in the age of the Internet and social media, it proliferated online, raising questions and concerns among hundreds of people around the world who have turned to NASA for answers.





Dwayne Brown, an agency spokesman, said NASA typically receives about 90 calls or emails per week containing questions from people. In recent weeks, he said, that number has skyrocketed — from 200 to 300 people are contacting NASA per day to ask about the end of the world.


"Who's the first agency you would call?" he said. "You're going to call NASA."


The questions range from myth (Will a rogue planet crash into Earth? Is the sun going to explode? Will there be three days of darkness?) to the macabre (Brown said some people have "embraced it so much" they want to hurt themselves). So, he said, NASA decided to do "everything in our power" to set the facts straight.


That effort included interviews with scientists posted online and a Web page that Brown said has drawn more than 4.6 million views.


It also involved a video titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday." Though the title of the video implies a Dec. 22 release date, Brown said NASA posted the four-minute clip last week to help spread its message.


The website addresses several scenarios — the possibility of planetary alignments, total blackouts, polar shifts and "a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction" — but comes to the same conclusion.


In short, NASA says, "the world will not end in 2012."


"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," the website says.


The Griffith Observatory will also be trying to debunk doomsday predictions. It announced plans to stay open late Friday evening — until one minute past midnight — to "demonstrate that claims regarding the Maya calendar, planetary alignments, rogue planets, galactic beams, and other related phenomena have no basis in fact."


A few years ago, NASA suspected that it might have to create such a campaign when the idea of the world ending began "festering," Brown said. The apocalyptic action movie "2012," released in 2009, didn't help, he said.


"We kind of look ahead — we're a look-ahead agency — and we said, 'You know what? People are going to probably want to come to us' " for answers, Brown explained. "We're doing all that we can do to let the world know that as far as NASA and science goes, Dec. 21 will be another day."


As for Saturday, when the questions — not the world — end: "I wish it was tomorrow."


kate.mather@latimes.com





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Study: Solo stars at higher death risk than bands


LONDON (AP) — Rock 'n' roll will never die — but it's a hazardous occupation.


A new study confirms that rock and pop musicians die prematurely more often than the general population, and an early death is twice as likely for solo musicians as for members of bands.


Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University studied 1,489 rock and pop stars who became famous between 1956 and 2009 and found they suffered "higher levels of mortality than demographically matched individuals in the general population."


American stars are more likely to die prematurely than British ones.


Lead researcher Mark Bellis speculates that could be because bands provide peer support at stressful times.


The research was published Thursday in online journal BMJ Open.


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Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey





LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.




Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.


The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.


At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.


The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.


The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.


On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.


Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.


In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.


Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.


Female polio workers here are easy targets. They wear no uniforms but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.


Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”


That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”


On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.


Declan Walsh reported from Lahore, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.



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Waiting on fiscal cliff compromise, stocks meander









The stock market moved between small gains and losses in early trading Thursday. Uncertainty about the approaching “fiscal cliff,” just days away, was top of mind for many traders.

The House planned to move ahead on what Speaker John Boehner called “Plan B,” though President Barack Obama has threatened to veto it.

Shortly after 10 a.m. EST, the Dow Jones industrial average was up seven points at 13,259. The Standard & Poor's 500 was up two at 1,438. The Nasdaq composite index rose a fraction to 3,045.

Also at the forefront for many traders was the news that NYSE Euronext, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, planned to sell itself to IntercontinentalExchange, an upstart and lesser-known exchange operator based in Atlanta.

NYSE Euronext's stock surged 31 percent, rising $7.40 to $31.45. IntercontinentalExchange fell $2.89 to $125.42. That signals traders think the proposed deal could be more beneficial to NYSE Euronext than to its potential buyer. The marriage still needs the approval of regulators, and it isn't clear if they'll offer it.

In Washington, the Republicans' proposal would raise taxes on the wealthy, something the Democrats have pushed for. But the plan also left in place budget cuts to the military and domestic agencies that Democrats have generally opposed.

If the Republicans and Democrats don't work out a compromise before the end of the month, the U.S. could go over the “fiscal cliff,” a reference to taxes increases and sweeping government spending cuts that would automatically kick in if no budget deal is in place. Some economists fear that would push the U.S. back into recession.

To be sure, many observers expect that a deal will be worked out ahead of the deadline — perhaps at the last minute, and with lots of political theatrics, but worked out nonetheless. In the meantime, the uncertainty has kept the market sluggish and indecisive for weeks.

Even without the complications of the fiscal cliff, the U.S. economy has been difficult to read, a pattern that continued Thursday.

The government said the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent over the summer, higher than the previous estimate of 2.7 percent. But the growth is likely to slow in the current quarter and early next year.

The government also reported that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week, a disappointment after four straight weeks of declines. But the four-week moving average of jobless claims, a less volatile measurement, fell.

A slate of companies reported earnings, with varied results:

—Darden Restaurants, the parent of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, slipped 78 cents to $46.03 after the company reported lower profit and revenue.

—Rite Aid, the drugstore chain, soared 10 percent, rising 11 cents to $1.15, after the company reported its first quarterly profit since 2007.

—Discover Financial Services fell $1.26 to $38.51. The company reported higher profit and revenue, but earnings missed analysts' expectations.

—Scholastic, publisher of the best-selling “The Hunger Games” trilogy, slipped 73 cents to $28.56 after reporting lower profit and revenue.

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Bork, whose failed Supreme Court nomination made history, dies









Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1980s nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85.

Son Robert H. Bork Jr. confirmed the death Wednesday. His father had a long career in politics and the law that took him from respected academic to a totem of conservative grievance.

Bork was accused of being a partisan hatchet man for Nixon when he fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973.

Bork's drubbing during the 1987 Senate nomination hearings made him a hero to the right and a rallying cry for younger conservatives.




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Adele voted AP Entertainer of the Year


NEW YORK (AP) — Though Adele didn't have a new album or a worldwide tour in 2012, she's still rolling. After a year of Grammy glory and James Bond soundtracking, Adele has been voted The Associated Press Entertainer of the Year.


In 132 ballots submitted by members and subscribers of the AP, Adele easily outpaced other vote-getters like Taylor Swift, "Fifty Shades of Grey" author E.L. James, the South Korean viral video star PSY and the cast of "Twilight." Editors and broadcasters were asked to cast their ballot for the person who had the most influence on entertainment and culture in 2012.


Adele's year began in triumph at the Grammys, took a turn through recording the theme to the 007 film "Skyfall," and ended with the birth of her son in October. The ubiquitous Adele was that rare thing in pop culture: an unqualified sensation, a megastar in a universe of niche hits.


By the end of the year, her sophomore album, "21," had passed 10 million copies sold in the U.S., only the 21st album in the Nielsen SoundScan era (begun in 1991) to achieve diamond status. Buoyed by hits like "Someone Like You" and "Rolling in the Deep" long after its release in early 2011, "21" was also the top-selling album on iTunes for the second year running.


As David Panian, news editor for Michigan's Daily Telegram, put it: "It just seemed like you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one of her songs."


Women have had a lock on the annual Entertainer of the Year selection. Previous winners include Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Betty White and Tina Fey. Stephen Colbert is the lone male winner in the six-year history of voting.


The Grammy Awards in February were essentially the de-facto crowning of the 24-year-old Adele, whose real name is Adele Adkins, as a pop queen. She won six awards, including album of the year. It was also a comeback of sorts for Adele, who performed for the first time since having vocal cord surgery, drawing a standing ovation from the Staples Center crowd.


Accepting the album of the year award, a teary Adele exclaimed: "Mum, girl did good!" The emotional, sniffling singer endeared many viewers to her when she copped in her acceptance speech to having "a bit of snot."


"This record is inspired by something that is really normal and everyone's been through it: just a rubbish relationship," said Adele.


But her luck in love has since turned, thanks to her boyfriend Simon Konecki. In an interview with Vogue magazine, Adele said she was through with break-up records and done being "a bitter witch." When Adele announced in June that she was having a baby with Konecki, her website promptly crashed under the heavy traffic. Their son was born in October.


With such an avalanche of success and now a mother of a newborn son, Adele has understandably taken a step out of the spotlight. One notable exception was recording the opening credits theme song to "Skyfall." The song was recorded with her "21" producer Paul Epworth at the Abbey Road Studios in London with a 77-piece orchestra. Within hours, it zoomed to the top of digital charts.


"There was an overwhelming embrace of Adele and her music," said Joe Butkiewicz, executive editor of the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "And that was never more evident to me than when I heard teenagers express their enthusiastic expectations for the new James Bond movie because Adele performed the theme song."


The song recently received a Golden Globe nomination. No Bond theme has ever won the best original song Oscar, but given Adele's awards success thus far, it wouldn't be a stretch to think she has a chance of changing that. The tune is among the 75 short-listed songs in the Academy Awards category.


___


Projects Editor Brooke Lansdale contributed to this report.


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Sandy stifled housing starts in November, though permits were up









WASHINGTON -- New housing starts fell 3% in November from the previous month as Superstorm Sandy kept builders from breaking ground in the Northeast, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.


But the number of building permits issued, a sign of future activity, rose 3.6% last month compared with October. It was the highest level in more than four years and an indication that the housing market is continuing its strong rebound despite Sandy's effects.


Compared with a year earlier, housing starts and building permits were up sharply.





Construction began on new privately owned residential homes at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 861,000 in November, down from a revised rate of 888,000 in October. The reading was below analysts' expectations of a drop to about an 872,000 annual pace.


Starts dropped 5.2% in the Northeast, which was hit hard by Sandy on Oct. 29-30. Starts also fell 19.2% in the West, but were up 3.3% in the Midwest and 2.9% in the South.


Compared with a year earlier, starts were down 25.5% in the Northeast, the only region to show a decrease.


Building permits also dropped about 6.2% in the Northeast in November form the previous month. But permits were up in the rest of the country to an annual rate of 899,000, their highest level since July 2008.


The annual rate of permits was a 26.8% increase from a year earlier. Despite last month's drop, housing starts also were well above last year's pace, up 21.6% compared with November 2011.


Low mortgage rates and an improving jobs market has helped fuel the housing sector rebound. On Tuesday, the National Assn. of Home Builders and Wells Fargo & Co. reported that builder confidence rose in December to its highest level in more than six years.


US Housing Starts Chart

US Housing Starts data by YCharts


ALSO:


In defense-heavy San Diego, 'fiscal cliff' threat hits home


Builder confidence in housing is at highest point since 2006


Southern California posts most November home sales in six years


Follow Jim Puzzanghera on Twitter and Google+.





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Newport Beach dock renters may withhold holiday love









Marcy Cook embraces the holiday season. The tell? Start with the teddy bears dressed as Santa. More than 1,500 stand sentry around and inside her Newport Beach waterfronthome. Garland and strings of lights threaten to strangle the place like kudzu.


"We decorate a little bit, if you haven't noticed," said Cook, 69. "It's the highlight of the year for us."


Each Christmas, Newport Harbor is ablaze in lights as homeowners go to extraordinary lengths to complement the city's annual Christmas Boat Parade — an indelible tradition that renews itself Wednesday night and continues through Sunday.





But this has been a stressful season here along the tranquil waterfront lined with multimillion-dollar homes.


An increase in city rental fees for residential docks that protrude over public tidelands created a furor when it was approved last week by the City Council.


It also prompted a call to boycott the boat parade and festival of lights by a group calling itself "Stop the Dock Tax."


"It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people," organization Chairman Bob McCaffrey wrote to the city. "This year, we are turning off our lights and withdrawing our boats in protest of the massive new dock tax we expect the City Council to levy."


Pete Pallette, a fellow boycott proponent and harbor homeowner, told city leaders the group would call off the boycott only if the council delayed voting on the rent hike. "Otherwise," he vowed, "game on."


In a place where homes come with names and mega-yachts bob in the harbor, it might appear the wealthy are wielding a weapon most often reserved for the masses. A holiday blackout, proponents say, will underscore their displeasure.


Newport's dock fee, which has stood at $100 a year for the last two decades, will now be based on a dock's size. The city says rents will increase to about $250 for a small slip to $3,200 annually for a large dock shared by two homeowners.


"People have been paying $8 a month all these years to access what is public waters," said Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff. "That's a pretty good deal. The City Council didn't think the increase it approved was too extreme."


Many did.


They packed council meetings when the hike was discussed, accusing the city of an excessive money grab.


They brushed aside the city's rationale: Statelawmandates cities charge fair market rents for the private use of public lands, and Newport Beach was only now catching up.


And they were unmoved by arguments that the extra revenue will go exclusively to badly needed repairs to a harbor that, despite outward appearances, needs a lot of work.


The city's five-year plan for the harbor calls for $29 million in long-overdue maintenance. Its silt-filled channels haven't been fully dredged since the Great Depression. Ancient, leaky sea walls protecting neighborhoods need to be repaired or replaced.


"We have the makings of a perfect storm like they did on the East Coast" during Superstorm Sandy, said Chris Miller, the city's harbor resources manager. "The sea walls are nearing the end of their useful life."


Even with the rent increases, Newport's dock owners will contribute a tiny fraction of that cost — the rest coming from the federal government and the city's general operating fund.


As dock owners fumed over having to pay more, others recoiled at the proposed boycott of the boat parade, which dates to 1908 when a single gondola led eight canoes illuminated by Japanese lanterns around the harbor. It has now swelled to a decent-sized armada of dozens of boats — some carrying paying customers — that circle past the decorated harbor-front homes.


"The boycott is ridiculous," said Shirley Pepys, whose frontyard on Balboa Island has been taken over by a family of penguins dressed for a Hawaiian luau.





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Xbox SmartGlass updated with second-screen ESPN and NBA Game Time app experiences









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NBC correspondent escapes Syria kidnapping


BEIRUT (AP) — More than a dozen heavily armed pro-regime gunmen kidnapped NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel and several colleagues for five days inside Syria, threatening them with mock executions and keeping them bound and blindfolded until they escaped unharmed during a firefight between their captors and rebels, Engel said Tuesday.


Speaking to NBC's "Today" show one day after the escape, an unshaven Engel said the kidnappers executed at least one of his rebel escorts on the spot at the time he was captured. He also said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which is fighting a deadly civil war against rebels.


"They kept us blindfolded, bound," said 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. "We weren't physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings," he added.


"They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government," Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.


"They captured us in order to carry out this exchange," he said.


Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian regime, which has become a global pariah since it unleashed its forces in March 2011 to crush mostly peaceful protests against the regime. The bloody crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has morphed into a civil war.


Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.


Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.


"And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn't expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan," he said. "The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them."


The team crossed back into neighboring Turkey earlier Tuesday.


NBC did not identify the others who were kidnapped along with Engel. The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.


The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria, which has killed more than 40,000 people since the uprising began in March 2011. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers.


Several journalists have been killed covering the conflict. Among them are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain's Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.


Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in April 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since he graduated from Stanford University in 1996, according to his biography from NBC.


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The Doctor’s World: BMJ’s Holiday Tradition of Lighthearted, but Rigorous, Scholarship





LONDON — Dutch and Norwegian scientists say they have solved a glowing mystery: why Rudolph the reindeer’s nose is red.




By traveling to the Arctic and using video-microscope and thermal imaging technology, the scientists showed that the glow is from tiny blood vessels that are more abundant in the noses of reindeer than in humans’. Yes, seriously. The findings are being reported next week in BMJ, formerly known as The British Medical Journal, a publication with a quirky holiday tradition.


For the past 30 years, BMJ has devoted its Christmas-week issue to a lighter and sometimes brighter side of medicine, publishing unusual articles that vary from simply amusing to bizarre to creative or potentially important. All are based on methodologically sound science.


Alongside Rudolph on the cover of this year’s holiday issue is Cliff, a 2-year-old beagle who was trained by another Dutch team to accurately sniff out the sometimes fatal bacterial bowel infection Clostridium difficile and make the diagnosis in minutes — days faster than standard laboratory tests. The Christmas tradition began in 1982, originally intended as a one-time effort to give readers a break from stodgy scientific reports written in technical jargon. The editor then, Dr. Stephen P. Lock, recalled in an interview that he wanted to present “another side of medicine” by offering lighter reading: research oddities, bizarre stories and history. But this was no April fools’ issue: Dr. Lock insisted that the articles meet the same rigorous criteria as research published in regular issues.


Indeed, some articles in the holiday issue are also suitable for regular issues, said Dr. Tony Delamothe, the BMJ deputy editor who has overseen the last eight Christmas issues. “We are on an incessant search for novelty,” he said.


Over the years, BMJ Christmas reports have demolished myths, including a Danish one that people could get drunk by absorbing alcohol through the feet. After soaking their feet for three hours in a basin containing three bottles of vodka and measuring their blood alcohol levels, three Danish scientists found no such absorption.


The first Christmas issue included an account of a resuscitation from 1650 that still astounds today. An unwed 22-year-old mother in Oxford was condemned to death after being accused of murdering her premature, stillborn son and concealing his body. She was executed by hanging by the neck for half an hour while people present jerked her up and down.


At the time, the bodies of executed prisoners were given to doctors for anatomical dissection. Two doctors who opened the woman’s coffin were startled to hear raspy breaths. They revived her, and she went on to recover her memory and live another 15 years, marrying and giving birth to three children. The 17th-century doctors’ report met the criteria for a modern case report, wrote J. Trevor Hughes, the author of the 1982 article.


Dr. Lock, the editor, also encouraged historical back stories. In 1984, Dr. Charles Fletcher wrote about how he tested ways to safely administer the first precious batches of penicillin in 1941. The initial full test was on a 43-year-old British policeman who developed the widespread bacterial infection septicemia. He showed striking improvement from small doses of the antibiotic, but he died after the scarce supply — much of it recycled from his urine — ran out.


Many Christmas issue accounts would have upset earlier BMJ editors “like mad,” Dr. Lock said. “But so what?” he added. “It was fun.” Now there is so much competition for a spot in the issue that some authors submit papers early in the year and request publication at Christmastime.


Some articles poke fun at hoary traditions, such as diagnosing ailments in historical figures despite the lack of medical evidence. Mozart is a special favorite of armchair diagnosticians, Dr. Lucien R. Karhausen wrote in 2010 after tabulating articles reporting 140 possible causes of death and 27 mental disorders in the composer. Many, he said, were based on shoddy medical interpretations, undocumented “eyewitness accounts” or the ignoring of criteria that separate normal and abnormal behavior.


“Some causes are plausible,” Dr. Karhausen wrote, “only a few — maybe one, or maybe none of them — can be true, so most if not all are false.”


In 2006, BMJ reported on the results of a questionnaire sent to 110 members of the Sword Swallowers’ Association International. Forty-six members responded; they reported having swallowed more than 2,000 swords in the three preceding months. Sore throats (“sword throats”) were common during the learning phase, and after frequent repeated performances. Swallowers rarely sought medical advice. Of six who perforated their pharynx or esophagus, three needed surgery. No deaths were reported.


Still other articles play on the vanity of doctors, many of whose names are attached to instruments and syndromes. An article in 2010 extended the list to food products developed by doctors, including Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, various cookies, and Penfolds and Lindeman’s, the Australian wines.


As for the animals featured in this year’s holiday issue: The story of the infection-sniffing beagle began with a report from a nurse in the Netherlands, who mentioned that a patient’s stool had the distinctive odor of C. difficile — a bacterium that is causing serious and growing public-health problems in many countries, including the United States.


A team led by Dr. Marije K. Bomers at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam reasoned that it might be possible to train dogs to detect the infection, and Cliff the beagle did just that.


Cliff was trained to sit or lie down when he smelled C. difficile in the air walking by a patient’s bedside, and he also quickly and accurately identified all 50 stool samples with C. difficile and 25 of 30 infected patients — along with 50 stool samples free of the bacteria and 265 of 270 uninfected patients.


And the Dutch team that studied reindeer, working with researchers at the University of Tromso in the Norwegian Arctic, used a hand-held video microscope to observe the deer’s nasal capillaries as they ran on a treadmill.


The capillaries are arranged in circular clusters at different locations through the nose. Those in reindeer noses are 25 percent thicker than those observed in the human nose and are believed to perform critical roles like heating, delivering oxygen and humidifying inhaled air to keep the animal’s nose from freezing. (The leader of the team, Can Ince, a physiologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, says he has a financial interest in the company that manufactures the technology, which is used to monitor reactions to various drugs and therapies among critically ill human patients.)


By showing that a large number of red blood cells flowed through the small nasal vessels, the scientists said they had unlocked the mystery of Rudolph’s red nose. May it long glow.


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Stocks gain on optimism that budget deal is near













stocks


Markets in New York are on the upswing on news that there might be some progress in "fiscal cliff" negotiations.
(Bloomberg / December 18, 2012)































































Stocks edged higher on Wall Street amid optimism that the lawmakers in Washington are closing in on a budget deal that will stop the U.S. going over the “fiscal cliff.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 42 points to 13,277 as of 7:37 a.m., Pacific time. The Standard & Poor's 500 gained six points to 1,437. The Nasdaq composite rose 20 points to 3,030.

House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Tuesday that he remains hopeful that a fiscal cliff compromise can be reached but, says President Barack Obama has yet to offer a balanced deficit-cutting plan. Boehner said that Obama's latest offer is for $1.3 trillion in tax increases over the next decade with $850 billion in spending cuts is not balanced enough.

“People are cheering the prospect for some compromise in Washington right now,” said Joe Costigan, director of equity research at Bryn Mawr Trust Co. “At the moment there is some pretty good news and the market is reacting favorably to it, but the deal isn't done yet.”

Stocks slumped after the election Nov. 6 on concern that a divided government would struggle to reach an agreement before Jan. 1, when a series of series of tax increases and government spending cuts are scheduled to take effect if no deal is reached. Those measures could push the U.S. back into recession. The S&P has since recouped all of those losses.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed 1 basis point to 1.79 percent.

Among stocks making big moves today;

Arbitron, a provider of radio ratings, surged $8.96 to $47.01 after TV ratings company Nielsen said it would buy Arbitron for about $1.26 billion.


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U.S. moves ahead on new downtown L.A. courthouse









Downtown Los Angeles is finally getting its new federal courthouse, and it's going to stand out amid the aging government buildings in the Civic Center.


A 550,000-square-foot courthouse — planned for the southwest corner of Broadway and 1st Street, across from the old county law library and the Los Angeles Times building — will feature a bright, serrated facade and a structural design that allow the structure to appear to float over its stone base, officials said.


It will have a public plaza along 1st Street near recently opened Grand Park. Officials say the building's design has received a "platinum" rating for energy efficiency from the U.S. Green Building Council.





The U.S. General Services Administration is moving forward on the project despite last-minute opposition from some Republicans in Congress, who question the viability of the agency's plans to sell the federal courthouse on North Spring Street to private developers. The lawmakers also questioned whether the extra courtrooms were actually necessary.


The GSA awarded a $318-million contract last week to the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Clark Construction Group, and released several renderings of the proposed design. The building will rise on a 3.6-acre lot on Broadway that city officials have long wanted to develop.


"We are moving toward the groundbreaking of a critically needed facility that will resolve long-standing security and space issues," Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-East Los Angeles) said in a statement. "At a time when we need to keep investing in our recovering economy, we expect the courthouse to create thousands of new jobs in the construction industry and related businesses."


Peter Zellner, faculty member at Southern California Institute of Architecture, noted that the courthouse design in some ways is reminiscent of Mid-Century architectural styles of other Los Angeles government centers, particularly the Wilshire Federal Building. Zellner also suggested the architects consider the courthouse plaza as part of a chain of public spaces spilling down from the Walt Disney Concert Hall.


The courthouse will include 24 courtrooms and 32 judicial chambers. Along with the judges of the U.S. District Court, the building will be used by the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. attorneys' office and the Federal Public Defender.


Federal judges have been pushing for new space downtown since the late 1990s. In addition to the Spring Street courthouse, federal judges occupy space elsewhere in downtown, but they have complained about overcrowding and security issues.


Construction on the courthouse is expected to begin sometime next year, with completion set for 2016, the GSA said.


The agency also announced that it had released a formal "request for information" to solicit ideas for adaptive reuse of one of the old federal courthouses, on North Spring Street. Under the agency's plan, the 72-year-old building would be sold to a private developer, with the proceeds to help finance construction of a second federal office building next to the new courthouse.


Some real estate experts have questioned whether the exchange proposal would be feasible, saying it could be difficult for a private owner to adapt the old courthouse because of its structural issues, location and historic status. And the Republican critics of the courthouse plan expressed concern that if the GSA could not manage to sell the old courthouse, it would be stuck with a vacant building and higher costs to taxpayers.


There is still no specific timeline on when the exchange would be made, a GSA spokeswoman said, but officials remain upbeat about the plan.


"This step is just another example of GSA's commitment to providing real value to the American public," said acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini.


sam.allen@latimes.com





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Clearwire accepts slightly sweeter bid from Sprint






(Reuters) – Clearwire Corp agreed to sell roughly half of the company for $ 2.2 billion to majority shareholder Sprint Nextel Corp, which would then have full ownership of spectrum that will help it offer high-speed wireless services.


The $ 2.97-per-share deal is only 7 cents per share higher than a bid many minority shareholders said was too low days before. Clearwire shares tumbled 12.2 percent to $ 2.96 in morning trading on Monday.






Sprint already owns slightly more than half of Clearwire. The company said owners of 13 percent of Clearwire shares – Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC – had agreed to vote for the deal.


But it was not immediately clear whether Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, could win the backing of a majority of Clearwire’s minority shareholders, which it needs to take control.


“This is not going to be popular with the minority shareholders,” said Davidson & Co analyst Donna Jaegers.


But Clearwire’s top executive told analysts on a Monday call that the company had little alternative.


“Despite our efforts we have been unable to secure new partnerships,” said Clearwire Chief Executive Officer Erik Prusch. “Our existing governance agreements prevented us from offering third parties the governance rights they desired in a partnership.”


Shareholders with more than 13 percent of Clearwire shares said last week that they were not happy with the $ 2.90-per-share offer, and some have said Sprint should offer as much as $ 5 per share.


Crest Financial, which owns more than 3 percent of Clearwire, recently filed a lawsuit to stop the company from selling itself to Sprint.


After the deal was announced on Monday, Crest said it had amended the lawsuit to make it a class action.


Another shareholder, Mount Kellett, said last week that the $ 2.90-a-share deal “grossly” undervalued Clearwire.


Clearwire, which also counts Sprint as its biggest customer, has been seeking financing for a high-speed wireless network upgrade and to keep itself afloat.


While some analysts and shareholders said Clearwire did not need to rush into a sale to Sprint, others have said that move would be its best hope for survival.


Sprint, whose shares rose 1 percent to $ 5.61 on Monday, needs Clearwire’s substantial spectrum to better arm itself against larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.


Reuters reported last week that Japan’s Softbank Corp, which recently struck a deal to buy 70 percent of Sprint, would not consent to a bid of more than $ 2.97 per share.


Softbank said on Monday that it supported the deal.


(Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Rodney Joyce, Sriraj Kalluvila and Lisa Von Ahn)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Lopez plays Santa for charity; talks about Rivera


NEW YORK (AP) — Jennifer Lopez says she doesn't look forward to getting gifts at Christmas — she looks forward to giving them.


"I love going and shopping for Christmas presents for everybody and making gifts for people and seeing their faces light up and surprising them; that's where I get my joy," the entertainer said last week.


It's also why Lopez launched her "J. Lo's Christmas Gift" drive, asking fans to donate to her three favorite charities (the Boys & Girls Club, the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and the American Red Cross). In exchange, she'll give someone two tickets to the last show of her "Dance Again" world tour in Puerto Rico on Saturday; she'll also pay airfare and hotel costs.


"It's just that kind of doing something nice for somebody, and they do something nice back and kind of paying it forward," she said in a phone interview Friday from Australia, where she was performing


She's promoting the contest, which ends Monday, on Twitter with the hashtag JLOSCHRISTMASGIFT. She got the idea to use social media to encourage her fans to give back since becoming more involved in platforms like Twitter and Facebook and seeing how much response she's received when she's had contests.


"I thought, 'What if every person I tweeted and asked for a follow donated a dollar?' I have 13½ million followers (on Twitter)," she said. "We can collect a lot of money for these charities that I work with that are literally close to my heart."


Part of the reason Lopez chose the Red Cross is because of its relief work in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New York City, where Lopez is from. She hasn't been back to New York since the October storm but her ex-husband, Marc Anthony, was affected.


"My babies (4-year-old twins Max and Emme) had to go there and visit their dad shortly after, and it was like, kind of a scary proposition to send them because I didn't know what it was going to be like," she said. "He was saying how his house had a tree fall in his front yard, and he couldn't stay there and there was no electricity. Just knowing how so many people were affected by it and when you really hear the stats of it ... there's not enough you can do."


Lopez will be heading home for the holidays; Lopez said she feels blessed to have been able to stage her first world tour, particularly spending much of it with her family: "It's just been an amazing year."


Lopez said the tour was a "life-changing experience," but acknowledged it could also be grueling at times, with the constant travel. For that reason, she said she identified with Jenni Rivera, the Latin music superstar who was killed Dec. 8 in a plane crash. Rivera was traveling after a concert in Monterrey, Mexico.


"I didn't know her personally but I knew of her. For me, just being on tour right now, you live the same type of life. You know what I mean? It's traveling, it's doing shows," Lopez said. "She considered herself a businesswoman as well, besides an artist, and she had kids and I'm sure she was rushing home to get home to her kids at that time so she took the flight at 3 in the morning. So you go like, wow, it's just like a wake-up call for everybody. It's tragic. She was so young, so young, and she had five kids. It just wasn't her time, it feels like."


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Online:


http://www.jenniferlopez.com


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Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's Global Entertainment & Lifestlyles editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi


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The New Old Age Blog: In the Middle: Why Elderly Couples Fight

George and Gracie (let’s call them that because using their real names would make them even unhappier than they already appear to be) are in their 80s and have been married for more than 65 years. Until recently they seemed to ride the waves that are inevitable in any marriage that spans nearly seven decades; through good and bad, they were partners and best friends.

But lately — ever since her hospitalization and his fall — they have been arguing more bitterly than usual (“Do you have to make such a mess in the kitchen?”), criticizing each other (“Why haven’t you dealt with the insurance company yet?”), withdrawing from each other, and generally making each other more miserable, more often than ever before.

This kind of degenerative relationship is not uncommon among the elderly in even the happiest marriages, marriage therapists and geriatricians said. But that is small comfort to either the couple in the middle of the maelstrom, or the children who care for them, as evidenced by a number of postings on caregiver blogs. As some of the children have wondered there: “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Therapists and others who work with the elderly said the first step to addressing the problem is understanding where it came from.

“A key question is whether the marital bickering is part of a lifelong marital style or a change,” said Dr. Linda Waite, director of the Center on Demography and Economics of Aging at NORC/University of Chicago. Is it new behavior – or just new to the grown children who are suddenly so deeply enmeshed in their parents’ lives that they are only now noticing that something is amiss?

How much of the problem is really just the marriage style? “Some couples like to fight and argue – it keeps their adrenaline going,” said Dr. Nancy K. Schlossberg, professor emerita of counseling psychology at the University of Maryland and author of “Overwhelmed: Coping With Life’s Ups and Downs.”

Sometimes the best judges of whether there is a problem are outsiders, said Dr. William Dale, chief of geriatrics at the University of Chicago Geriatrics Medicine. Pay attention if someone says, “‘Gee, Mom seems more argumentative or withdrawn than the last time I saw her,’” Dr. Dale advised.

If the tone or severity of the marital tensions seem new, then it is important to find out why. The causes could be mental or physical, doctors say.

On the mental front, increased anger and fighting could be one of the first signs of mild cognitive impairment, a precursor of dementia or Alzheimer’s, in one or both of the spouses, said Dr. Lisa Gwyther, director of the Duke Center for Aging Family Support Program and an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

Dr. Dale concurs: “There is good evidence that the earliest signs of cognitive impairment are often emotional changes” — anger, anxiety, depression — “rather than cognitive ones” — memory, abstract thought.

But these early signs of cognitive decline can be so subtle that neither the spouses themselves, or their grown children, recognize them for what they are, Dr. Gwyther said. So husband and wife blame each other for the changes and allow feelings of hurt and resentment to grow.

Withdrawing from activities that used to give them pleasure can be a telltale sign of mild cognitive impairment – and can trigger anger and arguments.

“In one couple, the husband just didn’t want to participate in the holidays — the wife got angry and said he was being lazy and stubborn,” said Dr. Gwyther. But the truth was that his cognitive decline made all the activity overwhelming, and he didn’t want anyone to know that he was anxious about not remembering everyone’s names and embarrassing himself.

Suspicion and paranoia can also accompany mild cognitive decline and precipitate distrust and hurtful accusations. Dr. Gwyther recalled another woman who “called her daughter frantic because she said her husband dropped her at her chemo appointment, went to park the car, and didn’t return to get her.” The woman couldn’t imagine that her husband could possibly have lost his sense of time and direction, Dr. Gwyther added. She took it personally, complaining to her daughter that “your father doesn’t seem to care any more.”

Dr. Dale told of a spouse who accused her mate of infidelity because “she was convinced that when he was out grocery shopping he was really having an affair.”

Hoarding, an early symptom of mild cognitive impairment, can also create tension in a marriage. (For new treatments, see this recent post by my colleague Paula Span.)

When one couple came to a counseling session with Dr. Norman Abeles, emeritus professor of psychology and former director of psychological clinic at Michigan State University, the hoarding spouse finally said she did it because she thought that they would run out of money, “even though there was enough money to go around.” Dr. Abeles said that incident led to her diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.

Adding to the confusion, mild cognitive impairment, or M.C.I., comes and goes. “There are good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours,” said Dr. Gwyther. “Alzheimer’s and dementia don’t start on Tuesday — it’s a slow insidious onset.” But the diagnosis is becoming more common: The Institute for Dementia Research and Prevention predicts that 1 in 6 women, and 1 in 10 men, who live past the age of 55 will develop dementia in their lifetime.

“Spouses find it difficult to know when their partner with M.C.I. is acting differently, usually badly, due to the advancing illness or due to ‘willful’ personality issues,” said Dr. Dale, citing a 2007 study in the journal Family Relations exploring the problems this can create for couples.

Blaming is often easier than understanding. Another of Dr. Gwyther’s patients was furious at her husband for not filing their taxes. “He’s a C.P.A.,” she said. “How could we owe back taxes?” It did not occur to her that he might be unable to handle that task — and was too frightened about his deteriorating mental focus to let her know.

But as harmful as mental decline can be for a marriage, it is just part of the equation. Physical ailments – even those that seem completely unrelated to marital relations – “can upset the equilibrium of the marriage,” according to a study in The Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“Most men get angry at what’s happened to them when they get ill, women get angry and scared when he’s not what he used to be — so they fight,” said Dr. Schlossberg.

Chronic illnesses, like diabetes, arthritis and heart disease, can have a strong negative effect on mood, said Dr. Waite, who will soon be publishing a study on the subject. Diabetes is so often accompanied by depression that Dr. Waite said “one of my colleagues argues that that it is even part of the disease.”

And ailments can have an effect on a couple’s sex life — which can compound the marital problems, doctors said.

“Diabetes brings on neuropathy,” said Dr. Waite. “That means touching and feeling in sex is not as rewarding.” Without the pleasures of affectionate touching — whether a passing hug at the sink or more — tensions can build. That’s why, if a couple is having problems with sex, they are more likely to have problems in the relationship — and vice versa, according to a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine study of sex and health among older adults.

Other changes in circumstances — retirement, shifting roles, the loss of autonomy, disparities in health and abilities — can wreak havoc. Losing independence can feel like losing oneself — and if you don’t know who you are any more, how can you know how to relate to your spouse?

“Fighting may come from a misguided notion that you can regain power by asserting it over your spouse,” said Dr. Schlossberg, whose observations are echoed in a 1984 study in The Canadian Journal of Medicine. “It doesn’t work, it’s false power – but they’ll try anything.”

The sheer exhaustion that can come from being the caregiving spouse is also bound to “make them stressed and angry,” said Dr. Waite. Not to mention guilty and resentful — never a prescription for happy marital relations.

“Part of the trap for the caregiver is the idea that you have to do it all, and the guilt you feel when you cannot live up to it,” said Dr. Gordon Herz, a psychologist in private practice in Madison, Wisc. Not surprisingly, resentment can soon follow, Dr. Herz added, because it is hard to admit to anyone that, “‘this is too much for me.’”

What can outside caregivers — children or other loved ones — do about these golden marriages on the rocks? Should they intervene — or butt out? And can marital therapy help — or is it too late to change?


Share your thoughts and experiences — and on Tuesday we will try to provide some advice from experts.

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